Francis with Jon Sweeney

Summary

Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward

Episode: "Francis with Jon Sweeney"

Date: February 21, 2025
Host: Center for Action and Contemplation
Featured Guest: John M. Sweeney

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Overview

This episode serves as the season finale for the podcast’s exploration of Richard Rohr’s foundational book Eager to Love, focusing on the life and radical spiritual witness of St. Francis of Assisi. The conversation weaves together Rohr’s insights, the lived Franciscan tradition, and guest John M. Sweeney’s extensive scholarship on Francis. The aim is to invite listeners to consider how Francis’s “natural spiritual genius”—namely, his simplicity, openness to love, bold embrace of poverty, and solidarity with the vulnerable—offers a blueprint for living out contemplative Christian wisdom in today’s complex world. The episode bridges toward the next season, which will address prophetic wisdom for today’s culture through Rohr’s forthcoming book The Tears of Things.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Franciscan Lineage and Contemplative Love

[00:08–04:54]

• Paul Swanson notes how the season’s journey through Eager to Love is anchored in the Franciscan lineage, connecting Jesus, Francis, and Richard Rohr.
• Drew Jackson highlights that the radical call to love at the heart of Francis is a direct inheritance from Jesus: “If you could sum up, you know, all the law and the prophets, it comes down to love God, love your neighbor as yourself, that the core, the center, is love.” – Drew Jackson [02:18]

Francis’s Radical Simplicity & Universal Love

[05:31–12:21]

• Richard Rohr describes Francis as a “universal man”, illustrating how Francis continually rediscovered Christ’s message outside religious and social boundaries imposed by his Italian Catholicism.
  • “He got the upside down nature of the kingdom of God. He really did. It wasn’t an achievement, it wasn’t an accomplishment, it wasn’t a performance.” – Richard Rohr [08:56]
• Francis’s focus is on God’s goodness and “rejoicing in littleness, in nothingness,” rather than self-worth or personal achievement.

Francis as Trickster & Critic of Power

[16:46–24:10]

• Rohr calls Francis a “divine trickster”: “One who colors outside the lines, but not in an angry or rebellious way, but in a creative, whimsical, often humorous way that surprises even the elect… He tricks you into the truth.” [17:31]
• The trickster’s humble challenge to established power is critical for both church and societal systems, echoing the prophetic tradition.

The Danger of Sanitizing Francis

[21:12–24:10]

• Jenna Kuiper and others discuss the tendency to “file down” Francis’s sharper edges, reducing him to a safe, pious figure, rather than grappling with his radical witness.
• Rohr reflects that after the Council of Trent, Franciscans lost their “trickster” edge and became more conformist: “We were diocesan priests in brown robes ... we lost the trickster almost entirely.” [21:46]

On the Simplicity of Franciscan Social Justice

[25:15–27:32]

• Rohr says, “Francis and Jesus... universal social justice agenda, is to live a simple life ... Simplicity of lifestyle is the most universal social justice ideal I can think of.” [25:15]
• The challenge is to break free from measuring sticks of value, achievement, and the reward system.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

The Ever-Expanding Love

• “I did not know what love was until I encountered one that kept opening and opening and opening.” — Christian Wiman, quoted by Paul Swanson and Jenna Kuiper [12:48–12:53]
• Rohr reflects:
  • “Explaining the almost hatred of Christianity today is many were given a supposed love that kept closing and closing and closing…How could we be so stingy with what is infinite?” [13:04]
• The genuine spirit of Francis and Christ is a love that continually expands, not contracts.

Facing Our Fear & Practicing Hospitality

[38:02–42:26] with John M. Sweeney

• Sweeney recounts moving to a less privileged area of Milwaukee, and the visceral moment of “a homeless guy sitting at my kitchen table having coffee”—his first reaction was fear, quickly transformed into hospitality through his wife’s example.
  • “I was embarrassed that that was my first reaction. But it was a learning process, and life is a learning process.” – John M. Sweeney [42:10]

Sensitivity as Genius

• “I think that’s part of Francis’ spiritual genius. He was deeply sensitive and he didn’t run from it ... he wanted things to affect him.” – John M. Sweeney [43:31]
• Drew Jackson draws parallels with the struggle to stay sensitive in a world that demands self-protection: “How do I not numb myself to it and realize... I do that as part of a survival mechanism?” [45:36]

The Story of the Wolf of Gubbio

• The story of Francis confronting and brokering peace with a “terrifying” wolf:
  • “His first response is that he goes out to meet the wolf. And that is amazing to me... what are you going to do with your fear other than facing it?” – John M. Sweeney [48:18]

Simplicity as Radical Act

• “There's a real radicality in authentic simplicity.” – Mike Petro [52:34]
• Rohr and others emphasize the invitation to radicalize everyday life by meeting what and who is right in front of us with unguarded love.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Francis and the Franciscan lineage [00:08–04:54]
• Francis as a “universal man” and radical simplicity [05:31–12:21]
• The expanding love of Francis and the church’s tendency to close in [12:30–14:47]
• Francis’s dangerous, reformative edge; the trickster archetype [16:46–24:10]
• Losing the radical Francis in history [21:46–24:10]
• Franciscan simplicity and justice [25:15–27:32]
• Hospitality, fear, and daily practice (John Sweeney’s personal stories) [38:02–42:26]
• Francis’s spiritual sensitivity and genius [43:31–45:36]
• Facing the wolf: courage in the face of fear [48:18–52:34]
• Application: faithful, daily contemplative practice [64:44–65:49]
• Drew Jackson’s closing poem and spiritual invitation [71:31–74:55]

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Memorable Quotes

• “The trickster tricks you into the truth.” – Richard Rohr [17:31]
• “Contrarian. For love. I like that.” – Opie [24:06]
• “I've done what is mine to do. Now you do what is yours to do.” – Attributed to St. Francis, discussed by host team [24:13]
• “We’re all just...playing in a sandbox seeking to love as God loves. So what's his point of evaluating?” – Richard Rohr [29:11]
• “We all are wolf-like, and we all need to be fed.” – John M. Sweeney [51:27]

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Practical Takeaways

On Franciscan Practice:

• True Franciscan spirituality is practical, replicable, and messy: opening our homes, breaking down barriers, and welcoming the wounded.
• The call is to let ourselves be affected—by God, by the suffering of others, by the beauty and wounds of the world—and respond with presence rather than withdrawal.

On Living the Prophetic Path:

• Like Francis, prophetic living means holding the tension between anger at injustice, grief for suffering, and ultimately transformative love: “Go back to a place of wound and love at the same time.” – John M. Sweeney [62:58]
• Keep a daily contemplative practice to maintain attentiveness and sensitivity.

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Closing Reflection

Drew Jackson closes with a poem (beginning [71:31]) connecting the Franciscan invitation to love what and who is right in front of us, no matter how fearful or inconvenient. The poem, inspired by Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man, calls listeners into courageous, simple love in the face of discomfort and self-protection.

“I wish I could fill his hands with cash.
I wish I could fill my heart with compassion.
I wish I could fill my mouth with courage to ask his name...”
— Drew Jackson [71:31]

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Final Invitation

Listeners are encouraged to carry forward the Franciscan legacy—not as mere idealists, but as everyday practitioners of radical love, courageous openness, and hospitality, embracing both the wound and the gift of the real world right in front of them.

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This summary captures the spirit, themes, and pivotal moments of the episode, offering both a thorough overview and a direct connection to the original voices and wisdom shared.

Transcript

[Corey Wayne]

You're listening to a podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more, visit cac.org hey, everyone.

