Rock Star to Hermit: The Power of Solitude with Music Legend John Michael Talbot

Speaker: 00:00:00

John Michael Talbot: I've done all these things, I've won these awards,

Speaker: 00:00:02

I've sold millions of records, I've sold hundreds of thousands of books,

Speaker: 00:00:06

I've started a community, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda, played with the

Speaker: 00:00:11

Pope, and now at this point in my life, it's like, well, that's all straw.

Speaker: 00:00:16

Oh,

Tim Winders: 00:00:28

How does one blend the depth of monastic spirituality with

Tim Winders: 00:00:32

the contemporary rhythms of life?

Tim Winders: 00:00:36

Today on Seek Go Create, we're joined by John Michael Talbott, a pioneer and legend

Tim Winders: 00:00:41

in Christian music, whose life's work has

Tim Winders: 00:00:44

not only won awards, but has also touched the hearts of millions around the world.

Tim Winders: 00:00:49

With the release of his 59th album, Late Have I Loved You, and his 38th book

Tim Winders: 00:00:55

and first autobiography with the same name, John Michael continues to inspire

Tim Winders: 00:01:00

through his melodies and his words.

Tim Winders: 00:01:03

As the founder and general minister of the Brothers and Sisters of

Tim Winders: 00:01:06

Charity at Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas, John Michael embodies

Tim Winders: 00:01:11

a unique blend of artistic talent and deep spiritual commitment.

Tim Winders: 00:01:16

Through his inner room of spirituality, he extends an invitation to all for

Tim Winders: 00:01:20

a deeper relationship with Christ.

Tim Winders: 00:01:24

John Michael, welcome to seat.

Tim Winders: 00:01:25

Go create.

Tim Winders: 00:01:28

John Michael Talbot: Well, thanks for having me into your seat.

Tim Winders: 00:01:31

Go create home, Tim.

Tim Winders: 00:01:34

Oh,

Tim Winders: 00:01:40

monastic lifestyle.

Tim Winders: 00:01:42

I just shared with you before we hit record, my simple lifestyle, not quite the

Tim Winders: 00:01:46

same, but my RV, but we're traveling on the road and, and I'm just so intrigued

Tim Winders: 00:01:52

and excited about this conversation, John Michael, before we get started,

Tim Winders: 00:01:56

though, before we get started, let me just ask my sort of, I guess my first.

Tim Winders: 00:02:01

Icebreaker type question that I ask most people and it's going to be fun

Tim Winders: 00:02:05

with you because of your deep rich experience But if somebody asks you

Tim Winders: 00:02:10

currently what you do What's your answer?

Tim Winders: 00:02:14

What's your answer to them?

Tim Winders: 00:02:17

John Michael Talbot: Well, I tend not to respond to what you do.

Tim Winders: 00:02:24

I prefer to say who I am because I have for years and years and

Tim Winders: 00:02:32

years said, don't define yourself.

Tim Winders: 00:02:36

Define yourself by what you do.

Tim Winders: 00:02:38

Define yourself by who you are.

Tim Winders: 00:02:41

in my music ministry, for instance, I said, I don't

Tim Winders: 00:02:47

define myself by my ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:02:50

I define myself by who I am in Christ.

Tim Winders: 00:02:56

And, if I define myself by who I am, my ministry can be

Tim Winders: 00:03:04

whatever God wants it to be.

Tim Winders: 00:03:07

It can be nothing but contemplative prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:03:11

At this point in my life, I'm moving more and more into solitude.

Tim Winders: 00:03:16

And at the beginning of my ministry, I spent enormous

Tim Winders: 00:03:20

periods of time in solitude.

Tim Winders: 00:03:22

We can get into that.

Tim Winders: 00:03:24

and the ministry flowed out of that in utter distinction to what was the typical

Tim Winders: 00:03:33

pattern in Christian contemporary music.

Tim Winders: 00:03:36

Yet my recordings vastly outsold anybody else's.

Tim Winders: 00:03:42

for several decades, I outsold anybody else, up until the advent of Amy Grant.

Tim Winders: 00:03:51

And then in Sparrow Records, the enormously talented Stephen

Tim Winders: 00:03:57

Curtis Chapman finally outsold me.

Tim Winders: 00:04:01

But for the whole first two or three decades in Sparrow Records, I

Tim Winders: 00:04:07

was hands down the biggest seller.

Tim Winders: 00:04:10

And I wasn't trying to sell anything.

Tim Winders: 00:04:13

And I wasn't trying to have a ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:04:16

I was trying to be as much in communion with Christ as I possibly could be.

Tim Winders: 00:04:26

And that's still my position today.

Tim Winders: 00:04:29

I just wrote a letter today to a very, very big gathering that's going to be

Tim Winders: 00:04:37

going on in the United States, some 80, 000 people, that I was invited to

Tim Winders: 00:04:45

go and sing one of my signature songs.

Tim Winders: 00:04:50

And I've been really, really struggling in my heart that I

Tim Winders: 00:04:53

didn't feel led to go and be there.

Tim Winders: 00:04:57

Everything from the external perspective said I should go.

Tim Winders: 00:05:03

And I've done huge gatherings, papal events with 800, 000 people,

Tim Winders: 00:05:10

500, 000 people, 120, 000 people.

Tim Winders: 00:05:13

So I've done those kinds of events.

Tim Winders: 00:05:16

This one is not quite that big.

Tim Winders: 00:05:19

It's about 80, 000 people.

Tim Winders: 00:05:22

But I didn't have a peace in my spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:05:25

And I'm waiting yet another day, but I think I'm going to send him a letter

Tim Winders: 00:05:30

that says, I don't have a peace in my heart about being part of this.

Tim Winders: 00:05:35

I will pray for you.

Tim Winders: 00:05:37

I'll, I'll be in my hermitage praying seriously for the success of this

Tim Winders: 00:05:43

event, but I don't think the Holy Spirit wants me to be part of this.

Tim Winders: 00:05:48

So it's more important to be in communion with God in Christ, and

Tim Winders: 00:05:56

then let the Whatever you do, flow from that than it is to define

Tim Winders: 00:06:03

yourself according to what you do.

Tim Winders: 00:06:08

Defining yourself according to what you do is a real, I believe,

Tim Winders: 00:06:12

a treacherous, because then you begin to possess your doing or your

Tim Winders: 00:06:21

ministry, per se, and you suffocate it.

Tim Winders: 00:06:25

And then God is not free to work through it or whatever

Tim Winders: 00:06:33

he wills to do in your life.

Tim Winders: 00:06:35

He may call you to something else

Tim Winders: 00:06:38

and you have to be open to that change, to that different direction

Tim Winders: 00:06:44

that he may be calling you to.

Tim Winders: 00:06:48

And, the greatest doing in monastic life is to pray and do nothing but pray.

Tim Winders: 00:07:00

the the challenge that Many people at one of the I was smiling

Tim Winders: 00:07:05

as you were saying parts of that.

Tim Winders: 00:07:08

First of all, I'd I agree It's to me.

Tim Winders: 00:07:11

I believe what you

Tim Winders: 00:07:12

do is a very It's a superficial question, but it's a question

Tim Winders: 00:07:16

that many people will ask.

Tim Winders: 00:07:19

And the cool thing about what we've done on, on the show here is that we

Tim Winders: 00:07:24

will, we will often veer off of that because of exactly what we're saying.

Tim Winders: 00:07:30

In fact, two or three shows ago, I think it was a Steven DeSilvo.

Tim Winders: 00:07:34

We did get off on this conversation of being Versus doing.

Tim Winders: 00:07:40

And the

Tim Winders: 00:07:40

reason I was smiling as you were speaking, John Michael, is because I've got one

Tim Winders: 00:07:45

page of notes here with things that I

Tim Winders: 00:07:47

hope to get to.

Tim Winders: 00:07:48

I may not during this conversation, but at the very bottom I wrote being or doing.

Tim Winders: 00:07:57

At the bottom

Tim Winders: 00:07:57

of this page.

Tim Winders: 00:07:58

And I wanted to have a conversation with you.

Tim Winders: 00:08:01

And my follow up question is you you've got such a rich history.

Tim Winders: 00:08:08

I read, I read your book late.

Tim Winders: 00:08:10

Have I loved you over the last couple of days?

Tim Winders: 00:08:12

Listen to some of the musics, but I have to share that.

Tim Winders: 00:08:15

One of the things I did last night.

Tim Winders: 00:08:17

My wife stepped outside and we have, we're here in the RV and we've got a awning and

Tim Winders: 00:08:22

the weather was beautiful here in Arizona.

