Summary: <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> The human brain is the most complex object<br> known to exist in the universe.<br> <br> <br> This is the thought that Marilynne Robinson<br> begins many of her classes with. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and<br> acclaimed essayist is a Professor at the University of Iowa’s Writers’<br> Workshop.<br> <br> <br> “I want to encourage my young writers to<br> value their characters sufficiently to make them complex enough to be credible<br> and also to value themselves in a way that makes them push toward real<br> authenticity, real originality,” she says.<br> <br> <br> Human exceptionalism is something that comes<br> across not only in the characters she writes about, but in the way she treats<br> her readers.<br> <br> <br> Robinson’s latest offering, The Givenness<br> of Things, builds bridges across science and religion, theology and humanism,<br> to provide a gracious, respectful, and an ultimately hopeful contribution to public<br> culture and conversation about life and what it means to be human.<br> <br> <br> “We know that given any possibility, human<br> beings blossom into beauty and ingenuity and tragedy and all the rest of it<br> that could not be anticipated and that the world would be utterly cruel<br> without,” she says.<br> --------<br> <br> <br> SUBSCRIBE to our podcast: <a href="http://bit.ly/lifeandfaithpodcast">http://bit.ly/lifeandfaithpodcast</a> <br> <br> <br> <br> READ Natasha Moore’s review on The<br> Givenness of Things: <a href="http://ab.co/1oqtqI6">http://ab.co/1oqtqI6</a><br> <br> <br>
