Composed: Timeless Ways of Living

Humanitas Institute

Composed: A timeless way of living. A podcast for women exploring living patterns of virtue, craft, community, and delight, that carry enduring wisdom into modern life.

Episodes

  1. Growing Up Classical: Literature, Wisdom, and the Questions We Carry

    1h ago

    Growing Up Classical: Literature, Wisdom, and the Questions We Carry

    What does it mean to grow up classical, and how can the great books help form a young person’s moral imagination? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Olivia Reardon, a graduating senior at Messiah University, about literature, ethical formation, and the classical Christian classroom. Drawing from Olivia’s senior honors thesis and her upcoming ClassicalU course, Journeying with the Great Books: Ethical Formation in the Classical Christian Classroom, the conversation explores how stories give students language for their deepest questions, offer “handholds” for living in a broken world, and invite readers to return again and again as they grow in wisdom. Together, Christine and Olivia reflect on reading as a relational and formative act, one that happens best in a community of trust, conversation, and shared attention. Olivia offers the images of mirrors, windows, and doors as a way of understanding how books help students see themselves, encounter others, and enter experiences beyond their own. The conversation also considers the breadth of the Great Conversation, not as a narrow inheritance for a few, but as a living tradition shaped by many voices and offered for the formation of all. About the GuestOlivia Reardon earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in literature and minors in Education and Dance from Messiah University in 2026. Olivia grew up in Maryland with her parents and four siblings where she received a Classical, Christian education first through a homeschool co-op and then at a full-time private school. Olivia now teaches Upper School Rhetoric and Literature at Rockbridge Academy, a Classical, Christian School in Crownsville, Maryland. When Olivia is not teaching, she reads abundantly (some of her favorite authors are Fyodor Dostoyevsky, C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro), teaches dance at a local studio, and enjoys the beach, trying new ice cream flavors, and competition with friends and family.   Guest LinksMessiah University Honors Program | https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/Reardon’s ClassicalU Course releases Jun 9, 2026 | https://classicalu.com/course-finder Connect with the Humanitas InstituteHumanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    1h 13m
  2. The Harmony of the Parts: on Beauty, Place, and Belonging

    May 29

    The Harmony of the Parts: on Beauty, Place, and Belonging

    What does beauty have to do with the spaces where we learn, teach, worship, and gather? In this shared bonus episode of Composed and Forged, Christine Perrin speaks with Brian Williams about Templeton Hall, the home of the Templeton Honors College, and the deep work of making a place that feels whole, hospitable, and human. Their conversation moves from architecture and furniture to poetry, asking how beauty forms us before we can fully explain what it has done. This is an episode about attention, creation, community, and the grace of places that help us breathe more deeply and live more faithfully. Brian reflects on the making of Templeton Hall at Eastern University as an act of stewardship, one that honors the old while creating room for students and faculty to dwell together in the pursuit of the true, the good, the beautiful. Christine and Brian consider why beauty is not a luxury, why material places matter to Christian formation, and how the experience of a beautiful space can awaken desire for God. The episode closes fittingly with Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” a poem of praise for the dappled, particular, and creaturely world. References and LinksTempleton Honors College | https://templeton.eastern.edu/Templeton Hall | https://templeton.eastern.edu/life-community/templeton-hallChristopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building | https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028Gregory Wolfe, Beauty Will Save the World | https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Will-Save-World-Ideological/dp/1610171004Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot | https://www.amazon.com/Idiot-Penguin-Classics-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/014044792XC. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy | https://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Joy-Shape-Early-Life/dp/0062565435Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove | https://angelicopress.com/products/the-descent-of-the-dove?srsltid=AfmBOop0_4ZZscz8U6o_ldEPhSYpkPOBsrJotPNumtbWjmzkJWtypzrJGerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeurGerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.orgX | https://x.com/HIClassicalEdInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_instituteFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    1h 5m
  3. Living Inside Language with Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel

    May 25

    Living Inside Language with Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel

    What does it mean to compose a life through Sabbath rest, faithful work, and the patient practice of language? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel, a poet, translator, teacher, and director of the English program at Shalem College in Jerusalem, about the patterns that have shaped her life as a mother, writer, citizen, and friend. Their conversation moves from a childhood formed by trust and moral responsibility, to the weekly reset of Shabbat, to the strange and beautiful labor of translating the Book of Job. Along the way, Annie reflects on Hebrew, Palestinian Arabic, friendship across fracture, and the need to remain questioning without becoming cynical. The conversation also touches on Natalia Ginzburg’s “The Little Virtues,” Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, the Ethics of the Fathers, and the enduring hope that virtues can persist even in periods of historical grief and uncertainty. About the GuestAnnie Kantar Ben-Hillel is a teacher, translator and poet who lives in Jerusalem and works at Shalem College. She has translated the Book of Job, among other poetry, and understands the way we live and befriend people inside of language. She describes the habits of language acquisition and its yield along with many other patterns that have shaped her life as a mother, writer, and citizen. Guest LinksKantar’s full-length collection of poems, Means To Be Lucky | https://www.poets-traitors.com/means-to-be-lucky Translation from the Hebrew of With This Night, The final collection of poetry that Leah Goldberg published in her lifetime |  https://bookshop.org/p/books/with-this-night-leah-goldberg/b76aceb9230cbea9 Translation of the Book of Job as part of Koren Publishers’ new translation of the Hebrew bible | https://korenpub.co.il/en/products/the-english-koren-tanakh-large-size-magerman-edition  Connect with the Humanitas InstituteHumanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.orgX | https://x.com/HIClassicalEdInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    51 min
  4. James LaGrand on Making a Home for Books, Beauty, and Belonging

    May 11

    James LaGrand on Making a Home for Books, Beauty, and Belonging

    What does it mean to build a culture of intellectual friendship, one shaped by books, music, meals, memory, and shared attention? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with historian and colleague, James LaGrand, about the habits that form students and teachers into a genuine community of learning. Their conversation moves from violin lessons and hymns to Augustine, Dante, Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, Tyehimba Jess, and the Sunday dinner table. Together they consider education not merely as competence or achievement, but as the patient formation of persons who can receive beauty, honor the past, and seek the good in company with others. LaGrand describes his work in Messiah University’s Honors Program as the building and protecting of a culture, rather than the management of a program. Through seminars, shared meals, walks, tea, concerts, trips to Gettysburg, and the reading of great texts aloud, he invites students into patterns of attention that join the life of the mind to friendship and delight. The episode closes with a tribute to Tyehimba Jess’s Olio, and with the quiet image of a grandmother’s Sabbath table as a pattern for a life of hospitality and care. About the GuestJames LaGrand is an American historian and the Director of the Honors Program and Professor of American History at Messiah University. He has published a monograph with University of Illinois Press and essays in Quillette, Public Discourse, Patheos, The Federalist, History News Network, The Cresset, and Pennsylvania History, among other publications. He has spent his seven-year tenure as director practicing the example of his grandmother and mother in setting the table in order to draw students and faculty together for conversation about books and life that build relationships. Guest LinksMessiah University Honors Program| https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/ Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75 | https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072963 The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Great Conversation  | https://classicalu.com/course/f1d74d43-befa-4030-8fbc-185947a9617c  Mentioned in the Episode Olio by Tyehimba Jess | https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/olioTyehimba Jess | https://www.tyehimbajess.net/books.html Connect with the Humanitas InstituteHumanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.orgX | https://x.com/HIClassicalEdInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_instituteFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    55 min
  5. Fighting for the Real: Jeanne Schindler on Presence, Technology, and the Life We Share

    Apr 27

    Fighting for the Real: Jeanne Schindler on Presence, Technology, and the Life We Share

    What does it take to remain fully human in an age of distraction? In this conversation, Christine Perrin speaks with Dr. Jeanne Schindler about attention, technology, homeschooling, civic life, and the quiet disciplines that help us fight for what is real. Together they consider how modern devices flatten experience, weaken our sense of place, and make presence harder to practice, while also pointing toward a better way, one rooted in community life, embodied friendship, serious thought, and shared public spaces. This is a conversation about recovering the habits that make a human life deep, relational, and truly lived. Drawing from her own intellectual formation, Dr. Schindler reflects on childhood influences, her shift from history to political theory, her decision to leave tenure and devote herself more fully to home and family, and the rewards of lifelong learning through homeschooling. She and Christine also explore AI, the limits of technology, the strain placed on civic discourse, and why restlessness should not always be medicated by screens, but instead received as a summons to seek truth, communion, and a richer form of life. About the GuestDr. Jeanne Schindler is a Fellow of the John Paul II Institute. Until 2013 she was an associate professor at Villanova University. Dr. Schindler’s intellectual interests are interdisciplinary, integrating philosophy, theology, and political science. She has lectured and published in a variety of areas, including Catholic social thought and democratic theory. She edited Christianity and Civil Society: Catholic and Neo-Calvinist Perspectives (2008) and co-edited with her husband, D.C. Schindler, A Robert Spaemann Reader (Oxford University Press, 2015). Dr. Schindler is a homeschooling mother of three children. Guest Links & ResourcesThe Postman Pledge James Howard Kunstler TED Talk Amusing Ourselves to Death The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan The Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet Connect with the Humanitas InstituteHumanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.orgX | https://x.com/HIClassicalEdInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_instituteFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    1h 7m
  6. Patterns That Make Us Alive: Timothy Patitsas on Beauty, Learning, and Home

