News from Sophia Christi

A few days ago I came across a video of a mom and her two young teenage sons that brought tears to my eyes. They had recently moved to a town just outside of Kansas City, Kansas. It was their 13^th move in the 15-year-old’s life as the family followed the dad from one job transfer to the next. But shortly after this particular move, the dad left the family to fend on its own. The 12-year-old found solace riding his bike through the nearby forest park.

The mom had an idea one day as she wandered through that forest looking for ways to handle her grief and the pain and anger of her sons. With their help, she would build a habitat in the forest for fairies and gnomes! The boys got into the project. They built miniature tables and chairs, cupboards, cups and saucers. They painstakingly painted and decorated tiny rustic household furnishings. In the hollows of trees, on stumps, under branches, in hidden nooks and crannies throughout the forest, tiny doors, complete with hinges and doorknobs, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Opening the doors, children and adults would find tiny, furnished homes. A steaming miniature teapot and mug on the table in one suggested the occupants may have left in a hurry! The detail was extraordinary.

One day a sign appeared letting people know they were entering the “Firefly Forest.” Another day people were invited to write notes to the inhabitants and attach them to a string tied to the branch of a tree. So much curiosity was generated that the story found its way to the local news channel where a TV anchor raised the question on everyone’s mind: how were these tiny gnome houses erupting in the forest? Who was behind it—and why? (more…)

Mother Teresa once told this story about a family with eight children who had not eaten for days. A man appeared at the convent door one evening bringing news of the family, and Mother Teresa immediately gathered some food and went to the family home. “When I finally arrived,” she said, “I saw the faces of those little children disfigured by hunger, but there was no sorrow or sadness in them, just the deep pain of hunger. I gave rice to the mother and she divided it in two, then went out carrying half the rice with her. “When she came back I asked where she had gone and she answered, “To my neighbors—they are hungry also.”

In another story, a woman I’ll call Chelsea saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald’s recently and bought the man a cheeseburger. This wouldn’t be unusual except that Chelsea is also homeless and the 99¢ hamburger was a large chunk of the $7.50 she’d earned from panhandling that day.

A U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey of consumer spending found that the poorest fifth of American households contributed an average of 4.3% of their income to charitable organizations. The richest fifth gave just 2.1%–less than half that rate. The generosity of the poor is also higher in hard times than the generosity of the wealthy. Those in the bottom fifth of the income bracket always give more than their capacity, the next two-fifths give at their capacity, and the top two-fifths could give two to three times more than they do. Knowing what it is to have little or nothing, the poor tend to share what they have with those they see as less fortunate. (more…)

A couple weeks ago I read an article in the NY Times in which a young man said his was the first generation that believed it could change the world. He was speaking of the millennial generation, those born between 1982 and 2004 (roughly). How interesting, I thought. I remember people of my generation also believing we could change the world! In fact we thought we WERE changing the world. There were so many major sociological and theological developments in the 60’s and early 70’s that it did seem we might actually advance culturally, politically and spiritually. At least, the idealists among us had reason to believe, and to hope.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in schools and facilities serving the general public and guaranteed equal protection to all U.S. citizens. It energized the women’s rights movement and led President Johnson to issue an Executive Order (11375) banning discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment. That action, in turn, led to the Higher Education Act of 1965 that opened doors for women to enter every sector of society previously closed to them as the exclusive domain of men. It allowed women to dare and to dream, to follow their talents and bring their gifts to the world.

All this civil unrest gave rise to the Stonewall riots of 1969 that birthed the gay liberation movement. The fight for gay rights ultimately led to this year’s Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide—something hardly imagined 50 years ago. And then there was the Second Vatican Council that revolutionized an archaic Church by throwing open the doors to ecumenical dialogue and discovery, accentuating the role of the laity as equal partners in spreading the Gospel, and recognizing the church as a pilgrim people called to serve, as Jesus did, the larger family of God.

What is painfully clear now, in retrospect, is the extreme and often malicious backlash following these cultural and spiritual changes. (more…)

“Who do people say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples as they walk toward the next village on the outskirts of town.  The answers he’s given reflect the historic belief, and hope, that better days are just ahead.  The return of Elijah—the return of John the Baptist or one of the other prophets—any of these could imply a change in the political structure leading to the liberation of Israel.  When Peter answers the question by saying “You are the Christ” his expectation, based on his understanding of the Messiah prophecy, is that Jesus has come to restore the kingdom of Israel.

