Jim in Chicago

Back home

2008-05-25T17:28:00.000-07:00

It’s a long way across the Pacific Ocean. The Los Angeles to Sydney flight is 14 hours, and you’re never what sure, having boarded at midnight and arriving at 8am just what time zone you’re in. A day disappears somewhere along the international date line. I got a few hours sleep – more than I usually do on long flights, and arrived with a thrill of exultation as we flew in over Sydney and looped around to make a landing from the north.

I caught a train up to mum’s and it was wonderful to see her. I’ve met some wonderful people this year, but there’s no one like mum. Of course, there never is for anyone. We hugged, we had lunch, and began the catching up on 9 months of news from each other’s lives, though with mum having read the blog and me having phoned every week there wasn’t any news that we hadn’t already shared. But to be there face to face was so good. To eat mum’s homemade soup with its unique turnip-parsnip flavour helped me know that I’m home.

I resisted the temptation to sleep in the afternoon and made it through to 6pm, when I slept, with a few wake ups, for 12 hours. I did well to be able to get back to sleep at all. Usually with jetlag I wake up at 2 or 3am and don’t get back to sleep.

Today, Sunday, I went to Mass with mum, then headed down to Pennant Hills to have a lunch with a dozen of my closest friends, the old St Agatha’s church gang. Riding down on the train it still didn’t feel real that I was back in Australia. It feels like I’m away for the weekend, and that on Monday I’ll be back in class at CTU again. I think seeing my friends here will help to make it feel more concrete.
So, here is where I finish the blog. It was only ever going to be for keeping in touch with family and friends in Australia while I was in Chicago. Perhaps if I had known how cheap phone calls would be I might never have started the blog, but in fact it became a wonderful discipline to make me stop and think how best to tell the story of my life each week. Part of me thinks that perhaps I should keep it up, but I will find other ways, including my personal journal and some group emails to keep on reflecting. This part of the story of my life is over. New chapters begin.

The last goodbye

2008-05-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

I always knew this would be tough. I felt a little awkward last week as I said goodbye to people in my class at CTU because I knew that the last goodbyes were yet to come. But today these too had come, as we all packed up the beach house and checked out.

I had plenty of tears stored up behind my eyes, having only shed tears once so far. As we drove to the airport Thomas reached under his seat and gave me a gift, a copy of Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse, which I’d read his copy of earlier this year and shared many reflections about. This was the trigger that simply bought me unglued. I was wordless.

Everyone came to the airport to wave me off, and as I went around the circle to hug everyone I choked up more and more. I wanted to say something meaningful to each person as I went, but words failed me. I’m glad I made time for these over the past few days. Thomas hugged me with shoulder-dislocating force and whispered “thanks for always being there for me” in my ear, and there was nothing left to say or do but to walk away. The last word I heard as I trudged away was Jason saying “phenomenal”, and I can find no better word to describe my year.

There was a hot pain behind my eyes as I checked in my luggage. Once that was done I found a quiet corner of the departure lounge to let myself absolutely sob. I filled up about six napkins with snot. Then I read the inscription Thomas wrote inside the book and cried a bit more. Then after I’d released it a bit, I felt a lot better.

The final words of The Lord of the Rings came to mind; as Frodo prepares to depart Middle Earth Gandalf says to the hobbits “I will not say ‘do not weep’, for not all tears are an evil”. Indeed they’re not. The sadness I feel at leaving my friends is only there because of the love that I have shared. Rather than think of what I have lost, I am thinking of how much I have gained.

Saving the best till last

2008-05-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

The last day I spent in the US was also the best.

The only downside of Folly Beach had been the strong winds and strong rip at the beach. But on Wednesday, our last day there, the wind subsided and the rip diminished, making for perfect sunny conditions.

Matt started the day leading a prayer time on the pontoon, reflecting on how grounded we are when we feel the sand between our toes, compared to the rarefied life in Chicago. As we shared other prayers together our immanent separation was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, and we knew that the clock on the last 24 hours was ticking.

Todd and I had a last run together along the beach. Everyone came down to the beach for a while in the morning to enjoy the good conditions. I had a nap, read, and played some Nintendo Wii Rockband in the hot middle of the day.

I went for a walk with Thomas to have our last goodbye. I tried to make some intentional time with people to do these goodbyes so that it didn’t become all a blur on the last day and leave things unsaid. Ours has been quite an extraordinary friendship, bridging the age difference and unparalleled in each of our lives, and we gave voice to what each of us need to say. Though it may be, that to quote The Motorcycle Diaries, ours are lives that just ran parallel for a time, I hope, I intend that we will see each other again in the future.

We celebrated Wendy’s birthday and graduation. Alas we lit the candles on the cake too early and they burned down and kind of melted the icing, but it was good anyway.

Throughout the week Eric masterminded a competition in which we broke into 4 teams (named after the Hogwarts houses, complete with a sorting hat) who won and lost points for skill and virtue. Points were awarded for winning games, cooking meals, and taking the trash out. At the end of the week the winning team (us, Ravenclaw) could choose two players from the 3rd and 4th place teams to wrestle in the mud. Alas, there was no mud to be found. So instead, Eric and Eldon were chosen to sock wrestle on the beach. Eric was typically good sported about being chosen, and endured a painful exfoliation of his sunburn from the sand.

We celebrated Mass together. It was an extraordinarily powerful and intimate time of prayer. We shared reflections on the gospel – and a group of theology grad students had some fairly wonderful insights. Todd said, as Matt had before him, that he’s never been with a group of people who are so intentional about their prayer life and so willing to share together. We sang “Let us break bread together on our knees” and shared communion. We ended arm in arm praying blessings for one another. There was no more fitting way I could finish the week, and indeed the whole year in the US

Folly Beach

2008-05-20T17:24:00.001-07:00

Wow. This is a great few days.

It's so good to be able to just walk out the door of the house and walk 100 metres to be in the water at the beach. Not needing to take keys, or a swipe card, or a wallet or anything. Very freeing.

We have watched some wonderful sunsets. We have seen beautiful sunrises. Lots of swimming. Beach football and bocce. Plenty of time to cook and eat and read and sleep. We've had prayer times outside on the jetty pontoon. Todd cooked last night's feat of

Last night Todd & I went for a late night swim (and the waves were the best we've yet had).

Last night I slept on the balconey under the stars. Windy, but great to do. The closest thing to going camping I've done all year.

Most importantly I've had time to have some significant conversations with my friends which help to bring closure to this part of my life. Today I walked along the beach with Thomas and reflected on the mixed emotions of being sad to leave, but also excited to go home, to see everyone, and to start up in a new parish.

South Carolina

2008-05-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

I hate long goodbyes. Our last week at CTU was a string of farewell dinners, liturgies and events. By the time I left I felt well and truly ready to go, though with mixed feelings, of joy at all I had experienced in this past year, and the sadness of leaving. I felt a little awkward saying goodbye to some friends from my IRF class because I still had one more week to go with friends here, so it didn't really feel like my final goodbye. But after many hugs I left Chicago at lunchtime on Friday and began the two day drive to South Carolina on the east coast.

12 of us - the lutherans and friends - have a house at Folly Beach for 5 days. It's an incredible house with balconeys and rooftop lounge areas, across the road from the beach. The beach is nothing compared to a Sydney beach, but its great to be somewhere warm and to be able to swim after a long winter in Chicago which we didn't totally get over.

The week here promises to be filled with late nights of poker, hookah and nintendo Wii, but I think I'm going to do a bit of time on my own somehow. I went to bed earlyish last night and got up before sunrise to go down to the beach to pray, watch the sunrise, and have have a swim. It felt so wonderful, so I think I'll probably forgo some of the partying for the sake of some early nights and early mornings.

When I left Narraweena I had 4 days in San Francisco on my own to do some of the grieving and transitioning. I think I will be doing the same here.

Half Marathon

2008-05-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ran the Lake Geneva half marathon. It was a good cool-but-not-cold day for running in a beautiful lakeside down surrounded by farmland.

I did well. I was aiming for between 1 hr 30 min and 1 hr 40 min. The clock was 1:38:30 when I came around the bend to the finish line, so I pushed for all I was worth to come in at 1:39:30 - 99 and a half minutes!

I thought that this was a good effort for me, but only average within the race, but I actually came 38th out of 500 or so runners, which surprised me. My friend and trainer Todd (pictured) did the full marathon and came 9th overall. He said it was the toughest yet of the 15 or so marathons he's done, owing to the hills. Another runner said that this race is typically 10 minutes slower than most others.

As I reflect on the experience of the race, it forms many metaphors for my past 9 months here in Chicago:

There was lots of anticipation and excitement before the event. I'd been training for some weeks.

I started with unbridled enthusiasm, and had to deliberately pace myself. Todd and I ran the first 6 miles together which helped me in the race. In my time here I'm glad I deliberately held back from trying to find a parish to do ministry, or to take on extra subjects too soon. Pacing myself allowed me to soak in the experience much better.

About a quarter of the way in I started to feel very comfortable. I'd found my pack of people to run with - keeping an eye on the girl with the yellow tshirt and the guy in the blue one ahead of me. Here in Chicago I soon found my place in a couple of groups of friends.

Halfway through I felt quite invincible, like I could just keep going forever. Midway through my time here in the US I thought I could quite happily stay here for years, if there was reason to.

But by about mile 10 I was starting to hurt, and would have loved to have snapped my fingers and been at the finish line. There were times around Easter this year when I could gladly have just jumped on a plane to come home too.

But at the last mile marker - #12, I felt renewed, and was able to push myself up a knotch and finish strongly. I could say the same for my last month or so here, that I've tried to stay planted here, not to live in the future, but being attentive to the present moment.

At at the end in the minutes after the run as I downed a litre of water and a couple of bananas it seemed like it had all ended too soon. As I enter into the final week here in Chicago, really just a week of farewell dinners, liturgies and presentations I think that I will get to the end and likewise think that it ended too soon.

But then I'll get home to my family, my friends, and my new parish, and it will be just as wonderful as it was to take off my shoes, have a shower, sit down and eat after the race!

Transition time

2008-05-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote that I have been resisting starting to sort out and pack my bags, because it would be a part of emotionally checking-out from Chicago. But last week we had three days of classes on "transition" which signalled an official start to the packing season.

My goal is to get everything back into the two suitcases I came here with. You probably know I like to travel light. Adam helped me move with a small truck from Toukley to Narraweena, but it only took me a couple of hatchback loads from Naraweena to St Ives, where everything I own (except for a couple of suitcases here!) sits in the corner of a spare room. I've managed to need less stuff, rather than more, over time, which is a nice side bonus of celibacy & priesthood. You don't need to own a fridge. People don't give you knick knacks. Technology helps too. Laptops are smaller than desktops. Who needs a shelf stereo when your computer plays CDs?

We are collecting clothes here for Burmese refugees in Chicago, via one of the college staff who is Burmese. So lots of clothes, especially the warmer stuff can go there. I've tried to resist buying books other than those I'm actually reading while here, even so, I seem to have bought quite a lot.

Also helping in minimising packing is summarising everything. I'm going through all my notes and typing summaries of all the good and practical stuff. It's great to review and remember everything. Lots of stuff makes more sense in hindsight, so my summaries are better than the original class notes.

So back to the transition class. It was a really helpful process. The first day was mostly personal reflection, writing responses to some questions which are targetted to how we will tell the story of this year when we get back home. Having journalled and blogged all year means that a lot of the words are pretty much on the tip of my tongue, but it's good to revisit the stories, even for myself. The second day was working with a partner in telling the story, then getting feedback from them, using observation techniques we've been learning this year to help identify where there is energy and what the key challenges are. The third day was a whole group session with each person invited to say what this class/group has meant to them this year.

This coming week will be lots of 'lasts' - last hamburger night, last poker night, etc.

Springtime

2008-04-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

It is often joked that Minnesota only has two seasons - Winter, and Road Repair! The same could almost be said of Chicago. We had a long hot summer, then a very short autumn which quickly became the coldest winter of the last 50 years. Winter dragged on, and spring has very quickly progressed, from snow three weeks ago, to 75 degrees and humid today. Trees and flowers seem to have instantaneously burst into life. Every day I notice a new tree with leaves or blossoms, or a new bed of flowers (lots of bulbs) which has shot up.

Yesterday I drove my friend Eldon to the airport early in the morning. I drove back as the sun was rising ahead of me. The trees were budding a bright, fresh green. I had a thrill of excitement, and it felt like a flashback to when I first arrived in Chicago last September, which now seems like such a long time ago. Just for a moment it felt like I had just arrived here for the first time, and had all of my sabbatical ahead of me to look forward to!

It was a wonderful refresher as I now count down my time here - just three weeks to go. Many people are on the end of semester wind down, getting tired, getting sick, packing up their rooms already. I'm determined not to start packing too soon. I want to stay in the present moment and enjoy every day I have here, even though I am simultaneously making plans for back home.

My friend Paul back home suggested to me a few weeks ago that rather than think "I've only got 6 weeks to go", to imagine that I have just arrived and to say "I've got a whole 6 weeks to enjoy". Good advice, which shot through me strongly at sunrise yesterday.

Indian Drumming

2008-04-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

There is such a diversity of culture here in Chicago. There probably is in Sydney too, but I've rarely taken the time there to discover it.

Last night our friend Biju who is from Kerala (the same part of India as Joseph Pattakandam) invited us to come and hear an Indian drumming group at the symphony centre downtown.

It was unlike anything I have every seen or heard before. Half a dozen drummers, headed by Zakir Hassain played over two hours of incredible music. Most of the drummers sat cross legged and barefoot on the ground. Some also danced as they played, with incredible dexterity, the players hands were all a blur to us watching.

The music was very different to anything western, though there were elements we've all heard traces of before. There was no western beat. It was difficult to contain the music into a 4/4 or other time signature. Unlike most western music where percussion provides the background, a stringed instrument called a sarangi which is played by a violin bow provided the background while various drums provided the melodic interest. A number of drums had strings along the side which tuned the drum skin, and the players would pull and squeeze these while playing to create something of a doppler-effect while playing. And there was such a range of timbres which could be brought out from a single drum.

The sitar player was incredible. His piece became more and more frenetic, till the speed and range of notes would have put Jimi Hendrix to shame.

Yet another interesting night out in Chicago. Thanks to Biju.

Part of the Problem

2008-04-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

I'd often heard that much of the developing world's most fertile land is used to grow tea, coffee and tobacco for the first world. My response, like many others, has been to try to buy fair-trade coffee and tea, where the local growers get a fair price, rather than being underpaid by giant corporations (we're looking at you, Nestle).

But there's more at stake now.

As the oil price continues to rise, biofuels (ethanol, made from corn) become a viable alternative, and in many places there's a 10% ethanol blend at the bowser. But this further increases pressure on productive land, as growing crops to burn rather than eat becomes more lucrative, struggling farmers will do it.

Solution - don't use ethanol blend fuel - it matters far more that we run out of food than we run out of fuel.

It gets worse though. I read in the NY Times yesterday - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/business/worldbusiness/17warm.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=rice+price&st=nyt&oref=slogin - that Australian farmers in the Riverina, who formerly made Australia one of the world's largest rice exporters, are now shifting towards growing grapes for our burgeoning wine market. (The article notes that the drought is an uncontrollable factor in the depletion of the wine crop too).

The price of staple foods, rice among them, is skyrocketing internationally. There are riots in Senegal and Haiti, as the poor find themselves unable to afford even the most basic food.

My immediate reaction is to stop drinking wine. But then I have to factor in that meat production also diverts land away from crop growth (it takes 10 times the land to produce a pound of beef than to produce a pound of wheat).

Tea, coffee, wine, meat, fuel - my consumption of all these things is at the expense of the nutrition of the world's poorest people. I'm going to have to make some radical choices about it.

Back in routine

2008-04-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

One of the good things about coming over to Chicago on sabbatical has been getting out of routine. At home I was fairly disciplined, to make sure I was at my best and most energetic for ministry. But here, I found myself going out and staying up late. I kept up fairly early mornings for a while, surprised to find that I needed less sleep than I do at home, probably due to having such a zero-stress lifestyle here.

During January though, when the sun didn't rise till 8am and even then was only half hearted about it, and the temperature didn't even get up to zero (or 32F) for the whole month, it got harder to get up early. I'd be sleeping in till 7.30 or so quite often. And this led to bad habits, like not getting enough prayer time in. And when I get out of routine I do silly things, like play around on the internet till late - the later it gets, and the more tired I get, the easier it seems to be to just keep on clicking - to read another article on Wikipedia, or whatever, rather than switch off and go to bed.

In the past couple of months I've been working on getting back in routine. The sun rising earlier, even with daylight saving has helped to. Now I feel like I'm back into the kind of routine I work best at. Getting up at 6am, in the chapel before 6.30, time for my own prayer, then Divine Office with about a dozen people at 7.30. Brekky before 8, and a bit of time to check email, read the news, put a load of washing on or whatever, before class starts at 9. Class is 9-12, and the afternoons are free for reading or whatever, and I get some exercise in just about every day. I'm going to bed closer to 11 these days - even on Thursday night poker night, when I just leave early.

I've made myself a couple of rules which have helped: I don't turn the internet on till after prayer & breakfast (for awhile I'd check the internet first thing in the morning, and I'd get distracted and eat into prayer time). And I log off at 10pm - I don't need to watch that movie trailer, read that article, or whatever at midnight. Amazing how much less important some things seem in the light of day.

Christology

2008-04-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Not all our lectures here are directly to do with formation - about half the course is general updating of theology. Today and yesterday we had such lectures with Fr Bob Schreiter, who gave us a masterful overview of contemporary Christology (the study of the person and actions of Jesus). He spoke, as he always does, without notes, and without a wasted word.

His overview pulled together and synthesised so much of what I'd learnt in seminary and read since, and pushed it forward. He made sense of so many smaller pieces of information I'd heard and read and put it all in context.

He covered the phases of the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" - the project since the 18th century of using archaeology and analysis of ancient texts etc to help sort out what in the gospels might be additions, interpretations or exagerrations from what Jesus actually said and did. The more extreme edges of this movement deny any supernatural attributes of Jesus - no virgin birth, no miracles, no resurrection. Albert Schweitzer declared in 1906 that this quest had largely failed, because the images of Jesus presented usually looked a lot like the researchers, revealing that much of such research is very biased. I think too that many of the wackier theories about Jesus at the Da Vinci Code end of the spectrum are largely the product of PhD students needing to find something to write a thesis about. Shreiter sees this quest as having exhausted most of the source material, and barring a new discovery like the Dead Sea Scrolls will largely fade out, supplanted instead by continued reflection on the significance of Jesus in our present time.

He showed that in recent decades more useful scriptural scholarship has turned to look at the culture of Israel at the time of Jesus, and to understand Jesus in his context. For example, to look at the situation of of Israel, occupied by the Romans in 30AD. The central question for Jews of the time was how to be faithful to their religion and survive in the political and economic climate. So the different social groups mentioned in the gospels: Sadduccees, Pharisees, Essenes and Zealots all reflect different positions on this question, from collaboration with the Romans (Sadduccees) to armed rebellion (Zealots).

He also covered what for me is the most contentious issue of gospel scholarship - the resurrection of Jesus. The more liberal scholarship of last century usually arrived at saying that there was no such thing as an empty tomb, but that the disciples experienced Jesus as alive in their hearts, and created symbolic accounts of the empty tomb to describe this. I have never accepted this. But Bob Schreiter taught that the most credible position is led by UK Anglican Bishop NT Wright (whom Bishop Bede often quoted to me) who traces the Jewish and pagan roots of the notion of resurrection in the centuries prior to Jesus, and re-examines the gospels themselves, and concludes that historically the tomb was empty and that the disciples did have various experiences of Jesus' "transphysical" body afterwards. The empty tomb itself is not proof of resurrection, but put together with the disciples continued experience of Jesus in prayer it was the concrete launchpad for an understanding of Jesus' resurrection, which led to further reflection both about the nature of Jesus as being more than human (divine, Son of God) and about human destiny (to share in the resurrection). It was reassuring to hear a significant scholar reaffirm what I have always held to.

A weekend on Lake Michigan

2008-04-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

15 of us (two thirds) of our IRF class had a weekend away at the Holy Cross Sisters' holiday house in Michigan, on the other side of Lake Michigan from Chicago.

We scored the warmest weather of the year, with two clear sunny days which allowed us to play soccer and volleyball on the beach, and to take long barefoot walks. It was wonderful to watch the slow, lingering sunset over the lake, as our usual sunset in Chicago is blocked by nearby buildings.

In between we cooked and ate, watched movies, played cards, and had numerous morning and afternoon naps.

It was the first time that our class has gone away together like this. I wish we had done this sometime last semester too. There was a great ease with everyone - nobody having to be on their best behaviour, but each of us enjoying the others' company.

A church home

2008-03-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

I was looking forward to attending the Easter Vigil Mass at St Thomas the Apostle Parish, my local church here in Chicago. However, my friend Thomas had been asked by one of his lecturers to altar serve at a chapel called Our Lady of Pompei, so a few of us went there for Mass instead.

It was a beautiful liturgy, with everything done by the book and done well. We started outside with the Easter fire, then processed into the hall for the liturgy of the word, where all 7 old testament readings were proclaimed by confident readers, then we processed into the church and gathered around the altar for eucharist.

And yet, I didn't feel at home there. I felt like a tourist. I suspected that this was because I didn't know anyone there apart from my couple of friends. But on reflection, I realised that it wasn't just this. A few weeks ago I attended my friend Jason's Lutheran church. I was one of only 3 non-African Americans there (the other two being Jason and the other seminarian) and the only non-Lutheran, and yet I felt very much at home there.

I realised that what I was reacting to at that chapel service was a sense that all the ministers at that liturgy had been imported specially for the Mass. The readers, the musicians, the altar servers including Thomas. I suspect they were mostly paid, too. It didn't feel like an expression of this community's worship. Admittedly, it was a shrine, not a regular parish, but it just didn't feel right. There wasn't a sense of connection / affection between the ministers and the congregation. This was all the more evident at the supper afterwards.

So I went to an Easter morning Mass at St Thomas also, and while the liturgy was nowhere near as magnificent (although still very good), I felt at home. I belonged. Fr Michael, the pastor, mingles with people before and after the service, and the homily always feels like it is to, for, and about this congregation. The priest, altar servers, choir and readers come down from the sanctuary and make the sign of peace with people the whole length of the church. Two of the singers particularly just light up and exude a contagious joy when they sing. It's a good place to be.

When I came to Chicago I thought I'd go exploring churches and take notes and get ideas. But the words of CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters reminded me that the best way to not be transformed by liturgy is to be a connoisseur and critic of liturgies, rather than a consumer of them. So I decided to just stick to my local parish. I wanted to get involved in some ministry, but to do something non-sacramental and non-liturgical, something I don't do in parish ministry at home.

So I joined a team which stocks and serves food at a food pantry on Saturdays for homeless & low-income families. Its a no-brainer of a job - just bagging up groceries and taking them to the front room where they are given away to those who need them, but doing this has made me feel like I'm part of the life & work of the parish. I've met some great fellow-volunteers who I now see at Mass, which increases my sense of belonging. I've always known that people who get involved in ministries in parishes are the ones who have a sense of belonging to that parish, and its been good to re-learn this from the other side of the pews.

Last day in The Big Apple

2008-03-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

How to spend Good Friday reverently in one of the most exciting and busiest cities in the world? It appears not to have been a public holiday today - everything was going full tilt. All shops open.

We tried to be as non-commercial as we could today. We walked through Central Park, which is enormous. We found the John Lennon "Strawberry Fields" memorial, where 27 years later people are still placing flowers and strawberries. We went to stations of the cross in a downtown church. And we took the free ferry across to Staten Island, from which you get a view of the Statue of Liberty, and look back at Jersey City, Manhattan, and Brooklyn - quite a megalopis.

We didn't get off at the Statue of Liberty, but enscribed in the base is a poem called "The New Collossus" which contains the words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free....". There is something wonderful about the founding principles of the US such as this, and the declaration of indepence (which the statue of liberty marks the centenary of), but wealth has overwhelmed and subsumed the dream. I don't think that poem is on the new US-Mexican razor wire border fence. Then again, it's not on the walls of Villawood detention centre either.... I shouldn't be too harsh on the US - it's what Australia, and indeed just about everywhere else in the world is trying to be.

And I have had such a great adventure not just in New York but in all my time in America. I have received so much generosity and hospitality from so many people.

It's been wonderful to see Ro and Michael. I enjoy their company so much, and we like to travel at about the same pace. I couldn't really keep up with their taste in food and wine, except for their generosity and kindness in shouting for much of it.

I think my remaining weeks in the US will pass pretty quickly now. This trip was the last big landmark on the calendar before I leave, and I think it will be a little bit of a downhill run from here. But, I do plan to make the most of it, starting with this weekend which is Easter, going to the vigil at my local parish, and lunch with friends on Easter Sunday. Happy Easter to you as you read this - I hope Jesus' resurrection takes place deep within your heart.

So much to see

2008-03-21T05:51:00.000-07:00

It is said that New York is a city which never sleeps. From the sound of the traffic outside our apartment at 3am this would seem to be true. The city is always abuzz. There's no more vehicular traffic than Sydney, but the big difference is the number of people on the sidewalks. At 10pm its like Pitt St Sydney at its busiest.

There is so much light. From the dazzling neon of Times Square, to the Empire State Building whose rooftop lights change colour and are diffused by mist into a simmering haze. The Empire State Building is just down the road from us on 34th St. The street is the eponymous thoroughfare of the 1930's film Miracle on 34th St, named after the world's largest department store, a Macy's, two blocks down from us.

Highlights: I went back to Metropolitan Museum of Art. Saw rooms full of Van Gogh, Renoir, and several more works of Georges Seurat, whose Sunday at La Grande Jatte is my favourite painting in Chicago. Incredible to see world famous artworks such as Van Gogh's Irises up close enough to see the texture of the paint.

We heard one of my favourite musicals, Rent. Ro and I loved it. Michael found it a bit overwhelming. I've grown to love a lot of the songs which I didn't resonate with when last I saw it in Sydney, such as Light my Candle and No Day but Today. It was great to see it on Broadway, here in New York, a couple of miles from where it was set. Like watching Jaws by the beach. Or Flying High on a plane.

Yesterday we saw the headquarters for global evil, I mean capitalism, Wall St. The armed guards with machine guns, the road barricades and sniffer dogs helped to cement the impression that the wealth produced here is not to be shared evenly. Michael was keen to see it. We also saw the 9/11 hole in the ground, Ground Zero. A strong sense of propaganda abounded - the deceased and named as "The Heroes of 9/11" - they were just office workers who died tragically. But they died with a cafe latte in their hands in airconditioned offices, not slowly of starvation, poverty or preventable diseases. Around 2000 people died in Manhattan on 9/11. Around 2000 people died in Africa the same day, and every day since, largely because of the kind of work

done by people who work in places like The World Trade Centre. I scoffed at the signage saying

"These towers were an icon of prosperity and progress, belonging not just to New York, but to the whole world".

Aside from my cynicism about this though, we saw some spectacular arcitecture at the old, southern end of the island such as the Supreme Court building, pictured.

Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, to, unsurprisingly, Brooklyn, a whole different world of bohemian art gallerys. There is an area called DUMBO - Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass which Rosemary really wanted to see, and it was well worth the visit.

New York, New York

2008-03-18T14:38:00.001-07:00

I've joined my sister Rosemary and her husband Michael on holidays in New York for a week.

New York is big, loud, crowded and fast. Even Chicago really isn't a patch on it. Last night we walked through midtown, through Times Square (really a long rectangle!) and went to the top of the Rockefeller Centre to take in the amazing cityscape.

Today we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - "The Met", a staggeringly beautiful building which is a fitting to house 17 acres of art and artifacts. It was a nice improvement on the disappointing Guggenheim Museum, whose major exhibit was dozens upon dozens of canvases contained brown stains which resembled the love child of the Shroud of Turin and a dirty nappy (apologies to both the Shroud and babypoo). Also featured were installations of what appeared to be flying spit roasted pigs, and a wrecked ship filled with broken crockery. "Pretentious", said Rosemary. I wonder if it's The Emporer's New Art; whether anyone actually likes this crap, or if everyone just pretends to for fear of looking uncultured. I'll take my chances.

Back to the good stuff at the Met. Enormous Chinese tapestries. 5000 year old Egyptian artifacts including complete sarcophagi. 15th century Dutch religious works. A feature by Nicholas Poussin, whose dominant genre is landscapes with bodies of water and figures in the foreground.

There was just too much to take in - I hope to go back again tomorrow. But for now, we're off to see the musical "Rent". Sure, I saw this in Sydney 5 years ago, but it will be different seeing it in New York!

48 hours

2008-03-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

Jack Bauer could save the world twice in 48 hours. I couldn't, but I probably say that the past 48 hours have been among the best in my time in Chicago.

Wed arvo: Spiritual direction, with my wonderful Dominican sister Mary Therese. I always feel listened to and challenged by here.

Wed arvo: Went running with Peter (who I ran with some last year) and Eldon (who has wanted me to run with him to get the motivation to run). I could probably have walked just as fast, but it was a beautiful clear afternoon and good to be with them.

Wed arvo: We had a 2nd rite of reconciliation here at CTU, and I was one of the confessors. Having not done any sacramental ministry for awhile, I had forgotten what a privilege it is, and how powerful it is to hear people's heartfelt confessions, and to pray with them and announce God's forgiveness. I am also very humbled when friends or people who know me well have enough trust in God, in me and in the sacrament to come to me. As a priest I am just an empty vessel for God's grace and forgiveness, but the image I have is of water flowing through a pipe - the pipe is taking water to somewhere else, but it gets wet on the inside in the process. In being there for people's encounter with God in reconciliation, I find I get touched by God's love too.

Wed night: I've been meaning to make time to have dinner with my friend Todd for some time now, for him to tell me the full story of his calling to become a pastor in the Lutheran church. I had previously shared my calling story with him. We finally got together, and it was great to hear his quite remarkable story, which took place during his tour of duty as a soldier in Iraq a few years back.

Thurs morning: IRF. One of those random classes we have which are not about formation, but just general updating of theology for us. We had a guest lecturer, Fr John Melloh, whom I'd heard a little of on tape previously, and very much disliked. So I prayed that morning that I would have an open heart and mind. And I did in fact like him, and found his teaching - on styles of preaching to be very useful.

Thurs arvo: Did a labyrinth walk with Jason, as our final lenten prayer time together. We used the old mystic tradition of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive way. As we walked in, we stopped at each turn to meditate on letting go (of distractions, worries, needs, and anything which blocks us from God). At the centre we prostrated, surrendering our knowledge to God and asking him to teach our hearts, and as we walked out we walked with a focus on the presence of God, and on God being in charge. By the end I felt very centred and peaceful. It was a poweful conclusion to what has been a great lenten exercise of sharing prayer with a friend.

Thurs arvo: Had coffee with Francie, who I've been trying catch up with for some time.

Thurs arvo: Went running with Todd. Todd's a lot faster than me, so it was a good training run. But we also continued last night's conversation, recognising many points of convergence of what God has done in each of our lives.

Thurs night: Poker night, as always. This, with Jason, Todd, Matt and the whole lutheran gang has been the cornerstone of my social life this year. And after the game we celebrated the warmer weather, heading outside to sit around a fire. There we made our plans and booked our end of semester holiday in South Carolina.

Fri morning: Matt & Jason came over to join us for 7.30 am morning prayer (pretty good for guys who went to bed at 3am!) then Matt & I had breakfast together, which I think might become a tradition.

Class was good once again.

Mark Twain advised not to let school interfere with one's education. While I am learning some good things in class, for me so much more has happened outside of class. I am learning a lot through prayer and relationships. I have been more consistent during Lent with prayer every morning, and I am feeling the fruit of that in a renewed energy both for looking forward to life and ministry back home (only 2 months to go), and in making the most of relationships and opportunities here.

Snowboarding in Utah

2008-03-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

When I knew I was coming to Chicago to study, one of the things I was most looking forward to was to go snowboarding in the northern hemisphere. This weekend, my dream came true.

Friends from Narraweena, Mark and Mary Morris invited me to come join them for a weekend at Snowbird ski resort, Salt Lake City, Utah.

It was a fantastic weekend. Steeper mountains and thicker, drier snow than I have ever experienced. We spent both days on black and double black runs, hardly ever going on groomed trails, because the off-piste areas were so covered in powder snow.

My favourite run contained a long chute, with burms on both sides, which I could ride high to control speed, almost travelling horizontal, or press in low to go faster. There were gondolas and chairlifts, no queues. No crowds on the slopes. Just amazing conditions. Nothing in Australia comes close.

The people on the bus

2008-03-10T17:54:00.001-07:00

As I caught the bus to the airport on the weekend, I was, as I have been before, the only white person on the bus. When I got on the plane to fly to Salt Lake City, there were, I think, no black people on the plane.

There are more black than white people in Chicago, with Latino's coming in a close third.

What a stark contrast between those who can afford to ride the bus (read, can't afford a car), and those who can afford to take the plane. It was the clearest sign I've had of the wealth discrepancy between white & black in Chicago. It's pretty much duplicated around the world....

Bethany Lutheran Church

2008-03-02T19:09:00.000-08:00

Today I visited Bethany Lutheran Church, at which my friends Jason and Dan are doing their pastoral work. I have never been to a Lutheran service/Mass before, but I figured it would be fairly similar to a Catholic Mass. It wasn't!

I was one of only 3 white people there- Jason and Dan were the other two - this is one of very few African American Lutheran churches. And it was everything I hoped an African American church would be. There were Amen!s and Hallelujah!s. There was singing, and swaying, and handclapping. And such a vibe of love and grace. From the opening song I had a thrill of anticipation, that God was in this place, and that God was going to move among us.

The service had all the elements of a Catholic Mass, just rearranged and enhanced. They use the same scripture readings as we do. There is a creed, a sign of peace, and a shortened eucharistic prayer prior to communion. But there was a preliminary bible study/sunday school, plus lots of singing, individual prayer time, and blessing, and lunch to follow. It's a whole day at church - we were there from 9.30 - 3. And the time flew. A great, great experience. Hallelujah!

Pictured here is Jason drumming with Pastor Powell (he's got pretty good rhythm for a white boy!)

End of a cold winter

2008-02-29T19:02:00.000-08:00

Well today, Feb 29th is the offical end of the coldest & snowiest winter in Chicago since 1928.

And I'm glad - glad that it's been an extreme winter. Any Chicago winter would have seemed cold to me, yet if it had have been a mild winter I would have said it was cold, and the locals would have brushed it off. If it was going to be minus 10 degrees all the time, well hey, it might as well be minus 20. What's few degrees between friends? Most of Jan and Feb it has struggled to get above freezing point. And its actually worse when it does, because the snow starts to melt, but then freezes again into slick ice, which is much harder to walk on than a couple of inches of snow.

Pictured is Julio (from Brazil) and I standing by Lake Michigan, which is too large to freeze solid (it's the size of Tasmania), but would frequently have the surface freezing over. When it begins to melt it looks like Antarctica.

Misinterpreting the Bible

2008-02-23T21:24:00.000-08:00

Its often postulated that 90% of what we see and hear is what we expect to see and hear, and the rest we kind of filter out. The same can be true of reading the bible - that though we might read and hear scripture again and again, we can be stuck in hearing what we expected to hear.

I've heard a couple of new perspectives in the past couple of weeks which have really surprised me, from two great scripture scholars, Sr Sandra Schneiders and Sr Barbara Reid.

John chapter 4 gives the story of the Samaritan woman who talks to Jesus at the well. As part of the conversation, Jesus says to her "go and call your husband", to which she replies "I have no husband", and Jesus says "Yes, you're right, you've had five husbands, and the man you're with now isn't your husband". I've always heard this quite literally, and people have used the woman's resulting poor social standing as the reason for her coming to collect water at midday, when all the other women would collect water at the cooler times of dawn and dusk.

But wait a minute - how could any woman in a strictly religious culture have had five husbands, let alone live defacto with a man? A woman would have been stoned for this. Schneiders and Reid point instead to the 5 husbands as being symbolic of the 5 false gods of Samaria from 2 Kings 19:29-34. The 'no husband' of the present indicates the Samaritans were still without a true relationship with God that the Israelites had.

When you re-read this passage knowing this, it starts to make more sense. You realise that the question & answer about husbands is totally out of place in a conversation about prophets, messiahs and places of worship if its taken literally, but makes perfect sense if its taken symbollically.

Another nice touch: I'd never noticed before that when this woman goes off to tell the villagers about Jesus, she leaves her water jar by the well. Schneiders points out that in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) whenever Jesus calls someone to be an apostle they leave their tools of trade behind, whether a boat, a fishing net or a tax booth. Here, the woman is the same, she leaves her 'tool of trade' behind and goes to tell others about Jesus - a mission which she is successful in, both in the context of the scripture passage, and historically, as Samaritans became part of the early Christian church.

The American Health System

2008-02-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

The American health system is notoriously bad, without a comprehensive Australian Medicare-type program to provide free basic cover to everyone. Today I tested it out.

Yesterday I could feel a sore throat and some asthma coming on. I woke up at 3 in the morning with all symptoms blazing, dosed up and slept till 9. I then drove to a local medical clinic called the Komed Holman centre.

I received a much more thorough examination that I think I would have had in Australia. Within a few minutes a nurse had taken my vital stats and given me a throat swap with a piece of razor wire which was sent off to the lab downstairs. I then waited to see a doctor.

I could walk in to my old local doctor in Narraweena and say "I've got a throat infection". I'd say "ah", he'd look at my throat and say "yes you have. Here's a script for antibiotics". It took 3 minutes, he made money, I didn't waste time, and everyone was happy. But here, I got a thorough check out by an eager young doctor who also counselled me on my asthma managment plan, and tried to convince me to use whatever new improved asthma medication he was being sponsored to endorse. To be fair though, young doctors in Australia do this to asthmatics too.

By contrast to the waiting room of a big medical clinic in Australia though, there was a remarkable quiet and calm. I was the only white person among the 60 or so patients, doctors, nurses and secretaries there. At home (Manly Vale at least) the waiting room would filled with people complaining, moaning, talking loudly and going to the counter every five minutes to try to get priority, as well as coughing sneezing, bleeding and vomiting to explose you to any diseases you didn't already have. People sat quietly and calmly with serene dignity. I felt guilty for coughing.

The other surprise was the cost. As a foreigner I am uninsured and expected a hefty fee. Yet, this is a charity sponsored health clinic, and the cost was only a $20 co-payment, and for $6 the antiobiotics were thrown in too!

So while rumours are of how terrible the system is, with presidential candidates making reform their key policy, there are at least some good services available, with 6 centres coming under the banner of this foundations in Chicago.

Flogging Molly, Seeking Sandra, Liking Loughlan...

2008-02-16T18:25:00.000-08:00

Yet another interesting week....

Our usual poker night took on a different vibe from the usual post-game mellow-out hookah and conversation, as more and more people turned up, mostly armed with bottles of wine, and the mood amped up and up, which was fun. Various corners of the house took on different activities, including boxing on Nintendo Wii, and beer-pong, which I must explain (or you can look up wikipedia). Beer-pong is a game, played in teams of two, which involves throwing a ping-pong ball into your opponent's cups quarter filled with beer, which they then drink. You win by getting your opponents to drink all ten cups. The winners then play again against new opponents. Brian and I won a couple of games, but for obvious reasons though you can't win many games consecutively....

We had two excellent days of lectures by Br Loughlan Sofield, who by way of teaching us about community and collaboration focussed on forgiveness and reconciliation. It was powerful stuff. He defined forgivess as an act of the will by which you relinquish the intention to seek revenge. You can forgive whether or not the other person apologises. You can forgive whether or not you tell the person you have forgiven them. You always have the power to forgive, because it's your will. Reconciliation relies on the other person coming to the party, but it is forgiveness which is key for spiritual and psychological health. The only condition Jesus placed upon us being forgiven by God is whether we forgive others "forgive us our trespasses as we....".

Then last night a few of us went to see Celtic punk band Flogging Molly. It was a great concert, good energy, a fairly frenetic mosh pit and skanking circle, and really interesting music with violin, tin whistle and accordion.

And today (Saturday) about half of our class went to a seminar given by Sr Sandra Schneiders on the vow of poverty. She lectures like she writes, densely, though more succinctly, unashamedly saying that religious life is the complete dedication of one's life to the God-quest through relinquishing all else for the sake of following Jesus. She called us back from the soft-sell approach to poverty increasingly taken by religious and towards a gospel focussed lifestyle which should stand in counter-cultural prophetic witness to our consumerist culture. And although diocesan priests don't take a vow of poverty, we should be striving to live this too.

A fun, and inspiring week.

The best run

2008-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went jogging again. For the past couple of weeks I've been getting sore feet as I run. I wondered whether my shoes were getting too old, or my feet were getting too old. Hoping for the former, I bought a new pair of runners and found that they made a big difference.

I am training to do a half marathon (13 miles/21 km) in April with my friend Eric. We've agreed to run together on Tuesdays, and having that commitment to run is a good discipline. I looked out the window yesterday, saw it snowing, saw the temperature was 20 farenheit, and hoped that Eric would call to chicken out. But he didn't, so we ran.

It turned out to be the best run I've done since the Christmas break. There were big, chunky snowflakes falling (it seems that the colder the temp, the bigger the flakes). There was no wind, so they just fell gently down. And there was an inch of snow on the path, which made it soft to run on, and much better that the either ice or slush which there has been of late, especially along the lakefront path where we run. We did 7 miles at a gentle enough pace to be able to hold down a good conversation all the way. We'll have to increase both miles and speed soon, but for now, it was just great to be able to enjoy the run and the day.

Pictured is the shore of Lake Michigan, which doesn't freeze all the way across (its the size of Tasmania) but does freeze for half a mile off the shore.

Jesse

2008-02-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

Jesse is a 40 year old homeless man who lives on the streets of Chicago. Not a great place to live this week, when today's temperature, with wind chill was -35 degrees celsius.

I met him on Friday downtown. He was one of several men I saw folornly rattling an empty cup with a handful of loose change in it. Most homeless guys don't accost people, they just stand innocuously on the corner, rattling. Everyone knows the drill. I was taken aback to see how many one cent pieces were in Jesse's cup (in the tipping culture of the US, to tip one cent is the ultimate insult in return for bad service).

Most people question how best to respond to people begging. Will they spend the money on alcohol or drugs? Is it better therefore to buy food for them? But in doing so, are you helping to keep them dependent? Perhaps. But when someone's hungry, whether out of their own self-mismanagement or not, they're still hungry, and to give them food is probably always a right response. Yet most of the time I rush on.

But on Friday I asked Jesse if he'd like some lunch, and walked over with him to a takeaway burrito place. He was just so excited, and kept saying "man oh man, this is my lucky day!". He ordered his burrito to go, and held onto it like a kid with birthday present he couldn't unwrap yet. He said that now he could go home (it was about 3 in the afternoon) - home being under a building in Damen (out west). He's been living there for a couple of years.

He offered me the couple of dollars he had collected in two hours as part of payment for the burrito. When I said no, he should keep it, he was elated again saying "oh man, now I can catch the train home. Thank you Jesus". We talked for awhile. He told me about jobs he used to have in construction, but reckons that Mexicans have the jobs all sewn up, and that illegal workers work half price. He gets occasional work stacking supermarket shelves, but there's never enough work/money, and the price of accommodation keeps going up. I asked him how long it took him to get enough money to buy a meal. He told me he doesn't do that every day, but most days goes to a soup kitchen. He gets $50 worth of food stamps a month. He's 40, but looks 60. He's skinny as a rake, which I guess will happen when you eat one meal a day.

We talked for awhile, and just talked as friends. Chatted about global warming and the superbowl. He laughed at my accent. There was an irrepressibility about him. Life is tough, but it hasn't knocked him down. There is a dignity about him and a faith in God which transcended his circumstances. He's truly lovely guy who I wish I could know better. For a $6 burrito he taught me a lot.

Poverty, Chastity & Obedience

2008-02-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Religious sisters, brothers and priests take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Diocesan priests make promises for chastity and obedience, but not for poverty, however I think we're still called to live this out in some way.

Usually people focus on what's you're giving by making these vows - money, sex and power. But a far better approach is to look at what these vows are in the service of. St Theresa of Avila described three virtues which were preliminary to holiness - detachment, love, and humility (The Way of Perfection).

1. Poverty. Not a great name really. Few religious are actually poor by global standards, and in fact are often wealthier than the people they serve. Technically the vow is to abstain from personal ownership of anything, but rather to have communual ownership and use, as the first Christian community in Acts 2. Typically this means that a religious wouldn't own a house, car, or computer, but would have use of the community's goods to live and minister.

A better term would be simplicity - and this, I think diocesan priests like me are also challenged to live. A young Franscican once said to me that poverty for him was choosing the least needed, rather than the most allowed. In a world where the poorest are poor because of the greed of the rich, I hope that we can witness to needing less.

Clergy and religious are in a lucky position - we don't need to own a house full of furniture, because when we move, there will be furniture provided. It makes it easier to travel light, to detach from things. When I left Narraweena I was able to give some things away, and now all I have is half a dozen boxes of clothes, photos and books in a room at St Ives, and my couple of suitcases I brought to Chicago. But within this framework its still easy to accumulate stuff, or to set high expectations, and it's these I need to constantly work agains.

2. Chastity/Celibacy. This probably gets the most discussion amongst the vows, being the most distinctive element of lifestyle for clergy and religious, but in some ways it's the simplest to keep. Don't get married. Kind of easy to do. You can be in a coma and keep that vow. But the harder part is once you've made that commitment, to live out the the love for all people which celibacy is at the service of.

People often ask me why priests are celibate, and I often reply that if I had a wife and kids I would be there with them, rather than with the questioner at that moment. Celibacy does create an availability of time to be with people in ministry. If you weren't in love with doing ministry, it would make little sense. But even more than a quantity of time with people, I want to cultivate a quality of time with people, to deepen my capacity to listen, to be with, to empathise and to challenge. Often I get too busy to do this well. Here in the US I think I am making relationships which go deeper more quickly than I can at home, because I have slowed down enough to listen and to speak my own heart. Someone once described my mentor, Bishop Bede Heather as being able to make you feel like you are the most important person in the world when he's with you. I'd like to cultivate that capacity in myself too.

3. Obedience. In earlier times obedience to a bishop or religious superior took the form of being told what to do and blindly obeying. More recently the deeper meaning of obedience is being rediscovered, which looks to the latin word 'au-audire', meaning 'to listen' (think 'audio'). Obedience then, is listening to the wisdom of those in authority, and making decisions with them, rather than having decisions made for them. Rarely in contemporary religious life and priesthood (at least, not in our diocese) would there be decisions made about a priest which he wasn't part of. For me it means listening to Bishop David, who I believe has a bigger vision of life, God and the church, and his plans for mean which incorporate that vision. By listening to, and following his requests I can live out of a greater wisdom than my own.

That idea of making decisions with others is essentially what married people do. They don't (or shouldn't) think "how will this choice/action impact me?", but rather, "how will it impact us?". Husbands obeying wives, and vice-versa works better when there is collaboration in decision making before an action takes place.

For me as a priest, it means thinking "how will this choice impact my parishioners/seminarians/fellow priests?". Eg, if I do or don't do this wedding/funeral/school retreat, will another priest be asked to do it? Will it be fair on him? Or if I say yes to the bishop asking me to study overseas for a year, what impact will this have on others? What if I say no?

So, just a few thoughts which have come together in the last few days as we have reflected on the vows in our IRF classes.

Me and my bishop

2008-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

My bishop, David Walker detoured on his way home from a conference in Florida (why are conferences always in Florida??) to visit me.

It was wonderful to see him. I met him in the city for lunch one day, then he came down to Hyde Park to visit me here at CTU. He's pictured here with me outside our building, after the biggest snow dump of the season so far.

We walked down to 57th St where there are several second hand bookstores, which I knew he would enjoy. We browsed, and bought a few books each, then had lunch.

We had some good conversations. It was affirming to find that my vision for how I want to live my priesthood and how I want to do formation for our future priests concurs with his vision.

I shared with him my observation that our Institute for Religious Formation course is strong on psychology and good practical skills, but weak on spirituality. Bishop David said that this has been his observation of many courses in recent years, that psychology has supplanted spirituality even in the field of spiritual direction. His background is in the classic spiritual writers of the Christian tradition, and so he notices the lack of this in formation, and I lacked it even in my own seminary formation.