[Paul Swanson]

Welcome back to Everything Belongs Today. We are thrilled to wrap up our season by Talking about Chapter 13, Francis, a natural spiritual genius. I'm joined here by Drew Jackson. Drew, good to see you. How are you doing today?

[Drew Jackson]

Doing well, Paul. Doing really well. It's good to be with you.

[Paul Swanson]

It is always good to be together. And here we are wrapping up this season of Everything Belongs with this final chapter. And something that I was ruminating on as we were beginning to wrap this season was, we know that our next season is going to be focused on Richard's new book, the Tears of Things Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage, which feels like a nice next step coming from Francis, because with Eager to Love, we knew we wanted to prioritize this conversation, the series, because it is the lineage that Richard draws from. Francis is Richard's spiritual father, and we at the CAC are swimming in that, in those same waters of lineage, and seek to exemplify and live this out and teach from this lineage in our own particular way. And so we can see ourselves in the work of the CAC being connected to Richard and being connected to Jesus, being connected to Francis. The radicality of this work does not begin with Richard, does not begin with Francis, but we can see it as the core tenet of who Jesus is and how Jesus lived from this place of unitive connection. And we have these nuggets in the Gospels, these nuggets in Francis, these nuggets in Richard and others, of course, about how we might live in this way that is steeped in the love of Christ, for the love of neighbor, with the love of the world. And Francis is just such a great lightning rod for how we talk about this. And so as we wrap up this season, I can't help but think of what a journey it's been in. We've been in. In conversation not only with Richard, but this multitude of guests and how it overlaps with the circles of our own lives. What's on your mind this morning, Drew? As we think about wrapping up the season on Eager to Love, oh, there's.

[Drew Jackson]

Been so much, you know, in these. In these conversations that we've had. But I really think that as we come to this, you know, last episode of Eager to Love, I really think that this chapter on the natural spiritual genius of Francis, there's a reason that Richard ended it here, right? And it feels like a natural landing place that everything that Richard has been saying, has been pointing to this chapter that really, in so many words, distills down that spiritual genius of Francis to his laser focus on embodying love in the world. And really, even to your point, Paul, about how this radicality, right, didn't start with Richard, didn't start with Francis, that it. This was Jesus focus all along. If you could sum up, you know, all the law and the prophets, it comes down to love God, love your neighbor as yourself, that the core, the center, is love. And Francis real focus on that and, you know, to actually put flesh to that. In our conversation that we had with author John Sweeney, he really continues this for us. He unpacks this in his own life and his reflections on Francis, his reflections on marriage, right? And he talks about it as this, Francis's sensitivity. But it's the sensitivity toward the movements of love that move you toward action, that move you toward the other, toward solidarity with the poor, the oppressed. And so it's not this kind of sentimental, sanitized love, but it's this love that gets in the dirt. And I think that is, in so many words, what Richard has been saying. This is the direction of it all. Like, this is the point. This is the genius and the witness of Francis life. So as we get into these conversations where, you know, Richard really pulls on these threads, and as we talk with John Sweeney, he unpacks this more. It really is an invitation to hear about what it means to put flesh to this love in the world and how we're not just invited to study that in the life of Francis, but to continue that legacy of an eagerness to love in our world, in our time and in our place.

[Richard Rohr]

That's it.

[Paul Swanson]

That's so well said. So hope everyone enjoys this and steeps into it and learns to see how they might be called to live these teachings forward in their own life.

[Mike Petro]

From the center for Action and Contemplation, I'm Mike Petro.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm Paul Swanson.

[Drew Jackson]

And I'm Drew Jackson.

[Mike Petro]

And this is everything belong.

[Opie]

Richard and Paul. Always. Great to be here with you again, Richard. Thanks for welcoming us into your living room. And thanks, Opie, for hanging out with us. This has been such a rich journey. I'm curious, Richard, as we've had these conversations, what's it feel like to step back and once again revisit your great spiritual father in Francis and his genius?

[Richard Rohr]

The very fact that Francis is always a rediscovery. It's like, oh, there's war. I forgot that that's really good. Those kind of reactions, you know, reveal his universality at the first vespers of his feast, which is at sunset on October 3rd. The first antiphon is Franciscus Vir Cattolicus. Francis, the truly Catholic man and universal man. I always thought that was very courageous of someone that they recognized he was the universal man. Sort of like that painting you've seen of Leonardo da Vinci.

[Opie]

Oh, yes.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Arms outstretched.

[Richard Rohr]

With the arms outstretched, Legs outstretched. The pattern of all things. Francis got so much right, and he was able to get it right by beating his way, not in an angry way, out of the paper sack that Italian Catholicism had created for him. It had given Jesus to him, but it put so many limits and boundaries on Jesus. He, for me, is just the consummate example of order plus disorder, already exemplifying reorder because he holds on to his traditional Italian Roman Catholic faith, but does it in such a different way. It's hardly recognizable, which is what Rome was afraid of, that he was going to lead a reform movement and why some call him still the first Protestant. I can see that that was the danger from the Catholic side, you know that. Hey, the way he's talking is a whole new ball game.

[Opie]

He really walked his own way. He did. And like you said, it was dangerous to do so.

[Richard Rohr]

He could have gotten. It says in his testament. No one told me what I was supposed to do. It isn't the exact word. I followed the spirit, but I did what I had to do as the effect. No one told me.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah. Are you 81 now?

[Opie]

I can't believe I'm forgetting this.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah. About to turn 82.

[Opie]

So 81. About to turn 82 in 2025. At this moment, if every time you encounter Francis, it's a rediscovery. If you could sum up the genius of Francis for us right now in the moment that we're in, in time, what do you think it is?

[Richard Rohr]

He kept his eyes on the goodness of God and stopped trying to prove his own goodness, his own worthiness. And that, for me, is the real meaning of his poverty, his obsession with poverty, because it is an obsession. Just rejoice in your littleness, rejoice in your nothingness. Then you can't lose because you're not trying to gain anything that you don't already have. He got the upside down nature of the kingdom of God. He really did. It wasn't an achievement, it wasn't an accomplishment, it wasn't a performance. And he just would have to go apart with great regularity into the forests and the caves and just weep when he'd see the General State of 13th century warfare between all these city states. He came back from the war himself and the class struggle that the church did nothing to diminish, but actually added to by its idealization of popes and bishops and priests. So he deliberately did not become a priest himself to undo the status associated with clergy. He had real doubts about even accepting priests in the order. It took him a while and then it took the form of intellectuals. He just didn't trust these people who had big degrees because they fell in love with that.

[Opie]

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing, too, about him just going and weeping. I'm hoping our listeners stick with us for the next season of this podcast. Where we're going to be going through your book, the Tears of Things, and this will be something we explore, is how when we look at the brokenness of the world and sometimes even the brokenness of. Of the religions that are called to make it better, we are first so angry. And then you've taught that if we stay with that anger, it leads us to tears.

[Richard Rohr]

It morphs spiritually into tears of compassion. Sorrow for the thing, not hatred of the thing. Genuine sympathy for how do we miss such good news and make it such bad news?

[Paul Swanson]

To me, that's the Franciscan connection in that book. Right?

[Jenna Kuiper]

Like the tears, the compassion of hearing you redescribe of Francis, basically, in the parlance of our time, saying, it's not about me, and then as he goes to weep in the forest, it's about the state of the world and how the kingdom of God is not being lived out in the way that it's being called to, and prophets speaking to the trouble of the times, weeping over it and landing eventually in a place of compassion. It seems to be a connective thread there between Francis and that spirit of that prophetic path.

