The Integration of Feminine and Masculine with Jennifer Abe and Douglas E. Christie

Summary

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Everything Belongs Podcast: “The Integration of Feminine and Masculine”

Podcast: Everything Belongs: Living the Teachings of Richard Rohr Forward
Host: Center for Action and Contemplation
Episode: The Integration of Feminine and Masculine with Jennifer Abe and Douglas E. Christie
Date: January 17, 2025
Based on: Richard Rohr’s “Eager to Love,” Chapter 8—Lightness of Heart and Firmness of Foot
Special Guests: Jennifer Abe (LMU), Douglas E. Christie (LMU)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the integration of the “masculine” and “feminine” as contemplative energies, archetypes, and spiritual realities—not as mere markers of gender—through the lens of the Franciscan tradition and the foundational teachings of Richard Rohr. The hosts, Mike Petro and Paul Swanson, first engage Richard Rohr in a rich conversation about his personal and spiritual formation, cultural scripts, and St. Francis’s transformative approach to masculinity and femininity. In the second half, guest professors Jennifer Abe and Douglas E. Christie extend the theme through lived experience, academic insights, and profound embodied metaphors—offering practical invitations for moving beyond categorical binaries toward wholeness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Naming the Mystery (00:08–03:26, 26:31–28:31)

• The conversation begins with humility: Mike and Paul acknowledge their limitations in discussing masculine and feminine realities as men, and the way language both reveals and limits deep truths.
• Quote: “It’s like trying to talk about God or love. It’s this sacred thing that’s always too small for the container that you pour it into.” —Mike Petro (01:26)
• Richard’s Core Distinction: Masculine and feminine are archetypal energies present in all people—not synonymous with male/female or gender roles. The discussion aims to go beyond societal scripts and binaries.

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2. Richard Rohr’s Formation & Awakening to Archetypes (03:48–17:37)

• Richard was raised in a post-WWII atmosphere, immersed in highly gendered cultural scripts: “They were all World War II warriors or 1940s cinema John Wayne stars who are over-masculinized by our standards today.” (07:01)
• Early education by religious sisters (notably Sister Ephraim, whose mythic stories about Mary model grace, vulnerability, and “feminine” attributes), later shifting to seminary life surrounded solely by men (08:49–13:16).
• Discovery of Carl Jung’s archetypes in the library—opening to the “universal roles of masculine and feminine … not roles anymore, energies.” (16:27)
• Personal realization: “When I learned more about masculine and feminine as energies and not gender roles, I was like, I relate to the feminine so much more.” —Mike Petro (17:16)

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3. Francis of Assisi as a Model of Integration (17:37–24:36)

• Francis was “handed scripts” of manhood: warriorship, competition, patriarchal religion.
• Francis broke these molds: Disillusioned with violence, he chose radical vulnerability (embracing lepers), simplicity, inclusivity, and friendship with women (Clare, Lady Jacoba).
• Quote: “Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that… You must make room for it.” —Neil Donald Walsh, read by Mike Petro (19:33)
• Francis’s way is described as poetry, not legalistic prose; relationship and mutuality, not rigid order.

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4. Defining Masculine and Feminine Principles (26:48–28:46)

• Feminine Principle (as Rohr describes): Inner, formless, intuitive, relational, harmonic, lunar, diffusive awareness.
• Masculine Principle: Outer, mental, distinct, focused, solar, agentic, ascendant, literal.
• Richard: “Carl Jung calls it a more diffused awareness both for good and evil.” (27:42)
• Both energies are essential and present in everyone, but “the last idol to fall is the idol of sexuality… Reality is more subtle than that.” (28:56)

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5. Integration & The Radical Genius of Francis (28:46–37:45)

• Francis incarnated these archetypes: radical receptivity, connection with the marginalized, and refusal of institutional scripts without antagonism.
• Francis wrote the first Italian poem, the Canticle of Brother Sun—his spirituality was artistic, inclusive. (30:23)
• Difference from Benedictine and Jesuit models (focused, rule-based): “There’s that diffused awareness instead of focused awareness.” —Richard Rohr (31:04)
• The feminine principle is seen as generative, capable of including the masculine; patriarchal order (even post-Reformation Church) collapses back into rigidity and control.
• Paul links contemplative openness and practical social change: “How do we keep moving in that direction?”
• Advice from Richard: “Don’t speak from your woundedness, speak out of your healed wounds. That allows a much smaller group of people to speak.” (38:09)

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6. The Practice of Mystery: A Conversation with Jennifer Abe & Doug Christie (40:02–81:54)

Personal Stories of Encountering the Franciscan Tradition (43:10–48:45)

• Jennifer: Raised in a Japanese American, Baptist tradition, she encountered St. Francis through John Michael Talbot’s music—an entry point highlighting “the sense of worship and intimacy with the divine that I really found drawn to.” (45:43)
• Doug: Found the Franciscan tradition through parish life in East Oakland, inspired by Franciscan commitment to peacemaking, simplicity, and radical inclusion.

Living Beyond Binaries—Both/And Spirituality (49:24–53:37)

• Jennifer: Early faith provided secure categories, but life’s ambiguity and struggle forced a journey toward “being very rooted and very open at the same time.” (51:45)
• Doug: The “canticle of the creatures” revealed the necessity of expressing faith “through the beauty and vitality and mystery of this world… a knitting of the whole we desperately need in this moment of fragmentation.” (52:04)

Embodying the Marian Yes and Leadership in Feminine Mode (55:02–67:45)

• Jennifer shares her deepening appreciation for Mary: “Radical receptivity… a young woman who said yes at great risk to herself … This continual dialogue with your sense of God, of who you are to be in the world, that model and example of Mary becomes very relevant and powerful for all of us, or can be.” (55:02–57:46)
• Her journey as a psychologist grew from realizing the need to connect inner work with social justice, inspired by liberation psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró: “Individual well-being as connected to social justice.” (58:00–63:20)
• Jennifer’s current work is an “underground, faithful, collaborative, nourishing” leadership—fostering wholeness in others and the institution through quiet, consistent presence.

The Creosote Plant: Embodied Wisdom from the Desert (67:45–77:46)

• Jennifer describes learning from the creosote—the strength of its deep, unseen taproots, its outward growth, its release of fragrance when wounded, and its communal, interconnected life:
  • “We did this kind of communal prayer together, where we connected with our deepest values… The branches extending outwards, ever outwards, that we held hands, that we circled and remembered that we are connected to each other, we are connected to the natural world…” (71:13–77:46)
• The creosote dance becomes a living image of feminine/masculine integration, rootedness and generativity, especially as an antidote to individualism and rigid categorization.