Which makes me all the hungrier to explore the classic spiritual writers. I was really moved by reading Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross last year. There is so much still to learn.....

Blasphemy!

2008-01-27T15:40:00.000-08:00

I recently asked someone not to use the name of Jesus as an exclamation mark. Their response was that they meant nothing by it, and while they would try to stop, challenged me by asking "Isn't it more blasphemous when people say they honour Jesus but don't live by his teachings?". Good point.

See Matthew 7:21 for Jesus' answer to this....

I think it's probably important to do both.

Heath Ledger

2008-01-22T20:02:00.001-08:00

This is the way we learn the news these days: I was on facebook this afternoon, when my friends' status reports started showing lines like "Bernie is devastated that Heath Ledger is gone". Not knowing where Heath had gone, I checked the news and found out that he'd been found dead from a suspected accidental drug overdose.

I mentioned this over dinner with friends, saying that while his death was a waste, so is the death of every young person. TC noted that lots of people died of drug overdoses in Chicago today, they're not in the news, but they are every bit as valuable as talented rich actor.

This drew TC, Wendy and I out to a broader discussion around 9/11, which of course has shaped the American psyche (though not the psyche of every American) so much. While it is sad that 3000 people died in New York that day, it is equally sad that thousands of people died in Africa on 9/11, and 9/12, and 9/13....

My response to 9/11 at the time, and still now, is that it didn't change the world, it just exposed westerners to the violence, tragedy and fear that so many of the poorest in the world live with every day. Wendy thought that this was a rather harsh and unpastoral response, given how strongly many Americans felt it. TC said he refuses to mourn or recognise 9/11 as tragedy, because we don't recognise the death of the world's poorest in the same way. Which took the conversation further beyond just the commensurability of life, to the question of why we value the lives of people who look like us or share a nationality with us (not talking about people we actually know, which is understandably different) over those who are out of sight and out of mind.

I don't think I'd fully reflected on this until now. But I think the pastoral response is not to say "you can't grieve Heath Ledger / Sept 11 victims" because we don't grieve for everyone equally. I think it is to take our shock and/or grief as a starting point, acknowledging it, and then extrapolating from the particular to the general, to then say, "there are many others in the world who have suffered / died in the same way, let's reflect on them and the value of their lives too". The death of the famous (as long as we don't dwell on the Anna Nicole Smith train-wreck life type voyeurism) probably is a great tool to bring each of us to take pause, to ask "who else died today that I didn't hear about", and to enlarge our hearts with compassion for the suffering which we don't see.

Heath Ledger died today, sadly. But so too did 1500 people in Congo, of disease and malnutrition, half of whom were under 5 years old.

So read http://www.smh.com.au/, with all the colour photos and tributes to Heath, by all means. But scroll down the page, the to single line without a photo under "World" which reads "Congo war claims 45,000 victims per month" as well.

Prayer: You who do through

2008-01-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

Many people find it hard to pray using their own words. For some, they can only ever use words once spoken by someone else to join their hearts to God, and while the Christian heritage has some great prayers, it's important to be able to put our own words into prayer too.

In today's class on sexuality there was an aside about a model for prayer which I think might be worth holding onto. It's "You - who - do - through"

that is

1. Addressing God in first person - You

2. Saying something about God, and/or thanking God- who

3. Making a request to God - do

4. Concluding the prayer in a trinitarian way - through Jesus and with the Holy Spirit.

eg.

1. God, giver of all life

2. You are the one who has made us in your image and made our hearts yearn for you

3. Please open my heart more and more to you. Show me the barriers in my life to greater intimacy with you, and help me to remove them.

4. I ask this through Christ, our Lord, Amen.

Smick, huh? Just remember you-who-do-through, and fill in the blanks with whatever you want to say.

A cold day

2008-01-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

In Chicago, you can have a week where the temperature doesn't get above freezing point for a week, and it's considered normal. So you know that when the weather forecast says "brutally cold" that you're in for something special.

Today, Saturday was the coldest day of the season so far. There forecast was for 0 to -5 Fahrenheit, with wind chills down to -20, meaning from -20 to -30 celsius. What to do? Huddle inside? No. Although my friend Jason piked, I headed downtown to watch the newly released film Cloverfield (highly recommended if you like panic, destruction, death and chaos, which I do). Lots of people were out in town, just rugged up with scarves across faces, and the usual beanies, earmuffs, gloves and warm coats.

Cold? Yes. A problem? Not really. Its actually kind of nice, a novelty- though the novelty may wear off by the end of February!

Futility

2008-01-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

Most of you would know that I really don't care about any organised sports. Which is why I took myself by surprise these past few months by getting passionate about NFL/American Football, and specifically, the Dallas Cowboys.

I went to a game in my first few weeks in Chicago, more out of cultural interest than sporting interest. It was Dallas playing the Chicago Bears here in town. Because TC was a long time Dallas fan I cheered for them, rather than for the local team. We were objects of derision in the midst of hoards of local Bears fans, as the Bears made several consecutive touchdowns. And then something happened. Dallas caught up. And I felt the thrill of the chase, and then the elation of victory as Dallas streaked to the lead (which they did many times this season). So I was hooked.

I've watched every game (and NFL games tend to go for more than three hours) this season. Eldon, TC and I have woken up nuns with our cheering. I've learnt players and strategies, and added cowboys.com to my favourites. Dallas finished the season at the top of their table and got into the playoffs.

So last weekend we headed downtown to watch the Cowboys in the playoffs against the NY Giants, but tragedy struck, and the Cowboys lost, mostly as a result of some avoidable penalties. To add to the indignity of it all, it was TC's birthday. It was a comparable level of disaster to my friend Matt Jack watching the Bulldogs losing a semi final on his birthday.

So, my sojourn into caring about football is now over. The superbowl (grand final) is on in a couple of weeks, and the whole country apparently grinds to a halt to watch it, but I'll probably care as much as I do for the NRL grand final at home

Which brings me back to my original position on professional & elite sports: what's the point of investing so much time and energy into watching a bunch of men trying to stop each other carrying a little leather ball from one end of a paddock to another? With the Olympics - who really cares who runs a fraction of a second fast than anyone else? And yet the athletes themselves sublimate their entire lives into such futile endeavours.

People are free to waste their time as they wish of course, but more obscene is the amount of money that goes into sports. Players and coaches in a range of games being paid multi-million dollar salaries - to do what? To help humanity? It's sometimes mooted that we need heroes, but so many of the (usually) men are corrupted by their own status and paycheck and are far from role models - in Australia I'm thinking Ben Cousins, et al, young guys who are being told their wonderful, getting paid hugely, and not having the time to naturally grow and learn responsibility.

Team sports are good - to play. Kids get exercise, learn teamwork etc, but watching professional sports as leisure activity? Nah.

Pictured: A heartbroken star player Terrell Owens. A heartbroken TC walking home. Only one will be consoled by an $8m pay packet.

Aristotle's Ethics

2008-01-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

This month we have an intensive class on sexuality, team taught by 6 lecturers to cover psychology, scripture, spirituality and ethics.

Today we looked at the virtue of chastity in terms of Aristotle's ethics. For Aristotle, a virtue is the tension between two other values, which on their own would be vices. Eg, the virtue of courage is the tension between paralysing fear on one hand, and foolhardy recklessness on the the other.

The virtue of chastity, in this schema, becomes the tension between attachment and detachment, each of which can be unhealthy in the extremes. Being too attached to another is to cling, to make unreasonable demands. to be jealous, and for both parties to lack freedom. Being too detached is to avoid all intimacy, to be emotionally absent, and surprisingly, even to be promiscuous (for that is detaching sex from intimacy).

We read a great article by Margaret Farley (apparently famous) on commitment, trying to analyse how and why we make commitments in relationships, and though some of the conclusions seem obvious to state - that commitment give the other security, gives my impetus to follow through, etc - in a culture where many people seem to have option paralysis and never commit, it was good to think through the logical and emotional steps necessary.

Ennui

2008-01-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

Ennui -it's one of those words that's good to use when you have too many vowels in Scrabble, but it also describes a persistent sense of boredom and apathy.

Boredom, despite being "an insult to oneself" (Jules Renard), is somewhat endemic in Western society, I think. Many people are bored in the midst of their busyness. People aren't bored because they have nothing to do, but because they have nothing meaningful to do. And we are mostly so entertained that we have high expectations of how stimulating life should be, and get bored if there is any absence of entertainment.

Kurt Cobain described our generation well in Smells Like Teen Spirit - "Here we are now, entertain us".

I know I fall prey to this sometimes. Even in the midst of a busy and satisfying parish ministry and many friendships, I find myself wanting to distract myself with TV, internet & movies (this is why i often give up TV for lent). Too often I finish a day by lying on the lounge watching some junk TV show that I don't care about, just to fill in the time and space.

During the Christmas break I had a few days where there really was very little to do, and no-one to go and connect with. I would be in a small town somewhere with a whole day on my own. And yet I didn't feel bored, as I think I would if I had such a day at home. More than ever before I was happy to be on my own and have quiet time. I didn't want to cover over the emptiness with TV or anything else. I was more creative, and read, prayed, journalled, blogged, wrote Christmas emails and went running. For me this was a real indicator that the whole sabbatical experience here in the US is working for me. Over the past 5 months I've watched very little TV, and wasted much less time on useless websites (eg Tolkien trivia) that ever before. So life is good!

1000 kilometres across the midwest

2008-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday TC & drove back from South Dakota to Chicago. It was a clear sunny day, perfect for travelling. Belting along the highways (US highways are really good compared to Aus) was redolent of some of my favourite road trips from years past - Cairns and back with Damian, orange picking via everywhere with Malinda, the Great Ocean Road with Joel, and a dozen trips to Cooma and back with Shane. TC's little white Chevy is in better condition than my little Gemini I did the above trips in (ie, all the cylinders work), but it felt very much the same.

Finally the city lights of Chicago beckoned us home. It was good to get back, even if that means traffic and dirty snow on the sidewalks. It's quiet here at CTU - most people won't get back for the next few days, as classes start on Monday, but it does feel like home.

And it's 2008 - a new year. I wonder what it will bring?

And with an eye on the future, I opened a letter from the bishop which arrived while I was away - it was my letter of appointment as parish priest of St Ives until 2014! 2014 seems SO far away - it seems bizzare to have a plan which includes it! And even my beginning at St Ives in June or July is a long way away. There's a whole semester of life here in Chicago to enjoy, and I sure plan to enjoy it!

Good books

2007-12-31T17:53:00.001-08:00

As I wrote earlier, I've had a lot more time to read of late (although constant re-runs of Law & Order on cable TV have competed for my attention at times!).

I'd be interested in your thoughts about any of these books.

I've read: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse. I loved Narcissus & Goldmund by Hesse, and Steppenwolf is his most famous work. It's almost entirely the stream of consciousness of a middle aged man who rediscovers himself and tries to reconcile the "inner wolf" and "inner man" of his nature, building up to what many people consider to be a disturbing conclusion. But I think there's a similarity between this and my favourite film, Fight Club. I won't give it away, but if you've read it, I'd love to discuss.

Steppenwolf and Fight Club led me to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Freidrich Nietzsche, in whch he announces "God is dead" and introduces the idea of the "ubermensch", the "superman" or "overman". I'm only halfway through this. It is odd to read something which I am so diametrically opposed to. It doesn't seem to be good logic really, more like a series of proverbs than an ordered argument. And Nietzsche went mad 5 years later, which may have been from syphillis, although some commentator suggest that was partly a result of believing his own theories. His ideas were around overcoming all external moral controls, Christianity being just one of them. An existentially lonely way to live, I would think.

It's been an interesting contrast to read Nietzsche at the same time as reading St John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul, a profound spiritual treatise about abandoning yourself to God, and God's work of purifying the soul on the journey. I just finished this today. I read parts of it in seminary, year ago, but I think it was too far beyond me for me to grasp. Now, I am enchanted by what John describes. At times I can resonate with some of the movements, other times I realise that most of the journey is still a long way beyond me.

And yet, it struck me that both Nietzsche and John of the Cross, and indeed many other philosophers and psychologists are on about growth towards total freedom. It's worth making the distinction though between freedom from and freedom for. You can be free from control, but what is freedom for? For Nietzsche it would seem to be an end in itself. For John of the Cross, it is to able to totally give yourself to God.

Another great book was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's (former archbishop of Chicago) book The Gift of Peace, which he wrote in the year he was dying of cancer, describing both his journey towards dying, and his experience of being falsely accused of sexual abuse. The remarkable graciousness with which he accepted suffering and loved people, even his accuser was inspiring. As I read, I heard Bede Heather's voice narrating Bernardin's words - I see them as such similar characters- both of whom I want to be like.

In between I've been doing some reading for class - various documents on formation, including Pastores Dabo Vobis, and The Changing Face of the Priesthood by Daniel Cozzens.

Still more to read from class, but the next thing I want to read is something by Kierkegaard, whose writings on existential freedom by from a Christian perspective seem to resonate with what I've been reading lately.

A quiet day of nothing

2007-12-31T10:13:00.001-08:00

Today is new year's eve. I'm in the middle of nowhere. Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, to be precise, but the middle of nowhere describes it pretty well.

Yesterday I celebrated two masses and a baptism in two of the churches here on the mission, filling in for Fr Tim who is away. But today, there's nothing on, nothing that needs to be done, indeed nothing much to do.

So I've spent an entire quiet day, mostly on my own (the other two priests have been in and out). This has been a very unusual couple of weeks for me in that I've had a lot of quiet time on my own, both here at the parish, and at Yankton (see earlier blog). And while I think that back at home when I was working full tilt and trying to cram as much of everything in to every minute of the day I would have found this really boring; here, I've been able to enjoy quiet and solitude more than ever before. This is a good indicator for me that the whole sabbatical experience has made a difference for me. I've used the quiet time creatively - I've prayed, read, journalled, gone jogging, and written more significant emails than I ever have - maintaining relationships with friends back home.

I think I'm more at home with my own company than ever before, and for an extrovert, that's a good thing. I think I've also become more patient. I inherited impatience from my dad. When I did the Johari/Nohari personality profile earlier this year the number one trait I recognised in myself, which a majority of others saw in me too was: impatience. Now, I'm much better at waiting for things to happen, and not rushing too much. Well, I hope so, anyway....

Snowboarding in South Dakota

2007-12-31T09:19:00.000-08:00

If you know me, you'll know that for about the last ten years one of my goals in life has been to go snowboarding in the northern hemisphere (where the snow doesn't melt and refreeze into ice, ala Perisher & Thredbo). It was one of my first thoughts when I was planning to come to the US to study. And my Christmas holiday plans have been entirely around TC's offer to come over to Sth Dakota to come snowboarding (that's why I'm at the Indian res, not vice versa).

So with that much build up, it was probably unlikely that any actual real experience of boarding could live up to the hype, but when I finally went snowboarding this week, it was pretty good! We spent a day at Terry Peak and a day at Deer Mountain, two small resorts in the Black Hills, on the western border of South Dakota with Wyoming.

It was great just to see such a different landscape - snow covered pine trees glistening in the morning sun, compared to the equally beautiful snow gums of Australia's alps. And to look down from the mountain top across to the Dakotan plains, broken only by the lonely rock formation of Bear Butte, of which it was easy to see the spiritual significance for the Lakota people, redolent of a smaller version of Uluru. And to drive through the town of Deadwood, which is basically a street full of casinos and saloons - as typically wild west as the name of the town and every hollywood stereotype.

The snow was thick and dry. Terry Peak had relatively short lift queues compared to Australia (and less than half the price of home). I had a great rental board and did probably the tightest and best boarding of my life. The pic here isn't me (camera didn't like the cold) but I did do the same box). Alas I couldn't beat TC in the several races we had, including though the moguls. TC skis like he drives - full tilt. Fortunately he crashes less on the road than on the snow, though I sometimes am surprised by this. I think I board like I drive - a little more conservatively and in control in the hope of being able to do both for decades to come. Though if you've driven or boarded with me you might be surprised by this.

Second day tragedy struck - we left a little later because a), AM and TC don't go together, and b) we picked up his lovely nieces Kaitlin and Carly to join us - and Deer Mountain had run out of rental snowboards! So a prepared to grit my teeth as I rented skis instead. But I actually picked up skiing again really easily (you never forget how to ride I bike either, I suppose) after having not skied for 5 years, and enjoyed it again. In fact, its only when you're on skis you realise how goofy snowboarders look! Found I could even do the black runs on skis, though not very gracefully, and sometimes face first.

