Give and Take

Episode 257: You're Only Human, with Kelly Kapic

December 16th, 2021  |  1 hr 5 mins

My guest is Kelly Kapic. Work. Family. Church. Exercise. Sleep.

The list of demands on our time seems to be never ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty--like you should always be doing one more thing.

Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach in You're Only Human. He offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn't create us to do it all.

Episode 256: Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, with Kirsten Powers

October 13th, 2021  |  58 mins 44 secs

My guest is Kirsten Powers. Her new book is "Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts." In it this CNN senior political analyst and USA Today columnist offers a path to navigating the toxic division in our culture without compromising our convictions and emotional well-being, based on her experience as a journalist during the Trump era, interviews with experts, and research on what leads people to actually change their minds.

Episode 255: The Rise of Post-Liberal Man

July 29th, 2021  |  54 mins 17 secs

My guest is Mathis Bitton. He is a student of political theory at Yale University. His writing focuses on liberalism and its discontents, Confucian and Islamic thought, city-states, and institution-building. You can follow him on Twitter at @mlbitton.

Episode 254: The 40 Day Challenge, with Rabbi Mark Wildes

July 26th, 2021  |  46 mins 12 secs

My guest is Mark Wildes. His newest book is "The 40 Day Challenge".

Sometimes we are spiritually frozen. This book will thaw you out and heat you up - Nissim Black, Rapper and Businessman

Written in an approachable, uplifting, and accessible style, The 40 Day Challenge is an invitation for people who believe there is more to life than the daily grind. It offers the reader easily digestible and compact Jewish wisdom, each day for the 40 days from Rosh Chodesh Elul leading up to Yom Kippur. Each daily reading is followed by a challenge question so it can serve as a spiritual diary as you approach the High Holidays. This year, instead of just “showing up,” prepare yourself with a Torah insight written by MJE Founder Rabbi Mark Wildes, who has spent his life inspiring Jews from all walks of life.

Episode 253: Supreme Court Recap, with Steve Krone

June 18th, 2021  |  1 hr 11 mins

My guest is Steve Krone. In addition to being an entertainment lawyer and a prolific film producer, he also was a Supreme Court clerk for Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and David H. Souter. We talked about the two significant decisions the Supreme Court handed down this week. We also chatted a bit about film.

Episode 252: Talking Politics, Pop-Culture, and Podcasting, with Roifield Brown

May 19th, 2021  |  1 hr 8 mins

In this episode I talk with Roifield Brown. Roifield Brown is an experienced podcaster and media strategist, with an impressive track record of helping companies enhance and grow their media properties to diverse audiences across a wide range of categories, including politics, history, culture and entertainment.

Episode 251: Candles in the Dark, with Rowan Williams

March 9th, 2021  |  45 mins 42 secs

My guest is Rowan Williams. ‘As we contemplate the coming months, not knowing when we can breathe again, it’s worth thinking about how already the foundations have been laid for whatever new opportunities God has for us on the far side of this crisis.’ Rowan Williams offers these words of wisdom and many more in his new book "Candles in the Dark." This powerful and timely book brings together the 26 weekly Christian meditations originally posted online from March to September 2020, during lockdown in the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, for the congregation of his local parish church.

Episode 250: Everybody Prays, with James Martin

February 11th, 2021  |  58 mins 8 secs

My guest is James Martin, SJ. His newest book is Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone. He is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, consultor to the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications, and author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestsellers "Jesus: A Pilgrimage" and "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything." Among his other books, "My Life with the Saints" and "Between Heaven and Mirth" were named by Publishers Weekly as "Best Books" of the year, and three of his books have received Christopher Awards. Father Martin is a frequent commentator in the national and international media, having appeared on all the major networks, and in such diverse outlets as The Colbert Report, Fresh Air, On Being, Fox & Friends, PBS's NewsHour, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Boston Globe, as well as on the History Channel, BBC, and Vatican Radio. Before entering the Jesuits in 1988, he graduated from the Wharton School of Business.

