Dear Friends,
Here I am on Thursday evening, the 27th, on the eve of a weekend retreat I am leading. This will be the first of its kind in Nairobi and I suspect in all of East Africa if not in all of Africa. It is the kind of retreat I would offer once a year at Manresa when I was in the States. It is a contemplative retreat, that is, one that offers the kind of prayer where all making the retreat sit together in absolute silence, with eyes closed, and without moving our bodies for 30 minutes. The focus is solely on God present to you in the silence and stillness. Significant faith is required to be able to stay with this kind of prayer. So . . . no deliberate thinking nor dwelling on or seeking feelings but just being quiet with God and relaxing in each other's presence. Some people would go crazy with this kind of prayer, not being ready for it; others thrive on and prefer this kind of prayer. I liken it to spending time with God while both of you watch a sunset together. The essence of the prayer is that the both of you enjoy being with each other and neither of you needs to talk to the other but you simply like being with each other and in a spirit of loving quiet. It can be called "wasting time with each other." It is not the prayer of doing but the prayer of being, of being together and just relaxing with the other. Type A personalities or those with an agenda and "having to get things done" don't get this way of praying. Of course, they don't know how to be present to people either! And don't know how to listen to another person. So it really slows you down and makes you let go of your list of things to get done, so just to be and enjoy the Divine Other and allow God to enjoy being with you. You tune out from all that is outside your body and settle into or rest in a world filled with His presence. Are their distractions? Of course, theye are almost always there. Wisdom says to let them swirl around you but not pay attention to them, to just let them go their own way. We are not our distractions. We are something beautiful and much deeper. It is the connection between the core self and the Divine Friend within that is the source, the spark of divinity inside us. That connection is our most precious reality, a self not alone but made up of our self and this inner, deepest of all friends. It is our true self as opposed to our false self, disconnected and acting as if we are alone and having to carry the burden of the present moment or tomorrow all by ourselves.
Anyway, I am getting carried away here with what I will be talking about with the retreatants starting tomorrow evening. Enough of that.
Last Sunday I marked 6 months since I came to Kenya. It has been a very full time for me. I counted yesterday 50 people I have guided individually on retreats since I came. 46 of them for eight days, four for three days, and one for six days. Then I have given some conference type retreats to groups of Jesuits or future Jesuits. I have not been idle.
Last Sunday was the hardest day for me since I arrived in Kenya . . . a time of high blood pressure and worry. Two days before I finally received the contract with the company who is to publish my book. In the contract it said the manuscript I am to submit to the publishers is to be approximately 45,000 words maximum. I had been told by them last October that I was to cut my manuscript from 257 pages to something under 180 pages. I accepted the challenge after first gulping and then went to work on it , especially over the Christmas holidays. I succeeded in getting the whole thing down to 177 pages. When I came to count the word total, I counted 56,200. I felt doomed and very tense. I thought this will force me to drop 12,000 more words, maybe up to two chapters, or to go to another publishing company. I dreaded the thought of having to start all over again with the process of hunting for a company interested in what I had written. To cut 12,000 words/two chapters out of the book would gut the book, cut severely into its substance. I said to myself, "I cannot let that happen ." So I wrote a frank email to the company and said I felt like they had moved the goal posts of the field far back on me from where they had put them before. I really felt miffed but more so worried, really worried. I said I had met their goal and wanted to know whether there was any room for negotiations on this point. So I sent that email and went to bed. I tried to sleep and found it really hard. I was so tense, so tight in the chest, feeling like I had been beaten up. I had to keep saying, God, it is in your hands. All I can do is wait on their response and what happens happens.
Late the next day, when the sun had come up on their part of the world (Minnesota, nine hours behind us) I got an email saying, "don't worry about the number. We are looking forward to your manuscript. You have worked hard to cut it down and you did that." ( I felt a little foolish and began to wonder, "then why do you have in the contract explicit wording about 45,000 words being the outer limit for how long the book can be? A contract is a contract, isn't it? I understand contracts are solemn agreements. Once I sign and you sign, we are both bound to the terms of the contract, right??!!.) So what I did was say I am still bothered a lot by leaving in the contract the phrase "45,000 words" for the maximum number. So in response they said "write in the number you want, initial what you write, and we will initial it as well, and that will settle the matter for us." I was stunned by their response and felt again awkward about this exchange, still wondering how solemn is this contract and its terms. If this is their attitude on this one point, what about any other point in the five page long contract?? Anyway, I signed the contract and sent it to them two days ago. I think I will be just fine and the book will happen as the editors and I do a final "toothcomb" type reading of it and making any last changes to make it good enough for publishing These final editing changes will happen between them and myself probably in April and May, maybe June too. The book is scheduled to be published and out for marketing in December or January. It is scheduled to be sold in January at two national book fairs, one in Los Angeles and another one in the mid-Atlantic area. I will be very happy when this whole process is finally done but also wearied by the many steps in the process; it began in September of 2010, three and a half years ago. Writing a book of substance is a long, long involved process . . . so it seems. If it were a book on baseball or on how to garden, I could have written a book much more quickly!
Enough of that!! One wonderful detail on the grounds here is a plant now blooming abundant, brilliant red flowers. It is of the cactus family whose stems are shaped is long somewhat rectangular pieces maybe two and three feet long like a ruler and narrow like a ruler, The thorns of the cactus are quite short and would not prick you deeply. One very interesting detail is that they like to grow in the crotch of a large tree that has multiple trunks or major shoots going out from its roots. All of these shoots together allow a cavity to evolve at the base of the tree, maybe three feet above ground. The cactus lives there and thrives. Right now there is one tree in our front yard full of about three dozen of these red blossoms, each one shaped like a bell and maybe 4" across. Their center is filled with thin, white long stamens that carry all the pollen. The bottom area of this tree, then, is filled with these red blossoms all around the tree. It would be a photographer's delight.
Another interesting detail here is a shallow reflection pool on the inner court of the building where our offices are. The offices surround the pool area. The pool is 15 feet by feet 15 feet square and stocked with some gold fish and lilies pads. The lily pads keep giving out lotus blossoms, mostly yellow ones but also a few lavender ones. What a charm they are--perfectly shaped and brilliant in their beauty especially in the mornings when I see my retreatants and walk by this area on my way to my office and can observe their perfect shape and beauty. The lilies open during the full sun and close once the sun is off them. Above the pond is a screen supported by the roof of our offices surrounding the court. The screen is there supposedly to prevent birds from getting inside the courtyard and near the pool. Yet, the screen's mesh is too wide for some birds. There has been a bird sneaking through the screen and eating the little minnows that innocently swim near the surface. High drama, right??!!
You should see how large are the crows that are here. They are about twice the size of the crows in Michigan. They also have some white plummage where their wings connect to their body; the rest are black feathers. They are loud, as crows usually are, and like to come in the morning to bully the smaller birds for the crumbs we put out for the birds to feed on. many of the birds that come are a little smaller than robins but beautifully feathered with brilliant yellow and black.
A monkey was seen swinging from tree to tree early this morning out our large dining room window, as if it were casing our place for any chance to snitch food. No luck for the furry rascal.
I am going to close here. For those of you who read this in the next 24 hours or during the weekend, please remember to pray for me and the retreatants during the time we are together. We finish at 5 AM, Sunday morning Michigan time, late Sunday evening in Shanghai (1 PM here in Kenya). Thanks so much.
A blessed Lent to you and a blessings-filled Easter season as well.
Bernie Owens
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Hello, Friends,
Today is Tuesday here, another overcast day. Surprisingly we have been getting a fair amount of rain after having gone through such a long dry spell. The mornings have felt like a damp May morning that require sweaters. I think summer is slowly moving toward its end; five more weeks before autumn settles in here.
Then I mark six months since I came here in Kenya come a week from Sunday 2/23. The time is going by fast. I am not lacking things to do!
What little excitement there is around here centers on the pond of fish and its one turtle. The pond is situated at the front door of our dining room. Yearly it is drained and the big fish are scooped out to be eaten by us; the pond is cleaned, and all the minnows, smaller fish and turtle are put back in for another year of confined life! The pond is quite big, about 35' long and maybe 15' wide with a rock island in its center); It is a beautiful part of the ambiance of this place, lily pads with blue blossoms and white calla lilies growing at the edge of the pond to give it some further beauty. (I enjoy throwing little bits of sliced bread to these creatures. They count on this "manna from the heavens" and compete with each other for the little morsels come their way. The turtle is slow, so I have to throw the bread bits close to its mouth so that the large fish don't grab it before he/she does.
The other excitement, a sad event, happened here on Sunday morning. The holstein cow born last October, died on us. It succumbed to some tick, despite the vetenarian giving it some shots. It was so happy and bouncy at one time. Now it is gone. (Its mother is pregnant, so we will have another little one in the near future.) The meat was given to our pack of six German shepherds and its entrails given to science for analysis.
