VeNews February 2012

Welcome to VeNews, the newsletter for Vesper Society friends.

FROM PRESIDENT MARY BAICH

For mission-driven enterprises like Vesper Society, the new year is a time to turn the page and start fresh. As we begin a new calendar, many of us contemplate the central purposes of our lives and strive to bring our daily activities into closer alignment with our values. The new year also serves to remind us that change is endlessly possible—not just for individuals but for organizations too. By embracing the chance to renew our commitment to our core values and mission, we can marshal the energy and hope that comes with each new beginning.

 

CONFERENCE IGNITES HOPE IN CHICAGOLAND

What if the phrase “the kingdom of God” didn’t refer to heaven—as many Christians assume—but to an earthly world that people of faith and good will can inhabit and work to improve every day of their lives?

That was the question that 118 participants asked themselves and each other at the Ignite Hope Conference, a day-long intergenerational, interfaith conversation that Vesper Society held on Nov. 19, 2011, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The question is also central to The World as It Should Be: Living Authentically in the Here-and-Now Kingdom of God, the book that inspired the Society to ask the author, Gregory F. Augustine Pierce, to moderate the conference.

Sally Simmel, the conference’s Chicago-based project manager, says, “We hoped to set a model of a conversation or dialogue that brought people of all faiths together to look at injustices in their own communities, identify issues they thought needed addressing, and then look at ways that together as people of faith they might address them.”

For the conversation, organizers worked to create an inclusive climate of mutual respect. Young adults under age 35 from a range of religious and philosophical viewpoints made up one panel. Another included representatives of Islam, Judaism, Secular Humanism and Christian backgrounds.

“We asked them to talk about what in their faith tradition motivated them to work for a world as God would have it,” explains Simmel.

Among the points that emerged was the Jewish concept of Tikkun, which means “repairing the earth.” “Anybody who understands ‘kingdom of God’ in the Christian perspective can understand Tikkun, and vice versa,” says Simmel.

Before the conference, organizers distributed copies of two books to Chicago-area congregations: A New Way of Seeing, a condensed version of Pierce’s book; and Marilyn Huebel’s Bringing Hope to Life: 26 Ways You Can Change the World You Live In.

Those who attended told Simmel they would take their new awareness home and translate it into local action on issues important to them. Those issues could include housing, hunger, banking, foreclosures, food or water issues, care of the environment and sustainability, she says.

Conference participants drafted a “Declaration for Hope” to encapsulate the convictions that would guide their future actions. It begins, “Hope is the belief in possible. It is the fundamental principle that drives our vision of a better future — a world governed by compassion, forgiveness, and love.”

Vesper Society will evaluate the conference and decide which aspects of it to replicate elsewhere. “This has possibilities beyond what we imagined,” Simmel says. “The conversation doesn’t have to stay in a congregational group. It can be a book club, a men’s group, a group of businesswomen, or a group of kids in a confirmation class.”

Jesse Hoyt, a young man who organizes for immigrant and refugee rights in Chicago’s western suburbs, says the Ignite Hope event “provided a space where I could speak with others about my work, learn about other work related to social justice and faith, and even meet people from the suburbs I could be working with.”

People often talk about change they want to see, but don’t put their words into action, he says. “This event was a step in the right direction in terms of connecting people to that type of direct action work. I think that there are definite pockets of the kingdom of God here on Earth, and we find them most when we reach out to our neighbors.”

 

MARY BAICH ANNOUNCES PLANS TO RETIRE
AS VESPER SOCIETY PRESIDENT

Vesper Society President and CEO Mary Olson Baich has announced that she will conclude her service with Vesper this year, her 10th with the organization. She expects to leave within a few months, though her departure date has not yet been set. The Vesper Society board of directors will announce her successor by spring 2012.

“I’m thrilled with the experiences I’ve had with Vesper, and I am proud of the success of the organization over my 10 years as president,” Baich said. “I feel that I accomplished the things I set out to accomplish, particularly with regard to healthcare disparities and access to care for the uninsured. I have been passionate about these issues all my life, and I will continue to work on them after I leave.” Read more.