Episode 249: To Reach the Spring: From Complicity to Consciousness in the Age of Eco-Crisis, with Nathaniel Popkin

February 2nd, 2021  |  1 hr 36 mins

My guest is Nathaniel Popkin. His newest book is "To Reach the Spring: From Complicity to Consciousness in the Age of Eco-Crisis." In the shadow of an escalating eco-crisis—a looming catastrophe that will dwarf the fallout from COVID-19—how can we explain our society’s failure to act? What will we tell future generations? Are we paralyzed because the problem is so vast in scope, or are there deeper reasons for the widespread passivity? Nathaniel Popkin explores the moral, social, and psychological dimensions of the crisis, outlining a path to a future spring.

Episode 248: Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines, with Jamie Merisotis

January 14th, 2021  |  37 mins 4 secs

My guest is Jamie Merisotis. He's the author of "Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines." As computer technology advances with dizzying speed, human workers face an ever-increasing threat of obsolescence. In Human Work In the Age of Smart Machines, Jamie Merisotis argues that we can—and must—rise to this challenge by preparing to work alongside smart machines doing that which only humans can: thinking critically, reasoning ethically, interacting interpersonally, and serving others with empathy. The president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, Merisotis offers a roadmap for the large-scale, radical changes we must make in order to find abundant and meaningful work for ourselves in the 21st century.

Episode 247: The Very Last Interview: with David Shields, Nick Toti, and Rachel Kempf

January 3rd, 2021  |  1 hr 30 mins

My guests are David Shields, Nick Toti, and Rachel Kempf about The Very Last Interview (Shields' forthcoming book), film-adapted by Toti and Kempf and released this month. Shields is the author of over twenty books including Reality Hunger, Other People, How Literature Saved My Life, The Trouble with Men, That Thing You Do With Your Mouth, etc. While The Very Last Interview will not be released until early 2022 by New York Review Books, Toti released the 30 minute short earlier this month via Vimeo.

Episode 246: 6 Spiritual Truths that Won’t Change with the Election, with Frederick Schmidt

October 31st, 2020  |  52 mins 2 secs

My guest if Frederick Schmidt. He holds the Rueben P. Job Chair in Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He's also an Episcopal Priest. He recently wrote a piece entitled "6 Spiritual Truths that Won’t Change with the Election." It's a timely piece for reflection and discussion.

Episode 245: Presidential Playbook 2020: 16 Nonpartisan Solutions to Save America, with John Burke

October 13th, 2020  |  45 mins 51 secs

My guest is John Burke. His newest book is "Presidential Playbook 2020: 16 Nonpartisan Solutions to Save America." “And sometime, at some point, do something for your country.” That quote from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough resonated so deeply with Trek Bicycle President John Burke that he set out to write a book laying out his vision for the country, an America that can once again be a shining city on a hill.

Episode 244: Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic, Abdul El-Sayed

September 26th, 2020  |  37 mins 32 secs

My guest is Abdul El-Sayed. His new book is "Healing Politics: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Our Political Epidemic." From a rising voice in progressive politics, a combination of memoir, science, and public policy, diagnosing the challenges facing America and laying out a way forward
A child of immigrants, Abdul El-Sayed grew up feeling a responsibility to help others. He threw himself into the study of medicine and excelled—winning a Rhodes Scholarship, earning two advanced degrees, and landing a tenure-track position at Columbia University. At 30, he became the youngest city health official in America, tasked with rebuilding Detroit's health department after years of austerity policies.

Episode 243: Breaking Bread With The Dead, with Alan Jacobs

September 23rd, 2020  |  50 mins 49 secs

My guest is Alan Jacobs. His newest book is "Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind." W. H. Auden once wrote that "art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead." In his brilliant and compulsively readable new treatise, Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs shows us that engaging with the strange and wonderful writings of the past might help us live less anxiously in the present--and increase what Thomas Pynchon once called our "personal density."

Episode 242: Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife, with Ariel Sabar

September 22nd, 2020  |  44 mins 10 secs

My guest is Ariel Sabar. His newest book is "Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife." In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The tattered manuscript made international headlines. If early Christians believed Jesus was married, it would upend the 2,000-year history of the world's predominant faith, threatening not just the celibate, all-male priesthood but sacred teachings on marriage, sex and women's leadership. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels. "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife"--as she provocatively titled her discovery--was both a crowning career achievement and powerful proof for her arguments that Christianity from its start embraced alternative, and far more inclusive, voices.