Green Mountain Monastery, Photo Essay 1, The Monastery

Page 3 - Our Work

Here we are with Thomas Berry discussing his new book: Evening Thoughts:Reflecting on Earth as Sacred Community.
We were reflecting on a part of his chapter entitled: Lonliness and Presence that has to do with our relationship to animals.

Thomas said, "Our relation with animals finds its expression especially in the amazing variety of benefits they provide for us....they provide an emotional intimacy that is unique, that can come to us from no other source. Animals can do for us both physically and spiritually, what we cannot do for ourselves or for each other. The difficulty in our relation with animals comes from the sense of use as our primary relationship with the world about us."

Here I am (Sr Gail) giving a presentation entitled: The Human Community Enters its Planetary Phase, at a Passionist retreat house in Ilkley, England. We were talking about the incredible challenges before us and the need to understand ourselves as part of a single sacred community of life.

Here I am (Sr. Bernadette) outside the United Nations in NYC. I came here on a pilgrimage of thanksgiving for the work of Secretary General Kofi Annan and to celebrate and welcome the new Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. The twisted gun behind me gives voice to so many of us on the planet today in our heart cry for NO MORE WAR in Iraq or anywhere else!

Here we are sprinkling Natha with water from our brook, made holy from the long journey it has made through billions of years on the planet, we christened this little one, our child, our beloved, our grandson, every child of every species of the future in a baptism of love.

This past summer we hosted a retreat here at the monastery for our Franciscan sisters from China and Taiwan. They brought with them a beautiful spirit of Asian mindfulness and prayerful presence which filled the space with quiet awareness

These girls from a local Quaker camp spent several days with us last summer camping on the land and sharing in our life and vision. They gifted us with the joy of their youth and freedom of spirits!

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