HI, Friends,
Happy feast of Christ the King! The readings at today's mass were awesome. I hope you noticed.
Some of you received an invitation from me to exchange messages through LinkedIn. Someone strongly urged me to do this, but I must admit I just don't relate that much to LinkedIn. So, if you wish to communicate through that, then fine. I will catch it. This blog will be enough for many of you, I am sure.
After an overcast morning and some rain sprinkles it is very sunny here now. It is like yesterday's weather when I went swimming for the first time in Kenya at an outdoor pool. The pool is surrounded at one end by palm trees near which was a family of monkeys peeking at us and a little wary. I came back relaxed and noticed my skin is browning. By the way, I am not telling you this to rub it in that you are in snow and I am looking forward to summer. Come next May, June and especially July, we will get bad, cold weather!
On Friday I got the OK to stop wearing my orthopedic boot and using the cane. The doctor wants me to stay on flat surfaces for the next three weeks when I wear my regular shoes. If I want to walk on uneven ground, then I am to put the boot back on to protect the healing progress I have made. It feels so freeing to have the boot off. It was clumsy but necessary. I have paid my dues and now can walk normally. It will be another month I think before I return to gardening, just in time for my retreat which I intend to do from December 14-23.
Yesterday I marked three months since I arrived in Kenya. So much has happened in that time, as you see from the earlier postings on this blog. I truly feel at home now, yet somewhat confined by the fact that I still do not have a driver's license and have to depend on other people going to a mall or something else. I don't have driver's license because I still do not have a more permanent visa. Immigration has been picky with me about my getting my diploma or copy thereof to qualify for the visa. I succeeded in getting a transcript of my course work, on which is clearly the statement that I was granted the degree and did graduate. Even the date on which I was given the degree is stated there. Yet, immigration insists on the diploma or its copy. I threw away my diploma some years ago and the school where I graduated says it doesn't have a copy of it nor does it make copies of diplomas, at the time of graduation nor later. So stay tuned on this drama. I feel sure they will not throw me out of the country but are going to have to yield to the school's letter that will come to them this week saying they don't reproduce diplomas and don't make copies of such. Immigration seems so legalistic to me, so petty.
Last week one of my retreatants had some remarkable experiences in her retreat--first feeling a peace and relaxation throughout her body that she had never before felt. That day she told me everything seemed to radiate light, so full of God was any part of creation she looked at. Then on the following day everything seemedso plain, like all that light went off, yet she was very much at peace and relaxed. She felt the freedom to let God be and interact with her in whatever way God wanted.
A new group of 5 retreatants began two evenings ago. One of them today spoke about having a hard time forgiving someone who just died. While she could admit that many blessings had come to her through this person, there werea number of ways in which the person had hurt her, and try as she might, she could not shake the temptation as she woke to feel deep hurt, especially being told by this person that she didn't think she belonged in the sisterhood. In the next breath the retreatant said to me, "I love my life and feel happy in what I am doing,teaching highschoolstudents) I stopped her right there and said, "What did you just say?" She said, "I love my life and am very happy in what I am doing, but I am wondering whether Im making a mistake." I said again, "What did just say to me? "That I love my life and enjoy very much what I am doing." Then I said, "Don't you ever let anyone talk you outof what your heart is telling you." I added, "Youhave touched your core, your center, and no one's judgment should ever be trusted more than what you know in your center."
I went on to explain to her one of the most important pieces in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke; this is where Jesus is said by the people who observed His teachings and healings, that "he teaches as one with authority and not like the scribes and Pharisees."Itold her in this context the word "authority" means "from God" I said the people recognized that Jesus spoke as one coming out of the God he called Abba living in His depths. Then I added that at the heart of Jesus' ministry was His encouragement to all of us to claim in our own depths this same powerful reality and so to speak and act with the authority of God, from a faith and love that accesses this spiritual power. I said Jesus doesn't put that in us. It is already there, thanks to God's original creation. What Jesus does is get us to wake up through faith to this gift in our depths, to claim it and live in fidelity to it (God's living, dynamic presence in each of us.)
So, I said, you have to go back &walkthrough with Jesus His baptism experience where He is deeply affirmed by God ( This is my beloved. in whom I am well pleased.), get into the river after He is baptized and hear God affirm you (she had been praying on a very tender passage of Isaiah43:1-7 in which God was saying "You are precious in my eyes." I said read and re-read that passage as you come up out of the water, as Jesus did, and let those words of God wash over you. Then go with Jesus into the desert where He was exposed to 3temptations, all of them being an attempt to get Him to doubt God's affirmation, God's declaration of His personal love just for you. I said all that was going on inside you about this woman who hurt you is the same "inner critic" that attacked Jesus attacking you and trying to get you to doubt your heart and doubt your vocation.
She looked intently and nodded that this was what was happening. I added that God's affirmation for her was essentially the "north star" or guiding compass of her soul and she had to consult that inner reality, that gift of God to protect herselfand "keep herself on course,"because she will get attacked again sometime in the future. She needed to learn from this experience how to listen to God and not get hypnotized by the "inner critic" who is out to undercut her and pull her away from her truth, and this will lead to much unhappiness and spiritual confusion, and could eventually make her lose touch with God's call to her to live for Him as a consecrated religious.
Anyway, I sharethis with you to give you some sense of the wonderful work that can go on when providing one-on-one guidance to someone in spiritual direction or when making a silent retreat.
(You will notice there are a number of words here running in to others. I cannot get separation without a letter disappearing and then having to retype everything. So I apologize. I am trusting you can make the adjustment.)
I wish all of you in the USA a happy and relaxed Thanksgiving, with lots of wonderful food and drink. Thursday will be a work day here for us, like any other work day. I will think of all of you as I build up my tan while swimming laps at the pool.
