Welcome to the Nonviolent Jesus Podcast. I'm
John, Father John Deere, and today I'd like to
reflect with you on my new book, Universal Love,
Surrendering to the God of Peace, which is just
out from Orbis. This is the second podcast of
a two -part podcast project, and it's all part
of www .beatitudescenter .org, where you can
find 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 just to relax. and recenter
yourself. And together, let's enter into the
presence of the God of peace who loves you personally,
unconditionally, and infinitely, and everyone
everywhere, too. Let's welcome the risen nonviolent
Jesus here with us. Just take a moment to ask
for whatever grace you need to follow the nonviolent
Jesus more faithfully 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 on your call to follow the
nonviolent Jesus and to surrender our lives and
our wills 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 your
will, that we might do our part then 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.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So thanks again,
friends, for joining me. This is part two of
a two -part podcast on my new book, which is
called Universal Love, Surrendering to the God
of Peace, which I invite you to get at orbisbooks
.com or your local bookstore, wherever you get
books. In the first podcast and first episode,
I was telling you how this journey began, the
beginning of the pandemic, when the kid who taught
my gym class, whom I call Will, Asked me to be
his guru, he said. And I started teaching him
about meditation. And he started calling God
universal love. And then the next thing you know,
universal love showed up to him one day and overwhelmed
him. And he came and told me that he felt he
was called to become an extension of universal
love. And so for many years now, since the lockdown,
we've been discussing this. We were also doing
writing practice together on all these spiritual
themes, and I didn't know it, but they became
this book. So in the first part of the book,
I reflect on the importance of daily meditation,
letting go of control, living into an intimate
trusting relationship with God, surrendering
everything to God, and trying to do only God's
will from now on, not our will. So today I'd
like to share with you part two and part three,
the rest of the book. And part two is about the
connection between surrendering our will to the
God of universal love and how that surrendering
is connected to nonviolence. And then the third
part, part three, is how the life of surrender
to God and God's will has specific... I think,
shocking political implications for universal
love, peace, and nonviolence, which for me is
the key to the book. So if you've read a lot
in mystical writings and all, what I'm trying
to do here, my own conceit, is to take off from
the classics, such as Jean -Pierre de Coussade's
famous book. from I think 300 years ago called
Abandonment to Divine Providence, which millions
of people have read. And I'm trying to unpack
what his, among many great classics, these teachings
of abandoning our lives and hearts and souls
to God mean in a time of permanent warfare and
extreme poverty. And white supremacy and fascism
and the very real threat of nuclear war and destruction
and catastrophic climate change. And I'm trying
to suggest that in the light of the life of the
nonviolent Jesus, if we surrender ourselves to
God and try to do only God's will from now on,
like, what would that look like? I'm not going
to do my will anymore. That means we have to
step out of ourselves into the world. And take
nonviolent direct action like the nonviolent
Jesus does. Through selfless service, nonviolent
resistance to injustice, and the public work
of welcoming God's reign of discernment and justice
and peace. I think the problem here is we all
want the peace and comfort of God's love. But
we don't necessarily want to get involved and
do God's will, much less stand up in public and
engage in the will of God as public peacemaking
and nonviolent resistance and entering the fray
to insist on justice, disarmament, protecting
creation, and so forth. In other words, the problem
as I see it is no matter how much we all say
we love God and want to follow Jesus, In fact,
we're all trying to control God and do our will,
not God's will. I see that running through the
Gospels, actually. That's what the male disciples
are always trying to do, control God and argue
with Jesus about their will. And that's the problem
with every one of us and the whole human race
and the whole world. And it's the point of my
book. I'm trying to invite all of us to let go
of control and let God run our lives. Surrender
ourselves to God's will, which is universal love,
universal compassion, universal peace, and therefore
universal nonviolence. To let God do with us
what God will. And we get to enjoy the ride and
become, as my young friend said, extensions of
universal love and peace. That we then welcome
God's will and God's... reign of love and peace
on earth, with all its glorious social, economic,
and political implications, come what may, no
matter what the cost, it all sounds good to us.
