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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.
Rev. Lynn Casteel Harper, a minister of older adults at The Riverside Church in New York City, discusses her book “On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia and What it Means to Disappear,” a call for communities of faith to rethink the value of people coping with memory loss.
Finding a Calling: A Passion for Serving Those with Dementia
Lynn Casteel Harper shares what drew her into chaplaincy and how an unexpected message sparked a curiosity and passion for serving those with dementia. Introducing her personal experiences with her grandfather, Harper wrestles with guilt and the challenges caregivers too often face alone.
Rethinking Darkness: Getting Comfortable with the Shadows
The conversation continues as Harper reflects on how language around memory loss reveals a society that prioritizes the young and healthy. She challenges faith leaders to rethink the metaphors and practices of institutional care through a social justice lens.
Ageism and Covid-19: A Social Justice Issue
Harper shares how her own risk for dementia inspires her efforts to educate the public and advocate for changes in policy and practice. From the Trump Administration’s reduced oversight and relaxed fines for infection control violations in long-term facilities to the underpaid caregivers who are disproportionately women of color, Harper calls for a change in social policy. A change she argues will only happen if it’s a public demand.
Rethinking Darkness: Getting Comfortable with the Shadows
The conversation continues as Harper reflects on how language around memory loss reveals a society that prioritizes the young and healthy. She challenges faith leaders to rethink the metaphors and practices of institutional care through a social justice lens.
Ageism and Covid-19: A Social Justice Issue
Harper shares how her own risk for dementia inspires her efforts to educate the public and advocate for changes in policy and practice. From the Trump Administration’s reduced oversight and relaxed fines for infection control violations in long-term facilities to the underpaid caregivers who are disproportionately women of color, Harper calls for a change in social policy. A change she argues will only happen if it’s a public demand.
