Love - A reading for May 31st

Bishop Steven Charleston's book Hope As Old As Fire contains prayers that he was written over the course of a year.  He published this book in 2012 through Red Moon Publications.

In the Bishop's Office we begin with a short prayer gathering and the reading for the day comes from this book.  After the reading there is silence for a few minutes.  Some may ponder the reading and wonder how he knew it was what they needed to hear.

Here is today's reading.

Love comes to us, abides in us, transforms us, becomes us.

Love finds us in hidden places but dances with us in public.

Love lives in quiet but shouts our name, even if only we can hear it.

Love fills any space we will make, follows any direction we will take.

Love waits for an eternity to share one moment's grace.

Love is who we are, when we are, what we are, as love first imagined.

Flowers from the Sacred Circle

They let us take pieces when we left. 

This workshop brought together individuals that were currently practicing different spiritual practices or types of Christianity together in one room.

In the middle of the room was a large vase of spring flowers.  Dancing around the flowers was the sweetest little boy, brought to this sacred circle by his mother, who practice running at the flowers and stopping, or climbing on unused chairs, then jumping off, all the time looking for approval for those gathered around.

For a few days these takeaways reminded me of spring, growing, evolving, just exactly what all of us were doing for two weeks.

This is how the UN Works

OK, I have been gone from blogging sine the 21st of March.  Way too much going on to find the time to sit and write.  Since I have been back I have been transcribing my notes and doing research.  I will now attempt to reconstruct my days and provide you with  more information.

Today was the first time that I sat in on the general discussions taking place during the 60th Conference on the Status of Women.  It is a smaller version of the General Assembly Room.

Each country represented in the room has a microphone that is turned on when it is their turn to speak.  I quickly try to locate the speaker and watch their expresssions, if I am not seated where I can actually see them, on a large screen at the front of the room. This day I heard representatives from El Salvador, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Kuwait, Curaco, Palestine, Nicaragua, Germany, and Finland.  I admit that I had to turn to Google or Wikipedia to see where Burkina Faso was located, much less recognize it as a country.  It is located in Western Africa.

At this point I am now aware that various statements have been circulated by blocks of countries, like the EU, that each block hopes will influence the final statement outcome produced at the end of the Conference.  The Episcopal Church Statement is available here (TEC)

The job of the Episcopal delegation is to compare the points made in our statement, see link above,  with the one first circulated by the UN Women for the conference.  This original document was only 4 pages long.  By the time the first draft of revisions and comments was approved on February 26th, it look like this.

To say that my jaw dropped ...  However, it was not until Lynnaia Main, our fearless leader, told us we then had to compare this revision with the TEC statement that I understand this was not just fun and games.  To point, we had to make sure that the four priorities of TEC would not be lost in the final document.

1. Enable women to access power and decision making positions
2. Foster women and girls economic empowerment and independence
3. Eradicate violence against women and girls (children)
4. Provide preferential treatment to marginalized women and girls.

To do this the delegation split into teams and coordinated the analysis of one of the four points.  We worked during our "free" times.  And, for those that could we made visits to delegations for which we had a particular interest and/or an Episcopal presence.   Here  is our letter to the US delegation.

The Statement from Tanzania  was referred to often as was Thailand, and China with G77 Group.

Is your head spinning yet?

One of the conclusions that this 60th deputation came away with is that the next group, maybe I will be so lucky, needs assistance in working through this procedure on top of visiting all the side events and sessions.  We are thinking of forming a small mentoring group that will facilitate this next spring and meeting up again in NYC.

Saint Odd

I came across this bit of prose in a book by Dean Koontz.  Why it speaks to me, not sure.  Here it is.

When I was no longer of the world, I would miss its extravagant beauty.  

I would miss the complex and charming layers of subterfuge by which the truth

of the world's mysteries was withheld from us even as we were

tantalized and enchanted by them.

