Krista Tippett

 

Krista grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, attended Brown University, and became a journalist and diplomat in Cold War Berlin. She lived in Spain and England before seeking a Masters of Divinity at Yale University in the mid-1990s. Emerging from that, she saw a black hole where intelligent conversation about the religious, spiritual, and moral aspects of human life might be. She pitched and piloted her idea for a show for several years before launching Speaking of Faith — later On Being — as a weekly national public radio show in 2003.

In 2014, President Obama awarded Krista the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence. On the air and in print, Ms. Tippett avoids easy answers, embracing complexity and inviting people of ​every background to join her conversation about faith, ethics, and moral wisdom.” Krista is now at work on her next book, Letters to a Young Citizen. Her first book Speaking of Faith, published in 2007, is a memoir of religion in our time, including her move from geopolitical engagement to theology. In 2010, she published Einstein’s God, drawn from her interviews at the intersection of science, medicine, and spiritual inquiry. Krista’s 2016 New York Times best-selling Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living opens into the questions and challenges of this century.

 3 words to describe Nature?

Extravagant. Intelligent. Fierce.

3 things Nature taught you?

To get quiet inside

To marvel

To know myself a creature among other creatures

3 most treasured Nature spots?

The highlands and islands of Scotland 

Byron Bay, Australia.

In my hammock under the White Pines in my Minnesota backyard

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?

Liberated from any illusion of significance – pensive, joyous, and free

When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?

Like clambering around in the branches

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?

Respectful

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?

Liberated from the Newtonian straitjacket of clocks and calendars while utterly present to time as rhythm and pattern and passage and mystery.

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?

Happy to have no option but to hunker down indoors (if I can)

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?

Giddily spooked

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

Ocean, also Valley

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

10, though I am not always faithful to that truth

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

I grew up in central Oklahoma, where we kept the natural world at bay. I was never taught the names of the trees or flowers that grew on our semi-desert, oil-rich land. We were drilled only to watch out for the things that bite and blister, and they were legion: poison oak and poison ivy, black widow spiders and scorpions, water moccasins, rattlesnakes. We were forbidden to explore the wilderness that was rapidly being consigned to memory all around our manicured housing estate.

And yet, if you ask me about the happiest days of my childhood, my mind goes to expeditions through as yet unconquered woody areas nearby. It goes to tadpoles and turtles discovered with furtive awe. I can still see those tadpoles, feel them swimming in cold creek water through my splayed fingers. A rapt attention settles all the way through my body in their presence. I know how memory works, that I am reconstructing all these sensations from fragments scattered across my brain. But I feel my breathing slow before the mystery of minute creaturely life observable. Amazed.

Wrapped up in these memories, too, is a dawning tension between their smallness and my relative giant size; their fragility and my power – to scoop them up, starve or orphan them, literally kill them with my amazement. And the power instead to forego dominance, and take care with my delight.

We turned up home at the end of long summer days sunburned and freckled and festooned with pink rashes from the poison ivy we wandered into and tangled with after all. We’re covered with feasting blood ticks, fat and purple with our blood, and all manner of worms. Other worms were gifted from our dogs, who ran leash-less and half wild in those days and were officially what we were allowed to befriend from the wild.

They would occasionally disappear for days at a time. We would wash and pick them clean when they returned mangy and exhilarated. We would vicariously absorb their effusive abandon.


Jaha Dukureh

Jaha Dukureh is the founder and CEO of Safe Hands for Girls, an NGO that works in The Gambia, Sierra Leone and the USA. Since 2013, Safe Hands for Girls has advocated for an end of female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage (CEFM). She works at grassroots level to change attitudes, mobilize opposition to both practices and provide support to survivors. 

The work Jaha led with Safe Hands for Girls was instrumental in convincing President Obama’s administration to investigate the prevalence and profile of FGM in the USA, and the subsequent Summit to End FGM at the United States Institute of Peace. Safe Hands for Girls’ advocacy was also a key contributing factor in the Gambian government’s decision to outlaw FGM in 2016.

