Shane Claiborne Intro

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Today on the servant leadership podcast, we welcome Shane Claybornne. In this episode, Shane shares what it was like

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to serve with Mother Teresa and how her humility and compassion shaped his faith and the founding of the simple way.

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Shane talks about finding your own Kolkata and how courageous love can transform the world around us. Mother

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Teresa often shared that not all of us can do great things, but we can all do small things with great love. Join us as

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Shane shares how he's lived out that truth and how you can start applying it in your daily life as well.

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Shane, welcome to the Servant Leadership Podcast. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks so much

Welcome Shane Claiborne

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for having me, man. I am thrilled to have you. Uh when I

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first bumped into you, uh the bio that I heard was unbelievable. And one of the

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things that stood out to me was that you walked alongside Mother Teresa and got

Shane’s Journey - “Who Is Living Like Jesus?”

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involved in some amazing work that she was doing for a short period of time. I would love to start there and figure out

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how did that even happen? It's unbelievable. Well, I mean the backdrop and I can't

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hide it is I, you know, I grew up in the South in the Bible belt. I fell in love with Jesus. But then I I started to see

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a number of things that kind of troubled me within the church. You know, certain

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um hypocrisies or things I guess, you know, there's always some bones to spit out. But I want I I loved Jesus. And I I

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started asking who is living out a really beautiful version of Christian

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faith? like who seems like they are living like Jesus meant the stuff he

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said. And you know I'm 19 20 years old at the time and doing my undergrad work

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and I ended up in Philly to do my my studies. And so you know the great thing

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about being 19 or 20 is nothing's impossible. So uh a few college friends

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and I started thinking we got the summer off. Let's uh see if we can work with Mother

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Teresa. So, we wrote her a letter, you know, and I mean, old school handwritten letter. This is before email and stuff

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and not that she would have email, but anyway, you know, like and then we didn't we never got a letter back. So,

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we started calling some nuns and you know, some of them thought we were prank callers or something, but we got I I'll

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never forget it. this wonderful uh sister in the Bronx and she gave us a

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number for India and said, you know, figure out when's the right time to call so you don't wake everybody up in the

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middle of the night. And we called, you know, so it was late at night our time. It'd be noon there. And I was expecting

The Call That Started It All

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sort of a polite receptionist or something, you know, missionaries of charity, how can we help you? And I just

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heard hello and it was Mother Teresa. you know, I started telling, you know,

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I'm like, "We want to work with Mother Teresa." And she goes, "This is her." And and I'm like, "All right. Well, uh,

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we're free this summer." And I'll never forget, she said, "Uh, well, just come

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on to India." And I'm thinking, you know, where are we going to sleep? What are we going to eat? And I asked her,

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you know, well, where could we stay? And she said, "God takes care of the liies and the sparrows. God will take care of

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you. Just find your way over here." And uh and so we did. We we spent the whole summer there and you know I've been back

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since then but um it was massively formative for me you know I mean I

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worked in places I had read about as I researched Mother Teresa you know and read books about her and buy her and the

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home for the dying was her first home and that's where I worked every afternoon where we would bring people in

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off the streets who were dying and we'd hold their hands we would sing songs we'd massage their muscles and almost

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every day people would die. But it was such holy work. And Mother Teresa's

Mother Teresa’s Philosophy

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philosophy was we're not called to do great things, but we're called to do small things with great love. So what's

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important isn't how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it. So uh

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it was amazing, man. You know, I worked in the orphanages. I spent a week and a a colony of folks who had leprosy and

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skin diseases. So they were outcast in the cast system. I lived there for a

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week and and got and I mean all that was just uh I mean it was life-changing.

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Wow. It's interesting having the servant leadership podcast. I think that the

The Feet Of A Servant Leader

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global world when they think through who is one of the more recent representations of servant leader they

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think of Mother Teresa. You know she's just such a great example. as you went into that situation really not knowing

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what you were getting into. What were some of the biggest things that walking alongside you were surprised by?

