A grand weekend

I'm in the Northwest for a couple of weeks - primarily to attend our community's spring Assembly, which took place this past weekend.  It was a joy!  Our presenter, Sr. Tere Maya, had a lot to say about interculturality and the joys and challenges of making community across cultures - a very important message for us, as our recent new members and inquirers come from an amazing background of cultures (Kenyan, Portlandian, South Korean, New Jersey-ite, Nigerian, English, Haitian, Indian).  This is riches, indeed, but also fertile ground for confusion and misunderstanding.  Thanks to Tere for her humor, great stories, and challenging concepts.

In the photo above, Tere is on the left, talking to Srs. Ede Reif (center) and Mary Keough.

The other high points of the weekend were our annual Jubilee dinner (followed by dancing for the hardy ones) and the covenanting of seven new Associates. 

They are, l-r, Laura Trettevik, Bob Scheri, Kathy and Max Lewis, Ken Otto, and Sharon and Lloyd Lewis, a wonderful group (two are friends from PeaceHealth, Laura and Bob; I know Kathy and Max from my days at Rose of Lima House; and Ken, Sharon and Lloyd are new friends).  They're each of them a gift to our community life, and I pray that this new connection will bring them great peace and much joy.

Celebrations

My days in the north are drawing to a close with memorable celebrations and life-giving conversations. After several trips when my timing was just wrong, I was able to join the monthly lunch with other women from Queen Anne High School's class of 1959, and, bless their hearts, they brought me lots of vitamins which we'll be giving out to people in San José Villanueva in February. Here's a photo of Marlene and Sue, looking good, looking lively, as aren't we all, even though the class of 1959 is busily turning 70...

Then yesterday, 11/11/11, we celebrated five birthdays with brunch at Prospect House on Capitol Hill in Seattle, where I used to live and am still part of a group that meets for dinner on Wednesday evenings (on those rare Wednesday evenings when I'm in the Seattle area). Eight women celebrating five birthdays meant lots of presents and lots of laughter and an elegant fritatta and three of us taking photos at the same time, which meant that I have lots of photos of folk taking photos (see the bottom photo).

Along the way, I've had time for some wonderful, long, heart-to-heart talks with old and new friends (you know who you are) that replenish me and fill me with joy. I have friends I cherish in El Salvador, but my Spanish, while workable, doesn't have the subtlety and flexibility and shared reference points you need for a great heart-to-heart talk.

Finally, last night was the best celebration of all, as Susan Francois made her final vows as a Sister of St. Joseph of Peace. What a joy to celebrate this friend and sister who has been walking with us for seven years now! It was a beautiful eucharistic celebration - Father Terry Moran, CSSR and CSJP Associate, was our presider; Margaret Byrne, our Congregation Leader, received Susan's vows; and I was very honored by being asked to give a reflection on the readings. Our chapel at St. Mary on the Lake was filled with Susan's family and many friends, and the celebration continued into the evening with cookies, wine and dancing. Check out our CSJP website for photos and story to come.

So tomorrow I head back to El Salvador, with the memory of all those feasts and conversations going with me, very concerned to learn how my Salvadoran friends have come through the floods.

Occupy Seattle

I've been back in the northwest U.S. for a busy week, mostly spent in Eugene, OR selling Salvadoran crafts in the PeaceHealth hospitals and talking to former and potential members of our mission teams. This weekend I'm back in the Seattle area, just in time to join CSJP Sisters and Associates at Occupy Seattle in the Westlake Park. I've read so much about Occupy Wall Street and the companion Occupy movements that it felt very good to be able to be part of one, though briefly.

We found a lively and cheerful group - people of all ages and several races - occupying Westlake Park. No tents in evidence - I think these may have moved to City Hall Park. A group of drummers made the time vibrant and some wildly assorted dancers kept the beat. We were enough of a distinctive group, with our Community Seeking Justice and Peace placards, to get noticed and photographed a fair bit - one man was quite surprised to hear that nuns still existed. And we do: seeking justice and peace.

Time of blessing, time of mystery

Our Spring Assembly was a blessed, full and mysterious time. Blessed in the presence of each of us for Fr. Terry Moran's powerful linking of the creation story and spirit with our Christian, Catholic and CSJP story. It's a perspective that makes all things new, knocks a few openings in our vision, and shows us new possibilities. I know, this doesn't explain much: but some slides Terry used will be uploaded to our CSJP website, and that might give you the idea.

Terry, by the way, is a CSJP Associate, and our Associates contributed enormously to the fullness of this weekend, as did our Jubilarians. On Saturday, we had the traditional Jubilee dinner, honoring Sisters Johanna Vogelsang and Ellen Caldwell for their 75 years in religious life; Sister Zitamarie Poelzer, 70 years; Sisters Ede Reif and Mildred Morrissey, 60 years; and Sisters Judy Tralnes and Andrea Nenzel, 50 years, and we sang and danced and partied joyfully, Sister Johanna happily watching the dancing until what was for her a very late hour.

This morning, Sister Johanna died peacefully in her sleep, having been toasted and honored the night before. At 97, she was more than ready to go to God, and she chose her time beautifully and mysteriously. We all gathered in her room to say prayers of farewell and blessing this morning, and there's no doubt that she has been blessing us all day. I felt Johanna's presence in the chapel this afternoon as Jen Cowan made her first covenant as an Associate, Sue Nies and Annie Welch made lifetime covenants as Associates, and seven Associates renewed their commitments. I wasn't the only one to come away from the chapel with a profound sense of having been blessed.

