Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone
This is a podcast for seekers, skeptics, believers, and the spiritually curious — for anyone who longs for deeper meaning, connection, and peace, whether you're rooted in a tradition or not.
Drawing from his own journey — from conservative Christianity to Islamic mysticism, through loss, healing, and awakening — Dr. Habib explores the sacred beyond doctrine and the Divine beyond names. Through soulful reflections, honest storytelling, and conversations with guests from diverse backgrounds, we open up the many ways spirituality shows up in our lives — in art, nature, social justice, relationships, and everyday experiences.
Each episode is an invitation to return to your True Self, to reconnect with Source however you understand it, and to grow in compassion, clarity, and courage. You’ll also be guided through accessible spiritual practices to help you deepen your own journey — wherever you're starting from.
If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t quite fit in traditional spiritual spaces, or if you’re simply looking for a space of heart-centered exploration — you’re in the right place.
Let’s go beyond the names — and listen for the truth that speaks to us all.
To make an spiritual counseling appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.
Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone
Secular Chaplaincy & Spiritual Seeking: Finding the Sacred Everywhere
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What happens when our spiritual experience expands beyond what we’ve been taught about religion?
In this episode of Beyond Names, Dr. Habīb Boerger speaks with actor, writer, and secular chaplain Elizabeth Morton about the lifelong path of seeking the sacred in unexpected places.
Elizabeth shares her journey from a Catholic upbringing in Kentucky to becoming an interfaith minister, spiritual director, and ultimately a secular chaplain—someone who companions others spiritually without requiring religious belief. Along the way, she reflects on the power of ritual, the freedom of living in the questions, and the spiritual courage required to unlearn fear-based religious ideas.
Together, Habīb and Elizabeth explore:
- What it means to be a spiritual seeker
- The role of ritual in cultivating reverence
- Why many people today feel wounded by religion yet still long for the sacred
- The spiritual journey of authenticity
- Unlearning fear-based images of God and rediscovering the Divine as Love
The conversation also touches on mystical awakening, surprising spiritual moments, and the profound realization that the holy can be encountered anywhere—if we are willing to see it.
Whether you identify as religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious, this episode invites you to explore how reverence, authenticity, and compassion can guide your own path.
To make an appointment with Dr. Habib, visit https://www.habibboerger.com/.
Beyond Names: Spirituality for Anyone and Everyone
YouTube Channel: Beyond Names with Dr. Habib Boerger
YouTube handle: @BeyondNamesPodcast
Episode: 38
Host: Dr. Habib Boerger
Conversation Partner: Elizabeth Morton
Title: Secular Chaplaincy & Spiritual Seeking: Finding the Sacred Everywhere
Description: What happens when our spiritual experience expands beyond what we’ve been taught about religion?
In this episode of Beyond Names, Dr. Habīb Boerger speaks with actor, writer, and secular chaplain Elizabeth Morton about the lifelong path of seeking the sacred in unexpected places.
Elizabeth shares her journey from a Catholic upbringing in Kentucky to becoming an interfaith minister, spiritual director, and ultimately a secular chaplain—someone who companions others spiritually without requiring religious belief. Along the way, she reflects on the power of ritual, the freedom of living in the questions, and the spiritual courage required to unlearn fear-based religious ideas.
Together, Habīb and Elizabeth explore:
- What it means to be a spiritual seeker
- The role of ritual in cultivating reverence
- Why many people today feel wounded by religion yet still long for the sacred
- The spiritual journey of authenticity
- Unlearning fear-based images of God and rediscovering the Divine as Love
The conversation also touches on mystical awakening, surprising spiritual moments, and the profound realization that the holy can be encountered anywhere—if we are willing to see it.
Whether you identify as religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, or simply curious, this episode invites you to explore how reverence, authenticity, and compassion can guide your own path.
Transcript:
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Welcome to Beyond Names! I'm Dr. Habib. This is a space for spiritual seekers and soulful misfits, for the curious and the committed, for those grounded in a tradition, and for those who are not sure what they believe.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Whether you call the Divine God, Yahweh, Allah, Elohim, Hashem, Brahman, Great Spirit, Higher Power, or you're still searching for language that fits, you are welcome here.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Together, we'll explore the intersection of spirituality and daily life, the wisdom of many traditions, and the ways we return to our true selves, to our source, to the light that each of us carry within.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm so glad you're here. Let's begin with introduction of our conversation partner for this episode, Elizabeth Morton.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Elizabeth Morton is trained in both interfaith ministry and spiritual direction, and now, excuse me, now calls herself a secular chaplain.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Elizabeth is also an actor and a writer. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and now lives just outside of New York City.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Her Substack is called The Morton Train, which you can access at themortontrain.substack.com. To learn more about Elizabeth and her work, please visit secularchaplain.com. Elizabeth, welcome, thank you for being here.
Elizabeth Morton: Thanks for having me.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Would you please…. Thank you. Would you please start us off by sharing to, of course, to the extent that you're comfortable, but, you know, sharing your spiritual story as a way of letting us get to know who you are?
Elizabeth Morton: Sure. So, I was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Catholic, Catholic school, K-8, and…
Elizabeth Morton: But I was raised by parents who were more in the social justice wing of the Catholic Church.
Elizabeth Morton: So, I was raised going to protests, anti-nuclear rallies, you know, U.S. intervention out of Central America marches with, you know, walking beside my priest when I'm 12 years old.
Elizabeth Morton: So, it was that lineage of the Catholic Church that I grew up in.
Elizabeth Morton: And… and then I started to get curious about other traditions, I think in high school, and then when I got to college as a theater major.
Elizabeth Morton: My roommate in the dorm, you know, she had never really been to church or anything, and she really considered herself pagan and earth-centered, and I was just so fascinated.
Elizabeth Morton: And I, you know, and so I really got into… we would do ritual together, and kind of started seeing, you know, the sacredness of the earth in a new way, and being able to connect to that, to Spirit in that way.
Elizabeth Morton: I also took a class in college called Christian Heritage that was really eye-opening, because it helped me to understand the history of Christianity, just more academically, so I could sort of understand sort of the power forces behind it.
Elizabeth Morton: And that sort of freed me, I think, into just being more curious, not just about how to connect with spirit, but also understanding what forces are at play in terms of… of… belief and control, you know, of the masses, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: And then, when I was in my 20s as an actor in New York, I got… I just sort of noticed that I didn't want to be reading theater books like all the other actors I knew.
Elizabeth Morton: I was really reading… wanting to read books about spirituality and personal growth and mysticism and all of that, and I just was gobbling all that up.
Elizabeth Morton: And so, I, I was in karate class, of all places, and somebody… we were changing clothes or whatever, and I heard somebody say, “interfaith minister.” I mean, in a conversation across the room, and I had never heard that term before.
Elizabeth Morton: And this is probably 2002, maybe? And I… I just thought, oh, that's what I am. Oh. Oh, that's what I am.
Elizabeth Morton: I just had this immediate… it wasn't like a light bulb moment, it was more just an identification of something.
Elizabeth Morton: And… and growing up, I had always loved participating in Mass, you know? 6-years-old, you know, I stood on a chair so I could read at the podium, you know? I mean, I always loved ritual, and I loved the theatricality of the Catholic Mass and everything.
Elizabeth Morton: So I studied interfaith ministry for 2 years in New York City and was ordained on the campus of St. John the Divine.
Elizabeth Morton: And the whole time I was studying it, I just was, you know, I felt called to it, I felt curious about it, but I didn't really know what I was going to do with it.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: And I started doing, you know, lots of weddings. I've done, like, you know, 50 weddings or something, and memorial services and things like that.
Elizabeth Morton: But what started to happen was, in my own seeking, and just sort of companioning different friends, and discussing spirituality in all these different ways, and continuing to take, take classes and webinars and, you know, on spiritual development and everything, I started to notice this pattern where people were coming to me one-on-one and saying, you know, you're the only person I feel safe talking about this with, and…
Elizabeth Morton: And I just was really noticing that, and I thought, wow, that's… that feels like a calling in itself, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Because I think a lot of artists, queer people, liberal people, urban people, people in my generation, X or younger, have such a cynicism about traditional religion, have been wounded by it, even abused by it, feel almost allergic to it, and to have a safe space where they're, like me, where there's no agenda, where they can sort of wrestle with their own language and wrestle with their own doubts and curiosities and what excites them.
Elizabeth Morton: Anyway, that… the beauty of those conversations and the deliciousness of those led me into spiritual direction, where I realized that, oh, this is… this one-on-one work is kind of my charism and my, my calling.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: And so I had moved to Los Angeles for a couple years to just, you know, work in the entertainment industry, and I… and I discovered this amazing, spiritual direction training, Stillpoint.
Elizabeth Morton: And I did that. And that just… I just felt much more at home there, than I ever did in interfaith ministry.
Elizabeth Morton: Again, because of the one-on-one nature of it, which I think is is, it's my path.
Elizabeth Morton: So I mean, that's kind of my work path, in addition to my spiritual path, but I would say my own spiritual path… I like the term interspiritual now, I really like that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: And I really… I guess my own discovery, and I'm just sort of a lifelong seeker, more than anything.
Elizabeth Morton: I like to, be nourished by in different ways, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Some… in some secular ways, in some overtly religious ways, in some spiritual ways, and sometimes it can change, but, you know, wherever I can find that sense of reverence in myself and connection, and sometimes that can just be sharing a meal with a friend, it doesn't have to be anything more than that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: But I had to continue to ground myself in that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You mentioned, ritual more than once, and in more than one context.
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I noticed.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Maybe, maybe there's a reason that word stood out? How do you respond when I reflect back to you, oh, I heard ritual come up.
Elizabeth Morton: Ritual. Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I heard it came up in relation to your upbringing in Catholicism. I heard it in relation to the, your experience in college with, the… in relation to the earth and opening to, or sort of connecting to the sacredness of the earth, and, and then again, I can't remember what the context for the third reference was. Maybe you do.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, is, is ritual a part of your practice today?
Elizabeth Morton: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: I think my ritual practice keeps getting smaller, I mean, and simpler, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: But I think there's something… I mean, just even simply lighting a candle is a ritual, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: I think it's that intention behind… you know… what we're doing.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: But I think growing up Catholic, where ritual is so instrumental, a part of the service, you know, and I remember when I would go to protestant churches with friends or whatever, and I was always like, there's not much going on here.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, we have, you know, so much of the physical, the kneeling, and the genuflecting, and the candles, and the incense, and the Eucharist and the, the statues.
Elizabeth Morton: I mean, it's very, very dramatic, which I think… I always say the Catholic Church was the first theater I participated in. It's very theatrical, right? And there's a lot of ritual, obviously, in the actual theater, too.
Elizabeth Morton: I think, I think ritual does help us to connect.
Elizabeth Morton: But again, it's all about intention. But I think, you know what it is? I think it's helping to name reverence or personify reverence.
Elizabeth Morton: You know? Even if it's… even if it's just, you know, reverently lighting a fire, or picking stones out of the bottom of a lake, or you know, sitting in a circle, or bowing your head with other people.
