Lasallian Ruminations

What Makes a Good School?

2012-02-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

One question that St. John Baptist de La Salle would often ask in his letters to the Brothers was, "Does the school run well?" There was no specific definition of what that meant. He assumed that the recipient would understand the meaning of "run well." The Brothers had over the years developed a resource called The Conduct of Schools that specified everything in the school, from the schedule to the exact curriculum to the placement of wall art. A Starbucks or McDonald's franchise manual couldn't be as detailed.

But the question, I think, had to do with more than simply how well that Conduct of Schools was being applied. When we ask someone, "Are you well?" or "How are you?", there's more going on than meets the ear. Certainly, we are interested in the practical details of the person's life. But also, and perhaps more critically, we are making a cautious venture into the person's deeper levels of life. One can simply respond with "Fine!" and leave it at that. Or one can respond with humor, as Kathryn Hepburn is reported to have done - "Fine, if you don't ask for details." Or one could cautiously ask in return, "Do you really want to know?" and thereby begin a very different kind of conversation. (Many people don't particularly want to go there, by the way, unfortunately.) Finally, there are those who really will tell you how they are, and then it's either "excuse and run" or "full speed ahead."

Perhaps De La Salle had this in mind, giving permission to the Brothers to whom he was writing to be perfectly candid in their responses, letting De La Salle know both the joys and the challenges of their vocation. At the same time, he was genuinely interested in making sure that all Lasallian schools ran well. And that meant more than simply doing a fine job of academics. Reading his meditations makes it very clear that education must be more than academic excellence.

Some might think that there's little that's more important than good academics in a school. After all, isn't that why schools exist in the first place? Well, yes and no. De La Salle and Lasallian educators would say that academics are vital but never sufficient. A school is much more than a bunch of people gathered in one place in order to learn academically. It is a community of learning, a group of individuals who together advance in ways not yet fully realized or fully appreciated. Why else do we form such close bonds and carry so many fond memories with us for years afterwards; conversations, discoveries, relationships, clubs, sporting events, outings, explorations, and all the rest. Seeds of wisdom, of knowledge, of relationships, of spiritual life, and of true vitality were planted, many of which would need years of cultivation before they came to blossom. Saint Thomas Aquinas calls teaching the most charitable co-operative art, because teachers hardly ever see the results of their efforts. And the final results that teachers truly appreciate are much more than those that come from academics alone.

One of my favorite quotations about teachers and teaching comes from Abraham Joshua Herschel:

"Everything depends on the person who stands in the front of the classroom. The teacher is not an automatic fountain from which intellectual beverages may be obtained. He [She] is either a witness of a stranger. To guide the pupil into the promised land, he [she] must have been there himself [herself]. When asking: Do I stand for what I teach? Do I believe what I say? he [she] must be able to answer in the affirmative. ... What we need more than anything else is not textbooks but textpeople. It is the personality of the teacher which is the text that the pupils read; the text that they will never forget."

Wise words. Is it any wonder, then, that De La Salle spent such time and effort on cultivating the souls of the Brothers, those who followed him into teaching the young? Teachers are the ones who carry the school forward, who bring the "mission" to the classroom, and who are the direct instrument of God's grace in the lives of their students. They carry the seeds of Lasallian education.

So I think that when De La Salle asked the question "Does the school run well?," he was really asking about the people, about the community, and about the inner vitality of the school's life, not about its academics alone. His was a much more broad understanding of "school," one that essentially focused on the people within it.

Are we a witness or a stranger to those we teach? Does our inner school run well? (How are you?) De La Salle's provides a bit of fine advice for fostering the inner school life of all:

"Never speak except in a kindly manner. When you fear to fail in this, remain silent."

The Thing About Christmas

2011-12-21T17:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I stood before a display rack of Christmas DVDs that must have included more than forty titles - cartoons, comedies, and classics. Most of them I'd never seen, but the story was likely to be predictable: a child / adult / animal is depressed / unappreciated / "difficult" or "different" and encounters / undergoes / confronts an experience / situation / challenge that is unpredictable / impossible / rare which thereby transforms / undercuts / alters the context / understanding / shape of their local world / life / reality.

Life's common themes prevail. And Christmas is a time when these common threads of life experience become focused and intense, concentrated around the story of the birth of Jesus, that quiet bursting forth of actual and potential immensity of life, love, and learning "in the bleak midwinter, long time ago." No matter the circumstance, it seems to say, transformation is possible because transformation lies planted within the deepest roots of things, and something beyond "mere" transformation has become incarnate, a reality in our midst.

Children hint as these things on a daily basis, as do those who approach life simply, radically, and with daily wonder (those I've met with Down's Syndrome come to mind, as do those I consider holy men and women). Their comments, gestures, and actions regularly burst forth with genuineness and passion; very little is lukewarm or artificial. Yes, they're not warm and fuzzy all the time. But they're all out there all the time. Like God.

That's perhaps the greatest challenge we have, to be more and more like God, to be more and more in love with our lives, our circumstances, our immediate neighbors, our daily challenges, and dare I say, even our enemies. Boy, is that one difficult, even for those who really try. But it's possible, unpredictable, and providential.

Take one example. Radical love may perhaps be best exemplified in that strange thing called forgiveness, without which salvation and Christmas itself would have no meaning beyond the warm and fuzzy.

In her book The Hiding Place, CorrieTen Boom tells the story of her family’s efforts to help Jews in Holland andtheir later suffering in a Nazi death camp, where her sister Betsie died.Following liberation, Corrie, an avid evangelical Christian into her old age, lectured and preached throughout Europe on the needfor forgiveness and reconciliation. After one of her talks, a man came up toher. He did not recognize her, but she recognized him immediately—he had been aparticularly cruel SS guard at the Nazi death camp who had repented after the war and become an active Christian himself. She writes of their meeting:

“How grateful I am for your message,Fraulein,” he said. “To think that, as you say, [Christ] has washed mysins away!” And suddenly, it was all there— the roomful of mocking men,the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face. ... His hand was thrust outto shake mine. And I, who had preached so often about the need to forgive, kept my hand at myside. And even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I sawthe sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to askfor more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing,not the slightest warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer,Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness.

As I tookhis hand a most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my armand through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into myheart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on ourforgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healinghinges, but on [God’s]. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the loveitself…. It is a joy to accept forgiveness, but it is almost a greater joy togive forgiveness.

Sounds like God is in the building.

This Christmas, imagine that it may be God's greatest joy to be able to bring forgiveness, to be able to bring it to birth in Jesus Christ and, through Christ, in each of us. What a great notion! And as we find joy in accepting forgiveness, there's a whole world of new joys to be explored in giving forgiveness, difficult at that may seem. Talk about real love in action.

May you have/find/seek the grace/hope/love that will burst through like a supernova - quiet, largely unseen, but HUGE - bringing true life to everything and everyone you touch.

[For those interested in my Christmas Newsletter, it's HERE.]

Yet another opinion about the "New" Mass

2011-12-11T21:30:00.001-08:00

The new changes in the English translation for the Mass have led to all sorts of unexpected consequences, and I feel a bit out of sort. There was plenty of preparation, lots of discussion, and extensive coverage in the news and in the pews. But as with most things, the actual experience of change is often altogether different than one's expectations.

I remember going through the Latin-to-English transition period in the 1960's, when "And with you" sounded clunky and inauthentic, especially as an altar server who was used to the Latin responses. Now, "And with your Spirit" sounds clunky and strange. In that first transition, the move was from one language to another, and therefore everything was new. This present one is within the same language and seems so much harder, perhaps because only some things are new. The reason for some of the present awkwardness seems to be two-fold. One has to do with the subject of the change (the language) and the other with the context of the change (the ritual).

Having gone to Mass pretty much every day since 1970, the texts had become a part of me, like the Our Father, or fine poems, or parts of Shakespeare ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment..."). They had become a highway for my prayers, my thoughts, my way of living, with the words and phrases both familiar and accessible. I could pray as easily as I could speak to another person. I didn't have to think about which words to use. The medium had become part of me, a spiritual home.

The present change pulls that familiar linguistic rug out from under me. There's no way that I can keep my balance, let alone pray. Over the last few weeks, the Masses have been stilted and hesitant, juggling pew cards and books and new music. This will not last, of course. But the question is not whether we will grow used to it. My question - and it still is a question - is whether we will grow more prayerful through it.

The present change is not only a change in language, it's a change in character. It's not like putting on prism-glasses that make the world look upside down; something that the brain quickly adjusts to, and everything is soon "normal." This is more like a well-loved and comfortable folk-dance that is suddenly altered, just a bit here and there. And as a result, people (the "folk") are bumping into one another all over the place, the dance-leaders (generally non-"folk") are doing their best to put a good face on it all, and those participating in the dance aren't having such a good time, too careful to avoid making mistakes to be able to really do what they came there to do; i.e., dance.

Unexpected consequences include getting lost in the multiple clauses of the prayers, the use of translated words that distance ("chalice" and "prevenient grace" come to mind) or confuse (How are we to convey a radically incarnational theology by using "with your Spirit" so much?), the need for weight-lifting classes for altar servers so that they can carry the new missal (You think that there won't soon be an iPad hidden in a carved-out old missal?), and the temptation to design kitchens instead of truly listening to the Eucharistic prayer.

Just one small example of something unexpected: that use of "chalice" an average of three times during the consecration. Did Jesus use an Aramaic or Hebrew word similar to our word "chalice" at the Last Supper? Do we use that word anywhere else except for the Mass? If it's now only used at Mass (and movie dialogues dealing with Kings and vampires and the like), is it wrong to think that we're quietly drifting towards a linguistic Docetism or Monophysitism [Look it up]?

Perhaps a future blog entry will take all this back and wax eloquently about the beauty of the text and the "rightness" of the changes, as many others are doing today. I can't predict that right now.

But I do really, sincerely, and simply hope that I (we) will come to pray more deeply as a result of these present changes. I don't have a lot of time to wait for the next translation, and I'm really sorry to see so much of what I was familiar with and grew close to ride off into the sunset.

"Shane, come back...."

Tempus fugit. Omnes translationes imperfecta.

"Just" God

2011-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

“God is at home, it’s we who have gone out for a walk.” (Meister Eckhart)

Why is it that so many insist on adding a possessive pronoun to any reference to God? Increasingly, it seems, published prayers and prayer leaders place “my,” “your,” or “our” in front of any reference to God.

“We now bring our prayers to our God...”
“May your personal God give you blessings in your life...”
“As you sit in the presence of your God...”
“The blessings that my God has given to me...”
“I invite you to pray to your God and our God so that...”

Somehow it appears to have become necessary to amend any reference to God, as if the simple word “God” has become too remote, or too limiting, or too great. Or perhaps people just don’t think about any of this too much and have habitually begun to think of God as simply one thing among many things in their lives. My God, your God, our God... What’s the difference? It doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s just one of the many elements in my life, and every once in a while I think about it, just like I think about lots of other “things” during the course of my day.

Is it that difficult to realize that we are inadvertently domesticating (i.e., controlling) a reality that is not tameable? (For those who remember the Narnia Chronicles: “He’s not a tame lion, you know.”) Some poor and inadequate analogies: It’s as if a person were seen solely through the chemical makeup of a single one of his/her cells. It’s as if we judged the nature of the universe through what we saw by looking up at the sky during one minute of the day. It’s as if we were stuck in a cave looking at flickering images on the wall, the shadows of things behind us and unaware of the realities of the world outside, let alone the things making the shadows (apologies to Plato). The point was perhaps best indicated by Annie Dillard in one of her essays:

“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? ... Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

Now Annie does something different - she uses “the” in front of “god.” That’s a bit better, since it indicates a single reality, not one among many. But most mystics and holy folks dive more deeply and, when they refer to God at all, use the word “God” by itself … with care, humility, and trepidation, because even “the” indicates a reality that we can somehow define or encompass or comprehend. No wonder that the Hebrew Scriptures refer to God with “YHWH” and resist pronouncing the word at all, substituting Adonai or Jehovah instead. God’s true name is simply too holy to blithely throw around, even in a prayer.

There’s something important about all of this, but it continues to escape my full comprehension. Meister Eckhart helps a bit: “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” Those pronouns “my”, “your”, “our” and all the rest should be turned inside out. God does not belong to me or to us, I and we belong to God, yet we remain trapped in our own perspective. When we pray, truly pray, we begin to glimpse something of God’s true life; right now, right here, right away. We peek through the door, as it were, and are blinded by what we see. The temptation then is to call that “my door” and pretend that it adequately represents what lies behind it. In reality … in reality, it remains a mystery to me, and it’s best to simply acknowledge that. This may be sufficient, even beneficial.

The only thing I’m sure of is that I will never be able to speak of God with any pronoun attached; I can only hope and pray for my own growing, awkward attachment towards God.

Finally, God is nothing when compared to everything else we might know, love, understand, or pursue. I invite you to dive into the deep end of that reality with St. John of the Cross (1542 - 1591):

To come to the pleasure you have not
You must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
You must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
You must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
You must go by a way in which you are not.

WYD 2011 - Departure and Completion

2011-08-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

August 24, 2011

This is a simple entry to complete the journey. This morning we left Madrid for NYC and beyond. Starting before 6 AM, we gathered in the gym with all of our "stuff" and figured out what to leave behind as donations.

We arrived at the local Metro stop just when the trains began running, The trip out to the airport would take a while and we didn't want to be late. On the trains, other travelers seemed to be of the same mind, judging from the luggage they were dragging with them.

When we arrived at the Madrid airport, we were among the first in line for checking our luggage, getting our boarding cards and moving through the security lines. As before, once beyond security, it was a matter of waiting, sleeping, walking around, or looking at whatever stores were open early.

The plane was a simple jet, six seats across, and most of us were pretty cramped in our seats for the 7.5 hour journey to JFK. But it was all to be expected and the trip was uneventful.

Upon our arrival at JFK, the bus from Saint Raymond High School and JP Riley were waiting for the group. I remained at the airport for my flight to SFO three hours later, but I was able to get some last pictures as the group boarded the bus for the trip to Manhattan College where most would spend the night prior to moving on to their various home locations.

And so the journey comes to an end (on the outside). The inner journey continues.

All of the photographs from our WYD experience are here. Below is a slideshow of the photos from just today. For individual photographs, you can also click on the slideshow to go to the album.

WYD 2011 - Final Day in Madrid

2011-08-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

August 23, 2011

Today was our final day in Madrid. Most people wanted to visit the Prado Museum during the day, and a small group wished to visit the stadium where the REAL Madrid soccer team played. I decided to join the stadium group and visit the Prado afterwards.

We began the day, as in the past, with morning prayer together and a short meeting. Then our small group departed for the bus into town. It wasn't hard to find the stadium once we came to the general area. It was the biggest thing out there. This soccer team is somewhat of a legend in the soccer world, not only because of its winning history but also because of its outreach programs to the needy and to kids. Tickets for the tour were a bit steep, but I think we all decided that finally it was worth the expense.

We bought our tickets and commenced the tour, along with many others who were visiting today. First we went up to one of the highest levels, where you could really get a good view of the entire stadium. From there we walked through various museum levels, showing the trophies, outreach programs, famous players, history and the like. Eventually, we reached the ground floor where the playing field was located. We were even able to sit in the seats that the players occupy during a game. What struck me most was the fact that there wasn't a bad seat in the house. Whether on top or near the bottom, everyone had a great view of the entire field. My guess is that the tickets to games would be quite pricey.

We ended up in the team store, of course, but none of us were willing play the somewhat outrageous prices that they were charging for simple jerseys or t-shirts. Instead, we simply looked and then made our way out and on to the Prado Museum. Along the way, we passed locations on the street where we had stood or sat during the WYD activities. Now they were completely abandoned and normal traffic was flowing. It was interesting to see these places in their "normal" state after being there when thousands of people had squeezed into these spaces in hopes of seeing the Holy Father and participating in the various WYD activities.

The Prado Museum was a great experience. The quality of artwork there was simply amazing. I spent about three hours walking through the various exhibits. I particularly likes the Velazquez, Goya, and Caravaggio paintings that they had, although there were also some surprises - paintings that jumped out of the wall or became more interesting the longer you looked at them. This was the kind of museum that required regular and intentional visits over a period of years in order to fully appreciate. But I did what I could and think that I absorbed as much as one could in an initial visit.

The group had split up initially and met up later in the afternoon, returning to the school via the Metro for our scheduled final gathering and prayer service. During the day, others had tried to get into the Prado but had found it too packed. They instead toured around on foot, ending up in a Benedictine Church where they were able to join into a Mass that was about the commence. They commented that this was exactly the thing they had been looking for and happily joined in.

When we had all gathered back at the school, in the small school chapel, one of the Brothers took our group photo in the yard outside of the chapel, and then we spent an hour or so talking about our pilgrimage experience - what it had meant to us, what stood out, what we had learned, etc.

The session turned out to be a great summary and celebration of our time together. A number of people said that the real value of the experience lay not so much in the WYD activities as in the life of our small ad hoc community. In the short time that we'd spent together, we had become a genuine community, gathered around a specific pilgrimage, purpose, and prayer. Our common experiences in the Lasallian world easily wound themselves into something larger than any one of us could have anticipated, a quietly joyful and significant journey of faith. In some ways, it was simple, straightforward, and direct. In other ways, it was profound, insightful, surprising, and filled with grace. Sort of like Lasallian education, it had aspects of practicality and whispers of eternity. By the end of the prayer service, I felt that we had come to a comfortable and solid place of completion. Much credit is to be given to Br. Peter Killeen for facilitating and organizing a structure by which all that was able to be accomplished.

After the service, we made our way to a nearby restaurant for our final meal together - simple, relaxed, comfortable, and fitting. We had had a wonderful time, and we were now ready to move ahead. I believe that we had also been able to convey a good sense of what the Brothers vocation was all about, perhaps not in so many words as in the example and experiences of the various people and situations that were part of this pilgrimage. In many ways, the value of a pilgrimage such as this lies with those who participate in it. Their intentions, personalities, expectations, behaviors, interactions, mistakes, conversations, prayers, frustrations, joys, and challenges shaped the character of the final impression - vaguely discerned but deeply felt.

No wonder that for centuries people went on pilgrimages, much to the chagrin of friends and family who couldn't quite figure out why they would do so. Like anything that emerges from a nascent passion and builds upon its exercise, the dynamic lies in the doing of it. All the rest is commentary.

All of the photographs from our WYD experience are here. Below is a slideshow of the photos from just today. For individual photographs, you can also click on the slideshow to go to the album.

WYD 2011 - Some Tourist Activities

2011-08-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2011

Today was our day to relax and enjoy Madrid. In the morning, we had a prayer service and meeting in the school's chapel during which we reflected on our experiences thus far, especially those things that had surprised us over the last few days. It was a good way to share one another's impressions, observations, and thoughts. It can be quite profound to hear someone share a moment that, until then, had simply been a piece in a chain of moments but that now struck us with a new brilliance because of its personal significance.

Afterwards, we participated in a scheduled tour of the printing press next door. The Brother in charge took us through all aspects of the process, explaining as we went along. It was obviously a very extensive operation, with a lot of machinery and a fast variety of printing projects. Everyone was suitably impressed. The highlight for many was the machine that cut through stacks of paper with a razor-sharp electric cutter. Most of us could just imagine what it would do to an errant finger or limb. Clearly, this whole plant was a major player among the printeries in Spain and would certainly provide a good income for the District.

The group, without Br. Peter who decided to stay behind and rest, then proceeded to downtown Madrid on the bus, walking through the downtown area on the way to a large Daughters of Saint Paul bookstore where many shopped for small souvenirs to take back. Different groups went in different directions from there, the Brothers walking to where we thought the cathedral would be. Upon finding a small church that had "Cathedral" in its name, we also saw that it was closed. Since time was running out we proceeded a nearby Metro stop and returned to the school, since we Brothers had been invited to join the Brothers at the school for their 2 PM meal.

They were waiting for us when we arrived back at the community and we spent a fine hour with them, chatting in Spanish and enjoying the special meal (Paella, champagne, etc.) that they had prepared in our honor. At the end of the meal, the Director made a fine little speech, and Br. Ed responded in kind, having a good facility in Spanish because of his many years as principal in the Bronx. It was a warm gesture on their part and an enjoyable celebration of our common vocation as Brothers. We might not have fully understood one another's words, but we felt fully at home in our common life and consecration.

Peter had arranged to meet up with the others from our group who were already downtown, and we Brothers now tried to find the agreed-upon location. Emerging at a different Metro stop from those we'd known, we wandered around, finally realizing that this meeting might involve a bit of a walk. Nevertheless, we were able to see a good part of the city and eventually made our way to the actual Cathedral (not the "old" cathedral that had deceived us that morning), coming to it from below and visiting the crypt church before making our way along the street to the upper level. By now, we had missed our meeting time and thought we wouldn't be able to find our group. Then suddenly we say Thomas Gramc crossing a street about 200 feet ahead of us. We all shouted but he didn't seem to hear us. Then Ed used his NYC / Schoolyard voice and Tom noticed us, yelling at us to stay there while he retrieved the rest of the group.

And so we were providentially reunited. The reunited group visited the Madrid Cathedral and then followed Tom's plan to visit five historical churches in the area, saying a decade of the rosary at each one. First, there was the church of San Francisco (closed) where we ran into a group of primitive Franciscans of some ilk, several of whom were Americans. We chatted a bit and then said the decade together on the street before proceeding to the next church. This was a church that had been the resting place of the remains of St. Isidore (the farmer) before his body was moved to another, larger church down the street. Nevertheless, we stopped here and were offered a tour by a young man from Belgium who was part of an international religious group that does this sort of thing, offering tours in other countries at religious sites in a variety of languages. After we'd said our decade, he quietly gave us an extensive tour of the inside of the church, providing history and details that most of us would have missed.

On we went to the larger church where St. Isidore was currently interred above the main altar. A quiet decade in the back and then we wandered around the church, noticing the various artworks and side chapels. One interesting thing I found was a large wooden sculpture of the Dormition of Mary. This is a popular scene among icons of the Orthodox church, but I had never previously seen a Catholic depiction, let alone a sculpture.

We moved on to several more churches, ending up in a church where Mass was going and where each of said our decade silently. Along the way, we ran into a Dominican priest who knew the Brothers and an elderly lady whose brother had been educated by the Brothers. They both seemed happy to see us and eager to talk. It was all very friendly, serendipitous (providential?), and enjoyable.

The group ended up at one of the largest plazas in Madrid, lined with stores and restaurants. Scouts were sent out to check out the restaurants around the plaza. We ended up at an outdoor place in one of the corners of the plaza. Figuring out just what our left-over food vouchers would get us was a bit complicated, especially since our waiter was a Rumanian speaking a sort of Spanish that even our Spanish-speakers had trouble understanding, but eventually we settled down and enjoyed a good meal together. The group next to us was also from the U.S., with some having a connection to various Lasallian schools, and so we were soon trading small gifts and conversing together. When darkness descended, vendors with little neon-blue helicopter toys filled the plaza and the place was filled with small lights soaring up and down in the air.

On the way back, we were able to see the cathedral lit up in all its glory. Once we arrived at our "home" Metro stop, Peter spoke with the helpful station personnel in order to figure out how to get transit passes for the next couple of days, since our WYD passes would expire today. Eventually it was all figured out. He passed them out to us in anticipation of tomorrow's activities and we happily made our way back to the school for a well-deserved and peaceful night's rest.

All of the photographs from our WYD experience are here. Below is a slideshow of the photos from just today. For individual photographs, you can also click on the slideshow to go to the album.

WYD 2011 - the Longest Day Continues

2011-08-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

August 21, 2011

There's nothing like a night of tossing and turning on the ground in the open air with a million and a half other people to make you appreciate the benefits of a quiet room and a soft mattress. I'm just thankful that there was no need to answer the call of nature. Every once in a while one would notice trucks rumbling by or see groups of all-night folks walking around, but generally the night passed peacefully.

Around 5 AM, I'd had enough rest on the hard earth and got up to walk around. Br. Ed was also up and about, standing in one of the main roadways, and I joined him there. We were impressed with the sight of several priests listening to confessions out in the open, walking about with their albs and stoles and quietly speaking to whomever walked up to them. Evidently they had been doing so all night, since I'd seen them the night before inside of the adoration chapel tents. Those tents were now empty and stripped of their tent covers because of the wind the night before. The organizers had taken that precaution once one of the chapels had had its cover torn off by the wind.

We decided to walk about, and for the next hour or so we made our way through the main lanes of the fields covered with a million sleeping bodies, small tents, sleeping bags, and tarps. Along the way we met several groups of nuns, already up and fully dressed in their habits, some of the volunteers who were guarding the entrances to the areas near the stage, and other early morning risers. At one point, Ed said that we were watching the church awaken. I must say that this is one of my favorite memories of the entire experience - seeing all these young people gradually awaken with the increasing light of the new morning, seeing the young church slowly come alive.

Back at our own camp, various people awoke at various times. Some, who had stayed up half the night wandering about and making new friends, remained asleep until the beginning Mass at 10 AM. A group of Italian youth nearby was brewing coffee for themselves and offering free expresso to whomever wanted some. Around eight in the morning, the speaker system came alive and we were all welcomed to a new day by the two perky young announcers - way too perky for that time in the morning. Right afterwards, there were twenty minutes of loud commercials on the big screens followed by scenes of the Holy Father from the previous evening. It wasn't until a little after 9 AM and activities began in earnest.

One surprising and upsetting thing was an announcement that was made that morning, and repeated several times, about communion during the upcoming Papal Mass. They said that because of the "hurricane" last night, some of the tent chapels had been damaged and that it would not be possible to provide communion for most of those attending. Only the priests and some of those in front would be receiving communion. (Actually, I think they were simply overwhelmed by the numbers and took the easiest way out.) The more I thought about that, the more ludicrous this excuse seemed. Yes, there were a lot of people there. Yes, there were some strong winds last evening (for about 10 minutes). But saying that because of this there would not be communion bordered on the inane. There were some 1200 priests up front, concelebrating, and several hundred bishops, not to mention the thousands of Catholic youth who had been volunteering and carrying the bulk of the labor organizing the event. To think that they couldn't figure out how to distribute communion, even with some limitations because of the weather, was just beyond me. It's one of the things we do well, distribute communion to many people. This was THE sacrament of the Church, and the reason why we were there with the Holy Father, and they were asking us to engage in a "spiritual" communion? Very, very strange, and a first in the history of world youth day, as far as I could tell. I couldn't help thinking that JP II would have told them "Figure it out! These youth came here to receive Jesus Christ, and we won't deny them." It showed a whole different sense of what liturgy and full participation meant.

The Mass itself proceeded fine, but many groups were making their way to the exits during the second half of the Mass and during the interminable speeches afterwards. Finally, the pope announced that the next WYD would be in Brazil in two years (World Cup Soccer would be the following year, hence the abnormal two-year gap instead of three) and we knew we were at the end. We cleaned up our area, piling up the things we would leave behind in a neat stack (tarps, stools, mats, etc.) since they would be collected and donated to charity. Then we gathered our things and began our way for the exits ourselves.

Remarkably, the journey out went very smoothly. They had closed the streets toward the Metro and there were just a few places where the crowds slowed down - primarily because some group had decided to stop and consult in the middle of the street before proceeding. Eventually, we came to the Aluche Metro station and stood in line to enter it. Only 100 people at a time were allowed in; enough for one train, so as to prevent accidents on the platform. It was recommended by one of the police officers that we should instead go to the train station 100 meters away, make our way downtown, and there pick up the Metro. And this we did. The journey involved a bit more walking, but the trains, while packed, were on time and we soon found ourselves back at the school.

