Winona Catholic Worker

Who We Are...

2025-04-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Catholic Worker community in Winona, Minnesota, began in 1991 after Mary Farrell spent a year touring Catholic Worker communities around the country and persuaded some friends to help her open one in Winona, where she had attended college at Winona State University. She was inspired in her vision by the example of Father Dan Corcoran, a chaplain of the WSU Newman Center whose life embodied Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the works of mercy.

With the help of hundreds of people, Dan Corcoran House opened in July 1992 to serve single women, married couples, and their children. Bethany House opened in August 1996 and was named for the village where Jesus received hospitality from Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Together the houses have served more than one thousand men, women, and children over the years.

“We follow the Catholic Worker tradition by accepting the Gospel invitation to be personally responsible for our neighbors in need,” the Winona Catholic Worker mission statement says. “We are a Christian faith community, not an agency; we welcome as our sisters and brothers those who need a place to stay, seeing them as ‘ambassadors of God.’ We place our trust in God’s providence, relying entirely on private donations of money, food, labor, and furnishings from many individuals, groups, and churches. We pray that through our life and work here, God will transform us into more loving, compassionate persons, and that this house will help create a just and peaceful world—‘a society where it is easier for people to be good.’”

The Winona Catholic Worker is registered as a nonprofit organization with the state of Minnesota in order to make the community, rather than a single individual, the legal owner of the houses and other community assets. In keeping with the personalist philosophy of the Catholic Worker movement, however, the Winona Catholic Worker is not registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization (donations to the community are not tax-deductible). Our community is guided by holy Scripture, the Tradition of the Church, and the example of the saints (especially Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin). The community is loosely organized along the following lines:
• The “live-in volunteers” are the people who live in the houses along with the guests. They have primary responsibility for providing hospitality on a daily basis and running the household.
• “Core community” members include the live-in volunteers and several others who are actively involved in supporting and running the houses. The core community meets weekly to make significant decisions about the operation of the houses and the direction of the community, always keeping Catholic Worker spirituality in mind. Significant decisions are usually made by consensus.
• The wider community includes the hundreds of people who support the work of the houses by donating their time and money. This wider community is sometimes invited to help discern major decisions.

The Winona Catholic Worker focuses on providing hospitality and doing the works of mercy, although its members are involved in various social causes, and the community as a whole occasionally works on a particular issue (such as demonstrating for peace in Iraq). It holds a weekly worship service followed by a community supper on Monday nights. Roundtable discussions are usually held monthly.

You can learn more about the Winona Catholic Worker by checking out our Q & A section, read our Core Commitments, or contact us for more information.

Because (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

Because war is killing us.
our souls. our bodies.
our best intentions.
our imagination.
our friends. our adversaries.
our hopes and dreams.
our youth. our future.
our sense of humanity and dignity.
our civility.
our infrastructure of mind and matter.
our economy. our compassion.
Because war is killing us, suddenly and slowly,
and surely,
every last one of “us” and “them”...
Because my cousin came home from Iraq
all together...in pieces...
I cannot not sit here and interrupt
war as usual.

By John Heid

On Breaking International Law (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:56:00.000-07:00

By Mike Luetgeb Munson
The Geneva Conventions define the following actions as war crimes; “murder, ill treatment of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages.”
In Article 35 the document expands to say, “In any armed conflict, the right of parties to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the environment.”
We know of the United States of America’s use of indiscriminant cluster bombs, environmentally disastrous radioactive Depleted Uranium munitions, torture and sexual humiliation in detention centers in Iraq. Thus we are implored by the signers of the Geneva Conventions and the framers of the Nuremburg Principles, if not bound by international law, to intervene in order to end this crime against humanity.
The Nuremberg Principles proclaim, “individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience.” What do these duties look like in regards to the war in Iraq? How do we respond to crimes of war being committed today?
I suggest that we stop condoning the crimes being committed in our name and call for an end to the Iraq war. The first step to take is to end military recruitment in our schools and in our town.

Confronting War in Our Own Community (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

By Becky Lambert
War is not the answer, violence is not the answer. We live in a society today that believes both can bring about desired outcomes. Specifically, those who advocated for the war in Iraq believed that our intervention there would allow Iraq to become a beacon for democracy in the Middle East. What have we learned during the last five years but that our brothers and sisters in Iraq, who have no voice and no choice, do not look to this occupation as the liberation they were told it would be. Hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, cities bombed beyond recognition, no electricity, no security, no food. We have literally bombed them back to the Stone Age. And for this we need to take responsibility.
So, I must confront the war in my own community. Because I am sick of hearing the statistics: …nearly 4,000 dead; 29,000 irreparably damaged; the suicide rate of soldiers is at the highest it has ever been, as is the rate of soldiers who commit homicide when they are on leave or after they come back from Iraq; at the minimum, two-thirds of women in the military are sexual harassed or raped; hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s are dead…I choose to confront the war starting with the recruiting center. It is there that I see our youth disappearing, where I see teenagers recruited to fight the wars of old men. When we talk to the recruiters they tell us that they are just part of the system, soldiers following orders. We can let ourselves get away with a whole lot when we start thinking in those terms, when we take no responsibility. I will sit in front of the recruiting center because I need to be true to myself, I need to take responsibility for what is happening in my community.

Week of direct action at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:53:00.001-07:00

The Winona Catholic Worker community joined forces with friends and fellow peacemakers for a week of direct action at our local Armed Forces Recruiting Center. After weeks of preparations, meetings and research the group made a plan for three specific actions and a slough of letter writing. Monday, February 25, was declared “Women’s Day,” and was planned and implemented by the 6 women of the group. Two women entered the Recruiting Center and had a lengthy conversation with the recruiter and a recent Iraq veteran. The group of women then stood vigil outside of the recruiting station for 3 hours. At one point they hung a sign over the door of the building stating that it was “closed for business.” The sign was later removed after police were called. Wednesday, February 27 was a more festive day centered around the sharing of food. The group set up a large table directly in front of the Recruiting Center and served free food to passersby. The hot soup and homemade cookies were a hit with everyone on that chilly afternoon. A simple sign that hung on the table read “eating with each other makes fighting amongst ourselves impossible.” Thursday, February 28 concluded our weeklong campaign with a somber but serious message to the Recruiting Center and the town of Winona. John Heid and Becky Lambert planned to chain the doors of the center closed before anyone had the chance to enter. The group felt it necessary to make it clear that because the Recruiting Center was operating in violation of international law, business cannot go on as usual. The original plan was slightly altered by the fact that someone was already in the building, but Becky and John quickly amended their action by taking a seat directly in front of the door. No one would be entering without first moving Becky and John. Diane and Mike Leutgeb Munson joined the mini-blockade until warned by police that they would be arrested for trespass. Becky and John remained and were quickly handcuffed, removed from the property, processed, ticketed and released (John was held for much of the day on account of his refusal to identify himself). Local media coverage of the weeks events was thorough and the slough of letters to the editor written by the group itself brought many key issues to the attention of the Winona community. We are hopeful that this is the first step towards truly ending recruitment in our town.

Saint Mary's University Veterans Memorial (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

By Mary Farrell
A few months ago, we at the Catholic Worker were alerted to a project of the Alumni Board at Saint Mary’s University. The desire of the board was to honor SMU alumni who have served in the United States military with a memorial on campus. With some of us being SMU alumni and others concerned on behalf of peace and justice, we believed it was necessary to become more involved with this veteran’s memorial project. Our concern was that it did not reflect the Catholic and Lasallian mission of this Christian Brothers University. The design of the monument included five arches representing each branch of the armed services, as well as a “design element that will strike a beam of sunlight on an inscribed plaque of those who have died in the military…on the11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” (Veteran’s Day). Our Catholic and Christian conviction is that this design seemed to honor the institution of war rather than the veterans who made personal sacrifices.
We wanted to take a stand on this issue, and learned that some members of the faculty had attempted to do so in the past. As we spoke with some of our regular student volunteers, their interest was striking as well. Our community began our work by writing letters of concern to Brother Louis DeThomasis and other university personnel. As word spread among concerned students, staff, faculty and alumni, we began holding regular meetings in the living room of Bethany House where we gathered our thoughts together and discussed action steps; a blog was set up to post letters by those who wrote to the university. As a result of our community letters, we were given an invitation to meet with the university president and his staff to talk about the project and voice our concerns. The students attended a separate meeting with the president during the same week.
In the meetings we asked that the university consider a moratorium on the project until more people were included in the decision making process. We believed that widening the circle of people who were informed would give the university a broader picture of what people think about this controversial subject. The discussion continued with Br. Louis assuring us that SMU is not glorifying war with this monument and only wishes to honor those who served. Even so, the fear is that the monument could be perceived as a war memorial. We felt it necessary to highlight the fact that this monument may not reflect a Christian witness for a non-violent response to personal and world conflict. We expressed a hope that the university would choose to foster a culture of peace, especially at a place where students are learning how to live out the gospel message of how to love one’s enemies. We also pointed out that there have been many examples of people who have worked or studied at SMU who have chosen to volunteer their time to serve people who live without the basic necessities of life. Brother James Miller, a farmer and teacher, gave his life for the people of Guatemala with whom he witnessed brutal oppression and murder carried out by a military dictatorship during the 1980’s. Brother Miller serves as a clear example of the peacemakers that we would like to see memorialized on campus.
We were grateful for this opportunity to meet in person with those who are making decisions regarding this monument. As a result, Br. Louis proposed a forum on campus to hear from the university community regarding this project, as well as allowing our group to make a presentation to the Board of Trustees. We thanked Br. Louis for responding to our concerns with these two proposals.
Both the forum and the meeting with the Board took place in the last month. The forum was well attended by SMU staff and students and the university heard from many people who expressed their concerns on both sides of the issue. An artist pointed out that the arches in the design represented triumphalism, a theologian said it would be hard for her to teach her Catholic Social Teaching class if the monument was erected on campus and an Iraq veteran was disappointed by the opposition because he believes in the just war theory.
A small group of students, alumni and faculty represented our interests at the Board of Trustees meeting. They expressed our views that a moratorium would allow time for more discussion and reflection on how this monument might affect the university permanently.
The final result from both of these efforts was not to grant a moratorium but to completely redesign the monument; the pillars were abandoned and were replaced with a glass monument etched with an olive branch with an inscription stating “Peace through Service”. The design is an improvement and we thank those who took our concerns to heart; however we still take issue with this quote as well as one cited from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Those who sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contributed to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.”
These words taken out of the context of the surrounding paragraphs, as well as the words “peace through service” erroneously insinuate that peace can be obtained through military force. Our Christian faith teaches us otherwise. A letter has been written to the Board of Trustees and other University officials to acknowledge our gratitude for their time and energy, and to explain our concerns with the new wording and overall lack of communal involvement in the redesign process. We hope that there is still room for input and dialogue on this issue.
In all of this, we give thanks for this learning opportunity and for all who gave of their conviction and passion. It was a joy to be in the midst of the SMU students who invested their spiritual and intellectual energy into making their university campus a place where their voices were heard. It was truly an opportunity to learn from each other and to stand with each other. We were also grateful to discover that those with decision-making power opened their hearts and minds to a viewpoint that was different than their own.

