Cooking With the Fallen One’s–Rio

COOKING WITH THE FALLEN ONE’S–RIO

Today as I cooked the meal, I was laughing to myself, as I thought of some words from Rumi: “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground,”and for me cooking with the fallen one’s is kissing the ground. As I write these reflections there is much pain, but people have criticized me for not sharing the “stories”, the truth is it is too painful, so in writing I can share and remember.

As I moved out on the street, into the alleys and tents, I observed people using drugs, mental illness, and so much pain, and my reflection went back to my Hollywood days and how I came here.

One night, after 3:00 a.m., I was coming home from a date, and on the corner of Hollywood and Vine was a drunk kid. His name was Rio, and he could barely move. So I took him back to my motel, and simply put him to bed. I knew who he was, he was a well known model.  The next day he woke up and we joked about him coming home with a stranger, and thus a friendship began. He offered money for taking care of him, and I said “no”, as I would throughout our relationship. Rio was born of hippie parents, they were in cult where he participated in sex at an early age; he became a well known model in his teens, and the became wealthy. Rio called me “preach”, rubbing in my past life as a minister, and would tell me, “you were born to preach,”, jokingly but seriously. He struggled with drugs, depression, and PTSD.  After I re-entered the “straight-edge world”, he would come and see me in Minneapolis, and I kept his confidence. I never took money from him, because everyone took from him.  On a night one early fall he died of a drug overdose. Every year on that anniversary I stand outside the bar where he died, and say the Office of the Dead, than I go back to the Motel  6, where I am now called “Father River”, and get drunk, and I never drink, because I had promised him I would get drunk with him one time, and never did. As a final gift  I received a check–given with the request that it be used for ministry, from Rio –he was the one who reminded me of my calling over and over again, even when I vented my anger and hatred toward the church–and the money supported me the first two years as I established Temenos.

Rio was broken in so many ways, a brokenness that would kill him, but in that brokenness there was light as well. “I knee and kiss the ground each day,” being a pastor because of Rio.

Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

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+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 95164

www.

415-305-2124

www. temenos.org

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Cooking With the Fallen One’s–Cade

Cooking With the Fallen One’s–1

One does not value life until one has nothing. One minute I was the pastor with a nice house, nice car, friends, a career, and in the twinkling of an eye I was an outcast, no career, no place to live, and my good friends turning their backs.  I raised an issue about my sexuality, just questioning, and there was no mercy. I had a lawyer raise questions–and low and behold I could not even get a reference, and as I was reading the paper I found an advertisement for escorts in Hollywood, and so began my long bus ride to Hollywood, and a journey that would lead me into the light of the redeeming power of Christ. Hollywood, the city of bright lights, tinsel, dancing characters on the side walks, also has a deep and destructive dark side, of drugs, prostitution, child trafficking, and all other sorts of criminal activity, and into that world I walked one dark night. In those years and the years since I have met many young men and women who have touched and changed my life. They struggle so magnificently just to survive, they suffer so intensely, and without the notice of people–because they are not seen.  As I remember them I think of the words of Henri Nouwen: “As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us. It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved. Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives. They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys. Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died. Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life.” I remember as I walked down Hollywood Blvd, that first night, afraid, alone, hearing a voice: “Hey dude,” and it was Cade, 21, dressed in clothes my middle class self had never seen, and that was the beginning of a friendship that would span the next decade and a half. Cade was from Minnesota, he had been told to leave when he came out to his parents at 16 as gay, and so all he had was his body, and he used it well. He was addicted to heron and not knowing it HIV positive. He took me under his wing, and we went to a  Motel 6, where I stayed with him. That Motel 6 is not the same today as it was then, I go there now and am in luxury, compared to the dump it was. Cade taught me the ropes of prostitution, of street life, he took care of me for a time; and then I took care of him. He was in so much pain from the rejection of his family, he hated God, he hated anything from where he came, because of the hatred and rejection placed upon him.  He would shoot him self with drugs into oblivion. What I learned from Cade was that you love people regardless of who they are, or what they have one, and as he always told me to “Fuck the System”.  He suffered so much, he fought so hard. All Cade wanted was to be loved. Fifteen years ago I received a phone call late one night, and it was a hospice in Minneapolis, Cade was 33, and dying from complications from AIDS. He wanted to see me. As I sat by his bed, we both laughed and cried, and he jokingly called me the “whore priest’ and I gave him the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He died holding my hand, and I had his funeral. No family came, just his few friends.  Cade is one of the saints in that great cloud of witnesses who journeys with me still. Viva!  Cade! Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min. P.O. Box 642656 San Francisco, CA 94164 http://www.temenos.org 415-305-2124

Cooking With the Fallen One’s

Cooking With the Fallen One’s

“You and our holy sentinels

are most sacred indeed-

and given due loyalty

from all who place in you their trust.

