Anniversaries, Fr. Jac Campbell, CSP, International News

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the disaster called Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. I remember hearing the news as each report came in describing an increasingly dire situation. At the same time, I must admit, the Katrina disaster was far from the top priority on this day 5 years ago or on subsequent days. For on that day, I received a call early that morning at work letting me know that Jac Campbell, a Paulist priest & friend of nearly 30 years, had died earlier that same morning after a 3+ year fight against lung cancer.

Jac Campbell became pastor of Newman Hall / Holy Spirit Parish in Berkeley, CA, the year after I became a Catholic, joining that same parish. He had spent his previous few years at the Catholic campus ministry in Austin, Texas; Berkeley & the San Francisco Bay Area were quite a shock to him after Texas. The hippies & radicals still hung around Berkeley, & the gay community in San Francisco was still enjoying the freedom of life before the HIV / AIDS epidemic & were very open & vocal in their enjoyment. These were the years in the Church that were still touched by Vatican II, despite Pope Paul's Humanae Vitae encyclical prohibiting "artificial contraception" to Catholic families. The first Women's Ordination Conference took place in either 1975 or 1976. The US Catholic Bishops issued a wonderful encyclical concerning the needs of the peoples of Appalachia.

At the same time, these were the days of still-rampant homophobia & later, in 1978, Proposition 6, the massacre in Jonestown, Guyana, of the followers of Jim Jones' People's Temple, and the assassinations of SF Mayor George Moscone & Supervisor Harvey Milk. In the midst of it all, in 1978, Pope Paul VI died, his first successor Pope John Paul I died within a month of being elected, and Pope John Paul II died to replace him. And we had no idea at the beginning just what we were in for as Catholics with the election of John Paul II.

Jac helped us through all of that and more, and he became very close friends with many parishioners. In my work-study job, I served as receptionist at Newman Hall, and Jac and I had many good conversations & even more laughs. However, when he left for a new assignment in 1980, I was completely distracted by my life in graduate school, my love of theology, & my even greater love of my first woman lover and missing her after she moved to Seattle, WA, & Jac & I didn't keep in touch.

Very fortunately, Jac & I found ourselves again in the same city in the early- to mid-1980's, when he had moved to Boston to run Landings, the ministry he had created and developed, & I had returned to the Church & begun attending Mass at the Boston Paulist Center. Jac had realized that there was a huge number of "former Catholics" -- adults who had been raised as Catholics & who had left the Catholic Church for any number of reasons. He created Landings as a way to invite them to take a new look at the Church -- without pressure, without church-self-righteousness or arrogance or the typical -- at least feared -- "We're right, you're wrong; go to Confession & return to the Church" attitude. Instead, Landings gathered together 6 - 8 adults, some active-in-the-parish Catholics, & 1 or 2 who were thinking of taking a new look at the Catholic Church. Each person told her / his own spiritual journey story; each week there was discussion of a major topic -- G-D. Jesus, the Church, the Sacraments; and there was a time of prayer. The groups were run by lay facilitators. And Landings became popular in parishes & dioceses throughout the US & UK.

Although I returned to the Church, I didn't do so through a Landings group. I did, however, talk at some length with Jac, who reassured me that leaving was what I had needed to do at the time that I had made the decision to do so. Because of his own journey, his own experiences, Jac was one of the most openly loving, accepting, and forgiving people I've ever known. We would often see one another walking in opposite directions on Park Street; whenever he saw me, he gave me a rib-crushing hug. In the 4 years after his death, it was those chance encounters and those hugs that I missed most of all. Jac is now a member of my Communion of Saints, and I know that's true for many of my friends. Please pray for us, Jac; we still miss you, dear friend.

At the end of this past week, news came of the deaths of two other priests, this time in Lima, Peru. Because one of my closest friends from seminary / graduate school is a priest in that same city, I am, I guess, especially attuned to news from Peru. The two priests who died early last Friday morning were murdered, stabbed when they interrupted a robbery in the San Francisco Monastery where they had a soup kitchen for the city's poor and hungry residents. When I asked my pastor, a Franciscan, if he had heard the news & if the 2 priests who had been killed had been Franciscan, he hadn't heard & didn't know, although he thought they & the monastery were Franciscan. Then he remarked something to the effect, "How awful it is to get international news here. There is nothing except domestic [U.S.] news. This country is so myopic."

That is so true, & so troubling. I agreed with him completely & remarked, "Thank heaven for the BBC!" That's where I hear almost all of my international news, and that's been true for years, ever since the genocide in Rwanda. Early Saturday morning, I went on the web to look for coverage of the murders of the 2 priests in Lima; I found some, but not much. I did find English-language newspapers published in Lima, & I've now saved those in my "Favorites" list. So at least there are some sources.

However, I find it frustrating & more than a little ridiculous that stories of celebs & Tiger Woods' divorce are given much more air time, many more column inches, and much more prominent web display than most international news, unless it is somehow tied to US economic, military, or other interests. I really don't care whether Paris Hilton is or isn't in jail for cocaine possession. I really do care about the deaths of 2 Roman Catholic priests in Peru. And I realized that, had one or both been US North Americans -- i.e., had one of them been my friend or someone else I knew -- that would have been covered by US news sources. How awful a realization. As I thanked G-D that my friend & members of his Jesuit community are safe, I prayed for the souls of Frs. Ananias Aguila and Linan Ruiz, for the people they served, and for the people who killed them. May all find peace and mercy.

Links to places in the Bay Area

During my June visit to the San Francisco Bay Area, I visited a number of placs that were meaningful to me from the years when I lived there. I was able to visit many, but not all, during the visit. Here are their URL's, along with a bit of commentary on them. I hope you enjoy!

PACIFIC SCHOOL OF RELIGION (PSR): http://www.psr.edu/
The scenes & buildings are all on the quad, the main area of the campus at the top of Scenic Avenue on Northside.

NEWMAN HALL / HOLY SPIRIT PARISH: http://www.calnewman.org/index.html
Unfortunately, the website is extremely devoid of photographs, something I don’t understand and find highly regrettable. Here is a link to 3 “photo galleries” of “Life at Newman” that people have put together: http://picasaweb.google.com/calnewman

GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION (GTU): http://www.gtu.edu/

GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION (GTU) LIBRARY: http://www.gtu.edu/library
Alums of any of the GTU seminaries are eligible for library cards @ $25 per year.

SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL: http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS332US332&q=San+Francisco+City+Hall&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=v9d1TMTHFoW0lQfzqt3wCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDUQsAQwAw
Such a beautiful building!

SAN FRANCISCO MAIN PUBLIC LIBRARY: http://sfpl.org/

SAINT BONIFACE CHURCH: http://www.stbonifacesf.org/
Saint Boniface is a Franciscan Parish in the Tenderloin District in San Francisco.

MISSION DOLORES, SAN FRANCISCO: http://www.missiondolores.org/
Parish includes the original mission church; I often stopped here on the way home from work to pray in the months before I became a Catholic. It was a quick walk from Saint Joseph’s Hospital.

BODY TIME: http://www.bodytime.com/

MARIPOSA BAKING COMPANY: http://www.mariposabaking.com/index.html
Don’t you get hungry just looking at these cinnamon rolls?

LA VAL’S PIZZa: http://www.lavals.com/

NABOLOM BAKERY: http://www.nabolombakery.com/

MOE’S BOOKS: http://www.moesbooks.com/cgi-bin/moe/index.html

TASTE OF THE HIMALAYAS RESTAURANT: http://tasteofthehimalayas.com/index.htm
Delicious Indian / Nepalese restaurant on Shattuck Ave. @ Virginia in Berkeley where I ate lunch with Anne Dinkelspiel Howd

GATHER RESTAURANT: http://www.gatherrestaurant.com/
Lovely, new organic restaurant on Oxford Street in Downtown Berkeley where I ate supper with Chris Ettling, my ex-husband

Reflections on Visit to Bay Area 2010

I’ve needed to wait this long, to allow time for some internal, inner “settling” to take place & to know that, when I write, I would do so without tears – or, at least, not many tears. In my blog, I noted that I already carry “enough nostalgia.” So this will be a much more sober, reflective post than previous ones have been.

