The Labyrinth

Photo by Justin Knight

Amid these long days curled over my laptop and yellow-paged library books, I have been stepping out into the fresh air for a walk on the Labyrinth.  The white-stoned, circular meditation walk rests on the edge of a grassy lawn across from the entrance of Andover, Harvard’s theology library.  The Labyrinth is warm from many hours under the sun, so I often take off my shoes to feel the heat radiating from the stone.  Sometimes my shoes feel as confining as the walls of the wooden study carol where I have been writing my final papers all week. The labyrinth winds back and forth from beginning to end, and no matter how many times I walk it, I find myself feeling directionless there; that’s part of what makes it effective, I think.  All I can do is look down at the path carved out in the stone, place one foot in front of the other, and follow the path in front of me.

During my second week at Harvard, I sat down for dinner with one of my mentors and I confessed my excitement and anxiety about the year ahead.  I had no doubt that I did not want to be anywhere but HDS; I already loved my classes and professors, and my peers were brilliant and fascinating. Still, I worried that I could not live up to the opportunity.  What if I’m what this place expects?  What if they don’t like my ideas, or my approach?  “Just give yourself to this process!” he reassured me.  “This is amazing!  I’m so excited for you!  Just give yourself to this process…”  I’ve repeated these words a thousand times this year.

On the days when I am particularly anxious, I look up in the midst of my labyrinth walk, and I am startled, “Have I moved at all?” This is a ridiculous question, of course.  I’ve been walking for the last five minutes. Yet, really and truly, there are moments when I look up at all the turns of this winding circular path and I wonder this.  I don’t have the patience for it.  I ache for a reminder of progress!  But all that’s there is another corner to pivot—a corner that looks just like the one I passed five paces ago. I want a reminder of progress!  And then—I remind myself that that is not the point.

People often ask me if I picture myself doing something other than theology in the future. Typically, I reply with something like, “Well, I’m old enough to know that life cannot be planned.  So, I try to remain open.  But right now, I really see myself moving in the direction of theology.”  For some reason I do not tell them about the moment earlier this year when I was sitting at my kitchen table with my roommate, Sarah.  It was one of those anxious days, one when I was doubting myself again.  She asked me that question about the possibility of doing something else, and I started to cry when I told her the complete truth, saying, “I don’t know what else I could possibly do…” It is not that I could not find employment, and even satisfaction, in any number of other careers. No. The truth is that I feel so deeply that this is what I am called to do, for myself and for my community, that even on the hard days I cannot see myself working toward anything else.  And sometimes the calling frightens me. But it is always there, and it is so much mine that I can’t imagine leaving it.

The panicked, directionless moments are so often an occasion for reminding myself that I am moving, and that I’m exactly where I need to be. “Just give yourself to this process,” I tell myself. “One step at a time.  One step.  One step,” I tell myself again.  When I confront my doubt with the truth of my call, I remember all the moments of epiphany this year—all the moments when I have felt more free than I ever have before—more myself, and more with God, and more with and for my people than I could have ever imagined.

The stone is warm under the soles of my feet, and I lean forward to take another step—

The God Who Was Not There–or Here, Today

“‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ gave way–here is the heart of the story–to ‘But into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Jesus handed himself over to the God who was not there. And found God there.  In trusting the One who was not there, Jesus was resurrected…” –James Carroll, from Practicing Catholic

Sometimes, this is what it feels like to be a Catholic–like handing myself over to nothing.  Handing myself over, but with hope for some future resurrection.

In his autobiography, James Carroll writes the lines quoted above amidst a story about one of his mentors, American poet Allen Tate.  As a young seminarian Carroll visited Tate at his home, finding upon his arrival that one of Tate’s infant children choked and died in his crib only a week earlier.  Tate’s Catholic priest refused the infant a Catholic funeral, as the child died unbaptized and because, according to Tate, the child’s father was a “bad” Catholic.  The young Carroll was dismayed by the circumstances, and did his best to respond to his mentor with compassion and the message of a loving and unceasingly welcoming God.

In this quote, Carroll is telling his friend who God is–who Jesus is.  I can only imagine that Tate, this grieving father, could relate to Carroll’s description of Jesus, for Tate was also a human encountering the absence of God and the difficulty of handing oneself over the to this very real experience of despair.

When I read stories like Tate’s I am angered by the cruelties committed in the name of Catholicism.  I face these representations of the Church, and I think, “God is not there.” –Yet, Catholicism is my faith?

