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November 3rd, 2025

Episode #44, John Dear Talks Nonviolence with the Legendary Joan Baez

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks with his friend of 35 years, the legendary folk singer, Joan Baez. A lifelong activist for peace, justice, civil and human rights, and an equally passionate believer in nonviolence, she has released over 30 albums, traveled the world singing for peace for over 60 years, published a great autobiography called “And a Voice to Sing With,” and recently published her first collection of poems, “When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance.”
 
Joan performed at Woodstock, opened Live Aid, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. PBS did a spectacular biography of her which I recommend called “How Sweet the Sound,” and she was featured recently in the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” brilliantly played by actress Monica Barbaro. She was a close friend of Dr. King; arrested for protesting the Vietnam war; went to Hanoi, and was bombed by the US. She has been against all our wars and injustices because she has a lifelong commitment to nonviolence.
 
Listen as Joan reveals how her Quaker parents influenced her early childhood and the year she lived in Baghdad, and how a meeting with long time peace activist Ira Sandperl, and later hearing Dr. King speak at her high school, changed her life forever.
 
Joan is surprisingly candid when it comes to sharing her own failings and how meditation has become a crucial part of her daily routine. When asked about founding “The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence” in the 1960s, she talks about the one hour requirement of sitting in silence each morning. “Many people had their first acquaintance with nonviolence through that experience of silence,” she says. Her honesty is disarming and reflects how many of us feel today.
 
She also shares personal anecdotes about Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Dr. King and her experience with Vaclav Havel and the Czech Republic’s Velvet Revolution. Listen in as she quotes Gandhi and T.S. Elliot when encouraging me and all of us to be activists, and then reads her new poem, “This Is Not Optimism.”
 
Toward the end, she and John read together her brilliant 1960s dialogue, “What Would You Do If,” about the threat of personal assault.
 
As she closes, she breaks into song, singing the Civil Rights anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” guaranteed to give you chills! At 84, Joan Baez is still carrying her “shining light out into the shit storm,” as she puts it. Check out this special episode of The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast and share it with your friends!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Ivana Hughes! For more information, visit here.

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Listen on Apple, Spotify, all major platforms,
and the National Catholic Reporter

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Apple Podcasts
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Fountain FM
True Fans
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October 27th, 2025

Episode #43, Part 2 of John Dear’s conversation with Sr. Simone Campbell

 
This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” we hear part 2 of John Dear’s 2 part conversation with Sr. Simone Campbell, one of the strongest voices,
organizers, and leaders for social and economic justice in the U.S. A Sister of Social Service, Sr. Simone is a religious leader, attorney, author and recipient of the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom. For 17 years she was executive director of NETWORK, the national Catholic Lobby for Social Justice and the leader of “Nuns on the Bus.” Her healthcare policy work was critical in the passing of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Before that, she spent 18 years working at the Oakland Community Law Center which she founded.
 
This episode begins with her reflections on her daily contemplative, Zen practice as the foundation of her lifelong work for justice. “My practice begins every morning. I have a half hour of Zen sitting, being quiet and opening myself. I call it, ‘Deep listening to the divine.’ There, things can bubble up. I follow this with a half hour of spiritual reading. I have to feel secure in myself to be willing to open myself to other peoples’ points of view. If I’m riled up, I can’t do this work, so I need my practice. If we’re going to create change, it’s required that we understand what’s going on inside us if we want to understand others.”
 
“My religious community is dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and our feast is Pentecost,” she says. “Pentecost is about the flourishing of the Holy Spirit in places that are challenging, or potentially conflicted. I need to be able to listen well enough so that what I might say will touch the other. I love being on fire. It’s so exciting.”
 
John asks her about the section in her book, Hunger for Hope, where she writes about the importance of “prophetic imagination.” Community is the best way to nurture prophetic imagination, she says. She recites Walter Bruggemann’s five characteristics: long and available memory; touching the reality of the pain; living in hope; effective discourse across generations and cultures; and the capacity to sustain long term tension with the dominant culture, and the potential for insight and imagination.
 
