Perfectly Vulnerable Jesus

Tonight I am writing this blog with a mission to help console all those who are feeling confused by all that is happening in the Catholic Church.  Oftentimes, I read articles giving the decisions by Courts to sentence another priest for his crimes of sexually abusing a child or, now to see Msgr. Linn found guilty in Philadelphia for knowingly moving priests from place to place who were actively engaged in abuse.  There are so many issues facing our Church.  What about the religious sisters of Network who are taking a stand against the Church in regard to issues of contraception or health laws or of the Nuns on the Bus who are campaigning all across the United States with their agenda to inform people?  What is happening to us?  Are we unable to talk or agree anymore on anything?  Have we abandoned Christ in the Church to give our opinions to those outside the Church?

This photo of Jesus hugging a little girl speaks to me strongly of the love Jesus has for us all.  He would never harm this little girl, nor would he push her away to side-hug her, as we now see encouraged in our elementary schools.  He is fully engaged in comforting and consoling this little girl for the purest reasons.  It is becoming very difficult to show love in our society, because it is being construed in so many wrong ways.  We can't show affection to children without the fear of having someone accuse us of wrongdoing.  There are too many children searching for love and security today and less and less people around to do it.  Fear is the culprit, but "perfect love casts out fear." (1 John)

I am concerned about our Church and what will happen to all of its structures to help the poor.  I am troubled by those who are conspiring to bring it down.  There is an image that keeps coming to my mind this week of an innocent elderly priest, who has given all he has all his life to care for his flock.  This elderly priest is watching the law enforcement people kick and destroy his little church, his personal belongings, and his resources for the people that he has worked so hard to provide for.  I see this priest being pushed about, mocked and insulted for the good he has tried to do.  It seems that others in the village are also laughing and hurting him and his church property.  It's just an image ... a drama happening in my mind, but it's actually happening in our world in a real way.  The church that Christ gave us to tend is represented in this elderly priest that I see in my mind.  He has no defense, or weaponry or security to protect him.  He is perfectly vulnerable - just as Jesus was perfectly vulnerable.  Cardinal Van Thuan of Vietnam comes to mind.

So what can we do?  Do we just stand by and watch the drama unfold?  Do we flee like the apostles did?  Do we just stand there and cry?  Remember what happened at Calvary?  What did they do?  Some attacked, some cried, some fled, some tortured, some curiously watched.  We're all that crowd now.  Jesus, in His church, is being led through Calvary today right before our eyes.  We cannot ignore it and we cannot bury our heads in the sands of television, internet or addictions.  It is time to act.  What kind of action is required?  What will turn back the tide of hatred?  The exact opposite of what we are seeing displayed.  It is perfectly stated in this one prayer:

"Make me a channel of your peace, where there is hatred, let me bring your love.  Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord, and where there's doubt, true faith in you.  Make me a channel of your peace, where there's despair in life, let me bring hope.  Where there is darkness, only light, and where there's sadness, ever joy.  O Master, grant that I may never seek, so much to be consoled, as to console.  To be understood, as to understand, to be loved, as to love with all my soul.  Make me a channel of your peace, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned.  In giving of ourselves that we receive, and in dying that we're born to eternal life." (R. DeBruyn)

Jesus said, "No one takes my life from me.  I lay it down of my own free will."  This is something we may be asked to do.  Are we prepared?

A Mother's Day To Remember

"BABIES" - THE MOVIE

It's Mother's Day today and my family went to see the new movie, "Babies." If you haven't seen it, it is a joy to watch. You visit four different countries (Mongolia, Japan, San Francisco, USA and Namibia) and watch a child grow from infancy to about one year in their natural environments. As a mother in the United States - having everything I would need to raise a healthy and happy child - it occurred to me during the film that there are other things just as important as health, wealth and conveniences. For example, there is a Namibian mother raising her children with absolutely nothing except the ground they walk on and the sky above. She sits - days on end - with her children, dressed in loincloth, jewelry about the neck and very little shade or comfort. Never did I see a man - a Father - appear on the screen. "He must exist," I mused, but the filmmaker chose to accentuate the mother and children against the stark background of the wilderness. The mother just sits there under a tree most of the time ... children playing around her in harmony ... or sometimes not. This whole scene burns in my mind and poses the question, "Do you sit with your children and let them be children?"

