After one final hurrah in June at a lovely sublet in Inwood (thanks, Bria!), I gave up my NYC zip code and set off on the month-long journey of July. Part of that journey included a week-long walking pilgrimage to the St. Marianne Cope Shrine, which James and I wrote about for Catholic News Service.
As we tell the story of the pilgrimage to family and friends, we often find ourselves talking mostly about the first two nights, since, chronologically, they’re first. Those first two nights, as our essay demonstrates, make for pretty clear storytelling, a simple and elegant contrast: hostility and welcome, conflict and resolution. And, finally, they’re rich events: we both continued discussing them on our journey and mining new meaning out of those two nights and two hosts.
But the entire week unfolded with new surprises—humorous, challenging, and beautiful. Perhaps my favorite day was the walk from Moravia to Skaneateles, the second night we slept outside. We spent the night in a state park, on picnic tables, under fairly comfortable shelter, in a beautiful wooded glen. It was a challenging walk, with some navigational errors (anyone who has ever driven with me knows who was responsible for those), a plethora of roadside encounters (including an organic farmer without water) and surprising hospitality.
And, it was pretty freaking beautiful.
One of my wise mentors at Notre Dame’s best pieces of advice was: “be kind to yourself in times of transition.” Moving, starting a new school year, a new job, planting a new community, walking 100 miles, are all difficult liminal spaces to nativate at times.
Meditating upon our pilgrimage and upon the kindness of strangers to travelers in the liminal space of the road has been a good well of wisdom to dip back into during the first weeks in Chicago. That reflection has prompted us to be kind and patient to ourselves and one another, and its been a good reminder to keep our eyes open for rare beauties along the road.
Affectionately yours,
Keats in the Sheets
“There is no greater Sin after the 7 deadly than to flatter oneself into an idea of being a great Poet”— to Benjamin Robert Haydon, May 1817
— From the Blog—
Opus Dei
A brief reflection on my beautiful week at Mount Saviour Monastery’s Orein Arts Residency.
Read the full post here.
Keats in the Streets
“I am however young, writing at random—straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness” to George & Georgiana Keats, May 1819
—Sweet Unrest writing out in the world—
After rocky start, pilgrims find hospitality, fellowship on way to shrine, Catholic News Service
James and I wrote more about our pilgrimage. To invoke the words of the Fourth Evangelist, all the articles in the world can’t contain all the interior and exterior experiences of that week. But this is a start.
Hiking through rural areas during a heatwave, we went long stretches between towns and knocked on front doors when we ran low on water. Our backpacks and gear prompted many conversations about where we were heading and why.
We met a woman mourning the recent death of her mother who offered us her garden hose to fill our water bottles and fruit cups to eat. When we told her we were on a Catholic pilgrimage, she exclaimed, “I’m Catholic!”
We promised to pray for her mother, whose funeral was the day we arrived at St. Marianne’s shrine. She was close to tears when we said our goodbyes.
In just five minutes, we had built a small community, based on vulnerability and mutual need. As Sister Anne had told us over dinner, “Community is built out of our shared neediness.”
You can read the full piece in a diocesan newspaper near you or here.
Ears that Hear, Eyes That See: the Struggle – Synodality in the United States, The Tablet
If you check out page 6 of the July 16 edition of The Tablet (on UK news stands near you, at least a month ago), you’ll see the fruits of almost nine months of reporting on the Synod on Synodality in the United States.
I won’t lie, it’s pretty demoralizing to report on the ways in which the Synod on Synodality has been ignored and dismissed by cardinals and parish priests alike. But, on the other hand, experiencing and witnessing synodality in action, and listening to Catholics like Olivia and Cheryl share what the Synod has meant to them is an honor and an inspiration.
As always, religion reporting is rewarding not because of the power players or the hot-button issues, but because of the regular human beings who open up and try to communicate their understanding of the transcendent to you. To be on the receiving end of that communique is an honor and a privilege.
In one listening session in Manhattan, a parishioner shared his thoughts on what the Church needs to do to move forward. It needs a culture of assessment, he said; not, he clarified, “consumer feedback”, but an openness to hearing and responding to the faithful. “Even spouses have ways of assessing how their relationship is going,” he said.
But some dioceses have made minimal efforts at listening.
Please read the full story here.
Keats Reads
“The Literary world I know nothing about” to George & Georgiana Keats, Feb 1819
—Highlights from the Good Reads shelf—
Doughnuts Economics, by Kate Raworth
Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, which has been cited by Pope Francis as a book of economics that can build a more just world, is a fun and compelling read. Raworth basically takes us back to the fundamentals of economics and asks: what is the goal of economics? Economics twentieth-century transformation from a discipline oriented toward a telos of the common good to an observational social science means that most economists do not explicitly acknowledge the implicit goal of economics that undergirds our world.