An outstanding sunny, clear day, spectacular views, and a lot of fun. It's just whet my appetite for a weekend at Salt Lake City in March.

Finding Nemo

2007-12-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

One of the good things about going to a new church is you can recycle a sermon from a previous year. I used my Finding Nemo Christmas sermon when I preached on Christmas eve at White River. If you're from Narraweena parish, you've probably heard it already, but if not, read on....

I ask the kids to put their hand up if they've ever seen Finding Neno. Of course, they all have. I ask who's seen it lots and lots of times. The kids, and usually their parents put their hands up again.

I retell the story, getting the kids to help fill in some of the gaps, sketching that Nemo is a clownfish who swims too far away from home and gets captured and put in an aquarium in Sydney, and that most of the film is the story of Nemo's father, Marlin, doing whatever it takes to find his lost son. He has adventures along the way, meeting Dory, the cool turtle and the scary looking though fortunately vegetarian sharks. Finally, he finds and rescues Nemo.

I say that I like thinking about this story at Christmas, because Marlin reminds me of God, who did whatever it took to find his children, us. While God has been speaking to people's hearts throughout history, the only way God could really find us was to come to earth, to become human, and to speak in human words and show in human actions how much he loves us.

God and Jesus are still reaching out to us through the Holy Spirit. Christmas is a great time to begin praying a simple prayer: God, thank you for loving me. I love you back.

Well, that's the abridged version, but you get the idea. Happy Christmas! Live the Incarnation of Jesus.

A White Christmas at White River

2007-12-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

It snowed here in South Dakota on Christmas Day, making it the much crooned about White Christmas.

But really, snow isn't that exciting unless there's a mountain and a chairlift.

It is pretty though. All the world seems soft and quiet when there's two inches of snow on the ground, and when the sun comes out it's dazzlingly bright.

I concelebrated and preached at mass at the little town of White River on Christmas eve, in a cute little church with about 70 people, and again on Christmas day in an even smaller and cuter church, this one with many Indian statues and symbols, with just 20 people! Small town country life I guess.

I shared Christmas dinner with Frs John, Ed and Tim, the three Jesuits I'm staying with, and much like presbyteries everywhere, there was an over abundance of homemade cookies and chocolate covered nuts given by parishioners. Tim and I took a late night walk across snowy fields under the full moon and eerie clouds, which was a nice way to end the day.

It seems odd, and rather empty to have Christmas away from a parish I feel close and connected to. I rarely see my family on Christmas day anyway - we usually do Boxing Day together, but I phoned them up on Christmas afternoon where everyone, including my brother Dave from western australia and some of his kids and grandkids were gathered for lunch. I had a good chat with lots of people and felt that connection with them, though I'm a long way away.

But its Narraweena I miss most. I've heard from a few people that the Christmas masses went well there, with an outdoor kids mass and a candlelight vigil mass like we did last year, except this time it wasn't rainedout! I'm really proud of Fr Joseph for keeping things going so well, and I've heard that he's added some of his own touches in terms of decoration and Christmas lights. The outdoor Mass is one of the things I was most excited about being able to start at Narraweena, I'm glad that it will keep on going.

The Lakota Nation Invitational

2007-12-24T08:21:00.000-08:00

This week Fr Tim and I drove in to Rapid City to watch some of our local teams from the mission play basketball at the Lakota Nation Invitational. This annual event is the biggest cultural and sporting event of year for Lakota people, so it was good to be able to watch it.

It wasn't easy to get to - one road to Rapid City was closed due to weather (cars and even semi trailers had jackknifed off the icy road) and we had to take a detour, in which we got caught in a ground blizzard, which is there even when it has stopped snowing, strong winds drive the snowcover sideways, resulting in a whiteout. We had almost zero visibility and drove at 10 mph. A three hour trip took more than 5 hours, and it was getting dark. I wasn't too worried until Tim tuned off the music and started praying the rosary. THEN I got worried.

But we made it, and saw the ceremonial opening featuring the traditional dancing and drumming which comes to mind when you think "Cowboys and Indians".

It was good to see healthy kids playing their sport or dance passionately. There is such a lot of boredom, drug use and obesity on the reservation here, that sport is a real Godsend for the local kids to keep them focussed and give them a reason to try, much like AFL or League can be for Australian aboriginal kids.

Life on Rosebud Mission

2007-12-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Rosebud / St Francis Mission is the name of the Catholic ministry to people in the towns of Mission and Rosebud and some smaller surrounding towns. There are three Jesuit priests, Frs John, Tim and Ed who together lead 7 churches.

The South Dakotan country side is beautiful - wide open plains and big skies. I went for a run one afternoon along an almost deserted strip of highway, with the shadows from the setting sun stretching for miles across the fields, and the sky filled with more colour than I've just about ever seen. And you know you're in South Dakota when you're jogging past a buffalo farm!

I've been to a funeral, concelebrated Masses, done reconciliations at a few churches, and met lots of people. I'll help out with Christmas masses, and then I'll do masses next weekend filling in in for Fr Tim, who'll be away.

Something which has surprised me is how very ordinary and western/American the liturgies have been. I expected a lot more native rituals to be part of the funeral particularly, but it was quite straightforward, with only Amazing Grace sung in Lakota, the local language, and a traditional chant at the graveside being distinctive.

The Lakota people share similar problems to many Australian aborigines, a loss of cultural identity, poverty, dependence on welfare, and susceptibility to alcohol. Suicide and death by drunk drivers are the major killers, as are diabetes related illnesses partly triggered by obesity. Life expectancy is 20 years less that for the rest of America. Pine Ridge, a neighbouring Indian reservation is the poorest county in the US.

So while the mission is doing the usual Catholic things of attempting to re-evangelise the many baptised but unchurched and uncatechised Catholics, there is also a lot of work going into social services, to drug and alcohol rehab (partnering with the Betty Ford Clinic), and to helping to keep the culture alive, including teaching kids their own Lakota language.

I'm going to learn a lot.

Yankton, SD

2007-12-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

So the holiday break is on! I'm travelling with Thomas for much of the break.

We drove across Iowa in a snowstorm, where I counted at least 20 cars which had spun off the road, some on their sides, some on their roof. My amazement at this was countered by Thomas' nonchalance - oh yeah, there's been a storm. This is just normal for the midwest. But we arrived safely in a little town called Yankton in the south east corner of South Dakota.

This is Thomas' old college town, and he is catching up with friends, so I'm taking some time out on my own to read, think and pray, and breathe in the cleanest, purest air I've yet found in the US. The town is beautiful. Today I went jogging along the Missouri River on a cloudless sunny day, with snow on the ground, and a relatively balmy 35 degrees F.

We're staying with the Catholic Worker community, which Thomas used to volunteer with, who are just amazing, inspiring people. On weekends they host the families of prisoners, inevitably poor, as they come to visit a family member in jail. In between they're involved with prison visits, the local soup kitchen, and radical resistance activities, such as pouring blood on the floor of the pentagon, and marching through around a nearby airforce base carrying crosses bearing the names of people killed by US forces overseas. They've all been arrested several times.

We went for Mass at Mt Marty, Thomas' college and then had lunch with the Benedictine sisters who run the college. It was wonderful to see a strong and vibrant religious community, with over 100 nuns, many highly educated, including an 87 year old sister with a PhD in chemistry who used to consult for NASA, who knocked back a job with them, because she wanted to keep on teaching at her community's college. So I continue to meet great people.

After just two days here of midwest hospitality, good sleep and time to think, journal and pray through much of the excitement of the past few months I feel utterly refreshed. It's like an oasis in the midst of the oasis which this year has been for me.

Semester's End

2007-12-17T15:07:00.000-08:00

Well, that's it. The fall semester, half of my time in Chicago is now complete. Alas the semester ended more with a whimper than a bang. A number of people in my class were tired, or had been sick in the past couple of weeks. I got the gastro bug which was being shared around, but got over it in almost 24 hours to the minute. Other students in CTU were or course cramming for final exams or finishing last essays, so the energy of the whole place kind of wound down.

But if I could have another semester of learning, being challenged, and growing like the one I've just I'd be a very happy guy.

Robert Hawkins

2007-12-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Yet another multiple shooting this week, with a 19 year old man named Robert Hawkins killing 8 people and injuring others, before killing himself in a shopping mall in Omaha.

We found out the next day that he was a ward of the state until a year ago, and then lived on his own. He lost his job and his girlfriend in the past two weeks, and was described by his landlady as being like "a lost pound puppy".

There are so many young men like Robert out there, who have so few internal emotional and spiritual resources, and probably an underlying depression, that when their supports are knocked out from under them, they just collapse. In his case his absolute lack of love for himself was reflected in an abolute lack of love for anyone else which allowed him to think it was OK to take other lives with his own. His suicide note said said he was "a constant disappointment". His note also said that he was sorry, and he didn't want to be a burden on people.

There are so many other young men like Robert. What can I do? What am I doing? This has really stuck with me in prayer this week. If I met Robert Hawkins that day, or earlier in the week or the month, would I have recognised a desperately needy and lonely guy? Yes, probably. Would I have reached out to him? Maybe. Would I have offered enough of myself to him to make a difference? Not just a token, small piece of myself, but would I have genuinely given him enough love and attention, to make him feel like he was loved, and valuable, and that I would be committed to befriend and journey with him? Chances are, I wouldn't have. I can think of a couple of depressed young guys who I have really tried to reach out to in the past, but I know there are so many others who I have ignored.

But I have experienced time and time again in my life that God's love & grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit give me energy to go beyond what I feel I could naturally do, and so my prayer is that God will build me more and more into the guy who can reach out in love to truly needy people, both in the future, but also right here and right now.

Women in Scripture

2007-12-08T18:11:00.001-08:00

Another outstanding lecture we had this week was two days by Sr Barbara Reid, a Dominican sister. In speaking of the place of women in scripture, she began outlining the experience of women and their suffering throughout the world, noting that women make up the majority of the world's poor, and are subject to numerous forms of abuse. This set the context for why the way we read scripture about women matters.

She guided us through a number of passages where there are feminine images for God, both in the Old Testament, and in Jesus' parables (eg Is 49, "could a mother forget her baby").

She also invited us to reinterpret the parable of the widow who pesters the unjust judge in Luke 18. We always assume the unjust judge is God, but this is out of line with every other parable of Jesus, to present a negative image of God. Rather, she said that literary criticism of the gospel passage shows that this is likely Luke giving an interpretation around an authentic parable given by Jesus, but in Jesus' parable it is the nagging woman who is the image of God - God as the one who will not stop working of justice for his people. While it seems a stretch at first, it makes a lot more sense!

All the more powerful was being led through the gospel accounts of the resurrection, in which the first person to see the risen Jesus is Mary Magdalene. Yet in 1 Corinthians 15, the list of people who had seen the risen Jesus begins with Peter, but doesn't include Mary, which almost sounds like the Da Vinci Code has an element of truth about the early church downplaying Mary Magdalene and exulting Peter.

So Barbara taught us to be more sensitive to how we read scripture, being aware of some of the cultural bias inherent in it, so that we might be able to more authentically understand who God is, and the role of women in God's work on earth. She also did it with an extraordinary humility and gentleness, which made me hungry to hear her again next year.

The Ladder of Inference

2007-12-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

We have a series of workshops on practical formation skills, which in the last few weeks have centred on listening skills, observation of body language, and giving feedback. As part of this, we looked this week at the "Ladder of Inference", illustrated here.

The ladder of inference describes how we can take an observation of another person's actions, but then mis-interpret it, by adding our own meanings, using past bias, or only recognising part of the data.

While this is important for all our communication in life, it will be particularly important in formation where we will be observing our candidates, and need to treat them fairly, and yet be authentic in helping them become the best people they can be.

Islam 101

2007-12-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

Some of our lectures are giving us practical skills for formation, and some are just good, continuing education for religious, though unrelated to formation. This week we had both.
On Monday and Tuesday we had Scott Alexander teach us “Islam 101”. I’ve really had no exposure to Islam, and Scott assumed our ignorance and started from scratch, giving us a quick history, highlighting the little known events of cooperation between Christians and Muslims, as well as the obvious conflicts.

We looked at the central teachings, the 5 pillars of Islam - that there is no God but God, fasting, almsgiving, prayer, and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime. The word Islam means "to submit to God", and a muslim is "one who submits". Muslims believe in the same God as Christians, and all the Old Testament prophets, and believe in Jesus as another prophet of the One True God, but believe that Mohammed was the final prophet. So while we disagree on the divinity of Jesus, we agree very much about the nature and character of God. The much maligned term "jihad" means struggle / fight, meaning the constant struggle to submit to God. While it is used occasionally to refer to struggle against opponents, its used no more than the bible speaks of slayinging the Amorites & Hittites, etc.

He spoke of the contemporary situation of muslims in the West, who suffer continual discrimination, especially since Sept 11. He said that what muslims in the US fear most is another terrorist attack, which would stir up further hatred against them. Already it seems possible to think of and speak of muslims in a way in which it would not be permissible to speak of any other person in the US.

Scott reminded us of how the CIA helped fund and train the muhajadin, the Taliban in Afghanistan, to fight agaist the communists. You can't raise up a generation of angry young men to fight against every outsider, but expect them to respect you. Hence, Osama bin Laden, et al.

I have never felt so close to Islam, particularly following on from my experience of going to Iftar (Ramandan) meals with Scott earlier in the year, and seeing their sincere prayer life, and experiencing their hospitality. In accord with the Catholic church document Nosta Aetate, I must make the effort to engage in inter-faith dialogue (praying, eating, acting together, not just theological debate) when I get home.

An absolutely ordinary week

2007-12-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

Australian poet Les Murray wrote a poem called "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow", which, while not actually about a rainbow, hints with irony that something as wonderful as a rainbow could never be called ordinary. (http://www.lesmurray.org/pm_aor.htm if you want to look at it).

Perhaps the same could be said for our lives, and for any day, week, month or year for any of us. While we might say we had an ordinary day or week, there is such height and depth, joy and delight to be found. I'll try to recall some of my past week.

Sunday night: late night prayer with TC. Ended up being only the two of us, as others couldn't make it, but such a sense of quiet and stillness, praying lectio divina with a passage from Ephesians 3 "...may your hidden self grow strong...height and depth... the fulness of God"

Tuesday: Class on emotional intelligence. We looked particularly at impulse control (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_gratification) and skills of empathy. This is the kind of stuff we all intuit to be true - that our emotions are powerful and relevant, and that you can have many kinds of intelligence, aside from logic & mathematics.

Tuesday night: suprise 30th birthday party for Todd. Matt had spent a weekend making a cornhole toss board for Todd, covered in photos of his friends. Such an awesome gift, which showed something the really precious friendships between several of the Lutheran guys which I have been so privileged to share this year.

Wednesday night: our class had an affirmation game for our weekly social. While there were a few joking moments, it was a really powerful time of speaking and hearing good truths and highlighting the goodness of these wonderful people I am with.

Friday: class on Inculturation - looking at the interface of spirituality and culture, and the necessity of entering into true dialogue with others, where I risk being changed (and therefore growing).

Saturday: I helped out at the local food pantry, packing groceries for distribution to the local poor and homeless. Dull and heavy work, but with every box of tins of soup or macaroni & cheese, I realise that this is a meal and family or a kid might not otherwise get.

Saturday arvo: snow - serious snow! I went out to the city in the afternoon, thinking at if I let a bit of weather put me off, I'll stay indoors for the next three months. Delightful to see snowflakes whizzing around. Less delightful to trudge through dirty melted snow in the city, but hey, that's life in winter in the northern US.

Sunday: Mass at the local parish, St Thomas. I had imagined myself exploring lots of other churches, but I'm feeling at home just going to an average local church. Today's homily was fantastic, referring to a couple of recent murders by teenage boys. The pastor spoke about how we collectively have raised these kids, who somehow think that killing someone might be an OK thing to do. That while we want to distance ourselves from them, we can't - not it if we're followers of Jesus. He made the good point that we don't want to be mugged or murdered by these kids, but neither do we want to give them anything to help them, and we can't have it both ways.

And tonight, Hedy, pictured, gave me a cute gift - a snowball from yesterday, which she'd kept in the freezer! She made one for everyone in our class - just one of the many cute, quirky, lovely thing which happen in community life!

