Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 301 Eric Clayton - Finding Peace Here and Now
We are living in a world that seems to be unraveling at the seams - where chaos, polarization, and anxiety have become our default settings - we need a different way of being. Today, I'm sitting down with Eric Clayton, who's been wrestling with the question: What if peace isn't just the absence of conflict, but a transformative way of living? Eric's new book, "Finding Peace Here and Now," isn't another self-help manual. It's an invitation - a roadmap drawn from Ignatian spirituality that challenges us to look deeper. How do we build peace when everything around us seems designed to tear us apart? How do we find stillness in the storm, not by escaping the world, but by showing up differently? We'll explore how peace starts within us, how it's cultivated through compassion, creativity, and a willingness to see the humanity in everyone - even those we disagree with. This isn't about being passive. It's about a strength so profound it can disarm violence without raising a hand. If you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're searching for hope in a world that seems to have lost its way, this conversation is for you. So join us as we walk through what peace really means.
Eric Clayton is an award-winning writer and author of three books on Ignatian spirituality and everyday living, including, "Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness," "My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars," and "Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith." He has a children's book, "Our Mother, Too: Mary Embraces the World," which was co-authored by Shannon K. Evans releasing this year. Eric is the deputy director for communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States where he manages the award-winning weekly column, "Now Discern This," guest hosts "AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast" and provides filming, writing and audio support for a range of multimedia projects. He has an MA in International Media from American University, a BA in International Studies and Creative Writing from Fairfield University and a graduate certificate in the Ignatian Tradition from Creighton University. He lives in Towson, MD with his family.
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If we all have our own unique gifts, and we all have our unique desires and our own kind of contribution to peace, then we all better be up and about the work, because it takes all of us to build this peace, to build up God's dream of peace in the world, and to go out and do it.
Joshua Johnson:You Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, you know, we are living in a world that seems to be unraveling at the seams where chaos, polarization and anxiety have become our default settings, we need a different way of being. So today, I'm sitting down with Eric Clayton, who's been wrestling with the question, what if peace isn't just the absence of conflict, but a transformative way of living? Eric's new book, finding peace here and now isn't just another self help manual, it's an invitation, a roadmap drawn from Ignatian spirituality that challenges us to look deeper. How do we build peace when everything around us seems designed to tear us apart? How do we find Stillness in the Storm, not by escaping the world, but by showing up differently, we'll explore how peace starts within us, how it's cultivated through compassion, creativity and a willingness to see the humanity in everyone, even those we disagree with. This isn't about being passive. It's about a strength so profound it can disarm violence without raising a hand. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're searching for hope in a world that seems to have lost its way, this conversation is for you. So join us as we walk through what peace really means. Here is my conversation with Eric Clayton, Eric, welcome to shifting culture. Thanks for joining me. Excited to
Eric Clayton:have you on. Joshua, glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I
Joshua Johnson:love this book, finding peace here and now, and it's, I think, one of the most important things for us today. It seems to me like this world is full of chaos and suffering, loss, polarization, and we're anxious all the time, and we need to find some peace. So this is, it's pretty important, but I know that you in your life, you've really you've been drawn to peace building, peacemaking. You've been drawn to, of course, Ignatian spirituality. Where did those threads come together for you? How did peacemaking and Ignatius spirituality mesh in your own life. Yeah,
Eric Clayton:I'll start with the peacemaking part of it as an undergraduate student, and then as a graduate student, the work of peace, right? Peace Building as a profession, really enchanted me. It sounded really cool. It sounded really important. It sounded like you're on the front lines of big things. I studied international studies as an undergraduate at a Jesuit school, Fairfield University in Connecticut. And I studied international media at American University with with a focus on peace. How can we talk, talk of and tell stories of peace? So peace was always in that, that mindset of professional life. And then I worked at Catholic Relief Services, which is an international nonprofit humanitarian relief organization for the Catholic Church in the US for a number of years, and they have a really great peace program. And so I worked with some of those colleagues, kind of tangentially, always thinking, Oh, I'll get into this work eventually. I just need to, you know, wait for my time to come. My time never came, despite studying it and reading it and talking about it, and it was discouraging in some ways, but I remember, I have a very distinct memory. My wife was the young adult minister at our at our parish many years ago, when we were still young adults and we had a we read a book about peace and and during that time, I was still in graduate school, I was reading a lot of other books on peace, and not just academic books, but these kind of prayer books. How do we pray about peace? And I realized what I'm doing here, and we realized this in community. You know, essentially was peace is for all of us. Peace, isn't it is a profession for some, but in fact, it's an invitation for all. And here I was waiting for the, you know, for the line on my resume that said, Hey, you're a peace builder, when, in fact, you know, I've been wasting all this time failing to do the work of peace. Whatever that meant, some of us are called to be on the front lines. In a very literal sense. Some of us are called to be very well. All of us, I think, are called to be very Be very mindful and intentional of the words we use and the images we share, and things that can, you know, share little glimpses of peace, or can contribute to violence toward ourselves, violence towards others. So so that that was a deepening realization of what the invitation of peace meant. It's a real Gospel call, right? We're ever deepening to peace, where Ignatian spirituality comes into play again. I went to, as I said, I went to a Jesuit university, went to a Jesuit Parish, and I work for the for the Jesuit conference of Canada, United States. So I'm professionally tied to the Jesuits. I myself am not a Jesuit but, you know, but Ignatian spirituality is really, you know, how I understand kind of our Gospel? Call, and that's all about vocation. It's all about what is God asking us to do? How is God showing us, you know, by in the patterns of our lives what we're called to do. And the more I kind of pray with that, the more I am convinced that if we paid closer attention and really understood, oh, God has given me this unique task to do. God has given me these these gifts. God is asking me to be with these people, and kept our focus on the here and now, rather than wishing, Oh, I'm so jealous of this person because they have such a cool job, or this other person has so much money, or I wish I could do this, even though I wish I could be a doctor, even though blood makes me queasy, right? You know, all these things that aren't necessarily ours to do, there's a lot of UN peace that happens as a result. So I think Ignatian spirituality has a lot to say about that. So that's kind of where those two, those two lines, came together, nation, spirituality and peace. And I can say more, of course, but, but that, I think, for my own, for my own prayer, that was, that was where that desire came out of
Joshua Johnson:peace for you, like, felt like a calling, like, I want to be a part of it, you're drawn to it. But also, then that this Ignatian spirituality, this thing of saying, discerning, what is mine to do? What has God given me to do in this world? And how can I be a person of peace in my everyday life? What God has called me into? And so a lot of times, we're in this place of looking at people and places and things, and saying, I haven't arrived yet. I want to be there. What grounded you? What helped you move from the space of looking at others, saying, I wish I had that, to being grounded saying, Oh, I have what I have, and I could show up in the world as somebody full of peace. Well,
Eric Clayton:I would say that my disclaimer is always every and I think every time I went, you're working on your work, exactly, yeah, exactly, right. And it's funny because every time I read, you know, you're working on a book you read, you read it. You know, so many times you're editing it, you're like, Man, oh, man, this, this makes a lot of sense to me. I wish I was better at it. Oh, I wrote it, you know, it's that kind of thing. You're like, Oh, I'm not there yet. You know, I think about myself as a writer, right? That could be kind of one of the identities I would cling to, and how easy it is to, you know, compare my, you know, book sales to someone else's book sales to say, Oh, someone wrote this great essay, but my essays are good too. Why aren't people talking about them? Or I could write this so much better, but no one is recognizing me, right? It's so easy, even in our own vocation, to compare and to and to kind of wallow in this desolation at the same time missing the people that say, Hey, this thing you wrote was really, really helpful. Hey, this, this, this chapter in the book, really spoke to me. Or, hey, please come talk, you know, give a retreat, or whatever it is, all these other glimpses of constellation. So I, you know, a challenge for me, and I think probably for listeners too, is we always have those, those moments of of God kind of smiling at us, and God delighting in us, and God saying, you're already here, wake up, pay attention, do the good work. You're not meant to, you know, and maybe you're meant to be the, you know, New York Times bestseller, but, but that's not important right now. We're focused on caring for the people in front of you, caring for the people that are already reading your book, whatever it might be. I also, I remember, I'll tell you a story. When I worked at Catholic Relief Services a number of years ago, I would take a shuttle from kind of a northern neighborhood in Baltimore City, downtown to where CRS had its its world headquarters. And on the shuttle every morning would be all of these, these Johns, Hopkins students, so all of these folks you know, training to be or already, doctors, nurses, you know, people of, you know, great skill. And I would sit there and I'd be Wow. I would think myself, like, what a loser you are. Eric. Like, what are you doing? You know, for God's people, you're just, you're just riding down the bus to kind of do some, you know, silly writing on your computer. And these folks are really saving lives. And I would have that thought knowing full well, I don't study science. I don't have any. I took, like, one science elective in undergrad. I don't do well with any sort of, you know, anatomy, you know, biology, physics, chemistry, none of that stuff, both, like, at an intellectual level, and also it makes me queasy. Like, why would God be calling me to do this work? God is calling me to do a different kind of work. And so I can sit around and waste time and abide by wishing I was somebody else, or I could celebrate that God has given these good skills to these good people and and hopefully, you know, is those people are doing good, and then I can go back to my own work. And I think that's that's a real pivot, celebrating the skills of others versus, wallowing in what we think we don't have, instead of missing what we already do.
Joshua Johnson:I think it's going to be helpful for people to kind of define what Ignatian spirituality is. I know that probably a lot of people listening are familiar with it. Some people may not be. So what is Ignatian spirituality, and what did st Ignatius give the world well,
Eric Clayton:briefly, so Ignatian spirituality comes from kind of the life and legacy that the teaching, the spiritual reflections of st Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius of Loyola was a Basque soldier, nobleman, man about court, who lived in late 1400s early 1500s to mid 1500s He in Spain. He had this moment. He was this soldier. He has this moment. We kind of say this the cannonball moment during the Battle of Pamplona. You know, he's a part of a Spanish battalion that's outnumbered, outmaneuvered by the French forces who offer them terms of surrender. Ignatius says, No, we will not surrender. Even though he's not in charge. The battalion convinces all of all the troops, including the commanding officer, to go along with him, and they are completely routed. People are killed. Their lives are lost because of Ignatius pride, his inability to surrender, which is always worth reflecting on. Ignatius himself gets a cannonball to the leg. His legs are broken because he's a noble. He's He's brought back to his home in Loyola. He recovers for 11 months. During that time period, he's given two books, the life of Christ and the life of the saints, and as he's he's there as he's as he's recovering, he realizes that the old stories he used to, he used to find so energizing, because the stories of, you know, courtly romance and chivalric heroics are no longer energizing him like they once did. Now as he thinks about the life of Christ as he thinks about the lives of the saints, he finds himself really moved by this kind of a different kind of heroism. You know, what would it mean to give my life to this greater cause? What would it mean to live a life of humility and poverty and embracing this downward mobility that Christ invites us to? What would that be? He's energized by that. And so right there at the beginning, we see this discernment of spirits. He's recognizing God, inviting him to something else, working in his imagination. He from that, from his recovery. He then goes on. He lays his sword down at the foot of Our Lady of Montserrat, which is a an image of the Blessed Mother in in Spain. And he picks up this, this, you know, this, this title of this role of Pilgrim. And then he spends time in Manresa, which is not far from Montserrat, praying, reflecting, and ultimately having this profound experience of God. From this experience of God, he writes what's known as the spiritual exercises. The Spiritual Exercises is this four week retreat. We can think of it in four spiritual movements that's really inviting folks to mirror what Ignatius did. Ignatius was a master of understanding the human psyche, a human condition. You go on this, this spiritual