Gumbo

The Grail Connection ---------------- OCTOBER 2019
Welcome to the NEW Gumbo format!
Many of you have had issues in accessing Gumbo through the Grail website. So, to
facilitate a quicker retrieval we are sending it DIRECTLY to you just as the National News arrives via email. It will resemble the NEWS as it will come from the same service, Constant Contact, to you.

The deadline for submissions for the NOVEMBER Gumbo is by 12:00 pm on Wednesday, OCTOBER 30.   Please submit all articles to:    publications@grail-us.org Gumbo will be distributed on Friday, November 1, 2019.
  
For Past Gumbos (with complete index), prior to the SEPTEMBER 2019 issue, will still available in the member area of the Grail website; click - GUMBO - in the Quick Links Box on the member area menu page. Please use member username and password for log-in.

From THIS issue forward , OCTOBER 2019, they will appear under the "National News" button in-line with the National News under - Newsletter Archives -.
MURAL VISITING THE GRAIL ORATORY
by Caroline Digiovenale
On Monday September 23 rd , The Grail at Grailville was lucky enough to receive the Beloved Community Interfaith Mural that was created at this year’s Festival of Faiths in Cincinnati. The mural is 8’ x 12’ and was designed by artist Lizzy DuQuette, but it was painted by the nearly 100 attendees of the festival on September 8 th . These “collaborative artists” were of all ages, race, and gender, and were among the 30 faith communities that attended the festival, representing 13 world religions. Attended by over 2,000 people, it was the most inclusive gathering of faith traditions ever assembled in the regions history; an amazing celebration of the community’s religious diversity.
 
This year the festival’s theme was “Compassion through Action: Becoming a Beloved Community.” It was chosen in recognition of the 400 th anniversary of the first slaves arriving on American soil and of the remaining work to be done by all of us, working together, to achieve the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a Beloved Community.
A community in which people of all differences accept and honor their shared humanity.
 
The mural’s imagery depicts the Beloved Community as a thriving garden. It shows the journey required of all members of the human family. Its vibrant colors reflect the dynamic beauty and complementarity of our human differences. The mural itself represents a faith-inspired pledge: a commitment by Cincinnati’s interfaith community to pursue full inclusion, equity, compassion, peace, and justice for everyone.
Mural created by Festival of Faith Attendees 2019 to the right installed at the Oratory.


Artist Lizzy DuQuette's original design below.
It has been installed and on display in the Oratory at Grailville and is now open to the public for anyone to stop by and see. There are plans for the mural to tour around various locations in the surrounding area of Cincinnati, so the mural will remain at Grailville for multiple weeks before moving on to its next stop, which hasn’t been decided yet. Admission is free, but we will be accepting donations that will be split 50/50 Between The Grail and Cincinnati Festival of Faiths.
 
There are plans to have an opening reception for the mural in the Oratory at Grailville, to celebrate not just it being open at Grailville, but to kick off the start of its travels.
The reception will be October 17 th from 5:30-7:00 PM , with wine, cider, and small bites for all to enjoy. It is a closed reception, not open to the public, but if you would like to attend please RSVP by October 9 th to art@grail-us.org . We invite you all to join us if you are able. 
 
We also invite everyone to visit https://www.multi-faithcalendar.org to experience the multi-faith calendar. It was created by the team behind the Cincinnati Festival of Faiths, and is a great resource to learn about various religious holidays, when they take place, and includes programs and options for teachers.

Visit https://www.cincifestivaloffaiths.org to get more information on this beloved community we are blessed to join. 
A NEW COURSE ON TRANSFORMING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD
by Marian Ronan
Grail women have been working to save the earth for a very long time. From Lydwine van Kersbergen leading us into the Catholic Rural Life Conference in the 1940s, through decades of organic farming and environmental programming, to many of us marching in the Climate Strike on September 20 th , preserving the earth has been a major Grail commitment.

Yet we know all too well that in the years since Lydwine led us into the Back to the Land movement, the situation on planet earth has gotten steadily worse, as Naomi Klein makes clear in the title of her latest book: ON FIRE.

Continuing with our personal and group actions is essential of course, but what’s also needed is for us TO TRANSFORM OUR WAY OF UNDERSTANDING LIFE ON EARTH.
 
With that in mind, the members of the US Grail Climate Action Circle invite you to join us in a new course,  “How a New Worldview Will Transform the Climate Crisis , drawing on the work of evolutionary biologist, Lynn Margulis, whose view of life on earth is presented in the fine documentary film, Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked the Boat and Started a Scientific Revolution  Along with the scientist James Lovelock, Margulis was a creator of the “Gaia Hypothesis” and played a pivotal role in transforming the notion of evolution from one of competition to collaboration, collaboration from the level of the microbe to that of the entire cosmos.

Beginning on Thursday, October 17 and concluding on March 19 , the course will take place at  4 PM Eastern Time and last for an hour over the telephone (513)622-9590 or 
(866)877-2215.  

There will be a session on the first and third Thursday of the month. We will discuss one section of the film during each of the eleven sessions using the study guide provided by the film makers. Participants will have viewed each week’s section of the film and read the (short) chapter of the study guide in advance. You can buy and download a copy of the film on Amazon, or order a DVD, for $14.99. 

Here’s a link to the film trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lxWJsJetG10 and to the Study Guide:   https://hummingbirdfilms.com/symbioticearth/studyguide/ .

To add more excitement, at times we will bring in parallels from the earth-based worldview of adrienne maree brown’s book, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds Brown is a young African-American writer and activist who organizes social movements based on observations of natural systems of sustainability and regeneration. 

In the last session of the course we will discuss what the worldviews of Margulis and brown might mean for the future of the planet and the future of the Grail.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining us.  marian.ronan4@gmail.com .

Marian Ronan is active in the US Grail Climate Action Circle
THE GRAIL IN THE US: A SNAPSHOT
by Terrie Puckett
As we head into the last quarter of the year, and in advance of our annual member mailings, we at the national office wanted to take a very brief moment to share with members exactly what it is we are doing--nationally and locally. You can view the snapshot here: THE GRAIL IN THE US: A SNAPSHOT
The front page lists out the efforts that US Grail members have undertaken in 2019. Your rich and various individual efforts are included under the very first umbrella item: UN SDG education, advancement, and collaboration. Through the year we have tried to highlight the different ways Grail members are making a difference in their communities and around the world. We draw that information from listserv posts, News and Gumbo articles and also the SDG survey from last fall (watch for this year's in November!).

The back page highlights how the national office and members are working locally to advance the Grail mission, vision, and values both at our center at Grailville and out
in the community. In all things we ask:

  • "How does this advance our vision and mission?"
  • "How does this advance the UN SDGs?" and...
  • "How are we sharing The Grail with the world?"
For example, at the Hometown History sampler, we had a table. Instead of basic information (who/what/where, yawn), we had three different activities challenging folks to consider how words matter (implicit bias) in historical writing (books, museum labels, etc.) We used photos from The Grail's archive to create two of the activities and the Grail's own history as an often misunderstood community of women for the third. We are repeating this table this weekend at the Ohio Local History Alliance Annual Conference.
As long as we own land we have a responsibility to use it wisely and we are doing so by providing space for landless community based organizations to experiment with their mission. Basically, nonprofit R&D space (Learning Labs). Additionally, over the last two years we have invested in our center at Grailville creating what is referred to in the nature center field as "demo park"—a place where the public can learn best practices for the environment and how to replicate at home or in the community.
Using this structure, Mary Lu Lageman is experimenting with a variety of non-traditional agricultural methods to see and share what can be done in a small space with limited resources. This year she has grafted fruit bearing pears onto non-fruit bearing trees and launched her modules on edible forests and composting. In 2020 we will start a small “green roof” at the office (to keep our computer server room cool) using the prickly pears from the southside AND launching a vertical garden space using the silo behind the Oratory. But as we know, location determines access, and as long as we stay ONLY at our centers we are limiting who has access. Therefore, we will continue balancing between utilizing our space to support others and taking The Grail's mission out into the greater community.  
As you can see, we are actively pursuing opportunities and ideas that fully integrate
all facets of The Grail, while growing our support and friend base and laying the groundwork for future initiatives  Our overall focus has been on bringing back to the fore two Grail concepts: doubling one's talents and student-led education. Together these create a structure that provides for clarity not certainty, encourages flexibility and responsibility, and recognizes that location determines access.  
BOOK REVIEW: THE WALL
by Marian Ronan
The Wall . By John Lanchester. W.W. Norton and Co. 2019. 254 pp.

In his splendid book on the cultural causes of the climate emergency, The Great Derangement, Amitav Ghosh begins by highlighting modern fiction’s fixation on “individual moral adventure”—the story of the hero—and the expulsion of the collective from the literary imagination.

In recent years, however, a new genre of fiction has emerged that leaves this fixation behind. Called “cli-fi”—a variation on “sci-fi” —this new genre highlights the effects of climate catastrophes on precisely those collectives Ghosh sees as previously neglected. One outstanding instance of “cli-fi” is Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2014 novel New York 2140 , which explores the dire implications of the flooding of Manhattan (though the date he uses is a bit optimistic!)

Now the widely read British writer, John Lanchester, has published his own first dive into the cli-fi genre, The Wall . In this novel, Lanchester moves beyond Robinson’s engagement with the immediate effects of sea-level rise to the long-term effects of what he calls The Change—a massive catastrophe that has transformed society. The story unfolds on an island—presumably Britain, but never identified as such. The island has been spared the worst effects of the Change and has constructed a wall around itself to keep out rising waters and migrants —the Others—who are trying to escape the dreadful situations in their own countries.

The story focuses on the experience of “Joseph Kavanaugh,” who is, like all citizens of the island, required to serve for two years as a Defender of the Wall against the threat of armed invasion. Kavanaugh resembles some of our own young people, blaming older people for the situation he and others his age find themselves in. “The world hasn’t always been like this and…the people responsible for it ending up like this were our parents…them and their generation,” he states.

 Kavanaugh eventually partners up with a female Defender to become Breeders—people willing to have children when the population is in serious decline due to the reluctance on the part of many to reproduce because of the Change. Ostensibly, they were to be discharged from the Defenders for doing so. Before this happens, however, a personal catastrophe befalls them that pitches them onto the other side of the Wall and makes them consider Others in a different way.