So early on, I'm saying to young Will, you know,
about the importance of meditation, and I'm also
trying to talk with him about nonviolence. And
shortly after we were meeting, He comes in one
day and says, well, someone at his workplace
put him down. And he immediately wanted to blow
up at that person. And he's raging inside. And
he made a real sharp comment in response and
turned and walked away. And later he regretted
it and felt bad and says to me, what should I
have done? How do I keep from getting mad and
snapping at someone even if someone puts me down?
So I say. well, what happened in your meditation
that morning with universal love? Did you meditate?
And he said, no, I forgot. And I don't know.
I said, I don't know if it's possible to be loving,
peaceful, just, and nonviolent on our own. I
think we need to meditate and surrender ourselves
to the God of universal love every day, every
morning, as if for the first time, as if we'd
never done it before, as if our lives depend
on it, and then throughout the day, and also
find a community of seekers, friends, peacemakers,
churchgoers to support us and to share that journey
of total surrender to God with all its interpersonal
and national and global political consequences
and implications. If we meditate... every day
and return to our relationship with universal
love and center ourselves in God and universal
love and really give our lives over to God and
universal love. We will keep remembering universal
love because we all suffer from amnesia and reignite
the desire to be an extension of universal love
and then be open more and more to God, to universal
love. Or at least we'll be a little bit more
grounded in universal love, which means we might
have a little bit more awareness of other nonviolent
ways to respond when we get triggered and provoked.
Even if that means going back and apologizing
to the person we snapped at. So if we surrender
ourselves in the encounter with universal love,
I think universal love, part of the process of
life. which is the same as the spiritual life,
I call it life, not the spiritual life, is that
universal love disarms us and heals us and fills
us with life, the Spirit of God, which makes
us more compassionate, more loving, more present,
more mindful, more nonviolent to ourselves and
others. Because in the process, we're letting
God lead us through our day. So you could say,
for example, will I meditate? I pray. I see God
every day. But I still want to explode when someone
steps on my toes or pushes my buttons. And again,
that's the point of my book. I'm always interested
in the lessons of nonviolence and the plea of
the nonviolent Jesus and what I'm learning at
this ripe old age. Unless we are surrendering
ourselves completely to God's will over and over
again, we're going to be stuck in our own self
-will, which means selfishness, ego, dare I say
stupidity. And that can only lead to problems,
whether remaining stuck in resentment or anger.
or fear, or anxiety, or worry, or whatever our
issues are, and chasing our own egos. And that
always leads to, we want money, pride, attention,
career. We're relying on ourselves. Next thing
you know, we're relying on our bank accounts,
and our weapons, and our nation, and our military,
and our wars, and we're descending quickly into
a hell of our own making. Mahatma Gandhi. And
Martin Luther King, among others, practiced a
profound inner serenity to God. And I think that
was the key to their total nonviolence. It has
to become the bottom line practice for us if
we, too, want to deepen in gospel nonviolence,
especially at this moment in history which we're
asked to live in as our country and the world
are collapsing around us, as we're witnessing
the end of the American empire and all hell breaking
loose and the rush toward nuclear destruction
and climate change. Gandhi wrote that God's will
for the entire human race is that we practice
nonviolence. That's quite a statement to make.
And that if we try to do only God's will and
not our will, and that's our intention every
minute. of every day, we will never harm another
person in thought, word, or deed, much less hurt
someone, much less kill someone, much less support
war, join the military, have a gun, build nuclear
weapons, or sit by passively while our sisters
and brothers are being killed around the planet.
and we destroy the creatures and Mother Earth.
The goal, I said to young Will, my friend, is
to try to become totally nonviolent through our
daily surrender to the universal love, to the
God of nonviolence, through meditation and study
and practice, so that the day will come, as we're
living into universal love, where we respond
instinctively with nonviolence, no matter what
happens. I think that's doable. and possible.
