Shifting Culture
On Shifting Culture we have conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Hosted by Joshua Johnson, this podcast features long-form conversations with authors, theologians, artists, and cultural thinkers to trace how embodied love, courage, and creative faithfulness offer a culture of real healing and hope.
Shifting Culture
Ep. 389 Fr. James Martin Returns - Work in Progress
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In this episode, I talk with Father James Martin about his new memoir Work in Progress and the ways our ordinary jobs shape who we become. We explore summer work, vocation, grief, perseverance, and how faith is formed not just in churches, but in kitchens, factories, offices, and everyday life. Jim reflects on loss, discernment, and the slow work of becoming human, and together we talk about where God shows up in suffering, in work we enjoy, and in work we endure. This conversation is an invitation to look back on your own story, pay attention to the unfinished edges, and notice how grace has been present all along.
The Rev. James Martin, S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author and editor at large at America, the national Catholic magazine. Martin was born in Plymouth Meeting, PA. He attended Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School. He received his Bachelor's Degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. He worked in corporate finance for General Electric for six years before leaving and joining the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits). Martin was novitiate in Boston where he worked with seriously ill at a hospital in Cambridge. He also worked with hospice patients at the Missionaries of Charity in Kingston, Jamaica and at a school for poor boys, Nativity Mission School, in New York City. He was ordained a Catholic priest in June 1999 in Chestnut Hill, Ma. On Nov. 1, 2009, he pronounced his final vows as a "fully professed" Jesuit in New York City. Martin is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller, "Jesus: A Pilgrimage".
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Their lives too, are suffused with grace, and that if they cast their minds back to their childhood, even if it was a difficult childhood, not perfect. Mine wasn't perfect. To be able to see signs of God's grace there, and to know that those moments, even the crazy ones and the funny ones and the ones you're embarrassed about, there are a lot of those in the book, help to make you the person who you are thanks to God's grace.
Joshua Johnson: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, have you ever looked back on your old summer jobs? Do you think of them as sacred or just things we did to pay the rent, survive summer or get through a season like busboy, dishwasher factory worker, movie theater Usher, jobs we've mostly forgotten or maybe laugh about now. But what if those jobs mattered more than we think? In this episode, I'm joined once again, by Father James Martin to talk about his new memoir, work in progress. It's a book about work, yes, but more than that, it's about vocation becoming and the slow, often hidden ways God shows up in ordinary life. We talk about summer jobs and spiritual formation, grief and perseverance, discernment and desire, and how faith gets shaped, not just in churches, but in kitchens, factories, offices and classrooms. This conversation is about paying attention to where God has been, where God might be now, and how our lives, even in their messiness and unfinished edges, are still held together by grace, because none of us are finished. We're all still becoming we're all works in progress. So join us. Here is my conversation with Father James Martin. Father Martin, welcome back to shifting culture. Excited to have you back on my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. I'm excited to talk about work in progress, your new book, your new memoir, as you walk through the stages of your life and your jobs that you had, summer jobs that you had growing up and all the way through into the time you decided to become a priest and a Jesuit, I like the title work in progress, because it's, you know, a play on words. You yourself are a work in progress, and you progress through the memoir, through your work. Why did you want to start with talking about your work?
Unknown:Well, first of all, thanks again for having me on. I had all these summer jobs growing up in the 70s, 70s and 80s. I talk a little bit about the 60s. I'm 65 and they were kind of crazy, busboy, caddy, dishwasher, waiter, some of them were left out of the title, lawn mower, factory worker, bank teller. And I had been telling some of these stories of kind of growing up for a while, and people thought they were funny, so I started to write them down, just for the heck of it. My last book was on Lazarus, which was pretty serious, and I was trying to do something that was just kind of fun. And then my publisher suggested, you know, if you really focus this on work in general, and take it up through your time as General Electric, as a as an executive or a young executive, and then move it into the Jesuits, entering the priesthood. It could be kind of a vocation story, and that was the overlay that really helped me so, so the book is really, I think, you know, almost in two parts, these funny stories of, you know, crazy summer jobs that we've all had, and then moving into, you know, basically discovering God. So it wasn't until after I the book came out that I realized that it's about finding work and finding God. Those are the kind of two parts of the book
Joshua Johnson:related to a lot of it. You know, I grew up, I worked in a movie theater, mowing lawns. You know, always having summer jobs. You write in your book that everybody's life is a spiritual journey, that, as you were writing here, they weren't specifically religious stories that were going to be played out. But our life is a spiritual journey. How did you discover this spiritual thread as you were walking through these vocation stories?
