1.Why did you write The Love Letters?
After visiting Assisi, Italy for many years and living there
for twelve years, the lives of St. Francis & St. Clare of Assisi are very
dear to us. So when Pope Francis was
elected and for the first time in history a Pope took the name Francis, we
became v
2.Who was St. Francis besides being a lover of nature, all
creatures, and the poor?
St. Francis had a fascinating life. In the beginning he was a troubadour much
like any teenager interested in music, girls, having fun. After being caught and imprisoned the first
day in a crusade against neighboring town of Perugia, Francis began the ask the
meaning of life. He was in a small
prison cell for a year. Afterwards he
was ill and resistant to going into his father's clothing business. He wanted a life that had heart, a life that
was true. He wandered outside the walls
of medieval Assisi to nearby mountain tops and a church in ruins. In the
simplicity of his days, abundant nature, and his opening heart, he found a
peace that was greater than any peace.
God spoke to him in words and in the beauty of nature and life all
around him. The harmony and stillness
around Francis touched a place inside of him of perfect harmony and peace. His heart began opening and continued opening
as he found a great source of inner love, generosity, compassion, and joy. St. Francis is one of the world's greatest
mystics as pilgrims of all religions have found as they follow in his
footsteps.
3.If Pope Francis was to continue
following in the footsteps of St. Francis how would the Church change? What
would it look like?
One person, even a Pope, cannot change an entire
Church. But Pope Francis has started by
giving himself to the people and showing people that a true leader is here to
serve other than being served. This is
the central message of St. Francis of Assisi and the growing message of Pope
Francis. The Church has become too
isolated from the needs and hearts of normal people. Francis is calling everyone to open their
minds to find God and to look into their hearts for spiritual meaning.
Humility, compassion, and simplicity were the cornerstones of the little church
of St. Francis of Assisi. So, we can
only imagine if priests and bishops, brothers and sisters throughout the Church
today find similar cornerstones for their lives. We all can only Imagine Catholics and people of all religions
adopting the prayer of St. Francis to become instruments of peace and healing.
I like to imagine a great outpouring of heart to the misunderstood, the ill,
the poor in our neighborhoods and cities0
This would be St. Francis in our world today.
4.
If individual Catholics, people of all religions, or no religion were to invite
the heart of St. Francis into their lives what would they experience, what
would they feel?
St. Francis spent much of his short life on mountaintops in
the silence and beauty of nature.
There he asked to be left alone and undisturbed. As his mind
was not so busy with thoughts of this world, he found a well of peace and joy
in his heart. In the small grottos he
lived he, we would curl up and be In the grotto of his heart. There he found simple peace. The deeper he went inside into the silence he
found much light and an indescribable joy.
This light and joy grew as he came down from the mountaintops and began
serving the lepers and poor people needing love and food. Everyone who takes time to listen to the
silence of their heart and practices service to others is walking in the
footsteps of St. Francis. This is the
path of many simple joys, what Francis called the path of perfect joy!
5.
How did you come to become so knowledgeable and intimate with the inner life of
these two saints?
Beginning in 1983 I began leading groups from many parts of
Europe and America to Assisi.
We meditated in the places of St. Francis and St. Clare and
would practice their prayers. Both
Francis and Clare would offer everything in their hearts. After doing this for some days, people
naturally find a silence, a peace inside.
In the inner stillness many of the people in these retreats began having
experiences described by Francis and Clare in their writings.
In 1999 we moved full time to Assisi. For the following twelve years we were more
or less in retreat full time. It was a
wonderful period to have so many days and nights, months and years living and
being in the peace of Assisi. During
this time we traveled to many parts of Italy where St. Francis discovered more
of his soul and the spiritual journey.
6.
What attracted you to them?
Like many people, I found religion to be more form then
substance, more about rules then about opening the heart and finding a real
spiritual path. Trained as a
psychologist, I soon realized we are more then our thoughts and feelings. There is something more to each of us.
People are not happy unless they have a sincere spiritual
life. St. Francis of Assisi had such a
life. It doesn’t matter what we call it but a life without spirituality is
superficial and empty. A life without
compassion and service is not fulfilling.
When I discovered St. Francis, I found someone who was all the substance
I looked for. In his humanness, he found
God. This is what I believed. As we make peace with all our humanness there
is something more inside each of us. As
our mind quiets down, we find a profound stillness in our hearts. In the many
monasteries, mountaintops, and gardens where St. Francis lived, you can feel
this peace.
It is not a matter of belief or imagination, in the
footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi the presence of something greater is very
present.
7.
Do you think that Pope Francis can bring back the values these two espoused in
their teachings?
Every time Pope Francis enters the square of St. Peters and
gets off his Pope Mobile and mingles with the people, he is expressing the
spirit of St. Francis. Every time he
touches the sick and asks us to feed the hungry, St. Francis is present. Most
of all, it is in the Pope’s humility as he washes the feet of prisoners or the
handicapped he is showing everyone that spirituality is in giving up our self
importance and give to one another. As Pope Francis continues this path,
hopefully more and more priests and people everywhere will understand
that what is important is not to be understood but that we
understand. What is important is not so
much if we feel loved but that we love.
These values turn us as individuals into new people. These same simple actions can be an example
for the Church and everyone who is looking for more meaning and a deeper
relationship with life and God.
8.
How did you so charmingly capture the voices of Saint Francis and Saint Clare?
After living in Assisi, Italy so long, visiting daily the
places where Francis and Clare lived, their presence is so alive, you cannot
help but begin to feel how they felt.
You cannot help but hear the words that must have been in their heart.
Reading the stories, sitting in the gardens, walking the many trails into the
woods, Francis and Clare become very human.
Their hearts are the hearts of everyone in our fears and
desires. Francis and Clare expressed the
dreams and hopes we all have but don’t have an opportunity to really feel and
express. We feel very blessed that we
could spend so many years living in Italy, having coffee in its squares, wine
with the meals, and living with the language and culture which is so much about
life, having great heart, and simple joy.
9.
This great love found by St. Francis and St. Clare, is it available to people
today?
We don’t have to travel to Italy to find the love of Francis
and Clare, although it definitely helps!
The secret to their spirituality was their path. Today there is a saying we need to unplug,
disconnect. This is what Francis and
Clare did. They dropped out and found a
great peace living in the beauty of nature and their hearts. God is not in the rules and ceremony of
religion but in our willingness to be open minded and available for love.
Francis and Clare were known for their great nakedness, poverty. This nakedness and poverty is in letting go
of our self importance, finding compassion for those we judge, and sitting in
the emptiness of our heart and finding a great presence.
10.
Who should read this book? And why do you think it is important for people to
read it?
The Love Letters was written for lovers! We are all lovers enjoying and suffering the
same disappointments, dreams, and desires for complete union. St. Francis and St. Clare are two of the
world’s most famous lovers although there is no evidence they actually had a
physical relationship. They traveled deeply
in the heart. In this journey they found
the challenges and obstacles that all lovers find. Loneliness and complete union, fear and utter
bliss…the path of lovers, mystics of all religions is very much the same. This book hopes to support the lover, the inner
mystic in each of us . The book hopes to
be a support for everyone who travels the inner path including the simple joys
and mystery how our small hearts can feel so human and so Divine.
11.
Tell us about living in Assisi?
Assisi, Italy is like many of the small hilltop towns in
Tuscany and Umbria in the heart of Italy.
What makes Assisi different is St. Francis and St.
Clare. There are so many small chapels
and back streets where you are transported into another realm. There is really no other way to describe it.
We have seen very ordinary tourists walking through Assisi who just begin
crying. They don’t know why. Between their tears they say there is just so
much peace here..
Celebrating Easter and Christmas are especially special In
Assisi. To see the processions during
Easter Week, to hear all the bells, and feel the energy, the days of Easter are
very much alive. Most people don’t know
St. Francis started the idea of a nativity scene some 800 years ago. Every Christmas there are nativity scenes everywhere,
all around the town. Christmas in Assisi
is the real Christmas without all the shopping, rush, and hurry. Assisi is the town of lots and lots of grace.
12.
How do you and your wife Ruth live these values yourself?
Ruth and I now live in the hills near Napa, California. We
live and run a retreat center called silent stay. Most of our days are spent in silence. Each day with our guests we have an hour of
meditation in the morning, meditative movement, and another half hour of meditation
in the evening. There are hundreds of beautiful acres around us. We feel very fortunate supporting others to
disconnect from their busy lives and feel the silence. The peace and quiet of where we are living
touches deeply our own inner peace and quiet.
I am writing books and columns for the Huffington Post. But most of all, I enjoy a simple life of
being a contemplative.
13.
Has your retreat center, Silent Stay, brought these values to others? Tell us
about it.
Many of our guests have never made a retreat before. This is fun!
At first all the quiet is a bit unsettling. We tell them it is not
really about not talking but enjoying peace and quiet. Their stay is several days of soaking in
peace and quiet. The guests quickly get
it and just enjoy. We offer lots of free
time for them to wander, journal, take a nap, make cookies, to be free. For us, each retreat is all about the
heart. So our guests are encourage to
nurture themselves. We give a simple and
clear meditation to practice while they are with us. Everyone is offering everything they find in
their heart. Then each of us are going inside and receiving the gentleness,
peace, our own experience of heart essence which is God inside of us.
14.
You are one of the world’s leading experts on silence for spiritual connection
and simple peace. How can someone embrace silence with our very busy lives
today?
Making friends with silence is not difficult. We just have to take the step and enjoy
it. The most difficult part of making a
retreat for many people is actually getting to the retreat. Once
they are here, enjoying peace and quiet is easy! People take time off
and often suffer the stress and noise of making a vacation. A silent retreat is a vacation for the heart,
simple joys, peace, and quiet. Our
nerves feel much better afterwards.
Taking the steps to get away has many rewards but most of all it is
taking a step for ourselves. Underneath our busy mind is a whole realm of heart
for us to discover.
15.
Tell us about your other books and how they can help people return to this
place of simple peace.
