Sister Joan Chittister on Fruits of the Spirit

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their and wolf Thanks for joining us. On this episode, we interview Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine

sister of Erie, Pennsylvania. She's the author of over fifty books and is the winner of fourteen Catholic Press Association awards. Sister Joan is an international speaker who inspires both her audiences and readers with her passion for justice, equality and peace, especially for women in both society and the church. On this episode, Eric and Sister Joan discussed her book Radical Spirit Twelve Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life. Hi,

Sister Joan, Welcome to the show. Thanks Cherrich. I'm happy to be here. It's a real honor to have you on. You've written over fifty books. We're gonna be touchy on highlights from, uh, some of them, but a lot of the time we're going to spend on your most recent book, which is called Radical Spirit, Twelve Ways to Live a Free and Authentic Life. Yes, wonderful, But before we get into that, let's start like we always do with the parable.

There's a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at her grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And

the grandmother says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do well In the first place, it happens to be one of my favorite parables too. I've used it often in public because I consider it both productive and cautionary. If we don't learn the lesson of this parable, we're going to extend where we are, and God help us

if we do that. For instance, when you talk about the soul being developed by the part of it that you feed, if you feed it beauty. If you feed children beauty, then they grow into a love of beauty. And you will find beauty yourself in the things and the people that you look at if you feed those

same people. If you feed yourself, for instance, with the kind of crude, rude, lewd language that we're being subjected to now in the name of freeing ourselves from political correctness, we will shape our souls into exactly the contorted, diminish attitude toward one another on which brink we now stand this. This is the lived expression and experience of what we

mean when we say words matter, Experiences matter. Our neurologists tell us that experience actually shapes the brain, and therefore the personality what we're feeding into the air waves today is going to affect this country, uh, this generation, and our own perspective on life ten years to come. I frankly don't think Eric, that you could start this program

with any more important piece of information. And if this was all you did, it would have uh such an impact, such a gift in this culture, that we might really save ourselves from our worst selves. That's beautiful. I love that, and we're going to do so much more than just that. So we've got that great answer, and we're gonna go into a lot of other things that you've done. So but I want to start by saying, you know, sometimes different things come together at different times, which is interesting.

So I knew I was interviewing you, but and I knew a little bit about you, but I didn't know a lot about you. So that put that on on one side. And I split my time between Columbus, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia, and I decided I needed a couple of days of silence, so I went to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit, which is in Conyer's, Georgia, for a couple of days sort of personal retreat, which is a Benedictine monastery, of which is the same order that

you are from. And Um, sitting in the drawer of the little desk in my room was the Rule of St. Benedict, which is a lot of what your most recent book is about. It explores the Rule of Saint Benedict. And I just was sort of so come back from that, and I now start getting into your work to prepare for the interview, and I'm like, well, be damned there. It is so really really interesting confluence for me there. Um, the new book really focuses on the idea of humility.

You say that humility in the Rule of Benedict is the spiritual hinge on which the rest of life depends. Could you expand on that for me? Yeah, I'd love to. Actually, the book is built on chapter seven of this short rule seventy two small chapters, probably one of the smallest spiritual documents in history, and but chapter seven is the

longest of them all. Uh. This I take to indicate that this is really Benedict and spirituality as Benedict understood it, meaning this is the portion of life that he wants us as people to concentrate on to build our own impact on the world and the world's impact on us. This this spirituality, interestingly enough, hardly uses a single theological term, if any. It's all built around who you become as a human being and how you can become the human

being to be. It's it's simplicity is overwhelming. Having said all that, I have to also admit, Eric that though I believe, I genuinely believe that this book, in this topic will determine the nature of life, certainly in this country and maybe on this planet for the next hundred years, certainly for the next several generations, but I also know that it's a risky interview that you are bold enough to have because humility has not been an American thing.

This whole notion of humility has in our culture been infused with humiliations. There is no relationship whatsoever to the debasement of the spirit and the sanctification of the humble spirit. They are too unlike, badly confused, and therefore um I think, resisted by the modern mind, and it's a shame because it's holding us back from our own best development. So you say that humility ironically is about coming to understand that spiritual simplicity is not about the debasement of the self,

nor is it about the grandizement of the self. So what is it? So I'm going to ask you your own question back to you, So talk to me about what humility is. If it's not either of those extremes. Well, it's the ability to understand my place in the universe, in our relationship, in my work, and to neither distort it for its greatness or overlook its import comes from