[Richard Rohr]

It looks like we're going to get to talk about that next year.

[Paul Swanson]

That's right.

[Richard Rohr]

In a major way.

[Jenna Kuiper]

You begin this chapter with a quote.

[Paul Swanson]

From Christian Wiman, which is so nutritiously.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Packed with the essence of this book.

[John M. Sweeney]

I want to read it right now.

[Richard Rohr]

He's the editor of Poetry magazine.

[Jenna Kuiper]

That's right.

[Richard Rohr]

And his book My Bright Abyss is still one of my favorite books on faith.

[Paul Swanson]

It's an incredible book.

[Jenna Kuiper]

And this quote comes from that book.

[Paul Swanson]

And he says, I did not know what love was until I encountered one.

[Jenna Kuiper]

That kept opening and opening and opening. How is that quote indicative of the spiritual genius of Francis to you, Richard?

[Richard Rohr]

I guess because what I was first Given. And what I've seen so many people were given. Explaining the almost hatred of Christianity today is many were given a supposed love that kept closing and closing and closing. This one isn't worthy, that one isn't worthy. This one doesn't belong, that one isn't ready. It was just. How could we be so stingy with what is infinite? Talk about wanting to cry. You know, there's so many sincere people who really started going to church and lost God. And I say that now after over 50 years as a priest, meeting a lot of church people who are utterly bored with any notion of a spiritual journey, a spiritual itinerary, to use Bonaventure's term. It isn't real, it isn't good, it isn't healing, it's confining. Who does not belong, who is not good, who is not worthy? Who am I allowed to hate? Reaching the point, rather commonly in every century, who am I allowed to kill?

[Jenna Kuiper]

That's such the Franciscan spirit of that, who is God? Who am I? Keeps opening and deepening in love over and over again.

[Richard Rohr]

Bigger, bigger, bigger. When you go to Assisi someday, you see out in front of the basilica where he's buried, there's a beautiful green lawn tending down toward the door. And they put a new statue there of Francis reentering Assisi on a horse after coming back from war. And it's no heroism in the statue at all. He's just sitting there with his head sunk onto his chest. It's so untypical of the way we painted saints, disillusioned with war.

[Opie]

I think about his early desire to be a knight and to be this heroic.

[Richard Rohr]

That's it. He went, like many men seeking the military do, to be patriotic, to be nationalistic, to be heroic. And God understands that. But go ahead.

[Opie]

Well, he set out to be a hero, and he was so defeated by life and his own ambition, it totally inverted the script for him. He became a completely different kind of a hero. I think my favorite little passage in the entire book is in this chapter, and you talk about the moment in time that he showed up. So let me read this, and then I have a question or two for you. You say exactly when we began to centralize and organize everything at high levels of control and fashion, Francis, like a divine trickster, said, who cares?

[John M. Sweeney]

So good.

[Drew Jackson]

Right?

[Opie]

When Roman Catholicism reached the absolute height of papal and worldly power.

[Richard Rohr]

Innocent iii. Yeah, yeah.

[Opie]

He said, in effect, there's another way that's much better. Exactly when the style of production and consumption that would eventually ravage the planet Earth came along. He decided to love the earth and live simply and walk barefoot upon it.

[Richard Rohr]

I wrote that.

[Opie]

You did? It's pretty good.

[Richard Rohr]

That's good.

[Opie]

That's really good.

[John M. Sweeney]

How about you?

[Richard Rohr]

I can hardly remember anything I wrote. Go ahead, though.

[Opie]

Well, I, I, first of all. Okay. I love that you refer to Francis as a trickster. You know, I, I love the archetype of the trickster. For our listeners who might be less familiar, what is a trickster?

[Richard Rohr]

One who colors outside the lines, but not in an angry or rebellious way, but in a creative, whimsical, often humorous way that surprises even the elect, even the pious, even the insider is a bit scandalized. He tricks you into the truth.

[John M. Sweeney]

By.

[Richard Rohr]

Revealing it from a completely different angle. By undoing the pretense of almost everything.

[Opie]

The trickster tricks you into the truth. It reminds me of the old days where the court jester was actually the king's most trusted advisor, because they could mock and flip, flipped the script, this idea that a trickster is a teacher and a transformer. So how is Francis, very specifically a trickster?

[Richard Rohr]

There's one story in one of the lives where the Holy Roman Emperor came on his parade through central Italy and the friars went out to tell him, get out of your prison. I don't know if it's a math or a truth, but take off all those silly clothes. You don't need it. Take off your crown. Whether he joined them or he sent them out in his name, but the words they used were. Don't you realize you're living in a prison? They redraw the lines of what's acceptable, what's important. It's very close to the prophet. I'm going to be a different kind of believer, but not taking pride in that either. That's the secret.

[Opie]

I've read Eastern Orthodox texts where they talk about, because the holy fool is such a thing in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. And they say, if you want to be a holy fool, you're probably doing it for the wrong reason. Because there's just as much pride. I mean, I feel this from the enneagram 4. There's just as much pride in going, look at me, I'm different. I'm going to challenge the status quo.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Opie]

As there is in. That's right, surrender.

[Richard Rohr]

You gotta watch it.

[Paul Swanson]

And how neat. I mean, I just think about too.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Like in modern day politics, how needed the trickster is for leadership to be kept in check, to laugh at what we all see. But maybe it's Not a conversation that's being had. I can think about the. The correspondence dinner that the White House used to do where it was making fun of the President in front of the president. And there's something about. There's maturity that it takes to take those shots in your presence because it's humility and humor next to power. And I think when we don't see that, that's when my hackles go up.

[John M. Sweeney]

I get a little bit nervous about.

[Jenna Kuiper]

The leadership if they can't laugh at their own folly or have their blind spots revealed in such a way. As I reread, Eager to love along.

[Paul Swanson]

With Mike and so many of the listeners and holding the alternative way of.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Francis in my hands. In our lives today, I see Francis, like his sharper edges being filed down by culture. You know, the garden statue, the. The pious friar. And you even have a quote.

[Paul Swanson]

I think it's from.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Is it Sir Alfred North? No, Whitehead.

[Richard Rohr]

I think about Alfred Whitehead.

[John M. Sweeney]

Yeah.

[Jenna Kuiper]

The denigration of religion into just a comfortable life. And. And I feel like that's been done with Francis in some ways.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, yeah.

[Jenna Kuiper]

And to your point about always rediscovering Francis. So thinking back, for everyone journeying through this process, what does it take to maintain or to use that sense of rediscovery of the sharper edges of Francis so we don't lose the radicality.

[Richard Rohr]

You know, and I hope this is a bit of an answer. When Franciscanism lost its real appeal, in my opinion, was after the Council of Trent, where we all united as Roman Catholics in one huge conformity against Protestantism. Because you were overtaking the Church and we weren't Franciscans anymore. We were diocesan priests in brown robes. And we lost the trickster almost entirely. You see this book here, I just got the Franciscan intellectual tradition, and it really dies after the Reformation. There is no intellectual tradition. We just have pious saints, devotional saints, who I'm sure were good and humble even. But they're not tricksters anymore. They're not anti imperial. Well, they're not anti anything, really. They're just pro the Holy Roman Catholic Church. And those are most of the men, good men who taught me they were good, but not exciting.

[Jenna Kuiper]

They didn't have that electricity that you, Francis, having that contagious electricity.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, that's right. And some of that was good because the trickster appeals to the young man for the wrong reasons to be a bit of a rebel. It's a dangerous path because how do you know you're not enjoying your contrarian role? Oh, yeah, we'll pursue this in this new book. That the prophet is the contrarian. Yeah, but for love, not for fame.