Jesus knows what Peter is thinking because he knows the Messianic promise as well as anyone.  That kind of liberator is not who he is.  So he warns the disciples to say nothing about his identity to anyone.  With their current mindset, their current beliefs and dreams about reclaiming their place in the socio-political world of the time, Jesus knows what they would tell others about him would be far from true. This isn’t the message he wants people to hear.  It simply isn’t who he is or what he is about.

Jesus lays the groundwork for a radically new understanding of God, a radically new understanding of that ancient Messianic promise.  He talks about suffering, about the rejection he will face from religious authorities, about the fact that, in the end, he will be killed. He speaks about all of this openly, matter-of-factly.  Peter doesn’t like it and doesn’t want to hear it.  He is angry and critical of Jesus, takes him aside and begins to berate him for saying such horrific things. But Jesus refuses to let this be a private matter between himself and Peter.  He turns around and addresses Peter while looking at the disciples. And what does he say?  “Get behind me, Satan.”  In other words, “put those ideas about Messiah as a king leading Israel to a place of prestige and power behind you.  This is not the role of the Anointed One, and it is not who I am.” Then he says an odd thing: “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  Huh?  Of course Peter is thinking like a human being!!!  How else can he think? (more…)

When I mentioned to my spiritual director that we are celebrating our 8^th anniversary as a community this weekend he said, “Wow, eight years!” Then he asked “Do you feel God’s gratitude?” I’ve come to expect such a typically Jesuit question from a Jesuit director. Still, it took me by surprise. “God’s gratitude?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “God couldn’t do this without YOU.” So I sat with that as he softly said, with great tenderness, “God is grateful to you.”

As I’ve taken this statement into prayer and turned it over in my mind I’ve come to see it as the theme of our 8^th anniversary. God is grateful to YOU—all of you—for living this prophetic witness of inclusive acceptance and whole-hearted welcome of everyone—here and now—not outside of but WITHIN the Roman Catholic Church.

We wouldn’t be here without God, of course, but there is something radical-sounding in the assertion that God couldn’t do some things without US! Without us, though, God has no feet on the ground, no prophetic voice, no hands or words to comfort the sorrowful or encourage the fearful. Without us, there would be no Sophia Christi. The prophetic witness of this community wouldn’t exist. There would be no radically inclusive and welcoming Catholic Church here in Portland/Eugene where everyone is welcome at the table, whatever their background, and where a woman’s call to priesthood and ordination is verified, validated and celebrated. God can’t do this without us, all of us. God can’t do this without YOU! (more…)

Hear the words of Peace Pilgrim—a woman who walked across the country for 28 years after vowing to “remain a wanderer until [hu]mankind has learned the way of peace.”

“I have walked 25,000 miles as a penniless pilgrim. I own only what I wear and what I carry in my small pockets. I belong to no organization. I have said that I will walk until given shelter and fast until given food, remaining a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace. And I can truthfully tell you that without ever asking for anything, I have been supplied with everything needed for my journey, which shows you how good people really are….This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love. There is nothing new about this message, except the practice of it.”

I was reminded of her pilgrimage as I read the words of today’s Gospel. The disciples are instructed to take nothing but a walking stick and sandals for their feet. All they will need are those basic items that will allow them to continue walking over rough terrain. They are to carry no food, no money, no bag and no extra clothing. Instead, they are to rely on God alone as they bring God’s love and healing touch to everyone they meet. In offering to others all they’ve been given, they will receive all that they need. (more…)

Some decisions we make in life are just so clear!  We know they are right for us even when they take us outside the everyday pattern of our own lives.  In those moments when the only thing we know is that we are doing what we MUST do, and going where we MUST go—it is God in the depths of our being who is leading the way.  This is the situation Amos finds himself in as he stands before Amaziah, the priest of the sanctuary at Bethel in Israel.  God has sent Amos to confront the Israelites, including the king, with their glaring injustices against the poor and the weak among them.  It is a time of relative prosperity in Israel, a time of self-satisfaction and religious arrogance among those reaping the benefits of the nation’s success.  In the glow of that success they had lost track of their responsibilities to one another, and to their covenant as a people. Earlier Amos had reminded them where they came from saying: “Hear this word, O Israel, that the Lord pronounces over you, over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt…”  It is to this FAMILY—a family that is not acting like a family, a family that is ignoring, even oppressing, its weakest members—that God sent Amos.