“You can’t have hope without community,” she says. “Community is at the heart of hope. The hardships people are laboring through today are essentially because of the lack of community, because of our radical individualism and isolation. Community happens when we are in relationship with others so much that we rub each other a little bit the wrong way, and learn the capacity to see the world in different ways.”
 
“Hope,” she concludes, “is critically connected to touching the pain of the world as real. It demands a response.” Listen in and be inspired by this legendary voice of social and economic justice! 

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Joan Baez! For more information, visit here.

Upcoming Zoom Programs:

“Exploring the Mystical Dimensions of the Peace of God That Surpasses Understanding” With Jim Finley

Saturday November 15, 2025

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

 

Elizabeth Johnson in a Special Christmas Conversation with John Dear on “The Theology of the Incarnation of the God of Peace in a World of War”

Saturday December 20, 2025

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

 

Paula D’Arcy, “Blessed are those who mourn”

Saturday January 24, 2026

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

 

Rev. Charlie McCarthy, “The Nonviolent Jesus Is, Before Abraham or the World Was”

Saturday February 14, 2026

11 am Pacific, 12 PM Mountain, 1 PM Central, 2 PM Eastern

 

John Dear’s new book now available

“The Gospel of Peace:
Reading Matthew, Mark & Luke
from the Perspective of Nonviolence”

For info, click here
 
To order, Call Orbis Books at 1-800-258-5838
 
Visit Fr. John’s 2025 Speaking Schedule
 
 
 

To invite John Dear to speak in your city, write to: john@beatitudescenter.org 

National Catholic Reporter Review of “The Gospel of Peace,” click here
 
To watch Fr. John’s interview with Dean Young of Grace Cathedral about the book, click here
 
To watch Fr. John’s sermon at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, on Jan. 21, 2024, (at the 30 minute mark) click here

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LATEST NEWS FROM THE BEATITUDES CENTER

Quote for the Day: 

“The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the
adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the God of peace as the waters cover the sea.”

(Isaiah 11:6–9)

Quote for the Day: 

“I am called in the Word of God — as is everyone else — to the vocation of being human, nothing more and nothing less … To be a Christian
means to be called to be an exemplary human being. And to be a Christian categorically does not mean being religious. Indeed, all religious versions of the gospel are profanities. In the face of death, live humanly. In the middle of chaos, celebrate the Word. Amidst Babel, speak the truth. Confront the noise and verbiage and falsehood of death with the truth and potency and efficacy of the Word of God. Know the Word, teach the Word, nurture the Word, preach the Word, define the Word, incarnate the Word, do the Word, live the Word. And more than that, in the Word of God, expose death and all death’s works and wiles, rebuke lies,
cast out demons, exorcise, cleanse the possessed,
raise those who are dead in mind and conscience.”
–William Stringfellow

October 27, 2025

Dear friends, Blessings of Christ’s Peace!

   I’m excited to welcome back to the Beatitudes Center the world’s greatest teacher on mysticism, author Jim Finley, on Saturday, November 15th. He will speak to us on “Exploring the Mystical Dimensions of the Peace of God That Surpasses Understanding.” Mark your calendar and join us!

     Dr. Jim Finley is a revered teacher of contemplation and mysticism. A novice and student of Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani and clinical psychologist, Dr. Jim Finley teaches about how to connect with “our Divine indwelling” to transcend fear and shame and awaken to what Merton called “our true self.” A faculty member at Living School at the Center for Action and Contemplation, Jim hosts a widely popular podcast, “Turning to the Mystics.” He is author of several bestsellers, such as Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, The Awakening Call, and The Contemplative Heart, and recently published his memoir, The Healing Path.

     His zoom presentation on the mystical depths of nonviolence a few years ago has been seen on the free Beatitudes Center channel on www.youtube.com by over 14,000 people. The transcript of his presentation was later published in Fr. Richard Rohr’s theology journal ONEING, the issue entitled, “Nonviolence,” (which can be ordered at www.cac.org under their Bookstore.)

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