This is the question posed by activist and Catholic priest John Dear. For years, John has taken part in peace movements alongside folks like Coretta King, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Desmond Tutu.
In this episode, he has some unbelievable stories that answer his question in a provocative way. To live a good life, he argues, you cannot support war, nuclear weapons, or violence. “To do the good,” in his words, “means to stop the killing.”
[00:00:00] I'm Lee C. Camp and this is No Small EndeavoR, exploring what it means to live a good life.
A good life is not the easy life. It's not being comfortable.
That's Catholic peace activist, Father John Dear.
In the 1970s he was inside a chapel up above the Sea of Galilee, where he read the words, "blessed are the peacemakers.” Just then, three Israeli jets flew low over the sea of Galilee and dropped bombs on Lebanon.
This experience led him to seek peace alongside the likes of Coretta King, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Desmond Tutu.
In a world of total violence, where so many are suffering, dying... to be good, to do the good, means to stop the killing.
Tired, angry, even with the violence of this world, John Dear offers up an alternative vision in an interview you do not want to miss.[00:01:00]
I'm Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.
When I was a boy, attending church three times a week in Alabama, I had not the slightest idea that Christian faith and practice might have a great deal to say about war and peace, racism, nuclear weapons, or environmental destruction.
Perhaps I missed them, but I do not recollect any sermons against racism, war-making, or wanton destruction of the earth. The preacher appeared too busy getting us to dot all our legalistic i's and cross all our self-righteous t's so God would not send us to hell.
But then, years later, I went to seminary. And I learned that even within my own small American Protestant Christian tradition, that our 19th century thought leaders actually had a great deal to say about nonviolence. They called the greedy industrial robber barons to account, [00:02:00] and they insisted that racism was a plague upon the Church.
Later, when I went on to graduate school in my sojourn as a Southern Protestant among midwestern Catholics, I discovered yet another rich tradition of social critique and commentary in what is called Catholic social teaching. A tradition punctuated by compelling papal encyclicals.
And I began hearing stories about other Catholic priests and activists, whom some would call radical, alternately beloved by some, hated by others, who had given their lives to peacemaking, protesting war, and teaching nonviolence. They burned draft cards during the Vietnam War, they poured out blood in protest, got themselves arrested, were sentenced to jail and prison.
One of those of whom I learned stories was a young Catholic priest named John Dear. That's John D-e-a-r. Dear. Fast forward [00:03:00] several decades, and I finally asked if I could visit John.
"I'm on my way to California,” I told him, "taping a lot of interviews. Can I come see you?" And he said yes.
So on a beautiful Tuesday in California, I drove up the spectacular Central Valley, then turned northwest over to the coast to Morro Bay. We met at Dockside's Restaurant, on Embarcadero Street, right on the waterfront. We got to know one another over lunch, talked about friends we had in common, about the people and books and experiences that had shaped us.
He's the only person who has ever excitedly engaged me on a little known but very significant American peace activist named Aiden Belew, on whom I had written a chapter in my dissertation. And we discussed how we had both learned that our Christian faith did not mean to us what it had meant to us as children.
We paid our bill, walked down on the beach for a bit so he could show me the picturesque, gargantuan rock formation in the bay. And then we drove up [00:04:00] into the Santa Lucia mountain range to his apartment, tucked away in a beautiful grove off the side of the highway.
So, here is John Dear – a priest who has no interest in being nice and offends many of our cultural sensibilities.
If you ever thought that all that Sermon on the Mount “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” stuff meant lack of courage, then buckle up.
Father John Dear. It's a delight to be here with you in your home in the hills above Morro Bay, California.
Well, you're very welcome.
Thank you. It's a delight to be here.
You brought me in here a few minutes ago and it was like a, it's like a living testimony to the American Peace Movement, with all of the pictures and uh--
I hope it's the Christian Peace Movement.
The Christian Peace Movement. Yes, yes. That's a better way to put it, given what you're up to. Indeed.
Yeah, I've had an incredible journey and met the most wonderful [00:05:00] people on the planet, and that's why I always tell young people, get involved in working to end war and injustice. 'Cause there're perks.
Yes.
Which is my fancy word for 'blessings,' which is you get to meet the saints. And I don't know why-- forget hanging out with the Kardashians. You wanna hang out with Mother Teresa and Archbishop Tutu – the saints!
So as you, as you may know, our tagline is, “exploring what it means to live a good life.” And if one looks at your bio, [laughs] it's what, arrested 80 something times? So let's just start there. How do you see being in jail, in prison that many times as part of a good life?
Well that's… it's such a provocative question and I love it. What is a good life? How do you live a good life? How do we live a good life today, in this world? But it's been one of the key [00:06:00] questions of my whole life since I was in college, when I was a wild college kid at Duke in the '70s.
