Things Not Seen Podcast

We revisit a conversation with Leah Payne and Brian Doak, who are both professors, authors, and pop culture aficionados. They are the creators and co-hosts of the amazing podcast Weird Religion. Their new season starts this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We welcome back John J. Fontana, co-director of the Ignatian Legacy Fellows Program. For the past 25 months, the first cohort of scholars have gone around the globe, learning how to be in service to others. He tells us about their journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Kaya Oakes talks about her recent book The Defiant Middle, which draws on the wisdom of women mystics and explores how transitional eras or living in marginalized female identities can be both spiritually challenging and wonderfully freeing, ultimately resulting in a reinvented way of seeing the world and changing it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Paula Huston tells the history of a monastery on the California coast, and the role that both Thomas Merton and World War II played in its founding Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we remember the life and legacy of Archbishop Tutu, we revisit this interview from earlier in the year. The Rev. Dr. Michael Battle has been a student and friend of Archbishop Desmond Tutu for a good deal of his life. In his recent book, Battle offers what he calls "A Spiritual Biography of South Africa's Confessor" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Erickson is an artist and performer who, with his book Honest Advent, has created a wonderful set of meditations and images for reflecting on the earthiness and mystery at the heart of the Advent season Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist Nadra Nittle has created a fascinating portrait of author Toni Morrison, exploring the elements of religion in her various writings, and showing especially how Catholicism interweaves through her work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, Kirsten Powers has been center stage for many of our nation's most searing political and cultural battles as a columnist and TV analyst. On a good day, there will be civil disagreement. On a bad day, it's all-out trench warfare--nothing but a cycle of outrage and self-righteousness. More and more, Powers finds herself wondering, along with countless Americans: How are we to cope with this non-stop madness?In Saving Grace, Powers writes with wit and insight about our country's poisonous political discourse, chronicling the efforts she's made to stay grounded and preserve her sanity in a post-truth era that has driven many of us to the edge. She draws on lessons offered by faith leaders, therapists, theologians, social scientists, and activists working for change today. She dismantles the widespread misconception that grace means being nice, letting people get away with harmful behavior, or choosing neutrality in the name of peace. Grace, she argues, is anything but an act of surrender; instead, it is a kinetic and transformative force. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book, Return from Exile: Revelations from an Anchoress in St. Augustine, our guest Marie Laure tells us about a multi-year attempt to visit the home of the mystical writer, Julian of Norwich, and the serendipitous pilgrimage there and back again Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest Maia Kotrosits talks about her recent book, The Lives of Objects, which invites us to rethink the material history of Christian communities through the centuries Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices