On Being with Krista Tippett

Patrick Belgaard Smith is professor of Africaology at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He's the author of several books including Haiti, the breached citadel.

Patrick Belgaard Smith is professor of Africaology at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. He's the author of several books including Haiti, the breached citadel.

His books include Dying Well, peace and possibilities at the end of life.

He describes where that question took him in his book called The Neighborhood Project, using evolution to improve my city one block at a time.

In his book The Neighborhood Project, David Sloan Wilson observes Binghamton's architecture institutions and economy like fossil layers in terms of evolutionary progression.

In his book The Neighborhood Project, David Sloan Wilson writes, Change is not necessarily for the better.

David Sloan Wilson's books include Darwin's Cathedral and The Neighborhood Project, using evolution to improve my city one block at a time.

Change is not necessarily for the better. Just as it is wrong to equate evolution with slow, it is also wrong to equate it with progress. Evolution doesn't make everything nice. It results in the full spectrum of outcomes that we associate with good and evil, thriving and decay. With the right conditions, the world becomes a better place. With the wrong conditions, evolution takes us where we don't want to go. That is why we must learn to become wise managers of evolutionary processes.

In his book The Neighborhood Project, David Sloan Wilson observes Binghamton's architecture institutions and economy like fossil layers in terms of evolutionary progression. He writes for example, Binghamton's era of prosperity might have ended with the 19th century except for two men, George F. Johnson and John B. Watson.

There's a book called the 10,000 year explosion which explores this Is it because of technology the pace of Technology Well of course you know Evolution is rapid when there's a big mismatch between the Environment and the and the current

There's a book called the 10,000 year explosion which explores this Is it because of technology the pace of Technology Well of course you know Evolution is rapid when there's a big mismatch between the Environment and the and the current Population and we're always changing our environment so much that they were creating Consumnism

His books include Introduction to Mathematical Thinking and Life by The Numbers.

His books include Introduction to Mathematical Thinking and Life by The Numbers.

And then when he turned 40 he became an active lecturer and writer on spiritual themes and also on the contemplative and meditative life. So the first book I read of his was his book on meditation called How to Know Higher Worlds and that meditation book became from me a kind of practice manual that I've worked with ever since.

I feel my fate, my fate finds me, I feel my star, my star finds me, I feel my aims, my aims find me, my soul and the world are one.

life will be clearer around me, life will be more burdensome for me, life will be richer for me.

His book The Rocks Don't Lie. A geologist investigates Noah's flood.

In part because of that that essence of an intellectual challenge in a puzzle of trying to figure out how the world works.

When you look back into the relationship between science and religion, one doesn't really often hear these days the story of how they cross-pollinated and informed each other in ways that led to sort of intellectual growth in both theology and in science.

When you look back to the, what we view today is the founding fathers of geology that folks in the 17th and 18th century who started to put the pieces of the global puzzle together. Many of them were motivated by trying to explain the story of Noah's flood because that was essentially the theory of the times.

And I think that, what's very clear when you speak about this and I just did never thought about it this way is that this inquiry about geology, about how landscapes formed. You know, as you said, it's also pursuing this question of how the world was put together, how it came together. So this is also about origins, you know, this is one of these origin stories but we don't necessarily think about landscape and geology in those terms.

The story of Noah's flood was right in there among all the other ones that I absorbed as a child and becoming a geologist later in life, that one obviously stuck with me in a special way.

Yeah, it really was. When you look back into the relationship between science and religion, one doesn't really often hear these days the story of how they cross-pollinated and informed each other in ways that led to sort of intellectual growth in both theology and in science.

When you look back to the, what we view today is the founding fathers of geology that folks in the 17th and 18th century who started to put the pieces of the global puzzle together. Many of them were motivated by trying to explain the story of Noah's flood because that was essentially the theory of the times.

And what I came to understand and how you wrote about that is as you say those people hundreds of years ago who starting point was just looking at what they could see in the landscape. I mean there were marine fossils, shells of sea creatures on tops of mountains and one way to explain that quite inexplicable occurrence would be that at one point that was all covered with water.

Reading that book, reading the Genesis Flood was it was a real eye opener to me in terms of understanding how modern creation is essentially arose because if you look at the theology of the early 20th century the idea of creationism was pretty well put to bed in both scientific and theological worlds until that book came out it really revived what we now to know today is modern creationism.