Quite seriously. It was-- I was quite obsessed with it. And, you know, I, I was very politically aware as a kid. My life changed at nine years old with the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and the Vietnam War. And I went into an existential crisis and was looking for the meaning of life.
And by the time I was at Duke in the '70s, the guy who lived in the room next to me went on to be a great man, Dr. Paul Farmer.
We used to talk about-- what are we gonna do with our lives? How do you do, have a good life? And here's what I wanna say, 'cause I've been-- I don't know that anybody's ever asked me that. What prevents you from a good life? Definitely ego, honor, and then greed and selfishness and violence and being part of waging war, destroying the environment.
But the flip side is also a problem…which is being nice.
Huh.
And this has always been my [00:07:00] issue.
Wait, wait. So just to make sure I heard that right.
So, on the flip side of all those things, it seem, uh--
Doing evil, actively doing evil--
Is, is also the issue of being nice.
Right!
Which is a Southern thing, right?
I think it's, uh, it's certainly an American thing too.
I grew up in the South, in North Carolina, and you know about that. That's the problem. I mean…that's sin. Our problem is our virtue.
Now, I'm saying all this because I had a friend named Gordon Zahn who wrote a book in 1960 called – it was the first of its kind – German Catholics and Hitler's War.
And he said, "All the people of Germany who were Christian and Catholic were really nice, good people.”
And if you care about the world, we have to come to grips with that.
They allowed the Nazis to come to power, 'cause they didn't do anything and they didn't rock the boat. They went to church and they were nice and quiet, and [00:08:00] then…they were Nazis and they were the problem.
And you go, “Oh, John, that's over the top.” No, then you look at South Africa.
And you have Archbishop Tutu for a friend, and he's telling me these stories about-- and I'm reading them, and I remember them! Good white Christians in South Africa, going along, being very nice, under Apartheid. They are the problem!
Martin Luther King said, in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail – the, the problem was not the white racists. You expect them to be insane! And the problem is not us, Black people. We're being killed! The problem is good, white, church-going liberals. There's nothing worse, 'cause they are quite comfortable and they just go, “Isn't that a shame?”
I had an-- forgive me for name drop, my other friend William Sloane Coffin, who's a minister. He said that a lot of us are the bystanders walking by the cross today.
I have agonized over that my whole life. I [00:09:00] don't want to be a good German.
And…so then I found Gandhi! Gandhi said, in 1926, in the major trial, I think a life-changing teaching.
He said, "The world has now changed so much. There's so much evil.”
And here's his actual sentence: "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good."
Hmm.
He said this in court. We have the transcript. It's no longer okay to say, I'm gonna be a good person and lead a good life and do the good-- 'the Good', like Plato taught. That's not good enough. You have to also publicly, actively stand up against structured, systemic evil.
That's changed my life. And I mean, I, I read that in, when I was 21. I'm 63 now, and I got with the program. And so, to do good means you have to do good, but you also have to publicly speak out, denounce, and take action [00:10:00] against systemic, structured evil.
And that's why I've gotten arrested and organized demonstrations and traveled to war zones around the world. Then it all makes sense.
But if you look at the saints, you look at Gandhi and Dr. King, to the people you've named. I mean to, to-- blessing to know Archbishop Tutu or Thich Nhat Hanh or Daniel Philip Berrigan, for example.
They're not sitting around having a good time…although eventually they were…but their lives were under constant death threat. Those people were some of the funniest people I ever met. Tutu's one of the funniest people I ever met, but he's been under-- he was under death threat since he was 13. And Joan Baez says Martin Luther King is the funniest person she ever met. But you wouldn't think that…but I get it!
So my question is-- your question, what is, how do you lead a good life? A good life is not the easy life. It's not being [00:11:00] comfortable. And therefore it's not about making money, or being successful. Look at poor Elvis and Michael Jackson – were not happy campers.
But how do you live a good life in a world of 30 wars, 13,000 nuclear weapons, 4 billion people in subhuman poverty, racism, gun violence, child hunger…one could go on and on. And then, catastrophic climate change.
So, for me, doing the good life is actively working to make the world better.
As you think back to childhood, or early twenties, are there other kind of key sources, authors, or experiences that led you to your sense [00:12:00] of vocation, not only as a priest, but the kind of priest you've been?
Well, I was very influenced by Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. My father was in the leadership of the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
Hmm.
So I grew up politicized. I grew up in that world.
He was the, the Chair of the National Press Club in Washington?
He was in the Board of Governors and was there. My fam-- I come from an old newspaper family. So I grew up in Washington, DC in the most powerful hallways, literally the hallways, and was not impressed.
