Leaders Corner

Sister Sandra Sherman
Leadership Advisor

Poetry  Corner

One of my nieces recently said that she finds herself missing Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw. Her youngest daughter, who never knew her great grandparents, asked how their voices sounded. Out of ten great grandchildren, she is one of eight born after Mom and Dad had both gone home to God. Our family history lives in the stories we tell the children and in the genealogy books of Dad’s side of the family, recently given me by my cousin. I am finding that early on in genealogy ledgers, both the blessings and the struggles were recorded.

Likewise, our community’s history lives on through the treasures filed and stored in our archives and in the stories we tell. We, both Sisters and Associates, have become the living history book of our communal story. Imagine the stories held by each of the 10 Jubilarians, spanning 75 years of herstories! Our consecrated, married, or single lives do not shield any of us from both blessings and struggles, but how we choose to bear them gives witness to our faith and hope.

Preparing for my Jubilee during a monthly retreat, I re-read many of my journals in which I poetically recorded stories that disguised a myriad of emotions. I knew it was time for me to retell them to myself, speaking aloud not only the blessings received in the joyful times, but blessings which over time have redeemed my difficult struggles through my faith and hope in the God of Transformation and the prayer and presence of those who quietly accompanied me.



I now know that my ancestor, Roger Sherman, who lived in the 18th century, was the only person to sign all four major documents of our country: the Bill of Rights, Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. As we celebrate the blessings of our country during our 250th birthday, difficult struggles of both past and present make clear that we have not yet fully grown into the potential of those documents. And yet God has been redeeming the world since the beginning of time, and our country since our founding. As we read and meditate on the scriptural stories of our faith, how might our experience as story keepers call us to quietly accompany others?