We were all able to have a nice rest before the evening's activities. Meeting later in the afternoon, we first went to the Brothers chapel where Br. Stephen led a communion service - the completion of the morning's Papal Mass. Then we searched around and found a local pizza place where Br. Peter treated us to dinner (they didn't take WYD vouchers). By previous arrangement, most of us had committed to going to a demonstration soccer game at a downtown stadium that evening and we made our way downtown via a packed Metro. Once there, the rain returned, but we were able to get our tickets and find our wet seats. The place was filled with pilgrims, and the game was to be between sets of retired soccer starts, most of whom seemed to be in their thirties and forties.

When the rain didn't let up, Peter, Eddie, Len and I decided to see if we could sneak into the empty seats underneath the upper tiers, but these sections were guarded much more conscientiously than those at the airfield had been. Funny how priorities are lived out. So we decided to make our way back home, being little interested in watching old soccer stars run around in the rain surrounded by thousands of screaming fans and air horns.

We ended up quietly sitting for about an hour on a balcony outside of the Brothers dining room, enjoying one another's company and talking about our experiences in Spain. The rain had stopped, there was a nice breeze, and it was a fine time to enjoy our evening time together. It was a good end to the "official" part of the pilgrimage.

All of the photographs from our WYD experience are here. Below is a slideshow of the photos from just today. For individual photographs, you can also click on the slideshow to go to the album.

WYD 2011 - The Longest Day

2011-08-27T18:20:00.000-07:00

August 20, 2011

We had decided yesterday that today we would return to the "Love and Life" Center at the Palacio de Deportes for the morning liturgy for English-speaking pilgrims. It required an early start, but that was okay. It was going to be a long day anyway.

A number of us were comfortable walking around in our robes by now, and so we simply wore them on the Metro and for most of the morning. This time we made sure to arrive early enough to get good seats. When we did reach the Palacio, both Peter and I ran into one of the students who had joined us three years ago for WYD in Sydney. Otto and a friend of his were handing out leaflets advocating the canonization of Pierre Toussaint. It was good to briefly reacquaint ourselves with him and to see that his enthusiasm for the church and for his faith had not dimmed.

Inside the center, we tried different locations and finally decided to sit on the ground floor, near the middle in the back. Many bishops who would concelebrate were wandering around the hall, greeting others and interacting with the pilgrims. About four or five of them came up to us, seeing our robes, and spoke to us about their relationships with the Brothers, either as former students or as knowing the Brothers in their home diocese. They were inevitably complimentary and very pleased to see us.

When the Mass started, I was happy to see Cardinal Francis George (the main celebrant) who saw me during the procession and walked over to greet me briefly. During the Mass, Archbishop Timothy Dolan gave the homily. While he again left out the Brothers in his initial greeting to those attending, he did include us when he repeated the list (bishops, priests, deacons, sisters, etc.) during the homily. I like to think that perhaps Francis whispered something to him after he had left out the Brothers initially. In any case, it was a good homily. He does know how to speak to a large group.

At the end of the Mass, Francis George gestured to me that he'd see me afterwards in the back. All of the bishops were sticking around to greet pilgrims from their diocese. We made our way to the back and I had a few minutes catching up with Francis; certainly not enough time, but just enough to touch base. It's been too long since I've visited him in Chicago, and he is in his last year now. He's 74 and will submit his resignation next year. (We had known one another in the early 90's in Boston, when I was studying at BC and living with the OMI's in Brighton. At the time, he was a priest running a think-tank for Cardinal Law.) Hopefully, I'll be able to arrange something before too long. It was good to see him, however briefly, and take a few photographs.

We made our way back to Sagrada Corazon, the Lasallian school where we're staying, for a few hours break, getting some lunch at the now-popular Burger King nearby. Then we began to pack for our trip out to the old Madrid airport, where the major gathering of Catholic youth would take place with the pope. The radio had told everyone not to arrive too soon, since they would not open the fields until later, and we followed that recommendation, leaving around 2 PM.

The closer we came to our destination, the more pilgrims joined in. First, on the Metro, the trains became more and more packed. Once off the Metro, we simply followed the increasing crowds. Some were chanting, others were praying, others were simply trying to stay together. It was more and more crowded, very hot, and the atmosphere was filled with a sort of relaxed tension. People along the way would sometimes spray the grateful crowds with water from their garden hoses, or one person poured buckets of water from his 4th-floor balcony to shouts to "Gracias!" from below. At one point, Br. Peter began to recite the rosary out loud, and we joined in as we marched along. Later, some of our guys recalled that that helped them to relax and get into a better frame of mind about this wholly unique, somewhat challenging experience.

We arrived at the field and went through metal detectors (which we think were switched off and only there for show) and made our way to section D8, our designated area. I had been warned by Br. Chris Patino via a text message that the section was swamped with people already, although he and his kids from Cathedral High School had arrived much earlier. And this proved to be the case when we arrived. There was no place that wasn't either covered with people or being reserved for another group. After some slightly heated exchanges with folks saving places for others and a few awkward moments, the group decided to go to section F8, which we had been told still had room. This was quite a ways away from D8 and on the outer perimeter, but at least it was a place to stay. Each section was surrounded by metal barriers, and the entries were guarded by "Volunteers" - those Spanish young people with green jerseys who were ubiquitous throughout the events. At section F8, we were told that groups larger than 5 could not come in, since they were also filled. CJ Garcia spoke with them in Spanish and we were allowed to pass. He told them that someone was saving a place for our group of fifteen. A helpful fib.

Once inside, we soon found an area of dirt that was relatively unoccupied. We soon spread our tarps and made ourselves at home. Next to us was a group of religious and others from various countries in South America, and we soon saw that about 40 feet away was Br. Phong and his group of 90+ Vietnamese youth from San Jose. A little while later, we were able to claim another patch of ground that was somewhat contiguous with the space we already had. Within the hour we were settled in, napping in the hot sun. A couple of folks collected our food coupons and went to pick up our food bags for the day - called a "picnic" bag on the food coupon. When they returned, they had chosen the vegetarian option for all of us, since that line was by far the shortest one. Each bag contained water, drinks, food, snacks, and RTE meals for lunch, dinner, breakfast the following morning and a snack. It was plenty, and since Aramark was the company in charge, everything was fresh and well organized.

Our participation in the evening prayer service with the Holy Father was mediated primarily by the large screens scattered around the fields. With my binoculars, if one stood on a stool and looked just past one of the large scaffolds nearby that held up "our" giant speakers, we could see a tiny pope way in the distance under this lighted mushroom sort of focal point on the main stage. The screens were more immediate. He arrived, made his way around the large stage area and began the evening prayer service. I'd noticed some ominous clouds behind us, but they seemed to be moving in another direction. However, things changed.

About 15 minutes into the service, we saw lightning behind the stage and to the left of the fields. Behind and above us the clouds had become much darker. Then a warm, strong wind suddenly began, soon followed by light rain. After a while, the light rain turned to serious rain. From umbrellas and plastic rain covers, most of us ended up spending 20 minutes huddled together within a tarp sandwich, the rain drumming on top of us. The service was stopped - apparently some of the banners and decorations on the stage were being torn away by the winds - and the bishops and cardinals on the dais were able to seek shelter as well. When the rain let up, everything started again, the pope made a comment about being blessed by the rain, and the service continued to the end. The service ended with Eucharistic adoration, using a ten-foot ornate ancient monster monstrance from Toledo that emerged from the ground in front of the pope and after the service descended back to safety below. The pope said goodbye and left.

After it was all over, people began to mill about, some of us went to one of the nearby tent-chapels where we spent some time before the Blessed Sacramento (attacked by ants as we sat or knelt on the ground), before turning in. If there were 1.5 million people there, there were also 5 million ants. Those who only had mats to sleep on were bothered all night by the ants, while the rest of us were relatively safe on our large tarps. I rolled out my little 1-inch thick sleeping mat, borrowed a towel as a cover, and fitfully dozed through the night, waking up lots of times to sit up to stretch a bit and wonder why I was sleeping on the hard ground in an abandoned airport in Madrid. Several times during the night, trucks rumbled by (to empty garbage bins, etc.), and that group with the drums seemed to get more animated as the night passed on. But thank God for the little orange ear plugs. They made it all seem very far away.

All of the photographs from our WYD experience are here. Below is a slideshow of the photos from just today. For individual photos, you can also click on the slideshow to go to the album.

WYD 2011 - The Palacio de Deportes

2011-08-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

August 19, 2011

(NOTE: Again, this is a double blog entry. The first one is the one that follows this one, since these blogs are uploaded as the latest one first.)

Today we decided to forego our local catechetical session and instead participate in the session at the "Love and Life" center downtown. This large venue was created by the USCCB (the bishops of the U.S.) and others for the English-speaking pilgrims. They provided talks, liturgies, resources, workshops, and a vocation cafe, along with various displays and the like. It was a good decision on our part.

In the morning, we had our group prayer and meeting in the open basketball court next to the gym, while the vietnamese group had theirs in the gymnasium. And afterwards, we also met one another in the Metro and traveled part of the way downtown together. They were off to a different venue while we were off to the Palacio de Desportes, a large stadium that can hold 15,000 people.

We quickly found the Palacio upon exciting the Metro and stood in line to have our bags checked. We apparently also needed our credentials from WYD, which some of us had left at home. During the bag check and general fussing around for our credentials, it became clear that this may be a problem. But rescue was on the way in the person of Br. Paul Bernarczyk, CSC (Executive Director of the NRVC and friend of the Brothers) who came out and convinced the security folks to let us through. He explained inside that they had been blocking anyone else from coming in, since the place was packed to the rafters. But he saw us and wanted to make sure to help us. "Anything for the Christian Brothers," he said. It was good to see him, although he had to immediately dash off to deal with another problem.

We made our way upstairs and found seats in generally the same area, although we had to split up into smaller groups. Soon the program began and out stepped Maggie McCarty and her husband to begin the morning´s activities. She was just appointed as Executive Director for the Regional Council of Lasallian Association for Mission (RCLAM for short), a new position for the Lasallian institutions in the US-Toronto Region, and it was great to see her in this prominent role. In her introduction, she stated that she was now working for the De La Salle Christian Brothers, which brought a cheer from various parts of the auditorium (including ours, of course). She and her husband spoke for a bit and then she introduced Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York who would be the catechetical speaker for the morning.

Here followed a very good talk by Cardinal Dolan on the qualities needed for a firm faith. He quoted others, told stories about himself, and generally was both relaxed, personable, and learned. It was a fast 30-40 minutes of catechesis and we showed our appreciation for his teaching skills at the end. After a break, there was liturgy with some 250 priests and over 50 bishops in attendance. The parades (I mean processions) alone took 10 minutes or so. The whole thing went well, expect for two little niggling things. Cardinal Dolan introduced and had stand for applause the bishops in the audience, the priests in the audience, the sisters in the audience, and the Knights of Columbus. (Anything missing here?) I was waiting for something about others in consecrated life, or Brothers, or anything even vaguely similar. But it was not to be. I should accept this as part of our practical humility, I suppose. The other thing was that the guitar-based musical selections seemed to clash with the chant of the Gospel, the intonations of prayers and the like. I find both musical styles appealing in their own way, but mixing them seemed to be too promiscuously eclectic. But maybe I´m just being picky in my old(er) age.

Afterwards, we joined up with Br. Chris Patino and his group from Cathedral High School (Los Angeles) who were also there, and both groups went out to find a place where they would take 50+ for lunch. It ended up that we all split to different restaurants, and most of the folks in our group went to a small place where the highlight was the Chorizo Sandwich. Add a beer and you´ve got your full meal.

Although it was very hot and humid, a group of us decided to visit the Vocation area in a local park. It was interesting but strange. Here it was over 100 degrees and the "booths" were all in the open. Nevertheless, there were crowds of young people coming and going, picking up free trinkets and talking with the religious and priests who were promoting their lives. We spread out and spoke with folks as well, giving out whatever brochures we had brought. Many people recognized the robes and some enthusiastically so, recalling their own education or Brothers from within their own countries. I was not all that comfortable in my robe in the heat, but the ability to provide that witness to others made it all worthwhile.

After about an hour, we´d had enough and made our way back. Three of us returned to the Palacio for a presentation on prayer in main AIR-CONDITIONED arena. Along the way, we met several young men seeking their vocation and had some really fine conversations about the discernment process. The presentation on prayer was really very good, with four different speakers, and upon its completion we made our way "home" via the Metro where we joined the Brothers in the community in watching the Stations of Cross prayer service downtown with the Holy Father. A whole series of traditional floats were the main feature of the service. Some of our guys had decided to go downtown to watch it up close, and they came pretty close. But they said that once the Holy Father had arrived, the crush of people became too much and they made their long way home.

And later in the evening (are we becoming more Spanish, since it felt like the right time to eat?) we walked a block to a nearby restaurant to have our evening meal together. Other Lasallian groups were nearby, including some young Brothers from Brasil, and it seemed like a fine way to end the day.

The papal/pilgrim marathon begins tomorrow.

Below are photographs taken today. Click on the show to open up a page with all of the individual pictures with their captions.

WYD 2011 - The Pope Arrives

2011-08-19T15:22:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2011

Today is the day that the Holy Father arrives in Madrid, and the activities of the day are pretty much geared around that pivotal event. We sort of know that we will likely not be able to get "up close and personal" with him, but we are going to try to experience as much of the day as possible.

For the catechetical teaching, the group was going to go back to the parish that we attended yesterday. I didn´t go because of the need to process the photographs and figure out how to get them online along with the blog. They told me later that the presenter was a bishop from Australia who was okay, but a bit dry for this group of youth. Afterwards, they had some lunch at the same restaurant as the day before and then returned to the school to prepare for the afternoon.

In the afternoon, we made our way to the now-familiar "Colon" station, where you pop up pretty much in the middle of all the action. Already, a large crowd had gathered around the main intersection (one of those circle interchanges made popular by Britain) to await the Holy Father´s motorcade on the way to the public evening prayer service. He had arrived around noon, when most people were in their catechetical sessions (who organizes these things?), and was now in the nunciature - a term that´s probably unique to the Vatican. The main body of our group, once we´d popped out of the ground, decided to grab a piece of sidewalk near the Barclay´s bank building, in the shade but close enough to be able to reach the street when required. I found a spot along the barricade and parked there behind some short people - I was thinking ahead - to wait the hour or so before the motorcade was to come by.

Nearby, there was a bit of a rucuss, and all sorts of police quietly but quickly moved into the area. Later on, I found out that there had been some sort of silent protest that was neutralized before it had a chance to develop further. But perhaps as a result, we were later told by the volunteers (folks in green shirts with a giant "V" on their back) that the motorcade would not be coming this way after all. So I made my way, with Br. Ed and Antonio, to a nearby plaza area where there was a giant screen clearly visible and active.

For the next couple of hours we parked there and watched the activities unfold. Every once in a while, someone would start the "Be....nedetto" clap, clap, clap chant and that would go on for a couple of minutes. But we mostly reacted to what we were watching on the screen. In today´s virtual environment, I guess it was as good as being there. It certain took less energy, a key component in this heat.

There were at least two times when there was some sort of medical emergency near our location, almost all of it having to do with the heat. Each time, the volunteers would be there first, quickly followed by the medical team (in orange shirts) and one time by the police, who cleared the area around the person so that medical folks could do their thing. I was impressed with the timeliness of the response and the thoroughness with which they addressed even apparently minor conditions.

At the end of the prayer service, we all regrouped at "home base" and decided to quickly jump into the Metro - in order to avoid the fiasco of two days ago at the same location - and make our way back to the area around the school for dinner. And so it went. The Metro ride was relatively smooth, although already there were lots of pilgrims making their way home. If we had waited even 5-10 minutes, it would have been impossible to return within two hours. Back in our own neighborhood, we went to a Burger King that we had seen and were able to use our meal coupons to receive a very nice dinner that even included 2 "shots" - some sort of desert concoction that came in a shot glass. I still haven´t figured out how or why they had those, but it was all very tasty. The only strange thing was that the eating area was taken up by a group of families with young kids, and these kids had no sense of discipline whatsoever. They ran hither and yon, had squirt guns with which they were spraying water around, while screaming their lungs out. The mothers even squirted them back! Some of us were passive participants in the action. But this was Spain and maybe that´s how things go here.

Our conclusion at the end of the day was that, while the day´s experience was generally good, the atmosphere downtown was not as devout or quiet as it had been for the Opening Mass. There was a lot of goofing around by kids and talking by adults. It probably had to do with the excitement of having the Holy Father present, and the fact that this was a prayer service. At the same time, the young people were beginning to really enjoy the fact that there were so many others of their ilk around. They now felt comfortable approaching others and asking where they were from, trading little gifts, and the like. God only know what all this will lead to in the next couple of days. But it´s all good and the spirit has been very posotive.

Below are some photographs of the day. Click on the show to go through the individual photographs along with their captions.

WYD 2011 - Day of the Lasallian Gathering

2011-08-18T04:32:00.001-07:00

August 17, 2011

(NOTE: This is the second of two blogs that I´ve uploaded on the same day. To start with the first one, look at the next one, if that makes sense.)

Our day began early, given our full day yesterday, with breakfast available at the school and a group meeting scheduled for 9:00 AM. After some orientation comments, the answering of questions, and the outline of the day, we were off to our catechetical site, a parish about a mile away. We had received our WYD backpacks and so were ready to proceed with all sorts of guides, books, keychains and the like. Each of us packed what we thought we might need for the day and set out.

It took a while to figure out how to get to the church, but eventually we got there and joined the English-speaking crowd, moving to the balcony of the the really uniquely configured church. There was an extensive welcoming orientation, with representatives from the various countries describing their typical meal and generally having a fun time. A couple of songs were sung, and then it was time for the bishop from Brooklyn to provide some catechesis.

Although I don´t remember his name (Br. Ed Shields knew him, however, and spoke with him), he did a very good job over the next hour or so, speaking about his own experiences of faith and guiding the young people to reflect on how Jesus could and should be deeply present in their lives. The youth listened attentively throughout, and some asked pointed questions afterwards. There followed a break after which the bishop celebrated Mass for everyone.

At the conclusion of the session, we set out to find a place for lunch, wandering about the neighborhood. Finally, Br. Peter asked a policeman who guided us to a large shopping center that included a number of restaurants. We wandered around the shopping center, which could have been located anywhere in the US, and found a large restaurant with a special menu for the WYD pilgrims. Luckily, we were among the first ones there and were able to get our food pretty quickly. Again, it was fine meal with lots of options. This was the place that had internet access, which I tried to access, having brought my computer with me, but it was as slow as molasses and I finally gave up. But the food was fine.

From the shopping center - our robes created a bit of a stir - we proceeded to a Jesuit parish downtown where Peter had signed us up for a vocation faire for English speaking pilgrims. We arrived early enough to get good seat in the auditorium, where Cardinal Sean O´Malley from Boston would lead the adoration service. After the service, we were signed up to pray as a group before the Blessed Sacrament for the first shift, which we did in a small basement room that had been set up for the purpose. When we left at the end of our time there, we found out that crowds of kids were on the streets waiting to come in. They hadn´t anticipated such crowds (although they probably should have) and as a result were running things as best they could. Our group ended up in the street, speaking with various folks about the Brothers. I had brought brochures with me, and we passed these out to those who were interested. Several of the Brothers were interviewed by a camera crew from Canada doing a story on religious vocations today. And the wristbands that I´d brought were, of course, quite popular as well.

Finally, we had to move on and make our way to Colegio La Salle, another school of 1,700 kids, where the Lasallian gathering was to be held. We figured out how to get there via the Metro - a long distance - and walked another mile from the Metro station to the school. There we were met by a tablefull of Brothers, many of them young, who gave us little yellow plastic shawls (something they do here as an identifying marker) and a fine welcome. Solid red t-shirts with ¨La Salle¨on them were on sale for 6 Euros, and the next couple of hours were spent with Lasallians from around the world who were gathered here for WYD.

It was all very energizing to meet so many Brothers, Lasallians, and students from so many places around the world. They communicated in Spanish, French, and English primarily, but mostly in Spanish. Somehow, the students ran around with smiles on their faces, talking to anyone they could find and appreciating their Lasallian connections. There were Brothers there from through Latin America (RELEM was having its meeting at the same time)and a number of the General Councillors, along with Br. Alvaro of course. Photographs were being taken left, right, and center. Large groups of kids were playing games in large circles, or trading wrist bands and t-shirts. It was a Babel of voices and fun.

Gradually things settled down and the ¨official¨ program got under way. There was a welcome by the Visitor, some songs for the group, introductions of each nation - accompanied by cheers and running around - and a prayer service. After this, students were invited to go to a series of workshops being offered around the property on a variety of topics. I had volunteered to be part of a workshop on the Vocation of the Brother. We had about 15 kids and adults join our group. One of the Brothers, thankfully, was able to translate between Spanish and English, since some English-speakers had joined this group as well. We spent about a half hour talking about the vocation and the mission of the Brothers. The questions were serious, thoughtful, and sincere, as were the answers. I was able to understand most of them because of my studies in Guatemala. However, I answered in English, allowing the Brother to translate what I said into Spanish. (Side note: I don´t know if this had been planned, but the young Spanish Brothers had been in the red La Salle t-shirts until after we´d arrived in our robes, and soon a number of them appeared in their robes as well, much to the delight of their students who took lots of photographs with them.)

By now it was fairly dark and we were released for dinner (10 PM - remember, this is Spain), and then we were called back to the large group around 10:30 PM. Once we had settled down, sort of, Br. Alvaro was introduced and he gave a talk to the young people, pointing out their importance for today and for the future. At the end of his talk, there were several musical pieces, and then a musical group was introduced. By now our own little group was ready to return ¨home¨ and so we made our exit, took the bus to the Metro station and made our way back. It had been another very full day.

One closing comment: After my small group session, I spoke with an elderly Brother who was standing on the grounds, watching the kids with a smile on his face. He was 83 years old but still very active. It´s important, he told me in Spanish, to stay active and helpful in whatever way you can. But then he said something quite profound, to my way of thinking. He said that he was so happy looking at all these young people who were commited to their faith, to the Lasallian mission, and to each other. He said that it indicated that his consecration had been successful. This experience confirmed the success of his consecration as a Brother. That´s my best personal take-away from the whole experience.

Below is a short slideshow of some of the photographs that I took during the day. Click on the show to see the photographs individually, along with their captions.

WYD 2011 - Things are Different Here

2011-08-18T03:44:00.000-07:00

August 16, 2011

Things are different in Spain. This may not seem like a revelation, but it comes across in a variety of ways (some positive, some less so). Take for example this blog. For the past three days, I´ve been trying to figure out how to get a connection to the internet. The internet setup in the Brothers house is such that only dedicated computers can access the internet, despite my best and constand efforts. The wireless at a restaurant we went to had sporadic ¨free¨access that seemed slower than some of the lines in the stores. Finally, I´ve figured out that the only practical thing to do was to prepare the photos, etc. on my mini-laptop, transfer everything to a community desktop, and work with the somewhat strange keyboard to upload and complete the entries. It´s taken a whole bunch of hours, most of today in fact, but that´s what happens when you´re somewhere different - you adapt.

We all arrived at Manhattan College on the 15th and spent some time getting to know one another. Although it was raining torrentially in New York, we spent our time mostly indoors, venturing forth only for Mass and meals with the Brothers community. Brother Peter Killeen had things well in hand in terms of organization, schedule, and introductions. There were several meetings of the group, some relaxation, several discussions (including one on the letter from Pope Benedict to the pilgrims), and a general settling in.

On August 16th, we were hosted by the community at St. Raymond High School in the Bronx for lunch, traveling there in a schoolbus driven by Br. J.P. Riley, who would also take us to JFK afterwards. At the school, Br. Richard Galvin welcomed us and we were able to take a quick look around the neighborhood, including the renovated church across the street and the work that´s being done at the school. Very impressive stuff.

Finally, it was time to go to JFK where we checked in with AA94 for our flight to Madrid. The airline is using only kiosks now, so we had to figure out how to put in our information, scan our passports, and the like. But eventually everyone received their boarding pass and we stood in the security line for 40 minutes before being able to wander around the shops in the boarding area. The flight was delayed on the ground for about an hour, but some of the guys received a break when the flight attendant noticed that many of those in the exit rows were not English speakers. And so they had to change places with a bunch of guys from our group, who now were able to enjoy plenty of leg room.

A long flight later we arrived in the super-modern airport in Madrid, standing in line again at passport control, picking up our luggage, and eventually making our way out. At the exit, two Brothers were waiting for us with a ¨LaSalle¨sign, and so we were on the road within 15 minutes to La Salle Sagrada Corazon, one of the schools that the Brothers operate in the city.

At the school, we were welcomed by a number of Brothers and shown to the gym, where most of the guys would be staying. Peter had arranged that some of us would be able to stay in the community with the Brothers - a blessed thing. The first thing that we did after putting down our stuff was to have breakfast, since now it was around 9 AM (in Spain), and afterwards we got ourselves organized for the day.

Our WYD backpacks filled with ¨goodies¨ hadn´t yet arrived, but we did have our meal cards and a couple of other things. By the time lunch rolled around, we took off for a restaurant nearby where we had a fine meal, paid for by one of the vouchers that came from a meal-ticket book for all pilgrims. In a very smart move, the organizers had arranged with almost all restaurants (including fast food ones) to offer specific choices to the WYD pilgrims in return for these coupons, which would be turned in later for reimbursement. As a result, no one from the WYD group had to prepare a million meals for others to consume. It was all dealt with from within the established food service structure. And the meals we´ve had since then have all been very good.

Then it was off to the venue for the Opening Mass, somewhere near the center of Madrid. We followed the suggestions on the map and emerged from the Metro onto an avenue with an increasing amount of youth pressing in from all sides. We walked around a bit before deciding on a spot of grass along the main avenue with a good view of one of the giant screens set up for those not able to squeeze into the main square. As it was, it was a good spot, but one that increasingly became tighter and tighter, as more and more people tried to get in and fit onto any small piece of ground that was available. Some of the nuns, with a smile, could be a bit pushy. I would guess that each of us had about 3.5 square feet, if that.

Nevertheless, things moved along smoothly. There were loud, boisterous moments, and there were quiet, solemn moments. Once the Mass started, everyone quieted down and it was as if we were part of an immense open cathedral, with a million or so people inside of it, all listening intently and devoutly. Communion was a bit of a zoo, and many a flower lost their lives, but somehow it all worked pretty well.

At the end of the Mass, we made our way up the avenue but couldn´t even come near any of the Metro stations, fully blocked with crowds of kids. We found a nearby bar and restaurant and tried to get some food there. We managed to slip into some booths and tables for an hour or so, but there was to be no service; they were simply overwhelmed (and looked it). Peter and I did meet a lawyer from Caracas, who greeted us in Spanish and ended up buying both of us a beer - very happily on our part. He had been a student of the Brothers as a youth and obviously carried very fond memories, partly tearing up at times as he saw us in our robes.

We finally decided that it would be impossible to get any food there and so left for home via the Metro, which by now had eased up. Once back in our neighborhood, pretty much on the outskirts of Madrid, the roads were very quiet - it was 11:30 PM or later - and all restaurants, save one, were closed. I decided to turn in but many of the others went to the one restaurant for a hamburger (the only thing on the menu) before turning in.

And so our first full day of WYD in Spain came to a close.

Below is a slideshow of some of the pictures that I took during the day. You can click on the show to go through the individual photographs, along with their captions.

Last Week in Antigua

2011-08-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

This part of my Guatemalan journey came to an end this week. My teacher, Silvia, introduced the future tense and had me use it in different kinds of formats, but mostly we simply had conversations - which I find the most helpful. As I'm struggling to speak, she will correct me quietly while also encouraging me to proceed, and then she will speak about something a little more quickly, in order to improve my comprehension - slipping in the new words we had been studying. It's a very effective method that may even be called enjoyable.

