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December 11, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – Journey has often been used as a metaphor for travel through life and time as well as through geographic space. In their December 2, 2020 presentation, “Journey to Bethlehem,” Sisters Janice Brown, OP, and Nancyann Turner, OP, compare the journey that Joseph and Mary made from Nazareth to Bethlehem with the journey that people of faith are making this year through Advent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their presentation – part of a series of monthly spirituality presentations by members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Spirituality Committee – was live streamed and recorded.
“We take the journey down the road to Bethlehem every year when we tell the story of the birth [of Jesus],” Sister Nancyann said. She noted the difficulty of the journey – especially for a young woman who was about to give birth – involving roads that curved back, hills and mountains, and hazards such as the rough terrain, wild animals, and bandits.
“We, too, are on a long journey,” Sister Nancyann said. “2020 took us on a journey we’d never foreseen. We had to be more separate and yet grow closer – and we had to learn and relearn that love does cast out fear.”
Sister Janice pointed to the unusual challenges of 2020: from the inability for many people of faith to attend worship services together to the loss of activities that feed the soul, such as visiting museums. “What we know is that Christ is with us in the people, the world that surrounds us,” Sister Janice said. She encouraged her audience to “find ways to heal the divisions of this country, to listen, to be kind, even to those who are very hard to be kind to.” The challenge, she said, is to build the beloved community often referred to by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Both Sisters offered the audience opportunities to pause and reflect on their own journeys to Bethlehem, through Advent, and through the pandemic.
Watch the entire video below.
December 1, 2020, Adrian, Michigan – During the seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Western culture often focuses on the joy of homecoming – gathering with family and friends to celebrate the holidays together.
But during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many are sheltering in place in their homes, Associate Nancy Mason-Bordley and Sister Mary Ann Dixon, OP, spoke of another homecoming – coming home to ourselves. Their November 19, 2020, Spirituality presentation, “Homecoming,” was part of a monthly series of presentations offered by members of the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Spirituality Committee. Nancy is a member.
“There’s no place like home,” Nancy said, quoting Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “Yet, nine months into the pandemic, homesickness has a different meaning,” since many of people are sheltering at home the majority of the time.
Nancy spoke of the fortune of many people who are sheltering “in the place of our greatest safety and comfort,” while others are suffering through the pandemic with no place to call home, as migrants searching for a new home, or as people for whom home is not safe or comfortable because of situations such as domestic violence.
Nancy also spoke of the change of heart that could result from people’s quiet time alone. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to come out of this with a new outlook – more tolerance, better understanding, patience, compassion, a greater appreciation for the itinerant life?”
Sister Mary Ann focused on the benefits of the enforced sheltering at home: a time when people can slow down and truly tap into their inner lives. “The COVID experience has been like an unrelenting tutor or field trip,” she said. “This is a time and space to be present to ourselves. The opportunity for much more solitude has invited us to be better acquainted with our inner self.”
Nancy suggested writing down the ways that the experience of being homebound during the pandemic “has called for responses from you, and how that’s made you more resilient.”
Watch the entire presentation below.