1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:15,440 Welcome to the Off the Page podcast from Franciscan Media, a podcast that will feature 2 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:21,600 in-depth conversations with Franciscan authors and artists. My name is Stephen Copeland and I'm 3 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:26,560 the book editor here at Franciscan Media and today I'll be interviewing Dr. and Reverend 4 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:31,920 Bruce Eperly, whose new book, Head, Heart and Hands, an introduction to St. Bonaventure, 5 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:37,760 will be the focus of our conversation. Bruce is widely published within Franciscan Media. 6 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:43,280 You may recognize his name from Posen Prey, our daily prayers that get emailed to your inbox 7 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:49,200 every morning, and he is also the author of Walking with Francis of Assisi and Simplicity, 8 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:57,200 Spirituality and Service. All these books can be purchased in our store at shop.franciscanmedia.org. 9 00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:02,560 A little more about Bruce, he has served as a congregational pastor, university chaplain, 10 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:08,560 professor and seminary administrator for over 40 years, and he is the author of more than 70 books 11 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:14,480 on practical theology, ministry and spirituality, healing and wholeness, and process theology. 12 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:19,680 As you'll hear in our conversation, his own theological diversity, I think, really, 13 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:26,080 it allows him to make some fascinating connections as he weaves together varying theological voices 14 00:01:26,080 --> 00:01:31,840 and traditions. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation, so without further ado, 15 00:01:31,840 --> 00:01:39,200 here is Bruce Eperly. I thought your introduction to Head, Heart and Hands, your new book, coming 16 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:44,640 out on May 7th, I thought it was a really wonderful introduction and a great on-ramp to the importance 17 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:52,000 of theology. And I think it's a really necessary introduction to someone like Bonaventure, who's 18 00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,640 extremely complex, at least our modern years. So I figured we'd start off on what is theology 19 00:02:00,640 --> 00:02:04,400 and why is it important to start, that's the title of your introduction. 20 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:10,960 Well, you know, theology, initially, for me, is just simply loving God with your mind. 21 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:18,000 You know, that's the, in some sense, the head, and it really can't be disconnected from the 22 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:26,240 heart and the hands, of course. You know, many people who've become our part of faith traditions, 23 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:34,560 they don't think of themselves as theologians, but the minute they start thinking about suffering, 24 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:43,760 or war, or violence, they become theologians. And the job of a theologian is to help people 25 00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:49,360 to try to put their lives in a framework that's going to be healthy for them and the world. 26 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:55,200 You know, the problem of evil is obviously one of them that is key and people try to figure, well, 27 00:02:55,200 --> 00:03:02,000 where's God in all of this? And of course, the public language is that somehow or other God 28 00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:08,400 caused this, or that you're being punished for your sins, or if you want to move to the new 29 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:15,280 spiritual movements, you're being punished for your negative thinking. You know, it's always a 30 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:22,720 danger for a minister or priest to be at a wedding reception. You know, we like everyone else like 31 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:29,360 to have a drink in an order. And more often than I can imagine, somebody's come up to me at a wedding 32 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:35,600 reception and begun a discourse about some event that's happened in their lives. Now, I'm just 33 00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:42,320 wanting to have a gin and tonic myself. But when you're a theologian, you're on duty 24 hours a 34 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:48,720 day. And when you're the person who just performed the wedding, you're on duty until you go home. 35 00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:55,600 And countless times somebody said, now I've had this issue that I'm struggling with a belief in 36 00:03:55,600 --> 00:04:02,160 God. And usually they find out that their their issue is one that I agree with, you know, that God 37 00:04:02,160 --> 00:04:09,840 didn't cause the miscarriage, that God wasn't trying to teach them a lesson. And the theologian 38 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:16,080 tries to join head and heart in a way that helps us to move on with our lives creatively. 39 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:22,560 The head isn't everything. And that's one of the keys to Bonaventures and Francis and Claire's 40 00:04:22,560 --> 00:04:29,760 thinking. These people, Francis Bonaventure and Claire, are extremely erudite people with different 41 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:36,160 kinds of gifts. Bonaventure obviously was the the intellectual in the group. That was how he 42 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:43,280 he went with things. Francis was much more an ambiance. He was a poet. He was a troubadour. 43 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:54,080 God's fool. Claire was very incisive. You know, she had a certain sense of let's gaze at the cross. 44 00:04:55,280 --> 00:05:00,480 I mean, let's gaze at the cross. And when you gaze at the cross, the cross is an icon of God's 45 00:05:00,480 --> 00:05:10,160 love for you. I think the theologian has to include all of those. And of course, theology, 46 00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:15,520 as Alfred North Whitehead says, and that all great religions begin with some sort of mystical 47 00:05:15,520 --> 00:05:26,000 experience, you know, whether it be Francis in the chapel, hearing a voice that says, repair my 48 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:36,240 church, or Alverna experiencing the suffering of God, or himself Bonaventure going to Alverna, 49 00:05:36,240 --> 00:05:44,560 and not experiencing the stigmata, but feeling such an affinity with with Francis that he seems to 50 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:52,720 be welcomed in to Francis experience. It's a truly, truly mystical experience for Bonaventure. 51 00:05:52,720 --> 00:06:01,920 And, you know, Bonaventure can be read as very dry, but at the same context when you read his 52 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:12,640 soul's journey to God, or his stories about how to approach the life of Jesus, I mean, 53 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:19,280 he's he's kin to Ignatius and Loyola. They both, in terms of the life of Jesus, they 54 00:06:19,280 --> 00:06:26,560 they they both want you to be there right watching the scene. They want you to be with the woman who's 55 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:32,800 who's being accused of adultery. They want you to be among the women at the cross, or if we might 56 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:40,240 say Mary of Magdalene the garden, because they they saw that theology is not just a 57 00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:47,040 heady experience, but the imaginative experience that you can experience what you're talking about. 