I also read about men and women like Carroll, though, and I remember why I still believe in Catholicism’s resurrection.  I am challenged to believe that God even brings resurrection to places and people that seem to be without God.  I am reminded that I still experience the same strange paradox of Jesus’ experience–and Tate’s experience: I have handed myself over to the God who was not always there–not always in Catholicism.  Yet I still find God there, in Catholicism.

It is comforting to know this strange reality belongs to more than just me.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/colerichards/3975660771/

Mother Teresa’s Footsteps

Check out my New Year’s entry on CTA’s Young Adult Catholic Blog, entitled “Mother Teresa’s Footsteps.”

Learning to Give Birth

Socrates often called himself a “mino,” a midwife; it was one of his favorite metaphors for the teacher.  He believed that teaching was not a matter of bestowing information upon a student, but rather coaching one through the process of giving birth to the knowledge that is already within oneself.  I think there is something to this pedagogy.  Even when one encounters “new” information, real learning and radical comprehension requires that one situate it within the complications of his/her greater intellectual framework.  Surely, that is an active and arduous process.

I feel as if I have been in labor for the past four months, trying earnestly to birth the nascent knowledge of my time at Harvard Divinity School.  There have been times in the last few weeks when I have reached out desperately for the hand of a partner, my mind amid intellectual exhaustion, my fingers tired from pushing, pushing the keys of this tiny white keyboard.

Go Ahead, Again

In the process of juggling the heavy chalice and coarse white napkin during my first occasion of serving as a Eucharist Minister, I managed to spill the sweet, red, consecrated wine—the Blood of Christ.  It spilled all over my shaking hands. It formed a tiny puddle atop of the burnt red tile of the Mission Church floor.  I shook with panic and embarrassment, but could not manage any productive move in response to what I had done.  I had been careless with the gift of the Eucharist. I had spilled the Blood of Christ. And everyone watched me.

I was amidst an intimate evening liturgy with the Jesuit community and a small collection of guests from our university community.  There were maybe thirty of us in attendance.  Everyone could see me as I fumbled around with our Faith.  This was at the heart of my momentary, paralyzing anxiety.  My panic did not stem from a burden of personal shame about carelessly handling the Eucharist—I was confident this mistake was not unforgivable in God’s eyes.  It was the gaze of my fellow Christians that terrified me.  I knew how much the Eucharist means in our tradition, and I feared being judged a sloppy, unfit Catholic because of this incident.  In my struggle to participate and serve the community, I had committed a grave liturgical sin, and everyone watched me do it.

Sometimes I think this is what it is like, being a theologian, or a minister, or simply just a Christian in our world today.

How We Got Here

Check out my latest post at From the Pews in the Back: Young Women and Catholicism, entitled “How We Got Here.”

A Community Needs A Soul…

A community needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people must give it this soul.” –Pope John Paul II

I hold immeasurable gratitude for all the dear friends and family in Seattle who give this place its soul, who make this community a home for me. Thank you for your Love, and for this blessed season together.

Next blog post…from Boston!

Absolutely Lovable

Who are the people in your life with whom you feel absolutely loved, and absolutely lovable? Who are they? And why in the world aren’t you spending more time with them? 

This morning I woke up with the sunrise to meet Becky at our favorite local coffee spot before she headed to work.  This is a regular ritual we’ve shared since I met her during my sophomore year of high school.  She was leading a small group that a friend brought me to one evening.  When I started dating a guy who volunteered in the ministry she coordinated, our paths crossed more frequently which eventually led to a close friendship. 

And when that guy broke my heart a few months later, Becky’s counsel changed my life.  The break-up was my first, and I was very in love (rightly so, he was a great guy).  But the disappointment brought out all my insecurities, and I went to her time and time again with sighs of regret and questions about what I should have done differently.  I felt rejected and unlovable, and I wanted Becky to tell me who I had to become so he would fall in love with me again.  

She addressed my inquiries with love, an overwhelming amount of love.  Becky told me that I deserved to be with someone who wanted to be with me, who did love me, and who did so without convincing.  It is what’s best for both parties.  I wish every impressionable sixteen year old girl had a mentor to tell her this upon her first broken heart. Even then, it took me a long time to believe Becky’s wise message.  