Then we switch over to Mongolia to see a child raised in the open wilderness with cattle, goats, cats, and no neighbor in sight. This child is left alone often tied to a bed, stuck in the back of a truck, or on the bed with the cat. Many times my motherly instincts were rattled as I saw the child pulling on the cat's ears or tail and no mother around to protect the child from the cat's impulses. Other times I would watch as the child would fall - or almost fall - and no one to secure or assure him that he was not alone. Yet, this child grows up happy and unafraid of his environment, having already conquered it through self-taught experience and interaction. In our American culture, we are doing so much protecting of our children that they are not free to experience it and learn from it. It's as if we want to take this danger away from them so they will be safe and sound, yet are they? Is the environment a danger? Just watching the film made me question how our environment has become so sterile, safe and secure to the point it leaves no room for real life to happen. It seems plastic or hollow to me in light of this Mongolian child's environment. Are we blocking or robbing our children of their right to explore, adventure out into the wilderness of our own neighborhoods and learn for themselves what is out there? Parents, I suppose, are very afraid of what is happening in our world with drugs, weapons, and paedophiles, that we lock our children up psychologically even before they leave the house!

So often I have been corrected by a friend who has spent his life in the bush of Africa when I have said something derogatory of people who need our help. He has shared with me that the people of Africa have much joy, ingenuity, energy and passion for living and that we would be totally exhausted trying to keep up with them from morning until night. The mothers walk long distances for water and food, carrying their babies on the back, then spend hours looking for firewood so they can cook, clean up the floors, get their children ready for the next day and then start all over again. Our American way of life is nothing like this. We are far from our roots in this regard. Much of our time is spent on intellectual pursuits and entertainment, while our children are following in our footsteps. They are reading the computer, playing on their video games, and talking to friends on their cell phones, rather than exploring their environment, searching for natural ways to entertain themselves and making friends. It is all a virtual world for them now.

Mothers all over the globe care for their babies with love, tenderness, discipline and patience. They work hard to bring them up as healthy citizens of their communities. We have much in common, but we also have much more to learn from each other.

Things Change

When I began our non-profit in 2003, I didn't think many things would change. It just seemed to be an "eternal present" that I was living in and that it would be like that 20 years later. I know that's really naive, but I think I believed it. Any time anything "changed" in my life, I became uncomfortable, distrusting, and edgy! Hmmm, this is a sure sign that you are "stuck in a brain mode" where you always end up surprised and shocked! So I have to think about this thing called change more objectively and try to have it as a friend rather than a foe.

Recently John Kenagy, M.D. wrote, "... it is very difficult to get people to think their way into a new way of acting. Instead, people must act their way into a new way of thinking. It's action innovation, not thinking innovation, that makes the difference." In his article, "Acting Your Way To A New Way Of Thinking," [March 22, 2010 HHN Magazine] he says, "Behaviors are driven by beliefs. To change behavior, you must first change beliefs." This opens up a highway before me of questions such as "What do I believe?" or "Where am I going with this?" or "Do I really want to go there?" Right now I can hear my Dad saying to me over and over as I was growing up, "You think too much, Pattye." Do I really think too much?

A part of life is taken over with chores, sleeping, eating, working and appointments, but beyond these inevitables, there needs to be room for reflecting in the RESTING PERIODS or evaluating in the WORKING PERIODS. Am I working too much that I can't see the reason for why I work? Am I happily fulfilled with my work? Is my rest CONSUMED by vegetating on the couch watching T.V. or in front of the computer or I-Phone? I'd have to admit that right at this very moment I am managing 15 games of Scrabble on my I-Touch! It's an addiction that calls my name, but what is this doing to my need for "rest" and "evaluation?"

