Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

The gardener in me is always grateful for the resilience of Spring. Each springtime I marvel how plants that in their dormancy looked nearly dead rebound back.     However, this year with the merciless reality of climate change I have discovered another side of nature’s resilience.     This summer with 108 plus degrees I have witnessed both the cruelty and tenacity of earth.     As I sit in silence with plants unable to receive their fill of moisture I   pause to enter more deeply into the mystery of recovery.     We are all learning more about recovery from a devastating pandemic.  We are actively pondering the devastation of centuries of white supremacy.  We are engaged in understanding the fragility of our republic.  Where do you find your resilience these days?  Me?  I gently observe how even a little water is slowly healing my garden.  And you?   KC Young, OP Kirkland, WA

The motto of the Dominican Order is veritas…truth. We are truth-seekers. This week could be called a week of veritas, of truth-seeking. June 14 is Flag Day, a day celebrating the first flag resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, made official later in 1949; a day regarded as one way to teach children about history. June 19, also known as Juneteenth, is the oldest known celebration honoring the end of slavery in the United States, the day when the Civil War ended and slaves were ‘set free’, even though people of color are still fighting for equality and justice. The problem I see is that our history has most often been taught through the lens of those holding power, through the perspective of white people. In our pursuit of truth, we must ask what history is  not  being taught? Who/what people are invisible in our telling of ‘history’? Whose very real and painful stories are not being told?  I wasn’t taught about white supremacy (except in relationship to Hi...