Good Trouble: An Introduction to The Tears of Things

Summary

Podcast Summary

Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward

Episode: Good Trouble: An Introduction to The Tears of Things
Date: March 7, 2025
Host: Center for Action and Contemplation
Main Guests: Fr. Richard Rohr, Mike Petro, Paul Swanson, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Drew Jackson

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1. Episode Overview

This special season premiere gathers the hosts and Fr. Richard Rohr to introduce his latest (and self-described final) book, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. The episode sets the stage for a deep, year-long exploration of the prophetic tradition, nondual consciousness, and how contemplative insights can shape action in a time marked by fear, division, and longing for justice.

The hosts reflect on the "Good Trouble" of prophetic witness, inspired by John Lewis, and invite listeners into a journey of reading, reflection, and conversation aimed at embodying loving truth in a hurting world.

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2. Key Discussion Points & Insights

A. Podcast and Season Structure

• The hosts introduce the show’s format and purpose (00:09–02:51), noting that previous seasons explored Richard Rohr’s classic works chapter by chapter, with or without prior reading, fostering accessible deep dives.
• This season, the pace slows—one episode per month, empowering listeners to immerse themselves chapter by chapter in a shared pilgrimage through Rohr’s new and possibly final book (02:01–02:51).

B. Setting the Stage: Why This Book, Why Now?

• Rohr asserts this will be his last book, written “with gratitude” despite age and declining energy (04:02–04:19).

• Paul Swanson observes the timeliness: “Our listeners are tuning in in a rapidly changing world... This book is going to be such a good teacher for all of us at exactly the moment that it’s coming in” (04:19–04:54).

  Richard's Blessing:

  “Help this book and these words to bring some loving truth to our world... not more division, not more hatred, but understanding. And we know that understanding... means to stand under a truth, to let the truth lead and not the person.”
  — Richard Rohr (04:54)

C. The Prophetic Tradition: More Than Prediction

• Rohr centers the prophets as “much more central to the Hebrew scriptures than even they realized,” arguing they paved the way for Jesus’s message and method (05:44–08:44).
• He reframes John the Baptist: not as the ultimate prophet but as a transitional figure. Rohr contrasts "win-lose" logic (leading to violence and scapegoating) with the deeper invitation of Jesus and the prophets—critiquing not just individuals, but collective, systemic evil (05:44–11:18).
• Key Quote:

  “Unless we hear that we don’t build a new foundation on something greater than the win-lose, all-or-nothing worldview of John the Baptist.”
  — Richard Rohr (08:44)

D. Prophetic Critique: Beyond Blame

• Hosts discuss contemporary parallels: “We look to very powerful singular politicians... who are doing what [listeners] experience as evil... But you’re also encouraging us to go past the one person who can become the person that we hang all our anger on.” — Paul Swanson (12:34)
• Rohr insists on moving beyond scapegoating individuals, instead focusing on "cultural evil" and the systems that enable injustice (13:08).
• He advocates for lament and sadness as a necessary alternative to anger, enabling genuine transformation and hope (13:34–14:22).

E. Embracing Paradox — “The Great Nevertheless”

• The introduction of the book is grounded by a poem (read at 14:57) and a passage from Ezekiel (17:23), both emphasizing the complexity of holding grief and joy, anger and love, simultaneously.

• Key Quote:

  “The world is horrible, falling apart, and it’s absolutely magnificent, filled with grace. At the same time... If you concentrate on one, you get negative, bitter and violent. If you only preach the second, you get naive and simplistic.”
  — Richard Rohr (16:13–17:21)

• Rohr credits theologian Walter Brueggemann’s phrase “the great nevertheless”—the move from despair to hope:

  “Divine hope is not rationally concluded. It isn’t created by logic. It’s created by gift.”
  — Richard Rohr (18:59)

F. Prophecy, Contemplation, and Nondual Thinking

• The prophetic/contemplative mind refuses binary thinking. True prophets and contemplatives recognize “good and evil coexist” (21:11–22:04), embracing paradox as the nature of reality and transformation.

• Key Exchange:

  Paul Swanson: “If a contemplative is a truth seer... wouldn’t they also be a truth speaker?”
  Rohr: “...We’re still... unconditionally and infinitely loved by God. Few people historically get to that.”
  (22:25–23:44)

• The paradox extends to seeing both our complicity and our belovedness—prophets demand justice but never from outside the community, always as part of it.

G. Wrestling With the Tradition: Activism, Humility, and Growth

• Rohr discusses the tension between nondualism and justice work:

  “The very struggle itself... creates this paradoxical mind. The more you’ve struggled with an issue... it’s always more subtle. There’s no total good guys and total bad guys. That isn’t saying you cannot do a rabid critique of the gun culture.” (25:24)

• Growth as the essence of biblical faith:

  “We tried to give a finality to every word in the Bible, when in fact they’re a recipe for development, for change, for growing up...”
  (33:01)

• Christianity should be recognized as a path of “maturing into transformation” (34:48), culminating in learning to “love as God loves” (35:07).

H. Humility, Self-Knowledge, and the Danger of Projection

• Rohr warns against projecting shadow on others:

  “When we lack self-knowledge, we will unconsciously project our disliked and unknown self onto others, condemning them for the very faults we share. It is no wonder then, that most of the prophets were murdered.”
  (37:14)

• The journey requires beginning from humility:

  “We all and forever need mercy. One wonders what our theologies and worship would look like if we always began with an honest statement of our not knowing the true nature of holy mystery.”
  (38:36)

3. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On truth and love:

  “Truth without love is not transformational truth. Truth from a cruel heart undoes its message.”
  — Richard Rohr (03:06, as read by Paul Swanson)

• The role of struggle:

  “What you’re leading me to is the title of the book. Damn it. I want to be righteous, but all I could do is cry. Angrily cry… God is willing to love those who are wrong and work with those who are wrong. Once you get that...” — Richard Rohr (27:04–28:46)

• On religion's risks and rewards:

  “Religion is about a shattering encounter with an experience that breaks all the rules. Why it’s so often the worst is it creates the best cover for the ego imaginable... a recipe for delusion.” — Richard Rohr (30:01–31:21)

• Reading the prophets as a journey of maturity:

  “The prophets started out... angry, wrathful, judgmental... but they changed and grew up. This is the theme of themes in this small book... a journey of refining the real message by fire until we reach the final stage of joy and hopefulness.” — As quoted by Paul Swanson from the book (32:31–33:01)

• On the innocence and necessity of change:

  “We create a religion that idealizes not changing at all... Just getting your childhood understanding of Jesus... and hold on to that all your life.” — Richard Rohr (33:53)

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4. Practical Guidance for the Journey

Approaching The Tears of Things

• Read slowly, with others if possible. The text “rewards rereading.” Take notes, write questions, mark passages that speak to you or spark discomfort (44:17–46:31).

• Engage as a spiritual practice (Lectio Divina suggested). The book is “invitational,” encouraging dialogue with the author and with community.

• Advice from Carmen Acevedo Butcher:

  “This book is magnificent at really piercing the illusion of separateness, that we’re all in this together and we’re all trying to develop and mature... once we start sharing our stories, we all see we have so much in common.” (47:12)

• Advice from Drew Jackson:

  “Just read it slowly. Don’t rush... Open yourself to allow it to do the work that it’s intended to do.” (45:25)

Why This Book, Why Now?

• The conversation identifies an urgent need to recover prophetic imagination amid global crises, polarization, and despair.
• Drew Jackson argues for greater engagement with the prophetic tradition, both in faith communities and as a cultural resource, lamenting its neglect and noting its centrality to the Black church (48:36).