journey to better understand what God is calling you to do, right that, that Call of vocation. And then Ignatius goes on. He meets other companions. He founds a society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits. And here we are, you know, almost 500 years later. So Ignatian spirituality takes a lot from the spiritual exercises, from the tradition of the Jesuits, and also from this early experience of Ignatius understanding God working in his imagination, God, God calling him to new things, to just to make these choices between various paths in life, and also God being present in all things, that's a key. It's a key thing for Ignatian spirituality. God is present in all things. All Things can reveal to us something of God's desire for us in our lives, Ignatius says, right? The human person is made to praise reverence and serve God, and by that way, then Save, save our souls and work for the good of all people. But how we praise reverence and serve God? That's the key, right? That's the that's the vocational question, and that's what the spiritual exercises, and all these are the tools of Ignatian the Ignatian tradition, are about. So there's a long answer to your question, but I think understanding Ignatius life is really, is really key. And then Ignatius spirituality, there's much more we can talk about there, but, but, but that the idea of God in all things is really, really important. So
Joshua Johnson:because God is in all things, we can be in the world. Talk a little bit how, how Jesuits are a little different than other religious orders that we think of that they may not have an, you know, a typical housing place, but they're out in the world. And how is that different? And why? Why is that important? So
Eric Clayton:when Ignatius and the early kind of Jesuit companions founded the society, it was a moment in church history that was that looks very different, because the idea of having a religious order that didn't live in a monastery, didn't live apart from, from the world was, was very was unheard of. You know, today, today, we might think, oh yeah, we see, we see kind of religious folks all the place, but, but in that time it was, it was a real break with, with the tradition, or an evolution of the tradition, you might say. And so one of the early Jesuits, I believe it was, Jerome Nadal, said something to the effect of kind of the world is our monastery. That's not it's a paraphrase. But that meant that for a Jesuit, and I would say for anybody who kind of you know, is in this Ignatian tradition, we go into the world knowing God is here, knowing that that is in this space, that we pray, that we that we encounter God's desire and dream for us, and we do the work of God. There's a phrase, again, in the Ignatian tradition, being a contemplative in action, that means that prayer is is so, so, so important, because it's how we understand and make sense of God's will in our lives. But then we necessarily are compelled to go out into the world and and have an impact on the common good. How? What is God asking of us, uniquely in this moment? So it's that constant cycle of reflecting on on the needs of the world, reflecting on what God is inviting us to do uniquely, and then going out and doing it. I think
Joshua Johnson:contemplative in action is something that has resonated with almost more than anything. As I've been, you know, working in the world, trying to figure out my life with Christ, my life in the world, this is the thing that's really stuck with. Me. I was talking to my wife last night and talking about, about you, I'm gonna interview you, talk about Ignatian spirituality, and we've been teaching some mission courses on the history of mission. And she's like, Hey, I don't know where we would be without the Jesuits, like they were. They were in the world when nobody else was in the world. It was the Jesuits that really kept it going when it felt like there was a moment of silence and quiet that we're out in the world. I think the key is contemplative, like you're here, you're finding peace in yourself, so that you could find peace in the world. What is that balance? How do we start? So take us into a moment. Say, maybe in the this four week, Ignatius exercises, the spiritual exercises. How do we start to find that peace within ourselves, so that we can be peace builders, peacemakers within the world? Yeah,
Eric Clayton:I think a lot of it really, at least for me, in my own kind of prayer life, right? It comes from finding what God has been up to in my life, right? And detecting those patterns. How has God already been at work in my life? Again, in the Ignatian tradition, we talk about the graced history, looking at our history with God, and realizing God is already working. I was already doing stuff. We may not make sense of it for years on end, but God has always been there. And so in the first week of the exercises, one of the key themes is right, to really look clearly at the world and to say, No, things are not quite right here. There's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of disorders, a lot of chaos, there's a lot of need. Yeah, I know. I don't, I don't want to, no spoiler. I don't spoil those for you, but, but things are, things are a little bit of a mess, you know, but you see things as they are plainly, right? And then you see God inviting you all the same, and God saying, hey, guess what? I want you to I want you to not be stuck in this, this, this broken status quo. In fact, I want you to step out and to help to change it, help to make it better, right? So I think to do that come there's a lot of things that has to have to happen. I think we have to it. Find our own vocation, right? What is it God's asking us to do? What are we good at? What brings us that peace? And then how can we offer it to others? Because we can never, you know, one of the things you know in the book is you reflect on peace as like an academic concept, right? And this is, this is gonna be obvious when I say it, but conflict only takes one person. Just takes one, one guy or girl, whatever, to to, you know, start a war, and then everything crumbles. But it takes every single party involved to build peace, right? And so, you know, you think about that, if we all have our own unique gifts, we all have our unique desires and our own kind of contribution to peace, then we all better be up and about the work, because it takes all of us to build this peace, to build up God's dream of peace in the world, and to go out and do it. So I think, as we're thinking about the the exercises, you know that we begin in chaos, which just means we begin by looking at the status quo that is as far from what we hope for. And then we begin to say, Well, what comes next? And and in the flow of the exercises, the second week and the second movement is this invitation to accompany Jesus, as Jesus is about his mission. And then we and we begin to see, then what do we see in that mission? We see Jesus working wonders. We see Jesus healing and upsetting the status quo, because suddenly everybody belongs, everybody matters. Everybody is worthy of a touch of comfort and compassion. And we're walking with Jesus as he does this. One of the things I hope for this book is, is it's, it does parallel the exercises it goes it goes through. So you could, you could read it as an introduction to the exercises. You could read it while you're making that retreat with a director. And I hope that it offers a little bit of, you know, new insight as as folks are doing that. Two weeks