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Well, I mean there's so many things, right, that like about when I think of Mother Teresa, uh like but one of the

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things that I will never forget was her feet. And it might sound weird, but we

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were in prayer every morning together. And uh I can remember looking at, you know, it's five o'clock in the morning.

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And so I'm kind of my mind's wandering a little bit here and there. And I look I noticed her feet were deformed and I

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ended up um you know, I'm not I'm not going to ask her like what's up with that, but I was I was talking to one of the nuns and she said, "Have you noticed

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her feet?" And I said, "Yeah." She said, "Her feet are deformed because we get just enough shoes donated for everyone

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to get a pair." And so, Mother Teresa, you know, is so committed to this idea

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of loving her neighbor as herself that she digs through all the donations and she picks out the worst pair of shoes

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and takes them for herself. And after years and years of wearing the worst pair of shoes, it had literally

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deformed, you know, her feet. And, you know, I can remember rehearsing

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all the scriptures I knew, you know, all the mission trips I'd gone on, the ways that we would go to the thrift store and

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take all the clothes that we didn't like. you know, the zipper doesn't really quite work on the jacket, stuff

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like that. And Mother Teresa did just the opposite. She said, you know, when you give to the poor, you should give

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your very best because you're giving it to Jesus in disguise. So, I mean, that that, you know, was

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just incredible. And it was her character, you know, it wasn't like performative. Uh, one of my friends was at the National Prayer Breakfast in DC

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and she had actually been invited by President Clinton at the time, which is interesting because they didn't agree on

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abortion and other things, but he had so much respect for her that she spoke. But they couldn't find her right before. My

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friend was like, "Yeah, she's supposed to be at the VIP table with the president and everybody." And they found her out back in uh eating with the

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kitchen staff. And you're like, "Well, there's servant leadership, right?" I mean, and that's

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also kind of what the gospel looks like, you know? Mother Teresa used to say,

“Our Best Sermon Is Our Life”

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"Our best sermon is our life." And she cared not just about proclaiming the

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gospel with, you know, by words, but with the way that she lived. And she was

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actually a woman of quite few words. You know, she did even the books she wrote are really simple. But she lived a

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beautiful version of the gospel with her life. And it's contagious. It's it's

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kind of uh fascinated the world with love and there was an old saying in India you know the sisters would always

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ride buses and trains and they traveled with the people and uh I mean people

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told me all that they had their possessions their worldly possessions had to fit in a box u but at one point

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someone was someone asked them like why do you ride third class on the trains

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and uh their philosophy was because there's no fourth class.

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It was an old line of Gandhi and it kind of uh it kind of uh challenged all of

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our entitlement and our first class upgrades on planes and you know everything else.

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Wow. And obviously that was super influential for you and everything you moved on to do. When you were in the

Shane’s Takeaways From Serving With Mother Teresa

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process of leaving, you know, you had spent a lot of time with her doing so much amazing work. What were you taking

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away? Well, there was so much that I learned and and obviously Mother Teresa, she

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gave me some things that I took home. You know, I've got a book that was signed by her. I've done, you know, got like a some prayer beads she gave me and

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things. So, all that was really formative. But there's a few things that I I I took away. One of them was I met

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one of the young men who ran the the like Christian bookstore where all

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Mother Teresa's books were and she would sign them and stuff. And um he said, "You know why we call her Mother

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Teresa?" And I said, "Uh, not really. I haven't really thought about it." And he said, "Because for many of us, she

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raised us. She rescued us from train stations. We were living on the streets." And he said, "That's my

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story." And he was like 35 years old. And he said, "Uh uh she she found me as a child and raised me. And she ended up

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kind of like the old uh story of the the woman in the shoe that had so many kids she didn't know what to do, you know,

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and everyone started to call her mother. And one of the things that she used to

