Becoming Wise

By: Krista Tippett

Narrated by: Krista Tippett

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this audiobook edition of Becoming Wise, the voices of more than 40 beloved guests of On Being are interwoven with Krista Tippett's reading in a deeply personal mode.

"I'm a person who listens for a living. I listen for wisdom, and beauty, and for voices not shouting to be heard. This book chronicles some of what I've learned in what has become a conversation across time and generations, across disciplines and denominations."

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.

©2016 Krista Tippett (P)2016 Penguin Audio

A bit of an interview clip show

I have been a fan of Krista Tippett for at least the last 10 years. She is a good interviewer and she has a real interest in pay attention to both socially conscious issues and how religious backgrounds motivate people.

Listening to this as an audiobook, which I think is probably the best method for this particular book, it is hard not to think of it as a clip show. There are so many clips from her interviews in the book that I was a bit distracted at times from the content. (And many of them I remember from when I heard them originally on the show.) But the clips had real meaning and they did build upon one another to make her point. As a professional interviewer, conversation is what she does. It is perfectly natural that much of her learning is coming from people that she is interviewing.

One of the points that I both appreciate about Tippett and slightly concerns me is that she views part of what she is doing and gaining insight into ‘spiritual technologies’. This term, ‘spiritual technologies’, I think is helpful but also significantly problematic. On the one hand, I get the point that we can learn these spiritual technologies across faith lines and it is a helpful way to think about cross religious dialogue. And I think it sort of fits with James KA Smith and others view of spiritual practices.

But spiritual technologies as a descriptor seems reductionist. Her point of talking about becoming wise is that we often are valuing the wrong things, which leads us to place emphasis in the wrong areas of life. By using the word technology, there is a problem with viewing spiritual practices and ideas as primarily about gaining mastery over the spiritual. I wish she had used another term, like the traditional ‘spiritual practices’ or ‘pathway’ or similar term that was focused less on mastery and tool building and more on internal development and process. We do not become wise, we work on the process of becoming wise. Wisdom is not something we confirm on ourselves. It is something that others confirm about us.

But I do appreciate the focus on wisdom. I think we should value wisdom. And many of the people she is interviewing genuinely appear to have gained real wisdom and understanding about life. The interview subjects are not necessarily powerful or well known (although many have some real influence). She confronts the importance of struggle in achieving wisdom. Her background as journalist and diplomat in Eastern Europe before and during the fall of the Berlin Wall give real insight into how struggle works. And how something that no one really predicts, can suddenly just happen.

Tippett is good about asking questions and listening to the answers. She has a perspective, she is a Christian. But she seems to really attempt to allow people to explain themselves on their own terms and to gain real understanding. Much of the content between the interviews is processing. I think there needed to be some more evaluation. Of course, she was including ideas that made sense to her and fit into the narrative she was building. But there was little push back against any of the ideas. Her own narrative about the struggle of life building character and wisdom, seemed missing in the way she let the narrative play out in the book.

The five sections of the book felt too loose to me. The chapters were Words, Flesh, Love, Faith, Hope. There did seem to be some liberal Christian blindspots in evidence. But also in evidence, was her conservative background that she has been processing and trying to overcome. More than a few that have come out of a conservative background and end up in a liberal Christian theological stream have endured real harm from the church. She hints at that. But somewhat similar to the way that Rachel Held Evans talks, Tippett still sees real value in the church background of her childhood. So I tend to give some real grace there because one of her options was to walk away from the church completely. She has not done that.

Tippett is a few years older than I am. Late 40s and early 50s seems like a natural times to start focusing more on wisdom. She is a voice I want to keep listening to.

11 people found this helpful

Excellent!

I listen to Krista Tippett and Onbeing regularly, and this was just like a "best of" for me. I enjoyed every moment and then I ordered the actual book because there are so many gems here I want to go back and read and write in the margins. Highly recommend!

4 people found this helpful

An eclectic collection of goodness.

listening to this book adds to its enjoyment as your hear the interviewed in there own voice. at times the writing is poetic to better rely what is said.

1 person found this helpful

Beautiful!

This book is a fantastic collection of conversations that will uplift and enlighten. Listen and enjoy!

1 person found this helpful

Excellent!

Krista is unusually good at telling those things you want to know about - especially on a spiritual level .

You would be wise to listen/read this book.

Narration and interviews are compelling. The book is a meditation and examination on many aspects of wisdom.

Wonderful!

I love Krista Tippet. What a joy it was to get to listen to her thoughts and hear her interviews for an extended period of time with this book. I listen while commuting and it was the first time I audibly objected when the book was over. I look forward to listening again and in the meantime, continuing to enjoy her amazing podcast.

Beginning to become wise!

Thank you! This was wonderful ! Hearing the authors and their thoughts !
Can we listen to another , an opposing view with out making them evil? This has changed me! Thank thank you!

A flowing river of insight that I will enjoy diving into over an d over again!

Graceful and eloquent as always, Krista opens the world to us with topics such as love, hope , religious beliefs and science in a way that makes life solar to resemble Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium! I will be frequenting it’s pages often.

A need to listen again and again

This book is packed with wonderful ideas, interviews, and voices.
I have just finished it and am about to restart on chapter 1.
So glad I got it this way so that I can listen again and again.