Tim Winders: 00:08:24

And she stuck her head out as I was finishing reading it.

Tim Winders: 00:08:27

In fact, and she said, she goes, stay out there.

Tim Winders: 00:08:30

I'm going to bring dinner out.

Tim Winders: 00:08:31

And here's the speaker set up some music.

Tim Winders: 00:08:34

And I went back to, I went on iTunes and I hadn't, and I wanted to

Tim Winders: 00:08:40

refresh my memory to, Mason profit.

Tim Winders: 00:08:42

Cause I

Tim Winders: 00:08:43

knew I knew some of that.

Tim Winders: 00:08:44

yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:08:45

we're going way back here.

Tim Winders: 00:08:46

So pardon me, but, but, but here's, and so we listened to Mason profit over,

Tim Winders: 00:08:52

over our dinner, just so you know, but my question as a follow up is that from

Tim Winders: 00:09:01

reading your book, listening to music, just looking at the scope of your journey.

Tim Winders: 00:09:07

It's, it's been that journey where along the way, have you had high points, low

Tim Winders: 00:09:13

points where you were doing more than you were being, you know what I mean?

Tim Winders: 00:09:19

You were in that.

Tim Winders: 00:09:20

And again, we like to talk to success here.

Tim Winders: 00:09:22

You were chasing or pursuing success versus being who you were.

Tim Winders: 00:09:28

And anyway, that's a big question, but any thoughts on that?

Tim Winders: 00:09:32

First of all, thank you for our dinner music.

Tim Winders: 00:09:33

We appreciate it.

Tim Winders: 00:09:35

John Michael Talbot: Oh, my, my pleasure.

Tim Winders: 00:09:38

Well we certainly were with Mason Prophet.

Tim Winders: 00:09:41

that goes back to when I was like 15 years old.

Tim Winders: 00:09:45

So we were part of the country rock, experiment.

Tim Winders: 00:09:50

At the beginning, the birds really birthed this new genre.

Tim Winders: 00:09:55

with Sweetheart of the Rodeo and several new bands picked up

Tim Winders: 00:10:00

on it in Southern California.

Tim Winders: 00:10:01

We were in Chicago.

Tim Winders: 00:10:03

We were an Indianapolis based band and our producer was in Chicago.

Tim Winders: 00:10:10

And he said, you guys ought to try this because you, John, you play banjo and

Tim Winders: 00:10:15

Dobro and you're a string guy wizard.

Tim Winders: 00:10:19

you play lead guitar, et cetera, et cetera.

Tim Winders: 00:10:22

So I picked up the pedal steel and we did a demo and they sold it.

Tim Winders: 00:10:28

It went to a small label.

Tim Winders: 00:10:29

We ended up eventually being on Warner Brothers, doing five records.

Tim Winders: 00:10:34

And we were the, expected new super group in the record industry.

Tim Winders: 00:10:42

Terry was, my older brother of six years was, absolutely stunning on stage.

Tim Winders: 00:10:51

He was charismatic.

Tim Winders: 00:10:53

I mean, the crowds worked into an absolute frenzy, but we

Tim Winders: 00:10:58

didn't know how to make records.

Tim Winders: 00:10:59

We really didn't know how to record.

Tim Winders: 00:11:02

So we could never get what happened live onto record.

Tim Winders: 00:11:06

So we had two people.

Tim Winders: 00:11:09

Jerry, Jerry, Weintraub wanted to manage us and Joe Smith at Warner

Tim Winders: 00:11:14

Brothers really, they got together and suggested, look, you've got these guys

Tim Winders: 00:11:20

from your high school years in the band.

Tim Winders: 00:11:24

They're really good.

Tim Winders: 00:11:24

Keep them for live.

Tim Winders: 00:11:26

But in the, in the studio, bring in studio players, you and John, he's talking

Tim Winders: 00:11:32

to Terry, you guys be the front guys.

Tim Winders: 00:11:35

You sing and John, you do the, the string stuff, pedal steel, banjo, dobro.

Tim Winders: 00:11:42

But bring in studio players like Lee Sklar and Russ Kunkel, which we

Tim Winders: 00:11:46

eventually did by the way on Talbot Brothers, and pick five, let us pick

Tim Winders: 00:11:54

five hit records from other writers, and then you write five songs.

Tim Winders: 00:12:00

And some of them may be hits, but usually you guys aren't writing hit records.

Tim Winders: 00:12:06

And Terry turned them down in loyalty to our band guys, and they said, we

Tim Winders: 00:12:11

really respect your loyalty, but, you're not going to go anywhere.

Tim Winders: 00:12:15

So we never made it.

Tim Winders: 00:12:18

But we were chasing a dream.

Tim Winders: 00:12:20

See, we were chasing after stardom and, but I saw the futility of all of it.

Tim Winders: 00:12:26

So I began searching for God.

Tim Winders: 00:12:29

I began searching for philosophy, religion, and that took me into Taoism

Tim Winders: 00:12:34

and Buddhism and Hinduism and Sufism and the Essenes and Greek philosophy.

Tim Winders: 00:12:42

I was also reading a revised standard Bible that, my grandma had given me

Tim Winders: 00:12:47

and the red letters were jumping out.

Tim Winders: 00:12:49

But I, I didn't have a personal encounter with the God that, or the

Tim Winders: 00:12:55

divine being or the, the transcendent other that everybody was talking about.

Tim Winders: 00:13:03

So after about a year of praying for an encounter, I had an encounter

Tim Winders: 00:13:08

with Jesus and we got involved in the early days of the Jesus movement.

Tim Winders: 00:13:13

we were still seeking success, and in the early days of the Jesus movement, they

Tim Winders: 00:13:19

call it the Jesus revolution now, but we just called it Jesus, the Jesus movement.

Tim Winders: 00:13:23

We called our music, Jesus music, and we hung out with all of the early folks.

Tim Winders: 00:13:30

And we ended up playing a festival called the Road Home Festival.

Tim Winders: 00:13:35

We had, the band had broken up and then reconstituted itself as a Christian band.

Tim Winders: 00:13:40

We had Al Perkins from Manassas and Terry and me, a couple of different drummers.

Tim Winders: 00:13:48

and, and we, we headlined this festival.

Tim Winders: 00:13:52

And a lot of the Christian, singers were on this festival.

Tim Winders: 00:13:55

And we ran into a guy named Billy Ray Hearn, who ended up founding Sparrow

Tim Winders: 00:14:00

Records, and he wanted to sign us.

Tim Winders: 00:14:04

And we said, no, we're, we're breaking up.

Tim Winders: 00:14:06

This is our last gig because we wanted to be with Arista, which was Clive

Tim Winders: 00:14:12

Davis, who was one of the big, big names in, the music business back then.

Tim Winders: 00:14:19

And but he, he thought we had gone too much into rock and roll and

Tim Winders: 00:14:26

he wanted more of a country sound.

Tim Winders: 00:14:28

He liked the Jesus thing because it was immensely popular back.

Tim Winders: 00:14:33

that was back when Jesus was on the cover of Time Magazine and stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:14:38

So he didn't mind the Jesus stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:14:42

But I told Billy, I said, would you want to sign me as a folk singer?

Tim Winders: 00:14:46

as a kind of a folk rock thing.

Tim Winders: 00:14:48

And he said, sure.

Tim Winders: 00:14:49

So I ended up signing with Sparrow.

Tim Winders: 00:14:52

Terry followed suit.

Tim Winders: 00:14:54

And, I began playing fellowships and coffee houses and Christian churches on

Tim Winders: 00:14:59

the circuit, the Christian Contemporary Circuit, all across the United States.

Tim Winders: 00:15:04

But they were very much divided amongst themselves.

Tim Winders: 00:15:07

And that bothered me.

Tim Winders: 00:15:09

So I began a search for the church, the one holy Catholic and

Tim Winders: 00:15:17

apostolic church, and it led me to reading the early church fathers.

Tim Winders: 00:15:24

I figured if the Bible came out of the early church, I should

Tim Winders: 00:15:27

read about the early church.

Tim Winders: 00:15:28

So I was totally surprised to find the primitive expressions

Tim Winders: 00:15:33

of what today we would call the Catholic Church in those writings.

Tim Winders: 00:15:36

I didn't, I wasn't looking to be a Catholic.

Tim Winders: 00:15:39

I wasn't, didn't like Catholics.