a Latin word meaning humus or earth. It's it's taking taking a genuine photograph of yourself, knowing who you are and how you have become that and what you need to do if if you know that some part of you is how do you reclaim that? How do you chart your own growth to fullness? Of Our culture has in its Remember where we were a pioneer nation. Um. We we only we've only had a government for two hundred years. And when you compare that to the Egyptians

and five thousand years, Uh, that in itself is humbling. Uh. And yet in order to do that, we have called ourselves to greatness. If you listen to the New today, you will hear your president, say that he has done better than any other president. He is smarter than anybody. He knows, he is more experienced and prepared for this than any president we've ever had. In the past, our

tendency has been toward self superiority. Humility says, be who you are, I know who you are, respect those around you who are also worthy of that, and take your place in the human race so that we can all profit. Are not just others from me, but me from others. That makes us a strong community when we are recognizing and developing everybody's talents in the group. We are a group then that that simply can't be broken. It's a it's a very power insight into human community and the

human condition within it. I love that a lot of my spiritual development happened within a twelve step program, and there's a fair amount of humility discussed in twelve step programs. One of the things that was said to me then that just always resonated with me was that, you know, humility is not about you know how good you are, how bad you are. It's about having an accurate picture of who you are, of your strengths, of your weaknesses.

That's it. Yes, that's the truth. I'm thrilled to hear you say that you have had some experience with a twelve step program. I have been talking about humility as a bed edict and to Benedictuans as well as to other groups in spiritual exercises and conferences for literally years. Literally, I have really been convinced that this is the cornerstone of Benedictine spirituality, and Benedictine spirituality remembers the oldest institutionalized

spirituality in the church. The only thing that's older in the Church that addiction ism is the church itself. This this document is written in the sixth century five eight and is still seen as a centerpiece of the spiritual life fIF hundred years later. We can't minimize anything like that.

So when you come along and say I understand these steps, my heart rose, because in conference after conference I have been told over the years, people will come up to the to the microphone before I get a chance to to leave it and say something like this, Uh, do you know the twelve step program? And I didn't, and I had I was asked so many times that I finally decided I had to know what that was myself.

And when I compared the two programs. I began to wonder whether or not the founder of a A Bill might not himself have been a Benedictine, or certainly been trained by Benedictines to come so close to understand so completely this same attitude toward life. And then as I discovered, I studied and I researched. No, there isn't a sign in anything I found that he knew this material. And so I sat down and I thought about it for a long time, and I said to myself, first the

question was how can that be? And the answer was, because holiness is the same everywhere. When a person has had the courage to look at themselves and every aspect of their attitudes and their behaviors in the world around them, that's the beginner's step to the fullness of spiritual development. And of course he knows these steps because he was that holy, he was that honest, he was that real about himself, and he has brought thousands of us to

the same consciousness. So it seems to me that it's a it's a wedding of insights at the world badly needs. Let me pose a question to you that comes to me with twelve step programs or a A in this case with with Bill, and I think some of this is probably just the distortion that happens when humans get ahold of anything, because it's not, you know, thinking we're everything in the world, and it's also not thinking we're

the worst thing in the world. And and a lot of times what can happen in UM twelve step programs when they're interpreting correctly is that people get all hung up on all the things that are bad about them. I'm you know, I'm this, I'm that. And I think that you talk often about that narcissism is really a a disease in our culture, right, and I couldn't agree more.

I think it's everywhere. But I also work with a lot of people individually, one on one, who have the sort of polar opposite of that, which is I'm just a you know, a piece of you know what, UM And And so I'm kind of curious, how do people who who look at the narcissism peace UM and maybe that's not them I'm not you know, they're not saying I'm the best at this there ever was. Maybe they're saying I'm the worst at this there ever was talk to me about how humility helps someone who's sort of

coming from that orientation. It seems to me, Eric that they're the same thing. They're just a different approach. It's when when you have debasement instead of uh aggrandisement self aggrandisement, you still have a false self at both ends of the scared Joel there, And that's as equally unreal as self aggrandizement. Is it just what it does. As long as I'm crawling along on my belly saying, well, but I know I'm not that. No, I couldn't do that. No,

I wouldn't understand that. No, No, I couldn't be caught. No, No, I couldn't even think of volunteering myself as as as chairman of the church committee. No no, I'm not that break or that or that smart. That's that's also an excuse for not being willing to face myself. It's it's as protective as the other is unreal. As long as I separate myself from my own talents, from my own insights, from the strength of my own experiences, then really don't

have to produce, do I? And as long as I exaggerate my talents and I, and I assume that I have that I own all the strength and all the intelligence. I am completely separating myself from the responsibility of recognizing my failures. So one way I escape all responsibility by refusing it on the basis of the fact that I'm not capable of it, and the other way, I assume all responsibilities on the basis of the fact that I'm the brightest person here and therefore no one can question me.

