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Listening and Receiving with Rick Lee James · Tomorrow's American Catholic Podcast

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_02: This is the official podcast of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
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  SPEAKER_02: a journal and publishing platform animated by a central question.
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  SPEAKER_02: Who is Tomorrow's American Catholic?
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  SPEAKER_02: And how is their understanding of themselves, their faith, and their church evolving in time?
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  SPEAKER_02: In each episode,
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  SPEAKER_02: we speak with a spiritual practitioner who helps us envision new forms
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  SPEAKER_02: of Catholic culture and ways of being church.
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  SPEAKER_02: Our guests come from a range of backgrounds and traditions and we seek to proceed in
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  SPEAKER_02: a spirit of contemplative hospitality and synodal dialogue where we can learn
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  SPEAKER_02: from one another.
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  SPEAKER_02: We thank you for taking some time to listen with us today.
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  SPEAKER_02: If you're interested in exploring further,
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  SPEAKER_02: you can find additional podcasts as well as our written work at our website,
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  SPEAKER_02: tomorrowsamericancatholic.org.
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  SPEAKER_02: And now on to today's conversation.
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  SPEAKER_02: Rick Lee James is a singer-songwriter,
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  SPEAKER_02: author, hospital chaplain, and host of the Voices in My Head podcast.
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  SPEAKER_02: For decades,
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  SPEAKER_02: he has been creating music and conversations that explore faith,
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  SPEAKER_02: culture, and the human experience through the lens of grace and redemption.
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  SPEAKER_02: Drawing on influences such as folk,
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  SPEAKER_02: Americana,
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  SPEAKER_02: hymnody,
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  SPEAKER_02: and singer-songwriter traditions,
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  SPEAKER_02: Rick writes songs that invite listeners into honest reflection about hope,
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  SPEAKER_02: suffering, mercy, and belonging.
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  SPEAKER_02: His recordings include thunder,
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  SPEAKER_02: basement psalms,
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  SPEAKER_02: and hymns,
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  SPEAKER_02: prayers,
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  SPEAKER_02: and invitations,
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  SPEAKER_02: earning him recognition for thoughtful songwriting
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  SPEAKER_02: and spiritually rich storytelling.
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  SPEAKER_02: Rick also serves as a full-time hospital chaplain
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  SPEAKER_02: at Springfield Regional Medical Center in Springfield, Ohio.
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  SPEAKER_02: His latest single,
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  SPEAKER_02: Heaven is Full of Criminals,
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  SPEAKER_02: continues his exploration of God's surprising mercy and the possibility
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  SPEAKER_02: of redemption for all who need grace.
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  SPEAKER_02: So Rick Lee James, thank you so much for joining us today on Tomorrow's American Catholic.
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  SPEAKER_03: My goodness.
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  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
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  SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad to be here with you today.
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  SPEAKER_03: I've been excited about this.
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  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_03: Wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_02: So we generally like to start with a brief overview
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  SPEAKER_02: of our guest's spiritual background,
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  SPEAKER_02: just your journey up to this point,
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  SPEAKER_02: early relationship to faith or how it's evolved over time
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  SPEAKER_02: and how you discern those vocations, your chaplaincy and your work as a musician.
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  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_03: Well,
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  SPEAKER_03: I actually was raised and still am a part of a denomination called the Church of
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  SPEAKER_03: the Nazarene.
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  SPEAKER_03: My dad's a pastor and my mom's a pastor's wife,
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  SPEAKER_03: and they still,
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  SPEAKER_03: even after retirement,
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  SPEAKER_03: are still doing the work of pastoral ministry, working in churches.
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  SPEAKER_03: So I cannot remember a time when I was not In church,
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  SPEAKER_03: every time the doors were open and sometimes when they weren't open,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know, we were just always there.
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  SPEAKER_03: When you're in churches,
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  SPEAKER_03: you're the last one to leave and you're the one that not only If your dad's
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  SPEAKER_03: the pastor,
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  SPEAKER_03: you're helping to clean the church and jiggle the handles on the toilets
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  SPEAKER_03: and all kinds of things before you leave.
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  SPEAKER_03: So I've always had an awareness of God, of spirituality, of walking with the Lord in some way.
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  SPEAKER_03: I think it became much more real.
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  SPEAKER_03: I remember very clearly when I was
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  SPEAKER_03: In high school,
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  SPEAKER_03: after speaking with my youth pastor and some other trusted people,
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  SPEAKER_03: being in a service one Sunday morning,
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  SPEAKER_03: and there was a moment where we were asked to respond to whatever God was speaking
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  SPEAKER_03: to us in that service.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I felt a hand on my shoulder,
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  SPEAKER_03: and my youth pastor,
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  SPEAKER_03: who had been sitting on the other side of the congregation,
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  SPEAKER_03: whispered in my ear,
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  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm supposed to pray with you about your call to ministry.
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  SPEAKER_03: And the thing that he didn't know was at that moment,
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  SPEAKER_03: I had been saying to God,
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  SPEAKER_03: I think I need to pray about my call to ministry, but I need you to send somebody.
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what to do.
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  SPEAKER_03: So that was one of a very real moment in my early development as a teenager
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  SPEAKER_03: of just experiencing God answering a prayer that was very important to me.
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  SPEAKER_03: And it turns out I didn't have to give up music.
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  SPEAKER_03: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_03: my calling per se,
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't think has ever been to be like a church pastor or a priest or things
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  SPEAKER_03: that we might traditionally call it,
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  SPEAKER_03: although I've spent time working as an associate in churches.
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  SPEAKER_03: But music has always been a part of whatever my vocation has been.