Practical Invitations for Listeners (79:01–81:02)

• Jennifer: “Learning to embrace in an almost fearless way. Not uncritically accepting what has been given to us, but… translating it. What does it mean for our lives and in whatever season we’re in to say yes, to live fully, to contribute to the humanization of yourself and of others…” (79:01)
• Openness to mystery, inclusion, ordinary acts of love—are the heart of lived integration.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “It’s like trying to talk about God or love. It’s this sacred thing that’s always too small for the container that you pour it into.”
  —Mike Petro, 01:26

• “The feminine principle… is more identified with lunar subtlety and not the over differentiating light of the masculine sun god or the literalism and linearity of the left brain.”
  —Richard Rohr (reading from his book), 26:48

• “Carl Jung calls it a more diffused awareness both for good and evil.”
  —Richard Rohr, 27:42

• “The last idol to fall is the idol of sexuality. They like the division… Reality is more subtle than that.”
  —Richard Rohr, 28:56

• “Francis is poetry, not prose… He wrote the first piece of recorded Italian poetry, the Canticle of Brother Sun… breaking with focused, masculine religious order into an artistic, inclusive, diffused religious life.”
  —Richard Rohr, 30:23

• “Don’t speak from your woundedness, speak out of your healed wounds.”
  —Richard Rohr, 38:09

• “Learning to embrace in an almost fearless way…to grow further into a practice of love that is very ordinary and concrete and unconditional, that we don’t negate anybody, that no one gets excluded in that circle.”
  —Jennifer Abe, 79:01

• “When it is wounded, [creosote] offers up its fragrance and it grows outwards… We did this communal prayer together…remembered that we are connected to each other, we are connected to the natural world and that we can never forget our connectedness.”
  —Jennifer Abe, 71:13–77:46

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |----------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Opening Theme and Humility on Topic | 00:08–03:26 | | Richard’s Early Formation: Gender & Archetypes | 03:48–17:37 | | On St. Francis Breaking Scripts | 17:37–24:36 | | Defining Masculine & Feminine (Rohr Quotation) | 26:48–28:46 | | Integration, Order/Disorder, Franciscan Genius | 28:46–37:45 | | Richard’s Closing Advice | 38:09 | | Introduction to Jennifer Abe & Doug Christie | 40:02–43:10 | | Jennifer and Doug’s Spiritual Formation | 43:10–48:45 | | Both/And Spirituality Beyond Binaries | 49:24–53:37 | | Marian Yes, Leadership, Social Liberation | 55:02–67:45 | | Desert, Creosote Dance as Integration Metaphor | 67:45–77:46 | | Practical Invitations for Listeners | 79:01–81:02 | | Final Reflective Close | 81:02–84:46 |

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Flow & Tone

The episode maintains a humble, exploratory, and inclusive tone—continually returning to the importance of wrestling with mystery and refusing to settle for pat answers or fixed categories. The practical wisdom of Francis (poetry, compassion, integration), the deepening understanding of Mary, and the creosote’s embodied metaphor for generativity and hidden strength all animate the episode’s central message: Wholeness comes by living beyond binary scripts, integrating energies, and embracing spacious, relational, and incarnational love—where “everything and everyone belongs.”

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Listener Takeaways

• Masculine and feminine, as spiritual energies, exist within all, inviting us beyond gendered scripts.
• Francis of Assisi modeled the courage to break cultural and religious binaries, moving toward relationality and inclusivity.
• Integrational wholeness arises from love, receptivity, healed vulnerability, and openness to mystery.
• Embodying these teachings may look like letting go of outcomes, saying “yes” in the face of uncertainty, rooting deeply in values, and investing in relationships.
• The invitation: Reflect on where your own life has been divided by scripts, cultivate both focused (masculine) and diffused (feminine) awareness, and participate in a more loving, holistic world.

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Memorable Moment

Jennifer Abe describing the creosote “dance” in the desert as an embodied prayer for wholeness and connectedness:

“The roots help you locate yourself in the world… The branches extending outwards, ever outwards, that we held hands, that we circled and remembered we are connected to each other, we are connected to the natural world… It’s a manifestation and expression drawn from the inspiration of the desert plant… that we could draw from to gain strength for our own lives.” (71:13–77:46)

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This episode invites listeners to claim their own unique “yes” to mystery, integration, and generative presence—living forward the contemplative legacy of the Franciscan tradition.

Transcript

[Jennifer Abe]

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

[Mike Petro]

Welcome back to the Everything Belongs podcast. Thanks for joining us again this season as we're talking about Richard's book Eager to the Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi. Just a reminder, you do not have to read the book to follow along with us week to week on each of these great episodes where we get together with Richard and his hermitage and chat about one of the chapters of the book and then interview a guest to live the teachings forward with us and give us even more insight. This week we are Talking about Chapter 8, Lightness of Heart and firmness of foot, the integration of the masculine and the feminine. And Mr. Paul Swanson, it is always a gift to get to be in these conversations with you.

[Paul Swanson]

Amen. It's a joy to be in these conversations with you and with Richard. And this particular chapter is such a. I'm even struggling for the words because I think this is part of how we approach the chapters within our own experiences in the bodies we're born into, and then also how we relate and integrate to the masculine and feminine energies. And we got a chance to ask Richard about that and we got a chance to explore how Francis approached that. And of course, you and I toss in our own thoughts and stories along the way. Anything in particular pop out for you from our time with Richard?

[Mike Petro]

You know, what was so great was hearing Richard talk about his personal experience and how this has been made real in his life. You know, it's so interesting to me, talking about masculine and feminine. It's one of those things where experientially I feel in my bones like I know what it means. And then as soon as I try to talk about it, I realize how limited the language is that I have. It's like trying to talk about God or love. It's this sacred thing that's always too small for the container that you pour it into.

[Paul Swanson]

It's so near to us and intimate that you can't to put words on it. You lose something. Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

And so I think what I would say is, I'm so excited about this. I'm super excited about the conversation that you then had with our guest Jennifer, Abe and Doug Christie after this. And what I would say to our listeners is come along for the ride and, you know, bring your own experience to this and be willing to let it help you think beyond boxes. And above all, forgive us. Let us, in humility, do the best we can. And recognize that we are stumbling in the dark with barely lit candles in humility and ignorance, trying to talk about things that are just bigger than we have words for. So where we say something that's too small or too limited, meet us in our humility and do forgive us. Listening family. And we look forward to you bringing your wisdom to this conversation as well. When we have our listener questions at the end of the season.

[Paul Swanson]

Beautifully said. Yeah, I wanna just add on that and just say, linger in the mystery. And we know that's gonna be different for each person listening. What it looks like in their own context and how they live these teachings forward. And we can't wait. How this hits you all and what questions you might have.

[Mike Petro]

All right, let's get to it. Thanks for being with us, friends. From the center for Action and Contemplation, I'm Mike Petro.

[Paul Swanson]

I'm Paul Swanson.

[Mike Petro]

And this is everything belong Richard and Paul. It is such a gift to be here with you again today. Richard, thanks for welcoming us back into the living room of your hermitage.

[Richard Rohr]

A privilege.

[Mike Petro]

It is an absolute joy to talk with both of you. Paul, how you doing today?

[Paul Swanson]

I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here and to be back in our nestled grooves of our seats to pick up this conversation again.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, my gosh. Opie is snuggled on Richard's lap. We've been working our way, Richard, through your book, Eager to Love. And each chapter expands on something about the genius of Francis and the Franciscan tradition. Last episode, we talked about the Franciscan genius in the integration of the negative.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Mike Petro]

And today we're going to talk about chapter eight, which is lightness of heart and firmness of foot. The integration of masculine and feminine. And so even before we get started, when we talk about the genius of Francis and integrating the feminine and then putting the feminine and the masculine together, we have to acknowledge that we are three men. So we are limited.

[Richard Rohr]

Who are we to talk?

[Mike Petro]

Exactly. We're gonna do our best. But we're using imperfect language with limited experience to talk about mysteries that all the great world's religions have identified as powerful forces in reality that are so hard to talk about. And so we also want to be clear. Masculine and feminine, you say this in a chapter, Richard, are not male and female.

[Richard Rohr]

No.

[Mike Petro]

This is not about gender.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Mike Petro]

And at the same time, we recognize that we are often given the tools to talk about these things in a particular time and in a particular way. And often gender is the container that we get first to try to wrap our heads around these experiential realities. And so it's very, very easy to take it back to gender roles, especially gender roles that are usually shaped by a culture. So, Richard, if we start out a little bit personally, if you don't mind my asking, and I don't think you're sensitive about this, what year were you born in?

[Richard Rohr]

1943.

[Mike Petro]

1943. And so again, thinking about gender as the container, but not as the same thing.

[Richard Rohr]

Was it all defined then and clear? Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Petro]

What? Growing up as a little boy in the 40s, let's talk about gender first. What were you taught about men and how men were supposed to be or who were your heroes?

