Recovering Catholics

At an engaging, uplifting interfaith evening of prayer for world peace, so-called recovering Catholics were asked, from what are you recovering?

With candidness, one former parishioner of my own home church of Saint Thomas the Apostle on Detroit's east side at Miller and Townsend, a stone's throw from the I-94 freeway, shouted:

"Myself!"

What embracing honesty, I thought about this exuberant and enthusiastic believer in the twelve-step spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and the power of treatment and rehab programs she attended repeatedly, she said.

Traditionally known as a twelve-step advocate, Renaissance Unity, formerly Church of Today with the spiritual leadership of its founder, Jack Boland, overflowed in the past with recovery groups that poured out of the Mystic Cafe into the hallway, for example, and other meeting rooms, I recalled in my visit there once more last night. Back in '99, Magi and John Bish from West Warren, Massachusetts, wanted to go there to find solace from the abduction of their youngest child, Molly, a lovely lifeguard at a popular swimming hole near their home. Magi was fond of the spiritual leader there, Marianne Williamson. Jim Lee, Sandy Hess, among others, lead Reanissance Unity today.

Paths of many faiths addressed the fragile peace and the channel each person is to make serenity a reality today.

I was at home with the crowd as we mingled after over tea and cakes after Buddhist monks from nearby Sterling Heights meditated aloud, and Rabbi Nelson and Paula Drewek, among other Hindu, Native American, Muslim faiths, and me, among others kept the assembly engaged.

That's what the word "catholic" means, afterall: Broad-minded, open, universal.

The iconic, persistent and passionate Catholic, Eleanor Josaitis of Focus:HOPE, is a shining example of who a Catholic is as she navigated 79 years of life with ambivalence about the structure of her Church. Easily, she steered about leaders she wondered about, while getting the job done with little if any drama. She still shines spending these days four weeks after her final breath, spending her heaven on earth radiating within so many, for sure. Kind of like those statues I was given as a second grade student that glowed in the dark.

Stories, statues, scripture, sacraments, saints, spiritualities, and service are embedded within Catholics marks of the historically consistent one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church from the beginning before branches began and broke to bring about multiple paths beyond our Jewish roots, Christian and Muslim traditions of faith in that order as the stories unfolded.

Awesome. One, global, universal family under God.

The call to glow. Channels of light and abounding life of passion.

The Warren, MI., Renaissance Unity, ignited the dignity and worth of each one there, awakening that glow of the Creator and Spirit radiating from the hearts of God's people nearby to make a difference in the world.

Make me a channel of your peace, I prayed, while melodies of Imagine, and, We Are the World, and, the Prayer rang out loud and clear with hands and hearts joined as we swayed back and forth. . . to move forth in faith now with the urgency to bring the "good news" to all corners of the world as Jesus mandated in his clarion call of love of God and neighbor, now, especially in the most vulnerable in and outside the womb here, and in food wars in Ghana, in Africa where hunger is devasting sisters and brothers this moment crying for my ear.

Light.

Let it shine today in me, O Creator!