The vision of God is arrived at through justice.
-St. Thomas Aquinas
WELCOME!
The People’s Priest, is newsletter where subscribers can interact with me by seeing where I am traveling to, read reflections on things that happen to me along my journey, get sneak peeks on projects that are in the works, as well as, provide valuable feedback to me on how this ministry is impacting your life.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS!
I will be a “guest host” on the podcast, Sacramental Whine, with my friend and colleague, the Most Rev. Dr. David Oliver Kling - Presiding Bishop of the Community of St. George. We will be discussing post-modern discipleship, Sts. Mary Magdalene and Thomas Aquinas, and I will be sharing my recent experiences at the 2020 Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, CA.
Stay tuned for more on this! If you would like to hear my first interview on this podcast click here.
Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox has released his latest book entitled, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times and I had the distinct honor to write the Afterward for it, as well as, give an endorsement.
GRAB YOUR COPY TODAY!
The audiobook of Matt narrating, will come out later this month.
With that out of the way….let’s talk about me! lol.
So, who am I, what is the motivation behind this ministry, and what does this ministry look like when the rubber hits the road? …these are the questions I will answer here…
WHO AM I
Below is my official bio. I will use this as a launchpad and delve deeper into different parts of it:
Rev. Jerry Maynard O.M.M. is known as, “The People’s Priest”, and has a ministry of Protest, Praise, & Community Organizing in Houston, TX. Jerry works on foreign & domestic issues, teaches the spirituality of nonviolence, and serves as Founding Pastor of The People’s Church. Jerry is an Independent Catholic Priest with the Order of Mary Magdalene. For more information: RevJerryMaynard.org
What does all this mean? Simple!
I am….
a Priest (which means I lead prayer, ritual, ceremony, and sacrament)
a Community Organizer (which means you will most often find me on conference calls, answering emails in coffee shops, and attending a myriad of events)
an Activist (which means my happy place is in the streets bending the arc towards justice)
a Public Figure (which means my work is in the open forum where everyone can see)
a Spiritual Influencer (which means I provide support on issues pertaining to the internal life of humanity)
I would categorize all of this under the umbrella, “Serve and Lead”.
WHAT IS MY MOTIVATION
I like this “umbrella” of serve and lead because it emphasizes the way my work/life manifests. Serve, because we live in a society where everyone is out for themselves trying to be the next big thing and trampling over each other just to get on the newsfeeds of various social platforms. But when you set your goal to be service, by placing yourself in the gap between the haves and the have nots, you discover a deeper truth more vivacious way of being; you discover what Gandhi meant when he said:
Find yourself by losing yourself in service to others.
Service is about being able to be vulnerable enough to allow for the brokenness of others to break open your heart. Jesuit Priest and Homeboy Industries founder, Fr. Greg Boyle said it best when he stated:
Service is the hallway that leads to the ballroom called kinship.
My life has been great so far and my work has certainly disposed me to have some deeply profound experiences that I would never have had if I was pre-occupied by trying to meet the arbitrary standards of capitalistic success. Service teaches you that the greatest success is being able to say “thank you” for the daily bread of enough, that the Creator provides. The great mystic and theologian, Meister Eckhart, says:
If the only prayer you pray in life is “thank you”, that prayer is enough.
However, serving is not enough. I have already alluded to the fact that our society teaches the opposite of service, thus the second part….lead!
Leadership is essential in order to embody what our future must be. If service addresses the present moment, then leadership, creates the future. So, for me that means that I have to be out in the open, in the public forum, showing others what it truly means to be human in an inhumane world. How does that look typically? Well, it varies greatly depending on the day, time, and what I have my hands in, but generally it comes down to the three components that were mentioned earlier in the official bio: Protest, Praise, and Community Organizing.
HOW THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD
Protest is the sacred art of disruption, defiance, and uprising. Now why would protest be important? Well, as the quote at the opening of this newsletter states, the vision of God is arrived at through justice and in this country justicemaking is often done through the sacred art of protest. Ben Franklin said it best when he declared:
The highest form of patriotism is dissent.
Protest is necessary today because we need to take a stand against all that goes against the dream that God has for the cosmos, what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called -The Beloved Community.
For me, this takes on the form of participating in various forms of public demonstration (some I have organized) on a variety of issues that range from foreign policy based to domestic policy based. All done with the influence of a spirituality of nonviolence. If you would like to listen to a podcast interview where I explain what a spirituality of nonviolence is, click here.
Also, for an essay I wrote on non-cooperation and why we need it today, click here.
In our day, where violence is ramped, families are being torn apart, and Mother Earth continues to crumble, the greatest act of worship you can engage in is to get into the streets and shout NO!
From the rising to the setting of the sun, may the name of the Lord be praise.
Psalm 113: 3
Praise is the sacred art of proclaiming love, truth, and joy. Entering into the mystery of creativity. Praise is absolutely vital in this work because it is the second hand in the “two hands of nonviolence” that Barbara Demy taught. Namely, one hand you have NO but praise is the other hand and it is YES. Praise keeps everything real and grounded. When you praise, you are speaking into the universe a beautiful song of affirmation. When you praise, you are allowing yourself to be re-grounded in gratitude.
This portion of my work is spread throughout. Everyone who knows me, knows I enjoy music and sing all day long. In fact, a sign that I am not well is usually when I do not feel like singing. However, this portion of my work specifically manifest in music ministry for various churches throughout the city of Houston and sometimes for retreats outside of Texas.
Community Organizing is the sacred art of building capacity for creating the world we need for healthy, whole, and liberated living, where solidarity is the standard and tenderness is the methodology.
For me, out of all the things I do throughout my day, this is my heart. Community organizing is where I get to show up, engage with big-hearted people, bring my creativity and insights, but also this is where I most get to be a pastor - a shepherd for people who want support while we build the world we need, together. This is the work that gives birth to belovedness.
UPCOMING TRAVELS
Mar. 10th - Mar 17th, 2020: Chicago, IL to provide music ministry for the Illinois Conference of the United Church of Christ, Clergy Wellness Retreat.
Apr. 3rd - Apr. 5th, 2020: Washington, D.C. to attend the Pax Christi USA Young Adult Gathering entitled “Creating the Beloved Community”.
Jun. 18th - Jun. 20th, 2020: New York City, to attend the Outreach 2020 Conference on LGBT Catholic Ministry, hosted by Fordham University.
For Speaking Inquiries: please send email to wagepeace@protonmail.com or visit my website here.
That is me!
This is the work!
This is the time!
Thank you for joining me on this journey! For more issues of “The People’s Priest”, sign up below and become a subscriber today! Just $7/mo will go a long way!
If you would like to send in a prayer request or have need of pastoral assistance, please visit my website and look through the listed pastoral services.
That is all for now! Talk soon!
Peace and Good things,
Rev. Jerry