tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13346863864299903882024-03-20T02:50:29.955-05:00St. Francis Catholic Worker - MadisonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-70816499555464055972018-02-07T19:12:00.001-06:002018-02-07T19:12:11.924-06:00<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">“The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">-Dorothy Day<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Thomas wrote a book. It was the
first thing had ever written. I don’t think he finished high school. The book
is an alternate telling of the fall of man and the creation of a new earth. It
has many biblical elements, but the world is redeemed by beauty (yeah, the
physical kind) instead of grace. He grew up with no mother and a Pentecostal
father whose favorite verse was Proverbs 13:24. They couldn’t match his high
aptitude test scores with his behavior: getting kicked out of schools,
fighting, and using drugs. Not understanding he had an undiagnosed mental
illness and was being sexually abused by an uncle in secret, his family saw his
behavior as selfish and uncontrollable rather than desperate. To a family
living below the poverty line with five other mouths to feed, he was a problem,
not a troubled child. Kicked out before he could even finish his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">graduate equivalency</i> program, he had to
make it on his own. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Self-medicated and unaware that his
‘flights’ were treatable, he burned bridge after bridge until he wound up
drunk-driving into a young girl’s car in a snow storm. Ending up in prison
allowed him a modicum of medical treatment; they quickly diagnosed his
bipolarity and psychosis. As the years of liquor and ‘spice’ left his veins and
the medication kicked in, a clarity bloomed in his mind he hadn’t known for a
long time. That’s when the pen hit the page and he put his solitude to use. <o:p></o:p></div>
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After his time was finished, he
struggled to adjust to the new world and the freedom. He was homeless on and
off still fighting with his alcoholism, drug use, and mental illness. In one of
his moves, he lost the manuscript and it crushed him. That’s when he really
lost the little control he had had and ended up at our place. He lived with us
for a time at the Catholic Worker but we eventually kicked him out after some
explosive nights of drinking. We told ourselves we couldn’t help him but maybe
we just passed the buck. A year passed, and I heard from him in spurts when he
needed gas or a friend to talk to. I ran into him yesterday at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beacon</i>: the new homeless day shelter. He
was too broke to buy booze, but he had found his book and was writing again. He
told me that he just wanted to “make something beautiful” before he died.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite his desire to give back, Thomas’
story is tragic but unfortunately typical of those I have met out on the
street. Having lived a privileged life, it can be hard to empathize with the
suffering of those who are homeless and addicts. It is even more difficult to
sympathize with their self-destruction and greater still is the challenge to
actively love and serve them amidst all the confusion. As a Christian, I feel
called to do these things but I fail. That is why I love Dorothy Day; she teaches
us to serve the “undeserving poor.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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I wish I could say Dorothy Day
inspires me but the truth is, she haunts me. She started at 20 years old living
on her own as a journalist in NYC in the 1910’s and rubbed elbows with some of
the most famous writers, poets, and activists of the era before she even
founded the Catholic Worker. She had gotten arrested, beaten, and received a
presidential for defending women’s right to vote, all before the age of 25. She
protested against injustice, violence, and greed throughout her life, always
trying to get closer to that radical edge. She invited those without homes and
without merit into her own dwelling and, with the help of Peter Maurin, fostered
the growth of the Catholic Worker movement. She wrote and edited for the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Catholic Worker </i>newspaper for over 40
years. Her bold prose, direct action, and dedication to the poor seem to push
us out of complacency and into action.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">That
saint smoking a cigarette</i>, that was my first memory of Dorothy Day. The
palimpsest of history can smooth out the rough edges of the men and women we
now call saints in almost inhuman ways but Day lived too close to the present and
too close to the edge society to be reimagined as anything other than human.
Her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy, recently published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The World Will Be Saved by Beauty.</i> The biography explores the different
faces of Day:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>writer, bohemian, convert,
radical, Catholic Worker, and mother. The narrative is vivid, self-conscious,
at times painfully intimate, and always challenging.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This Thursday starting at 10:00 am, Hennessy will be
speaking in the Anderson Auditorium at Edgewood College (No admission fee), sharing
some of that gritty beauty of Dorothy Day’s life. Come join us!<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02267968713235724329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-64763059133923902832017-11-25T13:40:00.002-06:002017-11-25T13:40:50.464-06:00<div class="MsoNormal">
You don’t always know how your life affects someone else’s
and this is what used to torture me about working with people on the street.
Almost everyone you meet is in crisis and at first, you want to be the one that
helps them, that gets them what they need and that solves their problems; you
want to be their savior. Or at least that is what it used to be for me. But
after sleepless nights, wrong turns and letting people down, you feel like you
can’t do much.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Last
year around this time I met Jack. Although in his mid-forties, he had the air
of young man. He was smiley, talkative, and easily spooked. He loved crime
novels and had a penchant for the Beasty Boys. Jack had been homeless since he
came here from his home town of Gary, Indiana in 2012. He got evicted because
the heater broke in his home in the middle of winter and the land lord refused
to fix it so he refused to pay rent. After they kicked him out, he decided he
would rather not be homeless in the murder capital of the world, so he moved to
Madison. The whole not-making-it thing really messed with him, blaming himself
and feeling like a failure, he became familiar with the scene that the world
thinks is the cause of homelessness rather than a symptom of it. He started
using. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I met him after he had been clean
for a while. My friend Dynamite Dave, the most popular comedian on State
Street, told me about him. He told me he was a “good kid and could use a place
to stay”. Since Dave had just moved out of our place, we had an open bed, so I
met up with him on a windy Tuesday night in November. Those grungy loose
clothes hung on an athletic frame and he like to stand at distance when he
spoke mostly looking down at his large black Doc Martins. He had large hands
but when he shook my hand, he was as delicate as a child. His dry, measured,
and almost southern delivery sucked you in and he could look you right in the
eye and tell you a hilarious joke with out cracking a smile. He was in
perpetual agreement with anyone he spoke to because he was always nodding and
muttering “very cool, very cool”. He had a deep vocabulary from all his reading
and it lent credence to all the conspiracy stories he told.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jack stayed with us on and off for
almost the whole winter. We were friends and we still are. This made it complicated.
When the lines get blurred between guest and roommate, friendly assistance and
familial proximity, it makes it difficult to know how to act. When you welcome
people off the streets into your home often enough, you have to build a little
bit of a callus, or at least I tried, so that not every crisis brings you to
where they are and suddenly you collapse in a pile of guilt and defeat for
never doing enough. Giving someone a bed is not so hard, giving them a family
is much harder.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He started coming home later and
later, not returning calls, coming home drunk, lying and not showing up when he
said he would. I didn’t want to be his parent, brother, or even his friend at
the outset but now we were close and I was worried he was using again. If he
had been just some guy, I could have laid down the law, told him how things
worked, given him an ultimatum or even kicked him out. I could have told him to
never come around anymore. But if you know someone, intimately, that becomes
messier.<o:p></o:p></div>
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After so many conversations about trust and
honesty, second chances and being repeatedly lied to, I can remember shivering
in the unheated hallway of our apartment at 3:00am telling him that I couldn’t
keep doing this and that he had to leave and couldn’t come back. He just smiled
as if it wasn’t January in Wisconsin and almost as if he knew it was coming,
“Very cool, can I have a sleeping bag?”<o:p></o:p></div>
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He took it way less personally then
I did. He moved on as if he was expecting to be disappointed. Months go by, we
move out of 718 East Johnson and I go back to school. I have had trouble trying
to create a metric for what we would call success in the Catholic Worker. Is it
how many stomachs you fill? Or how many people you put on a housing list? Or how
many people you give a bed? <o:p></o:p></div>
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Two days ago, I am walking down the
street and I see Jack sitting there smoking a cigarette looking up at the new
St. Paul’s Student center on library mall. “Peach!”, I yelled, because see,
that’s his nick name (his girlfriend gave it to him because he is so sweet). He
offers me a smile and embraces me. As if nothing passed between us, he told me
about his life. He fell in love since I last saw him. He met her out on the
street and after a couple of coffee dates she let him. They gave up drinking
together and things are looking up. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It sounds like a happy ending. But
it isn’t an end to anything. Rather than seeing Jack as a character in play
whose life crossed mine and was changed in some kind of heroic way, I just see
him as another blind man walking around in a dark world who bumped into me.
Learning to think this way has allowed me to <i>encounter</i> people where they are at for who they are and, more
importantly, as I really am. At the end of the day, we can’t do much, but we
can be someone’s friend. For a brief time, we can share the light of our
friendship and learn to love just a little bit better. Rather than viewing our
projects or relationships as successes or failures based on their outcome,
maybe we should think a little more about our intentions.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02267968713235724329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-37671103333631308322017-05-22T20:59:00.000-05:002018-09-11T17:33:57.670-05:00Polarization and Easter<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.goodsalt.com/blog/rhpas0842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://www.goodsalt.com/blog/rhpas0842.jpg" width="342" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>The voice spoke to him... “What God has made clean, </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>you are not to call profane.” (Acts 10:15) </i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">©</span><span style="color: black;">Review & Herald Publishing/</span></span>Licensed from GoodSalt.com)</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does Easter seem disconnected from the anxieties and tensions in your life and in the life of our nation? It wasn’t so for the first Christians, according to their written accounts collected in the New Testament. They certainly experienced worries and conflicts, with polarization and mistrust at least as extreme as what we currently face, but the Resurrection transformed their communities and relationships in ways we can hardly imagine hoping for.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every year, on Easter morning, </span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041617.cfm" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the first reading</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> recounts a particular speech of Peter’s testifying to Jesus’s Resurrection: “This man God raised on the third day…” (Acts 10:40). But the lectionary never presents the speech in </span><a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/10" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">its full context</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which is a dramatic and miraculous overcoming of an acute form of polarization. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Division between Jews and Gentiles was so extreme that, as Peter explains, it was “unlawful for a Jewish man to associate with, or visit, a Gentile” (Acts 10:28). It’s difficult for us to grasp that kind of division as a daily reality, but let's try. What kind of house would you be uncomfortable visiting, even to the point of moral revulsion? For me, it might be visiting our president in his Trump Tower penthouse, decorated wall-to-wall with carved marble and gold. Or, I can try to imagine visiting the dingy house of a known child molester. There's not only the personal discomfort with being in such a place but also the apprehension—if not panic—about how others will react when they find out where you’ve been.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwfwveOGoA-5w_tK2I5bznw6nSdH9u-3iPPfg3GqnLYvlQsGgAZVz0ea6C1u6fJ-qJH3k72x8DM0WCTuJ7pBkx48lGJpBs2OE_OzGmyhdVmRJ_K-HvBhyphenhyphenSxSGfj0U60aabSqRZ_utG6ui/s1600/TrumpPenthouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwfwveOGoA-5w_tK2I5bznw6nSdH9u-3iPPfg3GqnLYvlQsGgAZVz0ea6C1u6fJ-qJH3k72x8DM0WCTuJ7pBkx48lGJpBs2OE_OzGmyhdVmRJ_K-HvBhyphenhyphenSxSGfj0U60aabSqRZ_utG6ui/s200/TrumpPenthouse.jpg" width="198" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">So Peter is understandably disturbed when he discerns God telling him to visit the house of a Roman centurion named Cornelius. His uneasiness turns to complete amazement when, as he gives his testimony (the one we heard read on Easter morning), it becomes clear that this Gentile is receiving the gift of the holy Spirit—the very same Spirit that he himself had received with the apostles not so long ago. Though just a day earlier he would not have considered even entering a Gentile’s home, he now finds himself exclaiming, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?” (Acts 10:47)</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What was it that made it possible for Peter to make this leap? It seems that even Jesus had a strictly “Israel First” policy. Do you remember his reaction when a Greek woman asked him to heal her daughter? “Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” (Mark 7:27) Jesus questioned certain sabbath regulations, but he was also known to say, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law…</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">” (Matthew 5:17). So Peter was not simply following Jesus’ instructions in any straightforward way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather, Peter's declaration may be one of the "greater" works Jesus spoke of in <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/051417.cfm">the Gospel reading we heard on the Fifth Sunday of Easter</a>. W</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">hat seems to have happened is that, following Jesus’s resurrection and <a href="http://madisoncatholicworker.blogspot.com/2016/05/fix-your-minds-on-things-that-are-above.html">ascension</a>, and having received the Holy Spirit he promised, the disciples’ hearts and minds were transformed over an extended period of time. For Peter, this—no doubt bewildering and painful—process ultimately enabled him to declare clearly that “God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:34-35) To us, the beneficiaries of his witness, this truth about God seems boringly obvious. Not so obvious, however, are the solutions to our own family conflicts and our country’s polarization.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it might be worth taking a fresh look at the explanation Peter gave following his bold declaration (Acts 10:36-43) and asking whether we are open to experiencing afresh the pascal mystery that so reshaped his heart and mind:</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-91a5bd10-32fd-c079-d90b-1b3f297399f8"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span id="docs-internal-guid-91a5bd10-32fd-c079-d90b-1b3f297399f8"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“[God] proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ... He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil... They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day... He commissioned us </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">to...testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">. ...that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”</span></span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-91a5bd10-32fd-c079-d90b-1b3f297399f8">
<br /><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we think about polarization, we think mainly in terms of sociology or psychology, of the impact of economic trends or new forms of communication. But there is also a <a href="http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/texts/eng57.html">theology</a> of polarization and its overcoming that offers insights and hope for our current struggles today. I hope to explain more in future posts.</span></span></div>
Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12311526144123537620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-22890090937200861242016-12-06T20:19:00.003-06:002016-12-06T20:19:57.170-06:00This complicated, imperfect world: An essay<span style="font-weight: 400;">This essay was originally posted on the blog: Messy Jesus Business</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://messyjesusbusiness.com/2016/12/06/this-complicated-imperfect-world-an-essay/">https://messyjesusbusiness.com/2016/12/06/this-complicated-imperfect-world-an-essay/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">I have always been hesitant to rock the boat; to challenge another’s opinion. As much as I would like to think otherwise, I don’t often get my feet muddy or my hair wet. The dirt splattered across my pants comes from my daughter jumping into a rain puddle, not me. I am usually complacent, confined to the rigid knowledge of my own truth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This was made clear to me after a pre-November 8 conversation with a friend.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">We had only been driving together for a few minutes. It was close to midnight and the street lights illuminated the road. My daughter Clara and I were visiting family in Milwaukee, and my parents had offered to put her to bed so I could see a movie with a friend. Adam and I had left the theater and as we drove down the road, our conversation turned to the upcoming presidential election and social policies directed at the poor. Adam works at a bank in Milwaukee.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Almost immediately he began to share with me his frustration over customers who receive government benefits: people, often minorities, for whom he cashes government-issued checks. He’d recently counted out money–income she receives without working for it, worth more than his own paycheck–for a woman he assumes is a single mother who “chose to have multiple kids by multiple fathers.” Adam continued to provide example after example of people rewarded for poor choices, supported by his tax dollars with no incentive to change: a system, he sees, as broken.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In that moment my mind flooded with memories of our collective past and stark realities of the present. I thought of white privilege: of how blessed we both were growing up each with two parents in stable homes in safe, affluent neighborhoods; regularly attending Mass (and actually, to be honest, he more so than I). I thought of my own stories of encountering the working poor while living at a Catholic Worker house in La Crosse. I thought of socioeconomic studies that demonstrate racial and economic disparity. </span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In the end though, all that I managed to say was: “Yes, it doesn’t always make sense, but every person has dignity and is deserving of dignity.”</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“Michael,” Adam quickly retorted, “You can’t honestly tell me that woman is equal to you in any way. She’ll never be. I love you Michael, but you just don’t understand how some things in our society work.”</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This is where the true test comes in. No matter how much I disagree with his statement, to him it’s absolute truth. There will be other examples from Adam’s work and stories in the media to confirm his bias, and new life experiences and encounters to affirm my own. He is tired of being labeled racist for “calling it like it is.” I will not change his opinion, and he will not change mine.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">And yet we still plan to see each other the next time I’m in town; still plan to share our beliefs; still plan to disagree.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">So does this mean we live in a broken, polarized society; one that is stitched together as a patchwork of conflicting ideologies and beliefs separated by intolerance, discrimination, righteousness, and hostility, impassable and unforgiving? Yes and no. I believe we live somewhere in the middle, immersed in the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">messy</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and difficult conversations and realities that have become flashpoints erupting and boiling over in nearly every news cycle: Black Lives Matter, the anger directed at police forces; lead-tainted water; Standing Rock Reservation; “Lock her up” and ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">But what we have to be mindful of and profusely share is that we’re also immersed in subtle reminders of that which is good and holy. Sometimes it simply takes an encounter or the reframing of a question for us to change our perspective. In a 2012 TEDx Talk, Father Gregory Boyle, founder and executive director of H<a href="http://homeboyindustries.org/">omeboy Industries</a> in Los Angeles, California, remarked, “How can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry, rather than in judgement for how they carry it?” </span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<div class="jetpack-video-wrapper">
<span class="embed-youtube" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" class="youtube-player" data-height="395" data-ratio="0.6095679012345679" data-width="648" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ipR0kWt1Fkc?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent" style="border-image: none; border: 0px currentColor; display: block; height: 329.16px; margin: 0px; width: 540px;" type="text/html"></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-weight: 400;"></span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">We are called to stand with compassion and not hesitate to step out into the mud, alive and riveted by this complicated, imperfect world … this complicated, imperfect life.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-66955436820741125652016-11-05T13:59:00.000-05:002016-11-05T15:17:42.885-05:00This complicated, imperfect world<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Handmaid’s Tale</i>, is a
dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood, in which a monotheocracy has
replaced the tradition of democracy in the United States following a period of
social unrest and declining birthrates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The country, renamed the Republic of Gilead, enforces a strict system of
government control that follows a literal interpretation of the Book of
Genesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Puritan structure of
punishment and state-sanctioned repression is put in place, and each citizen is
bound by a strict code of conformity and interaction confined to established
gender roles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those of you familiar
with George Orwell’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1984</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ever popular
high school classic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Scarlet Letter</i>,
similar questions and commentary arise.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";">At times it would seem that we live in our own metaphorical
Puritan-type communities, where cohesion and conformity—be it liberal or
conservative—are absolute truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stereotypes of one group or another (immigrants, evangelicals, tea party
activists, transgender students, Muslims, etc.) become factual identities,
rather than challenged assumptions; and legitimate concerns—employment,
security, immigration, global warming, etc.—lead to divided opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately, unlike the citizens in Atwood’s
novel, we neither live on that city on the hill, which some would like to
return to, nor in the darkened alleyways of Gotham city that some would have us
believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Instead we live somewhere in the middle, immersed in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">messy</i> and difficult conversations and realities that have become flash points, erupting and boiling over, in nearly every news cycle: Black Lives Matter, the anger directed at police forces, lead tainted water, Standing Rock Reservation, the chant of “Lock her up,” or ISIS inspired terrorist attacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are also immersed though, in subtle reminders of that which is good and holy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, it simply takes an encounter or the reframing of a question for us to change our perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a 2012 </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipR0kWt1Fkc" target="_blank">TEDxTalk</a><span style="font-family: "calibri";">, Fr. Gregory Bolye,
founder and Executive Director of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, remarked: “How
can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor
have to carry, rather than in judgement for how they carry it?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The poor though, could just as easily be
replaced by any individual or group which threatens or challenges our idea of
who is deserving of dignity, or of whom the Gospel directs us to embrace.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">In the midst of this recent presidential campaign, it may seem that
society is stitched together as a patchwork of conflicting ideologies and
beliefs separated by intolerance, discrimination, righteousness, and hostility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I myself have been hesitant to venture
outside, confined to the rigid knowledge of my own truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I encourage each of us to stand with
compassion, and to not hesitate in stepping out into the mud, alive and riveted
by this complicated, imperfect world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SjZCAdIFsdF_dbZX3UMqSOCrveGv4Rqbgz-XT8tBlO9P5ObTuDyHTAOnHXTEAKQmgWNbhcRs6gQEQVnAsJIRyJNZgFL2XIHhYjfRxcwQcU1I68Fv4dRmudjP0Ep_3ZdnTw8iR_S7ewy6/s1600/Autumn+Path.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5SjZCAdIFsdF_dbZX3UMqSOCrveGv4Rqbgz-XT8tBlO9P5ObTuDyHTAOnHXTEAKQmgWNbhcRs6gQEQVnAsJIRyJNZgFL2XIHhYjfRxcwQcU1I68Fv4dRmudjP0Ep_3ZdnTw8iR_S7ewy6/s200/Autumn+Path.jpg" width="112" /></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This is a complicated world,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but not for the sake
of trying.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">But how do we respond?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is
it that I have done?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Have I tried to lay
in the long grass,</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to wake early and
see my breath?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">When did I last wait to hear,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Not answer, not voice, but a bird,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>the woodpecker’s
sharp tap outside the bedroom window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I don’t remember when I last walked in the rain</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to look up and see
the downpour.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Am I afraid of getting wet, of tracking mud?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">How quickly I forget my coat, a pair of boots</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Do I even remember
where in the closet they are stored?</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgTsJtudIyLlCRYIWmDPULjDPlr54wqut1SUl0DVEU_4ETlpgdeEESzOquUFYmzVEoxrUJDBVBb3JzvoIZP34a8wL5jqyb4qNb0stAUGIGB095OGob8lPIESj__oNc4LeVU6jeVWWjPon/s1600/Muddy+feet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgTsJtudIyLlCRYIWmDPULjDPlr54wqut1SUl0DVEU_4ETlpgdeEESzOquUFYmzVEoxrUJDBVBb3JzvoIZP34a8wL5jqyb4qNb0stAUGIGB095OGob8lPIESj__oNc4LeVU6jeVWWjPon/s200/Muddy+feet.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I must go out this next time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">I must remember that it is expected of me </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to not remain dry</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>to track mud onto
the floor boards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is expected that I do not remain a stoic philosopher forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Good reflection never came from sitting at the altar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Unless I propose to be a monk,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but even the monk
must laugh</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>and he does look up
into the rain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">This is a complicated world</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>but made less so
because I am not a monk</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>however much I would
like to be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">And although not a religious</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I will still pray.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Perhaps I will even pray tonight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Perhaps my words will carry hints of the sacred.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">It is a sacred found in the ordinary;</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alive and riveted by
this complicated, imperfect world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alive and riveted by
this complicated, imperfect life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">And my feet have been introduced to mud,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>my hair drips rain.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";">Maybe I shall yet live </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"> or at the very least I will try.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;"></span> </div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-18540748752274261922016-10-04T13:01:00.000-05:002016-10-04T13:01:40.994-05:00Happy Feast of St. Francis of Assisi!Francis of Assisi dictated <a href="http://www.ofm.org/francesco/03testENG.php">these words</a> shortly before his death in 1226, describing them as "a remembrance, an admonition, an exhortation, and my testament." Though almost 800 years separate us from his time and cultural context, his actual words (albeit translated from the original Latin, and with one section removed here for length) enable a uniquely direct and personal encounter with Francis.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOEFchNt33YOWyerJgx-ILt6Br35ypYKYmzUXiUjhSDqf3M_KBLp-hn0fdpX5bN7x0iI0P2nhTf2LIqHNWwvjGGqm4uC4fQa1PD_nyVx9fcexsIuNKDacUvzirIxDi-gUIP1GDDHiMxQwi/s1600/St.+Francis+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOEFchNt33YOWyerJgx-ILt6Br35ypYKYmzUXiUjhSDqf3M_KBLp-hn0fdpX5bN7x0iI0P2nhTf2LIqHNWwvjGGqm4uC4fQa1PD_nyVx9fcexsIuNKDacUvzirIxDi-gUIP1GDDHiMxQwi/s400/St.+Francis+2.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Dancing Francis</em> statue at Viterbo University (La Crosse, WI)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Lord
granted me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: While I
was in sin, it seemed very bitter to me to see lepers. And the Lord
Himself led me among them and I had mercy upon them. And when I left
them that which seemed bitter to me was changed into sweetness of soul
and body; and afterward I lingered a little and left the world.<br />
<br />
And the Lord gave me such faith in churches that I would simply pray and
speak in this way: "We adore You, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Your
churches throughout the world, and we bless You, for through Your holy
cross You have redeemed the world."<br />
<br />
Afterward the Lord gave me and still gives me such faith in priests who
live according to the manner of the holy Roman Church because of their
order, that if they were to persecute me, I would still have recourse to
them. And if I possessed as much wisdom as Solomon had and I came upon
pitiful priests of this world, I would not preach contrary to their will
in the parishes in which they live.<br />
<br />
And I desire to fear, love, and honor them and all others as my masters.
And I do not wish to consider sin in them because I discern the Son of
God in them and they are my masters. And I act in this way since I see
nothing corporally of the Most High Son of God in this world except His
Most holy Body and Blood which they receive and which they alone
administer to others. And these most holy mysteries I wish to have
honored above all things and to be reverenced and to have them reserved
in precious places. Wherever I come upon His most holy written words in
unbecoming places, I desire to gather them up and I ask that they be
collected and placed in a suitable place. And we should honor and
respect all theologians and those who minister the most holy divine
words as those who minister spirit and life to us.<br />
<br />
And after the Lord gave me brothers, no one showed me what I should do,
but the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to
the form of the Holy Gospel. And I had this written down simply and in a
few words and the Lord Pope confirmed it for me. And those who came to
receive life gave to the poor everything which they were capable of
possessing and they were content with one tunic, patched inside and out,
with a cord and short trousers. And we had no desire for anything more.
We who were clerics used to say the Office as other clerics did; the
lay brothers said the Our Father; and we quite willingly stayed in
churches. And we were simple and subject to all.<br />
<br />
And I used to work with my hands, and I still desire to work; and I
firmly wish that all my brothers give themselves to honest work. Let
those who do not know how to work learn, not from desire of receiving
wages for their work but as an example and in order to avoid idleness.
