1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:13,280 Welcome to the Off the Page podcast from Franciscan Media, a podcast featuring Franciscan conversations 2 00:00:13,280 --> 00:00:16,320 with authors, artists, and educators. 3 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:20,140 My name is Stephen Copeland, and I am Franciscan Media's book editor. 4 00:00:20,140 --> 00:00:24,880 Today's episode is a treat, and we're incredibly fortunate to be joined by someone who's not 5 00:00:24,880 --> 00:00:29,620 doing many interviews these days, but has agreed to join Off the Page. 6 00:00:29,620 --> 00:00:34,380 It is truly an honor to present to you our next guest, one of the most renowned spiritual 7 00:00:34,380 --> 00:00:39,080 teachers of our time, Father Richard Rohr. 8 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:44,240 Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher whose work is grounded in Christian 9 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:50,740 mysticism, practices of contemplation and self-emptying, and compassion for the marginalized. 10 00:00:50,740 --> 00:00:56,360 He is a Franciscan priest and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, 11 00:00:56,360 --> 00:00:57,680 New Mexico. 12 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:02,800 Father Richard is the author of many books, including the bestsellers Just This, What 13 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:09,960 Do We Do With Evil?, The Universal Christ, and The Wisdom Pattern, Order, Disorder, Reorder. 14 00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:14,720 The Center publishes Father Richard's daily meditations, free reflections that are emailed 15 00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:17,540 to hundreds of thousands around the world. 16 00:01:17,540 --> 00:01:20,920 You can learn more at cac.org. 17 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:25,840 Father Richard, as many of you may know, is such an integrative thinker, a master weaver, 18 00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:31,200 I would say, of theology, psychology, and spiritual practice that an hour-long interview 19 00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:34,620 with him could have gone in any number of directions. 20 00:01:34,620 --> 00:01:39,040 This interview focuses on his book, Eager to Love, The Alternative Way of Francis of 21 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:44,440 Assisi, which will be released this year by Franciscan Media as a 10-year anniversary 22 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:49,380 edition, along with an accompanying companion guide that provides prompts and reflections 23 00:01:49,380 --> 00:01:51,280 for contemplation. 24 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:53,860 Eager to Love was an important book in my own life. 25 00:01:53,860 --> 00:01:59,080 It provided for me an on-ramp to the Franciscan tradition at a time when I was looking to 26 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:02,360 reconstruct my broken faith in theology. 27 00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:06,620 I know Father Richard's work has had a similar impact on hundreds of thousands of spiritual 28 00:02:06,620 --> 00:02:11,880 seekers around the world, letting us know that Christianity and the Church are large 29 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:16,920 enough to stretch into the margins, for that was where the lives of St. Francis, St. Clair, 30 00:02:16,920 --> 00:02:21,360 Bonaventure, Scotus, and so many other mystics unfolded. 31 00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:25,860 It's not every day that you get a chance to interview your intellectual heroes, and I'm 32 00:02:25,860 --> 00:02:28,840 thrilled to share this conversation with you. 33 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:38,040 So without further ado, here is Father Richard Rohr. 34 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:42,720 As I was saying, Father Richard, I'm just really thankful that you're here with us and 35 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:44,360 agreed to do this interview. 36 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:51,320 I think I speak on behalf of a lot of our readers and listeners when I say that your 37 00:02:51,320 --> 00:03:00,960 work has really helped us, really opened us up to a new way of living, seeing, believing, 38 00:03:00,960 --> 00:03:05,360 and maybe, at least in my case, helped to save my faith. 39 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:10,600 So welcome and thank you for joining us on Off the Page Podcast. 40 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:12,440 The honor is mine. 41 00:03:12,440 --> 00:03:14,520 I'm in your hands. 42 00:03:14,520 --> 00:03:17,840 Lead me where I would rather not go. 43 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:20,680 No, I was going to say that's dangerous. 44 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:22,680 I'm happy to go. 45 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:24,720 You go ahead. 46 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:30,080 Well it's been 10 years since Eager to Love was first published, and it's been 11 years 47 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:32,400 of Pope Francis's papacy. 48 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:36,440 Why do you believe this book is still important today? 49 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:40,720 Well, I'm not the man to ask. 50 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:45,520 I don't know. 51 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:54,520 I would like to believe because there's some wisdom in it, some loving wisdom. 52 00:03:54,520 --> 00:04:02,120 I chose the title because that's what I saw in Francis and Claire, two people who weren't 53 00:04:02,120 --> 00:04:05,000 eager to be church people. 54 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:07,840 They were eager to be loving people. 55 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:16,440 And that kept it so simple and so forthright. 56 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:18,040 And isn't that true today? 57 00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:25,480 So many of us, we feel like we're living in a country, a world, and to be frank, isn't 58 00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:28,360 very loving. 59 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:32,680 The word hate is used a lot. 60 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:41,440 So I hope it's an antidote to that terrible instinct toward unlove or even hatred. 61 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:49,640 It's such a succinct but profound three words, eager to love. 62 00:04:49,640 --> 00:04:55,560 Can you go deeper into that for me and why Francis and Claire really embody this notion 63 00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:57,960 of being eager to love? 64 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:08,600 See, I see the Holy Spirit as implanted love in the human person. 65 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:16,640 It's subjectively there, subjectively who you are, subjectively given. 66 00:05:16,640 --> 00:05:25,680 Now when you access that, when you trust that deeper inner voice of love, you're quite simply 67 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:28,520 in the Spirit. 68 00:05:28,520 --> 00:05:36,560 What I see in the early Franciscan movement is a movement of the Spirit, a group of people, 69 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:45,440 not just as individuals, but early Franciscanism, the early poor Claire's were overwhelmingly 70 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:48,880 in touch with the Spirit. 71 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:56,200 And that's what gives a sweetness to Franciscanism. 72 00:05:56,200 --> 00:06:04,720 It's not concerned with being orthodox, it's concerned with being loving, loving of everything, 73 00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:11,000 nature, animals, brother, son, sister, moon. 74 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:18,920 And that's a different focus than wanting to be a church man or wanting to be a nun. 75 00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:22,760 They wanted to be lovers. 76 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:28,000 And you can feel it in their writings, in their action. 77 00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:30,360 Have you been to Assisi yet? 78 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:32,040 I have. 79 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:38,040 I went in October almost a year ago and Sister Margaret Carney was one of our guides. 80 00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:39,360 Oh, you were lucky. 81 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:41,240 We were very spoiled. 82 00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:42,240 Yeah. 83 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:46,240 Well, then you know what I mean. 84 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:53,880 They say you can't look any direction in Assisi without seeing beauty and wanting to take 85 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:56,520 a picture. 86 00:06:56,520 --> 00:06:57,520 That's the truth. 