First, some observations: The effects of the CA financial crisis are evident in the Bay Area: Poorly maintained streets & sidewalks; grassy areas between the streets & sidewalks not maintained at all; crosswalks that need painting left unpainted. Still, even with all of that, no surprise – most of everything was so familiar; much of “my” Bay Area was still there. It was a shock that buildings that once housed the Southern Province Dominicans had been torn down. It was a surprise that a huge – and architecturally strange & unmatching – addition had been built by JSTB, connected to its main building on LeRoy. Otherwise, most of the buildings that meant anything to me had remained, even if they now had new uses, e.g., the building that once housed the Center for Women & Religion at the GTU now houses --- I know not what. The old GTU administration building is still there on Le Conte, however, the consortium closed the bookstore some time ago, something that I really regret. Still, & to my delight, the PSR campus was the same – no new buildings had been built – and Newman Hall / Holy Spirit Parish, namely the sanctuary, was, of course, as it had been since its beginning. No surprise there – there’s not much one could do to it to alter it, with its poured concrete walls & its bound-to-the-floor altar, ambo, & presider’s chair.

Other places, routes, sights, made me feel at home very quickly. The Oakland Coliseum, where I went a number of times with Sandee Yarlott, Ron Stief, and Ryan Albaugh (Sandee’s son) to watch the Oakland A’s (and cheer for the Boston Red Sox, if they Sox were the opponent); Lake Merritt in Oakland; the Lutheran Church on College Ave in Berkeley; my old apartment building at College & Stuart & the 7-11 Store at College & Russell where I used to go when I’d run out of cigarettes. At least a couple of “head shops” still survive on Telegraph Avenue, although most of the restaurants I recall no longer exist, including the super-cheap soup place that I first ate in in the summer of 1972. Northside Travel on Euclid Avenue is still in business, which is great; Café Espresso, which Kevin Flaherty, SJ, & I called Café Depresso, on Hearst, one of my main hang-outs during seminary, has been replaced by a copy center. The Mrs. See’s Candies on Shattuck Avenue in Downtown Berkeley is no longer there. I’m not sure whether the Edy’s Ice Cream Shop is still there on Shattuck, but I don’t think so. I have fond memories of breaking my Good Friday fast there one year with Kevin in 1983 after he returned to the US from a 3 week sojourn on the Honduran border in an El Salvadoran refugee camp during the civil war in El Salvador. During that war, after Bianca Jagger argued with a Salvadoran solder and won her argument – so that he left in the camp the young man the soldier intended to take with him, forcing him into the army – “internationals” were going to the refugee camps to protect the refugees from being kidnapped by the Salvadoran military.

When we passed Berkeley High School, Scott assured me that the theater remains in operation – I’d been to concerts by both Joan Baez & Holly Near there. And of course, the UC Berkeley Campus remains beautiful, although I noticed at least 2 new buildings already built & at least more in process. Eventually, there will be no green space left on the campus. It was wonderful to discover new places, especially Mariposa Baking Company, a 100% gluten-free bakery in Oakland! Finally, it felt so wonderful to look out onto the San Francisco Bay, to see its famous Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, and to look up into the East Bay hills, already in their summer gold. Whenever I look out to those hills, I think of one of my favorite Psalms, one I’ve known and prayed since childhood. “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills; from whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the LORD Who made heaven and earth. G-D will not allow your foot to be moved; your guardian does not sleep. Behold, the guardian of Israel never slumbers nor sleeps.” (Ps. 121:1-4)

I felt at home immediately, as if I’d never been away, as if I’d never left, as if there had been no hiatus of nearly 23 year. Oh yes, much had changed. • For one, the advent of computers & such changed how many ordinary & not so ordinary tasks are done. That was especially obvious at the GTU Library. • For another, in San Francisco more than in the East Bay many changes had resulted from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. The new San Francisco Public library, for one. I didn’t take the time to go into the Tenderloin to see Saint Boniface Church; it had sustained quite a bit of damage from thence been restored. It was one of the places I would often go to pray after work when I worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital in San Francisco in the 1970’s.

• And people. Of course, people. It was so wonderful to see the friends I saw, talk with the friends with whom I had the opportunity to talk. Many people I’d known were no longer there; they had taken new positions, retired, graduated, died. Several with whom I’d been friends shortly before I left I had no idea of their whereabouts. Robert McAfee Brown had died nearly 9 years earlier; Margot Lucoff, although I hadn’t been I contact with her for nearly 10 years, had died in 2004, something I didn’t know until last summer. However, had she not died, I would have tried to get in touch with her. Gary Adams & David Coe moved to Houston not too many years after I moved to Boston. Many of the other faculty I knew were no longer there. And Kevin had left, as had all of his Jesuit classmates. But Kevin had been gone since the middle to the end of the summer of 1984, relocating to Chicago & a parish assignment before returning to Peru. And although he’d been gone since ’84, although he’d been in Berkeley for fewer than 4 years – fewer than 4 years of my 14 years – although when I left the Bay Area, he & I hadn’t been in contact with each other for more than 2 years, it was still so different being there, especially on Northside & out & about the streets we used to walk, without Kevin being there as well.

But so much felt so right & so much the same. Being around there in a wheelchair proved no problem at all – no surprise. The friendliness of the people. The casual goofiness, ease, nonchalance. The reality that people still are not in a hurry á la the East Coast. The ease with which conversations with strangers began & took off, taking all sorts of directions. The immediate understanding when I told someone I’d lived there for 14 years, had been in New England for the past 23.5 years, had always missed the Bay Area & was making plans to return. That was something everyone understood.

It was – it is – home. Correction: It was – it is -- & it will again be home.

While I was there, I cried a log. And lots caused my tears. Familiar signs, sights, vistas; familiar streets. Once the myriad of memories connected to all of those, I cried for the sheer joy of being back and the joy of seeing my friends. And I cried over the losses – people I missed, bad decisions I had made, hurt I had caused.

I cried because I’d missed the place & places so much, loved it so much, made such an unwise decision to leave, failed to make the wise decision to return when return would have been possible…and I know that, no matter how much I want to move back, that won’t be possible for quite some time.

So, for now, I am here in Hartford. I am staying to help my mother & to write. How long I will stay is in G-D’s hands, & it is equally a blessing to leave it there. Eventually, I will be back on the West Coast, back where I belong, back where my life will feel fully & truly at home, complete, fully integrated. For just as I’ve known since age 14 that I wanted to be a Catholic, I’ve known since about that same age that I wanted to be a Californian. My decision in 1978 seemed wise at the time, but it wasn’t; it was made in pain, in grief, in frustration, in near-desperation. Now, my being in Hartford is good, because it helps my mother at a time when she needs my help, gives us a chance to be closer, & gives me the time, place, & opportunity to write. Beyond that, I will leave all of it in G-D’s hands, where it all belongs.

Part IV: Bay Area Visit -- June 2010

I had been in the Bay Area for nearly a week & had yet to spend any time in San Francisco, something I was to remedy on Friday, 18 June. The para-transit van dropped me off on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley in mid-morning; for the first time in my visit, the weather that day started out less than perfect. Instead, the skies were gray, the temperature chilly, & there was a bit of a breeze. I had borrowed a jacket from Nancy, since I’d brought only a sweater from Boston, but I still felt cold. It was too early for me to buy a scarf from any of the street vendors – I guess their day doesn’t start until closer to noon – I ended up at Walgreens at the corner of Telegraph & Bancroft, right across from Sproul Plaza, where I purchased both an out-of-season scarf & a shawl. Then I took an AC Transit bus to Downtown Berkeley & the BART Station.

When I lived in the Bay Area, I took the BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit – whenever I needed to go into San Francisco or to one of the suburbs. Early one morning on my way into San Francisco to my job at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, I was a passenger on the first non-test-run train to take passengers through the tunnel under the San Francisco Bay. The system has expanded and grown, adding stations and becoming much more complicated. I discovered that the people who run the BART system have the same attitude toward it as New Yorkers do about New York: If one needs to ask, one doesn’t belong on it / in it. The signage in the BART stations is terrible, especially the signage for elevators. There were few indications inside the station concerning which elevator or escalator one should take to go in the any specific direction. Few station maps were posted in the trains, the expectation being, I suppose, that the traveler should have her or his chosen route memorized.

