City As Playground

the Street and the Academy

Cities, by their very nature, point us to the contradictions and paradoxes that are an inseparable aspect of our world. To love cities - as the Leadership Foundations global network seeks to embody - is to embrace these contradictions.

Join us in this episode where we explore the contradiction and tension between two sources of authority - the Street and the Academy - and how both have something to teach us about our urban world.

The Bible and The Newspaper - An Introduction

How do we navigate today's urban world - holding the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other? How do we navigate the tension of contemplation and action, street and the academy in our active engagement in the city?

Join us for this new City as Playground series as we'll be exploring these tensions by engaging thought leaders and practitioners from across the world and throughout the Leadership Foundations' global network.

Praying with Poetry, Redux

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “The reason we fly from the city is not in reality that it is not poetical; it is that its poetry is too fierce, too fascinating and too practical in its demands.”*

In this 2021 finale podcast episode, we welcome back Fr. Steve Lantry, SJ for a special Advent/Christmas "Praying with Poetry" episode. Fr. Lantry explores with us how we can use poetry as a tool to enrich and deepen our prayer life. He guides us through three groups of poems (listed below) on the themes of Relationality, Paradox, and Challenge & Hope.

 

Poems cited:

• The Hidden Singer by Wendell Berry from A Part, 1980, or, Collected Poems, pp.207-8
• Love is the way messengers… by Rumi 1207-1273, from The Soul of Rumi, p. 33, translated by Coleman Barks & John Moyne
• When school and mosque and minaret... by Rumi, 1207-1273, from A Year with Rumi, p.233
• Those who think the heart is only in the chest... by Rumi, 1207-1274, from Rumi: Hidden Music, p. 54, translated by Azima Melita Kolin & Maryam Mafi
• everywhere, everywhere by Charles Bukowski, from What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire, p. 94
• One song by Rumi, 1207-1273,from A Year with Rumi, p. 214,rendered by Coleman Barks
• When We See God by Edward Hirsch
• Hope by Lisel Mueller, from Good Poems, p. 224, ed. by Garrison Keillor      
• Sometimes  by Sheenagh Pugh, from Good Poems, p. 215, ed. by Garrison Keillor
• We have fished all night… by Sr. Annette Moran, CSJ, from A Woman at the Well, p. 55, Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet, St. Louis Province, 2009

*Lunacy and Letters by G.K. Chesterton, p. 60

 

Can You Imagine a Playground? - A Just City

Can you imagine a city that is just? A city where everyone - regardless of background, birth family, race, or creed - receives what they need to fully thrive as human beings...

Justin Beene, President of the Leadership Foundation of Grand Rapids, Center for Community Transformation (GRCCT), joins us to explore the shape of God's justice in his city.  Dr. Beene describes how GRCCT is seeking to extend opportunity in a city ranked amongst the worst economically for African-Americans. 

• • Statistic cited from Forbes Magazine, 2015. 
  • Grand Rapids Center for Community Transformation

Can You Imagine A Playground?

In this year-end series of 2021, we're returning to our roots, letting our imagination guide us as we explore more deeply the animating metaphor of Leadership Foundations: our world's cities as playgrounds.

Join us as we hear from LF leaders from various cities as they imagine their own city as a playground, a place where vulnerable and marginalized people are able to fully flourish and thrive.

 

Guests:

• Nahshon Nicks, First Coast Leadership Foundation
• Anthony Branch, Memphis Leadership Foundation
• Courtney Dugstad, Next Chapter Ministries, Leadership Foundation of Rochester, MN
• Carlos Huerta, Center for Community Transformation, Leadership Foundation of Fresno, CA

City as Playground Recommendation:

The Moral Imagination: the Art and Soul of Peacebuilding by John Paul Lederach

Imagining Abundance: Conversation To Be Continued

Can you imagine God's economy of abundance even in places where resources appear so scarce? Can you see it?

Join us as we wrap up this City as Playground podcast series, Imagining Abundance, recapping our conversations of seeing abundance throughout the Leadership Foundations network in Bloemfontein, South Africa; Fresno, California; and Philippi, West Virginia.

Traditioned Innovation: Learning to Pray

Is prayer still relevant today, in our post-modern 21st century urban world?  Does our 2,000+ year-old faith tradition have anything to teach us about praying today?

Join us as acclaimed author and public figure Fr. James Martin, SJ discusses Ignatius of Loyola, our bustling cities, and his recently published book, Learning to Pray: A Guide For Everyone.

Traditioned Innovation: A Way of Proceeding

Is leadership about making important decisions? 

Or is it more about a way of going about making decisions? To borrow a phrase from the Jesuits, what is a "way of proceeding" that allows us to move forward together in these uncertain times?

We are join by Lisa Slayton, Leadership Foundations board member, organizational consultant and founder of Tamim Partners to explore the shape of discernment in pursuit of a more just and equitable urban future. 

Traditioned Innovation - An Introduction

With the beginning of the new year, 2021 brings plenty of uncertainty along with it. How do we approach this new and uncertain future? How do we seek long-term change in our world's cities, when we don't even know what will happen tomorrow?

Could it be that the deepest resources of our traditions hold the key to some of most promising current-day innovations?

 
In this series, Traditioned Innovation, Leadership Foundations explores how we bring to light and make use of the wisdom of our traditions in our new and innovative ways to meet the most urgent challenges of our modern urban world. 

Public Theology for the Common Good

How do the deep resources of our faith help us to more deeply engage the Public Square? Can a Public Theology help us find a way through these divided and polarized times to work together toward the Common Good?

Anne Snyder, the Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine and the host of Breaking Ground, a collaborative web commons, joins us to explore these topics as we seek a public theology for the common good.