A Better Option than Judge-Free Zones

by Dan Masterton

The title of “judge” has been thoroughly watered down by competition-based reality shows. The first circus slate of “judges” I remember is the original crew from American Idol: Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson, and, of course, Simon Cowell. Much like other similar shows that followed, these judges were picked, at least partially, for having some degree of relevant acumen, accomplishment, and experience that qualified them to make credible judgments of the contestants. Inevitably, though, their “judgments” became caricatures -- Randy dropping the word “dog,” Simon denigrating performers with caustic, British-dry criticisms, and Paula picking up the pieces with flimsy affirmation.

While on some level, they still functioned as judges, making choices that decided who would be eliminated or advance, they became cardboard cutouts, there to provide personality and entertainment to fill out a show with very little content and a lot of protracted, contrived drama. America’s Got Talent, The Voice, X-Factor, and so many other shows have recycled the same model to create mass-produced episodes. Calling people like Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan, Blake Shelton, and others “judges” is a bit of a joke. Frankly, it’s a title more fitting for the livestock inspector at a state fair.

When I think of judges, I more readily think of austere, solemn, imposing looking people, wearing long black robes, perhaps an old-school wig, seated at an elevated judge’s stand, and wielding a gavel. The nerdier part of me thinks also of the courageous leaders of Israel who, though presiding over a period of ups and downs, rose to lead the evolving tribes of Israel as they sought to settle their promised land.

"The clown is down."

But deeper than these images alone, I think of the functions of a judge. A judge is tasked with controlling and stabilizing a courtroom -- ensuring proper protocol, hearing arguments, allowing or denying objections, and guaranteeing proper respect and decorum. A judge is trusted to remain fair, unbiased, and balanced, in applying the law as best they understand it to the facts of a case as they are laid out. A judge is appointed to make a final ruling on a case, to render a verdict that will have serious consequences for individuals and society. With offense intended to reality TV judges -- but not much offense meant to those at state fairs -- this is the gravitas the word “judge” deserves.

Increasingly, society has normalized relativistic understandings. While not abandoning absolute truth altogether, the trend is to soften and genericize social standards to preserve individuals’ autonomy to decide what’s best for them, such that any one person’s beliefs can rarely be imposed on another, who must be encumbered in decisions. In conjunction, I hear more and more the insistence on places being “judge-free zones.”

Without venturing full-bore down the rabbit hole of relativism vs. absolutism, I think people have a desire to avoid offending one another, to not step on others’ toes or cramp their styles too much. I know I struggle, both professionally and socially, to let go of needing everyone to like me; there are times where respectful cooperation or collaboration is more important than not hurting feelings. So when it comes to behavior and morality, even if I see someone doing something wrong, I hesitate to speak up because I have hesitations about offending them or coming off as harsh.

Unfortunately, this often leads to a “live and let live” sort of approach, where we just live our lives in parallel, rarely intervening to redirect others’ behavior. However, I know that, personally, when I’m falling short, I want to be called out. I don’t mind being criticized by my wife, a co-worker, my boss, a friend, etc. Sure, I may defend myself and try to explain myself, but regardless of my level of cageyness, I do take the comments to heart as I think about how I’ve been acting and how I can improve. I just want to hear it in good faith.

I imagine that most people would want their friends to be cognizant of the major struggles we often face and be sources of support to help, even if it takes some confrontation and intervention. When people face alcoholism, addiction, depression, anxiety, and more -- let alone the more mundane ebb and flow daily life’s emotions -- I’d hope that friends would hunker down and speak up. Even if you know your friend may push back against your confrontation, I hope most people’s friendship impulses will find the love to intervene.

I think what I want to do for others, and what others would probably like from me, is to be judged compassionately and lovingly. There are times where we may need to warm up to it: maybe you can think of times when you went to that certain person who would receive you charitably and tell you more so what you wanted to hear than what you needed to hear; maybe there have been times when you just wanted to vent or unwind before confronting tougher stuff; maybe there have been times when you’ve avoided confrontation about someone else or yourself to delay the moment of truth. No matter the circumstances, I think most of us want to be judged; I just also think that most of us want to be judged constructively and fear moments when we may be judged negatively.

The ideal, as always, is the example of Christ. Jesus wasn’t perfectly even-keeled and kumbaya all the time. While he worked healings, cures, and forgiveness, he also chastised injustice, called out hypocrisies, and disrupted the backwards practices inside the temple walls. The key is that Christ’s treatment of others was just, only doing that which conformed with what God expects of us. I do not encourage you to overturn your friends’ tables at will, but the compassionate confrontation of a friend in need is the true love of a friend indeed.

Simon of Cyrene

by Laura Flanagan

I never really thought about Simon of Cyrene until this year. My reflections on that part of the passion were limited to Christ’s suffering; Christ needs help, and the Gospel writers’ inclusion of an aide in bearing the cross emphasizes his helplessness and the extent of his suffering. But who is Simon? Why is he a named character in the Gospels? What does he do? Why does he matter enough to be included in all three synoptic Gospels?

Right now, Simon stands in for me. My second post for this blog was January 1, and in it I referenced the proximity of my due date with my second child. On the morning of January 2, I went into labor. Within five hours, my full term baby had endured a fetomaternal hemorrhage brought on by a cord issue -- a 1 in 5,000, possibly 10,000, unforeseeable, freak kind of accident. Margaret Nancy was born via emergency C-section, named and baptized while I slept under anesthesia, and died while I held her.

It might be an understatement to say this is not a suffering we chose (or would have chosen if the choice had been given to us). In my first prayer through Stations of this Lent, I noticed that unlike Jesus, Simon did not choose the cross he shoulders. He was compelled. How, then, did he carry it?

The disciples who professed “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You” are nowhere to be found. Simon is the first person literally to “take up his cross and follow” Jesus, but whether he also did so figuratively is not known. Is Simon resentful and fearful the entire way up Calvary, or does he choose to aid the suffering Lord to the best of his ability, now the cross has come to him? We can step into his place, and the results may vary, depending upon our choices and the grace given to us.

First, we must recognize evil as evil. In grief, there is no way around the process; one has to go through it. If we are to sit with someone who is enduring something, we also have to be able to sit with their discomfort. But people prefer to skip over the discomfort and unfairness of unchosen crosses. When someone dies, especially young, people offer statements which essentially posit, “This is a good thing! We just don’t understand how it’s good now.” This is unhelpful. Something is terribly wrong here, and that has to be acknowledged before we can accompany someone on to the hope that still exists.

Before Margaret’s birthday, I never really got lines like, “My soul is deprived of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is,”¹ which we used at her funeral. While I had some head knowledge of the theology of suffering, I hadn’t had a “qualifying” tragedy that really let me enter an experiential understanding of it. I had one friend laugh (in a kind way) when I said this, but I feel like a whole new field of dolorous theology has been opened to me.

