“For all our limitations, gestures of generosity, solidarity and care cannot but well up within us, since we were made for love.”
— Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ paragraph 58
(In recognition of the ongoing Paris climate talks, I am sharing some quotes from the papal encyclical.)
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On my way to church this morning, I heard a report on NPR about the fiftieth anniversary of the Vatican II document “Nostra Aetate” which was a declaration on the relationship of the Catholic Church with non-Christian religions. The report also reviewed the horrible treatment that the Catholic church had inflicted on other faiths, especially the Jewish people.
I am very grateful to have been born at a time when I do not remember the church being against other people because of their religious beliefs or lack of belief. It saddens and upsets me that not all Catholics have accepted this now fifty-year-old teaching. This gives the impression that Catholics are still condemning others for not being Catholic or Christian, even though most of us do not. Rather, we accept all people of good will as together we strive for greater love and peace in the world.
One of my favorite things about Francis is that he shows this attitude to the world. He regularly meets with people of diverse faith traditions, agnostics, and atheists. He often prays in silence in settings that include people of many traditions so that he does not seem to be pushing Catholic prayer onto others. When he spoke in Washington on his recent trip to the United States, he asked the crowd and television viewers to pray for him or, if prayer was not part of their own belief system, to send positive thoughts.
People around the world recognize Francis as a spiritual leader, not just a Catholic leader, because he does care about every person and, as he terms it, “our common home.” Although he was brought up in the pre-Vatican II church, he fully embraces and lives the council’s messages.
The message is needed now more than ever. There is so much to do to improve the lives of people and the planet. We, all people of good will, need to move forward together.
I am so happy to share a wonderful poem from Anne Harding Woodworth. I met Anne when we were both singing with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus, touring in Sicily. When I started to write poetry, Anne generously shared advice and tips with me. I am so excited that she has a poem in this Silver Birch Press series because I will also have a poem of mine featured at some point in the coming weeks. I’m honored to be included with such an accomplished poet as Anne.
Dessert Is Not the End
by Anne Harding Woodworth
The night we made s’mores
our lives slid into each other further,
closing the gap of our childhoods—
parallel lines distanced by miles
of prairieriversandgreatlakes over separate campfires,
separate hearths in those days. Yet there was a sharing
of chocolatemeltedmarshmallowandgrahamcrackers.
An uncomplicated recipe is not forgotten—
like the taste of coalescence, a sliding
of something into an opening, sweet, dark and light,
soft and heated and held within sturdy walls—
you and me, at last folding the child
into the story of all these years—
and wishing for s’more, just a few more.
PHOTO: Anne and Fred in the 1950s. They did not know each other as children.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of five books of poetry and three chapbooks. Her persona poems in the voice of a woman who dreads being confined in her old…
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I’m thankful for this reminder that the small actions we take are important in ways that we often cannot see.
“It is a serious thing, just to be alive on this fresh morning, in this broken world.” ~ Mary Oliver
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“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.”
– Andre Gide
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2015: The Year of Love | Global Sisters Report.
I had to share this beautiful and insightful post from Sister Ilia Delio on the centrality of love in our lives and the universe. Although anchored in the Christian tradition, it can also be read from a philosophical viewpoint apart from any sense of divinity.
Along with Sister Ilia, I wish for 2015 to be a Year of Love.
Sharing Oscar’s vision of love. Thank you, Oscar, for this hopeful post.
“Love … is the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.”
– Anne Truitt
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Today is my 54th birthday. Not usually considered a milestone birthday, but it is a poignant one for me. Fifty-four is the perpetual age of my friend Angie.
Angie called us “October babes.” She was born in 1950 and I in 1960. It didn’t feel like we were ten years apart in age because we had children in the same grades in school, although – bonus for me – she also had a child who was two years ahead of my elder daughter in school, which meant that I had a preview of coming attractions.
We were different in a lot of ways. I’m 5′ 1.5″ and Angie told people she was 5′ 12″ because she thought it sounded less daunting than saying she was six feet. Angie was raised in New York City and thought of our mutual home now as small. I was raised in a New England town of 200, so our current hometown of 20,000 was as large as the city I traveled twenty miles each way to attend high school. She was a trained artist and skilled in decorating and entertaining, with a great and quirky personal style, which included rocking her signature look – overalls. (Trust me – it was amazing.) I am not known for any of those things. She had a great talent for storytelling, complete with different voices and accents for the characters. I am better with the written word than the spoken word. She had a vast array of friends in various circles of the community and was well-known, while I had far fewer friends and was more comfortable working behind the scenes.
We were, however, both personally dedicated to volunteering, and met when I joined a site-based decision-making team at our district middle school. Angie had already been serving as one of three parent representatives and we quickly became friends. She helped me navigate the surprisingly intricate educational world and introduced me to a lot of new people and ideas.
Even though she had many friends, she was near and dear to all of them. She was a wonderful listener and a wise advisor. She was unfailingly kind and generous. The kind of person everyone hopes to have in their life.
Because her husband was a doctor, she had many friends in the medical community, but had a heightened awareness of the possible health calamities that happen to people of various ages. She talked about being worried about turning 50, because she had known so many people who succumbed to medical problems in that decade. When she turned 49, I gave her a box with a penny from every year of her life, which meant that I gave it to her with fifty pennies in it, and the promise to give her a new penny each year on her birthday. I thought already having fifty pennies in the box might help ease her into her next birthday.
Within weeks of her 50th birthday, a nagging cough turned into a diagnosis of stage 3 lung cancer.
It was a shock. Angie had never smoked, but through some combination of factors – growing up in a congested city when vehicles still used leaded gasoline? lung damage from infections? genetic vulnerability? secondhand smoke, as she was growing up before anyone had even thought of smoke-free rooms? – here she was with a frightening diagnosis.
Treatment was aggressive and achieved a remission. There was a big 50+1 birthday party, which served as a charity fundraiser. But, as we all feared, there were metastases that developed and more treatment with some short breaks but then the next problem and the next round of radiation or chemo until finally around the time Angie turned 54, there was nothing else that could be done.
After the new year started, I began searching for a 2004 penny for her box. We knew she would not live to see her 55th birthday and I hoped to get the penny to her while she was still able to realize it, but even the coin shops did not have them available so early in the year. Angie died in March.
When I found the penny later in the spring, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s box.
I still miss Angie and honor her memory. One of the ways I do that is by donating to the fund set up in her memory which raises money for scholarships and for the LUNGevity Foundation, which supports both lung cancer research and patients and their families.
Another way is to spread as much love as possible and to dedicate as much time as possible to caring about and serving others.
And for this year, Angie and I will both be 54.
“We are created for love, and that’s what keeps pulling us onward.”
– Ilia Delio
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Joanne Corey 