Re-Imagining Vocation Ministry

The Spirit is very much alive an well in the St. Louis Province as we are in the process of re-imagining vocation ministry. The titles of our various gatherings give an idea of what is happening:

1. Seeding the Future
2. Vocation Dreaming Weekend
3. Brainstorming Vocation / Formation
4. Expanding Circles of Engagement
5. Re-imagining Vocation Ministry

These names give the flavor of the journey we are on. They are all action words and the main actor is the Spirit! The photo at the left shows us at then end of the meeting. One sister remarked "I feel more energized at the end of this meeting than at the beginning - that's a good sign!" We all agreed.

We are at the point of beginning to give form to our Seeding, Dreaming, Brainstorming, Expanding and Re-Imagining. Stay tuned as we continue the journey, and send a prayer our way as we too pray for all those who surround and support in us in this sacred space.

Peace,

Amy

Living and Giving to Community

Living and Giving to Community Through the Appropriate Life Stage

In women’s religious communities, our evolving nature has brought us from Women of Integrity (the Good Sisters) to Women of Justice (Post Vatican II) to the Next (Postmodern/post-postmodern Global Society). With this evolving view comes transition and some need to look at what stages of life are best suited to what tasks of the community. The tasks include caring for aging sisters; divesting of property and ministries; investing in mission leadership for those who will lead continuing ministries; and whether to die or to continue on. For those communities continuing to the Next, there are also the tasks of creating appropriate governance structures for those that will remain in religious life with very few members. Those appropriately assigned with the Next have the tasks of retaining members through the diminishment phases; bringing forth the next iteration of religious life and creating a foundation for future generations (read new membership) to have religious life as an option.
In thinking about appropriate tasks and life stages I wondered, what would a view of community through an ecologically informed (clearly part of the Next) human development model look like? I found such a thing in Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World by Bill Plotkin.
Dr. Plotkin, a psychologist was drawn to connect the psychological journey with the soul journey he experienced as a wilderness guide. He eventually developed the eight stages of eco-soul-centric human development centered on discernment rather than strictly chronological life stages.
While full chapters are available in the book describing each stage, here is a glimpse of the last four stages which have significance for adult communities.

Community Life through an Eco-Soul-Centric Lens

Dr. Plotkin, a psychologist learned to connect the psychological journey with the soul journey he experienced as a wilderness guide. He eventually developed the eight stages of eco-soul-centric human development centered on discernment of gifts rather than strictly chronological life stages. The last four stages have significance for adult communities.

• Stage 5: Early Adulthood - The Wellspring (Soul Apprentice)
  Gift to Community: Visionary action, hope, and inspiration

• Stage 6: Late Adulthood - The Wild Orchard (The Artisan)Gift to Community: Seeds of cultural renaissance

• Stage 7: Early Elderhood - The Grove of Elders (The Master)Gift to Community: Wholeness

• Stage 8: Late Elderhood - The Mountain Cave (The Sage)Gift to Community: Grace

See the link for more detail.

Questions for consideration:

• Is there a stage that resonates for you? 
• Am I engaging with community from my appropriate life stage?  
• If I understand my life stage in relation to the others, can I give my gift to the community more fully and let others give their gifts?

--Contributed by Susan Wilcox CSJ

Co-Creators of our Story

20-Something Nun is a short news clip that shows the radical choice of a 20-something Sister of Charity. Increasingly women are seeking out religious life. It is not a floodgate, but a trickle of women coming to communities that show all the signs of disappearing before these women reach their 25th Jubilee. What does it mean to vow to live forever in a community with a median age near 80-years-old?
I believe we are seeing is a shift in religious life as these smaller groups of women take the risk, follow the call and join women that are 2-3 times their age. As younger women, we can begin to reimagine religious life well into the 21st century, even while we have the giants of the 20th century still in our midst.
Religious life is different now than it was 20, 30 and 50 years ago. And it will be even more different in the coming 20, 30 and 50 years. The women who come today want to live in continuity with the 2000 year history of religious life. We want to live the gospel radically in this time and in this place. Coming today, at this time of seismic shift, we have the blessing and the challenge of co-creating our own future, and the future of this ever ancient, ever new movement that is religious life.
Peace,
Amy

