Kristin and I are walking out of Lincoln Center, having just experienced Martha Graham's "Springtime". I am mesmerized and Kristin is perplexed. We are on our way to the Russian Tea Room. It is a long, long time ago. Lifetimes ago. Martha Graham was still alive and her dance troupe performed regularly in New York. Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham inspired me for so many years and I still try to get to New York between Thanksgiving and New Years so I can see Alvin Ailey at City Center.
Back to our walk to the Russian Tea Room and our conversation. Kristin had expected a gentle, lovely dance given the name. I wasn't surprised that Martha Graham focused on the tensions in moving from winter into spring -- the force it takes for those new shoots of growth to push through frozen ground.
Ten years or so later I am talking to my spiritual teacher about this. And softly, gently, I am told that it is all in one's point of view about peace and war. If I perceive life as a battle, an endurance test if you will, then I perceive the need for those tender new shoots of growth to force their way through the frozen ground. If I perceive life as peace, trust in grace and ease, I will see that the frozen ground relaxes in the warmth of spring's arrival and as it relaxes the new growth emerges.
Wow.
Over these past 21 years, since that conversation, I have made a commitment to shift my perspective and have been fairly successful, but not completely. I have shifted it enough to survive with some moments of grace, but not enough to really thrive and it has been a source of incredible frustration.
I had hoped that 2012 would be the year that I made the shift complete. The first 6 months have not been terribly successful in this regard. I sit here feeling that they have been among the most difficult and painful months - but maybe it only feels that way because I have made such significant shifts in my consciousness that I really can't tolerate discomfort now. So maybe it is a good thing.
It is not by accident that I woke up at 4 AM this morning thinking about that evening with my dear friend Kristin - that conversation - and my deep desire that this year be the year that I see the frozen ground of my life relaxing and the deep, beautiful growth I yearn for emerging effortlessly into the world.
I will celebrate my 60th birthday in July. It is time for me to be in the summer of my life. Guess I am a late bloomer of sorts. Time to fully surrender as an act of peace -- and experience that surrender as falling into the arms of a lover.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Dorothy Day and The Movement of Spirit
These are soothing and interesting times for me in many ways. I chose purple for my font this morning because I feel a bit "liturgical" and I have a sense of thrilling anticipation, just like I do during Advent. And I trust that the fulfillment of that anticipation is assured whether I can see it or not - like Easter morning. So purple it is.
For the past few days I've been thinking a lot about Dorothy Day who, as many of you know, is one of my heroes. Feeling that this challenge to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith is at its source a promising moment of epiphany and breakthrough, I have been taken by the response of these religious women -- no rush, no politicizing, letting us know that they will take their time, they will come together in prayer and community to discern how the spirit is moving within and among them, in the sure knowledge that by doing this the way forward, in faith, will emerge. Asking for our prayerful attention and support for them and the church.
It has turned my attention to an interview with Dorothy Day when she was an older woman - it was near the time of her death in 1980. The interviewer was asking her how she felt, in retrospect, about her association with her bohemian and radical friends when she was a journalist in New York City's Greenwich Village. They were her compatriots before she converted to Catholicism. As I recall she spoke of her admiration for them and the depth of their commitments to social change. And then she said something that has remained with me all these years. I am paraphrasing here but the gist of it was: In those days we spent so much of our time strategizing and making plans about the best ways to have the most political impact. That is not the way I engage life now. When we need to make decisions at the Catholic Worker we pray and meditate, we go to Mass and receive the sacraments, and we ask "what would Jesus do" and always the answers we need and the way forward emerge.
Then this morning I go onto Facebook to find this wonderful article on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/nyregion/a-different-intersection-of-religion-and-politics.html?_r=1&ref=bigcity Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin started the Catholic Worker together on May 1, 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression by selling their Catholic Worker Newspaper in Union Square for a penny a copy and the article says the price has stayed the same to this day. So next week on May Day we celebrate the 79th anniversary of this incredible movement. Since 1980 when Dorothy Day died, the movement has had no leader. It does not have a headquarters or a board. Yet it continues to thrive and grow. There were 134 Catholic Worker communities in 1980. Today there are 210.