I think that's the lesson of the Sermon on the
Mount and Gandhi and Dorothy Day and Dr. King's,
that when you truly are on the journey of becoming
an extension of universal love, a peacemaker,
you can move into total nonviolence, at least
more and more, way farther in progress than we
are now. But it helps if you spend quality time
with your God every day and surrender yourself
to God regularly. Some of us have to do it hourly,
every 15 minutes, every minute. And so you're
constantly being disarmed and re -centered in
God's love. Without that consistent daily practice,
it's easy to get lost in our own self -centeredness
and ego. And the next thing you know, we're off
doing what we think. And the minute then someone
does not treat us as we expect or demand or go
our way, we get triggered or annoyed or frustrated
or impatient or resentful. I have a long list
here. Afraid, angry, violent. This is all these
things happen to me. we regress to our inner
teenager and snap at someone. Or if you're like
me, to your inner three -year -old, and you just
have a temper tantrum. In this case, I said to
young Will, well, you might have taken a deep
breath and said something like, I feel hurt by
those words. In other words, use nonviolent communication,
or it's sometimes called mindful communication,
which uses eye language to help. Others know
how you feel and what you need instead of pointing
the finger of blame at others saying things like,
you did this to me. You're to blame. It's your
fault. You're the problem, which is responding
with anger and judgment and violence. And then
we walk away and that doesn't resolve the incident.
It only makes it worse. And you end up feeling
ashamed and guilty. And we want to avoid guilt
and shame. So I was saying to young Will, we
want to try to not respond with. the same harmful
spirit or use hurtful words or the tone that's
used against you. But we really don't want to
walk away passively either. So we want to stand
and engage in a spirit of nonviolence and love
and compassion. And I think the wisdom is to
share how it has affected you if you can. And
maybe you will discover that the person didn't
mean to hurt you, but meant something else entirely.
But no matter where you are as you pray through
these moments, which are all practices for bigger
moments to come down the road, right? Right there
on the spot, you pray for the person who's hurt
you. You forgive the person in your heart, and
you offer a blessing upon that person. Every
human being has to learn the art of blessing
other people, beginning with blessing people
in our families. This has to become the new normal
of our daily life. We want to go through life
praying for others and blessing everyone we meet.
And we want to figure out creative, nonviolent,
alternative responses that help us maintain our
peace and help others to reclaim their peace
or to maintain their peace. Like the old days
would say, we don't lead others into sin. And
that's how then more and more God's peace will
spread and will help be part of disarming one
another. So we need to practice this every hour
in our daily lives, whether we're on the grocery
line or the picket line, always trying to be
centered, surrendered, and nonviolent. And happily,
a few weeks later, Will came back and announced
that someone else had snubbed him at work. And
this time, instead of barking at the person,
he talked very reasonably. in a calm, peaceful
voice. He was really centered, and he felt much
better afterwards. And he said, and I quote,
it works if I stay centered in my breath and
peaceful and calm. I found I'm better able to
respond like this when I've begun my day in quiet
meditation with universal love. And being the
wise elder, I said to him, I told you so. And
that's when he rolled his eyes, of course. Yeah,
so. Part two of my book, just trying to make
everyone smile. It's not working. I can tell
already. I explore all these themes. Nonviolence
is remembering who we are, looking deeply within
into our own violence, trying to be nonviolent
to ourselves, confessing and apologize for the
harm we've done to others, constantly forgiving
everyone who ever hurt us. The practice of living
every moment in the presence of the God of peace.
And this combination of radical letting go, but
also radical acceptance. And then also befriending
our fears and surrendering them to God. This
section then leads to part three of the book
where I explore the political consequences and
implications of surrendering our lives to God
and doing only God's will and trying to become
extensions of universal love, as Young Will first
said to me. So if we're going to do God's will
and we're not going to do our will, and if God
is universal love, universal compassion, universal
peace, and therefore universal nonviolence, then
if we're only doing God's will, we will become,
theoretically, extensions of universal love,
compassion, peace, and nonviolence. Which means
what? Our lives are given over entirely now,
like the nonviolent Jesus, to serving, healing,
and helping humanity and creation, beginning
with their neighbors around us. We do not serve
ourselves. or seek our own selfish will, or try
to get God to do what we want. Those days are
over. Nor do we do the will of anyone else, such
as the president, or some general, or the nation,
or some other idol. Those days are over. We serve
humanity, starting with the poor and marginalized
enemies of our nation, as Jesus says, as he showed
in doing only the will of God. And we engage
in nonviolent resistance to all structures of
violence, to all our nation's wars and weapons
and corporate greed and systemic injustice and
racism and fascism, environmental destruction,
because we're trying to do the will of God to
be extensions of universal love, and therefore
we're always trying to welcome God's reign of
universal love, compassion, justice, and peace
here on earth. We are servants of humanity and
creation, pure and simple, as we serve our God,
the Creator. Not only do we do no harm, but we
seek to only do good. And that's going to have
to mean stepping up and trying to stop the harm
and suffering that we're afflicting our nation
and others are afflicting on others. We not only
live and let live, but we live and help live.
a little story on the side and thinking vividly
about a long evening conversation I had 35 years
ago with Cesar Chavez, founder of the United
Farm Workers, one of the great heroes of nonviolence.
We were talking about nonviolence and he said
all of that to me. I never heard anybody say
that to me before. He told me that every morning,
He climbed a hill near his house near Bakersfield
at dawn and meditated for an hour. And then from
then on, he just did whatever people wanted of
him, beginning with the poorest of the poor.
And he told me his life was no longer his own.
He had become a slave of the farm workers. And
he said if someone needed him at 3 a .m., he
got up and did what was needed. He was very serious
about that, actually went and made a private
little pilgrimage by myself to that hill to see
where he did that years later after he died.
So in the third part of the book, Universal Love,
I try to unpack some of those stories and lessons
and people and my own experience as I shared
with young Will about... Trying to live out the
political implications of surrendering our lives
to God and God's will of universal love and nonviolence.
And so you can read that in the book. And some
of you may have heard some of my stories in recent
years, such as leading an annual Hiroshima Day
vigil in sackcloth and ashes at the National
Nuclear Weapons Labs at Los Alamos in New Mexico
on the Hiroshima anniversary every year. which
I didn't necessarily want to do. Who wants to
do that? It's quite humiliating to sit in sackcloth
and ashes. And then, gosh, people want to kill
you. And I was denounced left and right, even
by my own parishioners, and then was kicked out
of one of my parishes for this, and then punished
by the archbishop, and then eventually removed
from New Mexico by my Jesuit superiors. and told
to stop all this peace work. And I shared some
stories of recent arrests, such as when I went
to the Supreme Court with Shane Claiborne and
other friends, and we were calling for the abolition
of the death penalty. There were 18 of us, including
some friends who had lost victims to violent
murder, lost their loved ones to violent crime,
and who were against the death penalty. terrible
couple of days in jail. And then similarly, when
I was arrested for speaking out against fossil
fuels with Jane Fonda's Fire Drill Fridays group,
when we shut down the Senate Hart office building
and we were held together in kind of an outdoor
shelter area on a prison grounds outside of D
.C. to weigh late at night in the bitter cold.
And it was kind of a common social experience
of perfect joy, like Pentecost. Everybody was
just so full of the spirit of life and hope and
peace. And we were in handcuffs. It was an amazing
experience. But in the book, I reflect on two
friends in particular. who I think became real
global extensions of universal love. And they
set a high bar for me and my journey of trying
to surrender my life to the will of God and going
all the way. The first was my friend Philip Berrigan,
like his brother Daniel Berrigan. And I haven't
really written much about Phil before until this.
Phil spent 11 years in prison for resisting war
and nuclear weapons. It's just an amazing story.
