Welcome to Off the Page. I'm Stephen Copeland.
What does it mean to age with grace, to let go
without losing hope, and to face life's deepest
struggles and losses with open hands? What does
it mean to move towards spiritual maturity as
life unfolds, and how can a spirituality of letting
go help take us there? Our next guest needs no
introduction. I'm thrilled to be joined on Off
the Page by Father Ronald Rollheiser, a Roman
Catholic priest and member of the Missionary
Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He is a theologian,
professor, award -winning author, and he served
as president of the Oblate School of Theology.
You may know him from his popular lectures or
his best -selling books, The Holy Longing or
The Sacred Fire. In this conversation, Father
Ron joins Off the Page to explore themes from
his powerful new book, Insane for the Light,
A Spirituality for Our Wisdom Years, which was
released on October 28, 2025. From the raw beauty
of metanoia to the transformative power of passivity,
Father Ron reveals how suffering, helplessness,
and even death can become our greatest gifts
if we dare to live while we're dying. There are
so many profound sections in his book. I've paused
the interview a few times throughout the conversation
for minute meditations, opportunities to really
sit with his words and reflect on what Father
Ron has shared with us. So, without further ado,
here is Father Ronald Rollheiser. Enjoy. Father
Ronald Rollheiser, welcome to the Off the Page
podcast. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks for having me.
In some senses, it's like your new book, it unpacks
a spirituality of aging. But it also, as I read
it, it also unpacks a spirituality of letting
go as we move towards spiritual maturity. I mean,
I got a lot out of this book as a 37 -year -old
reading. So to begin, can you talk about who
you wrote this book for and where it came from
in your own life and spiritual journey? Yeah,
very good question. You know, I wrote the book
more in terms of, you know, I teach courses on
spirituality of aging. for people, you know,
retirement and the years beyond, because today
people live longer. You know, 100 years ago,
well, 105 years ago, 1919, the average age in
the United States was 49. You didn't need much
of a spirituality of aging. You'd have been an
old man 100 years ago. But today people are living
to the 80s and 90s and so on. So we need a spirituality
for that. But also, okay, you're 37. The book
is intended for everybody. You know, at the end
of the preface, I have a story. I went there
some years ago with a friend of mine. We visited
an old priest who was celebrating his 90th birthday.
It was just this wonderful old guy. And so this
guy with me was in his 20s. He said, Father,
he said, I want to, when I'm old, I want to be
like you. What's the secret? He said, start now.
You know, see, everything in there is, you know,
post -retirement, but it's good to start now.
You know, there's a lot of things as a 37 year
old and a 27 year old, it's for everybody. Yes.
Yeah. You know, the subtitle is a spirituality
for our wisdom years. That subtitle has really
grown on me. At first, when I read it, I was
like, oh, this kind of just seems like it is
for people who are maybe nearing retirement or
perhaps even on the backside of that. But then
that notion of wisdom years, there's a really
beautiful, as I read that, there's a really beautiful.
depth and meaning there. You know, it goes into
what you just said. Start now. Start embracing
wisdom now. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Well, I'm glad you mentioned it. See, wisdom
years. Some people never get there. You're 37.
You might well be there. See, for instance, right
now, the work you're doing, that's a wisdom occupation.
That is what I saw. You're a magus. You're a
wisdom figure. I mean, you have other things
in your life, you know, like you might be a father
and a husband and so on. But, you know, like
you're in a wisdom occupation. So anybody who's
teaching, who's mentoring or whatever, you're
a magus or you're a Sophia if you're a woman.
That's a wisdom thing. So there is no chronological
age to that. And some people never become a wisdom
figure. They stay adolescent in some ways. Yeah,
yeah, the book really, as I read it, it really
moves toward spiritual maturity. Like, that's
the way that I was really experiencing each chapter
was, how can I allow what you're sharing to move
me toward spiritual maturity? I did want to get
your thoughts on the title. Very unique title,
Insane for the Light. Can you go into where that
came from? I'll give you the title itself and
then why I picked that. It's the tail end of
a Goethe poem. You know, one of the first books
I wrote in a trilogy, you know, was The Holy
Longing. That's the title of the poem. It comes
from the poem The Holy Longing. But in there
he says you grow to a point in your life where
sometimes you just become insane for the light,
which means the things that you want to get fly
off. But I use a story to open the book with
from Rachel Raymond, who's a medical doctor,
fine writer. And it's a beautiful image. She
said when she was a young girl and she was candy
striping, I think what they used to call that,
you know, you work as a kind of a teenage nurse
and so on. And, you know, you volunteer. And
she was working with this elderly woman who one
Saturday morning simply wouldn't look at her.
You know, she was sitting looking out the window,
staring at outside the window. And Rachel tried
three or four times to talk to her, but she wouldn't
respond. And then finally, when it was time to
go, she said, well, I'm leaving. So then she
turned and she had a strange look on her face,
said something that startled me, as if she was
seeing something. She said, and I said, what
were you looking at? She said, dear, I was looking
at the light. And then Rachel Raymond, later
became a doctor, had gone to college. I never
saw that look again until they delivered my first
baby. When a baby comes out of the womb, opens
his eyes, that's the look on his face. It's seeing
light for the first time. So it's insane for
the light. Not just waiting to die and so on.
Like right now, you're 37. You're also partly
insane for the light. The older you get, you
want to... You saw it for the first time as a
baby. But then we get too used to it. And after
a while, we're not seeing it anymore. Yes, or
experiencing it in a visceral way. Yeah. At the
beginning of the book, you talk about two struggles
in life that help bring people to spiritual maturity.
One being the struggle to get our lives together,
and the second being the struggle to give our
lives away. Can you discuss the importance of
both of these kind of acts in life? Yeah. Yeah.
And you also, Stephen, gave me a perfect opportunity
for a little advertising. Please do. I wrote
a book on each of them. So the book, The Holy
Logging, is that first struggle. You know, our
first struggle in life is to get our lives together.
And that begins when you come out of the womb,
you know. But it really doesn't constellate until
after it with puberty. You know, up to puberty,
you're mommy's little girl, daddy's little boy.
