Super Soul Special: The Rev. Ed Bacon: Do You Recognize Grace?

Summary

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Super Soul Special: The Rev. Ed Bacon – "Do You Recognize Grace?"

Podcast: Oprah’s Super Soul
Host: Oprah Winfrey
Guest: Reverend Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Church, Pasadena
Release Date: December 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful and heartfelt episode, Oprah sits down with the Reverend Ed Bacon, a progressive and deeply spiritual leader. Together, they explore the profound role of grace in our lives, the distinctions—and intersections—between spirituality and religion, and the challenge of moving beyond ego and fear. With candor and warmth, Oprah and Rev. Bacon address listener concerns about reconciling traditional Christian beliefs with broader spiritual experiences, offering stories, scripture, and practical wisdom for finding deeper connection with the divine and one's best self.

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Key Themes & Insights

1. Spirituality vs. Religion: What’s the Difference?

• Essence of Spirituality
  Rev. Bacon defines spirituality as “the experience of feeling unconditionally loved so much...that you know there is some power greater than you are loving you.” This love overflows, inspiring you to love others. (06:39)

  • Memorable moment: Rev. Bacon shares a formative childhood story of feeling completely enveloped by unconditional love, feeling both uniquely loved and recognizing all are equally beloved. (07:12)

• Religion’s Role
  While All Saints Church is “very Christ centered...when you are in the pew at All Saints, what you’re hearing emphasized more than those rather doctrinal and dogmatic issues...is about your connection with God, your connection with the cosmos, with other people, with your deepest self.” (03:21)
  The church serves both those who are “abused religiously and spiritually” and those seeking comfort, challenge, and empowerment.

2. Fear, Ego, and the House of Love

• The House of Fear vs. Love
  Rev. Bacon explains, “We choose to live at any particular moment in our life either in the house of fear or the house of love. And the house of fear always drives us to put God in a box...” (10:10)

  • People who react with anger or defensiveness to new spiritual ideas are “living in the house of fear,” which leads to exclusion and rigidity.

• On Ego as ‘Satan’
  Oprah asks if Satan and the ego are one and the same. Rev. Bacon responds, “I do. Save us...from people who think the devil is purely external. For us to talk about evil doers as though evil exists outside of us, instead of [accepting] we have to struggle ourselves with evil within us…” (17:41)

  • Oprah: “The evil within us, individuals, becomes a collective evil when all of us agree to allow human rights or not to allow human rights...That is the manifested evil inside of us coming into the collective to become one that you could call the devil.” (18:22)

3. Reconciling Faith, Doctrine, and Spiritual Awakening

• The Role of Grace
  For reconciling new spiritual awareness with old beliefs, Rev. Bacon insists: “Did you follow grace? It’s important to understand what grace feels like. It’s where you feel all of a sudden overwhelmed by God’s goodness and you didn’t deserve it…” (19:38)

  • Quote: “To the degree that we follow grace, instead of trying to get out ahead of it and explain everything, grace will lead us to the reconciliation point.” (19:40)

• Judging Faith by Its Fruit
  Drawing on scripture, “Jesus said, you can judge a tree by the fruit that it bears.” (20:34) Are you feeling the fruits of the spirit—peace, joy, love, generosity, self-control—or are you feeling bitterness, judgment, and fear?

  • On Tolle’s teachings: “The great thing about Tolle’s point, which is that we are more than our thoughts, there is a being behind or beneath our thoughts.” (21:04)

• Choice and Self-Awareness
  When confronted with anger or attack, “Simply stop. Say, I am an observer of myself.” (21:53) Bring yourself to stillness, observe, and choose love or forgiveness instead of retaliation.

4. Authority and Intuition

• Developing the Inner Voice
  Rev. Bacon tells his son: “Use all those voices...but you’re the president. And the way you have to obey is to obey this voice inside. And people who don’t practice listening to that voice, that’s a voice that has to be exercised. Just like you go to the gym.” (22:32)

• Rejecting External Authority
  Rev. Bacon recounts a parishioner saying, “I expect you to tell me everything to think.” He responds: “You’re going to be very disappointed in me. My job is to do the opposite.” (23:39)

5. Spiritual But Not Religious?

• Can you be spiritual and not religious? “Yes...Let’s respect everybody exactly where they are, and let grace lead them where grace needs to lead them.” (24:06)

• Does he want everyone in church? “No, I don’t. I want everybody to know God...to know the love that fills their hearts so much, that they are joyful and peaceful and respectful of every human being. What I want, Oprah, is to turn the human race into the human family.” (24:42–24:46)

6. The Radical Message of Jesus

• Inclusivity
  “Because [Jesus] would say, the homeless person on the street, the Iraqi mother who just lost her child, the man in Iran...They all have the kingdom of God within them. God is in them. And they’re just as valuable as you think you are.” (25:49–26:22)

• God’s Grace is Democratic
  The Sermon on the Mount: “God makes his reign to fall on the just and the unjust alike...God’s grace is democratic. It’s equal. And we want to say...the people who think the way I do...we’ve got a leg up on everybody else. And as soon as I put myself with a leg up...that’s the first step toward abusing those people.” (26:23–27:27)

  • Oprah adds: “And the leg up is your ego.” (27:27)

7. Practical Spiritual Living

• On Retaliation and Awakening
  When attacked or angered, Oprah and Rev. Bacon advise to “take a breath,” “step back and observe,” as “this now could be your holiest moment.” (30:13–30:34)

  • Quote: “Rabbi Heschel said, in every moment, something sacred is at stake.” (30:35)

• The Role of Breath
  Rev. Bacon’s yoga teacher: “Yoga is about whether or not you can keep this breath—slow, non-reactive breathing—when somebody flips you off on the freeway in LA.” (32:00)

8. Stories & Illustrations

• The Grits Analogy
  Bacon tells the story of a man ordering food in the South, confused when grits appear that he didn’t order. The waitress says, “You don’t order grits. Grits just comes.” Bacon: “That’s grace. You don’t order grace. Grits just comes.” (34:05–35:11)

9. Grace, Stillness, and Meditation

• Daily Practice
  Rev. Bacon spends 45–90 minutes each morning in prayer and meditation, sitting in stillness and “letting the silt settle.” (35:29–36:33)

  • “My prayer is not about, ‘Okay, Lord, I need this, I need that.’...I sit until I can be still enough for God to bring God’s needs through me.” (38:07)

• Being an Instrument
  Oprah: “My prayer is always, God, how would you use me? I want to be used for something greater than myself.” (38:30)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• On Spirituality:
  “It’s the experience of feeling unconditionally loved so much, so powerfully, that you know there is some power greater than you are loving you. This love that you are experiencing is coming from a great power.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (06:39)

• On Grace:
  “You don’t order grits. Grits just comes. That’s grace. You don’t order grace. Grits just comes.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (35:11)

• On Ego/Satan:
  “Save us...from people who think that the devil is purely external...We have to struggle ourselves with evil within us.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (17:49)

• On Self-Observation:
  “Simply stop. Say, I am an observer of myself.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (21:53)

• On the Fruits of the Spirit:
  “Jesus said, you can judge a tree by the fruit it bears...The fruit of the spirit—peace, joy, love, generosity, self-control, magnanimity...”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (20:34–21:01)

• On Grace and Reconciliation:
  “To the degree that we follow grace...grace will lead us to the reconciliation point that you're talking about reconciling our minds and our hearts.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (19:40)

• On God’s Love:
  “What I want, Oprah, is to turn the human race into the human family. And you don’t have to be in church to be a part of that.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (24:46)

• On Awareness:
  “If you want your dreams to come true, you have to wake up. Wakeness, awareness is huge in this.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (29:20)

• On Life’s Sacred Moments:
  “Rabbi Heschel said, in every moment, something sacred is at stake.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (30:35)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• What is Spirituality? (05:24–09:13)
• Dealing with Religious vs. Spiritual Tension (09:13–14:01)
• Ego and Evil—Internal vs. External (17:19–19:30)
• Grace as the Path to Reconciliation (19:30–22:19)
• Intuition, Authority, and Inner Guidance (22:19–24:33)
• Spiritual but Not Religious (24:33–25:10)
• Jesus’ Radical Message & Divine Inclusivity (25:20–28:29)
• Responding to Anger and Attack (28:29–33:39)
• The Power of Breath and Stillness (33:39–35:18)
• Prayer, Meditation & Being Used by God (35:18–38:44)

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Memorable Moments

• Rev. Bacon’s childhood tale of feeling God’s unconditional love as both a unique, personal gift and a universal one (07:12).
• The grits/grace story: a vivid, accessible metaphor for how grace is given freely, not earned or ordered (34:05–35:11).
• A candid, mutual confession by Oprah and Rev. Bacon that seeing God in those who attack or harm you is the hardest spiritual challenge—one neither has mastered, but both aspire to (28:29–28:31).

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Conclusion

Filled with compassion, humor, practical wisdom, and memorable parables, this episode offers a hopeful, accessible vision of spirituality as living in love, openness, and grace—available to all, regardless of religious label. Both Oprah and Rev. Bacon invite listeners to seek stillness, follow grace, trust their inner guidance, and realize the radical inclusivity at the heart of Jesus’ teachings. In a world hungry for belonging, their conversation is both a call to wake up and a gentle reminder: “Grits just comes. That’s grace.”

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Transcript

[Commercial Narrator 1]

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[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. This is a show devoted to try to help us just wake ourselves up, just wake up our lives to our life's purpose. But that frankly, as we all know, is not an easy path to follow. Many times there are many, so many of you who I know are, who are earnest and you are faithful and you are deeply religious and you're having a difficult time reconciling your religious beliefs with the spiritual pursuit. I have heard from a number of you who are in honest pursuit of answers for yourself. I do understand this question of trying to reconcile your faith with a new sense of spirituality and opening because I too experienced that. Because I didn't want to have to throw away the way I'd been raised, everything I had been taught to believe and and felt in my heart to be true. And so I thought I would be be helpful to invite on the show a bonafide authority on this matter, a man of the cloth of the cloth and who happens to be the rector of the All Saints Church in Pasadena, Reverend Ed Bacon. Hello.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Hi.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Hi. Welcome.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So, Reverend Ed, your other designation at the church, I hear, is Chief Spiritual Officer.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

We're always trying to find 21st century language to explain church ease. Church language. Rector is my official title and some people say, well, that's kind of a spiritual CEO, isn't it?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Or something like that. So yeah, it means you run things there.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I'm in charge.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, you're in charge.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I'm the old guy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And All Saints is, I've heard it described as a liberal activist church. Does that mean it's Christ centered?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Oh, it's very Christ centered.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you teach that Jesus is the Savior?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

We do. And we as a Christian church, we certainly believe that Jesus is the Savior and that Jesus is the son of God, etc.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

But when you are in the pew at All Saints, what you're hearing emphasized more than those rather doctrinal and dogmatic issues that kind of go along with religion, is about your connection with God, your connection with the spirit, your connection with the cosmos, your connection with other people, and your connection with your deepest self. So that's what's most important for us to emphasize because we have folks who are abused religiously and spiritually who are searching and they want to hear some things that are comforting and challenging and empowering.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

A man of the cloth, you're actually wearing the collar and of God. Can you help our audience understand what spirituality is? You know I have been trying for years in Many different forms on my show to not only say what it is, but to demonstrate the essence of spirit. And I remember many years ago in the 90s, I was doing a show based on a book called the Anatomy of Spirit by Carolyn Mays, you know, familiar with her. All right, we're in the middle of doing this show, and I stopped the taping of the show and said, hey, audience, what's going on? And someone stood up and says, no, we don't get it. I don't get what. Are you talking about spirit? And I said, no, I'm talking about the spirit that lives inside of all of us, you know, because, you know, you have a mind, you have a body, and you have a spirit. And back in this is the mid-90s, I would say the majority of that audience didn't know what I was talking about. I think we've progressed a little bit now. But I always stumble in trying to explain the essence of what spirituality means. So I'm going to let you take a stab at it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

