The Rodney Curtis interview on his Laughing in the Face of Fear trilogy

Laugh in the face of fear.

Wow! Do we need this now!

Just in time for gift giving, our beloved ReadTheSpirit columnist Rodney Curtis finally has completed his trilogy of books about tackling each new day with friends, family—and laughter. That idea may sound simple, but this is deep wisdom. We all remember, “Laughter is the best medicine.” We recall how the famous journalist Norman Cousins laughed himself back to health in the 1970s—and was played by Ed Asner in the movie version of his inspiring story. Now, there’s scientific research on the value of laughter—ask Dr. Bernie Siegel, who we interviewed recently in these pages.

Rodney has weathered life’s toughest challenges—and has taken this hard-earned wisdom in a fresh direction. He invites readers to laugh along with him in these real-life stories. His books also are packed with photos and even links to audio and video.

That’s the big news from ReadTheSpirit this week: Just in time for Christmas, we are releasing Rodney Curtis’s third volume, Getting Laid (off). His first book—before Rodney was hit with the twin plagues of cancer and job loss—is Spiritual Wanderer. That was followed by A “Cute” Leukemia. Now, it’s a complete trilogy, perfect for that hard-to-shop-for friend or relative.

In this week’s Cover Story, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Rodney Curtis about this amazing and amusing journey.

HIGHLIGHTS
OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH RODNEY CURTIS

DAVID: I think your books are perfect gifts for someone who desperately needs a little laughter.

RODNEY: (laughs) Oh, now that’s a pitch! Who wouldn’t want to find cancer and unemployment under their Christmas tree! Just look at what Rodney’s brought you!

DAVID: Hey, no kidding. This trio of books can be the perfect gift for a lot of hurting people. And, right now, you’ve reached a pretty wonderful milestone yourself, right? You’re feeling so good, now, that I understand you would like to be back in a classroom again in 2014, teaching college students.

RODNEY: I’m up for almost anything the future may hold.

DAVID: That phrase really does describe you as a writer: “Up for almost anything.” So, let’s begin this interview by bringing readers up to speed about your three books. I’ll ask you to describe each one. Let’s start with Spiritual Wanderer. In just a few words: What’s it about?

RODNEY: That first book is a mishmash of stories, full of my meanderings and a lot of my silliness, too. The stories go from walking my dog to really deep spiritual issues. Although, now that I think about it, we should probably put the words spiritual issues in quote marks because—when it comes to religion and me? Or, when it comes to spirituality and me? We go together like hot sauce on candy bars.

DAVID: Good point. I often tell people that Spiritual Wanderer is the first book I’ve read in years that always makes me laugh out loud. I mean, I’ve read that book a dozen times—and I still laugh when I read the story about your dogs—”Dog Duty.”

RODNEY: Yeah! That’s one of the funniest stories in that first book—and it’s absolutely true. Our dog went out in the back yard one day in December and—well, if you’re a pet lover you know what happens: The dog relieves himself—except, this time, out pops figures from our Advent calendar!

DAVID: No “spoilers” here, so we’ll leave the dog story with that one strange image. In reading that story, I’ve seen grown men and women spit their morning coffee out their noses because they get to laughing so hard. Let’s describe the second volume.

RODNEY: My next book, A “Cute” Leukemia, is about what happened when I got leukemia. The title comes from June of 2010, when I checked into the hospital and they told me, “You’ve got acute leukemia.” And my immediate thought was: “Oh, this is fun! I’ve got A ‘Cute’ Leukemia.” That’s how my mind works. My first response was to try to treat the cancer as some kind of little, tiny, ridiculous baby that was fussing at me. And you know what we’re supposed to do in those situations, right? We use good humor with a fussy baby.

Of course leukemia is a savage disease—very serious.  Yet, when you’re faced with it yourself, the question is: How do we respond? What do we do? And this humorous approach I took really did help me get through this.

DAVID: What’s the correct way to describe your relationship to leukemia today?

RODNEY: I am cured. That’s how we say it. I had a stem-cell transplant in October 2010. It is true that after some kinds of cancer treatments, people say they are in remission. That usually means the cancer isn’t visible anymore, but still may be lurking. I say: I’m cured. After a successful stem-cell transplant, the goal is to make your chances of getting cancer just like the chances for anyone else. And, that’s what happened to me. Thank goodness! Right?

DAVID: And the third book?

RODNEY: The third book, Getting Laid (off), is about just what the title says—losing your job. I worked in journalism and journalism cheated on me. I had been married to journalism for many many years and, then all at once, journalism went out and decided it didn’t want to be faithful to me anymore. It left me—and I was out.

‘A CROSS BETWEEN MITCH ALBOM & DAVE BARRY’

DAVID: I tell people that in facing all these challenges—from ordinary daily adventures to big life-threatening crises—you write like a cross between Mitch Albom and Dave Barry. You’ve got the heart of Mitch—the inspiration and the sentiment of Mitch—but you’ve also the humor of Dave. You’re funnier than Mitch and you’re often more serious than Dave. Your style is somewhere in the middle, I’d say.

RODNEY: Well, thank you for saying those very nice things. That’s high praise.

I’ve written all my life. For years, I did it in the background of my work as a photographer. I’ve always felt that writing and photography can go hand in hand. It was the fall of 2006 when I think I found my voice for real and started writing intensively at home—and couldn’t stop. I’d be out mowing my lawn and I’d think of something—and I’d just have to write it down. That was really an epic change for me. I’m amazingly thankful for all of that.

DAVID: When you write, you often write funny stuff—but these aren’t joke books. You’re not going for a laugh specifically. You’re more of a storyteller than a jokester.

RODNEY: That’s how I think of what I’m writing. I tell stories I’d like to hear. I like to hear people tell real stories about their lives, so I write stories about my real experiences. I’d probably be a failure as a fiction writer. And, no, I don’t set out to tell jokes. I’m sharing stories and I am inviting readers to have fun with me.

DAVID: Tell us the story behind the hair photo, in the cancer book, which took place when you were losing your own hair. One day, you decided to share someone else’s hair.

RODNEY: That was the day in July of 2010, when my friend from the Detroit News, Darrel Ellis, visited me along with his wife Leslie. He had these long, long dreadlocks and I was mostly bald by that time. I said, “Oh, man, Darrel! I wish I had your hair!”

Then, we said: “Wait a minute! We’ve got a camera. This can happen!” We lay down on the bed and his wife snapped that photo.

I think that photo epitomizes my stay in the hospital—which my family and I often called the hotel. From my first day in the hotel, I tried to follow the advice: “Make it your own. Be Rodney.”

DAVID: What does that mean? “Make it your own.”

RODNEY: My aunt works for the Mayo clinic and she happens to study my exact illness. She told me, “You’re going to be in the hospital for a while. Try not to wear hospital clothes and lay there all the time. Wear your own clothes. Move around.” I did listen to what she told me. She said, “Be Rodney.”

DAVID: That matches up with a lot of other advice we’ve published in WeAreCaregivers, which is hosted by Heather Jose, and I know that she’s asked you to write a guest column for WeAreCaregivers about this very issue. So, I’ll recommend that to readers.

The attitude you’re describing here really shines through in your book, A “Cute” Leukemia.

RODNEY: It was therapy for me simply to put together that book—one story and photo and media clip at a time. And I’ve already heard from readers that it has helped them, too, as they try to deal with what really is a dreaded and deadly disease. My father died of lung cancer at age 56, so I know all about the tragic side of cancer. I dreaded it like nobody’s business. When I faced it myself, I said: “This is huge. This is my choice, now, as to whether this will be the end—or it will be the beginning of something new.”

And, believe me: I wanted this to lead to something new!

DAVID: We just published an interview with Dr. Bernie Siegel, who was widely slammed by his colleagues when he began writing about his unorthodox approaches to healing. Now, in fact, a lot of his early unorthodox ideas have become by-the-book orthodox approaches to healing. With Bernie, we talked about this whole history of changing perceptions. We talked about Norman Cousins, who checked himself into a hotel room and got—at that time—a bunch of VHS tapes of funny TV programs. He insisted that laughter was a huge part of healing. Cousins was slammed, too, at the time. Now, Bernie Siegel points out that no one doubts this wisdom, anymore. I see you in this tradition of Norman Cousins, coming at this from a journalistic perspective. Now, there’s even solid research into the benefits of intentional laughter—actually helping yourself by making yourself laugh.

In your case, Rodney, you were confined for a long time, right? You were laughing in some very tough situations.

RODNEY: I was in three different facilities. The first one was for six weeks night and day. Then, a second time I was in for several days. And, finally, I was in for about a month.

DAVID: You spent about three months in hospitals in 2010.

RODNEY: That’s right. And the staff loved the way I approached this. They laughed with me. You know, at the end of that year, a bunch of them came to my house and surprised me with some Christmas presents. It was amazing! I made friends I continue to chat with on a daily basis, several years later.

‘Ello, I’m Nigel! (and other tales of comic coping)

DAVID: Self image is a big part of this. It’s tough to see yourself change so dramatically. Hair loss is a big issue.

RODNEY: Some of my friends began bringing me funny wigs. I remember one time, they brought me this wig that made me look like some kind of aging British rocker. That led to this whole story I spun out of being just that—not Rodney in the hospital with leukemia, but a British rock star in rehab. I had this IV pole with me all the time, at that point, and I remember I put on the wig and grabbed my IV pole, which I called, “Ivy.” I found these crazy Elton John-style glasses. And, that day, we wandered around the wards with me appearing as this wild old rock star. “‘Ello, I’m Nigel!” I’d say in this crazy accent. The nurses got into it and pulled out their camera phones. They were the paparazzi. It made us all happy. We all felt a lot of caring and a lot of love that day.

DAVID: I know you live your life this way, every day, wherever you are. But let’s address those readers who are saying: “Well, of course, Rodney can do this. He’s a funny guy. I’m not funny. My family isn’t funny. And these things he’s writing about—cancer or losing your job—those certainly aren’t funny.”

RODNEY: I’d say, “OK, well, humor may not be your thing. So, find your own thing and focus on it.” Music is great and a lot of people enjoy singing. They may not be great musicians who can play an instrument—but singing is a lot of fun. Anybody can sing. Do you like poetry? A lot of people write or read poetry. Maybe sports is your thing. So, focus on sports. Talk about sports with the people you encounter; keep up on sports. Ask yourself: What’s my passion? What can I focus on, every day, that makes me as happy as possible?

DAVID: What prepared you for this approach to life? Let’s go back for a moment. You’ve got some stories sprinkled through your three books about your childhood and early family life. Now, I’m 58 and I grew up, I’d say, in a Leave-It-to-Beaver-era home. You’re about a decade younger than me. So, did you grow up in a Brady Bunch home?

RODNEY: Yeah, Brady Bunch and maybe a little Partridge Family thrown in there, as well.

DAVID: So, one thing that never happened in those classic TV shows was: cancer. And, of course, none of the Dads or Moms in TV families had to worry about job loss. I guess the Partridge Family did have a single Mom raising her pop-star kids. But these huge anxieties so many of us face now—cancer and job loss—are things that in many ways we were not well equipped to anticipate in the eras when we were growing up.

RODNEY: Yeah, the anxiety is huge. And it hits you hard. And most of us aren’t prepared. It’s especially bad when you start to think: You’re someone’s father. You’re someone’s husband.

Comparing the two—job loss and cancer—I have to say that the cancer diagnosis is many rungs higher on the anxiety ladder than job loss. You’re suddenly faced with a life-or-death situation. To this day, I don’t mean to suggest that I’ve got all the anxiety resolved. The stresses still arise in my life—and this is long after the trauma with cancer—when I sit there recalling it for some reason. The worst for me is realizing how unfair this was for my daughters. I feel bad that they had to face this with me.

When you lose your job, you feel like you’ve let down your family and that’s terrible. Then, with cancer, especially if you’ve got kids at home like I did, this feels like you’ve let down your family 10 fold more than that! Thankfully, my family and I, now, have gone through these deep black holes together—job loss and cancer—and now, as we’re sitting here talking, I think I can say we’re all safely out the other side.

You can get through this. If I’ve got one message in all of this, that’s it: Yes, you can get through this.

DAVID:  See, that’s not a bad message to wrap up and put under your Christmas tree this season: Life’s tough. But, you know what? We can get through this.

Care to read more from Rodney?

VISIT RODNEY CURTIS’S AUTHOR PAGE IN OUR BOOKSTORE: Learn more about Rodney; read sample chapters—and use the easy links in our bookstore to buy copies of his book through Amazon, Barnes &  Noble or other retailers. (Yes, you can buy print or e-editions.)

ENJOY RODNEY CURTIS’S LATEST COLUMNS: His department within ReadTheSpirit has been a favorite destination for our readers over many years.

READ & SHARE RODNEY CURTIS’S ADVICE FOR CAREGIVERS: His new guest column in our WeAreCaregivers department contains some of Rodney’s savvy advice that you’re sure to want to share with friends.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

The Kent Nerburn interview on Neither Wolf nor Dog trilogy

For thousands of Kent Nerburn fans, all we really need to say is: Kent’s back on the road on the Great Plains! Come along! Click the cover, at right, to visit the book’s Amazon page and start reading!

But, first, you might want to read this new interview with Kent, the best-selling author of 16 books and a longtime friend to our online magazine. If you are meeting Kent Nerburn for the first time, here are a few things you need to know about him:

His vision is vast: Best known as an author, Kent also is a scholar, theologian and artist. He studied in the U.S. and Europe and finally earned a doctorate in religion and art. His sculptures, many on religious themes, are in collections around the world.

