My dear Friends
As usual, I will be spending Christmas with my dear friend Caroline. She is a professional dogwalker and we usually have a really special time, eating, drinking, walking the dogs and generally enjoying each others company. She has a lovely house, in Trumpington, near the war memorial and I spend the night there with her.
We enjoy each others companyand look forward to our Christmas together. I wish you one in advance.
Love and Shalom
Sister Gila
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Friday, 21 November 2008
More music
My dear Friends
I have just been asked to sing a Psalm in a recording of a CD for another charity. This will take place next week in a local recording studio in Cambridge, and will give me another chance to stretch my fingers over the chords again.
I look forward to it! And thanks for the lady who asked me to do it, for victims of torture. So they need much Peace and Reconciliation.
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
I have just been asked to sing a Psalm in a recording of a CD for another charity. This will take place next week in a local recording studio in Cambridge, and will give me another chance to stretch my fingers over the chords again.
I look forward to it! And thanks for the lady who asked me to do it, for victims of torture. So they need much Peace and Reconciliation.
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Guitar
My dear Friends
Yesterday I picked up my guitar for the first time in weeks. apart from the odd occasion I had in Canada to play, this was a good chance to stretch my fingers. I twiddled a mixture of Hebrew and english song, in anticipation of a small concert I may be giving, due to the kind invitation of the Manager of Starbucks in the Grafton Centre.
Anyhow its good to play just for oneself also, and I hope the neighbours enjoy it too.
Bye for now
Love and Shalom
Sister Gila
Yesterday I picked up my guitar for the first time in weeks. apart from the odd occasion I had in Canada to play, this was a good chance to stretch my fingers. I twiddled a mixture of Hebrew and english song, in anticipation of a small concert I may be giving, due to the kind invitation of the Manager of Starbucks in the Grafton Centre.
Anyhow its good to play just for oneself also, and I hope the neighbours enjoy it too.
Bye for now
Love and Shalom
Sister Gila
Friday, 14 November 2008
Indian connections
My dear Friends
The Sabbath is falling and I am waiting to join some of the Jewish students for Kabbalat Shabbat, the beginning of the Sabbath. While I was in Toronto, I nearly joined a group of Indian Jews from Bombay for the Jewish New year, did not get there becuase I was ill, but for sure will one day.
As I write, I am sitting beside a very nice lady from India in one of the local libraries-she has admired my shirt, which I bought in Toronto in a beautiful Indian shop, where the family who owned it befriended me. So-having also met some Indian Catholics from Kochin, where the Jews lived for thousands of years, I decided to learn anIndian language-start with Hindi, I decided!
Of course Hindi and most of the Indo-European languages derive from their 'Mother' language which is Sanskrit. Like Hebrew, it comes to life when it is chanted, and the script, used in Hindi is fascinating.
I am in a completely new world, and living every minute of it!
More later
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
The Sabbath is falling and I am waiting to join some of the Jewish students for Kabbalat Shabbat, the beginning of the Sabbath. While I was in Toronto, I nearly joined a group of Indian Jews from Bombay for the Jewish New year, did not get there becuase I was ill, but for sure will one day.
As I write, I am sitting beside a very nice lady from India in one of the local libraries-she has admired my shirt, which I bought in Toronto in a beautiful Indian shop, where the family who owned it befriended me. So-having also met some Indian Catholics from Kochin, where the Jews lived for thousands of years, I decided to learn anIndian language-start with Hindi, I decided!
Of course Hindi and most of the Indo-European languages derive from their 'Mother' language which is Sanskrit. Like Hebrew, it comes to life when it is chanted, and the script, used in Hindi is fascinating.
I am in a completely new world, and living every minute of it!
More later
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Peacemaking
My dear Friends
It is Armistice Day, 90 years since the first World War ended in 1918. On this day, it is usual to remember those who gave their lives in this, the 'Great War' and the Second World War as well.
The Little Sisters of Joy is a Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation, whose starting point comes from a different angle: we first look to the whole human community and its need of healing, in which an anti-war stance is simply part of the wider spectrum. This approach, which encompasses Jewish-Christian reconcilation at the heart, also building bridges of Peace between Arabs and Jews, different Christians and indeed men and women,is both realistic and almost impossible to measure at any one given time.
