Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'm speaking
with my friend Robert Ellsberg, author and editor,
publisher of Orbis Books. We're hoping this will
broadcast at the beginning of the new year, so
Happy New Year, everybody. This is a project
of BeatitudesCenter .org, where you can find
many other podcasts. and regular Zoom programs
on the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent
world. So let's begin as usual with a little
prayer. So I invite everyone, wherever you are,
just to take a deep breath and just to relax
and to recenter yourself. And enter into the
presence of the God of peace who loves you infinitely
and personally and everyone everywhere. And let's
welcome the risen nonviolent Jesus here with
us. Just take a moment to ask for whatever graces
we need to follow the nonviolent Jesus ever more
faithfully in this new year and to do God's will.
God of peace, thank you. for all the blessings
of life, love, and peace that you give us. Be
with us now as we reflect together. on your call
to follow the nonviolent Jesus as we look at
the lives of the saints and to do our part to
work for a more nonviolent, more just world.
Bless us, inspire us, disarm us, heal us, strengthen
us, and send us out to do your will and to do
our part to help end poverty and greed and war,
racism and justice and nuclear weapons, environmental
destruction and fascism, that we might be your
holy... beatitude people, peacemakers, who welcome
your reign of universal love, nonviolence, and
peace on earth. In the name of the nonviolent
Jesus, amen. So to all the listeners, it's a
great blessing to introduce you to my friend
and to welcome here today Robert Ellsberg, one
of our best spiritual writers in the country,
the publisher and editor of Orbis Books, a legendary
champion of Dorothy Day and many other saints.
to speak about his latest book, this massive
volume two of Blessed Among Us, a collection
of writings for each day of the year about a
few legendary saints, which was recently published
by Liturgical Press. So Robert Ellsberg is the
publisher and editor, as I said, of Orbis Books,
and the author himself of many award -winning
books, including All Saints. a massive collection
of reflections on saints, prophets, and witnesses
for our time. Blessed among all women. The Saint's
Guide to Happiness, and A Living Gospel, Reading
God's Story in Holy Lives. From 1975 to 1980,
he was part of the Catholic Worker community
in New York City, where he served as managing
editor of the Catholic Worker and worked closely
and became friends with Dorothy Day. He's since
edited six volumes of her writings, including
Dorothy Day's Selected Writings, The Duty of
Delight, The Diaries of Dorothy Day. All the
Way to Heaven, The Selected Letters of Dorothy
Day, and Dorothy Day's Spiritual Writings. If
you don't have them, get all of them and read
all of them. He has written and edited many other
beautiful volumes, including with the great Sister
Wendy Beckett, Dearest Sister Wendy, A Surprising
Story of Faith and Friendship. His latest book
here is a companion volume to Volume 1. Blessed
Among Us, which offers an amazing, inspiring
collection of the cloud of witnesses that surround
us. This big book is full of marvelous, wonderful
stories, just as Volume 1 was, and just as his
best -selling historic book, All Saints, was.
As you probably know, Robert is the son of the
legendary Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon
Papers and became one of the leading voices against
war and nuclear weapons. Robert is also part
of bringing out a beautiful new collection in
this new year about his father's writings. At
Orbist, he published, well, he changed the church,
in my opinion. He published Gustavo Gutierrez,
Romero, Dorothy Day, Merton, Daniel Berrigan,
Henry Nowen, Joan Chidester, Joyce Rupp, James
Caan, and even many of my books, including my
recent commentary, The Gospel of Peace. Robert
is one of my best friends. We traveled memorably
together to El Salvador for Romero's beatification.
So, Robert Ellsberg, welcome to the Nonviolent
Jesus podcast. Thank you so much, Sean. I'm really
honored to be here in the company of so many
of the people you've interviewed in this podcast.
Robert, I have no idea where to begin to ask,
because as you look at this massive new book
that you've just written, It's overwhelming.
And this isn't even your first one. You know,
if you start with All Saints, it's overwhelming.