58 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:54,800 I have this little trinity of thinking that I've used in some of my other work, and it's implicit 59 00:06:54,800 --> 00:07:01,120 in the Bonaventure book. I'm trying to remember if I stated explicitly that good theology involves 60 00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:08,400 a vision, a promise, and a practice. The vision is how do we look at the world? You know, what kind 61 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:15,920 of world do you live in? Is it as Howard Thurman says, is it a world ideally a friendly people 62 00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:24,240 in a friendly universe? That's the prelude to the beloved community, by the way. Is it a world in 63 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:30,960 which we're going to ever, you know, step on a crack, break your mother's back? There's no grace 64 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:39,280 whatsoever. Is a world of an authoritarian God that influences authoritarian politics and binary 65 00:07:39,280 --> 00:07:47,360 politics? Is it a God of love that encourages us to be relational in our behaviors? Then I think 66 00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:52,000 good theology is, and this is what at least I believe, and I've been fortunate enough to be, 67 00:07:52,000 --> 00:08:01,520 like Bonaventure, an academic who also went to the hospital to visit dying people who comforted 68 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:07,920 grieving families. I mean, one of the, you know, Bonaventure is not a heady theologian. He was 69 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:16,240 at the graveside too. You know, he was in the academic room and in a study, but he also had 70 00:08:16,240 --> 00:08:26,480 to manage an organization and do it ethically. And he also comforted the sick. And the promise is 71 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:36,000 that you can experience the faith you affirm. And then the practice is how you can help yourself 72 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:42,800 and others experience it. And interesting enough, the soul's journey to God is really, 73 00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:50,000 has all of those. He talks about how you mount from the visible world to the experience of the 74 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:57,440 divine and then go back down. I mean, it's really an exegesis or an interpretation. I don't want to 75 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:03,600 use too many fancy words. It's an interpretation of Jacob's dream of the ladder of angels, you know, 76 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:10,480 which was often misunderstood by preachers. The angels start on earth. That's something that's 77 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:16,800 not seen by a lot of readers. And it's the same for Bonaventure. You begin with the senses. You 78 00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:22,800 begin with the meal you just shared. And God's in the senses, God's in the meal. God's right here 79 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:29,440 with us. And then you have a wider and wider vision. He talks about it in terms of an ascent. 80 00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:38,720 But the ascent never forgets where you come from. And the ascent, the angels go up into heaven, 81 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:44,480 and then they come back down to earth. And so Bonaventure ascends unto heaven, and then he 82 00:09:44,480 --> 00:09:50,640 tries to keep the order together between the traveling monks and the ones that are like himself, 83 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:59,120 scholastics, teaching, and congregations. So that's maybe a long answer to a short question, 84 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:05,600 but I think everyone's an implicit theologian. And we need to reflect on what our theology 85 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:11,440 means and what kind of God. I think it's Terry Thredheim, the biblical scholar that says it's 86 00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:18,080 more important to ask the question, what kind of God do you believe in than do you believe in God? 87 00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:26,240 Because we see the visions of God being worked out in our attitudes toward immigration or politics 88 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:32,880 or the Middle East, who's in and who's out, who deserves our ethical consideration, who doesn't. 89 00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:42,560 It matters. Yeah, no, there's a lot there. And you mentioned a couple aspects of Bonaventure. I 90 00:10:42,560 --> 00:10:49,200 think I think this goes to the title of your book, you know, head, heart, and hands. Bonaventure, 91 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:57,360 as you said, was a scholastic. He was of the institution. And in yet he's inviting us in 92 00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:04,480 many passages to experience the divine through our senses, through the heart, through our hands. 93 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:10,480 So can you talk a little bit about your title and why that is such an appropriate title for a 94 00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:18,800 theologian like Bonaventure? Well, and I think in part it goes back to his attempt to live out 95 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:28,160 as a theologian, the spirit of Francis. For Bonaventure, Francis is the perfect Christian, 96 00:11:29,440 --> 00:11:34,800 not necessarily to be repeated at home, as they used to say about on those infomercials, 97 00:11:35,360 --> 00:11:42,960 because Bonaventure didn't repeat it. But in Francis, he saw a person who, 98 00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:54,960 who's faith and experience of God drove him out into the world. I don't want to localize mysticism 99 00:11:54,960 --> 00:11:59,760 in any particular part of a person's life, because I think the religious sense is everywhere. 100 00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:06,240 There's no religious organ in our bodies. It's the organ of the whole being. 101 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:16,960 I think that for, and although Francis didn't ever claim to be a theologian, he was well studied. 102 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:30,400 He knew what he was talking about. I think you can be somebody who, let's put it in the 21st 103 00:12:30,400 --> 00:12:38,560 century, you can be a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and I'm not excluding Buddhists and Hindus 104 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:48,240 and Jews and Muslims and Pagans from this, who is as smart as anyone in the room. Too often, 105 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:55,760 people of faith have been, and some of it's their own fault, have been the people who are most 106 00:12:55,760 --> 00:13:03,760 frightened by new knowledge and new awareness. Bonaventure, even though he lived a thousand years 107 00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:09,840 ago, his theology is a dynamic theology which would have welcomed new insights. 108 00:13:12,640 --> 00:13:18,720 I'm not as well versed with Anne Selma as I am with Bonaventure, but I think if 109 00:13:18,720 --> 00:13:25,040 Bonaventure had become the theologian of the Western Church, we would be in a very different place. 110 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:33,920 Bonaventure is in his own way, and I am a person identified with process theology, 111 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:41,280 so I don't want to read into him what isn't there, but in his own way, his theology is very dynamic. 112 00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:48,480 You can't have a fountain flowing that isn't flowing, and it goes back to old Heraclitus 113 00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:57,280 of some 2,500 years ago. Everything flows. If it's flowing, then it's dynamic, and it's changing, 114 00:13:57,280 --> 00:14:03,520 and it's growing. I think that probably Thayard Deschardin, who's another influence on my life, 115 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:09,520 would have felt quite comfortable with Bonaventure, and he would have felt comfortable with Thayard. 116 00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:16,080 Theory of evolution, even though he lived long before Darwin and held some 117 00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:20,240 traditional doctrines, as he should have done in the 11th century, 118 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:28,480 theology grows, come out theology with the head means you come out growing. 119 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:39,520 The heart, though, I mean, you look at Francis, and again, in many ways, Bonaventure knows he's 120 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:43,520 not Francis, and he doesn't want to be Francis. He knows his gifts are different, 121 00:14:43,520 --> 00:14:48,880 but when he looks at what the person he'd aspire to be in his relationships, he says, 122 00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:57,280 look at Francis. He didn't write the obviously critical comments about his biography of Francis, 123 00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:05,680 but I find it a darned fair biography. Of course, every biographer has a perspective, 124 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:15,520 and he was an institutionalist, so you can't avoid that. But his Francis is the one who goes out 125 00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:25,040 and embraces the persons with leprosy. His Francis is the person who schools the birds for talking 126 00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:32,160 during his sermon, but also preaches a sermon to the sparrows. His Francis has the heart, 127 00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:39,600 a little evangelism here of going over and crossing boundaries to visit the Sultan. 