The point in some, if not much, of my reading is to stay current on a variety of topics. And because I am involved in some quite different venues in my work, the reading list would be a surprise to most people. I am involved in circles of religion and spirituality and that is fairly obvious to most people. I am involved in other things as well, but for our purposes here, I want to unpack even more diversity. My involvement in spirituality issues is also fairly diverse.
It is no secret I am a lifelong Quaker. I suppose after all this time, I probably will leave this world as a Quaker. I also feel like a I am more than simply a Quaker. I see myself in ecumenical and interfaith terms, too. By ecumenical, I mean that I hang out with and appreciate the other Christian traditions. No doubt, doing this with Methodists and UCC folks is easy, because they are relatively close to my own tradition. But it is also not a secret that I very much like my multiple connections with the Catholic tradition. And this is what I want to do in more detail.
For anyone who has even a passing awareness of Catholicism, knows it is a very broad group. Because there are more than one billion Catholics in the world, they come in every color and persuasion. There are very liberal Catholics and quite conservative ones. Even more interesting to me is the range from the local parish, which is trying to do what a local Quaker congregation is trying to do. They minister to the needs of a local group and, in many ways, represent the culture of that group. Hence the Quakers and Catholics in my little Hoosier town where I grew up were quite similar.
I have also learned to appreciate the “religious,” as the Catholics call them. These are the monks and nuns who have welcomed a special invitation from God to live a life that feels more demanding to most of us. Some of them are actually in a cloister somewhere and have little contact with the world as we know it. Again, there is a real diversity in the religious monks and nuns and friars, or brothers and sisters, like the Franciscans. Over the years, I have participated with so many different groups of monks and nuns.
One group I pay particular attention to is the LCWR or the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. This is a group that represents almost all the women religious in this country. It strikes me as a prophetic, creatively committed group of women who will make a difference in the decades ahead. I am friends with a number of these women and highly value what they teach me. I like to read what they produce and follow their lead in certain areas.
Each year they hold a conference where they discuss some key issues for themselves, the larger Church and our endangered world. Each year they elect a president, and this fascinates me. Who would want to try to lead a group like this! And so, it is, they just elected their new president, Sister Elise Garcia, a Dominican from Adrian. I don’t know her, but I am enjoying coming to know her. Her life is fascinating, and I want to use this as an example of how God delightfully is at work in the world---which is the real point of today’s inspirational piece.
The author of the article, Soli Salgado, gives us a sense of what’s coming in her opening lines. “Before she surprised everyone, including herself, by becoming a sister at age 50, Elise García lived a life that, in one sense, closely resembled that of a sister: She was engaged in social justice issues, advocacy and nonprofits and had a keen lifelong concern for the fate of the planet.” Now most women religious decide for the life well before age 50. But I think this is just the point about both Sr. Elise and God!
We read that her life was not one particularly interested in the institutional church. She was baptized a Methodist but didn’t pay much attention to that or anything. And yet, she felt spiritual. She was special. We have told her “upbringing spanned five countries,” being the child of a Spanish father who was a diplomat and a Norwegian mother. I love the way she talks about her youth, growing up in five countries. She appreciated her “sense of having a borderlands cultural experience.”
Maybe that is the key to our own willingness to be spiritual in this crazy, modern culture of ours. It requires a borderland life. If we opt for some form of spiritual life, we also will live in two cultures. I don’t think there is much religion in our secular world, even though there may be quite a bit of religious language. I like this because a borderland life is very different than one which is schizophrenic.
Most of us learn the language and way of our secular culture in natural ways. I suspect most of us will need to be more intentional in learning how God speaks in our spiritual culture. That spiritual land may well ask from us some lifestyle ways that is different than the secular land. We should feel more call to be loving, work for justice, etc.
I am going to do better in my borderline living.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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