Ep. 72: Krista Tippett - The Connective Tissue Is What Shows Us What’s Possible - On Being
We are honored to have Krista Tippett on Health Gig. She is the creator and host of the highly acclaimed public radio program and podcast On Being, which features conversations with theologians, scientists and artists about spirituality, community, creativity and how we can build a more just and civil society. She is also the curator of the Civil Conversations Project at On Being. Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award winning broadcaster, a New York Times best selling author and a National Humanities Medal recipient, which she received from President Barack Obama in 2014. We talk about the importance of words, curiosity and questions. With language we have the power to make people’s day or break people’s day. Generous listening actually invites people to make it reasonable for a person to be vulnerable and revealing. The internet was created as a blank slate, but really we need to use the concept of hospitality as a social technology to help people relax and open up, Tippett explains.
In this interview, she eloquently highlights the fact that this is a “time of incredible tectonic shifts in the structures and institutions that came out of the 20th century that don't make sense in the 21st century. And in that kind of change, you have a lot of people where the ground beneath their feet is shifting and the ground beneath what they imagined and expected for their children's future is shifting. That's a trauma.”
Tippett’s calling is creating a connective tissue so that “we're learning together, that our learning gets interconnected, that there's cross pollination. Our world does not want to be fractured, right? We have to do bit by bit, five people at a time, 500 people at a time. We have to show what is this other possibility -- and how does that look -- and how do we get there. And then we have to teach each other, how do we get to this and what are the obstacles.”
More From Krista Tippett
Website: https://onbeing.org
Instagram: @onbeing
Twitter: @onbeing
Facebook: @OnBeing
LinkedIn: On Being Project
Book Mentioned in the Podcast
Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Anita Barrows
FOLLOW HEALTH GIG:
Learn more about BB&R and Achieving Optimal Health Conference by visiting BBRconsulting.us
Show Notes
[00:16] Our guest today is Krista Tippett, the creator and host of the highly acclaimed public radio program and podcast, On Being, which features conversations with theologians, scientists, and artists about spirituality, community, creativity and how we can build a more just and civil society. [19.8s] [00:00:48]Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, a New York Times bestselling author and a National Humanities Medal recipient, which she received from President Barack Obama in 2014.
[01:30] When did you realize that the words we choose matter as much as they do?
[01:46] In human life, it works two ways. Either you grow up having that modeled or you grow up in the absence of it and so you appreciate it all the more. I'm that second example. I just, I didn't grow up in a time or place or family that chose words carefully. And I discovered it kind of out in the big, wide world. Well, first of all, I discovered it in books. Then I discovered it through learning and I discovered it and travel. Something of my passion for the power of words and for the power of beautiful, careful words, is the passion of a convert.
[02:47] Words are powerful, powerful things. I also think questions are such a mighty form of words. And having noticed that, I don't always use my words as carefully as I should. Right, because it is so ordinary. It's actually quite a discipline to take this seriously moment to moment home, but it's really a good way to live.
[03:34] Unfortunately in our society right now, it seems that the most hostile and destructive voices are the ones that are getting the most attention. In response to this, you've created the Civil Conversations Project. Is that how this was born?
[03:46] The Civil Conversations Project was something that we kind of named after the fact. We realized that there was something we'd set in motion and we wanted to keep building on. And it actually started with my interview in 2010, which aired in 2011 with Elizabeth Alexander, the poet. I had taped that interview with her in the election season of 2010, which was very toxic. There was a lot of vitriolic language in that election. And when I think back to that time, we were all still really shocked by the vitriol.
[05:18] I mean really the Civil Conversations Project is just a body of work and we keep building it, you know, shows that we add to the Civil Conversations Project Archive. If I think the Young Being Project is about the questions of what it means to be human and how we want to live, the Civil Conversations Project just reflects that much more pointedly.
[07:10] So one of the virtues is words that matter. And that's also about understanding the humanity behind the words of the other person and also listening for that. It's generous listening, which is never in "gotcha mode." That generous listener is asking generous, inviting questions that invite somebody else and make it reasonable for them, which wouldn't be in many of our public spaces to be revealing, to be vulnerable, to bring their questions as well as their answers and their convictions.
[07:44] Humility is one of the grounding virtues. And I really see that in a spiritual context. We've done a disservice to that word culturally. And certainly for me, it was not a very compelling word for most of my life. I think for women, it could be a difficult word, right? I mean, you know, I think to be humble is to be ineffectual. But what I've come to understand from a spiritual standpoint is that humility is really not about debasing yourself. It's not about making yourself small. It's about wanting the other person to be big.
[08:24] Does humility include not having to be right and not having to be the one to get the credit?
[08:30] I think humility is also about being able to own what you don't know or what your questions are about. Whatever the position or the dispute is that it has set you at odds with this other person.
