Well, as you said, I went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business and I enjoyed it. Like a lot of your listeners, I found it fascinating. I took a job with G.E., a formerly great company in the 1980s, and it was a very exciting time. I was a yuppie right. I mean, I was the classic yuppie who was making a lot of money and was going out a lot. Additionally, I took a job at G.E. Human Resources and GE Capital, another big powerhouse in the 80s. Gradually, I just felt that I was in the wrong place. Really, no one had ever asked me growing up or at Wharton, what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, I got a great business education at Wharton, and I don't want to downplay it, but no one really asked, what do you think you're made for? It was more about trying to earn as much money as possible. That was the goal. That was the kind of plum. Eventually, I realized that that just wasn't doing it for me. And so one day I came home and turned on the TV and there was a documentary about Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, and that got me thinking about doing something else and that led me to the Jesuits. So it was kind of a push out of G.E. and also pulled into, for me, something that was more meaningful.

And like, who are you?

Who are you meant to be and who are you meant to become? And no one had really ever asked me that at Wharton.

Well, yeah. And as my novice director used to say, "We're not human doings, right?" I remember I went to Wharton, I was invited to give a talk on vocation and I said, "Are you sure you want me to talk?" The group was an executive MBA program. I said the question is, who are you called to be? Who are you? What are you called to do? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted to do? And I remember people came up to me afterward, these are all professionals. And they said, "No one's ever asked us that. It was all about how you can make the most money." Look for a lot of people, businesses, or their vocation. I mean, a lot of my friends are in business and that's a vocation, but not if you don't want to do it then that's not what you're made for.

Yeah. And like most people and probably like most of your listeners, I didn't grow up in a super religious family. I mean, we were Catholic and we went to mass most Sundays. I went through all the sacraments, but I didn't go to a Catholic school. I certainly didn't go to a Catholic college. Penn is not a Catholic college. It's not a religious place. It's probably the least religious of all the Ivies, in terms of its founding and its ethos. So I had some religious experiences as a boy and as a young person, but everyone does. I think that they're just not encouraged to look at it that way. People don't have the language to talk about it that way. These days, many people enter the religious orders without a whole lot of background in the Catholic faith and not having grown up in super religious families.

Well, I think you're pointing out two things that are very important. One, that people do have these experiences and that they need to be encouraged to talk about them, right? So at least your parents didn't think that was baloney, that never happened. Two, I think there are forces that push against following that kind of path. Right? Like, where might that have led? And because we all have practical concerns, we all have to eat right. We all have to make a living. It was the same in my family. I mean, my parents said, look you get a job and if you want to get a job, Wharton's a good place to go. Gradually it dawned on me that I was not in the right place. So it took a while to kind of realize that and understand what else is out there. Basically, because I didn't have a whole lot of background on that, I could have told you all the different ways that you could go into finance. But living a spiritual life, I had no clue.

All my colleagues and friends were appalled. Most of my friends thought I was crazy. That's a great question. I don't think it was that I had a whole lot of strength and a whole lot of ability to buck the trends. I was just so miserable and I couldn't stand it any longer. I wish I were the kind of person who said, "Oh, this is what I'm called to do, and I don't care what anybody else says." But I was really upset that people didn't understand it, and I wanted people to like me and approve of me. I was just so miserable at my job and I thought, I can't continue this any longer. And I saw this opportunity, which was to join the Jesuits. That just seems so beautiful and kind of romantic, almost right. There's a kind of pull, a desire. And I think that's one way that God has called us to use more explicit religious language. God calls us through our desires and what we're attracted to, and this is what I was attracted to and I followed it. But I wasn't very independent. It was more that I was just miserable and needed a way out.

Yeah, and it's just beautiful. The word vocation comes from the Latin word Vaccaro, which means to call. It's a call. It's a pull. The way that God calls us to vocations, I believe, is through attractions. For example, someone might go into business because they find it interesting they're attracted to it or law or teaching or the arts, right? For me, religious life was what pulled me, and that's how God draws us. And this is one of the things I talked about when I was with these Wharton students. What do you feel attracted to? What draws you? What are you in love with? What sparks you? For many, it's business, which is great, but for a lot of people, it's not. So they have to be open to that as well.

