Sunday To Sunday Attentive Heart

Welcome to the Attentive Heart Podcast where we explore how an integration of mind, body, and spirit makes us whole and enables us to become more compassionate to ourselves and to others. I'm your host, John Gribowich.

I think that I've been coming to a place where I like to just try to almost think of these words interchangeably. I think, to be creative, is to be contemplative. To be contemplative is to be attentive, to be attentive is to be a participant in creation, and you just start taking everything you're seeing, and it becomes uniquely manifested in what you do.

Like, I mean, it, I think that's basically the uniqueness of every person, you know, it's that we all are creative. We all were created to be creative. And to be creative means to be contemplative, to gaze upon something. And to be contemplative is to be attentive to what's in front of you. And to be attentive is to recognize that oh, you are a participant in this world with lots of stuff, and most importantly, lots of people who are giving to you, ultimately, God's presence for you to then take and to uniquely make sense of and to share as a creative person. I mean, that is really life in a nutshell. You know, and, and that's the excitement about life too.

Amen, Amen. And I love how you use the word share, because it's like, Yeah, it is a sharing. And it's like, the thing that gets me so much about creativity, however it is, you know, you're more or less coming up with something on your own and, and creating something that wasn't there before. And then bringing that idea or whatever that fruition to life. And, like, and I did a whole video about how, like, even for ourselves, like we, we started off as, as an idea in the mind of the Divine artist that he knew and loved before He created anything, you know. And he had to, like he had to bring us to life through, you know, science and math and like all that stuff, you know, billions of years or whatever. But like, but in that, yeah, in that same way, you know, and there's joy in that, you know. And there's something joyful about coming up with an idea and then seeing it sort of come to life because you're like, first of all that wasn't there. I brought that into existence, you know, and, and there's something beautifully joyful about that.

Oh, yeah, totally. I read this Rick Rubin book. Are you familiar with who that is?
I'm not, no. He founded Def Jam Records back in the 80s when he was a student. It's called The Creative Act: A Way of Being, okay. And I just, I'm talking so highly about it, because it's such an accessible book for people to really understand the meaning of life, let's just put it that way. I'm just gonna go there. Like this is a way to understand the meaning of life. I mean, and it's, it's presented in a way where the chapters are just a couple of pages long. So they're just like little meditative reflections. And, yeah, I mean, he's not explicitly talking on religious terms, but I think he's speaking on universal terms of what it means to be human. And he's pulling from the richness of every religious tradition, as far as I'm concerned. And especially for people who are Christian and Catholic to look at that incarnation, really, meaning that, you know, God makes his imprint in the world through sending His Son. And that is our way of looking at everything in the world as being a way into the divine.
I mean, so that's, that's just the theological way of looking at it. But, the book is a practical book, and it reorders I think, how you understand your role, and it really brings out to the surface that it's okay to say that yes, I am creative. And I've been told that I'm not creative for whatever, whatever reason, but really, what I was told was like, Oh, I can't draw at some point, or I can't like, you know, I can't sing like I've been told those things in my past. Hence, oh, I'm not creative, but you are creative. Everyone's creative.

So let's hear about your creative work because that's, I think, the best way to end our time together. Because it's just what you're doing now. And I guess I wanted to do this in two parts here, first off, what inspired you to do IMBeggar, and on a side note, if you could even explain why you call it that? And then also, and this is moving the way I like to land our conversation today is one of the last videos I saw of yours was talking about prayer. And you gave such a practical way of what prayer is. We hear about people praying all the time. But we have no idea really what that means. And we know it sounds, it sounds good. And it sounds like something you should do. And it sounds nice to tell someone that they are praying, but what are you doing when you pray? And I think that your video did a nice job packaging that. So I guess that's kind of where I just want to like, maybe land our conversation. So how will you start that? What brought you to this point of saying, “Okay, I'm now I'm out of the seminary. It's time for this creative act.”

Yeah, you know, it's before I even entered the seminary, I kind of knew that's what I wanted to do. Like, because I was already working in animation. And I was like, oh, I should do like, cool animated movies about like God, but like, cool, entertaining, like, fun, funny, like, but also like, you know, deep and whatever. But I realized at that time I didn't know anything about it. Like I thought I did. Like I thought I knew, you know about faith and religion and all that stuff. But when I got into the seminary, I realized that it didn't know anything. But so I got that. But the thing that really hit me was I remember and you I'm sure you remember this too, but like they would send us out to go talk in churches and give a little talk and do you know, retreat talk or, you know, the reflection during Mass or whatever, right. And I remember going into these places in like, in the city in Manhattan, and like, you know, we “Oh, like seminarian Randy's coming up to do a talk on whatever” and like, same like eight, like people and God bless them, but they're the like the only eight people who would ever show up for these things. And then I remember being like, okay, like, we're done, and then walking outside the door and seeing like, a million people walked by on their phones, like watching little videos and stuff. And I'm like, that's like, that's where I want to be. You know, like, that's where I want to try to get them that way.