I would miss the kindness of good people who were compassionate when so may 

were pitiless, who made their way through so much corruption 

without being corrupted themselves,

who eschewed envy in a world of envy,

who eschewed greed in a world of greed,

who valued truth and could not be drowned in a sea of lies,

for they shone and, by the light they cast,

they had warmed me all my life.

Frown Face

So, here is the moment that I sit down to recap this morning and a few other moments and reach for my notebook. 

Gone.

Depression rolling in like a fast moving high tide.

All my notes, connections written on pages.  How to recreate this?

So, I shall begin with was has happened to far this morning.

Worship at the Church Center where I was captured playing the drum and will do so again tomorrow at the closing worship.  Great time but greatest was watching this group of women dancers from MoJazz - Dance Classes for Adults share worship with us.  Worship was lead by AME/AMEZion in Queens.

Question for the day for me:  What is blocking me from hearing God's voice?

Today the UN is basically closed.  All sessions where they decide the final wording of the document to come out of this 60th NCSW are closed.  Side events are the only things in town.

So I went to an event hosted by Union Theological Seminary and The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies.  Diverse body of women in attendance, connecting through Sacred Circles.

My notebook is filled with thoughts on Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation - A Tree gives glory of God by being a Tree, the Book Revenants by Amy Plum, the Grail Movement, a woman from Pakistan that imparts the wisdom that women need to recognize their divinity and much more.  My tweet about I am....We are.  That women are the keepers of Faith, Custom and Tradition.

This notebook contains all my notes on how to do advocacy back home.  I will have to now try to remember it all as it is specific to the issue that spoke most to me during these two weeks.

Luckily, I have handouts from various events that I have attended, some with notes written on them.  And business cards that I have collected.

But God is hope and she is paying attention.  So I will call the Church Center and see if someone has found it and turned it in.

Keeping Track

On Monday the 14th, one of the first CSW - UN Women events I went to was hosted by Iceland, attended by the Director of the UN Statistical Commission - Stefan Schweinfest (Germany) , representatives from Mexico, Latin America, the Asia Development Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Ms. Lakshima Puri from UN Women chaired the event.

The discussion centered on the importance of data collection about different gender gaps and data collection tools.  Ho Hum stuff?  Not really.

Between 2015- 2030 developing nations will need assistance in several capacities - financial, institutional, human and technological.  This assistance will come from varying sources - the UN, other member states and global corporations, to name a few. 

Be it will not just be about setting up National Data Information Systems. It will be about setting up quality network systems  in order that the data is credible. It will be about knowing the framework of the questions that we start with.  And, the knowledge that as time moves forward, the questions asked and the data collected must be fluid. 

Mr. Craig Stevenson from the Asia Development Bank in partnership with the UN Women and the regional office for Asia and the Pacific.  Their focus will be beginning the work of collecting baseline data, data mapping and then producing statistics.  Their hashtag is #Hi5forSDG5.

Ms. Sarah Hendriks from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation identified now as a watershed moment for this work.  In the past there has been a critical under investment in data collections, technical capacity gaps, political considerations.  Key questions that the Foundation is asking are 1) How can we work together collecting the data and 2) How can we assure that the data poorer countries can be assisted.

But most of all, shifting to collecting intervention data as we move toward 2030.

Will You Pray For Them?

So much of what we are witnessing here at CSW60  are the testimonies of young women and their stories about human trafficking.  One of our Episcopal delegates is deeply committed to this work since her intern work with GEMS the Girl's Educational and Mentoring Services.

GEMS is the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve girls and young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking. Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) was founded in 1998 by Rachel Lloyd in response to an overwhelming need for services for girls and young women at risk for commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking who were being ignored by traditional social service agencies. GEMS’ programming is gender responsive, trauma informed, developmentally grounded, strengths based, social justice oriented, and culturally competent. GEMS’ founding principles reside in survivor leadership and transformational relationships. GEMS’ services are based on the needs and interests of survivors and the agency’s programming is developed based on survivors’ ideas, input, and expertise.  GEMS provides young women with empathetic, consistent support and viable opportunities for positive change.

