Ep. 301 Eric Clayton - Finding Peace Here and Now - Shifting Culture

Episode Transcript
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Eric Clayton (00:00):
If we all have our own unique gifts, and we all

(00:01):
have our unique desires and ourown kind of contribution to
peace, then we all better be upand about the work, because it
takes all of us to build thispeace, to build up God's dream
of peace in the world, and to goout and do it.

Joshua Johnson (00:22):
You Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, you know,
we are living in a world thatseems to be unraveling at the
seams where chaos, polarizationand anxiety have become our

(00:44):
default settings, we need adifferent way of being. So
today, I'm sitting down withEric Clayton, who's been
wrestling with the question,what if peace isn't just the
absence of conflict, but atransformative way of living?
Eric's new book, finding peacehere and now isn't just another
self help manual, it's aninvitation, a roadmap drawn from

(01:08):
Ignatian spirituality thatchallenges us to look deeper.
How do we build peace wheneverything around us seems
designed to tear us apart? Howdo we find Stillness in the
Storm, not by escaping theworld, but by showing up
differently, we'll explore howpeace starts within us, how it's
cultivated through compassion,creativity and a willingness to

(01:30):
see the humanity in everyone,even those we disagree with.
This isn't about being passive.
It's about a strength soprofound it can disarm violence
without raising a hand. So ifyou're feeling overwhelmed, if
you're searching for hope in aworld that seems to have lost
its way, this conversation isfor you. So join us as we walk
through what peace really means.

(01:55):
Here is my conversation withEric Clayton, Eric, welcome to
shifting culture. Thanks forjoining me. Excited to

have you on.
Joshua, glad to be here. Thanksfor the invitation. I

love this book, finding peace here and now, and
it's, I think, one of the mostimportant things for us today.
It seems to me like this worldis full of chaos and suffering,
loss, polarization, and we'reanxious all the time, and we
need to find some peace. So thisis, it's pretty important, but I

(02:26):
know that you in your life,you've really you've been drawn
to peace building, peacemaking.
You've been drawn to, of course,Ignatian spirituality. Where did
those threads come together foryou? How did peacemaking and
Ignatius spirituality mesh inyour own life. Yeah,

I'll start with the peacemaking part of it as an
undergraduate student, and thenas a graduate student, the work
of peace, right? Peace Buildingas a profession, really
enchanted me. It sounded reallycool. It sounded really
important. It sounded likeyou're on the front lines of big
things. I studied internationalstudies as an undergraduate at a
Jesuit school, FairfieldUniversity in Connecticut. And I
studied international media atAmerican University with with a

(03:07):
focus on peace. How can we talk,talk of and tell stories of
peace? So peace was always inthat, that mindset of
professional life. And then Iworked at Catholic Relief
Services, which is aninternational nonprofit
humanitarian relief organizationfor the Catholic Church in the
US for a number of years, andthey have a really great peace
program. And so I worked withsome of those colleagues, kind
of tangentially, alwaysthinking, Oh, I'll get into this
work eventually. I just need to,you know, wait for my time to

(03:29):
come. My time never came,despite studying it and reading
it and talking about it, and itwas discouraging in some ways,
but I remember, I have a verydistinct memory. My wife was the
young adult minister at our atour parish many years ago, when
we were still young adults andwe had a we read a book about
peace and and during that time,I was still in graduate school,
I was reading a lot of otherbooks on peace, and not just

(03:51):
academic books, but these kindof prayer books. How do we pray
about peace? And I realized whatI'm doing here, and we realized
this in community. You know,essentially was peace is for all
of us. Peace, isn't it is aprofession for some, but in
fact, it's an invitation forall. And here I was waiting for
the, you know, for the line onmy resume that said, Hey, you're
a peace builder, when, in fact,you know, I've been wasting all

(04:12):
this time failing to do the workof peace. Whatever that meant,
some of us are called to be onthe front lines. In a very
literal sense. Some of us arecalled to be very well. All of
us, I think, are called to bevery Be very mindful and
intentional of the words we useand the images we share, and
things that can, you know, sharelittle glimpses of peace, or can
contribute to violence towardourselves, violence towards

(04:34):
others. So so that that was adeepening realization of what
the invitation of peace meant.
It's a real Gospel call, right?
We're ever deepening to peace,where Ignatian spirituality
comes into play again. I wentto, as I said, I went to a
Jesuit university, went to aJesuit Parish, and I work for
the for the Jesuit conference ofCanada, United States. So I'm
professionally tied to theJesuits. I myself am not a

(04:55):
Jesuit but, you know, butIgnatian spirituality is really,
you know, how I understand kindof our Gospel? Call, and that's
all about vocation. It's allabout what is God asking us to
do? How is God showing us, youknow, by in the patterns of our
lives what we're called to do.
And the more I kind of pray withthat, the more I am convinced
that if we paid closer attentionand really understood, oh, God

(05:15):
has given me this unique task todo. God has given me these these
gifts. God is asking me to bewith these people, and kept our
focus on the here and now,rather than wishing, Oh, I'm so
jealous of this person becausethey have such a cool job, or
this other person has so muchmoney, or I wish I could do
this, even though I wish I couldbe a doctor, even though blood
makes me queasy, right? Youknow, all these things that

(05:36):
aren't necessarily ours to do,there's a lot of UN peace that
happens as a result. So I thinkIgnatian spirituality has a lot
to say about that. So that'skind of where those two, those
two lines, came together,nation, spirituality and peace.
And I can say more, of course,but, but that, I think, for my
own, for my own prayer, thatwas, that was where that desire
came out of

peace for you, like, felt like a calling, like,
I want to be a part of it,you're drawn to it. But also,
then that this Ignatianspirituality, this thing of
saying, discerning, what is mineto do? What has God given me to
do in this world? And how can Ibe a person of peace in my

(06:13):
everyday life? What God hascalled me into? And so a lot of
times, we're in this place oflooking at people and places and
things, and saying, I haven'tarrived yet. I want to be there.
What grounded you? What helpedyou move from the space of
looking at others, saying, Iwish I had that, to being

(06:35):
grounded saying, Oh, I have whatI have, and I could show up in
the world as somebody full ofpeace. Well,

I would say that my disclaimer is always every
and I think every time I went,you're working on your work,
exactly, yeah, exactly, right.
And it's funny because everytime I read, you know, you're
working on a book you read, youread it. You know, so many times
you're editing it, you're like,Man, oh, man, this, this makes a
lot of sense to me. I wish I wasbetter at it. Oh, I wrote it,
you know, it's that kind ofthing. You're like, Oh, I'm not
there yet. You know, I thinkabout myself as a writer, right?