And when we are not paid for our work, let us have recourse to the table
of the Lord, seeking alms from door to door. The Lord revealed to me a
greeting, as we used to say: "May the Lord give you peace."<br />
<br />
Let the brothers beware that they by no means receive churches or poor
dwellings or anything which is built for them, unless it is in harmony
with that holy poverty which we have promised in the Rule, and let them
always be guests there as pilgrims and strangers. And I firmly command
all of the brothers through obedience that, wherever they are, they
should not be so bold as to seek any letter from the Roman Curia either
personally or through an intermediary, neither for a church or for some
other place or under the guise of preaching or even for the persecution
of their bodies; but wherever they have not been received, let them flee
into another country to do penance with the blessing of God.<br />
...<br />
<br />
And whoever shall have observed these things, may he be filled in heaven
with the blessing of the most high Father and on earth with the
blessing of His beloved Son with the most Holy Spirit the Paraclete and
with all the powers of heaven and all the saints. And I, little brother
Francis, your servant, inasmuch as I can, confirm for you this most holy
blessing both within and without. </blockquote>
Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12311526144123537620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-45345360371330422592016-08-06T08:49:00.001-05:002016-08-06T08:51:15.134-05:00The Way of St. Francis Today<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the touchstones of Donald Trump’s speeches is that it’s a dog-eat-dog world: eat or be eaten. Everyone is looking to cheat everyone else and win by any means necessary. </span><a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/04/trump-favorite-bible-verse-221954" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By way of explaining his favorite Bible verse</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “an eye for an eye,” Mr. Trump put it this way: “...you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us. ...and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money...”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trump’s supporters, quite understandably, view this as an example of his truth-telling. They look around and see the world he is describing. In such a world, strength and even ruthlessness are needed to protect what is rightfully yours. Mr. Trump’s apparent prowess in grabbing and securing success and happiness is therefore respected and considered an example worthy of imitation by many.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Denouncing Mr. Trump’s worldview does little good. We need to know and live a different way and show it to others, as St. Francis of Assisi showed it to his time. The Gospels taught him to let go rather than to secure , to receive good things as gifts from God rather than to grab. Life during Francis’s time was very different but no less violent and competitive, no less of a struggle than it is for us. Yet, by all accounts, he was no less happy than a billionaire.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter Maurin </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">presented the message of St. Francis</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to the struggling people around him during the depths of the Great Depression. (Note that he wasn’t in a bubble of comfort and ease as I often am. He wasn’t primarily presenting this radical vision to well-off but bored people longing for adventure and meaning. He had lived as a wandering laborer for years and spent each day with people out of work and lacking even basic necessities like food.) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What St. Francis Desired</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOgbQoiz3qvu05Q2BIPiN0yBSGdt01WEoCprZSSh07-CA6agR6pNSqZDL-Kt7qtIXTjNcfzWkybMzNw9lL3sPDhil5fndRB3izoX1VfMpwTlxP6EhC0a6CxfZtbclowu4dj-VpKk-zT0It/s1600/FrancisTunic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOgbQoiz3qvu05Q2BIPiN0yBSGdt01WEoCprZSSh07-CA6agR6pNSqZDL-Kt7qtIXTjNcfzWkybMzNw9lL3sPDhil5fndRB3izoX1VfMpwTlxP6EhC0a6CxfZtbclowu4dj-VpKk-zT0It/s320/FrancisTunic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A tunic worn by St. Francis of Assisi <br />
(<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070909092349.htm">consistent with carbon dating</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">According to Johannes Jorgensen,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a Danish convert living in Assisi,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should give up</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">superfluous possessions.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should work with their hands.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should offer their services</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as a gift.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should ask other people for help</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when work failed them.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should live</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as free as birds.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis desired</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that men should go through life</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">giving thanks to God for His gifts.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><a href="http://archive.org/stream/CatholicRadicalism/Catholic_Radicalism-_Phrased_Essays_For_The_Green_Revolution_djvu.txt" style="font-family: calibri; font-size: x-small; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">source</a><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 1.295; white-space: pre-wrap;">, no copyrights reserved</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St. Francis lived this way for months and years before a few of the people of his town finally stopped mocking him, unexpectedly finding themselves wanting to join him. Years later, when hundreds were following him, people in those cities no longer looked around and saw a world in which everyone was trying to take advantage of everyone else. Instead of being lured into resentment and a hamster wheel of diversions, they were--and we can be still today--drawn into the joy and creative power of the living God.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz5Pqn-RgFaY8Hn5_cQ9qm8khOsK4JzkthpNOZTos54o6k53CcJ8JRvkKpAeXzs7WEwQmYBZBq5H60Knwo7iG1Za1ipd2MAM0rDaS2NqqS-GoWtpcy77X9T45njsfub9t6RIhQox8n-xpY/s1600/Eich-1952-seasons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz5Pqn-RgFaY8Hn5_cQ9qm8khOsK4JzkthpNOZTos54o6k53CcJ8JRvkKpAeXzs7WEwQmYBZBq5H60Knwo7iG1Za1ipd2MAM0rDaS2NqqS-GoWtpcy77X9T45njsfub9t6RIhQox8n-xpY/s640/Eich-1952-seasons.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fritz Eichenberg wood engraving</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.295; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12311526144123537620noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-67621641945814830942016-07-31T15:43:00.000-05:002016-07-31T15:43:18.138-05:00MCW Updates and News
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello
friends of Madison Catholic Worker,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I know
that it has been quite some time since we’ve updated you on MCW progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I would like to do with this letter is
share with you some of these updates, offer opportunities for involvement, and
thank you for your continued prayers and support.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In the
past couple of months, Sam and Daniel, two young men whom we met through St.
Paul’s Catholic Center at UW, have continued to dialogue with members of MCW
around the possibility of forming an intentional community that would receive
support from MCW.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After several meetings
and ongoing conversation, we have reached an agreement with them that beginning
in mid-August, MCW will become part of their support community for the coming
year – a one year commitment.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sam
and Daniel are two fine, committed young men who embrace the spirit of Dorothy
Day and Peter Maurin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although both of
them have jobs, and go to school part-time, they would like to dedicate a
portion of their week to outreach work in downtown Madison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are seeking the support of a faith
community that is willing to accompany them, support them, and provide a small
amount of financial assistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
in the midst of drafting a covenant agreement in which we will detail our
mutual hopes and expectations. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Essentially,
here is the plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next month, around
August 17<sup>th</sup>, Daniel and Sam will be moving into a three bedroom
apartment on the first floor of a two unit house on East Johnson Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sam and Daniel hope to host regular MCW
community gatherings at their place, including weekly prayer, open to the MCW
community, which will take place on Wednesday evenings from 7-8PM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will also look for ways to provide
hospitality in the neighborhood, as well as supporting local outreach
initiatives, such as Friends of State Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In addition to spiritual and community support, members of MCW have
pledged to provide a small monthly stipend of $300 to help them with rent or
other expenses related to their outreach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
order to provide support to Sam and Daniel, four members of MCW have agreed to
form a provisional board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The board is
still a work in progress, and if you would like to serve on it please let us
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, we have spoken with a
local attorney who has provided guidance on how to best receive and disperse
the anticipated funds that will help Sam and Daniel with their outreach
expenses. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A financial appeal will soon
be sent out detailing MCW’s status as a non-profit, how to donate, and how any
financial donations will be collected and dispersed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
sure that many of you will have questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some of them we can answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Others we cannot at this early phase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ll attempt to address a few of these questions below:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: Will this community function like a
typical Catholic Worker House?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will it be
open for overnight or day guests or both?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A: We
hope to move slowly and carefully in order to build trust with our
neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because this is a rental
property and not our own house we are bound by certain stipulations and
regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lease allows for
overnight guests to stay no more than 3 consecutive nights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sam and Daniel have agreed to this in their
written contract. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: How much financial support will MCW
provide?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A: A
few of us on the board have given our personal guarantee to raise $300/month to
be used for rent and outreach projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally,
the idea was that MCW would contribute enough money to support an extra bedroom
in the house or apartment that Sam and Daniel would be renting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will be making a financial appeal very
soon.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: How will decisions be made?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A: We
are currently putting together a covenant agreement in which we detail these
points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daniel and Sam have expressed
their desire for our support and guidance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have also set up a provisional board.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you would like to serve on the board, please let us know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We each have various talents and strengths
that would be an asset to our community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you are interested in participating, we just ask that you also
consider joining us during other events throughout the month, some of which are
listed below.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Q: How can I help?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A: First,
please let others know what we are doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since hosting the Good Friday Stations Walk this past March, we are
excited for this next chapter of entering into deeper relationship and outreach
as a Catholic Worker community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second,
consider helping Daniel and Sam move into their new house. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to save on additional moving costs,
if anyone has access to a truck and/or trailer that would be available on
August 12<sup>th</sup> and August 20<sup>th</sup> that would be greatly
appreciated. They will also likely need a few additional household items and
furniture; we will have a better idea of their needs after they have gotten
settled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next, plan on visiting them for
community events such as: Friends of State Street on Tuesday nights, weekly
prayer, shared meals, and other outreach ministries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will be posting the times and dates of
these events more consistently on our website and Facebook page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toward the end of August or in early
September we will be hosting an open house that you are all invited to
attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">And
finally, pray that we all may hear the cries of the poor and respond with
intelligent compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">On
behalf of the MCW community and Board,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="Body" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Michael
Krueger, Board Chair<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-75035629040015796672016-07-08T09:56:00.000-05:002016-07-08T09:56:33.310-05:00Responding to Tragedy
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the wake of the two most recent shootings of black men by
police officers, made all the more visible by the immediate release of videos
on social media, I am shocked and saddened by the loss of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am frustrated that this has become a
repeated event; I am unsettled that I am not more outraged or affected by these
deaths; and I am distinctly aware that my life, even with its many difficulties
and struggles, will never have the same level of uncertainty or fear that those
of a different skin color experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
talk of a society that is colorblind, but in reality we are blinded by
color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My color blinds and binds me to
my own experience and community, and I sit idle, uncertain of how to respond,
despite the repeated bang of the drum, the call for justice, and another loss
of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As I wrote this last sentence media reports came in of
eleven police officers being shot, five of whom were killed in Dallas, TX.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These officers were stationed at a protest,
protecting those who marched and called for justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five lives lost, now added to the two lives
lost before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Good Friday of this past year the Madison Catholic Worker
organized a Social Justice Stations of the Cross around the state capital
building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 4<sup>th</sup> Station –
Jesus Falls took place in front of the Madison Police Department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In remembrance of Alton Sterling (7/5/16) and
Philando Castile (7/6/16), and in remembrance of the five officers killed in
the line of duty and six who were wounded (7/7/16), I would again like to share
the readings and the litany of names that followed:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Juho54nJHczFCsnt5IBlGaMRgb2FROtudlo4Z8I2n2fAf620LNkJwzBzUd7T_SIBjkp6nb69mtuzp9oLUujTM1QJKlw6R0rlD7SUPZCSgZHRZTW984oiyxRxZDXW9CJNFt4coJxCdF7J/s1600/IMG_3542.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Juho54nJHczFCsnt5IBlGaMRgb2FROtudlo4Z8I2n2fAf620LNkJwzBzUd7T_SIBjkp6nb69mtuzp9oLUujTM1QJKlw6R0rlD7SUPZCSgZHRZTW984oiyxRxZDXW9CJNFt4coJxCdF7J/s320/IMG_3542.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Station 4 - In front of the Madison Police Department</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Station
4: Jesus Falls</span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Leader: <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In our city and across the country
there has been a national conversation concerning policing and its impact on
the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A level of mistrust and
pain has arisen, as those weighed down by violence, poverty, racism, and a lack
of opportunity stumble and fall under the weight of the cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are called here to recognize the
underlying causes of suffering within our own backyard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are called to respond through relationship
and forgiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are called to
remember the names of all those who have fallen victim to violence.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tony Robinson – March 6, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Police Officer David Stefan Hofer –
March 1, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Daily, members of the police force,
the sheriff’s department, and all other branches of public safety confront the
brokenness of our community – responding to calls of domestic abuse, mental
health crises, exploitation, drug addiction, and verbal assault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are witnesses to the very worst of the
human condition, but are also provided with the opportunity to offer a hand to
those who have fallen down.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Police Officer Allen Lee Jacobs –
March 18, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Trayvon Martin – February 26, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We heed the words of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. as we seek to make whole all that has been broken, as we look
toward healing instead of fracture: “True peace is not merely the absence of
