Witness to a Funeral

Dear friends, my piece is long and I thank you for reading it to the end.

Troy Davis was killed by the state of Georgia on September 21, at 11:08. Jim and I were privileged to attend Troy Anthony’s Davis' funeral last Saturday in Savannah Georgia along with 2000 supporters. Held at the giant new and beautiful Jonesville Baptist church where security included no large handbags allowed. A bevy of volunteers escorted us to our pew.

Inspiring singing, praying, and clapping from the large choir drew in everyone around us. Above the wide altar hung two giant screens which projected the speakers and often flashed back to Troy’s picture and that moving quote: I am Troy Davis and I am free.

I wish I could quote all tributes paid to this man. His attorney, having gotten close over the seven years he represented him, Jason Ewart became Troy's close friend and delivered a most telling account “Troy is not only symbol but very soul of somebody much larger. Together with similar tributes from his many family members, friends, pastors, attorneys, and even prison cellmates, here was a man of truly transcendent substance. No accident that the word spread across the globe to people who'd never even met him. A million signatures had been collected from all over the world opposing his execution, including pleas from the pope, politicians, celebrities everywhere.

"When," Jason concluded, "we learned that they had murdered him after hoping for another stay, we simply said: 'This makes no sense.' Troy's execution was noteworthy because so much doubt existed over it.

Those allowed in the killing chamber spoke of Troy's amazing calm, exemplified in his last words. To the family of the murdered policeman he said: “I am sorry for your loss, but I did not take the life of your son.” Then he turned to the man who would shoot the “murderous juice” into his arm to said: “I forgive you, and may God bless you.”

What other evidence is needed! No man guilty of a crime could ever be so aware and compassionate at the very moment of death. He refused the calming sedative they offered him for he was already calm.

A young woman attorney, spoke of how Troy became a mentor to her and to her husband. Through many conversations, “he was always strong, always comforting us," she said. I’m profoundly grateful for having been his friend. And grateful that he was no longer #657678 but Troy Anthony Davis and he was free.

A black friend who’d served his country in two wars asked Troy in his last visit: “What do you want people to know?”

“Even though they kill me, you must continue to fight for all the Troy Davises before and after me. Young people must work to take away this death penalty in our country.”

"Even in death," the man concluded, "Troy wasn’t thinking of himself.”

Ben Jealous, director of NAACP brilliantly spoke of our un-just system: “Justice is clogged when innocent people can be murdered, and when one of the white guys on the Georgia Parole board changed his vote making it two to three to kill him, obviously, our criminal justice system is more criminal than just."

Larry Cox, head of Amnesty International spoke passionately, bringing many of us to our feet amid our tears. “Every killing removes the basic rights of a person. The murdered policeman, McPhail’s rights were taken. But the state of Georgia turned around and took another man’s rights away by killing again. And what do you call it while a condemned man watches guards prepare to take his life? No other name for it: TORTURE! This system of ours is EVIL.

Everyone joined the fiery Cox in wrapping his talk up. “Georgia believes the Troy Davis case is over. Let’s be clear about that. " And a cry arose from the multitude: “No! this case hasn’t even started!”

Finally, in his ardent eulogy, Rev Raphael Warnock, pastor of Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta proclaimed that Troy Davis transformed his prison’s death sentence into a powerful pulpit, a light to the Netherlands, to Nigeria, to London, and to the entire world.

Friends, join me to personally do everything we can to change America’s violent death penalty. (Really State Sponsored Murder) America is only one of five countries practicing this barbaric form of death. It’s about time it comes to its senses!

generating a powerful relationship with money

Money is a subject that has held both endless challenge and fascination for me.Whether that is genetic or comes from example, I don’t know. At 20, I entered a convent, embracing a solemn vow of poverty, refusing to have anything to do with even a dime in my pocket. At 38, I left the order to face another reality: earning a lean salary working in the service of the church. Then suddenly, everything changed. A generous inheritance from my parents presented me with a far different struggle. Was there no end to the money puzzle?

Led by a friend, I read Jacob Needleman’s book, Money and the Meaning of Life. I realized: It’s not that we consider money too important, but that we don’t consider it important enough.

Money was vital and I needed to be okay with it. In the end, I came to see that all God really wanted was for me to be myself – a woman deeply shaped, conditioned, and blessed by a unique relationship with money. Taking in that truth, I set out to explore other women’s unique relationships to money. The result was I wrote a book called Money As Sacrament.