One of our small group conversations centered on the website Backpage (Wikipedia) and the role it plays in the exploitation of women and girls.  With this website men can "order" what they "require" by zip code.  A priest spoke about a spiritual exercise where you go onto the site, enter in your own zip code and then pray for the women that you find on the site.

So that is what I did.  Googled the site, clicked on Delaware, Men dating Women where I had to click on that I agreed that I was over 21 and was aware of what the site offered.

Well, I only stayed on the site for a little bit.  This is not for the faint of heart.

And, let us not forget the trafficking at the Truck Stops or the hotels during large sporting events.

Did you know that in some states that if two underage teenagers have sex there is a legal recourse that parents can take that would result in the young man, if convicted, being listed on the Sex Offenders Listing.  But these same states would charge a young girl of 13 sold into trade by an older man with the crime.  

Is your state one of them?

If so, let us now join together to get this changed.

 

Who Knew

Who knew saving the world could be so exhausting.

Not that I am saving the world, but I am exhausted.

Who knew that the Diocese of New York has a Global Woman's Mission Fund.

Who knew that I would know so many #tags - #CSW60 - #ECUWomenCSW - #AnglicanCSW
          #EpiscopalCSW - #UNStatCom - #Hi5forSDG5 - #EndFGM - #Yes-We-Lead

Who knew what I would be advocating for - UNCSW Episcopal Church Statement.

Who knew that the UNCSW started with 4 pages and ended up with this that we had to work on.

Who knew that I would be seated next to a woman who turned out to be a good friend of my sister's priest at Good Shepherd in Dunedin, FL.

A shout out to Becky.   Ann told me all about the Immokalee Farm Workers and their website www.ciw-online.org

Who knew that the Young Adults Service Corp   would be about Relationships, Faith, Love and Transformation.

Who knew that to Love God, Love Your Neighbor meant Changing Yourself.

Who knew statisticians could be so sexy

Who knew

Picture This

40 degrees, heavy rain, blustery winds.
Welcome to springtime in NYC and the Opening of the 60th Conference on the Status of Women.

We began by walking east down to 1st Avenue to the Church Center of the UN for morning worship prepared by World Student Christian Federation .   The Bible Verse that is the theme for our worhsip with the Ecumenical Women is Numbers 27:1-11 NRSV and speaks to Zelophehad's daughters being called by name and coming forward for their inheritance.  What I took away from the worship leader this morning is:

Worship is the basis for and grounds us in our advocacy.

 This is what I have to remember each minute, hour and day as we work as a delegation.

After the service we made our way through this Spring like weather to The Episcopal Church Center and the Office of the Presiding Bishop.

Here we watched the Opening Ceremony for the 60th CSW followed by the opening Eucharist.  Lots of follow-up conversation about why the first women to speak was 20 minutes into the opening.   My friend the Rev. David Copley has been in attendance all week.

Running down 44th St to the UN to try to get a seat at the presentation by Iceland, Brazil, Switzerland about their work on unpaid care work, structuring laws for shared care.  This event was so crowded I had to sit cross legged on the floor.  Next time get there really early.

This was followed by lunch with Diana to catch up.  Cannot believe her daughter Lexie will be two years old on May 13th, my birthday.  Diana is working at the UN.

Each day we get together to debrief from 5-6PM.  What we all did, what we need to do and who is doing what tomorrow.

Worship Space at CCUN

Is My Head Spinning but I think she's got it.

I do not know where to begin.  Though I have been tweeting almost hourly,  @cpa4god, there is so much to share going back to Friday afternoon when I arrived by train at 4:30 PM. Since then I have been to two all day training events.   