Gruesome as the narrative may sound, the book is a terrific read, especially the last hundred pages. I could hardly put it down. It was nominated for the Mann Booker Prize in 2019, a very good sign. As the young people around the world are taking to the streets to protest capitalist greed in the face of climate catastrophe, Lanchester’s The Wall is just what that apathetic older generation needs to read.

Marian Ronan joined other Grail members in the New York City Climate Strike on September 20 th .
THE GRAIL AT CORNWALL
by Lucy Jones
 “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the greater is the joy you can contain.” (Kahlil Gibran)

This is a time of great sorrow in the U.S. Grail. As an organization and as individuals, we are aging and our abilities and numbers are greatly diminished. We want to make good decisions and forward-looking, right decisions, but our means for doing so have also diminished. I know that I cannot do all that I once was able to do. I could hike or bike for miles and miles; I could think and remember better and quicker than I can now. But this is who I am now and I can only rejoice in the life I’ve had and forgive myself for my current incapacities. I can also still do what I can do, even if imperfectly. I have carried the loss of close family members and dear Grail sisters and recognize that even in the sorrow, I can come to contain joy again, as the Kahlil Gibran quote reminded me.

We are at a turning point and the Council has made difficult, sorrowful, well-considered decisions based on information gathered over a number of years. Others feel that we as the Council and we as the Grail have not done enough. Perhaps there are other members that would step up to Council and do a better job, but we are the Council with the responsibility given to us by the membership at this “elbow of time” in our organizational life. 

The Cornwall property is a special place and has been witness to the transformation and healing of many lives in the 50-plus years that the Grail has held it and cared for it, both Grail and guests, as well as Grail women from all over the world. We believe that we as the U.S. Grail no longer have the capacity to care for it well and to make use of it with all the demands of making it legal for public use and sustainable with the resources we own. This is a painful decision made over many years and looking at the reality close up. We realize it is not a popular decision and that some still hope there is another way. We have listened to these voices and worked with those who made a proposal, but still we see the same gaps that those who worked here to close the gap for over a decade could not overcome (financial sustainability and Grail community in residence).

We have done wonderful work at Cornwall in the years we have owned it: beautiful programs for all our Grail sisters and for others. But I think it is hubris to think that we are the only people who can carry out a beautiful and important work with this land and these buildings. Perhaps the universe gave us this gift so that we could love it, grow through it and pass it on to another Great Work. Your Council sisters are committed to a responsible transition if you will let us proceed with negotiations to find the next owners of this property. There are like-minded non-profit organizations who have expressed interest that we could not pursue further because we do not have membership’s permission to sell. There is still the possibility of the Lower East Side Girls Club and Middle Collegiate Church in Manhattan. There is a progressive Catholic religious consortium called Benincasa who may be interested, also based in NYC. And the non-profit advocacy group Rural and Migrant Ministries who now has headquarters in Poughkeepsie may be interested. I would like to think that another group could make much more use of the property than we have been able to do in recent years and could change lives and society for the better.

These are hard times for us in the U.S. Grail. But I think there is still life to be lived, wisdom to be shared, joy to be expressed. I know many in frustration and disappointment have considered leaving the Grail, myself included. Is it worth all this heartache? Yet here we still are, with these hard decisions in front of us. It will not get easier by facing reality, but perhaps we can move forward with the life we still have, and with the cavity carved by sorrow that can contain a new joy that we do not even see yet.

Cornwall realities Financial and Demographic

The Grail is an aging movement with the majority of us in our retirement years. Fewer members are willing or able to commit themselves to fulltime work in Grail centers or projects. In addition, we are scattered across the country, making it hard for members to participate in collective work or projects.
 

Financial realities are as integral to our big picture reality as are our demographics. Over the last decade (and more) the Grail has operated with deficits every year, spending more than $2 million of our financial assets to simply support our infrastructure of buildings, property and the staffing it takes to manage them. Only twice since 2004 did Cornwall manage a small profit, though profit was related to money bequeathed to it from our elders who died; in all other years since 2004 there were deficits, totaling $586 thousand.

Grail Possibilities
Council sees this current time in the US Grail as one of profound transition – a time for letting go of much of what has been (the past that is) in the belief and hope that something new can be born. 
Who Are We Now? An Overview of the U.S. Grail in 2019

Spiritually Diverse
  • Our spiritual diversity is beautifully rich, but also challenges us to have a Spiritual Core that is central to all members.
Geographically dispersed
  • U.S. Grail members are scattered across the country, living in 26 different states and 8 countries, many thousands of miles apart. Concentrations exist in New York, Ohio, and California.

Aging
  • U.S. Grail members have aged over the years, so that now our 193 members include 67% over the age of 70 and 85% over the age of 60.

  • Of our 193 members, 57 members have chosen Emerita status. Active U.S. Grail members are currently only 136 women.

Engaged—primarily individually
  • In the U.S., Grail women live in their own homes, not in Grail communities, and carry out their justice work individually or in small groups.

  • We continue to work individually and in small groups against a political climate that savages immigrants, threatens war, ignores the threat and cause of Climate Change, incarcerates brown and black persons at alarming rates, and perpetuates gun violence with lax policies.

  • In September a national gathering addressed issues of racism in our country and guided us how to be anti-racist as individuals and as an organization.