Tim Winders: 00:15:42

I still don't like all the Catholics, and I am one, and, at the same time I

Tim Winders: 00:15:49

was hungry for more of a contemplative.

Tim Winders: 00:15:53

mystical, when I say mystical, it just means the mystery of our faith,

Tim Winders: 00:15:58

Hmm.

Tim Winders: 00:15:58

So

Tim Winders: 00:16:01

John Michael Talbot: movement.

Tim Winders: 00:16:02

And so I started reading the imitation of Christ and about Francis of

Tim Winders: 00:16:08

Assisi and Benedict of Nursia, the desert fathers and mothers and all

Tim Winders: 00:16:13

the early monastic expressions.

Tim Winders: 00:16:16

And I went, oops, they're Catholic too.

Tim Winders: 00:16:19

So I was getting a double barrel whammy of this thing.

Tim Winders: 00:16:23

So I sought out a Franciscan priest in Indianapolis.

Tim Winders: 00:16:28

His name was Father Martin Walter.

Tim Winders: 00:16:29

He became my spiritual father, my mentor till the day he died.

Tim Winders: 00:16:35

And in 1978, I became a Catholic and I thought, well, that's it.

Tim Winders: 00:16:41

I'm done.

Tim Winders: 00:16:42

my doing back to your question of seeking to be successful is over.

Tim Winders: 00:16:49

now I've just got to be, because so I, I built a hermitage and just moved into

Tim Winders: 00:16:56

a hermitage and I did one last swan song and it was called the Lord's Supper and I

Tim Winders: 00:17:07

went to the record company and I, I, I put it together with a group of charismatics

Tim Winders: 00:17:11

who were going the same direction.

Tim Winders: 00:17:13

I was, they ended up becoming Orthodox.

Tim Winders: 00:17:16

I became Catholic and it was this gorgeous setting of the mass.

Tim Winders: 00:17:26

Billy Ray Hearn, I remember him, he was my musical mentor till the day he died.

Tim Winders: 00:17:33

And, and he said, well, how am I going to, sell a Catholic mass

Tim Winders: 00:17:37

to a bunch of Southern Baptists?

Tim Winders: 00:17:39

I said, Billy Ray, I have no clue.

Tim Winders: 00:17:42

it's my last record, just put it out.

Tim Winders: 00:17:44

And he says, okay, it's going to flop.

Tim Winders: 00:17:46

I said, I know it's going to flop.

Tim Winders: 00:17:48

It's my last record.

Tim Winders: 00:17:50

So they put it out.

Tim Winders: 00:17:52

And it became the biggest record for Sparrow Records that year.

Tim Winders: 00:17:56

And one of the biggest records, probably in the top three.

Tim Winders: 00:18:00

in Christian contemporary music that year.

Tim Winders: 00:18:04

And then I went back to my hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:18:06

I disappeared just reading and praying and studying and placing

Tim Winders: 00:18:11

myself under Father Martin Walter, living with the Franciscan friars.

Tim Winders: 00:18:16

And then I did another one called Come to the Quiet.

Tim Winders: 00:18:19

And it was just the Psalms, the settings of the Psalms and

Tim Winders: 00:18:22

a few New Testament canticles.

Tim Winders: 00:18:26

And it was a totally different record.

Tim Winders: 00:18:29

Brought it to the record company.

Tim Winders: 00:18:31

They wanted another record because they just had this huge hit with me, but it was

Tim Winders: 00:18:38

quiet and they said, Oh, it's too quiet.

Tim Winders: 00:18:41

Americans won't know what to do with it.

Tim Winders: 00:18:43

There's too much space in it.

Tim Winders: 00:18:45

He said, well, put it out.

Tim Winders: 00:18:47

And they said, okay, we'll put it out.

Tim Winders: 00:18:49

We just, we, we made all this money with you.

Tim Winders: 00:18:51

We can afford to lose some money.

Tim Winders: 00:18:53

So they put it out.

Tim Winders: 00:18:54

Well, it sold three times more.

Tim Winders: 00:18:57

And that, Tim, that became my pattern is what I'm getting at.

Tim Winders: 00:19:01

I stopped trying to do something and I was in the hermitage just being, just praying

Tim Winders: 00:19:11

and things began to happen on their own.

Tim Winders: 00:19:18

the pattern in Christian Contemporary Music to this day is you go out and

Tim Winders: 00:19:22

you do 150 concerts a year and you put a record out every year or two,

Tim Winders: 00:19:28

and you're promoting your record.

Tim Winders: 00:19:31

You're doing a lot.

Tim Winders: 00:19:35

And I was just praying a lot.

Tim Winders: 00:19:40

And some music would come out every now and then, and we'd release it

Tim Winders: 00:19:47

and it would go through the roof and it would outsell everybody else's.

Tim Winders: 00:19:52

So that has become my pattern pretty much in life.

Tim Winders: 00:19:58

Now it changed later.

Tim Winders: 00:20:00

I began doing 40 concerts a year, but it wasn't 150.

Tim Winders: 00:20:03

It never has been.

Tim Winders: 00:20:06

it changed in 2008, and I'd be with a whole different group.

Tim Winders: 00:20:10

like an itinerant ministry where I was just going like St.

Tim Winders: 00:20:16

Paul, doing itinerant ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:20:19

I'll tell that later if you want to.

Tim Winders: 00:20:21

But, the, the normal pattern for me was just radically

Tim Winders: 00:20:27

different than the typical thing.

Tim Winders: 00:20:28

The main thing was to be and to let things happen.

Tim Winders: 00:20:33

And so that's how I've lived my life.

Tim Winders: 00:20:36

And, and I want to, I do want to come back to that.

Tim Winders: 00:20:39

There's something that I read a few times and I even read this.

Tim Winders: 00:20:45

I think when I went to iTunes going back to even just a quick Mason

Tim Winders: 00:20:50

profit question, the comment that was made was almost something like

Tim Winders: 00:20:57

they were the biggest or best band that never quite made it, or I mean,

Tim Winders: 00:21:02

I may be getting the wording wrong.

Tim Winders: 00:21:05

John Michael Talbot: The biggest band that no, that no, that

Tim Winders: 00:21:08

the biggest band you've never

Tim Winders: 00:21:09

That's something like that.

Tim Winders: 00:21:10

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:21:11

And, and, and my,

Tim Winders: 00:21:12

my question is, I mean, you were extremely young.

Tim Winders: 00:21:15

Obviously you had, your older brother was around and all that, but have you

Tim Winders: 00:21:20

ever, especially in your quiet time wondered If you had air quotes for

Tim Winders: 00:21:27

those listening had made it, what kind of trajectory that would put you on?

Tim Winders: 00:21:33

Because it seems to me like you were seeking.

Tim Winders: 00:21:36

I mean, one of the songs I saw on Mason prophet last night was better find Jesus.

Tim Winders: 00:21:40

It said 1972.

Tim Winders: 00:21:42

I don't know if that was, I don't know if that was the actual year,

Tim Winders: 00:21:45

but I mean, there was still, there was still a spiritual hunger.

Tim Winders: 00:21:50

Even in the midst of all of that, but if all of a sudden you were,

Tim Winders: 00:21:54

you ran across Doobie Brothers, all those folks, all of a sudden you

Tim Winders: 00:21:57

guys had, top hits, things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:22:01

Sometimes that starts messing with us a little bit.

Tim Winders: 00:22:04

Any thoughts on that at all?

Tim Winders: 00:22:05

I know, I know it's hypothetical.

Tim Winders: 00:22:09

John Michael Talbot: Yeah, I mean, towards the end, I had become a Christian.

Tim Winders: 00:22:12

Terry had become a Christian, and the band was playing with it, and

Tim Winders: 00:22:19

we were starting to sound better.

Tim Winders: 00:22:21

on record.

Tim Winders: 00:22:23

There were lots of Christians, Jesus people that followed us from gig to gig,

Tim Winders: 00:22:28

from place to place, and supported us.

Tim Winders: 00:22:33

Had we broken, what would have happened?

Tim Winders: 00:22:37

I don't know.

Tim Winders: 00:22:38

There was a lot of drugs in the band still.

Tim Winders: 00:22:42

lots of cocaine.

Tim Winders: 00:22:44

I think it would have been very bad for us.

