I went home from the GA fired up to do something about fracking in my home community of Longmont, Colorado, just as our City Council was considering applications from Big Oil for leasing public land east of town for drilling.  Joy Garland and Kate Twohy had already given me a “heads up” about how tricky it is to oppose fracking, and I had seen the DVD Gasland.  But most of my neighbors and the majority of our seven city council members seemed woefully uninformed about what was going on.

Anyway the part of this tale that I want to share here is how appreciative I am for all the years of planning and facilitating meetings I’ve had, thanks to my work in the Grail.  A small group of us here in Longmont is just beginning to organize ourselves to oppose fracking at nearby Union Reservoir and within city limits.  We’ve had three opportunities to speak (for three minutes each) during city council meetings, and we’ve helped convince the council to enact a four-month moratorium on fracking.  However, the moratorium merely delays the drilling.  We’ve got major work to do in the interim. 

What has become immediately apparent is that our little band of anti-frackers is well informed about the dangers inherent in fracking and passionate in their opposition to it, but they don’t know much at all about working together.  Although most of them are diligent researchers and thus full of ideas about action steps, at our first meeting it became immediately apparent that we might implode internally.  One group wanted to advocate for strict regulations, and others wanted to pursue a citizen rights ordinance (I won’t go into the intricacies of the complex reasons these two approaches differ).  Furthermore, people were anxious and either yelled at each other or held back in silence, threatening to withdraw from the struggle entirely.  I felt like the new kid on the block, but I volunteered to facilitate our second meeting since no one else was willing and/or able.

I think I caught them by surprise since I was an unknown quantity.   It’s not that I did such a fantastic job facilitating the second meeting, but I do know how to make use of the white board for setting an agenda, how to establish some ground rules, and when to request that participants limit their speaking so that others can be heard.  And—need I say it?—I’ve had my share of experience facilitating “fractious” groups (pardon the pun). After that second meeting, one woman came up to me and said, “How did you learn to run meetings so well?  I want to learn that.”  When I told her I learned it from the Grail, she wanted to know more and asked if she could become a member.  You can bet that I whipped out my Grail business card and  invited her to my home “sometime soon” to learn more about the Grail.

I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t report that the third meeting, which I also facilitated, did not go so well.  Sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to get that group to listen to each other.  I’m trying hard to let my ego get out of the way and to do this activism bit as a servant of the Holy Spirit, so it’s a definite learning process for me and very humbling.  However, my point is that my Grail training is playing a big part in my ability to step forward on the fracking front out here.

Once again I learned that when we think of what the Grail “is doing in the world,” we have to take a large view—Grail in the world is not just our shared, united communal actions, but also our individual efforts that actualize Grail values and experience, especially if we pay homage to that legacy as we move forward

For a lot of people, “globalization” is something smooth and shiny that makes better iPhones available.  For others, though, it’s an experience of displacement and being categorized as less than human.

In Guadalupe in New York, anthropologist Alyshia Gálvez zeroes in on one group strongly impacted by “globalization,” undocumented Mexican immigrants in New York City. Throughout the twentieth century, Latino New York was primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican, but since 1990, increasing numbers of Mexican immigrants have joined the mix. Some estimates put the current Mexican population of the city at 500,000. Up to half of these new New Yorkers are undocumented.

Guadalupe in New York conveys effectively the difficult situation of undocumented Mexican immigrants in New York, caught as they are between economic crises in Mexico and the increasing demonization of the immigrant labor needed to make the US function.   But primarily, Guadalupe in New York shows the ways in which devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe transforms the experience of undocumented Mexicans, instilling in them a sense of human dignity and of a trans-juridical, even cosmic, citizenship.

The subjects of Gálvez’s investigation are members of two related Mexican immigrant groups, the comités Guadalupanos, confraternal organizations based in Catholic parishes across the city and their umbrella organization, the Asociación Tepeyac.  Fundamental  to both is Guadalupanismo, devotion to Mary the Mother of God as she appeared to an indigenous Mexican convert,  Juan Diego, on the hill of Tepeyac, in the northern section of what is now Mexico City, in 1531.

Devotion to Guadalupe is a central aspect of Mexican culture.  But the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe is particularly associated with the accordance of a new dignity to indigenous Mexicans after the Spanish conquest. Guadalupe herself appeared as an indigenous woman, wearing colors, jewels and other unambiguous markers of local Nahuatl tradition. This in turn makes her a particularly apt bearer of a new sense of human dignity for undocumented Mexicans in the US.

Gálvez’s ethnographic study focuses particularly on several aspects of Guadalupanismo in New York. The best known of these is the annual torch run, in which a torch is carried by Guadalupan devotés from the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, across the Mexico/US border, and through the United States, arriving on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Patrick’s, the Roman Catholic cathedral in Manhattan. As a highly public event, the torch run is perhaps the most confrontational of the three devotional actions examined in Guadalupe in New York.  By crossing the border and publicly proclaiming their existence,  participants in and coordinators of the torch run assert “an alternative definition of citizenship: one not arbitrarily constrained by borders…(but) premised on a very particular kind of Catholic humanism articulated through Guadalupan devotion.”

A second devotion is the celebration of the Viacrucis, the way of the cross, by comités in the various New York parishes, and by comités working together on the Asociación Tepeyac’s city-wide Viacrucis del Inmigrante each Good Friday. While parish celebrations of the Viacrucis vary somewhat, with more emphasis on the social resonances of Jesus’ suffering in some parishes than others, by and large Gálvez finds that in these Guadalupan celebrations, “the traditional script describing Jesus Christ’s path is overlaid with a new script, comparing his trails at each of the stations of the cross to the humiliations and injustices suffered by immigrants.” This overlay is especially evident in the Good Friday city-wide Viacrucis del Inmigrante which begins at the offices of the Immigration and Naturalization Services and then winds its way around the financial district of lower Manhattan. Throughout the procession the “Roman” soldiers scream at Jesus , “Camina, camina, ilegal!” (“Walk, walk, illegal!”)

The  third Guadalupan devotion Gálvez studies is La Misión Guadalupana, in which members of a comité  carry a figure, often a statue, of the Virgin of Guadalupe from one home to the next.  In this devotion Mexican immigrant families are welcomed by Guadalupe and invited to participate in the comité or renew their commitment.  Because the misión Guadalupana is a much smaller and quieter devotional practice than the two described above, it’s possible to imagine them dropping under the radar altogether. But Gálvez demonstrates that they are fundamental to the formation of the Guadalupan community that in turn enables undocumented Mexican immigrants in New York to develop a new more deeply human sense of citizenship.

In making this argument, that for undocumented Mexican immigrants in New York devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is integral to the formation of a sense of dignity and self worth beyond contemporary desiccated definitions of citizenship, Alyshia Gálvez moves well beyond the understanding of religion that was fundamental to western social science in the second half of the twentieth century.  According to that understanding, religious beliefs and practices distracted human beings from contending with the really-real—economics, politics, even biology. Members of religio-ethnic groups, as they became assimilated into advanced democratic societies, were expected to shed their quaint devotional and organizational customs, learn  civil religion, become secularized. By the end of the twentieth century, and especially since 9/11, increasing numbers of scholars have been forced to acknowledge that this scenario never adequately represented the complexity of human experience. In works like Guadalupe in New York, this long-overdue recognition comes into its own.

(A longer version of this review appeared in The Living Pulpit, Vol 19, No 1, [Jan-March 2010] 30-31.)

Why I Fell In Love

Now that I have your attention, here’s the rest of the sentence:

with the Transition [Town] Movement

Those who were at the GA on Thursday afternoon heard my spiel about the Transition (Town) Movement.  (For those who missed it, the PowerPoint and audio are online in the member area of the Grail website, or click here.)

A one-sentence summary/refresher: Transition is about building stronger and happier communities while transitioning away from fossil fuel dependence.  There is a lot packed into that little sentence, and there is much to say about how Transition is playing out; one such aspect is story-telling.  So I thought this month I’d tell a bit of my “how I met Transition” story.