[Opie]

Oh, I like that. Contrarian. For love. I like that.

[Richard Rohr]

I never said it before.

[Opie]

No, that's good.

[John M. Sweeney]

Thank you.

[Richard Rohr]

I say my best things without thinking about it.

[Opie]

No, that's. Well, so. And one of the things I appreciate about our conversations about the trickster saying who cares? Is it is. It is a reminder to get back in touch with what actually matters. I've been thinking about this teaching from the desert fathers and mothers that I love so much. We've talked about it before. Apathea sounds like apathy, which is not caring about anything. Couldn't be more different. Apathy is not caring about what doesn't matter. So you have more energy to care about what does matter. I think about you and you've said, you've quoted Francis from time to time saying, I've done what is mine to do. Now you do what is yours to do. Knowing what to care about is connected to knowing what is ours to do. How in the world do we know what to care about and know what is ours to do when there's so much to care about and so, so much to do?

[Richard Rohr]

It struck me in a recurring way over my lifetime that Francis and Jesus, who he's building on, of course, universal social justice agenda, is to live a simple life. Otherwise, you're always a part of the system. Pleasing somebody to get some advantage, to make more money, to have more notoriety, simplicity of lifestyle is the most universal social justice ideal I can think of. And, you know, people like Mennonites discovered that, didn't they? The Quakers, those who get the gospel, they always find a way to move outside the reward system.

[Opie]

It's hard.

[Richard Rohr]

And it's hard. Very good. Yeah, it's hard.

[Opie]

It's really, really hard. Even as, you know, bring the listeners into this. It's great to have these conversations. It's hard not to be driven by the amount of downloads or the reviews, because we're always looking for ways to feel like we're making a difference. And yet that can be such a trap to look for those reward systems, or at least externally.

[Richard Rohr]

Now, in my retirement, almost every day I hear voices of what good are you now? You're just sitting here, you know, who are you helping? Who are you? Who are you changing? Who are you fixing? Because I got so used to that my whole middle years, every day had a new spiritual conquest. Now you come and ask me questions that might be a little job to do, but mostly I Don't have any jobs that seem significant.

[Opie]

How are you? How do you reconcile that? How do you carry that?

[Richard Rohr]

You know that quote that I've quoted often from little Teresa, emphasizing the little Therese of Lisieux, Whoever is willing to serenely bear the trial of displeasing, of being displeasing to herself. I said that in my sleep a few nights ago. I was displeasing to myself. Who are you? The supposed spiritual teacher. And I was just tearing myself up in my dreams. And I said, now if I can serenely bear this trial, that will be a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus. I don't have to fix it. I don't have to be pleasing. I don't have to think well of myself. Boy, that's freedom. Wow.

[Opie]

How would you translate that to those listening? How do we each walk our own walk and not be crushed by those voices that tell us that we're not doing enough?

[Jenna Kuiper]

Thinking about the different seasons that listeners are in, whether they're a young adult.

[Paul Swanson]

In their first kind of leg of.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Their careers, searching something out midlife or maybe winding down career or in retirement. I just think to add those layers are kind of helpful lenses.

[Richard Rohr]

Before you respond, Richard, somehow you need to break the measuring stick. You need to ignore the measuring stick. What is the criteria if we're all seeking to love as God loves? Well, my God, there's nothing to measure. We're all just, as I used to say more commonly, we're all, all playing in a sandbox seeking to love as God loves. So what's his point of evaluating? Even the examination of conscience that the Jesuits were so good at. There was a place for it, but I don't think it applies in the last third of life.

[Opie]

I really appreciate that invitation to. To break the measuring stick and to take it back to love.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Is the invitation throughout just constant surrender? Like, of course, that seems to be.

[Richard Rohr]

Like the standing to the great mystery.

[Jenna Kuiper]

The great mystery. Your self improvement project is over. Now the surrendering looks different from another standpoint.

[Opie]

But when we talked to Kate Bowler, she was so great and she talked about our culture driving in this idea. Your best life now is just around the corner if you just do this next thing. Or we can fix the world if we just do this and we should work on ourselves and dear God, we need that. But also.

[Richard Rohr]

Otherwise it's an exercise in slovenliness to just be as sloppy as you want and wow, that's a good word. Evaluate and yet recognize your evaluation is still self referential and self serving. That's probably what we mean when the mystics say only God is judge. And then once I stop taking my judgments too seriously, I stop taking yours too. What you think of the year?

[Opie]

Well, that's good because I try to bring as much judgment as I can.

[Richard Rohr]

So.

[Opie]

What I mean, the book is called Literally Eager to Love. What a beautiful reminder to just bring it back to love and to love ourselves as fiercely as we love the things and the people in the world around us. And let that be our motivation to.

[John M. Sweeney]

Do what we can.

[Richard Rohr]

Keeps opening and opening and opening. Yeah, there you go.

[Opie]

This has been good.

[Richard Rohr]

Richard, you've been welcome to this place. Thank you.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah.

[Jenna Kuiper]

Thanks for walking through it with us again.

[Richard Rohr]

A delight.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you, Richard. Thanks, Mike.

[Opie]

Thanks, Paul.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you.

[Opie]

Thanks, Opie.

[John M. Sweeney]

And Opie.

[Mike Petro]

Everything Belongs will continue in a moment.

[Paul Swanson]

Today our guest is John M. Sweeney. John is an award winning author and independent scholar. His books on Franciscan spirituality, which I've read a few of, have sold a quarter million copies. He's also the author of 40 books on spirituality, mysticism, biography and memoir, including Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart, which I wholeheartedly recommend, which is co authored with Mark S. Burroughs, as well as Thomas an introduction to his life and practices. To learn more about John, visit the show notes for this episode of Everything Belongs to foreign.

[Mike Petro]

Listeners. Welcome back to the Everything Belongs podcast. This is the final episode of our season. We're so excited. It's so great to be here with Drew and Paul together. We very rarely get to have conversations with all three of us. And we are especially excited to have John Sweeney with us this morning. John, I can't wait to talk to you about St. Francis. I have a stack of your books on my desk here. I didn't realize how much I'd hung out with you and St. Francis till I went back and looked at the shelf. Do you have a favorite of the works on Francis that you've gotten to hang out with over the years?

[John M. Sweeney]

It was maybe seven or eight years ago. I don't remember what year it was specifically, but I wanted to write a book about Francis and his best friend, Brother Elias, who. Who then took the order into the wrong direction immediately.

[Mike Petro]

Richard mentioned this book yesterday. He didn't know the title. Okay, so you were saying. Yes, he did. He said he wrote a book about Brother Elias. Yes, Richard was very excited about it.

[John M. Sweeney]

I think Richard probably blurbed it, if I remember, but it only helped sell it to 10 people. So Richard was one of the 10. It sounds like he probably was yeah, no, it's a book that actually blends sort of fiction and nonfiction. I mean, you can tell the way. The way that I tell the story, there will be moments when you'll read a paragraph and you'll think, okay, well, he was making up the scene there, because he can't possibly know some of the details that he's putting in the scene there. So it's a little bit of a blending in that sense. But it's a faithful telling of how Brother Elias screwed up the early Franciscan movement, and it began when he secretly buried Francis body the night before the procession when it was supposed to take place. So it's kind of written like a mystery. I think it's such an important story to tell, too. But it's probably a little bit too thick of a book, maybe too much and too detailed for the reader who does a Google search on Francis of Assisi or Franciscan spirituality. It's probably a niche of a niche of a niche kind of a book.