128 00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:47,680 Both of them want to convince them, each other, about the rightness of their perspective, I mean, 129 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:54,160 but Francis keeps in dialogue, and the Sultan, for his, we have to give the Sultan credit to, 130 00:15:54,160 --> 00:16:04,080 welcomes Francis, the heart, the heart. And then, of course, you can't talk about 131 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:09,360 Francis' confiancy without talking about the hands. After all, even though he may have 132 00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:16,400 over-literalized it, Francis decided he wasn't going to rebuild the chapel at San Damiano and a 133 00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:22,240 couple others. And before he discovered that the chapel he needed to rebuild was the church of 134 00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:28,800 his time. And I believe in the spirit of Pope Francis, it's no longer repair your church, 135 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:36,080 it's the church of the world we need to repair. Repair the world. That goes, and it's hard not 136 00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:43,920 to connect Francis with the notion of tycoon and Bonaventure as well, that our task is to repair 137 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:53,920 or heal the earth. And so I think these fit together there holistically. I mean, we all have 138 00:16:53,920 --> 00:17:01,280 our own personalities and things that are our gifts, but the holistic or individuated, to quote 139 00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:08,080 Jung, the whole person theology that has the three food groups or four food groups I grew up in it 140 00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:17,600 with has to have the wisdom to not turn your back on the world. I see Bonaventure 141 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:24,560 real recognize the ambiguity of science, but he wouldn't be protesting against vaccines. 142 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:32,720 You know, he might have a word or two to say to Tony Fauci, I live in an NIH neighborhood here and 143 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:38,240 Potomac and Tony is a saint in our neighborhood, he is a saint to me. He's somebody who's the 144 00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:43,680 product of the best kind of religious education, you know, raised in a Roman Catholic church and 145 00:17:43,680 --> 00:17:51,040 everything he's doing is grounded in his education. That's, you know, the person for others. 146 00:17:53,360 --> 00:18:00,640 I think the hardest that we feel the pain of the world that we don't turn our back on the 147 00:18:00,640 --> 00:18:06,800 the pain of children in Gaza or children in Israel or children in Iran, frankly. 148 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:16,640 And of course, Bonaventure has the hand of an administrator in trying to resolve differences 149 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:22,720 in his in the Franciscan order so that it would be around a thousand years later. So there'd be a 150 00:18:22,720 --> 00:18:29,360 Franciscan media. He had no idea that there'd be Franciscan studies in the University of San Diego. 151 00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:37,120 He had no idea of these things would be they'd be publishing books about him. But he knew that 152 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:44,480 Francis had to be communicated and he needed an institution that was holistic to do so. He didn't 153 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:51,360 use this language. But when you get the two different groups, the the mendicant priests and this 154 00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:58,000 and the homeward priests, the homebound priests together without or try to unite the western 155 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:02,960 eastern church, which of course, that's still still a long way to go. And of course, we have, 156 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:08,800 I'm speaking as a Protestant area, there's more Protestant denomination and sex than you can 157 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:16,320 shake a stick at. And you know, one, one, one, we decides that April 23rd, we better get to work, 158 00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:22,160 is going to be the next end of the world after after Jesus didn't come on April on April the 8th, 159 00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:28,800 the day of the the eclipse, then there's another 15 days later, Jesus is going to come again. 160 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:32,960 And of course, Bonaventure would say, Hey, use your minds, people. 161 00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:43,280 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I really do think it's a perfect title for him, head, heart and hands, 162 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:52,320 because he is uniquely integrating all of those and trying to invite readers and people who were, 163 00:19:54,240 --> 00:20:00,800 he was talking to at that time, and sharing theology with into the dynamic aspects of all 164 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:07,200 three of those aspects of the human person, and what it means to be fully alive in Christ. 165 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:13,920 Yes. And you mentioned, you mentioned a lot there, but there's one, I want one thing I want you to 166 00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:21,120 go deeper into for the listener. We talked about Bonaventure being a theologian for our time, 167 00:20:21,120 --> 00:20:27,760 and process theology in particular, you brought that up and his met Bonaventure's metaphor of 168 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:35,520 fountain fullness. Yes, I'd love for you to go deeper into that because for me, at least, 169 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:42,320 reading him, I mean, that is one of the most dynamic metaphors for God I've ever heard. 170 00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:48,080 And I think I agree with you. I think it does align very much with, even though he wouldn't 171 00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:53,680 have said this, I think it does very much align with process theology and modern discoveries in 172 00:20:53,680 --> 00:21:02,400 science. Yes. And even cross denomination or interreligious, I mean, in some ways, the fountain 173 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:10,320 is the Dow with an intention. You know, the ever flowing stream of life that has an intention 174 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:15,840 to it. Or you can see the same and again, I'll point your readers to somebody I just mentioned 175 00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:24,480 to the the movements of evolution toward the what what people like Teyard and Iliadelio would call 176 00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:33,680 the Christ Omega. But the fountain is an interesting image because the fountain is ever flowing. 177 00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:45,680 It doesn't stop. There's no zero sum in the fountain that Bonaventure. There's no God. And 178 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:51,920 then all of a sudden, God comes to the end of God's work in the universe. The fountain is not 179 00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:56,640 that nobody's going to plug it up. And certainly God isn't going to plug the fountain. And that's 180 00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:02,560 an interesting thing to ponder because many people have the notion that that God has done all 181 00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:13,920 God's going to do, or that God is locked in some primordial vision of how things will be 182 00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:20,320 ever and a non and God can't change the course of it. This fountain is a very intentional 183 00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:26,400 fountain and its aim is to to create the universe out of love. You know, we might, 184 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:34,640 I haven't done the science here. So we might ponder the fountain flowing into this particular 185 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:41,520 universe and bringing forth what we call the Big Bang, a little trickle. You know, the Big Bang is 186 00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:49,440 about the size of your your fingernail or smaller, that a little trickle of it comes there. Even though 187 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:56,080 he was certainly caught in the worldview of his time, he might ponder that God has never not been 188 00:22:56,080 --> 00:23:02,160 a fountain. And initially, the fountain in terms of the way he talked was a fountain of that was 189 00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:09,200 flowing between the persons of the Trinity. That, you know, that you can't separate a drop from the 190 00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:16,320 ocean or a drop from the fountain. So, you know, but each drop is uniquely itself of Father, Son, 191 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:24,880 Holy Spirit, or as we say more in my denomination, Creator, Christ and and inspire or something like 192 00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:31,440 that. I love that. Yeah. And, you know, and yet the fountain flows into the world. So it's flowing 193 00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:37,680 right through our podcast right now, because if it quit flowing, we'd cease to exist. And yet at 194 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:44,480 the same time, the fountain is allowing each one of the drops to be a drop of the fountain. 