VOX
05.09.13
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M A G A Z I N E
THE VOICE OF COLUMBIA
MATTERS OF
FAITH Spiritual journeys lead to enlightenment and transformation
MATTERS OF FAITH
A spiritual transformation can span a moment or a lifetime. People share their stories of forgiveness, acceptance and triumph.
WHAT DO WE BELIEVE IN? PHOTOGRAPHS BY NAVEEN MAHADEVAN
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Jeff Stack has his desk full. He works as a coordinator for Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation. He also visits Rock Bridge High School once a month to promote nonviolence and peace.
PLEA FOR PEACE
T
he pacifist’s walk is a lonely one. He stands at the front of Room 215 in Tate Hall. Ten people occupy the lecture hall built for 65. His drooping eyes scan the group as he sips water from a mason jar mostly stripped of its label. He looks back at his notes and resumes his lecture. One of his topics is the ongoing U.S. drone war, and his primary audience is Young Americans for Liberty, an organization that promotes freedom on college campuses. At the end of the talk, the group breaks into discussion. After about 15 minutes, the speaker steps away from the podium. “Let me grab a chair,” he says. “I feel silly standing up here alone.”
Jeff Stack’s advocacy stems from his belief in nonviolence
A passion for peace
Jeff Stack is the mid-Missouri coordinator for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a national nonprofit that advocates nonviolence. It favors less oppressive foreign policies and opposes the death penalty. Stack is in the minority of Americans on most of the issues he endorses. A 2010 Pew Research Center survey found that just 30 percent of Americans are against the death penalty. Less than one-third of Americans disapprove of the U.S. drone attacks, and the number is dropping, according to a February 2013 Pew study. Also from Pew, 72 percent of Americans were relieved to learn that the U.S. had killed Osama bin Laden, and 60 percent called themselves proud of their government’s
actions. Stack is not one of them. “We should condemn the killing of humans wherever the violence is committed,” he says.
Faith-driven initiative
Stack, a 53-year-old Chicago native, is the oldest of six children. He was raised Catholic and attended weekly service and catechism. Eventually, his beliefs diverged from those of his parents. “I found too much hypocrisy in general in the Catholic Church,” he says. “The treatment of women was particularly troubling to me. Why shouldn’t women be allowed to be priests? Why can’t priests get married if they wish? There were a lot of teachings that seemed too Draconian to me.” 05.09.13 • VOXMAGAZINE.COM 13
In the winter of 1982, Stack discovered the Catholic Worker Movement, an international community that exercises Jesus’ instructions to feed the hungry and care for the homeless. Founded by journalist Dorothy Day and philosopher Peter Maurin in 1933 during the Great Depression, the movement also instructs its followers to be peace activists for Christ. St. Francis House in Columbia is one of more than 200 Catholic Worker communities around the world. The chapter members live and meet at the house in north Columbia. Stack considers himself a Catholic Worker member but not a Catholic. He lived at St. Francis House for five years starting in 1988. Steve Jacobs, who helped found St. Francis House, says Stack’s old room was basically a big closet where the residents stored supplies and donations. The house’s nightly visitors were also unpredictable. Every evening, St. Francis House opens its doors to the homeless. “It was a little like a saloon in the Wild West,” Jacobs says. “You never knew who was going to come through those swinging doors.” Although Stack moved out two decades ago, Jacobs says Stack still has a peripheral presence. “He’s always around in some sense,” Jacobs says. “Sometimes he’ll volunteer to come in and make breakfast for the guys. He really has a heart for the homeless.”
A turning point
Stack moved to Columbia in 1977 to attend the Missouri School of Journalism because he values equality, justice and human rights — things he still advocates for today. On Nov. 14, 1979, a group of students held an anti-Iranian rally near Memorial Union, and Stack, an undergraduate reporter at The Maneater, covered it. He stayed after most protesters and journalists left. Stack was watching the remaining students debate when a woman backed up to the north lawn of Ellis Library with a gun and held it to her face. Some reporters returned to the scene. Stack recalls some of them saying, “If she kills herself, this’ll be a front-page story.” More university and Columbia police arrived, and a counselor talked the distressed woman into giving up her weapon. “It made me begin to wonder about (journalism) altogether,” Stack says. “I realized I had much greater admiration for (the counselor) than I did for the people of the profession I was thinking I wanted to be a part of.”