John Williams

2007-11-25T18:10:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago when Thomas and I went to the symphony we saw a upcoming concert advertised with John Williams conducting his own film scores, accompanied by footage of some of his films. We both thought, we just have to see that, but our hopes were dashed to find out that tickets were completely sold out.

Just last week though I wandered in to the Chicago Symphony Centre (downtown) to ask if there were any tickets which had become available. There were! In the upper balcony, without a guarantee that we would see the screen, but tickets nonetheless! Thomas said that seeing John Williams would be like seeing Mozart conduct his own compositions in his day. I think that people who got to tell their grandkids that they saw Mozart wouldn't have complained "but I couldn't see the painting on the back wall".

Today we went to that concert. It was beyond awesome. One of the greatest things I have seen / heard / done / been to in my life.

Williams has written the scores for so many of the most popular films of a generation, that most of the tunes were instantly familiar - Superman, Jaws, Born on the 4th of July, Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of course, Star Wars and ET.

There was such a range of styles - from the triumphant fanfares of many of the above, to the celtic lilt of Far and Away, to the smooth jazz of Catch Me If You Can, to the exquisite beauty of Memoirs of a Geisha.

Bonus 1: A venerable old senator, Alan Simpson came on stage to narrate a passage from the novel The Reivers, while Williams conducted music from the film. I'd not heard of the book nor seen the film, but it was just delightful, and with the music I could imagine each scene as it was narrated.

Bonus 2: Music is such huge part of evoking mood in film. In Yr 11 at school we watched a section of Psycho without the music, and then with it, to see what a difference music makes (imagine the shower scene without the "eek eek eek"! Williams showed a chase scene from Indiana Jones without the soundtrack, narrating what musical devices he employed to emphasise the action, then replayed the film with the orchestra playing the score.

Bonus 3: We could see the screen (but we had cheap tickets anyway!). So we watched the finale - sections of Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders and ET accompanied by film clips.

There were repeated standing ovations - and 3 encores, including the CBS news theme which he wrote, which in Australia is the Channel 7 news theme, and The Empire Strikes Back theme.

It was such magic - to see Williams himself conduct, knowing that he himself dreamt up the music which has moved me and millions of people to delight and to tears. I may never have the chance to see such an accomplished composer live again.

Kentucky: Fried Chicken

2007-11-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago Brandon suggested we go away somewhere for the Thanksgiving weekened. We decided to pick somewhere completely at random, somewhere that neither of us had been nor were likely to go to in the coming year. We picked Louisville, Kentucky.

We we drove off on the Friday, through the industrial bleakness of Indiana, opening up into cornfields and wide, flat land down towards the Ohio River, which is the border between Indiana and Kentucky. Louisville is on the Ohio River.

Kentucky is famous for bluegrass rock music, bourbon, and KFC! I went in search of all three, and found the Colonel himself! Louisville was also home to Mohammed Ali and Thomas Merton.

But its a fairly boring little city - it makes me glad to be in Chicago (see next blog post for why).

But it was a great trip! I like roadtripping - just driving, watching the landscape change, and lots of time to talk and sing along with music in the car. Brandon and I had some great conversations. And the highlight - watching Ninja Warrior on cable TV late at night in the motel room!

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

Today is Thanksgiving, which is always celebrated on the last Thursday of November. This all-American feast began as a Christian celebration for the pilgrims who, having endured a difficult winter the previous year, gave thanks for a moderately successful autumn crop harvest which would allow them to survive the coming winter. Thanksgiving is on par with, if not bigger than Christmas over here.

I have lots to be grateful for:

food, in a world where many people are hungry

a body which works properly, when so many are sick or disabled

friends and family who love me, when so many people are lonely

peaceful life in Australia and the US, when so many are oppressed or at war

the love and presence of God, when so many people have no sense of meaning in life

It sounds somewhat odd at times to say "thank you God that I have so much and others have so little". I don't believe that God specifically wills me to have and he wills others to specifically have not. But I recognise that even the basics of life can't be taken for granted, and that I need to have a stance of gratitude for every good thing, and that this stance must necessarily draw me out in compassion towards the many people who are deprived of all these things.

Right now, I am grateful for the opportunity to spend 9 months here in the US. I am privileged to be in a place with brilliant teachers and learners, with people who are passionate about God, God's Kingdom, and hopeful that the Catholic Church can play a useful part in it. I have experienced such a wide range of cultural and religious traditions which I hadn't been exposed to at home. I have made new friends. I have had new adventures. I have attended to my spiritual life and physical health much more than I have at home.

I've just returned from a fantastic inter-faith service at the Rockerfeller Chapel with about 1000 people. I sensed the big-ness of God, and the goodness of this place, the Hyde Park neighbourhood of Chicago. Now I am going with Romana and Eldon to one of our lecturers' (Scott Alexander) family for a traditional thanksgiving lunch. Then we'll come home and watch the thanksgiving day afternoon football, and probably fall asleep on the couch, stuffed full of turkey and pumpkin pie.

Cold weather's a coming....

2007-11-18T18:34:00.000-08:00

OK. It's Chicago. And it's the last two weeks of Autumn. So I should have expected it to get cold.

Today I went running in 38 degree weather (about 5 deg celsius). Pictured is everything I need to wear to run - wickable, breathable long sleeve hoodie and long pants, and gloves, which made it comfortable to run, and actually it was good running weather - still, no wind, and cool enough to be able to push hard. But it makes me wonder - what am I going to do in WINTER????

Actually the cold weather has advantages - you get to dress up. This me wearing the alpaca scarf given to me by the St John's Narraweena school board, and the lumberjack jacket I've borrowed from a guy here for the winter. And then wearing the yak-fur beaning Joel & Jenni gave me from Tibet.

Oops. I did it again

2007-11-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

I swore I wouldn't do it again. But suddenly, I found myself just dangling from a plane at 13,000 feet, and all of a sudden I fell out, and free-fell for 7000 feet, doing numerous 360 spins, before parachuting down to a graceful and perfect landing.

This was all in honour of Todd needing to skydive before he turned 30. So 11 of us trekked out to the the outskirts of Chicago to a little town called Hinkley.

The great thing about tandem skydiving is that you know someone else is in control here - someone who has jumped over 9000 times and not died yet (perhaps the law of averages says that their luck is sure to run out soon....). So you're free to just enjoy the moment.

And what a moment the freefall is: about 45 seconds of every sense being acutely stimulated. The ground is too far away to matter. You're looking straight out at the horizon, then spinning around. The wind is almost piercing your face, stinging with cold, and you find out afterwards in the photos that your cheeks were flapping around like crazy. Yet its almost eerily silent, peaceful. Suspended. Weightless. There's a moment to know that you are completely alive, completely free.

Then the parachute opens, and its a gentle glide down to the ground.

I did skydive in 2001, but this was even more fun - with a a bigger group, so more revving up. And unlike last time I bought the photo and video - see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98BvXC2XtTU and laugh at me!

An ordinary week

2007-11-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

They say time flies when you're having fun. But for me, my time in Chicago is immensely enjoyable, but is moving deliciously slowly. There is a wondeful rhythm of life here, with meals, prayer and lectures, but also so many different and interesting things going on which I think give texture to life here, so it doesn't just rush by, as ordinary life can.

Every weekday we morning prayer at 7.30 and Mass at 5pm.

So let me recap last week, as an example of an ordinary week.

Monday

Class: theological reflection in small groups

Australians and friends party for Melbourne Cup

then out to the city for spicy chicken wings with the lutherans

Tuesday
Class: Intimacy and defense mechanisms
Small group discussion
Therapy
$2 burgers at Bar Louie
Over to Jason's house to try out his new birthday hookah pipe
Chanted night prayer with the lutherans

Wednesday
Class: Practicum on skills for formators
Driving test - passed!
IRF social night

Thursday
Class: Dreams & spirituality
Dinner with our class for Tony's anniversary
Poker night (I came 2nd!)

Friday

Class: Understanding the psalms
Sabbath meal & prayer service at synagogue
Watch "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" with class

Saturday

Help with food pantry / soup kitchen

Public lecture by Sr Helen Prejean

Out for coffee

Sunday

Mass at local parish

Over to west side of city for Brazilian festival meal

Home and out for pizza

And the week ended with three friends and I having silent prayer before an icon of Jesus at midnight.

Somewhere tucked into the gaps I went to the gym a couple of times and had a couple of runs, prayed, and did homework.

I think the other reason that life isn't racing by is that I spend a bit of time praying, reading, journalling (for myself) and blogging (for you), and so I get to sit and think through events and ideas, rather than just have them race by as they do in ordinary life.

Like Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worthy of a human being".

Sr Helen Prejean

2007-11-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

Sr Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in the film Dead Man Walking spoke at University of Chicago last night. She continues to be a passionate campaigner against the death penalty in America.

She spoke not just about the death penalty, but about a range of justice issues; poverty, education, health care & racism, which all feed into the criminal justice system. Some of the statistics are shocking: 1 in 3 African American men aged 20-30 have been through the courts & or prisons.

The startling comparison was made between slavery and the death penalty: the ten states who practiced slavery account for 80% of executions in America. Where ever there is a large enough black population to scare the whites, there tends to be the death penalty - an overwhelming majority of people executed are poor black men.

Sr Helen's goal was to raise in all of us an awareness of these interlocking issues. She shared some of her own story, which was documented in the film, to encourage us to do something, whatever that might be. To get started. When asked what keeps her going despite the glacial pace of change, she quoted Mother Teresa: "We are called by God to faithfulness, not to success".

Hermann Hesse

2007-11-10T12:07:00.000-08:00

This week I read one of the best books I've ever read, "Narcissus and Goldmund" by Hermann Hesse. The writing is concise and powerful. Hesse can evoke a mood or the passage of time with just a few phrases.

It was recommended to me by my friend TC for whom it is his favourite book.

It's the story of two young monks in 14th century Germany (dating is by reference to the Black Death) who form an extraordinary friendship, despite being very different in temperament. One leaves the monastery to live an adventurous life, the other remains in the monastery.

Each are literary foils for each other. Each becomes richer through having known the other. I resonate strongly with one of the characters, but am drawn to grow in the direction of the other. It's also the best depiction of intimate platonic friendship I have ever read.

Reading it picks up on theme in other books and films I've really resonated with - The Lord of the Rings, Fight Club and American Beauty, and also touches into my sense of being called when I took two years out of the seminary.

Have you read it? Tell me what you thought.

License to drive

2007-11-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

Hooray! I passed my driving test!

Illinois doesn't accept any overseas driving licenses, so I had to do the whole applying for a license thing from scratch. I had a week of practicing how to drive on the wrong side of the road with a couple of patient friends. Was nervous about the driving test, but it went OK.

Now I can rent a car for the Christmas break - there's no public transport where I'm going - an Indian reservation on the border of South Dakota and Nebraska.

The Johari Window

2007-11-07T16:15:00.000-08:00

Today in class we looked at the Johari Window, a tool for self-awareness which can be of help in formation ministry. I remember we did it in seminary.

The principle is a grid with 4 boxes representing what I know and don't know about myself, and what about me is known or unknown to others.

The goal is to increase your "open" window, reducing the blind spots (things you know about me but I don't), through feedback in relationships, and to reduce the hidden window (things I know but others don't) by gradual self disclosure.

As a lesson in how to use it, there is a website in which I can choose a number of words to describe myself, and then others can also pick what words they would use to describe me. I'd like to invite you to do this for me. The congruence or dissonance between how I see myself and how others see me serves to show what my blind spots might be, and what parts of myself I might need to work on expressing more.

There are two separate exercises - one for positive traits: http://kevan.org/johari?name=jim1972mckeon , and one for negative traits: http://kevan.org/nohari?name=thedarksideofjim . Be brutal! It will only take 5 minutes. You can leave your real name, or you can just put anonymous, or better, make up a name like Zaphod Beeblebrox.

The Art Institute of Chicago

2007-11-03T14:42:00.001-07:00

Today I visited the Art Insitute of Chicago.

It's a truly awesome place, dwarfing the Art Gallery of NSW, my only other major experience of an art gallery.

It's far too much to take in during one visit, so I bought a yearly pass (so good to be a student again for the discount!) so I can go back again and again to drink it in.

It was amazing to be in the present of so many original Monets, Picassos and Renoirs. But there was also incredible 9th century Chinese sculptures, and 2500 old Greek and 4000 year old Egyptian relics, some in remarkable condition.

TC and I went to one of the museum lectures whcih explained so much more than I could ever discern on my own. We looked at "Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat, an impressionist painter who, like Monet used a style involving delicate patterned brushstrokes, but he overlaid it with smaller points of contrasting colour which was a feature of his work. I recognised it as the picture which transfixed Cameron (Ferris' friend) in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The Gospel of Matthew

2007-11-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

This week we had two days of lectures by the world renowned biblical scholar Fr Don Senior, who is also president CTU (our college). I was reading his scripture commentaries when I was in seminary, so was really excited to hear him teach. He effortlessly poured out an introduction to and outline of the major themes of Matthew's Gospel.

A key structures to Matthew's Gospel is that there are 5 blocks of teaching, punctuated by 5 blocks of miracle accounts. Matthew focuses much more more on Jesus as teacher, and as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, while Mark's gospel focusses more on Jesus as healer and wonder worker. They're both true, its just the nuances of how to tell the story.

We focussed on The Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7, which is the most unique piece of Jesus' teaching, with little direct parallel in either the old testament or other ancient writings. We looked at the seemingly impossible high ideal which Jesus sets, and then various responses to how we are to live it, all of which somehow reduce the imperative of the message. Don Senior's interpretation though was that Jesus meant all of what he said seriously (love your neighbour, forgive, etc), and what he is presenting is "what it looks like when a child of God is overtaken by God's grace". He emphasised that Jesus is showing us who we can become, how it is possible to act, even though he offers limitless forgiveness for us who will likely not live it out most of the time.

We also looked at how Matthew emphasises that for Jesus the measure of righteousness isn't what you say but what you do, evidenced in several places throughout the gospel, but most strongly in Matt 25 with "whenever you did this (fed the hungry, clothed the naked etc) to the least of my brothers and sisters you did it to me".

I am now rereading the whole gospel, encouraged by this and many other insights.

Behavioural Assessment

2007-10-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

A fairly important skill both for vocation directors and formation directors is how to assess who is a good fit to begin or continue formation. Good intentions don't always translate into a capacity to live religious life or priesthood.

This week we have Fr Ray Carey, a psychologist renowned for his work in this area present to us on "Behavioural Assessment". His proposal is not to look at motivations or ideas, but to the evidence of behaviours - what a person is actually doing in their life. He has taught us some excellent techniques for asking questions, eg, starting with a general question such as "Tell me about your family", and then moving to more specific questions, using both the leads which they have initiated, and reading between the lines. His technique is to keep on digging, and not to assume that when someone says they "had a loving family" or they "have a good prayer life"
that we know what they mean. So we need to keep asking "what does your family do which makes it a loving family?" and "what do you do when you pray?". A framework for all behaviours is to ask for frequency, duration, intensity and conditions (FDIC), eg, a person might report that they pray for an hour a day every day, but it may only have been for the past two weeks, or it might be only when they're on holidays, etc.

But the limitations of his approach, as I see it, is that he operates strongly out of the behavioural school of psychology, and rejects both the psychodynamic and humanist schools, each of which I think have insights to offer. The psychodynamic school (started by Freud, but much refined) says that not all our motivations are conscious to us, and that it is important to ask why a person does what they do, eg, a person may be consistently generous and helpful, but this can be genuine, or it could come from a low self esteem and a need to be liked by others. The humanist school looks at growth and what a person can become. You might have a person who is pretty well adjusted, and their behaviours all look good, but there might not be any desire to grow further. They might not be open to further formation. Someone once described a certain seminary to me and said that "the man you sent there was the man you got back".

So its good food for thought, and though I mighn't accept his framework as the only tool available, we are learning some good practical skills which I will certainly be able to use in the future.

And on a completely different note - I had my first driving lesson tonight - and its very odd driving on the wrong side of the road!

Protest against the war

2007-10-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Mike, Elione, Jean Marie, Julio and I took part in a protest march against the war in Iraq. I have never been part of a demonstration before, as they have usually been on weekends at home and I've not been able to get away from the parish.