Today, February 11, is a day full of memories for me. It is a feast day in the church when millions commemorate what happened at Lourdes, France in 1858. There a 14 year old illiterate girl, Bernadette Soubouris witness 18 times over a seven month period the mother of God coming to her. Many charged her with making it all up. Even her local pastor gave her a lot of grief about her story. The atheistic mayor mocked her. But in the end her story was vindicated, and once people began to witness dozens of cripples being completely healed in the springs of water flowing so abundantly there from the mountainous rocks, the skeptics became firm believers, even the atheistic mayor. In the present day 5-6 million people come there every year in hopes of some kind of healing of their sickness, often a terminal sickness. Train loads of people pile into the village of about 20,000 people every day from about May through October. They come in wheelchairs, on crutches, and pallets on casters. I have been to this place four times since 2003 and have been impressed beyond description,. On my last time there in 2009, on the last day, I was hearing confessions/reconciliation for English speaking people. A young Irish mother came to the sacramental ritual and as she came into the small room, I saw at the bottom of the frosted glass that covered the door's surface someone trying to see under the small sliver of clear glass that was at the bottom of the door. I turned and the mother did too while wondering whether I should do anything about such a disturbance. The mother said, "Oh, its my little 3 year old, my daughter. She wants to come in." So I said, "Is that alright with you?" She said, "no problem." So I opened the door to let the little one in. She was perfectly a beautiful three old, blond hair, and very quiet while her mother put herself in the ritual before God, asking God's forgiveness and strengthening in her life as wife and mother. She had three other children and had lost two pregnancies she told me. So she was the mother of six and she and her husband and family were living like gypsies going from one place to another in France to find work and settle wherever her husband was employed. At the end of her confession I asked her, "Why did you come to Lourdes, so far south for you??" She pointed to the little three year old. I said, "Tell me about it." She said, "A year ago my husband and I brought her here; she had braces on both legs well up her legs. We took her to the grotto (where Mary came to Bernadette 18 times), my husband and I and children prayed, and then we took the braces off her. She has not needed braces since that moment. . . . So we had to come back this year to say 'thank you'."
So...I tell you, I will never forget that moment nor that story. I said to the mother, so stunned was I by the story, "I wonder what will become of your daughter? What does God have in store for her as she grows into adulthood?"
There are 67 medically verified miracles registered at that special site since 1858 and thousands of others who have been healed and whose stories are recorded there. The head of the Jesuits from 1965-81, a Spaniard named Pedro Arrupe, credits his own calling to the Jesuits with his witnessing a man in a wheelchair, crippled for who knows how many years, standing up completely healed just as he was blessed by the priest holding the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance. This happened during the late afternoon procession and blessing of the sick. It is the daily prayer service for the sick. It is done from 5-6 PM in an underground basilica that holds up to 25,000 people. I have been there a number of times and sense the whole world shows up for that service. The prayer sung in so many languages of the world (lyrics on a teleprompter overhead for all to read) and the silence during other periods of prayer are really something else.
Arrupe witnessed this man at the moment of his healing standing up, then he tells that he said to himself at that moment, "I must give my life to the God who just did this." So he left medical school in northern Spain after two years of schooling and joined the Jesuits. Amazingly, Arrupe was the director of Jesuit novices in Japan near Hiroshima during World War II, and when the big bomb was dropped there he used his medical knowledge to bring first aid to the survivors and the dying in Hiroshima. God uses everything, I guess.
I recall 33 years ago today my father dying of cancer (1981) and sitting in the den of his home in Tawas, MI. He was two months from dying. At 4 in the afternoon, he called to my mother who was in the kitchen preparing their dinner. He said, "Chum, chum, come here!" She said, "What is it, Chris?" He said again, "Come here!" Once she entered the den where he was sitting, he said, "She was right here." Mom said, "What do you mean?" He repeated, "She came to me, and I sense everything is going to be alright."
In the days that followed and my mother had time to process what happened, she came to trust that he was not delusional, that something beautiful and genuine had been given to him, that in someway he had experienced the loving, peaceful presence of the mother of Christ, and then on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The sign that he was not making up all of this was that before this experience he had been terrible restless and fighting in his body so much of his dying process. After this experience and for the remaining weeks up to the time of his death he was such a changed person . . . at peace and full of gratitude . And that was the manner in which he died. Up to that time he had expressed a misgiving with how much attention is given to the Mother of God; he would complain that more attention should be given to Christ. But after this experience he would say, almost apologetically, that not enough credit and praise are given to Mary, that she is gift beyond gift.
I had the mass here at Mwangaza this morning. I will pass on to you what I said at the homily for this wonderful feast.
The message of Lourdes is the gift of poverty--reflecting the manner in which God came to us in Jesus and keeps coming to us in the poor of our day, to our own self as well, not in spite of but precisely in and through our own poverty (human weaknesses). So yes, as it was for the illiterate, very poor Bernadette, poverty keeps us close to God and aware of our great need for God. When we live otherwise, we get arrogant and forget who we are.
Lourdes also models what genuine prayer looks like. Bernadette's experience shows us a God of love, a God searching to embrace and converse with us in a heart-to-heart encounter. In it we discover the smile of God who loves us and in whose presence we discover ourselves in loving company with a God of great tenderness and respect for us.
Third, Lourdes means the call to conversion, to realize the true nature of sin, the ugliness of evil, and urges us to seek true conversion of heart, as well as be sensitive to our neighbor who experiences the same struggle; we are all loved sinners. We are all in the same boat needing a Savior.