In this article, I share how some remarkable women healed their money anxieties.

Chris, a striking redhead, trustingly told me of a hidden dark past. “I had placed myself in relationships that financially drained me. I hear about women who get divorced and come out smelling like a rose. But, damn,” she said, pulling a strand of wavy hair behind her ear. “That didn’t happen to me.”

Chris’s voice cracked like dry weeping each time she spoke of her former marriages. “My first husband and I made a lot of money, but he spent it as quickly as we made it. My second husband couldn't hold a job. I spent long hours trying to cover a flood of his bills. When I discovered that he was spending uncontrollably, and that the bank was foreclosing on a home that I alone had purchased, it was too late. I lost my home.”

Even now, Chris remains amazed at her dysfunctional behavior. “Do you wonder how I could have been so naive?” she wondered out loud. “I can’t believe it myself!”

I’d heard similar stories from other women: stories of bankruptcy, stories of lost inheritances. Yet, in some mysterious, “God-crazy way” Chris’s dark past had now forged a confident and reverent woman.

“Let me tell you about Ben, my miracle,” she says. “He’s a phenomenon of enchantment. Yes, he lives in a wheelchair, suffering from spinal muscular atrophy. Yet Ben is a soulful optimist and despite his disability, he affirms over and over that life is good. As for our money, he handles it all electronically. When I write a check, he enters it into the computer. We make all our financial decisions together. No longer am I kept in the dark about what’s in the bank. No longer am I paranoid about what’s in the bank and what isn’t.”

So often, we women cannot see much beyond a narrow financial focus. Healing often comes from someone helping us find a new mind, a new trust, a complete renewal of sensible behaviors.

Linking money and spirituality

The majority of women interviewed for my book believed that money and spirituality are intertwined in deep and mysterious ways. One couple I’d like to tell you about now didn’t make the pages of my book. Money as Sacrament was already on the bookstore shelves when I first heard about them.

Margie and Peter’s story is one of strength and blessing, a story that goes to the heart of the money and spirituality link. As Margie puts it, “The universe listened when Peter and I determined to live debt-free.”

Before they met, Peter, 31, had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Each year, doctors checked him out and questioned how much more time he had left. Alone and despondent, purchase after purchase, Peter ran the fool’s race of credit card sprees. Bills arrived, including medical statements. and he simply dumped them unopened into a laundry basket. When Margie met him, there were two basketfuls of unopened bills.

As for Margie, she carried a debt of her own: more than $45,000. “Debt was second nature,” she says. “I never even hoped I could be without it.” Finally she sought the aid of a counselor and with her help, began to develop a spiritual consciousness about money. “Clearly, the burden of debt wasn’t what God wanted for me.”

Margie moved in with Peter and as their love grew stronger, new doors to possibilities flew open.

“I saw the necessity of continuing that money consciousness I had started,” she says. “So each week, Peter and I sat together to discuss our money status, and how that debt impacted our relationship. More importantly, how it impacted his health.”

They became engaged and soon after, Peter landed a job in Florida with Disney. His health was miraculously back on track.

Led by some inner determination, Margie found Suze Orman’s book, The Seven Steps to Financial Freedom.

“Each week, we faithfully sat together, read a chapter, examined our fears about money and what baggage we carried. We learned a lot about each other’s fears, about our lack of trust in each other, our spending, our saving, that sort of thing.”

What was increasingly clear to this couple became the basis for action, almost second nature.

“Working together on the cancer issue, we saw results: Peter was becoming more healthy. So we could free ourselves of debt if we both worked at it. It didn’t matter whose debt. Debt was debt! We were in this together.”

How long did it take? Not the ten years they had supposed, but as Margie reports, “We were debt-free in two and a half years.”

Margie’s final summary rings true for us all. “In our move to higher consciousness, we found that by mindful intention to pay down all debt, the universe responded,” she says. “Money started showing up from unexpected places. Little job opportunities rolled in. The final miracle was that the hospital freed Peter from a $10,000 debt. The forgiveness of that debt would never have happened without our radical intention.”

Peter remains cancer-free to this day.

It is impossible not to hold in reverence these stalwart women who climbed the mountain from ignorance to financial wisdom. Money became their upward path to healing and yes, to holiness. I wish that kind of healing for all women reading these stories. And don’t forget to honor your own story. You have no idea how profoundly it speaks to another.

Learning From Other Faiths

Dear Special Friends,

With so much depressing news in the media, I share this good news by a Christian monk in a Maryknoll book of Inspiration.

"When I was teaching in Turkey, I had a small apartment in a working-class neighborhood and was known as a Christian monk. One afternoon I returned home to find a man sitting on the steps waiting for me. He said that his wife had stopped by earlier but found the door locked. I said, yes, I usually lock my door when I am not at home. He said that I needn't bother, because the women of the neighborhood were always around and would know of anyone who didn't belong tried to get in.

I realized that locking my door was an indication that I didn't trust my neighbors, so I never locked my door again. Often I would return from the university to find that someone had left a covered bowl with rice and eggplant, borek, or a few kebabs on the counter. After finishing the food, I use to wash the bowl and leave it in the same place and in a few days it would disappear. Some days later, I would receive another gift of food. Other days I would find that my clothes had been washed, floors swept bed linens changed, shirts ironed and folded, and so on. I never saw who performed this service, although I presume that it was done by women of the neighborhood.

This went on for six months until it was time for me to return to Rome. I told one the of the men who had stopped buy to wish me a safe journey that I had a final request. I asked if I could meet the neighborhood women to thank them for their generous help during the previous months. He said, "You don't have to meet them. They didn't do this for you; they did it for God, and God who sees all that we do will reward the. The Koran teaches that monks are one of the reasons why Christians are the closest community in friendship to Muslims, so it is an act of worship for us to treat you with kindness."

Thomas F Michel, S.J.

Buy the Best

After not so patiently answering a thousand questions, Janice, the Sears sales lady started pecking at her hand computer, obviously sick of my anxiety. But I couldn’t help myself. Two thousand dollars for a Frigidare oven? Sure we needed one, but a top of the line? I stepped away knowing that I’d been thrown back into the crazy ‘we don’t have enough money’ place.

Now you might think that’s a reasonable price for a range that’s going to fill all needs, that has a look any kitchen could die for, and that I own a check book that can handle the exchange. But the old emotional nemesis kept shouting, “Hey, Adele, it’s too much.”

Jealous of milling customers who didn’t suffer this ancient fear, I dived into an inner conference with my father; Rescue me Dad! “Yes, you always counseled to “buy the best”. Isn’t the best here a little pricey?

Jim, husband, and new precious mentor, leaned down after moments of respectful silence, “Honey, don’t we want this stove?” Serene face, untouched by my cold feet. I searched that face. Damn, why can’t you get scared too? Is it just because it’s “my” money.

I looked into the mirror across the aisle. Get a grip, Adele. God blesses you with a blooming money tree and you make yourself worry sick? Was I still the nun holding a vow of poverty? Idiot!

I felt better.

“Sure we want this stove,” handing Janice my visa. I picked up my wallet and turned toward Jim, “Honey, I’m ok.”

“If you say so.” He smiled. We joined hands and left the store. What a partner I married! Someone who understood my silly money noises.

You should know that anxiety attack when buying that stove happened early on in our marriage. Now, fourteen years later, I’m happily calm when it comes to flashy purchases. Only yesterday, I laid down my credit card for a Magellan navigator—excessive price tag—and no one heard a peep out of me.

Letter to friend writer

Oh, how your note touched a deep place in me.  And coincidentally, Jim and I had spoken of you only this morning.  You must have been emailing me while we thought of how you were faring. It seems from your note, you're handling your existence pretty competantly. 

Jim and I attend a Writers group in Mount Dora, been doing that for the last four years.  I love it, love the group, love the writings we hear from each other.  I'm working on a book, a novel..and feel brave to try such a lengthy thing, brave to read parts of it to the group.  But something in me pushes me forward to make it a reality.  When we visit I'll share some of what and why I must write it.

I think of Ed a lot.  I wonder if he, like Jim, carried on despite setbacks.  Jim is handling (footing?) an arthritis challenge.  He limps a bit, and had accepted that reality.  I find it hard to see him walk, but he's walking.  I guess that's the best part.  

Gosh, 14 years of having that writing class of yours.  They must love you, and it's true, it is faith building. All writing is.  Whatever pieces of faith are being allowed to break through, whether we speak explicitly of God doesn't matter.  

