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

Summer Sisters

Summer Sisters is an idea that we have been kicking around for a few years. The idea is to open our hearts and our homes to one another over the summer. We also thought of this as a possible vocation outreach, inviting women who might be interested in having an experience of religious life for a brief period of time - call it convent-immersion.
This year though, we decided to open it to Sisters in various religious communities. So, we would like to take this opportunity to invite Sisters to stay with us over the summer. We are specifically inviting GV and 2.0 Sisters who would like to spend a little time with us. Call it retreat, vacation, mini-sabbatical, inter-community sisterhood networking, eco-spirituality immersion, urban eco-village experience, etc. You may have heard of couch-surfing... this would be more like convent-surfing.
Summer/retreat/vacation time is a great time to open our doors to one another, to build the networks among us and to nourish the spirit that is moving among us.

We are not putting particular parameters on this. I.e. both Maco and I have plans over the summer. One or the other of us will be out of town at various times for retreat, vacation, community meetings and ministry. We have another sister who may be joining us from time to time as well. So, if this sounds like something that would fit into your summer plans, feel free to contact me or Maco and lets see what would we can work out. We are in St. Louis, fairly centrally located and we would love to have you.

On the Road Again...

In St. Louis, we have a fairly active Giving Voice / Sisters 2.0 group. We are the younger sisters in the area, from novices to silver jubilarians who gather every month or so for supper, prayer, conversation, and fun. Our conversations range widely: our shared experience being the youngest members of our congregations, even after several decades, for some of us; living as the only younger person in an elder community; the future of religious life; the awesome adventure that this life affords us; the profound challenges that we will face in the coming decades; and how to love and laugh and hope through all that life has to offer.

One fruit of our conversations is the recognition of our need to form inter-congregational communities to support and nourish our generations and the coming generations of religious women. How do we find spaces, or build spaces in which we can take the responsibility for this development?

I am currently living in a house founded to begin just such an inter-congregational community. I moved in two years ago, and several sisters have expressed interest in joining and there are two of us here now. We are located within an urban eco-village, and in the shadow of the parish church. We are also in St. Louis which has a reputation for having a lot of intentional communities. There is an Ecovillage network and an Intentional Christian Community network, as well as our GV/Srs2.0 network and the various gatherings of our own communities. Interlocking circles of community.

Recently our landlord decided to terminate our lease and sell the property, so we are on the road again. I have also been reading a book about Tiny-Houses for one of our ecovillage book-clubs. Folks take a trailer frame and build a house on it, like the picture above. There is a lot in the book about friendship, simplicity, living lightly on the earth and alternative living. But honestly as I think about our upcoming move, I can't help but notice that the house is on wheels. How easy would that be to move?!

This move is yet another in a string of moves - also a common experience among our younger sisters network. I counted up my moves in the last 20 years: this will be my 14th move! I average just under a year-and-a-half in each place. Thankfully, many of these moves were to different places in the local area. But still it means packing up my life and lugging it across town. It means calling in friends and family for a moving and pizza party. It means figuring out what to pack and what to give away or pitch. And where to put it when we get to the new place. 

Thankfully, there is a new place and I'm excited when I look past the upcoming move to the new space. There is also the possibility of a long-term lease, and of purchasing the property for the Religious Life Project which supports sustainability projects for and by younger religious.

So say a prayer as we continue our Lenten journey which is also a journey to a new home. Blessings on your own journey.

--Amy

Growing Awareness

I have been networking very intentionally with other young and middle-aged religious for some years now. Our conversations are always very rich and grace-filled. This blog is a result of those conversations, the result of my own prayer and reflection and the result of my lived experience of religious life at this time.
At this point, we know that religious life has changed radically in each of the last several decades, and that it will likely change even more radically in the coming decades. My ministry calls me to journey with communities that have come to accept the reality that their community's life journey is coming to an end. They come to embrace this reality with amazing courage and grace, and the realization brings them a great deal of peace and freedom. Accepting their current reality, they can fully live the final decades of their community's life journey with grace and integrity.

They are writing their community's last chapter. Like any good book, we don't want it to end, but end it must. And the sisters in this generation have the challenge and the grace to write that chapter. The chapter that will tie together all the strands of the community's life story.
It is a privilege for me in ministry to walk with the sisters and the brothers whose communities have made these decisions. With disarming simplicity and courage, they see the things they gave their lives to coming to an end, or better, given over into the hands of competent, committed lay people.
More and more communities come to this place of acceptance and peace with their own completion. In many of these communities, there is a small cadre of sisters in their 20s, 30s 40s and 50s, still in active ministry, still vibrant. We acknowledge the decline of the largest generation of religious ever to live and pray and serve in the USA.
In the midst of this reality, I am coming to find my hope, my strength, my joy in the inter-congregational networks of sisters: Giving Voice and Sisters 2.0. I am coming to value both my deep and lasting relations with my home-congregation, and the rich and vibrant relations across congregations.
I discover and celebrate a 'sisterhood' that is bigger than any one congregation. I have a deep joy when I think of these sisters, women of faith, women of courage and women of hope. Intelligent, well-educated and broadly experienced, these sisters are taking up the challenge of carrying religious life into the heart of the 21st century and beyond.
May we cherish the sacred trust of our communities, live it with joy and share it generously. Pray with us. Pray for us. Join us.
--Amy

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.
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* 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.

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

by Kristin Matthes
I turned 49 last month, which means I am in my fiftieth year. When four of us started Giving Voice in a Cincinnati basement in 1998, I was not yet 33. Our original tag line (seen on an old sweatshirt of mine) was ‘A Newsletter by Women Religious Under 50.’ Fifty seemed like a lifetime away back in that basement, but here I am less than one trip around the sun away from hitting that milestone. The years have been filled with amazing people, sharing their dreams and hopes for religious life and helping to create together what is emerging in our way of life. Who could have guessed that after 16 years of newsletters, conferences, and websites operating on donations and staffed completely by volunteers, Giving Voice would receive $1,000,000 ‘to prepare young Roman Catholic women religious to assume leadership positions in their religious communities, ministries, and the Catholic Church’? I feel so grateful to have been part of this effort in religious life. I can’t help but think of Paul’s words to the Corinthians: [We] planted, [many have] watered, but God caused the growth.

The means of conversation have evolved over the years. Giving Voice published a print newsletter for 10 years, with over one hundred articles by sisters under 50. Giving Voice continues to host countless gatherings, connecting hundreds of younger sisters in venues across the United States. Giving Voice maintains a website and a Facebook page and group. The Giving Voice Facebook group has been a vibrant place to engage in meaningful conversation about religious life with other ‘younger’ members of congregations, but as my sweatshirt reminds me, Giving Voice was created to be a space for women religious under 50.

As I approach my fiftieth birthday, I still feel the need for conversation spaces with those passionate about religious life. As I talk to others from the ‘founding generation’ of Giving Voice, many are feeling the same way. So we have created a new Facebook group: Sisters 2.0. This is another conversation space for the younger generations of women religious, open to both those over 50 and under 50. By opening this space where the voices of all generations of women religious who have come to religious life after the renewal of Vatican II, the Giving Voice group can maintain its focus on conversations among women religious under 50.

Check us out as we begin to open this new conversation space. Just as 2.0 technologies depend on interaction and collaboration, Sisters 2.0 will thrive as a meaningful space when you add your voice to the conversation!

Go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Sisters2.0/ , or message me or Amy, or comment below.

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.)

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.

Neo-Tribalism

Neo-Tribalism means many things to many people, but essentially it refers to the human tendency to form communities in human-size groups, even when our social structures group us on a mega-level. It is seen as a symptom of post-modernism. Moderns attempted to solve all the world's problems with bigger and better organization, post-moderns commit to local communities and needs.
Neo-tribalism also acknowledges that the best communities are not insular and isolated. Instead, they have a center of gravity within and a sense of identity, and at the same time, they engage others in meaningful ways.
I think that religious life calls me to think in new ways about community. Large groups of elder Sisters embrace the reality that their congregations are in their last years, their amazing stories are coming to an end. Small groups of younger Sisters come together in small local communities where we belong, grow and share as the image says. We find places that nourish relationship and our capacity to encounter God, to encounter one another in community and to encounter others in mission.
In this I find life, energy and hope. It is a blessing to be at this point of dying and rising in the history of religious life.
Peace,
Amy

Claiming Sisterhood

National Catholic Sisters Week was celebrated a month ago, for the very first time. I wasn't able to attend the main celebration in St. Paul, MN, but there were celebrations, liturgies, rallies and other events across the nation and lots of attention from media and on social media channels.
There is one phrase that stuck with me from all the events and images, posts and tweets, that the event was about Claiming Sisterhood.
That one brief phrase has echoed with me in the weeks since the celebrations. For me, claiming sisterhood says that we are coming to an understanding of religious life as a reality broader than any one congregation. There is a growing sense of who we are as a movement, that is an umbrella over who we are as individual congregations. The reality between congregations is increasing, even while the reality within is decreasing.
The wordle that I included here is one borrowed from the FCJs. Could it not be so much the same for so many of us in our newly-claimed sisterhood.
As I sit with it, I ask myself: what do I resonate with? What would I add?
The thing about a wordle is that it is not a statement, it is not an assertion. The power of a wordle is in the relationship between the words. Intersubjectivity. So I think the power of sisterhood is being found in the relationships among us, as we realize that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
May we be blessed in our emerging sense of sisterhood.
Peace,
Amy

Living Voice - Quarterly Call - VisionSpace Gathering

We gathered again for our Quarterly Conference Call between St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph Day.

Though we feel like we've had the conversation before, we talked about moving from conversation to moving into action? As we talked however, we realized that we are moving to action. Kristen M and Amy H both have houses to invite people to as models, though not without challenges, it is a sign of hope. The Franciscans of Washington, DC, Windridge Solitude and Green Mountain Monastery are other examples. Maybe we have more to celebrate than we realize.

We discussed two programs for this summer, VisionSpace and Summer Sisters. We are inviting sisters and women interested in religious life in to the Summer Sisters program. We plan to form community with interested women for 3-5 weeks over the summer. Living, Working and Praying together. More background from the last call.... 

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VisionSpace 

Our first National Event will be in Summer of 2014. Online and on-ground in St. Louis, MO. July 5-7, 2014. Several sisters have expressed interest. Please re-contact if you are interested in online or on-ground.

Theme: Moving into action, Seeds of hope

Resources:

• www.relforcon.org - has webinars that have some good content. open to the public. see: https://www.relforcon.org/programs/webinars 
• Johnson, Mary, Patricia Wittberg, and Mary L. Gautier. New Generations of Catholic Sisters: The Challenge of Diversity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 
• Hereford, Amy. Religious Life at the Crossroads: A School for Mystics and Prophets. New York: Orbis, 2013. 

Invitation: Contact Amy Hereford to participate. Please recontact even if you've emailed before, so we have a good count. Pass this invitation on to other sisters, especially those in their 40s and 50s who may be interested.

Program: Participants volunteer alone or in groups to prepare/facilitate a day. We recommend you draw from the resources, but you're not limited to that. All participants are encouraged to use one or more of the resources before you come.

Streaming: Each evening, we will stream a conversation to share the event beyond those who are gathered on-ground.

Sign up: Register for the program, or just to get more information.

Cost: $60. Scholarships available.

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Open items still to discuss:
--Online forum
--2015 - Year for Consecrated Life

Great energy, great conversations! We invite younger women religious to be a part of this conversation. Contact if you would like to join us.

Be the Change

Be the change you want to see in the world. - attributed to Ghandi.

I have a chance to be the change that is:

spiritually meaningful - in relationship with the Christian community movement, with other younger women religious and with the women of Giving Voice
ecologically sustainable - in relationship with the ecovillage network
socially justice - acknowledging my interdependence with those living in wealth and in poverty, and making choices to live justly, making stands against injustice and making waves to draw attention to systems of injustice and paths to justice.

A more complete quote from Ghandi is:

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”

Let's be the change...
Peace,
Amy

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Connections

I love the connections that we make through life
... how we weave in and out of each other's circles
... blessing one another in known and unknown ways.

Over the last couple of days, I have had the opportunity to touch the lives of several people, and be touched by them. They are folks that I have met through my various circles, and who are friends of friends of friends.... It is amazing to give and receive blessings in these circles of life.
Building each other up, giving and receiving blessings and touching the face of God as we weave the tapestry of life.
Peace,
--Amy

Musings of a Discerning Woman: Losing Voice

Musings of a Discerning Woman: Losing Voice: Well, irony of all ironies, I am headed to a conference of 800+ women religious leaders to tell them the good news of younger women religiou...

Musings of a Discerning Woman: Sharing Voice: GV Booth at LCWR My 2013 visit to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious Assembly representing Giving Voice is complete! And given...

Emerging Religious Life

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
Religious life in the US today is at an important place within the life of the church and within the life cycles of many institutes. For many women's communities, the median age is approaching 80 years of age, nearly the life expectancy of women in this country; men's communities are generally a little better off. Given this reality, some communities are coming to realize that they likely have, at most, one or two more cycles of leadership (usually 4-6 year terms) before the matter becomes critical. Then there will be neither time nor a critical mass of members able to make decisions, get the affairs of the community in order, and ensure the dignity of their final years and legacy. While some communities will continue , many communities are approaching their historical completion as institutions, they are likely writing the last chapter of their life-story, whether they realize it or not. This will require some realistic and careful planning to prepare for this phase of the life journey and to fulfill it with dignity.
This is the work of the large dominant cohort,  work which will ensure that the last chapter of their community's history is as compelling and grace-filled as was the first chapter and every chapter in between. It is immensely important work, and it is necessary to ensure the legacy of the community, allowing members the ability  to make their own choices in this regard, and to live this phase in a way that does honor to their heritage.
If this is not the final generation of the community, for many, it is nevertheless a time when the majority of community members will have moved from active ministry to the ministry of elderhood which is more focused on prayer and presence than on carrying the responsibilities of active ministry. This too will require careful though and transition.
This task is the focus of the Covenant Project workshops which are being held both online and on-ground as well as other similar programs.
There remains another task of religious life today, often the task of the minority of younger members in our congregations. From the midst of the current communities, members wish to remain in relationships with their sisters and are ready to support them in their work and bless them on their journey. However, this group has another task: to imagine the future of religious life in the next fifty years. We are committed to doing honor to our heritage, and to making choices to adapt the life to the new reality in which we find ourselves.

As we move forward with the transformation of religious life, we need to examine those elements of structure that will assist us in our journey, and those elements that are holding us back. How might we imagine a way to free the emerging energy in religious life to explore new paths? How are we creating spaces for this in our midst today?

Giving Voice - National Conference

Here are some notes from the national conference of younger women religious held in California in early July.

We are building the bridge while we are walking on the bridge at the same time. We may not even know where it is going but we are walking together. We seek to be the glory of God, fully alive for the kindom of God. We are one. http://www.giving-voice.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=87

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Just two weeks after the “Nuns on the Bus” national tour ended in San Francisco, another group of Roman Catholic Sisters—these sisters of the younger variety, aged 25 to 49—gathered in the Bay Area for the Giving Voice National Gathering.  These “young nuns,” most of whom are the youngest members of their religious orders, prayed and reflected on the future of mission and ministry in the Church and society in the 21st Century. http://www.csjsl.org/news/young-nuns-meet-to-imagine-future.php

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Mission and Ministry in the 21st Century - Giving Voice 2013: Burning Questions from the Opening Ritual: We posted our burning questions in our meeting space On Friday night we were invited to reflect on the following questions:  What bur...

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Younger nuns envision a future much smaller, but still bright

By Valerie Schmalz

Some of Sister Chero Chuma’s friends back in Kenya think she wasted her visa to the United States – becoming a religious and joining an order of mostly elderly nuns in the Seattle area.
“It is amazing when you feel a call and you respond to a call. It is not that you choose to do that,” said the Sister of St. Joseph of Peace who recently enrolled in the nursing program at Seattle University.
- See more at: http://www.catholic-sf.org/ns.php?newsid=27&id=61606

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Silos and Networks

I've had several conversations lately that lament the siloed nature of  much of life. We live in so many insulated groups and communities. Working to do great things to be sure, but also working to preserve the group and it's distinction from all the other folks out there doing great things. Here I'm thinking of religious communities, do-gooder communities, ministries, service organizations. We became mega-communities, self-contained, and doing great work, chugging along without much connection to those around us who are on the same road.

I'm grateful that all around I see the growing interesting networks. We connect with others who are living spiritually meaningful lives, doing good, or building community or working for social justice, for peace and for sustainability. I find that by connecting with others, by building relationships, I am strengthened personally and I have more energy for building up my own group.

I don't see this as breaking down to individualism, where each person is on their own. I definitely find that connecting in meaningful communities and groups is important. And when these communities and groups can network into communities of communities, then there is an amazing synergy that can develop. This can happen on-ground and online. It can happen formally and informally through conversation, celebration and common projects.

I see us moving from a world of larger and larger siloed mega-groups into smaller, agile, autonomous groups that are networked in meaningful relationships with other groups on a variety of fronts. I see in this a mirror of the way God made our natural world. Plants, trees, animals all live together in mutually beneficial relationships. And God saw that it was good.

Peace,
Amy

Joy in the Journey

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life And freedom for those who obey....
--Michael Card

Moving forward in community, it is a challenge to take the joys of this day. I make a commitment to the road I am on, rejoicing in the gifts of this moment.

At the same time I reach out to make the dream a reality, inviting others to share in it and rejoicing with those who come to live in hope. The gift of this moment is the broader community that has welcomed me into the neighborhood and ecovillage. Together we are beginning to build a more sustainable life.

At the same time, I am still inviting others who want to live the gospel radically, in the great tradition of religious life, and in the company of countless women and men who have walked this road before us. I live in hope and in the wonder and wildness of this journey. Open to receive the gift of today, and willing to walk courageously into the challenges it offers.

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