Last, Lourdes means that we are all together a very human Church, and each of us has a role to play in it, simply, bravely sometimes, lovingly. Never are we just spectators. (Today is especially dedicated to those who live with sickness; this is their day, and we pray for them and thank them for what they bear for the sake of what God is building for us all as the mystical Body of Christ.) We are needed in the process of what God is doing with the entire human race. It was Mary as the Immaculate Conception, which she called herself when Bernadette asked her what her name was, who came to Lourdes to remind us all of the Gospel and of a new humanity, a new creation that is in the making, beginning with her, blessed among all others.
(Three hours later)
So, friends, I am going to sign off. I just showered after working on the soil of the new flower bed I am creating in the front of the retreat center. I am learning how to deal with very tough African clay! I hope you are enjoying some of the winter Olympics as we are here. I so enjoyed the figure skating. The Russian lass of 15 years old seemed to me to be the best individual skater, the most natural and free of them all. The American couple who skated to the tune of Schherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov was in my judgment the best in a crowd of very, very good skating couples.
Peace, and a happy Valentine's Day to you all.
Bernie Owens
Today is Tuesday here, another overcast day. Surprisingly we have been getting a fair amount of rain after having gone through such a long dry spell. The mornings have felt like a damp May morning that require sweaters. I think summer is slowly moving toward its end; five more weeks before autumn settles in here.
Then I mark six months since I came here in Kenya come a week from Sunday 2/23. The time is going by fast. I am not lacking things to do!
What little excitement there is around here centers on the pond of fish and its one turtle. The pond is situated at the front door of our dining room. Yearly it is drained and the big fish are scooped out to be eaten by us; the pond is cleaned, and all the minnows, smaller fish and turtle are put back in for another year of confined life! The pond is quite big, about 35' long and maybe 15' wide with a rock island in its center); It is a beautiful part of the ambiance of this place, lily pads with blue blossoms and white calla lilies growing at the edge of the pond to give it some further beauty. (I enjoy throwing little bits of sliced bread to these creatures. They count on this "manna from the heavens" and compete with each other for the little morsels come their way. The turtle is slow, so I have to throw the bread bits close to its mouth so that the large fish don't grab it before he/she does.
The other excitement, a sad event, happened here on Sunday morning. The holstein cow born last October, died on us. It succumbed to some tick, despite the vetenarian giving it some shots. It was so happy and bouncy at one time. Now it is gone. (Its mother is pregnant, so we will have another little one in the near future.) The meat was given to our pack of six German shepherds and its entrails given to science for analysis.
Today, February 11, is a day full of memories for me. It is a feast day in the church when millions commemorate what happened at Lourdes, France in 1858. There a 14 year old illiterate girl, Bernadette Soubouris witness 18 times over a seven month period the mother of God coming to her. Many charged her with making it all up. Even her local pastor gave her a lot of grief about her story. The atheistic mayor mocked her. But in the end her story was vindicated, and once people began to witness dozens of cripples being completely healed in the springs of water flowing so abundantly there from the mountainous rocks, the skeptics became firm believers, even the atheistic mayor. In the present day 5-6 million people come there every year in hopes of some kind of healing of their sickness, often a terminal sickness. Train loads of people pile into the village of about 20,000 people every day from about May through October. They come in wheelchairs, on crutches, and pallets on casters. I have been to this place four times since 2003 and have been impressed beyond description,. On my last time there in 2009, on the last day, I was hearing confessions/reconciliation for English speaking people. A young Irish mother came to the sacramental ritual and as she came into the small room, I saw at the bottom of the frosted glass that covered the door's surface someone trying to see under the small sliver of clear glass that was at the bottom of the door. I turned and the mother did too while wondering whether I should do anything about such a disturbance. The mother said, "Oh, its my little 3 year old, my daughter. She wants to come in." So I said, "Is that alright with you?" She said, "no problem." So I opened the door to let the little one in. She was perfectly a beautiful three old, blond hair, and very quiet while her mother put herself in the ritual before God, asking God's forgiveness and strengthening in her life as wife and mother. She had three other children and had lost two pregnancies she told me. So she was the mother of six and she and her husband and family were living like gypsies going from one place to another in France to find work and settle wherever her husband was employed. At the end of her confession I asked her, "Why did you come to Lourdes, so far south for you??" She pointed to the little three year old. I said, "Tell me about it." She said, "A year ago my husband and I brought her here; she had braces on both legs well up her legs. We took her to the grotto (where Mary came to Bernadette 18 times), my husband and I and children prayed, and then we took the braces off her. She has not needed braces since that moment. . . . So we had to come back this year to say 'thank you'."
So...I tell you, I will never forget that moment nor that story. I said to the mother, so stunned was I by the story, "I wonder what will become of your daughter? What does God have in store for her as she grows into adulthood?"
