12/2/2008
Hope
Here another quotation from "God has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for
Our Time" by Desmond Tutu:
"Sexism is equally absurd in the eyes of God. Sexism quite literally
makes men and women into each other's enemies instead of each other's
equals, instead of each other's sisters and brothers. It creates
artificial divisions everywhere that tear apart God's family. The
Bible is quite clear that the divine image is constitutive of
humanity irrespective of gender. I cannot be opposed to racism, in
which people are discriminated against as a result of something about
which they can do nothing - their skin color - and then accept with
equanimity the gross injustice of penalizing others for something
else they can do nothing about - their gender. There can be no true
liberation that ignores the liberation on women.
"Sexism has dogged the church too, as seen over the ordination of
women. Theologically, biblically, socially, ecumenically, it is right
to ordain women to the priesthood. For Christians, the most radical
act that can happen to a person is to become a member of the body of
Christ. If gender cannot be a bar to baptism, which makes all
Christians representatives of Christ and partakers of his royal
priesthood, then gender cannot be a bar to ordination.
Males and females have distinctive gifts, and both sets of gifts are
indispensable for truly human existence. I am sure that the church
has lost something valuable in denying ordination to women for so
long. There is something uniquely valuable that women and men bring
to the ordained ministry, and it has been distorted and defective as
long as women have been debarred. Sometimes men have been less human
for this loss."
This small book by Archbishop Desmond Tutu is priceless! It would
make a great Christmas gift!
Perhaps some of you are aware that Father Roy Bourgeois is facing
excommunication as the result of his not accepting that women cannot
be ordained.
Cecily
12/9/2008
This week, on December 10, we mark the 60th anniversary of the UN
Universal Human Rights Declaration. This morning, we signed Amnesty
International letters. How much good does that do? Last week, some
neighbors and I were talking on the elevator, about a very high
highrise of luxury condos proposed for our lower middle class
neighbourhood. While some worry about increased traffic, I am
concerned about the poor - single parents, immigrant families,
seniors, post-secondary students - being displaced. I mentioned that
I was writing a letter to the editor and someone asked: What good
does that do? and I replied that it does put ideas in readers' minds.
I did forward my letter to the municipal councillor for our area. He
agrees with me. One out of 13. It's a start!
Amnesty International has a good success record. A woman from the
Dominican Republic testified to the effectiveness of the letters:
"When the first 200 letters came, the guards gave me back my clothes.
When the next 200 arrived, the prison director visited me. When the
letters kept coming, the president told them to let me go - and asked
me how I had so many friends around the world."
Someone forwarded me an article by John Pilger, entitled "The
Corruption That Makes Unpeople Of An Entire Nation." In the 1960s and
1970s, the people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean - British
subjects - were expelled in order to hand over this British colony to
the Americans for a military base. On October 22, 2008, some of the
exiles, including Lizette Talatte, who with her family was forced on
to a rusting freighter and made to lie on a cargo of bird fertilizer
(shit) during the voyage through stormy seas to the slums of Port
Louis, Mauritius, were denied entry to the Public Gallery of the
Houses of Parliament in London, to hear the results of an Appeal
Court. The good news is that the Appeal Court upheld the previous
High Court declaration that the expulsion of the people of the Chagos
Islands was "repugnant, illegal and irrational". Officials had lied
over and over again, claiming the islands were uninhabited, in spite
of a film made there by the Colonial office more than a decade
earlier. Lizette was 14 then and she smiled for the cameras. Her
great-grandmother was born there and by the time she was forced out
Lizette had 6 children born there. Two died shortly after the forced
migration. The doctor said he could not treat sadness. They had been
denied the RIGHT to their homeland. Now after more than 40 years,
they are free to return to the Chagos Islands. How many letters would
it have taken to prevent this terrible injustice?
You can find the John Pilger article by going to his website
www.johnpilger.com and then to "special sites" and to "print archive"
for Nov 27 or http//www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=512. You can
also visit the Human Rights and the Amnesty International websites.
Let's act this week to create a more just world for all.
Cecily
12/16/2008
We are on the third Sunday of Advent - the Rose Sunday - the Sunday
of Joy and Hope. One of the Sundays in the three-year cycle of
readings has "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy
Spirit" Romans 15:13.
Henri Nouwen often wrote on the theme of hope. Like most of us, he
struggled with it and through the struggle penetrated deep into hope.
Here is a quotation from his writings the posthumously published
Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit:
"I have found it very important to try to let go of my wishes and
instead to live in hope. When I choose to let go of my sometimes
petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and
meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond
my own expectations begins to happen to me.
"To wait with openness and trust is an enormously radical attitude
toward life. It is choosing to hope that something is happening for
us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control
over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with
the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and
moves us away from the sources of our fear."
Last week, I met for lunch with six ladies. We gather 4 or 5 times a
year to celebrate birthdays. The birthdays are mounting. I am the
youngest at 70; they are 5 to 10 years older. I am also the newcomer:
I first met them in 1973 but they knew each other and met their
husbands at university. They have that openness and radical trust of
which Nouwen speaks.
Sheila is a very active member of the families of residents of the
nursing home where her husband has been for several years. She's
already arranged - at 2008 prices - the catered meal which will be
offered around Valentine Day for all of the persons who work at the
facility. There are two sittings of 100 each to cover all shifts. A
large number of these workers are immigrants, newcomers to Canada.
