Marilyn McEntyre is a steward of words. She has taught courses on English and medical humanities, and she has written or edited over twenty books, including Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Marilyn joins Elise to discuss the meaning of four words: dwelling, compassion, truth, and awe. Marilyn discusses why she loves participles and how “Christianese” can constrict the meaning of a word. She also reads three of her own poems and explains the background and inspiration of each.

Words as building materials

How space shapes us

Particularity and universality

A productive relationship between loneliness and dwelling

Touch deprivation

The strength and resilience of compassion

Christianese

Our relationship to Industrial food system

A broader examination of conscience

Truth as embodied and relational

The act of translation

Convicted civility

Why do we lie?

Relationship between death and awe

Accompanying the dying

Links:

Dwelling in the Text by Marilyn McEntyre

Word Tastings: An Essay Anthology by Marilyn McEntyre

Teaching Literature and Medicine by Marilyn McEntyre

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre

The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Should Trees Have Standing?: Law, Morality, and the Environment by Christopher D. Stone

I MARRY YOU: A Sheaf of Love Poems by John Ciardi

Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict by Marilyn McEntyre

Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky