Lydia Noyes is a 2015 graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with degrees in environmental studies and international development. In August, she and her husband, Ian, moved to the Big Laurel Learning Center in Kermit, West Virginia, and have committed to at least a year of service through the Notre Dame Mission Volunteer Americorps program. There, they split their time by aiding in the local schools and helping to manage Big Laurel with Sr. Kathy O'Hagan and Sr. Gretchen Shaffer.
Sharon Zavala is a Humility of Mary volunteer in Immokalee, Florida. She works at the Guadalupe After-school Program, tutoring immigrant children who live in low-income households, and at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, where she helps educate consumers on the issue of farm labor exploitation. Originally from Chicago, Illinois, she holds a bachelor's degree in both environmental studies and Spanish language from Allegheny College, where she was involved with the Latino organization on campus as secretary and was an active member of Students for Environmental Action.
by GSR Staff
October 21, 2015
“Much of our world now is a fabrication, a fiction, a manufactured and manipulated time-lapsed piece of film making where a rose no longer unfolds, but bursts. Speed is the buzz, the blur, the drug. Life out of focus becomes a way of seeing.”
October 21, 2015
From A Nun's Life podcasts - How do you respond to a communal prayer with which you do not agree?
by Caroljean Willie
Contributor
October 21, 2015
Long before the publication of Laudato Sí and Pope Francis’ call for an "ecological conversion," Catholic women’s communities had already recognized that their “communities have an important role to play in ecological education” and have “strived to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society, and our relationship with nature.” These initiatives have taken many and diverse forms, including establishing environmental centers. I am currently participating in a sabbatical program at one: An Tairseach Dominican Ecology Center, in Wicklow, Ireland.
by GSR Staff
October 20, 2015
"Contemplation invites you to surrender the words that interpret our faith, our experience of God. It is a wordless prayer. It is a form of non-discursive meditation."
October 20, 2015
GSR Today - I like to think I’ve got a handle on what people are talking about on Twitter. I mean, I’m not one of those social media types who has multiple devices in order to keep obsessive tabs on everyone and everything — but at the very least, know what is trending on the site and why. Last week, however, I all but missed an interesting meme that was making the Twitter rounds thanks to Elle UK.
by Margaret Galiardi
Contributor
October 19, 2015
Author and activist Terry Tempest Williams has written, “Much of our world now is a fabrication, a fiction, a manufactured and manipulated time-lapsed piece of film making where a rose no longer unfolds, but bursts. Speed is the buzz, the blur, the drug. Life out of focus becomes a way of seeing.” Her solution: “Go underground like a seed so that something new may come forth.” Twelve women ranging in age from 52 to 83, myself included and in the 60s cohort of the group, decided to take Williams up on her challenge.
This story appears in the Synod on the Family feature series. View the full series.
by Joshua J. McElwee
October 19, 2015
NCR Preview - The discussions at the ongoing Synod of Bishops have shown a clear difference in mindsets between the prelates considering issues of family life and ordinary Catholics looking to the gathering in hopes for changes in church pastoral practice, one of the non-voting participants in the event has said. U.S. Sacred Heart of Mary Sr. Maureen Kelleher said there is a clear cultural divide between bishops' and laypersons' points of view.
by GSR Staff
October 19, 2015
"Those who go before us light our way. We remember them with each step we take."