Dear Friends,
Here it is Sunday, March 30, 5:20 PM in the afternoon. The sun is slowing setting following a warm day with gentle breezes. It has been a very, very busy two and a half weeks in which I had little or no chance to write anything here. Now, I have some time. I hope to finish this before I go to bed.
What has been going on? A visit for nine days of a close friend of mine, followed by four days of all morning, all afternoon classes with the 33 students in our Spiritual Guidance training course. Also, finishing about an hour ago the changes to the manuscript of my future book; it is now ready to send off to the publisher, as soon as I find out how to number the pages of the manuscript! I had a proofreader for the last two chapters; she is really good, meticulous and slow because she was helping her daughter with the birth of the family's first grandchild; also, taking an accredited course with exams as well. Plus some other responsibilities. So, lots of irons in her fire and I waited; again, her reviewing and judgment were worth the wait! Now I will have to endure the publisher's editor who will do the final review and, I suppose, will ask me to change and shorten some things. I hope not a lot!
My friend came all the way from Detroit on March 10 and returned on the 20th. During his time here we went to St. Aloysius Gonzaga H.S. in Nairobi, a school for high school age boys and girls who have lost their parents to AIDs and live in the infamous Kibera slum (between 500-750 thousand people live there in a square mile area). We were taken there for three hours one afternoon by two graduates of the school who are still living there. It was really something to experience: shacks with living space inside of about 15' by 15'. Open, stinking sewers running between the shacks, little children playing in that area. We went into a school jammed with children of the poor in Kibera. then into a second school that is the hulk of a building with firm walls but right next to a big sewage pool or pond. In every instance we were welcomed. What was especially touching was our spending some quality time, maybe an hour and a half with 7 of the graduates of the school who are now spending six months following graduation in service to people in their slum area. Also, a one hour lunch with three graduates who have now become part of the faculty of St. Al's. This 6 months of service is part of their school experience and being educated in the attitude of coming to serve, as opposed to thinking in terms of career (much more self-focused) but thinking and acting in terms of service. To meet them, to hear what are their hopes and dreams was particularly moving. It is stories like those of these people that make me feel the presence of Christ and the call of the Gospel so strongly. To meet those who are truly poor has a unique impact in terms of considering the call of Christ. One can see some remarkable scenes related to this school by googling St. Aloysius Gonzaga school, Nairobi, Kenya.
My friend and I had some profound conversations, not only about these kids but also about our deeper hopes in life, about who God and Christ are to us. Each day we joined others for a mass, shared meals and the friendship of the Jesuit community as well as the staff of the retreat house: lots of laughter, good food, enjoying the weather which is so great here. It was very good to hear him say, "we miss you at Manresa but I can now see why you had to come here, to get a sense of what God is asking of you in this part of the world. You are where you are supposed to be."
On the one Sunday he was here we were invited to join a mass at an orphanage full of children with the HIV virus. They are cared for wonderfully by some nuns and lay people. In the middle of the mass one of the little ones, perhaps 5-6 years old (he is called "Wonder") turned around to reach out and grasp the hand of my friend. Maybe because he, like so many, are drawn to adult males and are curious about people who have white skin. This was a major moment for my friend. He lost his father when he was just becoming a teen, so there is a very tender spot in his heart for children who have lost one or both parents. So . . . that encounter for my friend was deeper than what words can describe. . . a mirror of some of his own childhood feelings. In all, his encounter with the people of this part of the world, so many who are really poor and living close to the edge, moved him powerfully, very powerfully, to feel so closely drawn by God to a new sensitivity in spirit. On one evening he took me and three other Jesuits to a very fancy restaurant only 3 miles from here. The cost of food for that evening was modest by US. standards but the setting was, by stark contrast, to what we had experienced elsewhere: very posh. We were shown a room palatial in its ambiance, and were told it costs about $500 US per night. I asked our guide: " do you ever fill up this place?" (54 rooms). He said, "almost every Sunday. People come from church, have brunch, and stay over Sunday night." I shook my head in amazement. A number of these people have their own private planes and some come in from out of the country on their way to a safari not far from here. Wow, wow, wow!! I asked, " had the president of Kenya ever stayed here?" He said ,"No, but the president of Malaysia and his family have stayed here before." I thought to myself, "Did he fly in on Malaysian airlines in a Boeing 777?" (You can google the site on this place and look it over: The Hemingway in Karen, Kenya.)
I have been sharing with a team of six in the teaching of materials for the Spiritual Guides course, a two year program. I so love doing this, to teach. I look forward to doing lots more in the near future. I enjoy too the guiding of retreatants. I recently counted that I have already guided 46 people in 8-day retreats (you see each person for 45 minutes or so each day, so lots of time is required for this!), one person for a 6-day retreat, and three for a 3-day retreat. It would take me 5 years to guide that many people at Manresa.