(07:02):
That could be kind of one of theidentities I would cling to, and
how easy it is to, you know,compare my, you know, book sales
to someone else's book sales tosay, Oh, someone wrote this
great essay, but my essays aregood too. Why aren't people
talking about them? Or I couldwrite this so much better, but
no one is recognizing me, right?
It's so easy, even in our ownvocation, to compare and to and

(07:24):
to kind of wallow in thisdesolation at the same time
missing the people that say,Hey, this thing you wrote was
really, really helpful. Hey,this, this, this chapter in the
book, really spoke to me. Or,hey, please come talk, you know,
give a retreat, or whatever itis, all these other glimpses of
constellation. So I, you know, achallenge for me, and I think
probably for listeners too, iswe always have those, those

(07:45):
moments of of God kind ofsmiling at us, and God
delighting in us, and Godsaying, you're already here,
wake up, pay attention, do thegood work. You're not meant to,
you know, and maybe you're meantto be the, you know, New York
Times bestseller, but, butthat's not important right now.
We're focused on caring for thepeople in front of you, caring
for the people that are alreadyreading your book, whatever it
might be. I also, I remember,I'll tell you a story. When I

(08:05):
worked at Catholic ReliefServices a number of years ago,
I would take a shuttle from kindof a northern neighborhood in
Baltimore City, downtown towhere CRS had its its world
headquarters. And on the shuttleevery morning would be all of
these, these Johns, Hopkinsstudents, so all of these folks
you know, training to be oralready, doctors, nurses, you
know, people of, you know, greatskill. And I would sit there and

(08:27):
I'd be Wow. I would thinkmyself, like, what a loser you
are. Eric. Like, what are youdoing? You know, for God's
people, you're just, you're justriding down the bus to kind of
do some, you know, silly writingon your computer. And these
folks are really saving lives.
And I would have that thoughtknowing full well, I don't study
science. I don't have any. Itook, like, one science elective
in undergrad. I don't do wellwith any sort of, you know,

(08:51):
anatomy, you know, biology,physics, chemistry, none of that
stuff, both, like, at anintellectual level, and also it
makes me queasy. Like, why wouldGod be calling me to do this
work? God is calling me to do adifferent kind of work. And so I
can sit around and waste timeand abide by wishing I was
somebody else, or I couldcelebrate that God has given
these good skills to these goodpeople and and hopefully, you

(09:11):
know, is those people are doinggood, and then I can go back to
my own work. And I think that'sthat's a real pivot, celebrating
the skills of others versus,wallowing in what we think we
don't have, instead of missingwhat we already do.

I think it's going to be helpful for people
to kind of define what Ignatianspirituality is. I know that
probably a lot of peoplelistening are familiar with it.
Some people may not be. So whatis Ignatian spirituality, and
what did st Ignatius give theworld well,

briefly, so Ignatian spirituality comes from
kind of the life and legacy thatthe teaching, the spiritual
reflections of st Ignatius ofLoyola. Ignatius of Loyola was a
Basque soldier, nobleman, manabout court, who lived in late
1400s early 1500s to mid 1500sHe in Spain. He had this moment.

(10:02):
He was this soldier. He has thismoment. We kind of say this the
cannonball moment during theBattle of Pamplona. You know,
he's a part of a Spanishbattalion that's outnumbered,
outmaneuvered by the Frenchforces who offer them terms of
surrender. Ignatius says, No, wewill not surrender. Even though
he's not in charge. Thebattalion convinces all of all
the troops, including thecommanding officer, to go along

(10:22):
with him, and they arecompletely routed. People are
killed. Their lives are lostbecause of Ignatius pride, his
inability to surrender, which isalways worth reflecting on.
Ignatius himself gets acannonball to the leg. His legs
are broken because he's a noble.
He's He's brought back to hishome in Loyola. He recovers for
11 months. During that timeperiod, he's given two books,
the life of Christ and the lifeof the saints, and as he's he's
there as he's as he'srecovering, he realizes that the

(10:45):
old stories he used to, he usedto find so energizing, because
the stories of, you know,courtly romance and chivalric
heroics are no longer energizinghim like they once did. Now as
he thinks about the life ofChrist as he thinks about the
lives of the saints, he findshimself really moved by this
kind of a different kind ofheroism. You know, what would it

(11:07):
mean to give my life to thisgreater cause? What would it
mean to live a life of humilityand poverty and embracing this
downward mobility that Christinvites us to? What would that
be? He's energized by that. Andso right there at the beginning,
we see this discernment ofspirits. He's recognizing God,
inviting him to something else,working in his imagination. He
from that, from his recovery. Hethen goes on. He lays his sword

(11:27):
down at the foot of Our Lady ofMontserrat, which is a an image
of the Blessed Mother in inSpain. And he picks up this,
this, you know, this, this titleof this role of Pilgrim. And
then he spends time in Manresa,which is not far from
Montserrat, praying, reflecting,and ultimately having this
profound experience of God. Fromthis experience of God, he
writes what's known as thespiritual exercises. The
Spiritual Exercises is this fourweek retreat. We can think of it

(11:50):
in four spiritual movementsthat's really inviting folks to
mirror what Ignatius did.
Ignatius was a master ofunderstanding the human psyche,
a human condition. You go onthis, this spiritual journey to
better understand what God iscalling you to do, right that,
that Call of vocation. And thenIgnatius goes on. He meets other
companions. He founds a societyof Jesus, better known as the

(12:11):
Jesuits. And here we are, youknow, almost 500 years later. So
Ignatian spirituality takes alot from the spiritual
exercises, from the tradition ofthe Jesuits, and also from this
early experience of Ignatiusunderstanding God working in his
imagination, God, God callinghim to new things, to just to
make these choices betweenvarious paths in life, and also
God being present in all things,that's a key. It's a key thing

(12:34):
for Ignatian spirituality. Godis present in all things. All
Things can reveal to ussomething of God's desire for us
in our lives, Ignatius says,right? The human person is made
to praise reverence and serveGod, and by that way, then Save,
save our souls and work for thegood of all people. But how we
praise reverence and serve God?
That's the key, right? That'sthe that's the vocational
question, and that's what thespiritual exercises, and all

(12:54):
these are the tools of Ignatianthe Ignatian tradition, are
about. So there's a long answerto your question, but I think
understanding Ignatius life isreally, is really key. And then
Ignatius spirituality, there'smuch more we can talk about
there, but, but, but that theidea of God in all things is
really, really important. So

because God is in all things, we can be in the
world. Talk a little bit how,how Jesuits are a little
different than other religiousorders that we think of that
they may not have an, you know,a typical housing place, but
they're out in the world. Andhow is that different? And why?
Why is that important? So

when Ignatius and the early kind of Jesuit
companions founded the society,it was a moment in church
history that was that looks verydifferent, because the idea of
having a religious order thatdidn't live in a monastery,
didn't live apart from, from theworld was, was very was unheard
of. You know, today, today, wemight think, oh yeah, we see, we
see kind of religious folks allthe place, but, but in that time
it was, it was a real breakwith, with the tradition, or an

(13:53):
evolution of the tradition, youmight say. And so one of the
early Jesuits, I believe it was,Jerome Nadal, said something to
the effect of kind of the worldis our monastery. That's not
it's a paraphrase. But thatmeant that for a Jesuit, and I
would say for anybody who kindof you know, is in this Ignatian
tradition, we go into the worldknowing God is here, knowing
that that is in this space, thatwe pray, that we that we

(14:15):
encounter God's desire and dreamfor us, and we do the work of
God. There's a phrase, again, inthe Ignatian tradition, being a
contemplative in action, thatmeans that prayer is is so, so,
so important, because it's howwe understand and make sense of
God's will in our lives. Butthen we necessarily are
compelled to go out into theworld and and have an impact on
the common good. How? What isGod asking of us, uniquely in

(14:38):
this moment? So it's thatconstant cycle of reflecting on
on the needs of the world,reflecting on what God is
inviting us to do uniquely, andthen going out and doing it. I
think

contemplative in action is something that has
resonated with almost more thananything. As I've been, you
know, working in the world,trying to figure out my life
with Christ, my life in theworld, this is the thing that's
really stuck with. Me. I wastalking to my wife last night
and talking about, about you,I'm gonna interview you, talk
about Ignatian spirituality, andwe've been teaching some mission

(15:08):
courses on the history ofmission. And she's like, Hey, I
don't know where we would bewithout the Jesuits, like they
were. They were in the worldwhen nobody else was in the
world. It was the Jesuits thatreally kept it going when it
felt like there was a moment ofsilence and quiet that we're out
in the world. I think the key iscontemplative, like you're here,

(15:32):
you're finding peace inyourself, so that you could find
peace in the world. What is thatbalance? How do we start? So
take us into a moment. Say,maybe in the this four week,
Ignatius exercises, thespiritual exercises. How do we
start to find that peace withinourselves, so that we can be
peace builders, peacemakerswithin the world? Yeah,

I think a lot of it really, at least for me, in
my own kind of prayer life,right? It comes from finding
what God has been up to in mylife, right? And detecting those
patterns. How has God alreadybeen at work in my life? Again,
in the Ignatian tradition, wetalk about the graced history,
looking at our history with God,and realizing God is already

(16:15):
working. I was already doingstuff. We may not make sense of
it for years on end, but God hasalways been there. And so in the
first week of the exercises, oneof the key themes is right, to
really look clearly at the worldand to say, No, things are not
quite right here. There's a lotof suffering, there's a lot of
disorders, a lot of chaos,there's a lot of need. Yeah, I
know. I don't, I don't want to,no spoiler. I don't spoil those

(16:37):
for you, but, but things are,things are a little bit of a
mess, you know, but you seethings as they are plainly,
right? And then you see Godinviting you all the same, and
God saying, hey, guess what? Iwant you to I want you to not be
stuck in this, this, this brokenstatus quo. In fact, I want you
to step out and to help tochange it, help to make it

(16:58):
better, right? So I think to dothat come there's a lot of
things that has to have tohappen. I think we have to it.
Find our own vocation, right?
What is it God's asking us todo? What are we good at? What
brings us that peace? And thenhow can we offer it to others?
Because we can never, you know,one of the things you know in
the book is you reflect on peaceas like an academic concept,
right? And this is, this isgonna be obvious when I say it,
but conflict only takes oneperson. Just takes one, one guy

(17:19):
or girl, whatever, to to, youknow, start a war, and then
everything crumbles. But ittakes every single party
involved to build peace, right?
And so, you know, you thinkabout that, if we all have our
own unique gifts, we all haveour unique desires and our own
kind of contribution to peace,then we all better be up and
about the work, because it takesall of us to build this peace,

(17:42):
to build up God's dream of peacein the world, and to go out and
do it. So I think, as we'rethinking about the the
exercises, you know that webegin in chaos, which just means
we begin by looking at thestatus quo that is as far from
what we hope for. And then webegin to say, Well, what comes
next? And and in the flow of theexercises, the second week and
the second movement is thisinvitation to accompany Jesus,

(18:03):
as Jesus is about his mission.
And then we and we begin to see,then what do we see in that
mission? We see Jesus workingwonders. We see Jesus healing
and upsetting the status quo,because suddenly everybody
belongs, everybody matters.
Everybody is worthy of a touchof comfort and compassion. And
we're walking with Jesus as hedoes this. One of the things I

(18:23):
hope for this book is, is it's,it does parallel the exercises
it goes it goes through. So youcould, you could read it as an
introduction to the exercises.
You could read it while you'remaking that retreat with a
director. And I hope that itoffers a little bit of, you
know, new insight as as folksare doing that. Two weeks

ago, my wife went through a week of guided
prayer with somebody, and theydid an imaginative prayer
exercise, and then reflectionevery day, and then the director
that was walking with her wouldgive her a new passage and a
passage as as she was reflectingon what was going on In this

(19:00):
what's a good passage for thisimaginative prayer, and it's
pretty transformative duringthat time. It's like, take me
into some what that is as anexercise, and how maybe in in
your own life, how that has hashelped you, as you've
encountered Jesus in yourimagination and put yourself in

(19:21):
the story,

there's two gospel passages that were really
important to my own kind offaith journey. One being kind of
Jesus being baptized, right? AndGod arriving and saying, You are
the beloved. You are my beloved.
And another, being the parableof the prodigal son. You know,
you see common kind of commonthemes, right? Again, that
embrace, like, hey, like yourmatter, you know, set aside the
shame you're good, right? So youhave common themes in those. The

(19:43):
one that I think is probablyeasiest in some ways, and I do
write about this in the book, isthe, is the Jesus at the at the
being baptized at the JordanRiver. You know the idea there
my own spiritual director. Youknow, long ago he said, he said,
you know, did you know Goddelights in you? Do you know
God? You know you're the belovedof God. And you know. I didn't,
you know, I really didn't as a,this is under I was, this is I
was an undergraduate then. But Ithink there's a lot of people

(20:04):
still, and even now, like youhave to practice that. Oh yeah,
God delights in me. Oh mygoodness, God lights in me.
That's, that's not always easyto remember, or to or to live
out of and so that's, that's whyyou take this, this abstract
truth, and you put yourself inthe scene. And so if I were
going to walk in the scene ofthe baptism of Jesus, right? In
the Ignatian tradition, youwould, you would put yourself in
and you would say, Okay, who amI in this scene? Maybe I'm

(20:26):
Jesus, you know, and I thinkthat's probably the best
character to be in thisparticular Gospel passage. But
regardless of what the passageis, am I a character who's named
Am I maybe a new character I'mimagining kind of on the
sidelines, and now, once I'm inthe scene, I kind of see it,
right? I assemble the scene inmy mind, you know, what do I
feel? Do I feel this? The sandkind of grating on my skin? Is