Security.

You. Psalm. 84:2-6, 9-13″

The only security is God. Through out my life, only God has been faithful.  Friends come and go, but God remains. Henri Nouwen sums up my learning in the past years about vocation:

“Each of us has a mission in life.

‘What does God want from me?’

is a question we all ask,

not once and for but throughout our lives.

New vocations are full of promise.

Something very important is in store for us.

There is a hidden treasure to discover.

But I learned that my deeper vocation

is to announce God’s love for all people.

My final destination is not a place;

it is God’s eternal embrace.”

My vocation is working with  street youth, and adults.  To walk with them through the hell, as described in the words of this poem by a young man:

Hell Bound Trains

Went downtown to Polk and Sutter.

Looking for relief

from pain.

All I did was find a ticket on a hell bound train on the street not far away.

Several friends were taken away.

Rest their souls from the pain.

We all lived our private hell.

Just more tickets on the hell bound train.”

One constant on the street is pain: physical, soul–feeling lost, tormented, and guilty; and the rejection and judgment by society–raciest, class, and social prejudice.  The pain is seen in the face of Sean on the corner as he begs for money, and tries to sell drugs, as people walk by and never notices or as a well dressed man comes up to him and offers him a place to stay–with other intentions other than a place to sleep. Everyone expects something in return.

My ministry is that of meeting them where they are, and like Matthew in the photo above with Vin, just caring for them where they are without judgment. Vin has come to love Matt in the past months, simply because, Matt cares and spends time with him.  Life is lonely on the street, Matthew has made a difference in Vin’s life. Just spending time without judgment.

In a world that is breaking a part with violence this is the way I have found to answer the call of Jesus to “Love the Lord my God with all of my soul, and strength and my neighbor as myself.” 

Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

http://www.temenos.org

415-305-2124

(In the next few weeks I am going to write “the book” people have suggested, writing of my kids. I will never write a book because to much trouble, no one will buy it, and I enjoy writing this way. So this is the book.)

Being Ready to Die!

BEING READY TO DIE!

Matthew 13:16-30

“Who do you say that I am?”

“Death often happens suddenly. A car accident, a plane crash, a fatal fight, a war, a flood, and so on. When we feel healthy and full of energy, we do not think much about our deaths. Still, death might come very unexpectedly. How can we be prepared to die? By not having any unfinished relational business. The question is: Have I forgiven those who have hurt me and asked forgiveness from those I have hurt? When I feel at peace with all the people I live with, my death might cause great grief, but it will not cause guilt or anger. When we are ready to die at any moment, we also are ready to live at any moment.”

The marches, the anger, we are seeing was summed up in  statement made by a young woman at our march last week: ‘I am so afraid’.  Fear, fear of what? Fear of death, death of our way of life, our traditions, our environment, our access to money and housing, but ultimately death itself.

Death is all around us–the storms in Texas, on our 24 hours news channel around the world. Death is around me all the time. I know each time I walk out my door I could die;  I know that death lurks in my body, and can take me.

Christ tells us that in answering the question, “Who do you say that  I am?” we have an answer to how to face our fears–by not having unfinished business in our relationships.

It means we actively work across the lines of disagreement, and meet people where they are, none of us are completely right or wrong; it means actively reaching out to help people who are in a major storm–sending food, offering the one’s who have no place to stay a place to stay; it means feeding people on the street, actively pushing our political leaders to care for them, not to push them aside, and for us to feed the one in front of us. The tents above are in our alleys; My dream is to see Face book full of care for one another, full of concern for each person in the world, and people putting aside their fears, their anger–and actively crossing the divide of opinions and caring–it means that we resolve differences, not hold grudges, and put our fears in the hands of God, and face the reality we all face death each moment of each day and ask ourselves the questions: “Have I done my best today to love my neighbor?”