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say is sometimes our biggest problem is that the circle we've drawn around our

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family is too small. We need to love bigger. And it's why she

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was so passionate about foster care and adoption uh and and and just having a

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bigger sense of family. And as a Christian, you know, growing up evangelical, I came back to the old idea

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of being born again. And I thought this is a radical idea. You know, in fact, if

Born Again - A Love That Transcends Blood Relations

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we believe that we're born again, it means that we've got a bigger fidelity

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than just the people we're related to, a bigger love than just our biological family. And you know, that's why

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nationalism and uh so many things become problematic because you go, if someone's suffering on the other side of our

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southern border, it's as tragic as if it was my own grandmother. You know, if a kid's dying in Gaza, it's as

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heart-wrenching as if it was my own little uh 20-month-old boy, Elijah. Like this idea of family gets expanded. So

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that love uh that she had was so uh beautiful and so big. And the other

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thing is that there were all kinds of other wonderful people there like some of the street kids I got to know. Mother

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Teresa gave me the job of um uh throwing a party for the kids on the street. So these are kids that some of them eight

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years old and they're living with their siblings. They're begging for money all day. And she said, "These kids are very

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special to God, but they haven't always been convinced of that. So we got to remind them of how beautiful and

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valuable they are." So I I would throw this party. We'd play games. you know, I studied youth ministry, bro, right? So,

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I'm I'm I'm ready for it, you know? And um we're doing the like like this big street party and one week u one of the

Ice Cream Story - The Innocent Love Of A Child

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kids told me it was his birthday and that was a little troubling because

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there's like, you know, 200 kids and you're not supposed to play favorites. But I thought I'll just get him a little

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gift. So, I went ran off and got him an ice cream cone and I bring it back and this kid is so excited.

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Uh he yells at all the other kids, "We've got ice cream." And u I'm like,

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"Man, I'm in trouble with the nuns now, bro." Um but he uh he asked everybody to

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line up and he went down and gave every kid a lick of the ice cream cone and

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then he brought it full circle back to me and he goes, "Shane, we saved you some, too." And this thing's like melting and such a mess. And I'm like,

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"Oh, awesome. Thanks." But I I think like one of the things Jesus said is

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we've got to enter the kingdom like a child, you know, and I think of the innocence of that, especially as we

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think of our global economy where there's so much inequity, right? Masses of people living in poverty, a handful

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of people that have unimaginable wealth, and you go, "This kid had the audacity

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to get an ice cream cone, and then want to make sure that everybody got a lick." And Mother Teresa

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had such a sacrificial love that she took the worst pair of shoes. So I kind of saw that everywhere. And the idea the

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the the the beautiful idea of loving our neighbor as oursel became

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one of the the most beautiful challenges of my life. I mean, I'm still like

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wrestling with what what do you do when when uh but but that they that gave me

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some concrete examples of what uh love can look like, man. And you know that

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that that uh and the other thing is when you leave India, Mother Teresa would often say Kolkatas are everywhere if

Find Your Calcutta

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you'll only have eyes to see. So find your Kolkata. And that's what I came back with, you know, thinking you don't

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have to go to India to find folks that are lonely or to to see, you know, inequity. We can see it right next to

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us. And so we we started our community on the north side of Philadelphia right

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after that uh you know, adventure to Kolkata. But our our goal for the last 30 years has been to do small things

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with great love to try to extend that same love for our neighbor that re kind

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of redefineses how we hold our possessions and to try to live more simply so that others can have

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everything that they need. Wow. So expand a little bit about the simple way because when I first heard

The Simple Way - A Community Of Love

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about this it was like out of this world literally. uh it felt like something

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that like was from Bible times but it was here. So explain what the simple way

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was and what all you came back to do.

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Well coming back from India and also being inspired by families that were

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living on the streets with their kids in North Philly. I mean this was kind of our reality that was we were navigating

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as we went to India where we I I had already gotten very involved with u families that were on the waiting list

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for housing moms and kids that were looking for a space to live. So we we created the Simple Way

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um in this neighborhood on the north side of Philly called Kensington.