tension, it is the presence of justice.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Eric Garner – July 17, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Officer Ashley Marie Guindon – February
27, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Violence is a cyclical event that
does not cease unless we are willing to take a stand and speak out on behalf of
those who are most affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must
commit ourselves to the Gospel’s radical call for peace, and not stand idly by
when confronted by injustice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Deputy Sheriff Carl A. Koontz –
March 20, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Michael Brown – August 9, 2014<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Presente</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We recall the recent shooting
deaths by police of individuals within our communities, specifically
individuals of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alton Sterling (Baton
Rouge, LA) – July 5, 2016<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Philando Castile (Falcon
Heights, MN) – July 6, 2016</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;">Leader:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We recall the recent shooting
deaths of police who were killed in the line of duty.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The five officers
killed and six wounded (Dallas, TX) – July 7, 2016</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; text-indent: -1in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">All:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Be
still and know that I am God.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Cambria;"> </span></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-5865124629089716842016-06-13T00:27:00.000-05:002016-06-13T00:27:23.132-05:00In Response to Violence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
In times of national tragedy or during moments of senseless violence it can be easy to accept divisive rhetoric or the condemnation of one particular group over another. It can be easy to uphold or tepidly respond to forceful opinion, or to retreat further from the challenges of difficult discourse.<br />
<br />
As we remember though, the faces and the personal stories; as we ponder, question, and attempt to understand; as we clamor for justice; as we embrace, but also appear unsettled; it is important to not let relationship be overshadowed by limitation; it is important to not let an identity based upon mutual respect and love be overtaken by an acceptance of violence and hate. The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is a reminder of this call and of our commitment toward peace.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2iCBzNAXaMNYCKJbTggL3EvkTLLee7sgzgPp-_x-erLgiabHlXsSQXgdXk0v5NNJQlz9kdGxCI-z-BFPJr5OiqHW74SdMhHvqoeqW9b7tIWIoN7x5rHNjGrO1AI6TBm96yo8I-oWIR0f/s1600/Dancing+Francis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN2iCBzNAXaMNYCKJbTggL3EvkTLLee7sgzgPp-_x-erLgiabHlXsSQXgdXk0v5NNJQlz9kdGxCI-z-BFPJr5OiqHW74SdMhHvqoeqW9b7tIWIoN7x5rHNjGrO1AI6TBm96yo8I-oWIR0f/s400/Dancing+Francis.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Dancing Francis</em> sculpture at Viterbo University, La Crosse</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.<br /> Where there is hatred let me sow love;<br /> Where there is injury, pardon;<br /> Where there is doubt, faith;<br /> Where there is despair, hope;<br /> Where there is darkness, light;<br /> Where there is sadness, joy.<br />
<br />
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek<br /> To be consoled as to console;<br /> To be understood as to understand;<br /> To be loved as to love.<br /> For it is in giving that we receive;<br /> It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;<br /> And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.<br />
<br />
Amen.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-37845402513407309822016-05-26T13:39:00.002-05:002016-05-26T13:58:32.002-05:00<br id="docs-internal-guid-f189d9d0-ee5b-7a64-6ce3-5850f0d39f63" />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dear Workers, around this same time last year, I finished a one and a half month hitchhiking tour of France with my travel companion Mike Elderbrook and found myself living in a squat (an abandoned building illegally inhabited by non-owners). I discovered it, a place known as Stendhal squat, when I was still with Mike passing through Paris. We had been searching for cheap lodging in Paris two weeks earlier when a friend said to try this address, that maybe some of her friends still lived there. Not knowing anything about the place, the people, the living situation, if they they would have room for us or if they even let strangers stay there, Mike and I went. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The first time I saw the dingy blue doors it was sundown and there was a grinning, mostly toothless, french man of asian descent named Loon smoking a joint and sipping on a beer in front of the “abandoned” hospital. Weary from travel, we had a short conversation in which he noticed my American accent and invited us inside for a break from our journey. He let us in with a quiet reminder to watch our stuff closely and offered us various substances to relax until he could ask the other squatters whether we could stay there. The spacious once-upon-a-time reception hall had scarred concrete floors scantily clad in tattered worn fabric. The unfinished drywall had posters, superb graffiti, and long ago written notes pockmarking its face. There were scattered beautiful paintings and drawings done right on the walls and floors. There were at least thirty bicycles hanging in that room with old refrigerators, old clothes, beer cans, and beat up furniture with a couple of twenty somethings lounging and smoking. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1adVBiGsbP-jlxXlAgJrUr6GiPQqTGts1xryYUaE9HWo9Qf3GkFbtpLkk36ZpX36G2hKwjMBwbOndrCRAw3vAioglxkzehpcxxBHTW22Y2bTHSSiW_85Ok07bQsl_oVPp1yYzpLW" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1adVBiGsbP-jlxXlAgJrUr6GiPQqTGts1xryYUaE9HWo9Qf3GkFbtpLkk36ZpX36G2hKwjMBwbOndrCRAw3vAioglxkzehpcxxBHTW22Y2bTHSSiW_85Ok07bQsl_oVPp1yYzpLW" style="border: medium none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="278" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Quickly welcomed and assured lodging, the tour we received of the eight level complex was fairly shocking. Alongside the hallways and rooms resembling the reception area, there were also a home-built stage and auditorium with high tech sound and light systems, a free clothing store, a not so small library, a pristine white dance hall, and an immense labyrinth of a bicycle workshop. It seemed an odd combination of a blooming renaissance and decrepit chaos. </span></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Later that night, we witnessed a borderline bacchanalia of the thirty mostly young squatters (between 20 and 35 years old) in which the dancing, hallucinating, table thumping, smoking, and drinking members celebrated their comrade's birthday. Although it was intense, it was amazing how welcoming and trusting they were with their things. We were given food, new clothes, access to their somewhat working bathrooms, and were offered a variety of substances. That night, we slept in an old hospital room with two stained mattresses and bug infested pillows while the party raged on a few floors below; I have never slept so well.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I decided to come back alone two weeks later to discover more about this lifestyle; I ended up living there for almost a month. The people who lived there were mostly french students, artists, musicians, activists, and scientists along with a couple of ukrainian refugees and me. The life there had a different pace. Some people had jobs and some didn’t but everybody was a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">freegan </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(meaning that we only ate “expired” or thrown out food which we found on the ground after markets or in the trash). The love of the earth and a respect for human freedom was palpable. Many in need of home, shelter for a night, or a meal stopped by on a daily basis and were given help freely and joyfully. Art, drugs, hospitality, music, and coffee were priorities and everyone took part in them. The daily schedule for many squatters was waking up at noon, drinking absurd amounts of coffee, taking various creative drugs to “enhance creativity,” doing some sort of work on a skill or for a business till mid afternoon, then drinking and partying till well past midnight every night. On a weekly basis though, there were plays, dance lessons, philanthropic/activist meetings and reunions happening there. There were entrepreneurs and scientists living there and continuing their research in the midst of this chaos. There was a bicycle workshop that involved dumpster diving for old bicycles which were then repaired and given to refugees who otherwise had no other mode of transport.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/T2zagnsAUG0yYioIT7mclt6AEtLQmavaqDW_S6WohbBym7DYV7DjEAByGXQxch4jEMPcK3iZI8DR1woBF2mxL5ZjCeRq8VUSVuDHJ2bLYWl-zcxRR3LshT_L_Ijy04HvVjTQUHqZ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/T2zagnsAUG0yYioIT7mclt6AEtLQmavaqDW_S6WohbBym7DYV7DjEAByGXQxch4jEMPcK3iZI8DR1woBF2mxL5ZjCeRq8VUSVuDHJ2bLYWl-zcxRR3LshT_L_Ijy04HvVjTQUHqZ" style="border: medium none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="399" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A complex philosophy structured life there, and if you can read French then you can find out more about it here: </span><a href="http://lestendhal.net/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">http://lestendhal.net</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. I thought I was encountering a sort of underground left wing rebellion against “the man” and the socially constructed “needs” that suck our soul away. In some ways, this is what it is but there is a different texture to it. I could not understand how such abject hedonism existed in harmony, albeit imperfectly, with a seemingly selfless philanthropic project. Of course there were the inevitable contradictions between philosophy and practice that manifested themselves clearly in the actions and words of my friends. Yet, hypocrisies, which are so rampant in religious, political, and idealistic circles, needed no tortured explanations to keep a false sense of continuity and righteousness within the community, but were regarded as a natural part of working through the neuroses of living in a postmodern world and coping with the seeming purposelessness spawning from the lack of an apparent rival. I couldn’t figure out who the enemy was. Was it the government? The USA? The materialists? I was expecting to find clenched fists but all I found were hugs and kisses. I didn’t get it, they didn’t seem to be fighting for something. It slowly dawned on me over the next few weeks though. There wasn’t so much a sense of fighting back but of letting go and easing into a lifestyle in which they could undergo change. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To use Girardian concepts, there was an incredibly underwhelming sense of having no enemies--there was no revolution of the “poor downtrodden rising up to crush the maleficent bourgeoisie who had cruelly enslaved them,” nor was there a “good chosen people trying to bring truth to the reckless non-believers before they destroy the world”; rather, there was a gradual movement away from systems based around conflict. It was an exodus of the self-proclaimed disillusioned starting to move away from systems that perpetuate various types of violence to give a self-defined feeling of victory once some arbitrary goals are met (most typically, defeating the “other”). And it was in this bizarre intersection of peace and rebellion that I heard about the murders and subsequent events in Charleston, South Carolina. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I watched as we packed the still warm bodies of the slain into ammunition to wage our old political and cultural wars. Hoping to make sense of the cruelty, we framed the events to confirm our pre-existing beliefs so that we could be vindicated and exonerated of blame by identify with the victims. We set up nuance as the enemy of truth because we are afraid of what conceding ground means for us. With the ferociousness of our conviction, we mutually blind one another to the very light we want the other to see. In the vacuum of this fighting we suffocate the possibility of any concessions--that a gun makes it easier to act on the violent and potent impulses that arise from rivalry and ignorance, but also that this same violence can manifest itself no matter whether we can access a gun or not. This pattern is played out time and again in different political arenas: abortion, marriage laws, the death penalty, and even what bathrooms we can use. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In contrast, I saw in these hippies a genuine goodness that I hope to see in my community and myself one day. It’s not only their simplicity and generosity, but their openness to change and live in the tension of competing philosophies. While not advocating that we all become drugged-up, hedonistic hippies, I hope that by gradually loosening our grip on a seamless worldview in which we are the “good,” there can be space for real grief to inform us of our daily collective and individual complicity in a system of rivalry and violence. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Now, almost a year later, I am trying to convince myself that this is possible in our present political climate. We should ask ourselves who we have set up as our ideological rivals. We spend much of our time decrying the various heresies of competing denominations, bemoaning the falsehoods of our political adversaries, and touting the beauty of our own just and informed ways. How often do we listen to the opposition, truly seeking to understand their ideas and justifications? I believe it is only in this spirit that we can begin the slow, underwhelming process of working through our problems without overcoming them as enemies, but undergoing them as products of our collective/individual human ignorance. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Love, </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Sam</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02267968713235724329noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-14374885667882632052016-05-14T14:50:00.002-05:002016-05-14T14:50:19.842-05:00Fix your minds on the things that are above<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We will go down fighting, I was about to say. But actually we are not going down, we are going up. We are progressing. In the long run, we win though we may have to go through the agony in the garden, the cross itself, to get to the ascension, to receive the Holy Spirit.</i><br />
- Dorothy Day, <a href="http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/articles/744.html">On Pilgrimage - October 1958</a></blockquote>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3nnkV3m1z3XOeJsKKNISSAWb1shqpAVoUDV3JLbR-KfKvNKUgzifVJm_7xKIraW5TOLwJnTOk53RJNfzXeXB6kZDqvL1_WBMShuAyKbpCxkuOl_6iTznYLmNuMLWYt-YJ11LPI5J_XPr/s1600/Benvenuto_Tisi_da_Garofalo_-_Ascension_of_Christ_-_WGA08474.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc3nnkV3m1z3XOeJsKKNISSAWb1shqpAVoUDV3JLbR-KfKvNKUgzifVJm_7xKIraW5TOLwJnTOk53RJNfzXeXB6kZDqvL1_WBMShuAyKbpCxkuOl_6iTznYLmNuMLWYt-YJ11LPI5J_XPr/s400/Benvenuto_Tisi_da_Garofalo_-_Ascension_of_Christ_-_WGA08474.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Ascension of Christ</i>, Garofolo, 1510s.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We “celebrated” the Feast of the Ascension last Sunday, though I didn't sense much celebration in the air. At mass, the priest greeted us with the words, “Joyful, joyful!” and a huge grin, reminding us that we are celebrating the Easter season. But then his homily centered on the sadness the disciples must have felt after Jesus’s final “goodbye” and the difficulty of major transitions in our own lives. I have also heard many similar homilies explaining that the Ascension is fundamentally about Jesus's absence, about patiently waiting until he “comes again.” Is the Ascension, then, merely something we begrudgingly accept is good for us somehow--akin to “Good Friday”--something we shouldn’t expect to inspire genuine celebration?<br />
<br />
Though it may seem that way to us, it was understood very differently by the early Christians, according to the Catholic theologian James Alison (in his book <i>Raising Abel: The recovery of the eschatological imagination</i>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This can be seen in passages like <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/rom/8:34#53008034">Romans 8:34</a>; <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/eph/1:20#57001020">Ephesians 1:20</a>; <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/heb/1:3#66001003">Hebrews 1:3</a>,<a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/heb/1:13#66001013">13</a>; and <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/1pt/3:22#68003022">1 Peter 3:22</a>. We are talking about something which was evidently imbued with great significance for the apostolic witnesses to the life and resurrection of Jesus: the happening which we describe when, while professing our faith, we say, "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God." ... Is that happening in any way significant to us? ... Insofar as it gets talked about at all it appears as a somewhat apologetic loose end to the resurrection stories, as if it were a slightly shameful way of explaining why Jesus is no longer to be found, at least in this form… </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
However, it seems to have a special importance in the apostolic witness; in fact, in [<a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/colossians/3:1">Colossians 3:2</a>] it seems to be the <i>sine qua non</i> by which Christians understand who we are, as well as being a principle of action. If this is the case, then we are talking about some lost understanding, something that was quite clear for the apostolic witnesses, but which has become so opaque for us that we don't even realize that we're missing out on something...</blockquote>
Alison translates Colossians 3:2 as: “Fix your minds on the things that are above, and not on the things of earth.” In recent days, my mind has been fixed most often on the things of earth to do with Donald Trump, as I suspect is true for many others, perhaps contributing to the gloominess I perceived on Sunday. Even as I write this, it is only with effort that I am able to resist checking the latest Trump news, although there is almost surely nothing new since I last checked an hour ago. So embarrassing--that is not the state of mind I want to be in. Especially now, in the face of all the suffering and vicious cycles in the world and our city, not to mention my sick children and overworked wife, I want to be alive with hope and able to envision the new creation Jesus is bringing about.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU9v4ipKaoKbyvyzbBbqgcICXPH05__rb8nil_qbbY5g_bpdUF972I4X7aGVyW66uEm0HVa6JJOeip8fwSrmSIzOwyIi58I7zuzDQKiopIiFvaf4ZjCco8HxRupxgYydDVRW7mg4z1SgiN/s1600/St_stephen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU9v4ipKaoKbyvyzbBbqgcICXPH05__rb8nil_qbbY5g_bpdUF972I4X7aGVyW66uEm0HVa6JJOeip8fwSrmSIzOwyIi58I7zuzDQKiopIiFvaf4ZjCco8HxRupxgYydDVRW7mg4z1SgiN/s400/St_stephen.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Stoning of Saint Stephen, </i>altarpiece <br />