It was just about a year ago now.  I was still inAustralia.  Mostly lounging (walking, really) on endless, sunny beaches.  And beginning to cast about for “what’s next?”  The Transition (Town) Movement had spent a few years on my (very long) list of “things to look into, when I have time.”  The time had finally come.

I was still in a state of high discouragement re: the-state-of-the-world.  So I was quite surprised to find myself becoming increasingly excited, the deeper intoTransitionTownmy exploration went.  What had me so captivated?  Quite a bit, actually, but I’ll name just a few.  (I’m setting aside for the moment all the cool projects Transition Initiatives around the world are doing.)

Positive Focus.  Transition works in response to three very big, heavy things – the end of cheap energy, climate change and economic instability – yet the approach is positive.  The starting point of Transition is positive visioning: “If you woke up in, say, 2030, and the transition to a low carbon future had been successfully managed, what would it look, feel, smell and sound like?”  There are a few things embedded in this that resonate with me.  I had reached a point where I couldn’t do doom and gloom anymore; I was drawn to Transition’s positive approach of working to create the future we want to see.  This focuses our energy on creatively working for instead of fighting against.  And it puts us in the powerful position of taking responsibility and acting as opposed to blaming others/waiting for “whomever” to do something.  In addition, there is the explicit emphasis in the movement to make it fun – “if it is not fun and not adding to your life, something’s not working…”

Holistic Approach.  Transition takes an integrated Head (theory), Hands (practice) and Heart (vision, team- and group-building) approach.  There is recognition that a range of emotions can surface when we look at the state of our planet, and there is intention to pay attention to this deeper response and build in ways to support each other. There is also recognition that the change needed in these times is both outer (i.e., food and energy systems) and inner (i.e., worldviews, assumptions, consciousness).  Transition builds on the unique skills and passions of the people in the room.  And there is a limitless tapping of creativity.

Shifting Culture. I have long felt that the root of so many of our “problems” in the world today stem from a culture that has lost its way – but how in the world does one go about fixing a broken culture?  As I’ve reflected more recently on Transition – after a year of closely following the movement, participating in a few trainings and taking full advantage of the extensive on-line resources – I think Transition is doing just that.  Rob Hopkins, Transition founder, reflects on this as well in the just-released Transition Companion:

“When we started Transition in 2005-6, I imagined we were developing an environmental response, a sustainability-focused process. After five years of this fascinating international experiment, I now see it as a cultural process… It goes beyond reducing energy and planting trees, and needs, ultimately to seep into the culture of place: how a place thinks of itself, what it takes pride in.”

It’s an ambitious experiment, indeed.  And it isn’t without its struggles and challenges, but that’s another article.

There was a great deal of interest generated at the GA about Transition and I’d like to keep the conversation and thinking together going.  Towards that end, I’ve started a “Transition” Forum on the Grail website (see Emily’s article for more about Forums) and have added a few resources.  I invite you to take a look and share your thoughts! http://grail-us.org/member-forums/grail-discussion/transition-town-movement/

Links to Transition Resources

These are also posted in the Transition Forum on the Grail website where you can respond.

Three very good Transition websites:

International Hub:  www.transitionnetwork.org

U.S.Hub:  www.transitionus.org

Rob Hopkins’ blog (very story-oriented):  www.transitionculture.org

“Does Transition Build Happiness?” An article by Rob Hopkins

http://transitionculture.org/2011/10/21/does-transition-build-happiness-an-article-from-the-latest-resurgence-magazine/

In Transition 1.0 – a 50 minute movie about the Transition Movement. (Transition 2.0 is in the works; this is a few years old but still a good watch):  http://vimeo.com/8029815

