Why have I created the Juniper Pact?
Because what God does for one, God does for all. We must teach one another how to see….
I was raised in a White, middle-class home in the 1960s and 1970s. I was fed and clothed. I went to good schools. I graduated at the top of my class and went on to college. By many circumstances, I was among the privileged.
But this wasn’t the whole story.
My parents were deeply wounded people. They parented with these wounds. Ours was a home filled with contradiction and dysfunction, for as they tried to love, they also abused, sexually, physically, and emotionally. This abuse did what abuse does. It cut deeply. It disabled. It enraged. It left me alone with a profound fear that I was not enough. I was somehow disfigured, disappointing, wrong. And I was powerless.
But this wasn’t the whole story either.
For the truth to be complete, God must be included. God’s relationship with me began when I was quite young. It would continue without pause. It would arm me in ways I did not fully appreciate while growing up, but I very much recognize and give thanks for now. God’s relationship with me made all the difference in the world.
We are not trained to see God in the ways They work deep within us. We are not aware of how God climbs into our suffering, through signs and symbols, through images and words. We are even less aware of the deposits They leave within us through these visits, deposits that literally empower us to experience salvation, then and now. This salvation is something we can work with God to bring into its full reality.
I hold degrees in English (B.A.) and Theological Studies (M.A.) from Marian University and the University of Dayton. As I was raised and educated in the Roman Catholic tradition, this rich theology informs my thinking and writing.
Years ago, I asked God to tell me something about God’s being, God’s presence, God’s self. This word immediately came to my mind:
“Here.”
God is here for us. They are thick in the air about us. And engaging with Them is identical to growing, to becoming who we are meant to be.
God meets us at the point of our wounds, our sufferings. God will not let these be. We are meant to be whole.
“A rose by any other name is still as sweet.”
Shakespear
I grew up in the shadow of the Cross. This was a crucifix that hung on the walls of the dozen houses I lived in while growing up. God used that image to begin communicating with me at just five years of age. Because of this, I came to know God through the lens of Jesus.
Creeds, dogmas, denominations don’t necessarily fall away, but they do pale beside the sheer immensity of the mind of God, a God who is far more humble, wise, creative, and active than we realize. Who we think we are, our roles, our identities, our egos — the volume of these is swallowed and happily so, for what is — this mind of God! — is intensely and joyfully and overwhelmingly here!
Join me under the Juniper to grapple with this incomprehensible truth, a truth that will not stop until we are whole.