By the way, you might remember my telling you about a month and a half ago my witnessing the birth of a Holstein calf, a cow for future milking purposes. In this last week it go loose twice and was jumping up and down on the lawn not far from retreatants who were sitting out on lawnchairs. What a happy calf. During the first reading that day from the Book of Wisdom, the writer spoke of the people of God after realizing their being freed by God from their slavery, leapt like lambs so happy were they. I could not help but think the Lord was providing us with a similar image through this young, happy, frisky animal.
I need to move on. God bless and a happy Advent. May God come to each of you during this upcoming special season preparing us for the Christmas season.
Bernie Owens
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Dear Friends,
Here I am on Sunday evening, after a day of beautiful weather here and with a sense of summer approaching and the children and teenagers just getting out of school for their summer break till January 2. Yes, it takes me a moment to make that shift and think that I am in the southern hemisphere and so many things are reversed from what I became so accustomed to. (Still, the moon is very full right now and Venus still appears brilliantly in the western sky each night, just as they do for you in the northern hemisphere. Some things remain the same!)
I have some personal news to share, something that makes me happy beyond description. Just this last week a niece of mine and her husband in Charleston, SC succeeded after two years to adopt a 9 year old boy and his 7 year old sister. My relatives have been childless all their married years and have so wanted to have children. Learning that they would not be able to do so, they proceeded with adoption efforts. So on Monday it became official and I must say everyone I know in my family is so happy for them. It is a wonderful addition to our family.
In my previous blog-postings I have tried to give you, the reader, a sense of this place and its natural beauty. Today I want to attempt to describe for you some of the interior beauty I am privileged to witness as I engage in the work of this place, guiding retreatants in their 8 or 10 day silent retreats.
There are over 35 people here right now making retreats. They started Tuesday evening and will finish this coming Thursday morning. So that makes 8 complete days; a few of them came on Sunday evening, a week ago, and are making this a 10 day retreat.
First, let me impress on you what we mean by silence. We mean no cellphones, no newspaper reading, no access to computers, no talking with others, not even looking or greeting each other as we pass one another during the days. We say our hellos at the beginning of the retreat and have this common understanding among each other that there is no offense meant when we pass each other and do not greet one another. With that common understanding, we are able to enter into a profound, deeply focused silence of mind, imagination and heart. It is truly powerful and makes one much more sensitive to God and God's whispers during the retreat as one considers certain bible passages to reflect and pray on.
I am one of about 10 guides; I have five retreatants, four of them Kenyan women and one of them a woman medical missionary (ObGyn) from Nigeria who works in Tanzania, the nation just south of us. Each retreatant has a maximum of 45 minutes a day to talk with me about what has happened during their prayer during the previous 24 hours. What this group has said to me, in confidence, is profound. I hear the souls, the deeper desires of these people, their struggles to be true to their call and deeper selves and then to thrill with them as they experience God's very personal love for them.
One of them will engage in a ceremony at the end of this month in which she will vow and formally offer herself to God as a nun for the rest of her life in the community she comes from, the Loretto Sisters. She is a nurse among high school children but is expecting a change of ministry right after that vow ceremony. She has described her time alone with God, as she roams the grounds here and sits before the Sacrament, that she feels wooed by God, on holiday with God, so relaxed like never before, freed and cherished. She has found very meaningful passages in the Old Testament where God says to Israel that He is marrying her. She owned these passages for her own self. She just beamed. Two days ago she said everything seems to shine with a certain light, like everything is alive with God's presence and oozes the divine presence. This morning she said everything now seemed very quiet, not the excitement of the previous day but that she was OK with this shift, not worried as if God disappeared, that she was OK with this "silence" of God, because she trusts that God is deeper than all those previous manifestations; that it is fine when God wants to give you those experiences but that it is OK also to let God be with her the way God wants to be with her in a less spectacular way ... in a more quiet and prosaic way. She is learning to let God lead and give at a level deeper than what she is able to sense or think or feel. s
All these women are in their late 30s or early 40s.
Another one has the name of Magdalene, and so a big part of her retreat has been to take quality time to think and pray about Mary Magdalene in the Scriptures. It has been very moving to hear her describe deeper levels of her own identity as she ponders her namesake in the gospel stories where Mary Magdalene is spoken about: at the foot of the cross and in the garden on Easter morning. God is so amazing at how He speaks personally to people who are willing to get this quiet, to really slow down, and listen deeply with their heart as they ponder parts of the bible that reveal to them God's personal love for them and what their call is for a deeper, richer life in Him. My privilege is to meet with them each day for 8 or 10 straight days in such silence and observe the amazing unfolding of their hearts and observe their discovery of what they mean to God and to Jesus. When they taste such love as so personal and so NOW, not just 2000 years old, but now, it is very powerful what happens to them and their relationship with God, with the way they see their life and the work they are doing. My role is to hear closely each day the progress of their prayer (probably 4 one-hour periods of prayer per day, summarized briefly in a journal) and to suggest passages to pray on for the coming 24 hours. I also confirm the validity and power of what they share with me, and then point out further implications in what they shared with me, in what they prayed on and might do well to spend more time reflecting on and discussing with God. My role is a little like a waiter in a restaurant who serves as well as possible these special days between God and the retreatant. They come to the restaurant for a great meal and a wonderful meeting together and my job is to be sure the evening is a fabulous time for the both of them . . . not to hover too closely but also not be too far away and not sufficiently available when I am needed. There are many times I walk away greatly humbled and full of joy after finishing with the five retreatants. I ask myself, "Is there a better work anyone I could be involved in? Can anyone get closer to where God is active and creating something wonderful, right now??!!" Sometime I think I know why Moses in meeting God in the burning mush took off his sandals and simply bowed forward and put his face to the ground, so moved was he by the holiness and proximity of God.
Now as grandiose as this work is, I witnessed today something of the same wonder of God's presence in a rose bush a few feet away from my front door. It has about 5 or 6 yellow roses all in full blossom and giving off a rather detectable sweet aroma. I had to stop and just gaze at and wonder at what is the Maker of these roses like when they are so beautiful and yet will be gone in a few days!!