I am also one of the 900. One of the 900 United Methodists, that is, in New York and Connecticut that signed a Covenant of Conscience and celebrated that commitment in a recent worship service at Asbury Crestwood UMC in Yonkers, New York. One of my social justice works in recent years has been to try to change United Methodist church policies that exclude gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons from the full life and ministry of the church. As part of the steering committee of the Methodist in New Directions (MIND), I have encouraged my clergy sisters and brothers to join me and others in promising to fulfill all of our pastoral ordination vows by performing same-sex marriages, now legal in both states where the New York Annual Conference functions, my regional body of the UMC. Our covenant is to support each other (clergy, laity and congregations) as we challenge the church in this action that can be called “ecclesial disobedience.” I believe this is the civil rights issue of our time and the church should be leading the way toward more inclusivity, opening the circle wide for all of God’s people.  The Grail Center at Cornwall has been the site of the annual retreat for the steering committee of MIND and the planning of our covenant began in a meeting at the center in 2010. (You can read the covenant of conscience at the MIND website: (www.mind-ny.org)

At both of these events, it was clear to me that we live and move and have our being through the Spirit of Love and Justice.

Grail members then joined an indoor General Assembly of some 50 people.  Jackie DiSalvo was the featured speaker, as a representative of Occupy Wall Street.  She has been part of that effort since the early planning stages, and currently helps to coordinate the OWS/Labor caucus.  That group has helped to generate and coordinate significant Trade Union support for OWS from NYC locals and from the AFL-CIO.  One of the most significant factors, Jackie noted, was that OWS went out to support Postal workers, Verizon workers and Sotheby workers, even before seeking labor support.  When police insisted that transit workers use public busses to drive hundreds of arrested protesters, the Transit Workers Union challenged that demand.  Unions are offering tangible solidarity to the Occupy movement. 

There was considerable excitement by many Grail members about the significance of the Occupy movement at this time.  A movement that has moved from Wall Street to over 100 US cities and towns and some 80 countries, it represents the reclaiming of public space to create opportunity for dialogue, education and mutual learning– it is about direct democracy.  At the same time, it has blown the lid off dominant discourse that blamed homeowners, unemployed, or government for economic problems, shifting focus to the 1% that controls economic and political power in this country.  The slogan “We are the 99%” has galvanized public opinion; brought people to the streets on multiple issues; and defused the Tea Party while challenging the plutocracy of both Democrat and Republican parties.  A proposal at the GA would enable US Grail members to learn about and dialogue about the Occupy movement, and to consider publicly supporting it.  Grail members in Cincinnati and in New York City are already getting involved.  The New York Politics and Spirituality Group also attended a OWS General Assembly recently, and has mobilized to donate blankets to Occupiers, among other forms of solidarity.

Carol Barton, New York City

Simonetta Romano shared a short video The U.N. It’s Your World (www.un.org) which made the effects of the deliberations among committees very real. The 192 nations are concerned for the 30 million world refugees, the ¼ million child soldiers, the one billion people who live on about one dollar a day, the effects of climate change and much more.

Sharon Joslyn  Outlined the eight Millennium Development Goals for 2015 and invited the participants to talk about the ways that Grail groups or individuals are engaged in one or more of the goals: to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership for development.

Lucy Jones showed how these goals are ever present in our religious traditions. The prophet tells us to “do justice and walk kindly on the earth”; we are to care for the least of us, feed the hungry etc.  Work with the U.N. requires study, perseverance and a long view. The rewards can be exciting. They are like those of a surfer who exhilerates in her ride. She is successful not because she paddles hard or finds a wave.  It is because she tunes into the pull of gravity that provides the ups and downs that are so thrilling. 

Simonetta and Mary Kay Louchart introduced us to women who have participated recently in the Grail program for young women that prepare them to speak at a session during the meetings on the status of women.  Through a slide show and stories about the program we were enthusiastic and grateful for this work that has gone on for twenty years. A few former participants were in our midst. We were invited to imitate the Michigan Grail as they plan to send teenage girls to the meeting February 28- March 5, 2012.

Kate Devlin

Another part of Kate’s thought-provoking presentation emphasized the influence of social problems on the decisions of our government. It appears that when the main concern is unemployment and creating job growth, protecting our environment becomes a non-issue and it doesn’t get the support in Washington. Job growth is much more of a political issue. People welcoming “Fracking” because it will bring jobs to their area is a good example. The jobs are more important than the damage to the environment!

