The Calling of the Season (Winter 2008)

As one living or working in the Catholic Worker houses, what does this season call us to?

When we first considered answering this as a group, we decided to keep the “season” open, since there is such a confluence of seasons this time of year. Advent and Christmas, certainly, but also the reality of working in a house of hospitality to the homeless where the temperature is well below freezing, a season that people on the margins (and not) tend to find unusually lonely, a season where we see how the economic fallout has hurt our guests the most, a season where we are still fighting two wars. The following is a snapshot of where we are at.—SusanWindley-Daoust

Mary: The Catholic Worker is an Advent place for me, a place where Jesus is welcomed each day into the life and work of hospitality and peacemaking. Every night a meal is served to dozens of people who share in the delight of a home-cooked meal and need a place to gather together to talk about the day. I believe Jesus is present with us, helping us to connect with each other, helping us to build a community of people who care about one another. I believe the Catholic Worker fulfills the Advent call when it lights the candles around the wreath each week, bringing the light of Jesus into a darkened world, making the world a little more at peace with itself. To make peace with myself at this time of the year, I feel called to help support our brothers and sisters in the developing countries so I host a fair trade sale, trying to bring about change for people who are struggling to make a living half way around the world. For these Advent callings, I am grateful.

Eileen: This season seems to me one increasing of uncertainty. Today, our only guest that had stable employment was laid off. As so many know, hard times are not just coming, they are upon us. In this season of economic ‘down-turn’, recession, depression or collapse (however you see it), I feel a renewed call to the vision of the Catholic Worker movement to build a new society within the shell of the old.

Creating a world where everyone’s needs are met is possible, and can’t wait until the “right” person or party is in office. This is our work, and our responsibility. By practicing mutual aid and cooperation, sharing and collaboration we can provide for everyone’s needs. The miracle of the Loaves and Fishes isn’t a magic trick. The miracle is the reality of abundance, revealed. There is enough for everyone, if only we had the eyes to see it. I am challenged by this to live more by providence, trusting that together we can meet one another’s needs, and to continue to build a society where it is easier to do that.

A Radical Change

The order of the day

is to talk about the social order.

Conservatives would like

To keep it from changing

But they don’t know how.

Liberals try to patch it

And call it a New Deal.

…

I want a change,

And a radical change.

I want a change from an acquisitive society

to a functional society,

from a society of go-getters

to a society of go-givers.

Peter Maurin

Susan: This season calls me to sing one of my favorite songs: “I Wonder As I Wander”: “I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, why Jesus the savior had come for to die, for poor ord’nry people like you and like I, I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.” It is a simple, haunting tune on its own. But the story behind it is no less haunting: a folklorist named John Jacob Niles was collecting Appalachian music in North Carolina in 1933, and met this young woman at an evangelical gathering outside town, in his words “her clothes … unbelievably dirty and ragged…she too was unwashed.” But she had a beautiful voice. And she kept singing that one line for anyone who wanted to hear it, for 25 cents.

I know some people think the song is bleak. But bleakness comes from emptiness. And this song is not empty, this is mystery. Through the poverty and darkness of this song, we hear someone trusting enough to ask: God, why did you become human for people like me? I’m a poor, hungry, dirty woman in one of the most abjectly poor regions of the United States in the Great Depression. But I do matter. I count. And I know this because you were born, poor like me, and you will die, like me and for me. At the Catholic Worker, we try to recognize the same thing this young woman did: because of Christ’s birth, we know, everyone counts.

I think the song cuts through the ubiquitous “Jingle Bell Rock” like a knife. –SWD

Diane: This season calls me to fill the bird feeders and bake some bread. I will light candles and read books. I will anxiously await the four o’clock hour when the house fills with warm bodies again and warms up a few degrees. I will listen to the bluffs when they call me to put on my hiking boots and follow the footprints of the deer into the woods. I will seek the quiet moments that winter brings, the long, dark evenings and slow moving mornings. I will be constantly aware of our brothers and sisters, both those we know and those we don’t, that will be spending their days and nights outdoors. I will fall asleep worrying about them. During this season of winter weather, I will seek light and warmth and know that I am blessed to be able to find such basic comforts each day.

Jerry: Folks on the lookout for miracles should take up gardening. Every spring I push dry seeds into dry soil, which I make wet; a few months later, I am holding bright red peppers, sweet orange tomatoes, plump cucumbers and fragrant bunches of basil in my hands. And every year, there is a moment—perhaps when I taste the first strawberry the squirrels didn’t get—when I stop short in amazement. Because if turning water into wine counts as a miracle, then surely turning plain brown soil into the stuff of salads and spaghetti sauce must be a miracle too. It is no mistake, I think, that God set the first human beings to work tending a garden; it is no mere coincidence that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene as a gardener.

Winter is a season of frozen death and long darknesses, a fact we forget all too easily with our electric lights and central heat and reliable grocery stores. We have been expelled from the garden; the tomb is still sealed. It is a time to wait and watch for signs of hope. It is a time to look for a seed, some small and unlikely source of life.

Last winter, my two-year-old daughter would not believe my stories of the harvest when I showed her the seed of a tomato. Do you smile at her incredulity? This is the season in which we are told another story—one of God stooping low to plant a child, nothing more than a pinch of dust, on this dry earth. We are told stories about the abundance of the harvest to come. Do you believe these stories?

Well. After the Christmas tree comes down (in late January, I confess), I will get out the grow lights, and some soil, and I will plant some seeds. I will put them in a south-facing window to catch the ever-strengthening light, and I will wait once again to see what happens.

John:

You darkness, that I come from

I love you more than all the fires

That fence in the world,

For the fire makes a circle of light for everyone

And then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:

Shapes and fires, animals and myself,

How easily it gathers them-

Powers and people-

And it is possible a great energy

is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

Rainer Marie Rilke

Darkness. There are two distinct species. One is fecund, womblike and star-glittered. The other is a void. Vast, vacuous and voracious. The soul’s night.

This season reminds me that we are pilgrims of the first darkness and en-lighteners of the second.

At the Worker we witness both kinds of darkness. Short days and bitter nights grind folks on the margins. Street life goes from painful to lethal. Our nation’s dark soul is exposed in the reality of poverty.

In the shadow of the birth of Light, lies the crime of Holy Innocents. Things turn bloody when the quintessential symbol of dark empire is threatened by Light, however child-like, its flowering.

“For all the boots tramped in battle and all the cloaks rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child is born to us…” (Is. 4-5a)

This is the Light we live in, the one that “now sleeps in your paper flesh, like dynamite.” (Thomas Merton)

This season summons me to grow roots deep within the sod, even as my paper flesh lives into the Light.