Elizabeth Morton: I mean, just very… the simplicity of it. It's a way to express a feeling of reverence and conjure a feeling of reverence at the same time.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's a beautiful way of looking at it, to both, personify, to name and personify reverence.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Okay, you also mentioned, or you described yourself as a lifetime seeker.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, what's that look like?
Elizabeth Morton: I mean, I guess the thing about being a seeker is that you get to live in the questions more than the answers, so there's a freedom to that, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: And I think there's, it also… there's a little adventure to it, in terms of the conversations you can have, and the places you can go.
Elizabeth Morton: And… and also it's expansive, you know, to just say, oh, wow, I didn't know I could find the holy there, you know? And I can find it there, too, wow, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: And also just seeking to be my most authentic self, and what is that, you know? And still discovering who that is. Like, who is this being that I am, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: And so, it's also about seeking self-expression, wholeness, certainly satisfaction in one's expression.
Elizabeth Morton: But I… I just think now there's you know, if you think of it, we have so much access to the world's wisdom, right?
Elizabeth Morton: To ancient knowledge, to, you know, I mean, New Age is a lot of, it's old age, it's just, you know, we just have it at our fingertips now, and just more and more people are talking about spirituality in ways that when we were kids, that wasn't happening, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: So, seeking is unending.
Elizabeth Morton: You know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: There's always more to seek, you know, and find.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I appreciate your reference to discovering, as part of seeking, discovering, oh, I can experience the holy here, and I can experience the holy there, and this is not necessarily something that you thought about or understood previously, but it's something that you're discovering in a process....
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: That's… that's beautiful. I… I… I had an experience of…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I guess I'm going to tell this story.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I was going through some really serious health stuff.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it had been going on for a long time, and I had a friend who recommended that I go to do this plant medicine.
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm!
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I wasn't in any sense, I wasn't really doing very well, and so I didn't do any research myself, I just knew, like, the name of the company, or the name of the place, or something, I don't know, but I just sent an email to a cousin who works in the travel industry, and she arranged the whole trip for me.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so… I found myself in the Amazon...
Elizabeth Morton: Wow.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: having drunk some ayahuasca before I realized, oh, I've just ingested a hallucinogenic.
Elizabeth Morton: Wow.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so, and I was I think maybe I had… converted or reverted to Islam maybe 3 years at that point, you know, so I was kind of a baby Muslim, I would say.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Even though I had studied, I studied Islam for, I think, 7 years, maybe even longer before I took the Shahada, which is the testimony of faith.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But… but the point being is that in some respects, I was… I was still… in many respects, we're all still learning, but I was definitely at that point of, yeah, I'm still learning, and a baby… a baby Muslim, and I just did something that is considered forbidden, you know, like, I… it's, it's not… it's not okay to take… to take intoxicants, or hallucinogenics, or those kinds of things.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And yet, there I was. I mean, I was in this, like camp-like situation in the middle of the jungle, and I'd already drunk it, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I couldn't…
Elizabeth Morton: And so you were just waiting for it to happen, knowing you'd… it was about to happen?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I've figured out, like, by what was the context, you know? Like, oh, I just drunk a hallucinogenic, and if I'd known that that's what my friend meant by plant medicine, I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be doing this, you know, like…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And so, it was one of those, like, Okay, this is a great opportunity to, like, can you… can you, can you find the holy here even though this is outside your paradigm, or your framework?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I just… I prayed, and… and it was… it was a really beautiful time, because what I experienced was that I just…. In the hallucinations… hallucinations that I had as a consequence, I just experienced there was this choice over and over and over and over and over again.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, I could… it was like a choice between light and dark, between things that had a sort of sinister aspect, and then things that had a joyful, beautiful aspect.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it was just, like, choice after choice after choice, and I would, you know. And then every time I would choose, then there would just be, like, these indescribable, like, prisms of light that were just beautiful.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, it was, like, sort of set this framework of choose beauty, choose the sacred in every moment, even if you didn't know you were going to be in this place in this time, even though you would not have put yourself in this place.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, just keep making that choice over and over and over and over and over again.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And then I felt like the whole rest of my trip was kind of an unveiling of that same teaching in that the holy is here, the holy is there, the holy is everywhere.
Elizabeth Morton: And the choice is always available.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And the choice is always available, yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: To choose to see it, and to notice it, and…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Wow.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah Yeah, so that's what you're…
Elizabeth Morton: Wow.
Elizabeth Morton: I've never done anything like that. That sounds fascinating.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Well, we didn't… I wouldn't do it again, and I didn't do it again, but that was my experience, which was probably is somewhat unique.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: There's probably not a lot of Muslims who find themselves in the Amazon drinking ayahuasca and going....
Elizabeth Morton: Whoops, I just drank ayahuasca.
Elizabeth Morton: Right.
Elizabeth Morton: But it… but it's interesting… but I like that story because it's… it's also about the surprise that… that sometimes we can have an awakening moment, or a mystical moment, whether or not we're… we've taken an intoxicant, but, but the surprise of it, you know, and sort of the surrender to it.
Elizabeth Morton: You're like, okay, I'm in it now, I'm going to go for it.
Elizabeth Morton: And sometimes that can come from… I think those opportunities to have a little awakening or a little, I don't know, recalibration, upgrade in consciousness, whatever you want to call it, can come during the worst times in our lives, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Can come during real, real struggle, can come during real confusion, can come during a dark night of the soul to use that ancient art term.
Elizabeth Morton: And can also come in surprise, right? Can come in celebration, or come…
Elizabeth Morton: But to have that very specific guidance.
