What is the heart of sisterhood?
That you may ponder and believe
It’s giving up or giving out
Such articles as those receive
Who are the designated ‘poor’--
The needy and unfortunate.
However, one should not assume
That God will so apportion it
To every sister on the path,
For there are many other kinds
Of gifts a sisterhood involves,
A sister, so called, never minds
Partaking of and sharing in
The everyday delivery of--
Such as might well be summarized
By just two simple words--“God’s Love”!
Ask anyone who’s been around
Those living any sisterhood
And he or she will surely tell
Some story on the life that’s good
And represents some fraction of
The whole one may hypothesize
God had in mind when He--or She--set out
To catch some women’s eyes
And call them to God’s enterprise
They would invent the means of then--
The ways and places they would go
Or see the Gospel off again
From--where those leading such would plan
Whatever would be realized.
Those to enflesh it would go out,
Their hearts not to be compromised
By that conflicting with their vows,
Embraced as well by those who’d spent
Some mission years abroad, brought back
To, at the ‘hub’, be likewise ‘sent’
To ministries found close to home,
The number of which, growing still,
Could leave one gawking, quite amazed,
The mere descriptions of might fill
A bulging book, as those are free
Who enter sisterhood to dream,
And dream they do--continually!
It’s not as wild as it might seem
To think that sisterhood may span
The wealth of God’s imagination.
No, for such may come to be!
Such is the mystery it is
when women called ‘say yes’, indeed
to sisterhood and heed God’s invitation!
- Sister Carol Reed 2/14/22