A practiced patience
On a Friday at Rock Bridge High School, Stack sits with his back straight, and his mouth in its signature half smile. His table, covered in pamphlets and brochures, stands across from the school’s main office. Students sit along the sides of the hall — eating, chatting, laughing. Once a month, Stack sits through the school’s lunch hour and offers a counterperspective to what military recruiters say. Some of the handouts offer information on the military draft. Others explain what it means to be a conscientious objector. Sometimes students slow their walk to glance at the literature. Stack greets them warmly when they come near. “Hi, how are you today?” Students speed up and occasionally offer a, “Fine, thanks,” over their shoulder. As they turn the corner and converge with their peers, Stack says: “You’re welcome to some information. If not, have a great day.” Still, his back remains straight, and his smile holds steady. + HUDSON KYLE 14 VOXMAGAZINE.COM • 05.09.13
A BEAUTIFUL
STORM
Elisabeth Sobczak finds inner peace in her faith
E
lisabeth Sobczak had dated men her whole life. She had even been seeing someone when she first traveled to Mississippi in August 2005 to volunteer with the Red Cross after Hurricane Katrina. On one of her trips, things changed. One night when she had fallen asleep in her truck after a long day in the Red Cross kitchen, a woman knocked on her window to see if she was OK. Her name was Betsy Reeves. She was in charge of the health of all evacuees and workers for the chapter. Sobczak was soon overseeing cooking for the Red Cross workers. Upon finding out that Reeves had food allergies, Sobczak made her special meals. As they worked together over the next few months, they formed a friendship. “We talked on the phone for hours,” Sobczak says. “We kind of both knew something was going on.” At 38, Sobczak realized she had found her soul mate.
A sign from above
Sobczak struggled with the thought of being part of the LGBTQ community because the Catholic faith in which she was raised neither accepts nor supports gay marriage. She also says that she struggled with the idea of another woman finding her physically attractive. After a plane ride from another Hurricane Katrina relief trip in Mississippi, her internal battle reached a turning point. As she passed through the aisle looking for a place to sit, she noticed a middle seat open next to a woman. When she inquired about its vacancy, the woman simply replied, “This seat was meant for you.” Sobczak would find after the trip that this couldn’t have been truer. The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Taylor and kept up a conversation throughout the entire ride. She and Sobczak discussed self-acceptance and equality for all races and orientations. Although this stranger did not know it, she was changing someone’s life with her words. After that day on the plane, Sobczak became more comfortable with her sexuality. “I think God was using her as a vehicle to say: ‘It’s OK. You are who you are. I love you regardless,’” Sobczak says.
Embracing their love
Sobczak decided to relocate to Mississippi permanently in 2006 to fully devote her time to the relief effort. She kept in contact with Reeves. Together, they figured out their feelings. They were married in Mystic, Conn., on August 29, 2009 — the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. However, Sobczak still felt uncomfortable embracing her true identity in public.
“People are ‘tolerant,’” she says. “I don’t like that word. It’s like they’re just putting up with you.” She felt she had to keep her personal life with Reeves to herself. She noticed this especially at her Shelter Insurance job, where her co-workers could easily discuss their husbands and wives. “I can’t begin to describe the energy that gets sucked out of you when you have to live two different lives,” she says. After a death in the family in 2011, the couple realized that putting up the façade was no longer worth it. “After what happened, life and death, sometimes you don’t know one minute from the next if something’s going to happen,” Reeves says. “Hiding wasn’t important anymore. Loving people and letting them know that was important.” Although they continued to take these steps, they still needed to deal with their orientation in accordance with their faith. Reeves was also raised Catholic. “It wasn’t my faith in God that was rocky; it was my faith in the church,” she says. “I never understood why LGBTQ people felt the way they did until I joined the community.”
A church with open doors
Sobczak and Reeves began their search for an accepting church. They relocated to Columbia for work. After visiting a few churches that didn’t feel right, they decided to visit the Missouri United Methodist Church on Ninth Street. They saw pamphlets about the church’s acceptance policy and went to a service. “Right as we walked in, the pastor, Jim Bryan, was saying that this church was open and reconciling to all: black, white, gay, straight,” Sobczak says. “We were blown away.” Sobczak and Reeves decided to get involved with the church and learn more. They began going to Open Door Ministry, a group for LGBTQ community members and allies, which they now lead every third Thursday of the month. Pastor Trista Soendker Nicholson believes that the church’s policy of inclusivity is just in its nature. “We are all fearfully and wonderfully made as God’s children, and I think an open-door policy helps to reaffirm that to a group of people who have felt excluded from that message,” Nicholson says. Although the church is supportive, the religion as a whole is not, according to its Book of Discipline doctrine. At the last United Methodist conference, delegates voted against same-sex marriage. However, Ross Murray, director of News and Faith Initiatives at GLAAD, formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Elisabeth Sobczak and her wife, Betsy Reeves, first met while working on Hurricane Katrina relief in Mississippi. They now live together in Ashland.
