UPDATE: Dinner, auction yields $9,000 for garden

The first full day of spring brought out a crowd to support Concordia’s new Community Garden of Hope, while also enjoying a full dinner, a diverse silent auction and the company of longtime friends.

Sunday’s annual Spaghetti Dinner and Silent Auction attracted about 375 guests, plus more than 40 volunteers from throughout the community, and raised $9,000 — a significant increase from the $6,000 raised at last year’s dinner and auction. (The total raised went up from $8,500 with a late donation — thanks!)

Funds from this year’s dinner and auction will go toward the new community garden, which will be in a 100-by-200-foot plot at the northeast corner of the Motherhouse property. The sisters donated the use of the land for the garden, set to open in mid to late April with 26 individual plots, and the proceeds from today’s event will go toward the expenses of getting the garden prepared for planting.

The hottest item among the 40-plus in the silent auction was a basketball signed by the players and coaches of the KU Jayhawks; the winning bid for that March Madness memento was $675. A similarly signed K-State basketball drew just $200 as the winning bid, while a Nebraska Cornhuskers ball went for $100.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

“In this world, there is nothing softer or thinner than water. But to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle — this everyone knows. Yet no one acts accordingly.”

— Lao-Tse

‘Poverty 101′ combines life story, practical solutions

When Dr. Donna Beegle talks about the “war zone” where people in poverty live every day, her voice rings with the emotion of her own experience. But she backs up the stories from her life, and that of her family, with nearly 20 years of education and research to help those who too often have no voice.

“I know too much to be quiet,” she said with both force and humor as she began Tuesday’s “Poverty 101” workshop at the Nazareth Motherhouse in Concordia.

More than 120 participants from throughout north central Kansas took part in the daylong workshop by Beegle, a nationally known speaker from Portland, Ore. Tuesday evening she spoke on the same subject at the Brown Grand Theatre as part of the Cook Lecture Series. Her presentations in Concordia were sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph and Cloud County Community College.

The workshop was designed for professionals who work with people in poverty and attracted representatives from area schools, social service agencies, local churches and other nonprofit organizations.

“If you’re working with people in poverty,” Beegle told the crowd in the Motherhouse auditorium, “odds are you are not in it for the money. Most of you providing help to human beings are criminally underpaid.”

Throughout her presentation on the barriers faced by people who grow up in multi-generational poverty, Beegle wove stories from her own life: Her parents and grandparents were cotton pickers, working throughout the West as migrant laborers for most of her childhood. Most of her family members were illiterate and they were often homeless.

Yet, she said, “My parents taught me everything they knew. But they couldn’t teach me about school, they couldn’t teach me how to get out of poverty. They didn’t know that.”

Instead, she grew up hearing blame and feeling judged by everyone outside her family. “My experience was that the people who were making it didn’t care about people like my family,” she said. “I thought I had such bad parents that no one would talk to them directly.”

Just as she had no understanding of the middle-class perspective, she now sees that “we as a nation are uneducated on this subject of poverty.”

Beegle’s goal, then, is “not to go into a community and say, ‘Do this.’ I say, ‘This is what poverty looks like, this is how I see it.’ And I try to help you see it through different eyes.”

One major part of that, she believes, is focusing on capacity — having the means available for those in poverty to address issues in their lives.

As an example, she explained what happens when a school discovers a poor child has head lice. To avoid spreading the problem to other children, the school sends th child home with instructions on how to eliminate the head lice. “By our actions, we tell him he’s dirty, he has bugs. Then we tell parents to buy $18 shampoo and take all the clothing and bedding to a laundromat where it’s going to cost $7 a load.  And we tell them to keep the child at home, but these parents don’t have the kinds of jobs where you can take a sick day with a child; if they take a day, they get fired.

“It’s a situation where those parents do not have the capacity to solve the problem.”

Beegle readily acknowledges she did not have the needed capacity, either.

At 25, she was a high school drop-out and divorced mother of two, with no job skills and on the verge of homelessness.

What she describes as a “fluke” led to her being accepted into a pilot program to help poor single mothers break the cycle of poverty through education. At first, though, the appeal of the program was solely in the subsidized housing that came with it.

“To motivate someone toward change, the change has to be convenient and I have to see its purpose, I have to see what’s in it for me,” she explained. “We can all be motivated, if we understand what motivation works.”

