So, in Uganda, we looked at this text of the woman in Luke chapter 7 who makes her way into the house of Simon the Pharisee. And she was not welcome, but she actually did the duties of the host. And it’s amazing because Jesus would have been lounging on the floor. And then in Greek, it says he turned to her and spoke to Simon, who would have been the host. His head was now to the host, turning to this woman. And he says to Simon, “Do you see this woman? And what do you see?” And these are the ways in which the Gospel text calls us to look around us in an amazing way. And once — in one of these encounters, there was an amazing situation where about 9 or 10 of us in a room, people who had chosen to come and to — they came from fairly — with deep caution about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans people.
MS. TIPPETT: And where was this?
MR. Ó TUAMA: This was in Belfast.
MS. TIPPETT: In Belfast, yeah.
MR. Ó TUAMA: And at the end of the two-day encounter, one of the men who had — he had chosen the word “fundamentalist” for himself to describe himself as a Christian. And he said, “I have a question for all the homosexuals in the room.” And part of me wanted to go, “We don’t like that word.” But anyway, I thought, “Let’s hear the question first,” because — you know. And he says, “I want to know how many times since we’ve met together in the last while, have my words bruised you.” And somebody next to me went, “Ah, you’re lovely. You’re very nice.”
And he said, “No. Don’t patronize me. How many times have my words bruised you?” And the fellow next to me started to count, “One, two, three, four.” And then he goes, “I’ve given up after the first hour.” And then this man, who had gone to the edges of his own understanding and asked others to help populate that edge with information and insight, said, “Are you telling me that it’s painful for you to be around me?” And somebody went — a woman in the room went, “Yeah, it is.”
And he was the one who chaplained himself into that space. And I couldn’t have made that happen. As the facilitator of the room, I couldn’t — like if I had said, “Do you realize that your words are bruising?” none of that would have been sufficient. Because what he was being brought into was the transformative power of human encounter in relationship. We were un-residential.
And curiously, he had asked — we were talking a few nights previously about television, and he was saying that his absolute favorite show was this political show on the BBC on a Thursday night. And I said, “My partner produces that.” And he was like, “What?” And then he went through all the names because he’s that kind of a geek that he knew all the names of the production team.
MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] He knew all the names. Right.
MR. Ó TUAMA: And he mentioned him by name, mentioned Paul by name. And then suddenly, he was like, “Do they enjoy it?” And he had all this information that he wanted to ask, and curiosity unfolded between us. And I think that, and shared cups of tea, was one of the things that contributed to the fact that he demonstrated, and I was converted by, his capacity to ask that question. I came away just going — I want in the ways in which I’m the perpetrator of real hostility and lack of understanding and lazy thinking. I want to be someone like him, who says, “Tell me what it’s like to hear the way I talk because I need to be changed.” I went also to be converted in terms of that.
MS. TIPPETT: But you know, I think that also speaks to another idea that you and I have discussed and explored together, and that’s come up in these days in Northern Ireland, which is the urgency of creating spaces where that kind of human connection can be made. Even just that normalizing thing of, “Oh, I know the TV show that your partner works on,” which wasn’t about the issue, but it flowed into the relationship, but also, where you could come to that moment of conversion for both of you.
I mean, that — Corrymeela is a place, is the creation of a place where people whose lives were threatened during the Troubles literally fled here, physically, to be safe. I think what you’re talking about is so relevant and resonant for American life right now. And one thing I experience is that people long to begin — they want to be having those kinds of encounters in their communities, like, where they live, very close to home. And they don’t know how to start. And this question of getting the right people in the room — how would you start to give some counsel on that from what you know?
MR. Ó TUAMA: I suppose Corrymeela’s practice for all those years has been to be a place of story, and that within that, the society, the religion, the politics, the pain, are all held within those stories. They don’t exist in abstract way. These concepts like civic society exist in people, next to people, next to people, next to people. And sometimes that’s a very fractious experience.
And one of the things that I think is really important for lots of organizations of goodwill, and Corrymeela is one of them amongst many in Northern Ireland – that’s really an important thing to say — is the recognition to say, “Where are the limitations of our understanding?” “Do we have friendships?” And I really appreciate when people contact so — the question, often, is to say, “Are there human connection points where quietly you can say to people, ‘Can you help me understand this?’” And maybe then you’ll participate in this fantastic argument of being alive in such a dynamic way that it’s great fun or really enlivening. And you can have a really robust disagreement. And that is the opposite of being frightened of fear because you can create that.
When Corrymeela began in ‘65, somebody who didn’t have a great understanding of old Irish etymology had said, “Oh, ‘Corrymeela’ means ‘hill of harmony.’” And people were like, “How lovely. Amazing. Hill of harmony. Isn’t that delightful?” And about 10 years later, somebody who actually knew what they were talking about when it came to old Irish etymology said, “Well, it’s kind of like ’place of lumpy crossings.’”