87 00:06:57,520 --> 00:06:59,560 Yeah, it is true. 88 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,160 Yeah, I like the word you use there. 89 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:08,920 I think it gets to something that's at the heart of Franciscanism and that word is sweetness 90 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:11,880 and your bridging of that to love. 91 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:14,760 Can you go a little bit deeper into that for me? 92 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:23,640 I know Francis famously said that the leper who was once bitter to him became sweet. 93 00:07:23,640 --> 00:07:27,280 But this is an expansive notion, correct? 94 00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:33,440 This goes into so many different aspects of Franciscan spirituality. 95 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:42,400 I assume I used the term in the book, alternative orthodoxy. 96 00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:50,120 We emerged almost as a complementary movement to the Dominicans who were frankly the smart 97 00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:54,640 boys from the university, the good Dominicans. 98 00:07:54,640 --> 00:08:05,000 They took a role that was given to them to preserve orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. 99 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:09,680 It became their gift and their curse. 100 00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:21,640 Francis was on a different path where he wanted the orthodoxy of lifestyle, of how you live 101 00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:27,320 in the world, how you relate to the world, how you love the world. 102 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:37,040 We call that here at the school, our living school, an alternative orthodoxy, making lifestyle 103 00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:42,840 the focus, not verbal or academic orthodoxy. 104 00:08:42,840 --> 00:08:45,680 Not that there's anything wrong with that. 105 00:08:45,680 --> 00:08:48,240 That was not our emphasis. 106 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:59,240 It made us lightweight in a lot of people's minds, or even not to be taken seriously. 107 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:10,600 Franciscans were these holy fools running around Italy, and we capitalized on it because 108 00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:14,920 it was who we were. 109 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:18,840 But it also is our weak point, too. 110 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:27,360 We were never quite as disciplined as the Dominicans, or later the Jesuits, never quite 111 00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:39,160 as academic because we saw God in things more than in ideas, correct ideas. 112 00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:42,480 And that gave us our sweetness. 113 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:50,520 I think that's why—and I think I'm fair in saying this—you go anywhere in the world, 114 00:09:50,520 --> 00:09:57,160 and I've had the privilege of doing that, and you wear your Franciscan habit, the people 115 00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:01,960 will choose you every time. 116 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,040 It's trustworthy in most people's minds. 117 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:14,480 Here in New Mexico, I just the day before yesterday, took two friends to an old Franciscan 118 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:23,600 ruined church built for the Indians. 119 00:10:23,600 --> 00:10:24,600 That was the case. 120 00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:31,600 I didn't wear my habit, but the people at the location, they said, why didn't you wear 121 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:32,600 your habit? 122 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:36,560 They love it when we do. 123 00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:42,240 I wanted to go back to one thing you just mentioned, this idea of holy foolery, being 124 00:10:42,240 --> 00:10:43,240 a holy fool. 125 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:44,240 Yes. 126 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:47,880 But what do you think that looks like today? 127 00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:55,840 It was more taken up, Stephen, by the Orthodox Church. 128 00:10:55,840 --> 00:11:04,560 The love, especially Russian, ironically, which in most people's minds appears so 129 00:11:04,560 --> 00:11:06,720 stern. 130 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:15,320 But there was the holy fool who walked the roads of Russia, just preaching good news. 131 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:21,300 I have an icon in my little hermitage of one of them. 132 00:11:21,300 --> 00:11:34,960 It never took off as much in Roman Western Christianity until Francis. 133 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:41,520 It was always suspect because there was no tradition of holy foolery. 134 00:11:41,520 --> 00:11:52,760 We were serious about our Christianity, ferreting out heretics and looking for sinners. 135 00:11:52,760 --> 00:12:02,360 That made us, in my opinion, overly serious and taking ourselves far too serious. 136 00:12:02,360 --> 00:12:13,440 One theologian called Western Christianity a giant exercise in sin management. 137 00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:15,080 Where are the sinners? 138 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:18,160 How can we ferret out the sinners? 139 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:23,760 How can we find the sinners and prove to them they're not going to heaven? 140 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:29,200 Holy foolery isn't sin-centric. 141 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:34,200 It's joy-centric, God-centric. 142 00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:41,080 It's more on the mystical path than the Orthodox path. 143 00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:51,760 Which I think probably is true in many cases made us lightweight not to be taken seriously 144 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:54,500 by the academy. 145 00:12:54,500 --> 00:13:06,680 We aren't known for our universities because getting PhDs was never the goal of a Franciscan. 146 00:13:06,680 --> 00:13:15,960 I was lucky enough to be taught by some who themselves had PhDs and were wonderful Franciscans. 147 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:21,640 We didn't produce a lot of them because that wasn't idealized. 148 00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:31,600 Our idealization was more to hang out with the marginalized, the poor, the rejected, 149 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:34,320 or those on the edge of society. 150 00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:41,680 Like here in New Mexico, why we built these ruins now out in the desert was we came here 151 00:13:41,680 --> 00:13:52,680 to work with the native peoples who are nothing in the eyes of Europeans. 152 00:13:52,680 --> 00:13:56,040 And that's probably the reason I'm here today. 153 00:13:56,040 --> 00:14:03,720 I was sent to Acoma Pueblo when I was a deacon in 1969. 154 00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:11,440 And it made me fall in love with the native peoples, with the sky, the blue sky, and the 155 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:13,280 desert of New Mexico. 156 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:17,280 It's a decision I've never regretted. 157 00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:21,520 We were the whole church here for over 200 years. 158 00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:27,360 There was no priests except Franciscans. 159 00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:34,080 You said that that time of your life was very formative, very transformative for you. 160 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:39,800 And perhaps one of the reasons why you're in New Mexico today is you reflect on that 161 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:42,120 time. 162 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:43,720 What's that like for you? 163 00:14:43,720 --> 00:14:45,280 What lessons rise up? 164 00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:49,760 What experiences rise up in your heart or mind? 165 00:14:49,760 --> 00:14:54,320 I was 26. 166 00:14:54,320 --> 00:15:00,160 When you're young, you're looking for especially a man. 167 00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:07,640 That's what got me into my men's work on the hero's journey and the initiation rights. 168 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:09,720 You're looking for a big vision. 169 00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:14,220 And it's hard to beat nature itself. 170 00:15:14,220 --> 00:15:20,160 It's hard to beat the natural world, brother, son, sister moon, a love of animals, a love 171 00:15:20,160 --> 00:15:30,280 of being out in the woods, forest bathing, they call it now. 172 00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:32,600 And that was certainly true for me. 173 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:39,600 I just couldn't get enough of the mountains and the desert. 