[Mike Petro]

That's amazing. You've written all these books about Francis. You've compiled Francis works. What has it taught you? Just as a lead in to spend so much time with Francis?

[John M. Sweeney]

Over the years, it has taught me more and more what it was that attracted me to Francis in the first place. I mean, what attracted me to Francis in the first place as a high school kid really was his privilege that he then stripped away sort of bit by bit, piece by piece. The way that he sort of embraced his fear, the vulnerability that took place when he encountered, you know, his father, when he was beat up by his father, when he was embarrassed as a young, you know, knight and soldier, and the way that he was a kid who had everything but yet had nothing that he really needed or desired. I saw myself in a lot of that. So that's part of what attracted me from the beginning. And it was biographies of Francis that attracted me, like Julian Greene's wonderful little book called God's fool, or the book by Paul Sabatier, the Life of Francis, the big one that really began the whole life of Francis Renaissance in the late 19th century, which I sort of brought back into print as the Road to Assisi. So, I mean, that was kind of how I got started in it all about 25 years ago. And then it has just deepened for me more and more because I've tried to live out, as I'm sure you do, too, I've tried to live out those principles of embracing my fear, going towards what frightens me, being willing to be vulnerable sometimes in silly Little simple, dumb ways, and sometimes in important ways, like where in town am I going to live? And that kind of thing. So it's just become the set of principles that guides my life, or at least I hope it is.

[Paul Swanson]

That's fantastic, John. And I love hearing about the writing and how it's gotten integrated into your way of life. And you may not remember this, but a few years ago you spoke to my new monastic community, the community of the Incarnation. And one of the things that you brought up in that conversation was ways that you were applying Franciscan spirituality in the day to day about where you live. And you told the story about your house and how you've made that a place of hospitality. I wonder if you could just share a little bit of that, because I feel like it's such a great example of the expression of Franciscan values and spirituality in the day to day of life.

[John M. Sweeney]

Yeah, well, there's a few stories I could tell, but, I mean, the one that pops into my mind when you say that, Paul, is. I have worked remotely for 20 years as an editor and as a writer. So we have generally lived wherever my wife needs to live. My wife's a rabbi. So we moved to Milwaukee about eight years ago because she had a congregation here, which she actually just very recently left. But we're still in Milwaukee. And when we moved here, we did what a lot of people of relative privilege do, which is we got to choose where we were going to live. And at the time, we had just adopted a teenage girl. So we adopted Anna, and then we moved to Milwaukee. And so we moved to the first suburb immediately north of Milwaukee because it had the best high school. And we knew it was going to be an incredible challenge to get this kid through high school. So we moved there and we got her through high school. Ironically, she totally bombed out of that best high school in the state because she was a kid who didn't come from any privilege at all. And she was suddenly surrounded by kids with privilege. And she rebelled against it. She hated it. So we actually ended up having to sort of hustle and scramble and get her into another situation. We got her through high school, thank God, and it was great. And Ann is doing wonderfully now, by the way. But after that high school experience, we were able to sort of sit back and say, now if we had it to do over again with different circumstances, we wouldn't have moved to where we moved. We don't want to be in the nice suburb immediately north of the city. We want to be where actually there needs to Be some light. We need to be involved in what's going on in the community. We need to be right next door to problems that take place instead of separating ourselves from that stuff. Not that we had consciously done that, but I think there was a little bit of guilt. I mean, I'm a Catholic, she's a Jew. We're both really good at guilt. So, I mean, I think there was a little bit of guilt, but there also was just kind of a taking stock of what was going on and what are we going to do now? We wanted to be very deliberate about what we're doing. So we moved to a place. You know, Milwaukee is a terribly racially divided city. So we moved to the part of the city called river west, which is a very in between kind of a zone. And we immediately had homeless people on our front step, people knocking on the back door, asking for stuff. So anyway, this is too long of a story, but I always remember, like, the first weekend we were there, we immediately had these kinds of experiences that I was just mentioning. But one of them was I came home from running a couple of errands and came in the back door, which is where the kitchen was. And there's a guy who I had just seen out front as a homeless guy sitting at my kitchen table having a cup of coffee. And my wife was standing there, like, giving him a cup of coffee. And, you know, I had been part of, of course, part of the conversation about moving there and why we wanted to be there. But all of a sudden this guy was right there in the kitchen. And something just kind of seized up a little bit in my heart. Not that I wanted it to. You know, I mean, we don't sometimes control how we react to things. And I just all of a sudden thought, like, oh, my God. I mean, I was suddenly afraid. I was suddenly sort of scared. Like, he's in the house. You know, when I met him out on this on the sidewalk, that was one thing. But now he's in the house. And it was so instructive for me because I often joke, although it's not really a joke, that my Jewish wife is a better follower of Jesus than I am. So she had him right at the table with a cup of coffee. And it probably took me, I don't know, three or four minutes to sort of stand there and say a couple of things and let myself sort of calm down and realize what was going on. But before I was then sitting down at the table and getting to know this guy, I was embarrassed about that. I Was embarrassed that that was my first reaction. But it was a learning process, and life is a learning process.

[Paul Swanson]

Thanks for taking the time to tell that story. I feel like those details are important about how it's never just one momentous leap forward and how we live these things, but it's a circling. It's a step forward, four steps back. You jump up and down. I feel like it shows up in so many different ways in our bodies and in our experiences.

[John M. Sweeney]

I agree. And that's why I sometimes go out of my way to tell those kinds of stories, because I know that groups that I talk with often are full of people like me, of all the right intentions, of good heart, but of fear and not quite knowing how to take the first couple of steps, and then not knowing what to do when you get to the third or fourth step, and all of a sudden you're terrified. Not simple. It's never easy. And it's good to remind people that it's okay that it's complicated because it means that you're in the thick of it. And that's what we're supposed to be.

[Drew Jackson]

John, I really appreciate you sharing that story, and just. It turns me toward this last chapter in Richard's book, Eager to Love. And so I've been intrigued by when the title of Francis as a Natural Spiritual Genius for this chapter. And I wanted to just open up the question for you with all of your study on Francis, like, what would you consider Francis spiritual genius or his brilliance?

[John M. Sweeney]

Yeah. Thank you. And I love this chapter. And I would use the same language that Richard uses, that he was a spiritual genius, a natural spiritual genius. I think a lot of it in Francis comes from his sensitivity. I'm not a naturally sensitive person. I'm married to one. And I have no doubt that I was attracted to her because of that. That sensitivity is so powerful in some people's lives, and I wish it was powerful in mine. I'm trying to find ways to sort of live into a greater sensitivity, to have things affect me more. But I think that's part of Francis spiritual genius. And I think that's part of what Richard is tapping into, is that Francis was deeply sensitive and he didn't run from it. I mean, he did. I mean, of course, that's part of the story that attracts us to Francis, is that he did kind of walk away from it. I mean, those early scenes with the leper, you know, the leper on the road, when Francis is on his horse and passing by the leper because he wants nothing to do with him, which isn't what I did with the homeless guy on the street. It's just that I was very happy to give the homeless guy on the street five bucks, but then all of a sudden, he was inside my house, and that was a whole other thing. So, you know. But then Francis jumps off the horse, runs back to the leper, and grabs him and hugs him. So he was able to react with sensitivity to things. He was able to realize when he needed to sort of strip away the armor that he had put up there so that things wouldn't affect him, and he wanted things to affect him. That's what I want. It's what I think that people want. I mean, especially, like, post pandemic, people want to feel things. They want things to affect them. I think that's one of the keys to Francis's spiritual genius, is that he was sensitive in every way, and he understood it, and he understood how to, you know, remove the barriers that we sort of naturally put up so that we become less sensitive, so that he could experience and feel the world and then respond to it.