But let's start there, which a book which was
a huge bestseller. And now this is my impression,
but many thousands agree. It seems that overnight,
that historic book, I think in the late 1990s,
became a bestseller. And after hundreds of years,
really and truly, put Saints back on the map.
back in the center of the culture in the church.
Then you started writing daily profiles of saints
for the little monthly pamphlet, Give Us This
Day, which were first collected into Blessed
Among Us Volume 1. And now you've published a
second mass of Volume 2, Blessed Among Us, with
all the latest little segments about the saints.
that are in Give Us This Day. But my take has
always been, and I've said this many times, you
have gone farther than the famous butler himself
who did the four -volume Lives of the Saints.
Anybody in a religious order, you know, when
I entered the Jesuits 400 years ago, they were
there on the shelves collecting dust for like
300 years. But now you've gone way beyond them.
So tell me, how did you get interested in the
saints and writing a massive volume, All Saints,
and now two more volumes? Well, since you talk
about the influence and impact of All Saints,
maybe I'll begin there a little bit. Because
when I wrote that book, it really came out of
my own heart and my life and my kind of experience.
But I really had no idea whether anyone else
would be interested in it at all. And so I really
was. almost surprised by the response, which
was very, very strong, very positive, whether
it brought in a whole new era and appreciation
for the saints, I don't know. But I think it
is true that a lot of people raised on the kind
of traditional stories of the saints. Even if
you read in Butler's Lives, they're mostly from
hundreds of years ago, or if not longer, and
they tend to be, even though they're very well
written, kind of stereotypical. And they kind
of present this person as, okay, this is what
a saint is. And you don't necessarily know how
that relates to you because you're not like the
founder of a religious order or a martyr or a
bishop or something like that. And so a couple
of things were different about mine. One, first
of all, my selection was kind of guided not by
starting kind of deductively with here's the
saints and here's why you should be interested
in them. but more kind of raising questions about
what is the kind of spiritual need of our time,
which might be different from, you know, 500
years ago. And who are the kinds of people who
relate to that or respond to that? Some of them
might be, many of them, official canonized saints,
even doctors of the church and going all the
way back to the first centuries. But I thought
there were many people of our own time. So on
the one hand, I wanted to... kind of bring a
different way of looking at the saints to show
them as human beings who responded in their own
time to the kind of questions and challenges
that they encountered. Many of them had to kind
of invent a new vocation or a new way of following
Christ because the available options of their
times didn't really satisfy them. That's especially
the case for women who were always kind of transcending.
the given boundaries and kind of being trailblazers.
But the other thing I wanted to do was to expand
people's kind of conception of holiness itself,
because to not just identify saints with those
who've been canonized, which after all are just
the kind of tip of the iceberg. The Feast of
All Saints on November 1st remembers all of the
holy people whose holiness may be known only
to God alone or to their... to their family or
their neighbors. And certainly they don't have
a religious order who has the resources to press
for their canonization. So the canonized saints
are not the total of the saints. Those are just
very specific, exceptional people that the church
has, through a very complicated process, selected
and held up as reliable kind of models of Christian
discipleship. But I wanted to raise the question,
aren't there all kinds of other ways? that people
who are not candidates for canonization have
in their own way lived lives of the Beatitudes,
whether they're poverty of spirit or those who
are merciful, those who mourn, peacemakers, etc.
But that includes also kind of visionaries of
different kinds, mystics, artists, writers, poets.
Now, where did that come from for me? Well, I
was not raised in the Catholic Church. I was
raised in the Episcopal Church. I didn't really
know very much about saints. But I was always
fascinated by heroic moral witnesses. And I think
the first saint that I really knew about was
St. Francis. And I came across the little flowers
of St. Francis. And it was the first time I had
this idea that, oh, wow, being a saint is like
somebody who reminds you of Jesus or somebody
who really tries to follow the path of Jesus.