of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, <br />
by Jacopo & Domenico Tintoretto</td></tr>
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I want to have the mind of St. Stephen, who, in <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/7:55#52007055">a situation much more dire</a> than I will ever face personally, "being full of the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said: Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God." As he was being stoned to death immediately thereafter, Stephen was able to follow Jesus to an extraordinary degree. He gave up his spirit peacefully and even prayed out loud that God forgive his misguided murderers. The subsequent conversion of just one of those who participated in Stephen's murder, Saul, would go on to transform history.<br />
<br />
As best as I can understand (with the help of James Alison's book, a longer excerpt of which is available <a href="http://girardianlectionary.net/res/ra_ch3g.htm">here</a>), Jesus's ascension to the right hand of God is the sign of his definitive victory, initiating the creation of a new reality on earth as in heaven. A victim of the most shameful failure and death imaginable--a supposed messiah publicly tortured and killed at the request of all the people--is now in the most glorious and exalted place imaginable. As we fix our minds on that, we too can receive the spirit that animated Jesus, the power to act creatively as if death and failure were nothing, and to free others weighed down by shame or consumed by resentment.<br />
<br />
Dorothy Day wrote of the ascension (at the top of this post) in reference to being evicted from her New York City houses of hospitality, the city having seized their property by eminent domain. I can only imagine how angry I would feel, and how overwhelmed by the pressure of finding a new way to provide for the dozens of people who had come to rely on her for shelter. She, however, had the grace to write:<br />
<blockquote>
We are not at all cheerless and can see quite a few ways out. For one thing we don’t want to borrow money from the city at six per cent interest (our own money, remember, remember!) We know that it is going to take some time to collect from the city the cost of our house and the money we put in for repairs. There is not going to be enough money to buy a house and repair it, as far as we can see, unless St. Joseph wants it that way and sends us the money through the Appeal which also has to take care of all our current bills for our household of over a hundred people. </blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIzETYXZfntJDh2rbqA1qqxNohzpJ5yVXl3Q5wgioEmXWjgrpwiYyMYbMZSezgw9L1prPPjti82jTb8n8N06SjLOh8hFp1uSuAZKy4hNqr9C2GIbr5Vif6Tx8NdAQIlyW7fVjyD9swACCA/s1600/Dorothy+Day+1959.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIzETYXZfntJDh2rbqA1qqxNohzpJ5yVXl3Q5wgioEmXWjgrpwiYyMYbMZSezgw9L1prPPjti82jTb8n8N06SjLOh8hFp1uSuAZKy4hNqr9C2GIbr5Vif6Tx8NdAQIlyW7fVjyD9swACCA/s320/Dorothy+Day+1959.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dorothy Day in 1959 (photo by Jim Forest)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote>
So what are the alternatives? We can rent a loft for our office, and for a sitting-around place for everyone. WE can feed them there. We can rent a floor of a hotel for our men and find an apartment for our women nearby. We can still give out clothes, we can still feed the hungry. And all this without any too great outlay of money all at once. We can stall along this way for a year until we find a place suitable and one which the city will accept as suitable and give us a certificate of occupancy for.</blockquote>
The creative, unhurried, and unafraid spirit of Jesus was clearly evident in her. Through her participation in the Eucharist each morning (among many other things, of course), she concretely experienced the crucified and risen Jesus offering himself for her and for all. Let's pray that our hearts may also see Jesus in his glory as Stephen and Dorothy knew him and so joyfully receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit that empowered them. As just one specific way towards that, you could try this prayer of praise composed by St. Francis of Assisi, which he prayed several times a day with his brothers: <a href="http://www.ofm.org/francesco/pray/pray06.php">The Praises to be said at all the Hours</a><br />
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Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12311526144123537620noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-10750820426154980522016-04-25T12:22:00.000-05:002016-04-25T20:27:28.066-05:00Walking for Mercy, Walking for Justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Twice, I have had the opportunity to see Glen Hansard in concert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first time was a number of years ago at
the historic Pabst Theater in downtown Milwaukee; the second time was last June
at the Orpheum Theater in Madison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
singing has always impressed me for its range and due to the sheer volume and
raw emotion that he is able to convey through his voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often, his voice emerges as a faint whisper,
but then slowly it increases in dynamic to a startling cry which then rises
almost to a heightened scream before fading back as quickly into the silence
from which it came.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He carries a
powerful voice, which speaks to the most intimate moments of life, and he does
so as though he were an old friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
song in particular, “Her Mercy,” speaks to that most intimate desire of
relationship; the lyrics end with the repeated invitation: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And when you’re ready for her mercy, / And you’re worthy, / It will
come</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In March of last year Pope Francis made the announcement that 2016
would be known as the Year of Mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
made this announcement without precondition, without limitation; not everyone
may be ready, but we are all worthy, and it will come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The works of mercy, much like the beatitudes,
are concrete examples of the gospel carried out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can be simple and straightforward—such
as feed the hungry, or clothe the naked—but more so than the action, we are
called to partake in the relationship of mercy that is not always so straightforward,
never simple, but always life changing and life affirming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the identity of mercy that was demonstrated by Pope Francis in
washing the feet on Holy Thursday of those who were incarcerated, of his
visit to the Greek Island of Lesbos with Patriarch Bartholomew to call attention
to the plight of the refugee, and of opening a Vatican conference challenging
the notion that war can ever be considered just.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The difficulty of promoting mercy though, is
that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for it to come</i>, we must also be
willing to participate in the pursuit of justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And sometimes, it is through the smallest of
actions—such as in a walk—that together we begin down this path of mercy, this
walk toward justice.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A few weeks ago, on Good Friday, I had the opportunity to participate
in a walking Stations of the Cross in downtown Madison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire route for the walk was roughly a
mile long; there were ten stations, each represented by a building or an
organization that sought to convey a specific theme or issue calling for our
attention and inviting a response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
walk was sponsored by the Madison Catholic Worker group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the first year that we had organized
this event, and we had hoped for a small number to participate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>75 people arrived that evening, gathered
together in Cathedral Park near the capital building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 4:30PM an opening prayer was read, and the
first station—Jesus is Condemned to Death—came to a close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stillness pervaded the park.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4IcyjmAJo92VkbszcdO0HtY4SJZGcEe4Bm46GuYk5YIW0m_laasa8tCX-DXsOZgVLOL0ahdwPPArIM-MkzPj7bVKSLALRdTrP2A6v3YrXKz7V7j0Vex4sKvt-2GENgcDcMcwIH3TnZ2jB/s1600/IMG_3528.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4IcyjmAJo92VkbszcdO0HtY4SJZGcEe4Bm46GuYk5YIW0m_laasa8tCX-DXsOZgVLOL0ahdwPPArIM-MkzPj7bVKSLALRdTrP2A6v3YrXKz7V7j0Vex4sKvt-2GENgcDcMcwIH3TnZ2jB/s320/IMG_3528.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Opening prayer at Cathedral Park</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From that stillness emerged the single beat of a drum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there were footsteps; slowly at
first, as we all began to walk across the concrete steps leading out from the
park to the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again a drum
beat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The voices of those
walking—whispered, hushed, some harmonized, others quietly humming—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus remember me when you come into your
kingdom, Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drum beat continued, keeping pace between
the footsteps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each participant carried
a simple wooden cross, painted white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stillness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Noises of the surrounding traffic; continued
footsteps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until slowly, we all stopped,
standing in front of the Dane County Courthouse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, amplified over the crowd, a reader
spoke, “The Second Station: Jesus is Given His Cross.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And
when you’re ready for her mercy, / And you’re worthy, / It will come</i>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxT_6BpRWnZ0a3X-RV2Iit06w0nmGGohyCR7ZUY9LiyhbPkXP-V8X9rjm4HE7Wn8P8jE_2TnC4fJf-clQ2sr9H3uve4UaRRqNICsQxCa6X8oy145rX6ZV7ubwD0-ka80FOVB0l9pfVjMlU/s1600/IMG_3575.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxT_6BpRWnZ0a3X-RV2Iit06w0nmGGohyCR7ZUY9LiyhbPkXP-V8X9rjm4HE7Wn8P8jE_2TnC4fJf-clQ2sr9H3uve4UaRRqNICsQxCa6X8oy145rX6ZV7ubwD0-ka80FOVB0l9pfVjMlU/s320/IMG_3575.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Walking past the state capital; a drum beat keeps pace.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Between the reader and those gathered, we spoke of our immigration
system, of families who had been separated, of those locked in detention
centers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as the simple wooden
crosses had names written on them—from a previous procession at the School of
the Americas—we sought to identify each station not with the historical Jesus,
but with a Jesus whose presence was still observed in the ongoing suffering of
the world today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eight other stations
followed in a similar pattern: drum beat, footsteps against the <span style="font-family: inherit;">pavement,
spoken verses, and then silence, proceeded by the next reader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each reflection focused on a contemporary</span>
issue in which the reality of Jesus’ ministry, the physicality of the Gospels,
was demonstrated by a modern day representation, whether through a homeless
shelter (#9), the state capital building (#6), the police department (#4), the
county jail (#3), or a veterans museum (#8).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The stations sought to encourage our understanding of mercy, and to
challenge our association of justice—not a straight and absolute path, but a
meandering and often fragmented journey into a greater depth of relationship
and a wider sense of community.</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span> </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OJEEjwGWuhu5AAzzFqPdPtY86QBxGhyMYnL6dbw1lwZ4PKmHaIS0Jm1GO6OEqyZ2hbH7YXcwTpC79WK5JlVNohcC1nVrw_9BnEGt0TF_RSorkZERXM_oOwVivCrVAIVqHELj4KEKUsKh/s1600/IMG_3624.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OJEEjwGWuhu5AAzzFqPdPtY86QBxGhyMYnL6dbw1lwZ4PKmHaIS0Jm1GO6OEqyZ2hbH7YXcwTpC79WK5JlVNohcC1nVrw_9BnEGt0TF_RSorkZERXM_oOwVivCrVAIVqHELj4KEKUsKh/s320/IMG_3624.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">The 8th Station - The Wisconsin Veterans Museum</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have now participated in a walking Stations of the Cross four times in the last five years; the previous walks which I attended took place in La Crosse, Wisconsin and were hosted by the <span style="font-family: inherit;">Franciscan Spirituality Center</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up until my introduction to this type of walk I had never felt a deep connection to the standard Stations of the Cross that can be observed in any Catholic parish and remembered each year on Good Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason though, this type of remembrance—physically encountering each station in a substituted form—reminds me that the Gospel is and will continue to remain an active presence in today’s society, and that Jesus’ walk to the cross is a walk that many stumble upon through no choice of their own, as represented through these modern day stations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crucifixion made clear the sufferings in the world, but it was the resurrection and Jesus’ encounter with the disciples at a later date which would render His presence to the modern world, incarnate in the stations of today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through Jesus’ resurrection we are able to encounter Christ in this modern narrative of the Way of the Cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Easter has brought us is an encounter with mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em>And when you’re ready for her mercy, / And you’re worthy, / It will come.</em></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">***This post was also published on the blog Messy Jesus Business, and in the newspaper for the Place of Grace Catholic Worker in La Crosse.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 107%;"></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13977704729315985526noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-3165844118986088672016-01-15T14:20:00.003-06:002016-01-15T15:01:11.848-06:00Pope Francis on the Works of Mercy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPv8JaOpyPirWWp7FxBz2VwJjDU6o2GvxWXd5Lvddoy2Znwy6CQH9OvWAFDp-qUJBmtYG50OPJaQhtk523lpnk8pkntCLqD4YRK7LpcHqgdwM19_bcWCtESvlG6eebCSXfrCv3ALAYbrI/s1600/popeinprison2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPv8JaOpyPirWWp7FxBz2VwJjDU6o2GvxWXd5Lvddoy2Znwy6CQH9OvWAFDp-qUJBmtYG50OPJaQhtk523lpnk8pkntCLqD4YRK7LpcHqgdwM19_bcWCtESvlG6eebCSXfrCv3ALAYbrI/s640/popeinprison2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope Francis visits the imprisoned in Philadelphia. (David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pool)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The emphasis Pope Francis has recently placed on the <a href="http://madisoncatholicworker.org/spirituality.html">works of mercy</a> is striking, and it is worth really taking in his words one month in to this Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. First, from <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_letters/documents/papa-francesco_bolla_20150411_misericordiae-vultus.html">the papal bull officially declaring the Jubilee Year of Mercy</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In this Holy Year, we look forward to the experience of opening our hearts to those living on the outermost fringes of society: fringes which modern society itself creates. How many uncertain and painful situations there are in the world today! How many are the wounds borne by the flesh of those who have no voice because their cry is muffled and drowned out by the indifference of the rich! During this Jubilee, the Church will be called even more to heal these wounds, to assuage them with the oil of consolation, to bind them with mercy and cure them with solidarity and vigilant care. Let us not fall into humiliating indifference or a monotonous routine that prevents us from discovering what is new! Let us ward off destructive cynicism! Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help! May we reach out to them and support them so they can feel the warmth of our presence, our friendship, and our fraternity! May their cry become our own, and together may we break down the barriers of indifference that too often reign supreme and mask our hypocrisy and egoism! </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVf8RmFdMrDnLPiEF4jCzHS0fWJjMIhzoCy3RrK9UtrKh3BJJLKa6P0zUIWUI3Dgwjm9IG8A7jF0wAcHj73ELTIJsAkckdy1EkzNOZBnGNPpYuiVCbilCxkQgdiLSLN8iFIajYgufIrpV/s1600/pf_sick_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVf8RmFdMrDnLPiEF4jCzHS0fWJjMIhzoCy3RrK9UtrKh3BJJLKa6P0zUIWUI3Dgwjm9IG8A7jF0wAcHj73ELTIJsAkckdy1EkzNOZBnGNPpYuiVCbilCxkQgdiLSLN8iFIajYgufIrpV/s320/pf_sick_3.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visiting the sick. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the <i>corporal and spiritual works of mercy</i>. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these <i>corporal works of mercy</i>: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the <i>spiritual works of mercy</i>: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offenses, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We cannot escape the Lord’s words to us, and they will serve as the criteria upon which we will be judged: whether we have fed the hungry and given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger and clothed the naked, or spent time with the sick and those in prison (cf. Mt 25:31-45). Moreover, we will be asked if we have helped others to escape the doubt that causes them to fall into despair and which is often a source of loneliness; if we have helped to overcome the ignorance in which millions of people live, especially children deprived of the necessary means to free them from the bonds of poverty; if we have been close to the lonely and afflicted; if we have forgiven those who have offended us and have rejected all forms of anger and hate that lead to violence; if we have had the kind of patience God shows, who is so patient with us; and if we have commended our brothers and sisters to the Lord in prayer. In each of these “little ones,” Christ himself is present. His flesh becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured, the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and cared for by us. Let us not forget the words of Saint John of the Cross: “as we prepare to leave this life, we will be judged on the basis of love”.</blockquote>
In his newly released book, <i>The Name of God is Mercy</i>, discussing whether the traditional works of mercy remain relevant today, <a href="http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2016/01/where-we-find-our-god-at-nursing-home.html">he says</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