Elizabeth Morton: It's pretty great.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, speaking of awakening, any awakening moments that, that's come up for you, that you want to…
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: that you would be willing to speak, too?
Elizabeth Morton: Well… I think, and I've written about this, I think, being a gay person was very impactful on my spiritual path, because…
Elizabeth Morton: because I was… of when I, you know, being a kid in the 80s, and Kentucky, and Catholic, and at a time when, you know, there was just zero, really, gay representation in the popular culture or anything, and having no real understanding for it, so really having a lot of shame and confusion and not understanding what was going on inside me and stuff.
Elizabeth Morton: And so that journey to self-acceptance was profound, in a way, because first of all, it forced me to go within.
Elizabeth Morton: So, I'm in, you know, as a teenager, somebody in my late teens, my straight friends weren't having to go within in the way that I was, right? And a spiritual journey is a within journey, ultimately, right?
Elizabeth Morton: And so, I was having to go within, and and accept a truth that was hard for me at the time to accept.
Elizabeth Morton: And to love myself in a way that took some effort, and accept myself in a way that took effort.
Elizabeth Morton: And also to, you know, sort of appreciate my own uniqueness, and to… and to recognize sort of the, the sacredness of authenticity and the opportunity to be an authentic… you know, to be in my authenticity.
Elizabeth Morton: And to face the fear of that. To face the fear of being shunned, not being liked, not being understood.
Elizabeth Morton: And so… I do think that that did catapult me on a spiritual journey.
Elizabeth Morton: Because… of the… hmmm. It… I had to do it, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: It was something I just had to do it, and .
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah..
Elizabeth Morton: It was ultimately very empowering. And so there was a… I think there was some awakening there, certainly to trusting myself, trusting my path.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: And, yeah. So I would say that's a big part. A big… a big something that happened...
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: In young adulthood, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I'm… and I'm curious… to… I'm curious, in part because of my experience growing up in the Catholic Church… excuse me, not the Catholic… I did not grow up in the Catholic Church.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But I did grow up in a Christian church.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And, and I remember grappling with what I was taught, you know, in church, and then just being in high school, and, like, Kelly seems like a really sincere girl, and she's so kind, and she seems like she really loves God, and wants to know God, and serve God, and how is it that she's going to hell because she's a Mormon, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: Right.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Or… Joanna's Catholic, and, you know, she's going to go to hell because she's Catholic?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, like, I just… like…I… I… there was this… Like, what? You know, I just couldn't quite make sense of just living my…
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: life and experiencing my day-to-day interactions, and then going to church, and I couldn't quite bring the two together in a way that made sense for me.
Elizabeth Morton: Same. Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: How was your, if you don't mind my asking...
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...how was your relationship with your parents in that process?
Elizabeth Morton: Oh, they were great.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: They were great, okay.
Elizabeth Morton: It's so funny when… I mean, this doesn't happen so much anymore, but when I was coming out in the 90s or whatever, and I… we, you know, talked to other gay people, and they'd always be like, you know, what's your coming out story? Or say you're coming… you know?
Elizabeth Morton: And I… this happened a few times, where I would say how great my parents were, or whatever, and I… and I had a few gay people say, oh, you don't know how lucky you are.
Elizabeth Morton: And I would say, oh, I know I'm lucky, and they'd say, no, you don't… you don't know how lucky you are.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Because they had had just, like, devastating, like, loss of relationship even. So I was very lucky, very, very lucky. Blessed. They're great. They're two of my best friends, still.
Elizabeth Morton: But it's interesting what you said about the going to hell, and I think that's part of, maybe, the gay thing, too, in the spiritual journey, is the unlearning that we do...
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: ...along a spiritual path. Part of being a seeker is not just learning new things, it's unlearning, too.
Elizabeth Morton: And sort of being like, oh, wait. I… like, I remember… I remember… very distinctly as a child, just realizing, like, oh wait, I actually don't believe in hell. That doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't make any sense. And I just, like, let it go. Just, like, the concept of it, I just went, ugh.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Interesting.
Elizabeth Morton: I just… that doesn't make sense.
Elizabeth Morton: I think I… I really… anything… The term, God-fearing has always really struck me.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, I'm like…wait, you fear God? What? Like, this whole idea of, being afraid of God, or being… that has always just really struck me as horrible.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Horrible. And so, I like the term, the God of my understanding, and so early on, I unders… like, the God of my understanding is…does not need me to be afraid, does not want me to be afraid, you know.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: But noticing where there were those placements of fear, and oh no, I'm doing this, or oh no, I'm doing that, and having to unlearn them.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: You know?
Elizabeth Morton: And even, you know, growing up Catholic, but also female, and also Western, and Christian, like, so much shame around just sexuality in general, so much shame around our bodies, and our humanness, and our emotions, and having to unlearn that, and rename those things as holy.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Yeah, we definitely…
Elizabeth Morton: So… I mean, that's a long, long journey there.
Elizabeth Morton: Definitely, what?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I think we definitely need to learn to integrate all of those.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, in my tradition, we…we want to take the mind and the body and the heart, and open them to the light of the soul and bring them together, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So there's this awareness of, you know, the mind on its own has value.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: The ego on its own has value.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But bringing it together with the light of the soul is what brings it into wholeness and moves you to being your true self.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, so there is definitely a bit of, like, oh, so that means that I actually should be kind and respectful toward myself and my own body.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah. Wait a second.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely, but yeah, and that… and how much power in that… in that integration, and authenticity, and alignment, and all of that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: The reason I specifically asked about your relationship with your parents is I was terrified of my parents.
