By Ann Fontaine
As a child I loved comic books. Our grandmother gave us money every week to use however we wanted. We would usually buy comic books. My favorites were Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman and Classic Comics. I spent hours saying SHAZAM – hoping to be transformed into a super hero and my brother and I would jump off the garage roof with capes tied around our necks trying to learn to fly. It is wonder I survived childhood.
It was Classic Comics that fired my imagination about what a “real” person could do to make the world a better place. One comic was about Jane Addams, founder of Hull House. The story as I recall told o her compassion for immigrants in Chicago. How she and Ellen Gates Starr founded a settlement house to respond to the needs of migrants and immigrants who came seeking a better life in the city. According to the Jane Addams-Hull House web site:
“Social settlements began in the 1880s in London in response to problems created by urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. The idea spread to other industrialized countries. Settlement houses typically attracted educated, native born, middle-class and upper-middle class women and men, known as “residents,” to live (settle) in poor urban neighborhoods. Some social settlements were linked to religious institutions. Others, like Hull-House, were secular. By 1900, the U.S. had over 100 settlement houses. By 1911, Chicago had 35.In the 1890s, Hull-House was located in the midst of a densely populated urban neighborhood peopled by Italian, Irish, German, Greek, Bohemian, and Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. During the 1920s, African Americans and Mexicans began to put down roots in the neighborhood and joined the clubs and activities at Hull-House. Jane Addams and the Hull-House residents provided kindergarten and day care facilities for the children of working mothers; an employment bureau; an art gallery; libraries; English and citizenship classes; and theater, music and art classes. As the complex expanded to include thirteen buildings, Hull-House supported more clubs and activities such as a Labor Museum, the Jane Club for single working girls, meeting places for trade union groups, and a wide array of cultural events.”
The story of this work was inspiring to me.
In the meantime, as a teen, my “clergyman” asked me if I wanted to go to church camp. I had loved attending Camp Fire Camp as a child so I thought it would be fun and the church paid my way. I discovered there that the church was more than half an hour of Sunday School followed by a long service from the BCP. But after high school, like many I drifted away. I was not really anti-church – I just did not see any point to it. I thought it was fine if you liked it but for me it held no attraction.
One day – I read that the Episcopal Church had done the most amazing thing. In 1969, Presiding Bishop John Hines challenged the church. According to the Archives of the Episcopal Church:
Following an eye-opening tour of Harlem with African American activists, Presiding Bishop John Hines pushed through the regularly convened General Convention of 1967 a “Special Program” (GCSP). The program was intended to respond to the poverty and injustice of the American ghetto. Executive Council re-directed the Church’s funds to community organizations and grassroots efforts aimed at the urban underclass throughout the United States.
I was stunned – the church of my birth and the dreams of my childhood of what to do with my life were merging. I returned to church and became active in all areas of church life. I had found a community of support to go out into the world. We founded the Food Bank in Lander in the midst of an economic downturn caused by US Steel suddenly ending 600 jobs that employed people in our town of 9,500. The widening circles of unemployment spread as those jobs disappeared and took the average of 5 jobs for every mineworker job, eventually taking the population down to 6000.
Recently, I was asked by The Living Church to review The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori’s new book Gospel in the Global Village: Seeking God’s Dream of Shalom. It is a book of some of her sermons and talks since she has been Presiding Bishop. As I read the book I was reminded of the connection between my dream of making a difference in the world and my faith.
As I write this I am attending General Convention for the 8th and last time as a Deputy. My heart leaps up with yes to the Convention’s response to the challenges and cries of our world. Though our income projections may be down – we do not need to live into those projections. I pray that the church will also respond with the abundance that is within our power to show forth.