Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'd like to
reflect with you about my new book, Universal
Love, Surrendering to the God of Peace, which
just came out from Orbis Books. This is... the
first episode of two podcasts, which are a project
of BeatitudesCenter .org, where you can find
about many other podcasts and Zoom programs on
the nonviolence of Jesus and practicing nonviolence
and working for a more just, more nonviolent
world. So let's begin with a little prayer. So
I invite you, wherever you are, just to take
a deep breath and to relax and to recenter yourself.
And together, let's enter into the presence of
the God of peace who loves you infinitely and
personally and everyone everywhere. And we welcome
the risen nonviolent Jesus here with us. Just
take a moment to ask for whatever graces you
need to follow the nonviolent Jesus more faithfully
and 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 on
your call to follow the nonviolent Jesus, to
surrender our hearts and our lives and our will
to you, and to work for a more nonviolent, more
just world. Bless us, inspire us, disarm us,
strengthen us, and send us out to do only your
will. to welcome your reign of peace and love,
to do our part then in your will to help end
poverty, racism, greed, injustice, fascism, war,
nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction,
that we might be your holy peacemakers and welcome
your reign of universal love and peace on earth.
In Jesus' name, amen. So thank you all for joining
me. As I said, this is part one of a two -part
podcast on my new book called Universal Love,
Surrendering to the God of Peace, which is just
out from Orbis Books. I want to talk a little
bit first about how the book happened, and then
I'll go through some of the themes of the book.
It came about at the beginning of the pandemic
when I had just moved to California. And I'm
living here as a priest in residence in the Diocese
of Monterey. And I was living alone in a cabin
with a black and white cat on a thousand acre
ranch right on the Pacific Ocean, just south
of Big Sur, California. It was spectacular. And
I had to bring in water and wood for the stove
and was writing. And I just published a collection
of meditations on the Psalms called... Praise
Be Peace, Psalms of Peace and Nonviolence in
a Time of War and Climate Change, which I hope
everyone will get. And I was about to go on a
30 -city book tour when the pandemic struck,
and everything was canceled within an hour. So
I decided to try to use the time for more prayer,
reflection, and long walks along the coast. Like
everybody, I didn't know how long this was going
to last. And I threw myself into writing what
became my life's work. My last book called The
Gospel of Peace, a commentary on Matthew, Mark,
and Luke from the perspective of nonviolence,
which is a mammoth study of the synoptic gospels,
line by line, as if Gandhi and Dr. King were
pointing out each instance of Jesus's spectacular
nonviolence. I also decided to join the local
gym and take exercising classes. And so the pandemic
is underway. And one day, the young kid who was
the class instructor, I call him Will in the
book, came up to me and asked me, he had looked
me up on the internet, if I would be his spiritual
director. Now, I've been a spiritual director
for many, many people throughout my life, nonstop
since 1983, when I first took a course in spiritual
direction. I've never not been a spiritual director,
actually, when I think about it. And I've had
my own spiritual director since 1980. And I came
to the conclusion over time that a spiritual
director is someone you meet with about once
a month to discuss the presence of God in your
life and how God might be trying to guide you.
So it's not a therapist or a counselor. I think
it's like having a spiritual coach. who keeps
asking you, where is God in your life? What is
God saying to you? And as you slowly begin to
hear the question and answer the question, the
director, me, I point out how the person is evading
and resisting God. We don't even realize how
we do it. And then I, the coach, urge the person
to go back to God and be with God and do God's
will. And actually, after that kind of conversation,
you feel really excited and you want to go back
to God. So in other words, a spiritual director
for me is someone who tries to get you into spiritual
shape. And that's how I started talking with
young Will. And we were having these conversations
and he tells me he wanted to be a journalist
in college and he liked to write and we were
in lockdown and we were becoming friends and
everything is closed. We started to do timed
writing sessions along the lines of my friend
Natalie Goldberg and her book, Writing Down the
Bones, in conjunction with our spiritual conversations.