Something of the same question struck some of the retreatants I am guiding when they were focusing on an aspect of God's love in their own lives. I suggested that they take time to move from the gifts to the Gift-Giver, from thanking God for all the gifts they were so touched by and spend time look straight at God, the Gift-Giver; to look into God's eyes, so to speak, and hold steady in their asking God, "Just who are you? Who ARE you??!! ...and to let that question move around inside them during the day. It is very powerful when a person can get that still and "look into the depths of God's heart, into God's eyes" and get in touch with the joy and fullness of life that pours out of God for you. Many people are afraid to get that still, to be that present and vulnerable before our Maker and Divine Lover. But when someone comes on retreat and enters into the depth of silence we insist on and really engages God like this, powerful things happen. People see with their heart and experience at a depth they never before knew possible. This changes their lives. They are never the same. I recall a spiritual guide I had as a young priest telling me, "Once God has taken you to a certain depth, you will be bored with less." Yes, once your soul has plumbed to a certain depth, you will be restless to get back to at least that depth and to go further into the heart of God. We are made for the ultimate and we are restless until we get there. It is sad that many people want to live a distracted life, constantly extraverted and engaged in surface interests. Yes, many people choose to live this way. In this way they can avoid what they fear, yet they long at other times for something that will take them beyond their ho-hum lives. In the worst cases of this, we find addictions of various kinds, vain efforts to quiet this voice that calls them to trust and come alive to a Love they keep "looking for in all the wrong places."
It is bedtime here. I need to get a decent sleep and be ready for the five retreatants tomorrow. I start with them at 8:45 AM and end at 1 PM, with a break from 11 - 11:30AM. I wish you all a good week, and thanks so much for the encouraging feedback I have received from those of you who read what I write here. I will be continuing work on the editing of my book during afternoons. I am making progress and I am encouraged by what I have done so far. I hope to finish by January 1.
Bernie Owens
Here I am on Sunday evening, after a day of beautiful weather here and with a sense of summer approaching and the children and teenagers just getting out of school for their summer break till January 2. Yes, it takes me a moment to make that shift and think that I am in the southern hemisphere and so many things are reversed from what I became so accustomed to. (Still, the moon is very full right now and Venus still appears brilliantly in the western sky each night, just as they do for you in the northern hemisphere. Some things remain the same!)
I have some personal news to share, something that makes me happy beyond description. Just this last week a niece of mine and her husband in Charleston, SC succeeded after two years to adopt a 9 year old boy and his 7 year old sister. My relatives have been childless all their married years and have so wanted to have children. Learning that they would not be able to do so, they proceeded with adoption efforts. So on Monday it became official and I must say everyone I know in my family is so happy for them. It is a wonderful addition to our family.
In my previous blog-postings I have tried to give you, the reader, a sense of this place and its natural beauty. Today I want to attempt to describe for you some of the interior beauty I am privileged to witness as I engage in the work of this place, guiding retreatants in their 8 or 10 day silent retreats.
There are over 35 people here right now making retreats. They started Tuesday evening and will finish this coming Thursday morning. So that makes 8 complete days; a few of them came on Sunday evening, a week ago, and are making this a 10 day retreat.
First, let me impress on you what we mean by silence. We mean no cellphones, no newspaper reading, no access to computers, no talking with others, not even looking or greeting each other as we pass one another during the days. We say our hellos at the beginning of the retreat and have this common understanding among each other that there is no offense meant when we pass each other and do not greet one another. With that common understanding, we are able to enter into a profound, deeply focused silence of mind, imagination and heart. It is truly powerful and makes one much more sensitive to God and God's whispers during the retreat as one considers certain bible passages to reflect and pray on.
I am one of about 10 guides; I have five retreatants, four of them Kenyan women and one of them a woman medical missionary (ObGyn) from Nigeria who works in Tanzania, the nation just south of us. Each retreatant has a maximum of 45 minutes a day to talk with me about what has happened during their prayer during the previous 24 hours. What this group has said to me, in confidence, is profound. I hear the souls, the deeper desires of these people, their struggles to be true to their call and deeper selves and then to thrill with them as they experience God's very personal love for them.
One of them will engage in a ceremony at the end of this month in which she will vow and formally offer herself to God as a nun for the rest of her life in the community she comes from, the Loretto Sisters. She is a nurse among high school children but is expecting a change of ministry right after that vow ceremony. She has described her time alone with God, as she roams the grounds here and sits before the Sacrament, that she feels wooed by God, on holiday with God, so relaxed like never before, freed and cherished. She has found very meaningful passages in the Old Testament where God says to Israel that He is marrying her. She owned these passages for her own self. She just beamed. Two days ago she said everything seems to shine with a certain light, like everything is alive with God's presence and oozes the divine presence. This morning she said everything now seemed very quiet, not the excitement of the previous day but that she was OK with this shift, not worried as if God disappeared, that she was OK with this "silence" of God, because she trusts that God is deeper than all those previous manifestations; that it is fine when God wants to give you those experiences but that it is OK also to let God be with her the way God wants to be with her in a less spectacular way ... in a more quiet and prosaic way. She is learning to let God lead and give at a level deeper than what she is able to sense or think or feel. s
All these women are in their late 30s or early 40s.
Another one has the name of Magdalene, and so a big part of her retreat has been to take quality time to think and pray about Mary Magdalene in the Scriptures. It has been very moving to hear her describe deeper levels of her own identity as she ponders her namesake in the gospel stories where Mary Magdalene is spoken about: at the foot of the cross and in the garden on Easter morning. God is so amazing at how He speaks personally to people who are willing to get this quiet, to really slow down, and listen deeply with their heart as they ponder parts of the bible that reveal to them God's personal love for them and what their call is for a deeper, richer life in Him. My privilege is to meet with them each day for 8 or 10 straight days in such silence and observe the amazing unfolding of their hearts and observe their discovery of what they mean to God and to Jesus. When they taste such love as so personal and so NOW, not just 2000 years old, but now, it is very powerful what happens to them and their relationship with God, with the way they see their life and the work they are doing. My role is to hear closely each day the progress of their prayer (probably 4 one-hour periods of prayer per day, summarized briefly in a journal) and to suggest passages to pray on for the coming 24 hours. I also confirm the validity and power of what they share with me, and then point out further implications in what they shared with me, in what they prayed on and might do well to spend more time reflecting on and discussing with God. My role is a little like a waiter in a restaurant who serves as well as possible these special days between God and the retreatant. They come to the restaurant for a great meal and a wonderful meeting together and my job is to be sure the evening is a fabulous time for the both of them . . . not to hover too closely but also not be too far away and not sufficiently available when I am needed. There are many times I walk away greatly humbled and full of joy after finishing with the five retreatants. I ask myself, "Is there a better work anyone I could be involved in? Can anyone get closer to where God is active and creating something wonderful, right now??!!" Sometime I think I know why Moses in meeting God in the burning mush took off his sandals and simply bowed forward and put his face to the ground, so moved was he by the holiness and proximity of God.
Now as grandiose as this work is, I witnessed today something of the same wonder of God's presence in a rose bush a few feet away from my front door. It has about 5 or 6 yellow roses all in full blossom and giving off a rather detectable sweet aroma. I had to stop and just gaze at and wonder at what is the Maker of these roses like when they are so beautiful and yet will be gone in a few days!!
Something of the same question struck some of the retreatants I am guiding when they were focusing on an aspect of God's love in their own lives. I suggested that they take time to move from the gifts to the Gift-Giver, from thanking God for all the gifts they were so touched by and spend time look straight at God, the Gift-Giver; to look into God's eyes, so to speak, and hold steady in their asking God, "Just who are you? Who ARE you??!! ...and to let that question move around inside them during the day. It is very powerful when a person can get that still and "look into the depths of God's heart, into God's eyes" and get in touch with the joy and fullness of life that pours out of God for you. Many people are afraid to get that still, to be that present and vulnerable before our Maker and Divine Lover. But when someone comes on retreat and enters into the depth of silence we insist on and really engages God like this, powerful things happen. People see with their heart and experience at a depth they never before knew possible. This changes their lives. They are never the same. I recall a spiritual guide I had as a young priest telling me, "Once God has taken you to a certain depth, you will be bored with less." Yes, once your soul has plumbed to a certain depth, you will be restless to get back to at least that depth and to go further into the heart of God. We are made for the ultimate and we are restless until we get there. It is sad that many people want to live a distracted life, constantly extraverted and engaged in surface interests. Yes, many people choose to live this way. In this way they can avoid what they fear, yet they long at other times for something that will take them beyond their ho-hum lives. In the worst cases of this, we find addictions of various kinds, vain efforts to quiet this voice that calls them to trust and come alive to a Love they keep "looking for in all the wrong places."
It is bedtime here. I need to get a decent sleep and be ready for the five retreatants tomorrow. I start with them at 8:45 AM and end at 1 PM, with a break from 11 - 11:30AM. I wish you all a good week, and thanks so much for the encouraging feedback I have received from those of you who read what I write here. I will be continuing work on the editing of my book during afternoons. I am making progress and I am encouraged by what I have done so far. I hope to finish by January 1.
Bernie Owens
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Good morning, friends. Here I am continuing with what I started on yesterday's posting.
I need to tell you about this place, more about its layout and view. We have 46 acres here. It was purchased in 1979 as a piece of a large coffee plantation that went bankrupt. We are situated on land that slowly rises on one end and then about half way into the land falls off more quickly in the other half, going down toward a small river in a deep gorge. At the high point of the property we are at 5900 feet above sea level, just about as high as Colorado Springs, CO. So we are in the mountains with refreshing clean air, cool nights and hot mid-afternoons when the sun is not blocked by clouds.
The retreat house, which is an old mansion from the coffee plantation days, sits on the highest part of the property. The Jesuit community buildings sit on a lower part of the property, somewhat down the knoll of the drop-off going toward the river and gorge. It is maybe 100 feet lower than the high point of the property which is where the lawn in front of the old mansion is. The lawn is maybe 400 feet from one end to the other, a marvelous place to stroll or sit out on when you are in retreat or just want some quiet time to relax, which is what I will do some late afternoons. I will get a movable chair and go in the shade to meditate and just close my eyes to enjoy the breeze. The view from there is spectacular. From concrete benches or from movable, metal chairs that one can lift and move, you can view the range of mountains that are some 30-40 miles away. The shape and contour of the mountain ridge remind me very much of the Pennsylvania or Virginia Allegheny mountains: very green, heavily treed and filled with little villages. The ridge is up and down in its contour. The range is named the Ngong Mountain range because in the language of the Masai tribe, Ngong means knuckles like when you clinch your fist and look at the up and down appearance of the knuckles. At the ridge are some radio and TV transmission towers and also some windmills for generating electricity. The altitude at the ridge must be close to 7500, maybe 8000 feet above sea level.
Up on the highest level of the retreat house grounds are a number of tall trees and flowering bushes, not too many to clutter the grounds but just the right number and spaced correctly to make for a truly gorgeous ambiance. (One cluster of bamboo right outside my office building--maybe 20 feet up) and then another bigger cluster toward the front door of the retreat center; it is pruned or shaped to look like a huge mushroom!) A number of the bushes are flowering right now, since it is spring time here with lots of pollen in the air (runny noses and itchy skin at times also!). The color up at that point is out of this world! Camera bugs would have a field day! A little down the knoll and going toward the buildings of the Jesuit community is a grove of maybe three dozen mango trees. Wow, is that what was in paradise before Adam and Eve messed up things??!!
At opposite ends of the property are two huge gardens from which we and those who stay at the retreat house eat a lot of the veggies. We even eat some of our own beef, drink the milk that comes from two cows (two other cows are too young right now to produce for us) make our own cheese and yogurt, raise some of our honey (big bee hives), raise and eat rabbits and also quails and poached quail eggs. We have six German shepherd puppies that we are trying to sell. Any takers??!! They are for sale at $160 US per pup, already wormed and inoculated! We also have a goat that we think is pregnant. The roosters, chickens and a few cats fill out the rest of the scene.
At the other end of the property is the bigger of the two gardens, almost the size of two football fields. That is where my little plot (about 30 feet wide and 100 feet long) is. Near my plot is a grove of about 30-40 banana trees. They stand 30-35 feet up and in clusters of about 10 stalks per tree. Their huge leaves make for great shade in the afternoon sun. When I sit there I look up at a big bunch of green bananas. It is delightful to see something like this, something that is still quite new to me.
Let me try to describe the layout of the Jesuit community buildings. They consist of two long lines of apartments, single dwellings. They stretch for 235 yards, which is as long as two football fields end to end. Quite a distance!! These buildings include the administrator's central office, a TV room and a couple of meeting rooms, the dining area and recreation room, laundry area, some guest rooms, then a large chapel in the round and a smaller one; also a library and a workshop and storage place for farming equipment, including a tractor. Outside the dining room is a veranda, shaded with nice picnic type tables to eat at in warm weather. This is where the birds come in the morning to eat crumbs we throw to them. A monkey three feet tall comes there on some occasions!
There is about 60-65 feet between the two sets of buildings running parallel to each other. The roof is of light shaded rust clay-tile and the walls are made of grey stone taken from local quarries. Very solid construction. Down the middle of the space between the two parallel sets of buildings is a driveway for facilitating the pickup of anyone who is sick and weak or is not too ambulatory. In this same area are mini-fruit trees--oranges, lemons, pomogranites, then lots of rose bushes spaced nicely and in bloom right now (light pink, deep red, yellow, small red-orange ones, also some bogen-via bushes with dozens and dozens of fuschia colored blossoms and honeysuckle bushes trellising up onto the chapel roof. Really nice!!
The chapel is in the round, actually a half circle--wooden inlaid floor and lots of light coming in through the opaque windows of the roof and the back walls of glass. About 60 movable chairs are there situated in a big half-circle facing the altar. Off to the left of the altar and set into the wall is a little tabernacle with a glass door and the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance that is quite visible to anyone sitting in that part of the chapel. It is a favorite place for many who wish to pray there. Immediately to the left of the altar as you face it is a huge cross with a corpus of the crucified Jesus. It is maybe 25 feet high and is of one piece of wood, probably three times life-size, really powerful as you enter the chapel. The colors of the whole place are so tastefully coordinated.
My own living quarters are spacious, but have bare floors; the bed has a foamed rubber mattress. Ugh! I always sleep with my mosquito netting down at night. It allows me to sleep in peace. Showers have plenty of hot water but there is no stall or curtain. I have a hand-held spray head and need a bath towel to dry off the floor after showering. I blow-dry my hair in the reflection of my laptop computer--how ingenious, heh!! Lots of natural light comes through a good size bay winder. During the day I leave the sliding door of my room open as well as the windows of the bay area. No screens! (Smile!)
My office is really spacious, probably 2.5 times what I had at Manresa. It looks west and south toward the prettier parts of the grounds. I love the view!
This nation still suffers from the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the mall, Westgate. It was discovered after about a week that only four terrorists, not 10-15 were involved and that most of the damage was done by the Kenyan army shooting at what they thought were the terrorists. All four terrorists escaped through a tunnel and faded into the crowds who were running for their lives. The army now knows who each of them is and since has gone into Somalia and bombed and raided an Al Shabaab training camp that had about 300 people at it. Two Al Shabaab leaders were killed and others as well. About a week after the massacre at the Nairobi mall, the US Navy Seals had a nighttime raid from the sea near Mogadishu, Somalia, but failed to get the leader they were seeking to assassinate. They came under very heavy fire from defenders of the leader of the mall massacre. It is suspected that Saudi Arabia is funding these groups and that the pirates that formerly were capturing ships on the Indian ocean were funding their operations from the booty and ransom money they were getting.
The other big national news is that of the president of this country being indicted by the World Court in the Hague for allegedly promoting gangs of thugs to beat up and kill opponents to his election efforts back in 2008. This involved over 1000 people being killed at the time of the elections. He is trying everything to avoid going there, even threatening to pull Kenya out of the league of nations who answer to the legal system of the Hague Court. (The USA does not belong either; otherwise, you could be sure that some elected or appointed officials of the last administration and probably some of the present administration would be indicted and certainly convicted of war crimes.)
Lastly, the roads here are notoriously awful: bumpy and full of potholes, numerous, obnoxious speed bumps to slow down drivers, narrow lanes and shoulders that drop off fast into ditches. So there are many road accidents and roll-overs, numerous deaths as well. Many buses travel too fast and every so often there are terrible accidents, even last week a big head-on of two buses that killed six and badly injured about 20. The driver of one bus was waving to the other driver and lost control of the driver's wheel! Stupid!! In another incident one taxi driver (taxis are like Volkeswagon buses that can take 10-12 passengers) tried to beat a train at a rail crossing. He was wearing earphones and listening to loud music during the morning rush-hour traffic and didn't hear the horn of the train. The taxi was mangled, 13 were killed, and he ran from the scene of the accident but was later caught. He will go to prison for life.
Well, this is enough for now. It is really raining here now. Finally the spring rains are visiting us, about 3-4 weeks late. I continue to work on cutting down the size of my book because the publisher wants me to do that. I expect to receive in this coming week in the mail a contract to sign. The company is Liturgical Press from Collegeville, MN. It will be thrilled when the book is finally printed and public for purchase. That day is now in the foreseeable future. Praise God!