The project we visited, started over 30 years ago by Ann Mohr and Thandi Maud Makwakwa, is one of five sites that have trained more than 4,000 people in the last three decades in production sewing, tailoring and dressmaking. Training in upholstery has recently been added. Included in the compound is the Kliptown Youth Program, which also offers adult computer classes, and a daycare center for children, one to six years old. Three of the sites in Soweto are training centers and two are production centers, sewing items by contract, employing women to support their families in an area with more than 50% unemployment and heart-breaking living conditions. Soweto was central in the intense struggle against apartheid and is typical of the resulting conditions (lack of skills, housing, infrastructure) that institutionalized racism and forced segregation engenders. Even though the apartheid system was officially dismantled more than 15 years ago, its results, as seen and lived in Soweto, are very much apparent.

I had arranged to purchase a number of the African Tribal Dolls that are made by women at one of the production centers to bring back to the Grailville store and very much wanted to see if there are ways we could be supportive to their industry, creativity and diligence. In the short visit there, I was educated by their determination and spirit, and inspired to want to somehow reach across, from my world to theirs, at the bottom of the world. All I have so far are a few dolls, and some ideas, and a wish to connect more.

For the weekend we were not in session but had special events planned. On Saturday we went to the community center called “Mthinkhulu Village Centre” in Kleinmond, a project spearheaded by Sally Timmel and Anne Hope, who have truly earned their “saint” status in the Grail.  Not just one building, but a large campus with many buildings, the purpose of the center is to create jobs for a community with 70% joblessness, as well as a place for children and adults to learn.

There we met many women who are Grail and Grail friends in the Western Cape who had come for the day. There were about 150 of us all together.  They created a ritual of the Spiral of Our Journeys and several faith traditions were represented, Sufi, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and we “spiraled” through the journeys of “Origins,” “Conquest—conquered,” “Struggle,” “Liberation-freedom,” “Integration/Interconnectedness” led beautifully by each of the facilitators.  We moved from small group to small group and shared the answers to such questions as “What in me and in the world is still colonized and wounded?, “What is it that I need to continue the struggle for true transformation in myself and in the world?”

But by far the thing that moved me most was the opening song that I later learned was written by an American friend of the Grail, Carolyn McDade.  This was the first time I had ever heard this song and I share the words with you here.

This Ancient Love
Long before the night was born from darkness
Long before the dawn rolled unsteady from fire
Long before She wrapped her scarlet arm around the hills
There was a love
This ancient love was born.
Long before the grass spotted green the bare hillside
Long before a wing unfolded to wind
Long before she wrapped her long blue arm around the sea
There was a love
This ancient love was born.
 
Long before a chain was forged from the hillside
Long before a voice uttered freedom’s cry
Long before She wrapped her bleeding arms around a child
There was a love
This ancient love was born.
 
Long before the name of a God was spoken
Long before a cross was nailed from a tree
Long before she laid her arm of colors ‘cross the sky
There was a love
This ancient love was born.
 
Wakeful our night, slumbers our morning
Stubborn the grass sowing green wounded hills
As we wrap our healing arms held
This ancient love, this aching love rolls on.

As I listened to Joyce relate the story of how Grace Place came to be, I was astounded how every step seemed to fall in place (well, with lots of hard work): The realization of what she wanted to do, a late night pact with a friend, meeting someone else (co-founder Sandy McCoy) with the same interests and forging a friendship that would help them put the first building blocks into place to realize that Grace Place could exist. And finally, a somewhat fortuitous discovery of the perfect place! This September marks the 13th year Grace Place has been serving women as they transition from homelessness to a more permanent life.

When Grace Place was still just an idea, Joyce did some research and found that there were usually enough emergency shelters in the Cincinnati area, but never enough transitional beds – places for those transitioning out of homelessness. Today, the need for transitional housing and emergency service shelters are growing.  When Grace Place first opened a guest would stay on average three months.  But now, with the dragging economy, a guest might stay for close to twelve months.  Needless to say, Grace Place is always full.

Grace Place is rooted in the Catholic Worker tradition.  “The Catholic Worker Movement is grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human person.  [It] is committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.” (www.catholicworker.org

Grace Place and its volunteers focus on four areas.

• Hospitality: Grace Place is a transitional home for women (with or without children) working towards building a permanent life and ….
• Justice: We strive to increase awareness of the causes of poverty and homelessness and to call ourselves and others to God’s plan of justice, peace and integrity of creation.
• Community Living: We seek to move toward an organic and sustainable lifestyle of voluntary simplicity. We share resources and cultivate loving (nonviolent) interpersonal relationships, health and serenity.
• Spirituality: With daily prayer, we seek to provide an environment for our spiritual growth and are committed to making progress along our spiritual paths. Our spirituality is the foundation for all our work.

Each Catholic Worker community is autonomous. It is up to those running a Catholic Worker House to decide what it does – soup kitchen, emergency shelter, transition shelter or a combination. Life at Grace Place follows a simple recipe. They focus on creating a welcoming, respectful environment where guests are given time and support to work through their problems. And they avoid all kinds of violence.

Joyce, who retired from nonprofit management in 1999, joined the Grail in 1992. She had always been involved with social justice issues. And she was very active with the International Women’s League, but always felt that spiritual aspect was missing. It was when she was invited to sit in on a panel addressing justice concerns by Audrey Sorrento that she met the Grail.  Joyce recalls, “I was hooked! I felt like I had come home.”

Learn more about Grace House at http://home.fuse.net/graceplacecw/

To read more visit http://marianronan.wordpress.com/. 

In the 1970s, I lived for a number of years with twenty-five or so other women in a Catholic feminist community on an organic farm outside Cincinnati, Ohio. The community was called Grailville, and the years I spent there changed my life.

It would be hard to tell you in one blog or even many the extraordinary things I learned and experienced while I was living at Grailville. But what I want to tell you about today concerns  a Roman Catholic  priest named Thomas Berry who visited the Grailville community from time to time and talked with us. The US Grail–the women’s movement of which Grailville was (and is) the national center–had been part of the “back to the land” movement from its early years, and by the 1970s the environmental movement was definitely underway, with books appearing like E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful.   But Berry, a Passionist monk and professor of world religions at Fordham University in New York, was presenting some truly original ideas about the relationship between the earth and the creation stories of the world religions.

Between Berry’s visits, we would read and discuss mimeographed copies of his recently written articles. One of them, “The New Story,” proposed an entirely new creation-centered framework for understanding the universe in place of the redemption-centered framework that had served the west for more than a millennium. In 1987, the Catholic intellectual journal Cross Currents, co-edited by the Grail’s old friend Bill Birmingham, published several of these essays, including “The New Story,” and in 1990, Berry published his groundbreaking The Dream of the Earth in the Sierra Club’s Nature and Natural Philosophy Library. Today, Berry, sometimes described as a “geologian” rather than a “theologian,” is widely considered a pioneer in religious environmentalism. Reading and discussing Berry’s ideas with him in the 1970s had a profound impact on what I believe and how I live my life.

Now, Orbis Books has published a collection of Berry’s essays, The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth. This short, compact volume of readable articles is an excellent overview of Berry’s thinking in cosmic/religious environmentalism. The introduction by two leaders in the religion and ecology movement, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, clarifies Berry’s importance in the movement.  Among the other contributions, published by Berry between 1982 and 2000, are pieces on “Christianity and Ecology,” a manifesto about what is required of Christianity if the planet is to survive;  “The Wisdom of the Cross,” in which Berry rereads the crucifixion in light of the entire history of the cosmos; and  “Women Religious: Voices of the Earth,” a paean to the pioneering environmental work of US Catholic Sisters.

As I read these essays, it comes to me that what Berry says here is far more directly critical of Catholic and Christian teaching than is Quest for the Living God, the book by the Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson which was recently singled out for reprimand by the US Catholic bishops. But Berry was never treated the way Johnson has been (though his forebear Teilhard de Chardin certainly was, and more.) Part of the reason for this is that it was a different set of bishops who were reading Berry’s essays (or not bothering to read them). Also, Berry didn’t claim to be writing theology; the bishops may feel less responsible for “a geologian” or “cultural historian,” as Berry sometimes described himself. Or maybe it’s just more maddening when a Catholic Sister raises these questions.

Regardless of the reason, Berry’s work should not be underestimated just because the US Catholic bishops haven’t denounced it. It’s a radical revisioning of the relationship between God and the cosmos, one badly needed as the planet heats up and our environmental options dwindle. I only wish that a wide range of American Christians would read these essays and act on them.

Emily and Simonetta, Pumpkin Queens

Community has always been an integral part of the Grail.  Locally and

Metanoia at Cornwall, 2011

globally Grail women have worked to transform the world.  Grail women have built an international community of like-minded women reaching out, developing programs and addressing problems on a local, national and international level.   Many women have found the inspiration to do their work because of the inspiration the Grail community brings.   

What is it about community that inspires you?  Is it the shared values?  Is it the common purpose and shared participation?  Why is community so important to the Grail? 

Many thanks to Simonetta Romano for the wonderful pictures!

Walking the Labyrinth

 

Metanoia at Cornwall

In St. Paul, MN, where she was living, she was part of a loose collective of women who, with a grant from a local attorney, had started a hotline offering support, legal advice and information about women’s rights and divorce when it became clear they were facing a horrible reality. The women they were talking to were victims of domestic violence and needed a safe place to go. Two years later, in 1974, that crisis hotline evolved into the nation’s first women’s shelter, Women’s Advocates, Inc.

Bernice, who came to Grailville in 1944, was one of the co-founders. She has been working with victims of domestic abuse ever since.

She stayed with the shelter as a volunteer until the late 1980’s when she was asked to create a support program for women leaving the shelters, through the St. Paul Intervention Project and the Community Advocacy Programs. Always aware of the struggles a woman might be facing as a victim of domestic violence, she created programs for daytime and nighttime, making them accessible for young women and mothers to attend when they could.

In the late 1990’s, Bernice observed a different and growing trend: elderly women were attending support group meetings.  These were not young women with young children; these were women married for 40 years, with grandchildren.  She realized that there was an age group affected by domestic abuse that no one had ever thought about before.

But reaching this age group would be different. There needed to be something to draw these women together, that didn’t scream “attend a support group for battered women!”

The guilt and shame is multiplied significantly when women have experienced domestic abuse for 30 years or more.  It is just one of those topics women didn’t discuss. Especially those married in the 1950′s or 1960′s.

A quilters group was created. It was a lot easier for women to converge over making a quilt instead of discussing their abuse.  Bernice said not all the meetings centered around discussion of domestic abuse and violence; they included positive things like creating a quilt.  In addition, she said, creating something of beauty creates beauty in your personal life.  This was a project that created positive self-images and confidence among the group and many women came to work on that quilt for years.

Bernice also created two support groups that met twice a month on alternating weeks in different areas of St. Paul. She made a point to schedule these meetings in the afternoon, since “older women usually do not like to drive at night.” If they took the bus to their sessions, they were reimbursed for the bus fare. It was important that there be nothing to keep them from coming.

“The Grail has been an inspiration and the base for my whole outlook on life,” Bernice said. “It gave me my start in the life-long work for women and girls.”

Bernice left Grailville in 1946, and went on to the headquarters of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, IA with Mary Jane Brady. At the NCRLC, she and Mary Jane planned and organized two national conferences and published the periodical, Land and Home. In 1948, Bernice came back to Grailville to marry her beloved husband, John. She now lives with her youngest son and his family in the St. Paul home she shared with her husband until his death in 2005.

Bernice’s work with battered women grew into a movement that eventually gave a name to a silent epidemic, created much-needed legislation and empowered not only the champions of the abused but empowered the victims, giving them a voice.

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