For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Matthew Croasmun, Ryan McAnnally-Linz, Drew Collins, Miroslav Volf, Evan Rosa, Macie Bridge
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Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

  1. 5d ago ·  Bonus

    How to Die Well / Lydia Dugdale (From the Archives)

    Why don’t more doctors talk about death? Dr. Lydia Dugdale has been asking this question since she was a medical student. She is the Silberberg Professor of Medicine and directs the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and two books on how we die, including "The Lost Art of Dying." "Most medical professionals today are very unpracticed at talking to patients about their mortality," she says. Not only unpracticed, but even themselves afraid. In this bonus clip from Episode 232 with Macie Bridge, Dugdale traces the path from that early perplexity on the wards to the ars moriendi, the medieval art of dying, grounded in the idea that dying is part of living, so if you want to die well you have to live well. Lydia comments on the emergence of palliative care and the way it let physicians hand conversations about death to specialists; the doctor who inherited the priest's old place at the threshold between life and death; the death anxiety clinicians carry without examining; virtue as preparation for dying, and community as the other half of living well; the unrepresented patients of New York City who die alone; and a grumpy old man, hospitalized for 20 years, who wept when she read aloud what she had written about him. Episode Highlights “Most medical professionals today are very unpracticed at talking to patients about their mortality.” “we are really the intermediaries between life and death, I'm not saying we're priests, but that used to be the role of the priest. And so it is now the role of the physician. “If you want to die well, you have to live well.” We have to be all in or we end up like all of these patients here in New York City who have no one that I can reach out to as they're dying. “He started weeping and he said, someone finally saw me. Someone finally saw me. I've been in this hospital for 20 years and I didn't think anyone ever saw me.” About Lydia Dugdale Lydia Dugdale is a physician and medical ethicist who has spent fifteen years asking why medicine finds death so hard to talk about. She is the Silberberg Professor of Medicine at Columbia, directs the Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, and co-directs clinical ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Milstein Hospital, where she still sees patients. She edited "Dying in the Twenty-First Century" and wrote "The Lost Art of Dying," a modern ars moriendi. She trained at the University of Chicago and Yale-New Haven Hospital, holds a master's in ethics from Yale Divinity School, and in 2025 founded the nonprofit Heal the Nation. Helpful Links and Resources “Dying Alone,” the full Episode 232 with Lydia Dugdale and Macie Bridge: https://faith.yale.edu/media/dying-alone Lydia Dugdale's website: https://lydiadugdale.com/ The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom, Lydia Dugdale's book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-lost-art-of-dying-ls-dugdale Dying in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Lydia Dugdale: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262534598/dying-in-the-twenty-first-century/ Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, which Dugdale directs: https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/departments-centers/columbia-center-clinical-medical-ethics Columbia Center for Clinical Medical Ethics on X: https://x.com/columbia_ccme Ars moriendi, the medieval art of dying, at the Morgan Library and Museum: https://www.themorgan.org/blog/new-acquisition-ars-moriendi-blockbook Ars moriendi block book, 1475, at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666798/ Lydia Dugdale at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/lydia-dugdale-md Show Notes Death anxiety in medicine Why doctors avoid frank conversations about mortality Palliative care's arrival as a discipline, and what it made possible Real gains in symptom relief for the sick and the dying The unintended cost: death conversations outsourced to specialists Clinicians as intermediaries between life and death The priest's old place at the threshold, now the physician's Nurses at the bedside, doctors calling the shots on treatment Existential questions physicians have never worked through A colleague who would never tell a patient they were dying, out of her own fear of death Digging into how other times and places handled mortality Ars moriendi: the medieval genre on the preparation for death Illustrated editions made for people who could not read Fifteen years and two books spent reviving the art of dying Living well as the precondition of dying well Virtue as preparation: hope, patience, joy against bitterness and despair The role of community in dying well New York's unrepresented patients, dying alone A reader estranged from his adult children who committed to years of repair after the book Relationship as ongoing work: rupture, forgiveness, iron sharpening iron A long-hospitalized patient nobody wanted assigned to their team Modeling care for young doctors, and being verbally destroyed in front of them Loneliness of the neighbor, the colleague, the checkout person Practice as the only way to get better at it #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #LydiaDugdale #TheLostArtOfDying #ArsMoriendi #MedicalEthics #DyingWell #Loneliness #EndOfLifeCare Production Notes This podcast featured Lydia Dugdale Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    How to Die Well / Lydia Dugdale (From the Archives)

