The Understory

In late May 2026, more than a thousand people gathered for three days beneath the vaults of Washington National Cathedral for the first Understory Festival: a living experiment in Christian humanism, where argument and silence, music and lament, poetry and debate were honored as different ways of attending to reality, and of exploring this question of what might be struggling to be born today. This limited series gathers the festival's main-stage talks and carries them to everyone who wasn't in the room, as well as to everyone who was and wishes to return. Voice by voice, you'll hear the thinkers, weavers, institution-builders, artists, and pastors who came together to ask: what is struggling to be born, what is a human being, and who is Christ for us today. Presented by Comment.

The Understory is a society podcast hosted by Comment, with 15 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Comment hosts The Understory, a society show with 15 episodes published.

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  Episode #16

  Investing in Beauty — Roberta Ahmanson, Makoto Fujimura, Haejin Fujimura, and David Bailey

  Sep 16, 20261h 3m

  Friendship was a central theory of change at the Understory, revealing itself in main-stage debates and quiet corridor chats. Few panels demonstrated its power more potently than David Bailey's conversation on arts and patronage. David—a musician, author, producer, and founder of Arrabon—brought together his longtime friend, renowned artist and author Makoto Fujimura, with their mutual friend, writer and philanthropist Roberta Ahmanson, along with justice advocate Haejin Shim Fujimura, Makoto's wife and co-author. The four artistic leaders explore why patrons in earlier eras believed they were responsible not only for funding works of art but for shaping the worlds people lived inside. Roberta describes the compelling example of Gregory the Great, who believed the beautification of a space was as important as the healing and social work that occurred within it. Beauty and service, she insists, cannot be separated. Makoto shares his story of meeting Roberta and her husband Howard decades ago, and of finally exhaling to feel that someone knew the depth of the spiritual intention in his art and the need for patrons to invest in beauty. Haejin calls us to a deeper understanding of patronage as being an advocate and "father figure" to someone, invested in their full flourishing, sharing a powerful story of the composer Vivaldi's work as a redemptive patron. Whether you are an artist looking for guidance on how to develop meaningful relationships with patrons or a patron desiring to deepen your convictions and broaden your reach as a trust-based philanthropist, this conversation among friends will leave you inspired to act and content to pray. This episode was recorded at the Virginia Mae Center at the Washington National Cathedral, on day two of the 2026 Understory festival hosted by Comment magazine. Mentioned: City of God , by Augustine; the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, edited by Thomas Oden; Called to Be Friends , on the friendship of John M. Perkins and Howard Ahmanson; Vivaldi's Four Seasons . Recommended reading: The Gift , by Lewis Hyde; Toxic Charity , by Robert D. Lupton; Art Is , by Makoto Fujimura; Beauty and Justice , by Haejin Shim Fujimura and Makoto Fujimura Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org . The Understory is a production of Comment ( comment.org ), published by Cardus ( cardus.ca ). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and comment.org . Episode Highlights "Beauty and service can't be separated … for the person you're serving because beauty gives them hope … beauty tells you that you matter." (Roberta Ahmanson) "This is not about the arts. This is about the gospel." (Makoto Fujimura) "You choose an artist based on their work and then you let them go … because it's to the glory of God." (Roberta Ahmanson) "Literally, 'patron' means acting as if you are a father of someone." (Haejin Fujimura) "Architecture spoke what the people believed." (Roberta Ahmanson) For artists looking for patrons: "The most important thing is that you become a patron first … you find out very quickly what the privilege of helping an artist means as a patron." (Makoto Fujimura) About the Panel Roberta Green Ahmanson: Writer, art collector, and philanthropist who shapes the arts-and-religion granting of Fieldstead and Company with her husband, Howard. Makoto Fujimura: Internationally renowned artist and writer; author of Art Is and Art+Faith. Haejin Shim Fujimura: Lawyer and justice advocate; author of Beauty and Justice ; founding attorney of Shim & Associates and CEO of Embers International, an anti-trafficking NGO. David Bailey: Musician, public theologian, and founder of Arrabon, a ministry equipping the church for reconciliation and culture-making. Helpful Links and Resources Beauty and Justice , by Haejin Shim Fujimura and Makoto Fujimura: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/beauty-and-justice-haejin-shim-fujimura/1147595972 Makoto Fujimura's website: https://makotofujimura.com Embers International, Haejin Shim Fujimura's anti-trafficking NGO: https://www.embersinternational.org Arrabon, David Bailey's reconciliation ministry: https://arrabon.com Roberta Green Ahmanson and Fieldstead and Company: https://www.fieldstead.com/ahmansons The Gift , by Lewis Hyde: https://lewishyde.com/the-gift/ Toxic Charity , by Robert D. Lupton: https://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Charity-Churches-Charities-Reverse/dp/0062076213 #TheUnderstory #Comment #Cardus #Arts #ArtPatronage #MakotoFujimura #Arrabon #FaithAndArt #BeautyAndJustice #Philanthropy #RobertaAhmanson

