Fall Gathering 2023: Wonderful Music, Wise Words, Beautiful Moments

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By Clara Sims
Assistant Executive Director, IPL New Mexico & El Paso

This year’s Annual Gathering celebration, held at Monte Vista Christian Church in Albuquerque on October 19, was filled with wonderful music, wise words, and beautiful moments of honoring our Sprout and Seed awardees.

Bishop Hunn, Ryan Tate, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Clara Sims

Our panel discussion offered profound insight for pathways to healing sacred relationships in our world and we are grateful the event was recorded so folks can go back and revisit what was shared. Especially prominent in that conversation was the theme of ancestry – the pain, the beauty, the possibilities that can awaken in us as we become present to our ancestors’ living presence in us, in the land, in everything. I hope if you did not have the opportunity to attend that you will go back and listen to this rich conversation – it was a balm and an inspiration. Thank you Ryan, Eilleen, and Bishop Hunn!

Interwoven throughout our time together, was stunning music offered by David Poole.

Thank you, David, for offering and teaching us songs of peace and healing and hope for our beloved people and our beloved planet. May we all continue to find such needed, embodied ways to pray for healing and peace.

Thank You!

To our Sprout and Seed awardees – we thank you again for your incredible spirits of love and dedication to our sacred earth home. The words you offered in receiving these awards were full of such tenderness and wisdom and they were a beautiful reminder of all we learn about ourselves and one another when we pause to give thanks.

Here again, were our awardees this year:

  • SPROUT: Judy Smith, Congregation Albert Green Team and NM IPL Board Member
  • SPROUT: Sr. Odile Coirier, El Paso Organizer with NM & EL Paso Region IPL
  • SPROUT: Norm Gaume, Middle Rio Grande Advocates
  • SPROUT: Caryl McHarney, educator and eco-artist
  • SEED: Little Sisters of the Poor with Villa Guadalupe Care Facility

Continuing in a spirit of thanksgiving, we want to give a special shout out to our Annual Gathering Planning team: Hayley, Cynthia, Ruth, Terry, Emma, Arcelia and Joan! From the delicious, locally sourced food to the delightful offerings of the evening, to the photography and video duties, you made it possible. Thank you!

We ended the event with a reflection from  Clara Sims, IPL NM/EP assistant executive director. Here is the closing blessing

(Video) Earth and Spirit Quarterly Reflection: Doctrine of Discovery

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Our Solstice Seasonal Sharing began with brief overview reflections from Joan Brown, osf, Executive Director of NM & El Paso Interfaith Power and Light around De-colonization and Eco-Spirituality. She offer edsome thoughts on the recent Vatican statement on the Doctrine of Discovery, reflections from some contemporary theologians and ideas to reflect upon as we seek to heal past racial, cultural and spiritual wrongs. Participants were able to comment and share ideas, and resources to pursue.

The last quarter of the hour gathering allowed for time to overview the current work of IPL and how you might get engaged or invite others into this sacred work.

The 2023 Interfaith Power and Light National Conference was wonderful and packed!

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(Clara Sims and Sister Joan Brown, osf, represented Interfaith Power & Light New Mexico and El Paso at national IPL’s annual conference and lobby day in Washington, D.C., earlier this month)

By Clara Sims

Our first full day of programming focused on the conference theme of “Climate Solutions Through Truth, Justice and Reconciliation,” with a Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Training. This training was led by the wonderful leaders of the Spark Mill and Innerwork Center. We spent time sharing our personal experiences and learning together about the many intersecting identities and concerns of IPL and different state affiliates who hold both shared and distinct concerns about pathways to greater racial equity and justice.

In representing New Mexico, we lifted up the need to continue to work closely with our indigenous siblings and partners especially, and we must continue to center how the impacts of colonial legacies and worldviews remain so present in the extractivism and dumping our communities experience as “sacrifice zones.” As a minority majority state we know NM IPL holds unique work in racial justice and reconciliation, and we wholeheartedly affirm the need to move into ever deeper work at state and national levels to reckon with the many ways racial injustice and climate vulnerability powerfully overlap and reinforce one another.

Our day ended with the extraordinary keynote speaker, Jacqui Patterson – Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Leadership. Jacqui shared so much wisdom, grit, and inspiration with us – lifting up the voices of many prophetic artists, musicians, and poets in her remarks. The opening poem Jacqui shared, “Hope Isn’t A Vacant Lot,” is worth spending time with especially…

Lobby Day

The next day we got to prep for our lobby days at the Capital with panels on target legislation as well as “best practice tips” from veteran advocates, including our very own Sr. Joan Brown.  Joan acted in a role play about visiting with legislative representatives, displaying *excellent* acting skills in her role. No surprise, when it comes to getting the non-committal staff member of a moderate Iowan congressman to listen to the climate concerns of small family farmers, you know which Kansas-born Sister to call!

Our legislative focus this year at the national IPL level centered on the Farm Bill, Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA), and Permitting Reform. For the first time ever the Farm Bill, which is updated every five years, has the potential to include comprehensive climate-conscious  legislation. We are thrilled to report that our New Mexico congressional representatives are championing this legislation and others and were so engaged in our raising of concerns for New Mexico communities, especially for those in southeast and Permian Basin where much more accountability is needed for methane pollution and set-backs from oil and gas wells and so much more. Above all, we offered gratitude to our congresspeople for all their hard work and service and persistence. They recognize how much we are also offering dedication and persistence in our service to New Mexico communities.

The challenges are many and multiplying but there is also such hope in our working together and dreaming of what can still grow in goodness for all.

Joan and I are both grateful to be returning home to keep persisting with you, and, as a parting thought – these words from Rasheena Fountain:

 

“Home is where footprints survive and all life thrives

In my dream, Chicago blues join the songbirds in melodies of hope,
a vision I imagine as skyscraper promises to you, the skies

I wish in new heights, in treetop rebellions the oaks and maples offer
to the children, from our ancestors, for the continuation of breaths
I love beyond white picket fences into avenue streets
I reenvision vacant lots as forests—spaces where we can plant new seed

Home is where footprints survive and all life thrives”