195 00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:53,760 And I don't see any predestination in Bonaventure. I don't see any coercion in terms of this is 196 00:23:53,760 --> 00:24:03,280 determined by God. Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think that he believed in the creativity of the 197 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:09,120 word, whether it was the word on the page or the word made flesh. And then of course, the fountain 198 00:24:09,120 --> 00:24:16,080 flows through everyone else. You know, this is a fountain that flows everywhere. It is not just, 199 00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:22,080 it's not a canal. It doesn't have a boundary to it. So that fountain is flowing through Gaza, 200 00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:26,960 it's flowing through Jerusalem, it's flowing through Potomac, Maryland, it's flowing through 201 00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:31,200 the inner city, it's flowing through Appalachia, it's flowing through people we love and people we 202 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:37,760 don't love. And inviting us maybe to realize that the person we don't love is also part of the fountain 203 00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:44,880 as well. And we're connected even if we don't think so. And as dynamic gets forward moving, 204 00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:54,240 again, Bonaventure can't be judged positively or negatively. He's a person of his time in terms 205 00:24:54,240 --> 00:25:00,560 of his cosmology or way of looking at the world. But I do believe that he would feel comfortable 206 00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:07,680 with an evolutionary vision and an evolutionary institution and an evolutionary religion that 207 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:13,120 that isn't locked into the past. A fountain can't be locked into the past because it's flowing. 208 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:18,080 I mean, the only fountain that's locked into the past is a fountain that's plugged. 209 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:25,360 And that doesn't mean that, but all the waters that have flowed through it, which includes the 210 00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:30,800 saints of the church and the good ancestors and the creeds of the past are part of that flow too. 211 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:41,280 Yeah, that they are not disparaged, nor do they there's an influence cease, 212 00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:48,160 but they are also part of a larger flow. Yeah, I was going to ask you, when we choose to partner 213 00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:55,840 with the flow of the fountain, where would Bonaventure say in your words that it's taking us? 214 00:25:55,840 --> 00:26:01,840 Well, that's a good, you know, what I was thinking. And again, I grew up in the West Coast 215 00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:07,840 and in Santa Cruz area of San Jose, Santa Cruz, California. And of course, I couldn't 216 00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:15,600 help but think of people surfing. But to be honest, you know, I, you know, the surf's up, 217 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:26,800 so to speak. But I think the flow is to become as large a spirited person as you can be. And the 218 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:35,120 flow to believe that you are connected. Bill McKibben, the environmentalist makes a, I think, 219 00:26:35,120 --> 00:26:43,600 a very sweet and pithy saying the best thing an individual can do to respond to the global climate 220 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:50,560 change and environmental crisis is quit being an individual. You cannot be a drop of water by 221 00:26:50,560 --> 00:27:00,240 yourself. You're connected to every other one. And I think that the philosopher Whitehead made 222 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:06,640 the comment that the religion or the true peace and the true religious sense is to go from self 223 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:15,600 interest to world loyalty. There's something bigger than us. And we're part of it. And we're 224 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:23,920 important. I mean, there's no nothing in Bonaventure that would deny the value of the person sitting 225 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:30,480 in the room and their own uniqueness. But their own uniqueness is connected with every other. 226 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:38,080 And in a way, he's thinking of, again, of Francis, who struggled obviously with his limitations. 227 00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:45,840 The greatest example was the encounter with the persons with leprosy. That, you know, he, 228 00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:53,200 he like many of us doesn't mind giving them an arm from a distance. Yeah. And he was a very generous 229 00:27:53,200 --> 00:28:00,320 person all his life, even before his revelation at the, you know, and various revelatory experiences. 230 00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:05,600 He was a very generous person. He'd give you that bottle of wine if he had it. 231 00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:12,240 You know, he'd invite you over to the house. He'd give you the tunic off his bath. 232 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:21,040 But all of a sudden, he realized at the same time he felt a total alienation from the, 233 00:28:21,040 --> 00:28:26,400 from pure persons with leprosy. He was, you know, he's a little bit like the, during the height of 234 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:32,480 COVID when people were afraid to be walking outside. And, you know, if your neighbor came 235 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:39,360 out there front stoop, you'd go back in. You know, I remember as just a bit of a side at the time of 236 00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:47,840 of COVID at its height, I was living on Cape Cod. And I'd made that my practice of walking on the 237 00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:55,040 beach almost every morning when rain, rain, shine or snow or ice. And, and, you know, we were so 238 00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:01,200 frightened at first. If I'd see another walker, you know, in the distance, you know, I'd kind of 239 00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:07,600 go over to the other side of the road. I mean, that, you know, breath can kill, breath can kill. 240 00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:16,160 I mean, how much we've learned, but he, God reveals to Francis, that's my child there. And 241 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:22,560 Francis not only gives him a coin and becomes the saint of persons with leprosy, gives the man a 242 00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:31,680 hug and a kiss. The empathy we are not, umbutu would be a wonderful word here. We are here because 243 00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:39,440 of one another. And the sort of sense that really does matter to me, what happens somewhere else. 244 00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:49,840 The fountain is not zero sum. That the more I go with the flow of God's grace, the more grace 245 00:29:49,840 --> 00:30:00,000 there is for others. And even though Bonaventure wouldn't explicitly say this, someone like Francis 246 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:07,120 and us adds to the value of life and what God can do in the world 247 00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:18,720 by our own alignment with God's vision. Yeah, I think it's such a profound quote. The fountain is 248 00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:30,480 not zero sum. And I think it's important to consider that today, because so much of the world's games, 249 00:30:30,480 --> 00:30:38,160 especially, you know, moving into an election year, and so much is zero sum, and it's either or. 250 00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:48,240 