My husband and I had the opportunity to take a cross-country train trip that took us from Portland’s Union Station to Chicago where we stayed a couple of days, on to Denver where we visited family, and to Reno where we also visited family and spent a couple of days. We went through Montana, through North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Illinois observing the terrain as it moved from very winter-like in the mountains to increasing signs of spring. We crossed the plains in a windstorm (the train had to creep along at 20 miles an hour for 5 hours!); went through the Moffat Tunnel in the Rocky Mountains (it is 6.2 miles long, takes ten minutes to pass through on the train, and goes over the Continental Divide at an apex of 9200 feet); went by Donner Lake and Donner Pass as we traveled through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and dropped from 6200 feet in Reno to 33 feet in Sacramento. We met lots of inspiring people in the communal atmosphere of the train’s dining car, enjoyed reconnecting with my husband’s sisters, and met my grandnieces who are now 3 and 5, for the first time.
As always when we ride the train, we felt enormous awe for the country we live in, the mountains, plains, fields, rivers, forests, farmlands, towns, and cities. Often as we were traveling Simon and Garfunkel’s song, America (https://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-america-lyrics) was drifting in the background of my mind. We had gone to look for America, the America that is one country with many diverse people and unimaginable diversity in landscapes and flora and fauna. The extreme polarization of people within our nation that had its start prior to the pandemic exploded during the last few years, eroding the feeling of unity that I once had taken for granted. On the train, I felt a unity that I can no longer take for granted.
In reading the Gospel for this Sunday, John 10: 11-18, I turned to Fr. Jose Pagola’s commentary which included a reminder that conflicts and disputes began early within the fledgling Christian communities. The passage that is read this Sunday was written to remind the community that Jesus alone was the “Good Shepherd. Not just another shepherd, but the real true one and the model for all to follow.” (page 67) Pagola considers the passage a “call to conversion directed to those who can assert their claim to the title of shepherd in the community.” In a church where every bishop holds a shepherd’s staff and can “claim to the title of shepherd” the reminder to put the people they shepherd first as Jesus did, is challenging since the bishops clearly are not in agreement on just what that means. They are not in agreement with each other, not with the priests that serve with them, and certainly not with the Pope who is the central “shepherd” of the church – let alone the people of God. Disunity is part of the church just as it is in today’s America.
Monday is Earth Day. As the Holy Father’s 2015 encyclical On Care for Our Common Home, Laudate Si, pointed out, “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development…” (#13) Today our inability to bring the whole human family together may be our most difficult obstacle for addressing climate change. People are much more divided than they were when Pope Francis wrote those words 9 years ago. During the pandemic too many good people drifted into echo chambers – bubbles of friends and family that they were comfortable meeting with, and online chats, and dialogues, etc. – where they ended up listening to ideas and news sources that said more or less what they wanted to hear and excluded alternative voices. People cannot be faulted for feeling protective of themselves and their loved ones, after all more than 7 million people have died of Covid-19 with over 1 million of those deaths occurring in the United States. Many people are suffering with long Covid, and the virus is still taking lives, though at greatly reduced numbers. Fear of others and the need for isolation were natural outcomes of the experience that humanity went through together. Sadly, the effects of that real fear and need to isolate have intensified rather than dissipated over time, and the consequences are becoming more apparent daily.
Pope Francis once called for priests to “be shepherds with the smell of sheep.” He knew that the only pathway toward unity and understanding involved real-life interactions: working side by side, eating together, sharing a cup of tea, and conversing over a common table, while listening to what one another has to say. Jesus said that he knew his sheep and that they knew him, well enough to recognize his voice among all the other voices that were echoing and continue to echo. That kind of intimacy does not happen in isolation, nor can it take place where fear and distrust dominate.
As followers of Jesus, we believe that the Holy Spirit is present wherever two or more are gathered in his name. It is in these holy places of intersection that people can be challenged to grow beyond their limited understandings and assumptions.
It was not easy to set out across America by train. Fear of covid - 19 is not gone. On the train we “shared the air” with many people we did not know. A number of people who had sleeper cars, as we did, chose to have food delivered to their rooms to avoid contact with others. It was a practice we had not seen on train trips taken before the pandemic. Instead, we had memories of the wonderful connections with strangers that we made during mealtimes and wanted that experience again. We were not disappointed.
We met a number of young people, as well as older people, who traveled by train out of a commitment to the environment! There were two young men who met at our table and worked in different states, where each replaced old gas lines to reduce the amount of escaping methane gas. They were knowledgeable and vocal in their environmental concerns. We also met a student in his second year working toward a Ph. D. in microbiology. His focus is examining the ways that plants ‘eat carbon’ in the hope of finding a way to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. We met other vegans and vegetarians for the climate. We felt a closeness to all the people we dined with. It was America at its best.
We have a common home, our Earth, who is increasingly at risk. To save our home we must take the risks needed to recognize our common humanity. We are both sheep and shepherds. Jesus is the true Shepherd, but we all have a part to play
At Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Dear Readers,
Our trip was disrupted when the train from Denver to Reno was canceled on the day we were to take it. Consequently, we were rescheduled to the following day, and the rest of our trip was pushed forward so that we got home later than planned. I am sorry I was unable to let you know that I would not be writing last week.
Valerie