Dear Friends,
I wrote just yesterday, but something happened here within hours after I finished my posting that makes it worth writing again.
There is on our property the buildings of the Jesuit community and then about a 5 minute walk up a hill are the retreat house buildings with its very spacious lawn and many flowers and trees. At the retreat house building is a six-month long program going on for 10 young Jesuit priests. We Jesuits call the program tertianship, a third and last phase of our formation process. Their meals are taken in a dining room that can hold about 15 people. They have a door to the dining room that opens out onto the large lawn area.
Yesterday, around 5 PM, while no one was in the dining room, a family of monkeys visited the room; the door had not been closed and so it allowed these crafty visitors to enter. They had smelled the ripe bananas on the counter and came in to help themselves to all the delicious fruit. I am not sure whether they got into the bread loaves as well. After this theft, someone noted how messy these thieves were in leaving the peelings of the bananas in various places, on the counter and on the floor.
I thought you would enjoy this,.
Bernie
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Dear Friends,
The last time I wrote here was Christmas Day. That means it has been 27 days since the last posting. I have not been sick at all, nor did I get thrown out of Kenya by the immigration people. I just chose to enjoy the holiday celebrations and opportunities to relax and do something different from the usual routine. Also I wanted to bare down and try to finish once and for all the rewriting and editing of the manuscript for my book (which is so, so close to being done!) So on this glorious beautiful Sunday late morning I will take time now for my 16th posting.
Much, much has happened for me in the last four weeks. One of the big news items is that I have given up my garden plot and scaled down my charge to two large flower beds, one in the front and one in the back of the main building of the retreat center. What happened to make me make such a change?? I worked Christmas eve morning for three hours in the large garden plot I was given charge of. I wanted to plant tomato plants, some 30 of them, next to the pepper plants I had planted about 10 days before. I worked very hard for about an hour and fifteen minutes to break up the clay soil, all of it by hand. It was just so exhausting. I had never worked so physically hard in gardening at Manresa. I could feel my heart really being pushed, and I wondered as I sat there in the loosened soil, "Do I really want to do this, to work this hard?? CAN I do something this demanding??" The answer came that night, as I was trying to get to sleep, nerve shocks going from my waist down into my groin. I thought "hernia!" and was scared. I don't have a hernia--not yet anyway--but do have a muscular sensitivity in the place where a hernia could come on me. So I said, "this is silly to continue trying to garden under these circumstances. With some sadness I went to the fellow in charge of all the ground care and told him of my decision. I gave over to him all my vegetable seeds and turned my back on the whole thing. Two weeks later I arranged my assuming charge of three rather large flower beds, full of roses, dahlias, day lilies, cala lilies, shasta daisies, four huge palm trees, bogen-via bushes and other plants I've seen before but do not know the names of. I am to weed the area, water the plants and in one section, in the front of the building, build up the flower plot area. It needs many new additions, some color, and some transplanting. So there I have the chance of creating something new. The other two areas are well laid out, quite beautiful, and simply need ongoing maintenance (ie., weeding, fertilizing when needed).
Then we are going to make major changes to our stations of the cross area. We are going to move a lot of dirt with a tractor to build up the second half of the stations so that they lead up a hill to the 12th station (where Jesus's death is commemorated) and then downhill to stations 13 and 14 where He is buried. Once our tractor (why don't they use this to break up soil in the garden!!?? I don't know--it wasn't available to me or any others!) moves the large parts of the soil, I and some of the grounds crew will be able to do some handwork with shovels and rakes to make a walkway that allows people to walk on stone and not in mud when it rains, also to plant trees that will create a quiet ambiance and enclosed area for prayer and reflection. This I think I will enjoy being involved in. What we have now is beautiful but I think this newly planned change will make it even better.
We have had numerous power outages here and very spotty service on our internet system. The internet situation should be greatly improved in the next week and Skype especially since we are having a new fiber-optic cable installed. Power outages have many explanations, including the electrical company of Kenya being blameworthy in a number of cases. Flashlights, then, are a great necessity in our rooms.
