Episode 4 - Counting Votes in Philadelphia
Richard takes great pleasure in living in the heart of Philadelphia—the birthplace of democracy. The “City of Brotherly Love” is also home to Richard’s son Scott, who has been caring for Richard for the past couple of years. We recall the 2013 University of Pennsylvania graduation ceremony and Joe Biden’s Commencement speech. Waiting anxiously for the votes to be counted in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Richard makes an emotional case against Trump’s authoritarianism and for democracy.
Links:
https://almanac.upenn.edu/archive/volumes/v59/n33/comm-biden.html
Conversations between a dad and his children capture the sheer joy of talking, singing, and laughing with Richard, a man of simple pleasures, expansive intelligence, historical perspective, and progressive politics. In Season 1, Richard is living under lockdown in his senior living residence during the coronavirus pandemic. It tells the story of Richard’s resilience and of the family’s efforts to ease the psychic impact of his isolation. In Season 2, Margaret asks Richard why he talked so much about vocation when she was growing up. Richard offers the wide arc of his theological understanding—from the need to care for working people to the cosmic Spirit that holds the universe together. They decided to devote an entire podcast season to vocation.