He invites us on pilgrimages: Best known for his books exploring Euro-American relationships with Native Americans, Kent also sees himself in a long and rich tradition of American arts and letters about the nature of journeys and cross-cultural connections. His road trips start humbly and we are half way through the bumpy ride before we discover these truly are pilgrimages.

He shares his wisdom in many forms: Some of his best books—such as Ordinary Sacred: The Simple Beauty of Everyday Life—are spiritual reflections drawing on Kent’s broad knowledge of faith and culture—but not necessarily focusing on Native American themes.

Ultimately, Kent is a unique American theologian—working his way through cycles of stories and artworks, travels and talks, toward developing an authentically North American theology rooted in the geography and peoples of this continent. It’s a grand goal—an immense lifelong project—and we all are richer that, once again, we are invited to hop into Kent’s old car and roll down back roads in The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo: A Child, an Elder, and the Light from an Ancient Sky.

Now, Kent talks with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm about his travels, his new book and the grand vision behind it all …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH KENT NERBURN
ON ‘THE GIRL WHO SANG TO THE BUFFALO’

DAVID CRUMM: You have touched lives around the world with your art and your stories. This year is the 20th anniversary of Native American Wisdom, the first collection you published jointly with your wife Louise Mengelkoch, the journalist and educator. We’ve been on the road with you, Kent, for quite a while.

KENT NERBURN: For me, the journey began long before that. My Dad was an American Red Cross regional director for disaster relief and, as a boy in the 1950s,  I would go with him in the car to places where he took care of people in the midst of great distress. I remember a big apartment-house fire one winter where he was called to help with the people who had lived in the building. There was one woman in her 80s who Dad showed over to our car and asked me, “Just stay with her.” I was 12 years old and I remember trying to console her as best I could, sitting beside her in the car and listening to her. Of course, I was confused. I was young. I remember her talking, over and over again, about her hope that they could get her cat out of her apartment. These were experiences that most people, at that young age, would never encounter. In those experiences with Dad, I suppose that I saw too much too early that was far too large for me to understand.

And so, I became a watcher. Even working as an artist, I didn’t sign my sculptures. I didn’t want to put my name on the pieces. I wanted to step back from them and be the watcher.

DAVID: Let’s remind readers that you are not a Native American. You’ve never claimed to be Indian and your books really are about how Euro-Americans can bridge the gap after so much pain and death—to build new relationships with Native Americans. Am I saying that correctly?

KENT: That’s right. I have never claimed to be Native American. You’ll never find me putting on native trappings or trying to claim native ceremonies. And, I have no patience with Euro-Americans who go out and claim Native American ceremonies as their own and start teaching them. There is a lot of legitimate anger on the part of native people who have seen their world appropriated in so many ways by non-native culture. I don’t want to be one of those who tries to take their culture from them, once again.

But I am helping in the retelling of our American narrative in a way that includes Native Americans. Our national narrative is so badly served by the way it is commonly retold. One of the central problems is this unresolvable tragedy at the heart of our American narrative when we look at what we did to the people who lived here first. Not only did we expunge the native history from our history books for a long time—we took generations of Native American children into boarding schools and tried to expunge their history from them by force. A lot of the struggles with Native Americans over the years have come because of these efforts to destroy—to erase—their stories from our national story.

A LARGER NORTH AMERICAN THEOLOGY

DAVID: This connects with the much larger vision behind nearly all of your books. You argue that all of us living on this continent are called to envision a larger North American theology—a philosophy of this place, this geography, and our ultimate place in it. And you argue that the native peoples on this continent could have been—and still can be—an essential doorway in that journey.

KENT: Around the world, monumental forces have shaped people’s understandings of the gods and of our ultimate human concerns. People who live in mountainous regions tend to understand the gods differently than those whose culture is based along oceans. In North America, we ought to have a spirituality that speaks to the great forces embodied in this continent. As you know, I studied theology. My academic background is in theology and the arts. Native Americans have a connection to the theology of this land, a connection we worked for centuries to eliminate.

Now, I want to be clear: I’m not trying to create some artificial pan-Indian theology. Native people tell us not to do that. Native American traditions varied widely. But there are elements they hold in common. One is the sense that God is in every rock and river and aspect of the landscape. We European Americans have this assumption that nature is just out there for us to conquer. We have this idea of building cities on hills. Native people know that God is in the hill itself. Native peoples are mindful on a much deeper level of every hill, every stream, every cloud that passes through the sky.

THE GREATEST AMERICAN TALES ARE STORIES OF THE ROAD

DAVID: One of the central arguments that runs through all of your work is that we will never connect with this continent if we don’t leave our homes and start traveling around in this vast land. Most important in traveling is getting to know the people we encounter. When I read the opening pages of your new book, The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo, and I read about this woman asking you to drive her to the cemetery for a visit—wow!—right away my mind was connecting with one of your most famous stories: The Cab Driver, or sometimes it’s Called The Taxi Driver. These stories span your entire career.

KENT: Hey, you’re a sharp guy! I wouldn’t have thought of that connection—but you saw it and, sure, there it is! Yeah. We have to go out into the world and meet people and talk to them. That’s what I’ve done all my life. That’s what the cab story is all about. It’s true: I really did work as a cab driver and I encountered many experiences as powerful as that one I wrote about. I wish I’d kept better notes or a journal. Today, I’d have 100 stories like The Cab Driver from that time. That’s just one I managed to write down from that time.

DAVID: You’ve been making a much bigger case through the decades. The quintessential American story is a tale of the road. We could list all the writers from Melville and Twain to Steinbeck and Kerouac. The list could go on and on. You’re trying to tell us something about repairing and clarifying what we might call The Great Story of America and, at the core of it, you’re telling us is a great, wide, nearly endless road.

KENT: The journey is my American experience. The road is my path. When I was very young, The Beats fascinated me. I actually did go out and hop freight trains. I hitchhiked. I can tell you some stories of experiences on the road that, now, I realize could have ended my life far too early. I didn’t know much, but I knew that I had to travel. I had to keep moving. I had to look everywhere to meet people and learn their stories.

For me, a kid from Minnesota, I always looked West. That part of the American mythic journey—looking West—is part of my life story as well.

DAVID: Let me read a passage from the middle of this book. It’s just one of many descriptions of the road itself—literally the act of driving across the seemingly limitless expanse of the Great Plains. I’ve crossed the Plains a good number of times myself, as a journalist, and it’s hard to describe this kind of driving. Here’s how you put it:

We rode on into the growing twilight. The tar strips beat a hypnotic rhythm beneath us as the lonely asphalt highway cut a meandering line through the treeless hills toward the horizon. It was a peaceful, almost empty landscape. Every few miles, a gravel road would cut off from the main highway, and a small house could be seen sitting alone and isolated far up in the hills. Here and there a rusted car body sat solitary in a field, or a broken farm windmill rose above the landscape on its spindly, triangular stilts. But mostly it was just earth and sky and the thin ribbon of roadway coursing like a fierce, dark river through the great, unpopulated land.

