Dear Friends, Greetings from Nairobi on a grey, chilly, damp, overcast Sunday morning. I am trusting that by noon the sun will break through and we will enjoy a nice afternoon like we did yesterday. (Spring, yes, spring cannot come fast enough here; I miss the warm days.) I spent yesterday morning doing some long-awaited weeding and tilling soil in a large patch of roses that I had extensively pruned two weeks ago. The roses are beginning to assert themselves, some more than others, and promise to be fully grown by late September and full of blossoms again. It is such a gift for me to get outside and not look at my computer screen and forget the writing of my next book, which I am almost in the middle of. Writing for me can become compulsive; I wake up thinking about it, I go to bed thinking about it; the desire to finish the book and get out of me onto the computer all that is going on in my mind, heart, and spirit can be all-consuming. This is why working in the dirt with something that will be beautiful, enjoying no pressure nor time constraint, is truly relaxing for me. ............................................................................................................................................... I have waited a full week to write this letter while anticipating sharing with you something of the results of the Kenyan election. Perhaps you know that the loser in the election appealed the election results to the Supreme Court of the nation. Kenya waited two weeks for the seven judges with their many fellow lawyers to decide. Last Friday, at noon, during a Muslim holiday, the judges on a 4-2 vote (one judge was in the hospital) declared the election invalid, that it had not followed the Constitution's directives. (Can you imagine such a reason, such an alleged omission and gaffe??!!) So, another national election must be held in 60 days, on the presidential issue only, not on the other offices. This election, I am told, will be conducted on November 1. What is so exasperating is the waste of time and money, all the money that was spent on the previous election of August 8, the most expensive one in Africa, ever!; and over 1000 foreign observers, on their own money, had come to volunteer as observers and guarantors of the integrity of the election at various polls. By the way, they all said matters were conducted well and from what they saw the process was fine and trustworthy. John Kerry, the former secretary of state, was among these observers.................................................................................................................................................................................................... It seems to me that this outcome is a great embarrassment to the nation to spend all that money and time on a national election and have the presidential part of it declared invalid and has to be repeated. Kenya has had major strikes by nurses, doctors and also, in a separate strike, by teachers demanding the money that the government had promised them for raises. It always seems that the rich and the politically powerful find the money for what they really want, but so many others are denied. I find this situation something that leaves many, and myself, so weary. It reminds me of the very long process of campaigning, primaries, and finally an election in the USA. The two political parties, here in Kenya and also in the States, spend far too much time wrangling and focused critically on each other, and do not do enough real governing. Will the American citizens ever get a real choice, a choice that they are enthusiastic about? The USA did not get such a choice at the last national election. Will the election in 2020 be any different??!! ................................................................................................................................................. I marked four years in East Africa last August 23...................................................................................................................................... Underneath the various discouraging signs in the Kenyan economy and social structures, I experience the awesomeness of God's presence and power active in the lives and stories of the retreatants I am privileged to listen to and guide. I am deeply impressed with what I hear. For the three who are making the 30-day retreat--one from Kenya, one from Zambia, the other from Burundi-- I sense God saying, "no matter what the inequities in economics and social structures, I am with you through it all, and for those who are interested in a deep friendship with me, I will pour out my best gifts." In the midst of it all, God is singularly good to me, especially in my daily morning contemplations. At times it so moves me at how God supports me and is close. It is so awesome. .......................................................................................................................................... I must go now. With the Labor Day weekend over, the rhythm of the nation changes, children return to school, summer for the northern hemisphere is over, etc. God bless all of you. Bernie Owens

