The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope

What happens when sacred stories are used to justify oppression—and when telling the truth feels like rebellion?

In this episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, host Dwight Dunston speaks with Sarah Ruden, an award-winning translator, essayist, and Quaker writer whose work exposes how language, power, and faith intersect. Known for her acclaimed translations of The Aeneid, The Gospels, The Confessions of Augustine, and Perpetua: The Woman, the Martyr, Ruden brings deep historical insight and moral clarity to this conversation about love, responsibility, and truth.

Drawing on the biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah unpacks how ancient hierarchies still shape the present. She traces the lineage of propaganda around women’s bodies from Ovid’s Rome to today’s reproductive politics—and challenges the spiritual evasions that allow injustice to endure. She also draws on her forthcoming book, Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women.

Key Quotes

“The silence of women in the Hebrew Bible is very interesting—very provocative to think about.”

“People, especially men, don’t want to take responsibility for what actually happens.”

 “We have to start by telling the truth.”

Together, Dwight and Sarah explore what it means to live with integrity in a time of crisis, how Quaker faith can both guide and confuse, and why empirical truth—science, evidence, and witness—matters for spiritual survival.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women – forthcoming from Knopf
• Perpetua: The Woman, the Martyr – Yale University Press
• The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible – Vintage
• The story of Hagar and Ishmael (Genesis 16–21)
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “When Peace Becomes Obnoxious” (1957) https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/when-peace-becomes-obnoxious
• Grace Lee Boggs and “The Clock of the World” – The Harvard Crimson

Learn more about Sarah’s work at https://sarahruden.com/

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

This mini episode of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope revisits our most downloaded conversation across six seasons, featuring visionary leader Niyonu Spann. Through excerpts from her full episode, Niyonu shares what it means to live with integrity—wholeness, surrender, and alignment with purpose. She reflects on the origins of her transformative workshop, Beyond Diversity 101, and offers listeners practical invitations to embody integrity in their daily lives.

About Niyonu Spann
Niyonu Spann is a facilitator, musician, and community leader with decades of experience in and beyond Quaker institutions. As Dean at Pendle Hill in the early 2000s, she created Beyond Diversity 101, a workshop that has transformed communities across the country. She is a prolific musician and founder of the performance group Tribe 1, which has carried songs of peace and justice throughout the U.S. and Nicaragua. Niyonu has also worked extensively with Chester Eastside Ministries in Chester, Pennsylvania.

Compelling Quotes from the Episode
“It is about wholeness. It is about remembering who we are.” —Niyonu Spann

“I didn’t even know I needed that song, but I knew I needed that song. Thank you for that gift.” —Dwight Dunston

Listen in for wisdom, music, and a reminder that integrity is the keynote frequency guiding us toward justice and belonging.

Follow Niyonu on Instagram @niyonus and LinkedIn. 

👉 To hear the complete original conversation, visit:
https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/2032871/episodes/12356301-integrity-radical-truth-remembering-who-we-are-with-niyonu-spann

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this first full episode of Season Six of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope, host Dwight Dunston speaks with Lisa Graustein, a lifelong Quaker, educator, DEI facilitator, artist, and solo mom.

Lisa reflects on the intersections of love, power, justice, and belonging. She shares stories of winding life paths, creating safer spaces, and the importance of daily recommitment to what matters most. Drawing on an Alice Walker quote about love activism, she reminds us that even in disorienting times, joy, truth, forgiveness, and care for the earth can ground us.

Together, Dwight and Lisa explore the challenges of uprooting racism, the role of art and community in sustaining hope, and how faith can guide us toward more fluid, interconnected ways of being.

Quotes from the episode

• Dwight: “Sometimes love actually means saying the hard things or showing up in a space even when it’s not easy.”
• Lisa: “Our faith at its core actively assumes there shouldn’t be norms… Listening to God and doing what God tells you to do today doesn’t mean we’re going to do the same thing all the time.”