And then, I was very impressed with Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. And then…we killed them. And I, um--
And you're how old when they get, when they're killed?
Nine. And I then, as I said, for ten years thought, well, if we kill and crush the greatest two people our country's ever produced, what can you do to make the world better?
And I gave up hope for making change and decided, I'll just be a pious priest.
Part of [00:13:00] that, since you asked books, Paul Farmer and I used to read in college and talk at 3 AM, in the middle of the fraternity party, about Viktor, Viktor Frankl's The Meaning of Life.
Wow. [Laughs]
About-- this is the way we were. [Both laugh] There would be wild carousing going on. I'm going, "But what about Viktor Frankl?"
[Both laugh]
And we did an event at Harvard ten years ago and he told that story and I, I forgot about it. [Lee laughs] But that's the way we were, and that's how you become Paul Farmer.
Well, um, he's saying, the way to a good life is by living a meaningful life. Find meaning in your life. So for me then, the question, was whether or not I make a difference, whether or not I can help end war, or 'I abolished all nuclear weapons…’ [Lee laughs] That's never gonna happen, right?
But if I give my life to be on the side of ending war and nuclear weapons and hunger and racism and the destruction of the creatures, that's a good life! And you know, I, I think I mentioned to you, I've been [00:14:00] studying, all my life, the abolitionists.
Yeah.
Those people are nuts! They came along, just little ordinary Quakers saying, “Oh, we're gonna end slavery.” And everybody says, you can't do that!
And then William Lloyd Garrison gives this big speech saying, "We are announcing the abolition of slavery.” This is in 1821. And they, you know, he lost his job, his home was burned down. And he said, no, we're gonna do that.
I think, to put it mildly, they led good lives. They spent their short time on earth working for something that was impossible – the abolition of slavery. You could talk about the suffragists, the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, people in the '70s who were giving their lives for the environment, for the poor, for antiracism.
Those are the saints of our time, and I wanted to be like that.
But there was an event. I'll tell you that.
Please.
So just before I entered [00:15:00] the Jesuits in 1982 in the seminary to become a pious Catholic priest…my parents were upset about that, asked me to just get a job for a year and, and not do this. So I worked for the Robert Kennedy family.
Hmm.
'Cause I was obsessed about Bobby Kennedy. And I got a little money. They only paid me $50 a week. And I told Mrs. Kennedy she still owes me.
[Lee laughs]
And, uh, I told her that last month, in fact.
Um, I decided I would go and hitchhike through Israel to see where Jesus lived, before I became a priest. I thought, that's a good thing to do.
Yeah.
I'm 21. I went and told my parents, they were appalled.
[Lee laughs]
I hitchhiked through Israel, the Holy Land--
Huh.
--for three months. And the week I left, summer of 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. It was the summer war. All the Holy Land tour groups were canceled. The plane on which I flew over was practically empty.
I [00:16:00] would never do that now, what I did. I was so naive. All I had was a backpack with my Bible. I spent a week-- a month walking through Jerusalem, then Bethlehem, then to Nazareth, and my goal was to camp out at the Sea of Galilee.
And I get there and there's nobody there, 'cause 15 miles away is the war. And I'm totally oblivious to this 'cause I'm praying to Jesus, and really like Jesus, and going, this is so beautiful and this is so nice. I'm having a nice time.
And then, it was a Wednesday afternoon, July 1982… Literally for nobody miles around. Now it's, the Sea of Galilee's all built up.
Yeah.
This was 40 years ago, 41 years ago. And um, there's a chapel on the North Shore, and I went in. And it's overlooking the sea, and there was nobody there.
And it said right there on the walls, like graffiti: “Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek and the gentle. Blessed are those who [00:17:00] hunger and thirst for justice. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those persecuted for working for justice.” And “Love your enemies” on the altar.
And it floored me. 'Cause I was thinking, nice, pious, Christian priest. I'm gonna be a nice guy. That doesn't sound very nice! The point is to be persecuted for justice. The Beatitudes are the job description of the Christian!
And we've done everything to ignore them.
And I walked out on the balcony. Now, mind you, I'm looking out over the whole Sea of Galilee, and there's nobody. I was camping out there illegally for two weeks.
And when you're on walking pilgrimage, you get crazier than usual. I'm talking to God in the sky, I'm going, “Are you kidding me? Look, you want me to do these things? Like, isn't that the job of Billy Graham or the Pope? Like, me?”
That was the breakthrough, that I [00:18:00] had to, to take these teachings personally. This is what the poor guy really wants. And I said, “Okay. I'll dedicate my life to the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, these teachings – blessed are the peacemakers, love your enemies, hunger and thirst for justice – on one condition: if you give me a sign.”