Good morning, Friends. It is three weeks since I last wrote you a letter. I do hope you read the previous two letters about an amazing missionary in South Sudan. Hr story is one of the most amazing stories I have heard since my coming to Nairobi four years ago. ............................................................................................................................................... With that said, I will now tell you a little about the weirdest week I have witnessed so far in this part of Africa. Last Monday this nation of 45 million people "shut down" to engage in national elections. The preparation for it has been very long and drawn out, like in the United States. NO work, stores closed, public transportation was at a minimum. The invective, charges and counter-charges, were played up in the newspapers. The newspapers were obsessed with the campaign and political rhetoric. After awhile you wanted to pull a blanket over your head and withdraw from all the bombast, just like it is in the US during its campaign. In this campaign the incumbent president was running against a man who had lost three times before, THREE TIMES!! It must be said in his defense that he had the election stolen from him during his second try, in 2007 (elections are every five years) and this travesty of justice led to major riots and killings with men, women and children being hacked to death, in public, with long machete knives; Scenes of such carnage were even shown on local TV. Ugh! The World Court tried to convict the incumbent vice-president for having given orders to gangs to conduct such open violence but it never succeeded in making the charges stick. Witnesses disappeared over time (threatened or bought off) and so the case evaporated............................................................................................................................. So the memory of that traumatic time ten years ago was referred to over and over again in the media and was reflected often at the prayers of the faithful during daily mass. It seemed the whole nation was holding its breath that something similar might happen this time. So police and army were seen all over the nation. Over 1000 foreign observers, including former Secretary of State John Kerry of the Carter Institute, came to monitor the whole process of voting. In the end they said the process was conducted very well and with integrity, despite charges of the challenger to the incumbent president that the process was rigged and the hand-count of votes was done superficially. He claimed victory even though the official count came to be 55% to 45% in favor of the incumbent, President Uhuru Kenyatta. Out of nearly 15 million votes in all (out of 19 million eligible to vote), he won convincingly. But then because of the long process of verifying the vote count and the rumors of violence here and there in the nation, most stores remained closed ALL THROUGH THE WEEK. Many businesses did not open all week long. It was Friday evening, two days ago, that the official voting commission announced the winner. That is a long time following Monday, the voting day. ........................................................................................................................................ Another Jesuit and I wanted to visit over this weekend the port city of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, a great resort place, four hours by train from here, but when he called to book two rooms, the caretaker strongly advised our not coming. He said the city, which had strongly supported the opponent, was still quite tense; it was not a good time to come, he said. Since we had no retreats here for the last nine days, I (we) have been holed up in our place for almost all of this time. I did go see a podiatrist on Tuesday, the day after the election, and found things in the city of Nairobi very quiet. I was even downtown, in the financial district of the city, and easily walked around without any fear. Again, people were far fewer than usual. I would like to think that because I am white colored in skin and visibly stand out in Nairobi's public, I was the least likely target of any violence. All of the tension is tribal in origin, with various tribes vying against the dominant tribe for political and economic advantage. As usual, these tensions come down to money and security and being able to provide for your families, to have a job and some fiscal security................................................................................................................................... The advantage in getting elected is that you have immense power to acquire land for yourself, as a perk for your public service. In this way you can amass significant wealth for yourself and your family members. These lead to a lot of dishonest dealings. And this is at the core of this nation's inability to get going in the world community. (This is the case in most other African nations.) No one at that level of government ever goes to prison for dishonest dealings. Those who accuse and their family members are threatened or bought off. So, in the end, it has been very easy to drive around this week, no longer experiencing the usual heavy traffic jams. Can you imagine anything like this happening in the States, where the nation closes up for a week, where business is halted in most places, where people are so concerned about their safety and stay home?? ................................................................................................................................ In the meantime I continue to make progress on the new book I hope to have done in a year or more. Sometimes I feel very enthused about it, at other times wondering whether anyone will want to read it!! The African provincial comes for his annual visit at the end of this month. I have some very big questions and issues to discuss with him. Prayers please. Thanks. I will tell you in September the results of that conversation. Again, prayers please. Thank you very much. Bernie Owens

