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October – Giving One’s Gold Away October 16th, 2023
(Image by congerdesign from Pixabay)
(by Sr. Maxine Pohlman, SSND, Director, La Vista Ecological Learning Center)
During fall the pollinator garden at La Vista brings to mind Mary Oliver’s delightful poem “Goldenrod”. She describes these ubiquitous fall flowers as having “light-filled bodies… giving their gold away”. I appreciate that way of looking at goldenrod which seem to be everywhere at this time of year.
Her poem came to mean more to me after hearing a talk on the physics of light by astronomer Stephan Martin. He told his listeners that light is how we know the Universe! Just that thought gives me pause. He invited us to recall the many ways we encounter light daily; for example, in the morning when we open our eyes and see light from the window which travels to our brains creating an image. He said that our eyes are the interface between ourselves and our world, and that seeing is a sacred connecting act we experience first thing upon awakening!
Next, we may take a morning walk and observe goldenrod growing and giving on the roadside. He explained that we are actually experiencing light from the sun absorbed by atoms of the flower. Goldenrod then emits the energy from these atoms, so we are seeing the light of goldenrod – not just a reflection, but the essence of goldenrod. How wonderful is that! Here is another reason to be in awe, and he said this is true for all that we see – each being is radiating itself into the world like a star, creating intimacy, healing our separation from nature – when we are receptive to this truth.
(Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay)
Later in the day we might be sitting near someone and feel heat radiating from them. The reality is that we are feeling light. They are glowing; we are glowing. Our bodies both see and feel light. Ponder this, our entire lives are powered by sunlight, and our energy IS the sun’s energy. Light is what we are!
No wonder Jesus was moved to say, “You are the light of the world… let your light shine…” No wonder Buddha said at the end of his life, “Make of yourself a light”. No wonder Mary Oliver implicitly encourages us to imitate goldenrod and give our gold away.
How can we not?
“A New Heaven & A New Earth” October 5th, 2023
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and the One seated on the throne said, “Behold! I make all things new.” Revelation 21:1,5
Leading Christian composers and musicians from the United States have come together and written songs that highlight the need to care for God‘s beautiful and wounded creation.
They want to work with all their brothers and sisters, inside and with this new music they reach outside the Church too, demonstrating that to lift up Creation is to glorify God, and is a powerful way to serve the Lord and protect what he has given us.
The project’s primary focus is to help faith communities and especially evangelicals around the world to understand and to contribute to the worldwide efforts to address climate change in their lives and communities. Primarily the project is an effort to appeal 
through Contemporary Christian Music, to US evangelicals by creating songs that explicitly draw on the biblical creation themes of Laudato Sí and invite them and others to integrate ecological conversion into their spirituality and lifestyle.
(Image by Marian Anbu Juwan from Pixabay)
READ MORE about the project
Eight songs will be released for listening and broadcast on Christian/evangelical radio throughout 2023, culminating with a CD and a number of concerts in the ensuing years. Links to a couple of the songs are at the bottom of this email.
OMIJPIC has been supporting this project in a number of capacities over the past three years.
Songs and release schedule 2023:
| May 12 | Jason Roy, Building 429 – It’s All – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAkXEzRIqw8&list=OLAK5uy_maon8nTUQVIEqaqtLjJi358_5tBxEKJWM |
| June 9 | MŌRIAH – You Mean the World: https://youtu.be/zYYfNgk6ByQ?si=Y5wMv3Ebpu94tWCg |
| July 7 | Aaron Cole – Together: https://youtu.be/RuMK5bDOuuQ?si=arF4wrEpetfg9Ix1 |
| August 4 | Phil Joel – Arms Around the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm1Q59PyuJE&list=OLAK5uy_mFkdN1q6AmVadTdE-2y9-cCg2jzqJa8ok |
| September 1 | Waterdeep – Into the Unseen – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMWyFNEtd3I&list=OLAK5uy_kukytnUOHhNFLoAKF9-hO4d4efbc1FFs0 |
| September 22 | Don Chaffer, Phil Joel, Jason Gray, Jason Roy – Our Common Home – https://youtu.be/1sKq1tI1NkM?si=YP53DFleHQ9ibCMM |
| October 20 | Jason Gray – Awestruck – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQUlL0a4OT4&list=OLAK5uy_n_MUZ2AF3KhE50y4kJk09JqpTp2lZYRCE |
| November 17 | Micah Tyler – So Will I – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTUjQlGsgBg&list=OLAK5uy_nMzLBgtYZfHZAnEGc49YIiwB5AfvGmGx0 |
MORE: https://chvnradio.com/articles/listen-building-429s-jason-roy-releases-new-song-part-of-a-multi-artist-album
Project on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC75eBN73u2HI1I_I6G-dbvA
2023 Season of Creation – “Cultivate a Listening Heart” September 29th, 2023
By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & former Executive Director of the Oblates Lebh Shomea House of Prayer
“We are speaking of an attitude of the heart, one which approaches life with serene attentiveness, which is capable of being fully present to someone without thinking of what comes next.”