(20:46):
it hot out? The sun is burningmy neck? What do I smell? You
know? Is that the smell of theriver? Is it the smell of my
passing? But a meat stand like,what is it? What am I seeing?
Right? You're really engagingthe senses. Because, again,
right, that initial piece ofIgnatius story, the imagination
is key, you know, for if we'redoing the story of the baptism,
right, you know, what does itfeel like to have John Baptist

(21:09):
put his hand on my head and pushme under the water and then pull
me back up? Right, that momentof silence, and then that moment
of light, and then God says tome, Eric, you are my beloved. I
am well, pleased with you,right? What does that feel like?
And so for you to do that, oryour wife or anyone to do that
in their prayer, what does thatmean for God to say that? And
what I would hope, right? Ithink, I think that one of the

(21:31):
hopes of that prayer would be,what does it unlock? What does
it mean when suddenly we look atour life and say, Oh, my
goodness, I was I'm not just thebeloved of God. Now, I've always
been the beloved of God. Doesthat change what it means to
look at my life? That doesn'tmean it removes hard times or
suffering or or we don't Bandyover challenges, right? But we
find that God is there with us,right? Jesus, Jesus weeps with

(21:51):
us. God cries out with us,right? There's that. There's a
companionship of God in evenhard moments, because God loves
us, what do we do with those welove? We sit with them. We let
them cry on our shoulder. We crywith them, right? It just, it
changes how we how we understandourselves in relationship with
God. And that's just onescripture passage, right? We and
we can go on and on, but Iwon't. I

think that changes everything. If we sit
with the belovedness like we arethe beloved. I think that that's
a different posture in the worldthan we often have. I think most
people are often striving toachieve something so they could
get approval from others. But ifyou start from that position,

(22:36):
that changes the way that youenter into the world, that
changes the way you seeyourself, that changes the way
that you actually do have somepeace in the world. It's pretty
incredible. You've done thisexercise. But when did it
actually seep into your lifethat you are beloved, and how
did that change you? I don'tknow

if it's like a one time thing. I think it's a
constant unfurling you'reabsolutely right. Like, if we
are beloved. It's like ifyou're, you know, like with,
with, again, with a beloved ofin your own life, right? Who is,
who is the beloved in your life?
You know, it could be friends,could be family, could be
spouses, could be children.
There's a sense of, no matterwhatness In the love, right,
that you're get your giving. Andso it does bring, as you said,
that peace I'm doing okay? Ican't. I always have this

(23:17):
relationship. It affirms me, notbecause of what I'm doing
because of who I am, right? Itsounds like cliches and trite,
you know, sound bites, but it'strue. So, I mean, you know, I
was, I was a sophomore,sophomore, junior in college,
right? When I first had thisintroduced to me by my spiritual
director at the time. It wasvery profound. It was, it was a
key moment in my life. Really,kind of turned me. I say, oh,

(23:38):
you know what? This, thisspiritual stuff, this prayer
life really matters. Spendingtime in prayer really matters.
There's a lot of consolation tocome from it, because it means
that God is active in my world,right? It's, it's, it's, God
isn't just on the page or at adistance, but, but again, God
isn't all things. So all thingsare, are revealing that delight
of God. Now, I was a junior incollege, that was, that was, you

(23:59):
know, however, many years ago. Alot has happened since then,
right? So every time you returnto those, those scripture
stories, every time you return,you put yourself back in the
scene. You hear that, that senseof belovedness. You bring it
into the moment. Oh, wow, I'mbeloved boy. I should make sure
I'm really mindful of how Itreat my kids. Oh, I'm a beloved
Wow. Who in the headlines needs,me to really kind of think,

(24:21):
offer a prayer for them, orthink more more intentionally
about how I'm living my life,right? It brings you into dialog
with the moment. And I thinkthat's again, that's like,
that's why, that's why we returnto Scripture, right? Again and
again. We're never surprised bythe ending. It's because we were
bringing our lived experiencethrough the story of Scripture,
back into our lived experienceand saying, Well, what is God

(24:43):
doing now through me, which goesback to what we're saying,
right? It's that sense of, I amenough, and yet God is still
pulling something out of me.
What is it in this moment,you're

a storyteller.
You know how to tell stories,but in these exercises, it feels
like a lot of it's narrativebased. There's. The story of of
Scripture and the stories of theGospels. There's also, like, the
story of your own life, and likewe're discerning how we show up
and what our story is. A lot ofpeople live in not a well told
story, like an ugly story. Theylive in a story where they're

(25:16):
telling themselves that, hey,I'm I'm writing this story, and
it sucks, like it's just not agreat story. What? How does this
help us live into a better storyand think about our lives as as
story, as God interacting withus as you know, where are the
characters in it? What? How doesstory play into all of this, and

(25:39):
how do we tell better stories toourselves and the world? Yeah,

that's a great question. I am convinced. And
this isn't my thought. This is athought of someone else, like a
bunch of other people I've justkind of amassed in my mind. But
I do think, like one of our oneof the solutions to our to our
current day, is we need to telllarger stories, and we've lost
our shared stories, and we haveso many small stories, right?
And if we're the only characterin our small story, then, like,

(26:08):
What a sad story that is. So howare we telling larger stories,
right? And that's the role ofreligion. That's the role of
movies, like, right? Like, youknow, like, I always think of,
you know, I assume, I don'tknow. I never really had a water
cooler. But, like, right, whenyou're around, like, the
proverbial water cooler, and aperson's like, Hey, did you see
this movie? Did you read thisbook? Have you played this video
game? It's not just like, idletalk. It's because you actually

(26:29):
a story meant something to you,and you want to bring someone
else into it, right? You wantto, you want to share it with
them. And I think there's a lotof power in that. And so we
shouldn't dismiss your moviesand books and things as trivial.
I think God is at work in thosethat's a, that's a God moment,
right? These bigger stories. AndI think so. What's your
question? You know, how can wetell better stories, or think
differently about our ownstories? I go back to that idea

(26:50):
of grace history, which, whichis, again, this, this concept,
there's a, there was a CanadianJesuit named John English, and
he talks about grace history asthis, as this review of our
story in the in the company ofan affirming and loving God,
right? God affirming us in thereview of our story. God not,
not necessarily affirming allwe've done. You know, certainly
we've made mistakes, certainly,you know, things have happened

(27:11):
to us that are terrible andtraumatic. God isn't affirming
of those things. God isaffirming of our work, going
back through our story andtrying to understand it, make
sense of it, bring it to thelight, right? I always like the
image of kind of holding up thedetails of our story like a
gemstone and holding it up tothe light and looking at the
different facets, right? What?
What? What? What do we seedifferently as we move it around
in the light. And then once werealize that our story matters,