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  SPEAKER_03: And then about five years ago, My vocation really pivoted again.
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  SPEAKER_03: I had been a music pastor for many years, and I started feeling a real pull into chaplaincy.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't know why, because I didn't know what a chaplain did.
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't like hospitals particularly.
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  SPEAKER_03: I didn't want to be a chaplain,
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  SPEAKER_03: but it was actually through my friend at a wonderful Jesuit university called Loyola
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  SPEAKER_03: in Chicago, who I called my friend David Dalt, who's a wonderful man of God.
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  SPEAKER_03: Great podcaster himself, radio host, professor.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I talked to David for a while,
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  SPEAKER_03: and David was again one of those voices in my life that said,
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  SPEAKER_03: I think God's speaking to you about this.
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  SPEAKER_03: Why don't you enroll or apply for Loyola University because we have our...
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  SPEAKER_03: Master's program in healthcare chaplaincy.
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  SPEAKER_03: And if you get in, then maybe we should take that as God's leading in your life.
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  SPEAKER_03: If not, maybe it was just God asking you to be obedient, you know, and we'll see what happens.
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  SPEAKER_03: Because I don't think I can emphasize enough, I had no idea at that time what a chaplain did.
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  SPEAKER_03: Other than...
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
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  SPEAKER_03: Do you pray with people?
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  SPEAKER_03: What happens?
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  SPEAKER_03: But I agreed to what David said, and doggone it, I got in.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I remember sitting in front of my keyboard crying before the first class
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  SPEAKER_03: for my master's class, thinking, God, what am I doing?
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to go back to school again.
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I have in me to do what this is.
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  SPEAKER_03: And then they introduced me to something called CPE, or Clinical Pastoral Education.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I said, what is CPE after my first year of pursuing my master's?
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  SPEAKER_03: And they said, well, you'll have to apply and you'll find out.
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  SPEAKER_03: So to make what could be a very long story a little bit shorter...
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  SPEAKER_03: When I started my CPE journey,
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  SPEAKER_03: they told me in this summer intensive,
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  SPEAKER_03: they said,
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  SPEAKER_03: either you will hate this and never want to come back to it,
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  SPEAKER_03: or it will very much feel unfinished and you'll want to come back for more.
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  SPEAKER_03: And for me,
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  SPEAKER_03: it was not only the most challenging work I had ever done working in hospitals as
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  SPEAKER_03: a chaplain, but But it was so fulfilling.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I started immediately to have people say things to me that were affirming
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  SPEAKER_03: that God was calling me into this,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know,
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  SPEAKER_03: and that I was maybe gifted with some things I didn't know I was gifted with.
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  SPEAKER_03: You know, I always thought I wasn't much good in anything but music.
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  SPEAKER_03: And it turns out I'm very well suited for a hospital chaplain position
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  SPEAKER_03: and now I work full time.
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  SPEAKER_03: I'm certified now.
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  SPEAKER_03: I've finished my degree about a year ago in the master's work I did.
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  SPEAKER_03: I was just certified two months ago in New Orleans at the annual chaplain.
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  SPEAKER_03: There's a line from a song by Rich Mullins that says,
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  SPEAKER_03: I can't see where you're leading me unless you've led me here,
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  SPEAKER_03: where I'm lost enough to let myself be led.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I felt that was my whole journey through chaplaincy until very recently.
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  SPEAKER_03: I felt so lost, like I did not know where I was supposed to go next.
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  SPEAKER_03: I felt like I was feeling around in the dark every step of the way.
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  SPEAKER_03: But as I continued to grow and walk with God in that direction,
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  SPEAKER_03: oh my goodness,
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  SPEAKER_03: I really just kept seeing confirmed here and there and everywhere that,
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  SPEAKER_03: oh no, you were kind of made for this.
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  SPEAKER_03: So I'm so grateful to have been called just,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know,
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  SPEAKER_03: here I am about a year away from 50 and God like pivoted my whole complete vocation.
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  SPEAKER_03: So I love it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sort of a follow-up to that,
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  SPEAKER_00: you mentioned,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: when you started working as a chaplain, the challenges and the fulfillment.
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  SPEAKER_00: Could you speak a little bit about both?
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  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the challenge of it,
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  SPEAKER_03: I think,
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  SPEAKER_03: is when you go into chaplaincy,
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  SPEAKER_03: especially if you have a background in some sort of ministry,
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  SPEAKER_03: oftentimes you think your job is to proclaim.
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  SPEAKER_03: Or to teach something or speak something into a situation.
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  SPEAKER_03: One of the challenges that has become the blessing of chaplaincy to me,
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  SPEAKER_03: it is about being present and being still and accompanying and listening much more
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  SPEAKER_03: than it is speaking into a person's situation.
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  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes the things that I will speak into a person's situation is simply just
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  SPEAKER_03: an open-ended question to help them maybe understand And one of
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  SPEAKER_03: the most fulfilling things I think
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  SPEAKER_03: is being able to hear people's stories and to find out where they're coming from.
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  SPEAKER_03: Everyone has such a different journey.
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  SPEAKER_03: There's no two stories that are alike and every person is so uniquely loved by God
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  SPEAKER_03: in different ways.
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  SPEAKER_03: Not everybody knows that they're so loved, but they are.
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  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes The joy is when I get to see the light come on sometimes,
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  SPEAKER_03: not because of something I told them,
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  SPEAKER_03: but because somehow they had this breakthrough moment.
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  SPEAKER_03: I sometimes get to see people's aha moments with God,
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  SPEAKER_03: and I just kind of am a witness to that situation.