Lastly, I have been doing some extra reading during this Lent. I might have mentioned in an earlier posting that I was reading Franz Jalics' little paperback, "The Contemplative Way." I have found it to be wonderful, speaking to me in a very encouraging way. He describes this kind of prayer as an initial stage of seeing God, vague but a true seeing--without any image as such, yet an intuitive sense of a loving Presence that holds your attention. You don't think nor imagine nor seek a feeling, but you are clearly held by this beautiful Presence. It is sometimes riveting. In this sense it can be said to be a way of "seeing" God, an awareness that holds your attention. You lose a sense of time and of your own self when you settle down and focus, so taken by the Other in whose presence you rest. It is all quite extraordinary in its ordinariness. It is really beautiful.
I have started another book, "The Depth of God" by Yves Raguin, S.J. His fundamental thesis is that the Depth of God is found in the depths of the human person. Get to know deeply what makes a human being a human being, what matters most to any person underneath all the clutter and silliness of public life, superficial choices and materialistic, noisy, hyperactive lifestyles. Therein lie the clues to God's Heart and depths. This book so far is a slow read, but I was expecting so, given the topic!
I have got to move on. (guess what, I still do NOT have my visa. I have been here over 7 months and still am waiting for that piece of paper. I am an illegal alien!!!)
Bernie Owens
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Good afternoon, friends,
I write on March 7, first Friday of the month and the 3rd anniversary of my mother's death. As you might expect, she has been very much on my mind today. I share with you her final words to me 11 days before she went to God. While sitting up in bed with the help of many pillows and in full mind, she took both of my hands into her hands and said, "I know we will be seeing one another again some day." What a privileged moment that was for me, actually for the both of us. She was in a nursing care facility near my sister's home north of Traverse City and I had to drive that afternoon back to my residence in Detroit. So I had a lot of time alone in the car, some 4.5 hours, to be with that experience and wonder at the meaning of life, of her life, and the blessing she was to me and my three siblings. The day we celebrated her life and buried her ashes was absolutely clear in the sky. The sun was brilliant. It was a chilly wintery March 19, and the moon that evening was full and the closest to the earth it can ever get. It was haunting to see the moon that evening, a prominent symbol of the resurrection in so many religions of the world. I interpreted it as an unforgettable, strong statement of God of how love has the last say in all life, that nothing is stronger, not even close, to the power of divine love and compassion; it was a statement of irrepressible love and the promise of eternal life for all who believe and wish to serve/love God as they know God. It seemed some 300 people came that day to the funeral mass. !8 fellow priests, 16 of them Jesuits joined me for that mass. What support by so many!!
Last Sunday morning, as I was beginning to finish a retreat on contemplative prayer for 13 people that I had begun on Friday evening, I found myself terribly sick and weak, so weak I could not finish the retreat. I could hardly stand up, so wobbly and weak was I. One of the retreatants drove me in her car from the retreat house back to my residence where I collapsed in bed and went to sleep immediately. Fortunately the nun and a priest who were on the retreat filled in pretty well from what I heard. In the meantime I began to suffer the consequences and climax of what a doctor later diagnosed as "acute bacteria infection" in the intestines. My temperature went up to 104 F, with lots of sweating followed by chills and shivering...diarrhea and vomiting. At first it was thought to be malaria, but no, it turned out to be food poisoning and its violent impact. Oh my! Only by Wednesday evening did I have an appetite. Some baked fish tasted terrific! I had six pieces of fish that eveing with mashed potatoes and some cooked beans and carrots. Nothing raw!!! Lots of fresh mango juice and water to get rehydrated. Bananas, scrambled eggs, hot millet for cereal, hot tea and toast--everything bland. The care I received was wonderful. What an ordeal.
This has to be the sweetest way for getting revenge with someone (what an evil thought for Lent!!) So I am on the mend and not guiding any retreatants during this round of 8-day retreats. My focus is to get back my balance, my strength. I am still not 100%. I have a wonderful friend from Troy, MI coming to visit me for 9 days starting Monday evening. I want to be ready to enjoy the special time we hope to have together.
Other items: The night sky here is spectacular. So little light pollution. The stars and planets, also the moon right now almost half-moon are so beautiful to gaze at.
There is a bird that comes around a lot in morning and late afternoon. It is incessant, neurotic in the three-note chirp it sounds. The second chirp of the triplet is a half tone lower than the first and the third is a half tone lower than the second. It keeps it up until it makes you want to cover your ears or go get a gun. I am wondering whether this is the infamous mocking bird, whether this feathered pest is what is referred to in the title "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Last, the police here and sometimes crowds are ruthless with robbers they catch. In the last 10 days or so there have been three young men riding around on motorcycles and stopping to rob people. Even three of our Jesuit novices here to learn English (one from Egypt, one from Lebanon and one from Syria) while out for a walk got robbed by these idiots. The thieves specialized in hitting people in well-to-do areas early in the morning while people are leaving their homes to go to work. They point a gun and make the people go back into their home and surrender their laptops and other valuables. The police were alert to them and some of the police as plain clothes men cornered them, demanding that they surrender. One or more shot back at the police and one or more of the plainclothes men shot all three dead. Their motorcycles made them somewhat easy to notice. The shooting took place at an intersection in a neighborhood not far from the Jesuit Loyola House and provincial offices in Nairobi. High drama.
