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Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward

A Bright Sadness With Christian Wiman

Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward

Center for Action and Contemplation

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8723 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2024

⏱️ 90 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In our fast-paced world, how can we cultivate a sense of wonder and open ourselves to the possibility of joy, even amidst life's inevitable hardships? In this episode, we're joined by Christian Wiman as we continue our chapter-by-chapter exploration of Falling Upward with Chapter 10: "A Bright Sadness." In this conversation with Christian Wiman, we explore how suffering and joy can coexist and transform us through a poetic experience of Christianity. Before we dive in to the interview with Christian, CAC staff catch up with Richard at his hermitage to hear his reflections on the tenth chapter a decade after he originally wrote it. Christian Wiman is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, including two memoirs, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer and He Held Radical Light: The Art of Faith, the Faith of Art; Every Riven Thing, winner of the Ambassador Book Award; Once in the West, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Survival Is a Style―all published by FSG. He teaches religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and at Yale Divinity School. Resources: A PDF of the transcript for this episode is available here. Grab a copy of the newly revised version of Falling Upward, with a new foreword by Brené Brown here. Check out Christian Wiman's latest book, Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair here. We also reference his book, My Bright Abyss. You can find that here. Connect with us: Have a question or thought about this season that you'd like to share with us? Email us: podcasts@cac.org Send us a voicemail here: http://www.cac.org/voicemail

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org.

0:07.7

The poet and professor Christian Wyman said, most of what Christianity ought to be is a poetic religion that teaches a way, that gives us models of experiencing the world and not directions for how to be in the world.

0:23.6

Such a poetic modeling of Christianity shares an embodied way of life that homes along with the paradoxes of reality.

0:32.8

St. John at the Cross called it a luminous darkness. Father Richard has dubbed it a bright sadness.

0:39.5

It is the shimmering edges of joy amidst abject suffering. It is the suffering befriending joy in the

0:46.4

breakthroughs. This present scene in the fullness of life becomes our full participation

0:52.4

in the great mystery, in the wonder.

0:56.8

In today's conversation, Richard welcomes us back to his hermitage to talk about chapter 10

1:02.9

of bright sadness. We raise questions to Richard on the necessity of the first half of life

1:09.2

and the nuisance of the second half, the cone

1:12.3

committance of life's content and container, and the presence of bright sadness.

1:17.6

From the Center for Action and Contemplation, I'm Mike Petro.

1:30.3

I'm Paul Swanson.

1:31.3

And this is Everything Belongs.

1:37.3

Richard, thanks for inviting us back to your house, even if you weren't quite so sure about it.

1:46.4

Wonderful to have you here.

1:49.3

Today we're going to talk about chapter 10, bright sadness.

1:56.2

And this title, Bright Sadness, is so, so sharp and vivid in the mind. Isn't it?

1:57.1

So good.

1:57.9

Yeah.

1:58.5

And in this chapter of Bright Sadness, you refer to St. John of the Cross as luminous darkness.

2:02.6

Merton's dying by the brightness and the Holy Spirit.

...

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