Think about that. No leader, no headquarters, no board of Directors and yet it thrives and grows. And believe me it is a difficult and harsh lifestyle that these communities adopt -- to live with and among the poor. To bring forward the Catholic social teachings of both solidarity and subsidiarity by living in a way that demonstrates what self-reliance really means -- that we need to rely not solely on ourselves, but we need to radically rely on each other and the spirit of life that sustains us all, in community. That is what Jesus modeled for us as "the way, the truth and the light". That is the point that Paul Ryan absolutely misses about his Catholic faith when he puts forth his budget and claims it emerges from Catholic social teaching.
The Vatican would do well to ponder both the integrity and success of this movement that has no Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith to insure orthodoxy and thereby insure its continuation. The Vatican would do well to really engage the miraculous faith and faithfulness of the women religious and members of the Catholic Worker Movement to the call of the Gospel and the spirit of our times. To see that the ends never justify means. Rather the means of prayerful communal life and decision-making with trust in the Holy Spirit insure the continuation of their meaningful work and bring about a more just and peaceful society.
I think that the growth of the Catholic Worker Movement without a living leader and without any organizational structure for the past 32 years should give all of us faith that the spirit of life - whatever we may choose to call it - has its own powerful organizational integrity. It does not require huge headquarter buildings or charismatic leaders or cumbersome organizational structures and rules. What it does require is faith in the goodness of life and the power of authentic community. Internet and social media technology certainly help to expand our sense of community.
Arab Spring. Occupy Wall Street. Catholic Worker Movement. Leadership Conference of Women Religious . . . these are good and interesting and hopeful times.
Abiding Peace
Donna
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Music
You have no idea what you are missing if you have never heard and seen Andre Floyd perform. It is one of those multi-sensory experiences that reminds you how deep and diverse your emotions and feelings are.
Last night Andre was generous enough to travel 100 miles to play for us at the Hangin Art Gallery in Arlee and he gave an extraordinary performance. I was sorry more people didn't come out to hear him play. It amazes me that when such talented folks come to share their gifts more people don't jump at the chance to come experience their talents and their generosity.
But here is what is on my mind and in my heart this morning. Andre and I are contemporaries and he sometimes will perform some of John Sebastian's songs. When he finished last night, I asked an outrageous thing of him -- to play a particular John Sebastian song that I love -- "She's A Lady". Amazingly he remembered it and played it. And beautifully at that.
His rendition was heart breakingly beautiful. Soul-full. Elegant. Moving. It broke open more hearts than mine in that room. And it certainly broke open the crust that has developed around my own heart over the past "oh so many" years as the demands of work, community and family have slowly and surely changed me from a woman who spent time every day opening her heart to beauty and experiencing love and elegance, to one who wonders how on earth she will get everything done. It made me remember a time . . . it made me feel like I was still there. As if that woman still exists and that someday, maybe someday, I will again be a Lady.
Andre my friend I cannot thank you enough. "I remember times it felt like . . . .it was raining daisies!"
Peace
Donna
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Renewal
I am so happy that I was able to get Marti deAlva's beautiful photograph into this morning's blog. Yesterday was a day of renewal for me and Montana's Mother Nature was an integral part of it. I opened Facebook this morning and there was Marti's extraordinary photo with the perfect Rumi quote.
Marti is one of my favorite photographers and here is why. Montana is a vast and sweeping landscape. In the fourteen years I have lived here there has not been a day that I have not felt like I was living in a beautiful painting. So it is very, very easy to take beautiful photographs here -- even I can do it.
What makes Marti's work so extraordinary is the intimacy she finds, even in the vast spaciousness. This photograph is a perfect example -- clearly the landscape is vast and yet the quality of light, the perfect Rumi quote all create a sense of deep intimacy. That's what things were like yesterday.