Notes From the House (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

By Becky Lambert
And life once again returns to Dan Corcoran House! Thanks to the hard work and dedication of so many people and all of the answered prayers, we were able to reopen our family house at the beginning of January. We are incredibly grateful to all of our friends who have helped in this process over these last eight months. That time was spent not only fixing and repairing Dan Corcoran House, but also growing and renewing our own community. Like so much else in the Catholic Worker, the date of reopening the house was left up to Providence. With John joining the community in September and both of us moving into the family house, we were able to use those four months to make real connections with the house, the wider Winona community, and each other.
The opening of the house brings with it all the joys of a renewed friendship. Once again we are able to see our cooks every week and catch up on all the news and happenings in one another’s lives. The enthusiasm to restart their monthly or weekly commitment reflects the importance of the Catholic Worker in so many people’s lives. For John and me, it is a chance to meet the wonderful people that have been connected with our community for so many years and develop our own relationships with them.
We have also added new cooks to the schedule, friends who have answered our call for volunteers (but don’t worry, there are still many nights that cooks and volunteers are needed). There is hardly a day that goes by that we don’t get a visitor stopping by to do some laundry, drop off a food donation, or just chat (or, in Louie’s case, bring donuts and sit and eat them with whoever is lucky enough to be around). I still can’t get over the peaceful feeling that spreads from my heart when I reflect on how wonderful it is to have Dan Corcoran open again.
The return of overnight hospitality in Dan Corcoran brings with it the return of children to the house. We have been truly blessed to have had a young boy stay with us who is so imbued with life and energy that it was hard not to have some of the energy rub off on me. Not only has it been life affirming to have children in the house again but it has also been a joy and a wonder to be able to see my housemate live and interact with children. His patience and kindness with and toward them has been a great calming influence throughout the house, and his ability to match their energy is something to marvel at. Starting our days off with prayer has never seemed so important. Our quiet meditation in the morning as a community helps us to bring perspective to our often hectic and energy-filled days.
With kids now at Dan Corcoran, much of our attention is focused on hospitality, but we are still working on projects around both houses. I am continually delighted by the many different experiences that fill the days here. Bethany House has just had its attic windows replaced and its kitchen and dining rooms repainted. The prayer room has also gotten a new coat of paint as it waits to be completely gutted and re-roofed in the spring. We all feel so blessed that our days are spent in our homes and communities doing the work that we love, with people that we care about.
Bethany House is still open Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 for hospitality, with dinner at 6 pm. During this transition time, though, overnight hospitality has been put on hold. Dinner at Bethany looks different everyday; with more families coming consistently to meals it has expanded our table and our hearts. All are welcome for dinner. Dan Corcoran, as a family house, has dinner every night at 6 pm but does not have an open hospitality time. If you would like to help with meals at the Dan Corcoran House, please give us a call or stop by.
So thank you again and again to all of you who have helped bring life back to this house.

Works of Mercy, Works of War (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

By Diane & Mike Leutgeb Munson
In our regular vigils at the National Guard Armory in Winona, we choose to use the banner “Works of Mercy Not Works of War” as our primary declaration. This message is a basic one, encompassing the principles from which the Catholic Worker was originally born. It seems simple for passersby to grasp and even easier for us to explain. Our struggle to live out the works of mercy on a daily basis at our houses of hospitality is a clear one. So, too is our belief that violence, especially that perpetuated by the military industrial complex, is never a solution. Thus active personalism is the path we attempt to follow.
Within this slogan that we have embraced so fully exist ideals that we regularly reexamine and yet strongly believe. The works of mercy are not only a set of moral guidelines that we choose to hold, but are in fact the basis of personalism. The works of mercy require that we connect with other human beings in a basic, sincere manner, and in doing so we strive to improve our own lives and the lives of those around us. They demand that we leave bureaucracy and protocol at the door, abandoning the social, racial, gender and class-based advantages we too often cling to. The works of mercy require us to humble ourselves enough to truly feel the suffering of others, to walk with the hungry, naked, and imprisoned far enough to be able to see God in their midst.
The works of war ask us, as citizens and as a nation, to completely abandon personalism. In order to have the ability to kill another, we must first remove their humanity, the traits that make “them” like “us.” As we hear of the deaths of dozens of “insurgents” each day, our mind’s eye provides us with images of people who are less intelligent, religious fanatics, living a life of savagery in a landscape we have never seen. We could not, and will not, fight people who look and think and speak like we do. War must be impersonal, which is why wars are often decided and waged by the leaders of large government structures. Naomi Klein, an investigative journalist, once said, “Those who profit most from war are never near the battlefield.”
Our political system is not conducive to stopping the works of war, a reality that is exemplified by the current election year process. As political candidates make mention of eventual troop withdrawal, we know that our military presence in Iraq is indefinite, due to the permanent U.S. bases that have been constructed in the last five years of the occupation. There is a blinding hesitancy to speak the truth about war and our reliance on it, economically and culturally. The jobs created by our need for vehicles, weapons, armor and supplies in Iraq keep individuals and communities afloat in an uncertain time. Our elected officials are keenly aware of the advantages of being at war for national morale and economic growth. War has long been a political tool, used by various administrations and countless rulers both here and abroad. Real voices do not often reach the minds and hearts of our elected leaders with the same force that real money does.
Unfortunately, the utter lack of personalism in war leaves soldiers and their families, victims and their families in dire need of the works of mercy. Soldiers are returning to our country daily, wounded physically and emotionally from battles waged in our name. We are proud of their sacrifices and terrified of the scars that have been left in our young people. The works of mercy have never been easy, but they seem to be all the more painstaking when we are called to care for those suffering from the Effects of war, which we so strongly oppose. Unfortunately, we too support our troops, but here in our houses of hospitality, most of our support comes post-war—when all the flags have stopped waving, the counselors have stopped listening, the memories have continued raging, and the bottle becomes the only solution. It is then that we cry, more fervently than ever, “Works of Mercy, Not Works of War.”