And we would do this regularly at the few coffee
shops that were open. Well, I didn't know any
of this, but between our conversations, our writing
practice, my intense study of nonviolence in
the Gospels, and the solitude of lockdown cabin
life, I began to feel drawn. deeper into a new
understanding of the spiritual life as total
surrender to the God of peace. And that's what
my new book is about. So the book is in three
parts. The first part is on... You know, the
first basic themes of meditation, living in relationship
with God, surrendering to God, letting go of
control, and trying, learning, begging to do
only God's will, not our will. And then Archbishop
Tutu's great lesson to me about free will. The
second part of the book is about the connection
between surrendering ourselves to God and living
nonviolence. So how, if you're surrendering to
God, that means you're practicing to be more
nonviolent every single day for the rest of our
lives. The third part, which I thought was the
point of the book, which I think is original,
is that there are social and political implications
of surrendering our lives to God and doing God's
will. And that's what this mystics don't say.
In other words, that doing God's will leads to
selfless service toward humanity. And in a world
of, let's say, nuclear weapons and catastrophic
climate change and permanent warfare and extreme
poverty, it leads to full -time nonviolent resistance
to systemic violence, injustice, and fascism.
So that we become, as Pope Leo said a few months
ago, like Jesus, quote, unarmed and disarming,
which is a beautiful phrase. So all the meditations
in the book are actually based on real conversations
between me and Will. So it's an unusual book.
It's very conversational. And it begins like
this. We sit down to talk and I say, okay, Will,
so you believe in God? And he goes, no. Oh, okay,
I say. Well, what do you believe in? And only
later did I realize that was really helpful.
And he started talking about, I believe in truth.
I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I
said, well, I do too. That works for me. But
he didn't want to use the word God, which was
fine with me because I get it, especially for
young people. But he wants to learn how to meditate,
he said, because he took a class in college on
world religions with this brilliant professor.
And he realized that meditation was a key part
of the... life of the greatest people who ever
lived. So he wants to practice meditation as
part of his life. So I say to him, okay, great.
Well, if you want to enter into the spiritual
life and learn about meditation, here's what
you do. I want you, this is what I said to him,
I think in the first meeting, I want you to go
and spend 30 minutes in silence every day. and
ask God to be with you. Now, he had said he didn't
want me to use the word God. So I said, well,
how about we call God universal love? He said,
oh, that's good. Okay. So go and ask universal
love to be with you and speak to you. That's
what I do. And I was saying to him, in other
words, instead of talking about God or universal
love or the spiritual life, or you're going to
have a spiritual experience. Go and be with universal
love and then report back to me. So he said,
okay, I'll do that. A week later, he comes over
to visit and he says to me, he'd been sitting
in silent meditation for 30 minutes every day
and focusing on his breath so that he had learned
to become very still and he's breathing consciously
and he's saying, as I had taught him, Okay, universal
love, if you would like to say anything, I'm
here to listen. I want to be open to you. And
one day he's overwhelmed with a sense of infinite,
unconditional love, which brings peace and joy
that he had never known before. And he felt he
was in the presence of universal love, capitalized,
and that he was infinitely loved. And he starts
telling me this, and he burst into tears, sobbing.
Well, it's not something I'd ever heard before,
you know, God as universal love. And he says,
I've been told I was created to be an extension
of universal love. And I was acting like the
wise spiritual guru and said, very good. But
inside I was going, wow. An extension of universal
love. So that's what set off years of our conversations.