Sometimes, being asked 'What do you actually do?' and not being able to give an accurate answer on the spot, one can only be consoled by the saying of Jesus:
It is Armistice Day, 90 years since the first World War ended in 1918. On this day, it is usual to remember those who gave their lives in this, the 'Great War' and the Second World War as well.
The Little Sisters of Joy is a Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation, whose starting point comes from a different angle: we first look to the whole human community and its need of healing, in which an anti-war stance is simply part of the wider spectrum. This approach, which encompasses Jewish-Christian reconcilation at the heart, also building bridges of Peace between Arabs and Jews, different Christians and indeed men and women,is both realistic and almost impossible to measure at any one given time.
Sometimes, being asked 'What do you actually do?' and not being able to give an accurate answer on the spot, one can only be consoled by the saying of Jesus:
'You shall know them by their fruits.'
Sowing the seeds of love can be very fruitful when talking to people involved in the Military. I meet them quite often on my travels and there is a large airforce US base very near to Cambridge. My dream is to go and sing there, as I nearly did in my youth at the Faslane submarine base in Scotland. Music is always the best way to make Peace, as is attested by Daniel Barenboim's bringing together muscians, Arab and Israeli , to play together in Israel/Palestine. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra also has a programme of 'Playing for Peace.' But even talking to military personnel I find something in common, and there is usually always mutual respect.
There are those who hold up banners,and those who go on marches, those who sing and those who quietly grieve. Death and destruction is never a celebration, neither is earthly glory. Only the knowledge that death is never the end.
The seed that dies in the ground, buried and hidden in the depths of winter,slowly incubating and germinating, must be gently tended and nurtured, until,at the appointed time and in the harvest of righteousness, it bears enormous fruit.
Shalom
Sister Gila
Thursday, 6 November 2008
I have a dream
My dear Friends
Yesterday in the University library I met an American girl who had watched most of the election then got sleepy at the last minute, so I had to tell her the news that Obama had won! I felt quite honoured at pasing on this news.
When Martin Luther King gave his 'I have a dream' speech, I don't believe he ever thought his dream would come true in his lifetime. Visions of universal Peace and harmony take a very long time to mature and ripen, requiring caution, endurance and sheer guts. It may not come to pass that this dream will be realised in the lifetime of Obama either.
But his election is a great start. For it is not the arriving that wins us the Kingdom of Heaven but the journeying, in solidarity and as pilgrimstogether along the way, and this applies to politics as much as religion.
A friend of mine, a simple but deep soul, works in the tearoom of the University library. We were speaking of Obama and she said: 'I know it sounds silly, but he has beautiful eyes!' Not silly at at all because I believe that we really can see the soul of a person through their eyes, and the Gospel is full of parables abut seeming blindness and true sight, usually given to the simple, uneducated and poor in spirit.
Obama has a beautiful heritage and a beautiful wife, who can only help him through this difficult and extraordinary time of his life and the life of the whole world. Like any great leader, he will feel fear, rejection and loneliness; having to make decisions alone and carry them through.
With God on his side and the real desire of all of us to see Peace in our lifetime, he may well succeed.
Inshaallah! God willing!
Shalom from
Sister Gila
Yesterday in the University library I met an American girl who had watched most of the election then got sleepy at the last minute, so I had to tell her the news that Obama had won! I felt quite honoured at pasing on this news.
When Martin Luther King gave his 'I have a dream' speech, I don't believe he ever thought his dream would come true in his lifetime. Visions of universal Peace and harmony take a very long time to mature and ripen, requiring caution, endurance and sheer guts. It may not come to pass that this dream will be realised in the lifetime of Obama either.
But his election is a great start. For it is not the arriving that wins us the Kingdom of Heaven but the journeying, in solidarity and as pilgrimstogether along the way, and this applies to politics as much as religion.
A friend of mine, a simple but deep soul, works in the tearoom of the University library. We were speaking of Obama and she said: 'I know it sounds silly, but he has beautiful eyes!' Not silly at at all because I believe that we really can see the soul of a person through their eyes, and the Gospel is full of parables abut seeming blindness and true sight, usually given to the simple, uneducated and poor in spirit.
Obama has a beautiful heritage and a beautiful wife, who can only help him through this difficult and extraordinary time of his life and the life of the whole world. Like any great leader, he will feel fear, rejection and loneliness; having to make decisions alone and carry them through.
With God on his side and the real desire of all of us to see Peace in our lifetime, he may well succeed.
Inshaallah! God willing!
Shalom from
Sister Gila
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