Every prophet in the Jewish Scriptures is sent on the same mission—to call the family of God back together.  The people need reminders that they are ONE people in a sacred relational covenant with the one and only God.  Like us, they forget who they are and what they’re here for.  They forget they are a family.  At best they resist taking care of the poor and the weak; at worst they exploit the vulnerable for their own economic or political gain. ‘But you are a family,’ Amos tells them.  He says this to the king and the priests, as well as the comfortable and the strong.  “All of us, including those you are mistreating, are God’s chosen people, God’s family.”  Amaziah refuses to hear what Amos is saying and tells him to get out.  (more…)

Several years ago an acquaintance from high school ran across my name in a directory when we both lived in Eugene. She called and asked if we could meet for lunch. We had no classes together in high school. Our connection came from riding the bus from home to school and back every day. Now, 30 years later, we both ended up in the same town 1500 miles from where we grew up. Near the end of our first lunch date after all those years, my friend suddenly became very serious and told me how significant those bus-ride conversations had been for her.

Her home life was abusive and chaotic, and I was the only person she had to talk to, she told me, the one person she confided in. I hadn’t known this. We were just 15 or 16 at the time. One day in particular stood out in her memory. That was the day she decided she couldn’t go on. As she shared her pain and despair on the ride home from school, I said something she still remembered all these years later. It got her through the ordeal at home, she said, until she was finally able to leave and go out on her own.  “You saved my life,” she told me. “I’m here now because of what you said that day.” I didn’t remember the conversation at all or anything about the day. Clearly, though, it had meant everything to her.

SEEDS. (more…)

One of the hardest things for us to accept as human beings is the concept of equality—the idea that, as Peter says, “I’m just a human being like yourself.” I’m not better; you’re not worse. I’m not lower; you’re not higher. We are both ‘chosen’ to be exactly who we are, and neither of us is favored over the other by God. I can think of nothing in our culture that supports this idea, but I can think of countless forces, from advertising through the justice system, that undermine it on a daily basis.

In his encounter with Cornelius Peter learns that God doesn’t show favoritism.  He learns a lesson about equality that is revolutionary in the 1^st century of the Christian era—that God doesn’t favor Jews over gentiles. As the Holy Spirit descends on Cornelius’ entire household—his family, servants and slaves—BEFORE Peter decides to baptize them, Peter can’t help but recognize that God ALEADY dwells in every one of them. In fact, it is this movement of the Holy Spirit that leads Peter to see them as sisters and brothers, as part of God’s family. Spirit takes the lead; Peter follows.

As a member of God’s ‘chosen people,’ Peter has been enthusiastically spreading the news of Jesus to other Jews. Suddenly he is forced to recognize that God has equally chosen Cornelius and Cornelius’ entire household, all of whom are pagans! Cornelius is a Roman authority, a Roman soldier. He is not a Jew, not a member of the ‘chosen people,’ and yet God has clearly ‘chosen’ him AND his family to receive a magnificent outpouring of Spirit no different than the outpouring Peter and the disciples experienced at Pentecost. It is a second Pentecost—an unlikely bestowal of Spirit on a group that, until now, has been viewed as completely outside the realm of God. The ancient barrier between gentiles and Jews dissolves before Peter’s eyes and what’s left is a radical equality that will revolutionize the culture of those first Christians.

If only it were possible to revolutionize the culture of today’s Christians by applying the lesson of Peter and Cornelius to the prejudicial issues of our day. We continue to be challenged by those words—“God shows no partiality.” We are all just human beings, all equal, all making mistakes and trying to avoid humiliation, all flawed yet beloved and chosen for exactly who we are. What if there were enough Christians with that attitude that in any given conflict all parties were treated with respect, even persons who are deranged by virtue of mental illness, rage, or extreme sorrow? Isn’t this the road Jesus walked? Isn’t that what he did as he stumbled through crowds of fear and fear’s cruelty on the way to the cross?

John’s first letter expresses the profound truth for which Jesus lived and died. It is THE truth that grounds and sustains all life on earth: God is love. God is love. God is not judgment and condemnation. God is not punishment and eternal damnation. God is not watching and waiting for us to mess up and planning some horrible outcome to teach us a lesson. God loves us no matter what. Like a loving mother, God understands how difficult it is sometimes to be our real self, our best self, and just keeps loving us in those dark and desperate corners of life.

And God loves everyone else the same way.