Lenten Reflection (Spring 2008)

2010-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

by John Heid
“All our problems stem from our acceptance of the filthy rotten system.” Dorothy Day
Lent is upon us. These days I see many souls in our local community walking a contemporary Way of the Cross.
The First Station: Last month local police brutally apprehended a young man who recently had lived at Bethany House. Officers repeatedly tazered the man after a conversation-gone-sour devolved into a footrace and altercation. Several of the seven policemen wound up with bloody noses, and our friend with a manila folder full of charges. The city newspaper spun the incident into an epic drama including bold-faced headlines that made it Winona’s crime du jour.
The Second Station: State regulations kept another guest in jail more than a month after her three-day sentence was served. She was prohibited from returning to her family and home state, despite the nonviolent nature of her charges, until probation workers completed paperwork and secured state approval. Thus, she was both incarcerated and exiled because of policy and bureaucratic torpor. The filthy rotten system has a high tolerance for suffering. Her story is not an exception to the rule.
The Third Station: A young family who often shares evening meal with us hovers on the precipice of abject poverty, one crisis away from collapse on any given day. Social service regulations rule them out as often as eligible for one needed service or another. There is no shortage of genuinely thoughtful, caring social workers attempting to support our friends. Yet policy and procedure encumber them like shackles on a long distance runner. Our society’s social services are rarely either. . . .
The Fourth Station: Dwindling resources and sky-rocketing health care insurance premiums are forcing local social service agencies to opt for high-tech appliances, like remote camera monitoring, in lieu of human presence, in adult foster care homes during nighttime hours.
What do these vignettes say to us? What is a humane response to the myriad and cavernous needs we witness up close and in the newspapers? Who suffers and who is nurtured? Who profits while others languish?
Would training in nonviolent conflict resolution minimize bloody noses and tazered bodies? Would compassionate social service policy humanize our communities? Would a radical restructuring of fiscal priorities from a weapons-building economy to a people-nurturing one create beloved community? Is technology a worthy substitute for human touch? In catholic worker parlance, what will make it easier for people to do good, every last one of us?
It is easy to rant—to make believe we are somehow bystanders. It is hard not to be discouraged, if not downright infuriated, by the daily onslaught of bad news, especially when one recognizes the names and knows something of the life stories behind the mug shot images in section A of the newspaper.We are a small town in a small world in one of countless big galaxies. We often know the police and the policed. The social worker and the client. The health care worker and the patient. The newspaper editor and the face in the mug shot. They are James and Jane. Sam or Susan. Betty or Bill. Neither are villains nor hero/heroines. Rather, they are neighbors or friends or acquaintances, our sisters and brothers. All of these, all of us, are dehumanized when the inherent violence of the “filthy rotten system” insinuates itself into our relationships.
Can we, one by one, disengage from that which encourages, codifies, legalizes, reinforces a myth that we are not fundamentally one, i.e. brothers and sisters in the human family? Can we evolve beyond our acceptance of this filthy rotten system? Do we believe that personalism trumps state responsibility? Can we seek out and nurture “those tiny molecular forces that work from individual to individual” (William James)?
How can we begin (again and again) to build a new world in the shell of the old?
Can we start by recognizing the humanity of every single person mentioned in the daily news—from athlete to terrorist, from CEO to lotto winner, from dealer (car and drug) to nurse of the year? Can we go beyond just thinking outside the box to climbing out of the damnable ideologies that box us in?
Is it public policy that holds us together or our shared humanity? Is it law that liberates us or is it genuine, unfettered, works of mercy and compassion that are the warp and woof of our social fabric? How can we move beyond bystander status in the fray of the daily Stations of the Cross? How can we evolve beyond the frigid terrain of charity to the fecund fields of justice?
Gandhi commented: “Imagine the face of the poorest person in the world and then ask yourself if the step you are about to take will make any difference in that person’s life.”
I’d add . . . let’s look at ourselves and ask if the next step we take will make us more fully human . . . or less.

Welcome ShaNiya! (Fall 2008)

2010-03-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

By diane leutgeb munson

In the endless unknowing of hospitality, we find ourselves in incredible situations. When we choose to build relationships, be it with guests, friends or family, we knit ourselves into a web of discovery and pain and occasional chaos hoping that our mutual love and respect for one another will carry us through. Sometimes that love not only carries us through but also floods our lives so completely that we are changed to the core.

Muffy has been a part of my life for a few years, dancing in and out of our homes as a teenager with her parents. Her striking beauty and depth of character have always been her mothers’ pride. She and her family rejoined our household this past spring, at which point she was well into her first pregnancy. Working towards finishing her senior year of high school, Muffy was determined to learn all there was to know about pregnancy, labor, delivery and parenting on top of math and social studies. As a community, we fell in love with Muffy’s baby long before she went into labor, and we decided early on that we would be a part of this journey with her to whatever extent she would let us.

As her pregnancy progressed and her world continued to be shaken with the uncertainty that has long followed her, Muffy made more explicit requests about what lay ahead. She wanted to live with us (namely, Becky) before and after the birth of her child; she needed help getting to some doctors appointments; and she wondered if I would be a part of the birth of her child. She had heard that I am interested in being a doula and was looking for more support during the labor and delivery of her child. I was ecstatic, to say the least, as were we all, to know that we would be able to welcome another generation of a family we adore.

The final weeks of Muffy’s pregnancy were challenging for a number of reasons, in addition to the fact that it was mid-July and quite warm. She moved back into the Dan Corcoran House a mere week before giving birth, leaving many of her belongings at her former apartment. Her mother was lucky enough to receive time off of a new job in order to rush back to Winona from Illinois for the birth. Pre-labor contractions lasted for nearly a week, sending Muffy and her mother and I to the hospital 10 days in a row. Yet it is true that many things become trivial upon seeing a child be born!

At 2:15am on July 23, 2008, we welcomed ShaNiya to this world. Muffy did an amazing job throughout labor and delivered as though she had been waiting her whole life to do just that. ShaNiya greeted her mother quietly, with an air of patience about her. Their personalities seemed to mirror one another, even from their first encounter. Grandma Robin switched swiftly from being a birth coach to officially announcing the new arrival to all relatives, despite the early hour.

And there I stood, soaking it all in. On the tail of the flood of emotions that comes with witnessing your first birth, I paused to contemplate the place in which I stood. I stared at Muffy, glowing in a way I had never seen- who could have thought that she could be more beautiful than ever after labor and delivery? I watched ShaNiya carefully, conscious of each person who touched her and what they did. Indeed, I felt a little bit like a new parent myself, sure that I did not know what to do, but not confident that someone else should be doing anything to that child without my permission. I listened to the cell phone conversations with relatives and realized that I did not know anyone on the other line, and yet I was the person standing in the room with this new mother and baby.