Despite those problems, I felt a bit of a kick being back on the BART, with its smooth ride, its swiftly opening & closing doors, its sleek-looking stations. My first stop amounted to a bit of a pilgrimage, since I went to San Francisco City Hall, the location of innumerable Gay / Lesbian Freedom Day rallies, a number of demonstrations against Prop 6 and after the murders of Mayor George Moscone & Supervisor Harvey Milk (the first openly gay elected city official in the US), & of Joan Baez’s gift of a free concert a month after those horrific murders. San Francisco City Hall was also where my friends Scott & Alan were married. After City Hall, I visited the new & very beautiful San Francisco Public Library, including its special collection & room on GLBT history.

Since the weather had warmed up a bit, I rode from City Hall Plaza to Powell Street where people catch the City’s famous cable cars. I decided to take the BART two stops to Embarcadero and from there to go to the Ferry Building to see the vendors both inside and outside. Outside the street hosts a huge open-air arts fair, with all sorts of mostly very fine works – fabric art, painting, jewelry, and more that I cannot now remember. Inside the Ferry Building, the first floor has a wonderful array of vendors, including Mariposa’s counter (where I bought more g-f baked goods) and, my favorite, a vendor devoted solely to anything and everything having to do with mushrooms! On the way back to the BART station, I stopped to buy gifts for my mother, sister, & cat-caretaker.

There were many places in San Francisco that I didn’t get to on this visit; I’d hoped to go to Ocean Beach to see the seals on Seal Rock. I’d also wanted to return to Buena Vista Avenue to take a look at the buildings that once housed Saint Joseph’s Hospital & nursing school. While the hospital closed in 1978, the buildings have been rehabbed & made into condos. I hope whoever lives there feels very fortunate – they have one of the best views looking East out over San Francisco & toward the East Bay Hills! I had also hoped to get to the Castro District, center of San Francisco’s gay population, & to Mission Dolores where I often stopped to pray after leaving work at St. Joe’s. All of that will be for a future visit.

Instead, I got back on the BART & took it to Rockridge Station. The Rockridge neighborhood is a several block area in Oakland along College Avenue by the BART Station; it has wonderful small shops, including a Body Time store, a comfortable bookstore, & a Trader Joe’s in the building that had been a Lucky Supermarket. In the early- to mid-1980’s, seminarians & faculty of the Southern Province Dominican Order lived in several buildings in the neighborhood just across from the BART Station. Several members of the community came to be very close friends of mine, so I knew the area very well. It was a shock to me when, going down the street where those buildings had stood, I realized that they had been demolished.

I stopped in Trader Joe’s where I bought some flowers and to the Body Time store to buy a gift, then window-shopped before going into the bookstore, Pendragon, where I had brought many used books for both cash & trade. When the van found me to pick me up, I was sitting outside – the clouds had finally dissipated & the sun turned out to be warm & comfortable.

At Nancy’s that evening, rather than go out to eat, Nancy & I put together a simple summer supper of tuna salad, a vegetable salad, & whatever was left over, finishing with ice cream. Bill returned later that evening from his business trip, so I had an opportunity to see him before I left the next day. After 5 days & nights at Nancy’s & Bill’s in Oakland, I would be moving to my friends’ home in Hayward, south of Oakland. Saturday morning, 19 June, I said goodbye to Bill, Nancy, Liz & Natalia, and the para-transit van took me to Sandee’s & Ron’s house.

Sandee Yarlott & Ron Stief & I had met at PSR; they were studying for their Master’s of Divinity degrees & I was studying for my doctorate in Systematic Theology. Sandee, from Iowa, was raising her son & was a single mom; Ron was from Montana. They became my students when I served as Teaching Assistant to Dr. Robert McAfee Brown of Blessed Memory; they became a couple; and the 3 of us became good friends in large part because of our shared commitment to peace & justice, all within a few months. We shared a house in Oakland for 2 years in the mid-1980’s. Both Sandee & Ron had been ordained in the United Church of Christ; Sandee then became a hospital chaplain, director of Clinical Pastoral Education, and, in her final position prior to retirement, director of Pastoral Care at UCLA Hospital. Ron continued his work in economic justice through a number of church-affiliated organizations. For nearly 10 years, Ron had lived in Washington, DC while Sandee had lived in Southern CA. They both had moved back to the Bay Area in the fall of 2009 once Sandee had retired.

A Testimonial: I Have Incredible Friends!! First, Nancy & Bill. Nancy & Bill had invited me to stay with them during my visit before they knew that the weekend I arrived, they would have a “full house,” with lots going on & lots of guests. They made sure I knew that it was fine for me to show up on Monday, even though Nancy’s 2 sons, Jeremy & Daniel, would be there. They opened their comfortable & very happy home to me for 5 wonderful days. Second, Sandee & Ron: In the month of June, Sandee & Ron had made plans to have a short vacation in Hawaii & then to go to Florida for the birthday of one of their granddaughters. Sandee & I had coordinated dates so that I would be able to see them, staying with them beginning the day after they returned from Florida. At the time, they were living in a 2-bedroom apartment in Hayward, 1 mile from the Hayward BART station. Then they found out that a house they had been hoping to rent was available & that their rental application had been accepted. They had barely a week-long window between Hawaii & Florida in which to move, & they would be returning from Florida with most of their unpacking still to be done. They couldn’t pass up the house, so they signed the lease. Sandee emailed me that it would be fine for me to stay with them still, that we could talk while she unpacked. And that’s what we did, since neither of us wanted to miss the opportunity to see one another, nor did I want to bypass the chance to see Ron. I don’t know anyone who would want a houseguest under either set of circumstances, yet my friends welcomed me with incredible tenderness & love. I have incredible friends. Thank you, Nancy & Bill & Sandee & Ron!!!

The 2-story house Sandee & Ron rented is truly wonderful. Set high in the Hayward Hills, it has a view of San Francisco Bay facing west & a view of the hills facing east. It has 4 bedrooms, one of which is now Sandee’s study; 3 full baths; a great kitchen; a patio out the back door; a working fire place in the living room; a laundry room; & big garage. It also has fruit trees – apple, lemon, lime, apricot – vegetable garden, herb garden, & even grape vines! In the front by the house is a small tiled area with 2 chairs & a table for morning coffee, framed by a statue of St. Francis of Assisi. With its big windows & high ceilings, it is filled with light. I could see why they loved it & couldn’t pass it up; I loved it & could have stayed there a very long time.

Late that morning, while Ron went to 2 farmers’ markets & to the airport to pick up Janet, Sandee’s sister (who I knew from the time Sandee, Ron, Sandee’s son Ryan & I shared a house), Sandee gave me a tour of the house & got me settled. Then she & I talked, getting caught up as we unpacked boxes. We continued talking & unpacking boxes, adding Ron & Janet once they arrived, finding items that were needed (such as towels). Then, in the early evening, Ron grilled fish & we all prepared & ate a delicious dinner, finishing with more conversation in the living room.

The next morning the 4 of us went out to breakfast to mark Fathers’ Day, eating at a terrific restaurant at Jack London Square in Oakland. Once we finished eating, we headed for the large farmers’ market that stretched for several blocks. We bought some terrific tomatoes, a round green squash to grill, cucumber for salad, and a bunch more stuff. We then returned to Hayward where Ron worked on the watering system for the gardens & Sandee, Janet & I helped unpack & set up Sandee’s office. Later, we made dinner & talked for a long while about all kinds of ideas & topics – pets, families, writing, ministry (Janet is a retired military chaplain), my eventual move back to the Bay Area. It was a quiet and very supportive evening for my last evening in the Bay Area.

The next morning, after a quick shower & breakfast, I finished packing & waited until the para-transit van showed up to take me back to Oakland Airport & my flights back to the East Coast. Saying goodbye & leaving were very difficult & painful, saved only by the thoughts that were going through my mind: “I’ll be back. One of these days, I’ll come back for good; this is home for me, & I’ll be back. I love this area, these cities, these streets; I love the people who are my friends, my community, who live here, the ones I saw & those I didn’t get to see on this visit. I’ll be back to visit, &, someday, I’ll be back for good. I don’t know when, but I’m coming back, coming home.” I arrived home at 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, 22 June, after a 2+ hour delay at the airport; my cats, Spooky & Geoffrey, were ecstatic to have me back home. And I was definitely very happy to be back home with them.

