            |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Our Gifts
Music provides balance for Sr. Elaine Davia Now a Sister of Bon Secours for 41 years, Sr. Elaine still plays and listens to music. Throughout her life, her love of music has opened many doors to help her develop into a happy and healthy person. As a nurse practitioner, Sr. Elaine has spent most of her career working in health care with the economically disadvantaged. Wherever she worked over the years, she also sought out opportunities to play with a local musical group. When she served in Baltimore she played with the Columbia Concert Band. In Portsmouth, Virginia she played with two local groups. And during 2004 in Florida, she played for the first time with a professional group – The Port Charlotte Symphony. During this time she also volunteered with the Port Charlotte and Venice Concert Bands. Being involved with these groups has given Sr. Elaine opportunities to get to know people outside of her religious community and ministry setting. Music provides a relaxing activity in contrast to her often emotionally and physically taxing work. She also believes that participating in her hobby helps correct some assumptions about what religious life is like. "People know I'm a sister and they can see that if you become a sister you can still pursue creative individual interests."
When she was playing in Portsmouth, she met Fred Harris, who worked part-time at a music store repairing instruments. She once told him that in her next life, she would play a real French horn. So Harris went to work. He asked if he could keep the spare parts from the instruments he fixed. He used them to make Sr. Elaine a French horn, then gave it to her for Christmas. For the past 10 years or so, she's been playing that handmade gift. Making a connection with God Sr. Elaine feels that connection when she's listening to music alone and when she's playing with a group. She likes sitting in the midst of a band with the music surrounding her. She also enjoys listening to classical music at home. "I find most of it calming," Sr. Elaine says. "Some modern music just sounds like noise to me whereas classical music has movement, loud and soft, and different instrumentation so it's not the same thing over and over again." When she worked in a clinic in Portsmouth, Sr. Elaine piped in classical music to the examining rooms. Although she initially began that as a background sound to drown out conversations in other rooms and insure privacy, she learned patients liked the music. They told her it calmed them. That led her to believe that classical music is probably universally calming. Sr. Elaine also plays the mountain dulcimer and enjoys listening to some folk and country songs, many of which tell stories with words. Classical music, she says, tells stories with the sounds of the notes. As a musician, Sr. Elaine tries to practice for 30 minutes to one hour every day. She believes that discipline is good for her. "I think it's important for your life to have something structured and something you challenge yourself to do." Playing uncovers what is buried Whether she's listening to Mozart or Handel's Water Music, Sr. Elaine finds herself in good spirits. That helps her live her life as a Sister of Bon Secours as a well-rounded and happy, music-loving person. Music and poetry provide freedom for Sr. Kathleen Moroney Although Sr. Kathleen felt sure about her vocation at a young age,
she didn't know years later she would be playing music as part of her
ministry, still bringing joy to the people who listened. And her intuition was right. Working with a group of Irish children at one of the sisters' facilities in 1989, she found when she played music, it relaxed the children, who came from abusive homes. "It was really a stress reliever for them," she says. A new career in a new country After completing the chaplaincy program, she moved to Port Charlotte, Florida where she works at the hospital and nursing care center. Once a week, Sr. Kathleen plays music on her guitar for Alzheimer's patients. Most of the songs are Irish and she was surprised when she saw some of the patients mouthing the words as she sang. After all, these were people who didn't know their own names or room numbers but they could sing songs from another country. "I discovered many of them have an Irish background and they had heard their grandparents singing Irish songs," Sr. Kathleen says. She also takes tambourines and other hand instruments the patients can play. "It brings them so much joy," she says. Music brings her joy, also. "I love music," she says. "It's really part of me. I think if I didn't have music, I would be lost." Besides playing guitar, Sr. Kathleen enjoys singing with her parish choir and listening to Irish tapes as she drives. She also takes time to tune into music on public television. The arts connect people