Tim Winders: 00:22:49

when Terry and I left Talbot Brothers, I heard from, Terry, who heard it from

Tim Winders: 00:22:57

some of the guys in Eagles that left, that we were really considered for the

Tim Winders: 00:23:03

Eagles, and they opted for, and I think they made a wise choice for Joe Walsh,

Tim Winders: 00:23:11

instead, and they wanted something more of a rock, more of a rock and roll,

Tim Winders: 00:23:16

direction, that was fine because they were, they were doing things in their

Tim Winders: 00:23:21

concerts and they, they always had after concerts, the public didn't hear about

Tim Winders: 00:23:29

at the time, but they were really bad things happening in their after concerts.

Tim Winders: 00:23:38

And I I would, I just wouldn't have put up with it.

Tim Winders: 00:23:41

I would have just left the band.

Tim Winders: 00:23:43

but Mason Prophet, there was a lot of drugs.

Tim Winders: 00:23:47

And sometimes those drugs were not pure.

Tim Winders: 00:23:50

Some, for instance, some of the cocaine that the guys got was laced with heroin.

Tim Winders: 00:23:56

And I, I saw, I mean, we had to carry the guys on the bus a lot of

Tim Winders: 00:24:00

times, and they were just a mess.

Tim Winders: 00:24:04

I think had we become really successful, it would have killed some of our guys.

Tim Winders: 00:24:10

And I think Terry would have just become an ego, Because I know my older brother.

Tim Winders: 00:24:15

I think he would have, his ego would have just gone through the roof.

Tim Winders: 00:24:18

And for me, I would have just been very dissatisfied with the whole scene.

Tim Winders: 00:24:25

I w I was on my way out anyway.

Tim Winders: 00:24:29

So one of the things that you did though, and this is

Tim Winders: 00:24:32

I think where I want us to spend a good bit of time on, and that is this

Tim Winders: 00:24:36

solitude and this monastic lifestyle and contemplative, these words that

Tim Winders: 00:24:44

my personality wrestles with because I may be more like your brother Terry.

Tim Winders: 00:24:50

And I know people listening

Tim Winders: 00:24:52

in, we've got leaders, entrepreneurs, this is, I think

Tim Winders: 00:24:56

this is a really cool conversation for, for anyone did, did that.

Tim Winders: 00:25:02

Lifestyle and what you saw, did that drive you in going not just

Tim Winders: 00:25:07

into Christianity per se, but into a, almost a solitude, a hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:25:16

And also I want to share my, my only experience with what would be, more of a

Tim Winders: 00:25:22

monastery or, we, I grew up in Conyers, Georgia, and there was A group of Trappist

Tim Winders: 00:25:28

monks, Trappist monks there.

Tim Winders: 00:25:30

Yeah, And we would visit there and I would say, this is cool.

Tim Winders: 00:25:33

I remember father Francis, our cub scouts visited

Tim Winders: 00:25:36

here and I did a foot race against him and he pulled up his

Tim Winders: 00:25:39

little tunic, his little gang.

Tim Winders: 00:25:40

He let me tell you that for his aid, he was fast.

Tim Winders: 00:25:44

He blew us out of the way,

Tim Winders: 00:25:44

but it was always fascinating to me.

Tim Winders: 00:25:48

But I always felt it challenging for my personality.

Tim Winders: 00:25:51

So what is it that drove you?

Tim Winders: 00:25:54

I mean, I don't want to say the pendulum really swung, but it really drove you

Tim Winders: 00:25:58

to the solitude and leaving a lot of that behind because so many people,

Tim Winders: 00:26:02

John Michael attempt to have one foot in this system and then another foot

Tim Winders: 00:26:10

in the spiritual, that spiritual realm.

Tim Winders: 00:26:14

I don't even know if that question makes sense, but

Tim Winders: 00:26:17

John Michael Talbot: No, it makes a lot of sense.

Tim Winders: 00:26:19

The, I mean, let me give you an example of St.

Tim Winders: 00:26:22

Francis of Assisi.

Tim Winders: 00:26:23

Who technically in the West is not monastic.

Tim Winders: 00:26:26

He's actually a mendicant, which means open handed.

Tim Winders: 00:26:32

his hands were empty.

Tim Winders: 00:26:33

He was a beggar.

Tim Winders: 00:26:34

but Francis lived 75 percent of his time in prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:26:40

He only spent 25 percent of his time in action.

Tim Winders: 00:26:44

Yet Francis is remembered as the most apostolic man in the

Tim Winders: 00:26:49

Western church in all of history.

Tim Winders: 00:26:53

the Franciscans carpeted Europe.

Tim Winders: 00:26:57

They changed Europe.

Tim Winders: 00:26:59

They were a peace movement.

Tim Winders: 00:27:01

There were all of these, wars between the different, feudal lords in Europe.

Tim Winders: 00:27:11

He put a stop to it without even trying to put a stop to it.

Tim Winders: 00:27:15

It's just that everybody joined the Franciscans.

Tim Winders: 00:27:18

they either joined the friars.

Tim Winders: 00:27:21

Or many of the women became sisters and many of the lay people became a

Tim Winders: 00:27:27

third order or tertiary Franciscans.

Tim Winders: 00:27:29

And one of the rules of the tertiary Franciscans was you

Tim Winders: 00:27:33

could no longer pick up a sword.

Tim Winders: 00:27:35

So they couldn't fight.

Tim Winders: 00:27:38

So people learned how to get along with each other.

Tim Winders: 00:27:42

It was an enormous peace movement.

Tim Winders: 00:27:47

without anybody calling for a peace movement.

Tim Winders: 00:27:50

They just became Franciscans and it changed the face of Europe.

Tim Winders: 00:27:55

And they, I mean, they were the first missionaries in China.

Tim Winders: 00:28:01

They went all the way to China.

Tim Winders: 00:28:03

by the end of Francis's life, they had gotten all the way to

Tim Winders: 00:28:06

England and he lived in Italy.

Tim Winders: 00:28:09

That was quite an accomplishment.

Tim Winders: 00:28:11

In a day when the only travel that they knew was going by foot, going on foot.

Tim Winders: 00:28:18

this guy was this apostolic guy.

Tim Winders: 00:28:22

He preached.

Tim Winders: 00:28:23

When he preached, he preached to 50, 000 people at a time.

Tim Winders: 00:28:28

When Francis showed up in town, everybody came to hear him.

Tim Winders: 00:28:33

He healed.

Tim Winders: 00:28:34

He preached.

Tim Winders: 00:28:35

He cast out devils.

Tim Winders: 00:28:37

he tamed the wolf at Gubbio.

Tim Winders: 00:28:41

He preached to animals.

Tim Winders: 00:28:42

animals that were creating havoc.

Tim Winders: 00:28:45

In local facilities, he would preach to them and talk to them

Tim Winders: 00:28:49

and they would become peaceful.

Tim Winders: 00:28:51

It was enormous.

Tim Winders: 00:28:52

It was amazing.

Tim Winders: 00:28:54

But he spent 75 percent of his time in prayer, either in the hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:29:01

He founded 24 hermitages.

Tim Winders: 00:29:03

He died by the time he was 45 and he didn't start his

Tim Winders: 00:29:07

religious career until he was 24.

Tim Winders: 00:29:13

in a 20 year period, thereabouts, he accomplished all of this.

Tim Winders: 00:29:18

All of this.

Tim Winders: 00:29:20

It's, it's stunning.

Tim Winders: 00:29:23

So he was an entrepreneur.

Tim Winders: 00:29:28

He was an entrepreneur, but he, but he was an entrepreneur because he first

Tim Winders: 00:29:33

tapped into the power of the Holy Spirit in his life through deep, deep prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:29:41

And at the end of his life, he received the stigmata, which are the, the wounds

Tim Winders: 00:29:45

of Christ in his hands, his feet, and his side, which debilitated him.

Tim Winders: 00:29:52

He could no longer.

Tim Winders: 00:29:54

walk.

Tim Winders: 00:29:55

He had to be carried everywhere.

Tim Winders: 00:29:57

And those wounds, worked miracles in, I mean, all, all people did

Tim Winders: 00:30:03

was they looked at them and they were healed by Jesus Christ.

Tim Winders: 00:30:08

So Francis, there were other Franciscans, Bernadine of Siena, John of the, James of

Tim Winders: 00:30:14

the Marches, John of Capistrano, all of these friars were first and foremost, they

Tim Winders: 00:30:22

created houses of prayer and hermitages.

Tim Winders: 00:30:25

and movements gathered around them.

Tim Winders: 00:30:29

But when they preached, they preached to 30, 40, 50, 000 people at a time.

Tim Winders: 00:30:36

So again, they were, they were enormously successful in their ministry, but

Tim Winders: 00:30:41

they didn't focus on their ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:30:44

They focused on their prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:30:46

I think that's really, really important.

