Earth Day Canada 2021 | Jour de la Terre Canada 2021

EARTH:  “This Floating Body We All Call Home”

For Earth Day 2021, we welcome the poetic words and thoughts, focused on climate change, written and read by Amanda Gorman. It is an inspiring poem by the 22-year-old US national youth poet laureate.  

Her poem was written and read in 2018 (the 48th anniversary of the celebration of Earth Day) during the Climate Reality Leadership Corps Trainings.  It was dedicated to Al Gore, as well as, the participants in the Corps Training Project taking place in Los Angeles.  

The Corps Training is an organization dedicated to increasing awareness about the urgency for action, as Amanda reads “And while this is training. There is no rehearsal. The time is Now, Now, Now.”   Amanda reads with the enthusiasm and convictions of her profound beliefs and promise...

“Earthrise”
By Amanda Gorman

Where despite disparities
We all care to protect this world,
This riddled blue marble, this little true marvel
To muster the verve and the nerve
To see how we can serve
Our planet. You don’t need to be a politician
To make it your mission to conserve, to protect,
To preserve that one and only home
That is ours,
To use your unique power
To give next generations the planet they deserve.

We are demonstrating, creating, advocating
We heed this inconvenient truth, because we need to be anything but lenient
With the future of our youth.

And while this is a training,
in sustaining the future of our planet,
There is no rehearsal. The time is
Now
Now
Now,
Because the reversal of harm,
And protection of a future so universal
Should be anything but controversial.

So, earth, pale blue dot
We will fail you not.

(This is an excerpt from “Earthrise,” written by Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the United States Amanda Gorman.

Read the full poem here.

““So, earth, pale blue dot We will fail you not”.”

— Amanda Gorman

For more expanded information about Earth Day please visit www.earthday.ca

-Sister Mabel St. Louis, csj

A Prayer By Chief Dan George

Years ago I was living in Alberta and found the writings of Chief Dan George very inspiring. He was a member of the Co-Salish tribe, born in 1899 and raised on the Burrard Reserve in North Vancouver, B.C. As a child, he learned the traditional ways of his people but also attended St. Paul’s Boarding School in North Vancouver where he learned to ‘grab the instruments of the white man’s success’.

Reading more about his life and how it was influenced by his past, his present situations, and his desires for the future makes this prayer of his more poignant.

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

Oh, Great Spirit! Give me back the courage of the olden Chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me once again, live in harmony with my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.

Like the thunderbird of old, I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the white man’s success– his education, his skills. With these new tools, I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society. I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedoms of our great land.

-Chief Dan George–1974

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My Heart Soars by Chief Dan George, page 92

Hancock House Publishers, Ltd. 3215 Island View Road Saanichton, B.C.

Volunteer Week - A Week of Gratitude

Today is the beginning of National Volunteer Week 2021 and as we think of all the wonderful volunteers we, here at The Sisters of St. Joseph, have been blessed to work alongside over these many years we want to share a letter that was recently sent to us, from one of our volunteers. Roger volunteers in London, Ontario at our St. Joseph’s Hospitality Centre - our “soup kitchen”.

We’re so very blessed by the many kind-hearted folks who share this work with us.

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Dear Sisters of St. Joseph in London,

I hope this essay brings some understanding of the work you lead.

The scene is a small shop. Across the street are boarded-up stores - long left to allow those who prefer to sleep in the doorways to find the accommodation of isolation to their liking. The shop has two large window panes being pelted with snow and through those panes, we can see the homeless lined up. They long to get inside where breakfast is being served.

Some of the homeless are on their way back - sober, and dressed in their best from the “hand out” down the street. Others are struggling and sway back and forth, doing their best to appear like the others.

We, all volunteers, await the 9 o’clock door opening. We say out loud, “OK everybody, let’s begin.”

As they enter, they are cordially met with a very comfortable lady who is respected by the men and women (and some children) as they pay their 50 cents and are given a plastic coin. Some go directly to the counter which displays bread, cakes, and buns - and they ‘bag’ their wants. These nutritious necessities having been donated by local food stores and delivered this very morning.

Many sit quietly awaiting one of our volunteers to approach and take the breakfast order. They may sit with strangers but others meet here on a regular basis.

Some shout to the cook, “Morning Tracy!”, others sit with their head down, not feeling too well at this early hour. This is a slow time for the dishwasher so he has a bowl of hot cereal and toast with coffee - but, following his repast, he never stops because the dishes keep coming.

Everyone seems to know the routine. The lady keeps the coffee ready for the gang to pick up and deliver, the chef keeps the eggs and bacon served on plates with such a rhythm you begin to wonder if she is not a machine. You soon realize she is very human when she directs a volunteer to serve the lady with the assortment of bags in the far corner who has been waiting for service for a bit of time. Our “chef” has an eye for those in need.

Oh-oh, voices are starting to climb…heavy voices…shouts at the table near the front. Accusations about a possession? An argument about a fork, a salt shaker? A parcel moved to another site? A chair saved for a friend?

Some pay attention without saying a word, but others stay to their meal without getting involved - they’ve seen it many times before. Within seconds, Bill the manager who is recognized as the ‘man-in-charge, arrives at the table of confrontation. You can sense the relief of the volunteers - it will be taken care of. Bill quickly kneels in front of the anxious and frustrated lonely woman. She continues to yell and scream, but then those screams and yells become whispers - Bill stands, and all is quiet. She moves to another table still mumbling but now about another matter. We, at the back, look at one another and smile - we try to give a reason for such behaviour - some think that she may have missed her ‘meds’ - however, one understands such behaviour and we are thankful for Bill.

I’ve known Bill for many years - in fact, I knew him as a baby. I coached hockey with his Dad when his brother played on our team. I am not sure how long he has been employed by the Sisters of St. Joseph at the Hospitality Centre in East London but, however long it has been it has been a blessing to the thousands that simply know him as “Bill.”

Roger Miller, Volunteer

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Since covid, we have been unable to host guests and work with our Volunteers. The Sisters make sandwiches each day and the staff at our Hospitality Centre serves them to those in need.

Roger is one of many volunteers that will be recognized for his dedication and kindness as we start volunteer week today. 

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