Board profile: Ann Marie Biermaier OSB & Samantha Lioi, co-chairs

When Fr. John Klassen retired from his role as Abbot of Saint John’s Abbey and departed for a six-month sabbatical in January 2024, he also concluded his tenure as Catholic Co-chair of the Bridgefolk board, a position he had filled since its formation. Sr. Ann Marie Biermaier, a board member from the St. Benedict Monastery, graciously accepted the invitation to join Mennonite Samantha Lioi as co-chair.

^{Ann Marie Biermaier, OSB (R) and Samantha Lioi (L), Bridgefolk board co-chairs.}

Samantha and Sr. Ann Marie are women of different generations, and both bring a rich diversity of experiences that drew them to ecumenical involvement. Sr. Ann Marie quotes Toni Sorenson as she looks back on her six-decades-long career as a Benedictine sister: “Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes isn’t as much about the walk or the shoes; it’s being able to think like they think, feel what they feel, and understand why they are who and where they are. Every step is about empathy.” Biermaier notes: “I have had several opportunities over the years to attempt to ‘walk in others’ shoes.’ I pray that they and I are better because we’ve shared along the way.”

Living in a religious community has given Biermaier ample opportunities to walk with others. “We are a group of women from a variety of backgrounds—educationally, socially, socioeconomically. We’ve shared formative moments through study and praying together frequently each day. We’ve welcomed individuals from other cultures into our community.” Biermaier also extends welcome through her involvement with the community’s Studium program in which individuals come from around the world to do research, study, and creative work. She finds deep joy in welcoming individuals of other religions and cultures.

At the September 2023 Bridgefolk co-sponsored the Rooted and Grounded conference at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), Lioi commented to some new acquaintances, “Some of my best friends are Catholic!” This has been true since childhood when, growing up in north Jersey, both of her best friends from grade school through high school were Catholic. She remains a close friend with Dominique, who is Italian like half of Samantha’s family, and Karla, who is half Mexican, half Okinawan via Hawaii. Samantha remembers meeting Dominique in the bus line one day after school, when they were about eight. “A zealous kid immersed in late-eighties evangelicalism,” Samantha recalls, “I was wearing a small pin that said, ‘Jesus loves you.’ Dominique smiled and said, ‘I like your pin,’ and we soon had a confusing exchange when she asked if I was Catholic, meaning Christian, and I said no and specified the kind of Christian I was.”

Despite having Catholic friends from an early age, Lioi regrets the judgmental attitude she absorbed as a child and youth about “the exclusive rightness of my church’s particular way of being Christian. Especially sad is a lack of connection with my Italian grandmother’s Catholic heritage. My dad’s mom left the Catholic Church to marry my Protestant grandfather, whose father had emigrated from Italy with a bad taste in his mouth from some harsher penance practices he had observed. Yet, my dad bore no hint of shame in telling me about his great aunt Emily, who was a Dominican sister.”

Both Biermaier and Lioi had educational experiences that introduced them to new people and perspectives. Biermaier’s doctoral studies presented a rich opportunity to study with a number of indigenous students. “We exchanged ideas on education, culture, and ways of improving education in our K-16 settings. Through social events we got to know each other personally.”

For her part, Lioi discovered “the rich breadth of Christian history and tradition, including the church year, classic spiritual disciplines including silence, solitude, fasting, celebration and centering prayer, as well as Catholic social teaching. “One of my profs turned me on to Rerum Novarum, and I eagerly studied the full text for a final paper in that class. That same professor dropped phrases like ‘God’s preferential option for the poor’ into theology classes, piquing my interest and planting seeds in me toward a theology of justice and peace.”

For 20-plus years, Biermaier made frequent trips to The Bahamas to work in the Benedictine education program there. She assisted students completing their degrees with the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University. She lived in Nassau for two years, which she describes as “an immersion into the culture – educationally, spiritually, and socially. I grew in understanding their values, their desires for their country and world, and their love of nature and the earth.”

Biermaier made additional trips to Tanzania and India, exploring semester-long study opportunities for education students. As she explored what it might mean for US students to study in those cultural and educational environments, she also considered how African and Asian students would do as they adjusted to the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. A pilgrimage to Europe allowed Biermaier to trace the paths of Benedict and Scholastica in Rome and Subiaco. “As I walked the steps up the hill from the town of Subiaco to where Benedict lived, I felt deeply his love for the earth, love for prayer, the countryside, and his love for where his sister lived. I came home with a richer understanding of my Benedictine heritage.”

