Podcast: Download
Please Support The Show With a Donation
This week we talk to Lesley Hazleton
Lesley Hazleton is a British-American author whose work focuses on “the vast and volatile arena in which politics and religion intersect.” Her latest book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, a Publishers Weekly most-anticipated book of spring 2016, was praised by The New York Times as “vital and mischievous” and as “wide-ranging… yet intimately grounded in our human, day-to-day life.”
Hazleton previously reported from Jerusalem for Time, and has written on the Middle East for numerous publications including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, The Nation, and The New Republic.
Born in England, she was based in Jerusalem from 1966 to 1979 and in New York City from 1979 to 1992, when she moved to a floating home in Seattle, originally to get her pilot’s license, and became a U.S. citizen. She has two degrees in psychology (B.A. Manchester University, M.A. Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Hazleton has described herself as “a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion”.”Everything is paradox,” she has said. “The danger is one-dimensional thinking”.
In April 2010, she launched The Accidental Theologist, a blog casting “an agnostic eye on religion, politics, and existence.” In September 2011, she received The Stranger’s Genius Award in Literature and in fall 2012, she was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at Town Hall Seattle.
In This Interview, Lesley Hazleton and I Discuss…
- The One You Feed parable
- Her new book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto
- Why she is a curious agnostic
- That belief is an emotional attachment
- That belief is an attempt to establish fact when there is no fact
- To be a “believer” means you’ve made up your mind
- The double meaning of the word “conviction”
- Why she loves doubt
- Why binaries concern her
- That agnostics are often mislabeled as wishy-washy or indecisive
- How to take joy in our own absurdity
- That you don’t have to believe in a fact because a fact just exists
- The human tendency to find pattern in anything
- That perfection is boring
Lesley Hazleton Links
A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other.
One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.
The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”
The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feedThe Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.
This parable goes by many names including:
The Tale of Two Wolves
The Parable of the Two Wolves
Two Wolves
Which Wolf Do You Feed
Which Wolf are You Feeding
Which Wolf Will You Feed
It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs.
Mal says
I must say, I was pretty excited to find this site after searching this parable. Imagine my disappointment and dismay to her your guest feel the need to mention the election results in such a negative manner because of how She Percieves the future to become because of the said outcome. It appears that she has no clue, the intentioned, international meaning of the parable, I.E. Find the good in ever situation and not feed on the bad. Obviously , I feel she is a poor example of the meaning of the parable. I won’t support a forum that is used to propagandize either the supposed left or right rhetoric of this current political climate. That being said, my truly honest thought of contributing to this site, completely diminished and disappeared after listening to this guest. Bad choice on your site’s part. Sorry and good luck with your future. I have a group of friends and colleagues whom share our discoveries of different sites for enlightenment and uprising of minds and souls. This interview soured me on this site and I will just let my friends make their own decisions after hearing this interview. Meaning I will share your site and let them decide if they wish to support it with their funds . As for me, I choose not to. Thanks Lesley for that. Take care my friends and again, good luck.
Don Archer says
I agree with Mal, I came to this site for inspiration and help, I even subscribed, and then the first podcast I listen to has Debbie Downer on it. Horrible, I’ll be unsubscribing.
Eric Zimmer says
Hi Don,
I’m sorry the episode was disappointing to you. You can see my comments to Mal. We try and stay out of politics but we don’t tell guests what they can and can’t say. I’d encourage you to try a different episode and hopefully you will find what you are looking for. I appreciate you taking the time to let me know how you felt.
Eric Zimmer says
Hi Mal,
Thanks for the feedback. We try and keep the show apolitical but we also don’t censor guests. That episode was an exception to normal fare. Thanks for listening and we are sorry to see you go.
Thanks,
Eric
Rebecca says
Listeners, please remember that you cannot control others but you can control how you respond. Letting this one episode should not feed your bad wolf, reacting in such a way that you would abandon this podcast. Look at it as an opportunity to be open and breath into constrictions you may feel. Smile and keep supporting this awesome podcast! I’ve been listening for a long time and this is the first time a guest used it to vent their political views