Part of the motivation for her as she entered the program was suddenly being surrounded by people who believed in her and who mentored her. And it meant that those people had to tell her the truth.

“There’s a middle-class mentality of, You gotta work for it!” she said. “But in our labor market, hard work is not an indicator of success. Who works harder? The farm worker or the person in an office cubicle?

“Everyone I ever knew worked hard, and working hard meant you still couldn’t pay the utility bills or stop from getting evicted.”

In her doctoral research at Portland State University, Beegle studied college graduates who had come from multigenerational poverty. And in every case, the one constant she found was a mentor — someone who had taken an interest in the individual and served as something as a “translator” as that person moved from the culture of poverty to the culture of the middle class.

“We have to move away from ‘what’s wrong with you?’ to ‘what’s right with you,’” Beegle said. “We have to adopt the NASA approach: Failure cannot be an option.”

We also have to move past the idea that programs to address poverty are just too expensive in an economic downturn, she said.

She cited two statistics: Last year Americans spent $26 billion on merchandise featuring Hannah Montana, High School Musical and Disney Princess. We spent another $33 billion on supplies and toys for our pets.

“Together that $59 billion would provide health care for all our children for five years,” she said. “It’s not about scarcity; it’s about priority.”

Poverty “is not a Republican issue, it’s not a Democratic issue, it’s not conservative or liberal, it’s not Catholic or Mormon or anything else. It’s a human issue,” she said. “We have to stop blaming and judging, and we have to become educated about the barriers that exist and simple ways we can help break through them.

“I think it’s difficult to be a good citizen without ‘Poverty 101.’”

Sister brings national spirit to Salina conference

More than 630 teens gathered in Salina last week (March 27 & 28) for the annual Diocesan Youth Convention. The youth came from around 45 parishes throughout the Salina Diocese, and gathered at South High School.  The theme for the weekend was “Peace, Love and Christ,” and Sister Barbara Ellen Apaceller offered this welcome as the event began. Sister Barbara Ellen, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, serves as the diocesan Director of Youth Ministry and Religious Education based in Salina.

I would also like to welcome you to this 2010 Diocesan CYO Convention.

Thank you Bishop Coakley and Mayor Luci Larson for your warm welcome to this wonderful group of young people of our Diocese.

For many of us this is our second gathering for this year.  We had over 1,Sister Barbara 025 attend the National Catholic Youth Conference (NCYC) in Kansas City last November and what a wonderful, faithfilled experience that was for all of us.  I will never forget Friday morning when we were at the Sprint Center as I  looked around,  and saw all  those  neon green t-shirts glowing.  What a beautiful sight!  I was so proud of our diocese—-we were the largest group at this conference.  I like to share a few of the comments from some young people who attended NCYC:

“I am still in awe of the sight of witnessing 20,000 plus people drop to their knees in silence together to pray to such a wonderful God.   A huge void in my heart was filled with happiness after spending time visiting with the priest in reconciliation and the time spent alone in adoration.  There were thousands of people in the building but the adoration chapel was so peaceful and I have never felt so close to God.  What we experienced this weekend was beyond words.”

“Before I went to NCYC, I had pretty much become an atheist.  I felt no presence of God in my life; I thought that the whole ‘God thing’ was a myth.  I had conducted further research, and found my belief, or lack thereof. For some reason, I decided to try NCYC.  I said the night before, ‘God, if you’re there, this is your last chance.’  I figured I’d roll my eyes and walk out of it feeling no different. Then it happened, all 22,000 of us in the Sprint Center were in Adoration.  At first, my only thought  was — my knee pain.  Then without warning I felt a presence that could only have been Christ.  It overcame me for at least 10 minutes.  This moment changed me forever, and there’s no question now of my faith.”

“I loved all of it!  I didn’t really have a favorite part.   It was all great!  I learned a lot.   In one session I learned that heaven and hell aren’t places but people and if you have God in the afterlife then you have heaven.  Just the opposite for hell.  I had never thought about it that way.   In another session we talked about the Eucharist and I knew how important that the Eucharist is, but I have never really appreciated it and now I do.  The chastity talk was something I loved!  I have already decided to NOT have sex before marriage but my friends always make fun of me and call me a goody-two-shoes.   I have let my thoughts and morals veer a little when they do this to me, but now I know where I stand, and I’m not moving anymore.  That talk made me think really hard about my future husband out there somewhere.  NCYC was a great experience.”