174 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:49,440 And the early friars believed that the first Bible was creation. 175 00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:52,060 God wrote to us who he was. 176 00:15:52,060 --> 00:15:55,400 He wrote it in the creation of the world. 177 00:15:55,400 --> 00:16:01,360 And if you want to know who God is, this is said in Romans 1.20. 178 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:08,120 Everything you need to know about God is contained in creation. 179 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:16,280 If you learn to reverence it, respect it, honor it, draw close to it, you'll get all 180 00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:17,560 the big lessons. 181 00:16:17,560 --> 00:16:19,760 You really will. 182 00:16:19,760 --> 00:16:24,000 Bible can't do any better than creation. 183 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:29,440 And we're in a unique position to say that. 184 00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:42,760 I think it's why Francis was seen as the patron of ecology and nonviolence. 185 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:48,720 So we're very proud of this connection with the cosmos. 186 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:59,080 I wonder if we would have destroyed the planet the way we have if we had had a little more 187 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:07,720 Franciscan spirituality, which saw the Bible as the first revelation. 188 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:10,000 It has to be. 189 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:15,320 What else could the world be but the body of God? 190 00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:16,480 Let there be light. 191 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:17,480 Let there be. 192 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:19,280 Let there be. 193 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:24,480 And each thing was a manifestation of the one who created it. 194 00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:30,400 So if you want to know what God's like, look at creation. 195 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:37,840 We've got a message that Christianity is always going to need to keep it from getting 196 00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:43,480 too heady and too righteous. 197 00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:52,560 How do you get righteous about Brother, Son, Sister Moon? 198 00:17:52,560 --> 00:18:02,120 How do you condemn someone to hell while looking at the sun and the moon and the stars and 199 00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:03,960 the animals? 200 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:08,320 My little dog is here at my feet, right under my chair. 201 00:18:08,320 --> 00:18:11,200 OP, you want to be on TV? 202 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,560 No, we're not. 203 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:22,840 Yeah, what have you have had some beautiful I think it was the universal Christ where 204 00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:30,320 I was tearing up just in the dedication. 205 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:36,640 What have your pets, what have dogs taught you about being eager to love about your own 206 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:40,600 Franciscan spirituality? 207 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:49,760 You know our English word animal comes from the Latin word anima, which means soul. 208 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:58,640 Now I don't know the etymology of the word, but there has to have been some early recognition 209 00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:08,800 that animals were ensouled beings, that they weren't just inert matter, that they were 210 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:17,360 capable of relationship, capable of communion. 211 00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:20,000 Dogs have been a big part of my life. 212 00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:25,360 I've had one for almost 30 years. 213 00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:28,320 I think this one will outlive me, OP. 214 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:31,960 I've had him six years now. 215 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:37,120 He's a little Jack Russell terrier. 216 00:19:37,120 --> 00:19:51,640 You know, I mean he teaches me so much about humility, service, a kind of caring that doesn't 217 00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:54,000 expect anything back. 218 00:19:54,000 --> 00:20:03,680 He just seems to love, he's eager to love like the title of our book. 219 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:09,600 He begins licking me before I begin petting him. 220 00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:14,800 He takes the initiative and he's so forgiving. 221 00:20:14,800 --> 00:20:19,400 If I leave him for several hours alone, I know he hates it. 222 00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:24,280 He just hates it, but he never holds it against me. 223 00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:32,440 He holds back for 30 seconds when I returned to punish me a little bit. 224 00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:34,880 And it hurts too, doesn't it? 225 00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:37,120 Yes, it does. 226 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:38,680 And then he starts licking. 227 00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:44,280 He can't resist the desire to love. 228 00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:53,120 And each of my four dogs has been a little different in the way they did that. 229 00:20:53,120 --> 00:21:00,200 So far, we've talked about, we just now talked about the dogs that have been your great friends 230 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:01,960 and companions throughout your life. 231 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:05,680 We talked about Brother Sun, Sister Moon. 232 00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:09,600 We're nearing the 800 year anniversary of the Canical. 233 00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,200 Any thoughts or reflections on that? 234 00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:20,960 Well, you know, it's a masterpiece and I'm sure you know it's considered by students 235 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:23,280 of Italian literature. 236 00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:31,800 The first authentic piece of Italian literature was written by Francis of Assisi in Latin, 237 00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:35,120 which was the vernacular language. 238 00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:39,280 Educated people spoke Latin in the 13th century. 239 00:21:39,280 --> 00:21:43,180 Francis was not a highly educated person. 240 00:21:43,180 --> 00:21:45,520 He spoke in the vernacular. 241 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:47,600 Thank God. 242 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:55,200 So Italians to this day, even though it's now ancient Italian, it'd be like us reading 243 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,680 Shakespeare. 244 00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:07,600 They love it because it's their language in its most primitive form and poetic form. 245 00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:20,680 Yeah, you see it written on a lot of walls in Italy and you hear it sung quite frequently. 246 00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:23,200 What does it mean to you? 247 00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:34,000 Well, I think what I like and I had to study it to appreciate this, the Italian preposition 248 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:46,120 pair, may you be praised through, may you be praised God not for Brother Sun but through 249 00:22:46,120 --> 00:22:50,200 Brother Sun, through Sister Moon. 250 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:56,080 And then he goes through his whole listing until he gets to Sister Death. 251 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,880 So it's very incarnational spirituality. 252 00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:03,120 How did Francis learn this? 253 00:23:03,120 --> 00:23:09,080 Because he didn't study theology like I was lucky enough to do. 254 00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:20,080 But the incarnational spirituality says reality is already a sacrament of the divine, a sign 255 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:27,920 of an outward sign of an inner state, an inner truth. 256 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:36,160 And he achieved that by just using one preposition correctly. 257 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,720 And I've asked Italians if that's true. 258 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,600 I say yes, pair means through. 259 00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,960 We praise you through Brother Sun. 260 00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:55,520 So it's not as if subjects and object are different. 