In April 2016, at aged 25, she was named to the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. In December 2017, she received the award of “Human rights activist - Humanitarian of the Year” at the seventh annual African Diaspora Awards and was named one of the 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine. She has been named as one of the top 100 gender global policy influencers by Apolitical, and one of the top 10 Africa Changemakers by YouthHubAfrica. She was appointed UN Women Ambassador for Africa in February 2018 and nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian Politician Jette F. Christensen

Jaha is the subject of the film Jaha’s Promise, a documentary that covers her life and work. Her story, in her own words, can be read here.

Jaha was born in The Gambia in 1989, the daughter of a prominent Imam. She was subjected to FGM when she was just one week old. At the age of 15, Jaha was sent to New York, and forced to marry a man who was much older than she was. Having fled this marriage, she later remarried and moved to Atlanta, before returning home to The Gambia in 2018, where she now lives with her three children.

3 words to describe Nature?  

Peaceful. Green. Enchanting

3 things Nature taught you? 

Love

Appreciation

Meditation

3 most treasured Nature spots? 

Beach 

Lake

Mountains

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...? 

Calm

When you see a forest, it makes you feel...? 

Alive

When you see any volcano, it makes you feel...? 

Scared

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...? 

Happy

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...? 

Afraid

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...? 

Afraid

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person? 

Ocean

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being? It's off the charts important. 

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory? 

When I was young I used to go to the farm with my family. I enjoyed seeing nature through the forest and learning about the different animals, trees and the different seasons.


H.E. Maguy Maccario Doyle

Her Excellency Maguy Maccario Doyle is Monaco’s Ambassador to the United States and Canada. She was appointed by His Serene Highness Prince Albert II on November 12, 2013 and presented her letters of credence to President Obama at The White House on December 3, 2013.
She also serves as the Principality’s Ambassador to Canada having presented her credentials to Canada’s Governor General, H.E. David Johnston, in December 2014, and as the Principality’s Permanent Observer to the Organization of American States (OAS).

Ambassador Maccario Doyle is the vice president of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation (for the environment) and the president of the US chapter of the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation (launched in May 2016 in California). She was Monaco’s long-serving consul general in New York as well as the director of the Monaco Government Tourist Office for North America. In June 2017, Ambassador Maccario Doyle was appointed to the board of Grace-Penn Medicine: a new strategic alliance between Penn Medicine and Monaco's Princess Grace Hospital.

A committed advocate for children and women’s issues and a tireless worker on behalf of charitable and philanthropic endeavors, she is a long-standing member of both the Professional Advisory Board and the International Professional Advisory Board of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In recognition for her services to the Principality of Monaco and the Princely Family, she was presented by His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1996, with the prestigious “Chevalier de l’Ordre de Saint-Charles” distinction.

3 words to describe Nature? 

Nurturing. Rejuvenating. All-powerful.

3 things Nature taught you? 

Never take things for granted.

Seasons come and go.

Be prepared for (good and not-so-good) surprises.

3 most treasured Nature spots? 

New Mexico’s wilderness

Half Moon Bay’s (CA) majestic coastline

Monaco’s Mediterranean  magnificence

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...? 

At home

When you see a forest, it makes you feel...? 

Like going for a walk.

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...? 

I never saw a volcano eruption in person, except in films : The power of a mountain coming to life – I saw dormant and extinct volcanoes and it felt like a lunar landscape.

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...? 

Serene and happy to have made it through another night/day!

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...? 

Like seeking out an umbrella.

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...? 

Music to my ears… and of course like making sure the windows are properly closed!

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person? 

All of the above

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being? 

When one really thinks about how all-encompassing Nature is in our daily lives, it is pretty much a 10.

Share with us a childhood nature memory? 

My parents would never buy me a pet. So I decided as a small girl to collect snails from around my garden near Monaco. But to my great disappointment found out they are asexual. No mama. No papa! See what I mean about Nature’s surprises!