Podcasts about John Donne

In this lecture, Jenny explores the profound significance of community in spiritual transformation. She begins by framing her discussion around two key scriptures—Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 and Romans 12:9-21—emphasizing the importance of connection and support among individuals. Through these verses, she highlights that partnership not only brings strength during hardships but also cultivates warmth and protection against life's adversities. Jenny introduces the summer series, which will delve into the practices of community and serving, aiming to foster spiritual growth and transformation.Building on the foundational imagery of spiritual formation, she explains a cyclical process that includes formation, malformation, and counterformation—illustrating how to overcome the influences that can derail one's spiritual journey. Through a call to engage in prayer, she encourages attendees to surrender their burdens, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of community's role in healing and transformation.The narrative takes an empathetic turn as Jenny recounts the experience of a young boy named Sam. She parallels his journey through middle school, highlighting both the excitement and trepidation he feels on his first day, ultimately culminating in the profound loneliness he experiences during a gym class, where he is picked last for a soccer team. This poignant storytelling resonates with the lecture's overarching theme—that everyone shares an innate desire to belong and be known, reinforcing the idea that humans are created for community. By contrasting Sam's isolation with the biblical depiction of community, Jenny asserts that societal connections are critical for emotional and spiritual well-being.Jenny revisits the essence of community as articulated in scripture, mentioning how God's intention for mankind is rooted in the collaborative nature of the Trinity. She quotes John Donne to stress that “no man is an island,” reinforcing that isolation does not allow for true flourishing. Furthermore, she takes reflections from experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring community's vital role in transcending isolation. Distressingly, Jenny notes that despite advancements in technology and social media, loneliness remains an epidemic. She weaves in stories of communities rallying together for mutual support during difficult times, emphasizing the power of collective effort and encouragement.The lecture further delves into the complexities of human interactions and the roots of distrust that can form barriers to community engagement. Jenny discusses how personal traumas can lead to isolation and a defensive posture against forming new connections. By sharing Sam's journey through math class following his humiliating experience, she illustrates how past events shape our willingness to engage with others.Transitioning into practical applications, Jenny proposes that spiritual practices can help combat the tendencies towards isolation. She emphasizes the necessity of trust in God and the need to embrace vulnerability within community settings. Providing insight from personal experiences, she reflects on the transformative journey of forming deep relationships within small groups, demonstrating how these settings allow individuals to support each other during life's peaks and valleys.She also revisits Paul's epistle to the Romans, extracting principles for cultivating a healthy community—from sincere love and honor to the shared burdens of community life. Highlighting that love acts on behalf of others, Jenny urges the audience to foster genuine connections by actively reaching out and believing the best about those around them.As she draws her discussion to a close, Jenny reiterates the call for participants to take actionable steps towards deeper community engagement. By creating spaces for vulnerability and support, individuals can build a robust and loving environment reflective of Jesus's command to love one another. She encourages attendees to actively participate in fostering community, reinforcing that such actions can lead to transformative experiences not only for individuals but for entire families and communities.In her concluding prayer, Jenny encapsulates the essence of her message by affirming the gift of community, acknowledging its challenges, and inviting everyone to embark on a journey toward genuine love and togetherness in their spiritual walk.

Children's writer and academic Katherine Rundell is the multi-million selling author of adventure stories including Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder and The Explorer which won the Costa Children's Book of the Year. Impossible Creatures, the first of a five book series, was named Waterstones Book Of the Year in 2023. Her biography of the 17th century poet John Donne was a non-fiction bestseller and she became the youngest ever winner of the £50,000 Bailey Gifford Prize. At the age of 36, Katherine Rundell was named author of the year at the 2024 British Book Awards. Talking to John Wilson, Katherine Rundell recalls Saturday morning bus journeys from her home in south London to Covent Garden where her father would take part in amateur dance classes. Along the route of the 176 bus he would point out cultural landmarks and helped instil in Katherine a lifelong love for the city. She also explains how her father's job as a civil servant took her family to live in Zimbabwe when she was a child, an experience that fuelled her imagination and fascination with the natural world. She also remembers the profound loss she felt at the death of her foster sister, and reveals that much of her writing for children has been driven by this tragedy. She chooses the Chronicles Of Narnia series of books, especially The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, by CS Lewis as a huge influence on her own fantasy writing and the poetry of John Donne which she describes as her "greatest literary passion". Katherine also reflects on the importance of encouraging children to read and the current state of children's publishing. Producer: Edwina Pitman

Daily QuoteLove built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. (John Donne)Poem of the DayWhat can I hold you with?By Jorge Luis BorgesBeauty of WordsOn Cottages in GeneralHelen Allingham & Stewart Dick

Today's poem marks a very special day. Happy reading. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Get ready for another absolute cracker of an episode this week, because I had the total pleasure of chatting with the incredible Lucy Steeds! Now, if you've been anywhere near me in the last six months, I will have no doubt absolutely insisted that you must read Lucy's stunning novel, The Artist. I'm so in love with this book, its one of my top reads of the year and I really want you to pick it up too.It was such a joy to chat to Lucy about the Artist, her inspiration and get some fascinating insight into her writing process as well as hearing about her Women's Prize experience.Of course as always, we also discussed the five books that have shaped Lucy's life and what an interesting list it was. I was absolutely convinced she wouldn't be able to tempt me on the poetry of John Donne but I'm weirdly quite tempted.A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony SnicketA Room With A View by E.M. ForsterThe Poems of John DonneIn The Dream House by Carmen Maria MachadoAlso mentioned in this episode:Fates & Furies by Lauren GroffWays of Seeing by John BergerSelf-Portrait by Celia PaulIf you've enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it, please, please do me a little favour! Take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe to Best Book Forward – it makes the world of difference in helping more book lovers find our little corner of the podcast world. And the absolute best thing you could do? Tell a friend who you think would love Lucy's book or our chats! Until next time, happy reading!

Parables can be a real pain to the brain, but at the same time, Jesus tackles the issue quickly if you're open to it. Solomon says in Proverbs 15: “…wisdom make knowledge acceptable,” that is, sometimes the way you say something makes all the difference. Jesus sometimes chose parables to tell us things that we need to understand. The context of the parable in Matthew 5:13-16 is the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes found in the introduction of the sermon are about kingdom thinking, or the Kingdom Ethic. The Kingdom Ethic is what directs our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. This is the: “Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” type of thinking. This first parable following the Beatitudes is about the practice of this Kingdom Ethic. It is about how Kingdom thinking is actually lived out. If I was to summarize the eight Beatitudes for you, it would be this: “I am not a god. I am a sinner. I am here to serve others by pursuing good. I am moved by compassion, committed to do the right thing before God, in peace, and without compromise.” The purpose of the following parable can be summarized with one word: influence! How does one human being influence another? It was John Donne who said, “no man is an island.” We all have an influence on people, but we do it one at a time. Whether we admit it or not, we all have influence on something or someone and it's either for good or for bad. We cannot live out the Kingdom Ethic in a private world. We cannot live our lives in splendid isolation. In this parable, Jesus uses two metaphors to show how we, his followers, leave our “fingerprints” on the world around us. Some Christians think our job is to curse the darkness, but instead, Jesus has called us to light a candle. It's been said that most Christians have been educated beyond their level of obedience. We need to remember James' admonishment to be “doers of the word and not merely hearers” (James 1:19-25).