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And uh it's it's an old industrial neighborhood with now 100,000 jobs have

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left. We've got 700 abandoned factories and 30,000 vacant houses. Uh but I

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always say if you believe in resurrection, it's the perfect place to live because there's a lot of things to bring back to life and there's a lot of

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people that are struggling and need to be loved, you know, back to life again. In fact, bro, just so like last week I

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saw the blue and white sars on the nuns walking down the avenue here. I'm like, those are Mother Teresa's nuns and I ran

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out and sure enough it was. And they're they're here trying to do that same love. We I mean we have an you know on

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our avenue there's just people that's lined with bodies of folks that are struggling from opioid addiction. So

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that's kind of our reality that we live in. But we've been building a village here for the last 30 years. And a lot of

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what inspires us is the story of the early church in the book of Acts. And

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you know, we often think of that as Pentecost, the birthday of the church. And you know, the Holy Spirit came down

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with tongues of fire. But what it also says is everybody started sharing. No

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one claimed any of their possessions were their own. They shared everything they had. And it says there were no needy persons among them because they

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had this vision, right, that like of making sure everybody has what they need. And they literally would say, um,

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if we don't have enough food, then let's all go without until everyone can eat together. So that vision really inspired

16:00
us. We pulled our money together. We've now got, you know, dozens of properties all over this same neighborhood, murals

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that we're painting, community gardens. We've got work that we do around gun violence. And I think of one of my the

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people that's taught me a lot about community and he said our communities are demonstration plots for the kingdom.

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So at the best we are trying to demonstrate God's love and show people in a real concrete way uh what what it

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looks like to try to love our neighbor as ourselves. So that's our aspiration, man. We kind of fall short all the time,

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but we're we've been trying to love God and love people for 30 years here on the

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north side of Philly. Well, and at some point you ran into some really tough times and had to

A Devastating Fire - The Origin of Phoenix Park

16:45
basically start over, right? Somewhere in there. Yeah. We had a fire that started in one

16:52
of those abandoned factories that was just across the street here and it burnt down our whole block. It burnt down a

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community center. We got we got a building for $1 and we had, you know, resurrected it. Uh but then that that

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fire burned it down. So it has been constantly um an arduous, you know, pursuit of

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resurrection and life and uh but just one glimpse of what happened during the fire. I mean, it was a seven alarm fire

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as big as they get. Burnt down our whole block. A hundred families were displaced. Um and the Red Cross set up a

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shelter. But then the workers came and they said, "Check this out. Nobody ended

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up needing the shelter." Because everybody in your neighborhood opened their homes up to each other and they

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said, "It was unbelievable to watch." They said, "You know, one of our neighbors saw everybody with their dogs

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and cats out on the street and uh they said, "We'll be the pet shelter." We're like, "God bless you know, and they took

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all the animals and folks started cooking for everybody and literally we piled into neighbors houses and over

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what took almost 10 years, we rebuilt that block and we called it Phoenix Park because it rose out of the ashes and now

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we have a incredible community center there that's been a partnership with other organizations. We've got the park

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there where um we we're we're able to uh have like gardens that bloom again so

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kids can pick blackberries and grapes and raspberries and eat out of the garden. Uh and one of my neighbors said

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uh we're trying to bring the Garden of Eden to North Philadelphia. Like hallelujah, that's what we do, man.

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So when you think of everything you've done, it's been really cool to see and follow from the outside. Do you think

Living For Something Bigger Than Ourselves

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that there's a place where this should be happening all across the country and

18:41
across the world? This type of communal living, this you reference acts where

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people are pulling together resources. Do you think that's realistic for other cities to get involved in? And how do

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you encourage people that direction if so? Because it is it is crazy, you know, in

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in today's world when it's mostly about me, you know, the the MI culture.