Note: Along with incredible friends, I have an equally incredible mother, sister, & brother-in-law. The original idea for me to visit the Bay Area came from my sister, Andi, who lives in Seattle, WA. She & my mother decided that the trip would be their gift to me for my 60th birthday. My mother financed the venture, and Andi, with help from her partner, Stuart, did tons of research, made my airline reservations, & provided tons of logistical information, help, & support. Thank you, Mom, Andi, & Stuart!!!! I love you!!!! I definitely have an incredible family!!!!

This is the end of the "travelogue." Within the next couple of days, I'll be posting some closing thoughts about the trip and include some links to a number of the places I mentioned, e.g., Pacific School of Religion, Newman Hall / Holy Spirit Parish, etc., so anyone reading will be able to see the places I've been. I apologize that it didn't occur to me to do that as I wrote the story each day! Thank you for reading about my Bay Area adventures; I hoped you've enjoyed them! Much Shalom and Blessings to All.

Part III: Bay Area Visit -- June 2010

Wednesday, 16 June, was a more open day than Tuesday had been. After breakfast & the van ride into Berkeley, I started out on Telegraph Avenue. Although some chain stores have moved in (e.g., Walgreens), on balance it seemed on balance more independent shops & restaurants remained. To my delight, “The Med” – Café Mediterraneum – was still there. http://www.caffemed.com/ . When I lived in Berkeley, I often studied in Café Med, in part because I could go up to the balcony & smoke. Now, however, since (1) I no longer smoke; (2) No longer drink coffee; & (3) Smoking is banned anyway in restaurants, I didn’t go in, even for nostalgia’s sake. I figured I carry enough nostalgia around with me as it is.

Instead, after checking out some of the other independent shops, I went into Moe’s Books, one of the only remaining bookstores on Telegraph, along with Shakespeare’s at the corner of Dwight Way & Telegraph. Moe’s is a book-lover’s dream: 4 floors of mostly-used books in all fields & topics, mostly in very good quality, and some quite hard to find, unless one wanted a trade paperback – those were quite easy to find. Moe’s claims to be “’The best bookstore in the known universe’” according to its free bumper stickers; I took 4 & don’t have a car, so if any of you would want one, I’ll send one to the first 3 people who ask & provide your mailing address.

I could have spent several hundred dollars at Moe’s on used theology & religion books, the new edition of a progressive songbook I’ve wanted, and several books on the Women’s Movement. I limited myself to four, including one on the Desert Mothers (Christian women in the earliest days of the Church who fled the corruption of the cities to become hermits in the deserts of North Africa & whose followers wrote down their wisdom) & another titled The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Movement, covering documents from the Revolution through opposition to the War in Iraq and the Harvard University Living Wage Movement of 2001. Typical book purchases for my interests & my library – eighty-five percent of which is still in storage, because my apartment in Hartford is so small!

From Moe’s, I spent some time looking at the street vendors’ offerings. Lots of junk, especially junk jewelry. Some nice art & pottery. Tie-dyed t-shirts; knit hats & scarves (even in Berkeley – yes, it does get chilly there). I ended up at the vendor table selling political bumper stickers – little surprise there – & purchased several. My 2 favorites: “When injustice becomes law resistance becomes duty” – sounds very much in the spirit of Gandhi & MLK -- & “Don’t preach that right wing crap to me” – sounds very 1980’s – 2000’s. The one that ended up on the back of my wheelchair reads, “If you want peace, work for justice” – a statement the bumper sticker correctly attributes to [Pope] Paul VI, omitting the fact, however, that he was the Pope. I’m still puzzling over that omission. I do love the saying; I have several political buttons with it in different styles – white on dark green, rainbow color printing on white…

When I’d seen all I wanted to see on the first 5 blocks of Telegraph, I headed south on Telegraph toward Ashby Avenue and what once was the Berkeley Food Co-op, now a Whole Foods Market. At Russell, I turned left & headed east, toward College Avenue, through what has remained a leafy residential neighborhood of small homes and a quiet environment. At the corner of Russell & College, I went into Nabolom Bakery. When I lived in Elmwood, I often purchased baked goods there; my favorites were its apricot coffee cake, with whole apricots, and its seven-layer bars, a confection with a base of a cakey mixture, topped by tiny chocolate chips, then nuts, then coconut, then I’m not remembering what else. Both were delicious. Twenty-eight or so years later, however, those didn’t comply with a gluten-free diet. What Nabolom did have, though, were wonderful gluten-free coconut macaroons; I purchased two & later wished I’d bought several more.

One of the newer restaurants on College sits at the corner of College & Ashby, & since it was easy to find, I’ve forgotten its name. It’s also huge, with high ceilings, lots of windows & light, & 2 large rooms for meeting, reading, working on a laptop, etc. Paul Giurlanda & I met here for coffee, except I had lunch & tea & he had coffee & a pastry. Paul & I were friends from both Dignity San Francisco & the GTU where we had both been in the PhD program in Systematic Theology. Paul taught at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, a quick drive from Berkeley and had been a Christian Brother. While no longer in the Christian Brothers order, he still taught at St. Mary’s & had received tenure. So much of our conversation involved our professional & spiritual journeys. It was great to see him. He’s ventured into more esoteric areas than have I; after my adventure in post-patriarchal Feminist Goddess tradition, I’ve stayed pretty much within progressive Catholicism & Catholic spirituality, so we had a most enjoyable “compare-and-contrast” conversation. Afterwards, we both dawdled in a small religious bookstore on Ashby that offered lots of titles in all kinds of religious denominations, movements, & alternatives, everything from yoga, meditation, Hinduism & Buddhism to Goddess tradition, Wicca, & Celtic spirituality, to past-life regression, crystals, & tarot.

When I returned to Nancy’s, it was quiet; she was at work, Bill was away, & Liz & Natalia were napping. So I read for a while, checked my email & Facebook accounts on the computer, & hung out. When Nancy got home, she & I decided to go grocery shopping, so we headed for Whole Foods near Lake Merritt in Oakland. This is one huge Whole Foods store!! I was impressed! We bought some pre-prepared tamales, salad makings, & ice cream. I bought a package of gluten-free lemon-poppy seed muffins that come from Whole Foods own gluten-free bakery & was pleasantly shocked to discover that they cost the same in Oakland as they did in Hartford & Boston. Everyone had told me that prices in the Bay Area were much higher than on the East Coast. That’s likely true in some areas, e.g., housing – although housing costs in Boston rival those in San Francisco -- & the sales tax is higher. However, the food costs seemed to me to be about the same for most products, and the cost of fresh produce is much cheaper in the Bay Area for much better produce & a much bigger selection. Yet another reason to move back to Berkeley…

Back at Nancy’s, Nancy, Liz & I made & ate dinner, & I had an opportunity to enjoy Natalia who absolutely delighted me. Although much of the time I couldn’t understand her – my loss!! – she had begun to talk in words & close-to full sentences. She LOVES books & having someone read a book to her. She made up games with her toys, in which I participated. What fun!! Since I’ve never had children or grandchildren, the children & grandchildren of my friends are marvels to me, with their joy, their creativity, their intelligence, & I truly enjoyed spending time with Natalia. By the time I left, I’m happy to say that she spontaneously gave me a goodbye kiss, & that felt like truly being honored.

The next day, I’d given myself a late start since I knew it would be a long day. I had planned only one activity during the day: A “trip” to the 100% gluten-free bakery & café, Mariposa Baking Company in a rather industrial-looking building at Telegraph & 55th, in North Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood. Several years earlier, I’d discovered Mariposa while searching online for gluten-free goods, ordering its delicious gluten-free biscotti. Since then, the bakery had gone completely gluten-free, and, after over 12 years of following a strict gluten-free diet, I had to go there. The van dropped me off, & I had planned for a pick-up in an hour and a half.