If I want to see where I am going and know that I am on the right road for my life, and not barraged with thinking about things that don't matter or those "could-a/should-a/would-a thoughts", then I need to change my belief system and begin to move on them in the real world with behaviors that really reflect what I believe in. Back in 1998 I had a crisis in my belief system. I believed that praying was a good in itself and that walking the path of contemplation with others was what would make me a happy and fulfilled person. Then I met a missionary priest who worked in Africa for most of his life and he began to share the needs of the world around me and the severe poverty and desperation of people. This began to drill a hole in my belief system, leaving me feeling very "uncomfortable, distrusting and edgy!" This crisis of belief was "praying wasn't the only good" and if people were really in great need, then "praying wasn't enough." At that time I believed praying was enough and had to make a decision in my will/brain/spirit to either go with that belief and walk away from the world that was needing help or change my beliefs and get to work.

Happily, I can say I changed my belief! I said, "I'm a person that believes that praying AND helping people in need are equally very important to me." Hence, I and seven others began a non-profit organization called Sobornost For The World Foundation with two missions: one mission was to help orphans in sub-Sahara Africa be educated, fed and clothed; and the other mission was to start a fair trade store in our local town to help struggling producer groups all over the globe. At this point - seven years later - we are still staffed by all volunteers, we have 400 orphans in Kenya and Zambia that we love and try to continue supporting; as well as staff our little fair trade store five days a week all year long. Changing your beliefs to include ACTION and INNOVATION can make a world of difference to children all across the world. It sure has made a world of difference to me. Now about that Scrabble game?

Growing With Fair Trade

Time sure flies when you're having fun, they say! Hello again and welcome back. At this point in my journey I am excited about January 2007. There is so much happening and so much to learn about our world. Fair Trade is moving and growing on Long Island and today I was able to connect with another fair trade company not far from us. The Groovy Mind is the name of their company and they are an online store. They are very excited about their organic coffees and teas and most likely in the coming year I will be selling some of them on our shelves in our fair trade store in Hampton Bays. We shared about our business experiences and how lonely, at times, we feel. I shared with her that a strong fair trade coalition will help us all and she agreed. So I look forward to meeting them in January for a "greeting meeting!" Also, I am being blessed by a man who is at the center of many resources for our work. He works at Stony Brook University and is full of contact people that could help generate much good here on Long Island. I have already contacted some of these people that he referred to me.


The documentary, "Black Gold" about the coffee farmers in Ethiopia is being shown in January near us and I have already reserved four tickets for us to go and see and learn about that issue in fair trade. Also, there is another documentary to be shown in early February called "Lives For Sale" done by the Maryknoll Missionaries about human trafficking which also fits well into our work. So I am excited that good things are being done for people all around the world. Another thing I learned was that in NYC there is a fair trade cafe called "Paradise Cafe" down on 8th Avenue and 17th Street. Our little band of fair trading volunteers will go into NYC in January to the International Gift Show and guess where we'll have lunch? You're right, Paradise Cafe! So with all that is going on in fair trade in the coming month, who wouldn't be excited? Go to www.oxfamamerica.org and click on the Ethiopia article on the lower right hand corner and watch the video about the Starbucks campaign which occurred on December 16th. It was very good and many people learned about the needs of the Ethiopian coffee farmers and why they only receive three cents for each cup of coffee that is sold. Who gets the other $2.90 or more per cup at Starbucks? It is a good time to learn about fair trade. Check out some of my web links here on the blog and keep your eyes open for all that is happening!

Hope Is Born!

