Tweet the Midwife

Tonight at 7PM Central I will be watching (and live-tweeting ... more on that below) Call the Midwife.

For those not in the know, Call the Midwife is a British television show broadcast in the US on PBS which tells the stories of a community of Anglican Sisters and lay midwives who minister to the people of London's East End in the late 1950s. The current series ends on May 18th.

It is an excellent period piece, in my humble opinion, painting a vivid picture of life on the margins in this particular neighborhood in London and the very real women who sought to meet the needs of people living in or near poverty. It also delves into the cultural shifts of this era, in particular for women. The situations and people depicted are very real, not caricatures, but with real depth and complexity.

While the show features a community of Anglican Sisters, I will admit to being particularly fascinated by the series because it causes me to imagine what it must have been for my own Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace living in the UK at this time in history, some of whom were in fact midwives or nurses.

Flash forward to the 21st Century ... inspired by my friend Julie Vieira, IHM of A Nun's Life Ministry, I've started live-tweeting Call the Midwife. That is, as I watch the show, I use the hashtag #callthemidwife on my personal twitter account (@susanfrancois) to comment on the show. In particular, I find myself commenting on aspects of the Sisters lives which are depicted so very well.  For example, here are a few tweets from last week's episode!

Last week, my tweets (along with a few other Sisters who were tweeting) received a bit of attention in the twitterverse!

In the end, it's just a bit of good fun and a way to be a witness and share the fact that not only do vowed women religious still exist today, we can even be a little bit silly.

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Google Doing Good

Bloggy friend Dave pointed this project out to me - looks interesting. Maybe one of my other bloggy friends has a brilliant idea they should send Google's way to help as many people as possible?

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.

At Google, we don't believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there. Maybe in a lab, or a company, or a university -- but maybe not.

Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you've observed, some notion that you've been fiddling with, some small connection you've noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes.

If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We're looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we're committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others. Final idea selections will be made by an advisory board.

Have an idea? Visit the Project 10 to the 100 website to sign up!

Information Technology is a Gift From God, Says the Bishop

My Jesuit scholastic friend Jason - who has recently switched coasts with me as he's at Fordham & I'm in Seattle - pointed me in the direction of this post on Whispers in the Loggia which references this article by Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin:

Many Church people today are slow about IT - some seem proud to say that they will never master the techniques. But they have nothing to be proud of. Information technology is a true gift of God to our times, mediated though the creative genius of men and women. Not to use it, to refuse to understand it, is to reject a gift of God.

We must embrace new technologies and new methods of communications; Thanks to the internet we are both consumers and operators of global communications and we have a responsibility to ensure the truth is at the heart of all our communications.

It is almost ninety years since the former British newspaper editor, CP Scott wrote that “comment is free, but facts are sacred,” in that piece he said also newspaper “may educate, stimulate, assist or it may do the opposite.” The same holds true for websites today.

As well as promoting the truth in our Catholic publications and websites, we each have a responsibility to learn to determine and discern which websites, among the millions on offer to us, promote truth in their communications. And it is a lesson we must urgently teach our children. From a very early age, even before starting school – children are embracing new technologies; they do so before they have been educated and guided in discerning what is truthful, respectful, and dignified in our world, from millions of sites and hours of information available to them that promote the opposite.

Jesus said “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free,” ; and as the Holy Father urged in his message for World Communications Day, Let us ask the Holy spirit to raise up courageous communicators and authentic witnesses to the truth, faithful to Christ’s mandate and enthusiastic for the message of the faith. Read the whole article

Let the church (and blogosphere) say Amen!

Techno Savvy

This past summer I shared that I had a milestone birthday ... 36. By some counts, that ages me out of the young adult range and into something else. One survey listed it as 36-50!

I, however, am a woman religious in the early 21st Century in America. In that context, I am YOUNG and will be for quite some time.

This afternoon I shared with a regional group of vocation and formation directors about using technology more effectively to reach potential candidates. Thanks to everyone who answered my request for comments! They were shared and appreciated by everyone today.

My talk was titled (not by me) "In the Know ... A Techno Savvy Younger Member Shares."

I must admit I'm feeling techno savvy right now, and not because of today's presentation. Instead, it's because I just managed to diagnose and solve the problem that was preventing the common computer in the library here at groovy sister hq from connecting to the internet!

Sometimes I'm not so techno savvy and I get stumped ... there are going to be some very happy sisters tomorrow who will be able to check their e-mail!