There are 67 medically verified miracles registered at that special site since 1858 and thousands of others who have been healed and whose stories are recorded there. The head of the Jesuits from 1965-81, a Spaniard named Pedro Arrupe, credits his own calling to the Jesuits with his witnessing a man in a wheelchair, crippled for who knows how many years, standing up completely healed just as he was blessed by the priest holding the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance. This happened during the late afternoon procession and blessing of the sick. It is the daily prayer service for the sick. It is done from 5-6 PM in an underground basilica that holds up to 25,000 people. I have been there a number of times and sense the whole world shows up for that service. The prayer sung in so many languages of the world (lyrics on a teleprompter overhead for all to read) and the silence during other periods of prayer are really something else.
Arrupe witnessed this man at the moment of his healing standing up, then he tells that he said to himself at that moment, "I must give my life to the God who just did this." So he left medical school in northern Spain after two years of schooling and joined the Jesuits. Amazingly, Arrupe was the director of Jesuit novices in Japan near Hiroshima during World War II, and when the big bomb was dropped there he used his medical knowledge to bring first aid to the survivors and the dying in Hiroshima. God uses everything, I guess.
I recall 33 years ago today my father dying of cancer (1981) and sitting in the den of his home in Tawas, MI. He was two months from dying. At 4 in the afternoon, he called to my mother who was in the kitchen preparing their dinner. He said, "Chum, chum, come here!" She said, "What is it, Chris?" He said again, "Come here!" Once she entered the den where he was sitting, he said, "She was right here." Mom said, "What do you mean?" He repeated, "She came to me, and I sense everything is going to be alright."
In the days that followed and my mother had time to process what happened, she came to trust that he was not delusional, that something beautiful and genuine had been given to him, that in someway he had experienced the loving, peaceful presence of the mother of Christ, and then on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The sign that he was not making up all of this was that before this experience he had been terrible restless and fighting in his body so much of his dying process. After this experience and for the remaining weeks up to the time of his death he was such a changed person . . . at peace and full of gratitude . And that was the manner in which he died. Up to that time he had expressed a misgiving with how much attention is given to the Mother of God; he would complain that more attention should be given to Christ. But after this experience he would say, almost apologetically, that not enough credit and praise are given to Mary, that she is gift beyond gift.
I had the mass here at Mwangaza this morning. I will pass on to you what I said at the homily for this wonderful feast.
The message of Lourdes is the gift of poverty--reflecting the manner in which God came to us in Jesus and keeps coming to us in the poor of our day, to our own self as well, not in spite of but precisely in and through our own poverty (human weaknesses). So yes, as it was for the illiterate, very poor Bernadette, poverty keeps us close to God and aware of our great need for God. When we live otherwise, we get arrogant and forget who we are.
Lourdes also models what genuine prayer looks like. Bernadette's experience shows us a God of love, a God searching to embrace and converse with us in a heart-to-heart encounter. In it we discover the smile of God who loves us and in whose presence we discover ourselves in loving company with a God of great tenderness and respect for us.
Third, Lourdes means the call to conversion, to realize the true nature of sin, the ugliness of evil, and urges us to seek true conversion of heart, as well as be sensitive to our neighbor who experiences the same struggle; we are all loved sinners. We are all in the same boat needing a Savior.
Last, Lourdes means that we are all together a very human Church, and each of us has a role to play in it, simply, bravely sometimes, lovingly. Never are we just spectators. (Today is especially dedicated to those who live with sickness; this is their day, and we pray for them and thank them for what they bear for the sake of what God is building for us all as the mystical Body of Christ.) We are needed in the process of what God is doing with the entire human race. It was Mary as the Immaculate Conception, which she called herself when Bernadette asked her what her name was, who came to Lourdes to remind us all of the Gospel and of a new humanity, a new creation that is in the making, beginning with her, blessed among all others.
(Three hours later)
So, friends, I am going to sign off. I just showered after working on the soil of the new flower bed I am creating in the front of the retreat center. I am learning how to deal with very tough African clay! I hope you are enjoying some of the winter Olympics as we are here. I so enjoyed the figure skating. The Russian lass of 15 years old seemed to me to be the best individual skater, the most natural and free of them all. The American couple who skated to the tune of Schherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov was in my judgment the best in a crowd of very, very good skating couples.
Peace, and a happy Valentine's Day to you all.
Bernie Owens
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Dear Friends,
I am writing on a warm Sunday summer afternoon (3:15 PM) from the southwestern side of Nairobi. I am in the mountains, 5900 feet up, with a pleasant breeze coming through my room while I type this. (An open door and open windows allow for a great cross-breeze.) I just came from a wonderfully festive celebration of one of the members of our community who took his final vows as a Jesuit. The mass went on for 1 hour and 40 minutes, followed by about 45 minutes of "thank you's" and personal testimonies. More than 150 people were here, maybe more. The chapel was packed, and some had to get the last of left-over chairs and sit at the doors or even outside the chapel and look on through the windows. The sun is shining brightly and is somewhat hot if you stand directly in it. (The sun-rays here in this part of the world are so direct, not like in North America! Yes, I am quite brown, thanks to all the sun I have been getting. Another benefit is that I have not gotten a cold nor the flu since coming here. Why do I want to come back to snow and ice like what many of you are enduring now??!!)
