Episode Forty: The Byte - Dr. Julie Todd

Dr. Todd is the author of "Struggling with Non-Violence," as well as a dedicated professor and advocate for social justice. In this shorter episode hear how a tiny and terrifying nun changed her life forever, in all the best ways.

Transcript

They had the spiritual directors introduce themselves first before all the participants and there was like maybe 30 retreatants and seven,

Eight spiritual directors.

And so this woman,

I can remember staring right at her across the hall,

She stands up,

She's like all about four foot six or something.

Tiny,

Tiny little gray haired,

Old,

Old looking nun.

And she stands up and she's like,

My name is Sister Ginny Sheehan and I believe in miracles.

And I thought,

This is not going to go well.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

One story that comes to mind in relation to the word miracle.

So totally,

It's related,

Unrelated.

So a bit of a yarn,

So I'll see how it comes out.

And I've never told this story in public,

So you'll have an exclusive here.

There are many people in my private life who have heard this story,

But it's a story that begs to be told in relation to the word miracle.

As I mentioned briefly,

I was a United Methodist clergy person.

I was ordained in 1996 in the Southern New England Conference of the United Methodist Church and I was appointed as the sole pastor of a church in Lynn,

Massachusetts,

Christ Church,

Christ United Methodist Church.

And I want to start by saying that it was the most sacred work I probably have done or will ever do.

And I learned so much and I was so young.

I look back now and they were very patient with me and we loved each other a lot.

I'd like to say,

Though,

It was a church in a formerly,

Former mill town,

Lynn,

Massachusetts is famous for one of its GE plants that at some point in time employed like 30,

000 people or something.

So by the mid 90s,

Deindustrialized a lot of poverty and racism and just a tough,

A lot of the,

Just like the city I live in now,

Lawrence,

Massachusetts,

Economic downturn,

And just suffering the consequences of globalization and the movement of all local business out to suburbs and white flight and all of these things.

I was appointed to this church that had a lot of,

There was a lot of neglect,

I think,

That had happened to it.

And there was a lot of interpersonal conflict in this church financially,

It was struggling,

Of course.

I mean,

It was like so,

So,

So,

So many small United Methodist churches,

Small Protestant churches,

Doesn't matter where,

Right?

Struggling with primarily older congregation who had been so faithful to the church and its ongoing existence.

And in many ways,

Sort of always hearkening to the glory of the past when the choir was huge and the Sunday school had 150 kids in it and all this stuff from the 40s and the 50s.

And it just wasn't that anymore.

And then you have younger,

Some younger folks coming in,

The older people primarily,

But not all white,

Younger people in the neighborhood,

Not white,

A lot of struggle.

Say they want to change,

Say they want to grow,

Don't really want to grow,

Don't really want to change.

Anybody who's like a clergy person who's listening to this is going to be like,

Uh-huh,

Uh-huh.

So it's like so many churches,

So much change.

And I really was a social justice oriented person,

A community person.

I wanted to be involved in the community.

They said they wanted me to be involved in the community,

But they kind of were a little like,

You're always in the community and you're never here.

Just all this to explain that,

You know,

Two,

Three years into it,

I was so burned out.

I worked constantly,

I'm single person,

Just,

You know,

Young,

Don't know my boundaries.

Like I'm not trying to blame anything on anybody.

Overachiever,

Super high functioning.

And I really actually was also raised in seminary to be like,

You have to take care of yourself.

And I was doing all the things I thought I could possibly do to take care of myself and resting and taking a day off and just anything I could do.

And I burned out many,

Many,

Many,

Many,

Many times.

I also drank and smoked a lot of pot,

Just to be perfectly honest.

And had a whole,

Because I wasn't,

I grew up in Massachusetts,

So I wasn't too far from all of my high school friends and I'd like this extended group of people.

And I don't want to go so far as to say that I had like a double life because that's like kind of an exaggeration,

But you know,

I had my sort of like our pastor doing all the things by day,

Drinking,

Smoking a lot of pot with my high school friends.