And with the writing practice, I started writing
about these themes, not knowing I was writing
a book. So we talked about this question, which
I invite, of course, all of this is to invite
all of us to think of. How we might all become
extensions of universal love. And I think that
means starting our day in... quiet meditation
to open our hearts and minds and spirits to the
God who is universal love, universal compassion,
universal peace, the God who dwells within us
and works within us. And this is the daily practice
that I propose we begin to live out, that we
might become universal love more and more in
thought, word, and deed. And that over time,
if we can consciously center ourselves in God's
universal love and peace, well, we will grow
in empathy and compassion for every human being,
for all creation. And so the journey is a journey
of nonviolence and compassion, which is deeply
rooted in the universal love of God. Life becomes
an adventure in universal love, compassion, and
peace. And all of this is a way to talk about
the life of nonviolence that Gandhi and King
calls us to. So that's where I get through in
the book. And I'd like to walk through a few
themes with you, which is what I did with Young
Will, beginning with meditation. So if we begin
each day in quiet meditation with universal love,
I was saying to him, and this is what I've tried
to do for 50 years now, then we can return to
that experience of unconditional love and be
filled with God's love. throughout our day and
we can enjoy it and we get to know God who actually
loves us and likes us and sit with that God and
give our days to God and over time give our lives
to God. And that love, that relationship becomes
our lives, our ordinary day -to -day, the place
where we live and move and have our being that
our days flow out of. And over time, and I think
this is really important, in this spiritual practice,
which I hope everybody knows. I'm not saying
anything really new here. We let go of our false
images of God as a punitive, vindictive, punishing
deity who's eager to throw all of us into hell,
or at least, let's hope, some of them. Them.
And instead, to our surprise, we meet the living
God, universal love, who loves us and everyone
unconditionally. who's actually interested in
us, who likes us and likes being with us. This
is very, very different. We can barely grasp
what this living God is like. So we begin to
move beyond our childish image of God, what my
friend Greg Boyle calls our puny God, into the
mystery of God as... Capital letters, universal
love, universal compassion, universal peace.
And daily meditation, dwelling with consciously,
fully awake, universal love can open up a space
for us, you know, to live our day. And that's
why I was trying to teach young Will that we
need to have a formal check -in time with this
God every single day. That's what I'm trying
to get at. That's what I was trying to teach
him. You can't just do this once in a while.
You need to have, if it's a relationship with
universal love, you need to check in every day
with this most important relationship in your
life. So one day, Will comes to me and says,
wow, whenever I meditate in the morning, my whole
day feels better. But then I noticed when I forget
to meditate, I'm not myself. And if something
goes wrong or someone says something hurtful
to me or I don't like, I'm suddenly ready to
snap back at that person. But when I meditate
in the morning, I'm pretty much more present
and more centered and a little more thoughtful
during the rest of the day. And so I'm less ready
to snap at someone and I'm more present and more
mindful and more compassionate. And I said, well,
I think that's how the spiritual life works and
how the way of peace works and maybe the path
to becoming an extension of universal love. So
the key here is entering and living in an intimate
relationship with God as you understand God,
in your case, as universal love. And once we
understand that we are in a relationship with
God that will never end. go ever deeper into
intimacy with universal love, then this is not
a chore or a duty or an obligation. We enjoy
meditation. That's one thing that I heard Thich
Nhat Hanh tell me a lot. And he lamented that
people didn't understand how enjoyable it was
to sit down in meditation. It becomes the one
place where we're truly safe and secure, where
we can be free and whole. I mean, we just are
full of gratitude for all our blessings. We feel
renewed and empowered to go forward with energy
and hope in this spirit of universal love out
into the public, into the world, into the mess.
This has been my experience in the best and the
worst of times for my whole life. And I think
gradually... This is something that I've been
talking about with Will for six years now. We
learn not to seek the feelings of bliss, you
know, the feeling of being loved. We don't need
that anymore. But we're becoming mature human
beings in relationship with God. We enjoy just
sitting with God and trusting that we're with
God. We become accustomed. to dwelling together
in peace, in the intimate silence with universal
love. Now, the key to all of this, I was learning,
I told Will. And I've been learning the hard
way all my life. It's total surrender to God.
And that's what this book is about. And it was
never my intention to write a book like this,
but I'm going to get to the point of why I did.