Hmm.
It was brilliant.
And dangerous. [Laughs]
No, no, you don't think-- the days of signs are over. There're no signs. I found a loophole, as Helen Prejean said.
And all of a sudden, there are these loud explosions. Boom! Boom! Boom!
I've told this story across the world. As three huge black Israeli jets fell from the sky, breaking the sound barrier, setting off sonic booms, swooping down over the Sea of Galilee, right over my head, and dropped bombs on the border of Lebanon.
And I went, okay. This is [00:19:00] serious. He's serious about it.
But I, you know what? I've spent my whole life thinking about that moment. That's why I, I'm here meeting with you today. I never intended to do this. But He actually is serious about blessed are the peacemakers, and hunger and thirst for justice, and love your enemies, which means don't kill him, which means you can't wage war, which means you can't build nuclear weapons.
But I realize now, that the war had been going on every hour…and who cares? I didn't care. I'd seen jets fly over, but instead of God appearing, I opened my eyes for one second to the reality of the world, just in case God appeared walking on the water. And what did I see? The reality of the world, which is mass murder.
Sisters and brothers killing sisters and brothers, for whatever reason, in the name of God, even at the very place where Jesus said, “love your enemies, don't kill 'em.”
I saw a bombing at the Sea of Galilee. That's why I'm so passionate. Even 41 [00:20:00] years later, I'm gonna go to my death teaching the Sermon of the Mount saying, you cannot be a Christian and support war or killing or nuclear weapons.
Jesus was totally nonviolent. If you want to be a Christian, you have to be totally nonviolent too.
You're listening to No Small Endeavor, and our conversation with Catholic peace activist Father John Dear.
I love hearing from you. Tell us what you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at lee@nosmallendeavor.com.
You can get show notes for this episode in your podcast app or wherever you listen. These notes include links to resources mentioned in this episode, and a PDF of my complete interview notes, including material not found in this episode. And you can also there get a transcript.
I've also got some photos of my time with John in Morro Bay on our episode page, along with a number of resource links [00:21:00] related to John's work.
Coming up, John Dear and I discuss how his desire to be a pious priest dramatically changed after his encounter with those three Israeli fighter jets at the Sea of Galilee. And the new shape his life took, leading to being arrested more than 80 times – all of which he says makes for a good life.
Stay with us.
I entered the Jesuits a week later, and I was a different person. I was meeting Daniel and Phillip Berrigan. I got arrested at the Pentagon. I'd been protesting war and organizing demonstrations ever since. And then I went to live in El Salvador at the height of the war and knew the six Jesuit priests who were later assassinated.
So this is in the 1980s.
1980s.
Oscar Romero was killed--
He was already dead then, yeah.
In 1980. I think that's--
I was, lived there in 1985, and then went back twice a year for 20 years. I was really involved in El Salvador.
So, after all that, I went back [00:22:00] and lived in the war zone. They sent us to work in a refugee camp.
So I was with the poorest of the poor, had lost all their families…and we were being bombed. And when the death squads came in, I was 22, with long blonde hair. I was to go out and talk to the death squads, and the thought was, they won't kill anybody if I'm there because a white person is there.
Hmm.
And that's what happened. I would talk-- and when you talk about working through your nonviolence and fear…that was an education in the gospel.
Yeah, I imagine. I imagine. You brought up, talking about working through your fear. How did you begin to learn to deal with fear, move beyond the fear?
Well, I had the most amazing teachers.
Starting with Daniel Berrigan, whom I met very quickly. So he was, he and his brother Phil, were very famous in the 1960s, were on the cover of Time, for being against the Vietnam War. They [00:23:00] were the first priests in U.S., perhaps world history, to be publicly against war and get arrested at Catonsville, Maryland for their protests, later, for the Plowshares movement, actually hammering on a nuclear weapon…which I then later did with Philip Berrigan, and I myself faced 20 years in prison for that action.
But I met, met Dan, he was a Jesuit priest. I was a young Jesuit in training. He, he was my mentor and teacher. The other thing was, I, I know this-- I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm trying to figure it all out. I was very passionate about Jesus…and who is he? And I don't, I, I think Jesus is not who everybody says he is. Jesus, to me, Jesus thinks he's Gandhi. Can I say that, on radio?
[Lee laughs] You just did.
Jesus thinks he's Martin Luther King. Who does he think he is?
I'm saying that to be silly, to get you to realize, Jesus taught total nonviolence, and then he organized a movement of poor people in Galilee and marched to Jerusalem and does nonviolent civil obedience in the [00:24:00] temple.
You do that, you're gonna be arrested and tortured and killed in 24 hours! That's a no-brainer. If you did that in Apartheid South Africa or a Civil War El Salvador, you're killed.