The past few months have been harder than I would have liked. I had a vision of coming into 2012 with a more balanced life -- work, family AND leisure. It turned out the Family overtook a great deal of it, work didn't let up and so what got sacrificed was leisure.
Yesterday a friend and I took the afternoon off and drove to Quinn's Hot Springs for lunch and a soak. Bright blue skies while we drove along the beautiful Flathead River and entered the canyon that "houses" Quinn's. Lunch was lovely and the sky was still bright blue when we immersed our bodies in those healing waters. Luxury! Leisure! A good friend, good conversation, healing waters and a beautiful blue sky.
And then - the reported shift in weather occurred. Spring and summer in Montana bring amazing shifts in weather and everyone jokes that if you don't like the weather just wait 10 minutes or so. Clouds rushed in and rain began to fall - but no thunder so we remained in the pools and then, magically, the sky was blue again. Suddenly the clouds moved back in, the light shifted and we heard the rumblings of thunder so it was time to get dressed and head home. Rain was falling in buckets and as I got into the car huge hail began to join in with the rain. It was intense and beautiful. Almost magical. The hail looked like diamonds on the roadway. We drove about 5 or 6 miles with the rain and hail falling and then - you guessed it - sunny blue sky again. The shifts in light renewed my perception of the landscape, and of my life.
Yesterday was one of those magical days where everything I did felt perfectly matched to my deepest desires and gifts. It reminded me of the wisdom Alan imparted to me when I would get tense with the press of business and what felt like the limitations of time. In his gravely New York accent he would say, "Relax Sweetheart, there is always a lull. You will cross the t's and dot the i's in the lull."
Yesterday afternoon was one of those lull's and I feel this morning like I had a vacation. I am grateful.
Peace,
Donna
Yesterday a friend and I took the afternoon off and drove to Quinn's Hot Springs for lunch and a soak. Bright blue skies while we drove along the beautiful Flathead River and entered the canyon that "houses" Quinn's. Lunch was lovely and the sky was still bright blue when we immersed our bodies in those healing waters. Luxury! Leisure! A good friend, good conversation, healing waters and a beautiful blue sky.
And then - the reported shift in weather occurred. Spring and summer in Montana bring amazing shifts in weather and everyone jokes that if you don't like the weather just wait 10 minutes or so. Clouds rushed in and rain began to fall - but no thunder so we remained in the pools and then, magically, the sky was blue again. Suddenly the clouds moved back in, the light shifted and we heard the rumblings of thunder so it was time to get dressed and head home. Rain was falling in buckets and as I got into the car huge hail began to join in with the rain. It was intense and beautiful. Almost magical. The hail looked like diamonds on the roadway. We drove about 5 or 6 miles with the rain and hail falling and then - you guessed it - sunny blue sky again. The shifts in light renewed my perception of the landscape, and of my life.
Yesterday was one of those magical days where everything I did felt perfectly matched to my deepest desires and gifts. It reminded me of the wisdom Alan imparted to me when I would get tense with the press of business and what felt like the limitations of time. In his gravely New York accent he would say, "Relax Sweetheart, there is always a lull. You will cross the t's and dot the i's in the lull."
Yesterday afternoon was one of those lull's and I feel this morning like I had a vacation. I am grateful.
Peace,
Donna
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Christa and The Feminine Dimensions of God
In my last post I referred to my time working with Edwina Sandys and her monumental sculpture "Breakthrough" made from sections of the fallen Berlin Wall. One of Edwina's most controversial sculptures is Christa - and she made her public "debut" at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine during Holy Week in the 1970's. Christa still startles - and rearranges perception so here she is.