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5. Concepts to Watch For in “The Tears of Things”

• The Pattern of Growth: Rohr’s familiar “order, disorder, reorder” or “construction, deconstruction, reconstruction,” and in this book, anger–sadness–love.

  • Anger arises at injustice (not to be bypassed);
  • Sadness and lament allow for deeper engagement, move us beyond destructive rage;
  • Love grounds prophetic action and reforms compassion from wisdom, not reaction. (59:38–69:51)

• Good Trouble:
  Named after John Lewis’s civil rights phrase, the introduction frames prophecy as “good and necessary trouble”—loving resistance, often through lament and critique as acts of solidarity and transformation (70:39).

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6. Learning to Be Prophet, Contemplative, and Grown Up

• Prophet: etymologically, “to speak before,” rooted in human experience and speech, representing (rather than predicting) divine movement in history (52:30–54:57)
• Paradoxical Thinking: Essential for navigating a complex world; not denying evil, but holding hope and suffering together.
• Maturing in Faith: The Bible (and the prophet’s journey) is a template for “growing up”—transforming childish concepts of God into adult solidarity with suffering and joy.

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7. Notable Timestamps

| Segment | Topic | | ------- | ----- | |00:09 – 02:51| Podcast format and season structure | |03:06| “Truth without love is not transformational truth.” | |04:54| Richard’s blessing for the journey | |11:05 – 12:20| Prophetic critique: individuals vs systems | |14:57 – 17:23| Poem and Ezekiel readings on paradox | |18:59| The Great Nevertheless and divine hope | |21:11 – 23:44| Prophetic nondual consciousness: justice and complicity | |27:04 – 28:46| The pain of imperfection, paradox in faith | |30:01 – 31:21| Religion as ego cover and spiritual transformation | |33:01 – 34:05| Prophets as models of spiritual maturity | |38:36| Humility and need for mercy | |44:17 – 46:31| Tips for reading the book deeply | |48:36 – 51:25| Prophets in Black spirituality and contemporary relevance | |59:38 – 62:31| The pattern: anger, sadness, love | |70:39| “Good Trouble” and John Lewis’s legacy |

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8. Concluding Reflections

The episode ends with gratitude for the opportunity to embark on this shared deep dive, a call for readers/listeners to engage not just intellectually but with their hearts and actions. The hosts and Richard Rohr model humility, honesty about struggle, and encouragement to embody a prophetic love that persists through outrage, grief, and the long journey to wholeness.

Final Blessing from Drew Jackson (74:57):

“Go from wherever you are in the prophetic spirit and find yourself in good and necessary trouble, stirring up chaotic love for the sake of the flourishing of our world.”

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Core Takeaways

• The prophets invite us not just to diagnose evil but to heal our own hearts and societies through transformative love rooted in self-knowledge, humility, and paradox.
• “Good Trouble” means confronting systems of harm—beyond scapegoating—by holding anger, grief, and love together.
• The journey through The Tears of Things is best done slowly, reflectively, in community, with a willingness to confront discomfort and grow.
• The prophetic path is messy, participatory, and rooted in grace rather than achievement.
• The book (and podcast) offers permission to outgrow simplistic faith and take up the adult work of loving as God loves, amidst the world’s suffering and beauty.

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For Listeners/Readers

• Read or listen alongside others if possible. Journal, take notes, invite questions and honest disagreement.
• Notice where anger, sadness, and love show up in your life as you engage the book.
• Let the paradoxes point you to deeper wisdom—beyond binary thinking.
• Keep humility and mercy at the center, remembering the prophets’ humanity.

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"May we all seek truth with love and gentle but fierce hearts this year as we go through The Tears of Things."
— Richard Rohr, as read by Mike Petro (03:06)

Transcript

[Podcast Announcer]

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

[Mike Petro]

To the Everything Belongs podcast. Some of you might actually be joining us for the very first time, and if that's the case, I just want to tell you a little bit about.

[Paul Swanson]

How the show works.

[Mike Petro]

This show is all about living the teachings of Richard Rohr. Forward. Every single episode, we have a robust.

[Paul Swanson]

Conversation with Father Richard in his living.

[Mike Petro]

Room with his dog Opie sitting right there with us chiming along. And then we take one of Richard's.

[Paul Swanson]

Big ideas and we talk to a.

[Mike Petro]

Guest who we think can help us expand our understanding of it, even as we invite you into the conversation. In the very first season, which was.

[Paul Swanson]

A little bit of a mini season, we looked at some of the big.

[Mike Petro]

Ideas that drive Richard's thought and the center for Action and Contemplation. Starting in the second season, we began exploring Richard's books chapter by chapter.

[Paul Swanson]

So, so in our second season, we.

[Mike Petro]

Looked at Richard's classic Falling Upward. And each episode we dove into one of those chapters.

[Paul Swanson]

But one of the things we told our listeners is you don't have to read the book to get something out of each episode. But if you want to read along.

[Mike Petro]

With us, we'd be thrilled. In our next season, we looked at.

[Paul Swanson]

Richard's rich Franciscan legacy in his classic.

[Mike Petro]

Eager to Love but Friends. This season is very, very, very special because what we're about to get the.

[Paul Swanson]

Opportunity to do is to explore a.

[Mike Petro]

Brand new book of Richards together. The Tears of Things, which comes out on Ash Wednesday in March, is Richard's next and he claims, very last book. We'll see.

[Paul Swanson]

But this is exciting because we on the Everything Belongs team are going through this book for the first time even as you're going through it with us. And again, you don't have to read the book to listen in.

[Mike Petro]

It's a great way to learn about the book without reading.

[Paul Swanson]

But if you want to, what we've decided to do this season, because the book is brand new, is slow our.

[Mike Petro]

Rhythm down a little bit.

[Paul Swanson]

So this March, this episode is going to come out and then a few weeks later, we're going to drop an episode on chapter one, and then we're going to slow it down and we're going to drop one episode a month for the rest of the year so all of us together can deeply immerse ourselves in this book with a full month to go through chapter by chapter. And we hope that if you want to read the book that you do and you have a conversation with it and hopefully some friends, and then you come back and join our conversation. This is going to be such a good and rich journey. And to set the container for all of it this, this week we have an extra great episode where we get.

[Mike Petro]

Into the introduction of the tears of things Good Trouble.

[Paul Swanson]

So without further ado, come along with.

[Mike Petro]

Me as I join Paul Swanson and Richard in Richard's living room with Opie tucked beside. And I leave you with the words.

[Paul Swanson]

Of my favorite passage from the book.

[Mike Petro]

When Richard writes, truth without love is not transformational truth. Truth from a cruel heart undoes its message. Friends, may we all seek truth with love and gentle but fierce hearts this year as we go through the tears of things. From the center for Action and Contemplation, I'm Mike Petro.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm Paul Swanson.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I'm Carmen Acevedo. Butcher.

[Drew Jackson]

And I'm Drew Jackson.

[Mike Petro]

And this is Everything Belongs.

[Paul Swanson]

So, Richard, it's an exciting moment for us. We're about to begin this brand new journey exploring your next and you claim your last book.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes, my last book it is. I can't do another one. You hear my voice getting old, but my typing is getting old and my mind is getting old. But I'm grateful that I was able to write this one.

[Paul Swanson]

What a moment. We're sitting here thrilled, and our listeners are tuning in in a rapidly changing world. I know for some of them a lot of anxiety and strong feelings of fear and sadness. And this book is going to be such a good teacher for all of us at exactly the moment that it's coming in at the very top of our journey together through the tiers of things. Would you offer a blessing for our conversation and for our listeners as we're going to go through this together in the coming months?