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Season Six of The Seed: Conversations for Radical Hope begins with Francisco Burgos, Executive Director of Pendle Hill. Host Dwight Dunston and Francisco reflect on this season’s theme—love and power—inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

Dr. King wrote:
 “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

In this wide-ranging conversation, they explore:

• What love requires of us in the face of injustice and despair.
• How power, when rooted in service, can become transformative.
• The resilience of community in times of crisis.
• The role of testimony and imagination in shaping a more just world.

Dwight and Francisco share personal updates, ground themselves in King’s words, and invite listeners to reflect on what social systems and testimonies we need today to build communities of dignity, justice, and hope.

📖 Featured Reading: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Episode Summary

Today, we share an episode from a sister podcast, Refugia hosted by Debra Rienstra. Refugia are places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis. From out of these small sanctuaries, life reemerges, and the world is renewed.

In this episode of Refugia, Debra speaks with theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst. She describes life in Casa Adobe, an intentional Christian community in Costa Rica, and discusses what faithful living can look like as we seek to resist complicity in the abuses of empire.

Season 4 of Refugia will be released this fall! Listen here or on your favorite podcast platform.

Guest Bio

Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a theologian, practitioner, teacher, and speaker with decades of experience in ministry throughout Latin America. She has served with organizations including The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Latin American Theological Fellowship, and World Vision International, among others. She is a theological educator, both in Latin America and in the United States with her position at Western Theological Seminary.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Episode Summary

Pendle Hill has just released its very first audiobook for our pamphlet series! Listen to the audiobook of Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371, Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates, here. In this episode, we first hear Tom share a little bit of the background to his pamphlet before listening to a sneak preview of the new audiobook.

Episode Resources

• Listen to the audiobook for Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371 Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates.
• Visit Tom Gates’ blog to read excerpts from his forthcoming book, Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective.
• Purchase a physical copy of Members One of Another from the Pendle Hill bookstore, or purchase an e-book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Guest Bio

Thomas Gates is a member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting, student of Quakerism, and now-retired family physician.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

 Episode Summary

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “The Exponential Impact of Historical and Ongoing Injustice: A Call To Action for Quakers,” that Dr. Harold Weaver delivered alongside Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge at Pendle Hill on February 3rd.

Hal’s message is a call for reckoning and retrospective justice around Quakers’ historical participation in slavery. He urges us to re-examine our past in order to take tangible steps towards a more just future.

Episode Resources

• Watch Dr. Hal Weaver and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge’s First Monday Lecture
• Read the Pendle Hill Pamphlet that Hal references, Hypocrisy, Racism, and Self-Interest on the Path to Reparations: Quaker Complicity with Slavery (1657–1776) and White Supremacy by Mary Watkins.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s anthology, Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights.
• Learn more about the BlackQuaker Project.

Guest Bio

Dr. Harold D. (Hal) Weaver, Jr. is the Founder and Director of the BlackQuaker Project (BQP), a ministry celebrating the lives and contributions of Quakers of Color worldwide and documenting and addressing their concerns. It is an outreach and in-reach ministry of his Wellesley Friends Meeting. Hal has spent his life confronting the cancer of white supremacy throughout the world, drawing upon the Quaker testimonies of Truth, Peace, Equality, Community, and Justice.

Hal is currently an Associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Hal lives in Newton, Mass., and Oaxaca, Mexico, with his life partner, Anne Steere Nash, and attends Wellesley Friends Meeting and the Oaxaca Quaker Worship Group.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “Towards a Just Democracy: Spiritual Grounding and Principled Action,” that Alicia McBride delivered alongside José Santos Moreno at Pendle Hill on November 4th, the eve of the presidential election. Alicia’s powerful message about how we can transform ourselves and our political system by acting with love continues to resonate as the new president now takes office.

Throughout the episode, Alicia offers several queries that call us to reflect on our participation in our country’s democracy. They are:

• What story are you telling yourself about this moment and about your role in it?
• What would a just democracy centered in love for all our neighbors look like?
• What part will you play in bringing it about?