And I am with the Berrigans, who-- Dan was arrested 250 times. And the first night I met Dan, he said, “Why are, what are you afraid of?”
And then, you know what he said to me? “Don't be afraid.”
Oh!
[Laughs] Thank you. Thank you for that.
Everybody needs a teacher to say to them, you don't have to be afraid. Dan was taught that by Dorothy Day. I was taught that by Daniel Berrigan, and then Tutu, and then Thich Nhat Hanh, and Coretta Scott King, and everybody. They told me that.
And then I go and read Jesus, and what's the one thing he says more than anything in the four Gospels? “Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.” 'Cause they're terrified.
They're [00:25:00] gonna do civil disobedience. He could get killed doing this stuff. You mean, offer no violent resistance to one who does evil? We have to nonviolently resist someone doing evil? Yeah. And even love him? Yeah. And forgive him? You're crazy. And yet-- but he must have been a very charismatic, wonderful person that they would follow him.
So, if you're not dealing with fears and confronting fear and resisting the culture of violence, I don't see how we're following Jesus. But it's only when you stand up publicly and get out of being just a nice person, and being a good person-- in fact, most people think you are evil.
Dr. King was considered evil. Dan Berrigan was considered evil. Dorothy Day, you couldn't get more evil than-- she was a communist. Tutu. All our saints.
St. Francis of Assisi, the first five years of his life, he was stoned every day.
Hmm.
We forget that, and go, [00:26:00] wasn't he a nice guy? You probably would've wanted to stone him, because…as you would've went on the side of killing Jesus.
Why? Because he's saying, they're saying…in a world of total violence where so many are suffering, dying, to be good, to do the Good, means to stop the killing. It's to work for the abolition of war, and poverty and racism, nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, and therefore, to actually engage the teachings of nonviolence of Jesus and work for a more nonviolent world.
And that means grassroots movement building, from Jesus to Dr. King, building nonviolent movements. That's how change happens. And then the minute you stand up publicly and say, “Stop bombing Iraq. Stop bombing Afghanistan,” or you hammer on a nuclear weapon like I did, all hell breaks out. Your family, your friends, church people, they all reject you.
I've been kicked out of churches all across the country, and [00:27:00] I'm banned from most military bases in the United States. And I feel like, well, maybe I'm following Jesus. He was killed! This is the job description.
So then, and only then, does the Gospels make sense. Why is Jesus saying do not be afraid? Because I'm afraid!
So much happens. And the perks, you meet great people and, hello, a meaningful life, a good life. I-- whether or not I've accomplished anything…I've certainly made no money, and I've done nothing to show for myself. But I feel like I've carried on the legacy of the abolitionists and Gandhi and Dr. King. And I want everybody to do that.
It's not worth following any of our politicians. Follow Gandhi and King and Jesus and Dorothy Day, these great people. That, and, and don't be afraid. What have you got to lose? You just have to be nonviolent. That's the one catch.
So, one question that arises for me [00:28:00] is, how does one avoid becoming one of those folks that sees being a troublemaker for the sake of being a troublemaker, as opposed to being a, quote, “troublemaker” for the sake of peace and justice? Does my question make sense?
Maybe. Do you want to give me examples of either of those?
Well, clearly Dr. King was committed to justice and peace.
Clearly. Clearly he was, yes.
But, but maybe the students against the Vietnam War in the '60s, out in the streets, yelling and carrying on, were not in it for the long haul. And they-- you know, see that's the problem with--
I mean, I don't know. I can't speak about-- I can’t judge them.
Right, and I'm not judging them either. But one of the problems in the movement is, people get out there, and get real angry, and maybe violent, and yelling and screaming, and then they don't see any results and you give up. Or they do it for a while and you get, like, trouble-making for the sake of trouble-making.
I'm [00:29:00] talking about much deeper things. So here's a few thoughts.
Number one, I am trying to follow Jesus. So this is a spiritual practice. Peace and justice work for me is not a strategy or a tactic or even a task, although it is a mission, but it's God's work. I mean, for me. I'm just telling you how I see it. Because if it's not, then I would never stay involved.
You, you give up real easy and you just give into anger and bitterness and burnout, 'cause you don't make any difference. You, you make very little. And it's only the accumulation of millions of lives in the movements that lead to a Martin Luther King, Archbishop Tutu that bring the tie to end segregation or Apartheid, for example.
And so, our job is not to be those figureheads or to bring results. Our part is to do the good and resist evil and say our prayers. So we have to be a person of prayer. And, and you've-- for a Christian, you study the life of Jesus and you see he's [00:30:00] not tolerating injustice or lies. He has…and no violence. And all his teachings are meticulous nonviolence.