(Laudato Si #226)
READ: 7th part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2023 Season of Creation (on page 2)
REFLECTION: Have you heard of the term “lebh shomea”? In Hebrew lebh shomea means “listening heart”. In synodality Pope Francis calls the Church and all people to a process of heartful listening—lest we fail our mission and our humanity. We have failed to hear the cries of Earth and people made poor, and it’s no coincidence that the next step of the synodal process begins on the feast of St. Francis. Let us immerse ourselves in the river of listening so that we become “a Church increasingly capable of making prophetic decisions that are the fruit of the Spirit’s guidance.”*
ACTION: What are you listening to? As we are bombarded each day with messages surely not from the Spirit, what filters can you creatively construct, so as to limit exposure to junk that comes your way? That way we make space within our hearts to listen deeply to each other. We can become the synodal Church that Francis is leading us toward: one that sows justice and peace, one that gives life to all.
Reflections in this series:
- Preparing for the 2023 Season of Creation – “Let Justice and Peace Flow”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Let’s Irrigate Life!”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Our Hearts”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Our Lifestyles”
- 2023 Season of Creation – “Transforming Public Policy”
Pope meets U.S. leaders patiently building ‘culture of solidarity’ | USCCB September 20th, 2023
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis told a group of U.S. community organizers that their work was “atomic,” Jorge Montiel said, “I thought, ‘Oh, you mean we blow things up?'”
But instead, the pope spoke about how the groups associated with the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation in the United States take issues patiently, “atom by atom,” and end up building something that “penetrates” and changes entire communities, said Montiel, an IAF organizer in Colorado and New Mexico.
Pope Francis’ hourlong meeting Sept. 14 with 15 delegates from the group was a follow-up to a similar meeting a year ago. Neither meeting was listed on the pope’s official schedule and, the delegates said, both were conversations, not “audiences.”
“It was relaxed, it was engaging,” said Joe Rubio, national co-director of IAF. “Often you don’t see that even with parish priests,” he told Catholic News Service Sept. 15, garnering the laughter of other delegates.
2023 Season of Creation – “Let’s Irrigate Life!” September 15th, 2023
By Maurice Lange, current Justice & Peace Director at Presentation Sisters & former Executive Director of the Oblates Lebh Shomea House of Prayer
“Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.” (Laudato Si #231)
READ: 3rd part of Pope Francis’ letter for the 2023 Season of Creation (below) (READ FULL REFLECTION)
REFLECTION: Pope Francis does not mince words in calling us to put an end to war upon Creation. Our calling is to stand with victims of this war, both human and other-than-human. Justice and peace cannot flow when so many bodies of water are drying up. Yes, our human societies are that linked to the natural world! Greed and selfishness, on the part of individuals and industry, are wreaking havoc on Earth’s water cycle. Creation’s heartbeat works in cycles…we Westerners think and act linearly. Can we align our hearts with the way that Earth functions…and live cyclically?
ACTION: This week go outside — near a stream, brook or small river — and just be. Ponder the flow of that water…and where it merges with other streams or rivers. How does this increase provide for creatures and habitats downstream? What are some novel ways you can irrigate (and not deplete) “the life of our marvelous planet and our human family”?
Reflections in this series:
