2/3/2009
New Years Resolution
One month of 2009 has slipped by! Ready for a supplemental New Year's
Resolution? Here's one that I need to renew each day:
To listen is perhaps the most beautiful gift anyone can give others.
To listen is to say, not only with words but with one's eyes, facial
expression, smile and whole body, "You are important to me, you are
interesting, I am happy to see you." Therefore, it should not
surprise us to learn that listening is the best way people can be
revealed to themselves!
To listen is truly to let go of the usual occupations we have to do
in order to spend time with another person. It is like taking a walk
with a friend at his or her own pace, while remaining close but
without getting in the way. It is to allow ourselves to be guided by
the other person, to stop at times and then to start off again, for
nothing... just for him or her.
To listen is not to try to find answers for others because we know
that they will find answers to their own questions. It is to refuse
to think for others, to give them advice or even to want to try to
understand them.
To listen is to welcome others with gratitude just as they are,
without substituting ourself to say what they should be. It is to
remain open to all ideas, subjects, experiences, solutions, without
interpreting or judging and to give others the time and space they
need to find their own way.
To listen is not to have expectations on others; it is to learn to
discover the specific qualities of each person.
To listen is to be attentive to those who suffer. It is not to try to
find a solution or an explanation for their suffering; it is to allow
others to express their suffering so that they can freely find their
own way.
To listen is to give others what we perhaps were never given:
attention, time, a loving presence.
André Gromolard
2/10/2009
Are We Peacemakers?
Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what
you have; for God has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you.
Hebrews 13.3
I never cease to admire the spirit that moves us to care for others.
It is one that is cultured in VMM. Apart from 3 VMs working in El
Salvador and two prospective VMs visiting their future mission site,
there were at least 3 of us there as election observers. Sheila Coyle
was part of our 85-plus observation mission with CIS (You can still
sign up for the presidential elections) and Mary Campbell whom I met
at the airport on my way out had led a small group.
These last 10 days I was impressed with a legion of persons and
organizations working to ensure food security. Farmers, nutritionist,
advocates, writers, journalists, numerous members of our indigenous
communities - 250 in all - gathered in Edmonton for a 2.5 day
conference entitled Food Today Tomorrow Together: Ensuring healthy
local food for all Albertans January 29 - 31. I have never eaten so
well at a conference: local bison and beef, yogurt, granola, berries,
vegetables, cheese, bread, jams, etc. All this made possible by
dozens of people who worked hard and risked to put on the conference.
Then the week of Feb 2-6 was the 24th International Week on U of A
campus with over 60 presentations and keynote speakers that included
Frances Moore Lappe, Palagummi Sainath, and George Monbiot. This year
the theme was Hungry for Change: Transcending Feast, Famine and
Frenzy. Again this needed hundreds of volunteers. There is nothing as
moving as having a panel of 5 speak on refugee camps and realizing
that all five lived in refugee camps. Two participants who didn't
look a year older than 25 had spent 17 years in refugee camps -
obliged several times to move from country to country. One of them
was an unaccompanied minor. Any decision she made in these moves
depended on what was best for the security of her younger brother,
the only member of her family who had survived. Even the arrival in
Canada, such a cold country with different languages and studies,
must have been daunting. All five were post secondary students: their
choice in careers: nursing, medicine, law - so that they can help
provide services in refugee camps!
I left the session with one thought: Couldn't we could resolve
conflicts so that there is no longer any need for refugee camps? Yes,
we are called to be peacemakers. How? It is for each one of us to
figure out what we are called to do. But, as one speaker noted, it is
not a personal crusade. We will only succeed in the measure that we
work together.
Cecily
2/17/2009
Buy Fewer Books
It all starts with a New Year's resolution: Buy Fewer Books!
Three weeks ago, I went to the library to put on hold Hot, Flat and
Crowded, a book whose review I had just read. Meanwhile, I decided to
read The World Is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century
(2005) by the same author, Thomas L. Friedman. I am just over the
half-way mark of the 475-page book. It's amazing that five years into
the twenty-first century you can write a 475-page "brief" history! It
is fascinating and I've just realized that I too have joined that
earth-leveling process. A few weeks ago, I make my first ever phone
call to Central America - not to a city but to Chahal, a little dot
you'll find on some maps of Guatemala, Chahal where Dawn Williams
and I landed in 1996. No electricity, no phone, and a bus every
second day and sometimes none. Before sending money by Western
Express to Coban, the regional capital and closest city to Chahal, I
asked if there was a Western Express branch there. The clerk in
Edmonton printed the first page of the listings near the center of
Coban - 4 choices with their hours of operation. By internet, I
followed my money until it was picked up. I did the same when I
mailed my passport to Vancouver for a visa to Brazil and now I follow
the book I mailed my great-niece for her birthday. All that
information on the internet is most likely not generated here in
North America. All of this convenience makes me poorer and the
shareholders of these multinationals much richer.
But there is much more to life than being able to track down
transactions, produce vehicles from parts designed, manufactured, and
assembled across the flat world, and to make it possible for Wal-Mart
to maintain its low prices and high profit margins. Until last night
Friedman's world was well on the way to being really flat, but then
he found out that a flat world is not really a new concept. In 1848,
in their Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels predicted a global
market, uncomplicated by national boundaries and capitalism's power
to create a worldwide system of production and consumption, to
dissolve all feudal, national, and religious identities, giving rise
to a universal civilization governed by market imperatives. We seem
to be headed that way. Today is Family Day in Alberta - it's a
holiday to celebrate families. The museum, art gallery, library have
special activities, but everything else is closed except for
shopping. This morning the back page of the first section of the
newspaper had a full-page ad for IKEA: "At prices like this, you'll
wish you had two families" An 18-piece dinnerware at 1/3 of the
regular price and Kids Meals for 1.99 (French fries and meatballs or
macaroni and cheese with a soft drink or milk, served on colorful,
landfill-bound plastic!).
Last night on page 204, Friedman gave the first inkling that a flat,
frictionless world may be a mixed blessing:
It may "pose a threat to the distinctive places and communities that
give us our bearings, that locate us in the world.... Some obstacles
to a frictionless global market are truly sources of waste and lost
opportunities. But some of these inefficiencies are institutions,
habits, cultures, and traditions that people cherish precisely
because they reflect non-market values like social cohesion,
religious faith, and national pride. If global markets and new
communication technologies flatten those differences, we may lose
something important."
Yes, we must work hard to preserve those nasty little bumps. Saturday
evening, Valentine's Day, 130 parishioners gathered at my parish for
a meal from locally-produced food and to meet some of Edmonton's
farmers. Most of Edmonton's incredibly rich land has already been
paved over. Developers and speculators have already bought some of
the remaining portions of land designated to agriculture, leasing
them back to farmers for now, but hoping soon to make handsome
profits when this land is turned over to industrial, transportation
and residential uses. Edmonton's mayor and some city council members
are inclined to sacrifice these rich agricultural lands producing
harvests of carrots, potatoes, beets, turnips, cabbage, strawberries,
and much more due to the area's favorable micro-climate giving
Edmonton more frost-free days than any other place in Alberta, to
increase tax revenues. Already 1000 or more Edmontonians have joined
to create a bump that gets in the way of the bulldozers. Perhaps, on
Friday night, we've added a few more inches to that bump.
Cecily
2/24/2009
Movement
At a time in the history of the Church when passive obedience and
reception of the sacrament was generally accepted by the laity as
what being Church was all about, the VMM emerged as a new and
challenging movement calling Christian men and women to respond to
Vatican II's call for full and active involvement in the Church's
life and mission. This involvement has a double thrust to witness to
God's action through Jesus Christ in our world today, to respond to
the material and human needs of the marginalized and the dispossessed
of our world. - Spirit and Lifestyle
Today we will begin once more to read together Spirit and Lifestyle.
One reason is Edwina's article "Sinking into God - Starting over" in
the Feb 2009 issue of Bridges and her mention of Lent: "Lent is a
time to become conscious of, and then let go of, our spiritual
amnesia. It is a time to acknowledge our fears, lethargy and doubts
in the face of a world in darkness and at the same time to remember
our possibilities! ... Lent is a time to sink into the Word that is
within us and let it find voice and action in our world! ... Lent is
a time for all of us to remember who we are and what we are capable
of. It is time to stand before our God weeping and yet believing ...
that is the ironic message of this season."
Another reason is the Vatican's attempts to disown Vatican II by
revoking the excommunication of 'bishops' of a notoriously anti-
Semitic sect who not only deny the Holocaust but also reject the
decisions of the Second Vatican Council, not only because those
decisions promoted celebration of the mass in vernacular languages,
but also because they embraced religious liberty and freedom of
conscience. Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of St. Pius X,
decided to break with Rome after John Paul II conducted an interfaith
prayer service for world peace in Assisi.
Fifty years ago John XXIII decided to call Vatican II. Five years
later I came into contact with its first documents thanks to a
Saturday Social Doctrine class taught by Dr. O'Connor, a lay
Catholic. Like Edwina, I was very moved to be living in a time of
change - change that was never fully implemented and that is now
denied. A group of very conservative priests - Vatican II deniers -
are welcome into the fold but Father Roy Bourgois, Maryknoll
missionary in Bolivia, outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Latin
America since 1980 after a death squad raped and killed four American
churchwomen, founder of the School of the Americas Watch which has
been holding weekend vigils annually at Fort Benning, Ga., has been
excommunicated for supporting women who want to be seen as equals to
men in the eyes of the Church.
We are proud to have, springing forth from Vatican II, Edwina and
VMM and all those who have embraced Spirit and Lifestyle! I invite
you this week to read the Feb. issue of Bridges, to explore the VMM
website www.vmmusa.org, to attend Transformative Dialogue March 21,
to participate in the Discipleship in Turbulent Times April 24-26, to
attend the VMM Assembly June 12-14, and to make this Lenten season a
time to respond to Vatican II's call for full and active involvement!
Cecily
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