It’s hard to accept this. It’s hard not to judge and condemn when things go wrong. It’s even hard not to judge and condemn ourselves when we make mistakes. It is all-too human to seek revenge rather than show mercy. But that isn’t God’s way. God is love. God is forgiving and merciful.

In a recent interview, James Finley, author, psychologist and former monk, said: “under stress, we regress. We stumble. We have unfinished work to do.…The richness of spiritual maturity is that even the unfinished business in your heart is God, even the woundedness is God.”

“We are always to be grounded in humanity…in Christ God has identified with the human experience, and I’m a human being. As a human being I’m to work on the things that hinder and compromise love.”

And so we give ourselves to that work—and it’s a life-long effort. Gradually we learn to overcome the fears and jealousies that seek priority over others, that yearning to be ‘special’ and ‘chosen’ above others. Because God is love we can trust that the efforts we make in the service of love are noticed and integrated into the fabric of our lives. We are tenderly held in the arms of love and we won’t be forgotten or left behind.  The same is true for all our sisters and brothers, in their brokenness and in our own.

What separates members of ISIS from those they terrorize and kill is the same system of inequality that separates the police officers in Baltimore from the community of Freddie Gray. And the hardest thing for us to accept is that both the killers and their victims are loved and cherished by a God who shows no partiality, a God who is a lover and not a judge.

We can depend on our Mother-hen God to keep us under her wing while we struggle to learn the lessons of love. We can also rely on our good shepherd God to search for us if we lose our way. Trusting that Love is the foundation of all that is we can remind ourselves that all of our experiences have a purpose, and that purpose is linked to our gaining some degree of mastery in navigating the challenges of love.

Since God is love, and we are all children of the One Mother/Father God, we are the bone and flesh of Love Itself. There is ultimately nothing to fear and everything to learn about who we are and how to be what we truly are together. When Jesus commands us to ‘love one another’ he only does so because he knows it’s possible, and his commandment is meant to encourage us to stay true to the path.

Last month I told you the Parish Council would be meeting the end of March to discuss the results of our Social Justice survey and to decide how we might use our collective resources to support the hungry, isolated and suffering people of our region.  That meeting took place 3 weeks ago. Sophia led us through the forest of different points of view on a path that led to a surprising outcome.

In this first year each location—Eugene, Portland and Battle Ground—will identify an organization where one of our members is currently volunteering.  We will begin an informal ministry partnership with that organization, developing a relationship between Sophia Christi and that particular group through our member volunteer. Our involvement might include collecting food, other material goods or financial assistance as needs arise with the intention of engaging all of us in one way or another as time goes on.  At the end of the year the Council will decide what portion of our year’s income to divide equally between the three ministry partners.  Next year’s budget, however, will include a line item for this purpose.  As a community we will share our resources with those in need in a deeper and more extensive way than we have before.

During the potluck after Mass we will discuss this plan more fully, weigh one of the options for our Portland/Eugene ministry partner for this year and, hopefully, make a decision before we leave today.  Our collective mission to those absent from society’s table widens this Easter with this decision.

It IS still Easter in our Gospel and in our Church. Mary Magdalene met the risen Jesus outside his empty tomb just this morning.  Now it is evening. The disciples have locked themselves in the upper room fearing the Temple authorities will come for them next.  All, that is, except Thomas.  He isn’t there.  When building community, the absence of one member MATTERS.  It matters to Jesus that Thomas isn’t there. So, as the Gospel continues it is a week later, and Jesus returns to the upper room for the sole purpose, it seems, of connecting with Thomas.  Thomas, the absent one.  For all the absent, inclusion is especially important. (more…)

In 1991 Enya popularized a song written in 1860 by Robert Lowry, a Baptist minister. It begins like this:

My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation:
Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing;
It finds an echo in my soul—how can I keep from singing?”

In our time, when missiles can range across entire continents and we hear news daily about innocent people slaughtered senselessly by rogue militias and well-armed militaries as well as crazed individuals, when we witness the effects of climate change on water supplies and ocean levels and recognize the long-term effects of political power-plays and ideological decision-making on all of us, especially the poor of the world, we need hope.

And every Spring Christians around the world turn from the gaping desolation of an empty tomb, as Mary did, to gaze into the eyes of that Hope.  And if, like Peter, we see without believing, and no one calls our name, we may return home more confused, more bereft and even more despairing than before.  But if, instead, we are able to see as the Beloved Disciple sees, observe burial linens neatly folded in that tomb and recognize what that means, then we might be able to turn around, like Mary, and go back to our homes transformed.  (more…)