This act of gratitude means a lot to them. The work they do is not
the easiest nor the best paid. Eventually Sheila will move from her
large family home. She's planning. In the bag of goodies she included
an article from a 1982 issue of the University of Alberta alumni
magazine on Mother Teresa, including Mother Teresa's moving address
on the reception of an honorary degree. It's a very religious
address. In 2008, the same university ponders whether to remove the
word "God" from the concluding words of the convocation ceremony.
Marg's husband was placed in a home as well this year after he was
lost for two days after leaving to take a walk near the home he had
lived in for many years. Several years earlier, when he could no
longer drive, he and Marg had moved to an urban area. Her husband was
able to live at home and Marg provided him with daily stimulating
activities. She joined a group for relatives and caregivers of people
with dementia or Alzeimer's. Now she has more time to devote to
teaching and doing weaving.
Once I asked Elspeth why she and her husband were building a new
house.Her husband struggles to get around and they are both very busy
with the decade-long housing development they planned and executed.
Their daughter is wheelchair bound because of MS. Although her
daughter has a new accessible home, Elspeth wanted the family home
to be also accessible. Hence, the new home which should be ready
sometime next year.
A little over two years ago, Marilyn, at 75, married her high school
beau. Her husband died of cancer in 1992 and she had reconnected with
her former friend whose wife had also died of cancer when he decided
to leave the farm to his son and take a contract job in the city. It
was so nice to see Marilyn so happy and carefree and enjoying several
trips. Life hadn't been easy over the last decade with two of her
daughters struck with a particularly aggressive form of breast
cancer. Now Marilyn is tackling a new challenge. Her husband has only
one kidney and that kidney is cancerous. It means life with dialysis,
a strict diet, a three-day a week trip to the hospital, and perhaps
learning the intricacies of home dialysis.
Helen, the oldest, died last May, after living with a disease that
was both painful and debilitating. Over the last year, we had gone
two of us to pick her up. Her last lunch was at my place. Like the
others Helen did not give up. She lived fully right to the end.
These ladies have taught me a great deal: To wait with openness and
trust ... to choose to hope that something is happening for us that
is far beyond our imaginings... to give up control over our future
and let God define our life ....
12/23/2008
Advent Reflections
Throughout Advent, I read from 4 booklets of daily reflections for
Advent - yes, I even recycle Advent booklets. Each day I wrote down a
passage that especially moved me. Here are some of them by way of
reflection for this week:
Dec 2 When you act lovingly, you can begin to feel love - Desmond Tutu
Dec 3 So often when people hear about the suffering in our world
they feel guilty but rarely does guilt actually motivate action like
empathy or compassion - Desmond Tutu
Dec 4 We keep praying to the "almighty and powerful God" but all
might and power is absent from Jesus, the one who reveals God to us.
Henri Nouwen
Dec 5 Nobody can really teach us how to become aware of God's
presence and open to God's love. Even the greatest of saints could
not teach us that, for it is not a lesson we can learn from others.
We must learn it by ourselves. We must search for it and keep
searching and refuse to be defeated by our fears and doubts. Irma
Zaleski
Dec 6 Who has the power to ensure that justice is done and that God's
dream is realized? We have the power. Desmond Tutu
Dec 7 No situation is utterly hopeless, utterly untransfigurable.
Desmond Tutu
Dec 9 When we experience creation through our senses, we experience
God. David Steindl-Rast
Dec 10 Yes, God, I am faithful to You through thick and thin, I shall
not succumb, and I still believe in the deeper meaning of life. I
know that I must go on living and that there are such great
uncertainties in me, and ... you must think it incredible, but I find
life so beautiful and feel so happy. Isn't that strange? I wouldn't
dare say so to anybody, not in so many words. Etty Hillesum - shortly
before her deportation to a concentration camp where she died.
Dec 11 God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the
mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. Our faithfulness will
depend on our willingness to go where there is brokenness,
loneliness, and human need. Henri Nowen
Dec 13 We are called to be fearless people in a fearful world. Henri
Nouwen
Dec 14 The self is merely a locus in which the dance of the universe
is aware of itself as complete from beginning to end - and returning
to the void. Gladly. Praising, giving thanks, with all beings. Christ
light - spirit - grace - gift. Thomas Merton
Dec 15 By reaching out to the suffering, we come in touch with the
source of joy, precisely because joy is not the opposite of suffering
but hidden in the center of it. Henri Nouwen
Dec 17 God's specific quality in us is the power to break away from
the established order of mind and body and create a new future. Eugen
Rosenstock-Huessy
Dec 18 Perhaps Barack Obama's best campaign line was, "This is not
about me; this is about you." Until ordinary people begin to act
courageously and creatively very little happens. Bill Cane
Dec 19 But like so many of us, the Pharisees are stuck in their
prejudices. They do not want to be healed of their hardness of heart.
Jean Vanier
Dec 20 The space in between the powerful institutions, the space
where ordinary human beings live, is still the most hopeful space for
change. Bill Cane
Dec 21 Advent leads to a growing inner stillness and joy allowing me
to realize that the One for whom I am waiting has already arrived and
speaks to me in the silence of my heart. Henri Nouwen
A blessed Christmas to you and your family and to all in VMM
Cecily
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