I was deeply moved . . .

I sometimes refer to myself as a “recovering evangelist.”

As a young woman, I spent a lot of time attempting to “save” many people, friends and family as well as strangers. I’d trap them at bus stops, at the grocery store, or the laundromat. I carried a pocket version of the New Testament, with which I also terrorized Jehovah’s witnesses and Mormons. I knew my stuff pretty well, I thought. I was on a one-way track to Heaven with a capital “H,” no sweat. I belonged to something larger than myself.

My epiphany came when, as an undergraduate, I began studying other religions, as well as meeting people who practiced them. I suppose, if I were to classify myself, I would say I most resemble a Zen Buddhist. But I won’t pretend that I practice any religion now. I have what I refer to as my “personal relationship” with some higher power; The Guy Upstairs, Mother Earth, or The Universe. (My mother does not much appreciate my lack of directed faith.) So be it.

It is with this sideways view of religion that I approached Mary Johnson’s incredible book, An Unquenchable Thirst.

Like me, Mary entered religion with sincerity and guilelessness, for what she rightfully considered to be all the right reasons. Her epiphany took a human form, Mother Teresa, and she followed the calling she felt without question. The purpose she ached to serve was often subverted by the inevitable darker sides of human nature: power, competition, jealousy, tyranny. Those forces formed an ominous backdrop to the innocent cravings Mary had for spirituality, a place to exercise charity, and a longing for lifelong connection. Those needs drove a girl from middle America to Rome, from claustrophobic cloisters, serving in the South Bronx, to the male dominated world of the Catholic pinnacles of the Roman Church.

All Mary wanted in the world was to belong, to be loved, and to find the truth of the Holy Spirit. Reading her book, I was deeply moved by the fact that she never lost her core belief in some higher power, nor her need to serve people, and help them find the best in themselves. She supports the causes of women in the Church, and still bridges gaps in understanding between her former life and the lay world. Her work for women writers at AROHO is but a small part of what she does for us all.

Lisa Lutwyche received her MFA from Goddard College in 2013.  Poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist, she has been published in the US and in the UK, publications including Mad Poets Review, Image and Word, Poppy Fields, Piano Press, Pitkin Review, Falklands War Poetry, Minerva Rising, and the upcoming Cancer Poetry Project, Volume II; nominated for a Pushcart in 2000.  She is the recipient of the 2013 AROHO “Shakepeare’s Sister” Fellowship for playwriting.  Lisa has taught creative writing (and art) at community arts centers for over twenty years.  She is also an instructor in the Fine and Performing Arts department at Cecil College.