Sister Anne

Seven-year-old Anna has her first encounter with racism in the 1960s when an African American nun comes to teach at her parochial school

For thirty-four years Sister Anne Brooks, a Catholic nun and doctor of osteopathy, served one of the nation’s most impoverished towns and regions, Tutwiler, in Tallahatchie County in the Mississippi Delta. In 1983, she reopened the Tutwiler Clinic, which had remained closed for five years, as no other physician was willing to serve in Tallahatchie County. Starting with only two other nuns and regularly working twelve-hour days, Brooks’s patient load—in a region where seven out of ten patients that walked in her door had no way to pay for care—grew from thirty to forty individuals per month her first year to more than 8,500 annually. Sally Palmer Thomason tells the powerful story of Sister Anne Brooks, beginning with her tumultuous childhood, the contracting and overcoming of crippling arthritis in early adulthood, and her near-unprecedented decision to attend medical school at the age of forty. Dr. Brooks’s remarkable dedication and accomplishments in caring for the health and well-being of both the individuals and the community of Tutwiler attracted ongoing attention and was often featured in national publications and media, including People magazine and 60 Minutes. Thomason not only shares Brooks’s powerful story but reveals, through excerpts from journal entries, letters, and interviews, the intimate musings that connect Brooks’s faith in God to her profound compassion for others. Whether it is Brooks’s efforts to desegregate Tutwiler or provide free healthcare, her constant devotion to others is striking.

After raising three children in an affluent Philadelphia suburb, Martha became a volunteer at the Southwest Community Enrichment Center, directed by Sister Anne Boniface Doyle. Bridging Diversity describes her 25 years at the center. Her vivid narrative brings the people working at and using the center to life. This book is not just another case study of poverty. It is the personal journey of one woman who attempts to learn to understand people of a profoundly different background. It puts a human face to a pressing social issue: relations between haves and have-nots.

A healing resource that blends practical plant-based knowledge with spiritual reconnection to show how respect for and communion with our natural world guides us toward healing. Combining Vanessa's story of her own healing journey with practical plant-based knowledge, Awakening Artemis is rooted in the belief that healing happens through reclaiming an intuitive connection to ourselves, to the natural world, and to our own "inner wild." Having experienced a series of physical traumas growing up--including chronic asthma, a car accident that fractured her back and neck, and sexual trauma--Vanessa pursued various approaches to therapeutic movement from martial arts to yogic practices and explored traditions honoring the mind-body connection while forging a path to recovery. Twenty years now into her journey to reconcile her daily routines with her yearning for greater purpose and connection, Vanessa shares the eclectic mix of elements that have brought her deeper self-awareness, a richer understanding of her place in the world, and the confidence and clear boundaries to truly connect with her loved ones. Organized into five sections that move from the present moment to the forest edge, and into the healing darkness, each chapter focuses on a single plant: on their power to connect us to our bodies and our environment. Using storytelling from her own life, Vanessa connects the plants' power and characteristics to issues we all grapple to heal from and even to understand--from the alienating consequences of cultural appropriation to the intersection between a forest's mycelial network and the neural pathways of our brains. For those seeking to recognize the power and omnipresence of the natural world--from the mugwort sprouting in the city sidewalk to the majesty of a three-thousand-year-old yew in rural Scotland--and harness that to push into new realms of self-discovery, Awakening Artemis is an intimate, unforgettable resource capturing one woman's journey to heal her traumas that opens up a world of potential growth and healing for us all.