[Richard Rohr]

Good and loving God, help this book and these words to bring some loving truth to our world. Not more division, not more hatred, but understanding. And we know that understanding in English means to stand under a truth, to let the truth lead and not the person. May the truth lead here as the prophets did. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you, Richard, having taken this beautiful journey with you for the last few years. Why this book right now?

[Richard Rohr]

Well, in short, I believe the prophets are much more central to the Hebrew scriptures than even they realized and therefore should be, but weren't much more central to the Christian scriptures. They created a Runway that allowed Jesus to say and operate the way he operated. If you don't get that Runway Clear in your mind. What the prophets are doing historically seems to be proven. You will always miss Jesus. You'll make him into a mere miracle worker, which he downplays himself. Someone who walks around saying, believe that I'm God, which he doesn't. I believe one central piece in that, maybe that's a place to begin, is the misappropriation of, of the figure of John the Baptist. We made John the Baptist central, pivotal, and he is. But the reason he is, is he's transitional. He delineates, defines two eras. The letting go of one and the entering into the other. It was defined as Matthew 11. I believe it is says by violence and the violence have run away with it. It's almost a direct translation. Religion was still rooted in violence. Now let me give a better phrase than violence, a win lose worldview. As long as you define everything, win, lose, all or nothing, either phrase works. You will resort to violence with impunity and it ends up becoming John the Baptist's death. That's the way so much is made of the beheading of John the Baptist. It takes undue centrality. At the beginning of the Gospels, it's like, why do we need to bother with this gory story of a wedding dance? But the key line, I think it's in Matthew 11 is, and you've heard me quote it before, no man born of woebend is greater than John the Baptist. He got it, but you know what? He didn't get it at all. The least born into the kingdom of God. What I'm talking about is greater than John the Baptist. Unless we hear that we don't build a new foundation on something greater than the win, lose, all or nothing worldview of John the Baptist.

[Paul Swanson]

What I hear you saying, tell me if I'm getting this right, is that John the Baptist was a personification of transitioning into what Jesus brought us.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Paul Swanson]

And how the prophets set it up.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Paul Swanson]

I was always taught that the prophets foretold Jesus foretold, they predicted Jesus in the future. But what you're saying the prophets do is they set up up Jesus message.

[Richard Rohr]

They created the Runway, the, the genre, the way of critiquing and exposing evil that Jesus uses.

[Paul Swanson]

Wow. That's a different.

[Richard Rohr]

It's different.

[Paul Swanson]

That's different than I was taught. Now, to be fair, I wasn't taught the prophets a lot. Were you taught the prophets growing up?

[Richard Rohr]

Enough, because I was studying theology in the late 60s when they really came to the fore through a lot of Catholic social activists.

[Paul Swanson]

Because they critique evil and systemic evil.

[Richard Rohr]

And Catholics, systemic evil, structural sin instead of individual sin. And again, here is where John the Baptist is. The old system, the old epoch or era, and it gets him killed. And it's like Jesus saying, this is where such morality ends up. It's black and white. It's aimed at power. In that sense, it's right. Critiquing power. John the Baptist is correct. Most people are afraid to do that. But making purity code and an individual sinner the creator of evil? No. If you look at the very next paragraph, a lot pivots in Matthew 11, where he says, woe to you, Chorazon. Woe to you, Bethsaida. Woe to you, Capharnaum. Woe to you, Jerusalem. It could be clearer. He is transferring. We're not talking about bad men. We expect kings do stupid things like that. Stop being surprised or scandalized.

[Paul Swanson]

So John the Baptist criticizes Herod, one political ruler, for doing something immoral, Stealing his brother's wife.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

And then as a result, gets arrested and then, as a result, gets beheaded.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

And then Jesus shifts the critique from one person to the collective.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes. Wow.

[Hannah]

And I think it's so interesting just.

[Paul Swanson]

To pause on this for a second.

[Hannah]

Too, because we haven't got the message of the difference between that transitional prophet, like, correct me if I'm wrong, we are stuck at John the Baptist.

[Richard Rohr]

John the Baptist as a model, and he isn't at all. He's not typical of the Jewish prophets because they critique culture. He critiques one stupid king and Jesus saying, this isn't the way to go about it, exposing bad people. I hope I make that point well enough in the book, because I really believe it's central to understanding Jesus and to getting John the Baptist out of his central position. Because he isn't right.

[Hannah]

It's thanking him for his role, but not getting stuck there. Seeing the trajectory of this in between space to a more fuller understanding of what Jesus is doing and embodying in his own prophetic way.

[Paul Swanson]

Before we move forward to set the container a little bit for the rest of this season. We live at a moment right now where a lot of our listeners might look to one or several very powerful singular politicians.

[Richard Rohr]

You got it.

[Paul Swanson]

Who are doing what they experience as evil. And we're not saying that that critique isn't valid and shouldn't be there. But you're also encouraging us to go past the one person who can become the person that we hang all our anger on.

[Richard Rohr]

The cultural evil that can allow and elect some of the leaders we have right now, that's what you got to focus on. There's the problem. That's where it lies, and that's what has to be exposed.

[Hannah]

Richard, what you're saying, I don't think we can underpin enough about how foundational that is.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you.

[Hannah]

In the reality of our own times, how this is mirroring the way of.

[Richard Rohr]

The prophet and even the encouragement to move to sadness, lamentation. Instead of just anger, which is most of where America and Europe and the Southern hemisphere is living today, just endless anger in all directions because it's all so wrong, wrong, wrong. And we look for an individual to blame, which I understand. But I'd say what Matthew's gospel says, no man born of woman is greater than the one who's exposing these evil people. But there's a better way that's greater than that, and that's the kingdom of God.

[Paul Swanson]

It's going to be quite a journey we're going to take, exploring this.

[Hannah]

Amen. That'll preach, as they say. Richard, one thing I love that you do with your books is you plant these flags at the beginning. Do with your. You have a poem that.

[Richard Rohr]

That you Grounded in. Yeah.

[Hannah]

And then you also have a quote from Ezekiel that you start with. So I would love to ask why you're planting these flags at the start of the book and maybe ask you to read the poem.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, my voice is so terrible. Why don't one of you read it?

[Hannah]

Okay. I'm going to read this poem by Rosemary Watola, Trauma. I believe I'm saying that correctly. For when people ask. And this kicks off the book. I want a word that means okay and not okay. More than that, a word that means devastated and stunned with joy. I want the word that says I feel it all, all at once. The heart is not like a songbird singing only one note at a time. More like a Tuvan throat singer able to sing both a drone and simultaneously two or three harmonies high above it. A sound, the Tuvans say, that gives the impression of wind swirling among rocks. The heart understands swirl. How the churning of opposite feelings weaves through us like an insistent breeze, leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves, blesses us with paradox so we might walk more openly into this world so rife with devastation, this world so ripe with joy.

[Mike Petro]

It's pretty good.

[Richard Rohr]

When I read that, I just said, holy Spirit, thank you. You gave me that poem. It's a gorgeous entranceway into what we call non dual thinking and the subtlety that we're going to need to Understand this book both and thinking we've often called it, and this wonderful woman poet names it. There are words that are saying both. And Jesus is one of those words. The word world is horrible, falling apart, and it's absolutely magnificent, filled with grace. At the same time, if you concentrate on one, you get negative, bitter and violent. If you only preach the second, you get naive and simplistic. And then I followed it up with a quote from Ezekiel, which is hopefully saying the same thing from the Bible. So read that.

[Hannah]

Should I read this too?

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, read that.