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  Episode #15

  Acceleration, Resonance, and a Rule of Life — Steven Lawson and Manuel Andreas Dürr

  Sep 9, 20261h 3m

  We live in a culture obsessed with productivity, efficiency, speed, and success. But after all the triumph of technological advance, it may still be that the defining condition of our time is not merely acceleration but alienation, marked particularly by the absence of what acceleration destroys: resonance. Coined by German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, "resonance" is the experience of addressing and being addressed by the world—touched, moved, and changed by a two-way relationship rather than one-sided control and consumption. Steven Lawson and Manuel Dürr ask what daily, weekly, and seasonal rhythms restore resonance—not as retreat from the world but preparation to enter it. Lawson is Founder of Monk Manual, a daily formation system for peaceful being and purposeful doing. Dürr is a Swiss painter in Biel; his fourteen-painting Via Crucis was inaugurated in St. Peter's Basilica, February 2026. This episode was recorded at the Virginia Mae Center at the Washington National Cathedral, on day two of the 2026 Understory Festival hosted by Comment Magazine. Mentioned: The Screwtape Letters , by C.S. Lewis; The Lasallian prayer: "Let us remember that we are in the holy presence of God"; Dürr's Via Crucis Vatical Commission; attention; productivity; relationships Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org . The Understory is a production of Comment ( https://comment.org ), published by Cardus ( https://www.cardus.ca ). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you get your podcasts. Episode Highlights "The thing that I was looking for in productivity was peace. And it was producing the exact opposite effect." (Lawson) "Relationships are inherently inconvenient through the lens of being productive, through the lens of getting things done." (Lawson) "To be interrupted is very, very important because we calcify in our methods." (Dürr) "There's only a very, very short time in life where we could have the illusion of being in control. And I think it's very important to enjoy that we're not in control." (Dürr) Helpful Links and Resources https://monkmanual.com https://www.stevenvlawson.com https://www.manuelandreasduerr.ch https://comment.org/we-are-only-fragments/ (Anne Snyder's Comment interview with Manuel Dürr) https://www.basilicasanpietro.va/en/competition #TheUnderstory #CommentMagazine #Cardus #MonkManual #ViaCrucis #Resonance #RuleOfLife #AttentionManagement #ChristianArt #SlowProductivity

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  Episode #14

  Screw-Ups — Amber Lapp

  Sep 2, 20269 min

  Amber Lapp has spent years living among the people and places she writes about. Not merely taking on economically struggling communities as a neutral observer, but becoming a neighbor. A research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and co-investigator of the Love and Marriage in Middle America Project, she reads questions of civic renewal through the moral vocabulary of dignity, solidarity, hospitality, and hope—held open on behalf of people who have stopped holding it for themselves. On the opening night of the Understory Festival, she reflected on what those years of listening have taught her—stories of a friend who felt everything she touched turned to ash, a neighbor haunted by anxiety attacks that arrive without warning, and the peculiar loneliness of a life conducted across "a vast digital prairie," where alienation creates the feeling of "living among ghosts." Beneath all of it runs a single question: "How many of our social troubles are downstream from people doubting their dignity?" This reflection originally appeared in our episode, "What Is Struggling to Be Born?" framed by an address from Fr. Tomáš Halík and recorded at the National Cathedral on the Understory's opening night. Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org . The Understory is a production of Comment ( comment.org ), published by Cardus ( cardus.ca ). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you get your podcasts. Episode Highlights "For us screw ups, it means not closing the door on hope." "She felt interiorly hollowed out, worthless, and like everything she touched turned to ash." "On the one hand, people of goodwill, working for nonprofits and institutions and wanting to do good. And then on the other, people who are alienated and squatters on a kind of institutional no man's land." About Amber Lapp Amber Lapp is a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, an adviser at American Compass, and co-investigator of the Love and Marriage in Middle America Project, a qualitative study of how working-class young adults form relationships and families. She and her husband David live in southwestern Ohio with their six children, where she volunteers as a catechist at their parish and at Lydia's House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for women and children. A member of Braver Angels, she is focused on how ordinary Americans might actually take part in public life. Her writing has appeared in National Review , First Things , USA Today , The Federalist , The American Conservative , Comment , and The Atlantic . She holds a BA in philosophy, politics, and economics from The King's College. Helpful Links and Resources Amber Lapp at the Institute for Family Studies: https://ifstudies.org/about-us/amber-lapp Her writing for IFS: https://ifstudies.org/blog/author/amber-lapp Episode 2: What Is Struggling to Be Born? — Fr. Tomáš Halík https://comment.org/podcasts/what-is-struggling-to-be-born/ pisode 1: Welcome to the Understory, Where the Future Quietly Takes Root — Anne Snyder https://comment.org/podcasts/welcome-to-the-understory/ #TheUnderstory #Comment #Cardus #AmberLapp #WorkingClass #Dignity #CivicLife #Loneliness