Christa comes to mind this morning as I pray and reflect on the ongoing news related to the Vatican crackdown on the LCWR. There is a wonderful article in the Catholic National Reporter this morning http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/lcwr-earthquake-snaps-tensions-present-vatican-ii#comment-322240. In one section of the article the writer says that this should not be about men vs. women or even about who is most important in the church. But he says the male leadership has made it about both of those issues. And he is correct.
You can imagine the controversy about Christa. A great deal of it had - and has - to do with the sense that Jesus is MALE. How heretical to imply otherwise and to put a woman's body on a par with a man's. One of the life giving dimensions of Christa is that she does not say Jesus is FEMALE. She opens up the fullness of God as neither male nor female but all encompassing. She fills in a terrible blank space that has impeded our capacity to bring the Gospel message to life in our world. God as the perfect balance of masculine and feminine energies - ying and yang - required for creation in our physical world. And yes, of the suffering of women in our world. And when women suffer, inevitably children do as well.
Those energies - masculine and feminine - exist everywhere and all of us have varying amounts of both. True leadership in a time like ours requires us to love both - to tend to both - to find our perfect balance of those two energies in our own lives.
I worked in the American Council on Education's Office of Women in Higher Education in the early 1970's and many of us had a sense that if we only brought more women into leadership positions in education, medicine, law, business, that the mere presence of those women would transform the institutions. From my point of view it has become clear that that idea has not worked. In order for women to get to those positions and to hold them, they need to take on many of the characteristics of those patriarchal organizations. There are some important shifts, of course, but not the transformation we had hoped to see.
And this is why the current confrontation from Rome with the women's religious orders that are part of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious fascinates me and makes me hopeful. Here we have an indication of what happens when women actually control the organizational structure within which they work. Over the past 50 years, these women's religious orders have transformed themselves in response to the mandates of Vatican II. We see in them leadership that respects both masculine and feminine styles of leadership. We see in them respect for wholeness and diversity. And we see in them courage to pray, reflect, change and yes - to lead.
What we are seeing here is the absolute refusal of the patriarchal structures of the Roman Catholic Church to see in this a way forward for the church. We see Rome understanding what a threat to their authority - moral and temporal - these women and their religious orders are. Of course, these women have been invisible to the power structures for so long that they have had a chance to actually institutionalize the kind of women's leadership those of us at ACE's Office of Women in Higher Education envisioned over 40 years ago. If Rome and our Bishops force us to choose between them and these women religious there will be no contest -- a huge number of American Catholics will stand with the sisters who have demonstrated moral courage and authenticity and true service to the Gospel in the world.
There is no question that this is a critical issue for American Catholics. I also believe it is important for our larger society since it has both political implications, and it has relevance for us in our quest for a more just and more effective political and governmental sector. This story is as important as covering the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movements. It is based in the same spirit of freedom moving powerfully through our world.
So back to me. My undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland is in political science, with a concentration in American Political Thought. My graduate work at NYU was in Religious Education. And I attended an Interfaith Seminary in New York City - The New Seminary - from 1993 - 1995. I was ordained at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when Dean Morton was there -- that courageous man who unveiled Christa during Holy Week. On a trip to Antigua in the 1980's I met one of Her Majesty's Submariners - he was one of a number of submariners on their way home to England from the Falklands. We went to dinner and dancing and when he asked about my education and I told him he smiled and said "Ah - religion and politics - the two things one does not discuss in polite company". I still laugh when I think of it.
By the way, Edwina Sandy's artwork is amazing and provocative in addition to being quite beautiful. So if you have a chance visit her website at www.edwinasandys.com I think you will be glad you did!
Christa comes to mind this morning as I pray and reflect on the ongoing news related to the Vatican crackdown on the LCWR. There is a wonderful article in the Catholic National Reporter this morning http://ncronline.org/news/women-religious/lcwr-earthquake-snaps-tensions-present-vatican-ii#comment-322240. In one section of the article the writer says that this should not be about men vs. women or even about who is most important in the church. But he says the male leadership has made it about both of those issues. And he is correct.