261 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:59,680 Subjects and object reflect one another. 262 00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,000 That makes any sense. 263 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:03,000 Yeah. 264 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,200 Yeah, gosh. 265 00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:06,360 Yeah. 266 00:24:06,360 --> 00:24:14,560 The expansiveness of through. 267 00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,720 So much of Christianity has left that out. 268 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:19,720 Yeah. 269 00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:25,960 It is very, yeah, it's very interesting that Francis intuited that. 270 00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:27,680 Intuit it. 271 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:35,040 And as you know from the book, I presume, I consider Francis not a college educated 272 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:39,360 or even highly educated Catholic. 273 00:24:39,360 --> 00:24:43,880 He's just a natural spiritual genius. 274 00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:51,920 And it took men like St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and later 275 00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:56,280 teachers who took it to the intellectual level. 276 00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:01,480 He was not an intellectual. 277 00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:03,320 In fact, he mistrusted them. 278 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:11,760 It was only when he met St. Anthony, who he called my theologian, that he said, Anthony 279 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,720 is a brother whose teaching you can trust. 280 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:21,600 Because it wasn't based in the head, it was based in the heart. 281 00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:30,040 And so Francis became our first theologian based in the heart. 282 00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:37,760 Just as Francis preached to birds, Anthony preached to fish. 283 00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,360 Yeah. 284 00:25:40,360 --> 00:25:43,040 He was one of us. 285 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,840 Yeah. 286 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:53,280 I think when I first picked up this book, you see my two and a half year old is marking 287 00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:54,480 it up already too. 288 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,160 Oh, you're a father. 289 00:25:58,160 --> 00:25:59,160 I am. 290 00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:00,160 I don't sleep much. 291 00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,520 How many children you have? 292 00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,120 We have a two month old and a two and a half year old. 293 00:26:05,120 --> 00:26:06,360 Two and a half year old. 294 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:12,320 Yeah, so it is pure chaos and beauty over here in the Copeland household. 295 00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:19,880 But yeah, I didn't know much about the Franciscan way before picking up your book. 296 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,840 I mean, gosh, this was six, seven years ago. 297 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:33,640 And I had seen Francis kind of caricatured and you called it Bird Bath Franciscanist. 298 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:40,560 Where it's, okay, it's this guy who's, you know, he has these moments of euphoric oneness 299 00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:46,320 and he preaches to birds and, you know, he calls, you know, the sun brother and the moon 300 00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:47,320 sister. 301 00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:53,480 And, you know, he kind of, for me, like the caricatures made him seem out of touch. 302 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:57,200 And yet, naive is a word that some have used. 303 00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:03,480 And yet when I picked up your book, you start off first chapter, second chapter, I think 304 00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:11,360 as well, you're talking about suffering and how Franciscan spirituality integrates suffering 305 00:27:11,360 --> 00:27:14,000 in the real darkness of life. 306 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,600 Can you go deeper into that for me? 307 00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,040 Sure. 308 00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:24,340 The greatest ally of God is reality. 309 00:27:24,340 --> 00:27:26,880 What is? 310 00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:33,680 And I just offer that to any listener for a touchstone of Orthodox teaching. 311 00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:41,040 If it's too pretty, if it's too sweet, if it's too comfortable, if it's too bourgeois, 312 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:52,200 middle class, all about being nice and proper, too much purity code and not much solidarity 313 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,940 with suffering. 314 00:27:54,940 --> 00:27:57,120 It's probably on the wrong track. 315 00:27:57,120 --> 00:28:01,120 Really, I say that intentionally. 316 00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:07,480 Francis never loses touch with the lepers down in the plane, you and down to the port 317 00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:18,860 C. Uncle below us easy and sister Margaret made us pronounce porzi on Cula because we 318 00:28:18,860 --> 00:28:20,680 kept botching it. 319 00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:24,080 I probably just now botched it. 320 00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:28,080 Oh, we say port C. Uncle. 321 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:29,080 Is that correct? 322 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:30,080 Margaret's right. 323 00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:31,080 Not me. 324 00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:32,080 That sounds correct. 325 00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:37,080 Better than the little portion, the little portion. 326 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:38,520 Yeah. 327 00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,600 Yeah. 328 00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:46,320 We that was our calling. 329 00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:57,400 And when we disidentified with the minores, he put it in our initials, OFM, not maiores, 330 00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:07,960 the upper class, but minores, the lower class, to keep us even in our title, officially identified 331 00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,640 with the underclass. 332 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,600 That could have changed everything. 333 00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:17,800 Now it did, but it didn't, if I'd be honest. 334 00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:28,680 After the Reformation and the Council of Trent, I hate to say this is probably an overstatement, 335 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,360 but all religious orders sort of became the same. 336 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:37,520 We all became Roman more than Catholic. 337 00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:43,760 Roman Catholic more than ecumenical or dialogical. 338 00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:53,000 And I remember being told once, you Franciscans are, not that this is a put down of diocesan 339 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:57,120 priests, but they said it that way. 340 00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:01,480 You're just diocesan priests in brown robes. 341 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,040 You're not preaching a different message. 342 00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:12,760 And I'm afraid in many cases that was true after the Council of Trent. 343 00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:24,800 We needed to unify the Catholic Church to keep ourselves formed in relationship to Protestantism, 344 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:26,760 which was overtaking Europe. 345 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:33,040 I say that with a good Protestant sitting here at my left hand. 346 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:42,400 Most of our school is recovering Protestants, our living school, because we're still working 347 00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,880 for reform. 348 00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:50,680 And now it's reforming imperial Christianity. 349 00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:57,640 It has to prove it's the best, it's number one, it's the only one that's true, it's 350 00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,120 the only one that God loves. 351 00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,800 That's just no good. 352 00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,840 That doesn't create humble people. 