Dear Friends,
Here it is Sunday, March 30, 5:20 PM in the afternoon. The sun is slowing setting following a warm day with gentle breezes. It has been a very, very busy two and a half weeks in which I had little or no chance to write anything here. Now, I have some time. I hope to finish this before I go to bed.
What has been going on? A visit for nine days of a close friend of mine, followed by four days of all morning, all afternoon classes with the 33 students in our Spiritual Guidance training course. Also, finishing about an hour ago the changes to the manuscript of my future book; it is now ready to send off to the publisher, as soon as I find out how to number the pages of the manuscript! I had a proofreader for the last two chapters; she is really good, meticulous and slow because she was helping her daughter with the birth of the family's first grandchild; also, taking an accredited course with exams as well. Plus some other responsibilities. So, lots of irons in her fire and I waited; again, her reviewing and judgment were worth the wait! Now I will have to endure the publisher's editor who will do the final review and, I suppose, will ask me to change and shorten some things. I hope not a lot!
My friend came all the way from Detroit on March 10 and returned on the 20th. During his time here we went to St. Aloysius Gonzaga H.S. in Nairobi, a school for high school age boys and girls who have lost their parents to AIDs and live in the infamous Kibera slum (between 500-750 thousand people live there in a square mile area). We were taken there for three hours one afternoon by two graduates of the school who are still living there. It was really something to experience: shacks with living space inside of about 15' by 15'. Open, stinking sewers running between the shacks, little children playing in that area. We went into a school jammed with children of the poor in Kibera. then into a second school that is the hulk of a building with firm walls but right next to a big sewage pool or pond. In every instance we were welcomed. What was especially touching was our spending some quality time, maybe an hour and a half with 7 of the graduates of the school who are now spending six months following graduation in service to people in their slum area. Also, a one hour lunch with three graduates who have now become part of the faculty of St. Al's. This 6 months of service is part of their school experience and being educated in the attitude of coming to serve, as opposed to thinking in terms of career (much more self-focused) but thinking and acting in terms of service. To meet them, to hear what are their hopes and dreams was particularly moving. It is stories like those of these people that make me feel the presence of Christ and the call of the Gospel so strongly. To meet those who are truly poor has a unique impact in terms of considering the call of Christ. One can see some remarkable scenes related to this school by googling St. Aloysius Gonzaga school, Nairobi, Kenya.
My friend and I had some profound conversations, not only about these kids but also about our deeper hopes in life, about who God and Christ are to us. Each day we joined others for a mass, shared meals and the friendship of the Jesuit community as well as the staff of the retreat house: lots of laughter, good food, enjoying the weather which is so great here. It was very good to hear him say, "we miss you at Manresa but I can now see why you had to come here, to get a sense of what God is asking of you in this part of the world. You are where you are supposed to be."
On the one Sunday he was here we were invited to join a mass at an orphanage full of children with the HIV virus. They are cared for wonderfully by some nuns and lay people. In the middle of the mass one of the little ones, perhaps 5-6 years old (he is called "Wonder") turned around to reach out and grasp the hand of my friend. Maybe because he, like so many, are drawn to adult males and are curious about people who have white skin. This was a major moment for my friend. He lost his father when he was just becoming a teen, so there is a very tender spot in his heart for children who have lost one or both parents. So . . . that encounter for my friend was deeper than what words can describe. . . a mirror of some of his own childhood feelings. In all, his encounter with the people of this part of the world, so many who are really poor and living close to the edge, moved him powerfully, very powerfully, to feel so closely drawn by God to a new sensitivity in spirit. On one evening he took me and three other Jesuits to a very fancy restaurant only 3 miles from here. The cost of food for that evening was modest by US. standards but the setting was, by stark contrast, to what we had experienced elsewhere: very posh. We were shown a room palatial in its ambiance, and were told it costs about $500 US per night. I asked our guide: " do you ever fill up this place?" (54 rooms). He said, "almost every Sunday. People come from church, have brunch, and stay over Sunday night." I shook my head in amazement. A number of these people have their own private planes and some come in from out of the country on their way to a safari not far from here. Wow, wow, wow!! I asked, " had the president of Kenya ever stayed here?" He said ,"No, but the president of Malaysia and his family have stayed here before." I thought to myself, "Did he fly in on Malaysian airlines in a Boeing 777?" (You can google the site on this place and look it over: The Hemingway in Karen, Kenya.)