Tim Winders: 00:30:51

and it.

Tim Winders: 00:30:52

And it's quite a contrast from what we see from much of what we see today in

Tim Winders: 00:31:01

ministry circles, business circles, political, all of our systems that

Tim Winders: 00:31:08

it's the opposite of what we see to me.

Tim Winders: 00:31:11

John Michael Talbot: Yeah, but I'll go you one further, and

Tim Winders: 00:31:15

that is, there's no dichotomy.

Tim Winders: 00:31:17

Once you reach a place of contemplative prayer, there's no

Tim Winders: 00:31:21

dichotomy between work and prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:31:25

The Benedictines say, ora et labora, pray and work.

Tim Winders: 00:31:30

So when you really break through to contemplative prayer, you are a prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:31:39

You are a prayer, So Francis would say that, essentially you become a prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:31:50

Your whole life becomes a prayer, whether you're preaching or whether

Tim Winders: 00:31:55

you're in silence and solitude praying, your life becomes a prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:32:02

And when people are simply in your presence, they are

Tim Winders: 00:32:06

touched by the Spirit of God.

Tim Winders: 00:32:08

I'd love to do a couple of things maybe by just to get some

Tim Winders: 00:32:12

definitions as we, and then we can go deeper into some of the conversation.

Tim Winders: 00:32:18

But If you could quickly for someone who didn't grow up around church

Tim Winders: 00:32:26

circles and would be, I guess I'm in Protestant circles nowadays,

Tim Winders: 00:32:30

but the word hermitage, do a quick definition for hermitage for me.

Tim Winders: 00:32:35

Cause I'm pretty confident if I'm a 60 year old dude, I'm

Tim Winders: 00:32:38

going, what exactly is it?

Tim Winders: 00:32:39

I think I know what is a hermitage

Tim Winders: 00:32:43

John Michael Talbot: Well, a hermitage comes from the word hermit, which comes

Tim Winders: 00:32:47

from the Greek word eromite, and the word eromite means wilderness or desert.

Tim Winders: 00:32:56

The word monk comes from the Greek word monos.

Tim Winders: 00:33:00

Which means one and alone.

Tim Winders: 00:33:03

So anytime Jesus went to be alone in prayer in scripture, He is, it's one

Tim Winders: 00:33:10

or the other derivative of monos, okay?

Tim Winders: 00:33:14

And when He went, for instance, He was driven by the Spirit

Tim Winders: 00:33:17

into the desert, right?

Tim Winders: 00:33:20

For 40 days.

Tim Winders: 00:33:21

Or He was, some, some, different scriptures say different things.

Tim Winders: 00:33:25

One scripture says He was driven by the Spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:33:28

to be tempted by the devil in the, in the wilderness.

Tim Winders: 00:33:31

The others say he was called by the spirit, both are pretty strong.

Tim Winders: 00:33:39

but the word desert is Eremos, Eremos, So to be a hermit means that you're

Tim Winders: 00:33:47

going aside from the hustle and bustle of daily life into a solitary place.

Tim Winders: 00:33:56

hermitages are of two kinds.

Tim Winders: 00:34:00

the first is called semi eremitism, and it's, it's a cluster of cells.

Tim Winders: 00:34:09

And cell just means a small room.

Tim Winders: 00:34:13

If you look at the, the, the Latin, it's just a, a, a small room.

Tim Winders: 00:34:20

And Jesus says when you pray, where, where are you supposed to go?

Tim Winders: 00:34:24

to the closet

Tim Winders: 00:34:25

John Michael Talbot: Go to the, to the inner

Tim Winders: 00:34:27

in a room,

Tim Winders: 00:34:28

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:34:28

John Michael Talbot: which is, it's actually the store house.

Tim Winders: 00:34:33

In scripture, that means the storehouse.

Tim Winders: 00:34:36

So it basically means go into the pantry.

Tim Winders: 00:34:41

So consider in your house, a pantry.

Tim Winders: 00:34:44

Well, there's no light.

Tim Winders: 00:34:46

There's no, except for artificial light.

Tim Winders: 00:34:49

there's no distractions in there, but there's a lot of good food.

Tim Winders: 00:34:55

So to go in there means that you're going to a place where you're not distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:35:00

So the cell is a place where you're not going to be distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:35:04

and you're going to be able to really focus on God.

Tim Winders: 00:35:08

And by the way, it's the place where heaven comes to earth, like celestial.

Tim Winders: 00:35:16

So it's the place where heaven and earth meet.

Tim Winders: 00:35:19

So a gathering of cells around common buildings like a chapel or a church and

Tim Winders: 00:35:29

a refectory where the monks come together and eat either a couple of times a week.

Tim Winders: 00:35:35

Or once or twice a day.

Tim Winders: 00:35:38

So that's what we have here at Little Portion Hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:35:41

We have a cluster of cells around our church, our offices, our

Tim Winders: 00:35:46

common work areas, and also, our refectory or our dining room kitchen.

Tim Winders: 00:35:52

And we have one common meal together every day, for the whole community.

Tim Winders: 00:35:59

So that's what I mean by hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:36:01

And then I, people can go off once they've lived that way of life for

Tim Winders: 00:36:05

a couple of decades, they can go off into greater periods of solitude.

Tim Winders: 00:36:10

So I spend my time down here.

Tim Winders: 00:36:12

You see my hermitage back there.

Tim Winders: 00:36:14

I can spend, I'm down here Monday through Friday.

Tim Winders: 00:36:18

I come up to the monastery on Sundays and holy days.

Tim Winders: 00:36:22

And since I'm the spiritual father of the community, I also teach.

Tim Winders: 00:36:27

And I have conferences with the brothers, as they need them or

Tim Winders: 00:36:31

once a week where they can talk to me about their spiritual life.

Tim Winders: 00:36:36

So that's, there are, there are more extensive periods of solitude for

Tim Winders: 00:36:44

So what about

Tim Winders: 00:36:44

the, the word monastic, how does then that fit in?

Tim Winders: 00:36:49

Cause that is not a word that is common in my vernacular monastic.

Tim Winders: 00:36:54

In fact, even ask you before we clicked on, am I pronouncing it correctly?

Tim Winders: 00:36:58

So monastic, so bring that into the equation.

Tim Winders: 00:37:03

John Michael Talbot: it means monos, one or alone, but there

Tim Winders: 00:37:07

are two different kinds of monks.

Tim Winders: 00:37:09

There are those who live.

Tim Winders: 00:37:10

in some form of hermitage, which was the original usage.

Tim Winders: 00:37:15

But very quickly, a guy named St.

Tim Winders: 00:37:17

Pacomius, expanded it to mean a group of people who live together as one

Tim Winders: 00:37:26

united, but they live in the desert.

Tim Winders: 00:37:30

So they are alone together in the desert.

Tim Winders: 00:37:34

So they are, and literally in Egypt, they were in the desert.

Tim Winders: 00:37:37

As monks moved into Europe, that just meant they live like we do out here.

Tim Winders: 00:37:43

We're two and a half miles from the nearest paved road, but

Tim Winders: 00:37:46

we're alone together as one group of people who are united.

Tim Winders: 00:37:54

So monos can also mean, and, and the word that is used is

Tim Winders: 00:38:02

koinonia, which means what?

Tim Winders: 00:38:06

Common, communion, or fellowship in scripture.

Tim Winders: 00:38:11

And that gets translated in the Latin to Cinebite or Cinebetical.

Tim Winders: 00:38:17

So there are Cinebetical monks and there are Aramedical, two different kinds.

Tim Winders: 00:38:24

It Does Yes.

Tim Winders: 00:38:25

And it's very helpful because it, it leads now to what I'd love for us to do.

Tim Winders: 00:38:29

And a lot of the time we have left, and that is to use some

Tim Winders: 00:38:34

of these principles and some of

Tim Winders: 00:38:36

this, some of this lifestyle to, to maybe convey to who's listening.

Tim Winders: 00:38:42

And even myself, because, it it's, I, we, We hear of someone like you

Tim Winders: 00:38:49

mentioned earlier, that 75 percent in prayer, and it's very difficult for many

Tim Winders: 00:38:53

people to get their head around that.

Tim Winders: 00:38:56

And you, you brought up distractions earlier.

Tim Winders: 00:38:59

And I guess my first big question is we start drilling down

Tim Winders: 00:39:02

and going down a few layers.

Tim Winders: 00:39:06

Are we a distracted society?