I blame it all on Archbishop Desmond Tutu. God
never coerces us, but gives each, every human
being on the planet, whoever lived, complete
free will. This is just where God is God. God
allows us to make our own choices. And because
God is totally nonviolent and infinitely loving,
this is really important, God cannot force us
to love God or do what God wants. That's the
whole ballgame in that sentence right there.
Finally, it took Desmond Tutu to really get that
through my thick skull. God gives us freedom
to choose God's will or not. And so we all run
away and do what we want and reject God's will.
And we've grown so used to being in control of
our own lives and the day -to -day and doing
what we want that our limited selfish self -wills
end up ruining our lives. We think we know better
than God. That's because we're just so afraid,
of course. Our self -will serves only our ego,
our pride, our honor. It wants comfort, pleasure,
riches, and power. This is all about power. Even
though none of these things bring lasting peace
or happiness or serve God, much less open us
into the universal love of God. So the more we
want for ourselves, the more we're going to struggle
every day to gain control and get what we want.
And we can't get it. So we keep trying to get
it. And it's going to cause us a lot of pain
and suffering. And then we're going to leave
a trail of wreckage. And then we end up as a
human race on the brink of nuclear destruction,
catastrophic climate change, permanent warfare,
devastating poverty. So, this is how I see it.
Our will, self -will, human will always obsesses
over itself and can't give any other room to
others and certainly not God. So, what Tutu was
trying to show me, I went to him to talk about
peace and justice, and he's saying we deliberately,
consciously turn away from God. especially people
who think they're living godly lives. And in
doing so, we sever our ties to universal love
and peace. Our problems, difficulties, and crises
arise because of our own selfish self -will.
And then we blame God and we resent God, like
a kindergartner, for not being there for us when
we were trying to do our will. Even though we
long ago were the ones who rejected God and are
not there for God. And of course we resent anyone
who does seem to do God's will and invite us
to a more godly, spiritual, peaceful life of
universal love and nonviolence. And so we keep
falling downward. more and more and deeper into
the darkness of our own selfishness and inner
violence. And our selfishness, self -will leads
us to reject the loving and wise will of God.
And we really enter into a peacelessness, which
leads to violence, which is just death. We're
talking about death as a social methodology,
as Dan always said it to me. So here's my thesis.
The secret to the life of peace, the life of
God, the life of universal love is to renounce
our self -will and surrender our self -will completely
and all our lives entirely to the God of universal
love and peace. Every moment, every day from
now on. That's what I talked about with Young
Will, and that's what I tried to write about
in the book as I was studying the Gospels and
thinking about this conversation I had with Tutu.
If we want to be extensions of universal love,
I suggest we have to surrender our will over
and over to universal love. And we have to allow
ourselves to be transformed into extensions of
universal love. so that our lives are no longer
our own. We belong completely to God. Our day
-to -day is run by God. And now we want only
to do God's will, which is universal love, universal
compassion, universal peace, which Gandhi and
King insist, and so does Jesus, means. Universal
nonviolence, total nonviolence. It's all so clear
to me now. Some people fight God their whole
lives and never know peace and never surrender
until their last breath. And they live in misery
because they're never satisfied, never peaceful,
never present, always trying to be in control
and doing a lot of harm, hurting everyone in
their path and unconsciously leaving a trail
of wreckage. And everybody becomes... victim
of their peacelessness. And I think that's one
way to, I mean, the old days, they called that
original sin. We all do this to varying degrees.
But the gospel invites us to total surrender
of ourselves to God of universal love and peace,
to let God's universal love and peace flow through
us freely, and in the process to do only God's
will every day. And what's so strange is that
apparently, oddly enough, we become much happier
and peaceful and kind of helpful to others. That's
a great mystery. You'd think, hey, if God only
did things my way, I'd be a lot, you know, we'd
all be happier. No, when we do things God's ways.
Each one of us is much happier, and everybody's
happier and more peaceful, and the world would
be so much better. Our ongoing surrender to God
allows God to enter us, take over our lives,
solve our problems, heal our relationships, and
then use us to serve humanity and creation. This
was always God's plan to use us, if we're willing,
to draw us and everyone into God's universal
love and universal peace, and through us to spread
God's universal love and peace far and wide.
and wide. Now, sooner or later, whether it's
today or our last day, our last hour, we will
discover the freedom and peace of total surrender
to God. This is what I was telling young Will.