The first was Saturday morning presented by Ecumenical Women at the UN of which The Episcopal Church is a part.  The morning was held at the Salvation Army building at 221 E. 52nd St.  They were very welcoming and the speakers were an inspiration. Within minutes I was meeting Anglican women from Polynesia and New Zealand, Pakistan, and Nigeria.   We started at 8:30 AM with lively praise music which you know I loved.  At 12:30, with stomachs rumbling, we moved to the Church Center for the UN (CCUN) a building built by The Women of the Methodist Church located across from the General Assembly (GA) building at the UN.  Here I ate a box lunch sitting legs folded on the floor.  With three workshops available I attended one on meeting with the Member State Missions to hear their statements on the CSW60 and the  17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

And I came away with homework - to read the third edition of Ecumenical Women At the United Nations Guide to Advocacy.

And I have had two amazing worship services here.

The second was yesterday, all day, at the 92nd St. YWCA. What an amazing Cultural and Community Center.  I have heard about this venue many times on NPR and it is worthy of what I have heard.  And at the end of the day, I was dancing and singing on stage along side many amazing women.  Who knows, I might be seen in the video.

Returning to the hotel I spent three hours reading and reviewing all in my possession until I finally understood the role of UN Women and the Conference on the Status of Women, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), The Episcopal Church (TEC) and myself as one of 20 delegates from TEC.  I finally got it in time to begin again early Monday morning.

Unpaid Care Agenda

I am sitting in my office looking over the myriad of choices that list all the parallel events taking place during this upcoming UN Conference.  I find that I am constantly looking to Google for definitions and information about new topics.

I came across one that is presented by Iceland call MenEngage and MenCare.  That peaked my interest so I read the description.

"Recognizing and valuing unpaid care work has been broadly recognized as a strategy to advance gender equality as well as economic development.  Although this aim has been outlined in declarations and global goals - solutions fall short.  Join us for this exciting event -  Sharing the Care - to debate what data, policies and programs can truly revolutionize and advance the unpaid care agenda."

Does this remind anyone of the 70's and 80's here in the states?  Well there is still so much work to be done.

Here is a wonderful link to what MenEngage and MenCAre are all about.  I am so grateful that these organizations are global and with technology can reach so many more individuals.

Here is a link to the Gender and Development Network that is also working on this issue.  Their paper posted in 2014 gives an in depth description of this issue.

Pass this along.  Engage the men in your house of worship, communities and workplaces.

Images from the Past

Sarah, one of the 20 other delegates just forwarded the following:

"Hi all! Hola a todas!

Yesterday, a colleague sent me the below link to a short film about the work of disabled women at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

The film itself was produced about 15 years ago but has only recently been made available on YouTube. It is about 13 minutes long and is captioned in English. I commend it to you as we finish up preparations for UNCSW."

  And in Spanish she provided....

"Arriba hay un link a una película breve sobre el trabajo de mujeres con discapacidad durante la Conferencia Mundial de las Mujeres en Pekín en 1995.

Se hizo la película hace 15 años, pero fue recientemente puesta en Youtube. Dura unos 13 minutos y tiene subtítulos en inglés y en unos pocos al principio en español. Lo siento que no hay subtítulos completos en español, pero si no siguen entenderlo bien en inglés, tal vez podamos mirarla juntas en Nueva York.

Recomiendo esta película a ustedes mientras que terminamos las preparaciones para UNCSW."

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adfHKfZdvzI

Back in the Canoe, paddling to NYC.

It has been a very long time since I posted.  November 2012.

BUT I AM BACK.

WHY?

I am one of 20 individuals that will be representing The Episcopal Church, actually the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church.  Am I excited.  And so honored

YOU BET.

So, I start sharing my adventure on this day, the International Women's Day.  Many events are happening at the UN.

The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights. - See more at: http://www2.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day#sthash.33bmyBdJ.dpuf

e 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights. - See more at: http://www2.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day#sthash.33bmyBdJ.dpuf

"The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights."

Click below to see what is happening today.  This event leads right into the start of the Conference on Monday - March 14th.

-http://www2.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day