The Raven - Part 2

Our story teller had titled her talk, "On the Wisdom of the Community of the Beloved Disciples, A walk with Jesus", which she took from John 21. She is a noted author who works with indigenous groups and base Christian communities all over the world, and with justice and peace groups as well as parishes and dioceses. She is a native of New York City and has lived, visited, and gypsied through North and South America, Europe, and a collection of remote islands. She introduced her talk by expressing how important story is, and that at the end of the evening we "would either love everything she had to say or we would want to kill her". I thought that was a weird way to introduce her story telling style, and in hind sight I should have realized what I was in for. I had been looking forward to her talk, expecting to hear how her travels had deepened her Christian faith and how her faith had influenced her travels.

Unfortunately, I failed to consider one important, and critical, fact. This presentation was being sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center for Catholic Spiritual Development. I am not familiar with most of their belief and teaching, although I can say that because of my few encounters with this group, I strongly believe this to be a fringe group within Catholicism. After telling the story about the raven the elder in our midst continued to explore the idea of failure, and sin, and the shadows that follow us around most of our lives. For her the American Indians represented a time in which myth and truth, were inseparable from nature and religion. According to her, this way of life existed for thousands of years and was an example of where we as Catholics should be headed.

Evidently she usually speaks to "invitation only" groups, which gives her the freedom to speak ... "freely". Her comments concerning the quality of leadership within the Church were not positive or even intended as suggestions for improvement (and as evidence this Thomas Merton group refuses to contribute any portion of their collections to the Church). This group would prefer to simply remove anyone (from the Church) that isn't a lay person (from all deacons and up), and start over. Her agenda was that Peter was not supposed to have been given the keys to the kingdom and that from there (and since then) things have been going downhill. According to her, a view probably supported by this group, Christianity should never have read or canonized the writings of Saint Paul.

Remember Harold Camping, the personality from the Family Radio program that predicted the most recent rapture date? Here is another opportunity to pray for those who are completely misguided, and for those they are leading astray.