And it's, you know, you, it's like we are blind in many ways to the fountain that's flowing in our 251 00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:59,520 midst. Yes. Yes. When we slip into those kinds of games, would you agree? Yeah. We want to have the 252 00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:11,280 extra gulp for ourselves when we don't need to worry about it going dry. There's no drought of 253 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:19,200 God's love. There's no drought of God's love, which, which very well then reminds us that, that 254 00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:29,600 we don't have to be self interested in the small sense. But we can be self interested in the sense 255 00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:42,240 that our self interest expands to include others. It really does matter whether a child coming up 256 00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:48,880 from Central America, it really does matter to us. You know, Jesus, Maria and Jose are always 257 00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:55,680 coming up from the border. The Holy Family is coming up daily. It does matter whether they 258 00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:02,240 are treated as human beings, apart from immigration policy, apart from that, it matters that they 259 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:09,440 see treat them as human beings. It does matter to our own souls that we not get caught up in, 260 00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:17,120 in, in hatred of those policies that of the persons who have the policies that we disagree with. 261 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:23,200 It really does matter to the quality of the whole nation and whole planet. 262 00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:30,320 Yeah, well, that's the, that's a real challenging and integrative move in partnering with the 263 00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:37,360 fountain, I think, is to curious if you agree, but to awaken to the reality that that fountain's 264 00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:42,640 flowing in places that I don't expect in places that I've already made judgments about. 265 00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:49,440 Is the fountain still flowing there? And I can still experience God's grace and beauty in depth 266 00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:54,080 through the places and the people I've already written off. 267 00:32:54,880 --> 00:33:00,080 Well, yes, and, and that's one of the hardest things, but probably one of the necessary things 268 00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:10,160 that we, it's in another text I wrote a while ago on Howard Thurman, I entitled the, 269 00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:20,240 the text of prophetic healing that the prophet and Lord knows they, they're pretty scathing, 270 00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:24,160 prophets are pretty scathing and their critique of the institutions were part of, 271 00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:33,280 but they do it as members of the community. Amos or Amos or Jose or Micah or Isaiah or 272 00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:40,400 Jeremiah don't act as if they're above it all. They, they assume they look in the mirror too and 273 00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:47,200 see something of themselves and what they criticize. And their criticism of the, and it's pretty harsh 274 00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:53,520 sometimes of the order in which they live is motivated by healing and not hate. 275 00:33:53,520 --> 00:34:04,000 It's motivated by the hope that the persons that we most disparage find wholeness 276 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:09,280 in the way that God intends for them and, and letting go of what that should be. 277 00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:16,320 A letting, just as, at some level, I can't control my own process of wholeness. I have to 278 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:22,240 render to a deeper and greater power and wisdom in my life to, and then, and of course that power 279 00:34:22,240 --> 00:34:28,640 and wisdom is delighted when I take some agency in the process. I don't think, I don't think 280 00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:36,640 Francis was a very agential person. Francis took a lot of initiatives. He wasn't waiting for God 281 00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:42,480 to do, to do what he could do himself. I mean, everything's the grace of God, but you know, 282 00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:50,240 you think of, of Teresa of Avila, that wonderful saying that God has no hands but ours and we 283 00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:55,840 are the eyes through which God sees the world. On the one hand, it says that God experiences the 284 00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:04,800 world of pain that we do and that God is the one who invites us to make a difference. There's nothing 285 00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:12,400 in the Gospels and I'm, I'm a regular every week Bible study teacher. I've been doing it for ages. 286 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:19,440 Nothing in the Gospels say, wait for God to do it. Nothing in the Prophet says, wait for God to 287 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:27,520 do it. It's about how we reach out to another in a way that preserves their, their wholeness and 288 00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:35,840 humanity and, and the non-human world as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think listeners tuning into 289 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:46,400 this can see and hear what we at Franciscan media feel about you is that you are so good, Bruce, 290 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:55,120 at weaving in your own personal stories and your own personal experiences with, in this case, Bonaventure's 291 00:35:55,120 --> 00:36:03,600 theology. And I think listeners can tell right now that, you know, this is, this is incarnational, 292 00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:09,120 the Richard Rohr word, you know, is it should be as you outlined at the beginning is why, 293 00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:17,760 why theology is important. But I'm curious in that same vein, what kind of impact has Bonaventure had 294 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:23,760 on your own life? Is it theologian? Well, and this is, this is an interesting thing. And I, 295 00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:30,960 you know, I often, at times apologize in advance when I'm working on a project, and it's not really 296 00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:36,480 the apology of I've done something wrong here, but a apology in the Platonic sense of a word from, 297 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:43,040 this is what I, you know, when I'm working on something, I usually don't work at it at arm's 298 00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:52,960 length. When I set out on this book, you know, and I probably was at some sense when the, the 299 00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:59,680 Franciscan me when Kelly McCracken asked me to write this, I really was not prepared to do so. 300 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:06,400 I'm not a initially wasn't a Bonaventure scholar. Maybe that made me the perfect person to 301 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:12,320 write an introduction because I was introducing myself in the process. And I did what I did with 302 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:18,640 all three of the Franciscan books. You know, it's interesting, you may not know this. I never submitted 303 00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:26,240 a request to write any of those books. You may know, because I may have mentioned it in the first 304 00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:36,000 book, walking with Francis CeCe, Kelly McCracken had seen a little religion page 800 word document. 305 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:41,680 I, I wrote for the Cape Cod Times and she saw it and wrote me a note and said, 306 00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:46,320 would you think of doing something longer? And I had other things I was doing. I was pastor of a 307 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:53,760 church up there and, and busy about that was still teaching at Wesley Theological and in 308 00:37:53,760 --> 00:38:02,080 Washington DC part time. And I did what I always do. And I did from this book, I, I prayed about it. 309 00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:10,000 And, and you know, I assume that prayer doesn't force the hand of God in any way. And, but I listened 310 00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:16,000 for what response I would get. And in terms of the first book, I was walking on the beach and, 311 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:23,040 and Cape Cod and I heard the voice that said, and then not here talking about the heavens didn't 312 00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:29,600 open up, but an inclination, you might say, my heart was strangely warmed. I said, you can write 313 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:36,480 this book. I wasn't a Franciscan scholar. I loved Francis, but I, but that wasn't the reason Kelly 314 00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:42,400 asked me to write the book. She thought I could say something, something new. This, and I got the 315 00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:48,560 wisdom to write the book by the time I walked back to the home, I had the, in my mind, all the chapters. 