Mosaic Mennonites

Missional - Intercultural - Formational

Calenthia Dowdy

Staying at the Table

by

by Calenthia S. Dowdy, PhD

Editor’s Note: This reflection is based off a sermon that Dr. Dowdy preached at Philadelphia (PA) Praise Center in September.

Humans don’t simply want love and community; we yearn deeply for love and connection. The human longing for meaningful relationship runs deep. It is shaped by images we carry in our hearts and mind which shape our hopes for radical love, acceptance, and embrace. This longing is a large part of what makes us human.

If this is true, why do relationships end? Why do churches continue to split, families fracture, friendships end, and marriages break up? This question occupies my thinking every day as we exist in the never-ending shake-up that is our church body. People leave. Churches depart. Whole countries walk away.

I imagine a design lab focused on what it takes, and looks like, to practice active love in community with others when I wholeheartedly disagree with some of them. What does it look like to remain in active love and relationship with people and organizations that don’t fully align with me? When do I know if I should stay, or if I should go?

Parker Palmer wrote an insightful essay many years ago that offers a way into these questions. The essay, Staying at the Table: A Spirituality of Community, was required reading when I was teaching first-year college students. Four hundred students were newly entering university life, meeting professors, friends, and roommates who did not all believe exactly what they had been taught to believe. Yes, even though we all professed to be Christian, we did not all think, believe, or behave alike.

In Staying at the Table, Palmer writes that the first image of community is found in Genesis: the Garden. In the garden, we are presented with a scene of harmonious, organic unity; humans, animals, vegetation, and mineral life all living in oneness with the Creator. It was an ecology of grace. “They were naked and unashamed.” The humans were able to let down their barriers, be their true selves, and be fully accepted.

It is the dream of love and embrace: to be vulnerable and without shame in relationship with others. The Garden is a pre-sin era existing outside the realm of human time.

Palmer’s second image of community is found in Revelation: the New Jerusalem. It is the city of God, cleansed and made holy by God’s grace, where “every tear will be wiped away.” There will be no more sorrow, pain, strife, or struggle but only solace and joy. It is a secure city where everyone’s needs are met. The New Jerusalem is a post-sin era, also existing outside the realm of human time.

Both these images, the Garden and the New Jerusalem, resonate deeply within the human soul and draw us toward the dream of community. They profoundly shape what we believe community should look like.

But our experiences right now, in human time, don’t look much like the Garden or the New Jerusalem.

We become disillusioned after the honeymoon period of community ends, and humans reveal their flawed selves. Barriers go up as we protect ourselves from the inevitable pain of community. Palmer suggests that, in this period of disillusionment, we may choose to stay in the community but disengage, withdrawing our hopes and dreams and settling for a lukewarm community. Others will choose to leave the community altogether.

It is here that Palmer offers a third image of community, found in the Gospels. It is the image of the Table.

The Last Supper is a culmination point for Jesus. He has been pouring his life into these people for three years, bringing them together in friendship, family, and hospitality. Now, at the table, Jesus breaks bread with them. And as he breaks bread, he says, “One of you will betray me.” He tells Peter that he will deny him three times. The disciples argue over who among them is the greatest.

These are some of the very things that make community difficult: disagreement, betrayal, denial, and power struggles.

And what does Jesus do amid the messiness around the table?

He continues to break bread and pass the cup. He stays at the table.

He keeps doing good.

Community happens when we stay at the table, working through harm and disagreement, learning how to be together even when it is difficult. It happens when we commit to keep showing up, to keep listening, to keep loving, and to keep doing good.

Dr. Calenthia Dowdy

Calenthia S Dowdy, PhD is the Director of Collaborative Ministries with Mosaic Conference. She attends Ambler (PA) Mennonite, serves as trustee board president of the Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia, and is active in Philadelphia faith communities.

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To contact Dr. Calenthia Dowdy, please email cdowdy@mosaicmennonites.org.

Bringing the Pieces Together

by

Calenthia Dowdy Staff Profile

On March 9, Rev. Dr. Calenthia Dowdy will begin serving with Mosaic Mennonite Conference as Director of Collaborative Ministries. In this two-days-a-week role, she will will serve as the team leader for accompaniment relationships with Mosaic’s 25 Conference-Related Ministries.

Drinking tea in Portugal.

“I really enjoy outreach and collaboration,” Dowdy shared. “Too many of us do ministry in silos, and I think it’s important to connect, support, and pray for one another in intentional ways.” She is especially looking forward to the diversity of relationships she will cultivate across the Conference.

