The Sisters

“The sisters been working on the NSFA most of the morning.” Manny Hotchkiss * wrote as an aside in a recent email. The two sisters are Mary Ryan-Hotchkiss and Paula Schaffner, co-editors of the English-language Affiliate newsletter, Not So Far Afield (NSFA).  Many of you reading this receive the paper version and/or the digital version every other month.  It is an essential record – a head, heart & soul document – of the Maryknoll Affiliate movement and those of us who have attached ourselves to it. **

I have been in this position with the Affiliates approaching 9 years.  Paula and Mary were at this before I arrived.  The ‘at this’ part entails inviting (enticing, encouraging, gracefully strong-arming, etc.) Affiliates and others to write articles on what they’ve been doing or thinking. Mary most often does that along with contributing articles and writing an introduction for each edition.  Her commitment to justice and peace through nonviolence is evident in almost every intro. Paula, is truly an artist when it comes to formatting, and an English scholar vis à vis editing. In fact, I fear she’ll find needed edits in these paragraphs once posted. Paula and Mary also have a keen sense of what is the heart-blood of the Affiliate movement.

A bigger fear for me (all of us) than being edited, is what will happen when these two decide that their NSFA co-editing days have come to a close.  Even among so many gifted Affiliates, I cannot image that such specific talent, commitment and understanding of the movement is out there embodied in one or two other people.  And too, the salary – a multiple of 0 – doesn’t put any strain on the budget.  All we can do is to thank those sisters who’ve been working on the NSFA most of the morning.

* Manny Hotchkiss is a present Affiliate Board member and head of the Finance Committee. Dave Schaffner, Paula’s husband was a previous Board member and Board Chair. Kind of a committed extended family…

**  No Tan Lejos del Horizonte (NTLH) is the Spanish-language Affiliate newsletter – also incredibly well done.