[Drew Jackson]

John, I resonate with that so much. And as someone who lives in a place like New York City, where I'm constantly having to negotiate, what does it mean to feel when I walk around and the systemic poverty is just in my face every day when I walk out of my door, it's like, how do I not numb myself to it and realize? It's like I do that as part of, like, a survival mechanism, as a way to make it through the day. And yet there's something that is compelling me to keep asking the question, how do I not keep numbing myself to what I'm seeing in front of me? But then that also prompts the question, what then do I do with what I'm feeling?

[John M. Sweeney]

Yep. Yep. Drew. I think that is, like, the number one challenge that people have today. Because at the other end of the spectrum, you know, we do have examples of people for whom it's almost like they're an open wound to the wounded world. And I'm not so sure that's good either, because it destroys you. It destroys certain people. I mean, like, when you look at Simone Weil, for instance, I think she was destroyed. She was wide open. I mean, like, you can't live that way. I mean, I guess you can become a martyr and a saint, but I don't know how you can have a life beyond sort of brief martyrdom and sainthood that is inspiring for people who then can't follow that path. But then you also can't just put up all these barriers. You have to find that sort of middle ground. And I feel like we have real difficulty finding what that middle ground is. Or maybe it's not even a middle ground that makes it sound too staid or something. It's something, something other. But this is not at all a commercial. But, I mean, I'm working on one other little Francis project that will come out at some point. And my whole purpose is to talk about the things that are replicable. I always want people to feel and realize that Francis isn't this, you know, saint on a pedestal somewhere, or this saint who did what no one else can possibly do, that actually, there's ways in which he experienced God. There's ways in which he reached out to others that are absolutely replicable.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, my gosh, I love that so much, John. Thinking about responding to the need around us or the hunger around us without being devoured by it, I can't help but think of, you know, there's so many great images of Francis, Francis hugging the leper, Francis with the birds, but it's always been Francis and the wolf that has spoken the most deeply to me. And I'm really enjoying your book, literally right here on my desk. Feed the Wolf is fantastic. Would you mind, for our listeners who maybe don't know that story, would you mind sort of recapping for us the. The quick story of Francis and the wolf of Gubbio?

[John M. Sweeney]

Is it? Yeah, Gubio and. Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

And then sort of the wisdom in that of Francis in facing the things that are terrifying, Feeding the wolf and not being devoured by it.

[John M. Sweeney]

Yeah, yeah. Well, so Gubbio's not too far from Assisi, and Francis at this point, he'd been, you know, five, six, seven years into his work as a healer, a healer of relationships, as a preacher, which is not the right word when people think about preaching today, but for Francis, preaching meant singing and dancing and accompanying people where they were and then saying a word of gospel here and there. You know, that's what preaching was. But he was about six or seven years into this, and he had a reputation for sanctity. He had a reputation for countercultural sanctity. And so he would get calls every now and then from folks in other towns. And this one was a weird one. This one was, you know, can you come to Gubbio? Because we have this. This wolf that's terrorizing our children and our families, and a couple of men have even gone out to meet it and try to fight it and killed one of them. And we're terrified. And so Francis travels to this town and I think the way I tell the story in Feed the Wolf is that the most amazing thing to me is his first response when he gets there is that he goes out to meet the wolf. And that is amazing to me. I mean, given the conversation we've been having, I guess there's a context for what I'm suggesting, which is this fear that he had. Obviously he had the same fear that other people had. He doesn't want to get torn limb from limb by this animal, but the first thing he does is he goes out to meet the wolf, because what are you going to do with your fear other than facing it? So he goes out to meet the wolf and he basically brokers a deal between the wolf and the people of the town. And then at that point, it's a good way to sort of segue and say that Francis had an extraordinary relationship with non human animals and the created world in a way that most of us can't possibly understand. There are, believe me, there are ways in which I am a skeptic. And if you've read stuff that I've written about Francis, I have many occasions when I am skeptical about Francis and his miracles. Like, for instance, whenever the stigmata comes up, I always go out of my way to explain why I'm really not going to spend time talking about the stigma. Stigmata, mostly because Francis didn't talk about the stigmata. So I don't think it's our job to talk about it at the end of the story. I think it's important to know that after he brokers the deal between the wolf and the town, the deal is that the wolf will stop hurting people and scaring people, and the people of the town will feed the wolf. And so that's where the title of my book comes from, is that we're all wolves. We all are wolf like, and we all need to be fed. We all have basic needs. And this wolf was starving. So why are we surprised that the wolf was attacking people? He needed to be cared for. We all have basic needs to be cared for. I also suggest in one of the chapters of that book that there's been all these theories over the centuries that the wolf of Gubbio actually was a man, because there's an Italian word for wolf, which is a name of a criminal, who we know from some of the early chronicles, was converted by Francis and became a Franciscan friar.

[Mike Petro]

Goodness gracious. The genius, in that simple moment in that simple story. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[John M. Sweeney]

I tell the story that way because I'm trying to be faithful to what I think it means in Francis life. If Francis were a real complicated thinker, you know, if he were a theologian, if he were going around the world trying to be a deep mystic or something, I would tell the story differently, but he wasn't. He was a very simple guy responding in simple ways. And I think that's why people were so drawn to him. There was such an authenticity we usually can smell when something is inauthentic. And I don't think that's because we're brilliant in the 21st century or we're so savvy because of the media saturated world we're in or something. In fact, we're probably less sensitive than we could have been centuries earlier. I think people, you know, flocked to be around Francis because it was the real deal instead of, you know, smoke and mirrors. So anyway, I think that was part of his genius too, was responding in simple, really clear ways.

[Mike Petro]

That's so profound. I think in the day and age that we live in, there's a real radicality in authentic simplicity.

[John M. Sweeney]

Yeah, yeah, there is.

[Paul Swanson]

Thinking about the work that you're doing now, I think you have done your previous work on Frame, but that you're zeroing in on what is replicable of Francis, and how does that get translated in a way that invites folks to take that up? What do you think the life and teachings of Francis have to teach us about following the radical way of Jesus in our lives today?

[John M. Sweeney]

To use language from Meister Eckhart, who's another figure, who I love. You know, we're either pregnant with God or we're not. You know, there is no other. And I think Francis highlights for us in really challenging ways that every decision we make, every place we go, every relationship we forge or don't forge, we spend more time not forging relationships than we do. Forging them is a decision of whether or not we're going to follow Christ. If we are Christ followers, if it's a decision to be faithful to our faith or our tradition or our practice, or to not. And that's a way in which he challenges us so much. I mean, some people sort of run away from Francis at a certain point because they find it impossible, because they don't see him letting up. They don't see him streaming Netflix all afternoon to have a break every now and then. And I don't think he really did have a break every now and then. I Think for him, his break was to go up to a cave in Mount Sebasio and spend three or four hours sort of, you know, downloading and sort of in contemplative experience. But it wasn't the way in which we escape for periods of time. And that can feel overwhelming. So if you're willing to sort of take that on without a big ladle of guilt, if you're willing to just take that on and decide that your practice is going to be more deliberate, it's going to be about paying closer attention. It's going to be about listening to your feelings and paying attention to your reactions so that you can respond more consistently and be willing to be challenged by people who are close to you and around you. My wife and I challenge each other all the time on just some of the stupidest things. If you could hear some of the things that we argue about, you would think it is just crazy. But it will be. You know, she bought something at the store. And I'll question, well, why'd you get it there instead of getting it there? Or why did you get this one instead that one? And maybe there's a way in which some of those conversations are ridiculous, but yet it's about us trying to be faithful. What do I consume? Where do I consume it? Who do I know? Who do I support? And I think that's what Francis is. That's part of his genius, that he's challenging us to live that way.