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… I don't… do not know if it would have been possible.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I mean, I just cannot think of a psychological makeup that would make it possible to come through the childhood that I experienced with the family dynamic that I experienced, and the church dynamic that I experienced, and not have some aspect of turning away from the God that I had been taught in church, or the God that I had been taught at home.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And, and so then a lot of the spiritual journey becomes unlearning, as you said, this concept of God as being wrathful, you know, angry… and so… and so on and so forth -- as opposed to the mystical idea of God as being a God of love, and a God of peace, and a God of mercy, and a God of justice,
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, yeah, it took a… for me, you know, my journey has been… a lot of what the journey has been moving from childhood misconceptions to a sense of actually moving through the woundedness to be in relationship to the divine, to be in relationship to the holy, to be in relationship with sacred, because initially I wasn't.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Wow.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, because a lot of those strict structures, it's so much about domination and fear, and putting God in that, too. Putting God in that structure, and so when that gets broken open, it's… Yeah, it's different.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So I'm curious around, you use terms spirit, you use God of my understanding, you say the Holy.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, in the present day, where you are in your spiritual journey, do you feel like… you have… a relationship with the divine, so to speak? That you are in…?
Elizabeth Morton: I mean, I suppose, I think we all do.
Elizabeth Morton: I mean, to me, to me, it's sort of like, once you start on a… I feel like all of… all humans are on a spiritual path whether they know it or not. Once you realize you're on a spiritual path, you can't unknow that, right?
Elizabeth Morton: It involves relationship with divine, the holy, all that is, the universe, whatever you want to call it.
Elizabeth Morton: So, and a spiritual path sometimes when I pray with other people, I just say, You who have many names and are unnameable, right? Because it's like… So yeah, I would say, like we all are, I'm in relationship.
Elizabeth Morton: There's a sense of goodness, I think. To me, that's what I feel the most I'm able to sort of describe it in a tangible way is just where goodness is, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: Oh, that's a good… that's a good feeling when I'm with this person, or when I'm walking on that trail, or when I'm sitting in stillness, or tasting that delicious food.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, and I see goodness on the… in the collective right now, right?
Elizabeth Morton: When I am in the throng of a protest, like a huge protest rally, or, you know, there's goodness there, or people… seeing videos of people taking care of one another during a time of injustice. It's like witnessing goodness, you know? The goodness of humanity.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: One of the… earlier… not… I mean, excuse me, one of the recent episodes on the podcast was with Busshō Lahn, a Buddhist teacher, a Zen Buddhist teacher who lives in, in Minnesota, in the Minneapolis area.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And, and he was sharing, you know, so, of course, I couldn't, you know, not acknowledge the situation that Minneapolis… is in, and has been in, and acknowledge the death of Alex Pretti, and Renee Good, and… and what he, as a spiritual caregiver in that context, you know, is experiencing.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And what he said was… one of the things that he said was he just spoke to the goodness of seeing people care for each other.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And seeing people come together, and there being a collective response that, if I use your word, I would call goodness, a collective response of goodness.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know… Like, you can take lives unjustly, and we're going to respond in a neighborly way. We're going to respond in a loving way. We're going to respond in a compassionate way.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And we're going to respond in a peaceful way.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: While also standing up and saying, this is not okay.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, exactly. With righteous anger.
Elizabeth Morton: It's… yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah. And I can't help but call attention to many of your sub-stacks.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It seems that they… Your experience, when you mentioned growing up with parents who were in, I think you said, the social justice lineage of Catholicism, or… I'm not reading your exact words.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But it seems like that that's carried through in the sense that you seem to be bringing together your experience of spirituality and your individual consciousness with an awareness of what's happening with the collective, with the larger community, and trying to, and maybe this is not… maybe this is not your agenda, maybe it's just my reading of it, but it seems as if, like, you're trying to sort of prompt an awakening, or to foster an awakening to continue to grow…an awakening and make it even bigger and more, communal.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So is… How does…?
Elizabeth Morton: Well, I mean, God, I don't really have that big of an audience, so I don't know how much prompting I can do.
Elizabeth Morton: I think what I've done, especially since…November of 2024, because my… I mean, I've been doing my substack for 4 years or something like that, but I think…
Elizabeth Morton: And I wrote political stuff before that, but it was more, you know, story… it was a little more diverse in terms of subject matter.
Elizabeth Morton: But since November of 2024, there's been a very clear trajectory of my writing.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: I don't know if I'm prompting it as much as naming it.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: And I think that's been helpful, at least that's the feedback I get, is it's helpful for it to be named, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Because when you're sort of so immersed in the sort of… the reckoning of what's happening, and the anger, and the justifiable anger, and the chaos, and the abuse and the sociopathy coming from our… federal government right now, it's, it can be very disconcerting, and people can be in despair, or confusion, or whatever.
Elizabeth Morton: So I've been trying to take a step back and say, and, you know. And this is happening, you know? This is happening too, and let's just name it, and… And be with that, too.
Elizabeth Morton: And I think… because people already are, I'm just naming it and putting it into words on the page.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And if I understand what you're saying, is that you're somewhat consciously naming both parts, both the aspect of the horror, if I may use that.
Elizabeth Morton: It’s a horror show, it is, absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You're naming the horror, but then you're also naming the goodness.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: The goodness, and also maybe what's happening, again, just on a larger scale. So, just in the collect… that's why I like the term, the collective, just to notice that… that we are part of… of a larger whole that is, I think, rising in consciousness, rising in awareness of our own interconnectedness, in terms of what kind of society we want to build that reflects that.
Elizabeth Morton: There's a lot going on right now.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: There's a lot going on.
Elizabeth Morton: A lot going on.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I noticed that, there's one of your posts? Is that the right term?
