Trinity Forum Conversations

Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith

In this third episode of our Advent Series, philosopher and author James K.A. Smith helps us consider what it means to be creatures that are bound and formed by time. Each of us is shaped by the stories that precede us:

“I think to be a creature who is living into the fullness of being human means grappling with, reckoning with, and sort of gratefully receiving the way that our past, our history, our our  embeddedness in time has contributed to this unique identity that God has made us to fulfill. And, , it's hard work.”

As we mark Advent, a season of waiting, of reckoning with time, and of hopeful longing for the fulfillment of the Kingdom, Smith helps us rightly locate our hope in God:

“Hope is possible precisely because you don't think the present is all there is. And you also don't think that humans are the only agents in this, that the God of the cosmos who fires the world with love is out ahead of us, which is precisely why there can always be new possibilities. I think that's radical for us to think about personally and individually. And I think it's radical for us to think about collectively and communally.”

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from September 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about James K.A. Smith.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism

Desiring The Kingdom.

The Devil Reads Derrida - and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts

You Are What You Love

Awaiting The King

On the road with St. Augustine: A Real World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, and Living Faithful Now

Makoto Fujimura

Henri Nouwen

St. Teresa of Avila

Thomas Merton

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:

Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson

In this second episode of our Advent Series, celebrated author and songwriter Andrew Peterson shares his insights about the importance of location and living responsibly and attentively in whatever specific place you inhabit. He discusses how deeper attentiveness to the beauty around us can awaken us to wisdom and wonder.

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from December 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Andrew Peterson.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

The God of the Garden, by Andrew Peterson
Tim Mackey, The Bible Project’s Tree of Life podcast series
Jaber Crow, by Wendell Berry
William Wordsworth
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler
Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, Eric O. Jacobsen
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
Rich Mullins
10 Resolutions for Mental Health, Clyde Kilby

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:

Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from November 2021. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about Diana Butler Bass.

Diana’s Substack, The Cottage is available here.

You can find Diana’s book Grateful and others here.

Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin by Brian Gerrish

Mary Jo Leddy

Join the Trinity Forum Society

With Thanksgiving and the season of Advent approaching, The Trinity Forum is offering a new podcast series to help you think more deeply about ideas and practices related to gratitude, attention, anticipation, and what it means to behold beauty. We’ll talk with Diana Butler Bass about the meaning and practice of Gratitude Andrew Peterson will share his insights on how deeper attentiveness to the beauty around us can awaken us to wisdom and wonder. James K.A. Smith will help us explore the importance of being time-bound creates and how to best inhabit time Curt Thompson will consider the ways that beauty can emerge from the most difficult situations. Subscribe to Trinity Forum Conversations wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss an episode. And thank you for allowing us to be part of your Thanksgiving and Advent season.

Our series on Reading & The Common Good concludes with this episode on the importance of reading poetry. Trinity Forum President, Cherie Harder speaks with internationally acclaimed poet and writer, Dana Gioia, who is a former California Poet laureate and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

As poetry often does, the conversation in this episode considers the personal as well as the universal, including how Dana became interested in poetry, and what can be done to interest a generation of readers to the habit of reading--and even memorizing--poetry.

Christians have been called a “people of the book,” yet how often do we spend time gathering together to read deeply? In a fast-paced technological world, taking time to read deeply and well, let alone alongside others, can feel like a daunting task. And while reading alone has extraordinary value (and, research shows, is intriguingly linked with spending more time with others), reading in community is a uniquely formative endeavor that shapes how we think, what we value, and our ability to have genuine and meaningful dialogue and relationship with others.

The Trinity Forum hosted an Online Conversation with Matthew Lee Anderson and Anika Prather to explore the importance of reading together and the impact that such small but meaningful interactions can have on ourselves, our communities, and our civic structures. 

Cherie Harder speaks with author and literature professor Karen Swallow Prior about her own history of reading as well as the challenges and possibilities for virtue formation that reading literature presents.

Visit ttf.org/bookclub to get everything you need to start your own bookclub.

Reading for Regeneration

In this episode, Jessica Hooten Wilson and Claude Atcho join Cherie Harder to discuss the countercultural practice of reading carefully and communally. This podcast is an edited version of an Online Conversation, which you can find with video and transcript, here.

If you're interested in reading old books in community, we encourage you to check out our newly announced Bookclub Box. The Bookclub Box is designed to make it easy for you to host your own reading group. Each quarter will release a new box with a trio of curated, thematically linked Trinity Forum Readings. You'll also get a discussion guide to spur conversation on each of the Readings, as well as some other great Trinity Forum items, including a tote bag, notepad, pen and bookmark.

Alan Jacobs joins Cherie Harder to discuss his book, Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Readers Guide to a More Tranquil Mind. This podcast is an edited version of the Online Conversation, which you can find with video and transcript, here.

We encourage you to put the ideas discussed in this episode into practice by starting your own reading group. The Trinity Forum Bookclub Box has everything you need to get started.

Reading & The Common Good is our new podcast series with Jessica Hooten Wilson, Karen Swallow Prior, Alan Jacobs, Dana Gioia, Anika Prather, and Matthew Lee Anderson. Few things in life are as enriching and humanizing as reading deeply and well. Yet the pace and technology of modern life make it hard for many of us to give books the time and attention they demand. Join us this season as we hear from guests who explain the value of reading in community, reading alone, reading old books, reading new books, and, above all, how reading serves as an antidote to the many problems of our time.

If you're interested in leading your own reading group, we encourage you to visit our website. There you'll find information about our newly announced Bookclub Box. The Bookclub Box is designed to make it easy for you to host your own reading group. Each quarter will release a new box with a trio of curated, thematically linked Trinity Forum Readings.

You'll also get a discussion guide to spur conversation on each of the Readings, as well as some other great Trinity Forum items, including a tote bag, notepad, pen and bookmark.