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  SPEAKER_03: I've had the privilege,
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  SPEAKER_03: I guess I would say,
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  SPEAKER_03: of seeing a person's countenance change,
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  SPEAKER_03: where they almost look like a different person than when I walked in the room.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I know it wasn't something I did.
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  SPEAKER_03: I was just present to be with them and how to guide in some different ways.
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  SPEAKER_03: So those are a couple ways that I find to be challenging and fulfilling.
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  SPEAKER_03: The more I've learned to listen,
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  SPEAKER_03: it's opened up many more opportunities for the gospel to be seen.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because it sounds to me like you're a gentle conduit.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting also that that could be the case in your being still
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  SPEAKER_00: and your accompaniment with people who are suffering and afraid,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know, in situations that are oftentimes extremely serious.
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  SPEAKER_00: But also, I think, in your music, you're also...
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  SPEAKER_00: A conduit between God and something deep inside, you know, there's an interesting combination.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're a musician first.
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  SPEAKER_00: So does your music inform your chaplaincy or both vice versa?
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  SPEAKER_03: It's probably going to be both.
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't always use music in the work that I do, but there are many times that I do.
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  SPEAKER_03: Partially, it's interesting to think about the way that all of our brains connect to music.
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  SPEAKER_03: I'm reading a book right now by a music therapist that says,
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  SPEAKER_03: the book is called Once There Was a Secret Chord.
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  SPEAKER_03: But the book really talks about the ways that our brains sort of come alive,
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  SPEAKER_03: like all the different chambers of our brain whenever music happens.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that's why we see such success with people who maybe are suffering with dementia
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  SPEAKER_03: or different memory problems.
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  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes music can bring them back to themselves in beautiful ways.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I've discovered that if I'll listen and if a person has a connection to music,
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  SPEAKER_03: sometimes I go, oh, okay, that's my end.
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  SPEAKER_03: One maybe good example of that was bringing music into a room.
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  SPEAKER_03: There was a patient who was coming very close to the end of their life.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I asked about this person's story because I really hadn't had a chance to meet
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  SPEAKER_03: with this patient themselves.
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  SPEAKER_03: Mostly it was just with family.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I said, well, you know, what does this person love?
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  SPEAKER_03: And they started talking about music and all the ways that this person connected with music.
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  SPEAKER_03: I said, oh, well, would it be all right?
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  SPEAKER_03: Or do you think that the patient would appreciate it if I brought my guitar in
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  SPEAKER_03: and maybe played some music?
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  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, oh, I think that would be amazing.
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  SPEAKER_03: So I went and got my guitar in.
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  SPEAKER_03: Expecting,
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  SPEAKER_03: I don't know,
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  SPEAKER_03: maybe they're going to ask for Amazing Grace or something that everybody's going
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  SPEAKER_03: to know.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I asked, do you know any song that was particularly meaningful to this patient?
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  SPEAKER_03: And they said, do you know Sweet Home Alabama?
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  SPEAKER_03: And so I started playing Sweet Home Alabama and singing a verse and a chorus.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that family just all went to tears and they started sharing stories
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  SPEAKER_03: about this person dancing with the grandchildren in the kitchen
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  SPEAKER_03: and how much this song meant.
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  SPEAKER_03: And so then they wanted other like songs by Leonard Skinner and Southern Rock songs.
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  SPEAKER_03: But in those moments, it was just a beautiful moment of God doing what only God can do.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know if we ever even shared what we might call
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  SPEAKER_03: a quote unquote sacred song, but they were all very sacred songs.
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  SPEAKER_03: They were all very sacred to that person's story and their spirituality and their life.
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  SPEAKER_03: So that was maybe a place where...
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  SPEAKER_03: Music kind of came secondary, but then it became primary to the encounter.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I was glad for the background I have in music that I could just
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  SPEAKER_03: so often I can just play something that someone asked for.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I'm grateful for that because over the years I've learned a lot of songs
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  SPEAKER_03: and I wondered if I'll ever be able to use this song ever.
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  SPEAKER_03: Well, it turns out in the hospital,
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  SPEAKER_03: there's a lot of people with a lot of different tastes and styles of music.
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  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes it comes in very handy.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was wondering if you could maybe elaborate a little more on,
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  SPEAKER_01: you talked a lot about listening
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  SPEAKER_01: and the importance of listening.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm often reminded of something I've heard several times,
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  SPEAKER_01: the expression,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, it says in the gospel somewhere, speak Lord, your servant is listening.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we turned that around to say, listen, Lord, your servant is speaking.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I mean,
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  SPEAKER_01: most of our prayer life is centered around Us asking God to do stuff for us,
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  SPEAKER_01: our petitions, and you know, dear God, if you do this, I promise I'll be good.
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  SPEAKER_01: In your work as a hospital chaplain,
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  SPEAKER_01: I imagine you have to spend more time listening and talking.
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  SPEAKER_01: How do you come to that balance?
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  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sometimes you have to fight that urge.
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  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I do.
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  SPEAKER_03: I want to break the silence sometimes.
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  SPEAKER_03: We were trained to get comfortable with the awkward silences.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that was something maybe that was a little more challenging for me in
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  SPEAKER_03: the beginning than it is now.
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  SPEAKER_03: And then sometimes,
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  SPEAKER_03: like now you get me on a podcast later and I probably talk too much
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  SPEAKER_03: because I'm listening so much throughout the day.
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  SPEAKER_03: But when you think about it, I think we are in a society where That no one is listening.
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  SPEAKER_03: Everybody is always talking, sending out, but very few people are receiving people's stories.