Guest Bio

Alicia McBride (she/her) serves as the senior director for Quaker leadership at the Friends Committee On National Legislation (FCNL), where she focuses on connecting Quaker faith, practice, and community to policy advocacy in Washington, DC. Her various roles and more than 20 years of work at FCNL are united by a concern for how to act with integrity at the place where faith and the world meet. She is a member of Sandy Spring Friends Meeting (Baltimore Yearly Meeting), assistant clerk of the Earlham School of Religion Board of Advisors, a parent to two teenagers with her husband Sam Garman, and a yoga teacher.

Learn about FCNL’s work at https://www.fcnl.org/. 

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Dwight Dunston speaks with Alexx Temeña, a somatic minister, ceremonial artist, and experiential educator, about the transformative power of rest and embodied practices in world-building. Alexx shares insights from her work with the School of Embodied Praxis and her interactive public sculpture, House of Kapwa, which honors Rest, ecological grief, and Filipino indigenous wisdom. Alexx explores how creating rituals and new frameworks can disrupt grind culture and cultivate a sense of safety, connection, and liberation.

Later, Quaker poet and activist Zenaida Peterson offers three evocative poems that imagine liberated futures. Zenaida reflects on the power of imagination and creativity to envision new systems rooted in justice, equity, and community. Their work reminds us that dreaming is essential to building the world we long for. Zenaida has competed and coached at national slam poetry competitions, including the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational and the National Poetry Slam, often placing in the top 10. ​Zinaida ​founded ​the ​feminine ​empowerment ​movement ​Slam, ​also ​known ​as ​Femmes. They have ​been ​published ​by ​Pizza ​Pie ​Press ​and ​Button ​Poetry, ​with ​their ​first ​full-length ​collection ​forthcoming ​from ​Game ​Over ​Books.

Resources & Links:

• Learn more about Alexx Temeña: www.alexxtemena.com
• Follow Alexx: Instagram @alexxtemena
• Follow Zenaida: Instagram & TikTok @puppet_mcfly
• Learn about the Quaker Voluntary Service: https://quakervoluntaryservice.org
• Read more about Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry: https://thenapministry.com
• Connect with Bayo Akomolafe’s work: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

For this episode, we’re sharing a clip from the Quakers Today podcast featuring our recent guest, Keil Trois, who also uses the pseudonym Jeff Walburn. Hear Keil describe the creative campaign he organized with The Yes Men collective against the Mattel corporation.

In the summer of 2023, Keil and The Yes Men pulled an elaborate hoax on the media and the Mattel corporation, timed to coincide with the release of the popular Barbie movie. Together with environmental activist Daryl Hannah, they faked a widely published announcement that "Mattel intends to go 100 percent plastic-free by 2030 in all their toys. Mattel was forced to publicly clarify that this statement was false, inadvertently drawing attention to the environmental crisis wrought by plastic waste.

Through their artistic interventions, Keil and The Yes Men demonstrate how humor and disruption can drive conversations that inspire real-world change. Keil's work pushes boundaries to offer hope.

Guest Bio

Keil is a filmmaker and a core member of The Yes Men, an art-activism collective known for using creative interventions to tackle issues like climate change and corporate greed. He has collaborated with activist groups worldwide, blending creativity with direct action to inspire social change.

Dig Deeper

• Listen to the full Quakers Today episode featuring Keil, “Quakers and Barbie: How Lies Exposed the Truth About Plastic Pollution.”
• Read Friends Journal’s article on this story, “Speaking Lies to Power.”
• Explore the rest of The Yes Men’s hijinks.
• Learn more about this and other campaigns against Mattel conducted by the Barbie Liberation Organization.
• Find Keil Troisi on Instagram and Daryl Hannah on X.

NEW Video Version available at Pendle Hill's YouTube page.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
----
The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @PendleHillUSA on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released.  To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast. 

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.