[Hannah]

Says from Ezekiel 2, 9, 10, and also chapter 3, verse 2 through 3. A hand was there stretching out to me and holding a scroll. On it was written lamentations, weeping and moanings. I opened my mouth. He gave me the scroll to eat. I ate it and it tasted sweet as honey.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, my God. So we look at the world situation. We taste it, the morning news. It's just sad and tragic beyond belief. Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan. How much suffering can the world absorb? But there's a way of speaking that and seeing the goodness of God nevertheless.

[Paul Swanson]

Another one of my favorite parts of the book is when you talk about the great nevertheless.

[Richard Rohr]

I do. I love that. And I did. I get that from Walter Brueggeman.

[Hannah]

I think it's Brueggemann.

[Richard Rohr]

I think it might be Brueggemann the Great Nevertheless.

[Paul Swanson]

Nevertheless.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, he gets it from Habakkuk. Writes three chapters and then the last three. Despite all the horrible songs, nevertheless, God will dance with you with hind's feet on the high places. Where does he get that joy at the end?

[Paul Swanson]

God, we need that great nevertheless right now, don't we?

[Richard Rohr]

Divine hope is not rationally concluded. It isn't created by logic. It's created by gift. We called it one of the three theological faith, hope and charity. We said they were different than all other virtues. They were attained by participation in the very life of God. A surrendering more than an achieving, a falling into more than a climbing up to the others are virtues that you have to work at. Patience and temperance and all those, they're good. But faith, hope and love, you just find yourself there with no logic.

[Paul Swanson]

It's so funny. Our dean here at the CAC, Brian McLaren, recently talked about faith, hope and love.

[Richard Rohr]

Did he?

[Paul Swanson]

And he. He reminded us that the scripture says, and the greatest of these is love. And he said, when you run out of faith and when you run out of hope, the only thing left to do is to lean into love. And that to me, feels aligned with what you teach us in the tears of things.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah.

[Hannah]

One thing I think to point out too for the those listening who might be more inclined or naturally contemplative that what we just talked about, the great. Nevertheless, the poem, this passage from Ezekiel holds the contemplative mind in the way of the prophet, in the tiers of things. So that this isn't a. Either you're on the actual prophetic side or you're on the contemplative side, but is actually in the joining of both of those. That there is a sense of wholeness in it.

[Richard Rohr]

You got it? You just named it. That's right. The holding together. And God achieves that in the soul.

[Hannah]

It's God's achievement in the soul. It's not our doing.

[Richard Rohr]

It's not. Because it isn't logical.

[Paul Swanson]

So let's unpack this a bit. Richard, how is a prophet, someone who speaks truth while holding non dual consciousness and knowing that everything belongs to.

[Richard Rohr]

It's got to be in a different mind space, a different mind space than wanting to be absolutely right and by nature as a one on the Enneagram. That's me. So I've had to fight it all my life wanting to stand on righteousness. And you have to let go of that need to be thought of as there's good guys and bad guys. I'm one of the good guys. Listen to me. I'm one of the guys who names that good and evil coexist. Or as Jesus puts it again in Matthew, the weeds and the wheat coexist.

[Paul Swanson]

I appreciate that. Because if I recognize that I'm also one of the bad guys sometimes.

[Richard Rohr]

There you go.

[Paul Swanson]

That there's a propensity for me to be one of the bad guys. That doesn't mean that. That it suddenly levels the playing field. And I don't say anything from knowing that I'm a participant in that. I can then use my voice to say it a completely different way. You like the definition that contemplation is a long loving look at the real?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

And so if a contemplative is a truth seer or a reality seer, wouldn't they also be a truth speaker? And wouldn't they speak truth to make love more real in reality? But we can only do so if we're aware of the reality of our.

[Richard Rohr]

Own complicity, our own selves, our own participation in stupidity. And yet we're still, this is the core, unconditionally and infinitely loved by God. Few people historically get to that. We assume most of our moralistic Christianity that we cannot get to God's love, unless we're morally perfect. And there's no even idea of presenting the prophets as moral paragons like we did with the Catholic saints. Sure, they're presented as very ordinary people. Their own virtue is not touted, it's not denied, but it's not emphasized.

[Paul Swanson]

And yet they ask society to be more virtuous and more just and more loving.

[Hannah]

And they're never excluded from that judgment. Right. They are a part of the community that they're calling very good to a higher order.

[Richard Rohr]

Israel. Yeah, they love Israel, even though Israel is terrible. It's just there's the poem that you just read. There's Ezekiel, the honey and the sour taste at the same time. You've got to learn paradoxical thinking, I think, to understand most spiritual things. And we Christians were never taught that. We need that to understand Jesus. Paradoxical thinking, the ability to hold contraries and to allow them both to be true at the same time, which is what God does with us. Every time God forgives us, he doesn't deny we've done wrong, but he says, as it were, if God talks this way, I can live with it. I'd sooner have you. I'd sooner have you than a paragon of virtue that doesn't love.

[Paul Swanson]

And just to ask one final stinger on that before we move forward. So what would you say to some of your readers who maybe fell in love with the book the Naked now, for example?

[Drew Jackson]

And.

[Paul Swanson]

And they would say, well, if we're practicing non dual consciousness, then we shouldn't be talking about guns or poverty or war or politics or the mental health crisis.

[Mike Petro]

And I don't hear you saying that.

[Richard Rohr]

No, it's the very struggle itself which is represented by the anger of the prophets. It's a struggle itself in the spirit which creates this paradoxical mind. The more you've struggled with it, an issue like guns or. Dang it, dang it. It's just not as simple as I'd like to make it. A poor woman living alone in a dangerous neighborhood has a right to protect herself. You know, let's just pick that as a sure. You can't say no to that. It's always more subtle. So there's no total good guys and total bad guys. That isn't saying you cannot do a rabid critique of the gun culture.

[Paul Swanson]

I think what I am enthusiastic about with this season of the podcast is asking our listeners to step into this wrestling with us with what it means. And I think you guide us so well through it in this book. And, and why we need that prophetic voice and prophetic perspective.

[Hannah]

Yeah, it reminds me, I think I've.

[Paul Swanson]

Mentioned this quote to both of you.

[Hannah]

Before, but the great pedagogical mind, Apollo Freire, on his deathbed, he was, he was asked what is the most important thing that you've learned in your life? And he said the daily struggle to be congruent. So just the daily struggle of like seeing the weeds.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, there it is.

[Hannah]

And I think, and I think that's what we're inviting you invite us to in this moment.

[Richard Rohr]

That's what I was just trying to say. What you're leading me to is the title of the book. Damn it. I want to be righteous, but all I could do is cry angrily cry or damn it, I can't be right. God is willing to love those who are wrong and work with those who are wrong. Once you get that, just be honest about the Bible. There's hardly a single Catholic saint to use that as a paradigm in the whole Bible. Except perhaps Mary, maybe Joseph. Mary and Joseph. But every other Old Testament figure is flawed, deeply obviously flawed. And yet the whole history of salvation is written by God interacting with them. That includes David. That includes all the prophets. Boy, it's going to take us another thousand years to see this. I think on a broad basis because people always. Now I have people taking my teaching on non dual thinking and being dualistic about that. There's only non dual thinking and anybody. No, there's dual and non dual. And what discernment is, what wisdom is, is knowing when you need one and when you need the other.

[Paul Swanson]

Wow, I've never heard you explain that so simply. That's brilliant. Thank you for that.

[Hannah]

Richard, I want to ask you a question about religion. You write so beautifully when you say the prophets know that religion is the best and that religion is also risks being the worst. So how does religion bring out the best and the worst of humanity? How do we hold this paradox? How do we hold this tension? Does religion need prophecy internally as this kind of quality control?