Well, I have to say, unlike probably a lot of your listeners, I'm not as much of a theater buff. I don't have a lot of money, so I can't go to the theater. But I worked with a theater troupe about 15 years ago called the Labyrinth Theater Company. The playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, who later won the Pulitzer Prize, was writing a play on Judas and whether or not Judas should be held responsible for the betrayal of Jesus. It was called the last days of Judas Iscariot, Philip Seymour Hoffman was the director. Sam Rockwell played Judas. It was fascinating. And in this book, a Jesuit off-Broadway, I talk about my involvement in that process. They eventually made me a part of the acting company, which still makes me laugh. I've never really acted, and it invited me into a different kind of vocation. Right? I mean, that's a vocation as well, the acting vocation. I'll tell you a story. I was asked to be an advisor on the film Doubt. I don't know if you remember that film that came out a couple of years ago with Meryl Streep and Phil Hoffman, and I was on the set to advise and whatnot. I remember seeing a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman was acting from the pulpit as a priest. He's a priest, and Meryl Streep was in the congregation as a nun. She's a daughter of charity. Anyway, long story short, I was watching them on the monitor so I could see Phil preaching live. Then I saw Meryl Streep's face on the monitor and they were transformed into these characters. I remember thinking as I sat there, this is their vocation. Like, these are two people who have found their vocation. They are actors. And I just thought this is a great and unusual experience of seeing what vocation means. They are called to this. They're good at it. They've decided to devote their lives to it, and they're flourishing. I learned so much from that theater company about spiritual life.

Yeah, I think that's really beautiful. And I look at it the same way, which is that God meets us in different ways, and the way that we experience God is different. So it's not surprising that God would draw people to different things. I mean, look, everyone is not drawn to the priesthood and religious orders. That would be a bad thing. And it's not for everybody, but it is for some people. But yeah, you're right that the spirit expresses itself in many different ways. And yet it's the same spirit which is quite beautiful.

Happy to talk about prayer.

I think there has to be a certain base interest in God. I mean, I think you can be a seeker, you can be agnostic, you can be curious. I think for the atheist who says there's no God at all, I think prayer would be difficult. But I think most people are curious, at least. And so the subtitle of the book is a really important guide for everyone. It really is meant for everyone, because I believe that everyone is called to be in a relationship with God, and people might say, well, how to do that? Well, I think because deep down, all of us have a desire to know more. There's a sense of incompleteness in our lives. There is a great line from St. Augustine. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Oh, Lord. So the book really is for everybody. I mean, I don't make any apologies for being a Christian or being a Catholic, but God is bigger than religions. I think you can say that everyone has called the prayer no matter who they are.

I talk about, I think, nine or 10 ways that people pray unawares. For example, you see something that's beautiful. You stop and pause and it sort of works itself on you. A sunset or a leaf in autumn. You just feel like there's something more going on and you start wondering about it. That's the beginning of prayer. Or you feel a desire to connect with God or to connect with something more. That's a desire for prayer. Or you start talking to God, help me. You start thinking about the universe. Where does this come from and where does creation come from? So all these ways of sort of wondering and pondering and being in awe and noticing beauty, they're all beginnings of prayer. Or you just have an experience that is sort of out of proportion with what you're expecting. I think one of my favorite comments is from a Jesuit friend of mine who died very young a couple of years ago. His name was Bob Gilroy, and I really love this. I didn't quote him in the book although I wish I had. He said that people have these experiences all the time, but they're not encouraged to talk about them. People might have these experiences, but they might think they were just being emotional or there's no one to kind of give them the language to talk about it. So at the beginning of the book, I wanted to say that we do have these experiences. Part of it is just noticing them when they happen.

Yeah, sure. The first thing is to say that prayer is like a personal relationship with God, and that means that as in any relationship, people are going to relate to God in different ways as you relate to friends in different ways. There's no one way to relate to a friend. I think one of my favorite ways to pray is called Ignatian contemplation, where you imagine yourself in scripture scenes and you place yourself imaginatively in a gospel scene and basically see what comes up. What kind of insights, emotions, desires, feelings come up as communication from God. Most people say, "Oh, that's ridiculous, I'm just making things up in my head." But no, it's using your imagination right to allow God to enter and to allow God to sort of raise insights. I prayed that way this morning. I think it's one of the most helpful ways to pray. A lot of people say, oh, that's too much that I don't like to think about all that content and imagine things. There is centering prayer, which is very simple, and it's essentially using a prayer word. Or you could say a mantra to just send to yourself and sort of experience God's presence. And it's just a prayer of quiet. So that is not to say that centering prayer is the only way to pray or Ignatian contemplation is the only way to pray. Different ways appeal to different kinds of people. That's fine, as long as you feel like you're encountering God. So, yeah, what would you say? What kinds of prayers appeal to you the most?