Elizabeth Morton: Sure, sure.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's called The Era of Awakening, and you begin it with a quote by Adrienne Marie Brown saying, “Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight as we continue to pull back the veil.”
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I can't help but think of, you know, obviously the Epstein Files, you know, and… the…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm just… regardless of where you look in the world, I mean, whether it's the genocide in Palestine, whether it's Sudan, or Syria, or Yemen, or Kashmir, or Iran, like, if you look in the world, there is so much, there's so much that's being done in service of harm.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it's… It's to the point where the… the veils, to use this quote, the veils are being lifted.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, there are many… I think of my own family members or my own community, and, like, this idea of patriotism that sort of glosses over any of the colonial aspects of the history of this country.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Glosses over any of the genocidal aspects of our history, that glosses over the genocidal aspects of our support of other genocides throughout other places in the world.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Like, just… like, has this idea that if the government or a person in authority says something, that it must be true and good and right.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And now, it's as if we're going through a time where you might have been able to operate that with that understanding, but it's becoming increasingly, I think, difficult to continue to operate with that understanding.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Obviously, if you exist in an information silo, you can… you can… depending on where you get your news...
Elizabeth Morton: Right, right.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...how you get your news, how you get your information. Obviously, there's things that ... there are ways to be in pockets.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But it seems as if, increasingly, more information is being shared about what's really going on and has been going on.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely. And I think… but I do think there are people who are willfully ignorant, to use that term.
Elizabeth Morton: You know, willfully not wanting to…know more, or learn more, or change their minds about anything. And I think there are similarities between
Elizabeth Morton: I think it was… was it John Dean who wrote the book about authoritarianism, and he basically said, like, a third of humans, like, have this authoritarian mindset, where that's just where their comfort zone is.
Elizabeth Morton: And so that's why they choose authoritarian, and flourish in authoritarian political belief systems and authoritarian religious belief systems.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Elizabeth Morton: And so there's this, the authoritarianism means I'm giving my power away. I'm giving my power away to what I know, to what I learned, to what I understand. You tell me what to think about the world and other people. You know, there's,
Elizabeth Morton: And…And so that's very painful, I'm sure, to completely reorient yourself to the world and be like, oh, wait. I'm calling my power back to me, and I have to learn, and change my mind, and grow, and be uncomfortable and, and start to question what I've been told my whole life.
Elizabeth Morton: And that's, I'm sure, terrifying for people.
Elizabeth Morton: I… I'm so in awe of… like, I love this organization called LeavingMAGA.org. I'm sort of in awe of this guy who…who's just sort of helping people, like, come on, it's okay, it's safe, it's safe, you know.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Rob Schenck, who I wrote about, Reverend Rob Schenck, who I wrote about in my last blog, about… he was a huge, huge Christian nationalist, like, major evangelical, and the higher-ups, like, helped get Supreme Court justices in place.
Elizabeth Morton: And now, he's marching on the streets of Minnesota because he had a complete awakening and reckoning.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: So yes, it is… I think more and more people are waking up, and it is difficult to stay asleep.
Elizabeth Morton: And I do think that the fear of leaving that… the old stories of what the USA is, or what the… what…the right wing is, and, you know.
Elizabeth Morton: And what God is, and what, like, Christianity is, and…
Elizabeth Morton: Those… those… that rigidity is also happening, too. More and more rigid...
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Sure.
Elizabeth Morton: ... for those who are afraid to, to lose that false sense of security, I guess.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It's almost, and I could be completely wrong on this, it almost seems like maybe the rigidity is tied to fragility.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: As if…
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely is.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, as if the… the… identity, like, there's not a capacity to question identity.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah. So…
Elizabeth Morton: It’s fragility, and it's… and it's just fear.
Elizabeth Morton: There's so much fear there.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: And not dealing… like, James Baldwin has that great quote where he said something like, I suspect people cling to their hate… hatred so much because if they let that go, they'd have to deal with their own pain.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Right.
Elizabeth Morton: I'm totally paraphrasing, but something like that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: One of the things that I really appreciate about… excuse me, appreciate fasting brain, fasting tongue, you know, the mouth is dry, I'm just, you know, the thoughts aren't quite working right.
Elizabeth Morton: It's the… it's the Ramadan interview series.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Exactly.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I appreciate the… the pairing of the inspiration and the, truth-telling, if I…if I may use that… that term.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I… I'm… reminded of… the…the reason I was so attracted to mysticism when I was first exposed to mysticism… actually, you remind me of that in your post around awakening and talking about astronauts and this experience coming back.
Elizabeth Morton: Isn't that cool? The Overview Effect that's, like, written about on the NASA website. Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: That is amazing.
Elizabeth Morton: What's it called again?
Elizabeth Morton: The Overview Effect.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: The Overview Effect, yeah. This realization, this kind of ... that we're all made from the same thing, that all the universe is made of the same matter, and that our interconnectedness is, in fact, our reality.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely, and it kept happening to astronauts.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Because they have this very unique view of the Earth from… where they would just have these, like, mystical, blissed-out moments. It's amazing.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It is amazing, and it's amazing to me that you've got these astronauts and NASA saying the same thing that we have different traditions...
Elizabeth Morton: Exactly.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ...religious and spiritual traditions, saying
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... using different language, of course, but…
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: But the idea, the concept is the same, that we are all interconnected. You know, in Islam, the… we… the idea is that we all came from one soul.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And in Islamic mysticism there is… there is only one, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: The multiplicity is to bring you to the realization of oneness.