You can imagine the controversy about Christa. A great deal of it had - and has - to do with the sense that Jesus is MALE. How heretical to imply otherwise and to put a woman's body on a par with a man's. One of the life giving dimensions of Christa is that she does not say Jesus is FEMALE. She opens up the fullness of God as neither male nor female but all encompassing. She fills in a terrible blank space that has impeded our capacity to bring the Gospel message to life in our world. God as the perfect balance of masculine and feminine energies - ying and yang - required for creation in our physical world. And yes, of the suffering of women in our world. And when women suffer, inevitably children do as well.
Those energies - masculine and feminine - exist everywhere and all of us have varying amounts of both. True leadership in a time like ours requires us to love both - to tend to both - to find our perfect balance of those two energies in our own lives.
I worked in the American Council on Education's Office of Women in Higher Education in the early 1970's and many of us had a sense that if we only brought more women into leadership positions in education, medicine, law, business, that the mere presence of those women would transform the institutions. From my point of view it has become clear that that idea has not worked. In order for women to get to those positions and to hold them, they need to take on many of the characteristics of those patriarchal organizations. There are some important shifts, of course, but not the transformation we had hoped to see.
And this is why the current confrontation from Rome with the women's religious orders that are part of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious fascinates me and makes me hopeful. Here we have an indication of what happens when women actually control the organizational structure within which they work. Over the past 50 years, these women's religious orders have transformed themselves in response to the mandates of Vatican II. We see in them leadership that respects both masculine and feminine styles of leadership. We see in them respect for wholeness and diversity. And we see in them courage to pray, reflect, change and yes - to lead.
What we are seeing here is the absolute refusal of the patriarchal structures of the Roman Catholic Church to see in this a way forward for the church. We see Rome understanding what a threat to their authority - moral and temporal - these women and their religious orders are. Of course, these women have been invisible to the power structures for so long that they have had a chance to actually institutionalize the kind of women's leadership those of us at ACE's Office of Women in Higher Education envisioned over 40 years ago. If Rome and our Bishops force us to choose between them and these women religious there will be no contest -- a huge number of American Catholics will stand with the sisters who have demonstrated moral courage and authenticity and true service to the Gospel in the world.
There is no question that this is a critical issue for American Catholics. I also believe it is important for our larger society since it has both political implications, and it has relevance for us in our quest for a more just and more effective political and governmental sector. This story is as important as covering the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movements. It is based in the same spirit of freedom moving powerfully through our world.
So back to me. My undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland is in political science, with a concentration in American Political Thought. My graduate work at NYU was in Religious Education. And I attended an Interfaith Seminary in New York City - The New Seminary - from 1993 - 1995. I was ordained at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine when Dean Morton was there -- that courageous man who unveiled Christa during Holy Week. On a trip to Antigua in the 1980's I met one of Her Majesty's Submariners - he was one of a number of submariners on their way home to England from the Falklands. We went to dinner and dancing and when he asked about my education and I told him he smiled and said "Ah - religion and politics - the two things one does not discuss in polite company". I still laugh when I think of it.
By the way, Edwina Sandy's artwork is amazing and provocative in addition to being quite beautiful. So if you have a chance visit her website at www.edwinasandys.com I think you will be glad you did!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Slow Motion Fall
It seems that weekly, and sometimes daily, I learn of some action by the Vatican and/or the US Conference of Bishops that makes me shake my head and feel a deep sense of sadness. Sometimes it makes me feel embarrassed for them. It certainly makes me realize that as they move more and more away from the spirit and the letter of Vatican II, more and more catholics come together as church to move forward the spirit of Vatican II.. A deep divide, a chasm is opening before our eyes. Many loyal catholics of good faith have been trying to bridge it with prayer, action and organizing.
Then last week the news that the Vatican has taken heart breaking action against the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) broke open. All I could wonder was "what are they thinking?" Yesterday on Facebook my friend Magy posted an interview with a Notre Dame historian that was quite wonderful. Among so many important points was his statement, "It is a mystery why the church is turning in on itself".
