Bonnie Koloc was a major presence in music, especially folk music, on the Chicago scene in the early 1970's, along with John Prine and Steve Goodman, one of the big 3 folk musicians there. She was a constant presence on the stage in those years, churning out 4 albums in 4 years, singing not only folk but jazz and blues. Eventually she wondered away from Chicago, including stints with other forms of art, like musical theater and visual art. Her travels finally brought her back home to Iowa where she's had the happiest years of her life. Bonnie Koloc joins us from Decorah, Iowa.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences: Catholic, Gregorian Chant, Earth-Centered, Non-affiliated
Jessica Smucker is today's SOS guest, and she believes the best way to change the world is to channel our pain into connection. Jessica is one very captivating person, both musically and otherwise. She worked on movies, is a published poet & a social justice warrior, came into music through a rock band called The Sleeping World, and she knows all the two-letter words in Scrabble, so don't even think of challenging her. Raised Mennonite from Amish grandparents, she's been enriched by and moved beyond them to her own path. For a fun, quirky new song of hers, check out Let's Get a Tree.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences: Mennonite
In These Walls Between Us – A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class Wendy Sanford helps us all travel with her a path away from white supremacy, white privilege, and micro-aggressions, to true interracial friendship, by witnessing Wendy's journey of growth & self-examination. Wendy first met Mary Norman when Mary was hired as a domestic worker for Wendy's family during a summer vacation in the mid-1950's, and the ensuing decades provided constant lessons of insight and refinement.
In mid-August, Liam and Don were joined by Portland Maine’s Poet Laureate, Maya Williams. Maya is not only a creative, gifted spoken word artist and poet, they are also a suicide survivor, theological thinker, and utterly enchanting person.
In this episode, Maya shares their poem, “Judas and Suicide,” and offers us a thought-provoking and spiritually penetrating reframing of the traditional religious views of suicidal ideation and suicide. Maya, Don, and Liam then talk honestly and openly about this sensitive topic, as Maya offers us a glimpse of a God who is present in our suffering and accompanies us, rejecting human views of sin and drenching us in grace and loving understanding that the world is, sometimes, a hard place to be.
Before closing, Maya offers us another poem to consider.
Read about Maya and read Maya’s work at https://www.mayawilliamspoet.com/
Maya’s other text:
Andy Douglas is author of Redemption Songs – A Year In The Life of a Prison Community Choir, a piercing look inside US prisons, and he is also author of a memoir The Curve of the World: Into the Spiritual Heart of Yoga, about his 7 years in Asia as a devotee and monk with Ananda Marga. Redemption Songs is a powerful & personal book, about the US prison industry, but also, especially, about Andy Douglas's experience of singing in a choir of prison-insiders and prison-outsiders.
How does an American Hindu approach the climate crisis? What ancient values and teachings apply to modern life in America today? And how does this relate to LGBTQ issues and public health? Hari Venkatachalam connects his faith, work, heritage, and even his sexual orientation to living in a climate-changed world.
In the episode Hari reveals how extreme weather, which affects everyone, disproportionally impacts LGBTQ homeless youth. Citizens Climate Radio host, Peterson Toscano, explains,
Up to 40% of youth living on the streets in the United States and Canada are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary. Many of them avoid going to shelters because they assume they will received the same discrimination and hostility they escaped. This is especially true for transgender and gender non-binary young people. This puts them at extra risk during extreme weather events.
Dwight L. Wilson returns today for Spirit In Action - we had him with us about 2 years ago discussing, among many things, his book series Esi Was My Mother, a fictional account of the real situations of his enslaved ancestors. Dwight has been very active in the interim, serving on a police oversight commission in Ann Arbor, MI, and much more, including writing 2 books we're going to discuss. The first is called Modern Psalms of Solace & Resistance, wherein Dwight shares deep, Divine-directed, psalms from a humble, fully engaged, 21st century heart.
Carrie Elkin brings to listeners a tear-jerking joy through her songs that seek to make the world better from the vulnerable places in each of our hearts. With a life, study, and career path including saxophone, Lutheran church music, pre-med studies, physiology, and environmental work using organic chemistry, it was a long road that led Carrie to her true home & profession as a singer/songwriter folk musician. On her own or with her husband and partner, Danny Schmidt, Carrie's music enchants and enthralls.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences: Lutheran, Jewish, Yoga, Meditation, Unitarian Universalist
Alastair Moock has been playing music in the Philly area since 1995, with a specialty of family music added after the birth of his twins in 2006. He was first place in the 2020 Songs for Social Change, a project of RAWA, with his song Be A Pain. He helped found Family Music Forward in 2020, to transform family music by supporting Black artists, children, and communities and dismantling individual, institutional, and systemic racial bias within the industry, and he does a podcast/interview series, Opening Doors, with artists of color. His music has tinges of John Prine & Arlo Guthrie, with a combination of humor & insight that makes for fun & transformation.
Thom Hartmann, #1 progressive talk show host in the USA, is back today for SIA, discussing his newest book, The Hidden History of American Healthcare: Why Sickness Bankrupts You and Makes Others Insanely Rich. Thom combines incredible acumen with the ability to tell a story simply and powerfully, both spoken and written. Thom's discourse addresses the issues and tells the important stories that affect most of us profoundly, and, certainly, healthcare is big – or will be big – in all of our lives at one time or another.