And I said, we'll wish we had done it long ago.
And that's what I was encouraging him to do.
The sooner we surrender everything to God, the
better everything will be starting within us
and around us. And that's how I encouraged him
to practice his spiritual day -to -day living
so that he would live his way into being an extension
of universal love. Now, when I look at the nonviolent
Jesus, which is what I was studying when I was
writing this, I see that he surrendered. every
moment of his life to God over and over again.
He could walk into the world and proclaim God's
reign of universal love, peace, and nonviolence
come what may, because he was totally surrendered
to God. And he's showing us what living in God
looks like through this steadfast universal love,
compassion, and peace. Even then, turning to
Jerusalem and marching into the temple where
he confronts the religious authorities who are
working with the empire to rob all the poor people
of their money in the name of God, and they arrest
him and execute him. And he goes to his death,
total nonviolence. He is the fullest extension
of universal love and peace and nonviolence.
So there are these teachings I was discovering
as I was going through the Gospels line by line.
Anyone who does the will of God is my mother,
my brother, and my sister. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
he's about to be arrested. And what's his prayer?
His one single prayer. Not my will, your will
be done. Not my will, your will be done. Not
my will, your will be done. And that's at the
heart of the Sermon on the Mount. And then you
see it's all through the Gospel. If you begin
to... Read the gospel from the perspective of
nonviolence and surrender. Your kingdom come.
Your kingdom of peace, love, justice, and nonviolence
come. Your will of peace, love, and nonviolence
be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's what
we're supposed to be praying. Jesus could endure
torture and execution and remain totally nonviolent
and forgiving unto death because he had already
completely surrendered himself to God. This is
very deep, deep waters. His last whispered words
were stunning, consistent surrender to God. Father,
forgive them. They know not what they do. Into
your hands I commend my spirit. And that's kind
of the way we're to live every single day of
our lives, living in that sentence, especially
as people who care about justice and disarmament
and creation. If we want to practice nonviolence,
we have to do this. So notice he's not debating
my will versus God's will. He spends his entire
life only doing God's will, not his will. And
that's the challenge for us. And that's why that
statement in John's gospel written years after
the synoptics is so important where he says,
I mean, the writers are trying to bring this
teaching to us. Jesus says, I can do nothing
on my own, but only what I see God doing and
what God tells me to do. In other words, I'm
not in control of my life. I've surrendered my
life completely to God. I'm only doing God's
will. But when I surrender myself completely
and do only God's will, then anything is possible.
And that's... what we're called to do. He does
that and hell is breaking loose around him. And
he's completely surrendered to God and transforming
anyone open to that. He's showing us how to live
and love and be compassionate and to be nonviolent.
The invitation is to take up his same attitude.
And all of this, by the way, this talk is reflecting
on how to grow deeper into the nonviolence of
Jesus. And what I'm trying to propose here is
that this way of total surrender is a key ingredient
that we haven't discussed that much. We can't
do anything on our own, but if we surrender ourselves
completely to God, oh, God can then take us and
use us and lead us and work miracles through
us, and our lives will be infinitely better and
more meaningful, and all will be fruitful. Everything
will bear good fruit, but we're not in charge
of it. And we're not in control of it. And we
may not live to see any of it. And all of that's
just fine because our lives are long ago surrendered
to God. As we become more and more surrendered
to God, we become extensions of universal love,
universal peace, universal nonviolence. So I'm
laughing at myself because I'm so full of myself
as my friends know. talking about all of this,
and I am teaching this to the young kid, you
know. And I go up to see my spiritual director,
who's a monk up at the monastery in Big Sur,
and we're walking out in the grounds, and I'm
explaining this to him. Somebody has to teach
the monks. And I think this is the ultimate prayer,
I say. I figured it out. This is the prayer every
human being should be saying over and over throughout
the day. Not my will, but your will be done.