    Apr 13

    Patterns That Make Us Alive: Timothy Patitsas on Beauty, Learning, and Home

    What makes a place, a school, or a daily life feel truly human? In this conversation, Christine Perrin and Timothy Patitsas explore beauty first living, the “quality without a name” described by Christopher Alexander, and the patterns that help people feel at home, at ease, and fully alive. Together they consider paper routes, classrooms, liturgical seasons, friendship, motherhood, teaching, and the built world, asking how living patterns form the soul and why beauty is not an ornament to life but one of its deepest truths. This episode is an invitation to notice the forms of life that nourish wonder, awaken desire for the good, and help us belong more deeply to the world. Their conversation moves from childhood memory to architecture, pedagogy, eros, ritual, and community. Along the way, Timothy reflects on the difference between potent information and quality information, the role of stories in shaping desire, and the kinds of educational practices that help students encounter truth not only analytically, but with their whole persons. About the Guest Timothy Patitsas is Assistant Professor of Ethics at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in Boston, Massachusetts. Between 2007 and 2019 he directed the annual seminary pilgrimage to Constantinople, Mount Athos, Greece, and the Holy Land. In 2019 he published The Ethics of Beauty, which has sold more than eight thousand copies. In 2023 he co-directed and co-produced “Amphilochios: Saint of Patmos,” a documentary short which became an official selection at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival. More from our Guest Hellenic College Holy Cross | Timothy Patitsas, PhDThe Ethics of Beauty Amphilochios: Saint of PatmosHellenic College Holy Cross on Instagram The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander Connect with the Humanitas Institute  HumanitasInstitute.orgX | https://x.com/HIClassicalEdInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_instituteFacebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute

    57 min
  7. Motherhood and the Dignity of Dependence

    Mar 30

    Motherhood and the Dignity of Dependence

    In this episode of Composed, Leah Libresco reflects on her journey from atheism to Catholicism and the deeper vision of human flourishing that emerged through that conversion. Drawing on stories from her life and work, including the patient rhythms of sourdough baking, Libresco explores how the patterns and habits of ordinary life can form us in attentiveness, responsibility, and care for others. Throughout the conversation, she challenges modern assumptions about autonomy, arguing instead for the dignity of dependence and the goodness of our embodied lives. Touching on questions of community, feminism, and human identity, Libresco invites listeners to consider how embracing our limits and our need for one another may be the very path toward a richer and more humane way of living. Leah reflects on feminism, motherhood, masculine vocation, risk, and the meaning crisis of our age, making the case that real flourishing grows not from autonomy, but from ties of love, duty, and mutual care. She also offers practical wisdom for building communities where people can give and receive help with honesty and grace. About the Guest Leah Libresco is the author of three books, most recently The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto. This book argues that women’s equality with men doesn’t depend on their interchangeability with men. Leah has been writing on these themes for some time on her Substack, Other Feminisms. Leah currently works in family policy in Washington D.C. Previously, she worked as a news writer for FiveThirtyEight and in campus ministry at Princeton. Leah lives in Maryland with her husband and children Guest Links Leah Libresco WebsiteThe Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist ManifestoOther Feminisms“Needing Help Is Normal” at Christianity Today Humanitas Institute Links Humanitas InstituteXInstagramTikTokFacebookYouTube

    1h 2m
  8. Learning to See: Attention as Participation

    Mar 16

    Learning to See: Attention as Participation

    In this episode, Lynette Hull invites us into a conversation about art, faith, and the quiet transformation that can happen when the two meet. With warmth and wisdom, she reflects on creativity as a spiritual practice and on the ways beauty can draw us deeper into meaning and connection. It’s a thoughtful and inspiring exchange that will leave you curious to see the world, and perhaps your own creative life, a little differently. Lynette’s work with iconography opens a rich window onto questions of sacred art, spiritual formation, and the role of beauty in everyday life. This episode offers an inviting starting point for listeners interested in faith, imagination, and the practices that shape how we see. About the Guest Lynette Hull holds a BA in English Literature from Wheaton College and was raised in an active Bible Presbyterian family as the granddaughter of an internationally known radio preacher. Married and the mother of three, she homeschooled her children through eighth grade before beginning her formal study of iconography in 2004 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton, New Jersey, and converting to Holy Orthodoxy in 2009. From 2009 to 2017, she studied weekly with master iconographer Vladislav Andrejev. In 2015, she commissioned a collection of 45 icons from teachers and advanced students of the Prosopon School, later exhibited at the Icon Museum & Study Center in Clinton, Massachusetts. During the COVID years, she created a mobile icon museum to bring sacred art into churches and public spaces, and she currently serves on the board of the Icon Museum & Study Center while teaching catechism at her church in Virginia Beach. Guest Links Lynette Hull Website Wrestling with Angels softcover Wrestling with Angels: Icons from the Prosopon School of Iconology and Iconography at The Icon Museum and Study Center Video Gallery Video Tour of Icon Museum Re-creation of the Icon: Lynette Hull at TEDxCapeMay 2012 - Recreation and Re-creation Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute X Instagram TikTok Facebook YouTube

    1h 12m
  9. Bearing Life, Bearing one Another

    Mar 2

    Bearing Life, Bearing one Another

    In this thoughtful episode, Christine sits down with writer and educator Agnes Howard for a rich conversation about motherhood, community, and what it means to share in the human experience. Together, they reflect on the deeper significance of pregnancy, the cultural pressures surrounding work and family life, and the beauty of living in meaningful connection with others. With warmth and insight, Howard invites listeners to reconsider familiar assumptions and to see everyday life as something both communal and deeply significant. This conversation will resonate with listeners interested in family life, cultural criticism, embodied experience, and the ways ordinary responsibilities can reveal deeper truths about what it means to be human. About the Guest Agnes Howard is an American Historian, mother, teacher, and writer. She is author of Showing: What Pregnancy Tells Us about Being Human (Eerdmans, 2020) and the forthcoming, Disoriented: Embodied Life in Strange Times (Cascade, 2026). Here and on a Substack called Momcare she discusses the culture of maternity and family life. Guest Links Showing: What Pregnancy Tells Us about Being Human Creativity Calls for More than a Room of One's Own Is Potty Training What You Will Do with Your One Wild and Precious Life Opting Out of Mother's Day Not Going Back: Motherhood in the Covid-19 Pandemic Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute X Instagram TikTok Facebook YouTube

    1h 13m
  10. Mothering in the Midst of Others Who Enlarge Us

    Feb 20

    Mothering in the Midst of Others Who Enlarge Us

    What does it mean to build a school and a life shaped by community, conviction, and daily rhythms of grace? In this episode, Madeleine Hewitt, Assistant Head of School at Claritas Classical Christian Academy, shares her journey through education, motherhood, and mentorship, and how each has shaped the other. She reflects on the challenges of idealism, the power of guiding principles, and the formative role of liturgy in everyday life. Madeleine closes by reading Gerard Manley Hopkins beautifully, capturing the wonder and weight of it all. This conversation will resonate with listeners who care about classical education, family life, spiritual formation, and the steady practices that give shape to a meaningful life. Madeleine offers a thoughtful picture of how conviction and community can sustain both a household and a school. About the Guest Madeleine Hewitt is a wife, mother, teacher, administrator, and home educator. She is a graduate of The Templeton Honors College and has earned her Masters Degree in Classical Teaching through the same college. She lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia with her husband and four young children. They are members of St. Philips Orthodox Church and are a part of a newly-founded mission parish along with a number of other young Orthodox families. She homeschools her children as well as teaches and administrates at a local university-model classical academy. Guest Links As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins A Mother and Child Looking at the Virgin and Child by Reginald Bottomley Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute X Instagram TikTok Facebook YouTube

    1h 8m
  11. Living Patterns and How We Learn Them

    Feb 4

    Living Patterns and How We Learn Them

    Emily Maeda, mother of seven, grandmother of two, describes the living patterns in her life, passed down from her own mother, that have helped her in raising her children, starting a school, and designing gardens for now and for posterity.

    1h 14m
  12. The Opening Question

    Feb 4

    The Opening Question

    In the inaugural episode of the Forged and Composed podcasts, our hosts come together for a conversation about what it means to “forge” and “compose” a life marked by beauty, order, and purpose. Their dialogue explores human flourishing, focal practices, and the formative power of beauty, art, and community. Drawing on personal experience, they reflect on hospitality, generosity, nature, and the role of exemplars in shaping lives marked by meaning and fulfillment. Join us at the beginning.

    54 min
  • 12 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Composed: A timeless way of living. A podcast for women exploring living patterns of virtue, craft, community, and delight, that carry enduring wisdom into modern life.

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