You're at home. And then puberty, as I say, puberty
drives you out of the house. Puberty is designed
by God and nature with a certain violence to
it. And all of a sudden you realize you're not
at home here anymore. And that has wisdom to
it. So you have to go out and make your own home.
You know, and that's going to take, okay, imagine
you reach puberty at 13 or something. That might
take 10 or 15 years or some people never grow
up. But, you know, but at a certain point you
land, you're married, you have a job, you have
a career, you buy a home, you start having kids,
you know. That's the end of that first phase.
And then, you know, whatever age you are, maybe
you're 25, 30 or whatever. But then you have
the next 40 to 50 years. That's the stage you're
in. Now your task is not to get your life together.
Your task is to give your life away. Like now,
you've got to be doing generative stuff, helping
others, doing what you're doing, raising kids,
paying mortgages. In anthropology, they have
a wonderful verb. They say at that point in life,
you begin to carry life as opposed to when you're
a kid, you're being carried. Little kids get
carried. Stuff is bought for him. You go to university
and someone is paying for you and so on. See,
now you're doing the carrying. You're paying
the mortgage. You're running the, you know, you're
the adult in the room, you know. And that can
go on for up to, wait until you die, you know.
And in some sense it will. But for the next 40
or 50 years, you're saying, how do I give my
life away? You know, Teresa of Avila, for all
the deep spirituality she wrote, she said, This
point of your life, the point of life you're
in, she said, you know what your most important
question is? Spiritual question is, how can I
be more helpful? Notice this. How can I? See,
you're in that phase. How can you be more helpful?
How can you do it better? How can you be a better,
you know, everything, you know? Like, for instance,
are you a married man with kids? I am. Yeah.
Okay. So how can you be a better husband, better
father, a better mentor, a better, you know,
just how can you do it better? But you're going
to see at a certain point, you still will work
that till you die. But at a certain point, something
else comes in, you know. And, you know, at the
time about you become a grandparent, you retire,
see the kids are raised, the mortgage is paid
and so on. But then you don't stop living. But
now you have to ask yourself. in these last years,
how can I live so that my death is going to be
a great gift to your kids? You know, how do you
do that? How do you give your death away? Or
another image I use, I just hint at it in the
book, but in the programs we have here, I really
develop it. I always say that, well, I'll give
you the image from Scripture, you know, which
is an incredible story, but something we don't
think of it. But they said, when Sarah was 70,
And Abraham was 80. God said, leave your land.
Go to another country. And when you get there,
Sarah's going to become pregnant. She's 70 years
old. Then they leave. Now the story takes another.
It takes them 20 years to get there. Then when
he's 100, she's 90, they have Isaac. Well, I
don't know what happened historically, but that's
an incredible metaphor. What is going to be your
post -menopausal pregnancy? What's going to be
your post -youthful generativity? Like right
now, you're a generative man. You're generating
stuff. Okay. But that type of generativity, you
won't be raising kids. You won't be paying a
mortgage and so on. You know, what's going to
be the new kid you have after 75, after 80? Hmm.
And how do you give your life away? See, right
now you're doing a lot of stuff for your kids,
but how do you die so that your death is your
last greatest gift to your kids, to your family,
to the community, and so on? And that's kind
of the last movement. Get your life together,
give your life away, and give your death away.
In chapter three of his book, Insane for the
Light, Father Ronald Rollheiser maps out seven
movements that help us move towards spiritual
maturity. Here they are. He says, moving from
resentment to gratitude, from bitterness to forgiveness,
from imagination to faith, from wishful thinking
and natural optimism to hope, from sophistication
to childlikeness. from control to surrender,
and from achievement to fruitfulness. Let me
read those again. From resentment to gratitude,
from bitterness to forgiveness, from imagination
to faith, from wishful thinking and natural optimism
to hope, from sophistication to childlikeness,
from control to surrender, and from achievement
to fruitfulness. Our achievements, he writes
later on, are things we have accomplished. Our
fruitfulness is the positive long -term effect
these achievements have on others. As you hear
Father Ron's words in these seven movements that
he mentions in his book, what is it that stirs
your heart? What are you holding on to that God
is inviting you to let go? Now back to the conversation.
Yeah, how do you give your death away? How do
you give your death away? A number of things.
First of all, you do it by, I want to quote Henry
Nowen. Henry Nowen said, your task is you want
to die without leaving behind any bitterness.
any anger, any grudges, any angers, and so on.
You give your death away in the last years by
completely mellowing your spirit or trying to,
and also simply by accepting limitations so that
you don't become an angry old man, you know?
If I become an angry old man, I'm going to leave
that anger behind, you know? Or if I have grudges,
unresolved bitterness and so on, I'm going to
leave that behind, you know? We leave a spirit
behind. Jesus left the spirit behind, you know.
And, you know, that isn't abstract. You experience
that, you know, everybody you've been close to
has died. At a certain point, you get what their
spirit was. And they were a good person, even
though that's not false. Or sometimes people
say, he was just a terrible man, you know. See,
you give your death away by accepting. accepting
dying and aging and stuff in such a way without
bitterness, without anger, without shame, without,
you know, that you leave behind a pure spirit
the way Jesus did. Yeah, it's, I think that's
why I kind of mentioned that at the beginning
too, is that this whole book, like from discovering
your life to giving your life away to then giving
your death away. I mean, the whole thing just
feels like a spirituality of letting go that's
moving you towards spiritual maturity. I mean,
it's very difficult, but beautiful. And there
were two themes early on that you hit on that
I found them to be very... deeply impactful for
me. And it's these two contrasting notions of
metanoia and paranoia. Can you delve into that?
Yes. In fact, that one I can give you a visual
image. First of all, the word. That's the first
word out of Jesus' mouth in the Gospels. Jesus
says, except in English, we say repent. But the
Greek word there in Scripture is metanoia, do
metanoia. And actually, the English word repent
doesn't serve us well. Because if I say to you,
repent, it kind of implies you did something
wrong and you've got to come back from it. That's
not what Jesus is saying. In a certain sense,
that's his message. Notice it comes from two
English words, meta, which we have. Meta means
above, and noia comes from the word nus, mind.
