A Nun’s Life podcast updates

Where could I donwload these podcasts as mp3 files? I found a link for the latest one (Nun news), but not for any of the others. I can’t play the podcasts on my computer, but would like to transfer them to my mp3 player.

It might be good to keep a list of past podcasts with dowload links on a separate page, just so we can easily find old podcasts again.

Katrina Anniversary (AKA “the levees broke” anniversary)….

I am blanketing my world with suggestions for supporting the people of the Greater New Orleans (GNO) area as they continue to recover from the devastation created by the failure of the levees in the aftermath of Katrina, four years ago this week.

Zeus’ Place (zeusplace.org) and Animal Rescue of New Orleans (animalrescueneworleans.org) – The animal rescue groups and veterinarians in GNO are phenomenal in their collaboration, generosity and perseverance on behalf of abandoned and abused animals. The owner of Zeus’ Place fostered a badly traumatized dog for an entire year until I fell in love with him and he moved in with me, and then they invited him home for free kennel visits as often as I asked, for life. His other rescuers found me a new apartment where he could live with me, and then came to my house to give him heartworm medication. Mackie was one of dozens I met at Zeus’s, and one of thousands of animals rescued in GNO since the failure of the levees. Michelle Ingram had been doing animal rescue for over 10 years before Katrina hit New Orleansm and then opened Zeus’ Place in 2006 on Freret Street, becoming an anchor for the rescue movement and the recovering neighborhood. She is also a founder of the Freret Street Market (freretmarket.org; also see 9/2/09 Anderson Cooper CNN story), a critical draw to that slowly recovering neighborhood. New Orleanians love their pets more than any community I have encountered, and they continue to grieve those lost in the storm. The stories are heartbreaking. Any help we can give these people in healing through pet rescue projects supports them in their profoundly difficult but ultimately joyful recovery.

Sankofa Market (sankofamarketplace.org) in the Lower Ninth Ward, is a project of the Historic Lower 9th Ward Council for Arts & Sustainability. Several summers in a row, in appreciation for the support they have received from all over the world and even as they were still rebuilding their own homes and businesses and church, the congregation to which I belong in the Lower Ninth (St David Catholic Church, staffed by the Jospehites, Phillip Berrigan’s order) travelled at their own expense to an urban poor community in Philadelphia and participated in that community’s efforts toward renewal. This spirit of community and mutual aid is, I believe, is integral to the desire of New Orleanians to come home, to risk return: their love of neighbor and “neighboring” is of profound import to their culture and identity. Sankofa is a celebration of and facilitator of that spirit and renewal. The market is a community partnership formed with All Congregations Together (ACT), All Souls Episcopal Church and Community Center, Global Green USA, Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church, House of Dance of Feathers, Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic, Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Council, Preservation Resource Center and St David Catholic Church. Supporters and contributors: Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation; marketumbrella.org, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Transforma Projects, Episcopal Diocese Of Louisiana, Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman, Councilmember Cynthia Willard-Lewis, Home New Orleans, Lecler Printing, lowernine.org, Musician’s Clinic, International Society On Hypertension In Blacks (ISHIB), PEACE of Heart sponsored by UnitedHealth Group Foundation, Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro, Baby’s Coffee, National Performance Network.

Unity for the Homeless (unity.org) – Read any story about the work being done in New Orleans with the homeless community and you will find this organization on the ground, driving services and policy and funding throughout the community. The homeless shelter I worked at shared space with Unity. At 5am, these workers were under the overpasses offering “housing first” services and, at 10pm, those same workers were fininshing up after delivering meals to the people they had housed that morning. I will never forget the day – in May 2008! – when two of those workers knocked on my office door and asked me to help them find the resources to “finish their own recovery”, to get their own children and elderly family members off air mattresses, off mattresses placed at night on the kitchen floor because they were rebuilding essential rooms first. Nor will I forget when, a few days before Christmas, a Unity worker – still not yet back in her own home – used her personal credit card to get a family off the street and into a motel because the funding had run out and the shelters were full.

Hike for KaTREEna (hikeforkatreena.org) – New Orleans lost over 100,000 trees when the levees broke in the aftermath of Katrina. Think of the live oaks, the magnolias, the “tulip trees”, the crepe myrtle, the clementines, the swamp maples. If you have been to New Orleans, try to imagine the city without its trees. Try to imagine Mardi Gras without the frivolous, haphazard beauty of bead-draped trees along the parade routes.

St Bernard Project, Rebuilding the Lives of Katrina Survivors, Family by Family (stbernardproject.org) – I spent a week volunteering with them in August (with a nun and a bunch nun wannabees) and was blown away. They have rebuilt 244 houses at a cost of $15,000 dollars per house. Enough said.

Here’s hoping….

Jean