Then two days ago students at one of the city's university caught up with two men who had been robbing many of the students. A group of students caught up with them, poured gasoline on them and burned them to death. Swift justice.
One of my retreatants, an elderly nun, told me of a group of women becoming fed up with some construction worker who was raping some of them, even hitting on young girls in their early teens. One day a gang of the women in that village went after this man, chased him to a pit, threw him in and proceeded to stone him to death. The police look the other way on some of this stuff! Swift justice! They have gone after some of these riot-producing imams down in the port city of Mombasa. A few of these imams get into radical jihadist thinking, take unemployed teenagers and young men in their 20s, fill them with anti-Christian hate, and have them riot. So the police in the last two years have taken matters into their hands, denying that they did so, and killed two imams. The protest was loud and fierce. The Kenyan government is blamed for being permissive but looks the other way. The Somali problems and bombing of the Westgate mall here in the city last September have made the Kenyan government to be very tough on the Al Shabaab anarchists. Hundreds of them in Somalia have been killed by Kenyan jets and troops that have gone after these cockroaches. US Navy Seals tried unsuccessfully last fall to get the Al Shabaab leader during a night raid. He was too well defended and the Seals had to withdraw in their boat. I suspect a drone-kill is being planned for one of these days. It can be so vicious, so bloody. Kenya is a young nation of 44 million, largely Christian and followers of traditional African religion. Militant Islam is being funded from outside. It wants to establish Islam as dominant throughout eastern Africa, just as in Nigeria and the Central African Republic now There is lots of American, British and Israeli undercover presence in this area, especially since the bombing of the mall.
Enough for now, friends. Please pray for the people of this part of the world. So many good and simple people, very poor, some living at the edge. It is a privilege for me to be invited here and share in a little of their present and future. All of you in the Manresa family, know that I offer Eucharist every Wednesday for you. Have a blessed Lent!
Bernie Owens
I write on March 7, first Friday of the month and the 3rd anniversary of my mother's death. As you might expect, she has been very much on my mind today. I share with you her final words to me 11 days before she went to God. While sitting up in bed with the help of many pillows and in full mind, she took both of my hands into her hands and said, "I know we will be seeing one another again some day." What a privileged moment that was for me, actually for the both of us. She was in a nursing care facility near my sister's home north of Traverse City and I had to drive that afternoon back to my residence in Detroit. So I had a lot of time alone in the car, some 4.5 hours, to be with that experience and wonder at the meaning of life, of her life, and the blessing she was to me and my three siblings. The day we celebrated her life and buried her ashes was absolutely clear in the sky. The sun was brilliant. It was a chilly wintery March 19, and the moon that evening was full and the closest to the earth it can ever get. It was haunting to see the moon that evening, a prominent symbol of the resurrection in so many religions of the world. I interpreted it as an unforgettable, strong statement of God of how love has the last say in all life, that nothing is stronger, not even close, to the power of divine love and compassion; it was a statement of irrepressible love and the promise of eternal life for all who believe and wish to serve/love God as they know God. It seemed some 300 people came that day to the funeral mass. !8 fellow priests, 16 of them Jesuits joined me for that mass. What support by so many!!
Last Sunday morning, as I was beginning to finish a retreat on contemplative prayer for 13 people that I had begun on Friday evening, I found myself terribly sick and weak, so weak I could not finish the retreat. I could hardly stand up, so wobbly and weak was I. One of the retreatants drove me in her car from the retreat house back to my residence where I collapsed in bed and went to sleep immediately. Fortunately the nun and a priest who were on the retreat filled in pretty well from what I heard. In the meantime I began to suffer the consequences and climax of what a doctor later diagnosed as "acute bacteria infection" in the intestines. My temperature went up to 104 F, with lots of sweating followed by chills and shivering...diarrhea and vomiting. At first it was thought to be malaria, but no, it turned out to be food poisoning and its violent impact. Oh my! Only by Wednesday evening did I have an appetite. Some baked fish tasted terrific! I had six pieces of fish that eveing with mashed potatoes and some cooked beans and carrots. Nothing raw!!! Lots of fresh mango juice and water to get rehydrated. Bananas, scrambled eggs, hot millet for cereal, hot tea and toast--everything bland. The care I received was wonderful. What an ordeal.
