This week I reflect on my new book, Universal Love: Surrendering to the God of Peace. This is Part 1 of 2 episodes.

In this first episode, I tell how the book came about. When the pandemic began, I joined the local gym and the young person who taught the class, whom I call Will, asked me to be his guru, so I started teaching him meditation. He called God, “Universal Love” and one day, Universal Love came to him in prayer and called him to be “an extension of Universal Love.”

Sections in the first part of the book include "The Difference Meditation Makes", "To Hell With Spiritual Pride", and "Experimenting with Nonviolence".

Over the years of spiritual direction and conversation that followed with Will, as we became friends and discussed all this, we also started doing writing practice at the local coffee shop on these themes, writings which one day turned into this book.

In this episode, and the first part of the book, I reflect on the importance of daily meditation, letting go of control, living in intimate, trusting relationship to God, learning to surrender everything to God, and trying from now on, to do only God’s will, not our will.

I conclude this episode with the story of my visit with Archbishop Tutu in Cape Town, South Africa, where he confided with me his thoughts on free will as the basis of understanding God and our work for peace, justice and nonviolence, a teaching I am only now beginning to understand.

Next week I dedicate the podcast to the second half of the book, and will be sharing excerpts and more on Substack as well.

Available now from www.orbisbooks.com or call 1-800-258-5838, or ask for it at your local bookstore!

More information at beatitudescenter.org

Onward in peace with the nonviolent Jesus,

🌻, John

This week my guest is my friend peace activist Ann Wright. She is a retired US Army Colonel who worked in the military for 29 years, 13 on active duty and 16 in the Army Reserves, as well as a retired US state department official.

In March 2003, when the US started massively bombing Iraq, she was one of three state department officials to publicly resign in protest of the US war on Iraq.

Since then, she has become a full-time activist working to end war, often working with organizations such as Veterans for Peace, CODEPINK, International Peace Bureau, World Beyond War, NO to NATO, Hawaii Peace and Justice, and many other groups.

She travels full time to places of conflict around the world, such as Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Palestine, Cuba--to see the effects of US warmaking.

She also speaks out and writes about the need to resist war and pursue peace. She has been a coordinator with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla for 16 years and was jailed in Israeli prisons twice for being on Gaza flotillas. Visit: www.voicesofconscience.com

We discuss her public resignation over the US war on Iraq, and her work for peace in Afghanistan and Palestine and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“I just could not be a part of what I knew was going to be a horrific death of so many people in Iraq,” she tells me about her resignation. “Never underestimate the power of trying to get people together to do something that will galvanize the rest of our community and the country. It's our own conscience we have to watch out for. We have to be able to say: ‘I've done what I could to try to stop the violence in our world.’ Be consistent and keep moving!”

Join us with this incredibly brave, resolute and inspiring peace activist!

beatitudescenter.org

🌻, John

This week I speak with Ched Myers, one of the world’s greatest scripture scholars, about his new book on the Gospel of Luke, called Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics.

Many of us consider Ched’s great commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Orbis Books, 1988), the greatest book on scripture ever written.

An activist and a theologian, Ched and his partner Elaine Enns are ecumenical Mennonites based in southern California where they lead Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries (visit www.bcmonline.org). He begins our conversation by sharing his journey to radical Christianity through the Catholic Worker movement and our mentor Daniel Berrigan, and then we turn to Luke.

In his new book, Ched explores Luke from the perspective of “Sabbath economics,” the biblical practice of resisting economic disparity and the idolatry of wealth, greed, and war. We discuss Jesus’ first sermon in the Nazareth synagogue where he proclaims the Jubilee Year (Lk. 4), the parable of Lazarus the rich man and the poor beggar who dies and goes to heaven (Lk. 16), and Luke’s resurrection story on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24)

“The biggest single, core, root issue of violence is economic disparity--the cruel gulf between the have-too-muches- and the have-not-enoughs. Concentrated wealth underlies every form of violence and is ruining our planet. If we Christians are going to follow the Way, we need to dive into the scripture about Sabbath economics.”

Be inspired to be part of the "Sabbath Economy" !

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with writer Emily Yellin, co-author of the new, posthumous memoir by the late Civil Rights leader Rev. James Lawson called Nonviolent: My Life of Resistance, Agitation and Love, which comes out on Feb. 17th from Random House.

