Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: He walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they recognize his voice.

Speaker 2: Welcome to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's April 26th, 2026, the fourth Sunday of Easter. Today is a special Sunday episode of Scripture for your inner outcasts, as we are joined by both doctor Jerry Creed and Doctor Peter Malinowski, the co-founders of Souls and Hearts. They will be offering a joint reflection on today's readings.

Speaker 1: We made it to the fourth Sunday of Easter. Doctor Jerry, it is so good to be here with you, and it is so good to be here with all of you and our audience, all of your parts, especially the exiles. As you know, this scripture for your inner outcasts is especially oriented toward you exiles. And there is so much in these readings today, doctor Jerry. So much in these readings. What strikes you? What leaps out? That has something to do with our exiles, right? In some ways speaks to the exiles or is about the exiles. How do we how do we read these through an IFS lens and connect to the exiles?

Speaker 3: So this is good Shepherd Sunday. And so readings kind of relate to, you know, that theme of shepherds and sheep. But the line that struck me was, now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

Speaker 1: Mhm. Really? Okay.

Speaker 3: So Peter just named something enormous, right? That Jesus who was crucified, the one many in the crowd may have dismissed or abandoned or failed to defend his Lord in Christ. And something in the crowd, like kind of breaks open. Mhm. So maybe that's a cutting to the heart, right? It's not a convincing in the mind. It's not persuasion by argument. It really is this deep cut, right. The sense of being pierced, a sudden opening of something within. And so, you know, to me immediately I'm thinking, you know, um, when a manager part loses its kind of grip just long enough for the exile underneath to be felt. Peter's words land somewhere with the crowd, right to the people that allow that to start to happen and to allow the exile to surface. The first words you know of the exile are not theological per se. They're desperate. They're human. Peter says, what are we to do, brothers? What do we do with this? You know, what are we to do? I think this is honest and it's an exile. To me, it's like an exile, being honest and saying, you know, what's the correct procedure, if you will. What? How do I fix something? The part this exile has been reached in that moment. So that that really moved me.

Speaker 1: Well, it strikes me because in that same passage it says, for the promise is made to you and your children and to all those far off, you know. It's also like kind of tunes me into you exiles, right? You who are far off. It says at the end, those who accepted his message were baptized. It doesn't say everybody was baptized. It says those who accepted the message. And so that was that was sort of speaking to me. Um, and in this imagery, uh, in the other readings, the responsorial Psalm and, uh, and especially in the gospel, the Alleluia, that yeah, these are kind of like sheep. As you know, I have a special spot in my heart for sheep or sheep for decades now. Um, and, you know, sheep in a lot of ways are really wonderful, but they are totally ill equipped to make it on their own. They are among the most domesticated of animals. And, you know, often when you are trying to help a sheep, the sheep just don't get it. You know, I've had sheep that were tangled up in a piece of baling wire, you know, and in a, you know, difficult spot. And I do not expect that they're necessarily going to help me if as I'm trying to help them, you know. Um, and some of that is because I don't have the relationship with my sheep that we hear in, um, in the gospel. Right. My sheep know me and I know my sheep. In ancient times, there was a much closer relationship between shepherd and sheep than there are now. You know, like there is a trust that has built up, you know, and we take care of our sheep. But I wouldn't say that we have that kind of relationship with our sheep. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't have relationship with any sheep, so I can't. Experience. I just know like the 23rd Psalm, of course, is so well known. Right. But the line that the most people know, even though I walk in the valley of death, or in the dark valley, I fear no evil. For you are by my side. I mean, I just when I moved by, is that it isn't saying the dark valley doesn't exist, right? It doesn't say the shepherd will prevent the dark night, right? You know, the exile is in that valley, and our exiles have been in the dark valley for a long time. Right. Since childhood, for most of them. And since there's some kind of first wounding, and for the first moment, you know, the world showed itself to be unsafe. And so I just consider this psalm like, so important for our exiles because, you know, it's basically saying, I am here to accompany you through it. Right. Um, and the rod and staff. Right. What does that even mean? It's the implements of guidance and protection to give courage, not by removing the darkness of the valley, but by, you know, um, going with this part, being willing to to to accompany this part through that dark darkness. Right. Being present, I guess, in it.