The man we celebrated was his parent's first child after 10 years of marriage. They so wanted him, and named him Emmanuel (God with us) because they kept asking God to visit them and bless them with a child. When he was born, the couple felt especially blessed, that God was really with them. (They had two more children, one who has since died and one who came today from many, many miles away in southern Tanzania to give a testimony to his brother.
Th music and dancing were so special. The participation of the congregation was so energetic, thanks to the music and dancing. The music was led by a men's group of about 12; they had an electronic keyboard and director. Two were on drums tapped by hand and two had tambourines as well. Dancers were young men and women, dressed colorfully and moving in the rhythm of the peppy, happy music and clapping of everybody. The whole congregation was clapping in rhythm with them and many swayed back and forth to the rhythm of it all. (Yes, I was one of them who got into it all!) In the midst of some of these energetic songs, someone would give out a trilling yelp made with a high pitched voice. (Chaldeans will do that at a wedding of theirs. It is a sign of great joy.) The little children clapped and clapped, loving the spirit of it all. It was quite powerful and moving to see a whole chapel moving, clapping, singing at various times during this mass. I sense their faith is very real and this is one of the special ways they celebrate God in their lives. Our honored Jesuit whom we celebrated today will never forget the mass nor the meal that was put on for all these people.
The readings and homily were entirely in English, but the lyrics of the songs in both English and Kishwahili. Here are the lyrics of one of the songs: Ukarimu wako, (Bwana) na huruma yako, (wewe)msamaha wako, (Bwana)na upole wako, (wewe)umenitendea wema usiopimika, nitakushukuru nitawainua wote wakusifu wewe;
Another topic:
I just got a new printer two days ago. I have been without one for seven weeks! Even when I got someone coming from the States to pick up for me an ink cartridge that fits my printer-make (Epson), it still didn't work. So there has to be something wrong with the tubes that feed the ink to the printing head. Service of the situation is so involved and expensive, not worth the bother. That made me decide that I will be better off getting a product (Hewlett Packard printer-P1102) that I can easily get serviced here in Kenya. Now I am back in business!
I wait for a friend to finish the proof-reading of the last two chapters of my book, while at the same time she is tending to her daughter who is to have her first baby in about two weeks. So far this favor of proofreading has helped greatly. Also, I wait for copyright permission being granted for the reprinting of one of two pictures in my book. This has been especially problematical, since I have written twice, once by email in October and again in early December by regular postal mail, to the company I was told has the rights. So I am getting a Jesuit friend to write in French a letter to the convent in France where the picture (mural) is and verify the name and address of the people who have the copyright. I am so close to being done, and this coming week I am told I will be sent via email the contract from the publishing company. I will have to get the terms of it reviewed and OKed by my provincial in Chicago, sign it, then send the signed contract and entire manuscript, now rewritten, to the company. I am hoping there will be a book available to buy by Christmas of 2014, if not sooner.
A further chapter to tell you about the banana thieves, the family of monkeys who visited the retreat house two weeks ago. When some of the young Jesuit priests (tertians here for a six month program in preparation for their eventual final vows) saw the monkeys in their dining room, instead of running into the dining room and shouting to scare them out, they instead hurried back to their rooms to get their cameras so that they could record the event. By the time they returned the fury rascals had gone, leaving just banana peelings on the counter and floor. It has made for a lot of laughter and great memories, also a warning to all that when leaving the dining room to shut the glass pane door and lock it. So far, no more episodes. I am sure the monkeys know we are now more alert! You can be sure they will test again our doors and windows while sniffing for food anywhere they can pilfer it!
We are presently enjoying the beginning of the mango harvest. Between the retreat house and our community grounds there is a large orchard of mango trees; they are loaded with fruit. We are eating lots of them, even enjoying mango juice from the blender. I love mangoes and insist on their being part of the menu for the heavenly banquet. Bananas are always part of our diet, so too papaya. I enjoy them both! Many here love avocados but I almost never eat them. Pineapple, small plums, and great, crunchy apples from South Africa are part of our diet as well.