[laughter]
MR. Ó TUAMA: And by that stage, there’d been 10 years. And people were like, “Oh, thank god.” [laughs] “The place can hold us still because we haven’t been great at harmony apart from the occasional song.”
MS. TIPPETT: Yeah, well, who is? [laughs]
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yeah, but that gives — and people do sometimes say — when we’re in community discussions, say, “This is a bit of a lumpy crossing for us.” And it gives space and permission to say, “Yeah it is.” And actually that’s — even the naming of that is part of what might help us and be a lovely, wise understanding about what success is because that, in itself, is a really good place to get to, to say the “here” is that this is difficult.
[music: “Fáinleog (Wanderer)” by The Gloaming]
MS. TIPPETT: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Today, in Northern Ireland with theologian, poet, and social healer Pádraig Ó Tuama.
[music: “Fáinleog (Wanderer)” by The Gloaming]
MS. TIPPETT: You mentioned at one point that — I think you say that you didn’t love the book The Zen — what is it?
MR. Ó TUAMA: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
MS. TIPPETT: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. But that there’s this word…
MR. Ó TUAMA: One lovely word, yeah.
MS. TIPPETT: One word…
MR. Ó TUAMA: I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen, and I thought, “When I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I will become as wise as Henri Nouwen.” And then I read the book, and I was like, ”I’m bored,” partly because I don’t understand motorcycles.
MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] Yeah.
MR. Ó TUAMA: So I suppose that was the beginning. I should have paid attention to that.
MS. TIPPETT: But this one word, mu.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Mu.
MS. TIPPETT: M-U.
MR. Ó TUAMA: There’s a Buddhist concept where, if you’re asking a poor question — if a question is being asked, go, “Are you this or that?” That what Robert Pirsig says that you can answer, according to his telling of the Zen tradition, you can answer with this word mu, M-U, which means, “Un-ask the question, because there’s a better question to be asked.” The question that’s asking is limiting, and you’ll get no good answer from anything.
This question fails us, never mind subsequent answers. And I think that’s a really delightful way to understand the world. And I think questions about Jesus sometimes that are posed in our public rhetoric about Christianity — “What do we do here?” “What do we do there?” “Is this right?” “Is that right?” “Am I allowed to be gay and Christian?” for instance, was the question that plagued me for years. And I think that in a certain sense, we’re being told by God, perhaps in silence in our prayers, “Mu,” because there’s better questions to ask. And asking a wiser question might unfold us into asking even more, wiser questions, whereas certain kinds of questions just entrench fear.
MS. TIPPETT: Yeah. Well, also wiser questions will elicit wiser responses.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yes. Yeah. You’re right.
MS. TIPPETT: And so that will lead us together down a different road.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Totally. And maybe towards each other, and into human encounter, and into the possibility of saying, “I will learn something from somebody.” I used to be a school chaplain in West Belfast, and I trained, and I did some Ignatian spirituality training. And we used to do reflections on — prayer reflections with 11-year-old, West Belfast, hilarious young people. And we’d gather around and light a candle and have a prayer bowl, and just create a little bit of quiet. And then we’d do an imaginative Ignatian reflection where the young people would take a walk with Jesus.
And it was only a year that I had that job, and that year, I loved that job because every day I thought, “I’m going to meet Jesus as curated and narrated by 11-year-olds from West Belfast.” And they were hilarious. One young girl said, “Yeah, Jesus came walking over the water wearing a purple tutu and a coconut bra.” I thought, “Oh my god.” [laughs] “That’s not the Jesus that I know.” And then for — they have to make a drawing for the Bishop. And she said, “I’m not very good at drawing.” I was like, “Thank God because I’d like to keep my job.”
[laughter]
MR. Ó TUAMA: Maybe it was for me.
MS. TIPPETT: The other kinds of story — and I think these were younger kids in a different setting in which you were teaching — you also got this question, “Pádraig, does God love us?”
MR. Ó TUAMA: Oh, yes. That was actually in the same job. Yeah.
MS. TIPPETT: So why did he create Protestants?
MR. Ó TUAMA: She was hilarious. She was one of my favorites. She was amazing at football, and she just said everything that she thought. I was wittering on about something, and she was clearly bored, and she goes, “Pádraig, answer me a question.” And I went, “OK.” And she goes, “God loves us, right?” I went, “OK.” She was setting out her premise. And then I said, “OK. I’m with you.”
MS. TIPPETT: [laughs] She was a philosopher.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yeah, totally. And then she goes, “And God made us, right?” OK. I knew that these weren’t the really important questions. And then she goes, “Answer me this: why did God make Protestants?” I said, “You have to tell me a bit more about your question.” And she goes, “Well, they hate us, and they hate him.” And because I knew she was brilliant at football, I said, “I know a lot of Protestants that would want you on their football team.” And she went, “Really?” Because her — she, in that little half-comedic, half-frightening incident, is telling a story of an entire society.
Because she has been educated, and she’s reflecting something — this was only — this is 2011. So this was 13 years after the Good Friday Agreement had been signed. She hadn’t been born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. And nonetheless, these are ways in which these stories — and you mentioned sectarianism earlier on, and one of the best definitions of sectarianism comes from a book by Cecelia Clegg and Joe Liechty, and they say, “Sectarianism is belonging gone bad.”
MS. TIPPETT: Belonging gone bad.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Gone bad.
MS. TIPPETT: And they — in that book, you mention…
MR. Ó TUAMA: The scale of sectarianism.
MS. TIPPETT: The scale. And so what is that? And the scale…
MR. Ó TUAMA: The scale for them begins — I think there’s about 14 or 15 points. The first part of the scale is going, “You’re different. I’m different.” Fine. And the 15th point is, “You’re demonic.” And that’s the word they use in all the scales down to that — one of the pieces…
MS. TIPPETT: And the farther down that scale you go, the more violence…
MR. Ó TUAMA: The more danger. Yeah.
MS. TIPPETT: Dangerous it becomes.
MR. Ó TUAMA: The more you justify it, because if somebody is the devil, well, then you get rid of them, generally. One of the scales — and that is, “In order for me to be right, it is important that I believe that you are wrong.” And ways within which that is really alive to how it is. And I think what you’ve been saying in terms of recognizing that, fragile and limited as our process has been here, Northern Ireland has transformed itself and involved in that has been — politicians, and peacemakers, and victims, and perpetrators, and all these limited words like that. People who have said, “I was caught up in something,” and have now given extraordinary contributions. So many people of goodwill, and courage, and protest saying, “We can find a way to live well together.” And this can be the hope.
MS. TIPPETT: And that’s very hopeful…
MR. Ó TUAMA: It is.
MS. TIPPETT: …to think that you have collectively — including people who were violent, who were — “terrorists” is one of those words, but who actually collectively moved from that place on the spectrum of demonizing others back towards, not necessarily agreeing or loving in terms of feeling jubilant in each other’s presence, but making that move…
MR. Ó TUAMA: And giving committed guarantees to the other’s safety. And finding ways in which we can say, “This can be a place where our disagreements will happen in a tone that is wiser, and in a tone that is safer.” And I think that’s a really helpful place to be. I mean, because the implication that to agree with each other is what guarantees safety is immediately undermined by every experience of family — like, we just know that. And friendships — that’s what we know.
Agreement has rarely been the mandate for people who love each other. Maybe on some things, but actually, when you look at some people who are lovers and friends, you go actually they might disagree really deeply on things, but they’re somehow — I like the phrase “the argument of being alive.” Or in Irish, when you talk about trust, there’s a beautiful phrase from West Kerry where you say, “Mo sheasamh ort lá na choise tinne,” “You are the place where I stand on the day when my feet are sore.” And that is soft and kind language, but it is so robust. That is what we can have with each other.
And it’s so physical, that beautiful understanding. And you can find that with each other, even when you think different things about what jurisdiction we are or should be in. You can find you’re the place where I stand on the day when my feet are sore with each other. And that is soft and kind language, but it is so robust. And it is part of the firmament that upholds what it means to be human. That is what we can have with each other.
And we are failed by headlines that just demonize the other and are lazy. And where I might read a headline about myself and go, “I don’t recognize myself in the language that’s being spoken about there,” we are failed by that. But we are upheld by something that has a quality of deep virtues of kindness, of goodness, of curiosity, and the jostle and enjoyment of saying, “Yeah, we disagree.” But that curates something, and in a psychological context, contains something that actually is a vessel of deep safety and community.
MS. TIPPETT: OK. I’m going to skip over all of my other brilliant questions.
[laughter]
MS. TIPPETT: I just want to read this — on the power of the idea of belonging: “It creates and undoes us both.” And you also wrote, “If spirituality does not speak to this power, then it speaks to little.” I think what I’d love for you to do is read the very end of your book. And I have it — or you have it.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Right here.
MS. TIPPETT: OK. So it would be starting at, yeah, “Neither I nor the poets I love…”
MR. Ó TUAMA: Sure.
