On Lost Sheep and the One Who Seeks Them

The following is a homily offered by my friend and pastor, Fr. Fred Bugarin.  He sent me (and others) a copy of it, seeking critique and comments.  My reflection on his words follows:

The Good Shepherd and the Common Good

In the first reading from Jeremiah, we encounter shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock. We see that there are good shepherds and there are bad shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture... You have scattered my sheep and driven them away.”

Where there are bad shepherds, the Lord God Himself will take over: “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to where they have been scattered and bring them back to the fold where they shall be fruitful and multiply.”

I would like to talk about the shepherd as an image and a religious symbol. For the purposes of this reflection, I will use the image of shepherd to refer to leadership in the Church and to the leadership of public officials and public servants. These include pastors (clergy, hierarchy); government officials; political figures; superiors and supervisors; etc.

The shepherd is a powerful religious symbol which carries meaning to this day. The shepherd symbolizes care, pastoral care (pastor: shepherd). In general terms, the shepherd stands for anyone who has responsibility for others especially when it comes to their subject’s health and welfare.

You perhaps remember seeing Jesus depicted as the good shepherd: Jesus carrying a lamb on his shoulders and Jesus rescuing the lost sheep.

In the parable of the Good Shepherd, Jesus is portrayed as the one who left the 99 sheep in search of the 1 that wandered off and got lost. While going after the one lost sheep is sheer madness to the economically minded audience of Jesus, he nevertheless got their attention. They wanted to see what this crazy man was going to tell them. What was the message Jesus was conveying?

What he told his audience then and is telling us now, telling the Church today, is to take care of the lost, the marginalized, the neglected, the outcast, the one whom society had written off: “Whatever you neglected to do to the least of these, you neglected to do to me.” He was not really talking about sheep as he was talking about people. Shepherding meant for Jesus taking care of those he loved: the weak, the vulnerable and defenseless. It meant that leadership was all about pastoring (shepherding): taking care of the individual and the community, the neighborhood, the society, the global family including, I suggest, the ecological community. Leadership must be all‐inclusive because all share the same life, all share in a mutuality of life.

It has not only saddened but also angered me to see so many “lost and scattered sheep” because of poor and bad leadership in the Church. Right away, we think of the clergy sexual abuse cases. We also think of pastors and bishops whose leadership has destroyed the flock and scattered the sheep. Do you know that in the last 40 years, we have lost so many Catholics to Evangelical and Pentecostal (fundamentalist) Christian churches? In Latin America, themajority of Christians there now are these non‐Catholic Christians (mostly Evangelicals and Pentecostal fundamentalist Christians). What was launched by Vatican II in the late and early seventies in the form of Base Christian Communities and Liberation Theology which showed so much excitement and growth, so much promise, has been methodically and systematically attacked and destroyed by conservative Church leadership including the previous 2 popes. Now, we hope to see a resurgence of that same spirit, that same excitement in the leadership of Pope Francis. You probably followed him in the news during his recent visit there.

Pope Francis makes many Catholics proud of their Catholic identity. Here is, indeed, a Good Shepherd. We pray that he can continue to go after the lost sheep and the scattered flock. We pray that he can reform and bring back pastoral leadership to the universal church.

Likewise, closer to home in Alaska, the issue of Medicaid Expansion which would allow health coverage to 42,000 uninsured Alaskans has been mishandled in the political arena by leaders who, in my opinion, lack the qualities of the Good Shepherd. Many have been frustrated, angered and disillusioned recently by the action (OR, more precisely, the INACTION of our political leaders over the issue of Medicaid Expansion. This is negligence.

All seemed uncertain until last Tuesday when Governor Walker announced his decision to accept Medicaid Expansion. His decision to ACT on this issue shows shepherding qualities, the kind of leadership that considers those who fall through the cracks.

Both Pope Francis and Governor Walker are two examples of leaders who, in my opinion, have exemplified the quality of shepherding, that is, serving the needs of those entrusted to their care: 1) Pope Francis and his care of the poor including the environment, and his desire to reform the institution of the Church; and, 2) Governor Bill Walker of Alaska and his desire to include the 42,000 uninsured Alaskans into the health care package.

There are two leadership qualities that we are focusing on when we speak of the Good Shepherd as a model: care of the poor and care of the common good. One has to do with individuals and the other has to do with the community, the society.

In the case of the “least” ones in society, Catholic Social Teaching calls for a “preferential option for the poor.” It is this quality that defines pastoral ministry. We who are followers of Christ, the Good Shepherd, are commanded to take care of the poor, the “least ones” of Jesus. This brings me to the other shepherding quality: service of the common good.

Common good: (common = communis; munia = duties). Serving the good of everybody (common good) is a matter of duty (moral obligation). For Christians, the good of everybody is not the same as the good of the majority but rather the good that must include the minority OR minorities: the “least”, the weak and vulnerable, the marginalized, the poorest of the poor. The DUTY for Christians is to make sure that the least ones are not neglected. Serving the common good from Catholic social teaching always starts with the poor, the “least” ones of Jesus.