Joshua Johnson:ago, my wife went through a week of guided prayer with somebody, and they did an imaginative prayer exercise, and then reflection every day, and then the director that was walking with her would give her a new passage and a passage as as she was reflecting on what was going on In this what's a good passage for this imaginative prayer, and it's pretty transformative during that time. It's like, take me into some what that is as an exercise, and how maybe in in your own life, how that has has helped you, as you've encountered Jesus in your imagination and put yourself in the story,
Eric Clayton:there's two gospel passages that were really important to my own kind of faith journey. One being kind of Jesus being baptized, right? And God arriving and saying, You are the beloved. You are my beloved. And another, being the parable of the prodigal son. You know, you see common kind of common themes, right? Again, that embrace, like, hey, like your matter, you know, set aside the shame you're good, right? So you have common themes in those. The one that I think is probably easiest in some ways, and I do write about this in the book, is the, is the Jesus at the at the being baptized at the Jordan River. You know the idea there my own spiritual director. You know, long ago he said, he said, you know, did you know God delights in you? Do you know God? You know you're the beloved of God. And you know. I didn't, you know, I really didn't as a, this is under I was, this is I was an undergraduate then. But I think there's a lot of people still, and even now, like you have to practice that. Oh yeah, God delights in me. Oh my goodness, God lights in me. That's, that's not always easy to remember, or to or to live out of and so that's, that's why you take this, this abstract truth, and you put yourself in the scene. And so if I were going to walk in the scene of the baptism of Jesus, right? In the Ignatian tradition, you would, you would put yourself in and you would say, Okay, who am I in this scene? Maybe I'm Jesus, you know, and I think that's probably the best character to be in this particular Gospel passage. But regardless of what the passage is, am I a character who's named Am I maybe a new character I'm imagining kind of on the sidelines, and now, once I'm in the scene, I kind of see it, right? I assemble the scene in my mind, you know, what do I feel? Do I feel this? The sand kind of grating on my skin? Is it hot out? The sun is burning my neck? What do I smell? You know? Is that the smell of the river? Is it the smell of my passing? But a meat stand like, what is it? What am I seeing? Right? You're really engaging the senses. Because, again, right, that initial piece of Ignatius story, the imagination is key, you know, for if we're doing the story of the baptism, right, you know, what does it feel like to have John Baptist put his hand on my head and push me under the water and then pull me back up? Right, that moment of silence, and then that moment of light, and then God says to me, Eric, you are my beloved. I am well, pleased with you, right? What does that feel like? And so for you to do that, or your wife or anyone to do that in their prayer, what does that mean for God to say that? And what I would hope, right? I think, I think that one of the hopes of that prayer would be, what does it unlock? What does it mean when suddenly we look at our life and say, Oh, my goodness, I was I'm not just the beloved of God. Now, I've always been the beloved of God. Does that change what it means to look at my life? That doesn't mean it removes hard times or suffering or or we don't Bandy over challenges, right? But we find that God is there with us, right? Jesus, Jesus weeps with us. God cries out with us, right? There's that. There's a companionship of God in even hard moments, because God loves us, what do we do with those we love? We sit with them. We let them cry on our shoulder. We cry with them, right? It just, it changes how we how we understand ourselves in relationship with God. And that's just one scripture passage, right? We and we can go on and on, but I won't. I
Joshua Johnson:think that changes everything. If we sit with the belovedness like we are the beloved. I think that that's a different posture in the world than we often have. I think most people are often striving to achieve something so they could get approval from others. But if you start from that position, that changes the way that you enter into the world, that changes the way you see yourself, that changes the way that you actually do have some peace in the world. It's pretty incredible. You've done this exercise. But when did it actually seep into your life that you are beloved, and how did that change you? I don't know
Eric Clayton:if it's like a one time thing. I think it's a constant unfurling you're absolutely right. Like, if we are beloved. It's like if you're, you know, like with, with, again, with a beloved of in your own life, right? Who is, who is the beloved in your life? You know, it could be friends, could be family, could be spouses, could be children. There's a sense of, no matter whatness In the love, right, that you're get your giving. And so it does bring, as you said, that peace I'm doing okay? I can't. I always have this relationship. It affirms me, not because of what I'm doing because of who I am, right? It sounds like cliches and trite, you know, sound bites, but it's true. So, I mean, you know, I was, I was a sophomore, sophomore, junior in college, right? When I first had this introduced to me by my spiritual director at the time. It was very profound. It was, it was a key moment in my life. Really, kind of turned me. I say, oh, you know what? This, this spiritual stuff, this prayer life really matters. Spending time in prayer really matters. There's a lot of consolation to come from it, because it means that God is active in my world, right? It's, it's, it's, God isn't just on the page or at a distance, but, but again, God isn't all things. So all things are, are revealing that delight of God. Now, I was a junior in college, that was, that was, you know, however, many years ago. A lot has happened since then, right? So every time you return to those, those scripture stories, every time you return, you put yourself back in the scene. You hear that, that sense of belovedness. You bring it into the moment. Oh, wow, I'm beloved boy. I should make sure I'm really mindful of how I treat my kids. Oh, I'm a beloved Wow. Who in the headlines needs, me to really kind of think, offer a prayer for them, or think more more intentionally about how I'm living my life, right? It brings you into dialog with the moment. And I think that's again, that's like, that's why, that's why we return to Scripture, right? Again and again. We're never surprised by the ending. It's because we were bringing our lived experience through the story of Scripture, back into our lived experience and saying, Well, what is God doing now through me, which goes back to what we're saying, right? It's that sense of, I am enough, and yet God is still pulling something out of me. What is it in this moment, you're
Joshua Johnson:a storyteller. You know how to tell stories, but in these exercises, it feels like a lot of it's narrative based. There's. The story of of Scripture and the stories of the Gospels. There's also, like, the story of your own life, and like we're discerning how we show up and what our story is. A lot of people live in not a well told story, like an ugly story. They live in a story where they're telling themselves that, hey, I'm I'm writing this story, and it sucks, like it's just not a great story. What? How does this help us live into a better story and think about our lives as as story, as God interacting with us as you know, where are the characters in it? What? How does story play into all of this, and how do we tell better stories to ourselves and the world? Yeah,
