About the Author: Joy Mills
The story of Jesus' ministry informed my life as far back as I can remember. I was active in the Episcopal Church for over 30 years, ordained priest in 1988 and married to Lewis Mills, an Episcopal priest for 40 years until his death in 2002. We both had begun to seriously question the efficacy of the patriarchal and hierarchical theology and language of traditional Sunday liturgies to the point when he retired we stopped attending church regularly and gathered people in our home for theological discussions. On a Vision Quest soon after his death, I discovered a profound connection to the creation through dreams and through Native American Directions which has developed and deepened over these years. I remarried and my husband Buck Benedict and I gather people, beginning around a fire pit in our backyard where we reverence the Directions and Grandfather Fire with gifts and prayers; then we gather in another circle in our living room where we share reflections and prayers as we pass the bread and wine among us . We follow with a pot luck meal which resounds with spirited conversations.
Two hundred spiritual activists had traveled to Italy in order to broaden and energize their passion for peace and justice through interreligious and spiritually engaged conversations. I realized how much I also was treasuring these informal personal exchanges within the larger context of the conference.