The Pendle Hill Center outside Philadelphia is launching The Seed, a new podcast, with the first episode scheduled to drop on World Quaker Day. From their press release:
The podcast’s host, Dwight Dunston, is a West Philly-based facilitator, hip-hop artist, educator, and activist who has brought his creativity, care, and compassion to schools, community centers, retirement homes, festivals, and stadiums all over the country and internationally.
In the opening episode, Dwight Dunston and Pendle Hill executive director Francisco Burgos share with the audience their dreams for The Seed. They welcome listeners into the podcast as an expansion of Pendle Hill’s spaces of transformation, a greenhouse for nurturing hopeful visions of the world that is possible.
Dwight, also known as Sterling Duns, is a great choice for a host. FJ interviewed him back in 2015 and he’s also the subject of a QuakerSpeak interview. Pendle Hill is a real crossroads, bringing together spiritual seekers and change advocates since its earliest days. Their decades-long tradition of daily worship transitioned to a hybrid format almost immediately upon lockdown in 2020 and really gave a lot of people hope in a hard time. It totally makes sense that they build upon their connections to start a podcast. The promo sounds good; I can’t wait for the launch.
The Quaker podcast ecosystem has a been a bit touch and go over the years, with great podcasts coming and going. Ohio Yearly Meeting’s podcast is one of the few that’s still going strong (I very much recommend Henry Jason’s series, “Fundamental Beliefs of Conservative Friends”). I know of two podcast series currently in production in addition to Pendle Hill’s. It’s an exciting time for Quaker audio!