Due to some technical snafus, I have been unable to upload a podcast for the last few weeks! Last week, AT&T had major outages that I think interfered with my ability to save the file, and this week, zoom didn’t seem to want to cooperate with my computer. So we are a bit late on the download, but here nonetheless!

I am, perhaps because of an upcoming birthday, perhaps because of midlife, perhaps because several people close to me are right smack in the midst of late-stage aging, acutely aware of micro and macro changes going on in the body and in the world. On the personal level, we are changing constantly and all the time. In our political and social worlds, things are changing in intense ways. And change seems to unearth conflict. We are seeing that play out in our country and in the world. Some of us might be seeing that in our personal lives, too.

Teilhard de Chardin believed that pain, suffering, and a kind of groaning are necessary to usher us into higher levels of consciousness. Change and suffering are inevitable in the process of transformation. This conversation today is bookended by musings about aging, but deeper than that we are puzzling through this cosmic birth-death-rebirth process.

Thanks for listening! Oh! You can’t leave without a book recommendation. See below.