  2. Jul 22 ·  Bonus

    You Must Change Your Life (From the Archive)

    We were made by a Maker to be makers. Bruce Herman joins Evan Rosa to diagnose the quiet illness of a passive consumer culture that trains us to sit in front of screens and scroll and take, rather than make. “When we’re not making something, we’re not whole. We’re not healthy.“ His cure is stubbornly ordinary: go make a loaf of bread, grab a stick and start carving, make a good meal or a good cocktail for the person visiting you—anything is resistance to this hypnotic, passive culture. From episode 216 of the podcast, in this segment, Herman traces what it means to receive art not as a consumer but through submission—not master and slave, but subject to subject, that vulnerable openness that lets a poem or a painting change your life. He reflects on making as human wholeness, the difference between art and info-tainment, why suffering can rip us open to beauty (from Walker Percy’s writing to Christian Wiman’s poetry), Rilke’s charge that “you must change your life,“ hospitality as the ultimate act of art, and Herman’s closing counsel to make out of love, not fear. Episode Highlights We are in relationship, and we were made by a Maker to be makers. If we let that go somehow and we become mere consumers, I think we begin to enter into some kind of illness of one sort or another. When we’re not making something, we’re not whole. We’re not healthy. And I don’t want to make an idol out of health either, but I do think our culture is unhealthy right now. We think of it as, we’re discerning buyers. But the fact is we’re being turned into very passive creatures. One of the best things you can do is go make a loaf of bread. Go out and grab a stick and start carving it. Anything is resistance to this sort of hypnotic passive culture. If you want to really receive what a poem is communicating, you have to submit to it. You have to let yourself go and enter into what might feel like a bad risk of being changed. Not submit in a sense that I’m a master and you’re my slave. It’s more like you’re a subject and I’m a subject. Mutual submission. We’re so guarded so much of the time that it takes something catastrophic to open us up again. Do away with the nonsense that you’re not an artist. You can’t help it. You were made by a Maker to be a maker. End of story. The ultimate act of art is hospitality, where you’re welcoming someone in, to make something beautiful for them. Challenge the bad news with a recognition that daily kindnesses are being poured out everywhere, on every street. Don’t give in to fear, because it’s not a basis for anything good. About Bruce Herman Bruce Herman is a painter, writer, and educator whose work has been shown in more than 150 exhibitions across the United States and internationally, and held in collections including the Vatican Museums in Rome, the Cincinnati Museum of Fine Arts, and the Grunewald Print Collection of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He taught at Gordon College for nearly four decades, where he founded the art department and held the Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts. His books include “Through Your Eyes“ and “Ordinary Saints,“ and he was a collaborator on the touring “QU4RTETS“ project with Makoto Fujimura, Christopher Theofanidis, and Jeremy Begbie. His most recent book, “Makers by Nature: Letters from a Master Painter on Faith, Hope, and Art,“ was published by IVP Academic in 2025. Helpful Links and Resources Makers by Nature, Bruce Herman’s 2025 book from IVP Academic: https://www.ivpress.com/makers-by-nature Bruce Herman’s website and painting archive: https://www.bruceherman.com Bruce Herman, artist bio and background: https://www.bruceherman.com/about Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke (“You must change your life“), trans. Stephen Mitchell: https://poets.org/poem/archaic-torso-apollo Real Presences by George Steiner, on courtesy and hospitality in art: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3684420.html Christian Wiman: https://poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-wiman QU4RTETS, the collaborative project on T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets: https://www.bruceherman.com/series Show Notes Made to make We are in relationship; identity begins there, not in isolation Makers by nature—letting the maker-impulse go tips us toward illness, moral, mental, and emotional Wholeness and health—the claim that not-making leaves us unwell, without idolizing health Consumer culture—the commercial aim to sell, and to keep us passive in front of screens Discerning buyers, or passive creatures? The illusion of control while being trained to take Screens and scrolling Political theater and infotainment—very little real journalism left, mostly consumer entertainment Neil Postman and amusing ourselves to death as the frame for the diagnosis Making as resistance—bake bread, carve a stick, do anything against the hypnotic pull Reception as submission—a word out of fashion, reclaimed away from enslavement Mutual submission—the erotic analogy, and desire’s corruption in the sexual sins To receive a poem you must risk being changed Rilke’s Grecian torso and the charge, you must change your life Subject to subject, not master and slave Walker Percy’s museum story—a painting that blazed into life, then went quiet Bringing a friend to re-enter the original encounter vicariously The workman through the skylight—catastrophe reopens what habit had closed Guardedness—why it can take suffering to break us open Christian Wiman—cancer, poetry, and being ripped open toward receptivity You might be changed, and it might not be what you wanted; the risk of real encounter Make from love, not fear Do away with the nonsense that you’re not an artist Everyday making—a loaf, a meal, a good cocktail, hospitality Hospitality as the ultimate art; George Steiner’s Real Presences and courtesia Beauty can be complex, not merely pretty Fear-mongers left and right—and why not to listen Daily kindnesses—the neighbor, the shoveled driveway, the half-decent casserole Welcome to the festival; let the festival begin #BruceHerman #MakersByNature #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #FaithAndArt #TheologyOfMaking #ArtAndFaith #Creativity #Hospitality #MakeNotConsume #YaleFaithAndCulture