I am angry that Margaret is not here, that my older daughter doesn’t have a nearly three-month-old sister she's coaching to roll over. I believe it is righteous anger. However, that anger isn’t directed towards anything except the fact itself: she is not here. To carry this cross well, I must avoid turning it upon God or others in bitterness and hardness of heart.

The most difficult thing may be fearfulness of future pregnancies. Previously, I had naïvely thought that a NICU stay was the worst possible scenario, and honestly I didn’t even consider that. Really, an emergency C-section was the worst possible thing that had come to mind, and with my physical condition in both pregnancies, I considered that a long shot. Now I believe that there is a still worse outcome, and I must be vulnerable to that again.

This is our cross, and we will carry it somehow, as we were compelled like Simon to take it up. The Lord himself also carries it, though -- as he emptied himself to do. Simon suffers with Christ; Christ suffers with him. Christ suffers with us. And yes, good will come.

Through that kenosis of Christ, we have the gift of baptism. In taking advantage of that totally unearned grace, our tiny girl can now be a tiny saint. I see the fruits of Margaret’s sainthood already, most amusingly in the jealousy of her older sister, who currently insists that she too is a saint. I’m content if her saintly sister is her “aspirational peer.”

It is in how we carry this cross that the holiness lies. Taking it up to begin with is the watershed moment (or water font moment), but the rest is following those Godly footsteps. This is food for contemplation within the joy of every year’s RCIA group. The baptisms and receptions we will celebrate next week are beautiful, but it is in continuing to carry their crosses, supported by the grace of God, that they will live their earthly lives. Now, the journey is not the destination, as some are apt to claim. The telos of the Resurrection is the reason for the season. But bearing suffering (ours and others’) is the work we have to do, and will reflect both the difficulties and the endgame we have.

Concurrent with the synodal emphasis on the formation of youth in the Church, I want our parish children’s formation to demonstrate how we respond to the wretchedness in our lives.² The kids know the world is broken, and we cannot implicitly pretend that all is well if we intend to show the full coherence of the Church. We already do a reasonably good job of emphasizing that all good things come from the Lord; I want to enable the youth also to respond with authentic Christian faith to the bad that does not come from Him. For instance:

• Anger is okay; but God did not will this injustice, nor should we ultimately refuse to forgive another if necessary. 
• Sadness is natural, and does not mean we reject the hope of the Gospel; but neither should we forget that hope. 
• In short: What does it mean that the Kingdom is truly “already, but not yet?” When life hands you lemons, what should a Christian do?³

I also want to create space for the prayerful experience of the compassion of Christ. We’ll revamp our formation in grades 4-8 for next year with these as the goals.

I hope we know Simon’s name because he chose to carry the cross well. There is mild traditional evidence that his sons became missionaries, pointing perhaps to a father who received the gift of faith when he accepted a conscripted cross and literally followed in the footsteps of Jesus.

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1 Lamentations 3:17^↩

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2 I promise I won’t go overboard; the theme of the year will not be “though we hang our heads in sorrow all the days of our lives” merely because I have suffered a tragedy.^↩

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3 Saints provide excellent examples, and we will be looking at them and praying with them.^↩

Shot or No Shot

by Dan Masterton

I love journalism. On the one hand, I am a ravenous consumer of news, commentary, and analysis, with a strong preference for the former but a somewhat forced acceptance of the modern blend that melds these all together. ¹ On a sort of meta level, I also love the process -- the formulation of a story, the ethical scrutiny of reporting, the word choices in descriptions, the format, the delivery, and the whole ball of wax. I come and go from cable news (I used to watch A LOT of SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight before they went to hell), but I steadfastly read print and online stories and listen to the radio daily.

When I run morning errands, I like to listen to the radio. ESPN 1000 airs a morning show with a host, David Kaplan, who is not my favorite. Though his credentials are excellent and his on-air charisma is strong, his style drives me crazy. While one has to stomach some level of “personality” infused into any media program these days, it’s the insistence on extremes that drives me especially nuts. I like many of his guests who come on for interviews and appreciate the news and analysis that comes in between the other stuff, so I try to weather it. But one segment in particular really gets my goat -- Kap calls it “Shot or No Shot.”

Kap’s producers cue up a string of propositions, some formulated by the staff and some by listeners. Each one looks forward to the coming weeks or months in sports to solicit opinions on whether or not they may happen. They ask Kap and his co-hosts whether there’s a “shot” or “no shot” of it happening.

Unable to suspend disbelief and refusing to accept the level of gooberishness that modern media often requires, I struggle to even flimsily go along with the premise of this segment. To basically every prompt, the answer should be “shot.” Virtually every scenario suggested carries with it some degree of likelihood, even if small, that it will happen. Yet, for the sake of sensationalism and to fuel a lusty argument, Kap and/or his co-hosts will almost always insist that some things have “no shot,” and do so with a thick layer of insistence caked into their declaration. The presumed need for antagonism and debate is just silly.

Here’s an example of a recent morning a couple weeks ago.² Funnily enough, Kap was out and substitute hosts had to do the segment. One host even remarked, “Kap will [always] have a hard-line shot… I know Kap takes a hard line.” To this, the producer, slightly facetiously, responded, “Well, it’s shot or no shot, not partial-shot… you have to have a hard-line stance and make your point!” The point is they know it’s ridiculous and satire themselves a little bit, but they still partake in it with full throats. Over the course of this segment, and across many programs, the frequency of phrases like “of course,” “absolutely!,” and “100%” is quite excessive.

I’ve previously bemoaned the need for everything to be reduced to a take, to stray from factual contexts and nuanced discussion by veering into opinion-spewing that leaves little room for collected insight. The sad thing here is that topics are rarely engaged with at face value and debated on their merits. There’s a difference between being pithy and being abrupt, between being concise and being obtuse. While brevity may be the soul of wit, condensing one’s position down to magnify extremism and squeeze out nuance is reductive and counterproductive.

I totally get that sometimes a structure and branding makes a process more engaging than general conversation, but the vehicle here is so shoddy. Other segments across the station fuel the conversation without cheapening the content -- “The Good, The Bad, and The Dirty” gives each host and producer a chance to weave a story by describing highlights from a weekend’s worth of sports; “Over/Under” gives a former football player host a moment to predict how an upcoming game will go; “On This Day” looks back at a particular day across sports history and fires up nostalgia and retrospect for years past.

The Church continues to explore the New Evangelization as it soldiers forward into a future full of variables and unknowns. We remain under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and its grace filling our pope, bishops, priests, religious, and laity, yet we grapple also with declining affiliation, inconsistent Mass attendance, and uncertainty on how to best engage the modern faithful.

Differents groups and organizations in the Church are striving to engage with the new norms, to apply to always responsive coherence of our Tradition to the challenges of this day. The University of Notre Dame’s Campus Ministry and Grotto Network are striving to carry substance into the social media stream. The work of our Church toward the 2018 Synod on young people has begun in earnest with delegations laying the groundwork now and conferences starting the ministerial formation. America Magazine continues to support a robust staff and editorial team to create substantial content and share it widely (including this recent piece on Catholic media utilization). I could go on and on.

