On Being with Krista Tippett

Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue, and clog the lungs. Like thunder, they drown you in sound. No, like lightning, they strike you across the larynx. Cough. After it happened, I was at a loss for words.

Haven't you said this yourself? Haven't you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted, would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life. Eventually, she stopped doing this, though she never acknowledged her slippage. And you never called her on it. Why not? And yet, you don't forget. If this were a domestic tragedy, and it might as well be, this would be your fatal flaw. Your memory, vessel of your feelings. Do you feel hurt because it's the all black people look the same moment? Or because you're being confused with another after being so close to this other?

That last line, I have to say, was the hardest line to write in the book. Because the original version of that piece was something like, is it because... I was trying too hard to come up with the language in my head. So I was thinking, is it because she's a servant? And my husband said to me, is that really the issue? It's a class thing. You don't want to be compared to somebody who has a job. And so I realized, I was like, no. A job that you don't want to have. And I said, no, it's not a class thing. I just wanted to use the word servant because master, slave, servant.

How to care for the injured body, the kind of body that can't hold the content it is living.

To arrive like this every day, for it to be like this. To have so many memories and no other memory than these. For as long as they can be remembered, to remember this. Though a share of all remembering, a measure of all memory is breath. And to breathe, you have to create a truce. A truce with the patience of a stethoscope.

Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue and clog the lungs. Like thunder they drown you in sound. No, like lightning they strike you across the larynx. Cough. After it happened, I was at a loss for words.

Haven't you said this yourself? Haven't you said this to a close friend who early in your friendship when distracted would call you by the name of her black housekeeper? You assumed you two were the only black people in her life. Eventually she stopped doing this, though she never acknowledged her slippage. And you never called her on it. Why not? And yet, you don't forget.

That last line, I have to say, was the hardest line to write in the book. Because the original version of that piece was something like, I was trying too hard to come up with the language in my head. So I was thinking, is it because she's a servant?

I asked another friend what it's like being the mother of a black son. She said, there is still time inside her and her son's reality. At any moment, she might lose her reason for living. Though the white liberal imagination likes to feel temporarily bad about black suffering, there really is no mode of empathy that can replicate the daily strain of knowing that as a black person you can be killed for simply being black.

you want the days to add up to something more than you came in out of the sun and drank the potable water of your developed world. Yes, and because words hang in the air like pollen, the throat closes. You hack away. That time and that time and that time the outside blistered the inside of you. Words outmaneuvered years had you in a chokehold. Every part roughed up, the eyes dripping. That's the bruise the ice in the heart was meant to ice.

I think you this place where you say maybe that you read the obituaries at the beginning of every day maybe it is a way of trying to figure out before the day begins what is important and I'm curious about all the little things that make up a life.

I have to say that the map for those listeners who are inclined, I've spoken of it so many times that it must be online. So if you go to Sarah Berman's map of the United States or something like that, you might find it.

It was interesting, you know, your mother comes in, again, your mother's map of the world. Obviously people who are just listening to us talk won't have that picture in front of them, but talk about what is there and why that is so important for you. That's an important touch point for you, that map.

How are we all so brave as to take step after step, day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip and then get up and say, okay, why do I feel so sorry for everyone and so proud?

They are constant reminders that life reveals the best of itself when we live fully in the moment and extend our unconditional love.

You wrote in Beloved Dog I thought this was wonderful I'm sure many people who love dogs will resonate with this they are constant reminders that life reveals the best of itself when we live fully in the moment and extend our unconditional love and it is very true that the most tender uncomplicated most generous part of our being blossoms without any effort when it comes to the love of a dog.

I mean, there is a sense in which everything you've done since then builds on that.

And I mean, so your book, The Prophetic Imagination continues to be such an important book. I think it's probably my fallback position. And sometimes I look at it now and I think either, gee, I already saw that then, or I think, wow, I haven't moved at all.

Our consumer culture is organized against history. There is a deprecation of memory and a ridicule of hope which means everything must be held in the now, either an urgent now or an eternal now.

I mean, your book, The Prophetic Imagination continues to be such an important book. I think it's probably my fallback position and sometimes I look at it now and I think either, gee, I already saw that then or I think, wow, I haven't moved at all.

I mean, there is a sense in which everything you've done since then builds on that and flows from it.

I read some of your sermons. You have a new book, a new collection of sermons.

This I think was from one of your sermons. You're talking about the need for a city to care about injustice or poverty and despair is not liberalism or socialism or welfare or radicalism. I mean after all, liberals and conservatives share those same biblical texts, right? But you said it is simply genuine humanness authorized by the God of the Bible.

I have the galleys of that. Has it been published?

I loved that one. I didn't correct it for you. Sorry.

I loved that one.

In the summer of 1968, in the throes of a hardscrabble, perilous childhood, he wandered into a magic shop and met a woman named Ruth who taught him what she called another kind of magic that freed him from being a victim of the circumstances of his life and that he now investigates through science.

the brain as busy as it can be is actually very lazy

magic works because people are so easily distracted. But she said, they're not distracted by hand gestures. Most people who are watching a magic show aren't really there watching the magic show. They are regretting something they did yesterday or worrying about something that might happen tomorrow.

It's not that the cap is funny, it's because you don't understand compassion is in the heart.

The brain as busy as it can be is actually very lazy. That this is why magic tricks work.

the brain doesn't distinguish between an experience that is intensely imagined and an experience that is real

energy can either be created nor destroyed, but it can be transmuted or changed or redirected

we are at the beginning of an age of compassion

One of the things that's interesting to me, so in this book that I wrote, one of the things I did was I talked to former terrorists and former neo-Nazis and people who had left extraordinary lives and mindsets of hate behind and how one of the through lines for so many of them, that transition, that inflection point was parenthood.

right-wingers were my enemies and I hated them

in this election that all resurfaced for you

you tell this story, and I think also something that you both have in common is you're both parents

I mean, it is Brooklyn, so you know, you gotta use certain language to be heard, you know?

one of the things I did was I talked to former terrorists and former neo-Nazis and people who had left extraordinary lives and mindsets of hate behind

A new book just came out about my mother three weeks ago by Eileen McNamara, who's a Pulitzer Prize winning author. And it's called Eunice the Kennedy Who Changed the World.

A new book just came out about my mother three weeks ago by Eileen McNamara, who's a Pulitzer Prize winning author. And it's called Eunice the Kennedy Who Changed the World.

She said, at its best the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain. And then, and only then, it is handed to you.

Do you know that book by Annie Dillard, The Writing Life?

And she said, at its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain. And then and only then it is handed to you.

And this really explained it in the most beautiful way. And it was a book and it largely talked about India. And basically in India, they really do believe that their parents are going to pick the right person. And so they're looking forward to the marriage with the right person that their parents are going to choose.

And one of the lines in the book was something like, we can't believe how you Americans have to get all dolled up and sit around in a bar and wait for people to call. And well, we just sit around and play with our girlfriends and dad finds us the perfect boy.

Josh Schenck has that great book, I think about, called Lincoln's Melancholy about Lincoln's depression and about the kind of, and I think again, the blessing, I can see it now that I'm not in it, but the blessing of a really depressive early life and a really, I mean, I don't think my childhood, there were plenty of worse childhoods, but I think it does deepen you to be dark minded.