While building may look industrial, the baked goods were wonderful!! For anyone who likes breads & pastries & is on a gluten-free diet – anyone with Celiac Disease or following this diet for other health reasons – Mariposa is next to heaven. Along with its baked goods, including biscotti, sour cream coffee cake, cinnamon rolls (!), brownies & several types of breads, cookies & quick breads, it offers lunch – 2 or 3 kinds of pizza, quiche, panini & ravioli. I had a slice of pizza & a cinnamon roll for dessert & would have eaten more, except I didn’t want to spoil my appetite for dinner. I talked for quite a while with the staff person at the cashier, & the manager provided me with several recommendations for a place to eat dinner. I left having bought a whole bunch of items that I planned to take home – although I couldn’t resist eating the cinnamon rolls before I got back to Hartford. Here is the link for Mariposa: http://www.mariposabaking.com/index.html . BTW, Scott picked up several of Mariposa’s dessert offerings for our Sunday evening dinner, & everyone agreed (a) they were delicious, & (b) no one would have had any idea they were gluten-free had they not been told ahead of time. Bay Area friends, please think of this when next planning a breakfast or other type of gathering; yes, the items are more expensive than supermarket pastries & breads, but you’ll be supporting a local company. Mariposa also has a kiosk in the San Francisco Ferry Building, something I remembered the following day.

I had several open hours between the time I returned from Mariposa & my evening dinner plans. That evening, I had arranged to go out to dinner with my ex-husband, Chris Ettling. Yes, for those of you who didn’t know this, I was married at one point, long, long ago, although not too far away. The story -- briefly -- Chris & I met in late 1972 or early 1973 when he was living in Brooklyn, NY & I was living in Hartford, CT. We both belonged to the same political organization, & within a few months, I moved to NY & moved in with Chris. In early 1974, we made an even bigger move, taking off for California with most of our belongings (the stuff we didn’t ship, mostly my books), & our year-old black cat Yosarrian in a VW van with 3 hippies from Columbia University. While Chris did most of the driving, the 3 hippies smoked weed & stayed stoned throughout most of the trip, & I proceeded to contract the flu & get very sick. We hit an ice storm in Arkansas that meant it took 6 hours or so for us to get across the state – and we thought that taking the Southern route would be safer in the middle of winter, since we left on New Year’s Day – and we finally rolled in to a truck stop in the Texas Panhandle at about 3 a.m. The hostess took one look at the 5 of us – 3 stoned hippies, Chris, bleary-eyed with red hair tied back in a pony tail reaching to the middle of his back, & me, sick with the flu -- & she opened an entirely new section of the restaurant for us. Chris & the 3 hippies ordered huge breakfasts – eggs, bacon, pancakes, toast, the works. Finally, she came to me. “What would you like, hon?” she asked, compassion definitely in her voice. “Could I please have a bowl of oatmeal?” I asked. She definitely felt sorry for me.

Chris & I finally reached LA; I recovered from my flu; & then we flew north to San Francisco, nearly losing Yoyo on the way. He’d been put on a flight to Oakland. We rescued him & moved in with 2 friends, also members of the same political organization, & thus began my life in CA. For a year & a half, until I became a Catholic, I worked with Chris & our friends as we did political organizing for our own group & with local labor unions, the United Farmworkers Union, anti-war organizations, & feminist organizations. After a couple of months, I took a job in a small Catholic hospital in San Francisco & later tried to unionize the clerical staff there. In August of 1974, Chris & I married, in part for political reasons & in part because we believed we loved each other. And at that time, we did. After we married, within less than a year, however, my life had changed quite dramatically because of my conversion, & by the end of 1975, it seemed clear to both of us that the relationship couldn’t be sustained. I’d moved away from and out of politics, & neither of us was experienced or mature enough to figure out how to change with the changes. We separated on New Year’s Eve, with Chris moving to a new apartment & were divorced in August 1977.

We did, however, remain in touch through the years; I knew that he had remarried & that his mother had moved from Detroit to Oakland, & he knew that I’d moved to Boston & then to Hartford. Before that move, he had taken me out to dinner, & now he had invited me out to dinner again.

Oddly enough, Nancy & Chris lived only a few blocks from one another in the same neighborhood in the Oakland hills, not far from Holy Names College (now University) & the Mormon Temple, although on different sides of the main street, Fruitvale. Even more ironically, Chris & I had lived on a street off of Fruitvale down in the Oakland “Flats” when we were together, on a small street above Foothill Boulevard not far from the Fruitvale BART Station. La plus ça change…

Although Chris hadn’t changed that much; he still looked good, younger than his nearly 57 years, with red hair – although the hair was short now. We drove into Berkeley & had dinner at a new restaurant, the name of which has escaped me, & we talked. Most of our talk involved changes in his life & family, in large part because his changes were more dramatic than my own. Altogether, we talked for over 3 hours, catching up on our lives & the lives of people we had known. Seeing him was terrific; I’m very grateful that we’ve stayed in contact through all of these years. It was past 10:30 by the time I returned to Nancy’s, & I was very glad to get into bed & go to sleep.

NOTE: CORRECTION to Part I: Although it’s not in my notes, I seem to recall that the Franciscan School of Theology (FST) building is not painted dark green; that was the color it was when I was a grad student. Rather, I think that now, it has been painted a mustard yellow color. I liked the green better.

TO BE CONTINUED – PART IV – TOMORROW…

Part II: Bay Area Visit -- June 2010

After Mass at Newman / Holy Spirit Parish, it was nice to have some quiet, restful time. Attending Mass at Holy Spirit had been another emotional experience for me -- being back there for Mass for the first time in over 25 years. So I sat in the sun for a bit, then changed to get ready for dinner.

A bit of background here: In 1978, a number of progressive Roman Catholics got together in Berkeley to form a religiously-based organization to oppose what was known as Proposition 6, or the Briggs Initiative. Those of you who saw the film Milk will know right away that this was the CA ballot measure that sought to prevent gay men & lesbian women & allies of gay / lesbian rights from teaching or working in the CA public schools. The organization, named Catholics for Human Dignity (CHD), became the lobbying arm of Dignity USA, the national organization of glbt Catholics, their families & friends. Somehow, I was invited to attend a meeting of CHD to plan our anti-Prop 6 campaign. To this day, I cannot remember who invited me to a Northside apartment in 1978 where I met two men with whom I became close friends: Scott McElhinney & José Léon. Scott was a UC Berkeley undergraduate; José was a graduate student at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (JSTB). It was their apartment, & there I also met Mary Hunt, then a doctoral student at the GTU & now co-director of WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, & Ritual), a national Catholic feminist organization, and Eileen DeLong, a Sister of the Good Shepherd on sabbatical at JSTB, where she had been deeply moved by the situation of gay men & lesbian women in the Catholic Church. At the time I first met Scott, José, Mary & Eileen, I was in the throes of figuring out my own sexual orientation; having separated from my husband on New Year’s Eve 1975, I’d been content with celibacy & wasn’t looking for either a man or woman in my life. It would be two more years before I would “come out” as a lesbian women, at the end of my first year in seminary.

Although I didn’t consider myself to be lesbian, I had no trouble seeing the justice issue involved in Prop. 6. Nor did my sister, Andi, nor did our parents, both of whom visited us that summer. “If gay & lesbian people are banned from teaching, who will be next? Jews? Single mothers? Blacks?” I think both of our parents voiced just that concern. So I marched in the 1978 San Francisco Gay / Lesbian Freedom Day Parade with a big “No on 6” button on my t-shirt. Two years later, after meeting, loving, becoming lovers with, & breaking up with Kathleen, I came out & began a long active association with both SF Dignity & CHD & helped to found a chapter of Dignity in the East Bay. All of that lasted until the end of 1983, when I formally left the Catholic Church for nearly 10 years.
Back in 1978, Scott, José & I quickly became good friends, & we remained close friends throughout my years in the Bay Area. Scott remained an especially good correspondent after I moved to Boston, & even when he didn’t hear back from me, he kept in touch through the years, even visiting me for several days. So seeing Scott & José was a high priority on this visit. They made it easy, as Scott is an excellent organizer & José an excellent cook with a lovely house & back yard. José invited several of us for dinner on Sunday, 13 June.

José has been an ordained priest for over 25 years, serving as pastor of a parish in Union City, CA; Scott has worked at UC Berkeley for about 20 years. Scott’s husband, Alan, received his MLS degree from UC Berkeley & is now a librarian at Dominican College in San Rafael, CA. Shortly before I left the Bay Area in 1987, I told Scott that I knew a man I thought he would like, thinking of Alan who, at the time, worked as Admissions Director at PSR. I mentioned to Alan that I thought he would like my friend Scott, who, at the time, was working in the Admissions Office at UC Berkeley. Without me actually introducing them, they met; two years later, they met again & got together. They’ve now been together for 21 years & got married in San Francisco prior to the passage of Prop. 8 in November 2008.