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it is the illusion of separation that is the source of the pain.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So…
Elizabeth Morton: What I like about mysticism is how interfaith and interspiritual it is.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, I think about, sort of, the… the fundamentalists on this side, which is, like, everything's literal, and we all hate each other, and we're all different, and you're going to hell, and you're going to hell, you know, that… that rigidity that we're talking about, and rules-based, and fear-based, and… you know, the literalness of everything.
Elizabeth Morton: And then over here is mysticism, where you read mystic poetry from…you know… Rumi, or Hafiz, or… John of the Cross, or Emily Dickinson, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: And you can't tell one from the other, because it's all… they're all speaking the same language -- the language of spirit and interconnectedness, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Astronauts. Astronauts are over here.
Elizabeth Morton: Maybe even atheist astronauts.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I was… doing, yeah, I was engaged in a conversation for a recent episode, and I realized, oh, I have, I have my trigger points around talking about religion and spirituality and, and I… and rigidity.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Rigidity is not the right term, but, I just have this sensitivity, based on my own experience, of you might be in one place today in a totally different place tomorrow.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And… And… there are many unique hearts and souls, and I think that the journeys, all of them, are also unique.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And…
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: And I think… so I think those of us who do soul care work, which I do like that term, you know, I think we have to be multilingual when it comes to Spirit, because if we're holding space for people who are changing, like you said, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Or opening little windows in their minds of… or hearts of what's possible, and… even changing their God… not just the name of the God of their understanding, but the whole concept of the God of their understanding.
Elizabeth Morton: Actively changing it.
Elizabeth Morton: Seeking, and doubting, and unlearning, and so we have to be able to hold space for that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I was just thinking of the question, you know, like, what is it that is ours to do? You know, what is it that we hope to achieve through our substacks, or through our podcasts, or through our spiritual direction sessions?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I think one of the things that's central for me is to support each other in returning to their true selves.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah, the… the truth of who… who you are.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And, and then also to support each other in being in relationship, with what is holy, what is sacred, what is divine, and realizing that that is available.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: And there's also just… I think… well, I like… I like the… I like the IFS phrasing of returning to self-essence. I really like that term.
Elizabeth Morton: That we can all do, that we all need to do all the time, and develop little shortcuts for ourselves on how to return to self-essence.
Elizabeth Morton: And also just to name that, but also just to in all of our work right now, because there's just so much despair, right? Anything we can do to just not false hope, but just sort of say, hey, hey, have you looked at it this way? You know?
Elizabeth Morton: Just… just uplift a little bit.
Elizabeth Morton: Hey! Hey, let's, oh, yeah, there's a lot of reason to despair, and… you know, let's roll up our sleeves and, you know look out for something good.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Speaking of, hey, have you looked at it this way?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I was just reading… the, it's a book called The Fragrance of the Qur’an.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It’s by Jamal Rahman, and he takes just particular verses....
Dr. Habīb Boerger: In Arabic, the word for verse is called ayat, and ayat means sign.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So each verse is… the idea is that there's… it's a sign, you know, that the… it's guiding you home.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Hmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Guiding you home to yourself, guiding you home to the divine.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And one of the… the things that I love to be reminded of in my own journey of, of reconceiving and unlearning old wounds and misconceptions and… and growing my own sense of intimacy with the beloved, capital B, is that worship In Islam --
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It does… I mean, it has the outer aspects, it has the ritual aspects, you know, it has the things that we associate with religion, but it also has those inner aspects.
Elizabeth Morton: Hmm…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And one of those bringing together, integration of the outer and the inner, is that worship not only happens in relation to you performing those things that are associated with a religion, but also happens with this inner transformation of the heart -- that the heart becomes more loving...
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... because you grow in a loving relationship with the divine, and with the in-breath of the divine in… that is placed in each human being, through which each human being has life and that manifests in your journey through serving the creation.
Elizabeth Morton: Hmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I think many people do not think worship, religious worship equals serving the creation.
Elizabeth Morton: Right.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I think a lot of people probably are not going to put an equal sign between religious worship and serving the creation.
Elizabeth Morton: Right.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So I love that in my tradition, and obviously, you know, it's Ramadan, and I'm…
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I'm trying my best to immerse myself in remembrance of the divine and in the Qur’an, and, you know, so I'm reading about this reminder that says, worship equals serving the creation...
Elizabeth Morton: Serving the creation.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... and a post called “holy contradiction,” in which you advocate for secular holy alliance.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: One that honors our connectedness, our common humanity. One that reclaims the language of freedom and truth, morality, values, virtue.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: That, essentially, so here… here is… here I am in conversation with the secular chaplain.
Elizabeth Morton: Yes, yes.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And there's a way that you are saying very much, maybe it’s not the same thing...
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... but very, very, very close to what.... Yeah, and that… I find that enlivening and enheartening, and so I wondered just if you have any more to say about this connection between spirituality and this collective response of what's happening in this world to the larger community… in service to the larger community, in service to…
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... the creation.
Elizabeth Morton: And in service to goodness, you know? I think…
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, that's really interesting. I....
Elizabeth Morton: First… thank you for sharing that with me about Islam, that's such beautiful… those such beautiful frames, and… I really like the idea of the, the signs along our path, right, that lead us home, right?
Elizabeth Morton: And home to self, and I think that's also part of being a seeker, is what signs do you respond to and noticing that.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, what… what is…what… what am I responding to in that song lyric, or in that tree, that particular tree, or in that conversation, or in that… in that sacred text, you know?
Elizabeth Morton: That that's sacred information right there, it's just that response.
Elizabeth Morton: And that recognition and that sign that says, that's… that's my.
Elizabeth Morton: In terms of the collective, yeah, I mean, gosh, service to humanity.