Bernie Owens
I need to tell you about this place, more about its layout and view. We have 46 acres here. It was purchased in 1979 as a piece of a large coffee plantation that went bankrupt. We are situated on land that slowly rises on one end and then about half way into the land falls off more quickly in the other half, going down toward a small river in a deep gorge. At the high point of the property we are at 5900 feet above sea level, just about as high as Colorado Springs, CO. So we are in the mountains with refreshing clean air, cool nights and hot mid-afternoons when the sun is not blocked by clouds.
The retreat house, which is an old mansion from the coffee plantation days, sits on the highest part of the property. The Jesuit community buildings sit on a lower part of the property, somewhat down the knoll of the drop-off going toward the river and gorge. It is maybe 100 feet lower than the high point of the property which is where the lawn in front of the old mansion is. The lawn is maybe 400 feet from one end to the other, a marvelous place to stroll or sit out on when you are in retreat or just want some quiet time to relax, which is what I will do some late afternoons. I will get a movable chair and go in the shade to meditate and just close my eyes to enjoy the breeze. The view from there is spectacular. From concrete benches or from movable, metal chairs that one can lift and move, you can view the range of mountains that are some 30-40 miles away. The shape and contour of the mountain ridge remind me very much of the Pennsylvania or Virginia Allegheny mountains: very green, heavily treed and filled with little villages. The ridge is up and down in its contour. The range is named the Ngong Mountain range because in the language of the Masai tribe, Ngong means knuckles like when you clinch your fist and look at the up and down appearance of the knuckles. At the ridge are some radio and TV transmission towers and also some windmills for generating electricity. The altitude at the ridge must be close to 7500, maybe 8000 feet above sea level.
Up on the highest level of the retreat house grounds are a number of tall trees and flowering bushes, not too many to clutter the grounds but just the right number and spaced correctly to make for a truly gorgeous ambiance. (One cluster of bamboo right outside my office building--maybe 20 feet up) and then another bigger cluster toward the front door of the retreat center; it is pruned or shaped to look like a huge mushroom!) A number of the bushes are flowering right now, since it is spring time here with lots of pollen in the air (runny noses and itchy skin at times also!). The color up at that point is out of this world! Camera bugs would have a field day! A little down the knoll and going toward the buildings of the Jesuit community is a grove of maybe three dozen mango trees. Wow, is that what was in paradise before Adam and Eve messed up things??!!
At opposite ends of the property are two huge gardens from which we and those who stay at the retreat house eat a lot of the veggies. We even eat some of our own beef, drink the milk that comes from two cows (two other cows are too young right now to produce for us) make our own cheese and yogurt, raise some of our honey (big bee hives), raise and eat rabbits and also quails and poached quail eggs. We have six German shepherd puppies that we are trying to sell. Any takers??!! They are for sale at $160 US per pup, already wormed and inoculated! We also have a goat that we think is pregnant. The roosters, chickens and a few cats fill out the rest of the scene.
At the other end of the property is the bigger of the two gardens, almost the size of two football fields. That is where my little plot (about 30 feet wide and 100 feet long) is. Near my plot is a grove of about 30-40 banana trees. They stand 30-35 feet up and in clusters of about 10 stalks per tree. Their huge leaves make for great shade in the afternoon sun. When I sit there I look up at a big bunch of green bananas. It is delightful to see something like this, something that is still quite new to me.
Let me try to describe the layout of the Jesuit community buildings. They consist of two long lines of apartments, single dwellings. They stretch for 235 yards, which is as long as two football fields end to end. Quite a distance!! These buildings include the administrator's central office, a TV room and a couple of meeting rooms, the dining area and recreation room, laundry area, some guest rooms, then a large chapel in the round and a smaller one; also a library and a workshop and storage place for farming equipment, including a tractor. Outside the dining room is a veranda, shaded with nice picnic type tables to eat at in warm weather. This is where the birds come in the morning to eat crumbs we throw to them. A monkey three feet tall comes there on some occasions!
There is about 60-65 feet between the two sets of buildings running parallel to each other. The roof is of light shaded rust clay-tile and the walls are made of grey stone taken from local quarries. Very solid construction. Down the middle of the space between the two parallel sets of buildings is a driveway for facilitating the pickup of anyone who is sick and weak or is not too ambulatory. In this same area are mini-fruit trees--oranges, lemons, pomogranites, then lots of rose bushes spaced nicely and in bloom right now (light pink, deep red, yellow, small red-orange ones, also some bogen-via bushes with dozens and dozens of fuschia colored blossoms and honeysuckle bushes trellising up onto the chapel roof. Really nice!!
The chapel is in the round, actually a half circle--wooden inlaid floor and lots of light coming in through the opaque windows of the roof and the back walls of glass. About 60 movable chairs are there situated in a big half-circle facing the altar. Off to the left of the altar and set into the wall is a little tabernacle with a glass door and the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance that is quite visible to anyone sitting in that part of the chapel. It is a favorite place for many who wish to pray there. Immediately to the left of the altar as you face it is a huge cross with a corpus of the crucified Jesus. It is maybe 25 feet high and is of one piece of wood, probably three times life-size, really powerful as you enter the chapel. The colors of the whole place are so tastefully coordinated.
My own living quarters are spacious, but have bare floors; the bed has a foamed rubber mattress. Ugh! I always sleep with my mosquito netting down at night. It allows me to sleep in peace. Showers have plenty of hot water but there is no stall or curtain. I have a hand-held spray head and need a bath towel to dry off the floor after showering. I blow-dry my hair in the reflection of my laptop computer--how ingenious, heh!! Lots of natural light comes through a good size bay winder. During the day I leave the sliding door of my room open as well as the windows of the bay area. No screens! (Smile!)
My office is really spacious, probably 2.5 times what I had at Manresa. It looks west and south toward the prettier parts of the grounds. I love the view!