In this interview, Lamorna Ash, author of Don't Forget We're Here Forever: A New Generation's Search for Religion, and one of my favourite modern writers, talked about working at the Times Literary Supplement, netball, M. John Harrison, AI and the future of religion, why we should be suspicious of therapy, the Anatomy of Melancholy, the future of writing, what surprised her in the Bible, the Simpsons, the joy of Reddit, the new Pope, Harold Bloom, New Atheism's mistakes, reading J.S. Mill. I have already recommended her new book Don't Forget We're Here Forever, which Lamorna reads aloud from at the end. Full transcript below.Uploading videos onto Substack is too complicated for me (it affects podcast downloads somehow, and the instructions to avoid this problem are complicated, so I have stopped doing it), and to upload to YouTube I have to verify my account but they told me that after I tried to upload it and my phone is dead, so… here is the video embedded on this page. I could quote the whole thing. Here's one good section.Lamorna: Which one would you say I should do first after The Sea, The Sea?Henry: Maybe The Black Prince.Lamorna: The Black Prince. Great.Henry: Which is the one she wrote before The Sea, The Sea and is just a massive masterpiece.Lamorna: I'll read it. Where do you stand on therapy? Do you have a position?Henry: I think on net, it might be a bad thing, even if it is individually useful for people.Lamorna: Why is that?Henry: [laughs] I didn't expect to have to answer the question. Basically two reasons. I think it doesn't take enough account of the moral aspect of the decisions being made very often. This is all very anecdotal and you can find yourself feeling better in the short term, but not necessarily in the long-- If you make a decision that's not outrageously immoral, but which has not had enough weight placed on the moral considerations.There was an article about how lots of people cut out relatives now and the role that therapy plays in that. What I was struck by in the article that was-- Obviously, a lot of those people are justified and their relatives have been abusive or nasty, of course, but there are a lot of cases where you were like, "Well, this is a long-term decision that's been made on a short-term basis." I think in 10 years people may feel very differently. There wasn't enough consideration in the article, at least I felt, given to how any children involved would be affected later on. I think it's a good thing and a bad thing.Lamorna: I'm so with you. I think that's why, because also the fact of it being so private and it being about the individual, and I think, again, there are certain things if you're really struggling with that, it's helpful for, but I think I'm always more into the idea of communal things, like AAA and NA, which obviously a very particular. Something about doing that together, that it's collaborative and therefore there is someone else in the room if you say, "I want to cut out my parent."There's someone else who said that happened to me and it was really hard. It means that you are making those decisions together a little bit more. Therapy, I can feel that in friends and stuff that it does make us, even more, think that we are these bounded individuals when we're not.Henry: I should say, I have known people who've gone to therapy and it's worked really well.Lamorna: I'm doing therapy right now and it is good. TranscriptHenry: Today I am talking to Lamorna Ash. Lamorna is one of the rising stars of her generation. She has written a book about a fishing village in Cornwall. She's written columns for the New Statesman, of which I'm a great admirer. She works for a publisher and now she's written a book called, Don't Forget, We're Here Forever: A New Generation's Search for Religion. I found this book really compelling and I hope you will go and read it right now. Lamorna, welcome.Lamorna Ash: Thank you for having me.Henry: What was it like when you worked at the Times Literary Supplement?Lamorna: It was an amazing introduction to mostly contemporary fiction, but also so many other forms of writing I didn't know about. I went there, I actually wrote a letter, handwritten letter after my finals, saying that I'd really enjoyed this particular piece that somehow linked the anatomy of melancholy to infinite jest, and being deeply, deeply, deeply pretentious, those were my two favorite books. I thought, well, I'll apply for this magazine. I turned up there as an intern. They happened to have a space going.My job was Christmas in that I just spent my entire time unwrapping books and putting them out for editors to swoop by and take away. I'd take on people's corrections. I'd start to see how the editorial process worked. I started reading. I somehow had missed contemporary fiction. I hadn't read people like Rachel Kask or Nausgaard. I was reading them through going to the fiction pages. It made me very excited. Also, my other job whilst I was there, was I had the queries email. You'd get loads of incredibly random emails, including things like, you are cordially invited to go on the Joseph Conrad cycle tour of London. I'd ask the office, "Does anyone want to do this?" Obviously, no one ever said yes.I had this amazing year of doing really weird stuff, like going on Joseph Conrad cycling tour or going to a big talk at the comic book museum or the new advertising museum of London. I loved it. I really loved it.Henry: What was the Joseph Conrad cycling tour of London like? That sounds-Lamorna: Oh, it was so good. I remember at one point we stopped on maybe it was Blackfriars Bridge or perhaps it was Tower Bridge and just read a passage from the secret agent about the boats passing underneath. Then we'd go to parts of the docks where they believe that Conrad stayed for a while, but instead it would be some fancy youth hostel instead.It was run by the Polish Society of London, I believe-- the Polish Society of England, I believe. Again, each time it was like an excuse then to get into that writer and then write a little piece about it for the TLS. I guess, it was also, I was slightly cutting my teeth on how to do that kind of journalism as well.Henry: What do you like about The Anatomy of Melancholy?Lamorna: Almost everything. I think the prologue, Democritus Junior to the Reader is just so much fun and naughty. He says, "I'm writing about melancholy in order to try and avoid melancholy myself." There's six editions of it. He spent basically his entire life writing this book. When he made new additions to the book, rather than adding another chapter, he would often be making insertions within sentences themselves, so it becomes more and more bloated. There's something about the, what's the word for it, the ambition that I find so remarkable of every single possible version of melancholy they could talk about.Then, maybe my favorite bit, and I think about this as a writer a lot, is there's a bit called the digression of air, or perhaps it's digression on the air, where he just suddenly takes the reader soaring upwards to think about air and you sort of travel up like a hawk. It's this sort of breathing moment for a reader where you go in a slightly different direction. I think in my own writing, I always think about digression as this really valuable bit of nonfiction, this sense of, I'm not just taking you straight the way along. I think it'd be useful to go sideways a bit too.Henry: That was Samuel Johnson's favorite book as well. It's a good choice.Lamorna: Was it?Henry: Yes. He said that it was the only book that would get him out of bed in the morning.Lamorna: Really?Henry: Because he was obviously quite depressive. I think he found it useful as well as entertaining, as it were. Should netball be an Olympic sport?Lamorna: [laughs] Oh, it's already going to be my favorite interview. I think the reason it isn't an Olympic-- yes, I have a vested interest in netball and I play netball once a week. I'm not very good, but I am very enthusiastic because it's only played mostly in the Commonwealth. It was invented a year after basketball as a woman-friendly version because women should not run with the ball in case they get overexerted and we shouldn't get too close to contacting each other in case we touch, and that's awful.It really is only played in the Commonwealth. I think the reason it won't become an Olympic sport is because it's not worldwide enough, which I think is a reasonable reason. I'm not, of all the my big things that I want to protest about and care about right now, making that an Olympic sport is a-- it's reasonably low on my list.Henry: Okay, fair enough. You are an admirer of M. John Harrison's fiction, is that right?Lamorna: Yes.Henry: Tell us what should we read and why should we read him?Lamorna: You Should Come With Me Now, is that what it's called? I know I reviewed one of his books years ago and thought it was-- because he's part of that weird sci-fi group that I find really interesting and they've all got a bit of Samuel Delany to them as well. I just remember there was this one particular story in that collection, I think in general, he's a master at sci-fi that doesn't feel in that Dune way of just like, lists of names of places. It somehow has this, it's very literary, it's very odd, it's deeply imaginative. It is like what I wanted adult fiction to be when I was 12 or something, that there's the way the fantasy and imagination works.I remember there was one about all these men, married men who were disappearing into their attics and their wives thought they were just tinkering. What they were doing was building these sort of translucent tubes that were taking them off out of the world. I remember just thinking it was great. His conceits are brilliant and make so much sense, whilst also always being at an interesting slant from reality. Then, I haven't read his memoir, but I hear again and again this anti-memoir he's written. Have you read that?Henry: No.Lamorna: Apparently that's really brilliant too. Then he also, writes those about climbing. He's actually got this one foot in the slightly travel nature writing sports camp. I just always thought he was magic. I remember on Twitter, he was really magic as well. I spent a lot of time following him.Henry: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of writing and literature and books and this whole debate that's going on?Lamorna: It's hard to. I don't want to say anything fast and snappy because it's such a complicated thing. I could just start by saying personally, I'm worried about me and writing because I'm worried about my concentration span. I am so aware that in the same way that a piano player has to be practising the pieces they're going to play all the time. I think partly that's writing and writing, I seem to be able to do even with this broken, distracted form of attention I've got. My reading, I don't feel like I'm getting enough in. I think that means that what I produce will necessarily be less good if I can't solve that.I've just bought a dumb phone on the internet and I hope that's going to help me by no longer having Instagram and things like that. I think, yes, I suppose we do read a bit less. The generation below us is reading less. That's a shame. There's so much more possibility to go out and meet people from different places. On an anthropological level, I think anthropology has had this brilliant turn of becoming more subjective. The places you go, you have to think about your own relationship to them. I think that can make really interesting writing. It's so different from early colonial anthropology.The fact that, I guess, through, although even as I'm saying this, I don't know enough to say it, but I was going to say something about the fact that people, because we can do things like substacks and people can do short form content, maybe that means that more people's voices are getting heard and then they can, if they want to, transfer over and write books as well.I still get excited by books all the time. There's still so much good contemporary stuff that's thrilling me from all over the place. I don't feel that concerned yet. If we all do stop writing books entirely for a year and just read all the extraordinary books that have been happening for the last couple of thousand, we'd be okay.Henry: I simultaneously see the same people complaining that everything's dying and literature is over and that we have an oversupply of books and that capitalism is giving us too many books and that's the problem. I'm like, "Guys, I think you should pick one."Lamorna: [laughs] You're not allowed both those arguments. My one is that I do think it's gross, the bit of publishing that the way that some of these books get so oddly inflated in terms of the sales around them. Then, someone is getting a million pounds for a debut, which is enormous pressure on them. Then, someone else is getting 2K. I feel like there should be, obviously, there should be a massive cap on how large an advance anyone should get, and then more people will actually be able to stay in the world of writing because they won't have to survive on pitiful advances. I think that would actually have a huge impact and we should not be giving, love David Beckham as much as I do, we shouldn't be giving him five million pounds for someone else to go to write his books. It's just crazy.Henry: Don't the sales of books like that subsidize those of us who are not getting such a big advance?Lamorna: I don't think they always do. I think that's the problem is that they do have this wealth of funds to give to celebrities and often those books don't sell either. I still think even if those books sell a huge amount of money, those people still shouldn't be getting ridiculous advances like that. They still should be thinking about young people who are important to the literary, who are going to produce books that are different and surprising and whose voices we need to hear. That feels much more important.Henry: What do you think about the idea that maybe Anglo fiction isn't at a peak? I don't necessarily agree with that, but maybe we can agree that these are not the days of George Eliot and Charles Dickens, but the essay nonfiction periodicals and writing online, this is huge now. Right? Actually, our pessimism is sort of because we're looking in the wrong area and there are other forms of writing that flourish, actually doing great on the internet.Lamorna: Yes, I think so too. Again, I don't think I'm internet worldly enough to know this, but I still find these extraordinary, super weird substats that feel exciting. I also get an enormous amount of pleasure in reading Reddit now, which I only just got into many, many years late, but so many fun, odd things. Like little essays that people write and the way that people respond to each other, which is quick and sharp, and I suppose it fills the gap of what Twitter was.I think nonfiction, I was talking about this morning, because I'm staying with some writers, because we're sort of Cornish, book talk thing together and how much exciting nonfiction has come out this year that we want to read from the UK that is hybrid-y nature travel. Then internationally, I still think there's-- I just read, Perfection by Vincenzo, but there's enough translated fiction that's on the international book list this year that gets me delighted as well. To me, I just don't feel worried about that kind of thing at all when there's so much exciting stuff happening.I love Reddit. I think they really understand things that other people don't on there. I think it's the relief now that when you type in something to Google, you get the AI response. It's something like, it's so nice to feel on Reddit that someone sat down and answered you. Maybe that's such a shame that that's what makes me happy now, that we're in that space. It does feel like someone will tell you not just the answer, but then give you a bit about their life. Then, the particular tool that was passed down by their grandparents. That's so nice.Henry: What do you think of the new Pope?Lamorna: I thought it was because I'd heard all the thing around fat Pope, thin Pope, and obviously, our new Pope is maybe a sort of middle Pope, or at least is closer to Francis, but maybe a bit more palatable to some people. I guess, I'm excited that he's going to do, or it seems like he's also taking time to think, but he's good on migration on supporting the rights of immigrants. I think there's value in the fact of him being American as this being this counterpoint to what's happening in America right now. If feels always feels pointless to say because they're almost the idea of a Pope.I guess, Francis said that, who am I to judge about people being gay, but I think this Pope has so far has been more outly against gay people, but he stood up against JD Vance and his stupid thoughts on theology. I'm quietly optimistic. I guess I'm also waiting for Robert Harris's prophecy to come true and we get an intersex Pope next. Because I think that was prophecy, right? What he wrote.Henry: That would be interesting.Lamorna: Yes.Henry: The religious revival that people say is happening, particularly among young people, how is AI going to make it different than previous religious revivals?Lamorna: Oh, that's so interesting. Maybe first of all, question, sorry, I choked on my coffee. I was slightly questioned the idea if there is a religious revival, it's not actually an argument that I made in the book. When I started writing the book, there wasn't this quiet revival or this Bible studies and survey that suggests that more young people are going to church hadn't come out yet. I was just more, I guess, aware that there were a few people around me who were converting and I thought it'd be interesting if there's a few, there'll be more, which I think probably happens in every single generation, right? Is that that's one way to deal with the longing for meaning we all experience and the struggles in our lives.I was speaking to a New York Times journalist who was questioning the stats that have been coming out because first it's incredibly small pool. It's quite self-selecting that possibly there are people who might have gone to church already. It's still such a small uptick because it makes it hard to say anything definitive. I guess in general, what will the relationship be between AI and religion?I guess, there are so many ways you could go with that. One is that those spaces, religious spaces, are nicely insulated from technology. Not everywhere. Obviously, in some places they aren't, but often it's a space in which you put your phone away. In my head, the desire to go to church is as against having to deal with AI or having to deal with technology being integrated to every other aspect of my life.I guess maybe people will start worshiping the idea of the singularity. Maybe we'll get the singularity and Terminator, or the Matrix is going to happen, and we'll call them our gods because they will feel like gods. That's maybe one option. I don't know how AI-- I guess I don't know enough about AI that maybe you'll have AI, or does this happen? Maybe this has happened already that you could have an AI confession and you'd have an AI priest and they tell you--Henry: Sure. It's huge for therapy, right?Lamorna: Yes.Henry: Which is that adjacent thing.Lamorna: That's a good point. It does feel something about-- I'm sure, theologically, it's not supposed to work if you haven't been ordained, but can an AI be ordained, become a priest?Henry: IndeedLamorna: Could they do communion? I don't know. It's fascinating.Henry: I can see a situation where a young person lives in a secular environment or culture and is interested in things and the AI is the, in some ways, easiest place for them to turn to say, "I need to talk about-- I have these weird semi-religious feelings, or I'm interested." The AI's not going to be like, "Oh, really? That's weird." There's the question of will we worship AI or whatever, but also will we get people's conversions being shaped by their therapy/confessors/whatever chat with their LLM?Lamorna: Oh, it's so interesting. I read a piece recently in the LRB by James Vincent. It was about AI relationships, our relationship with AI, and he looked at AI girlfriends. There was this incredible case, maybe you read about it, about a guy who tried to kill the Queen some years back. His defense was that his AI girlfriend had really encouraged him to do that. Then, you can see the transcripts of the text, and he says, "I'm thinking about killing the Queen." His AI girlfriend is like, "Go for it, baby."It's that thing there of like, at the moment, AI is still reflecting back our own desires or refracting almost like shifting how they're expressed. I'm trying to imagine that in the same case of me saying, "I feel really lonely, and I'm thinking about Christianity." My friend would speak with all of their context and background, and whatever they've got going on for them. Whereas an AI would feel my desire there and go, "That's a good idea. It says online this." It's very straight. It would definitely lead us in directions that feel less than human or other than human.Henry: I also have this thought, you used to, I think you still do, but you see it less. You used to get a Samaritan's Bible in every hotel. The Samaritans, will they start trying to install a religious chatbot in places where people--? There are lots of ways in which you could use it as a distribution mechanism.Lamorna: Which does feel so far from the point. Not to think about the gospels, but that feeling of something I talk about in the book is that, so much of it is human contact. Is that this factor of being changed in the moment, person to person. If I have any philosophy for life at the moment is this sense of desperately needing contact that we are saved by each other all the time, not by our telephones and things that aren't real. It's the surprise.I quote it in the book, but Iris Murdoch describes love is the very difficult realization that someone other than yourself is real. I think that's the thing that makes us all survive, is that reminder that if you're feeling deeply depressed, being like, there is someone else that is real, and they have a struggle that matters as much as mine. I think that's something that you are never going to get through a conversation with a chatbot, because it's like a therapeutic thing. You are not having to ask it the same questions, or you are not having to extend yourself to think about someone else in those conversations.Henry: Which Iris Murdoch novels do you like?Lamorna: I've only read The Sea, The Sea, but I really enjoyed it. Which ones do you like?Henry: I love The Sea, The Sea, and The Black Prince. I like the late books, like The Good Apprentice and The Philosopher's Pupil, as well. Some people tell you, "Don't read those. They're late works and they're no good," but I was obsessed. I was absolutely compelled, and they're still all in my head. They're insane.Lamorna: Oh, I must, because I've got a big collection of her essays. I'm thinking is so beautiful, her philosophical thought. It's that feeling, I know I'm going the wrong-- starting in the wrong place, but I do feel that she's someone I'd really love to explore next, kind of books.Henry: I think you'd like her because she's very interested in the question of, can therapy help, can philosophy help, can religion help? She's very dubious about therapy and philosophy, and she is mystic. There are queer characters and neurodivergent characters. For a novelist in the '70s, you read her now and you're like, "Well, this is all just happening now."Lamorna: Cool.Henry: Maybe we should be passing these books out. People need this right now.Lamorna: Which one would you say I should do first after The Sea, The Sea?Henry: Maybe The Black Prince.Lamorna: The Black Prince. Great.Henry: Which is the one she wrote before The Sea, The Sea and is just a massive masterpiece.Lamorna: I'll read it. Where do you stand on therapy? Do you have a position?Henry: I think on net, it might be a bad thing, even if it is individually useful for people.Lamorna: Why is that?Henry: [laughs] I didn't expect to have to answer the question. Basically two reasons. I think it doesn't take enough account of the moral aspect of the decisions being made very often. This is all very anecdotal and you can find yourself feeling better in the short term, but not necessarily in the long-- If you make a decision that's not outrageously immoral, but which has not had enough weight placed on the moral considerations.There was an article about how lots of people cut out relatives now and the role that therapy plays in that. What I was struck by in the article that was-- Obviously, a lot of those people are justified and their relatives have been abusive or nasty, of course, but there are a lot of cases where you were like, "Well, this is a long-term decision that's been made on a short-term basis." I think in 10 years people may feel very differently. There wasn't enough consideration in the article, at least I felt, given to how any children involved would be affected later on. I think it's a good thing and a bad thing.Lamorna: I'm so with you. I think that's why, because also the fact of it being so private and it being about the individual, and I think, again, there are certain things if you're really struggling with that, it's helpful for, but I think I'm always more into the idea of communal things, like AAA and NA, which obviously a very particular. Something about doing that together, that it's collaborative and therefore there is someone else in the room if you say, "I want to cut out my parent."There's someone else who said that happened to me and it was really hard. It means that you are making those decisions together a little bit more. Therapy, I can feel that in friends and stuff that it does make us, even more, think that we are these bounded individuals when we're not.Henry: I should say, I have known people who've gone to therapy and it's worked really well.Lamorna: I'm doing therapy right now and it is good. I think, in my head, it's like it should be one among many and I still question it whilst doing it.Henry: To the extent that there is a religious revival among "Gen Z," how much is it because they have phones? Because you wrote something like, in fact, I have the quote, "There's a sense of terrible tragedy. How can you hold this constant grief that we feel, whether it's the genocide in Gaza or climate collapse? Where do I put all the misery that I receive every single second through my phone? Church can then be a space where I can quietly go and light a candle." Is it that these young people are going to religion because the phone has really pushed a version of the world into their faces that was not present when I was young or people are older than me?Lamorna: I think it's one of, or that the phone is the symptom because the phone, whatever you call it, technology, the internet, is the thing that draws the world closer to us in so many different ways. One being that this sense of being aware of what's happening around in other places in the world, which maybe means that you become more tolerant of other religions because you're hearing about it more. That, on TikTok, there's loads of kids all across the world talking about their particular faiths and their background and which aspera they're in, and all that kind of thing.Then, this sense of horror being very unavoidable that you wake up and it is there and you wake up and you think, "What am I doing? What am I doing here? I feel completely useless." Perhaps then you end up in a church, but I'm not sure.I think a bigger player in my head is the fact that we are more pluralistic as societies. That you are more likely to encounter other religions in schools. I think then the question is, well then maybe that'll be valuable for me as well. I think also, not having parents pushing religion on you makes kids, the fact of the generation above the British people, your parents' generations, not saying religion is important, you go to church, then it becomes something people can become more curious about in their own right as adults. I think that plays into it.I think isolation plays into it and that's just not about technology and the phone, but that's the sense of-- and again, I'm thinking about early 20s, mid 20s, so adults who are moving from place to place, who maybe feel very isolated and alone, who are doing jobs that make them feel isolated and alone, and there are this dearth of community spaces and then thinking, well, didn't people used to go to churches, it would be so nice to know someone older than me.I don't know how this fits in, but I was thinking about, I saw this documentary, The Encampments, like two days ago, which is about the Columbia University encampments and within that, Mahmood Khalil, who's the one who's imprisoned at the moment, who was this amazing leader within the movement and is from Palestine. The phone in that, the sense about how it was used to gather and collect people and keep people aware of what's happening and mean that everyone is more conscious and there's a point when they need more people in the encampments because the police are going to come. It's like, "Everyone, use your phone, call people now." I think I can often be like, "Oh no, phones are terrible," but this sense within protest, within communal activity, how valuable they can be as well.I haven't quite gotten into that thought. I don't know, basically. I think it's so hard. I've grown up with a phone. I have no sense of how much it plays a part in everything about me, but obviously, it is a huge amount. I do think it's something that we all think about and are horrified by whilst also seeing it as like this weird extension of ourselves. That definitely plays into then culturally, the decisions we make to either try and avoid them, find spaces where you can be without them.Henry: How old do you think a child should be when they're first given a phone? A smartphone, like an iPhone type thing?Lamorna: I think, 21.Henry: Yes?Lamorna: No, I don't know. I obviously wouldn't know that about a child.Henry: I might.Lamorna: I'd love to. I would really love to because, I don't know, I have a few friends who weren't allowed to watch TV until they were 18 and they are eminently smarter than me and lots of my other friends. There's something about, I don't know, I hate the idea that as I'm getting older, I'm becoming more scaremongering like, "Oh no, when I was young--" because I think my generation was backed in loads of ways. This thing of kids spending so much less time outside and so much less time being able to imagine things, I think I am quite happy to say that feels like a terrible loss.I read a piece recently about kids in New York and I think they were quite sort of middle-class Brooklyn-y kids, but they choose to go days without their phones and they all go off into the forest together. There is this sense of saying giving kids autonomy, but at the same time, their relationship with a phone is not one of agency. It's them versus tech bros who have designed things that are so deeply addictive, that no adult can let go of it. Let alone a child who's still forming how to work out self-control, discipline and stuff. I think a good parenting thing would be to limit massively these completely non-neutral objects that they're given, that are made like crack and impossible to let go of.Henry: Do you think religious education in schools should be different or should there be more of it?Lamorna: Yes, I think it should be much better. I don't know about you, but I just remember doing loads of diagrams of different religious spaces like, "This is what a mosque looks like," and then I'd draw the diagram. I knew nothing. I barely knew the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In fact, I probably didn't as a teenager.I remember actually in sixth form, having this great philosophy teacher who was talking about the idea of proto antisemitism within the gospels. I was like, "Wait, what?" Because I just didn't really understand. I didn't know that it was in Greek, that the Old Testament was in Hebrew. I just didn't know. I think all these holy texts that we've been carrying with us for thousands of years across the world have so much in them that's worth reading and knowing.If I was in charge of our R.E., I would get kids to write on all holy texts, but really think about them