    You Must Change Your Life (From the Archive)

  3. Jul 8

    I Don't Know What Faith Means Anymore: Terminal Illness, Poetic Faith, and Theological Doubt / Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman

    For twenty years, Christian Wiman has lived with a rare, incurable cancer. In the fall of 2022, during a stretch when the illness was especially bad, he wrote to his friend and Yale colleague Miroslav Volf: “I don’t know what faith means anymore. I’m a 56-year-old with a pile of books behind me and an experimental bone marrow transplant ahead of me, and I don’t know what faith means.” That letter became the seed of an extended correspondence between the poet and the theologian, now published as Glimmerings: Letters on Faith between a Poet and a Theologian. In this special collaboration with Arc Magazine, editor Mark Oppenheimer sits down with Volf and Wiman to unpack the letters that grew out of their long friendship and years of walking together through New Haven. They discuss what it means to love God, why doubt and absence might be constitutive elements of faith and presence rather than its opposite, and how a terminal diagnosis changed what each of them was willing to say and how freely they said it. They also trace the thinkers who shaped their thinking along the way, from Simone Weil’s account of attention to Etty Hillesum’s wartime writing, to Abraham Joshua Heschel’s theology of the prophets, and they wrestle openly with where their understandings of Jesus Christ converge and diverge. Along the way, Wiman reflects on writing from a hospital room at Massachusetts General, on discovering that his fear was never death itself but the fear of dying without God, and on why grief, not fear, is what remains even after that fear falls away. Episode Highlights I don’t know what faith means anymore. I’m a 56-year-old with a pile of books behind me and an experimental bone marrow transplant ahead of me, and I don’t know what faith means. I sometimes find it hard to think what it means to love God. I don’t know how to love God. Faith is what matters. Belief seems to me a matter of the institution and ascending to creeds and things like that. I think most of my theological thinking is existentially motivated. It’s motivated by the kind of inner logic of the trust in which I’m involved. Most of the books that I wrote, I’ve written for myself. I’m one of those writers who doesn’t have an audience. There is grace in my life if I can just keep my eyes open enough to see it. His mistake in some ways lets him see that the world is right, that there’s a rightness to the world. What becomes clear is one’s longing for God. Everything is stripped away and very little else seems to matter. What I want most in my life is the presence of God. And I fear dying without that. Just being alone at the moment of death. I was worried that he won’t have God in that situation of need because attention might be lacking. About Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. He is the author of Exclusion and Embrace, the NYT bestseller Life Worth Living (with Ryan McAnnally-Linz and Matt Croasmun), The Cost of Ambition, and more than twenty other books. Christian Wiman is the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School. He has written and edited numerous volumes of poetry. He has lived with a rare blood cancer, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, for more than twenty years, an experience he wrote about in his memoirs My Bright Abyss and Zero at the Bone. Helpful Links and Resources Glimmerings: Letters on Faith between a Poet and a Theologian, the book discussed in this episode: https://bookshop.org/p/books/glimmerings-letters-on-faith-between-a-poet-and-a-theologian-christian-wiman/1a13ad79a59080d1 Miroslav Volf, faculty bio at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/miroslav-volf Christian Wiman, faculty bio at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/people/christian-wiman Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera, the magazine that co-produced this episode: https://arcmag.org/ John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis: https://rap.wustl.edu/ My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman’s earlier memoir on faith and his cancer diagnosis: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374534370/mybrightabyss/ Miroslav Volf: Disagreeing With You Feels Like Disagreeing With Myself, a Christianity Today profile of the two friends (by Andrew Hendrixson): https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/01/miroslav-volf-disagreeing-with-you-like-disagreeing-with-myself-christian-wiman/ Show Notes Summer break announcement, past-episode recap Special crossover episode with Arc Magazine Mark Oppenheimer, Arc’s editor, hosts this conversation Origin story: a brief email exchange in fall 2022 Wiman’s diagnosis, Waldenström macroglobulinemia, and a bone marrow transplant Twenty years of friendship, marked by weekly walks in New Haven The letter that started it: not knowing what faith means anymore What does it mean to love God? Faith versus belief: creeds compared to a personal relationship Doubt as a constitutive element of trust, not its opposite Absence and presence, sorrow and joy, held together Theology as existentially motivated rather than academic exercise Writing for an audience of one, and how that shapes honesty Whether a book contract changes how freely you write Simone Weil’s idea that attention is what makes God present Disagreement over how central Jesus Christ is to each man’s sense of God Volf’s Pentecostal upbringing, Wiman’s Southern Baptist roots Volf’s sense of God as behind and underneath, not face to face Wiman’s youthful epiphany and a memory of his grandmother’s death A misread wildflower, a Richard Wilbur poem, grace found in error Shai Held’s blurb and why Jewish thinkers rarely appear in Christian theology Etty Hillesum, her wartime diaries, her postcard thrown from the train Abraham Joshua Heschel’s influence through Sabbath and The Prophets Heschel’s idea that faith is fidelity to the moments you once had it A letter written from a hospital room at Massachusetts General Miroslav’s fear that his letters carried condescension toward a friend in crisis Whether a cancer diagnosis changes the fear of death itself Grief, not fear, as what remains once the fear of dying is gone How the two friends met: through Volf’s wife’s poetry class Letter-writing as a lifelong practice for both men beyond this book #Glimmerings #MiroslavVolf #ChristianWiman #Faith #Doubt #Theology #YaleDivinitySchool #ArcMagazine Production Notes This podcast featured Christian Wiman and Miroslav Volf with Mark Oppenheimer Special thanks to David Sugarman and Arc Magazine Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    I Don't Know What Faith Means Anymore: Terminal Illness, Poetic Faith, and Theological Doubt / Miroslav Volf and Christian Wiman