I have been sharing with a team of six in the teaching of materials for the Spiritual Guides course, a two year program. I so love doing this, to teach. I look forward to doing lots more in the near future. I enjoy too the guiding of retreatants. I recently counted that I have already guided 46 people in 8-day retreats (you see each person for 45 minutes or so each day, so lots of time is required for this!), one person for a 6-day retreat, and three for a 3-day retreat. It would take me 5 years to guide that many people at Manresa.
Lastly, I have been doing some extra reading during this Lent. I might have mentioned in an earlier posting that I was reading Franz Jalics' little paperback, "The Contemplative Way." I have found it to be wonderful, speaking to me in a very encouraging way. He describes this kind of prayer as an initial stage of seeing God, vague but a true seeing--without any image as such, yet an intuitive sense of a loving Presence that holds your attention. You don't think nor imagine nor seek a feeling, but you are clearly held by this beautiful Presence. It is sometimes riveting. In this sense it can be said to be a way of "seeing" God, an awareness that holds your attention. You lose a sense of time and of your own self when you settle down and focus, so taken by the Other in whose presence you rest. It is all quite extraordinary in its ordinariness. It is really beautiful.
I have started another book, "The Depth of God" by Yves Raguin, S.J. His fundamental thesis is that the Depth of God is found in the depths of the human person. Get to know deeply what makes a human being a human being, what matters most to any person underneath all the clutter and silliness of public life, superficial choices and materialistic, noisy, hyperactive lifestyles. Therein lie the clues to God's Heart and depths. This book so far is a slow read, but I was expecting so, given the topic!
I have got to move on. (guess what, I still do NOT have my visa. I have been here over 7 months and still am waiting for that piece of paper. I am an illegal alien!!!)
Bernie Owens
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Good afternoon, friends,
I write on March 7, first Friday of the month and the 3rd anniversary of my mother's death. As you might expect, she has been very much on my mind today. I share with you her final words to me 11 days before she went to God. While sitting up in bed with the help of many pillows and in full mind, she took both of my hands into her hands and said, "I know we will be seeing one another again some day." What a privileged moment that was for me, actually for the both of us. She was in a nursing care facility near my sister's home north of Traverse City and I had to drive that afternoon back to my residence in Detroit. So I had a lot of time alone in the car, some 4.5 hours, to be with that experience and wonder at the meaning of life, of her life, and the blessing she was to me and my three siblings. The day we celebrated her life and buried her ashes was absolutely clear in the sky. The sun was brilliant. It was a chilly wintery March 19, and the moon that evening was full and the closest to the earth it can ever get. It was haunting to see the moon that evening, a prominent symbol of the resurrection in so many religions of the world. I interpreted it as an unforgettable, strong statement of God of how love has the last say in all life, that nothing is stronger, not even close, to the power of divine love and compassion; it was a statement of irrepressible love and the promise of eternal life for all who believe and wish to serve/love God as they know God. It seemed some 300 people came that day to the funeral mass. !8 fellow priests, 16 of them Jesuits joined me for that mass. What support by so many!!
Last Sunday morning, as I was beginning to finish a retreat on contemplative prayer for 13 people that I had begun on Friday evening, I found myself terribly sick and weak, so weak I could not finish the retreat. I could hardly stand up, so wobbly and weak was I. One of the retreatants drove me in her car from the retreat house back to my residence where I collapsed in bed and went to sleep immediately. Fortunately the nun and a priest who were on the retreat filled in pretty well from what I heard. In the meantime I began to suffer the consequences and climax of what a doctor later diagnosed as "acute bacteria infection" in the intestines. My temperature went up to 104 F, with lots of sweating followed by chills and shivering...diarrhea and vomiting. At first it was thought to be malaria, but no, it turned out to be food poisoning and its violent impact. Oh my! Only by Wednesday evening did I have an appetite. Some baked fish tasted terrific! I had six pieces of fish that eveing with mashed potatoes and some cooked beans and carrots. Nothing raw!!! Lots of fresh mango juice and water to get rehydrated. Bananas, scrambled eggs, hot millet for cereal, hot tea and toast--everything bland. The care I received was wonderful. What an ordeal.
This has to be the sweetest way for getting revenge with someone (what an evil thought for Lent!!) So I am on the mend and not guiding any retreatants during this round of 8-day retreats. My focus is to get back my balance, my strength. I am still not 100%. I have a wonderful friend from Troy, MI coming to visit me for 9 days starting Monday evening. I want to be ready to enjoy the special time we hope to have together.
Other items: The night sky here is spectacular. So little light pollution. The stars and planets, also the moon right now almost half-moon are so beautiful to gaze at.