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  Episode #13

  It Is Now, It Is Not — Christian Wiman

  Aug 26, 20268 min

  Is reality itself a settled fact, or an ongoing act of creation? Is some new chapter in history struggling to be born? Or, more demanding, our own awakening within it? Poet Christian Wiman weaves together the words of exiled Russian poet Osip Mandelstam in an effort to notice the entanglement of external reality with our perceiving it—"It is now. / It is not." This intimate dialogue between subject and object suggests that individual consciousness isn't owned as much as it is shared with everything else. And from this awareness, both feeling and healing can emerge. This reflection originally appeared in our episode, "What Is Struggling to Be Born?," framed by an address from Fr. Tomáš Halík, and recorded at the National Cathedral on the Understory's opening night. Mentioned: "And I Was Alive," by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Christian Wiman, from Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam ; Quantum entanglement; Vincent van Gogh; Thales; Heraclitus; Meister Eckhart Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org . The Understory is a production of Comment ( comment.org ), published by Cardus ( cardus.ca ). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe to The Understory wherever you get your podcasts. Episode Highlights "The world is addressed to us. "What is struggling to be born? I am. You are." "It's as if reality were a constant storm of creation that we only freeze by seeing." "I believe we've entered a time in which the preservation of individual consciousness will be the great battle." About Christian Wiman Christian Wiman is the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, where he has taught religion and literature since joining the faculty in 2013. Raised in West Texas and educated at Washington and Lee, he edited Poetry magazine from 2003 to 2013, a decade in which the magazine tripled its circulation and won two National Magazine Awards. He is the author, editor, or translator of fourteen books, among them My Bright Abyss , He Held Radical Light , Survival Is a Style , Zero at the Bone , and Stolen Air, his versions of Osip Mandelstam. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he holds two honorary doctorates. Helpful Links and Resources "And I Was Alive," read by Wiman: https://onbeing.org/poetry/and-i-was-alive/ Christian Wiman on Conversing with Mark Labberton https://comment.org/podcasts/poetry-paradox-and-the-absence-of-god/ Episode 2: What Is Struggling to Be Born? — Fr. Tomáš Halík Episode 1: Welcome to the Understory, Where the Future Quietly Takes Root — Anne Snyder https://comment.org/podcasts/welcome-to-the-understory/ #TheUnderstory #Comment #Cardus #ChristianWiman #OsipMandelstam #Poetry #Consciousness #PublicTheology

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  Episode #12

  Can You Build AI That Serves Human Flourishing? — Adam Kronk, Meghan Sullivan, L.M. Sacasas, and Jeremy Cowart

  Aug 19, 20261h 22m

  What is a human being? One of the convictions in the seedbed of the Understory is that every age eventually reveals an answer to this question either explicitly or implicitly. This sometimes surfaces in philosophical debate. Other times, it is embedded in education. Or in politics or public policy. Or in marketing and economics. And sometimes it appears in the technologies we build. Artificial intelligence has made that timeless question unavoidable. Much of today's conversation about AI revolves around safety, regulation, bias, and transparency—understandably, we want to focus on the guardrails. But they all assume a prior question, often left unasked: What exactly are we trying to protect? At the 2026 Understory Festival, Notre Dame's Institute for Ethics and the Common Good convened a conversation worthy of the question. Moderated by Adam Kronk, three panelists led the discussion to explore not merely what AI is becoming but what we are. Meghan Sullivan, Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy; founding director, Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, Notre Dame Michael Sacasas, executive director, Christian Study Center of Gainesville; technology essayist (The Convivial Society) and Comment contributing editor Jeremy Cowart, photographer and artist, Nashville, TN; founder of Help-Portrait and If You're Breathing Recorded at the Virginia Mae Center during the Understory Festival, this is the question: "Can you build AI that serves human flourishing if you don't agree on what a human is?" Mentioned: Magnifica Humanitas by Pope Leo XIV; The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams; The Convivial Society by L. M. Sacasas; Simone Weil; Ivan Illich; Marshall McLuhan; Humathy; the DELTA framework. Episode Highlights "Our vulnerability and frailty as human beings, and the fact that we are capable of being loved and loving other frail, vulnerable creatures ... is in fact what makes us magnificent." (Meghan Sullivan) "We're already becoming so numb to AI perfection that we no longer gasp." (Jeremy Cowart) "One of the moments where I see our humanity come alive … is when students learn that they can think." (Michael Sacasas) "We're looking ... but we're not seeing. And we're hearing, but we're not really listening." (Michael Sacasas) "The technocratic spirit does not see to behold and to contemplate, it sees first and foremost to use." (Michael Sacasas) Helpful Links and Resources Magnifica Humanitas: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html DELTA at Notre Dame: https://ethics.nd.edu/programs/delta/ The Convivial Society: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com Humathy: https://humathy.com Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at team@comment.org . The Understory is a production of Comment ( comment.org ), published by Cardus ( cardus.ca ). Hosted by Anne Snyder. Edited by Allie Crummy. Produced by Tiffany Thompson and Evan Rosa. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. #TheUnderstory #AI #VelveteenRabbit #AIEthics #HumanFlourishing #MagnificaHumanitas #DELTAFramework #Attention #NotreDame #Philosophy

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