It's a very common and simple way to pray. For a lot of your listeners who are so busy, I think centering prayer can be a real break. A lot of times when people are busy, they don't want to pray with a lot of images and words and phrases and reading things. They just want to be quiet. And that is a way that God has of being with you, right? I mean, if you're stressed and a friend of yours says, "Let's just take a walk." It may not be verbal like that. When I was writing this book, I sent it to some readers and we talked about the image of silence and prayer with God just kind of walking silently beside us. I always find that when people read the books, they add really great things. And I said it would be like taking a walk on a beach with a friend, right? This person, I forgot who it was. Yes, and in some cases, words would seem out of place like, imagine you're looking at a beautiful sunset or you're sitting going through the mountains and your friend keeps saying, wow, look at that tree over there. Look at the sunset. You would want to say shut up. In other words, that's the same with God. Sometimes you just want to be in God's presence, and that's fine. That's more than fine. That's one thing that God might want to give you just that quiet, right? And that peace in that calm, especially in the middle of his busy life. So again, it's not to say that it's better or worse, it's just to say this is a different way of experiencing God's presence in your life.

It is. And yeah, we're naturally drawn to prayer because we're drawn to prayer and we are naturally spiritual beings. And again, there's that longing. If people doubt that everyone on this is who's listening knows that there is this longing for something more like, what else is there? What's the meaning? What's the purpose? Is this all there is? And that longing is for God in that longing draws us into a relationship with God. If we let it right. I mean, if we're open to it, some people are not open to it for different reasons. But yeah, and that means that we relate to God in different ways because we're all unique people and God relates to us in different ways, which is fine.

Yeah. Each of them sort of sheds a little light on prayer.

Yeah. Prayer is a conscious conversation with God. We are left with the question, what's God doing? What is God doing when we're praying? When you start with Teresa of Avila, she talks about mutual sharing between friends. Then there's another one by a fellow named Walter Burghardt, a Jesuit who said that prayer is a long loving look at the real. The one that you mentioned by Father Bill Barry has really helped me. We've been talking about that obliquely in the sense that God relates to us in different ways. The great analogy is that the kind of things that we can say about a good relationship with a friend, we can say about a good relationship with God. So a good relationship requires time to be spent with the person. Honesty, you have to be honest with the person listening, right? I talk about what it means in the book, about what it means to listen in prayer, what kinds of things happen, and what kinds of things come up. I sort of put them all together in this idea of a conscious conversation. You have to be sort of attentive to God. And it's a conversation. It's a back and forth. That doesn't mean we hear voices or see visions, but it does mean that we express ourselves and that God is expressed through our daily lives. As I said, some of the fruits of prayer, which I talk about more in the book. That definition has really helped me. It has to be mutual. I was talking to someone just the other night who said that when he sits down to pray, he just sort of runs through a list of what he wants to say to God. And I said, "Well, you need to listen a little bit too, it can't just be a one-way street."

Yeah, that's a great idea. We have to have an antenna. We have to tune in to, first of all, we have to turn the radio on. We have to sit down and be attentive and listen, right? I mean, they could be broadcasting stuff and your radio's off. You don't want to listen to it at all. You have to tune in. You have to really notice. Also once the radio station is on, you have to really pay attention. If you're listening to, let's say, something on NPR. First of all, you have to have the radio on. You have to be listening sort of physically, but you also have to be paying attention, like, what are they talking about? A lot of that is about spiritual life, like what's going on in my life. But you have to be open.

I've heard that joke about a guy who's trapped in his house when there's a flood coming, and that is the same joke. Where is God? You have to be attentive. You have to be paying attention. One of the things I talk about in the book is a prayer called the examination of consciousness which is basically a review of the day. You look back and see where God was and for the person who is seeing with eyes of faith, there are a lot of places where God is active now. That doesn't mean, I'd like to quote a friend of mine here, not every leaf that falls in front of you as a sign from God, right? You can't say every single thing that happened is some great sign. But some things are. I think that by being open and noticing, we can attune ourselves more to where God is present in our lives in both, as you were saying, interior but also exterior. I really believe that God speaks to us very powerfully. But again, we're not encouraged to notice that. I love that story. It's so funny. God is kind of trying to communicate through these people and we're not listening and that's on us.