We don't even know how many times he was arrested,
maybe 600 times, you know, and just hated. And
his house would be raided in the middle of the
night by the FBI. He knew hundreds and hundreds
of us who were in and out of jail. And he got
cancer while he was in prison and was released
and died six months later. My other great friend
is Dr. Paul Farmer, my lifelong friend. We went
to Duke together and we were in this wild, crazy
fraternity together. We both underwent quite
dramatic conversions. And he changed medicine
around the world, became the most important doctor
in the world. That's what the dean of Harvard
Med School told me. And founded Partners in Health.
And figured out his life goal was to, how can
we bring world -class healthcare to the poorest
people on the planet? And he figured out how
to do it. It's very doable. And he ended up founding,
besides running Partners in Health, which has
10 ,000 doctors working in countries all around
the world, he founded three hospitals. two universities,
and ran the healthcare systems for a while in
both Haiti and Rwanda, where he was when he died
suddenly at a young age in 2023. They're mythic
people, my friends, Phil and Paul, who showed
me how to give one's life completely over to
the God of universal love and peace. And just
to let the chips fall where they may and let
your life be used for the whole human race. And
you're kind of way beyond attachment to results
or outcome or feeling depressed or sorry for
yourself. You don't have time for that. I think
if we try to do God's will of universal love
and nonviolence, we're going to be uncomfortable.
But it's going to be okay. That's what they show
me. We have to get out of our comfort zones and
take risks in public for justice and disarmament
and step out into the unknown, whether it's prison
or Haiti or Rwanda or wherever. And as the risen
Jesus says at the end of the Gospel of John,
go where we'd rather not go. That's the point.
We are not in charge. We are serving God, and
God is in charge, and God is running our lives
and leading us. And that means calling us to
get off the couch, face our fears, go out into
the world, take to the streets, speak out, resist
the systems of injustice and insane violence
and war through our creative nonviolence, and
let the chips fall where they may. in my case,
fellow churchgoers or co -workers, and maybe
for some of us, arrest or jail or violent death
like Gandhi and Dr. King. So this is not a feel
-good comfort food spirituality, you know, and
why I don't read that much about it in the ancient
spiritual classics. Because, you know, this is
why we don't really want to surrender to God
as much as we claim we do or we might. Because
I think in such a world, in a time we're asked
to endure, it's going to lead to public non -cooperation
and confrontation with the systems of war and
violence and death and destruction, with the
principalities and powers. And the world of violence
is going to push back. In other words, we're
talking here about the cross, the cross. All
of this is about the cross. As I'm saying this,
I'm remembering an astonishing letter I had from
Joan Chittister 30 years ago when I was in prison
facing 20 years for my plowshares actions. I
don't know if I've shared this on the podcast,
but, you know, I got a lot of letters. Phil and
I were in the same jail cell and we each received
50 letters a day. I think that was from like
50 ,000 letters. No, 5 ,000 letters. And everyone
said, oh, I'm so sorry that you're suffering.
And except for two letters I got, Mother Teresa
and Joan Chidester. Mother Teresa was like, oh,
thank God you're suffering. That's the way Joan
Chidester was too. And Joan Chidester wrote this
sentence that just knocked me off my feet. She
said, you are reminding us that the only way
to positive social change, to justice and peace,
is through our sharing in the paschal mystery
of Jesus. Wow. That when we surrender ourselves
completely to God, as Jesus did, when we let
go of our fears and worries and control and ego,
and walk forward in universal love, compassion,
and peace, we can just let the chips fall where
they may. We can accept the consequences of our
political work to end war and killing and injustice.
Because God is now running our lives, and we
can move into a new, deeper level of serenity,
trust. and both humility and strength rooted
in God. So in the third part of the book, I return
to the story of young Will, who had been coaching
in the art of meditation and surrender and nonviolence.
Now, this had been going on for a year or two
when he packed up as the pandemic was starting
to wind down, and he moved to Mexico, and then
he moved to the Bahamas, where he ran the health,
exercise, and sports programs at a large resort.