My Friend's Community

Sister Rosalia Meza, middle, with the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity, talks to two novices, Tamara Gillies, left, and Laryn Kovalik in the chapel where she is leading a retreat in Tracy, Calif., on June 10, 2015. Sister Rosalia is one of three nuns living in the convent at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Long Beach.
Check out the great article about the community: click here.
I have the privilege of working with one of the sisters at a workshop I will be doing in mid-October on new and emerging religious life for the Canon Law Society of America.
This community is just one of the many new and emerging signs of life and hope in religious life today.
When I get home, I will be enjoying a potluck with young and middle-aged sisters in the St. Louis area. It is an opportunity to share this particular place of religious life today.
Sure, there is aging, and diminishment and dying. And we do need to take time to attend to this, and in my ministry, I have the privilege of accompanying these communities down the road.
At the same time, there are signs of life and hope, and it is important to realize that both are part of this wonderful adventure we call religious life.
Peace,
Amy

Navigating Change

Navigating Change

Navigating Change could be the name of the ministry of assisting Religious Communities as they face an uncertain and challenging future. It is also the name of my new book, which is an interdisciplinary exploration of walking together in our communities through the shifting sands of time.

We have the privilege and challenge of living through a time when religious life is facing serious numerical decline. This is a challenge to us to assist communities of sisters and of brothers who have given their lives in dedicated service to those most in need in our church and in our world. We can help them live this moment and help them celebrate all that has been.

As we engage in this hospice work with loving gratitude for all that has been, we continue to live in a vibrant present, inviting men and women into our communities to share in the grand adventure of religious life. Sharing spirituality, community and mission, we are a microcosm of Church and society, with the same joy, hopes and struggles. And we add the additional dimension of committing to be that difference we hope to see in the world around us.

Peace,
Amy

Voices from the Margin

Around 70 young women in all stages of initial and ongoing formation gathered at Kansas City Mo this weekend for the 2015 Giving Voice Conference. Sisters travelled from all over the country for this special national event. Some travelled for hours, others experienced all types of cancellations and delays, but all have come to celebrate the sisterhood we share in the Lord. 

From their meeting:  

This is what we're clear about:    
Our future is unknown.

This is a little of what we're talking about:
Revelation happens.
The Stranger scares us.
The Divine is in the Other.
Borders are arbitrary.

Read more: http://giving-voice.weebly.com/blog/reflection-questions-from-sophia-park-and-teresa-maya

Never Doubt!

A variously attributed phrase comes to mind:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Last week, I gathered for three days with 33 Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet under the age of 60. We prayed, we shared experiences and dreams, and we celebrated! After two days, I thought: Great! This is another good experience but nothing will change. And the next morning, everything shifted. The Spirit was powerfully at work among us and we came up with several very concrete steps. Some were action plans to keep our conversations going and deepen our networks. Others were statements to our congregation and leadership that we are ready and willing to take responsibility in our congregation, particularly around vocation and futuring.
As we were finalizing our document, one among us asked: Do we really want to take this responsibility? Do we realize what we are committing to? After a moment of reflection, several sisters spoke to their conscious commitment and to the urgency of this moment. We resolutely affirmed our commitment.
This has yet to be shared with our sisters in the larger community and with leadership, but I believe it was an amazing step and I thank God for the grace of this moment and the courage, wisdom and creativity of my sisters.
Peace,
Amy

Leadership Collaborative 2.0

We held our regular quarterly call for Sisters2.0 and as usual, it was a great call and great experience.

We do these quarterly calls as ways to connect and collaborate as women religious under the age of 60. We are a minority in each of our home communities, and we find that this is an opportunity to share experiences and to offer mutual support and a forum to explore the current trends and challenges in religious life and to support future oriented initiatives. 

This call followed closely on the heals of a gathering of nearly 100 women religious from our cohort. That gathering happened in Chicago, and some of the participants on the call had been at the Chicago gathering. While the Chicago gathering was great, we found ourselves wanting to provide that same type of experience to those of our cohort who never had the opportunity to participate. And we then began to dream of providing an on-line, grass-roots, self-organized leadership collaborative. 

We are planning to have our next quarterly call on October 23, 2015 7pm Central, and we will explore this matter further. If you have ideas or would like to help, plan to be on the call, and/or message me for more details.

The Spirit Lives!!!

