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November 3rd, 2025

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

Photo from the Documentary, I Am A Noise
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,” she was profiled in the new documentary, I Am A Noise, 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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November 10th, 2025

Episode #45, John Dear Talks With Anti-Nuclear Leader Dr. Ivana Hughes

This week on “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast,” John Dear speaks one of our leading anti-nuclear activists, Columbia University professor Dr. Ivana Hughes. And just last week, the authoritarian president announced he wants to resume nuclear weapons testing, violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which has been ratified by 170 nations. 
From 1951 until 1992, the U.S. exploded a nuclear weapon in Nevada on average every 18 days – 928 in total.  As Daniel Ellsberg remarked, “It is the most bombed place on the planet.” But thanks to my colleagues at the Nevada Desert Experience, which brought 25,000 activists to commit civil disobedience in the Nevada Desert, the bombings stopped.  Although the U.S. never ratified the treaty, it has abided by it since 1992–until today.
Dr. Ivana Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University. She serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the United Nations to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a committee consisting of 15 experts from around the world who advise the states on scientific issues as they pertain to the treaty. Dr. Hughes obtained her PhD from Stanford University, where she was an American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellow. She has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 2008 and was awarded the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award for 2020. Her work on ascertaining the radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands has been covered widely. Her writing has appeared in The Nation, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scientific American, Truthout, Common Dreams, and elsewhere. 
 
“The threat of nuclear war is absolutely enormous,” she says. “It could happen at any time. It could happen in a matter of minutes. We’ve been really lucky that nuclear war has not happened. There have been many, many close calls.”
 
“We work to help build the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which is a legally binding international agreement that prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons, aiming for their total elimination. It was adopted on July 7, 2017, and entered into force on January 22, 2021. As of today, 99 nation states, over half the UN, have signed the treaty and called for nuclear disarmament. This is a process that will continue however long it takes to eliminate nuclear weapons.  Of the three weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological weapons have been internationally outlawed. We’re working to get nuclear weapons treated the same way.
 
“Until we stop investing in nuclear weapons and military warmaking,” she says, “we’re not going to be able to address other challenges we have. Our elected representatives need to know that the general public cares about nuclear disarmament. So if you care, let them know.” Listen in and be inspired! Check out her website: wagingpeace.org God bless everyone!

Next week…

The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast welcomes Wes Granberg Michaelson! For more information, visit here.

And be sure to listen in to last week’s special conversation with Joan Baez!

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

November 10, 2025

Dear friends, Blessings of Christ’s Peace!

     “If we are grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love.” That’s the kind of teaching Jim Finley will offer this Saturday, November 15th at the Beatitudes Center. I hope you will join me to learn from this great wisdom teacher.

     A novice and student of Thomas Merton at the Abbey of Gethsemani and a longtime clinical psychologist, Jim Finley currently teaches at the Center for Action and Contemplation and 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 which you can order through OrbisBooks.com with discount code TBC.

     “To practice meditation as an act of religious faith,” Jim teaches, “is to open ourselves to the endlessly reassuring realization that our being and the very being of everyone and everything around us is the generosity of God. For God is creating us in the present moment, loving us into being, such that our very presence in the present moment is the manifest presence of God. We meditate that we might awaken to this unitive mystery, not just in meditation, but in every moment of our lives.”

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