Time and Hope with James K.A. Smith

In this third episode of our Advent Series, philosopher and author James K.A. Smith helps us consider what it means to be creatures that are bound and formed by time. Each of us is shaped by the stories that precede us:

“I think to be a creature who is living into the fullness of being human means grappling with, reckoning with, and sort of gratefully receiving the way that our past, our history, our our  embeddedness in time has contributed to this unique identity that God has made us to fulfill. And it’s hard work.”

As we mark Advent, a season of waiting, of reckoning with time, and of hopeful longing for the fulfillment of the Kingdom, Smith helps us rightly locate our hope in God:

“Hope is possible precisely because you don’t think the present is all there is. And you also don’t think that humans are the only agents in this, that the God of the cosmos who fires the world with love is out ahead of us, which is precisely why there can always be new possibilities. I think that’s radical for us to think about personally and individually. And I think it’s radical for us to think about collectively and communally.”

This podcast is an edited version of our Online Conversation from September 2022. You can access the full conversation with transcript here.

Learn more about James K.A. Smith.

Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:

Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism
Desiring The Kingdom
The Devil Reads Derrida – and Other Essays on the University, the Church, Politics, and the Arts
You Are What You Love
Awaiting The King
On the road with St. Augustine: A Real World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, and Living Faithful Now
Makoto Fujimura
Henri Nouwen
St. Teresa of Avila
Thomas Merton

Related Trinity Forum Readings:

Bright Evening Star, Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen

Related Conversations:

Practicing Gratitude with Diana Butler Bass
Beauty and Wonder with Andrew Peterson

To listen to this or any of our episodes in full, visit ttf.org/podcast and to join the Trinity Forum Society and help make content like this possible, join the Trinity Forum Society

Special thanks to Ned Bustard for our podcast artwork.