In addition to Scott & Alan, we had invited several other friends; only 1 other couple could make it, Brad & his partner, Dan. Brad is a psychotherapist, & we knew each other from Dignity.

It was a lovely, delicious, and often riotously funny dinner. We talked, laughed, told stories, talked about the Church – what else do practicing Catholics (with 1 Episcopalian) talk about when they get together? The food was marvelous, &, no surprise, the time went by all too quickly. That evening, however, confirmed something that I had wondered about: That although I had been away from the Bay Area for over 20 years, I still had and still have a community there – a community of close, dear friends who would love it if I were to move back there; a community upon which I could depend. Dinner with Scott, José & Alan that evening confirmed that my community is still there. I slept very well that evening.

The following day, Monday, I was set to change locations, from the PSR campus to the home of my wonderful friend Nancy Midlin & her husband Bill Coy in Oakland. Nancy & I had known each other since the mid-1970’s at Newman / Holy Spirit (NHHSP), where she was music director & I a member of the choir. We hadn’t kept in touch, although every once in a while, I would hear about her life from a mutual friend, Mary Christine O’Connor, who had also been a choir member & now lived in New York. Then, nearly 5 years ago, at the same time as Hurricane Katrina was devastating New Orleans, Paulist priest Fr. Jac Campbell died in Boston. Jac had been director of NHHSP for several years, & he & I had become close when we discovered we were both living in Boston. Jac had kept in touch with Nancy & several other NHHSP friends. Thus, after Jac’s wake – at which I had spoken, for both myself & Mary Christine – I was amazed & so very glad to see two women walking toward me who I knew I knew… Nancy and Heather had flown from CA for Jac’s wake & funeral. Nancy & I had stayed in touch since then, & when I told her that I was planning to visit, she invited me to stay at her house.

What a wonderful invitation, and what a lovely time I had there!! In addition to Nancy & Bill, her 20+ year old daughter Liz lives there with her 18 month-old daughter Natalia. When I first arrived, Nancy’s 2 sons were visiting. So I arrived that afternoon via East Bay Para-Transit into a sea of fun, laughter, good humor, & wonderful people. I stayed there through Saturday morning, & it was wonderful to spend time with Nancy, get to know Bill a little better – we’d both been at the GTU at the same time – & get to know Liz & Natalia, who is a delight. It was lovely, too, to spend the rest of Monday resting, both before & after having a lovely dinner.

Tuesday, 15 June, was my busiest & fullest day – lots on the calendar. First: 12:10 pm Mass at Newman / Holy Spirit; then, lunch with a friend from the GTU; finally, a gathering at LaVal’s Pizza on Northside with whoever decides to show up.

15 June is the actual anniversary of my Baptism, Confirmation, & First Eucharist; 35 years ago that day, I formally & officially became a Catholic, standing before the community and affirming the Creed that is the faith of the Catholic Church. So the para-transit van dropped me off at Newman / Holy Spirit so I would be able to celebrate my 35th anniversary there – something I had very much wanted to do & one of the reasons I had chosen the particular dates I’d selected for my trip.

Since I was early for Mass, I rode down College from Dwight to the Elmwood district, the three block area along College and Ashby Avenue. I lived in the Elmwood for over 4 years, from 1976 until 1980 & had loved it, renting a one-bedroom flat on the 2nd floor of an apartment building at the corner of College & Stuart Street; the building is still there, and it still looks the same. I doubt it had even had a paint job. A bit further down the street, I was delighted to discover that Nabolom Bakery was still in its same location on Russell Street, and that Body Time, the original Body Shop, still had a store on College. Body Time, founded in 1970, was the first natural and organic body care company; it is still based in Berkeley, still distributes product in reusable containers, and has not “franchised.” I went into the College Avenue shop to purchase a few items that I had missed in Boston, including several wonderful olive oil soaps. Many other shops that had been on College Ave. had disappeared, including the delicious Russian restaurant where I’d eaten with friends. However, the movie theater is still there; the last film I saw there was Kiss of the Spiderwoman. After checking out other stores, I returned to Holy Spirit.

Mass at NHHSP: It was lovely, a typical weekday Mass, quiet, with time to pray & reflect – something I’ll do in writing in another blog.

Then it was time to head for lunch with Anne Dinkelspiel Howd, a friend from the GTU & someone who had been very supportive in my early days of coming out. We met at a small Indian restaurant on the corner of Shattuck & Virginia & spent a wonderful hour talking, catching up, and laughing. She is now raising a son & has a psychotherapy practice. We could have talked for another couple of hours…

I went from there, still in my wheelchair, back up to Northside, following Virginia Street the entire way until I could turn right onto Scenic. From there, I spent some time in the GTU Library where I worked as a cataloger for several years, before heading to LaVal’s.

In riding around both Northside and South of the campus, I again saw clear evidence of the CA financial crisis. Sidewalks have been left in disrepair in many places. More interestingly, the areas of grass between sidewalks and streets on almost every street have been left to grow into weedy, unkempt messes; no one has mowed them, even where homeowners have mowed their own lawns. In many places, the paint has faded in crosswalks and has not been refreshed.

LaVal’s is a Northside institution; everyone knows where it is, & it’s been there since long before I began my graduate work in 1979. So it was a perfect place to meet. I got something to drink – no food because of my gluten-free diet – and waited to see who would show up. The first to arrive was my friend from PSR, Garland Walker, who had come up from Modesto. Garland & I met during my 1st year at PSR, when we both took Systematic Theology with Robert McAfee Brown & ended up in a working group together in which we were to critique a book; we chose Hans Küng’s On Being a Christian. That experience certainly changed my life – but that’s a long story for a different blog… Garland had also been very close friends with one of my closest friends, Stuart Weiner, a PSR student who was killed in February 1983 by a speeding car. So Garland & I had much to discuss & share.

After we had talked for 45 minutes or so, Heather arrived, & the 3 of us went inside. After a while, a friend I’d met through Jac Campbell, Ludwik Zych, who lives in Palo Alto, showed up with white tulips & a card; he & I hadn’t seen each other for over 25 years & were very excited. Nancy then came from the airport where she had dropped off her 2 sons, & finally Scott arrived. It was such a lovely event – lots of laughter, catching up (especially for me with Ludwik), lots of people getting to know each other. Again, it confirmed for me that I have a community in the Bay Area & will have one to which to return when I move back sometime in the future. Scott helped me onto the van, & I was ready to return to Nancy’s for some rest & sleep & not a few tears.

To Be Continued Tomorrow With Part III.......

Part I: Visit to San Francisco Bay Area this June

Two months ago today, I'd just returned from my first visit in over 20 years to the San Francisco Bay Area. The time I spent there in June of this year was wonderful -- seeing friends, meeting people, visiting old haunts, discovering new places. People have asked about the trip & I've told everyone, "It was wonderful." Now that I've been back for a couple of months, I want to write about it here. I'll mostly go chronologically, although I'm sure that I'll include some diversions. So, here goes Part One of my blog about my Visit to the Bay Area from 10 - 21 June 2010.

Flying Southwest went very well, until we arrived in Denver & learned that our Denver to Oakland flight would be delayed by 2 hours. That meant arriving in Oakland at 5:15 PDT, rather than 3:15 -- something that really threw my schedule for a loop. Still, the flights went well; little problem getting my wheelchair when we arrived in Oakland. (My electric wheelchair traveled in a special place in baggage.)

Flying from Denver to CA on Friday, 11 June, I was able to see Lake Tahoe and knew when we were close to the CA coast -- the hills, green in the winter, had already turned golden-dry. That was my first hint of home. After we landed & I went into the terminal, I had my next more-than-hint, from the advertisements & vendors, as well as the "Welcome to Oakland, CA" sign. By this time, having had little sleep Thursday night & being tired & excited, when it hit me that I was, really, finally, in California, I cried. I'd re-scheduled my para-transit van pick-up for 6:30 pm, so I sat outside waiting for it to arrive. Once it did, I was on my way down the freeway to Berkeley & the first place I'd be staying overnight: Benton Hall, a graduate student residence on the campus of my graduate school, Pacific School of Religion (PSR) on Berkeley's Northside.