For her part, Lioi lived for ten months with an American family in Tanzania in her mid-twenties. There she developed friendships with Anglican pastors/missionaries from Australia and England, and many varieties of expatriate Christians worshiped together at an intentionally ecumenical local church. When she returned to the United States and enrolled at AMBS, her emerging Mennonite identity became grounded, fleshed out. “Marlene Kropf became an important mentor, and my formation as a worship leader was threaded through with Catholic contemplative spirituality and attentiveness to liturgical seasons. Professors Mary Schertz’s and Alan Kreider’s ways of reading and teaching the Bible and church history and mission profoundly impacted me.”

In summer 2007, Bridgefolk met on the AMBS campus. Lioi participated as a volunteer and found herself “immersed in mutual love and respect, joy, personal storytelling, worship, earnest faith, energizing conversations.” She was pleasantly surprised several years later to be invited to serve on the Bridgefolk board. “What a gift to be part of Bridgefolk’s ongoing growth in love, understanding, compassion, and relational peacemaking as we ‘proceed through friendship.’ I look forward to the Spirit’s winsome guiding as we continue to watch and listen for what is next. May we find—and spread—more healing and transformation as we continue to embrace one another on the bridge.”

Biermaier’s participation in Bridgefolk began when her good friend and fellow Benedictine sister Theresa Schumacher joined the Bridgefolk board. “Becoming part of Bridgefolk gave me another opportunity of ‘lifelong learning.’ I wanted to learn more about the Mennonite-Catholic relationship—the peace-loving, sacramental emphasis given within each church’s perspective. I look forward to continuing this search as I take on this new role with the board.”

Working together to welcome the stranger

By Laura Larson, Lombard Mennonite Church
and Celine Woznica, Ascension-St Edmund Catholic Parish in Oak Park

Making political points with humans as pawns, Governor Abbott of Texas began bussing asylum-seeking migrants from Texas to Chicago in August 2022. By April 2023, the shelters in Chicago were near capacity and by May 2023, migrants were being placed in Chicago police stations, including a station just two blocks from the border of Chicago and the suburb of Oak Park where both of us live.

I (Celine) joined a local volunteer team that quickly responded with blankets, air mattresses, clothes, toiletries, and meals. But what about showers? Where could the migrants refresh themselves after that arduous 3000-mile trip? Having recently learned a new word (NAG-VOCATE), I was able to make arrangements for those we call our “new neighbors” to take showers at the closed rectory of a Catholic parish just three blocks from the station in Oak Park. Volunteers were recruited from the Catholic parishes, towels and personal hygiene supplies were donated, and snacks were made available. Easy-peasy.

^{Laura Larson (l) and Celine Woznica (r) with a migrant volunteer trying on a coat.}

But as the summer progressed into the fall, the number of migrants at the station swelled from a few dozen to almost two hundred. The demands changed as well. Our new neighbors needed more and a wider variety of clothes, shoes, and toiletries. Snacks turned into a full breakfast and, as the weather turned cooler, our friends needed coats and blankets. We needed help.

And the Spirit provided, breaking down the silos that kept too many faith centers isolated in their ministries. Ahh….

About this time, my heart was aching for the migrant men, women, and children struggling to survive in Chicago without adequate housing and resources. The Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest was the first place I (Laura) learned of the relief efforts of the Catholic Parishes of Oak Park. Volunteering to assist with their work seemed like the perfect opportunity to contribute. Soon after I started volunteering, the mission commission of my church, Lombard Mennonite, decided that assisting asylum-seekers was a high priority for our congregation. I suggested partnering with the efforts of the Catholic Parishes in Oak Park as one way to help.

Working with our Catholic brothers and sisters was a natural fit because both our traditions place a strong emphasis on compassionate service and justice. Our congregation decided to make the Migrant Ministry the focus of our annual Advent giving project. With enthusiasm we raised significant funds and collected piles of warm coats, clothing, boots and blankets. Several individuals volunteered. Carmen, a retiree, and Emily, a college student, helped distribute jackets. Bill, a social work student, handed out warm blankets. Rebecca and Gray, a mother-daughter team, used their ability to speak Spanish to help the migrants feel welcome as they selected hats, scarves, and gloves. God inspired an outpouring of generosity.

