A Fortunate Fool (If not yet a holy one)

I feel like it’s all coming together, somehow. And I feel very, very lucky, and very, very grateful...

…that the thing I thought was one of my enemies, the Catholic Church and St. Paul’s in particular, seems in fact to be the way out of my morass;

…that the church I had no choice but to attend as a girl, has transformed into a community that embodies the values I’ve kept throughout all the changes in my life, namely, acceptance of the misunderstood, care for the marginalized, forgiveness, and mutual support through kindness;

…that I stumbled into a podcast by a Jesuit that led me to hear interviews with a Contemplative Franciscan that led to an entirely unknown (to me) segment of Catholicism and method of prayer and connection;

…that I’m once again getting to know Francis, and finally understanding what that could mean for my life;

…that I’m able to approach it all with curiosity instead of defensiveness;

…that I’m finally starting to understand what I’ve done to myself in order to keep myself protected from harm, and that I can undo it, even just a little;

…that I’m finally understanding that I rejected important parts of myself in order to construct a personality that could deal with life on the terms I thought I was forced to accept;

…that the Bishop of Lexington is a Franciscan who can speak about the issues that kept me from the Church (ie pro-life Catholicism, ie prejudice against LGBTQ people, ie complicity with Empire, ie complacency in the face of clerical abuse, ie the diminished status of women in the Church) in ways that let me know that it’s possible to hold those doubts and work to change the Church, instead of defending myself against dogmatic inflexibility...

…that somehow, Francis is actually connected to clowning. As a holy fool, he used his positivity to critique society; I look at Clowns Without Borders and I see a group of people, wearing rags and minimal makeup, critiquing the cruelty of institutions and governments in their neglect of their people by entering war and disaster zones to bring joy to refugees. And even more amazingly, this all connects in beautiful strands to learning Esperanto… another pursuit that essentially rejects the status quo through positive, alternative action.

…that I am seeing everything in ways I never knew it was possible to see before.

Every day I have to work hard NOT to spend any waking moment in which I am not working or watching TV with Al, in some form of prayer or religious study. The other day I realized that I was neglecting all my musical and artistic practices, and I felt nudged in the direction of… mixing it up a little. I drew my first Demonic Pet commission since breaking my shoulder; I am listening to more music and starting to learn songs again. And while I’m sure a lot of people would not see the compatibility of my new interests with attendance at Camp John Waters, I do. That’s coming up in a few weeks. And I’m not worried about any kind of cognitive dissonance. All I see is a community of people who love and support each other pretty unconditionally… they just do it while covered with body glitter. In any case, Pope Leo said that morality does not just boil down to issues of sexual behavior. Naturally, I agree. As long as it’s all consensual, it’s all good. And I will certainly learn more about clowning there.

I finally have a goal that makes sense for MY life: to be a traveling Lay Franciscan humanitarian Esperantist clown.

Stay tuned, I guess. Being so in love with life at the moment makes it hard to slow down to write in this journal (obviously). Maybe someday I’ll re-read it and think, wow, I was really crazy in 2026. But I hope I don’t. I hope that, as Thomas Merton wrote, “I will not break faith with my awakened heart. I will not play the cynic.” Anyway, I don’t even trust anyone who isn’t a little crazy anymore, do you?