On Goodness

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One word has been popping up persistently in my prayer of late  …

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Goodness.

I am not sure where it came from,  but it was a quieting word amidst the storm of worry and anxiety and worse case scenarios that I am prone to from time to time.

Goodness.

The goodness of God. The goodness of people far and near. The goodness of life itself and creation and the universe  and creativity  and community and love and laughter and … (fill in the blank).

What I have discovered  these weeks of praying with goodness is that it is everywhere, even within and among you and me.

What I have also discovered  is that swirling thoughts or worries or wonderings  are no match for focused attention on goodness.

Next time you find yourself spinning  to a not so good space, try this. Close your eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Think of goodness. Just the word. Or some representation or experience of goodness in your own life. Keep breathing in, breathing  out, focusing  on goodness.  Maybe, like me, you will feel yourself settle, slow down, at peace.

Goodness … it’s what’s happening if we but pay attention!

Writer’s Block

columns, Global Sisters Report, life

how_to_beat_writers_block_for_content_marketersI realized this morning that I have not posted anything here on the blog in the new year!  I’ve had many things kicking around my head and heart, but I guess they have not been in publicly consumable form for the most part.

I did manage to break through my writer’s block for a bit earlier this week. The result is my latest column on the Global Sisters Report, in which I ponder indifference and disconnection, justice and injustice, privilege and moral action.

Facing an overwhelming sea of social injustice, I am coming to realize that my privilege moderates which realities I choose to see and which I take to heart. My privilege distances me from the experiences of people living in poverty or those who daily struggle against racialized structures of injustice which limit access to education, housing, and employment. My privilege obscures my own complicity and connection to the root causes. My privilege makes indifference and disconnection possible. (Read entire column here)

Have you ever noticed that you really start to appreciate some things in their absence? Friends, family, and in this case, writing. Writing is a gift that helps me process and relate to the world and the movements of the spirit in my life. Writing helps me connect with my deepest and truest self.  Writing is gift … even as these words come forth from my mind and heart through my fingers to the screen.

Maybe I’ll be writing more soon … maybe not. But whatever comes is surely gift!

Endings and Beginnings

life, reflections,

Another new year is coming, ready or not. Balls will drop, champagne will be drunk, some will go to bed early and most of us will wake up in 2016.

This year my new year musings coincide with the end of my first year in elected leadership of my religious community. 2015 meant:
-an end to my grad school experience
-a move to New Jersey and revisiting familiar territory with new eyes
-building community with a new group of Sister housemates
-meetings and travel and opportunities to visit our csjp community in all three regions
-and every thing in between.

It has been a good year filled with endings and new beginnings. January 7, our Community Day of Thanksgiving,  will mark the beginning of year 2 of my leadership adventure. Much is in progress, some important projects are just beginning, and there are others still on the horizon, not to mention those surprises good and bad which are bound to come.

There is lots of uncertainty,  some anxiety, but a deep peace and faith that the One who calls us together will guide our feet into the way of peace, through the next set of endings and beginnings on this path called life. And that is a good place to be as we say goodbye to 2015 and move into the new year and all it will hold.

Decking my heart

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Wow, it is already Christmas Eve. Advent has been very full, as has the past year. Full of good things, full of hard work, full of light and laughter and love and loss, because all of those things come together in this package we call life.

This Advent I’ve been spending some time with words written almost 150 years ago by Margaret Anna Cusack, who later as Mother Francis Clare founded the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in 1884. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, her little 1866 book Meditations for Advent and Easter is freely available under public domain.  Her words are steeped in theological worldview of her day. That is a given. But there are also kernels of wisdom, insight and challenge sprinkled throughout that are every bit as relevant today as they would have been to a 19th Century audience.

In her reflection for Christmas Eve, she writes this:

Tomorrow sweet Jesus will come. Oh, how blessedly near is His advent! Today we are decking our houses for His divine visit; let us not forget to deck our hearts.  Let us sweep out every imperfection, every imperfect disposition, every wandering thought, with the besom of penance and adorn ourselves with the fair bright flowers of contrition and love.  Tomorrow our Infant King will come. Are we prepared to receive Him? Have we all the love ready for Him we should like to offer Him?

This is my prayer this day, that I may deck my heart to be ready to welcome the one who is love incarnate.

ChristmasEveMeme

 

Generous Heart – Sister Alicia

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Sister Alicia (in white) with me and Sister Eleanor

This week the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace celebrate the life of Sister Alicia Cavanaugh, CSJP who passed away late Saturday night at the age of 82.

I first met Alicia when she opened her home, and her heart, to me as a novice. I lived with Sisters Alicia and Eleanor for 3 months during my novitiate ministry year. I was placed in two very challenging ministries–three days a week working with survivors of human trafficking, two days a week helping women emerging from domestic violence situations attain restraining orders.  Every day when I would come home from work after hearing stories of such hardship and suffering, there would be Alicia inviting me to sit down with a cup of tea and tell her about my day. She was always interested, always inviting, always engaged.