That's our mantra. So we're walking up by the
cliffs overlooking the ocean. And I'm, you know,
explaining all this to the monk. And he doesn't
even lift his head and he says quietly as he's
walking along, will I say that prayer a thousand
times a day? Oh, boy. This is what I was teaching
young Will. and what I started to really focus
on and what I'm working on these days. I remember
once I texted Will and said, the more you surrender
to God, the less you have to struggle over anything.
And he texted right back and said, that's a game
changer. And I said, everything becomes easier
because it's now in God's hands, the hands of
universal love. So it's easy to live the Sermon
on the Mount. We don't have to worry. We don't
have to be anxious. We don't have to be afraid.
We don't have to judge people. We don't have
to be angry even. We don't have to be resentful.
We don't have to have any hate. Everything we
can let go. And maybe, by the way, we'll be more
useful and helpful to the others around us. So
this is what the first part of my book, Universal
Love, is all about. It explores these themes
of surrender, prayer, and becoming extensions
of universal love. And I'd like to end this first
podcast. which is a two -part podcast, by sharing
about my conversation with Archbishop Desmond
Tutu when I visited him after a month of traveling
through South Africa with some close friends
of mine. I think it was in January 2016. And
I get there to see him. Now, we'd been friends
for many, many years. And we emailed. almost
every other week for almost decades. This was
his doing. He asked me to be what he called his
pen pal. And we worked on several projects together.
And so I knew he was older and had cancer. And
I organized a trip with my friends to South Africa
specifically to see him. And I get there and
we had mass. And he surprised me by he catered
a large luncheon for me. And it was just magical.
And then he says, okay, come over. And we went
off to a corner and we sat and talked for several
hours, him and me, and we were drinking coffee.
And he's sitting there and I'm just over the
moon to be with him. And he says, I'm so glad
I'm not God. And I'm like, huh? I have no idea
why he's saying this or the wisdom he's trying
to share with me. Now, I see. Tutu has my guru,
my spiritual director, my teacher, my friend,
and he says, I know this because I took very
detailed notes as soon as I left. Quote, think
of the patience of God waiting for us to get
it, waiting for us to organize movements for
justice and peace. He's really talking to me.
There's more I could tell you, but you wouldn't
believe it. So few people, he says, see, they
were all sisters and brothers of one another.
I'll never forget him saying that. And now his
hands are out and they don't get it, John. Imagine
what God went through during the Holocaust. And
now he starts looking off into the distance,
waiting while some of his children kill his other
children and there's nothing he could do about
it. You know, I've gone all the way around the
world to see him. prepared. This is what he wanted
to say to me. God is omnipotent and omnipresent,
but he has decided to gift us with the gift of
total freedom, to give us total free will, to
let us choose between love and goodness or evil
and hate and death. And because God gives us
this gift of complete freedom, the gift of free
will, God cannot intervene. And God cannot and
will not stop us when we hurt others or wage
war or commit genocide or actively work to blow
up and destroy all of creation. So this is what
Tutu said to me. This omnipotent God is completely
weak and powerless before the evil we do. This
is the God we have, he said. And he's very weak.
And so, John, I'm so glad I'm not God and that
God is God. I was just utterly astounded and
flabbergasted. I hadn't expected any of this.
And he's launched into this very profound reflection
about the mystery of God and free will. Although
this has always been my experience of being with
the really great people. And he starts to cry.
And now he's sobbing and he's falling into my
arms and he's saying, our sisters and brothers
are dying and suffering all around the world.