Tim Winders: 00:39:08

Are we so distracted that it makes what

Tim Winders: 00:39:11

you're talking about?

Tim Winders: 00:39:12

Almost impossible for many people.

Tim Winders: 00:39:15

I mean, listen, someone right now that I want to, I want to

Tim Winders: 00:39:17

identify the irony of this.

Tim Winders: 00:39:20

You're in your hermitage.

Tim Winders: 00:39:21

I'm in my RV.

Tim Winders: 00:39:23

We're speaking to each other via technology.

Tim Winders: 00:39:26

We're recording it.

Tim Winders: 00:39:27

And then we're going to put that out for people to listen in and we don't

Tim Winders: 00:39:32

want them to be distracted, but we want it to minister to them in some way.

Tim Winders: 00:39:36

So there is a bit of irony that I'm, I might be even interrupting you in

Tim Winders: 00:39:40

your solitude for us to have this conversation so that we to share with

Tim Winders: 00:39:43

people so they can learn how to be more.

Tim Winders: 00:39:46

Lead them wars.

Tim Winders: 00:39:48

Does that make sense?

Tim Winders: 00:39:50

John Michael Talbot: yeah, but, but I'll also say this.

Tim Winders: 00:39:52

I did, I did a podcast yesterday or day before yesterday with a

Tim Winders: 00:39:58

fella who's a bestselling author.

Tim Winders: 00:40:00

His name is Bob Goff.

Tim Winders: 00:40:03

And his, his podcast goes out to 10 million people.

Tim Winders: 00:40:07

And he says, we have to keep this podcast to less than 30 minutes because people

Tim Winders: 00:40:13

just won't listen to more than 30 minutes.

Tim Winders: 00:40:16

And, the average person, looks at their cell phone, get this,

Tim Winders: 00:40:22

every two seconds in America.

Tim Winders: 00:40:27

So they are looking at, I have mine set to a clock here.

Tim Winders: 00:40:31

So I know where we are.

Tim Winders: 00:40:35

They look at their cell phone every two seconds.

Tim Winders: 00:40:39

And if you watch television and I have a TV down here because I

Tim Winders: 00:40:44

used to have a TV show, called all things are possible with God.

Tim Winders: 00:40:48

Now I have an inner room school of spirituality, but I had to be able

Tim Winders: 00:40:53

to watch my own TV shows to make sure that they were airing properly the,

Tim Winders: 00:41:00

the, So I became acutely aware that the average, again, the average shot.

Tim Winders: 00:41:10

in a television show is only on that shot for a few seconds before

Tim Winders: 00:41:16

it shifts to another perspective or the shot is changing all the time.

Tim Winders: 00:41:22

Now go back and look at Alfred Hitchcock who wanted them to play

Tim Winders: 00:41:28

that scene all the way through.

Tim Winders: 00:41:30

He wanted the actors to act and play the scene all the way through

Tim Winders: 00:41:37

and to keep the camera pretty much steady all the way through.

Tim Winders: 00:41:40

And he would have a couple of camera angles and he might change them,

Tim Winders: 00:41:45

but he wanted the actors to act.

Tim Winders: 00:41:47

Nowadays, they don't do that.

Tim Winders: 00:41:49

They say a few lines, they break.

Tim Winders: 00:41:51

They say a few lines, they break.

Tim Winders: 00:41:53

There's still have to act, but he wanted the actors to actually act.

Tim Winders: 00:41:59

No more, no more, not like that.

Tim Winders: 00:42:03

So our our media has, has, infected us, infected us with

Tim Winders: 00:42:17

the illness of distraction.

Tim Winders: 00:42:21

We, we, we are distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:42:24

We, we cannot stay on a topic all the way through.

Tim Winders: 00:42:31

I'm, I'm reading or rereading not only my Bible, but I'm rereading a wonderful book.

Tim Winders: 00:42:40

called Orthodox Monasticism.

Tim Winders: 00:42:42

It's a refresher for me.

Tim Winders: 00:42:45

It's so important to be able to sit down and read a book.

Tim Winders: 00:42:52

It's a long book.

Tim Winders: 00:42:53

This is, nearly 500 pages long.

Tim Winders: 00:42:58

When I write a book nowadays, my editor says, you gotta keep it short because

Tim Winders: 00:43:03

Americans don't read long books anymore.

Tim Winders: 00:43:07

Most don't.

Tim Winders: 00:43:08

They gotta be short.

Tim Winders: 00:43:09

They gotta be about 40, 000 words.

Tim Winders: 00:43:12

They cannot sit down and read a like that.

Tim Winders: 00:43:16

I still believe that.

Tim Winders: 00:43:18

I read long books.

Tim Winders: 00:43:20

We were distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:43:23

And the average book has to be written on the level of a 6th grade reader.

Tim Winders: 00:43:31

That's just where we are.

Tim Winders: 00:43:34

yes, we are distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:43:37

Terribly distracted.

Tim Winders: 00:43:39

The idea of sitting down, hunkering down, and staying

Tim Winders: 00:43:43

focused, and, raising our we are.

Tim Winders: 00:43:50

awareness, deepening our prayer, deepening our consciousness, raising our education.

Tim Winders: 00:44:01

These things are long gone.

Tim Winders: 00:44:04

Now, I'm not going to put anybody down for it.

Tim Winders: 00:44:07

We have been indoctrinated to it.

Tim Winders: 00:44:13

I won't even say on purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:44:15

It's just easier by those who are controlling our media to get people there.

Tim Winders: 00:44:21

It's easy.

Tim Winders: 00:44:23

See, so we have been indoctrinated to it because it's easier for those who are

Tim Winders: 00:44:28

controlling our media to get us there.

Tim Winders: 00:44:31

So they've done it.

Tim Winders: 00:44:32

Okay.

Tim Winders: 00:44:33

Is it malicious?

Tim Winders: 00:44:35

probably not.

Tim Winders: 00:44:36

It's just easier.

Tim Winders: 00:44:37

It's just easier.

Tim Winders: 00:44:39

So we need to, those of us who are serious about our faith, about our

Tim Winders: 00:44:46

prayer, and about our entrepreneurship, we need to go deeper, deeper, deeper.

Tim Winders: 00:44:53

and go higher.

Tim Winders: 00:44:54

And we can.

Tim Winders: 00:44:56

We can.

Tim Winders: 00:44:57

Especially those of us who are Christians.

Tim Winders: 00:45:00

Serious Christians.

Tim Winders: 00:45:02

I'm not talking about the easy mega church Christian.

Tim Winders: 00:45:05

I'm talking about the serious, serious, apostolic, and historical Christian.

Tim Winders: 00:45:12

We can get there.

Tim Winders: 00:45:14

we're, and this is maybe judging slightly, but is

Tim Winders: 00:45:18

someone a serious Christian if they are attempting to have that time of

Tim Winders: 00:45:23

solitude, that time of quiet to live?

Tim Winders: 00:45:26

as distraction free as they

Tim Winders: 00:45:28

possibly can.

Tim Winders: 00:45:30

Is that how we discern the difference between someone who's a, I,

Tim Winders: 00:45:35

think I've heard someone say Chino, Christian in name only.

Tim Winders: 00:45:37

And the word Christian is, you mentioned Catholics earlier that

Tim Winders: 00:45:41

even Christians there's, I'm one and there's a lot of them.

Tim Winders: 00:45:44

I,

Tim Winders: 00:45:44

don't want to spend a lot of time around because I'm not even sure how

Tim Winders: 00:45:47

some people define that nowadays.

Tim Winders: 00:45:49

But, anyway, is that, is that solitude?

Tim Winders: 00:45:51

The separator.

Tim Winders: 00:45:52

John Michael Talbot: part of solitude is part of it.

Tim Winders: 00:45:55

It's not the whole, it's not the whole shoot and match.

Tim Winders: 00:46:00

it's, but it's a definite part of, of the serious contingency.

Tim Winders: 00:46:06

I like to use the word apostolic and the way you get to the apostolic is

Tim Winders: 00:46:11

to go back to the early church fathers and, and you go back to some of those

Tim Winders: 00:46:16

early monastics, see I'm on a crusade because from the third century on,

Tim Winders: 00:46:22

really the monastic church was the contemplative beating heart of the church.

Tim Winders: 00:46:28

East and West.

Tim Winders: 00:46:30

It was only after humanism in the West that we began to lose that.

Tim Winders: 00:46:35

The East never lost it, but, but the West lost it.

Tim Winders: 00:46:38

So Byzantine Catholics never lost it.

