Road Trip

I had an opportunity recently to do a roadtrip with two other sisters from another community who entered religious life the same year I did - 1978. We were all within a few years of the same age. This may seem like a simple thing, but it really was such a great experience.
To put this in context, 95% of religious women in the US are over the age of 60. In my community, I'm almost always the minority in any gathering, and so I usually am out of my comfort zone when we do what's best for most, or talk about what most want to talk about.
I didn't know one sister at all before the trip, and the other I knew just a little. We happened to be heading in the same direction, so we agreed to link up for the trip.
There was an immediate 'at home'-ness as we made our way. We shared a similar connection, a deep, lived commitment to religious life. An understanding that this lived commitment has its ups and downs, but it is deeply enriching.
We remain in the life, even though it is clearly going through a period of decline. We have lost one third of our members in the last decade. We will lose another one third in each of the coming decades, leaving just a remnant in 20 years.
We remain in the life today because we recognize that it is also a time of re-imagining and emergence. Fresh voices are speaking up. We can build on what has been, and call forth new generations of religious life. This will take vision, courage and tenacity. Alone I would not have the strength to go on. But this road trip reminded me I am not alone. In other gatherings of religious in the minority cohort, I know that we are few, but we are called to be members of this generation, with the task of bridging between what was and what is emerging.
Only in God can we continue to walk this road, and in God we can walk with confidence.
Peace,
Amy

Riverside Meditation

This morning I woke up looking over the Ohio River. It is a lovely, peaceful view. When I first woke, the water was glassy still as the current moved slowly down stream. Then little by little, the wind and waves picked up. Still a gentle scene, but the water is more active, the glassy stillness is gone.
It reminds me of my own waking into a place of contemplation in the early morning hours. There is nothing to disturb my quiet resting in the God of Love. Gradually as the day begins, people and events blow over that glassy stillness as I engage the people of God and the things of God.
As the day flows on, I try to let some of that quiet stillness in the God of Love flow through the day, and flow through me into the people and events I encounter.
Peace,
Amy

Moving Forward in Hope

I had the opportunity this past week to participate in a program of the National Religious Vocation Conference. Held in Chicago, it was entitled Moving Forward in Hope. Sr. Mary Johnson SNDdeN gave the input sessions based on her research into the demographics of Catholics and of new entrants into religious life.
Mary's presentations were fascinating, diving deeply into the extensive information that is available, and exploring all that we can know about the present situation of religious life, with a particular emphasis on vocations to religious life.
The take away that I have is that there are lots of young catholic men and women who are deeply committed to the values of the Gospel, to living lives of service, to doing justice, to living sustainably and to developing a deep and nourishing spirituality. The question we all engaged was: how do we as religious women effectively reach out to these women and invite them to consider religious life? I think there are two prongs to this question:

1. First we who are living religious life seek to provide the opportunity and space within our communities to welcome and nourish prospective members and newer and younger members in religious life. I believe that we do this by living authentically, justly and sustainably in vibrant communities committed to the Gospel.
2. From this space, we can move out into circles and communities in the wider community, where people are doing justice, living sustainably and committing themselves to spirituality and service. There are lots of communities and groups that are working and living these values. 

Religious life is a particular way of living the Gospel that has enduring validity. Among the various ways of living with integrity and of living the Gospel, religious men and women come together to live simply in mutual interdependence. Vowed life in community is a graced response to the universal call to holiness.
I would invite anyone who feels called to religious life, or to explore a calling to contact me or some other religious community you know. It is a life that can be very enriching to those who live it and to those we serve.
We're initiating a conversation among religious women in their 40s or 50s would like to connect about building a future full of hope. Email me: amyhereford@gmail.com if you would like to participate in the initial conversation - we're hoping to organize a gathering in summer of 2014.
Peace,
Amy

Trinity, Communities and ATD

The western liturgical tradition celebrates Trinity Sunday this weekend. In a well known image, The Holy Trinity by St. Andrei Rublev, uses the theme of the "Hospitality of Abraham." The three angels symbolize the Trinity, which is rarely depicted directly in Orthodox art.
The Trinity is central to the early development of Christian belief in God as Creator, Redeemer, Unifier. In the early Christian centuries, the community of faith struggled to understand how God was one, yet manifold. The formula of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit came to be understood as central to the Christian faith, being discussed at church councils that gathered mystics and prophets, who were lay and ordained theologians.

Elizabeth of the Trinity, a modern mystic prays this way:

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.

The Trinity finds a modern expression in the three prongs of the ATD movement: working to bring forth an

• environmentally sustainable, 
• spiritually fulfilling,
• socially just 

human presence on this planet.

ATD describes and promotes a movement that is made up of hundreds of thousands of individuals and groups that are each working in their own neighborhoods, in their own circles. Each of these individuals and groups subscribe to this trinity of values, while focusing its attention on one or the other of them in a more particular way.

• There are communities that gather to live and promote environmental sustainability, both for themselves, and for the broader human community as well as for the broader community of creation. 
• There are communities that gather around spiritual values, for example those that gather to live the gospel deliberately and radically.
• There are communities that work for justice in so many different ways in society.

It seems this triad of communities is an in-breaking of the Trinity of Love into our world. May this Trinity Sunday be an impetus to re-commit to living these Trinitarian values and weaving them into the fabric of our lives and communities.

Peace,
Amy

Emergence: Two Loops

How do organizations grow, expand, mature, decline and re-emerge? There are probably as many ways of unfolding of this pattern as there are organizations in which it unfolds. However, there are some interesting theories advanced by organizational studies and business writers, as well as by those reflecting on emerging consciousness.
One such theory really speaks to me as I continue to explore the emerging reality in religious life today. It starts with a simple life-cycle curve based on the biological life cycle. Individuals are born, grow, mature and decline. This cycle is repeated in every species and it is the basis of evolution as organisms pass on their genetic code to succeeding generations and those organisms adapt to changes in their environment and habitat. Izaac Adizes writes extensively on the application of the biological life-cycle to organizations and the characteristics of organizations at the various stages. Lawrence Cada applies the notion to religious life.
Deborah Frieze takes the concept one step further, asking how it is that organizations can be re-born, re-founded or transformed. She calls it the two-loop model. The origin, growth, maturity, decline life-cycle remains in place. If the organization is to be transformed, some of its members - usually just a few pioneers have an insight into the essential nature of the organization and into why it is declining and how it might better adapt to the evolving reality. They take the kernel of the organization's life and step apart to incarnate this in a new way. Gradually, they are able to articulate the emerging reality and gain a few collaborators. Slowly they grow and begin to emerge as a distinct expression. At this point, members of the original organization may bridge over and join the emerging reality. The diagram below is based on Deborah's work and helpful to me in visualizing this movement.

Where to you see this dynamic played out? Where are we in giving birth to an emerging reality in our various organizations, movements, configurations? What do we need to support and sustain this emerging and transformational energy? Where is the Spirit moving among us this Pentecost?
Peace
--Amy

Transforming Religious Life

RFC has been running a program on transforming religious life. It has run for three years, and each year it was offered in several cities. The program is an invitation to religious to come into conversation about renewing / transforming their communities.
I didn't attend the first year of the program, but I attended the second and third (this year). I was there last weekend, and found the conversations and networking to be very enriching. I guess whenever you get 100 people in the same room all oriented toward something they love, it's going to be enriching and energizing.
The program invited us to explore contemplation as the basis of our lives, and contemplation moves us into a space of personal and shared discernment.
From there, we were invited to explore mission, community and solidarity with the poor. These elements, contemplation and discernment, and mission, community and solidarity with the poor were places of common spirit among us. We definitely saw the special uniqueness or flavor of each community, and the tremendous wealth that we share in common.
One question that echoed through the room on several occasions was: how do we bring this back to our home communities, how do we get everyone moving in the direction of transformation?
While I'm all for that, I wonder if the question is rather: How do we get all of us who are ready for transformation moving in the same direction and sharing energies and gifts?
I think if we wait to get everyone on board and moving, we may miss the moment of transformation. What if we come together - there is so much good energy flowing! Be a blessing right where you are and join in widening circles of blessing where all is gift.
Peace,
Amy

Gangster Gardener

"Growing your own food is like printing money."



I have a back-yard garden for the first time in... a long time.
I can say a whole-hearted YES to Ron's ideas.
Another friend at Carondelet Community Garden Urban Farm writes this:

Grow food for recreation! Grow to make yourself happy! Growing anything can be very rewarding, calming, therapeutic and an excellent hobby. You wanna grow the biggest celery or the rarest vegetable? Do it! We grow when we grow!

Growing my own food means my veggies won't be ...

poisoned by herbicides and pesticides,
grown in GMO monocultures,
picked and shipped by underpaid workers, or
trucked for hundreds of miles.

Growing my own food is ...

an opportunity for me to slow down and spend time in the fresh air,
an opportunity to get out and meet and share with my neighbors,
my joint project with air, earth, wind and sun,
a reminder than I am one with nature, and
a gift of God and a space for prayer,

Here's to gardening!!!
--Amy