The Other Brother

 AMDG I, a pilgrim at rest, seeking our Lord ahead and finding him here, to you, my brethren. I wrote most of this piece in November but only now, after Christmas, have been able to reference the texts which gave my experience so much solemnity. I have by now finished my orientation and formation program, been sent and blessed, and wait busily for the day I fly to Brazil. Yet for this story, we look back. Most Fridays during the 8 week orientation program, the missioner candidates dispersed to do ministry in various shelters around the city. I listed as my top choice a “Peace Center” affiliated with a homeless shelter. It sounded on paper like a place of spiritual respite where I could have 1:1 conversations and maybe get involved in activities like scripture study or meditation. Better than kitchen work, to be sure! But on our first day, when another candidate and I arrived, we were first given a 5 minute overview of the shelter – which did not include the Peace Center! – and ...

AMDG I, a pilgrim through the classrooms of life, to you, fellow students, sojourners, teachers, and staff. I am three weeks into my orientation and formation program. I’m here with 7 other candidates for mission life in sort of a miniature retreat house, a little campus of rooms with a well-appointed kitchen and dusty courtyard. Instead of a chapel, we have the large church next door. Instead of grounds, we have the surrounding neighborhoods and city center. I fall asleep in between the roar of street racers and I wake up to the coo of doves and the slow crescendo of morning traffic. This is all just the setting, of course for the real stars of the experience: my cohort. I had been nervous about how we would get along and how I would do in community, but my fears were totally unnecessary. These folks are easy going, kind, caring, compassionate... all the sort of people who want to love others, beginning with the person right in front of them. One man is often sliding affirmations into...

 AMDG I, a green new candidate for a literal kind of discipleship, writing with bags packed and sandals on my feet, to you, disciples in every stage and place of life.             During my long retreat I reflected on the holy family’s flight into Egypt. I was impressed by the way they picked up and left everything behind. Joseph, a carpenter, surely had a workshop, tools, and materials which he had accumulated over a lifetime and used for his livelihood. But at God’s instruction he packed up what he could carry and left. He had such freedom! Reflecting on my own preparations to join a mission organization, I feel that I have some of this freedom, and yet my situation is different. I have had a long time to prepare.             My preparations have involved all kinds of administrative and logistical tasks. I have gotten vaccines and blood tests, completed paperwork, w...

 AMDG I, a dreamer on the cusp of something new, to you, my friends and companions. I spent much of my writing time the last several months composing the private vows which I made on the solemnity of the Sacred Heart. Composing them was a delightful experience. Having finished that exercise, I wanted to share a new thing in my life: dancing! I have long enjoyed jamming to music at home while doing chores (or rather, instead of doing chores), but organized, social dancing remained foreign. This spring, a friend brought me to a country two step dance, and I was in love! The combination of slow and fast two steps, waltzes, and line dances is athletic and fun. The dances provide an opportunity for physical touch and for expressions of romance. And they are something I can be good at in an uncomplicated way. Social dancing is still something new in my life, and perhaps because of that novelty it’s been teaching me some spiritual lessons. A first lesson has been about following. A da...

 AMDG I, a hopeful follower of Christ, to my brothers, sisters, siblings, mothers, and fathers. I am grateful, so grateful, for the community that has made me. For each of you. This morning during mass I could feel my heart beating. It was a tangible reminder of the symbolic gift I want to make. My heart is only one heart, corporal, small, and limited, yet capable of the greatest miracles through the grace of God. What I have copied below I wrote mainly for myself, and ultimately for God. It is part aspiration and part declaration, a prayer and a promise to do my best. Peace, Your Other Brother Introduction The ultimate rule of life is the following of Christ proposed in the Gospels. Each person is a uniquely created child of God, called to be loved and to love, to grow closer to God and in so doing to become more purely themself. This growth, however, may be greatly hindered by the abundance of distractions and deceptions which come from within and from without. My heart burns w...

  AMDG “I will go after my lovers,” she said, “who will give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.” She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal. Therefore, I will now allure her, and lead her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. From there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. On that day, says the LORD, you shall call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me “My Baal (my master).” -Hosea 2:5, 8, 14, 16   I, a new man, to my siblings in Christ: may the abundant peace of God fill your hearts. I am home from my long retreat, as are (I hope) the 17 others who journeyed with me. Although I cannot and have no desire to explain everything that God revealed to me or all the graces w...

  AMDG I, an expectant retreatant, to you, my friends. I think it was in reading Fr. James Martin, SJ’s My Life with the Saints that I first heard about the “spiritual exercises” of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Fr. Martin recounted making the exercises as a novice at the retreat center in Massachusetts, giving me vivid images of the Atlantic ocean beating on grey, rocky outcroppings and shelves of books waiting quietly to sing praises to God. These exercises, called “the heart of the Jesuits,” would continue to show up in the narratives of Jesuits and non-Jesuits as I explored Catholic culture. You can read about them here , but suffice to say the exercises are more than your typical retreat. 30 days deep, they are real quality time with God, a period to tune your inner ear finely to that still, small voice and to give it your whole attention. And under the guidance of St. Ignatius of Loyola, they are a journey with landmarks, lessons, and decisions. In 2018, a newsletter from Ig...

AMDG   I, a simple traveler resting in the shelter of Christmas, to you, my brothers and sisters. I wish y ou a restful and awe-filled celebration of the coming among us of our God.   Since the US presidential election, I have heard repeated th at p eople “just don’t understand” each other , nor do they demonstrate interest in understanding. I also hear a theme of reversal s: Biden reversed Trump’s policies, Trump will reverse Biden’s policies, and everyone is planning how to undo  each other’s hard-won victories in four  or eight m ore years. What wearies me , perhaps because my spirit recognizes it as the true leviathan of our tim e, is the dearth of love. It’s like we’ve lost the desire or intention to see one another as beloved brothers and sisters. Through the first three weeks of Advent, I was thinking about the pillars of Hope, Peace, and Joy. These brought questions and consol ations, but I was missing something. The fourth week brought clarity: Love...