Yes. Right. And so that, to me, was when it was pretty clear as day you know. So yeah, so I that as soon as I like I knew it's even when I was in the seminary, I was like, writing down notes for an ideas and storyboarding stuff, and like, I gotta do this, I got to do that. And like, everything was just like, boop, boop, boop, boop, like firing off, you know. So as soon as I got out of there, it's funny, I was living in my brother's house, God bless him. And he's like, you know, he had kids and family and it was loud. And I was like, staying up in the attic. And I had my eyes on my, like, little laptop, and it was like, hard. And I used to, like, literally take my laptop in my car and drive out to like, a quiet place and like, work there. Because, you know, it was like, I could just call it you know, collect my thoughts and whatever. So that's how that kind of started that.

You asked about the name. And I'll tell you really quickly. It's because everybody asked me that. And it's kind of about a two-fold realization of if we start taking our faith seriously, you know, and the first realization is about, we come to the point where we realize, like, I don't really bring any, like, I'm completely dependent on God. Like I am the beggar, you know. I'm completely dependent on Jesus, like, I don't like we think we bring all this stuff to the table, but it's all Him. It's all what He's given us, you know. And we come to this radical dependence of like, I'm completely dependent on you, I'm the beggar you know. The second part of it is then we come to realize that it was actually Christ Himself, who shed everything and came down here and like he's the one who gets down on his knees in front of us and is begging for our, our hearts, you know because that's, that's what he, that's what he wants our hearts, you know? And so He's the one who's I am the beggar, you know, begging, begging for your heart, you know? So it's kind of that to think like, I'm the beggar meaning me, I'm too completely dependent on Him. And Him saying, I'm the beggar and I am here for your heart, you know? Yeah. So that's the story of that.

That's awesome. What was the third thing? Well, I just, I just wanted to kind of just keep you along. I just want to talk a little bit about the video that you made on prayer, like, where did it come from? You don't have to explain the video. In fact, I just want you to be able to tell people more about where they can watch your videos, but like, I was so taken by that video, because you hear about prayer thrown around so much. But in what, 13 minutes, you unpack it in a way that makes it very accessible without necessarily being complicated, either.

Yeah, that came from, because I get so many comments from people and emails, and they're all more or less asked the same thing, like, “How do I get closer to God?” And you know, and we go back and forth a little bit, but you know, a lot of it, I think, just comes down to mean a lot of things. But prayer is a big one, you know? So it's funny because that's the sort of ideas that are in that. Like, it comes from, like 100 different places have, you know, and you like, hear from people, and that one thing sticks. And yes, from those priests in California, and that from a book and that from a retreat and that from you know, and I just kind of on my own, that's sort of the way I would pray, and a lot of it is just about, like, you know. Like, presence, like, and trust and heart, you know, like, we again, it all centers around one line of like, God doesn't listen to our words, listen to our hearts, you know, and being able to get there.

And, but in order to get there, we need to sometimes just sort of clear away everything else, you know, and kind of get into that inner room and like, shut the door, you know, right. So there's a, there's a bit of a, like a destress. And, like, you know, getting into a calm place. And then so. So it's funny because when I started that video, I was just sort of like, well, this is something I could do really quick. It'll be like three minutes. And like, I'll just walk through the steps and like, but then as I was doing it, I was like, praying, and then I would do it and then I pray and I'd be like, “Okay, now this is going to change” and I always joke because I say like, I always come up with these ideas for videos. And then I like, pat myself on the back. And I'm like, man, like the Pope's gonna be calling you and this and that. And, then I go, and I like to pray about it. And then God is like, okay, like, now, this is what we're really going to do and like changes the whole thing right down backward and forwards. And it turns into something 100% different from where I started, you know?

And that's how it is with all those videos, but it's funny because as I'm doing it, I'm like testing it. So I'm like, okay, like, does this actually, you know, like, is this how I pray or whatever. And so that one came, that's how that one came about. And that's done really well. And it's funny, like, I've gotten more emails from Muslims about that. And they're like, brother, like, thank you. Like, this is how we pray. And they're like, sending me stuff. And, you know, and lots of people who are atheists or who have, you know, they're like, I don't really never prayed in my life, but like, you know, because it's not, it's just, it's for everybody.

