This Faithed Life
Paula McLeod lives in the green wedge in outer Melbourne with John and their two teenage children.
Her extended family includes “the boys” (2 pigs and 4 alpacas) and “the girls” (10 hens). She particularly treasures the time spent tending the families large fruit and veggie garden.
A psychologist and a refugee from the corporate world, Paula has a passion for women’s spirituality and recently completed an MA (Theology) in this area. She is a director of a charitable foundation committed to supporting and enabling those marginalized in our community.
The Other
by Paula McLeod
After spending two weeks at a women’s theological conference in the dignified academic community of Boston College, I headed home via San Francisco. During the long plane flight back to the west coast I reflected on the conference and the theological issues raised and debated - Canon Law, Social Justice, Scripture etc, all the familiar fields of theology were there. Women and men brought not only their academic insights but also their lived experience to the conference, which had provided fertile discussions in the beautiful environment of Boston College.
As one leaves the college for the last time to return home, the labyrinth near the entrance provides a powerful reminder of the reality of the journey of our lives. Walking through the gates with a bundle of theological knowledge and experiences, the challenge now was how to allow these to come to life in ordinary everyday living. This was to be revealed sooner than I had anticipated. A recurring theme throughout the conference had been the emphasis on the “the other.” We are not transformed for ourselves: it is always for the other. Of course I had heard this many times and had written about it in essays, but the lived experience, not just the theology of “the other” was to be revealed in an unexpected way in San Francisco. Walking the streets of San Francisco on a Monday morning, the sidewalks were cluttered with homeless, desperate people. Uncomfortable, I longed to go back to my hotel. As I continued walking my eyes caught a glimpse of a woman with sallow skin who had purpose in her stride. Her vacant eyes were focused on something further down the street and as she drew closer I smelled the sourness of a woman for whom bathing was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
As she passed I averted my eyes, feeling intrusive gazing at her obvious misfortune, but in this action my attention was drawn to her arm held close to her body as if protecting something precious. Nestled there was a common brown rat. In the instant I recognized it, she had moved on.
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This experience could have merely been passed off as just another day in San Francisco and any feelings of guilt salved by giving a few coins to the other homeless further down the street. But I felt there was more in this encounter – this was experience revealing theology. Here was a woman surviving on the brink of human dignity, embracing the companionship of one of the most despised creatures – a common rat. She was the other, blatantly striding into my personal space and unexpectedly piercing my sensibilities with her presence. This wasn’t a simple experience for I was being drawn away from my focus on my experience of the other to a consciousness of myself in relation to the other. No longer just an observer, I felt a gasp of recognition as her vulnerability penetrated mine, drawing me to an uneasy place between the question and the answer. This vulnerable place is where the invitation to open myself to the mystery of otherness in my life was made. For me this was a powerful juncture of human experience and theology.
When I got back to Australia, people asked, “Did you get much out of the theology conference?” I’d reply “Yes, but the greatest lesson I learned about theology was on the streets of San Francisco.”
Runners take a spirited path in the US
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER
This is a prayer group that really makes people sweat. And the dozens of men, women and children who are a part of F5 wouldn't have it any other way. F5 is a spiritual running and walking club that draws members from the Plymouth-Livonia area. Part of a nationwide trend, religious groups like F5 are springing up outside the walls of traditional churches. And many of these groups encourage fresh connections with the natural world.
Under leaden skies and a drizzle of rain and sleet, the F5 members were eager to get moving Saturday -- and get warm. "First, let's huddle up!" shouted Steve Spreitzer, 50, of Plymouth, a cofounder of the group, which just reached its second anniversary.
During the week, Spreitzer is an interfaith coordinator for the Detroit-based Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. That work helped him see the possibility for a group like F5 in his personal life.
"What are we praying for this week?" he called out. Several people responded, mainly mentioning health concerns in their families, including a grandmother whose recent hip surgery went well."Cool!" Spreitzer said about the surgery. "We've all been praying for your grandma."
Then it was time for a one-minute meditation, led Saturday by 10-year-old Allison Spitz, the daughter of F5 cofounder Mike Spitz, 53, of Plymouth.
She unfolded a sheet of paper on which she had written out in big letters a traditional prayer that asks for an awareness of life's joys "before me," "behind me" and "all around me."
Moments later, the 30 runners thundered off through the hills north of Plymouth in three clusters. Seasoned runners who pound out under-7-minute miles made up one group. A youthful group jogs at a slower pace.
In Plymouth, Spitz said the F5 group started out small and its schedule sometimes varied in its first year. But now the group is growing and has firmed up a three-times-a-week schedule.
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