Eric Clayton:that's a great question. I am convinced. And this isn't my thought. This is a thought of someone else, like a bunch of other people I've just kind of amassed in my mind. But I do think, like one of our one of the solutions to our to our current day, is we need to tell larger stories, and we've lost our shared stories, and we have so many small stories, right? And if we're the only character in our small story, then, like, What a sad story that is. So how are we telling larger stories, right? And that's the role of religion. That's the role of movies, like, right? Like, you know, like, I always think of, you know, I assume, I don't know. I never really had a water cooler. But, like, right, when you're around, like, the proverbial water cooler, and a person's like, Hey, did you see this movie? Did you read this book? Have you played this video game? It's not just like, idle talk. It's because you actually a story meant something to you, and you want to bring someone else into it, right? You want to, you want to share it with them. And I think there's a lot of power in that. And so we shouldn't dismiss your movies and books and things as trivial. I think God is at work in those that's a, that's a God moment, right? These bigger stories. And I think so. What's your question? You know, how can we tell better stories, or think differently about our own stories? I go back to that idea of grace history, which, which is, again, this, this concept, there's a, there was a Canadian Jesuit named John English, and he talks about grace history as this, as this review of our story in the in the company of an affirming and loving God, right? God affirming us in the review of our story. God not, not necessarily affirming all we've done. You know, certainly we've made mistakes, certainly, you know, things have happened to us that are terrible and traumatic. God isn't affirming of those things. God is affirming of our work, going back through our story and trying to understand it, make sense of it, bring it to the light, right? I always like the image of kind of holding up the details of our story like a gemstone and holding it up to the light and looking at the different facets, right? What? What? What? What do we see differently as we move it around in the light. And then once we realize that our story matters, right? Once we say, oh my gosh, God, has been at work in the even the most mundane details of our stories, then we look to other people and say, oh, there's a lot of other people in this world, and I, and we believe remain the image and likeness of God. I bet their story is also full of little details that point to profound truths about our existence. There's a wonderful quote from CS Lewis and the four loves that I always kind of Bumble about here, but something to the effect of he's talking about the love of friendship, right? Agape, ask the Agape one, right? Not Eros agape, and he looks right. The whole idea is the romantic love. You're looking into the eye of Your Beloved, but the love of friendship is you're looking out over a VISTA, and you are sitting next to somebody, and you may be looking at the same thing, but it's not until you name it, until you say, specifically, oh my gosh. Do you see that? Like Scooby, doo van down there, that the person next to you can say, oh, what you too. I thought I was the only one who saw that. And that's the way we our stories are. That's the way it comes. That's what we do in our in our lives. By sharing the specificity of our lives with vulnerability in community, we can build that sense of what you too. I thought I was the only one that. And then we begin to see how, though our stories are different, we see similar things. They and they can point to common truths, and we build out that that shared, that shared sense of community, I think, I mean, I think that's, there's many ways think about storytelling, but that's, that's the one that I've been kind of turning over in my head lately. Stories
Joshua Johnson:are not just our own, that they're connected with one another and each other, that they're communal stories. And I think because we're in a moment where we're hearing stories of the world, we're bombarded with so many different stories that don't help us be people of peace, it helps us be be people of anxiety or a fear, anger, all of those, those negative emotions that come up because we're bombarded with really negative stories constantly. So what is the process do you think, to to share our story and others, to have this larger story, to connect it to a story of peace, rather than fear and anger and betrayal and revenge, but actually the story of peace. What does that look like when we're bombarded with negative stories constantly? How do we do that with each other? I
Eric Clayton:wish I knew. No. I mean, you know, it's so easy, and I do this all the time. That's why I know how easy it is to just get sucked into the headlines and to. Yeah. And to, you know, listen to one podcast after the next. That's just telling you how terrible everything is and and it's, you know, you got to be informed. That's important thing too. But I think you have to have that, that kind of like, beloved community in your own in your own life, like, you know, it could be the people in your family, people you live with. It could be that wider sense of, you know, who's in your neighborhood. But I think there's a, there's a need to start locally and intimately. Like, who are your who are the people that belong to you here? I think that's where you begin to share that story. I think also, you know, I, I think a lot like as a writer, right? And I write a number of places, and I have things come out every week, you know? So, so there's sometimes it feels like I got to really mind the depths here, like, what, what am I going to say this week? There's a real temptation to just share whatever and in that, and that could really mean like, Oh, I'm just going to perpetuate this sad, the doom and gloom, the chaos. That's not helpful, right? We have to always think with the words we say, whether we're saying them, we're putting them out on page, or whatever we're doing, we have to say, what's good for God's people here, what is, what is going to build up? People build up a sense of comfort, not lie. We're not trying to lie or pretend or or ignore, but, but from where I sit, me, I'm not a journalist, I'm not a I'm not a you know, political reporter. I'm not a you know, on the front lines of anything, right? But so, so what is important for me to say, to offer to the world that's going to be useful, and how can I do that in a way that I that is keeping in mind who's receiving this, right? Who is the audience? And again, that sounds very like marketing jargon, but it's true, right? I want to, I'm trying to offer something as gift to somebody else for their own spiritual nourishment. You know, it just kind of carry them along the way a little bit. So, you know, I think, I think that's, I think always keeping our eyes, you know, on the horizon of hope. How are we pushing people in that direction or not pushing? We never push. But walking with people in that direction is important. And I'll say one more thing. I was struck. I was listening to a podcast not too long ago, and someone was saying, you know, the road to Emmaus, how long did Jesus walk in the wrong direction with with his friends? And I was really struck me. I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah, that's right. And so what does that mean for us? It doesn't mean we just blindly walk in the wrong direction forever, but there, there is a sense of, we know we're not always in the right direction, both of our own decision making and just the world, you know, put putting its needs on us. And yet, even out of that walking in the wrong direction, we can still be present intimately to people who are alongside us.
