THOU SHALT KNOW THYSELF.

In the 1960s, the world was going secular, and it looked as though religious publishing were going the way of the dinosaur. In the midst of this, a charismatic Jesuit began to blend the new insights of psychology with the age-old wisdom of the Catholic tradition.

The current boom in religious publishing traces its roots to people such as Father John Powell, S.J., whose books (see sidebar, page 31) have sold by the millions. We tracked him down in his small counseling office, adorned with hundreds of photos of former students, and asked him to reflect on his career as preacher, author, and religious seeker.

The editors interview Father John Powell, S.J.

You were one of the first people in the Catholic world to blend psychology and theology, which gave many people a very liberating message. Looking back, how do you think it has turned out? Do you sometimes say, maybe I should have just shut up about all that?

No, no. I really believe that psychology is the awareness of self. Psychology is the door that we enter to find out who we really are. Unless we find out who we really are, we're just spinning our wheels trying to be religious without being human. So I don't regret it at all.

So being religious isn't enough?

It isn't enough in the sense that being religious without being human first is just trying to play an act. I remember a time when I was very nervous about a physical I had just had, and I asked myself, why are you nervous? What I was worried about was that I would die and meet Jesus and he would say: You put on a good act; turn in your costume now, and give back your lines. It's so important to know who you really are because you can't ask any other questions until you first ask that question, who am I really? I was confronted with the idea that I had been putting on an act, and I think people who are religious without being human first are just putting on an act.

So how do you answer that question of who you are really? What have you learned about yourself, for example?

I'm a retired teacher and I've asked myself a million times, why did I like teaching so much? Do I really miss the kids now, or do I just miss being the center of attention? I came to grips with the fact that a tree has many roots and I have many roots--some of them good and some of them not so good, such as loving to be the center of attention. I've settled for that. I am a fraction. A part of me is good, a part of me is loving, a part of me is still very selfish.

As I let life question me, I find out more and more about who I really am. I try to keep asking the questions: Why did I feel this way? Why did I react this way? Why did I say this stupid thing? Why did I do this loving thing?

Do you need to find out who you really are in order to change the bad parts?

Learning who you are means, number one, that you're dealing with reality instead of putting on an act. Second, other people know authenticity when they see it, and they will react to you based on whether you're authentic or not. If you know who you are, then you're likely to be more real, and other people will respond to that.

Some time ago a student came to me and said, "You come across to some people as a phony." At the time I didn't understand what he meant. But I came to realize that part of me is phony, that's true. The only way I can become true to God's grace is by knowing myself, knowing which part of me is phony, which part of me is real, and being determined not to use the phony part. I don't know if I'm successful or not.

So what do you do with these negative parts of yourself?.

You aim for joyful acceptance of who you really are. I used to call this "self-love," but I don't know that that's really true. You can't love everything about yourself, but you have to accept it and be joyful about it. I am a fraction, I know that, and I accept that because God accepts me that way.

Don't you hear a refrain in society today that sounds like, "You just have to love me for who I am because I'm not changing anything"?

But I think we do change. I think everyone who has ideals does change, although the change is very gradual. I change because as God exposes me to who I really am, I want to change that.

Can we really change ourselves, or does God's grace change us?

I think we can be graces for each other. Sometimes we hear something or witness something that clicks for us, and that helps us to change.

Chicago's old newspaper columnist Sydney J. Harris once wrote a column about going to a newspaper stand with a friend of his. The vendor was quite mean and shoved the paper at Harris's friend. The friend gave him the money and said, "Have a nice day, Charlie." And the vendor shot back, "Don't tell me what kind of day to have. I have other plans." As they walked away, Harris said to his friend, "Is he always so mean?" The friend said, "Yes, he is." Harris said, "And you're always so nice to him?" The friend said, "Yes, I am. Why?" Harris said, "I was going to ask you why if he's always so mean, you're always so nice?" The friend said, "That's simple. Because I don't want him to decide how I'm going to act. I'm an actor, not a reactor."

That story has helped me a great deal. I try to deal out who I am to people rather than react to them.

Can't learning about yourself become a selfish enterprise?

Obviously people can be selfish, but I think that grace inspires us to be loving, too. There's a balance between accepting yourself and loving other people. If someone stops me on my way somewhere and says, "I want to change my major," I'll say, "Come to my office on Monday morning." But if someone says, "I'm suicidal," then I'll say, "Come on up right now and let's talk." You have to weigh your needs against other people's needs, but you have to love yourself. Anyone who's heard the Christian message knows that you've got to love yourself, and you've got to love other people.

What do you think about much of the New Age spirituality literature?

I think much of it is very dangerous. I like to think of it this way: Theology is defined as seeking the truth based on faith. You make your act of faith first, and then you seek the whole truth. If you imagine theology as all of us putting our ideas in a stream, for example, some will sink to the bottom while the truth stays afloat. I think many of the New Age philosophies will sink to the bottom. But the truth floats. People a hundred years from now will know the truth, and they will simply have other errors to contend with. It's dangerous to attack any one philosophy; better to let it just die and blow away.

New Age is basically a message of pantheism: God is in everything. There is no personal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As far as self-knowledge is concerned, they're on the right track. But there are three stages to self-knowledge: to know yourself, to be yourself, and to forget yourself. You have to know yourself in order to forget yourself. Each has to build on the others; they're not three separate phases. We try all three at once.