All right, here's my stab.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I think it's the experience of feeling unconditionally loved so much, so powerfully, that you know there is some power greater than you are loving you. This love that you are experiencing is coming from a great power, and it's filling you so much that you want to love other people. That, to me, is the experience of spirituality. Can I tell you a story?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Please.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

When I was five, I was playing alone in a pine grove in South Georgia, and all of a sudden, I felt enveloped by warmth and light. And I heard inaudibly in the deepest part of myself, you are the most beloved creature in all of creation. At the same time I got that message, I also heard, and every other person is the most beloved creature in all of creation. Changed my life. It made my life what it is. It is that experience of unconditional love that is so overwhelming.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So was this a voice or a feeling? How come I never get a voice? Good gracious. But was it a voice or a feeling?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No, it was. It was something that transcends those kind of categories. There's this wonderful story about Elijah in the Old Testament, and he was.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I love Elijah. You know, when I grew up, I was reading all the Bible stories, and Elijah was one of my favorites. So let's see if I know this story.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Of course you do. You know, he wanted to hear God. And there came an earthquake, and then a wind and then a fire. And God was not in the earthquake, wind, or fire, but in the still Small voice.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That is God in the still, small voice.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And that's the importance of the work that you did with Tolle. Because he says that we have to go to stillness. He's so right. Whenever we will choose, make a decision, to make time for the experience of stillness in our lives. Like a basin of silty water that's all muddy. And you let it sit on a table until the silt goes to the bottom of the basin. And then you have clear water at the top.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right. That's what stillness does.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And that's spirituality.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's really good. So why is it so misunderstood? You know, as I was saying, I received so many thousands and thousands of emails. And I was really. My heart was opened up by the level of connection that people received from one another when we were doing this webcast. But there were a lot of people who were upset about it. One person writes, what's happening here? Everybody in the New Earth Forum has abandoned Jesus and made Tolle their new messiah. Jesus did not come to Earth to show people how to be Christ like I kind of thought he did. But anyway, he came to show the path to his father. He said, he will be the judge on how much you've loved him. And this one. Spirituality and atheism are two different words for the same thing. Disengage them both.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That says to me, what does it say? That these folks are coming from the house of fear. We choose to live at any particular moment in our life. Either in the house of fear or the house of love. And the house of fear always drives us to put God in a box, put our theology in a box, put our spirituality in the box and say.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This is what he said.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

This is what he says. And if you depart from it, and if you depart from the language that I use and that I found comfort in right then, you are starting your own church. You're Antichrist, you're not religious, whatever. And it's the criticism that comes at you. Because you are pointing to something that's deeper and more universal. When I was reading about the phenomenon that we're addressing today, Chuck Yeager came to mind. He was the guy who. First human being to fly faster than the speed of sound. Broke through the sound barrier, right? He landed. The media came up and said, what do you have to say about this? He said, just before you break through the sound barrier is when the cockpit shakes the most. Wow. And every leader, every pioneer has known, just before a breakthrough, the cockpit was shaking. And that's what happens, I think as we are trying to go deeper in spirituality, which means go wider also, because there's this connectivity with every other human being. Because when you find and discover the divine in yourself, you know that that exists in everyone else and that no one is advantaged before God. Whoa.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know, but I understand how people can feel that, because this was a very difficult concept for me to accept. Being raised Southern Baptist and believing, as I still do, that Jesus was the divine. So to say that the divine is in me sounds like you are comparing yourself to Jesus.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Jesus over and over said, as you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well know, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Exactly. And the kingdom of God is within you. And your faith has made you well. And the first chapter of the Gospel of John says, the light that was in every human being is now come into the world. The Bible itself talks about the divinity within each one of us.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right, right. If you choose to look to see that. Yeah, if you choose to look to see that.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

But if you don't examine Scripture for yourself and read it meditatively and spiritually and just take what the preacher is saying and don't have your own thought processes going on, then you are going to miss an awful lot of sacred Scripture.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. And I think that a lot of people who have criticized A New Earth and Eckhart Tolle's writings certainly haven't even read any of it. Because if they'd read any of it, you'd come to a better understanding or maybe be open to a better understanding.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Eckhart quotes Jesus more than anybody else.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, I think he does.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No, I checked the footnotes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