Like honestly,

Just tell these stories now,

I'd be horrified to think.

And I always thought like someday I'm going to be totally screwed.

I'm going to get pulled over in the city where I'm a pastor.

I'm going to be on the police blotter for DUI.

Like I always thought that was going to happen to me because I was.

Going out and coming home and drinking.

So that's how I coped,

Especially drinking.

And I,

At some point in time,

I can't even tell you exactly what like was this turning point where I'm just like,

I am not okay.

I can't get out of the cycle of workaholism.

I don't think I have a drinking problem.

I don't.

This is just what I have to do to cope.

And I need to like go away or do something like my friendships,

My relationships are in shambles.

Like,

There's just nothing good going on.

And I think I must've heard my own Bishop of the United Methodist Church at the time,

Susan Hassinger say something in some context publicly where she would go to this retreat center and spend a long time in silence.

And it was her way of rejuvenating.

And as I thought,

That's what I need.

Like it seemed like no amount of self care could possibly balance out what the kind of I was putting myself through work wise.

I'm like,

I need to go on this extensive silent retreat.

That'll give me all of this,

You know,

Time and space I need to restore and rejuvenate myself because I was a mess.

Eastern point retreat house.

I remember I even called the Bishop and said,

What's the name of the place you go?

Tell me about it.

I scheduled a retreat.

It was in May of 2001.

So I literally have no idea what I'm doing.

It's Catholic Jesuit retreat house.

I'm going eight days of silence.

I actually had practiced Zen in the past and I really did have a practice of quiet,

But eight days of silence was a lot.

And I show up at this beautiful retreat house in Gloucester,

Massachusetts.

It's on the coast,

Rocky,

Typical New England.

When you think of like Maine with the lighthouse and all of that,

It was in Massachusetts,

Just like that.

Gorgeous,

Gorgeous,

Gorgeous.

And all I know is that when I get to the retreat house,

I'm gonna have eight days of silence and two other things happen.

You have a spiritual director who's assigned to you that you meet for 30 days and you have worship Catholic mass every day in the evening.

So these would be like the only two places in which you really like have voice or talk to someone or like in mass you sing and all these kinds of things.

Listen to a homily.

I'm not Catholic again,

I'm Methodist.

So I've never had this kind of experience before I go to the retreat center and just before sort of like the very first thing that happens,

You go to your room and there's this little piece of paper that says your spiritual director is,

And then they write in the person's name and it says Virginia,

Ginny Sheehan.

Actually I think it's a sister,

Virginia,

Ginny Sheehan.

So I know my person's name and then you go into this big hall and everyone introduces themselves and all the spiritual directors and all the priests who live at this Jesuit center introduce themselves,

Including ourselves.

And then once you're done introducing yourselves,

You go deep into the silence.

So I can remember the hall,

It was like chairs that were facing each other in rows and they had the spiritual directors introduce themselves first before all the participants.

And there was like maybe 30 retreatants and seven,

Eight spiritual directors.

And so this woman,

I can remember staring right at her across the hall,

She stands up,

She's like all about four foot six or something,

Tiny,

Tiny little gray haired,

Old,

Old looking nun.

And she stands up and she's like,

My name is Sister Ginny Sheehan and I believe in miracles.

And I thought,

This is not going to go well.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

I can't believe that I got the miracle lady.

Like this is such BS.

I cannot believe I got this pint-sized little whoever Catholic nun who's going to be the miracle lady.

I was pissed.

I was like,

All right,

Whatever.

I guess as I got Sister Ginny,

So Sister Ginny.

Sister Ginny turned out to be straight up spiritual warrior.

So despite this flowery,

Almost like cute miracle language,

She was really something else.

There's a lot,

A lot,

A lot of stories I could tell about those eight days.

And I'm going to just try and focus really on the end because that's the punchline.

But what I'll say about some of those days is that I had some tremendous,

Tremendous,

Tremendous embodied experience of God's love in which,

For example,

God took possession of my hands and caressed my face and told me that God loved me.

