Cecilia A. Ranger

I have been thinking, reading, listening to YouTube talks and searching for connections and understandings: intergenerational, intercultural, interracial — the range of diversity in our nation and world.

All of us need "grief time," "breathing time" or "retreat time" after this bucketful of losses because each loss affects us physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. 

This is a world crying out for the wisdom and values that need to be the legacy we women and men religious, as well as aging continuing care residents, leave to that world.

There are numerous instances in the Christian Bible of Jesus engaged in sharing food with friends, apostles, disciples and followers. And each of Jesus' food experiences had to do with people and with service.

Religious life, living in community, can provide a model for how all of us can strive to look outside of ourselves, stop being individualistic, either-or people and reconnect with others. It takes true listening.

In the U.S., the extroverts get the attention, but perhaps there are bigger issues underlying the question of unheard voices in church and workplace and culture.

I have heard remarks about sisters' "easy" lives: job and retirement security, just having to pray, free summers and vacations, no responsibilities for children or finances. Here's a reality check.

Could it be that God's time is now, that "our time is now"? Is it God's time and our new time to effect both public and personal restorations in civic, church and educational organizations, all pledged to serve the common good and make Mother Earth a more beautiful, safe and humane place to live?

In my 30s, I was ready to encourage women to refuse to serve the institutional church in any way. But I have learned to keep on in the church I both love and sometimes feel very angry at.