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The Sun Interview
The Sun Interview
Two Ways Of Knowing
Robin Wall Kimmerer On Scientific And Native American Views Of The Natural World
I prefer to ask what gifts the land offers. Gifts require a giver, a being with agency. Gifts invite reciprocity. Gifts help form relationships. Scientists aren’t comfortable with the word gifts, so we get ecosystem services instead. These terms arise from different worldviews, but both recognize the way the land sustains life.
April 2016
The Sun Interview
Embracing Ignorance
Jack Miles On His Path From Belief To Disbelief And Back
We’re all stuck with ignorance as we move from quandary to quandary. What I want to do is make a case for religion as one of the means to cope with this irremediable human condition.
March 2016
The Sun Interview
The Kids Are All Right
David Lancy Questions Our Assumptions About Parenting
Parenting trends are less about what’s good for the child and more about parents’ need for affirmation. The message of my work is that parents have far less impact than they think they do.
February 2016
The Sun Interview
The Miracle In Front Of You
Raymond Barfield On Practicing Medicine With Compassion
You have to notice beauty when it appears. That means you have to show up and shut up. If I could give just one piece of advice to all medical students, I would say, “Show up completely, and then shut up for at least two minutes while the miracle in front of you tells you who they are and how you can help them.” If every doctor did just that one thing, it would change medicine.
January 2016
The Sun Interview
It’s Her Choice
Katha Pollitt On The Struggle Over Abortion Rights
If one in three women has had an abortion, you can’t really talk about it as some rare practice indulged in only by particularly evil women. . . . What do you do with that one-third of women? . . . Put them in prison?
December 2015
The Sun Interview
Great Expectations
Jennifer Senior On Modern Parenthood And Its Discontents
I was amazed to read about the New York City newsboys’ strike in 1899, which ultimately improved conditions and raised wages. You had these armies of seven-, eight-, and nine-year-olds bringing the entire newspaper business to its knees. They organized and won. Today we don’t even let our nine-year-olds go on the subway by themselves.
November 2015
The Sun Interview
The Geography Of Sorrow
Francis Weller On Navigating Our Losses
The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give.
October 2015
The Sun Interview
The Church Of The Gridiron
Steve Almond On How He Lost His Faith In Football
So, yes, the NFL and NCAA have instituted stiff penalties for helmet-to-helmet hits and even redesigned kickoffs to reduce high-speed collisions. But, again, all of this only helps limit concussions. The problem is that the permanent brain injuries arise in part because of those subconcussive hits, the ones players receive nearly every single play, and there’s no way to engineer those out. The tackle will always be part of the game.
September 2015
The Sun Interview
As We Lay Dying
Stephen Jenkinson On How We Deny Our Mortality
At every deathbed and hospital room, I didn’t see sane dying. I saw sedated dying, depressed dying, isolated dying, utterly disembodied dying. Sane dying would require a childhood steeped in death’s presence, an adulthood employed in its service, and an elderhood testifying to its necessity. Sane dying is a village-making event: lots of people with plenty to do, the whole production endorsing life.
August 2015
The Sun Interview
The Mystic And The Warrior
Radical Priest Matthew Fox On Loving And Defending Our World
The mystic in us is the lover. The mystic says yes. But the prophet in us is the warrior, and the warrior says, “No, this is unjust. No, this is suffering that we can work to relieve.” That’s the rhythm of the mystic and the prophet, the lover and the warrior. It’s not enough to be one or the other.
July 2015
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