"The Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit, 750-acre community on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State, where approximately 7,500 persons are in residence on any day during a nine-week season, and a total of over 100,000 attend scheduled public events.

The Institution, originally the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, was founded in 1874 as an educational experiment in out-of-school, vacation learning. It was successful and broadened almost immediately beyond courses for Sunday school teachers to include academic subjects, music, art and physical education.

While founders Lewis Miller and John Heyl Vincent were Methodists, other Protestant denominations participated from the first year onward, and today Chautauqua continues to be ecumenical in spirit and practice. Chautauqua's Department of Religion presents distinguished religious leaders of many faiths from this country and abroad, both as preachers and teachers.

Chautauqua is dedicated to the exploration of the best in human values and the enrichment of life through a program that explores the important religious, social and political issues of our times; stimulates provocative, thoughtful involvement of individuals and families in creative response to such issues; and promotes excellence and creativity in the appreciation, performance and teaching of the arts.

With the success of the CLSC, many new Chautauquas were created, known as 'Daughter Chautauquas,' giving rise to what was called the 'Chautauqua Movement.' Some years later, the talent agencies that provided speakers and entertainers for these platforms, put together shows of their own, which traveled to small towns across the United States and Canada. These were known as the 'circuit chautauquas' or 'tent chautauquas.'

By 1880 the Chautauqua platform had established itself as a national forum for open discussion of public issues, international relations, literature and science. Approximately 100 lecturers appear at Chautauqua during a season."

My grandmother and grandfather on my mother's side discovered that, unbeknownst to them, they were both in attendance at the same tent chautauqua near Kansas City when they were young children. The orator of the event was the famed William Jennings Bryan.

Our presenter for this week is J. Philip Newell, the celebrated author of Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality. Formerly Warden of Iona Abbey in the Western Isles of Scotland, Newell now divides his time between Edinburgh and travelling and teaching internationally. In 2015 he became the Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Spirituality at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, where he offers a course every Spring.