Unknown:You know, as you say, everyone's life is a spiritual journey. And one of the benefits of writing this book, and what I hope I'm able to sort of share with the reader is that no matter who you are, God is with you. And so as I was writing this book, I sort of noticed places that I might have overlooked when I was, you know, 15 or 16 of where God was with me, and especially lessons learned and invitations from God, of, you know, learning, you know, of getting some insights from time to time. So really, the book is, I said, it functions in two ways. It's, you know, funny stories about growing up, but it's also learning, you know, some life lessons, be kind, be on time, work hard, don't humiliate other people. And that was something that was done to me a couple. Couple times says you read in the book, but that really you know God. One of the messages is that God is at work in the life of a busboy as much as the God is at work in the life of a priest or a podcaster or a mother or a father and and when we look back over our lives, I think we can see more easily where God has been. It's often easier to see where God was than we're to see where God is. As I'm sure you know,
Joshua Johnson:even at the very beginning, as you're talking about your story of the busboy the ice cream in the Bicentennial, you said once you made a mistake, but you shared a funny story, but you did say this was the first of many times when I thought I had done a good deed, only to find out I had screwed up. I think we all relate to trying our best, doing something, realizing we screwed up. How do we keep moving forward when we continually are at that place of screwing up? Right?
Unknown:It's especially prevalent when you're young. And you know, for people who are going into a new job or a new even, like a new family, if you get married, you're sort of invited into a new family. I think the first thing is to recognize that we're not perfect. No one's perfect, right? So that's the number one thing. You're not perfect. You think about the wedding feast at Cana even Jesus had to learn from his mother, right? That, you know it was, it was his time. So none of us except Jesus, are perfect, and it's okay to not know how to do things. It's okay to ask and to say, I don't know how to do this. But that move from, and I talk about it in the first chapter about a real spectacular screw up that I made while I was a busboy at the ice cream inn outside of Philadelphia that move from Arnie doing a great job to you're really messing everything up. Is, is really, I think, something that just goes with being human, right? And so it's being human. It's recognizing you're not perfect. It's, it's apologizing when you need to. And it's also, it's also an invitation to say, I don't know how to do this. I need some help, which is not a crime or a sin.
Joshua Johnson:How did your family help walking through some of those things? Or maybe, how did your family hinder you as you were walking through some of those things?
Unknown:Well, my family, my mom and dad, one of the ways they really helped was they instilled in my sister and me a very strong work ethic. I mean, it's all about work. And at the beginning of the book, I have two epigraphs, a quote from my mom and a quote from my dad, which I think people resonate with. And the quote from my mom is, we're not going to sit inside all summer, that's for sure. I mean, you know, get out and get a job. And the quote from my dad is, I had said to him many times, well, it's really fun, or it's really not fun, and it's hard and it's boring or whatever. And he would say, of course, it's not fun. That's why they call it work. Now, if it were fun, they call it play. So they instilled in me a real good work ethic. I think that they were a little more hands off about how to deal with these problems, not that they were bad people, but, you know, there are certain generation, their general their depression era babies, and their generation was basically, stop complaining. Just stop my mom said to me once, I worked in a factory on an assembly line, and I talked about that in the book, and my mom said, I don't want to hear it when you come in, leave all your problems at the door, you know. So there wasn't a whole lot of sort of counseling going on, but work hard. That was, that was what I got from them.
Joshua Johnson:You can see that also throughout your life, here in your journey of of jobs, you know, you get into university, you're working three jobs, you're you're trying to pay for, for some of those things, you're working hard, but you're also connecting deeply with people around you, which is really important as well. So then, as you started to contemplate your own life and vocation and work calling going forward, what do you think the role is of work in our lives? How do we start to walk through our life? What's the role of work?
Unknown:Well, there's a great quote which I think that I can find, which is from Pope John Paul, where he talks about the value of work. I just found it through work, man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology, and above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family. So there is this great sense of kind of, one of the one of the lines I like from theology is that we are co creators with God. You know, we're building up the reign of God as we can. And so that takes work and people, you know, a doctor does it in one way, a teacher does it in another way. A podcaster does it, an attorney, a mother, a father, so that in that work, we are, in a sense, co creators with God, but we're participating in that building up of the rain. And I think that's really important. And then just, you know, from even if you're not religious, I know most people listen. Into this are religious. I mean, just like helping other people, we have not to date this, but we have a big snowstorm coming, and people are people who drive snow plows, help other people and put the salt down and shovel and so. So I think it's building up the reign of God from a spiritual point of view, but from a more of a secular point of view. It's helping other people through that work.
Joshua Johnson:I think that's a communal aspect. So as you were walking through these different jobs, how did the people around you shape what you were doing and how you were working?
Unknown:Well, that's a good question. I also want to ask you about some of your summer jobs too. Of course, I hope you feel comfortable sharing. Well, one of the first things is I had to learn that not everybody was going to like me, right? So I seem to have a knack of finding myself looking back in summer jobs where I was like the youngest kid, and they're all, like, three or four years older than I am. And you know what that's like when you're in junior high school and they're in high school, it's like a world of difference. You know? It's like a different generation. So I had to be comfortable with just doing my best and not caring if they were, you know, cutting me out of their jokes or even making fun of me when I was young. I also learned from working with people who were not wealthy, certainly, especially on the assembly line, you know, for whom this was not a summer job, this was their job, you know, to really be grateful for my own life, my education as a, you know, I was in college at the time. Most of them weren't in college. And then also, I just learned to work hard, I mean, to pitch in. And now you can't just, you know, if you're working as a bus boy or a dishwasher, you can't just say, I'm gonna take a break, or I don't feel like doing that, or I'm tired, you know, you got to do your job. And there was always in the in the kitchen, in the ice cream inn, there was always one bus boy washing the dishes while the other bus boy was clearing the tables, and I was back and forth. And, you know, you had to get your job done. So I learned a lot. Well, I'm curious, what kind of summer jobs did you have?
Joshua Johnson:My best friend's dad owned a driving range, and so we pick up golf balls. And so we were just, yeah, literally, like, go early in the morning and pick up golf balls and bring them back in. I thought they had a machine to be able to go out and do it, but no, it was us picking it up. You know, that's really, that is really kind of manual labor, isn't it? Yeah, a lot of manual labor. We did a lot of yard work and helped people as they were, like, trying to clear a lot of brush, and so did tons of yard work passed. Yeah, my first, like, corporate job, I worked at a pizza place. I was making pizza that was interesting, because I I went and I applied for that job as a as a summer job. And my girlfriend, at the time, she applied for the same job, and I got it, she didn't get it, and so there was a lot of tension in our relationship after that.
Unknown:No, yeah, you learn. You learn a lot. I've been enjoying doing interviews and listening to other people's summer job stories. It's always a lot of fun. That's great.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, I think one of my favorite jobs that I had growing up was I working at a movie theater. You worked in movie theater, you were tearing tickets. It was kind of boring there, but, you know, you also then had, sometimes you had the stoners come out at nights, and you had other things that made it fun. There's been some books and there's been some movies that have really shaped you. The Thomas Martin documentary really pulled you into wanting to become a priest. Why did you choose the theater? Why did you choose movies? Why did you go that direction for a job, for
Unknown:the job? Well, basically the real reason, I wish I could give you some deep answer, like, I I was in love with film or, I mean, basically, they were hiring and I needed a job. It was either that or, you know, Woolworths or caramel corn. I don't know if that's a national chain or not, but they were hiring, yeah. So the mall, this local mall in Plymouth Meeting, which is the town I grew up in, outside of Philadelphia was kind of the center of everything. This is 80s, 70s and 80s mall culture. Everybody went to the mall, you hung out at the mall, you bought things at the mall. And so this was a big move. This was the big movie theater in town. This was where Star Wars premiered in the 1970s and whatnot. And a friend of mine worked there and suggested it. And I thought, oh, okay, that won't be so bad. I had worked outside. I kept going back. I would work outside, like as a caddy or a lawnmower, and say, Oh, I hate this. I'm going back inside. Then I go inside and I'd say, Oh, I hate this. I want to be outside until I finally realized I just didn't like working during the summer. But the theater was probably the job that was, I don't want to say the physically the easiest, but, you know, certainly tearing tickets is not, you know, kind of a late, laborious thing. But I movies, and I talk about this in the book, movies do play an important part in my my own vocation. It was a movie. It was a documentary, not a book. I mean, it was initially the documentary that really changed my life. It was. It. There was a movie on PBS that I saw, a half an hour movie about Thomas Merton. So I always say, you know, my vocation comes from TV and from the movies too.
Joshua Johnson:Everything in our life shapes who we are and what we become. I think there's a lot of people out there that go, Okay, this was just a part time job. It didn't really matter much. It was just something I needed to do, or the work that I'm doing now, all it is, I'm I'm doing some manual labor, I'm working hard, but all it is is, is a job so I could earn some money pay for what I need to pay for. How do we start to view vocation and job and work, no matter what it is, as important to our life, who we are and who we're becoming.
Unknown:Well, that's a great insight. I think it's, it's different for everyone, because there are some people who work in jobs that they just hate, right? And it's, it's it's boring, or it's, it's, it's grueling, or it's back breaking. I think every job has dignity, of course, but you know that when I was working on the factory floor, people did not want to work on an assembly line. They just did not want to do that. So for people in that situation, I think some of it is trying to figure out what you're contributing to, like your family. You know you're earning a living for your family, and so you're building up your family in that way. And I talk in the book about how sometimes the one thing that we can pull from those jobs is people that we like on the on the assembly line, for example, that people were friends with, right? And that we can give meaning to our lives through that. But I think for people who are a little more fortunate or a little more blessed, you know, to be doing things that they like, I think to recognize that God is calling you into that job, right? If you're an attorney because you liked law, or you're a physician because you like biology, or you're a teacher because you love school, to see that God has kind of called you into that line of work as a vocation, and that in some way, God is present. But I think whoever we are, whether we're in a job that we like or a job that we don't like we can always look for signs of God's presence in our in our daily lives, right? That's a very big Jesuit concept, right? Where is God in my relationships, in amusing things that happened, in lunchtime conversations. Where has God been, if not in the doing of the work, then in the relationships that come from work,
Joshua Johnson:as we're looking for God's presence in our work. Sometimes, you know, as you said, some people don't like their jobs, and it's difficult, but they they need to keep going. And I know it's hard when, like your dad says to you, keep at it. It's good for you. It builds character. But perseverance actually is important in things. How is perseverance important in our in our work, in our job? Well, you know, it's funny.