and try and answer moral problems. You'd put philosophy back with religion and really connect them and think, what is Nietzsche reacting against? What does Freud about how is this form of Christianity different like this? I think that my sense is that since Gove, but also I'm sure way before that as well, the sense of just not taking young people seriously, when actually they're thoughtful, intelligent and able to wrestle with these things, it's good for them to have know what they're choosing against, if they're not interested in religion.Also, at base, those texts are beautiful, all of them are, and are foundational and if you want to be able to study English or history to know things about religious texts and the practices of religion and how those rituals came about and how it's changed over thousands of years, feels important.Henry: Which religious poets do you like other than Hopkins? Because you write very nicely about Hopkins in the book.Lamorna: He's my favorite. I like John Donne a lot. I remember reading lots of his sermons and Lancelot Andrews' sermons at university and thinking they were just astonishingly beautiful. There are certain John Donne sermons and it's this feeling of when he takes just maybe a line from one of Paul's letters and then is able to extend it and extend it, and it's like he's making it grow in material or it's like it's a root where suddenly all these branches are coming off it.Who else do I like? I like George Herbert. Gosh, my brain is going in terms of who else was useful when I was thinking about. Oh it's gone.Henry: Do you like W.H. Auden?Lamorna: Oh yes. I love Auden, yes. I was rereading his poems about, oh what's it called? The one about Spain?Henry: Oh yes.Lamorna: About the idea of tomorrow.Henry: I don't have a memory either, but I know the poem you mean, yes.Lamorna: Okay. Then I'm trying to think of earlier religious poets. I suppose things like The Dream of the Rood and fun ways of getting into it and if you're looking at medieval poetry.Henry: I also think Betjeman is underrated for this.Lamorna: I've barely read any Betjeman.Henry: There's a poem called Christmas. You might like it.Lamorna: Okay.Henry: It's this famous line and is it true and is it true? He really gets into this thing of, "We're all unwrapping tinsely presents and I'm sitting here trying to work out if God became man." It's really good. It's really good. The other one is called Norfolk and again, another famous line, "When did the devil first attack?" It talks about puberty as the arrival of the awareness of sin and so forth.Lamorna: Oh, yes.Henry: It's great. Really, really good stuff. Do you personally believe in the resurrection?Lamorna: [chuckles] I keep being asked this.Henry: I know. I'm sorry.Lamorna: My best answer is sometimes. Because I do sometimes in that way that-- someone I interviewed who's absolutely brilliant in the book, Robert, and he's a Cambridge professor. He's a pragmatist and he talks about the idea of saying I'm a disciplined person means nothing unless you're enacting that discipline daily or it falls away. For him, that belief in a Kierkegaardian leap way is something that needs to be reenacted in every moment to say, I believe and mean it.I think there are moments when my church attendance is better and I'm listening to a reading that's from Acts or whatever and understanding the sense of those moments, Paul traveling around Europe and Asia Minor, only because he fully believed that this is what's happened. Those letters and as you're reading those letters, the way I read literature or biblical writing is to believe in that moment because for that person, they believe too. I think there are points at which the resurrection can feel true to me, but it does feel like I'm accessing that idea of truth in a different way than I am accessing truth about-- it's close to how I think about love as something that's very, very real, but very different from experiential feelings.I had something else I wanted to say about that and it's just gone. Oh yes. I was at Hay Festival a couple of weeks ago. Do you know the Philosopher Agnes Callard?Henry: Oh, sure.Lamorna: She gave a really great talk about Socrates and her love of Socrates, but she also came to my talk and she and her husband, who I think met through arguing about Aristotle, told me they argued for about half a day about a line I'd said, which was that during writing the book, I'd learned to believe in the belief of other people, her husband was like, "You can't believe in the belief of other people if you don't believe it too. That doesn't work. That doesn't make sense." I was like, "That's so interesting." I can so feel that if we're taking that analytically, that if I say I don't believe in the resurrection, not just that I believe you believe it, but I believe in your belief in the resurrection. At what point is that any different from saying, I believe in the resurrection. I feel like I need to spend more time with it. What the slight gap is there that I don't have that someone else does, or as I say it, do I then believe in the resurrection that moment? I'm not sure.I think also what I'm doing right now is trying to sound all clever with it, whereas for other people it's this deep ingrained truth that governs every moment of their life and that they can feel everywhere, or perhaps they can't. Perhaps there's more doubt than they suggest, which I think is the case with lots of us. Say on the deathbed, someone saying that they fully believe in the resurrection because that means there's eternal salvation, and their family believe in that too. I don't think I have that kind of certainty, but I admire it.Henry: Tell me how you got the title for this book from an episode of The Simpsons.Lamorna: It's really good app. It's from When Maggie Makes Three, which is my favorite episode. I think titles are horribly hard. I really struck my first book. I would have these sleepless nights just thinking about words related to the sea, and be like, blue something. I don't know. There was a point where my editor wanted to call it Trawler Girl. I said, "We mustn't. That's awful. That's so bad. It makes me sound like a terrible superhero. I'm not a girl, I'm a woman."With this one, I think it was my fun title for ages. Yes, it's this plaque that Homer has put-- Mr. Burns puts up this plaque to remind him that he will never get to leave the power plant, "Don't forget you're here forever."I just think it's a strong and bonkers line. I think it had this element of play or silliness that I wanted, that I didn't think about too hard. I guess that's an evangelical Christian underneath what they're actually saying is saying-- not all evangelicals, but often is this sense of no, no, no, we are here forever. You are going to live forever. That is what heaven means.That sense of then saying it in this jokey way. I think church is often very funny spaces, and funny things happen. They make good comedy series when you talk about faith.Someone's saying she don't forget we're here forever. The don't forget makes it so colloquial and silly. I just thought it was a funny line for that reason.Then also that question people always ask, "Is religion going to die out?" I thought that played into it. This feeling that, yes, I write about it. There was a point when I was going to an Extinction Rebellion protest, and everyone was marching along with that symbol of the hourglass inside a circle next to a man who had a huge sign saying, "Stop, look, hell is real, the end of the world is coming." This sense of different forms of apocalyptic thinking that are everywhere at the moment. I felt like the title worked for that as well.Henry: I like that episode of The Simpsons because it's an expression of an old idea where he's doing something boring and his life is going to slip away bit by bit. The don't forget you're here forever is supposed to make that worse, but he turns it round into the live like you're going to die tomorrow philosophy and makes his own kind of meaning out of it.Lamorna: By papering it over here with pictures of Maggie. They love wordplay, the writers of The Simpsons, and so that it reads, "Do it for her," instead. That feeling of-- I think that with faith as well of, don't forget we're here forever, think about heaven when actually so much of our life is about papering it over with humanity and being like, "Does it matter? I'm with you right now, and that's what matters." That immediacy of human contact that church is also really about, that joy in the moment. Where it doesn't really matter in that second if you're going to heaven or hell, or if that exists. You're there together, and it's euphoric, or at least it's a relief or comforting.Henry: You did a lot of Bible study and bible reading to write this book. What were the big surprises for you?Lamorna: [chuckles] This is really the ending, but revelation, I don't really think it's very well written at all. It shouldn't be in there, possibly. It's just not [unintelligible 00:39:20] It got added right in the last minute. I guess it should be in there. I just don't know. What can I say?So much of it was a surprise. I think slowly reading the Psalms was a lovely surprise for me because they contain so much uncertainty and anguish, and doubt. Imagining those being read aloud to me always felt like a very exciting thing.Henry: Did you read them aloud?Lamorna: When I go to more Anglo Catholic services, they tend to do them-- I never know how to pronounce this. Antiphonally.Henry: Oh yes.Lamorna: Back and forth between you. It's very reverential, lovely experience to do that. I really think I was surprised by almost everything I was reading. At the start of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, he does this amazing thing where he does four different versions of what could be happening in the Isaac and Abraham story underneath.There's this sense of in the Bible, and I'm going to get this wrong, but in Mimesis, Auerbach talks about the way that you're not given the psychological understanding within the Bible. There's so much space for readers to think with, because you're just being told things that happened, and the story moves on quickly, moment by moment. With Isaac and Abraham, what it would mean if Isaac actually had seen the fact that his father was planning to kill him. Would he then lose his faith? All these different scenarios.I suddenly realised that the Bible was not just a fixed text, but there was space to play with it as well. In the book, I use the story of Jacob and the angel and play around with the meaning of that and what would happen after this encounter between Jacob and an angel for both of them.Bits in the Gospels, I love the story of the Gerasene Demoniac. He was a knight. He was very unwell, and no one knew what to do with him. He was ostracised from his community. He would sit in this cave and scream and lacerate himself against the cave walls. Then Jesus comes to him and speaks to him and speaks to the demons inside him. There's this thing in Mark's Gospel that Harold Bloom talks about, where only demons are actually able to perceive. Most people have to ask Christ who he really is, but demons can perceive him immediately and know he's the son of God.The demons say that they are legion. Then Jesus puts them into 1,000 pigs. Is it more? I can't remember. Then they're sent off over the cliff edge. Then the man is made whole and is able to go back to his community. I just think there's just so much in that. It's so rich and strange. I think, yes, there's something about knowing you could sit down and just read a tiny bit of the Bible and find something strange and unusual that also might speak to something you've read that's from thousands of years later.I also didn't know that in Mark's Gospel, the last part of it is addended, added on to it. Before that, it ended with the women being afraid, seeing the empty tomb, but there's no resolution. There's no sense of Christ coming back as spirit. It ended in this deep uncertainty and fear. I thought that was so fascinating because then again, it reminds you that those texts have been played around with and thought with, and meddled with, and changed over time. It takes away from the idea that it's fixed and certain, the Bible.Henry: What did you think of Harold Bloom's book The Shadow of a Great Rock?Lamorna: I really loved it. He says that he treats Shakespeare more religiously and the Bible more like literature, which I found a funny, irreverent thing to say. There's lovely stuff in there where, I think it was Ruth, he was like, maybe it was written by a woman. He takes you through the different Hebrew writers for Genesis. Which again, becoming at this as such a novice in so many ways, realising that, okay, so when it's Yahweh, it's one particular writer, there's the priestly source for particular kinds of writing. The Yahwist is more ironic, or the God you get is more playful.That was this key into thinking about how each person trying to write about God, it's still them and their sense of the world, which is particular and idiosyncratic is forming the messages that they believe they're receiving from God. I found that exciting.Yes, he's got this line. He's talking about the blessings that God gives to men in Genesis. He's trying to understand, Bloom, what the meaning of a blessing is. He describes it as more life into a time without boundaries. That's a line that I just found so beautiful, and always think about what the meaning of that is. I write it in the book.My best friend, Sammy, who's just the most game person in the world, that you tell them anything, they're like, "Cool." I told them that line. They were like, "I'm getting it tattooed on my arm next week." Then got me to write in my handwriting. I can only write in my handwriting, but write down, "More time into life without boundaries." Now they've just got it on their arm.Henry: Nice.Lamorna: I really like. They're Jewish, non-practicing. They're not that really interested in it. They were like, "That's a good line to keep somewhere."Henry: I think it's actually one of Bloom's best books. There's a lot of discussion about, is he good? Is he not good? I love that book because it really just introduces people to the Bible and to different versions of the Bible. He does all that Harold Bloom stuff where he's like, "These are the only good lines in this particular translation of this section. The rest is so much dross.He's really attentive to the differences between the translations, both theologically but also aesthetically. I think a lot of people don't know the Bible. It's a really good way to get started on a-- sitting down and reading the Bible in order. It's going to fail for a lot of people. Harold Bloom is a good introduction that actually gives you a lot of the Bible itself.Lamorna: For sure, because it's got that midrash feeling of being like someone else working around it, which then helps you get inside it. I was reading that book whilst going to these Bible studies at a conservative evangelical church called All Souls. I wasn't understanding what on earth was going on in Mark through the way that we're being told to read it, which is kids' comprehension.Maybe it was useful to think about why would the people have been afraid when Christ quelled the storms? It was doing something, but there was no sense of getting inside the text. Then, to read alongside that, Bloom saying that the Christ in Mark is the most unknowable of all the versions of Christ. Then again, just thinking, "Oh, hang on." There's an author. The author of Mark's gospel is perceiving Christ in a particular way. This is the first of the gospels writing about Christ. What does it mean? He's unknowable. Suddenly thinking of him as a character, and therefore thinking about how people are relating to him. It totally cracks the text open for you.Henry: Do you think denominational differences are still important? Do most people have actual differences in dogma, or are they just more cultural distinctions?Lamorna: They're ritual distinctions. There really is little that you could compare between a Quaker meeting and a Catholic service. That silence is the fundamental aspect of all of it. There's a sense of enlighten.My Quaker mate, Lawrence, he's an atheist, but he wouldn't go to another church service because he's so against the idea of hierarchy and someone speaking from a pulpit. He's like, honestly, the reincarnated spirit of George Fox in many ways, in lots of ways he's not.I guess it becomes more blurry because, yes, there's this big thing in the early 20th century in Britain anyway, where the line that becomes more significant is conservative liberal. It's very strange that that's how our world gets divided. There's real simplification that perhaps then, a liberal Anglican church and a liberal Catholic church have more in relationship than a conservative Catholic church and a conservative evangelical church. The line that is often thinking about sexuality and marriage.I was interested, people have suddenly was called up in my book that I talk about sex a lot. I think it's because sex comes up so much, it feels hard not to. That does seem to be more important than denominational differences in some ways. I do think there's something really interesting in this idea of-- Oh, [unintelligible 00:48:17] got stung. God, this is a bit dramatic. Sorry, I choked on coffee earlier. Now I'm going to get stung by a bee.Henry: This is good. This is what makes a podcast fun. What next?Lamorna: You don't get this in the BBC studios. Maybe you do. Oh, what was I about to say? Oh, yes. I like the idea of church shopping. People saying that often it speaks to the person they are, what they're looking for in a church. I think it's delightful to me that there's such a broad church, and there's so many different spaces that you can go into to discover the church that's right for you. Sorry. I'm really distracted by this wasp or bee. Anyway.Henry: How easy was it to get people to be honest with you?Lamorna: I don't know. I think that there's certain questions that do tunnel right through to the heart of things. Faith seems to be one of them. When you talk about faith with people, you're getting rid of quite a lot of the chaff around with the politeness or whatever niceties that you'd usually speak about.I was talking about this with another friend who's been doing this. He's doing a play about Grindr. He was talking about how strange it is that when you ask to interview someone and you have a dictaphone there, you do get a deeper instant conversation. Again, it's a bit like a therapeutic conversation where someone has said to you, "I'm just going to sit and listen." You've already agreed, and you know it's going to be in a book. "Do you mind talking about this thing?"That just allows this opportunity for people to be more honest because they're aware that the person there is actually wanting to listen. It's so hard to create spaces. I create a cordon and say, "We're going to have a serious conversation now." Often, that feels very artificial. I think yes, the beauty of getting to sit there with a dictaphone on your notebook is you are like, "I really am interested in this. It really matters to me." I guess it feels easy in that way to get honesty.Obviously, we're all constructing a version of ourselves for each other all the time. It's hard for me to know to what extent they're responding to what they're getting from me, and what they think I want to hear. If someone else interviewed them, they would probably get something quite different. I don't know. I think if you come to be with openness, and you talk a bit about your journey, then often people want to speak about it as well.I'm trying to think. I've rarely interviewed someone where I haven't felt this slightly glowy, shimmery sense of it, or what I'm learning feels new and feels very true. I felt the same with Cornish Fisherman, that there was this real honesty in these conversations. Many years ago, I remember I got really obsessed with interviewing my mom. I think I was just always wanting to practice interviewing. The same thing that if there's this object between you, it shifts the dimensions of the conversation and tends towards seriousness.Henry: How sudden are most people's conversions?Lamorna: Really depends. I was in this conversation with someone the other day. When she was 14, 15, she got caught shoplifting. She literally went, "Oh, if there's a God up there, can you help get me out of the situation?" The guy let her go, and she's been a Christian ever since. She had an instantaneous conversion. Someone I interviewed in the book, and he was a really thoughtful card-carrying atheist. He had his [unintelligible 00:51:58] in his back pocket.He hated the Christians and would always have a go at them at school because he thought it was silly, their belief. Then he had this instant conversion that feels very charismatic in form, where he was just walking down an avenue of trees at school, and he felt the entire universe smiling at him and went, "Oh s**t, I better become a Christian."Again, I wonder if it depends. I could say it depends on the person you are, whether you are capable of having an instant conversion. Perhaps if I were in a religious frame of mind, I'd say it depends on what God would want from you. Do you need an instant conversion, or do you need to very slowly have the well filling up?I really liked when a priest said to me that people often go to church and expect to be changed in a moment. He's like, "No, you have to go for 20 years before anything happens." Something about that slow incremental conversion to me is more satisfying. It's funny, I was having a conversation with someone about if they believe in ghosts, and they were like, "Well, if I saw one, then I believe in ghosts." For some people, transcendental things happen instantaneously, and it does change them ultimately instantly.I don't know, I would love to see some stats about which kinds of conversions are more popular, probably more instant ones. I love, and I use it in the book, but William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. He talks about there's some people who are sick-souled or who are also more porous bordered people for whom strange things can more easily cross the borders of their person. They're more likely to convert and more likely to see things.I really like him describing it that way because often someone who's like that, it might just be described as well, you have a mental illness. That some people are-- I don't know, they've got sharper antennae than the rest of us. I think that is an interesting thought for why some people can convert instantly.Henry: I think all conversions take a long time. At the moment, there's often a pivotal moment, but there's something a long time before or after that, that may or may not look a conversion, but which is an inevitable part of the process. I'm slightly obsessed with the idea of quests, but I think all conversions are a quest or a pilgrimage. Your book is basically a quest narrative. As you go around in your Toyota, visiting these places. I'm suspicious, I think the immediate moment is bundled up with a longer-term thing very often, but it's not easy to see it.Lamorna: I love that. I've thought about the long tail afterwards, but I hadn't thought about the lead-up, the idea of that. Of what little things are changing. That's such a lovely thought. Their conversions began from birth, maybe.Henry: The shoplifter, it doesn't look like that's where they're heading. In retrospect, you can see that there weren't that many ways out of this path that they're on. Malcolm X is like this. One way of reading his autobiography is as a coming-of-age story. Another way of reading it is, when is this guy going to convert? This is going to happen.Lamorna: I really like that. Then there's also that sense of how fixed the conversion is, as well, from moment to moment. That Adam Phillips' book on wanting to change, he talks about our desire for change often outstrips our capacity for change. That sense of how changed am I afterwards? How much does my conversion last in every moment? It goes back to the do you believe in the resurrection thing.I find that that really weird thing about writing a book is, it is partly a construction. You've got the eye in there. You're creating something that is different from your reality and fixed, and you're in charge of it. It's stable, it remains, and you come to an ending. Then your life continues to divert and deviate in loads of different ways. It's such a strange thing in that way. Every conversion narrative we have fixed in writing, be it Augustine or Paul, whatever, is so far from the reality of that person's experience.Henry: What did the new atheists get wrong?Lamorna: Arrogance. They were arrogant. Although I wonder, I guess it was such a cultural moment, and perhaps in the same way that everyone is in the media, very excitedly talking about revival now. There was something that was created around them as well, which was delight in this sense of the end of something. I wonder how much of that was them and how much of it was, they were being carried along by this cultural media movement.I suppose the thing that always gets said, and I haven't read enough Dawkins to say this with any authority, but is that the form of religion that he was attempting to denigrate was a very basic form of Christianity, a real, simplified sense. That he did that with all forms of religion. Scientific progress shows us we've progressed beyond this point, and we don't need this, and it's silly and foolish.I guess he underestimated the depth and richness of religion, and also the fact of this idea of historical progress, when the people in the past were foolish, when they were as bright and stupid as we are now.Henry: I think they believed in the secularization idea. People like Rodney Stark and others were pointing out that it's not really true that we secularized a lot more consistency. John Gray, the whole world is actually very religious. This led them away from John Stuart Mill-type thinking about theism. I think everyone should read more John Stuart Mill, but they particularly should have read the theism essays. That would have been--Lamorna: I've only just got into him because I love the LRB Close Reading podcast. It's Jonathan Rée and James Wood. They did one on John Stuart Mill's autobiography, which I've since been reading. It's an-Henry: It's a great book.Lamorna: -amazing book. His crisis is one of-- He says, "The question of religion is not something that has been a part of my life, but the sense of being so deeply learned." His dad was like, "No poetry." In his crisis moment, suddenly realizing that that's what he needed. He was missing feeling, or he was missing a way of looking at the world that had questioning and doubt within it through poetry.There was a bit in the autobiography, and he talks about when he was in this deep depression, whenever he was at 19 or something. That he was so depressed that he thought if there's a certain number of musical notes, one day there will be no more new music because every single combination will have been done. The sense of, it's so sweetly awful thinking, but without the sense-- I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here.I found his crisis so fascinating to read about and how he comes out of that through this care and attention of beautiful literature and thinking, and through his love of-- What was his wife called again?Henry: Harriet.Lamorna: Harriet. He credits her for almost all his thinking. He wouldn't have moved towards socialism without her. Suddenly, humans are deeply important to him. He feels sorry for the fact that his dad could not express love or take love from him, and that that was such a terrible deficiency in his life.Henry: Mill's interesting on religion because he looks very secular. In fact, if you read his letters, he's often going into churches.Lamorna: Oh, really?Henry: Yes, when he's in Italy, because he had tuberculosis. He had to be abroad a lot. He's always going to services at Easter and going into the churches. For a secular person, he really appreciates all these aspects of religion. His stepdaughter was-- there's a diary of hers in their archives. She was very religious, very intense. As a young woman, when she's 16, 17, intensely Catholic or Anglo-Catholic. Really, it's quite startling.I was reading this thing, and I was like, "Wait, who in the Mill household is writing this? This is insane." There are actually references in his letters where he says, "Oh, we'll have to arrive in time for Good Friday so that she can go to church." He's very attentive to it. Then he writes these theism essays, right at the end of his life. He's very open-minded and very interrogatory of the idea. He really wants to understand. He's not a new atheist at all.Lamorna: Oh, okay. I need to read the deism essays.Henry: You're going to love it. It's very aligned. What hymns do you like?Lamorna: Oh, no.Henry: You can be not a hymn person.Lamorna: No. I'm not a massive hymn person. When I'm in church, the Anglican church that I go to in London now, I always think, "Remember that. That was a really nice one." I like to be a pilgrim. I really don't have the brain that can do this off the cuff. I'm not very musically. I'm deeply unmusical.There was one that I was thinking of. I think it's an Irish one. I feel like I wrote this down at one point, because I thought I might be asked in another interview. I had to write down what I thought in case a hymn that I liked. Which sounds a bit like a politician, when they're asked a question, they're like, "I love football." I actually can't think of any. I'm sorry.Henry: No, that's fine.Lamorna: What are your best? Maybe that will spark something in me.Henry: I like Tell Out My Soul. Do you know that one?Lamorna: Oh, [sings] Tell Out My Soul. That's a good one.Henry: If you have a full church and people are really going for it, that can be amazing. I like all the classics. I don't have any unusual choices. Tell Out My Soul, it's a great one. Lamorna Ash, this has been great. Thank you very much.Lamorna: Thank you.Henry: To close, I think you're going to read us a passage from your book.Lamorna: I am.Henry: This is near the end. It's about the Bible.Lamorna: Yes. Thank you so much. This has definitely been my favourite interview.Henry: Oh, good.Lamorna: I really enjoyed it. It's really fun.Henry: Thank you.Lamorna: Yes, this is right near the end. This is when I ended up at a church, St Luke's, West Holloway. It was a very small 9:00 AM service. Whilst the priest who'd stepped in to read because the actual priest had left, was reading, I just kept thinking about all the stories that I'd heard and wondering about the Bible and how the choices behind where it ends, where it ends.I don't think I understand why the Bible ends where it does. The final lines of the book of Revelation are, "He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen." Which does sound like a to-be-continued. I don't mean the Bible feels incomplete because it ends with Revelation. What I mean is, if we have continued to hear God and wrestle with him and his emissaries ever since the first overtures of the Christian faith sounded.Why do we not treat these encounters with the same reverence as the works assembled in the New Testament? Why have we let our holy text grow so antique and untouchable instead of allowing them to expand like a divine Wikipedia updated in perpetuity? That way, each angelic struggle and Damascene conversion that has ever occurred or one day will, would become part of its fabric.In this Borgesian Bible, we would have the Gospel of Mary, not a fictitious biography constructed by a man a century after her death, but her true words. We would have the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza from Acts, but this time given in the first person. We would have descriptions from the Picts on Iona of the Irish Saint Columba appearing in a rowboat over the horizon.We would have the Gospels of those from the early Eastern Orthodox churches, Assyrian Gospels, Syriac Orthodox Gospels. We would have records of the crusades from the Christian soldiers sent out through Europe to Jerusalem in order to massacre those of other faiths, both Muslim and Jewish. In reading these accounts, we would be forced to confront the ways in which scripture can be interpreted