KENT: I’m so glad you read that passage. There’s nothing I love more than observing the passing landscape, whether from a train or a car. I can’t remember exactly where I was when I wrote those lines. But I was in South Dakota. As I was moving through that landscape, it was all about the watching and the emotion I was feeling. Then, later, I would recollect that journey and write down the telling details. I do make notes as I travel. I noted: windmill with broken vanes, road going back into the hills … Things like that. But, then, I go back and in memory I recapture the emotion and the essentials to put down on paper.

THE VOICE OF A STOLEN CULTURE

DAVID: You write so beautifully in this new book, not just about the landscape, but about the culture stolen from native people through the whole array of institutions where Indians were locked away for so many years.

In your earlier book, the second volume in this Neither Wolf nor Dog trilogy, you wrote about the boarding school era. Then, in this book, you write about other kinds of prison-like institutions that were set up. Now, more and more Americans are learning about what took place in our collective name over so many years. The “boarding school tragedy” is becoming a part of our common knowledge. But one thing that is so crucial to convey is the voices of people who actually experienced being locked away until their culture was—in many cases—literally beaten out of them.

Let me read from later in the book, a man describing how the boarding schools left him:

Every day I was scared of dying. I was scared of being beat. I was scared of burning up in the Christian god’s fire. I was scared of dying in a white man’s bed surrounded by the bird women and men with the yellow teeth. I was scared and lonely, and I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. But I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to follow the rules. So that’s what I did. That’s all that I did. I didn’t say nothing. I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t smile. I didn’t cry. All I did was keep my mouth shut and follow the rules.”

KENT: Again, thanks for reading that passage. I do want to say that, in these books, I am not trying to beat readers over the head with the endless litany of horrible things that took place. Many of these horrors now are well documented. There are lots of tragedies I could have described—but, in our world today, there are so many tragedies and murders that our hearts become inured to it all.

I remember once I was teaching a class and I began to show the students Claude Lanzmann’s film, Shoah, and this one girl raised her hand. She asked: “Why are you making us watch this? I don’t need to be aware of this.”

Of course, I thought she was wrong but I understood that response. In this new book, I tell a story through the voices of one or two main people.

DAVID: And it is a lively and engaging story. It’s part a travelogue, part a cycle of great tales from the Great Plains, part a vivid slice of Indian life today. But there is this subtext to the book, always asking us to remember what was done in our collective name. As people learn more about the boarding school era, they’re likely to be shocked to learn that a lot of this occurred right up into the 1960s and 1970s. This isn’t ancient history. There are people living today who were locked away in schools and other institutions. There were international parallels, of course. In Australia, where the national government now has come to terms with the tragedy more completely than our government has even attempted, this pattern continued right into the 1970s, as well.

KENT: And often the people running these places were doing it with what they perceived as the best of intentions. We should say that the worst of the boarding school abuses ended by the 1950s, but these institutions did continue. There are some boarding schools today, although they are of a different kind than the schools we’re describing in these earlier eras.

I went to visit one of these places. I was invited to talk to some clergy and, while I was on that trip, I stopped by a cinder-block cafe at a time when it was almost empty. There was just one old man at a table. I asked if I could join him. He said, “Sure.”

I asked, “Did you go to this boarding school when you were young?”

He said, “Yeah, I went.”

“How was it?”

He said: “I learned good language. I learned good Christian.” Then, he paused. Finally, he said, “And now I’m no longer myself.”

To me, that was a dagger in my heart. This was a kindly man, a good man. And yet he was telling me that the boarding school experience had taken a boy and made him into someone who was cut off form his roots. The boarding schools did give many young people a good trade. It taught them good English. It gave them a warm place to stay and regular meals at a time when many on the reservations were starving on those reservations. So the whole experience is a very mixed narrative.

DAVID: I want to close by asking you about the loyalty of your fans. I went into Amazon and looked at the reader reviews of quite a few of your books. You’ve accumulated hundreds of reviews—and the vast majority are 4 or 5 stars. In fact, most of them are 5-star raves. To what do you attribute that strong enthusiasm for your books? Maybe that’s an unfair question to ask. But do you have an answer?

KENT: Yes, I actually do have an answer. I’ve thought about this and I think the response is: It’s because I really try to write from my best self. I don’t let my ironic self or my sarcastic or angry self get into my books. I had a professor in graduate school who ended a seminar on Creativity and the Sacred with these words: “I don’t care where all of you come out spirituality, but I hope you all realize you have a ministry.”

I understand exactly what he meant. As a writer, I have a ministry. That ministry is to write from the heart.

I don’t live from the heart every day. I often feel like I’m a troll beneath a bridge holding up an angel on a stick. People look down and see me, that troll down there, but what I’m interested in doing is having them focus on the angel I’m holding up. It’s easy to write with a wry edge or to drip sarcasm on the page. I am sometimes like that in my life—full of sarcasm. But that’s not the ministry with readers.

I’m called to hold up the angels. I’m giving readers stories with heart. I’ve worked very hard on this. I’ve had years of spiritual formation. I’ve spent years developing this voice from an open heart. And readers respond—because they recognize a good heart when they encounter it.

Care for more from Kent Nerburn?

Get the books! Click on the linked book titles, above, to visit their Amazon pages.

For more on the two previous books in the “Neither Wolf Nor Dog” trilogy—including more historical details on the Native American boarding schools—read our earlier interview with Kent Nerburn. That interview focuses on Kent’s second book in the trilogy, “The Wolf at Twilight.”

Shopping for great reading? Please, visit our ReadTheSpirit Bookstore anytime. Support our work by buying our recommended books—and telling friends.

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Jane Wells on Hunger Games: ‘Hunger isn’t science fiction!’

By DAVID CRUMM,
Editor of ReadTheSpirit

WANT to help the most vulnerable in your community? Want to do it by energizing teens and young adults to work with you on goals that most congregations already share? Read on …

THIS WEEK, millions of Americans will buy tickets to Hunger Games: Catching Fire. If you missed it, see our extensive story last week on the huge popularity of this book-and-movie series by Suzanne Collins. That story also includes an interview with author Jane Wells, who wrote the new book Bird on Fire, an inspiring Bible study that shows you how to take the fiction-fueled excitement in your community—especially among young people—and refocus that energy on goals we share: Combatting hunger, homelessness and violence against society’s most vulnerable.

A few days ago, in southeast Michigan (where Jane Wells lives and our ReadTheSpirit home office is based), Jane demonstrated how this kind of outreach can work in any town. She was welcomed by the very active Monroe Family YMCA to host a public forum on three tragic problems facing communities nationwide: Hunger, homelessness and contemporary forms of slavery.

