Podcast Class: Seminarians Traveling Through the Gilead Quartet

In this fourteenth and final episode Renee reflect on what they've learned about themselves after a semester of reading, discussion, and podcasting. We unpack “Looking inward and not away.” We examine how strangers can love another. And we conclude with a look at themes of “wonder” and “hope” in the Gilead quartet before putting this […]

Spoiler alert. This episode concludes our two-week look at Jack. We discuss the questions we thought would be answered (but weren't). We also wade into the waters of race, religion, marriage, and society by looking at Jack's interactions with two different Black ministers. The episode wraps up with a discussion of Robinson's two closing metaphors […]

In this episode we delve into the Rural Cemetery Movement, listen in on two people who are locked in a cemetery together overnight, and pay attention to the beautiful power of darkness.

Spoiler alert. In this episode we talk about the life of a knife in Lila. We also take up the ethically ambiguous question Lila brings up when she contemplates stealing a child, which prompts us to consider the place of children in the novels we've read thus far.

Coming back from Spring Break, we turn our attention once again to the pull towards “home.” We also tackle salting babies in Ezekiel and Lila's return to the shack.

Lila takes us into the mind, heart and surprising history of a woman, wife, mother, reader, gardener, and moviegoer. We discuss Lila's baptism and the rural-urban divide. We learn more about how Lila and Ames became engaged and the power of community to save us.

Spoiler alert. This is the final episode devoted to Home. Renee wants to talk about whether or not people can change and the possibility of returning home. Kevin wants to talk about “vaccine hesitancy” and Boughton's resistance to Jack calling him “Dad.”

We continue working our way through Home. Along the way we talk about how Jack and Boughton experience the footage of Civil Rights protests on the television differently. This episode concludes with Renee and Kevin talking about their interviews with individuals who lived through the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Home takes us into the Boughton house, where Glory, Jack, and Boughton are trying to live under one roof.

Spoiler alert. In this final episode on Gilead, we talk about Ames and Lila, figure out why Jack is back in Gilead, and debrief a sublime pastoral goodbye. We conclude by sharing a few thoughts on the book as a whole.    

This episode continues the theme of abolitionism by looking at that “Shining Star” of radicalism (i.e., Iowa) and John Brown's “League of Gileadites.” We also examine the complicated relationship between Ames and Jack, which includes a pastoral moment brimming with potential.    

We dive into Gilead and discuss our first impressions of the novel, pandemic preaching, and abolitionist tunneling.    

Drawing on the scholarly work of Dr. Alex Engebretson in his book, Understanding Marilynne Robinson, we attempt to introduce Marilynne Robinson to ourselves and the listener.    

We explain how this unique learning experience came to be and consider our preferences about podcasting in general. We close out this initial episode by naming what we hope to get out of a semester which will demand that we record a live session each and every week.