Acting Boldly - Why We Need It For Healthy Parishes

For the past two weeks I've been doing a new, intense, thing in my Lent - Human Combat Chess!

I'm training for a show that involves playing chess, with human players, and when a space is to be taken there is a stage combat fight. It's wonderful, nerdy, active time - but it's totally out of my comfort zone. It's a lot of improv character work, weapons, and sports. I'm a fan of...sport food.

While I'm a trained dancer, and no stranger to the stage and odd rehearsal spaces, I have no real experience with doing THIS. I didn't know anyone among the 80+ people in the room. We work late, long, and hard, doing stuff that is foreign and potentially dangerous. It's very uncomfortable.

That's why it's so good for me.

The lesson that keeps coming up over and over for me this Lent is that good things don't come from complacency. Not only do we have to come out of our comfort zones to grow and discover - best results come from doing it boldly.

I heard a definition of acting boldly from one of our choreographers and it stuck with me.
Acting boldly does not always mean being loud and aggressive. It means making a choice for yourself, committing to it's follow through, and responding to how that changed the room.

So many lessons to unpack from this one concept! Let's look at what it would mean for our parish family if we were to cultivate acting boldly.

• No more playing it safe, indefinite, answers to commitments. Your yes means yes and your no means no.
• Struggles and mistakes are not only ok, they're expected. 
• Tension is ok. It indicates a turning point.
• It's not enough to come in with our own big ideas, we have to communicate and respond to others.

What I love about the concept of acting boldly is it allows people to work through issues quicker. It circumvents the tendency to "keep sweet" or "play nice" or allow unsaid, unacknowledged, issues to simmer just below the surface. To act boldly means taking risks, it's true, but it allows for a more honest representation of ourselves to others.

Sometimes I think we like talk about having a parish family, but we treat that "family" more like strangers. People we don't really know or trust. People who need to be held at an arms length lest they see us as we are. 

We have to walk our talk. Sometimes we need to learn to talk the walk.

That means opening our eyes to the new people in our midst.

It means having tough conversations.

It means getting a little uncomfortable.

It means letting go of assumptions about what others "might think".

It means living, fully, boldly. 

This does not mean you need to have a full confession of every thought you have ever had to everyone in your parish! But I would be willing to bet we all have areas that we KNOW we have been holding back from approaching. Fears that have been left unchallenged. Walls put up without even thinking to peek on the other side. I'm merely asking us to notice them.

Acting boldly advocates that we practice addressing them. 

If you make mistakes, or even just change your mind, acting boldly lets you move on. Because now you have to own your new choice.

Lessons from the theater!

Where do you see the concept of acting boldly being useful in your life? Have you heard of something like this before? Was it helpful?

A Young Parent Response to the Church Abuse Crisis

Yesterday, an article was published by The Atlantic about how parents are responding to the abuse crisis within the Catholic Church. I was interviewed for the article, but I was still surprised, and sometimes shocked, by what my fellow parents had to say.

Age is a Factor

I was the youngest person interviewed, at 28, and I want to talk about something that has come up repeatedly in the past months of grappling with the crisis. 2002 seems to be a dividing line in the young Catholic experience - in the same way the 2009 crash is a dividing line in our generational experience of employment.

If you were a child at the time of the 2002 scandal breaking, a first feeling seems to be more on the side of anger and a call for justice. We were the kids who were old enough to see and hear about what was going on, but too young to do much about it. We came of age into a world that was formed by that crisis.
Those who were teens or adults in 2002 seem to be reacting very differently. I've found many of the parents older than me to be apathetic or downright antagonistic toward discussing the Church crisis. Many have told me that "it doesn't concern them."

Obviously there are exceptions to both of these generalizations, but it's enough of a pattern that I think it should be noticed and understood if we are going to do a better job this time around. Maybe good enough to mean there won't need to be a next time.

Responses can not be just about my family and my kids. 

Back in September I wrote for YA Respond that our response, as parents, cannot be just about MY family and MY kids.

 "We cannot retreat and focus solely on ourselves and our families as a means of protecting our families. Our families have already been violated.

