You've met Teresa and John, but have you met the new cast of mystics?
Meet all 12 at the Modern Mystics School!
Modern Day Merton
with Dave Denny
It’s not a stretch to say Dave Denny is what Thomas Merton would have looked like today, had he lived.
Both avid writers, teachers, interspiritual pioneers, activists, and hermits–they share a depth of wisdom that is borne of silence.
Join Father Dave Denny and I to learn:
🔹 How living in the Middle East changed his life forever
🔸 What steaming hot tamales can teach us about the sacramentality of the world
🔹 What, in his 13 years of teaching mysticism, his students were most surprised by
🔸 What it might look like to be a contemplative activist
Dave Denny describes himself as “poet, priest, and desert rat.” Setting out to be a journalist, Dave’s life took a turn when he became a Carmelite monk at the Spiritual Life Institute for 30 years. Since then he has dedicated himself to writing, interspiritual dialogue, and teaching, while living the life of a hermit.
Dave is the co-founder of the Desert Foundation, which invites people of all walks to explore the intimate depths of their own heart. Find out more about the Desert Foundation’s retreats and contemplative workshops at sandandsky.org.
_______________________
✨ WELCOME TO SPIRITUAL WANDERLUST ✨
Contemplation.
Embodiment.
Mysticism.
Mischief.
Join former nun and neuroscience aficionado Kelly Deutsch as she interviews contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, psychologists, and mystics about the untamed frontiers of interior life.
Each episode is jam packed with life-changing stories, spiritual practices, and powerful insight to support your journey toward wholeness and divine intimacy.
✨ For FREE resources for your own spiritual journey (like the Psycho-Spiritual Maturity Assessment!) - check out spiritualwanderlust.org.
🌱 HAVE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS? 🍃
Leave us a voicemail at spiritualwanderlust.org/ask for the chance to have your spiritual question answered live!
00;00;07;03 - 00;00;35;27
Kelly Deutsch
Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves but here will follow those longings within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics with a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science, along with a healthy dash of mischief.
00;00;36;10 - 00;00;43;14
Kelly Deutsch
Will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch.
00;00;56;04 - 00;01;19;17
Kelly Deutsch
Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Spiritual Wanderlust Podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch. And today I am joined by the hermit poet and priest, Father Dave Denny, as a college student. Dave set out to be a journalist or perhaps a scholar of interreligious studies, but his plans were waylaid when he became a Carmelite monk for 30 years. Of course, surprise, surprise.
00;01;19;17 - 00;01;39;25
Kelly Deutsch
The Divine found other ways to fulfill his desires. And so over the years, Dave Dave has written and edited for a magazine, co-founded an inter spiritual foundation, and collaborated with many other interreligious leaders. He currently lives as an urban hermit in Arizona and is working on his memoir. So, Dave, I'm really excited to talk to you today. Thanks for joining us.
00;01;40;06 - 00;01;45;10
Dave Denny
Oh, thanks, Kelly. It's wonderful to be here and finally meet you, as we said earlier, at least virtually.
00;01;45;16 - 00;01;59;26
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, indeed. I was hoping you could start us out today talking about that shift that happened like you set out and you were thinking you were going to be a journalist and then, like, how did you end up becoming a Carmelite hermits? How did that happen?
00;02;00;17 - 00;02;33;14
Dave Denny
Yeah, well, when I was in college, I was at Prescott College in northern Arizona. And was kind of, you know, general liberal or liberal arts. And as you mentioned, I was probably thinking about journalism something like that. But my roommate gave me a book, and he's the last person in the world ever expected to suggest this book was called Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.
00;02;34;14 - 00;03;06;27
Dave Denny
Now, this was the early seventies, and so there were we knew about Hindu mysticism, we knew about Sufism, we knew about transcendental meditation. A lot of gurus were coming over from India, Tibetan teachers And I knew zero about Christian contemplative or mystical tradition. I was brought up in the Disciples of Christ the Protestant tradition. So I grew up in a Christian family, but like a lot of college students, I wasn't really practicing anything.
00;03;06;27 - 00;03;38;28
Dave Denny
And in school at that age, of 18, 19. So I read Merton and I was just stunned. I thought all the monks in the universe had died in the Middle Ages or something. So it was a shock that there were monks, let alone especially Christian monks, in the 20th century. So that was surprising. And then he was a writer, he was interested in literature, stuff like that, and he becomes a Cistercian that that was strange and intriguing to me.
00;03;38;28 - 00;04;04;27
Dave Denny
So I began to read more about him. A priest came and taught a class at Colorado College on the New Testament. He was a Jesuit priest And I thought, Well, I should learn something more about this tradition. So I took the class and he knew about a retreat center a monastery near Prescott called the Spiritual Institute. And it was in Sedona, Arizona.
00;04;05;26 - 00;04;35;23
Dave Denny
And I thought, oh, that's kind of like, you know what Merton's up to. Maybe I should go check that out. So one winter when I was it was Christmas break I went over it for like three or four day retreat, and it was kind of love at first sight. I I'd never been to mass before. So I was, you know, the disciples of Christ had what they called the Lord's Supper every Sunday, which is not the case in a lot of Protestant traditions.
00;04;35;23 - 00;05;08;07
Dave Denny
So there was that sense of, you know, the the Eucharist. And my dad was an elder in the church, so occasionally he'd be up there on the altar with the minister and the other and one other elder. And something about I think that probably set me up in a way for then when I went to Mass this way that was familiar on the one hand, on the other hand, that more Catholic sense of the real presence was just stuff to me.
00;05;08;08 - 00;05;47;09
Dave Denny
I mean, in a way, in a way, it's more kind of primitive, primordial in a way. It's like, whoa, this is something very ancient about that sense of this mysterious presence. So I used to then take breaks from school and go back on retreat. Every once in a while I wanted to study Arabic and Middle Eastern history, which I couldn't do at Prescot so I went down to for the last three semesters I spent at University of Arizona here in Tucson, and but kept going back to Sedona on retreat.