This has to be the sweetest way for getting revenge with someone (what an evil thought for Lent!!) So I am on the mend and not guiding any retreatants during this round of 8-day retreats. My focus is to get back my balance, my strength. I am still not 100%. I have a wonderful friend from Troy, MI coming to visit me for 9 days starting Monday evening. I want to be ready to enjoy the special time we hope to have together.
Other items: The night sky here is spectacular. So little light pollution. The stars and planets, also the moon right now almost half-moon are so beautiful to gaze at.
There is a bird that comes around a lot in morning and late afternoon. It is incessant, neurotic in the three-note chirp it sounds. The second chirp of the triplet is a half tone lower than the first and the third is a half tone lower than the second. It keeps it up until it makes you want to cover your ears or go get a gun. I am wondering whether this is the infamous mocking bird, whether this feathered pest is what is referred to in the title "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Last, the police here and sometimes crowds are ruthless with robbers they catch. In the last 10 days or so there have been three young men riding around on motorcycles and stopping to rob people. Even three of our Jesuit novices here to learn English (one from Egypt, one from Lebanon and one from Syria) while out for a walk got robbed by these idiots. The thieves specialized in hitting people in well-to-do areas early in the morning while people are leaving their homes to go to work. They point a gun and make the people go back into their home and surrender their laptops and other valuables. The police were alert to them and some of the police as plain clothes men cornered them, demanding that they surrender. One or more shot back at the police and one or more of the plainclothes men shot all three dead. Their motorcycles made them somewhat easy to notice. The shooting took place at an intersection in a neighborhood not far from the Jesuit Loyola House and provincial offices in Nairobi. High drama.
Then two days ago students at one of the city's university caught up with two men who had been robbing many of the students. A group of students caught up with them, poured gasoline on them and burned them to death. Swift justice.
One of my retreatants, an elderly nun, told me of a group of women becoming fed up with some construction worker who was raping some of them, even hitting on young girls in their early teens. One day a gang of the women in that village went after this man, chased him to a pit, threw him in and proceeded to stone him to death. The police look the other way on some of this stuff! Swift justice! They have gone after some of these riot-producing imams down in the port city of Mombasa. A few of these imams get into radical jihadist thinking, take unemployed teenagers and young men in their 20s, fill them with anti-Christian hate, and have them riot. So the police in the last two years have taken matters into their hands, denying that they did so, and killed two imams. The protest was loud and fierce. The Kenyan government is blamed for being permissive but looks the other way. The Somali problems and bombing of the Westgate mall here in the city last September have made the Kenyan government to be very tough on the Al Shabaab anarchists. Hundreds of them in Somalia have been killed by Kenyan jets and troops that have gone after these cockroaches. US Navy Seals tried unsuccessfully last fall to get the Al Shabaab leader during a night raid. He was too well defended and the Seals had to withdraw in their boat. I suspect a drone-kill is being planned for one of these days. It can be so vicious, so bloody. Kenya is a young nation of 44 million, largely Christian and followers of traditional African religion. Militant Islam is being funded from outside. It wants to establish Islam as dominant throughout eastern Africa, just as in Nigeria and the Central African Republic now There is lots of American, British and Israeli undercover presence in this area, especially since the bombing of the mall.
Enough for now, friends. Please pray for the people of this part of the world. So many good and simple people, very poor, some living at the edge. It is a privilege for me to be invited here and share in a little of their present and future. All of you in the Manresa family, know that I offer Eucharist every Wednesday for you. Have a blessed Lent!
Bernie Owens
Thursday, February 27, 2014
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
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
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
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Dear Friends,
I wrote just yesterday, but something happened here within hours after I finished my posting that makes it worth writing again.
There is on our property the buildings of the Jesuit community and then about a 5 minute walk up a hill are the retreat house buildings with its very spacious lawn and many flowers and trees. At the retreat house building is a six-month long program going on for 10 young Jesuit priests. We Jesuits call the program tertianship, a third and last phase of our formation process. Their meals are taken in a dining room that can hold about 15 people. They have a door to the dining room that opens out onto the large lawn area.
Yesterday, around 5 PM, while no one was in the dining room, a family of monkeys visited the room; the door had not been closed and so it allowed these crafty visitors to enter. They had smelled the ripe bananas on the counter and came in to help themselves to all the delicious fruit. I am not sure whether they got into the bread loaves as well. After this theft, someone noted how messy these thieves were in leaving the peelings of the bananas in various places, on the counter and on the floor.
I thought you would enjoy this,.
Bernie
I wrote just yesterday, but something happened here within hours after I finished my posting that makes it worth writing again.
There is on our property the buildings of the Jesuit community and then about a 5 minute walk up a hill are the retreat house buildings with its very spacious lawn and many flowers and trees. At the retreat house building is a six-month long program going on for 10 young Jesuit priests. We Jesuits call the program tertianship, a third and last phase of our formation process. Their meals are taken in a dining room that can hold about 15 people. They have a door to the dining room that opens out onto the large lawn area.