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Well, here's the deal. Like, I I I don't I don't think I'm I it's my job to prescribe how everybody else has to

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live, but I do think that we're made to live for something bigger than

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ourselves. And and and you know, Jesus had a line where he said, "I've come

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that they may have life and have it to the fullest." So, I don't think Jesus came to give us shame or guilt, but to

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actually give us life. And and interestingly enough, one of the things that Mother Teresa said when she came to

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the United States, uh she was speaking at I think it was an Ivy League graduation and she said, "I've never

19:42
seen such poverty as I see right here." And she said, um, you know, in a lot of

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the the wealthiest places of the world, we see some of the loneliest people. And

19:55
some of the wealthiest people I know, you know, we're we often end up just trying to show that we are loved and

20:01
that we are worthy. And there's something I think that that that once we get free of that, we realize that to be

20:08
created in the image of God is to be created in community for community to

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love and be loved. like and we live in a world that is created, I think, kind of

20:19
an idolatry out of individualism and independence. And we're not to be

20:26
unhealthily codependent, but I think we're meant to live in community. We're meant to share life with other people.

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And a lot of cultures, a lot of places in the world do that better than we do in the United States. we, you know, and

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I think there's a lot of ways that we've created sort of the picket fence, the uh, you know, the kind of isolated

20:46
family unit that ends up um, we rob ourselves of community. So, and even

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with possessions, you know, Mother Teresa, she said, uh, the more stuff we

The Idolatry of Possessions

20:56
have, the more we have to hide behind. We have more to maintain and we have

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more to hide behind. And when Jesus says consider the liies of the field, you

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know, the liies and the sparrows, even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn't wasn't closed like one of these. I think

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it's an invitation to see to say, you know, that that

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happiness can't be purchased and that we're more than the things that we own. And if we aren't careful, the things

21:27
that we possess begin to possess us. We become obsessed with the stuff. we lose

21:32
kind of our our value for the simple things in life. So, you know, I I think there's there's a freedom in all that

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and some of that, you know, I when I burnt my when my house burnt down, you kind of started from scratch, but

21:46
there's not much that I missed. And I I remember one of my neighbors was uh

21:51
being interviewed by one of these guys, you know, these all the journey, you know, the the insurance people and the

21:57
the TV cameras came in and they're very sensational. you know, they're like, "How does it feel to have your house

22:02
burned down?" You know, and my neighbor was like just brilliant. He was so grounded. And he just took a breath and

22:08
he said, "We're so grateful that no one was hurt." I mean, imagine the whole neighborhood burnt down at 2 in the

22:13
morning and no one was hurt. And he said, "The stuff that we lost, it's the stuff of earth, you know, like we'll

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we'll we'll figure out a way forward." And then he said, "And I noticed since the fivetory FA factory burnt down that

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we can now see the moon and the stars from our block." And so we painted a mural that has like a building burning

22:33
down with the moon coming up, right? But I think that's like that's the freedom,

22:39
right? That's the freedom to like have an ice cream cone and not hoard it for

22:44
ourselves, but want everybody to get a lick. It's why Dorothy Day, one of my heroes, she said,

22:50
"The best thing to do with the best things in life is give them away."

22:57
That's so powerful. I mean, we talk a lot about servant leadership and not

Red Letter Christians

23:03
only do I consider from afar you a great servant leader, but you've been surrounded by great servant leaders. Uh,

23:10
one of the things that has stood out to me over the years of following you is this concept of redletter Christians.

23:17
And you started something called redletter Christians and and I think there's an interesting parallel to

23:22
servant leadership there. talk about why you started it, what it was, and if you see any parallels there.

23:29
Yeah, so Redletter Christians comes from the the Bibles that have the words of

23:35
Jesus often are kind of highlighted in red letters. And so, but it comes from a

23:42
interview that this this DJ, it was actually a country music DJ. He didn't really have anything to do with, you

23:48
know, Christianity. He wasn't religious, but he was interviewing a friend of mine and he said, "I've," this this DJ, he says, "I've read a lot of the Bible.