Cancer is among the most common and feared diseases in the modern world. Dr. Selwyn Vickers—president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center—joins host Mark Labberton to discuss how precision oncology, data, and faith are transforming cancer treatment. A distinguished cancer surgeon and pancreatic cancer researcher, Vickers explains how groundbreaking advances in genomics, immunotherapy, and AI are transforming once-lethal diagnoses into survivable and even chronic conditions. Together, they explore not only the cutting-edge science of cancer care but also the spiritual, emotional, and social dimensions that affect every patient and caregiver. Resonating with themes of suffering, hope, and resurrection, this conversation offers clarity, compassion, and courage for all who are affected by cancer—from those newly diagnosed, to medical professionals, to grieving families and curious listeners. Episode Highlights “We're getting to a point where we will, in the next five to seven years, have a much better chance to cure people—and to make pancreatic cancer a chronic illness.” “We are in what's somewhat coined the golden age of cancer research.” “Cancer is a disease that creates an existential threat in ways no other illness does.” “If a tumour forms, it means your body's immune system has made a social contract with the cancer.” “We changed the diagnosis in 10–12 percent of the patients who come to us—sometimes from cancer to no cancer.” “Cancer care is a team sport. And our patients often inspire us more than we help them.” Helpful Links & Resources Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center BioNTech – creators of mRNA vaccines for COVID and cancer CAR T-Cell Therapy Overview (Cancer.gov) Tim Keller on cancer and hope Emma Thompson's Wit (HBO) BRCA1 and BRCA2 Genes and Cancer Risk MSK-IMPACT: Next-Gen Tumor Profiling About Selwyn Vickers Selwyn M. Vickers, MD, FACS, is the president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and the incumbent of the Douglas A. Warner III Chair. He assumed the role on September 19, 2022. Vickers is an internationally recognized pancreatic cancer surgeon, pancreatic cancer researcher, and pioneer in health disparities research. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars. He has served on the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Board of Trustees and the Johns Hopkins University Board of Trustees. Additionally, he has served as president of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and the Southern Surgical Association. Vickers is the immediate past president of the American Surgical Association. He also continues to see patients. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) as an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, where he was later appointed to professor and the John H. Blue Chair of General Surgery. In 2006, Vickers left UAB to become the Jay Phillips Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Born in Demopolis, Alabama, Vickers grew up in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. He earned baccalaureate and medical degrees and completed his surgical training (including a chief residency and surgical oncology fellowship) at the Johns Hopkins University. Vickers completed two postgraduate research fellowships with the National Institutes of Health and international surgical training at John Radcliffe Hospital of Oxford University, England. Vickers and his wife, Janice, who is also from Alabama, have been married since 1988. They have four children. Show Notes The ongoing threat and fear of cancer How Selwyn Vickers got into medicine Pancreatic cancer: Vickers's expertise “We are in what's somewhat coined the golden age of cancer research.” Sequencing the human genome “Is there a drug that might target the mutation that ended up creating your cancer?” Cancer as both a medical and existential diagnosis The revolution of precision oncology through human genome sequencing ”It takes a billion cells to have a one centimetre tumor.” Immunotherapy: checkpoint inhibition, CAR T-cell therapy, and vaccines Cellular therapy:   ”Taking a set of their normal cells and re-engineering them to actually go back and target and attack their tumors. … We've seen patients who had initially a 30 percent chance of survival converted to an 80 percent chance of survival.” “We know in many tumours there's something called minimal residual disease.” “Immunizing yourself against cancer is a significant future opportunity.” Managing the power of data with AI and computational oncology Cancer-care data explosion: the role of computational oncologists Cancer vaccines: breakthrough mRNA treatment for pancreatic cancer ”Didn't ultimately win. We had to suffer through her losing her life, but was so appreciative that she got much more than the six months she was promised.” Tumour misdiagnoses and the importance of specialized expertise Pancreatic cancer challenges: immune cloaking and late-stage detection In the past, one in four would die from the operation for removing pancreatic cancer Long-term survival Future of cancer detection: AI-based medical record analysis and blood biopsies More accurate blood tests to confirm conditions Using AI to select those who are high-risk for cancer Pastor Tim Keller died of pancreatic cancer. In the past, “your doctor … helped you learn how to die.” ”[God's] given man the privilege to discover those things that have been hidden. And over time we've gradually uncovered huge opportunities to impact people's lives.” The state of breast cancer research and treatment “If you get the diagnosis of breast cancer, you have a 90 percent chance to survive and beat it over a five-year period of time.” ”In general, we're in a great state of understanding how to treat breast cancer, how to detect it early, and then have selective and targeted mechanisms to prevent it from coming back.” Prostate cancer research and treatment Theranostics: using a specific antibody to target cancer cells specifically Pediatric cancer:  ”We actually treat more children for cancer than any hospital in America now, but in general, the survival for pediatric cancers is greater than 80 percent.” Emotional, psychological, and spiritual toll of cancer: importance of psycho-oncology How Sloan Kettering developed psycho-oncology to help cancer patients with mental and spiritual health Personal story: how a cafeteria worker empowers patients through food choices “We give back to them the right to choose what they get to have on their tray.” Cancer treatment is a team sport. Wit (film, Broadway play)—actress Emma Thompson plays a cancer patient studying the work of John Donne on death Socioeconomic and racial disparities in cancer care outcomes The healing role of community, support teams, and compassionate listening The importance of listening to cancer patients who are preparing to die The spiritual courage of patients and the transformative power of faith “Our patients often help us. We see the grace with which they often handle that journey.” The inspiration behind becoming a doctor: family legacy and human impact Terminal care: the sacred responsibility of walking with patients to the end Cancer research and treatment as a Christian vocation and expression of humanity Production Credits

