It gives us great pleasure to welcome Marie Lucey, OSF, to the National Office of LCWR where she will assume the position of Associate Director for Social Mission. Marie has just completed a sabbatical program at St. Stephen’s Priory in Dover, NH.
Marie has been in leadership in her congregation twice: she served as a council member from 1978-86, and most recently from 1996-2002 as Congregational Minister. She has served as her congregation’s Coordinator of Justice and Peace as well as its Director of Corporate Social Responsibility. While in these positions she initiated several congregational and intercongregational efforts related to justice issues including the Intercommunity Coalition for Justice and Peace of Philadelphia.
While in leadership, Marie and her council began several justice and ecological initiatives including:
o Preserving 295 acres of congregational property as green space
o Starting Red Hill Farm, a Community Supported Agricultural project (CSA)
o Promoting congregation-wide ecological awareness
o Taking a corporate stance against the death penalty
o Working for the closing of the School of the Americas
Marie has served on several boards including:
o Neumann College Board of Directors
o Franciscan Health System (created under her leadership)
o Interfaith Coalition for Corporate Responsibility
o The Delaware Valley Community Development Corporation
Before being elected as Congregational Minister, Marie was the employment coordinator at Project HOME, a Philadelphia organization founded to serve mentally ill and/or addicted homeless people.
Marie has national experience in LCWR and was an active member of Region 3 for six years. Marie will begin in the office in the latter part of July. She will be at the Assembly in Detroit. Once Marie is here, her e-mail address will be mlucey@lcwr.org.
As you can see, we are blessed to have Marie with us at LCWR. She comes with a treasure of experience, a generous spirit, and a very Franciscan heart.
Welcome to LCWR, Marie!
Transitions
In addition to welcoming our two new directors, Annmarie Sanders, IHM and Marie Lucey, OSF, we are also saying some good-byes, and other hellos.
Jackie Kelly, our wonderful business manager is moving to Gloucester, Massachusetts where her husband has begun a new job. We will miss Jackie very much, as well as her three children Patrice, Christian, and Shannon. The youngsters have visited us regularly this year - during the sniper scare, in the aftermath of the winter snowstorms, and in general when they were trying to find chocolate in our offices. We will miss Jackie and her whole clan!
However, we are happy to welcome our new business manager, Ines Moldiz, a mother of two children, Diego and Rebecca, and a native of Bolivia. We are happy to have Ines with us, and we say “Bienvenido, Ines.”
We also said good-bye to Rebecca Burke, OSF, who temporarily filled the void of the Social Mission Office and worked on the collaborative project of the Sponsored Funds for Ministry. We will miss her lovely presence.
Mary Bastian, our receptionist at the Cameron Street offices has decided to look for work closer to her own home that will increase the time she is able to spend with her young son and her family. We will miss Mary’s gentle presence at the front desk.
Our new receptionist, Kathy Day, is a native of Washington, DC, now residing in Hyattsville, MD. She has two daughters and 4 grandchildren. Kathy will be joining us the week of June 9th. We look forward to her arrival.
NACPA National Convocation
The 2003 NACPA National Convocation will be held in Mesa, Arizona, from October 26 - 29. The theme this year is Rising to the Challenge: Valleys, Mountains and New Realities. Poet, David Whyte, who was hailed for his presentation at the 2002 LCWR Assembly, will be a plenary speaker on work as a pilgrimage of identity, focusing on “the particular combination of presence and courageous vulnerability necessary to be truly engaged in our work.” Some of the other presentations that may be of interest to LCWR members include: The Biblical Roots of Justice and Right Relationship in the Church Workplace (Sarah Sharkey, OP), Taking Care of the Person You See in the Mirror (Anne Bryan Smollin, CSJ), Legal Tips for Church Administrators (Mary Angela Shaughnessy, SCN), Restucturing Your Congregation (Jeanne Schweickert, SSSF), Forging the Trail with Our Elders and Staff (Marie Micheletto, RSM), Leaders: “Our Hats, They Have Three Corners” (Ann Carville, OSF), Peaks and Valleys of International Team Building (Judy Vallimont, SSps).
In addition, a pre-convocation seminar that new motherhouse administrators or those with new responsibility for congregational personnel matters will be offered.
Please contact NACPA at 513-421-3134 or at nacpa@nacpa.org for a convocation brochure and registration materials.