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  SPEAKER_03: And there are so many people that just don't feel heard.
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  SPEAKER_03: I have discovered that it's really a beautiful gift for a person
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  SPEAKER_03: when they actually feel heard and are seen and And when their story,
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  SPEAKER_03: when you'll just say something back to them as you're actively listening to
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  SPEAKER_03: the story and then you say a detail back to them that they said to you or two
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  SPEAKER_03: or three things,
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  SPEAKER_03: it shows that, well,
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  SPEAKER_03: this person actually heard You know,
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  SPEAKER_03: what I said or if I'll ask maybe like you do as podcasters,
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  SPEAKER_03: if I heard you correctly,
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  SPEAKER_03: I think I heard you saying this, you know, are you saying that?
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  SPEAKER_03: And then you find out,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know, if I misheard, sometimes I mishear people and I need to ask them again.
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  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's just such a noisy world and so few people feel like they are really heard.
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  SPEAKER_03: And so the fact that we could just listen and I think God shows up
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  SPEAKER_03: in those silent moments where we're not speaking.
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  SPEAKER_03: And in fact,
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  SPEAKER_03: when I think now about what it means to be a witness,
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  SPEAKER_03: when Jesus tells us to be witnesses,
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  SPEAKER_03: go into all the world and be witnesses,
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  SPEAKER_03: I realize now that we can't be witnesses unless we have first listened to And seen
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  SPEAKER_03: and heard.
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  SPEAKER_03: We don't even really have anything to share until we've received first.
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  SPEAKER_03: So it starts with listening and receiving.
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  SPEAKER_03: I just think it's a beautiful bow to make to another person.
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  SPEAKER_03: And as a songwriter too,
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  SPEAKER_03: like I know the difference when I'm playing a concert somewhere
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  SPEAKER_03: and people are listening and when people are not listening,
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  SPEAKER_03: like if you play in a coffee house,
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  SPEAKER_03: when you're trying to sing this song and you hear people talking,
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  SPEAKER_03: trying to talk over you while you're playing or the coffee machine in
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  SPEAKER_03: the background is grinding beans and going,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know, in the middle of all that you're doing.
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  SPEAKER_03: There is something so different about a room that's actually listening.
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  SPEAKER_03: And what a gift that is to a musician that someone took the time to hear you.
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  SPEAKER_03: So it doesn't have to be music, though.
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  SPEAKER_03: I think everybody's sharing a story.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it also takes some pressure off, too,
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_03: because there's such pressure to always feel like you have to have the right thing
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: to say or I'm going to make a mistake or I have to lay some profound truth
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: on this person right now.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: But it's so profound to just listen and just ask that person to say again what they just said.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's a beautiful way of sharing the gospel by just listening.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have three daughters, and my middle daughter was particularly close to me.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: They were all close, but she, when she was 12, 13, would often come tell me her problems.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And my first response was always,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: well, I'm going to call a school and I'm going to go fix that.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And she looked at me one day and she said, Dad, I don't want you to do anything.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: I just want you to listen.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, I mean, that was an eye opening.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say, I told my wife that and she said, I've been telling you that for 20 years now.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: Eventually we might get it, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: We have to resist that urge to fix.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be hard,
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: in the work that you do in hospital ministry because, you know, you want to heal.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: You want to make people feel better.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: You want to tell them, oh, everything's going to be okay.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's just listening to them is what makes them feel everything's okay
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: and listening to them share their stories.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, you'd asked about challenges, Barbara, a minute ago.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: One of the challenges, I think, is there are so many times we can't fix it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so hard.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the medical professionals,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: the doctors and the nurses and people involved in care,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: they would really like to fix whatever it is there.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it's just listening to a person when you can't fix it.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes people get sick and they don't get better and they get worse.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: And listening to what that experience is like for them.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: I had one person that was having a surgery surgery.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: That they had asked for pre-op prayer before they went back.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: And this surgery was going to make it so for the rest of their life,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: they wouldn't be able to talk anymore.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: Their voice would be debilitated.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it was so profound to me to think,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: I am probably the last person that's going to hear this person speak.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to be the last one to hear this person's words.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: I better make sure I listen right now, you know, no pressure, you know.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: But what a profound honor to be able to be in those situations with people.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes it's in the moments when we can't fix it.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of work with Patrick and my former pastor.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I actually co-authored a book with him about,
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: it's called After the Diagnosis, A Guide for Living.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: He has done a lot of work through the years with people who are seriously or terminally ill.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that came up in the stories that he told over and
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: over again is the fact that a lot of times the patient knows,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: patient knows at the core of who they are, that they're not getting better.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But family and the people that love them so much can't let that go, let them go.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we'll say, you know, no, no, you have to fight.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a treatment.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: You got to try everything you can.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Sometimes what the patient needs more than anything else is somebody
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: who doesn't necessarily have that agenda that can hear where they're at.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the people that we love the most may not be the ones
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: who are emotionally able to do it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you provide a sounding board,
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: for a lot of people,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: anybody,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: chaplain,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: clergy who has the privilege of Being privy to that kind of information,
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: there's an incredible intimacy in it as well.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait to read that book.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad to know about that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'll send you one.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll send you one.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: It strikes me too, Rick,
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: just thinking about listening has been a theme that's emerging for us and the idea
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: of building these listening skills in your chaplaincy.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder how they transfer to listening to Not to sound too highfalutin,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: but the music of the spheres that you're attuned to,
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: you're probably pulling these melodies out of somewhere.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's kind of this dual listening exercise that's happening.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk a bit about,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Barbara asked a bit about how the two inform each other,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: but maybe it's a way to pivot a little more into your musical calling.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that question.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: I wish I could tell you where sonically the tunes come from.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I think I'm repeating things I've heard before without even knowing it sometimes.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: But I do know this, as I've been working as a chaplain, I think the way I write is different.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm seeing music more as a response and less as a performance in the way
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: that I'm writing.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: So a good example was when I started my CPE journey with I was trying so hard
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: to make sense of what a chaplain does.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think my writing really turned towards that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I wrote a song called As I Walk These Halls, which is all about my work as a chaplain.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And for me,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: it helped me to kind of form my theology of what it meant to be a chaplain,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: but to use music because I was like really needing an outlet too
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: that was helping me be creative.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think I actually wrote that song during CPE on an overnight shift.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was sitting in our office and just trying to get all these thoughts formulated together.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I was just working with my guitar.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: It was probably three in the morning or something.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: My shift didn't end until like 8 a.m.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: But at that point, all the patients are in bed asleep.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: And unless there's an emergency, you don't have much going on.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I would write and Even I think every song since I've been a chaplain,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: I've been writing much more as a response,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: like hoping that I could put to words in some way what it was I was experiencing
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: and seeing with people I work with and trying to match the melodies to those stories
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: in some ways.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: There was a song called Keep Watch, Dear Lord, which is...