Yesterday, around 5 PM, while no one was in the dining room, a family of monkeys visited the room; the door had not been closed and so it allowed these crafty visitors to enter. They had smelled the ripe bananas on the counter and came in to help themselves to all the delicious fruit. I am not sure whether they got into the bread loaves as well. After this theft, someone noted how messy these thieves were in leaving the peelings of the bananas in various places, on the counter and on the floor.
I thought you would enjoy this,.
Bernie
Dear Friends,
The last time I wrote here was Christmas Day. That means it has been 27 days since the last posting. I have not been sick at all, nor did I get thrown out of Kenya by the immigration people. I just chose to enjoy the holiday celebrations and opportunities to relax and do something different from the usual routine. Also I wanted to bare down and try to finish once and for all the rewriting and editing of the manuscript for my book (which is so, so close to being done!) So on this glorious beautiful Sunday late morning I will take time now for my 16th posting.
Much, much has happened for me in the last four weeks. One of the big news items is that I have given up my garden plot and scaled down my charge to two large flower beds, one in the front and one in the back of the main building of the retreat center. What happened to make me make such a change?? I worked Christmas eve morning for three hours in the large garden plot I was given charge of. I wanted to plant tomato plants, some 30 of them, next to the pepper plants I had planted about 10 days before. I worked very hard for about an hour and fifteen minutes to break up the clay soil, all of it by hand. It was just so exhausting. I had never worked so physically hard in gardening at Manresa. I could feel my heart really being pushed, and I wondered as I sat there in the loosened soil, "Do I really want to do this, to work this hard?? CAN I do something this demanding??" The answer came that night, as I was trying to get to sleep, nerve shocks going from my waist down into my groin. I thought "hernia!" and was scared. I don't have a hernia--not yet anyway--but do have a muscular sensitivity in the place where a hernia could come on me. So I said, "this is silly to continue trying to garden under these circumstances. With some sadness I went to the fellow in charge of all the ground care and told him of my decision. I gave over to him all my vegetable seeds and turned my back on the whole thing. Two weeks later I arranged my assuming charge of three rather large flower beds, full of roses, dahlias, day lilies, cala lilies, shasta daisies, four huge palm trees, bogen-via bushes and other plants I've seen before but do not know the names of. I am to weed the area, water the plants and in one section, in the front of the building, build up the flower plot area. It needs many new additions, some color, and some transplanting. So there I have the chance of creating something new. The other two areas are well laid out, quite beautiful, and simply need ongoing maintenance (ie., weeding, fertilizing when needed).
Then we are going to make major changes to our stations of the cross area. We are going to move a lot of dirt with a tractor to build up the second half of the stations so that they lead up a hill to the 12th station (where Jesus's death is commemorated) and then downhill to stations 13 and 14 where He is buried. Once our tractor (why don't they use this to break up soil in the garden!!?? I don't know--it wasn't available to me or any others!) moves the large parts of the soil, I and some of the grounds crew will be able to do some handwork with shovels and rakes to make a walkway that allows people to walk on stone and not in mud when it rains, also to plant trees that will create a quiet ambiance and enclosed area for prayer and reflection. This I think I will enjoy being involved in. What we have now is beautiful but I think this newly planned change will make it even better.
We have had numerous power outages here and very spotty service on our internet system. The internet situation should be greatly improved in the next week and Skype especially since we are having a new fiber-optic cable installed. Power outages have many explanations, including the electrical company of Kenya being blameworthy in a number of cases. Flashlights, then, are a great necessity in our rooms.
We have had to fire two of our cooks as of December 31. They were pilfering food from the storage area, one was chronically late. Both were warned twice, but continued doing what they were warned about. So they had to go. It is sad because their work was decent, they have families living on the grounds here, but again, it is a reflection of the poverty of this part of the world. People who live so close to the edge of their economic limits come to an institution like ours and cannot resist taking, hoping they can avoid being discovered.
My visa situation has become almost a laughing matter. Because Immigration insisted on my providing a diploma and I had thrown mine away many years ago; even though I provided a list of courses and grades of all my course work plus a statement from the school that I was granted the degree and even the date on which it was granted, immigration refused. So . . . we did what Jesuits do when in a legalistic impasse like this one. We provided a "diploma" along with a copy of my transcript of all the courses I took and the statement from the school about my having received the degree. The application process for the visa, then, was not filed till December 5. I went to Immigration on January 6, my first opportunity to follow up, and was told to relax and wait till early March when the government's system will have processed my application and I should by then have my visa. So . . . I came home from Immigration offices to forget about it all till early March; then I will go back downtown to see this thing through to its end. What an ordeal!
