Pray and Act for Peace in Syria

I'm a bit preoccupied with my country's impending military strike on Syria.  I posted the following note on Facebook a little bit ago, but decided it needs a wider audience so I'm cross posting it on the blog:

Ok. So generally I am for peace and against war. I'm sure you all know that. But putting that aside for the moment, I'm reading about Syria and it seems to come down to this:

Obama is angry that Assad killed people (with chemical weapons) after Obama told him not to. 

So Obama wants to use a military strike (a euphamism for bombs) to kill people to punish Assad for killing people. 

Does that not seem crazy? You killed people, which was wrong, so I'm going to kill people, to show you you were wrong?

For those of you who say chemical weapons are different. Yes, they are bad. But they were banned by the international community because they killed civilians instead of military personnel.

We think of war as this clean exchange of fire and death between armies. But wars as our Nation and others engage in the practice disproportionately kill civilians, with non-chemical weapons. But they are still dead.

In fact, according to the International Red Cross the civilian-to-soldier death ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10:1, meaning ten civilian deaths for every soldier death.

So if the point of the military strike is to retaliate for civilian deaths, I think we might want to stop, pause, and look honestly at our own nation's military policies and practices and think of the millions of civilians we have killed in the midst of our wars in the last 50 years.

The Sister of Peace has now finished her preaching. You can go about your business, but please pray and work for peace!

Those are my thoughts this evening.  You might also be interested in the:

• US Bishops Conference Letter to John Kerry
• Pax Christi International Statement
• Pope Francis calling for peace and dialogue

I am praying for peace and hoping that diplomacy and dialogue will win the day.  I've also sent out a number of action alerts today to that end.   Here are some if you'd like to join me in pounding the virtual pavement for peace.

• Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center
• Friends National Committee for Legislation
• No War in Syria Petition

If you know of others, feel free to put them in the comments.

I end this post with the words and prayer of Pope Francis:

With great suffering and concern I continue to follow the situation in Syria. The increase in violence in a war between brothers, with the proliferation of massacres and atrocities, that we all have been able to see in the terrible images of these days, leads me once again raise my voice that the clatter of arms may cease. It is not confrontation that offers hope to resolve problems, but rather the ability to meet and dialogue. 

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to express my closeness in prayer and solidarity with all the victims of this conflict, with all those who suffer, especially children, and I invite you to keep alive the hope of peace. I appeal to the international community to be more sensitive to this tragic situation and make every effort to help the beloved Syrian nation find a solution to a war that sows destruction and death.

All together let us pray. . . 

All together let us pray to Our Lady, Queen of Peace:
Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!
Everyone: Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us!

7 Years Ago Yesterday

Late August must be a popular time for entering religious communities or making vows.  My Facebook feed has been full of young nun friends marking their anniversary dates.  This made me pause and look back at the way back machine that is this blog.  Guess what! It turns out that yesterday was 7 years since I was received as a novice and became "Sister Susan."

Here's a walk down memory lane from that auspicious day!

Well folks, it was an amazing day. I'm a bit at a loss for words so I'll use pictures to tell the story... We gathered in our Chapel at St. Mary-on-the-lake. Our sister Novice  had been received earlier in the day in New Jersey. Chero & I were received by our own groovy province out west. We shared our hopes for the novitiate ...We got our Peace Crosses (our symbol of identity with the congregation)...
We received our own copies of our Constitutions (so I can now return my long borrowed copy) ...
In addition to the many groovy sisters and associates in attendance, I had my own cheering section. Here's Kim &  Jackie taking pictures ... My friends Sr. Pat & Sr. Sharon from my parish also came as a surprise! ...
I cried a lot ... happy tears. I'm a poignant moment crier, and today was a special day in my life. Alexandra gave an amazing reflection - a letter from our foundress Margaret Anna Cusack to the new novices. That started my tears of joy and gratitude rolling ...
The new novices .... notice our Peace Crosses! (and accidentally color coordinated outfits).
There was a party after in the dining room. Lots of visiting, treats and fun. Afterwards Jackie, Kim & I went back to my house. I'm spending the next week and a half (until I fly to New Jersey to enter the Congregational Novitiate) living with the sisters I spent my groovy sister reserves with this past year. We went to Saturday vigil mass, had a yummy bbq dinner on the deck, and then I opened my cards and gifts. A good day, even if I have some adjusting to do to this ...
Mostly I'm deeply happy and grateful to God for this invitation and the whatever it took to finally say yes. Not to mention this amazing community of friends I have found to journey with. Wow .... But for now, BED!!

