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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Following Francis Secular Franciscans Come From All Walks Of Life And All Political Persuasions. They Are United By Their Belief In The Simple Life As Exemplified By St. Francis Of Assisi.

If you met him on the street, you’d cross it. At 25, he had no job, had renounced his family and was eating others’ garbage. A street preacher, he evangelized not only to the poor, but to birds and rocks. He considered money repugnant and accepted no more the rest of his life.

He was as confounding, countercultural and - Christlike - 800 years ago as he’d be in America today.

Ask Teresa McDermott who struggles, daily, to emulate St. Francis of Assisi.

“Francis was a hard man to follow,” said McDermott, 63, of Spokane. “He set an almost impossible example of serving the poor. He believed in total non-violence, which is very difficult to do. He’s something I can probably never be, but something I’m working for.”

The ancient mystic, who rejected consumerism and embraced nature, is considered perhaps the greatest radical in Christian history. As a member of his Third Order, the Secular Franciscans, McDermott has vowed, or professed, to follow his footsteps for life.

In Spokane, those footsteps have taken the Secular Franciscans to Crosswalk where they help feed street kids and donated $500 to refurbish the shelter.

With the Jesuits, they formed the Francis-Ignatius Center at Gonzaga University, an experimental Christian center where experts and the public talk about issues from biotechnology to the effect of television violence on children.

They have scraped paint, cleaned and furnished apartments in one of the most dangerous buildings downtown. They’ve worked in soup kitchens, at Christ Clinic and lobbied on behalf of refugees. They number just 61, but their work has inspired people from Idaho Falls to Lewiston to follow suit.

“The Secular Franciscans in Spokane and the Northwest are becoming famous for being active, concerned and putting their faith out there,” said Keith Warner, a Franciscan seminarian from Berkeley, Calif.

Franciscans follow Francis because probably no one in history imitated the life of Christ more closely. The spoiled son of a wealthy cloth merchant, he was converted by a vision, and gave away all his possessions to live among the poor.

As such, Franciscans try to live simply, form communities and rely on prayer and contemplation.

But simple is not as simple as it sounds.

Mike Regan left the job he loved, flying on a B-52 bomber crew, because it conflicted with his Franciscan beliefs. McDermott traded her beloved T-bird for a used Ford Tempo. Bob Stirling struggles to explain to his teenage son why he is the only one in the ski club who doesn’t own skis.

“It takes a lot of courage,” said Regan, 44, who professed in 1990. “It’s a countercultural message in the same way Francis was countercultural in his time.”

Franciscans believe that the strongest causes of grief, from the overthrow of governments to gang violence, can be traced to the use and misuse of power and possessions.

As a result, they call their leaders servants.

They do not give their possessions away and live on the streets as Francis did. But they may be the only Americans who consider a 6-year-old Honda a luxury car. They consume less so that others have more, and so that they feel less greed, less envy, less alienation.

Especially those with children fight a cultural tide of consumerism from without and within.

“It is a struggle - we want nice things - and the struggle doesn’t go away just because you say you’re trying to live a simple lifestyle,” Regan said.

Two Saturdays a month, the group gathers at St. Francis of Assisi church on West Heroy. Machinists, teachers, postmasters, they pray and discuss the environment, justice and families. They may discuss a paper by the secretary of labor, write letters on behalf of refugees, or consider boycotting RJR Nabisco to protest its affiliation with Joe Camel.

At each turn, they consider Francis.

A layman whose humility and joy prompted entire villages to follow him, Francis founded what would become his first order, the friars (brothers and priests) in Italy in 1209. (At least four Franciscan priests work in Spokane today.)

In 1212, he founded a second order for women, the Poor Clares, a more enclosed or monastic group, some of whom also live in Spokane. About 1221, he founded the Third Order for lay men and women.

To become a lay Franciscan, a Catholic adult must spend about 18 months in intense weekly meetings before professing. They pray daily and once professed, usually wear the Tau, a Greek symbol that Francis signed his letters with.