23:56
There's parts of it that I love. If I'm honest, there's parts of it that I find really confusing and even sort of

24:02
troubling." And he said, "Uh, but I've always liked the stuff in red." And he said, "You guys seem to like the stuff

24:08
in red. You should call it you should call yourselves redletter Christians." Um, and so it it sort of stuck. And you

24:16
know it was Gandhi when he was asked about Christianity who said uh I love Jesus I just wish the Christians acted

24:24
more like him. And I think for many of us we realize that there's lots of versions of

24:32
Christianity but they they don't all look like Jesus. And we we like to say at Red Letter Christians we're aspiring

24:39
to live as if Jesus meant the stuff he said. And it's radically countercultural. I I I think one of the

24:46
the terrible things that we've done really as Christians is reduce

24:51
Christianity to a set of doctrines or just things that we believe as if Christianity was just kind of a flat

24:58
doctrinal statement. But when you look at Jesus, the word made flesh, it wasn't

25:04
just about a way of believing, but a way of living in the world. And I think that's what we're trying to

25:10
recapture is that Jesus should reorient everything. I mean Jesus said sell everything you have and give it to the

25:16
poor. He said love your enemies. Uh the the the biatitudes where Jesus blesses the poor, the meek, the merciful, all

25:23
the the people that have been crushed in this world. Uh it's a very countercultural uh it's like the GPS

25:30
recalculating, right? So that's uh what we're after, you know,

Seeing The World Through The Lens Of Jesus

25:36
and it's not that the the rest of the Bible doesn't matter, but I think for for us, Jesus is the lens through which

25:43
we interpret the Bible. We understand the world that we live in. And and as as scripture itself says, Jesus is the full

25:50
revelation of God. God is this is God made flesh. This is the word become

25:55
flesh. And when you look at Jesus, almost every time he opens his mouth, he talks about the kingdom of God. And it's

26:02
not just something that we're to go up to when we die, but we're to bring on

26:07
earth as it is in heaven. And and and so I think for to too long many Christians

26:12
and myself included for a lot of my life, it was just about a ticket into

26:17
heaven. And if we aren't careful, we can we can use our faith as an escape from this

26:23
world rather as something that causes us to to care about this world and to want this world to become the way that God

26:30
wants it to be. and and and uh uh that that idea God's dream, God's kingdom on

26:36
earth as it is in heaven. So, we're not just promising people life after death,

26:41
but uh there's a lot of people wondering if there's life before death. And I believe in a God that cares about the

26:47
injustice and the pain and racism and violence that we see right now in our world. And I think there's a lot of

26:53
people that want to know about a gospel that's good news, not just in the afterlife, but uh in life right now.

How To Apply This To Your Life

27:01
When people listen to you talk, uh, I hope they get excited. And one of the

27:07
things that I think is sometimes hard is there's an excitement of I really love what Shane is saying, but I have no idea

27:15
what to do from here because my life is not set up to live like Shane's living. It's not set up. I'm not living exactly

27:21
like this. What do you encourage people to do if they're like, I buy into the concept of this, but I don't know how to

27:27
actually apply it in my life? Well, first of all, we're all a work in progress. You know, I've always loved

27:33
that scripture that says uh that we're working out our salvation with fear and

27:38
trembling. And you know, I've been working this out for a long time. I on a lot of the things I feel so passionate

27:44
about. I hadn't thought through those at all when I was 20 years old, you know, and even the things I'm passionate

27:50
about, you know, alternatives to the death penalty, caring about gun violence, like I it's because of my

27:56
experiences with people that have been impacted by that, my love for Jesus that kind of began to recalculate those

28:03
things. So, um, yeah, I think we just read the sermon on the mount and ask ourselves, what if

28:10
Jesus meant the stuff he said? And and try to live it out. And we do it in community, you know. Um, some someone

28:16
told me the hardest part about running a marathon isn't getting to the finish line, it's getting to the starting line.