So then you really work on your nonviolence. You're nonviolent to yourself, nonviolent to everybody you meet, and you're nonviolent to the creatures, and to all of creation. You're trying to be like Gandhi and Martin Luther King as a way to be like all the saints, from St. Francis, St. Clair, to then Buddha and Jesus. Total nonviolence…and be part then of the public grassroots movement.
But the goal is not trouble. And the one who explains it best is Martin Luther King in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he explains it all. It looks like trouble to the culture, but this is actually the way the healing happens.
First of all, the goal for the Christian and for all of us is to proclaim the coming of a new world of peace and justice.
We don't need a world of war and nuclear weapons. This is totally resolvable. We don't have to have all this gun violence or the sick racism or [00:31:00] anyone starving. We have way more money to feed everybody if we only had the political will and the spiritual will.
So, we're talking about the reign of God. We're talking about, like the abolitionists, about abolishing slavery.
Just doing the hard work of building a movement and creating the global political will to end war itself and institute nonviolent conflict resolution programs institutionalized around the world. And then, no more nuclear weapons and no more starvation and a world of genuine equality and dignity. All that's doable!
So, then you need deep, deep spiritual roots. And if you step out publicly to be part of that, in a world of total violence in war and racism, everyone's gonna say you're causing trouble.
It's so interesting 'cause Martin Luther King says brilliantly in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail, "I came in to Birmingham, and they're saying, ‘you're dividing us.’" And he [00:32:00] says, "You're the most segregated, divided city in the United States, and I'm dividing you."
[Laughs] Yeah.
Well, hello!
Right.
“And I come in and all hell breaks loose. Oh, okay, so-- and I'm, I'm gentle and nonviolent. You're the ones blowing up every Black church, all trying to kill all the Black pastors.”
Seriously! It was total terrorism. White terrorism.
And he says this brilliant line. He goes, "We are a doctor, lancing a boil on the body politic."
Isn't that brilliant?
“And when you lance the boil of segregation and racism, there's gonna be a lot of pus and it's going to be messy. And only when it can come out can the healing begin.”
So you're gonna kill Jesus, and kill Dr. King for them trying, stirring up trouble. And that's how the movements begin.
And so what-- if people wanna live a good life, I think they should [00:33:00] drop what they're doing and think of the global good for the whole planet and human race and get with the program to the big issues.
That's where the action is. To end war and poverty and racism and nuclear weapons, environmental destruction, and then, when trouble happens, when people get mad at you, when your family walks away from you, you get kicked out of your church, you lose your job, now you get to be nonviolent! And then more friends show up, and then you're part of the movement…and then you're beginning to understand what Gandhi and King and Tutu went through.
And then, you know, you become a mature human being. This is the journey, to be human in an inhuman time.
So I can imagine another objection might be something like, [00:34:00] um, it could take a couple of shapes, so let me--
You don't have to play the devil's advocate.
So what—
[Laughs]
Well, I'm just imagining people listening, and, and them asking certain questions. ‘Cause I'm, I'm sure you've heard all of these, right?
What about, you know, those who have said to you, at one extreme they might just say, this is outrageous and it's irrelevant, what you're doing.
And then others might say, I'm with you on what you want to accomplish, but a better way to accomplish it is through working within the system.
I've heard all of that and a million more every single day of my life. It's such a strange life. So ever since I came back from Galilee when I was 21, I entered the Jesuits. I start saying, we gotta weep for peace.
Every single day someone has tried to talk to me about why we need to kill.
Huh?
I remember leaving mass once, I had preached against the war in Iraq in New Mexico 20 years ago, and this mother of the kid who was dropping bombs in Iraq said-- she's holding the her son's baby…. [00:35:00] "Can't we just bomb 'em all? Isn't it just collateral damage?"
I said, "But we just had communion!” Which I thought was pretty funny. Like, what the hell are we doing then? Who do you think you are where-- no! There's no working within the system. If Jesus worked in the system, I'd do that. Yet, he wasn't for reforming the Roman Empire.
He's outside the system. He's on the margins. He's a grassroots movement leader. That's why I say he's like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. That's why I never ran for office and why Dr. King never ran for office, even though I was interested in Bobby Kennedy. But I thought those days were over.
Once we killed Bobby Kennedy…. I saw the Vietnam War, I saw Richard Nixon. And once you have Nixon, then you have Ronald Reagan, and George Bush, and George Bush W. Bush and killing 1.5 million Iraqis and, uh, people in Afghanistan, and Trump. And now blowing up the world in catastrophic climate change. There's a [00:36:00] direct lineage. We can go farther back to Hiroshima and World War I and slavery.