353 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:17,960 And Francis, now they did teach us humility in my time in formation, novition and seminary. 354 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,140 We should not take ourselves too seriously. 355 00:31:21,140 --> 00:31:26,160 That was part of the Holy Fool thing. 356 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:27,680 And that saved us. 357 00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:38,000 But our theology was still Roman Catholic, more than a bit righteous. 358 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:49,740 Because we all believe the same thing in relationship to what was seen as the enemy, which was Protestantism. 359 00:31:49,740 --> 00:31:55,560 And that was very true here in America, where we were a Protestant country. 360 00:31:55,560 --> 00:32:04,320 And we came in as the Johnny-come-lately's, particularly in the big cities of the East 361 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:10,440 Coast, where you sort of live. 362 00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:15,400 So we Catholics had a siege mentality. 363 00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,600 I'm not sure if you've heard that. 364 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,480 We felt under siege. 365 00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:27,960 We built our Catholic schools, our Catholic universities, not really. 366 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:29,880 I think I'm being fair. 367 00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:32,360 I hope I'm being fair. 368 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:37,800 Not to teach the Gospel, but to teach the Church. 369 00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:40,640 Can you feel the difference? 370 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:43,160 Churchy Christianity. 371 00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:51,080 Yeah, and it's kind of bringing it back. 372 00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,240 You talked about this kind of downward trajectory. 373 00:32:55,240 --> 00:33:00,960 Like being in Assisi, it was interesting how my understanding was that it kind of mirrored 374 00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:12,760 the class system of that day, where in one evening we did a walk where St. Clair possibly 375 00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:14,720 would have gone on her run. 376 00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:17,960 Where she ran out the gate. 377 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,960 Yeah, and it's straight down. 378 00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,960 And then of course that's Francis's trajectory as well. 379 00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:31,240 I just sense that the Franciscan way is one that goes downward. 380 00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,120 It goes into the fringes. 381 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,040 It goes to the edges. 382 00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:39,880 It goes to the places that are less glamorous. 383 00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:45,760 It's theology, it truly integrates darkness and complexity. 384 00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:47,320 Any thoughts there? 385 00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:49,720 You're saying it better than I can. 386 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:56,560 Yes, I think in one of the chapters of the book, I call it the inclusion of the negative. 387 00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:57,560 Yes, yep. 388 00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:00,520 Not the exclusion. 389 00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:10,320 But the divine perfection is the ability to include imperfection, not exclude it, not 390 00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:20,520 excommunicate it, not punish it, not send it elsewhere, but say, that is me. 391 00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,280 That also is me. 392 00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:33,320 To find your own shadow as you stop running away from the world's shadows. 393 00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,800 What the world hates. 394 00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,680 And he says it in his testament. 395 00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:47,840 What the world hates, when I learned to embrace it, what before was hateful to me became sweetness 396 00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:49,800 and life. 397 00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,080 This is conversion in one sentence. 398 00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:55,520 Beautiful stuff. 399 00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:56,520 Beautiful. 400 00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:05,520 When you're not into sin management, recognizing who the sinners are, who the unorthodox are, 401 00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:14,320 who the bad people are, that's what's made our problems with racism, sexism, homophobia, 402 00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:20,560 always looking for the bad people that we can exclude. 403 00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:28,480 My earliest book that sort of sold well was called Everything Belongs. 404 00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:35,280 And I always felt the only reason it sold well was because people loved that title. 405 00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:47,600 They knew that if it was of God and was reality, God was sustaining it in life and existence, 406 00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:49,120 it had to belong. 407 00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:56,600 And it wasn't our place to decide that one belongs and that one doesn't. 408 00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:06,320 Which I'm afraid has been much of our history, ferreting out the unorthodox, the heretics, 409 00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:08,480 as we call them. 410 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,880 That was never preoccupation for Franciscans. 411 00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:22,240 Yeah, well that reminds me of one of my favorite phrases from Eager to Love in your phrase, 412 00:36:22,240 --> 00:36:24,440 edge of the inside. 413 00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:26,040 Thank you. 414 00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:31,280 What does that look like to you today? 415 00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:43,640 Unless you're at home on the edge, you tend to idealize what the culture idealizes, which 416 00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:48,120 is always power and money and sex. 417 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:57,360 I'm not saying that in a negative way, but it doesn't get you very far. 418 00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:09,800 We see it in our politics, the idealization of being a winner and not a loser, being rich 419 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:14,000 and not poor. 420 00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:27,200 The path of descent, which is my word for what you call going downward, keeps us idealizing 421 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,180 the loser, not the winner. 422 00:37:31,180 --> 00:37:34,720 It almost sounds like that can't be right. 423 00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:36,960 It has to be right. 424 00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:37,960 It has to be right. 425 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:47,080 Or we'll keep excluding people, we'll keep looking for who's inferior to me, as if I'm 426 00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:55,680 so wonderful, as if I'm so perfect. 427 00:37:55,680 --> 00:38:03,760 When we can find divine perfection in imperfection, then you're free. 428 00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,600 Please trust me on that. 429 00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:13,240 In one of my later books, I don't think that was put out by your friends. 430 00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:15,880 The Wisdom Pattern, did you put that up? 431 00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:18,280 Oh, you did. 432 00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:27,520 It's easiest to start with order, some grand plan to the meaning of life. 433 00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:35,000 But as you grow, you eventually face the exceptions to the rule. 434 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:39,920 As we used to say, the exception proves the rule. 435 00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:43,400 The rule isn't always the rule. 436 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:52,720 When you include disorder with order, you don't throw out order. 