(27:34):
right? Once we say, oh my gosh,God, has been at work in the
even the most mundane details ofour stories, then we look to
other people and say, oh,there's a lot of other people in
this world, and I, and webelieve remain the image and
likeness of God. I bet theirstory is also full of little
details that point to profoundtruths about our existence.
There's a wonderful quote fromCS Lewis and the four loves that

(27:55):
I always kind of Bumble abouthere, but something to the
effect of he's talking about thelove of friendship, right?
Agape, ask the Agape one, right?
Not Eros agape, and he looksright. The whole idea is the
romantic love. You're lookinginto the eye of Your Beloved,
but the love of friendship isyou're looking out over a VISTA,
and you are sitting next tosomebody, and you may be looking

(28:15):
at the same thing, but it's notuntil you name it, until you
say, specifically, oh my gosh.
Do you see that? Like Scooby,doo van down there, that the
person next to you can say, oh,what you too. I thought I was
the only one who saw that. Andthat's the way we our stories
are. That's the way it comes.
That's what we do in our in ourlives. By sharing the
specificity of our lives withvulnerability in community, we
can build that sense of what youtoo. I thought I was the only

(28:38):
one that. And then we begin tosee how, though our stories are
different, we see similarthings. They and they can point
to common truths, and we buildout that that shared, that
shared sense of community, Ithink, I mean, I think that's,
there's many ways think aboutstorytelling, but that's, that's
the one that I've been kind ofturning over in my head lately.

(28:58):
Stories

are not just our own, that they're connected with
one another and each other, thatthey're communal stories. And I
think because we're in a momentwhere we're hearing stories of
the world, we're bombarded withso many different stories that
don't help us be people ofpeace, it helps us be be people

(29:19):
of anxiety or a fear, anger, allof those, those negative
emotions that come up becausewe're bombarded with really
negative stories constantly. Sowhat is the process do you
think, to to share our story andothers, to have this larger
story, to connect it to a storyof peace, rather than fear and

(29:42):
anger and betrayal and revenge,but actually the story of peace.
What does that look like whenwe're bombarded with negative
stories constantly? How do we dothat with each other? I

wish I knew. No. I mean, you know, it's so easy,
and I do this all the time.
That's why I know how easy it isto just get sucked into the
headlines and to. Yeah. And to,you know, listen to one podcast
after the next. That's justtelling you how terrible
everything is and and it's, youknow, you got to be informed.
That's important thing too. ButI think you have to have that,
that kind of like, belovedcommunity in your own in your
own life, like, you know, itcould be the people in your

(30:13):
family, people you live with. Itcould be that wider sense of,
you know, who's in yourneighborhood. But I think
there's a, there's a need tostart locally and intimately.
Like, who are your who are thepeople that belong to you here?
I think that's where you beginto share that story. I think
also, you know, I, I think a lotlike as a writer, right? And I
write a number of places, and Ihave things come out every week,

(30:34):
you know? So, so there'ssometimes it feels like I got to
really mind the depths here,like, what, what am I going to
say this week? There's a realtemptation to just share
whatever and in that, and thatcould really mean like, Oh, I'm
just going to perpetuate thissad, the doom and gloom, the
chaos. That's not helpful,right? We have to always think
with the words we say, whetherwe're saying them, we're putting
them out on page, or whateverwe're doing, we have to say,

(30:55):
what's good for God's peoplehere, what is, what is going to
build up? People build up asense of comfort, not lie. We're
not trying to lie or pretend oror ignore, but, but from where I
sit, me, I'm not a journalist,I'm not a I'm not a you know,
political reporter. I'm not ayou know, on the front lines of
anything, right? But so, so whatis important for me to say, to

(31:16):
offer to the world that's goingto be useful, and how can I do
that in a way that I that iskeeping in mind who's receiving
this, right? Who is theaudience? And again, that sounds
very like marketing jargon, butit's true, right? I want to, I'm
trying to offer something asgift to somebody else for their
own spiritual nourishment. Youknow, it just kind of carry them
along the way a little bit. So,you know, I think, I think

(31:38):
that's, I think always keepingour eyes, you know, on the
horizon of hope. How are wepushing people in that direction
or not pushing? We never push.
But walking with people in thatdirection is important. And I'll
say one more thing. I wasstruck. I was listening to a
podcast not too long ago, andsomeone was saying, you know,
the road to Emmaus, how long didJesus walk in the wrong
direction with with his friends?
And I was really struck me. Iwas like, Oh my gosh, yeah,

(32:01):
that's right. And so what doesthat mean for us? It doesn't
mean we just blindly walk in thewrong direction forever, but
there, there is a sense of, weknow we're not always in the
right direction, both of our owndecision making and just the
world, you know, put putting itsneeds on us. And yet, even out
of that walking in the wrongdirection, we can still be
present intimately to people whoare alongside us.

We have to really define peace. Some people
think that peace can be weaknessin this world, because there's
so much war that we actuallyhave to be like have righteous
violence to combat it. But peaceis is really it's really strong.

(32:45):
Jesus Himself is peace. He's theprince of peace. He is peace,
and he's not weak. I've neverknown Jesus as weak, but he was
also non violent. What doespeace as strength look like? And
so help us and define this sowe're not just weaklings in the

(33:06):
world, but peace gives usstrength in the world to move a
different direction. Yeah,

I'm going to read this is a definition that I use
at the very beginning of thebook, and it comes from from
John Deere, who is a Catholicpriest and peace activist. He
writes, peace begins within eachof us. It is a process of
repeatedly showing mercy toourselves, forgiving ourselves,
befriending ourselves, acceptingourselves and loving ourselves.
As we learn to appreciateourselves and accept God's gift
of peace, we begin to radiatepeace and love to others. Now

(33:35):
again, that's that's startingwithin, but that radiating of
love to others is reallyimportant, right? And I don't, I
don't think any of us encountersomebody who's radiating love
and says, what a weakling, youknow? What, what a jerk. I
think, I think we, I think wesee in that person a certain
kind of strength. It's adisarming strength. It's
unsettling because it's, it'snot, it's, it is, I think

(33:58):
standing against what the worldoften says is important, and
this is, this is key. This is akey meditation in the Spiritual
Exercises of Saint Ignatius, thetwo standards, right? Ignatius
sets. He sees two directionsthat we can go. We can stand
under this, under the standardof the enemy, or the standard of
Christ. Now, the standard of theenemy is marked by by an

(34:20):
unhealthy amount of attachmentto riches and wealth, this
desire and need for honors andan overweening kind of bloated
sense of pride, the standard ofChrist is marked by poverty,
rejection, humility, right?
This, this downward mobility.
Now what happens? And again, youhear that, you say, Boy, I don't
want that Christ. One soundslousy. I don't want that one.