And I didn't say anything, but, you know, me
being judgmental, I was like, that's not what
I quite had in mind. But I didn't say that. He
was my friend. And he was immediately pointed
into leadership positions and offered a job to
live in the Bahamas for the rest of his life,
being very well paid and very secure. And after
a while, he was going to go on a vacation to
New Zealand. He was going to do some serious
mountain hiking in the South Island on one of
the great mountain rangers and then meet up with
this girlfriend. And there he was sitting one
day by himself, resting on this mountaintop in
a scene literally right out of Lord of the Rings.
And he's taking all of this in when suddenly
a bright red New Zealand rescue helicopter flew
overhead pretty fast. And he felt overwhelmed
once again by universal love, by God. And he
knew in an instant what he would do for the rest
of his life. As a young kid, he suddenly remembered
all he wanted to ever be was a firefighter and
a paramedic. But this was a spiritual calling,
a way for him to live out. his calling to be
an extension of universal love. In fact, he had
been meditating every day and working on his
nonviolence and trying to surrender himself nonstop.
And at that moment, halfway around the world,
in that magnificent setting of creation, he felt...
called by universal love. So he leaves the resort
in the Bahamas, walks away from that life, enrolls
in the local college EMT class, goes to the top
of his class, and then is immediately hired by
the LA fire department. And within weeks, it's
just months after this happened, he's driving
an ambulance all night long in the streets of
Los Angeles. And he's calling me and I can't
believe what he's going through. Within the first
couple of weeks, one night he came upon a drive
-by shooting. It left three men who had been
sitting, talking peacefully on their front step,
covered with bullet holes. It was like probably,
you know, a gang initiation. And he was sent
to treat the worst one hit and save the man's
life. Will would call regularly from then on
with incredible stories of saving lives. A year
ago, that wouldn't have been imaginable. Then
he announces one day that he's been accepted
into the number one paramedic school in the country.
And his first day, there's 50 firefighters in
the class and just one other lowly EMT. But he
starts studying 20 hours a day for six months.
And again, he's at the top of this class. He
gets an incredible job as the number one paramedic
in a California. fire department and to this
day spends four to five days a week, 10 hours
a day, saving lives all day long. I would not
have predicted any of this when we met. And each
day he tells me, he reports that he's living
out the adventure of being an extension of universal
love. So I unpack some of this with him and we
continue to talk about the social, economic,
and political consequences of... this calling
of surrendering our lives to God. One day he
said to me, isn't surrendering to universal love
just giving up? Doesn't that mean we're going
to be completely passive? I knew what he meant,
but it's strange. You know, on the contrary,
I said, if we surrender ourselves completely,
repeatedly over our wills, every day, our lives,
to universal love, to the God of universal love
and peace, in response to our own reality of
selfishness and violence, and then the world's
insane violence, oddly enough, instead of being
passive, we become more active than ever because
we're being used. God is like, oh, here's someone
who's willing to work with me. And we end up
becoming public activists or jump into the fray
like you did. And we try to do what we think
universal love, the God of peace, wants us to
do. And then immediately we're thrown into suffering
humanity and creation. So universal love is not
passive at all. Universal love is always active.
That's why there's nothing passive about active
nonviolence. Nonviolence, as Cesar Chavez said
to me, is public action, public action, public
action for suffering humanity, for justice, for
peace. It reaches out to include, welcome, reconcile,
disarm, heal, bless, and embrace every human
being as sister and brother, and widening that
embrace of universal love and welcome every creature
and all creation so that all might. know God's
infinite personal universal love and dwell in
God's universal peace and nonviolence. It's hard
to believe that any one of us can make a difference
in such a world. But I think in the exciting
adventure of surrendering toward becoming an
extension of universal love of the God of peace,
we don't even think that way anymore. That's
not even a question for us. I certainly saw that
in Dan Berrigan. He said to me over and over
and over again for 35 years, we're not attached
to the results of our actions. We go forward
anyway. We do what we can, and we let God make
a difference through us. So that no matter what's
happening around us, even the hell of the world,
we know a deep inner peace, even joy. that nothing
can touch, even when we're grieving the world.