As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I attended and am reporting, here, on what happened. (All of today’s photos were taken by ReadTheSpirit Publisher John Hile. If you care to share this story with people in your area, you can feel free to share these photos, as well.)

MODERN-DAY SLAVERY

LOOK BENEATH THE SURFACE: Human Trafficking is Modern-Day Slavery,” was the warning splashed across leaflets and posters distributed by Michigan State Police Trooper Tresa Duffin. She works statewide on campaigns to end forced labor and related forms of abuse enslaving thousands of men, women and children across the U.S. (Worldwide, our earlier story reports, there are millions of slaves.)

“Trafficking” does not refer to transportation, Duffin explained, although victims may find themselves shuttled between cities. The term refers to people bound into labor, often in the form of prostitution. Merriam-Webster defines “human trafficking” as “organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited as by being forced into prostitution or involuntary labor.”

There are slaves in every major metropolitan area, Duffin said, so people in the Midwest should not assume that this isn’t a local issue. “In fact, Michigan is ranked No. 16 in the United States for human trafficking,” she said. Why? “There is a major highway hub in southeast Michigan. There are international borders with Canada. We have a lot of agriculture and that also attracts people trafficking in forced labor.”

There are many ways that individuals, congregations and community groups can get involved in stopping slavery—and in rescuing men, women and children caught in the system now, Duffin explained. In one program, for example, money is raised to buy hotel-sized bars of soap with a toll-free hotline on the wrapper that reaches a national anti-slavery help center. “We distribute these to hotels before big events come to town like a Super Bowl or other major event—times when we know that girls will be sent into hotel rooms. About the only place these girls have privacy is in the bathroom. We’ve had a number of girls call for help—and they’ve been rescued—because of the soap program.”

Wherever our readers may live across the United States, Duffin urges you to learn more at the nationwide anti-trafficking website, based in Washington D.C.

What else can congregations do to combat slavery? Lots! Read our earlier interview with David Batstone, a pioneer in the Not For Sale campaign that draws thousands of volunteers from college campuses and congregations, each year. Want to attract more teen-age and young-adult involvement in the life of your congregation? Get Jane Wells’ Bird on Fire now and organize a discussion group this winter.

FAITH-BASED FEEDING

Jeff Weaver, president of GodWorks! Family Soup Kitchen, told the audience about taking on hunger in Monroe. This is one of Michigan’s oldest small cities with significant blue-collar neighborhoods and also rural areas surrounding the town’s historic downtown. Hunger is a dire problem, even in such a well-established community.

Helping to combat hunger is easier than most people may realize, Weaver said—that is, if people organize their congregational and community-wide efforts in smart ways.

In this process, Job No. 1 is debunking the myth that soup kitchens are needed mainly for older men with chronic problems. “The face of the hungry in our area? It’s a family portrait,” Weaver said. “Now, more than 65 percent of the people who come to our soup kitchens are families. One of our biggest challenges is—we continue to run out of high chairs at some of the places we serve meals. That image right there tells you why you should get involved.”

ENDING HOMELESSNESS
IS A FAMILY ISSUE

Brad Schreiber, who works with programs to help the homeless, stressed the same point. He held up a photo of one homeless man in southeast Michigan—an elderly man with a shaggy gray beard and a baseball cap. “If you think that this is the picture of homelessness, you’re wrong. The picture you should have of homelessness is a 7-year-old girl,” Schreiber said.

He listed alarming statistics about the growing wealth gap in America and the rise in poverty to such an extent that many families find themselves homeless, sometimes quite unexpectedly and even if someone in the family has a job. America’s growing wealth gap and the plight of our “working- poor” families is a topic often covered in the OurValues project, a department within ReadTheSpirit magazine headed by University of Michigan sociologist Dr. Wayne Baker.

Schreiber is now a successful graphic artist, but he shared his own story of finding himself homeless earlier in his life. Through no fault of his own, his income ended and, like millions of Americans, he was living paycheck to paycheck. He suddenly found himself without a place to stay. “This can happen so easily these days,” he said. “People who never expected to be homeless can find themselves in this situation.”

He described four pillar institutions in the Monroe area that shelter various populations of homeless people, each night. Relying on data mainly from those organizations, local leaders in this effort now have calculated that “35,191 nights of shelter were provided in the last two years in this area. Now, that’s a staggering number!”

The evening ended with Jane Wells reminding the audience of ancient calls to help the vulnerable—coming from Isaiah and other passages in the Hebrew scriptures as well as coming from Jesus in the New Testament.

“I hope you will find a way to take action,” she said.

GET INVOLVED THROUGH BIRD ON FIRE

GET STARTED! Get Jane Wells’ Bird on Fire now and organize a discussion group this winter. Her book connects the extremely popular novels and movies with biblical stories. Jane Wells makes it clear to her readers—young and old—that some of the terrible conditions they learn about in the dark, fictional world of the Hunger Games echo real-life experiences, today, for millions. Drawing directly on faith traditions, men and women can tackle these injustices, right now.

If you do use this book to spark renewed energy in your congregation, please email us about it at [email protected] and tell us what you’re doing. We want to share these stories with our readers to inspire others to take action.

This week, as millions enjoy Hunger Games: Catching Fire in movie theaters, remember Jane Wells’ slogan:

“Hunger isn’t science fiction!”

(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

The Art of Spiritual Living never looked so inviting

 

By READ THE SPIRIT EDITOR
DAVID CRUMM

Americans are soaked in religion, compared with the rest of the world’s peoples. Based on the World Values Survey, we rank with Pakistan and Iran in the intensity of faith. Yet, in sharp contrast with other religiously saturated cultures, Americans also feel an overwhelming desire to express ourselves. On that scale, we rank with those outspoken Scandinavians!

We demand faith on our own terms. That’s true whether you choose to be a lock-step fundamentalist or a free spirit.

We’re unique in the world for our intense mix of desires. New religious movements rank among America’s most valuable exports. A century ago, a shockingly mixed bag of men and women met in what the Los Angels Times called a “tumble down shack” on Azusa Street. Their Pentecostal celebration eventually blew the top off traditional worship around the world.

In the 1930s, Bill W and Dr. Bob were religious innovators in launching the world’s first lay-led spiritual movement with an interfaith definition of God as a “higher power.” The list could run on and on—from Shakers in the 1700s to Joseph Smith in the 1800s. After World War II, the spiritual floodgates broke wide open. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale and his Guideposts took the world by storm, Bishop Fulton Sheen became a 1950s TV star with Life Is Worth Living and, by 1965, millions of Americans heard The Gospel According to Peanuts.