Then I thought briefly of how it was I came to be here, now. After all, I live in a men’s house of hospitality. I feel much more comfortable living with adult men with mental illness, addiction and extensive criminal records than I would living with small children. Yet, here I stood, with a young woman, her mother and her baby girl, surrounded by attentive female nurses and a midwife. At 3:00am it all seemed just a bit ironic and almost funny, and there was no place else I wanted to be.

I learned only after the birth of ShaNiya that another former guest had invited members of our community to be present at the delivery of her first child. A number of people with whom she had connected during and after her stay at the house were able to attend the birth. She and her two children now eat dinner at our table regularly. With gratitude, those very community members who helped to welcome Uyen (pronounced ee-an) into the world have been able to watch her grow for over 12 years now. As she celebrates her birthday this fall we all give thanks for her life and the energy she brings to our houses.

Over the years we (meaning the dozens of us who have been live-in volunteers) have had the sincere joy of developing relationships with many, many children and their families, a handful from the time of birth. Loving children who live in perpetually precarious situations is a painful job. This community has seen a generation grow up and have children of their own- there are numerous women who lived with us as young girls that visit us with their own kids in tow. We are grateful that the overwhelming joys of birth and youth seem to lighten the intense burden that meets many children on their first day of life. And we yearn to continue to shoulder even a portion of that load for the young ones in our lives.

Witnessing the birth of a child is a life changing experience. There is no purer love than that of a mother and father for their newborn child and there is no more feminine an act than giving life to another. Beautiful as it is, birth is punctuated by pain, fear and doubt, feelings that only continue when you hold a life in your hands and realize your responsibility for this person’s safety, care, education, etc. Perhaps the most poignant element of my participation in ShaNiya’s birth was that all of us involved came home to a community that embraced us in our ragged and elated states and took some of the weight off.

Muffy and ShaNiya will undoubtedly continue to weave their lives in and out of this community and of my life. They will rejoin us at the house this fall for a time and there will surely be stiff competition for time with baby ShaNiya. Muffy will always have a home with us as she always has. ShaNiya will always hold a place in my heart because I watched her take her first breath, and because this community knit itself into her web of life long before she arrived.

A Celebration of 75 years of the Catholic Worker (Fall 2008)

2010-03-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

By Eileen Hanson

This July, Becky and I traveled to Worcester, MA to attend the 75^th Anniversary celebration of the Catholic Worker movement. It was a chance to reflect on the history and present of the movement that inspires our work here in Winona. It was also a great time to meet and connect with Catholic Worker friends from far and wide.

In its early years, the Catholic Worker began in New York City by publishing a small newspaper advocating the idea of care for the poor, and justice for the worker. Soon, the Catholic Worker newspaper office was inundated by those same poor, seeking food and shelter from those who wrote so movingly about the responsibility to provide for one’s neighbor. Houses of hospitality soon sprang up around the country to meet those needs. But while the needs must have been overwhelming at times, Dorothy Day always commended fellow Catholic Workers to stay small. She knew that large, institutional shelters might provide the basic needs of food and shelter, while the needs of the person, the needs of the soul, could not be well attended. Catholic Worker co-founder, Peter Maurin encouraged a house of hospitality in every parish, a Christ room in every Christian home. In this way, we could all take responsibility for the needs of our brothers and sisters, and welcome Christ into our homes.

In keeping with this Benedictine tradition of seeing Christ in the stranger, the Catholic Worker movement has developed a global vision of justice, where all people around the world are acknowledged as our own brothers and sisters. Over the years, many Catholic Workers have gone to places like Iraq, Sudan, Palestine and Afghanistan to stand with those directly affected by war. Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, of the Ss. Francis and Therese community in Worcester, sees the Catholic Worker involvement in such overseas peacemaking efforts as united with the work of hospitality in our own home communities. Just as we open our homes to those society often does not value, we also open our hearts to those the world sees only as collateral damage. In her remarks opening a roundtable discussion, Schaeffer-Duffy encouraged us all to “persevere in knowing the outcast, embracing them, keeping the doors unlocked, the gates open, crossing the borders that are cropping up so fast now, making holes in the walls, embracing those we are told are enemies.”

As part of this anniversary gathering, the assembled Catholic Workers drafted a statement that reaffirmed our commitment to pacifism and solidarity with victims of violence and torture and condemning in no uncertain terms the continuing US war and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this statement, the Catholic Worker movement of today echoed the voice of the movement from sixty years ago, when as the US declared war and with Japan and Germany, the front-page of the Catholic Worker newspaper proclaimed, “WE ARE STILL PACIFISTS”.

It is an amazing thing to see this movement, in all its facets, still flourishing after 75 years. There are still small groups of people, all over this country and the world, committed to seeing Christ in the stranger. Even nearly twenty-eight years after the death of Dorothy Day, when many predicted a decline and even death of the movement, Catholic Worker communities continue to prosper. In a recent book, The Catholic Worker Movement after Dorothy, Harvard Professor Dan McKanan argues that the movement is healthier now than ever.

The vibrancy of the current Catholic Worker movement was evident in the roundtable discussions during the weekend. Topics like, “Green Revolution - Sustainability and Farming in the CW Movement”, “Campaign to Stop Torture”, “Confronting Racism”, “Offering Hospitality to the Undocumented” and “The Miraculous Insanity of CW Finances” were all well attended and lively discussions.

It was also wonderful to see how this wide-spread and motley community celebrates with such joy. Catholic Workers share a basic commitment to solidarity with the poor, often living and working in the most distressed and impoverished places. And yet, there is great joy in the movement. Life is not a drudgery. Children are present in many communities; Catholic Worker families are no longer exceptional in the movement. Catholic Worker kids bring vitality and joy to any gathering as they run and play with one another as their parents sit in roundtables discussing the urgent (often depressing) issues of the day. But, as the dance party and hilarious evening talent show attest, even grown-up Catholic Workers know how to have fun. (Even if Dorothy Day appeared in one skit, scolding “no fun allowed!”)