The Catholic Parishes of Oak Park provide the space for what is now known as the Migrant Ministry at Centro San Edmundo, but the effort is so beautifully interdenominational. We are blessed with volunteers from a wide variety of faith traditions and, of course, those who identify their religious affiliation as “none.” We have served thousands of our asylum-seeking brothers and sisters, and in this service, have found joy and fellowship with the other volunteers.

On a personal note, how wonderful it has been for my husband and me (Celine) to reconnect with Mennonites in ministry! Don and I served as Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Nicaragua in the early 1980s. These were tough times, and most of the lay missioners left for their safety. Not the Mennonites and the Catholics! Don and I stuck it out because we had Gerald and Joetta Schlabach for support.

I (Laura) have been so blessed to volunteer for the Migrant Ministry. I appreciate the spirit of cooperation that the volunteers share. Every week Celine says, “We are learning, we are adapting, we are growing.” The dynamic of love propels the mission.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Celine considers herself to be a “closet Mennonite”! In turn, my seminary thesis advisor was the Catholic feminist theologian Rosemary Ruether. Both of us have deep regard for our respective faith traditions. After all, Christ commanded, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. All of us can be united by this aspiration.

Mennonites and Catholics – we are cut from the same faith-motivated, hope-filled, social justice cloth!

^{Note: Bridgefolk would like to feature other Catholic-Mennonite collaborations that are happening in Canada, the US — and beyond! If you are involved in such a relationship in your local community, please let us know by sending a message to}^{info@bridgefolk.net}^.

22 years in Bridgefolk:
John Klassen OSB reflects

By John Klassen OSB
Catholic co-chair of the board, 2002-2024

As a “grassroots dialogue” between Mennonites and Roman Catholics, Bridgefolk began in a classic Benedictine way. It started small. There were a number of creative energies behind it. In the first place there was an amazing group of 25 people who gathered at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania in August 1999.

Some of these were couples in so-called “mixed marriages,” a Mennonite and a Catholic who had married. A number were persons who sought deepened spirituality or commitment to peacemaking in the other’s tradition. During the weekend, each person shared their story. Because of the striking differences between these two religious traditions, their stories carried grace as well as pain. No theologizing, no hypotheticals, simply speaking in the first person. When we speak of Bridgefolk as a grassroots dialogue, this is what we mean: close to the ground, close to human experience, but shot through with profound theological reflection and a deep love for the breadth and depth of these two traditions.

A second major impulse for Bridgefolk came from the success of the first international dialogue between Mennonites and Roman Catholics. Working across a five-year period (1998-2003), six Mennonite and six Roman Catholic leaders drafted and wrote a report named “Called Together to Be Peacemakers.” These were theologians, church historians, and scripture scholars, who listened deeply and well to each other. What distinguishes this work from almost all other ecumenical efforts within the Catholic environment is that no previous ecumenical work between Mennonites and Catholics had been done at the national level. The report itself is a fine piece of thoughtful work in that it faces significant differences in the interpretation of church history, the stance towards infant baptism, and the authorization of ministers within the respective church. The authors also pointed to further work that needed to be done, for example, a study of the violence against Mennonites throughout their history because of ecclesiology and their refusal to be drafted into an army.

A third crucial ingredient in the founding of Bridgefolk was the presence of a core group of passionate, committed leaders who were willing to invest time and energy to the evolution of this idea. These included Gerald Schlabach, Ivan and Lois Kauffman, Marlene and Stanley Kropf, Weldon Nisly, William Skudlarek, Margaret O’Gara, and myself. How to embody the work of peacemaking and the mutual exchange of gifts between Mennonites and Catholics in a way that grew out of those who came together? The group decided to start by hosting a summer conference at Saint John’s Abbey in 2002. There were many topics and speakers and we focused explicit attention to building relationships, simply building trust. This developed into a series of summer conferences that always included worship, praying and singing from both traditions, sharing the reading of Scripture, and giving space for informational questions.

After three summer conferences at Saint John’s, the leadership group was convinced that the fourth conference needed to be in a Mennonite setting. Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA, stepped forward to host the conference. This move began a pattern of alternating the conference between Catholic and Mennonite locations. This significant move embodied having a conversation between two real partners and giving each other a feel for each other’s unspoken and unarticulated traditions. Later on, the board invited a sister from Saint Benedict’s Monastery in Minnesota and the community has become a Catholic host for the conference (2012). Finally, in 2 0 13 we had our first conference hosted by Canadian Mennonites, at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario.