Send us a textDescription: An immersive reading of A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne with reflection on medical errors and confession. Website:https://anauscultation.wordpress.comWork:A Hymn to God the Father by John DonneWilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,         Which was my sin, though it were done before?Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,         And do run still, though still I do deplore?                When thou hast done, thou hast not done,                        For I have more.Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won         Others to sin, and made my sin their door?Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun         A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?                When thou hast done, thou hast not done,                        For I have more.I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun         My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son         Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;                And, having done that, thou hast done;                        I fear no more.References:Wu AW. Medical error: the second victim. The doctor who makes the mistake needs help too. BMJ. 2000 Mar 18;320(7237):726-7. doi: 10.1136/bmj.320.7237.726. Finkelstein A, Brezis M, Taub A, Arad D. Disclosure following a medical error: lessons learned from a national initiative of workshops with patients, healthcare teams, and executives. Isr J Health Policy Res. 2024 Mar 11;13(1):13.Rodziewicz TL, Houseman B, Vaqar S, et al. Medical Error Reduction and Prevention. [Updated 2024 Feb 12]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499956/Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2000. PMID: 25077248.

Talking with poet, editor, and literary trickster anon Jasper Ceylon on the art of aesthetic sabotage and poetics in the age of algorithm. From anonymous pen names to deliberate hoaxes published to destabilize the contemporary poetry scene, Jasper dissects the decay of literary standards, using his surreal, very funny and on point fake poetry journal Echolalia, as a critical manifesto serving as both scalpel and mirror. A self-described poetry fan first and foremost, Jasper satirizes the very world he inhabits, exposing identity-first editorial gatekeeping and the global flattening of taste. We talk about the ghost networks of the contemporary (poetry) world, the process in his rebellion; building a complete parallel poetic narrative world to dupe the editors. Instagram poetry and grievance studies, Jasper doesn't pull punches but neither is he cynical. A romantic dissident who wants to save humanity from an algorithm-dominated life of flattening dullness and mediocrity. We go deep on the state of publishing, the cult of identity, AI's role in human (poetic) deadness, on the the fun polarizing Edward De Vere theory of Shakespearean authorship, the disappearance of true literary dissent, and the neoliberal endgame of cultural homeostasis. On men and marginalization, the phobia of criticism in artistic spaces, and the tragedy of becoming cosmopolitan in the most banal sense. On the poetics of evil, on Vanessa Place, the battle between light and dark, the oversupply of menstruation poems and apocalypse. On breaking free of guardrails on the true task of poetry: not to comply, but to break the spell.On Mission And I am conversely just trying to…help people live well, see through some of this programming, make more informed choices, not create infrastructure that isolates people and demoralizes them under the guise of uplifting others. I'm trying to, if anything, onboard people to poetry, but to just get them to think very critically about the practices we currently have in place at this point in time right now.On Being A Poet But.. you just have to understand that as a poet you're gonna fly under the radar for a long while, potentially maybe your whole life. And if you're not cool with that, then become an Instagram poet. But if you wanna do something meaningful and you want to, actually take a serious go at this. You gotta be ready for a lot of disappointment upfront and potentially for the rest of your life.On Poetics of Evil / Vanessa PlaceTo promote evil as the great sort of aesthetic agenda - I would promote the exact opposite… I don't think crucifying people and institutions…under the guise of demonstrating strength is what we're trying to do here, because what is strength, quote unquote in artistic endeavor.Save it for the f*****g battlefield…I think it gets so messy when you take that on as your primary aim, as a creative you're really just a soldier in disguise. And those types can sometimes conceal it very well, but I think they're doing a gross injustice to their fellow man On The Polarizing Debate surrounding Edward De Vere as Shakespeare The De Vere stuff, because no one will listen to me talk about this anytime I try to talk about this in person, to anyone.They give me that same look like they're just mortified. That I would suggest a country bumpkin couldn't write the the most immortal works in our language. But you even post this stuff on 4Chan's lit. board and all that, and they would just melt down over this idea.  What seems more realistic? A highly educated, noted poet of nobility with tons of money and connections to the most famous and let's say, accomplished academics in the London circles like Francis Bacon and stuff like that. It's either that guy doing this or a country bumpkin who can't even sign his own name.Jasper's Post Script Additional Notes and LinksMy scorn for Vanessa Place is limitless. But for those interested in the essay discussed in the interview, and the theories that drive some of the very worst figures in poetry and culture-manipulation, consult the following: https://www.academia.edu/2778740/Radically_Evil_Poetics. And maybe treat yourself to one of Place's wretched Yoko Ono-esque conceptual art performance pieces while you're at it.But for a more entertaining diversion re: Shakespeare, avail yourself to some of Alexander Waugh's YouTube content on Edward de Vere (there's a lot of it).For a short-hand summary of the de Vere case, see: https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/top-reasons-why-edward-de-vere-17th-earl-of-oxford-was-shakespeare/. And for a supremely autistic (schizophrenic, maybe?) look at some of the finer details underlying the conspiracy, you might watch something like the following video: Henrie IX: Shakespeare, Edward de Vere, and Henry WriothesleyIn some ways, the potential "easter eggs" of this theory and de Vere's hidden lines in the sonnets and such inspired the ones I hid within Echolalia Review that are waiting to be discovered. Lastly, I cited John Donne at one point as being involved in the Rosicrucian collaborative aspect of the theory (along with Bacon and Marlowe), but I meant John Dee.Pick up a copy of: Echolaliapere ube pressJasper Ceylon SubstackJasper Ceyon BiographyEqual parts “Ezra Pound if he were a Discord user” and 21st-century Ern Malley, Jasper Ceylon takes inspiration from the titans of English-language poetry, as well as its great satirists and provocateurs. As a poet, he's been published extensively in magazines worldwide under his own name and many pen names, including “Adele Nwankwo,” “B. H. Fein,” and “Dirt Hogg Sauvage Respectfully.” He's the author of Pere Ube's literary cherry bomb/megaton nuke, "Echolalia Review: An Anti-Poetry Collection," but he's also been traditionally published as a novelist and critic. Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

Throughout Lent, we've been releasing weekly episodes focused on spiritual practices.In the final episode of the series, this Holy Week we're considering the discipline of waiting: how we can prepare ourselves to receive good news. Our guide today is N.T. Wright, the Anglican Bishop and New Testament scholar. He describes how Jesus invited his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel's ancient story of waiting, the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment, and its meaning for us in this in-between time of preparation to receive good news: "The ultimate life after death is not a platonic disembodied immortality, but resurrection life in God‘s new creation. And that new world began when Jesus came out of the tomb on Easter morning. That's the good news. Something happened then as a result of which the world is a different place. And we are summoned, not just to enjoy its benefits, but to take up our own vocations as new creation people, as spirit-filled and spirit-led Jesus followers, bringing his kingdom into reality in our world."We hope that this conversation will help you as you wait and prepare to receive this good news.The podcast is drawn from an evening conversation we hosted back in 2016. You can find our shownotes and much more at ttf.org. Thank you for journeying with us through Lent. Learn more about N.T. Wright. Watch The Good News and the Good Life, with N.T. Wright and Richard Hayes. Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Who is this Man? by John Ortberg Related Trinity Forum Readings:Devotions by John Donne and paraphrased by Philip YanceyThe Confessions of St. Augustine by Augustine of Hippo, Introduced by James K.A. SmithPilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie DillardPilgrim's Progress by John BunyanGod's Grandeur: The Poems of Gerard Manley HopkinsA Spiritual Pilgrimage by Malcolm Muggeridge Related Conversations:Liturgy of the Ordinary in Extraordinary Times with Tish Harrison WarrenCaring for Words in a Culture of Lies with Marilyn McEntyreInvitation to Solitude and Silence with Ruth Haley BartonOn the Road with Saint Augustine with James K.A. Smith and Elizabeth BruenigThe Habit Podcast, Episode 26: Tish Harrison Warren with Doug McKelveyThe Spiritual Practice of Remembering with Margaret Bendroth To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org, and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, visit ttf.org/join.