One of the many great ones from Catholic Memes.

Meanwhile, the mainstream of the Internet is dominated by memes, GIFs, loops, and listicles that offer a quick laugh and instant gratification. This is the “Shot or No Shot” audience. This is the culture that ravenously devours the quickly consumable, often preferring to scroll through dozens of tweets, pictures, etc. rather than slow down to read a handful of articles. This is the norm of quick gratification, of controllable content, and a fully curated image and consumption pattern.

So what can we do? I think, as usual, the Catholic wisdom is to embrace a both/and solution. While the Church would look somewhat silly and backwards trying to turn itself into BuzzFeed or Reddit/imgur, it also could become an afterthought and socially sidelined if it wholly rejects all that is modern or technological. The answer, then, is that the Church must remain itself, close to its roots and true to its Tradition, while engaged with the norms of today’s society. The Church must engage with the pithy, punchy medium of quick hitting stuff as well as continuing to share deeper dives, substantial reflections, and rich expositions.³

I always hope our blog will be a home for that latter group, as I don’t think my gifts (and relatedly, my fellow writers are gifted in this area, too) are especially well-suited to the former. Yet, I acknowledge we need capable, well-formed people to lead the charge in that latter category, too. While I hope we can find something a bit richer than the faulty dilemma of a “Shot or No Shot” segment, I know there’s some value in the way that medium engages its consumers. A major challenge and a potentially huge breakthrough would come if and when we as a Church can solve this puzzle.

Can the Church do it? I’d say, “Shot.”

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1 I had an unfinished journalism minor at Notre Dame. I initially went into my college search as a prospective journalism student. I have always loved breaking a story, and I love when I get to spread the word to friends and family when news breaks. I didn’t have the grit necessary to climb the ladder as a journalist, but a part of is still drawn to it so strongly.^↩

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2 For the sports fans among us, here were the propositions for the week, all met with some combination of “shot” or “no shot,” though all of them have a shot.
From the producers: Yu Darvish has most Cy Young votes among Cubs? Concerned about Michael Kopech’s bad spring outing? Tribute montages to former players gotta go?
From the callers: Bears sign Richard Sherman? Derrick Rose signs shorty to retire with the Bulls? Will Bears be over .500 this year? ^↩

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3 Great commentary from our writer, Laura: “It's good that the Church knows what's true -- I think this is how we accomplish that. You can make a short, true statement. ‘Love one another as I have loved you,’ for example. Hopefully that draws people in. Then people have to ask, ‘How?’ and what ‘loving one another’ looks like must take into account the complexity of the world, hence the complexity of Catholic wisdom. You can't reduce everything because you can't reduce life. That's what I usually have to say to those who ask why the Church can't ‘simply’ do X.” ^↩

Institutions and Missions

by Tim Kirchoff

About a month into my freshman year of high school, the student body gathered in the chapel for an announcement: the school would be closing at the end of that academic year. Although the school was supposedly part of the archdiocesan seminary system, only one alumnus in the previous 15 years had gone on to be ordained. The school, furthermore, was projected to incur a $1 million deficit that year. It was not financially sustainable, nor was it serving its intended mission. Such were the arguments for closing the school.

A day or two later, we were invited to assemble in the auditorium in the presence of a counselor. A number of students took the opportunity to voice their anger and grief. Some wanted to fight to keep the school from closing. One or two claimed that, because of this decision, they would never again consider pursuing a priestly vocation. As for me, I struggled to understand why the school’s failure to produce enough priests was sufficient reason to close it in light of all of the other good things it accomplished. If the young men who attended the school didn’t also happen to be the same ones God was calling to ordination, was that really the fault of the school?

None of us wanted to believe that the diocese was right to close our school, but in the end we accepted the decision and went about our classes. The seniors applied for colleges, the other students applied to other high schools to finish their diplomas. The curricula at other schools were comparable to, if not better than, what the high school seminary had, and those who wanted to maintain the community we’d built gravitated toward the same schools. Those of us who were still interested in vocational discernment were invited to participate in a new monthly program at the diocesan college seminary.

The school’s educational mission could be fulfilled in any number of other schools; its unique role as a seminary could be fulfilled through other means. The old school building, meanwhile, was converted into the new headquarters for the archdiocese. Nothing was lost by closing the school... from a certain point of view, anyway.

Neither my new school nor the new discernment program gave me the same sense of community — the same experience of grace — that I had in my freshman year. Monthly meetings were no substitute for daily interactions with priests and peers in the midst of discernment, or for all-school Masses three times a week.

(But then again, the sense that we were discerning the same call probably had little or nothing to do with my freshman year community. No more than one or two of my classmates ever attended the replacement program. Perhaps the sense of community I felt among my freshman year classmates was in some ways caused or facilitated by the fact that we knew that our time together would be so limited.)

Even now, it’s hard to guess how many ways my unusual high school experience affected me, but I’m confident in saying it was my first real opportunity to think about the sometimes-strained relationships between the Church’s institutional ministries and their stated missions—if not the Gospel.

It’s probably a bit odd for a Domer to say this, but our loyalties shouldn’t ultimately be to institutions or even traditions within these institutions. We can find security and comfort in them, but their real value lies in whether and how they make God’s grace present in the world. Our institutions must not lose sight of their ministries.

A Catholic university, for example is above all an educational institution and a community dedicated to the search for truth. The creation of ever-more programs or buildings needs to be weighed against the needs and best interests of the students who may have to pay increased tuition or donors who might feel pressured to support this new project instead of other causes.

Athletic programs or new student centers or academic buildings may help foster community among students and other members of the university community (I honestly LOVE the idea of the social sciences being housed in the same new building to facilitate cooperation within and between disciplines), but these projects must be pursued for the right reasons — oriented toward meeting the needs of people, rather than just having more impressive numbers to show off.

Parishes, for their part, may have many traditions or programs to which parishioners are emotionally attached, but such things must not be preserved just out of sentimentality. Rather, they should continue out of an appreciation for their role in the parish's ministry to its members and the surrounding community. For example, preserving a set of parish traditions from European immigrants in what is now a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood can be justified as an attempt to bridge different elements of the Catholic tradition, but if it is just a cultural festival, something is wrong.

Institutions and programs ultimately need to justify themselves in light of the ministry they are trying to achieve. This is not to say that any program whose value in the Gospel is not immediately apparent ought to be shut down and its resources distributed elsewhere, but that, as happened to my high school, sooner or later, the opportunity costs will definitively outweigh the ministerial benefits.

Sometimes, beautiful and historic religious institutions outlive their usefulness. Sometimes, they manage to stay open precisely because they have left behind some aspect of their mission in favor of pursuing a more worldly measure of success. Sometimes, they might close even when they are in the midst of rediscovering and rededicating themselves to their mission- and that, in turn, prepares the members of that institution to carry on that mission even after the institution closes.

Something about Desire

by Rob Goodale

I’ve spent most of this Lenten season trying to understand desire. It’s exhausting -- rarely is my mind quiet, rarely is my spirit still. I observe within myself a constant longing, like a dull roar, for some unnamed thing whose face is ever-so-slightly obscured. I want, is what I’m saying, and I don’t even know what I want, only that I want it. The clearer the picture becomes, the less certain I am.

I am certain, however, that most of the time the object of this desire is not Our Lord. Most of the time He is a welcome guest, invited to observe or maybe participate sparingly but certainly not more than would be polite. I’m not proud of this.

I’m even less proud of my response when I find these unspecific desires are not easily satisfied (because of course they’re not, I can’t even figure out what I’m desiring). A mature and reasonable person would greet such a predicament with tranquil realism, adjusting some aspect of his life in order to feel less anguish.

I am not a mature and reasonable person.

Most of the time, the unsatiated desire within makes me want to kick and scream and throw things, to throw a tantrum the likes of which have not been seen in decades. I want to storm into a room in the middle of a rant and slam the door behind me, frightening everyone. I want to break every plate and bowl and glass in a Williams Sonoma storefront. I want to emit deranged screams so disturbing that no one who hears them will be able to sleep for a week. I want to cause some real destruction, is what I’m saying.

I obviously can’t do those things. And so instead I ask the Holy and Righteous One to kill the desire, to take it away from me, to replace it with placid indifference, detached from needing anything or anyone to fill me up. He may do this, in time, but it does not seem to be high on His to-do list.

And so instead of being destroyed, the desire persists. And so instead of kicking and screaming and throwing things, I try to understand myself better.

A little more than two years ago, Jenny (who writes for the Restless Hearts, a very good blog) gave me a book by Caryll Houselander called The Reed of God, and because I’m the sort of human who is never reading fewer than four books at a time, I am still reading it. God seems to have a way of working through the books I read -- I am constantly in awe of the way I seem to stumble into exactly what I need to hear. Which brings me to Houselander’s words on desire:

“In every man the impulse and desire to pursue his happiness, his own good, is deeply rooted. It is a universal drive and drag toward what is good for him which dominates every man born. This equality of desire makes every man search, makes everyone (whether he knows it or not) seek, seek, seek all his life for the lost Child.” (Houselander, The Reed of God, p. 120)

She sees something that I have only begun to glimpse, something that Pope Benedict XVI wrote about extensively in his 2005 encyclical Deus Caritas Est: desire is the great engine, the coal-burning furnace within each person that drives them to respond to the Love that spills over into the entire world.

Desire isn’t bad; without desire I would be listless, a boat without an oar, completely at the mercy of the sea. The trouble comes when I set my course wrongly. Trying to fill the God-shaped hole in me with anything that is not God -- food, books, money, other people -- is like pouring whiskey into the gas tank. It may seem like it’s going to work, and if you didn’t know any better it might seem right, but in the end it’s just going to destroy your car and waste a lot of good whiskey.

My literary spirit animal, C.S. Lewis, described this problem with startling precision:

“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

My desires, be they for notoriety or intimacy or meaning or pleasure, are all, at their core, desires for relationship: to know and be known. At the heart of who I am is a desire to love and be loved. What I need is not for this desire to be taken away, but made stronger, firmer, more dialed in. What I need is to learn to see God in everything, not sometimes, but all the time, and to glorify God by learning how to love better.

The Artificial and the Organic

by Jenny Klejeski

The first year I lived in Salt Lake City, our apartment was within walking distance of a park which, every Saturday morning from June to October, would be transformed into a spectacular farmers’ market. Interspersed between the rows and rows of fresh produce were local artists, musicians, and food trucks galore. It became a ritual of mine to meander around the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings after Mass. I rarely bought anything, but I loved to experience the variety of humanity. To me, as an introvert, there is something peculiarly life-giving about walking around a place full of people by myself.



Local pastries, honeys, kale, pluots, flowers, coffee, soaps, art, music—a veritable cornucopia of delights to the senses. Everything felt fresh and alive. Smells, sights, and sounds—all seemed orchestrated to be pleasing. People from all walks of life were there—families with little kids, young adults, old adults, farmers, city people, hippies, and hipsters. It was a microcosm of the pleasant parts of the city. I liked to wonder how it would feel to be a person carrying their cute, reusable bags to the market each week, buying local produce, cooking healthy things, composting, growing herbs in their kitchen….

Even more remarkable than the farmers’ market was the incredible transformation of the park. This neighborhood was on the edge of the gentrified area of Salt Lake City, home to a number of the homeless shelters. At any other time than the farmers’ market, this park is not a place that I would walk unaccompanied. It had earned the nickname of “wino park” because of the usual crowd of homeless people, some of whom drank. In fact, it’s one of the most concentrated areas of crime in the entire city—not so much because of the homeless people committing crimes, but because of criminals who prey on the homeless. Drug deals, violence, theft, and harassment are common activities there.

Astounding, then, the transformation to this clean, well-organized, respectable community event, at which people could support local business and be environmentally conscious.

I had never seen people setting up for the farmers’ market, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the process was like. Were the homeless people asked to leave? Were they physically forced? Did they just prefer to leave at a certain time, understanding that their presence wasn’t welcome?

However it happened, they didn’t go far. In looking for a parking spot, I would sometimes drive around the other side of a nearby complex of buildings, just out of sight of the market, and would find myself faced with a long line of homeless people. They were sitting on the sidewalks, stretching out for blocks and blocks and blocks. All of these people camped out, surrounded by their earthly possessions looked a bit like how I imagine a refugee camp.

Occasionally, there would be one or two homeless people who would dare to sit close to the market, even asking for food or money. The contrast was striking: a hungry person begging while surrounded by an abundance of healthy, inexpensive produce. It was clear that this was not produce for the poor but for the privileged. Sensing this disconnect beneath the clean, friendly façade bothered me. This simple, healthy living was cosmetic. The perfect, wholesome, integrated life that had seemed so attractive now seemed so empty, distasteful, and fake.

I know this tendency in myself, this tendency to push aside the more unpleasant social problems in order to live as I please. If I make a certain lifestyle my idol, does it prevent me from seeing the Christ in front of me? Do I dismiss the way Christ is really and truly incarnate before me in order to pursue a politically correct, pleasing, clean-living ideal exterior? Do I dismiss the hungry, thirsty, needy parts of others or myself, out of a desire to falsely idealize them, to deal only with the “civilized” parts—seeing only what I want to see? Do I refuse to see Christ in my brother and sister, when my brother or sister needs a bath, or a listening ear, or a handout? Do I reject the God who cried out “I thirst” in favor of the god of pleasant chance-acquaintances, small-talk, sound bites, pious, clean exteriors, and assumed privilege?

Yes, we would like to pretend we are “there” already, in our perfect utopia—that there is no more work to be done. And yes, the poor will always be with us, and to be confronted with them will disturb our sense of complacency, our guiltless self-indulgence. But if we pretend that they are not here—that there is not more work to be done—then we are deceiving ourselves and making sure that our illusion of the ideal life is just that—an illusion. And it will always be an illusion based on a self-serving lie, one with a desperate need to shut out the suffering Christ who is begging for our love. Don’t look away.

“Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.’” - Luke 17:20-21

Parish or Perish! Growing into a Sense of Belonging

by Dan Masterton

The life of Catholic faith is one lived in community. With the exception of the most ascetic hermits (and even they would counsel one another and local people periodically), we Catholics live out our faith together. And the anchor of this faith life is the parish. Drawing from the lead of the pope in Rome, the bishop of the diocese, and belonging to vicariates, deaneries, and clusters, the parish is the first line, the foothold, for communal Catholic life.

For whatever reasons, belonging to one’s Catholic parish seems a slippery proposition for Catholics today. We are inconsistent when it comes to choosing a parish to attend regularly and registering as a parishioner, and we are infamously stingy with our parish giving, especially compared to other Christian denominations.

Parish life is important to me, but it’s something that has evolved as I’ve grown up. It was an integral part of my upbringing but faded to the background in high school and college. Then, as an adult and professional minister, I had to reengage with becoming a parishioner and personally invest in belonging.

Growing Up at St. James

St. James out in Arlington Heights was (and is) a fine parish. Right in the middle of one of the biggest Chicago suburbs, we had five or more Masses a weekend, split between our decent-sized church, which was too small for our average Sunday Mass crowd, and our parish center, the school gym/auditorium/lunchroom that doubled as a worship space. Our school was strong and stable, churning out strong graduates to the area high schools. And we had the mixed blessing of having three or four priests at a time (unheard of today) but losing them frequently since our longtime pastor, Fr. Bill,¹ became a pastor-groomer of sorts; young priests with clear potential to become pastors were stationed with Bill and us to learn the ropes for a little while and eventually be given a parish of their own.

Each Sunday, my family had a steady rhythm of getting out the door by 8:45am (typically with dad sitting in the van, engine running, by 8:40), walking in a few minutes before 9am, communing with the 9am Mass, and waltzing on over to Granny’s, which later became Uptown Cafe, for Sunday brunch; we sometimes even arrived ahead of the rush if mom didn’t run into some conversation before humming the closing hymn on her way out to the car. We would only deviate maybe a handful of times a year from that rhythm, occasionally for travel or a Bears home game.

The mainstays of St. James are seared into my memory with warm nostalgia. The same parish dads and granddads stood at the ready by shelf stations full of hymnals and missalettes and bulletins that had surely been repainted the same shade of brown dozens of times, this job by the entrances/exits sandwiched around their ushering duty for communion. The slippery-dusty tile of the parish center hosted the same creaky black plastic chairs with aplomb. The custom built island-risers, no doubt a one-off volunteer job of ingenuity, spare wood, and off-tan carpeting, lifted the ambo and altar to visible eye levels for the congregation. The mobiles of liturgically apt colored banners hung proudly from the vaulted drop ceiling and/or basketball hoops. The greatest hits of GIA’s Gather hymnal sung proudly by an exceptional amateur choir with its own musical flair.

While we weren’t the family that volunteered its brains out at fundraisers and social events, we were around plenty. My mom worked over a dozen years at our parish school. My dad sat on the finance council for many years himself. My brothers both altar served. And all three of us studied there for nine years and graduated from the parish school. While our outstanding Catholic high school, St. Viator supplied us the central formation of our teen years, our parish remained the heartbeat home of our faith, week in and week out. I can’t imagine having grown up in another parish or having pinballed between different churches as we moved or church-shopped. St. James and my family’s commitment there spoiled me with a sturdy faith foundation.

Beginning to Adult

In its own way, four years at the University of Notre Dame certainly hammered home the power of a strong faith community. From the Notre Dame Folk Choir to Notre Dame Vision to basilica liturgy and prayer, Notre Dame allows its students to immerse in their faith life with ease, given its preponderance of chapels, priests, and celebrations. For example, once a week, on Monday or Wednesday night, I would simply walk down a flight of stairs, typically without shoes and wearing whatever comfortable clothes I already had on, and attend Mass in my house’s chapel with the priest who also lived in my house. They don’t call it Catholic Disney World for nothing.

The challenge then, after one graduates, is to seek out a nourishing faith community beyond the comfort of the bubble. Few places can match the convenience and potency of faith life at Notre Dame, so the next step involves a degree of realism when engaging with the outside world as well as with a healthy dose of idealism drawing on the positive experience on Our Lady’s campus.

My year of post-grad service went a long way toward teaching me the mechanics of parish life. My volunteer community, the House of Brigid, offered youth ministry, music ministry, and catechesis to the faithful of Ireland, primarily through our host parish, Clonard Parish and its Church of the Annunciation. We supported and led choirs at Mass, made frequent visits to the parish schools to teach kids about the Mass and engage them in its ministries, and spent a lot of time with the priests, staff, and active parishioners supporting the parish’s ministries.

My year at Clonard showed me how much it takes just to sustain the rudimentary basics of parish life. The best laid plans made of the most creative ideas and the most diligent logistical preparations went for nothing if they didn’t speak to the people they targeted. Even that which is “required” -- for example, Sacramental prep events -- doesn’t become well-attended and vibrant unless its participants are responding to strong relationships among themselves in the community and with the parish and its leadership. I learned how connecting personally with parents, young people, and elderly parishioners dramatically boosts the attendance and enthusiasm of a parish’s events by building them off relationships.

Following my volunteer year, I returned to the US and set up shop in Palm Desert, CA, for my first full-time job in campus ministry and the theology department at a Catholic high school. I made it a priority to choose a parish quickly, to register, to get my envelopes and make a financial commitment, and to find a way to be involved. I was fairly quiet during my first few months at Sacred Heart Palm Desert, getting my sea legs under me in my first job as I learned to juggle teaching,² coaching, and campus-ministering. I found my own Sunday routine as I gravitated to the 8am Mass -- wake up and get ready, go to 8am Mass, hit up the grocery store around the corner, unpack and change, go for a run before the sun and heat of the afternoon hit, and sit down for some football³ and a halftime frozen pizza for lunch.



After a few months, I knew that my work would all but tap me out, so I decided to just become a Eucharistic Minister for the 8am Mass. I got to know some of the parishioners by chatting before Mass in the sacristy, but it was definitely a struggle. The group was a bit separated and felt elite-ish. I was fine with processing in with the priest, a welcome way to emphasize the Mass’ ministers. But additionally, they insisted all EMs wear the white robe (like altar servers), sit in the front pews beside the altar (even apart from family), and carry the cross in the procession (which sometimes fell to me, but seemed like a role better match to an empowered teenager). Furthermore, the pastor would periodically say our weekly Mass at the high school but did not recognize, remember, or get to know me at all, showing up for Mass only at the last minute and disappearing quickly after Mass while making thorough use of the homily.