The survivors are not distant people - they ARE family. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. If we truly mean to follow Jesus, we must follow him when he says "Love one another as I have loved you."

It's important to raise your own kids to be strong in their intellectual understanding of faith, healthy boundaries, etc. Absolutely! But it's not enough. We must all look, and work, beyond familial ties in this narrow sense if we are going to honestly be Church.

Stop buying into, and propagating, the lies of factionalism.

This is my fancy way of saying “quit thinking that people who look/think/do like you are unlikely to be abusers or abusees.”

Seriously, stop it.

One quote that shocked and appalled me from The Atlantic article was this one from Chris Meyerle's interview. "The way a priest says Mass, Mayerle believes, is one clue to his personality, and that plays a role in whether or not Mayerle will trust him."
"... One of the things we look for is when they do things the way they’re supposed to. In other words, they’re obedient—it means they’re probably obedient to their vows also. When they just start winging it, it means they view themselves as their own authority, which I don’t think is healthy."

I've heard this before from self-identified traditionalist Catholics, and other identity factions within the Catholic Church. Maybe there's something to it. Maybe that priest might be safer.

But what has been made clear through investigations, like the John Jay Report, is that there is no standard profile of a priest likely to abuse. Just like in the secular world, predators are smart and can blend in. They could be anyone, anywhere - even your Latin mass saying priest who loves all the smells and bells.

I don't say this to be alarmist, but to convey what I have learned from the stories that survivors have told me over the past few months. Many repeated that they think they were targeted, in part, because they believed abuse couldn't happen.
Because he was a good priest.
Because they were a smart person.
Because it only happened to altar boys in the 1960s.
Ultimately, believing that a category of person cannot be an abuser, in my opinion, makes you and yours an easier abuse target. You have made a nice wide blindspot for yourself. Those blindspots of unfounded beliefs are what predators hope to find. Falling for this lie, and propagating it, is dangerous and reckless.

Survivors might look like anyone

I've heard many Catholics speak recklessly about the abuse crisis, and I'm starting to wonder if it's because they have never met a survivor - that they know of. You might be surprised at who they are. They’re not all angry old ex-altar boys. They can be older women, young women, young men, seminarians, even priests themselves. Their abuse might have been decades ago, it might have been last week.

Abuse is appalling in all situations, and it’s never our place to judge if someone was abused enough or if they really were victimized. Maybe you believe that any adult who gets in an abusive situation was somehow reckless or asking for it (real comments from real people, everybody.) But frankly you don't know what you don't know.
If someone decides to trust you enough to open up to you with their story, the best response you can give is "I believe you." Let the police sort out validity, etc. Your job is to hear and love that person - not to pass judgement on their story.

Be aware when you talk about the abuse crisis, there might very well be someone in the room with a personal experience. Let’s try to act in that awareness.

What we should do

• Listen. If you have no first experience with abuse - congratulations. But you will probably have to work more actively to cultivate empathy for those with that experience. All of us, myself included, can work on becoming better listeners for those who need our humanity.
• Find a way to make space for victim/survivors. We talk about how the poor have a special claim on us as Christians. Survivors/victims of clergy abuse have an even more personal claim. Often they are fellow Catholics abused within the church. We have a personal obligation to them, as our brothers and sisters, to minister to them in love and facilitate healing - full stop. Not if we feel personally called. Not if it happens to come up. Not if it is convenient. If you are a faithful Catholic, these are your people and your family who have been hurt so deeply by those in our family. It doesn’t get more personal, urgent, and necessary than that.
• If your parish/pastor isn’t making active moves toward healing, openness, and discussion of the crisis, talk to him. You have a claim on your pastor to remind him to minister to his full flock - not just the 10% who run the ship. He might need someone to give him that boost of confidence to do this part of pastoring well.
• Talk about the good things that ARE happening. Right now there are lay people all over the country, and the world, working on creative responses to the crisis. Let's talk to each other! There is no need for us all the re-invent the wheel individually. Let people know what you are doing, what worked, what didn't, what you learned. We all need the encouragement of collective effort to make real, on going, change in our ability to love and be Church for each other.