Joshua Johnson:We have to really define peace. Some people think that peace can be weakness in this world, because there's so much war that we actually have to be like have righteous violence to combat it. But peace is is really it's really strong. Jesus Himself is peace. He's the prince of peace. He is peace, and he's not weak. I've never known Jesus as weak, but he was also non violent. What does peace as strength look like? And so help us and define this so we're not just weaklings in the world, but peace gives us strength in the world to move a different direction. Yeah,
Eric Clayton:I'm going to read this is a definition that I use at the very beginning of the book, and it comes from from John Deere, who is a Catholic priest and peace activist. He writes, peace begins within each of us. It is a process of repeatedly showing mercy to ourselves, forgiving ourselves, befriending ourselves, accepting ourselves and loving ourselves. As we learn to appreciate ourselves and accept God's gift of peace, we begin to radiate peace and love to others. Now again, that's that's starting within, but that radiating of love to others is really important, right? And I don't, I don't think any of us encounter somebody who's radiating love and says, what a weakling, you know? What, what a jerk. I think, I think we, I think we see in that person a certain kind of strength. It's a disarming strength. It's unsettling because it's, it's not, it's, it is, I think standing against what the world often says is important, and this is, this is key. This is a key meditation in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, the two standards, right? Ignatius sets. He sees two directions that we can go. We can stand under this, under the standard of the enemy, or the standard of Christ. Now, the standard of the enemy is marked by by an unhealthy amount of attachment to riches and wealth, this desire and need for honors and an overweening kind of bloated sense of pride, the standard of Christ is marked by poverty, rejection, humility, right? This, this downward mobility. Now what happens? And again, you hear that, you say, Boy, I don't want that Christ. One sounds lousy. I don't want that one. And yet, what happens, right? If I'm attached, if I'm attached to riches, to honors and to pride, there's no end. There's no and I always want more. I always want more riches. I always want I'm caught up in that. It's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a struggle that I will never win. There I never have enough, and there's always someone behind me on the ladder, who's who's so much closer. To overtaking me. I got to keep scrambling up, right? It's isolating. It abhors a community because it necessitates competition. Oh, I'm good now, because I have more than you, but boy, oh boy, if you catch up to me, we're not going to be good anymore. It's violent. It's necessarily a violent way of living. On the other hand, and I'm not saying I'm not saying, I'm not saying money is bad. I'm not saying an honor is bad. I'm not saying having pride in your work is bad. That's not what I'm saying. That's why I use those adjectives, because, because it becomes your identity, it poisons you. The other side, that direction leads us to humility. It's disarming, because, because we necessarily need other people, right? We recognize we are necessarily limited. We need community. We can't go it alone. And so the community expands. And in that exercise, in the meditation, Ignatius notes that Jesus calls us friends, right? The enemy calls us we're foot soldiers, but Jesus calls us friends. I know this is a long answer to your question of defined peace, but the imagery is so important, right? Because it's a trajectory of our life. Every decision we make, we can run through this, this district, this juxtaposition. Am I deciding this because I need money, I need honors, I need to be be made to feel proud, proud. Or am I my letting go and say, You know what? I don't need those things. You know what's what's for the good of all people? Right? A direction towards community. Now peace. So what about this? Is peace weakness? Well, I, and I'm no hero of non violence, you know, I think it's very scary, right? It's very scary thing to to to embrace, and I write pretty honestly about that in the book. But our heroes of non violence, as we look at the world and look at our kind of, our tradition here their action, the action of putting yourself before kind of the tools of empire, right? The, you know, it reveals the system around us is held up. Powers are held up, necessarily, by violence, right? We can't. It's not dialog, it's not it's not community, it's this, you do what I say, or ultimately, I got to remove you from the picture, right? And that's what these, tools of non violence will ultimately, you know, pull, like pulling poison from a, from from a, from a body, right from a wound. It reveals it. And I think that realizes that, then you know it, you know the non violent person is, is, is ready to give their life. We see that in Jesus, right? That's what Jesus does on the cross. But it reveals the, the, you know, the whole structure is built on sand, and what, what stands that community of love, that community that that that is, is, is cares for one another. And hopefully everyone realizes, hey, I want to be in that. I want to be in the standard of Christ. I want to be part of the team that is that is looking out for each other, and not the team that is ready to kind of stab you in the back as soon as things go south. How's that? How's that for a definition,
Joshua Johnson:but that non violence. So this is what I mean. I've been contemplating this a long time. I just, I just never understand how non violence gets people so angry and like and and I what you just said as it pulls the poison out of the blood, I think is so helpful for me. Like, oh, they're, they're poisons like violence. Poisons people going after, after riches, poisons people like following the way of the world. Poisons people and non violence is an antidote to that, and the world hates it. Jesus died because of it. Martin Luther King Jr died because of it. Like you, right? We could go example after example. Yeah, people dying from it, but it's so good, it exposes the system for what it actually is. Yeah, I
Eric Clayton:think this. I think the silly example I give in the book is, is like a library, you know, if you're, if you're, if you're too loud in the library, what happens? The librarian says to be quiet, and then if you keep doing it, what happens? Well, the librarian, you know, probably, you know, calls somebody to come and remove you. Well, if you still you know what happens? Eventually it escalates. Right? You get put in prison. You know you're get threatened in different ways, because, because the system is in some ways held up by this sense of violence. It's a silly example. And again, I am no hero of non violence. I find, even in myself, that that anger sometimes that responds because, you know, we're conditioned to not want this stuff, right? I think there's you said, What's think about definitions of peace. We often think of peace as simply the absence of violence. Like, you know, if no one's shooting at each other, then we must have a state of peace. That's not, right? Peace. There's all sorts of kinds of violence. We think we've heard of structural violence, of course, but I think of cultural violence, right? There's this sense of, what are those, those those things that are considered common sense, that are actually does harm to me, or actually does harm to to other people, right? Like, oh, like, of course, like, that person would never get a better job, because, you know, whatever, whatever, that that's a form of cultural violence, right? And I probably could think of a better example, but, but I wonder if that's not in part, what you're describing, that anger that people feel towards non violence. Because we're conditioned to say, well, of course we would. We would lead with the with the point of our guns. Of course we would. Why would we not do that? Because cultural violence that we've, we've, we've embraced unknowingly, you know, and it's, listen, it's hard. It's not, it's not easy. None of this is easy stuff, and I'm not an expert, but I think there's a lot to pray about here, because ultimately we have to, we have to take it into our own lives, into our own contexts, and live it here, even just the words we say to describe ourselves. You know, how often do I, you know, I spill, I spill something idiot. That's not nice. That's a little bit of violence, right? Or, or if I say, oh, Eric, I'm so anxious today. I hate this part of me. That's violence that, that, that's me trying to cut out a part of me, right? So, so there's, there's a lot of ways to to practice this in a very intimate context. We don't have to go and, you know, to the front lines of anything. We can just sit in our rooms and think, Boy, where am I not cultivating this sense of non violence, and where have I given into some sort of cultural, cultural sense that it's okay to do, to do it this way. I
Joshua Johnson:really want to see this be what is in the world, is a real sense of peace, right? I want to see peace building in the world. And it's not weak. It is. It is strong. It starts with us that we have to cultivate a sense of peace within ourselves to get rid of the violence in ourselves. How does that move? How does this help us? These these exercises help us move from a place of, we're doing the work for ourselves, and we're getting rid of the violence, into a place of, then building a community that does that work together, into a place then a wider neighborhoods and communities and cities actually then reflect that piece. What is the move of of these exercises that can help us see this in the world? But it starts with us? Well, first,