Emily is a longtime writer for The New York Times. Jim Lawson was my friend for 34 years. I first met him in jail during a protest in 1990 and he later hired me to be director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

Dr. King called Jim Lawson “the greatest theoretician and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Jim was taught nonviolence by his mother, went to prison for refusing to be drafted into the Korean war, spent years in India learning nonviolence from Gandhi’s friends, then returned to the US, joined Dr. King, and became the main strategist for the Civil Right movement, from the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides to Birmingham, Selma, and the Memphis garbage workers’ strike.

(Jim did two zoom sessions with the Beatitudes Center before his death which you can watch on the free Beatitudes Center YouTube channel. You can read the transcript of the first one, “Nonviolence Is Power,” at www.beatitudescenter.org/blog/page/2/)

“One of the things that stunned me about Rev Lawson,” Emily tells me, “was his consistency with nonviolence that came from a deep conviction to love. Jim Lawson was the best example of how to live a life that leads with love and does no harm. One of his core teachings was, ‘We can't imitate the evil ways of our oppressors.’

"Nonviolence is the way to build a more loving and just world," is what Jim Lawson has taught us. Listen in and be inspired! God bless you!—Fr. John

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Mike Farrell, best known as "Captain B.J. Hunnicutt", one of the stars of the hit TV show "M*A*S*H" in the 1970's, and later "Providence". He is also a writer, director and producer of TV films and has also appeared in several movies, and many, many other television roles. For three years he served as first vice president of the Screen Actors Guild, and as a member of the Guild’s national board of directors.

During our conversation, I am constantly impressed by his openheartedness and humanity.

I met Mike in 1990, protesting US military aid to El Salvador.

Mike is President of Death Penalty Focus, Co-Chair Emeritus of Human Rights Watch in California, and serves as spokesperson for Concern America, a refugee relief and development organization. He has traveled the globe for the last 40 years with international peace and human rights delegations.

In his work to stop the US wars in Iraq, he co-founded Artists United to Win Without War. A life-long opponent of the death penalty, he has led Death Penalty Focus for 37 years, since 1988, and speaks, debates, writes and campaigns across the country in opposition to state killing.

He helped lead the 2021 campaign to abolish the death penalty in California, which can only happen by a statewide vote, and came within 2% of succeeding. Their 2016 proposition just barely lost too.

He is the author of a great memoir which I recommend called, “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist.”

We talk about his beginnings at the Manhattan Project, a halfway house, and his work at Operation Bootstrap in LA.

He tells us about his TV debates with Anita Bryant about gay rights, and his work in El Salvador when the bishops were assassinated and the camps he visited at the Thai-Cambodian border during the reign of Khmer Rouge.

He also recounts many of his life changing experiences from when he first visited Death Row in Tennessee in 1975 to his involvement with Death Penalty Focus.

Mike is still hopeful about abolishing the death penalty, and how the youth in this country are becoming more aware and becoming activists.

When asked about his personal faith, he shares the three things that all human beings want and need: listen to this incredibly personal and openhearted conversation and learn from this amazing actor, activist and human being!

More episodes, zooms and information: beatitudescenter.org

Death Penalty Focus: https://deathpenalty.org

More information on the nonviolent Jesus can also be found on https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/

This week I speak with legendary Civil Rights activist, author, pastor, politician, and diplomat Rev. Andrew Young to mark Dr. King's holiday.

Born in 1932, Andrew Young was Dr. King’s right-hand man, his number one lieutenant, who was later elected to Congress, named Ambassador to the United Nations by President Carter, and then elected Mayor of Atlanta for 2 terms, when he brought the Olympics to Atlanta. It is hard to describe all that he has done; Rachel Maddow recently made a two-hour documentary about his life work for justice and civil rights. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Carolyn, and is the father of 3 daughters and one son, a grandfather of 9 and a great grandfather of two.

We spoke mainly about Dr. King and his experiences organizing the Civil Rights Movement.

“What I learned from Martin King is what he learned from his parents and grandparents: it's all about the history of a people. We are constantly reminded of visions for a way out of no way. In moments of despair, I still sing songs.”

Rev. Young was also King's advisor in Birmingham, St. Augustine, Selma and Atlanta during the Civil Rights Campaigns in the 60's. The movement gained congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Young was with Dr. King in Memphis, Tennessee, when King was assassinated in 1968.

“Here it is two thousand years later,” he said, “and what Jesus taught is still relevant and powerfully important for us as we deal with the day to day crises in our lives.”

As he reminisced about the Birmingham Campaign, he recalled the day Fred Shuttlesworth came to him and Dr. King, told them his house had just been bombed, and asked King to come to Birmingham. “We need to make nonviolence more aggressive,” Dr. King said, “so we need to build a nonviolent movement.” Contrary to today, he said, “It wasn’t a time of despair or depression.”

He shares with us where he first learned about nonviolence, and what he learned from Dr. King himself. He shares many of his personal experiences with him, recounting the harrowing trip when Dr. King was arrested and taken to Reidsville Prison: "He wanted to be a pastor, he had already been jailed, stabbed, his home had been bombed, Reidsville was an attempt to scare the hell out of him."

His books include:

• An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America. (January 1998);
• A Way Out of No Way. (June 1996);
• Andrew Young at the United Nations. (January 1978);
• Andrew Young, Remembrance & Homage. (January 1978);
• The History of the Civil Rights Movement. (9 volumes) (September 1990);
• Trespassing Ghost: A Critical Study of Andrew Young. (January 1978);
• Walk in My Shoes: Conversations between a Civil Rights Legend and his Godson on the Journey Ahead with Kabir Sehgal. (May 2010)

Listen in to this elder as he shares his Dr. King stories and be inspired to go forward on the way of nonviolence, resistance, and creative peacemaking.

For more podcasts, zooms and books on nonviolence, go to beatitudescenter.org

For more writings, notes, announcements and book excerpts, subscribe to my Substack https://fatherjohndear.substack.com/

In this episode I speak with Charlene Howard, the executive director of the national Catholic peace movement Pax Christi USA, and I ask her about Pax Christi’s ongoing work for justice, disarmament and peace:

Charlene describes herself as a "5th generation African American Catholic":

She is also a catechist, and a longtime teacher in the Archdiocese of Washington Catholic Schools. She holds a master’s degree in Catechesis and Religious Education from Catholic University and is a graduate and former faculty member of the Institute for Black Catholic Studies Imani Catechetical Program at Xavier University of Louisiana.

We discuss organizing Pax Christi groups and actions, getting connected with other like-minded peace and justice church activists, taking on a variety of issues, and how we can practice and teach the nonviolence of Jesus.

“One light can dispel the darkness,” Charlene says. “That’s what we’re trying to do—be a light in the darkness. There's a lot of hard things happening in this country, but there's a lot of light too. Don't be fooled into thinking that we are not gaining ground for the good and for peace, because we are.”

She encourages us to get involved and stay involved, and take to heart Pope Leo’s January 1, 2026, World Day of Peace message, “Peace Be With You All: Toward an Unarmed and Disarming Peace.”

Pope Leo writes: “The peace of the risen Jesus is unarmed, because his was an unarmed struggle in the midst of concrete historical, political and social circumstances,” and “Christians must together bear prophetic witness to this novelty.”

Charlene says, “and let’s speak truth to power!”

Listen in and be inspired to pursue the peace of Christ.

God bless you!—Fr. John

https://paxchristiusa.org/2024/07/09/pax-christi-usa-welcomes-new-executive-director-charlene-howard/

www.paxchristiusa.org

beatitudescenter.org

Pope Leo’s World Day of Peace message here.

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/messages/peace/documents/20251208-messaggio-pace.html

Hi friends,

I invited Robert Ellsberg, one of our best spiritual writers in the country, the publisher and editor of Orbis Books, and a legendary champion of Dorothy Day and many others saints, to speak about his latest book, Volume 2, Blessed Among Us, a massive collection of writings, two for each day of the year about a legendary saint, recently published by Liturgical Press.

Robert Ellsberg is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Orbis Books, and the author of several award-winning books, including All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time; Blessed Among All Women; The Saints' Guide to Happiness; and A Living Gospel: Reading God's Story in Holy Lives.

He's so inspiring and uplifting!

From 1975 to 1980 he was part of the Catholic Worker community in New York City, where he served as managing editor of The Catholic Worker and worked closely with Dorothy Day. He has edited six volumes of her writings, including Dorothy Day: Selected Writings; The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day; All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day; and Dorothy Day: Spiritual Writings.

He has written and edited many other volumes, including (with Sister Wendy Beckett) Dearest Sister Wendy: A Surprising Story of Faith and Friendship.

“I wanted to bring a different way of looking at the saints as normal human beings that looked for a new way to follow Christ,” he tells me. I’ve always been inspired by visionaries, artists, writers, poets, and mystics of other times.”

“A saint is somebody who reminds you of Jesus,” he tells me, “a model of inspiration. Dorothy Day said the saints were here to change the social order, not just minister to the people. She herself tried to practice the presence of God and the path to holiness through a social dimension, the power of small gestures, as well as small protest.”

May this episode with Robert Ellsberg inspire you in the new year to follow the nonviolent Jesus more closely and live out the Beatitudes and the Gospel. God bless everyone!

This week we have created a special one hour year end episode of highlights of just some of our guests that have contributed to The Nonviolent Jesus podcast this year.

Our first year of weekly podcasts has been a whirlwind: so many great stories, personal experiences, deep spiritual (and theological) insights and most of all, words of hope and inspiration which we hope you have and will enjoy, many are worth and 2nd and 3rd listening.

It is an astonishing collection of visionaries, teachers and peacemakers.

You will hear short segments, usually 2-3 minutes each featuring, in order:

Martin Sheen

Helen Prejean

Richard Rohr,

Joan Chittister

Brian McLaren,

Bryan Stevenson,

Cornel West,

Charles McCarthy,

Stanley Hauerwas

John Fugelsang

Paul Chappell

Kathy Kelly

Simone Campbell

Jamie Raskin

Joan Baez

We want to thank you, our listeners, subscribers and donors, for your generous spirit in supporting this weekly podcast and we look forward to a new year with more amazing guests that will lead us to being followers of the nonviolent Jesus.

Go to BeatitudesCenter.org for more about The Nonviolent Jesus and other programs we offer. Just last month we have started a Substack account under FatherJohnDear as well, which we will be building on this coming year.

We’re starting 2026 with Robert Ellsberg talking about the saints, and don't forget to mark Dr. King’s upcoming birthday holiday with a special conversation with his assistant Rev. Andrew Young on Monday, January 19th.

We really appreciate every one of you and hope you are being blessed and encouraged by this podcast.

Happy New Year, God bless you and keep following the nonviolent Jesus!

Onward in peace,

🌻 John

Dear friends,

Next week we will be publishing highlights of our 52 episodes here on the first year of The Nonviolent Jesus podcast. Next year we will continue to explore and expand our dedication to nonviolence with conversations with inspirational thought leaders and icons of peacemakers and nonviolent activists. Thank you to everyone who listens and subscribes and shares the nonviolent Jesus in your world.

This week I take a deep dive into Matthew 2, the famous story of the three Magi. I offer this Christmas reflection as four movements:

1) The journey to the nonviolent Jesus;

2) The epiphany of meeting the nonviolent Jesus;

3) What we do after we meet the nonviolent Jesus; and

4) The epilogue, and how the empire, the culture of violence and war, reacts to the coming of the nonviolent Jesus and the threat of active nonviolence.

Let's take our inspiration from the Magi, as I propose that their story is our story.

Like the three wisdom figures, we too are on a spiritual journey, a holy pilgrimage, one that lasts a lifetime—the journey to the God of peace, to God’s reign of peace and the nonviolent Jesus.

During this episode we ask ourselves:

When did you have an epiphany of the God of peace?

When have you met the nonviolent Jesus among the poor, the homeless and the marginalized?

How does nature lead you to the God of peace?

What gifts do you bring the nonviolent Jesus?

The shocking part of Matthew 2 is what happens after the Epiphany. The Magi were ordered to report back to the warmaking, sociopathic tyrant, King Herod, but instead they commit civil disobedience and head home a different way!

Matthew invites us this Christmas to seek the nonviolent Jesus on the margins of the culture of violence, empire and war.

Let our encounter with the nonviolent Jesus lead us away from the corrupt culture of violence and war.

We too, can live as wisdom pilgrims of nonviolence who obey Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount teachings.

Let's do our part to stop the ongoing slaughter of the innocents; and to serve God and God’s reign of peace only from now on.

Merry Christmas to everyone and may the God of peace bless you on your Epiphany journey! ---Fr. John

beatitudescenter.org