Fall Gathering: Closing Blessing

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As we go forth into this threshold time of seasons changing and looking ahead to the turning of the year, we offer to you a closing blessing from Clara Sims,  IPL NM/EP assistant executive director.

Photo by Caryl McHarney, Sprout award recipient

Great and moving mystery who gathers us together –

Bless us as we go to be people whose commitment to renewal shines as radiant as the sun.

Bless us to be people who listen to the teachers who are singing, speaking, shouting from each corner of this vast creation –

Bless us to be people who listen to Stars, to Swallowtails, to Dandelions growing through the cracks of concrete sidewalks, defying their own displacement – daring us to defy our own destruction.

Bless us to people who turn toward one another and our wounds with questions of courage and conviction and commitment to the kaleidoscope of wisdom, beauty and truth that grace the great diversity of cultures and traditions which are rising from the Earth.

Bless us to be people who know that the strength of Spirit is always moving in us – mysteriously, magnificently, mischievously – multiplying our efforts, our prayers, our longings, our dreams for tomorrows undivided.

Bless us most especially to be people who are healers – people building with our words and our hands a world that is known by no other name than sacred.

Bless it be. 

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

KOAT-TV: Groups asking the governor for “health buffer zones”

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More than 34,000 children in New Mexico live or go to school near oil or gas wells, some telling us this puts their health at risk. According to the state’s oil conservation division, there are many schools in the Northwestern and Southeastern parts of the state that are within a mile of active oil or gas wells.

Thirty-nine environmental, health and advocacy groups throughout the state wrote a joint letter to the governor, saying those wells are putting children’s health at risk, and asking her to create “health buffer zones” to protect them.

Kayley Shoup, with Citizens Caring for the Future, also signed it, and said it’s not fair to children,

“It’s something that these children, they can’t consent to it and it’s just not OK that it’s something that we just take for granted and say, ‘This oil and gas well can be right next to this school because it funds our public schools.’ Right. And that’s just, you know, unconscionable, in my opinion,” Shoup said.

The governor’s press secretary, Caroline Sweeney, sent this statement in response.

“Gov. Lujan Grisham received the letter from groups concerned about oil and gas extraction near schools. As a governor squarely focused on improving the well-being of New Mexico children, she shares their concerns over potential health impacts on children and her administration has taken robust actions to ensure responsible development. She has also directed her administration to actively evaluate avenues for implementing setbacks in the oil patch.”

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