It is really quite Christian in what he's saying without a lot of the church language.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So why is there this fear? You know, what I understand the essence of A New Earth to be saying, among other things, is to bring a greater sense of consciousness, a higher level of consciousness, and to let go of your ego, take yourself out of your, you know, thinking, thinking head all the time, and allow the higher self, the greater self, the soul of you, the higher consciousness of yourself, to be present at all times. That's the essence to me of what he is saying. Why would that cause people to be fearful?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

If these people have developed a theology that makes them dependent on a doctrine or a dogma, they are not interested in being liberated to trust their inner voices. So I'm no longer connecting with God's voice inside me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because if you actually really felt that which you speak of, God, if you actually really felt that, you would only be able to come from a Place of love.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Precisely.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so how is it that we've gone so of course, is it because there have been so many charlatans?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

The tradition of false prophets, yes, of false prophets is an old one will.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Be with us always.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

It will be with us always. And these folks are doing it for their own self gratification and they're not interested in empowering everyone. They're interested in filling the pews instead of filling the hearts. And so the great thing about an independent popular expression of the truth, as in your work, is that it encourages and empowers people to think for themselves, to feel for themselves and to have a connection. That's what's really underneath that notion of the priesthood of all believers so that you don't have to have a priest. And what Jesus is saying to people when he says the kingdom of God is within you and your faith has made you well, is that you have this divinity inside of you. It's there you are your own priest which leads you to God. It doesn't separate you from God, but it does separate you from having to have an external authority.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And that's what people fear.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That is so scary to so many people who live in the house of fear.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, I first learned about Reverend Bacon when I saw Guy Ritchie. He did a documentary called the Ego has Landed. And in it you talked about God sending Jesus to the wilderness for 40 days to grapple with Satan. We all know that story. Those who are Christian. Do you believe Satan and the ego are one and the same?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I do.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know. I heard that on there. And I thought, well, that is a new way of thinking about it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Save us. Save me, please. Save the human race from people who think that the devil is purely external. For us to talk about evil doers as though evil exists outside of us, instead of the fact that we have to struggle ourselves with evil within us, that leads us to kill, that leads us to be violent, that leads us to abuse other people because we can't see that we have evil within us.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so then the evil within us, individuals becomes a collective evil when all of us agree to allow human rights or not to allow human rights to cause wars or not cause wars and how we treat people in the process.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Indeed, yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That is the manifested evil inside of us coming into the collective to become one that you could call the devil.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Correct.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And Satan, or Satan, which means the deceiver.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Uses fear as primary instrument.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so tell me this. I'm a person who's been raised. Certainly I am, but I'm using this as a hypothetical example. All these people who are trying to reconcile their religious beliefs with this new idea of feeling something powerful beyond yourself that we call God, how do you do that? What do you say for all the people who've, you know, been raised like I was raised in the church, Went to church, Wednesday night prayer service, Friday night, Sunday night, Baptist Training Union, whole thing.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yeah. I was raised the Southern Baptist, Southern Baptist Union. Now, my answer to your question is, what do we say to all of these people about how to reconcile.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Did you follow grace?

[Oprah Winfrey]

You follow grace?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

It's important to understand what grace feels like. It's where you feel all of a sudden overwhelmed by God's goodness and you didn't deserve it. You. You didn't merit it. God just gave it to you because God loves you. That's grace. To the degree that we follow grace, instead of trying to get out ahead of it and explain everything, grace will lead us to the reconciliation point. That you're talking about reconciling our minds and our hearts, our souls and our intellects, our doctrine and our spirituality. The reconciliation point is there if we will follow grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What does that mean specifically when you say follow it? It means if I'm conflicted between what I've been told and raised to believe, doctrine, dogma, but this idea of feeling something deeper.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I'm going to talk Bible to you here.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Talk Bible to me.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Jesus said, you can judge a tree by the fruit that it bears.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, Paul.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