Tim Winders: 00:46:42

to some degree, both Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox lost.

Tim Winders: 00:46:46

It simply be because of the, the influence of Western Christianity in general.

Tim Winders: 00:46:54

Protestantism is very much a result of humanism and in Catholicism,

Tim Winders: 00:47:00

we begin to lose it as well.

Tim Winders: 00:47:03

When our religious orders began to be defined only in terms of

Tim Winders: 00:47:07

what they do and not who they are.

Tim Winders: 00:47:11

And this really got out of control in the United States when bishops needed, monks,

Tim Winders: 00:47:18

nuns, and religious, as missionaries.

Tim Winders: 00:47:22

We need you as educators, we need you in hospitals, we need you to do this,

Tim Winders: 00:47:26

that, we, they needed missionaries.

Tim Winders: 00:47:29

In the United States, we've really lost the sense of the

Tim Winders: 00:47:33

contemplative monastic church.

Tim Winders: 00:47:35

So I'm on a crusade to rediscover it and, and resurrect it.

Tim Winders: 00:47:40

And I know several, monastics, abbots, abbesses who are also on that crusade.

Tim Winders: 00:47:47

So one thing, John Michael, that was fascinating

Tim Winders: 00:47:49

to me, and this, this is this conversation has really led into it.

Tim Winders: 00:47:52

It's the being versus doing and spending time

Tim Winders: 00:47:56

in solitude and, and leading a distraction free life.

Tim Winders: 00:48:01

when you were talking about, the, the time that we have, we, that's one of the

Tim Winders: 00:48:06

reasons why it's difficult for me to have.

Tim Winders: 00:48:09

Conversations like this short, 20, 30 minutes, because it's difficult

Tim Winders: 00:48:13

to get into a lot of depth now in the same breath, we take 60 second clips from

Tim Winders: 00:48:19

this conversation and put it out places.

Tim Winders: 00:48:22

So someone can digest it.

Tim Winders: 00:48:24

So we, we're playing a little bit of that game, but I, I wanna, you

Tim Winders: 00:48:28

have done 59 albums, 38 books.

Tim Winders: 00:48:36

Extremely prolific for anyone out there who might be sitting here going,

Tim Winders: 00:48:41

yes, but how can I, they're still wrestling with this being versus doing.

Tim Winders: 00:48:46

I can guarantee you that they're still wrestling with, but how do I

Tim Winders: 00:48:50

John Michael Talbot: start

Tim Winders: 00:48:52

I believe God called me to do, to do this or to do that when.

Tim Winders: 00:48:57

I'm spending 75, I

Tim Winders: 00:49:00

mean, if we go back to a CC, 75 percent of my time in prayer or, or 10

Tim Winders: 00:49:04

minutes a day in prayer or whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:49:07

Obviously you, it's an overflow is the way I understand it.

Tim Winders: 00:49:13

Is there anything more you can tell me about,

Tim Winders: 00:49:17

John Michael Talbot: Silence.

Tim Winders: 00:49:19

if that's the right word, but you know, so you're, you're

Tim Winders: 00:49:22

definitely avoiding distractions, you're spending time in solitude and

Tim Winders: 00:49:28

quiet, but then out of that also see many people will try to make a formula

Tim Winders: 00:49:34

of that and I don't want to do that.

Tim Winders: 00:49:36

John Michael Talbot: have

Tim Winders: 00:49:45

and spending all that time in quiet and solitude

Tim Winders: 00:49:47

and contemplative prayer?

Tim Winders: 00:49:48

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

Tim Winders: 00:49:51

John Michael Talbot: to wait for the spark of the Holy Spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:49:53

I wait for the spark.

Tim Winders: 00:49:56

Or I wait for something, there's a, there's a federal judge that really wants

Tim Winders: 00:50:01

me to put a prayer of a saint to music.

Tim Winders: 00:50:06

And, I heard about it last October and I'm still mulling it.

Tim Winders: 00:50:14

And I, I might do it, but that was a spark.

Tim Winders: 00:50:18

It came from a very practical external source.

Tim Winders: 00:50:23

And, I'm really considering it.

Tim Winders: 00:50:27

So there are outside sources.

Tim Winders: 00:50:29

You could almost call them commissions, wouldn't you, for music.

Tim Winders: 00:50:33

I'm currently eyeball deep.

Tim Winders: 00:50:38

in Isaac the Syrian, really better called Isaac of Nineveh,

Tim Winders: 00:50:44

who is considered the pinnacle of Eastern, Christian monasticism.

Tim Winders: 00:50:51

He wrote exclusively for hermits.

Tim Winders: 00:50:56

People have asked me to write about him.

Tim Winders: 00:50:59

I don't consider myself worthy to write about him.

Tim Winders: 00:51:04

But I'm still mulling it.

Tim Winders: 00:51:07

I'm mulling that.

Tim Winders: 00:51:09

I have a lot of books that are still in the pipeline.

Tim Winders: 00:51:13

Bruno of Cologne, the founder of the Carthusians, is a written book.

Tim Winders: 00:51:17

Seraphim of Serov, we in the West call him the Saint Francis of Russia, is

Tim Winders: 00:51:24

already written and ready to go out.

Tim Winders: 00:51:26

I have another book called The Journey East, which is just on, Eastern

Tim Winders: 00:51:31

Christian spirituality, ready to, What's in, it's in editing right now.

Tim Winders: 00:51:36

So I'm three books ahead of myself.

Tim Winders: 00:51:38

those all came from Editors mainly saying are my own reading process,

Tim Winders: 00:51:46

and the Holy Spirit tapping me on the shoulder going Hey do that.

Tim Winders: 00:51:51

and then music is the same.

Tim Winders: 00:51:52

I just wait.

Tim Winders: 00:51:54

I just wait I'm in silence and I just wait for the Holy Spirit.

Tim Winders: 00:52:00

Hey John Michael do this And, my last recording came from me being very sick

Tim Winders: 00:52:10

in the hospital and my angel and the angel of death took me to paradise.

Tim Winders: 00:52:16

And I got to see all of my sins and all of God's forgiveness in one experience

Tim Winders: 00:52:23

where all I could do was weep.

Tim Winders: 00:52:26

And I wept every time I prayed, especially when I went to mass,

Tim Winders: 00:52:32

the roof of the church is like it came off and heaven and earth met.

Tim Winders: 00:52:38

And especially at the consecration, suddenly I was at the foot of the cross,

Tim Winders: 00:52:46

He was dying for me, I was at the empty tomb, I was on the Mount of Ascension, I

Tim Winders: 00:52:54

was in the upper room and the Holy Spirit was given, all of that became right now.

Tim Winders: 00:53:00

It was beyond words, and all I could do was weep, and it's still that way for me.

Tim Winders: 00:53:05

It's hard for me to go and pray in public now, after this.

Tim Winders: 00:53:10

And, and the Lord, the Lord said to me, try to put that to music.

Tim Winders: 00:53:17

So my last recording is trying to put some of that to music.

Tim Winders: 00:53:23

And I needed to update my biography, and Dan O'Neill has always been the

Tim Winders: 00:53:29

biographer, and my editor said, John, why don't you do it as an autobiography?

Tim Winders: 00:53:37

So I updated it as an autobiography.

Tim Winders: 00:53:40

I shortened it, put in several more stories that have never

Tim Winders: 00:53:44

been part of the biographies.

Tim Winders: 00:53:47

And I told my story about this experience in paradise and some fun stories about,

Tim Winders: 00:53:55

like the birds playing bumper cars with us when we were going to Champaign, Illinois.

Tim Winders: 00:54:02

Told some of the stories from a first person perspective that are

Tim Winders: 00:54:05

in some of the other biographies.

Tim Winders: 00:54:07

They got a little more personal and, and.

Tim Winders: 00:54:12

how hard it is to live in community, especially to found one.

Tim Winders: 00:54:18

Cause, that's that's the cross, brother.

Tim Winders: 00:54:22

And so I, I wrote this autobiography, but that was just

Tim Winders: 00:54:28

the Holy Spirit, to an editor.

Tim Winders: 00:54:32

the music was just the Holy Spirit whispering in my ear.

Tim Winders: 00:54:37

And I started playing around with music and took the I

Tim Winders: 00:54:41

took the, Confessions of St.

Tim Winders: 00:54:43

Augustine, and Late Have I Loved You, O Lord, his famous excerpt.