[Richard Rohr]

You know, I don't think hardly anything was directly taught, although it might have been said, boys don't do that or men don't do that. But it was more just modeled and assumed. And if you were real, you followed the cultural norms, thinking they were universal, archetypal norms. Yeah. Why wouldn't you assume that? It's all you ever saw.

[Mike Petro]

And I'm sure masculine was for men, feminine was for women, and men and women were clear boundaries.

[Richard Rohr]

That was a clear binary.

[Mike Petro]

Who were the heroes that you were told to look up to as a little boy?

[Richard Rohr]

They were all World War II warriors are 1940s cinema John Wayne stars who are over masculinized by our standards today. And we all compared ourselves to them. But do you see? They're both warrior archetype. Even the movie stars were not soft. They might have been cool like Cary Grant, but they weren't soft. They were focused, determined, aggressive toward the feminine. Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

It's fascinating to hear you talk about that because Mike and I have talked about it in our own context. But when we were born and the stories and the cultural waters we were swimming in, and to think about how some of that, like you said, is just kind of absorbed by culture. And then there's ways in which what's modeled before us. So thinking about your own education, Richard, knowing that you've talked about how the sisters taught you when you were in elementary school.

[Doug Christie]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

But is it safe to say by the time you entered the seminary at 14 that your religious education was mostly done by men or all men?

[Richard Rohr]

Well, seminary was all men.

[Paul Swanson]

So you went from all women, all.

[Richard Rohr]

Women in grade school to all men in high school. That's very good. Yes.

[Mike Petro]

I always love the story that you tell about Sister Ephraim. Was it?

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Mike Petro]

Because it's such a old Sister Ephraim. It's such a stark. Again, we're talking about gender here, but it's such a stark contrast to, to your later theological education. Would you tell us a little bit about Sister Ephraim?

[Richard Rohr]

She was this older Irish nun who still spoke with a strong Irish accent, who would be wheeled in, literally in her wheelchair to each classroom several times a year and just talk to us about something current, a saint, a feast day, a virtue or a value. And she was in her full robes and veil and just. It was like Grandma talking to us. No one would think of disrespecting her. Well, there was no reason to. She was dear. She wasn't judgmental.

[Mike Petro]

I love that. I love the story that you tell about her telling you why to pray the rosary. Would you share that with us?

[Richard Rohr]

You still want that one?

[Mike Petro]

I love that story so much.

[Richard Rohr]

Well, she said, children, I'm going to tell you how to get into heaven. And this is so shocking to you good evangelicals, but we, we lived in a mythic universe, much more feminine than masculine.

[Mike Petro]

We'll unpack that in a bit.

[Richard Rohr]

It wasn't that biblical. It was archetypal. Yeah. And she said, I'm going to tell you how to get heaven. We all lean forward, as best I can remember, said, when you die, you're going to appear before the throne of God. Now, I don't think she said God is male, but we were supposed to assume that. And then Jesus, his son, is standing there at his right hand. And to get to them, you have to get through Peter. She's named three men. I want you, as soon as you have a chance to run around the edge. I mean, it's so absurd. Only little second graders who are Catholic would believe such a thing. Right around the edge of heaven. And if you go around the back, there's a window high up. And if you look up, Mary, your mother is looking out the window. I'm ashamed to tell this story. I don't. I shouldn't need to be ashamed. But I realized why we needed the Reformation, because Catholics grew up on stories like this. She said, and she will be holding in her hands the rosary. Now, the rosary was always identified with Mary's prayer. Hail Mary, Hail Mary. She will lower it to you and you will recognize it because you've been saying it all your life. She will pull you into heaven with no questions asked.

[Mike Petro]

Oh, that's amazing. I love that.

[Richard Rohr]

If you've said the rosary, you will be ready for heaven and Mary will take you. Well, most little boys in those times who were raised by our mothers, men after World War II did participate in child rearing. That was a woman's job. So when we were told our mother would accept us without question, that was immediately believable. So, as I always say, it was bad theology, but magnificent psychology. Wow. And we all just were sort of swooning to light at Sister Ephraim's story. And we remember, remembered. We would try to always remember how to run real quick around the back and look up at the window and be pulled into heaven. So the idea of grace was still there, but it was mediated through a woman, not through a man. Because we had no experience of a man being graceful.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

All we had were warriors.

[Mike Petro]

Again, it's wild to see how that shapes your experience, the culture. And then you move on to seminary, which I'm assuming was in the 50s. But you. I think when we hear seminary. Yeah. And when we hear seminary, for a lot of us, we're thinking you go to seminary in your 20s as grad school. You started seminary at what?

[Richard Rohr]

Started us early. To keep us away from girls.

[Mike Petro]

Okay.

[Richard Rohr]

I mean, they would never admit that.

[Mike Petro]

How old were you when you started seminary?

[Richard Rohr]

14.

[Mike Petro]

You started seminary?

[Richard Rohr]

I went to high school. Well, they wanted to give us. And they did. And later years. I'm grateful. A very disciplined education, which you certainly got. Which I got. You know, had to learn Latin, Greek.

[Mike Petro]

And so was your seminary education. Mostly men only, ma'. Am. Oh, wow.

[Richard Rohr]

There wasn't a woman in sight.

[Mike Petro]

So then you enter the Franciscan order, you're taught by men with other men. Right. Because you're not going to seminary with women.

[Richard Rohr]

No, there's no women around at all.

[Paul Swanson]

Wow.

[Richard Rohr]

Except if we served for the sisters, the Mexican nuns. Mass, we could go through the tunnel over to the convent, and that was our only contact with women.

[Mike Petro]

There was a tunnel?

[Richard Rohr]

There was. Oh, my God. At the minor seminary. Yeah, there was a tunnel.

[Paul Swanson]

The convenience of it. I'm thinking Richard about. So you had all this impact from men. Do you remember when. And I'm obviously assuming that your image of God was male. It was kind of reinforced.

[Richard Rohr]

Sure.

[Paul Swanson]

Do you remember when the first kind of feminine energies were being presented from a divine standpoint? Like, when did that kind of start to enter into your consciousness or.

[Richard Rohr]

Not until the late 60s, when Vatican II had happened. The hippies had happened. You know, what the hippies did for culture was the huge feminization, the long hair. I hate to admit it, Michael. We're a feminization of. Of culture. That men could wear long hair and.

[Mike Petro]

And never going to stop making fun of my long Hair. That's fair. And I. And I want to.

[Richard Rohr]

I love it. Don't, don't.

[Mike Petro]

No, no. I appreciate it. Oh, she just said don't cut it. Excellent. Thank you. That's great advice. I'll stick with that.

[Richard Rohr]

So.

[Mike Petro]

So to step back into that, you are originally educated by women, then educated by men in an environment surrounded by men.

[Richard Rohr]

Men told.

[Mike Petro]

Probably. What's interesting to me is there's a cultural idea of what it means to be a man, which is probably a little bit different than being a Franciscan, I imagine.

[Richard Rohr]

I think so.

[Mike Petro]

And then at some point, you encounter this idea of archetypal masculine and feminine, which is not the same.

[Richard Rohr]

I wouldn't have used these words, of course.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah. Where did you. Where did that idea come into your journey? Recognizing that masculine and feminine are not the same as male or female, but they're these big archetypal energies.

[Richard Rohr]

When did I first discover Carl Jung? That was in the early 60s. I used to go up to our brilliant library, spend hours just perusing books, and there discovered the writings of Carl Young and the notion of things being archetypal. Yeah. Which meant for me, universal, beyond Roman Catholic, beyond usa, beyond cultural roles of male and female, but universal roles of masculine and feminine. Well, they're not roles anymore. Yeah, go ahead.

[Mike Petro]

Well, it's like energies.

[Richard Rohr]

I'll say they're energies.

