Thomas Lux — Refrigerator, 1957

If your home were a museum — and they all are, in a way — what would the contents of your refrigerator say about you and those you live with? In his poem “Refrigerator, 1957,” Thomas Lux opens the door to his childhood appliance and oh, does a three-quarters full jar of maraschino cherries speak volumes. Thomas Lux was an American poet and professor. He was the author of several collections of poetry, including To the Left of Time (Ecco, 2016), Child Made of Sand (Houghton Mifflin, 2012), God Particles (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), and New and Selected Poems of Thomas Lux: 1975-1995 (Ecco Press, 1999). Lux taught for many years at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he held the Bourne Chair in Poetry and directed the McEver Visiting Writers Program.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We’re pleased to offer Thomas Lux’s poem, and invite you to read Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen

Bonus: Farewell From the TMCM Team

For this special bonus episode, we gathered everyone on the This Movie Changed Me team to talk about the role movies have played in our lives, and what we’ve learned from working on this podcast. We’re grateful to all the listeners and guests who have joined us across three seasons of this podcast and have shared their own stories of transformation through movies. Thank you, movie friends!Eddie Gonzalez — is director of engagement at The On Being Project and is a journalist, teacher, and chaplain interested in story and its role in individual and social healing. He was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and now lives and works in Queens, New York.Chris Heagle — is a producer and technical Director for On Being Studios. He has long been a passionate listener and creator in the space where story and music combine to help us understand and embrace our shared humanity. When he’s not in front of a screen, he is learning about the world through his t

[S2] Hari Kondabolu: Comedy Is Therapeutic but Not Therapy


“My mom has a very dark sense of humor. I think that’s how I learned how to recycle pain.”
Hari Kondabolu is not your average stand-up comedian. He has a Masters in Human Rights and worked as an immigrants rights organizer — all of which you hear in his writing. His jokes simultaneously bring about discomfort and a nod of the head, without sounding preachy. He uses comedy as a coping mechanism for addressing complex issues of race, identity, and ethnicity post 9/11.
Visit onbeing.com/series/creating-our-own-lives for other episodes and more.

What did you love? What would you like to hear?


Season two of Becoming Wise is a wrap! We’re so grateful you joined us for these months of reflection and recentering. Before we go away to work on our next season, we’d love to hear from you. What did you love? How can we make the podcast even better? Go to onbeing.org/bwsurvey to tell us a little about yourself and what you’d like to hear next. Stay tuned for more episodes when we’re back with season three.

Nick Cave — Loss, Yearning, Transcendence

Here are some experiences to which Nick Cave gives voice and song: the "universal condition" of yearning, and of loss; a "spirituality of rigor"; and the transcendent and moral dimensions of what music is about. This Australian musician, writer, and actor first made a name in the wild world of ’80s post-punk and later with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He also underwent public struggles with addiction and rehab.Since the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015, and a few years later, the death of his eldest child Jethro, he has entered yet another transfigured era, co-created an exquisite book called Faith, Hope and Carnage, and become a frank and eloquent interlocutor on grief. As a human and a songwriter, Nick Cave is an embodiment of a life examined and evolved. He sat with Krista in the On Being studio in Minneapolis, and the gorgeous conversation that followed is woven in this episode with his g