“Neither I nor the poets I love found the keys to the kingdom of prayer and we cannot force God to stumble over us where we sit. But I know that it’s a good idea to sit anyway. So every morning I sit, I kneel, waiting, making friends with the habit of listening, hoping that I’m being listened to. There, I greet God in my own disorder. I say hello to my chaos, my unmade decisions, my unmade bed, my desire and my trouble. I say hello to distraction and privilege, I greet the day and I greet my beloved and bewildering Jesus. I recognise and greet my burdens, my luck, my controlled and uncontrollable story. I greet my untold stories, my unfolding story, my unloved body, my own love, my own body. I greet the things I think will happen and I say hello to everything I do not know about the day. I greet my own small world and I hope that I can meet the bigger world that day. I greet my story and hope that I can forget my story during the day, and hope that I can hear some stories, and greet some surprising stories during the long day ahead. I greet God, and I greet the God who is more God than the God I greet. / Hello to you all, I say, as the sun rises above the chimneys of North Belfast. / Hello.”
MS. TIPPETT: I don’t know if we need a question. I would, though — when I read that, I’ll just be really honest and say — oh, here’s something I didn’t say that’s honest that I still want to say to you. It’s a bit — becomes so clear in your book, especially, that you’re so hard on yourself. Like…
MR. Ó TUAMA: Oh, really?
MS. TIPPETT: Right? And you tell that story about your friend Rory, who says…
MR. Ó TUAMA: Oh yeah. [laughs]
MS. TIPPETT: …“Here’s the one thing I know about you, Pádraig, you always make things more difficult.” [laughs]
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yeah, yeah. And I was prepared for him to — I was prepared with great modesty to receive a compliment in that situation.
[laughter]
MR. Ó TUAMA: He undid me.
MS. TIPPETT: Yeah. And you are one of these people — and I recognize myself a little bit in you — you bring a lot of solace to other people and hope to other people, but you’ve struggled a lot.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yeah, totally.
MS. TIPPETT: Yeah. And I was very curious — I just love those pages. I loved that image of you praying and how you pray.
MR. Ó TUAMA: Yeah. I do love praying. Like prier from French, “to ask.” And what I love about that word is it doesn’t require belief. It just requires a recognition of need. And I think the recognition of need is something that brings us to a deep, common language about what it means to be human. And if you don’t — if you’re not in the situation where you know need, well, then you’re lucky. But you will be. That won’t last for too long. Need is happening in so many ways, in so many levels, in people and in societies and in communities.
And I suppose I really think that prayer is also not only naming or asking, but just saying hello to what is and trying to be brave, trying to be courageous in that situation and trying to be generous to your own self, also. To go, “Here’s a day when I feel intimidated,” or “Here’s the day; I’m just waiting for the end of it,” or “Here’s the day when I have huge expectations of delight,” because those can also be troubling.
And Ignatius cautions people to have an active detachment, recognizing the things that will cause you great distress, as well as things that can cause you great delight, can be things that distract you from what he calls your principle and foundation, which I suppose I ultimately understand as love. And that that is the principle and foundation of the human project, of the human story, of the human encounter, is to move toward each other in love.
And to find — like, in Corrymeela, we talk about living well together. That that is the vision we have, to live well together. That doesn’t mean to agree. That doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect. It means to say that in the context of imperfection and difficulty, we can find the capacity and the skill, as well as the generosity and courtesy, to live well together.
And I think by — in the morning times, I say hello to all those things, and then I try to say hello a little bit to what I know won’t happen. And in that sense, prayer becomes a way within which you cultivate curiosity and the sense of wonder. So that you know I’ll be returning back to this and can say hello tomorrow to something that I wouldn’t have even known about today. That’s how I understand prayer in that way. Every now and then, Jesus shows up and says something interesting. [laughs]
Ms. Tippet: [laughs]
MR. Ó TUAMA: Through the Gospel. I read the Gospels in Irish too because there’s something about reading the text in Irish. I love the richness of the etymology. And certain phrases that — actually, it’s difficult enough to say in Irish the way within which — like, in Ireland, I think we have this understanding of, “Why use five words when you can use 50?” So sometimes, the texts are longer than they would be in Greek or English. But it’s a lovely thing to do in that sense because you realize the way these translators have found a way to say something that really unfolds something really delightful.
MS. TIPPETT: Thank you so much.
MR. Ó TUAMA: It’s a joy, Krista.
MS. TIPPETT: Thank you.
MR. Ó TUAMA: It’s a joy.
MS. TIPPETT: Thank you.
[applause]
[music: “Belfast” by Brian Finnegan]
MS. TIPPETT: Pádraig Ó Tuama is the community leader of Corrymeela, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. His books include Sorry For Your Troubles, Readings From The Book Of Exile, and In The Shelter: Finding a Home in The World.
STAFF: On Being is Trent Gilliss, Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Mariah Helgeson, Maia Tarrell, Marie Sambilay, Bethanie Mann, Selena Carlson, and Rigsar Wangchuck.
[music: “Belfast” by Brian Finnegan]
MS. TIPPETT: Our lovely theme music is provided and composed by Zoe Keating. And the last voice that you hear singing our final credits in each show is hip-hop artist Lizzo.
On Being was created at American Public Media. Our funding partners include:
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