Conversations: Ron Joki: Prayer Leader and Parishioner
| If you are reading this article, then you are on an award winning website. The St. Joan of Arc website has received not one, but eight awards for design, easy navigation, skillful presentation and unique content. You are reading an article found on just one of the many links designed for the spiritually curious. However, if you click on the link entitled ‘Gay/Lesbian Group’ under Community Building, you will see a lime green graphic and one very lonely sentence. It is safe to say that this page did not get the website any awards. This bothered me so I went in search of answers. An e-mail, a phone call, and a friendly cup of coffee produced a name for me to talk too. The name was a person, and the person is Ron Joki. I enjoyed a three hour conversation with Ron, and I walked away with one man’s story, a better sense of the Gay/Lesbian Group, and maybe much more. - C. MacDonald - chuckmacdonald@mediaone.net |
Ron Joki, like those interviewed before him, suggested we meet at a coffee house. One of those sometimes strange little places designed to encourage the art of conversation. We didn’t start with an explanation for the rather blank webpage labeled ‘Gay/Lesbian Group’; we started in Zim, Minnesota. A small town on the Iron Range that announced itself as the best place in the state for birding, and where Ron grew up. At age 18, like countless others he exchanged small town pacing for big city confusion and the campus of the University of Minnesota is a great place to get confused. To make it worse, it is at that time in life when you are trying to figure out who you are. Ron smiled and said that he honestly thought that if he joined something, a group, a cause, an organization, he would be less adrift. He listed an alphabet of organizations explored. “In my late teens and early twenties I still struggled with societies guilt because I knew I was gay. Not finding any group or organization that seemed comfortable, I discovered the Meditation Center at 631 University Ave, N.E. A wonderful yoga teacher named Dr. Arya helped me, and I began to think about experiencing God in a non-judgmental way. If society and churches said negative things about me, it was liberating to work with someone who over a five-year period gave me the tools to see myself in a positive way and my rightful place in the world. Toward the end of my yoga training I received a great learning. Dr. Arya suggested that I should maybe consider seeking spiritual wisdom in my own tradition. He cited the fact that all the great religions have their mystics, and I might consider studying those of Christianity. This was wonderful counsel that has served me well to this day, because it has allowed me to open myself to the diversity of ways in which to experience God.”
People tell stories about how their lives took a different direction as a result of one of those remarkable little moments that seemed so inconsequential. For Ron Joki it was pondering his next move while walking around on the University campus. He stopped and looked up and he was in front of the Catholic Newman Center. His mother had been Catholic, but he was not raised as such. Shyly smiling, Ron said he became instantly traditional, walked in and asked to speak to ‘a priest‘. Not everyone in life’s lottery can say that they had a series of good teachers or mentors, but in Ron’s case he met at that point his next mentor, a Benedictine priest. Introducing Ron to things Catholic, the priest also shared with him the rich wisdom found in the writings of St. Benedict. Benedictine spirituality has for centuries provided a calm balance and orderliness to life, and this for Ron was a perfect compliment to his yoga spiritual training.
| “What dear brothers , is more delightful than this voice of the Lord calling to us? See how the Lord in his love shows us the way of life. Clothed then with faith and the performance of good works, let us set out on this way, with the Gospel for our guide., that we may deserve to see him who has called us to his kingdom.” |
When Ron finished college with a science background, he took a job at the University in the Department of Veterinary Diagnostic Medicine. He has been there for 31 years. He was 20 years old when met his life partner of 31 years, Jay Pearson. Ron laughed saying that it was the influence of St. Benedict that has taught him stability, a virtue and vow that each Benedictine takes. It is the ability to be consistent, steady, and capable of being depended upon on. In 1988 at work Ron had a co-worker and friend who suggested that he might be interested in a south Minneapolis church called St. Joan of Arc. That was 13 years ago, and Ron Joki has become a steadying spiritual force to the small and large community of St. Joan of Arc. Your eye might catch him practicing ‘stability’ as he gently guides and instructs the communion volunteers, each Sunday, at the 9 o’clock Mass
“I didn’t grow up Catholic, I decided to become Catholic as a young adult, but I came into the church well trained in the wisdom ways of yoga. I came into this community to experience God. The Church for me is not one of rules, regulations, or edicts; the Church is an avenue to search for the divine. Life and my spiritual training has taught me to pick up what nourishes me and resonates to my experience in the here and now, leaving the rest behind. I love St. Joan of Arc because on the surface it appears to be beehive of activity. Within the community of St. Joan of Arc we have our causes and many of us stand on our soap boxes. Thank God we can come to church and hear these voices of many speaking to the needs of others. But the other great blessing of Joan of Arc is that we also make changes in people’s lives in quiet ways. People do meet others at St. Joan’s in a variety of situations, and change happens. For example, it is beautiful Saturday morning and you and I have sat over coffee for a couple of hours. We have talked about the spiritual search, who or what is God, and it happened because we both go to St. Joan of Arc. We both have our causes, but I am drawn more and more to work in the church as a Prayer Leader. There are many occasions when there is a need for someone like me to preside as such.”
We talked about being gay or lesbian in a church that is not always welcoming, and one’s spiritual search. We agreed the Church is many facetted and has its flaws, but the Church is people and if anything people are diverse. The quotation of St. Paul comes to mind; “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ.”( Ga 3:23). Ron said, “Within the community of St. Joan of Arc some of us are gay, or lesbian, bi-sexual or transsexual and we come to church for the same reason everyone else does, to find community to grow in the spirit. In a contemporary world we have struggled as gay/lesbian people. We had to struggle to get to - ‘Gay is Beautiful.’ In the struggle for identity and place many organizations and groups have sprung up to give strength to same sex relationships. About nine years ago some of us, as gay/lesbian parishioners of St. Joan of Arc, decided to create a support group. We have met almost every month since then, we have had potluck suppers, we talked about officers and more structure but each time we just backed away. We choose to stay informal, social, supportive of one another, embracing the St. Joan of Arc spirituality as a source of nourishment for us. Most of us are comfortable with who we are, and yes some are part of other causes but within this community we are not a cause, we are welcomed members and an integral part of the church; we are all children of God and companions together in this journey of faith.”
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| Jay and Ron with the SJA contingent at the GLBT Pride Parade |
| At St. Joan of Arc, we welcome you whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey. Recalling the pope’s plea for the Jubilee Year, that the church “should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children". We ask you to take a moment and read the following quotation: “You perhaps have had to climb the mountains of prejudice and discrimination, which need leveling. Or have had to contend with the winding ways of cruel humor, attitude and ignorance, which need straightening out. Or perhaps you have had to negotiate the rough roads of verbal or physical abuse. I lead the church community in seeking the forgiveness of our living God for the sins individually and collectively the church has committed against the gay and lesbian community. We are all children of God made in God’s image and should enjoy the dignity of being a human person. For the times we have stripped you of your human dignity, we ask God’s forgiveness. Our relationships with one another should reflect the mystery and love among the three divine persons of God....For the times we have not accepted you for who you are, we ask God’s forgiveness. We are all one human family in the world and in the church. We need each other, to affirm each other’s gifts and to support one another that everyone may have the opportunity to reach his or her potential. For the times we have deprived you of those opportunities, we seek God’s forgiveness.” |
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