On Tuesday, I was invited to Chata's house (see previous blog) for almuerzo (lunch). Her son, Joshua, picked me up with his two girls, and I spent the next 90 minutes or so with Chata's family. There was another American who had been invited, a student of Joshua's wife, who also teaches English. Because it was her birthday, it was a very festive meal with other relatives and friends in attendance. As it turned out, there were three birthday cakes, two of them brought by a couple of the guests.

This was a nice way to round out my experience in Guatemala, since clearly Chata and her family were more like the "typical" family of the town. It was a simple home with extended relatives living there and everyone working at some sort of job. Even Chata had opened a small store out of her front room facing the street. Lots of kids around, and a comfortable family atmosphere. The lunch was carefully prepared and appreciated by everyone. Between my limited Spanish and those who spoke English, everyone communicated just fine.

At the end of the meal, I took a picture of the whole family in their backyard, which abuts a coffee plantation. They have access to the larger property, since there is no fence, and therefore the kids have a huge "backyard" in which to play. Joshua hopes to build an addition to the house in the near future so that they can have Spanish students staying with them (64 language schools in Antigua), which would provide another source of income for the family.

The rest of the week went by quickly, and soon it was Friday evening. The Brothers had a small "fiesta" or social before dinner in my honor. I'd figured that something like that might happen and had prepared some remarks in Spanish. The tradition seems to be that prior to starting the party, the Director makes some remarks and then invites the person being honored to do the same. I just hope that what I said made sense, since I hadn't had a chance to check it with any native speakers. I either thanked them for their hospitality or told them that I would be going to the hospital. In any case, they seemed to smile and nod enough to indicate that they understood my intent.

We had a couple of guests from Chicago that evening as well. They were part of a foundation that supports the education of poor kids in the Americas and had been involved with Br. Francisco and schools in the District for some years, especially the school in Nestor (way in the boonies). Most of the people involved were retired professionals who wanted to do charitable work that required some sort of sacrifice and personal effort. Clearly, they were getting at least as much out of their efforts as their beneficiaries.

Later on, after dinner, Steve brought out his guitar and began singing and playing all sorts of songs and musical styles. He's very talented in both his guitar playing and in the variety of songs that he's learned by heart, and soon we were singing songs from the 40's and 60's and beyond. His passion is playing and singing, and it's clearly a "vocation" for him. His father always listened to John Denver - so he had that repertoire down cold - and he had a singing voice very much like John Denver's, clear and pure. We were all taken by his performance, joining in when we recalled the words - or rather singing in semi-fragments of phrases with sung mumbles in between. After he finished, Br. Francisco brought out his guitar and we finished the evening with a bunch of fine Spanish songs, throwing in a couple of popular Mexican tunes that have world-wide appeal.

Subsequently, I spent several hours packing up my stuff. Amazing how my suitcase seems to have shrunk! Everything was able to be packed into my two bags, but it was a tight squeeze. Even so, I left a couple of things for the Brothers there to use as they saw fit. Early the next morning, at 4:00 AM, I was standing outside of the house on the street waiting for the minibus that would take me to the airport in Guatemala City. Sounds from one of the bars around the corner could still be heard, but generally the place was quiet and abandoned. A good, quiet, semi-reflective way to end my very happy stay in Antigua.

Now it was on to Miami and NYC, where Br. Peter Killeen met me outside of JFK for the ride to Manhattan College. But that's another story.

This Antigua experience has been one of the highlights of the summer. I was able to learn a bit of Spanish and learn much about the Brothers and the people of Guatemala. If possible, I'd like to come back in another summer to study some more. The key now is to practice, practice, practice. So if you see me at some point, feel free to speak Spanish to me. I'll probably greet that with wide eyes, a wane smile, and a halting attempt to reply in Spanish. But know that this is a good thing, a helpful thing, and finally the needed thing. You can stop speaking Spanish when I'm completely spluttering in some sort of Spanglish mix and you can no longer understand my attempts at either language. It means that I've stretched just a bit further, and education is in process.

Welcome to the world of learning. Thanks for being part of my school.

For more pictures, see below. Click on the show to go through the individual photographs with their captions.

Fifth Week in Antigua

2011-08-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

If there might be such a thing as a "normal" week, this would pretty much have been it. The primary tasks of the week remained the primary tasks; i.e., learning Spanish. All through the week, my teacher and I worked our way into the world of past participles, those time-based expressions that we so often take for granted.

This is where grammar is at its best, helping one to understand why and how those things that we simply do and take for granted when we speak actually happen. As youngsters, we learn meanings and senses and expressions that describe a host of different perspectives - have, had, might have, should have had, etc. - and we don't really give them a second thought. It's only when you have to build that sense from scratch that their complexity reveals itself. Sort of like looking at something through a stereo-scope; all of a sudden you realize that its all way more complex than you once thought. And if that's simply the hint from the world of science and linguistics, imagine what real and hidden complexities may lie in areas such as human relations, morality, and practical theology.

One nice experience during the week was to take the class "on the road" and fulfill a promise I'd made to Gery Short, from the DLSI office of education, to find "Chata", someone with whom he, his son, and his son's friend lived for three months some six years ago when they came to Antigua to study Spanish. I had a name, a description of her house, her step-father's name, and a photograph. But that was it. My teacher and I set out to discover where she lived today. We used the most popular method for finding someone in Antigua - just ask around and follow those leads.

In the morning on Tuesday, we went to a house near the Colegio that had been described to us as her former dwelling. We knocked several times, and finally an elderly lady came to the door and Sylvia was able to learn that Chata had moved to another part of town, although she didn't know specificly where in that part of town she currently lived. But it was a start. We walked to that part of town and asked at a small store (tienda) and some ladies on the street who were waiting for a bus. After a couple of tries, we were directed in a direction "over there" - that was as specific as they could get. Once we got "over there" we asked again at a small tienda on the street, and this time we directed several streets down. Her place was at the end, we were told, although I didn't quite know what "at the end" really meant. But once we got to that street, we noticed at the very end that was a building with a window in it, and a lady in window was speaking to a man in the street. The closer we got, the more it seemed as if that lady might be the person we'd been looking for, based on the photograph from six years earlier.

We arrived at the building, but the lady looked at us suspiciously, although friendly. When I told her who I was and asked her if she knew Gery Short, her face lit up and she named Gery's son Joseph and Joe's friend, Teo. She invited us into her home and we spent a very nice 30 minutes talking about their time in Antigua, what she was doing now, and the like. Her son is now a driver for a tour company and out of town, but she hoped that when he returned I might come over for dinner with her and her family. I left the cell phone number of one of the Brothers and I'll likely know tomorrow if this dinner will still come about. In any case, it was great to meet her and to deliver the gifts and notes from Gery. Plus, along the way, I kept learning new Spanish words and phrases, practicing my halting conversation in Spanish with my teacher and with others.

Several times during the week, I walked around town in the afternoons after my classes, usually ending up at the mercado, which I find to be a fascinating mix of humanity. Although hectic, it has its own tranquility about it. The people there are comfortable and relaxed in their element. They are also friendly and helpful, although of course they would like to make a sale. And it appears that they don't mind bargaining at all; in fact they rather enjoy it. In the end, everybody leaves satisfied. However, I don't think this method would work quite as well at Macy's.

I had also come to know one of the street artists, Gerardo, who sits in the same spot every day on the main street in Antigua (where the arch is) and whose work I found better than most. At one point, I asked him to do a watercolor of Mont La Salle, based on some drawings and photographs that I was able to print out, and he was happy to do so (for a very reasonable price). This will make a nice memory of my time in Antigua.

At the end of the week, on Sunday, Br. Francisco told me he would be going to Huehuetenango for the funeral of the mother of Br. Benjamin, a former Visitor of the province. I asked to go along and he was happy to have the company. It's 95 miles as the crow flies, and on these roads it takes about 2.5 to 3 hours, but since it was a Sunday, the traffic was light and we zipped right along. Along the way, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch, choosing the local dish - a sort of rich chicken soup with guacamole, rice, a hefty section of chicken, and a boiled egg. Very rich and delicious. Outside, a marimba group played throughout lunch, the music drifting in through the windows. I remember thinking: "This is a nice, authentic piece of the Guatemala experience." We crossed a mountain pass at close to 10,000 feet - called "Alaska" by the locals - and saw some wonderful sights of mountain towns and villages in the distance. At one point, I could see clouds below us, covering various valleys.

When we got to Huehue, I met Br. Fernando at the community associated with the Colegio La Salle there. He took us for a brief and quick tour around downtown prior to the burial service at the cemetery. We especially visited Casa Miller, a school for indigenous youth dedicated to Br. James Miller, FSC, who was shot in front of the school in 1982 as he was painting the wall, most likely by plain clothes military personnel. (Link) His story is now well known to most of the Lasallian world, and his name was added to a list of 70 martyrs that were presented to Pope John Paul II when he visited the area last.

We were shown the exact place where he had been on the day he died, along with a bulletin board filled with photographs from the event and the shirt that he had been wearing at the time - with the bullet holes clearly present. The whole thing was rather sobering and a good reminder of the state of the country in the early 1980's when civil war and genocide were the common experience. The school remains a schools for indigenous youth and includes a dormitory for those kids (17 at the present time) who cannot commute from their homes on a regular basis.

After a quick visit to the cathedral, we walked to the cemetery (located very close to the school) where several Brothers were already waiting. After another 20 minutes or so, a procession came walking down the street and the mourning part arrived. One thing that was different from my experience with funerals in the past was that the casket what borne by a group of women who had been family, friends, or acquaintances of the deceased. It was the first time that I'd seen a group of women as pall-bearers - and who really did carry the coffin.

The cemetery is above-ground and quite colorful. It reminds me of the cemeteries in New Orleans. There are many plastic flowers or wreaths. Compared to the noises in the streets outside, the inside is tranquil and peaceful. No grass or plants, but still a quiet atmosphere.

The casket was brought to the crypt where it was set down for a short 10-minute service led by some of her sons, including Br. Benjamin. Then, while those attending sang several songs, different men in the crowd came forward to hoist the coffin above their heads and insert it into the crypt, after which everyone stayed while workmen sealed the crypt with mortar and bricks. Only at the end, after singing the Salve Regina, did people begin to drift away.

After the funeral, there was a short time for conversation among the Brothers, but then it was time to return to Antigua. There were 18 Brothers who attended the funeral, many of them from the Guatemala City area, and it would be a lengthy journey back. On the way back, evening fell and pretty soon we were driving in the dark. Lower down from "Alaska" there was quite a bit of construction, usually indicated by a quick sign and some rocks (no lights on the highway at all) telling us to move into the other double-lane road and share the road with oncoming traffic. At one point, lights from a big-rig trailer and some cars hit us in such a way that we briefly went off the side of the new pavement (a drop of some six inches), veering away but then coming back onto the road. Luckily, we didn't lose control of the car, although we were going quite fast.

However, another 200 feet and we could hear the results of this little mishap - a flat tire. Brother Francisco moved to the side of the road and confirmed it. So here we were in the middle of Guatemala on a dark highway with a flat and no AAA in sight or available. There was only one thing to do, of course, change the flat. Brother Francisco called some of the other Brothers who were driving back and soon we had a whole gaggle of Brothers helping us out. Prior to their arrival, it took Francisco and I a while to figure out how to get the jack out of the back of the car. (I finally looked it up in the manual; desperate times call for desperate measures - even in Spanish.) After about twenty minutes, we had the tire changed and were back on the road.

The current Visitor, Br. Cecilio, had suggested that we all meet at a restaurant along the road for an evening meal, and so some time later we were upstairs in a roadside restaurant enjoying a meal in the company of the 10 or so other Brothers. Needless to say, we returned to our community in Antigua rather later than expected, although not ridiculously so. As Francisco said at the end, it was buena adventura. And so it was.

For those who are curious about the Brothers house here, I made a short video some weeks ago of both where the house is and what it all looks like. If you go to this link, you will be able to see it. However, it's password protected, and I'll remove the video in a month or so. The password is "antigua1".

The slideshow below has more of the pictures that I took. Click on the show to go through the pictures yourself and to read some of the captions.

Fourth Week in Antigua

2011-08-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

This was the fourth week in Antigua for both of us, but it was the last week for Br. John. And it was a short week. Last Monday (July 25th) was the day that Antigua celebrated its original name day - St. James, or Santiago - and all the schools in town were closed, including the language schools. But there was plenty going on in town.

Two of the major public events were the two parades, one in the morning and the other in the late afternoon. The morning one was the very long one, with all the schools of the city represented through bands, student groups, pious displays, the equivalent of prom queens and kings, along with a host of other things. Seeing Miss Teen Antigua in the plaza that morning, Br. John commented on the dubious privilege of competing so as to be able to walk through cobble-stoned streets in high-heels. It's clear that this whole thing is a long-standing occasion and everyone gets into it. All the students from Colegio La Salle lined the main street during the parade, with their logo wear quite prominent, cheering on their band and generally having a good time.

That evening, another approaching band drew my attention and I went outside to investigate. The shorter evening parade was approaching. Led by dressed-up characters and representatives of the society overseeing the parade, this was a giant float with the statue of Santiago, taken from his normal location in the cathedral and placed on this 1000 lbs. platform. Those carrying the float looked to be students from various schools, and they would switch out with another group after going a certain distance. The whole thing took very careful planning and supervision, since it was like moving a schoolbus-sized float with 40 drivers. But it went off without a hitch, with the civic band bringing up the rear and breaking out into a Souza march every now and again.

Br. John had a new teacher this week, Mercedes, and so he planned to attend school on Tuesday. Br. Francisco had invited us to join him and Julio for a trip to Lake Atitlan, since Tuesday was a holiday for the school. I decided to go along, using my rule: "Do that which you would most regret not having done later." I don't follow the rule all of the time, but this time I did and I'm glad I did.

We left very early in the morning and drove north. Along the way we stopped at a popular road-side restaurant for a traditional breakfast. Inside, I was reminded of a lodge in Yosemite. In the corner, but fairly prominent, were two ladies who were making tortillas without stopping. And when you received your tortillas, you could tell that they were right from the grill. It was a fine way to begin the day.

After a lot of driving, the lake was in front of us and we stopped to admire the view and to take a few pictures. Every nook and cranny along the road had vendors lined up, ready to sell you something. But they were nice enough and after a while we simply drove on to our destination, Panajachel, one of the lakeside towns. The place was real busy around the market, but the beach area was practically abandoned. Apparently, the action doesn't really begin until later in the day, and this tourist season hasn't been all that good anyway. We parked the car and were immediately offered a place to eat, a boat ride, a tour, whatever. Francisco and Julio are pros at this and simply feigned some interest.

After speaking with one man, we were led to one of the private boats and they negotiated a price to travel across the lake. If we'd taken the "public" boat, it would have taken half a day to get to Santiago Atitlan, our destination, since that boat stops at every town along the lake (and there are 12, with all of them - except Panajachel - named for the apostles). It was great to have a private ride across the lake on a wonderful day with a steady breeze and a great temperature. The lake was practically deserted, with only the occasional boat far away.

On the other side, we made our way into Santiago Atitlan, where we spent some time wandering the little streets, stopping by various vendors, and generally enjoying the atmosphere. We visited the ancient parish church, dating back to the early 1500's, where an American priest was martyred some 25 years ago and is still remembered and venerated. One of the photographs I took includes a lens flare that appears above the banner of him that hangs outside the church. Inside, even though it was morning, a number of people were praying. The place was still decorated for the feast of Santiago, since that had also been their patronal feast the day before. Outside, a carnival had been set up for the evening's activities.

Gradually we leisurely made our way back to the dock and from there back across the lake. The gas for the outboard motor ran dry in the middle of the lake, but the boat operator had an extra can of gasoline handy. It would have been an interesting adventure to be marooned in the middle of Lake Atitlan for a while. Once back on the other side, we drove back to Antigua, stopping at another restaurant for our lunch. This one was also quite impressive - although very reasonably priced - with a wide open kitchen when you walk in, and seating areas radiating out from that central kitchen. We returned to the community in good time to have a short siesta before evening prayer.

Classes continued as usual as the week progressed. Yes, that is the main reason I'm here, but it makes dry reading for a blog. My understanding of Spanish is improving bit by bit, especially when my teacher is able to make connections between a variety of word forms or sentence structures. It's those kinds of relationships that I find most helpful. Not that I think about those rules all the time, but I believe that for adults, rules or relationships provide a supportive structure around which we can build our conversation journeys. That's what's working for me right now, anyway.

On Thursday, John and I and our teachers were invited to join a group going to a local pueblo called San Juan del Obispo, where there is a convent that used to be the bishop's residence and where there are many shops and craft tiendas. So we decided to take the class on the road. Each of us continued to talk with our teachers, and they continued to teach us, only now using the experience itself as the basis for our conversation.

I thought that we were going to take a camioneta again, but instead an apparently full van stopped and we were all urged to stuff ourselves into it. The place was a sardine can, but it seemed to work. I counted 25 people in that converted van, all quite cozy (if you like that sort of thing). Thankfully, the journey was short and soon we piled out near the old convent and had a tour from one of the sisters there. After the extensive tour, which included the preserved rooms of the former archbishop, we were led to a nearby house where the man made wines out of various fruits. We were urged to take samples, but John and I decided not to participate. (We were prejudiced for the grape, don't you know.) That little visit took a while, but gradually we left and went to another house where the proprietor was the third generation to make chocolate from scratch. She showed us the entire process, complete with samples, and many of us ended up buying chocolate blocks. Who can resist?

The final stop was at a carpenteria, which took a little searching. At the time, they were making bookcases and serving trays. One of the workers gave a complete description of the process (in Spanish, of course, always in Spanish) while John wandered around the shop like a kid in a candy shop. He's a long-standing woodworker and enjoyed being in his element. He asked questions, tried some of the tools, and checked out the wood. His judgment: a pretty good place. Then it was back to school in a real, relatively roomy camioneta and on to the afternoon classes.

On Saturday, John had arranged for the two of us to take the bird-watching tour at Filadelphia, a local coffee plantation that is covers over 650 acres of the valley and hillsides, reaching way up into the cloud forests above Antigua. We were picked up at 5:00 AM outside of our door and spent the subsequent 7.5 hours wandering around their very impressive property (coffee factory, 5-star hotel, restaurant, recreation facilities, horses, etc.). Our guide, Roberto, was an avid bird watcher himself. As he was driving he would often stop and point out a bird he'd noticed from the cab. The other passenger was Carlos, our guard. Against what, I don't know.

Every once in a while we would stop and walk around a bit, waiting for birds or following their songs in the hopes of seeing one. We heard many more birds than we saw. Both Roberto and John could pick out particular species simply by their song. I thought their music was nice but often could go no further. We spent a good deal of time at an observation deck that doubled as a restaurant on the weekends, and later on went up into the high country (8,300 feet) and the cloud forest. Lots of lush vegetation there, along with natural orchids, dense undergrowth, and chiggers (more later). We would walk the paths or follow the songbirds, gratified with just a peek of one of them. John thought it was great simply to be able to see so much of the property and the natural surroundings.

The following day, and especially today, the evidence of that journey is tattooed on the lower half of my body. The chiggers (or niguas, as they call them here) have implanted themselves in about 100-150 places on my skin. They're less than a millimeter big, so you can't really see them. But I can sure see the evidence of their presence - worse than mosquito bites and itchy / painful to a significant degree; reminds me of poison oak. Apparently, this will last for two weeks with the main symptoms lessening after 3-4 days. All I know is that right now it's almost impossible to sleep, let alone lie down. But I'll spare you the gruesome details. Suffice it to say that next time, if there is a next time, that I go somewhere "natural" or with tall grasses, I'll take all my clothing and wash it immediately after such a trip, along with taking other measures.

On Saturday evening, we went to Mass next door at La Merced. Right next door, at the arch, they were having a political rally with music, speeches, bombas, and everything else thrown in. It was a rather interesting experience of our contemporary church to have the priest drowned out occasionally by loud explosions, music, and speeches. Thankfully, the homily was short. Afterwards, we were in time to see the fireworks, which were sent up from the street. OSHA would have had a field day.

On Sunday, we had a goodbye party for John. That afternoon, he had taken the community out for lunch - we took a community photo on the street along the way - and that evening the Brothers decided to have a little fiesta for him. It was a fine evening affair outside along the courtyard of the house, with the sharing of favorite songs, stories, and the like. Between the Spanish we knew and the Spanish that we should know, we did just fine.

This morning, at 5:00 AM, John was picked up outside of the house and brought to the airport for his journey home. We said hasta la vista and that was that. It was great to travel here with him and to share our time together in Antigua. Now we just have to speak Spanish to each other when we're both back in Napa.

For more photos than you might like, with their captions, click on the slideshow below:

A Weekend in Tikal - Guatemala

2011-07-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Part of our humanity seems to be our capacity to be inspired beyond our expectations, and while this may happen more frequently than not, it still seems to be new every time it happens. The trigger could be a daily scene, an encounter with a set of puppies, a stirring verbal exhortation, or an amazing natural vista. They are each unique catalysts towards an integration of sights, sounds, feelings, history, and thoughts that soon swell into a "something more" than we thought possible. And since each is utterly unique, comparison is fruitless and simply unimportant.

Our visit to Tikal was one such experience during our stay here in Antigua. It's an experience that also seems to require very early rising, by the way. On Saturday morning, we were standing in front of the house in Antigua at 4:00 AM in the early morning darkness and almost complete silence, with just a dog wandering down the street, a passing police truck whose occupants waved to us (I'm sure they knew exactly what we were about), and a couple of weaving men at the corner having a cigarette and gesturing to one another. After a couple of minutes of standing, a tour van appeared and soon enough John, myself, and the other passenger (Lindsey) were on our way to Guatemala City and the early morning flight to Flores, the nearest town to Tikal.

Thankfully, TAG airlines had facilities on the other side of the Guatemala City international airport, so we were saved from long lines. There were no seat numbers, just a boarding pass with a 1, 2, 3, or 4 on them. An hour or so after arriving, our group was called and directed to a small plane - open seating. Then it was off into the air, the little plane slewing from side to side, and the 45 minute flight to Flores. Once there, the helpful taxi drivers and hotel drivers outside the terminal pointed us to the person with the "Tikal Inn" bus, and an hour later (he had to wait for another flight) we made the 90-minute drive to the park, with "Nixon" our tour guide talking most of the way in Spanish and in fairly good English.

At the Tikal Inn, within the park itself, we checked into our little cabana by the pool and settled in. The "regular" tour would begin 20 minutes later and go for 3-4 hours, visiting 70% of the park. Then the afternoon and following day were meant to be for visiting local shops and the like. The other option, which we chose, was to "upgrade" to an evening tour and an early morning tour, covering the park at a more leisurely pace and avoiding the crowds (600 people on average per day). Since John was particularly interested in watching birds, the evening tour was the better option.

There was no regular electricity at the Tikal Inn, but the generator was run in the early mornings and from 7:30 - 10:00 PM at night. While most of the group went on tour, John and I wandered around the property, he looking for birds and myself checking out the visitors center and buying a floppy hat for the hot, humid, insect-happy environment. The midday meal was provided as part of the package, and here we were well surprised. The food was exceptional in every way. Nothing fancy, but very fresh and well-prepared. From what I could tell, they use orange and lime juice more than we might, and that makes a big difference. It's a fine place to stay, especially since in the park itself. (Tikal Inn Website) After lunch, a bit of siesta and then the tour.

Our tour commenced around 4:00 PM, and the nine of us on the tour met Abel in the lobby. He was a very interesting character, clearly knowledgeable and of wide experience. He spoke loudly and had a somewhat aggressive personality, although very polite and solicitous of everyone in the group. We ended up being with him for some seven hours total, so I think most of us became used to his ways. He'd grown up at Tikal, had studied accounting, had returned after the civil war - where he'd lost some siblings and been in jail - and had become a tour guide. He said he was too lazy and preachy to be anything else at this point.

The tour experience was well laid out, staring with innocent enough things (crocodile pond nearby, scale models of Tikal, nearby vegetation) and moved to some of the smaller, half-repaired parts of the site. Gradually, we came to the big stuff. And these were impressive. You would see them from a bit away, jutting up out of the canopy - everyone froze in their tracks to take their first photographs. Then we'd approach more slowly, turn a corner, and there they were in all their ruinous grandeur. As we moved along, Abel would point out things in the jungle, tell us about Mayan history, pick up obsidian nuggets and pieces of pottery from the ground, find an insect we'd never be able to see, and the like. We were gradually being initiated into the world of the Maya, where the library of nature reigned supreme.

One of the things that struck me was that most of the 20 (?) square miles that houses the park is still very much a jungle. It's only in a few places that vegetation has been cleared and reconstruction has taken place. Between the various sites, you walk along small paths, some of them along old 50-wide ancient canals (the burms are visible in the jungle on the sides) where other life predominates. And with a purported 3,000 buildings within the entire complex, they haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the potential archaeological riches under the ground. Of the buildings that have been "cleaned up" only a few have undergone reconstruction; most of it paid for by Japan. For many of them, what you see is what was there.

The plan worked out so that we could be on top of the largest building, Temple IV, at sunset. Thankfully, we didn't have to climb the stone steps - steep, high, and precipitous. A sturdy staircase had been introduced on the side of the temple, and 182 steps later we were on the top level, overlooking the jungle canopy and seeing the sun sink beneath the clouds. I ended up sitting on the opposite side, overlooking the tops of Temple I and Temple II, since that was really the impressive scene. Looking over those trees, sitting at the apex of the largest temple and seeing the tops of the other temples as the sun was setting, one thought many thoughts, none making much sense - but that was okay in this kind of setting. Not only thoughts about the people who dwelt here from 800 BC until 700 AD, but also about why they moved elsewhere and left everything behind. The most popular theory has to do with drought and simple migration. A shaky video of my arrival on top of Temple IV is here.

We walked back in the dark through the jungle along a different path, one that was really a small trail. There were interesting sounds every once in a while from the wall of green on each side. It's amazing to think that if any one of us had veered off the path for even 10 feet, we'd be utterly lost. Once back at the Tikal Inn, we took our showers since the heat and humidity had been intense. John decided not to do the early morning hike but simply to go bird watching on his own, and pretty soon we were both zonked out, fast asleep.

Although John had forgotten to set his alarm for 3:30 AM so that I could join the early bird crowd, I woke up at 3:38 AM when I heard sounds outside. The rooms had thatched roofs and open-air "windows" all around, with screens thankfully, so that you heard everything from the outside. What had awakened me were the others going to the lobby for the 4 AM departure. I hurried to get dressed in the dark (no electricity, remember) and got to the lobby in time to have a cup of coffee that Abel had prepared. At least it tasted like coffee in the dark.

Then off we went along a different path to go back to Temple IV, the one furthest away in park. This time, Nixon came along quietly too, staying at the front while Abel kept up the rear. This turned out to be a good thing, since one person in our party was a bit overweight and elderly needed to go more slowly. An hour or so later, hiking in that dark jungle, we reached the stairs and made our way to the top of Temple IV where the now-familiar area was quickly covered with quiet folks watching the darkness before us.

This is the experience that I'll remember for a long time. As the night turned to grey dawn and the mist lightened, you could hear Howler monkeys sounding their deep-throated, gurgling calls from very far away, interspersed by 3 - 5 seconds of silence. Then another troupe would respond some distance away. And so it went for 15 - 20 minutes, echoing throughout the jungle canopy and gradually getting louder and moving more closely. Then all of a sudden, a troupe that seemed not 100 yards away began their roaring as well. It was as if someone had cranked up the stereo. At one point, there was a sonic track of Howler money calls reaching from my near left to the far right, punctuated by a profound silence, with an expanding view of the jungle canopy and an increasingly lighter mist that hung over everything. (Temples I and II were obscured entirely and we never saw them.) Once it had become lighter, the sounds changed and the monkey calls from far away began to stop or fade away. But the bird chatter began. It was as if all the bass instruments in an orchestra had carried the theme, brought it to a crescendo and were now gradually handing it over to the flutes. A wide variety of bird sounds filled the air, sharing the sonic spectrum for a while with the Howlers but then dominating the dawn and filling it with eager anticipation of the day.

