Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord."

Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's March 15th, 2026, the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Today is a special Sunday episode of Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts, as we are joined by both Dr. Gerry Crete and Dr. Peter Malinoski, the co-founders of Souls and Hearts. They will be offering a joint reflection on today's readings.

Okay, so we are now into the Fourth Sunday of Lent, and it is so good to be with you, as we dive into these readings from a parts and systems perspective, as we begin to unpack these with that additional dimension of parts and systems thinking, but also really tuned in to the exiles, really kind of reaching out specifically directly to the exiled parts of all of our listeners. It is so good to be with you, Dr. Gerry, thank you for being here.

It's my pleasure. These readings have a lot to say.

They do, they do. And as always, you and I haven't discussed these readings, so it's just fascinating to see where we have convergences, you know, have different takes on things. But I'm just wondering, you know, it's just on my heart to ask you what really grabbed you or gripped you or caught your attention in the readings today really, that's relevant to the exiles of those that are listening, right.

Well, I'll be honest, maybe just start at the beginning, because the story of David and Samuel. I mean, David is the youngest son, right? And he's the one who's out in the field. He isn't even considered, you know, to be looked at by Samuel. And so, you know, he's literally exiled in a sense, in the family. And he's the least likely one, you know, to be considered, you know, the anointed one. And so I think it's just amazing that Samuel's like, isn't there another one? It's like when we look at inward in our within, we definitely all our managers are going to be right there, right? Like normally managers are usually easy to identify in our system.

And they're up front. Yeah.

Right. And the firefighters just show up, you know, kind of like unexpectedly maybe.

And there's no ignoring them, you know? Right. They come up. Right. So yeah.

So literally, you know, the innermost self has to be like Samuel who says, isn't there someone else? Because he senses, thanks to God, like he senses, no, there's an exiled one who's important and needs to be anointed, that he's the Holy One. And so literally then comes in David and David is, it says, handsome. He's a ruddy youth, handsome to behold. And again, sometimes our exiles, we assume are not beautiful, right? Sometimes we think of them as probably frightening and scary, right? Or monstrous in some way. Or, you know. And so here we have, you know, once the exile is brought into the light, it has a, as it says here, a splendid appearance. It's so beautiful.

I just love that. I did a whole episode of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast, episode number 41, when I was looking at trauma and shame and David's childhood, and I make the argument in there that even Jesse might not have known that David was his son. There's considerable evidence to suggest that Jesse might not have known, because when Samuel shows up, if you take this back a little bit at the gates of the city, they ask him if he comes in peace. This is a major figure coming to town. He says, you know, basically to Jesse, present all of your songs, you know? And so I think Jesse did, like, you know, but when he asked, and I do think this was like prophetic, when he asked Jesse, do you have any other sons? I'm wondering if at that moment Jesse realized that, yeah, he did. It's complicated and we don't have time to get into it now. But there are a number of reasons why Jesse may not have known that David was his son. And I think that also represents kind of like how we might not even know, the managers might not even know that exiles are part of us. So I was definitely keying in on that as well.

Yeah, that's cool and interesting. You know, when we moved to Ephesians, I mean, I don't know that we have to say a lot, but I mean, right in the beginning, it's "you were oncen darkness, but now you are light, right? So David was once in darkness or in exile, maybe potentially not even really known. And now all of a sudden he's in the light and he is to live as a child of the light. I mean, that's true of our exiles, right?

So yeah. And in the responsorial Psalm, I mean, how beautiful, right? "The Lord is my shepherd, there's nothing I shall want." Psalm 23, you know, and that this isn't just for managers who, you know, believe they're the ones that really are acceptable enough. Or maybe they doubt that, right? But it's for all of us, right? Our Lord wants to be the good Shepherd, wants us to embrace him as our Shepherd for all of our parts, including all of you exiles. And if you look at Psalm 23, a lot of us know this almost by heart. Just the goodness that God wants to give us in our entirety, with no part left behind, no part left out.

I like that, "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come." I've seen "all my days" in other translations, but I mean, that's often in the therapeutic work I'm doing anyway. Like it's about bringing that exile home into that internal home, giving him his space there a place to be. Just a beautiful passage. We must say something about the Gospel, though, right?

I think we must.

Obviously, this is from John 9. It's a lot of the chapter of John 9. If you go to the long form, and this is the episode where, you know, we've got Pharisees challenging Jesus, we've got a man born blind, you know, we've got this question of sin and whose sin or what sin caused the blindness, right? So yeah, what do you got for us here?

Well, my first thought, right, is, you know, interesting about the sin you just mentioned because, you know, our exiles, it's not usually a burden of sin that they're carrying. It's in my experience anyway, it's a burden of like trauma, and it's something inflicted on them by and large, and that they can't cope with or they can't handle. Right. And so in a way, maybe the exile is blind in some sense, but we're blind to them and we're blind to their pain, and we're blind to, you know, what's really going on. And so it's interesting, you know, because these exiles, they're almost being treated like they are sinful. When in my experience, at least, the exiles really, that isn't a thing. They just need to be seen, right? They need to be made visible. And again, so it's beautiful, right? That Jesus again, you know, finds his blind man. It isn't about his sin. It is about healing him so that he can see, you know? And then he's not even recognized, right? Like at first, it's like after he's can see, it's like they're all like, what's this guy? Right? And he's like, oh, that's the guy that used to sit and beg, you know, like, so again, it's another thing where we don't even recognize our exiles when they're brought into the light, right? They're just so different than what we thought.

Yeah. Well, I'm reminded of I don't think this is unique to Judaism, but this whole idea of a scapegoat, you know, where in the scapegoat, like the sins of all the people were put on this goat, a literal goat, right? And then the goat was banished, you know, and that just sort of made me think of like the burden of this, the burden of the condemnation of the community. Right? In a sense, and there is such an emphasis among the Jewish religious leaders of like pinning the sin, right, pinning the sin somewhere. Is it his parents? Is it him? You know, and then a lack of desire to believe, right? And then even considering, you know, whether Jesus is sinful, right? Because he's healing on the Sabbath, right? Which, you know, really gets their knickers in a twist. Then there's the sort of explanations, right? But it just leads me to believe that if we are willing to see, we will see, you know, if we open our hearts to the parts of ourselves that are struggling, if we open our hearts to you exiles, you can be seen. And there's a way that this can unfold that feels safe enough, protected enough for all the parts in your system.

I'm with you. Sounds good.

Well, I love it, I love it. So yeah, I just enjoy gripping on to these things, but I really appreciate this whole Gospel of John with its emphasis on light and darkness and just parts coming into the light, and us seeing them as they are, and not mistaking parts for their burdens, parts and burdens, exiles and their burdens are entirely different. And so just a note to let you all know that, but also to let your firefighters and your managers know that as well.

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We'll bring it to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. St. Joseph, pray for us. St. John the Baptist, pray for us.