Unknown:I think we're going to go another way with that question. Perseverance is important. I mean, in faith, you know, they're always right. We are struck down, but not destroyed, right? I know your readers would know that from St Paul. So, you know, in faith, it's very important to persevere. I was just rereading the story of the call the first disciples and Matthew, and, you know, I was thinking that, you know, fishermen have to be perseverant. They have to be patient and persevering in work. It's, it's essential you just have, particularly at the beginning, when you don't think you know what you're doing, to just keep going and try to learn and try to say, I don't know how to do this. I don't understand. Please explain that to me again. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a tough feeling, and it's very humbling, right, even if you don't even know, like, how to file something or how to do a certain program, right? And then just even when you are working to just do the work. I really did. I really did learn that from these summer jobs that you got to pitch in. And I'm sure everyone has been in a situation, whether at home or on the job, where there's someone who doesn't pitch in, and it's infuriating. It's infuriating for a reason, you know, because it's just, it's not just, so, you know, do the work. I'm sure there's trying to think of any parables. Well, yeah, it's like the trying of any parables. I guess, the the son who said he's going to go out into the field and ends up doing the work anyway, and the son that says he's going to but doesn't do the work. So, yeah, I think it's important to, it's important to do the work
Joshua Johnson:you just mentioned the call of Peter. You know the call of the first disciples, that they were fishermen. Do you think that having Peter as the rock where Jesus said he's going to build his church upon the rock Peter as a fisherman? Do you think somebody that had a a perseverant job, like a fisherman shaped the church in an interesting way?
Unknown:Yeah, totally. I read something by William Barclay, the Scottish scripture scholar, who said I used to be able to remember this that why would he pick fishermen first? So it's Peter and Andrew, James and John. It's Peter and Andrew, the brother. Others, and then James and John, few minutes, few seconds later, down the couple feet away zebedee's sons. So why do they pick fishermen? And in addition to being persevering, or you have to right as you're you're fishing, if you you have to know how to fit the bait to the catch right, so you know how which, which bait is going to sort of get this fish, or which bait is going to get this potential, you know, convert. You have to be comfortable with storms, right, with the ups and downs. You have to know how to get out of the way, right? If the fish see you, they're not going to, you know, they're not going to bite. You have to work together with other people. There's all these things that Barclay talks about in terms of why Peter would choose fishermen, and you have to be kind of tough, I think physically tough right now. Jesus picks other people. He picks, you know, tax collectors, and he picks Judas, and he picks a zealot. But the fact that he picks fishermen at first is is just great. And they they know how to go out and catch things. I also think it's interesting that Jesus himself, he's a carpenter. He recognizes that he doesn't call too many carpenters. He calls the fishermen, which I think is great.
Joshua Johnson:Found that fascinating that these are the people that the church is built on, and these are the people that Jesus chose as somebody that a lot of people would think, Oh, maybe somebody the top theologians and the scholars that Academy, but it's these everyday people.
Unknown:Absolutely, I think that's a great you know, I really never thought of that until now that you're right. He could have chosen as his first disciple, some some scholar or some rabbi or some scribe or some Pharisee, and give him kind of prestige or whatever, I think. The other thing about is that, to sort of do a little bit of a tangent, I also find it interesting that the carpenter, when he comes to Nazareth, when he comes to Capernaum, from Nazareth, speaks to them in their language. So he says, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men or Fishers of people, depending on the translation. And he's talking to them about fishing. He's a carpenter, and he's also come from Nazareth to Capernaum. He literally goes to where they are, and then when he's where they are physically, he talks to them in their language. So it's, it's obviously Jesus is pretty brilliant. He is really brilliant. Of an understatement. Yes.
Joshua Johnson:Now as you you had had a bunch of your jobs, you also talk about how you were a voracious reader. One of your your very first job, I think, was, was handing out the recorder, which is a local paper, trying to get some get some money for that. But you ended up going into reading. How did that start to shape the way that you started to view the world.