A White Catholic girl goes to the movies .... thoughts on race inspired by The Butler

This afternoon I went to the movies to see The Butler. This was one of the films I wanted to see when I was on vacation at the beach, but I'm glad that I waited to see it until I got home to Chicago.  Seeing the film at my local theater in the heart of Hyde Park, just down the street from President Obama's house, and perhaps most importantly as one of only a few White folks in a predominantly African American audience, was a privileged cultural experience. Let me explain, as best I can, some of my complicated reflections on race inspired by the film and the film watching experience.

First of all, let's admit it, White folks rarely write about race.  We rarely think about race.  This is part and parcel of the undeniable (yet often denied) reality of White privilege.  We don't write/think/talk about race because we don't have to. Fortunately, I was privileged to be able to take a course at CTU last semester on the ethics of power and racial justice.  It gave me a framework and language to use to explore my own experiences of race and White privilege as well as the ethical imperative of naming this reality if we are ever to arrive at anything close to racial justice and equality.

One of the preeminent Catholic moral theologians who is writing about these issues is Fr. Bryan Massingale. I HIGHLY recommend his book Racial Justice and the Catholic Church. Not only is it brilliant, thought provoking and challenging, it's also incredibly well written and easy to read.  One of the biggest concepts I took away from Fr. Massingale is the power of lament and his assertion that because we experience racism viscerally, or at the "gut" level, we can't arrive at racial justice just through rational thought or discussion. In his words:

Thus, I believe that we Catholic ethicists need to lament the ambiguity and distortions of our history and their tragically deforming effect on ourselves.  We need to lament, mourn, and grieve our history. ... Lament has the power to challenge the entrenched cultural beliefs that legitimate privilege.  It engages a level of human consciousness deeper than logical reason.  Lamenting can propel us to new levels of truth seeking and risk taking as we grieve our past history and strive to create an ethical discourse that is more reflective of the universality of our Catholic Faith.

Lament. As a White girl watching the violent tragedies of hate in the film, from the Jim Crow South to lynching to attacks on the freedom riders, it was hard not to feel a visceral feeling in my gut.  Yet, as someone born after these events in 1972, it is also tempting to think that this isn't about me.  I'm not responsible.  And yet, this is my history, our history, and it does indeed have tragically deforming effects on each and every one of us.  We need to lament, mourn and grieve our history, and stories like The Butler help us to do this.  We also need to celebrate the victories, the courage, the ways each of us big and small works to promote racial justice in our lives and communities.  The recent commemoration of the March on Washington is one example, and anyone who has visited the MLK memorial in Washington, D.C. cannot help but be moved.

I realized this afternoon that living here in Hyde Park is really the first time in my entire life that I have not lived in a predominantly White neighborhood.  While I did attend a racially mixed high school, I grew up in a very White suburb.  In fact, when my parents first bought their house in Bowie, Maryland, the developer refused to sell to African American home buyers.  It wasn't until the PG County Open Housing law passed in 1967 (thanks in no small part to the hard work of my Dad who was on the County Council, something to celebrate indeed) and the Federal Fair Housing Act in 1968 that the developers were forced to sell homes to qualified Black buyers. By then, of course, most of the houses had been sold to White buyers.  Hence, my very White childhood.

Last semester, I reflected on this part of my history for my paper in the course on the ethics of power and racial justice.  I reached a bit deeper into this history when I remembered that the suburban house of my childhood was built on the grounds of a former plantation.  This means that I played on land where generations of African Americans were forced as slaves to farm the land, care for the horses, and run the manor house.  A little bit of research helped me discover that when slaves were freed by the 1865 Maryland constitution, forty-one people, aged 2 to 75, were held in captivity on the very land where I was raised. This brings our sordid history closer to home.

