Month: January 2014

Just Standing on the Crest of the Hill

On By MaryIn Cloister of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene, happiness, mysticism, solitudeLeave a comment

On a lovely day in a merry month, several of the Sisters of Mary Magdalene were out walking in the woods surrounding the cloister. As they perused the plants along the path, one of them looked up and noticed Mother Magdalene standing on the rise of the hill just ahead of them. Sister Beatrix turned to the other sisters and asked, “Why do you think Mother Magdalene is standing up there on the top of that hill?”

Sister Septimus said, “She must be up there because it is cooler and she is enjoying the breeze.”

Sister Beatrix looked to Sister Bryda and asked her, “Why do you think Mother Magdalene is up there on the top of the hill?” And Sister           replied, “That hill is the highest point on the cloister grounds, she must be looking to see what can be seen off to the distance.”

Sister Beatrix then asked Sister Visentia who said, “It has been a long and trying year for Mother Magdalene, for us all certainly, but particularly for Mother Magdalene. I believe she is standing there re-collecting the events of the year, perhaps thinking of Sister Ludwika who died in Hurricane Sandy.”

After some time of walking, the good Sisters achieved the rise of the hill and came up to Mother Magdalene. She was still standing there. They asked her to say which one was correct concerning her reason for standing where she was.

Mother Magdalene asked them, “What reasons do you have for my standing her?”

“We have three,” they replied. “First, you are here because it is a bit cooler and to enjoy the breeze; second since the hill is the highest point within the cloister, you are searching out the distance to see what can be seen; third because the year has been a trying one, you are here to re-collect the year and to remember Sister Ludwika. We do not mean to intrude on your practice and your thoughts, but since we found you here, we are hoping you will share your intentions with us.”

Mother Magdalene smiled at the sisters and said, “Dear ones, I was just standing, standing in the presence, in the presents of all that is. That is enough. I am; we are. That is enough. That is everything.”

Do you have a banana in your ear?

On By MaryIn change, Choices we make, laughter, stories for social changeLeave a comment

There is a saying: don’t try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it irritates the pig. Which I think is supposed to mean don’t try to make people happy (or different in most any other way, you will only get in trouble).

There was a social worker who went into a bar, she sits down and sees this woman with a banana in her ear – a banana in her ear of all things! So, the social worker wonders if she should mention it to her. She thinks to herself, I’m off work, it really is none of my business. But the thought nags at her. So, after a couple of glasses of wine, she says to the woman, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to intrude, but, I can’t help but notice you’ve got a banana in your ear.”

The woman responds, “what?”

And the social worker repeats, “You’ve got a banana in your ear.”

And again the woman responds, “what did you say?”

The social worker shouts, “You’ve got a banana in your ear!”

And the woman replies, “Talk louder, I’ve got a banana in my ear.”

And sometimes our efforts to build a world of social justice and human rights feel a whole lot like that conversation.  So, remember the injunction to remember that nothing human is alien to any of us. Well, applied here, that seems to me to suggest that we all may very well have a banana in our ears. So, before we take the splinter from our neighbor’s eye, maybe we should take the banana from our own ear. Maybe we need to pause and truly listen, to hear the needs of our neighbors in their own terms before we ‘fix’ their world?

A Different Kind of Resolution from the Women Change Worlds blog of the Wellesley Centers for Women

On By MaryIn change, social justiceLeave a comment

The Women Change Worlds blog of the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) encourages WCW scholars and colleagues to respond to current news and events; disseminate research findings, expertise, and commentary; and both pose and answer questions about issues that put women’s perspectives and concerns at the center of the discussion.

> WOMEN CHANGE WORLDS HOMEPAGE <

 

A Different Kind of Resolution

 

 Posted by Layli Maparyan on Monday, 06 January 2014 in Women Change Worlds

 

 A Different Kind of Resolution

 

This time of year, many people are thinking about their New Year’s resolutions. More often than not, these resolutions revolve around things we’d like to change in ourselves or our lives. But what about the things we’d like to change about our world–the things that are bigger than ourselves and our own individual lives? This year, I’m advocating for a different kind of resolution–a resolution to connect ourselves to “the change we’d like to see in the world” through direct action in areas we have the power to influence. I’m convinced that, if enough of us did this, we would turbo-charge not only efforts towards social justice but also human well-being on a vast scale. Are you ready to see where you can plug in??

