Krista Tippett is a journalist and author who created and hosts the public radio program "On Being." An episode of "On Being," focusing on September 11, 2001, was recorded before a live audience at St. Paul's Chapel on September 6, 2011.
What do you like best about your work with On Being?
I was a journalist, I have a theological education, and I worked in divided Berlin in politics in what was a political center of the world. This feeling grew in me that we're often missing the whole story of what it means to be human, especially when we're focusing on what happened that day.
What I like about my work is that that's what I get to pay attention to. I get to find voices who I think deserve to be heard and have something wise to offer. I have this little space on radio where I can send their voices out there -- and that feels like a great gift.
What do you read for fun?
I do theology, meaning, and edifying, redemptive, beautiful ideas all week at work. I like to read literary murder mysteries in my free time. I like British authors because they do write so beautifully, even when they're writing about murders -- PD James and Ruth Rendell and Robert Goddard.
Recently, though, I've been getting into werewolves and vampires. I read this book called The Last Werewolf, which is also an amazing reflection of mortality.
Why did you change the name of the program from "Speaking of Faith" to "On Being?"
This show's birth coincided with 9/11. We came out the chute in this moment where suddenly -- and this was a very new thing in the world of public radio -- everybody realized that people wanted to talk about this subject. It felt really important to me in that moment that it be called Speaking of Faith and that we say, yes we're doing this on public radio and it's possible to do this with all the intelligence and nuance that public radio bring to politics or economics or the arts.
But as the show grew up, I felt increasingly that the title wasn't a good descriptor of what's happening in that radio hour. We're still often talking with people who are living in the depths of faith and tradition, but Speaking of Faith to me kind of suggests something that I think has gone wrong with talk about religion: we act like faith is some compartment of life. I'm interested in how the questions and insights and practices that emerge from this part of life that we call spiritual and religious infuse everything we do and how they might have a healthy, robust, edifying place in our common life.
I'm less and less interested in talking about religion. I'm interested in how these beliefs and practices manifest themselves and are important in the thick of life, in the thick of what it means to be human and how we want to live. To me, that's what On Being points at.
What do you hope your listeners take away from the "On Being" conversation at St. Paul's Chapel about 9/11?
I think there's going to be a lot of straight remembering and revisiting. That's probably something that we as a society and as human beings need to do. We're going to revisit where we were and how that changed on that day. What I hope people get out of it is an occasion to reflect, not just on how this has changed us, but how we live forward with this experience .
At this remove of ten years, we get to think not just about the impact [9/11] had, but what we want to do with that impact. We get to take charge of what we do with that experience. I also hope that we look at how the world has surprised us in the past 10 years.
We started to look out in fear, which was understandable, at a world where we saw, for example, Arab streets as breeding grounds for terrorism. Then here, ten years later, we understand that those Arab streets were also breeding grounds for the same kind of longing for democracy and human freedom that gave birth to this country.
I think it could be wonderful to have a moment to reflect on what we do with this experience for us as people, as citizens – and how we pass it on to our children.
Why do you think these public conversations about being human and the "whole story" are important?
We are at an extraordinary moment in history – the turn of a century which is momentous, in terms of the pace of change, in terms of human beings becoming connected in ways that are completely unprecedented in the entire sweep of human history.
We are revisiting basic definitions that the 20th century thought it had figured out. Starting with, when does life begin? When does death begin? What is a marriage, what is a family, how do we structure our institutions, what is the nature of leadership? It's anxiety-provoking for human beings to have these kind of open-ended questions, but it's also full of incredible possibility. I think these kinds of questions of what it means to be human have a new intensity and urgency.
Note: Visit the "On Being" website to find out where and when you can listen to the program in your area.