Eric Clayton:everyone buys a copy of my book. And no, I think, I mean, it's an essential question, right? And I think it's interesting, because one of the one of the key hopes of anyone who does the Spiritual Exercises of saying Ignatius is this sense that we're profoundly changed in the world. But you have to find that balance there. There is that balance between my own personal life of prayer and then what I my values in action. I think it comes down to, you know, the value of solidarity, right? A virtue of it's one of the principles of Catholic social teaching. I think it necessarily begins within us, this idea of really having a firm and and loving disposition towards people in completely different contexts of ours, you know, how can we empathize in that way? How can we imagine ourselves living these other, other lives? You know, I'm a, I'm a pretty, you know, well off guy living in Maryland, right? You know, a lot of problems aren't mine, and yet it is my duty as as part of the body of Christ. Right, uh, to choose to think about who are those who are on the margins, who are most vulnerable, um, who, who are being demonized by society. Before I can, I can care about those people, I have to put myself in their shoes and say, Well, why? Why is this happening? What? What is, what is the what is the story? Right? Go back to what you said you said earlier, what is the larger story we're not telling? That's, that's solidarity. Is this? It's this firm commitment. And then, and then, from that, from that, say, of, okay, now I can better understand their stories and how it connects with my story. And now, what does that mean? How do I spend my money accordingly? What do I do in my free time? You know? How do I teach my children? Right? These are, these are all things. What are the what are the civic organizations I'm a part of? You know? What do I do in my church context? All these things? I think that's where it begins. You know, I there's two chapters at the end of this book that I write that kind of go, that try to grapple with this idea of, of, what do we do after the exercises, right? That this is, this is a pretty big question in Ignatian tradition, and one of them is, is this one? One of my answers, one of my suggestions is creativity, right? How are we fostering in ourselves a spirit of creativity? Not because we all need to go out and paint, although that's yours to do, fantastic, but because a spirit of creativity allows us to hold kind of competing ideas paradoxes in our mind and not immediately need to rationalize them. We can say, You know what? There is a lot going on here, and I, I'm going to sit with it and allow it to percolate, much as Ignatius does, right, in those 11 months. And I'm going to allow there to be a sense of wandering in my in my discernment, in my in my prayer, you know, and allow God to to dream bigger than I might be already prepared to dream, right? That's what the creative action is. Is about assembling something new out of the raw material we already have, right? It's that newness we need. So how do we how do we do that? And then forgiveness? I think I have a chapter on their own forgiveness at the end, and that's so it's very hard to forgive people nowadays, right? It's very hard to empathize. How do we see ourselves in that situation? Yeah, I don't know. Those might be lame answers. But that's, that's kind of, I think those like little we're working muscles, we're trying to we're trying to build up muscles that can get us there, and then when we find ourselves with our friends, with our family, in conversation, at the at these key pivotal moments where we're making decisions, then we might instinctively move for peace, rather than, you know, not. Realize, kind of all the all the chaos that's going on in the world that goes back to that first week of exercises. We have to see clearly the injustice and the violence that is that is here in the system, so that we can begin to act differently. The
Joshua Johnson:story, for some reason, has been with me since the very beginning of our conversation, and so I think I need to share it is just briefly we were hanging out with this refugee family, the woman Miriam, I'm gonna call her Miriam. She got pregnant. She now has nine mouths to feed. If she has birth to this baby, they're, you know, they're war refugees. They have no money. They have nothing and she's, she's scared, she's worried. One day, she asked my wife, Meredith to go with her to Catholic Relief office and say, Hey, can I register for some aid and some different things? So Meredith went with her, and at the very beginning, what she what this woman, Miriam, said, is, hey, I don't know how I'm going to feed this baby. I, you know, jumped off of my bed and landed on my belly to try and abort my baby, to get rid of my baby. And so she's asking this Catholic Relief Services to pay for an abortion for her, which I found hilarious, but she right there, has so much violence within herself that so much like tension is, am I going to be okay? Is our family going to be okay? Is this baby going to be okay? Am I going to be loved? And as they said, No. And we went home with her, we started walking through stories of Jesus, and she started to find some some hope that Jesus is with her, that there is some peace within her, and as we walk with her, she found forgiveness for herself, for God. She tried, needed to forgive God for having her in this position. So she had this baby, and my wife was there, and they named him, him glory. Named him meshed as because it reminded her of the story of Jesus's birth, it reminded her of Jesus and the peace that he gave. And I don't know it's just a transition from a place of like fear and anger and violence and just being absolutely scared as refugee into a place of finding the stories of Jesus compelling, knowing that he is with her and given her hope, and then reframing a new story, the story of, hey, the glory of God is going to be with us at all times, and we're going to live a different story. I don't know. I just found that a little piece of like, Hey, this is kind of what it looks like of moving into a new, new story, a new place finding peace, where there was an absence of peace before. Yeah, and
Eric Clayton:I love what you say too, about, like, you name, all those things of fear and the anxiety and the and probably just the weariness and and what does Jesus do with those? I don't think Jesus chases those out. I think Jesus comes in and gives them a hug, right? I think Jesus. I think Jesus. He wants us to hug these things. Those are part of us, right? It's, it's and we, I think we waste time by trying to chase, Chase parts of us away. And when we should be giving them, we should be embracing them and saying, hey, you know what you've you're here for a reason, but I don't need to be afraid right now. Or you're here. You've done good, good in the past, but I don't need to be anxious right now. You know how, but you know, how can we again, realize that we're the beloved and that God delights in us, and that, you know, even in those, those hard moments, you know, I think we're also Jesus weeps. I think Jesus, I guess one of my the strongest parts of the in Scripture, right, was saying, and Jesus wept. I think that's okay too. I think that's, that's okay too. No, I think it's a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that
Joshua Johnson:there's been so many times where we would just sit with people and just say, hey, Jesus wept, yeah, and he's weeping with you right now. And just sit with people like because there's I mean this. What do you do with war refugees like you? You sit in the pain and the grief and the sorrow, and Jesus does that as well with us. One
Eric Clayton:of the things I've been thinking about is the idea of compassionate listening and compassionate listening not as a I mean, like, I think it's taken me how many years of marriage to realize this, right? But like, not, it's not about it's listening. Isn't about, like, Oh, let me fix your problem. Like, you tell me I'm gonna fix it, and then we'll be off the races. But instead recognizing that we're all suffering, we're all hurting, and that compassionate listening is about, how can I be with this person as they need to find some healing and some relief from that suffering, and how can my listening help to provide the space for that relief, rather than All right? Here it is. Here's the solution, you know, and and that that very recently, that's been in my prayer, and I was like, Oh, this is actually really important for me. You had to practice. This is an important thing for me to practice. I better, I better pay attention to that. But I think it sounds like you've, you've been doing that for a long time. So not,
Joshua Johnson:not great at times, but sometimes I've been doing it all right. Just like, yeah, exactly, exactly. A couple questions. Has been a fantastic conversation. I've absolutely loved talking with you. It has been so fun. But I have a couple questions at the end. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give? Oh,
Eric Clayton:stay the course. Like, like, it's like all of your weird, disparate interests are going to come together into your own vocation. So don't, don't, don't let any of those interests away, go away.