We have had to fire two of our cooks as of December 31. They were pilfering food from the storage area, one was chronically late. Both were warned twice, but continued doing what they were warned about. So they had to go. It is sad because their work was decent, they have families living on the grounds here, but again, it is a reflection of the poverty of this part of the world. People who live so close to the edge of their economic limits come to an institution like ours and cannot resist taking, hoping they can avoid being discovered.
My visa situation has become almost a laughing matter. Because Immigration insisted on my providing a diploma and I had thrown mine away many years ago; even though I provided a list of courses and grades of all my course work plus a statement from the school that I was granted the degree and even the date on which it was granted, immigration refused. So . . . we did what Jesuits do when in a legalistic impasse like this one. We provided a "diploma" along with a copy of my transcript of all the courses I took and the statement from the school about my having received the degree. The application process for the visa, then, was not filed till December 5. I went to Immigration on January 6, my first opportunity to follow up, and was told to relax and wait till early March when the government's system will have processed my application and I should by then have my visa. So . . . I came home from Immigration offices to forget about it all till early March; then I will go back downtown to see this thing through to its end. What an ordeal!
The traffic accidents in this nation are just awful, and the Christmas holidays were filled with them. The worst were head-on collisions of buses and small vans. Some of them were in the nighttime. So many people dying on the roads. A number of suicides too. Really a fair amount of despair among the poor, economic anxiety for them! So much domestic violence, spouses fighting, one killing the other while the survivor goes to prison for life. What despair! Then too a horrendous case of multiple murders at a gas station not far from Nairobi. Last week at midnight 4-5 thugs went to a gas station to rob it of money. They killed all 5 of the gas attendants who pump gas, clean your windshield, etc. plus two or three women who ran a concession store inside the gas station. They took about two hours to do this, used mallets, crowbars, and machettes to slaughter these poor innocent people. They have not yet been caught and likely will not. Many escape their crimes here.
There is significant concern here about the war in South Sudan, the country just to our northwest. No Jesuits have been hurt. Our schools are to the west of the violence and in cities where things are quite peaceful, thank God. Please join us in praying for those trying to broker a peace there. Over a thousand have died in this war. Tribal fighting is apparently the origin of their differences. Oil fields also influence this struggle for power and control. There is much, much oil there, but the revenue gets pocketed largely by military leaders and political higher-ups. The people remain in dramatic poverty. Woe to those who are doing this to the people, woe to them the day they meet their Creator!
Last weekend, January 10-11 I had the opportunity to lead a group of 14 student leaders of the local Jesuit seminary through a retreat. I focused them on the biblical roots of Jesus' leadership and how any follower of Him will have to seek the same kind of strength if they are to lead well and in a way worthy of their call to be Christian. I really enjoyed doing this, so did the students. They came from Kenya, Ghana, Cameron, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The president of the seminary, who had asked me to do this weekend, has asked me to organize another weekend in the next few months or so for the faculty of the seminary. He wants the topic for them to be on the elements that make Jesuit education distinctive, and how closely it is connected with our spiritual resources, the Spiritual Exercises (meditations and contemplations on the life of Jesus) of St. Ignatius. I consider this an honor to be asked and a huge opportunity. I will start teaching at the seminary a course a week beginning in late August, so this kind of exposure is really helpful to my becoming more and more a part of this part of the African scene. I will, of course, continue living here at the retreat center, about 30 minutes from the seminary, but will get lots of life from teaching something serious at the seminary once a week. The students there, as you could surmise from what I said earlier, come from so many different nations in Africa and some from Europe, also a rare one or two from North America.