After about six months, I decided to step away from the ministry and return to my anonymity in the pews. I still would occasionally see friends and co-workers at Mass, and I appreciated having some familiar faces around; I felt that the parish was still my faith home, and faithfully continued my Sunday tradition. Soon after, I decided to accept a scholarship offer and a new job back in Chicago, so my time there would be ending soon anyway. Nonetheless, stepping behind the scenes there showed me the diversity of opinion and preference possible (even probable) among a parish’s clergy and its most active parishioners, and this prepared me to be patient and open as I would surely see something like that wherever I went. I would return a year later as a Confirmation sponsor, and though the prep program left something to be desired among our students, it felt good to be there with that community again for the Sacrament.

One great moment at Sacred Heart affirmed my adult faith to me in a most nostalgic way. Growing up, I’d always see different parents and adults shaking hands with the same ushers who always coordinated communion traffic, and I thought it was so neat and stately. One week, as I raised my kneeler and stood to go forward for communion at Sacred Heart, I recognized the man ushering our section -- he was from a prominent family at our school, and I worked with his sons and coached them. As I reached the end of the pew, we caught eyes, smiled, and shook hands. Call me a clown, but this little moment warmed my Catholic soul immensely.

Coming Home

Moving home was great for being closer to family and finally being in the same place as my formerly long-distance girlfriend (and now wife), but it was also largely driven by a grad school scholarship and the chance to be the campus minister at a Catholic high school. Between grad night classes and the extra odd hours involved in retreats and service stuff, I didn’t get a lot of down time to myself.

So while we had found a great new parish, St. Clement, I had resolved just to be a fairly anonymous Mass-going parishioner. We would go to a theology on tap talk or a Lenten service here and there, but I wasn’t in a position to commit to much more. The only time it almost was a problem was when a interviewer for a prospective job wanted a reference from my pastor; I went to him directly and explained my situation, and he completely understood and said he’d put in “the God word” for me. Four years at St. Clement have a lot of happy memories and homey feelings -- it is the church where I stood up for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding and where my daughter, Lucy, was baptized.

After Lucy was born, we moved to Oak Park, a near suburb of Chicago, and gradually sunk our teeth into the six parishes in our new hometown and its neighbor. Taking one Sunday at each place, we narrowed it down to two parishes that felt best to us -- strong, participational music ministry, ubiquitous family/children presence, and welcoming, hospitable priests. We spent a month’s worth of Sundays at each of the two, and eventually, we registered at Ascension Parish in Oak Park.



As a part-time stay-at-home dad with a daughter who’s starting to walk and interact with other little ones, the family feel and parent-focused community opportunities at Ascension sealed the deal. It took my introverted, bashful self a little while to get started, but we’ve begun tapping into that aspect of parish life. I joined a Lent faith-sharing group, and the mostly middle-aged and elderly group members are all too happy to have Lucy around during our meetings. I volunteered to help at a games day fundraiser in the parish school and showed up with Lucy, stroller, and baby-carrier; the other adults were wonderfully supportive and helpful and loved that Lucy “helped” me run my game.

One of the coordinators at that fundraiser turned us on to First Fridays, where the parish coordinates a post-daily-Mass event for toddlers and pre-schoolers and holds it in the school with coffee and donuts for parents. Lucy and I headed over for the March event, a music class led by a local group, but we didn’t see many parents in the church for Mass. I was a little worried but figured I could ask our priest or a couple of the adults there from my faith-sharing group for directions on where to go. Before I could even pack Lucy’s bag and get her going, a mom and toddler approached us and asked if we were heading to the play group. She introduced the two of them and explained that a lot of the moms and caretakers don’t necessarily make it to Mass but will show up to the playgroup (and sure enough there were easily two dozen there when we started). I was so grateful to have that outreach before my confusion or bashfulness could intervene.

Additionally, our pastor -- who’s on his own save for weekend Mass help -- is wonderfully transparent. He offered a great annual report reflection at Sunday Masses one week in the fall, and he sent an unusually honest, authentic letter with the year-end numbers and tax letter after New Year’s, discussing especially decreasing year-on-year attendance numbers during the October Mass counts and a desire to recharge engagement. He invited parishioners to dialogue with him; I emailed in some thoughts and a further introduction of myself, and he replied and also followed up with a conversation during his usual post-Mass socializing. He may assemble a consultative group of parishioners to work on some of these issues, and I’m glad to have engaged with him for it.

So what?

Parishes are the classic “you get out of it what you put into it.” For some, it may just be a place they go to Mass once in a while. For others, it’s the place they’ve registered, perhaps for school benefits or to check an obligatory box. For a smaller group, it’s a faith home, the place where the domestic church of the family goes beyond itself in communion with others on the same pilgrim path.

I think, at minimum, we’re all called to belong somewhere. We need to avoid tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios and offer some of our skin into the game -- parishes can’t keep the lights on, the doors open, and the priests fed and sustained without steady funds from the collection baskets and fundraisers, and the Church cannot be such a profound force for social good in the local, national, and international community without the backbone of parish life. Catholics all need to choose a home parish, put their name on its roll, and drop some coin in the basket.⁴

From there, it’s up to a person to discern what they can handle and to what they feel called. Different points in my life have warranted differing levels of engagement, which is likely the case for most of us. Moreover, different people have different gifts. The challenge to each individual, and to the leaders and active parishioners at each parish, is to identify the gifts of parishioners by building relationships and making genuine, personal invitations to people that realistically match their talents to needs in the parish community. And then it’s up to each of us to respond and to get involved.

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1 Fr. Bill was a jack of all trades. He steered a successful capital campaign and renovation while juggling this mentorship duty. Among his charming traits, he loved to sing and act and ham it up, and made annual cameos in the parish play/musical. He also had the tact and pose to follow upon a brutal scandal, in which our previous pastor (for whom the parish center was formerly named) was embroiled in abuse allegations and ultimately removed from ministry while another associate pastor was also found to have a secret romantic life.^↩

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2 Teaching = planning, grading, writing homework and assessments, and, you know, also teaching.^↩

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3 Pacific time is stupid and annoying for a lot of reasons, especially keeping in touch with people on the other side of the country. The one thing for which it is great is sports. Whereas 7-7:30pm was the go-to start time in Chicago, evening games were often at 5ish, and Sunday football slid earlier to a nifty 10am-1:15pm-5:30pm format. Very good for gratuitous watching and reasonable bedtime.^↩

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4 I gotta say, during my first two years as an adult parishioners, I clung to those envelopes man. As a kid, my parents would always let us drop the envelope in the basket for our family. There’s a potent nostalgia to that ritual that I struggled to let go of until finally relenting to the auto-pay online system, which frankly helps parishes a ton by saving paper/shipping costs and giving them reliable commitments off which to project budgets.^↩

The Alternate Histories of Wakanda and Canaan

by Dave Gregory

This past week, my freshperson classes began an exploration of the historical books of the Bible (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles), which (I unabashedly inform them) is my least favorite part of the Bible. The few students truly familiar with the stories of the Israelite monarchial line initially balk at me, because children’s editions of the scriptures -- including the comic book “Action Bible” -- inevitably portray these ancient leaders as figures we should seek to emulate. Close readings of the texts, however, make it quite clear that the kings are by and large ridiculously messed up, and the lesson to take away from their leadership is that of a failed experiment: God informs Samuel that the kings will ultimately oppress their own people, that the seduction of power will be so overwhelming as to prohibit the monarchy’s success. How true this is. Saul’s violence results in suicide-inducing madness, David murders a dude so that he can seduce his wife, and Solomon takes on hundreds of wives and concubines despite all his supposed wisdom. While these first three kings might succeed in unifying the tribes of Jacob’s descendants and building a Temple, their flaws culminate in horrendous downfalls, and the dozens of kings following them just get worse and worse.