And we're all rejecting God's will. So you and
I have to keep working for peace and justice
till we die. And then he says, you know, kind
of brushing himself off. So I'm off to Iran tomorrow
morning. Well, I nearly fell off my chair when
he said that. He was very elderly. He was really
sick with cancer. And he was getting death threats
from the ANC because he was denouncing publicly
the corruption of the ANC, if you know about
South Africa. I was utterly stunned because flying
off to Iran is no joke. So I say, how do you
keep going? And he says, my favorite prophet
is Jeremiah. And of course, he's lost me right
there. And he goes, do you know why? And I go,
no. And he goes, because he cries a lot. And
he bursts into tears and he's whispering to me.
I cry a lot too, John. I've cried and he's trying
to pull himself together and he's really confiding
in me. And he says, I have cried every single
day of my life. think how much God cries. We
have a God who weeps. God weeps because we don't
get it, because we don't understand that we're
all sisters and brothers of one another, and
because God is here to serve us and give us this
incredible reign of universal love, compassion,
and peace. But we've all rejected that. We do
our will, not God's will. So I cry a lot. And
then he kind of pulls himself together and says,
but I also laugh a lot. And he went on to detail
about this. He said since he was five, he'd cried
every day and laughed every day since he was
five. And then he bursts into laughter and starts
making fun of me, which I thought was a little
over the line, Archbishop Tutu. And he kept teasing
me, and now he's really making fun of me, and
he's bringing his friends over. He's really kidding
me. Like, why are you hanging out with this guy?
Why do I hang out with this guy? He's just a
big kid. He says, you know, I always think so
highly of you, but now that I'm seeing you, you're
just a big baby. I don't know why I hang out
with you. All my friends are now hysterically
laughing, and he's laughing so hard, and I'm
going, well, I don't think it's that funny. And
he was so much fun, and we all had the best time.
And as we were leaving, he's going, never give
up, John, never give up. You and I have to work
for peace and justice till the day we die. We
just give ourselves completely to God and God's
will. I'm sharing this story with you because
this is the story, one of many. that I shared
with young Will, because this is what my teacher
and spiritual guide shared with me. Archbishop
Tutu exemplified for me how to surrender our
wills and our entire lives to God, to universal
love and peace, and what that looks like over
time as we become more and more full -on extensions
of universal love and peace. Desmond's life was
not his own. It belonged entirely to God. He
was always at the surface of humanity, creation,
justice, and peace, as well as his family and
all those he encountered along the way. But what
I've not been able to explain to people, to activists
around the country, is he learned a way to move
way beyond anger, fear, and despair, which is
right there in the Sermon on the Mount. where
Jesus instructs us to avoid anger, fear, and
despair, and worry, and concern, and judgment,
and so forth, but to cultivate grief and joy,
to cry and to laugh. As we work for justice and
peace, we grieve the world's insane violence
and the insanity that's happening in our country
and the world these days. And we go forward and
take public nonviolent action to stop it. And
along the way, we enjoy the fullness of life
and joy and wonder and celebration with our relationships
with one another and all of creation. Even when
we get persecuted, as Jesus teaches, we rejoice.
And that's what I was encouraging young Will
to do on his journey. into becoming an extension
of universal love. So in part two of this reflection
on my new book, Universal Love, I'll walk through
the rest of the book where I talk about the connection
between our surrender to God and nonviolence,
and then the shocking political consequences
of surrendering our lives and our wills to God.
I invite all those who are listening, please,
to order the book and get it. It's called Universal
Love. You can get it at orvisbooks .com or wherever
you get books. And please join me, if you can,
by helping to promote the book on social media
or writing a review on Amazon or telling your
friends about it or giving copies of it to priests
and ministers. Thank you for listening to the
Nonviolent Jesus podcast. You can hear many more
podcasts and find other upcoming Zoom programs
at beatitudecenter .org. And they offer a donation
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some positive feedback or review at NCR or whatever
platform you use. But please spread the word
by telling your friends about this podcast and
my book. And in light of what I've been reflecting.
May the God of peace bless you all. Keep on following
the nonviolent Jesus. And more and more, let
us all surrender ourselves completely to God
and go forward and stand up and nonviolently
resist war and justice and fascism and become
who we were created to be, like young Will, extensions
of universal love. See you next time.