They are still valid, still current. Perhaps some aspects could be better “translated,” but they remain the basis for self-examination. They help us open up to the mercy of God, to ask for the grace to understand that without mercy a person cannot do a thing, that you cannot do a single thing, that “the world would not exist,” in the words of the elderly lady I met in 1992.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let us examine the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, dress the naked, house the pilgrims, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead. I do not think there is much to explain. And if we look at our situation, our society, it seems to me that there is no lack of circumstances or opportunities all around us. What should we do for the homeless man camped in front of our home, for the poor man who has nothing to eat, for the neighboring family who cannot make it to the end of the month due to the recession, because the husband lost his job? How should we behave with the immigrants who have survived the crossing and who land on our shores? What should we do for the elderly who are alone, abandoned, and who have no one?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCvoTBr1ACnxQRB_bQHDL_O1X-T_yVM4yMvfAt6Ef-afDmZj8g1ckdMpCnE3QpQ_mGuo20UXu4vvuiM6aVwjAgAYmEeCdaxla-NEWhDz_0M5sQNAayxYr9eD0X2Oela4ewEv1RjEUVu9Et/s1600/Francis-feet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCvoTBr1ACnxQRB_bQHDL_O1X-T_yVM4yMvfAt6Ef-afDmZj8g1ckdMpCnE3QpQ_mGuo20UXu4vvuiM6aVwjAgAYmEeCdaxla-NEWhDz_0M5sQNAayxYr9eD0X2Oela4ewEv1RjEUVu9Et/s320/Francis-feet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Visiting drug addicts in Buenos Aires in 2008. (CNS)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We have received freely, we give freely. We are called to serve Christ the Crucified through every marginalized person. We touch the flesh of Christ in he who is outcast, hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, ill, unemployed, persecuted, in search of refuge. That is where we find our God, that is where we touch the Lord. Jesus himself told us, explaining the protocol for which we will all be judged: “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did it for me” (Matthew 25:40)...</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-20462444284447144922015-11-12T09:42:00.001-06:002015-11-12T18:12:46.888-06:00Recollections of a Madison Catholic Worker who knew Dorothy Day<span style="font-size: small;">[Editor's note: Several of us celebrated Dorothy Day's birthday this past Sunday by watching and discussing a documentary on her life. Barbara Reed was not able to join us, but she agreed to write up something about her experiences that we could share after the movie--particularly the story of her first visit to a CW farm, which happened to be exactly 41 years ago (on Dorothy's 77th birthday).]</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">In the early 1970s I was living in upstate New York with my 4 children and had been visiting and becoming connected with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker houses in New York City some 200 miles away. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">A young woman who had been living in a battered old car not far from our house had come to my attention and I had invited her to come and live with my children and me. I will call this woman "Betty." She was 20 years old and had dropped out of school due to inability to keep up academically. She was unable to work at a job without one on one assistance. Betty was from a farm family. When I spoke to her parents to make sure they would approve of her staying with us, I was told that she was "of age and on her own." They said that they could not "handle her behavior" and were not willing to participate any longer in her care.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Betty was not feeling well, and I arranged an appointment with a reliable local doctor. The doctor found her to be several months pregnant (I insisted that Betty and I talk on the phone with her parents about this. The parents were even more adamant that they wanted no more contact with her or with a baby.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Betty was slow in comprehending things, but she adapted easily to our family and we to her. In fact, we were sitting around our Formica kitchen table at supper one night when my 7 year old son announced, "God really listens! I prayed for another sister and now I have two new sisters!" (A 19 year old girl who had been evicted from her apartment was also living with us. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">As Betty's pregnancy advanced, she constantly said that she did not want to keep the baby. I was familiar with the complex nature of the local adoption procedures and reached out to my friends at the NYC Catholic Worker seeking advice as to the best solution.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">That is how I was put in touch with an extremely competent and caring young woman who was helping as a sort of "house parent" at the Catholic Workers' <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/National-CW-E-mail-List/_vNGrpb1G8Y/-NW4NoHFqVsJ">Peter Maurin Farm</a> on the Hudson River. (<a href="http://ncronline.org/news/peace-justice/its-time-rediscover-dorothy-days-voice-land">The Farm was designed to</a> employ volunteers willing to live as "Catholic Workers" to plant and harvest organic fruit and vegetables to be shared among those at the farm and with those at the two CW houses in NY City.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I was immediately invited to bring Betty there for the remainder of her pregnancy with the assurance that their contacts through the social service organizations and Catholic Charities they would readily locate her an adopting family. There were "no strings attached" but of course I was eager to spend as many weekends as possible helping at the farm.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">That is how I happened to make the first of many visits to Peter Maurin Farm and to drive there on November 8, 1974 with Betty, taking our other guest, Nancy along to keep Betty company. The rest of this article is copied from a letter I wrote in 1974 describing that visit. The most pertinent remarks I can think of to follow the showing of the film relate to: "what was life like in a Catholic Worker house during Dorothy's life time?"</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">Welcoming the Stranger</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">We arrived at 6:30 PM. It was clear but very dark. On the way from Tivoli where we had stopped to ask directions I asked Betty and Nancy: "Have you ever been to a place before where you didn't have to worry about being evicted because nobody has to pay rent?" </span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">Betty replied, "Just at your house!" </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">As we drove up we saw a rambling old house of several stories with lighted windows welcoming us. Two young men stood in the driveway talking. We introduced ourselves. One of them immediately asked if I was a nun to which I replied, "Oh, no, I'm just Barbara." They welcomed us and showed us into the house.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Inside, some men were sitting in the dining room talking and drinking coffee. We were told that dinner was just over, so I asked where the kitchen was so that we could help with the dishes. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Once in the kitchen, we found that dishes and clean up were already finished. Linda, with whom I had spoken on the phone came into the dining room to meet us along with a woman named Joan. (Joan became a close friend over the years. She is very quiet but does so much in caring for the sick and elderly.
She lives in a little cabin on the grounds where she always invites
others to visit and have a conversation.)</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">Joan and Linda really made us each feel so welcome, as did everyone we met. We all sat down together to have coffee. At that moment George rang the bell for Vespers. </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/3438498953/in/photolist-6eRcWH" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbgBB7Wzlny3m1XNyrY5jpV-nbyNlX_iabwlZ1lb93LYplJLQcaG-XwKgRHDgfN9SveV4jV_0YFn8HiLdJNbDRkIi4B2_5kbpQJqNW7ssqUrl5IcGncqch3z7QoIJQsCQHd84jbcgdUhU3/s320/3438498953_7ce41feb9f_z.jpg" width="226" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/3438498953/in/photolist-6eRcWH">Dorothy Day with Deane Mower (right) at the Farm</a></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/3438498953/in/photolist-6eRcWH"><br /></a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Linda led Betty, Nancy and me to the chapel where a few others joined us. One other person was seated in the corner of the chapel, an elderly woman sitting alone. I guessed correctly that she was Deane Mower who by then had almost totally lost her eyesight. We were introduced after Vespers and I made an appointment for a walk with her the next morning. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I was so happy to be there but so tired! Returning to Joan in the dining room we found our coffee waiting as well as three women in their twenties who had been outdoors all day building a barn! They had a connection with the Benedictines from Erie, Pennsylvania.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Emerging from the kitchen was a man named Chuck who was visiting from a cooperative farm where he and two of the barn building women had been living recently. Chuck was a most interesting speaker and I enjoyed hearing details about the farm and his life. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Chuck had destroyed his draft card and had simultaneously given up institutional religion in the 1960's. He then set out to build on the positive, simple, yet powerful, values that he articulated to us. I gave him my opinion that he is a holy person. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">We agreed that he was an inspiration to all of us. He showed endless patience in joining in picking hundreds of pounds of apples that weekend, in stringing apples for drying, and in the tenderness shown toward the large numbers of energetic and sometimes boisterous children living on the farm. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Linda showed us to our beds in the women's dorm. It is a lovely, warm room that has windows along two sides that give a nighttime view of the heavens and a daytime panorama of the Hudson River. Betty and Nancy joined other women in the room and went to sleep. I went back downstairs to talk with the others for a couple hours. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">I don't remember ever having spent a more comfortable night than in that lively, peaceful place. A true blessing for all of us...</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;">Note: Betty thrived at the farm. She was surrounded by the gifts of healthful activity, acceptance of her as a person, prayer, and hope. During her labor she complained bitterly and loudly about the pain and the inconvenience, but her healthy little girl arrived and was adopted by an ecstatic local family. Betty stayed on at the farm, content to work at simple routine chores. She relinquished parental rights and declined any invitation to have contact with the child. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/dayguild/status/448291365693042688"><img alt="https://twitter.com/dayguild/status/448291365693042688" border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyWUXCH8XELacZxL0fAcixUWOhCjRTAnFmh2w2WjrYCWozxAY5HT5pKX58CkoAjf9NsF19ikSW34O_v1AGNGPbUe38F7UQbAN1bwwlWFrN8sYr4dVIXjZWo5LQ4LFYEpbkyWoUKFCM1Rjr/s320/MealAtTivoli.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/dayguild/status/448291365693042688">Dorothy Day at the Farm ca. 1970.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Post script:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It was some weeks after that visit before I was at the farm at the same time as Dorothy Day. With Dorothy present, the routine of things ran pretty much as they did in her absence. One might find her praying the Office in the chapel, writing articles for the Catholic Worker newspaper in her study or peeling potatoes in the dining room among a group of volunteers. She was part of the rhythm of the functioning of the place but was in no way a "person in charge." Dorothy's demeanor was calm, but no nonsense, and purposeful. Many sought her out to discuss their personal concerns. She listened attentively and encouraged them as they figured out possible and practical solutions. She was extremely efficient and insightful but never seemed to be in a hurry. Dorothy lived her life day by day as a prayer of contemplation, caring, and action to bring into our world God's kingdom on earth, a kingdom of peace with justice. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-80966938529583097682015-01-15T18:13:00.001-06:002015-01-15T18:13:32.100-06:00<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Happy 2015! As it turned out, we all took a bit of a break to enjoy the holidays. Here's hoping that yours were spent in warm company.</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Thanks to Tim, we are on schedule to spend next<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1628870144" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Sunday, Jan 18</span></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with the Catholic Workers and guests at Hope House in Dubuque IA. Since our last meeting in the fall, we have connected to a few new folks who will be joining us for the trip<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1628870145" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Sunday</span></span>. </div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
One new member is Kathy Laubmeier of St. Maria Goretti Parish. Kathy has graciously offered her 7 passenger van for the trip. As Tim has indicated, we will plan to meet Kathy at Blessed Sacrament Church parking lot<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1628870146" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">on Sunday</span></span>. We plan to depart promptly at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1628870147" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">1:30</span></span>, so please come a bit early. Remember too that we may get to help with the serving of the weekly meal, so dress accordingly.</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
We will need to know for sure if you plan to attend the outing so we can arrange transportation. Here is the current sign-up list:</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Kathy (with Van)</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Tim</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
Marilyn</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="il">Jon</span></div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
So please consider joining us for this exciting first trip to another Catholic Worker house. We will be returning to Madison by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1628870148" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">9:30 pm</span></span>, in time to get ready for Monday's work obligations.</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
If you have any questions, or suggestions, please let us know.</div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="il">Dennis</span></div>
<div style="-ms-word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 14px/20px "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span class="il">[Ed. note: Dennis has been down with the flu this week and it now looks like he won't be able to make it. - Tim]</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-16407196712434738332014-12-10T16:09:00.000-06:002015-11-12T08:31:44.782-06:00Update from Dennis<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Hi
All,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u>Volunteer Reminder</u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Tomorrow,
Thursday, Dec. 11 is our volunteer night at The River Food Pantry,
located just a few blocks from Dane County Regional Airport. You
can get details and directions at: www.riverfoodpantry.org</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Here
is Jenny's email to me:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">"
Please have volunteers arrive by 5 for a brief training and job
assignments. Several jobs, including serving in the kitchen, require
closed toe shoes. We are usually finished by 8pm, sometimes as early
as 7:30pm. Just depends on how busy we are. Everyone is welcome to
join us for dinner. There is always plenty for everyone. </span>
</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><br />
</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Blessings,
</span>
</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Jenny
"</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I
plan to arrive around 4:30, but will not be able to stay long. I'm
going to the Dane County Jail to help out with our Catholic Ministry
there. I do hope you can make it tomorrow. The last time we served
at The River was very fast paced and enjoyable. After a couple of
hours of hard work we were treated to a delicious meal.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><u>Other News</u></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Tim and I made a visit to the release area of the Dane
County Jail (Public Safety Building on Doty St.) and were able to
meet a few of the regular visitors to this early morning reception
area and de facto warming shelter for those who come from the streets
or the Porchlight shelter at Grace Church. We had planned on meeting
our first Jail Transportation client there and driving him back to
his home in Avoca, WI. However, after his release, he was contacted
by his brother who offered to come and pick him up. I was glad that
he had family who was caring for him, but a bit disappointed that Tim
and I did not have the chance to offer more assistance. In the end,
we were able to supply “Bill” with a warm, lightly used winter
coat , a few dollars and the peace of mind that a couple of people
were waiting for him when he was released from jail. I came away
realizing just how quickly plans change for those who depend on
others for support. Although “Bill” desperately wanted to have
the assurance that someone would be there for him when he was
released from jail, he was not able to predict in advance what his
family would do. We may want to rethink our offering of help and
concentrate on more immediate needs. Making future plans and having
control over them may just be more than what our clients are able to
do.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">This
morning I met with three very engaging young people who are active in
a Catholic group associated with St. Paul's on the UW campus. They
call themselves Evangelical Catholics and certainly full of
Spirit-filled enthusiasm. They contacted us through our website and
wanted to explore the availability of housing for their homeless
friends they had made while working at the local shelters and soup
kitchens. I've invited them to stay in touch with us as MCW grows
and hope a few will join us for our next Round Table brunch. They all
have an interest in community living.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Things
are looking good for the upcoming trip to Dubuque on Sunday Jan. 18.
