A nudge to see the people around me

Much about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious National Assembly in early August was memorable. Much has been written about it and its outcome; but much of what happened will never be deemed newsworthy.

I refer to so many tender moments shared between sisters attending the meetings and staff people working at the Millennium Hotel, site of the assembly. Let me mention my chance (or Providential) meetings with a gentleman named Richard.

Richard was an extremely efficient and friendly waiter. The first time we met, I was the guest at a luncheon hosted by Great Lakes Advisors, an investment manager the SPs employ.

The luncheon was lovely, and Richard enjoyed the sisters he served — just as we enjoyed his humor and attentiveness. Our table loved the dessert served and made much of it!

The evening of that same day, I attended our annual Women of Providence in Collaboration (WPC) dinner. WPC is a group of congregations in the U.S. and Canada who share the charism of Providence. We have gathered for more than 30 years in order to explore the spirituality of Providence for our times.

The dinner is always a gathering of friends. Richard was on duty again — again he served the table where I sat. Again he charmed us. He delivered two desserts to me that evening — since it was the same dessert we had at the luncheon and he knew I liked it. (I didn’t eat either — not to worry.)

The next night was the final banquet of the assembly. You guessed it — Richard served our table. His same friendly and fun self. Again, all at the table enjoyed him.

At the end of the dinner, as we were all leaving the ballroom, I managed to track down my personable and kind Richard to thank him for being such a wonderful waiter and more than that — a wonderful man.

He gave me a hug and said, “Sister, it’s been wonderful to have you sisters here. We’re all going to miss you. None of us are invisible to you — the way we are so much of the time we serve others.”

Oh my! It was a lovely compliment and a better reminder. How often those around us are invisible to me!

Thank you, Richard, for your many kindnesses and your gentle nudge to see the people around me.

Praying for rain in a drought, other water issues

Being in drought conditions in our part of Indiana makes me think about water quite a bit – usually when I’m watering our garden.

Farm Manager Jeremy McKenzie tills the Sisters of
Providence cropland at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Ind.
Forty-seven counties in Indiana are currently under a
burn ban due to lack of rain.

My meanderings take me to Scripture – Hebrew and Christian — and all the references to parched ground, the desert blooming or conversely the grass withering. I think about Jesus at the well and his conversation with the Samaritan woman.

I reflect on a mission trip to Mexico and listening to women from a very tiny village describe how they had a severe shortage of potable water because it had been diverted to a luxury hotel built nearby. One woman cried as she told us of watching hotel employees hose down horses as her children longed for drinking water.

Reading I’ve done regarding privatization of water vs. public administration, or public-private partnerships in the delivery of water occupies some of my thoughts. I am intrigued by the phrase “blue gold” to describe Earth’s water resources and sources and troubled by the implications of that phrase as well.

A June look at the CSA garden at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods.
The CSA is a program of White Violet Center for Eco-Justice,
a ministry of the Sisters of Providence.

I am aware of our own CSA gardens and our farm fields; I can picture the farms all around us and how much soaking rains are needed in all of these.

As we pray for rain during Eucharistic liturgy or in our communal or individual prayer, I get going on “what exactly are we praying for?” An end to global warming, to global deforestation, to the desertification of vast areas of Earth? God to change the cold fronts and warm fronts and atmospheric conditions necessary for rain? To divert rain from Minnesota and its flooding to Indiana? Or are we simply laying the recognition of our need before the Holy One, aware of our place in the vast created cosmos?

Well that’s what I’m pondering today. I will continue to water our garden and to pray for rain and to “trust in that Providence that has never failed us.”

And you?

Providence never fails is a good 'saying'

I have no idea why I started to think of “sayings” the other day, but I did.
I was remembering that, as a kid, I simply did not get the point of the saying: “I see,” said the blind man as he tripped over his hammer and saw. My poor mother tried a million different ways to help me see the word play involved. Just didn’t happen for a long time — then one day it suddenly made sense. Who knows why?

Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by sayings, adages. I hate to admit it, but I was also stumped for a time about: You can’t have your cake and eat it too. How could you eat a cake unless you had it? You begin to see my issue — it does take a house to fall on me.

