Is This a New Moment for our Country?

It is only a few short days ago that the remains of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of a Residential school in Kamloops B.C and that a family of five out for a walk in London were intentionally run down by a speeding truck because they looked different. These are two instances that shook our country and so many of us have stopped to take a second look.  Many of us are asking what is our call right now?  How can we move with love and stand side by side with our dear neighbour in their suffering? 

I heard from a friend who shared a situation that happened to her and her father when they visited one of the Indigenous communities on Prince Edward Island.  There was a display set up in memory of the children and they wanted to go and pay their respects at the site.  There was an unexpected bonding that took place between her father who had been raised in an orphanage over 75 years ago and the woman they met whose father had been sent to a residential school on the Island at an early age.  It seemed that although their situations were different – they were the same.  Places of struggle and oppression where fear and mistrust of anyone in authority grew inside of these very young children which they still carry today.

As their conversation went on, the sharing of their stories became a healing moment of vulnerability as both parties realized that they – the white settler and the indigenous woman –had a commonality in each of their lives that they could name and claim in this moment as strangers.  Today, the display is to be taken down and my friend’s father has gone to assist with the task – certainly not something he would have ever dreamed of doing but now he has a new friend who is in need of assistance.  So easy when you think of it?  Neighbour helping neighbour. 

With Canada Day in a few short weeks, words from our National Anthem come to mind as I reflected on this dark moment in the history of our beloved country and our Province.

O Canada we stand on guard for thee. 

Is this our chance?  Could Canada Day 2021 be inviting each of us to create a new moment – where we can truly say together “we stand on guard as a Nation for you and you and you – and you are my sister and brother and we journey together for our children and our children’s children? 

-Sister Ann MacDonald, csj

Living in the In-Between Time

When I was asked to consider writing a blog from my own experience of living in this ‘in-between time’ I searched the dictionary for the definition of time and discovered words that reflected some of my lived experience during these past months.  

TIME:  the right moment; duration in which all things happen; precise instant that something happens.  

Of course, the daily challenge has been to stop, in the moment, to see what I am learning about the ‘in-between time’ and living that moment as best as I can. 

Moments come each day in our lives such as taking time to greet the cashier at the drug store rather than silently waiting to be checked out, or going over to the Community Centre on Thursdays when day-old bread is available for the residents to pick up and chatting about the weather or how their day is going, or standing on the front porch and chatting with Muriel as she walks her dog Murphy and we chat about all the plants that are coming to life. It seems that time is about presence and being present! 

We often hear and use phrases about time:  time off; time to work; time for holidays; time to go; time for ourselves and there are many more that can be added to this short list. This time of COVID, we have often heard that “we will never return to the way things were – there is something new happening – personally, and collectively – and this in-between time is re-shaping us, our neighborhoods, and the planet.   

I was struck recently when I re-read lines from the Poem – The Dash (by Linda Ellis, 1996), and I have selected a few lines to share. 

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend 

he referred to the dates on the tombstone

from the beginning to the end. 

He noted that first came the date of birth. 

Then he said what mattered most of all was the dash between the years. 

For that dash represents all the time that was spent alive on earth… 

What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash. 

If we could just slow down enough to consider what is true and real 

And always try to understand the way other people feel. 

And love the people in our lives like we have never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile. 

Remembering that this special dash might only last a little while. 

Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent your dash?  

What has been your journey living the Dash during these months of COVID?   

-Sister Ann MacDonald, csj

Lift a glass to our Mothers…

This Sunday families gather, many virtually, to celebrate our Mothers.  We want to celebrate these wonderful women who gave us life, and whose lives were spent in selfless giving and loving.  What we might say today with our words is important but less important than what these woman have said with their lives.  Their actions show us what love really looks like.  Were they perfect?  No, they were not, but their responses to us, their children, created a tapestry of love full of meaning and memories that influence how we live today. 

