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