The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota

This episode focuses on Trauma-Informed Community Development, a framework developed by the Neighborhood Resilience Project. Based in Pittsburgh, the Orthodox ministry is dedicated to addressing community trauma. Their work is rooted in the Gospel and teaching of the Orthodox Church and inspired by the American Civil Rights Movement. Father Paul Abernathy is the Pastor of St. Moses the Black Orthodox Church in Pittsburgh, a Priest with the Antiochian Archdiocese, the author of The Prayer of a Broken Heart: An Orthodox Christian Reflection on African American Spirituality, and the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Neighborhood Resilience Project. He is married to Presbytera Kristina Abernathy, who is the Chief Growth Officer for the project.While working in a predominantly Black underserved community in Pittsburgh, Father Abernathy was regularly interacting with men, women, and children who had repeatedly experienced multiple forms of trauma, such as hunger, abuse, homelessness, racism, violence, and a lack of opportunity or health care. He began to ask the question: How do you heal an entire community that has been inundated with trauma for generations?Their vision is to inspire a movement in which suffering people are raised up from the ashes of trauma in unconditional love to become empowered healers, community builders, and positive change makers. They recently hosted a community training workshop here in Sarasota.Find out more about Father Paul and Presbytera Kristina’s work at neighborhoodresilience.org.

This episode features a conversation with Greg Cruz, the founder and executive director of Streets of Paradise. An organization that fights homelessness with dignity and grace. His deep connection to the work is rooted in lived experience and a lifelong commitment to ensuring no one is left behind. He talks about his newest project, Love Act Repeat.Greg brings a hands-on, human-centered approach to everything Streets of Paradise does—from furnishing homes to responding in times of crisis. Under his leadership, Streets of Paradise has grown from a grassroots effort into a trusted, action-based organization serving hundreds of individuals and families every year.In 2017, they served full holiday dinners in public parks, meals shared by neighbors, housed and unhoused alike. These gatherings reminded them that real nourishment comes from the community food creates. What they didn't expect was how much the volunteers needed it too.Today, working with hundreds of partners, they've served tens of thousands of meals and have shown up after every storm. They remain flexible, grassroots, community-led, and powered by the same spirit: love, action, and showing up again tomorrow, blue skies or gray.Find out more about Greg’s work and the Love Act Repeat Resiliency Hub at streetsofparadise.org.

“The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota” explores our town’s growing resilience-driven culture. For each episode, we hear from a guest who is part of this emerging culture in our region and another beyond our area. But this episode is a little bit different. For Father’s Day we hear from folks in the community who called in to offer a reflection for this day. Also, Peg Shanley joins her daughter-in-law, host Bethany Ritz, to share a reflection about her own father.

This episode delves right into the topic that underlies all the discussions so far on this show: trauma. We focus on one local guest’s expertise for the full episode.Dr. Johana Kuemerle-Pinillos is a trauma specialist and clinical practitioner. She is bilingual-bicultural, Spanish-English, PhD Level Clinician, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), researcher, advocate, coach and veteran. Beginning as a Mental Health Technician in the United States Air Force, she has been in the mental health field for over 23 years, serving individuals, couples and families in different settings, including inpatient treatment, intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment, intensive at-home family therapy, and outpatient individual and couples therapy.She has presented to general audiences, as well as global conferences and groups on the topics of communication, building healthy relationships, family cohesiveness, conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, mindfulness and more.Find out more about her work at drkpurposefuljourney.com.

This episode’s topic is on The Love of the Land explored in two parts. For part one, which aired on WSLR on May 4, Jon Thaxton discussed land preservation and stewardship as a practical, spiritual, and vitalizing life-long practice. For part two, which aired on May 18, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder discusses her new book, Mother, Creature, Kin: What We Learn from Nature's Mothers in a Time of Unraveling.Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder grew up in the Great Plains of Nebraska and Oklahoma. After receiving her Master's of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, her writing became focused on the confluence of relationship to place with experiences of the sacred.From 2017 to 2022, she worked as a staff writer and editor for Emergence Magazine, an online and print publication exploring the intersection of culture, ecology, and spirituality. Her writing can also be found in publications such as The Atlantic, The Common, The Slowdown, Crannóg Magazine, EcoTheo Review, From the Ground Up, as well as in the edited poetry collection Writing the Land, and in Katie Holten's book The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape.

This episode’s topic is on The Love of the Land and is explored in two parts. For part one, which aired May 4 2025, Jon Thaxton discusses land preservation and stewardship as a practical, spiritual and vitalizing life-long practice. For part two, released live on WSLR on May 18 2025, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder will discuss her new book, Mother, Creature, Kin: What We Learn from Nature's Mothers in a Time of Unraveling.Jon Thaxton is a fifth-generation Sarasotan. His family moved here in 1887. Like many others at the time, it was agriculture that brought them here.Late last month, he was appointed to the Sarasota County Planning Commission’s volunteer advisory board. He first served on the Planning Commission from 1997 to 2000, followed by three terms on the County Commission from 2000 to 2012. He’s had an interest in planning since high school, when he sent a hand-drawn map to show how a realignment of the proposed I-75 could avoid the greatest harm to wetlands in our county. His map wasn’t considered, unfortunately.Even so, his life has been driven by an understanding that conservation lands are critical for mind, body and spirit. In fact, he’s been involved in just about every preservation of park conservation lands or endangered lands over the past 45 years. Spaces you may now enjoy, like The Bay Park downtown, the extension of the Legacy Trail, Oscar-Scherer State Park and Red Bug Slough, just to name a few. He has also led a multidisciplinary team of experts to create the Water Quality Playbook.But it’s not only about flora and fauna and water flows. He’s a strong advocate for affordable housing and has provided leadership in the creation of a system of care for the homeless as well as a food distribution system focusing on healthy and nutritious foods. Currently, he is the chair of Sarasota County’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and director of policy and advocacy at the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.The song Something To Love by The Quiet American was used with permission from the artist.

The third episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota aired April 6 2025. This episode explores both sides of domestic violence—victim and perpetrator—and the power of listening. While Tonya Disapio will discuss her experience working as a victim advocate in Sarasota, Reverend James Encinas will share about his experience with profound listening as a path to reaching the other side of abuse.The episode's local guest, Tonya DiSapio, is a Victim Advocate. Previously, she was the Family Law Case Manager for the 20th Judicial Circuit in Fort Myers. She has a bachelor’s in psychology from UCF and a Master of Jurisprudence from FSU and has worked with Families, Veterans, Children, and Victims of crime.The episode's topic guest, Reverend James Encinas, works at First United Methodist Church in Boulder as the “animare" (The Latin verb animare means "to give life to"). His job is to animate the gifts of those experiencing homelessness by connecting them with social capital, and inviting people to parties where they can fall in love with one another, and encouraging them in who they are, and going with them along the way even as roadblocks arise in the living out of those gifts. James is also a parent educator, child abuse/domestic violence service provider, activist, author, actor, and public speaker. He is an alumni of The Living School for Action and Contemplation founded by Richard Rohr, a two-year program for a select group of students that have come together to deepen engagement with their truest selves and with the world. He is a Fellow of the first class of the Aspen Teacher Leaders Fellowship and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. Propelled by his Aspen Fellowship experience, James completed a cross-country bicycle ride and, as a result, has written a book titled Wheeling to Healing: Broken Heart on a Bicycle. Before this, James was an educator and role model for the heavily Latino population at Westminster Avenue Elementary School. James helped found the Westminster Avenue Elementary School Endowment, a not-for-profit focused on strengthening ties with parents and the community at large. Faced with continuing declining enrollment in the school and the possibility of eventual closure, he and his colleagues focused on building ties with a diverse group of parents and community members. As a result, Westminster’s enrollment stabilized, and standardized test scores soared. James was very active in addressing teacher quality issues. Explore his latest project at doorwayspuertas.com.

The second episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota aired March 2 2025. The hour-long show explores the mental health risks that can arise in the pursuit of excellence. While Ingram will discuss how the well-being of academics, professionals, and visionaries permeate every aspect of our world, two-star Major General Martin will share how his bipolar disorder was his greatest strength until it became the most dangerous thing in his life.The local guest is Dr. Wendy Ingram, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Dragonfly Mental Health, a nonprofit with a mission to cultivate excellent mental health among academics worldwide. She is also a research scientist at Geisinger Health, where she works on biomedical informatics projects aimed at improving healthcare outcomes following surgery and at better understanding patients’ responses to electroconvulsive therapy. She serves as chair of the American Medical Informatics Association’s Mental Health Informatics Working Group and is a consultant to biomedical technology companies that focus on advancing mental health care.The topic guest of the episode is Dr. Major General Gregg F. Martin, US Army (Retired), a 36-year combat veteran who is a bipolar survivor, thriver, and warrior. An Airborne-Ranger-Engineer qualified soldier and Strategist, he commanded a combat engineer company, battalion, and brigade, and was commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood, commandant of the Army War College, and president of the National Defense University. A graduate of West Point, he holds a PhD and two master’s degrees from MIT, and master’s degrees from both the Army and Naval war colleges. He has lived on the bipolar spectrum his whole life, which mostly helped him, until it went too high, and then it nearly destroyed him. His life’s mission and purpose is sharing his bipolar story to help stop stigma, promote recovery, and save lives. His wife Maggie is an Army brat, Army wife, and Army mom to three sons, two of whom are Army Special Forces veterans, and one an artist. Martin is the author of “BIPOLAR GENERAL: My Forever War with Mental Illness.” For more, see his website at bipolargeneral.com.

The first episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota aired February 2 2025. The hour-long show explores how the practice of repairing, making, or even viewing artworks is elemental to our human capacity for resilience, proving that the arts run deeper than superficial luxury. While Emily Brown will offer a personal perspective, George Prochnik will offer a history lesson from Vienna.The local guest is Emily Brown Conservator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Before The Ringling, Brown completed a Mellon Fellowship at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a contract position at The Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and graduate internships at Shelburne Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, and The Walters Art Museum. She is a graduate of the Winterthur-University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation and is a recurring guest lecturer for the Program, teaching First-Year students about the history of glass manufacture. She gave a talk recently at The Ringling’s Wonder Symposium and shared how she was able to regain an experience of wonder in her work after the loss of her husband.The topic guest of the episode is George Prochik, a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of five books of nonfiction including Stranger in a Strange Land, which was a New York Times editors’ choice and was short-listed for the 2018 Wingate Literary Prize in the UK. His previous book, The Impossible Exile, was shortlisted for the 2016 Wingate Literary Prize and won the National Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir. Prochnik is also the author of In Pursuit of Silence, Putnam Camp, and Heinrich Heine: Writing the Revolution. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bookforum, and Los Angeles Review of Books, and is editor at large for Cabinet magazine.