A Journey of Grace
Jeri Queenan’s “deep gladness”1 is in working with teams to solve society’s most pressing problems, including serving from 2007–2023 as Partner at Bridgespan, a nonprofit strategic advisor to mission-driven nonprofits and philanthropies advancing justice globally. She is blessed by Charlie Queenan, her soulmate and spouse of forty years; their four adult children; and a close extended family and connected community.
What a happy day it was in 2012 when Carolyn Woo, then CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), forwarded to me CAC’s Daily Meditations, introducing me to Richard Rohr. Carolyn knew that my life had been changed by profound encounters with extraordinary people living in cow-dung huts in Northern Kenya, that I moved my family one thousand miles to join a nonprofit dedicated to global equity and justice, and that I had studied with liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez. She likely guessed that the focus on contemplation and action would resonate. Now, each day begins for me with the daily meditation.
In 2016, I was spiritually yearning for more, but the CAC’s Living School didn’t seem right for me—until after my husband and I walked the Camino de Santiago. We travelled light, carrying only what we needed, and fell into a daily rhythm of morning prayer and meditation, ten to fifteen miles of prayerful walking, then journaling and a pilgrims’ Mass. What Fr. Richard teaches was revealed to us in profound ways: God in all things, the many faces of Christ in those we encounter, the Trinitarian flow. Then, the Living School made sense, and I was blessed to join the 2020 cohort.
As I look back, Fr. Richard became my spiritual teacher on that very first day of the Living School. He transmitted to me the model of “practice” that informs me today: contemplative prayer, study of Scripture and the mystics, embodiment, and action—putting our faith to work for justice. The teachings of other extraordinary faculty changed who I am, how I show up in the world, and my approach to leadership and problem-solving. My Living School circle group, a small cohort of fellow students instructed to meet biweekly for the two years of the program, still meets after five years and sustains me.
Today, I am most concerned about our society’s crisis of faith and spirituality and its implications for the world. In 2020, I co-authored an article on the role of faith-inspired organizations in the social sector and came to see that Fr. Richard, the CAC faculty, and the Living School team are onto something very big that the world desperately needs. While the Catholic Church, as an institution, provides 20 percent of the world’s education, 40 percent of Africa’s healthcare, and is the largest nonprofit provider of basic needs in the US, we also know that people are leaving the major faith traditions in droves because their spiritual needs are not being met. Thirty percent—and rising—of US adults are religiously unaffiliated. As the world hungers for spiritual meaning, purpose, and connection, helping the CAC and other innovators from across many faith traditions is a top priority for me.
1 Reference to Frederick Buechner’s description of vocation as “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet” in Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 95.
This reflection appears in the Summer 2023 issue of the Mendicant, our quarterly donor newsletter.