College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University
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Transition in the Era of a Pandemic: An Exercise in Mindfulness
Get PDFCOVID-19 took over the world in March 2020 and overturned our practices, customs, and perspectives. It reminded us that how we relate to one another defines how we choose to build our community and our society. In our forced isolation and confinement, it became evident that we must remember to let go, slow down, and rely on each other to positively influence our future. In times of drastic change, exercising kindness to yourself and to those around you can help wade through challenges and make the best of them, one day at a time, one step at a time. This reflection explores how the transition to remote learning was lived by an instructor and her students of French at a liberal arts institution in the Midwest. It illustrates that as we live through life\u27s challenges, we find opportunities for personal and communal growth
Organizing for Change: The Worker-driven Social Responsibility Model
No full textA lead organizer for the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL) will share with us insight about his organization, its worker rights campaign in the construction industry, and current organiziing experience. CTUL is a workers center that promotes worker rights, including in the non-unionized sectors of the Twin Cities metro area construction industry, seeking to improve the conditions for all workers. Since CTUL’s inception in 2004, about a quarter of workers who have connected with the organization have worked in the non-union construction industry. After years of witnessing exploitation and rampant wage theft in the industry, CTUL began a construction worker committee where non-union construction workers bring their voice, experience, and leadership to improve conditions and win back stolen wages. CTUL\u27s campaign builds on the remarkable success of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers to create a Worker-driven Social Responsibility Program in the construction sector. Please come prepared with questions you have about CTUL, the construction campaign, or about organizing.
Carlos García Velasco,, began doing community organizing work in 2004. He has done this work off and on for many years and in different spaces, including political work, union organizing, campaigns, and more. He has been with the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL) for the last three years. He is the lead organizer with CTUL\u27s construction campaign, through which CTUL is organizing non-union construction workers to build power and fight for change in the non-union sector of the construction industry
Lunch & Learn: Gratefulness: The Porter of the Monastery
No full textChapter 66 of the Rules of Benedict places a wise, old monk at the entrance of the monastery who welcomes guests with the kind words, Thanks be to God or Your blessing please. Fr. Michael opens this chapter for us to cultivate a porter spirituality. That is, to cultivate gratefulness
The United States National Environmental Policy Act: History, process, and politics
No full textPrior to 1970, there was no requirement for the US federal government to account for the environmental impacts of their decisions and projects. If negative environmental impacts existed, there was also no requirement for the federal government to inform the public or seek their input and comments on the federal project. All this hanged on January 1, 1970, when Republican President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
This chapter reviews the purpose of NEPA and provides and overview of the basic environmental assessment process in the United States. In order to provide a context for NEPA\u27s judicial enforcement as well as legislative and executive branch attempts at NEPA reform during US President Trump\u27s administration (2016-2020). Finally, this chapter discusses NEPA\u27s future under an administration led by President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris
‘Dear Friend’: The Practice of Nonviolence in Gandhi’s Letters to Hitler
Get PDFAt the onset of World War II, Mohandas Gandhi wrote two separate letters to Adolf Hitler. Though neither letter ever reached the Führer, both are readily accessible, via Internet, to 21st Century readers, for whom the content of the letters may prove both alarming and instructive. Why did Gandhi address the chief Nazi as his ‘Dear Friend’? Why did he write with such profound respect and humility when addressing a man accused of ‘monstrous’ acts? Did he really believe his appeals would persuade Hitler to end the war?
This article will examine Gandhi’s letters to Hitler as notable examples of the Mahatma’s everyday practice of peace. His sympathetic approach to the Führer, models a deep practice of nonviolent values which, while quite shocking to those of us working in today’s ‘woke’ environment, can, if we approach it with open minds, provide an opportunity to explore the strategic value of Gandhi’s principled methods. Understanding the nonviolent strategy we find deeply embedded in these short letters can offer us useful guidance on how to talk to people we disagree with, how to restore community relationships in our increasingly fractured and polarised societies, and how to establish today’s truths as we understand them in a world where the existence of truth is increasingly debated. If we approach our opponents as ‘dear friends’, we can restore and rebuild nonviolence as the foundation of our own peace praxis
Writing for Intercultural Growth on Study Abroad in Australia
Get PDFFor students participating in study abroad programs in seemingly familiar environs, ongoing cultural mentoring is critically important. This study looks at intercultural development using both the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and qualitative analysis of reflective writing assignments. U.S. participants in a semester-long faculty-led program in Australia experienced significant intercultural growth as measured by the IDI. Four writing prompts were analyzed in terms of how well they correlated with student IDI Developmental Orientation (DO) scores. Written reflection reveals how students write about intercultural issues at different developmental stages. Some writing prompts were found to facilitate intercultural development, allowing students to ‘write beyond’ their DO scores. While sojourners effectively wrote about cross-cultural issues pertaining to the host environment, more ethnocentric thinking was revealed when asked to reflect on cultural conflicts in their home community. The findings illustrate that significant intercultural growth is achievable in a culturally and linguistically similar host country, and that carefully designed reflective writing prompts can both illustrate and facilitate meaningful intercultural growth
References to the \u3ci\u3eShepherd of Hermas\u3c/i\u3e at the Monastery of Gunda Gundē
Get PDFThe monastery of Gunda Gundē played a significant historical role in preserving the Ethiopic translation of the Shepherd of Hermas, but its relationship to the book was not simply as a passive guardian. As witnessed through a few locally-produced commentary manuscripts referencing this work, at least some monks actively engaged theologically with it. Their interest in the Shepherd may have been stimulated in part by writings alluding to Hermas authored by the fourteenth-century Ethiopian theologian Retu‘a Hāymānot, copies of which were also held by the monastery
Whither the Weather? 130 Years of Weather Recording at Saint John’s
Get PDFSaint John\u27s started keeping weather records in October 1892, and monks have been reporting weather measurements to the U.S. Government ever since. The weather stations\u27 various locations over the decades are documented in this history lesson