I'm glad that Dan Dixon introduced you to it. It's Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, who popularized that. I wouldn't say that he invented it, but it's a very simple prayer. It's a review of the day, and the idea is that we need to take time to pause and look at the day and look to see where God was. Because most of us, and I'm sure most of us on this podcast are very action-oriented, task-oriented people. And once the day is done, it's like, okay, onto the next day. The examination asks us to slow down, usually at the end of the day, and it's a very simple prayer. It's five steps. First, you place yourself in God's presence, so that it's not just a monologue. Next is gratitude. You call to mind the things you're grateful for small things, right? I mean, happy news from a friend. You talked to a friend. You got something accomplished at work. Something good happened to your family. It was a beautiful day outside. You went to the gym and it worked out well. You went to a good restaurant. Small things. You thank God for them and you kind of savor them. The next step is a review of the day, where you go through the day, morning, noon, and night and you try to remember where you experienced God. The next step is looking at your failings and places where you might have sinned. I mean, we're all imperfect, right? And seeking a desire to improve. Then the next step is asking God for grace for the next day. It really helps you get your spiritual life in order. I think what happens is when you're able to look back and notice, then it makes it easier to see God the next day. It makes it easy to see God because you're aware and you're attentive and you're awake, basically. So it's a prayer of being awake and a prayer of awareness, which I think it's probably one of the most helpful prayers, and it's very simple for people to do. It's a very simple prayer. You don't have to have a whole lot of training in any sort of spirituality.

Good question. I'm glad you asked that. 15 minutes. It's very short. We're not talking about an hour at the end of the day, very short. A lot of people do it right before they go to bed. That's what I do. The last thing before I kind of climb into bed and start reading. What happens is we also tend to focus on the negative in life. I just heard something on the radio or a podcast. A social psychologist said something which makes sense, calling it the power of bad. In terms of a solution. We are hardwired, as you probably know, to look for the risk because I mean, the cavemen or cavewomen who were staring at the stars and looking at the sunset, he's the one who is going to get eaten by the saber tooth tiger. We're hard-wired that way. We notice things, we notice movement. And so in our spiritual lives, sometimes we only notice the bad things. We only focus on the problems, things to be solved, and we don't take time to reflect on things we're grateful for. It's just not in our DNA. The prayer forces us to do that. If you're not grateful for what's around you, you become bitter, St. Ignatius Loyola said ingratitude is the worst, the most abominable and the origin of all sin.

What a great way of saying that. That's a really wonderful way of saying it. You're right, that would be true for people who are perfectionists. Oh my gosh, I've missed something. Well, part of it is trusting that God is going to kind of help you with this prayer. That's one of the reasons you place yourself in God's presence. I would say a call to mind God's presence is a better way of saying it. It's not just you, it's trusting that God is going to raise these things up. So that can free you from this almost obsessive need to look at every single moment of the day. You're not going to do it perfectly, but you trust that God's going to help you, and God is going to point out things to you that you might have noticed. But so there's a balance and you have to work on it yourself. You can't just sit there and expect things to come up. You have to remember the day. But it's not just you that there is that partnership, right? It's God's going to be helping you. And so I usually remind people to kind of take it a little lightly, but to trust that God is going to raise these things up, for example. Oftentimes, I do the exam and I rush through it, and it's just a kind of list of things. I did this, I did this, I did this, and I say, "Wait a minute, I'm not really kind of inviting God into this." Once I say to God, "Will you show me places that I've missed?" Almost always something always happens. Yeah.

Absolutely. At night if you are doing the examination, you're more aware of the things that are going on. You're just in a stance of noticing all the time. That's going to make you much more aware of perhaps areas in your life that you need to improve on. Ignatius also has something called which I don't think I put in the book. You focus on one particular aspect of your life. Let's say you're a workaholic. I mean, I would say that's probably more likely than a lazy person for your listeners. If you're a workaholic and you never take any breaks, Ignatius would say, examine where you're focusing on all the breaks you took and all the times you're able to rest and in the times that you weren't a perfectionist. That could also get our minds in order. That's a very specific kind of examination. But even the regular examination can help us notice patterns where we need to address. And over time, you can see how you've gotten better.