And it is not all in the past.  As I continued ethical reflection on my childhood home, I realized that while I/my family never owned slaves, we continue to this very day to benefit from racist housing policies that prevented the descendants of slaves from buying homes on this land.  Because my White parents were able to buy a reasonably priced house, they gained home equity.  This enabled them to buy a larger house when I, the fifth child, was born a decade later.  This equity helped pay for my college education. We sold the house after my mother passed away, but we are still benefiting today. As my siblings and I help my father navigate his later years, we are comforted by the fact that he is able to access quality care and senior housing because of the proceeds of the sale of this house.  This too is White privilege. Our experience of course is not isolated.  Our nation's history of racist housing policies is why there is such a continuing racial wealth gap today. 

Another Catholic moral theologian, Mary Elizabeth Hobgood, writes that those of us who benefit from White privilege are "accountable for understanding how racism advantages [us] at the expense of others." This, she says, is "a lifelong task of gaining religious awareness and engaging in moral action."  I am not writing this post to lay a guilt trip on myself, my family, or anyone else.  Rather, I seek to take the next steps in coming to grips with my own privilege, to engage and take responsibility for my own advantages, at the gut level, so that I can increase my own awareness and walk the path towards racial justice. And, if by putting words to some of this messy journey I can help someone else on theirs, all the better.  This is, after all, a communal journey.  Racism does not happen in a vacuum.

Earlier I mentioned that my present neighborhood is a new racial experience for me, being a racial minority of sorts in a predominantly African American neighborhood.  It's true.  I realize that with the exception of a few brief periods in London and Jersey City during my novitiate, I've always lived in Cities/neighborhoods where most people look like me. 

I'm coming to appreciate this time of living on the South Side of Chicago as a cultural experience.  In many ways, its refreshing.  I've started attending a predominantly African American Catholic parish where I feel welcomed, even if it is a different style of worship than I am used to.  I felt privileged watching The Butler with a mostly Black audience.  I loved hearing some of the comments, the moments of laughter, the silence and held breath at poignant moments, and the heart felt applause at the end.  It made the entire movie watching experience that much more meaningful for me.  Living here also makes me face my racism and recognize my own White privilege more often.  That's tough, but it's also an opportunity, and it's one for which I am very grateful.

End of Summer

Summer is winding down for me, with classes set to start just after Labor Day.  And I've realized that I've also just passed the midway point of my summer beach vacation with my sister and her family (including my favorite little guy). So far I've finished one novel, gone swimming in the Atlantic, been to an alligator and reptile park, played with my nephew, and generally just relaxed.

For those who are wondering, I've also finally gotten over my pesky summer cold and regained my voice! (Mostly).

Much to be grateful for in these summer days ....

Sharing Voice

GV Booth at LCWR

My 2013 visit to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious Assembly representing Giving Voice is complete! And given that my pesky summer cough continues to make me verbally challenged, I am very grateful to my friends Jessi and Tere for helping to staff our booth in the exhibit hall!

Even with the vocal challenges, it was wonderful to be present and share the good news about our networking opportunities for younger women religious.  It's always nice to meet a congregation leader and be able to honestly tell them how amazing one of their younger members is!  It's also nice to have the opportunity to thank those congregation leaders in person who contribute financially to our little peer led grassroots organization of younger women religious.  This year we also had a number of "alumni" of Giving Voice, now in their 50s or early 60s, stop by to say how great it is to see new a new generation coming up.

This is the second year I have attended LCWR representing Giving Voice.  Once again I am in awe and filled with deep gratitude for the faithful, prayerful, and visionary women who have answered the call to leadership of their congregations, including my own congregation leadership team.

I am now headed to a much needed family vacation with my big sister and her family (including my favorite 3 year old).  If there is wifi at the beach house (as promised), I'll try to post a bit during the week!

Losing Voice

Well, irony of all ironies, I am headed to a conference of 800+ women religious leaders to tell them the good news of younger women religious and our grassroots peer-led organization, Giving Voice.  Except that I have lost my voice!

I've been a good girl, rested, plenty of fluids, refrained from talking for the most part.  But less than 24 hours before I'm supposed to be standing in our booth in the exhibit hall talking about Giving Voice and ... no voice.

It's not a total disaster. Another young nun friend is coming with me to work the first two days of the exhibit, and as far as I know she has the capability of talking!  And I'm still hopeful that my rest, fluids, no talking regime will result in a miraculous recovery.  If not, it will at least be interesting.

And really, it's an example in humility and taking life as it comes.  There are some things that we can't really do anything about.  No amount of planning, will power, or desire can circumvent them.  We just have to go with the flow and trust that all will be well.  This, my friends, is one of those moments.

Resting

Sorry for the blog silence.  I've been attacked by my (seemingly) annual summer cold which has knocked me out of commission.  Happily while I've got some major deadlines on several writing projects looming, this week was fairly free in my schedule so I've been able to rest, drink plenty of fluids, and rest some more.  We're on day 4 and I'm starting to lose my voice, which generally means dawn should break soon and I will feel better.  I was hoping that was today, but no, not quite yet. So it's another day of rest for me.

I'm headed to a conference next week where I will need to talk to lots of people (I'm running an exhibit booth for Giving Voice). So even though I am not being productive these days (unless one looks at healing as productivity!), hopefully by resting now I'll be able to be productive next week.  And able to talk.  Having a voice to talk about Giving Voice would be a good thing!

On the good news front, I have been making excellent progress on a somewhat ugly blanket I've been knitting since the winter!  My brain can't really process information enough to finish my writing projects, but as a repetitive motion knitting is keeping me occupied.

Hope all my bloggy friends are well and enjoying the summer!  Stay well!!

Collage

I spent the bulk of this thunderstormy Chicago day cleaning and reorganizing my room.  One of my neighbors moved away recently and I appropriated a large Ikea bookcase she left behind which fits PERFECTLY and helps to make my little space here in the CTU dorm look a bit more organized (and a bit less junky).

I also decided to finally do something with the blank wall above my bed.  There's a rather annoying, if necessary, pipe/cord down the middle that is attached to the smoke detector.  That's part of why I never put anything up.  Plus while I kept much of my pre-convent life artwork (to better decorate the community houses where I usually live!), I left it all in storage in Seattle.

In resourceful grad school style, I decided to make a collage of some 8X10 prints of some of my favorite photos, taken by yours truly on retreat and journeys in recent years.

I'm pretty happy with the effect, even with the pipe/cord thing breaking up the 2nd and 3rd columns!  For one thing the greens, blues and browns match the colors of my bed spread and assorted dorm furniture. More importantly, however, I realized that the photos I chose speak to my spirituality, my vocation, and my relationship with God, creation, and self.

On the top left you have a photo taken through the chapel window at our CSJP retreat house on the Jersey Shore.  The standing cross from the chapel is almost lined up with the cross in the window pane with the Atlantic in the background. This picture always reminds me, as our CSJP Constitutions say, that Christ is our peace, the source of our power.

The next photo on the top row is from another ocean.  It took this last year on retreat on the Oregon Coast.  This photo speaks to me of the joy, laughter, and playfulness of our Creator God.

The last photo on that row, and the first on the next row, I believe are photos I took of stones near the koi pond at our Jersey Shore retreat house.  I love the perspective of the photos, as if hope and dreaming are hanging on despite their better judgement and gravity!  Which, in my experience, is not too far from reality.  To dream that we can help make the world a better place and to hope despite all the evidence to the contrary is part of the life of faith.  It is part of the human experience.  And again, in my experience, it is really only possible in a sustained manner in the context of community.

Which leads to the next photo of the street signs.  No, these are not photoshopped!  Last spring I was giving a presentation in Central Washington and took a chance to explore around Wenatchee where our CSJP Sisters ministered for many years in health care and education.  I drove by the school that we started which is still home to today's generation of students and teachers.  I got out to take a better look, and realized that I had parked my car across the street at the corner of Susan Street and St. Joseph Place!  This picture again reminds me of God's playfulness and the miracle that I someway found my way through all the noise to this life as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace.

The last photo is from this past summer.  My college friend Kathy and I spent an afternoon walking in Muir Woods.  I realized many years ago that forests and trees are very important to me spiritually.  They are where I am most calm, at peace, centered.  Redwoods, cedars, and other trees found on the west coast tend to be rather large.  They also tend to be kind of old, and yet still they stand, having witnessed generation after generation of humans, still reaching up and up and up.  In this collage, I love how the trees of Muir Woods are reaching up towards my dreams. And given that this collage is above my bed, my own dreams will reach up through the trees!

All in all, I'm quite pleased with the finished product.  It feels like one year after I arrived here, this space is now closer to complete.  It is certainly not home--my recent visit to west coast groovy sister hq regrounded me in how important my csjp home is to me--but it is certainly a hospitable and cozy space in which to continue my studies in the coming school year!