 

PETER BENSON, VISIONARY ADVOCATE FOR YOUTH

Vesper Society lost a longtime friend, colleague and former board member with the death in October of Dr. Peter Lorimer Benson. As president and CEO of Search Institute, a research organization in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Benson significantly advanced the fields of adolescent development and the psychology of religion.

Benson was a social scientist with a gift both for conducting groundbreaking research and for inspiring concrete action. He formulated three highly influential concepts: Developmental Assets, those elements that reduce risky behaviors and build positive growth; Sparks, the passions that motivate individuals toward socially useful endeavors; and Healthy Communities—Healthy Youth, the belief that people in a community have within themselves the resources to help their young people grow.

Benson’s strategies, and the rigorous academic work behind them, have had a tremendous impact on how people worldwide understand and develop the potential of children and adolescents. In 2009, the Dalai Lama spoke with him about Sparks before an audience of thousands.

Barbara Varenhorst, Vesper Society’s corporate board chair and founder of the Peer Counseling Program, said in a tribute, “Peter had a profound influence on me, on my career and on the whole Peer Counseling—or Peer Helping—movement. . . . His death leaves a huge hole in my life. Yet I hear his voice more urgently now, still motivating me.”

 

VESPER INTERIM BOARD CHAIR ERIC REYNOLDS — MAKING THE WORLD MORE COMPASSIONATE

Eric Reynolds grew up in a family that considers putting faith into action more important than going to church. Raised in Minnesota, in what he calls “a wonderfully progressive Lutheran tradition,” he spent childhood summers outdoors working in camp ministry. By the time he arrived in the Bay Area a dozen years ago, fresh from completing his MBA at Northwestern University, he already knew two members of the Vesper Society board. They invited him to join them.

“I was like, ‘what do I have to offer?’ I was then 28, and I’d be ridiculously the youngest person on the board. They said, ‘Your values come out of your faith tradition. And we want more people with expertise in business and finance.’ I thought I could do what I was good at and serve God.”

He jokes that at his first meetings, the older board members probably figured he was there to serve the drinks. But he was serious about putting his business skills to work for the Society.

“I shared the founders’ vision to a T,” he says. “I really cleave to this vision, particularly of [co-founder] Gene Heckathorn and his message that maybe we should talk less about theology and use our God-given gifts to make the world marginally better. I love that temperament. I love that idea. The fact that I could work with people I knew was a bonus.”

Reynolds now serves as interim board chair. He is also a corporate member and serves on the investment and finance committees.

Beyond the Society, Reynolds shares his life with attorney Emilio Seijo — who, he notes, is “a self-proclaimed Catholic Buddhist, which makes for incredibly awesome dinner conversations."

Reynolds is director of business development at The Clorox Company, and doesn’t see work as being separate from his beliefs. “So many in my cohort, in their 30s and 40s, are looking for something to give their lives meaning,” he says. “I feel that I can contribute meaningfully at work. If I show people dignity at work, if I apply the best moral decision I can in a difficult business situation, I think that’s what God wants.”

Those he works with at Vesper Society share the belief that everyone on the planet is a child of God and deserves respect. “That world view is what keeps me around,” he says.

Reynolds would like to see the Society’s work become a little more focused, although he appreciates the diversity of its efforts. “We are willing to do a lot of things and we have more patience than other organizations,” he says. One project that particularly energizes him is Ignite Hope.

“We’re starting to wonder if we have a role in asking what it means to be a person of faith, to live in the world as God would have it," he says. "I love the fact we’re willing to experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.

“I believe that for the functioning of society, compassion has to exist. I get very excited about it. We don’t necessarily talk about it, but it fuels everything we do. What if we could get more people to think like that? Would we be able to inch the universe over to be just a little bit more compassionate?”

 

About Vesper Society

Founded in 1965, Vesper Society is a faith-based private operating foundation that envisions a compassionate world that protects human dignity and enhances human potential. The Society’s mission is to promote social justice locally and globally by addressing critical social issues, including the provision of health services for the underserved.