In the new millennium, the matriarch of serious American religion writing, Phyllis Tickle, launched a mighty effort to tug wayward Americans back to ancient spiritual disciplines—such as praying at the Christian Divine Hours with a series of weighty new books. Eventually, Phyllis convinced the evangelical publishing house Thomas Nelson to produce eight volumes on Christian disciplines. She assembled a Who’s Who of authors to tackle topics including prayer, sabbath, tithing and fasting. All of Phyllis’s books are terrific. All are substantial offerings for Christians who are ready to dive deep. In other words, she and her co-authors left lots of room in the spiritual marketplace.

We restless Americans always are itching to discover the next spiritual shore. This has fueled a host of religious fads—and it’s not worth dragging those out of blessed obscurity by naming them. Suffice it to say that the late George Gallup Jr. surely is nodding his head somewhere, repeating his motto: “Faith in America is miles wide—and a quarter inch deep.”

That’s why the ambitious project undertaken by Stuart Matlins and his talented crew at SkyLight Paths Publishing is such a milestone. These books are authoritative—and wildly compelling. Yes, they take us deep, but each one is an exciting invitation to dip one’s toe into these waters for the first time. Christians are welcome, but so is anyone of any faith.

Over the past seven years, SkyLight has sent into the world a small library, each volume following SkyLight’s core principle:

“Through spirituality, our religious beliefs are increasingly becoming a part of our lives—rather than apart from our lives. While many of us may be more interested than ever in spiritual growth, we may be less firmly planted in traditional religion. Yet, we do want to deepen our relationship to the sacred, to learn from our own as well as from other faith traditions, and to practice in new ways.”

STARTING WITH A CHARACTER OF KINDNESS

Click on any of the book covers shown with this column today to visit the SkyLight Paths overview page for the series. From that online gateway, you can explore the full range. In 2006, this series debuted with an especially keen choice: Rami Shapiro’s The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness. One team of sociologists poring over the World Values Survey crunched the global numbers to identify the core character strength of each nation. The scholars found that America is unique in the world with a core character strength of “kindness.” So, the SkyLight series began with a perfect topic. As a nation, we see ourselves as kind; the anxiety we feel is largely due to our current lack of kindness. You may want to start your pilgrimage through this series with Shapiro’s book, which strikes at the heart of our spiritual quest as a people.

You will find many disciplines that cut across the major world religions:

  • Pilgrimage—The Sacred Art: Journey to the Center of the Heart;
  • The Sacred Art of Chant: Preparing to Practice;
  • Giving—The Sacred Art: Creating a Lifestyle of Generosity;
  • The Sacred Art of Forgiveness: Forgiving Ourselves and Others through God’s Grace;
  • Thanking & Blessing—The Sacred Art: Spiritual Vitality through Gratefulness;
  • Decision Making & Spiritual Discernment: The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way;
  • Hospitality—The Sacred Art: Discovering the Hidden Spiritual Power of Invitation and Welcome
  • The Sacred Art of Fasting: Preparing to Practice
  • Lectio Divina—The Sacred Art: Transforming Words & Images into Heart-Centered Prayer

In choosing from that list for your first small-group discussion in your congregation, you’re likely to pass muster with pastors and lay leaders who serve as gatekeepers in almost any mainline denomination—Protestant or Catholic. Start with those and you’ll be well on your way toward a couple of years of lively small-group experiences. Some communities may want to challenge themselves to organize a congregation-wide “read” of a book.

And a special note for clergy who are reading this column: You’ll be marking pages, mumbling, “Yeah, that’ll preach!”

THEN, FIND FRIENDS … AND GO SKIING

Once you get this series in the door, the results will be obvious. If properly organized, your group will grow; people will talk about what they are exploring over coffee or an evening meal; you’ll want more and more.

The secret of growth in many big churches lies in unlocking parishioners’ affinities. One classic megachurch example is a group of guys (and often some gals) who love fixing cars—but nothing else motivates them to get off the couch. So, the church invites them to form a prayer-and-service group to spiritually support each other week by week. Then, in many big churches, these “car nuts” provide free service for older parishioners, single parents, poor families—and suddenly these folks who never set foot in a house of worship are highly engaged. No, Stuart and his SkyLight crew have not yet found an author to produce The Spiritual Art of Car Care. But, there certainly is room in the market for such a book, given that the classic in this tiny niche of motor-oil spirituality, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is approaching its 40th anniversary in 2014. The time is right.

SkyLight already is summoning many affinity groups. Among them:

Fly-Fishing—The Sacred Art: Casting a Fly as a Spiritual Practice; Running—The Sacred Art: Preparing to Practice; and Spiritual Adventures in the Snow: Skiing & Snowboarding as Renewal for Your Soul. These are terrific choices to grab and go with friends from your community. Among this trio, I highly recommend the winter-themed book right now. It’s packed with all kinds of engaging material: spiritual reflections, stories by “real people,” practical ideas. You’ll love the section in which “exuberant novice” Ann Lamott describes the spiritual high of skiing (and falling).

Writing—The Sacred Art: Beyond the Page to Spiritual Practice and Haiku—The Sacred Art: A Spiritual Practice in Three Lines. Two volumes in the series are geared toward the writers in your community. I especially recommend the Haiku book. When I have been invited to teach journalism courses, over the years, I begin with a Haiku exercise. Journalists who feel overwhelmed with a major news event find that, first, turning a big story into a Haiku quickly clarifies the challenge.

Everyday Herbs in Spiritual Life: A Guide to Many Practices. This global exploration of herbal themes, projects and even a few recipes taps into the always strong pull of nature in our spiritual journeys—and the growing interest in rediscovering the food practices that connect with our spiritual and cultural traditions. The text is fascinating, but you’ll especially enjoy the dozens of detailed herbal projects.

Recovery—The Sacred Art: The Twelve Steps as Spiritual Practice. The SkyLight series wisely acknowledges the enormous debt we all share to the courageous circle of friends who, amid great personal anguish, hammered out the principles of 12-step programs. This is truly deep wisdom.

About an hour west of the SkyLight team’s headquarters in Woodstock, Vermont, is the hamlet of East Dorset where Bill Wilson was born in his family’s tavern and inn. Today, it is an international shrine and pilgrims’ sobriety tokens often are left on Bill W’s humble gravestone. Clearly, the SkyLight team has taken Bill W’s spiritual genius to heart. At the end of every book in this series, readers find this note:

SkyLight Paths sees both believers and seekers as a community that increasingly transcends traditional boundaries of religion and denomination—people wanting to learn more from each other, walking together, finding the way.

Go on. Buy a book. Jump in.

Wherever they are hovering with their higher power these days, George Gallup Jr. and Bill W will smile down upon you.

DAVID CRUMM is the Editor of readthespirit.com online magazine and publishing house. For 40 years as a journalist, David has covered the impact of religion and cross-cultural issues around the world.

