Learning From Silence
In 1990, as towering flames closed in around his California home, author Pico Iyer picked up his mother’s cat and ran to the car, hoping to escape the raging wildfire.…
S8 E13 | What Solitude Gives Us After Catastrophe with Pico Iyer
Apple YouTube Spotify More! What happens when we step away from the noise of daily life and into silence? Author Pico Iyer joins Amy Julia Becker to explore the themes…
I Want to Celebrate Aging
I want to celebrate aging. I’m 47 years old, and I want to embrace the signs of age—freedom to be in this face and this body. I want to get…
Stop and Watch the Bears
I never thought I would be a person with bear cubs in the backyard… I could watch these little ones all day. Our life is full this time of year.…
Mothers Can Pass Along Belovedness
What if, as mothers, we believed our own belovedness and passed that belief along to our daughters? I really appreciated Alexandra D’Amour’s essay for the New York Times about toxic…
S6 E4 | The Beauty of Life Together with Willie James Jennings
"The challenge is to trust again the beauty of life together.” Professor and author Willie James Jennings talks with Amy Julia Becker about the beauty, promise, and hope of…
A Place for Extravagant Beauty
Flowers serve a purpose, I know, evolutionarily. But I’ve been gazing at this arrangement of flowers leftover from Sunday’s party and thinking how absurd it is. How funny and winsome…
S5 E6 | Black Jesus, White Spaces, and Sacred Beauty with Danté Stewart
Black literature powerfully expands our theological imaginations. Danté Stewart, writer, speaker, and author of Shoutin’ in the Fire, talks with Amy Julia Becker about literature, theology, Black Jesus, and finding…
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An Age of Longing
We are living in an age of longing. When I was younger, I read “classic American novels” about people (mostly boys) who sought after truth, sought to find themselves, sought…
Slowing Down in Our Family’s Fast-Paced World
We’ve overbooked everyone. For the grownups: traveling for work, meetings for church, parent-teacher conferences, volunteer commitments, and the day-to-day of professional obligations. For our kids: two soccer teams, one cross-country,…
