Berkley Center

Joseph: I remember one night, watching PBS and Robert Bly was talking about men's pain and men's anger. He said some things that I found myself crying, sort of uncontrollably. I didn't know where that came from. It was actually a little spooky. I think I scared my wife. I remember thinking, this is a Pied Piper moment, like this, guy's talking about something. I don't know if I understand it, but I feel it. From then on, I started to seek out what he was doing, but then the Men's Movement get trivialized in the media and it went underground. I remember thinking it's lost its vitality and it wasn't until Richard Rohr came along, this Franciscan priest who lived in New Mexico. I think with astute, psychological insight, theology, mythology, he put God back in and allowed some of us who are Christian or believers to be able to experience some of the things we'd experienced before, but in a safe, sacred context.

Rohr says, "If you don't deal with your pain, you're going to pass it on." I remember thinking as a young father, when I encountered that, that call to being a father, the call to being a decent man is for God's sakes, not passing on this pain to your kids. Then he took it further and talked about, the pain's inevitable. The wounding is inevitable. It's what you do with it.

Tom: I've lived by that and realized that. When I'm doing something I don't like, about how I'm treating other people, there's usually a pain beneath it. When I see it, I have the opportunity to say, "Can I transform this?" We have a way to make our wounds, sacred wounds. I love the story that Saint Teresa of Avila tells about how the devil came to tempt her, and he came in the form of Christ and she looks at him once and says, "Oh, get out of here." He says, "How did you know it? Wasn't Christ? She said, "You don't have the wounds."

Joseph: Sick. No.

Tom: He wouldn't never have wounds because he's perfect. I think if we're really to be truly human, we have our wounds and we bear them, but we also transform them so that the power that's inherent in them, gets used for good,

Joseph: The work that you do today and the recent experiences you've had around this book, Dear Pope Francis and meeting Pope Francis, and working with children around the world. I mean, you are a layman, but in many, many ways you function as a minister, of sorts.

Tom: I always wondered as a kid, is there a place for me? Where do I belong? What am I meant to do? You want to think you're special and there's something special waiting for you. I found out it was true, it was absolutely true for me. It's definitely the pinnacle and the highlight.

Joseph: What was it like to stand in front of Pope Francis?

Tom: He was talking to the kids, kidding around with the kids, asking them questions and enjoying the song, they sang for him. He had room for every one of us, every one of us kids. I felt like a kid in front of him, in many ways. He had this clear-eyed look at every single person who was there. He saw each of us for who we were and saw, I believe, in some way, our aspirations for the best self that we want to be. To stand in front of this man, and to get this huge smile, have him listen to my words and to tell him what it meant to me to achieve my promise to him, to bring kids from around the world to him, for him to respond to their questions. He saw that and he blessed it.

Joseph: Yeah.

Tom: I felt a healing, that went down to places that I never thought would be healed. It's everything that I've been learning along the way in men's spirituality and everything I wanted to live myself.