[Richard Rohr]

Quality control. That's what the prophets are. Thank you. Go ahead. I cut you off.

[Hannah]

No, no, this is it. Just to hear you riff on this, a little bit of how do you think that religion brings out the best and the worst of humanity the best?

[Richard Rohr]

By exposing us to the infinite love of God. Now the mystics are those who really get that. Yeah, the infinite love of God, the unconditional love of God. And the prophets finally get that. Not at the beginning.

[Hannah]

Oh, interesting.

[Richard Rohr]

Eventually get that. Yeah.

[Hannah]

Can you say more about that distinction real quick. Mystics get it up front. Prophets get in the end. Just two.

[Richard Rohr]

Well, we don't know when mystics get it. They're all different. We mostly don't know about them until the middle of life.

[Hannah]

Yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

So it probably took them a while to get there, too. But they get there. Is the important thing that religion is about a shattering encounter with an experience that breaks all the rules of logic, worthiness, virtue, merit, accomplishment, heaven and hell. That's why the final paragraphs of the book are about heaven and hell, because those are undone by the kingdom of God. Why it's so often the worst is it creates the best cover for the ego imaginable. If you go around wearing a God badge. Yeah. And we, you and I all understand that. We were raised in the church. We had our God badge, and I put a big one on by being ordained. It's just a recipe for delusion. A recipe for not intended hypocrisy, but de facto hypocrisy.

[Hannah]

You're not talking about just individually either. You're talking about groups.

[Richard Rohr]

Groups collectively. We're right on this because we go to church.

[Paul Swanson]

I love how you in other places talk about how Christ is captured by culture.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

You look at different cultures almost always well. And we have a very American Jesus right now who looks a lot more like American ideals than anything in scripture. And this is something that I love about this book, is you're not just teaching us about the prophets. You're teaching us how to grow up. And you're teaching us how to read scripture through the lens of growing up. You write this in the book, and I really love it. We started reading texts that portrayed God as angry, wrathful, judgmental, and punitive. We pretty much anthropomorphized our gods. We made God in our image, imagining them as small and righteous as we are. The prophets started out the same way, but they changed and grew up. This is the theme of themes in this small book. Elsewhere you say, it seems to be a journey of refining the real message by fire. By fire until we reach the final stage of joy and hopefulness. That's wild.

[Richard Rohr]

Did I say that?

[Paul Swanson]

You did. You said some really good stuff in here.

[Richard Rohr]

I must be in my last days.

[Paul Swanson]

Well, check this one out. Unless things come, unless we learn to study the prophets as a rite of passage into adult religion, I do not think their writings will be insightful or of much use. It's good stuff. Richard, what can you tell us about reading the prophets through the lens of growing up and reading scripture in general. Through the lens of growing up, we.

[Richard Rohr]

Tried to give a finality to every word in the Bible, when in fact they're a recipe for development, for change, for growing up, for maturing. Use whatever word you want. People have to change to get there. Now, Jesus said this in two gospels. It says the first words out of his mouth were repent, which as you know, the correct translation is change your mind. Metanoete, change your mind. Here we have a founder who's all into people changing, and we create a religion that idealizes not changing at all.

[Paul Swanson]

That's brutal.

[Richard Rohr]

Just getting your childhood understanding of Jesus, which is childish. How could it not be? And hold on to that all your life.

[Paul Swanson]

This idea that change is possible is inspiring for us as individuals and for hope that our cultures can change and become better, even in scary times. Thanks for that.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you for hearing it. Yeah. Once Christianity begins to be known as a place where you go to mature, change, grow up, not just repeat the same song every Sunday. And that was literally true in many churches. We had our 12 favorite songs, like the top 10, and we repeated them.

[Hannah]

Yeah, I love that framing of what if Christianity could be seen as a place to mature into transformation?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Hannah]

And part of what you say in this book is the path the prophet seems to slowly lead to loving as God loves.

[Richard Rohr]

That's it.

[Hannah]

And you talk about salvation by union, where it's like starting with code, creed, cult, and then transitioning into mutual presencing, which you call a learned nakedness and vulnerability.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh God, you're such a good student. Keep going. You got it.

[Hannah]

How is this especially relevant for you, this pathway of learning to love as God loves?

[Richard Rohr]

I just had to be honest about my own life. How imperfect I was in my thinking, in my emotions, and often even in my actions. And how again and again throughout my life I experienced the mercy, the tenderness, the presence, the forgiveness. God keeps staying with me. God keeps using me. I would give better talks, not worse talks. I would love people better, not worse. But it had so little to do with achievement or virtue on my part. It had everything to do with gift. Gift. That's why grace was in the title of three of my books. I think grace became the whole enchilada. It's all grace. And all we could do is get out of the way and allow it. That's what attracted me to Francis and Franciscanism, a non achievement oriented form of Christianity.

[Paul Swanson]

The time has flown by. We're at our last question, are we? And you've set it up so. Well, Richard, for us, Paul and I, reading your book and coming here to have these conversations with you and ask you questions for our listeners taking the journey. I want to read two very provocative passages from the book. It's beginning. And then I want to ask you a question.

[Richard Rohr]

All right.

[Paul Swanson]

So you say, when we lack self knowledge, we will unconsciously project our disliked and unknown self onto others, condemning them for the very faults we share. It is no wonder then, that most of the prophets were murdered. As Jesus notes in Matthew, what a catastrophic arrangement. The French anthropologist and literary critic Rene Girard wrote that the Bible is unique in all world literature in spotting this universal human avoidance of our own dark side. And later on, we'll talk about the scapegoat mechanism and how the prophets turn that on its side. But elsewhere you say, I love this. You're talking about church services. And you say, I would go so far as to say that any worship service that does not begin with a sincere and plaintive kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy, had best be careful. The plea for mercy at the beginning of many Christian worship services is a statement and a warning that we're moving on to holy ground. We most likely do not know what we're talking about when we're talking about God, so we'd best start with humility. We all and forever need mercy. One wonders what our theologies and worship would look like if we always began with an honest statement of our not knowing the true nature of holy mystery. So here it is, and I'm going to ask you, Richard, to tell us. How can a willingness to look at our own personal shadows and stay humble help us in reading this book and taking the journey we're going to take together over the next few months?

[Richard Rohr]

It's the only thing that keeps us humble, is seeing I'm not there yet. I haven't begun to do it. I just, in moments like an epiphany, see it through the way God loves me. And if God's love for me is not dependent upon my worthiness of it, it's a different universe. I still want to love God, but the recognition that I don't ever do it very well, I don't even know how to do it, keeps me with wind in my sails, keeps me open to someone else. Not I, not I, but the spirit that blows through me. Someone else is doing this to me, through me, for me, with me. Use every preposition and all I can do is say, yes. Yes, let it be.

[Paul Swanson]

This is great, Richard. The invitation for all of us to enter the prophetic discourse, but also stay humble and recognize that we don't have it all figured out.

[Richard Rohr]

That's the daily struggle and never will.

[Hannah]

The daily struggle of it.

[Richard Rohr]

On our deathbed, you know, the devil's advocate, I'm told, at St. Ignatius's advocate canonization, pointing out that 24 hours before Ignatius died, he yelled at a brother who was taking care of him. That gives me so much consolation. If it's true.

[Paul Swanson]

I hope it's a long time from now when we find out which one of us will be the person.

[Richard Rohr]

I'm gonna yell at the whole thing. See, that's why it's such a short leap. Thank you for letting me end on this to universal salvation. Now it's a very short leap. Once he recognizes we all do it wrong, then who can't God use?