This is the reason why, from the perspective of the gospel, the 42,000 uninsured Alaskans should be the first consideration when it comes to health care, not the last. In the gospel, the least must be the first, the first will be last. The gospel also states: “Whatever you neglected to do to the least of these, you neglected to do to me.” Leadership, from a pastoral standpoint, is about care of the poor, a preferential option for the poor.

Once again, I find myself relating to the one lost, the one marginalized, viewing today’s readings not solely as a general address to the marginalized millions who find themselves in dire economic circumstances.  Rather, the wandering of my own soul has sometimes lost itself deep in the darkness of bad shepherds, even if they were only the misguided thoughts of my bruised and battered heart. While I would not argue that the preferential option for the poor is the essence of not only Catholic social teaching but of the gospel itself, the incredible story of the 99 sheep left for the recovery of the one has never seemed so relevant, or so compelling.  

For much of my life I have been in the company of the 99, secure in what I thought was a strong faith, if it was only the perceived faith of the others around me who buoyed me and bore me through the challenges of my most blessed life.  I could, it seemed, tolerate being left with my peers as the Good Shepherd sought the one, marginalized, abandoned, and hopelessly tangled in the thickets of economic and social disparity, until I was the one was lost, the one is marginalized.  At times, in doing the frustrating, yet edifying, work for Medicaid Expansion I wrestled with the thought, “As I speak for the 41,000, who speaks for me?”

I should like to believe that I am selfless enough to not have been less than elated when Governor Walker announced that those 41,000 would be cared for--would be assured a medical challenge would not be either ignored or the source of further economic and physical devastation.  But I wasn’t.  While I now live a life of relative abundance wrought from years of hard work, fidelity to another’s dream and the sacrifices required of the self-employed, I live that life with the knowledge that a serious medical condition on the part of myself, my husband or my children, could effectively wipe out all that we have worked so hard to attain.  The cost of health insurance for my family and myself is still prohibitive.  To add insult to injury we must also pay a tax for failing to have said coverage.

In that sense, I am as poor and marginalized as the minimum wage worker, or the homeless who sleep and die on our streets.  Insurance for many of the self-employed is still unattainable.  There are also those who pay ridiculously high premiums and unrealistic deductibles to leverage their odds of economic devastation.  It is the same predicament in which I found myself while fighting for expansion of Denali Kid Care--too rich to qualify for any assistance and too poor to afford it outright.  I keep living with the hope and the faith that my good health will at least hold until Medicare kicks in.

But all that is merely an aside to the contemplation of how and why I have found myself outside the protective fold of the 99, lost in a spiritual and emotional tangle of circumstances beyond my control. What is perhaps more frustrating is to feel lost within that crowd of 99.  The margins are not the only place where the wayward and wandering tarry. The deepest loneliness is not always known in solitude, but sometimes in the midst of those who are unaware of the suffering among them.  I am certain I am not alone in that acknowledgement of my own obscurity in the midst of familiarity.

 When you mentioned yesterday that I was effectively losing my best friend, who has chosen to move thousands of miles from me, you touched a nerve in me that has lately seen God as, at worst, a mean-spirited overlord who takes as indiscriminately as he gives; at best, an indifferent entity who, while hearing our cries of protest insists our suffering is ultimately for our own good.  It is hard to see a Good Shepherd in those characterizations.  

I have tried, through my own means and dogged determination to stay the hand of my own self-destruction, to rise above the kind of despair such thinking engenders.  The desert of a sort of self-marginalization is a most challenging state to endure. It is not of the fullness of life Jesus promises to those who love and follow him.  It is the way of the half-alive, the way of the lost.  It amazes me is how well I can disguise a deeper anger that depression masks and pretend (at least publicly) that all is well. There is a silent voice that rises within me and screams, “I am not okay. I am lost!”  Giving voice to that silence is the first step towards healing, the turning homeward on the path of despair.

In my teenage years of angst and earliest spiritual searching, I discovered a word to describe what I revisit again and again in seeking a sense of peace in a world that constantly serves to disrupt that elusive state: “weltschmerz.”  Its literal meaning is “world pain.”  Its implication is far more bleak, as Wikipedia explains: “The modern meaning of Weltschmerz in the German language is the psychological pain caused by sadness that can occur when realizing that someone's own weaknesses are caused by the inappropriateness and cruelty of the world and (physical and social) circumstances. Weltschmerz in this meaning can cause depression, resignation and escapism, and can become a mental problem.”

The occasion to recall this word and how it has so effectively explained what my reasoning cannot, was both surprising and healing.  My husband, who, for better or worse, has endured my increasingly frequent bouts of “ennui” (a perfect French word Urban Dictionary defines as “a sense of apathy and lassitude brought about by either societal or personal stagnation”) put it simply, “you are not a bad person, you are just sensitive.” His insight and his acceptance of the ugliness I can engender both disarmed and encouraged me.