“a tapestry of love full of meaning and memories that influence how we live today”

There is a song sung by the Wailin’ Jennys called the “Parting Glass”.  After my mother had died, my large family went back to mom’s home to be with each other.  As we so often did, we started to play music filled with memories and had a very strong sense of my mother’s spirit with each of us.  We started sharing stories of my mother and realised that those stories and memories will never leave us.  She is still with us.  So we asked my brothers and sisters who play musical instruments to play something to mom.  Then we found a bottle of wine and poured a wee bit of spirit in each glass and sung this song called the “Parting Glass”.   This might have been my mother's wish to each of her children. So whether our mothers are alive or gone, I ask you to lift a glass to your mothers and say thank you for so much.

-Sister Joan Atkinson, csj

Trees Do Dance

Some years ago, the thought seized me, that before we were people, we were trees.  In my deepest knowing and from out of the blue, I knew this in my bones to be true then, as it is now.  Don’t we often refer to our body as our “trunk” and extremities as our “limbs”?  Maybe my toes are remnants of roots cut off?  That is what I sometimes imagine.

My imagination tells me that in our more primitive lives we freely danced and roamed about as trees. Trees were not rooted in one property. Somehow, they lost almost total mobility.  Did that happen because of getting attached to one property, like some of us today?  Eventually, they formed a community of trees or woods, that to this day do not discriminate, but welcomes all, birds, squirrels, other animals, insects, vines, and maybe even poison ivy.  They all live together in harmony and are in many ways, light years ahead (of the educated, scientific, research-focused homosapians), in their evolution and relationship to each other, earth, and the Divine.  

Today when I see and feel the wind, or gentle breeze rustle through shiny green leaves, on thin stems, I feel the trees clapping.  They are clapping upon seeing me and for me.  They want to awaken me to be more inclusive and embracing relationships with all people without discrimination.  I think also they might scold me for a less than generous response, to cleaning up the environment I am partly responsible for polluting.  Meanwhile, trees, rooted almost everywhere on the planet, given their own unique personality, unselfishly commit to creating shade every day, which is especially appreciated when it is excessively hot outside.

Perhaps the millions and millions of trees that grow in the Amazon region of Peru, need to have protection such as the legal status given to the Whanganui River in New Zealand in 2017. That river forever considered sacred by the aboriginal people now is legally recognized as having, all rights and privileges of the human person.  Soon the government will recognize a mountain as a legal person as well.  As for water, it is essential to life, yes, but trees manufacture oxygen, a vital factor essential for every cell and molecule in my body, dogs, cats, etc., etc.  I find it all a staggering, complex, and sacred concept to comprehend.  We people are so blest, so small, and all is a gift.

Now I ask, what might it be like if our churches, places of worship and leadership, stretched their boundaries to integrate in new ways, something of the sacredness of earth reality into our Sunday rituals?  The Encyclical Letter, “On Care of Our Common Home” Laudato Si, written by Pope Francis would contribute enormously to study and a collective effort for personal reflection and sharing.  That would enhance our efforts to broaden our awareness and live and act in right and responsible relationship in “our common home”.  Excellent resources for Laudato Si such as YouTube videos are available free on the Internet.  It would be wonderful to think that our experience of chaos with Covid 19 would open new patterns of enlightenment and problem solving around serious environmental issues for our planet.

 -Sister Patricia St. Louis

Feeling Unloved

As I am wont to do when I wake up in the night, I ease open my 8th-floor balcony door and gaze out into the night, checking that the moon is in its place, counting how many vehicles are travelling by (not many) and seeing if there are any people out and about at 3 am.

On a recent night,I observed a young woman shouting as she wandered down the street to the shelter for homeless women located nearby. She was wailing, “the person I love most in this world is my baby father but he doesn’t love me!” It was heart-rending her calling out her pain into the darkness.

The anguish of not feeling loved. Is there a worse feeling? I don’t think so.

“When was the last time we let our people know that we cherish them deeply?”

Though in this case, it was a specific person’s love she craved, it reminded me of the love that each of us has to share. When was the last time we let our people know that we cherish them deeply? Today would be a good day to remind them of our love. And who else can we reach out to that needs our care and compassion today? Let that person not need to feel unloved today.

-Sister Nancy Sullivan, csj