  4. Jun 24

    Owning Grief Redemptively: The Wound of Loss, the Failure of Theodicy, and the Cry of Suffering Love / Nicholas Wolterstorff

    More than forty years after his twenty-five-year-old son Eric died in a climbing accident, philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff joins Miroslav Volf to revisit the grief behind his classic Lament for a Son and his recent Living with Grief. “If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead.” In this episode they reflect together on mourning loss, refusing both the consolations of theodicy and the pressure to move on. Together they discuss owning grief rather than disowning it, lament as a cry that transcends analysis, and the limits of explaining suffering through theodicy. They explore Augustine and Calvin on grief, Karl Barth's “nothingness,” universality hidden in particular sorrow, and the prison classroom where incarcerated men claimed their own grief redemptively. Episode Highlights "I could not, and would not, allow it simply to heal." "If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead." "In my story I always say: I am one who lost a son. That's part of who I am." "Children should not die at twenty-five years of age. Nobody should die at twenty-five years of age." "It was good that I loved Eric. It was worth it. So my grief is worthwhile. And, in this world, love and suffering come together." About Nicholas Wolterstorff Nicholas Wolterstorff is the Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at Yale University and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. Born in 1932, he earned his PhD at Harvard and taught philosophy for thirty years at Calvin College before joining Yale in 1989. A leading Christian philosopher, he helped develop Reformed epistemology and co-founded the Society of Christian Philosophers. His books span aesthetics, epistemology, justice, and liturgy, including Lament for a Son (1987) and the memoir In This World of Wonders (2019). His son Eric died in a climbing accident in 1983. Helpful Links and Resources Lament for a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff https://www.eerdmans.com/9781467419239/lament-for-a-son/ Living with Grief, by Nicholas Wolterstorff https://wipfandstock.com/9798385201006/living-with-grief/ Calvin Prison Initiative https://calvin.edu/prison-initiative Show Notes Grief as an open wound Two books, forty years apart: Lament for a Son and Living with Grief Eric Wolterstorff's death at twenty-five in a climbing accident, Austria, 1983 Lament as a cry, not an analysis "I could not, and would not, allow it simply to heal." Grief-process books that failed: "inviting me to look away from Eric" "If he was worth loving when alive, he was worth grieving when dead." Owning grief versus disowning it; narrative identity "I am one who lost a son"; grief as part of who you are Augustine's moral disowning; shame over loving too much Owning grief redemptively; good that couldn't have come otherwise Calvin Prison Initiative, Handlon Correctional Facility, Ionia, MI Prison classroom: "we were in grief but didn't know how to express it. You have given us the words." Universality in particularity The pallet of finished books: "What have I done?" Grief brought on oneself: "not an assault, but we brought it onto ourselves" Karl Barth's "nothingness"; evil God will defeat "Children should not die at twenty-five years of age." Love that knowingly risks grief: "love and suffering come together" #NicholasWolterstorff #LamentForASon #LivingWithGrief #Grief #Lament #Theodicy #FaithAndGrief #MiroslavVolf #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #YaleFaithAndCulture Production Notes This podcast featured Nicholas Wolterstorff with Miroslav Volf Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    Owning Grief Redemptively: The Wound of Loss, the Failure of Theodicy, and the Cry of Suffering Love / Nicholas Wolterstorff

