The Anatomy of Tenderness

By: Léonie and Sophie Caldecott
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  • Summary

  • Our culture has over-used (and mis-applied) the word “love” so much that it has lost a lot of its power and meaning. “Tenderness”, though, with the breadth of its nuanced connotations—from fiercely protective parental love, the intimacy of a lover’s touch, the presence of a friend in a time of crisis, an altruistic moment between strangers—offers us a fresh lens through which to approach caring for ourselves, each other, and the planet. When we talk about tenderness, we’re not talking about watering down the truth or disregarding justice. We’re not talking about being “nice”, turning a blind eye to suffering because we’re afraid to talk about hard things—quite the opposite. Armed with tenderness, we’re able to face the challenges of life and the most important issues of our time with strength and compassion, hope and realism. In The Anatomy of Tenderness podcast, mother and daughter writers Léonie and Sophie Caldecott examine the idea of tenderness in conversation with each other and with a host of friends and guests. Together we’ll unpack what it means, how we can cultivate it in ourselves, and how it could change the world. In this first episode, Léonie and Sophie discuss why this podcast has been in the works for over 4 years, the fears that kept us stuck, why we feel it’s a podcast that we need now more than ever, what “tenderness” means to us, and what kinds of themes we’ll be exploring in The Anatomy of Tenderness. Huge thanks to Sara Fackrell for the beautiful visual design and cover art for this project, and to Upcycled sounds and Rosie Caldecott for the music on this track.
    2023
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Relationships Social Sciences Spirituality
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Episodes
  • Episode 4: We're writing this story together

    Episode 4: We're writing this story together
    Dec 6 2024

    In this extra short episode we wanted to share a beautiful poem by our friend the award-winning poet Laura Theis, for anyone who needs a little dose of tender hope and protest at the moment. This poem is a beautiful reminder that whatever is going on in the world, the story doesn’t belong to any one person, but is always ours to write; a collective project.

    Thanks to Laura for sharing your voice and your words with us in this episode.

    my tbr is neverending

    tonight I’m reading

    the sky again

    looking for clues

    amongst its vivid

    birds I’m reading

    the shadows

    that surround

    each small but brilliant

    source of light

    I am reading a million

    protest signs composed

    of petals

    they can take away

    the books

    but the story

    still moves forwards

    they cannot steal

    the story’s ending

    when its teller is

    the world

    —Laura Theis

    --

    PS For anyone who doesn’t know: “TBR” stands for to be read, as in all the books that you have on your "to read" pile.
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    2 mins
  • Episode 3: Letting go of perfection

    Episode 3: Letting go of perfection
    Nov 6 2024

    Welcome back to The Anatomy of Tenderness!

    How often do we avoid inviting people over because we worry our home or the food we can offer is good enough, or forget to reach out to someone because we're waiting for the perfect time? And, do we hold back from finishing or sharing our ideas, skills, and gifts with the world, avoid making a contribution because we don't know enough, aren't good enough, don't have enough to offer yet?

    In this episode we'll explore the idea of "perfectionism" as something that blocks the way to tenderness and human connection, and we practice what we preach by sharing this conversation while we dandle a baby on our laps.

    We will be sharing new conversations soon, and are grateful for your patience with our slow pace.
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    12 mins
  • Episode 2: Incarnation

    Episode 2: Incarnation
    Dec 5 2023
    In this episode of The Anatomy of Tenderness Podcast we share a little bit about what’s been going on in our lives this past Autumn. We’ll be back properly in the new year with some new conversations, but for now just wanted to share a conversation about Pope Francis’ newly translated book, Christmas at the Nativity, published by Focolare Media, in time for the season of Advent. We found this book to be such a powerful meditation on physical manifestations of tenderness, the incarnated reality of love, and wanted to unpack what that means together. While we’re approaching this reflection from the context of our Catholic faith, we hope that whatever your faith or belief-system, this conversation can offer some food for thought on the embodiment of tenderness and the physical form it can take in our lives as we show up for each other in love.  Incarnation; in-carne "enfleshed", taking physical form in a body —a concrete or actual form of a quality or concept. In Christian theology, the Incarnation is the concept of God becoming human at the Nativity, or birth of Christ in Bethlehem, celebrated at Christmas. Some points we covered in this episode: St Francis of Assisi created the first nativity scene in 1223 to help people move beyond a sanitised or abstracted understanding of the Incarnation and meditate on the physicality of the birth of Christ, and the tenderness that this requires of us in response to his vulnerability as a human baby.This whole concept is radical because it turns all our traditional notions about power on its head; humanity has typically seen gods, kings, emporers as separate from the masses, invulnerable in their power, and here we have a story about the Creator of the universe stepping into the middle of muck and sweat and blood and poverty. This story breaks and remakes all of our preconceived ideas about power and puts vulnerability and tenderness centre stage instead.Meeting us here, stripped of all the usual trappings of power and privilege, our maker tells us that we are inherently loveable and loved, regardless of social position, influence, money, prestige, and anything else that the world might deem important.We can construct beautiful words around love and what it means; but tenderness has a highly visceral, physical side to it that the parental relationship sums up so well, given the way we’re called to offer physical care and protection to a child. Pope Francis points out that the health of a society, humanity, can be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable—its children.It’s easy to be tender towards humanity in an abstract way, but the challenge the Nativity offers us is this: can we be tender even in the most unglamorous, messy, and “ugly” of circumstances?If our tenderness is only theoretical, then it’s not worth much. Tenderness has to be incarnated; the word, made flesh. If we want someone to know that we love them, we have to do physical things to make them feel safe, loved, cared for, welcome in their bodies. We are, after all, a unity of both body and spirit. Some passages we quote in this episode of The Anatomy of Tenderness: “Advent is the season of the seed: Christ loved this symbol of the seed. The seed, he said, is the Word of God sown in the human heart…. Advent is the season of the secret, the secret of the growth of Christ, of Divine Love, growing in silence.”—Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God The Nativity scene that Houselander herself (both a writer and an artist) made is pictured in the photo that accompanies this episode on our website: theanatomyoftendernesspodcast.com “This is the gift we find at Christmas. We discover to our amazement that the Lord is absolute gratuity, absolute tender love. His glory does not overwhelm us, his presence does not terrify us. He is born in utter poverty in order to win our hearts by the wealth of his love.”—Pope Francis, Christmas at the Nativity “The child Jesus born in Bethlehem is the sign given by God to those who awaited salvation and he remains forever the sign of God’s tenderness and presence in our world… Today too children are a sign they are a sign of hope, a sign of life, but also a diagnostic sign…”—Pope Francis, Christmas at the Nativity “Jesus, newly born, was mirrored in the eyes of the woman, in the face of his mother. From her he received his first caresses, with her he exchanged the first smiles. With her began the revolution of tenderness.”—Pope Francis, Christmas at the Nativity Thank you so much for listening, and for your patience as we gather more conversations to share with you in the new year. Your enthusiasm and support truly means so much to us! We’re embracing a spirit of anti-perfectionism, and Sophie has sworn not to edit out our “ums” and “ers”, so you’ll have to hold her to this “new year’s resolution” going into 2024! With much love, Sophie & Léonie Thank you to Focolare Media for sponsoring this episode ...
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    32 mins

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