Considering the Spiritual; Different from the Religious

Sister Maria Lopez and Program VP Bev Sloane

Sister Maria Lopez says in her hospice work she provides spiritual support to Buddhists, Baptists, atheists and people of every other or no religious persuasion. And, there's a difference between spiritual and religious.

At the May 14 branch meeting,  Sister Maria explained  what spiritual care  is and used many of her hospice experiences to show the difference it has made in the lives of many.     The discussion ranged widely from our personal experiences with hospice to how our belief systems impact our relationships with others.

Sister Maria Lopez, a  member of the  Sisters of the Presentation,  has been a hospice chaplain in Ulster and Dutchess counties for 11 years.    Maria received a BA in Education from Mount Saint Mary College and an MA in Religious Studies from Manhattan College in the Bronx.  

Maria has extensive experience in education,  spirituality, and missionary work in Latin America, and pastoral work in NY.   She also served as  Executive Director of the Presentation Sisters International Association, where she directed the IPA  Global Social Justice Network,  and  established the Presentation Sisters as an NGO in consultation with ECOSOC at the UN.

Beverly Sloane

Profile to be added

• VP for Programs, 2009-11

AAUW Kingston Branch Officers: 2010-11

Congratulations to our new 2010-2011 AAUW Kingston Branch Officers and many thanks to those of you who completed your terms

2010 -2011 Officers
President - Bette Nitzky

VP, Programming - Beverly Sloane

VP Membership - Ruth Bean
Treasurer - Jane Riley
Recording Secretary - Carole Leib
Corresponding Secretary - Joan Reis
Committees
Bus Trips - Vivi Hlavsa
Communications - Ruth Wahtera
Directory - Sheila Beall
Diversity - Arlene Bruck
Educational Foundation - Doris Goldberg & Gloria Sender
Historian - Virginia Kohli
Hospitality - Pat Stedge and Ginger Yaples
International - Rokki Carr
Legal Advocacy Fund - Dolores LaChance
Publicity - Rosalie Zimmerman
Public Policy - Susan Holland
Telephone Tree - Dot Henry

See your directory for phone numbers and email addresses. We'll be adding links as we complete more profiles.

2009 -2010 Kingston Branch Officers Elected

Congratulations to our new 2009-2010 AAUW Kingston Branch Officers and many thanks to those of you who completed your terms -- Garnette Arledge, Denise Springer, Liz Rosen

Image by lumaxart

2009 -2010 Officers
President - Bette Nitzky

VP, Programming - ViVi Hlavsa
Asst. VP, Programming - Beverly Sloane
VP Membership - Suki Kerr & Jean Semilof
Treasurer - Doris Licht
Recording Secretary - Susan Holland (June-Jan), Carole Leib (Jan.-June 10)
Corresponding Secretary - Joan Reis
Committees
Bus Trips - Vivi Hlavsa and Pat Whelan
Communications - Ruth Wahtera
Directory - Sheila Beall
Diversity - Arlene Bruck
Educational Foundation - Doris Goldberg & Irwin Rosenthal
Historian - Bernie Carpino
Hospitality - Pat Stedge and Ginger Yaples
Legal Advocacy Fund - Dolores LaChance
Publicity - Carole Leib, June - Jan.
Public Policy - Irene Miller
Telephone Tree - Virginia Kohli

Note: Thanks to Doris Goldberg and Susan Holland who co-chaired the board while Bette Nitzky was on-leave.

See your directory for phone numbers and email addresses. We'll be adding links as we complete more profiles.

Reflecting on Rabbi Heschel's Question

Contributed by Victoria Reiss

Every morning when The New York Times arrives my habit is to peruse the front page and op-eds, then turn to the obituaries. I realize that sounds like a gloomy way to start the day but obituaries tell me more about our famous contemporaries than I knew, and I'm always curious about the paths that led to their success.

Recently it was a "Connections" biographical article about Rabbi Abraham Heschel, not an obituary (he died in 1972) that caught my eye because I had been on one of the anti-war marches he led. It was 1967-68, a march from Central Park to the United Nations that he led along with Martin Luther King,Jr., Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Paul Moore of St. John the Divine, and William Sloane Coffin among others.

My ten-year-old son Tom was with me and when he got bored with the slow pace, I suggested that if we walked faster we could be right behind Dr. Spock, and that's how, in one slice of archival footage that is shown on TV occasionally, there is Tom's face in the first row behind the leaders.

Heschel was an important ecumenical leader who asked "What way of living is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of life?" To me, one perfect question.

I thought of the mysterious chemistry of our bodies. This week a report was announced that may finally explain muscle fatigue; that it is caused by stored calcium leaking into muscle cells. Scientists live constantly with "the grandeur and mystery of life" and hopefully the rest of us share in the wonder.

But now I find myself reflecting every day on Heschel's speculation on how we should live to be "compatible with the grandeur and mystery of life."

Photograph by Benedict Fernandez. Published in: Kasher, Steven. The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68. New York: Abbeville Press, 1996. Found on the Stanford University Lesson Plan: Martin Luther King, Jr's "Beyond Vietnam."

Note: we thought the 3rd man in this photo with Dr. Spock and Dr. King was Rabbi Heschel, but another off-line photo identifies Rabbi Heschel, with beard and beret, between Dr. King and this unidentified fellow.