  5. Jun 17

    Anonymous Spiritual Hitchhiking: Emotional Health in the Digital Age / Anonymous

    We’re used to hostile online encounters with total strangers. It fuels the digital economy. But what if there were a way to experiment with radical emotional honesty with an anonymous other—much the same as you’d experience at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting? The anonymous founder of This Life, an audio-only app built on anonymity, joins For the Life of the World to argue that emotional and spiritual progress is still possible at scale. "What's really kind is to care about somebody else. And then even more kind than that is to allow somebody else to care about you." In this episode with Evan Rosa, Justin Smith (a pseudonym) reflects on what he learned in Alcoholics Anonymous, the genius of Bill Wilson, and why our voices carry so much emotional weight, and how sharing them—even (and perhaps especially) anonymously—can be a transformative experience of growth. Together they discuss anonymity as a path to honesty, the "spiritual hitchhiker," negative emotion as a force that wants to win, design as destiny, and becoming a neighbor. They also weigh technology's limits and whether spiritual and emotional progress can scale. Episode Highlights "What's really kind is to care about somebody else. And then even more kind than that is to allow somebody else to care about you." "I believe we live in a society that has given up on the idea of emotional or spiritual progress at scale." "Honesty with yourself is a skill." "If you begin to look at unhelpful negative emotion as a force that wants to win, what you'll notice is that we're in a fight that we're not well equipped for." "Meaningful spiritual development is impossible without honesty with other people." About Justin Smith "Justin Smith" is a pseudonym. The guest is the founder of This Life, an audio-only iOS app he describes as an experiment in emotional and spiritual progress, built around anonymity, self-reflection, and what he calls the "spiritual hitchhiker." A Christian shaped by his time in Alcoholics Anonymous and the writing of AA co-founder Bill Wilson, he draws on figures from Martin Luther King Jr. to E.O. Wilson and Fred Rogers to argue that honesty with others is the foundation of spiritual growth. By his request, and in keeping with the episode's premise, his real name, biography, and social accounts are withheld. Learn more about the This Life app on the iOS App Store. Helpful Links and Resources This Life: An Experiment (App Store) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/this-life-an-experiment/id6746807306 Alcoholics Anonymous (the "Big Book"), by Bill Wilson: https://www.aa.org/the-big-book The Twelve Traditions of AA (Tradition Twelve, on anonymity): https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-traditions "On Being a Good Neighbor," Martin Luther King Jr.: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-iii-being-good-neighbor Show Notes Anonymous guest, identity withheld "Justin Smith"—not his real name The neighbor can be anonymous Startup founders and self-help gurus—equally annoying How the app works: an audio-only experiment Spoken note—talk to yourself, your God, or both "Spiritual hitchhiker"—paired daily with a stranger One rule: no politics "A much more intimate and powerful sort of access to a human consciousness." The voice as the best vehicle for the spiritual Looks always color how we treat each other Design is destiny "We live in a Star Wars civilization with stone age emotions" (E.O. Wilson) Bill Wilson refused Yale's honorary doctorate "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-traditions Negative emotion as a force that wants to win "Honesty with yourself is a skill." Mandela, Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers—all struggled "Meaningful spiritual development is impossible without honesty with other people." No longer "people in my way at the Starbucks line"—strangers with inner lives Personal responsibility and the courage to become a neighbor #Anonymity #SpiritualGrowth #AlcoholicsAnonymous #BillWilson #Loneliness #DigitalWellbeing #Neighbor #EmotionalHealth #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld #Honesty Production Notes This podcast featured Justin Smith (Pseudonym) Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    Anonymous Spiritual Hitchhiking: Emotional Health in the Digital Age / Anonymous