The biblical authors present these histories in order to explain why Judah and Israel split up, and why they were eventually destroyed by invading forces in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE.

The Historical Problem

Before the kings, however, come the events within the Book of Joshua, one of the predominant biblical texts that has been used to justify war in God’s name: the Israelites have reached the land of Canaan after wandering around the desert, Moses dies on the border of the much-anticipated Promised Land, and the military genius Joshua takes over leadership of the Hebrew tribes. According to divine mandate and under divine protection, the Hebrews are to utterly decimate the Canaanite peoples, who have become legendary for their practices of human sacrifice among a slew of other immoralities. Should the arrival in the Promised Land necessitate hostile takeover and the spilling of blood, so be it. Apart from violence, no other viable options present themselves to the Hebrews.

The issue with the Book of Joshua is essentially that it’s a steaming, heaping pile of ridiculous defecation.

The vast majority of archaeologists and non-literalist biblical scholars have concluded that Joshua cannot be used as a reliable basis for determining factual history for a couple of primary reasons. First, records demonstrate that the territory known as Canaan was not invaded all at once by a substantial group of people, but was rather settled gradually over hundreds of years; in reality, the discovery and subsequent analysis of artifact record heavily indicate that the tribes of Israel co-existed (though not always peaceably) with Canaanite tribes. Second, the first two cities mentioned in Joshua -- Jericho and Ai -- had suffered conquest and destruction centuries before the Israelite tribes ever landed on the scene. The word “Ai” more or less means “ruins,” and had been destroyed in the 3rd millennium before the Common Era, over 1,000 years before Canaan was ever formally settled. Jericho, a more prominent urban center of the ancient Near East, had gone through many stages of being destroyed and rebuilt, and there is no indication outside of Joshua that the Israelites had anything to with them.

Simply put, the Book of Joshua claiming that the Hebrews conquered Canaan by force is more or less akin to my standing amongst the ruins of the Mayan empire and claiming that I conquered this ancient peoples.

The Etiology of an Alternate History

This glaring discrepancy between biblical narrative and verified and verifiable history leads to quite the question: why does the Book of Joshua almost completely fabricate a history of conquest? There must be a reason for it, a meaning behind its composition, after all.

The answer, methinks, lies within the Babylonian Exile, which -- as I have written about before -- was the single most formative event in the history of the Hebrew Bible’s formation. Returning home from Babylon, the former slaves of Judah (the tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel have been completely lost to history with their conquest by the kingdom of Assyria in 721 B.C.E.) returned to Jerusalem, and got to work rebuilding their Temple with the help of the Persian government. Prophetic traditions and successions had arisen during the periods immediately surrounding the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests of Israel and Judah, but it was when the Judeans returned home that they sat down to write down their history, to form the majority of the Hebrew scriptures as we know them.

While some texts certainly have historical and formative basis preceding the Exile, the former slaves created the solid majority of the Bible once they returned home; exilic themes inhere throughout the prehistories and the histories. In their postlapsarian condition, Adam and Eve go into exile from Eden, and the Sabbath day of rest began as a religious practice in Babylon when the Hebrews could no longer worship and sacrifice in the Temple. The stories of Jacob the trickster are folk tales of survival in a foreign land. The 613 commandments are codified legal, ritual, and moral code for a nascent nation.

The Book of Joshua (along with the rest of the historical books) is nothing short of an attempt by the Judean literati to create a sense of identity and meaning upon returning home. It is a tale of mythical proportions, boldly proclaiming in a state of birthing pangs: “Look how great we once were! We took over the land promised to our forebears! Look at what we hope to become!” How does one create a sense of pride and identity and purpose from nothingness, other than by telling stories?

Wakanda and Canaan

I was discussing all this with my first period kids, and if I do say so myself, this has come to be one of my better lectures as the years have progressed. It’s logical, coherent, and provides an insight into how and why the Bible came to be. This stuff sends the mind reeling, for it calls into question the entire narrative of Canaan, and therefore Israel, as we know it.

One student, when I asked for questions or comments or insights, raised her hand. “So, it’s kind of like ‘Black Panther,’ huh?”

“How so?”

“Well, Wakanda doesn’t exist. The Black Panther doesn’t exist either. The whole thing is made up.”

Another African American student crossed her arms in front of her chest, and mimicked the gesticulation that the characters of “Black Panther” do in order to make their Wakandan identity known. I paused, wondering if I should do the same thing as an offer of solidarity, but then I realized how ridiculous that would have been (thankfully).

“So if it’s made up, why see it? Why take it seriously?” I asked. I paused pregnantly again as the class looked at me, and I turned to her: “So do you and I get the same thing out of seeing this made-up movie?”

“No!” she retorted. “I’m black, you’re white.”

“Bingo,” I shot back. “I can’t get it. I can’t understand. I can only appreciate what it’s trying to do by creating this alternate Wakandan history.”

This first period class, along with the rest of my periods, came to the conclusion that even though “Black Panther” creates an alternate history to the one we actually know, it does so for similar reasons that the authors of Joshua did. It is a social and political commentary, and as a white dude I cannot in serious conscience doubt the meaningfulness of the story, or question its validity, because the comics and the film were not really made with me in mind. “Black Panther” takes the question of violence seriously, however, and does not assume it to be a given: while Joshua on the whole advocates for forceful colonization, the two Black Panthers, T’Challa and Killmonger, present diametrically opposed positions on the matter. The former intends to position his kingdom as force for establishing harmony in the midst of a broken world, whereas the latter hopes (understandably, though not excusably, given what he has suffered) to use Wakanda as a means for exacting revenge upon the world, fracturing its bones and drawing further blood. These leaders assume the mantles of restorative and punitive justice, respectively.

Those of us who take the Bible seriously cannot dismiss those parts of it that are historically fictitious, as they still possess truth. When the Jews returned to Judea from captivity in Babylon, they created a mythos, an identity by means of stories. And yet, it took twenty-five hundred years before Israel emerged as an independent nation, free from external overlords. Its writings vascillate between the intentions of T’Challa and Killmonger: at times, the Bible’s authors look for revenge, while its more lovely passages prophetically declare that the new Heavens will transform rather than obliterate the world as we know it. For these authors, God seeks restoration, rather than punishment.