Retreat Reflections (Winter 2008)

By Mary Farrell & diane leutgeb munson

e concept of “retreat” has been a long-standing and valued tradition. Dorothy Day herself spent regular time at the Catholic Worker farm outside of New York City in order to reflect and re-energize herself. In our community here in Winona we cherish our times of retreat because they give us a chance to think and talk about the guiding vision and philosophies behind our work and the challenges we face in living them out at a personal level. We realize the luxury that we have in our ability to step back from the pressing needs of our day to day work in order to think and talk about what is fulfilling to us, what makes us happy, and what inspires us.

As a community we recently had the opportunity for a full day retreat, our goals for which were to hear from one another how hospitality, community and life in general were going as well as to look ahead to the coming months. We utilized a reading by Jean Vanier, the French philosopher and founder of the L’arche community, about the challenges of community: “There is no real security except pilgrims know where they are going: the holy place.”

Our retreat was a time of deep listening and understanding. We truly took the time to learn more about one another and, in doing so, came away with many topics for further discussion. It quickly became clear that this would be the first of many conversations together over the coming months and that we were being led toward a process of re-visioning the work of this community. We see that this will be a difficult and thoughtful process that we do not want to rush and yet are eager to embark on.

We have acknowledged the fact, as a community, that the mission and vision of this the Winona Catholic Worker, when it began in 1992, was beautiful and important and fruitful. We have also noticed that it may be time to re-imagine what it is that we have to offer to the wider Winona community. We find ourselves heading in a new and unknown direction as we acknowledge the changing face of hospitality (please see article by Eileen Hanson, page 1), and the ever-changing face of our community.

As we pray and reflect together on what it is we are called to do, we realize that our biggest asset is also one of our key challenges- the make-up of our community. We are a community of people who live both inside and outside of our houses of hospitality, we are composed of people who have been a part of each stage of the life of this community (from its inception to as recently as last year), and also cover an age span of nearly twenty-five years. Thus, as we dream of what is on the horizon for us, we are also often tempted to hold on to what was.

What we do know is that our re-visioning is marked by the changing composition of our community. John Heid will be moving on in early January, toward the Southwest where he will work with immigrants. Also, Mike and Diane will be moving out of the house by early Spring, though will be remaining in Winona. As always, our hope is to have new people join our community as others leave, though at this point we do not know when we will have such blessing. We are left with the knowledge that Eileen and Becky will continue the work of this community as live-ins and that they will be supported by a core community, as has always been the case. Our work will undoubtedly be affected by these changes but we are not yet sure in what ways.

Know that we are yet again in a place of transition, and we are doing our very best to be attentive to what that means for us as individuals and for the work that we share. We welcome your input and your involvement in our community. We are actively seeking new live-in community members. We are also continuing to offer both overnight and open meal hospitality to those in need. Please keep us in your prayers as we attempt to discern, communally, what it is that we are being called to and how to best follow that call.

All Are Welcome (Winter 2008)

by Eileen Hanson

That’s what the sign on the door says, “All are welcome”, and we mean it. Each weekday from 4pm-7pm, we open the doors of Bethany House to anyone and everyone. (Other times, the house is open to the people, guests and workers, who live there.)

At first, the idea of having certain “open” hours ran counter to my understanding of hospitality. Most times we are able to offer something to those who come, whether we are “open” or not. But having certain times especially intended for ‘drop-in’ hospitality has proved to be a different kind of blessing for Bethany House.

Several years ago, in conversation with a local coalition of churches and service agencies, Bethany House explicitly opened the invitation to our evening meal to anyone in need. Many involved in that discussion wondered whether Winona might be served by something like a ‘soup kitchen’. We had no idea how many people might welcome a home cooked meal, free of charge. As word of the meal trickled out through churches and human service agencies, we began to see new faces around our table. These days, we are regularly seeing about 20 people for dinner, and some nights swell to nearly 30.

The evening meal and ‘open hospitality’ has become a mainstay of life at Bethany House. While we have gone through periods when we have been unable to offer much in the way of overnight hospitality, with the help of friends in the extended community and a host of dedicated volunteer cooks, the evening meal has carried on.

Our afternoon ‘open’ hospitality sets the rhythm of the day, and shapes our week. Weekday afternoons mean making a fresh pot of coffee, setting out some snacks and putting aside the myriad of projects and chores that might need doing in order to simply be present to welcome whoever might drop by.

Over these years, many in the Winona community have come to know Bethany House as a place they can come not just for food or shelter, but for a variety of needs. Some guests pass through only briefly, maybe to take a shower or get a clean pair of socks. Others visit periodically, when the laundromat is out of the budget, or the grocery money runs out before the next check. We offer what we can in pantry food, diapers and hygiene items to anyone that comes.

Being ‘open’ means we are open to whatever, and whomever, the Spirit brings to our door. By just being present, we are able to attend to needs that might not fit within a particular service agency or mandate. When we open the door at 4 o’clock, we never really know what the day might bring. We, and the many wonderful volunteers that join us throughout the week, might be giving wagon rides to a two year old, or talking through a hard day with an exhausted mom, playing dominos with some of the guys, or searching the basement for deodorant or a bottle of shampoo.

One of the deep insights of the Catholic Worker movement is to not just provide food for the hungry, but to break bread with all who are hungry, to recognize that a meal is so much more than the food. Around our table are gathered those whose needs are clearly visible and those who may not recognize their own need. Around the table most evenings are: live-in workers, college student volunteers coming to help and to learn, overnight guests and many former guests of the houses, individuals struggling with mental illness or addictions, guests who might otherwise eat alone in their apartment, friends and core members of the Winona Catholic Worker community, and families and young couples trying to get a foothold on stability.

Our evening meal is in some ways a relic in current American culture. We eat together around the dining room table (now, around two large tables), sharing family style from the common dish. People often remark that it’s like Thanksgiving, everyday!

Just like Thanksgiving, our table is surrounded by many generations. Families with children in a range of ages are now a regular part of Bethany House. One of the great pleasures is seeing the interactions between the children and the guys at the table. As families and men have become ‘regulars’, children have been blessed to have a whole new set of people looking out for them (and encouraging them to eat their vegetables!), and the guys are blessed to share in the life and vitality that children bring to the house.

While single men remain the focus of our overnight hospitality at Bethany House, children and families are now a big part of the life of this house. It is a blessing, but an unexpected one.

Drop-in hospitality and the evening meal have become a central, and increasingly large part of the work we do. We have not reached the point where the house cannot physically accommodate the evening meal. We are not doing anything like a ‘soup line.’ But, we are seeing more and more of the community’s time and resources going toward providing this evening meal and ‘open’ hospitality.

As the days grow shorter and colder, we know that many will come seeking the warmth of community, hospitality and a meal. We are thinking about how to respond to the new shape of hospitality. Six years ago, it seemed only natural to open our meal to anyone in need. That decision has taken us down a winding road to this new place. We are feeling it is time to step back and look at where we are, and discern, together with you, the work this community is called to do in light of our gifts and resources, as well as the needs before us.

We invite you to join us some evening, to come and see for yourself how the Spirit is moving here. Truly, all are welcome.

Reflections on Hospitality and our Winter Appeal (Winter 2008)

By diane leutgeb munson

As we approach this winter season, we at the Catholic Worker are feeling the earth shift beneath our feet a bit. Hospitality is changing before our eyes with our evening meals consistently triple the size they were a year or two ago. We see more couples and families seeking the comfort and warmth of a community meal in our homes while many of our single male guests struggle to find or keep work in a changing economy. Our cupboards and pantries do not stay full for long. Financially, we are living closer to the edge than we would like to be. Though we have intentionally been even more frugal than we usually are, there are still bills to pay, repairs to be made and lately, food to buy to supplement meals.

The needs of our guests have not changed, yet the sheer number of guests appears to be growing. Those among us still seek food, shelter, hygiene, and supportive community. In many ways, regardless of how full our pantry shelves are, the existence of this place is enough.

In one evening at Bethany House three different guests announced in my presence that the this felt like family to them, the Catholic Worker felt like home. We have done something right. You have done something right. The aim of this community has been to welcome the stranger so that they are no longer the stranger. In over sixteen years of Catholic Worker hospitality in Winona, you, our friends, volunteers and supporters have helped to sustain a place where people can feel at home.

It seems a humble goal and a meager accomplishment while homelessness remains a reality for so many, hunger creeps into more and more households and the causes of both show no signs of letting up. Yet time and time again we watch as the pieces of the puzzle that make up the lives of our guests crumble around them. Bit by bit stability, sobriety, friendship and faith crash to the ground. But this piece of the puzzle stays right where it always was, an open door behind which lies open hearts. No matter how messy the situation, there will be dinner on the table at 6:00 pm, there will be hot coffee in the pot when you need it.

To gather together is what it takes to make it through. This place that feels so much like home to so many of us, is where more and more people are finding the support that they need in uncertain and painful times. This noisy dinner table, where we occasionally forget our best manners and often attempt three conversations simultaneously, is where we meet at the end of our longest days. This is a place we look for healing when our souls and bodies feel so broken. These old walls hold our stories and our most secret tears. This is where we find our faith and rediscover the hope it takes to start a new day.

We all need this place, not just our homeless brothers and sisters, but me and you. We need to know that it is ok to be imperfect and uncertain. We need to feel like the weight of the world is not ours to bear alone. We need to be together. We all need to be listened to, to be consoled and to be praised. It is for these reasons that the Catholic Worker is so vital to our community.

And so, we ask you to continue to invest in what it is that you have built in this blessed place. In giving to this community you have created a haven for those in need and a home for yourself. You are always welcome at this table. Please help us to continue to fill our coffee pot and our cupboards. There are so many people that need this place as a simple reassurance of stability in addition to a balanced meal and supportive community. Help us to pay our bills and fix our homes, they are truly yours, though we have the pleasure of taking care of them for now. It is you who have brought us this far, and now we look to you to walk with us into the unknown that is the future. We could not do any of this without you, and we are ever grateful for your prayers, encouragement, donations and time. May you and your loved ones be blessed with warmth and good health this winter!

Justice and Healing for the People and the Land (Fall 2009)

By Eileen Hanson

I’ve just returned from a month in Canada, working with Christian Peacemaker Teams, the same group that I was with in Palestine a couple of years ago. You might be thinking, what’s the conflict in Canada? Why are there peacemakers working there?

Christian Peacemaker Teams’ (CPT) work in Canada is focused around Aboriginal Justice, that is justice issues in relation to the Native people of Canada. (In Canada, the words Aboriginal and First Nation are used rather than Native American, which is more commonly used in the US.)

In broad strokes, the history between Native people and European settlers in Canada is similar to the history in the U.S. It is a story of ever expanding European settlement, Native land loss, treaties signed and treaties broken, forced assimilation and racism. As in the US, the outcome for many Aboriginal communities in Canada was massive displacement from traditional lands, disconnection with traditional life and culture and confinement to small areas of marginal land known as reserves.

One issue that is lesser known in the US, but is also an important part of the history of Native people in North America is residential schools. In Canada, this issue is more widely known because in 2008, the Prime Minister issued an official apology for the government’s role in the residential school system.

Residential schools were essentially tools of cultural genocide, their stated aim was to “kill the Indian in the child”. Beginning in the 1920’s, the removal of Native children from their families to live in residential schools run by churches and the government, was mandatory. Children as young as four years of age were forcibly removed from their parents, stripped of their traditional clothes, their hair shorn in European style. They were forbidden to speak their language or practice their religion, and were routinely beaten for doing so. Many children did not see their families for years. The residential school system which also forced many Native children to do menial labor in lieu of real education, continued into the 1960’s in Canada. Physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the residential schools and many Native people are still struggling with the effects of years of trauma and abuse. Needless to say this history has had a devastating effect on families and communities, and remains and important part of the struggles facing Native people.

One of the reasons I was drawn to the Aboriginal Justice part of CPT’s work is because my time in Palestine made it abundantly clear to me that I needed to confront injustices not only in far away places, but also closer to home. In a practical way, that means raising my own awareness of the history and my own involvement in the dispossession of Native peoples in North America. Although it may seem that the injustices at the root of many of the conflicts stretch back hundreds of years, Native communities are struggling very much in the here and now. CPT’s Aboriginal Justice team seeks to support First Nations communities as they seek justice today. I want to share a few stories of how dispossession from the land has impacted one Native community, and some of their struggles for justice and healing.

Grassy Narrows First Nation

Healing with the Land

In August, I visited Grassy Narrows First Nation, an Anishinaabe community about 80kM from Kenora, ON, just north of Lake of the Woods. (Anishinaabe is the Ojiway word meaning, the people. Many Anishinaabe communities traditionally lived throughout what is now Northern Minneosta, Wisconsin and eastern Canada.)

In the longest running logging blockade in Canadian history, the Grassy Narrows community has successfully halted the practice of clear-cutting on their traditional territory, which comprises about 2,500 square acres surrounding their reserve. This land has been the primary source of food, shelter and medicine for them for thousands of years. In treaty, the Anishinaabe people retain rights to hunt, fish and trap on this land. However, the Canadian government sells logging rights to multinational companies, who use the land to supply massive pulp and paper factories. Since the practice of clear-cut logging became common in the 1980’s, it has been nearly impossible to sustain a traditional life on the land.
In December of 2002, two young Grassy Narrows women took their dissent to the woods, made by blocking the logging road to prevent further clear-cutting. Their community soon joined them, and a nonviolent blockade was born. It has been seven years since clear-cutting on Grassy Narrows traditional territory (although the forests in the nearby area are still being devastated by clear-cutting). The blockade may seem like a success, but for the Grassy community, the struggle is far from over. Many people in Grassy Narrows speak now of the need for healing, as one might recover from a deep wound. The connection between the people and the land has been broken, and that is where the healing needs to begin

In reconnecting with the land, the Grassy Narrows community is beginning to heal in their physical bodies. So many of the historical traumas experiences by Native communities are evidenced in the physical health of the community. The reservation system has trapped many Native people in a cycle of poor diet and sedentary life. As with many Native communities, diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity are common in Grassy Narrows. They can begin to heal by returning to a diet based on the foods provided by nature such as fresh game and the abundant local fish. Several of the elders are actively engaged with the youth in the community, teaching them the traditional ways of hunting and trapping, so that they can carry on these ways.

Many in the Grassy Narrows community also suffer the effects of mercury poisoning, a result of decades of mercury contamination of area lakes and rivers by industrial wood pulp processing. Unfortunately the high mercury levels still mean that people should limit their consumption of local fish. One woman from the Grassy Narrows community is conducting a study to investigate other effects of the mercury contamination, including how high levels in the water might affect moose and other game that make up a large part of the traditional Anishinaabe diet.

Clear-cut logging practice also includes the planting of mono-crop tree plantations for future harvest. These plantations are sprayed regularly for years with chemicals to inhibit competing plants. This practice has devastated many of the native plants that Anishinaabe people rely on for medicine. Perhaps as the land around Grassy Narrows heals from the clear-cutting in time the traditional medicines will return and be able to offer healing to the people once again. And as the waters gradually recover from the toxic mercury poisoning, the fish might again provide a healthy source of food.

Native people are also seeking healing of their political and communal spirit. Decades of displacement, the legacy of the residential schools and dire poverty have left many First Nations communities shattered. In acts of vision and resistance, some are finding their way to wholeness.

Chrissy Swain, one of the youth leaders of the original blockade, has decided to walk for the protection of the Sacred Mother. Last year, she and 22 other young people walked hundreds of miles from Grassy Narrows to Toronto to bring their concerns for Native communities and the environment to the political powers. She plans to make the walk again this year.

One woman spoke to us of what a communal healing might look like. She told us about her grandmother’s vision, that one day the sands around Trout Lake would be filled with the tracks of Anishinaabe children. For so many years, with all the children away at residential school, she remembered the land was quiet; there were no sounds of running and playing in the woods, no footsteps of children in the sands by the lake. For her, healing meant to see and hear the signs of children on the land again.

Her granddaughter is committed to making that vision a reality. In order to reconnect to the land, she has built a cabin for her community, especially the children, to gather on their traditional territory. She hopes that this place will be a space for people to begin to renew their relationship with the land; to rebuild a sense of community, to have a space to pass on traditional ways of hunting and trapping to the youth; a place to learn about the animals and plants and their meaning in Anishinaabe culture; to have a place for adults to gather or just be with the land. It could be a place from which to begin a healing journey.

It was a great privilege to hear these stories and meet these courageous people. It is a sacred and intimate project they are engaged in, trying to heal and recover from so many historical and personal traumas. Their hope lies in nurturing their connection to the land and in maintaining their culture and traditional ways. Their stories and their struggles are inspiring.

Closer to Home

My time in the North Woods felt familiar with sights of pine and birch woods surrounding deep, clear lakes. But, having begun with a motivation to address injustices closer to home, these experiences in Canada have left me with more questions than answers.

What is the history of the land and the people here in Winona? How did this land come to be a European settlement called Winona? Who made the decision about how the land and the river would be used? Who has benefited from the resource rich land here? What happened to the original inhabitants of this land? And where are their descendants today?

Most importantly, I wonder about the struggles for justice facing the people displaced from this land that I now call home? How can I as a person who benefits from all that they had taken from them, support them in their struggles?

We are blessed to have a number of people in Winona that have taken the time to ask some of these very questions. The Winona-Dakota Unity Alliance has actively been trying to build relationship and nurture reconciliation. The annual Great Dakota Homecoming has been an important time for Dakota people to reconnect to their traditional land, and for non-Natives to come to know the Dakota people. I hope for the sake of people and the planet that these efforts continue, and that we can find ways to heal in our relationships with one another, and with the Earth

The Gift of Hospitality (Fall 2009)

By Nikki Fleck and Eileen Hanson

Continuing our series on the Winona Catholic Worker core values, we had a discussion about hospitality, what it means to us, and what draws each of us to these houses of hospitality. We share with you here some of the threads that ran through our reflections.

The Mutuality of Hospitality Receiving leads to Giving

The Dan Corcoran House is named after Father Dan Corcoran. Mary Farrell tells how Fr. Dan first showed her the meaning of hospitality. While a student at Winona State University, Mary would often go to the Newman center just to hang out. Fr Dan, and Sister Monessa always made students feel welcome. They provided a place to relax, have fun, to pray and build long lasting friendships. The hospitality at the Newman Center was not limited to students. Fr. Dan would regularly invite people he met on the street to come for a meal or spend the night if they had no place to go. It was these examples of hospitality that led Mary to the Catholic Worker movement, and eventually to open a house of hospitality in Winona.

The Winona CW continues to open our hearts and homes to many students. Both St. Mary’s University and Winona State University students are a regular part of our houses. Sometimes they come once, others continue to come back, finding something draws them back each week. Our houses are blessed by the energy and enthusiasm these students bring. In just a short time they become part of the community and are greatly missed during breaks and after graduations.

We often say that everyone comes to the table hungry, and not everyone hungers for food. We are all in search of something, waiting to feel at home, to feel like we belong to something. Whether we have money in our pockets or not is not the true measure of whether we need hospitality.