  6. Jun 12

    How to Read William Blake: Imagination and Flourishing Beyond Reason Alone / Mark Vernon

    What does it take to put a fractured world back together? Philosopher and psychotherapist Mark Vernon joins Evan Rosa to explore William Blake as the great counter-Enlightenment guide for our anxious, divided age. "The world comes to be seen as it truly is, which is infinite, and that can embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing." In this episode with Evan Rosa, Vernon explains how to read William Blake, and reflects on Blake as the most important post-Reformation Christian mystic—a poet, painter, and philosopher offering not just a diagnosis of modern division but the beginnings of an antidote. Together they discuss Newton's long shadow and the withdrawal of inner life; the fragmentation of humanity from itself, nature, and the divine; the marriage of heaven and hell; cleansing the doors of perception; imagination as abundance rather than scarcity; desire rightly ordered; and Blake's Christ, who acts from impulse rather than rule. ——— Episode Highlights "I think he's the most important post-Reformation Christian mystic." "We need these oppositions in order to create the dynamism of life and hence the Marriage of Heaven and Hell." "The task is to align, align with the goods in the melee, and see how that which is seemingly different for you, might have something to offer you." "The world comes to be seen as it truly is, which is infinite, and that can embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing." "The fullness of the love, the fullness of the goods, paradoxically, it can seem, is only revealed when it reaches out to that, which seems to be the opposite of it." ——— About Mark Vernon Mark Vernon is a writer, broadcaster, and psychotherapist with a private practice in London, and a former Anglican priest. His studies began with a physics degree at Durham University, followed by two degrees in theology and a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy from the University of Warwick; he has also worked at the Maudsley Hospital. He contributes to the BBC, the Guardian, and Church Times, and podcasts frequently. His books range across friendship, wellbeing, ancient philosophy, Dante's Divine Comedy, and the Inkling Owen Barfield. His most recent book, Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination (Hurst, 2024), has drawn praise from Rowan Williams and others as among the finest recent studies of Blake. Learn more and follow at markvernon.com, his Substack A Golden String (markvernon942268.substack.com), and @platospodcasts on X. ——— Helpful Links and Resources Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/awake-william-blake-and-the-power-of-the-imagination A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/a-secret-history-of-christianity-book Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey, by Mark Vernon: https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake (The William Blake Archive): https://www.blakearchive.org/work/mhh Mark Vernon's website: https://www.markvernon.com A Golden String (Substack): https://markvernon942268.substack.com ——— Show Notes Underappreciated, often typecast visionary 1827—approaching the 200th anniversary of Blake's death approaching Tumultuous age: Seven Years' War, American and French Revolutions, Napoleonic Wars London quadruples in size; Hindu, Islamic, and global ideas arrive "I think he's the most important post reformation Christian, mystic" Polymath—poet, painter, philosopher, didact Counter-Enlightenment response to rationalism Isaac Newton's influence "can't be overstated" One law binds falling apple and orbiting moon Locke, Bentham, utilitarianism, calculation as the moral measure "withdrawing the inner life of human beings"—the objective as gold standard Fragmentation: dividing humanity from itself, nature, the gods Reading Blake now offers "the beginnings of an antidote too" Feeling and imagination complement reason; imagination as the shape of energy Marvel superheroes analogy—one superpower detached goes wrong Bacon's dream: tools to restore Eden, and its tragedy Magnet's two poles—the marriage of heaven and hell Angels grow complacent, devils too dastardly; tension creates beauty and exuberance Cleansing the doors of perception; a world in a grain of sand "align, align with the goods in the melee" Division never purifies society—"it just leads to a mess" "embrace distinction difference as much as similarity and sharing" Heaven and hell as states of mind; participative epistemology Education that teaches students to divide themselves from learning Imagination as abundance, not scarcity Desire rightly ordered—"less than all cannot satisfy man" Blake's Christ acts from impulse, not rule Fountains of living water; the closing lines of Jerusalem ——— #WilliamBlake #MarkVernon #ForTheLifeoftheWorld #Imagination #MarriageOfHeavenAndHell #CounterEnlightenment #ChristianMysticism #Theology #Poetry #DoorsOfPerception

    How to Read William Blake: Imagination and Flourishing Beyond Reason Alone / Mark Vernon

  7. Jun 3

    Perseverance Through Weariness, Exhaustion, and Burnout: The Desert Wisdom of Christian Resilience / Tish Harrison Warren