Please consider joining us on our visit to the Catholic Worker
there.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Finally,
thanks for your input on the radio interview. Charlie Petro
graciously accepted my request that he share his wisdom with the
radio producer. I really would have enjoyed the chance to explore this theme, but agreed with Tim that Charlie is the one for this. I've asked for a link to the interview once it has
been edited. The question he
will be tackling is a provocative one “Was Jesus an anarchist?”
Speak boldly brother Charlie!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There
are other things to report, but I'll keep this note short in hopes
that you will make it to the end.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">May
the Spirit and joy of Advent invade your hearts and homes this
season. We wait because we must. And while we wait, let's continue
to look for ways that we can work together to bring about the “Kindom
of God”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Dennis</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-82114256743974642222014-11-28T11:53:00.001-06:002014-11-28T11:53:29.684-06:00Visiting St. Martin House of Hospitality in the Mission, San FranciscoHello to all,<br />
<br />
Feelings of gratitude still linger from yesteday's incredibly enjoyable time with the family of our daughter's partner here in San Francisco where we are spending 5 days with our two children. Both kids have found a way to live and work in the Bay Area. We are thrilled to have been again invited to spend Thanksgiving with them.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, before heading out to our daughter's big food fiesta, we walked over to the St. Martin DePorres House of Hospitality (www.martindeporres.org) to see what was happening. From about a block away, I could see a pretty good sized crowd gathered on the sidewalk, next to an even larger clump of bicycles. The facade of this city lot had rough sawn planking holding up the tattered cloth signs and banners, one of which had a quote by Dorothy Day. I knew I had found the right spot! While this multi-faceted ourtreach program is perhaps not a pure Catholic Worker, the spirit of good works made the place vibrate in a way that we would all recognize as close to our founders' hearts. <br />
<br />
Once my daughter, son and I made it through the large wooden door, we were greeted by a couple of women and a man who were handing out tickets for the Thanksgiving Day meal. We explained that could not stay, but if we had, would have been number 229. The place was abuzz with excitement and good will, no unlike what I have felt when volunteering at The River Food Pantry. A 10 member jazz band was playing in one corner of the courtyard. Our greeter, Abby, explained that this band had the tradition of playing every year for this huge holiday celebration as they had done for the past 23 years. Abby has been involved since 1978.<br />
<br />
<br />
We kept our initial visit short. Abby and the others were obviously mulit-tasking as they talked to us, directing guests and volunteers to the different stations set up. They told us that they were managing over 100 volunteers! We said our goodbyes, but not before being invited back as volunteers to help with meal prep and serving. I plan to make my way back over to St Martin House sometime today or Sunday to spend a few hours with the other volunteers. I will report back with more details at our next Round Table/Brunch, the date of which has not yet been set.<br />
<br />
I want to express to each of you who have been a part of the conceiving and building of Madison Catholic Worker my sincere gratitude. Our small community began this year, and although still quite young and fragile, we are very much alive with hope. Building a community founded on shared dreams has to be one of the most fulfilling activities that we as humans can undertake. I can't imagine anything more worthwhile. Thank you, thank you, each of you, for the risks you have taken with MCW and for the generous time and spirit you each have contributed to this undertaking. My prayer is that as we look ahead to next year, we will continue to be nurtured by the zeal of Peter and Dorothy.<br />
<br />
Wishing you and yours a restful, joyful Thanksgiving!<br />
<br />
Denis<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://martindeporres.org/">St Martin House of Hospitality</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-674248124523691712014-11-14T13:24:00.002-06:002014-11-14T13:24:59.154-06:00 Next Round Table and Brunch this Sunday, Nov. 16<div class="long-description" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; padding-bottom: 10px;">
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Hi All,</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
This Sunday, November 16, from 12:30-2:00 pm, the Madison Catholic Workers will meet for our monthly Round Table and Scrumptious Brunch. In addition to fine food and friendly fellowship, we will listen to updates on the subgroup activities that have taken place since our last gathering. If you have not attended a brunch and would like to attend this Sunday, please contact us for more information. You can reach us at Catholicworkerofmadison@gmail.com. Please consider joining us. We would love to meet you.</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Peace,</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
Dennis</div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /></div>
<div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 10px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<a href="https://www.loomio.org/d/zjq8S531/edit" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="fa fa-pencil" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; text-rendering: auto;"></span> Edit</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-471675821956696262014-10-05T11:07:00.001-05:002014-10-22T20:36:55.861-05:00On Leadership and Direction<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Dear Workers,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I'm feeling that now is a
propitious time to assert my leadership role in MCW by offering the
group a re-articulation of my original vision for a Catholic Worker
in Madison. Your many thoughtful emails and posts over the past few
weeks have been encouraging and I'd like to enter this digital
conversation more actively by stating clearly what I hold to be the
goals of our group. I want to offer too a few of my strategies that
I have attempted to implement as to how to achieve those goals. If
you will permit, I'll write this initial installment and look for
your responses.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">First, I want to express
my gratitude, enthusiasm and optimism for what we have built as a
group to this date. What began as just an idea between Adam and me
while sitting in the Dane County Jail chapel several months ago has
now grown into what I consider a respectable and committed group. I
was reminded of this when at our last brunch gathering I counted over
20 of us in attendance. I believe we are on to something and feel
more committed than ever to accompany each of you in living out the
unfolding story of Catholic Worker of Madison. I believe that
Dorothy, Peter and the communion of saints are with us in spirit and
guiding our first steps, however clumsy, to create a house. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I want to reassure you
that I continue to hold the dream of one day nailing our MCW sign
to the front of a building, rented or purchased, that we will call
our home. I sense that this is a shared hope, one that each of us
holds up in prayer and expectation. I see it as an essential part
the glue that binds us together. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">From the start, I felt
that the establishment and running of a Catholic Worker House would
require the love and patience of many skilled and brave Workers.
We'll need savvy people with both the dream and moxy. While
starting a CW House appears to be no more complicated than putting up
a sign on a front porch, the successful management needed to insure a
consistent presence will come only after the group learns to work in
a community of trust. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">If we are intent about
encountering Christ crucified in the economically disadvantaged
brothers and sisters here in Madison, then we will need to take
certain steps to prepare ourselves for this unique, sacred and oh so
challenging work of mercy.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The first steps needed was
to attract others of like mind and heart. By word of mouth and
through the fine website that Adam assembled, we cast a wide net and
to my delight, brought many of you to us. It took a few months for
the size and shape of the group to stabilize, but now I am sensing
that we have reached critical mass. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Once the group coalesced,
I had in mind that the next steps would be to begin to offer
opportunities for each of us to “Come and See”. I wanted, and
still want, us to meet the people of Madison, namely, those with
whom we intend to work. And equally, I want a few of them to meet
us. My question is simply this: Will we want to work with this
culture? Will they accept our offer of companionship? Or simply,
will we like each other enough to want to commit time, money and
energy into creating a CW house of hospitality and prayer where we
can come together to share our lives? It seems essential to me that
before ever embarking on starting a house, that we have to know a bit
about how each of us will act and react in this world we wish to
enter. For when the chaotic demands of starting and running a
worker house push each of us to our limits, I want to have at least
a basic level of trust that we will stay the course. We need to be
“field-tested” so to speak. I anticipate for myself and for all
of us having to confront what I'll simply call culture shock. I'll
say more later on this.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">My invitations to spend an
evening at a food pantry or a morning at at drop-in shelter are my
attempts to take us to streets, to immerse ourselves, however
briefly, in situations that will both inspire and at times may
threaten us. What skills will we each need to acquire to stay the
course? Will we as a group have the maturity and mettle to
effectively and compassionately confront our fears, misconceptions
and biases in order to carry out the works of mercy listed in our
brochure and website? I want to explore this with you by
offering my “come and see” invitations as a means to reaching
our stated goal opening a CW house. We need training and immersion
experiences as a group prior to launching our dream. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Finally, speaking of
vision, I'd like to offer you a glimpse into what I hold to be
sacred, my c<i>osmovision</i> if you will. Dorothy Day and her
movement represents for me the closest expression of my own Catholic
Christian understanding of how to live a meaningful and happy life.