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
http://www.temenos.org
415-305-2124

Growing Up!

“When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyse us emotionally for a long time. People we love become part of us. Our thinking, feeling and acting are codetermined by them: Our fathers, our mothers, our husbands, our wives, our lovers, our children, our friends … they are all living in our hearts. When they die a part of us has to die too. That is what grief is about: It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us. When Christmas, the new year, a birthday or anniversary comes, we feel deeply the absence of our beloved companion. We sometimes have to live at least a whole year before our hearts have fully said good-bye and the pain of our grief recedes. But as we let go of them they become part of our “members” and as we “re-member” them, they become our guides on our spiritual journey.” Henri Nouwen

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What is growing up?  For me growing up is seeing the reality of life and death, and living; it is being open about who you are without having different faces for different people. It is facing the reality of death.  I see death around me all the time, I feel death around me, in so many ways.  Last night I was called out  at 9:00 p.m.., and a 19 year old was out on the streets in the Marina, he had been raped. I picked him up and took him to the hospital, and brought him home and put him to my bed. As he slept  I sat in my chair, and watched him breathe and simply prayed. I sat there the the rest of the night, and he slept so peacefully, and I wondered, what horrors will he have from this experience in the days to comeand I cried.

Sean said to me as I picked him up, “My friend told me you are the priest who always listens and you are like us, I had no one else to call.”  And he is right, I am like them, from my own journey, kicked out of the church, rejected, a prostitute, raped, I am as feral as they are, but I have always known how to work the system, and I have never judged them, because I have been and am judged so much. I love the church, but I am so far out on the edge now I do not feel comfortable within the local church.  Like Lazarus  in the parable of him and the rich man I am at a point where I can not return to my old life, and I am now owning that. That is growing up.

Today at the “420 Games,” one person laughingly said, “You are the only priest who is out here, they are all scared off their asses,”, and I am not afraid any more. I believe 420 is good for many people, and I smoke; I believe drugs should be made legal–because the War on Drugs has done so much damage to so many and that money can be used for treatment and education.

Today I met a 20 year old from Kentucky, who has just arrived. He was trying to sell pot for food, so I took him to lunch, and than up to Twin Peaks, to see the view of the City. We talked, and he talked of going home with the same two guys, my young friend, last night did, and escaping the same fate. Jake talked of his girl friend in Kentucky and how she can not understand his experience on the street, he talked of being cold, hungry, alone and afraid.  The streets are not beautiful, they are hell, and they cause so much torment.

Dorothy Day talked of the long loneliness, and how in her work she found solace; and so it is with me. I live a life that is lonely, I am misunderstood, hated,, loved, and not given a damn about, but in each person that I meet I find connection, and I am not alone. Last weekend on a camp out with three eighteen year old friends, I felt completely at home, at ease, because I could be myself, no expectations, no judgment. To me these three were the example of what ministry is: accepting people for who they are–no expectations, only that we love one another. I told one of my friends, “I felt safe,” and he joked with me the whole weekend about that–but I did feel safe, because they cared for me, just for me, with no expectations.

That is what Jesus calls us to do–to love each other without expectation, to meet each other where we are. If there is anything beyond this life–the only form of judgment we will have will be how we have loved our neighbor. It will not matter in what doctrine we believe, in the color of our skin, sexual orientation, religious practice–but only how we  love each other.

  Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www. temenos.org

415-305-2124

Peniel Newsletter of Temenos Catholic Worker–September

September, 2017

PENIEL

“Where Jacob Wrestled With God and Survived”

Temenos Catholic Worker

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

punkpriest1@gmail.com

http://www.temenos.org

(Paypal is On www. temenos.org

415-305-2124

Fr. River Sims, sfw, DMin.

Pastor/Director

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JOURNAL OF AN ALIEN STREE PRIEST

“In the new light of each day’s questions,

I am never prepared.

Today, again, I have nothing

to offer but a handful

of old warn prayers, worn down

by the relentless abrasion

of doubt, and a fragment

of dream that plays on in my head

only half remembered. Still,

the doves coo and circle

through the pines

as they do when I pass

each morning. Their sorrow

is so nearly human, it rings

sweet with regret. By dusk,

the trees will bow down, and I, too, will

make my appeal, will find again your mercy,

your solace. ” (Elizabeth Drescher)

In the midst of the political and social turmoil there are so many questions where there are no answers. We seek to label, and to judge, and in so doing separate each other.