437 00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:58,760 That was the mistake of the protesting ones, the Protestant ones. 438 00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:03,200 They thought all about Catholic was bad. 439 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:04,520 Some was not so good. 440 00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,200 They're right. 441 00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:17,360 When you can include order and disorder, exception, correction, reformation, then you have what 442 00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,760 I call reorder. 443 00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:31,920 That's the rule with exceptions to the rule, the inclusion of the negative, creating a 444 00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:46,880 new, we call it here in the teaching of contemplation, third-way thinking, where you can not just 445 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:51,920 think either or, but both and. 446 00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,480 It gives you a third something. 447 00:39:55,480 --> 00:40:02,440 That's a rather good description of a mystic, of a saint. 448 00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,560 They see things in the third way. 449 00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:14,640 Jesus' whole Sermon on the Mount is reading the law, his Jewish law, in a third way. 450 00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:26,320 The law has said, you have said, I say, and he includes the exceptions to the rule. 451 00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:30,080 That's what we mean by contemplation. 452 00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:35,960 I don't have the time to teach it here as we do at the school, but you've got the hint 453 00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:38,080 of it there. 454 00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,520 It's interesting you bring up order, disorder, and reorder. 455 00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,120 I actually had this written down. 456 00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:49,120 That has helped me tremendously in my own life. 457 00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:52,960 I know it's helped a lot of people that I know too. 458 00:40:52,960 --> 00:41:01,720 I'm wondering, you brought it up a little bit, but societally, when we navigate this 459 00:41:01,720 --> 00:41:11,480 time today where it's almost as if everyone's living in completely different worlds of, 460 00:41:11,480 --> 00:41:15,640 it's almost like there's no grounding for truth. 461 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:16,640 You're right. 462 00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,520 Keep going. 463 00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:26,720 What does order, disorder, reorder look like in the state of our own society today? 464 00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:34,160 I know people in the past have talked about axial ages and that period of chaos building 465 00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:38,960 to this point where you do end up going in a new evolved direction. 466 00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:43,600 I would be curious, you're such an integrative thinker. 467 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:49,960 What's your opinion of what we're all navigating right now in America? 468 00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:57,680 Paul says it well, when I was a child, forgive me, my voice is so old now it's hard to listen 469 00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:00,040 to. 470 00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:01,040 I fought as a child. 471 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,160 Now I'm a man I think as a man. 472 00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:11,040 Early stage religion can only be heard, and you're going to learn this with your two little 473 00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:19,000 ones through the ears of a child in a childish way. 474 00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:25,040 That initial order is never it. 475 00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:36,520 It's never a mature, inclusive way of understanding reality. 476 00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:46,460 It's always about my culture, my country, my religion, my group, my ego. 477 00:42:46,460 --> 00:42:50,040 It's entirely too egocentric. 478 00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,120 The ego has to be defeated. 479 00:42:54,120 --> 00:43:01,320 And as Jesus says, unless the single grain of wheat die, the single grain of wheat we 480 00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:07,360 would now call the ego, it remains just a little single grain of wheat. 481 00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:17,320 But if it dies, if it can shed its boundaries, its shell, it will bear much fruit. 482 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:25,120 It's just a much more poetic way of saying order, disorder, reorder. 483 00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:33,280 What you first hear, you hear in a childish and even self-serving way. 484 00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:37,840 And we learn this here in the school because we're very ecumenical. 485 00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:44,280 There's people here from all denominations and even all religions. 486 00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:50,440 And am I supposed to tell the Buddhists they can't know God? 487 00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,200 That's clearly not true. 488 00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:57,120 Some of them are more godly than I am. 489 00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:00,420 And that's just said by experience. 490 00:44:00,420 --> 00:44:06,040 So we need a little humility. 491 00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:07,040 All of us do. 492 00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,460 All of the world religions. 493 00:44:09,460 --> 00:44:21,320 And here again, I believe Franciscanism is prepared to teach humility. 494 00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:30,400 We were reminded in the novitiate that the word human, humus, earth, and humility all 495 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:36,320 come from the same root of the earth. 496 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:44,040 And there's a statue, I don't know if you saw it, in Assisi in the great basilica where 497 00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,800 you have Francis gazing at the Holy Spirit. 498 00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:54,200 I hadn't seen a piece of art my whole life where the Spirit is in the dove descending 499 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:55,600 from above. 500 00:44:55,600 --> 00:45:06,280 But on the left side upper chapel, the artists have the wisdom to plant the Holy Spirit in 501 00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:10,680 the mud, the dove in the mud. 502 00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:20,080 And Francis is looking down in awe, in adoration. 503 00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:27,440 It's a transposition of place about where greatness is to be found. 504 00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:30,120 And the world is learning this. 505 00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:35,120 It's wonderful we're saying this during the Special Olympics. 506 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:41,480 It took till the 21st century for someone to be smart enough to think of the Special 507 00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:42,820 Olympics. 508 00:45:42,820 --> 00:45:51,340 And we can idealize and love and honor people who can't walk the way we walk or use any 509 00:45:51,340 --> 00:45:54,280 of their limbs the way we do. 510 00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:55,360 It's beautiful. 511 00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:59,000 It teared me up at times. 512 00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:06,480 And I'm proud to say it was, at least as I understand the history of the Special Olympics, 513 00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:17,160 it was largely initiated by some Irish Catholics, Irish American Catholics who had that incarnational 514 00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:22,480 theology that we call Franciscanism. 515 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:31,840 Yeah, that's encouraging to reflect upon. 516 00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:42,280 Because I think sometimes just in this period that we're navigating as a country, it's easy 517 00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,200 to feel lost in the noise. 518 00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:50,640 And yet that is a beautiful example of celebrate. 519 00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,080 And I think of John Dunst Skoda's term of thisness. 520 00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:55,920 Like you're we're really celebrating. 521 00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,840 Yeah, and well educated. 522 00:46:58,840 --> 00:46:59,840 Thank you. 523 00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:01,960 Not too many young people know that. 524 00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:02,960 Go ahead. 