Theo's longer 2023 life update

find the shorter 1 page version here

There’s a thread that runs throughout the entire tapestry of 2023, the fact that I am starting a St. Louis Catholic Worker. I started dreaming this dream with my friends and experienced CWs Chrissy and Lindsey at the end of 2022. When we started visioning they knew I’d already been making plans to continue my traveling to Catholic Worker communities around the US and eventually Europe until the fall. We’d continue meeting virtually as I went here, there and everywhere.

As it sits at the end of ‘23 the biggest news is that we’re trying to raise money to buy a place to open a House of Hospitality in St. Louis (you can read our appeal here or find our GoFundMe here) but the two of them are also recurring characters throughout much of the fun of ‘23. 

The start of my year involved a minor medical problem. It hasn’t been fixed yet because of a slew of mis-steps that involved medi-caid, my doctors office, and the fact that I was out of the country all summer. January was a frustrating time for me. Having to return to St. Louis to check in with my doctor and a specialist at recurring intervals made my winter and spring travel plans a bit more choppy than normal. 

Around this time there were also a number of folks close to me in my life who were having their own difficulties. I had already started thinking that while 2023 definitely promised lots of good things, perhaps it would not be a good year.

But the difficult stuff of the early months was continually punctuated by fun. In January, the StL Catholic Worker crew went up to middle of no-where Maloy, Iowa for our friends’ Brian and Betsy’ CW Craft retreat. We made cheese and I weaved a rag-rug (Betsy is literally an expert weaver) and it snowed 9 inches the first night we were there.

February saw me in Bloomington, IN where I got to see the bust of Star Fleet Captain Catherine Janeway and a top 5 matchup IU women’s basketball game against Iowa. I enjoyed praying every morning in a beautiful wood chapel with the CWs and tapped maple trees for the first time.

Soon after I was in LA (a bit warmer than IN). It's always great to see the folks there in Los Angeles and help out at the Hippie Kitchen. They were working very hard, including doing hospice for Rudy who had lived there for many years including during my tenure.

I happened to be out west for the time of the Pacific Life Community anti-nuclear weapons gathering. It was good to show up outside Vandenberg AFB for the first time in a while. My buddy Sam was also there from Oregon so we made plans to go visit the Guadalupe Catholic Worker on the central coast of CA for some beautiful beach time.

I always get sad when I’m leaving my friends at the LACW. I never know when I’ll be back to see them again. It turns out this time our seperation only be for a few weeks! The LACW needed a song leader for their annual Seder of Liberation passover celebration and an anonymous donor paid for me to come back out and perform! It’s always a fun event.

I was able to parlay that funding into going to Nevada for the annual Sacred Peace Walk through the desert. It was beautiful to trek to the Nevada Test Site (Western Shoshone treaty land and the most bombed place on earth) past Creech AFB (the OG drone warfare base) and the Joshua Trees and beautiful landscapes.

The StL CWs also made it up to Madison, WI for the annual MidWest Catholic Worker Faith and Resistance Retreat. This year focused on F 35s being stationed at the civilian airport in town and their resulting environmental, noise, and nuclear armaments implications. We also had “wild church” out in the 11 inches of snow it dropped on our first night there with some of our favorite CW friends. The last day there saw us blockading both the entrance to the Air National Guard field and the governor's office. I was interviewed on the Pacifica network and my photo of Lindsey and Chrissy in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda found its way into a number of publications.

All this while I was getting ready for my big summer of adventuring to the Catholic Workers of Europe. Folks were very generous in helping me continue my CW travels there. I thought I would have to hustle even more than I did, but folks seemed to appreciate my CW podcast (Coffee with Catholic Workers) and other documenting (catholicworkertheo.blogspot.com). I did do a couple “virtual Catholic Worker tours” on zoom that you can still find on YouTube.

Folks from all times and places in my life contributed, highschool teachers, people I’d lived in community with, a childhood babysitter, old flames, other Catholic Workers, complete strangers who enjoyed my CW photos. It honestly made me feel really loved and appreciated.

But before heading across the Atlantic, the St. Louis CW folks decided to have a little debutante party at the end of April, just before the Catholic Worker movement’s 90th birthday. Dozens of folks showed up to be our friends and support our project of returning a CW to St. Louis. Such an extensive extended support community is not a bad place to be starting from. Chrissy and Lindsey would continue hosting potlucks throughout the summer while I was away.

