On being called a radical

Am I a radical? A 50-something woman asked the question somewhat casually as we left a room at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse. I had just used the word jihad and said that the idea of the nation/state is passé in a global economy. But in reality, I am wearing clothes from Banana Republic and just bought a Honda truck before the trip. How radical can I really be?

Radical must be a relevant thing. Or am I becoming an armchair radical, content to be comfortable while monks are beaten in the streets of Rangoon? Or shirking when a former colleague writes a paper I think is a bit controversial and I try to edit his opinions on homesexuality so that I don’t have to deal with the aftermath.

In the Emergent Church blogosphere (see theoblogy) these days, there’s all sorts of accusation and response about heresy and radicality. These days, I think about radicality in ways that are beyond church narthex conversations, wondering about changing the world, invoking both local and global manifestation. I don’t really know the word heresy anymore and know that orthodoxy like radicality is also a relevant thing that creativity and imagination and even God at times require us to transgress.

I feel guilty but honestly happy about buying a new truck with gas mileage that hovers around 20 mpg. It further implicates me into the global connectivity of blood for oil while letting me live out my inner redneck desire for a pick-up. I like cheap meals at Chinese restaurants which further connects me to the reality of undocumented labor in this country so that I can eat cashew chicken gluttonously at the buffet for $4.99. I bike as recreation, not to save gas. I shop the sale rack at Banana Republic when I can afford to purchase high quality and well-marketed clothes produced probably by paying unjust wages. I buy my electricity from PECO Wind, totally relying on wind power, but know the controversy of continuing to stick humongous windmills on the top of Appalachian ridges. This is definitely a nonradical paradox that I live.

So I am a conflicted radical; living, breathing, swimming, consuming in a global economy. Maybe the radical thing is to realize that conflicted connectedness. If that’s radical, then so be it, but I can hardly take myself seriously. I am writing on a Mac from a Holiday Inn in Wisconsin, sipping what seems to be a non-potent Bloody Mary wondering if I would have courage like the Monks in Myanmar or the insight of Merton to even understand spiritual transformation and the courage to stand more for compassion than arrogance, which as Jean Baudrillard says are always the flip sides of the same impulse.

on having a Catholic name

I was on tech support with Apple this afternoon and as I told the guy my name including my middle name–Francis–he responded with “that’s a good Catholic name.” I have always known this, but no one has ever said it to me and particularly not someone who I am only encountering in a phone transaction.

In living and working within the oldest Mennonite community in the Western Hemisphere, I am realizing how “Catholic” I still am. How much I value the beauty of architecture and don’t mind being disgruntled with the church, unlike those from “reformer” traditions who have less of a tradition of dissent. I don’t value simplicity over complexity. I like ritual and the stories of the saints. I assume that the church doesn’t always live up to its best possibilities and that I won’t always agree with it on everything even when my vocation suggests that I represent it.

I heard poet/memoirist recently Catholic Mary Karr speak at Fordham a few weeks ago. Someone asked why she remained a part of such a fallen institution. Her answer was profound, she said at some point she recognized or decided that she was part of Christ’s body. I wonder what that really means, to live into the possibility of being both wounded and resurrected out of a commitment that both questions religion and loves the whole of the world.

potting plants, peace lilies and metaphors

Today, the most profound thing I did was repot plants. I took a host of my houseplants and situated them into new surroundings. I’ve had a problem with a non-flowering peace lily since I’ve moved to Philly. Today, I decided it was time for it to live or die and dumped it out–only to find that it had become a dozen plants rather than one. As I slowly disentangled the roots, I realized that my plant was ready to be separated and to be more than one peace lily but instead many.

Here’s the big leap–its a metaphoric event–as most of my life is, I am sure. I think I live in metaphor mostly. Was it the break down of metanarrative? Was it that peace can’t thrive in constraint and has to be shared? Will peace survive in all of the corners of my carriage house quarters? This website will not necessarily monitor that–and I realize that its a risk to write about houseplants on the first entry.

But this is my life, exciting as houseplants, filled with metaphors that I have yet to discover.