(34:41):
And yet, what happens, right? IfI'm attached, if I'm attached to
riches, to honors and to pride,there's no end. There's no and I
always want more. I always wantmore riches. I always want I'm
caught up in that. It's, it's,it's, it's a, it's a, it's a
struggle that I will never win.
There I never have enough, andthere's always someone behind me
on the ladder, who's who's somuch closer. To overtaking me. I
got to keep scrambling up,right? It's isolating. It abhors

(35:02):
a community because itnecessitates competition. Oh,
I'm good now, because I havemore than you, but boy, oh boy,
if you catch up to me, we're notgoing to be good anymore. It's
violent. It's necessarily aviolent way of living. On the
other hand, and I'm not sayingI'm not saying, I'm not saying
money is bad. I'm not saying anhonor is bad. I'm not saying

(35:23):
having pride in your work isbad. That's not what I'm saying.
That's why I use thoseadjectives, because, because it
becomes your identity, itpoisons you. The other side,
that direction leads us tohumility. It's disarming,
because, because we necessarilyneed other people, right? We
recognize we are necessarilylimited. We need community. We
can't go it alone. And so thecommunity expands. And in that
exercise, in the meditation,Ignatius notes that Jesus calls

(35:46):
us friends, right? The enemycalls us we're foot soldiers,
but Jesus calls us friends. Iknow this is a long answer to
your question of defined peace,but the imagery is so important,
right? Because it's a trajectoryof our life. Every decision we
make, we can run through this,this district, this
juxtaposition. Am I decidingthis because I need money, I

(36:07):
need honors, I need to be bemade to feel proud, proud. Or am
I my letting go and say, Youknow what? I don't need those
things. You know what's what'sfor the good of all people?
Right? A direction towardscommunity. Now peace. So what
about this? Is peace weakness?
Well, I, and I'm no hero of nonviolence, you know, I think it's

(36:28):
very scary, right? It's veryscary thing to to to embrace,
and I write pretty honestlyabout that in the book. But our
heroes of non violence, as welook at the world and look at
our kind of, our tradition heretheir action, the action of
putting yourself before kind ofthe tools of empire, right? The,
you know, it reveals the systemaround us is held up. Powers are

(36:49):
held up, necessarily, byviolence, right? We can't. It's
not dialog, it's not it's notcommunity, it's this, you do
what I say, or ultimately, I gotto remove you from the picture,
right? And that's what these,tools of non violence will
ultimately, you know, pull, likepulling poison from a, from from
a, from a body, right from awound. It reveals it. And I
think that realizes that, thenyou know it, you know the non

(37:13):
violent person is, is, is readyto give their life. We see that
in Jesus, right? That's whatJesus does on the cross. But it
reveals the, the, you know, thewhole structure is built on
sand, and what, what stands thatcommunity of love, that
community that that that is, is,is cares for one another. And
hopefully everyone realizes,hey, I want to be in that. I

(37:34):
want to be in the standard ofChrist. I want to be part of the
team that is that is looking outfor each other, and not the team
that is ready to kind of stabyou in the back as soon as
things go south. How's that?
How's that for a definition,

but that non violence. So this is what I
mean. I've been contemplatingthis a long time. I just, I just
never understand how nonviolence gets people so angry
and like and and I what you justsaid as it pulls the poison out
of the blood, I think is sohelpful for me. Like, oh,

(38:10):
they're, they're poisons likeviolence. Poisons people going
after, after riches, poisonspeople like following the way of
the world. Poisons people andnon violence is an antidote to
that, and the world hates it.
Jesus died because of it. MartinLuther King Jr died because of
it. Like you, right? We could goexample after example. Yeah,

(38:30):
people dying from it, but it'sso good, it exposes the system
for what it actually is. Yeah, I

think this. I think the silly example I give
in the book is, is like alibrary, you know, if you're, if
you're, if you're too loud inthe library, what happens? The
librarian says to be quiet, andthen if you keep doing it, what
happens? Well, the librarian,you know, probably, you know,
calls somebody to come andremove you. Well, if you still
you know what happens?
Eventually it escalates. Right?
You get put in prison. You knowyou're get threatened in
different ways, because, becausethe system is in some ways held

(38:59):
up by this sense of violence.
It's a silly example. And again,I am no hero of non violence. I
find, even in myself, that thatanger sometimes that responds
because, you know, we'reconditioned to not want this
stuff, right? I think there'syou said, What's think about
definitions of peace. We oftenthink of peace as simply the
absence of violence. Like, youknow, if no one's shooting at
each other, then we must have astate of peace. That's not,

(39:21):
right? Peace. There's all sortsof kinds of violence. We think
we've heard of structuralviolence, of course, but I think
of cultural violence, right?
There's this sense of, what arethose, those those things that
are considered common sense,that are actually does harm to
me, or actually does harm to toother people, right? Like, oh,
like, of course, like, thatperson would never get a better
job, because, you know,whatever, whatever, that that's

(39:44):
a form of cultural violence,right? And I probably could
think of a better example, but,but I wonder if that's not in
part, what you're describing,that anger that people feel
towards non violence. Becausewe're conditioned to say, well,
of course we would. We wouldlead with the with the point of
our guns. Of course we would.
Why would we not do that?
Because cultural violence thatwe've, we've, we've embraced

(40:04):
unknowingly, you know, and it's,listen, it's hard. It's not,
it's not easy. None of this iseasy stuff, and I'm not an
expert, but I think there's alot to pray about here, because
ultimately we have to, we haveto take it into our own lives,
into our own contexts, and liveit here, even just the words we
say to describe ourselves. Youknow, how often do I, you know,

(40:24):
I spill, I spill somethingidiot. That's not nice. That's a
little bit of violence, right?
Or, or if I say, oh, Eric, I'mso anxious today. I hate this
part of me. That's violencethat, that, that's me trying to
cut out a part of me, right? So,so there's, there's a lot of
ways to to practice this in avery intimate context. We don't
have to go and, you know, to thefront lines of anything. We can

(40:45):
just sit in our rooms and think,Boy, where am I not cultivating
this sense of non violence, andwhere have I given into some
sort of cultural, cultural sensethat it's okay to do, to do it
this way. I

really want to see this be what is in the
world, is a real sense of peace,right? I want to see peace
building in the world. And it'snot weak. It is. It is strong.
It starts with us that we haveto cultivate a sense of peace
within ourselves to get rid ofthe violence in ourselves. How
does that move? How does thishelp us? These these exercises

(41:21):
help us move from a place of,we're doing the work for
ourselves, and we're getting ridof the violence, into a place
of, then building a communitythat does that work together,
into a place then a widerneighborhoods and communities
and cities actually then reflectthat piece. What is the move of

(41:44):
of these exercises that can helpus see this in the world? But it
starts with us? Well, first,

everyone buys a copy of my book. And no, I
think, I mean, it's an essentialquestion, right? And I think
it's interesting, because one ofthe one of the key hopes of
anyone who does the SpiritualExercises of saying Ignatius is
this sense that we're profoundlychanged in the world. But you
have to find that balance there.
There is that balance between myown personal life of prayer and
then what I my values in action.