The system is totally broken. Dorothy Days said, "All our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” I knew that as a boy, 'cause I grew up in DC and saw-- I was not impressed by anybody, except for Bobby Kennedy and, um, Martin Luther King.
And by the way, we're all gonna die someday. I could not find one person in history who has not died.
Apparently, every human-- this was what I used to talk about with Paul Farmer. We're all gonna die. And then we're gonna meet Jesus or Buddha or God as infinite universal love. And She's gonna say, “What did you do with the time on Earth?” And I thought, as a kid, I better get with the program. I don't wanna say that I wasted my life making money…especially when it doesn't work!
I don't see rich people as happy people. I don't see, I don't see anybody in the culture-- I've seen very few happy people in this [00:37:00] culture. And in fact, as I travel the, the Global South, the real poor of the world, they're much happier, because they've been forced to surrender their lives to God in ways we have not yet.
So, the real question is, you're making no difference, and that's when I say, it's not up to me, all I'm called to do is-- you know, I don't have to be effective or have results, that's in God's hands. I'm just called to be faithful to this way of nonviolence from Jesus to Dr. King, and to sow seeds of peace and nonviolence in a world of war, and hope that someday a new generation will rise up and abolish nuclear weapons once and for-- end war. And institutionalize nonviolence.
And nonviolence will be the norm for every major religion in the world, as it should be. That every Christian would be nonviolent, which means the end of greed and violence and guns and racism. I don't know anything else more hopeful to do with [00:38:00] one's life.
Going to take a short break. Coming right up, we discuss what John called a “functional culture of despair,” as well as how to be nonviolent to oneself.
I'm actively not going along with the functional despair of our culture, and it may look crazy, but--
What do you mean by that, ‘functional despair?’
I'm having a good time, is what I'm trying to tell you.
[Both laugh]
It's hard to-- I meant we have a lot more fun. Tutu was a lot of fun to be with. I think everybody's in despair.
I mean, the most, let's say, are the people where we had a campaign for 20 years at Los Alamos in New Mexico where they build all the nuclear weapons. There're more millionaires per capita there, that little town on the mountaintop, than anywhere else on Earth, and it's one of the highest cancer rates on Earth. And more [00:39:00] PhDs per capita anywhere else on Earth.
They all build nuclear bombs. 25,000 people. And they're all Catholic and Christian. Everyone goes to church. They love God. They're really nice.
Mmm.
And they build nuclear bombs to vaporize people. I think it's the biggest terrorist training camp on the planet. It's hell on earth, and people don't realize it, and they don't even know what's happening to them.
Gandhi said, on August 6th, 1945, the day that we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, he said, "Well, we've seen the effects, physical effects of the bomb, on the people who were vaporized in Japan. It's too soon to say the spiritual effects upon the people who made the bomb."
Well, 75 years later we're seeing it. I think people in this country have lost faith in a God of universal love and peace. They're losing their spiritual lives, like, as, as Gandhi said, they're losing their souls. And I see it in this, what I call “functional despair,” which is you [00:40:00] go around, there's, there's no hope.
Whether you are rich or very poor, there's nothing you can do. And that's exactly what the culture of violence and war wants us to think. You can make a difference! And if you are like me, look how crazy he is.
So, you mentioned a moment ago the practice of being nonviolent to oneself. So would you talk a little bit about what that looks like for you? And also, what are other practices, disciplines, resources that have helped you, dealing with your own pain in the-- some of these cases you just talked about, of helping you navigate your own understandable anger, if that's arisen in you towards such things?
I'm asking, generally, about, kind of the tapestry of your inner life in the work that you've done.
[00:41:00] Wow, thank you. I wrote this book called The Nonviolent Life, and I came up this theory, to try to explain nonviolence in my ordinary words. And what I say, is it has three simultaneous attributes. You have to do all three. And I've actually already referred to that.
Number one, you have to be really nonviolent to yourself. At the same time, number two, you have to be meticulously nonviolent toward every human being. Everyone you know, in all your relationships, and then nonviolent to the creatures, and then nonviolent to Mother Earth. And then third, at the same time-- see, even that is not enough. That's the question of being nice and good and, like, a, a silent Quaker. That's still not it. You have to have, third, one foot in the global grassroots movement for justice and discernment and peace.
So, like the Quakers in England in the 1700s, who were working to end slavery. They got out of their virtue [00:42:00] and became public troublemakers. And they did it! And they did it without having a civil war, by the way. Amazing people.
So, you're asking me about the first part, and it's taken me a long life. I was raised in a violent home. I know about violence. And I've struggled to be nonviolent all my life.