In which when I wanted to escape,

I convinced myself on the Sunday,

You got there on like a Thursday,

By Sunday,

I'm like practically out of my mind because I've been quiet for three days.

That I want to escape from myself and know something's happening to me.

And I can't,

I don't know what,

But something's happening.

And I decide that I'm going to get in my car on a Sunday morning and go to a Methodist church to worship,

Which was the stupidest idea because there's probably nothing more I could have gotten out of the local United Methodist church worship service than I could have gotten at this retreat center.

I got in my car and I turned it on and I heard the words in my mind or my heart inside of myself that said,

Don't go.

I was so mad.

I banged on my steering wheel and I was like,

I don't want to go.

I just wanted to get away from myself.

So these are the kinds of experiences I had a few,

Just these experiences of just God being like with me on top of me,

Like knowing what I needed.

And every minute,

Those would just be two examples of like very significant interventions of God in my life trying to keep me in place to tell me something I needed to know.

And now we're on day seven,

Night seven really.

And we're at mass,

Right?

So you have mass at night,

You met your spiritual director during the day and you had mass at like five o'clock right before dinner.

And I'm at mass and I don't know why,

But I'm crying so uncontrollably.

I cannot even live with myself.

Like I don't,

Again,

I don't have any idea what's going on.

I know I'm going home the next day,

But I'm not,

I don't know what's wrong with me,

But I am just openly weeping throughout the whole thing,

Which is not like me.

Like I'm a pretty reserved Yankee.

Like,

You know,

I'm not crying in public much as weeping in public.

So after mass,

Sister Ginny walks up to me and she's like,

What's wrong with you?

And by now I realize like,

She's no joke,

Right?

She's the miracle lady,

But she's no joke.

And I'm like,

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Like I'm just crying.

I literally am completely out of control.

I have no idea.

She says,

I want you to go into the Mary Chapel,

Which was a chapel I had prayed in a lot facing the ocean.

There's a statue of Mary there.

She's holding Jesus child.

You know,

Like one of these typical Jesus thinks,

I don't want you to go in the Mary Chapel.

I want you to get on your knees and ask God what's wrong with you.

And I was like,

And she was like,

I want you to go into the Mary Chapel and get on your knees and ask God what's wrong with you.

I was like,

Okay.

So she's like,

And so you're going to do this and then it's time for dinner.

You're going to go to dinner and then you're going to meet me in XYZ room after dinner.

And you're going to tell me what God said.

I was like,

Okay.

She's like,

You promise me you're going to get on your knees in that room.

You're going to go eat dinner.

You're going to come to the,

I can't remember the XYZ room.

You're going to tell me what God told you.

So I did,

I went to the Mary Chapel,

I got on my knees and I,

I mean,

It didn't take long.

I calmed myself down a little bit and I said,

God,

What's wrong with me?

And I hear you have a substance abuse problem.

And I was just like,

And I knew it was true,

But even so I was like,

I was like,

Can I hear that again?

Just to confirm I was like,

Oh my God.

And I had this like,

And it sounds like kind of a weight lift off me.

Like I just knew it was true.

Even though like I hadn't talked to sister Ginny about drinking,

About smoking pot,

About my high school friends,

Literally nothing,

None of that.

I don't even know what I talked to her about.

So when I'm like,

Oh my God,

What is this information?

And then I go and I eat and I know that I have to go tell her.

So I go,

We sit in the room.

I mean,

She wastes no time.

She's like,

What did God tell you?

I was like,

I don't know.

She's like,

What did God tell you?

I was like,

I think I have substance abuse problem.

And as soon as I said that,

Like this huge weight lifted off of me.

And she said,

She leaned really close to me.

It was a very small room.

And she's like,

I know what your problem is.

I was like,

You know what my problem,

I think I was like,

I think I'm crying.

I think I just,

I just told you what my problem is.

She's like,

No,

I know what your problem is.

I know what your problem is.