525 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:11,600 Well, you should tell my professors that until it's just a beautiful thing of, you know, 526 00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:17,600 like the Special Olympics is a great example of you're elevating the thisness of people 527 00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:22,320 and you're not just paying attention to them, you're celebrating them. 528 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:27,160 Yeah, it's just a really Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up. 529 00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,080 Good, good. 530 00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:36,120 When you find that perfection, divine perfection is the inclusion of imperfection. 531 00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,080 You're there already. 532 00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:46,600 And it's so simple, which is drawing upon another one you might not have studied another 533 00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:53,080 Franciscan of the 13th century, William of Ockham. 534 00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:56,720 And he taught Ockham's razor. 535 00:47:56,720 --> 00:47:59,640 Did they teach you that? 536 00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:05,640 Shave away all unnecessary assumptions and explanations. 537 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:12,440 And the simplest answer is most likely the true one. 538 00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:17,480 I still study it in philosophy class more than theology. 539 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:22,640 The simplest answer is most likely the true one. 540 00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:31,280 Because once you have to prove loads of assumptions, you get lost in complexity. 541 00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:38,000 So find a message where you don't have to prove a bunch of assumptions, or it's not 542 00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,840 your job to prove it. 543 00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:44,400 That gives you Franciscan simplicity. 544 00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:49,320 In fact, it leads you to back to eager to love. 545 00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:54,040 Yep, love is the beginning, the middle and the end. 546 00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:55,600 It's all about love. 547 00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:57,600 It's not about law. 548 00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,320 It's not about performance. 549 00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:04,320 It's not about achievement. 550 00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,000 It's not about intelligence even. 551 00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:08,920 It's about love. 552 00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,000 It's almost too simple. 553 00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:12,360 Yeah. 554 00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,640 And I know we've been focusing on the book. 555 00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:21,760 But as we wind down here, I was wondering, what are you learning about yourself right 556 00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:22,760 now? 557 00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:27,280 What are you learning about God right now? 558 00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:36,220 You know, in the last 10 years, I've had five unrelated cancers. 559 00:49:36,220 --> 00:49:41,320 And all five of them I've been—I'm in remission from. 560 00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:45,080 The doctor wants to do a genetic study on me. 561 00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:52,240 Why do I get cancer different, unrelated to one another, and why do I keep being healed 562 00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:54,040 of it? 563 00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:56,840 I don't know. 564 00:49:56,840 --> 00:50:11,160 But I'm leading up to—I'm just having to live with a much weaker body. 565 00:50:11,160 --> 00:50:13,680 Like if I'd be on—I'm getting tired now. 566 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:16,880 I just get tired real easily. 567 00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,400 You see I've got a cane here. 568 00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:22,960 I'm always afraid of falling. 569 00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:27,840 I feel like I'm on the edge of falling. 570 00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,800 I hope it's falling upward when it happens. 571 00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:33,280 You're familiar with that book? 572 00:50:33,280 --> 00:50:34,280 I am. 573 00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:35,280 Yeah. 574 00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:36,280 I'm familiar with all your stuff. 575 00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:37,280 I'll be honest with you. 576 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:38,280 You're so humble. 577 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:39,280 You're so humble. 578 00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:50,360 So there's—like yesterday was the feast day at Acoma where the Indians danced. 579 00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:57,640 And I was going to take a carload of friends here, including Michael, who was right here. 580 00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,720 I had to call him early in the day. 581 00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:02,560 I just don't have the energy. 582 00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:07,200 I can't do it. 583 00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:14,920 That is so hard to admit when you're old that you can't do a bunch of things. 584 00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:23,520 Then you're waiting for the next irritant, the next body part that doesn't work right 585 00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,920 or doesn't work well. 586 00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,760 So God is very humble too. 587 00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:35,320 He lets us die gradually, little by little by little. 588 00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:41,120 Enjoy your youth, Stephen, while you have it and your little kids need it. 589 00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:50,080 Yeah, I think what you just said too about—it's a very interesting connection that you made 590 00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:55,840 about God's humility to human frailty. 591 00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:00,840 Of course, this can be age or any number of things. 592 00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:06,920 I think that brings us back to the God that Francis fell in love with, right? 593 00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:08,480 This humble God. 594 00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:13,680 Well put, he loved the humility of God. 595 00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:18,160 And then we made God wrathful and righteous and judgmental. 596 00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,680 It's so un-Franciscan. 597 00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:21,680 Yeah. 598 00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:28,200 Well, I want to be respectful of your time, Father Richard. 599 00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,000 Can I ask one more question? 600 00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:31,000 Sure, you can. 601 00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,520 I wasn't trying to beg out of it. 602 00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:34,520 Go ahead. 603 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:35,520 No, no. 604 00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,440 I'm just so grateful for your time. 605 00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,400 It's wonderful to finally connect with you. 606 00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:47,840 I was wondering, I mean, you have accomplished so much throughout your life as an author 607 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:54,520 and in ministry and through the Center for Action and Contemplation. 608 00:52:54,520 --> 00:53:00,200 You've hit on several different phases of your journey during this conversation. 609 00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:06,280 As you reflect on your life and journey, what impact do you hope that you've had on the 610 00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:07,280 world? 611 00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:14,800 You know, my two patron saints are Francis and Therese of Lusus. 612 00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:17,520 I don't know how much you know about Therese. 