Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

Speaker 1: For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth. So high are my ways. Above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

Speaker 2: Welcome to Scripture for your inner outcasts. Today is September 20th, 2026, the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Like every Sunday, today we have a joint episode between the co-founders of Souls and Hearts, doctor Jerry Creed and Doctor Peter Malinoski.

Speaker 1: Dear doctor Jerry, it is so good to be with you again. I just really enjoy our time together and we have some fascinating readings here. Again, so rich. These these scriptures are just so rich in speaking to exiles. Um, I certainly have 3 or 4 places that leapt out at me, but I really want to hear if there's any reaction from your own exiles on, on these readings that you noted.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean, I really do think these readings are a feast for our parts, really, and especially our exiles, like the parts that feel unseen, maybe that maybe feel like they showed up too late. Like I'm relating to the less to the ones who worked all day. I'm. I'm relating in some measure with the ones who showed up later and are maybe judged. I don't like that feeling. Right. And so like, oh, I'm too late. Or maybe I don't measure up in some way. And so to be the one who feels like he doesn't deserve the grace received, and yet it was freely given.

Speaker 1: You're talking about the wage laborers that came in the in the last hour of the day to work in the master's vineyard, and they got paid the full wage.

Speaker 3: Exactly. And I think a lot of people might be triggered by the idea. Yeah, I worked hard my whole life, or I did all these things. And they're comparing themselves to others in this way and, and get resentful that someone else, you know, got paid that same wage, whereas I'm actually going. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like the one who showed up later.

Speaker 1: Mhm.

Speaker 3: And I don't really deserve it. And other someone else is going to judge me, but God doesn't. And that's the incredible thing, really. That's the grace that my exiles just sort of soak up.

Speaker 1: Wow. I can see that, especially if a part is struggling, struggling with a sense of self-worth or a sense of inadequacy, or there's an expectation of criticism either from others, as you said, or even from inside one's own system, right? From that internal critic, you know that you don't deserve to be here. You haven't done what you needed to do, or you've done things that were maladaptive or harmful or sinful or, you know, whatever the sort of spirit is there, especially from spiritual manager parts that could be grumbling, you know?

Speaker 3: Um, yeah, I mean, I think I have other parts too, you know, that there react differently, right? Um, even to the idea of, hey, I've always been the responsible one. Mhm. Or the good one or the one, you know, who never got noticed because I never got in all that much trouble, honestly. Right, right. Um, well, someone else got attention, right. You know, for doing less. So I, I mean, I do relate to those parts as well.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Well, in reading these readings, do you know who I was thinking about? She's a dear friend of yours. It goes back to a podcast episode we did with mother Natalia. And it is our. And that was on deification. I can't remember the number of it right now, But it was the response and the Responsorial Psalm. The Lord is near to all who call upon him. And if you remember when we were in that that podcast recording with her, you know, she was talking about how the Lord can be near our exiles. You know, and we might not even know it. So that's what that's what that responsorial Psalm brought back to me.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, the Lord is gracious and merciful. And to me, the line slow to anger.

Speaker 1: And great.

Speaker 3: Kindness. Like that's that's just balm to my exiles hearts. Honestly, it's really saying, you know, I care about you. And while all these readings are kind of saying that I care about you more than I care about your performance.

Speaker 1: Mhm.

Speaker 3: Right. Or your mistakes? I'm slow to anger. I yeah, I understand you're you're going to make mistakes or you're going to show up late or you're going to not get it right. You know perfectly all the time. But I actually care about you. And so that's that's not as important to me. You know, God is saying as my relationship with you and my love for you and my mercy for you is greater. And I honestly think I have manager parts, and probably most listeners have manager parts that will not take that in.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Right. And that need to yeah. You know, um, so there's a corrective maybe experience or God is trying to give us to say no, no, no, you don't, you're not getting it. I do love you more than I love your performance. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 1: You know, but I think that's something that parts have learned from relationships in which love may have been conditional, you know, or where performance may really have been valued more than the person. And that's a tragic, sad experience that so many of us have had. We weren't seen by others, especially authority figures. Could be, you know, parents, relatives, coaches, teachers, whatever. And our performance was really what mattered. The grade was really what mattered. The touchdowns were what mattered or whatever it was, you know?

Speaker 3: So yeah, that God is keeping score with like some kind of hair trigger response, right? You know, leap in there, you know, and God is only close to, to us if we're good and strong and we've earned it. Right? Right. And, and, and so the psalm to me, like you're pointing out, you know, I, I'd have to listen to the mother Natalia one again. But, you know, um, the psalm is, is patient and gentle and it just repeatedly says, no, no, it's you I love. It's my, I, I'm kind, I'm slow to anger. You're not getting it. I love that.

Speaker 1: Well, and that whole idea of not getting it is reflected in our first reading, right? Isaiah 55 where Isaiah says, This is God speaking, right? For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways. Above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts. That leads me just to this idea with my parts of can I be humble enough to just take you, Lord, at your word? You know, from part to part. Can I just believe what you say? Or am I going to believe my own lying eyes? You know, in a sense, right. My own distorted perceptions of what love is and who you are.

Speaker 3: Well, because, I mean, at first glance, I almost wondered whether that reading in Isaiah was sort of saying, you know, I'm so much bigger than you. You know what I mean? Like, but it's, it's almost dismissive, like, you know, right, right. Um, but in fact, I think what it's saying is God's love for us is an has like an overabundance, right? I'm so great. Like, because I, my love for you is bigger than you can even comprehend. You know, I, I love that context because it's not, it's this is not a warning about severity. It's basically a promise about God's mercy. You know who's generous and forgiving? You know, so the gap between God's ways and ours isn't a gap of coldness. It's a gap of abundance. His capacity to love, forgive, welcome us is larger than, I don't know, like our nervous system. You know, our wounds. You know, it's we can't even imagine. And that, oh my gosh, like, again, hard for some managers to take in.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. Absolutely. So good to, uh, to, to reflect on how this is not a put down. You know, God has no need to, you know, sort of narcissistically compare himself to us and then to elevate himself by putting us down. That's not his that's not his jam, you know? So, um, so yeah, I mean, I just think this is, this is a beautiful and reassuring way of looking at it. But again, if we're trying to be big, if we're trying to be strong, if we're trying to be worthy, man, it's it's hard to hear these words in Isaiah, you know, um, because they go against the agenda of those managers who are trying to, to earn our way to the love of God.

Speaker 3: And if I could just throw out two in the gospel reading, Jesus doesn't come down on those managers either, right? He actually calls them friends.

Speaker 1: My friend. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's like he's saying, you know, he's gentle. You know, he doesn't judge them either. And, you know, yes, there's the truth in which his mercy is his right. He wants every part of us to feel invited, right, and to experience that generosity. And he is gentle with the parts that get resentful of others or that are are keeping score still. So he's giving us all the time we need for all of our parts.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Just like the gentleness of the of the father, of the prodigal son with the older son. You know, that's what it made me think of. It wasn't like he, you know, screamed at him and, you know, told him that, you know, his he was wrong. And, you know, he gently corrected him, you know, and in a way that hopefully he could understand.

Speaker 3: My son, you've been with me always.

Speaker 1: Yes, yes.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Appreciating the good.

Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah. So beautiful.

Speaker 1: Well, this was just a great experience again to be together doctor Jerry and super excited that you are now in Rome. Uh, that's an amazing thing. And, uh, so just gonna invite, you know, all of our listeners to keep doctor Jerry in prayer as he makes that transition and adjusts to living as the Romans do. Uh, at least in the good ways. Right?

Speaker 3: So I'll have a cappuccino for you in the morning.

Speaker 2: In this episode, Doctor Peter referenced another podcast episode featuring Mother Natalia of Christ the Bridegroom Monastery. That podcast is Interior Integration for Catholics, episode 183, and I'll link that in the description below.

Speaker 1: And with that, we'll bring this to a close by invoking our patroness and our patrons, our Lady, our mother. I'm tired of knots.

Speaker 3: Pray for.

Speaker 1: Us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist.

Speaker 3: Pray for.

Speaker 1: Us.