28:23
And so, I I think we we just began somewhere, right? We begin. They asked Mother Teresa, "How did you lift 50,000

28:29
people off the streets of Kolkata?" and she said,"I started with one." So, I

28:35
think we we start there, you know, we we try to love one person well. We try to move closer to those who are hurting in

28:42
the world and know that um that that as we get closer to those who are hurting,

28:48
we get closer to Christ and we find our own vocation, you know, and and we're all different. We're all wired

28:54
different. So I I like how Frederick Ben beatner uh he's a great you know writer and he he said we've got to connect our

Our Deepest Passions To The World’s Deepest Pain29:58 Every Person Is Made In The Image of God

29:01
deepest passions to the world's deepest pain and that that that's where we find life,

29:08
right? Like we're we're all different. Some of us are scientists, some of us are doctors, some of us are lawyers,

29:15
some of us are landscapers and plumbers. But when we use our gifts in a way that alleviates the suffering of others, that

29:21
gives life to others, then we find our own vocation. And so I I always tell

29:26
young people, the real question isn't what are you going to do when you grow up. It's who are you going to be? And

29:32
what's more important than are you going to be a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO of a

29:37
company. What's more important than that is what kind of doctor or lawyer or CEO

29:42
are you going to be like? And how can your gifts and skills contribute to the bigger cause of

29:50
bringing God's dream on earth as it is in heaven? Wow, that is so powerful. I It makes me

29:57
think, I mean, you've been so influenced by your time with Mother Teresa. If she were still here, what do you think she

30:04
would be encouraging people to do right now? That's a great question.

30:11
Well, I I I think that she would never let up on this idea that we're we're to

30:16
do small things with great love. But I think the other thing that Mother Teresa I mean, she had a great sense of

30:23
humor, too. You know, by the way, I can I I uh you know, there's this one really wealthy person that was with Mother

30:28
Teresa. He was going to write her a big check and he said, "I couldn't do what you do for a million dollars." And she

30:35
said, "Me neither. you couldn't pay me a million dollars. I

30:41
do it for the love of it, the joy of it, you know. So, but the other thing I think Mother Teresa that that drove her,

30:48
if you look really closely, is that um she believed every person is made in the

30:55
image of God. And we have a world where

31:00
the image of God is under attack, you know, or it's really at risk. And and I

31:06
think that's why Mother Teresa, she she knew the limitlessness of God's love.

31:11
And that's why we can say the children in Gaza are made in the image of God. Uh

31:17
and and they matter to God just as much as a life in Jerusalem or New York or LA, right? Like like every person's made

31:25
in the image of God. It's you know, she was often known for her passion about abortion and she was very passionate

31:31
about that. Uh, but Mother Teresa would call governors the night before an execution and say, "I'm praying for you

31:38
to do what Jesus would do." And Jesus said, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." You know, and

31:43
she went to war zones and she rescued kids and families. She has sisters right now in Gaza that are taking care of

31:51
folks. So I think that that courageous love is what we we all all need, you

31:58
know, right now to say uh compassion is not a a zero something. It's not there's

32:04
not a limited amount of it. We can be outraged by the death of October 7th, you know, as we all uh grieved that that

32:12
violence, but we also can be outraged by the the deaths in Gaza. And we can um we

32:18
can say that every single person's made in the image of God. So I uh the last

32:23
book that I wrote, it's called Rethinking Life. And it has a lot of Mother Teresa in it, but it's it's it's

32:28
this idea that we need a consistent ethic of life that says every human being is made in the image of God. And

32:35
that really is uh I mean that's that's core Christian theology, but it's also kind of Mother Teresa theology 101, I

32:42
think. And I I really it's that that's shaped a lot of my thinking is if we could just say every person's made in

32:48
the image of God and anything that destroys life uh destroys the image of God.