Speaker 1: Well, it's an interesting thing because there's a difference between the rod and the staff. There's a big difference between the rod and staff and what they're used for. So the rod is really short and it's thick. It's like a club and it's used to protect and defend. So that's what the shepherd would use against predators. And then the staff is much longer. Usually has a hook at the end of it. And that's used to kind of guide the sheep. Um, and to, um, and to rescue sheep actually, you know, sheep that get into trouble. So it's, I was really kind of struck by the, the emphasis on both the rod and the staff that, that both are there. You know, sometimes there's been some misconceptions about the way shepherds and sheep relate. Related. Back in the ancient times, the shepherd doesn't use the rod on the sheep. The shepherd uses the staff with the sheep. And the shepherd doesn't use the staff so much on the on the predators. He uses the rod, you know, so there's both there. And I think, you know, I, I think that first primary condition of secure attachment, a felt sense of safety and protection, you know, we need that shepherd to be able to have that rod. And we need that that shepherd to have that staff.

Speaker 3: So I love it. I love that I not thought about that. Um, another line that really moved me and is sort of interesting is you spread a table before me. To me, that is quite interesting because the exile is, has been in hiding, right. And the exile often are exiles are consumed with shame. And yet this table, this honor, this feasting is spread while the foes are watching. So for the exile, who is shamed, right? Who is told his needs or her needs were too much, its hunger was embarrassing, or its wanting something shouldn't or something. This is pretty radical. The shepherd doesn't, you know, is actually offering this in a, in a very, um, instead of not just not shaming, he's actually lifting up in front of others the opposite of shaming, honoring to me, for whatever reason, I'd never thought of that line before, or no, in the sight of my foes. And why that matters.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's why you need to have the rod. I would go back to, you know, like, because they're not going to approach, right. If they know that the shepherd is going to protect the sheep. And I think oftentimes exiles, because of their poor God images, they don't know that the shepherd's going to protect them. They don't know the good is in store. You know, I'm reminded I think it's Isaiah. Right eye is not seen. Ear has not heard what God has made ready for those who love him. And that leads me to this, this line in the gospel where he says he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they Recognize his voice.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: But they will not follow a stranger. They will run away from him, you know? And I'm thinking again about God images, right. And how distorted you excels God images often are how uxelles really misconstrue God and make God in the image of and likeness of those authority figures you have experienced. You know, what we're talking about here is having a little bit of, of courage, you know, connecting in with some faith and seeing if you can be open to experiencing God as He is. Would it be okay to come to the table and sample the, the feast, you know, to sample the good things that are laid out there? Because sometimes I think, you know, doctor Jerry, it can be very frightening for exiles to do that because of the expectations that God is going to be like other authority figures or even like parts of oneself. The spiritual managers, for example, who have been harsh with exiles, you know, those represent God in some way inside.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. I'm really moved by that. I had to sit with that. And this line came up and in the reflection, and I had to actually sit with the fact that I, as a sheep, hear his voice and recognize it. And, and that there's something about that. It wasn't that he was saying something theologically coherent that I thought was brilliant. It wasn't that it wasn't any credential. It was his voice. It was like, there's something in there that I could trust. Um, something that even beneath all of my protected parts, right beneath all my not trusting, right, that I could recognize the voice calling me from in the depth of my heart. Right. And this was like a cellular level.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't. It's just the body knowing even and the soul knowing, you know that. I could hear his voice. He was calling to me.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You personally. And that that goes back to the shepherd calls his own sheep by name. He doesn't do. There's not a general call out like all sheep approach paddock 14. You know, like it's not like that. It's like personal, right? It's actually tuned to you. You personally.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's what I'm drawing from that and kind of reflecting it back in the gospel. Like this was a personal call, not a general announcement.

Speaker 3: And there's a freedom in that. There's a beauty in that. It says, whoever enters through me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. So the pastor is in some prison. Great dungeon. It's like this freedom to move about, to be, to be who we are, to be loved by him. Um, in safety, where there be nourishment, uh, there's, you know, there's will be cared for, not controlled, you know. And so our exiles, you know, they're dying to experience this.

Speaker 2: Many of our parts carry distorted and untrue perceptions of who God is. And these are sometimes called God images. If you'd like to learn more about this concept, I'd recommend you check out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, episodes 23 through 29, which is linked in the description of today's show.

Speaker 1: And we'll go ahead and bring this to a close. And if if your parts are in a good place to allow your excels in to this little prayer that we do at the end, they're welcome to join us. You know, as we invoke our patroness and our patrons, Our Lady, our mother, Untier of knots.

Speaker 3: Pray for us.

Speaker 1: Saint Joseph.

Speaker 3: Pray for us.

Speaker 1: Saint John the Baptist.

Speaker 3: Pray for us.