You know, it's not like, yeah, no, I mean, and I know the season of life that I'm been in right now is my prayer life has completely just been transformed by spending 20 minutes and meditation with zero agenda, other than just allow myself to be completely connected with my breath in my heart, knowing that that's where God is. That's it.

Amen. Amen. I mean, we really do complicate things and once again, I think in, like in our tradition in Catholicism and especially as a seminarian, as a priest, I mean, you start thinking like, Oh, I gotta do this, I do that, and it becomes a really big burden. You know, and it did hit me in the one part where you said, like, do you feel like when prayer feels like it's an obligation? I've been there. Yeah. And I'm like, “Okay, I gotta do something here that I can't keep on making myself once again”, feeling like I'm being bad if I'm not praying a certain way, or at certain times, or, I mean, because I don't think I'm actually praying. I think I'm just like, saying words, like, and I don't understand how that's supposed to be transforming me.

I guess there's something to say about showing up. And there's something to say about duty and all that I'm not trying to minimize that. But I also think that you know, it's really calling us to something far, far, far easier. Amen. Yeah. And I love, have you ever heard of, I think it's Father Dubay or oh, yeah. He writes all those contemporary books about contemplative prayer.

It was a Fire Within I think it was. Yeah. And the way he put it was like, a posture of waiting, you know, and just being open and waiting. And like, that's, that's it, you know, like, and yeah, we over complicated with “Well, do I gotta say, all this stuff”. And do I have to make it sound a certain way and right now, when in reality, it's just the image I use? It is just like, two hearts, you know, slowly becoming one heart. And like, That's it, you know, like, that's the heart of prayer. You know, nothing has to even be said. But yeah, that's kind of where that one came from. And that one, like I said, I love it, because, you know, getting emails from people from all different faiths and just being like, yeah, you know, this is the, you know, this. And it's not like technique. It's just, like, just some, some ideas and some sure guy, I mean, if anything, it's a starting point.

Yeah, I mean, to go deeper, but I do think that we do a disservice when we're trying to complicate things. I mean, I've, I even today, you know, read books and thinking, Okay, this, I'm happy that I'm hearing about how I should be organizing my time in prayer. And you do that too, with the video. I mean, but not to treat the organization as the end in itself. Like, “Oh, I gotta just do it this way. Otherwise, it doesn't work”, or something like that, you know. To have the freedom to know like this. These are helpful, but they're not ends. They're helping you get to the end, which is your heart becoming one with God's heart, this beating in rhythm with God's heart. But yeah, so, you know, let's just end this here, Randy, by just telling us like, where can we find your videos? What should we do to support you? And we'll learn more about what your work is or isn't.

Yeah, I mean, the best way, thank you for asking, the best way that you can help out is either going to my website and it's IMbeggar. It's the letter “I” , the letter “M”, and “beggar”. And, you know, actually, the best way is to just watch the videos and send them around like that. That's the best you can make a donation there. Yeah, well, we'll put all that in the show notes. But yeah, but what's the website? IMbeggar.com. Right? Yeah, I am beggar.com. Or you can go to YouTube and YouTube is, you know, I'm all over YouTube. TikTok, Instagram. So you can find it anywhere you can connect, you know, anywhere with me through any of those things. But yeah, just type in IMbeggar it'll come up, you know, everywhere.

Well, Randy, it's been great being here with you. And I was just thinking like, I guess this is kind of cool, as we haven't seen each other for so long. I know, we talked on the phone. So this is kind of fun seeing each other. And thanks for being a beggar. And I hope that I can become a better beggar on my end, and hope I can even financially support you too, because you need that as well. Check out IMbeggar.com. And especially check out the video that we were talking about on prayer and try to incorporate some of those suggestions and some of those ideas into your own prayer life. And if you don't have a prayer life, maybe this might inspire you to see what prayer can do to help you to become whole. To help you to know that you're loved and to help you to better know how you are called to be a source of love in a very broken world.

I hope you enjoyed Fr. John Grovowich. He will be back as a contributing podcaster. Please share the Sunday to Sunday Witness Podcast with your friends, and if you have comments send them to me annmary@sundaytosunday.com. As always this is Ann Mary Mullane from Kearny, New Jersey for Sunday to Sunday Productions.