Friendship, Vulnerability, and Prayer

reflections,
Photo Credit: "Friendship" by Fabrizio Lonzini/Creative Commons License 2.0
Photo Credit: “Friendship” by Fabrizio Lonzini/Creative Commons License 2.0

I am a lucky girl. Over the years, my path has crossed with some pretty amazing people, and I have been blessed to develop some incredible, deep, and lasting friendships with some of them.

Friendships of course start because you have some commonality, shared experience, or perspective. There you are, just living your life day by day, and before you know it, you’ve got a friend. Come to think of it, isn’t that a song from a certain animated feature?

Even for those of us who are just a little bit shy, that’s really the easy part. The hard part comes when your commonalities shift or go away, or when the physical distance between you grows, or other life changing events happen and shift the landscape of your friendship.  When you shoulder some of those burdens of life together, renew connections and make new ones, your friendship goes even deeper and in the process becomes more precious.

In my experience, the most beautiful part of friendship comes when you are able to walk tenderly together into the moments and spaces of vulnerability in your lives. Sometimes this is entirely mutual, such as when you and your friend share a hard experience. Sometimes you are the one in a vulnerable spot, and your friend is there to love and support you and help you remember how good things can be and that things will be good again.  And sometimes, the grace in the moment is that you are able to be there for your friend when things aren’t going that well, or even when it seems as if their world is falling apart.

I will never forget one of these moments in my own life, the night I got the news that my mom’s long struggle with cancer was finally over and she had passed. As hard as it is to believe, that was actually eleven years ago this month. At that moment, I was filled with a jumble of feelings that were almost overpowering and paralyzing. I was so glad my mom was no longer suffering, yet at the same time felt like my world had literally been torn apart and would never come back together. I called my friend. I’m not sure how coherent I was. I think I was just trying to tell someone that I was dropping everything and flying home the next day to be with my family and get ready for the funeral. I may not actually have said anything. All I know is that within the next hour, well after midnight while I was packing my suitcase, there was a gentle knock on my door.  My friend was there just to give me a hug. She had driven all the way across town just to do that. I hadn’t cried really until that hug but her presence and love freed me to let go and be with my grief. What gift.

My prayers these days are filled with hopes and love and support for friends who are going through their own rough patches. Marriage problems, deaths or serious health problems of loved ones, job or vocation crises.  Some of my favorite people in the world are having a tough time right now.  In most cases, they are too far away for me to hop in a car and give them a hug. But in my prayer, they are loved and held in a special way. Being present, even at a distance, to my friends in their vulnerability is such a beautiful thing.

I was looking for a photo to go with the post and found the one above. How perfect is that, my friends, to express what I’ve been trying to write in the past 628 words?  Sometimes, you just need a buddy to sit within you in the dryer, to give you a hug between the spins and hot spots of life.

The photo

photography, stories, ,
At the corner of Susan and St. Joseph
At the corner of Susan and St. Joseph

A few folks have asked about the photo that inspired the name for my new blog.  I’ve discussed this a bit in the “about” section, but given that most folks won’t spend a lot of time poking around my new blog, I thought I might as well make the photo the topic of today’s blog post.  The short answer is, yes it is an actual photo that I took a few years ago on a trip to the town of Wenatchee, Washington which is east of the Cascades in the central part of the state.

I had never been to Wenatchee before, a town with a rich history that includes the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. In 1916 the Sisters were invited by Bishop O’Dea of Seattle to take over the Wenatchee General Hospital, which they ran as St. Anthony’s Hospital until the 1970s. Many of my favorite CSJP Sisters ministered at the hospital, including my friend Sister Monica who started there as a young Sister in the 1950s as a bookkeeper before becoming and RN, a hospital administrator, and eventually CEO of our health system.

Given our rich history there, I took the opportunity of giving a presentation at a parish in Central Washington as an opportunity to make a sort of pilgrimage. I visited the site of the original hospital (now a home for disabled adults).  I also visited St. Joseph School, which was started by our Sisters in the 1950s. The last CSJP left the school in the 1980s, but my friend Sister Tonia stayed on in Wenatchee working with the diocese until a few years ago.

Now we get to the part of the story you have been waiting for … the discovery of the corner of Susan Place and St. Joseph Place. After parking near St. Joseph’s school and walking around, I returned to my car and discovered that this was where I had parked!  The synchronicity of the moment struck me then, and the picture I took that day has given me many opportunities to contemplate in deep gratitude this wonderful adventure God has invited me to participate in.

When I was thinking of a name for this new blog to mark the beginning of a new adventure, the picture naturally came to me as perfectly capturing this moment and the many blessings in my life as Sister Susan, a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace.