Sr. Kathleen has also found she can connect with people through poetry. "I always knew I had a gift for writing," she says. She remembers as a child in school the assigned essays easily flowed for her. As an adult, she began to realize she needed to use that gift. She shares her poetry with co-workers and the seniors she cares for over the intercom at work. Some days when Sr. Kathleen goes into the nursing care center, she feels the people need something to lift them up. This has been especially true since the August 2004 hurricanes hit the area. Nine months after the disaster, some hospital employees were still waiting for roof repairs and insurance payments on their homes. Sr. Kathleen observed they seemed energetic and happy when they arrived at work, but as the day wore on they were depressed. That was because at the end of their shift, they didn't have a home to return to. "They were wondering where God was in all of this," Sr. Kathleen explains. She tried to reassure them He was still there, loving them. From time-to-time, she also writes poems to comfort them. One poem about the hurricane even won a prize. "I can really pour my emotions into poetry. If you want to know me, read my poetry. As I feel it I write it. It's a kind of release and freedom," she says. Sr. Kathleen also likes writing about the beauty of nature and remembers once driving to work and noticing that the sun was rising but the moon was still out. That was something she had to write about. Grateful she can use her gifts to bring peace, happiness, or a smile to others, she continues to write, play music and love her work. "I really feel very, very fulfilled in my ministry. It's just like heaven to me," she says. Now the roles are reversed from when she was a child – Sr. Kathleen is the one who's offering encouragement and joy to those she meets. Music refreshes and enriches Sr. Pat Eck Finding prayer in music Music is now an integral part of Sr. Pat's prayer life. When searching for places to go on retreat, she frequently looks for a location where she can take her guitar because so much of her prayer is in her playing and singing. She finds if she really listens to songs, she hears the prayer in them. "It is a way of praying, at least for me, that really puts your feelings and your thoughts about God in words in a way that is very moving and almost intimate," she says. She also might take a special photo on retreat and note scripture verses or song lyrics on the back of it that were especially meaningful during her retreat. Later, she said, she can pick it up and revisit that moment in her life to remember how God was with her on that retreat. A couple of songs consistently take Sr. Pat back to particular moments or calls in her life. "I Have Seen the Lord" reminds her of the difficult days surrounding her mother's death because she was learning to play the song when her mother died. Sr. Pat says the song talks about being with the Lord and knowing He has conquered death, so it was the perfect song for that time in her life, bringing her peace and strength to deal with the loss of her mother. When planning the 20th anniversary of the creation of Bon Secours Health System, it seemed natural to go to music to celebrate the 20 years of service. So Bon Secours Health System commissioned a song to celebrate the occasion. That song, "Oh God You Call Us Through the Years," reminds Sr. Pat of the Bon Secours call to serve and care for those in need and how each of us can live out that call. The song celebrates each part of the Bon Secours charism, with one verse about compassion, one about healing and one about liberation.
Music links her to others An exciting part of her musical experience is coming together with other sisters and lay women and men to share their musical gifts with each other and those they lead in song. For special occasions, she plays with a group of six musicians – Sr. Rose Marie Jasinski, Sr. Alice Talone, Sr. Pat Dowling, Sr. Elaine Davia, and lay people Adella Nownoweski and Mark Tamulonis. Sometimes Thom Morris, a lay co-worker from the Bon Secours Health Systems office, joins them. The group has been playing together for about eight years. They came together to provide music for liturgies on the Sisters of Bon Secours facilities in Marriottsville, Maryland and they play for special occasions, such as Jubilee celebrations where the sisters mark our years of service. Making music together has created a community of women and men who share the belief that when they join together in music and song, what they create is a form of prayer. On occasion, the members participated in a music and prayer group that met in the chapel in Marriottsville to learn new songs, pray, and sing. Sometimes they didn't practice for a particular liturgy, but simply played pieces they enjoyed sharing with each other. They ended their friendly evenings with a potluck meal. Through the years Sr. Pat's work has demanded much of her time. She is now the chairperson of the Bon Secours Health System board of directors. But she still finds time for the joy that music gives her. Whether listening or playing, alone or in a group, Sr. Pat believes music can envelope a person and take them to a quiet place where they can find God.
Copyright © 2006 Sisters of Bon Secours USA. All rights reserved. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sr. Elaine's
interest in music grew from the baritone horn to the E flat alto horn
which she began playing with the St. Mary's Hospital
Orchestra in Richmond, Virginia. She played French horn music on this
instrument for years, so she had to transpose the music to make it work
for her horn.
Because of her long and happy acquaintance with and admiration of the
Sisters of Bon Secours, when 17-year-old Kathleen decided to enter the
convent in 1950, she joined their congregation. "I think my vocation
started around eight years of age when I met these nuns because they
gave me
something very, very special. There was something there that the Lord
put in my path," she says.
"It's a way of centering, a way to bring
me back to the quiet time and to the things that remind me of and refresh
for me my relationship with God," she says.