And even at that time during the Vietnam War,
I saw that. And many people all around me, I
was inspired by Gandhi and his followers. I was
inspired by Martin Luther King and people in
the civil rights movement. I was inspired by
young men who were going to prison for refusing
to cooperate with the draft during the Vietnam
War. That actually led me to leave college and
go to the Catholic Worker. We'll talk about that
maybe, where I worked with Dorothy Day for the
last years of her life. I wasn't drawn by her
Catholicism, which I didn't really know that
much about. But more because she seemed to me
like a modern follower of Gandhi. Eventually,
I did become a Catholic. And one of the things
that really influenced me was learning about
saints. And Dorothy Day had tremendous commitment
and devotion to saints. But not just as people
on a pedestal and not just sort of heavenly patrons,
but people who were models of inspiration. And
then she didn't just stop with them because she
had her own cloud of witnesses that did include.
uh, civil rights and labor, uh, you know, leaders
and martyrs, uh, writers, philosophers, uh, and,
uh, and, and, and more obscure, humble people
that people might not even know about. And so
that was really kind of what inspired this idea
that I had of doing a book that would, it was
sort of be like Dorothy day's conception of,
of, of a book of saints, you know, and not pretending
that they're all canonized or could be canonized.
A lot of them have been, even since I did that
book. but they included people I knew and people
who had really inspired me. And so it was easy
for me to write about those stories because they
were people in my own life who had a tremendous
influence on me. So it was then years later,
I thought maybe I was done with it then, until
liturgical press approached me and asked me if
I would contribute something in that same spirit
to their new journal, Give Us the Stay, which
comes out every month. And so I had a two -year
contract to do that, just writing one of these
entries, Blessed Among Us, for every day of the
year. And now it's 14 years later, I'm still
doing it, and I've written about 1 ,400 of them.
And those are the stories that make up these
two volumes, Blessed Among Us and the new volume
two that's just come out. Thank you, Robert.
So, you know, it was so shocking when All Saints
First came out in the late 90s, because almost
overnight, You're saying all these beautiful,
great people of all different races and varieties,
they're all clearly saints. So in your book,
you might have St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,
St. Benedict, and then there's Rosa Parks. And
you go, of course, of course. Or, you know, Steve
Biko and Archbishop Tutu and John Lewis, along
with Merton and Dorothy. Romero and Dr. King.
I wondered, before we get into your new book,
if you could say a word about holiness, because
it's so interesting that you're talking about
that. I know it's almost a silly question to
say, but what are the qualifications of a saint
or holiness? And, you know, you put it so simply,
like, oh, someone who looks like Jesus or follows
Jesus. No, that's really helpful, really, in
the end. It's not a self -righteous thing, that's
for sure. And also, Robert, I wonder if you could
say something. Just forgive me, but here I invoke
your beloved father, Daniel Ellsberg. In an age
where we're on the brink of nuclear destruction,
catastrophic climate change, global poverty,
and permanent warfare, I think holiness is dangerous.
It's a threat to the culture of violence and
war. Jesus was killed by the empire. And, you
know, so I see Dorothy Day and the Berrigans,
our friends, as a threat to the culture of war.
I wonder if you might reflect a little bit about
that too. Well, you know, I think there's something
to that. There are obviously saints and there's
models of holiness that don't necessarily challenge
the system. But I think then there are also kind
of, you know, the mystics and there are... you
know, let's say like the women, the beguines
of the Middle Ages who kind of charted this independent
model of religious life, not in an enclosure,
not really under the supervision of a bishop
or that sort of thing. And they were very threatening
to the church of their time and were really mercilessly
persecuted. So there are those kind of examples
of people who are not necessarily social or political
radicals, but just by... are kind of trying to
live in simplicity, live in a spirit of peace
and nonviolence, live in a spirit of recognizing
Christ and their neighbors, that that does, you
know, deeply challenge, you know, the values
of a, you know, mercantile or capitalist kind
of system or the power of the state or the claims
of an idolatrous totalitarian state because it's
people who are standing up or affirming some
idea of truth that is beyond the power of those
in charge. And that goes all the way back to
Herod and the Gospels and Caesar. So, yeah, I
think there's something to that. On the other
hand, I don't want to say that they're all just
sort of troublemakers. A lot of the people that
I include are people who... give us access to
some kind of sense of beauty or truth or goodness
that doesn't just challenge the system, but inspires
us to want to be more like that. And I think
that that is one of the characteristics or qualities
that I'm trying to communicate. I think that
we are shaped very much by what attracts us.