Against Defamation, says Americans in most denominations support gay marriage. According to Public Religion Resource Institute, 51 percent of the general public supports marriage equality. “The Roman Catholic hierarchy tends to be out of step with everyday Catholics on matters of LGBTQ equality,” Murray says, citing an example. Sobczak and Reeves were still hesitant at first, but the openness of the others helped them to gain confidence. “We didn’t hold hands in church until a few months ago,” Sobczak says. “A couple across from us was talking about being openly gay, and we were like: ‘Is this real?’ Well, hell. If they can say it, I can say it, too.” Sobczak is thankful for that special day on the plane that led to her own acceptance. “I’m constantly feeling euphoric,” she says. “No more energy gets sucked out of me. I guess Hurricane Katrina was a bigger storm than I knew. But it was a beautiful storm.” + NATALIE MAGGIORE
HOW RELIGIONS OFFICIALLY VIEW Buddhism: The religion has no universal stance on same-sex marriage though some Buddhists interpret homosexuality as “sexual misconduct,” one of the 10 nonvirtuous deeds leading to suffering. Catholicism: In 2009, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a pastoral letter defining marriage as a “bond between one man and one woman.” Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism): Mormon theology specifies that “marriage between a man and woman is ordained of God.” Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: The church defines marriage as a union between a man
GAY MARRIAGE
and a woman, but at a 2009 assembly voted to allow congregations to recognize and bless same-sex unions. Hinduism: Hinduism has no official stance though some cite the Kama Sutra, which seems to condone homosexuality. Islam: Islamic law forbids homosexuality, and the practice is considered a crime in several Islamic countries. Judaism: Both Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish movements support same-sex marriage though the Orthodox Union does not and often lobbies against gay marriage across the U.S. SOURCE: THE PEW FORUM ON RELIGION & PUBLIC LIFE, DEC. 2012
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LySaundra Campbell started going to the Christian Fellowship Church in March 2012. She wants to raise awareness about violence through music. “(Music) has always been a huge part of my life,” LySaundra says.
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DEFINING GRACE
LySaundra Campbell saw God through pain and sorrow
A
s she sits nestled against a suede green chair in her apartment on a late Saturday night, LySaundra Campbell imagines a conversation with her 12-yearold self. Her Bible, with verses and passages highlighted in neon pink and blue, lies open on her lap as her hands rest on the worn pages. “You are going to go through even more stuff in the next 10 years, but keep pushing through, and keep reading that scripture,” says LySaundra, whose index finger brushes the page. “And keep praying.”
Understanding grace
LySaundra remembers that shy, smart 12-year-old. She remembers how much she enjoyed playing the violin at her first orchestra concert. She remembers her daddy’s big smile after she skipped off the stage. Among all the happy memories, LySaundra also catches the sound of her mother’s sobs late at night. Somehow, she knew that her father was the cause. “In the morning (my brother and I) would go into my mom’s room and just give her a hug,” LySaundra says. “It’s all a little kid knows to do.” LySaundra, now a 22-year-old senior at MU, says she spent much of her adolescence building walls against the pain caused by her father, Nathan Campbell, when he abused LySaundra’s mother, Sandra Campbell. “There was a little bit of anger and a little bit of sadness and confusion,” LySaundra says. “I had temper tantrums in middle school because I didn’t know how to talk about it or who to talk to about it.”
The incident
Sandra recounts what drove her daughter away from her father. In 1999, Sandra left Nathan and brought the kids to her hometown of Newport News, Va., because Nathan abused her. After a year, they moved back to Kansas City to be near Nathan, who had worked at the Kansas City Police Department. But Sandra says Nathan never stopped the physical and mental abuse. In April 2002, Sandra left again and took the children to her brother-in-law’s home in Kansas City. A few days later, Sandra was in the basement doing laundry when Nathan arrived and demanded that Sandra go home with him. She could tell from the tone of Nathan’s voice that something was not right. Then Sandra saw that he had a shotgun. “I came to the top of the stairs, and he said, ‘Bitch, you’re gonna die tonight,’” Sandra says. From a bedroom upstairs, LySaundra called the police. Today, she doesn’t regret it, but she used to find it ironic to call the police on her father, who used to be a policeman. “He taught me as a little kid that if something goes wrong, you call the cops,” LySaundra says. Sandra says the 12 hours she spent being held hostage by her husband felt like days. “I had a feeling I was going to die, like he told me,” she says. At 3 the next morning, Nathan surrendered to police and was arrested.
