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TACOMA CATHOLIC WORKER
Guadalupe House of Hospitality
1417 South G Street, Tacoma WA 98405-4437
House Phone: (253)572-6582 Office Phone: (253)572-4247
Website: tacomacatholicworker.weebly.com Email: [email protected]
Remembering Father William ‘Bix’ Bichsel
1928-2015
Father Bix passed away peacefully
surrounded by his loving community
members on Saturday, February 28,
2015 at Jean’s House of Peace, part
of the Tacoma Catholic Worker.
Father Bix had been in a coma for
several days allowing a constant
stream of people from the community
to visit with him, say a prayer and say
good-bye.
Bix: A Loving Builder of Community A couple of years ago, a few neighbors and I decided it would be fun to walk around with Bix and talk about the neighborhood, our history, and all the things he had been a part of starting. We walked from house to house with a little camera and recorded Bix telling the stories that brought us to where we are. So many of the stories were about the work of constructing a place where commu-nity could happen; repairing or rebuilding every house on the block one by one. What struck me most about these stories was how Bix remembered each person, and each contribution to the whole, and felt it was important for these things to be remembered by us too. The people who donated lumber, sanded the drywall, the neighbors who brought food for the building crew were all recalled with gratitude. He was quick to identify his own failures, but held a deep hopefulness about the power of community. It must have felt precarious sometimes, to carry on welcom-ing friends off the street into houses that were under construction, with just enough money to keep the lights on. And yet somehow it was enough to get by, and slow-ly to grow. This community's story is about being carried through by Bix's hope-fulness and the care of friends. I saw these same traits shine brightly in the week before he died. When it was clear that his heart was failing and its progress could not be reversed, friends began to appear at his beside to express their love and thanks, to sing and to pray. This outpouring of love caught him by surprise, though I don't think it surprised anyone else. “Are you sure you are talking to the right person?” He joked several times with visitors. Even when he could no longer open his eyes, his lips shaped the words to “This Little Light of Mine” while we sang. He was joyful, and grateful for the love of friends. Bix has loved his neighbor as himself, even difficult and contrary neighbors (and we have all been in this category at some point, including Bix). Along the way has helped his neighbors to love one another. His has been the continual voice of faith, calling us to risk and to trust in God and our brothers and sisters. He has washed his last of many many dishes at the Guadalupe House kitchen sink, has celebrated his last mass on the wooden crate in the backyard, has cut through the fence for the last time. Bix has laid his burden down. We will miss our friend terribly. And because he is not here, we take up our community's work in a deeper way. With a greater awareness of the power of relationship, with gratitude for those who came before us, with an abiding hopefulness.
by Nora Leider
“But without faith in each
other, we cannot go on. With-
out hope we cannot go on.
Without hope we cannot live.
To those who are without
hope, I remind you of Christ,
your brother.” - Dorothy Day
With the continuous violence being voiced in our news
outlets, millions across the nations locked away in mass
incarceration and detention facilities, and increasing
gaps of wealth distribution, our world can seem dark at
times. Amongst all of this though, we must be voices for
hope together. We cannot do this alone. This is why I
have found to love the Catholic Worker movement be-
cause we are a family. Christ is our brother as well.
Through relationships with one another, standing with
one in another in struggle, and finding joy within that, is
where I see Hope. I saw this in the life of Father Bix
(Presente!), who I feel would urge us to continue carry-
ing the work of spreading the message of hope, to one
another. By Megan Capes
28 Simple Ways to Become Compassionate By Mark Votava
At the Tacoma Catholic Worker we live in relationship with so many who are marginalized and have no voice in
our culture. This saddens me because the poor have so much to offer us. Many of them no longer believe that
others care about what they have to say or who they are. Even though we do many services for those on the
margins, we are reluctant to really listen to them and the things they care about.
This week at our Tuesday night liturgy meal, I facilitated a conversation with a bunch of people about their
thoughts on a specific question. The question I came up with was: How can we become more compassionate
people? On this day I found out that those who feel like they have no voice have some prophetic things to say to
us. I am coming to see that there is no salvation outside the poor. It is the poor who save us from the illusion of
the affluent life of meaninglessness that it seem many of us pursue on a path of upward mobility. Why are we so
afraid to listen to the cries of the poor?
Here are 28 ways that were expressed in our conversation about how we can become more compassionate to-
ward those who feel marginalized:
Focus on what we have in common
Show love and respect
Share some food together
Don’t be so judgmental
Take a posture of understanding
Listen and hear others
Have more availability for others to take
showers in our homes
Engage in action that comes from the heart
Become open to the wisdom they bring to us
Be compassionate toward yourself first
Live for the benefit of others
Find ways to be together
Share our assets
Daily acts of kindness and reflection
Patience
Have a true motive of genuine care
Come out of your own box
Respond to suffering
Get to know each other
Share our thoughts and stories
Share our lives together
Engage in the process and conversion of
compassion
Walk with others
Take it slow
Stop to pause before we immediately
respond to someone
Realize that we all want the same thing, not
to be dehumanized
Help someone out while feeling with emotion
Refuse to be bitter and hateful
A Triduum Poem By Bill Bischel Apri 4, 1990
Earth filled man,
they dragged you
on the way
to your death.
They stretched you
out on a cross
like a jack-rabbit
and punctured
your body
with ruddy wounds.
Pain poured into every
cell and fiber
of your being
and broke
your body and spirit.
Your desperate cry
of abandonment
faded into heavy gasps
and, finally,
with your head
hanging limp
you breathed out
your life.