[Paul Swanson]

Friends, this is going to be a good journey this season. For those who are going to listen along, I'm so excited. For those who are going to listen along and read along as we tackle this book. A chapter a month. Richard, so excited to get into more of it with you.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you, Paul. Thank you for caring.

[Hannah]

Oh, it's going to be great.

[Richard Rohr]

Hope he's listening too. Applauding thank you both. God bless you.

[Mike Petro]

Everything belongs. Will continue in a moment. Oh, my gosh. Here we are. My friends, I cannot think of three people that I would rather have these conversations with. I love that we are going to take the rest of this year to discuss Richard's new book, the Tears of Things. Some folks have gotten their hands on this beautiful reader's guide that goes along with the book and listeners. You'll find out more about that later in the episode. And one of the things the reader's guide suggests is, is how valuable it is, in addition to discussing the book, to sometimes engage in what's called lectio divina. And that's a spiritual practice where you read sections of the book out loud, sometimes more than once, to reflect on them. And we can't talk about the practice of reading the book out loud without pointing out that you Drew got to narrate the audiobook that some of our listeners will be spending time with over the next couple months. So to kick the conversation conversation off. Before we dive into this, I have to ask Drew, what was it like to read and speak that book into existence?

[Drew Jackson]

Thanks, Mike. You know, it was such a beautiful experience to sit with the book in that way and to read it really carefully, because when you're narrating an audiobook, it does allow you to really immerse yourself in the text in a different way. And it was a really special experience. And I'll share this that when I was reading the Engineer, you know, the audio engineer in the studio was working with me, and when we were all finished, he just looked at me and he said, that's a special book.

[Mike Petro]

Oh my gosh, it is such a special book. Did you hear Richard's voice in your head at all when you were reading?

[Drew Jackson]

100%. 100%.

[Mike Petro]

So good. Before we move on to the next question, Drew, Carmen, Paul, I'm curious if you have any advice for our readers on how to just the nuts and bolts of sitting down and picking up the book every day or pressing play on the audiobook, how to just kind of be there, present to it deeply. What do you think?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I will definitely say it rewards rereading. And one of the ways that I approached it from the very beginning was I love to scan a book. So look at the first of all the chapter titles and you know, you see good Trouble, and I'm in from John Lewis. But then look through the arc of the book in general. And then, you know, Jim Finley often mentions going paragraph by paragraph and writing down to the side what this paragraph taught you. And I do that too. I take notes. I took notes on Richard's book the first time I read it, the second time I read it. I just think this book, I will say again, rewards rereading and looking up the scripture passages in it to look at different translations in the Bible gateway, just to really take it to heart. What you need is there in it and to really engage with it in whatever way most speaks to you. It's that kind of book. It's very invitational, I would add.

[Drew Jackson]

Just read it slowly. Don't rush through it. There's so much in here and so much that we can miss if we rush past it in an attempt to get through the book. Or add this as another book to your checklist that you're reading for your reading goals for the year. Just sit with it, move through it slowly. Open yourself to allow it to do the work that it's intended to do.

[Paul Swanson]

I love these responses. I think one thing I would add to it, if you can read it with others, I think you get some of the benefits of multiple readings when you're reading it in a group because you get this variety of perspectives or like what hits somebody really hard may not hit somebody else. But then all of a sudden it's like you're all participating almost Like a potluck. Everyone's bringing their special dish to the table and you get to enjoy what everyone else has brought and seen and prepared. Listening with a keen and open ear to how others might be hearing the wisdom, the critique, the possibility, in tears of things.

[Mike Petro]

I think one of my favorite bits of advice I was ever given very early was a mentor told me, when you read a book, have a conversation with the author, write questions in the margins. You know, don't be afraid to put a question mark next to something. Don't be afraid to star something, to go back and ponder it. Don't even be afraid to disagree when you wonder. And that's so great to do that deeply and then to be able to bring that to conversations with friends and the conversations we're going to have here. Goodness, it's going to be such a good journey. And I have to ask, why do you think this is a book is so important right now at the moment that we find ourselves? What do you think?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I'll say that for me, this book is magnificent at really piercing the illusion of separateness, that we're all in this together and we're all trying to develop and mature, in other words, in love and find our common humanity. And once like I think your idea, Paul of the potluck, the way you put it, is beautiful. And just this notion of when we start sharing our stories, we all see we have so much in common. And also I grew up with this notion of the prophet from the Hebrew scriptures. It's just exactly as Richard put it. It was most of us imagine an angry wild haired person ranting and raving at the people of Israel for their many sins or predicting future doom. That really is so one dimensional and not at all as Richard is helping to revivify and help us better understand who the prophets are and how they can help us live into collective belonging. In other words, really loving each other. And so I appreciate that rather than scapegoating others, but instead bringing everyone in. So that's what it does for me.

[Drew Jackson]

Yeah, I would say for me it is a book for our time. It is necessary. And you know, I don't say that as saying there are particularities to our time. Right. That I think this book speaks to very, very plainly and very clearly and very powerfully. And at the same time, I think that, you know, one of my laments has always been that as someone who has been formed in, you know, the black church tradition, the prophets have always been part of how I imagine faith and spirituality. And I've always lamented that the prophets are not more talked about and discussed and taken seriously. There's a poem that I wrote about this prophetic tradition and the ways that it just kind of informs part of black spirituality in America. And in the beginning of that poem, I say we pass down this tradition like collard greens and black eyed peas. It's in mouths and bones and blood. It runs through our veins. Right? And so what I'm excited about in this book and why I think it's so important is that Richard is really, I think, opening up this conversation on the prophets and saying this is a necessary conversation for all of us. Right? We all need to be sitting in and being formed in the ways and the words of the prophetic tradition. And so I'm just excited for so many people to sink deeper into the prophetic and what it really means.

[Paul Swanson]

Really enjoying hearing what you all are bringing to the table because there's so many resonances. And I think Carmen used one of my favorite words, vivify, when you said revivify and drew the poetic language that you bring to how this text is necessary for this moment. And I think that's where I land is like, I feel like this book is going to hit contemplatives differently. People who lead with their contemplative side. It's going to hit people who lead with their activist side differently. And how ultimately it's challenging for those who call themselves a contemplative activist and for those who call themselves an activist contemplative. And what I love about that is there's this natural tension, which I think for those of us, you know, we all live in the States here, in this moment, in this country, there is a lot of tension going on. And what is the prophetic word? What is the way that we show up as embodied followers of Jesus in this moment, in this way? And how do the prophets have instructive ways of being and speaking that we can lean on? Whatever the landscape that you find yourself in and where your politics land, this book is instructive. This book has something to speak to you.