It's been a while since I sent a blog! Life just gets so busy at times. Right now I am in the middle of getting some fundraising prepared for November for our orphans in Kenya and Zambia. Since I last wrote, I visited a friend in Rochester, New York, who was sick. He has been instrumental in helping us get our work started in Kenya and I am very grateful to him. Tonight I wanted to speak about how hard it can be at times to keep a community of love going, focused and healthy. People in our world today are not too interested in creating communities like they did in the 60's and 70's. Back then they gathered for music, drugging, revolution and just anything they felt was interesting to them. Today people seem to be isolated from others - neighbors don't come out of their homes as often and families are all split up across our country due to economic or weather-related conditions. It is sad. Community can be a great way of "feeling human" and learning about life. Seeing things through other peoples' eyes is a gift. Our community meets about twice a month for a soup and bread dinner at 7 p.m. on a Friday night, followed by silence together in a chapel (or wherever) and then back for coffee/tea afterwards. It ends about 9:30 p.m. We have been gathering like this since 1998 and we intend on continuing. It gives us a chance to see one another, talk about what's new in our lives, our hopes our failures, etc. All of us are not necessarily what you would call "best friends" as we are all so different, but we all have one thing in common: love for one another and respect for each other's lives. When we are together we are very comfortable just being together. No one in our group seems to want to "control" the group - everyone is happy just to allow whoever feels like leading it to lead it. Someone always prepares something unique for the prayer time. This month I did something a little out of the ordinary. I gathered all kinds of things on our property that looked interesting in the Fall season and asked each person to take one and reflect on it. Each person had a beautiful thing to share about their particular item and it showed us how people see things so differently. Communities don't always love one another - some do, but some are just groups to do things like go to Atlantic City and gamble, visit museums, bake, quilt, etc. There are so many reasons to gather. We gather to deepen our relationship with God and with each other. It just happens. Life is moving so fast that these times are very special for us - it gives us a chance to breathe, look at things more reflectively, listen to the silence of our own hearts beating, and enjoy the quiet of life. I hope you find some time to sit and look at life happening ... it doesn't take any real brain work ... just an open heart. So many things change when we do this for ourself. Life slows down a bit ... we enjoy it more fully ... and we look forward to things. Hope is born!

A Community Of Love

Today was spent visiting with all the Sobornost For The World Foundation members. It was great to hear all about our one member's recent visit to Kenya in August and to see the video footage. Most of us may never see Africa in person, so this was a very special event. The people of Kenya look so happy despite their meager resources and the children we sponsor in schools and feed are all looking healthy, happy and safe. Much of this is due to the support of many people on Long Island and the kind donations of Catholic parishioners who have heard of our work. What I noticed today is the level of loving commitment the people of our Foundation have to, not only care for the poor of the world, but one another as well. We are all so joyful when we are together ... it is a great "sobrania" as the Russians would say. All of us share the common goal of living the gospel with our lives, to the extent that each person can in his or her life. Some are married, some are single, one is a priest, some are widows, but at the end of the day we are all one in Christ. What I think I am learning by being with this group of people is that God is so loving to us, committed to helping us in our lives, and patient with our growth on the journey. No one person has it all - but together we are all a strong body of people who witness with perserverance, love and faith. We are never sure where the next dollar will come from to help more orphans, but it always arrives just in time. Last year one of our members returned from Africa with the comment that if we were to build a secondary school in Kenya and God wanted it to be built, then the money would come. We asked her how much it would cost and she said around $30,000 US dollars. Most of us just gasped in shock! Where would our little organization find that kind of money, we wondered. But, as usual, God does His mightiest work for the poor and in just two donations to our organization, exactly $30,000 was given to us through our friend, the priest in our group! Can you imagine that? It wasn't $10,000 or $15,000, it was $30,000! I am sure that it is what He wants for them. I am learning that it is not important to worry about the details when helping the poor. You just step out there and do something for them and then the doors fling wide open! Without that first step, and sometimes even with a little seed money from our own pockets, amazing things can happen for others. It is an exciting life living with these wonderful people. Each of them gives much of themselves and walks the journey of faith. If one of us is a little weaker in faith, another one gives a boost of faith.