Once it was light enough to move around, Able pointed out a number of bird species to me, most of which I forgot. I do however remember the Keel-Billed Toucan (the beak is shaped like a boat keel, hence the name), two of which were poised on a dead tree below us. And there was red-crowned song bird not 20 feet away from the top platform in a nearby tree, singing its little heart out. Just before leaving, we heard the resident hawk take off, screeching across the canopy on its daily rounds.

Somewhat reluctantly, we left Temple IV and continued our tour now that it was light. Since it was still quite early, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and for the next couple of hours we visited a variety of sites and Able told us a lot about the Mayan system of counting, their astronomy, and some of their religious practices. Basically, you don't want to play their "volleyball" game, and you certainly don't want to lose. If you do, you're painted blue and beheaded. Puts a whole new twist on "sore loser" doesn't it? The Mayan cosmology, let along its culture, are as fascinating as they are mysterious. You could spend a lifetime studying them and still only scratch the surface. Just think of how strange we think our own culture was when we look at photographs from some 50-100 years ago. Project that about 2500 years back and you've got a cultural chasm that lies beyond our ken.

One of the things we did was pursue a nearby troupe of Howler monkeys, walking into the jungle and following their calls, most of which were responses to the calls that Abel made - and he did a pretty darn good imitation. Finally, they were right above us, excited as can be, thinking that we were poaching their territory. Of course all we poached were pictures.

We got back to the Tikal Inn at around 8:30 AM. Abel had done a fine job in showing us around. He'd been dropping hints about tips all along and most if not all the people in the group gave him a 5-10 dollar tip, which he appreciated. In that environment, every little bit helps.

John had spent his time bird-watching but had waited for me to return so that we could have breakfast together. Again, it was a wonderful meal. I was especially impressed with the syrup for the pancakes. John was asking the waiters about some birds he had seen, and they were kindly trying to figure out what he was asking and looking at the pictures he was pointing to in his bird-watching book. Finally, a lady at a nearby table cutting a melon section into tiny pieces (for the Coati in her room) came over and explained, in very good English, what John wanted to know. Her name was Roxy and she was a naturalist who gave tours in the area and knew at least as many birds as John did.

John, being the friendly guy he is, soon had her engaged in a conversation about birds, and we ended up talking with her quite a while. John asked if she would do a morning naturalist tour of the area with us, since we wouldn't be leaving the Tikal Inn until 2:30 PM, and she agreed to spend a couple of hours with us. And so we had a wonderful "extra" tour by this naturalist and archaeologist who really knew her stuff. She'd spent six years in Atlanta during her high school years and knew English real well, although it took a while to lose the southern accent that tour groups found funny ("If y'all look at that there pay-ra-mid ..."). She took us all around the property, to places we'd passed by earlier and didn't know existed, pointing out native birds from 100 yards away with her naked eye, highlighting vegetation and medicinal herbs, pointing out animal tracks in the mud, tracking a rare bird that they had both heard but couldn't find even after 30 minutes of quiet movement into the trackless part of the jungle. This little excursion was one of the highlights of the trip.

The thing that I particularly liked is the "formula" she gave for that breakfast syrup. It wasn't maple syrup at all but was made from Allspice. Abel had crushed up Allspice leaves on the tour and had each of us smell it. Roxy pointed out that the Allspice berries, which we can get in the U.S. are what's used for this "miel" as they call it. You take a handful of Allspice berries, put it in about 2 cups of water and let it sit for 3 hours, letting the berries expand into the water. Then you heat it up, filter it, add sugar and cinnamon, and reduce it down to a syrup-like consistency. Now you have wonderful syrup for pancakes and the like. I know I'm going to try this one when I get home.

As a kicker for our "extra" naturalist tour, Roxy took us to the back of the the Tikal Inn, where the staff is housed, and brought out two juvenile Coati. These are of the ant-eater family, and these two little buggers would not have survived if Roxy hadn't taken them from the wild. She's now their "mother" and they follow her around like puppies. She's bottle-feeding them, and as they were exploring the grass around her, she would catch the occasional cricket and feed it to one of them. Her plan is to wait until they are beyond bottle feeding and then re-introduce them to one of the Coati troupes that live among the ruins. Since these are two females, the troupe will very likely adopt them and "educate" them as their natural mother would have. We stayed out there talking about nature and Coati and taking care of wild animals for a while and then went back to the restaurant for a bit of refreshment (I had my second Licuado, made of papaya and milk and ice; much better than my first).

If you know of folks who would like to see Tikal or any other Mayan site, have them contact the Tikal Inn and ask for Roxzanda Ortiz (Roxy). As an archaeologist, naturalist, and guide with 32 years of experience, she can arrange and guide trips in Tikal or other remote sites such as Nakbe, Nakum, Yaxha, Mirador, and a host of others. John and I would recommend her very highly.

Soon enough the bus was loaded and we were on our way back to Flores and our return flight, this time on a slightly larger plane.

So that was the trip. Lots of words, I know, but realize that there's a lot more behind the words and I'm only sharing tidbits of the experience. The more interesting impressions may be found in the photographs below (click on the photographs in order to go through them individually, with their captions):

Third Week in Antigua

2011-07-22T19:14:00.001-07:00

It's Friday evening, and I figured that I had better do the blog entry now rather than tomorrow, since tomorrow we're scheduled to leave for our weekend trip to Tikal, a famous set of Mayan ruins that lie in the jungle about 45 minutes away by plane. We will be back on Sunday evening. Since we don't have class on Monday (it's a holiday in Antigua), this was the weekend to go to Tikal.

Early in the week, the "main drag" in Antigua was taken over by a Guatemalan television station celebrating a major anniversary. They would be filming their news programs (6 PM and 10 PM) from the main street in Antigua. And so a huge tent and stage were constructed on the spot, electricity mains were piped in, and that evening there was lots of noise from the street. I didn't go out to check it out, but I certainly heard it all in my bedroom in the house, especially their midnight fireworks. It's one of things that goes with living so closely to the center of town. This is true generally on the weekends. Right now, for example, various parties in the area, groups in the street, and musical events in houses nearby are creating a cacophony that I'm sure I'll hear in my room until at least midnight. I'd put on earplugs, except that I wouldn't hear the 3 AM alarm for our 4 AM departure for Tikal.

Last Monday, I was surprised to learn that I would have a new teacher at San Jose el Viejo. Apparently, the school shuffles teachers around week by week, according to a variety of factors, including preferences expressed by returning students and the like. At first, I was a bit upset, but I soon warmed up to my new teacher, Silvia, and within two days found her to be just the right person to take my lessons to the next level. All through the week we have been proceeding via conversations in Spanish - halting on my part, clearly and slowly on hers - along with exercises, new material, quizzes, and the organization of the information that I've absorbed so far. One of her talents is the ability to connect various pieces of learning from the last two weeks and to highlight patterns in the language. I hope to be able to continue with her for another week and then perhaps move to yet another teacher for the last two weeks.

The days have passed quickly, and there are just a few things to highlight outside of class time. Each day, John and I spend the 30-minute break in the morning walking around the neighborhood, trying new streets every day. At noon, when his class ends, I take a 15-minute break inside the property and then return to the cubicle I've been in all morning (since 8 AM) for another session. I finish at 1:30 and make my way home for almuerzo with the Brothers.

On Tuesday, on my way home, the road was blocked by a long procession or parade that made its way through the central plaza area and consisted entirely of young students from, as far as I could tell, schools dedicated to indigenous populations. Kids were dressed in all sorts of costumes or uniforms, carried statues or other processional items, were led by a band, and generally seemed quite at ease walking down the middle of the street in organized groups. The procession was related to the fact that on July 25th, Antigua celebrates its patronal feast, Santiago (St. James), and the whole town takes a holiday. The parade was one of the events leading up the headliner next Monday. It was fun to watch the groups walks by and to take photos as they happened, By my estimate, the procession was about two football fields in length. I was late for lunch.

On Wednesday, John and I took an afternoon excursion to Santa Domingo, where we had been before when we took Elizabeth Bell's tour. On the way, we stopped by her travel agency to confirm our plans for this weekend. At Santa Domingo, we took our time walking around the various ruins, and although we didn't pay to enter the museums there, we did see lots of interesting parts of that old Dominican monastery, now a slick hotel and conference center.

It's a bit amazing to notice the variety of contrasts here in Antigua, as I'm sure is the case for the rest of Latin America. On the way back, we stopped by the Dona Luisa Cafe for an afternoon refreshment and I tried a "licuado" (papaya, if you must know) for the first time. Quite nice.

On Friday afternoon, the students from the school put on a musical performance in the main square. It was the history of Antigua and included singing, dancing, drama, and audience participation. Brother Francisco was in his element, running around taking pictures, talking with students, teachers, and parents, and generally enjoying himself and others. The performance lasted about an hour. At the end, the students came into the crowd, handing out flowers to the women and little flags to whomever would take them. Then the girls coaxed guys out onto the pavement for impromptu dancing to the music that was provided. Everyone seemed to have a terrific time. The students were all sophomores and had been preparing for this event for many weeks. If you'd like to see a short video I took of the event, click here.

Some of the symbolism in the drama has been lost on me, unfortunately, but I got the general idea. There are mythical figures, historical figures, and generally "fun" figures. At one point, a student with some sort of figure on his head (I think he's supposed to be a bull) is set alight, and fire crackers go off right above his head for quite some time while other students jump around him or symbolically hit his feet with pieces of fabric. I don't quite know what it all means, and parts of it seem to be a bit unsafe, but there you have it. When in Rome ...

Tonight (Friday), we also celebrated Br. Carlos' 62nd birthday in the community. Other festivities will occur on the weekend, apparently, and we should catch the tail end of the big party planned for Sunday afternoon. We had a very enjoyable dinner this evening and a terrific cake (with cafe and flan and other things in it). The interesting thing for me is that I'm beginning to figure out more and more of what others are saying in Spanish. It's not 100 percent by any means, but my ability to comprehend is gradually expanding. It's like that great quotation from Herbert McCabe: "As we understand a mystery, it enlarges our capacity for understanding." That's as true of language study as it is of anything else initially, or perhaps essentially, mysterious.

Totally unrelated tidbit: Earlier in the week I was surfing the internet and found a wonderful little video on Youtube from a Michael Buble concert in England. If you're interested in music and people's potential, you might enjoy it too - Here.

I'm sure that I'll have a lot of pictures and the like after our Tikal adventure. Stay tuned.

More pictures than you might want below (click on any of them to go to the photo album itself and see the captions for each of pictures).

Second Week in Antigua

2011-07-17T09:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the courtyard, just outside of my room, and simply enjoying the fact that I was here. The clouds were clear (for now ... it rains every day), the temperature mild, and from the TV room came the voice of an excited Spanish commentator describing the action of one of the quarter-finals of the America's Cup (soccer, that is, not sailing). I'm surrounded by all things Spanish and it's better than okay.

The major part of this week has, of course, been spent in school learning Spanish. And it doesn't stop when we come home. The morning and evening prayers are in Spanish, and all of our conversations with the Brothers and others here are in Spanish. In the process, our ears are becoming more familiar with the flow of the language. Most speakers we encounter speak very fast. It's really only the teachers and those who know that we are just learning who speak more slowly.

The highlights of this week include the school trip on Thursday to a Mayan cultural center and coffee plantation, and the Friday trip to a nearby private forest featuring a bird-watching path for avid bird watchers such as Br. John. And then the weekend with further unexpected activities.

Early in the week, Br. Julio took us for an evening tour of sixteen classrooms in the school, each of which had students preparing their "project" for the rest of the studentbody. They transformed their classroom into one into which groups of student would come the following day in order to learn about some social problem or concern. It was the students' job to make the "class" interesting, appealing, and convincing. Clearly, they were well into creating something special for their fellow students, staying late into the night to transform their classroom into a small theater that followed their theme. They would be evaluated on the following day when the school day consisted of students having their "classes" in a rotating fashion among all these special classrooms and displays.

It was a great way to tap into the creative potential of students, to have their studies come to a specific focus and task, and to engage the rest of the student body with the results of their research and preparation. On the following day, we had a short visit once more to see some of the finished preparations.

On Thursday, our Spanish school sponsored an outing with our teachers to a coffee plantation and cultural center here in Antigua. We took a rented camioneta - called a "chicken bus" by some, but not by me - and spent the morning listening, observing, and reading signs and explanations. All the while, our teachers were at our sides, continuing their lessons with us. The great advantage was that the guides were well trained to use simple language and to speak slowly and distinctly. John said that he understood virtually everything that the guides told us.

The first section dealt with Mayan musical instruments, both pre-colonial and post-colonial. It was all interesting stuff, and our guide was able to play pretty much anything that she picked up. The second section dealt with the coffee plantation. It reminded me of a vineyard/winery tour in the Napa Valley, only this one was all about coffee. And of course we had a sample at the very end of the tour. The tour also included an on-site nursery and a reconstructed Mayan village. Obviously, they had gone all out to make the experience as inclusive as possible. Since we had plenty of time to see everything, we took our time, finishing around lunch time.

The next day, John and I had arranged with our teachers to go to El Pilar, outside of the city and in the mountains. We would have to take a public bus for a bit and then walk the rest of the way. Although it was cloudy when we started, by the time we got there it was beginning to get sunny. Thankfully, it never rained.

The walk was longer than we had anticipated, but eventually we got there. The people along the way were all very friendly and helpful. Once we got to the place, and after paying our entrance fees, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The available trail could be a 2-hour or a 4-5 hour experience. We chose to simply stick to the opening section. There was a covered hummingbird feeder station where 30 or more hummingbirds fed regularly. Further on, the "path" consisted of a series of stairs that went up and up and up. We heard the birds all around us but couldn't see a blessed one, despite our common efforts.

However, we did make it up to the highest point, where there was an outlook that looked down onto the valley below. At that point we decided that we'd probably done enough and made our way back down to the main road where we caught another camioneta back to town. That converted schoolbus was packed, packed with students who had just been released from school. All very polite and curious - and I wish I'd had the courage to take photo inside - but the bus was packed to the gills. There must have been 75 people in a bus made for 40. At least three to a seat and the aisles jam-packed. Yet the "helper" was able to wade his way through, collecting money and having kids skootch over to make room for someone else. Quite the Guatemala experience. Once we'd returned, we all decided to call it a day and I returned to the house for my first siesta of the week.

That evening, there was a youth symphony concert at the school to which we had been invited. The orchestra was made up mostly of youth from the area playing 95% string instruments. The "hall"was the open gymnasium. There was a downpour, of course, but that didn't prevent parents and friends from coming to see it. With the metal roof and the heavy downpour, it was difficult to hear the soft bits, but everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, and the kids were pretty good, all things considered. Nevertheless, John and I decided to call it a day at the break, when everyone lined up for their free cup of coffee.

On Saturday, I joined Br. Julio and Steve for a trip to "Guate" (the capitol), about 45 minutes away by car. There, we went to a very nice shopping center where there was a big sale going on. After wandering around a bit, we went to where you could really get whatever you were looking for ..... Walmart! The place was huge. You needed a guide just to get to the other side of the store. Thankfully, every aisle had at least one person standing there, helping people out and probably keeping an eye on pilfering. I was able to find all the things I needed, and then some.

When we got back for the afternoon meal, there were four Brothers at the table from Spain. One of them, another Br. Francisco, is teaching here in Guatemala (at Santa Maria Visitacion at Lake Atitlan) and he was hosting the Spanish Brothers for the week. They were just here for a day visit and would return to Spain within a day of two. It was funny to hear the Spanish I'd been listening to spoken in a different accent, and even more rapidly if that could be believed. They asked for a photograph after lunch and then left to explore the city. John and I went to the central plaza where tents had been set up with various book sellers. We explored, found some bargains, and then made our way back, stopping for ice cream for good measure.

That evening, the Director had prepared a special social and dinner for us outside. As before, prior to the social, several Brothers made short speeches and then we enjoyed the food and each other's company for the rest of the evening. Br. Francisco had brought out his iPod and we listened to Spanish, Mexican, and American Country music, singing along when we could. It was all very nice and relaxed - a good way to end the week.

On Sunday morning, after going to Mass next door at La Merced (a loooooong homily during which I was able to outline several projects for myself and review conjugations), we did some work in our rooms. Around lunch time, the Brothers announced that we would go to Pollo Campero for lunch; it was located just down the street. So off we went to this popular hot-spot in Guatemala. It's sort of like KFC but with a restaurant atmosphere, lots of kids, and chicken that tastes just slightly different from most chicken you might have had.

Following lunch, Br. Julio drove Steve, John, and myself back into Guatemala City in order to see the latest Harry Potter movie. We arrived at the theater, inside a shopping center, and found a line that reminded me of the line at Disneyworld for Splash Mountain. It would take 90 minutes to get to the front. So Julio said that he knew of another place. I thought that it would be the same sort of line wherever we went, but once we got to this other shopping center, we found a quite reasonable line and got our tickets. Their system includes assigned seating; first come, first chosen seats. Our seats were in row A. So the week ended with watching the final Harry Potter movie, in dubbed Spanish, with my neck craned back to a screen that began 15 feet away and reached up into the ceiling. But it was great, and I even picked up some of the dialogue. From what I could tell, the good guys win.

Now it's back to the books for the week and into the world of declensions, conjugations, past participles, gerunds, and a word order that still really seems like magic to me.

More pictures than you want in the slideshow below (You can click on it to see individual photographs with their captions):

First Week in Antigua

2011-07-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's now the end of my first week in Antigua. Do I know Spanish? No. However, I am a bit more comfortable with learning Spanish. There has been a definite improvement in my ability to "pick up" what people mean when they speak, as long as they don't speak too fast or use grande palabras. It's a rather interesting phenomenon to realize that you're gradually understanding something that before was almost entirely unknown to you.

When we arrived last Sunday, of course, everything was new: the Brothers house, the town, the experience, the sounds at night, etc. The Brothers were extremely hospitable and we felt very comfortable. The church next door, La Merced, was surrounded by a huge crowd of people in very formal dress, just milling about. It was several days later that we realized that they were having one of the several Corpus Christi processions that occur at this time of year. Hence the flowers on some of the streets and the like. Unfortunately, we didn't know that at first, so while the processions were going down the street, we were in the house, napping or getting our things in order in our rooms.

Another interesting phenomenon accompanying these festivities is that once in a while, a HUGE loud blast is heard. At first, I thought, "Okay, this is it. We're in Guatemala and some bomb or other is going off." Immediately after hearing the blast(s), which in this case came from right next door at La Merced, you hear a whole bunch of car alarms going off around the neighborhood. Looking around, other people seemed to be unaware of anything strange going on. And by now, the end of the week, I think I'm at the same point. These bombas are loud fireworks without accompanying sparks or the like - exactly the same as those used large fireworks shows everywhere - that fly 100 or more feet up in the air and explode. They're both the sonic searchlights for some major event, religious or civil, calling people to come and investigate, and they're there to scare off the bad spirits. By now, I must have heard 50+ of them during the week at various times. They're sorta nice.

Later in the afternoon, before John and I walked to where our school was located, just to know how to get there, Brother Carlos - he's the one in the top photo - took us for a walk down the main street of Antigua, stopping in various places (where he seemed to know everyone) and showing us some of the highlights. He doesn't know a word of English, but somehow we communicated just fine. One of the old hotels was especially impressive, the Posada de Don Rodrigo, made up of a whole set of old building and showing off some wonderful courtyards, gardens, and rooftop vistas. It was a fine introduction to the city.

On Monday morning, we made our way to the language school at 7:30 AM and promptly set to work. Each of us was assigned a teacher (female, in both our cases) and began our program. The teachers are very friendly and helpful. They clearly know English, but they do everything they can to avoid having to answer us in English. My teacher has, so far, said perhaps 15 words English in 30 hours of class time. She gently invites you to speak in whatever Spanish you can, both gauging where you are and determining how you might best proceed. Class goes from 8 until 10 AM, when there is a half-hour break. John and I usually go for a walk down one of the nearby streets. Classes then resume from 10:30 AM until noon. For the first three days, we both returned to the house for "Almuerzo" - the main meal of the day with the Brothers - at 1:30 PM. I hustled back at 2:00 PM for another 2-hour session while John decided early on that 4 hours a day is plenty.

By the middle of the week, you're fairly floating in Spanish words and phrases and things known and unknown. This apparently is as it should be. By now, teachers and students have established a good rapport, and conversations (in Spanish, always in Spanish, nada but Spanish) begin to take shape, halting but steady. On Thursday, a group from the school, including John and I and our teachers, took a camioneta (a converted school bus used for all public transportation around here) to the pueblo of San Antonion in order to visit an indigenous women's cooperative. Along the way, the lessons continued, of course, with teachers sitting next to their students, speaking in Spanish. At the cooperative, one of the women gave a fascinating explanation of Mayan weaving traditions, using clear, simple, slowly pronounced Spanish. I even understood most of it! Then we were given a traditional Mayan dish - Pinean (?) - consisting of chicken and rice in a bowl of mole salsa, and we were invited to look around the place and perhaps purchase something to support the cooperative. Upon returning around noon, John went back to the house, while I continued straight into my afternoon session, stopping at 2 PM, which gave time later for a blessed siesta at home.

The following day, on Friday, my teacher and John's decided that we should have a common session doing Bingo, since both of us were having trouble with our numbers, and so we spent a profitable 90 minutes having a joint conversation around numbers. That ended at noon, and by now my teacher and I had decided that it would be best to simply continue our session during everyone else's lunch break and end at 1:30 PM. That way I'd get back to the house a bit late for almuerzo and we would both have the rest of the afternoon free. Also, returning for the late afternoon session hadn't become very productive for me.... the specter of old(er) age and the afternoon "I think I'll put my feet up" made themselves known, I believe.

On Saturday, both John and I wanted to take the highly recommended walking tour of the city with Elizabeth Bell, who literally wrote the book on the place. She came here in 1969 from Palo Alto at the age of 14 and didn't leave. She's now intimately connected to most, if not all, of the restoration projects in the city and calls it home. The tour cost $20 but was worth every penny, especially since it included entry fees to the major sites.

We met in the central square with about 10 other people on the tour and proceeded around the square to the major buildings there. Her explanations were clear, concise, and interesting. She's been doing this tour for years, and it showed. She left time for questions at each location and answered them thoroughly, even bringing back a topic from a question later in the tour, if it was relevant. The three hours went by very quickly.

Saturday evening, the Brothers took us to a nearby Chinese restaurant. Yes, Chinese. And nearby in this case means about 120 feet from the front door, right at the top of that major Antigua street with the big yellow arch in it. It was somewhat humorous to read a menu in Spanish, Chinese, and English, and to hear them ordering Chinese dishes in Spanish. After dinner, we all walked down the street enjoying the evening ambiance, with lots of talking, laughter, music, and energy in the air. Even after returning, all that noise remained nearby (literally), and things only settled down after 10:30 PM (for me in my room) or much later for the others. Apparently, this is the common Friday and Saturday evening dynamic and the price you pay for living right in the middle of all of the action, as it were. The message was, get used to it.

Today, Sunday, John and I made our way to Santo Domingo for Mass (Ordinary Time) and the local Corpus Christi procession there. I don't quite know how they pull that off, liturgically, but with thousands of years of tradition, it all works for them. This particular procession was a small-scale affair, compared to what goes on in the other locations around the city during these weeks. But what did we know? It was all novel to us. Afterwards, John and I went to a popular place for breakfast, where we met one of the many seminarians from the U.S. who are here for language studies. He explained that dioceses are sending seminarians to Central America because Mexico had become just a bit too dangerous. After lunch, John returned home while I wandered streets for a few hours, going to one of the very interesting supermercados (where the locals shops; it's nothing like Safeway) to pick up some things that I needed to get. It was busy in the streets, but everyone was friendly and courteous. Somehow you don't expect anything else here.

This evening, Steve Smith from Saint Mary's University in Winona arrived. He was a LTIP participant three years ago and is spending the summer in Guatemala. He will be staying with us in this community until August 20th. So it looks as if there will be three Spanish-speaking Brothers here and three English-speaking folks. Kind of an even match, linguistically. However, even when we Ameriglots meet, it's Spanish, always Spanish - well, with some exceptions. After all, we're in Antigua.

Other things happened this week that I don't have room for in this posting; if you've even read this far. They include, getting a tour of the school by Brs. Julio, meeting the students of both the day and the night school (for kids who work during the day) by Br. Francisco; John and I visiting various churches for daily Mass since the Brothers attend the daily school Mass at 9 AM; exploring the city after school by walking through the densely packed market area - sort of a combined Arabic and U.S. flea market, only with much smaller passing lanes; making our way to school and beginning to know the characters on the way; and so on.

Last thought: I'm reminded of the scene in the Helen Keller movie where she figures out that those signs in her hand are there to communicate meaning. Remember the "water" moment at the well? That's a good metaphor of what's happening with us, although infinitely more slowly.

Gradually, we're figuring out how those funny sounds that our teachers and the Brothers are making are related to the meanings of words and sentences. At some point in our futures, hopefully while we're still here, the puzzle pieces will begin to "click" and "fit" in such a way that we turn that same kind of corner and the Spanish language world will begin to show itself in all its rich colors and textures.

Meanwhile, if I can just keep separate the meanings of "a" "de" "que" "en" "el" "al" and "o", I'll be happy.

Pasos de bebé.

More pictures than you want here:

First Week in Antigua, Guatemala

An New Educational Adventure

2011-07-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, on June 30th, Br. John ONeill and I arrived at Guatemala City for a few weeks of intense immersion Spanish classes. We had spoken about it a few months ago, found that a common time was available, discovered very reasonable air fares, and proceeded to make all the arrangements. Much to our advantage, of course, was the fact that the Brothers have places throughout Guatemala, including where we will be staying, Antigua.

Upon arrival, we were picked up by a driver from the Provincialate community in Guatemala City who has the uncanny ability (so we were told later) to pick Brothers out from a crowd simply by looking at their faces. Perhaps its that deer-in-the-headlights look that gives us away. In any case, before John could whip out his "La Salle" sign (red letters on the back of a manila folder and a pre-arranged signal), Marcelino, standing across the street in a mix of people greeting arrivals, took one look and had his sign up, smiling and staring right at us as we came through the glass doors beyond immigration.

A fast-paced, exciting drive through busy streets later, filled with smoke-belching buses and shops open for the evening, we arrived at the oasis of the Provincialate - a large set of buildings on a big piece of property in a gated-type community (guards at check-points with serious demeanors and real guns). The complex used to be the formation center of the District. Now, novices and scholastics go to the regional novitiate in Costa Rica while this place is used for retreats, meetings, and gatherings by outside groups. And the Provincialate and district offices are here. Its a very nice facility. (BTW, I cant figure out where the apostrophe key on this keyboard is, having tried all possibilities, so dont fault me for bad grammar.)

The four Brothers here greeted us very kindly and had dinner waiting. Brother Daniel knows English fairly well and was quite helpful in getting us settled. Toward the end of dinner, a number of young Brothers came into the dining room to say hello. They were here for their own retreat but staying in another part of the property. John was quite ingenious in communicating with all the Brothers, and soon we were laughing and relaxing as we might in any Brothers community in the world. Between halting, half-forgotten Spanish words, gestures, smiles, and guesses, we got along pretty well. In a few weeks, hopefully, our abilities will be much more improved.