[09:20] Even if we weren't as divided as we are, we live with this unparalleled proximity and interdependence with different others. I mean, new in the history of our species. Plus, we're facing all these great big open civilizational challenges and changes from the definition of marriage or gender or family to what is happening to the natural world, to the weather changing, if you want to put it in the most benign terms to having to kind of reinvent how democracy works and how an economy works with our technologies in our globalized world.
[11:36] And anything can happen and anything does happen. And if you have no structure, no social intentionality in a space, the bullies always have an outsized presence. We know this. So I started to think of hospitality as a social technology. You find it in every culture and it has so much intricacy across different cultures. And really what it is, in one sense is a social technology for inviting other people to bring their best selves into the room.
[13:07] We practice in hospitality if you think about when you've practiced that meaningfully. It's so much more than extending an invitation. It's about preparing a space that is going to be inviting, that is going to be pleasurable, that is going to help people relax, that is going to get them off their guard, that is going to open them up, that will honor them even just honor their physical needs for something to drink and something to eat and a place to sit and feel welcome. And we know that there's value in that.
[15:52] So, I think curiosity is a virtue. But again, at this animal level, you can't fake curious. I mean, you can I can come into the room pretending to be curious or I say, well, I want to be in this conversation, so I'm going to act curious, but that actually will not do it. If I'm faking curiosity, you're going to know it. You're gonna feel it if you don't hear it in the words I say. You will be appropriately guarded with me. So one thing I say is I think we have to figure out how to re-learn what actual curiosity feels like. And it's not actually that instinctive right now.
[19:04] Back to preparation, back to thoughtfulness. You care about saying it in a way and at a time that it can be heard, but we don't do that in public. We kind of go around calling each other stupid all the time. Which we all know again in our actual lives of relationship is the actual absolute last way to change anything or anyone.
[20:50] There are so many reasonable reasons for human beings to be fearful right now. You know, sadly, I mean, there's a lot of fear all around on every side of our political spectrum. This is also just a time of incredible kind of tectonic shifts in the structures and institutions that came out of the 20th century that don't make sense in the 21st century. And in that kind of change, you have a lot of people where the ground beneath their feet is shifting and the ground beneath what they imagined and expected for their children's future is shifting. That's a trauma, right? But we let that get channeled into, you know, partisan politics and fights over issues. And we don't actually honor and address that fear and that pain and meet that.
[23:10] And in fact, what we keep learning, the more sophisticated we get, is that it's a whole organism. And in fact, that the natural world, the ground of our being doesn't function in silos or parts. It functions as an ecosystem that everything is interrelated and everything is in interplay. And that's true of us, too. And it's true of us and the people who live on the other side of our city who we do not know and do not know how to know. And it's true of us and the people who are on the other side of our political spectrum, who we do not know and do not know how to know. Our vulnerability is interconnected.
[26:48] Falling out of love. And love is so much bigger. Right, again. Love is friendship and love, the love we have for our children and the complicated, complicated kinds of love that, you know, across our lifespan. It amuses me, honestly that I think if you talked about using love in the political sphere or in the public sphere, the criticism would be, oh, that's so soft. It's not serious enough or it's not hard enough to meet the challenges of our time. Well, in our life, again, it's the hardest thing, right?
[31:12] My calling is creating this connective tissue there in these spaces where we're separated and shouldn't be and can't be creating connective tissue. So the places where we're learning that we're learning together, that our learning gets interconnected, that there's cross-pollination. So many of the people who are really doing the courageous, good, beautiful work of healing wherever they live, they feel very alone. What they're doing is in such contrast to what is coming down to them as what is the story of our time, what's happening in the world that really matters.
[34:48] Perhaps one day without even knowing it, you will live your way into the answers.
Thank you for joining us on HealthGig. We loved having you with us. We hope you'll tune in again next week. In the meantime, be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast, and follow us on healthgigpod.com.
“We need fresh language to approach each other, to get interested in each other again.” - Krista Tippett
“Humility is really not about debasing yourself. It's not about making yourself small. It's about wanting the other person to be big and figuring out how you can create conditions.” - Krista Tippett
“Love is the most reliable muscle of human transformation.” - Krista Tippett
“We need to know how to fight as advocates and be passionate.” - Krista Tippett
“Questions are such a mighty form of words.” - Krista Tippett
“Curiosity is a virtue. I think we have to figure out how to relearn what actual curiosity feels like.” - Krista Tippett
“Anger in public is pain and fear that can't show itself in public. And in fact, we don't make room for pain and fear in our public life, but we do give all kinds of attention to anger.” - Krista Tippett
“This is a time of incredible tectonic shifts in the structures and institutions that came out of the 20th century that don't make sense in the 21st century.” - Krista Tippett
Keywords
#OnBeingProject #OnBeing #KristaTippet #ElizabethAlexander #CivilConversationsProject #GabrielleGiffords #groundingvirtues #waysofbeing #generouslistening #HelenPrejean #hospitality #socialtechnology #LovePoemstoGod #DoroBushKoch #TriciaReillyKoch, #deeplistening #generouslistening #holistic #ecosystem #shadowside #innterconnected #love