Making time for prayer

Very special prayer days take place in the Hamilton neighbourhood of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada. Recently, fifty women from this area gathered at the main residence on a Saturday as part of the 'Praying with the Sisters' retreat day that is offered there three times each year. The women devote 6 hours on a Saturday to spending time listening to how God is speaking to them in their hearts. The pattern is the same:  begin with Mass, continue with coffee, listen to a presentation on some spiritual topic, time for personal quiet prayer, lunch, sharing the fruit of their prayer with each other and closing ritual. Straightforward and simple to be sure but never easy to carve out time in their busy lives, making that effort to be with God in a special way.

The presenters over the years seem always to strike the right balance and are tuned into what these women's hearts really long and need to hear, what God wants to make known to them. Saturday's presenter was no different. Sr. Lucille Godfrey of Kitchener-Waterloo pondered the relationship between Martha and Mary and what that relationship can teach.

Each participant greatly appreciates the silent time too where she can wander the property or sit quietly in the chapel listening to whatever God wants to show her at this time on the pilgrimage that is her life.

It is unlikely that there will suddenly be time for prayer; we need to make time.

Nancy Sullivan CSJ

… in the Midst of Upheaval

This year, Thanksgiving occurs in the midst of many challenges. The world is saturated in war. Ebola threatens to invade not only Africa but the USA and Canada. Work is scarce and poverty continues to increase the disparity between the rich and poor. Heavy rain pelting the window confirms my fear that the late growing crops will not be harvested this fall.

What is one to do in the face of all this bad news? One might be tempted to play Job and curse one’s fate. However, my morning walks confirm that the sun’s healing rays still shine on us. Beauty surrounds us on every side. Crisp fall mornings lighten my spirit. Bright autumn flowers and the magnificent neon reds and oranges of trees are a feast for the eyes. Happy children wait for the school bus watched by attentive parents.

In the wider world, the United Nations is hammering out a new global agreement on reducing carbon emissions. We teeter on the cusp of a global transition to a new safe energy economy. New attempts are being made to redirect locating new fossil fuel deposits to exploring new safe energy initiatives. Young Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame recently addressed the UN to endorse the “Heforshe” initiative for gender equality.

Year after year, Thanksgiving reminds us of the good gifts God brings in spite of massive turmoil. In the haunting words of “Desiderata”, the poet Max Ehrmann reminds us: “With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.” Happy Thanksgiving.

Jean Moylan, CSJ

Have you heard the term "Workamping"?

Have you heard the term ‘Workamping’? I had not until reading Jessica Bruder’s article, “The End of Retirement”, published in the August, 2014 edition of Harper’s Magazine. If you just look at the graphic it doesn’t seem to be a bad thing, this working and camping concept.

However, according to Bruder, many Americans in their 60’s and 70’s have had to buy RVs to live in and to use to find work (we used to think that RVs were ‘recreational vehicles’, right?). A new ‘tribe’ of aging RV dwellers is now moving across the U.S. seeking work where they can. They call themselves “workampers, travelers, nomads”. However, Bruder states that, “More bluntly, they are geriatric migrant labor, meeting the needs for seasonal work in an increasingly fragmented and temp-driven marketplace.” 

Why?  Many of these people, with once well-paying jobs, seem to have been the losers from the 2008 economic downturn. As well, people cannot live in retirement based on U.S. Social Security benefits of some $499 a month. These “downwardly mobile Americans” have been dubbed “the Okies of the Great Recession”.

How do they live?  Well they park their RVs in camp grounds often tailored to their needs ... free, or for little cost, and they do create their own ‘communities’. The ‘workampers’ migrate across the U.S. following a “national circuit extending from coast to coast and up into Canada”.

What do they do?  Low paying seasonal jobs. They are the people that work in the Amazon warehouses shelving goods and filling orders during the peak shopping period prior to Christmas. They are the people who staff U.S National Parks, pick berries, staff tourist destinations and harvest sugar beets.

How are they doing? Not well. Aging bodies do not stand up to 12 hour days of physically demanding jobs. According to Bruder, “many of the RVs I entered were stocked like mobile apothecaries”. She went on to say that “Some geriatric migrants I met already seemed one injury or broken axle away from true homelessness.”

What is their future?  Not good. They have few if any benefits or protections. As Bruder questions, “What happens to all these people when they’re too old to scrub campsite toilets or walk ten hours a day in an Amazon warehouse or lift thirty-pound sacks of sugar beets in the cold?”

As mentioned above, Canada is also a destination for these ‘Workampers’. For proof just go to http://roamingrv.com/workamping-opportunities-in-western-canada/ or to http://www.workamper.com/WKN2008_canada/caindex.cfm  .

Reading Bruder’s article was a real ‘wake-up’ call for me. I have retired with a good ‘defined benefit pension plan’. How awful for those who do not have such a plan and for the future generations who may never even be able to dream about such a possibility! So I ask, “How can we, as a society, ensure that ‘Workamping’, like food-banks before, do not become a common, accepted part of our Canadian social fabric?