A week ago Friday (January 25) was the day for commemorating the conversion of St. Paul. The opening of the mass for that day has the antiphon from St. Paul's letter to Timothy: "I know the One in whom I have believed." That saying stayed with me for days like a bell sounding gently and regularly inside me. It was the word "know" that especially caught my attention. I kept repeating it and felt like I was slowly appreciating more and more how true it is that I DO know God, that God and I have known each other over many years, gone through lots together, good times and not so good times, and have become quite at home with each other. It was like having lived a number of years, then reflecting on how good life has been to you, how blessed you have been with some special people you have come to greatly appreciate, love and treasure, and then say about one or two who mean the most to you: I DO know you, I really know you, and I treasure you so much. You mean everything to me." I found this to be so rich, so consoling, actually enough for my prayer during those days this last week when this awareness lingered. The richest theme of my retreat last December was being drawn to the depths of God, to what moves God the most and matters the most to God. This blessing of last week seemed one more phase of this theme, somethng that still draws me and focuses my daily prayer. I have found a book given to me 26 years ago when I was in Asia. It is authored by a French Jesuit, Yves Raguin, and entitled The Depth of God. I want to read it again, but I think I am much more ready for it this time.
During last week I guided four women religious (nuns) in their eight-day retreats. I would see each of them for about 45 minutes each day to review with them what had gone on in their prayer the previous 24 hours and where this positioned them with God for the entire retreat. One was American, the other three were Kenyans. One of the Kenyans had one of the most impressive retreats I have ever had the privilege of accompanying. There was so much understanding she came to about where some of her blocks had come from, tht she had been taught by strict parents and strict religious leaders in her early years as a nun. Now in her 40s she was awakening to the fear and need for control under such demeanor and was being strongly attracted by God's love to a more trusting, gentle way of leading the people she was responsible for. She read a short book I had on the way the Little Flower led some difficult people in her convent; it spoke to her profoundly about how to lead, how important God's wisdom and love and freedom from the need to control and be so restrictive and negative are for effective leadership. It was such a moment of honesty for her and I would say a moment of conversion and new freedom. What a pleasure to walk with her for those 8 days while God poured out so many blessings, insights and new desires to live for God more purely and serve Him more worthily.
It is almost two hours since I began this posting. I am going now up the hill to the retreat house to turn on the faucet that feeds the soaker hoses and water the roses, dahlias, day lilies, etc, etc. I let it run for about an hour. I hope the ground hog sees his (or her?) shadow and surprises everyone with news about a quick end to your awful winter.
God bless. Spring will come!
Bernie Owens
I am writing on a warm Sunday summer afternoon (3:15 PM) from the southwestern side of Nairobi. I am in the mountains, 5900 feet up, with a pleasant breeze coming through my room while I type this. (An open door and open windows allow for a great cross-breeze.) I just came from a wonderfully festive celebration of one of the members of our community who took his final vows as a Jesuit. The mass went on for 1 hour and 40 minutes, followed by about 45 minutes of "thank you's" and personal testimonies. More than 150 people were here, maybe more. The chapel was packed, and some had to get the last of left-over chairs and sit at the doors or even outside the chapel and look on through the windows. The sun is shining brightly and is somewhat hot if you stand directly in it. (The sun-rays here in this part of the world are so direct, not like in North America! Yes, I am quite brown, thanks to all the sun I have been getting. Another benefit is that I have not gotten a cold nor the flu since coming here. Why do I want to come back to snow and ice like what many of you are enduring now??!!)
The man we celebrated was his parent's first child after 10 years of marriage. They so wanted him, and named him Emmanuel (God with us) because they kept asking God to visit them and bless them with a child. When he was born, the couple felt especially blessed, that God was really with them. (They had two more children, one who has since died and one who came today from many, many miles away in southern Tanzania to give a testimony to his brother.
Th music and dancing were so special. The participation of the congregation was so energetic, thanks to the music and dancing. The music was led by a men's group of about 12; they had an electronic keyboard and director. Two were on drums tapped by hand and two had tambourines as well. Dancers were young men and women, dressed colorfully and moving in the rhythm of the peppy, happy music and clapping of everybody. The whole congregation was clapping in rhythm with them and many swayed back and forth to the rhythm of it all. (Yes, I was one of them who got into it all!) In the midst of some of these energetic songs, someone would give out a trilling yelp made with a high pitched voice. (Chaldeans will do that at a wedding of theirs. It is a sign of great joy.) The little children clapped and clapped, loving the spirit of it all. It was quite powerful and moving to see a whole chapel moving, clapping, singing at various times during this mass. I sense their faith is very real and this is one of the special ways they celebrate God in their lives. Our honored Jesuit whom we celebrated today will never forget the mass nor the meal that was put on for all these people.
The readings and homily were entirely in English, but the lyrics of the songs in both English and Kishwahili. Here are the lyrics of one of the songs: Ukarimu wako, (Bwana) na huruma yako, (wewe)msamaha wako, (Bwana)na upole wako, (wewe)umenitendea wema usiopimika, nitakushukuru nitawainua wote wakusifu wewe;
Another topic:
I just got a new printer two days ago. I have been without one for seven weeks! Even when I got someone coming from the States to pick up for me an ink cartridge that fits my printer-make (Epson), it still didn't work. So there has to be something wrong with the tubes that feed the ink to the printing head. Service of the situation is so involved and expensive, not worth the bother. That made me decide that I will be better off getting a product (Hewlett Packard printer-P1102) that I can easily get serviced here in Kenya. Now I am back in business!
