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Every Sunday at 3:00amAbout the Show
Inspired
Inspired is the nation's leading public radio show about faith, ethics and spirituality. Each week we offer you analyses of the big headlines alongside lesser-told stories – those of Orthodox Jewish artists and African-American atheists, Muslim feminists and spiritual seekers. Through these stories, a rough sketch of our country’s religious landscape begins to emerge. It’s a marketplace of beliefs and ideas too complex for sound bites, and too important to ignore.
Pilgrims and Natives: Giving Thanks to Different Gods
When the Puritans arrived on the shores of Massachusetts in the early 1600s, they brought with them a concept of God totally alien to their new neighbors, the Wampanoag people. For the Puritans, the divine was an all-powerful Father figure. For the Wampanoag, God was a multi-dimensional force of nature, found in the trees, rocks and fields. This Thanksgiving, we explore the faith of the early Native Americans with two guests: Ramona Peters, director of historic preservation for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, an historian of Native American religious traditions and Clara Sue Kidwell, director of the American Indian Center at UNC Chapel Hill, a direct descendant of the Wampanoag Nation.
Bless this Food
Have you ever seen anyone pray before eating their burger combo? Maybe not. But our guest Adrian Butash says, maybe it would be a good idea. The simple act of giving thanks before a meal is one of the most universal prayers, found all over the world and stretching back thousands of years. So before you polish off those Thanksgiving leftovers, we thought we’d pause and reflect on this small act of gratitude. Adrian Butash is author of Bless This Food: Ancient and Contemporary Graces from Around the World.
Would You Tear Up St. Peter’s in Rome?!: Voices from the Dakota Pipeline Protest
This week, we travel to the wide open plains of North Dakota. That’s where members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with hundreds of protestors from around the country, have gathered to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The tribe says that if completed, the pipeline could pollute their only water source, the Missouri River. Our producer Abigail Holtzman camped out at the site recently to learn why this story isn’t just about oil… it’s about sacred ground. Featuring Rosalyn La Pier, a member of the Blackfeet tribe and visiting assistant professor of Women’s Studies, Environmental Studies and Native American Religion at the Harvard Divinity School.
Poet Joy Harjo: Talking with the Sun
And we end our Thanksgiving weekend special with some reflections by poet Joy Harjo. She writes, “To pray, you open your whole self to Sky, to Earth, to Sun, to Moon.” It is in the heavens that Harjo finds her belief. A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, now living in Hawaii, Harjo is a member of the Muskogee Creek Nation. She shared this essay for the This I Believe series. Independently produced by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with Emily Botein, John Gregory and Viki Merrick.