Ann Steadman, Associate

Mingling Our Tears Together

The National Day of Vigils to Remember Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women on October 4th, began with the research that was conducted by Amnesty International. The researcher was an LLM, Bevery Jacobs, a Faithkeeper in the Seneca Longhouse on the Six Nations Reserve, in 2001. She travelled across the country to gather stories of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. She worked with Elders to compile the Stolen Sisters Report which ended up as two Reports for Amnesty International in 2002.

My sister, Debbie Sloss-Clarke was one of those women who was murdered in Cabbagetown, Toronto, in the summer of 1997. She was living there and was overcoming her addictions, dependency and Post Traumatic Stress she suffered from a car accident. She was cultivating her identity and her culture and we would take her to Elders Gatherings, ceremonial events and such. So, when she was murdered, the Police did not notify the next of kin because she was (1) Aboriginal; (2) she was a woman; (3) she was known on the 'street;' (4) she was a known drinker and druggie to the Police. So, the police never really investigated her death and continued to dehumanize her, when my sister, Kathy, who lives in Toronto, went to the morgue to identify Debbie's decomposing body. She asked the Toronto Police what happened to her, and the reply was a curt, "She liked to party." This response was an objectification of her life and this "blame the victim mentality" was a further degradation of her representation. So, my husband contacted Bev Jacobs in 2000 to let her know that Debbie's death was a traumatic event in our family, as we weren't able to feel, we were not able to hear, we were emotionally upset at the mention of her memory and name, and we could not talk about her. So, Bev came to see us, she interviewed us, and she helped bring our family together for a healing weekend retreat to be able to grieve her journey home to the SPIRIT world. We released her SPIRIT and we feasted her, and we did a proper condolence and ceremony to help her go home. We thank Bev Jacobs for her tutelage. 

When Bev became the new President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, she knew that the Sisters in SPIRIT campaign had to be initiated by the NWAC, which it was, in 2004, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Bev was elected President in 2003. My niece, Laurie Clarke-LaCrosse and I began to attend the SIS initiatives across the country to bring attention to Debbie's life and humanity. Laurie was Debbie's daughter. There is a brother, Len, as well in Debbie's family. We went to Vancouver, and all the way to New Richmond, a Mi'kmaq community on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. My husband and I were at several family gatherings where we helped the families by conducting a traditional "Condolence" Ceremony for the families of these Sisters who were taken from us. We began to help with gatherings on the December 6th Montreal Massacre Anniversary, the February 14 V-Day anti-violence day across the country and International Women's Day on March 8^th.

Our family is healing and we want to thank the Native Women's Association of Canada, the Amnesty International, KAIROS, and other agencies who have helped bring us together to "mingle our tears together." In our family, we have five girls and two boys. We have been pre-deceased by the deaths of two of our sisters, Debbie being one of them, and a brother. Our surviving siblings are our oldest brother John Sloss, myself - Mary Lou Smoke, my sisters Kathy Angus; Roxanne Gibbs, and Sue Contant. We still get together for family occasions to celebrate each other’s lives. Recently our niece, Debbie's daughter, Laurie Clarke-LaCrosse was married on September l9th, in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Debbie's SPIRIT was with our family on this happy occasion. We sang her favourite song to her. "The Cherokee Morning Song"  

Dan and Mary Lou Smoke 

Food for Thought: Our Endangered Neighbour

My fascination with bees began at the early age of five when I started school. In our small unfamiliar library, perched on a top shelf, was a grey massive empty hive. I had to face the reality of this strange form whenever I reached up for a book. I was reminded over and over again that the hive was indeed empty. Over time I learned to respect bees. I got to love them. I was assured that they wouldn’t bite me unless I disturbed them. I discovered bees were amazingly hard workers and creators of beauty. En masse, they cooperate so well with each other in achieving their goal of making honey to my amazement. In my later years I became aware that honey bees account for 80% of all insect pollinators. They play a vital role in our food chain.

Bees have been very much in people’s minds, hearts and prayers these days because of their high rate of death over this past winter. I cannot imagine life without bees for they have been with us for 10 million years. The Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists identified three causes: starvation from lack of food caused by our past cold winter, parasites (mites), and primarily exposure to pesticides (neonicotinoids).

Neonicotinoids, a family of pesticides typically applied as a seed coating, help to protect plants from insects and in Ontario are used primarily in corn and soybean crops. Believe it or not, they are used in greenhouses! Neonicotinoids are banned by the European Union, but Canada is awaiting an interim report to come out next spring before considering a ban. Meanwhile, extra precaution will be taken to prevent neonicotinoid dust getting into the soil or air during planting season by the introduction of a new seed lubricant. As well, farmers and beekeepers will have access to an app that will notify each other when fields close to bee hives are about to be planted.

Sadly, beekeepers, farmers and seed-sellers are all impacted by the increasing annihilation of bees. These three entities need to work with each other to achieve a fair but successful outcomes - one that would have bees as the first priority, not putting self- interest or the economy first.

To learn more about the challenges facing honey bees and what you can do to protect them, please visit www.panna.org under Issues, - Pesticides 101 A Prime – Food & Agriculture – and scroll down to find the booklet Bee the Change.

Rita Godon, CSJ
On behalf of the Ecology Committee

In the CSJ spirit to live one with our neighbour, let us ‘bee friendly”.