And, while I am teaching it publicly, and then I want to be able to stand up publicly in a demonstration. And when you do that, people are gonna come up, in our country, and spit at you, and call you every name in the book. And you gotta be ready! If you're not prepared, doing your inner work, your inner violence is going to be triggered and you're gonna lash out at a person, which is what-- this is the story of activists around the world.
You see violent people on the streets for a just cause. That doesn't help. That's not peacemaking. So, it's critical, this-- from Jesus to Gandhi, that you're working on a [00:43:00] nonviolent heart. So, how do you do that?
So that's why-- Thich Nhat Hanh taught me this. He had this beautiful phrase: "Just look deeply within." So, you, you're mean to somebody, or you snap at somebody, you get angry at somebody or, or you're just leaving church and you wanna run over them in the parking lot.
[Lee laughs]
Oh, did I touch a nerve?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
[Both laugh]
And, um… okay, then you're gonna beat yourself up. Oh, I shouldn't have done that. I'm a terrible person. I hate myself.
So then, you're just, it's all the cycle of violence. We're all victims of this horrible culture and world of violence. All of us.
Some of us actually from being hurt by our mothers and fathers physically, but certainly all by the culture in our youth. And then maybe through sexism or racism. Or just growing up in the Vietnam War, or any war. It does-- it destroys your spirit, and it normalizes you to violence, as if it's okay to be violent.
“Actually, we're just born violent.” [00:44:00] Baloney! We are born nonviolent, and to be human is to be nonviolent.
So, you don't beat yourself up. You look in deep within, you go, why did I do that? Well, then you, you're on the path of becoming a contemplative, and that's where you have to look within. And you go, oh!
See, violence stays and grows inside us until someday it, it ripens and comes out. It always comes out. That's what everybody, that's what all the teaching is. So, you look inside, and you go, well that's 'cause two weeks ago somebody put me down and I walked away, but it hurt me. You have to, like, forgive that person your heart. Pray for them, give them to God, and let it go. And once you do that, then you're constantly disarming your heart.
And then I learned, as I entered the seminary, the power of what I call meditation. So quiet prayer, I was taught to do 30 to 60 minutes a [00:45:00] day. When I was 21, that's my practice. Or Gandhi did two hours a day. That's what I'm trying to do now. Which is just sit with the God of peace. And the reason we don't want to do that is ‘cause all our junk comes up.
All this inner chaos and violence is inside us. You sit down in silence and imagine you're with God and you're going, wait, I gotta wait. I'm a b-- I gotta go. I'm busy. This, I'm way too busy for this, sorry God. Or I hate this person so much. Where did that come from? Or you know, your conservative or liberal politics come up. It's all violence to me. And the God of peace disarms you.
And that's what happens in meditation. You are disarmed over time, and your heart is disarmed, and actually you're given a spiritual gift of peace. And then you can step out publicly into the world and be more peaceful and nonviolent.
I've seen 25 wars. I've been in court hundreds of [00:46:00] times. I've seen a lot of pain. And it makes you angrier. If you wanna stay in the struggle, you're gonna get even more upset. And Gandhi said, Jesus said all of this. I'm not kidding you. Gandhi explained Jesus saying, don't go with the anger route because it won't sustain you for the long haul. You need something deeper.
And that's grief. I've only learned that in the last ten years. You have to start grieving what we're doing to the poor of the world, what we're doing to Mother Earth. And so, here in the U.S. we have to become people who, who practice grief, 'cause grief breaks our hearts, and then we can become compassionate, and then we become human and more loving.
And then, besides not getting angry, we can cultivate joy. And that's in the Beatitudes too. When they call you names for standing up for justice, rejoice and be glad. Now you're like the prophets of old, now you're like Martin Luther King. Be joyful! That's what Tutu and I talked about. We have a lot of joy.
We get to be [00:47:00] like Gandhi and King, because everybody's pissed off at us.
[Lee laughs]
Just 'cause we're against war!
We've been talking to John Dear at his home here in Morro Bay, California. Activist, author of 35 books…and, uh, thank you so much, John, for your time, and for welcoming me here to your home, and for your good work in the world, and all that you've shared with us today.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Lee.
You've been listening to No Small Endeavor and our interview with John Dear. You can find out more about John and his recent work for nonviolence at beatitudescenter.org, as well as his personal website, johndear.org. That's john d-e-a-r .org.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting the [00:48:00] causes of community development, education, and religion.
And the support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this show possible. Christie Bragg, Jakob Lewis, Sophie Byard, Tom Anderson, Kate Hays, Mary Eveleen Brown, Cariad Harmon, and Tim Lauer.
Thanks for listening, and let's keep exploring what it means to live a good life together. No Small Endeavor is a production of Tokens Media, LLC, and Great Feeling Studios.