Mount Saint Agnes Theological Center for Women announces a retreat--“Women, Earth and Divine Love”--for women “to rest and renew your commitment to planet Earth.”  Anchored by S. Marya, OSF, and S. Helen, CSJ, the retreat will take place Friday April 23 to Sunday April 25 at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, MD.

For registration information and details visit the Mount Saint Agnes website at www.mountsaintagnes.org. Or call 410-435-7500.

So suggest the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg in their corporate stance on Care for Creation and Sister Earth. Companion Director Kathy Boehm and Companion Val  Cummings spent October 23-25 at the Franciscan Retreat Center in Oldenburg, Indiana, delving into that concept as they supported Marya Grathwohl, OSF, and Helen Prejean, CSJ, in an Earth Hope event. The weekend gathering was entitled, “Justice and  Compassion in the Web of Life: Energized by Grace for Action.” Energizing grace was certainly present for the 30 or so participants, as they joined people in 181 countries for 350 International Day of Climate Action on October 24. Motivation from the short film Kilowatt Ours provided the foundation for their contribution to the 350 Community’s dedicated effort to decrease the volume of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere. The group also entered into St. Clare’s contemplative process as they sought to experience grace and wisdom in nature. Dr. Helen Caldicott’s writings, particularly If You Love this Planet: A Plan to Heal Earth, generated both lively discussion and quiet reflection. In concert with Earth Hope’s focus on the sacred connection in all creation, Val Cummings led the participants in an introductory reflection on Teillhard de Chardin’s Mass on the World. The weekend’s highlights included personal reflections from Helen Prejean and Marya Grathwohl, both of whom are penning soon-to-be-published memoirs of their spiritual journeys.               

                                                                                                         Val Cummings

BEING HOME, WHOLE AND FREE, IN THE COSMOS

A workshop for teachers, facilitators, group leaders, and more, on how to integrate The Universe Story into your current program setting.

A cosmology curriculum ready to use:

◊ With any group that wants to explore what it means to be human and

compassionate in the 21st Century

◊ In settings from parish halls to prison units, from book study groups to coffee circles,

in women’s centers and men’s gatherings.

 WHEN: SEPTEMBER 11-13,2009. Beginning and ending with the noon meals on Friday and Sunday

WHERE: THE LODGE AT COVE CANYON, Billings, MT, home of Rim Country Land Institute

For information on lodging options available please email the Earth Hope office: earth_hope@vcn.com

COST: $125. Includes meals and a complete set of curriculum materials (no art supplies)

 ◊ Curriculum materials include: 12-week course syllabus, music CD, Universe Story DVD, Earth Story DVD, guided imagery readings, and suggested art activities. Workshop participants will engage in an actual lesson.

◊ Workshop sessions include time on the land, stargazing, storytelling, art and conversation.

 PRESENTERS:

◊ Cece Gannon, PsyD, facilitator of the Earth Hope cosmology program since November 2007 in the Sonoma County Detention System, CA

◊ Sr. Mary Nerney, PD in psychotherapy, facilitator of the Earth Hope group in the Riker’s Island Women’s Jail, NYC

◊ Carol McEvoy, MA, Co-founder and Executive Director of Rim Country Land Institute

◊ Sr. Marya Grathwohl, MA, Founder and Executive Director of Earth Hope

VOICE OF THE HURRICANE, SONG OF THE BREEZE is co-sponsored by Earth Hope and Rim Country Land Institute. Look for registration information, soon to be posted on both Websites.

www.rimcountry.org and www.earth-hope.org

For more information about the program in the Sonoma County Jail System please visit the Earth Hope Website and click on the News link.

by Valerie Cummings, Friend of Earth Hope

Sister Marya Grathwohl, OSF, founder of Earth Hope, was among spiritual leaders invited to attend a prayer summit in Aspen Colorado. Religious leaders from around the country and from across faith traditions met from November 5-10, to create a plan of action in support of President-Elect Barack Obama and his new administration as they seek to address the nation’s challenges.

The 100-plus faith leaders who gathered expressed determination to support the Obama administration by mobilizing a new spiritual voice for the country, one based on inclusion, compassion, and a vision of unity. In a ground breaking move, there was an extensive outreach to those voices not often heard at such gatherings – Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders, as well as Sufis and Native American spiritual leaders. Included were those steeped in deep contemplative practice, as these leaders bring a much needed perspective.