She was also extremely generous. She had a number of people in the neighborhood who would stop by regularly for a visit and a little bit of help. Whenever we went out in the car, she always had a small stash of one dollar bills to give to folks begging on the side of the road. And on more than one occasion, when I came home from work to make dinner, I’d find that the food that had been there in the morning when I’d made my plans for the evening meal was no longer there.  Alicia, I’d say, do you know what happened to the tuna fish or pasta or rice? Oh, she’d say, so and so came to the door and she was just so hungry ….  We of course made do and never went hungry ourselves. She’d always help me find something else in our ample pantry that would suffice … It was a good lesson for me.

During her time as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace, Alicia shared her generous heart with many people. She was a teacher in schools in New Jersey, California, and Kenya! She worked as Director of Religious Education and Catechist. But I will remember her for the lessons she taught me through daily living and compassionate care for all of God’s children, especially the poor and vulnerable.

Framing fear

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  It has been a while since I have written on the blog. Much has been happening in my own world — community meetings, travel, conferences, being a bit under the weather, and then another series of meetings.

There also has been so much going on in the world, much of it with far reaching consequences we cannot see.

And yet, much of the rhetoric, perhaps most of the rhetoric depending on who and what you listen to, is framing the situation quite narrowly and thus has blinders to the consequences.

When we frame our worldview, our response, our understanding of any situation from fear, we risk losing that which makes us most human. The best human responses, if you look at history or even your own life, come not from fear but from love, compassiom, wisdom, and a focus on the common good. We are most secure and have the best chance at creating a peaceful tomorrow when we draw upon what we share in common, rather than focus on what makes us different or divides us.

Fear blinds us to our best selves and our potential. No wonder Jesus told his followers, again and again, be not afraid. He was building a community of beloved disciples. He understood the temptation of fear and its power, but God is love and God calls us to love not fear.

For the non religious among you, other wise figures have understood this. FDR famously said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, whereas his wife Eleanor asked what I think is a key question: “When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” When indeed?

As Frank Herbert wrote in the sci-fi novel Dune: “Fear is the mind killer.” Fear also seems to act as a heart killer too. When our response to families fleeing terror and seeking safety turns into our own irrational fear of the ones who are literally and rightfully afraid for their lives, then we have turned a scary corner.

And whoever wrote these words attributed to Yoda in Star Wars was, I think, on to something: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

We human beinge have let fear win out before, and it has led to things like the Internment of Americans of Japanese descent by their own government, the use of torture in interrogation, and genocide after genocide.

We humans are better than that, and I think it all starts with how we frame our experience, our viewpoint, our shared reality: from a narrow closed off space of fear? Or from an expansive space of love, compassion, and human creativity in service of the common good.

The choice is ours … and our choices have consequences indeed.

Peace

Remembering, renewing, risking – Global Sisters Report

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My latest column has been posted on Global Sisters Report. This one is more of a reflection where I mull over the communion of saints and what their witness and presence means to us today:

There is great wisdom in our Catholic tradition of setting aside time in the liturgical year to remember all the saints and souls, just as we take time to remember and celebrate the impact of our loved ones upon their passing. As theologian Flora Keshgegian writes in Redeeming Memories: A Theology of Healing and Transformation, remembering is meant to be oriented to ‘affect present action'(p. 25). We do not remember to stay in the past. Rather, we remember for the present, and dare I say, for the future.”

Head over to Global Sisters Report to read the whole column.

Go Be Light … Sister Jeanne Keaveny

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Jeanne (left) and Dorothy deeply engage at a community meeting in 2008
Jeanne (left) and Dorothy deeply engaged in conversation at a community meeting in 2008

Our CSJP community is saying goodbye to one of our shining lights this week. Jeanne Celeste Keaveny, CSJP passed away last Thursday at the age of 95. She entered the Congregation from Ireland in 1936 and ministered as an educator in New Jersey and California before being asked to step into the ministry of leadership in 1964.  She served as provincial of our eastern province until 1968.

Those were of course tumultuous years, but also years of great hope and energy. When I met Jeanne in 2006 during my novitiate, her eyes still shone brightly when she talked of the hope and promise of the Second Vatican Council, and the work that was still to be done. She was interested and engaged in social justice issues, geo-politics, and the future of religious life.  Her bookshelf always flabbergasted me, filled to the brim a it was with Ilia Delio and Teillhard de Chardin and Diarmud O’Murchu, to name a few.

It is next to impossible to describe Jeanne, let alone what she meant to me personally. She and her dear friend Sister Dorothy Vidulich were a dynamic duo who played an important role during my early years of formation.  When I moved to New Jersey in 2006 to start my novitiate, they had recently moved into the retirement community next door after many years in Washington, D.C. Jeanne’s room was an oasis of lively and engaging conversation on many an occasion. When it was hard to see beyond the little things of the novitiate experience that seemed so big, I knew that I could head next door to visit Jeanne and Dorothy for a dash of perspective and inspiration.  They were always so gracious, not to mention intellectually stimulating. We would talk about the state of the world, the church, the cosmos, the community … you name it!  As I wrote on my old blog after Dorothy’s passing in 2012, they “were incredible mentors to me and my novitiate classmates in our early months of formation, true kindred spirits and role models who journeyed with us through challenges that in retrospect seem small but at the time almost insurmountable.”