Jesus tells us repeatedly through the Gospels that age, socioeconomic, political, race, religion, sexual orientation, and all of the labels we wear makes no difference to him.

Wendell Berry summed up all that matters

“Care . . .rests upon genuine religion.  Care allows creatures to escape our explanations into their actual presence and their essential mystery.  In taking care of our fellow creatures, we acknowledge that they are not ours; we acknowledge that they belong to an order and harmony of which we ourselves are parts.  To answer to the perpetual crisis of our presence in this abounding and dangerous world, we have only the perpetual obligation of care.”

Care, in the midst of unanswered questions, is the one action we  can do, and that is more than enough. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

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Planet First: Care Rests Upon Genuine Religion

Celebrate the One Seamless Thread of Life

One God: In many Faces

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Noon

Earl Warren Supreme Court Building

350 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA

Symbolic Action is that of being the Power of One: Bring one bag lunch, as a part of our celebration we will move on to the streets, and find one homeless person and engage with them and share the food with them. 

During the months of August and September, Pope Francis asks artists to “help everyone discover the beauty of creation.”

Submit your photo or video of nature that inspires joy. The view from your front door, a flower in the sidewalk, an awe-inspiring view from your travels . . . the more creative, the better!

Your post will be shared with our global audience. From August 1, the beginning of Pope Francis’s prayer intention for artists, through October 4, the end of the Season of Creation, we’ll be sharing and celebrating on this website and social media, and through email.

Your photo or video could inspire people around the world.

Send to punkpriest1@gmail.com and we will put them on our media.

Upload your photos on your social media sites.

If anyone would like to volunteer to be on a committee for planning please email Fr. River at punkpriest1@gmail.com

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WEEKLY MEALS

We generally serve two hot meals a week  one on Polk and one on Haight. We served for many years at two needle exchange sites, but each of our schedules, and changes in the demographics of the population have  necessitated we no longer could do that.

So our meal schedule is usually in the early afternoon.  If you would like help, hang out with us, simply contact us, and we can let you know our schedule for the week.

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WE ARE BEGGARS

As we enter the Fall of the year our needs have been met barely.  We have given away 50 plus thousand pairs of socks, our costs for food, tickets home, etc, have risen 50 percent.  I am always saying “no” more than I say “yes”.

The heart of what we do is our pastoral ministry.  It is sitting and listening as one young man talks of how he feels so low, because he is homeless, and every thing he tries fails; One talks of how the city continually kicks him out of his sleeping place, throwing away his belongs, and his feelings of fear and mistrust; another talks of his sexual abuse; one young girl talks of her fears and her sexual abuse, and so on.

We walk with hundreds each month. With some we celebrate the Sacraments, but mostly we listen, and the bread of life is broken in the words spoken.

So we beg on our knees for your gifts, that they may be turned into the Word made flesh in the lives of our homeless young people.

Checks to:

Temenos Catholic Worker

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

Or

pay pal: http://www.temenos.org

Questions

QUESTIONS

“Getting the answers to questions is not the goal of the spiritual life. Living in the presence of God is the greater call.” Henri Nouwen

We spend our lives asking questions, trying to find an answer to every thing that occurs. We end up stereotyping, labeling and thus creating conflict. 

Nouwen tells us to live in the presence of God, and in so doing to love our neighbor, dropping the questions, but looking in their eyes, and loving them. Today as I was walking on the street, a young man asked me to buy him some food, and so I bought the food, and as we talked his demeanor soften, and he talked of having his sleeping gear removed early this morning, no money for food, and of how his parents have always put him down. He eased up, he smiled. No questions-seeing Jamie as the young man struggling was all that was needed. Just listening.

I am writing out by hand my thousand Christmas cards for this year, and people always question why in this day and age I do it. Sometimes they makes jokes about it.

And there is no answer accept putting pin to paper brings me in more physical touch with those who have provided for my needs, and those of my kids.  No reason, a waste of time–not in my opinion. So rather than ask questions, simply listen, stand back and listen.