The ancient Hebrews’ scriptures (and therefore our scriptures) proclaim that their covenant with God would be a light to the nations, a witness of the relationship through which God has wedded God’s very self to the entirety of creation and all divine image-bearers within it. Through their history and experience, salvation would be made known. I strongly suspect that Wakanda might serve a similar purpose as the Marvel universe unfolds.

A White Woman Wrestles with Race, Part 2

by Erin Conway

Note: This post continues a discussion from Erin's last post, which can be read here.

Despite the outpouring of support I received after my first attempt to wrestle with the topic of race (THANK YOU, by the way, to all of you who read, shared, and responded to my thoughts), a part of me still questioned if I was qualified to insert myself into this crucial conversation. Do I really know what I’m talking about? Is my voice helpful or unintentionally harmful? Do I have a right to talk about being black in America? Is it my whiteness that has convinced me that my voice matters here?

These questions were on my heart before my last piece and have continued to plague me since writing. I don’t want to put words in people’s mouths and I’m uncomfortable speaking about things I don’t fully understand. But then about two weeks ago I watched political strategist Angela Rye on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. At the end of her segment Rye explained to Noah why she believes that what our world needs is not for people to “stay woke” but instead to “work woke.” Staying woke,¹ Rye told Noah, is not enough anymore. If you are woke but don’t work for justice, can you really claim to be woke at all? “What do you do after you read?” she challenged. “What do you do after you know all? How are you putting what you know into action?”

And then Rye did something that warmed my Theology teacher heart, she spoke about faith, explaining that to her, “faith without works is dead faith.” All of a sudden I recognized God’s fingerprints. When I talk to students about what it means to be a follower of Christ, I always tell them that “being Catholic” is an action and not a state of being. If I say I am Catholic but am not doing anything about it, I challenge them, can I really call myself Catholic? If I am not working to create the world God dreams of, haven’t I, in some way, fallen short of my call? This moment returned me to the question from the examen, how am I being called to respond now? The answer: work woke. Anchored in this truth, I’m pushing forward this week to share my experiences once again.

Currently in my senior Theology class, my students are split into social justice “book clubs.” They meet once a week to discuss their reactions to the text (among other things). The other day during one of these meetings, I sat with the students who are reading Ta’Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. While I explained to them my current obsession (to put in mildly) with this book, one of the young women in the group pointed out that although she was enjoying it and found it valuable, it seemed to her like a book “white people needed to read.” When I asked her to elaborate, she explained that she, a young black woman, already knew many of the ideas I had learned or the realities I found so fascinating in the text. What seemed important, she believed, was for white Americans to hear these stories about what it was like to be black in America. This humbled me. I wondered if all the books I had chosen were books that “white people needed to read.” This moment of humility, however, prompted me to recognize God’s fingerprints once again. Perhaps, in an unexpected way, I had just been provided with an opportunity to “work woke.”

In his newest book, Barking to the Choir, Father Greg Boyle, SJ describes the impact that the homies he’s worked with over the past 30 years have had on his life. He says the homies “have pointed the way” for him and proclaims that “to sit at their feet has been nothing short of salvific.” On a daily basis, I have the chance to sit at the feet of my students and simply listen. The example above is one of these moments. Although I talked in my last post about several non-classroom encounters that allowed me to catch a glimpse of what it might be like to be black in America, most of my deeper understanding has come from my students themselves. These personal encounters have been nothing short of salvific. I’ve learned how to be a kinder and more compassionate human being than I could have become on my own. I’ve had the chance to build kinship with young black men and women every single day. I’ve been blessed to work toward the world God has in mind.

And I have come to realize more and more that this experience is a privilege in the very best sense of the word.² Every day I get a glimpse into the lives of my students that is real and personal and direct. And while I can certainly never fully understand what it is like to be black in America, I can begin to take steps toward kinship. Not every white person has this particular privilege. But even if you are a white American who lives, works, or learns far from integrated communities of kinship, there are small constructive ways you can start to enter the conversation.

To help you do this (and in an attempt to embrace the challenge of working woke), I’ve put together a list of the most formative books, articles, movies, TV shows, and podcasts that helped me first explore the experience of being black in America. These stories helped me to begin to understand race before I was blessed to sit at the feet of my students and hear their own stories. Nothing can replace true relationship, but these books, etc. have given me a base understanding from which to engage my students further.

My list is certainly not exhaustive. Each resource I have listed below is one that I myself have read, watched, or listened to. While there are several (okay probably A LOT) more sitting on my bookshelf, bookmarked on my computer, or saved in my Netflix queue that I just haven’t yet had the chance to get to (reading student writing seems to take up most of my life), if I haven’t read or watched them myself, I’ve left them off the list for now. I intentionally only included resources that have shaped my experience and helped me personally to “get woke.”

My list will take you more than a few afternoons to get through. I hope you don’t let that intimidate you. Or better yet, I hope you feel a little intimidated but choose to engage anyway. Here’s story that I hope explains why:

In an attempt to be helpful in a recent conversation about Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, I shared with my students how I believed it was okay if they sometimes felt overwhelmed by the conversations surrounding racial justice in the United States and needed or wanted to take a break. I told them that I, too, often found myself exhausted and that I sometimes just needed to step away before diving back in. An earnest student challenged me in this moment. “But Ms. Conway,” she said, “when you look like me, you don’t have that choice. It follows you everywhere.”

So yes, white people, it’s uncomfortable to get woke. And yes, it takes a lot of time and effort. Being woke and working woke is, quite fittingly, exhausting. But the choice to disengage from this conversation is ultimately a sign of white privilege. So I hope you choose dig in and work to create, in the words of Father Greg Boyle, a world “such that God might recognize it.”

Books (and Articles, Movies, & Podcasts) All White People Should Read (or watch, or listen to)

Between the World and Me, Ta’Nehisi Coates
The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Jeff Hobbs
You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain, Phoebe Robinson
Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
Tattoos on the Heart, Father Greg Boyle, SJ ³

Are You a Social Sinner? by Rev. Bryan Massingale
Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City, by Nikole Hannah Jones

13th
I Am Not Your Negro
Selma
Dear White People

On Being, Michelle Alexander: Who We Want to Become - Beyond the New Jim Crow
On Being, Ruby Sales: Where does it hurt?
On Being, John Lewis: Love in Action
On Being, W.E.B. Du Bois & the American Soul

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1 For those who are unfamiliar, to “stay woke” means (according to Urban Dictionary) “to keep informed of the shitstorm going on around you in terms of turmoil and conflict, specifically on occasions when the media is being heavily filtered.” ^↩

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2 Here I use privilege as a synonym for honor or blessing. I intentionally chose this term to contrast with the often used idea of “white privilege” which refers to the preference for whiteness that saturates our society and the advantages white people receive without earning them.^↩

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3 I include this book not because it taught me anything about what it means to be black in America, but because it defines my own Theology, and has taught me why kinship is important and how I can work toward it.^↩