Both of us slept like a log that night. Yesterday was a church holiday here - the solemnity of the Sacred Heart - and so we had a special schedule. After a breakfast that seems to simply appear in the morning from elsewhere on the property, both of us wandered around the property hunting for new birds to observe. John is quite the birder, and I am happy to tag along. We identified three new birds that neither of us had seen before, and then Br. Daniel came by to invite us join him for Mass next door with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart who were having a special Mass on their feast day.

We were placed in the front row of the small chapel, and I understood most of the Mass - in action if not in words. Being tall people compared to most Guatemalans, I felt bad about blocking all the people who sat behind us, but nobody seemed to mind. At the end of Mass, the monstrance came out and we had a procession to the inner court of the house, where a small shrine had been put up. The monstrance was placed there, many people knelt on the concrete, and a series of prayers were begun. After a while, Br. Daniel indicated that we should sneak away since this was likely to take a while; the group was scheduled to continue this prayer journey throughout the house.

This property had been sold to the Sisters by the Brothers some years ago. Several years after that, the Sisters sold a large portion of it to someone else. Without realizing it, they had sold it to very large evangelical church, which proceeded to construct a stadium church right next door, with enough room for at least 5,000 people. They fill it up every Sunday, too, which is a dramatic illustration of how active the evangelical Church is becoming here in Guatemala. On the plane ride here there was a large group of American evangelicals wearing T-shirts advertising the fact that they were service-bound missionaries for a few weeks.

Back at our place next door, the two of us continued our bird-watching adventures until lunch, which is their main meal. Again, the food mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. The food is good an plentiful, but the water has to be taken from bottles. Beer works too. A nice siesta later, and each of us did some futzing around in our rooms, reading, listening to the rain, and the like. There is a football (soccer) championship going on, called the Gold Cup, and it can be pretty exciting on the TV.

Today, after breakfast, Brother Alex took us to another location in Guatemala City where there is large complex of buildings that the Brothers run for the diocese. It consists of a school for indigenous people, a teachers college for teachers from indigenous tribes, all of whom live and learn here and support the whole operation with a large farm (vegetables, fruit, coffee, and animals). The Scholastic community for Brothers at study is also here, as is a set of buildings on the far end of the property housing 8 Postulants, 7 Pre-Novices, and three Brothers who oversee their combined 3-year program. They were all happy-go-lucky, enthusiastic, and hospitable. One of the postulants was painting a picture of De La Salle on the wall outside of their entry gate, and we all took several photographs to commemorate the event.

And so now it is towards evening on our second full day here. Its been raining on and off all afternoon, but somehow that seems appropriate. Tomorrow, we will be taken to Antigua and the rest of this little adventure commences. But I think it will be a bit more taxing on the brain.

A final note: Brother John wrote down a Spanish quotation that is posted inside each of the guest rooms. "Uno de los grandes signos que hoy puede ofrecer la vida consegrada como signo evangelico pobre y humilde, sea sencillamente la casa: que alli donde haya consagrados haya casa abierta, acogedora fraterna como signe de communion el la eglesia." (Ciro Garcia) The Brothers explained that it is a quotation from a Carmelite theologian who describes religious life as one of simplicity and humility. The way they interpret that is by trying to live as simply as possible in community (common TV, few possessions, shared cars, etc.).

This is evident in their lifestyle; nice but simple buildings, lots of responsibilities for each of the Brothers, good and hearty meals, and a palpable sense of community (care for others, much humor and teasing, dedicated to prayer times). It has given us a fine introduction of our likely experience during the next four weeks, for John, or six weeks, for me.

This last picture here is of the chapel in the Provincialate complex, used by larger groups since the Provincialate has its own small chapel. Brother Alex explained that the first time it was used was for the funeral of Br. James Miller. Another significant connection to the experience of the Brothers in this country.

The Kairos Experience

2011-06-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a "Kairos" retreat with Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento; a four-day retreat experience at Christ the King Retreat Center in Citrus Heights that involved 56 students and 9 adults.

This was the 37th Kairos retreat that the school has offered, and therefore was called K37. Many years ago, I was an adult leader for the very first such retreat at CHBS, called K1, and subsequently staffed a number of them over the years. It never fails that at first I'm reluctant to go - given the time commitment, sleep deprivation, and general "on call" status for the four days of retreat - but by the end of the retreat I'm energized, inspired, and very glad I went.

The retreat is an adaptation of the Cursillo retreats for high schools. There are a great number of very honest talks, by both student and adult leaders, and a variety of activities in small groups that gradually lead participants more deeply into the recesses of who they are. Within the growing trust of small groups, students are able to help one another deal with their blessings and their challenges, their relational lives and their faith lives, their joys and their hurts. What's discovered is a common human bond of care - even for those whom you wouldn't really have paid attention to beforehand - and a glimpse of what the roots of faith's foundations look like and feel like. They may not call it that, but that's what it is.

I am constantly amazed at the goodness that shines out of the students. Something like this helps me to appreciate anew what it means to see others as true “children of God”, as De La Salle did. A retreat such as this allows the best in our relational potential to come to the fore, provides a safe place for our dearest desires for community to rise to the surface. Yes, there is a deliberate process for doing that; there are steps along the way. But it’s neither forced nor obligatory. It’s all by invitation. And the results are a freedom and spontaneity (and happy silliness) and good will that for a brief moment are given free rein – just to know that that potential is possible – before being tamed into the larger social context again upon returning to the “real” world. Neither one is a bad thing, but it’s good to know that the first is really possible and in the right circumstances can be accessed or nurtured deliberately in the future. Christianity is first and foremost about God and Love (1 John 4:8).

Students and adult leaders are able to touch a small but significant signpost to where God’s presence is found. I know that I’m personally enriched by the experience every time that I participate. When those on retreat return to the school and to their families, they are on a "K-high" for a while. And while this may fade over days and weeks, the touchstone of the experience itself remains and one knows that some very deep part of oneself was found and made alive.

My student small group was called "G2" for Group Two, and over our time together we became a close-knit group of very unique individuals who grew to appreciate each one's gifts, challenges, and life situations. While group conversations remain confidential, virtually forever (with the normal exceptions for counseling situations and issues) this atmosphere allows for rich, caring conversations.

Prayer (genuine prayer) is another key element throughout the retreat. Both for the presenters and the participants, formal and informal prayer settings / opportunities become stepping-stones for the retreat process. There is a group Mass each day and a reconciliation service on one of the evenings. But what stands out is that the life of faith becomes a natural element that weaves its way through the activities; nothing is forced or abrupt. Individuals participate as they will and as is fitting with where their faith currently lives. Hopefully, by the end of the retreat they will come to see that a life with faith enriches, deepens, and brings greater life to what it means to be human (at least in all its important parts) and an active faith life takes nothing away. To be faithful, or faith-filled, is to be fully human, which in the end is God and other directed. As St. Irenaeus wrote: "The glory of God is the human person fully alive."

The whole thing reminded me of a wonderful quotation from Nicholas Lash in a book entitled "Easter in Ordinary" - "Other people become, in their measure, 'mysterious,' not insofar as we fail to understand them, but rather in so far as, in lovingly relating to them, we succeed in doing so."

These have been days of fine mystery, fed by grace and human encounter. It remains to live them forward in small, deliberate steps that deepen the benefit for all.

Photo Notes:

Top - Entire Group

Next - Adult Leaders

Next - K37 - G2

Below: All the student and adult male leaders posed for a "Summer Collection" photo during a section of the retreat when we were all formally dressed up and waiting for the next phase of the retreat to begin. Sort of a "GQ" look.

An Alternative to Pinball

2011-05-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

How is it that some lives dash madly around in the public eye while others meander quietly among more local paths? Public figures, media favorites, and scandal-of-the-week personalities bounce about like so many balls in a pinball machine, vying for just a second of our attention. Most of us are drawn into the game – through magazines, online news, blogs, television, and the like – completely oblivious to the fact that in doing so we are bouncing to the same tune. And yet occasionally, when we take out attention away from that strange world of make-believe and take a long loving look around us, we realize that our real world is inhabited by individuals who are, in the final analysis and by slow increments, much more interesting and engaging.

Saints seem to share a characteristic deliberateness toward the more important things. They come to learn that virtues such as patience, perseverance, and true piety only grow as a complete package. One doesn’t happen without the others. Patience doesn’t come about unless your keep practicing it, unless you persevere. And piety – the kind where God’s presence seeps into all the nooks and crannies of your life – hasn’t got a chance without patient endurance and an ongoing practice that is quiet and humble. The fact is that truth and goodness seep into your life together. The important things can’t be split apart.

Saints also generally fall into the apparently boring, non-public category rather than into the public pinball one. Even the very public Mother Teresa often said that one of her greatest crosses was the fact that she was such a public figure; good for her work and her sisters, but trying on her soul. Most saints are ones that Catholics would never guess in a Jeopardy game, unless their parish or school was named for that saint. Yet their personal stories are fascinating, even appealing. For years, I would read a short bio of the saint of the day to my students. Some were fascinating (think St. Joseph of Cupertino, patron saint of pilots) and others were dramatic (martyrs, mystics, miracle-workers). Most were simple folks who became known for their piety and goodness; quite sufficient for sainthood. Students were drawn to these stories and would remind me if I’d forgotten to read one to them in class. Through these stories, they experienced, perhaps for the first time, a deep resonance with a mystery that lay beyond their ken, a connection with something vaguely but solidly true, even good perhaps. All they could tell at that point was that this was deeply appealing in a way that popular entertainment was not. The apparently boring had become both familiar and fascinating in the real stories of real people paying close attention to the really important things.

The reason for this reflection comes from thinking about St. John Baptist de La Salle and his life. Having just finished reading, along with most of the novices with whom I had a class this year, a heavy tome about De La Salle by Br. Alfred Calcutt, I’m left to wonder where his genius, his charism, his sainthood lay. Yes, he was a great organizer, a talented writer, a visionary, and a theologian with a practical streak. He seemed to require little sleep, virtually no ego stroking, and very few personal comforts; in fact, he seemed to relish the opposite. He was sometimes stubborn, often kind to a fault, and increasingly bore a radical trust in God’s Providence – dangerously so, in the estimation of many.

So why was he so loved by his Brothers and by many others? Why does he continue to fascinate us, inspire us, and draw us forward in our ministry? I can only conclude that his human adventure, as it is reflected in his story and in his written works, bears eloquent testimony to the important things that draw us all forward. It opens the curtain just a bit to that which lays behind the Gospel story, if we but pay attention and step into it, as he did. His story, boring in some parts and dramatic in others – as was that of Jesus – invites us to touch that same living mystery, to live in and towards the ongoing mystery of God's presence in our midst, to meander quietly among local paths and make the ever-pregnant mystery of God alive for others.

How can you play pinball when that adventure awaits?

A Lost/Last Brother in Florida

2011-03-04T19:37:00.001-08:00

During this last week I've been in St. Augustine, Florida, where LASSCA (Lasallian Association of Secondary School Chief Administrators) and the RCCB (Regional Conference of Christian Brothers) had their meetings, which I attended to give a workshop, a short talk, and also a regional vocation ministry report to the Visitors. The place is a sort of Santa Fe / Carmel combination, with the Atlantic on one side and a whole lot of flat land, filled with tropical-like vegetation, on the other; plus the warm weather to match. During our time here and at this time of year, it was quite nice, especially when compared to other parts of the country. There even was a chance to take a walking tour of the city, primarily featuring the contributions to the city by one Henry Morrison Flagler, the Bill Gates of his day, whose fancy 19th century hotel is now Flagler College.

The thing that was really surprising and memorable, however, was the discovery that the Brothers had been here from 1859 until 1864, when the Civil War led to their departure. Plus, it was said, there was a Brother buried in the old Catholic cemetery somewhere around here. And so during a brief respite from our meetings, Br. Tim Coldwell, Br. Larry Schatz and I set out for a walk-about and eventually found the old Catholic cemetery, closed in 1884 and now called the Tolomato cemetery, because it was located on the site of the original Tolomato Indian village. It was surrounded by a significant fence topped by barbed wire. Apparently, the place had become quite the destination for an evening visit, perhaps by one of the many "ghost walks" that were advertised along the tourist lanes of the town, and so the cemetery was made inaccessible except for every 3rd Saturday when docents would be present.

While Larry was quite willing to jump the fence, we persuaded him to desist and instead stopped by the Catholic cathedral downtown. Walking into the small bookshop inside, we introduced ourselves as Christian Brothers to the ladies behind the counter, and one of them exclaimed: "I wrote you guys a couple of years ago!" She was one of the cemetery's docents and had written to tell us about the grave of the Brother who was buried there. Finding out that we would only be there another day, she contacted the lady with the key to the cemetery and a couple of hours later Tim and I were at the cemetery for a 45-minute tour of the place, complete with a full history. Of the 1000 of so people buried there, only 105 headstones remain, one of which is the one for Br. Louis Gonzaga, aged 35 years and 9 months, who died on July 17th, 1861, and whose headstone was "Erected by the Catholics of the city of St. Augustine as a Tribute of respect for the memory of" him.

Elizabeth, the cemetery guide, also told us about a Sister Thomas Joseph at the Sisters of Saint Joseph convent in town, who wrote a history about their order in the area and who had written about the Brothers who had been there as well. So on the following day, prior to our meetings, I wandered my way over to the convent, rang the bell at 8:15 AM, and ended up spending some 20 minutes with the 84-year-old nun. At the end of our visit, she provided me with a copy of her book. The information in it about the Brothers is sketchy but precious.

The Brothers' house was located on the edge of the Sisters' present property, "where the dumpsters are now", and the Sisters lived in that house for about ten years after the Brothers had left. Apparently there were three Brothers, thought to have come from New Orleans, although Br. Tim Coldwell (the Visitor of the NOSF District) can't quite figure out how that could have been possible, since the NOSF District was officially started later than 1859. Or perhaps they had come from Canada. Elizabeth and Sister Thomas Joseph couldn't understand why they hadn't gone to Savannah instead (a couple of hours away), but Tim and I think that it's because the bishop of the area had come from Le Puy in France, where both the Brothers and the Sisters of St. Joseph had been located. Certainly the bishop would have invited the orders he had known from his home town and located them in the place with the greatest concentration of Catholics.

Once the Civil War began, according to Elizabeth, the Brothers took their boarders to Jacksonville in order to put them on a train back to the Northeast, from whence they had come, and in Jacksonville they stayed with a gentleman "of the Protestant persuasion" - according to

the records, although which records I don't know - whom they impressed with their piety. There's precious little else that we know about it all. But I think it's all quite fascinating.

So consider this entry as a bit of history, boring or exciting depending on your point of view. Here we have a Brother who was relatively lost to history, except in the memory of those whose lives he had touched and who erected a headstone as a tribute of respect. A last and lasting memorial.

It seems that age brings a greater appreciation of history, especially when you find a little informational gem like this in an unexpected place like St. Augustine. Sort of makes you wonder what other gems are lying about in our lives, all within reach but for the want of curiosity. Reminds me of the title of a little favorite book of mine, the collected gems from the writings of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, entitled "I Asked for Wonder."

What more could you want?

Our Lady of Lourdes

2011-02-11T08:20:00.000-08:00

Today the church celebrates Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her appearance to 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, on this day in 1858. Much has been written about these events, and like most publicly fantastic events there is a wide range of opinion as to the veracity of some or all of the details. But to my mind, little of that matters.

The point is not found in the details of the event but rather is to be found in the details of the reactions. The event is history, in the past, gone except for the memory. What remains - more clear to some and less clear to others - are the effects of the event, primarily found in such ephemeral things as recollection, imagination, attitude, context, faith, and feelings. Yet in many ways, such things are the more important pieces, if we really think about it for a minute. It's as if God trusts us to be able to respond in ways that will move us forward in our relationship with Him and with each other.

This idea is one that Anthony Bloom brilliantly explains in a short video (one of the only ones of him that I've found) where he answers a question about suffering for the BBC.

The point is that the same is true of Mary and her role in our life, our history, and the Church's history. In her, we have one who is like us in almost every way that we might imagine. And she is a wonderful model, in the details of what she did and how she did it, of how we might also respond to God's direction in our life. She was open to God's guidance, responded in the best way she knew how, and trusted that God would show her the way each day. Nobody told her that it was easy; but she knew that it was good.

De La Salle says that "she is indeed a star which enlightens, guides, and leads us to a harbor in the stormy sea of this world... She will enlighten you and help you know God's will for you because she shares in the light of Jesus Christ her son." (Med 164.1)

This morning, at Mass in the Provincialate Community, and during the Our Father, I looked up and was literally blinded by the sun streaming into the chapel window shown above, the one of the Annunciation. The sun was streaming in through her face and struck me full on. After being taken aback, I took out my iPhone and took a quick picture (below). I don't quite know what to make of it - the historical event - but I sure was touched by it and continue to reflect on its effects in me - like a seed in my soul.

No need to be overly dramatic about it. But there's a quiet depth here that won't easily or quickly go away. And I imagine that this is the case for many of God's actions in our lives: quiet, deep, and full of potential (by us).

Prayer & Stress Management

2011-01-28T15:39:00.001-08:00

"What good does it do to pray?", people ask. "There's nothing practical that can come from it; you're just deceiving yourself." This must sound familiar to those among us who work with young adults, or high school kids, or who have friends that have lives filled with self, stuff, and stress.

And actually it's not a bad question. There are those who wouldn't even bother with the question, dismissing prayer and the spiritual life outright. As it is, the capacity to ask the question reveals a potential for hearing the answer. You can only "get" answers to the questions that you have, not to the questions that you don't have.

This afternoon I read an article on "Psychospiritual Stress Management." The key to dealing with stress, according to the author, is hardiness or resilience, defined as "Being committed to finding meaningful purpose in life, the belief that one can influence one's surroundings and the outcome of events, and the belief that one can learn and grow from both positive and negative life experiences." Such beliefs lead to active coping measures and the perception of difficult situations as less threatening, even as learning opportunities.

For those with belief, spirituality is part of the coping process. "As spiritual beings, the act of finding meaning in adversity, of facing difficulties with courage, becomes a spiritual endeavor." I can't help but to think of the saints, and especially St. John Baptist de La Salle, when I read those words. From the time that he made a commitment to the education of the young, especially the poor, stress flew at him from all directions - opposition, disappointment, lawsuits, failure, physical pains, abandonment, and so on. Yet despite all that, or perhaps because of and through it, he grew into a spiritual giant, with enough resilience for ten people, with enough resilience to lead his Brothers for some forty years. And at the end? As he lay dying and the Director asked him whether he accepted his sufferings, he said: "Yes, I adore God working through all the events and circumstances of my life." The more difficult things became, the more resilient De La Salle became. Not in a weird, self-deceptive, or pie-in-the-sky-when-I-die way. Just the opposite. As he engaged real life, dealt with the challenges, and responded as positively and faith-filled as he was able to, the depths of that life opened up to him in ways that most of us probably cannot fully appreciate. It's one of those things that you just have to do in order to understand - like getting married, or joining religious life, or even as simple as doing something good for the person in front of you. Jumping into something with faith, with others, with resilience, makes for a whole new definition of success. De La Salle is pretty good proof that a spiritual life context is transformative, really and practically.

Research seems to support this. Recently, a study of men over 55 who had heart surgery showed that 25 percent of them died in the six months following the surgery if they had no social support and no religious beliefs, as opposed to 4 percent of those who reported both social support and strength from religious belief. In addition, there was a 25 percent "reduction in mortality associated with church/service attendance after adjustment for established risk factors such as healthy lifestyle, social support and depression."

One only has to look to Viktor Frankl's observations during World War II for confirmation. He saw that survival in the concentration camps "was based on finding meaning in the suffering. He noted pointedly that, when a prisoner lost faith in his future, he seemed to lose his spiritual grip and to sink into a psychological and physical state of decompensation." Frankl wrote that "Among those who actually went through the experience of Auschwitz, the number of those whose religious life was deepened - in spite of, not because of, this experience - by far exceeds the number of those who gave up their belief."

Paying attention to one's inner life, to what's going on during the quiet times, is eminently practical, especially when things are tough. You have to feed the soul. Our grandparents could have probably told us that. But by the time you discover something like this, you also realize that people have to learn it for themselves, and the best thing you can do is to lovingly support them as they do so. Sounds like God work.

What good does it do to pray? More than we can possibly imagine.

Really!

2011-01-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

One of the things we do well, as Brothers, is to have meetings. They're as common as meals and prayers, it seems. Not only do we meet about things we really care about, but we regularly meet about things others want us to care about. Meetings are just part of what we do, receiving more or less enthusiasm depending on the topic or occasion.

So it should come as no surprise that we scheduled the second session of our District Chapter (a legislative body of some 40 elected Brothers that convenes every four years) to meet during our Christmas break, from December 27th until December 31st, at the latest. Between plenary sessions and theme group meetings, we were able to indulge our full appetite for meeting. And while enjoying one another's company, as we always do, and having good discussions and deciding important things, we also know when enough is enough. So, somewhat to my surprise (as General Secretary, I did more than the usual running around) we finished our business earlier than expected, at noon on the 30th. Yet despite the change in plans, an hour after we adjourned virtually everyone had left the property and all had returned to their normal busy routines - in holiday mode.

One of the reasons this stood out is because less than 48 hours later I would be taking part in an entirely different kind of meeting. On the 31st, I drove to our camp at the Russian River where a group of us welcomed in the new year with relative peace and simplicity. The following day, without really planning it, I found myself walking slowly through the paths of Armstrong State Park, a wonderful park filled with redwoods. (The picture above is one that I took on one of the paths.) Some of the trees are over 300 feet tall. You can imagine how different this "meeting" was from what had gone on before.

Trees don't move much, and if they do, they do so very, very slowly. Their agenda is different. They get to know their neighbors very well over the years, and they work with them quite efficiently and harmoniously, even symbiotically. Anything less would help neither party. Their mission statement is pretty simple - move straight up toward the light, bring nourishment to all the parts, and keep everything in balance. If something goes wrong.... well, just work around it and move on. Don't make a fuss. The "meeting rules" are different, yet very much the same. That difference, it seems to me, lies in what you pay attention to, and what you do about it.

I found myself slowing down as I walked. Those visitors to the park who regularly passed me on the footpath at a "normal" pace struck me as missing the whole show, even the whole point. None of the the things that surrounded us moved very fast, and by all rights we should respect that a bit more. I'm no tree-hugger, but if you're going to go to a place where trees are the thing, at least look up every once in a while, preferably when your feet have stopped moving.

Eventually, I just stopped and stood and studied and then really stopped. This was very nice, but also much more. The more I began to see and notice, the more there was to see and notice. That went on for a while and things got a bit complicated in a peaceful sort of way. But gradually I realized that at a certain point the meeting rules are out of their league and you have to get beyond them. Finally, you just have to stop and let it all simply wash over you, without sound or fury or fuss. It's then that you can see, smile, sigh, and step forward.

It was a great way to welcome in the new year, ready to step forward.

A Christmas Meditation

2010-12-24T12:17:00.000-08:00

Thankfully, there are those in the world who can say things much better than we might be able to say ourselves. It's as if they reach into the deeper parts of who we are and gradually draw into the open ideas and connections that shine and shout in the light of day. And reading their words is an experience akin to stepping outside of a small tent in the middle of night on a vast open plain and beholding the stars right there above you.... immediately accessible, mystifyingly silent, and all too real.

I think that this is why Christmas is so evocative for all of us. The small is really large, the humble is really great, and the child is really God.

Anthony Bloom is someone whose words often have this effect on me. While deceased, his sermons and talks continue to be available online. I really like what he has to say about Christmas and would like to share some of that with you today.

On the day when we remember the Nativity of Christ, the Incarnation of the Son of God, we can see that the beginning of a new time has come, that this world that had gone old because God was, as it were, far away from it - great, awe-inspiring but distant, had come to an end. GOD IS IN OUR MIDST: this is the meaning of the word ‘Emmanuel’; God with us - and the world is no longer the same. We live in a world into which God has come, in which He is the living power, the inspiration, Life itself, Eternity itself …

Yes, we are waiting for the day when God will come in glory, when all history will be up, when all things will be summed up, when God shall be all in all; but already now God is in our midst; already now we have a vision of what each of us is by vocation and can be by participation. But this is an offer; God gives His love, God gives Himself - not only in the Holy Gifts of Communion, but in all possible ways He is ready to enter into our lives, to fill our hearts, to be enthroned in our minds, to be the will of our will, but to do that, to allow Him to do that we must give ourselves to Him, we must respond to love by love, to faith - the faith which God has in us - by faith that is trust and faithfulness to Him. And then - then, we, each of us singly and all of us in our togetherness, will become God's Kingdom come with power, the beginning of the fullness of time, the beginning of the glorious victory!

Isn't that something which is worth struggling for? Isn't it worth turning away from everything that separates us from our own integrity, from one another, from God, and allow ourselves to become new creatures?

Let us now, now that the beginning has come, and in a way the end is already in our midst, let us do it: overcome all that is unworthy of ourselves and allow God victoriously to transfigure our lives!

Glory be to God for His love! Glory be to God for the faith He has in us, and for the hope He has put into us! Amen!

Words worth pondering.

On a more prosaic note, for those who would like to see my Christmas newsletter (text and pictures), I've uploaded it here.

May you have a wonderful holiday!

The Mary Connection

2010-12-15T06:41:00.001-08:00

There is one person in the church's canopy of saints who continues to baffle me. This is not because this person is strange or odd, in the usual meaning of these words. Rather, it has more to do with wonder, invitation, and even personal challenge. The person, as you probably already guessed from the picture, is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

As we get closer to Christmas, not only do we celebrate significant Marian feasts (Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Guadalupe, etc.), but we are inundated with images of Mary and Jesus as a child or baby; cards received in the mail, stamps on letters, programs on television, book covers, etc. The image of Mary is probably the second most prevalent one during this season, after Santa and the reindeer, and her story is just as murky and yet fascinating. The major difference is that one is a man who is the artificial, seasonal personification of goodness and grace (gift), and the other is a woman who is the real thing, the actual person whose goodness and grace opened the door for God's indwelling mystery.

Following up on my last blog entry about the "point" being the acquisition of the Spirit of God, Mary popped into my mind when I read a quotation related to that "point" from Meister Eckhart shortly thereafter, near the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: " If someone were to ask me: why do we pray, why do we fast, why do we perform our devotions and good works, why are we baptized, why did God, the All-Highest, take on our flesh? Then I would reply: in order that God may be born in the soul and the soul be born in God. That is why the whole of Scripture was written and why God created the whole world and all the orders of angels: so that God could be born in the soul and the soul in God."

That dynamic, of the soul being born in God and God in the soul, gives a hint as to what "The Immaculate Conception" might truly mean. The very popular misconception that the term refers to the fact that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not through natural means is regrettable. It's got nothing to do with Jesus, yet. It has everything to do with Mary. God's "vessel" - and not just physically, or even primarily - would be suffused with God's presence, with the Holy Spirit. In order for God's life to be made real in our strange, often confusing, and certainly mysterious world, God's presence is first manifest in a woman's willingness to BE "the handmaid of the Lord." Hence the critical piece of the annunciation.