It really means the above mind. Jesus is saying,
put on your higher mind, your meta mind, in the
good news. Now, what's your metamind? You know,
the ancients, the church fathers, and they weren't
psychologically sophisticated, but they had this
right. They said, you know, like, you have two
minds. And they weren't talking in the Jungian
sense. They were saying two minds that every
one of us has a noble, great, grand, big, hearted
mind. And all of us have a petty, wounded, Narrow
mind. They said, and at any given moment, you
can be operating out of one or the other. So,
and you can switch pretty quickly. So imagine
you get up some morning, Stephen, and you're
feeling noble, generous. That day you die for
the world and so on. You go to work and somebody
insults you. And in one minute, you freeze over,
you know, SOB and so on. And you become very
petty. So they would say, which of those is you?
They're both you. See, you can be operating out
of what's highest in you, your metanus, or you
can be operating out of your pettiness, you know,
so that Jesus calls us to that. Now, Henry Nouwen,
the very first book he wrote in English, it's
a wonderful little book called With Open Hands,
and it's that, and he uses this image. Basically,
he says, there are postures. He says, see, the
posture of paranoia is the posture of the clenched
fists. You're defending yourself. paranoia, okay?
And the posture of metanoia is Jesus on the cross,
arms open, not protective, hands open, nails
through the hands. He said, that's metanoia.
And in Greek, it puns with the word paranoia.
Metanoia is the unparanoia. And normally, we
want to protect ourselves. We're paranoid. Protect,
protect, protect. And notice... Jesus said, don't
protect, don't protect. But I like the expression,
put on your higher mind. Today we use the word
meta in English. Get into your meta mind, your
grand mind, rather than your petty, wounded mind.
Yes. And that openness that you're talking about
is, would you kind of describe that as a... openness
to transformation i mean i i think when i'm paranoid
on some level i'm transmitting i'm i'm I'm not
transforming my pain, as Richard Rohr has said,
like I'm transmitting it and I'm projecting it
out and I'm just kind of reactive to what's going
on deep inside of me. And it often leaves a trail
of destruction in its path. Whereas metanoia,
as it pertains to spiritual maturity, is that
openness like, hey, this hurts. This is brutal.
It feels like letting go. It's excruciating.
It's a complete loss of control. But I am going
to dare to allow God to transform me in this
process. Am I tracking there? Perfect. And, you
know, remember, Rohr has this expression, like
I said, Whatever pain you don't transform, you'll
retransmit, you know, so that's so true. And,
you know, I have a chapter in the book, or I
think I have sections in there, or in a previous
book on pondering, the Greek sense of, you know,
let me just explain that. See, in Scripture,
they say Mary pondered these things in her heart,
you know. Notice those were times when there
was a lot of confusion. You're going to get pregnant,
but you don't have a husband. Or when Zachariah
says to her, you know, your child, a sword's
going to pierce your own heart, and he's going
to be a contradiction, and so on and so forth.
And Mary pondered these things. Now, the software
we think in is Greek. So for us, pondering means
to think deep thoughts and sort through. That's
not what it meant for a Hebrew. For a Hebrew,
it meant to carry and transform tension. So the
image I use for that is, for instance, Mary under
the cross. When Mary's under the cross, notice,
She isn't overtly doing anything. She's not trying
to stop the crucifixion. She isn't protesting.
She isn't shouting. She isn't protesting Jesus'
innocence. She was pondering. She was doing the
only thing you can do in that situation, and
that is to absorb that and transform it. Notice
how different it would be if she'd been under
the cross saying, you're all horrible people.
You're terrible people. She'd have been, you
know, simply retransmitting. The anger that's
there, you know, you have to absorb that. And,
you know, and that transforms you. And also,
you know, John of the Cross, and I teach courses,
and he would say, you know what that does? It
burns. It burns the weaknesses out of you. So
the way you overcome a weakness is not to focus
on it. You know, why I can't control my temper.
What you do is you fan the flames of your higher
virtues and they become a flame where after a
while in your life, there's any room for that
anymore. And healing works by calling people
to their bigness. You know, if I say to you,
to someone, well, you're a bigot, you know, or
he says, you know, you're too big a guy. You're
too good a person to think like that. Notice,
see the difference? You know, when you're telling
someone, you're a selfish, you know, you're too
good a person to be thinking this. You know,
you're calling them to their meta, to their metanus,
you know? Absolutely. Yeah. I'd love for you
to stay with this for a second. I mean, I'm really
intrigued by that notion of pondering in the
Greek approach compared to the Hebrew approach.
And I experienced this. personally, like, I mean,
on a weekly basis where, and maybe this is a
Western thing, maybe a personality thing, maybe
all of the above. But when I think of pondering,
I'm doing it again, I'm thinking of pondering,
you know, like, but, but it's always thoughts.
It's working things out in my head, trying to
make sense of things. And not that that's all
bad. But it is. There is an aspect of it that
is kind of like intellectual masturbation, where
it is that grasping for control and thinking
that I can think my way there to gain a deeper
sense of control in my life. But then Mary's
pondering, the Hebrew notion of pondering, that
notion of... Again, it's letting go again. It
feels like you are working things through your
head on some level, but it's also more the heart
space. And can you help me with that a little
bit? Because I just think that is so important
in moving towards spiritual maturity. But oh
my goodness, it is challenging to do in our culture
where we kind of tend to think our way there.
Yeah. Okay. First of all, I agree with you. We
don't want to denigrate thinking as its place.
But you're not going to think your way out of
these. Mary wasn't going to think her way out
of under the cross, the pain and so on. You have
to absorb it. In Hebrew, pondering means to absorb
the tension and transform it. Let's just stay
with Mary under the cross. What's she doing under
the cross? Well, overtly nothing. But she's doing
the only thing possible, which is absorbing that.
Basically, what Jesus says, sometimes darkness
just has its hour. And there's nothing other
than to absorb it. Otherwise, you're going to
help perpetuate the darkness. You know, the example
I use. between the two types of pondering. You
know, I live in Texas now, and we still have
the death penalty here. You know, thank God it's
not as frequent as before, but we still have
the death penalty. But if you ever go out where
they do the death penalty, you know, there's
very few people in the room, but outside you're
going to have three kinds of people. You're going
to have people who are protesting for the death
penalty, saying, this brings closure, finally
closure. And you have people protesting against
the death penalty, saying, you know, we're just
as much of a murderer as he is. We're killing
somebody. And then off in the corner you have
Sister Helen Prejean and a few nuns with candles.