First impressions on the ride from Oakland Airport to and then through parts of Berkeley: The dire fiscal condition of the state revealed itself to me almost immediately, in the condition of the freeways and city streets. TERRIBLE. Worse, really, that parts of Hartford, where we deal with damage from winter, salt, sand and asphalt & concrete shrinking & expanding due to extreme changes in temperatures. I bumped & bounced all the way from Oakland to PSR. And I was in tears a good part of the way, too, seeing familiar signs and signposts, familiar buildings and street signs. Oddly enough, & I'd never realized it when I lived there, one of the most visible & recognizable buildings in Oakland is the Oakland Court House, scene of numerous Black Panther demonstrations.

When I reached PSR, I just sat in my wheelchair for a few minutes, taking in the green, the buildings, the chapel -- so familiar from all those years ago. The PSR campus has remained the same -- no new buildings since Mudd was built in the early 1980's, & nothing to obstruct the view across the quad or over to the Golden Gate Bridge. The Benton manager showed me my room, gave me my keys, & I was on my own.

After stretching for a few minutes, washing up, & deep breathing, I decided to poke around Northside for a bit. I knew I needed some seltzer to drink -- I drink plain seltzer & almost any kind of tea, & that's it -- so I grabbed what I needed & went out & about -- for a new experience: seeing Northside in my wheelchair. While there were several restaurants open on Euclid, I didn't feel like eating, & the ice cream shop that had been there when I lived there was gone, so I stopped into Seven Palms, got a bottle of Perrier, & then rode around a bit. Up passed the Franciscan School of Theology (FST -- now painted dark green, I think), then up Le Conte to Le Roy and by the Jesuit School of Theology building and its HUGE new addition. Whatever were they thinking??! The addition, to the left of the old building, is twice as big as the original building & a completely different architectural style. It looks really strange. I couldn't figure out whether the new building houses offices or serves as a large dormitory for Jesuit seminarians, & no one was around who could tell me. The best part of the addition: A ramp for people with disabilities! No more climbing up that huge flight of stairs from the sidewalk to the front door.

I went down a block on Virginia Street & then turned back onto Le Conte, passing the old GTU admin building -- no more bookstore! terrible. When I reached the front of the Unitarian Universalist School (Starr King School), I stopped still, hearing singing. Of course, I had to explore, so I went in. Turns out it was the Friday night Women's Spirit Sing,open to any woman who wants to attend. Something to remember for my return... I stayed for a few minutes, until my cell phone rang. On the phone was the PSR Housing Coordinator who wanted to make sure I'd gotten in to my room. She'd just begun a break from her evening Church History class, so I went over to Mudd to meet her & say hello. After that, realizing that I was really tired, I went to my room. And crashed.

I hadn't expected to feel so completely exhausted the following day. It turned out to be a day when temps reached into the 90's F, however, I didn't know it at all; I was so wiped out that I cancelled my lunch plans with Russ, a friend & co-PSR alum, & his husband & my later afternoon plans to see my friend Judy from Boston. :-( As I lay there in bed, drinking Perrier, I kept trying to convince myself that the trip was NOT a mistake, that I would feel better the next day. It took a lot of convincing; luckily, I believed myself. By evening, I was able to shower, go out for more Perrier, and sleep, rather than crash. When I woke up the next morning, Sunday, I still felt shaky, however, I knew I would make it through the day. Plans for that day: Mass at Holy Spirit Parish / Newman Hall in Berkeley, where I was Baptized, Confirmed, & received First Eucharist, and, that evening, dinner with several very close friends, two of whom I'd know for over 30 years.

Mass at Holy Spirit: When I was Baptized, etc., @ Holy Spirit Parish, it happened at the 12 pm (noon) Mass. No more Noon Mass, though. Now, it's at 11:30 am. I rode across the UC Berkeley Campus, truly enjoying the journey; I will still contend that this campus is one of the most beautiful in the US. Past the carillon & its bells, past Dwinnell Hall, past Sproul Hall, through Sproul Plaza -- location of some of the most famous student protests in US history, & location of several protests in which I, too, participated, including one against apartheid in South Africa, at which Alice Walker read several of her poems. Then down Telegraph Avenue and up Haste Street, a right on College Avenue and keep going on College to Dwight Way. On the Northeast corner of College & Dwight is Holy Spirit Parish / Newman Hall

Built of poured concrete in that era of building, it forms a large, hulking presence off of the large open space in front of the doors. Inside and straight ahead through another set of doors is the chapel. Very modern with its massive Christ figure and almost bare walls, its unmovable altar & ambo that seem to grow organically up from the floor. I love this chapel, this worship space, perhaps because it was the first Catholic Church in which I was welcomed & completely free to worship & to pray. I prayed for several minutes, then went to find Judy.

Judy & I had met when we were both members of the Paulist Center in Boston, MA; we both sang in the music ministry & both had grown up Jewish. Judy had decided to become Catholic, & I was on the RCIA team the year she received the Sacraments of Initiation. She then moved to Berkeley. It was terrific to see her! She'd cut her hair, looked wonderful, & was doing well. We didn't have enough time to talk; a friend from many years ago who I'd known from my first days at Holy Spirit had waited to see me, & the 3 of us talked for 20 minutes, until just a few minutes before Mass. Then, I needed to go in to make sure that the presider, George Fitzgerald, CSP, & someone else I knew from those earlier days, knew that I was there & that I would need a gluten-free host. Big, happy greeting from George; yes, everything is set. Then, wonderful surprise, big hug from Heather Skinner, a woman I've known for many years through the parish; she, her husband, & her mother-in-law had come to that Mass at Holy Spirit knowing I would be there! What a lovely welcome!!

And it felt like home. Quiet, low-key Mass, fitting for the almost beginning of summer; it felt very familiar. Of course, there's always something that I would do differently... and I would have chosen different music... Mostly because I didn't know most of the tunes the congregation sang.

After Mass, George & I had a little time to talk, then I went back down to Telegraph Avenue. Outside of the now-closed Cody's Books, I found a florist & purchased some beautiful deep purple iris for Jose's house where our Sunday evening dinner was to take place. Stopped at Walgreens to pick up some toothpaste -- the travel-size one I'd brought with me was no good, too old -- & then back across campus & at Seven Palms stopped for more Perrier. Then I took a ride down another few streets to the house where I had lived during the last 2 years of my PhD studies at the Graduate Theological Union, on Virginia Street. I knew the house immediately by its bottom-floor on-street windows. I had put my desk under those windows so I'd be able to look outside when I studied. Thought about that house for a few minutes, then went back up the hill to my room to rest.

Dinner & the next part -- tomorrow.........

Oppression and Double Oppression

I learned any number of things when I attended graduate school back in the day... In fact, I was in seminary, which is graduate school for people who hope to be priests, ministers, & / or theologians, having attended Pacific School of Religion (PSR), a member school of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), a consortium of 9 graduate seminaries, in Berkeley, CA, for more than a few years. I began my Master's of Divinity degree in 1979; transferred to the PhD program in 1981; withdrew from the PhD program in 1985; and received my Master's degree in 1986. I loved it. I loved studying Sacred Scripture, religious history, and liturgy. I especially loved studying the centuries' long changing understanding of G-D and the ways in which G-D and G-D's people continue to be in relation with one another. I had wonderful teachers (for the most part), and met people who have become life-long friends.

One of the most important things I learned during those years came as a gift from another doctoral student, Thee Smith. Thee had been the Teaching Assistant in my first course in basic theology, formally termed Systematic Theology. A handsome, soft-spoken, bearded African-American man, Thee helped to take some of the burden off the senior faculty member teaching the course. Since that senior faculty member was the Rev. Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, one of the most well-known progressive theologians of his era, over 100 students had enrolled in the first quarter of the Systematics class. Since no classroom could hold that many people, we met in the chapel. Thee read and commented on student papers, held office hours, and, once per quarter, presented a lecture.

One afternoon during my 2nd year of doctoral studies, I decided to attend one of the occasional free lectures offered by the GTU. This particular lecture was in fact a panel discussion by 4 members of the Systematic Theology faculty on the emerging field of Liberation Theology.

