Northern Spirit Radio
500 episodes listed below
Faith-rooted conversations for public repair.
Spirit in Action listens closely to people trying to mend public life through service, art, spirituality, and protest. Its conversations move slowly and sincerely, giving guests room to connect personal conviction with climate grief, animal liberation, social justice, and community care.
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Spirit in Action is a long-running progressive-spiritual interview program centered on people doing healing work in public life. Its moral vocabulary is plain and direct. Service, peace, neighborliness, ecological responsibility, and creative resistance are treated as connected parts of the same calling. Mark Helpsmeet usually opens by honoring the guest’s work, then gives the conversation room to breathe. The show does not rush toward a takeaway. It lingers with the reasons people keep acting when the news is frightening, grief-heavy, or morally confusing. Recent episodes show that range clearly. Climate fiction becomes a way to imagine survivable futures and to name grief without surrendering hope. Chuck Collins’s novel Altar to an Erupting Sun opens a grave discussion about climate crisis, political harm, mutual aid, remembrance, and the hard question of violence against injustice. Jamie Logan’s work brings veganism, animal liberation, media strategy, health, and women’s lingerie into a broader conversation about protest and persuasion. The Minnesota uprising music episodes use songs by artists including Katie Dahl, Panka Jane, Anna Fritz, Charlie King, Martin Kerr, Chris Haddox, John McCutcheon, David Wilcox, Mary Gaucher, Eliza Gilkyson, and Billy Bragg to trace resistance through grief, solidarity, and public song. Guest-hosted editions broaden the program with Peterson Toscano and Jan Spencer, adding climate-changed spirituality, sustainability, paradigm shift, menstrual equity, poetry, and queer horror. The show’s strength is its willingness to hold earnestness without embarrassment. It assumes the audience can sit with complexity. It is reflective, sometimes grave, often tender, and openly sympathetic to peace, justice, ecological repair, and spiritual courage.
Made for: For thoughtful listeners drawn to progressive spirituality, nonviolence, climate justice, music, ethical activism, and long-form public-radio conversation.
What sets it apart: Spirit in Action stands apart by letting moral reflection and practical activism share the same table, without polishing away silence, grief, faith language, or guest monologues.
Each week, Spirit In Action brings you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts. We will trace the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, we will seek out Light, Love and Helping Hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Spirit in Action traces the moral and spiritual commitments that sustain activism, service, artistic protest, and community solidarity.
Mark Helpsmeet treats spirituality as a source of public action, asking what sustains people engaged with labor, climate, animal liberation, veterans' lives, and solidarity with immigrants.
Political reversals, climate fiction, and protest songs meet when you want conviction with its spiritual roots showing.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A reflective climate-faith conversation about grief, stories, and a workable future.
Mark Helpsmeet opens by casting the conversation as work toward healing and a better future, then turns it over to Peterson Toscano and the BTS Center voices for a slower look at climate grief, fiction, and the uneasy gap between disappointment and hope.
A humane look at climate disruption, mutual aid, and resistance.
Mark Helpsmeet frames Chuck Collins's new novel as a moral argument that still wants to be read as a story. The conversation keeps returning to fairness, equality, and justice, but it does so through work, witness, and the ordinary effort of building something better while…
A patient, justice-minded conversation about vegan activism, media, and the limits of provocation.
Mark Helpsmeet frames Jamie Logan's work as part of a show concerned with healing work for the world. The conversation moves from vegan media into animal liberation, environmental issues, and how far unconventional tactics can go.
A protest-song set with a steady, supportive voice.
Mark Helpsmeet builds a wide musical arc around the Minnesota uprising, moving from Minnesota to Nashville, Bethlehem, and Billy Bragg on England's southern coast. The program keeps its focus on supporting neighbors, bearing witness, and gathering strength for the struggle.
A steady public-radio conversation about veterans' service, what it leaves behind, and the support they still need.
Patricia Stansbury's return to Spirit in Action keeps the focus tight on two veterans, one from Vietnam and one from the Middle East, as they talk through service and what follows it.
A guest-hosted hour that ties gun debate, militia talk, and historical memory into one reflective conversation.
Spirit in Action gives Mark Leach a guest-hosted hour built around Ecotopia Soon, and it keeps moving between guns, militia talk, museums, and the stubborn work of rewriting history.
