On Being With Christa Tippett is supported in part by the John Templeton Foundation,

funding research and catalyzing conversations that inspire people with awe and wonder.

Learn about the latest discoveries in the science of hope and optimism,

forgiveness and free will at templeton.org.

It has ever and always been true as David White reminds us that so much of human experience

is a conversation between loss and celebration.

This conversational nature of reality, indeed this drama of vitality is something we have all

been shown willing or unwilling in these years. Many have turned to David White for his gorgeous

life-giving poetry and his wisdom at the interplay of theology, psychology and leadership.

His insistence on the power of a beautiful question and of everyday words

amidst the drama of work as well as the drama of life. The notion of frontier, inner frontiers,

outer frontiers weaves through this hour. It is a delight to surface this as a companion

for the frontiers we are all on just by virtue of being alive in this time.

I'm Christa Tippett and this is on Being.

David White first became known for his book The Heart Aroused.

His new poetry collection in 2022 is still possible. This conversation happened in 2016.

You know David I for some reason I had either heard you referred to as an Irish poet or I had

referred to as an Irish poet but I lived in the UK for a little while and I thought maybe your

accent had gotten a little bit muddled up by living in the states too much and then what I read

that you grew up in Yorkshire and that you're not all Irish. It made perfect sense to me.

My accent is a movable frontier I think and I grew up with an Irish accent in the house

through my mother and all the usual Irish things and imaginings and then spent quite a bit of time

...