[Mike Petro]

I think I'm so, so grateful that Richard's asking us to think again about what it means to be a prophet and to use a prophetic voice. And on that note, our listeners may notice that in this conversation between the hosts, there's a new, but not unfamiliar voice, and that is our favorite new faculty member at the center for Action and Contemplation and our favorite new host on the Everything Belongs podcast, Carmen Acevedo. Butcher. Carmen, we're so glad that you're joining us this season. It's such a gift to have you here. You bring so much wisdom as a teacher and a scholar, and especially as a human who's lived her life with a whole heart. And it really kind of embodies a lot of what we're talking about. And one of the things I love about you is your love of words. Wisdom just oozes out of you when you geek out about words. Could you tell us a little bit about the word prophet as we're discussing what it means to be a prophet?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Absolutely. And I love that you said we're going to geek out. And it's wonderful to be here with you awesome people. I just love you all so much. So, for me, etymology is a heart practice. It goes beyond the head and it grounds us really in the ground of words and the soil of words, like human coming from the root for ground. And it grounds us in the humanity of words because words have stories and in their interconnectedness. So when I first see the word prophet, I think that's kind of an abstract sounding word and I don't really feel warm and fuzzy about it. You know, it sounds a bit intimidating and not as human as I would like it to be. But if I look it up and I'm not saying I have a file of etymologies, the joy is in looking them up again to ensure do I remember it right? Have I ever seen it before? Prophet. It literally comes from two roots, the end of it. The fet part is from phatic and it means literally to speak or to say. And the pro part means before and goes back way in time when, let's say, someone was a spokesperson for Zeus or another God. And so the thing about prophet to me is it's somebody who's had an experiential experience with divinity. So that's of utmost importance. And so, for example, we have other words with this root in it. We have that really scary sounding word apophatic, which means not to say theology, the theology of saying, wow, we cannot name God, but that's the same root as prophet. And then we have cataphatic, which is to say, and then we have symphony, which are people speaking together. And so really profit to me is a very human word. And I want to kind of bring it into our hearts as something that's not abstract but is actually representative of what. What we people do together. I actually love this word a lot once I've looked it up. Before it was Just kind of scary. It might show up on the SAT in a pairing, and you might kind of freak out, you know. But now I love it, now that I know the etymology of it.

[Mike Petro]

So, yeah, yeah, I love all that. I first fell in love with Richard when I read his book Things Hidden, which was a book about reading Scripture. And in that book, he's like, hey, some people look at the Bible and they see God start as angry and wrathful, and then in the end, God's loving and merciful. And he said, just remember, God doesn't change. God doesn't grow up in the Scriptures. We grow up when we read the Scripture. And that was when I was like, oh, I. I like this Richard Rohr. And I've never seen him explore that more deeply than the way he does in this book. We're growing into love. So my question for the three of you is, how do we invite our listeners to try this out as they journey with the book this year? To try out. Looking for. The pattern of growing up when they think about Scripture and religious truths in.

[Drew Jackson]

General, as our listeners will see once they read the book, is that Richard is actually really instructive on this in how to read. You know, actually giving us practices for reading the prophets and spotting the patterns, watching how the prophets themselves are people in process, which I think was one of the most powerful things for me is giving the prophets themselves the freedom to be human, to be people in process on a journey, which I think we don't typically do when we come to scriptural text. At least the way that I was taught to read scripture growing up, there was no people in process. There was no humanity. It was, if it's written there, that's what God said. And there was no, like, conception of the fact that, oh, you know, we put words in God's mouth all the time that God didn't say. I would just invite our listeners to spot, and Richard will give instructions on this, but spot the pattern of how the prophets themselves are in process from beginning to end, that they don't stay where they started.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I love that. People in process. I'm going to remember that, Drew. I love it. I would say, in addition to what Drew just shared is because for me also, I mean, I grew up, you were just supposed to be perfect. You would have thought that God was not the God of love, but God was the God of perfectionism in my childhood church theology. And so I would say, be open to change, because that's one of the points Richard makes throughout the book, is that really Scripture is meant to be about change. And so if you're hungry and you want change in yourself, in our world, then just be open to it. Because one of the things about the prophets that I appreciate is their lives are messy and their emotions are messy. They feel depressed, they don't want to do what they know they should do. They get angry. I mean, the whole. They rejoice some, but they're humans, as Drew was saying, and so be open to change. One of the things I do when I read a book like this or Scripture is I just tell God what I want. Please help me change. Please use this book to help me change. And then things happen that I don't expect in new ways.

[Mike Petro]

Paul, I want to ask you about this specifically. I've heard Richard for years talk about order, disorder, reorder, or holy order. Holy disorder and holy reorder. He's talked about construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. And especially in this book, he talks about anger, sadness, and love. Paul, you're the old dog here. I think you've been at the center for 17 years.

[Paul Swanson]

18 years.

84 years.

[Mike Petro]

84 years. Having worked here the longest, how have you seen this pattern kind of take shape in Richard's teachings over the years?

[Paul Swanson]

What I love about it is he offers these simple terms so that we can bring the complexity of our own life into those simple terms and allow it to. For the human experience to complexify it and try it on and not be swallowed up by a complex framework. The simplicity of the framework is the gift, because there's so much work that got it down to that point, and now it's your job to show up inside of that and again to wrestle with it. And I think Richard is very masterful at that and does so in tears.

[Mike Petro]

Of things as well, especially this pattern where he talks about anger, sadness, and love. He says in the book, if you read the prophets, you'll be led through many of the same stages that any of us go through when we grow up spiritually. And I love what you're saying there, Paul, where we're encouraged to bring our own life experience in and thank God, because I don't know about the three of you, but, like, when I read about anger, it puts me very in touch with my own anger. When I read about sadness, it puts me very in touch with my own sadness.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

I went back to the book because this part really spoke to me, where Richard writes anger and then he adds to remind us of the complexity of this and judgmentalism. So anger and judgmentalism but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others and how these are tied to or engendered by fear. And he says then that the prophets, that outlook falls apart over the course of their writings. I really identify with this in my growing up years, especially this judgmentalism, this anger, this superiority complex that was born of fear and really was also an inferiority complex. So he really goes to the heart of the complexities of this mess, of this unhealthiness that we experience. For me, it was also because in my childhood, God was an angry God. It was the, you know, with a side of New Testament love. But that was just sort of mostly a mention and you had to be saved and then be perfect, is how it felt. And it felt like the rules were always changing also. And so it was like you couldn't win. And trying to make sense of that kind of theology growing up just really was confusing. And so I really appreciate the way he draws out the anger aspect of it and that it's okay also, because now the anger that I feel and deal with is a different kind of anger. It's more, what about my students who are homeless? How do I. And I really start with myself? How do I live in a system? And how have I allowed this system to be where I have students who are without a home, who are coming to class without a home?

[Paul Swanson]

Anger is hard for me to access because of my personality and my makeup. Like, I often will not feel my anger until I hear somebody else express their anger or it'll surprise me and spill out in unhelpful ways. And I think that's my own growing edge of my own relationship to anger so that I can feel the freedom that it's okay to allow my anger to be another part of who I am and how it shows up.

[Drew Jackson]

As I was reading this book and thinking about the anger, that was part of the prophetic journey, and I would say part of the prophetic gift, right? To be able to have such a response to evil, injustice and oppression happening in your midst. It's like we need the anger of the prophets so that we're not desensitized to the things around us. But I thought of the quote from James Baldwin when he says, to be black in America and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all the time. What I appreciate about what Baldwin is saying and what Richard brings forth in this book around anger and the prophets is that there is something about a consciousness to what's happening all around us that if we're in touch with should enrage us to. Like we should. And anger is never the end. Like, it doesn't stay there, Right. It moves us along. Right. This is what the. You know, I think Richard talks about in this journey and this growing up and this journey that the prophets are on. But so that's the thing. I think that as I think about what it's meant for me to access my own anger, it's how do I get in touch with it, stay conscious and not stay there once it rises?