You were dead.
You were supposed
to stay dead
as all broken do.
But,
Earth filled man,
in the dark and dank
of Joseph’s cave -
far away from Bethlehem –
you began
to quicken
like a potato bud
in a root cellar.
Life began oozing
in your veins
and your toes and brain
began to feel
the trickle
of energy.
The pace stepped up
and laughing life
river rushing
through a broken dam
into every artery
and synapse
of yourself.
And you felt joy
and laughed.
Your wrapped hand
pressed against
your clothed thigh
and you began
to unwrap
the prison clothes
that bound you.
You rose naked
from your stone slab
and felt your
open wounds
which did not smart
and ran your hands
through your
bloody matted hair.
The laugh
of cascading spring water
broke out of your mouth
and your raised
your arms
and sang
your joyful halleluiah song
to your
delighted God.
With hands and shoulder
against the boulder
and feet braced
against the stone slab
and power racing in your
sinews
you pushed mightily
against the rock
and moved it aside.
You strode
naked and singing
through the crypt en-
trance
out into
early sunlight
and blossoming time.
out into
Earth filled man.
Your cross brought
your halleluiah song.
Help me
not shrink
from mine.
Teach me
to unwrap
the cloth
I’ve woven
around myself.
Strengthen me
to push against
the stone
that blocks
my walking naked
and singing
into your sunlight.
Rekindling our Flames by Kate Maguire
The winter, especially in these past few months, has consisted of repeated patterns of loss. Cur-
rently in those ashes, new life and blessings are sprouting up as reminders of life. While still
grieving what is being freshly been laid to rest, we need to hold each other more gently and with
more kindness. We must also hold out our hands to Creator God so we may become receptive and
receiving of the constant cycle of change. We are doing this emotionally, spiritually and environ-
mentally in the midst of early spring- we have lost things in the darkness and released some
things as well. Now is the time to take a step out in order to be present in Light, in Life, and in Love
as we are called to.
The Spring possesses great healing, and new growing things spark a flame in our hearts. It is be-
cause of this that we would do well to ask ourselves- what lights a fire inside of us? What fires do
we need to feed and tend to? The Celtic deity Brigid (and later Saint Brigid) was very widespread
and known for her fiery characteristics. She was honored in the springtime, symbolizing the re-
turn of life and abundance and growing things to the earth. She represented, encouraged and
pursued the fires in life-- fire of creativity,fire of the crafts, fire of healing, which was honored
through both her centuries-old eternal flame in Kildare, and through lively spirit, passionate inspi-
rations, and fostering the beauty of life.
As we emerge from the shadows into the light this spring, what do we choose to take with us?
What do we need to leave behind in order to grow in spirit? We take with us is what we choose to
continue to honor. Continue feeding the flames of yours that bear goodness, and honor the vibran-
cy that burns within yourself.
No Glory for the Genuine
Darkness to light, or so I hope
The unknowable feeds life
There shall be no glory for the genuine
Not a soul can understand the book of life
We all are bound by the chains of our cultures
Thieves are simply those who lost the game
While innocence is merely a flawless drawing
waiting to be smudged
Wait, don’t you get it yet?
You can’t be picky here my dear
Because anyone, including you, could be poisoned
by your red apple
So be brave and crazy I say, for the night is not al-
ways so tender
And finally, take off your mask so we may all
know who you truly are
Kristen Sandholm
March 11, 2015
Living with Bix: Solidarity, Resistance, and Jesus’s Heart
I have had the privilege and the blessing to live in community with Bix at the Tacoma Catholic Worker for a year. On November 9th 2014, Bix excitedly told me the Gospel reading for that day, John ch 2. Where Jesus enters the Temple to see the people disgracing the place by selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Jesus makes them leave and pours out the coins from the money collectors and overturns the tables, he says “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” “We are going to overturn tables”! Bix exclaims. This was the day before I boarded an airplane to fly with Bix and 8 others to Jeju Island, S.Korea to join a community in solidarity in resisting the American Empire. To stand with peo-ple I have yet to meet, but who ended up being brothers and sisters. Each day we sat in protest in front of the military base being built, while listening to Mass. Each day we took communion in front of the base. “ This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” Doing this everyday amongst a community struggling to fight the overpowering rule of the American military that is invading their home, became a sign of Jesus’ presence and love for this community, His resistance with them. “Eucharistic Resistance” is what Bix called this. The powerful presence of Jesus was alive in this village and these people, and Bix could see that. Bix thrived off of this power. I came to notice it also, that solidarity and resistance are part of Jesus’s heart. Jesus overturned the tables in the Temple, the tables of the people who are ruling the land. Bix lived this out in the truest sense. He would stand and fight against what he saw were in-justices. I feel so incredibly blessed to have been able to take that journey to Jeju, and witness along side of Bix the beauty and powerful presence of Jesus and Resistance at the sight of de-struction, militarization and death. To learn that there is power in the Eucharist. And as Bix always said “keep up the good fight”. By Melissa Yeager
Save The Date
Saturday, April 25th at 6 pm
The Guadalupe House ‘Spectacular Spectacular’
Dinner * Auction * Fundraiser
At Holy Cross Parish Hall 5510 N. 44th St. Tacoma, WA 98407
Come Celebrate the Legacy of Father Bix and
the return of the “AMAZING ROUDINI” as he will attempt to
escape from Yes—a giant garbage can.
Come help us raise money to support the ongoing work of
providing transitional housing and other services for home-
less folks in Tacoma.
PLEASE COME!