There's there's there's terrible loss on both ends here. The one may seem humble and is self protective, and the other may seem to be nothing but narcissism, but is equally self protective. Yeah, you say that humility is the virtue of liberation from the tyranny of the self. To your point, both those positions, the common theme is that I'm thinking about myself all the time. You know, it's

all about how myself fits into all of this. And um, you know that's certainly been you know, one of the things that you know, my spiritual path has been a lot about is I recognized nothing like being a homeless heroin addict at twenty four to sort of help wake you up. Um, but you know, I realized very early on that like it was that burden of self, whether it was thinking I'm great or thinking I'm terrible or

all that it was. It's that burden of self that I've really worked too and continue to work to, you know, to try and find some freedom from you said it all. What we're looking for is freedom. That's what the book is about. How to live an authentic and free life so that we aren't hiding from ourselves or rejecting others who have as a great deal to teach us and uh and the support we need if we'll only admit

it exactly. So, I want to just change directions slightly here, and I want to talk about the role of obedience. And that's a term that comes up a fair amount in your book. It's certainly threads its way through the rule of St. Benedict. Is this idea of of obedience. And yet at the same time, you are a person who, although I'm sure huge parts of your life have been founded on obedience, you've certainly found times where obedience to the church was not your highest calling. So talk to

me about how you balance those two things. The one the obedience that is well, maybe first let's have you define obedience a little bit better, because I think a lot of us have a mis aim notion of it. But maybe then just talk about that idea in general. Oh yeah, that's an important one, because I think, um, we have distorted that word considerably. Obedience comes from the

Latin word obdre, meaning to listen to listen. Now we say to our children, you'll listen to me because I told you too, But that doesn't mean that the child listens. It just means you get to oppress somebody else. Each of us grows into the ability to listen. Listen to the will of God for the world. Listen to what nature is trying to tell us right now. Listen to the animals and their care for the earth. Listen to an older generation who has been through a depression or

a breakdown of the economy. Listen to all of the information and insight and wisdom around you, and then then follow the best turn of your life in this moment, at this time in history. Listen. Obedience does not mean that we simply submit our conscience and our brains and our souls and our responsibilities to an authority. Figure that's a military obedience. It means when I say, halt that I'm keeping you six inches away from falling down into

a thousand foot gorge. That's that's a very different and frankly of faults of philosophical notion of obedience. It was never right, and it never applied to the upper classes. It applied only to the slaves. And we bring that with us into a modern world and say, this person is the center. No, this person is a thinker. This person has a question and is inviting you into the

conversation to answer it. U the very notion that you go online for how many times two d and fifty times you told me you go on, you listen to people who come into your studio with different experiences in life, and you share that with with a public that is also eager to listen so that they can make up their own minds about who they are and how they

get there. To to put obedience into the realm of some sort of of slave master relationship or of child adult relationship is absolutely the worst thing we can do to the development of full human beings around us. Wow, that's powerful. I couldn't agree more this notion that we use obedience to oppress the very people we should be developing as parents know instinctively that every year of a child's life they let out more rope, they throw the

chains away one at a time. Why Because they want these children to be capable of making good decisions about their own lives and their relationships with others. So what are we saying The old notion, the false notion of obedience, then has got to be thrown away if we're going to bring our children to the fullness of their own lives and minds and souls. That makes total sense and is a great example. Let's change direction just a little bit, and I want to talk about two other words that

show up in your writing an awful lot. And I'm just going to put them next to each other. And maybe you're headed towards the same thing with with both of them, or maybe you want to talk about them slightly differently. But those words are endurance and stability. Yeah, I believe that most things are solved by endurance and by perseverance and persistence. I doubt that much of anything, include great intellectual ability, is ever ever comes full from

from the kernel. All things, including great talent, need to be developed, practiced, maintained, or they'll never they'll never be what they're meant to be. So endurance, perseverance, persistence is what I see as the basis of both spiritual and intellectual and a social life. We learn how to relate to people. We don't get at anything in toto at once. So the word means a lot to me because we are a fast food generation. We want everything now, and we we get a lot of now. But what you

can't rush is is your is your own cooking. You can't rush your own development. You can only face the need for various stages of it and find the help you're looking for to bring it uh to ripeness. Without this, the greatest of efforts will fail. We have to be prepared. We we we read stories constantly, especially coming out of science, scientists who worked on a minuscule problem and spent their lives working on it until they finally figured it out.