The traffic accidents in this nation are just awful, and the Christmas holidays were filled with them. The worst were head-on collisions of buses and small vans. Some of them were in the nighttime. So many people dying on the roads. A number of suicides too. Really a fair amount of despair among the poor, economic anxiety for them! So much domestic violence, spouses fighting, one killing the other while the survivor goes to prison for life. What despair! Then too a horrendous case of multiple murders at a gas station not far from Nairobi. Last week at midnight 4-5 thugs went to a gas station to rob it of money. They killed all 5 of the gas attendants who pump gas, clean your windshield, etc. plus two or three women who ran a concession store inside the gas station. They took about two hours to do this, used mallets, crowbars, and machettes to slaughter these poor innocent people. They have not yet been caught and likely will not. Many escape their crimes here.
There is significant concern here about the war in South Sudan, the country just to our northwest. No Jesuits have been hurt. Our schools are to the west of the violence and in cities where things are quite peaceful, thank God. Please join us in praying for those trying to broker a peace there. Over a thousand have died in this war. Tribal fighting is apparently the origin of their differences. Oil fields also influence this struggle for power and control. There is much, much oil there, but the revenue gets pocketed largely by military leaders and political higher-ups. The people remain in dramatic poverty. Woe to those who are doing this to the people, woe to them the day they meet their Creator!
Last weekend, January 10-11 I had the opportunity to lead a group of 14 student leaders of the local Jesuit seminary through a retreat. I focused them on the biblical roots of Jesus' leadership and how any follower of Him will have to seek the same kind of strength if they are to lead well and in a way worthy of their call to be Christian. I really enjoyed doing this, so did the students. They came from Kenya, Ghana, Cameron, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The president of the seminary, who had asked me to do this weekend, has asked me to organize another weekend in the next few months or so for the faculty of the seminary. He wants the topic for them to be on the elements that make Jesuit education distinctive, and how closely it is connected with our spiritual resources, the Spiritual Exercises (meditations and contemplations on the life of Jesus) of St. Ignatius. I consider this an honor to be asked and a huge opportunity. I will start teaching at the seminary a course a week beginning in late August, so this kind of exposure is really helpful to my becoming more and more a part of this part of the African scene. I will, of course, continue living here at the retreat center, about 30 minutes from the seminary, but will get lots of life from teaching something serious at the seminary once a week. The students there, as you could surmise from what I said earlier, come from so many different nations in Africa and some from Europe, also a rare one or two from North America.
Then last Monday eve at the retreat center we received 33 new students/interns for the beginning of a two-year program for training in spiritual guidance. They too come from many different Africa nations, from Europe too (Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Finland). Because of distances to travel, we have constructed the program to have eight meetings for the two years, each meeting lasting from a Monday evening till a Saturday morning. So four full days of classes, small group practice, liturgies, eventually verbatims and one-on-one meetings with one of us six staff members. I had three main pieces of input for the group this last week. Again, I get so much life from doing this. I am a teacher before anything else and that is where I thrive, in leading a group through an interactive reflection on some good reading of mutual interest that touches on something substantive in the spiritual life of human beings.
We are into summer right now. Think July for the Midwest and you will get an idea of what our temperatures are like. Mid to high 80s during the afternoons, about 60 at nighttime. Great sleeping weather, low humidity. (I have to get used to drinking more water!) The sun rays are quite direct and will burn you quickly. (We are only 80 miles or so south of the equator.) Sitting in the shade on our retreat house grounds is such a pleasure. So very beautiful and peaceful to look out at our mountains (they are like the Smokies or Appalachians) some 30-40 miles away, very green and with many trees. Also, it is so important to wear dark glasses, especially those that have polarized and UV filtering features in them. I am going swimming this afternoon at an outdoor pool. My tan will get a little darker.
Some of you gave me a lot of positive feedback from my last blog posting regarding what I said about my 8 day retreat in December. Thank you. I have little idea of how many people are reading these postings, so it is good to get some feedback through my email address. I find it compelling to stay with the image of Jesus I spoke of in the last posting, namely, of Jesus taking us from His Heart through the "door" that is there inside His Heart and asking Him to lead us "down the stairs" into God's depths, to what matters most to God, to the burdens of the human family that are carried there and especially to the richness of God's life that is there. I am reminded of the image in Psalm 131, a very short psalm. It speaks of Israel being in God's arms like a small child asleep in its mother's arms. I am convinced we are all invited to get this close to God, to trust those deeper desires in us all and let Jesus take us to such a place inside God's depths and allow us to "explore" there, to ask God to show us what is there inside Himself, and eventually allow ourselves to rest there as a child would in its mother's arms while letting our spirit touch up against God's Spirit and simply be there for as long as we can stay quiet there, attentive and respectful and grateful. One may not get lots of answers to specific problems in their life doing this but will find there, I believe, untold strength and a sense of communion with God by doing this simple exercise. It is acting out of faith in God's love and trusting His goodness to try it and discover the blessings in doing this.