Many of our recent live-in volunteers have come to live with us after first coming to the houses as student volunteers. Three of our current live-in workers, Becky, Nikki and Sarah all first came to the Dan Corcoran House as students, hoping to help out. They ended up finding something that they were looking for too. What is striking in their stories is how much the experience of receiving hospitality at the WCW was a part of drawing them into community. Becky spoke of her first visit and of meeting Paul and Sara Freid, then live-in workers at the house. Her experience of feeling so welcome, so at home, eventually led her to move into community here and want to offer that same hospitality to others. Biblical roots of hospitality

Just beside the Windley-Daoust’s dining table, hangs a beautiful icon of the scene at the Oaks of Mamre when Abraham and Sarah welcomed the three strangers into their tent. Although they did not know it at the time, these three visitors were angels in disguise. This icon is a prominent reminder to their family of the Biblical call to hospitality.

In the desert culture of the Middle East, hospitality is tradition. Strangers and passers-by are invited in, offered tea, fresh water and something to eat. In the harsh physical environment of the desert such hospitality is not only a cultural tradition, it is in many ways a necessity of life. Travelling in the desert means relying on the generosity of strangers for the basic necessities of life – water, food and shelter. I wonder though, how different our world today is. Isn’t our world just as harsh a place- perhaps in different ways – than the parched desert of the Hebron hills.

Left alone in the world we know, a person would not fare well. For many without friends or family to call upon, there is no escape from the battering winds of joblessness or homelessness. Many places, a person can’t even use a public restroom without buying something. Where should one turn to quench one’s thirst for companionship in difficult times? It can feel like there is nowhere to turn. Where can the poor turn for respite? Isn’t hospitality to the stranger just as crucial here and now, as it was for Abraham and Sarah?

Taking a risk

The story of Abraham and Sarah also illustrates the element of risk, of vulnerability in any act of hospitality. By welcoming the strangers into their tent, they took a risk, a leap of faith in God. Those three strangers might not have turned out to be angels. But, by taking the risk, by placing their trust in God, they were offered enormous blessing in return.

When we open these houses to anyone in need, without ID or a background check, we are making that same leap of faith. We may not know everything about a person, but we know that every person, regardless of who they are needs certain things – food, shelter and companionship. The Biblical call to hospitality means that we don’t need to know much more in order to open our homes and our hearts.

Imperfect practice

In Romans 12 It says, “Practice Hospitality.” We will never be perfect at Hospitality. Often times when a guest leaves the house or I hang up the phone suddenly I recognize a need or a gesture I could have offered that person. I’ve been learning to get past the guilt and frustration I sometimes feel, moving into excitement and thankfulness that God continues to open my eyes to new ways to serve.

Nikki and Sarah - Our Deo Gratias! (Fall 2009)

By Barbara Allaire

A few months ago, we were feeling what a hard year it’s been for the Winona Catholic Worker. While there never seem to be enough live-in volunteers, until recently we were usually able to have just enough to take care of two houses of hospitality. But this year things got pretty slim. Eileen and Becky were handling 24-hour hospitality for the homeless men at Bethany House and were coordinating and doing much of the work, with the help of our wonderful cooks and some volunteers, for the daily 4-7 pm hospitality and meal at Dan Corcoran House. With all the other good work they do besides, they were feeling stretched to the limit.

More than a few times, we found ourselves looking up at the bluffs and pouring out the words of the psalmist: “We lift up our eyes to the mountains. From where will our help come?” (Ps. 121).

And then, in a kind of miraculous way, the answer came tumbling down to us in the person of two women, Winona State University students. Nikki Fleck had been “hanging out” at both houses for several years, helping in myriad ways and becoming a friend and advocate for our guests. Last year her friend, Sarah Hanson, joined her in volunteering once a week. They knew we were at a dire point in our need for live-in volunteers, and they agonized over that because they loved the hospitality that flowed from both houses. They found the Catholic Worker house “out of my comfort zone,” says Sarah, but “I was really drawn to it. It was the most Christ-filled place I’d ever been.” What could they possibly do to help? They were college students: how could that role ever be combined with living in a Catholic Worker house?

God was working in the lives of these women. Each of them, Nikki coming from Catholic and Sarah from non-denominational Christian roots, had been on a spiritual journey during their years in college. Both had been through struggles and pain and had turned to God and their community of faith to sustain them. And they had found each other, becoming deep friends and living together last year, intending to move into a house with other spiritually grounded students this year.

“But something was missing from that plan,” says Sarah. “We really wanted to focus on serving God and serving others. We didn’t just want to do the usual college student thing.” Nikki and Sarah began to sense that, even as students, God was calling them to live a different kind of life, to fully embrace the somewhat wild and wacky life of “divine hospitality” entailed in living at the Catholic Worker.

Nikki had felt drawn to the community for a long time. “I never imagined myself living in the house, but I was always drawn back here. I found a lot of people here living out what I was searching for, but they weren’t preaching it at me. Their lives were a reflection of what I hoped to be some day. I was overjoyed to find this place, and I knew God had a hand in it.”

During the summer, Sarah and Nikki approached the WCW core community with a vision of living in the Dan Corcoran House, doing the works of mercy and reopening the house to overnight hospitality for women and children. At first they were hoping to do this together with two other similarly motivated friends, and among the four women to cover the needs of the guests and the household, even with their responsibilities as full-time students.

As the school year approached it became clear that the other two women had work schedules that would make it impossible for them to add 24-hour hospitality to that. So it came down to Sarah and Nikki. With great disappointment, they accepted the reality that they could not, between the two of them, handle full-time student loads with overnight hospitality. But they could coordinate and host the daily 4-7 pm hospitality at Dan Corcoran House, where they already had strong relationships with many guests who come to share in the fellowship each day.

But, says Sarah, “It’s so hard when we have to turn away women who call for a place to stay. I ask myself, Why can’t I meet these needs? I wonder, Why am I still in school? I could give it up and be doing hospitality all the time. But then I realize I have to find the balance between school’s importance to me now and this place. That balance is such a great challenge. We’re having to come to terms with our limits, that we can’t do it all.”

On not being able to offer overnight hospitality now, Nikki adds, with her quiet wisdom, “There will be a time for that when God provides it.”