  • A weekly conference call study of Laudato Si connects some members across the miles.

  • Groups meet regularly (usually monthly) in places where there is a concentration of members to share on topics of their choosing.

  • When called upon, groups gather locally or regionally to respond to consultative queries and documents from the national and the international.

  • U.S. Grail members are active in the work of the Grail Link to the United Nations, most notably the Commission on the Status of Women and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

  • Our Executive Director and staff carry out activities in Loveland at the site of our National Office, and on 73 acres there to engage the larger community in the Sustainable Development Goals.

  • A survey of membership in 2018 (with 58 responses) indicated justice work on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

  • Our relationships as sisters on a journey together continues to be of paramount importance to each and all.

  • We are strengthened by our cherished relationships with Grail women in other countries and energized by working in solidarity for a world with peace and justice.

Shifting Capacity
  • The Grail Centers that have supported the mission so well in the past have become difficult to maintain in the current world and we have sought ways to responsibly divest of property that we have not been able to use fully. This has been a difficult process that has created divisions in spite of efforts to be caring and thoughtful as we face these losses.

  • In the last year, 12 Grail women have gone to their heavenly home. In the past ten years, we have lost 47 Grail women who joined the “communion of saints.” The diminishing of our sisterhood is a difficult reality to face.

  • In this time of dwindling capacity, we must acknowledge that we are in a difficult time of transition from what has been. We are called to listen for what is longing to come.

Our Future
  • At our General Assembly in 2017, “Affinity groups” formed and two resolutions were set to guide us forward: to be antiracist and to affirm the centrality of our spiritual core.

  • The National Council chooses to be consciously anti-racist, to engage internationally for the rights of women and girls, to approach our work from a spiritual core and to make space for the future generation to shape the future.

  • The National Council set two strategic intentsOne is to be attentive to the needs of our community as it is, faithful to itself in this part of our organizational life-cycle. The second is to look to the needs of a new generation of Grail members who are our future. Primarily we acknowledge two parallel tracks.

  • On one track, our task is to attend to our needs in our community as it is and to shepherd our way through this moment in time in our organizational life-cycle with all of the grace and dignity we can call on.

------------ We realize that we are in a similar position with many men and women in --------------- religious orders, religious communities, congregations in churches, ----------------------- synagogues, meeting houses and retreat centers.

  • On a second track, the task is rebirthing/ midwifery.
-------------- While we do want to put our resources toward values that we feel are --------------------- integral to the core of Grail, how those values are manifested within a -------------------- movement of women in the future can only be defined by them.

-------------- We realize that the old models no longer work. We loved them and ------------------------ acknowledge how very difficult it is to let them go. At the same time we ----------------- are filled with hope for the promise that lies ahead.

-------------- From this track, the Young Women’s Initiative was born.

-------------- This Young Women’s Initiative has been formed and supported to meet ------------------- together and discern their passions for a way forward.

-------------- They are committed to Grail values articulated at the 2017 General ----------------------- Assembly.

-------------- This group of six young women of diverse races has resolved:

-------------------- to be consciously anti-racist and anti-oppressive from inception,

-------------------- to engage internationally for the rights of women and girls,

-------------------- to approach their work from a spiritual core that honors inter- ------------------------------- spirituality in a changing religious landscape,

--------------- ----- and to work on behalf of the future generation to shape the future.


Centers
  • Centers belonged to an era when there were many within the Grail who dedicated their lives to the work of the Grail.

-------------- These women and others equally dedicated, continue to support the Grail, --------------- as without their bequests upon their deaths, we would have been looking at -------------- the viability of continuing to hold property long ago.

  • Many years ago the Grail looked at the practice of paying subsistence -------------salaries. We looked at how to best accommodate employees for their work -------and the viability of subsistence pay in these times

-------------- We realized that it is a matter of justice to pay women a living wage and ------------------ made the decision to go forward with just wages.

-------------- Many years ago we also put in place a Health and Welfare Fund to help all -------------- those women who lived on subsistence in the Grail meet their expenses in --------------- their post-career lives.

-------------- Since that time we put into place a minimum wage of $15.00 / hour for any -------------- of our paid workers. (The minimum wage in Ohio is $8.55.)

  • It takes hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to cover the costs of managing and maintaining these very large properties.

  • As well, we are no longer able to use them to the capacity that they once were and could be again—by others with the capacity to make their vision a reality.

  • The bottom line is that we can no longer sustain centers.

Facing loss, challenges, and yet unknown possibilities as a US Grail, we hope for a future that honors our past and continues to embody our vision and mission. Whatever will emerge will take the courage, commitment, caring and sharing of each of us.
______________________________

Quotes From Members Attending May 25th Meeting about Cornwal l

I Love Cornwall – Carol Siemering 
I was the one person in the room who had been on every “Cornwall visioning team” beginning with the Cornwall Think Tank in 2011, at every Dream Quest meeting and on the Cornwall Futures Team. I love Cornwall. I have been going there since 1967. I participated in many, many weekends over the years and all the second Metanoia gatherings. 