Yeah. So for example, if you are going to be looking at your day with God, every moment of the day is an opportunity to express your relationship with God. I mean, we would hope that we would do that in a sort of moral sense. But among Jesuits, there's always a joke. Sometimes if you do something that's ungenerous or you make some snide remarks Jesuits will always say, "Oh, that's going to come up in your examine tonight."

I often say to myself, when I'm very drawn to nature. If I see some beautiful scene in nature, I say, "Oh my gosh, this is definitely going to be one of the things I'm grateful for tonight in my exam." And that's very common among Jesuits or people who know that spirituality. They say, "Boy, I'm certainly going to have a lot to pray about tonight." So it's kind of beautiful that it puts you in this stance of awareness. There's an Indian Jesuit named Anthony de Mello. Do you know that name at all? This story was in another book I did, and they used it in the film Soul. And it's the story of a little fish who was swimming around, asking everybody where the ocean is. It's a great story that goes from place to place. This is in the film. And finally, he meets a fish who says you're in the ocean. And he says, "Well, no, this is not the ocean. I'm looking for something special." I think when we are swimming around and in God's presence, and yet we don't notice. Once we notice, it changes things. It makes things a lot different. So every night that you're going to be sort of noticing these things with God, it makes you a more aware person during the day.

I have a little bit.

Yeah, what a great thing. That's a great analogy. I'm thinking of all these things that I could have put in my book and could have quoted you on. That's absolutely right, and it is a day-to-day thing and in the process, you prepare yourself for that final review. I would also say there are examinations of conscience that people do, for example, at the end of the year, like, I'm going to just kind of go back and see where things were, at the end of a relationship, the end of a job. I sometimes tell people before they're moving away from a job or moving physically or someone's dying in their lives, to do an exam. Calling to mind those things can be very healing for people. I'll tell you a quick story. My mom moved out of our family house about seven or eight years ago, and a friend of mine told me to do a little examination where you go through the rooms of your house with God, and you try to see the kinds of things that happen in those rooms. It was really powerful. My bedroom, my kitchen, and living room. Just travelling through those rooms in the imaginative prayer. This is imaginative prayer. I remember leaving the house and the door was open, which was very powerful for me because I thought I can always go back in my memory, which we can. But that was a kind of examination and it was healing. A lot of tears were shed but I don't think we allowed ourselves to do that. I think God wants to help us see these beautiful things that have happened in the past and also help to heal us and help us move on.

Well, yeah, I mean, I have a whole chapter called Nature Prayer. It's a very simple way of talking about it, and I look at different ways that nature can help you pray. I mean, simply just being in nature can calm you. I talk about a study about being near green spaces. Nature can give you images of God. I think that's one of the most helpful things for me. So, for example, the ocean has always been a great image of God for me. I mean the ocean is not God, and God is not the ocean, but I find it very helpful to just think of that immensity as an image of God. Nature can help us to see the way that God works. The variety of creation can help us understand God more the way that God operates in.

I'm sort of a birder. I like birds a lot. They show the creativity of God. One of the great things in Pope Francis's encyclical called Laudato Si, which is about the environment and connectivity. This thing sort of blew me away. He talked about Jesus enjoying nature, which I frankly never thought of. I mean, I know Jesus obviously lived in nature, and he used nature in his parables and whatnot. But he enjoyed it. He enjoyed nature, enjoyed looking at things. And so it sort of to be able to see that just enjoying it as a spiritual practice, enjoying it and referencing it. So I find that as soon as I am in nature that I calm down and I'm more attentive to what's going on inside of me. I think it's essential.

Yeah, I make that distinction between, say, a work of art, which is a beautiful way to encounter God or a symphony or a pop song. Something that's beautiful and speaks to you by God that's created by human beings and nature, which I think is sort of, in a sense, is something that God created, exactly like the clouds or an ocean. For me, it's a bit of a more direct connection with God. This is something that is part of God's handiwork. I believe in evolution and all those things, but I think it's more unmediated. I think we connect to that we there is something about seeing trying to think of something beautiful, I guess, like the Mona Lisa or something like that, that's kind of banal, but saying, one of your favorite paintings or hearing a beautiful symphony that you love and seeing a sunset, it's just different. I think people will recognize the difference. There's just something added to it. And I think what we're responding to is that this is really part of God's handiwork.