Good morning, Friends, It is Sunday for me, in the middle of Saturday night for you. It is rainy, chilly and completely overcast here. We so wish it would rain heavily and for some time. The ground is terribly dry and the maize (African corn) crop is failing due to lack of rain. Life is so tough here for many people....................................................................................................................What moves me to write again so soon after the last letter I wrote only two days ago is the continuing story of this Comboni nun from Costa Rica I am guiding through her 8-day retreat. You have to hear what I have been hearing from her. Again, she lives most of the time in South Sudan, a nation very young and completely destroyed by tribal hatred and war. So many murders and robberies, and no one is imprisoned for doing such. This nun, Sr. Lorena Mulare is her name, tells me that two years ago she and the people she lives with and cares for in a South Sudanese village were being chased by armed rebels killing anyone in their path. These soldiers had a tank with which they were firing shells and cannons. Everyone in the village was fleeing and ran for the bush area to hide. While running a shell landed near Sr. Lorena and knocked her to the ground. It kicked up gravel and sand which got embedded in her leg and some of it cut into her arm. She said, "God, I guess I am going to die today." But after some seconds passed, she felt her leg and arm where the blast of the gravel had cut into her and she brushed away much of it and realized she was not going to die. So, she first fell into a fetal position, trying to protect herself. But her instincts told her this would not do, that she had to get up and continue to try to flee. When she stood up and tried to run, her body, thanks to all of this trauma, would not respond and so all she could do was walk, and that she did and continued into the heavily protective bushes and managed to collapse for rest and regain her composure. So hard was her heart beating that she thought she might die of a heart attack. In the days that followed, she and the villagers survived on roots dug up from the surrounding ground and their water came from a swamp whose water they filtered through the cloth of some of the dresses of the women or shirts of the men and women. ...............................................................................................................................................Then last year, in May, she had another traumatic experience thanks to the warring parties of the government troops and the rebels. Word had gotten out that trouble was coming,, that a battle between the two groups was drawing close to the village where Sr. Lorena and these very simple, very poor people were living. Most of the villagers where Sr. Lorena was living evacuated but she and a few of the other villagers unfortunately delayed and got caught, trapped between the two warring parties. There were bullets coming from both sides and flying over them and near them. The remaining villagers asked Sr. Lorena what to do, so scared were they. She said for all of them to gather in the church and lie down on the floor and together they would pray the rosary for God's protection. That they did and for some 20-25 minutes the shots continued and the killings of rebels and government troops by each other continued. When the shooting stopped, the villagers ventured outside the church and saw that not one bullet had hit the church, that all were safe yet exhausted by the stress of surviving under such violence and death all around them. .......................................................................................................................................... What I tell you here in this letter is still so fresh for me, I am still trying to take it in and appreciate as much as I can the meaning of all of this. I could focus on the idiocy of the tribes hell-bent on destroying each other; but what so moves me is what God is doing through this woman who chooses to risk her own life in order to stay with and care for these people who have no choice but to try to survive under such deadly circumstances. God has to mean so much to you that you would choose to stay with these most vulnerable of His children. No wonder, as I said in my previous letter two days ago, they experience the reality of God as a loving God and that this amazing God cares for them, especially by being with them through Sr. Lorena in their sufferings. ............................................................................................................................................. Yesterday she told me that it was so helpful for her to speak out her story to someone, to me in this case, since it helped her to heal from the trauma and the temptations to resent and hate the warring soldiers, especially the government leaders and rebel leaders. Everything in her tells her that her unresolved dark emotions will come back to eat her up if she does not work at bringing it all to God. She had to return to the places where these events took place, to walk there, to choose again to be with these poorest of the poor who are living so dramatically the passion and dying of Jesus. Only in this way could she come to peace, to reconcile with it all and to let the love of God flow again in her heart and soul. Many of her acquaintances, Combonis and villagers, have died already in this endless conflict. She is very aware of them in heaven now. She added that the gift that has followed is being more sensitive to the risen Jesus, seeing His presence and hope and even joy at times in the villagers and in her fellow Combonis. Yesterday was the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel reading for mass Mary says to Peter and John on Easter morning, "I have seen the Lord!." This is what Sr. Lorena is telling me and I had to pass it on to you. So, I feel encouraged to look around at the people I am with in the coming days and ask God to give me the freedom from my own worries and burdens to see with a heart of love and faith this same mystery unfolding around me--of the dying and rising of Jesus in the world around me, in Kenya and in the USA. in people who trust Him, even though it costs everything to trust. God is for real! Very, very real. And what a gift it is to see Him in action, doing what death and war, violence and revenge cannot overcome. ....................................................................................................................................... Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is Friday morning here, July 21, and a little chilly which is normal for here at this time of the year. We are in the Southern Hemisphere, just barely (50 miles south of the equator), but also up in the mountains, 6000 feet up. It won';t warm up for us until the middle or late part of August. All things in time I guess!............................................................................................... I am prompted to write by two recent events. One is a conversation I had yesterday with a retreatant I am presently guiding. The other is what happened to me this morning during and right after the Eucharist while pondering the first of the two scripture readings..................................................... The conversation was with a woman missionary to South Sudan. She is a member of the Comboni missionaries, men and women who trace their origins to the 19th century founder, Daniel Comboni, already a canonized saint (If you knew his life story you would see why he has been singled out as such an outstanding follower of Jesus). The retreatant is in her early to mid 50s, a woman from Costa Rica. She has been serving the very poor of that war torn nation for quite some years, and after a 6 month leave to care for her 90 year old mother and 91 year old father back in Costa Rica, she is returning to South Sudan because she sensed in her prayer God calling her to continue serving these wretched people of South Sudan. What impresses me so from our conversation yesterday is her describing the chaos these people live in while the two main tribes of that nation war against each other; almost everyone, private citizens too, have guns. There are so many murders and no arrests. The poverty is grinding, homes are often robbed, sometimes even burned down along with crops. Life stinks in so many ways for these people who are powerless to stop the fighting and build a nation. I asked her whether the people ever ask why you choose to live with them and not some other safer, nicer place on earth. She said, "yes, they do but usually indirectly. They watch us closely, she says, to see over time whether we are who we appear to be. In time they will ask why we sisters stay with them in such hellish conditions. We stand out so glaringly with our white or olive skin among people whose skin is very, very black, thanks to the especially hot sun in that part of Africa." Then this nun said what really touched me. She said she has been told by these Sudanese people that the sisters staying with them in their terribly difficult living circumstances make God's love for them believable; they can see that God cares about them and is with them in their plight. In time these people give names to these missionaries. The name she has been given is "daughter of God." ........................................................................................................ The story of this retreatant reminds me of the four American women (three nuns and one laywoman) who went in the 1970s as apostles from the Cleveland diocese to be with the rural poor of El Salvador during the deadly civil war that was going on in that nation. Their letters to family and friends back in Ohio told of how there was no hope for these simple people to better their living circumstances but saw the meaning of their mission to be one of being companions with them while in a very difficult situation, encouraging them while these poor tried to raise their families and assure their safety while in the midst of so much war and bloodshed. It was, as these four missionaries described it, a ministry of accompaniment. Perhaps you know who are these four women I am talking about. On December 2 of 1980 they were raped by government soldiers and then murdered. .............................................................................................................At mass this morning, which I led for the community, we heard for the first reading the instructions to the Israelites, trapped in Egypt as slaves of Pharoah, of how to celebrate a meal with a roasted lamb. This would forecast what God would soon do for them; It would be called their Passover meal that celebrates their liberation from their enslaved state in a foreign land. Blood from the lamb would be smeared on the doorways of their homes as a protection from God's angel while it would strike down the oppressors but spare (pass over) them. Of course, this passage is loaded with symbols that find their fulfillment in the death of Jesus and especially in the shedding of His blood and how the Eucharist is our Passover meal. The more we wake up to our need for God, how caught we all are to some degree by our enslaving tendencies or attachments, we also wake up to the DESIRE for a freedom we don't have, to live a life with greater integrity and meaning, to give ourselves to something really worthwhile. And so, with faith in the love God has for us, when we wake up to that awesome fact, we then especially appreciate the blood of Him that was shed so that we could pass over from self-centered living to living a life that is really worthwhile and a DESIRING to give of ourselves back to the God who in Jesus shed His blood for us......................................................................................................................................................... I