00;05;49;01 - 00;06;15;27
Dave Denny
Then when I graduated, I graduated mid-year, so I thought, okay, I've got like six months here before I go to grad school, I again thought we think about journalism or comparative religion. And I asked if I could spend like a month in Sedona and they said, Oh, yeah, okay. Then I after a week or two, I said, Well, how about another month?
00;06;16;04 - 00;06;17;22
Dave Denny
And then that went on for 30 years.
00;06;18;24 - 00;06;19;26
Kelly Deutsch
So this never left.
00;06;20;16 - 00;06;46;10
Dave Denny
That's that's kind of how it happened. So I it was on the one hand, you know, there was a continuity with my upbringing in Christianity, but on the other hand, there was something new and fresh. And I especially was drawn by a couple of other things. Merton, you know, was very involved, like in the antiwar and civil rights movements.
00;06;46;24 - 00;07;16;15
Dave Denny
And this really fascinated me. I thought, wait a minute, here's this Cistercian. He's supposed to be out there thinking about the timeless, the eternal the not at all involved in what we used to call the profane because he was interested in the sacred. And I was fascinated by that. I thought that makes I like that. And the other thing about him was that then he was also involved in these inter-religious dialog.
00;07;17;11 - 00;07;39;27
Dave Denny
And because I had some exposure to other religions, that just seemed the way to go to me. And that combination of a profound commitment to Christ that instead of closing him down, opened him up That to me was just wonderful. So, yeah, I thought, well, I'd like to I'd like to pursue that path.
00;07;40;07 - 00;08;04;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that because I feel like that's such a juxtaposition in most people's minds of having like, you know, becoming a hermit and getting lost in contemplation and having a very rigorous prayer life. And then on the flip side, also being an activist, like what what does that mean and how does that how do you combine those two desires into those two lifestyles?
00;08;05;19 - 00;08;38;07
Dave Denny
Yeah, I think it's something that historically we still haven't resolved, and that's one of the things that's exciting about it to me. Is that this is still kind of being worked out. I think the implications of the incarnation that are at the heart of Christianity are still being explored. I think that I think we fell into a kind of an artificial dualism somewhere along the line.
00;08;38;24 - 00;09;08;00
Dave Denny
And so that sacred, profane thing was split. I think I think it's Wendell Berry, maybe Richard, who ought to talk about there's no such thing as sacred, profane. There's the sacred and the desecrated. And to me, that really strikes home that so those two worlds never really need to be separate to the sacred and the profane, because that's really an unreal that's kind of fictitious separation.
00;09;08;12 - 00;09;48;23
Dave Denny
So that's that's sort of, I guess, the philosophical background, too. I, I don't see any problem with the two. I think the, what developed in the monasteries was a contemplative way of being associated with specific practices that people got the idea had no place in the so-called profane life or the life of the world. And then it became a kind of specialized you know, contemplation or mysticism or something specialized, but that only professional monks did.
00;09;49;12 - 00;10;27;19
Dave Denny
So I think part of what we're trying to do and this I got from an American said he thought that one of the big focuses for the church in the 20th century and beyond was to get contemplation out of the monastery and into the streets. So that's that's one big theme that always has been captivating to me. And of course, the the combination of I know there's a guy named Matthew Meyer who talks about Sacramento and the prophetic.
00;10;27;27 - 00;10;54;00
Dave Denny
These are two aspects of Christianity that also occur, of course, in Judaism and Islam, the prophetic that history matters is important. Time and space. Flesh and blood. These are real. These aren't like illusions. And therefore, what we do, how we conduct ourselves in time and space and in politics in our schools, that's that's all part of the sacred.
00;10;54;14 - 00;11;40;02
Dave Denny
And so we need to pay attention to that. And so I think that's all those are some of the themes that kind of captivated me. Obviously, my life, I'm not much of an activist but I do try to keep my finger on the pulse of what's going on and also to point out things that I find hopeful. For example, this is Black History Month, and I just posted an article about John Lewis, the congressman, John Lewis, who took up much of the work of the civil rights movement of the sixties and continued it for decades.
00;11;40;03 - 00;11;44;01
Dave Denny
And so I don't know if I answered your question.
00;11;44;28 - 00;12;03;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I'm I'm curious to as we're talking about your life, you've I mean, you've transitioned to some I mean, when you were at the Spiritual Life Institute, there was some aspect of community to that. Yes. Or was it completely like I'm a hermit and.
00;12;04;05 - 00;12;30;28
Dave Denny
Oh, yeah. The one of the things I loved about falling in love with Christ in church and the Catholicism was falling in love with Carmelite Spirit. And we were a Carmelite community. So that was always a balance. Historically, in the Carmelite between Solitude and Community, when they came to Europe, that kind of broke down. There was in Europe, there was a kind of a suspicion I guess, about a more solitary life.
00;12;32;09 - 00;13;01;08
Dave Denny
Community life was emphasized more. And so that the Carmelite lost some of that. I think Saint Teresa was trying to regain some of that. And of course, John of the Cross loved solitude and sorted out whenever he could. So the idea and the ideal was to look to somebody like Elijah, who was considered kind of the spiritual father of the Carmelite, and Elijah as we know, spent a lot of time out in the desert in prayer.
00;13;01;23 - 00;13;38;17
Dave Denny
But then from time to time, Spirit moved him to come out into the into the city and kind of disturb the status quo in a prophetic way. And that's then that links back to John Lewis, you know, one of his favorite sayings was, you need to get into good trouble sometimes. And there's where the prophetic thing comes in, you know, standing up for certain values in the culture at large and standing up for the poor, standing up for the marginalized and reminding one another that that's really important.
00;13;39;18 - 00;14;03;19
Dave Denny
So we and our community, the way that God lived out was we'd have like two or three days a week, completely solitary, and then three or four days of the week when we would work together. So we might be gardening, it might be construction that might be maintenance, it might be working on our magazine. There also be some time we were always open as a retreat center.
00;14;04;03 - 00;14;33;28
Dave Denny
So each retreat had a hermitage, a separate little hermitage, and we were open to some spiritual direction for people who came. So to me, that was a wonderful balance of solitude and community, and it kind of hones and polishes and balances you out in a wonderful way. You know, you could get a little you go a little nuts in too much solitude, although that would probably be one of my temptations.
