White Rose Catholic Worker to offer “Nonviolent Living Apprenticeship”
“Nonviolent Living Apprenticeship” at the White Rose Catholic Worker
STARTS: Jan 1 – Mar 1, 2013 ENDS: Dec 31, 2013
LOCATION: WRCW House (Chicago, IL) OR WRCW Farm (Monee, IL)
Room, board, and a small stipend (negotiated based on need)
BACKGROUND: Founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, the Catholic Worker Movement is a decentralized network of houses of hospitality and farms meant to serve those in need. It is grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity of every human person. Today over 200 Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms. The White Rose Catholic Worker follows in this tradition by running a house of hospitality and a rural farm. We are committed to a consistent prayer life, hospitality to those in need, education for social justice, nonviolent resistance, and ecological sustainability. The farm is an important part of our effort to produce our own local, organic, sustainable food for the people and guests who live at the WRCW and to redistribute food to survivors of torture through the Kolver Center in Rogers Park. In addition, the farm helps promote a closer relationship to the earth and helps us try to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
There is a good article about the community in the Loyola Magazine and Marquette Magazine: http://www.luc.edu/ips/pdfs/Beat_of_a_Different_Drum.pdf
http://www.marquette.edu/magazine/recent.php?subaction=showfull&id=1310071926&archive=
DESCRIPTION: An apprentice will live and work at either the farm or the city house full time for the year engaging in the shared work of the WRCW. This could involve a wide range activities like doing hospitality to overnight guests, cooking meals, spreading a Gift Economy (through gift circles or free markets), hosting H.S. & college student immersion groups, attending protests, helping in the garden, preserving the harvest, connecting with community groups, leading prayer/liturgy, speaking at churches or schools, facilitating groups, learning/studying about the many issues of our time, attending the spring/fall Catholic Worker gatherings, heading to D.C. for the Witness Against Torture Fast in January, visiting other Catholic Worker communities, or hosting a Craft Retreat! There will plenty of opportunities of personal formation and training throughout the year. We are looking for people of all ages and backgrounds who are interested in going deeper into the journey of nonviolence at the personal, communal, and systemic level. We are actively working to create a world where “it is easier to be good” and want partners to join us in the work!
DESIGN: We see this as a mutual learning and living process through a series of experiments with Truth (think Gandhi!). Each apprentice will co-design their year with the WRCW around their particular interests, skills, and potential areas of growth. Each apprentice will be paired with a nonviolence mentor through Pace e Bene, a nonviolence training organization with whom we work closely. The mentor will meet with you on a monthly basis and be a resource available beyond that as needed. At the end of the year, apprentices can explore becoming a core member of the WRCW.
How do I get more info? Call IPS alumnus John Bambrick-Rust at 402-203-2173