I just finished James Carroll's book, Practicing Catholic. A real sweep of Catholic stuff since before Vatican II.  Wow.  He spoke at the American Catholic Council in Detroit. For some reason, Jim and I were led to go, and it was for me, a baptism of sorts.  My catholic faith bloomed as never before.  Oh, I won't go back to Mass, but realize how happy and deeply is my faith in Jesus.  That's what really counts. 

And of course, we belong to Pax Christi Florida, and I partake of its socially conscious efforts...that's the kind of stuff I find best follows Jesus' way.

Oh, I could go on, grateful that your note pushed me to go on!

Stay well, and someday, in God's time, we'll meet.

Voices of Inclusion

Voices of Catholic Inclusion

American Catholic Council, 6/10-12/2011

Jim and I attended the recent American Catholic Council gathering in Detroit along with some two thousand other wandering Catholics. The breath of fresh air let loose by Pope John XXIII blew as strong for us this past weekend as it had for the attendees of that fabled call to awakening & reform in Rome fifty years ago this week, the Second Vatican Council.

We rejoiced hearing noted ACC speakers authoritatively voice the ancient and deep realities of what it means to be a Catholic, as modeled on the inclusive and loving practice of our founder. We were reminded of how Jesus warmly welcomed everyone at his table, how in particular he spoke to the essential role both women and men play in facilitating the community of faith.

We were brought back to the reality of an early church which all the people of God helped to govern, one never known as well to cease welcoming its married clergy.

Two clear points of emphasis emerged over our weekend: the role of experience in our church that down through the ages has always influenced and informed Catholic teaching. And the right & responsibility of every Catholic to develop and act on his/her own conscience.

Swiss theologian Hans Kung, American theologian Anthony Padovano, author James Carroll, long time Dominican and activist/mystic Matthew Fox, and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, all fired our spirits as they brought us back to our authentic Catholic roots and updated us on numerous issues plaguing today’s church, including an inexcusable bias against both women’s ordination and full membership of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

The gathering was only a beginning. As Detroit’s own Cardinal Deardon long ago remarked, “We are trying to begin a new way of doing the work of the Church in America. We may fail, but let us try and let the people say, ‘They cared enough to try!’ ”

Even so, how glorious to resonate again with a sound we can believe in, voices of catholic inclusion -- expression of glaring redundancy if ever there was! For us the weekend amounted to nothing less than a holy rebranding, a Baptism. Before the first day’s events concluded we’d been drowned in another gift of the spirit. There is hope. Change can't be far!

talk at Rally to boycott Bank of America

Earlier this week, MoveOn.org sent an email to us, more than 3 million members urging us to mobilize to oust Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. May it be so.

Finally, we are paying attention to the unpaying corporations especially in this time when state and federal governments are facing massive budget problems. It’s about time.

The Bank of America uses subtle loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share.You and I standing here paid more in taxes than the big tax dodgers like GE and Bank of America.

I’m proud of us who stand here today, knowing that we paid our taxes. Well, why not. Aren’t taxes about the common wealth, that is the common good: money for roads, libraries, police protection and many other needed social services.

It’s to our shame that we have allowed so many loopholes enabling corporate life to withhold money from us, yes, yes, from us, from our common good.

My husband withdrew our accounts from the Bank of America. Money talks and by his withdrawal the money talked to this Bank saying: we refuse to support your crimes against communities, the common wealth.

Let us who are standing here change over to smaller banks. Let us tell our Central Florida friends and relatives to do the same. When we keep our money in our local financial institutions, that money in turn is reinvested in local businesses, which is important for building a stable economy and encouraging local growth. Not so with Wall Street banks like the Bank of America. They use your deposits to make risky investments, gambling at the expense of the economy as a whole.

So, Mr. Bank of America CEO, Ken Lewis, shame on you. You have betrayed your mission. You have not benefitted us but have tried to destroy what is the real America. Rather you employed your bank’s resources to upscale your bonuses, to invest in fine houses, yachts, and other greedy acquisitions. It’s time for you to go, .. for you not only betrayed your clients, but as a leader, you have betrayed yourself, turned yourself into a crook, withholding your corporation’s share of paying its tax share to the common wealth. I feel sorry for you. You have lost your conscience, and if you ever had it, your moral high ground.

Resign, Mr. Lewis. Just resign. Today! Before dinner!