613 00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:24,400 She was a Carmelite, but she called her understanding of the gospel her little way. 614 00:53:24,400 --> 00:53:27,000 And it was what we've already been saying. 615 00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:29,960 She was a feminine Saint Francis. 616 00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:38,640 Let me put it this way, that you come to God by doing it wrong and not by doing it right. 617 00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:42,360 Surprise of surprises. 618 00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:44,720 I'm convinced that's the truth. 619 00:53:44,720 --> 00:53:47,920 Otherwise, it's not good news. 620 00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:52,720 Because if we got to take some comfort in doing it right, only the proud are going to 621 00:53:52,720 --> 00:53:55,240 get there. 622 00:53:55,240 --> 00:54:01,280 But when we can humbly admit that, no, I haven't done it right, yeah, God has used me in a 623 00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:11,160 lot of ways, but I have no doubt, no doubt, God has used me, as Mary says in her Magnificat, 624 00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:17,400 in my littleness, in my nothingness. 625 00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:24,560 When I was studying in Cincinnati as a young man out in Mount Healthy at the seminary, 626 00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:25,880 I was a B student. 627 00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:28,960 I was never an A student. 628 00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:37,280 I was, what do you call it? 629 00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:43,000 I mean, even professors have told me, they say, we hate to say this to you, Richard, 630 00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,320 but you weren't very outstanding. 631 00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:46,320 I wasn't. 632 00:54:46,320 --> 00:54:51,680 I wasn't outstanding at all. 633 00:54:51,680 --> 00:55:02,480 And I know that by not trying to be outstanding, it seems in some ways God was able to use 634 00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,440 me. 635 00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:10,120 I'm not by nature ambitious. 636 00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:16,320 And I look at all my books I've written, I said, my God, where did that come from? 637 00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:24,120 I was paging through Eager to Love this morning in preparation for talking with you, and some 638 00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:29,400 of those paragraphs are really fine. 639 00:55:29,400 --> 00:55:32,440 Where was I when I wrote that? 640 00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:36,080 All you can do is thank God for His mercy. 641 00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:43,960 That's how Therese begins her autobiography and how Francis lives his whole life. 642 00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:53,520 We thank God for showing His mercy by using an unworthy instrument. 643 00:55:53,520 --> 00:56:01,040 We come to God not by doing it right, but believe it or not, by doing it wrong. 644 00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:06,920 It's the greatest surprise in the religious world. 645 00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,640 Does it make sense to you? 646 00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:10,640 It does. 647 00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:14,520 I'm not saying it's wrong. 648 00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,720 But no, yeah, I mean, that's the falling upward. 649 00:56:17,720 --> 00:56:18,720 Yeah. 650 00:56:18,720 --> 00:56:25,160 I know you published that book, but yeah, yeah, it's the best selling of my books for 651 00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:26,880 a good reason. 652 00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:30,040 Yeah, I got it for my dad when he retired. 653 00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:32,080 Oh, yeah. 654 00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:33,080 Yeah. 655 00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:38,000 Well, I wasn't planning on asking you this, Father Richard, but I just think this would 656 00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:42,640 bring together so much of what we've been talking about. 657 00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:51,040 Would you mind concluding by reading, you have a beautiful summary of Franciscan heterodoxy 658 00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,240 at the bottom of page 100. 659 00:56:53,240 --> 00:56:56,240 Would you find it, please, Michael? 660 00:56:56,240 --> 00:56:57,240 100. 661 00:56:57,240 --> 00:56:59,440 I can't wait to read it. 662 00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:03,520 Okay, I'll read it with joy. 663 00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:11,840 First, there must be the living, which must lead to a giving. 664 00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:17,000 Then you realize you do not yet know love. 665 00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:22,200 So you re-enter the circle of living and giving. 666 00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:30,160 You make steps backward, all waiting to go forward, and you actually do go forward. 667 00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:40,800 Because secretly, if you stay inside this circle, it eventually creates one human life, 668 00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:46,360 which can never happen just inside the mind. 669 00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:49,760 It's not a matter of correct thinking. 670 00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:57,840 We might call this the virtuous circle, as opposed to the... 671 00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:00,480 What's our expression? 672 00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:03,560 Vicious circle. 673 00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:05,720 We all use that expression. 674 00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:11,640 There is no straight line to goodness, to love, or to God. 675 00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:16,280 And thank God, grace is always retroactive. 676 00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:21,160 Oh, I'm glad I wrote that. 677 00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:30,000 The real spiritual journey is a virtuous circle, but it's one that God leads us through in 678 00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:33,640 spite of ourselves. 679 00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:38,400 And thank God, grace is always retroactive. 680 00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:40,240 You're a beautiful man, Stephen. 681 00:58:40,240 --> 00:58:41,240 Thank you. 682 00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:42,240 Yeah. 683 00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:44,200 Thanks for joining the podcast, Father Richard. 684 00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:46,480 I think I speak for a lot of people. 685 00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:50,200 We're very grateful for your mind, but more than that, I think we're grateful for your 686 00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:51,200 heart. 687 00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:52,200 So thank you. 688 00:58:52,200 --> 00:58:53,200 Aren't you beautiful? 689 00:58:53,200 --> 00:58:58,400 This is more about you than me. 690 00:58:58,400 --> 00:58:59,400 Have a beautiful day. 691 00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:06,480 Say hello to everybody at St. Anthony's. 692 00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:11,800 Again that was Father Richard Rohr discussing the 10-year anniversary edition of Eager to 693 00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:18,520 Love, The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, which will be published on October 1st, 2024, 694 00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:23,280 along with an accompanying companion guide that provides prompts and reflections for 695 00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:25,160 contemplation. 696 00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:31,520 Other Franciscan media titles by Richard Rohr include From Wild Man to Wise Man, The Wisdom 697 00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:38,280 Pattern, Breathing Underwater, and Things Hidden, among many others. 698 00:59:38,280 --> 00:59:44,200 You can browse his section of our store by visiting shop.franciscanmedia.org and click 699 00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:47,960 on Richard Rohr in the top banner. 700 00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:52,480 Thanks to Father Richard and the Center for Action and Contemplation for making this interview 701 00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:53,480 possible. 702 00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:59,120 And thanks as well to Father Cyprian Concilio for providing the music for this episode. 703 00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:02,040 This is Stephen Copeland signing off. 704 01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:18,840 Peace and all good.