Tim Winders: 00:54:49

And I felt like Late Have I Loved You, everything, I've done all these

Tim Winders: 00:54:54

things, I've won these awards, I've sold millions of records, I've sold

Tim Winders: 00:54:58

hundreds of thousands of books, I've started a community, yadda, yadda,

Tim Winders: 00:55:03

yadda, yadda, yadda, played with the Pope, and now at this point in my life,

Tim Winders: 00:55:07

it's like, well, that's all straw.

Tim Winders: 00:55:10

Like Thomas Aquinas said about his Summa, Summa Theologica.

Tim Winders: 00:55:16

And,

Tim Winders: 00:55:17

Okay.

Tim Winders: 00:55:18

John Michael Talbot: I felt like that, All that is straw compared

Tim Winders: 00:55:21

to what I saw, what I experienced.

Tim Winders: 00:55:25

And that's where we're all going here.

Tim Winders: 00:55:27

That's where we're going, So

Tim Winders: 00:55:38

it was so helpful for me who knew of you, but didn't know you

Tim Winders: 00:55:45

well to read that because it was, it gave me a great glimpse and put some

Tim Winders: 00:55:51

pieces together, especially, preparing for this, but it just, it's great.

Tim Winders: 00:55:55

Good to do that.

Tim Winders: 00:55:56

So late, have I loved you?

Tim Winders: 00:55:58

That's the, the music and the book.

Tim Winders: 00:56:02

How should we look at success?

Tim Winders: 00:56:04

One of the things we talk about here, John Michaels, if we talk about success,

Tim Winders: 00:56:08

how, maybe I'll ask it this way.

Tim Winders: 00:56:10

How do you define success now?

Tim Winders: 00:56:12

What is success for you?

Tim Winders: 00:56:14

And then I've got one more question and we're wrapping up here.

Tim Winders: 00:56:17

John Michael Talbot: Yeah, am I doing God's will?

Tim Winders: 00:56:21

I can be poor as a church mouse, but if I'm doing God's will, I'm successful.

Tim Winders: 00:56:27

I can be, some of the, some of the most unhappy people in the world

Tim Winders: 00:56:31

I've ever met are, vastly wealthy.

Tim Winders: 00:56:38

And some of the happiest people I've met are poor.

Tim Winders: 00:56:45

I've met people in third world countries who are very happy

Tim Winders: 00:56:50

because they're doing God's will.

Tim Winders: 00:56:52

They're happier than I am.

Tim Winders: 00:56:56

And I met people who are really poor, who are just as unhappy as, the most

Tim Winders: 00:57:02

unhappy person here in the United States.

Tim Winders: 00:57:04

It's all success is based on happiness, your attitude, and

Tim Winders: 00:57:13

are you doing the will of God.

Tim Winders: 00:57:14

I think that's all it's about.

Tim Winders: 00:57:17

I, I used to know a couple.

Tim Winders: 00:57:19

they've both passed away now.

Tim Winders: 00:57:22

They had, had some terrible tragedies in their family.

Tim Winders: 00:57:28

And they were so happy.

Tim Winders: 00:57:31

Always happy.

Tim Winders: 00:57:34

His name was Jim, the husband.

Tim Winders: 00:57:37

And I asked him, I said, Jim, how are you always so happy?

Tim Winders: 00:57:41

And he says, I've, we've lost some children.

Tim Winders: 00:57:45

We've had some terrible tragedies.

Tim Winders: 00:57:47

And, We were so miserable for so many years, and finally, me and my wife sat

Tim Winders: 00:57:54

down together and we said, You know what?

Tim Winders: 00:57:56

This isn't working.

Tim Winders: 00:57:58

We're going to, we're, and they were believers.

Tim Winders: 00:58:01

They said, We're going to be happy.

Tim Winders: 00:58:03

We're going to choose to focus on God, and we're going to be happy.

Tim Winders: 00:58:07

We're going to do His will, and we're going to be happy.

Tim Winders: 00:58:10

And they, they did that.

Tim Winders: 00:58:12

They chose God's will, and they chose to be happy, and they were genuinely joyful.

Tim Winders: 00:58:22

People, they chose God's will and they chose joyfulness.

Tim Winders: 00:58:32

Isn't that powerful?

Tim Winders: 00:58:33

That is powerful.

Tim Winders: 00:58:34

And I think that's a great ending, even though I've probably got so many

Tim Winders: 00:58:39

other questions and so many things we could cover, but John Michael,

Tim Winders: 00:58:42

tell people how they could find

Tim Winders: 00:58:43

you and get in touch with you.

Tim Winders: 00:58:46

John Michael Talbot: go to, go to johnmichaeltalbott.

Tim Winders: 00:58:48

com.

Tim Winders: 00:58:50

check out our bakery.

Tim Winders: 00:58:52

it's how, one of the ways we support our monastery, littleportionbakery.

Tim Winders: 00:58:57

org.

Tim Winders: 00:58:58

We have some of the best granola in the world.

Tim Winders: 00:59:00

I'm not kidding.

Tim Winders: 00:59:02

We also have St.

Tim Winders: 00:59:02

Claire's breakfast cookies.

Tim Winders: 00:59:04

It's a grab and go cookie that is absolutely delightful.

Tim Winders: 00:59:08

We have St.

Tim Winders: 00:59:09

Anthony hermit bars.

Tim Winders: 00:59:11

For those of you who kind of love brownies, this is

Tim Winders: 00:59:14

a molasses based brownie.

Tim Winders: 00:59:17

It's nutritious, but it is truly delicious, and all

Tim Winders: 00:59:21

of it is made with prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:59:22

So check it out.

Tim Winders: 00:59:24

I think you'll be happy if you do.

Tim Winders: 00:59:26

Check out all my books and CDs and music.

Tim Winders: 00:59:29

You can stream it.

Tim Winders: 00:59:31

Check it out.

Tim Winders: 00:59:32

It's really important to our community on how we support ourselves so that

Tim Winders: 00:59:36

we can be praying for all of you.

Tim Winders: 00:59:38

And check out Joining Our Community.

Tim Winders: 00:59:42

either as a monk or as a nun, a single, a family member here at the monastery,

Tim Winders: 00:59:47

or check out our domestic community.

Tim Winders: 00:59:49

And please check out my, online spiritual school of spirituality.

Tim Winders: 00:59:54

it's called the Inner Room School of Spirituality.

Tim Winders: 00:59:57

We would love to have you on board.

Tim Winders: 00:59:59

So check that out as well.

Tim Winders: 01:00:01

So

Tim Winders: 01:00:02

those are just a few little, bald faced, advertisements.

Tim Winders: 01:00:06

I would typically ask where can people find you?

Tim Winders: 01:00:08

So we'll make sure we include all of that down in the link.

Tim Winders: 01:00:10

So go,

Tim Winders: 01:00:11

go check those

Tim Winders: 01:00:11

out.

Tim Winders: 01:00:12

John Michael, we're seek, go create.

Tim Winders: 01:00:14

Those three words, you can probably guess where those words come from their

Tim Winders: 01:00:17

scriptural base, but if I were to allow you or force you depending on what your

Tim Winders: 01:00:21

personality is to choose one of those.

Tim Winders: 01:00:24

Just in the moment that resonates more than the other two, which

Tim Winders: 01:00:28

would you choose and why seek go or create my final question,

Tim Winders: 01:00:33

John Michael Talbot: Seek.

Tim Winders: 01:00:35

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.

Tim Winders: 01:00:42

Seek.

Tim Winders: 01:00:43

Seek.

Tim Winders: 01:00:44

Seek the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, and all the rest falls into place.

Tim Winders: 01:00:52

John Michael, this has been such a great conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:00:55

I so appreciate it.

Tim Winders: 01:00:56

I'm going to recommend, I, like I've said, I've read the book.

Tim Winders: 01:00:59

I've listened to late.

Tim Winders: 01:01:00

Have I loved you?

Tim Winders: 01:01:01

If you've been listening in here, go check that out.

Tim Winders: 01:01:05

There's so much more here.

Tim Winders: 01:01:06

I, I am encouraged to spend more time in solitude.

Tim Winders: 01:01:11

And that's one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to John Michael.

Tim Winders: 01:01:14

I know that I need to lead a less distracted life and I am very confident

Tim Winders: 01:01:20

if someone's listening in, there's a good chance that you do also.

Tim Winders: 01:01:24

We appreciate you supporting our show.

Tim Winders: 01:01:26

Thanks for doing that.

Tim Winders: 01:01:27

We have new episodes every Monday until next time, continue being

Tim Winders: 01:01:32

all that you were created to be.