Then last Monday eve at the retreat center we received 33 new students/interns for the beginning of a two-year program for training in spiritual guidance. They too come from many different Africa nations, from Europe too (Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Finland). Because of distances to travel, we have constructed the program to have eight meetings for the two years, each meeting lasting from a Monday evening till a Saturday morning. So four full days of classes, small group practice, liturgies, eventually verbatims and one-on-one meetings with one of us six staff members. I had three main pieces of input for the group this last week. Again, I get so much life from doing this. I am a teacher before anything else and that is where I thrive, in leading a group through an interactive reflection on some good reading of mutual interest that touches on something substantive in the spiritual life of human beings.
We are into summer right now. Think July for the Midwest and you will get an idea of what our temperatures are like. Mid to high 80s during the afternoons, about 60 at nighttime. Great sleeping weather, low humidity. (I have to get used to drinking more water!) The sun rays are quite direct and will burn you quickly. (We are only 80 miles or so south of the equator.) Sitting in the shade on our retreat house grounds is such a pleasure. So very beautiful and peaceful to look out at our mountains (they are like the Smokies or Appalachians) some 30-40 miles away, very green and with many trees. Also, it is so important to wear dark glasses, especially those that have polarized and UV filtering features in them. I am going swimming this afternoon at an outdoor pool. My tan will get a little darker.
Some of you gave me a lot of positive feedback from my last blog posting regarding what I said about my 8 day retreat in December. Thank you. I have little idea of how many people are reading these postings, so it is good to get some feedback through my email address. I find it compelling to stay with the image of Jesus I spoke of in the last posting, namely, of Jesus taking us from His Heart through the "door" that is there inside His Heart and asking Him to lead us "down the stairs" into God's depths, to what matters most to God, to the burdens of the human family that are carried there and especially to the richness of God's life that is there. I am reminded of the image in Psalm 131, a very short psalm. It speaks of Israel being in God's arms like a small child asleep in its mother's arms. I am convinced we are all invited to get this close to God, to trust those deeper desires in us all and let Jesus take us to such a place inside God's depths and allow us to "explore" there, to ask God to show us what is there inside Himself, and eventually allow ourselves to rest there as a child would in its mother's arms while letting our spirit touch up against God's Spirit and simply be there for as long as we can stay quiet there, attentive and respectful and grateful. One may not get lots of answers to specific problems in their life doing this but will find there, I believe, untold strength and a sense of communion with God by doing this simple exercise. It is acting out of faith in God's love and trusting His goodness to try it and discover the blessings in doing this.
It is time to move to other things. I am glad I can tell you something about my life here. God bless, especially to those who are finding the snow and terrible weather a trial. I do not envy you; I do not miss the snow and ice. I will remember you all at daily Eucharist.
Bernie
The last time I wrote here was Christmas Day. That means it has been 27 days since the last posting. I have not been sick at all, nor did I get thrown out of Kenya by the immigration people. I just chose to enjoy the holiday celebrations and opportunities to relax and do something different from the usual routine. Also I wanted to bare down and try to finish once and for all the rewriting and editing of the manuscript for my book (which is so, so close to being done!) So on this glorious beautiful Sunday late morning I will take time now for my 16th posting.
Much, much has happened for me in the last four weeks. One of the big news items is that I have given up my garden plot and scaled down my charge to two large flower beds, one in the front and one in the back of the main building of the retreat center. What happened to make me make such a change?? I worked Christmas eve morning for three hours in the large garden plot I was given charge of. I wanted to plant tomato plants, some 30 of them, next to the pepper plants I had planted about 10 days before. I worked very hard for about an hour and fifteen minutes to break up the clay soil, all of it by hand. It was just so exhausting. I had never worked so physically hard in gardening at Manresa. I could feel my heart really being pushed, and I wondered as I sat there in the loosened soil, "Do I really want to do this, to work this hard?? CAN I do something this demanding??" The answer came that night, as I was trying to get to sleep, nerve shocks going from my waist down into my groin. I thought "hernia!" and was scared. I don't have a hernia--not yet anyway--but do have a muscular sensitivity in the place where a hernia could come on me. So I said, "this is silly to continue trying to garden under these circumstances. With some sadness I went to the fellow in charge of all the ground care and told him of my decision. I gave over to him all my vegetable seeds and turned my back on the whole thing. Two weeks later I arranged my assuming charge of three rather large flower beds, full of roses, dahlias, day lilies, cala lilies, shasta daisies, four huge palm trees, bogen-via bushes and other plants I've seen before but do not know the names of. I am to weed the area, water the plants and in one section, in the front of the building, build up the flower plot area. It needs many new additions, some color, and some transplanting. So there I have the chance of creating something new. The other two areas are well laid out, quite beautiful, and simply need ongoing maintenance (ie., weeding, fertilizing when needed).