I wait for a friend to finish the proof-reading of the last two chapters of my book, while at the same time she is tending to her daughter who is to have her first baby in about two weeks. So far this favor of proofreading has helped greatly. Also, I wait for copyright permission being granted for the reprinting of one of two pictures in my book. This has been especially problematical, since I have written twice, once by email in October and again in early December by regular postal mail, to the company I was told has the rights. So I am getting a Jesuit friend to write in French a letter to the convent in France where the picture (mural) is and verify the name and address of the people who have the copyright. I am so close to being done, and this coming week I am told I will be sent via email the contract from the publishing company. I will have to get the terms of it reviewed and OKed by my provincial in Chicago, sign it, then send the signed contract and entire manuscript, now rewritten, to the company. I am hoping there will be a book available to buy by Christmas of 2014, if not sooner.
A further chapter to tell you about the banana thieves, the family of monkeys who visited the retreat house two weeks ago. When some of the young Jesuit priests (tertians here for a six month program in preparation for their eventual final vows) saw the monkeys in their dining room, instead of running into the dining room and shouting to scare them out, they instead hurried back to their rooms to get their cameras so that they could record the event. By the time they returned the fury rascals had gone, leaving just banana peelings on the counter and floor. It has made for a lot of laughter and great memories, also a warning to all that when leaving the dining room to shut the glass pane door and lock it. So far, no more episodes. I am sure the monkeys know we are now more alert! You can be sure they will test again our doors and windows while sniffing for food anywhere they can pilfer it!
We are presently enjoying the beginning of the mango harvest. Between the retreat house and our community grounds there is a large orchard of mango trees; they are loaded with fruit. We are eating lots of them, even enjoying mango juice from the blender. I love mangoes and insist on their being part of the menu for the heavenly banquet. Bananas are always part of our diet, so too papaya. I enjoy them both! Many here love avocados but I almost never eat them. Pineapple, small plums, and great, crunchy apples from South Africa are part of our diet as well.
A week ago Friday (January 25) was the day for commemorating the conversion of St. Paul. The opening of the mass for that day has the antiphon from St. Paul's letter to Timothy: "I know the One in whom I have believed." That saying stayed with me for days like a bell sounding gently and regularly inside me. It was the word "know" that especially caught my attention. I kept repeating it and felt like I was slowly appreciating more and more how true it is that I DO know God, that God and I have known each other over many years, gone through lots together, good times and not so good times, and have become quite at home with each other. It was like having lived a number of years, then reflecting on how good life has been to you, how blessed you have been with some special people you have come to greatly appreciate, love and treasure, and then say about one or two who mean the most to you: I DO know you, I really know you, and I treasure you so much. You mean everything to me." I found this to be so rich, so consoling, actually enough for my prayer during those days this last week when this awareness lingered. The richest theme of my retreat last December was being drawn to the depths of God, to what moves God the most and matters the most to God. This blessing of last week seemed one more phase of this theme, somethng that still draws me and focuses my daily prayer. I have found a book given to me 26 years ago when I was in Asia. It is authored by a French Jesuit, Yves Raguin, and entitled The Depth of God. I want to read it again, but I think I am much more ready for it this time.
During last week I guided four women religious (nuns) in their eight-day retreats. I would see each of them for about 45 minutes each day to review with them what had gone on in their prayer the previous 24 hours and where this positioned them with God for the entire retreat. One was American, the other three were Kenyans. One of the Kenyans had one of the most impressive retreats I have ever had the privilege of accompanying. There was so much understanding she came to about where some of her blocks had come from, tht she had been taught by strict parents and strict religious leaders in her early years as a nun. Now in her 40s she was awakening to the fear and need for control under such demeanor and was being strongly attracted by God's love to a more trusting, gentle way of leading the people she was responsible for. She read a short book I had on the way the Little Flower led some difficult people in her convent; it spoke to her profoundly about how to lead, how important God's wisdom and love and freedom from the need to control and be so restrictive and negative are for effective leadership. It was such a moment of honesty for her and I would say a moment of conversion and new freedom. What a pleasure to walk with her for those 8 days while God poured out so many blessings, insights and new desires to live for God more purely and serve Him more worthily.
It is almost two hours since I began this posting. I am going now up the hill to the retreat house to turn on the faucet that feeds the soaker hoses and water the roses, dahlias, day lilies, etc, etc. I let it run for about an hour. I hope the ground hog sees his (or her?) shadow and surprises everyone with news about a quick end to your awful winter.
God bless. Spring will come!
Bernie Owens
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