Becky said my lovablity was not contingent on whether this guy–or any guy–loved me, which made me consider what my life would be like if I actually lived like that: not chasing the love of others, but standing strong in the goodness and lovablity that I innately possess as a child of God.  Overtime her message sank in, and it changed the way I lived my life.  A benefit to my own romantic life, I simply didn’t put up with many of the unhealthy habits I witnessed in the relationships of my friends.  What’s more, whether I was dating or not, I became more confident and more generous and bold in my love for others because I was focused on the love and goodness I had rather than the love I lacked and wanted from them.  I became a person of gratitude and abundance rather than envy.  

I think I believed Becky’s words because they are true, yes, but more so because she lived out her message in my life.  Through her time and words, Becky loved me.  She has always voiced her grand hopes for my life out of a confidence in the goodness she sees in me.  Becky loved me, and she kept insisting that I love myself, and somewhere along the way I conceded, and I am so grateful. 

Sometimes I still need to be told that I am absolutely lovable because there are still moments in life when I’m not convinced.  It it so easy to take rejection personally, and to blame my shortcomings when life brings disappointment. But Becky is always there to remind me of God’s love, like she did this morning. I drove away from our coffee date a little more convinced of it.  

I also drove away wondering whether I do enough to convince my other friends of it too.  Do I love others in a way that reminds them that they are absolutely positively lovable, and ultimately, loved by God, and by me?  Do my words and actions enable others to stand confident in who they are? 

All Saints

I’m not a Catholic that grew up with the saints.  No altars to Mary, no rhyming prayers to St. Anthony whenever I searched for a lost sock, no St. Joseph figurine buried in our front yard.  Actually, it was not until I grew older and peers started asking, “What’s up with Catholics and all their saints?” that I even realized these popular Catholic devotions were absent from my upbringing.  These holy folks just weren’t a part of the piety of my family or parish. 

So many of my friends thought the Catholic saint thing was super weird–and I really couldn’t disagree with them.  It was a humble desire to attempt to the tradition of my upbringing that motivated  my initial interest in the Catholic devotion.  Surprisingly, though, the more I read hagiographies (or, stories about saints) the more I came to appreciate many aspects of this often-perplexing part of Catholicism. 

There are lots of things I don’t understand about Catholic saints, and even some things I find questionable, but I want to share with you what I have found helpful, even beautiful.  

First, a basic understanding of saints that I find helpful: Simply put, saints are people officially recognized by the Church as exemplifying incredible, holy lives. (Parameters for what delineates these incredible, holy lives have changed, and continue to change, overtime).  We ask them to pray for us in the same way that we might ask a very admirable friend or mentor to do the same.  On that note, I think it is really powerful to think of them as companions in faith in that they are people like you and I who intentionally sought/seek to live life in light of the Christian faith.  In this sense, I like to think of them as really amazing community mates. 

The idea of saints is most compelling to me when I think about the importance of relationships in my life, particularly in my faith formation.  My faith is largely indebted to the Christians I have encountered.  Time and time again, I recognized exemplary lifestyles in them which continually fed a desire to live a more Christian life myself.  Additionally, these were often the same people who brought out the best in me.  Their companionship inspired me to choose the best for myself.  Their grace, wisdom, and kindness helped me recover from the times when I failed myself and others.  Even today, when I am disheartened in my faith the goodness and virtue I witness in the lives of so many Christian women and men remind me why I have invested–and keep investing–so much of myself into the Catholic tradition. 

Once I realized the significance of the saints that surround me every day–the family members, friends, mentors, and church leaders–the idea of considering the official Catholic saints didn’t seem so strange.  The people who accompany me through books and stories might have a lot of potential to aid me in my faith too–and they have. 

Recently, I picked up a great book called “All Saints” by Robert Ellsberg.  The book is broken up in daily readings ranging from a few paragraphs to a few pages.  Each daily reading concerns the life and significance of a single saint OR saintly person. What I love about the book is that Ellsberg includes really interesting accounts of popular and lesser known official Catholic saints ranging from John the Baptist to St. Ignatius and beyond; yet he also includes non-canonized (or, not officially recognized) saints.  They are Catholics, Protestants, and “non-Christians” who exemplified the best in Christian living through their saintly lives.  Individuals like Gandhi, Moses, Dorothy Day, Jewish theologian Martin Buber, Galileo, and Native American Chief Seattle are just a few of the admirable individuals included in the book.  

As I reflect on a different “saint” each day, I appreciate more and more the saints who surround me, in the past and the present, continuously accompanying me in this grand, and often difficult, Christian journey. 