MORE ABOUT THIS SPECIAL COVER STORY
ON ‘THE ART OF SPIRITUAL LIVING

This Cover Story is Special: Throughout 2013, dozens of leading authors and media producers who care about America’s religious diversity are jointly raising awareness of the best in current publishing. In this Cover Story, as Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I’m at the center of this coordinated national effort. Collectively, we’re shining our spotlight on this very important series of books that are coming from SkyLight Paths Publishing in Vermont.

I researched and wrote this cover story, “The Art of Spiritual Living never looked so inviting.” Then, this same cover story that I wrote also is being published by our California-based friends at The Interfaith Observer magazine. (You may want to check out their October issue, which includes a version of this same story.)

Why are we doing this? Those of us who devote our lives to the best in spiritual and cross-cultural writing—and that includes the folks who work at the Interfaith Observer and SkyLight Paths—realize that there is a real danger that important voices (authors, artists, publishers) could fall silent as traditional media networks crumble. We want to be part of the rebuilding of inspiring, authoritative networks promoting healthy approaches to faith and diversity. We are working hard, together, to keep these important voices raised.

What can you do? Read today’s cover story. Tell friends. Share the news on Facebook. Choose a new book that interests you—and buy it. (And, in addition to SkyLight Path’s webpage for the books, above, we also recommend that you check out our own ReadTheSpirit Bookstore.)

Together, we can make a huge difference.

(Published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Lynne Meredith Golodner: Where is your story taking you?

Lynne Meredith Golodner is the author of The Flavors of Faith: Holy Breads. (Enjoy our author interview or visit her book page.) Lynne’s talents are rooted in her ability to connect people through stories. In late October, 2013, she is hosting a two-day professional conference called Marketing, Message and Media about the importance of storytelling. But Lynne’s vocational calling extends far beyond the realm of business. You’ll see her larger calling in her earlier column, The Lost Art of Storytelling. Then, today, she takes the storytelling discipline even further …

stories can be told many ways.

You know the old joke: Three people in a room (usually a religion is inserted as a descriptor) are asked about the same event—and you get four different stories.

Well even that story could be told better! But it’s true. We all come to a situation or event with different lenses through which to see the details. Some of us digest stories through words. Others prefer visuals to truly understand what’s going on. Still others need to chew a few bites a time—little, tight nuggets—in order to take in the entire story.

Let’s translate that to the tools we have before us today. Most of us grew up in a world where our phones didn’t follow us through our days and nights. We had moments (sometimes hours) of silence. I remember playing outdoors after school and fully immersing in the songs of birds and the screams of crickets until night fell and the voices of neighborhood mothers drew us back to our homes. The freedom, the fresh air, the camaraderie and the sunshine infused all of us with a sense of right and wrong and what was most meaningful in life.

That’s hard to find nowadays, when we are so bombarded by constant messaging from social media sites, texting, phone calls, buzzing smart phones late in the night and more. How do we ever find silence?

Imagine trying to communicate your message amid all this noise.

‘THE LANDSCAPE UNDER OUR FEET’

This summer, I was lucky to be able to travel a lot, most of it with my family. I took the kids hiking through waterfalls in Hamilton, Ontario. We had the joy of discovering a new city (and country!) by traversing the streets, gathering with patriots on Canada Day to learn about our neighboring nation’s history and tasting unfamiliar foods popular among locals (poutine…interesting).

We gathered with extended family in northern Michigan and tossed among the waves of Lake Michigan. My children laughed with their cousins on the back porch late into the night, while we adults listened from inside, warmed by their connection and awakened by the fact that our children are growing up into their own perspectives and thoughts.

Later, I spent time in business meetings and with my daughter in San Diego, in a different kind of surf, with new foods once again, walking streets and hiking trails to learn a different terrain.

What does this have to do with storytelling for business and community-building?

Everything. Until we understand the landscape under our own two feet, we cannot begin to understand a culture foreign to our own—even if it’s the next town over. And this intimate learning of the sights, sounds, scents and flavors others delight in is crucial to building a lasting and meaningful connection.

When I was a child, I often felt no one really listened to me. I felt things deeply, which many people laughed away as “too sensitive.” I loved learning about how people found meaning in the mundane, how others worshiped and prayed, the rituals and routines that directed people’s lives.

At some point, I may have turned off my own listening, as I felt that no one was listening to me. Recently, I’ve had the joy to turn it back on and I am finding that by listening to others, I am enriching the potential connection between us and finding common ground on which to build a fruitful relationship.

That is key for us as individuals—and it certainly is true for any business or non-profit.

FINDING A GREATER PURPOSE IN OUR STORIES

I’ll give you an example. The other day, I met a guy for coffee to discuss the possibility of working together. This is a video producer who has called me many times over the last few years to inquire about my services – and yet, he had never signed on. Finally, we were at the point of registering him for my upcoming PR Bootcamp, and I felt it was high time to sit down face to face and really hear what each of has to say.

It was the best hour I’d spent in a while.

We sipped our iced coffees and I listened more than I talked, every so often reflecting back to him what I was hearing. First there was the surface layer of conversation, all strident and muscled, where he insisted that the kind of work he needs is corporate video production because that pays the bills.

His voice grew softer as he explained how little support he has, how everything falls on his shoulders. The corners of his words softened, too, when he started to describe the pro bono work he does for people with special needs.

Then, somehow, we got to talking about faith. He is a Christian in a relationship with a Jewish woman, and they are trying to find their mutual ground in a congregation somewhere, talking to various clergy. He described his church to me, and his eyes began to glow.

“What I would really like to do one day,” he said, his voice as soft as I’d heard it, “is create some sort of interfaith ministry so that people like us can find a place where we both feel at home.” His cheeks were red. He almost had tears in his eyes.

“You are so sweet when you talk about this,” I said, knowing we were well beyond a work meeting. This was where two souls connected, where we could really begin to know each other, making any future work so much more meaningful.

And then I confided in him what few people know: I’m doing all this work in public relations and marketing communications and what I really want to do one day is be an interfaith minister.

Does such a position or pulpit exist? Or am I set to create it?

In fact, much of my PR work is leading me in this direction. A majority of my clients are faith-based companies or nonprofits and those that are not at first glance, are led by entrepreneurs with a distinctly faithful perspective and drive. Much of our “work” conversations focus on higher meaning, greater purpose and the Divine.

Plus, my recent book, The Flavors of Faith: Holy Breads, is pretty much its own interfaith ministry. (I am booking speaking engagements across the country as we speak!)

So what does this have to do with storytelling?

Everything and then some.

‘WHEN THERE IS TOO MUCH NOISE AND CLUTTER’

Who we are and what we believe is so much more important than the work we do. And if we separate the two, one will inevitably fall short or be hurt in the process.

Imagine doing work that was divorced from the core of who you are and how you live. How could you possibly be excited to get up every morning? And do you think anyone would be excited to connect with you?