St. Paul says in Galatians there are two kinds of fruit. The fruit of the spirit and the fruit of the devil. And the fruit of the spirit, peace, joy, love, generosity, self control, magnanimity.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Are you feeling those things?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Are you feeling those things?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Are you feeling those things?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And the great thing about Tola's point, which is that we are more than our thoughts, there is a being behind or beneath our thoughts. And if we can just stop and say, suffering is in me, or sadness is in me not, I am sad. That was a great distinction he made in the New Earth. You remember? And you say, I'm feeling contentious, disparaging, condemning and judgmental. That's not of the spirit. That's not grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Where can I, in my experience right now turn to joy, forgiveness, peace, love. That'd be the spirit. That's how you follow grace. Simply stop. Say, I am an observer of myself.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, totally. Would say, take a breath.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Take a breath. Yeah, absolutely. Take a breath.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Bring yourself back.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Very good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Do you have a moment for stillness? Say, life's too short. I want joy. I want peace. I want love. I want forgiveness. I want to be magnanimous toward this person who is abusing me, who is saying vile things to me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you think intuition is the voice of grace?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Intuition plays a very important role. You know, I speak a lot.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Intuition, instinct, that. That you feel inside.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I had a conversation with my son two nights ago. He's looking for what he's going to do in life right now. And we were talking about the role advisors play. And I said, son, take in all that advice. But you have to be the president of your cabinet. Use all those voices. Advisors, or your cabinet. But you're the president. And the way you have to obey is to obey this voice inside. And people who don't practice listening to that voice, That's a voice that has to be exercised. Just like you have to go to the gym.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

You have to exercise that puppy every day.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right. And People don't listen to that voice. There are a lot of people don't even know they have the voice.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That's. And they've been told.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That other people feel external authority, that they're their voice. I am your voice. I shuddered once at a dinner party. This was early in my ministry, sitting next to a member of a parish where I'd now become rector. And she said, I expect you to tell me everything to think.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I said, you're going to be very disappointed in me. My job is to do the opposite.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Someone said to you, I want you to tell me everything to think.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, wow.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I want you to tell me everything that's right and wrong. I said, I'm so sorry. I mean, I felt so sad.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can't do it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No, no.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Shouldn't do it and shouldn't do it and won't do it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Save me from folks who tried to do that for me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can you be spiritual and not be religious?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You can be both?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So they don't have to converge?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I mean, I say that because there's wonderful people who have spiritual experiences on their horses on Sunday morning, and they just are not going to bother with this religious stuff for a lot of very good reasons and some are lazy reasons. Let's respect everybody exactly where they are, and let's let grace lead them where grace needs to lead them.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You don't want everybody to be in church on Sunday?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No, I don't. Wow.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What kind of preacher are you?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I want everybody to know God.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You want everybody to know God?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I want everybody to know the love that I know that fills their hearts so much, that they are joyful and peaceful and they are respectful of every human being. What I want, Oprah, is to turn the human race into the human family. And you don't have to be in church to be a part of that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you call yourself a Christian?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yes. I call myself a follower of Jesus. Jesus is my man. I think Jesus did it, knew it, embodied it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And if Jesus, the Jesus that the Bible speaks of, if that Jesus were to come to earth today in the same characterization as he was 2,000 years ago, 2,000 odd years, what do you think would happen? He'd be ridiculed and attacked as the Antichrist?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Absolutely, yes. And he would be killed or something.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Why? Because people couldn't hear it?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That's correct. Because he would say, the homeless person on the street, the Iraqi mother who just lost her child, the man in Iran. You're thinking of bombing the gay and lesbian person you're excluding, they all have the kingdom of God within them. God is in them. And they're just as valuable as you think you are. Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. And as you are.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And they're just as advantaged before God as you are. Gandhi talked about the democracy of souls. Jesus lived that out. Every soul is of equal worth. Jesus said one of the most radical things. Now, see this Jesus doesn't get preached a lot, but in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, God makes his reign to fall on the just and the unjust alike. And God makes the sun to shine on the good as well as the evil. God's grace is democratic. It's equal. And we want to say, my tribe, my group, the people who think the way I do, the people who feel the way I do, we've got a leg up on everybody else. And as soon as I put myself with a leg up over some other group, that's the first step toward abusing those people or excluding them or maybe even bombing them.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And the leg up is your ego.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The leg up over the other person is your ego saying, I am better. My religion is better, My way is better.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Which is the evil one. Finding a place in my life and to seek God and someone who's doing you harm is the test of spirituality, it seems to me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