In Sorrow and Gratitude, A Piece for Professor Catherine Bell

[This piece was written for the Santa Clara University Religious Studies Department Newsletter, "Perspectives," upon the recent death of Emeritus Professor Catherine Bell, a renowned scholar in History of Religions and a mentor of mine during the last three years. She died on Friday. Please hold her family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.]

I will never forget one particular afternoon I spent around a seminar table with Religious Studies faculty and students during my sophomore year. Well-known department Alum Reza Aslan was there to discuss his new acclaimed book and his graduate studies with the intimate crowd. He was the reason we gathered and Aslan’s perspective was a treat, but it was the words of my mentor—and his mentor—the late Professor Catherine Bell, that made the roundtable event so profoundly unforgettable for me.
 

“Jessica” she proclaimed from across the table during the discussion. “You have something to say, don’t you?” She had watched me squirm at the other end of the table, repeatedly trying to contribute to the conversation only to be quieted by the eager comment of someone else in the room. “Well, you’re going to have to learn how to speak up with some confidence,” she told me. “There will always be older men with louder voices than you.”

She had seen right through me. Clearly the youngest student in attendance, I was a little intimidated to be in the presence of so many older, incredibly accomplished students and professors. Instead of speaking up with my question, I had anxiously waited for a moment when I could politely voice my inquiry, one I assumed to be naturally less important anyway. She had also noticed that I was only other female in the room (an odd gender demographic for a Religious Studies event at our university). The voices around me were deeper and louder, quite literally.

I never discussed that day with Professor Bell, but it stayed with me. It remains more pressing than ever as I gratefully and sorrowfully consider the gift of her mentorship since the recent news of her death. I think I keep returning to the words of that seminar table these days because they capture a lesson Professor Bell had already begun to teach me, one she continued to affirm during the rest of her life. It was a lesson about courage.

As Bell’s research assistant during her last two years at Santa Clara, I had the privilege of working on her final book, carrying out various random tasks, and organizing her files and shelves. I could appreciate the many aspects of our work together, both the intellectually exciting content and the monotonous aspects of the job, because they ultimately provided me the opportunity to simply sit and talk with her. I developed a great affection for her wit and the stories she told me. During the blazing California summer, she recalled writing her dissertation under blossoming trees on a warm day at the University of Chicago while she sipped an ice-cold beer. I loved picturing the brilliant woman there, young and cool, and a little like me. Over tomato and cheese sandwiches at her house near campus, she told me about the adventurous research trips she took through Asia and showed me her unique stamp collection stocked by gifts from her overseas colleagues.
 

  As I befriended this well-rounded, ever-interesting mentor, I concomitantly recognized a profound strength and integrity that I admired very much. In a conversation we shared about philosophy in her office one day, she confided in me her take on innovative thinking. We tend to get too caught up in the normative paradigms of our time, she explained, and this can make us blind to the possibilities right before our eyes. Innovative and exciting ideas sprung from a combination of learning societal and intellectual norms, then courageously addressing them with a fresh vantage point. To be great is to be a bold and well-informed non-conformist, and as I began to read Bell’s scholarship I realized that this insight was precisely what made her a world-class intellectual. She was brilliant, yes, but ultimately she was brave enough to think outside the box. Courage made her a great.

As my generous mentor, Professor Bell and I often discussed my dreams of graduate school and collegiate professorship. Always full of candid and sensible advice, she patiently listened as I floundered through potential graduate school choices and disciplines within the field. One day, sensing that I was a bit overwhelmed by the application process before me, Professor Bell provided words of reassurance. “You need to look at your life, Jessica. What are the questions that haunt you? What are the questions that surface in your own life?” she said. “That will be what you study. That is all we have.” I felt like Professor Bell imparted on me something precious with these words. Putting together pieces from our many conversations, I concluded that this insight might reveal one of the secrets behind her courage. Bell had a profound awareness that her work was an outpouring of who she was. It was a venture of integrity in the life she had made and was given.

Professor Bell challenged me to strive for this same courageous integrity, and that is what made her a great teacher and mentor. “You have something to say, don’t you?” I hear her say. “Well, you’re going to have to learn how to speak up with some confidence.” In the days since the news of her death, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for Catherine Bell’s presence in my life and community. What a privilege to witness such greatness. What a privilege that she would claim and enable such greatness in me, and in all of us. I pray that we might honor her by exemplifying the same strength she demonstrated throughout her life, all the way through to the very end.