Briefly, Liberation Theology is theology done "from below" -- the interpretation and understanding of G-D and the relationship of G-D and G-D's people by those who have been disenfranchised and who have previously had little, if any, role in interpreting G-D and their relationship with G-D. It is more accurate, really to refer to Liberation Theologies in the plural, since these new fields have been taken on by the poor of Latin America, African-Americans in the US of North America; by peoples in Africa and Asia; by women, both US North American caucasian women and by African-American and Latina women; by lesbian and gay people. Begun by poor people in Latin America, Liberation Theologies have been engaged in by Catholics, Protestants and, to a lesser extent, Jews over the past 30-35 years.

For this particular panel discussion on Liberation Theology, the folks putting it together had failed to move beyond their own academic ghetto and had chosen three white men and one white woman as panelists. From my recollection, the topic that the white woman planned to discuss had nothing at all to do with Feminist Theology. Rather, she intended to talk about concerns with land reform in Scripture.

As I sat in the auditorium, somewhat aghast at the speakers' list, I saw Thee Smith toward the front of the auditorium. The moderator called the gathering to attention, and then he introduced Thee, noting that Thee wasn't on the list of speakers. Thee, however, had asked to speak.

What Thee said that afternoon has remained with me for over 25 years. He spoke of his anger over the choice of speakers; his anger that it was left to him to point out the irony and outrage that a discussion on Liberation Theology had a panel made up of four theologians who could hardly be considered Liberation Theologians. He then discussed the way in which this process served as a situation of what he termed "Double Oppression." Not only was he, as an African-American Liberation Theologian, once again ignored, disregarded, and marginalized by being overlooked as a speaker on the panel; he in fact experienced the Double Oppression of having taken on the task, the moral responsibility, of going to the people who put the program together to point out to them their continued racism and oppression of him as an individual African-American and of African-Americans collectively.

Thee then called for a logical and compassionate approach to Double Oppression, a way to insure that it does not happen. He called upon whites to be the first to raise their (our) voices in opposition to racism, rather than wait for our Sisters and Brothers of Color to object to it; he called for men to protest sexism and misogyny and not wait for women to object to it once again. He called upon Christians to be the first to speak out loudly and clearly against Anti-Semitism, rather than wait for Jews once again to object; he called upon heterosexual people to speak up when they hear and / or see homophobia and / or heterosexism, rather than remain silent while their lesbian sisters and gay brothers protest such oppression.

I have never forgotten Thee Smith's talk, and I have tried to follow that which he called upon us to do. I also believe that he would not object if I added to that which he called upon us to do. In relation to the recent wave of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam actions and speech, and in relation to what one group has promised to do -- burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the attacks of 11 September -- I call upon Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths to raise our voices clearly, loudly, unequivocally and uncompromisingly against such actions and speech that threatens and oppresses our Muslim Sisters and Brothers. And I'm glad to be able to say that something I learned in graduate school in theology actually stuck.

The More Things Change...

This past Friday afternoon at 3 pm, a group of about 100 people gathered at the North Entrance to the Connecticut State Capitol Building. This interfaith gathering including Muslims, Jews and Christians. This diverse group came together to speak out against and be a witness in opposition to the increasing Islamophobia in the US. The Islamophobia came "home" to Connecticut over the past one and a half weeks, when an organization that claimed to be Christian showed up outside a mosque in Bridgeport, CT -- one of the state's 3 largest cities -- one two successive Friday. While outside the mosque, on the first Friday, this supposed Christian organization harassed people attempting to enter the mosque for Friday prayers and called them names. The following Friday, members of the organization picketing the mosque claimed that they were there to "convert" Muslims, to teach them the "truth" about Jesus, insisting that "love[d]" Muslims and want to "save" them.

The name of the organization protesting outside the Bridgeport mosque is "Operation Save America." To my mind, what this nation most needs saving from is groups like "Operation Save America" that wants to claim and insist that they alone have the truth, that Christianity is the only true religion, and that everyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ in the way in which they believe in Jesus Christ is going to Hell.

I'll leave aside whether or not this group and others like it are, in fact, truly Christian. That's a topic for another day. Instead, I'll address a different topic. In many ways, there's little new here. What I find particularly interesting, however, is that "Operation Save America" is a new name for a group many had thought had faded into history in the late 1990's. "Operation Save America" used to be "Operation Rescue," the ultra-Right-Wing anti-abortion and anti-women's rights organization that used to block entrances to women's health clinics; super-glue the clinics' front door locks shut; harass clinic staff, physicians and clients; scream at women through megaphones and call it "counseling," yelling at them not to abort their babies. The actions by Operation Rescue and similar groups whose misogyny and distrust of women's moral agency became so extreme that, in 1994, two women staffers were murdered and several injured at 2 women's clinics in Brookline, MA. The perpetrator of those attacks was a very devout Roman Catholic man, John Salvi. And these were not the only 2 people murdered in the struggle for women's reproductive rights.

At the time of the Brookline clinic shootings, I was working around the corner from several major Boston teaching hospitals (Brigham and Women's, Beth Israel Deaconess, Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute). Before leaving work that day, we were advised to be extremely careful; the shooter had not yet been arrested. Extra police were visible all over the hospital area, in part because the injured had been transported to the nearest hospitals, which were the Brigham and Beth Israel Deaconess. We were advised to go directly home, rather than to one of the hospitals, even though many of us worked as physician / researchers at one of the hospitals. Law enforcement could not tell us for sure that the perpetrator would not show up at one of the hospitals with the intent to attempt to take more lives. It was known that the Brigham performed abortions.

Two nights later, I went with a friend from church -- a young woman who was a med student at Harvard Medical School -- to a memorial service / rally to mourn our lost sisters and show publicly that even in the face of these horrific murders, we would not be cowed, we would not be made fearful, we would not hide -- and we would not stop providing the best and most comprehensive medical care to women, no matter what their circumstances and / or their needs.

I am not stating that Operation Rescue was responsible for John Salvi's actions. I would argue, however, that extremist rhetoric does influence people who are considering carrying out extremist actions. It's likely that no one in Operation Rescue, or any other anti-abortion organization, told John Salvi it would be good, just, and justifiable for him to shoot and kill people who worked at the 2 Brookline clinics. When he got through shooting on that 30 December 1994 afternoon, Shannon Lowney, age 25, and Lee Ann Nichols, age 38, were dead, and a number of other clinic employees and volunteers were injured, in what he considered to be in defense of life.

Now, Operation Rescue has a new incarnation, Operation Save America. Instead of harassing and threatening women, the "new" organization is harassing and threatening Muslim women, men, and even children. Now, instead of yelling at women entering health clinics not to abort their babies, they are yelling at Muslims to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of G-D and telling them that they should convert to Christianity.

Why is it that people in groups like Operation Rescue and Operation Save America insist that their way is the only way and their truth the only truth and that we all must follow them in that way and that truth?

And if this has begun to sound all too tiredly familiar, here are a few more jolts. Operation Save America chose to picket the Bridgeport mosque on Friday afternoons -- Fridays being the holy day during the week for Muslims -- starting during the month of Ramadan, which is the holiest month for Muslims. As a woman who grew up Jewish and is now a practicing Catholic, I am outraged by this series of deliberately insulting actions. If Operation Save America, or any other Right-Wing (supposedly) Christian group chose to picket synagogues with the aim of converting Jews on Rosh Hashahah -- the Jewish New Year -- or Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement which, together with Rosh Hashanah, are the holiest days in Judaism -- the Jewish community and much of the Christian community, and certainly liberal Christian denominations, would be in an uproar. Yet there has been little uproar over the actions of Operation Save America against the Muslim community during Ramadan.

Another jolt: I don't know which organization has come up with the following idea, but somewhere in the US, a Right-Wing ostensibly Christian organization has proposed that every 11 September be a day dedicated to the burning of copies of the Koran, the holiest book of Islam. Shades of Nazi Germany and Josef Goebbels, no? This type of rhetoric not only frightens me; it chills me right down to the very marrow of my bones. So, please, if you know of an act of anti-Islamic intolerance / Islamophobia in your neighborhood, city, or state, please speak out against it. Please attend a rally, community meeting, interfaith gathering to say "No, not in my neighborhood; not in my city; not in my state." Please take positive action, please speak out; please do not remain silent in the face of this increasing intolerance.