Unknown:My parents were always big readers. My dad died 20 years ago. My mom has dementia, so she's not reading. But they were always readers. We always had books around the house, books and books and books. And as I say in the book, one of the earliest kind of really thrilling moments in my life was the Scholastic Book Fair. I don't know if you're too old for that. I loved it. So fun. So for the people who don't know scholastic books, which ended up publishing the Harry Potter books and making money, which is nice for them, they would come to I had to kind of do some research to figure out exactly how it would work, but they would come to a school, they'd have these books, usually in the in the gymnasium or wherever. You would have an assembly. They'd all be laid out. You could buy them there, or, more excitingly, you could order them if they didn't have enough. And then a big box of books would come in. You know, you have to go back to it was so analog. You go back to your parents. You bring them the list. They write a check. You bring it into the teacher, she mails it into scholastic books, and then, like magic, you know, a month later, a big box of scholastic books would come. That was just such an exciting time for me, and I devoured those books, and I ended it started me kind of on a just love of reading. And, you know, in the end, I mean, I talk about some of the kind of trashy stuff that I read about aliens and Bigfoot and nothing, nothing wrong with aliens or Bigfoot Loch Ness Monster. We are 15 years old. But eventually, you know, reading, reading Thomas Merton seven story Mountain was the thing that ultimately, kind of changed my life. I saw the documentary, and then I went into that, that beautiful memoir. And, I mean, I think it sort of helped me to fall in love with writing too. I really, you know, I didn't, I wasn't wealthy. Our family wasn't wealthy. We didn't go to special private schools. We went, I went to a public elementary school and junior high school and high school, we had great teachers, and they really sort of encouraged me to read and to write. And you know, that's what I'm doing a lot now. So it's all thanks to my teachers and my parents. I get to interview authors. So I get books the mail all the time, and it's like Christmas morning. It's so much fun. Like, I get to open up, I get to read another book. This is fantastic. I. You had scholastic book fairs. Where did you grow up? In the Seattle area? Okay, so they had scholastic book fairs there, yeah, yeah, yeah, all the time. It was so much fun. I wonder if, I wonder if they're, they do that now, or they're always, everything's online, or, you know, I bet they still do it.
Joshua Johnson:I They're still out there. I know, like, you know, my son is in third grade, and so we, we see they do some other things. They don't really do Scholastic, but they we do the every year, they do bingo for books. And so they bring all the kids in. We play, play bingo. Whoever gets bingo, gets gets a little ticket, and they get to go choose their books. And so they're giving out books for free. And so my my son could bring home five books and start to read it, and loves it,
Unknown:right? It's such a joy. What a joy.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I want to move into your university time. I want to talk about, I mean, the moments of your friend Brad's death. Because a lot of times, as we walk through vocation and life and our life with God, we have a comfort of our relationship with God, whether it's like, really close or not, it's just I am considering myself maybe a good Christian. I'm going to do the moral thing. But then when something happens that is tragic, like the death of your friends in a tragic, horrible accident, it really brings things to a head. Who is God? Why would God allow these things to happen? Am I going to even continue to pursue God or not take me into the time, what, what was happening, when, when you heard about that death, and what was your your thoughts to God? Yeah.
Unknown:So for listeners, I was in my junior year, between junior year and senior year of college. I was working with summertime, and I got a phone call that said that my freshman year roommate, along with another friend, had been killed in an automobile crash in a car driven by another friend. There were four friends in the car. As I say in the book, I never had had anything like that happen to me before. I'm 20 years old, and when I went to the funeral, I mean, obviously, I was devastated, as all my friends were, and when I went to the funeral, I remember thinking, I'm done with this. I'm done with God. God killed my friends. I don't need God, and God's cruel, right? And what a charade this is. I really remember thinking at the funeral, this is, this is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? And until that time, I had been not super religious, but I'd been a believer, obviously, and believed in God and went to church and whatnot. And I stopped going to church for about six months. Let me think probably may to like December, and there was a young woman in our class. I'm still good friends with her. I was standing outside the freshman dorm. We we we weren't living there anymore, but we were, I guess, probably in between classes or something. I can still remember it was snowing, and I told her how she was very faithful. I would say, she would I would say, now I would call her an evangelical Christian. That's what I would call her back then I called her a fundamentalist because I didn't know I, I I didn't have any conception of anything with sort of that kind of denomination. In any event, she was a wonderful she is a wonderful person. And I told her how angry I was at God, and I'm not going to church and and she said, I'll never forget it. She said, Well, I've been spending the last few months thanking God for Brad's life, and I remember being just like I can remember something like a shift going on inside of me. And as I say in the book, she didn't say this explicitly, but it was as if she was saying to me, you know, you can believe in a god you don't really understand, right? And whose ways we don't understand. And I started to go back to church really thanks to that. And you know, you're in college, and it's kind of cool to be an agnostic and an atheist, and I'm so intellectual and I'm angry at God, and I don't know, I don't think that's why everybody's an atheist. I mean, there are plenty of good reasons what people can be atheist, but she really invited me to see that there's another way of looking at these things, and there's another way of relating to God, and it's not just if God gives us what we want, right?