This nation still suffers from the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the mall, Westgate. It was discovered after about a week that only four terrorists, not 10-15 were involved and that most of the damage was done by the Kenyan army shooting at what they thought were the terrorists. All four terrorists escaped through a tunnel and faded into the crowds who were running for their lives. The army now knows who each of them is and since has gone into Somalia and bombed and raided an Al Shabaab training camp that had about 300 people at it. Two Al Shabaab leaders were killed and others as well. About a week after the massacre at the Nairobi mall, the US Navy Seals had a nighttime raid from the sea near Mogadishu, Somalia, but failed to get the leader they were seeking to assassinate. They came under very heavy fire from defenders of the leader of the mall massacre. It is suspected that Saudi Arabia is funding these groups and that the pirates that formerly were capturing ships on the Indian ocean were funding their operations from the booty and ransom money they were getting.
The other big national news is that of the president of this country being indicted by the World Court in the Hague for allegedly promoting gangs of thugs to beat up and kill opponents to his election efforts back in 2008. This involved over 1000 people being killed at the time of the elections. He is trying everything to avoid going there, even threatening to pull Kenya out of the league of nations who answer to the legal system of the Hague Court. (The USA does not belong either; otherwise, you could be sure that some elected or appointed officials of the last administration and probably some of the present administration would be indicted and certainly convicted of war crimes.)
Lastly, the roads here are notoriously awful: bumpy and full of potholes, numerous, obnoxious speed bumps to slow down drivers, narrow lanes and shoulders that drop off fast into ditches. So there are many road accidents and roll-overs, numerous deaths as well. Many buses travel too fast and every so often there are terrible accidents, even last week a big head-on of two buses that killed six and badly injured about 20. The driver of one bus was waving to the other driver and lost control of the driver's wheel! Stupid!! In another incident one taxi driver (taxis are like Volkeswagon buses that can take 10-12 passengers) tried to beat a train at a rail crossing. He was wearing earphones and listening to loud music during the morning rush-hour traffic and didn't hear the horn of the train. The taxi was mangled, 13 were killed, and he ran from the scene of the accident but was later caught. He will go to prison for life.
Well, this is enough for now. It is really raining here now. Finally the spring rains are visiting us, about 3-4 weeks late. I continue to work on cutting down the size of my book because the publisher wants me to do that. I expect to receive in this coming week in the mail a contract to sign. The company is Liturgical Press from Collegeville, MN. It will be thrilled when the book is finally printed and public for purchase. That day is now in the foreseeable future. Praise God!
Bernie Owens
Friends,
I just spent nearly two hours typing what I have wanted for many weeks to describe to you about this place and now I think I lost it all on some crazy thing that happened on the computer. You can imagine how I feel. I need to take a break. Maybe sometime in the future I will do it again. It was a really long set of paragraphs about this place, an update on the terrorists, the government here and its mess with the World Court at the Hague, the roads here in Kenya, my book, etc, etc.! Damn!!!!!!
Go Lions!
Bernie Owens
I just spent nearly two hours typing what I have wanted for many weeks to describe to you about this place and now I think I lost it all on some crazy thing that happened on the computer. You can imagine how I feel. I need to take a break. Maybe sometime in the future I will do it again. It was a really long set of paragraphs about this place, an update on the terrorists, the government here and its mess with the World Court at the Hague, the roads here in Kenya, my book, etc, etc.! Damn!!!!!!
Go Lions!
Bernie Owens
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Dear Friends,
It has been more than three weeks since I wrote anything on this blog. I have had so much to tell you that I keep delaying till I would have a lengthy time to write. So much has happened in the last three weeks and now I finally have time to send you a long letter.
Most importantly, I am quite well and have been really busy, working hard at some demanding projects, doing a good variety of things.
First, I had a class a week ago today to lead for 16 people: six were Jesuit seminarians, 5 nuns and then the rest were lay people except for one priest. I had to present material on the Foundations or Fundamentals of Retreat Guidance. It was at the Jesuit seminary in downtown Nairobi. If you know me, you know I love to do this kind of work . . . not just to teach but also to lead a class whose topic pertains to the God-life in all of us. It took lots of retyping notes and then finally learning how to scan previously typed pages and transmit them as attachments. (My God, did I tax myself and brain in trying to learn how to do the process for sending scanned documents. I finally had to get the help of a more knowledgeable Jesuit to get this piece done.) Anyway, I got it done and provided them some 11 or 12 pages of relevant materials. What I spent the better part of our two hours on was emphasizing the fundamental of all fundamentals in retreat guidance, i.e., the active presence of God's Holy Spirit in anyone of us; the Spirit prompting, speaking, guiding anyone who has learned to listen to the Spirit in their experience. It was fun to use chalkboard diagrams to illustrate this reality in our depths. There were good questions and good reflections on implications of this truth when working with someone who asks you to guide their prayer, their retreat.
Then I was asked to deliver a class here at the retreat center on "ecclesiology" to 28 people learning to be spiritual directors. They have been coming here for the last two years for a program similar to the Internship in Ignatian Spirituality I led at Manresa for many years. I had never addressed this theme before, so I had 4-5 days of reading to do in order to adequately prepare. What was especially new for me was to talk not just about 'church' but church IN AFRICA. So I had to read and type a summary on the world gathering of African bishops in 1994, on the second gathering of the African bishops in 2009, and finally a 225 page book on looking at what is church in this continent as it faces the crises of AIDS, refugees, and chronic, dehumanizing poverty. It was lots of work, so too the typing a summary of all of this and finally presenting it to the group. It was a good moment to present it all and hear from these Africans what is their experience of the church living with these three huge challenges. I learned a lot, a lot about what is going on in the 53 nations of this continent of more than 1 billion people!