We do what we can to spread universal love and
its social, economic, racial, political, even
environmental implications. If we pitch in, pick
a cause and contribute once, twice, or three
times a day, doing what we can for justice, disarmament,
and creation, but it's based in a surrender to
the will of God, so that God is leading us and
we never give up and we keep at it. well, then
God's going to use us. And it's very interesting.
That's how positive social change works through
history. We could talk forever about this. And
my great friend, the historian Howard Zinn, told
me this. You can read it in his books. He said
that's the crucial difference in every historically
successful grassroots movement. was the steadfast
commitment of ordinary people who had given over
their lives to doing something noble every day
for the bottom -up grassroots people power movement,
for justice, for disarmament, for whatever the
cause was, whether it's the abolition of slavery
or segregation to workers' rights or the right
of women to vote, wherever you looked at it historically.
In other words, to universal love. And even if
it seemed to make very little difference, it
doesn't matter. And then you get to the point
Howard told me that you get so wrapped up in
universal love and the struggle for justice and
the grassroots movement that you're not even
thinking about the positive outcome anymore,
even as you might be strategizing for it. for
it. Now, Gandhi took this to a very fine level,
a kind of postdoctoral detachment of outcome,
where we take positive action for the good, but
we're doing the good because it's good. And even
as we're giving our lives in total surrender
to God, and maybe even the outcome, we're not
attached to the outcome, but we know the outcome
is assured. Why? Because God's running the show,
not us. And we've gone deep into that. into surrendering
to God's nonviolence, God's universal love. And
that's what Howard Zinn said. He used a very
interesting word. That's when nonviolence becomes
contagious. That's how movements work. That's
how positive social change is. And the degree
that it's not contagious is because we're following
our own wills, our own ego. But eventually, if
we can really surrender to the will of God, you
see this in Dr. King and the civil rights movement.
That's what my friends who were his friends,
when they talk about it, they said it was not
at all what you'd think. And for those who heard
Andrew Young in the podcast. Remember, he said
that, you know, we were not depressed or despairing.
We were full of joy. You get overwhelmed and
you're in a whole other world. And that wins
people over. Nonviolent universal suffering,
suffering, love, truth and wisdom become contagious
when everything is surrendered to God. So I think
the life of surrender to God, to universal love
pushes us out into the thick of things. More
than we might have thought we could ever do or
thought possible. Way beyond us, you know, beyond
our fears, our worries, our own resentments.
We end up joining the struggles and movements
for positive social change. And we learn and
use the tools of nonviolence. And we learn to
act with grace and love and kindness toward ourselves
and one another. dare I say, even in humility
and patience as we support social, racial, economic
justice, global disarmament, and environmental
sustainability because we're trying to do the
will of God. Yes, we recognize the enormity of
the task at hand, but we don't have to act. We
don't even have the time to act in despair. or
apathy or fear or worry. We keep surrendering
to God. That's what our focus is on, allowing
ourselves to be transformed into extensions of
universal love and become, to paraphrase Francis,
you know, channels of God's peace. So if we live
our lives according to our own wills, doing what
we want, what we think is right, even as we work
for justice and peace, you know, guided by our
own egos and pride and anger and fear. I think
you can make a case that the gospel says will
be of no use whatsoever. In fact, we will definitely
make things worse. If, on the other hand, we
surrender ourselves completely to God, as Tutu
and Dan Berrigan and Cesar Chavez did and so
many others have talked about. If we let the
God of universal love and peace lead us, use
us, work through us, then our lives will be helpful
and fruitful. Even if we don't know it or see
it or can't even understand it, we will have
done our part to serve God and humanity and be
part of the disarmament of the world. That's
the journey. The more we surrender to the God
of universal love and peace and God's work of
universal love and peace in a world of universal
violence and hate and war, the more we will become
change agents. God's universal love and peace.
And then the more God's universal love and peace
can be unleashed into that contagious social,
political, global transformative power. Each
one of us can become a tipping point person like
Rosa Parks, who makes a difference and sparks
social change. Together, like drops in the ocean,
we can become a wave of nonviolent discernment
and transformation for the comings of God's reign.
Well, I've been talking forever and I have so
much more I want to say. I've been talking with
young Will right up to a few days ago when recording
this. And we keep reflecting on how the more
we let go of our personal will and endeavor to
do only God's will, the will of universal love,
the more we notice how different our personal
will is from God's will. And the more actually
we want to... do God's will and cultivate and
radiate and practice universal love, compassion,
and peace toward everyone. And we find that the
more we open ourselves to the will of universal
love and peace, the more we have no problem with
the politics of God. you could say, or God's
plan, or God's way of dealing with the human
race and creation. It begins to make sense, that
whole question of free will that Archbishop Tutu
talked to me about. That becomes the new normal.
We no longer care about our personal wishes.
or the consequences of our political stand based
in universal love. We've surrendered ourselves
to the God of universal love. So if people reject
us or walk away from us or dismiss us because
of this politics of universal love and nonviolence,
we bless them and respond peacefully, prayerfully,
mindfully. always with unconditional love, and
get on with the work of peace and justice. We
get to practice creative nonviolence now. So
life is one adventure after another. And that's
what young Will has been telling me, and it's
great. That's my experience too. In the end of
the book, I talk about the question of choice,
because that's what Archbishop Tutu said. And
you see it in the early books of the Hebrew Bible.
I set before you life and death. Choose life
that you and your descendants may live. I set
before you my will of universal love, compassion
and peace, my way of total nonviolence. Or you
can follow your own way, which leads to selfishness
and ego and control and therefore violence and
harming one another. And then global insanity,
nuclear destruction, climate change. And, you
know, I just trying to encourage myself and my
friends and all of us to choose universal love.
compassion, and peace, to choose the way of nonviolence,
which means every day to say, I don't know anything,
especially as we get older, you can see it. Oh
boy, was I wrong. Okay, I surrender everything
to you, God. I only want to do your will from
now on every day. Daniel Berrigan put it this
way, we must choose to be chosen. That we're
chosen, yes, but we have to choose that as well.
And with every... present moment in the life
of surrender from now on. We can and we will
try to choose God's will, God's peace, God's
universal love. And we want to try to help each
other do that. And Gandhi had a beautiful phrase.
I remember reading it. It's in Merton's book
of Gandhi's little sayings. Gandhi said, we're
going to choose this way of nonviolence, quote,
with total disregard to the consequences to ourselves.
We're going to live our way into living out the
Sermon on the Mount and becoming channels of
God's peace, to becoming extensions of universal
love. Isn't that beautiful? And that's the journey.
And it's really great to try to let go of our
own selfishness, to wake up from our apathy and
lethargy and blindness and narcissism and the
cultures. extreme limitations and surrender into
God's universal love. We find happiness and peace
and friends and God. In the end, we find God.
So I've been telling young Will that our motto
is surrender, surrender, surrender. That's our
new mantra, our path, surrendering over and over
again to the God. to the God who is universal
love, and then giving over our lives in universal
love for others. And my hope and prayer for all
of us is that each one of us could become who
then we were created to be, like Gandhi and Dr.
King, Dorothy Day and Rosa Parks, Archbishop
Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Young Will, extensions
of universal love. peacemakers. Thanks very much
for listening to this Nonviolent Jesus podcast.
You can get my new book, Universal Love, at orbisbooks
.com or by calling them or going to any local
bookstore. And maybe you can get a copy, too,
for a friend or your priest or minister. I'm
going to do a live online Zoom presentation on
the book on Saturday, April 18th. This is 2026.
You can find out more information at BeatitudeCenter
.org, where you can find other programs and podcasts
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Zoom. And thanks for giving us some positive
feedback and helping to spread the word by telling
friends about this podcast. So may the God of
peace bless you all. Keep on following the nonviolent
Jesus. And together, friends, let's really surrender
our lives to God completely and go out into the
fray and resist injustice and war and fascism
and become God's extensions of universal love,
peace, and nonviolence. See you the next time.
Thank you.