Fred Buechner in his book The Faces of Jesus really says it best for me:

The angel says, “Don’t be afraid, Mary.” He tells her not to be afraid because the floor has failed her and the sheltering wall no longer gives her shelter; not to be afraid because most of what is familiar to her has faded and flaked away like a painting. Heaven has flooded in. And heaven kneels before her now with outstretched wings. But she is not to be afraid. She is not to be afraid of all that lies beyond her: a lonely birth on a winter’s night, a child she was never to understand and who never had time to give her much understanding, the death she was to witness more lonely and more terrible than the birth. “Behold,” the angel says, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son.” Behold. He is asking her to open her eyes. . . . Mary pondered these things in her heart, and countless generations have pondered them with her. Mary’s head is bowed, and she looks up at the angel through her lashes. There is possibly the faintest trace of a frown on her brow. “How shall this be, seeing that I know not a man?” she asks, and the angel, the whole Creation, even God himself, all hold their breath as they wait for what she will say next. “Be it unto me according to thy word,” she says, and jewels blossom like morning glories in the arch above them. Everything has turned to gold. A golden angel. A golden girl. They are caught up together in a stately, golden dance. Their faces are grave. From a golden cloud between them and above, the Leader of the dance looks on. The announcement has been made and heard. The world is with child.

Wonder, invitation, and personal challenge. All these are part of what I imagine Mary dealt with in her dance with God - her vocation, if you will. Fred's words highlight the fact that it was through her response that new life came to be, that God freely became human. I imagine that it is also through our responses, in normal daily circumstances, that God comes to dwell in our midst and that of others. The same dynamics of wonder, invitation, and personal challenge are at play.

Do I really understand it? No.

Do I need to fully need to understand it? No.

Does it invite me to wonder and personal challenge? Yes.

That's enough for now. I don't think I'm ready for anything else.

What's the Point?

2010-12-02T16:00:00.006-08:00

What is the aim of our Christian life? Is it to do good works, to save ourselves, to reach “enlightenment” of some kind, or perhaps all three? Do we pray, go to church, follow the commandments and the like for our own benefit or for the benefit of others? It’s really too easy to say “both” isn’t it? Or shouldn’t we think too much about these things because the answers are beyond us?

I read an insightful and wise answer to this question recently, from an orthodox monk named Seraphim (1759-1833) who lived most of his life in seclusion. He told one pilgrim who came to him, “However prayer, fasting, vigil and all the other Christian practices may be, they do not constitute the aim of our Christian life. Although it is true that they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end, the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God… [O]nly good deeds done for Christ’s sake bring us the fruits of the Holy Spirit. … Acquiring the Spirit of God is the true aim of our Christian life, while prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other good works done for Christ’s sake are merely means for acquiring the Spirit of God.” (On Acquisition of the Holy Spirit, by Saint Seraphim of Sarov)

Two clear distinctions seem to be made here, one between doing things for others and doing things for oneself (Why should I put acquiring the Holy Spirit above helping others?), and the other between doing things simply because they’re good and doing things because they are done for and in Christ (What difference does it make why I do something good?). In each case, the more challenging answer increasingly makes more sense to me.

Doing something for others depends almost entirely on who I am and how I have fed my soul. Many is the time when simple reluctance (the sin of omission?) has prevented me from doing a clear good for someone else. Those who spontaneously help others do so, it appears, because that’s who they are and that’s what they do, or that’s how they’ve shaped themselves to be. I remember a story about Dr. Albert Schweitzer arriving at a train station in Europe to give a talk, when he was elderly and famous. Coming out of the carriage, a welcoming crowd greeted him, a band played a tune, flowers were given, and he was escorted down the platform by an entourage. On the way, he spotted a woman with a heavy load of luggage getting off the train some distance away and struggling to get it all together. He immediately extricated himself from his entourage, much to their discomfort, rushed to the woman and helped carry her luggage to the street and one of the taxis there. When asked why he did this, he said: “I’m just having my daily fun.” He was the kind of person for whom helping others brought joy. He couldn’t not have done it; it was part of his vocation, who he was. And so doing certain things for oneself – training the self, as it were, towards virtue and justice and the doing of good things – is critical for the very possibility of actually and really doing good for others. Otherwise, it’s all just a head trip. When the two, “for self” and “for others”, are in right alignment, then both have a chance of really kicking in and moving forward.

I think that it’s a similar situation with doing good things for Christ’s sake instead of some other reason, only this one goes to a deeper and less obvious level. Doing something good for another is a fine thing, and that’s that. There’s certainly nothing wrong in it. The people that stand out – perhaps the Saints, one might say – are those for whom such actions are not only natural, as was the case for Dr. Schweitzer, but also those who are clearly tapping into a deeper, less obvious reality. They’re about “more” than simple humanitarian aid, and they don’t care who knows it, or who doesn't know it. It's part of an internal equation, not an external one. They don’t pay much attention to how others might react to their deeds of goodness, except perhaps insofar as others might be drawn to Christ. Witness the usual suspects (Saint Francis, Mother Teresa, MLK, JPII, DLS, etc.) and, more importantly, unknown others that have touched our lives, such as my great-aunt in Holland, whom I only knew as a child but who is still remembered for her kindness, her giving nature, her smile, and her uncomplicated and simple holiness, absolutely fitting to who she was. We all know such people, and they’ve burrowed into our souls. They’ve shown what “for Christ’s sake” really means for them, and by their very lives they invite us to consider what we might discover/reach for ourselves if we pay attention. Take the chance to start paying serious attention to Scripture readings in church and things will start bubbling all over. No wonder Annie Dillard recommended that Christian churches install seat belts in the pews.

John Main in Silence and Stillness in Every Season writes: “In our modern world we easily forget that we have a divine origin, a divine source, and that this unifying incandescent energy of our own spirit emanates from the Spirit of God.” The Kingdom of God is within you.

One last story; I can’t resist. For the Easter play at a kindergarten, all the costumes had been passed out (soldiers, disciples, crowd, etc.) and one little boy who wanted to be soldier had no costume at all. The clever teacher said: “I know, Johnny. You can be the boulder in front of the tomb. You stand in front of the tomb, and when Easter morning comes, you rooooll out of the way.” After practicing this for several days, the day of the play came and suddenly a soldier’s costume became available. The teacher hurried to Johnny and told him that he could now play a soldier. But Johnny said that he didn’t want to play a soldier anymore. He liked being the rock in front of the tomb. When the teacher asked him why, Johnny said, “Because it feels so good to let Jesus out.”

That’s the Holy Spirit for you. And that’s the point.

Thoughts on Newman & Conscience

2010-11-28T08:10:00.005-08:00

With the recent beatification of John Henry Newman in England, I've been reading a number of articles that highlight his writings and thoughts. These articles, unsurprisingly, have been most predominant in an English Catholic publication called The Tablet, which I personally find to be the best Catholic weekly published in English.

The part of Newman's thought that is probably most relevant today has to do with this strange piece in our makeup called our conscience; "...a certain commanding dictate, not a mere sentiment, not a mere opinion, or impression or view of things, but a law, an authoritative voice, bidding him do certain things and avoid others ... I am insisting ... that it commands, that it praises, it blames, it promises, it threatens, it implies a future, and it witnesses the unseen." Pretty well put, I should think. He says that conscience is a person's own best self. Someone "has no power over it, or only with extreme difficulty; he did not make it, he cannot destroy it."

Vatican II and subsequent church documents likewise say that the conscience is a person's "most secret core and sanctuary ... There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths". (Try to see beyond the "he" and "him" parts of these quotations.)

One might easily mistake this notion of personalism (the firm bedrock of a person's faith on that conscience-bound, intimate relationship with God) with the notion of individualism (the more arbitrary principle that a person should be free to decide whatever he/she wishes). The current pope, in a talk before he became pope, wrote: "Precisely because Newman interpreted the existence of the human being from conscience, that is, from the relationship between God and the soul, was it clear that this personalism is not individualism, and that being bound by conscience does not mean being free to make random choices - the exact opposite is the case."

So conscience is that which drives us to be bound to the truth that lies inside, outside, and around us; the truth that really should shape the substance of who we are. As William O'Malley, SJ, said in a workshop to our religion teachers many years ago, "I try to teach my students that the tree comes to me. I don't tell the tree what it is. I let it tell me what it is." And when you think about it, that's the case also for most everything else. But there's that little thing called the ego that sort of gets in the way.

So perhaps it makes good sense that the Founder advised his Brothers not to get too involved in the religious controversies of the day, but rather to know what the church was teaching and to follow that. This may not be popular in contemporary culture, but I now see it as a pretty good bet, all things considered. Today we would say that he urged them to have an "informed conscience", based on the accumulated insight and experience of the church and the Holy Spirit active within it.

Now I know that in recent times the church hasn't enjoyed much positive press, but in a sense it was ever thus. God knows (literally) how the church as an organization has survived longer than any other human institution in history. That's got to say something, along with the fact that there is no army or police force or similar "worldly" means for exerting its authority, although other dynamics are in play. But that's another topic for another day.

All I know right now is that if conscience is as key to human integrity as others say, then it's pretty clear that one should pay attention to its care and feeding. Reading, reflection, prayer, relationships, and the like all play a part, if we want our best selves to take the lead. Real life takes work, especially the life of the soul.

We have to water that tree. (I took the above picture yesterday, as I was walking. Now I know why.)

Starting Over (Again)

2010-11-24T06:15:00.004-08:00

One way of knowing if you should go back to doing something that takes some effort and that you stopped doing is that it keeps popping back into your mind, not as something that you're glad you stopped doing, but rather as something that you probably should still be doing. It's apparently a manifestation of our human condition, whereby the drive to virtue, or duty, or the pursuit of what's good and worthwhile when it comes to your talents and interests, even if time-consuming and hard to maintain, edges us forward in almost indiscernable ways until a tipping point is reached and we go "Okay already!"

Today is one of those tipping point days. It's been too long since my last confession.... uhhh, I mean entry.

There are lots of things that I would like to think about and think through when it comes to the world of Lasallian life, and this is as good a place as any to do so. The fact that such thinking and reflection is done in a public forum is not done to feed the ego (at least that's my hope and perhaps personal deception) but rather to keep my reflections focused to some extent. It's a bit more daunting to write in a blog than it is to write in a personal journal. You have to keep your grammar in check, at the very least, and you have to be somewhat circumspect because what you write will have a long live in cyberspace.

The other thing encouraging this re-adventure is the fact that, few as they are, several former readers have urged me to do so. So I guess that it's a part of what my ministry should include, insofar as I've always admired De La Salle's openness to doing those things that others asked him to do.

I won't commit to daily or weekly entries; just as they occur along the journey.

Thought for today: In my class with the novices yesterday on the life of the Founder, I was once again struck by his style of leadership among the motley crew that he'd gathered around himself. His leadership was based on kindness, on listening a lot, on communicating candidly but gently, and on a whole bunch of prayer. He didn't look for leadership, but others readily bestowed it on him. I think this was primarily because they knew that they would be safe within his arms, as it were.

Sounds like some of the psalms, doesn't it?

What "Vocation" Is All About

2010-01-29T06:50:00.010-08:00

Among the majority of folks, especially older Catholics, the word "vocation" conjures up either a blank stare or some vestige of notions revolving around nuns in highly-starched habits and priests delivering a homily, complete with stories and smiles. In popular parlance, the word was associated with a decidedly religious, and hence curiously off-putting, way of life. To "have" a vocation meant becoming a religious or a priest, and that's it. Life gone. Fun gone. "Yes, that word" gone. You might as well have moved to Mars, as far as most people were concerned. It was that mysterious and different and strange.

Unfortunately, not much was done to disabuse folks of that notion, at least as far as I can tell. These "vocation" people were generally held up as special, dedicated, and generous folks who did something that, yes, was mysterious and different and strange, but also seemed quite a bit adventurous, novel, and even exciting in some odd way. So in the balance of things, a "vocation" was generally admired among Catholics and some others. It was something that just didn't apply to run-of-the-mill people.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The Church speaks about four vocations in life - four ways of life that invite you into a deeper relationship with God through Jesus Christ and those around you. These are, in no particular order, the priesthood, marriage, the single life, and religious life. Each is an authentic vocation in the Church, and there are saints in each category to prove it. (So there!)

On the other extreme, the word in popular parlance has taken on a more pedestrian notion that's associated with simplicity, utility, and the practical arts. We hear about vocation training, vocational schools, and vocation therapy. Here the word is associated with fixing cars, becoming an electrician or plumber, and doing whatever training is necessary for someone to get a good job.

Wouldn't be nice if those two notions could meet in the middle, which is probably where the real meaning of the word belongs? A vocation involves both an adventure or mystery and an ability to do all the practical work necessary to make it a reality. There's a deep and strange aspect to it, and there's a very real training that's necessary for it be a "good job."

Indeed, those who have thought and written about the notion of "vocation" have come up with some fine definitions. The most popular is the one by Fred Beuchner, who writes that a vocation is "where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." My personal favorite is the one by Albert Schweitzer - no slouch when it comes to the vocation area - who calls a vocation "a duty undertaken with sober enthusiasm." You may recall that he put his vocation on steroids, becoming both a brilliant organist, Bach scholar, biblical scholar, minister, physician, and finally missionary in Africa. One book says that vocation is not just holding on. The commitment holds you. "You can't not do the work." Schweitzer did that several times over. If he'd been a Catholic, he'd probably be a saint (which he no doubt was anyway).

At a recent retreat that we held at our camp at the Russian River for 11 young women from our various high schools (we hold one for young men in the Fall) on the topic of discerning one's vocation in life, each person was asked to come up with his/her own definition. After thinking about it, my definition for vocation was this: "That which draws out your best and feeds your joy." It's something akin to the one given by a religious sister to a group of students to whom we were speaking. She said that you have to find that way of life where you can best love and be loved.

Not a bad set of statements to invite folks to look more deeply into who they are and may become.

But you have to do it to choose it. And others have to see it to be it.

God dwells in the middle of the doing of it, and that's where His presence is found. So when you see something good that needs to be done, it's a vocation invitation. When you feel drawn to a begin something that helps others, that's also a vocation invitation. When despite the drudgery and work, you feel fine doing a certain kind of work, that's a vocation in action. You get the idea.

Each of our lives can be a fine illustration of a vocation in action. Among those who are prime examples of this - without the starched linen outfit but with the singular mystery of a religious vocation - is Mother Teresa. Her invitation to stretch one's vocation applies to us all.

"People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway. If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway. What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

And Mother Teresa's definition of vocation is one of the best:

"Wherever God has put you, that is your vocation. It is not what we do, but how much love we put into it. We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not there, I think the ocean would be less by that missing drop. We don't have to think in numbers. We can only love one person at a time, serve one person at a time."

This is a good place to stop and simply let our vocation be.

Traveling Observations

2010-01-11T06:50:00.009-08:00

When you're traveling, you venture beyond the realm of the familiar, the expected, and the "usual suspects." Without really thinking much about it, the world is now different on a regular basis. It's all rather fascinating, really, which is probably why people generally enjoy traveling - as a condiment in life and not its main event.

A Chinese priest I once knew, who was a brilliant translator and scholar but somewhat out of it in other areas of life, gave me a great insight many years ago. Every day, for years on end, he would travel the same route between where he lived and where he taught; that is, until they took his driver's license away because he was such a lousy driver. (Parenthetically, I'd read that insurance companies profiled "bad" drivers according to who they were and what they drove, and since this priest was an Asian religious driving a red, convertible sports car, he hit full marks across the board as the poster-boy for who not to insure.) I asked him once if he didn't get bored on that drive, and he said that he would never be bored. Each time he traveled that same route, he would intentionally find something new to see, notice, or pay attention to. And so each journey became a new little adventure of discovery. Traveling was an opportunity for learning, especially when doing so on a familiar route. I suppose that this was simply his scholarly disposition coming to the fore. Scholars essentially do that, paying close attention to something at once familiar, mysterious, and potentially surprising. Sharing it with others is just the icing on the cake.

Having done a bit of traveling about recently, certain things have grabbed my attention. Here are some of them, in no particular order.

1) It’s funny what people eat. Several times someone would walk by, clutching a bottle of water in one hand and a candy bar or bag of chips in the other. Or in a food line, a person would insist on a diet drink while carrying a tray filled with nothing but junk food. Sort of reminds me of the comic who said that he was on three diets at the same time…. He couldn’t get enough to eat with just one diet.

2) It’s funny how people pray. Rarely do you see a person in public pray over their meal before starting to eat. And if they do so, it’s usually done furtively and with small gestures. If you’re going into a church or temple, then it’s okay to pray. But if it’s a public space, then you have to be pretty committed to do so. Recently, I came out of my hotel room and went to the elevator halfway down the hall in order to take it down to the main lobby. When I turned into the small waiting area, I noticed a man in the far corner of the area on his knees looking for something under the table that stood there against the corner wall. Just as I was going to ask him if he needed help, he raised his body back up so that he was sitting upright on his knees, facing the corner. It was then that I realized that he was Muslim and that he was doing one of his five daily prayers, quietly but semi-publicly, and he was facing Mecca. I don’t know if I could do something like that. The assumption in the U.S. of separation between church and state makes it simply awkward to publicly pursue religious practices or attitudes, even if we proclaim religious liberty. Many years ago, G. K. Chesterton said it well: "Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it."

3) It's funny how people drive. In almost all highway driving situations, the slow lane is the fast lane and vice versa. I’ve tested this theory on a number of occasions and it is almost always perfectly true. It helps to know if there’s a major off-ramp ahead, because then the second lane is better. But in most cases, your best bet for a faster journey is to stick to that slow lane. Similarly, I now classify cars that pull up behind me on a wide highway as either "dolphins" or "donkeys." Those who are dolphins figure out how to pass me and do so rather quickly, and those who are donkeys just tailgate forever, even if both side lanes are wide open, waiting for me to move over so that they can go straight ahead. You can imagine which species I prefer.

4) It's funny how people behave. If you’re friendly towards strangers that you meet, they will be friendly in return 90% of the time. This ranges from those met professionally to the providential encounter with a salesperson, or a waitress, or someone on the street begging for money. People essentially want to be “seen” or recognized. Adding a measure of humanity to the encounter provides the kind of grace and depth that, while perhaps momentary, is nevertheless more significant than either person realizes.

5) It's funny how people change through technology. The cell phone may both deepen and avoid human relationships. Lots of people that I hear speaking on cell phones, especially if they’re talking to a family member, speak with real animation (even quite loudly, as if they’re in another world and they don’t know that anyone else can hear them). Their personality shines out in all its splendor. But as soon as that cell phone conversation ends, the mask is on and Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde. Even if you were to try to have a friendly conversation with them, it’s as if the need for it or the talent for it are no longer as necessary as they might have been before cell phones. Now an intimate conversation is only a phone call away, and even as that genuine self-revelation is publicly on display, the talent to do also distances itself further and further from here-and-now opportunities to meet someone new. It’s much more quiet in airport lounges than it used to be, except for the cell phone conversations.

Everyone has his/her own stories and observations about what’s going on around them. These are just a couple of things that have struck me. I don’t quite know what to do about them, but it seems good that at least I’m paying attention, or trying to.

What Christmas Evokes

2009-12-26T09:56:00.007-08:00

It's appropriate today to share words I've read about Christmas that evoke a deeper appreciation of Christ and the Incarnation. On another level, the etching above by my cousin in Holland, Ad Arma, similarly stirs my sensibilities. It says "Incarnation" to me. Click on it to get the full effect.

--------------------

On the day when we remember the Nativity of Christ, the Incarnation of the Son of God, we can see that the beginning of a new time has come, that this world that had gone old because God was, as it were, far away from it - great, awe-inspiring but distant, had come to an end. GOD IS IN OUR MIDST: this is the meaning of the word ‘Emmanuel’; God with us - and the world is no longer the same. We live in a world into which God has come, in which He is the living power, the inspiration, Life itself, Eternity itself …

Yes, we are waiting for the day when God will come in glory, when all history will be up, when all things will be summed up, when God shall be all in all; but already now God is in our midst; already now we have a vision of what each of us is by vocation and can be by participation. But this is an offer; God gives His love, God gives Himself - not only in the Holy Gifts of Communion, but in all possible ways He is ready to enter into our lives, to fill our hearts, to be enthroned in our minds, to be the will of our will, but to do that, to allow Him to do that we must give ourselves to Him, we must respond to love by love, to faith - the faith which God has in us - by faith that is trust and faithfulness to Him. And then - then, we, each of us singly and all of us in our togetherness, will become God's Kingdom come with power, the beginning of the fullness of time, the beginning of the glorious victory!

Isn't that something which is worth struggling for? Isn't it worth turning away from everything that separates us from our own integrity, from one another, from God, and allow ourselves to become new creatures?

Let us now, now that the beginning has come, and in a way the end is already in our midst, let us do it: overcome all that is unworthy of ourselves and allow God victoriously to transfigure our lives!

Glory be to God for His love! Glory be to God for the faith He has in us,
and for the hope He has put into us! Amen!

(Anthony Bloom)

Finally, for those who would like to see a copy of my Christmas newsletter, just click here. (Link will be "live" for about a month.)

Some Advent - Christmas Thoughts

2009-12-21T13:01:00.003-08:00

Yes, it's a busy time, and we should know better.

Below is a little something that I wrote years ago. It still seems relevant.

Let Advent seek, let mists descend,
Let all creation stare;
Let humble eyes a sight behold
That stirs a soul laid bare.

While shoppers run and sales abound,
While children's eyes are wide;
While money flows and gifts are wrapped,
Let stand the greedy tide.

Take care to keep from letting go,
From turning with the rest.
Take time to wait and time to know
The better from the best.

Look back and see through fog and veil
The site of love's release;
A land, a star, a shepherd's cave,
A blessed place of peace.

Here dust and dirt lay all about;
The hay is old and spent.
Yet rests the babe, with mother near,
In every way content.

The beasts are still, the light is faint,
The rags are small and worn.
And all can sense with quiet ease
The Savior who is born.

Now does he raise his tiny hand
And smile with simple joy;
Love's gaze in faces all around
Supply his only toy.

No trains, no cars, no fancy games
Are given here this night.
But human comfort, care, and love
Provide God’s true delight.

For shepherd, sheep, and kings alike
'Tis plenty to behold;
This vision of our God enfleshed
In greater good than gold.

Creation's best, and some besides,
Dwells there for all to see.
The simple truths are quite at hand,
Just waiting to go free.

A gift of self, a gift of time,
A love spread out as leaven,
Share in this truth, this mystery lived,
Of earth enjoined with heaven.

If Christ was borne that night to us,
And we as much do say,
Then should we not with eager heart
Bear him in mind today?

For this I know, a simple fact,
Yet charged with certainty:
That what we do with Christ this day
Does change eternity.

The gifts we have, the gifts we share,
Have never been our own.
They have been borne by God for us;
They are the royal throne.

Stand still, dear friend,
and look about,
While stars and night do sing
With brilliant light and mystic sound:
"All glory to the King!"

Thoughts On Being Sick

2009-12-13T13:39:00.007-08:00

With an immune system that's survived countless years of exposure to classroom germs, I thought that by now it would easily fend off the common cold. Not so. Evidence four days of hacking, wheezing, coughing, sleeping, dozing, wandering around the house in search of a banana, drinking any juice within reach, and shuffling along in a bathrobe. Thankfully, I'm on the recovery side of it all, sitting up and taking nourishment as they say. But it does make one pause and appreciate the precarious balances of life.

Years ago, there was a National Geographic video that I'd show my frosh science classes. It was called "The Incredible Ma chine" and dealt with the human body, presented in only the way that National Geographic could present it. In one scene, they show a man's feet pounding down the beach in slow motion, and the narrator says something like this: "With each step we take, we teeter on the edge of catastrophe." That stayed with me, and it's probably true in more areas of our lives than just the physical one.

But it's a physical part of our lives that asks (requires?) the most of our attention and that largely defines many aspects of our identity at any one time. When everything is fine, things are great and we hardly think about the details of how and why we are healthy and feeling well. When things are not fine, the details all of a sudden become very, very important. Everything comes under scrutiny, if not be choice, then by the SOS of pain. For us, the physical seems to become more and more important as we become older. Oddly enough, for most of the saints, the opposite is true. What's that all about?

One of the Brothers described a time when his back was so painful that he couldn't bend over to pick something up from the ground. When he was in a room with other Brothers, he dropped something and immediately another Brother bent down, picked it up, and gave it to him. He blurted out: "How in the heck [this is a clean blog] did you do that?" He wasn't really looking for an answer, but the situation compelled him to ask that question because it was so important in his life at the time. Of course, the other guy just stared at him, smiled, and moved on.

The story of the Brother give substance to the conviction that real life consists of the "stuff" that we encounter on a daily basis, which is also where God's providence dwells. It has to do with our health, our relationships, our problems and challenges, our joys and pleasures, and all the rest of who we are. If Christianity means anything, it means that a profoundly new reality is enmeshed within the thinginess of who and what we are; what theologians would call an incarnational spirituality, and perhaps it's that part which in the saints takes root more and more. The stuff of ourselves and our world is different because of Jesus Christ and the Paschal Mystery, although that's not an obvious thing, either to ourselves or to others. But for those who have been brought by faith and experience into that new reality - or at least to a greater sensitivity to it - it seems to be more obvious all the time. And so we sometimes ask the kinds of questions that make others stare at us, smile, and move on. But perhaps the questions will prod an awareness of those things that deserve attention, just as the Brother who picked up the item and heard the question was led to reflect on the grace of being able to bend over when others couldn't.

It all reminds me of a fine quotation from C.S. Lewis: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains." That last piece about "our pains" to my mind deals more with the fact that important things become so much more clearly defined in difficult times (unfortunately). Witness a movie I watched while I was laid up: Steal a Pencil for Me. It was a real-life story of a love that formed inside of a concentration camp and the horrors of World War II. Or the story in a wonderful but obscure little book called Father Arseny, about a priest who lived in Stalin's Siberian Gulag for many years and survived, even flourished, because of his faith, humility, and charity.

I still must be sick, because I'm rambling. (No comments, please.)

For now, it's enough to know that health is a precarious thing deserving attention. And maybe the great company of saints can still teach us something about how even health can become relative when one taps into the deeper dynamics of God's grace within the human soul.

For now, I'm just happy to be getting better.

2009-12-06T18:35:00.007-08:00

We have been told that innovation is something for the young, and that the old want to keep the status quo. I think that’s hogwash; or rather, it’s something said by those who only see the surface of things. Anyone can see what they want if they only look at the surface of things. Seeing a vast forest from a hill, one person will see a bucolic, peaceful vista of pastoral beauty, while another will see a competitive jungle of natural selection where death is the rule rather than the exception. An argumentative encounter between two people is seen by one as a vicious fight and by another as a robust dialogue…. between Italians. You get the idea. The observation that the old want to keep the status quo while the young are eager for innovation only appears to be a true thing to say. You must look a little deeper.

When you look behind the curtain, you find that the opposite could also be the case. The young tend to want to keep things as they are – in their rooms, in their relationships, in their daily rituals – while the old seek out change and welcome it – in their travels, in their reading, in their daily encounters. Yeah, yeah, I know; both movements happen with both groups. Nevertheless, it's likely that "innovation" is wasted on the young and the status quo is more likely to be a burden on the old. We’re creatures of change, both physically and emotionally and spiritually, and that change manifests itself in similarity within difference or change within continuity. The older we get, the more such sensibilities come to the fore.

Some examples are an appreciation for jazz (same theme, different notes), or classical music (ibid.), foods (How many ways can Starbucks do coffee, anyway?), sports (lots of ways to get that big or little ball where it’s supposed to go), and people (most gossip is finally pretty much the same story told over and over). The older one gets, the more important that mix of sameness and difference becomes, both by observation and engagement. It’s the balance between the two that changes with age. For the young most things are new and so another new thing isn’t a new thing, and for the old most things aren’t new and so another new thing isn’t a new thing either, only different.