I appreciated the zeal and love manifested by those who believe they can see a continued Grail presence at Cornwall. Was I moved by those who wish Cornwall to continue for so many reasons; the land, a spiritual home, a woman’s place? Of course I was. Did I hear a concrete solution to the concerns that came up in all the earlier visioning experiences, the concerns of on- going committed staff and being financially sustainable? I am sorry to say I did not. 

The Grail Is Not Necessarily the Only Actor – Mary Farrell 
Cornwall has for many years, despite diligent efforts of a gifted team, operated at a deficit with expenses exceeding revenues. The buildings on the grounds do not stop costing money – insurance, maintenance, utilities, etc... - just because the retreat center is no longer functioning or because there is no longer a management staff. But now that the retreat center is closed and there is no management staff, there is no income. If there were a plan, with specific identified people taking effective action and a developed sustainable project plan, I might consider allowing another three months to put the plan in action before cutting off the Grail spigot. But I don’t see such a plan. 

Sad, But We Need To Let Go... Carol Skyrm 
Please, let’s not disrespect each other and create more destructive divisions within the Grail. What wants to be born, but can’t? What is our new story? 

Passionate Love Without Practical Support – Emily Thomas 
We’ve been in this process for a number of years. The patient is on life support now. Perhaps the time for grasping at straws is over. We all love her and want to see her as strong and healthy as she is in our memories. That’s not a bad thing. But we must face reality. This past year hasn’t resulted in any new realistic and grounded plan for treatment; and perhaps, sorrowfully, it’s time to give her up to newer and stronger hands than ours. Isn’t it time to “let go and let God”? 

Reflecting on our Cornwall Decision – Maureen Tate  
Perhaps I am overly sensitive, but sometimes I feel that by supporting sale of the Cornwall property, it is assumed that I do not care sufficiently for the planet or the future of the Grail. So many issues have been conflated with the very real decision we have before us. Will we continue to squander significant resources, both financial and people, by postponing this decision, however regretful? We are in a world where facts seem to be increasingly irrelevant. I have no trouble accepting the property deficit and member demographic information that is reported to us. Do Grail facts also not matter? I fear that loyalty and affection to our Grail sisters will cloud our judgement and prevent serious consideration of these realities. 
NEW GRAIL EXPLORERS
by Mary Kay Louchart
The following four women have been journeying with the Grail for many years. Recently they expressed a desire to become members of the Grail. A few Grail members agreed to meet with them, going over our guidelines and updating them on where the Grail is now, nationally and internationally. We meet in The Bronx.  Mary Kay Louchart

Elena Rojas Martinez hails from Nazca, Peru and now lives in Manhattan, NY. She was a midwife in Argentina and Peru, but lost her profession when she emigrated to the U.S. For the past 20 years she has been one of the owners of a medicinal Botanicals company, along with Viana Muller , Grail member. 

Mary Fordham an avid gardener and graphic artist, is a long-time friend of Trina Paulus . Travelling throughout Europe, she received room and board in exchange for her gardening services. In recent years, she has offered those gardening skills to Cornwall. She just put together a beautiful report about gardening at Cornwall. 

Doreen O’Sullivan is the daughter of the late Joan Callaghan , an active Grail member until she married and had her family. Doreen lives in Queens and is a hatha yoga teacher. She spent a couple of summers at Cornwall working in the garden and preparing the Phoenix for retreats. She has been connected to the Grail through the years.
 
Lynn Boyle is originally from San Luis Obispo, California, and has lived in Manhattan since 1992. She is a long-time practitioner of Siddha meditation. In recent years she has attended many Grail meetings and gatherings in the New York region and is a member of the Grail Climate Circle.
WOMEN OF COLOR SAY NO TO THE
CORNWALL LAND SALE
by Judith Defour-Howard
Grail Sisters,

For years, mainly one affinity group enjoyed nature’s beauty, serenity, programs and the community that Cornwall offers. Now that there are more women of color than ever in the Grail, who have not had the benefit of the loving community that Cornwall represents, we as women of color in the U.S. Grail strongly oppose the sale of Cornwall.

In collaboration with the Cornwall Team we have a plan and a vision which has been denied so far. We are willing to devote our time and expertise to bring to fruition our vision, to support the leadership of women: young, of color and others, of all economic levels and our future daughters; in an intergenerational earth-centered community, emerging from a grassroots approach in a financially responsible way. 

With communal vision and commitment to the growth and development of young women and to the discipline, hard work and accountability it takes to run a land-based center, we look forward to an overwhelming consensus of goodwill to the development of the idea into reality, before a sale vote. 

The revised proposal with names and commitments will follow. Please stand with us and keep the doors of Cornwall open to Grail ownership and grassroots initiatives. 

On Behalf of:
Angelica Contreras ----------------- Laura Pagoada-Mellado
Tina Kalala ----------------------------- Natasha Valasquez
Cynthia Bernardez ------------------ Yvie Renda
Gloria Sellers ------------------------- Rosa De Jesus Contreras
Elena Rojas Martinez --------------- Margarita Cabrera
Veronica Guajan --------------------- Jada Semidey
Judith DeFour-Howard ------------- Mpanda Kalala
Judith Brown Leigh
Response from The Grail Council
Dear Grail Sisters,

Let us rejoice! There are more women of color than ever in the Grail, and everyone a part of the future of the Grail. The Council believes that together, we will create loving, supportive communities that will fit our needs in this elbow of time. As we enter this fall season, we prepare to let go of the old, believing that something new will arise. The buildings and grounds of Cornwall as a business and retreat center are part of the past.  The Gray House is being held for community building and to explore new possibilities together without the great burden of debt created by the larger property.