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that one and I thought it's the perfect song for caregivers, first responders.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: What a powerful song.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Powerful song that was.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_03: And that one was inspired by the comp line prayer that is prayed in the evenings.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I just kind of adapted it a little bit to not only evenings, but mornings.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: And then And throughout life,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: you know, the keep watch, dear Lord, for those who work and watch this day.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes my musical response is a good way for me to be able to get out what's
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: in my heart, too, because I don't always know how to express it exactly.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes if I put it into a song form, it makes it a little more concrete, too.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's something I can look back to, almost like a stone of help.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: in the scripture,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_03: they would put stones down to say,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: look back at, you know, Where God moved and how God was present.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think for me, musical expression is a little bit like that.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of things that I'll look back.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: And it's interesting, too, the way the music industry has changed over the last few years.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: Really, since about the time I started doing chaplaincy, CDs have pretty much gone away.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: So people are not putting out albums so much.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: They're putting out a lot of singles and a lot of things for Spotify.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_03: We still do have albums, but not in the frequency we once did.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: And that's really helped me as a chaplain because I don't feel pressure
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: to write full albums anymore as much as I'm writing a song at a time.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I just don't have time to do the kind of work I once did when I was actually
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_03: in publishing and doing, you know, a lot of touring like I was then.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then even like the newest song,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_03: Heaven is Full of Criminals,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was really just kind of wrestling with myself as much as anybody else.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: My own Worthiness before God.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll, to be honest, my judginess of people.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: Chaplaincy,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: one thing that they try to teach you is to have a non-anxious,
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: non-judgmental presence.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: It leans heavily on Carl Rogers and psychologists like that
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_03: that feel like people need to be free to completely be themselves or they won't find
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: the help that they need.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be honest,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: I can be as judgmental as anybody,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: you know, and so I And the person that I know who I judge worst of all is myself.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: I've talked several times with friends and other colleagues and I've said,
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: the things that I have said to myself, I would never say to somebody else anymore.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: I would, like,
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: I would never be that cruel to even the worst criminal that I would encounter along
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: the way because I just,
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: I know me,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: but the grace that I would be willing to give them,
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I would be willing to give to myself some days.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then, so, like,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Heaven is Full of Criminal is sort of a reflection on that and people I've met
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: who have felt similarly and It's a little bit of a controversial song.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: I think in some ways I had some people that told me they wouldn't play it
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: and they wouldn't endorse it because they couldn't agree with the message of it.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a provocative title.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I just think,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: when I listened to it,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: what I thought of is,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Patrick,
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: the song that we used to sing always on Good Friday,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: you know, the Taze, you know, Jesus Remember Me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you come into your kingdom, I mean, it's right out of scripture, really.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a more modern way to say it, kind of.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: Just because you mentioned scripture, Barb,
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: and just carrying it to St.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Augustine,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: which is a quote Rick shared in, I believe, some of the story behind the song.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I really like this.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Do not despair.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: One of the thieves was saved.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do not presume one of the thieves was damned as kind of a principle of that song.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I had a couple of other related kind of musical questions because you talked
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit about How you might during the night,
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: the hours of the night and kind of waiting between patients and you play
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: with your guitar a little bit.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always wondering,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I actually, I have a songwriting friend and had a conversation this weekend.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, you know, do you.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you start with a melody?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a melody that plays in your head and then you find lyrics to match?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there a message?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are there words that are pulling at you and then you create the melody to go along?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it sometimes one, sometimes the other?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, for me, only speaking for myself, it can be both.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: There are times when I get the melody first and then I write lyrics around it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: But I think oftentimes I have the message in mind,
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_03: something that I want to say,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: and then I try to marry music to that that doesn't fight against it, so to speak.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of country songs, actually.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: They sound kind of cheery, but they're about murdering someone or things like that.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: And somehow it works in the music.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I tend to find that it's better for me if I can marry the song to the words
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: to make it fit together.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: I want them to match.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: So unless I'm trying to do something creative,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: hopefully mournful words will be minor chords
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: and cheer things will be probably major.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: It just kind of depends.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: But for me, it's been a lot of different trial and error.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I'll find that they come together pretty quick,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_03: and sometimes I have to really struggle through it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: What's been interesting for me, again,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: back to the chaplaincy connection,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: I've become a better piano player since being a chaplain.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: I've played piano a little bit over the years,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: but we have a piano in the lobby of our hospital today.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: And in the lobby is where a lot of people come in the mornings getting ready for pre-op.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: They're getting ready to do tests.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Some people are maybe going to be admitted that day.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: I just don't know people's stories.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: But there right in the lobby is this piano.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I have been sitting down for quite some time.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: And learning things on my piano at home and then taking them in and just kind
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: of playing them by ear, which is mostly what I do.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: I have a lot of people come up.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: I'll play old hymns or, you know, songs that might be familiar to some people.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: And people just come up and start talking to me.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes melodies that I'm rediscovering from an old hymn become inspiring
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: to me to create something.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I'll write a song that feels very hymn-like, you know, because...
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: Something has been speaking to me from an old song.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't written a song necessarily matched to this one,
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: but one song that I find people are always asking for is in the garden.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: For whatever reason,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: people in hospital beds,
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: a lot of them, especially of a certain age, they want to hear that song.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think the assurance that Jesus is walking with me and talking with me.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it might be that I'll be playing something on piano that inspires something else
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: that when I have a chance to sit down,
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: I might work with a melody like that to write.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: But for me, it's both and, I think.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: But usually I start with the words.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that was interesting to me as a liturgical musician
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: when I was selecting music for liturgy,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was always conscious of sort of the point of view in a song
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: because some songs I found are...
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: They assume the point of view of God speaking to us.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Other times it's us speaking to God, which is often a prayer.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they're kind of a straight ahead evangelizing kind of a song.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I listened with interest to a lot of them.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the ones that were me to you, God, all worked as prayer.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of them did.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I also, of course, thinking...
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: As a liturgical musician, how many of these songs would make beautiful communion meditation?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Also, for worship and praise services.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so that led me to ask, well, gee, where could a liturgical musician access your songs?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you've ever had any of them published through any of the biggies,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: like an OCP or a GIA, or if you even have interest in that.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it would be so beautiful to have...
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Other people able to incorporate them into worship.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: I do have quite a few songs that were published years back through Lifeway Worship,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: which is actually,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not Baptist,
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: but it's basically the Southern Baptist Publishing Company at the time.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And actually I have a communion song called, The invitation that was published through them.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I know quite a bit of my music can be accessed there.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: Since that time, I've been just releasing things on my own here and there.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: I try to have links on I would always be open
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: to people publishing whatever they felt like was helpful for their congregations,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: for their church.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: The music I write is,
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: things that churches very much could use,
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: and some things are more,
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if they would be used as reflections or sometimes songs that I make.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'm really not sure where Heaven is Full of Criminals would fit in to like a worship service.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think it could maybe be used like an illustration sometimes,
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: but I'm not sure it's like a song a congregation would sing at the At the same time.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes there's songs that are just good in that way.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I am always open to anyone who is interested in publishing.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've had quite a few people that have requested songs.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I wish I could remember,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: I believe it's, I think it's musicnotes.com has several of my songs.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_03: But if you go to rickleyjames.com,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: my website,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: there should be some links there
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: where some sheet music is available whenever I've had time to have it made.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I used to love to do a meditation song right after communion when people are quiet
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: and be my all.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful one.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty confident, Rick,
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: that the parish that Barbara and I went to together for many,
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: many years, our pastor would have loved to use Heaven is Full of Criminals.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: That would have been one of his themes.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: That's terrific.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: A question I have is when you're writing music,
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know, you do a lot of work in hospital ministries.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: You hear a lot of people's stories.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you incorporate music?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's stories in the music that you're writing in any way,
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: not by name or anything like that, but just sort of the experiences.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And one reason I'm asking that is there's an old indigenous saying that if
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: a person's story is continually being told, their spirit never dies.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're incorporating your story into your music,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: then you're helping to keep their spirit alive.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe something you never thought of it that way, but that's what you're doing to an extent.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: I really like that, yeah.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: At this point, I don't know that I have ever put a person's story into music.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: I tend to write a little bit more thematically,
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_03: so that doesn't mean, though, that I haven't been inspired Right.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: And some of those stories are people that I've encountered.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: There's stories of people who might not feel themselves worthy,
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: may not even feel a need for forgiveness necessarily in their life.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: They maybe are unapologetically still who they are, but...
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's more a spirit of people that I've experienced more
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: than just telling their stories specifically.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: And it's hard sometimes because I always want to be cautious because of HIPAA laws
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: and things like that.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: I would almost need permission from a person, you know, to tell their story in music.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: I love that idea of keeping that person alive through their song and telling the stories.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe one day I'll be brave enough to write a song that tells a story
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: that I'm able to disguise enough,
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: to not give away, you know, the person was in the ICU on a snowy night, you know.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Those songs that I keep hearing on Facebook where the husband is getting
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: a song written for his wife when it does
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: What a powerful thought, though.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think you're right.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: How many people have actually lived on through songs that are telling their stories?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a really good point of view to think about.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm going to have to think about it.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: What strikes me, too, is that yesterday at church, our first reading was from Genesis.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was one of my favorite stories where Jacob wrestles with the angel all night.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And wakes up with a sore hip.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think maybe that explains it.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: But in some of your songs, you straight ahead really tell a gospel story.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to myself,
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: when I was listening to it,
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Heaven is Full of Criminals, that's a gospel story.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: The one about Up on the Mountain is another one.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, I'm really...
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really going to put in a request for the wrestling with the angel.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: Wrestling with the angel, yeah.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So much of us wrestle.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's a title right there.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great title.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: That is.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's my request.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be listening for that one.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe we'll write it together.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: We could do that one, I'm sure.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_03: There was a country song a few years ago,
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_03: Heaven Was Waiting at the Top of Jacob's Ladder,
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_03: but that was about a girl and a guy trying to sneak a girl out of her room,
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think, putting the ladder.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_03: His name was Jacob, so it might be a little different.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly a Bible story.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, there's some interesting Bible stories.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know, I know that, yes.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just to give our listeners a little flavor of the lyrics, there's a couple that I really liked.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: Who would throw down the first stone?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: He says, drop your weapons, grab a cross of your own.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of this trading weapon for the powerlessness of the cross.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: You crystallized it in a real image for us there in that song.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: I actually wrestled with that line quite a bit and tried a few demos because
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: the full line is now for all without sin who would throw the first stone.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: He says, drop your weapon, grab a cross of your own.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I was trying to figure out drop your what?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like drop your hammer?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_03: Because in some ways I was thinking like...
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: The hands that drove the nails into Jesus' wrists.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then I thought, well, maybe that's too explicit.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe the idea of just calling people to lay their weapons down.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's always the people who think they're without fault that are holding the weapon.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_03: So for all without sin who would throw the first stone, he says, drop your weapon.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I hadn't thought of the rocks that people were holding to stone
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: the adulterous woman as weapons before, but they were.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: And Because we're so righteous, we're going to take our righteousness out on you who are not.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then, yeah, so thank you for calling attention to that line.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_03: I wrestled a lot with how to phrase that one, actually.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Makes me think of all of the weapons that we throw around.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: We can throw around words.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: We can throw around judgments.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: We could throw around our own opinions about things.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's a big theme of Pope Leo is disarming speech he's referenced.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: How did the endorsement,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just curious, Rick, from Walter Brueggemann of Blessed Memory come about?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's such a towering scripture scholar, apparently a fan of your work.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I miss Walter.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: Thankfully, he didn't live that far from me.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: There was a time he lived in Cincinnati,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: and I live roughly an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes away from Cincinnati.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: When I found out he was living nearby me in his retirement,
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: which I don't know if he ever really retired,
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: to be honest,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: because he seemed like every time I would blow my nose,
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: he put a new book out, you know?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: It was like...
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think maybe Being Dead has only stopped his publishing books just slightly.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's still coming out.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_03: He's still got one coming out next week, I think.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: But I reached out to him by email,
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: and I said,
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: I have a podcast called Voices in My Head,
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: and I've really loved your books over the years.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: Would you like to get together, maybe record, and I'll buy you lunch or something?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: He loved First Watch,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_03: so we would go,
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_03: and I'd buy him lunch at First Watch or Panera or wherever it was
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_03: that he decided he wanted to go.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: He'd always get soup.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: And he would just meet.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I found him to be just such a delightful person.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: We would just laugh and share stories.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: And every now and then we would record a podcast or something.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so I gave him one of my CDs and I had written a book on stuff.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: The Psalms, it wasn't like a scholarly book as much as it was more just sort of by reflections.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: I had done an album with music that was inspired by the book of Psalms called Basement Psalms.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: So I gave him that and he really liked the music, which I was grateful for.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: And he gave an endorsement for especially this song that was
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_03: about Advent called Advent Hymn, Watching, Waiting, Longing.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: I still can't believe it,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_03: in some ways,
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: because I had been such a fan of his writing and work and reading him in college
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: and graduate school and all the places that you read Walter Brueggemann.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: And he was one of my first experiences just getting to know.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: So one of my heroes,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: so to speak,
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: and almost always when I've met my heroes,
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: I guess I have good heroes because they say never meet your heroes
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: because they let you down.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: But I don't think I've ever had an experience with people when I've met them
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: where I haven't just found them to be beautiful people that enrich my life.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm grateful that he was one of those people.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sad that on this side of eternity,
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: I won't have a chance to sit and eat soup with him again.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: He was quite a funny guy to talk to.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was not blessed with musical talent, but I'm definitely an appreciator.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just curious about your influences,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: just because this song and a lot of the other songs I listen to have such a diverse,
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: they blend many genres.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like you're pulling from different places, but it's definitely your own thing.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's some folk rock, there's some...
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say protest music,
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: but it gestures towards some Woody Guthrie, especially in this latest single.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's some very forthright,
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: unvarnished speech,
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: and I always associate that with the great protest records of yours.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: So could you talk a bit about,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: just as you were coming up, who your main lights were in the songwriting tradition?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, thank you for that question.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: I do appreciate it.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, one of them I got to play with on this track, actually.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: One of my heroes as far as guitar is Phil Kage,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: and Phil is just a master musician,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: one of the I can't think of too many guitarists on the planet
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: that I think are better than him.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_03: He's just amazing and a beautiful soul.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so I listened to quite a bit of Phil Keggy's music whenever I was younger.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: And again, beautiful opportunity.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_03: When I met my hero,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_03: he became a beloved friend,
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_03: you know, and for him to play on this album just meant the world to me.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: In fact,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_03: I had played some parts first with electric guitar and And then I thought,
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: do I dare risk this and just ask him,
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: because we've been friends, but I've never asked him to play with me before.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, sure, send it over.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: So that was wonderful.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then what he added with his electric guitars.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's like he's very lyrical in the way he plays.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: So Phil Keggy was a big influence.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: I've always loved country music, which I know comes out.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_03: I used to kind of fight against it a little bit because I thought,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: oh, maybe it's not cool to like country music or whatever.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: But as I've gotten older,
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm kind of embracing it more all the time,
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: and this one definitely has a flavor like that.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: I do love protest songs, you know, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, people like that.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: I've always loved the music of Rich Mullins.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: I've thought he's wonderful.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: I like bluegrass musicians like Ricky Skaggs.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: He's another one I met as a teenager, and I just always, you know, tried to emulate his playing.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think anybody can play quite like him.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: In his music.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: But then I'm always trying to find more music all the time.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think people are still influencing me.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I discover a song that I thought was new.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_03: The way that streaming platforms are now,
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: we don't really have a common source for music that we all pull from.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: So sometimes I'm listening to a song I like and the next song that pops up,
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: they'll look for something similar and And I'll be like to my wife,
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_03: like, well, have you heard this new song?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_03: And she's like, yeah, I heard it 20 years ago when it came out.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's new to me.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's new to me.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's one thing that's kind of neat, I think, about music and for all the plus.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeses and minuses to the way that we experience music now.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's one nice thing about it is doesn't matter how old a song is,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: it's always new to somebody.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: So Mr. Rogers used to say, you learn something old every day.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so in some ways, I think that's true with music.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes people bring...
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: Breathe fresh life into it.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like I went to a,
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: it wasn't a Stevie Wonder concert,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: but it was a Stevie Wonder tribute concert, you know, like Stevie Wonder experience.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: And there was a couple songs there.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I didn't know that was a Stevie Wonder song.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna have to look that up, you know?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so I find that there's a lot of influence.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this has been delightful, Rick.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: I know we're kind of coming up on the hour.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: We generally like to tie the threads of our conversation together.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you're coming from outside the Catholic tradition,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: but we still like to ask about our guest's idea of Tomorrow's American Catholic,
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: which is the name of our journal.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_02: Especially interested in people from outside the tradition because we want to learn
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: from everyone and everywhere.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: Just thinking about Pope Leo recently,
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: we're recording this in August,
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: and I think last week he spoke about the beauty of music and the beauty of song.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: He said it can guide us toward God, satisfying the thirst for God.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm paraphrasing,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: but he said,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_02: I want to listen to more music because that's how I feel eternity is going to sound.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: So again,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: that's not his exact quote,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: but I just love this idea that that's how he wants
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: to spend his time now is just listening to music to accustom himself to the sound
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: the kingdom.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: With that in mind,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: just any thoughts or impressions or advice for the Catholic Church
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_02: in Tomorrow's American Catholic you'd like to impart to us?
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, my goodness.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for asking.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I have anything profound to say,
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: but I do want to thank you for sending that article.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_03: I would have missed it about what Pope Leo had said about music.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_03: I've been so impressed with some of the things that he has been writing and saying.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_03: What I think he was trying to help us see,
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_03: and just reading that article, is that really music does form us so much.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: It helps in our formation as people, and there's so much meaning that can come from music.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: He doesn't say it in the article,
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: but what I've been saying for years is to people who preach and do the work
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: in ministry in churches that no matter how good your sermon is,
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: people are not going to leave humming it or whistling it.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_03: So music has a way of kind of getting things into our heart in a powerful way.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_03: So I guess the hope that I hold out for tomorrow's Catholic Church,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: and again, I don't know where God might lead me someday.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure I'm spending a lot of time around Catholic brothers and sisters lately.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: First with my degree through Loyola,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_03: and then I work at a Catholic hospital,
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_03: and I pray for me on my Maybe one day God is leading me.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: I've talked before about can I have dual citizenship be in my church and
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: the Catholic Church because I feel very drawn and very blessed by times
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: that I've been able to experience Mass with others and when I've been able
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: to minister alongside my Catholic brothers and sisters.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_03: I guess if I hold out hope or I don't know.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I have advice to offer, but just to listen more is a good thing.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: We've talked about maybe a church that learns to listen to the people that walk
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: through its doors is going to be a much more powerful church in the long term.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think maybe a church that argues less,
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: especially arguing less about things that don't matter in the scope of eternity.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: There are good fights to have and good arguments to have,
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_03: but I'm not sure we always focus on those things.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: I love the preferential option for the poor.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the idea that when we are serving the poor, we are serving Jesus.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is a beautiful thing that needs to be even more front and center along the way.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I think just the idea of creating beauty,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: there's something, Amazing when I walk into worship spaces and Catholic spaces.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_03: The beauty, no matter where I go, it's striking.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't see it in Protestant churches.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: We're very utilitarian.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: We walk in and whatever we can do to hang the projectors.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: And that's fine on some level,
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_03: but there is something about the holiness and the beauty of a place and
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_03: the encouragement to create.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_03: If I offer any advice at all is find ways to encourage more creativity
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_03: in your worship and include other cultures too in it because there's so much beauty
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_03: that we see around the world that doesn't always get included in our services.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's one thing that worshiping with my Haitian brothers and sisters here
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: in Springfield has taught me.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: There's different ways of worshiping God
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_03: and sometimes Sometimes my stretching myself to learn to sing in
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: a different language opens up some really beautiful experiences
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_03: that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes even if I can't understand the words, it's been helpful in being with other people.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_03: So those are just a few things that I kind of was thinking about
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: when you had asked those questions in advance.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you for sending some things in advance to think about.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's so helpful.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_03: I really appreciate it.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_03: Again, sincerely, this has been such a joy.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_03: I hope we can do something like this again sometime.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_03: This was wonderful to get to visit with you today.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: For us as well.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for agreeing to come on.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed too.
• 53:06
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  SPEAKER_02: tomorrowsamericancatholic.org.
• 53:34
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