 

Those of us who work at social change organizations, like us here at the Wellesley Centers for Women, perhaps have it easiest because our very livelihood depends on doing work that makes a difference in the world. Yet, even those of us who work in this arena need to recommit periodically–to our ideals and principles, to our social change goals, to the targets for change that we have set and to which we hold ourselves accountable. At WCW, we are using a strategic planning process to help us do this, which requires us both organizationally and individually to look at our work–which includes research, theory, and action programs–and its social change impact. Even those of us who have chosen social justice or human wellbeing as our lifework must periodically review, refresh, and reinvigorate.

 

Just because we don’t all work for social change organizations, however, doesn’t mean there aren’t major ways we can make each a difference. What do you care about? What change would you like to see in the world? As great and necessary as organizations are in the social change equation, they are not the end-all and be-all. Individuals and small groups, even when they are working for change outside formal organizations, can make a monumental difference in outcomes for many through partnering, advocacy, endorsement, and financial support. As Margaret Mead once famously quipped, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

 

Yet, the “power of one” is something to be reckoned with, too. We can look to history for inspiration. I would tell my students, for example, about an African-American “house slave” named Milla Granson who held a “midnight school” in her cabin each night to teach 12 fellow slaves how to read; once they learned, she took in 12 more–and did so for decades, until scores “forged their passes to freedom.” Can we imagine this kind of educational activism today? Just last week, I learned the story of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who, during the Holocaust, without orders, wrote and distributed transit visas, sometimes working in collaboration with his wife for 18 hours per day, even overnight, to produce them. Today, scholars estimated that he saved about 6,000 Jews and that anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 people are alive today because of the action he took. Both Milla Granson’s and Chiune Sugihara’s actions show us that there’s always something we can do, right from where we happen to be standing. So what are we waiting for?

 

All of us have some kind of expertise, passion, or resources that we can contribute to increasing social justice and human well-being in the world. It just takes a different kind of resolution. What will you resolve to do in 2014??

 

Layli Maparyan, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Wellesley Centers for Women and Professor of Africana Studies at Wellesley College.

 

Cathy Heying and the Lift Garage

On By MaryIn Choices we make, generosity, social justiceLeave a comment

Social workers are a hard working lot, often working long hours for little pay, with their hearts proudly and humbly worn on their sleeves. Social workers encounter more than their fair share of impossible situations, often impossible situations that are miles outside the range of their agency, (both personal skill range and institutional scope of mandate). It can be enough to leave you feeling helpless and hopeless. And for some it is. But not for Cathy Heying!

Cathy Heying is a social worker in Minnesota. Minnesota, the land of Lake Woebegon where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. Cathy Heying is both strong and above average for sure. While she worked as a member of the pastoral staff at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church she noticed that many of those who passed through her office were financially struggling because they had lost their jobs. And being a keen observer of the interconnectedness of life events she noticed that many of those folks lost their jobs because their cars broke down and so they were unable to get to work on time. Single mom’s had it particularly bad because they had work schedules, childcare schedules and bus schedules to coordinate. Car repairs were simply out of the question, there was no money in the budget for such luxuries. But no car repairs meant no car, which came to mean a collapse of schedule coordination, a loss of job and a near complete deterioration of the budget, and too often homelessness for the family. Far too often a family’s war on poverty was lost for the lack of a bolt!

Some social workers would have seen this as overwhelming. Some social workers would have seen this as a system failure in the community’s public transportation system and would have launched into a campaign for better bus schedules. Some social workers would have seen this as a lack of compassion on the part of employers, and would have advocated with particular employers for individual clients. And maybe Cathy tried those things too. But, what we know Cathy did was that she recognized the need for client access to affordable car repairs. So, Cathy took the bull by the horns, enrolled herself in the Dunwoody Institute, as one of a few women amidst the 18-year-old young men, and she earned her auto technology degree.

Cathy Heying didn’t just stop there. Working with others, she has created The Lift Garage which has state non-profit status, so that it can now operates as an independent 501-c3. Currently the garage is open on Saturdays to individuals and families who have been referred by a social worker or who demonstrate financial need. Services offered range from basic maintenance, such as belts and batteries, to full service repairs such as suspension and steering. The Lift charges a flat fee of $15/hour plus parts, for anyone who has recently taken a car to a garage, you know this is way below market price.

After I heard Cathy’s story, my first reaction was, “this is GREAT!!” And then I thought, well, but what does this change? And then I remembered the story of the starfish thrower, and then I remembered the community building practice of ‘each one reach one’ from the civil rights movement. And I thought, well, this is something. And that’s a good thing.

So, go check it out at http://theliftgarage.org/. It is a struggling new venture; maybe you have a few dollars to send their way? http://theliftgarage.org