If in that I haven't gotten that.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Far, I haven't either. Okay, okay.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I was gonna say. No, no, this is good. This is really good.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

We're confessing today.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Now, listen, I am with you on the oneness. We're all the same. I can see God in all races, all people. I'm there. It's hard for me to see it in the people who are attacking me, Me or other people. It's hard. That's where it gets very hard.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Jesus says, pray for your enemies. Love your enemies. Yes. So to be able to. Now, this is spiritual maturity that I have not.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. It's a level of spiritual maturity I have not yet acquired.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yeah. I'm wanting it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Praying for it. Yeah. But in the midst of the battle.

[Oprah Winfrey]

In the midst of the battle, when.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Somebody is taking you down at that moment, to be able to step back and observe that and say, look at that person attacking me. Am I going to choose not to retaliate or to give in kind, but am I going to choose something bigger than they?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Or am I going to get mad or.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yeah, exactly. Which is to give them your power?

[Oprah Winfrey]

To give them your power. Oh, getting mad is giving them my Power.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

No. But to lose yourself in madness so that you don't have that voice and you don't have that consciousness and that awareness. You have fallen asleep. If you want to.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Got it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

If you want your dreams to come true, you have to wake up. Wakeness, awareness is huge in this. And you can fall asleep in the midst of retaliation because you get so.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Caught up in it. So caught up in, I'm gonna get him then. I can't believe he did that to me. And I'll show them and who they think they are. All of that.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

All of that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And when you find yourself in that space, it means you've lost. You have now fallen asleep.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

The ego.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Has taken over.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. And you are spiritually deadened, but never.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Without the possibility of resurrection. Just like that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Because Grace can come in and say, wake up now.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. So when you. Okay, this is really good.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Because we have to interrupt the cycle of violence. See?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And as long as we are doing tit for tat, then we are, as Dr. King said, violence leads to violence.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely. But I'm just trying to apply it to practical, everyday living. So when we find ourselves in that moment of I can't believe and I'm furious, the thing to do is to take a breath.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. And step back and observe. Because this now could be your holiest moment.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

One of your holiest moments.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Rabbi Heschel said, in every moment, something sacred is at stake. And even in that moment of being attacked, something sacred is at stake. Can I choose or be awake or aware enough to see that going on and to say I need an imaginative, creative, loving response that keeps my power rather than give it over to that person and just act the way they want me to act.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because when I become angry, I've engaged in giving away my power.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Precisely. And that's the beauty of yoga.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Is that you concentrate on your breath. The idea is for all of us who are in the same room practicing yoga to be breathing slow, nonreactive breathing through your nose. And if your breath starts to get too fast, don't continue the exercises. Put your knees on the mat.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, is that what we're supposed to do?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That's why people hurt themselves in yoga by continuing to do that instead of focusing on the breath.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I know. I did a yoga class with my best friend Gail. And afterwards she says, I don't like yoga. And I said, really? What part don't you like? She goes, the bending, the stretching, the breathing part. Well, that would be all of it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Well, my yoga teacher Taught me about. We were talking about this anger thing, getting caught. He says, you are so wrong if you think that. Yoga is about what's going on in this room, about bending, stretching, breathing, sweating on this yoga mat. Yoga is about whether you not. Whether or not you can keep this breath. Slow, non reactive breathing through your nose. When somebody flips you off on the freeway in la and you keep that breath and you don't fall into that because there's a great Christian hymn about, may we not become the evil we deplore.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

When we hate evil so much that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