Now two months into life at Dan Corcoran House, Sarah and Nikki find joy in the “daily bread” of doing hospitality. “The longer I’m here, the more I love it,” says Sarah. “When I’m away, I’m looking forward to getting back.” Adds Nikki, “The longer I’m here, the more it makes sense. It’s not easy, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

A social work major, Nikki’s experience with the social work model is that it emphasizes not crossing boundaries. “You’re supposed to be genuine and caring, but still somewhat closed off. Here it’s different. All I have to do is be here and develop relationships. We are here to provide people with an opportunity and a place to come with no expectations, no judgments, no rules. We just sit around the table like a family. It’s so refreshing to be able to do that. When I lived at home, even in my own family where we loved each other, we didn’t have time to just sit together at the table and share a meal. But now, I know what I have to do is just be here; be available.

Sarah loves “living like a family, really a family—hanging out with the guests. It’s good and fun. I appreciate just spending time together.”

Nikki and Sarah are onto something: There is a deep hunger in our rushed and goal-driven society for acceptance, for the luxury of having someone “waste” time on you just for the joy of it, without any expectation of a “return on the investment.” That is what the men, women, and families experience who come to Dan Corcoran House each day for a meal and hospitality.

There are challenges to this life they have chosen. One is giving up a lot of control. As Sarah says, “I was used to do everything for myself before. Now you’re not cooking for yourself, or buying the things you like for yourself. God provides for us here, with great blessings. But they’re not always what we would choose.”

Even lack of control can itself be a blessing. Each afternoon, as they prepare for the evening meal, Nikki and Sarah never know how many people will show up. Sometimes they end up stretching a meal meant for eight or ten into a meal for twenty. Then it’s a kind of “multiplication of the loaves and the fishes.” As Nikki says, “I love when we always have room for one more person. Everyone takes a little less. There’s always enough.”

And that is the lesson for the Winona Catholic Worker. God will provide, in due time. At this point in our community’s journey, the answer to, “We lift up our eyes to the mountains. From where will our help come?” is “Our help is from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth . . . and of Nikki and Sarah.”

Deo gratias.

Community Update and Thanks to all our supporters (Spring 2009)

by Eileen Hanson

A sincere thank you to all of you who showed your support for this community this last month. The outpouring we felt around the meeting on January 18^th was tremendous. So many people came or spoke to us at different times and expressed their interest and concern in the direction of things at the Winona Catholic Worker. Truly, we feel blessed to have such a circle of friends.

We opened the meeting with a brief talk about the history of the Catholic Worker movement – now in its 75^th year – and some discussion of how we as Catholic Workers in Winona see ourselves as part of that movement. We highlighted that some of the key ideals that we identify with in the wider Catholic Worker movement are the works of mercy, intentional community and peacemaking.

We have done our best over that last sixteen years to live out these ideals as the moment has called us. As a founding member of the WCW, Jim Allaire has noted, you do the works of mercy that are presented to you. So, here in Winona, we have been providing hospitality – food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, shelter for the homeless. Out of our relationships with our guests we have found ourselves with many opportunities to visit the sick and the imprisoned, and sadly, to mourn the dead.

We are currently offering an evening meal, and afternoon hospitality that are open to all. Over the last year or two we have seen this grow as people are drawn to a space where they can share a home cooked meal as friends and everyone is welcome. We have single men staying overnight at Bethany House along with our live-in community. As spring approaches, we look toward our garden and all the fresh vegetables we will grow to supplement our table.

We have tried to be a voice for peace in our community and in the world. We have held vigil and prayed for peace in public and in private. We have said no to violence in our homes and in our nation’s polices. Some of us have been arrested in our efforts to resist the works of war. We have tried to hear the cries of those on the other side of our US wars and remember that we are all called to be peacemakers.

And we have done all of this rooted in intentional community. We have chosen to live together in order to strengthen and encourage one another in difficult times. We live together to celebrate the joys, big and small, along the way.

As we look at this rich history, we want to carry it forward faithfully and creatively.

By the time you are reading this, the reality of our community will be that two live- workers, Becky and Eileen, are living at Bethany House with a few overnight guests. We have said goodbye to John Heid, (see page 1), and just recently diane and Mike leutgeb munson moved to a house just outside of town. Our core community also includes Mary Farrell and Jerry and Susan Windley-Daoust.

In January, we brought all of this to you and asked, ‘how shall we move forward?’

Specifically, what is the compelling piece of this vision for you, and what energy do you have to contribute. The response was amazing. So many people stepped forward to volunteer their time and talents. Many of you spoke about what the Winona Catholic Worker means in your lives.

We heard your desire to be involved in hospitality and providing meals. With that in mind, we wanted to open up the space for more of you to be directly involved. We know that with two live-in community members we cannot sustain overnight guests and an open meal five nights a week. The afternoon hospitality and evening meal seemed an ideal way to involve more of you.

The Dan Corcoran House offers wonderful space for afternoon hospitality. We made some changes in how the house is arranged, and so far it’s met with rave reviews. We encourage you to come by and check it out. With a full playroom in the basement, and a big backyard, there is ample space for kids to be kids, and adults to have some quiet space too. Anyone in need will still be able to get pantry and hygiene items, take a shower, do laundry or use the phone during this time.

We are very happy to open the house with your help to welcome guests into that space.

We also heard you saying that you wish (as we do) that there was a way to provide housing for homeless women and families. We are saddened not to be able to offer that. Given the size and shape of our current live-in community, it just isn’t feasible. Still, there is a real sense of loss in not being able to offer overnight hospitality when we know there are people in need.

One thing to note is that we have never had enough space for all the calls we get from people in need of emergency shelter. There is, and has always been, more need in Winona than these two homes can meet. That is the sad reality. But, perhaps it is also an opportunity for others in the wider community to step forward with ideas and energy for providing a place for women and families.

We’re not sure how all of this is going to feel. There is a sense of excitement and anticipation to see how this will work out. We have decided to put off any long term decisions about the houses until we have seen this plan working for some months. We are open to thinking about offering one of the houses for other uses sometime down the road, if it doesn’t seem that we are using them best. But, we don’t know what the future will bring. For now, we will focus on offering a consistent presence in the afternoon and an evening meal at the Dan Corcoran House and continue to offer overnight hospitality for single men at Bethany House.

We will also continue actively seeking more live-in community members. As those of you that have hung with us over the years know there is an ebb and flow to community life here. We have gone through lean times before in terms of live-in numbers, but we have still been able to be a steady presence for the poor in our midst. We continue to get the word out that we are looking and actively invite students and community members to join us in this work. We have found our most reliable form of recruiting is nurturing the relationships that are right here in front of us. Over the years, it has most often been people who have had some small connection with the community whose sense of connectedness has led them to think about becoming live-in members and sharing their lives in community and hospitality.

