Steve

Are We Standing in the Right Place?

Steve · September 21, 2018 · 10 Comments

As the Catholic Church faces its future and works to rebuild the faith and trust of its faithful, we all need to ask ourselves a question: Are we standing in the right place?

My next “Faith Perspectives” column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch went online this afternoon and will be in the print edition Saturday morning. You can read my column below or online here: http://bit.ly/wherearewestanding

In the wake of decades of horrific child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and unconscionable cover up by those in higher authority, the Catholic Church is facing a challenge even bigger than the scandal itself. It is faced with the dazed and confused voices of its own faithful asking questions like these: How could this have happened? What can be done to hold accountable those in authority? Why should I believe change is happening and is possible?

It’s Time to Rebuild the Catholic Church

Steve · August 25, 2018 · 13 Comments

Today is my debut as a “Faith Perspectives” columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I wish this wasn’t my first column, that there was no need to write this. But I write from a place of deep faith and sadness, yet hope.

You can read my column below or see the original here: http://bit.ly/RebuildChurchGivens

sf1 — St. Francis of Assisi, New Harmony, Indiana. SJG photo.

I write this not as an expert but as a devoted, active Catholic layperson, a father and a grandfather, a person who loves the Church and has served in a diverse number of volunteer roles for nearly 40 years: I feel like I have been kicked in the gut and betrayed by a close friend and nobody cares enough to make the systematic kicking stop.

Pope Francis recently acknowledged the “shame and repentance” of the Catholic Church’s failure to act on decades of sexual abuse by clerics against our young people. He stated emphatically that the Church “showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” Like many Catholics, I appreciate his words, but they are not enough.

On the Road: Brown County, Indiana and Hoosier Artist T.C. Steele

Steve · August 19, 2018 · 4 Comments

I haven’t written a travel blogpost for a while, so as I lean into retirement and “next steps” in the coming year, I have a yearning for more travel and more opportunities to write about it. Although not always as specifically “spiritual or faith-filled” as many of my posts, I hope you will enjoy our occasional meanderings around America’s Midwest and elsewhere to discover beautiful, historical places and the interesting and creative people who live (or have lived) in them. For it is in this beauty and creativity that I so often find God…

Chair — The world's largest rocking chair, Casey, Illinois.

Last weekend, Sue and I took off for one of our long weekend trips in search of history, art, natural beauty and adventure. After a bit of wandering along I-70 in southern Illinois (including a pit stop to see the world’s largest rocking chair, mailbox, pitchfork, pencil and windchime in Casey, Illinois), and a quick sojourn to Indianapolis to see one of my photos on display in the Inspired By Spring exhibit at the historic Lilly House at Newfields, we made our way to Bloomington and eventually on Sunday to Brown County, Indiana, home to the early 20^th-century “Hoosier Artists” and, most notably, impressionist painter T.C. Steele, the godfather of the movement.

Did we know of Steele and the Hoosier artists as we planned our trip to Brown County? We did not. This is why we love to travel. We head in a given direction, we know where we’re going to stay and have picked out a few places we want to visit, but we allow ourselves to be surprised by what the road and journey gives us. This trip gave us T.C. Steele. [Read more…] about On the Road: Brown County, Indiana and Hoosier Artist T.C. Steele

Hakarat Hatov: Recognizing the Good

Steve · July 28, 2018 · 6 Comments

Jon and Jess Givens in Nicaragua. SJG photo.

“In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.” – Maxine Hong Kingston

“When in doubt, do something.” – Harry Chapin

About a month ago, I had the great pleasure of being present at an event sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council in St. Louis, at which my close university colleague Cheryl received an award for her years of service, wisdom and dedication, not only to the Jewish community but to the entire community. During the ceremony, one of the speakers spoke of “Hakarat Hatov,” a Hebrew term for gratitude. It literally means, I came to learn, “recognizing the good.” And I thought to myself, that’s a pretty good place to begin.

We live in unsettled, dangerous, destructive, confusing times, and it would be easy to allow our only response to be one of resignation, of saying to ourselves and to the rest of the world, “I give up. It’s just too big. It’s just too destructive. I have nothing to offer that will make a difference.”

But such a response is lazy and not a response of faith. A response of faith allows us (perhaps propels us) to roll up our sleeves and, as Maxine Hong Kingston writes above, do something creative. Or, as I learned from listening to my musical and social justice hero Harry Chapin many years ago, “When in doubt, do something.”

Goldfinches and God Arrive

Steve · June 10, 2018 · 12 Comments

IMG_8991 copy copy — A Lesser Goldfinch, photographed a few years ago in Jerome, Arizona. SJG photo.

“Beauty is the harvest of presence.” David Whyte

I have been up early the last few mornings enjoying the cooler early day before the heat and humidity of St. Louis summer kicks in. You have to grab the cool while you can get it these days.

Bird-watching and listening from my screened porch (where I seem like the one in the cage and the birds are free to fly) are especially fruitful in the morning, for the birds know what I know about the cool of the day. About a week ago I put up a new feeder just outside my backdoor for the American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) that I occasionally see in the neighborhood. I hung it where it can be easily viewed from where I sit to read and pray and write, a place where I wait for God to show up just as I now awaited the arrival of my first visitors. Sure enough, yesterday morning I caught sight of my first pair of goldfinches.