They're saying nothing. They're just standing
there with candles. That's Mary under the cross
saying, today we can't stop the crucifixion.
Nobody can. Darkness. But we can stop some of
the anger and the bitterness and the tension
by absorbing it. Notice they're not accusing
anybody. They're just there, you know. And that
is the task of an adult in the room. You know,
you're a parent. Your task is to absorb your
kids' tensions. A teacher's task is to absorb
the tensions of the students. I'm a priest. My
task is to absorb the tensions in a parish and
so on, you know, because it's the only way they're
going to go away. You know, we say Jesus took
away the sins of the world. He didn't do it magically,
you know. You did it by absorbing, you know,
you have to take the way the sins of, you know,
the tensions of your dinner table by absorbing
it, which doesn't mean you can't correct your
kids. It doesn't mean, you know, but basically
your task as an adult is to absorb that. Yeah.
You know, this, it's really interesting you bring
this up because this showed up in my life two
days ago. I coach high school golf and our girls
team. We entered the second day of the state
tournament, the final day of the state tournament,
down by 13 strokes, which is a pretty big hole
to climb out of in golf. And these girls just
fought back, clawed back, like all day long.
And the final group is on the 18th hole, and
we're actually leading by two. We've done the
unthinkable. We have come back, and now we've
gained 15 strokes that day. Their number one
knocks it in the hole. from 70 yards out. And
I mean, it was a remarkable shot. It was beautiful.
Like their team is going crazy and, and my girls
are sitting in the tension of that and it ends
up going to a playoff where they lost by one.
And as I'm driving the bus back, I mean, it is,
it is the most gutted. I've ever felt as a coach.
The most proud I've ever been for a team, but
also the most gutted. And you're sitting in that
tension that you're talking about. And part of
me started to do the whole pondering thing. which
is very easy in golf. Like they're doing it as
players. I'm doing it as a coach. And we're going
back in our heads and thinking, oh, if I would
have just done that, if I would have just said
this as a coach, maybe that would have saved
a stroke. They're saying, oh, if I only would
have made that putt or not made that decision,
that would have saved us a stroke we would have
won. So you're kind of going, you're spiraling
into an unhealthy place in your mind. But then
something else began to arise for me as a coach.
in those fragile, broken moments, something really
interesting can happen is that truth rises up
too. And it's very complex, but there's this
immense pride for them. And you begin to see
that this wasn't about winning. Winning is great,
but it's about the friendships, the grit that
they showed. How does this... How does this fragile
bus ride where these girls have been crying,
struggling, how does it become a mechanism for
transformation? I don't know. Is that a good
example of what you're talking about here as
far as what our role is as people moving towards
spiritual maturity to absorb the tension? This
stuff is all very fresh for me. But you're touching
on a second part, which has its own deep meaning,
and that is sometimes just the frustration, pain,
and so on, is what deepens us. I'll give you
an example. I don't think many people really
get this in Scripture. When John, Peter, and
John, anyway, the two disciples come up to Jesus,
and they say, Could you arrange that we are seated
at seats of glory? And he says to them, he doesn't
say, didn't you hear my homily and humility?
He says, can you drink the cup? But the cup is
the cup of humiliation, of loss. And they say,
well, yes, we can. And he says, well, you will,
because everybody will. We're all going to suffer
pain and humiliation and loss. But you might
not get the glory. And why not? Because, okay,
you use a perfect example. These girls lost.
You, in a way, lost. Now, that is going to drive
you deeper. But it can drive you deeper in a
way that you become more compassionate or that
you become more bitter. You know, like kids who
shoot their classmates, you can be sure they've
been humiliated a lot. But, you know, it made
them bitter. See, so that's actually a kairos,
if I can use a biblical example, moment for those
kids. You know, they've lost. They're frustrated.
And, you know, and that's going to make them
deeper, you know. So actually winning doesn't
do a lot for us sometimes. Exactly. Losing, but
it can make them deep in the wrong way. It can
make them bitter and angry, you know, as opposed
to more compassion, more understanding, better
sports. We lost. Yes. And in my experience. humiliation
losing failure mistakes whatever word you want
to use in my experience in those really frail
moments you begin to also see what's really true
there's a contemplative kind of seeing dimension
in that where all your values kind of rise up
to the surface and you realize this is about
love and transformation all along this is about
growing deepening friendships you know um really
becoming who we are meant to become and that's
where losing and brokenness becomes an immense
blessing in sports in life even in tragedy well
i i don't want to just that i don't want to flippantly
bring in like tragedy or trauma like there's
that's a whole other thing but the these natural
kind of seasons of life where it just doesn't
go the way you wanted it to go can deepen you,
like you said. Anything else to add there? Can
I use a colorful word? Please, yeah. Okay. You
know what it does? It cuts away the bullshit.
Yeah, yes. Okay, sorry about the colorful word.
Yes. Basically, it cuts that away. You know,
all of a sudden, you're just seeing a lot more
clearly. Now, you can choose badly in that clarity,
but that's a graced moment. You get a chance.
You grow up. You grow up through those things.
You deepen, you know. You know, I once went to
a talk by James Hillman, the famous philosopher.
He's really deep in his thought. And he said
to this, he said, the audience said, check yourself.
And they said, think of all the things that have
made you deep. You know, he said, in almost every
case, you'd be ashamed to talk about it. Some
humiliation. He said, and, you know, your glory
moments, he said, didn't necessarily bring depth
to you. And he used even another example. He
said, imagine a family. and they have two sons,
and one is a famous athlete, and the other is
a Down syndrome. He said, who brings character
to the family? It's a Down syndrome. No, the
other guy brings glory to the family. See, our
triumphal minutes, they bring us glory. Our down
moments, they bring us depth. You know, like
I said, it's like, if you think, if you're honest,
everything that made you deep was painful. You
know, it's interesting. I'll give you a powerful
example. You know, Trezor Lezeu, the little flower.