My first book was actually the first book about the inner
child. It is called The Magical Child Within You.
This book was a best seller all about not being so serious and
remembering our inner child. Everything
we do to touch our heart and the hearts of others is part of this path of remembering
our inner child. My next book was called
Monastery Without Walls. It is all about supporting the inner mystic
within us. We don’t have to join a
monastery but we do need to create our own monastery only without walls. There
are several books I wrote but one of my favorites is Simple Peace about the inner life of St. Francis of Assisi. Another book which is about the magical child
thirty years later called The Calling of
Joy. It is all about listening to
and following our joy as a path to our heart and simple peace.
16.
Do believe that The Love Letters will inspire people to see their own path to
the peace and joyfulness expressed by Saint Francis and Saint Clare?
The book business has changed much in recent years. It is very difficult to get a book known
since so many bookstores, especially the small ones have closed. So it is mainly word of mouth that we hope
people will share The Love Letters. Life
is too good to not really enjoy.. We
hope readers will find the love letters as a friend telling them not to hurry,
slow down and smell the beauty. Sit in
the simple peace and practice service in some part of our lives.
17.
Are you sending a copy of your book the Pope? What do you hope he will say?
The Pope is a very busy guy.
We don’t know if he would receive a book with all the mail he
receives. We just want to support his
big heart, his humility, and all he is doing to remind the world to judge less
and love more. Who would have ever thought, the Church with all its problems
would get a Pope like Pope Francis? Who
would ever have thought that St. Francis, his life and prayer would come so
front and center and challenge the world?
18.
What thoughts would you like readers to take away from The Love Letters?
We hope that readers of The Love Letters will walk away
feeling they are not alone on this inner way, this path of heart. People write us and tell us they are reading
the letters a day at a time for a daily meditation. We hope the great love of St. Francis and St.
Clare will inspire us all to spend more time in the silence of our heart, to
hug more, and have fun. Life is precious.
We pray for the day when all churches open their doors to everyone and
embrace the heart in each of us. May The Love Letters spread until we are all
writing our own love letters to God, one another, to especially those who are
challenged in difficult and challenging times.
19.
Your book is really about the inner steps of mystics of all religions. Tell us
about these steps?
The first Christians went out into the desert to find
Christ. We each are called to disconnect
and spend sometime in the desert. What
we will find is that the emptiness we fear is actually a vastness, a big space
which includes the presence of God. As we take the time to explore this
presence in our hearts we discover it grows and grows reaching without end for
the planets and stars. This is the
mystic’s way for pilgrims in all religions.
There is so much for us to explore in the caves and gardens, rivers and
ocean of our hearts. It all begins by taking sometime for retreat and receiving
deeply the heart essence underneath our normally busy mind.
20.
How can someone find this inner peace in our busy world and hectic schedules
today?
Practicing not being in a hurry is a spiritual
practice. Finding simple joys is a
spiritual path.
Finding some compassion for difficult people, some
generosity when we feel little all are things we can do in our normal busy
lives. Feeding our hearts and the hearts
of others is not in the big things we do but in the small moments of being
present, available, receiving and offering ourselves. Meditation, even if it is just for a few
minutes upon rising or going to sleep is a big gift for our soul. A few minutes of a quiet mind supports something
deeper within us. A few minutes of
conscious outer stillness can touch the inner quiet which is in each of us. It is all a matter of priorities,
intention. If our intention is for more
inner peace we will discover it in the elevator, car, and in the midst of the
noisy parts of life. Inner peace is our
true nature.
21.
Is there an inner mystic in everyone or is the calling just for a few?
If we follow only the news we would think the spiritual path
is for only a very few. The problem is
that everyone who is following their inner mystic, the simple steps of the
heart, we do not make the news. There
are so many truly mystical people in all parts of the world quietly leading
their heart full lives. We must be
walking slow enough, open enough, present enough to notice. As we slow down, we will see hearts smiling
in all kinds of people, lots of people everywhere.
22.
Do you think Pope Francis will succeed? Can he really heal a problem Church?
In many ways Pope Francis has already succeeded. The Church is changed. In Pope Francis way of being, his wanting to
serve instead of being served the Church is changed. Maybe he won’t be able to make all the
changes necessary. But in showing his
heart, his humility, and desire to touch the poor, the Spirit of St. Francis is
very much alive and will continue growing.
23.
What is your vision of the Church were it to be truly well, serving, and
lifting hearts?
My vision for a true Church will be a time when people are
taught to find their inner Church, their inner temple and cathedral of
God. Finding God in our lives is not
complicated. In simplicity of time in
silence of the heart, beauty of nature and one another, and giving to those
most in need, God is very present. I
pray for the day when religion is less about talking and judging and more about
hugging and serving. The is a great
silence in the heart of everyone. In
this silence is a perfect peace and path for each of us to follow. Everyone has gifts which express their
heart. I imagine the prayer of St.
Francis becoming alive for many as we become instruments of healing including
lots of fun, dancing, humor, and life!
Yes, lets all become instruments of much life, perfect joy!
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