Sister Bernice Kuper

But the saying that began this train of thought came into my life because of Sister Bernice Kuper when she was our director of novices. At one of our daily times of instruction, she made the statement: The donkey on the hill knows more than the wise man in the valley.

When I first heard it, it made me laugh; and remarkably, given my history, I got the point right away!
Now, almost 49 years later, it still makes me laugh and it frequently catches me up short. Often, when I’m stewing about a situation, the most unlikely person, a person so far removed from what I’m worrying over makes an observation or asks a question that unlocks the puzzle for me.

With that question or statement, the situation falls into perspective and a solution begins to emerge — no help from me except I managed to be listening for a change.

Sister Denise Wilkinson

The longer I serve in this incredible ministry of elected leadership, the more I feel like the “wise [wo]man in the valley” and have come to expect “the donkey on the hillside” to come to my rescue in the nick of time. As Providence would have it, Providence never fails to lead that hillside beast of burden to me and opens my mind and heart to another perspective.

Eastertide may be the perfect season to reflect on Sister Bernice’s wise saying. So often, in the Scriptures of these days, surprises await Jesus’ followers at every turn. Again, the most unlikely and unexpected persons pop up with a truth to tell, a sighting to relate, a meal to share. It behooves us — perhaps — to expect the unexpected, to listen to the most unlikely of witnesses, to see from the most opposite perspective from our own that we can find. Wisdom waits as our reward.

Happy Eastertide to each of you from all of us Sisters of Providence and all of our Providence Associates! May all of us find comfort and strength in the surprising new life of Jesus — our way, our truth and our very life!

Sister Denise Wilkinson
General Superior
Sisters of Providence

Theresa's story

Theresa Flores, human trafficking
survivor and victim's advocate, spoke at
the Sisters of Providence Women in
Leadership luncheon on March 7.

Each year the Sisters of Providence sponsor a Women in Leadership luncheon. We invite women in the Wabash Valley who work in profit and not-for-profit organizations. The event consists of a lovely meal and an inspirational speaker.

Last Wednesday, Theresa Flores was our speaker. She shared with us her story as a survivor of human trafficking. Ms. Flores’ story broke every stereotype I held of a trafficked girl/woman.

Theresa told of growing up in a devout Irish Catholic family. Her parents were active in their parish, loving toward their children. Their lifestyle was, in her words, “more than comfortable.” Her father worked for a corporation that moved him (therefore the family) every two years to another Midwestern city. It was this constant movement that made Theresa the “perfect victim” of a trafficker.

At 15 years of age, without a group of friends who had known her for long, with no extended family nearby, she was susceptible to the advances of a young man who paid a great deal of attention to her. Finally, he invited her to his home, drugged and raped her and took photos of the act. These photos kept her enslaved to this man. He would pick her up nightly to “service” (the expression used by those who traffick women) 10 to 15 men a night. He returned her to her home at 2 or 3 a.m.; she would sleep a couple of hours and then go to school. Her parents never knew any of this until Theresa finally had the opportunity and courage to escape.

Freed from this bondage, Theresa experienced “a call from God” to educate others to the realities of human trafficking within each of our US cities and towns and to work to liberate these modern day slaves of human greed.

A licensed social worker, she is the director of training and education at Gracehaven House as a refuge for adolescent girls freed from trafficking. She initiated SOAP – Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution. This organization places bars of soap in hotel and motel bathrooms. The soap wrapper lists a 24-hour free 1-800 number for a girl to call to be rescued by local police authorities and SOAP volunteers.

To read more about Theresa Flores or to engage her as a speaker, go to http://www.traffickfree.com/. She has written a compelling book – "The Slave Across the Street."

If you are like I was — unaware of how close in proximity I am to adolescent girls being victimized and abused — check out Theresa Flores and her story.

Movies that stay with you

After not going to the “real” movies in more than six months, I’ve been twice in the past six days – once to see “Iron Lady” and once to see “The Descendants.”

In spite of the many less than positive reviews I read, I found the portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” to be very sympathetic, empathic. Of course, Meryl Streep was utterly convincing as the former British Prime Minister in both her prime and current state of declining health.

Sister Denise Wilkinson ponders the
consequences of over-using a positive
characteristic to the exclusion of others
after seeing "Iron Lady."