Dowdy brings decades of ministry experience shaped by both church and academy. She has served in youth, camp, and college ministries. She briefly taught kindergarten and eighth grade before spending more than 20 years teaching college students, including as a professor of youth ministry and cultural anthropology at Eastern University. She also served as Philadelphia campus chaplain for Messiah University.

Her leadership extends beyond traditional church settings. Dowdy has been executive director of Roots of Justice and director of faith-based initiatives in a Philadelphia nonprofit organization with advocacy and services for persons living with HIV/AIDS. She has devoted many years to antiracism education within faith-based organizations.


At an interfaith prayer breakfast.

Credentialed as an American Baptist minister and holding a PhD in anthropology, Dowdy brings theological depth and cultural insight to her work. She grew up in Philadelphia and has long been committed to Anabaptism.

She spent about 10 years at Germantown Mennonite, where she appreciated “the intellectual edges of faith,” and for the past two years has been a member of Ambler Mennonite, where she values “the earnest simplicity of faith expression.” She is currently participating in Ambler’s Vibrant Mosaic cohort.

When not working, Dowdy enjoys good podcasts, books and movies, walking her dog, and international travel.

Executive Minister Stephen Kriss expressed enthusiasm about her arrival. “Calenthia brings gifts in networking, experience in anti-oppression training, wisdom and a textured outlook in engaging urban and global mission,” he shared.

“I continue to feel grateful for the gifted persons who are willing to consider working together to embody the reconciling love of Jesus through our shared witness at Mosaic.”

Mosaic values two-way communication and encourages our constituents to respond with feedback, questions, or encouragement. To share your thoughts or send a message to the author(s), contact us at communication@mosaicmennonites.org.   

Dancing Together with God

by

by Ken Burkholder, Conference moderator

As an Anglo Mennonite, who grew up in Lancaster County, PA, dancing was not a big part of my upbringing.  In junior high, my parents did not allow me to attend dances at my public school.  In high school, I went to a few dances. I bopped around to songs from Huey Lewis and Survivor, with an occasional slow dance to a Lionel Richie ballad.  In recent years, it’s been fun to have a few more opportunities to attempt dancing at wedding celebrations of family and friends. 

The Mosaic Conference Board gathered on August 17-18 to work, while socially-distanced, on vision and mission statements for delegate consideration at this fall’s conference assembly. 

On August 17-18, the Mosaic Mennonite Conference Board met at Pinebrook Retreat Center, a Spruce Lake facility, in East Stroudsburg, PA for a two-day retreat. Our meeting times were outdoors, with masks, and physically-distanced from each other. Pinebrook Retreat Center did a great job in making it possible to have a safe, in-person retreat during a pandemic.  

During our retreat, “dance” came up several times in our conversations, as a metaphor for us stepping into God’s desired future for the conference.  Hopefully, our forebears, who forbade dancing, weren’t turning over in their graves!  

It was noted that each and every person, congregation, and conference constituency group is needed “on the dance floor,” actively participating in the mission God’s collectively calling us to.  Furthermore, it’s vital that we all remain “in step” with Christ, our leader, while also being flexible to the various “rhythms” among us.  We may need to learn some “new moves,” as we seek to live out our deeply-rooted Anabaptist Christian values in fresh, creative ways in this ever-changing culture. No doubt, there will surely be challenges along the way that test our commitment to remain “dance partners” with one another.

Calenthia Dowdy (left), retreat facilitator, listens as conference moderator, Ken Burkholder (right), speaks at the conference board retreat last week at Pinebrook.

I was delighted that we had all twelve conference board members participate in the retreat, along with Steve Kriss and Mary Nitzsche, conference staff. (Gwen Groff, pastor of Bethany (VT) congregation and at-large conference board member, joined us by Zoom from Vermont due to a travel ban).  I am grateful for the guidance of our excellent facilitator, Calenthia Dowdy.  I thank God for the array of gifts and personalities among our board, the rich wisdom, the spirit of collaboration, and the desire to follow Christ’s leading.

Despite meeting outside and with masks on, we still had many opportunities for meaningful conversation, dreaming, and prayer at Pinebrook Retreat.  This resulted in us crafting a vision and mission statement, which you’ll be hearing more about this fall.  

The Board retreat was a meaningful time of team-building and looking to the future, as we anticipate Mosaic Mennonite Conference living into the vision and mission God’s calling us to.  I am infused with energy to actively engage in the “dance” of God’s movement among us.  I hope you’ll join us, as we learn to dance together with God.