But, we know that Dorothy Day did find great joy in life. “The duty of delight” is a frequent refrain in Dorothy’s diaries, available in a newly released book of the same name, edited by former Catholic Worker editor Robert Ellsberg. Ellsberg opened the gathering by sharing some of his reflections from Dorothy Day’s nearly fifty years of journaling. In her diaries, Dorothy comments on many of the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a life of hospitality and community. Always, she finds a way to give thanks to God and find some source of hope or joy. She often wrote of her daughter Tamar, and in later years of the joy she found with her ten grandchildren.

The 75^th Anniversary celebration was a wonderful time to reconnect with old friends and fellow travelers in the movement. We are grateful to the Worcester, MA Catholic Worker communities, The Mustard Seed and Ss. Francis and Therese, for all their hard work in organizing the gathering. We are grateful too for the opportunity to see how each community lives out the vision, each in their own circumstance. A gathering like this one serves to fertilize and nourish the whole movement, in the sharing of experiences and insights among the varied communities. Becky and I came back to Winona rejuvenated by the time we had to celebrate and reflect with the wider community of the Catholic Worker.

The Intersection of Motherhood and the Catholic Worker (Fall 2008)

2010-03-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

By Susan Windley-Daoust

Eight years ago, when my eldest child was a baby, my husband Jerry and I visited our friends living at the Winona Catholic Worker for a potluck and roundtable. It was held at Bethany house, our home for single men needing hospitality, and the potluck was a lively mix of long-time guests, friends of the house, live-ins, and visitors. My husband, Jerry, was talking to a guest (let’s call him Jim) living there at the time, a huge man with a fierce beard but friendly manner. Our son drew attention to his cute self by gurgling, and when one of the men said “that’s a fine baby there,” Jerry said, “Thanks—why don’t you hold him?” Jim resisted (“naw, I’d drop him for sure, he’s so little”), but our little one added to the conversation by flinging open his arms and smiling expectantly. So Jim gingerly picked him up and held him to his chest, and suddenly began to cry. “No one’s ever trusted me with a baby before,” he said.
So many times the intersection of the work of hospitality and raising children has yielded moments like this. I never thought that at age six months, my son would be doing the works of mercy more effectively than anyone else in the family. Other times, my six year old middle daughter is the quiet and graceful one who is ready to play fairies with any young guest at the house. And my youngest daughter asked me most of her two year old year if we could pray for a near-age guest of the house: not that she knows the exact nature of this child’s steep challenges, because we never mentioned them to her. But I can’t believe she didn’t sense something, especially if you believe that prayer is initiated by the Holy Spirit.
Catholicism validates the value of motherhood as a vocation in a way many traditions do not, but still, I have never been perfectly comfortable in understanding what that vocation means. The voices buzz like static. To believe what the world says, motherhood is about giving your children every toy they want, making sure they grow up geniuses, and that they will respond to dinners with melting smiles. Certainly that’s how motherhood is marketed. So much of motherhood is commodified, perhaps sensing that women are so naturally nervous about this huge responsibility that giving us something to buy (Babies R Us, anyone?) makes us feel more prepared. Of course, the answer is not in buying things. Mothering is an act done in community, for love and formation, that relies heavily upon the allowing God to work through us for the good of others. These children are entrusted to our care, and in this upside down world, so much can go wrong. So we try: we do our best to raise them in our faith, and to teach them what we value. We try to model non-violence; we try to model respect for each person’s human dignity.
Certainly there are differences between family community and CW community, but I live with gratitude that being a small part of the life of the Winona Catholic Worker helps me understand what motherhood is truly about, and indeed, helps me be a better mother. There is an ancient Vietnamese story about chopsticks and the Kingdom of God: beyond this world, we are each given one meter chopsticks. Hell is when we despair and starve, unable to eat with our too-long chopsticks. Heaven is where we are fed because we understand we must feed each other. Both family community and CW community know something of that insight, that the Christian life is best lived generously, together. Being around people who value and live out that generosity and ingenuity really “feed” my mothering by example. Motherhood and being a Catholic Worker are vocations where life, by definition, is openhandedly shared. And, by hook and by crook and by God, we are fed.
But it would have been hard to see this intersection without the experience of bringing our kids with us to the Catholic Worker meals for years. Some would say it is a risk, but it is a far greater risk, I’d say, not to be doing our best to raise our children to be aware of the realities of the world and the medicine of the works of mercy: it is only in reality do we find God. God breaks through on the jagged edge of reality, where we realize the chopsticks are long and the hunger real. We cannot buy our way off this jagged edge, or pretend it is not there. Any authentic spiritual life must be grounded in reality, and there is not a delusional vapor in these houses. It’s bracing tonic for me and for my kids.
A Grammy winning rock/gospel singer with a jagged edge past, Ashley Cleveland, wrote a song about finding motherhood as a calling. “Rebecca” (which you can download for free at ashleycleveland.com) comes after an album of songs on addiction, near death, and reliance on the mercy of God. Yet at the end of this CD, you find this quiet acoustic lullaby to a sleeping infant. The refrain is sweet:
“Rebecca… you are the laughter in your mama’s eye, the stars are bright, but not like the shine I’ve taken to you…Who gave who the gift of life? We’ll call it a toss-up… but these changes in me tell the real truth…I’m grateful for you.”
Motherhood certainly surprised me that way. No one knows the depths of love, grief, and joy that a child elicits from you. But in the last verse of the album, she finds a kind of triumph within her musical chronicle of struggle:

“I look for my future and I feel a peace about my past
Surprised by joy, I've seen my Father's mercy in you
You make a fine tutor and my vocation is clear at last
I can't wait to hear you call me something, and see the world as you do”
It’s a beautiful statement about motherhood and clarity and joy. But…does it stretch too much to imagine singing the first three lines to anyone to whom you are linked by hospitality? To anyone whom you are connected as brother or sister in Christ? In the end, all vocations are calls to generous love, calls to mirror the love of God. Dorothy Day knew that, giving birth to and raising Tamar in difficult circumstances. One of her favorite saints, Therese de Lisieux knew that, writing down in capital letters in her life narrative, “MY VOCATION IS LOVE!” Sometimes we don’t even know the gift God prompts us to give, such as when Jim broke down in gratitude after being trusted to hold our infant son. The Catholic Worker houses remind me that life is to be shared, without cost, in concrete ways. And it’s a good place for my children to begin practicing that life-long project: to allow our darkest reality can be embraced by God, give us a peace about our past, and yield to being surprised by joy.