316 00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:55,440 The same thing, interesting thing enough happened with the Bonaventure book. I, you know, I couldn't 317 00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:02,240 claim to be an Iliadelio in that area. And I think she's just the best thing since sliced bread. And 318 00:39:02,240 --> 00:39:10,320 that is, that's a fifth 1950s saying as a, you know, wonder bread, sliced bread, because she's 319 00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:16,960 written really a tremendous book, simply benefit Bonaventure. I was praying about it and re reading 320 00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:22,480 her book. I said, could I say something that, that Iliad didn't say it or say it in my own way. 321 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:29,040 And I was again walking along in the, my, in this case, in my Potomac, Maryland, a little suburb outside 322 00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:34,720 Washington DC neighborhood. I heard the birds singing. And I don't know if the birds intended to 323 00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:39,520 tell me what they did, but they're, a word kind of occurred. You should do this. You should do this. 324 00:39:40,240 --> 00:39:44,640 It was a little bit like St. Augustine, you know, saying, take this book, you know, as, 325 00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:52,400 you know, I haven't put it in my confessions yet, but the, but there was a sense you should do this. 326 00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:59,200 And the, and I assumed it was coming out of the depths of my, my psyche to do this or spirit. 327 00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:05,040 I don't claim that when I have an idea, it comes from God, it comes through me. So it has my own, 328 00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:13,760 own stamp on it. But so the book became very personal. And, and as, as you know, as an editor, 329 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:19,520 and he reminded me about this a few times, there was a, there was sometimes very little light 330 00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:24,640 between me and Bonaventure in the book. And it was hard to figure out which one was which. 331 00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:32,720 And that's the way I work at these things, you know, if it's worth studying, it's worth becoming 332 00:40:32,720 --> 00:40:40,320 a partner with this, this person. For him, I think the key notion was really the fountain, 333 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:47,200 the fountain that, you know, I have to keep reminding myself that I'm connected. 334 00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:54,960 And, and I think the notion of spiritual growth is something we have to, to do every moment of the 335 00:40:54,960 --> 00:41:03,280 day. The notion the fountain occurred to me a couple weeks ago in a, in a, in a sort of annoying 336 00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:09,840 situation. And it's just, you know, we had come back from holiday and we had left our, our golden 337 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:17,280 doodle is 85, he was 95 pound dog at the time, he lost 10 pounds at a, at a, at a kennel. And 338 00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:21,520 it's pretty good kennel. I won't fault them, but apparently he picked up, I had an infection. 339 00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:28,400 And the day we came home, he just quit moving. So I, we had, there was Saturday night, of course, 340 00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:34,640 so we took him to the dog emergency hospital. And, you know, after waiting four hours and nothing 341 00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,800 happening, it's like going to the emergency room at the hospital, you know, I was starting to feel 342 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:45,840 a little perturbed and I remembered, I'm connected with all these people here today. I'm connected 343 00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:53,280 with the overly busy tech and the veterinarian on duty and the people who've brought their, their 344 00:41:53,280 --> 00:42:00,560 companion animals with them. And my, my way of looking at the whole situation immediately changed 345 00:42:02,240 --> 00:42:09,200 that, that this was all my internal dialogue externally. I was, you know, a civil person. 346 00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:15,120 You know, we all know how to, to, to have a public face that's different than how we feel. 347 00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:20,640 But when I began to invoke that sort of notion of the fountain flowing through all of us that 348 00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:25,200 we're connected here, there's no other. And when I use the term, there's no other. I'm not talking 349 00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:30,880 about atheism. I'm just saying there's no wall between me and the person who's brought their 350 00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:36,800 dog in who's stepped on some barbed wire and may have to lose a leg or something. There's no 351 00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:42,880 difference between me and the, the harried person who's seven people have just asked, when are you 352 00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:50,880 going to treat my, my, my dog or cat? We're, and my, my spiritual state immediately changed. 353 00:42:52,160 --> 00:43:01,680 And so for me, this is very real. And sometimes it's, it inspires me and sometimes it, at the, at the 354 00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:10,080 same time, serves as a way of saying, hey, go back to where you should be. Get, go back to 355 00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:17,120 the person you believe you, you are, or want to be and not somebody who's coveching about this 356 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:22,960 one thing or another. Remind yourself of the flow. Remind yourself of the bigger picture. 357 00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:31,200 Remind yourself. And again, each one of us is a quote that Bonaventure has and it, it, nobody 358 00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:36,800 knows the first person who said this God is a circle who's or infinite sphere. Bonaventure adds 359 00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:42,400 the infinite sphere to it. That's, that's sort of his, his twist who said, or is everywhere in 360 00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,640 his conferences, nowhere. Nobody exactly knows it's probably property of the human race, 361 00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:52,400 property of some mystic on a hill. I, I've even been looking for it. Somebody one place said it 362 00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:58,240 came was from Impedri, he's a pre-socratic philosopher. I've been looking for, for, at all 363 00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:05,360 the fragments to figure out whether it's there or not. I haven't found it yet. But I am connected 364 00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:11,920 with every other center. The center of the universe is right where we're sitting. This is the 365 00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:19,280 ladder of the angels. This is the, the, the God is in this place and I did not know what God is in 366 00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:27,280 this place and now I do. But everyone else is at the center. So the center is also in a courtroom 367 00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:35,040 in New York city. The center is also with the, with the fellows working on, on, on our home. And the 368 00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:42,080 center is also with me, me trying to figure out, well, how, how am I going to pay for another 369 00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:48,320 5,000 on this? And of course I'm a privileged person who can do that. But the center is me 370 00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:54,880 fretting about those things. The circumference is nowhere, which means there's no place outside 