AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast

• From NFL Lineman to MIT Math Professor with John Urschel

  Here’s a hypothetical scenario I’m sure many of us have faced in our lives: Imagine you were a football player good enough to make the NFL. Imagine you are also a mathematician good enough to get a doctorate from MIT. Which path would you choose? OK, so maybe that’s not that common a discernment. But it was the decision our guest today faced: John Urschel first started playing football at Canisius High School, the Jesuit high school in Buffalo, New York. He got good pretty quickly, and he’s a big dude. John ended up getting a scholarship to play football at Penn State, where he could also pursue studies in math, which was his first love. He ended up with a bachelor’s and master’s degree while starring on the offensive line at Penn State. And after his time there finished, he was drafted into the NFL by the Baltimore Ravens. As he embarked on his NFL career, he also enrolled as a doctoral student in mathematics at MIT. After three years in the league, he retired from football to start a career as a math professor, also at MIT. Host Mike Jordan Laskey remembers hearing about John a few years ago when he made the decision to switch career paths. And when we found out he was Jesuit educated, we thought a conversation with him for Super Bowl week would be perfect for the show. John was an incredible guest, speaking so clearly and compellingly about his life journey and the big discernment he made to leave NFL fame and fortune on the table. He’s a great representative of Canisius High School and the type of thoughtful, well-rounded, compassionate person Jesuit education aspires to form. Learn more about John’s math (good luck): https://math.mit.edu/~urschel/ Read John’s book, “Mind and Matter”: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Matter-Life-Math-Football/dp/0735224862 AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

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• Pilgrim Spirituality for Everyday Living

  What do you imagine when you hear the word ‘pilgrimage’? Do you see in your mind’s eye the laces of an old pair of boots? A walking stick? A winding trail through an unknown forest? The company of friends and strangers? Perhaps a particular place comes to mind; you may immediately think of the pilgrim routes through Spain. The Camino de Santiago, perhaps: that famous pilgrimage to the resting place of the St. James, beginning in France and ending in the northwest of Spain. Maybe your mind goes to the Camino Ignaciano—the pilgrim route that traces the key steps that St. Ignatius took from his home in Loyola to Manresa, that infamous cave where Ignatius penned the Spiritual Exercises. And still, there may be more pilgrim places that come to mind; the world is full of them! How often, though, do you think of your daily life as a pilgrimage? How often do you reach for those spiritual lessons so easily glimpsed on roads trod by boot-wearing-hikers? Do you think to practice the kind of simplicity, indifference and awareness that is so necessary on those pilgrim routes in your day-to-day, when you’re picking your kids up from school or making your grocery list? In some ways, it’s a lot harder. That’s why we have two pilgrimage veterans joining the podcast today—and two guests who are also veterans of our show. The Jesuit priest Fr. Brendan McManus has written several books on pilgrimages, both to Santiago de Compostella and Manresa. His latest, Living the Camino Back Home: Ignatian Tips for Keeping the Camino Spirit Alive—written with Sr. Katherin O’Flynn—is an extended meditation on how to bring a pilgrim spirituality into everyday life. Christine Eberle has recently published her third book, Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home, chronicles her own Spanish pilgrimage, inviting readers to find their own pilgrimage where ever they are. This conversation is a real delight, full of wisdom and laughter and a deep desire to help us all along whatever road we’re currently walking. If you’d like to learn more about our guests visit the links below. Finding God Along the Way: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-God-Along-Way-Ignatian/dp/164060989X Living the Camino Back Home: https://www.amazon.com/Living-Camino-Back-Home-Ignatian/dp/1788127137 Christine's website: https://christine-marie-eberle.com/ More books by Fr. Brendan: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00MU4S70O

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• Trying to Resist Digital Distraction with Jonathan Malesic