The Real Cost of Change (Fall 2008)

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By Becky Lambert

As the election this November hijacks our nightly news and threatens to completely take over our daily conversations, I too am overwhelmed by the desire for change. However, I don’t think it is the type of change Barack Obama and the Democrats are chanting for. Our Winona Catholic Worker community does not have a TV, but we are still subject to the bombardment of ads that cost thousands of dollars to make and millions of dollars to air. For all of the opinions, rhetoric and millions of dollars being thrown around by these ads I am truly at a loss as to how the Democrats’ “change” will actually effect my community in a positive way.

Money, especially the candidates’ constant struggle with raising more of it, is a never-ending topic among pundits, news anchors and politicos. But never, it seems, do they question the morality of the soliciting and spending of these impossibly large sums. John McCain and Barack Obama have raised, between them, $563,589,000--over half a billion dollars; when four other recent presidential candidates’ (Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani and Romney) fundraising has been factored in, the amount rises to over a billion dollars. This money goes mainly to two basic costs: administrative and media. As of August 20, over $434 million had been spent on the administrative sector and over $307 million on media, including $235 million on TV commercials. By November 4^th of this year, five of these six candidates will be unable to show anything for their efforts. And what will we have to show for it?

Only imagine what this billion dollars, put into the right projects, could have accomplished within the current system: 300,000 people with health care, 17, 000 elementary school teachers, or 9,000 new public housing units, but instead we get attack ads and pop-ups. However, thinking in these abstract thoughts is exactly why Americans are so willing to part with their money…it allows us to distance ourselves from direct intervention within or without of the system. The current structure, in which authority is distributed from the top down in order to keep the power/money concentrated in the fewest hands, is only sustained by our reluctance to really involve ourselves in our communities on a personal level, at a personal sacrifice. Can we advocate for a radical new system in which money is not given to campaigns, but to people; where money is used not to spread slander across your TV screen, but to invest in family farms and health care? We do not need to be pacified by those in Washington or St. Paul who again and again tell us that they are representing our needs and our concerns, and sorry but there just isn’t any money there for your school or bridge or voucher program to get fresh vegetables to low-income families.

It is possible to do better for ourselves. We have to let go of our own distrust, greed and hate so that it can no longer fuel and propel the system. Barack Obama and John McCain and all the others believe that ordinary Americans are too self-absorbed to really care what they are doing. And to be completely honest we are, and we don’t. So little of what is done in Washington has no direct immediate effect on our everyday lives that we just forget that in a democracy the citizen is supposed to have the control. We forget that this small homogenous group of individuals controls everything that we do, to save us from anarchy (and thinking). I’m pretty sure that my voice is not welcome in the halls of Congress. I’ve seen what they do to friends who give voice and action to their concerns, who do not believe that working through the system is morally or ethically responsible.

What happens when we involve ourselves in our own communities, give money to local groups instead of the multi-billion dollar players in this crazy scheme?

(We will have an opportunity to discuss these and other thoughts concerning the Catholic Worker and voting November 7^th. Please join us for a roundtable and potluck at Bethany House at 6pm.)

I Walked Because I Could: Witness Against War Walk (Fall 2008)

2010-03-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

By Marie Kovesci

Ahh, summer..time to kick back:garden, read, and, take a walk, then walk again…then walk some more. The Witness Against War group did some of those things this summer, especially the “take a walk” part.

Witness Against War is a project supported by the Chicago-based Voices for Creative Non Violence (www.vcnv.org) . Their objectives are straight-forward: *Withdrawal of all forces from Iraq *End all military action against Iraq *Full health care, housing and education benefits for veterans and families *Reconstruction of Iraq *Redirection of US resources away from war to improving our community’s – health care, education, housing, retirement, etc

The walk was designed to raise these issues and meet with local communities to open discussions on peace and justice issues. The group began from Chicago on July 12^th and ended in St. Paul, MN on August 30^th, covering about 500 miles. They carried signs, had a support bus and stayed in local homes, churches and camping grounds along the way.

Our local Catholic Workers hosted the walkers in Winona for a rest day which included organizing a potluck supper, a community discussion and setting up a rest day for the walkers. Many days later the walkers were highly complimentary of their stop in Winona, thanks to the Catholic Workers! They also gave out advance word of the group and provided a link for the Witness Against War project. “This walk is a 6 week campaign to challenge and non-violently resist the war,” says Dan Pearson one of the coordinators.

Their goals challenged me- If I am a supporter of nonviolent protest against the war, I should be walking with them. Several Winona walkers did join the core group of walkers from Trempeleau to Winona. We gathered early at the Catholic Worker House and drove to meet at Perrot State Park at 7:00am, walking early to avoid the day’s heat.

We set off, maintaining a 3 mile per hour pace through the back country roads. The early morning was crisp and green. Somehow we were near a gun club or a shooting range and the sounds of the random gunfire made the Witness Against War walk a surreal event. We shared stories as we walked and our Wisconsin gunfire became background noise although unsettling. In other places the gunfire would injure or kill walkers who might be on their way to the market or school.

