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| Crucifixion by our dear friend J Kirk Richards |
Dave and I have been with our daughter, Kate, at her beautiful peaceful home near the banks of the Niagara River just before it empties into Lake Ontario. We come each year in the spring for what we call our annual rock harvest. It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to cleaning up her large upstate New York yard after it has churned up rocks through the winter. In actuality this time Dave has installed two new outlets in her house and garage and a utility sink in her basement. That Dave, he’s such a solid worker-man. Plus, he hums while he works and that makes me happy. Kate and I cleaned her garage and worked on various other little tasks. It’s just so good to be in her home where her spirit vibrates at a lovely comforting frequency.
Each time we drive into Niagara, or into Canada, we pass by a quaint campus on the corner of River Road and Pletcher Road. Stella Niagara, the home of the Sisters of Saint Francis of Penance and Christian Charity. Attached to it is a Montessori School. It’s a quiet, tidy place nestled under some protective old trees facing the wide Niagara River. If you had an especially good throwing arm you could throw a rock over into Canada from Kate’s home, or the nunnery up the road. Or, if the wind is right, it would be easier to blow kisses into Canada.
We pass by Stella Niagara every day. It was only yesterday, when we drove to Niagara to do some shopping, that I paid attention to the sign on the corner.
Stella Niagara
Sisters of St Francis
Established 1908
PEACE SITE
Following in the tradition of St Francis, the Stella Niagara community is dedicated to caring for the environment and fostering peace in the world. It became and official Peace Site in 1989. A brief search of what makes a place take on the moniker of “Peace Site” revealed the following:
An International Peace Site can be an organization, school, home, or community that makes the decision to live out the following Five Peace Actions.
- SEEK peace within yourself and others
- REACH OUT in service
- PROTECT the environment
- RESPECT diversity
- BE a responsible citizen of the world
We came home from our shopping excursion and began talking about the unpeaceful conditions in the Gaza Strip, in a land called Holy. We decided to study a bit of history, which is remarkably easy to do in this day and age when information is at our fingertips. We watched newsreels and read reports and our hearts throbbed under our rising chests. We repeat prayers that rotate in our heads, wondering what we can do from this faraway place with our lack of authority. No Friday there is good. Imagine the cries that have echoed across those ancient hills for centuries of time, all the way back to when three crosses stood on a hill not far away. Isn’t it ironic that the most brutal wars call themselves “Holy?”
It would be a noble aim to make our homes, our churches, our neighborhoods and schools places where people unite with a commitment to peace. I can make my home a Peace Site. It’s a place to start. It’s a safe place for our anxious hearts.
Today ends our forty+ days of Lent, a preparation for the most sacred of holy days in the history of Christiandom. Tomorrow we rejoice in renewal.
A blessed new year to all, founded on the principles we cherish most as we take His name upon us.
Onward, Christian soldiers.
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| "Christus" J Kirk Richards |
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