Elizabeth Morton: I do think we were told such a lie, you know, in the 80s, in the Reagan Revolution, whatever you want to call it, the whole neoliberal thing, just sort of this greed is good, you know, profit before everything else.
Elizabeth Morton: And this… just this huge, you know, uptick in consumerism and… and all this stuff, and I think, I think right now, we're in the process of unlearning that as the collective.
Elizabeth Morton: And realizing, like, oh, wait, it feels good to be in community.
Elizabeth Morton: It feels good to have maybe a simpler, a simpler existence, and it feels good to, to recognize that… that my life is connected to another person's life, so of course we should have universal healthcare, right?
Elizabeth Morton: That, like, that's what I'm talking about, like, actually affecting policy, not just doing good deeds in public.
Elizabeth Morton: But right now, there is this, and I think Minneapolis is showing us this in a really visceral way, is this, responding to what is mine to do in that service, and being surprised by it.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, I've seen interviews with people who are like, I've never protested in my life. I just didn't… and just… but I'm angry, and I'm out here because my neighbor just got hauled away by ICE.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: So there's this service as response right now. Being responsible to the whole.
Elizabeth Morton: And… and participating. I think it's Pete Seeger who said, you know, Just participate. Participation is… will save the world.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, and it doesn't have to be grand. I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on themselves, like, oh, I'm not doing enough, or what can I do? It's like, just participate.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And participate can be, as you said, it doesn't have to be grand, and so I'm thinking about Minneapolis and what's, happening there.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Participation can go anywhere from lending a helping hand to lending an ear.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You know, to just a living presence and showing up with a caring heart.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It can just be showing up.
Elizabeth Morton: Showing up.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: It can just keep showing up.
Elizabeth Morton: Calling your senator, you know?
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And it can be political action, and it can be non-violent presence, and it can be organization, and…and it can be just paying attention to the signs, and looking for the goodness in yourself and others, and an opportunity to grow goodness.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: And, and being willing to have a different experience… to get outside your comfort zone a little bit.
Elizabeth Morton: Or to grow your comfort zone. I think we're all being invited to do that right now.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So many of us need a paradigm shift to who we think of as belonging, you know, like…
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: I think a lot of us have grown up thinking, like, our belonging is relation to our family, our belonging is in relation to our political identity, or our belonging is in relation to some other construct that gives us a sense of identity, and that we derive some comfort from that.
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: And I think that's… yeah, I think that's attractive, a lot of the right-wing people. I think that's…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: They're clinging to that.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yes. And how can you look at a babe or a child...
Elizabeth Morton: Hmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... and not recognize that this is… that every human being, that every human heart...
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... is also your own brother, sister...
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... mother, father, son, daughter, auntie, uncle.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, that's a good thing to contemplate, is that sense of belonging, and our need for it.
Elizabeth Morton: And how… there's, also, a false sense of belonging sometimes.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And I think that the thing about the spiritual journey is that we can foster the belonging within ourselves.
Elizabeth Morton: Mmm…
Dr. Habīb Boerger: You, you, you likened your own experience, in your formative years as that your… that the context of what you were experiencing necessitated going inward.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, if we can commit ourselves to doing the inner work and establishing a sense of belonging within ourselves, then we can expand that belongingness. We can actually have a heart that's full...
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... and arms that are open.
Elizabeth Morton: And welcoming, yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah, I think the… that belonging is just so key.
Elizabeth Morton: And, and… that's sort of... That we belong to each other while we're here, while we're humans on this earth, right?
Elizabeth Morton: Like…so what does it… what's that responsibility, then, if we belong to each other?
Elizabeth Morton: Oof.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And to go back to the astronauts -- if we're all made of the same matter...
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: ... don't the plants and the minerals and the animals, don't we belong? Don't we all belong?
Elizabeth Morton: Absolutely.
Elizabeth Morton: The Earth, too. Well, and that goes back to that domination thing, you know, it's like just that unlearning, also just unlearning what we think about the Earth. You know, re-sacralizing the Earth.
Elizabeth Morton: Like, we need to learn from these indigenous communities present and in the past, who understood the sacredness of the earth in ways that we are so, so ignorant of.
Elizabeth Morton: And what a beautiful invitation that is, too, you know.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Well, thank you so much for showing up, for participating.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: For sharing your story, for being open to just exchange, and, you know, it's great to…
Elizabeth Morton: You’re welcome. Interesting.
Elizabeth Morton: Yeah.
Elizabeth Morton: And it's cool being on the… being co-trainers together, it's cool.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And for our listeners who don't know what Elizabeth means by that, we are co-trainers in compassion-based spiritual direction, a program that's being offered currently by the Center for Engaged Compassion.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, yes, it's great to be co-trainers with you.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: So, again, thank you for the great conversation. Thank you to all listeners for joining us on Beyond Names.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Before we go, if you would pause briefly, just for a moment to reflect on anything that might stay with you from this conversation with Elizabeth Morton.
Elizabeth Morton: Hmm.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: May s..., excuse me, may something -- that's that Ramadan fasting tongue.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: May something you heard today help you reconnect with the light in your own heart. May you grow in compassion, clarity, and courage. May you find your way home again and again, back home to yourself, back home to the divine, however you name it.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: If today's conversation spoke to you, please like, share, and comment on this episode, and please follow and subscribe to Beyond Names.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: And if you would make the commitment to your inner life, to consciously participating and growing the light that is in your own heart and in your own soul and sharing that light in relation to yourself, in relation to the rest of creation.
Dr. Habīb Boerger: Until next time, peace be with you.
Elizabeth Morton: Thanks, Habib.