Amy

Laudato Si

The long-awaited encyclical on Creation is finally out. Pope Francis has certainly created a stir by inviting us all to reflect on care for our common home.
I am grateful to find an expression of the importance of reflecting on this theme in relation to other themes of justice and care for one another, especially those who are most fragile and marginalized.
I have two simple reflections on my first read of the document.
1. I was struck by the range of voices and points of view that are brought into the conversation. True, one will search in vain for a single woman's voice. However, in addition to citing scripture, early Christian writers, popes and councils, the pope also cites current statements from bishops conferences and leaders from the orthodox churches. There is even a reference from a Sufi mystic. This is our common home. All of us, women and children, rich and poor, north and south, east and west, all of us live together on this earth. It is a beautiful and resilient home, but it is at risk from our abuse of its abundance.
2. The second point that struck me was the acknowledgement that the endangered state of our common home puts pressure on many other social, economic and political issues. It reminds me of my own house or office. When they are in disarray, it is harder to address any of the other issues that need attention. Likewise environmental decline means less usable water, less abundant and less nutritious food, increased disease pressure, more desperate people with 'nothing to loose'. So environmental decline also increases poverty, hunger, sickness, racism, gender inequality and violence. All of these issues are interrelated.
This can seem overwhelming, and in one sense it is. But it also empowers each of us to take up the cause. Each choice I make has an environmental impact:

• what I eat
• what I wear
• what I buy
• what I throw away
• how I set my thermostat
• where, how and how often I travel
• what I plant

Each of us can make choices today that will effect us all. I am grateful for a small space of earth to plant natives, perennials and edibles, so that I can begin to be part of the solution and begin to invite others into this movement.
Is this related to the theme of this blog: the future of religious life? I believe that it is. I believe that sisters and brothers join together to face the biggest challenges of society. Historically, we have nurtured and healed and educated in the most dire and overwhelming situations. Now we have a new challenge. As we come together in communities of praxis, let us listen attentively, live simply and love freely, in our common home, and for the sake of our common family.
Amen.
Amy

Read it here.

April Quarterly Call

We held our quarterly call and had a great discussion of vocation and formation for Religious Life. We started the call by checking in with each other, giving our names, communities and locations. As always, I had the opportunity to connect with sisters that I have met before, and others that are new to me. It is a great way of expanding networks and building connections.

We talked about the women coming to religious life these days. They are a diverse lot, and many come with significant life experience, and with professional and ministry background. We talked a good deal about the older vocations, women in their 40s and 50s and beyond. They may be women who entered religious life in their 20s, then left and went another direction for some decades. They come back to religious life, often with years of experience in ministry and certainly with varied life experience. Other women may be new converts, or those with little experience in spirituality, ministry or theology. These inquirers present different challenges both for discerning the vocation and for formation / integration into our communities.

We had some discussion of the phenomenon of 'retiring to the convent', in which the inquirer's notion of vocation may be less evident than their notion of life-style change and finding a place to settle for one's golden years. A sense of spirituality and service may or may not be a part of what they are seeking. Also, the financial issues for these mature inquirers special consideration. (See last week's blog post.) This is an invitation to discernment and to discovering the core identity of religious life for ourselves and for inquirers

Once women enter, it is important to find the best way of helping them integrate into our community. This involves learning our life, spirituality, vows, etc. It also involves making space in our lives for them to be a part of our world, and the women making space in their lives for the community to become their 'center of gravity.'

These women generally come as adults, and we do best when we treat them as adults and enter into a process that honors their experience, while inviting them into our community. Formation is a process for all of us, not just women who are new to community. We all become a new community.

We also discussed the question of the length of formation, particularly for older women who have experience in ministry, spirituality and even in religious life. Can we tailor their formation to meet their needs, rather than using a one size fits all program?

Finally, we discussed the question of accepting vocations when most of the community will not live to celebrate their 25th anniversary, much less their 50th. Is it fair or ethical to welcome women into a lifelong commitment if we won't be there to accompany them? We generally agreed that this should be a subject of conversation. Many women coming today know that the community is in a period of transition and that much of 'what is' is passing away. This calls for honest dialogue; we and those who join us should explore what this means for vocation and formation. We are planting seeds, and these women will take them to places beyond where we can go. In a similar way, the younger and middle-aged religious today are being called to live into a new era in religious life. No longer are we large stable communities. Instead we are smaller, more agile communities, who will experience the fragility of our smaller size, a fragility often experienced by our lay brothers and sisters.

