Theo's Christmas 2023 life update

 

I’ve sat down to write a little Christmas/New Years life update a few times and each try ends up being really long! I guess I’ve just had a lot to be thankful for this year. If you’re someone who really loves me, you can check out the longer version of this update here (it’s like 4 pages or so).

    The biggest news is that me and my friends Chrissy and Lindsey are starting a Catholic Worker in St. Louis. We’ve been dreaming this dream since the end of 2022 and in May decided to start telling folks about it. Since then we’ve been hosting potlucks, round tables, and prayer and doing a bunch of protesting together. We’ve also been traveling and connecting with our broader Catholic Worker MidWest CW community. The year’s adventures included :
-February’s Strangers and Guests CW Farm craft retreat
-March’s MidWest CW Faith and Resistance Retreat
-September’s Sugar Creek Catholic Worker gathering in Iowa
-November’s Block Cop City mass nonviolent direct action in Atlanta

 

StL CWs with our friend Brian at Truax Field for the Midwest CW Faith and Resistance Retreat

This Christmas we’ve started actively fundraising for the first time. We’re trying to get money together for a good sized down payment on a house of hospitality. Gifts have begun trickling in from near and far. If you’re in a place of abundance, we could really use a hand. You can check out our GoFundMe or find our appeal letter and other ways to give here.

    The other big news of the year was that I spent 3 months in Europe this summer! It was really awesome meeting all the CWs there and really traveling outside the US for the first time. Besides the amazing work going in at the Catholic Worker houses themselves, some of the highlights were :
-joining in on the European CW gathering (much like our Sugar Creek!) 

-blocking a highway with extinction rebellion in the Netherlands
-23 hours of sunlight in northern Sweden
- seeing a concentration camp in Germany
- tasty beer in Belgium
-visiting the communard wall in Paris
-seeing a baguette vending machine in Calais
-giant pelicans and the War Resisters International conference in London

Europe Catholic Workers

There was obviously so much more! My trip concluded with some anti-nuclear weapons protesting in the Netherlands and Germany. After getting arrested praying on a runway and then again for trying to dig under the air base’s fence, I was banned from Europe for a year! They gave me a big red stamp in my passport and everything.

"Entry ban"

Upon returning to St. Louis (vis a stop by the NYC CW) I threw my name in for another project. Community Peacemaker Teams and the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery came together to begin an on the ground accompaniment project at Oak Flat in Arizona. Leaders at the group Apache Stronghold have been prayerfully occupying sacred land there to prevent it from being turned into a copper mine. They’ve faced threats of violence because of their witness and land defense and we on the team serve as kind of nonviolent body guards as well as a continual presence on the land itself. I spent a couple weeks out there in November and will do so again in 2024.

at Oak Flat

Both my Europe travels and my participation in the Oak Flat project were made possible by generous support from all kinds of people. I was really feeling loved as folks from all different places in my life helped make that work possible; high school teachers, former CW community members, old flames, a childhood babysitter, folks I’d never met before but appreciate my documenting the movement, even some European CWs themselves. Thanks to everyone who chipped in on these various projects!

And maybe this letter is getting long again! Other highlights from the year were:
-Spending holy week walking through the desert for peace with the Nevada Desert Experience
-blocking a Boeing factory in St. Charles, MO that sends bombs to the IDF with a coalition of young anti-war activists
-Visiting the LA, Vegas, Tucson, and Bloomington Indiana CWs
-Making it to the Pacific Life Community anti-nuke retreat (with a central Cali beach trip after!)
-continuing the Coffee with Catholic Workers podcast and my Geez magazine column
-meeting the folks at Tent Mission in St. Louis and joining their regular distribution of supplies to folks living on the street

Bloomington, IN Catholic Worker wall

I’m finally really facing a stretch of time where I’ll be grounded in St. Louis for a while. I’m currently looking for a low pressure half time job to work for a little bit of grocery money in between StL Catholic Worker stuff. We did a mass mailing of our new STL CW newsletter (read In The Shell of The Old vol. 2 here) and have already been hearing from folks wanting to be our friends or support us.

Hopefully by this time next year I’ll be writing this little update from our new STL Catholic Worker house of hospitality!

me weaving at the Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker Farm craft retreat

All of Theo’s stuff:

St. Louis Catholic Worker
STL CW Beg Letter     I    STL CW Newsletter
STL CW GoFundMe
Catholic Worker Travel Blog   I   Photos
Coffee with Catholic Workers podcast on Spotify
Oak Flat learning resources