Dear Sisters,
Summer is here as we go to press, a time for new beginnings. First, we want to congratulate Charlotte Caron, a long time member of the Saskatchewan Christian Feminist Network, as she retires from her life of service to the United Church. Charlotte graciously shared with us a copy of her retirement speech, which we have included in our Close to Home section. We also have these words from Charlotte: "Wakening each morning, I continue to know I still have a vocation in life despite leaving employment. I have always had a calling to seek justice and to work for well-being in the world, especially for the well-being of women. This call does not lessen, although I pray that someday the needs will fade...I continue to do contract work, teaching in the Lay Pastoral Ministers in Training program, and offering various retreats and workshops in congregations, as well as doing volunteer work at the Centre for Christian Studies. My vocation as a justice-seeker, writer and educator continues. Retirement simply means continuing to seek to be the person I am created to be and to give thanks to God for life and all it holds."
Second, we'd like to highlight the article "Spirit of Iraqi Women" from the Spring 2006 issue of Herizons, which we have included in our section on Women's Lives. Meredith traveled to Malaysia this June to speak at a conference on English language teaching, and there she met a woman from Iraq, who spoke with her over breakfast about the fighting and killing in central and southern Iraq. Although she did not condemn American troops for their presence in Iraq or hold them entirely responsible for the present fighting, she wept as she described the way American soldiers were killing women and children in their homes, as well as soldiers on the streets that are the Iraqi battlefields. Meredith (a former American) wept to think that these were young American men and boys who were murdering these people. Stanley Hauerwas, who spoke at last September's Luther Lecture on the theology of war, said then that giving up one's reluctance to kill another person is one of the most terrible losses in war. Now there will be another generation of Americans who will live out their lives having killed other people.
Third, we'd also like to share with you three books that have inspired and entertained us. May they enrich your summer reading lists. Jayne recommends Refuse to Choose! A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love by Barbara Sher. The author reassures people who are curious about everything and flitting from passion to passion in their projects that the problem is that society expects us to stick with something while our nature encourages us to seek new and satisfying stimulus. It's not a problem to be a 'scanner' and Barbara Sher provides re-enforcement and advice to maximize (and market) our desire to learn, explore and seek new experience. Brenda recommends Strong for Potatoes, a novel by Cynthia Thayer (1998, NY: St. Martin's Griffin). This is the story of a young woman's learning the ways nature can illuminate her particular life as she comes to terms with her disability from an accident, her sexual orientation, and her mixed race. And Meredith recommends Never Let Me Go, a sad and beautiful novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, a sensitive portrait of a world in which people who have been cloned live their brief lives in order to donate their organs to others. It's a love story!
Wishing you enjoyable reading and a happy summer,
Jayne, Brenda and Meredith
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