She was a doctor of the soul at age 25. But you
know something? At age 9 and age 11, she almost
died of clinical depression twice. She suffered,
you know. You know, later on, she became, you
know, very resilient and so on. But she almost
died of clinical depression a couple times in
life. You know, so no doubt, not a surprise,
she had depth, you know. Yes. Well, one of the
phrases you use in your book is the deeper dynamics
of faith. And you really bring that in in talking
about Mother Teresa. Can you delve into that?
How does a dark night of faith mirror the experience
of dying, letting go? Okay. First, I'll explain
what a dark night of faith is. First of all,
a dark night of faith is something that comes
on you. It's a maturity. leads to real faith.
And I think I used this analogy in the book.
It's a beautiful little piece from Thomas Keating.
And Thomas Keating says, you know, I'll give
you the story and then I'll apply it to faith.
He says, imagine you're a mother fish, the bottom
of the ocean. And these baby fish, they say,
mother, what's this water we hear about, you
know? How can you give them water? Well, today
the mother fish set up a PowerPoint, and she
showed them slides. They're at the bottom of
the ocean, they're watching slides of Niagara
Falls, a water tap, an ocean, rain. Now, it's
interesting, just the irony. They're at the bottom
of the ocean, they're in 300 feet of water, they're
intrigued by the slides, you know? It's giving
them image of water, but notice, they're slides,
they're not water. See, so our concepts of God,
our image of God, even Scripture, beautiful.
It's a PowerPoint. It's a PowerPoint presentation
about God. And it works. And you need that for
a while. But at a certain point, the mother fish
shuts off the projector. Just sit in the water.
Just let it flow through you. But notice that
sitting in the water, you don't necessarily have
a concept of water. See, so when you're younger,
that's the way faith works. Younger in faith,
not just in age, you know. And the mystics say,
God gives you, we give all these wonderful images
and we get turned on and people can pray in tongues
and so on. And that's all good. Okay. But it's
not going to last. You know, see, God, the first
thing as Christians teach about God is God is
ineffable. God can't be captured in a thought.
You can try this on your listeners. When I say
like, God can't be captured in a thought, why
not? And I always say this very simply, infinity.
You can't picture infinity except people count
to the highest number it's possible to count
to. Tell me when you get there. You will never
get there, you know. See, and God has no beginning
or no end, so you can't circumscribe. You know,
you've got to think something you'll get around
it. You can't get around God. You can't get around
the highest number. And so at a certain point,
and this is, we have to move from... images of
God to just knowing God, just trusting, you know.
See, you can know God. At a certain point, you
can't think God, you know. See, and it's interesting,
it often happens to the people who are deepest,
you know. But Mother Teresa died, and there were
all kinds of things, and even Time magazine,
was she an atheist or spiritual? How could that
happen to Mother Teresa? Why wouldn't it happen
to Mother Teresa? Yes, because they essentially
discovered that she had been incredibly depressed
for decades, correct? Yeah. That's the story.
It happened to Jesus on the cross when he's dying.
He says, my God, my God, why forsake me? He wasn't
saying that just for the audience. At that moment,
all the PowerPoint was shut off. And, you know,
he had to cry for help. That's the ultimate dark
night. Yeah, we've come back to the cross many
times from Mary's perspective and how she really
stepped into that space of transformation and
letting go and helplessness, humiliation that
we're discussing. Jesus's words, my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? You have a beautiful,
beautiful section in the book where you... dive
into that. What do those words mean, and how
can they comfort us today? Well, first of all,
I'm going to make a, let's just jump ahead a
little bit. When he says that, my God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? He said, then, that's
in Mark's gospel. And then Mark's gospel, then
he bowed his head and gave over his spirit. That's
very interesting. It's an interesting verse.
Notice, giving over is not resignation, you know.
See, there's a difference. If the playground
bully has you pinned and said, now say, uncle,
or I'll break your arm, you resign. You give
it over in love. So basically, it's a complete
act of trust where you just give yourself over.
But notice, it's a positive act. That's the opposite
of like despair. Well, okay, I give up. Nothing.
Basically, you're put into this impasse of darkness.
So at a certain point, you have a choice. I can
despair or I can trust. He said, I want to trust.
You know, let me give myself over and so on.
Now, not everybody gets tested like that. You
know, in the Gospels, there's two versions. They
are fathered. And the one we say, we say, and
lead us not into temptation, you know, which
is actually a bad translation. You know, it's
almost like, don't lead me into traffic. It should
be worded, don't let me be tested, you know.
And the other versions just put that, we say,
and do not put me to the test. When you're praying,
God said, if you can spare me from that, do.
Like, you know, I certainly want to be a spiritual
athlete. Just, you know, like, you tested Jesus
like that, maybe cut me some slack, you know.
You know, so that. I don't know if I told the
story in the book about Henry Nouwen, the famous,
his mother dying. Yeah. Yes. You know, so, so
he says like, he said, my mother was the most
Christian woman I'd ever met. He says, said every
day she would pray, Jesus, I want to live like
you and I want to die like you. So he's teaching
it in Boston. He hears his mother's dying in
Amsterdam. He's flying back. He said, on the
plane at this fantasy, I'm going to hold my mother's
hand and she's going to console me and so on.
He said, and everything happened opposite. He
said, my mother was in darkness. She was crying
out, you know, like, where are you, God? And
so on. He said, completely, discombobulated me.
He said, and I didn't get it until I was flying
home. I got it, he said. I got it. she prayed
every day, I want to live like Jesus, I want
to die like Jesus. She died like Jesus. Jesus
died crying out, you know. He said, do you want
to be careful what you pray for? You know, see,
she was a spiritual athlete. It's the same with
Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa gave her life completely
to God and didn't have any, she couldn't get
the PowerPoints working anymore. Basically, she
had to completely trust, live in trust, and she
did. She did. And interestingly, Stephen, that's
very different than depression. You know, when
you're in a room and somebody's depressed, they
take the oxygen out of the room. Mother Teresa
would light up a room like a light bulb. You
know, like basically somebody's in the dark night.
They're not a depressive person to be around.