Since seeing this film, I’ve been pondering the consequences of over-using a positive characteristic to the exclusion of others. Margaret Thatcher valued the ability to hold fast to her defining value – both politically and personally – and certainly realized great success doing so – both politically and personally.

But, when the time came to modify, to work with others, to conciliate, she defined all those stances as weakness, cowardliness. She held fast to her opinion and decisions to the detriment of her nation and herself.

The storyline of “The Descendants” is one of relationships; we Sisters of Providence would say of “right relationships.” Set against incredibly beautiful Hawaiian landscapes, a father and his young daughters cope with the dying of his wife, their mother. All sorts of other characters come into play – the teenage daughter’s boyfriend, the parents of the dying woman, the man with whom the dying woman had had an affair, that man’s wife and children – on and on it goes.

Added to the complexity is the relationship that the protagonist’s family has with a prime piece of Hawaiian land that has never been developed. Should the family who has held it in a trust for many years now sell it to be developed into luxury homes and businesses?

Feelings of love, betrayal, anger, confusion, grief, and forgiveness move so convincingly in the scenes of the film that it’s almost overwhelming. Again, plenty to think about …who hasn’t been or isn’t in a web of relationships that evoke a myriad of feelings, require a continual commitment to do the loving action, to forgive, to make the right choice if not the popular choice?

Maybe you’ve seen these films or others that have stayed with you and evoked questions or wonderings. Feel free to comment – it helps us all!

Our new postulant arrives!

Arrianne knocks to enter.

On Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2012, Arrianne Whittaker, a young woman from Waukesha, Wis., entered the postulancy of the Sisters of Providence.

Arrianne had thought about becoming a sister since her sophomore year of high school. Following her graduation from Marquette University, Arrianne ministered at St. Ann Clinic in Terre Haute, Ind. as a Providence Volunteer Minister. It was during her year living and ministering with the Sisters of Providence that her desire to discern the possibility of religious life became re-ignited.

Serving in the medical field in some capacity has been her passion since she was a young girl. When asked why she wishes to become a Sister of Providence, Arrianne said, “By living and ministering with this extraordinary community of women, I am blessed with a strong witness of life centered in faith, love and passion. In the same way, this choice challenges me to serve as a witness of these same values to others. I am inspired by the blessing, and humbled by the challenge.”

Sisters Jenny, Dawn and Denise with Arrianne.

As part of the simple postulant entrance ritual, Arrianne knocked on the east door of Providence Hall. She was invited in and welcomed by Sister Denise, the general superior, general officers, and members of the New Membership Team. This “practice” of welcoming and blessing formally begins her time of postulancy.

Please join with us in celebrating the gift of Arrianne’s presence with us.

'Thomas the Tank Engine' takeaways

Sister Denise watches Thomas with Jax.

I spent a little time over the Christmas holidays with my goddaughter’s 2-year-old son, Jax. As a consequence, I watched quite a bit of “Thomas the Tank Engine;” and I am now familiar with the various personalities and idiosyncrasies of Thomas and his engine friends.

Each vignette we watched had a point to make about important life issues — true friendship, asking for help when needed, keeping one’s promises, doing one’s assigned tasks. Each story made it clear that no one engine could work alone to accomplish the important work assigned to the little engines on the island of Sodor.

I have no idea of what Jax carries away from his multiple viewings of the Thomas CDs. But I’m thinking of Thomas, Percy, Toby, Elizabeth and the other engines as 2012 begins.

My hope for all of us who share the journey of Providence is that we, too, will feel confident and comfortable in relying on one another for the help we need — material, physical, emotional and spiritual.

I hope we will, like the little engines, take our life’s work, our vocations seriously and give all the energy we have to our personal and collective call from a loving God.

I hope that others — children and adults — will “watch” us as carefully and often and with as much pleasure as Jax watches the Thomas stories; and, from watching, others will see in us what on-lookers saw in the first followers of Jesus — love in action. “See how they love one another.”

I hope, like Thomas who feels responsible for and familiar with the whole of his home island of Sodor, that we will feel responsible for and familiar with the whole of our “island” — the whole of creation.

Have a wonderful 2012!