The financial reality is that only twice since 2004 did Cornwall manage a small profit, and that profit was related to money bequeathed to it from our elders who died; in all other years since 2004 there were deficits, totaling $586 thousand dollars . While the cost for maintaining Cornwall is less with the center closed than it is with the center open, we are continuously accumulating significant deficit to maintain ownership. 

As stated in your letter “…we have a plan and a vision which we want the opportunity to develop that we have been denied so far. We want the opportunity and time to develop our plan before a vote.” In June 2018, we honored the Cornwall team’s request for a period of six months to write a proposal , Council asked the team to send us a proposal by January 2019. Council gave guidance for what this proposal should address, emphasizing the importance of practicalities and management plans. Council also offered financial help to engage someone to assist them in putting forward a feasible and sustainable plan to council. The team did not use these funds or resources from someone (Grail or non-Grail) who could have assisted them. Two council members also engaged in several conference calls, conversations, and email exchanges with Joy and Ieva during the time they were working on this proposal. In January, the proposal submitted was more of a vision document and did not adequately address financial and management plans. As Grail members, we are good at imagining great visions. As Council, with fiduciary responsibility, we must attend to the practicalities and logistics – in fact, the business dimensions – of our visions. 

In response to the January proposal, Council gave an extension of two months and more detailed guidance for an amended proposal to include the feasibility of both property and program management (financial and personnel) and a survey of felt needs in the wider community that would lead to commitments of participants who would attend programs. Again, Council offered financial support for professional assistance to help the proposal team. The team did not access this assistance nor offer any revisions of their proposal . Instead, they sent a letter requesting a meeting with Council members and asking for another year to develop a plan. Council members did arrange an all-day meeting in New York in late May with any members who could attend but we could not responsibly give the group another year.

Council and membership share the vision of young women and women of color in Grail leadership. That was evident in our substantial support of the Anti-Racism workshop and in the creation of the Young Women’s Initiative. With leadership comes great responsibility. Grail Council has a fiduciary responsibility to protect Grail assets even if that makes us unpopular. Grail leaders must represent all the members of the Grail, and the majority (55.36%) of members voted to sell Cornwall in June 2018.

By selling part of Cornwall, we are not losing an asset, but rather, changing one form of asset into another so that we can go forward with funds available for retreats, advocacy or other programming as members desire and design.  By taking responsibility for using the resources of the Grail through planning, communicating, organizing, seeking financing and reporting such as use of the Gray House for retreats or workshops, you can help build the future of the Grail. With this smaller footprint, we can justify the cost of maintaining and managing space more appropriate to our current activities.

For larger groups, you could make use of other retreat centers near the city where we do not have the responsibility for maintenance and ongoing deficits.  We hope you will continue to develop a plan for the future of the Grail and call on resources of the National Grail to assist in that work. 
 
The U.S. Council: Judy Alves, Pam Cobey, Marian April Goering, Lucy Jones, Deborah Sullivan, Sally Timmel, Renee Wormack-Keels

WHY WE NEED LAND 2
by Judith Defour-Howard
 Anne Hurley’s article “Why we need land” in an edition of the Gumbo, stirred up the thought that  Cornwall (and by extension Grailville) *has lost its qualitative value for some who appears to measure it’s value,  in a  cold commercial and materialistic way. 
 
Do you give up your children for adoption if their upkeep begins to be a grave challenge?   A similar scenario is the mother who has been blessed with children but sees them as burdens and not loved ones.  Another is like the individual who views their hands and face as things to love and beautify versus these nails that grow so often that they make me have to cut and groom and a face that becomes wrinkled unless I massage and clean nightly. 
 
Put yourself into the shoe of an owner.  When you own your house, home and land you do not for one moment think about it as a burden but as something you have to guard and protect and must do everything in your power to keep.  Having to sell it, is seen as a lost, all because you value it so much.   When the car goes down, the positive thing is “Thank God I had the resources to put it back on the road”, in contrast to   “see how I had to spend all that money”.  That money is not given to you to hold on to, but to provide protection and security for you when you need it.
 
 Land is a blessing not a burden.  Seeing land as a burden is the role and route of a coward.  How cowardly was the owner of one talent who instead of hoping to increase it worry about losing it.    We have, at times, to think outside of our personal realm and in reality landowners are at the point where the environment becomes their added concern.  Grailville and Cornwall were God given gifts.  True, without the experience it can be very difficult to fathom, but it is our God given duty that we rise to the occasion and take our responsibility seriously.  We got it free.  We inherited. Let us be consoled by the beautiful hymn:
                              “Freely, freely we have received, freely freely give. 
                     Go in my name and because we believe,
                                 others will know that I live”
 
Exchanging the land for money is not the best way out.   Let us use our God given “cabeza” and see how we can be the best stewardesses we can possibly be.  Leave the inheritance for our next generation and pray and hope that they will leave it for the next.  Leave an example.  Our ancestors did.  How old is the Grail today? Let us find the money we need in other ways.  That is our work.  Work hard to maintain the land instead of thinking that the land should maintain us.  Secret??? Link your action to service and money will come.  If you want to know more about that secret ask me (lol).
 
