Reclaiming

Missing my Maine-ness and the dream of a progressive Catholic Church

Hello dear reader; sorry for my absence! As usual, when I don’t post it’s not because I have nothing to tell but that I because I have too much. I mean, with the new pope and all, I’m just straight out.

Not really. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, prompted by the hope that this new guy represents (maybe?) and a podcast I’ve been listening to.

Okay… let me start here. I’ve been thinking lately about how I’ve been in Massachusetts for significantly longer than I lived in my home state of Maine. I still and always have considered myself a Mainer, but the truth is, I’ve lost a lot of what I knew when I lived there. Specifically, I’ve lost track of most of the political situation there, and embarrassingly I have lost a LOT of my Maine geographic knowledge. Now when people ask me about a particular town in Maine, I can sometimes identify that I used to know where it was, but I really couldn’t place it on a map now. Somehow that feels sad to me, like I’ve left behind not only my state but the version of me I was, when I lived there.

Meanwhile, this podcast: Divine Intervention. I’ve been hanging on every word in this tale about a Catholic faith community in Boston who birthed and supported resistance to the Vietnam War, even so far as giving sanctuary to a draft-dodger and tangentially being involved in break-ins at draft boards and destroying draft records. Their bravery and earnest conviction in their response to the war is so inspiring to me, especially now (gestures vaguely at everything). But it’s the setting that has really gotten to me, this little Catholic community that lived into the reforms and freedoms of Vatican II.