    What sustains faith when prayer feels flat and God seems distant—and there's no clear tragedy to explain it? Anglican priest and former New York Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren joins Macie Bridge to talk about weariness, burnout, and the quiet middle stretches of a long spiritual life. Drawing on her new book What Grows in Weary Lands, she turns to the Desert Fathers and Mothers for a resilience that resists both flaming out and numbing out. "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." In this episode with Macie Bridge, Warren reflects on her own season of spiritual aridity and the ancient counsel to stay in your cell rather than escape. Together they discuss the difference between burnout and weariness, acedia and the noonday demon, perseverance, silence as countercultural practice, and the world as a womb. They explore why escape rarely heals and what it means to trust the slow work of God. Episode Highlights "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." "I do not think vitamin D will solve what I'm talking about." "We're not having to hold our life together in the midst of weariness with will power and duct tape." "We kind of bring Times Square with us wherever we go now." "God doesn't need me to be impressive or achieving." About Tish Harrison Warren Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, named Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night, which won both Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year. She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for The New York Times on faith in public and private life and was a columnist for Christianity Today; her essays have appeared in Comment, The Point, and Religion News Service. She currently serves as the C. S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence at Baylor's Truett Seminary, is a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum, and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. (Source: tishharrisonwarren.com) Learn more and follow at tishharrisonwarren.com, Instagram @tishharrisonwarren, and X @Tish_H_Warren. Helpful Links and Resources What Grows in Weary Lands (newest book): https://tishharrisonwarren.com/whatgrowsinwearylands Liturgy of the Ordinary (most popular book): https://tishharrisonwarren.com/liturgy-of-the-ordinary Curt Thompson, referenced on the brain and community: https://curtthompsonmd.com/books/ Show Notes Writing from the middle of the process Weariness vs. burnout—bigger than the occupational "It felt like the call had dropped, like the line had gone dead." Two years at The New York Times—top of a career, bone-tired Spiritually tinged exhaustion, distinct from depression Comprehensive difficulty—work, marriage, church, politics, drama Post-COVID burnout talk; why the church rarely names this Craving emotional highs in contemporary Christian faith We lack stories of long, steady faith "I do not think vitamin D will solve what I'm talking about." Discovering the Desert Fathers and Mothers Acedia, the noonday demon—sloth, boredom, irritation, doubt Flame out, numb out, or go deep The cell as guiding metaphor—a rhythm of prayer and work "Stay in your cell"—counsel of St. Moses and Arsenius Resisting the lie that escape elsewhere brings contentment "The cell is actually this transformative place." Curt Thompson: the brain isn't made to do hard things alone A desert mother's maternal metaphor—the world as a womb "What is happening right now matters"—hope without escapism Grace: "we're not having to hold our life together... with will power and duct tape." "Part of our weariness is it is too noisy. The world is too noisy." "God doesn't need me to be impressive or achieving." Trusting the slow work of God #TishHarrisonWarren #WhatGrowsInWearyLands #ChristianResilience #Burnout #DesertFathers #SpiritualFormation #Weariness #Acedia #Hope #ForTheLifeOfTheWorld Production Notes This podcast featured Tish Harrison Warren Interview by Macie Bridge Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    Perseverance Through Weariness, Exhaustion, and Burnout: The Desert Wisdom of Christian Resilience / Tish Harrison Warren

  8. Apr 15

    To Be Human Is to Be Unfinished: Anxiety, Existential Psychology, and Flourishing / Dan Koch & Kristen Tideman