[Mike Petro]

We'll come back around to this. I know for me, I struggled growing up because I didn't always. Who fits the script that they're given? And when I learned more about masculine and feminine as energies and not gender roles, I was like, I relate to the feminine so much more.

[Paul Swanson]

But to talk about Francis and the scripts that Francis was given, as an Italian of that time in that culture, what did it mean to be a man, to embody the masculine energy in that time? Like, those were not divided. They were one and the same. Would you say that's true?

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Paul Swanson]

What would have been the script given to Francis about what does it mean to be a man?

[Richard Rohr]

He must have been a warrior. Central Italy was just one war after the other between clans and cities and city states, and those who were on the side of the emperor and those on the side of the pope, and their big enemy was Perugia down the road. So they all idealized warriorship.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah. And so this is the script that Francis enters into and even tries to, like, live up to it.

[Richard Rohr]

Wouldn't you say that. Ready.

[Mike Petro]

Went off to war to be a knight Very young.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

Got involved in the. In the merchant class that his father was competitive.

[Richard Rohr]

Yep. Highly competitive. And. And just had no respect for that. Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

And then to watch him break free from that script into something emerging from the script in a way that is disregard. But it's also like writing one's own script based on the Gospels, that doesn't have a sense of confinement to it. How would you speak to the sense of Francis breaking through a script of what it meant to be a man in that time into again, when they conflated masculine as men, as being a man, how did he break that in to a different way of being and living in the world?

[Richard Rohr]

You know, there's a quote at the very beginning of the book.

[Mike Petro]

Got it. Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that. You cannot hold on to the old all while declaring you want something new. The old will defy the new, the old will deny the new, the old will decry the new. There is only way to bring in the new. You must make Room for it. By Neil Donald Wash. Yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

Isn't that good?

[Mike Petro]

That's really.

[Richard Rohr]

You must make room for it. I think his disillusionment with war. We don't know how many months he was in a prison in Perugia, thank God, was released and came riding back on a horse to Assisi, totally disillusioned with violence and war and you might say, masculinity. The world he had lived in for a few years in wartime, he knew, he believed, he hoped, there had to be a better way. That and the embracing of the leper are the turning points of his life. Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

So we all come into this world, we're given scripts about so many things about who we can be and how we can be. And often those scripts ask us to. I'm going to go Jungian on this for a second. But to hide parts of ourselves, to split them off. And then the great goal is to flip the script and bring back the parts of ourselves that are lost and become a whole person and make room for the, you know, the full weirdos that we are. But, Francis, we've talked about this before on the pod, tries to be a soldier, tries to be a merchant like his dad, like you said, flips the script, doesn't do it, has this conversion experience and then becomes this religious. I don't wanna say reformer, but we have used that term, right?

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah, it's okay.

[Mike Petro]

All right, what's interesting, but you're right.

[Richard Rohr]

In the Catholic mouth, reformer has a bad term.

[Mike Petro]

All right, so he becomes this spiritual religious leader, but then Even when he does that, Richard, I think about the church at the time and you know, it was a very patriarchal church. It was structured a particular way. Yes.

[Richard Rohr]

There's no. We hadn't experienced any disorder.

[Mike Petro]

And he doesn't follow the ordinary script to be a monk.

[Richard Rohr]

No. Don't speak to me of Benedict, he says, don't speak to me of Augustine. God has shown me a different way. That was the subject of my bachelor's thesis.

[Paul Swanson]

And that seems to be the Franciscan way. It's never a counter argument as in a direct. It's like I hear the script let me go this circuitous route without having.

[Richard Rohr]

To fight the norms.

[Paul Swanson]

And I think that is in this conversation is pertinent, but the way that it is embodied throughout Franciscan spirituality, it's.

[Richard Rohr]

The integration of disorder with order.

[Paul Swanson]

There it is.

[Richard Rohr]

By not rejecting order. He was still a good Roman Catholic. Yeah. But did it in such a different way. It was hardly Roman Catholic anymore. Right. Really? Yeah. That's his genius.

[Paul Swanson]

And that's a great thing to draw inspiration from when someone is upset with the institution that just fighting it doesn't necessarily lead to any life giving results. Just fighting a script. Positive finding other ways, positive criticism. Yes.

[Mike Petro]

And I appreciate that to do that external work you also have to do the internal work of not letting yourself get hammered into a container or a script that is too small for who you are and dare I say it, not who God made you to be.

[Richard Rohr]

Well said. You two are okay. Yeah. That's good. Your first sense of order has to have been imbued with such deep love. He deeply loved and was loved by his mother. And then Clare undoubtedly builds on that. And then Lady Jacoba. So he has the divine feminine in his life.

[Mike Petro]

He has. In a moment in time where the church is run by men, he has these women who we'll talk about in future chapters who come in and show him a different way. Which brings us to the topic of the chapter at hand.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I know that many scholars and you as well say that one of Francis's genius was the celebration and integration of the feminine. And of course this is a time when the church is so patriarchal, so. And threatened by feminine energy. What does that mean for you? That Francis, this is one of Francis great gifts is the integration of the feminine. When we talk about it in this.

[Richard Rohr]

Energetic sense, what it means to me is how could we lose such an integration and go right back to the post Reformation church where we became just like everybody else. In other words, sometimes we were Called parish priests in brown robes because we operated just like every other church. We weren't uniquely Franciscan. And I think Francis foresaw that with not even wanting us to become priests. Because whenever you're head of an institution or an organization, until very recently, not even now, totally, you tend to take on masculine focus, masculine order, which is the elimination of disorder, the elimination of the exception to the rule. There's no room for exceptions to the rule. Ask any woman. This would still be highly operative even in our so called liberated culture. It's still patriarchal.

[Mike Petro]

Yes. And it sounds like what you're describing as patriarchal is a need for control.

[Richard Rohr]

There you go.

[Mike Petro]

And many other things controlled by men. And I love that Francis, because he is willing to go against the script given to him of who and how he can be in the world as a man, as the son of a wealthy merchant, as a citizen. And then he feels this call and he's willing to do that in a completely different way. And so then folks say that that and his willingness to listen to the women teachers in his life lets him step into a religious expression and a theology that is very feminine. And he brings in more feminine, but feminine. Richard, in the book you say on page 120, and I'm gonna read you.

[Richard Rohr]

To you, what do I say when.

[Mike Petro]

I say feminine and masculine? What in the east might be referred to as yin and yang? I am defining these categories based on my observation and study in these general ways. The feminine principle has greater interest in the inner, the soul, the formless, deeper feeling, intuition, connections, harmony, beauty and relationality. In general, it is more identified with lunar subtlety and not the over differentiating light of the masculine sun God or the literalism and linearity of the left brain. Not all women fully identify with the feminine principle, of course, and some men do. But these descriptions give you a sense of what I mean by the feminine. Carl Jung calls it a more diffused awareness both for good and evil.

[Richard Rohr]

That's right.

[Mike Petro]

And then you say the masculine principle, as I experience it and have taught it, is more interested in the outer, the mental, the form, the idea, the movement or action of things, the naming and differentiating of things one from another, separate solar clarity, as it were, as opposed to the relationship of one thing to another. It prefers the ascent of spirit and mind to the descent of soul. It often moves towards agency and action before relationship or intimacy. And I would add control. What you just talked about that. So I appreciate this because I feel like masculine and feminine are concepts that I feel like I know what they mean until I try to talk about them. And then the language is always too small.

[Richard Rohr]

Well put.

[Mike Petro]

Yeah, but what does it mean for you that these masculine and feminine, first of all, are not the same as man or woman? And then what does it really mean that Francis brought the feminine in?

[Richard Rohr]

Well, where do I start?

[Mike Petro]

I know this is a really hard question to answer. And no matter what you say, we own the language is going to be.

[Richard Rohr]

Too small because these are concepts.

[Paul Swanson]

It'll be limited no matter what.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you for clearly struggling with this, because it has to be struggled with, because this issue is just so electric, people can't talk about it calmly. People who are otherwise progressive. The last idol to fall is the idol of sexuality. They like the division. It's Adam and Eve, Father, not Adam and Steve. It's like. Oh, stop it. It's a clever statement, but reality is more subtle than that. But remember, the masculine doesn't like subtlety. It likes focus, likes clarity, likes answers. And this lasts so deeply. Please don't hear this in a negative or critical way, but the Protestant Reformation is almost entirely masculine energy.

[Paul Swanson]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

Almost entirely. So here we have a 300 year period, we don't learn anything. We're right back into judgment and exclusion and definition and. Yeah. So forth. I don't know that I'm answering your question.

[Mike Petro]

Well, and Francis did it different. What was it that Francis brought in?

[Richard Rohr]

He was poetry. Isn't it interesting that he wrote the first piece of recorded Italian poetry, the Catacolder brother's son. He's poetry, not prose. When Rome told him. Okay, you. We've given approval to your new community. Now you have to go back home and write a rule. Yes, Holy Father. He comes back and all it is is a tying together of a whole bunch of scripture quotes and some cardinal is supposed to. This is not a rule. This is merely the.

[Paul Swanson]

Oh, my gosh.

[Richard Rohr]

Merely the Scriptures. You know, we already have the Scriptures. We need a rule. So he wrote the rule of 1223 that we have to this day. And it's still hardly a rule. It's a description of a lifestyle because there's that diffused awareness instead of focused awareness. When you think of Benedict and, no offense, Benedictines and Jesuits or Ignatius, you think of focus, order, timetable, higher education. Yeah, yeah. Francis is a break with that. In between the two very masculine notions of religious life.

[Paul Swanson]

Can we talk about that in the practical sense, too? I'm thinking about the economic move going from down to the lower land, dispossessing wealth that path of descent. Because that also just the relationality of what that is speaking to feels more like feminine energy than masculine energy of ascent, of power, seeking that order and privilege. So it's even in the radicality of how he approached money in the market of that time. Would you say that's true? And is there further things to unveil?

[Richard Rohr]

It's overwhelmingly true. So true that people on the ascent can't see it or respect it. Which gets us back to Jesus. We can't see or respect Jesus, who is very, almost completely, not almost completely in touch with his feminine talking language of littleness, of gentleness. Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who weep. Blessed are the peacemakers, the non violent. Francis, as far as he's concerned, is always and only building on Jesus.

[Paul Swanson]

I just had this personal memory pop into my head about my dad was never afraid to cry in front of my brother and I and what a gift that was.

[Richard Rohr]

That's why you're as sweet as you are. Go ahead.

[Paul Swanson]

But it's that it was an unintended lesson of being in touch with one's feelings to be able to not be afraid, that this is not how a man should be, but allowing the vulnerability to just pour out through his own experience, which allowed my brother and I, I think, a deeper kind of touch.

[Richard Rohr]

Your brother's a minister and a much.

[Paul Swanson]

Better human than I am.

[Richard Rohr]

But you're both pretty extraordinary.

[Paul Swanson]

I think there's something about how we see parental figures. Yeah. How we see leaders integrate or not integrate, that we pick up.

[Richard Rohr]

I have the same. I had a farmer, very masculine father, but who was very tender and. And cried. And I had a masculine mother who was an aide on the Enneagram and was attacking the world all the time. Maybe that's some of my fascination. Neither of my parents fit the description of what they had been handed.

[Mike Petro]

And that's what I think is so liberatory. And also I'm excited for the next part of this episode where you're going to have a. A deeper conversation with a truly wise guest about the feminine. And I'm cognizant of the fact that much of what we think of when we think of the masculine is something that is handed to us through the lens of gender by very unhealthy men.

[Richard Rohr]

Well put.

[Doug Christie]

Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

And so again, not a problem we're going to solve today because we're running out of time. But what strikes me in this conversation is how much our language is a liberation and a limitation. Right. It connects us by finding common ground but in doing so, it sometimes puts us into containers and categories. In theology, we talk about having apophatic and cataphatic theology, Right? Cataphatic is the theology of what we try to know and try to say. And apophatic theology, am I getting it right? Is the theology of what we can't know.

[Richard Rohr]

We can't say, can't know and can't.

[Mike Petro]

Say, brings us back to mystery. And to apply that to God, who's too big to categorize. And yet I wonder if we need to have an apophatic theology for ourselves and remember that as much as we can try to identify and categorize ourselves, we ourselves also need to remember that we are a mystery. And the ways that we try to talk about ourselves in things like gender or even these, these helpful terms like masculine and feminine themselves, we need to remember there are things we can say and there are things we cannot say. And now I'm going to break that rule by saying. And it seems like that generative expansiveness of thought and language is probably more easily identified with the feminine.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes, the diffused energy of the feminine is able to include the masculine, whereas the focused energy, the masculine, is not able to include the feminine. I think of how nuns have put up with the patriarchal church.

[Paul Swanson]

Beverly Lanzetta, a contemplative teacher, talks about the via Feminia as a way. And I think it's what you were saying, Mike, around being broad enough to welcome and include the masculine as well. But it's more of that generativity, that openness that makes room for the masculine energies but is not dominated by it. And so how do we keep moving in that direction?

[Mike Petro]

And I'll even take it back to language familiar with the CAC audience because it seems like it hits the dualistic thinking that we get into and it moves us beyond our this or that, into not no distinction, but infinite distinction. Like so many different ways, so much nuance, so many different ways of being and gifts of, of weighing to show up in the world and reflect the.

[Paul Swanson]

Divine, which is so Franciscan.

[Mike Petro]

Right. But it's easy to get stuck on the way.

[Richard Rohr]

Yeah.

[Mike Petro]

So, Richard, recognizing that we've, we have shown a very imperfect light on the tip of an iceberg very well at a limited time. And we're out of time, what advice would you give to our listeners in parting for. For staying open, for stepping into this generative, expansive energy of the feminine and staying open minded?

[Richard Rohr]

Don't speak from your woundedness, don't speak out of your wounds speak out of your healed wounds. That allows a much smaller group of people to speak. A lot of them who speak the most are the ones who should not be speaking.

[Mike Petro]

I appreciate the invitation and I want to say thank you because I think what's been helpful for me has been to encounter individuals who I feel like live out of a healthy expression of the masculine and the feminine and everything in between. And that's shown me models to move towards yourself being one of them. So thanks for that.

[Richard Rohr]

Oh, I wish. But thank you, I hope. Yeah. You asked very good questions and you make very good observations, both of you. I wouldn't have thought we'd be able to say as much as we did in half an hour. Thanks to you. We did.

[Mike Petro]

It's been a blast.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah.

[Richard Rohr]

Thank you, man. In touch with your feminine.

[Mike Petro]

Stumbling in the dark. Doing our best.

[Paul Swanson]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. May it continue.

[Mike Petro]

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listeners as always, for joining us in Richard's hermitage. And we'll see you again.

[Richard Rohr]

Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah.

[Mike Petro]

Everything belongs. Will continue in a moment.

[Paul Swanson]

Today I'm in conversation with a profound couple, each offering their perspective and wisdom. And I first met them in the deserts of Arizona. Douglas E. Christy is Professor Emeritus in the Theological Studies department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His latest book, and honestly one of my top shelf favorite books of all time, is the Insurmountable Darkness of Mysticism, Loss and the Common Life. He lives with his family in Los Angeles and is currently working on a book about the desert, a Spiritual Landscape. Jennifer abe earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA and has been on the faculty of the Department of Psychological Science at Loyola Marymount University since 1994. She's currently the interim director for the Marymount Institute for Faith, Culture and the Arts at LMU and leading efforts to strengthen the legacy of the women religious and the Marymount educational tradition at her institution. To read their full bios, please go to the show Notes of this episode. Jennifer and Doug, I am delighted to to see your faces and to be in conversation with you today on some of the themes and some of the extension and rippling effects of Richard's book. Eager to love, particularly chapter eight, Lightness of Heart and Firmness of Foot. Great to see you both. How are you all doing today?

