Seeking new life and reconciling new beginnings, long-held traditions, and foundations of all sorts... With all that I offer my latest from the Global Sisters Report:
I never signed up to teach English classes. Yet when a
deficit of volunteers and a surplus of students at the neighborhood center
where I minister necessitated a teacher for another class, I found myself
stepping in as an instructor on the fly. As Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick said
of our sisters in 1847 when we first came to Philadelphia from St. Louis, they
are truly "ready for any good work."
This past week, it seemed like any and every good work that
could demanded my time. In the midst of it all, our Founders' Day (Oct. 15)
came to pass, and I found myself in class at the Sisters of St. Joseph
Neighborhood Center in Camden, New Jersey, rather than at our motherhouse,
celebrating.
Disappointed, I came to class less than thrilled by the
prospect of teaching. I would have much rather been celebrating with the larger
community than looking over lesson plans and preparing for basic English class.
My mind kept on wandering to the community gathered to mark the occasion. I
wished I could be there with them, and yet I wasn't.
Taking a deep breath, I put those thoughts aside as the
first students walked into class. The next hour and a half would be a
whirlwind. By the time we emerged from our lesson, there were cheerful smiles
and promises to be back for class later in the week.
After class, I sat with one of our volunteers, debriefing
the night. An associate of our congregation, she had raised the issue of the
conflict with Founders' Day at the teacher orientation meeting a month before.
At the time, we'd discussed the difficulty the scheduling
conflict posed. On the one hand, we wanted to celebrate with the congregation
at large; on the other hand, canceling class for the night only a few weeks
into the semester would be disruptive to our students. Together, we agreed it
was best to skip the celebration in favor of continuity.
Yet even though we'd agreed on this decision, the sacrifice
still stung that night as we came to class rather than the communal
celebration.
"I have to admit, I missed the celebration," I
said with honest acceptance. My friend nodded in agreement.
Then I heard words come out of my mouth that I hadn't
expected. "I'm glad I was here, though. This is where our founders would
have wanted me to be ... working side-by-side with a mother of two struggling
to master her numbers in English so that eventually, she can learn enough
English to talk to her children's teachers at school."
The volunteer smiled warmly. "You bet. Those first
women wouldn't have wanted us to be anywhere else. In fact, they probably would
have been sitting right there beside us if they could."
That, after all, is what our founders, no matter the
congregation, called for: a spirit ready for any good work — ready to serve, to
love and to live the Gospel without boundaries.
Remembering that call is the first step in more fully living
it out; the first step in fostering and furthering the mission we have
committed ourselves to, to becoming founders for the future.
Such a call requires a remembering of the past, an
engagement in the present, and a desire for the future. There is no clear road
map for such living, but if my experience in the classroom is any indication,
flexibility certainly stands as a paramount virtue of firm foundations for the
future.
My life these days has become a crash course in flexible
foundations. Only a few weeks into the semester and a few years into the
process of establishing this new sponsored ministry, I can see the spirit of
our founders at work and the lessons of foundation-building at work within me.
No matter my expectations (or lack thereof), there's always
room for surprise. The ability to adjust to such uncertainty, to "go with
the flow" and trust the Spirit, is key to success. It is an uneasy state
of being. Rote answers and saccharine platitudes are contentious rather than
comforting. The push within me is to seek solid ground, with the firmest
foundations coming from the honest pursuit of mission in the everyday, lived
reality of life.
The honesty of this pursuit of mission is that it is
imperfect. That imperfection is humbling. To trust the Spirit is to quickly
realize you aren't in control. As much as you might want a specific outcome or
desire a certain course of events, no formulation is a failsafe path to your
desired outcome. Formulaic foundations can come off as contrived and
overbearing. Yes, we must plan for the future, but some of the greatest
planning allows us to let reality, relationships and individuals breathe life
into the structures set forth.
Thus, we lay groundwork on which something, perhaps unknown
even to us, can be built. To do so, we must ask ourselves: "What is the
goal of this undertaking?" "What is the foundation we hope to build
on?" "What do we hope to embody in this endeavor?"
We must plan with an eye toward flexibility, doing the deep
inner work of personal and communal reflection that allows a structure to flex
rather than falter. This requires listening attentively — not only to the
Spirit within me/us, but also to the Spirit among us, the Spirit that speaks in
the voices of those with whom we journey.
When we were first beginning the SSJ Neighborhood Center,
people in the neighborhood as well as our sisters wondered aloud what the
center would be. The voices that stood out in these conversations were not
those that gave pat answers or proposed old models; the outstanding voices were
those who wanted to invest in a vision that, although uncertain at times,
sought to do what our first sisters did: meet the needs most pressing in the
community.
Each day, we encounter new neighbors who take the step of
making such an investment. By sharing their lives, asking for help, naming
desires and offering a friendly welcome, these neighbors enter into
relationship and become co-founders of a place rooted in relationship. At
times, this is an effortless act, like when a community member finds a
prayerful place of sharing in which to speak his truth through stories from his
childhood.
Other times, the hurdles of cultural differences and lingual
divides can make the very act of communicating difficult. In this space,
flexibility and humility are key. No one is better than the other; we are
simply journeyers seeking understanding and trying to connect for a common
good.
Without a common language, you come to understand that compassion is a
universal language. We need one another for this to work. As much as I can
teach, I must also be willing and open to learn.
This brings us to one of the most vital lessons of laying
foundations: Failure is always part of the option.
"What feels like failure in the moment is an
opportunity for growth," I wrote earlier in the process of setting up this
new ministry. "With any luck, as we free ourselves and our institutions to
fail, we will discover a new form of success: success in faithfulness to the
Spirit, that far exceeds anything we could ever accomplish on our own."
Like the students I teach, I recognize that faithfulness
helps lay a firm foundation. We can't fear failure. Instead, we must embrace it
as a step toward progress. Each step, no matter how big or small, is taken in
vulnerability. We risk so that we can grow, and in growing, we are made more flexible, stretched by the call of commitment and grounded in the grace of our foundational call.
This is what our first sisters did as they founded ministries and strived to live out the call planted in their hearts. They were grounded in God's call to actively live the Gospel, and with that firm foundation, they were able to face the trials and tribulations of doing something new. Time and again, they were ready for any good work. Their example and the many needs of our day compel us to do the same: choosing not to fear failure, to practice flexibility, and to remain faithful to those who've come before us and the Spirit that calls us forward.