New staff member e-mail addresses:
Kathy Day - kday@lcwr.org
Marie Lucey, OSF - mlucey@lcwr.org
Ines Moldiz - imoldiz@lcwr.org
Annmarie Sanders, IHM - asanders@lcwr.org
From the Executive Director’s Desk…
“This is so CIVILIZED!” I gushed to my concert companion a couple of weeks ago. We were at the Myerhoff, The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s home enjoying an evening of music by Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. Sitting in the hall with the lush music of these two great American composers washing over us, I realized how powerful the human imagination can be, and how necessary it is to continually immerse ourselves in the great stream of creativity that we call “the arts.” Without attending to our own need for the beautiful, the imaginative, our own imaginations can shrivel up and die.
The ability of our imaginations to transcend our limited experience and to enter into the world of another was apparent to me in two of the program selections. The first was Duke Ellington’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. (Think “Sugar Plum Fairy” in smooth, cool jazz.) It amazed me that the same composer who wrote, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” could also playfully and respectfully transform classical Russian ballet music into something so familiar and yet, so totally refreshing. The Gershwin component of the program featured the music from Porgy and Bess. A marvelous contralto sang “Summertime” in such an achingly lovely way that it was hard not to weep. Again, the creative genius and imagination of the composer was so evident. Gershwin, a young Jewish man, born and raised in Brooklyn, had somehow been able to hear music that rose up from the very dust of Catfish Row in South Carolina.
Imagination seems to be a human trait that – if exercised – lifts us into worlds we may never walk, skins we may never wear, and solutions we may never find if we just try (harder and harder and harder) to “figure it out.” And imagination needs to be nurtured – to be fed and watered just like that African Violet on your bookshelf. We need art and beauty and creative experience as much as we need air and water. Unfortunately, our pragmatic, overly efficient culture tends to put more emphasis on nose-to-the-grindstone approaches to planning and problem solving than it does on spending time, energy, and money feeding our imaginations. Even our own lifestyle seems to have misplaced that part of ourselves that once valued taking weeks to design a single, elegant letter in the local scriptorium.
Perhaps all the “crises” that plague us today – those “d” words (diminishment, decline, death…) are, at root, crises of imagination. Perhaps we haven’t been feeding and watering our imaginations as we ought to. But, what if…
o Instead of laboring intensely at a council meeting table, your group took off for the local museum, spent a couple of hours with Van Gogh and Matisse, and then met for coffee afterwards to sort out those knotty problems?
o At a council meeting, each person was asked to bring a character from literature to join the group at the table? Then when things got stuck, suppose the characters spoke and the council just listened?
o Ballets and concerts and plays were NOT things you attended only when you had “earned them” (by working 60 hour weeks) but were regular and frequent experiences - as necessary to you as meals and sleep?
o Along with your VISA card and driver’s license, your wallet held a well-worn membership card to the local botanical garden?
Oh, I know – it’s all whacky and impractical. Who could afford the time? The cost? But you know what? Duke Ellington and George Gershwin are smiling just thinking about the possibility of us cutting loose and trying it.
Carole Shinnick, SSND
For Your Information
Upcoming LRCR Events: August 20, 2003 - the Legal Resource Center for Religious is offering a special Pre-LCWR Assembly workshop entitled: Sexual Abuse-the Continuing Response. More details and registration form at www.lrcr.org. LRCR congratulates Donna Zwigart, OSF, winner of a free registration to the 2004 Legal Seminar in Denver, CO. Sister Donna’s evaluation sheet was randomly selected at a drawing held May 30, 2003, at the LRCR offices. Many thanks to those who submitted completed evaluations sheets; those signed were eligible for the drawing. Tapes and CD’s of the 2003 Legal Seminar available from GEM Tape: 806-797-9608.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the next Legal Seminar, Denver, CO, March 11-14, 2004.
Upcoming RFC Events: Movement In Hope: Conversations On A Theology Of Religious Life - Religious Formation Congress 2003 and Jubilee 1954-2004 Sheraton Westport Plaza Chalet, St. Louis, MO, November 6-9, 2003, with special presentations by Mary Maher, SSND, and Gary Riebe-Estrella, SVD, and theologians from diverse cultural and consecrated lifeform backgrounds. The annual Orientation for New Formation Directors program is scheduled to precede the Congress, Nov. 4-6, at the Sheraton Westport. For more information contact the Religious Formation Conference, 301-588-4938, relforcon@relforcon.org.