“Going to confession was an amazing experience.  Just seeing so many people lined up at once receiving God’s mercy was so cool.”

“Adoration was very amazing and touching.  God was truly present in our midst.”

These are only but a few of the comments that your adult leaders sent to me from you.  Christ certainly was present in each of our lives that weekend.  It is our challenge now to keep the fire burning and share it with others.

As I met with the Diocesan Youth Council in January we were sharing with one another  what NCYC meant to us.  We started talking about Adoration and the Sacrament of Reconciliation and decided that we would like to integrate these two things in our own Diocesan Convention.  So this afternoon Bishop Coakley will give a short talk and then we will have some time to sit/kneel quietly and just “be” in the presence of God.  We will also have some 15 priests available for the Sacrament of Reconciliation between 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.  this afternoon.

As you spend time with your friends and share with them what is going on in your life your friendship grows and that is exactly what happens  in our relationship with Jesus Christ.  You’ll have some 30 minutes to connect with this special friend of yours this afternoon.

There is nothing better in the world than to be known and loved by someone you care about.  When you are loved by a good friend, that friend can help you gain a greater understanding of yourself and grow as a person.

True friendship is based on values rather than superficial characteristic.  And of course, as the saying goes, if you want to have a true friend, you must be a true friend.

Jesus was a true friend, the truest of all.  He focused on the needs of others, he saw  their potential, he had dreams  for them.  He prayed with them, he ate with them, he laughed and cried with them.  Jesus showed us how it’s done—–our model, our Lord, our friend.

Jesus tells us that he is our friend, and that he loves us wholeheartedly and unconditionally.  Look at what he did to show us how much he loves us!  He wants us to love one another just as he loves us—–with all our heart and without any hesitation.

(Music from “HOW COULD YOU SAY NO” by Steve Angrisano)

The love of Jesus fills our hearts, transforms our minds, and shows us the possibilities of genuinely loving others.  If we open our hearts to his love, then we love our neighbor the way

Jesus loves us.  Jesus’ love is the gift that keeps on giving.

As I look around our diocese I see you sharing your gifts that keeps on giving: over 350 youth and adults participated in the Prayer and Action last summer.  Out of the 7 weeks this summer we have 3 weeks that are closed already because of the 60+ that are registered.  TOTUS TUUS program—-we have 3 teams this summer and all the college age students that are on the teams are from our diocese.  I’ve been so impressed with the interviews and their application forms.  Christ is certainly alive and well.  Counsellors at Junior CYO Camp are signing up for this years camp.  We have about 40 counsellors and many of them are college age students.  What an example they are to the junior high age campers in sharing their faith and love for Christ with them.  The guy counsellors got together about 3 times during the year to pray together, have a meal and just to support one another.  A new program in our diocese PROJECT FREEDOM an overnight and day retreat for 8^th graders and their parents on Sexuality—a number of our college students are team leaders.  I could go on and on and share all the wonderful things that are going on.

I want to share a few things from the scrapbooks that you are doing in your parishes and local communities:

• Puppet show of the scripture for the small children at the Sunday liturgy
• Raking leaves  for the elderly and those not able to get out
• Cooking meals for a local family in need
• Pro-Life chain on October 18, 2009
• Collected eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses to send to Unite for Sight in Africa
• Donated money to Catholic Relief Services Europe to help fight human trafficking
• Sponsoring an orphan from Peru
• Prayer Blankets to the homeless shelter in Denver
• Provide home cooked meals either for breakfast or dinner—also include notes or scripture versus to encourage them–inmates at Sherman County Jail
• Delivered candy hugs, kisses & kudos to the civil servant employees in our community-with a card letting them know how much we appreciate all that they do to serve and protect our community—held a prayer service—police, sheriff’s office, fire department, road workers, hospital, court house, SRS and Highway Patrol
• Special Olympics
• Relay for Life
• Drive by Prayers
• Food Pantry

There is so much more that our young people are involved in their parishes—these are only a few.

And, so I want to end with this prayer:

Spirit of Jesus, watch over these young people.

Show them your loving acceptance and support.

Help them to honestly look at themselves and the

decisions they are making.  If they experience pain,

frustration, or failure, give then strength to lean on you.

Fill their days with laughter and love.