371 00:44:54,880 --> 00:45:02,480 of God's care. I mean, and I actually think if we were to add to, to Bonaventure and, and Nicholas 372 00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:08,400 of Cusa and others who've invoked this, that we'd call it a spiral at the end of the day, because 373 00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:14,880 there is no circumference. The circumference is really a flexible circumference. It's, it's, it's 374 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:20,480 got holes in it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like a net and the sense that it's not going to stop 375 00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:28,080 flowing. It keeps getting larger and larger all the time, all the time. And no one's outside of it, 376 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:34,080 nor is any moment outside of it. And then keep reminding myself of that. Yeah. Yeah. And that 377 00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:38,880 quote you're referring to from Bonaventure is, I've got it written down right here. God is an 378 00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:46,800 intelligible sphere. Yeah. Center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. So I think to some, 379 00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:53,680 that's terrifying. What? You know, we, we, we like our control. We like to go through our to-do list. 380 00:45:53,680 --> 00:46:01,600 We like to make our life and our world and our reality about us revolving around us. 381 00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:08,320 Talk a little bit about why that's actually a liberating notion that Bonaventure is inviting 382 00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:15,680 us into. Well, I think the first and most liberating part of it for me is that I am at the center of 383 00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:28,640 God's care. And so is everyone else. As a pastor, as a pastor as well as a theologian, I oftentimes, 384 00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:36,080 in my congregation, I last pastored on Cape Cod, would tell the children, so give them a little, 385 00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:42,800 little motto, you know, that if they got this, I thought that they would be in great shape the rest 386 00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:52,000 of their lives. God loves you. We love you. You matter and you can do something great with your life. 387 00:46:53,680 --> 00:47:03,920 The center always matters and so does everyone else. You can advocate for yourself and you should, 388 00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:10,480 you know, as Rabbi Hillel says, if I'm not for myself, who will be? But if I'm only for myself, 389 00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:18,400 what am I? So those other centers matter. So it, even when I'm provoked by those other centers, 390 00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:25,120 that I have to remind myself on a daily basis when I take my dose of the news, try to take it in a 391 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:34,000 homeopathic way, not too much, you know, but that those people who show up on my news feed, 392 00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:40,800 or when I'm looking at Facebook or something and all these things come up, you know, that 393 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:46,720 are intended to hook me and they're not intended to be neutral. They have a purpose. They have a 394 00:47:46,720 --> 00:47:54,720 purpose of getting me sucked into something that, so I'll be really motivated not to like something. 395 00:47:55,440 --> 00:48:03,520 Now, you cannot like something and still love. And you can expand your circle of love. And this 396 00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:09,040 is where the question of polarization, which is the hardest thing these days, because we're, we're, 397 00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:22,800 we begin to emulate those we accuse of misbehavior. I mean, I do believe that there's a certain type 398 00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:31,200 of authoritarian Christianity that, that revels in the binary, that revels in the, as David Fitch 399 00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:38,320 says, the church of us versus them, that revels in it. They have to have an enemy. They have to 400 00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:51,840 have an enemy. But it's just as easy when I turn on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, or, you know, 401 00:48:51,840 --> 00:49:02,080 MSNBC to discover that they want an enemy too. You know, somebody's out to get you. Well, they may 402 00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:08,080 be out to get you, but you don't have to play their game. Yeah. And I think that's another reason, 403 00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:13,200 Bruce, and you mentioned it a little bit earlier, why Bonaventure truly is a theologian for our 404 00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:22,400 time is that he was a peacemaker, you know, just like Francis. And yet he was called to really, he 405 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:28,320 had, I'd love for you to go deeper into the tasks he had before him in his peacekeeping missions, 406 00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:33,840 because he had his hands full, did he not? Yes. And I think again, 407 00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:45,280 you know, he he he walked a thin line. He was the student of a prophet. I mean, you can call 408 00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:53,840 Francis a mystic, but he was also a prophet. He was a very well behaved prophet in many ways, 409 00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:59,280 but he was he was a thorn in the flesh of the church, because he was so different. And yet he 410 00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:05,200 was one of the most respectful children of the church. He never criticized the church, but his 411 00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:12,080 very being was critical of the church. You know, you can't throw away all your riches and and the 412 00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:19,840 pope and silk doesn't notice it. Or the bishop and silk. And that's no critique that the popes 413 00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:28,400 are the bishops, but there was a difference. And Francis lived out of doors, trusting only God and 414 00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:35,360 the omens of others. And a couple, you know, generations later, here we have Bonaventure 415 00:50:36,720 --> 00:50:43,200 having to make sure the lights are on, so to speak, having to make sure that the university stays 416 00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:50,160 in business. Being the parent of the organization, the great father of the organization, which was a 417 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:57,760 diverse organization. Again, the one of his mediating tasks was to to affirm both the traveling 418 00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:04,720 monks who had nothing and the ones who lived monastic lives but had something. Yeah. And the 419 00:51:04,720 --> 00:51:12,000 ones that live monastic lives and had something, you know, didn't probably all live with the 420 00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:19,440 simplicity of Francis. I mean, I have been in Franciscan orders and monasteries and I've always 421 00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:26,720 been fed well there. You know, I worked at Georgetown and I knew if I wanted a better bottle 422 00:51:26,720 --> 00:51:31,520 of Scotch than what I got at home, I'd go into the George to the Jesuit community. 423 00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:41,120 They didn't own anything, but they were fed well and how the sense of remembering that we have 424 00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:49,600 different callings. And certainly he, he dies while he's trying to negotiate a certain type of peace 425 00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:56,400 between the Eastern and Western church that that almost was to say that the diversity didn't need 426 00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:07,760 to be divisive. And again, you have from, you know, both Thomas of Saleno and Bonaventure, 427 00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:15,600 you know, say that Francis begins his sermon with peace be with you. And that was kind of the code 428 00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:23,840 word of the Franciscans as they were walking down the road. I mean, even though, even though 429 00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:31,840 it's probably clear that Francis did not write the prayer of St. Francis and I, I felt bad in, in 430 00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:39,600 a disabusing somewhat of that notion accidentally in a study group I was leading. But I quickly 431 00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:46,080 recovered because I'm a pastor as well as an academic that this is the spirit of Francis. 