Joshua Johnson:Anything you've been reading or watching lately, you could recommend I just
Eric Clayton:read Ursula Quinn's changing planes, which essentially is a collection of, like, mini world building exercises she just has, I think she I don't know a lot about her. I know I like her writing, but it feels like many spiritual world building experiences, where each is like, maybe like maybe, like, 15 chapters loosely held together by like, a common framing device. But they, they each are just this, what if we exaggerated one kind of piece of humanity and put it into a different world and then kind of just, you know, saw what happened. It was really helpful. Was really powerful. It was a fun, fun read. Just watch the Legend of Korra. I don't know if you, if you're an avatar guy, but, um, I don't know if I, I loved it. I don't know if that's a, it's a kids show. I don't know if it's worth recommending. I'm
Joshua Johnson:sure it is. I mean, I've only heard good things the legend of Cora, so
Unknown:I'm excited for the next one. Yeah, I'm all in. Is there
Joshua Johnson:a movie that you could think of that like kind of embodies what we've been talking about today that we could you could recommend?
Eric Clayton:Can I give you a scene, and it's total, it's a total plug for my other my other book, The Star Wars, Nick nation's spirituality book, my life with the Jedi spirituality of Star Wars, but, but I love it in the last Jedi. If you seen last Jedi, you Star Wars guy? Yeah, I love the last Jedi. Love last Jedi. And so what happens? Right? They think the answer is violence. They think the answer is we have to completely wipe out the first order. And Luke, who himself, has gone on this, this kind of spiritual journey, and has to have his own discoveries. What does he do? He it's not, it's not we have to, you know, roll over and play dead. And it's not we have to completely annihilate. He shows up and and he and he fights Kylo Ren. He defeats Kylo Ren, but he's never, actually, there's never actually a threat of violence. I think that scene, that final duel, there's a lot to think about, and what does that mean for our own work of peace and our own commitment to finding a third way? Because that was surprising right in the movie, and people didn't like it, necessarily. I did.
Joshua Johnson:I wonder. Why do you think that that's why people didn't like it? Is it because it actually like, goes against what the world thinks is like, what revenge needs to look like.
Eric Clayton:I mean, maybe right. Because, I mean, we had a pretty clear image of revenge in the in like, the ninth one then followed up with like, nope, nope. Turns out we've got to beat them all up well. And I think the other thing that was really I loved about the last Jedi is I love because I also love Picard, and if you're a Star Trek guy, but I love Picard because I like this idea of an older character, a hero we revisit years later, looking back at their legacy and realizing how many mistakes they made and how and how perhaps they have to re examine what they've done, and yet they still have to rise to the needs of the moment. I just, I love that kind of back and forth. And I think, again, I like what Luke did. So I think people didn't like that. I think they wanted Luke to be a perfect character from beginning to end, which is, which is just not how characters go. And then the fact that Luke, right, it's important that Luke gives himself totally to that work, right? It literally kills him. It is, it is the non violent path he so I think that's, that's really important, Picard, he doesn't die in the end. Spoiler alert, but, but that was also another, another great show, which is not, not your question,
Joshua Johnson:no, that's, that's fantastic. It makes me want to go watch the last Jedi again. But so good. I also love Ryan Johnson. I think Ryan Johnson's amazing writer, director, and so he's so much fun, so he's good anyways, agreed, uh, how can people go out, get finding peace here and now, which is a fantastic book. I really do hope people go out and read. This is one of my favorite reads that I've had in a while. You're an excellent writer, and these exercises can change your life, like they they really can, and they could bring about a place of peace that is desperately needed now. So I really do highly, highly recommend this book. So how can people get this book? And is there anywhere else you'd like to point people to finding
Eric Clayton:peace here? Now have nations, spirituality, at least it's healing, wholeness available may 6. Anywhere you get books, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, local bookstore, that's it's anywhere. The publisher is Brazos press. My website is Eric Clayton rights.com I have a weekly sub stack you can find there. And I also write, have a weekly newsletter I do for the Jesuit conference. I have some other books too. My life with a Jedi spirituality of Star Wars, which, if you liked my take on the last Jedi, you're gonna love that book. And then I have a whole book on Ignatian spirituality and storytelling called cannonball moments, telling your story, deepening your faith. So Ignatius Bridgeway, I really only have the one trick, so that's that's it.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. It's a great trick. It's a really good trick. I hope so. Thank you, Eric, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for diving deep into your own story. Into Ignatian spirituality, into peace, into figuring out, hey, is there a better way and a new way that we could live in a subversive way that brings about the peace that we so desperately seek and need? So thank you. It was a fantastic conversation. Love talking to you. Wish we could do it more often. It was good. Happy to come.
Eric Clayton:Happy to come back. Thank you. It was a lot of fun.
Joshua Johnson:All right, thanks, Eric, you.