It is time to move to other things. I am glad I can tell you something about my life here. God bless, especially to those who are finding the snow and terrible weather a trial. I do not envy you; I do not miss the snow and ice. I will remember you all at daily Eucharist.
Bernie
The last time I wrote here was Christmas Day. That means it has been 27 days since the last posting. I have not been sick at all, nor did I get thrown out of Kenya by the immigration people. I just chose to enjoy the holiday celebrations and opportunities to relax and do something different from the usual routine. Also I wanted to bare down and try to finish once and for all the rewriting and editing of the manuscript for my book (which is so, so close to being done!) So on this glorious beautiful Sunday late morning I will take time now for my 16th posting.
Much, much has happened for me in the last four weeks. One of the big news items is that I have given up my garden plot and scaled down my charge to two large flower beds, one in the front and one in the back of the main building of the retreat center. What happened to make me make such a change?? I worked Christmas eve morning for three hours in the large garden plot I was given charge of. I wanted to plant tomato plants, some 30 of them, next to the pepper plants I had planted about 10 days before. I worked very hard for about an hour and fifteen minutes to break up the clay soil, all of it by hand. It was just so exhausting. I had never worked so physically hard in gardening at Manresa. I could feel my heart really being pushed, and I wondered as I sat there in the loosened soil, "Do I really want to do this, to work this hard?? CAN I do something this demanding??" The answer came that night, as I was trying to get to sleep, nerve shocks going from my waist down into my groin. I thought "hernia!" and was scared. I don't have a hernia--not yet anyway--but do have a muscular sensitivity in the place where a hernia could come on me. So I said, "this is silly to continue trying to garden under these circumstances. With some sadness I went to the fellow in charge of all the ground care and told him of my decision. I gave over to him all my vegetable seeds and turned my back on the whole thing. Two weeks later I arranged my assuming charge of three rather large flower beds, full of roses, dahlias, day lilies, cala lilies, shasta daisies, four huge palm trees, bogen-via bushes and other plants I've seen before but do not know the names of. I am to weed the area, water the plants and in one section, in the front of the building, build up the flower plot area. It needs many new additions, some color, and some transplanting. So there I have the chance of creating something new. The other two areas are well laid out, quite beautiful, and simply need ongoing maintenance (ie., weeding, fertilizing when needed).
Then we are going to make major changes to our stations of the cross area. We are going to move a lot of dirt with a tractor to build up the second half of the stations so that they lead up a hill to the 12th station (where Jesus's death is commemorated) and then downhill to stations 13 and 14 where He is buried. Once our tractor (why don't they use this to break up soil in the garden!!?? I don't know--it wasn't available to me or any others!) moves the large parts of the soil, I and some of the grounds crew will be able to do some handwork with shovels and rakes to make a walkway that allows people to walk on stone and not in mud when it rains, also to plant trees that will create a quiet ambiance and enclosed area for prayer and reflection. This I think I will enjoy being involved in. What we have now is beautiful but I think this newly planned change will make it even better.
We have had numerous power outages here and very spotty service on our internet system. The internet situation should be greatly improved in the next week and Skype especially since we are having a new fiber-optic cable installed. Power outages have many explanations, including the electrical company of Kenya being blameworthy in a number of cases. Flashlights, then, are a great necessity in our rooms.
We have had to fire two of our cooks as of December 31. They were pilfering food from the storage area, one was chronically late. Both were warned twice, but continued doing what they were warned about. So they had to go. It is sad because their work was decent, they have families living on the grounds here, but again, it is a reflection of the poverty of this part of the world. People who live so close to the edge of their economic limits come to an institution like ours and cannot resist taking, hoping they can avoid being discovered.
My visa situation has become almost a laughing matter. Because Immigration insisted on my providing a diploma and I had thrown mine away many years ago; even though I provided a list of courses and grades of all my course work plus a statement from the school that I was granted the degree and even the date on which it was granted, immigration refused. So . . . we did what Jesuits do when in a legalistic impasse like this one. We provided a "diploma" along with a copy of my transcript of all the courses I took and the statement from the school about my having received the degree. The application process for the visa, then, was not filed till December 5. I went to Immigration on January 6, my first opportunity to follow up, and was told to relax and wait till early March when the government's system will have processed my application and I should by then have my visa. So . . . I came home from Immigration offices to forget about it all till early March; then I will go back downtown to see this thing through to its end. What an ordeal!
The traffic accidents in this nation are just awful, and the Christmas holidays were filled with them. The worst were head-on collisions of buses and small vans. Some of them were in the nighttime. So many people dying on the roads. A number of suicides too. Really a fair amount of despair among the poor, economic anxiety for them! So much domestic violence, spouses fighting, one killing the other while the survivor goes to prison for life. What despair! Then too a horrendous case of multiple murders at a gas station not far from Nairobi. Last week at midnight 4-5 thugs went to a gas station to rob it of money. They killed all 5 of the gas attendants who pump gas, clean your windshield, etc. plus two or three women who ran a concession store inside the gas station. They took about two hours to do this, used mallets, crowbars, and machettes to slaughter these poor innocent people. They have not yet been caught and likely will not. Many escape their crimes here.
