2026
These are recordings from 2026 from "The Made of Clay Report with Peaches Gillette and Eric Clay" heard on Ithaca Community Radio, WRFI.
Nathan Emmelhainz: Lessons for Voting and Listening—for Everyone
In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, Nathan led four couples in an Atlanta suburb in conversation about who they voted for—the compelling issue and reason for their vote. Two voted for Trump, two for Hillary, and two for third-party candidates. No couple voted for the same candidate.
The risks for 2026 are more serious than for 2016. We learn to thrive when we choose to live among those with whom we disagree.
If we want to outlive our problems, we must have a measure of respect for each other’s wishes. We struggle to live more truthfully at home and with our neighbors. We need the grace to listen to the good we each seek. As we trust and verify each other’s intentions and actions, we see more accurately each other’s integrity.
September 13, 2026
Interfaith Community Dinners
Our guests are three founders of Greater Lansing and Ithaca Interfaith Community Dinners: Karen Veaner, Shawn Murphy, and Mahmud Burton. These leaders represent community and business groups in the region, the Ithaca Reform Temple, and Al-Huda Islamic Center. Alison Schmied of Lansing United Methodist Church is the fourth founder and not available at recording time.
Interfaith and community dinners are an easy way to get to know each other without so many assumptions that get in our way.
If your business, community group, or congregation wants to be part of a culture change to welcome all the people of our region, contact:
Email: Interfaithcommunity14882@gmail.com
Or @interfaithcommunity will get you there too!
August 30, 2026
Peyi Soyinka-Airewele & Michelle Candela-Jordan
Can we be an honest community? Will we have each other’s backs? Are we strong enough to be corrected when wrong? Are we open enough to notice who is in harm’s way? Will we stand with them, and leave them not alone?
August 16, 2026
Freedom and Responsibility for Lives and Faith Well Lived with Lisa P. Christian
If we live our ways of life in freedom, how must we respect the freedom of others and be responsible to them? When things go badly, can we know each other well enough to control bad behavior and still respect differences?
July 19, 2026
We Test Our People Skills in Neighborhoods and Communities
Our neighborhoods and communities prepare us to live in the democracy of our everyday lives. They are our first testing grounds. After 250 years, how can we find the honesty to live in a capitalist democracy and seek justice in these United States?
July 5, 2026
For Love and Money: What the People of the United States Could Become 250 Years After Our Founding
What if we treated government as an opportunity for equality and freedom, instead of as a cult for control?
June 21, 2026
Tom Miller on His Path to Bold Hope
How do we make our individual ways and personal paths to discover our conscience? Hope binds together our words and our actions—and frees us to be bold.
With Tom Miller
June 7, 2026
Can We Use Our Consciences as Tools?
Can we engage each other, care for each other? Even when we disagree, maybe especially when we disagree.
With Roger Dennis and Garry Thomas
May 24, 2026
Vietnam War-Era Conscientious Objectors
Finding the Personal Resolve to Do What Is Right and Necessary, to Fight or Not Fight, to Kill or Not Kill, When War Solves Nothing, and an Unjust Peace Does the Same.
With Roger Dennis, Garry Thomas, and Thomas Joyce
May 10, 2026
Resistance and Affirmation: Our Politics of Righteousness When Facing the Reality of War and Violence
Dan Akst, author of War by Other Means: The Pacifists of the Greatest Generation Who Revolutionized Resistance; Nathan Fawcett, son of a pacifist war resister in WWII and himself a Vietnam War resister; Vietnam War resisters Roger Dennis and Garry Thomas
April 26, 2026
Respond to us at 607-319-5445, ext. 6.
Wonder at the End of Our Lives
With Todd Saddler
April 12, 2026
What is our purpose, meaning, and connection when facing our own mortality? How do we be within ourselves and with others?
Singing with “Others”
Music That Brings Us Together, with Elizabeth and Tom Miller and Lise and Richard Rosenfield
March 29, 2026
How do we offer music to bring us together? What are the many ways we experience connection in the presence of diverse “others”? This show reflects on the Namgyal Interfaith Conference held March 22, addressing “Music That Brings Us Together.”
How Music Defines Human Connection, Even in the Midst of Conflict
With Karl Paulnack
March 15, 2026
We thank Karl Paulnack for helping us frame this conversation. A past guest on the show and area resident, Karl is a spiritual leader, hospital chaplain, and former Dean of the School of Music at Ithaca College.
Our lives are framed by music. We begin with a cry and end with a moan or sigh. All human communication—in the form of pitch and rhythm—was music from the beginning. Our first and primary instrument is our own body. In the very midst of conflict, how can music bring us together?
To Honor Mark Kelly and a Nation at Risk
Kevin Basl, Hugh McElyea, and Hurf Sheldon of Warrior Writers of Tompkins County, U.S. Army Colonel (retired) Jake Almborg of Stafford, VA.
February 15, 2026
How We Get Through This Political Era
February 1, 2026
On the Workout for Being Human in Ithaca
January 18, 2026
Our Human Rights Commissioners’ Work in Tompkins County
The Executive Committee, Peyi Soyinka-Airewele, Theresa Fulton, Mullen Quaye, and Peaches Gillette
January 4, 2026