Protect them and keep them safe all the

days of their lives.  Amen

Glad you’re here — ENJOY this weekend.

March 26, 2010: The strongest people I’ve ever known, by Brenton Phillips

I had just handed the cashier a 20-dollar bill for gasoline and a bag of ranch-flavored CornNuts at the Coastal Mart at Ninth and Crawford in Salina.  As I waited for change, I noticed a jar next to the register.  Taped to it was a photocopied picture of a pretty blond lady and words asking for donations for the children of Coastal Mart employee Mary Rains, who had been abducted from a store in Garden City a few nights earlier.  I had read of the murder in the Salina Journal.  Her kidnapper drove her to a county road and shot her in the head.  After killing Mary, he abducted and killed another convenience store employee.

I dropped my change into the jar, sad for Mary Rains and her family.  Then I went about my life.

That was more than 20 years ago, July 1989.  A few days later I phoned Mom and Dad — my weekly check-in with the folks back in Dodge City.  One regular part of our conversation was Mom’s “obituary report,” which she always began with, “Do you remember. . .?” or “Did you know. . .?”  Usually the dead were ushers I knew from church, grandparents of a long lost friend in grade school, one of Dad’s physical therapy patients, etc.  Often, I didn’t really remember them; they had become hazy memories lost in the mist of years gone by.

“Did you know Mary Rains?” asked Mom.

“Mary Rains?  Yeah, she was that clerk who was killed in Garden City the other day.  Awful thing.”

“Yes.  Do you remember Mary Hessman?”

“Sure.  She was in Brad’s class.  I didn’t really know her that well but — wait a minute.  Are you telling me Mary Hessman is Mary Rains?”

Rains is Mary’s married name.

I wasn’t unfamiliar with the deaths of young people — two cousins, my own sister Michelle — but this was something new.  I had never known a murder victim.

Bob and Ruth Hessman, Mary’s parents, are farmers who go to our church.  Their children were in my siblings’ classes at Sacred Heart Grade School and Dodge City High School.  My sisters were in the same 4-H club.  Growing up, we saw the Hessmans nearly every Sunday at Mass.  But I hadn’t seen any of them for years.

Now the change I had dropped into that jar seemed paltry, inadequate.

Mary’s killer, Gregg Braun, was eventually caught, but not before he inflicted a tremendous amount of suffering on others.  After Garden City, he went on a killing spree in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico before he was finally stopped.

In July 2000, the state of Oklahoma executed Braun by lethal injection.  He was the quintessential If-Anyone-Deserves-To-Die poster child.  Before he died, he spoke the names of his victims and asked for forgiveness.

Bob and Ruth Hessman didn’t see Braun die, although as family of a victim they were entitled to.  On the night of his execution, they were in Great Bend at a prayer vigil for the soul of their daughter’s killer.  At one point between the murders and his execution, Braun had asked for forgiveness, and Bob and Ruth — after much anger, grief and pain — gave it to him.  They did what many of us find to be nearly impossible for even the slightest wrongs done to us: Forgive? A killer? That’s asking too much.

Some thought the Hessmans were fools. Others were awed by their strength. How does one even begin to forgive such a heinous act?  How can one possibly find peace after such impossible horror? Didn’t they want revenge?

Revenge — endlessly promoted in countless books and movies and TV shows — should bring lasting peace to the aggrieved, but countless examples show it rarely does.

In the short story “Killings” by Andre Dubus (made into the film “In the Bedroom”), a father kidnaps his son’s killer, shoots him and buries him in the woods. The father does not find the peace he desires; instead, at the end, he has isolated himself from his other children, who can never know what he has done lest they become accomplices. You get the sense that his act of vengeance will always hover over him; the peace he sought through vengeance will elude him.

I can’t speak for the families of Braun’s other victims. I dare not be so presumptuous. But Bob and Ruth Hessman found a way to peace through forgiveness. It wasn’t an easy road, no sentimental “ABC Sunday Night Movie” in which problems are solved easily and dissolved neatly. But they found peace.

As I was writing the rough draft of this piece last November, Mom called. During our talk, she asked, “Do you remember Ruth Hessman?”

I sure do.  I always will.

Ruth and her husband Bob discovered that peace can come before we die, no matter what tragedies befall us. And that forgiveness is a requirement for peace. Ruth and Bob are the strongest people I’ve ever known.  May we all find such strength.