A few days later I was off to New York City, where I spent about 10 days with my NYC CW friends and helping on the St. Joe’s CW soup line (which had returned indoors since my previous visit when it was still under covid precautions).
This is when I go to Europe and all the adventures I had there are beyond the scope of this already too long note. I should probably sit down and write a lengthier description of my time for friends who might like to read it, but for now will try to keep these comments brief.
Amsterdam was the first stop on my journey. I would de-jetlag here before the May European CW gathering and return there for a week and half after. One fun adventure was joining Extinction Rebellion in blocking a major road in The Hague. The police brought out water cannons but the protestors just turned it into a big beach party!
The European gathering was much like our regular midwest CW Sugar Creek gathering. Round table discussions, tents and campfires, and even a talent show they refer to as the “Cabaret.”
Next I was off northern Sweden with train stops and a few hours of exploration in Copenhagen and Stockholm. While in Lulea, NATO was doing Arctic fighter jet training at the time and the CW was trying to provide a peace counter narrative to what keeps us safe. I was there in June so the sun pretty much didn’t set at all but also there was still unmelted snow around.
Hamburg Germany was next. On the way down from Denmark, my bus boarded a ferry for my first ever in my life ferry ride! The Hamburg CW like pretty much (almost) all the rest of the Europe CWs does hospitality for folks in various immigration/migration situations. The food was really good with cooks from all over the world. “Table football (soccer)”l was a popular and serious competition in the house. I painted a number of bedrooms with another CW and sang songs at the garden party.
In the middle of my Hamburg time I went for a long weekend to London for the War Resisters International conference. The US War Resisters League was kind enough to cover my expenses. I stayed at the London CW though I didn’t get to know them very well and would return for a proper visit later. It was amazing seeing people from all over the world who were working for peace.
I stopped off in Belgium for a few days to visit LA CW volunteer friend Bobby. I made day trips to a few places including Antwerp and Brussels and had a couple really tasty beers.
Paris was next, where I would spend about 6 days sleeping in a hostel dorm, visiting Le Dorothy cafe for the handful of hours a day they were open, and walking extensively around Paris every other minute of my time there. I survived on cheap baguettes and non-perishable Aldi groceries. I’m glad I had the experience of staying in a real Hostel. It wasn’t the most comfortable and at 33 I was easily the oldest person in the room.

The Calais, France CW was an interesting community to see. They let folks stay there who’d otherwise be homeless as they prepare to make the treacherous journey across the English channel in tiny dinghys. The house was alway crowded and energetic. 

I took a ferry across that same English channel and visited friends in the touristy town of Brighton for a few days before heading up to London for my scheduled visit to the London CW. I thought their space was really fun. It includes a full sized church area and a wide open rectory that serves as their common room. I made sure to order the warm non bubbly british beer the couple times friends brought me to the pub. 

My trip wrapped up hanging out with the Amsterdam CWs again, this time to protest nukes. Catholic Workers from Hamburg and the US also joined a number of other peace folks from the Netherlands. After being arrested twice (and also twice getting french fries from the jail’s nearby burger king) I was banned from Europe with a couple other US CWs and given 28 days to leave the common European travel region. I was already planning to but first we would go protest US nukes stationed in Germany! So many wonderful things, shooting stars, cute sheep, a river boat cruise, german sausages, prayer walks. 

Heading back to the US, I stopped again in New York to see my CW friends there before returning to theoretically settling down in St. Louis. It seemed like there was always something taking me away from home when I was back though. 

United again the St. Louis Catholic Workers, we traveled to Iowa for the annual Sugar Creek CW gathering. We cooked curried lentils for dinner for all our gathered friends and had a good time as always hanging out.

A friend brought a new project involving Community Peacemaker Teams and the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery to my attention. Native land defenders with the group Apache Stronghold at Oak Flat in Arizona were defending their sacred place from being turned into a giant pit from copper mining and were facing threats of violence. CPT and the Coalition were seeking folks to join an accompaniment project that would maintain a presence at Oak Flat and act as nonviolent body guards for leadership as needed.

I spent a week in Tucson training for this project and visiting the Catholic Worker community there before catching Covid and spending almost another week quarantined in a hotel! It wasn’t the most fun.

October had lots of marching calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and for other stuff too. My cousin Kay died very tragically and unexpectedly around this time. Me and my family from St. Louis all traveled down to New Orleans for the services. 

 In the beginning of November, the St. Louis CWs joined other groups in blocking a Boeing plant in St. Charles that literally makes bombs that have destroyed Palestinian hospitals. We got lots of media and had tons of fun.

A couple days later we were off with friends from Des Moines Catholic Worker and with the funding and support of CPT to Atlanta to support the mass action to Block Cop City. It was amazing meeting so many other folks dedicated to a vision of the future that includes more forests and less militarized police.

 The very next day after the Atlanta adventure I was off to Oak Flat for the remainder of November. It was beautiful to be on the land and praying there. I mostly stayed in a tent for a couple weeks, but the members of Apache Stronghold we were supporting were invited to speak at Northern Arizona University. It was a go, go, go couple of days and Flagstaff was 20 degrees colder than where we were near Phoenix but it was a beautiful place and I got to learn a lot at all the different events.

Upon getting back to StL at the start of December, us Catholic Workers put together our second newsletter where we would for the first time ask for financial support. We decided to send it out to people on the Los Angeles, New York, and former St. Louis CWs’ mailing lists to try and make friends in our area. It was a bit expensive and it took a long time folding and addressing almost 1,300 letters but we’ve already started making friends from the effort!

You can check out our rag In The Shell of The Old vol. 2 here

Our hope is that in the next couple months we’ll be able to put enough money together for a decent down payment on a house. We plan to offer hospitality that would see otherwise unhoused folks living with us in addition to doing other works of mercy projects out of the space. If you’re able to help us you can check out our GoFundMe or send gifts to me (@TheoKayser on Venmo and PayPal). 

 Besides getting the StL CW off the ground 2024 looks to include me leading a non-violence training at this year MidWest CW Resistance retreat, visiting the LACW for a wedding, and at least a couple more weeks at Oak Flat. Now that its actually looking like I’ll be on the ground in St. Louis for a spell, I’m also looking for a low pressure half time job I can work for grocery money around my time spent on working with the StL CW.

 Hopefully this time next year I’ll be reflecting on my 2024 in a St. Louis Catholic Worker House of Hospitality!
    
    Merry Christmas. Happy New Year,

    Theo


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