As a Bridgefolk group we danced around the question of shared Eucharist for many years. At the outset of these comments, let me observe that there is no standard Catholic believer in Eucharist and probably no such Mennonite creature either. Eucharistic faith is deeply personal. However, there are significant differences between Catholics and Mennonites and the ritual by which we celebrate Eucharist. The Roman Catholic rite is well defined and structured; one can go across the Catholic world from country to country, in different languages, and encounter a fundamentally similar liturgical experience. Within Mennonite churches, even though there has been significant attention to liturgical renewal and retrieval within the communion, there is an enormous variation across local churches.

For two years running (2012-2013), we created a “double Eucharist,” with a unified Liturgy of the Word and Eucharistic prayer and institution narrative from each tradition. This liturgy required an enormous effort in its preparation and the gathered assembly also needed to be prepared for what was going to unfold. The first year we did this really well. The second year, not so well, because we had enough new participants who did not have the deep background for this liturgical expression and were left profoundly puzzled by the complexity. Like many good scientific experiments, this one failed, but we learned a lot from it!

As a result, the board charged Professor Mary Schertz and me to create a liturgical frame for foot washing. As is well known, in John’s gospel, chapter 13, where we would expect to find an account of Jesus handing the Eucharist to his disciples, instead he washed their feet. We created a Liturgy of the Word with opening prayers, and a major prayer modeled after a eucharistic prayer which includes an institution rite, an epiclesis, and anamnesis. Finally, we added an agape meal with formal prayers and scripture that echoed eucharistic language from the early centuries. We have found that this foot washing / agape rite has served us well as a body because we have freedom to choose preachers and presiders, men or women, from either tradition.

This experience of taking an existing rite and shaping it for our specific purposes brought us to a fundamental insight for the work of mutual exchange. In formal dialogues, there tends to be little formal prayer and liturgical experience because it is usually those elements that are contested and for which ecumenical agreement does not yet exist. As Bridgefolk, we found it essential to create and shape some existing liturgical experiences to help us celebrate our being together. For example, from the very beginning we sang hymns together, from both of our traditions. When we explored the meaning of the “communion of saints” we discovered that while we have a very different theology of intercession, both of our traditions have an overlap of reverence for martyrs in our respective church. Thus, we created a “litany of martyrs and holy ones,” which integrates men and women martyrs and which we routinely sing together at some stage of our conferences.

I must include some comments about Ivan and Lois Kauffman and their novel experiment in founding the Michael Sattler House at the edge of the property of Saint John’s Abbey. This unique experiment in offering hospitality to those who needed a place for prayer, resting, and gathering their wits was fittingly named after the Benedictine prior (second in command) of Saint Peter’s Abbey in Germany in the 16th century (1490-1527). Sattler left the community (1525) and became a theological leader in the early Anabaptist movement. He and his wife Margaretha were martyred in 1527. My minds reels at the collection of delightful ironies present in the witness of hospitality provided by Ivan and Lois in memory of Michael Sattler. I enjoyed many a rich conversation and refreshment in this place of encounter and nourishment.

While conferences in the first fifteen years or so focused on specific elements in our shared Christian tradition such as baptism, Eucharist, prayer and discipleship, and ordained ministry, especially as these relate to peacemaking, in the past four conferences we have focused our attention on the way we as specific Christian communities have responded to issues of social injustice such as the evil of racism and the thorny issues around land, settlers, and indigenous peoples. This focus is not without tension in relationship to Bridgefolk’s founding mission but as abbot of Saint John’s Abbey until January 7, 2024, I personally benefitted hugely from the presentations and discussions at all these conferences. Those who have been involved with Bridgefolk over the past twenty-two years would probably cite different key moments along the way.

This short essay is not meant to be a history but rather a reflective essay from an outgoing co-chair of the Bridgefolk board. My term as abbot overlapped the founding of this grassroots effort in what has indeed been an ecumenical exchange of gifts.

Save the date!

Bridgefolk Summer Retreat
25-28 July 2024 | Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

Spiritual Practices for Peacemaking: Nurturing Resistance and Resilience
Featuring guest facilitator Sarah Augustine,
Executive Director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery

We will come together as Catholics and Mennonites committed to peacemaking at a time of multiple challenges: climate disaster, protracted war in Ukraine and devastating destruction and death in Gaza, political and religious polarization during an election year in the US, White Christian Nationalism, and the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights and racial justice in the US and Canada.