(42:11):
I think it comes down to, youknow, the value of solidarity,
right? A virtue of it's one ofthe principles of Catholic
social teaching. I think itnecessarily begins within us,
this idea of really having afirm and and loving disposition
towards people in completelydifferent contexts of ours, you
know, how can we empathize inthat way? How can we imagine

(42:32):
ourselves living these other,other lives? You know, I'm a,
I'm a pretty, you know, well offguy living in Maryland, right?
You know, a lot of problemsaren't mine, and yet it is my
duty as as part of the body ofChrist. Right, uh, to choose to
think about who are those whoare on the margins, who are most
vulnerable, um, who, who arebeing demonized by society.
Before I can, I can care aboutthose people, I have to put

(42:55):
myself in their shoes and say,Well, why? Why is this
happening? What? What is, whatis the what is the story? Right?
Go back to what you said yousaid earlier, what is the larger
story we're not telling? That's,that's solidarity. Is this? It's
this firm commitment. And then,and then, from that, from that,
say, of, okay, now I can betterunderstand their stories and how
it connects with my story. Andnow, what does that mean? How do
I spend my money accordingly?
What do I do in my free time?

(43:17):
You know? How do I teach mychildren? Right? These are,
these are all things. What arethe what are the civic
organizations I'm a part of? Youknow? What do I do in my church
context? All these things? Ithink that's where it begins.
You know, I there's two chaptersat the end of this book that I
write that kind of go, that tryto grapple with this idea of,
of, what do we do after theexercises, right? That this is,
this is a pretty big question inIgnatian tradition, and one of

(43:38):
them is, is this one? One of myanswers, one of my suggestions
is creativity, right? How are wefostering in ourselves a spirit
of creativity? Not because weall need to go out and paint,
although that's yours to do,fantastic, but because a spirit
of creativity allows us to holdkind of competing ideas
paradoxes in our mind and notimmediately need to rationalize

(44:00):
them. We can say, You know what?
There is a lot going on here,and I, I'm going to sit with it
and allow it to percolate, muchas Ignatius does, right, in
those 11 months. And I'm goingto allow there to be a sense of
wandering in my in mydiscernment, in my in my prayer,
you know, and allow God to todream bigger than I might be
already prepared to dream,right? That's what the creative
action is. Is about assemblingsomething new out of the raw

(44:20):
material we already have, right?
It's that newness we need. Sohow do we how do we do that? And
then forgiveness? I think I havea chapter on their own
forgiveness at the end, andthat's so it's very hard to
forgive people nowadays, right?
It's very hard to empathize. Howdo we see ourselves in that
situation? Yeah, I don't know.
Those might be lame answers. Butthat's, that's kind of, I think

(44:42):
those like little we're workingmuscles, we're trying to we're
trying to build up muscles thatcan get us there, and then when
we find ourselves with ourfriends, with our family, in
conversation, at the at thesekey pivotal moments where we're
making decisions, then we mightinstinctively move for peace,
rather than, you know, not.
Realize, kind of all the all thechaos that's going on in the
world that goes back to thatfirst week of exercises. We have

(45:03):
to see clearly the injustice andthe violence that is that is
here in the system, so that wecan begin to act differently.
The

story, for some reason, has been with me since
the very beginning of ourconversation, and so I think I
need to share it is just brieflywe were hanging out with this
refugee family, the womanMiriam, I'm gonna call her
Miriam. She got pregnant. Shenow has nine mouths to feed. If
she has birth to this baby,they're, you know, they're war
refugees. They have no money.
They have nothing and she's,she's scared, she's worried. One

(45:35):
day, she asked my wife, Meredithto go with her to Catholic
Relief office and say, Hey, canI register for some aid and some
different things? So Meredithwent with her, and at the very
beginning, what she what thiswoman, Miriam, said, is, hey, I
don't know how I'm going to feedthis baby. I, you know, jumped

(45:55):
off of my bed and landed on mybelly to try and abort my baby,
to get rid of my baby. And soshe's asking this Catholic
Relief Services to pay for anabortion for her, which I found
hilarious, but she right there,has so much violence within
herself that so much liketension is, am I going to be

(46:18):
okay? Is our family going to beokay? Is this baby going to be
okay? Am I going to be loved?
And as they said, No. And wewent home with her, we started
walking through stories ofJesus, and she started to find
some some hope that Jesus iswith her, that there is some

(46:39):
peace within her, and as we walkwith her, she found forgiveness
for herself, for God. She tried,needed to forgive God for having
her in this position. So she hadthis baby, and my wife was
there, and they named him, himglory. Named him meshed as
because it reminded her of thestory of Jesus's birth, it

(47:01):
reminded her of Jesus and thepeace that he gave. And I don't
know it's just a transition froma place of like fear and anger
and violence and just beingabsolutely scared as refugee
into a place of finding thestories of Jesus compelling,
knowing that he is with her andgiven her hope, and then

(47:23):
reframing a new story, the storyof, hey, the glory of God is
going to be with us at alltimes, and we're going to live a
different story. I don't know. Ijust found that a little piece
of like, Hey, this is kind ofwhat it looks like of moving
into a new, new story, a newplace finding peace, where there

(47:46):
was an absence of peace before.
Yeah, and

I love what you say too, about, like, you name,
all those things of fear and theanxiety and the and probably
just the weariness and and whatdoes Jesus do with those? I
don't think Jesus chases thoseout. I think Jesus comes in and
gives them a hug, right? I thinkJesus. I think Jesus. He wants
us to hug these things. Thoseare part of us, right? It's,
it's and we, I think we wastetime by trying to chase, Chase
parts of us away. And when weshould be giving them, we should
be embracing them and saying,hey, you know what you've you're

(48:13):
here for a reason, but I don'tneed to be afraid right now. Or
you're here. You've done good,good in the past, but I don't
need to be anxious right now.
You know how, but you know, howcan we again, realize that we're
the beloved and that Goddelights in us, and that, you
know, even in those, those hardmoments, you know, I think we're
also Jesus weeps. I think Jesus,I guess one of my the strongest
parts of the in Scripture,right, was saying, and Jesus

(48:33):
wept. I think that's okay too. Ithink that's, that's okay too.
No, I think it's a beautifulstory. Thank you for sharing
that

there's been so many times where we would just
sit with people and just say,hey, Jesus wept, yeah, and he's
weeping with you right now. Andjust sit with people like
because there's I mean this.
What do you do with war refugeeslike you? You sit in the pain
and the grief and the sorrow,and Jesus does that as well with
us. One

of the things I've been thinking about is the idea
of compassionate listening andcompassionate listening not as a
I mean, like, I think it's takenme how many years of marriage to
realize this, right? But like,not, it's not about it's
listening. Isn't about, like,Oh, let me fix your problem.
Like, you tell me I'm gonna fixit, and then we'll be off the
races. But instead recognizingthat we're all suffering, we're
all hurting, and thatcompassionate listening is
about, how can I be with thisperson as they need to find some

(49:27):
healing and some relief fromthat suffering, and how can my
listening help to provide thespace for that relief, rather
than All right? Here it is.
Here's the solution, you know,and and that that very recently,
that's been in my prayer, and Iwas like, Oh, this is actually
really important for me. You hadto practice. This is an
important thing for me topractice. I better, I better pay
attention to that. But I thinkit sounds like you've, you've
been doing that for a long time.