And as I sit with that statement I have come to feel that we are watching a slow motion collapse of a centuries old authority structure. It feels like watching the Berlin Wall fall in very slow motion.
On the Vatican side of the wall, like the East Berlin side of the wall, is a vast expanse of monolithic grey concrete. On the Church as the People of God side of the wall, like the West Berlin side of the wall, is a crazy and colorful expression of life giving creativity and openness. On the Vatican side uniformity. On the Church as the People of God side unity in Christ representing the incredible diversity of God's Creation, united in Love.
Years ago when I lived in New York City I had the privilege of working with Edwina Sandys, a painter and sculptor whose monumental sculptures are a testimony to the freedom of the human spirit, the connections among all of creation and between what is "seen and what is unseen". She is a master at the power of void and space. Her sculptures grace corporate headquarters and United Nations campuses all over the world. When the Berlin Wall fell she accessed sections of the wall and created the amazing sculpture "Breakthrough" http://www.edwinasandys.com/filter/sculpture%E2%80%93public-art#Breakthrough and then with the monumental figures of men and women she cut through the sections of wall, she created the sculpture "The Four Freedoms" installed at Hyde Park. I've been thinking about that alot over the past few days as I let my heart ponder the ever growing chasm between authority structure and people of God in my own church.
Edwina's sculpture helps me recognize the life giving elements in this otherwise sad and destructive time in my country, in my church and in the world. The spirit of life is breaking through outmoded structures all over the world giving us hope and a sense of a viable present and a hopeful future. That spirit - call it whatever you will - is what unites us across national borders, gender, species and all other "differences" that have been cause for violence and warfare over time. Technology - particularly the mode I am using right now - supports this movement.
So back to watching the slow motion fall of the centuries old authority structure in my own church. I am hopeful, but not that the authority structure will survive and be transformed. As I look at the history of the Papacy I don't see much of anything in it that really serves God's work or God's people. It has always been about temporal power. Even those sometimes Saints who sat on 'Peter's Throne' like John XXIII, have only been able to create small openings for the spirit of life to come through. The structure quickly moves to close those openings and to reassert temporal authority in the name of God. What makes me hopeful is that the spirit moving through our worldwide church as Vatican II has taken such root in the People of God that we are revealing the church AS the People of God. Women's religious orders took the mandates of Vatican II seriously and over the past 50 years have come through dramatic changes. Their work in the church and in the world has embedded love, care and compassion in the very fabric of our world. By the recent attack on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Vatican forces our attention to the history, role and accomplishments of these amazing, humble women and their Orders.
As we focus our attention there it becomes clear that the spirit of life is moving through these women, their Orders, and those of us who have commitments to implementing the fullness of the promise of Vatican II. For this focus to our vision, maybe we need to thank the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Vatican.
Then last week the news that the Vatican has taken heart breaking action against the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) broke open. All I could wonder was "what are they thinking?" Yesterday on Facebook my friend Magy posted an interview with a Notre Dame historian that was quite wonderful. Among so many important points was his statement, "It is a mystery why the church is turning in on itself".
And as I sit with that statement I have come to feel that we are watching a slow motion collapse of a centuries old authority structure. It feels like watching the Berlin Wall fall in very slow motion.
On the Vatican side of the wall, like the East Berlin side of the wall, is a vast expanse of monolithic grey concrete. On the Church as the People of God side of the wall, like the West Berlin side of the wall, is a crazy and colorful expression of life giving creativity and openness. On the Vatican side uniformity. On the Church as the People of God side unity in Christ representing the incredible diversity of God's Creation, united in Love.