Among the moral issues deemed the most critical for the nation are helping Americans move beyond fear, working to develop a more inclusive and caring economy and the re-establishment of respect and deep regard for our environment and natural resources.

A commitment to defend the web of life and to promote mutually enhancing human~Earth relationships made Earth Hope a perfect fit for inclusion in this initiative. Marya facilitated two group discussions, led a prayer using the Women’s Creed from the UN Beijing Women’s Conference **, and gave a presentation to the Assembly entitled: The Contemplative Voice of America Rises from the Continent, from the Land.

Summit participants agreed that a Council of American Contemplative Elders would be formed as the guiding voice and face for a new spiritual movement in the country, a process that would parallel the political changes now underway. This Council revitalizes a tradition of most societies to hold spiritual leaders in a place of honor, and to seek their guidance and vision for their communities.

A key factor of this initiative is that it is being organized and led by women religious and spiritual leaders. It is the women who feel called now to assume a leadership role in mobilizing this new voice for the nation. The gathering in Aspen was organized by the Global Peace Initiative of Women, which is based on the belief that a shift in consciousness is needed, a change in heart and mind, if we are as a global community to meet the challenges of climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and hunger, violence and conflict. Central to the Global Peace Initiative of Women is the conviction that the feminine qualities of wholeness, inclusion, and integration have a vital role to play in facilitating this shift and bringing greater balance to our world.

The voice of Earth Hope, sounded by Marya at this critical summit, brings to the fore our commitment to stand in solidarity with all of creation, offering support for those who have a desire to

· Find links between the inclusive compassion of Jesus and care for creation

· Discover how care for creation promotes justice and builds peace

· Contemplate and celebrate the sacred story of the Universe

· Expand knowledge and deepen feelings of connection with Earth

· Explore spirituality and faith that enliven and sustain that connection

· Create lifestyles that benefit our families, the local community and Earth

· Generate more hope about the future of the planet and all life

 **Pray with Marya, as she prayed at the Faith Summit

      (Excerpted from The Women’s Creed)

Bread. For this we pray

A clean sky. For this we pray

Active peace. For this we pray

A woman's voice singing somewhere,

       melody drifting like smoke from the cook fires. For this we pray

The army disbanded. For this we pray

The harvest abundant. For this we pray

The wound healed. For this we pray

The child wanted. For this we pray

The prisoner freed. For this we pray

The body's integrity honored. For this we pray

The lover returned. For this we pray

The magical skill that reads marks into meaning. For this we pray

The labour equal, fair, and valued. For this we pray

Delight in the challenge for consensus to solve problems. For this we pray

No hand raised in any gesture but greeting. For this we pray

Secure interiors - of heart, home, land - so firm as to make secure borders irrelevant at last. For this we pray and say AMEN

See The Women’s Creed in its entirety at

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/41685_73857_ENG_HTM.htm

To Deepen Our Knowing of Oneness and Our Compassion as a Nation

Sister Marya has been invited to attend a gathering of 40-50 of America’s religious and spiritual leaders in Aspen, Colorado November 6-10. These leaders will dialogue on Thursday, November 6 and Friday morning November 7, after which friends and members of the Global Peace Initiative of Women ( GPIW) will join in for a weekend of extended reflection on how to advance the state of our nation. Although organized and led by women, men are not excluded and will make up about half of the attendees.

Organizers are calling it a “National Reflection” to help create a vision that will move our country beyond fear and division to a collective consciousness of unity and peace. Our technologies have outstripped our wisdom and it is time to develop a new consciousness and way of living in harmony with our planet’s resources and needs and in harmony with our fellow human beings. Economic and political measures are not enough by themselves to accomplish this; we must bring the sacred back into the center of our lives, so that we can take constructive steps toward transforming the various forms of violence – conflict, poverty, neglect, exclusion, and environmental degradation – that threaten our nation and world today.

The Global Peace Initiative of Women is a global network of women and men who believe that the feminine has a key role to play in healing division and conflict and bringing about the global transformation that will lead to a more sustainable and peaceful world community. More information is available on the GPIW Website www.gpiw.org .

Marya began each of her talks to the inmates by alluding to hope, which is small and sometimes hard to feel; then challenging her listeners to think of another power that started small – the universe, which began from an infinitesimal point. The energy of the universe expanded at an incredible rate but then had to cool down for 400,000 years before it could direct the energy into something creative, namely the elements hydrogen and helium, which then evolved into the first stars. The stars spent many generations and millions of years creating the rest of the elements, out of which our Earth was created.  Earth has evolved through billions of years and geologic eras, culminating in The cosmic story as expressed by prisonersthe present era with us. Each person is an expression of that same small initial energy. All people are part of something bigger, starting small; and she challenged each listener to claim a dream. It might take a while (remember the Universe has been on its journey for 14 billions years) and the road to the dream may not be perfect, but life is waiting for each of us to contribute to and complete the dream.

The analogy used is that if a goldfish remains in a small container it will remain small. Given a larger container, a goldfish will grow proportionately. The same holds true for prisoners: Earth Hope is reaching people without a window to the world to help them grow in self-esteem and respect. The Earth Hope program gives them an opportunity to get GED credit as well as good behavior credit off their prison time. Administrators were amazed that the program has already begun to shift hearts to have a sense of justice on this human level and reverence for all creation.

Prison administrators are excited by the Earth Hope program and there is the prospect of increasing the number of classes offered and also expanding the program to more of the California prison system. This would require refining/developing the class curriculum and materials into packets, as well as training teachers and volunteers.

Earth Hope has received a $3,000 grant from the Kalliopeia Foundation to help fund this project. Cece is searching for qualified volunteers with teaching and/or therapist training, and is also working on finalizing the curriculum. Marya will visit again in November 2008 to help inaugurate the expanded program.

Tongue River Canyon

“I am so grateful for Camp Earth Hope!” Clareesa Zook, staff intern.

“This significant week has inspired me to think more about Earth and spirituality.” Yvonne Labbe, participant.

From June 23-29, 2008, eleven youth and adults gathered at San Benito Monastery in Dayton, Wyoming, for an adventure of prayer and service. Through rich interaction in group sessions and over delicious home cooked meals participants explored the many connections between the Gospel, social justice, women’s leadership and Earth spirituality.

Each day was grounded in a holy hour of silent meditation, sung psalms and Scripture reflection led by the resident Benedictines: Sister Josetta Grant, Sister Hope Rodenborn and Sister Sarah Schwartzberg .

World renowned author and lecturer, Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, facilitated daily reflection and was conductor of the soon-to-be-renowned Camp Orchestra Chorus. Sisters Sarah and Hope helped retreatants delve into the meanings and mysteries of the Bible’s nature psalms, prayer and God’s work in our lives. Hands-on Earth history

Theologian and artist, Noelani Scheckler-Smith provided art-as-meditation experiences in the spectacular Tongue River Canyon. Sister Marya Grathwohl, OSF, founder of Earth Hope, led the geological journey up the Big Horn Mountains and back into time, from the Triassic-Permian to the Pre-Cambrian. As we reverently gathered rocks from specific eras, we noted life’s contributions in those long ago times and pondered what might be our personal contributions to today’s era.

Clareesa Zook, camp alum from the 2007 retreat, gave the Henry David Thoreau input. Her teaching skills and well-researched knowledge stimulated lively discussions. We didn’t want to stop!

Youth participants volunteered service hours, assisting Sisters Josetta and Hope in making candles, natural insect repellent and gardening. They mastered the intricacies and muscle of artisan yeast breads under the tutelage of camp cook Karen Haider. Each participant’s final presentation accompanied by original artwork inspired all.

       Participants attend the weekly Sheridan, WY peace vigil                 

Bread prepared by Yvonne and Clareesa

Three days earlier we had been welcomed at midnight at the teeming Delhi airport by two Indian Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky. The next afternoon we are standing at a massive black marble slab decorated simply with four circles of fresh yellow marigolds. Burning incense wafts around us: the tomb of Mahatma Gandhi Ji, father of the nation. At the stone portal that opens into the wide green park that houses his memorial we’d stopped to read his words. “Whatever you are planning to do, first ask yourself, how will this benefit the lives of those who are most poor?”

Into the slums 

The next day we are following Sisters Ann Moyalan, SCN and Stella Kaiprampatt, SCN past heaps of garbage into a slum of Delhi. The narrow walkway between rows of tightly packed stone houses is guttered on either side by an open running sewer. We turn an abrupt corner, enter a simple, tidy building and climb stone steps to a windowless room of the Women’s Center. There in a burst of colorful saris and smiles we are welcomed by students taking a tailoring class.

At the Center, women can take empowerment courses and learn numerous “cottage industry” skills to support themselves and feed their children. For some these classes are the only barrier between themselves and prostitution or suicide. Each woman stands, says her name and shows us a garment she has expertly hand sewn.

“This place is full of life,” says Sister Ann as we leave, passing children using the gutter for a bathroom. Through an open door I glimpse someone lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket, hear moaning. And death, too.

Global Peace Initiative

Now, in the soft humid darkness of Jaipur, seven women and one man smile back at me from around the supper table. The polite protocol of introducing ourselves brings tears to my eyes. Four are from Iraq, one from Afghanistan, another from Syria. Sister Helen is sitting beside me. What else to say except we are deeply sorry for the suffering our government’s wars cause them and their families. Ninety-three percent of the people killed in Iraq were civilians. One of the women at table is rebuilding her bombed home for the third time.

“We’re here to find unique and effective ways out of war,” says the Afghan woman, Sakeena. She believes the wisdom and compassion of women, who have honed their peacemaking skills raising children and keeping families together, can offer solutions that cannot be accomplished with weapons. She builds schools in isolated Afghan villages.

The Peace Summit, Making Way for the Feminine for the Benefit of the World Community, is a program of the Global Peace Initiative of Women (GPIW). Founded in 2003 in Geneva and based in New York City, GPIW is an international, inter-faith network of women leaders who come together to stimulate reconciliation efforts in areas of conflict. Among their first initiatives was the creation of the Iraqi-US Women’s Summit in New York. GWIP has non-governmental status at the United Nations.

In the fall of 2006 GPIW brought together religious leaders in Syria when tensions between the US and Syria reached their peak. In March of 2007 they gathered forty young Sudanese leaders for six days of intensive dialogue on ways they could lead their nation to a more hopeful future. March 6-10, 2008 in commemoration of International Women’s Day, they summoned 450 women and some men from forty-five countries and nearly every major faith or tradition to India.

The ambitious goal of the Summit? We are here to put our hearts, minds and souls to creating a platform for global transformation based on cooperation, peace and sustainable living. The times call for audacious women.

In the course of the Summit’s work S. Helen Prejean speaks as a member of a panel addressing ways to restore women’s dignity. She identifies a starting place for American policy: never separate self from “other”—persons, species, lands. Because the other is self!

Speaking for the environment 

I am invited to speak on the panel: Restoring the Environment: Changing Our Relationship with the Natural World. My colleagues are from Kenya, Tibet, Mexico, Germany and Cambodia. The young woman to my left is passionately convinced she can shift the Mexican government toward more sustainable policies.

Yangkey, a Tibetan in exile, works to promote organic farming among thousands of Tibetan exiles. Venerable Heik, director of Cambodian Buddhists for the Environment declares, “We cannot allow destruction of the forest for profit. No trees mean no wood for small home! Water goes bad. Animals die.” Conversation with the audience extends well into the lunch hour.

Returning home 

During the six hour bus ride back to the Delhi airport I see women thrashing rice by hand, boys herding goats, men leading camels laden with stacked wood. And indeed, cows wander city streets safely. We pass villages of tiny thatched roof homes and, here and there, a few gated mansions skirted by green lawns. I see graceful temples and shrines where the feminine and masculine aspects of Divinity are honored.

I think about the Summit. Will this expensive effort to bring together women from Earth’s six inhabited continents create any real change? Will it benefit the most poor people and lands?

“Not by might and not by power, but by my spirit,” declares the Holy One through the prophet Zechariah. (Zc 4:6b) Four hundred and fifty people return home, carrying stories of struggle and suffering that are beyond compelling. Four hundred and fifty people refusing war, daring dignity. Welcome, Holy Spirit.

Home in my little mobile home at San Benito Benedictine Monastery in Dayton, Wyoming everything seems so very clean, fragrant and safe. The cacophony of India remains, however, a clamoring ache in my heart and soul. It intrudes upon my prayer.

The ache is also energy of the Spirit, I believe. It is a glowing ember that can flare to invigorate my work, Earth Hope, and our congregational charisms. I suspect I’ll never be able to leave that global table where we all sit, nourished by stories of struggle and Spirit driven hope for peace.

The Summit’s seven themes are close to my heart:

• visionary leadership;
• oneness of all creation;
• nonviolence and respect for all life;
• education of the complete person;
• creating an economy of care;
• listening to the Earth, honoring Earth’s life systems;
• feminine principles to help guide a new generation of peace builders.

As far as I know, Helen Prejean, CSJ and Joan Chittister, OSB are the only other two Sisters invited from the US. I am excited and deeply humbled.