It's a small world. The great David Rieff came to my San Francisco studio today for in person interview about his new anti-woke polemic Desire and Fate. And half way through our conversation, he brought up Daniel Bessner's This Is America piece which Bessner discussed on yesterday's show. I'm not sure what that tells us about wokeness, a subject which Rieff and I aren't in agreement. For him, it's the thing-in-itself which make sense of our current cultural malaise. Thus Desire and Fate, his attempt (with a great intro from John Banville) to wake us up from Wokeness. For me, it's a distraction. I've included the full transcript below. Lots of good stuff to chew on. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. 5 KEY TAKEAWAYS * Rieff views "woke" ideology as primarily American and post-Protestant in nature, rather than stemming solely from French philosophy, emphasizing its connections to self-invention and subjective identity.* He argues that woke culture threatens high culture but not capitalism, noting that corporations have readily embraced a "baudlerized" version of identity politics that avoids class discussions.* Rieff sees woke culture as connected to the wellness movement, with both sharing a preoccupation with "psychic safety" and the metaphorical transformation of experience in which "words” become a form of “violence."* He suggests young people's material insecurity contributes to their focus on identity, as those facing bleak economic prospects turn inward when they "can't make their way in the world."* Rieff characterizes woke ideology as "apocalyptic but not pessimistic," contrasting it with his own genuine pessimism which he considers more realistic about human nature and more cheerful in its acceptance of life's limitations. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, as we digest Trump 2.0, we don't talk that much these days about woke and woke ideology. There was a civil war amongst progressives, I think, on the woke front in 2023 and 2024, but with Donald Trump 2.0 and his various escapades, let's just talk these days about woke. We have a new book, however, on the threat of woke by my guest, David Rieff. It's called Desire and Fate. He wrote it in 2023, came out in late 2024. David's visiting the Bay Area. He's an itinerant man traveling from the East Coast to Latin America and Europe. David, welcome to Keen on America. Do you regret writing this book given what's happened in the last few months in the United States?David Rieff: No, not at all, because I think that the road to moral and intellectual hell is trying to censor yourself according to what you think is useful. There's a famous story of Jean Paul Sartre that he said to the stupefaction of a journalist late in his life that he'd always known about the gulag, and the journalist pretty surprised said, well, why didn't you say anything? And Sartre said so as not to demoralize the French working class. And my own view is, you know, you say what you have to say about this and if I give some aid and comfort to people I don't like, well, so be it. Having said that, I also think a lot of these woke ideas have their, for all of Trump's and Trump's people's fierce opposition to woke, some of the identity politics, particularly around Jewish identity seems to me not that very different from woke. Strangely they seem to have taken, for example, there's a lot of the talk about anti-semitism on college campuses involves student safety which is a great woke trope that you feel unsafe and what people mean by that is not literally they're going to get shot or beaten up, they mean that they feel psychically unsafe. It's part of the kind of metaphorization of experience that unfortunately the United States is now completely in the grips of. But the same thing on the other side, people like Barry Weiss, for example, at the Free Press there, they talk in the same language of psychic safety. So I'm not sure there's, I think there are more similarities than either side is comfortable with.Andrew Keen: You describe Woke, David, as a cultural revolution and you associated in the beginning of the book with something called Lumpen-Rousseauism. As we joked before we went live, I'm not sure if there's anything in Rousseau which isn't Lumpen. But what exactly is this cultural revolution? And can we blame it on bad French philosophy or Swiss French?David Rieff: Well, Swiss-French philosophy, you know exactly. There is a funny anecdote, as I'm sure you know, that Rousseau made a visit to Edinburgh to see Hume and there's something in Hume's diaries where he talks about Rousseau pacing up and down in front of the fire and suddenly exclaiming, but David Hume is not a bad man. And Hume notes in his acerbic way, Rousseau was like walking around without his skin on. And I think some of the woke sensitivity stuff is very much people walking around without their skin on. They can't stand the idea of being offended. I don't see it as much - of course, the influence of that version of cultural relativism that the French like Deleuze and Guattari and other people put forward is part of the story, but I actually see it as much more of a post-Protestant thing. This idea, in that sense, some kind of strange combination of maybe some French philosophy, but also of the wellness movement, of this notion that health, including psychic health, was the ultimate good in a secular society. And then the other part, which again, it seems to be more American than French, which is this idea, and this is particularly true in the trans movement, that you can be anything you want to be. And so that if you feel yourself to be a different gender, well, that's who you are. And what matters is your own subjective sense of these things, and it's up to you. The outside world has no say in it, it's what you feel. And that in a sense, what I mean by post-Protestant is that, I mean, what's the difference between Protestantism and Catholicism? The fundamental difference is, it seems to me, that in Roman Catholic tradition, you need the priest to intercede with God, whereas in Protestant tradition, it is, except for the Anglicans, but for most of Protestantism, it's you and God. And in that sense it seems to me there are more of what I see in woke than this notion that some of the right-wing people like Chris Rufo and others have that this is cultural French cultural Marxism making its insidious way through the institutions.Andrew Keen: It's interesting you talk about the Protestant ethic and you mentioned Hume's remark about Rousseau not having his skin on. Do you think that Protestantism enabled people to grow thick skins?David Rieff: I mean, the Calvinist idea certainly did. In fact, there were all these ideas in Protestant culture, at least that's the classical interpretation of deferred gratification. Capitalism was supposed to be the work ethic, all of that stuff that Weber talks about. But I think it got in the modern version. It became something else. It stopped being about those forms of disciplines and started to be about self-invention. And in a sense, there's something very American about that because after all you know it's the Great Gatsby. It's what's the famous sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's: there are no second acts in American lives.Andrew Keen: This is the most incorrect thing anyone's ever said about America. I'm not sure if he meant it to be incorrect, did he? I don't know.David Rieff: I think what's true is that you get the American idea, you get to reinvent yourself. And this notion of the dream, the dream become reality. And many years ago when I was spending a lot of time in LA in the late 80s, early 90s, at LAX, there was a sign from the then mayor, Tom Bradley, about how, you know, if you can dream it, it can be true. And I think there's a lot in identitarian woke idea which is that we can - we're not constricted by history or reality. In fact, it's all the present and the future. And so to me again, woke seems to me much more recognizable as something American and by extension post-Protestant in the sense that you see the places where woke is most powerful are in the other, what the encampment kids would call settler colonies, Australia and Canada. And now in the UK of course, where it seems to me by DI or EDI as they call it over there is in many ways stronger in Britain even than it was in the US before Trump.Andrew Keen: Does it really matter though, David? I mean, that's my question. Does it matter? I mean it might matter if you have the good or the bad fortune to teach at a small, expensive liberal arts college. It might matter with some of your dinner parties in Tribeca or here in San Francisco, but for most people, who cares?David Rieff: It doesn't matter. I think it matters to culture and so what you think culture is worth, because a lot of the point of this book was to say there's nothing about woke that threatens capitalism, that threatens the neo-liberal order. I mean it's turning out that Donald Trump is a great deal bigger threat to the neoliberal order. Woke was to the contrary - woke is about talking about everything but class. And so a kind of baudlerized, de-radicalized version of woke became perfectly fine with corporate America. That's why this wonderful old line hard lefty Adolph Reed Jr. says somewhere that woke is about diversifying the ruling class. But I do think it's a threat to high culture because it's about equity. It's about representation. And so elite culture, which I have no shame in proclaiming my loyalty to, can't survive the woke onslaught. And it hasn't, in my view. If you look at just the kinds of books that are being written, the kinds of plays that are been put on, even the opera, the new operas that are being commissioned, they're all about representing the marginalized. They're about speaking for your group, whatever that group is, and doing away with various forms of cultural hierarchy. And I'm with Schoenberg: if it's for everybody, if it's art, Schoenberg said it's not for everybody, and if it's for everybody it's not art. And I think woke destroys that. Woke can live with schlock. I'm sorry, high culture can live with schlock, it always has, it always will. What it can't live with is kitsch. And by which I mean kitsch in Milan Kundera's definition, which is to have opinions that you feel better about yourself for holding. And that I think is inimical to culture. And I think woke is very destructive of those traditions. I mean, in the most obvious sense, it's destructive of the Western tradition, but you know, the high arts in places like Japan or Bengal, I don't think it's any more sympathetic to those things than it is to Shakespeare or John Donne or whatever. So yeah, I think it's a danger in that sense. Is it a danger to the peace of the world? No, of course not.Andrew Keen: Even in cultural terms, as you explain, it is an orthodoxy. If you want to work with the dominant cultural institutions, the newspapers, the universities, the publishing houses, you have to play by those rules, but the great artists, poets, filmmakers, musicians have never done that, so all it provides, I mean you brought up Kundera, all it provides is something that independent artists, creative people will sneer at, will make fun of, as you have in this new book.David Rieff: Well, I hope they'll make fun of it. But on the other hand, I'm an old guy who has the means to sneer. I don't have to please an editor. Someone will publish my books one way or another, whatever ones I have left to write. But if you're 25 years old, maybe you're going to sneer with your pals in the pub, but you're gonna have to toe the line if you want to be published in whatever the obvious mainstream place is and you're going to be attacked on social media. I think a lot of people who are very, young people who are skeptical of this are just so afraid of being attacked by their peers on various social media that they keep quiet. I don't know that it's true that, I'd sort of push back on that. I think non-conformists will out. I hope it's true. But I wonder, I mean, these traditions, once they die, they're very hard to rebuild. And, without going full T.S. Eliot on you, once you don't think you're part of the past, once the idea is that basically, pretty much anything that came before our modern contemporary sense of morality and fairness and right opinion is to be rejected and that, for example, the moral character of the artist should determine whether or not the art should be paid attention to - I don't know how you come back from that or if you come back from that. I'm not convinced you do. No, other arts will be around. And I mean, if I were writing a critical review of my own book, I'd say, look, this culture, this high culture that you, David Rieff, are writing an elegy for, eulogizing or memorializing was going to die anyway, and we're at the beginning of another Gutenbergian epoch, just as Gutenberg, we're sort of 20 years into Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg galaxy, and these other art forms will come, and they won't be like anything else. And that may be true.Andrew Keen: True, it may be true. In a sense then, to extend that critique, are you going full T.S. Eliot in this book?David Rieff: Yeah, I think Eliot was right. But it's not just Eliot, there are people who would be for the wokesters more acceptable like Mandelstam, for example, who said you're part of a conversation that's been going on long before you were born, that's going to be going on after you are, and I think that's what art is. I think the idea that we make some completely new thing is a childish fantasy. I think you belong to a tradition. There are periods - look, this is, I don't find much writing in English in prose fiction very interesting. I have to say I read the books that people talk about because I'm trying to understand what's going on but it doesn't interest me very much, but again, there have been periods of great mediocrity. Think of a period in the late 17th century in England when probably the best poet was this completely, rightly, justifiably forgotten figure, Colley Cibber. You had the great restoration period and then it all collapsed, so maybe it'll be that way. And also, as I say, maybe it's just as with the print revolution, that this new culture of social media will produce completely different forms. I mean, everything is mortal, not just us, but cultures and civilizations and all the rest of it. So I can imagine that, but this is the time I live in and the tradition I come from and I'm sorry it's gone, and I think what's replacing it is for the most part worse.Andrew Keen: You're critical in the book of what you, I'm quoting here, you talk about going from the grand inquisitor to the grand therapist. But you're very critical of the broader American therapeutic culture of acute sensitivity, the thin skin nature of, I guess, the Rousseau in this, whatever, it's lumpen Rousseauanism. So how do you interpret that without psychologizing, or are you psychologizing in the book? How are you making sense of our condition? In other words, can one critique criticize therapeutic culture without becoming oneself therapeutic?David Rieff: You mean the sort of Pogo line, we've met the enemy and it is us. Well, I suppose there's some truth to that. I don't know how much. I think that woke is in some important sense a subset of the wellness movement. And the wellness movement after all has tens and tens of millions of people who are in one sense or another influenced by it. And I think health, including psychic health, and we've moved from wellness as corporal health to wellness as being both soma and psyche. So, I mean, if that's psychologizing, I certainly think it's drawing the parallel or seeing woke in some ways as one of the children of the god of wellness. And that to me, I don't know how therapeutic that is. I think it's just that once you feel, I'm interested in what people feel. I'm not necessarily so interested in, I mean, I've got lots of opinions, but what I think I'm better at than having opinions is trying to understand why people think what they think. And I do think that once health becomes the ultimate good in a secular society and once death becomes the absolutely unacceptable other, and once you have the idea that there's no real distinction of any great validity between psychic and physical wellness, well then of course sensitivity to everything becomes almost an inevitable reaction.Andrew Keen: I was reading the book and I've been thinking about a lot of movements in America which are trying to bring people together, dealing with America, this divided America, as if it's a marriage in crisis. So some of the most effective or interesting, I think, thinkers on this, like Arlie Hochschild in Berkeley, use the language of therapy to bring or to try to bring America back together, even groups like the Braver Angels. Can therapy have any value or that therapeutic culture in a place like America where people are so bitterly divided, so hateful towards one another?David Rieff: Well, it's always been a country where, on the one hand, people have been, as you say, incredibly good at hatred and also a country of people who often construe themselves as misfits and heretics from the Puritans forward. And on the other hand, you have that small-town American idea, which sometimes I think is as important to woke and DI as as anything else which is that famous saying of small town America of all those years ago which was if you don't have something nice to say don't say anything at all. And to some extent that is, I think, a very powerful ancestor of these movements. Whether they're making any headway - of course I hope they are, but Hochschild is a very interesting figure, but I don't, it seems to me it's going all the other way, that people are increasingly only talking to each other.Andrew Keen: What this movement seems to want to do is get beyond - I use this word carefully, I'm not sure if they use it but I'm going to use it - ideology and that we're all prisoners of ideology. Is woke ideology or is it a kind of post-ideology?David Rieff: Well, it's a redemptive idea, a restorative idea. It's an idea that in that sense, there's a notion that it's time for the victims, for the first to be last and the last to be first. I mean, on some level, it is as simple as that. On another level, as I say, I do think it has a lot to do with metaphorization of experience, that people say silence is violence and words are violence and at that point what's violence? I mean there is a kind of level to me where people have gotten trapped in the kind of web of their own metaphors and now are living by them or living shackled to them or whatever image you're hoping for. But I don't know what it means to get beyond ideology. What, all men will be brothers, as in the Beethoven-Schiller symphony? I mean, it doesn't seem like that's the way things are going.Andrew Keen: Is the problem then, and I'm thinking out loud here, is the problem politics or not enough politics?David Rieff: Oh, I think the problem is that now we don't know, we've decided that everything is part, the personal is the political, as the feminists said, 50, 60 years ago. So the personal's political, so the political is the personal. So you have to live the exemplary moral life, or at least the life that doesn't offend anybody or that conforms to whatever the dominant views of what good opinions are, right opinions are. I think what we're in right now is much more the realm of kind of a new set of moral codes, much more than ideology in the kind of discrete sense of politics.Andrew Keen: Now let's come back to this idea of being thin-skinned. Why are people so thin-skinned?David Rieff: Because, I mean, there are lots of things to say about that. One thing, of course, that might be worth saying, is that the young generations, people who are between, let's say, 15 and 30, they're in real material trouble. It's gonna be very hard for them to own a house. It's hard for them to be independent and unless the baby boomers like myself will just transfer every penny to them, which doesn't seem very likely frankly, they're going to live considerably worse than generations before. So if you can't make your way in the world then maybe you make your way yourself or you work on yourself in that sort of therapeutic sense. You worry about your own identity because the only place you have in the world in some way is yourself, is that work, that obsession. I do think some of these material questions are important. There's a guy you may know who's not at all woke, a guy who teaches at the University of Washington called Danny Bessner. And I just did a show with him this morning. He's a smart guy and we have a kind of ironic correspondence over email and DM. And I once said to him, why are you so bitter about everything? And he said, you want to know why? Because I have two children and the likelihood is I'll never get a teaching job that won't require a three hour commute in order for me to live anywhere that I can afford to live. And I thought, and he couldn't be further from woke, he's a kind of Jacobin guy, Jacobin Magazine guy, and if he's left at all, it's kind of old left, but I think a lot of people feel that, that they feel their practical future, it looks pretty grim.Andrew Keen: But David, coming back to the idea of art, they're all suited to the world of art. They don't have to buy a big house and live in the suburbs. They can become poets. They can become filmmakers. They can put their stuff up on YouTube. They can record their music online. There are so many possibilities.David Rieff: It's hard to monetize that. Maybe now you're beginning to sound like the people you don't like. Now you're getting to sound like a capitalist.Andrew Keen: So what? Well, I don't care if I sound like a capitalist. You're not going to starve to death.David Rieff: Well, you might not like, I mean, it's fine to be a barista at 24. It's not so fine at 44. And are these people going to ever get out of this thing? I don't know. I wonder. Look, when I was starting as a writer, as long as you were incredibly diligent, and worked really hard, you could cobble together at least a basic living by accepting every assignment and people paid you bits and bobs of money, but put together, you could make a living. Now, the only way to make money, unless you're lucky enough to be on staff of a few remaining media outlets that remain, is you have to become an impresario, you have become an entrepreneur of your own stuff. And again, sure, do lots of people manage that? Yeah, but not as many as could have worked in that other system, and look at the fate of most newspapers, all folding. Look at the universities. We can talk about woke and how woke destroyed, in my view anyway, a lot of the humanities. But there's also a level in which people didn't want to study these things. So we're looking at the last generation in a lot places of a lot of these humanities departments and not just the ones that are associated with, I don't know, white supremacy or the white male past or whatever, but just the humanities full stop. So I know if that sounds like, maybe it sounds like a capitalist, but maybe it also sounds like you know there was a time when the poets - you know very well, poets never made a living, poets taught in universities. That's the way American poets made their money, including pretty famous poets like Eric Wolcott or Joseph Brodsky or writers, Toni Morrison taught at Princeton all those years, Joyce Carol Oates still alive, she still does. Most of these people couldn't make a living of their work and so the university provided that living.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Barry Weiss earlier. She's making a fortune as an anti-woke journalist. And Free Press seems to be thriving. Yascha Mounk's Persuasion is doing pretty well. Andrew Sullivan, another good example, making a fortune off of Substack. It seems as if the people willing to take risks, Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times, Andrew Sullivan leaving everything he's ever joined - that's...David Rieff: Look, are there going to be people who thrive in this new environment? Sure. And Barry Weiss turns out to be this kind of genius entrepreneur. She deserves full credit for that. Although even Barry Weiss, the paradox for me of Barry Weiss is, a lot of her early activism was saying that she felt unsafe with these anti-Israeli teachers at Columbia. So in a sense, she was using some of the same language as the woke use, psychic safety, because she didn't mean Joseph Massad was gonna come out from the blackboard and shoot her in the eye. She meant that she was offended and used the language of safety to describe that. And so in that sense, again, as I was saying to you earlier, I think there are more similarities here. And Trump, I think this is a genuine counterrevolution that Trump is trying to mount. I'm not very interested in the fascism, non-fascism debate. I'm rather skeptical of it.Andrew Keen: As Danny Bessner is. Yeah, I thought Danny's piece about that was brilliant.David Rieff: We just did a show about it today, that piece about why that's all rubbish. I was tempted, I wrote to a friend that guy you may know David Bell teaches French history -Andrew Keen: He's coming on the show next week. Well, you see, it's just a little community of like-minded people.David Rieff: There you go. Well, I wrote to David.Andrew Keen: And you mentioned his father in the book, Daniel.David Rieff: Yeah, well, his father is sort of one of the tutelary idols of the book. I had his father and I read his father and I learned an enormous amount. I think that book about the cultural contradictions of capitalism is one of the great prescient books about our times. But I wrote to David, I said, I actually sent him the Bessner piece which he was quite ambivalent about. But I said well, I'm not really convinced by the fascism of Trump, maybe just because Hitler read books, unlike Donald Trump. But it's a genuine counterrevolution. And what element will change the landscape in terms of DI and woke and identitarianism is not clear. These people are incredibly ambitious. They really mean to change this country, transform it.Andrew Keen: But from the book, David, Trump's attempts to cleanse, if that's the right word, the university, I would have thought you'd have rather admired that, all these-David Rieff: I agree with some of it.Andrew Keen: All these idiots writing the same article for 30 years about something that no one has any interest in.David Rieff: I look, my problem with Trump is that I do support a lot of that. I think some of the stuff that Christopher Rufo, one of the leading ideologues of this administration has uncovered about university programs and all of this crap, I think it's great that they're not paying for it anymore. The trouble is - you asked me before, is it that important? Is culture important compared to destroying the NATO alliance, blowing up the global trade regime? No. I don't think. So yeah, I like a lot of what they're doing about the university, I don't like, and I am very fiercely opposed to this crackdown on speech. That seems to be grotesque and revolting, but are they canceling supporting transgender theater in Galway? Yeah, I think it's great that they're canceling all that stuff. And so I'm not, that's my problem with Trump, is that some of that stuff I'm quite unashamedly happy about, but it's not nearly worth all the damage he's doing to this country and the world.Andrew Keen: Being very generous with your time, David. Finally, in the book you describe woke as, and I thought this was a very sharp way of describing it, describe it as being apocalyptic but not pessimistic. What did you mean by that? And then what is the opposite of woke? Would it be not apocalyptic, but cheerful?David Rieff: Well, I think genuine pessimists are cheerful, I would put myself among those. The model is Samuel Beckett, who just thinks things are so horrible that why not be cheerful about them, and even express one's pessimism in a relatively cheerful way. You remember the famous story that Thomas McCarthy used to tell about walking in the Luxembourg Gardens with Beckett and McCarthy says to him, great day, it's such a beautiful day, Sam. Beckett says, yeah, beautiful day. McCarthy says, makes you glad to be alive. And Beckett said, oh, I wouldn't go that far. And so, the genuine pessimist is quite cheerful. But coming back to woke, it's apocalyptic in the sense that everything is always at stake. But somehow it's also got this reformist idea that cultural revolution will cleanse away the sins of the supremacist patriarchal past and we'll head for the sunny uplands. I think I'm much too much of a pessimist to think that's possible in any regime, let alone this rather primitive cultural revolution called woke.Andrew Keen: But what would the opposite be?David Rieff: The opposite would be probably some sense that the best we're going to do is make our peace with the trash nature of existence, that life is finite in contrast with the wellness people who probably have a tendency towards the apocalyptic because death is an insult to them. So everything is staving off the bad news and that's where you get this idea that you can, like a lot of revolutions, you can change the nature of people. Look, the communist, Che Guevara talked about the new man. Well, I wonder if he thought it was so new when he was in Bolivia. I think these are - people need utopias, this is one of them, MAGA is another utopia by the way, and people don't seem to be able to do without them and that's - I wish it were otherwise but it isn't.Andrew Keen: I'm guessing the woke people would be offended by the idea of death, are they?David Rieff: Well, I think the woke people, in this synchronicity, people and a lot of people, they're insulted - how can this happen to me, wonderful me? And this is those jokes in the old days when the British could still be savage before they had to have, you know, Henry the Fifth be played by a black actor - why me? Well, why not you? That's just so alien to and it's probably alien to the American idea. You're supposed to - it's supposed to work out and the truth is it doesn't work out. But La Rochefoucauld says somewhere no one can stare for too long at death or the sun and maybe I'm asking too much.Andrew Keen: Maybe only Americans can find death unacceptable to use one of your words.David Rieff: Yes, perhaps.Andrew Keen: Well, David Rieff, congratulations on the new book. Fascinating, troubling, controversial as always. Desire and Fate. I know you're writing a book about Oppenheimer, very different kind of subject. We'll get you back on the show to talk Oppenheimer, where I guess there's not going to be a lot of Lumpen-Rousseauism.David Rieff: Very little, very little love and Rousseau in the quantum mechanics world, but thanks for having me.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Evening Prayer for Monday, March 31, 2025 (The Fourth Sunday in Lent; John Donne, Priest and Poet, 1631).Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter):Psalm 77Proverbs 291 Timothy 3Learn more about Beeson Divinity School online.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to support The Daily Office Podcast with a one-time gift or a recurring donation.

Morning Prayer for Monday, March 31, 2025 (The Fourth Sunday in Lent; John Donne, Priest and Poet, 1631).Psalm and Scripture readings (60-day Psalter):Psalm 74Exodus 38:1-23Mark 1:14-31Learn more about Beeson Divinity School online.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to access the text for the Daily Office at DailyOffice2019.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to support The Daily Office Podcast with a one-time gift or a recurring donation.

We’ve been doing these shows where we don’t book any guests, where we fill the hour with your calls. And your calls have been interesting and surprising and amusing. This hour, the conversation winds around to Sen. Chris Murphy’s New Yorker interview, Stephen Graham and Adolescence and A Thousand Blows, whether John Donne and William Shakespeare knew each other, whether you should root for blowouts, the novel Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay … Anything. (Seemingly) everything. These shows are fun for us, and they seem to be fun for you, too. So we did another one. You can now watch our calls shows on Connecticut Public’s YouTube. Subscribe and get notified when we go live. Or join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Colin McEnroe, Megan Fitzgerald, and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's The Fourth Monday in Lent in the Church Calendar. We are celebrating the life of John Donne, Priest, 1631. March 31, 2025.Praying today with Suzanne in Amherst, TX for Connie.Our general order and lectionary come from the Book of Common Prayer Daily Office.Today's song: I Am Your Beloved (Brandon Lake, Jonathan David Helser)Psalm 16:5-11John Donne's Holy Sonnet “Batter my heart, three-person'd God”Playlist of songs from Morning Prayer.If you have a prayer request please ⁠submit it here⁠. Sign up ⁠here⁠ for the email list.Morning Prayer and Worship is a production of Steady Stream Ministries, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization. Thank you for your support. ⁠You can go here to find out more⁠.Get an ad-free feed of the podcast with a monthly contribution of any amount!⁠Join our Facebook group here!⁠Photo by Suzy Hazelwood.Collect of the DayJohn Donne, Priest, 1631, Rite TwoAlmighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open our eyes to see, with your servant John Donne, that whatever has any being is a mirror in which we may behold you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person'd GodBy John DonneBatter my heart, three-person'd God, for youAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bendYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.I, like an usurp'd town to another due,Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,But am betroth'd unto your enemy;Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,Take me to you, imprison me, for I,Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Vom Forschergeist zum Forschungsobjekt – Vivian Bearings Konfrontation mit der Endlichkeit Vivian Bearing, 50, ist leidenschaftliche Professorin für Lyrik des 17. Jahrhunderts. Ihr Forscherleben hat sie ganz den metaphysischen Geistigen Sonetten von John Donne gewidmet. Bei einer Routineuntersuchung erfährt sie plötzlich, dass sie todkrank ist: metastasierender Ovarial-Tumor Stadium IV, fortgeschrittener Eierstockkrebs. Eine Überlebenschance sieht ihr Arzt nur, wenn sie sich einer neuartigen radikal-aggressiven Chemotherapie unterwirft. Die souveräne Forscherin willigt ein, wissend, dass sie damit selbst zum Forschungsobjekt der Mediziner wird. Sie muss sich nun mit einem für sie neuen Thema, nämlich dem des eigenen Todes, auseinandersetzen, einem Begriff, der für sie bisher nur als literarische Metapher von Bedeutung war. Energisch kämpft sie mit den Mitteln der Philologie gegen das klinische Einschüchterungsvokabular. Autorin: Margaret Edson Besetzung: Nicole Heesters (Vivian Bearing), Céline Vogt (Vivian/Kind), Horst Mendroch (Harvey Kelekian), Christoph Eichhorn (Jason Posner), Jacqueline Macauley (Susan Monahan), Christa Strobel (E. M. Ashford), Bernt Hahn (Mr. Bearing), Marcus Vick (Labortechniker 1/Assistenzarzt 1), Martin Päthel (Labortechniker 2), Petra Kalkutschke (Assistenzärztin), Uwe Kosubek (Student), Markus Kiefer (Mitglied des Notfallteams), Patrick Schnicke (Mitglied des Notfallteams), Dimitrios Tellis (Mitglied des Notfallteams), Peter Schwab (Notfallteamleiter), Claudia Holzapfel, Markus Kiefer, Peter Schwab Übersetzung: Frank Heibert Bearbeitung und Regie: Claudia Johanna Leist Technische Realisierung: Gertrudt Melcher, Anne Effertz Regieassistenz: Maidon Bader Redaktion: Thilo Guschas Produktion: Westdeutscher Rundfunk / Norddeutscher Rundfunk 2000

Father Paul tells the story of a poet and a preacher with a licentious past whose incredible command of language made him one of England’s greatest preachers.

