The Table Audio w/ Evan Rosa

Latest Episodes:

Lament for a Son: Nicholas Wolterstorff on Grief and Suffering Oct 08, 2018

Show notes

"My grief wasn't about grief. It was about Eric."

Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, a renowned scholar and author of an incredible number of books on everything from metaphysics, the history of modern philosophical figures, like John Locke and Thomas Reid, justice, love, art and aesthetics, and his most recent foray into the metaphysics of sacrament and liturgical practices. In this conversation, we asked him about his only non‑philosophical published work—Lament for a Son—an expression of profound grief written in the wake of his son Eric's untimely death in 1983. Dr. Wolterstorff reflects on his own loss, the nature of grief, expression of lament in American society, the theological implications of suffering, and love.

Show Notes

0:00—Podcast intro
2:58—Begin interview
4:24—The story behind Lament for a Son
6:03—The "fragmentary" nature of grief
8:24—Social response to those who are grieving
9:25—Grief in American culture
11:36—Does grief love company? Grief as a shared or isolating experience
14:12—You don't want to miss this ad
15:18—Understanding and defining grief, lament, and suffering
18:45—The connection of suffering and love
18:53—Dr. Wolterstorff reads excerpt from Lament for a Son
20:40—What we learn about love from suffering
24:22—Dr. Wolterstorff reads excerpt from Lament for a Son
26:59—Living with unanswered questions
29:40—Finding comfort in expressions of grief, reference to T.S. Elliot's Four Quartets
32:52—End interview, credits

Quotes from Nicholas Wolterstorff

"Grief is a special kind of suffering. It's intensely wanting what you know cannot be."
"My grief wasn't about grief. It was about Eric."
"I think we ought to own our grief. I put it like this. If Eric was worth loving when he was alive, then he's worth grieving over when dead. Why would he not be?"
"'Don't cry'? Crying is the most appropriate thing you can think of."
"If I hadn't loved him, there wouldn't be this agony. 'This,' said Jesus, 'is the command of the Holy One. You should love your neighbor as yourself.' In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer."

Credits

The Table is sponsored by generous grants from the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and The Blankemeyer Foundation
Theme music by The Brilliance
Production and engineering by The Narrativo Group
Edited and mixed by TJ Hester
Production Assistance by Laura Pelser
Special thanks to Nicholas Wolterstorff
Follow: @BiolaCCT / @Evan_Rosa

Dead Man Walking: Sister Helen Prejean on Grace, Justice, and Death Row Oct 01, 2018

Show notes

Sister Helen Prejean tells her story of how grace awakened her to be a champion of justice. A Catholic nun who befriended a death row inmate and witnessed his execution, Sr. Helen brings us into her mission of standing with people on the margins and loving the “unlovable”. Author of, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty (which became a 1996 award-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn), Sr. Helen has devoted her life’s work to advocating for the abolishment of government sponsored-killing. Listen to her account of love, forgiveness, and being the face of Christ in the world.

Show Notes
In this episode, we interview Catholic nun, Sister Helen Prejean, on her work in advocating for the abolishment of the death penalty in the United States. Sr. Helen talks about grace, justice, life, and death.

0:00—Podcast Intro
3:20—Interview begins
3:48—How Sr. Helen became a Catholic nun
4:40—Sr. Helen’s “awakening” and realizing the connection between the Gospel and justice for those who suffer
7:25—Education and theology as an allurement away from Jesus’ call
8:57—Movie Dead Man Walking
10:15—Watching vs. witnessing executions
12:52—The people who do the killing and the question of moral injury
13:2—Justice for victim’s families
16:23—Pat Sonnier and Lloyd Lablanc in Dead Man Walking, and what happens to the victims' families
21:27—Native American proverb "The one who seeks to go on journey of revenge should dig two graves"
22:23—Intermission
23:37—What is Christian humility?
25:35—Prisoners and death row inmates’ experience/suffering
28:22—Albert Camus essay, Reflections on the Guillotine
29:09— Responding to criticism and humanizing the perpetrators, human dignity
31:19—Sr. Helen's book The Death of Innocents and reference to Jimmy Glass poem, the Earthen Vessel
31:29—Sr. Helen reads poem
34:28—“Waking up the people” and ending the cycle of death
37:40—Slavery, discrimination and how culture is blinding
38:47—"Angola Prison", the Louisiana State Penitentiary
39:17—Clip from Dead Man Walking: conversation between Pat and Sister Helen just prior to Pat's execution
40:37—Discussion of quote "I want the last thing in the world you see to be the face of love"
43:28—What is the face of love today?
45:02—End interview, credits

Quotes from Sr. Helen

“It wasn’t enough to pray for God to help the poor. I had to roll up my sleeves and get involved. I’m still grateful that I woke up. It was grace that woke me up in a big way.”
“I remember thinking very clearly to myself, ‘The people are never going to see this close up. They’re going to hear about it. They’re going to hear about the crime. They’re going to say justice was done, but I’ve been a witness. I’ve got to tell the story and bring people close.’”
“Is violence redemptive? All we have to do is imitate the violence he did?”
“Where the moral failure is, is to identify a human person completely with an action. Everybody is worth more than the worst thing we've ever done. That's human transcendence. God's made us that way.”
“The face of love is that when we see injustice, and when we see hurt, and when we see suffering, we do not turn away and say, ‘Well, I'm neutral.’”
“When we're called to leave this little ego-centered thing of our lives, to pour ourselves out in something bigger than ourselves, to help justice come in the world, you know that's grace in you.”

Credits

The Table Audio is sponsored by generous grants from the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, and The Blankemeyer Foundation
Theme music by The Brilliance
Production and engineering by The Narrativo Group
Edited and mixed by TJ Hester
Production Assistance by Laura Pelser
Special thanks to Sister Helen Prejean, Sister Margaret Maggio, and Carolyn Clulee
Follow: @SisterHelen @BiolaCCT / @EvanSubRosa

Fighting the Noonday Demon: Kathleen Norris on Acedia, Boredom, and Desert Spirituality Mar 01, 2018

Show notes

A spiritual riddle to the modern mind: A desert monk burns all of his baskets as a means of fighting off the so-called “Noonday Demon.” Evan Rosa interviews celebrated writer Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloisterwalk, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, and the Quotidian Mysteries, about her 2008 book, Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life—discussing ancient Christian spirituality and the deadly vice of acedia, with commentary from theologian Jerry Sittser. Acedia was taken off the list of deadly vices in the 6th century, only to rear its ugly head in contemporary technological life. Has the noonday demon been haunting you? Well, now you’ll know its name.

Inventive Love, Locality, and Slacktivism (Emmanuel Katongole, Tyler Wigg-Stevenson) Nov 22, 2017

Show notes

What is love's response to suffering? Easy, mediated solidarity? Social media lowers the bar for what counts as activism. These days, we’re all activists. But as Tyler Wigg-Stevenson suggests, the danger of lowering that bar is to cut out the costliness of such work for good. This is part 2 of 2 in Evan Rosa’s interview with Catholic priest and theologian Emmanuel Katongole about the ethics of love in response to global suffering, also featuring commentary by Wigg-Stevenson on “mediated solidarity" and the story of a local Ugandan woman—Angelina Atyam—who was faithfully working locally against the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) while we were all watching KONY 2012 and staring at our screens.

Global Indifference & the Mothers of Invention (feat. Tom Crisp, Emmanuel Katongole) Nov 11, 2017

Show notes

Pope Francis has criticized "the globalization of indifference" in recent years. Despite the constant cycle of suffering we observe in our social feeds, leading to unprecedented awareness of others' pain, and despite our increasing ability to reach those in need of our care, we're numb. What is the loving response to suffering? Evan Rosa interviews Tom Crisp and Emmanuel Katongole in this first installment of a two-part series on love's response to suffering. Featuring the (in?)famous pond case applied to relief efforts, an exploration of lament, Pope Francis on the globalization of indifference in the face of suffering and violence, and the beautiful story of Maggie Barankitse, who witnessed first hand the atrocities of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and responded with loving action.

Krista Tippett on Public Life, Social Humility, and the Religious Other Aug 10, 2017

Show notes

What are some aspects of social humility? Becoming humble means more than understanding one's own stature and status. It means finding oneself standing on common ground with others. This is part 2 of Evan Rosa's interview with Krista Tippett (host of On Being and author of Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living). Krista talks about the origins and purpose of the question she asks all of her conversation partners; intellectual humility as an article of faith; and how humility enables communication with the religious and political other.

##Show Notes

00:01 - "Remember that thou art dust..."

01:25 - We are the in-between (link to Gilbert Meilaender's book, Neither Beasts Nor Gods).

01:38 - "Dusting" by Marilyn Nelson (link to the full poem).

02:35 - Glorious dust as an idiom for humility and a point of common ground.

03:04 - Finding common ground on... the ground. Two words with the same Latin root.

03:40 - Episode introduction and overview.

04:35 - Krista Tippett sparks civil conversations through generous listening.

04:52 - "What was the spiritual background of your childhood?" Krista Tippett explains her famous question.

06:58 - The origin and purpose of the question. "How would you answer [theological question X] through the story of your life?"

07:43 - Merging what you believe, and who you are (and the messiness of all that).

08:18 - Adapting the question to the radio show.

10:02 - Intellectual virtues and improved public discourse.

10:43 - The challenge and importance of intellectual humility as an article of faith.

13:01 - Paradox of inter-religious dialogue: enlarging our sense of learning from the religious other, while gaining a deeper and more illumined perspective on your own tradition.

14:32 - Humble politics. Humility as an approach to a more human politics.

14:59 - Humility and Conviction in Public Life at University of Connecticut (link to project website). Michael Lynch on Intellectual Humility / "Teaching Humility in an Age of Arrogance" (link to article).