432 00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:54,640 This Lord make me an instrument of peace. I, I, I invoke that every morning in my morning prayer 433 00:52:55,440 --> 00:53:03,200 and prays that, that my grandchildren growing up in an anxious time experience peace, 434 00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:11,840 that they experience peace. And, and I think it's AJ musty who says there's no way to peace, 435 00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:20,240 but the peace is the way. And we have to garner this piece as the, as the Jewish mystics would say, 436 00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:28,400 one person, and I think they're too generous, one moment at a time, you know, bring peace to this 437 00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:37,840 moment, you know, let go for a moment of how you think things should be one of the as an administrator 438 00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:45,040 and I, and again, actually for Bonaventure wrote one of the first books of management. 439 00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:57,680 I'm not an expert at that book, by the way, but he wanted to, maybe it was his, his version of the 440 00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:05,440 rule of St. Benedict or something, but he, he wanted to use the Franciscan vision to also be a 441 00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:16,960 management style. Maybe he was an inspiration indirectly to one of my mottos as an administrator 442 00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:24,480 of organizations was, and as a pastor of churches where, where you is, you know, are dealing with 443 00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:34,640 diverse groups. I have a vision, but not an agenda. The vision is, this is where we need to go. It's 444 00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:40,080 the beloved community, wherever we show up, it's, you know, it's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness 445 00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:45,360 for everyone around the globe, not just Americans and not just American born people and not just 446 00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:54,960 white Americans. That's my vision. How I get there in that apparently very left-wing vision, 447 00:54:54,960 --> 00:55:02,800 although it in fact is the gospel, may involve me sitting down if I were a person of power with 448 00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:09,200 Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house whose views are entirely different than my own and saying, well, 449 00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:15,840 you know, how do we make sure that people are not going hungry in the United States? And there's some, 450 00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:22,560 there's some examples of this. There are some very enlightened people who are more pro-choice 451 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:29,200 and people who are more pro-life in this, in the slogans we use. Neither one is quite accurate, 452 00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:34,800 but in the slogans we use, who actually meet together. How do we have a country where 453 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:43,040 there is both the rights that women should and ought to have of self-determination? 454 00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:50,560 There is also the male responsibility when any woman becomes pregnant. 455 00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:59,840 And also the sense that the fetus is part of this story too. I mean, sadly, the something that is 456 00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:05,280 very good women need to have equality. It's absolutely, I need to have reproductive freedom. 457 00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:15,680 And fetuses need the ability to grow forth in this context without making it a political slogan. 458 00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:24,080 And it really requires meeting with a sultan. It really requires hugging the person with leprosy. 459 00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:30,320 It really requires sitting down and saying that, you know, back to the fountain. Again, 460 00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:35,440 the fountain is flowing and it's bigger than us. Yeah. And the fountain really does 461 00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:42,640 invite us to be curious. Yes. And to be empathetic toward the person who's perhaps most different 462 00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:52,960 than us. Yes. The great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has this wonderful comment and it's my 463 00:56:54,080 --> 00:57:01,760 translation of his English into my English. In his own work, it's not quite exactly what I'm saying, 464 00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:11,200 but I have to be aware of my own limitations, even as I see the truth in the limitations of others. 465 00:57:13,840 --> 00:57:21,280 A lot of the people we oppose deep down are, if we get cut beyond all the layers, 466 00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:26,240 they are motivated by what they believe is a good thing. 467 00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:31,120 And we have to figure out what that good thing is. 468 00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:39,920 Mothers need good diets. Babies need to be fed. There needs to be healthcare for every child born 469 00:57:39,920 --> 00:57:47,120 in this country. And at the same time, fetuses need to be respected in their lives and all these 470 00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:54,560 need to be in a stew. And what is it we're trying to accomplish here? What's the vision? And the 471 00:57:54,560 --> 00:58:00,640 agenda, when I say I don't have an agenda, it simply means that, and I think this is probably 472 00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:06,160 what Bonaventure discovered as an administrator once you're working with people, it doesn't always 473 00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:11,280 work the way you thought it would be. But you still, as the Apostle Paul says, and as Martin 474 00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:19,840 Luther King says, you keep your eyes on the prize. The Bonaventure Franciscan worldview, 475 00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:25,680 when it's put into practice, is never going to be perfect. And sometimes you have to 476 00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:32,560 have penultimate achievements and celebrate them, but you don't forget the horizon. 477 00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:41,440 The horizon is the praised be you, praised be God by all God's creatures is the horizon, 478 00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:49,040 the world of praise. Yeah, it's beautiful, Bruce. And I think it's a great place for us to conclude. 479 00:58:49,920 --> 00:59:01,920 I think English listeners can tell just how truly personal and applicable Bonaventure's 480 00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:09,200 theology is to our lived experience right now and why you are really such a great voice as a 481 00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:16,720 vernacular theologian to bridge Bonaventure to an everyday audience. So yeah, I really enjoyed 482 00:59:16,720 --> 00:59:22,960 this talk. Do you have anything else? I think that that's enough for me. I'll take a vow of 483 00:59:22,960 --> 00:59:32,320 silence at this point and eat lunch maybe. Again, that was Dr. and Reverend Bruce Eperly. His new 484 00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:37,600 book, Head, Heart and Hands, an introduction to St. Bonaventure is available in the Franciscan 485 00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:44,240 Media store at shop.franciscanmedia.org. If you enjoyed this conversation, I think you're really 486 00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:49,360 going to enjoy his book. As you can tell, Bruce has the unique ability to bridge a medieval 487 00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:55,200 theologian like Bonaventure to our everyday lived experience. It's a wonderful introduction to 488 00:59:55,200 --> 01:00:00,160 Bonaventure's work. And I don't think there's another book like it in the market today. So huge 489 01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:05,280 thanks to Bruce for being on the first episode of the off the page podcast from Franciscan Media. 490 01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:10,480 And thanks as well to Father Cyprian Concilio for providing the music for today's episode. 491 01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:14,400 I encourage you to check his music out on Spotify or wherever you listen to your music. 492 01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:36,400 This is Stephen Copeland signing off. Peace and all good.