Tonight Mark Asay of Florida was executed. He was a child of God, very broken, who murdered, and we should see in his face the questions that are unanswerable, and rather than judge, commit him to God’s care; Join me in celebrating your form of the Office of the Dead  in his memory.  Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

franciscansagainstdeathpenalty@gmail.com

www. temenos.org

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

415-305-2124

Journey on the Edge

Journey on the Edge

Matthew 19:15-30

“We are born alone…….We live alone……..We die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the allusion we are not alone. Oscar Wilde

Pain breathes down our whole being, and breaks down our boundaries, all those lines we have drawn around us to protect us, and leaves up open to sheer vulnerability and death in so many ways. Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.,

Last Saturday I brought a friend to foot ball practice in San Rafael, and as I waited for him in a coffee shop, I observed the people, and the world of around me, a world of wealth, a world of cleanliness, quietness.  It felt as if I was on another planet. And in those moments there was a flash of light, which made me feel sad, and also brought many regrets.

Sadness because of the obvious separation from the poverty that surrounds our cities and our world, sadness in realizing it is impossible for people who do not cross those  boundaries to  grasped that world, sadness and regret for my part in working to help people to understand, and having them hurt, feeling guilty, and not recognizing there is only so far they can go.  I have hurt people without realizing that I was hurting them.   I have been an ass hole  in my expectations. I am really sincerely sorry.  It was an amazing awakening.

Secondly, in the last few weeks, I have had people turning away, and saying things through email, which I have been taking personally,  The reality is that my life has been shaped by the events of life, shaping my understanding, faith, and the way I live.  I look back and the events of impregnating a girl at 15,  my best friend  dying when I was in my early twenties in a violent car accident, the experience with the church over sexuality, the living on the streets–all have shaped me. We all want to live in our “tribes”. I do not fit period.  Robert Frost talks of a path that not many follow, which  is the path I have chosen. These past weeks, “Pain breathes down our whole being, and breaks down our boundaries, all those lines we have drawn around us to protect us, and leaves up open to sheer vulnerability and death in so many ways,”  In staring death in the face in so many ways there is so much fear, but  fear leaves in the presence of God, and that is where I find the hope, and not being alone. When I am asked “Why do you live the life you do?”, all I can say is that I am following my calling. I know I am not successful in the world’s terms, but what I do know is that I am successful, as Elizabeth Gilbert defines success: “You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”  I give my path all that I have and than some.

Yesterday we had our Interfaith Vigil Against Intolerance/Racism.  People shared about their fears and frustrations. For me we gave a witness and people had a chance to share, not feeling  alone. This to me is what ministry is about, working with people so they do not feel alone and can express their feelings, it is not about numbers.  The people present felt that they were listened to. It is about being dedicated to one’s path. Numbers, the praise of people, are not signs of success, it is being faithful to your path in which you find success. My path is listening, loving, caring, being present.

This past weekend I was on a camp out with three friends, and it was the most freeing time I have had in a long time, in fact I can not think of the last time I have felt so accepted, and cared for, because they simply accepted me as I am, as I do them. They took me for me. The only dynamic between us was friendship and having fun. I am grateful to Matt, Jacob, and Miles, for the weekend, far more than they will ever know.

People are always asking me when I am going to write a book, frankly, I am too damn lazy.  But what I am going to do  in the next few weeks is share stories of the young men and women I have walked  with through the years. I am going to be “Cooking with the Fallen One’s” on this blog. A well meaning friend, once asked me “Are you ever going to fix those kids?”  Well, like me, they are not “fixable” in the eyes of most people, like me, they are fuck ups, and like me it is by the saving grace of God that we are loved, and loved by a love, that will not let us  go, and accepts us for who we are. God in Christ expects nothing in return accept to love our neighbors to the best of our ability. To love them with out expectation, with out labels, without judgment, simply to love, accept and care. Christ meets us where we are–and in so doing we move towards him in love.

And so we have the choice of the way we live–the way of love–meeting people where they  are, working with each other where we meet or simply live in our tribes of religion and spirituality, sexual orientation, race, greed, wealth and poverty, and stay fragmented and alone. We are born, live and die alone, when we stay fragmented, but when we allow the Spirit of God to enter, to open us up to others without judgment, we are not alone, and we are embraced by God’s Spirit.