Joshua Johnson:You just talk about an encounter with one person of saying, Hey, I'm thanking God for Brad's life and so gratitude, I could relate to God in a different way for people that come up against pain and suffering and disillusionment and saying, I don't know why these things happen. I don't know why God is doing this or that. What do you think helps people move forward?
Unknown:Well, that depends on the person. Of course, I think you know, we were told in pastoral counseling class that. You know you don't want to impose answers on people. I mean, I'm sure you know the easy answers, like everything happens for a reason, and which I believe, but that's not something to tell somebody whose child has died or his child is sick. I find I would say I like to accompany people and sort of accompany them as they make their own meaning and find their own answers. But the things that helped me the most in my own life, I would say, are two things, one, that Jesus knows what we're going through. That's been very helpful for me, that Jesus, fully human and fully divine, had a full life, and he knew human suffering. We can presume Joseph dies, right? Mary's husband, he's not on the scene at the in the public ministry, and so he would have known what it would have been like to have his, you know, to see Joseph die. So that's that's the first thing, and that so Jesus knows and that God is with us. God is with us in all this. And I think one way to notice that is by noticing and being attentive to what's happening around you. I think in these terrible times, terrible terrible times, whatever it is, there are always people who are, you know, God's hands for us, reaching out, loving us, caring for us, and that, that's God. So even if you have a hard time with the why, I think there are ways of sort of looking for God's presence. And also, again, I it really helps me a lot to know Jesus went through this. Jesus went through this, not, maybe not exactly, you know he he couldn't pay his mortgage or something, but he did go through human suffering. And certainly on the cross, he suffered unimaginably. So he does know what you're going through. And I find that can help people a lot of Christians, in terms of their, their own getting through these difficult times. But you know, really the answer to, why is there evil in the world, and why is there suffering? I mean, eventually it's, we really don't know. There's no satisfactory answer. I mean, even Job, Job tries to ask that question, and God basically says, Where were you when I created the earth? Which is not exactly an answer, but no, it is. It's like, I know more than you be quiet, that's quite an answer.
Joshua Johnson:It is quite an answer. It is quite an answer. You know, I think that right now we're living with some collective trauma, so residual trauma from 2020, and everything that's happened those couple years. I think right now, we're seeing a lot of dehumanization all around the world, and I think we're living like in a collective trauma and moments where we haven't had this in the history of the world much, because now we all see the same images, like, almost daily, yeah, almost immediately, yeah and yeah, and it's so as we're holding this the pain and the sorrow and the trauma of the world, I want to know how we can hold on to some hope. And we could say that there is hope in this world, that and there is love. I i want to point to love more than anything. But I don't want to be naive to say that love, you know, is there. But I do want to point to love even in this collective trauma moment that we're in
Unknown:well, and the first thing would be to admit it, that it is a difficult time and that there is trauma going on and there is dehumanization and in different ways. You know, without getting too political, the second thing is to say, I would say, there's kind of a natural level and a supernatural level. The natural level, I think, is to look for people who are doing good work and to try to help them. You know that that famous Mr. Rogers quote, look for the helpers, which is so it seems so banal. It's something that is, I think his mom told him, when there was a fire, right, and there was a house fire, an apartment fire, she said, always, look for the helpers. It's essentially saying, look for, you know, God's presence through people who are really generous. You know, I worked down at ground zero, so called after 911 and there were as a priest, and there were people from all over the country that drove in. I remember one of the most vivid ones was this woman from, I think, Ohio, who drove in, get this. This is at Ground Zero, before things were kind of all sort of like organized. And there was just like a big empty thing, and there were all these firefighters and rescue workers and police officers. Do you know, she brought, she brought candy. She had a candy stand. Now, I don't know, I don't know if she had a candy store back in Ohio, or she just bought tons of candy. She had a table with candy. And I just remember thinking, this is a great thing, and it's a kind of a sign of, you know, God's presence. So that's the natural level. Look for people like that, and be a person like that. The supernatural level is to say, to think about the disciples on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, who are cowering behind closed doors, who thought nothing good could ever happen. And so to move away from the despair and to really move towards hope however you can, and to say that the voices that give you hope are the voices. Is that are coming from God. That's how I see it. Great answer. Suffering in our lives,
Joshua Johnson:I know we it's really difficult. So you went in, you went to the Wharton School at Penn. You went into finance, worked for ge, ge, capital, or GE, and right, you started to be, you know, in finance, you're making some good money. There was a transition, and you had the opportunity to stay in finance or not. What was it about finance that was just maybe a tad boring to you?