They're the opposite. You know, so that depression.
shouldn't be ever confused with sanctity. It's
the disease. It's psychological. And you'll sense
it. You'll sense it. If you're with somebody
and they're really deep, but they're depressing
you, they're taking oxygen out of the room, that's
not a dark night. That's depression. Mother Teresa,
interesting, nobody even guessed that until she
published her diaries. You know? Yeah, what?
You mentioned, and this aligns with Mother Teresa's
spiritual journey as well, what do you do when
the PowerPoint stops working? Basically, that's
a signal to you. God is saying, I'm calling you
to a deeper level. I don't want you hung up on
the PowerPoints. I want you hung up on God. I
want you to move beyond images. I want to give
you a line from John of the Cross that I make
students do a term paper on. John of the Cross
says, when you get to a certain stage in your
life, not too early, then he said, learn to understand
more by not understanding than by understanding.
Let me start again. Learn to understand more
by not understanding than by understanding. In
chapter one of his book, Insane for the Light,
Father Ronald Rollheiser writes, quote, Once
our focus shifts from worrying about ourselves
to concern about being a generative woman or
man, we have crossed the first major barrier
in terms of human maturity. We have also moved
from the first essential struggle in our lives,
the struggle to get our lives together, to the
second essential struggle. the struggle to give
our lives away. We have also found our way back
home again, end quote. In our interview with
Father Ron, I like how he talked about how we
as Christians are called to engage our metamind,
our higher mind. Lately in my life, I've been
struggling with letting a couple things go, things
that honestly really hurt me on a deep level.
And the past keeps intruding the present, I've
noticed. And I keep thinking that there's something
more I could do to control the situations or
prove my point further or whatever it may be.
But I know deep down that I've said and done
all that I can. And now I am being invited to
let go. I know that God is proud of his children
who are wholehearted and kind, who give of themselves
for others. And faith invites us to dare to see
what God sees in ourselves, even in situations
that we can't control. Lately, when bitterness
or anger or the false sense that there's something
more I could do to control a situation invades
my mind again, I've been going back to Father
Ron's words as a mantra, as a refuge even. And
he said in our conversation, take on the higher
mind. Take on the higher mind. This, I think,
is its own step toward becoming. more generative.
We give and we give and we give because that's
what Christ did for us. There's not always glory
or resolution in taking on the higher mind, but
I'm comforted that in taking on the higher mind,
we are declaring our faith and trusting that
God's path is the right one, that the path of
love, kindness, service. is the right one. Now
back to the conversation. So I'll give you a
simple example of that. Imagine somebody comes
up to you and says, Stephen, I think I understand
you. You know, I know your family. I know your
ethnic background. I know your youth. I know
your Enneagram number. I know your Myers -Briggs
number. I know your personality. Do you feel
very understood? No, I think you say in your
book you'd feel violated. You'd feel violated.
Don't cheapen me in that way. Yeah. If somebody
comes up to you and says, Stephen, I've known
you for 40 years, you're a mystery. You're a
mystery to me. Then you've understood. See, it's
like what God does. You know, Stephen, you've
known me all these years, but you have to say,
I've known you all these years, but you're a
mystery to me. I'm just completely open. See,
PowerPoints capture pieces. That's your Myers
-Briggs number. It's this, it's that, and so
on. So that the mystics say, God takes the PowerPoints
away. So that you have to sit and say, you understand
more by not understanding. And that's a deeper
understanding. Whenever somebody thinks they
understand you, they're violating you. You're
not free to be yourself. You're deeper than that.
You're more than that. And see, God is more than
that. So all of our PowerPoints, at a certain
point, and if they don't happen in this life,
it'll happen when we die. All of a sudden, we're
face -to -face with the ineffable, with God himself,
and the PowerPoints are gone. Yeah, yeah. One
theme... We haven't used this language yet, but
it continues to show up in this conversation.
You mentioned resignation earlier, and you're
so good at this in all your books and this one
as well, where you take two similar contrasting
words and you play with those themes and you
play with activity and passivity. Can you explore
that for us and talk about? how they apply to
moving toward spiritual maturity ourselves and
into these spaces of transformation that propel
us forward and take us deeper into those rich,
deep dynamics of faith, even if it's dark. I'm
glad you asked that because that's a big piece.
That's a big piece. I want to start with Jesus,
then I'll get to us. You know, when you go to
church on Palm Sunday or Good Friday, they read
what we call the Passion. And the reader goes
up to this, the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ
according to Mark, or the passion of our Lord
Jesus Christ according to John, and we misunderstand
that. Because we think, well, I mean, not misunderstand,
we don't get the central point, that this is
about, you know, Jesus being whipped and chained
and nailed to the cross and so on, partly. But
if the reader went up to the passivity of Jesus
Christ according to Luke, we get it. You know,
passion comes from the word. Passio. Passiveness.
Now, I'm not just making this up. You know, you
can read all four Gospels. It's less than John,
because John has Jesus as divine. But in Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, notice that you can divide all
three Gospels perfectly into two parts, up until
Jesus is arrested. And the hand cuff, he's active.
He's the active one. He's doing, he's healing,
he's teaching, he's preaching, he's, you know,
he is. The verbs are active. After he's arrested,
he doesn't do anything anymore at all. And the
verbs are passive. They arrest him. They lead
him away. They handcuff him. Simon of Cyrene
carries his cross. They nail him to the cross.
He dies. Now, this is the paradoxical part. We
say we're saved more by that time than all the
stuff he did. He said, we're preeminently saved
through Christ's death. not just through his
life, you know, but actually we're also saved
through his life. And that works for the book.
See, Jesus gave his life for us through his activity,
right? Not you're giving your life for your family
or the church and stuff through your activity,
but Jesus gave his death to us through his passivity,
you know, to what's being done to him. And, you
know, it's interesting. We only get, first of
all, there's powerful. Passivity, we don't get
this because it's paradoxical, but we experience
it. So I'll give you an example, and I'll use
some of the books. So a woman I know grew up
in an alcoholic family. She says, and my father's
alcoholism completely destroyed our family. By
the time he died, he said, the kids couldn't
be in the same room with each other, you know.