— Brenton Phillips chairs the English-Communications Department at Cloud County Community College.

Friday, March 26, 2010

“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones.”

— John Maynard Kynes

Gardening expert offers practical tips

David Coltrain has only been on his job as an agent with the River Valley Extension District for seven weeks. But he is a veteran horticultural extension agent and commercial vegetable farmer, and that experience showed Wednesday evening as he gave a talk titled “How Does Your Garden Grow.”

The session was hosted by the Sisters of St. Joseph at the Nazareth Motherhouse, and was sponsored by the Concordia Community Garden of Hope Committee.

Coltrain, who said he was “just learning my way around” the four counties that made up th River Valley District, most recently worked in the K-State Research and Extension Service office in La Crosse, Kan., south of Hays. Before that he worked in the Manhattan extension office for five years, and before that was farmed in southeast Kansas.

In addition to his presentation and the handouts he had available on a variety of gardening issues, he encouraged those attending to visit the River Valley District website for information or with questions. That site is www.rivervalley.ksu.edu

Once on that site, interested gardeners may also signup for a monthly email newsletter that includes a gardening calendar and tips for a variety of crops.

Coltrain’s presentation covered basic gardening know-how, including soil temperature, water requirements, planting and transplanting, insects and plant diseases and pruning, as well as specific vegetable crops and the needs of each.

Sister Marcia cites errors in lobbying group’s letter

On Wednesday and Thursday, there was wide media coverage about a letter sent by Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, to Congress reporting that Catholic sisters were in support of the Senate health care bill now being debated. The letter included misleading information about the scope of the support among sisters; those errors were then reported and re-reported in coverage by most of the major news organizations, including NPR, the Associated Press, Fox News and newspapers across the country.

The Salina Journal, which published the Associated Press version of the story, has agreed to run this response from Sister Marcia Allen, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, on its Tuesday Opinion page. But the vote on the bill is expected earlier than that, so we are making Sister Marcia’s piece available now.

Although she is the elected head of the congregation, Sister Marcia does not speak for all individual sisters on political matters. In a debate over a complex proposal to reform health care, such as now faces Congress, the 150 Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia represent a wide range of personal political opinion.

This, however, represents the view of Sister Marcia and the seven-member congregational Leadership Council on the critical nature of the debate and why it should be important to all Americans.

• • • • •

By Sister Marcia Allen, CSJ

The Salina Journal headlines of March 18 (“Catholic nuns break with bishops to support reform” and “Nuns: ‘This is the REAL pro-life stance’ ”) are misleading at best. The Associated Press article reported that 60 congregations of women religious signed on to a letter to Congress prepared by the Network organization encouraging support of the Senate health care reform bill. If you look through the signers on that letter, and count the congregations represented, you’ll see that the actual number is fewer than 50 — but the bigger math problem is that there are more than 400 congregations of women religious in the United States. So to suggest that this lobbying group speaks for all sisters is simply incorrect.

We Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia would like to note that we did not sign on to the letter. We are sure that other women religious in the Salina area did not sign on to it either, yet readers are led to believe that we all did. Many will find it offensive and we religious congregations will feel the brunt of inadequate coverage of the news and misleading headlines.

There are numerous reasons we did not sign on to this letter. But there are also numerous reasons for our belief that health care as it exists today must be reformed:

• The medically underserved need to be guaranteed adequate health care,
• Pre-existing conditions should not be excluded from health care insurance coverage,
• Those who choose not to be on any health care plan should not be penalized,
• Other programs should not be cut in order to pay for universal health care, and, finally,
• Political partisanship needs to be curtailed to find a solution and the true work for the common good needs to be a legislative commitment.

We Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia support the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ call for genuine health care reform that respects and protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all, especially the poor and vulnerable and that health care reform should provide accessibility to affordable and quality health care for all.

We are called to live the Gospel mandate to honor and respect each person and to work to alleviate the conditions that cause ignorance, poverty, suffering and oppression.

In our Catholic tradition, health care is a basic human right. That belief is a gift and a responsibility.  We, as women who have been called to be followers of Jesus, desire to embrace that call in its full dimension of “loving God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves.”  That call urges us to hear the cries of those who do not have adequate health care coverage and to respond with moral integrity.