So where’s all this going? Only here: All these things are true in a world where people can only see either the surface of things, or see the things that appear beneath the surface of things. Very few people, unfortunately, choose to look much deeper than that, or are forced by circumstances to do so. Those that do, characteristically become more gentle, more forgiving, more quietly insistent, more humble – and they smile more and appreciate things more as well. I think of people like Nelson Mandela (Cf. the new movie about his application of forgiveness ), Mother Teresa and her encounter with untold suffering, St. Therese and her “Little Way”, John Baptist de La Salle and the tenor of his letters and meditations, the early monks in the Egyptian dessert, and so on. These folks tapped into something that lies at the foundation of human life and sensibility; something that is consistent and ever-changing and adaptable; something at least as rich and alive and un-tame as the human person; something profoundly deep and true. They attest to the fact that the most significant, challenging, and rewarding encounter of both innovation and status quo, or both similarity and difference, or both change and continuity, is through the engagement of daily life from that deeper place. I don't pretend to be able to do that well, but all I've seen, read, and done points to the fact that engaging life from that deeper place is a fine adventure that’s ever new and ever old. Balance is simply not a factor.

Without any claim of full understanding, let alone marginal application, here’s one of my favorite quotes, from St. John of the Cross - somone who pitched his tent in that deeper place:

To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.

To come to enjoy what you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.

(Ascent to Mount Carmel, 1:13:11)

Of Thanksgiving and the Examined Life

2009-11-29T20:22:00.007-08:00

This week, I ran into one of those apparently "simple" quotes that comes across as deeply true: "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire." Perhaps you can guess who it's from. (Answer at the end of the entry.)

The statement strikes me especially now at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend. It seems that this weekend all of those "causes" or attributes were brought into play under the banner of "BIG SALE from 5 AM until 11 AM only!" The only thing that might have taken its own holiday was reason, since there wasn't much evidence of its presence from everything that I observed.

First we grow mushy on Thanksgiving Day over all the things we have to be grateful for, vowing that they are all so much more important than money, power, fame, or a big-screen LCD TV that we could get for less than $250 if we just ran down to the store right now. We cook everything in sight, eat what we can and wrap up the rest for long-term storage, and then proceed to really do enjoy one another's company and count our blessings.

Then the next day we get up at 4 AM, trudge out to a mile-long line outside of Target, chat amiably with others in line while consulting our store map and plotting our strategy, and upon the opening of the doors proceed to run hell-bent down aisles as if it were a 100-yard dash just so that we can get that one item that we simply cannot live without - or at least not for the normally higher price. Then, triumphant in the glow of ownership, we walk out to our car, drive back home, and go to bed so as to recuperate from our capitalistic ordeal. Welcome to Black Friday.

So what's an alternative? Well, I'm afraid I'm not even on the same map here. When I read the life story of someone like Fr. Solanus Casey, O.F.M. Cap. (1904-1957), a simple priest in Detroit who inspired thousands by his presence and words, it seems as if that's just a whole other world. Right now, I'm nearing the end of a small book about him, and the contrast of his world-view with the busyness of this weekend couldn't be greater.

Of course, his story isn't unique. There are examples galore of individuals who discovered more in simplicity than a thousand do in riches. These are people such as Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, the lady down the street with all the cats and a really nice smile who goes to church every day, and loads of untold individuals who long ago decided that once you look a little more deeply you find simple riches that have nothing to do with what you have, what you buy, what you do, or what floats your boat. (Jesus, of course, is a prime example of this as well.) And there's probably not a lot of reason at work in that world either. But it's clearly a universe away from the "popular" one that's exemplified by Black Friday.

And we still need grace to get from one to the other. That's still pretty obvious to me at least. Hence we pray... probably not enough.

By the way, the quotation in the beginning was from Aristotle. But before you start thinking that I just carry Aristotelian quotations around with me, know that I found it on the back of a GoodEarth teabag tag. I guess I should be glad that we bought that tea.... on sale.

Wasn't Aristotle also the guy who said: "The unexamined life is not worth living"? I think that most Americans would be uncomfortable with that sentiment. Why would we want to waste our time examining our own lives? There are things to buy, schedules to keep, goals to fulfill, people to impress. It's the way things are done, either by chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, or desire.

Somehow I think that we may be looking down the wrong end of that particular telescope.

Death of organist, composer, and friend Paul Manz

2009-11-18T04:30:00.008-08:00

Along life’s little journey, we are sometimes privileged to encounter certain individuals who simply and deeply touch something at the core of who we are. I have to say that Paul Manz was one of those individuals, and I would hasten to add that his wife, Ruth, is part of that package. She was like the texture of sound that supports and enhances a fine melody. I just found out that Paul died on October 28th at the age of ninety. Ruth passed away only last year, after 65 years of marriage. Having known both of them, although briefly, many years ago, I can see him being quite ready in every way to move on to her, and God’s, everlasting embrace.

Dr. Manz was a Lutheran organist and composer of extraordinary skill and depth. His compositions, hymn improvisations, and performances at hymn festivals – a genre that he practically created himself – have been, and continue to be, a testimonial to the wonder of God’s grace alive in our midst.

I’d first contacted him some 25 – 30 years ago, after I’d heard a record (you know, those round black things with lines and bumps on them) of his hymn improvisations and had let him know by letter how well he had captured the words of each verse of "Were You There" with his musical interpretation. His playing was a musical sermon for the words. Subsequently, I attended a week-long organ workshop that he conducted at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo. (I was the only Catholic there, as it turned out.) After having gotten to know both of them there, I’d invited them to spend a couple of days at Mont La Salle in Napa, which they did.

Once with us in Napa, they took some time for relaxation and visiting the area. He also played the recessional hymn at our Sunday Mass (the good Lutheran hymn, O God Our Help in Ages Past, of course) followed by a rousing postlude. But what stood out for me was his calm, giving presence, and the fact that as he met my mother, who’d come for the Mass, he began speaking with her in Dutch. Having spent years in Belgium, studying with Flor Peeters, he knew Dutch quite well, much to my surprise.

Later on, he composed a setting of our Institute hymn “Honneur a Toi” and dedicated it to me, which was totally unexpected. For years, I would send to their home in Minnesota a bottle of the Zinfandel Port that had been specially made for Br. Timothy’s anniversary as a Brother. It was something that he had enjoyed when they were in Napa. And like a fine wine, the “aftertaste” of their visit and our occasional letters lingered on long after the fact.

His best known composition, no doubt, is “E’en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come” (Hear it here at YouTube). It was played and sung at his funeral in Minneapolis on November 8th. The words were written by Ruth when their young three-year-old son lay at death’s door (he survived), and Paul put the words to music. If ever the profound depths of faith were put to music by parents of a sick child, this would be one instance. The story of how it all happened is in the NPR interview posted here. The words of the hymn are these:

Peace be to you and grace from Him / Who freed us from our sin / Who loved us all, and shed his blood / That we might saved be. /// Sing holy, holy to our Lord / The Lord almighty God / Who was and is, and is to come / Sing holy, holy Lord. /// Rejoice in heaven, all ye that dwell therein / Rejoice on earth, ye saints below / For Christ is coming, Is coming soon / For Christ is coming soon. /// E'en so Lord Jesus quickly come / And night shall be no more / They need no light, no lamp, nor sun / For Christ will be their All!

His passion was the human voice in unity, as a choir or as a congregation, and his organ playing would build up, tone down, and weave all around the singers like a wind lifting a series of leaves in a wonderful cascade of sound and motion.

A fitting epitaph was spoken by Paul himself: "It's all about grace...thank you for the grace of singing with me across the years in good times and in bad, when our words have stuck in our throats and when our eyes have overflowed with joy. It has ever been a Song of Grace: "Love to the loveless shown that we might lovely be."

Note: There is a terrific Pipedreams program on Paul available online, where he plays his music and talks about his life, faith, and compositions. Click here to go to it.

Called & Chosen Retreat 2009

2009-11-11T19:41:00.007-08:00

This last weekend, we held the first "Called & Chosen" vocation discernment retreat for this school year at our camp at the Russian River. This one was for young men; the one for young women from our schools is held next January. The location is one that has been a recreation spot for the Brothers of the District since the 1920's. Within the last ten years or so, the place has increasingly been made available for various retreat occasions or meetings. It's just the right location for those who want to get away for awhile and sort of rough it (no private bathroom or showers, but hot water and all the other comforts of home). And there is a terrific view of the river.

This year we had 13 young men from five of our high schools join us for the retreat, along with four Brothers, four other adult leaders, a Dominican priest and good friend of the Brothers, and a third-grader (son of one of the adult leaders). The retreat was organized and led by Ms. Marilyn Paquette, with whom I work in vocation ministry. She is the retreat pro, both in preparation and execution, and is a fine resource and participant for something like this.

Although we only spend about 48 hours together, the activities and input is such that by the end of that time, these young men have seriously looked at their faith journey up to this point, listened to others speak about their vocational journeys (a married couple, a single person, a priest, and several religious), discussed and asked questions in large and small groups, spent several sessions in guided meditation, prayer and Mass, enjoyed recreational time together, cooked and cleaned up, visited the ocean nearby, and the like, gradually coming to a better understanding of the direction of their lives.

Like most retreats, times like this are opportunities to focus on specific aspects of our lives... and intentionally so. We seem to spend so much time doing other things - all those necessary things, you know - that when we do take time to "step aside" for a while, all sorts of internal dynamics can kick in with a minimum of effort, as if they had been waiting in the wings all the time, hopping from one foot to the next in anxious anticipation of getting center stage. Retreats are a time when the really important stuff can get to center stage. Most of the time those of us who organize or "lead" such retreats just set up the structure, guide a bit of the process, and get out of the way. And so it was on this retreat.

Along the way, we find out that there's a lot more to other people (and to ourselves) than first meets the eye. Yes, we already thought so. But unless you experience it every once in a while, the conviction can begin to fade away. And we discover that within the nooks and crannies of our experience, something good and graced and helpful is more present than we realize, bringing us to know ourselves more deeply and guiding us in imperceptible, quiet ways.

It's good to pay attention to that sort of thing occasionaly. It was good to help others do so as well. The results of our efforts, both in respect to ourselves and in respect to others, we will not, we should not, and we can not know. But it's enough to know that it all makes a difference.

Good Music for Mass

2009-11-04T06:48:00.003-08:00

As some may know, I have an abiding interest in liturgical music. And like most folks with such an interest, this means that I have clear preferences. (Check out the last post to see the irony in that.) Or perhaps I should say that my best judgment about what would likely enhance prayerfulness in a worshipping community runs along definite lines.

In any case, I've noticed with interest that the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM) is sponsoring a contest for musical settings of the new English translation of the Mass, which will soon be published in the new Roman Missal. (Those blue links will take you to the websites with the details.) By next July interested composers may submit new settings for all of the major parts of the Mass that can be sung, and the attendees at the NPM convention in July 2010 will vote for the winner.

Clearly a side benefit of this project is that both publishers and the church will be good to go on the music end of things when the new Roman Missal is fully approved and implemented. For composers, even the self-proclaimed ones, it's an opportunity to take on a project that would be good practice, if nothing else. For publishers, it's a chance to "graze the field" for their missalette resources and the like without putting up a lot of fuss or funds.

My view, as if anyone asked, is that proven composers should be commissioned to write new Mass settings. In fact, wealthy Catholics might be approached to underwrite such a venture. However, the commissions should be specified in such a way that the resulting Mass settings may be sung both a capella (without any accompaniment), or with one or more easily sung harmonic lines, or with full choir, organ and accompaniment. In other words, the music should be layered onto a fine melodic line - such as many of the Latin chants were composed in the past. One of the problems with current Mass settings is that when you sing them a capella, you sort of have to imagine the accompaniment in your head just in order to make any sense of them.

I've got some folks in mind for the job; people such as Morten Lauridsen of UCLA. If you haven't heard his stuff yet, go online and listen to excerpts of his music. A fine example is this CD: Lux Aeterna. And near the beginning of this blog entry is a video clip of one of his compositions. When I was in LA last week, and visited the USC Catholic Center about vocation programs and resources, I also found out that the music department was just around the corner. So I wandered around the office buildings until I found Lauridsen's office. Hearing music through the door, I knocked and found myself face-to-face with the composer, who gave me a friendly "Hi" through a half-opened door. I immediately noticed that he was tutoring a student, probably about the music that was loudly playing on his speakers, and so I quickly mumbled some excuse and left. However, later that day I emailed him, describing myself in the subject line as "The guy who showed up at your office this morning", told him a little about myself and my experience with liturgical music and invited him to take part in the contest. He was very gracious and wrote back that he would take a look at the websites I'd included, but he was also full of commissions already, etc. So it was a fairly harmless venture on my part, but it was finally without probable results.

Nevertheless, I think that it was worth making the gesture. Perhaps my work in vocation ministry makes me much more willing to "make a pitch" in all sorts of different circumstances, knowing that even without an immediate positive response, such an invitation or gesture or effort or acted-upon intention may be of some unknown benefit down the line.

There's a Christian principle involved here. Had Jesus been a "realistic" guy, he should have seen that his speaking venues, his choice of followers, and his recruiting methods (not to mention his succession plans) were all questionable at best. Yet he planted many small but potent seeds - in the things he said, the things he did, the people he met, and the example he gave - the fruits of which are still being harvested and in fact continue to grow. Would that only one of our small seeds were to become as bountiful. And that is why, even today, we hope and pray and work, planting small seeds of kindness, making small gestures of appreciation, sharing small invitations with those we hardly know. It's the solid example of Christians (and saints) throughout history. Not a bad lot, that group, even if they would never make the cover of People or Inc magazine.

As Archbishop Oscar Romero famously said: "We are prophets of a future not our own."

Sidenote: This blog will generally be published two or three times a week. Doing so every day is a bit much..... for everyone concerned. That way I can do other writing on the "non-blog" days, still faithful to my resolution to do some writing every day.

The Power of Preferences

2009-11-03T06:20:00.004-08:00

For reasons that I cannot fathom, early this morning I awoke with a thought or insight that I believed was really important. And then it proceeded to flitter away and hover just outside the realm of comprehension, teasingly close yet maddeningly far away.

The thing had to do with the choices that we make on a regular basis. All of those small choices and decisions that we make every day - and their number is probably over a thousand - emerge through a set of preferences that are often unexamined. They're simply accepted and perhaps even relished. But the interesting thing, to me at least, is that these "preferences" are probably not the ones that we think we have. This is not to join those who say that our "animal" or "primal" or "Darwinian" natures are really in charge, whatever all that is supposed to mean in popular culture, but rather to recognize that we often act out of motivations, attitudes, and perspectives that are not only silly, when seen independently, but more importantly are hardly ever subject to direct scrutiny. They're generally unexamined, and like unruly children have the run of the house.

Of course it was Socrates who said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Maybe he knew what he was talking about. But who sits down and says: "I think I'll examine my preferences now, right after I organize my sock drawer."? Taking a deep and serious look at our inner life is just not part of my regular routine. Well, generally it's not. Actually, there is a human activity that's specifically geared to do just that, to look directly and regularly at our preferences and attitudes and motivations. A whole bunch of folks have been recommending this human activity for centuries. In fact, when such quiet intentional examination is done within a specific social context and follows a prescribed structural pattern of attention, the results are said to be quite dramatic. Guessed what it is yet? Starts with a "p" and ends with an "r", and I'm talking about the interior kind; not the public kind. Our Founder, De La Salle, became quite good at it and wrote lovingly about the experience.

Those who come to embrace the deeper dynamics of the apparent preference jungle, by means of the discipline of interior p....r, come to describe their life experience with words like "acceptance", "following Providence", and "self-abnegation". It's as if they've come to know that preferences just get in the way. Many years ago, I'd read a short phrase from a 4th century Buddhist text, and it's always stayed with me: "All things are possible for the one who has no preferences."

I don't know why that quotation captured me then and holds me still. But I think I know where it's drawing me toward.

At least I prefer to think so.

Time to start again

2009-11-02T06:44:00.003-08:00

Sometimes you just have to start something in order to move ahead. Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking of doing more writing, and I've decided that the best way get into the habit of doing so is simply to take advantage of having this blog. Even if nobody really reads the thing, it will at least be something that will structure a discipline of intended activity on my part.

Some time ago, I'd read about an organizational method called GTD (Getting Things Done) by David Allen. For what it tries to do, the method is fairly good and I currently use a number of his suggestions. One of the major "rules" is to figure out, for every and any goal that you have, one specific question: "What's the next step?" What's the next physical or practical thing to do in order to move the thing forward? Well, for me and on this topic, the thing to do is simply to start spending a half hour a day writing something on the blog.

Another story I'd heard is also a motivator for me. The prolific novelist James Michener, it is told, wanted to be a writer from a very young age. When he was in high school, his father told him to get a job for the summer. But James argued that he'd wanted to be a writer and go to a class about writing, or some similar activity in pursuit of his interest. His father said: "Okay. If you want to be a writer, I'll help you out. I'll hire you as a writer, but only on the the condition that each day you write 10,000 words. I don't care if it's the same word, or jibberish, or whatever. But it must be 10,000 words each day. If you can do that for the summer, I'll pay you the minimum wage per hour for your work." James agreed to do so and brought out his typewriter. For the first week, he wrote whatever came into his mind, without thought or grammar or sense. By the second week, he'd become bored with all that and he began writing things that made sense. And, he said, by the end of the summer, he was pretty well on his way to being a writer. Nice story.

I don't pretend to be anywhere near writers like Michener, but the principle stuck with me. If you want to do something, you just have to start the damn thing and see where it leads. For me, this is what I'm drawn to do right now - even in the midst of many, many other things that demand my attention - and so I'll make the time to take the time, and we'll see where it leads.

Day Fifteen - The Last Day

2009-07-26T14:02:00.015-07:00

This was the last day in Paris and the last day of this phase of our Footsteps projects. It's amazing how fast the time has flown by, both because of the intensity of events that were concentrated into the time available and because of the dynamic of the individuals involved. We were constantly on the go and on the job, and uniformly we were focused on the job to be done.

The first thing to do, at 8:30 AM, was to film a segment that had been interrupted repeatedly by cars and motorcycles and the like rushing by, without any chance to get even 30 seconds of relative silence. This was the clip that we filmed a couple of blocks away from the Maison de La Salle, where there was both a small statue of DLS in a niche in the corner of a building built by an order of Sisters, and near where the main house for the Brothers in Paris was in the 17th and 18th century. It was from that house that the letter to DLS was sent, asking / ordering him to return from the south of France and again take up the "holy work" of leading the Brothers.

We reached the spot during a wonderfully quiet time period, with few people walking about and only the occasional car. After setting up the camera and working out the lighting possibilities, we did a few takes. But since it was early morning, things weren't jelling yet, and so we did a few more takes. By now, people were beginning to wander by, crossing the street in front of us as they looked over. One man had obviously spent the night imbibing and hadn't yet slept, judging by the way he swayed across our screen, looking over with frank curiosity. Another take. Then we would do well but at the end some car would come screaming down the street, breaking up the quiet we had just experienced. I was beginning to despair that we'd never get a good take when all of sudden everything came together and at the end we all said: "That's it!"

From there, we walked to the Barre Sisters place - another couple of blocks away - in order to film the front door for a later voice-over possibility, since (as Gerard told us) these Sisters had been closely involved with us both in the beginning and later in our history, when, for example, they joined us in going to Malaysia to teach there. When we got to the place, we tried the door and spent a while trying to convince the lady overseeing the entrance to let us film inside. But it was no good. She didn't quite trust us, I think, and we hadn't received previous permission, so we had to be satisfied with some footage of the front of the door, and a peek inside when a work van entered the place.

On our way back to the Maison, Gerard and I stopped into the Vincentian church just down the street where the body of St. Vincent de Paul was displayed, under glass and well-lighted, above the main altar. It's probably one of the main reasons why I would never want to be a saint (or a recognized one anyway). You end up having your bones and body parts scattered hither and yon for veneration, and you have the rest of you folded into a wax effigy that lies under glass and plastic flowers until the second coming. Not that for me. I'd rather wish for the burial that the Cistercians have, with their monks buried the day after they died in their habit and wrapped in a simply sheet. That's what the "ashes to ashes" is supposed to be about, I should think. Anyway, Vincent lookied quite the saint up there above the altar, and the church was pretty impressive by itself.

We returned to the Maison and after a break took off for Notre Dame and the 10:00 AM Mass there. Scott would join us later, after Mass, for some sightseeing. When we got to Notre Dame, we found the place pretty full already, but the Mass parts were in Latin so some folks were able to join in. During the Mass, hundreds of tourists would idly walk down the side naves, looking around and taking pictures. It gave a surrealistic sense to the whole thing, with devout things happening in the center nave and simple curious observation happening along the perimeter. But perhaps that's the state of the church in any case. At the end of Mass, I'd looked forward to a good organ postlude, but all the organist seemed to want to do was to place his fore arm on the several keyboards at once, at the loudest setting, and make suggestive noisy gestures. I'm sorry to say that I eagerly left Notre Dame in order to avoid listening to more of the organ than I had to. God knows why organists think that they're being clever when they play something that's more of a nuisance than a creation.

Scott eventually found us on the square and we proceeded with our quickie tour of Paris. He had never been to Paris, and it had been awhile since the rest of us had seen the sights. We took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower and watched hordes of tourists stand in line to buy tickets, after which they would stand in long lines to get into the elevators that would take them to the first level of the tower. The upper level was closed because of the Tour de France. It was clear that we wouldn't be going up on those elevators, and nobody had a real hankering to do so anyway. So we contented ourselves by simply walking around and taking photographs here and there.

On our way out, Roch suggested we take the Seine water tour as a good way to see some of the major sights. Upon general agreement, we got our tickets and got onto a boat that would stop at major sites along the way. It was a get-on and get-off sort of thing, whereby you could get off when you wanted and get onto another boat that would be along within 15 minutes. After a couple of stops, we wanted to have some lunch, so we got off at the Latin Quarter and found a small restaurant for a fine little lunch. We'd had to cross the road right next to the Seine - a road that had metal barriers on each side but which could be easily breached by people crossing the road.

When we'd finished lunch, we found Gendarmerie (police-types) filling the road and we could no longer cross to get back to the Seine and our tour boat. The only option was to take the Metro under the Seine and then to walk back over. So we joined several thousand other people who needed to cross in lining up at the Metro, getting onto a jam-packed train, and getting off at the very next stop. The Tour de France riders were still hours away, but there was no way that the police would let anyone cross those barriers. Some thirty minutes later, we had made our way back to the river on the other side and rejoined our boat tour.

About 80% through the tour, at one of the stops, there was bright yellow display area that advertised the "Live Strong" program of Lance Armstrong. I wanted to get off and pick up whatever trinkets might be there for some cyclist friends of mine, so I left the others to briefly run up there and see what was what. Of course, when I returned some two minutes later, the boat was in the process of leaving the dock for its next stop. O, well, these things happen. The others went on and would make their way back to the Maison and I would somehow do the same. I did pick up two boxes of yellow chalk markers which that "Live Strong" site was distributing, inviting kids to write messages on the ground within a demarcated area, which many of them did. I just looked for a Metro stop nearby.

I walked a good way and ran into the staging area for the "parade" that accompanied the Tour as it reached Paris. These were the sponsors who had the privilege (?) of driving all sorts of funnily adorned vehicles advertising their products ahead of the bicycle riders. By now they had arrived and were busily throwing to the crowds all sorts of advertising trinkets, most of which were not quite worth the effort of reaching out for them. But the folks gathered there were reaching for them and jumping up to catch them as if they were 10 Euro bills. All fun to watch, of course.

By now, I'd found out that the riders would reach the Champs-Elysees nearby within about 40 minutes. Well, this was not to be missed of course. How often do you happen to be in Paris at the end of the Tour de France and have the opportunity to watch the riders ride down the Champs-Elysees as they end their arduous racing journey? I walked to that wide boulevard - remembered from Bastille Day - and after some searching found a spot near one of the wider plazas that reach into it. There, the crowds were only 3-5 people deep. I planted myself there, took out my umbrellas to protect myself from the sun - to the gratitude of an elderly French couple in front of me - and proceeded to listen to rapid-fire French announcers booming loudly from the speakers that lined the boulevard.

Some forty minutes later, a stir went through the crowd, cars with all sorts of logos rushed down the boulevard as if on the way to a fire, important people in colorful suits on motorcycles did the same, and word was passed the the leaders were about to reach the boulevard. I'd prepared my little camera to take some film footage of the experience and aimed it down the road. Now came more cars, more motorcycles, more important people doing who-knows-what as part of the race. It seemed as if this was a race of cars and motorcycles instead of cyclists. Finally, behind a phalanx of cars and motorcycles with cameramen riding backwards on the rear seats, came the first peloton. They were indeed going fast, and it was all I could do to keep the camera pointed at that first group, and then at the riders behind them. The riders were obediently followed by the support vehicles, each painted in some garish color and carrying the 8 - 10 extra bicycles on their roofs.

The riders went to the end of the boulevard, rounded the corner, and then came back down again for one of their 7(?) circuits that marks the end of the Tour de France. I only stayed for one. The short 5-minute video I shot has been uploaded to YouTube and you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhA0zic9EQI

After the racers had passed by, I knew that the others from my group wanted me back at the Maison in order to pack, and I also knew that the Metro would soon be packed. So I made my way to the nearest Metro station, figured out which way I needed to go, and left for home. About halfway there, I looked at the names of the stations we were passing and realized that I was going in the wrong direction. Yikes! So I got off at the next station and figured out how to get to the opposite side in order to go in the "right" direction. It took a while, but I finally got to the familiar Duroc station and the Rue de Sevres that we'd returned to again and again over the last two weeks. It was all quite familiar and comforting to me now.

We packed our bags and spent a good hour or so packing the van in preparation for our early departure tomorrow morning. Our flight is at 7:00 AM, Gerard's is at 7:30 AM and Scott's is at 10:30 AM, so we needed to leave here at 4:00 AM - no time to pack early in the morning. With the seats returned to the van, there was precious little room, and we'd already had to make arrangements to send some of our equipment back via DHS or Fedex. There was simply no way that we could do so individually. The things we would keep, however.

This evening, we walked down the street a ways and found a very nice restaurant on the corner of Rue de Vaugirard and Boulevard de Montparnasse. I think our dinner on the Rue de Vaugirard was significantly better than that which the Brothers at Vaugirard in the 17th century had. However, we enjoyed our final French meal without guilt, at the end of a very busy two weeks, and I think that we were as relaxed as we'd been within this wonderfully French setting.

This marks the end of this phase of the project and also the end to this installment of the blog. It will resume at some point in the future. But right now I'm taking some "personal days" to regenerate the mind, body, and soul. Later on, Roch and I (and others) will begin to put together the final format for this resource. Suggestions, of course, are welcome. But not yet. I would like to hear, however, about DVD formation formats that others think would "work" well for the kind of thing that we'd like to put together, utilizing both the video clips, maps, written resources, and the like.

If you've followed our journey so far, thanks for coming along. There's more to come.

There's always more to come.

God be blessed

Day Fourteen - Reims and Travel to Paris

2009-07-25T23:12:00.021-07:00

This was our last day in Reims. Now that I'm writing this later in the day in Paris, I'm sorry that I didn't take a photo of my small room in Reims, because I certainly see it in my minds eye. It was sort of like an attic room, with one "wall" angled down under the roof, and a small window jutting out at chest level within a small alcove that held a small table and lamp. Looking out of the window, one could see the inner courtyard below. Besides the small bed and wash basin, there was an ancient, giant clothes cabinet that looked as if it had been made in the 17th century - rough wood, strange non-perpendicular angles at the corners, and rough metal hinges and locking mechanism. Everything was quite comfortable actually.

I again awoke before six, completely refreshed and ready for the day. Some 3o minutes later I was in the house, on the computer, uploading the blog I'd prepared the night before. Joined the Brothers for breakfast and then went off to the cathedral for Mass, while Br. Gerard and Roch and Scott did some shooting in the inner courtyard. They wouldn't need me, and I had enough pictures of them filming, so I was content to let them simply work it out for themselves.