Finally, I finished this morning a two day retreat with 12 young Kenyan men, all of whom are looking seriously at entering the Jesuits come next May, They ranged in ages from 22 to 42. What a delight it was to do this. We hit it off very well. I had them seriously look at different experiences of people in the Bible being called by God and share which story they identified with most, then to look at who Jesus is to them, to consider just how much He means to them (what great sharings from them), then to consider what are the riches of Ignatian spirituality and in belonging to the Jesuits, what is the nature of the work we do (so much on what is the Kingdom of God, the basis or ultimate goal of all our ministries of schools, parishes, retreat houses, scholarly work), and finally the discussion of an article by Pedro Arrupe, our former Father General (1965-81), on the Eucharist. I wanted them who are considering being future priests to consider this theme central to being a priest and ask them whether they ever imagined themselves leading a mass, someday praying the mass while vested and leading a congregation of believers in this awesome prayer. Again, what they had to say to these questions was truly wonderful. Our session was so rich, so satisfying. These men are ready to start their lives as Jesuits.
I have never before had the opportunity to lead something like these last two items. So I am feeling creative, challenged, and alive!
Last Tuesday all of the 28 people learning to be spiritual guides plus staff, myself included, went to a nearby college called Tangaza and sat in on a morning of lectures having to do with African Traditional Religion and African culture. It was very worth our time. We even touched on witchcraft and how much it influences African thinking and ways of understanding the world of the gods. Even Christians have some ways of being influenced by such in their thinking about God and how God interacts with us in the struggles of life.
I continue to wear my orthopedic boot to protect the left foot where I broke a small bone. I have completed four weeks and have two more weeks to wear it. No pain, it is just clumsy to walk around with it and have a cane in my right hand to balance my walking. I take some vitamin D pills to aid the bone growth. In the meantime, I have abandoned all that I planted in the plot I have charge of in the huge garden on these grounds. The fulltime caretakers have kept it watered but I have done no weeding. I don't want to risk this foot and the helaing process!!.
(I am going to take a break now and will write more later this evening or tomorrow morning.)
Bernie Owens
It has been more than three weeks since I wrote anything on this blog. I have had so much to tell you that I keep delaying till I would have a lengthy time to write. So much has happened in the last three weeks and now I finally have time to send you a long letter.
Most importantly, I am quite well and have been really busy, working hard at some demanding projects, doing a good variety of things.
First, I had a class a week ago today to lead for 16 people: six were Jesuit seminarians, 5 nuns and then the rest were lay people except for one priest. I had to present material on the Foundations or Fundamentals of Retreat Guidance. It was at the Jesuit seminary in downtown Nairobi. If you know me, you know I love to do this kind of work . . . not just to teach but also to lead a class whose topic pertains to the God-life in all of us. It took lots of retyping notes and then finally learning how to scan previously typed pages and transmit them as attachments. (My God, did I tax myself and brain in trying to learn how to do the process for sending scanned documents. I finally had to get the help of a more knowledgeable Jesuit to get this piece done.) Anyway, I got it done and provided them some 11 or 12 pages of relevant materials. What I spent the better part of our two hours on was emphasizing the fundamental of all fundamentals in retreat guidance, i.e., the active presence of God's Holy Spirit in anyone of us; the Spirit prompting, speaking, guiding anyone who has learned to listen to the Spirit in their experience. It was fun to use chalkboard diagrams to illustrate this reality in our depths. There were good questions and good reflections on implications of this truth when working with someone who asks you to guide their prayer, their retreat.
Then I was asked to deliver a class here at the retreat center on "ecclesiology" to 28 people learning to be spiritual directors. They have been coming here for the last two years for a program similar to the Internship in Ignatian Spirituality I led at Manresa for many years. I had never addressed this theme before, so I had 4-5 days of reading to do in order to adequately prepare. What was especially new for me was to talk not just about 'church' but church IN AFRICA. So I had to read and type a summary on the world gathering of African bishops in 1994, on the second gathering of the African bishops in 2009, and finally a 225 page book on looking at what is church in this continent as it faces the crises of AIDS, refugees, and chronic, dehumanizing poverty. It was lots of work, so too the typing a summary of all of this and finally presenting it to the group. It was a good moment to present it all and hear from these Africans what is their experience of the church living with these three huge challenges. I learned a lot, a lot about what is going on in the 53 nations of this continent of more than 1 billion people!
Finally, I finished this morning a two day retreat with 12 young Kenyan men, all of whom are looking seriously at entering the Jesuits come next May, They ranged in ages from 22 to 42. What a delight it was to do this. We hit it off very well. I had them seriously look at different experiences of people in the Bible being called by God and share which story they identified with most, then to look at who Jesus is to them, to consider just how much He means to them (what great sharings from them), then to consider what are the riches of Ignatian spirituality and in belonging to the Jesuits, what is the nature of the work we do (so much on what is the Kingdom of God, the basis or ultimate goal of all our ministries of schools, parishes, retreat houses, scholarly work), and finally the discussion of an article by Pedro Arrupe, our former Father General (1965-81), on the Eucharist. I wanted them who are considering being future priests to consider this theme central to being a priest and ask them whether they ever imagined themselves leading a mass, someday praying the mass while vested and leading a congregation of believers in this awesome prayer. Again, what they had to say to these questions was truly wonderful. Our session was so rich, so satisfying. These men are ready to start their lives as Jesuits.
I have never before had the opportunity to lead something like these last two items. So I am feeling creative, challenged, and alive!
Last Tuesday all of the 28 people learning to be spiritual guides plus staff, myself included, went to a nearby college called Tangaza and sat in on a morning of lectures having to do with African Traditional Religion and African culture. It was very worth our time. We even touched on witchcraft and how much it influences African thinking and ways of understanding the world of the gods. Even Christians have some ways of being influenced by such in their thinking about God and how God interacts with us in the struggles of life.
I continue to wear my orthopedic boot to protect the left foot where I broke a small bone. I have completed four weeks and have two more weeks to wear it. No pain, it is just clumsy to walk around with it and have a cane in my right hand to balance my walking. I take some vitamin D pills to aid the bone growth. In the meantime, I have abandoned all that I planted in the plot I have charge of in the huge garden on these grounds. The fulltime caretakers have kept it watered but I have done no weeding. I don't want to risk this foot and the helaing process!!.
(I am going to take a break now and will write more later this evening or tomorrow morning.)
Bernie Owens
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