Seeing with the Help of a Soul-Optometrist with Sr. Simone Campbell

Learning How to See with Brian McLaren

Center for Action and Contemplation

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 748 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What would change if you could see with eyes of love—even in the face of cruelty, fear, and disagreement? In this episode, Brian McLaren and co-host Carmen Acevedo Butcher sit down with renowned spiritual leader, legal advocate, and activist Sister Simone Campbell for a deeply honest conversation about love, justice, and compassion. They explore how contemplative practice grounds fierce activism, why listening is an act of love, and what it means to see even your political opponents with empathy. From her role in passing the Affordable Care Act to launching the "Nuns on the Bus" movement, Sister Simone shares moving stories of courage, community, and the Spirit’s surprising guidance—inviting us all into a new way of seeing and being. Resources: You can find a transcript for this episode here. Find Sr Simone Campbell's book Hunger for Hope here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation.
0:04.0	To learn more, visit cac.org.
0:12.3	Welcome everyone to this episode of Learning How to See.
0:16.4	I'm Brian McLaren.
0:18.5	In a previous episode, Father Raphael Garcia used the image of an optometrist.
0:24.6	And any of us who wear glasses or have had a vision test know the experience of being in the
0:31.6	optometrist's office sitting behind this machine where the optometrist gradually adjusts a series of lenses
0:39.8	to help you get the right prescription to correct faulty vision.
0:44.1	There's a click and the doctor says, is that clearer now?
0:48.0	Click again. Is that clearer or less clear?
0:50.5	Click again.
0:51.3	How about now?
0:52.3	This or this?
0:53.5	This one or this one. Some lenses help us see more clearly,
0:58.6	others less clearly. Let me mention three lenses that make our seeing worse. One is the lens of
1:08.6	authoritarianism. Through the lens of authoritarianism, we look at every person and judge them based on whether they share our allegiance against that common enemy and allegiance to a dictator or strong man.
1:25.6	Authoritarianism always reduces our sight.
1:31.2	Another lens is the lens of scapegoating,
1:34.9	where we feel better about ourselves
1:37.5	by uniting ourselves in projecting our aggression and shame
1:42.6	on some other group of people,
1:44.4	making them into an enemy.
	...

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