That goal?
Unlimited growth.
The problem? Our planet cannot sustain unlimited growth.
Aside from the fact that our mechanisms of growth create extreme inequality on a local, national, and global scale and hoards wealth at the top of the food chain, Raworth examines the limits of growth dictated by the fact we live on a single planet with finite resources.
It would take four planets, she writes, for the entire world to live with the quality of life that Sweden boasts. It would take five planets for everyone to live like Australians.
Raworth argues that economic and human flourishing will have to be “doughnut shaped,” with the basement of the doughnut being the basic needs humans need to sustain life, equally distributed among an equally-dignified human race, and the ceiling of the doughnut are the limits of the planet’s resources.
It’s a fantastic book, that pairs well with Pope Francis, Adam Tooze, The Catholic Worker, and Kate Soper!
Mr. Brown’s Bylines
“Brown, who is always one’s friend in a disaster, applied a leech to the eyelid, and there is no inflammation this morning though the ball hit me on the sight.” to George & Georgiana Keats, May 1819
—Pieces from good friends, and from writers whose words have been a friend to me—
Emily Claire Schmitt, America Magazine
Emily’s a fantastic playwright, collaborator, and writer, and if you’re in New York, go see her show! I love this interview she conducted with her artistic team, since it models so many conversations I have all the time with folks on all sides of the abortion debate. I’ll just let Em’s words speak for her:
ES: Being uncomfortable causes people to run to absolutes. I will speak to the pro-life movement specifically. There’s an attitude that, because a fetus is a human being, every bad thing that can happen to a woman is irrelevant when compared to fetal death. That is fear-based. That is unwillingness to sit with the reality of what is being inflicted upon women, so that we don’t have to take responsibility for it. I wish that people could be a little more brave and a lot more kind to each other.
Read the full interview here.
Bob Smietana, “Why Alexander Hamilton gave his heart to Jesus at a Texas church this weekend,” Religion News Service
If you were a follower and fan of the unauthorized Evangelical Hamilton spoof that flooded TikTok, you won’t want to miss Bob’s hilarious story that provides more context to a viral internet event than you ever knew existed.
A staffer told RNS the church has no comment about the production. During a worship service, pastor Roman Gutierrez acknowledged that the church was contacted by a lawyer from “Hamilton” and had removed the videos.
“We had over 30 people get saved between both nights, and that is really why we do these plays,” he said. “For people to get saved.”
Read Bob’s story here.
Zac Davis, “Why you should go on a pilgrimage — more than once,” Catholic News Service
Pilgrims support pilgrims! Zac wrote an essay on pilgrimage for the same outlet in June. Check out his (very on target) advice:
As a result, you’ll want to approach it differently than you would your typical vacation. Pack simply and lightly. Manage your expectations: Something will probably go wrong.
The site, shrine or painting you were most excited to see will be closed for renovation. It will rain on the day you arrive. Your bad knee will act up at the worst possible time. A good pilgrim is an adaptable one who realizes that all these things are part of the pilgrimage you were supposed to be on.
Read Zac’s reflection here.
From the Archives
A thing of beauty is a joy forever
— John Keats, from Endymion
Emily Nash reminded me over dinner recently of On the Verge, a perfect piece of art for exploration into the unknown and liminal space. I found the old program, with this message in a bottle to myself:
Director’s Note
In an interview with the Saturday Evening Post, Albert Einstein, who contributed more than his fair share to the collective knowledge of the human race, told his interviewer: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
As the explorers of On the Verge discover, there is nowhere within or without of the circles of the world that their collective imaginings cannot take them.
Armed with their unflagging and unflappable imaginations, Fanny, Mary, and Alexandra find they are not bound by any restraints, physical or chronological.
This show captures what I find to be the essence of theatre-the discovery that a shared game of pretend can not only change the landscape of the world around you, but also the geography of your heart.
A sojourner never embarks on a trek expecting to come out the other side unchanged, to have discovered nothing new. She knows that a journey, whether through Terra Incognita, or through a six-week rehearsal process, is necessarily transformative. The stories we live, create, and share are stories that remake us.
This is the magic of the imagination, the magic of theatre: a magic that weaves a story which takes us on a journey into a new world, into a new self. We thank you for coming to join in on our adventure; we hope the show ignites a spark of wanderlust and inspires your imagination; and we pray that all your travels be manioc-free.