There is a bird that comes around a lot in morning and late afternoon. It is incessant, neurotic in the three-note chirp it sounds. The second chirp of the triplet is a half tone lower than the first and the third is a half tone lower than the second. It keeps it up until it makes you want to cover your ears or go get a gun. I am wondering whether this is the infamous mocking bird, whether this feathered pest is what is referred to in the title "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Last, the police here and sometimes crowds are ruthless with robbers they catch. In the last 10 days or so there have been three young men riding around on motorcycles and stopping to rob people. Even three of our Jesuit novices here to learn English (one from Egypt, one from Lebanon and one from Syria) while out for a walk got robbed by these idiots. The thieves specialized in hitting people in well-to-do areas early in the morning while people are leaving their homes to go to work. They point a gun and make the people go back into their home and surrender their laptops and other valuables. The police were alert to them and some of the police as plain clothes men cornered them, demanding that they surrender. One or more shot back at the police and one or more of the plainclothes men shot all three dead. Their motorcycles made them somewhat easy to notice. The shooting took place at an intersection in a neighborhood not far from the Jesuit Loyola House and provincial offices in Nairobi. High drama.
Then two days ago students at one of the city's university caught up with two men who had been robbing many of the students. A group of students caught up with them, poured gasoline on them and burned them to death. Swift justice.
One of my retreatants, an elderly nun, told me of a group of women becoming fed up with some construction worker who was raping some of them, even hitting on young girls in their early teens. One day a gang of the women in that village went after this man, chased him to a pit, threw him in and proceeded to stone him to death. The police look the other way on some of this stuff! Swift justice! They have gone after some of these riot-producing imams down in the port city of Mombasa. A few of these imams get into radical jihadist thinking, take unemployed teenagers and young men in their 20s, fill them with anti-Christian hate, and have them riot. So the police in the last two years have taken matters into their hands, denying that they did so, and killed two imams. The protest was loud and fierce. The Kenyan government is blamed for being permissive but looks the other way. The Somali problems and bombing of the Westgate mall here in the city last September have made the Kenyan government to be very tough on the Al Shabaab anarchists. Hundreds of them in Somalia have been killed by Kenyan jets and troops that have gone after these cockroaches. US Navy Seals tried unsuccessfully last fall to get the Al Shabaab leader during a night raid. He was too well defended and the Seals had to withdraw in their boat. I suspect a drone-kill is being planned for one of these days. It can be so vicious, so bloody. Kenya is a young nation of 44 million, largely Christian and followers of traditional African religion. Militant Islam is being funded from outside. It wants to establish Islam as dominant throughout eastern Africa, just as in Nigeria and the Central African Republic now There is lots of American, British and Israeli undercover presence in this area, especially since the bombing of the mall.
Enough for now, friends. Please pray for the people of this part of the world. So many good and simple people, very poor, some living at the edge. It is a privilege for me to be invited here and share in a little of their present and future. All of you in the Manresa family, know that I offer Eucharist every Wednesday for you. Have a blessed Lent!
Bernie Owens
I write on March 7, first Friday of the month and the 3rd anniversary of my mother's death. As you might expect, she has been very much on my mind today. I share with you her final words to me 11 days before she went to God. While sitting up in bed with the help of many pillows and in full mind, she took both of my hands into her hands and said, "I know we will be seeing one another again some day." What a privileged moment that was for me, actually for the both of us. She was in a nursing care facility near my sister's home north of Traverse City and I had to drive that afternoon back to my residence in Detroit. So I had a lot of time alone in the car, some 4.5 hours, to be with that experience and wonder at the meaning of life, of her life, and the blessing she was to me and my three siblings. The day we celebrated her life and buried her ashes was absolutely clear in the sky. The sun was brilliant. It was a chilly wintery March 19, and the moon that evening was full and the closest to the earth it can ever get. It was haunting to see the moon that evening, a prominent symbol of the resurrection in so many religions of the world. I interpreted it as an unforgettable, strong statement of God of how love has the last say in all life, that nothing is stronger, not even close, to the power of divine love and compassion; it was a statement of irrepressible love and the promise of eternal life for all who believe and wish to serve/love God as they know God. It seemed some 300 people came that day to the funeral mass. !8 fellow priests, 16 of them Jesuits joined me for that mass. What support by so many!!