We become that we become that in the hating of it, you become it.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Which is what Dr. King was saying over and over again. Thank God he came into my Life. I was 17 when I met him. And he said that racism and bigotry and oppression have two victims. Not just the person who's on the short end of the stick, but the oppressor is being victimized also. Because evil hurts both the perpetrator and the victim. And that's why it's important for us to keep this unifying breath. If we could have this unifying breath throughout the world, the breath of grace, the breath of love, the breath of forgiveness, then we can turn the human race into the human family.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm speaking with a man of the cloth who was wearing his cloth. Reverend Ed Bacon. You notice, I think, just walking around here, I mean, when people see the cloth, people do, you get a kick out of it, what happens?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I do, yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

People try to be on their best behavior, but you get a lot of free stuff, too. Come on in, have breakfast. You don't have to pay. You're wearing the cloth.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Can I tell you a story about grace?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, please.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Here's about grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

So this man who lived north of the Mason Dixon line, went into a Southern restaurant, okay? And the waitress came over and said, honey, what do you want? I love Southern waitresses.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Honey, what do you want, honey?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

So he looked at the menu and he said, I will have bacon, two eggs over easy and whole wheat toast, dry, and orange juice and coffee. She goes away, she comes back, brings the orange juice, coffee, then brings this plate, two eggs, bacon, toast and a glob of white stuff that he's never seen. And he says, ma', am, what's that? And she said, honey, them's grits. He says, but I didn't order grits. She says, you don't order grits? Grits just comes. No, that's grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Isn't that grace?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

You don't order grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Grits just comes.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That breath can come if we'll follow grace.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Speaking of breath, do you espouse meditation in your church, and is that a way to get closer to grace by following the breath?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Oh, yes. I make it very.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You pray every day?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Every day.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Many times a day.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Oh, yeah. My major time is 45 to 90 minutes before I go out into the world.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You pray for 90 minutes?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Sometimes I do. Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 15th century, said, I'm going to be very busy today, so I'm going to have to pray another extra hour.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

The more challenge I'm in, the busier I am, the more I pray, or it's going to. I'm going to get caught up in that anger thing or lose myself.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And what do you pray when you pray?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

I mentioned the basin of silty water. So I sit there with my very silty water in the basin, maybe 30, 35, 40 minutes. And that's why people oftentimes just give up on this prayer stuff, because they say, oh, I'm so distracted. I'm having all these thoughts, and I'm having to process my dream from last night and all the.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you're sitting. Are you meditating?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, Just being with yourself?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Being still.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Not calling it a big.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Sitting with yourself? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just sitting. My favorite prayer chair. And then.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, you have a prayer chair. I'm gonna get me one. Good. I don't have that.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

It's just a nice, comfortable arm.

[Oprah Winfrey]

A prayer chair. Okay, good.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

With an ottoman. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, a place where you pray regularly every day. So then I would like that. You know why? Because then it takes on the energy of prayer.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Absolutely. And then Oprah, immediately I start praying for people. People come into my mind who've been asking me to pray for them. People in the hospital, people going through divorce, people who are struggling in life, people I wouldn't think of praying for. So I know it's not my mind doing this. This is more even than my consciousness. This is God. I call it the Spirit, God's spirit, asking me to pray. And sometimes I feel their bodies come into me. I hope you don't mind my time. This mystically, and it's just amazing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I love mystical talk.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

And I call them and I say, I was praying for you this morning. What, of all days?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Because I was going through this and.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That, and that's the Spirit connecting us all. Here I am, this country preacher and somebody else over there, and the Spirit has connected us because I chose to give it 60 minutes to stay there to let it happen.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

So my prayer is not about, okay, Lord, I need that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I need this, and I need that.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

This is God saying, ed, I need this from you. And I think that's what real prayer is. Instead of my bringing all my needs to God, I sit until I can be still enough for God to bring God's needs through me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, that's my prayer constantly. My prayer is always, God, how would you use me?

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

That's it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I want to be used for something greater than myself.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

When you say, I'm ready to be an instrument. Yes, you're in business.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're in business. It's been great sharing with you. I could talk all night, you know. Thank you, Reverend Ed Bacon. Really, I can't wait to come to your church. Please, I want to come to All Saints.

[Reverend Ed Bacon]

Okay, I got a few for you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I got a few for me. Casadena, thank you so much. That was great. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, Rate and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul conversation. Thank you for listening.

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