We have shared some of this in conversations with many of you already. Your input and response has been wonderfully encouraging, so we wanted to give you this update on our communal transitions. Mostly, we want to thank you for your investment and involvement in the Winona Catholic Worker. Without you none of the last sixteen years would have been possible!

Our Aims and Means (Spring2009)

by Eileen Hanson

“For the sake of new readers, for the sake of men on our breadlines, for the sake of the employed and unemployed, the organized and unorganized workers, and also for the sake of ourselves, we must reiterate again and again what are our aims and purposes.”

Dorothy Day, Aims and Purposes, The Catholic Worker, February, 1940

As we are in a time of transition for the Winona Catholic Worker community, it occurs to us to look to our roots to find our way. Since the Catholic Worker movement has never had a ‘headquarters or central office, we have little in the way of directions to guide us. What we have is the history and tradition of a social movement, and the direct experiences of this and other CW communities. Although there is a sense of affinity among many communities, each community is independent and discerns for itself what is most needed and how best to meet those needs.

Perhaps the closest thing to a mission statement the Catholic Worker movement has ever had is something called the “Aims and Means”. Having just said there has never been a headquarters, I have to confess that at least part of reason the “Aims and Means” carries weight in many Catholic Worker communities is because it came out of the original Catholic Worker community, in New York, where Dorothy and Peter lived and died.

The Catholic Worker did not initially publish a systematic “Aims and Means”. They began simply with what Dorothy called Peter’s program – houses of hospitality, roundtable discussions and farming communes. Later, as the movement grew in breadth and depth, Dorothy Day outlined some of the “Aims and Purposes”. To begin, she offers some of her reasons for laying these out explicitly.

“Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate. We must “give reason for the faith that is in us.” Otherwise we are scattered members of the Body of Christ, we are not “all members one of another.” Otherwise, our religion is an opiate, for ourselves alone, for our comfort or for our individual safety or indifferent custom.” (DD, The Catholic Worker, 1940)

More recently, the Catholic Worker has published “The Aims and Means of the Catholic Worker Movement” in its yearly anniversary issue. While there have been some revisions over the years, the basic message has remained. They declare that the current society falls far short of God’s justice, and that we must begin living in a different way if we are to build a society “where it is easier for people to be good.”

In the Aims and Means of the CW Movement, the writers advocate personalism, decentralized society, a “green” revolution, nonviolence, the works of mercy, manual labor and voluntary poverty. They commend a life of voluntary poverty, manual labor and the works of mercy to counter the prevailing tendency in society toward acquisition and over consumption.

From it’s earliest days, the Catholic Worker movement has called for a “green’ revolution, a return to the land, where we might “re-discover the proper meaning of our labor and our true bonds with the land.” They envisioned “a radically new society where people will rely on the fruits of their own soil and labor; associations of mutuality, and a sense of fairness to resolve conflicts.”

The Aims and Means affirm that only nonviolent means will bring about peace, quoting Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” They advocate many forms of non-cooperation and resistance to every kind of oppression, violence and militarism as excellent ways to establish peace.

And all of this grounded in the firm belief in the freedom and dignity of each person. In this “personalist” philosophy, one looks to the good of the other, taking personal responsibility for changing conditions rather than looking to the state or other institutions to provide “charity”.

In the Winona Catholic Worker’s early years, this community also put together a statement of purposes. A calligraphy of this statement, done by former community member Shirley Kelter, hangs in the dining room of the Dan Corcoran House. It still captures what we are trying to do here, and we reprint it on the back page of every newsletter.

Over the last several years, the Winona Catholic Worker has put together a set of core commitments that encapsulate what we see as our most basic goals.

Community Hospitality Poverty Stewardship Faith Nonviolence

There is no particular order or hierarchy among these commitments. They are all integral parts of the fabric of the Winona Catholic Worker community. They draw heavily on the history and tradition of the larger Catholic Worker movement, but also on the lived experience of this community. Primarily, our core commitments are the things that we consider, implicitly or explicitly, when we make a decision together. By striving toward these things, we hope that we are ourselves transformed as we hope to transform the world into a more just and peaceful place.

Over the next several issues of the newsletter, we plan to explore each of these ideas a bit more. For us, this is a way of reconnecting with our roots and sharing with you, our readers, a little more of the faith that grounds us.

Farewell to John Heid (Spring 2009)

by Becky Lambert

John Heid has left Winona. I know some people are still having a hard time believing this, so I thought I’d make that little announcement. It’s still setting in for us, too. He made such an indelible impression on this community (not just the Catholic Worker, but Winona) in his year and a half here that it’s going to take a while for people to work through this transition. John was an experience for Winona and someone we will not be able to forget for quite some time.

John came to Winona in September of 2007 having lived in Catholic Worker and resistance communities on the East Coast, Duluth and, most recently, a community farm in Luck, WI. While I’d never had the pleasure of meeting John in my time around the Catholic Worker before I moved in, I was assured that this was going to be great experience, that he was intense, engaging, sincere, funny, emphatic and emotive, gentle and patient. Although I found that nothing prepares you for living with John Heid (these adjectives barely scrape the surface), I am utterly grateful and blessed to have had that privilege. John left in January to continue the work of hospitality on the Arizona/Mexico border: welcoming the stranger, giving drink to the thirsty and providing shelter for the homeless. This work on the border has been calling him for a couple of years, so we knew that his time at the WCW had an end. However, John lived in the moment and was here until the day he left, even staying later than he planned so he could attend our Jan. 18^th meeting. So when I started freaking out periodically in the months before he moved out, he would calmly look at me over the top of his glasses, cock his head and say, “Yeah, but I’m still here.”

It is nearly impossible not to be drawn into his persona, to play off of his gregariousness, and be calmed by his serenity. Goodness knows that John is garrulous, but I have never heard a hurtful word come out of his mouth. He speaks truth, and has the courage to stand behind it. He is a daily example of the world as it should be, accepting but uncompromising. It was a challenge to live with John only in that I was faced with a person who lived everyday in unabashed joy and love; who regarded each person met as distinct and beautiful.

Personalism is treating each person you encounter with dignity, taking personal responsibility for changing conditions. Whatever those conditions: a person’s need for shelter, a parent’s struggle to keep her children, or a young person looking to the military as the only option for his future, John approaches them as if it were his mother or sister, his father or brother. It is one of the first things you observe about John, the way he embodies Personalism with the utmost sincerity. Everything is personal to him, especially when it has to do with the basic dignity of an individual. This Personalism is not taught or happened upon. It comes from the belief that change starts with yourself and how you interact with the person in front of you. With John there is no difference between word and action, truth is a given where he is concerned.