There is significant concern here about the war in South Sudan, the country just to our northwest. No Jesuits have been hurt. Our schools are to the west of the violence and in cities where things are quite peaceful, thank God. Please join us in praying for those trying to broker a peace there. Over a thousand have died in this war. Tribal fighting is apparently the origin of their differences. Oil fields also influence this struggle for power and control. There is much, much oil there, but the revenue gets pocketed largely by military leaders and political higher-ups. The people remain in dramatic poverty. Woe to those who are doing this to the people, woe to them the day they meet their Creator!
Last weekend, January 10-11 I had the opportunity to lead a group of 14 student leaders of the local Jesuit seminary through a retreat. I focused them on the biblical roots of Jesus' leadership and how any follower of Him will have to seek the same kind of strength if they are to lead well and in a way worthy of their call to be Christian. I really enjoyed doing this, so did the students. They came from Kenya, Ghana, Cameron, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The president of the seminary, who had asked me to do this weekend, has asked me to organize another weekend in the next few months or so for the faculty of the seminary. He wants the topic for them to be on the elements that make Jesuit education distinctive, and how closely it is connected with our spiritual resources, the Spiritual Exercises (meditations and contemplations on the life of Jesus) of St. Ignatius. I consider this an honor to be asked and a huge opportunity. I will start teaching at the seminary a course a week beginning in late August, so this kind of exposure is really helpful to my becoming more and more a part of this part of the African scene. I will, of course, continue living here at the retreat center, about 30 minutes from the seminary, but will get lots of life from teaching something serious at the seminary once a week. The students there, as you could surmise from what I said earlier, come from so many different nations in Africa and some from Europe, also a rare one or two from North America.
Then last Monday eve at the retreat center we received 33 new students/interns for the beginning of a two-year program for training in spiritual guidance. They too come from many different Africa nations, from Europe too (Scotland, Germany, France, Italy, Finland). Because of distances to travel, we have constructed the program to have eight meetings for the two years, each meeting lasting from a Monday evening till a Saturday morning. So four full days of classes, small group practice, liturgies, eventually verbatims and one-on-one meetings with one of us six staff members. I had three main pieces of input for the group this last week. Again, I get so much life from doing this. I am a teacher before anything else and that is where I thrive, in leading a group through an interactive reflection on some good reading of mutual interest that touches on something substantive in the spiritual life of human beings.
We are into summer right now. Think July for the Midwest and you will get an idea of what our temperatures are like. Mid to high 80s during the afternoons, about 60 at nighttime. Great sleeping weather, low humidity. (I have to get used to drinking more water!) The sun rays are quite direct and will burn you quickly. (We are only 80 miles or so south of the equator.) Sitting in the shade on our retreat house grounds is such a pleasure. So very beautiful and peaceful to look out at our mountains (they are like the Smokies or Appalachians) some 30-40 miles away, very green and with many trees. Also, it is so important to wear dark glasses, especially those that have polarized and UV filtering features in them. I am going swimming this afternoon at an outdoor pool. My tan will get a little darker.
Some of you gave me a lot of positive feedback from my last blog posting regarding what I said about my 8 day retreat in December. Thank you. I have little idea of how many people are reading these postings, so it is good to get some feedback through my email address. I find it compelling to stay with the image of Jesus I spoke of in the last posting, namely, of Jesus taking us from His Heart through the "door" that is there inside His Heart and asking Him to lead us "down the stairs" into God's depths, to what matters most to God, to the burdens of the human family that are carried there and especially to the richness of God's life that is there. I am reminded of the image in Psalm 131, a very short psalm. It speaks of Israel being in God's arms like a small child asleep in its mother's arms. I am convinced we are all invited to get this close to God, to trust those deeper desires in us all and let Jesus take us to such a place inside God's depths and allow us to "explore" there, to ask God to show us what is there inside Himself, and eventually allow ourselves to rest there as a child would in its mother's arms while letting our spirit touch up against God's Spirit and simply be there for as long as we can stay quiet there, attentive and respectful and grateful. One may not get lots of answers to specific problems in their life doing this but will find there, I believe, untold strength and a sense of communion with God by doing this simple exercise. It is acting out of faith in God's love and trusting His goodness to try it and discover the blessings in doing this.
It is time to move to other things. I am glad I can tell you something about my life here. God bless, especially to those who are finding the snow and terrible weather a trial. I do not envy you; I do not miss the snow and ice. I will remember you all at daily Eucharist.
Bernie
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)