Jeanne continued to be a friend and mentor to me. When I was in New Jersey last summer to attend the discernment retreat for sisters invited to leave their name in for leadership, I had some key conversations with her that helped me see that maybe my gifts were needed at this time. In the past ten months since I began to serve in the ministry of leadership, I have had the pleasure of many conversations with Jeanne. She continued to be a shining light for me, helping me to gain some necessary perspective while also holding fast to the vision, promise, and call of our charism of peace.  For example, I found this little exchange documented in my journal from this past March:

Me: I have no idea what I am doing Jeanne.

Jeanne: Good. You never really will. That means you’re where you should be, in the chaos.

On that particular day, that was exactly what I needed to hear!

In the end,  Jeanne was ready to go, and I am so happy for her that she has passed over to the other side, where she is in the company of her loving God, family, community, and friends who have gone before.  She went quickly in the end, but I was lucky enough to spend some good quality time with her during her last days.  In a way, being able to sit with her during her final journey was yet another gift of mentorship that she gave to me, teaching me how to simply be present when that is what the moment calls for.

As I was sitting with her the day she died, I found myself thinking of all the reading she had done and the conversations we’d had about the universe and the cosmos and God.  I found myself thinking, “Don’t be afraid Jeanne … just go be light.”  And so that’s what I told her, and that’s what she is, and that’s what she will always be to me, a shining light in love and memory.

Securing Peace: Global Sisters Report

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My latest Global Sisters Report column has been posted, in which I try to weave together my Congregation’s founding story, the violence and suffering of today, with some inspiration I received from Pope Francis and our Sisters in the UK, not to mention Gandhi’s 82 year old grandson.

In the 131 years since my congregation was founded, the human family has faced two world wars and the onset of the global war on terror. We have developed the capacity to destroy all of God’s creation countless times over with nuclear weapons. Human communities have suffered through more than250 armed conflicts across the globe since 1945, and civilians now make up the majority of the causalities of war, with some estimates as high as 90 percent. Then, of course, there is the ugly reality of gun violence in our own nation, a reality which only seems to seep into our collective consciousness briefly in the face of tragedies such as the recent shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

Last week I found myself holding all of this in prayer as I sat in St. Barnabas Cathedral in Nottingham, England, where our first sisters professed their vows in 1884. I could not help but reflect anew on Bishop Bagshawe’s words then to our first sisters (“To secure this divine peace for ourselves and procure its blessings for others in the midst of the sin, turmoil and restless anxiety of this modern world is the object of your institute.”) . I wondered: What would he make of the sin, turmoil and restless anxiety of our contemporary world which gives rise to such violence? One thing is certain — there continues to be an urgent need for faithful witnesses to peace, compassion and nonviolence today.

Visit Global Sisters Report to read the whole thing.

Peace vigil at the Faslane nuclear base in Scotland with my CSJP Sisters, some new Catholic worker friends, and Arun Gandhi
Peace vigil at the Faslane nuclear base in Scotland with my CSJP Sisters, some new Catholic worker friends, and Arun Gandhi

Here and Now with Mary & Martha

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MaryMarthaI am back from my visit with our sisters and associates in the United Kingdom. It was a wonderful trip and always so good to be with our community in the various regions where we minister.

Transatlantic travel means I woke up very early this morning. By nature I am not a morning person, although these days I am becoming more so. I am coming to appreciate the quiet of the morning. For one thing it is a good time for prayer.

In the little booklet I use for prayer and reflection, today there was a reflection by Henri Nouwen:

Somehow we don’t fully trust that our God is a God of the present and speaks to us where we are. “This is the day the Lord has made.” When the people of Nineveh heard Jonah speak, they turned back to God. Can we listen to the word that God speaks to us today and do the same? This is a very simple but crucial message: Don’t wait for tomorrow to change your heart. This is the favorable time!

I came back to New Jersey yesterday with a very long running to do list in my mind. It was great to be with our UK community for a few weeks, to sit at the feet of wisdom women and experience the movement of God in their lives and ministry. But my practical side is anxious to get busy about many things.

How fitting then that today we have the Gospel of Mary and Martha, one sitting at the feet of Jesus, the other anxious and busy about many things. If sit in the quiet of the morning and listen to the word that God speaks to me today, I realize it is good to be here, it is good to be in the present moment. It is good to sit and be present to my sisters. It is also good to be about the work I have been called to do for the community. God is here, now, with me. God is with us, always, if we but pay attention!

And so this morning I pray in gratitude for the Mary moments of the past few weeks, even as I get ready to face my to do list and channel Martha for a bit. I also hold the promise of many Mary moments with our Sisters and Associates in our two US regions. I am feeling very blessed for the opportunity to soak in the presence of such amazing faith filled people. Fairly often these days, I give thanks to God who broke through all my resistance to religious life a decade ago and led me to this community of peace. I am all the better for it, and have come to know and love and serve God in a whole new way in the process.

God is good.

Peace.