[Jennifer Abe]

Well, we're talking to you while LA is burning around us, so it's a little bit surreal to be in the studio and talking with you. But we're grateful to be here with you.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you. And we're Thinking of you all amongst the fires and praying for safety for all. And so much heartache and loss in this. And yeah, there's no words. It's just such destruction. And we appreciate your presence here, knowing that you're safe being there, that we're not asking you to do anything beyond any extreme measures. But we're so grateful that we can talk about, had this chance to talk about this work together and your work in the world. The first time I met you all in person, it was so delightful. I was in Patagonia, Arizona. A few of us from CAC huddled together in a vehicle and charged our way down to Southern Arizona to be a part of this delightful, rascally desert spirituality get together. And Doug, you and I had spoken before, but Jennifer is the first time I got to be in conversation with you. And it's so delightful the way that you both bring your skills and gifts and expertise and shared love into conversation. I would love to know, how did this spark of interest in desert spirituality from your own, both of your own locations come to thrive in your relationship?

[Doug Christie]

So, for me, it goes back many years to my own first encounter with the eastern Mojave Desert, with biologist friends who took me out into the most remote desert I'd ever experienced in my life. That tumbled over into emerging passion for understanding ancient desert monasticism in Egypt and Syria and Asia Minor. It just kept rolling and rolling. Desert spirituality, desert places converging. And then Jennifer and I took an epic trip with our boys across the Southwest one spring, and we just kept encountering these extraordinary desert places. And I'll let Jennifer speak to this, but I think she found herself smitten with these landscapes. And we found ourselves sharing a love of the desert more than we had before.

[Jennifer Abe]

I had one idea of the desert, an image of complete barrenness, just sand and sky, which was beautiful in its own stark way, but didn't really feel like my kind of landscape. As, you know, Patagonia and the desert in Southern Arizona, at higher altitudes, it really blows your mind about what a desert can look like. And you realize there is no one desert. So the kinds of trees, the washes, the boulders and canyons, I did fall for that landscape and for the spaciousness and the stillness and the birds and even javelinas. You know, there's so much life and beauty in these places that I didn't know that I could love.

[Paul Swanson]

That's such a beautiful imagery. And what a wonderful segue for us to drop into Franciscan spirituality and some of the themes of that. And as a way of entering into that conversation about, you know, learning to kind of love what you didn't know was possible before. That's so much the part of the life of St. Francis and St. Clair. How did you first bump into those mystics, those troublemakers, those Franciscan change makers? How did they first enter into your life?

[Jennifer Abe]

Okay, I'm almost embarrassed to answer this, so I have to tell you a little bit. I'm a second generation Japanese American, a Nisei, and my parents came from Japan converting to Christianity from Buddhism, and they converted into Baptist, you know, a Baptist tradition. And I grew up in a strong Protestant tradition. I grew up around a lot of Christian music in the 80s, and John Michael Talbot was someone I listened to a lot. So I wish I could be very intellectual and sound like, oh, this is how I encountered Francis. But it was really through music, through the simple spirituality and openness to the natural world and the sense of worship and intimacy with the divine that I really found drawn to in his music. And then subsequently, it's been an unfolding. I mean, reading Richard Rohr's book Falling Upwards was really important for me at this time in my life. Very helpful. I have a feeling like a lot of things in my life, it's discovering things along the way that help me become more who I want to be and who I think I am. But it's really happened organically as just part of my felt experience rather than purely through encountering works through books or speakers and such.

[Doug Christie]

She's offering a perfect segue to me, and I will offer a wildly intellectualized response. No, it's not true, but. So I think my first real encounter with the Franciscan tradition came in the late 1970s when I moved to East Oakland and found myself in a Franciscan parish in the flatlands of East Oakland. Saint Elizabeth. And the Franciscans I met there were amazing. They were led by the provincial at the time, Louis Vitale, and he was somebody really committed to the peacemaking vision of Francis. And so were a lot of the other Franciscans that I met. They might have been mistaken for hippies in their own way of living out the Franciscan vision. Very simple, very open hearted, and they were committed to peace. And I got involved with some of the work they were doing at the Nevada test site, witnessing against nuclear proliferation. It made a big impression on me and left me feeling like this is a community really trying to live out the gospel.

[Paul Swanson]

That's lovely. I love the imagery of both of your entry points into Franciscanism, because anytime art or music is a gateway to tradition, that warms my soul. Because that is usually the way that I first get tickled by curiosity. And then, of course, the radicality of how Franciscans can live at times, I think, really living out that gospel. You know, as we think about this chapter, Chapter eight, Father Richard, seeks to highlight how Franciscan spirituality does not divide life and reality into binaries. So I'm curious for you all. What is your sense of the significance of living in the both and beyond.

[Jennifer Abe]

Either or, you know, your question is in one way so theoretical, but it makes a huge difference in everyday life to live in the both. And I was telling you, I was raised as a child of immigrants and raised in a tradition that gave me a lot of security, a lot of grounding, a sense of safety, and always be grateful for the grounding I received, especially in Scripture, in the tradition I was raised in. But one challenge is when times are uncertain, when there is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty, when you live in a place where you have to have the right answers or the right categories, it puts you in a defensive position posture whenever those categories get challenged. And so I know in my own faith journey, I had many years as a young adult of not knowing how and where I fit. And I couldn't fit into categories. I couldn't fit my understanding of God into the categories that I had grown up with. And it caused me a lot of distress. And it was many years, a lot of struggle. And I think that growing into an understanding of faith that has become as clear within me as it ever has been, but much more open to not knowing in a way that I would have been uncomfortable with earlier in my life, has been really critical for me to find a way to be very rooted and very open at the same time.

[Doug Christie]

I think probably like many people who grew up in the Catholic tradition, which I did in the. In the 60s and 70s, it was the time of Vatican II, with a lot of transformations happening. Theological, spiritual, the transformation of the whole idea of community. Nevertheless, I think it's probably fair to say there was some residual dualism in the air that, you know, seeped into our consciousness where to be spiritual meant refusing certain things of the world. Not necessarily in a. In a. In a good way, but in a way that seemed to be refusing the very goodness of life and creation. And so encountering the Franciscan tradition, I know for me, when I really began to take on board the radical vision of the canticle of the creatures, for example, and that power of that little Italian pronoun, pear. Praise to you, God, through Brother Son, through Sister Moon, there's no other way to lift our voice in prayer to God but through the created world, through the beauty and vitality and mystery of this world. And that's a kind of re knitting of the whole that we really so desperately need in this moment of fragmentation. And so I've really come to appreciate that. And I feel like the Franciscan tradition invites us back to a deeply incarnational spirituality again and again.

[Paul Swanson]

It's so wonderful to hear both you respond to this, because I think what I'm hearing you say, Jennifer, about like the. The categories that did not no longer worked. And then, Doug, you talking about the re knitting that's possible from a different lens and it doesn't easily parcel life into cute categories. And that's part of what I think some of the gift of this chapter and joy of this chapter is, is not parceling life into either or even into masculine and feminine, but allowing the re knitting, the emergence to coalesce in a way that is more reflective of creation that Francis was so keen to sing about and praise about. I want to make this conversation. I have the opportunity to invite this conversation to be as practical and incarnational as possible. So I want, you know, to share some of the contexts that you all operate in. You have both taught at Loyola Marymount University in California, a university that's rooted in both the Jesuit and Marymount traditions. And Jennifer, when we were talking a few weeks ago, you had mentioned that you have this newfound kind of deeper appreciation for the Marian role in your faith life, and that has expounded in your work at lmu. But can you share with all those listening what that means for you and what you have been exploring within that?