Unknown:I always say work business is a real vocation for many people, maybe most of the people listening to this podcast or watching this might be in business in some way. They working in an accounting or in finance or something. And so it's real vocation. It's a way for people to contribute to society and culture and family and everything. It just wasn't for me. And so what happened was I was working in finance and accounting in New York. And GE was closing up that office, and there was an opportunity to go to GE Capital, which was the financial services arm in Stamford, Connecticut. And I just thought, I'm going to go into human resources, just because it seemed more interesting. And I was sick of I was sick of numbers. And I just thought, oh, this camp, this campaign works. I mean, one of the lines in my book is, how hard can it be, right? Of course, well, it was pretty hard, but, but even when I was in HR, it was pretty stressful. And it was a time at GE where there was a lot of emphasis on the bottom line and cutting people. This is the early to mid 80s, and it was pretty not everybody. I mean, look, I most of the people work, there were wonderful people. They're still friends of mine. They did great work, but there were some really tough people there. And I remember thinking, I can't work in this environment. And that really kind of helped to push me out of the corporate world. And then the poll came from reading Thomas Merton.
Joshua Johnson:Why Thomas Merton? What was it about Thomas Martin, specifically
Unknown:his providence. I could have been Billy Graham or st Anthony or Mother Teresa. I just turned on the TV one night. I came back from work. I was super tired. I remember I reheated a plate of spaghetti so there were microwaves at that time, and there was nothing on TV, and I turned on PBS, and there was this documentary called Merton, a film biography, and they just started talking about this monk. And I was like, wow, this is so interesting. Who is this guy? And he had left behind around at my age, left behind kind of this dissolute life. And you know, to be honest, I think that the monastery just looks so beautiful, and a life of service to God seems so beautiful. It's kind of like romantic, like beautiful way of living. And I mean, obviously monasteries aren't perfect either, but it really called to me, and I went out, tracked down and read his book, seven story mountain. And that just started me to think, gosh, maybe I could do something like this, maybe not be a monk, but something like this. And that led to the Jesuits.
Joshua Johnson:And what did discernment look like? And then what do you think discernment like, as calling and purpose looks like for for us?
Unknown:I think a lot of it depends on what you want to do and what you're attracted to, and what appeals to you and what you're good at, and what really kind of, as one Jesuit said, gets you up in the morning, what are you really excited about? And so there's different levels of vocation. I would say. There's your job, what you do day to day, there's your career, there's your vocation, which is deeper, which is a real calling. And then there's your vocation to be kind of who you are. Discernment, I think, really calls you to listen to those desires, to listen to the voices that are. I mean voices interiorly, and voices outside, not physical, voices that call you to something you know I mean at the simplest level. I always tell people that who are married, your vocation to marriage comes through desire. I mean physical desire, sexual desire, emotional, mental, spiritual. You know you're drawn to each other in the same way you're drawn to work, vocation, career. And it's a question of sort of sifting out those desires and saying, What am I what do I really like doing? What am I good at? Where is the world's need? And it sometimes takes people a long time. I mean, it took me quite a long time. I mean, I was 2728 sometimes it takes people till they're 40 or 50 to find out this is my calling. This is what I really want.
Joshua Johnson:I've had a lot of people recently talk to me about how Ignatian prayer exercises and going through that process has been transformative in their life, and like they've moved into different directions as multiple people have started to do that work. And it's fantastic. It's good. How do those prayer exercises help you as you. You you walk through your life well.
Unknown:So for those who aren't familiar, Ignatian prayer is based on the life and teachings of st Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. I'm a member of the Jesuit order. We, I would say, we put a great deal of emphasis on noticing where God is already in your life, right? Noticing, just for example, taking the time at the end of the day to say, Where has God been. And when you look back, as we were talking before, when you look back over your day, you can easily see where God was, and you start to see patterns, right? Well, you know, I actually, I really enjoyed that, right? Or, boy, that person is really fun to work with. And, boy, I felt great when I was able to do that job on time, instead of like, you know, kind of push it off as well. Discernment helps you to pay attention to your deeper desires and your more long term desires. So what does that mean? That sounds very vague. So rather than saying, This is what everyone tells me I should do, what do I really want to do? What really what sort of sets my heart on fire? So that's that's kind of Ignatian discernment and and it's paying attention to those movements, some of them that come from God. Some that come don't come from God. So for example, what does that mean? If you say, I really feel drawn to working with the poor, and I want to work in a soup kitchen on my off days, and it really gives me a lot of peace. And then someone says, Hey, you want to work with those poor people. Like, what are people going to say? Like, one of those, one of those voices is coming from God, and one of those voices is not coming from God. And so that's what discernment means. It means determining which one's coming from God and which one may not be coming from God.
Joshua Johnson:I mean, I'm definitely drawn to Ignatian spirituality Jesuits. And it's probably, it's not just because I was a Gonzaga Bulldog fan. I lived in Spokane, Washington for a while, but I do really think that there is, there is something unique and special in the Jesuit order, Ignatian spirituality, I don't know it makes me come alive when I'm thinking about like action and and contemplation. I'm thinking about, you know, these prayer exercises of discernment and walking with people. It is a it is something I think is very beneficial for spiritual life and to move us forward into a life with Jesus.