Rocks and Swimming Pools

Welcome back. Again I bring up the topic of child labor because it is so prevalent in our times. All across the world we are hearing of more and more children caught up in hard labor, long hours, lack of food, medicine and sleep and no one to fight for them. I just can't let it rest. This weekend our organization had the opportunity to share our work and to raise, not only awareness of the needs of other countries, but much-needed funds. Forgive me for being so negative, but I was somewhat shocked by the lack of compassion, charity and interest in our work in Africa with the orphans we sponsor. Of course, there were many who spoke to us about how much good we do, but was there any tangible evidence that people really cared about these children or any other countries' children? It would be safe to say that a few really cared, but many were glazed over as we spoke. How can we reach them and ignite a fire within them of love for the world's children? This is my desire. Jesus Christ was very forthright in His approach. He called a spade a spade. A lot of missionaries we have read about gave their lives as they spoke out fearlessly for the injustices they witnessed - i.e. Sister Dorothy Stang in the Brazilian rainforest, Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador and so many countless others. Does it always have to come to death? Whether it is for hatred or love, death seems to always win out in the end. As a Christian I do believe there is life beyond death, but you know what I mean, don't you? Someone is always having to die for their beliefs while on earth. Recently in the New York Times, a friend of mine brought to my attention that on the front page, front and center, was an article written about children in Zambia who break rocks for 7-10 hours a day or possibly more for a few dollars. Grandmothers and little children, working alongside one another, trying to eake out a living by breaking rocks in the hot sun with little or no food, with the broken rocks now create a smooth swimming pool surface. These children sit there in a rock pile, breaking the rocks into a fine grain in order to be used for cement blocks for swimming pools! How can anyone swim in a pool filled, not with water, but with the tears and runny noses of children aged 4 to 15? It is incomprehensible to me. Yet, we, in America, are guilty of some of this activity halfway around the world. "How?" you wonder? Poverty is the whole human race's problem. It is created by humanity and allowed to persist because those who have much either don't want to share it or those who live in it are unable to get any help to be free of it. What else is there, really? Do we really expect a 5-year-old child with no parents, no food, no school, who is forced to work in order to feed his/her belly, to find a way out of this cycle of poverty by themselves? Only love, compassion and charity can lift that child up into its arms and nurture him/her. Love is a person - a hug - a caring shoulder to cry on. People must help people. Anyway, I am sad to see apathy in the face of such suffering. It is a haunting melody playing out in my mind while I work, play and sleep. It won't go away.

All To Jesus I Surrender

It was a very full day today. Lots of people were in my heart, mind and presence. As the day progressed, I visited people, called people, prayed for people and just took pleasure in being able to have such wonderful people in my life. As I traveled through the day I realized how blest I was and how many terrific people are in my life today. There are people who pray with me, people who talk with me, people who visit with me and share their lives, people who work alongside me in our mission, and people who enjoy life by sightseeing, growing and learning. As I blog about my life and the things that happen to me, I reflect on the idea that nothing is more important than this day. I think Goethe said something like that once. It is important for me to remain "in the day" because it is where everything is REAL. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow isn't here yet, but today is HERE and it invites me to enter into it with my full self - fully human, fully alive. It is true that some days are not great days - there is still pain and suffering that goes with my life, but not every day is like that. I just watched a movie about Dorothy Day's life called "Entertaining Angels." I've seen it several times, but each time I watch it I learn something more from her. She just didn't settle for what life handed her - she looked at it, reflected on it, criticized it, and did something about it. This is why she was so inclined to be a Communist in her day because the Communists were doing something constructive about the poverty and unemployment. As the movie went on it became clearer to her that being a Catholic was not only active, but it was loving and caring towards those who were poor. Being Catholic to her wasn't just giving food, clothing, or shelter to people, but it was giving love along with all those things. A Communist in her day was just concerned with equality and jobs, not much to do about loving and caring. Catholicism gets a bad rap today because of human weakness and politics, but at the heart of it, the Gospel message keeps urging us on to do exactly what Dorothy Day did - love her neighbors as Christ had loved her - personally, compassionately and selflessly. There were many times she was criticized because she gave everything away to the poor - even the rent money they needed to live on, but she radically gave it to the poor knowing full well that her God would care for her needs and those she was caring for as well. It is the same thing I have experienced so far in my life - the more you give to those in need, the more you receive and you never run out. It is a good day when I can say I have loved, given myself and saved nothing for myself.