Last Sunday morning, as I was beginning to finish a retreat on contemplative prayer for 13 people that I had begun on Friday evening, I found myself terribly sick and weak, so weak I could not finish the retreat. I could hardly stand up, so wobbly and weak was I. One of the retreatants drove me in her car from the retreat house back to my residence where I collapsed in bed and went to sleep immediately. Fortunately the nun and a priest who were on the retreat filled in pretty well from what I heard. In the meantime I began to suffer the consequences and climax of what a doctor later diagnosed as "acute bacteria infection" in the intestines. My temperature went up to 104 F, with lots of sweating followed by chills and shivering...diarrhea and vomiting. At first it was thought to be malaria, but no, it turned out to be food poisoning and its violent impact. Oh my! Only by Wednesday evening did I have an appetite. Some baked fish tasted terrific! I had six pieces of fish that eveing with mashed potatoes and some cooked beans and carrots. Nothing raw!!! Lots of fresh mango juice and water to get rehydrated. Bananas, scrambled eggs, hot millet for cereal, hot tea and toast--everything bland. The care I received was wonderful. What an ordeal.
This has to be the sweetest way for getting revenge with someone (what an evil thought for Lent!!) So I am on the mend and not guiding any retreatants during this round of 8-day retreats. My focus is to get back my balance, my strength. I am still not 100%. I have a wonderful friend from Troy, MI coming to visit me for 9 days starting Monday evening. I want to be ready to enjoy the special time we hope to have together.
Other items: The night sky here is spectacular. So little light pollution. The stars and planets, also the moon right now almost half-moon are so beautiful to gaze at.
There is a bird that comes around a lot in morning and late afternoon. It is incessant, neurotic in the three-note chirp it sounds. The second chirp of the triplet is a half tone lower than the first and the third is a half tone lower than the second. It keeps it up until it makes you want to cover your ears or go get a gun. I am wondering whether this is the infamous mocking bird, whether this feathered pest is what is referred to in the title "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Last, the police here and sometimes crowds are ruthless with robbers they catch. In the last 10 days or so there have been three young men riding around on motorcycles and stopping to rob people. Even three of our Jesuit novices here to learn English (one from Egypt, one from Lebanon and one from Syria) while out for a walk got robbed by these idiots. The thieves specialized in hitting people in well-to-do areas early in the morning while people are leaving their homes to go to work. They point a gun and make the people go back into their home and surrender their laptops and other valuables. The police were alert to them and some of the police as plain clothes men cornered them, demanding that they surrender. One or more shot back at the police and one or more of the plainclothes men shot all three dead. Their motorcycles made them somewhat easy to notice. The shooting took place at an intersection in a neighborhood not far from the Jesuit Loyola House and provincial offices in Nairobi. High drama.
Then two days ago students at one of the city's university caught up with two men who had been robbing many of the students. A group of students caught up with them, poured gasoline on them and burned them to death. Swift justice.
One of my retreatants, an elderly nun, told me of a group of women becoming fed up with some construction worker who was raping some of them, even hitting on young girls in their early teens. One day a gang of the women in that village went after this man, chased him to a pit, threw him in and proceeded to stone him to death. The police look the other way on some of this stuff! Swift justice! They have gone after some of these riot-producing imams down in the port city of Mombasa. A few of these imams get into radical jihadist thinking, take unemployed teenagers and young men in their 20s, fill them with anti-Christian hate, and have them riot. So the police in the last two years have taken matters into their hands, denying that they did so, and killed two imams. The protest was loud and fierce. The Kenyan government is blamed for being permissive but looks the other way. The Somali problems and bombing of the Westgate mall here in the city last September have made the Kenyan government to be very tough on the Al Shabaab anarchists. Hundreds of them in Somalia have been killed by Kenyan jets and troops that have gone after these cockroaches. US Navy Seals tried unsuccessfully last fall to get the Al Shabaab leader during a night raid. He was too well defended and the Seals had to withdraw in their boat. I suspect a drone-kill is being planned for one of these days. It can be so vicious, so bloody. Kenya is a young nation of 44 million, largely Christian and followers of traditional African religion. Militant Islam is being funded from outside. It wants to establish Islam as dominant throughout eastern Africa, just as in Nigeria and the Central African Republic now There is lots of American, British and Israeli undercover presence in this area, especially since the bombing of the mall.
Enough for now, friends. Please pray for the people of this part of the world. So many good and simple people, very poor, some living at the edge. It is a privilege for me to be invited here and share in a little of their present and future. All of you in the Manresa family, know that I offer Eucharist every Wednesday for you. Have a blessed Lent!
Bernie Owens
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