really got hit this morning with this awareness. I am at times overwhelmed with the depth of God's love, not just for myself but for you too and everyone for that matter, even for the most harden, uncaring, and self-entered of us--Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, aboriginies, etc. Everyone from the beginning of time. Nothing is more powerful, nothing more meaningful. NOTHING! This is the only power than can overcome death and in the end it blesses us with the gift of being able to pass over from this troubled world into the Infinity of God's new world and the family He is creating and wants us to be part of forever. In the meantime there are walking among us people who are pouring out their own blood for their spouses, their children, their suffering parents and relatives and neighbors, fellow parishioners, even their enemies, the wretches of South Sudan too--saints among us even though they are not aware of being so. ..................................................................................................... The next time we drink from the chalice hopefully we will catch in that action the allusion to how a marriage proposal was done in Jesus's culture. A man and woman would give their 'yes' and seal their life-long commitment to each other when they both drank from a cup of wine that had been poured out by the father of the future groom. Jesus on the last night of His life gave us Himself as blood, inviting us to drink from the cup and say our personal 'yes' to a relationship that is more profound than any other relationship on this earth could be. He poured out His blood literally, the following day. He is inviting you and me to grow into a similar sense of generosity, to say a 'yes' with the same depth: pouring out our selves completely as He did for us. Yes, it will take a lifetime to do such but what matters is the DESIRE to do so and each day to live with the hope that in God's timing we will each be given the generosity to make this same kind of gesture back to Him, with boundless gratitude and infinite love. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Here I am after a really busy month of June when I was away from my computer for almost all of the month. I spent two weeks in the Holy Land, then after less than three days back here, and getting lots of sleep and time to pack and leave again, I spent a week away in Tanzania leading a retreat for 14 Notre Dame nuns. While in Tanzania I got a really bad case of bronchitis which I am slowly getting over. It requires so much extra sleep. Groan! Besides, winter has settled in here and it gets quite chilly at night. With no heat in the room nor on the floors, it demands extra blankets and a cap sometimes on my head! But I am so glad to be back home and no longer living out of a suitcase. ........................................................................................................... The time in the Holy Land was just the best. We were 30 in all with a terrific guide, Rula Shubeita, a Christian Palestinian who is very competent in her role. So satisfying for me to work in tandem with her, she as guide, I as chaplain. ............................................................................................................ Our weather was most agreeable, even though pretty hot in the afternoons. One has to drink lots of water. This caught up with me when in Galilee. I got quite dehydrated on my third day there and got very weak. I had to stay home in bed for a day to regain my strength. I suspect the altitude difference was a factor. I live at 5800 feet above sea level here in Nairobi and the lake of Galilee is at 600 feet BELOW sea level. the day this happened was the 45th anniversary of my ordination as a priest. I was well enough by the evening to join everyone for a fabulous meal at a restaurant some 30 minutes by bus from our hotel facility. On the drive back from the restaurant we could see the full moon shining beautifully off the serene surface of the lake. On the following evening, our last one in Galilee, I was able to see the same full moon come up slowly over the mountain range (blood red at first) that forms a boundary on the other side of the lake, 8-10 miles across. Wow, what a stunning thing to watch. ........................................................................................................ What stood out on this trip, my 5th time there? Being able to pray mass at Calvary, so close to where the cross was mounted. So too praying mass on the top of Mount Tabor in the magnificent basilica commemorating the transfiguration of Jesus on that spot. Also, going to the rock in the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed for three hours on the last night of his life and begged the Father for some other way out but eventually surrendered and was willing "to drink the cup." I have often thought of that place is where our future was decided on; it is the place where he said 'yes' and from that moment forward we were guaranteed the opportunity of eternal life. I have many times asked, "Suppose he had walked out before the soldiers arrived to arrest him; suppose he backed out on his call and on us? There are no bigger words in our stories than 'yes' and no'. ........................................................................................................ I was also quite touched by the church built on Mt. Nebo, the burial place of Moses overlooking the Dead Sea and the Promised Land. This is where Moses died and finished his call to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt; it is quite close to where Jesus started his public life and was baptized by John the Baptist. So impressive how the end of one journey was taken up by Jesus to begin his own journey, for us, to finish what Moses