Really, I can’t think of a better place to be than at the corner of Susan and St. Joseph, pursuing social justice as a path to peace.

Bernardin’s Consistent Ethic of Life applied to Human Trafficking

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Cardinal Bernardin
Cardinal Bernardin

I have had the amazing opportunity these past 2+ years to study at Catholic Theological Union as a Bernardin Scholar. This has given me an opportunity–and responsibility–to learn more about Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and the great contributions he made to our church and Catholic social thought.  Perhaps his greatest and most far reaching contribution was his development of the Consistent Ethic of Life.

I am presently beginning work writing my masters thesis on human trafficking as social sin. One aspect of the trafficking experience is the commodification and dehumanization of the trafficked person. As I was writing the section on dehmanization, I thought I would look at what Cardinal Bernardin wrote about human dignity and see if I could weave it in. I vaguely remembered reading something he wrote which would apply, and happily just found it.

It’s an address he gave in 1984 to the National Consultation on Obscenity, Pornography, and Indecency. Here’s just a bit:

The theological foundation of our opposition to obscenity, pornography, and indecency is the dignity of the human person. …

It is clearly simply inadequate simply to say that human life is sacred and to explain why this is so. It is also necessary to examine and respond to the challenges to the unique dignity and sacredness of human life today. Human life has always been sacred, and there have always been threats to it. However, we live in a period of history when we have produced, sometimes with the best of intentions, a technology and a capacity to threaten and diminish human life which previous generations could not even imagine.

In the first instance, there are life-threatening issues such as genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare, and euthenasia. These assaults on life cannot be collapsed into one problem; they are all distinct, enormously complicated, and deserving of individual treatment. ….

That is why I have argued frequently during the past year for the need of developing a ‘consistent ethic of life’ that seeks to build a bridge of common interest and common insight on a range of social and moral questions. Successful resolution on any of these issues is dependent upon the broader attitude within society regarding overall respect for life. …

In the second instance, there are life-diminishing issues, such as prostitution, pornography, sexism, and racism. Again, each is a distinct problem, enormously complex, worthy of individual attention and action. Nonetheless, understanding that they all contribute in some way to a diminishment of human dignity provides a theological foundation for more specific reflection and concrete action.

Keep in mind, he wrote these words in 1984. Decades before human trafficking became a public policy issue on the national and international stage.  However, it is not really a stretch to expand his observations about the dehumanizing effects of prostitution and pornography—which can be considered trafficking when force, fraud, or coercion is involved—to other forms of human trafficking, such as forced labor, where the creative capacities of the human person are exploited for profit and ill-gotten gain.

Ultimately, Bernardin’s consistent ethic of life helps us focus our attention on the human part of human trafficking. When we realize that what is at stake is the inherent human dignity of persons deserving respect, hopefully we are spurred to “more specific reflection and concrete action.”

Pray for us, Cardinal Bernardin.

First soup of the season

cooking, seasons,
First soup of the season
veggie soup in progress

I just put my first soup of the year in the crockpot. Yesterday in Chicago it was close to 80 degrees. This morning as I walked to the grocery store to stock up on soup ingredients, it was in the 50s and just a wee bit overcast with a hint of precipitation to come. I will admit, my inner Pacific Northwesterner is happy with this turn of events.

Hopefully, autumn is here for a bit. Really it’s my favorite season. As a kid, it meant the start of the new school year. It’s a chance to wear that new red sweater you bought at the thrift store over the summer. To go for a long walk and crunch some leaves. And to make the first pot of soup before heading to the library.

It’s nice to know that as I hunker down to get serious about finishing up the first chapter of my thesis, a simple vegetable soup is simmering away.

Sometimes, it’s the simple things in life that are the best.

Still discerning ….

updates

This is my first post on the new blog. The old blog (Musings of a Discerning Woman) is still live, and it might take me a little while to transition to this new one.

I’ve been thinking about starting a new blog for a while now. I’ve even considered the possibility of leaving the blogging world behind, but as I’ve been blogging for almost 10 years, it’s become a part of how I process information and relate to the world. Plus, to be honest, I simply love to write and the blog format is perfect for the introverted, pondering writer type.

I’ve named this new adventure in blogging “At the Corner of Susan and St. Joseph.”  I am still sharing the musings of a discerning woman, as the title of this first post indicates, but my discernment is now firmly grounded in my commitment as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace.

I often tell friends that it is as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace that I can be the best me. I make more sense in this life, and the world makes more sense. And for that, my friends, I am so very grateful.