    What if the anxiety you most want to get rid of is the one you most need to listen to? Existential psychologist Dan Koch and marketing strategist Kristen Tideman join Evan Rosa for a conversation about what anxiety is actually for—and what happens when it turns against you. "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice is to accept them or pretend they're not there." In this episode, they reflect together on the existential roots of anxiety and what it looks like to confront real limits—from an MS diagnosis to faith upheaval to collective crisis. Together they discuss healthy versus unhealthy anxiety and how to tell them apart, the post-WWII origins of existential therapy, boundary situations and “thrownness,” what denial costs us spiritually and psychologically, and how accepting our limits can paradoxically expand our world. The conversation moves between lived experience of multiple sclerosis and philosophical framework about mortality, between Kierkegaard's "dizziness of freedom" and a three-month-old baby in an emergency room—asking not how to eliminate anxiety, but how to let the right kind of anxiety make your world bigger. Episode Highlights "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice, among other things, is to accept them or pretend they're not there."—Dan Koch "I was literally in the ER. I'm holding my three-month-old baby who just got here. I'm like, my life just started—and I don't even know what this means. I don't even wanna Google what it means."—Kristen Tideman "Our brains are big enough and our minds are strong enough that unlike deer, plants, and coconuts, we can think about the future. We can imagine our own death."—Dan Koch "There's ways I wanna deny the MS. I wanna deny that that's part of my existence now. I wanna deny even components of my own faith change."—Kristen Tideman "Is my world getting smaller, or is my world getting bigger?"—Dan Koch About Dan Koch Dan Koch is an existential psychologist, therapist, and host of Religion on the Mind, a podcast and media project exploring the intersection of psychology, spirituality, and everyday life. His clinical work focuses on religious change—deconversion, deconstruction, reconstruction—and the downstream effects on identity, family, and meaning-making. He draws on the existential tradition from Kierkegaard and Jaspers through Viktor Frankl and Irvin Yalom. Koch has spoken openly about his own fifteen-year experience with panic disorder. Learn more and follow at religiononthemind.com [VERIFY] About Kristen Tideman Kristen Tideman is the founder of Tidy Studios, a marketing strategist and creative consultant. She holds a master's degree in philosophy and has brought that background into her work exploring questions of meaning, anxiety, and faith in public conversation. She lives with multiple sclerosis and is a new mother. Learn more and follow at [VERIFY—need Tidy Studios URL and social handles] Helpful Links and Resources Religion on the Mind https://www.religiononthemind.com/ Religion on the Mind https://religiononthemind.substack.com/ Religion on the Mind https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/religion-on-the-mind/id1448000113 Tidy Studios https://www.tidystudios.com/ Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl https://www.beacon.org/Mans-Search-for-Meaning-P602.aspx Dan Koch on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/dankoch Show Notes Why tackle anxiety now—geopolitical overwhelm, media firehose, personal crisis converging Kristen's competing anxieties: new motherhood, MS diagnosis, ongoing faith change Dan's path into existential psychology through clients navigating religious change Existential psychology's post-WWII roots—Viktor Frankl, concentration camps, the search for meaning The atomic bomb as psychological turning point—from imagining one's own death to imagining collective annihilation "Our brains are big enough that unlike deer, plants, and coconuts, we can think about the future. We can imagine our own death." Healthy vs. unhealthy anxiety—the central distinction in existential thought Healthy anxiety broadens your world; unhealthy anxiety becomes self-referential spiral The inner critic mistaken for motivation—when unhealthy anxiety masquerades as drive "I was literally in the ER. I'm holding my three-month-old baby. I'm like, my life just started—and I don't even know what this means." Philosophy becoming flesh—studying mortality vs. receiving a diagnosis "There's ways I wanna deny the MS. I wanna deny that that's part of my existence now. I wanna deny even components of my own faith change." Ontological anxiety vs. pathological anxiety—Kierkegaard's "dizziness of freedom" Avoidance vs. acceptance as the fundamental hinge in existential psychology The body carries what the mind tries to bypass—emotions as literal electricity in the nervous system Thrownness—Heidegger's concept of being tossed into unchosen circumstances Jaspers' shipwreck, Sartre's blind man on a raft, Kierkegaard's captain in a storm Boundary situations—MS, new parenthood, AI, sociopolitical chaos, loss of shared reality Kristen on maturity: "Anything that comes at us, we can use as an excuse to weaken our resolve or to strengthen it." "To be human is to be unfinished. It is to have constantly limits around you, and your choice is to accept them or pretend they're not there." "Is my world getting smaller, or is my world getting bigger?" Neurotic anxiety spins us inward; accepting limits pushes us toward collaboration and community Emmy van Deurzen and Irvin Yalom—real problems require more than one person Loving your neighbor as a practical consequence of accepting your own limits #ExistentialPsychology #Anxiety #MentalHealth #FaithDeconstruction #HumanFlourishing #Kierkegaard #ViktorFrankl #ChronicIllness #MSAwareness #ForTheLifeOfTheWorl Production Notes This podcast featured Kristen Tideman and Dan Koch Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa Hosted by Evan Rosa Production Assistance by Noah Senthil A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give

    To Be Human Is to Be Unfinished: Anxiety, Existential Psychology, and Flourishing / Dan Koch & Kristen Tideman
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Seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. Theological insight, cultural analysis, and practical guidance for personal and communal flourishing. Brought to you by the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.

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