began! The one hour boat ride on the Lake of Galilee, going relatively close to the shoreline where so many of the places Jesus did extraordinary things; this was a great way to preview what we would visit later. I always enjoy walking through Capernaum because it was the headquarters, so to speak, for Jesus during his three years in Galilee. It is special to take time there and imagine how busy the market there had to be, an international crossroads. To see the basement of St. Peter's house still intact and imagine Jesus having resided in one of those many rooms, at Peter's invitation. Then to visit the synagogue or remnants of it across the street from St. Peter's house and read from Mark's gospel the account of what happened there to Jesus, what he did there. Just amazing! I am so taken by looking at the nearby open fields next to Capernaum and know that it was in that general direction that Jesus would go to pray each morning he was in town, before the sun rose. So very special. ........................................................................................................ then in Jerusalem, to finally make the traditional Stations of the Cross (as apposed to the path scholars say he more likely took on his way to Calvary) and feel the hustle-bustle of the Old city and its mobs of people. We were there during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month and met huge crowds of Muslims who came from far away to get to the large mosque called the Temple Mount. It estimated that a half million were there. Perhaps you know that on the evening of one of the days we were there, three Muslim men were shot dead after one of them knifed to death a 23 year old Israeli guard who was part of the crowd control. I was amazed that so many Muslims came inside the Holy Sepulchre church (where the tomb of Jesus and Calvary itself is) and were visiting different parts of it, having their pictures taken inside it--one group near me in front of a bronze relief of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It left me wondering what it all means to them. I know Jesus is considered a great prophet for them, but still . . . When we got outside the church I chose to try to make conversation with three Muslim women, two of whom seemed to be daughters of the third woman. The older one could not understand me, the other two had some knowledge of English but not much. We made it out that they had come from Nablus, a major city in the West Bank Palestinian territory. We had visited Jacob's well in that city a few days earlier (the place Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well), the first time ever for me to visit there, and were excited to speak with residents from there. They seemed pleased to have some interaction with Christians and then Americans. I had a sense of God's great love for all of these people and the oneness of the origin of us all, everyone of us, a unity that transcends all the tragic religious and nationalistic divisions now dividing us. .............................................................................................. I got quite a surprise while in Jerusalem when on one of the mornings we were walking in a area where there were almost no people. While we were chatting and moving along quickly there was a rather haggard, short man walking quickly toward us and weaving through our group. He was acting like a vendor, holding high a number of postcards that when folded out stretched over about 5 feet. He was allegedly trying to interest us in buying these. I have had plenty of these cards before and so was not interested. It was crazy how he came at me, I dodged right to avoid him, then left as he "stayed" with me, then I went back right, wondering what on earth this guy was trying to do. My eyes were forward and up. Immediately he disappeared and then I looked down at my money-pouch fastened to my belt and saw that it had been "picked." He had distracted me long enough to unzip the top of my pouch and grab what was inside and then run before I knew what had happened. I was stunned, stood still in shock, and then began wondering whether the pouch had been left open from the time when I was on the bus five minutes earlier. Maybe the money or contents were on the floor of the bus. But soon I realized, no, I had been "picked" and this guy was a pro at what he was doing had caught me flatfooted.. He got close to $100 in US currency and a 50 euro bill. While I felt humbled by it all, feeling stupid and "out of my league" around a pro like that pickpocket, I soon realized that just the previous evening I had removed from that pouch $700 in US currency, my passport, my credit card, and my cellphone and left all of them in the strongbox or safe back at the hotel. I was immensely grateful for the "inspiration" to do that. If he had gotten any of these items, I would have been so, so distressed and would have become a terrible distraction to the other pilgrims for the last three days of our trip. God was very good to me on that one! I suspect the thief was quite disappointed with what he got me for. I am amazed how three of the pilgrims within the next 15 minutes gave me almost the same amount of money this pickpocket had taken. ...........................................................................................................One last item, there is at the hotel we stayed at in Jerusalem, Notre Dame, a 3D computerized reconstruction of the Man of the Shroud of Turin. Many suspect it is Jesus. It could be, but it might not be. But you should see it! To look right at him and see his build. about 5' 11", maybe 6' even. The wounds to his side and hands, feet too are so awesome. The look on his face is full of peace. Absolutely amazing. You wonder, you just wonder: am I looking at a reconstruction of what we worship as the Savior of the world looked like?? I wish all of you could see it. I purchased at the bookstore a booklet on this with many of the pictures with text presenting the scientific investigations relating to the cloth that wrapped the body of this man! This and the "Jesus Boat" that was found in 1985 buried in the sands of the Lake of Galilee seashore are two amazing elements to witness when going to the Holy Land and will stir you deeply. ..................................................................................... I need to go to bed, nearly 10 PM here on Saturday July 1. ............................................................ The retreat I led for 6 days with the Notre Dame sisters in Arusha, Tanzania, 5 hours south of here (June 22-29) was very blessed, but I got a horrible case of bronchitis when there. I am still nursing a cough and needing lots of extra sleep and water. Fortunately, I can sleep late any of the days of this coming week. I am off retreats all this week. This is as close as I will get to sharing with you in a 4th of July type holiday! ................................................................................................God bless. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, I am soon to start leading a pilgrimage in the Holy Land with 30 others. It will be a much needed and welcomed break from the sometimes hectic pace here at the retreat center in Nairobi. Good work here but sometimes it leaves me feeling brain-dead. ..................................................................... ...................................... It is quite meaningful to me that this two week venture first in Jordan where Moses is buried and Jesus was baptized at the start of his public ministry and then our going into Israel comes right after the end of the Easter season and the feast of Pentecost. As the years go by I am increasingly moved by the meaning and promise in this feast of Pentecost. It puzzles me as to why the church's leaders do not make more of it and explain more fully its richness, of what it offers to the fullness and happiness of our lives. It seems the Sunday celebration of this feast ought to be as great as the celebration of Christmas and Easter. My retreats lately have put an emphasis on the gift of the Holy Spirit, on what the Spirit does in us and in the world; people who take in this explanation respond with enthusiasm when they realize what is there in the meaning of this feast, tomorrow's great celebration. It seems we ordinarily are blind or minimally aware o what is going on in our depths, what is being offered to us, how distracted and unresponsive so many people are to what is available in our depths......................................................................................................... I have been working on a new book and am feeling lots of frustration, lots of pain over what I have written so far and what I have had to delete because it just does not resonate well with what I am trying to say. This is becoming a painful "pregnancy," a process of not a little stress and even back, neck and skull pain over it. Once one tries to write something good enough for publication and the subject matter concerns something of the interior world of the human soul, you appreciate the difficulty there is in finding words, stories, and images adequate to the topic. I "swore" when writing my first book that I would never again go down that road; but I have to say there is something so strong welling up inside me that pushes me to write this second book. I truly sense God is pushing me on this and wants me to do this. The title of the book is: "Realizing Your Deepest Desires: Experiencing God As Never Before." I am using as the overall the structure of the book the structure used by Teresa of Avila, the 16th centuy Spanish saint, in her great book, "The Interior Castle" to discuss different capacities for meaning, life, happiness and love in our lives as human beings. In it I want to show why so many people stagnate at a rather early stage of the process of human, spiritual development but also show something of the incredibly rich developments that are possible and do happen when people let themselves be led by God beyond the blocks and attachments, blind spots, etc that leave them get stuck at the earlier, more elementary stages of life. It seems so very many people realize just a small, very small bit of what life is offering us. We prefer what leaves us comfortable and what we think we can control....................................................................................................... Two days after I return from the pilgrimage I will leave here to lead a retreat for a group of 18 nuns in Arusha, Tanzania, beautiful territory not far from Mount Kilimanjaro: June 22-29. This month of June, then, has me on the road. I am glad to have this chance, to change my routine and get what I hope is a good mental rest through being away from this computer and being with people. A week ago I finished a six-day retreat for 23 African seminarians at a retreat house that is at 7500 feet above sea level. Farms everywhere. (On the way home we drove past a large open area from which emerged a herd of zebras and a family of baboons.) The place where I was for a week has 53 acres with a very impressively managed farm to provide for lots of its needs in the kitchen. It is so well laid out and has lots of hired hands to milk cows, tend to hogs and goats and geese, chickens, etc, and manage the gardens. The whole operation is owned by the Catholic diocese. I loved doing this retreat and being with young people, all around 30 years of age from so many different countries of Africa: the