(Rachel Naomi Remen) This task is called tikkun olam in Hebrew. It’s the restoration of the world … we are all healers of the world … it’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you.

(Krista Tippett) The world to which you have proximity.

(Rachel Naomi Remen) That’s where our power is. Yeah.

Rachel Naomi Remen
in conversation with Krista Tippett
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

The ills of the world can be, and always were, overwhelming. Many are troubled by the notion of being happy in the midst of the many ills that are apparent to us daily. How is our species to grow in wisdom? How are we to break free from the human logjams we all live in?

Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise gives me cause for hope. It’s a book about conversations and the potential in them for a healing that ripples out into the world as yet beyond our knowing, let alone our intentions. And conversations don’t usually begin with the entire world.

Conversations, the beginnings of wisdom, the potential for healing, start with the world that touches us. Becoming Wise has roots in proximity. And is a book (of conversations, poetry and prose) and a work I imagine I’ll return to, again and again, for the rest of my days.