Through the centuries, members of the Secular Franciscans have included Michelangelo, Christopher Columbus and Louis IX of France.

“They were great people, but not to us,” said Sister Dorothy Amon, a spiritual adviser. “Francis wanted us to be simple, simple, the little people of the Gospel.”

Simple living is one element of the Franciscan way. Accepting one another as brothers and sisters is another.

Bob Stirling, 42, felt that acceptance the first time he walked into a meeting.

The sixth child of a Hillyard warehouseman, Stirling had always been far to Spokane’s political left. In the early 1970s, he and a friend opened the Free Store on North Monroe by putting all their clothes and albums out for anyone to take. His friends obliged in taking them.

“My mother still gives me a hard time about that,” he says with a laugh. The Free Store, fed by donations, survived nine months under Stirling, but he never forgot the freedom from the material world.

A decade later, at the height of the frenzied 1980s, he quit his job and joined the Peace Corps. Three years in the Solomon Islands only fueled his idealism.

Today, as a social worker with Head Start, Stirling helps run a pilot program at Crosswalk for the babies and toddlers of street kids and the poor.

A committed Catholic, he had problems with the Vatican and its stand on women and birth control. But with the Secular Franciscans, he found acceptance for his questions and his politics.

As a Republican, Nola McLellan is as politically different from Stirling as Rush Limbaugh is from Rush, the band.

But she, too, found acceptance.

“We learned to see beyond our political differences,” said McLellan, a retired nurse and mother of 11. “I feel like I’m listened to, respected and loved even though we’re not all thinking the same way.”

The community often seems like a family. When John and Teresa McDermott’s son was killed in a tree-cutting accident five years ago. Franciscans surrounded them with support and even moved into their house for a week to handle painful phone calls and correspondence.

With an estimated 21,000 members nationwide in 900 fraternities, the lay Franciscans are on the verge of a national awakening, said Bill Niggemeyer, who serves on the national formation and leadership committee.

But that awakening occurs individually, almost daily.

McDermott’s involvement has influenced her beliefs on everything from the death penalty to the unfair division of the world’s resources.

In 1980, St. Francis was named the patron saint of ecology for his belief that nature was a mirror of God and his respectful way of relating to the natural world.

His belief that man is not at the top of a hierarchy of creatures but part of an interdependent circle is in many ways as radical today as in the 13th century.

Keith Warner, a spiritual ecologist, urges other Franciscans to garden, observe nature and experience wilderness as part of their Franciscan life. He urges them to not work to change the system but to first change their own households and neighborhoods. That message is central to the Franciscans.

“The most important thing is living out an alternative,” he said. “We need to change our approach to life in order to give others hope.”

In the parking lot at Crosswalk, Bob Stirling’s 20 year-old Volkswagon sports a Fight Racism bumper sticker. It has been torn off three times, and Stirling, with a genuine smile, keeps replacing it.

“I used to have more grandiose ideas about changing the world. But you can make a difference in your family, your neighborhood, your job.”

MEMO: This sidebar ran with story: MORE ON ST. FRANCIS Suggested films about St. Francis: “Francesco,” 1994, directed by Liliana Cavini, starring Mickey Rourke and Helena Bonham Carter. “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” 1973, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Graham Faulkner. Suggested reading includes: “Francis” by Leonard Boff. “The Little Flowers of Francis” edited by Raphael Brown.

See another sidebar that ran with this story under the headline: Center fosters airing of issues.

This sidebar ran with story: MORE ON ST. FRANCIS Suggested films about St. Francis: “Francesco,” 1994, directed by Liliana Cavini, starring Mickey Rourke and Helena Bonham Carter. “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” 1973, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, starring Graham Faulkner. Suggested reading includes: “Francis” by Leonard Boff. “The Little Flowers of Francis” edited by Raphael Brown.

See another sidebar that ran with this story under the headline: Center fosters airing of issues.