Moving on
LySaundra remembers feeling scared at first, then angry. “Initially, I had the deepest hate for him you could have for somebody,” she says. “I didn’t want anything to do with him.” On her 12th birthday, in September 2002, LySaundra received a card from her father in jail. It read, “I love you no matter what you feel about me right now.” Three months later, LySaundra’s aunt picked her up after a sleepover and told her that her father had killed himself in jail the day before. During the following days, she got mixed messages from her relatives. LySaundra says, “I didn’t feel guilt, but people kept saying, ‘This isn’t your fault.’ It made me think, ‘Wait, is it my fault?’” Years later, when she was a freshman at MU, LySaundra began to learn to forgive her father after getting involved with the Impact Movement, an international Christian ministry that has a chapter on campus. LySaundra says she began to understand that the anger for her father had kept her from exploring her relationship with God. “I couldn’t see God as a father figure because my relationship with my father was so strained,” she says. “Once I did start forgiving my father for everything, that intimacy with God got better.” Now, LySaundra works as a volunteer at True North, an organization that provides shelter and education for victims of domestic and sexual abuse, and is a peer educator at MU Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center. Elyse Cagle, LySaundra’s mentor and friend from Impact, credits LySaundra’s growth to her work as an advocate for other victims of abuse. “I think she has grown into who she is,” Cagle says. “She now knows a little bit more of who she is as a daughter of God, as a child of God.” When people ask her what it means to work with victims of abuse, LySaundra often refers to a conversation with an 8-yearold girl at True North.
Growing stronger
The girl told her she thought it was OK for boys to tease her because her daddy hurt her mommy. “I told her that if a guy is always being mean to you, then that’s not right,” LySaundra says. “‘He should be treating you like a queen.’ She got really excited and said: ‘Really? Like a queen?’” Sandra says her daughter proves it is possible to move on from the past. “It’s very good that she can reach out and talk to others. They can see that she’s been there before, and it’s going to be OK.” For LySaundra, her work as an advocate against abuse comes back to her Christian faith. Everything she has achieved since she was that timid 12-year-old can be attributed to her faith and one of her favorite pieces of scripture, James 1:2-3: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testament of your faith creates perseverance.” “God is using all of these situations to help my testimony and grow my faith in him,” she says. “He shows me that no matter what I go through, it’s going to make me stronger.” + HILARY WEAVER
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Ken McRae, a Kripalu yoga teacher at alleyCat Yoga, demonstrates a meditation technique. He studied as a monk for five years at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass.
LIVING LA VIDA
YOGA
Ken McRae found spirituality through yoga
K
en McRae’s voice spreads until it fills the room. It’s level, soothing. Yogic. “Notice how the body is taking the breath in, how the body is releasing the breath back into the room,” 18 VOXMAGAZINE.COM • 05.09.13
he says. “That is, of course, the first anchor, drawing the attention present into this moment.” Seated on a plush plum-colored cushion on his living room floor, McRae faces a wooden altar adorned with tea candles
and incense and topped with the Hindu god Ganesha. His legs are crossed, and his eyes are closed. The lids are smooth and untroubled. The moment engulfs him. In another moment, years earlier, McRae was a teenager browsing a bookshop in Canada when a red cover caught his eye: Why Buddhism Works. He picked up the book and flipped through it, sparking a lifelong interest in Eastern religions. Years later, as a successful businessman in Toronto, the memory of the book would stir in McRae’s mind. Although he was materially successful — a wealthy computer consultant with a half-million-dollar house and opera tickets — he knew something was missing.
A practicing yogi
McRae discovered yoga and was drawn to the feelings of contentment and wholeness
that accompanied the practice. He took his first class shortly before Christmas of 1988 with a free pass that he’d kept in his sock drawer for three years. “My way of experiencing my life started to change, almost as if my eyes were opened,” he says. “Almost like Dorothy going from a blackand-white world to a colored world.” He enrolled in a 750-hour yoga teacher training program in Toronto and eventually quit his job, sold his house, opera tickets and dog and moved with his wife at the time, Kathleen Knipp, to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Mass. He trained as a monk for five years before embarking on a spiritual tour through India, Bali and Italy. When he first came to the Kripalu Center, McRae was a different person, says Gary Halperin, who studied alongside him there. “He was kind of serious (and) introspective, a little bit closed off,” he says.
