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