She says, then for years, my mother tried to
bring us together. for Thanksgiving, for Christmas,
and she couldn't pull it off. Then my mother
died of cancer. She said in the last week of
her life, she was in palliative care, she was
in a coma, and we were around her. You know something?
The family reconciled. Notice what she couldn't
do with all her activity, she did when she couldn't
do anything. With Jesus, Jesus preached up a
storm and healed and taught and stuff for three
and a half years. They didn't get it. He died
and they got it. You know, now see, that's a
great mystery with many, many ramifications.
Among other things, that's why I get nervous
when societies talk about euthanasia. You know,
like, you know, if we do euthanasia, we don't
understand this. You know, like, so what have
you got to give? But also in our debilitation,
you get old, you're in a senior's home, so on.
Well, maybe you have more to give then than all
your... You're giving in a different way, but
also in smaller ways. I'm going to apply it to
the 37 -year -olds and so on. You're doing a
lot of activity, and that's wonderful, but sometimes
you're forced into passivity. So I'll give you
an example. You go to a funeral of friends whose
son died by suicide or something. What are you
going to say that makes any difference? Nothing.
You are just helpless. And you know something?
That helplessness speaks deeper than any words
you can speak. Or sometimes you're lying sick
in bed. At that moment, you're not doing activity.
In some other way, you may be giving more to
your kids and so on. You're giving something
special. So that's a gift. It's paradoxical,
but it's so central. And the next time you hear
the word, the passion of Christ, that's what
it means. Jesus saved us through his activity.
He saved us through His passivity. You're giving
your life to your kids and the world and the
church and so on through your activity. You're
also going to, already in small ways, whenever
you feel helpless, you know, and I think you
experienced that example of, you know, just when
you're actually helpless to say anything, you
know, well, you don't say, I'm not going to go
to the funeral. I have nothing to say. No, you
go, and your helplessness speaks deeper than
your words. See, Jesus' passivity spoke deeper
than his activity. You know, see, that's a big
point. And our culture doesn't get it. I mean,
we experience it, but we don't get it, you know.
Yeah, what would you, we've all felt it. When
that deep sense of helplessness kind of accompanies,
intrudes, invades our lives. What kind of advice
would you give to someone navigating that? As
a Christian, as someone who's trying to move
towards spiritual maturity, what do you do in
those moments of helplessness? How do you respond?
You're Mary under the cross. Yeah. First of all,
you show up. A lot of times people say, well,
I don't want to go with this uncomfortable. There's
nothing I can do. Or somebody's dying in a hospital
bed or something. I say, well, what do I want
to say? You don't have to say anything. You just
say, like, I wish I could help. I'm sorry. I
wish I could help. And so on. And oftentimes
when we try to say something, it's counterproductive.
I went to a funeral here at our school. A young
woman died of cancer and afterwards at the reception.
This guy's actually trying to be really nice
to her husband. He said, well, she's in a better
place. And he says, I know what you mean. I said,
it's the last thing I need to hear. I don't want
to hear this. Five years from now, he can hear
that. Basically, I wish I could say something.
And your helplessness, I mean, that's the mystery
of it. It communicates. Like the example, this
woman dying, and she's in a coma, and her kids
reconcile over her helpless body. For years,
she tried everything to try to reconcile it.
See, we can't articulate the phenomenology of
this, but we experience it, you know, that basically
we give away in our passiveness something that's
also very important, not just in our activity.
In chapter four of his book, Insane for the Light,
Father Ronald Rollheiser writes, quote, As Christians,
we believe we are saved by Jesus's life, by his
activity, by what he actively taught us and did
for us. But, and this is the paradox, we believe
that we are also saved, indeed preeminently so,
by his death, by his passivity, by what he passively
endured. His passivity was in fact more generative
than his activity. I'll read that last part again.
His passivity was in fact more generative than
his activity. A little later, Father Ron continues,
in our passivity, we can give to others a gift
that we are unable to give in our activity. I,
gosh, I find this to be really challenging. but
also encouraging. There is so much in our lives
that we spend our energies attempting to control.
Not always a bad thing, by the way, but it's
the situations when we are helpless, invited
into passivity, that often feel most disorienting
and excruciating. Sometimes, as Father Ron mentioned,
we are being invited to, quote, drink the cup.
Nothing easy about this. It's brutal even. But
in this, I think that we can be comforted that
we share in the sufferings of Christ and in a
very real way, take part in the mystery of his
passion. I'll conclude with this verse from 1
Peter 4 .13, which says, but rejoice in so far
as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may
also rejoice and be glad when his glory. is revealed
now back to the conversation you know yeah and
i love that notion of passivity because it it
kind of gets beyond words yeah it is you know
like there's something very the mystical dimensions
of that are quite profound like you're going
beyond words and just daring to be present in
the wordlessness of it all yeah yeah and you
can't connect the dots logically like you can
with activity you can connect here you can't
ponder your way there yeah but but here you but
you just we sense it we sense it and um um and
see then again why it's in the book, as we get
older and we move towards death. And so that
means by giving your death the way you have to
do it in such a way that your death becomes this
gift. See, Jesus, his life was a great gift for
us. His death was even a greater gift. You know,
we're just as great a gift. I shouldn't, you
know, put one over the other. But, you know,
so that whenever you hear the expression, Jesus
lived for us and died for us, Jesus gave his
life for us, his death for us, those are two
separate movements. You know, I don't know how
true it is. I'd have to check it out. But some
scholar told me, he said, in the Gospel of Mark,
in the Greek text, he said, all the verbs about
Jesus before he's arrested are active. He taught,
he walked, he did, you know, and then all the
verbs after are passive. They arrested him, they
let him away. You know, he's not doing anything
anymore. He's absorbing. And yet that was his
great act of love. Yeah. Yeah. One thing we've
come back to quite a bit in our golf program,
I brought this up earlier, is this notion, this
philosophical notion of karma yoga in the Bhagavad
Gita, at least in the translation I have, it's
the idea of you go all in. You bring the very
fullness of your heart, your mind, your physicality,
you go all in and you're... wholehearted it's
all there and then you let it go so the all -in
is the activity and then after that you let go
of any attachment to result um and in that passivity
is so damn difficult like it's even more difficult
because of the activity it's even more difficult
because you dare to go all in So then you want
to cling more. You know, you want to grasp, like
we talked about earlier with Henry Nowen. It's
even more difficult to be open after you've been
so active. Any thoughts on that? Yeah. And sometimes
the more effective you've been, the harder that
transition can be. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I play
with words. So the difference when somebody gets
to a point and says, no, I'm useless. Instead
of saying, no, I'm passive. You're useless in
terms of pragmatic activity. You can't supply
the answers anymore and so on. But you're passive.