[Jennifer Abe]

Well, I think that many people who have been raised in Protestant tradition can understand why sometimes there's a little bit confusion of why Mary is so important within the Catholic Church. And I think that my shifting appreciation for Mary has really accelerated more recently. And part of it is working with the women religious at lmu, the religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, The Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, and trying to understand what the contributions of, of these women have been to the history and identity of this institution as my way in. But really then what it comes to is really reflecting on Mary and her example of radical receptivity to what she was being invited into. A young woman who said yes at great risk to herself for something that seemed preposterous and huge and dangerous and completely unknown, that she said an unequivocal yes. And that yes has been resonating with Me, what does that mean for each of us in our lives to say yes without reservation, without a complete understanding, without weighing all the pros and cons, but just a deep intuition that what you really want in your life is to follow completely. And what that looks like in every season of your life is going to change? You know, what is the invitation? What is the invitation in my life now, given what is happening, given what I feel invited into? So this continual dialogue, this continual relatedness with your sense of God, of who you are to be in the world, that model and example of Mary becomes very relevant and very powerful, I think, for all of us, or can be.

[Doug Christie]

Yeah.

[Paul Swanson]

That's so beautifully articulated. And I would love to ask you, Jeffrey, what is the yes that you are responding to right now? How in this season of your life, what's the Marian yes that you are consenting to?

[Jennifer Abe]

I have to go back again a little bit. I have to tell you a little bit about where I've been stuck before. I can tell you where I have been able to say yes. And the places of stuckness are as important as the places of feeling like, oh, I'm finally understanding. And I'm a clinical psychologist by training, but I never got licensed. And the reason why is I got stuck after graduate school at ucla. I was working with clients, doing therapy when the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King resulted in again, the fires erupting around me in Los Angeles all those years ago. And I became acutely aware that I couldn't quite conceive of only working with people on an individual level, a personal level, however meaningful that was, without somehow connecting it to the injustices and brokenness that I saw in our society. So for me, I came to an impasse as a clinical psychologist. I was a psychologist who couldn't practice. And I remained that way for decades until I discovered the work of Father Ignacio Martin Barro, a Jesuit priest who was killed, murdered during El Salvador's civil war. And as one of the martyrs of El Salvador, I had seen the commemoration of the anniversary of the martyrs deaths on our campus. I'd heard about Oscar Romero, and I had heard Martin Barro's name, but I didn't know who he was. And I found that he was a psychologist. He was chair of his department. He. He was working on his publications when he was pulled out and killed. And I began reading his work as a psychologist at a Jesuit institution. How did I not know what he stood for? Not just that he died. And as I read, I found a way to address my impasse from decades before, which was that he called for psychologists to orient towards society, towards the people on the margins, and called for psychologists in Latin America to not uncritically accept the precepts and findings and assumptions and values of Western psychology, but to critically consider, to develop a critical consciousness of how the tools of psychology could be used to help liberate the minds of people who exist in very oppressive situations. That psychologists too had a role in social transformation, but it required that we saw individual well being as connected to social justice. The sense of wholeness I felt, the sense of connecting what is personal, what is collective inner transformation with outer change spoke to me. So at this season of my life, thinking about how can I continue to contribute, you know, in my own particular peculiar ways, you know, we all have some way. How do I keep saying that? Yes, it's. I don't have a total answer. I'm entering another transition in my life. But I know that I want to say yes. And I believe that some of these insights that I've gained from learning about Martine Barrot's work and liberation psychology can help connect us. Our longing for wholeness, our longing for a sense of a way forward together that is something beyond simply trying to bridge divides. That's what we need. But we need a vision that St. Francis saw long before any of us had any of our issues to deal with, of a whole world connected to the natural world around us, interconnected with others. I want to contribute to living into that vision.

[Paul Swanson]

Thank you for taking a step back to bring us forward, because again, there's this, like, resonant theme through what you've shared so far. Is this of this kind of busting of categories, like not seeing the wholeness beyond the container that that's offered and who you draw inspiration from, from what is possible. And it just seems to keep opening categories that seem like they were static into a dynamism that you kind of keep unfolding. A consenting Marian.

[Richard Rohr]

Yes.

[Paul Swanson]

Into. Are you willing to talk about the new role that you're stepping into and how that is in deep consideration and respect and flourishing with the religious sisters at the university?

[Jennifer Abe]

I'm with the Mary Mount Institute for Faith Culture and the Arts at the moment, and I'm serving in a midwifery role, working towards a new director for this place which will serve to uplift. You know, we're a Loyola Marymount University. What does that Marymount signify? And it signifies this whole tradition of education, a Marymount tradition that really focused on women Women's empowerment and the development of women so that they could live full, whole, integrated lives. At this moment, we're looking at how do we think about leadership in a different way, in a way that maybe could speak to our time that women religious not just at the institution, but so many communities have been practicing for so long, which has been hidden, underground, faithful to a call, quiet, collaborative, nourishing. And it feels like in this time, what the Marymount Institute can do, what other communities and what we can do, is keep feeding the taproot of our deepest values, which is based on the practice of love, which is based on strengthening relationships, honoring people, their cultures, their ways of being, of being respectful, of giving dignity, of humanizing, not dehumanizing. And one way that the Marymount Institute is looking forward into the future is how can we envision a new way of fostering leadership in this very collaborative, in a way that's very much in a servant, humble, maybe even hidden way. It feels very counterintuitive to talk about leadership in this way. But it's not just strength from the top that can contribute and even the fact that, you know, St. Clair, St. Francis, in their own ways, just honoring their own vocation and call so many years ago, that we still speak of them, that we still follow their example. Just as in other religious charisms, the origin stories of founders make a difference. It points to the fact that faithfulness in all the small and hidden ways. We don't know what's going to endure. We don't know the kinds of influences or ways of being that will stand the test of time. But we have to be faithful to whatever we're being called into. Even if it feels small, it's real. We want to fully inhabit. I don't know if I'm being concrete enough, but I think this is what I'm excited about in the what I'm learning through the Marymount Institute and what I feel like it can point to offering for the rest of us, not in a particular institutional role.

[Paul Swanson]

I think it was so what you shared was so concrete and it speaks. I know for me, I am tired of leadership that is boisterous and out front and attention grabbing. And the way that you described leadership as underground, faithful, collaborative and nourishing is a beautiful, holistic, communal modeling. And it's not about the individual out front, we with a spotlight, but a much more. It's a rooted way of providing leadership in a time where we need leaders that aren't necessarily seeking spotlight, but seeking to lead for transformation, for the Goodness for the common good. And this is sparking a thought for me around a story you all had shared about. I know that you and Doug will sometimes lead things together. And you were talking about this gathering in the desert where you talked about this embodied prayer. And I'm always going to get this word wrong. I feel like my pronunciation is often wrong. Creosote plant. Do you all mind telling that story and how that connects to this kind of underground flourishing that I hear so resonant, your description of leadership.

[Jennifer Abe]

Maybe Doug can set the stage for what this was.