In the midst of writing this piece, we received a call from a well-educated middle-class woman whose son is a brittle diabetic. He has been refused full coverage of insurance as is offered to his mother because of  “pre-existing conditions.” Where is moral integrity in this situation?

In Matthew 25:36 we read, “I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you took care of me…” In today’s world, care for the sick has everything to do with health care access not dependent upon where a person works, how much that person earns or where he or she lives.

Therefore, health care reform is critical because its effects are systemic. Surveys in recent poverty reduction initiatives show that many who live in poverty cannot work because of health issues.  Yet, their health issues cannot be addressed because they have no health care; thus it is a vicious cycle.

We have grave concerns about the possibility of increased costs for insurance premiums and rising costs of prescription medication. We do not want to re-create a “survival of the fittest” society based solely upon one’s economic resources.

Because of numerous basic flaws in the Senate proposal, we chose not to sign in support of it.  Instead, we have added our small voice of conscience to the many who are attempting to craft effective health care reform for all Americans. We advocate compassionate creativity rather than political belligerence as an answer to the health care dilemma faced by this country.

— Sister Marcia Allen, CSJ, is president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kan.

Public joins sisters to honor St. Joseph

Townspeople and Sisters of St. Joseph shared the pews at the Sacred Heart Chapel in the Motherhouse this afternoon, in a special prayer in honor of the congregation’s patron saint.

Today is St. Joseph’s Day, when during the morning Mass the sisters traditionally renew their vows for the year.

But for the simple afternoon prayer service, the sisters invited the public to join them in prayer, reflection and song. After the half-hour service, led by Sister Mary Jo Thummel, the crowd mingled in the Motherhouse dining room to share refreshments.

The original Sisters of St. Joseph congregation was founded in 1650 in France by a Jesuit priest named Jean-Pierre Medaille. Today, more than 50 independent congregations and provinces of the Sisters of St. Joseph worldwide trace their origins to that beginning.  There are about 7,000 vowed Sisters of St. Joseph in the United States and some 14,000 worldwide.

March 19, 2010: Springtime reflections on the reverence of life, by Sister Regina Ann Brummel

Recently while driving from western Kansas, I mentally reviewed presentations I had just made to parish groups regarding justice for the poor and the most vulnerable.

Along the way, I noticed definite signs of spring; trees were showing signs of leafing, and birds were returning in formation to their nesting grounds.  I remembered my childhood days when whole families collaborated in the work of preparing the earth for spring planting.

I’ve always reverenced this season of promise and growth, and hope that others can experience creation’s renewal with the same excitement.

The beauty and goods of the earth are meant as the Creator’s gifts for all to share. There is much talk today about reverencing creation.

I believe this must involve more than just basking in creation’s beauty. It implies the challenging work of collaborating with one another in a communal covenant for justice, working to protect the health of the environment and that of all who inhabit the planet today and in the future.

I, like many others, am concerned about climate change, fossil fuel depletion, industrialized agriculture and the scarcity of fresh water. I believe these concerns reflect our desire for right relationships with one another, creation, and the Creator.

True reverence for life implies action to sustain it, to prevent abuse and exploitation, to protect and nourish it.   This planet we share, for which we are stewards, is vulnerable in much the same way as are the poor and vulnerable humans among us.

Reverence for all of life begins with the conviction that environmental health is a human right.  All humans have the right to peace and a healthy environment. Careless exploitation of natural resources and the environment degrades quality of life. Because our global interdependence today raises questions of justice, we need to promote attitudes and policies that will create responsible relationships toward one another and the environment of our shared world. This implies a willingness to engage in positive civic discourse, reverencing one another in the process.

Often the poor and the vulnerable depend on those of us who have voices to speak for them, to bring about the just peace that can germinate and grow new life and beauty among humans and throughout the planet, which is also vulnerable in many places.

Voices for justice may be those of teachers who instill in their students respect for themselves, one another and people around the globe. They may be voices of parents who encourage healthy food choices for their children, or of scientists and medical professionals who promote affordable health care for all. Those who protest the proliferation of nuclear weapons or inappropriate genetic modification of organisms are looking toward the welfare of future generations and the earth.

Spring is the season for reverencing new life. The beautiful signs of new growth can inspire us to hold ourselves accountable to work as partners with the Creator in sustaining life and visioning just peace for all life.

— Sister Regina Ann Brummel lives in Concordia and is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph Leadership Council.

Next Page »