Did Jesus tell us to know who we are, or to know who he was?

He did say on the cross, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."

I think many times Jesus says things that are directly confrontational in an effort to help people find out who they really are. He also told people that if they accepted him and his message, "then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

I think the truth about ourselves is paramount. If we discover all other truth but aren't truthful to ourselves, we're nothing but an act. I think that while Jesus never really said it in the same sense that I'm saying it now, he was constantly trying to help people understand who they really were.

To know yourself is a freeing message. Why do many people resist it?

Growth begins where blaming ends. If you continue to blame your parents for everything about you--that they didn't love you enough, because no kid ever feels sufficiently loved--you can't even begin to grow. If you begin to assume responsibility for your own behavior and attitudes, that's the path to growth.

It's true, however, that to change an attitude, to change who you really are, takes a long time. It takes a long time to become an actor, not a reactor, for instance.

I may want to judge people who are selfish, for example, but one time a psychiatrist said to me, "Did you ever have a toothache?" I said, yes. He said, "Who were you thinking about when you had your toothache?" I answered, "Me, and any dentist who could get me out of the pain." "That's true," he said, "because pain is an obstacle to loving." Now when I meet someone who's selfish, I use that question, "Did you ever have a toothache?" to help me change my attitude.

Modeling is another way. Saint Thomas More is my hero because he had such a great sense of humor. And Saint John Bosco, when he was dying, was asked what were his two favorite books, and he answered, "My joke book and the New Testament."

You can also try positive imagining. Imagine yourself in a certain situation and how you're going to react. Will you react pettily or magnificently? And of course you can pray, obviously.

Do you feel that spreading the message about psychology is priestly work?

I feel stationed here by God. I feel that God has equipped me to bring together the human and the divine. Yes, it is priestly work, especially if you buy the first principle that you've got to know yourself before you can be holy, or else you're just spinning your wheels.

Is holiness something above and beyond self-knowledge?

I think there's a connection between the two. I've never thought about that, but I think there's a connection if you know yourself and if you're a loving person.

I had a student in my classes who was an atheist. On the last day of class he turned in his final exam and said, "Father, do you think I'll ever find God?" I said, "No." But I added, "He's going to find you, though. You're not going to find him." I could tell he didn't understand that.

Shortly after his graduation he came to see me. He weighed only 85 pounds, suffering from cancer. He reminded me of that conversation, and he told me, "What you didn't know was that I wasn't looking for God. I didn't want God in my life. He would just come in with his silly rules and complicate things. There were too many women to be romanced, too many drinks to be drunk, too much money to be made. I wasn't looking for God."

Then when he got cancer, he began to pray and said, "God, come out of backstage where I've put you," but God didn't come. "I was trying to make God jump through my hoop because I had three months to live," he said, and God didn't come. Then he remembered something I had said in class, that the hardest thing in life would be to love and not have told the people you love that you loved them. So he went and talked to his father and to his brother. He said to me, "John, you were right. God found me while I was being loving."

I believe that God walks in when we're loving. In one of my books, I talk about the things that love does and doesn't do (see sidebar, page 32). If we're compassionate, if we try to open our hearts, then God walks in. Faith, then, is a natural and normal thing, it's part of our growth.

You once wrote that we should wake up each day wondering what questions life will ask us today. What questions is life asking you today?

It was Viktor Frankl who said, let life question you instead of saying, life, what are you going to bring me today? Almost everything asks me a question. Lately I've been disabled by arthritis and life is asking me: How are you going to take that? Do you really have the right attitude? Do you really believe in eternal life? Do you really believe that Jesus is the salvation of the world? These are questions that confront me every morning.

RELATED ARTICLE: Powellbooks

John Powell's best-sellers have sold more than 15 million copies and been translated into 22 languages.

The Challenge of Faith (just released)

Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?

The Secret of Staying in Love

Why Am I Afraid to Love?

Fully Human, Fully Alive

Touched by God

Unconditional Love 

Abortion: The Silent Holocaust 

Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?

The Christian Vision: The Truth That Sets Us Free

Through Seasons of the Heart

Happiness Is an Inside Job

Through the Eyes of Faith

Solving the Riddle of Self: The Search for Self-Discovery

A Life-Giving Vision

These titles are all available from Thomas More, a division of Resources for Christian Living: 1-800-264-0368.

RELATED ARTICLE: What love does, and what love doesn't do ...

(Excerpted from Happiness Is an Inside Job)

What love does:

Love accepts you wherever you are

Cares about you, wants to know that you're OK

Challenges you to be all that you can be

Empathizes--knows what it's like to be you

Encourages you to believe in yourself

Keeps confidences--your secrets are safe

Overlooks your foolish vanities, human weakness

Is tactful even when confronting you

Sees good things in you that others had never noticed

What love doesn't do:

Love doesn't abuse you or take you for granted

Blame you or carry angry grudges

Bully you by anger, a loud voice, or tears

Get you into win-lose arguments

Give you unsolicited advice

Just tolerate you as a condescending favor

Remember all the things you have done wrong

Seek and call attention to itself

Ventilate its emotions on you as a garbage dump

Show off, just to let you know where you stand