what we love, what we pay attention to. And so
it makes a great deal of difference what we pay
attention to. And most of the kind of examples
or the people who are in the news all the time
are not really very attractive or admirable people.
In fact, sometimes they're people who represent
the worst human qualities. And so to call attention
to these kind of people who walk among us, you
know, and show us a different kind of way and
call us to a better path. Not all of them Catholic,
not all of them Christian. That's also one of
the kind of subversive things maybe that I did
in the book. But by not calling it just saints,
you know, by saying saints, prophets, and witnesses
for our time, I think that I, you know, point
to this idea that we can be inspired on our path
by people who don't necessarily share the same
doctrines that we do. but also this idea that
all who kind of pursue truth, all these different
ways converge, the kind of separations, boundaries
that we draw in this life, this world, don't
exist in heaven. Oh, thank you. Well, I'm speaking
with Robert Ellsberg about his big new book,
Blessed Among Us, Volume 2, Day by Day with Saintly
Witnesses. If you haven't got it, I highly recommend
it. Get the first big book called All Saints.
Then the first volume, Blessed Among Us, Volume
1, this new one, beautiful cover with icons.
It's almost 800 pages. It's also a great book,
all three of them, really, to give out as gifts.
Robert, there are way too many historic saints
and figures in this book. To talk about. The
thing that struck me first when I got my copy
was such an antidote to the bad news that we
read about every day or the people who are hurting
people that we read about. And I could read through
the list of table of contents and it would be
so astonishing. But I sort of think, you know,
this is to make you laugh, but I dare not say
it, but it's too late. It's sort of like the
opposite of People Magazine, you know, which
is the culture. Here, look at all these people.
They made it in the world. This is the people
who made it in heaven. And these are ones we
aspire to. And these are books to have by your
bed for the rest of your life because you just
feel better reading about them. Wow, that guy
did that. She did that. I can do what I'm doing.
Now, here are the ones as I kind of glimpse through
it. that I just thought to mention to give folks
a flavor. And I'm going to ask you to tell me
about which the ones that inspire you. But here
are some names, just random names I picked to
show people. Albert Camus, Rachel Carson, Ben
Salmon, who's the historic figure against World
War I on the grounds of the nonviolence of Jesus.
Diana Ortiz, our great friend, Jane Adams, Richard
McSorley, my friend, Leo Tolstoy, Eddie Hillison,
Gene Donovan, your beloved friend, Wendy Beckett,
Danilo Dolci, who's my great friend, the kind
of Gandhi of Italy. I knew, I think, 25 of them,
and I know you did too. So tell me about a few
of the saints in this new collection who inspire
you personally, especially in this terrible time.
that we're all going through. One of the things
about the second volume, and probably why you
know a lot of these people, is because in the
second volume, these are a lot of people I've
written about just in the last, you know, whatever
it is, seven or eight years or something. So
a lot of people who died in that period. So that
includes a lot of people that we know, including
some of my authors. And, you know, not just the...
founders of religious orders and that sort of
thing. So there's quite a lot. A lot of them
I know were people that you were very close to,
Tutu and Desmond Tutu, excuse me, James Lawson
and John Lewis and people like that, that I admired
from afar but never had a chance to meet. And
then there are people who, you know, did intersect
with my life in years too, like Thich Nhat Hanh
or my very good friend Jim Forrest. a great peacemaker,
Catholic worker, one of my authors of many books
on peace and nonviolence. I know you were very
close to Paul Farmer, and I published him and
got to know him. Just one of the remarkable people
we've ever met, probably. Total genius, who had
this fantastic education, but which he used entirely.
to bring healing and health to the poor, the
poorest to the poor, and to say, you know, to
step out and talk about a kind of a challenge.