Using the framework of resistance and resilience from Potawatomi author Kaitlin Curtice, the presenter at the September 2023 AMBS Rooted & Grounded/Bridgefolk Conference in Indiana, we will reflect on scripture and take part in a variety of spiritual practices from each of our traditions and beyond. Sarah Augustine will offer teaching and invitations for resisting settler colonialism and will lead us in ceremony that draws from and honors the wisdom of her Pueblo (Tewa) people. We will share stories and learn from the experiences of one another to strengthen our peace witness. We welcome the participation of families with children.

Further details coming soon.

Benedictine life and care for the environment

In a recent issue of the Journal of Social Encounters, Fr. John Klassen, former abbot of Saint John’s Abbey and former Bridgefolk co-chair, outlined four themes in Benedictine spirituality that contribute to care for the environment. Drawn from the Rule of Saint Benedict — community of goods, stability, frugality and a contemplative stance. To read Fr. Klassen’s article, click here.

Saint John's Abbey Arboretum — Saint John’s Abbey Arboretum in Minnesota.

Mennonite ecumenical leader Larry Miller to address prospects for Christian reconciliation

The World Conference on Faith and Order in 2025 (Alexandria, Egypt) will mark the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea under the theme “Where Now for Visible Unity?” International ecclesial dialogues seeking ecumenical convergence as a step towards visible unity have generally focused on issues of a doctrinal nature, paying little attention to the role of “experience” and, more specifically, “experiences of unity” in and between churches.

Larry Miller, former Secretary of Global Christian Forum and General Secretary of Mennonite World Conference, speaking in Bogotá, Colombia in 2018 — _{Larry Miller, former Secretary of Global Christian Forum and General Secretary of Mennonite World Conference.}

Is this pattern beginning to change, thanks in particular to the globalization and the “pentecostalization” of the churches, as well as initiatives for ecclesial “reconciliation”?

In this Figel Event on Ecumenical Dialogue, Rev. Dr. Larry Miller, first full-time Secretary of the Global Christian Forum, and former General Secretary of the Mennonite World Conference, will receive the Consortium’s Ecumenism Award for 2024. Dr. Miller will address how experience and reconciliation between the churches is reshaping our understanding of Christian unity. He will draw upon responses to the Faith and Order Commission’s text “The Church: Towards a Common Vision,” conversations in the annual meeting of the Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions, encounters in the life of the Global Christian Forum, and the results of the international Lutheran-Mennonite reconciliation process.

The event will take place February 21 in the chapel of Wesley Theological Seminary, 4500 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016. For more information, including how to RSVP or register for possible online streaming click here.

Abbot John Klassen retires;
Sr. Ann Marie Biermaier new Bridgefolk co-chair

Abbot John Klassen OSB has retired from his leadership of Saint John’s Abbey in Minnesota after 23 years of leadership. As Abbot John enters retirement he expects to stay involved with Bridgefolk but is stepping back from his leadership role there as well.

Sister Ann Marie Biermaier OSB — Sister Ann Marie Biermaier

Sr. Ann Marie Biermaier OSB of neighboring St. Benedict’s Monastery has agreed to replace Klassen as Bridgefolk’s Catholic co-chair.

In 2001, only a few months into his service as abbot, Klassen invited Bridgefolk to make the abbey its home. As Bridgefolk organized itself in the following year, he became Bridgefolk’s Catholic co-chair, a role that he enthusiastically continued until now.

Sister Biermaier is director of the Studium program for visiting scholars at St. Benedict’s Monastery and is on the board of the College of St. Benedict. She has participated in Bridgefolk for many years and joined the board in the Spring of 2023.

Klassen retired at midnight on January 7 as he approached his 75th birthday. Having begun a discernment process upon the announcement of his retirement months earlier, the monks of Saint John’s Abbey began meeting on January 8 to select their new abbot. On January 9, they selected Fr. Douglas Mullins to be the 11th abbot of the community. To the surprise of all present, the community required only a single ballot to reach its decision, according to Fr. Eric Hollas.

