Carol Gilbert Writes from Federal Prison March 2005

PONDERINGS FROM THE ETERNAL NOW

March 2005 #20

Dear Friends,

I was hoping by the time I wrote these ponderings we would have had an answer to our appeal. We are now five months (March 4 th ) and waiting. These words from Buddha seem appropriate:

Each morning
We are born again.
What we do today
Is what matters most.

With the release of our Sister Jackie Hudson , Martha Stewart and the celebration of Easter, this month's ponderings are on resurrection.

Resurrection – to rise again!

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister asks us: “ Am I able to trust that the tombs of my life are all gateways to resurrections?”
In praying the news each morning I am aware of how easy my life here seems and yet when a guard yells at me to get to the back of a line or to hand over a pen (all in the last day) I feel like a battered woman.

Theologian Leonardo Boff writes: “ Wherever an authentically human life is growing in the world, wherever justice is triumphing over the instincts of domination, wherever grace is winning out over the power of sin, wherever human beings are creating more fraternal mediations in their social life together, wherever love is getting the better of selfish interests, and wherever hope is resisting the lure of cynicism or despair, there the process of resurrection is being turned into a reality.”

Our world certainly needs the reality of resurrection these days.

This past month I was privileged to observe an Eastern Bluebird. I always consider these sightings a special grace in my life. It is God's way of telling me I am not alone.

Our snowdrops that are blooming also brought us honey bees to observe.

I don't know how to continue to thank you for over two years of support, love, prayers, letters, cards, articles, and books. I could not survive without you.

The words I leave you with are from Goethe : “ To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking .”

With deepest gratitude,
Carol Gilbert , O.P. #10856-039
R-1  FPC Alderson
P.O. Box A
Alderson WV 24910