This idea that we have, there's so much debate
about health care and insurance now, but this
idea that we have here that health care is a
business, you know, and that there's money involved
and whether you can afford it and all that kind
of stuff. This idea that health care should be...
a human right, you know? And the way that he
poured himself out like that is just remarkable.
Or Mr. Rogers, you know, Fred Rogers. Now, there's
somebody, again, you look at somebody who is
a subversive figure, you could say, in the sense
that he just embodied this gentleness and said
that instead of cartoons with, you know, characters
hitting each other over the head with frying
pans and stuff, what if you... expose children
to kindness and gentleness and help them deal
with their feelings and to be friends with people
who are different from them and all that kind
of thing. And that was for him consciously a
ministry because he had gone to seminary and
studied ministry and discovered in children's
television that that would be his ministry. I
was able, some of these people just at the last
minute, who died as we were finishing the book,
and I dedicated the book to Pope Francis, he
inspired me in just more ways than I can say.
I think he was one of the, you know, it was A
.P. Correa, the Jesuit martyr in El Salvador,
said that in Romero, Christ passed through El
Salvador. I really felt that was what we experienced
with Pope Francis. That he brought the gospel
to life in a new way through showing that a church
leader is not just concerned with orthodoxy and
doctrine, but with mercy and with concern for
the poorest and for peace and for refugees and
just his human qualities and his openness. I
probably influenced me more than anybody in this
whole list, and I dedicated a book to him. And
another person I added just at the very end,
and sometimes these people, if they're not really
obvious, I have to get permission from liturgical,
but I said, I'd really like to write about Alexei
Navalny, who was the Russian dissident who died
in Siberian prison camp. Now, here's a guy. And
it was only when I read his journals that were
published after his death and he wrote from prison
that I realized that he was really a person of
faith. And in fact, he said that it's very different
to go through this kind of ordeal if you're a
believer, if you believe that Christ is with
you. But here's a guy who was a reformer, but
he took on corruption in the state. And he posed
a tremendous threat to the Putin regime, the
oligarchy there. And they persecuted him all
kinds of ways. And then they tried to kill him.
They poisoned him. And he wasn't supposed to
live, but he survived. And he was in exile and
was treated in a hospital. And as soon as he
was well enough, he went back to Russia, knowing
that he said that he would be arrested. And when
he was, as soon as he landed at the airport,
he said, I know that this will be a life sentence,
either my life or the lifespan of the regime.
And he said in his journal, something I think
is so relevant today, he said that there are
lots of brave people, or lots of good people,
but that doesn't threaten the system as much
as people who... are afraid, but that they don't
give up. And I think that was, just by offering
his life in that way and dying, I think he was
a real witness for murder. So that was added
right at the end. I'm so glad you included him,
and I'm so moved you bring up Paul Farmer and
Fred Rogers, both my friends. Pope Francis, who
I think is the greatest pope in history, the
most prophetic one. I don't know if you know,
but Alexei wrote from prison a private letter
smuggled out to my friend Kerry Kennedy saying
that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. His whole life was because
of Bobby Kennedy being killed. And he decided
to, as a person of faith, to give his life. consciously
like that. And then they wrote regularly until
he was killed. And it's very moving. I've got
you. Bobby Kennedy is also in my book. And you
know our very good friend Jim Douglas has just
published this book on the assassinations, the
martyrdom of JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King,
and Bobby Kennedy. Everybody's got to get that
book. When I was interviewing him recently, I
said, you know, one of the things that's so striking
is that is that all of these people knew that
they were on a path that was going to lead to
death. And they didn't give up. They went ahead
anyway. And so, you know, all remarkable stories.