You're giving off something else. And this has
many forms. I'll give you an example. It's an
intangible, but I went to a funeral here some
months ago. in their high profile on lawyers
in the family and so on. And their mother died,
but she had been in dementia for a number of
years, a serious dementia. And what the family
did, because they're a big extended family and
they loved their mother, their dad had died.
They didn't put her in an institution. And they
just took turns living with her, you know, until
she died. You had a rotation and you did your
day or two. But when she died, her... Her son
was a lawyer. He gave a very fine eulogy. He
said, you know, that wasn't a burden. He said,
that was a privilege. He said, you know, he said,
when we were, so we did that for two years. He
said, you know, for the first two years of our
life, she washed our bodies. She changed our
diapers. She said, we had the opportunity to
do that for her for the last two years of her
life. He says, what a wonderful privilege. And,
you know. She said, you say she didn't have anything
more to give. She was giving off something. But
I just liked his analogy. Even the years worked.
For two years, she washed her body. She changed
her diaper. And then we got two years where we
could do it back to her, where she was the baby.
I mean, stuff like that brings tears to my eyes.
That's real wisdom. That's understanding, you
know, rather than we got this burden and for
two years and it died and so on, you know. So
she kept giving till the day she died, you know,
giving in that helpless state, in her passivity.
So she noticed she wasn't useless. Exactly. It
was a gift. It was such a gift to those that
she loved. Yeah. Yeah. Well. Father Ron, this
has been an amazing conversation. What did we
leave out? Is there anything else you'd like
to hit on? You know, maybe the ending of the
book, in which I give a little creed that I wrote,
you know, I'm a cancer survivor, and it started
in 2011, so I'm 14 years into this. And in 2014,
when he came back the first time, I have a very
good oncologist, but he leveled with me. He says,
Father, you're done. You're done. He said, Tim,
you've got two years to 30 months maximum to
live, you know. And then somebody took me to
another, a second opinion, who gave me less time.
So I sat down, I wrote this creed. I said like,
now it's 11 years after the fact I'm still alive,
but I just came back from some cancer checkups.
I don't know my future and so on. So I have this
creed, you know, just basically the fact that
now I'm facing a future that's very indefinite.
My life, the last 14 years has dealt out to me
in six months increments, you know, like you're
good for six months, but we don't know after
that, you know. And so I wrote this creed, which
I shared in terms of like, so how do I want to
live now? How do I want to live while I'm dying?
But that's true for all of us, you know. You
know, I actually got the expression live while
I'm dying from a woman at Yale when I was in
sabbatical there, and she was dying of cancer,
very bright, but good spirit. She says, I'm living
while I'm dying. I'm not dying, you know. But
aren't we all, you know, from the time we're
born, we're mortal. And so, and I hope I can
keep living until I die. And one of the things
I want to keep everything intact, including my
sense of humor. Basically, I want to go out without
bitterness, without anger, without anything.
You know, maybe I'll close with this. You know,
there's a book I highly recommend. It's a secular
book by a man called Ira Bayock. And it's called
The Four Things That Matter Most. The Four Things
That Matter Most. And he's a medical doctor,
but he works in hospice with people dying. And
he says, and you don't even have to read the
book. He gives it in the first page. He says,
The Four Things That Matter Most. I make sure
that the person dying says this to his family
and the family says it to the person. He said
four things. He says, forgive me. I forgive you.
I love you. Thank you. That's for all of us.
You got to exit this pun as saying, forgive me.
I forgive you. I love you. Thank you. See, then
you can get on the ship, on the plane, and all
the bows are tied. Yeah. Yeah. Not to put you
on the spot, Father Ron, but would you mind concluding
this conversation by reading the creed that you
mentioned? I honestly don't have it in front
of me. I'm sorry. I should have brought it. I'll
tell you what, when you do, you read it to the
audience. Yeah. Well, I've got it right here.
I can, if you're okay with me reading your beautiful
words. And you have a better voice than I have
anyway, so okay. I don't know about that, but.
Okay, let me, here it is. So you write, I am
going to strive to be as healthy as long as I
can. I'm going to strive to be as productive
as long as I can. I'm going to make every day
and every activity as precious and enjoyable
as possible. I'm going to strive to be as gracious,
warm, and charitable as possible. I'm going to
strive to accept others' love in a deeper way
than I have up to now. I'm going to strive to
live a more fully reconciled life. No room for
past hurts anymore. I'm going to strive to keep
my sense of humor intact. I'm going to strive
to be as courageous as I can. I am going to strive
never to look on what I am losing, but rather
to look always at how wonderful and full my life
has been and is. And I'm going to daily lay all
this at God's feet through prayer. It's beautiful.
Any final thoughts on that? No, just thank you
for this interview, Stephen, and thank you. Beautiful
book. Thank you for sharing your time with us
and your wisdom. You've had a big impact on my
life and our listeners as well. So thank you,
Father Ron. And remember, you're a wisdom figure.
You're a Magus. Thank you. It's very kind. Have
a great afternoon. Okay, thanks. Once again,
that was Father Ronald Rollheiser. His new book
insane for the light of spirituality for our
wisdom years is available on penguin random houses
website or wherever books are sold. You can follow
him on Facebook at facebook .com slash Ron Rollheiser,
or you can read his weekly column in exile at
Ron Rollheiser .com. We also publish one of his
columns each month on our own site, franciscanmedia
.org. Simply scroll down to columns and click
on In Exile. Don't forget to check out the show
notes for this episode. A huge, huge thanks to
Father Ron for coming on off the page, and thank
you for tuning in, and as always, for your support.
Peace and all good.