I would love to hear your thoughts on The Atlantic article, and what I had to say here! What have you noticed? What is good that is happening in your diocese or parish? What still needs to happen? 

If you are one of the people who have shared your story with me in the past, Thank You! From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate your openness and willingness to teach me in sharing your story.

We Had a House Fire and Lent is Still Coming

If you follow me on social media, you might have already heard that we had a house fire this past Saturday. Everyone is fine. I was home and caught it within seconds of it starting. The fire department responded very quickly and were able to put it out and save our home.

The fire originated in the kitchen breaker box. The box is completely ruined, as is the surrounding wall. Smoke damage is pretty extensive. There is no power to the house right now, aside from a tiny bit to run the furnace to prevent the pipes from freezing in our sub-zero temps.

It was just the baby and I home when it happened - my husband and the big kids were at swim lessons. It's still unclear why the fire started then. We weren't using any big appliances at the time and nothing looked overloaded.

I heard a bang while I was in the living room. Looked into the kitchen and saw smoke and some flames coming from the breaker box. I had a brief moment when I was considering filling a pot with water and was looking for the fire extinguisher. But the banging/popping sound kept happening, and whenever it did the smoke and flames came back bigger and bigger.

I quickly decided I needed to call 911 and evacuate with the baby. While on the phone with the 911 dispatch, I started throwing all flammable objects across the room from the flames. I ran upstairs and grabbed the baby, my snow boots, and our coats, and ran outside to wait for the fire truck.

Felicity did see the flames on our way out the door, and it deeply scared her. She screamed and cried like nothing I've ever heard from a small child. I put her in her snowsuit when we got outside. Once she was in her snowsuit, she just laid her head on me and wouldn't move or talk or react for a while.

Our neighbor popped out to tell us we could wait in her house while the firemen were working. Felicity perked up at the prospect of getting to see the neighbor boys and their dog. Matt and the big kids arrived home not long afterward. The kids all stayed with the neighbor most of the afternoon as Matt and I were in and out talking to the firemen, the electric company, on the phone with insurance, and packing up what clothes and food we could to last for a few days.

As far as I can understand it now, the sound I was hearing was the electricity arcing within the box. Even after the fire was out, the box continued to arc - hence why we have the power shut off to the house until everything is safely repaired.

For the foreseeable future we will be staying at a local extended stay hotel. Our community has been amazing: bringing us meals, doing laundry, helping with the kids, offering prayers, and generally rocking the whole showing up thing.

It's hard to fully appreciate all the little conveniences, routines, and support that are there until they're needed. Every little kindness shines so much stronger when you don't have a way to repay the kindness right now.

We're really very lucky. This happened in the middle of a sunny afternoon and was caught as quickly as possible. For many others it starts in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. Many other people have lost their entire homes, and they're completely starting over. We're just inconvenienced and repairing.

Before all of this happened, I had already made my Lent plan. Per my usual, I do a give up, a take on, and a pray on.

I had intended to make my pray on an intention for the healing of victims of abuse, and will keep that.

My give up was intended to be a whole family one - meat. When we lived in California, we were better about eating a wide variety of vegetables and being adventurous in our daily meals. We've become a bit lax about it in the Midwest. I would not normally attempt a whole family diet-related Lenten practice, but since we had previously eaten this way much of the time, don't have any food restrictions, allergies, or aversions, and generally have people willing to eat what's made - it felt like a safe bet.
But the fire changed a lot of those good plans. We've decided to still shoot for meatless meals as much as possible, but if the choice is going to come between being grateful for someone's generosity or adhering to a dietary practice - I believe it would be better to humble ourselves and accept what is given. Because let's be real, that's the harder choice for me.

Now get ready to laugh at my hubris.

My take on was totally going to be a feel good one - intentional community. I wanted to reconnect with old and new friends, and be better about reaching out to them more often. That "be careful what you ask for" adage is sometimes very true.

The fire has drastically changed what our Lent will look like, but it might be for the better. I don't know how this will all play out, or when we will get to go home again, but I am more aware than ever how good we have it. This has been a time of renewal, trial by fire (literally), and an opportunity for growth in ways I would likely have never done without such a need.