11/2/2009
What we have to offer is what we have been freely given. We live with
the people. We work with the people. We rejoice with the people. We
become part of the people.
Our sharing becomes a journey we walk together towards liberation,
community and a reaching out together for growth and fulfillment.
But we do not impose ourselves or our way of doing things. We are
available, rather, to go wherever we are invited in the world, aware,
at the same time, that we ourselves are challenged to grow through
receiving and learning from those to whom we serve.
Spirit and Lifestyle
November 1 and 2 we celebrate the saints with a capital "S" and those
with a small "s". The big "S" saints are overwhelmingly males,
popes, bishops, priests, religious, a few holy lay men, 99.99
celibate. In fewer numbers are women but also mainly religious. Most
of the mystics are not canonized. Sometimes a message is sent by a
rapid canonization such as the Italian woman who discovered, early in
her pregnancy, a cancer that needed immediate treatment and refused
it, dying a few days after she gave birth to her third child. A
strong message was sent to a mother who might in her conscience
choose to live to mother her other young children.
A recent canonized saint is Father Damien. I fully agree with that
one. Damien went to Hawaii as a missionary when his brother who had
been assigned there could not go for health reasons. He chose to live
with lepers on a remote corner of the island of Molakai. He seemed to
be a perfectly normal person, as normal as you can be when you and
your people are isolated and lacking basic necessities. He advocated
for them, not always in the most polite language. When he was not
allowed aboard the supply vessel to say his confession, he yelled it
out to the bishop on board. And he died of leprosy and was buried
there. When they dug up his body to take it back to Belgium (there's
always a fight over saints' bodies when they are about to become
saints with a capital "S" even if they didn't want anything to do
with him in life), they found it as the day it was buried. I am not
much into miracles but for God to keep the bacteria away from a body
falling apart from leprosy is a fitting miracle! Like God is saying:
"Unclean, eh? "
A week ago I attended the non-fiction literary festival. One of the
writers was Rex Weyler. He had a very religious upbringing but could
not believe in a God who would bar from heaven an innocent child in
China who never had a chance to hear of Jesus or be baptized. He had
two Christian heroes: His grandmother Elizabeth who lived in Santa
Barbara, California, "who inspired others by the sheer radiance of
her humanity... as a widow at the age of ninety-six cooked hot
lunches and delivered them to the retirement home for the 'elderly',
at the end of each month gave whatever remained in her bank account
to various Christian missionaries."
"She served as my first religious hero, my measure of righteousness,
and the one person who most genuinely embodied the teachings of Jesus
as I understood them at the age of thirteen."
It was Elizabeth who introduced him to his second hero, Francis of
Assisi.
Rex found out that as a physicist apprenticing at Lockheed Aerospace,
he could not be sure of what he was working on. So he dropped physics
and took up literature and history and learned a lot more of the
religious history that surrounded Francis of Assisi. He refused the
draft call to Vietnam. His aging grandmother Elizabeth told him: "You
do what you know is right." He landed a journalism job in Canada.
Later after two acclaimed and nominated for various awards books (It
doesn't matter if you don't win the award, all people remember is
that it was nominated), he startled his publisher by saying he wanted
to write about Jesus. He did. Four years of work resulted in "The
Jesus Sayings: The quest for his authentic message".
I had decided to buy only three books at the LitFest weekend and I
bought them early on - on dissidents in China; on tracing one's
family in Baghdad; on grassland birds. But, as I told Rex, when I saw
Matthew Fox' endorsement - "Rex Weyler liberates the historical Jesus
to tell the Christian origin story anew. He speaks truth to power in
this solid and exciting re-telling of the diversity, politics, and
mythology behind the origins of Christianity. There is integrity and
trustworthiness in this work... Read this book." - I knew I had to
read this book!
www.anansi.ca
Cecily
11/10/2009
11/10/2009
Our work entails human relationship, working and growing together to
build a more humane and loving world, filled with the Spirit of God
who sends us.
We are aware that through our service, we receive far more than we
are able to give.
We realize that we are enriched by our encounter with people of other
cultures and beliefs. We come to discover that we too are poor in
many ways.
Spirit and Lifestyle
A regular columnist of the Prairie Messenger, Anne Strachan, wrote a
month ago:
What does it mean to authentically love another person?
First, we must listen. Listen to words spoken, pay close attention to
the silence between those sometimes confusing words. Peter Drucker
writes, "The most important thing in communication is to hear what
isn't being said."
Later she uses one of my favorite quotes, one that came up in our
retreat at the close/beginning of each quarter in the pastoral
minister program at Seatle U:
Rainer Maria Rilke writes in his classic, Letters to a Young Poet:
"... have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your
heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and
like books written in a foreign language ... At present you need to
live the question. Perhaps you will gradually... find yourself
experiencing the answer, some distant day."
It fits in with the saying that accompanies a wonderful photo of a
dark wood opening into a remote lake:
Of magic doors there is this
You do not see them even as you are passing through.
A friend passed through such a door on November 3 when she and a
friend she was travelling with died in a car crash. Her last last
email communication on November 1 traced her 5-year plan for
embracing life fully as she entered her 70th to 75th years of life.
It was like Lise to find time in her busy life to envision five years
before even celebrating her 70th birthday.
I wish I had listened to her as she knew how to listen to others....
Cecily
11/17/2009
We go as representatives of our local churches to share the gifts we
have. We are in solidarity with the church that sends us and have a
commitment to return and share the gifts and riches which we have
received. We see that we are part of a church which is a human
institution, struggling to respond to its mission, and ever in need
of growth and renewal.
Spirit and Lifestyle
The church isn't perfect. We are not perfect. Do you ever notice that
the best writers are those who are not perfect and who are aware of
it. I think of Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier, Dom Helder Camara, Ron
Rolheiser, among many others.
A recent column of Ron Rolheiser "Repeating the punchline:how to get
into the joy of the groove" was one that appealed to my
"imperfections." Rolheiser writes:
In a marvelous book, The Force of Character, James Hillman shares
this story: As a young man, sitting around one afternoon and
listening to an old uncle telling stories, he got irritated when his
uncle began telling a story that he had told many times before:
"You've already told that story." Hillman complained. "I like telling
it!" his uncle shot back, and then muttered under his breath, "and
what on earth is wrong with telling it again!"
Only later, when his [Hillman's] understanding of life and character
deepened, did Hillman appreciate why his uncle had a need to tell and
retell the same story: "He knew the joy of the groove!" And what a
joy, what a gift, is the groove!
Those who know me know that I am fond of the groove. When I find my
mind drifting, I may recall that my mind drifted when I was making
date squares with my mother - my younger sisters had been sent to
play outside - and I missed what she said after a strange talk of
birds and bees. She wouldn't repeat it and sent me outside still
ignorant of how babies were made.
When I'm complaining whether it be mentally or vocally, I remember
the morning Dawn and I were returning from our usual walk back to the
Annex, our house in Chahal, Guatemala. I don't remember what I was
complaining about but Dawn stopped, forcing me to do likewise and to
stop talking. In the moment of silence, she said earnestly, "Cecily,
are you happy?" Honestly, I don't remember what I replied apart that
the answer was in the affirmative but the question stayed with me and
the answer became more and more elaborate: "Yes, I am happy. I've
never been so happy in my life....."
I tend to worry. Today I'm worried because tomorrow morning I'm
getting high-speed internet. I was worried about working at a
Catholic boys boarding school. I was worried that I would be expected
to take care of my younger, less experienced companions. At the VMM
Assembly at Estes Park Memorial Day weekend 1996, while waiting in
line at breakfast, after having heard the previous day all that VMs
young and old had done, a voice inside said "What are you waiting
for? This is what you want to do. It's your chance to do it." I left
my tray and went to ask
Phil if I could still go. That "groove" comes back each time I
hesitate to go ahead and do what I want to do. I found out the first
day we arrived in Guatemala, on September 10, 1996, that I didn't
have to take care of Dawn. While I had a nap, she walked by herself
about 25 blocks to the main post office in the capital to buy some
postcards we had seen on the street on our scary ride from the
airport to the sisters' house in Zona Dos.
Okay, just one more. I am the oldest of four girls. The day of my
mother's funeral, Maureen, 4 years younger, and I rode to the
cemetery in the limo with the funeral director. I asked him to take
Rock Forest road so we could by the house where I was born and lived
until we moved to the city when I was 14. Next to the house was the
"woods." As we drove by my little sister said "Cecily, you really
loved the woods." Those were the most touching words I ever heard. I
left home at 18. I missed all that my sisters lived after that but
Maureen remembered a time before. And I still love the "woods"
wherever they are.
Our grooves are a way of remembering what's really important. And
there is nothing more important than making time to listen to other
people's grooves.
Cecily
11/23/2009
Our task is then, to continue our works as missionaries in our own
home countries. Our mission is a life long commitment to justice and
transformation. It is a prophetic task. We help renew and invigorate
our own church, for we recognize our own needs, inadequacies and
hunger. And we acknowledge that we too, in the rich and stronger
nations are in need of evangelization and renewal and an on-going
awareness of our call to justice.
Spirit and Lifestyle
There is so much for reflection in this short passage of Spirit and
Lifestyle. Perhaps this is a good time to reflect on how those words
apply to each of us and to give thanks for how the Spirit awakes in
us that life long commitment to justice and transformation.
We don't need to shy or overly humble. It's better to recognize the
gifts we have received and the ways we are responding.
So as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week and enter into the
beautiful season of Advent, let us give thanks for all VMs and all
those we encounter in our continuing work as missionaries. Let us
celebrate our gifts and continue in our call to justice.
Cecily
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