I was in East Africa for two years working with refugees, and so one of my favorite movies is out of Africa. And I think this is in the book too. But there's a great scene where Denys Finch Hatton, played by Robert Redford, takes up Isak Dinesen, who's Meryl Streep. Again, this is based on her book. In a plane for the first time, and she sees what you saw, which is the savanna and the animals and the trees and the wildlife and everything. And she says, "Oh yes, I see this is the way it was meant to be seen. I get it." It's a beautiful moment of revelation and recognition. And I think again, I would say so many of us have those moments, and I would imagine many listeners have had those moments, even if it's something simpler, like just being at the seashore like, yeah, I see, I feel it, I get it. But again, they're not encouraged to talk about it. And I would say that kind of experience that you had and the kind of experience that many people have in nature is the beginning of prayer. It is one way that God is inviting us into prayer, and I think all we need to do is to say, yes.

So rote prayer, formal prayer, standardized prayers. What I'm talking about are all the kinds of prayers that people are familiar with from their childhood, or that most people are familiar with. And a lot of times, as I say in the book, they get denigrated. Oh, that's very childish. That's You've got to move past that. The Rosary is another kind of rote prayer, and yet they are very effective. Oftentimes, they express things that we couldn't express any better. They're wonderful to have in an emergency, right? You can. I mean, who doesn't fall back on the Hail Mary when there's bumpiness in the flight. So I think it's important not to denigrate them. One of my favorite stories is, and I have it in the book, a priest who was studying to be a spiritual director, a person who helps people with their prayer. And he went back to see his mother, who was doing the rosary, which is a real rote prayer. The priest said, well, I'm going to teach you a different way of praying. And she said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, the rosary is a little elementary." She said, "Well, I like praying the rosary." And he said, "Well, why do you like praying the rosary?" She said, "When I pray the rosary, I look at God and God looks at me." He realized her prayer was a lot richer than he was, and it was wrong for him to dismiss that. And so in the book, I talk about the value of rote prayers but also invite people who may be familiar just with rote prayers to look at other prayers as well. I think the key is openness.

Sure. Well, as you say, it's a trip to a place connected with some spiritual practice or a spiritual event. People take trips to the Holy Land, to Rome, to Compostela. But all throughout the world different places have different religious traditions. I think part of it is a microcosm of life, life is a pilgrimage, it's a journey. But I think what happens on pilgrimage is that we are removed from our normal day-to-day life. Pilgrimages are usually uncomfortable. You have a lack of sleep. And so we in that state, I think, are more vulnerable, which means that I think we're more open to God's sort of entering into our lives. Now that doesn't mean that God sort of wants us to be uncomfortable all the time. It's just that when we're vulnerable and our defenses are down and we're away from our usual routine, I think God can break in a lot more and people will find those people to be true as well. I mean, I've experienced that when I go on pilgrimage, my prayers are deeper. It's different. I notice things more. You were talking about the examination and that kind of end of life review, in the end, is, I think, on a pilgrimage what we're doing is we are orienting ourselves towards God. Almost everything is focused on that goal. That heightens our awareness. If you're walking a Compostela or you're in Jerusalem or you're in Lourdes. You're going to look around to say, "I am on this spiritual journey and that really centers the mind as well." It makes you aware of what's going on.

Yeah. So it's not just about our relationship with God. As important as that is, I mean, it's not just about God's encounter with you and your encounter with God, it's also for other people. I think prayer should always move us to some sort of action. If it's being kinder, if it's being more centered. But it also has a social dimension. For example, something as simple as, I was moved when I see a story about a refugee or I read a story about a migrant at the border, and I'm very moved and I think about that or I pass a person in the street who is homeless, and I pray about that later during my examination. You say, well, where is that emotion coming from? Well, that's probably God moving you to do something, right? So I think prayer should always lead us to some sort of action. Now, that doesn't mean we look at it from a sort of functional point of view, like, I pray that this might happen, but I think that we need to be open to that sense of activity. So I think, yeah, so to pay attention to those calls that come through our prayer, they're as loud almost as that phone that just rang.

Oh boy, I just want to be a good Jesuit. I'm doing a lot of work now with the LGBTQ community, so I'm praying that that goes well. But I just want to be a good Jesuit and see where God leads me.

I would just say to trust anything that you feel, in terms of a desire to be with God. What came up in this podcast is a reflection of God's desire for you. And so one of my favorite lines says, "That which you seek, is seeking you."