16:15 - Krista Tippett comments on humility in politics. Humility isn't rewarded in politics. Humility can be found everywhere throughout local politics. The good news about the future of humble politics.

19:53 - Concluding thoughts, more from Krista Tippett.

20:28 - Episode credits.

21:58 - An earthy Table snack.

Krista Tippett on Humility, Mystery, and Self-Knowledge Jul 29, 2017

Show notes

Evan Rosa interviews Krista Tippett (host of On Being and author of Becoming Wise) on humility, mystery, and self-knowledge. We all admire and praise and strive to be like humble people. St. Augustine is on record, and has been quoted across the Christian tradition: “almost the whole of Christian teaching is humility.” (De Virginitate 31). Augustine even once instructed a student named Dioscorus, “If you were to ask me, however often you might repeat the question, what are the instructions of the Christian religion, I would be disposed to answer always and only, 'Humility.’” (Letter 118.3.22) St. Thomas Aquinas considers humility foundational and the beginning of virtue precisely because it opens us up to the formative power of others—exemplars—to apprentice ourselves to them—apprenticeship especially to the Holy Spirit.

#About Krista Tippett

(@KristaTippett) Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times best-selling author. In 2014, she received the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.”

Krista grew up in Oklahoma, the granddaughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. She studied history at Brown University and went to Bonn, West Germany in 1983 on a Fulbright Scholarship to study politics in Cold War Europe. In her 20s, she ended up in divided Berlin for most of the 1980s, first as The New York Times stringer and a freelance correspondent for Newsweek, The International Herald Tribune, the BBC, and Die Zeit. She later became a special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany.

Krista left Berlin in 1988, the year before the Wall fell. She lived in Spain, England, and Scotland for a time, then pursued a M.Div. from Yale. When she graduated in 1994, she saw a black hole where intelligent coverage of religion should be. As she conducted a far-flung oral history project for the Benedictines of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, she began to imagine radio conversations about the spiritual and intellectual content of faith that could open imaginations and enrich public life.

In 2007, Krista published her first book, Speaking of Faith. It is a memoir of religion in our time, including her move from geopolitical engagement to theology and the cumulative wisdom of her interviews these past years. In 2010, she published Einstein’s God, drawn from her interviews at the intersection of science, medicine, and spiritual inquiry. And now, Krista’s New York Times best-seller Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living opens into the questions and challenges of this century. Maria Popova calls it “a tremendously vitalizing read — a wellspring of nuance and dimension amid our Flatland of artificial polarities, touching on every significant aspect of human life with great gentleness and a firm grasp of human goodness.”

Krista’s two children are at the center of her life. She also loves cooking for her children and their friends, radio plays, beautiful writing, great science fiction, cross country skiing, and hot yoga.

#Show Notes
00:01 - Is humility a joke? Is it self-defeating?

00:30 - The elusive virtue of humility

01:00 - Political examples of self-defeating humility

01:44 - “What is the whole teaching of Christianity?” according to St. Augustine

02:15 - St. Thomas Aquinas on humility as the beginning of virtue

02:30 - Introductions, Humility, Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise

04:32 - Becoming Wise’s book dedication; children as beloved teachers

08:00 - Homo quaerens

08:20 - Mountains of mystery according to Flannery O’Connor and Krista Tippett (sections of Becoming Wise)

10:15 - Humility, the companion to curiosity and delight; the humility of the child

11:00 - Negative connotations of humility, humility based in reality and a stance in wonder

15:10 - Resilience: Growing Stronger Through Struggle

16:45 - Self-knowledge; Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos; Nietzsche on the difficulty of self-knowledge; humanity’s most vexing problem

19:10 - Complications, the difficult work of humility and self-knowledge; attentiveness, searching, and love

20:16 - On love and humility held in community; “loving, knowing, becoming”

21:25 - Final thoughts and next episode preview

22:34 - Credits

Introduction: Seeking Christian Wisdom for Life's Big Questions Jul 20, 2017

Show notes

Evan Rosa introduces The Table Audio and gives a sneak peek for what's coming soon. Bonus: Listen to cute kids as ridiculous (ly awesome) questions.

#Show Notes

00:00 - The ultimate fear of any parent face to face with a child

00:21 - Ridiculous (ly awesome) questions

01:25 - The business of big questions

01:40 - Why is wisdom is still important?

02:15 - What to expect from The Table Audio

2:57 - Who and what we’ll be featuring, what kinds of questions?

3:36 - What happens when you’re in front of a truly wise person? What’s the best stance? What does it feel like to stand transparent before a wise person?

4:35 - Why ask why?

5:22 - Why we interview who we interview, and what we hope to get from them

6:10 - Back to wonder

6:45 - An invitation for life’s way, grounded in the Christian tradition of

07:07 - Upcoming guests on The Table Audio (nine featured here - can you guess who they are? Stay tuned and maybe we’ll tell you.)

11:47 - Show credits