During the walk I saw the business of the Witness Against War project firsthand. People stopped to talk about the war, some with anger and others just curious about our signs. The discussions were forthright and I was listening to both sides and learning how to deal with curbside discussions.

It was an amazing walk-seeing the white dome of St. Stan’s and the County Courthouse form along the way on highway 35, sticking out above the treeline. Finally we turned to head for Latsch Island where a welcome was waiting-food, music, and even motivational chalk drawings on the sidewalk for about the last mile! Alice Gerard, a core walker from Buffalo, NY dipped her feet in the mighty Mississippi and their rest day was off to a great start.

Somewhere during the next day I decided I could join the walkers for a week. I packed-mostly socks since “care of feet” had reached a new priority. We met for breakfast in Fountain City and I stowed my camping gear in the bus and we were off. For the next 5 days we followed a routine including hearty food, clear weather and the scenery of highway 35 all the way to Red Wing.

I had a chance to meet people in their front yards as we went through Alma, to discuss our commitments as we walked the miles and to generally enjoythe company of this talented group. We had many joiners who walked for a day or so and the energy was high.

I left the group Sunday afternoon in Red Wing and went to my first day back to school on Monday. My mind and body were much too restless! I now have a new sign on my office door – “I walked because I could…ask me about it.” So , the discussions continue.

Now, my challenge is to continue to live the objectives of the project and to bring them more closely into my life. If possible, I can be more available and open to discussion with co-workers, friends, and neighbors. Overall, it was a fantastic opportunity to join the group for this time and be a part of this project!

A Triptych of Summer Reflections from the Sonoran Desert (Fall 2008)

2010-03-12T12:09:00.000-08:00

By John Heid

“What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing? Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces. Then why did you go out? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.” Mt. 11: 7-9

The three of us had been hiking since breakfast. It was now midday and the August heat was bearing down full force. We were exploring and mapping migrant trails in preparation for future water drops-offs. The relentless Sonoran sun soaks the body and dries the throat at the same time. I was overdue for a break as we descended into Bartolo canyon.

The spiral trail took us down into a sheltered wash. As my eyes adjusted to the shade, my mouth opened wide. Was this a mirage? Was I in a cathedral or the middle of the Sonoran desert? Ahead in nooks and crevices along the canyon wall were holy card pictures of saints alongside family photos peering out at me. A large Virgen De Guadalupe cloth hung prominently on the side of a boulder. Scattered about were food tins, most empty, some unopened. Clothing and crushed water bottles covered the rocky ground. Small statues of saints with pesos and pennies at their feet were lying on ledges. A rock altar with rosaries and used votive candles was centrally located.

In the muggy stillness we realized one candle was still burning. Had we interrupted someone’s vigil? What pilgrims had just passed through? I put down my pack, removed my hat and entered into prayer. What else does on do on holy ground?

“Migrant shrines” like the one we encountered dot the desert like way stations on a modern Via Dolorosa. Like the saguaro cactus these shrines embody the character of the contemporary Sonoran desert along the U.S./Mexican border.

* * * * *

The desert is the locus of wonder. Triple rainbows. Wrap-around-the-horizon sunsets. Midnight coyote serenades. Four a.m. dawn chorus from a choir of unseen birds. Clouds of butterflies. Monsoon showers that soften the arid, leathery terrain into a lush green carpet. It is no wonder that prophets and prophetesses sought the Sacred in these environs. The margins. The wilderness.

The desert is also the locus of pathos, brutality and death. The fragile terrain is lethal. The tiny luminescent scorpions pack the meanest bite. Radiant cactus flowers are protected by fish hook spines. In minutes dry washes become raging rivers. Trails can seem like a gauntlet of needles and thorns. And the heat. Always the heat. The desert floor reaches 140 degrees at midsummer.

None of these natural features of the Sonoran haunt me as much as the sight of a child’s footprints in a muddy wash or a toddler’s discarded clothing along a migrant trail; or family photos strewn beneath a mesquite bush. Or half-filled bottles of filthy cattle tank water which kill our sisters and brothers in transit.

How can we blame the desert for these deaths? The autopsies of the thousands of migrant workers whose remains have been found in the desert over the past decade and a half say “exposure” or “coronary failure”. While the medical diagnosis may be accurate, the real cause of death is not the heart failure of migrants, but ours. In the deserts of the southwest the soul of our nation is dehydrating, atrophying and dying.

* * * * *

Shortly before leaving the desert, I visited a shrine dedicated to Josseline Jamileth Hernandez Quniteros. Beside a brook which flows year round this 14 year old El Salvadoran girl’s remains were found in mid February. She was unable to keep up with her companions en route north and was left behind. Weeks of search and rescue efforts had failed to find her.

Central to the shrine is a chalk white cross with a plaque that reads: “Cuando sientes que el camino se te ha vuelfo duro y dificil, no te des por vencido y sigue adelante, y busca la ayuda de Dios. Te llevaremos siempre en el Corazon.” [“When you feel the way has become hard and difficult, don’t give up but move forward and you will find God’s help. We will carry you in our heart always.”]

The site of Josseline’s shrine seems so antithetical to the grim reality of a vibrant young girl’s life cut so brutally short there. Bird song filled the air. The sweet fragrance of gardenia wafted like incense from the shrine. Serenity presided. Sacred ground. I felt oddly at peace. Grieving lead to clarity. A Mother Jones remark came to mind. “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

At this shrine I came to recognize that it was time for me to leave the desert. Josseline’s path on earth, not mine, ended beside this clear running stream. While it is critically important to place food and water in the desert for our brothers and sisters in

migration, it is absolutely necessary that we

seek and address the cause of this migration beyond the desert. How long does one carry gallons of water (each weighing 8 lbs.) deep into the desert before one asks why there are people in the desert in the first place?

Somewhere deep in the Sonoran a candle burns. A light of hope. Can we find that same light in our hearts and by its flicker recognize that all our paths are woven into one?

The Calling of the Season (Winter 2008)

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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)

2010-02-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-26T13:21:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

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.