And that gets into, it's not just martyrs, it's
witnessing. Gospel witnesses or visionaries.
Well, I've got you here, so I want to ask you
about Dorothy Day, your great mentor and friend
and teacher whom you've been writing about and
keeping alive for over 45 years. And I know it's
a big question, but can you just share a few
insights with us in the brief time we have, or
a memory or two about Dorothy for me, and maybe
share a word about... the ongoing process of
her impending canonization. And my thought, by
the way, Robert, I woke up last week, I don't
think I told you, but was, she's got to become
a doctor of the church. She's way beyond being
a saint. It's true. She's Teresa of Avila and
Catherine of Siena. She's St. Francis and Gandhi
combined. One step at a time. Okay. I do think
that, you know, Apart from the things that I
kind of learned from Dorothy about the saints
and that sort of thing. Yeah, I really, you know,
I got to know her when I was very young. 50 years
ago that I met her, actually, in 1975. Knowing
how much that was going to determine the whole
course of my life. I've edited six volumes of
her writings now. And I have to say that with
each of those books that I've edited, I've gotten
to know her better. And I think a real... The
important step along that way for me was the
opportunity to edit her diaries. Because, you
know, even in my case, one tends to think of
Dorothy Day or other great saints in terms of
these big public things that they did, whether
starting a religious order, the Catholic worker
in her case, or house of hospitality, or being
arrested with the farm workers, or going to jail
for, you know. protesting civil defense drills.
And we sort of focus on those things as if that
is what represents the kind of apex of their
witness or their holiness. And when I read her
diaries, I realized that all of that was rooted
in the practice of her kind of very disciplined
spiritual life. And by that, I don't mean just
that she went to daily mass and read the Bible
every day and said the rosary. recited the office.
She was a Benedictine oblate, went on pilgrimages,
and all those kinds of devotions. But I mean
the effort to practice charity, forgiveness,
patience in her everyday life. And we think,
well, it came easy for her, just as people say,
oh, Mother Teresa could do those things. I could
never do this. She's a saint. And what you see
in her diaries is how much that was contrary
to her nature. She was very temperamental. She
was very judgmental. She was kind of quick to
anger. She could hold grudges, all those things.
And you see that every day she's going through
this examination of conscience and looking at
the encounters that she had with people, just
the very ordinary tasks of her life, and how
she tried to practice the presence of God, and
how she tried to practice what she learned from
Therese of Lisieux, doctor of the church. the
little way, a kind of path to holiness that lies
in kind of performing all our everyday actions
with an awareness and love of God. Now, what
Dorothy did, though, was she took that also into
a social dimension because it also led her to
believe in the power of small gestures, small
protests, the words that we say, the words that
we don't say, all of them for positive or good.
or negative that can affect the world around
us in ways that we have no way of seeing. And
I really did see how her practice of these things
in just small everyday ways kind of prepared
her for the heroic things she did on the more
public stage. So that is one of the things that
I've most come to appreciate. As for the question
of holiness, I also see that Even as a young
person, when Dorothy first learned about saints,
she said that she admired the way that they served
the poor and the sick. But she said, where were
the saints to change the social order? Not just
to minister to the slaves, but to do away with
slavery. And that's where she takes this great
big leap. What other saint ever said that? And
who tried to live there, you know? And yes, she
performed the works of mercy and she lived in
voluntary poverty with the poor, but she was
also trying to change the social order. And not
just through protesting, but also by offering
a kind of critique and offering a model of an
alternative way of being and alternative values
for our society and trying to live them in the
present. That's so beautiful. Thank you, Robert.
Like your father, Daniel Ellsberg, you've followed
close to daily events marking the collapse of
our democracy and nation and world and spoken
out vigorously for justice of the poor and been
arrested for nuclear disarmament and doing this
and writing books as well as editing and running
Orbis books, publishing all these great things.