At the end of our conversation, we checked out - many of us expressed gratitude for the opportunity to share our thoughts and feelings on this important topic. It is good to hear one another's experience and share hopes and challenges. We also appreciated the sacred space we created by coming together.

LOOKING FORWARD: we will have a planning call on June 26, 2015 7pm Central. Folks would would like to help plan, facilitate or take notes on the next quarterly call are invited to join the planning call. Message me for details.

Peace,
Amy

Necessity is the mother of ... the Spirit

Recently I was discussing various trends in society, church and religious life. In the course of the conversation, we repeatedly mentioned developments that seem to be the work of the spirit: greater environmental awareness, greater awareness of equality and human rights, broader participation in the life of the Church, etc. At each turn, we had to acknowledge that that the movements arose, not only because of some altruistic spiritual sensitivity, but also because of a real need. This got me to thinking...
I thought of the foundation of many religious communities, including my own. We were founded because of pressing social and ecclesial needs that were not being met by any other group. At the same time, there were women who desired to serve the 'dear neighbor' in need, but they felt the need of mutual support and official approbation. So was the foundation of the Sisters of St. Joseph the result of a movement of the Spirit? or was it the result of necessity?
We now see increased lay involvement in many aspects of Church life. In our own sponsored Academies, for example, lay men and women are carrying on the mission with great dedication and professionalism. Certainly this is in keeping with the Second Vatican Council's renewed understanding of Baptism and of the call of all people to continue the mission of Jesus. However, it is also the result of the lessening number of sisters available to teach and administer the schools. The same is true in so many aspects of the life and mission of the Church. Priests and sisters are not available for many roles that they previously fulfilled, and a competent, professional cadre of lay ecclesial ministers carry out many tasks in pastoral, health-care and educational roles. Is this the result of a movement of the Spirit? or was it the result of necessity?
And looking forward, I am building community in an intercongregaional house of women religious, situated in an urban ecovillage. Partly, I am here because of the increasing difficulty of finding communities of sisters in full-time active ministry within my own congregation. It is a necessity. Yet I also see it as a movement of the Spirit, bringing together various threads of our charisms and missions into a broader synthesis. Is this necessity? or is it the movement of the Spirit?
I am beginning to see a pattern here. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Perhaps, necessity is also the mother of the Spirit.

Expanding Circles of Encounter

Community happens at so many levels and in so many networks:

Imagine community with sisters from various communities,

--living, working and praying together.

Imagine living sustainably in an urban setting.

Imagine living in dynamic relationship with Earth and the ecosystem.

Imagine networking with others in a neighborhood ecovillage.

Imagine incarnating the Gospel here and now, in our lives today.

Imagine hope.

Imagine peace.

Since spring 2013, I have lived in Dogtown, an historic district in central St. Louis, that is traditionally Irish and home to the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. I came here for two reasons: first, to work with other younger women religious to establish an inter-congregational community house, and second, to join a group of families in the neighborhood who are establishing the Dogtown Ecovillage. These are two grassroots efforts building sustainability through mutual support in ever widening circles of relationship and encounter.
1. A group of younger women religious in the St. Louis area have been meeting regularly for several years under the names of Giving Voice and Sisters 2.0.* Many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to find community living situations where all the members are engaged in active, full-time ministry. We hope to build supportive local communities where sisters can share in community, in spirituality and in mission. This inter-congregational community is one concrete result of our regular gatherings and conversations.
This is one way of 'seeding our future' by forming networks of relationship with sisters in various congregation. Our experiences of religious life have been inter-congregational from our earliest days in community. Sisters 2.0 is a movement of the new generations of women religious. In this peer-led, self-organized space, we network for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life. We naturally turn to our 2.0 sisters to build these new community spaces.
My vision and my view of the future are influenced by where I stand. I stand with my sisters in my CSJ community in many respects, and I stand with my 2.0 sisters in other respects. I value opportunities to move in and out of congregational circles, and to move in and out of peer-sister circles in mutually supportive ways.
The inter-congregational house is sponsored by the Religious Life Project, nonprofit organization founded to support religious life, particularly, younger Sisters in living the communal and spiritual dimensions of vowed life, and work with them toward their sustainability.
2. The Dogtown Ecovillage is a group of families in the neighborhood who have gathered to build community and support environmental sustainability through shared experiences such as pot-luck dinners, community service projects, parties, and educational events. Our goal is to engage in sustainability projects in collaboration with other local and regional initiatives such as Gateway Greening, Operation Brightside and the Mayor's Sustainability Action Agenda. By our active presence in the neighborhood, we are able to raise the consciousness of our neighbors and help them to embrace the same values. Together, we create projects such as: gardening in private and shared settings, permaculture, home energy audits, improved housing efficiency, environmental or social justice activism, tool lending library, shared car, shared wifi, shared child care and shared space for environmental activist organizations.
At our inter-congregational house, we have installed organic gardens and fruit trees, focusing on native plants, edible plans and perennials. Sweet potatos have become one of our signature crops as we discover creative new ways to prepare a sweet potato dish for our various pot-luck suppers. At our holiday gift exchange, we brought packages of seeds we had collected from native wild flowers in our gardens.
As the cold winter days force us indoors the Dogtown Ecovillage has taken on an energy audit project. Initially we planned to negotiate with a local provider to audit the homes of ten ecovillagers, including our intercongregational house. With the approval of the provider, we also offered the program to others in the neighborhood and now have forty homes signed up for energy audits. As the project proceeds, we plan to post stories of the audits in local publications and social media so that we can continue to expand the circles of influence.
I am privileged to have this opportunity to live into our chapter calls for sustainability, for nurturing the future of vowed religious life and for partnering with new eyes.
--

* Why Sisters 2.0? The use of “2.0” after a term indicates the next generation, building on earlier versions and adapting it to new challenges.

Habits of Love

Susan Francois, in a thoughtful essay about religious life writes:

Our attitudes of respect and inclusion affirm the both/and nature of the question today. Left to our own devices, over time, I believe we can heal this polarized division and in turn help heal a rift in religious life and the church. We find our common ground in the habits of love we develop, which form us as religious and shape the witness of our very lives as ones who follow Jesus in a particular way. Read more....

Susan describes her multivalent experience of religious-life 'habit', and that resonates with my own experience.
In my 30+ years of religious life, I have been in-habit for about half, and out-of-habit for the other half. I have embraced the challenges of authentic gospel living while wearing a veil, and while wearing a hoodie. I acknowledge some value in each experience, and some challenges in each. In neither case did what I wore touch the core experience of religious life or my commitment to Gospel living.
I think that wearing regular clothes allows me to be myself and to identify with others and with people I serve. Wearing a sign of my commitment in religious life allows me to identify with something larger, to witness the presence of God and of the people of faith into the present situation where I am living and working.
We can wear a pin or cross, but there is something profound about putting on clothing that represents who I am and what I stand for. I wonder about adopting the roman-collar as that symbol that can be worn as a widely-recognizable public witness.

Tapping into Goodness

Even in the midst of the insanity of war, human beings are made of finer stuff than we show. This is a story that says we can do better and we are doing better, even if it's only in fleeting moments. Let's tap into the best of ourselves and live from that.
I believe that Religious Life is an experiment in this commitment to tapping into all that is finest in the human spirit, into the Godliness of the human spirit. It is an experiment in forming communities where we can support one another in this. It is an invitation to nurture spirituality and community among ourselves, and to share that richness with the poorest and weakest around us.
Peace,
Amy

Sisters 2.0

Sisters 2.0 is a movement of the new generations of women religious. In this peer-led, self-organized space, we network for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life. In the spirit of Giving Voice, we embrace our diversity, listening attentively, speaking with intention, and tending to the good of the whole.

New Generations - We feel the need for creating spaces for conversation where we can share the experience of the new generations of women religious in today's communities, today's church and today's world. Some decades back, women religious in their thirties and forties gathered to create a space for 'giving voice' to their experience, and today, Giving Voice is respected national organization that supports hundreds of younger women religious through national conferences, retreats and networking online and on-ground. 
The generations who founded giving voice have 'aged out' of that organization which invites women under the age of fifty into its conversations. At the same time, many in this founding generation feel the need for continuing conversation. We have been gathering for a few years in self-organized circles to describe this experience and to imagine and create the forum that will help to support us at this stage. Sisters 2.0 emerged from this process.
We generally describe ourselves as the generations of sisters born after 1955. Boundaries are hard to draw, and some born in the early fifties may believe this is their conversation, and they are welcome. Older sisters can be allies for this movement. Giving Voice remains the place of choice for the youngest generation of sisters as the seek to give voice to their experience and support one another. At the same time, those sisters are welcome to join Sisters 2.0, and join in this new conversation as it suits their needs.
Visioning and Futuring - Sisters 2.0 is a place for engaging in conversations about where we are today in religious life, and where we are headed. Many of us are having similar conversations in our home communities, and this are immensely important conversations. We also feel the need to engage our peers on these topics. Our vision and our view of the future are influenced by where we stand. We stand with our sisters in our home communities in many respects, and we stand with our 2.0 sisters in other respects. We value opportunities to move in and out of congregational circles, and to move in and out of peer-sister circles in mutually supportive ways.
Future Oriented Initiatives - Sisters 2.0 is a support network and it seeks to move beyond conversation into actions that will actively engage the evolution of religious life and its vitality into coming generations. Many of our congregations have an average age in the upper seventies, or above. We are sadly, yet gratefully, bidding our last farewell to many of our sisters as they go to God. At the same time, our hearts are burning within us as we feel the call to live our lives to the full and to re-imagine religious life and begin to re-build it. It is this second task that is the focus of Sisters 2.0.
Listening, Speaking, Tending - We create sacred spaces to listen to God, to one another and to those around us. We speak our truth honestly and respectfully. We attentively care for the good of the whole, trusting in the Spirit who has called us together.
Join us - If you are part of the new generations of sisters, there are a number of ways you can join us. 

1. Online - we have a facebook group where sisters are invited to gather and organize.
2. Quarterly Calls - we have quarterly calls where we rotate the host and engage issues and foster initiatives.
3. Intercommunity Living - we foster community living and support intercommunity houses.
4. Conference - Symposium - we develop online and on-ground conferences, retreats and symposia to support Sisters 2.0 and member initiatives.

So often in this description, I found myself writing "at the same time".  We are in our communities - at the same time - we engage intercommunity circles. We face the current decline in numbers - at the same time - we respond to our call within this reality. We hold many things in balance and in tension as the Spirit of creation hovers over us, creating and recreating and renewing the face of the earth.

Sisters 2.0.1

The Sisters 2.0 group has been open for several months, and we have a good group gathering there and an open forum for our conversation. Soon, there should be an article coming out in the GV newsletter to let people know about the group and its goal of providing a conversation space for newer generations of women religious. It seeks to create networks for visioning and fostering future oriented initiatives for religious life.
Recently, a special report from CARA offered some analysis of the overall decline in numbers among sisters in the US. One of my recent blog posts on vulnerability got a lot of traffic, posts and side conversations.
Sisters 2.0 and the report stir in me the desire to continue the conversations that we've begun, and to deepen our hopes and desires, even as we support one another in the ups and downs of living religious life in the early twentieth century.
My own ministry brings me into privileged conversation spaces with religious communities as they face the challenge of the coming decades in their institutes. Often for smaller institutes, this means finding ways for their ministries to continue without their sponsorship, finding ways to ensure that their members will receive adequate care, even as the leaders themselves are aging, and finding ways of providing for the leadership and governance of the community when there aren't enough members who are able to carry out these tasks.
I stand on holy ground as I accompany them into these spaces, and work with them to meet the needs of their congregations with grace and courage.
I believe this is the place of Sisters 2.0, the sisters who have lived 10-20-30 years as the youngest members of their congregations. We accompany our elders, even as we forge new paths into an unknown future ourselves. In St. Louis, we are planning for some Advent conversations among younger women religious regarding how we face the challenges of this moment. It is a blest time when the "spirit hovers over the waters" of a "dark and deep chaos". It is a time to trust more in the creative Spirit and to face the chaos with courage.

Vulnerability

The chill in the air reminds me that summer is over and we're moving into fall. Leaves will paint the landscape in brilliant reds and yellows and then fall into carpets that crunch underfoot. The cycle of the seasons is fixed, yet dynamic in its daily unfolding. It can be in turn delicate and tender, then bold and harsh. Its rhythm encompasses my life story, though I know that other rhythms and other seasons tell the unfolding of lives on other parts of the planet.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a sister-friend. It was one of those deep and meaningful conversations that grace our lives. We talked about changing seasons of our lives, and changing seasons of religious life. One word came up and has stayed with me as I moved though the day, and into prayer at the close of day: vulnerability.
What is the particular vulnerability of being a young, or middle-aged religious in today's reality? I see my sisters growing in wisdom, age and grace, into their 80s and 90s, and I reach out to invite and welcome others to join us in this grand adventure. Those in the Sisters 2.0 generations, those born after '55 are amazing women, and it's a good thing, because we face some daunting challenges. Don't get me wrong here: I love this life, I cannot imagine myself as anything else, it's in my DNA, and I think there's a future to this precious gift we call religious life.
I also know that I, and many of my peers are in a vulnerable place. I will bury 20, 40, 60 of my own dearly loved sisters to every new sister I welcome. And this not just in my own congregation, but in most of the congregations I know. I ask myself how much my heart can take as my circle gets smaller and closes ranks and another sister's story comes to its blessed closure. A joyful time to be certain, a gift fully given, a life fully lived. May the choir of Angels greet you! ... may you have eternal rest.
I ask myself if I have steeled my heart to the grief. As we move forward, who will hold our aching hearts? As we gather in ever more intimate circles, we are called to celebrate a year dedicated to consecrated life. So in this season of change, I am sitting with vulnerability. I am asking myself what I use to escape the stark realities of life. And in this place, how do I dare to hope?
--Amy

Imagine Community

Community happens at so many levels and in so many networks. 

Imagine community with sisters from various communities, living, working and praying together.
Imagine living sustainably in an urban setting.

Imagine living in dynamic relationship with Earth and the ecosystem.

Imagine networking with others in neighborhood ecovillage.

Imagine incarnating the Gospel here and now, in our lives today. 

Imagine hope. 

Imagine peace.

(Video made for community assembly on intercommunity house of sisters living in ecovillage.)

Spirit Freely Flowing...

Just an update on the ecovillage, house, community.

Ecovillage: I'm enjoying the ecovillage community and our shared interest and enthusiasm in building community, growing natives and edibles and in practical sustainability. Regular gatherings, both formal and informal, planned and spontaneous, shared meals and shared fruits of the harvest.

House: Our rental house is for sale by the landlord, I'm meeting with the landlord next week to find out more about the status of the space and whether or not I can stay. The soil and biodiversity here is so much better than when I came. I identified 30 species when I arrived, mainly of the weed variety. I've added almost 50 perennials, mainly natives and edibles, and another 30 annuals, veggies, herbs and flowers. I would love to stay, but not sure if that will be possible.

Community: I have had several sisters express interest in joining in an intentional inter-congregational community of sisters. Some great women and great energy. I look forward to further conversations with them and others who may be interested. I also hope that some of them will be ready and able to join me in this project, wherever we may eventually land.

So though there is a lot that is up-in-the-air, I believe that the Spirit is flowing and hope and pray that I can flow with that energy as we live into the future of religious life.

I also have to thank and share the article of Sr. Susan Francois on the shifting conversations.

Peace,
--Amy

Sisters 2.0 Quarterly Phone Call

We gathered for our regular quarterly call to share the Spirit that is stirring among us, and to talk about future oriented initiatives for religious life.

• Summer Sisters - plans are underway for a few sisters and a few young lay women to share the values of religious life in intentional community this summer. 
• Vision Space will be a gathering of young and middle aged sisters to share the experience of religious life today. 
• Sisters 2.0 is being launched as a Facebook page for post-Vatican II sisters to network, envision and live into the religious life of the 21st century. If this is your conversation - contact me for details.
• Mapping We have a proposal to reach out and identify the sisters in the post-Vatican II cohorts of religious life so that we can network for mutual support and build relationships.
• We will check out Sisters of Earth to see where their vision and goals may intersect with ours.
• We are still thinking of how to celebrate the Year of Consecrated Life in 2015.

The call was energetic and hopeful as we shared where we come from, and where we are going in this great adventure we call religious life.