[Mike Petro]

I am jealous of y' all a teeny tiny bit in the fact that I feel so much anger all the time. Anger is such an easy feeling for me to feel. But what this book reminded me is that if I'm ever angry, it's because something I love is at stake. And to stand in the fire of that anger, I have to stay in touch with the much more deep fire of that love. And remember that anger is temporary and love is eternal. And what can that vision of love show me about how to use that anger wisely? And then this beautiful insight that Richard shares in the book where he says, a lot of times when we're angry, what's really happening is there's sadness that is masked behind that anger. And I am continually reminded every time I think I'm in touch with my grief and sadness. Life gives me an opportunity to remember how much our culture does everything it can to keep us out of touch with grief and sadness. I'm so curious for the three of you, how has this book put you in touch with your own grief and sadness?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

With this sadness, a lot of it is to do with grieving, even places that I didn't know I needed to grieve. So it's kind of a frightening, a good, frightening journey in the sense of allowing myself to think, wow, I really am sad about this aspect. So part of it for me are some places in the story where I wish there were more female prophets. Do you know? And I wish they had written. I'm waiting for someone to write even more about them in a whole nother book. And so for me, there's seeing how many students I know of who don't have a chance to go to school and just allowing myself to really go, wow, I'm admitting to myself I care this much about these students, and there's a real vulnerability there that I can admit to God in the marsh and then find myself weeping. And that, to me, is what this book is about. Getting us in touch with being safe enough with ourselves. That we can admit where we are sad. And it's very surprising in my experience.

[Drew Jackson]

I'm so moved by the way that the prophets, they tap into. They're so connected to the collective grief of the people. You know, by the waters of Babylon, we sat and wept, right? It's that collective grief that then the prophets are giving this voice to in a way that sometimes people don't know how to. And to think later on about Jesus own tears as he weeps over Jerusalem. How I wish you knew on this day the things that make for peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes, like those sorts of tears, that sort of grief. I think it's so important for us to name that sort of collective sadness that I think the prophets are tapped.

[Paul Swanson]

Into, those who can feel that collective grief, that collective sadness, and cry those tears. The gift and burden of that, like, I know from my own experience doing that personally, but to feel that collectively and consistently and then putting words and action to that, there's a selflessness to that kind of prophetic work. I give so much honor and respect for those doing that and also wanting to join in. How can I be a part of the movement? Like, if you're not the Spearhead, that's okay. How can you just be a part of the movement?

[Mike Petro]

You know, as we get to the third part of the path of the Prophet, I so often think that love is at the beating heart of all of Richard's teachings. And so I have to ask each of you, as you've gone through this book, how has it made love more real for you?

[Drew Jackson]

How has this shown up in my life? It's really been a challenge for me to say, what does it mean for me to show up, Actually show up, not just talk about it, not just weep about it, but to act and to truly be in solidarity with those who are suffering violence, those who are abused, those who are being crushed under the foot of empire. I think that's what love is always asking of us. And I think that's what the prophets are calling us to always be considering as they call us back to love.

[Paul Swanson]

That's amazing, Drew. What comes to mind for me is when I am able to access that anger and when that sadness is there, how are those all experienced on behalf of love? Like, love is the engine. That is the reason why I want to feel that anger towards the injustices in the world, the collective trauma, for what can happen at the margins and be considered okay because it's not happening to the elite. What does it mean to Follow in this way in my own circumstances, I.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Feel this anger that I cannot just wake up one morning and make a difference systemically, you know, and then I feel a sadness. And I have to accept both of those in order to really ask in this moment, on this day, with this person in front of me, how do I love? In other words, how moment by moment, does this challenge me to try to be more of a human being who is part of a communal experience that Ubuntu I am because you are. You are because I am.

[Mike Petro]

I so appreciate that, Carmen. I think I'm just reminded that love is a noun and it's a verb, and it's probably the DNA of the cosmos and God, and it's something we want to encourage our listeners to lean into. I know this conversation has inspired me to start asking myself, where am I angry? Where am I sad? Where do I feel love and where can I be love? And I might just make that a journal practice for the rest of the year as we go through this. This has been such a rich conversation before. We button up. We don't want to fail to acknowledge that the name of this chapter is Good Trouble. And that's such a carefully and beautifully chosen phrase on Richard's part. Carmen, can I ask you to say a word about Good Trouble and why you think Richard chose that for this introduction?

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Yeah, absolutely. Because students often ask me, what's it like to grow up in Georgia? And I mentioned John Robert Lewis. So that's his quote. He was born in Troy, Alabama. He was the son of a sharecropper. And as a little boy, you can read about, you know, in his memoir, he lived in constant fear because of segregation. And then he served over 36 years in the US House of Representatives, 5th district, that's Georgia's 5th district and it's Atlanta and the surrounding areas. And he was involved in the sit ins, Freedom Riders, and he chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee in the 60s. Just really such an amazing person. And he talks about, you know, make good trouble show up and in a non violent way, because, you know, Rosa Parks taught John Lewis about nonviolence. And so he's talking about showing up and being countercultural in a loving way. He even quotes Rosa Parks at one point. He says, she kept on saying to each one of us, you too can do something. And for people, if you see something that's not right, not fair, not just do something, we cannot afford to be quiet. My question for me, as a woman who grew up in the south and was Raised to be a people pleaser is to remind myself of John Lewis's example and ask myself every day, how can I be involved in good trouble?

[Mike Petro]

So good.

[Drew Jackson]

I love this quote from John Lewis, this quote about good trouble. We actually have it. It's a magnet on our fridge. I look at it all the time. And one of the things that I love about it is he says both get in good trouble, but he also says get in necessary trouble and so that some trouble. And I think the prophets would agree. Right. And that's, you know, I think Richard named this introduction Good trouble is that there is trouble that is good and necessary. That's the prophetic way of standing in the world that is pushing back and calling us into something more beautiful, more whole, more just, and more loving.

[Mike Petro]

Friends, this has been such a rich conversation. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's always so good to be with you. And I cannot wait to see where this journey takes all of us in the coming months. Listeners, thanks for being with us. I'll be right back with Drew to bring this episode to a conclusion and send us all out with something to think about till we're back together in a few weeks. Friends, the book and the audiobook of the Tears of Things, Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage, is now out in the world. Father Richard's book was released on Ash Wednesday every Sunday during Lent. There'll be a special online teaching and practice offered by CAC teachers and staff walking us through a prophetic exploration of Lent leading up to Easter. And there's so many more ways to participate. If you go to thetiersoftthings.com you can find a reader's guide. If you'd like to go deeper, we're even offering an online short course on the Tears of Things that opens in the month of April. Both explore contemporary prophets and help us explore the wisdom of this book practically in our lives. And I also have to say, Drew, I'm really excited to get the audiobook. I've gone through this book a couple times. I can't wait to listen to you read it. And that's going to be how I go through it as we take the journey over the next couple months is just to listen to a chapter each month. So you're going to be in my ears in more ways than one. And I'm looking forward to it.

[Drew Jackson]

No, I love that. And I hope it's a treat for you, Mike.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah, I think it's going to be. And for a lot of our listeners, too. I hope there's a whole group of us who go through and listen along. Drew, would you offer I'm going to put you on the spot. Would you offer a parting blessing for our listeners as we walk out the door?

[Drew Jackson]

Absolutely. And I think it's only fitting to offer this blessing in the spirit of John Lewis, who this introductory chapter is inspired by. So wherever you are, I would encourage you just to place yourself in a posture of receiving and receive these words of blessing sending. Would you go from wherever you are in the prophetic spirit and find yourself in good and necessary trouble, stirring up chaotic love for the sake of the flourishing of our world?

[Corey Wayne]

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 thanks to the generosity of our supporters and the shared work of Mike Petro, Paul.

[Carmen Acevedo Butcher]

Swanson, Drew Jackson, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Jenna Kuyper, Izzy Spitz, Megan Hare, Sarah Palmer.

[Corey Wayne]

Dorothy Abrams, 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.

[Podcast Announcer]

Do you feel called to walk a more contemplative path? The center for Action and Contemplation is an educational nonprofit 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].