Board profile: Gilbert Detillieux

Gilbert Detillieux and Laura Funk

Gilbert Detillieux started attending Bridgefolk conferences in 2013, when it was hosted by Conrad Grebel College in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He and his wife, Laura Funk, had been hearing about Bridgefolk almost since they started dating in 2005. He being Roman Catholic and she Mennonite, Bridgefolk drew their attention. Gilbert’s interest in ecumenism predated his meeting Laura, so the ecumenical nature of Bridgefolk appealed to him. What won both of them over, however, was the warm welcome they received at their first conference, and the network of like-minded friends they quickly formed.

Abbot John Klassen invited Gilbert to join the board in 2017, and he has served since then. Attending board meetings and annual conferences has helped deepen and solidify Bridgefolk friendships. It also brought additional responsibilities, small at first, and then a very big one: helping to plan the 2019 conference, which was hosted by Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg—only the second Bridgefolk conference held in Canada.

Gilbert and his wife Laura worked as a team to organize the conference, together with a local planning committee. They invited Sr. Eva Solomon CSJ to be the Roman Catholic keynote speaker, and Steve Heinrichs the Mennonite keynote. Sr. Solomon brought a wealth of knowledge from her Anishinabe (Ojibway) background, and Heinrichs was at the time director of Indigenous-Settler Relations for Mennonite Church Canada. A panel discussion provided additional Roman Catholic, Mennonite, and indigenous perspectives. The conference opened with the staging of the play Discovery: A Comic Lament, which was both entertaining and thought-provoking. The planning group was grateful for the participation of several indigenous attendees, mostly affiliated with St. Kateri Tekakwitha Indigenous Catholic Church in Winnipeg. Despite the hectic and stressful nature of conference planning, Gilbert found it very rewarding and a highlight of his board involvement to date.

Gilbert considers his participation on the board both a pleasure and privilege. He misses those who have transitioned off the board during his tenure but has been happy to learn to know new board members, appreciating the greater diversity of voices and perspectives that new board members have brought.

Rooted and Grounded speakers focus on resistance and resilience in the face of climate doom

October 12, 2023
by Sarah Werner

ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) — Nearly 40 Bridgefolk participants joined with other Christians for the sixth Rooted and Grounded Conference on Land and Christian Discipleship, hosted by the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in late September. The conference focused on the theme, “Pathways through Climate Doom: Resistance and Resilience.”

“The focus on confronting climate doom resonated with many people, especially the young adults who attended,” reflected Janeen Bertsche Johnson, MDiv, AMBS Director of Campus Ministries and Rooted and Grounded Conference Coordinator. “I was grateful for the ways in which speakers, workshops and worship sessions helped us imagine a variety of responses — curiosity, trauma-informed care, scriptural resources, deep attention, art and music, prayer postures, engaged dialogue, historical truth-telling, lament, hope, and so much more.”

A total of 150 participants from the United States and Canada gathered for keynote sessions, workshops, paper presentations and worship, with 30 more attending online. Bridgefolk co-sponsored the conference instead of holding its own annual conference in 2023. Bridgefolk participants led morning and evening worship services for all, then gathered for reflection and a Bridgefolk footwashing / agape service on Saturday afternoon.

The Rooted and Grounded theme offered an opportunity for Bridgefolk to follow through on its recent conference topics. Since 2018, annual Bridgefolk conferences have invited Mennonites and Catholics to look together at their shared calling to address racial injustice and the legacy of land theft from indigenous peoples in order to nurture a just peace.

Resistance

On the evening of Sept. 28, Kaitlin Curtice, a Potawatomi Christian author, poet and speaker, presented a keynote address during the conference’s opening worship session on the need for resistance in the midst of climate doom. She suggested that resistance includes cultivating relationships – with Mother Earth, with one another, and with fellow creatures. Resistance is also the way in which people use their everyday lives to resist the “toxic status quo of our time” and choose an alternative way that is rooted in relationships.

Curtice shared about her upbringing on the Citizen Potawatomi Nation reservation in Oklahoma and how she had to overcome a sense of disembodiment that resulted from her ancestors having been uprooted and having had to start over in new places.

“Colonialism disrupts our connection to the land, our bodies and each other — no matter our background,” she said. Resistance represents a lifelong endeavor to rebuild these connections and heal from the intergenerational trauma of disconnection, she noted, reminding those present, “The land is everywhere. If we listen, the land is speaking.”

