City As Playground Leadership Foundations

In this episode, Dan Cardinali, President/CEO of Independent Sector, joins us to explore how a posture of contemplation and action can meaningfully contribute to human flourishing in our urban world.

Cities, by their very nature, point us to the contradictions and paradoxes that are an inseparable aspect of our world. To love cities - as the Leadership Foundations global network seeks to embody - is to embrace these contradictions.
Join us in this episode where we explore the contradiction and tension between two sources of authority - the Street and the Academy - and how both have something to teach us about our urban world.

How do we navigate today's urban world - holding the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other? How do we navigate the tension of contemplation and action, street and the academy in our active engagement in the city?Join us for this new City as Playground series as we'll be exploring these tensions by engaging thought leaders and practitioners from across the world and throughout the Leadership Foundations' global network.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “The reason we fly from the city is not in reality that it is not poetical; it is that its poetry is too fierce, too fascinating and too practical in its demands.”*
In this 2021 finale podcast episode, we welcome back Fr. Steve Lantry, SJ for a special Advent/Christmas "Praying with Poetry" episode. Fr. Lantry explores with us how we can use poetry as a tool to enrich and deepen our prayer life. He guides us through three groups of poems (listed below) on the themes of Relationality, Paradox, and Challenge & Hope.
 
Poems cited:
The Hidden Singer by Wendell Berry from A Part, 1980, or, Collected Poems, pp.207-8
Love is the way messengers… by Rumi 1207-1273, from The Soul of Rumi, p. 33, translated by Coleman Barks & John Moyne
When school and mosque and minaret... by Rumi, 1207-1273, from A Year with Rumi, p.233
Those who think the heart is only in the chest... by Rumi, 1207-1274, from Rumi: Hidden Music, p. 54, translated by Azima Melita Kolin & Maryam Mafi
everywhere, everywhere by Charles Bukowski, from What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, p. 94
One song by Rumi, 1207-1273,from A Year with Rumi, p. 214,rendered by Coleman Barks
When We See God by Edward Hirsch
Hope by Lisel Mueller, from Good Poems, p. 224, ed. by Garrison Keillor      
Sometimes  by Sheenagh Pugh, from Good Poems, p. 215, ed. by Garrison Keillor
We have fished all night… by Sr. Annette Moran, CSJ, from A Woman at the Well, p. 55, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet, St. Louis Province, 2009
*Lunacy and Letters by G.K. Chesterton, p. 60
 

Can you see a playground amidst the countless smells, sights, and sounds of New York City? 
Jeremy Del Rio, Executive Director of Thrive Collective, Leadership Foundation of NYC, joins us to describe how this vision of the City as a Playground is coming to life in the City that Never Sleeps.
He discusses the many ways in which Thrive Collective is uncovering and unleashing the beauty and creativity that already resides in the city through mural painting, education, mentoring, and nurturing collaborative spaces amongst the least likely of partners.

Can you imagine a city that is just? A city where everyone - regardless of background, birth family, race, or creed - receives what they need to fully thrive as human beings...
Justin Beene, President of the Leadership Foundation of Grand Rapids, Center for Community Transformation (GRCCT), joins us to explore the shape of God's justice in his city.  Dr. Beene describes how GRCCT is seeking to extend opportunity in a city ranked amongst the worst economically for African-Americans. 

Statistic cited from Forbes Magazine, 2015. 
Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation