SOD TURNING

Housing is needed….

Sister Joan, pictured centre, in London Ontario with members of local non-profit housing advocates.

The Vision SoHo Alliance is responding to the Mayor’s call to build 3000+ units of affordable housing.

Six not-for-profit housing developers turned the sod on Friday, Oct. 14 in response to the Mayor’s call and to the desperate need for housing for many of our citizens.  The housing crisis in the city is on everyone’s mind as the fall turns cold, and snow will soon follow. 

What is unique about this effort is the collaborative work done by six non-profits to develop a piece of land that has both historical significance in London (former site of the War Memorial Children’s Hospital and the first Medical School) and its central location in London.  When completed it will provide approximately 680 units of mixed housing.  This is London’s biggest affordable housing project that the city has undertaken and has the potential to build a community where so many are needed to make it happen. 

We thank the media for the good overage we received for this ground-breaking ceremony and share the links to their coverage here:

Everything you need to know about SoHo affordable housing mega-plan - London Free Press

SoHo affordable housing project on old Victoria Hospital land to get underway in the spring - CBC News

SoHo development ready to move to the building phase - CTV News

Vision SoHo Alliance breaks ground on London, Ont. housing project - GLOBAL NEWS

We will post photos over time - following this transformation of land into homes.  We invite you to follow us!

Sister Joan Atkinson, Chairperson of the London Affordable Housing Foundation.

A Reflection on Love and Loss

As I recall Claire Oliver’s words:  “I will lovingly accept the ‘bad’ and ‘the good…and try to see everything that happens as a gift of love. (From Maxim 10 1 E).

My youngest sister Cathy died very suddenly at the beginning of May – which sent her immediate family – husband and daughters, as well as her 7 remaining siblings and friends into deep grief and shock.  “This cannot be true, I just played cards with her on Saturday night; I had breakfast with her two days ago on Mother’s Day; I had a long chat with her on the phone not three days ago…”

My dear sister, Cathy.

My acceptance of Cathy’s death took some inner work and acceptance of my own feelings of loss and down-right anger at what happened to her. 

Why?  Why her? She’s too young. The family needs her, she was the connector for the rest of us. 

Going into an 8-day retreat in August was going to be time that I could get some direction around how to really live this new reality with a deeper faith and trust.  So, with my ‘take charge’ attitude I was going to find out some answers to my questions.  As I sat one morning quietly by the window asking God about the day Cathy died my questions were:  What was it like?  Was she afraid?  Were You with her?  Who else was there?  Did she just take Your hand and look back at all of us and wave goodbye?  Is she okay?

“I SAT ASKING GOD, WHY?”

Sitting with these questions and letting them just be in the universe and outside of myself, I closed my eyes and waited.  Suddenly, I had a sense of inner peace and could hear Cathy laughing and clearly saying to me “Gotch ya!”  Her laughter and those words often came when she knew she had one upped me on something- so I knew intuitively that this was a response from her. 

Keeping my eyes closed, I saw my parents, my other sister Mary Jane and her husband Don standing with some of the members of the Community who were significant women in my life and who loved me  – standing with Cathy and they just said “Ann, Cathy is fine, she is with us – with all of us who loved you and she will be okay.”  I was overwhelmed and thought - I’ve lost my mind here!  When I shared this with the Director later that day her words were:  “Ann, you have had a visit from the Communion of Saints…and Cathy is among them now.”

My remaining days of retreat were filled with the gift of looking at death and not being afraid – and I spent time with the following quote from John O’Donohue:

“Death is actually a re-birth.  Where does the soul go?  It goes nowhere (Eckhart).  The eternal world is not some faraway galaxy-but it is HERE.  The dead are here with us, invisible to us, but we can sense their presence.  They are looking out for us.  For the dead, time is a circle.  Eternity is pure presence, pure belonging.  When you are in the eternal, you are outside of nothing.  You are within everything, enjoying the fullest participation. There is no separation.  You are embraced in the purest circle of LOVE.  You are everywhere and you are nowhere.  BUT you are in complete presence – DO NOT BE AFRAID.  (Walking in Wonder)

As I go forward this new year, I choose to live into the deeper meaning of this Maxim as I continue to “see everything that happens as a gift of LOVE.”

-Sister Ann MacDonald, csj

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A Grateful Heart - Blessings of Creation

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What a generous Creator we have and what fruits and blessings are ours from Mother Earth!

Autumn colours along the Hay River

We have been gifted in so many ways. As the Season of Creation ends, and we ready ourselves for Thanksgiving weekend, my heart is moved by all I have experienced, been taught, and so graciously been gifted.

During the past 34 years, living and working in the Diocese of Mackenzie – Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories, sharing life with many Indigenous brothers and sisters, I have come to grow in the spirit of generosity and thankfulness.

One of the valuable lessons I have been taught is to always be thankful and respectful to the Creator and Mother Earth for the gifts that have been given. The years I have lived in the fly-in community of Lutsel K’e, on the East Arm of Great Slave Lake and now, among the Dene at Katlodeeche First Nations in Hay River, I have become more aware and try to live in a spirit of gratitude. As my friend, Georgina reminds me, “We must always be thankful and say Mahsi and then give back to the land”. Often the gift of tobacco is offered.

I have learned to be aware and grateful for such gifts as safe passage on the lake and the river, the abundance of fish, many varieties of berries, sap dripping down the trunk of a spruce tree hardening to spruce gum, many plants with medicinal and healing qualities.

Haskaps, sheltered by their leaves

This past summer I experienced an opportunity to be grateful to Mother Earth for the gift of haskaps, a berry I had been introduced to a few years ago. My friend, Sheila, was thinning her bushes and gave me 5 or 6 saplings, rather scrawny looking ones. Although scrawny, their roots were tender but strong. I planted them and the saplings survived the first winter and then the next. In the third year the saplings had grown into a low bush and produced blossoms. Last summer a few berries appeared. This summer the bush produced abundantly.

Just enough haskaps for a recipe

The haskap bush produces fruit in the month of July. To look at my bush you would think it was only a lovely green shrub as the berries grow inside, under the leaves. In abundance, I picked every few days. It seemed like the bush never stopped giving. I picked just what was needed for the recipe I was following.

As I picked, I was very aware of my responsibility to be grateful for the berries that grew. I did not have tobacco to offer the land for her generous gift of the berries. I thought, “What gift can I give? What are my gifts that I can share in thanksgiving to the Creator for the generosity of these berries?”

I live beside the river, and I have been gifted with a beautiful singing voice. And so, I offered a song. I sang “By Cedars They Shall Stand”. I sang in thanksgiving not only for the berries but for the ways I am gifted each day.

-Sister Maggie Beaudette, CSJ