Some of us have heard the names of 17th-century poets like George Herbert, John Donne, and John Milton. But did you know that John Bunyan also wrote poems? And that there were many female poets too? Join Trinity, Mina, and Sean as they discuss these poets and their exciting lives with Dr. David Parry, Tutorial Fellow in English at Regent's Park College in Oxford, England.   Show Notes If you'd like to find out more about the poets Dr. Parry mentioned in this episode, here are their names: John Milton, John Bunyan, George Herbert, John Donne, Lucy Hutchinson, Mary Sydney. "Upon a Snail" by John Bunyan https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/upon-the-snail Some articles by Simonetta Carr about some of the authors mentioned: Lucy Hutchison https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/lucy-hutchinson-%E2%80%93-puritan-woman-changing-times John Donne https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/john-donne-poet-of-grace-and-comfort George Herbert https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/george-herbert-pastor-and-poet

We're back at The Tabernacle in March with another fantastic line-up of speakers! Join us for an inspiring evening of storytelling. Katherine Rundell is a fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, and a contributing editor at the LRB. Her novels for children have won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Costa Children's Book Award, among many others. Her books for adults include Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, and Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

In the first episode of our weekly Lenten series, we invite you to take a moment to slow down, quiet your heart, and hear what God may be saying to you. Throughout the season of Lent, we'll be releasing weekly episodes focused on themes of reflection, prayer, and contemplation.On March 19, 2021 we were delighted to host Christian author, leader, and teacher, Ruth Haley Barton. Barton is founding President/CEO of the Transforming Center, a ministry dedicated to strengthening the souls of Christian leaders and the congregations and organizations they serve. Ruth is the author of numerous books and resources on the spiritual life, including Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Sacred Rhythms. She reflects regularly on spirituality and leadership in her blog, Beyond Words, and on her podcast Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership.We hope you enjoy this conversation around her book, Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence. Our attention, Barton believes, has become a commodity that we must protect if we are to avoid being swept away by our distracted age. She invites listeners to engage in these ancient biblical practices to find the rest for our souls that Jesus promises. In this Lenten season, we hope this will inspire you to pursue God's transforming presence in new ways and contemplatively sit in solitude and silence with the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Learn more about Ruth Haley Barton. Watch the full Online Conversation and read the transcript from March 19, 2021. Related reading:A Shocking Lack of Solitude, Cherie Harder Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Blaise PascalJohn MiltonC.S. LewisRichard RohrDallas WillardHenry NouwenShop Class as Soulcraft, by Matthew B. CrawfordRabbi Abraham Joshua HeschelJulian of NorwichInvitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God's Transforming Presence, by Ruth Haley Barton Related Trinity Forum Readings:Confessions | A Trinity Forum Reading by St. Augustine, introduced by James K.A. Smith.Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | A Trinity Forum Reading by Annie Dillard, introduced by Tish Harrison Warren.Devotions | A Trinity Forum Reading by John Donne, introduced and paraphrased by Philip Yancey.The Long Loneliness | A Trinity Forum Reading by Dorothy Day, introduced by Anne and David Brooks.Wrestling with God | A Trinity Forum Reading by Simone Weil, introduced by Alonzo McDonald.The Pilgrim's Progress | A Trinity Forum Reading by John Bunyan, introduced by Alonzo McDonald.

This week we have an extra special episode, researched and presented by the birthday girl, Pamela Loetterle.We are talking all about Dr John Donne. Born a Catholic and a child genius, we follow his career, love-life and eventual conversion (by Royal Decree) to become the most famous Anglican preacher of his day......who also liked to write saucy poetry.Far more than just the bloke who wrote; 'For whom the bell tolls', Dr Donne was a man who found a way to get to where he wanted to be. Even if he was occasionally a bit of a goth/emo about things.Guest Presenter: Pamela Loetterle Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sara Bergmark Elfgren och Kristoffer Leandoer gäster Lundströms Bokradio för att bokcirkla om fantasyromanen Omöjliga varelser av Katherine Rundell. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. I fantasyromanen Omöjliga varelser färdas vi till en hemlig värld befolkad av magiska varelser och mytologiska väsen. Platsen kallas Arkipelagen och består av en mängd små öar i Nordatlanten. Vi tar oss dit tillsammans med en pojke i tolvårsåldern, Christopher, som i Arkipelagen möter en jämnårig flicka, Mal, som kan flyga. Deras uppdrag i denna ungdomsroman blir att rädda världen.Omöjliga varelser är skriven av Katherine Rundell, född 1987, som rönt stora internationella framgångar som författare. Hon doktorerade på 1600-talspoeten John Donne vid Oxford men skriver nu på heltid och bor i London. Omöjliga varelser är den första delen av tre i samma bokserie.Författaren och dramatikern Sara Bergmark Elfgren och författaren och kritikern Kristoffer Leandoer har läst Omöjliga varelser och samtalar med Marie Lundström. Omöjliga varelser är översätt till svenska av Fredrika Spindler.Skriv till oss! bokradio@sverigesradio.seProgramledare: Marie LundströmProducent: Andreas Magnell

English poet John Donne once wrote, "no man is an island." His point? None of us go through this life alone. No matter where we turn in life, we bump into other people. As husbands and fathers, our most important relationships involve the people under our own roof. Those are the connections we need to strengthen as we continue to move into this year. In today's episode, we'll explore ways we can rely on God's strength to be the relational leaders we are called to be. Buy Kent's new book Don't Bench Yourself here: Don't Bench Yourself on Amazon  Support the show and upgrade your fatherhood swag. Shop Range Leather and get 15% OFF with code MJ15

A thank you to my listeners, all over the world, on our 200th episode. The thematic spectrum of Donne's love poetry, continued. Moods of skepticism (“Go and catch a falling star”), hatred (“The Apparition”) and requited sexual and romantic love (“The Good Morrow,” “The Sun Rising,” “The Canonization”).

Donne's are arguably the greatest love poems in English after Shakespeare's sonnets. Donne as a Metaphysical poet. Donne's fascinating and troubled life. A spectrum of types of love, beginning with the satiric and overtly erotic: “Elegy 19” and “The Flea.”

We that acquaint ourselves with every zone,And pass both tropics and behold the poles,When we come home, are to ourselves unknown,And unacquainted still with our own souls.Today's poem is Davies' lengthy meditation on what man can know and what he could stand to learn. Happy reading.Poet and lawyer Sir John Davies was born in Wiltshire and educated at Winchester College and Queen's College, Oxford, though historians disagree about whether he graduated. In 1588, he enrolled in the Middle Temple, where he studied with John Donne, and was called to the bar in 1595. In addition to his legal study, Davies wrote poetry, notably Orchestra, or, A Poeme of Dancing (1596). Davies's other works include a series of epigrams drawn from his youthful misadventures; Nosce teipsum (1594), a poetic treatise on the immortality of the soul; and Hymnes of Astraea in Acrosticke Verse (1599),an acrostic poem spelling the words Elisabetha Regina. Davies also contributed poetic dialogues to Francis Davison's Poetical Rhapsody(1602). His Collected Poems appeared in 1622. It is thought that Davies accompanied King James to Scotland after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603. Eventually knighted by the king, Davies was made solicitor general for Ireland and emerged as a champion of legal reform in Ireland. He attempted to lay the grounds for a strong civil society, albeit one that benefited England and English rule in all cases. Davies helped cement pro-English property laws and advocated the expulsion of Catholic priests to shore up Protestantism. He was appointed speaker in the Irish Parliament in 1613 and presided over the first Protestant majority. He returned to England and served in the Parliament of 1621. Charles I appointed Davies lord chief justice in 1626, but he died just before officially taking office. John Donne gave his funeral oration. Davies was buried in St. Martin-in-the-Fields.-bio via Poetry Foundation This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Ron Tester, business strategist + my biz bestie is back with us today for our holiday show – where we discuss business memoirs for your reading pleasure. We cover the spectrum from long + involved histories, peppy + inspiring sales memoirs and even a shortish essay about why we should read kids books as adults,  This episode is part of the December Daily, where - you guessed it - the show is, gasp, daily for the whole month Books discussed in this episode: My Life at General Motors by Alfred Sloan Sell It Like Serhant by Ryan Serhant Why You Should Read Children's Books Even Though You Are Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell – alternate article if you can't get hold of the book here Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni What Does This Button Do? by Bruce Dickinson Ron's website: rontestercoaching.com ==== If you'd like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients ==== And don't forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients. This isn't your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you've actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely. Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

This week we're off to Surrey, one of the Home Counties - and a place that is being gobbled up by London year by year!We start by discussing, much to Martin's chagrin, that the 23rd December is actually a Saints Day for about 30 obscure martyrs, recounting just a fraction of who they were and why they mattered. And after that, we dig into the history and folklore of Surrey.We discuss all sorts, including the tiny house where John Donne and his wife lived and had many, many babies, an extremely tall tower built by an Enlightenment-era loon, the heritage and importance of Surrey's heaths and commons, and plenty else, all before Martin digs through culinary history to uncover some... peculiar delicacies... for this week's County Dish.On the folklore front, interspersed with some excerpts from next Saturday's Local Legends interview with the much-acclaimed folklorist and author Jeremy Harte, we talk about Guildford's unfortunate dragon, Lord Lyttleton's Ghost, Joan Butts The Witch of Ewell, and much more besides.Then it's on to the main event: Martin's rather silly story, which is largely based on the truth, "Captain Salvin and his Flying Pig."We hope you enjoy it, and be sure to check back tomorrow for Eleanor's epic Ghost Story for Christmas Eve!The Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays (Magic and Medicines about folk remedies and arcane spells, Three Ravens Bestiary about cryptids and mythical creatures, Dying Arts about endangered heritage crafts, and Something Wicked about folkloric true crime from across history) plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Book review: A British Book Awards winner and bestseller by Katherine Rundell. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell is a witty and intelligent biography. It is a refreshing and illuminating take on the highs and lows of a highly talented historical figure born in 1500s England. ⇨ YOU WILL LEARN:  * What this Faber publication is all about * Interesting facts about this scholar, adventurer and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral * Life-story tips from an award winner * Appreciate how our lives are interconnected ⇨ FULL ARTICLE Click to read: https://foreveryoungautobiographies.com/super-infinite/  ⇨ VIDEO PODCAST Click to watch: https://youtu.be/onX29-EV_mc  ⇨ FREE GIFT Structure Success video training: Four steps to plan a life-story outline. FREE training, click to sign up: https://wp.me/P8NwjM-3o ⇨ YOUR SAY Do you have a book review recommendation? Leave me a comment below or here https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com/contact/ ⇨ RELATED LINKS Best life stories of 2023: Award-winning books to read over the holidays  https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com/best-life-stories-of-2023/   The Boy from Boomerang Crescent: Australian memoir by AFL star Eddie Betts https://foreveryoungautobiographies.com/the-boy-from-boomerang-crescent/   Life-story interview: How to set-up an interview + family interview tips https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com/family-stories/  Tell the truth: The surefire way to out skeletons in the closet https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com/tell-the-truth/  Chapters: 3 questions answered about book chapters https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com/chapters/  ♡ Thanks for listening! Please subscribe if you are new and share or review the show if you found it helpful! Happy writing! ⇨ ABOUT ME G'day! I'm Nicola, the founder of Forever Young Autobiographies. I've been a daily print journalist for decades and know how to create life stories! Now I help others do the same to share with family and friends so that unique memories live on. ⇨ WEBSITE https://www.foreveryoungautobiographies.com ⇨ YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/c/ForeverYoungAutobiographies ⇨ FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/foreveryoungautobiographies ⇨ INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/foreveryoungautobiographies/

Today's poem is The Canonization by John Donne. The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today's classic poem knows that loving hearts create possibilities for us to exist as full and whole human beings. We need as many examples as possible of sweet passion and friendship. It might be the key to our survival.” Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Send us a textToday we look at the love children of John Donne and Ben Jonson, a group of monarchist soldiers during the English Civil War.  Collectively known as the Cavalier Poets, they are numerous.  We'll look at some representative poems today by Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, and the ill-fated and unfortunately named Sir John Suckling.Additional music:"Consort for Brass" by Kevin MacLeod"La Violetta" by Claudio Monteverdi; perf. The Boston Camerata, dir. Joel Cohen"In Town Tonight" by Reginald Dixon; perf. Eric CoatesSupport the showPlease like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you!Email: classicenglishliterature@gmail.comFollow me on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, and YouTube.If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting it with a small donation. Click the "Support the Show" button. So grateful!Podcast Theme Music: "Rejoice" by G.F. Handel, perf. The Advent Chamber OrchestraSubcast Theme Music: "Sons of the Brave" by Thomas Bidgood, perf. The Band of the Irish GuardsSound effects and incidental music: Freesounds.orgMy thanks and appreciation to all the generous providers!

Take This Poem wakes up from a nap long enough to share "Holy Sonnet X" by John Donne. When despair and triumph live side by side in 14 lines, heat ensues, as well as iridescence. 