McRae blossomed with yoga training and became more outgoing and comfortable in his environment, Halperin says. Now McRae is a practicing yogi. He runs Global Yoga Journeys, a company that arranges international yoga and meditation retreats. He also teaches Kripalu yoga at Columbia’s alleyCat Yoga, which he founded in 2006 and moved to its current location in October 2011. Today’s alleyCat studio, swathed in purples and deep-greens, is highceilinged and airy with front-facing windows that let in two large rectangles of natural light. Here McRae can relax, breathe deeply and take life as it comes. “This feeling deep inside that I get is so much more than any material or accomplishment could ever provide for me,” McRae says. “And once you’ve tasted that, why would you not want more of that?
For the mind, body and soul
McRae is one among a number of Americans who view yoga as spiritual. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, one-fifth of the U.S. public is religiously unaffiliated. Of those, roughly three in 10 say they believe in yoga as a spiritual practice. According to the National Health Interview Survey, more than 13 million Americans practiced yoga in 2006. Yogic teachings are being implemented in public schools and even incorporated into Christian and Jewish worship services. “It’s just a very different approach to body, in my opinion, to soul, to mind,” says William Claassen, a student at alleyCat. “It’s all about connecting those things together, as opposed to isolating them.” Emilie Sabath, another of McRae’s students, uses yoga to enhance her filmmaking. Practicing yoga makes her
more grounded and receptive to the world, and McRae, who provides a safe and inviting space for his students, is a key part of that, she says. Yoga appeals to McRae because it allows him to be himself without fear or restriction. “I would not want to be the person I was 20 years ago,” he says. “I’m much more peaceful, calm, centered,
STRESS LESS
The practice of yoga includes many elements: poses, meditation, breathing and lifestyle choices. Studies show these practices have powerful effects on the way the mind and body work. Yoga is becoming increasingly popular in the health care field to treat stress and physical conditions, such as lower back pain, and can even affect brain structure. Sara Lazar, instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has done numerous studies that chronicle the biology behind meditation. She became interested in the subject after attending yoga classes, which had an impact on her — in a good way. Lazar used a brain scanner to produce images of subjects’ brain activity while they meditated. Her results show the science behind yoga’s popularity. “The amygdala (a part of the brain that is key to processing emotions) becomes less reactive after a length of time meditating, and it also becomes smaller,” she says. “The change in the amygdala correlated with changes in
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appreciating life just the way it is.” McRae shares his spiritual message with students but doesn’t go out of his way to invite new students to class. They come on their own, spurred by friends, family or even a Google search. His students follow their own path to yoga, just as he did. + CLAIRE LANDSBAUM
stress. There’s a real biological reason why they’re feeling less stress.” She also found that the hippocampus, a brain structure integral for learning and memory, was larger in those who meditated, which suggests an increase in attention span. A subject’s capacity for empathy and compassion also increased after meditation. Erika Patterson, a psychologist who fills in teaching classes at alleyCat and takes classes there herself, has seen these changes occur. She incorporates techniques of Asana and Mahayana yoga and meditation in her work with patients. “I’ve witnessed as a professional in people’s healing process that it can be highly effective,” she says. Close your eyes. Concentrate on your breath, noticing as it enters and leaves your body. Empty your mind. Concentrate on the present moment. You’ve just changed the shape of your brain.
See all profiles and videos at VoxMagazine.com/MattersofFaith
REINVENTION OF LIFE
JOURNEY TO ACTION
LEAP FROM FAITH
Mary Hartigan’s father played an important role in her decision to convert to Judaism. Since the switch, Hartigan has entered a new chapter of her life.
Allie Gassmann, a Unitarian Universalist, weaves together her spirituality and her sustainable lifestyle and advocates for awareness and activism.
MU student Theo Tushaus is a double minority. The gay atheist came out during his freshman year and now advocates for both groups on campus.
SEARCHING FOR MORE?
For an in-depth look at the national rise in religiously unaffiliated people, check out “None of the Above” by Project 573 at project573onreligion.com. 05.09.13 • VOXMAGAZINE.COM 19