  There aren’t many things most people agree on today across all the different political and cultural divides. But this following claim probably unites most of us: We are too distracted today and our collective ability to pay attention is in bad shape. That seems like pretty conventional wisdom. Today’s guest enjoys few things more than taking a piece of conventional wisdom and poking and prodding it to see if it’s actually that wise after all. Jonathan Malesic is a writer and writing teacher at Southern Methodist University whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Washington Post, America Magazine and elsewhere. He’s also author the author of the great book “The End of Burnout.” And Jon has offered fantastic spiritual nonfiction writing courses through the Jesuit Media Lab. In a recent essay in the magazine Commonweal, Jon wrote about going to an art museum in San Francisco as a sort of experiment. He wanted to see if looking closely and attentively at works of art for a long time could help heal his own fraying attentiveness. Host Mike Jordan Laskey really enjoyed the essay and was challenged by it, so he invited Jon on to discuss his experiences. They talked about museums and Instagram algorithms and the different types of attention you need while looking at art versus, say, driving a car. The essay and this conversation might make you think some more about our crisis of distraction and what might be the right antidotes to pursue. Jon's recent Commonweal essay, Fix Your Gaze: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/fix-your-gaze Jon's book, "The End of Burnout": https://www.amazon.com/End-Burnout-Drains-Build-Better/dp/0520344073 Jon's Substack: https://jonmalesic.substack.com/ AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

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• Answering the Gospel Call to Global Community with Michael Manulak

  If you look out at the world today, you might notice a growing trend in global politics: Again and again, voters are putting into power leaders that favor nationalistic or isolationist rhetoric and policies. Issues that require global cooperation — and sacrifice — like the climate crisis, nonproliferation of nuclear arms and the care of refugees are a hard sell to a citizenry increasingly concerned with economic and security problems affecting their own families and communities. As a result, nations all over the world turn ever inward and more distrustful of individuals and organizations beyond their borders. We see this dynamic play out again and again in conversations around immigration, and we’ve hosted more than a few such conversations on this podcast. But another realm of international politics that is affected by this change in global thinking is the place and influence of international and transnational organizations on the global scale. It’s tempting to shrug and wonder why you should care. Today’s guest, Dr. Michael Manulak, is here with an answer — and a challenge. The biggest issues we face today require global cooperation. That’s not just a political reality; it’s one grounded in our Catholic tradition. As Michael will discuss, the tenets of Catholic social teaching and the spirituality of St. Ignatius demand that we prayerfully contemplate the complex reality of our time and respond as best we’re able. That means looking at our individual gifts and vocations as part of something bigger than ourselves. Dr. Manulak is an associate professor of international affairs, anchoring the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs’ Diplomacy and Foreign Policy cluster in Ottawa. His research focuses on international organizations, multilateral diplomacy, Canadian foreign policy, global environmental politics and Non-Proliferation. An alumnus of the Government of Canada’s Recruitment of Policy Leaders program, he served mainly within the Department of National Defense. In government, he represented Canada in international proliferation security negotiations, supported the national security review of foreign investments, and composed Cabinet documents within National Defense’s Cabinet Liaison bureau. And coolest of all, the day before this conversation was recorded, he was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal at the Senate of Canada. The Medal recognizes those that have made a significant contribution to Canadian society. This is a timely and fascinating conversation. If you want to learn more about Dr. Manulak’s work, visit his website https://michaelmanulak.com/.

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  45:33
• A Netflix-Worthy Story of Catholic Anti-War Protestors with Michelle Nickerson

  In the early morning hours of August 22, 1971, a group of Catholic anti-war protesters broke into a draft board in Camden, New Jersey to destroy draft-related documents. The action was one in a series of similar raids that Catholic activists carried out in the 1960s and ‘70s in opposition to the Vietnam War. The story of what enfolded that morning and the two years following is almost too wild to believe – it’s the stuff HBO miniseries are made of. Professor Michelle Nickerson, a historian at Loyola University Chicago, has just published a book about the raid, the ensuing trial and all the drama that surrounded both. The book is titled “Spiritual Criminals: How the Camden 28 Put the Vietnam War on Trial.” And while the book is a work of academic history published by the University of Chicago Press, it’s also a total page turner. Again, we think the good people at HBO or Netflix need to jump on this. Michelle is an expert in the history of politics, women & gender, social movements, and religion in 20th-century America, and she brought her serious academic chops to the story. Host Mike Jordan Laskey learned so much not just about the Camden 28 themselves, but the history and development of the Catholic anti-war movement in the US. We’re so happy to be able to share some of this story with you before you watch it on a streaming service in, say, 2028. Michelle Nickerson: https://michellenickerson.com/ "Spiritual Criminals": https://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Criminals-Camden-Vietnam-Trial/dp/0226828034 AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Media Lab, which is a project of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. www.jesuits.org/ www.beajesuit.org/ twitter.com/jesuitnews facebook.com/Jesuits instagram.com/wearethejesuits youtube.com/societyofjesus www.jesuitmedialab.org/

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