THE PENULTIMATE EPISODE: The Crew of the Starstrider prepare for landing. Darcey packs, Sascha and Gabriel perform final checks, Mika and Lee get some alone time, and Saph performs some poetry. Content warning: This episode contains loud noises and ringing sounds (tinnitus warning). The poem featured in this episode is "No Man is an Island" by John Donne. The Pilgrimage Saga is a UK-based podcast by Starstrider Productions. It is produced and created by Francesca Mylod-Ford. Starring: Sena Bryer as Captain Mika Harris James Oliva as Sascha Casana Stacey Cotham as Dr. Armstrong Courtney Perdue as Gabriel Grey Emily Curtis as Darcey Eldridge Rosie Curry as Saph Sound design and editing by Leila Jones-Atkinson Music composition by Joash Kari (https://www.facebook.com/joashkarimusic/) KOFI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ko-fi.com/R6R5OA1W⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ REDBUBBLE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.redbubble.com/people/TurpentinePod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Script: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1898gqEVwe18G-PDzXRno3O0lMkhYSOCN/view?usp=sharing Other information can be found HERE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.thepilgrimagesaga.wordpress.com

We discuss a challenge to wear three items of clothing we are not currently using--and explore ways to overcome common obstacles. We also share creative happiness hacks for welcoming overnight guests, and examine how people who tend to be rigid can adjust their rules to reduce stress in changing circumstances. Resources and links related to this episode: New products Four Tendencies quiz Elizabeth is reading: Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand (Amazon, Bookshop)  Gretchen is reading: Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell (Amazon, Bookshop)  Get in touch: podcast@gretchenrubin.com Visit Gretchen's website to learn more about Gretchen's best-selling books, products from The Happiness Project Collection, and the Happier app.  Find the transcript for this episode on the episode details page in the Apple Podcasts app.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

durée : 01:30:00 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé

Today's poem demonstrates that, unlike Arnold's sideburns, loving the Bard never goes out of style. Although remembered now for his elegantly argued critical essays, Matthew Arnold, born in Laleham, Middlesex, on December 24, 1822, began his career as a poet, winning early recognition as a student at the Rugby School where his father, Thomas Arnold, had earned national acclaim as a strict and innovative headmaster. Arnold also studied at Balliol College, Oxford University. In 1844, after completing his undergraduate degree at Oxford, he returned to Rugby as a teacher of classics.After marrying in 1851, Arnold began work as a government school inspector, a grueling position which nonetheless afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout England and the Continent. Throughout his thirty-five years in this position Arnold developed an interest in education, an interest which fed into both his critical works and his poetry. Empedocles on Etna (1852) and Poems (1853) established Arnold's reputation as a poet and, in 1857, he was offered a position, which he accepted and held until 1867, as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Arnold became the first professor to lecture in English rather than Latin. During this time Arnold wrote the bulk of his most famous critical works, Essays in Criticism (1865) and Culture and Anarchy (1869), in which he sets forth ideas that greatly reflect the predominant values of the Victorian era.Meditative and rhetorical, Arnold's poetry often wrestles with problems of psychological isolation. In “To Marguerite—Continued,” for example, Arnold revises John Donne's assertion that “No man is an island,” suggesting that we “mortals” are indeed “in the sea of life enisled.” Other well-known poems, such as “Dover Beach,” link the problem of isolation with what Arnold saw as the dwindling faith of his time. Despite his own religious doubts, a source of great anxiety for him, in several essays Arnold sought to establish the essential truth of Christianity. His most influential essays, however, were those on literary topics. In “The Function of Criticism” (1865) and “The Study of Poetry” (1880) Arnold called for a new epic poetry: a poetry that would address the moral needs of his readers, “to animate and ennoble them.” Arnold's arguments, for a renewed religious faith and an adoption of classical aesthetics and morals, are particularly representative of mainstream Victorian intellectual concerns. His approach—his gentlemanly and subtle style—to these issues, however, established criticism as an art form, and has influenced almost every major English critic since, including T. S. Eliot, Lionel Trilling, and Harold Bloom. Though perhaps less obvious, the tremendous influence of his poetry, which addresses the poet's most innermost feelings with complete transparency, can easily be seen in writers as different from each other as W. B. Yeats, James Wright, Sylvia Plath, and Sharon Olds. Late in life, in 1883 and 1886, Arnold made two lecturing tours of the United States.Matthew Arnold died in Liverpool on April 15, 1888.-bio via Academy of American Poets Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Hosts: Fr. Steve & Rich Budd In today's episode, we talk about what is upcoming this fall at the parish. We hear a reflection on Saint Joseph. And we listen to a poem by John Donne, “Deign at My Hands,” read by Susan Ayers.

Today's poem–#6 in Donne's La Corona sonnet cycle–is an ideal consummation for many of the themes introduced in this week's selections. Now go read the rest of his holy sonnets! Happy reading! Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today, Donne's best-known poem, but maybe not his last word on death. Happy reading! Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's poem dramatizes Donne's inner turmoil and conflicting desires, but is not without hope. Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Holy Sonnet is the fourth in Donne's underrated (if a poet as great as Donne can have underrated work) sonnet cycle, La Corona. The title translates to “crown” and the cycle's opening line introduces the poems as a woven “crown of prayer and praise” offered to God, narrating and commenting upon significant events in the life of Jesus. Sonnet 4, “Temple,” centers on the sole recorded episode from Jesus' youth. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Words Against Despair with Christian WimanAs poet Christian Wiman explains on our podcast, despair is part of the human condition: “I deal with despair because…I don't know how not to, and it would be an evasion not to. And I think if you don't feel it, then you're not paying attention.”In his new book, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, the acclaimed poet chases meaning through words, including memoir and poetry. And in this conversation he explains how he has found relief from despair in poetry, even and especially when poets grapple honestly with despair, “they speak of [despair] as a thing that can be spoken of.”Wiman returned to Christian faith in part through a terminal cancer diagnosis–one that he has, to his astonishment, now lived with for over 18 years. His work explores themes of illness, love, faith, and the “almost spiritual joy” of encountering a deadly coral snake. We trust you will find in his poetry, and in this conversation with Trinity Forum's guest host, Tom Wash, a great tonic against despair.This podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in April 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Christian Wiman.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair, by Chrisitan WimanMarylin RobisonDanielle ChapmanWilliam BronkWilliam WordsworthEvery Riven Thing, by Christian WimanMy Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer, by Christian WimanPrayer, by Carol Ann DuffyThe Bible and Poetry, by Michael Edwards Augustine of HippoBittersweet, by George HerbertSurprised by Joy, by C.S. LewisRichard WilburJürgen MoltmannWhen the Time's Toxins, by Christian WimanRelated Trinity Forum Readings:Augustine's ConfessionsDevotions by John Donne, paraphrased by Philip YanceyGod's Grandeur: the Poems of Gerard Manley HopkinsBulletins from Immortality, by Emily DickinsonWrestling with God, by Simone WeilRelated Conversations:Connecting Spiritual Formation & Public Life with Michael WearThe Kingdom, the Power & The Glory with Tim AlbertaA Life Worth Living with Miroslav VolfTowards a Better Christian PoliticsChristian Pluralism: Living Faithfully in a World of DifferenceWhat Really Matters with Charlie Peacock and Andi AshworthScripture and the Public SquareHow to be a Patriotic ChristianLife, Death, Poetry & Peace with Philip YanceyThe Fall, the Founding, and the Future of American DemocracyFear and Conspiracy with David FrenchTo listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum SocietySpecial thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.

Today marks the beginning of a week of Donne's “Holy Sonnets” (interpreted generously to also include selections from his sonnet cycle, “La Corona”). In this first sonnet, he establishes the themes––human weakness, self-doubt, terrestrial anguish, and divine transcendence and consolation––that will return throughout the series. Happy reading! Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Today's poem is a classic staple with Literature teachers for its expressive metaphors; it is a classic staple with me because it's such a cracking-good poem. Happy reading. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

On this week's show, June Thomas (author of A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture) and Dan Kois (author of Hampton Heights) fill in for Dana and Stephen. First, the panel tackles It Ends With Us starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (the latter also directed and produced the film.) It's a big, glossy melodrama laced with a domestic violence plot, and is the first film adaptation of BookTok star author Colleen Hoover. Then, the three explore Time Bandits, a new television show from Jermaine Clement, Iain Morris, and Taika Watiti starring, among others, a sublime Lisa Kudrow. The Apple TV+ series is based on Terry Gilliam's 1981 film of the same name and follows a ragtag bunch of bandits as they thieve and travel through time. Finally, in light of its 20-year anniversary, the trio considers Yelp – does the crowd-sourcing review platform still hold power in 2024? This conversation was inspired by Jaya Saxena's Eater piece, “Everybody Gets a Star.” On this week's exclusive Slate Plus bonus episode, the panel goes on the hunt for the wonderful, elusive “perfect cracker.” Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Endorsements: JUNE: A very well-reviewed book from two years ago: Katheine Rundell's Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. DAN: The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. JULIA: First Class Tailors on Wilshire Blvd., which boasts a 4.7 Star rating on Yelp. Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.  Hosts June Thomas, Dan Kois, Julia Turner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this week's show, June Thomas (author of A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women's Culture) and Dan Kois (author of Hampton Heights) fill in for Dana and Stephen. First, the panel tackles It Ends With Us starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (the latter also directed and produced the film.) It's a big, glossy melodrama laced with a domestic violence plot, and is the first film adaptation of BookTok star author Colleen Hoover. Then, the three explore Time Bandits, a new television show from Jermaine Clement, Iain Morris, and Taika Watiti starring, among others, a sublime Lisa Kudrow. The Apple TV+ series is based on Terry Gilliam's 1981 film of the same name and follows a ragtag bunch of bandits as they thieve and travel through time. Finally, in light of its 20-year anniversary, the trio considers Yelp – does the crowd-sourcing review platform still hold power in 2024? This conversation was inspired by Jaya Saxena's Eater piece, “Everybody Gets a Star.” On this week's exclusive Slate Plus bonus episode, the panel goes on the hunt for the wonderful, elusive “perfect cracker.” Email us at culturefest@slate.com.  Endorsements: JUNE: A very well-reviewed book from two years ago: Katheine Rundell's Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne. DAN: The Ministry for the Future: A Novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. JULIA: First Class Tailors on Wilshire Blvd., which boasts a 4.7 Star rating on Yelp. Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.  Hosts June Thomas, Dan Kois, Julia Turner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to be fully alive and at peace with ourselves and our neighbors in the anxiety and fear of contemporary life?Joining Evan Rosa in this episode is Elizabeth Oldfield—a journalist, communicator, and podcast host of The Sacred. She's author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times.Together they discuss life in her micro-monastery in south London; the meaning of liturgical and sacramental life embedded in a fast-paced, technological, capitalistic, obsessively popular society; the concept of personal encounter and Martin Buber's idea that “all living is meeting”; the fundamentally disconnecting power of sin that works against the fully aliveness of truly meeting the other; including discussions of wrath or contempt that drives us toward violence; greed or avarice and the incessant insatiable accumulation of wealth; the attention-training benefits of gratitude and the identify forming power of our attention; throughout it all, working through the spiritual psychology of sin and topography of the soul—and the fact that we are, all of us, in Elizabeth's words, “unutterably beloved.”About Elizabeth OldfieldElizabeth Oldfield is a journalist, communicator, and author. She hosts a beautiful podcast called The Sacred. And she's author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. Follow her @esoldfield, and visit her website elizabetholdfield.comShow NotesIntentional living community; pulling on monastic lifestyle and framework; read more about Elizabeth Oldfield's micro-monastery here.People passing through the micro-monastery and the sharing of a meal and sitting in silence with othersCeltic prayer book - The Aidan Compline (https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/offices/monday-the-aidan-compline/)Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times by Elizabeth Oldfield (http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/fully-alive/421701)How you see your liturgical life, the rhythms of your life however else you might describe you spirituality as providing the soil of this book?A personal writing experience - communicating something of her tradition with the outside worldWhat it means to be fully alive to you?Everything is about relationships and connection; to be fully alive is to be fully connected with the soulBetween Man and Man (https://www.routledge.com/Between-Man-and-Man/Buber/p/book/9780415278270) and I and Thou by Martin Buber - “all living is meeting” (https://www.maximusveritas.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/iandthou.pdf)If all living is meeting, how are we failing in that regard?Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense by Francis Spufford (https://www.harpercollins.com/products/unapologetic-francis-spufford?variant=32207439626274)Sin is disconnection; a turning inward“Elegy on the Lady Markham” by John Donne (https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/elegy-lady-markham-0)“As I Walked Out One Evening” by W.H. Auden (https://poets.org/poem/i-walked-out-one-evening)The Sacred podcast (https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2017/12/06/introducing-the-sacred-podcast)Polarization, division, and the splitting of people - homophily and fight or flight responseJesus going to the margins, ignoring tribal boundaries and turning the other cheekSin and ReconciliationThe Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson, “I find the soul a valuable concept, a statement of the dignity of human life” (https://www.brethrenpress.com/product_p/9781250097316.htm)The soul is interesting and difficult to name but is so valuableRoom for uncertainty and poetry—we beat up our souls, keep ourselves distractedContemporary life is angry and greedyContempt is a poison for our souls and relationships and humanityStress and anxiety as a constantChristian non-violence traditionWe must feel our emotions - process them through the shared rituals of our communitiesDesire by Micheal O'Siadhail (https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481320061/desire/)Would you like to introduce your take on greed?Phyllis Tickle, dogged commitment of the scripture - the love of money is the root of all evilThe Parable of the Sower - Mark 4:19 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark 4%3A19&version=NIV)Made gods of wealth, greed, comfort, and connivenceGratitude is a medicine for greedOf Gratitude by Thomas Traherne? (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/works-of-thomas-traherne-vii/of-gratitude/161CCCE8293EE4034F65AB436AB4D3F9)“These are the Days We Prayed For” by Guvna B (https://genius.com/Guvna-b-these-are-the-days-lyrics)Notice and give thanks; misplaced desireAcadia, spiritual apathy, and heavy distractionAttention and discipline are formationThe Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book)Community as accountability and rituals and set rhythms of lifeDivine Love, ultimate loveBaptism as a reminder of our death - love remainsQuiet space shared with others; honesty, vulnerability, emotional processingProduction NotesThis podcast featured Elizabeth OldfieldEdited and Produced by Evan RosaHosted by Evan RosaProduction Assistance by Kacie Barrett and Alexa RollowA Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/aboutSupport For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

Life, Death, Poetry & Peace with Philip YanceyLife has changed dramatically in the 400 years since John Donne wrote his Devotions. Yet despite the advances of the intervening centuries, we find that, like Donne, we are still subject to sickness and death. We still long for comfort. We still want to know what God is saying to us.Author Philip Yancey has found surprisingly relevant answers to these perennial questions in the works of John Donne. Updating the great poet's work for modern readers in his book UNDONE: A Modern Rendering of John Donne's Devotions, Yancey has given us a devotional treasure, particularly for those in the midst of trial and suffering:God is on the side of the sufferer. And that's so important. When I go to places like Virginia Tech or Columbine in my backyard here in Colorado or various places and talk about pain and suffering, it's just an important point to get across. And I know that's true because God gave us a face. God showed us what God is like in human form. - Philip YanceyThis is a conversation rich with insights into the problem of pain and the human condition, and full of comfort as we get a clearer picture of God in the face of Jesus. We hope that it encourages you deeply and that you'll share it with others.This is podcast is an edited version of an online conversation recorded in 2024. Watch the full video of the conversation here, and learn more about Philip Yancey.Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:UNDONE: A Modern Rendering of John Donne's Devotions, by Philip YanceyWhere Is God When It Hurts, by Philip YanceyIn His Image, by Philip Yancey and Paul BrandDisappointment with God, by Philip YanceyThe Jesus I never Knew, by Philip YanceyWhat's So Amazing About Grace, by Philip YanceyDevotions Upon Emergent Occasions, by John DonneThe Art of Dying, by Lydia DugdaleDr. Paul BrandRelated Trinity Forum Readings:Sacred and Profane Love, the poetry of John DonneWrestling with God, by Simone WeilBulletins from Immortality: Poems by Emily DickinsonMan's Search for Meaning, by Viktor FranklRelated Conversations:A New Year With The Word with Malcolm GuiteMusic, Creativity & Justice with Ruth Naomi FloydPursuing Humility with Richard Foster and Brenda QuinnReading as a Spiritual Practice with Jessica Hooten WilsonWalking as a Spiritual Practice with Mark BuchananMaking as a Spiritual Practice with Makoto FujimuraConnecting Spiritual Formation & Public Life with Michael WearThe Kingdom, the Power & The Glory with Tim AlbertaA Life Worth Living with Miroslav VolfTowards a Better Christian PoliticsChristian Pluralism: Living Faithfully in a World of DifferenceWhat Really Matters with Charlie Peacock and Andi AshworthScripture and the Public SquareHow to be a...

In today's poem, written a century ago, cinema (and Charlie Chaplin) is already supplying metaphors for the work and experience of modern poets. Happy reading.Harold Hart Crane was born on July 21, 1899, in Garrettsville, Ohio, and began writing verse in his early teenage years. Though he never attended college, Crane read regularly on his own, digesting the works of the Elizabethan dramatists and poets William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Donne and the nineteenth-century French poets Charles Vildrac, Jules Laforgue, and Arthur Rimbaud. His father, a candy manufacturer, attempted to dissuade him from a career in poetry, but Crane was determined to follow his passion to write.Living in New York City, he associated with many important figures in literature of the time, including Allen Tate, the novelist and short story writer Katherine Anne Porter, E. E. Cummings, and Jean Toomer, but his heavy drinking and chronic instability frustrated any attempts at lasting friendship. An admirer of T. S. Eliot, Crane combined the influences of European literature and traditional versification with a particularly American sensibility derived from Walt Whitman.His major work, the book-length poem, The Bridge, expresses in ecstatic terms a vision of the historical and spiritual significance of America. Like Eliot, Crane used the landscape of the modern, industrialized city to create a powerful new symbolic literature.Hart Crane died by suicide on April 27, 1932, at the age of thirty-two, while sailing back to New York from Mexico.-bio via Academy of American Poets Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe