Cambridge Forum: Ways of Being in the World

Cambridge Forum welcomes KRISTA TIPPETT for a discussion of her book Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.

Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and New York Times–bestselling author. In 2014, she received the National Humanities Medal at the White House for "thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence." She is the host of the public radio program and podcast On Being and Curator of the Civil Conversations Project.

About Becoming Wise

Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation.
 
In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. 
 
The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says—definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. 
 
This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century—of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid.
 
One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

Praise

"This is not just a selection of greatest hits. Instead, rooted in Tippett's own keen insight, she provides an interlocking frame based on five themes: words, the body, love, faith, and hope. With dips into Tippett's childhood and early career, readers are embraced by her own struggle, vulnerability, and thirst for meaning. As researcher and TED-talk phenom Brené Brown told Tippett, ‘Hope is a function of struggle.’ Tippett's striving here is the grist for creative genius." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

"We need Krista Tippett’s voice and wisdom now more than ever. She has elevated the art of listening and the practice of being present in a way that is both accessible and soulful. Becoming Wise is what I’ve been waiting for from Krista—the opportunity to learn from her and her experiences. This is brilliant thinking, beautiful storytelling, and practical insight. You won’t forget what you read here." —Brené Brown, Ph.D., New York Times–bestselling author of Rising Strong

"I am a great admirer of Krista Tippett, who has spent years using her mind as a gentle but probing research tool into the beautiful, perilous, mysterious realm of the human soul. With this book, she has gathered all her years of learning and listening to create a masterpiece of philosophical and spiritual reflection. About halfway through the book, I stopped flagging pages and highlighting passages when I realized I was highlighting nearly every word. This entire book is filled with things I never want to forget. The only remedy will be to keep it near me, always." —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic