Marianne Williamson + Karenna Gore

Cultural critic and best selling author Marianne Williamson talks with Rubin Museum Future Fellow Karenna Gore to explore how we can shift our civic conversation so that we are “watering the roots and not merely the leaves.”

Questions abound:

• What metaphysical healing needs to happen for us to move into a better phase of America? One that reconciles clashing narratives, calls on us to be engaged as citizens rather than consumers?
• Does the matter/spirit divide in Judeo-Christian traditions have anything to do with the fact that so many Americans do not perceive themselves as interconnected with land, water, air and other aspects of what we call “the environment”?
• Do gendered constructs of God the Father and Mother Nature matter?
• Are conventional definitions and metrics of “the economy” adequate?
• How do we draw from the best of the world’s wisdom and faith traditions for this task without appropriating or being overly superficial so as to lose their deep meaning and power?

About the Speakers

Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed author and lecturer. For the last 35 years, she has been one of America’s most well-known public voices, having been a popular guest on television programs such as Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and Bill Maher. Seven of her twelve published books have been New York Times bestsellers, and four of these reached number 1. A paragraph her mega bestseller A Return to Love, beginning “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”¦” is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers.

Marianne’s other books include The Law of Divine Compensation, The Age of Miracles, Everyday Grace, A Woman’s Worth, Illuminata, Healing the Soul of America, A Course in Weight Loss, The Gift of Change, Enchanted Love, A Year of Miracles, and her newest book, Tears to Triumph: The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment.

Marianne is a native of Houston, Texas. In 1989, she founded Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area. To date, Project Angel Food has served over 11 million meals. Marianne also co-founded the Peace Alliance.

Karenna Gore is the founding director of the Center for Earth Ethics (CEE) at Union Theological Seminary. The Center for Earth Ethics bridges the worlds of religion, academia, politics, and culture as we discern and pursue the changes that are necessary to stop ecological destruction and create a society that values life. Before founding CEE, Gore worked as the director of Union Forum at Union Theological Seminary, where she helped organize Religions for the Earth, a conference of over 200 religious and spiritual leaders from around the world, with the goal to reframe climate change as a moral issue and galvanize faith-based activism to address it.

Gore’s previous experience includes work as a lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and in the legal center of Sanctuary for Families, as well as serving as director of Community Affairs for the Association to Benefit Children (ABC). She has also worked as a writer and is the author of Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America. Gore is a graduate of Harvard College, Columbia Law School, and Union Theological Seminary. She lives in New York City with her three children and serves on the boards of the Association to Benefit Children (ABC), which serves the needs of New York City’s most vulnerable children and families, and Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental organization whose mission is to protect the environmental, recreational, and commercial integrity of the Hudson River and its tributaries, and safeguard the drinking water of nine million New York City and Hudson Valley residents.