Again, I journey on the edge, I walk the edge, and that will not be changing, for as the years pass I move closer and closer to the edge, and in that walk I see God.  We all have our own journeys, but we can meet in the middle, and enjoy our journeys and find fellowship with one another. Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

http://www.temenos.org

415-305-2124

Freedom’s Biggest Risk!

Freedom’s Biggest Risk

Jesus tells us to: “Judge not, lest you be judged;, and “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all of your mind, soul, and strength and your neighbor as your self.”

There’s an old story

from well before digital,

where the knowing master

stops the novice

at the gate, tells her

to practice more,

return in ten years.

She does.

(Jerry Bolick)

To set anyone free, forgiving must be freely given–an act of free love, not a devious power play.  Forced forgiving makes matters worst for everybody. A major ingredient in free forgiving is respect for the person being forgiven. If we try to manipulate people into our own version of a happy ending, we are not forgiving freely. We are not really forgiving at all. It is the risk we always take in the forgiving game.

Brother Curtis Almquist tells us:  “Memory is a gift. Memory gives us a window to God. God is timeless. Our memory gives us a glimpse into how God sees and knows us, how God has loved us all along.” In looking at into our deep memories we all remember a love that we have felt at times, be it God or another source, that tells us, that only in in forgiveness, in letting go can we find true life.

Join me in seeking to live out an attitude of forgiveness, respect, love, as shown through the words of Henri Nouwen in being an activist, on Monday, August 21, 2017 at Noon at the Earl Warren Supreme Court Building, 350 McAllister, Street, San Francisco, CA. :

“An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem, and recreate, but those acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring, redeeming, and recreating presence of God.”

 

Vigil Against Intolerance and Racism

We Must Confront America’s Original Sin.

St. Maximilian served in Warsaw when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. He and other friars sheltered 2,000 Jewish refugees. They housed, fed, clothed and protected them. Inevitably, they came under suspicion and taken to Auschwitz. Later, Maximilian gave his life so that a man with a family could be spared. It is through his intercession that we can send the message of tolerance, respect, and love for all.

Silence is complicity. We all  must seek forgiveness and speak out to injustice.

 

Join With Us On August 21, 2017 at 12 Noon

at the Earl Warren Supreme Court Building

in

Vigil Against the Intolerance and Racism in our Society

Join to Pray and Reflect in Our own Traditions for a more just society.

for more information call

415-305-2124

If you would like to participate through a reading, a poem, a comment, prayer, or Scripture from your tradition please bring one. Please bring a sign, and send this out through your email and social media and press contacts.

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min.

415-305-2124

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

punkpriest1@gmail.com

http://www.temenos.org

But Wait There Is More

If I dared to say what I really think…

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab;I Cor. 17:20-27; Lk.  1:39-56

Mary represents an individual who accepted God at face value, entered into his life with fullness, without reservation. She embraced every one in embracing Jesus.

I recently told a rabbi friend who has taken a new synagogue to call me any time, twenty four hours a day, if she needed someone to talk to. She commented, “that is being really nice of you.” It is not being “nice” to open up your self to caring for others, to meeting them where they are. It is a response to the love and grace of God.  God has no boundaries, we are the one’s who place the boundaries around our relationships. We are called to care, to love people for who they are, to simply be with people, in their times of celebration, and their times of stress. To care is not doing, it is simply being. It is simply sitting with someone outside of their tent as they cry over a friend who has died of an over dose, it is sitting on the street being shown drawings by a person. Caring is simply being present.

Wendell Berry wrote:

“Care. . .rests upon genuine religion. Care allows creatures to escape our explanations into their actual presence and their essential mystery.  In taking care of our fellow creatures, we acknowledge that they are not ours; we acknowledge that they belong to an order and harmony of which we ourselves are parts. To answer to the perpetual crisis of our presence in this abounding and dangerous world, we have only the perpetual obligation of care.”

I have looked into the face of murderers, of neo-nazis, of racist, of homophobes,  of all sorts of evil,  and in each one I see the face of Christ, in each one I see that need to be loved, and it is only through loving each other is their hope. It is not easy, it is hell–but the joy that comes from that fulfillment. Wendell Berry is right in that “we have only the perpetual obligation of care.”

+Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw., D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

http://www.temenos.org

415-305-2124