That’s why the core story you’re telling about your business or organization  must include some deeply personal elements of who you are and why you do what you do.

In this world of bombardment by media and technology, we have an even harder time getting clear on who we are and why we do what we do. That’s why it is essential to get silent and go deep inside to reconnect with the Self every single day. In my workshops, we include an element of meditation or prayer so that people can find their story in the stillness.

It’s a universal truth: When there is too much noise and clutter, it is impossible to be clear on what you’re doing or where you’re going.

Let’s find your story so that it not only builds business and connects you with the people you need to know to move forward—but also so you can reconnect with your purpose and let it drive everything you do.

It’s OK to check email only once or twice a day and leave your smart phone on the kitchen counter when you retire for the night. I remember reading in the 1990s how the telephone was created to be a convenience for you—not for the caller. You don’t have to answer it during family dinner. And you certainly don’t have to be a slave to it today.

While the world is a smaller place and we are more connected than ever, the humanness of what we’re doing on this earth has not changed. We may connect more but it’s in a distant manner, which means we are hungry for real human fellowship much of the time.

There’s no reason you shouldn’t include that in the stories we weave about what we’re doing. In fact, I think it’s the smartest thing we could do if we want to see real growth.

Lynne Meredith Golodner is an entrepreneur, author and owner of Your People LLC, a southeast Michigan public relations and marketing communications firm. Join her this fall for a transformative two-day workshop, Marketing, Messaging & Media: Storytelling to Build Your Business, Oct. 26-27th. (Special two for one ticket opportunity through Sept. 15th!!) You can learn more about her book The Flavors of Faith and read samples in our bookstore. She lives in Southfield, Michigan with her husband and four children.

Benjamin Pratt: Enough weeping? Try laughter! (Part 2)

Interactive Humor: The Broom, Part 2

By BENJAMIN PRATT

AND THE WINNER IS …

In an earlier column, we challenged readers to—well, to laugh! Out loud. Tell jokes. Seriously, as a pastoral counselor, I have recommended laughter many times. There is an entire chapter on the importance of humor in my book, A Guide for Caregivers. If you care to read more about this, you’ll enjoy that earlier column explaining our Michelangelo and the Broom challenge. After posing the challenge, our whole ReadTheSpirit team spent a couple of weeks collecting proposed captions. And the winner of the caption contest is …

JAN JETT, a diaconal minister in the United Methodist Church, a Benedictine Oblate and a spiritual director. We asked Jan to tell our readers a bit about her life. She writes: “In 1996 I retired from Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis, IN, where I had directed the Child Life Program. After retiring, I led retreats and worked in a variety of positions in the United Methodist Church. Currently I am active in Contemplative Outreach and the practice of Centering Prayer. As a Benedictine Oblate I have many opportunities to serve, learn and grow. I also am a widow with two living sons, three loving daughters-in-law and three adult grandchildren who are moving toward success and contentment.”

She explains that her winning 4-word caption came to her because humanity, embodied in Adam, seems so darned complacent with life on an earth—when we all know the place is spiraling into a mess. God is pointing. God is speaking. God is handing a broom to Adam’s casually outstretched hand.

Jan now will receive an autographed copy of my book.

(NOTE: Feel free to share this image and caption with others. There are convenient blue-“f” Facebook buttons at top and bottom of this column. Or, use the envelope-shaped email icons.)

(Originally published in ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion, spirituality, values and interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Read the interview in which Pope Francis startles the church

In a stunning move, Pope Francis coordinated with journalists in a carefully orchestrated, in-depth interview published simultaneously by Catholic media around the world. In English, the complete version of the lengthy interview appears in America Magazine.

NEWS ANALYSIS by David Crumm, Editor of ReadTheSpirit:

To be clear, Pope Francis did not change church doctrine. Not a line of the church’s canon law was revised by this interview. But—in a shot heard round the world—he broke open a window into what the world’s billion-plus Catholics consider to be the Mother Church. Then, he stood at this newly opened portal and waved the reluctant toward what he regards as Home.

As a journalist, I have reported from the Vatican a number of times during the reign of Pope John Paul II, who was followed by Pope Benedict XVI. During those papacies, the Vatican sought to gather more and more authority in an effort to purge the church of what Benedict viewed as heresy. Benedict openly talked about the need to lead a smaller, purer church in an era of history that he viewed as a threat to faith itself. During those decades, traditionalists in the church’s grassroots and Catholics with a political agenda—in growing numbers—would conduct their own witch hunts in regions of the church and send charges directly to the Vatican. In this interview, Francis clearly rejects that approach and urges that most future disputes over doctrine be handled “locally.”

For all the high liturgy and all the media glitz of Francis’s election and inauguration in March, this seems to be the true deck-clearing start of Pope Francis’s papacy. Remember that, for decades, his official motto has been miserando atque eligendo, drawn from Bede‘s homily on Matthew 9:9–13 in which Bede wrote: “because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him.”

That entire passage from Matthew 9 says: As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as Jesus sat at dinner in the house, many tax-collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

POPE FRANCIS ON CHURCH LEADERSHIP:

In the thousands of news media reports about Pope Francis’s interview, one of the most overlooked sections of the interview is his explanation—through several Questions and Answers—of his own dramatic evolution in understanding church leadership. He admits and actually seems to apologize for being too authoritarian as a young man, thrust into a position of power in the church in his mid-30s. Now, he realizes that earlier style was wrong. Here’s the key paragraph in which he describes the true wisdom of the Church:

“The people itself constitutes a subject. And the church is the people of God on the journey through history, with joys and sorrows. Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this ‘infallibilitas in credendo,’ this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.”

POPE FRANCIS ON THE CHURCH AS ‘FIELD HOSPITAL’:

Then, here is a sample of the portion mid-interview where Francis startles the world:

“I see clearly,” the pope continues, “that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up.

“The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, ‘This is not a sin’ or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

“How are we treating the people of God? I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess. The church’s ministers must be merciful, take responsibility for the people and accompany them like the good Samaritan, who washes, cleans and raises up his neighbor. This is pure Gospel. God is greater than sin. The structural and organizational reforms are secondary—that is, they come afterward. The first reform must be the attitude. The ministers of the Gospel must be people who can warm the hearts of the people, who walk through the dark night with them, who know how to dialogue and to descend themselves into their people’s night, into the darkness, but without getting lost. The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.”

ON HOMOSEXUALITY:

Here is the key section, which often is quoted only in phrases or single sentences in news media reports:

“We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner,” the pope says, “preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound. In Buenos Aires I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’ because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this. During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of good will and is in search of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the catechism says. Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.”

READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW:

In English, the complete version of the lengthy interview appears in America Magazine.

READ ABOUT ANOTHER POPE WHO STARTLED THE WORLD:

This year, the world is rediscovering Pope John XXIII—especially since Francis plans to canonize him as officially recognized saint.