So as you study... the lives of the saints and
our great theologians and voices for justice
and peace. In light of this growing fascism and
authoritarianism and white supremacy and climate
change, what reflections or suggestions do you
have from us, from your perspective, as we go
forward in this new year? I guess to become saints
ourselves, to try to be people who... reflect
the life of Jesus in this world? Well, I think
I was very influenced by my father and his example.
I think that he is one of the people who kind
of pointed me in the direction of really being
interested in people who provide a moral witness,
my witnessing up close when I was growing up,
you know, the story of the Pentagon Papers. willingness
to go to prison for the cause of peace. And I've
never been the activist that he was or the single
-minded kind of focus on the perils of nuclear
weapons and all that kind of thing that he devoted
himself to. He did not call himself a person
of faith, but he did call himself a person of
hope. And he said, that's not just optimism that
things are going to turn out all right. It's
a commitment to live hopefully, that is to say,
live in such a way. that there is a possibility
of change in the world. No guarantees, no certainties.
But he said the consequences, the risks are so
great that it justifies whatever happens if we
put into that. And he was very pessimistic, really,
about the fate of the Earth, whether through
nuclear war or climate change. The odds, he said,
of our survival are very low. But he said that
low odds... are not, no odds. And his own experience
showed him that you can never really know what
the effect or implications of your actions might
be. For example, the big turning point in his
life was hearing a young man give a speech where
he said he was about to go to prison for resisting
the draft. And that hit my father like a blow,
and it made him think, what could I do? if I
were willing to go to prison. That's what led
him to release the Pentagon Papers, risk going
to prison for the rest of his life. And his own
actions in doing that had kind of unexpected,
indirect kind of consequences that he could not
possibly have foreseen because of Nixon commissioning
the plumbers to go after him and try to destroy
him. Howard Watergate, that actually ended up
bringing Nixon down and it helped end the war.
So you can see how these actions of one person
might be as simple as standing on a street corner
with a sign. All these things that make people
stop and think, because the system, as you kind
of referred to it, tries to make people think
that there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing's
going to change. You're powerless. And if it
starts with just a few people showing that that's
not true. It alerts people to the fact that there's
another way of being. It is possible to do that.
And more people perhaps join in. And it kind
of shatters this illusion of unanimity or inevitability
or immutability in the systems of the world.
So, you know, my dad said it would take a miracle
for us to survive. But he said that we've witnessed
miracles. We don't call them that. But what do
you call the peaceful collapse of the Berlin
Wall? the fall of apartheid, all these kinds
of things that seemed impossible until they happened.
So he liked to say that courage is contagious,
that one light can light another. And that makes
it a good way to use your life, as all these
saints did in one way or another, kind of showing
through their own example. But there's another
way of being. You look at the lives of the saints.
You look at someone like St. Francis, who had
this kind of epiphany, and he adopts poverty,
and he gives up all of his wealth and his fancy
clothes and everything, goes about helping the
poor, the lepers. And he did that with such a
kind of spirit of joy that he attracted, not
to scorn, but wonder. And all these other young
men, wealthy young men, in Assisi begin. giving
up all their wealth and going to follow him.
And it began to be like a brush fire that swept
through Europe, this kind of Franciscan fever.
And if you can imagine what it would take for
a kind of fever of nonviolence, a fever of hope,
a fever of peace, a pandemic of goodness to just
kind of spread. And that's what we're called
to be in our own little small way, not to measure
the consequences or the extent of that. but to
wherever we are in our own little place, among
our neighbors, in our own little moment in history,
to do what we can to provide that light. Wow,
that is so beautiful. Maybe that's a good way
to end with a beautiful encouragement that we're
called to be that too and to live hopefully like
your father and spread the contagion of peace,
love, and nonviolence. Thank you so much, Robert
Ellsberg, for speaking with me today, and I hope
you'll come again. Talk with me again someday.
Thank you, friends, for listening to the Nonviolent
Jesus Podcast. You can hear more podcasts and
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