The great Christian scholar of the biblical prophets died on June 5, 2025. Yet, in the lineage of the prophets who called humanity to face its hardest realities, this profound, warm, and timeless conversation is a stunning offering straight into our present. “The amazing contemporaneity of this material," Walter Brueggemann says to Krista in this conversation from 2011, “and we relive by relistening, is that the issues are the same: the world we have trusted in is vanishing before our eyes and the world that is coming at us feels like a threat to us and we can't quite see the shape of it." He embodied as much as taught a prophetic way of fearless truth telling, fierce hope, and disarming language that can break through "human hearts and human hurt." What is the calling of the Christian in a time like this, and what is the role of the preacher?

We are lifting this episode out of the archive to mark this moment. Krista felt particularly called to point to this unedited version of their conversation, which was previously edited to meet time constraints, as the full discussion has such timely resonance.

You can also watch the video of this conversation between Krista and Walter Brueggemann on our YouTube page.

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Find the shorter, edited and produced version of this show — and all of Krista's conversations across the years — on our website at onbeing.org/series/podcast.

Bio

Walter Brueggemann was the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia. He died on June 5, 2025. He was the author of many books including The Prophetic Imagination, The Spirituality of the Psalms, The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, and, written in his 90s, Real World Faith.

adrienne maree brown shines a light on an emerging ecosystem in our world over and against the drumbeat of what is fractured and breaking. She works with the complex fullness of reality to move towards a wholeness of living. In exploring the idea of hope — the meaning of it, the practice of it — it feels important to begin with someone who works to shift realities on the ground. Many words and phrases have been used to describe what she does and who she is, who she is to so many people, especially in younger generations: She is a student of complexity; a student of change and how groups change together; a scholar of belonging. And she is an organizer as much as a writer.

Journaling prompts for Session 2

Preparing inwardly after listening, ask these questions:

Examine your orientation to the idea that imagination has real-world consequences. Do you believe that? Trace its reality in the lives of people you admire and in your own life.

Ponder emergence. Consider how this way of change has found expression across the years in your life, your work, your world — moments when what you did not plan or control became a catalyst for your growth.

“Emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies.”

“Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass.”

“The crisis we are in at scale is in part a response to control or overcome the emergent processes that are our own nature, the processes of the planet we live on and the universe we call home.”

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

● Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

● Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

● Commit to some time journaling every day, even if just for a few minutes or a few words.

● Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org.

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.

Beginning today, and for the next six weeks in the On Being podcast feed and Substack, we’re opening a reflection/course experience curated by Krista and drawing upon her conversations with several visionary humans: adrienne maree brown, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ocean Vuong, Joy Harjo, Joanna Macy, and Ross Gay. Together, they extend rich and actionable invitations for a muscular, reality-based hope. They offer ways of seeing and living to lay our hands and our hearts, our imaginations and life force on the generative possibilities of life in this time.

Journaling Prompts for Session 1

Preparing inwardly after listening, ask these questions:

Right now, today, what is filling you with despair? And what is giving you hope?

What is hope? Answer this question through the story of your life.

Who have been the “live human signposts” of muscular hope in your life across time? Hold their faces and the qualities of their presence in your heart and in your mind’s eye in the days to come.

We've created a beautiful journal for the whole seven weeks, with full-size printable pages, that you can download for free HERE.

A Possible Way to Organize This Experience

Take each week’s brief listening offering, each around 15 minutes long, as a meditation to move through the week ahead. And as none of the great virtues — and certainly not hope — is meant to be carried alone, we encourage you to undertake this experience alongside others, perhaps your life partner or family or colleagues or friends, book group or study group.

For example, you could:

● Listen to one Wisdom Practice (roughly 15 minutes) — together or separately — around the same time each week. Listen again and/or read the transcript as often as is useful.

● Carry the ideas, invitations, and journal prompts for the session into your ordinary interactions of the days that follow.

● Commit to some time journaling every day, even it’s just for a few minutes or a few words.

● Meet with or Zoom/call your companion(s) at the end of the week to share, converse, commune.

The Hope Portal and this series are adventures in opening the deep enduring teaching that lives inside the 20 years of On Being. We would be so grateful if you would let us know how it goes for you and how it might be refined, by writing to us at mail@onbeing.org.

Sign yourself and others up for The Pause to be first to know about all things On Being and to receive Krista's monthly Saturday morning newsletter, including a heads-up on new episodes, special offerings, recommendations, and event invitations.