The Other Brother

 AMDG Amadas irmãs e irmãos, Beloved sisters and brothers, Bendições de Páscoa!! Easter blessings! É domingo na manhã, meu tempo normal para escrever, e só quero fornecer uma atualização breve. Eu cheguei no Brasil no fevereiro, graças a Deus. Tive um pouco tempo na cidade onde trabalharei. No março comecei um programa de língua e missiologia numa outra cidade, e vou estar aqui no programa até junho. Fico agora em um ponto de inflexão com a língua Português. É um momento de alegria, porque a missa está tornando-se de novo uma fonte de consolo e eu estou começando escrever e pensar no Português naturalmente. It’s Sunday morning, my usual time for writing, and I just want to give a brief update. I arrived in Brazil in February, thanks be to God. I spent a little time in the city where I’ll work. In March, I started a language and missiology program in another city, and I’ll be here in the program until June. I am now at a turning point with the Portuguese language. It is ...

 AMDG I, a lowly one whom the Lord has filled with good things, to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ. My weeks of waiting for my visa stretch on, so I remain here in the states, studying language, filing my taxes, and otherwise keeping busy in body and spirit. I’m certainly digesting national events and wondering, what is mine to do about it? If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the same dark clouds, I’d recommend these words by Father John Collins, CsSR . As I move to Brazil, I occasionally think about what I will take with me and what I will leave behind. Will all those pesticide applicator and prescribed burn trainings ever be relevant again? My decade of teaching myself Spanish? What about my interest in theology and spiritual direction? My aim is to be detached, and that detachment brings an excited curiosity. Here, Lord, is our toolbox. What will you ask for? One of these aspects that I’m trying to hold openly is the disclosure, or nondisclosure, that I am transgender....

 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 follower of Christ Jesus, to you, fellow followers in all diversity of circumstances. The peace of Our Lord be with you. At a conference last year, I stopped at a booth for a religious community I had never heard of. I chatted briefly with the two representatives. I liked what I learned, and they were attentive and engaged. One of them was a vocations director, and he asked me if I had considered religious life. Yes, I would love to join religious life. However, I am transgender. Ah. Now he assured me that God is calling me to something. But not to life with his order. I would have to figure it out. The smile was still amiable, but the interest was gone. Here’s a pamphlet about their work in Chicago. Bye. Vocation comes up a lot in conversation. It’s my anchor into LGBTQ issues. It’s a perpetual topic of advertisement in the church. And it’s something I’m still actively figuring out – and maybe will be for the rest of my time on Earth. But a few things about these ...