And he's curator and executive director of Poptech, an annual conference in Camden, Maine at the center of a global web of social innovators. He's the author of Resilience, Why Things Bounce Back.

Rosalie is curator and executive director of PopTek. He's the author together with Ann Marie Haley of Resilience, why things bounce back?

He's the author of Resilience, Why Things Bounce Back.

And he's the author together with Ann Marie Haley of Resilience, why things bounce back.

One of the things that we say in there is like of all the spiritual practices. You know, no matter how severe the monastery and how arduous the particular practices associated with it. Living with children is probably the most powerful spiritual practice that anybody could ever be engaged in if you open yourself to it that way.

I like to look at them as when they're little as little living Zen masters that are sort of parachuted into our lives to push all our buttons and see how we're going to work with you know the challenges that they saw how to us in addition to, of course, having to put food on the table pay the rent. Build a career, have a loving relationship. That is sustained over time and isn't merely mechanical or for functury and this is like a really tall order.

one of the things that my wife and I wrote a book on mindful parenting 12 years ago and one of the things that we say in there is like of all the spiritual practices you know no matter how severe the monastery and how arduous the particular practices associated with it living with children is probably the most powerful spiritual practice that anybody could ever be engaged in if you open yourself to it that way

If anyone needs proof that God has a sense of humor, here it is. I am a middle-aged mother of four who primarily works with young, very fit men. My preferred habitat is a warm, well-stocked library yet I work in the outdoors without doorsmen.

But the crowning irony she continues is that I, a famously loquacious person, have a job that mostly requires me to just show up. Shut my mouth and be.

sometimes I remember something funny that Drew once said some offhand comment that still cracks me up and I think. To be able to make someone laugh years after I'm gone that is all the immortality I could ever ask for.

If you are in Christian terms following Christ or in unitarian universalist terms completely and holy in love then you are in heaven no matter where you are. If you are not in love you are in hell no matter where you are.

She concludes the stories we tell of heaven and hell are not about how we die but about how we live.

If anyone needs proof that God has a sense of humor, here it is. I am a middle-aged mother of four who primarily works with young, very fit men. My preferred habitat is a warm, well-stocked library yet I work in the outdoors without doorsmen.

But the crowning irony she continues is that I, a famously loquacious person, have a job that mostly requires me to just show up. Shut my mouth and be.

sometimes I remember something funny that Drew once said some offhand comment that still cracks me up and I think. To be able to make someone laugh years after I'm gone that is all the immortality I could ever ask for.

If you are in Christian terms following Christ or in unitarian universalist terms completely and holy in love then you are in heaven no matter where you are. If you are not in love you are in hell no matter where you are.

She concludes the stories we tell of heaven and hell are not about how we die but about how we live.

I read some translation of Iranian novel to remember now. I began to forget and I wrote an article that we published maybe tomorrow next few days for an important newspaper about its kind of interpretation by this novels of the woman in Islam. I think that behind the veil of Islam there are really women living acting and proposing something for their societies.

a wonderful novel and it's about the Saudi society and the women and the Saudi society and they're also a kind of for women to live the differences or to change.

I read some translation of Iranian novel to remember now. I began to forget and I wrote an article that we published maybe tomorrow next few days for an important newspaper about its kind of interpretation by this novels of the woman in Islam.

I read last month's. I read a lot of Norvel's written by written in French but by Muslim believer or with a background in and always and not just by by Muslim believer but also by French. It is a kind of obsession to live the difference.

A wonderful novel and it's about the Saudi society and the women and the Saudi society and they're also a kind of for women to live the differences or to change.

And I brought also a book, the first Italian book on World Endervishes. The World Endervishes? Yeah. Yeah. It was the first one, even if a lot of Italian come to Turkey and see the World Endervishes dance and they don't know, they go back and they don't still know anything about Sema.

And he loves also Rumi's poetry that is very interesting.

And I brought also a book, the first Italian book on World Endervishes. The World Endervishes? Yeah. Yeah. It was the first one, even if a lot of Italian come to Turkey and see the World Endervishes dance and they don't know, they go back and they don't still know anything about Sema. And apparently this book is very well received.

And he loves also Rumi's poetry that is very interesting.