00;14;34;17 - 00;15;01;01
Dave Denny
On the other hand, you know, community can become distracting. And I know that Saint Teresa of Avelo is such an extrovert, as is my friend Tessa Malecki, who's my next floor neighbor. She lives upstairs, you know, there's always the danger of getting too involved and missing out on some of that deeper inner life that comes with the silence and solitude So I found it a great balance.
00;15;01;24 - 00;15;22;12
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I. I would be curious what your thoughts or advice would be to people who perhaps are relatively new on the contemplative path. And I'm wondering especially, like, what do you know now about the contemplative path that you didn't know, you know, let's say, a few years into your life as a Carmelite?
00;15;23;23 - 00;15;24;07
Dave Denny
Yeah.
00;15;26;29 - 00;16;13;18
Dave Denny
I think that because I pursued it so intensely and in such an unusual situation, there might have been a danger of thinking that's the only way to do it, that the zeal that comes. I think we often talk about the zeal of the neophyte. Yeah. And I at my in my old age now, I see the path as being wildly various, very engaged in different ways of looking at contemplation, for example, or coming out of the black church Is it Barbara Holmes who talks about crisis contemplation?
00;16;13;28 - 00;16;47;09
Dave Denny
Hmm. This is this is what happens for example, the in the light of the mystical traditions, you have this sense that well channeled across like entering the dark night, entering the desert. This is something you do, something you choose, a take up your cross. Whereas for other communities, such as black Americans, you're not choosing the desert. Unfortunately, something unjust, something cruel has been imposed on you.
00;16;47;26 - 00;17;30;27
Dave Denny
And how do you deal with that? To me, that that's that's probably another path toward contemplation. It's not one that anybody should have to undertake, but by the grace of God and miraculous yeah. Miraculous grace, tremendous spiritual growth that's come out of that of all those injustices. So it's not just a matter of going off into the desert voluntarily, although I do think that based on my experience, the it's really important for people to find chunks of time during their day.
00;17;31;16 - 00;18;12;07
Dave Denny
So if you're a busy parent, if you can get up a little earlier in the morning or stay up a little later at night to have that more reflective time, those little desert pockets are important, I think. I think that the occasional retreat time in an inside more silent, solitary, preferably wilderness environment can be really important to get that benchmark I think that one of the things I notice about urban life is that it's much more anthropocentric and living out in the wilderness.
00;18;13;10 - 00;18;39;15
Dave Denny
Human aspect is kind of a minority, and you're more aware of the plants and animals and the stars. And, and it's a whole different sense of how we are in the world that I think appeals to something very deep in a So I would really encourage people, even though you're probably not going to go to a monastery to look for those opportunities.
00;18;40;03 - 00;18;57;18
Dave Denny
Thank advantage. Those quiet solitude, wilderness, those there were but also be open the fact that locking yourself away in a in a cloister is not the only option.
00;18;58;10 - 00;19;17;29
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. And that is such a struggle. I know for so many people, especially those who are, you know, parents of young children or, you know, you work in nine to five job. And all of that is so challenging to find time to just be still. And I know that there are chapters in life where it's like, you know, there's just going to be less stillness right now.
00;19;17;29 - 00;19;18;11
Kelly Deutsch
Like.
00;19;19;07 - 00;19;47;17
Dave Denny
Yeah, I think that's another art that has to be learned in our lives is how to work out all those rhythms. And there are there are there is a season for everything And I think the the Indian tradition, as I understand it, is in some ways I think more realistic than in the West in that there are stages of life or housekeepers is one stage.
00;19;47;25 - 00;20;20;01
Dave Denny
But there's that sense it. But then it can oh, it can be over. And then in a more contemplative the more specifically the contemplative way of life can take over. When you get older, I don't I think that's maybe more theoretical than practiced in our in our culture. It doesn't seem to happen often enough. But I think it's it's there as a possibility.
00;20;20;19 - 00;20;42;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. What's so comforting for me is I regularly tell people about tree says tree survival as definition of holiness, of just doing the will of God, you know? And yeah, I, I think that needs to be your touchstone more than just like, what's your contemplative practice? Because it's like, well, what is the will of God for you presently?
00;20;42;20 - 00;21;00;22
Kelly Deutsch
Like, if you have three kids under the age of five, like finding time for like a 20 minute set every day might sound like a luxury like. Yes, you know, where is the flip side if you are like retired or widowed or, you know, look, whatever your situation is, you might be invited into more times of stillness and silence.
00;21;00;23 - 00;21;05;00
Kelly Deutsch
And, you know, it's figuring out like, what? What am I being called to in my present state?
00;21;05;21 - 00;21;28;17
Dave Denny
Yeah. So I think in I think the learning is very mutual. I think that, again, because there was this idea of there's the professional contemplative and then there's everybody else, I think that's breaking down. And so we're learning more and more by listening to people and learning more and more about how people do manage to be more contemplative in the midst of raising kids.
00;21;28;22 - 00;21;51;13
Dave Denny
I my heart always goes out, you know, not having kids whenever I see kids like at the airport or just around town or just throughout the apartments here, I'm always excited. But often I look at their parents and they're just you can tell they're exhausted. You know, this is not you know, they're not romantically thrilled with the mystery of childhood.
00;21;51;14 - 00;21;57;03
Dave Denny
They're like, oh, my gosh, how am I going to get food on the table? And these never shut up and stuff like.
00;21;57;08 - 00;21;59;24
Kelly Deutsch
So it's my sleep through the night maybe, you know?
00;22;00;29 - 00;22;05;27
Dave Denny
Yeah. So my heart goes out that it's an heroic vocation.
00;22;06;28 - 00;22;27;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Aren't they all? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask you a bit about, too. I know a big turning point in your own life was being a foreign exchange student in the Middle East. And I was curious if you'd share a little bit about what happened there, why it was so powerful and how that changed you Yeah.
00;22;30;05 - 00;22;54;22
Dave Denny
I I think I was still living in Kokomo, Indiana. That's where I grew up till I was 16. And then we moved to Arizona and I had met some exchange students back in Kokomo and some crazy reason I got it in my head. Well, I think I'd like to do that. So when I got to Arizona, I kept that idea.
00;22;54;22 - 00;23;20;25
Dave Denny
I applied with something called the American Field Service. That's an old I think it goes back to World War One. I think the American Field Service, they actually were stretcher bearers in the First World War, and they were I think they were there was a kind of a pacifist dimension to them. So I applied. I was studying French, so I probably figured, well, maybe they'll send me to France.
00;23;21;17 - 00;23;42;18
Dave Denny
That's probably what was in my mind as a teenager. Who knows? I'm an old man. I can't remember. But what I do remember is being a little surprised when Mom called me from school one day and she said, Dave, I found out, where are you going this summer? I realized, this is it. I said, Where? And she said, Afghanistan.
00;23;43;21 - 00;24;14;13
Dave Denny
And this is 1970 and 17 years old. So my first question, I hate to say is, well, where is it Unfortunately, we all know where it is now. It's been, it's hard for me to I can't even wrap my mind around, you know, it's been over 40 years of bloodshed and chaos there. So in a way I always say I guess I was there in the Golden Age because it was nine years before the Soviets invaded, was relatively stable.
00;24;15;04 - 00;24;48;20
Dave Denny
The king was in power and and the family I lived with just wonderful, so kind, so welcoming. I felt really like a member of the family. We lived in a whole neighborhood in Kabul, near the university, and I was just captivated in part of what struck me. I fell in love immediately with Arizona and we moved there. And then it's like one year later, I'm I'm in Kabul, Afghanistan.
00;24;48;26 - 00;25;12;02
Dave Denny
And when the plane was coming down into Kabul, I thought, oh, my gosh, this looks just like Arizona. But it was halfway around the world, so I was captivated by the landscape. People were just so wonderful. Again, I, I think that now we hear about Afghanistan we hear about people like the Taliban. Well, that's a cult. That's like a foreign culture.
00;25;12;02 - 00;25;47;21
Dave Denny
That's not really Afghan culture. That's, you know, that's unfortunately young refugee men who grew up in Pakistan and were radicalized by some very conservative Muslim teachings that were really foreign to Afghan culture. So I loved it. And I had, I suppose, the most dramatic moment. And as I look back, I didn't know it at the time, but as I look back, we used to do homework with some local guys there.
00;25;48;23 - 00;26;20;28
Dave Denny
I couldn't speak much Persian, obviously, and they weren't great in English, but we'd do algebra together. So that's the universal language. So that was one way of relating. And then these guys had a. America was just unimaginable. And it's hard for Americans to imagine that our life Many people, probably most people in the world can't even imagine what it would be like.
00;26;21;12 - 00;26;42;27
Dave Denny
So it's really stressful trying to kind of convey what it is like. And the best I could come up with a brief description of my impression of what they were thinking was that America is like a cross between Disneyland and an Elvis Presley movie. So they just figured that's where I came from and that's who I am.
00;26;45;14 - 00;27;12;04
Dave Denny
And they loved that idea because it was just so exotic to them. So they were fascinated by having an American in their midst. But one day they did come up with the question they were puzzled by because we're this is this utopia, this is this wonderful place. The people are rich and they're free and do whatever they want, and they seem pretty nice.
00;27;12;22 - 00;27;27;06
Dave Denny
But they these kids said Why are you firebombing Vietnam And it was like a sword had kind of shortcut right through me.
00;27;29;09 - 00;27;56;00
Dave Denny
And son. And yet it took years for me to kind of interpret what was happening. But suddenly I was struck first of all, probably by their vulnerability, which is something it is very difficult for an American to imagine. I remember a past once writing about how, you know, you don't have a whole lot of fear of Mexico and Canada in the United States.
00;27;56;00 - 00;28;25;11
Dave Denny
And you've got an Atlantic ocean and a Pacific Ocean, you know, east and west. That's weird. Nobody in this world could imagine that kind of insecurity for most people. There's a radical vulnerability. And if Russia wanted to, like, drop bombs on Vietnam, Afghanistan, why not? America wants to drop. Why not? Who's stopping them? And so that really hit me.
00;28;25;24 - 00;28;51;09
Dave Denny
So their vulnerability and then my complete inability to have any rational explanation for what we were doing in Vietnam and 50 years later, I have no rational explanation. I don't know. You hear these arguments and they make no sense to me. So I think that is one reason. Going back to, you know, why do you go into the monastery?
00;28;51;09 - 00;29;30;03
Dave Denny
I think that I was being struck a probably for most people, kind of an early age by the radical inadequacy of both our spiritual and political approaches to the world. And and the schizophrenic nature that America is this Happy-Go-Lucky rich and half, you know, generous nation that you know, goes around the world doing some really bad things that we don't talk about, we weren't talking about.
00;29;30;24 - 00;29;51;07
Dave Denny
So those are things that Dr. King started talking about that I remember, you know, Muhammad Ali, the great boxer sits you're going to send me over there to kill brown people or yellow people, you know, people who are being treated the way my people are treated here in this country. Are you kidding me? So there was this other perspective.
00;29;51;11 - 00;30;14;22
Dave Denny
It started to come up. And so I guess part of what I was thinking is, would I, I need I need to be transformed in some radical, profound way before I have anything to offer to this this world. So I think that's part what was going on with me. Yeah. So that's that was a big moment.
00;30;15;06 - 00;30;39;05
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. To me, how many of us have this, like, catalyzing moment into the contemplative life where that usually is, like, a moment of crisis or trauma or, like, or something about the world is not making sense, you know, where your worldview is clashing with what's in reality. And it's like, something has got to change here.
00;30;39;05 - 00;30;59;20
Kelly Deutsch
And it's probably me. You know? Yes, that's that's a hard transition. But I think that's kind of where, like, we were talking about before that that Dark Knight comes in and yeah, you know, the experience that we don't just, like, choose, like, well, I'm going to go do my duty and pick up the cross. And it's like, no, usually the cross finds you.
00;31;00;16 - 00;31;03;06
Dave Denny
Yeah. Yes, I think that's true.
00;31;03;20 - 00;31;04;03
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;31;04;27 - 00;31;22;28
Dave Denny
It's. Yeah, yeah. I think that that's one of the one of those pitfalls of like taking up the spiritual life is you're like, you're going to do these ascetic things. And we used to say at our monastery, you know, life will do it for you. Yes. So.
00;31;23;15 - 00;31;50;16
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, that is very real. So then, yeah, one thing that strikes me about your experience in the Middle East is just how easy it is for most of the world. To forget that like half of the major world religions started over there, you know? Yes. And I'm curious. Having spent time in Afghanistan and some of those areas and also doing interreligious work.
00;31;50;26 - 00;32;07;17
Kelly Deutsch
Like, what about. I mean, it'd be interesting to hear your input also on like Judaism and Islam. But I'm curious specifically about Christianity, like what Middle Eastern qualities are there in Christianity that most of us forget about?
00;32;08;11 - 00;32;55;12
Dave Denny
Hmm. Yeah, that's a great question because people often talk about how the part of the the wonder of Christianity was that it took this strong Semitic tradition and transplanted it into Europe. So that already was Saint Paul moving into Greece. And that part of the world. And so there was this whole other heritage. And in Greek culture of philosophy, And so a lot of Western Christianity at least began to be translated into Greek terms in Greek metaphysics.
00;32;55;18 - 00;33;26;20
Dave Denny
And we ended up the radical of the Middle Ages was Thomas Aquinas. And people were really upset because he was using all this Greek stuff, you know, as you know, that we think of him as hyper conservative. But but that was really revolutionary. And so we were moving out of that more Semitic mind. Right. And I think one of the things that you see more in in Judaism, for example, is that I think there is more incarnational more we did.
00;33;26;20 - 00;33;56;14
Dave Denny
I don't think there was much as much of a split between like Spirit and Matter. It was like Psalm one. And so then we like then we started splitting things up, heaven and hell. Eternal and temporal. And I think those are very Greek tendencies. But I know other cultures do as well. The Jews didn't seem to do that as much.
00;33;56;14 - 00;34;28;23
Dave Denny
Even I loved the interview that Rabbi Abraham Heschel did back in the sixties, I guess it was on one of those national TV interview things. And the interviewer was saying, Gosh, what's the deal, Rabbi? You're out there marching with Martin Luther King and protesting the Vietnam War. But isn't isn't the religion about the afterlife in the eternal heaven?
00;34;29;16 - 00;34;48;10
Dave Denny
And he just leans over and he says, well, we don't have a lot of information ocean in terms of the afterlife. So what we do have is the prophets. And they say, this is how we got to live in this world. We got to be just we've got to be compassionate and we've got to take good care of each other and we're in God's hands.
00;34;49;07 - 00;35;10;24
Dave Denny
There's something kind of agnostic there that I've always kind of admired, actually. And so, of course, in time of Jesus, there was that whole debate of whether or not there isn't even isn't afterlife. And some some in that tradition, I think, would say what's a little bit greedy? I mean, you get your 60 or 70 years, what do you want?
00;35;12;00 - 00;35;37;04
Dave Denny
And you know, there's something about that that, you know, who do we think we are? It's the kind of humility maybe in that. So I think the Semitic traditions that you had that kind of groundedness in the earth that I like and family, you know, like the whole idea of celibacy never would have. That doesn't hold water in the Jewish tradition.
00;35;37;14 - 00;35;58;18
Dave Denny
It's kind of unusual, though, that Jesus seems to have been. But again, I think that I'm not saying what's right was wrong, but I'm just saying those are some tendencies I think, that were that were there that maybe once as we moved and became more Eurocentric.
00;35;59;03 - 00;36;27;01
Kelly Deutsch
Mm hmm. Yeah. It is interesting even just to look at, you know, like early desert mothers and fathers and, you know, just some of those like the Alexandrian tradition and Syria and, you know, just how different churches were incarnate and different places is so fascinating to me to see how the rights were different. You know, I mean, a lot of people don't know that, you know, even within Catholicism, Roman Catholicism is only one of several rites, you know, once.
00;36;27;13 - 00;36;27;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;36;27;22 - 00;36;28;15
Dave Denny
You know, or.
00;36;28;17 - 00;36;29;03
Kelly Deutsch
Different.
00;36;29;13 - 00;36;51;11
Dave Denny
Of course. You know, when I went on to study Arabic, I was thrilled. Then later, when I became Catholic and found out there's a rite called milk. Right. And all the liturgies are in Arabic. And I used to have a tape in the old days of cassette tapes of a milk liturgy. And you hear this is beautiful Christian chants in Arabic.
00;36;51;13 - 00;37;02;24
Dave Denny
Yes, I remember that one. What is it? Holy, holy, holy could do so I could do it. Holy, holy, Lord, God of power and my. And hearing Arabic.
00;37;03;22 - 00;37;04;18
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;37;05;04 - 00;37;29;02
Dave Denny
And it gave me the chills. And, of course, that's you're hearing some of the timber, I think, in some of the drama of the way Jesus would speak. Mm hmm. And because I'm fascinated by language and to me, you know, have certain things you just can't translate. And I feel lucky to have had some exposure to Semitic languages.
00;37;29;29 - 00;37;32;04
Dave Denny
There's just something visceral about that.
00;37;32;08 - 00;37;32;27
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;37;33;11 - 00;37;34;13
Dave Denny
Quite, quite wondrous.
00;37;35;15 - 00;38;01;01
Kelly Deutsch
When I studied in Rome with this religious community, I had classmates that were Maronite Catholics. You know, they were Lebanese. Yeah. I'm going to mass right with them. I felt like it was like a Latin goes to mass, you know, like everything was hung in these, like, minor keys. I was like, you know, maybe, you know, or you had a friend who was a Coptic priest which is a rite in Egypt and other tabernacle.
00;38;01;01 - 00;38;14;14
Kelly Deutsch
Usually, like Roman Catholics, you have like a little gold box somewhere in a church. And there tabernacle is this like gold dove that was suspended above the altar and he pulled it down in the middle of mass, you know, so it was like descending. I was like, this is so fricking cool, you know?
00;38;14;14 - 00;38;14;28
Dave Denny
It's just. Yeah.
00;38;15;16 - 00;38;16;05
Kelly Deutsch
That's the.
00;38;16;20 - 00;38;18;09
Dave Denny
Drama. Yeah. Yeah.
00;38;18;09 - 00;38;29;18
Kelly Deutsch
The cultural incarnations and yeah, that drama that's added to it that I think is often lost in our kind of whitewashed European versions.
00;38;30;25 - 00;39;05;29
Dave Denny
Yeah. Yeah. You know, we we used to struggle when we used to teach this class called fire and like the, the history of Christian mysticism, we struggle with presenting. You want to present those desert fathers and mothers accurately. But it's unfortunate that for them, it's like the highest sort of spiritual state was what they called apathy here, which, you know, in our with this isn't what they meant, but in our ears sounds like apathy in but there is that tendency to slow things down.
00;39;06;01 - 00;39;35;21
Dave Denny
It's quieted down. Whereas yeah, in the Semitic traditions there was a lot more of that more passionate engagement and even even in Greek thought, the the passion was like a vise, you know, Eros, the problem with Eros is that it it's, it means you lack something. Whereas with Agrippa, you know, you've got it all and, you know, lack anything and only that's only for God.
00;39;36;09 - 00;39;41;22
Dave Denny
Whereas, you know, I don't think in most Semitic traditions that that would not be an issue.
00;39;42;01 - 00;39;43;11
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. But know.
00;39;43;15 - 00;39;49;19
Dave Denny
A passionate engagement in like kids is a virtue. So, yeah.
00;39;50;27 - 00;39;57;29
Kelly Deutsch
I wanted to ask about your teaching experience because I know, I mean, you taught that class on mysticism for, what, 13 years.
00;39;57;29 - 00;39;59;13
Dave Denny
And I think the way you.
00;39;59;21 - 00;40;25;22
Kelly Deutsch
Taught all sorts of other interesting classes and retreats and you know, different things over the years. And I'm curious, especially in your tenure in teaching, what's what's shocked students the most? Like what kind of preconceptions did they come in with? And then what left them just a kind of mind blown or stunned or kind of their ideas turned on their head and.
00;40;27;25 - 00;40;52;04
Dave Denny
You know, there was one dramatic instance I could cite. There was a guy who had come from a very conservative and more evangelical Christian tradition. And we didn't know this until much farther along in the course that he apparently he had come in order to convert us.
00;40;52;17 - 00;40;53;08
Kelly Deutsch
Oh, okay.
00;40;53;10 - 00;41;24;09
Dave Denny
Because he was quite he was quite sure that you know, we were really a way off base as Roman Catholics and and all that hocus pocus of mysticism and all that. That's like that's demonic or something. Well, that poor guy, he just loved it. And unfortunately, he was very deeply shaken because he he came into this thinking he was confronting the enemy and he actually loved it.
00;41;25;09 - 00;41;45;10
Dave Denny
So that was one of the most surprising things that that I ran into. I think, like me, a lot of students had no idea that monks existed anymore. So just that the whole way of life was new.
00;41;47;17 - 00;42;17;24
Dave Denny
In. And of course, we had students who were it was wonderful. They were very curious. But I remember one student saying one day, well, my exposure to Christianity is I saw a televangelist once and I went to a funeral. And I think that was about it. So you were some of the students, you know, the Colorado College. These are not these are pretty pretty astute people.
00;42;18;26 - 00;42;46;14
Dave Denny
But that was kind of a revelation to me that there's a lot of folks out there who just have there's zero exposure to spiritual tradition. The other thing that was fascinating to us is that we were we were running into a fair number of students who were coming from what we might call a kind of hybrid or hyphenated communities where their parents, if they were involved in a tradition, they may have been two different traditions.
00;42;46;14 - 00;43;01;01
Dave Denny
So you have a Catholic and a Jewish, you know, spouses. And then the kids are kind of raised in between those and not quite sure how to negotiate that. That was fascinating to me.
00;43;03;26 - 00;43;49;27
Dave Denny
I think that no matter who were with if it's retreats or with students, there's an amazing lack of knowledge about Christian mystical tradition and the joke is I wrote Tessa ever mention this to you, but the joke is that once when we were at a Christian Buddhist dialog up at Naropa in Boulder, Colorado, back in the eighties, Tessa and Thomas Keating and brother David Steiner were all talking about this mystical tradition, and some guy at the question and answer period gets up and says, Well, wait a minute, I was brought up Roman Catholic.
00;43;49;27 - 00;44;12;22
Dave Denny
I never heard any of this. Is this heretical or what? And it was that it was hilarious. Because they had an Orthodox priest there to a Greek Orthodox guide. So they had this sort of mock trial of Tessa as inherited and they decided she was cool. She was definitely orthodox, but and they made a kind of joke of it.
00;44;12;22 - 00;44;23;16
Dave Denny
But that's interesting. To me that this is and it's becoming more and more known, my impression is. But still.
00;44;24;03 - 00;44;42;23
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I think it's the best kept secret in Christianity like that, that there is this mystical core. And I think there isn't any major world religion, you know, that there's a mystical heart to it. And yeah, there are plenty of different forms and yeah, sometimes I think, yeah.
00;44;44;01 - 00;45;18;11
Dave Denny
But I think that is the key to inter-religious dialog. I think that it's not going to happen unless it is coming out of that more contemplative experience, which involves being radically encountered by and encountering something that's so awesome so mysterious. It's so shaped you at the core of your being that you just don't have words for it. And suddenly you do have to get humble and realize, Whoa, there's a lot we don't know.
00;45;18;23 - 00;45;20;14
Dave Denny
You know, that's a great place for dialog.
00;45;20;28 - 00;45;24;12
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, yes. When it's like language is stripped away.
00;45;25;01 - 00;45;52;01
Dave Denny
Yeah. And then and you can't weaponize that. That's the beauty of you. You can't hit anybody over the head. With that. You, you end up serving people and listening to. So, yeah, that's, that's my, that's to me the hope future. And you don't have to sacrifice any of your own identity. I know there's all these questions about, well, is, is anybody going to be just one religion?
00;45;52;02 - 00;46;06;15
Dave Denny
The future I don't know. But for me, I just keep buying more and more deeply in love with Christ. But my impression is he's falling deeply in love with all these other traditions. And that's why it's happening to me, too. And that's funny.
00;46;06;25 - 00;46;25;23
Kelly Deutsch
I hmm. Yeah. Because it seems like the divine spark at the center I mean, at least in my opinion, is one and the same. And and that's why, you know, people who are closer to that center like to mystics of different religions have far more in common than a mystic and a fundamentalist of the same religion.
00;46;26;21 - 00;47;01;12
Dave Denny
Yeah. Yeah, that that's a really important, I think, insight. I think you, your cousins, maybe talked about that some that it might be artificial to say whether Jews and Christians and Muslims and Buddhists that what might be more helpful to talk about as a fundamentalist, is it kind of mainstream? Is it more contemplative? And if the more contemplative it is, the more I think the opened doors to to dialog because you've just been knocked off your high horse and you're ready to listen and learn.
00;47;02;10 - 00;47;31;19
Dave Denny
I just, I, I've only seen a clip, but I've heard people talking about the film. It's, it's called Mission Joy. That's dialogs between Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama. Hmm. And just the clips I've seen, it's just wonderful. They're laughing. They're got their arms around each other. There's this beautiful camaraderie between them. And I think that's a great example of what happens.
00;47;33;04 - 00;47;33;21
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;47;34;04 - 00;47;34;21
Dave Denny
So.
00;47;35;14 - 00;47;36;03
Kelly Deutsch
Yes.
00;47;37;16 - 00;48;03;12
Dave Denny
So you become more Christian. I think it's you as you encounter these other other traditions, not less. It's not a matter of watering something down. It's a matter of it's more like permaculture. You know, when you think about biology. And that that's my kind of paradigm. You're monocultures. They're just you you plant corn you live on corn, there's a blight.
00;48;03;12 - 00;48;04;01
Dave Denny
You're dead.
00;48;04;13 - 00;48;04;26
Kelly Deutsch
Mm.
00;48;05;04 - 00;48;41;19
Dave Denny
But if you've got an almond tree and you've got some pomegranates and you've got some grain, you know, all these things synergistically work together, and they all get healthier and healthier. And that's to me where the life is so it's a great, funny. I think there's that sense of Islam as being so close minded. And yet of all the scriptures, there's a great line in the Koran about what God created us so that we can get to know each other.
00;48;42;13 - 00;48;54;25
Dave Denny
And it was different traditions in different languages. And wouldn't it be nice to get to know each other? And I just think that's a wonderfully anti clannish approach.
00;48;55;14 - 00;48;56;28
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, totally.
00;48;59;19 - 00;49;28;05
Kelly Deutsch
I wanted to save a little bit of time to ask you about your poetry, because I think that's there's something I mean, obviously very different between like your original intent of being like a journalist and the writing style that you use in poetry. You know, they're very different mediums. Yeah, I'm I'm curious what role poetry has played in your spiritual life in particular.
00;49;29;16 - 00;49;44;27
Dave Denny
Yeah, well, it's I just I love the sound of words. Like it's kind of embarrassing when I was a little kid, I, I don't remember this, but I guess I made up my own language, and my brother was my translator.
00;49;45;04 - 00;49;45;26
Kelly Deutsch
That's amazing.
00;49;47;13 - 00;50;19;00
Dave Denny
Anyway, so and I still remember I read, like, ads that were on the radio or TV when I was a little kid, and I'm shocked I remember this, and I realize it's part of the power of words. And, of course, advertisers know about that, how they manipulate us. But but the real power that comes through somebody like that, Shakespeare, it's just transports you when you hear it's like it's like kind of music and it can be kind of incantatory.
00;50;20;03 - 00;50;57;19
Dave Denny
So those are things about that I love. I also love the fact that it's sort of the most primitive language and culture, and at the same time, it's really the most exalted. And to me, that's so of, you know, it's like bringing together heaven and earth. And in these words, so I think it it also it it has it does a great job of short circuiting our rationalism and reason.
00;50;57;19 - 00;51;36;19
Dave Denny
It's so important. But sometimes I think we can idealize it and so there's a lot more to life than equations and logic. Yes. And I think that, again, what was it Pascal said? Reason. The heart has reasons that reason is not. And that poetry has a way of taking us out on to that frontier where some of those distinctions start to fall apart.
00;51;38;00 - 00;52;02;29
Dave Denny
Hmm. I also think Carl Reiner once said, you know, whatever happened to all the singing theologian in that always struck me that it shouldn't be about song, it should be about wonder. Instead, it became a system that you have to judge as to whether it's orthodox or not. And if it's not, you know, off with your head.
00;52;03;07 - 00;52;03;24
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, well.
00;52;03;25 - 00;52;22;28
Dave Denny
That's not that's not very encouraging. So I think part of what's beautiful about poetry is that you don't have that. There's no orthodox or unorthodox about it. And it speaks right into the heart of the messiness and the mystery of being human.
00;52;25;16 - 00;52;51;22
Kelly Deutsch
Yes, I love that Dostoyevsky quote, That beauty will save the world. Yes. That that kind of fierce beauty that's like you said, it short circuits that rational brain. I mean, it's we we spend so much time in our left brain, the analytical so did go into like the right brain and not have to I don't know, like you think of the transcendental goodness, truth and beauty.
00;52;51;28 - 00;53;11;15
Kelly Deutsch
Like, I think for so long, we've been stuck on truth basically since the Reformation, we're like, let's argue this. And like sub point A and sub .3.1, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, pick who cares? Like, yeah, we please encounter the holy like through something that is so visceral that you just can't escape it.
00;53;12;03 - 00;53;42;19
Dave Denny
Yeah. Amen. Yeah. I think, you know, I used to read Hans Von Alcazar. Yes. Who I probably understood 10% of what he was saying. But but he emphasized that just what you're saying, that we. So you got so obsessed with the true in terms of analysis and reason and then also the good in terms of moral behavior, which is extremely important.
00;53;42;19 - 00;53;58;27
Dave Denny
But then there's the moral ism that people hate about religion. But the beautiful has been somewhat ignored, he felt. Yes. And that's where that's where I want to spend my time. Yeah.
00;53;59;05 - 00;54;15;28
Kelly Deutsch
So have you heard that story? I mean, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but I heard a story told of Von Balthasar during the Second Vatican Council that he was there with all these theologians and that he stormed out of one of the sessions and just like slammed the door saying there's no arrows in it.
00;54;18;01 - 00;54;26;00
Dave Denny
Oh, that's great. I love it. Oh, I never heard that. Yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that sums it up. Yes.
00;54;26;01 - 00;54;34;05
Kelly Deutsch
So so before we close, would you mind sharing one of your poems with us and kind of invite us into that space of beauty?
00;54;35;08 - 00;55;12;25
Dave Denny
Yeah. Okay. So just trying to think what might be the best. Maybe this one I'll do because I wrote this during Advent and I tested I get our haircut at this place where there's a there's a young woman named Angie who works there and every year at Christmas, Angie's mom makes tamales. That's a big deal in this part of the world.
00;55;13;04 - 00;55;51;05
Dave Denny
Christmas is the time for tamales. So we ordered some tamales from Angie's mom. And I had a kind of epiphany when we showed up at the salon. And Angie comes from the back room walking up between all the the stylists chairs. You know, we're cutting people's hair, and she's got this arm full of fresh tomatoes in I guess in my crazy mind, I was thinking this is like an awkward toy procession in the mass, you know, bring the gifts up to the altar.
00;55;51;17 - 00;56;28;10
Dave Denny
And so I had a kind of a crazy experience of that. So then then afterwards, Tess and I went over. It was dark. It was getting close to Christmas time. And a local Lutheran church has a like a living nativity that they do. And you drive. It's drive through the drive thru nativity, so you stop different stations. And then there's the Wiseman Shepherds, and then the Holy Family.
00;56;29;17 - 00;56;48;08
Dave Denny
Well, there were a lot of people lined up to see the Nativity scene. In the mean time, we're sitting in the car with these hot tamales and they're still in the car with aroma and so that's sort of the context here.
00;56;50;14 - 00;57;34;26
Dave Denny
Advent meditation, offertory I love the cactus blossoms, so on. But this was brand new. I wasn't getting Sean Rudolph was run, run, running on the radio. Well, in retrieve the order from the back room, she emerged and began her offertory procession down the center aisle between the swiveling pews. Scissors went silent her thick black hair tumbled over her shoulders, and in her strong brown arms, she cradled 24 green chili pork to tamales.
00;57;35;25 - 00;58;16;29
Dave Denny
Her mother's creations wrapped in foil, bagged them plastic and worn as life. My friend Tessa took them gently in her arms while I stumbled with a lot of bills. We drove through the dark and joined the queue of cars waiting to enter the Lutheran drive thru Living Nativity. The interior grew rather when we had no napkins, no plastic cutlery, we gave her a finger embroidered in lard, illuminated by tail lights we received.
00;58;18;17 - 00;58;24;24
Dave Denny
I think I'm in love with Angie's mother, I blurted I hope her father doesn't own a gun.
00;58;28;16 - 00;59;04;28
Kelly Deutsch
That's the wonderful I love the the richness, the like, the fingers in the lard, like anointed but like warm is life. Like there's something wonderful about like. That is one of the reasons I think that I feel like I could never really leave. Christianity is just that incarnational quality, the like, the messiness, the sacramental quality of everything from, you know, the large fingers on the tamales to everything else.
00;59;06;20 - 00;59;14;07
Dave Denny
Yeah, yeah. And and just this. We have this kind of warmth and humor about it that that that I love.
00;59;14;26 - 00;59;32;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Well, beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your stories. And your life experiences with us. I think it's such a joy to be able to walk together for a piece yeah.
00;59;32;20 - 00;59;36;20
Dave Denny
This was wonderful. I really enjoyed it.
00;59;37;03 - 00;59;46;01
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. If any of our listeners want to learn more about what you're up to or Sand in Sky, where you're at presently, where should people go?
00;59;47;28 - 01;00;13;03
Dave Denny
Yes. And and Skywalk is the website for the Desert Foundation, which is a little nonprofit. The testing. And I co-founded co-founded in the test. It has her own site called testable lucky dot com. And so there's a lot of overlap between the two. And then if you go to testing site, you can also connect to our new podcast test called Fire and Light.
01;00;13;22 - 01;00;42;24
Dave Denny
And it's basically conversations on we say conversations on life, love and soul. So there are just there's one currently available actually a second one right now it's just become and then so the first one kind of introduces us and then this new one is a combination of celebrating calmness, which it begins, which is celebrated on February 2nd and also talk a little about Black History Month.
01;00;43;01 - 01;00;43;10
Dave Denny
Hmm.
01;00;44;13 - 01;00;51;17
Kelly Deutsch
Beautiful. Yeah. I look forward to checking that out and encourage everybody else to as well. There's a lot of wonderful things happening at the Desert Foundation.
01;00;52;00 - 01;00;52;15
Dave Denny
Thank you.
01;00;53;09 - 01;01;01;15
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Well, thank you again for joining us. And thank you, everyone, for listening today. We so appreciate it and hope you'll tune in again next time.
01;01;27;17 - 01;01;50;01
Kelly Deutsch
Thank you for joining us on Spiritual Wanderlust. If you enjoyed today's episode, consider leaving us a review or sharing it with others. It really does help us to reach more kindred spirits who are hungry for the depths to learn more about what we're up to or to access our free resources for spiritual growth. Visit us at WW W Dot Spiritual Wanderlust dot org.
01;01;51;01 - 01;01;56;28
Kelly Deutsch
May your days ahead and be spacious, spritely and surprising. See you next.