(49:49):
So not,

not great at times, but sometimes I've been
doing it all right. Just like,yeah, exactly, exactly. A couple
questions. Has been a fantasticconversation. I've absolutely
loved talking with you. It hasbeen so fun. But I have a couple
questions at the end. One, ifyou go back to your 21 year old
self, what advice would yougive? Oh,

stay the course.
Like, like, it's like all ofyour weird, disparate interests
are going to come together intoyour own vocation. So don't,
don't, don't let any of thoseinterests away, go away.

Anything you've been reading or watching lately,
you could recommend I just

read Ursula Quinn's changing planes, which
essentially is a collection of,like, mini world building
exercises she just has, I thinkshe I don't know a lot about
her. I know I like her writing,but it feels like many spiritual
world building experiences,where each is like, maybe like
maybe, like, 15 chapters looselyheld together by like, a common
framing device. But they, theyeach are just this, what if we

(50:45):
exaggerated one kind of piece ofhumanity and put it into a
different world and then kind ofjust, you know, saw what
happened. It was really helpful.
Was really powerful. It was afun, fun read. Just watch the
Legend of Korra. I don't know ifyou, if you're an avatar guy,
but, um, I don't know if I, Iloved it. I don't know if that's
a, it's a kids show. I don'tknow if it's worth recommending.
I'm

sure it is. I mean, I've only heard good
things the legend of Cora, so

Unknown (51:07):
I'm excited for the next one. Yeah, I'm all in. Is
there

a movie that you could think of that like kind of
embodies what we've been talkingabout today that we could you
could recommend?

Can I give you a scene, and it's total, it's a
total plug for my other my otherbook, The Star Wars, Nick
nation's spirituality book, mylife with the Jedi spirituality
of Star Wars, but, but I love itin the last Jedi. If you seen
last Jedi, you Star Wars guy?
Yeah, I love the last Jedi. Lovelast Jedi. And so what happens?
Right? They think the answer isviolence. They think the answer
is we have to completely wipeout the first order. And Luke,
who himself, has gone on this,this kind of spiritual journey,

(51:42):
and has to have his owndiscoveries. What does he do? He
it's not, it's not we have to,you know, roll over and play
dead. And it's not we have tocompletely annihilate. He shows
up and and he and he fights KyloRen. He defeats Kylo Ren, but
he's never, actually, there'snever actually a threat of
violence. I think that scene,that final duel, there's a lot
to think about, and what doesthat mean for our own work of

(52:05):
peace and our own commitment tofinding a third way? Because
that was surprising right in themovie, and people didn't like
it, necessarily. I did.

I wonder. Why do you think that that's why people
didn't like it? Is it because itactually like, goes against what
the world thinks is like, whatrevenge needs to look like.

I mean, maybe right. Because, I mean, we had a
pretty clear image of revenge inthe in like, the ninth one then
followed up with like, nope,nope. Turns out we've got to
beat them all up well. And Ithink the other thing that was
really I loved about the lastJedi is I love because I also
love Picard, and if you're aStar Trek guy, but I love Picard
because I like this idea of anolder character, a hero we

(52:48):
revisit years later, lookingback at their legacy and
realizing how many mistakes theymade and how and how perhaps
they have to re examine whatthey've done, and yet they still
have to rise to the needs of themoment. I just, I love that kind
of back and forth. And I think,again, I like what Luke did. So
I think people didn't like that.
I think they wanted Luke to be aperfect character from beginning
to end, which is, which is justnot how characters go. And then

(53:10):
the fact that Luke, right, it'simportant that Luke gives
himself totally to that work,right? It literally kills him.
It is, it is the non violentpath he so I think that's,
that's really important, Picard,he doesn't die in the end.
Spoiler alert, but, but that wasalso another, another great
show, which is not, not yourquestion,

no, that's, that's fantastic. It makes me
want to go watch the last Jediagain. But so good. I also love
Ryan Johnson. I think RyanJohnson's amazing writer,
director, and so he's so muchfun, so he's good anyways,
agreed, uh, how can people goout, get finding peace here and
now, which is a fantastic book.
I really do hope people go outand read. This is one of my

(53:50):
favorite reads that I've had ina while. You're an excellent
writer, and these exercises canchange your life, like they they
really can, and they could bringabout a place of peace that is
desperately needed now. So Ireally do highly, highly
recommend this book. So how canpeople get this book? And is
there anywhere else you'd liketo point people to finding

peace here? Now have nations, spirituality, at
least it's healing, wholenessavailable may 6. Anywhere you
get books, Barnes and Noble,Amazon, local bookstore, that's
it's anywhere. The publisher isBrazos press. My website is Eric
Clayton rights.com I have aweekly sub stack you can find
there. And I also write, have aweekly newsletter I do for the
Jesuit conference. I have someother books too. My life with a
Jedi spirituality of Star Wars,which, if you liked my take on

(54:36):
the last Jedi, you're gonna lovethat book. And then I have a
whole book on Ignatianspirituality and storytelling
called cannonball moments,telling your story, deepening
your faith. So IgnatiusBridgeway, I really only have
the one trick, so that's that'sit.

That's good.
It's a great trick. It's areally good trick. I hope so.
Thank you, Eric, thank you forthis conversation. Thank you for
diving deep into your own story.
Into Ignatian spirituality, intopeace, into figuring out, hey,
is there a better way and a newway that we could live in a
subversive way that brings aboutthe peace that we so desperately

(55:11):
seek and need? So thank you. Itwas a fantastic conversation.
Love talking to you. Wish wecould do it more often. It was
good. Happy to come.

Happy to come back. Thank you. It was a lot of
fun.

All right, thanks, Eric, you.

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Ep. 301 Eric Clayton - Finding Peace Here and Now

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 301 Eric Clayton - Finding Peace Here and Now