I am passionate about life, and have chosen to live out my remaining
years of it in ways that honor and seek after a loving and intimate
God who suffers with their people. I find my hope of personal and
societal redemption in the Cross. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">OK, so where do we go from
here? Not sure, but sensing the faith and energy of the group, I
feel certain that together we will find our way. As you may have
sensed, I am, like Moses, a reluctant and perhaps thick tongued
leader. I do hope that we will continue to give each other the
opportunity to try our out leadership skills, and be able to support
and affirm each other in these sometimes awkward attempts. We may
need to wander in the wilderness from time to time. Let's pray for
patience toward one another. I am grateful for Maggie, Tim, and
Adam who have contributed so much to bring MCW to where we are today,
and look forward to supporting others who find the courage to lead as
we journey forward.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In the Trust of Christ,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Dennis</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-35997457688047296542014-07-02T15:46:00.003-05:002014-10-22T20:40:26.557-05:00Bridges to Community<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week seven of us in the Catholic Worker community met
with the chaplains at the Dane County Jail and a representative from Madison
Urban Ministries to kick-off a transportation service for inmates released from
jail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were energized by the hope that
this ministry could bring to the community and the support we have been
receiving from all in the community who hear of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have recognized the lack of community support for those
in jail once released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jail is a
challenging environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, it
does provide structure, time and an opportunity for sobriety and with this a
person while there can develop healthy resolutions to take on the world in new
ways once released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, with little
community support and a lack of structure an individual can flounder in the
transition to the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When faced
with the challenges of finding housing, food, transportation or clothing it is
easy to enter into or return to unhealthy patterns of behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without an introduction to the wider
community it is easy to become entangled in familiar yet destructive
relationships from the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our idea in brief is to provide a ride from the Dane County
Jail to other supportive services in the area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We see this as a way to be with someone in that very confusing moment
when that person walks out of jail with only the clothes they came in on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many, they are walking into a world with
little support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though we cannot<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>provide for their every need we can give them
a ride to those who are more positioned at this time to help them make the
transition with success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see this as
a small first step in reaching out to meet what has been characterized as an
“ocean of need.”</div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Through a referral process in the jail system we propose to
meet individuals at the exit door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
will sit with them and discuss their plans now that they are free in the
community again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we will provide
transportation to social services and community support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are learning as we go but excited to be
off and running.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Peace, Adam</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-70821707223648984482014-05-18T16:19:00.002-05:002014-10-22T20:34:56.448-05:00Progress Notes<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dear Catholic
Workers,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I've enjoyed the
lively and thoughtful emails that many of you have offered since our
first gathering at Adam's house a few weeks ago. They have
challenged me to look deeper into myself to discover what moves me to
believe that our project is worth undertaking. In so doing, I have
discovered a strong desire to have some sort of a framework against
which we can bounce our ideas.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In looking for a
model, I found myself returning to a useful method I learned and
practiced while doing mission and development work in Latin America
in the 1970s and again in the 1990s. I'll offer it for your
consideration. We called it : Ver, Juzgar, Actuar,
(See-Judge-Act)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
While in Chile in
1993, our mission team used this method of implementing Catholic
social teaching to guide us. Our first task was to see clearly the
situation. In order to do this, we were encouraged to spend time
getting to know the people, culture, language, food, etc. Of the
three year service contract, the first year was considered a time of
learning, observing, building trust, often just hanging out with the
people we came to serve. The most frustrating part of this was that
when asked by others what it was we came to do, we had no clear plan
to offer them. Letters back to our friends and supporters in the
states were similarly vague on what we were accomplishing that first
year, as we strove to remain true to the method. Patience wore thin
at times. We attended endless parties, first communions, horse
races, fund raiser, soccer games, parish meetings, and funerals, We
established our presence and built trust.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Eventually, after
many months of what felt like idleness, we were able to begin to
ask the people we came to serve what it was that the community
wanted. Several expressed a desire to own a piece of land on which
they could build their own home. This became our project, our focus.
Progress was slow but the project was clearly a group effort, one
that began with the community’s expressed hopes and dreams.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
After a year of
“seeing” we were able to judge or discern how to best use our
skills. After a time of discernment, we acted. It was only then
that the group moved forward on a project that resulted in the
construction of over 50 small single family houses. The action
phase came, just as we were completing our three year contract. In
truth, it was not until a return visit some 7 years later that were
able to share a meal with our friends in the completed houses. We
were not around for the brick and mortar phase of the project, but
I'm glad to have been involved in the planning and organizing. In
truth, I would have enjoyed helping with the construction phase.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I'm really not
sure how relevant this experience is to what we are undertaking with
MCW. I could argue that our first task might be to establish a
presence in the community, and that opening a worker house is the
best way to make our intentions known to the community we intend to
serve. Showing up, I've been told, is half the key to success.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Another approach
could be to challenge ourselves to spend significant time and energy
getting to know the community of persons we intend to serve.
Ideally, I'd really like to be invited in. Several of us have
suggested ways that we can get to know Madison community. Sharing
meals and prayers with them seems to be a very good starting point.
Spending a night or two at the shelters might also be helpful. I'd
be honored and thrilled if I were offered the chance to sleep out
with them on the streets. I wonder what a person who is homeless
considers to be his or her “home”. I'll need to learn how to
respect that space. My hope is that through some of these
conversations, we might be called to serve, and that this call to
service can be translated into what will become Madison Catholic
Worker.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Frankly, at times
I feel overwhelmed with what I need to learn in order to be
effective. I can't help remembering how utterly helpless and
ineffective I felt those first few months in Chile. I'll need the
support of our CW community to remain focused. May the Spirit guide
us as we move ahead. I believe we have the will and the skill to
create a Catholic Worker presence in Madison.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Finally, here is a
quote on the See- Judge- Act model:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Pope John XXIII
wrote in one of his encyclicals:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #777777;">“</span><span style="color: #777777;"><span style="font-family: Bitter, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">First,
one reviews the concrete situation; secondly, one forms a judgment on
it in the light of these same principles; thirdly, one decides what
in the circumstances can and should be done to implement these
principles. These are the three stages that are usually expressed in
the three terms: look, judge, act.”</span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Here is a PDF that
elaborates on the See-Judge-Act model.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.catholicsofpleasanton.org/SJ_CST%20I%20&%20II.pdf">http://www.catholicsofpleasanton.org/SJ_CST%20I%20&%20II.pdf</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In Christ's Peace,</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Dennis</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-42986916734883041442014-03-26T21:26:00.000-05:002014-10-22T20:38:06.158-05:00An Open Letter To All Prospective Madison Catholic Workers<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I want to thank you for your interest
in the Catholic Worker being formed here in Madison, Wisconsin.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Currently we are in the very beginning
stages of a process of prayer, discernment and dialogue that we hope
will lead to the formation of a Catholic Worker presences here in
Wisconsin's capital city. To our knowledge there has not been a CW
group in this city, so we are essentially building from scratch.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Here is a brief history of how we
arrived at a place where we felt confident enough to launch a website
and begin to invite others to join us.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
About 2 years ago, Adam Lewandowski and
I began volunteering weekly at our local Dane County Jail to serve as
Catholic lay ministers for the men and women of the maximum security
section of this jail. Our presences there is limited to providing a liturgy and small group sharing time weekly to a group of about 20 men and 10
women. Soon, through talking with the inmates who came to our
chapel service, we began to learn of the challenges that this
population faced after their release. We began to consider other
ways to accompany them.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We were moved to act by another
group as well. While waiting each week in the lobby of the City
County Builder which houses the jail, we met with several members of
the homeless community who rest and often sleep in and around this
public facility. Our awareness of these people's temporal and
spiritual needs influenced in no small way our desire to search for a
way engage ourselves in the Catholic Works of Mercy. Soon enough,
we were considering Dorothy and Peter's model as way to respond to
the Spirit-guided urgings of our consciousnesses.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Our current group of organizers remains
under 10 members. We are planning to meet after Easter to begin a
more formal process of facilitated conversations. I am happy to
report that the small group possesses a strong “can-do” spirit
and a deep commitment to Catholic prayer and social values. At this
writing we have not yet formalized our vision, but have built an
initial sense of trust that together we can contribute a collective
portion toward the building of the reign of God.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
So, if you are interested in what we
have built or what we dream of building, we invite you to keep in
touch. If you are looking for an established Catholic Worker
community that you can join in the near future, we can't currently
offer you anything. Madison, however, possesses many options for
community and alternative living, so please check out the city for
other options. We will certainly be forming an extended community of
Catholic Workers very soon and will welcome you into this circle of
prayer and community.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the meantime, I invite you to read
over the Means and Purpose of Catholic Worker . This is a general
description, one we hope to use as a guiding voice as we walk
together in the spirit of Dorothy and Peter.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<a href="http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/daytext.cfm?TextID=182">http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/daytext.cfm?TextID=182</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Please contact us if you are in town
and would like to meet with us over a cup of coffee or tea.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-35238192650493049102014-03-09T20:31:00.001-05:002014-10-22T20:37:48.981-05:00Visit to St. Francis House, Columbia MissouriLast week I visited the St. Francis Catholic Worker House in Columbia, Mo, the city of my college Alma-mater school, University of Missouri. After getting slightly lost due to Google maps not knowing that I meant to type Rangeline St. and not Rangeline Rd., I pulled up to a well built two story brick home located in a neighborhood that appears to be in need of a bit of urban renewal.<br />
<br />
I arrived around 8:30 am, and was greeted by a 75-80 year old guest who was sitting on the front porch enjoying a smoke. He invited me inside, where I met Steve Jacobs, one of the long time Workers of this house. Steve poured me a a cup of coffee and we sat down a very large wood plank table, accompanied by a few other guests who were finishing their breakfast of fresh fruit and glazed donuts.<br />
<br />
Steve's warm smile and calm manner made me feel welcome almost immediately so I launched into a brief explanation of the purpose of my visit. I told Steve that I first came across a Catholic Worker House while living in Chicago back in the 1980s. There in the neighborhood of Uptown, my partner Nancy and I were occasional guests at the evening meal. There we were introduced to the works of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the founders of Catholic Worker, and saw the old Catholic works of mercy put into action. This experience produced in me a certain solid hope that some day I would have the chance to reconnect to this powerful work. Other pursuits filled the years since then, but the dream never really went away.<br />
<br />
Steve then told his story. After serving a couple of years in the Philippines during the waning years of the Vietnam War, he became a conscious objector and returned to the US to study to be a Registered Nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Columbia. When Phillip Berrigan came to town to speak on the Vietnam War, Steve was asked to accompany this priest/activist. It was Phillip Berrigan who first introduced Steve to the Catholic Worker Movement. From there he and his wife initiated a soup kitchen with others who attended the Catholic Newman Center on the MU campus. Soon their local movement grew, and they were able to put a down payment on the house.<br />
<br />
What surprised me the most perhaps centers on the large number of groups and individuals that are connected to this project. At the soup kitchen that began in the early 1980s, groups of Christians, Jews and Muslims take turns preparing and serving those in need. For reasons you will surely appreciate if you read any of the writings of Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker tends to attract people of all faiths and philosophies. Their autonomous houses operate independently of any formal religious organization or structure and often do not even enjoy federal tax exempt status. Dorothy simply wanted to be unencumbered by such relationships. She was fiercely independent and beholding only to the God she followed.<br />
<br />
I shared with Steve my dream of a Catholic Worker house in Madison. Although I do hope that some day we would be able to offer temporary housing to those in need, I explained that the group will begin by opening a day shelter or perhaps an occasional noon meal. Once we gain some support both from the neighborhood community as well as from interested volunteers, we will consider allowing the project to expand. I'd rather start with a modest goal that increases our chances of success than bite off more than we can handle. I am still of the mind that small is beautiful.<br />
<br />
I want to thank those of you who have encouraged and prodded me over the years to act on this dream. Now that Adam and a few other key people have offered their help, I feel ready to move forward and put some wings on this idea. Currently we are forming a non profit corporation and opening a bank account that will allow us to receive the gifts many of you have so generously offered these past few months. For those of you wanting or needing to donate to a tax exempt entity, please stay tuned, we are looking into ways to make this happen. To those of you who have written or called to offer your time and talents, please expect a follow up phone call from one of us. We are just in the initial stages, but sense from your inquiries and offers that the Spirit is moving to bring this little project to life. Please contact us with any ideas, questions or thoughts. At this early point of departure, your influence will be quite strong in shaping our future.<br />
<br />
In the mean time, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We seek to remain guided by the Spirit as we move ahead, depending on grace, both divine and temporal to carry out the works of mercy that our faith calls us to.<br />
<br />
Peace,<br />
DennisUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1334686386429990388.post-46489066382615220142014-02-02T17:55:00.000-06:002014-10-22T20:57:05.011-05:00Starting a Catholic Worker<div class="MsoNormal">
A few days ago we launched <a href="http://madisoncatholicworker.org/">madisoncatholicworker.org</a> and our site is live! And now welcome to the St. Francis House blog. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here we can keep up to date with the latest happenings at St. Francis Catholic Worker. I mentioned the
Madison Catholic Worker with a few people this
morning and it was enthusiastically received.
It is a project that is in the thoughts and hearts of many in Madison, I
think... I encourage others to post comments with
thoughts and hopes on a Catholic Worker project in Madison. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had an experience this week that was a well-timed
motivator for encouraging this project along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have been a part of the Dane County Jail Ministry team for a few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This week five of our team went as usual to
the Thursday night jail ministry. The theme that night was “asking God for what you desire.” I was not feeling particularly enthusiastic this
week. Sometimes I think the Rolling Stones might have gotten it right, “You can’t always get what you want” though you might
get what you need. But I was evangelized
by one of the inmates at the end of our service who came up to me and said that
the discussion reminded him of an old gospel hymn, “Jesus is on the
Mainline” Just call him up and if keep at it long enough you can get to God. That is the point. We might not
get what we want but we will get nearer to God and God is ultimately the only
thing that we really desire – God is the fulfillment of our deepest wants. I went home and learned that hymn – which I
discovered has been performed by everybody from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnpoqJ7Jh1Y">Mississippi Mass Choir</a> to
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=andF6aj7yHM">Aerosmith</a>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the reason for my sharing this is that I was evangelized
by that inmate on Thursday and found hope and encouragement through him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Working with the poor can be like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t offer much but we gain tremendously
if the poor can forgive us our better-than-you charitable attitude and if we
can open our hearts a little.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
often the rich who have the biggest barriers because we think we have so much
to loose if we let go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But God is
already there with the poor – so if we put up a barrier to poverty – we put up
a barrier to God. Can we lower our barriers even a little? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think this Catholic Worker project might be
a way to do that. By living closely with
and being connected with those who have less and even more so being one
with the poor, by accepting our own poverty, “them” turns into “us” and true charity
and communion can begin. So here’s to
hoping for a greater authenticity in our relationships to one another including
the least (which is sometimes ourselves).
And also here’s to hoping that St. Francis Catholic Worker might be a
vehicle to that greater openness of heart to God in our neighbor.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2