Years ago when I lived in New York City I had the privilege of working with Edwina Sandys, a painter and sculptor whose monumental sculptures are a testimony to the freedom of the human spirit, the connections among all of creation and between what is "seen and what is unseen". She is a master at the power of void and space. Her sculptures grace corporate headquarters and United Nations campuses all over the world. When the Berlin Wall fell she accessed sections of the wall and created the amazing sculpture "Breakthrough" http://www.edwinasandys.com/filter/sculpture%E2%80%93public-art#Breakthrough and then with the monumental figures of men and women she cut through the sections of wall, she created the sculpture "The Four Freedoms" installed at Hyde Park. I've been thinking about that alot over the past few days as I let my heart ponder the ever growing chasm between authority structure and people of God in my own church.
Edwina's sculpture helps me recognize the life giving elements in this otherwise sad and destructive time in my country, in my church and in the world. The spirit of life is breaking through outmoded structures all over the world giving us hope and a sense of a viable present and a hopeful future. That spirit - call it whatever you will - is what unites us across national borders, gender, species and all other "differences" that have been cause for violence and warfare over time. Technology - particularly the mode I am using right now - supports this movement.
So back to watching the slow motion fall of the centuries old authority structure in my own church. I am hopeful, but not that the authority structure will survive and be transformed. As I look at the history of the Papacy I don't see much of anything in it that really serves God's work or God's people. It has always been about temporal power. Even those sometimes Saints who sat on 'Peter's Throne' like John XXIII, have only been able to create small openings for the spirit of life to come through. The structure quickly moves to close those openings and to reassert temporal authority in the name of God. What makes me hopeful is that the spirit moving through our worldwide church as Vatican II has taken such root in the People of God that we are revealing the church AS the People of God. Women's religious orders took the mandates of Vatican II seriously and over the past 50 years have come through dramatic changes. Their work in the church and in the world has embedded love, care and compassion in the very fabric of our world. By the recent attack on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Vatican forces our attention to the history, role and accomplishments of these amazing, humble women and their Orders.
As we focus our attention there it becomes clear that the spirit of life is moving through these women, their Orders, and those of us who have commitments to implementing the fullness of the promise of Vatican II. For this focus to our vision, maybe we need to thank the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Vatican.
Friday, April 20, 2012
In the World or In the Castle?
Just read a great NPR interview with Sr. Simone Campbell about the Vatican action against the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). One of her comments struck me as especially pertinent. "When you don't work everyday with people who live at the margins of our society, it's so much easier to make easy statements about who's right and who's wrong . . Life is way more complicated in our society and it's probably way easier to be 8,000 miles away in Rome. . . " I'm thinking you don't need to be 8,000 miles away for it to be way easier, and for you to be irrevocably removed from the day to day life of most of the people on the planet. There is Cardinal Dolan at St. Patrick's Cathedral right in mid-town Manhattan and he might as well be 8,000 miles away in Rome. There are these politicians deeply opposed to abortion who are also opposed to contraception. There is Ryan, touting his "budget" as fulfilling catholic social teaching in spite of the U.S. Bishops Conference telling him otherwise. 8,000 miles away??? in where???
In another reality that has lots of deep fears about the realities of human suffering that we all experience at one time or another in life -- and some that many people engage on a daily basis in their struggles for basic, very basic human rights.
In the early years of my relationship with Alan, we stood next to each other on the street and we sat next to each other on the New Haven Railroad but we might as well have been 8,000 miles apart. I was working at a catholic college doing social justice work and he was a Park Avenue architect in Manhattan who belonged to the New York Athletic Club. I always wondered why he was attracted to me because I wasn't anything like the women he had relationships with in his life before that. One night his sister was in the hospital on the Upper West side of Manhattan. This was before it got really gentrified. It was a neighborhood I knew well. We visited his sister and then went to eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant I liked. As we were driving back to Westchester he remarked that he had seen more people with physical disabilities that evening than he had in months and months. I laughed - really hard. I asked him how many disabled people he thought he would run into on the New Haven, in his Park Avenue offices and the walk from Grand Central Station to Murray Hill. How many poor and disabled people did he rub elbows with in corporate boardrooms and at the very prestigious New York Athletic Club (at that time they didn't have women, blacks or jews as members but the priests from St. Patrick's Cathedral were always there) and at the yacht club in New Rochelle where he kept his boats to take him to his island. Clearly we were next to each other and simultaneously 8,000 miles apart - at least.