Then we are going to make major changes to our stations of the cross area. We are going to move a lot of dirt with a tractor to build up the second half of the stations so that they lead up a hill to the 12th station (where Jesus's death is commemorated) and then downhill to stations 13 and 14 where He is buried. Once our tractor (why don't they use this to break up soil in the garden!!?? I don't know--it wasn't available to me or any others!) moves the large parts of the soil, I and some of the grounds crew will be able to do some handwork with shovels and rakes to make a walkway that allows people to walk on stone and not in mud when it rains, also to plant trees that will create a quiet ambiance and enclosed area for prayer and reflection. This I think I will enjoy being involved in. What we have now is beautiful but I think this newly planned change will make it even better.
We have had numerous power outages here and very spotty service on our internet system. The internet situation should be greatly improved in the next week and Skype especially since we are having a new fiber-optic cable installed. Power outages have many explanations, including the electrical company of Kenya being blameworthy in a number of cases. Flashlights, then, are a great necessity in our rooms.
We have had to fire two of our cooks as of December 31. They were pilfering food from the storage area, one was chronically late. Both were warned twice, but continued doing what they were warned about. So they had to go. It is sad because their work was decent, they have families living on the grounds here, but again, it is a reflection of the poverty of this part of the world. People who live so close to the edge of their economic limits come to an institution like ours and cannot resist taking, hoping they can avoid being discovered.
My visa situation has become almost a laughing matter. Because Immigration insisted on my providing a diploma and I had thrown mine away many years ago; even though I provided a list of courses and grades of all my course work plus a statement from the school that I was granted the degree and even the date on which it was granted, immigration refused. So . . . we did what Jesuits do when in a legalistic impasse like this one. We provided a "diploma" along with a copy of my transcript of all the courses I took and the statement from the school about my having received the degree. The application process for the visa, then, was not filed till December 5. I went to Immigration on January 6, my first opportunity to follow up, and was told to relax and wait till early March when the government's system will have processed my application and I should by then have my visa. So . . . I came home from Immigration offices to forget about it all till early March; then I will go back downtown to see this thing through to its end. What an ordeal!
The traffic accidents in this nation are just awful, and the Christmas holidays were filled with them. The worst were head-on collisions of buses and small vans. Some of them were in the nighttime. So many people dying on the roads. A number of suicides too. Really a fair amount of despair among the poor, economic anxiety for them! So much domestic violence, spouses fighting, one killing the other while the survivor goes to prison for life. What despair! Then too a horrendous case of multiple murders at a gas station not far from Nairobi. Last week at midnight 4-5 thugs went to a gas station to rob it of money. They killed all 5 of the gas attendants who pump gas, clean your windshield, etc. plus two or three women who ran a concession store inside the gas station. They took about two hours to do this, used mallets, crowbars, and machettes to slaughter these poor innocent people. They have not yet been caught and likely will not. Many escape their crimes here.
There is significant concern here about the war in South Sudan, the country just to our northwest. No Jesuits have been hurt. Our schools are to the west of the violence and in cities where things are quite peaceful, thank God. Please join us in praying for those trying to broker a peace there. Over a thousand have died in this war. Tribal fighting is apparently the origin of their differences. Oil fields also influence this struggle for power and control. There is much, much oil there, but the revenue gets pocketed largely by military leaders and political higher-ups. The people remain in dramatic poverty. Woe to those who are doing this to the people, woe to them the day they meet their Creator!