[Drew Jackson]

Just to pick up on that, I'm really intrigued by what you just said there in terms of Francis focus on the faithful being faithful. And one of the conversations that I feel like we have a lot, even as we've been talking about Richard's book, is the way that Francis, in his way of life, his way of life, became a critique of the social order. And so I'm curious if you think that that was something that was intentional for Francis.

[John M. Sweeney]

It's a both, and I hesitate to answer it because I don't want to inject myself too much. You know, it's impossible not to inject yourself when you're interpreting someone like Francis of Assisi. And so I'm sure that when I write about Francis, there's too much of me and whatever I'm suggesting was true about him, and there's no way I can avoid that. I try to avoid that, but there's no way I can avoid that. I do believe that he was deliberately challenging the social order. His radical attention to poverty, for instance, was, yes, a response to what Jesus taught The disciples in the Gospels, and the fact that Francis took it literally to the letter and insisted that Jesus would never have had coins in his pocket, for instance, you know, and never would have had a place to sleep, that he knew he could sleep in the same place a week later, that was radical. I mean, that was so radical that in a generation or two after Francis death, there was a pope who had to side with the Franciscans who had disagreed with Francis and say that that was absolutely not true, that Jesus was not radically poor. It became this dividing wedge between what was the early Franciscan movement and what became the Franciscans after that, which was radically different from Francis. So there's no question in my mind that that was about challenging the social structures. And I'm going to throw in another one, which is that. And I say this in my books from time to time. There's no question in my mind that he was, in his very subtle, clever, genius way, challenging the hierarchy of the church, too. One of the ways that I express this sometimes is that all you have to do is look at Francis and Dominic. The Franciscan movement and the Dominican movement began at exactly the same time. Francis and Dominic were exact contemporaries. And if you look at the life of Dominic, he's constantly going to Rome. He has to go ask a bishop about this. He has to go get approval from the cardinals about this. He has to go meet with the pope about this. And if you look at Francis, he's trying as desperately as he can to not go to Rome. He does not want to go ask anyone for permission about anything. He's just going to live his life, as my eighth grader would say, and do his practice as he knows he's supposed to and as God has asked him to do. And sometimes it's better just not to ask and to not ask for permission. So it's funny to me that very quickly, like, immediately after Francis death, the cardinal in charge, who then later became the pope, embraced Francis as this great champion of the church and this great supporter of Mother Church. And he didn't not support Mother Church, but he went out of his way to not be involved in those politics. And I have no doubt that that was intentional.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, that's so good. And one of the things that I keep getting drawn back to is Francis voluntary choice to be in solidarity with the pain of the world. But I'm wondering, do we ever really get a good glimpse into his struggle to stay in solidarity with the suffering of the world, to keep choosing to stay there? Was there ever a sense of him Wanting to retreat to the comforts of wealth, power, and ease. If so, like, what do you think kept him from doing so?

[John M. Sweeney]

I don't think there was. There was again and again in Francis a tension between him wanting to spend time alone. He was a contemplative. You know, he was a contemplative in action, but he was a contemplative, a true contemplative in the sense that he, I think, connected with the beloved in a way that was intense and personal and powerful. And he didn't want to leave those times, but then he knew he had to. I think there was this tension in him where he felt like he had to sort of rest himself out of what he loved in order to go back and do what he needed to do, what he was supposed to do.

[Mike Petro]

This is our last episode exploring Richard's book, Eager to love. And then what's gonna happen is next season, we're gonna come back to explore Richard's book, the Tears of Things, which is Richard's next and possibly last book. He's had four books in a row that are his last book, so we're just kind of rolling with it at this point. In this book, Richard looks at the lineage of the Hebrew prophets, and he describes what he calls the path of the prophet. And what he says is he spots a pattern in which we encounter injustice in the world. And very often our first response is a very deep, very appropriate, very righteous anger, which can also potentially be immature and destructive if it's not managed well. And he says if we look at our anger deeply, what we see behind it is actually a very, very deep sadness. I am curious. I don't want to force something that's not there. But when you look at the life of Francis, do you see any of that anger or that sadness and any way that he moved towards the love in the midst of that?

[John M. Sweeney]

Well, I love the question, because I love what you're telling me is in this next book. I resonate with that. Yeah, I see that in Francis of Assisi, for sure. One of the ironies about him being such a popular saint, you know, the world's most popular saint, is that he sometimes wasn't a very nice guy. And there's times when he would respond like a prophet. Richard was saying, you know, that initial response of anger. There's one incident where we have Francis visiting friars in another town nearby. And as he arrives, he sees that they've started to build a house. Well, you're not supposed to build a house. That's not what A Franciscan does, because that's not Franciscan vulnerability, at least not according to the early days of the movement, which then changed. But the scene has him climbing up onto the roof of the house, surely while the other friars were trying to rationalize with him, like, oh, you know, this is the way things need to be. You need to accept we can't live by those strict ideals or whatever. And Francis is ripping the tiles off of the the roof, just tearing the house apart. So it is that prophetic anger which I resonate with, as accurate and as true, but maybe not the best approach and maybe not the approach that he then would have taken the following day. I think he does return again and again in the last couple of years of his life. If you read the accounts of what he was doing in those last couple of years, like writing the Canticle of the Creatures, for instance, using the phrase Mother Earth, you know, coming to a place of deep love, of non dualistic deep love. He was leaving those prophetic moments often, I think, and going back to a place of wound and love at the same time.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, that's really good. I'm going to think on that one for a couple weeks. Wound and love. Would you give us another few seconds.

[Opie]

On how those two go together?

[John M. Sweeney]

Well, you know, like when he's writing the Canticle of the Creatures, he's the first one to write about Mother Earth. You know, I mean, we still have leaders in the church today who think we're New Age freaks if we talk about Mother Earth. And you just have to say that Francis of Assisi did it 800 years ago. Then all of a sudden he writes a verse about death, you know, about Sister death. So the wound was always there. I mean, it wasn't. There was no hint of triumphalism, there was no hint of certainty in Francis, theological or otherwise. There was just the hope and the love, and the wound never really went away. The older I get, I'm getting closer to 60 now, and the older I get, the more I feel like there are great ways that you could put together Francis with a lot of sort of Zen Buddhist teaching and practice. There are ways in which they're together. I've been doing a lot of reading of Dogen, you know, the 13th century Zen master, lately. And I'm sure it's because of what I bring to the reading that I keep reading, thinking, oh, my God, this is Francis, this is Francis, this is Francis. But it's ironic and it's interesting to me because they were contemporaries and there's a Non dualistic love and attention to the wound of the world at the same time that is in both of them. And practice, practice, practice, practice daily.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm curious, John, if you have any kind of last parting words for the listeners as they seek to hold this place of the wound and the love and as they carry it into this next season of their life?

[John M. Sweeney]

Well, what pops into my mind when you ask that is what I would say is probably not something that your audience needs as much as most of us need because you guys pay close attention to daily practice. I mean, I know that's what everyone is about and you challenge each other to do that, but I think that is what we need more than ever is we need a daily practice. And I'm not, you know, for each of us it's different, but it needs to be daily and it needs to be true practice. It can involve a whole bunch of things and you have to have someone who challenges you to just stay on it. Because if we're not in a daily practice, I don't think we are going to be able to sort of maintain the attention and the sensitivity that we need in order to respond to these things in the right way. It's too easy to lose our way if you're going to live by the principles that Francis sets out. I don't think it takes a lot of you, other than the most obvious things, you know, paying attention and being faithful to a daily practice and listening in.