A union conversation about political change, solidarity, and the work of meeting people where they are.
This conversation gives Pete Bastunas room to speak from a union steward's perspective on labor, shifting politics, and the value of empathy across disagreement.
Mark Helpsmeet passes the mic to Peterson Toscano, bringing Spirit in Action into the BTS Center's Climate Changed conversation.
Mark Helpsmeet welcomes Chuck Collins back for a serious, tender conversation about Collins's novel Altar to an Erupting Sun.
Jamie Logan describes how a childhood dog named Daisy and a pig truck seen at age 13 pushed her from “animal lover” to vegan activism.
Mark Helpsmeet gathers songs for a hard season.
Jan Spencer discusses aspects of a primer for paradigm shift, focusing on sustainability and the wisdom of spiritual traditions.
Guest host Peterson Toscano leads conversations with four women on period poverty and menstrual cups, features a poem by a former poet laureate, and discusses queer horror with an author.
This episode features part two of songs inspired by the Minnesota uprising, with interviews and music from musicians Chris Haddox, John McCutcheon, and David Wilcox, who discuss their healing work and activism across different regions of the U.S.
This episode explores the Minnesota uprising through newly inspired songs from various musicians, starting with Katie Dahl, as part of a series on healing and community action.
This episode explores the intersections of sex, gender, and Jesus through interviews with a trans woman priest, a drag queen writer, and a poet-preacher, examining how bodies relate to shame, pleasure, politics, and power in religious contexts.
This episode features an interview with Parfaite Ntahuba, a peace and women's rights activist from Burundi who discusses her work in promoting peaceful elections and healing from trauma.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews John Wilmerding about his journey from traveling minstrel to peace activist, focusing on restorative justice and active peace theory.
Patricia Stansbury returns to Spirit in Action with episode six of What Wakes Me Up, a WRIR program built around military veterans’ stories, PTSD, and community support.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews Jens and Spee Braun about their global humanitarian work rooted in Quaker faith and spirituality.
An interview with Don Neufeld about his book on healthy masculinity from an Anabaptist perspective.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews David Abaz about his off-grid sustainable homestead and the spiritual values that guide his environmental stewardship.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews author Anita Sanchez about her book on glaciers and environmental conservation.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews Gabrielle Serberville about her book on foraging and living in right relationship with nature, exploring the spiritual roots of her work.
An interview with Sami Awad about nonviolent action, Christian spirituality, and his book on Jesus' teachings as a manual for creating a just world.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews Phil Allen Jr.
This episode features an interview with Thom Hartmann discussing his new book on the history and threats of surveillance and privacy erosion in America to democracy.
Host Mark Helpsmeet introduces guest Jan Spencer, who discusses his book disguised as a website, 'A Primer for Paradigm Shift,' focusing on practical steps toward a sustainable and uplifted society.
Mark Helpsmeet passes the mic.
This episode features an interview with Jody Jewell, a community engagement specialist at World Relief Wisconsin, discussing refugee support work and her musical talents in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews Olivia Chalkley about her faith-driven activism for Palestine and her journey balancing spirituality and politics.
An interview with Chuck Collins about his book 'Burned by Billionaires' and the damage of wealth inequality.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews activist Eileen Flanagan about her new book on environmental activism and spiritual grounding.
Edgar Villanueva discusses the new edition of Decolonizing Wealth and how philanthropy can be transformed through Indigenous wisdom.
Mark Helpsmeet opens at a campground in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where he met Pete Bastunas and found a conversation worth bringing home.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews author Jeremy Lent about his book 'The Web of Meaning', exploring spirituality, consciousness, and responses to global crises.
An interview with Sonita Alizada, a former Afghan refugee and rap activist, discussing her fight against tyranny and her escape to freedom.
Interview with Chloe Schwenke discussing the Trump administration's assault on USAID and its impact on Africa, drawing on her experience in international development and human rights.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews Peter Samuelson about his book and nonprofit work, exploring spiritual roots of service.
Host Mark Helpsmeet interviews David Welder about his off-grid lifestyle and book on living with less, exploring spiritual roots of service.
An interview with Muslim scholar and queer activist Shannon Shaw about faith, justice, and vulnerability in a climate-changed world.
An interview with Wayne Finnegar of Quaker House about preparing teens for military draft and conscientious objection.