City As Playground

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

Imagining Abundance - Reimagining Fresno‘s Economy

In Fresno, the Center for Community Transformation Leadership Foundation is reimagining the local economy of God's abundance.

An economy where the city is full of practicing and prospective entrepreneurs starting and sustaining small businesses of every shape...

A local economy nourished by a vision of God's economy - one where there is enough for everyone, particularly those most vulnerable and marginalized.

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: An Invitation into Brave Space

What if instead of seeking safe spaces, we worked to create brave spaces, spaces where we could bring our deepest selves, our deepest vulnerabilities to the table in a way that might make real transformation possible? Rev. Jen Bailey, founder of the Faith Matters Network joins us to explore the possibility of building trust across our deepest and most intractable lines of difference, recognizing that all social change happens at the speed of trust.

Traditioned Innovation: Upside Down Hospitality & The Little Way

Dr. Richard Beck - Author, blogger, and professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University - joins us to discuss the psychology of why we get so stuck in our tribal ruts. He suggests that an often overlooked Saint, Therese of Lisieux, offers a simple, yet profound way of finding ourselves swept up in a God of hospitality, who turns all our expectations on their heads.

 

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. 

Praying With Poetry - An Advent 2020 special

As a special Advent gift, Jesuit priest, Fr. Steve Lantry, SJ is our guest to describe how how poetry can serve as a means and method to pray. 

Join us as Fr. Steve shares a few of his favorite poems and demonstrates how poetry can aid us in our encounter with God and to enter more deeply into in the life of prayer.

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. 

 

 

Leadership and the Challenge of Racial Injustice

Cornelius Williams- president of the Resurgence Leadership Foundation based in Atlanta, Georgia - joins host Rick Enloe and LF President Dave Hillis to reflect on the current racial turmoil throughout the US. Cornelius reflects on his own leadership journey, the enduring work that's needed to bring about racial equity, and how the film, Black Panther, might lend us some hints.

 

Read this reflection from Cornelius for background information.