[Paul Swanson]

Deep gratitude for your time today, John.

[John M. Sweeney]

My pleasure.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you so much for being in conversation.

[John M. Sweeney]

My pleasure. Nice to spend time with you guys.

[Opie]

Friends.

[Mike Petro]

What an amazing conversation with John Sweeney. The radical simplicity of Francis message and lifestyle. And I don't often think of radicality and simplicity as going together, but I think that's something that became really, really clear to me there. I know Drew, simplicity is kind of a big deal here at the center for Action and Contemplation, eh?

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah. We've been talking about simplicity internally as a staff team all year because it's one of our four core values. And I mean, John shared so much wisdom in reflecting on the simplicity of Francis. It's not complicated when we think about someone like Francis or when we think about the saints, that there are these high ideals that we could never get to. But really it's less about the high ideals and more about the ways that they just lived what was right in front of them. That is so radical.

[Mike Petro]

I love that. There's a great quote from Carl Jung where he says the imitation of Christ is not actually Trying to imitate the exact events of Jesus life, but to live our lives as authentically and originally by the same values that Christ did, which is pretty cool. We're not just reflecting here at this moment on. On this episode. This is the last episode of the season. This is the last chance that we get together and talk about. Eager to love, which I know, Drew, is your favorite of Richard's books or the one that introduced you to Richard, if I remember correctly. What's it been like for both of you this season to hang out with this teaching from Richard and with Francis?

[Drew Jackson]

It's been so, so rich to revisit this book. It's been a while having the opportunity to come back to it and to read it while being in these conversations that we've been in has just. It's like it opens up new dimensions of it. And what I'm recognizing more and more is what's been compelling to me about Francis, so much of his voluntary solidarity with the pain of the world, this movement toward that, and the way that his life in all these different aspects became a critique of the social order, became a critique of the church, as John spoke about. And that's something that I've been for a long time just sitting with that. And what does it mean to live prophetically in the world? I think that Richard, in his writing on the life of Francis, captures that so much, and I'm always drawn back to that.

[Paul Swanson]

That resonates so deeply with me.

[Drew Jackson]

Drew.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm thinking about something that John said today and just how it. It's one of those seeds that I think has been there throughout the conversations that we've all been involved in and through this book of beginning from a place of, like, experience of God and a faithfulness to deepening that experience. And where does that call you? How do I love my family better? How do I serve my neighborhood better? Like in the concrete practicalities? And it does start to make you a little odd when you're following this alternative way of Francis, of Jesus. It puts you at odds with systems and places and communities that seek to elevate power and prestige over the common good and the love of God and neighbor and bringing that all back home. I can feel that thread throughout so many of the conversations that we've had this year.

[Mike Petro]

That's so good. One of my favorite conversations ever was just driving down the road with a buddy of mine, and we were listening to music, and he just turned and looked at me and he goes, you know, listening to Led Zeppelin is like reading the Bible. Sometimes it's that same old thing you've heard a hundred times. Another time, it hits you like you're hearing it for the very first time all over again. I remember just hearing the, like, the deep love of Led Zeppelin in Scripture in this statement.

[Drew Jackson]

And.

[Mike Petro]

And it reminds me why we do this podcast. Like, this has been an opportunity for me revisit a book of Richards that I've already read to revisit the life of Francis again. And really, in these conversations, it's been like encountering it for the first time again. And it reminds me what a gift it is to go back over and over to some of these teachings and these lives of our great spiritual heroes and let them hit us anew. As you know, we are different people than we were when we first started. Right. Like, Drew, you're a different person than when you were the very first time that you read Eager to Love. And I'll bet all of that comes together, which also reminds me, Drew, it's been so great to have you join our Everything Belongs team here and be such a great voice and fellow host on the podcast this season. I'd love to know how it's been for you and invite you, as our newest host, to sort of have the final word on Eager to Love with us and our listeners.

[Drew Jackson]

Well, thank you, Mike. Thanks, Paul, for welcoming me into this space, into these conversations. It's been a real gift, I think, about ending this season. I wanted to leave our listeners with a poem because, of course.

[Richard Rohr]

Of course.

[John M. Sweeney]

Love it.

[Richard Rohr]

Love it.

[Drew Jackson]

I wanted to share this poem as I think about a lot of the themes from this book and kind of where I'm sitting at right now coming out of that conversation with John.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you.

[Drew Jackson]

Thinking about the simplicity of loving what is right in front of us and confronting our fears. John talked about that. And confronting our fear of being able to love what is right in front of us, the person that's right in front of us, or confronting those biases that come up in us that prevent us from love. And so this poem is a poem that I wrote reflecting on the story that Jesus tells in the Gospel of Luke about the rich man and Lazarus. And I think there's so much in that story that, I mean, we can draw out and parallel to the life of St. Francis and the story where this rich man is Lazarus, lying at his gate, and the rich man every day is stepping over his body as he goes in and out and about his day. And after the rich man dies, right, he has this kind of confrontation where he sees Lazarus in what is called Abraham's bosom. He's in paradise and the rich man is in hell, whatever that means. He's in this place of torment and he's looking at Lazarus and he's confronted with the fact that he's had the opportunity his entire life to be present to and to love what was right in front of him. And he kept stepping over for whatever reason. I write this poem out of this place of deep grappling with that and asking myself the question, how do I stay present enough to what is in front of me to love with simplicity, even in the midst of the fear, the anxiety, the biases that rise up? And so this poem is simply called Wishes. I see him when I walk across 14th street, feet sticking out from under another's throwaway blanket crusted over gangrene sneaker store in my peripheral vision that to him likely seems a lifetime away, a great gulf fixed. I slipped my hand into my pocket to assuage my guilt. I wish I could fill his hands with cash. I wish I could fill my heart with compassion. I wish I could fill my mouth with courage to ask his name. I wish I could see him as well. More than a barrier on my way to the L train MTA card in my hand, I push the gate open. So as we end I invite you to sit with the words of that poem and the invitation to even connect with the deep desire that I I believe each one of us has to live with simple love and compassion in this world and ask ourselves what is keeping me from love and how might I face my fear and step into that place with courage and with hope that there is something beautiful on the other side of my fear.

[Izzy]

Thanks for listening to this podcast by the center for Action and Contemplation, an educational nonprofit that introduces seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. To learn more about our work, Visit [e-mail] Everything belongs is made possible, possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters and the shared work of Mike Petro.

[Paul Swanson]

Paul Swanson, Drew Jackson, Jenna Kuiper, Izzy.

[Corey Wayne]

Spitz, Megan Hare, Sarah Palmer, Dorothy Abrams.

[Izzy]

Brandon Strange, Vanessa Yee and me, Corey Wayne. The music you hear is composed and provided by our friends Hammock and we'd also like to thank Sound On Studios for all of their work in post production. From the high desert of New Mexico, we wish you peace and every good.

[Corey Wayne]

Do you feel called to walk a more contemplative path? The center for Action and Contemplation is an educational non practice prophet supporting the journey of inner transformation. Our programs and resources will help grow your consciousness, deepen your prayer practice, and strengthen your compassionate engagement with the world. Learn more about our resources, such as publications, podcasts, email series, and [e-mail].