Frankly, life goes up and down and we cannot expect to experience all success and no failure.  Do you know that one moment of success can be equal to a multitude of failures?   True, the reverse can be, but as a child of God and as my mother always said
“God does not give you more than you can bear “ or in the local parlance
“ Cow horn is never too heavy for cow to carry”.

I recall sitting in Grail gatherings and hear the lamentation of  members who experienced the sale of the Brooklyn property.  Let us keep the Grail life in New York and by extension, we should be looking to own other centers in other States for the future Grail members and their daughters.  I have said it somewhere else, and I will say it again.  I admire how the Dutch utilizes their Grailhause in Utrecht.
MEXICO GATHERS FOR CLIMATE STRIKE
by Mary Kay Louchart
This intergenerational group of Grail members and those interested in the Grail came together recently to reflect on and pray about Climate Change—their way to participate in the Climate Strike. Camila was part of CSW in 2019, Carolina in 2018 and Maya in 2017. Maya was also part of the Sacred Activism program at Cornwall in 2016. (Maya has been part of the back stage team for the Young Women’s Leadership Trailing Program in Mozambique and the International Council in Tanzania.) Carolina will be the GLUNN intern for 2020. For those who don’t know Tere ( Mary Therese McDermit ), she is a nonagenarian from the USA Grail member who has lived and worked in Mexico for many decades.
From left to right is Reyna and Angeles, Marie Therese (Tere) McDermit is seated,
Camila, Artimisa, and seated Maya and Carolina.

CORNWALL - A GRAIL CENTER FOR THE 21st CENTURY
by Trina Paulus
We can be it. We can build it. We can create a 21st century community of caring!

Holistic citizens action, climate change resources, spiritual search, hospitality, celebrating and making art from cooking to writing to sculpture to permaculture design. UN collaboration, International, intergenerational and interracial community, simple living, Environmental activism, traditional healing.
- a place for women to be with each other towards the great goal of bringing the world to peace with justice, in the daring tradition of the Grail International movement from its beginning. 

“Everything affects everything.” *
 We are joined in a community of search, and outreach - including support for going deeply into whatever spiritual practice helps keep each one whole and able to give actively to the Earth and its people.. Prayer and meditation and the arts and gardening all qualify as giving back - as much as direct social action both in this country and abroad.

We will collaborate with other groups and partners  - the needs of our time are too great for any one person or group. We need each other. For example just a half hour from Cornwall is the community of Stony Point, a large retreat center, with compatible spirit and purpose. It's major work is running a retreat center with mostly volunteers in exchange for living there with room and board. **

The Cornwall community will be what the persons who come make of it.  There is some work that will be essential regardless of the number of people. However if we have a certain critical mass, it means we can share in different tasks allowing more freedom from having to manage everything, every day by onesself. And we may discover great joy in the simple tasks to maintain life serving each other. “Work is love made visible.” The beginning residents will gradually discover their new charism, and what sort of spiritual glue holds them together as they, like other humans, struggle for understanding and accepting differences so they can sufficiently Love.  “… to love is to look together in the same direction”.

Sharing in the necessary work of life  with actual humans who also want you to get ahead in your special calling is a great blessing. There is a richness in getting to know others deeply who are on the same journey, A sense of the grounded reality of sharing ups and downs, the rain and sunshine of other lives is not possible with only virtual connections. Humans are body and soul and need a sense of home and physical place and belonging.

Only those who feel called to change the world need apply -  and get ready to “Give all that they have laughing!” ****. 
Community living relies on a deep understating of the value of simple basic work, silence and spiritual grounding. All the arts were alive and brought a special cultural wholeness to the early Grail experience. And as we succeed, we shall each be ever more able to reach out more eagerly than ever to all we are given to serve - wherever that might be.

That Grail challenge to include everything has been the attraction of the Grail from the beginning when the first women in Holland divided up the world. Many got PhD's and learned new languages to travel great distances to establish new communities to empower women. It was rooted in a deep spiritual sense of a divine lover calling them to total giving where each has a singular necessary gift to bring.

I like to think of these recent hard US Grail years as being a cocoon. None of us want to return to our early Caterpillar life which was such a good and irreplaceable beginning. But my current experience with the young reminds me of so many good parts of it that speak to now. There is no “going back” but we believe it is a mistake to crush the old caterpillar wandering around as it searches for a safe spot to hang and let go of its past to begin its transition. And the next stage of cocoon doesn’t look very promising either. 

One would never guess there is a gorgeous flying creature inside either a caterpillar or cocoon capable of bringing love between every flower it greets as it is is nourished by its nectar in a wonderful exchange. We need the experience wisdom of young and old together to make this work.