We do the same thing with our marriages. Our relationships are intellectual development. We persist, We stay in the relationship, we stay at the question, We stay with the the development it takes to bring our own abilities to to to their ripest level. Why so that we can be of service to others. That's that's why we become, and if we become for any lesser reason, they will never

be the fullness of what they should be. One of the things that you speak so eloquently to in that exact same arena is you know what you just said

is so spot on everything that's worthwhile. We need to stick with you also talk about how, and I think this is really thought of best and spiritual condition, is that some of the things that we need to develop only come to us through the practice of endurance, almost for its own sake, for the ability to go through the fallow times, the low times, and going through that develops a capacity in us that um is so important exactly.

That's what I was trying to say early here, that we simply have to understand that nothing of any value, intellectually, spiritually, or socially comes overnight and whole at at the same time, every single element of our lives are things that that grow from small portions to full portions. And for instance, I knew at the age of fourteen, literally knew at the age of fourteen that I was a writer and I would never be completely happy without it. That was

so certain to me. Now having said that, as you pointed out earlier. I've been writing and writing and writing, and I still consider every day of it new practice. I don't consider that that it has come to wholeness. I don't I don't think for a minute that I shouldn't be developing other part so that other other elements of my writing, or even of my understanding other people's writings. So we we have as much capacity as we have life.

The important thing is not to not to quit in mid air, to take what we love and main and give it what it deserves so that it can give back to us what we are. Let's change directions one more time here too. Well, it's not really a total change of direction. But you have a book, um that focuses a lot on the role of darkness in our lives. You say darkness deserves gratitude. It's the allelujah point at which we learned to understand that all growth does not

take place in the sunlight. And you know, my own experience in life has confirmed this over and over and over again. That you know, the most difficult dark times for me have often been some of the most important times. The question that I wonder about a lot, though, and I've asked multiple times of many people on this show, is that real suffering seems to do one of two

things with people. For some people, they emerge stronger, better, more compassionate, strong kind people from it, and other people seem to be broken by it. And I'm curious in your experience, what what are the characteristics or what are the things that allows some people to be transformed by it and other people to be broken by it. I have another book, Eric, one of probably one of my five favorite books myself, called Scarred by Struggle Transformed by Hope.

And in that book I lay out nine phases of of what I call the freedom from struggle, the freedom from depression, the freedom for the sense of loss or failure, and and those elements are are kind of way stations on the way to fullness of life I've I've just gone through. For instance, let's say, um, my children were killed in an automobile crash. The the effect of that is overwhelming on me. I really am losing my grip on life, nor do I want to live anymore? Now?

What what do I do there? How do I maintain myself? How do I survive well? In the first place, we survive because we have no other option, because life goes on around us and we must we must somehow or other fit ourselves into that. But that can take a long time unless someone sits with us and helps us figure out how life has become distorted at this moment. It isn't that some people can't make it. It is that they can't get the help or the insight that

they need to make it. So what they're suffering, what they're dealing with is a pressure on the soul so severe that if they cannot find a helping hand or away through this forest, if nobody puts up the stop signs that enables them to say I got through that one, I can go through the next, then they're left. They're abandoned.

It's one of the reasons that psychologists are so important in this society, because society moves so quickly here that you can hardly grow into anything calmly or quietly or slowly. So we we if we find a good psychologist, a good spiritual director, a good wisdom fig year, we they can give us the time to examine each phase of this new world that we're facing. Some people have it.

Some people have it because their own educations have prepared them for it, or they are in a very tight knit community that that surrounds them at the time of great pain, doesn't allow the abandonment to eat at their soul, doesn't allow them to think that they might not continue breathing in the next moment. So it's not it's neither great strength, excuse me, nor great weakness that we're talking about.

We're talking about community, support, understanding, care. All of those items are terribly important at the time of great breakdown. So when you every time you go to a funeral home, you know how that is. You don't want to go because you don't know what to say until you've been there yourself, until you know how important it was that somebody walked up to that to that coffin, put a hand on your shoulder and said, we'll be calling you

next week. I'm sorry about this. I know this pain must be terrible, will will be We'll be getting together struggling with the connection here as listeners can probably here. And it sounds like we've got some weather moving in that's causing some trouble. So I think we're going to wrap up. But thank you so much, such beautiful work. I've enjoyed learning about it, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. Oh you're more than welcome, Eric, I can only thank you for

producing this kind of a quality program. I have no doubt that your listeners wait for your materials, and I'm grateful to you for the time and effort you've put into that. Thank you very Thank you so much, and we'll try this again another time. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.