Keeping Hope Alive

Jesus prays that we all become one. The Universe evolves toward greater communion even as it diversifies. Brian Swimme states that the question of our time is whether our thoughts, words, and actions are aligned with the Earth’s primary aim to bring forth a unified Earth community. 

A vision we desire. And yet can we dare! We are experiencing increasing division and polarities in our lives. Animosity and violence permeate our interactions as people and as nations. Can we dare have hope for the future we desire?

Nancy Sylvester, IHM, will lead a day to explore this call to keep hope alive. 

Believing in the transforming power of contemplation she will explore how the practice of contemplation opens us to get in touch with one’s true self, one’s healthiest self, one’s divine self. As one lives into Christ consciousness a new way of seeing is awakened. A new consciousness, an integral consciousness, emerges through which we take a long loving look at the real.

We begin to respond to the situations in our lives and world out of love without blame or shame. We begin to see from wholeness first, before separation. We understand that oneness is not sameness and that difference is essential to Divine Mystery’s  manifestation. We begin to understand that hope is not outcome but rather something far deeper that holds us and the planet. We begin to see that our role is essential to evolution’s emergence, and the call is there to become that hope and to keep it alive!

This day will integrate input, process, and contemplative sitting. (Snacks will be available throughout our time together; lunch is not provided.) Join Nancy for a day you don’t want to miss.  

Event is presented by Center for Spiritual Development in partnership with St. Joseph Justice Center.

About the Presenter:

Sister Nancy Sylvester, IHM, is founder and President of the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue (ICCD) which began in 2002.  Nancy is committed to the transforming power of communal contemplation in one’s life and the life of the community. She believes it invites the shifts in consciousness so necessary to embrace our evolutionary journey and engage the critical issues facing us in ways that foster dialogue, relationships, compassion and justice.

She is a past President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and past vice-president of her religious congregation, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Monroe, MI. Nancy served on the staff of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby, for fifteen years, first as researcher, then lobbyist and ten years as National Coordinator. Prior to coming to NETWORK, Nancy taught secondary education in and around Detroit, Michigan

Nancy guides many of ICCD’s programs including Enter the Chaos: Engage the Differences to Make a Difference, Transformation in a Time of Uncertainty, Exercising Contemplative Power and Engaging Impasse: Circles of Contemplation and Dialogue©. She also designs and facilitates processes related to these programs for various organizations and congregations nationally and internationally.

Nancy writes for ICCD’s website and for Global Sisters Report, part of National Catholic Reporter. She is one of the persons featured in the documentary Band of Sisters, and she co-authored a book with Maria Riley, OP, Trouble and Beauty: Women Encounter Catholic Social Teaching. Nancy’s articles have appeared in America, Sisters Today, Catholic World, and Maryknoll Magazine. Her most recent book is Journey-Faith in an Entangled World which is both a paperback and an eBook. Both of these are available on Amazon.com.