It was relatively small - about 5000 people, and very peaceful, despite such overltly left leaning slogans as impeaching Bush & Cheney, and the fringe handing out tracts claiming that Sept 11 was a CIA setup.

We did the predictable "What do we want - troops out. When do we want it - now", but my favourite chants were "Not a dollar, not a quarter, not a penny more for war" and "Show me what democracy looks like - this is what democracy looks like". It made me realise how lucky we are in the US and Australia to be able to walk through the streets and say whatever we want - you can't do this in Burma, or lots of places.

Apart from the direct human cost of this war, there is the indirect costs - $720 million dollars A DAY, and what else could be done with this money - like employ 12,000 school teachers for a year.

Halloween

2007-10-27T19:26:00.001-07:00

In an awesome week in which I went to hear the London Symphony Orchestra play a Beethoven Symphony, took part in a protest march against the war in Iraq, and tomorrow will do a 5 mile fun run called the Gargoyle Gallop, the highlight was our fancy dress Halloween party (at LTSC, where else).

People got more creative than vampires and ghosts. Pictured here is Wendy as a goth (in real life she's blonde and such a lovely person) and Todd as death. Also pictured is me with Ryan, who people mistook for my brother, and actually think we could pass for it. (At this point I'd better put in a disclaimer that the smoke we're exhaling is raspberry flavoured hookah).

I went as a soul in purgatory, with a series of signs around my neck saying "3,685,301 days to go", counting down to zero, as people placed money in my box which said "When a coin into the coffers rings, a soul from purgatory springs". Remember this is with bunch of Lutherans, and this is the issue which split the churches in 1517. Remarkably, I got out of pugatory sometime after midnight, and made a few dollars out of it too!

Poker

2007-10-27T18:58:00.001-07:00

Pretty much every Thursday is poker night with our friends at the Lutheran seminary (LTSC), so I thought I'd introduce them to you. TC and I tend to hang out with these guys a lot, and I'm sure they're going to feature in a few more stories along the way.

From left to right is Matt Ley, who is married to Laura, Todd Koch, ex-army, marathon runner, and Jason Chesnut, all round good guy and owner of the hookah pipe (which features rather a lot in the apres-poker). These three guys are all in formation to be ordained Lutheran pastors.

Also pictured is a blurry pic of Carolyn, TC, me and Amy, and Romana and Amy (poker champ this week).

The relative lack of photos of us actually playing cards probably describes it well, that while it's all played quite seriously, its all about the fellowship with a great bunch of people (usually 15-18 a night from about 30 or so people who come at least sometimes.)

Mundelein Seminary

2007-10-27T18:43:00.000-07:00

This week I visited Mundelein Seminary, the US's largest seminary, an hour north of the city.

It's a beautiful place, set on hundreds of acres, built circa 1920, with magnificent buildings. There are over 200 students, 60 of whom are from Chicago Archdiocese, the rest from other midwest states.

I met with the Dean of Formation, Fr Kevin Feeney, as part of an assignment for my course, to interview a formator and a student. He was very welcoming, and heading up such a large seminary, with a huge staff, had some really good processes and policies which I will learn much from.

The honeymoon is over....

2007-10-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

....but not in a bad way.

These first two months I haven't taken things too seriously. I deliberately held back on busyness and forward planning, just to take some sabbatical time for myself. I have had a lot of fun and new adventures and made new friends. And while I don't expect these things to change too much, I now feel really settled, grounded and relaxed, and ready to move on to another phase in my time here. The weather is finally changing into a blustery autumn, kind of symbolic of change, I guess.

A couple of things go with this which are making me feel the next step is beginning.

We have an assignment to interview a formation director to ask about their experience, and what skills they find most important. This coming week I'll be visiting a Christian Brother, and the rector of the diocesan seminary on the north side of Chicago.

I contacted a rural diocese in South Dakota (about as rural as you can get) about helping out at Christmas. A Jesuit priest from an Indian Reservation on the border of Nebraska has asked me to come and help out there. It will be such a privilege to go and live amongst the Sioux people for a couple of weeks and to learn from them.

And then the intensity of these past three days on the spirituality of trauma has really inspired me to want to go deeper, get serious, learn from every possibility and every wise person I can meet.

I've also begun talking with my bishop about some of the possibilities for how we might do formation with our guys next year. It will be different. It's great to be able to do some learning here, and also be making plans for how I might practically live that out in the future.

So the honeymoon might be over.... but I think my time here in Chicago is just going to keep getting better.

The Spirituality of Trauma

2007-10-19T17:27:00.001-07:00

These past two days have been the most valuable days of learning in our course so far. Dr Robert Grant, a psychologist has been presenting to us on issues in abuse and trauma.

He has described trauma as an overwhelming event which renders a person powerless and helpless. Trauma includes natural disasters and accidents, and when it is deliberately inflicted it is described as abuse (physical, emotional or sexual).

It's been heavy, confronting stuff. He's presented some actual case studies which took as all outside our comfort zones. But he's gone beyond just the symptoms, causes, patterns and 'red flags' (indicators that someone may have been abused) to what he describes as a "spirituality of trauma".

Dr Grant has said that trauma is pretty much the only thing which can sufficiently disrupt the human ego to allow a person to truly surrender in life. No-one surrenders their defence mechanisms voluntarily. But trauma takes a person out of their manufactured worldview and immerses them in the somewhat bleak reality of life: that not everyone is good, that good people aren't immune from harm, that a loving God doesn't prevent all hurt, that not everything happens for a reason.

Once a person has experienced trauma, and moved through in healing, there is no possibility of returning to a shallow or self centred view of life. All that matters is the spiritual journey, deep authentic human relationships, and the causes of justice and care for others to prevent and alleviate suffering.

In my past learnings about abuse and trauma I have always focussed on the damaged personality of the victim, in particular the increased likelihood that someone sexually abused as a child may become an abuser themselves. In the business of screening people for working with children, you pretty much have to discount anyone who has suffered abuse. But today's learning focussed more on what can happen when a person embraces the healing journey.

A traumatised person will never be the same, but this may be for good or for bad. We looked at the example of Vietnam War veterans here in the US who experienced (and committed) attrocious things. When they returned home, they were often the object of derision by protesters. There was noone to validate and normalise their experience, and so they couldn't reintegrate into normal life, often developing illness or addictions instead.

By contrast, Dr Grant gave the story of St Francis of Assisi. Francis was a soldier, who was taken prisoner, and saw many of his fellow prisoners die. He faced mortality, and would himself have died if not for his wealthy parents bribing him out. But once out, Francis could no longer return to the life of wealth and privilege of before. He underwent a conversion and spiritual journey which led him to a deep resonance with and care for the poor and for all creation.

A second story is that of Gandi, the well heeled, British trained lawyer working in South Africa, who was ejected from a first class train because of his race, and spent the night on a railway station in fear of his life. This too was a point of no return for Gandi, and the only way forward was to radically work for justice.

On the first day I and others wondered how Dr Grant could do such intense work - he works not only with private patients and lots of clergy and religious, but with military as they debrief, and has been to warzones Darfur, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, to dangerous slums in San Paulo. He intentionally seeks out people in the most severe of pain and holds their stories. But on this second day he spoke about seeing trauma as the gateway to self actualisation & self transcendence, and of the privilege it is to work with people on this journey. He hinted at his own deeply Christian faith which has been deconstructed and reconstructed through his experience. In terms of Fowler's stages of faith development (see http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/fowler.htm for a summary) of which I'm a big fan, I don't think I've ever met anybody who is either in or so near to Stage 6 on this scale.

all about food....

2007-10-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

Someone commented that from reading the blog I sound like I'm being well fed. Yet again, the latest adventure involves food!

Last night I tried an asian delicacy called balut - a half gestated chicken or duck boiled inside its egg. Yes, it does sounds awful, doesn't it. But surprisingly it was quite good. Just like eating an egg, and a little bit of meat (shaped like a baby chicken). Only myself and one of the other white guys tried it.

Someone asked me "why oh why would you even try that?" I guess that the answer is fellowship - the same reason that later that night a bunch of us headed out to a bar on the north side of the city for spicy chicken wings and drinks when we weren't really hungry. The Vietnamese and Filipino guys were so proud to share their delicacy with us. I was worried that I would hate it / gag / vomit and really offend them, but no such problem.

When you think about it, sharing meals is a pretty central aspect of fellowship. To share a meal tends to express (or create) being in relationship. It's one of the things which Jesus did a lot of - he ate with people. Who he ate with was a cause for scandal - tax collectors, prostitutes and miscellaneous sinners, as well as Simon the Pharisee and other supposedly upright people, and his own disciples. Jesus' sharing of table fellowship with these people meant that they were included, they were welcome, they were acceptable to God, which cut across the message which the strict Judaism of the time, which was about who was excluded from relationship to God.

For Jesus, and for his disciples Paul and Peter afterwards, what the food was didn't matter (kosher or not), and whether you ritually washed and prepared for the meal didn't matter. All that mattered was that you were invited and that you came.

Hispanic Ministry Night

2007-10-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

CTU held a Hispanic Ministry tribute night, to which a bunch of us scored free tickets.

There was traditional Inca & Mayan music from the 17th century, and traditional food from Latin America from the same period. The food included tamarinds (which I'd never seen as a whole fruit before), chicken in chocolate chilli sauce (I kid you not), and the most awesome hot chocolate I've ever had.

The whole thing was very swanky and nice, even though Julio from Brazil said that it was an americanised version of Latin America - he said anything at home would have been more upbeat and less formal.

One of the highlights though was the silent auction of paintings done by a young man from El Salvedor named Joachin Arevelo. Joachin left home at age 12 to work two jobs to help support his family. Unfortunately upon arriving in the US he got caught up in crime, was party to a murder, and typically of the poorest of the poor in the US is now on death row.

Denied paints and paintbrushes, he mixes floor wax with paint chips, food or whatever he can get to make paint, and uses human hair for a brush. His paintings are on scrap pieces of cardboard. He has a deep faith in God, and it is remarkable that a young man facing his death can produce artworks of beauty and serenity. TC and I each bought one at the silent auction, and the proceeds go to help his family - the reason Joachin left his family in the first place.

cool t shirts

2007-10-10T15:23:00.000-07:00

I have seen some great t shirts in the last couple of weeks:

1) God is not dead, just embarrassed

2) Haiku poems are fun,

but sometimes they don't make sense.

Refrigerator.

3) Schroedingers cat is dead (on one side, and on the other) Shroedingers cat is not dead.

But the "Save Ferris" is the best -must try to find one.

Prayer for Burma

2007-10-08T21:06:00.000-07:00

If you've followed the news the past couple of weeks you would have read about the recent brutal military crackdown against peaceful protesters in Burma, many of whom have been buddhist monks. The monks give a spiritual and moral authority to the resistance movement.

Last night many of us here at CTU gathered in the chapel to pray for and in solidarity with the people of Burma. A Columban priest read an eyewitness account of militia storming a monastery, beating the head monk to death, and dragging away most of the remaining 190 monks, who have not been heard of since.

We then prayed the 5 sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. It was incredibly powerful to focus a meditation on Jesus' suffering upon the present suffering in the world, to visualise each of the steps of Jesus' passion being lived out by a peaceful Burmese monk, and Jesus standing alongside suffering with them.

The leader of the opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under arrest has said "there will be change, because all the military have are guns".

Please pray for Burma.

Pizza

2007-10-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Italians may have invented pizza, but it was perfected here in Chicago with the invention of deep-dish pizza, which is seriously two inches thick. Tonight I went to the quintessential Chicago pizza place, Giordano's in the city.

A good way to top off an afternoon of visiting another Chicago icon, Wrigley Field (yes, like the chewing gum), home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. Although it was well and truly sold out, Michael (a fellow student and local) and I went down just to wander around and soak up the frenzied atmosphere.

Another thing invented in Chicago - the Ferris Wheel. The first one was build by George Ferris for the 1893 World Fair, as a Chicago's answer to the Eiffel Tower, built for Paris' previous world fair. This explains the odd name of our hero Ferris Bueller - the film is set here in Chicago.

Stuff I've learned....

2007-10-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Friday night, the end of the week. A good time to look back on what I've been learning.

Tuesday: Family of Origin issues - looking at how events in our families as we grow up affect the way we behave and see the world as adults. A lot of these issues arise again as people move into formation communities, eg, if a person resents a parent for being too strict, they might react strongly against any guidance the formator offers them. Learning some reflection exercises which a group can do to begin sharing about their family lives and learn from them.

Wednesday: Spiritual Companioning - looking at attending to the whole person we are companioning, listening to what is said and not said, awareness of power & unequal relationships. Looking at reflection upon experience, and acceptance of ambiguity - formation goes on for a long time - the answers don't all have to be there now.

Thursday: Intercultural communication - looking at the range of responses to cultural differences: being oblivious to difference, being threatened by it, acknowledging difference but exalting your own culture above the other, acknowledging difference but saying that it doesn't matter, and acknowledging that there are differences and similarities, and that different isn't wrong, it's just different.

Friday: Part 2 of vocation & calling in the bible, today looking at the accounts of Abraham being called in Genesis 12 and Paul being called in Acts 9 / Galatians 1.

In between there was time to go to Mass each day, go running, start reading Barack Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope", spend too much time on facebook, and play poker with the Lutherns again.

And because we all like pictures more than words, here's a photo of some of our class at Mass last weekend at St Benedict the African parish - which was everything I hoped a black church would be.

Feeling like a local....

2007-10-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

Three things happened today which made me feel like a local:

a guy asked me for directions to Chicago Uni - and I knew how to direct him.

a homeless woman I said hello to remembered me from last week.

I visited the Social Security office to get a letter stating that I can't get a social security number (like a tax file number) so that I can go and get an ID card, as I keep getting asked for ID at the pub. I'm flattered to think that I might look 21, I think!

To feel Australian though I went into the embassy to register to vote at the federal election, whenever it is called.

But I know you all like looking at the pictures more than reading the stories, so here's a picture from Saturday night's Oktoberfest: pictured from left to right are Jason, me, Barry, Matt, TC, and Todd in front.

Why I Love Narraweena

2007-10-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

3 good things are happening this week back home that I am going to miss so much:

1. St Paul's Yr 12 graduation

2. Nato's 30th birthday (who would have figured he was so old?)

3. The Black Stump Festival.

This was the first time in 18 years that I've missed Black Stump - I've been to every one since I was 16 and it is always a life transforming experience for me.

Our Narraweena crew (pictured here at sisters Bridie & Gabby) made T-shirts saying "Jim 07" on them and wore them around Stump. I am so honoured by that. I love and miss Narraweena, and Black Stump. But I'll be back to Black Stump next year, no matter what.

Another good weekend

2007-09-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Wow... what a weekend.

Yesterday Jean Marie, Elione, Julio and I went kayaking on the Chicago River. We went in two tandems, which was fun. We started out west a bit in the river which is out in the industrial part and a bit bleak, but heading east we started going past all the nice riverside apartments and getting great views of the city. We didn't have enough time, but next time I'll go further in to the city - which surprisingly you're allowed to do.

Then Saturday night we went to Oktoberfest with the Lutheran seminarians. Those crazy Lutherans sure know how to throw a party, with a keg of wheatbeer, a hookah pipe, and an improvised oom-pah-pah band. And a bunch of really nice, welcoming people. The Lutheran Church in America is going to be a great church when these guys take up leadership.

And today a few of us from my class went to St Benedict the African parish for Mass. It was everything I hoped and expected a 'black' parish mass to be - amazing music, great vibe, incredible friendly, and a few 'amens' thrown in. I took my watch off in advance so as not to be tied down to checking how long things went for, and was able to get caught up in the worship.

Other news.... I started spiritual direction this week with a Domincan sister, who I think will be really good at helping to tap into more creative and deeper ways of prayer for me.

Lots of things for the first time

2007-09-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote last week of going to the synagogue for Yom Kippur.
This week two of our Chinese classmates led us in the Autumn Moon rituals.
Then yesterday I joined in a day of Ramadaan (the Muslim holy month), eating before sunrise, going down to the lake to watch the sunrise, fasting for the day, then joining in an iftar feast to break the fast at night, with haunting, beautiful prayers as part of it.

All I need to do now is take part in the ritual slaughter of a goat and I'll have all religious bases coverered.....

At the Iftar feast I met some Lutheran seminarians, who invited us to come join them for their Thursday night poker night. It seemed ironic to go to drink and gamble with the people we met at Ramadaan, but that's how interestingly life is unfolding here!

They were an amazingly hospitable group of people, about 15 seminarians, both male and female, who were genuinely welcoming and happy to have a couple of random strangers (Thomas - who will probably appear in lots of stories on this blog, and I) come join their game and drink their beer.

I lost my chips fairly early on, but when I left at midnight Thomas was holding out well. He later came second, which was good, as we may not have been invited back again if he won!

American Football

2007-09-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went to see the Dallas Cowboys wipe out the Chicago Bears in American Football - no one calls it gridiron here.

You probably know that I don't follow football of any kind much at home. But while the cynical and intellectual part of me maintains the lack of intrinsic merit in a bunch of guys chasing each other and a small leather ball up and down a paddock, there's something about being there with tens of thousands of people all cheering, with fireworks and music to amp everyone up. Beer and hot dogs help too.

Thomas, pictured, talked me into going, and I'm so glad he did. I barracked for Dallas with him, and we were objects of derision to thousands of locals around us, who went strangely quiet when Dallas overtook and then whitewashed Chicago 34-10.

With a bit of coaching from Thomas, I started to understand the plays, and feel the thrill of excitement as our (Dallas) players gained yards and made good plays.

So yet another new cultural experience, and a great night out.

Yom Kippur at the synagogue

2007-09-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Friday was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest feast in the Jewish calendar. I went to the local synagogue with Tom (who has the rabbi as one of his teachers) and Peter.

Much of the service was chanted, and mostly in Hebrew. You could see the woman cantor (who led more of the service than the rabbi) putting her whole body and heart into the singing. It was beautiful. Early in the service a solo cellist played a lament which cut me to the heart. Without understanding all the symbols of the service and the prayers, I felt like the mercy of God was washing over me. 2 hours on a hot, humid night just slid away.

There was a tremendous reverence for the Word of God, with the ark being opened and the 5 scrolls of the Torah (first 5 books of the bible) being held aloft. There were some prayers in English which we all joined in, and an incisive sermon by the rabbi about the factors facing American Jewry and the need for them to assert their uniqueness with the mainstream culture. So much of what he said could apply to Catholics too. A wonderful experience of prayer and worship.

http://www.kamii.org/

Serious work

2007-09-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

Just so that you don't think that all we do around here is watch baseball, I thought I'd better include a photo of me doing some study.

We are now seriously into the work, with theological reflection papers due, lectures on inculturation & spirituality, and a required book list to read.

I'm now reading the brilliant but dense book by Sr Sandra Schneiders "Finding the Treasure" which is about contemporary issues in religious life. A short summary of the opening chapter:

There seems to be a human & social archetype of monastic life. Every major world religion seems to give rise to groups within it which seek to devote themselves entirely to the spiritual quest - Catholic religious, buddist monks, the Jewish Essenes of Jesus' time, Islamic sufis, etc.

These are often characterised by the some disciplines of poverty/detachment, chastity/celibacy, and obedience to a person or rule of life.

She defines monastic life broadly, to include active religious men & women (not just contemplative), and although she doesn't name diocesan priesthood, all that she says resonates with diocesan priesthood too (even though strictly speaking it's not "religious")

She pre-empts her conclusion by saying that because this seems to be a deeply human need - some people to take up a special lifestyle of spiritual searching - Catholic religious life is extremely unlikely to die out, as the doomsayers might predict. There may be many changes in its shape, but it seems to be something intrinsic to humanity, and therefore something of God's design for who we are.

So maybe I am learning something after all.....

Fun!

2007-09-16T18:38:00.001-07:00

I used to think that my life was fun back home. But something about the shift in gear here is really changing me, and making me more open to have fun than I have felt for so long.

Yesterday I went for a bike ride to the city and back along the waterfront. It's about 20 kilometres. Apart from riding a bike across the Golden Gate bridge I haven't ridden for years. It was a beautiful way to enjoy the morning sunshine and to view the city skyline. But more than that it was just fun. I felt like a little kid and like going "whoo-hoo!"

In the afternoon a few of us went to the final vows profession of 8 Divine Word Missionaries. Not fun, but good and inspiring.

And today (after Mass, of course) we went to the baseball. Baseball is SO MUCH BETTER than cricket. There was such a great vibe in the crowd, with music playing and crowd games between each innings. Our team (I feel so local) the Chicago White Sox came from behind to beat the Los Angeles Angels in the last innings. But the winning home run was scored by a (apparently famous) played name Jim Thome, and it was his 500th home run, which was huge.

Anyone who knows me knows how little interest I usually have in sport. But here there were fireworks at every home run, and everyone high fiving each other, and I found myself carried away and really enjoying it.

I think what's making this possible for me is the slower pace. I'm not in a hurry. I'm not worried about time. I don't get frustrated if something takes ten minutes longer than planned, because there was something I had to get done in that ten minutes.

So life continues to be good.....

Week in review

2007-09-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

It's Friday night, and I'm sitting in my comfy room, watching the city skyline light up after dusk, and reflecting back on our first week at full speed ahead. It's been brilliant. It's a lot like going to seminary again.

We have morning prayer before breakfast and Mass at 5pm each afternoon. There's meals available in the cafeteria, and you can grab whatever you want - and the food is good, not my prediction of greasy burgers and fries. Lots of salads and veggies. Having said that, on Tuesday nights some of us go to the pub for greasy burgers and fries - only $2.

Classes are 9-12 Monday to Friday. After doing 2 days on the Myers Briggs types (see previous blog) we had a couple of days of presenting about our home countries. It was fascinating to hear first hand about the history and culture of a range of countries I knew nothing about before, like Senegal, Nigeria, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (which is seperate from but next door to the Republic of the Congo).

I didn't know about the Berlin Conference at the end of the 19th century, where the countries of western europe met together to carve up Africa for themselves. Much of Africa was already colonised, but there was the arrogance to assume that they could just do whatever they wanted. A handful of countries basically took over the world for several centuries, wrecking cultures and people (Australian Aborigines would agree), and the post colonial nations of Africa particularly are still paying for it. A beautiful Nigerian nun spoke with pride saying that in last year's election, it was the first time that rule was passed from one civilian to another, as opposed from one military coup to another. It was quite overwhelming to hear these similar stories repeated over and over, from people who are so faith filled and hope filled.

Today was a great lecture, the first of a series, on enculturation of spirituality.

Now, the weekend. Its still a surprise to have a whole weekend off!

The Myers-Briggs personality profile

2007-09-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

This week we have been learning about how to work with people and groups based on the Myers-Briggs personality types. The M-B indicators aren't rules about how people must behave, rather they're observations that there are certain patterns which can observed about how people perceive the world and how they act in it.

We took the inventory / test ourselves so we can know ourselves better, and to reflect on our own experience.

My type is ENFJ (see http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFJ.html for a bit of a description), meaning:
Extraverted (compared to introverted)
Intuitive (compared to sensate)
Feeling (compared to thinking)
Judging (compared to perceiving)

The labels have technical meanings, and may be deceptive (eg judging doesn't mean judgemental).

I totally resonate with this description of me. Another guy in the course who has done this before said he could pick me as an ENFJ from the outset! It helps to explain a few of my idiosyncrasies:

drawing energy from being with people
getting bored by the details
liking structure and getting set in habits.

We then explored how different personalilty types will likely find different types of prayer more helpful than others.

Most importantly, it is helpful to recognise certain things are true about myself, but they're just one way of doing things. People with different ways aren't wrong, or stupid, just different. It can make us more forgiving of others: eg, I get intolerant of people who don't plan ahead and who leave things till the last moment (planning and structure are typical of the J's), but the other type (the P's) are more likely to be creative and to generate new ideas.

So we're doing some good stuff here!

Opera in the Park

2007-09-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

Last night a few of us went into the city for the last in a series of free concerts at Millenium Park, whcih I guess is like Sydney's Domain concert series.

We saw "the stars of opera" with a whole lot of well known opera pieces being performed, superbly. The photo shows the stage - it's a permanent stage in the park, with about 3000 seats, and a large grassed space with room for picnic-ers behind us. The stage itself is quite a spectacular piece of architecture, as if someone had half-peeled off an enormous tin can.

We arrived early and got in the seats near the front, and it was quite surreal to be sitting and looking almost straight up at the skyscrapers around us - Chicago has a lot of these.

Our IRF class

2007-09-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is our class - 22 of us from about a dozen countries. The Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan are in the background.

Transitions

2007-09-06T17:34:00.001-07:00

Today's (and tomorrow's) sessions have been about transitions and change.

One of the good things about this course is that a lot of it is going to be reflective as well as theoretical. So we are looking at the transition in our own lives - leaving ministries, moving, coming to Chicago - and then learning some frameworks and theory about transitions so that we can lead others (our candidates and students) in the same processes later on.

Change is inevitable. Sometimes change can be welcome, sometimes unwelcome. But while changes, defined as external events (like a change in job, house, relationship, or a death or a loss of someone or something) might be out of out control, we are still in charge of how we internally relate to and experience those changes, and we define these internal movements as transitions.

In all transitions there is a beginning (which is really the end of the last thing), a middle time of waiting and changing, and a end phase of action and doing and moving on. Today we looked a lot at that first phase - that of letting go of whatever we are moving from. This can be difficult when we are leaving behind a good thing. It is important to say goodbye, and to attend to the grief and the feelings of all this. It's also good to ritualise farewells. We looked at how there can often be unresolved grief in our lives, and a new experience of change, grief or loss can tap into these past losses, and make us feel or act in a way which might seem disproportionate to the current change.

Reflecting on all this, I think I did my move from Narraweena fairly well - taking time to do goodbyes, taking quiet time in San Fran on the way to Chicago. Will learn more tomorrow!

On spiritual direction, etc

2007-09-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

My course, the "Institute for Religious Formation" and a sabbatical program for middle aged - older religious & priests joined up today for a presentation on a number of wholistic therapies which are available to us:

Spiritual direction (which I'll definitely do)
Therapy / counselling (which I'll probably do)
Physio & chiropractic (which I don't think I'll need)
Dance therapy (which I absolutely certainly won't do!)

They offer a really broad range of possibilities so that everyone can connect to whatever suits them best. But they also encourage us to be in these accompaniment relationships and to reflect on that experience, so that we can then assist our students and candidates to be in them too.

hey hey hey....

2007-09-04T17:23:00.001-07:00

It's faaaaaaaaat Albert!

Remember Fat Albert, the cartoon? Today Fat Albert, or his huge, jive-speaking twin brother gave me a haircut. I was the only white guy in the barber shop. I think I was the only white guy on the block. Chicago has very ethnically segregated suburbs.

It was also my birthday today. Lots of people have sent me messages on facebook, or just done the old fashioned thing and emailed. I phoned my mum and said thanks for having me.

The class sang happy birthday to me - each in their own language, which was really touching. Happy birthday seems to be the same tune in every language except Hindi.

We're going out for birthday drinks now.....

Sunny Chicago

2007-09-03T18:40:00.001-07:00

When I first told people that I'd be moving to Chicago they said two things:

1) oohh - It will be very cold!

and

2) go see Oprah

Well, I haven't seen Oprah yet, and it's actually been beautiful weather - 28 degrees and sunny, just like a good Sydney summer's day. Tonight I jogged along the lakefront as the sun was setting and it was awesome. Not quite as good as going barefoot on Dee Why beach though.

Today we did the Myers-Briggs test. It's a personality profile which gets sent away, scored and analysed and returned to us next week. We also had an intro to the IT stuff - pretty standard stuff really, just powerpoint and projectors in the class, and an online resource which will have all our lecture notes. Easy enough for us native English speakers, but hard work for the more than half the class for whom English is their second, third or fourth language, some of whom have spent the last 3 months in the US doing intensive language studies just to get ready. Pictured here are some of the class members.

I've just finished doing my first assignment - a presentation on Australia. Each person will do a 20 minute intro about their country of origin (or their country of mission, as lots of people here are missionaries). Then the academic stuff begins!

The Institute for Religious Formation

2007-09-01T17:29:00.001-07:00

Everyone's now arrived in our residential building (see photos) for the Institute for Religious Formation.

There are 22 of us from 14 countries. I'm the only Australian. And for once, I'm not the youngest person in the group! Most of us are in our 30s and 40s.

We are in such a great area, called Hyde Park. It's near the University of Chicago, and two blocks back from a large park which stretches across to the beach (though no waves being on the lake). Lots of places to go jogging while it's still warm enough.

Tonight we had a quick orientation. The real work starts tomorrow.

Chicago!

2007-08-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I've just arrived in Chicago!

Now at my new home for the year, the Catholic Theological Union, on the south side of the city. Will have a mailbox soon.

A few of the other students have arrived, the rest will arrive tomorrow. Tonight is just unpacking.

Here's a photo of my room, and the view of the Chicago skyline out my 8th story window.

Feeling like a local

2007-08-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

After 4 days in San Francisco I'm feeling like a local. I'm sitting on a brilliant sunny day Union Square (kind of a mini-park right in the heart of the restaurant district) with my laptop using the free WiFi here.

I can now walk around without the security of a map in my hand.

I can cross streets and not get confused that the traffic is coming the other way.

I know that you put the cash into the ticket machine on the bus, but that the driver still hands you a ticket.

I now look with derision at other tourists taking photos of cable cars and think "that is so three days ago".

But... I still wake up at 3am, and take 2 hour afternoon naps. And getting to grips with the time zone was part of the plan of coming here before Chicago... that might take a few more days.....

Over the Golden Gate Bridge

2007-08-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today I hired a bike and rode over the Golden Gate Bridge, the obligatory tourist trek for the city.

The bridge is big. Very big. Much longer than Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was built around the same time. The Bay Bridge, on the other side of the city is also impressively long.

I rode past the bridge, down to a quaint little town called Sausalito and round to another called Tiburon and caught the ferry back.

They are proactive about preventing suicides by bridge jumping- see picture!

The ride was fun - a spectacular day and great weather, but I haven't ridden a bike for 10 years, so I reckon I'm going to feel it tomorrow!

Shopping in America

2007-08-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

Things I've discovered about shopping here:

They have Westfields here. Several times bigger and much prettier than Australia.

I've only seen one McDonalds so far! But lots of healthy salad bars and such, so no super-size-me blimping out yet.

I am too poor to shop at Bloomingdales and too uncool to shop at Abercrombie & Fitch. Lucky I bought a year's supply of clothes with me.

Some stuff is cheaper here. Movie tickets- $10. Light beer from corner shop - $1.50. 6 inch subway - $3. Subaru Liberty, $23,000. Even when you do exchange rates, still cheaper than Australia.

Today in San Francisco

2007-08-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

Today was one of several "Spare the Air" days, which means free public transport in an effort to get cars off the road and reduce emissions. It's not even a particularly smoggy city.

It was also a "flex power" day - where they ask people to really try to conserve electricity - today was predicted to be the hottest day of the year in California. San Francisco is always about 10-15 degrees cooler than the inland of the state, which was about 40 degrees today.

And today is the 2nd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. A significant day in the American psyche.

Day 2 in San Francisco

2007-08-28T18:28:00.001-07:00

Apart from being wide awake at 2am (and watching re-runs of The X-Files probably wasn't going to be conducive to sweet dreams) I've had a great day in San Francisco.

Found the cathedral and went to morning Mass.

Took a tram (called a cable-car here) up and down the hilly streets to the Fisherman's Wharf area, which is kind of Darling Harbour meets Bondi meets the Glebe markets. Took a ferry tour. The Golden Gate Bridge was almost completely shrouded in mist, which it often is in summer. Opted not to do the Alcatraz tour - other people's misery, no matter how historic, isn't much fun.

Went for a run this arvo. For a person with such a poor sense of direction I'm doing OK at not getting lost!

San Francisco

2007-08-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I've arrived in San Francisco, after a smooth flight and connections.

I'm staying in the Hotel Mark Twain, which is a couple of blocks away from Union Square, which is the central hang out / tourist place / park. The hotel has Mark Twainisms printed on every window in the stairwell, such as the ones below.

I don't think I really felt excited about the whole travelling and studying overseas thing, until I walked into my hotel room this morning, and realised that I've actually arrived.

So now I have 3 days just to hang around, get into the timezone, and explore. Below is a picture which partially captures the famous hilly San Francisco streetscape.