I was like,

Where's me freaking me out?

I think I just told you what my problem is.

Just like,

Here's what your problem is.

And so I'm sitting back.

I'm like,

Oh,

Wide eyed and what?

She's freaking me out.

She's being super aggressive again.

She says,

You go to your little church every morning.

You have this long list of things to do that you know you're not going to accomplish.

You're feeling the stress of the day.

You go to your office,

You talk to your secretary.

She tells you six things you don't want to hear.

You sit in your office all day long,

Trying to get two things done in your list.

Everybody's coming into your office,

Interrupting you all day with all their problems.

And you have,

You know,

The end of the day,

You're kind of getting to the end of the day.

You realize you haven't eaten anything.

Go across the street,

Get a sub,

Come back in.

You work while you're eating.

You go to the finance committee meeting at night.

All they do is fight.

They blame everything on you.

At the end of the day,

You literally have not done four things on your list of 29,

000 things.

You walk out to your car,

You turn the key.

Before you put it in drive,

You tell yourself,

I can't wait to have a drink.

I don't think I told her any of that.

I'm like,

How do you,

I mean,

It was like the exact description of my day.

I mean,

I'm sure I had told her about my day and I probably had told her that I drank it.

I don't remember.

And she says,

Do you,

And I was like,

You're freaking me out.

That's exactly how my day goes.

She's like,

Do you know why?

Do you know why I know what your problem is?

I was like,

No,

You're freaking me out.

I don't know why you know what my problem is.

She was like,

I know why you're,

What your problem is,

Is because I'm 17 years sober.

And if you go,

And I don't know if you're an alcoholic or not,

But if you go home tomorrow,

Because tomorrow was the last day,

Right?

If you go home tomorrow and drink,

You're going to die.

And I don't know if you're going to die tomorrow.

Are you going to die 10 years from now?

Are you going to die a spiritual death that torches you to the end of your days?

But if you go,

If you're an alcoholic and you go home tomorrow and you drink,

You're going to die.

I was like,

Oh my God.

I mean,

She just knew.

She had like one shot at me,

Just like,

So she's like,

I want you to go back in that Mary chapel on your knees all night long,

Under the moonlight with Mary and ask God to help you stay sober for the rest of your life.

So which is what I did.

And she's like,

I want you to meet me tomorrow.

There's the last thing we do is have mass at like noon and then you leave.

And I want to talk to you before you leave.

I did.

I spent my night crying on my knees in the Mary chapel.

I,

You know,

Had mass walked up to her and she said,

Couple,

She said two things.

I have your phone number.

I just want you to know,

I have your phone number from your application and sometime within the next year,

I'm not telling you when I'm going to call you at your home and ask you if you've had a drink.

Okay.

So she said,

She took me by,

Put her hands on both of my shoulders,

Stood right in her four foot,

Nothing frame,

Looked right up at me and said,

See,

You're a miracle.

And I had judged her,

You know,

From the day when I was like miracles,

What a bunch of crap.

And she's like,

See,

You're a miracle.

And I haven't drank since then.

And my 20th anniversary of my sobriety is May 9th,

2021.

That's my miracle story.

And yes,

With this amazing interview,

We've reached episode 40 of bite-sized blessings,

A podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us.

If only we open our eyes to it,

Whether you choose to listen to our bite-sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews,

We're grateful you're here.

I need to thank my wonderful guest,

Dr.

Julie Todd for sharing her story today,

As well as the creators of the music used,

Chilled Music,

Sasha End,

Agniese Balmagia,

Lilo Sound,

And Kevin MacLeod.

For complete attribution,

Please see the bite-sized blessings website at bite-sizedblessings.

Com.

On the website,

You can find links to other episodes,

To art,

Books,

And people who are making this world a better and more beautiful place.

Thank you for listening and here's my one request.

Be like Julie,

Ask the hard questions.

What's wrong with me?

What do I need to fix?

And then,

Then be ready for the answers,

Whether they come in large or small packages.