So began fifteen years of him trying to understand why I wasn't driven to make money and use it to protect myself from the suffering of the world, the suffering of life. And all the while he couldn't see his own deep suffering made all the worse by his drive to do everything in his power to avoid it. I was glad that in the last months of his life he found a way to understand and he found a way to come to peace in his own way.
A dear spiritual advisor once cautioned me not to have concern for what would appear as the "maximization of opposition" as our world moved from an operating principle of warfare to one of peace. I was cautioned to pay no attention to the reporting of the demise of the world of warfare, and to joyfully be about the works of peace. It was good advice. We are clearly in that time right now. Everyday brings the stark differences of orientation front and center.
This latest action of the Vatican to try to reign in the Gospel spirit of the U.S. women religious by taking over their leadership conference makes our choices crystal clear. Will we live in fear and warfare trying to shore up our control over life and the world? or will we surrender to the powerful and creative forces of life and take our part in ushering in a new time of peace and prosperity on our planet? Geography is irrelevant . . . trust, faith and courage are everything.
Godspeed to the women religious of the LCWR as they grapple in a peaceful, Gospel based way with the choices before them.
In another reality that has lots of deep fears about the realities of human suffering that we all experience at one time or another in life -- and some that many people engage on a daily basis in their struggles for basic, very basic human rights.
In the early years of my relationship with Alan, we stood next to each other on the street and we sat next to each other on the New Haven Railroad but we might as well have been 8,000 miles apart. I was working at a catholic college doing social justice work and he was a Park Avenue architect in Manhattan who belonged to the New York Athletic Club. I always wondered why he was attracted to me because I wasn't anything like the women he had relationships with in his life before that. One night his sister was in the hospital on the Upper West side of Manhattan. This was before it got really gentrified. It was a neighborhood I knew well. We visited his sister and then went to eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant I liked. As we were driving back to Westchester he remarked that he had seen more people with physical disabilities that evening than he had in months and months. I laughed - really hard. I asked him how many disabled people he thought he would run into on the New Haven, in his Park Avenue offices and the walk from Grand Central Station to Murray Hill. How many poor and disabled people did he rub elbows with in corporate boardrooms and at the very prestigious New York Athletic Club (at that time they didn't have women, blacks or jews as members but the priests from St. Patrick's Cathedral were always there) and at the yacht club in New Rochelle where he kept his boats to take him to his island. Clearly we were next to each other and simultaneously 8,000 miles apart - at least.
So began fifteen years of him trying to understand why I wasn't driven to make money and use it to protect myself from the suffering of the world, the suffering of life. And all the while he couldn't see his own deep suffering made all the worse by his drive to do everything in his power to avoid it. I was glad that in the last months of his life he found a way to understand and he found a way to come to peace in his own way.
A dear spiritual advisor once cautioned me not to have concern for what would appear as the "maximization of opposition" as our world moved from an operating principle of warfare to one of peace. I was cautioned to pay no attention to the reporting of the demise of the world of warfare, and to joyfully be about the works of peace. It was good advice. We are clearly in that time right now. Everyday brings the stark differences of orientation front and center.
This latest action of the Vatican to try to reign in the Gospel spirit of the U.S. women religious by taking over their leadership conference makes our choices crystal clear. Will we live in fear and warfare trying to shore up our control over life and the world? or will we surrender to the powerful and creative forces of life and take our part in ushering in a new time of peace and prosperity on our planet? Geography is irrelevant . . . trust, faith and courage are everything.
Godspeed to the women religious of the LCWR as they grapple in a peaceful, Gospel based way with the choices before them.
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