Trapped By The Trinity

Today I visited a friend who is also a co-founder of our non-profit, Sobornost For The World Foundation, Inc. She and I shared a few hours together sharing our summer vacation experiences, Vespers (evening prayer), a walk to the nearby village and dinner at the Greek Restaurant. It was a time to kick back a little and just enjoy the summer weather with a like-minded friend. She and I talked about whether we would go to another country to do work with children there, entertained the thought of whether or not a new store was needed to help move fair trade along on Long Island, and stopped by the cathedral to pray in silence while the Spanish-speaking people were celebrating Mass. While we sat in the stillness, listening to the Spanish words of the readings from Scripture, we tried to focus on what God might want to say to us on this beautiful summer day. My experience was an image - a tripod, with me under it, and a camera above on the tripod. When I saw this image, the thought that came to mind was that I was "overshadowed by the Trinity" and that the rest of Sobornost was represented as the camera - fully and actively taking it all in. Because of health concerns earlier in the year I had to take some time away from the active work I was doing to re-evaluate my health needs. Time has sped by and I find myself wanting to get involved more actively than I presently am, but now that I've seen this image I know I have to wait. In a humorous way I saw myself as "trapped by the Holy Trinity!" Being trapped or confined right now within the Trinity's grasp is not a bad place to be! In fact, there probably isn't any place I'd rather be, but being an active person keeps me wondering if I should go back "out there" to help out. I don't really know if I'll ever learn the lesson of waiting on God completely. It is so hard for me to wait when I don't see the road up ahead and I feel alone. Feeling alone is one of my worst problems. It causes me to jump, jolt and sprint when I should be still, silent and slow. When I finally reach the end of my life I hope I have learned this lesson of waiting on God well. Waiting is faith lived out. I should realize by now that when the pupil is ready the master will appear!

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

I have just returned from a visit to Texas where my family resides. One of the experiences I had while I was visiting was when I went to Central Market and World Market. These two very large chain stores are in some ways similar to what we are doing in our fair trade store in New York. The only problem I had was that neither of them was fair trade and they had never heard of fair trade. Both managers from the two stores looked at me mystified when I asked them if they had ever heard of it. The problem with this is that they are unfamiliar with exploitation in other countries where they are buying their products. They are unaware of child, slave or sweatshop labor. They are not aware of environmentally sustainable methods so that the earth is not robbed of its minerals or left filled with pesticides and chemicals. It is too bad. When I returned from these two stores I immediately went to the internet and began a letter-writing campaign all my own, followed by a phone call to some of our larger fair trade companies to let them know what I experienced. Most people wouldn't care if they bought a carved giraffe from a fair trade company or a vendor on a street corner because they just don't know the long-range implications and how human beings are being dragged through the dirt. Do I blame them? I don't really blame the consumers because they are somewhat insulated by the many schemes we have in our country to keep business alive, the economy in an upward growth pattern and the real truth hidden. Who I really want to blame are the multi-national companies who have all gone overseas in order to keep their businesses growing, their costs low for employees and products, and the consumer buying. These companies have just lost their ethics and gone into a production frenzy with the children and poor caught in the teeth of the factories. Don't people understand what's really going on? Fair trade is one alternative way of doing business which will help people all over the world to survive. This is, however, only one alternative and I have given myself to it for the sake of these people trapped in the middle. We all can and should try and make a difference in the world. We have access to all kinds of international reports and stories from people who are living in these circumstances. Why don't we take the time to read about them? If I have a choice between reading a book, a newspaper, an article on the internet, why can't I try and find out what is happening somewhere else in the world besides my own backyard? Do we really believe that what we don't see won't hurt us? One amazing statistic from the United Nations is that 2.8 billion people (about half the world) are living in poverty to the tune of $2.00 a day or less. What is the other half doing about it?