The priest at Mass was another new face. The way he celebrated Mass was with gravitas - including singing, a homily, and long pauses between parts of the liturgy. I thought that he would have been a good candidate for bishop; or at least he was acting as if. After the Mass, I found out that he was the secretary to the Archbishop of Reims. Mystery explained. During the time I was there I reflected on the fact that in this vast, beautiful space, dedicated to the glory of God and the worship opportunities of the people of Reims, we were in a small back chapel - beautiful as it was with the Chagall stained-glass windows - occupying perhaps 2% of the space of the cathedral with about 20 people, while more visitors than that padded by quietly in the background in their tour of the place. Rather poignant and significant, I would say.

Returning to the Hotel De La Salle, the others were ready to take off, and all I had to do was jump in the van and start driving. We drove right away to the cathedral, where I'd already scoped out a good parking place close by. Since it was Saturday, the tour buses were out in force, but the local work force was at rest, so there were plenty of available parking spaces. We took all of our stuff - film equipment, tripods, lighting suitcase, etc. - and traipsed into the cathedral, walking confidently up the side aisle to the side chapel where DLS had said his first Mass and where there was a statue dedicated to him. We didn't need to show our letter of permission from the pastor, since the sacristan(s) seemed to know about us and didn't stop of from proceeding. An elderly Vietnamese sacristan (and apparently a student of the Brothers in Vietnam) came over to make sure that we had everything we needed. It would have been nice to have the lights of the cathedral turned on for our filming, but he explained that the day before there had been a flash flood because of the intense rain, and that all of the electricity in the place, beyond basic lighting, had been shorted out and wouldn't be available for a couple of days. We would have to work with what we had, not an unfamiliar situation.

Roch and Scott went to work, while I took photographs of them and of the various elements of the cathedral. In between times, I went to the gift shop outside in order to get some historical background booklets as references. In the shop, the woman behind the cash register was upset over the fact that she had no change for some customers, including me. When she rung me up, I placed all of my spare change on the counter, and she counted it dilligently. At the end, I was still shor 50 Euro cents, which I didn't have. She kept trying to figure out what to do, counting my coins over and over in the hope, it seems, that they would add up to more than what they were. Finally, I just took my money and said that I would buy it later, leaving her somewhat relieved but now having to face the person behind me who had no change to offer at all.

The filming in the small chapel went well, I think. It was also the chapel where Pope John Paul II came to pray on his visit to France. There's a famous photograph showing him kneeling at prayer at that altar, with the Founder's statue in the background; a photo taken at the direct suggestion of one of the priests of the cathedral who had been taught by the Brothers. It's the rare occurence when De La Salle shows up in an "official" public capacity.

After the side chapel, we moved to a placed right next to the high altar, where his stall as canon, number 21, would likely have been located. From there, you can gaze down the nave at the amazing stained glass windows at the far end, and Gerard talked about what it must have been like for De La Salle to pray there five times a day for over 16 years and see that vista before him each day.

Also at the location, I took the opportunity to ask him some questions, having him answer them extemporaneously - something that I think he's good at. I wasn't disappointed, and we took some fine footage of Gerard speaking about DLS's sense of Providence in his, and our, lives.

After this, we packed up and went in search of the Colleges Des Bons Enfants, the school which De La Salle attended from his early years until his MA degree. It took some driving down small streets and gazing at maps before we finally found the place, right along a busy street and solidly locked up. However, it was still a school after some 350 years, and the outside looked pretty much as it would have in the 17th century, so that was a blessing. We set up on the opposite side of the street and filmed a segment, trying to judge in between the noisy cars and trucks and motorcycles that would speed by.

Another doorway, this time associated with the Sisters founded by Nicholas Roland, who consider De La Salle as one of their co-founders, became the subject of our next quest. It was an important location because it was here that De La Salle and Adrian Nyel first encountered one another. Because of that meeting, De La Salle became involved in helping to establish those first schools and eventually became completely dedication to the education of the poor in Reims and elsewhere. The doorway was located on an especially busy street and it took quite a while to get a couple of good takes that we could edit and use later one. But by now we were used to various kinds of challenges, and an hour later we had what we needed and moved on to St. Remigius, the former Benedictine church where De La Salle would often pray through the night at the tomb of St. Remi, the one for whom the city is named.

This church is impressive for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the building dates back to Roman times and shows signs of architectural styles spanning over a thousand years. It's a building that has a strong, quiet dignity and a very appealing, contemplative atmosphere about it. Gerard said that it was his favority building in Reims, and I can sympathize with that perspective. It's one of those buildings that you can feel very settled and comfortable within, even though it's old and made of stone and somewhat stark and a bit dark. Somehow the whole thing works well. I noticed that people uniformly were quiet and respectful within it, without being asked, unlike other churches where they would have to be reminded to respect the place where they were.

There was one place left to visit, the church of St. Maurice, located nearby and situated right next to a Jesuit school and college that dates from 1619. It was at St. Maurice that the first school was established. De La Salle determined that Fr. Dorigny, the pastor, had the disposition and interest that would guarantee that Adrian Nyel's efforts would not be interfered with by the local authorities. Br. Christian, at the Hotel De La Salle, had arranged for someone to open the church for us so that we could film the statue of De La Salle that was within it. We arrived on time, but we found the church doors closed. After about 15-20 minutes, Br. Gerard found a side door open and we found a French lady inside waiting for us. The statue we discovered at the back of the church was one that none of us had seen before, Rather uniquely, it not only showed students with De La Salle, but it also showed Fr. DOrigny kneeling in respect to him. While this is something that DLS himself would never have tolerated, the statue conveys the respect with which he was held by the clergy of Reims, especially after the work had begun.

By now it was about 2:00 PM, and we returned to the Hotel De La Salle in order to finish up our filming segments there - in the chapel - and to add on an introductory segment from the archives on the bottom floor. Finally, we had completed our scheduled filming in Reims. We settled down a bit, had lunch at a nearby cafe, and then organized ourselves for the trip back to Paris. By 4:00 PM we were on the road, having thanked the Brothers profusely for their great hospitality and welcoming spirit.

The two-hour ride back to Paris seemed quite familiar to me now, except for when we entered into Paris itself, and the GPS took us along a lengthy section of the Seine river before bringing us downtown and the Rue de Sevres. By now, I think that I was driving like a Parisian, rushing down one-lane roads, pedestrians at each side, shifting gears up and down, darting around double-parked cars, old lady's trying to cross the road, and generally behaving rather calmly at what used to get my heart and mind racing a mile a minute. Like everything else, we adapt.

Back at the ranch, we took a rest for about 90 minutes and then met up again for our evening repart, taking the Metro to the Latin Quarter. Here, the evening was just beginning, with restaurants opening, young people and old people milling about, and musicians settling into the corners they would occupy for most of the night. We walked down lots of streets, looking at various restaurants, and finally settled on a fondue place that also had "regular" menu items. Here we stayed for several hours, enjoyed a well-deserved break from our furious pace. Afterwards, we walked a bit more and then made our way to the Metro and home to Duroc station and the maison on Rue de Sevres.

Tomorrow, the idea was to have time to fill in any needed filming that we hadn't done before this. But because of our efficient use of time throughout the week, we will only have one scene to film in the morning. Then we are pretty much done with this portion of the project. Gerard wants to contact some friends and professional acquaintances in the time remaining, and it's likely that Roch, Scott and I will do some sightseeing in the city. By late afternoon, however, we will begin organizing our luggage and the van for the 4:00 AM departure the following morning for the airport. And with the Tour de France finishing tomorrow in Paris, it's likely that our choices for sightseeing will be a bit limited and filled with tourists. But, on the other hand, it's a great opportunity to experience Paris on one of the busiest days of the year. Should be fun.

(Note: Click on small pictures to enlarge them.)

Day Thirteen - Liesse, Laon, and Brouillet

2009-07-24T21:51:00.020-07:00

Waking up in Reims is different than waking up in Paris. Here, there are no outside noises to speak of, even if the windows are open. It's simply a gradually increasing of the light that indicates the beginning of the day. The three rooms above the large meeting room that lies on one side of the inner courtyard were just recently redone, and I think that Roch, Scott, and myself were among the first to use them. They have worked out quite well, with Gerard living in the house itself and the rest of us out here. We're relatively independent and are able to work as much as we like, with ample space below for our equipment.

They're still bringing the internet up to speed within the building, with some connections working and others not yet, so I go to the community office to get online, swapping cables with the community computer and my own laptop. But it all works out. This morning it was the same - work on the conmputer until joining the Brothers for breakfast, after which Yves, Gerard and myself made our way to the cathedral for the 8 AM Mass. Along the way, Yves showed us the canons cloister area, and we stopped to read the historical marker that explained how the cloister was arranged, with separate shops, rooms, and even a jail. Directly next to the cathedral, the outlet led into a large side door to the cathedral that was used exclusively by the canons (On the right, in the picture). Currently, it is completely barred and no one can use it. I presume that they're waiting for the canons to return before opening it up again. Inside, that door leads directly to the choir stalls.

Mass today was said by the pastor of the cathedral parish, and he greeted us as we arrived at the small back chapel where the Mass would be. He had already written out a document giving us permission to film in the cathedral tomorrow; all done through the good graces and influence of Br. Christian, who grew up in Reims and knows the ropes quite well. Mass was as before, short and direct, with only some tourists walking through behind us as they stared at the collumns and stained glass windows.

As soon as we'd returned from Mass, we found Roch and Scott loading the van for our departure. And five minutes later we were off to Liesse. We had determined that the best route was to begin in Liesse and end in Brouillet, where we would again get the key to the small church from the owner of one of the champagne cellars nearby. The trip to Liesse was generally uneventful, driving through a number of small villages, with the roads getting less wide the closer we came to our destination.

At Liesse itself, we were all familiar with the setting, having been here before. Roch and Scott set up the scene in the side chapel dedicated to De La Salle. They fuss mightily with all the lights and the exposure and the 1001 details that are involved in setting up a shoot. Gerard patiently endures their futsing about, standing in his position for as long as it takes for them to line everything up just right. Finally, when the scene is recorded, it all goes relatively quickly. Gerard is well prepared in what he is going to saw, and we do a couple of takes because each time he will say it a bit differently or add something new. This way we will have a couple of options to choose from when we do the eventual editing of the film clips.

Having finished with Brouillet, it was on to Laon. We were especially keen to find the Rue de Freres, where the first school had been. This time, instead of parking in the general area outside of the medieval city, and then walking in, we drove right into the city and made our way through the tiny streets to just in front of the cathedral where a parking spot magically appeared for us. Then it took a while to figure out just where to go in order to find the Rue de Freres, but the tourist bureau was very helpful and made us a copy of a detailed map that would get us there. Walking from the cathedral, we went hither and yon until we came to a smallish 100 meter side street, with cars parked on one side and room for just one car to travel one-way down the street. They figured out a good perspective and we were soon set up for a short clip regarding the school in Laon and Adrien Nyel's involvement in the town.

Back at the cathedral, we debated between filming inside or outside of the place. Eventually, we found a spot in a quiet corner of the plaza that would show the great facade of the cathedral as a background. The clouds were coming and going, so it was difficult to predict a good exposure level, sending Roch and Scott into a tizzy. One minute it was overcast, the next minutes the sun was shining full blast. So several takes had to be done, and the final product will likely be a combination of scenes from various takes. We now know that whatever the final product is, it will include footage from our "B roll" archives, depending on the specific topic that Gerard brings up during his clip. For example, in front of the cathedral he spoke about the large statues of oxen that adorn the towers of the cathedral, in recognition of their work in bringing all of the rock for the building up from the valley floor. It's likely that during that segment, B roll footage of the those oxen would be shown, and it doesn't matter what the footage of Br. Gerard looks like. Such are the ways of film.

Now it was time for lunch. Instead of the tourist places lining the plaza, we walked down a ways to a walk-in sandwich shop where a lot of locals were lined up to order. Here we also ran into the lady who'd helped us at the tourist bureau. Here we ordered our sandwiches and ate them at the tables arranged just outside. We were in no rush, since we had arranged to get the church key in Brouillet t 4 PM and it was now just 1 PM.

A leisurely lunch completed, we got in the van and made our way to Brouillet, about 40 minutes or so away. Since we did have that major break period before our next appointment, I pulled over at a lake that we saw along the way and there each of us took a break - some sleeping, some walking, some reading. I took the umbrella, since it was raining, and walking along the lake to a nearby newer hotel and then returning in the bright sun. The umbrella was helpful both ways. Gerard noticed a golf course nearby and watched various golfers coming along and making their best efforts. In all, we stayed there about an hour before proceeding to Brouillet.

Another bit of driving and we came to the hamlet (?) where De La Salle's grandfather on his mother's side had a house, vineyard, and reputation as the local monseigneur. We got the key to the church from the owner of the Ariste & Son champagne cellar and proceeded to spen a good 90 minutes there filming. It took a while to get the right perspective, since we particularly wanted to show the pew where young De La Salle would sit next to his grandfather, who taught him to use the breviary during the holidays that were spent in this locale. Along with the prepared material that Br. Gerard used in the clips, I asked him a number of questions about Lasallian prayer which Gerard answered off-the-cuff and on film. A good bit of that would be very useful later on, I believe. He is better off-the-cuff than most of us would be when we were fully prepared, and the shoot was quite succesful.

Then we went back to return the key. Of course, we couldn't leave until we'd had a sample glass of champagne and a fine conversation with the daughter-in-law of the owner, who spoke English very well and would be in California soon for a champagne tasting in Redwood City. After the tasting and conversation, we bought some of the champage - which was quite excellent, by the way - and then made our way back to Reims, just 27 kilometers away.

Gerard noticed a stone plaque in the corner of the champagne cellars that mentioned De La Salle and Moet. Getting curious, he did some research online upon our return and found out that the name "Moet" had been given by Charles VII to one of those who stood and fought beside him, a Dutchman named LeClercq. When he ennobled him, LeClercq was given a new name. So half of De La Salle's ancestry is Dutch. I knew it! (Since I'm Dutch, I'm a bit prejudiced, but there you are.)

By now, most of us were ready for a short rest. While the others did that, I went into the downstairs museum of the Hotel De La Salle and set up the equipment to take several panorama photographs of the various rooms. The whole place is being renovated, and it's likely that in a year or so, all of the downstairs area will be under construction. So it was good to have the opportunity to record how it looks right now.

At around 7:45 PM, we went out for dinner at a local restaurant and a couple of hours later returned for a bit of planning for tomorrow. Then each of us began our nightly rituals - computer work, cleaning up, readying equipment for tomorrow, and so on - before retiring. These are very full days, but I believe that they will prove worthwhile.

(Note: Click on the small pictures to enlarge them.)

Day Twelve - Paris and Travel to Reims

2009-07-23T22:02:00.016-07:00

An early rising again, with life outside the windows waking me up through birdsong, roadsong, and the day's beginnings.

I joined Gerard, Roch, and some other Brothers downstairs in the cafeteria for breakfast - a simple meal with Nescafe, milk, bread, butter, and some fruit. We talked about our plans for the day and generally prepared our minds for the places we would visit and film.

Afterwards, I prepared the van and we loaded it up with all of our necessary equipment. Br. Emmanuel joined us for our first visit, since he had arranged it for us and would facilitate our entrance into the Institute Catholique, from which we would walk to the gardens of the former Carmelite monastery - which is now part of that institute.

Negotiating the Parisian streets again proved to be a challenge, all the more so because the traffic coordinators down seem to have any paint for lines on the streets, except in the most extreme cases. Most of the time, you simply fit your car, or scooter, or bicycle, where it fits at each moment, jutting here and there, in and out, almost hitting someone and then roaring off. The second enjoyable activity is finding and fitting into a parking spot. This is a science in itself. Luckily, we found a spot near the monastery where I turned this way and that way in order to fit our monster van into a space made for a mini-car. And then we had to get a special parking pass at a local Tabac store for that area of town.

Reaching the Institute Catholique, we entered without any problems and made our way through the students and teachers and classrooms to the back of the property, where there was a doorway and small set of steps at which a number of Brothers had been killed during the French Revolution. It seems that they had been held there, and at one point were asked to take the oath to the State. Upon their refusal, they were guided outside, and on the steps were hacked to death, after which their bodies were thrown into a well in the middle of the garden. All very gruesome, but also quite courageous on their part. They would not compromise their faith and paid the price for it.

We filmed Gerard at that location and then walked around the garden to get further "B roll" footage to use as supplementary material. Every once in a while a student or staff member would look at us with curiosity, but largely we were left in peace.

At that point, Br. Emmanuel left us and we proceeded to the church of St. Sulpice. It took awhile to find another parking spot, and we ended up in an underground lot which lay beneath the church, I believe, or at least under the church plaza. It was very convenient, however, and allowed us to transport our equipment without much fuss.

In the plaza in front of the church, Br. Gerard filmed a segment about the massive fountains that are dedicated to four of the great orators of French history. The weather wasn't very cooperative, going from full sun to overcase every few minutes. Each time, Roch and Scott would have to reset the white balance on the video cameras, plus change other lighting elements. I would usually hold the portable reflector, angling it just so in order to light certain portions of Gerard's face during the filming. Finally, however, things worked out and we had a good "take" that we could use.

Then it was on to the church itself. We found the sacristan and received permission to film in the small chapel attached to the back of St. Sulpice - a chapel that De La Salle would have known and where he had given catechism classes to neighborhood children while he was a seminarian there. A Mass was about to said there, but we were given 15 - 20 minutes to film our segment. Roch and I had been here before so we knew the layout. Before long, the scene was set up and Gerard did a couple of takes about the chapel and De La Salle at the seminary of St. Sulpice. I tried to do a panorama shot, but it was so dark in there that I don't think it worked.

Having finished with St. Sulpice, we walked over to the Rue Princesse, where the first school in Paris had been located. There, amidst bars and small restaurants, in between an Irish pub and an English-language bookstore, is a large wooden doorway where the Brothers first lived and worked when they came to Paris from Reims. Since it was still morning, there wasn't a lot of activity on the street, but there was enough so that we had to cut our scenes short several times because of noise, or people walking by, or other factors. We didn't need to go inside - where things were way different anyway since the 1700's - but could do a good scene with the door as a background. About 45 minutes later we were done there and decided to return to Rue de Sevres for lunch and our trip to Reims.

Back at the ranch, as it were, we parked and walked to various stores in the neighborhood to pick up sandwiches or other things desired for our lunch. I even found a small specialty store that sold pickled herring of various kinds. All these things were brought to my room where we all sat here and there for a quiet lunch before our departure for Reims.

An hour after arrived back at Rue de Sevres we were on the road again. It took quite a while to get out of the city of Paris, and traffice seemed to be gridlocked at a number of places. But the thing is to just inch forward with everyone else, take up whatever space is available, and simply proceed in the direction that you needed to go. With all that confusion, it was amazing that we didn't hear a single car horn blast away. If we'd been in Rome, the noise would have deafening. But here in Paris that kind of thing just simply isn't done. About 20-25 minutes later we were on the motorway and things went smoothly from there.

In Reims itself, it was raining quite heavily. Although sun had been predicted, and I'd taken only "sun" clothes with me for the two nights we would be there, it seems that no one had informed the weather systems. Hopefully, the sun will come out tomorrow for our filming. Meanwhile, we tried to get a couple of shots at the Hotel De La Salle itself, both outside and inside. The inside filming went better than the outside filming - it started to rain again as we began. Roch and Scott made the best of it, however, and by the time dinner was ready at 7:00 PM, they had at least been able to put together a couple of takes inside the museum, in the front room that had been recreated to look the way it probably looked while De La Salle was growing up in the house.

Dinner was a fine event, with the three Brothers and ourselves enjoying both the meal and one another's company. It was done mostly in French, of course, but I found that by now I was picking up more of the conversation than I had previously. At least I picked up enough to follow the general trend of what was being said, although I'd be hard pressed to contribute anything beyond a smile and a nod. The meal was typically French, course after course after course of fairly small portions of food, complemented by wine and water and bread. The whole thing last a couple of hours, and by the end of the meal we decided that we would likely not be able to do any further filming, as planned. Instead, we would retire and start early tomorrow, when we would travel to Liesse, Laon, and Brouillet for the segments that belonged to those places.

Another full day complete and another full day ahead. Are we having fun yet?

(Note: Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Day Eleven - A Long Day in Rouen

2009-07-22T22:11:00.012-07:00

Today was the day when there was more to do than time to do it. However, we would give it our best effort, and as it turned out, what needed to be done was done. I was up at 6 and ready at 6:30 for the day that was making itself heard through the open window in my bedroom. I'd slept with both windows wide open, and nothing flew in to disturb me or made enough noise to awaken me. I rather enjoyed having the breeze come in every once in a while throughout the night and hear the nightsounds of the city of Paris.

At 7 AM, I walked down the Rue de Sevres to the nearby BNP Paribas bank ATM in order to withdraw some cash for the day (affiliated with BofA; no charges for ATM use). It's amazing how many of these ATM machines there are now - at least three per block, it seems. Thankfully, they have an "English" option on one of the first screens so that I wouldn't just have to guess at the sentences that appear. The street was as busy as it would be at noon, with cars and people going to and fro to their jobs (I would think) or the like.

Once back, I brought the van around in order to get it ready for our trip to Rouen. By 8:00 AM, we were loaded and ready, with five of us in the van (Br. Emmanuel from here in Paris joined us to facilitate our entry into St. Yon, etc.). The Paris traffic was a nightmare, of course, as we made our way across town to the motorway to Rouen - A13. The confidence of Parisian drivers is astounding, especially when it comes to the motorcycles and scooters. They must have a death wish or think they're playing an online game. More than once did I find myself saying things that I normally would not say, and all in reaction to people cutting in front, squeezing their way in, or simply darting past with inches to spare. Finally, however, we were on the "Paeage" motorway and the relative calm of cars and trucks traveling along at over 120 kph.

It takes a good 1.5 - 2 hours to get to Rouen, and we stopped along the way for a short break at one of the convenient rest-stops. Mostly, those in the van either slept of talked in French. I was content just to drive and pay attention to the road.

Once we reached Rouen, following the advice of our trusty GPS, Br. Emmanuel directed us in a different direction to St. Yon than the GPS - which of course I followed for political reasons if not for practical ones. It took us a little longer to get to St. Yon, but get to it we did. There, waiting in front, were the two "guides" for our visit. One obviously was the person with whom Br. Emmanuel had negotiated our visit, and the other looked to be a supervisor, or some representative of the province, no doubt there to make sure that we didn't do anything harmful to the state.

They first took us to the former chapel of the property, which had been split into two floors years ago. We went to the upper level, where you could see the roof. There we filmed a couple of takes with Br. Gerard and I did a panoramic picture series. It's amazing that this was the actual place where the Brothers and the boarders and the students and the "prisoners" would assemble for Mass regularly for so many years. It's the place that was the Motherhouse of the Institute for quite some time and it's now a series of government offices and education resources. Major sections of the place are being turned into classes for various kinds of arts and crafts. So I guess that you could say that it's still being used in favor of the "artisans" and the poor of Rouen, the location of the property being in the working class part of the city.

After the chapel, they took us to the dungeons, where those who were commited with "lettres de cachet" were held for an indefinite period of time, as sort of prisoners of the state. The Brothers cared for them, oversaw their confinement, tried to reform them, and did the best they could. (De La Salle was particularly effective in reforming them and developed a bit of reputation in relating well with these prisoners, so we're told.) Counting the with boarders, delinquents, students, novices, and Brothers, it was quite the busy place. It's also where De La Salle lived out the last years of his life and died. The property had extensive gardens, apparently, but very little remains of that. The huge building that now covers the property came along much later, and only the chapel is authentic from DLS's time. Our "guides" also showed us, at our request, one of the individual 10-by-7 individual cells, and we did some filming there as well. This was all in the basement, where it was quite gloomy and dark. It's a wonder that people survived the experience at all. The greatest challenge that Roch and Scott had was to set up sufficient lighting for filming. Roch had put together and brought along an amazingly creative set of strong LED lights - from places like Home Depot - and devised a way of adapting them onto portable stands, with the whole setup able to be carried around in a large metal case. Since these lights worked on battery power, they would just have to be rechargd every night and then we could get several hours of lighting from them. Designed as work lights for a shop, with the right kind of gel coverings they worked pretty well as filming lights. This way we didn't have to worry about power cables, outlets, and the like. Without them, we certainly would have been up a dark creek without a light.

After a couple of hours at St. Yon, it was time to leave and move on to the statue and fountain at the plaza at the end of the same block. We did some filming there but had difficultly with the lighting, since the sun kept coming and going throughout our time there. But eventually we got a good "take" and moved on to the other side of the city and the medieval courtyard of St. Maclou, where the Brothers had a school as part of a series of square medieval buildings surrounding the public cemetery. The buildings in the area still whole area around there retain their medieval character, and you can see carvings of the dance macabre in the lintels of the framework at St. Maclou; vestiges of the Black Death and the cemetery that made up the courtyard. Apparently, the students would regularly hear funeral processions coming in for a burial, and certain elements in the Conduct of Schools talk about the prayers that the students should say when they hear the funeral bell approaching. This came from the experience at St. Maclou.

Filming at that location was difficult because of the many visitors that show up, and because city workers were doing some cement work in the plaza. Whenever we'd set up and started a take, one of the workmen would begin to shovel cement or use his trowel to smack down the cement that had been poured. It took some gentle glaring and 4 or 5 takes before the team of 1 worker and 3 supervisors left with their equipment and allowed us to do our filming. I also worked on getting a good panoramic photograph here, although with the various visitors coming in it was difficult to get a clear series of pictures. On our way our, a whole busload of tourists was coming in - I guess that I should count my blessings.

Now we were ready for lunch, so we drove to the plaza of St. Sever and had lunch at the various stores and stands that dot the area. After that, we went into the church of St. Sever and filmed at the small side chapel dedicated to De La Salle. It's where he was buried after his death and before being moved to the chapel at St. Yon later on. There's a statue of De La Salle there along with a plaque that was written by the pastor of St. Sever at the time, a priest who was very critical of DLS while he was alive but was a great advocate of his after De La Salle's death.

Done with St. Sever, we drove to the cemetery of Rouen at the church of the Sacred Heart, overlooking the entire city on one side of the river. (This is also where there is a large cemetery where a number of the early Brothers are buried, including Br. Bartholemy - the Superior General after De La Salle - and Br. Irenee, another significant figure in our early history.) By now it had begun to rain, but not hard enough to stop filming. So we found a good spot overlooking the city and filmed Br. Gerard as he related the importance of Rouen and the various times that De La Salle was closely associated with the city. At the end of the filming, the rain began in earnest, yet I stuck around to take a panoramic series of pictures, even if there was the good chance that they would be marred by raindrops on the lens.

It was now nearly 5 PM and everyone was tired. We got in the van and I drove back to Paris while almost everyone else slept, waking up occasionaly for the toll plazas or to have short conversations. Once back in Paris, Br. Emmanuel directed me through various streets in order to highlight for Scott and others sites like the small version of theSstatue of Liberty near the Eiffel Tower, the tunnel where Princess Diana died, and other buildings associated with the history of the Brothers. We got to the house at Rue de Sevres at around 7 PM.

The four of us had a well-deserved dinner at a place just down the street from the Brothers place. This was all the better because by now it was pouring rain. After a leisurely dinner, we stopped at a nearby bakery - what else? - before returning to our rooms for our individual nightly work. For almost each one of us, this meant work on the computer. Then off to bed, hopefully.

Tomorrow, it's all about Paris, after which we will drive to Reims where we will be tomorrow evening in preparation for the following day's filming in Reims.

(Note: Click on each picture to enlarge it, if you wish.)