Last weekend, January 10-11 I had the opportunity to lead a group of 14 student leaders of the local Jesuit seminary through a retreat. I focused them on the biblical roots of Jesus' leadership and how any follower of Him will have to seek the same kind of strength if they are to lead well and in a way worthy of their call to be Christian. I really enjoyed doing this, so did the students. They came from Kenya, Ghana, Cameron, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The president of the seminary, who had asked me to do this weekend, has asked me to organize another weekend in the next few months or so for the faculty of the seminary. He wants the topic for them to be on the elements that make Jesuit education distinctive, and how closely it is connected with our spiritual resources, the Spiritual Exercises (meditations and contemplations on the life of Jesus) of St. Ignatius. I consider this an honor to be asked and a huge opportunity. I will start teaching at the seminary a course a week beginning in late August, so this kind of exposure is really helpful to my becoming more and more a part of this part of the African scene. I will, of course, continue living here at the retreat center, about 30 minutes from the seminary, but will get lots of life from teaching something serious at the seminary once a week. The students there, as you could surmise from what I said earlier, come from so many different nations in Africa and some from Europe, also a rare one or two from North America.
Then last Monday eve at the retreat center we received 33 new students/interns for the beginning of a two-year program for training in spiritual guidance. They too come from many different Africa nations, from Europe too (Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Finland). Because of distances to travel, we have constructed the program to have eight meetings for the two years, each meeting lasting from a Monday evening till a Saturday morning. So four full days of classes, small group practice, liturgies, eventually verbatims and one-on-one meetings with one of us six staff members. I had three main pieces of input for the group this last week. Again, I get so much life from doing this. I am a teacher before anything else and that is where I thrive, in leading a group through an interactive reflection on some good reading of mutual interest that touches on something substantive in the spiritual life of human beings.
We are into summer right now. Think July for the Midwest and you will get an idea of what our temperatures are like. Mid to high 80s during the afternoons, about 60 at nighttime. Great sleeping weather, low humidity. (I have to get used to drinking more water!) The sun rays are quite direct and will burn you quickly. (We are only 80 miles or so south of the equator.) Sitting in the shade on our retreat house grounds is such a pleasure. So very beautiful and peaceful to look out at our mountains (they are like the Smokies or Appalachians) some 30-40 miles away, very green and with many trees. Also, it is so important to wear dark glasses, especially those that have polarized and UV filtering features in them. I am going swimming this afternoon at an outdoor pool. My tan will get a little darker.
Some of you gave me a lot of positive feedback from my last blog posting regarding what I said about my 8 day retreat in December. Thank you. I have little idea of how many people are reading these postings, so it is good to get some feedback through my email address. I find it compelling to stay with the image of Jesus I spoke of in the last posting, namely, of Jesus taking us from His Heart through the "door" that is there inside His Heart and asking Him to lead us "down the stairs" into God's depths, to what matters most to God, to the burdens of the human family that are carried there and especially to the richness of God's life that is there. I am reminded of the image in Psalm 131, a very short psalm. It speaks of Israel being in God's arms like a small child asleep in its mother's arms. I am convinced we are all invited to get this close to God, to trust those deeper desires in us all and let Jesus take us to such a place inside God's depths and allow us to "explore" there, to ask God to show us what is there inside Himself, and eventually allow ourselves to rest there as a child would in its mother's arms while letting our spirit touch up against God's Spirit and simply be there for as long as we can stay quiet there, attentive and respectful and grateful. One may not get lots of answers to specific problems in their life doing this but will find there, I believe, untold strength and a sense of communion with God by doing this simple exercise. It is acting out of faith in God's love and trusting His goodness to try it and discover the blessings in doing this.
It is time to move to other things. I am glad I can tell you something about my life here. God bless, especially to those who are finding the snow and terrible weather a trial. I do not envy you; I do not miss the snow and ice. I will remember you all at daily Eucharist.
Bernie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)