New Year 2025 Update
Delayed amidst chaos with (hopefully) just-in-time delivery
Happy New Year!
I’m writing this on December 31st and the Mound has been cloaked by a thick veil of fog since Christmas Eve — it’s surreal! As I reflect on the past year, there’s a cognitive dissonance…a stark contrast between my personal wellbeing and the state of the world. That is to say: I’m doing great!
I finally, finally, decided to make final vows, thus becoming a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa unto death. Most of 2024 was devoted to discerning this monumental decision and moving through the process of preparing for the perpetual profession ceremony on November 15th. The ritual took place at Dominican University, my alma mater. Many of you attended or watched online as my sisters, friends, family, colleagues and others gathered together for what one person called “a love-bubble” of amazing women (with some exceptional children and men in the mix!) It was a joyful and deeply meaningful fellowship and a much-needed boost after the election.
The bulk of my ministry these days consists of managing the Congregation’s multi-million dollar historic renovation project here at Sinsinawa Mound. We’re nearly finished with the installation of the geothermal system and the new year will bring a mad flurry of building finishes, God willing! We are looking forward to opening the renovated area to the public this summer. This “downsized” footprint at the Mound will house our motherhouse, administrative offices, exhibits, conference space, chapel and community living moving forward. Uncovering the bare bones and deepest secrets of the original Stone Building (built in 1846) has been a fascinating aspect of the very complicated project — we found a Civil War-era Catholic newspaper in one of the walls just last week!
I moved into a community of three in the old rectory at Sinsinawa a year ago. Having never lived in a quiet rural area like this, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy it. The sounds of geothermal drilling, industrial truck back-up alarms, and noisy construction work are regular interruptions to the peaceful tranquility, but they are also welcome reminders that we’re making progress on renovations.
In contrast, we are still in a holding-pattern regarding the 350,000 square feet of vacant facilities on campus! I’m heartened and hopeful about recent efforts by an impressive third-party developer to assess it for possible reuse as affordable housing and event space.
“Fields of Sinsinawa” is a new 501c3 that has been making waves in the area with rotational grazing, cover crops, pop-up trainings and other regenerative activities which are having visible outcomes on our surrounding land. Our tenant farmers have enthusiastically adopted new approaches to farming it and have become ad hoc soil-health evangelists among the farmers in the neighboring area. There is much that remains to be done in developing the farmer-led training center at the Mound, but we’re off to a very promising start! Check-it-out.
The 200+ Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters are doing as well as can be expected for a median age of 83. That is to say, the loss is heavy as the darlings are passing away. That said, I continue to soak up their wisdom and company as much as possible and celebrate the amazing gift of moving through transformational times with them.
Of particular note in 2024 were two close friends and dear mentors who both went to God. Patty Caraher — who I joked was my octogenarian doppelganger — died peacefully on November 12th. She passed away just in time to attend my perpetual profession! Father Joe was the Franciscan priest who co-founded the Assisi Community where I lived in Washington DC. He planned to attend the profession but a surprise medical procedure prevented him from traveling last minute. He ultimately succumbed to complications and passed shortly thereafter.
I’m heartsick about losing them and will miss them something dreadful. They were two of my closest companions in discerning religious life — and were both hugely influential in getting me to this point. I’m so grateful that they witnessed my choice to make final vows, and I know they are with me moving forward.
The extreme violence of global current events felt closer-to-home in 2024. Thanks to my Palestinian friend, Asrar, I am keenly aware of the protracted and escalating horrors unfolding in Gaza. Asrar’s family from Jabalia Camp has suffered through, and somehow survived, the various stages of obliteration by the Israeli government. Last summer — in the midst of starvation, war crimes and global indifference — Asrar’s younger sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, Yafa. In a recent photo of the smiling six-month-old baby, Yafa appears to be thriving in spite of it all — she is a miracle. I try to support Asrar but can offer little more than the sisters’ prayers to soften her constant heartsickness and worry. We should all be deeply ashamed that the U.S. continues to supply weapons that fuel the brutality
The build-up to the election — and then its crushing outcome — has been a personal journey for me. Witnessing the twists and turns, ups and downs, highlights and lowlights, has probed my relationship with hope and tested my fidelity to it. I’m still reeling from the revelation that over half of American voters chose this direction and I’m just beginning to process what’s likely to come with a second Trump administration. My strategy is to continue investing my energy into the needs of my local community no matter what plays out in that circus “up-top”. We do not know what our nation will become in the year ahead, but I’m mentally and spiritually preparing myself for very different times.
I am bolstered by the relationship with all of you: my friends, my family and my sisters. I’m starting this Substack in 2025 as a virtual space to stay connected to my people, share snippets from my inner and outer worlds, and see how online community might take shape. Join me, I guarantee it will be better than doom scrolling!
I leave you with this poem by Jan Phillips, which is often a source of hope in prayer. May it resonate with you, too.
Blessings on your year ahead and don’t be a stranger.
We Who Are Alive Today We who are alive today are the eyes and ears, the hands and feet of the Invisible Source. We are Thought Incarnate, Word made flesh, Spirit embodied, Love materialized. We who are alive today are agents of ongoing creation. We are consciousness of Earth: the universe knowing itself, seeing itself, singing to itself. We are creation loving itself, hearing itself, healing itself through our actions and compassion. We who are alive today are prophets of a new time, makers of a new myth, where our Source dwells not on some heavenly throne but in the very breath of living things: Among us and within us. As the Cosmos multiplies and expands forever outward so does it expand forever inward evolving us into beings of higher consciousness. We are made of heaven and earth, starlight and clay, minerals and meteor dust. We are the Infinite Wave concentrated into finite particles, spacetime compressed into the speck of a lifetime. We are creating tomorrow with our thoughts and words. We are shaping ourselves and families, our communities and cities, our cultures and civilization by what we do and fail to do. We are ascending into our potential, evolving into our Godness, co-creating the Whole that is the sum of our parts. They never told us it would be like this: that we ourselves are the shapers of our world, called to be the light and the holiness we seek. We who are alive today: let us sing for joy that the heaven we sought is within and around us, that wherever we look, There is Holiness looking back. Let us not lose heart. No matter what storms batter and buffet us life holds us firmly in the palm of Its Hand.
Aw Quincy, you are living a charmed life. I thoroughly enjoy your writing style as well! Ai share your sentiment with good friends passing on. I lost a dear friend and neighbor who was 86 years old just a few weeks ago. I read somewhere that grief is the cost of love, and it truly is. I hope you write more, and share photos of the stone building and farming projects. It all sounds so wonderful! Lots of love to you my friend, thank you so much for all the prayers, I believe they are working!
Thank you Quincy for this share. After I post this I will go call my life sages and mentors to tell them how much they mean to me and to thank them for the ways they have shaped me and contributed to my life.
I loved hearing about the success of the farming program and the progress on the redevelopment of the Mound. I hope there is more of both of those to come! I would also love to hear more about how you discerned through the decision to take your Perpetual Vows, off you ever feel like sharing any of that process with us, your readers. Thank you for the gift of your writing.