[Doug Christie]

I'll try. Jennifer is the creosote dancer, the creator of creosote rituals. I think there's a whole new thing about to burst forth here from the silence of the desert. So it goes back to the desert in a way, and toward another element of hidden life. And I think that's part of what certainly the contemplative traditions in Christianity and other great religious traditions have always been bringing us back to is to cherish the hidden and the mysterious and the secret and even the lost, and to listen in those places for the still, small voice of God. And so there's a hidden place in the eastern Mojave Desert that I've been going to for many years and Jennifer has joined me more recently. We've been taking students out there regularly for many years. And so post Covid, we decided to convene a different kind of gathering out there of folks who'd been out of school for a while or and elders as well, and about a dozen of us. And to gather in this hidden place and reflect together about how we mean to live. And so we've done it two years in a row now. And it's been a really beautiful thing to gather in this way. And for the agenda driven among us, people would just be shaking their heads at how little if any agenda is operative at all in this gathering. And yet that's part of the beauty of it. And then waiting to see what emerges of spirit, of communal feeling, of insight. And I'll let Jennifer describe what she invited us into toward the end of our time.

[Jennifer Abe]

So you know Gary Paul Nabhan, who was one of our desert companions, and through his eyes and deep knowledge of the desert, we were not just in the desert. The desert was one of our companions along with each other. And we would take walks in the early morning and he would tell us about how the different plants of the desert so support each other, that they're not so much in competition, but they're cooperating. Together. And he told us of flowers that don't bloom for many years until the conditions are just right, and then they burst forth and flower for just a few weeks before they're gone again. And he talked to us of the creosote, which is why that stood out to me. And it's not a, you know, extraordinary looking plant. It's one of the flowering desert shrubs or trees. And its leaves, I can't give you exact dimensions, but you know, six, five, seven feet tall. But he talked about the taproot, the roots going maybe 20, 30ft down into the earth. That it was. The root system was far more extensive than anything that you could see above ground. And that its leaves were coated with oils, constantly coated with oils that were released in a fragrance after rains or when animals or people would brush up, releasing some of the fragrance. And he's so poetic. Talked about when it's wounded, it offers up its fragrance and it grows outwards. The leaves, the branches grow continually outwards and that the center becomes empty. I love that image. Seeing the creosote and feeling that creosote. And one of the things that ended up happening, and I can't say I let it, I felt it and I shared it with others. It felt more like a yes, like, okay, this seems really silly, but I'm not going to keep it to myself just in case it helps others. Like, it helped me. But the creosote, Doug called it a dance. It's like. It's like an embodied prayer. What it felt to me this year is that we cannot stand alone. You know, sometimes contemplative practice is really. I mean, it's always deeply personal, but it cannot be just individual. It must be communal. And the creosote inspired me to do this kind of communal prayer together where we connected with our deepest values. Just like that. Roots that go so far down into the ground, the root system that helps you locate yourself in the world, that cannot move you because you know who you are, where you came from, what you live for. That vertical axis that will help us through uncertainty. And then the branches extending outwards, ever outwards, that we held hands, that we circled and remembered that we are connected to each other, we are connected to the natural world and that we can never forget our connectedness. It's a source of nourishment and strength. So we moved in that way, vertically, horizontally, and then we turned in a circle to regard the beauty of the desert world around us, to remember that they've been here far before us. And they'll exist far after us. That there was something about beholding and being beheld by the world, the natural world that we're part of that is also consoling a sense of perspective and time. It's not just us, and we are a small blip. It can make us feel insignificant. But this kind of perspective can remind us of scale. We can only do all we can and offer all we can. But we're just one word in this larger, vaster world of words across time. And we just gotta contribute all we can in our time. And there is always a need for trust. And in the larger patterning, that's hard for us. We want impact, we want outcomes. We want to see what we've done. And it's not for us to see. I'm sure Frances and Claire couldn't have looked forward and think. They didn't think we're gonna set up a legacy so that it will be maintained for at least, you know, these hundreds of years. So it's kind of letting go of what we think it ought to be or whether we think it's big or small, and doing what we can, that participating in this ecosystem of life and making sure that we're life giving in how we participate in this, in this world. So that creosote prayer dance was just a physical reminder, a manifestation and expression drawn from the inspiration of the desert plant in front of us that we could draw from to gain strength for our own lives.

[Paul Swanson]

You paint such a vivid picture of not only the creosote and like how it is a communal plant and that imagery of when it is wounded is when its fragrance is released and the connectivity across the support across the desert community. And then how you all responded in this embodied prayer or dance. Again, categories fall apart because of how you all were experiencing with it. And it's such a great model, I think, of the Franciscan both and moving beyond categories towards deeper integration as a way to round out our conversation and put those listening at the center of this. How might you offer those seeking to embody some of the themes and directions and incarnational practices that have been mentioned here? How would you invite folks listening to kind of experiment or walk towards horizons of living these teachings forward in new and bold ways without cutting ties with the. The legacy of the Franciscan spirituality?

[Jennifer Abe]

The legacy is such an open invitation. There's no need for any cutoff. It's something to grow into. And I don't know if you've seen that movie, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I think it was aging Backwards. I feel in some ways my life has been about. I was a lot more, you know, like the person who wrote in outlines and color coded categories and had a lot of thoughts. I still have a lot of thoughts, but I had a lot more answers. And as I grow older, I find that I'm living in more mystery and living in uncertainty, not inside so much as kind of an openness to all that I don't know. And so I think a way to move forward is to embrace. Learning to embrace in an almost fearless way. Learning. Not uncritically accepting what has been given to us, but part of that incarnational work is translating it. What does it mean for our lives and in whatever season we're in to say yes, to live fully, to contribute to the humanization of yourself and of others, to grow further into a practice of love that is very ordinary and concrete and unconditional, that we don't negate anybody, that no one gets excluded in that circle, and that we keep opening ourselves to all that we don't know because it turns out there's a lot more we don't know than what we do know.

[Paul Swanson]

Beautiful.

[Doug Christie]

Amen.

[Paul Swanson]

What a great way to land. And I think really invite listeners to deepen into that. And I'm so grateful for the two of you, for the work you do in the world, the work you do together, and the way you open these perspectives and doors and invite people in without a sense of exclusion of anybody. But to invite folks to pay attention to their own lives, to the places that seem like they don't have life, to bust through categories and re knit with the beautiful possibilities that I think creation reflects to us with the divine imprint and the spirit leading the way. So nothing but eternal gratitude for both of you and for your time today. Thank you for being here and I hope we can meet again in Patagonia someday soon.

[Jennifer Abe]

We'd love that. And thank you so much for the invitation.

[Doug Christie]

Thank you, Paul.

[Paul Swanson]

It was such a joy to be in conversation with Jennifer and Doug, particularly the way that Jennifer spoke about the different scripts that one can be given or categories that a person can be brought into. And so much of what I heard in her stories and in her direct practices was around how moving through a category, busting out of it is very similar to what Mike and I were talking about with Richard. In moving beyond a script that we were given. There's these scripts that were given in culture, by religion, by family, by community, and they often land in very simplistic terms like what does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? It gets codified in gendered language. And I think one of the reasons we stumbled through this conversation with Richard and recognizing our own limitations, was trying to hold and access the energies that we call masculine and feminine that are integrated within every person regardless of how they identify. And that it's in the naming and the recognition of how those energies are living within us and flourishing within us, and the interplay and how they help us live into who we were created by God to be, regardless of the scripts that we were maybe given by culture or by religion or by family, that God's desire for us is to live into the fullness of who we are created to be. And so the invitation for all those listening is hopefully to do what we were trying to do in this episode, knowing that we were given scripts. How are the energies of masculine and feminine alive within us and how are we integrating them into ourselves? And that is not wholly dependent on how we identify in our gender. But those energies are alive and go beyond scripts, go beyond categories. So sometime this week invite you just to sit down and take a look about how these energies are alive and work well within you and how you have integrated them into your day to day life.

[Mike Petro]

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.

[Jennifer Abe]

Swanson, Drew Jackson, Jenna Kuyper, Izzy Spitz, Megan Hare, Sarah Palmer, Dorothy Abrams, Brandon.

[Mike Petro]

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.

[Jennifer Abe]

Sa. 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].