The hardest thing to run away from is a truth about ourselves.  As uncomfortable as it might be, I cannot deny that this weakness, this ennui, while caused by the “inappropriateness and cruelty of the world” is something I must lay in the hands of the Good Shepherd.  It is the thorn I cannot remove, and which I must trust can be borne in the flesh of the One who bore everything, our individual and collective cruelties, our consistent tendency to marginalize and be marginalized.  We are both the oppressor and the oppressed, moving from one state to the other with tragic ease and circumstantial disregard.  We literally lose ourselves as often as we need to be found, as often as we need to be hoisted on the shoulders of a Savior who is not ourselves.  Grace is knowing when we are lost and when to cry out from the depths of the wound in the stuck soul, and allow ourselves to be carried, once again to the fold of the others who both cause and share our pain, our marginalization. So I pray for the grace to do so.

Picking up where you left off

It’s not always easy to return to something that has been left dormant and pick up where you left off. Sometimes the sheer work of doing so is daunting, but if you care enough about it, it can be done.  You don’t need to even explain why you have set something aside. Sometimes the desire to complete something you have long neglected is enough to allow the universe to bring a long elusive dream to fruition.  The degree of desire may not even be all that strong.

After moving from the “wherehouse” to a regular house two years ago, a lot of things that had been put in boxes from previous moves were discovered. (I’ve moved seven times since coming to Alaska nearly 35 years ago.) Among them was a log cabin quilt I began years ago when I worked in a fabric store, before any of my five children were born.  The pieced top is over 30 years old, but the fabric looks as good as new, thanks to the fact it was in stored in a banker’s box in a waterproof, unheated shipping container for all those years. Both the darkness and the cold protected the fibers.  As a birthday gift, my best friend and awesome hair stylist (who is also a quilter) offered to quilt the king sized creation on her long arm quilting machine.

This beautiful friend of mine, Anne, has been an inspiration and a motivator for someone like me who has delusions of grandeur about many of my creative endeavors.  Together, she and I joined the local quilt guild and I even went so far as to volunteer to be the secretary for this amazing group of creative folks.  A few months into my new assignment I began to doubt the whole enterprise.  The people who make up this group are, for the most part, gracious and humble.  Each month, our business meeting is followed by “Show and Tell” where folks share their latest projects, both large and small.  I’ve never once participated in “Show and Tell” for the obvious reason that I don’t seem to get any real quilting done.

Each month, I feel like a voyeur, or an imposter, at the very least a quilter wannabe who is too lazy, distracted, depressed or unfocused to actually complete anything for “Show and Tell.”  My friend, Anne, will be my collaborator in my redemption and establishing among these oh-so-accomplished peers that I do indeed have the quilting “cred” (when we measured the completed top it was100 inches squared, just like the pattern I followed said it should be!)

But this isn’t just about quilting.

It’s actually about writing.

In a few days, I will be traveling to Homer, Alaska for the annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference.  I have attended this auspicious gathering of national and local writers for several years now.  Each time I leave the conference I dream of returning with a completed manuscript. The next year I return feeling less like a writer and more like a voyeur, an imposter, a wannabe.  I keep coming back though. I wonder why.

Last year when I attended my son’s graduation from Johns Hopkins University (he received a Master’s degree) he told me that when he is asked about his parents he says, “My father is an auctioneer and my mother is a writer.”  Wow!  Even I rarely call myself a writer, though I have been published and paid for my writing, so I guess I am qualified to do so.  Writers write, quilters quilt, moms mother...and I have done more than these labels imply.  Perhaps that is the problem, or at least MY problem.  I have had a lot of experiences in life--I’ve been a “salad girl”, a waitress, a clerk, cashier, a childbirth educator, a pastoral associate and a writer--well, these are the roles for which I have been paid (not much, but hey, money is money.)

Of all the labels I have been given by people over the years, the one that perhaps delighted me and touched my soul was one given by the pastor of my church, several years ago when he was new to our parish and we barely knew each other.  I had just changed the seasonal decor at my church (another “thing” I do) and while I was checking to see how it looked and he came up to me and said, “You are an artist.”

 I would have been the last person to think that draping fabric over the pony walls in the sanctuary of my church was art and yet with that observation on his part, I began to see how it was so.  My view of myself began to change with that one simple statement and I started to view the ministry of “church decorator” differently.  I also began to appreciate that it was okay to be a “jack of all trades and a master of none”--or at least a jack of several trades and pretty damn good at all of them.

No matter our life’s work, no matter how much “success” we achieve at the various endeavors we undertake in life, we are far more than what we do.  No matter how many detours we take in life, how many distractions take us away from our creative selves, we can change course, we can start over.  If we set aside our projects, our careers, our dreams and our goals, we can, if we value them, return again and again, and again.  Life is not a competition, least of all with ourselves.  It is an adventure.  We can always pick up where we left off.