© 2024 Louisville Public Media

Public Files:
89.3 WFPL · 90.5 WUOL-FM · 91.9 WFPK

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact info@lpm.org or call 502-814-6500
89.3 WFPL News | 90.5 WUOL Classical 91.9 WFPK Music | KyCIR Investigations
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Stream: News Music Classical

This Week On WFPL: Selections From This Year's Festival Of Faiths

Erica Peterson

This week, 89.3 WFPL will rebroadcast selected sessions from the Festival of Faiths.

This year's festival brought spiritual leaders, thinkers and teachers to Louisville for five days at the end of April. The theme of the multi-faith event was "Sacred Insight, Feminine Wisdom," and tackled topics like nature, suffering, creativity and gender dynamics through a feminine lens.

Here's the lineup; you can listen at 8 p.m Monday through Thursday this week on 89.3 WFPL, or stream online here.

Monday: Confronting Gender: Seeing, Hearing and Valuing the Feminine

From the Festival of Faiths:
We face many grave spiritual and cultural imbalances caused by our devaluing, oppression, and ignorance of the feminine. Discrimination, bias, and assault based on gender/identification is a global and systemic condition. Yet as evidenced by #metoo, #TimesUp, the women’s march, and prominent media stories from Hollywood to New York City, women’s voices are being heard around the globe, and with them, political will is building to confront gender bias. Understanding, lifting up, and integrating the feminine may result in a new understanding and re-spiritualization of how we look at the world and ourselves. How can we more fully reconnect and restore feminine wisdom to our collective and cultural consciousness as a fundamental way to heal our wounds? How would the world look with a realignment of values, and the reinfusion of the feminine?
In this segment, we’ll hear from Nina Simons, an award-winning social entrepreneur and visionary thinker who co-founded educational nonprofit Bioneers in 1990; Rev. Monica A. Coleman, who is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a professor at Claremont School of Theology in Southern California; and Pat McCabe, a Navajo mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker whose indigenous name is Weyakpa Najin Win (Woman Stands Shining).

Tuesday: Dark Nights of the Soul

From the Festival of Faiths:
World religions teach us that suffering is part of the human condition. Our attempts to avoid suffering prevent us from experiencing essential insights and awareness that lead to spiritual healing and growth. Individually and collectively, we must step into the shadows, sit with our fears, and embrace vulnerability. Spiritual teachings and practices help us transform the darkness into light, the fallow to the fertile, and awaken a deep level of awareness and accountability. Through these teachings, can we come to confront our shortcomings and broken behaviors? How can we face America’s most egregious acts, including genocide and slavery? How can feminine insight hold space for the darkness so that we can be transformed?
In this segment, we’ll hear from Rev. Monica A. Coleman, who is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a professor at Claremont School of Theology in Southern California; Kenza Isnasni, a humanitarian activist who focuses on issues relating to human rights, education, climate change, and interfaith and intercultural dialogue; and Sharon Salzberg a central figure in the field of meditation, a world-renowned teacher, and a New York Times bestselling author.

Wednesday: Culture of Addiction

From the Festival of Faiths:
We live in a culture of addiction. Many of us feel increasingly alienated and disconnected as we try to find meaning and fulfillment through the accumulation of “more.” This pursuit leads to further fracture, and the destructive cycle continues. We are addicted to our ego, money, power, drugs, and “stuff.” In a world that has evolved to feed and profit from human suffering, how do we break the cycle and find happiness, contentment, and peace? In this session, healers will show how accessing feminine wisdom today can help us accept our deepest wounds, and provide insight and forgiveness that leads to healing. Additionally, speakers will help us understand our cultural addictions to materialism and success, and illuminate the spiritual and human costs associated with these systems.
In this segment, we'll hear from Lynne Twist, author and the founder of the Soul of Money Institute, who works to end world hunger, support social justice and encourage environmental sustainability; Rev. Becca Stevens, an author, speaker, priest, social entrepreneur, and founder of Thistle Farms, which was created in 1997 as a haven for survivors of trafficking, violence and addiction; and two graduates of Thistle Farms.

 

Thursday: Honor! Feminine Wisdom

From the Festival of Faiths:
Since June 2017, nine students from Iroquois High School have been working with the Louisville Story Program to write a book. Collectively, the authors speak nine languages and have lived in seven countries. They are writing about the ravages of war, life before and after moving to Louisville as refugees and immigrants, the foster care system, juvenile detention, motherhood, and many other challenges and triumphs. Nine powerful young women will share excerpts from their stories. Beloved former public radio host, Diane Rehm, will speak about growing up as an Arab American, her ascent to preeminence in the male-dominated world of journalism, her nearly career-ending illness, and the loss of her beloved husband. She will share the essential insights gained throughout her career interviewing powerful and accomplished individuals, as well as wisdom that sustained her through the “dark nights” of her own illness, and that of her husband.