During her workshop on the morning of Sept. 29, Curtice expanded on the theme of resistance by sharing from her latest book, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day (Brazos, 2023). She described how four realms of resistance provide a moving, cyclical framework for understanding life — communal, ancestral, personal and integral.

Curtice explained how people are bound up in community with both their ancestors and those who will come after them. The actions of their ancestors have led them to where they are now, and the actions that they take in turn affect the generations that come after them.

People will make mistakes, feel exhausted and move from realm to realm to figure out life, Curtice told her listeners. Things will be hard, and they will grieve. She reminded them that the current plight will not be fixed quickly, for this is lifelong work, but they are not alone in it.

Resilience

Leah Thomas, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care at AMBS, provided a resilience training on Sept. 29 in the afternoon. She defined resilience as “the capacity to face and handle life’s challenges with flexibility and creativity.”

“Resilience means rediscovering and cultivating forms of inner strength that we may not realize already reside within us,” she continued. “It is the capacity to tolerate difficult feelings, which also expands our capacity to experience greater joy. Resiliency helps us grow beyond our current comfort zone to develop a fiercely compassionate and honest engagement with life.”

Drawing from social psychology, Thomas explained how trauma affects people’s emotional and spiritual lives and can be transmitted across generations.

“The climate crisis is a collective trauma — an intergenerational trauma,” she said. “The exploitation of the natural world is interconnected with other types of exploitation/oppression — including colonialism, genocide, enslavement, racism, classism and sexism — all within a society marked by capitalism’s overarching narrative of exploitation.”

“This collective trauma has damaged the ‘social tissue of community’ similar to how the tissues of the mind, body, and spirit can be damaged, and it continues to be passed from generation to generation.”

In the context of climate doom, Thomas said that resilience is the ability to remain grounded and retain a sense of well-being in the face of the collective trauma caused by climate change. During the training, she offered practical exercises for remaining grounded when feeling overwhelmed. She encouraged participants to take a break and wander outside, taking time to notice the sights, smells and sounds around them.

Seeking hope

During the evening worship service on Sept. 29, Jackie Wyse-Rhodes, PhD, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at AMBS, shared her keynote address, “Seeking Hope when the Path is Crooked: The Bible and Climate Change.” She discussed various types of paths in the Bible — straight paths, crooked paths, paths yet unknown, and ancient paths.

Stan Harder (profile, at left), Conrad Liechty of Goshen (Indiana) College, and Ally Welty Peachey of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, converse during one of the sessions at the Rooted and Grounded Conference on Land and Christian Discipleship at AMBS. Liechty and Peachey were among a group of young adults who attended the conference through the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative as “climate ambassadors” from their schools. (Credit: David Fisher Fast)

Straight paths are often extolled in the Bible as good and righteous, she said, making for a journey that is accessible and predictable. Crooked paths are the opposite — untrustworthy and difficult.

While it seems that climate change is leading humanity on a crooked path to destruction, Wyse-Rhodes reminded her listeners that they are not the first to despair or to lose hope. She called them to remember various people from the Bible and how they navigated challenging journeys.

Wyse-Rhodes also looked to Wisdom literature for guidance in forging a path of justice and faithfulness in difficult times.

“The ‘path yet unknown’ is a future path, yes. But it is not linear,” she said. “The past and the future inform one another. The crooked path loops back upon itself, and if we seek diligently, maybe we can find an off-ramp to the past, where we can set up a marker to welcome future generations back home. For the road to our future will ultimately take us back to God’s own ancient pathways.”

Additional conference information

Along with the keynote sessions, 10 workshops and 13 paper presentations provided participants with practical tools for dealing with climate doom as they engage in the work of restoring a fragile and damaged earth.

In addition to Bridgefolk, other co-sponsors were the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative, Mennonite Creation Care Network and Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen (Indiana) College.

Prior Rooted and Grounded conferences were held in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2021.

Located in Elkhart, Indiana, on ancestral land of the Potawatomi and Miami peoples, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary is a learning community with an Anabaptist vision, offering theological education for learners both on campus and at a distance as well as a wide array of lifelong learning programs — all with the goal of educating followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God’s reconciling mission in the world.

This AMBS press release was supplemented with information from Bridgefolk.

Bridgefolk Summer Retreat25-28 July 2024 | Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN

Resistance

Resilience

Seeking hope

Additional conference information

Bridgefolk Summer Retreat
25-28 July 2024 | Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, MN