Congo, Uganda, Togo, Chad, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Benin, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Kenya of course. This is a special time in my life to be with future leaders of this part of the world, where the church is so young and is tying to grow in the midst of a lot of economic struggle and greed, stealing, governmental corruption and violence. As I traveled to and from this retreat center I saw many people engaged in agriculture, with simple homes and bringing produce into villages to sell. The buildings and ambiance made me think that this part of the world is in its social structures and infrastructure similar to where the USA was 100-120 years ago, maybe around the turn of the 20th century........................................................................................................... I am going to conclude now. I ask that you pray for the 31 of us making the pilgrimage in Jordan and Israel, June 7-18. It will be my 5th time there, my 4th time to lead a pilgrimage there. All of us are American citizens except two from Rome, who are very close friends of mine. Thanks so much for joining us spiritually through your prayers. A highlight of our two weeks will be a stop at a very nice restaurant on Saturday evening, June the 10th. It overlooks a vast plain of Galilee and some mountains in the distance. We will have the full moon that night to view and watch it rise over those mountains. I will be marking that day the 45th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. The next morning we travel to a village 4-5 miles from Nazareth and join a parish of Catholic Palestinians to celebrate Trinity Sunday, 9:30 AM mass. I have been there (Al Reina) twice before and the readings and prayers are mostly in Arabic and some in English. The church will be jam-packed, the choir loft too with children and teenagers in it that Italian nuns will "police" during mass; It is so funny to see this, just like when I was a kid at a parochial grade school. These children attend the parish sponsored school that has 1100 students. After mass the parishioners invite us to their large hospitality hall and school grounds for coffee and some snacks. What is so impressive during the mass is how just before the reading of the Gospel and when the deacon brings up from the back of the church the book of the Gospels, the men who sit on one side of the church (the women and pre-school children children on the other side!! yes, Arabic segregation!) put their thumb and first two fingers to their lips and then touch with those three fingers the pages of the book of Gospels as the deacon slowly walks by. That gesture of reverence for the Word of God is so, so moving to me. I look forward to seeing again this display of love for Christ and His saving Word. I wish it were a custom in our American churches!.................................................................................................. God bless. A happy Pentecost to all of you who read this! Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It has been about a month since my last post. After seven of them in the last two weeks of Lent I thought I would take a breather for a good while!!.......................................................................................I have been busy with wrapping up preparations for a two week pilgrimage in the Holy Land (June 6-19) and writing chapters for a book I have been at for the better part of a year's time. I don't think there is anything more stressful for me than trying to write something good enough to be published. Only God could push me to write a second book, and that is exactly where I am getting the motivation for doing this. It really has its ups and downs. And at times it is so hard to let go and take breaks. I can carrying lots of tension in my neck and shoulders, in my face and with my grinding my teeth in my sleep. Ugh!! .......................................................................There are times, one of them over the last weekend, when I get this sense of such a deep friendship with God and also with a certain circle of men and women acquaintances I have made over the years. It hits me in a very deep part of my soul, with the sense that I have been given such precious gifts and this makes me feel profoundly consoled and blessed. This is something I cannot buy; that I know. It is all gift and valuable beyond any estimate. Is this one of the gifts of living a long time??............................................................................................... I heard yesterday a story from one of my retreatants, a delightful Australian Christian brother who works in the slums of Nairobi here. It is a story that disturbs me greatly. He told of a fellow Christian brother who was going to "blow the whistle" on a small group of villagers who gang-raped a young orphan, a girl about 11 or 12 years old. (Orphans are especially vulnerable to this horrendous crime!) This fellow Christian brother was going to expose these despicable rats to the law but learned that they had bribed their way out of going to prison. So they go free to this day. This is so typical in this land!! The brother was cautioned to be less aggressive lest he take a bullet and die. Ironically he did die a little later in a taxi accident, one of the many in Kenya where drivers speed so much and take chances and get killed and kill others they are taxiing. Life can be so cheap here!! I feel so very sad for that young orphan. What a difficult beginning for her life. Surely God must have a special love for such people and his mercy is endless with them.......................................................................... I am really tired and am retiring early this evening. Thanks for being interested in reading these posts. May God be very good to you! Bernie Owens