Unknown:I'm glad to hear that. I mean, that's music to my ears as a Jesuit. It certainly gave me new life. And I think it's a very accessible spirituality. It's very user friendly. It takes you where you are, as you know, we talked about Jesus going to where people are, and it really, it really relies on the fact that God's already in your life. It's just a question of noticing is a big, yeah, getting like, just noticing and pointing people to where God already is
Joshua Johnson:the spiritual life your podcast, I think, is fantastic. I mean, thank you. Like episodes like the Martin Scorsese episode brought me to tears, like I was, I was crying weeping during that episode. There's so many I could go into that I really, really enjoyed. As you ask and talk to people throughout their spiritual life, and then you look back over your memoir that you just wrote, did anything shift or change as you were writing this book, or thinking about the spiritual life all the way through people's lives and the way you ask questions or the things that you are interested in as you put your work together.
Unknown:I never put those two things together. I think I might answer those separately. I think the book enabled me to see the progress of a life, not just my life, but a life, and how the vocation and the calling started early, right, not just when I saw the Thomas Merton documentary, but, you know, when I was a bus boy and I was trying to figure out, or, you know, you're, you're a movie theater rusher, or you're collecting, you know, golf balls, And even if it's I don't want to do this, or even if it's I like this part of the job. So it started me early, and to be able to look back and to see that God had a hand in all this is was really powerful. So that's that's how I see the book, that to look back and to see myself as a work in progress, and really the invitation is for the the reader to see himself or herself as a work in progress, and they'll be able to look but it's really an invitation to say, Where was God in your life? Right? Where can you look back the spiritual life podcast has been a real blessing to me. For people who aren't familiar, it's an America magazine podcast. We do it every week, which is, as you know, it's a lot of work, and we talk to people about where they find God, in their prayer and in their daily lives. Those two things, I think what's been most moving for me is just how different God is in people's lives and where they find God and just people. Saying images of God that I could have never come up with, or or experiences of God that I could have never, sort of anticipated. I will say a little spoiler alert, we interview Anne Lamott, the spiritual writer, yeah, who's just great. And she, she has a, probably her most well known book is a prayer, a book on prayer called help. Thanks. Wow, which is one of my favorite titles ever. And she talks about an almost a mystical experience of when she was addicted, of feeling Jesus's presence next to her, like in an almost physical way. And I thought, boy, you know the way she talks about it. It's like this, you know, mystical experience and so to say, Isn't it amazing how God works, just these different ways that you can't predict and but I'm open to because, as a Jesuit and as a spiritual director and as a believer, I'm convinced that God can manifest in any way God wants to manifest.
Joshua Johnson:You know, this has been fantastic. If you had a hope for your readers, for work in progress, what do you hope that people would get from your book,
Unknown:that their lives, too, are suffused with grace, and that if they cast their minds back to their childhood, even if it was a difficult childhood, not perfect, mine wasn't perfect, to be able to see signs of God's grace there, and to know that those moments, even the crazy ones and the funny ones and the ones you're embarrassed about, there are a lot of those in the book, help to make you the person who you are, thanks to God's grace, I'd
Joshua Johnson:love to get another recommendation from you or to anything you've been reading or watching lately. You could recommend
Unknown:that I've been watching guys. That's a good question. I've never asked that question. I'm a big fan of Mad Men, so I watched that again. I'm a big fan of the crown. I watch that again. What have I been reading? I think the book that has meant the most to me in the last couple of years is a book and I interviewed him by Ronald rohlheiser called sacred fire, which is quite good. It's about a mature Christian spirituality that's quite good. So after you read work in progress, you can read Ronald Royale,
Joshua Johnson:yeah, read Ronald royal Heiser. I had him on to talk about insane for the light his latest one man. It was what a what a wealth of of wisdom he is. And great guy, yeah, yeah. And your episode with him was also incredible. It was fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so that's really good. How can people go out get your book? Work in Progress? It'll be available anywhere books are sold. This episode will come out on release day. So it's out, it's available. You could go and get it. Is there anywhere you'd like to point people to?
Unknown:Well, as I say, anywhere books are sold, I would like to say that it is in print, hardcover, ebook and audio as well. So wherever you get your books, you can go on the HarperCollins website. It could take you to Amazon, Barnes and Noble books.com wherever. I really hope you enjoy. I also want to say the book came out physically, very beautifully. And, you know, the publisher did a great job. It's It looks beautiful. The cover is great. The paper is nice. I'm so happy as a I always say you can judge a book by its cover. You know, it shows what kind of care the publisher took on it. So I hope you guys all enjoy work in progress, and I hope it helps you sort of find grace in your own lives too. All right. Well, Jim,
Joshua Johnson:thank you for this conversation. It was fantastic. Really enjoyed talking to you. Hopefully everybody goes and gets Work in Progress reads your new book, because it is a lot of fun, and people find a lot of grace in it as well. So thank you. It was fantastic.
Unknown:Thank you very much. You you.