32:55
And I think that's such a good takeway and I like the words you use too, courageous love. You know, that is just

33:00
an unbelievable representation of it does take courage to to love well uh and

33:06
to love others. Um and it doesn't always feel normal even when you know it's the right thing to do. So powerful. Uh

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

33:13
Shane, I want to hit you with 60 seconds of rapidfire questions. Oh gosh, I'm terrible at these. Okay,

33:19
I'm going to do my best. Just say the first thing that comes to mind, and there's 10 of them. Who's the first person you think of when I say

33:26
servant leadership? Jesus. Washing feet. Five words that most describe you.

33:31
Oh gosh. Humble. I'm just kidding. I I hope humor,

33:39
imagination, love, compassion. That's what I want to be known for. And a

33:44
really good husband. I'm My wife might be listening. So, yeah. Love that. Uh favorite book?

33:51
Oh jeez. Early on, I read The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yansy. That was a

33:58
big one. Yeah, that is a good one. Favorite food. I love me some Indian curries. Yep. Some

34:05
doll sagg paneer. Come on. Yep. Favorite thing to do in your free time? Oh, I love the circus. Juggling,

34:13
unicycling, stilt walking, fire breathing, brother. I have to bring that next time. Yep. Wow. This might tie into that the next

34:20
one. Surprising fact about you. Okay. I went to circus school. I was also a gymnast. So, I'm a tumbler. I was

34:26
a uh state champion in gymnastics. So, I I still I still got it, man. I turned 50 this year and can do a backflip.

34:33
Whoa. That's amazing. Favorite place you've been?

34:40
Gosh. Well, I mean, on theme, we got to go with Kolkata, I think. Um, although I really um Yeah, there I I really loved

34:47
El Salvador, too. Yeah, I was in Santa Ana. Is there anywhere you want to go that you have not been?

34:52
Oh, places I want to go. Yeah, there's a lot. But, um, I'm having a hard time

34:59
with that one. Um, I want to go to heaven. Yeah. No, I I want to go to I I I would like to You know what I would

35:05
like to do? I'd like to go to um uh like the North Pole. My My stepdad

35:13
motorcycled there. So, I think that would be kind of interesting. Wow. All right, last two. What's the

35:20
best advice you've ever received? What's important is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it.

35:25
It's pretty good. It's going to go up there on my list. Yeah. Wow. All right. And finally, why do you think listening to a podcast like this

Importance Of A Servant Leadership Podcast

35:32
on servant leadership is important for people? Because you're such a joy to be with. Uh,

35:39
no, I think that a lot of what we're talking about are countercultural values

35:45
that we can't just It's like you're swimming upstream sometimes. They're not just things that we can cultivate on our

35:51
own. So holding our possessions with open hands, responding to violence

35:56
without mirroring it, you know, um being drawn to the the least rather than the

36:02
greatest, kind of descending into greatness. I think those are are values of servant leadership that

36:08
we need to remind each other that uh we're we're not crazy or

36:15
or or as the Catholic workers say if we are crazy it's because we refuse to be crazy in the way that the world's gone

36:20
crazy. So that's what we need. Yeah. Well Shane, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for sharing some of your journey

36:27
and shedding so much insight on what the simple way could look like. Yeah. Y'all come visit us sometime in

36:33
Philly or check out our work. I'm on all the social medias and stuff and you can just check out redletterchristians.org,

36:40
too. But thanks so much for having me, man. Thanks for all y'all for listening. And we'll make sure for anyone who's

36:46
listening to put the information in the description so you can go easily check out what Shane and his crew are up to.

36:53
Awesome. Thanks, bro. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Servant Leadership Podcast. If

Closing

36:59
you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment below. Don't forget to subscribe and hit

37:07
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37:12
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