Sunday, November 8, 2026
I have done what is mine; may Christ teach you what is yours!
—Francis of Assisi Father Richard Rohr invites us to discern what is ours to do in service to others: I think there are three basic levels of social ministry. I believe all are the movement of the Holy Spirit within us for the sake of others. I like to imagine a river flooding out of control—symbolizing the circumstances and injustices that bring about suffering—overflowing its banks and sweeping those in its path off their feet. At the first level, we rescue drowning people from the swollen river, dealing with the immediate social problem right in front of us: someone hungry comes to our door and we offer them some food, or invite them inside. These are hands-on, social service ministries, like the familiar soup kitchen or food pantry. Such works will always look rather generous, Christian, charitable; and they tend to be admired, if not always imitated.
At the second level, there are ministries that help people not to fall into the swollen river in the first place, or show them how to survive despite falling in. In general, these are the ministries of education and healing. Most of the religious orders in the Catholic Church in the last three hundred years went in that direction, filling the world with schools, hospitals, and social service ministries that empowered people and gave them new visions and possibilities for their lives.
Finally, on the third level, some ministries build and maintain a dam to stop the river from flooding in the first place. This is the work of social activism and advocacy, critique of systems, organizing, speeches, boycotts, protests, and resistance against all forms of systemic injustice and deceit. It is the gift of few, but a much-needed gift that we only recently began to learn and practice. It seeks systemic change and not just individual conversion. I don’t think most people feel called to activism; I myself don’t. It was initially humiliating to admit this, and I lost the trust and admiration of some friends and supporters. Yet as we come to know our own soul gift more clearly, we almost always have to let go of other “gifts” and opportunities so we can do our own one or two things well and with integrity. I believe that if we can do one or two things wholeheartedly in our life, that is all God expects. The important thing is that we all should be doing something for the rest of the world! We have to give back, particularly those of us born into privilege and comfort. We also must respect and support the other two levels, even if we cannot do them. Avoid all comparisons about better or lesser, more committed or less committed; those are all ego games. Let’s just use our different gifts to create a unity in the work of service (Ephesians 4:12–13), and back one another up, without criticism or competition. Only in our peaceful, mutual honoring do we show forth the glory of God.
Serving the Seventh Generation
Monday, November 9, 2026
In the latest edition of CAC’s Oneing journal, Randy Woodley—theologian and co-founder of Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice—reflects on his unique call in service to others:
Every spring, my wife Edith and I kneel in the dirt of our ten-acre farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and do something that looks, to the untrained eye, like nothing much. We plant seeds. Some of them are varieties that Indigenous peoples have been keeping alive for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years—seeds passed from hand to hand across generations, carried through removals and relocations, hidden in pockets during forced marches, saved when everything else was taken. We put them in the ground, we water them, and we wait.
It doesn’t look like revolution. It doesn’t look like resistance. It looks like two people with dirt under their fingernails doing small work in a world full of enormous problems.
But after decades of this work, I’ve learned sometimes the most radical thing you can do is plant something you’ll never see fully grown.…
What is ours to do? It’s whatever is right in front of us, done with full attention and love, connected to the web of relationships that sustains everything. For some people, that means running for office or organizing their neighbors. For others, it means tutoring a child or cooking for the elders. For Edith and me, it means keeping seeds alive and welcoming whoever shows up at the farm. And here’s what I want to say to anyone paralyzed by the enormity of what’s wrong:
You don’t have to fix everything. You just have to be faithful to your particular piece.
My ancestors understood this. Not everyone was a medicine person. Not everyone was a warrior or a chief. Some people made baskets. Some people told stories. Some people tended fires. The community needed all of it, and nobody’s gift was less sacred than anyone else’s.
Indigenous peoples traditionally made major decisions with the seventh generation in mind. That’s roughly 175 years into the future. Think about that for a moment. I’ve planted oaks that I will never see fully mature. When you plant a seed, thinking about people who won’t be born for another century and a half, it changes your relationship to time, to despair, and to what counts as success.
I will not see most of what I’m planting for. That’s fine. That’s the work. The people who for generations saved the seeds we plant at Eloheh didn’t save seeds for themselves. They saved seeds for us—through removals, through boarding schools, through every attempt to erase them. And we save seeds for people we’ll never meet.
That’s what is ours to do. Not to solve everything, but to plant faithfully. Not to despair at the harvest we won’t see, but to trust that the seeds are good, the soil is alive, and the Creator is still at work in the dirt and the mess of it all.
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Individual Reflection
What are you holding onto that was never yours to carry?
Group Discussion — choose one:
- Rohr says comparisons about who is more or less committed are “ego games.” Whose kind of service do you secretly measure yourself against?
- Woodley plants oaks he will never see grown. What are you doing now that only someone 175 years from now would be able to judge?
- Rohr admits it was humiliating to say activism wasn’t his gift. What gift have you been reluctant to admit isn’t yours, and what would it free you to do?