John has a way of disengaging your defenses until you end-up pouring your heart out to him, struggling with life’s deep questions, over a game of cribbage. He can relate to everyone in a way that assures you that there is no one else that is quite able to understand you the way he can. This is how he is able to connect with children the way he does, through sincerity and openness…and of course, by being just plain silly. Kids are drawn to John like John is drawn to desserts, attracted by the complete lack of inhibitions that are all too often overly abundant in adults.

Of course, a newsletter article can only give a glimpse of who John is and the impact he has had on our community. I have loved and appreciated the time I have spent with him and can only hope that life will bring us together again. He has taught me so much by just being who he is. Thank you so much, John, for everything.

The Gifts of Our Guests (Spring 2009)

by diane leutgeb munson

Being a dreamer, I understand what it is to see color and emotion with your eyes closed. I know that it is often the sleeping hours that fuel the waking work of art, be it poetry, paint or sculpture. Recently, a guest explained how his most recent drawing came to be; the woman on the page had visited him on three consecutive nights until her face and form made their way to the page. Dreams exist in all cultures. At all ends of the earth we find ourselves waking to the sun remembering and questioning the images the moon left on our minds. So it is too with our guests, here at the Catholic Worker. Dreams, vivid and real, painful and bright, soothing and still come to life through the hands of our friends and guests in many stunning ways.

In the collection of work that we are sharing with you in this edition of our newsletter you get to taste the many gifts of our guests.

We are not only humbled to know such talented people, but also gracious for the ways in which they have shared their art with us. Some of these pieces hang in our homes as constant reminders of their creators, and others have merely passed by our eyes on their journeys through this world.

We are grateful that we have been given permission to share this joy with you and hope that you appreciate not only the images but also the stories that have led to their creation.

Catwoman,” a work in progress by Joanna

“Castle,” by Uyen V., and “Racecar,” by Ky V.

Ceramic scupltures handmade and given to us as Christmas gifts by two of our young friends.

“Woman,” by John S. A striking drawing, inspired by a series of dreams that a former guest shared with us.

“Angel” by Eric G.,

a former guest who left us with this pen and ink piece.

“Stained Glass Dove on Cross,” by John C.

This piece was gifted to the community by John C. who has spent much of his life working with stained glass.

BLACKWATER Foreclosed for Moral Bankrupcy (Summer 2009)

By Becky Lambert

Sixty people walked down a rural road in northwest Illinois heading toward a remote training camp for police, soldiers and gun enthusiasts run by the private security contractor, Blackwater. Songs of peace were sung and thoughts turned more and more serious as a guard tower looming in the distance got closer, reminding us of the dreadful business going on in our backyards. Upon reaching the gate, more songs were sung and a statement was read. We were attempting to serve Blackwater with a statement of foreclosure for moral bankruptcy. Unfortunately, the Illinois State Troopers who were lined up on the opposite side of the fence were unable to understand the importance of this effort and arrested the 22 people who went under the gate trying to bring notice to the director of the facility.

There are many ways in which the Catholic Worker can be seen as counter-cultural. Many of us live in intentional community with people we are not related to, practice voluntary poverty, perform the biblical works of mercy by opening our homes to our brothers and sisters in need of a place to live, eat, shower, etc. Many of us also take the gospel call toward nonviolence and peacemaking very seriously. And so every year Catholic Workers from around the Midwest gather to once again voice their discontent with the prevalence of militarization throughout the U.S. government and its foreign policy. This year the focus was on private security contractors, with a retreat held in Stockton, Illinois, close to the home of Blackwater’s Midwest training facility in Mt. Carroll, Ill.

The U.S. has used independent security contractors to perform duties for the military, alongside the military, and instead of the military during the “War on Terror” and for many years before. In effect, the use of security contractors doubles the size of the military without the bad publicity. The U.S State Department does not keep numbers of how many contractors have been killed and how many they have killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are often better equipped than the U.S. soldiers, and as Jeremy Scahill said, “wearing the corporate logo instead of the American flag.” Blackwater is one such company, founded by ex-Navy Seal, Erik Prince.

Blackwater guards have a policy in Iraq that says “Shoot first, don’t ask questions.” They were given, by law, complete impunity from crimes committed in Iraq. The New York Times reported that Blackwater guards have been implicated in over 200 “shoot first” incidents, many of them resulting in the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians. When Iraqi families have filed complaints against Blackwater, investigations have found that many cases of pre-emptive shootings have been covered up, not only by Blackwater, but also the State Department. Most well known of the Blackwater atrocities, the 2007 massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisoor Square, led the House Oversight Committee to compile a report and schedule hearings on Blackwater activities, also according to the New York Times. All of this led the Iraqi government to ban Blackwater from operating in their country and the US government to decline to renew their contract with the company.

Since being banned in Iraq (and losing half its overall contract revenue) Blackwater has redoubled its focus on training police forces. It is impossible to know exactly how many agencies have used Blackwater but we do know that they include both the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Patrol, both of which were cited in former Gov.

George Ryan as being guilty in police misconduct in his decision to commute the sentences of Death Row inmates in Illinois in 2003. Blackwater has also trained the FBI SWAT team and various Airport Authorities.

While the retreat focused on Blackwater as this local incarnation of a wider trend in the spread of private security forces and non-government trained police agencies, this virulent agenda is the business of hundreds of companies. These private security guards are hired by corporations and in many states are given official police authority. They can stop cars, detain “suspicious” persons, carry weapons and make arrests. They outnumber real police 5:1. And since they work for corporations they are responsible not to the citizens that, in theory, police officers and departments are held accountable to, but rather the corporations that have hired them. The Freedom of Information Act only applies, in this case, to law enforcement and not private individuals and companies. This is where Blackwater hopes its future lies. They will take advantage of laws, laws that were set in place to keep the government in check, by doing their dirty work for them (The Wayne Madsen Report).

February 2009 saw Blackwater, in a move reminiscent of the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHINSEC), change its name to Xe (pronounced Z). Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrell said the idea behind the name change “is to define the company as it is today and not what it used to be.” In April the Midwest regional Catholic Workers reminded Blackwater that their past has not been forgotten and their future will not tolerated.

All 22 who were arrested, were brought to the county court house and released within 5 hours. All were charged with criminal trespass to real property with a common court date. Though, what stuck with many of us and reinforced our commitment to seeing Blackwater and all private security firms “foreclosed,” was the sight of a Blackwater SUV sitting at the gates of their compound with an M-16 in the back seat, a Blackwater employee in the driver’s seat and an Illinois State Trooper in the passenger seat.