In hope always,
Trina

NOTES:
  •  A favorite phrase of Thomas Berry, and basic idea of others - including Grail leaders and Pope Francis “Laudato Si”.
  • **  “Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
  • ***.  Potential Partner example:  Our Antiracism National Meeting was the recipient of the major work of StonyPoint. The work there is done by mostly volunteers living there and giving work time in exchange for room and board, (obviously this must be legal in New York and the way we see Cornwall mostly operating.) Their director shared how Stony Point went through its own dark cocoon stage and this Presbyterian originated center has now emerged as a living community home with a particular charism welcoming all traditions and particularly the three Abrahamic ones, embracing the full authentic expressions of each - not watered down. Their welcoming center allows others such as us, to share an overflowing spirit of hospitality. https://stonypointcenter.org.
  • Early US Grail affinities and collaborations The early US Grail was a vital part of the growth of understanding and practice of the ”Lay Apostolate” - regular people with a mission right in the world, while carrying a deep spiritual commitment. Here are some of those partners I personally experienced.
  • The Catholic Worker. Dorothy Day sent her girls to us sometimes, and came herself to Grailville living in a tiny room on the third floor of the House of Joy. Some girls, like Monica Cornell, Deidre's mother, was both Grail and Catholic Worker all her life. I just talked with her and Tom at Cay Charles memorial. 
  • Friendship House. We collaborated with Baroness de Hueck of Friendship House, a movement particularly for racial justice with headquarters in Canada and New York. http://www.catherinedoherty.org. (I learned a lot of nuance today about her and movement looking her up.)
  • Monsignor Ligutti.  We were deeply involved with the Catholic Rural Life Movement, out of which the commitment to the Grail sense of the importance of land and the manual work which became essential to the early Grailville experience. https://catholicrurallife.org/interested-people-reflection-monsignor-liguttis-life-legacy/  Community there relied on a deep understating of the value of simple basic work, silence and worship. All the arts were alive and brought a special cultural wholeness to the early Grailville experience. 
  • ****   Paul Claudel  “Is the object of life only to live? Will the feet of God’s children be fastened to this wretched earth? It is not to live, but to die, and not to hew the cross, but to mount upon it, and to give all that we have, laughing! There is joy, there is freedom, there is grace, there is eternal youth! …What is the worth of the world compared to life? And what is the worth of life if not to be given? And why torment ourselves when it is so simple to obey?” Paul Claudel, “Tidings Brought to Mary” A Cay Charles Grailville production 
ADDENDUM TO OWNING LAND IMPORTANCE
by Ann Hurley
Last month, in working to get my article on The Importance of Owning Land , in by the deadline, I left out some footnotes. Two footnotes had numbers in the text but no reference at the bottom of the page. The rest, I didn’t even get to numbering them in the text, let alone putting the references at the end of the article.

First, the two footnote numbers included in the text of last month’s Gumbo –

#1 “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.”
 Chief Seattle/Sealth has been discredited as the author of this speech, yet it is still a powerful, beautiful statement, a prose-poem, that rings true in essence, no matter who wrote it.

#2 “Small Scale Farmers Cool the Planet” a short video

Now, for other references that I didn’t have time to include in my article in last month’s Gumbo –
 
The page numbers refer to the pages of the September 2019 Gumbo where my article, about the importance of owning land appears.
 
A)  pg.11 of last month’s – September – Gumbo, at top of page.
 “A major study done by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology (IAAST) and participated in by 110 countries, came to the conclusion that the best way forward to feed the world is small-scale, environmentally sensitive mixed farming, not Big Agriculture.”
This quote is from the extensive introduction to Laudato Si by Sean McDonagh, in “On Care For Our Common Home Laudato Si” published by Orbis books, © 1916. pp. 114-115

B) pg. 12 of last month’s Gumbo – about 2/3rds of the way down the page
to be a “center of celebration and resistance”
This quote is from Rosemary Radford Ruether’s book, “Gaia and God ” in the 10 th and last chapter, Creating a Healed World: Spirituality and Politics, pp. 268, 269 
She speaks of the destructive power of the ”interlocking corporate elites of government, business and professional military”, and calls them the true enemy of humanity and the earth. She goes on to say, “How do we carry on a struggle to heal the world and to build a new biospheric community in the face of this intransigent system of death? It is my belief that those who want to carry on this struggle in a sustained way must build strong base communities of celebration and resistance. By “base communities”, I mean local face-to-face groups with which one lives, works, and prays. …it is important that these many groups recognize their interconnections in one unified struggle.”
Most of the items listed in this section – Why Do We Need To Own a Dwelling/Meeting Place? are relevant to this chapter of Rosemary’s book.

********************

By the way, it was Rosemary’s book, “Gaia and God” , and her workshop at Grailville (1993?) that was responsible for my coming back first to Grailville, then to the Grail after a 30 year gap. And it is being part of the work of the New Cornwall Team, that has restored in me the joyful, passionate enthusiasm that I first and last experienced when I arrived at Grailville for the first time in 1961 as a High School graduate.

In the last page of “Gaia and God”, Rosemary says,” What we need is neither optimism nor pessimism … but committed love. this means we remain committed to a vision and to concrete communities of life no matter what the ‘trends’ may be. … We also remain clear that life is not made whole ‘once and for all’ …It is made whole again and again …
Being rooted in love for our real communities of life and for our common mother, Gaia, can teach us patient passion, a passion that is not burnt out in a single season, but can be renewed season after season. Our revolution is not just for us, but for our children, for the generations of living beings to come.” pg. 273
It is this Patient Passion that energizes me and makes it possible for me to persist.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!