Johanna was one of the first CSJPs I met; she was on the Wilderness Retreat that turned me into a Catholic, in her middle 70s then, still adventurous after years of teaching and administration, clear, upright, living out of her truth, a holy woman. Now she lives in God's light.

Photos: Sr. Johanna; Susan Dewitt and Susan Francois; Jen Cowan and her foster son Michael.

A day for Estela

Today Blanca Estela Garcia made her covenant as an Associate of the Oblates of the Heart of Jesus - I hope I have that wording correct! - and I was there on behalf of the many Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace whose lives Estela has touched.

Estela's history with us goes back to the days, in the late 1980s, when Sister Eleanor Gilmore was working with Jesuit Refugee Services at El Despertar in the San Antonio Abad neighborhood of San Salvador. Eleanor was overwhelmed with the amount of work needed to keep the house running as well as to get people coming in from the country to medical appointments, which was their main mission. She put up a notice at the San Antonio Abad parish asking if anyone would want to come to work with them, and clearly her guardian angel was working overtime that day, because Estela applied, was hired, and soon had the place humming, the patients organized, and the meals prepared. She and Eleanor became fast friends, as did Sister Margaret Byrne, who came to work at El Despertar for a couple of years, and later Sister Grace Didomenicantonio and I. Estela has taught each of us a great deal about faith and the love of God; her life has had many hard times, including losing her husband during the civil war and raising her daughter Susy on her own, but I've never seen her be other than joyful and grateful to God.

For many years since those days at El Despertar, Estela has worked with the Oblatas del Corazón de Jesus at Colegio Sagrado Corazon, an excellent girl's school, where she's been named head of the maintenance department. And for the last two years, she has been preparing with great intensity and devotion to make her oblation, to become an Associate Oblate. It was a beautiful Mass and ceremony, with a speech from each of the four making their covenant - Estela, characteristically, talked about her love for and commitment to her people, especially the poor. In the photo above, Estela is in the middle with a white blouse, and her daughter Susy is at bottom left. Congratulations, Estela - you will be a light for the Hermanas Oblatas as you have been and are for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.

A visitor

Yesterday and this morning I had a great visit with Sheila McShane, CSJP Associate, and Director of the Clinica Maxeñia in Santo Tomas la Union, Guatemala. Sheila was accompanying some clinic volunteers on their way to the airport, and managed to stay overnight for a visit in Antigua. We walked, and talked, and walked and ate and talked our way through Antigua, where we discovered a common (and dangerous) delight in bookstores. I came away with books on the 1998 assassination of Bishop Gerardi, on Mayan spirituality, and on the Guatemalan Civil War, all in Spanish. It's a great joy to spend time with a friend from home!

Then this morning, we walked through the market in search of manzanilla and other herbs that will be used at the Clinica Maxeñia to make a tea that's supposed to confer immunity from the H1N1 flu sweeping through Guatemala. Schools have been closed a week early here, and today I saw people wearing masks for the first time. I've read that older adults (that would include me) seem to have some immunity from this flu, probably because we participated in earlier epidemics (I remember vividly the 1968 epidemic, which I managed to come down with on a very miserable New Year's Eve). I hope it's true.

Clinica Maxeña

We're back in Antigua after a day's visit to Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Associate Sheila McShane and the Clinica Maxeña (pronounced Mashenia, more or less and shown on right) which she directs in Santo Tomas la Union. Couldn't tell you in miles or kilometers, but it's a 2 1/2 hour often bumpy drive from Antigua, along a route that goes down from high-altitude Antigua, parallels the Pacific through fields of cane, and goes up again toward the Mayan highlands. Santo Tomas has about 15,000 people (I hope I'm remembering this correctly), going up to 80,000 if you count the people in the surrounding cantones for whom Santo Tomas is the political, mercantile, and health center. The population is about half Mayan, half Ladino (Spanish-identified people of mixed heritage) and Sheila says they all get along well these days, with intermarriage increasing.

The Clinica Maxeña (Maxeña is the K'iché - Mayan - word for Thomas) has been serving the people of Santo Tomas for about 40 years now. It's a mission of the Catholic Diocese of Helena, Montana. It's a big clinic, with about 25 Spanish-K'iché bilingual staffers, including a full-time MD. Sheila, an RN who lived in Guatemala in the 1970s -80s and returned two years ago, is the Clinic Director. They are funded by the Diocese, by grants, by payments from patients, and have had to cut back, like so many non-profits, as funds dried up in the economic crunch.

We had a great tour of the clinic, where we were especially intrigued by the separate clinic that grows, dries and distributes the traditional Mayan healing herbs - including one said to be very effective for diabetics, a big problem here as elsewhere in the world. We enjoyed meals with Sheila and Sisters Mary Waddell and Anna Priester, BVM, met Father Jim Hazelton, who's been living in Santo Tomas for 40 years, visited La Asuncion, a school he started which trains teachers, and stayed overnight in the comfortable visitors casita. Best of all, we enjoyed long conversations with Sheila. And then we came back on the Clinic jeep, bumping down the kilometers back to the comforts of Antigua and the Aurora Hotel. Much more to tell, and photographs to share when I return to San Salvador, but for now, I long to be walking or sleeping, anything but sitting!