~ by the way ~


I am sorry I didn't mention this in the last post, but I also got the chance to visit most of my Michigeese and Michiganders and start my goodbyes before I went off to Maryknoll. I had an AMAZING time with my WONDERFUL family and friends - learning more than I ever knew about dinosaurs from my cousin Linden, having bonfires in the rain in South Lyon, planting a lovely flower garden with my aunt Carolyn, taking my first kayaking trip with my cousin Bethany, having my now-driving cousins come WAY out of their way to say hi, having great conversations with many folks, and one thoroughly wonderful and exhausting afternoon of playing "seamonster and landmonster" in the back yard with my cousin Solomon. SO MUCH LOVE!! To top it off, I got to bookend the Michigan time with some quality time in the Windy City with ms. genevieve & co. ;o). Also delightful. Thank you all for your love, support, and warmth, and for the memories.

So, week one of "cross-cultural camp" was full and intense. (The picture above is my Mandala, or a picture that represents me that we did the second day. Basically, mine is a road. I feel that I'm on a journey that has taken me many places, and I creatively rendered a few of those places in that image.) Then we plummeted in to "the tough stuff". We grappled with cultural sensitivity, sexuality, violence, trauma, abuse, charism, "missionary" vs. "volunteer", and a lot of other tricky issues, all in the context of living abroad under stress and having what would be small problems in the states magnified while overseas. Each of the presentations was pretty thought-provoking, and I feel that I have a lot of good material to refer to in Guyana to determine what, exactly, is going on inside me and around me and why, and what to do about it.

"make me a channel of your peace"

Really the whirlwind didn't let up until Saturday afternoon when we started our SILENT RETREAT. Four days, no talking, yeah right. I was in a pretty spirit-filled and introspective place, but four days is a long time. Turns out it's not so bad. I had lots to do and reflect on over the time, and actually did some artwork for the first time since junior high. It's about as good as my jr. high artwork was, but it's still pretty cool, i think - the intellectual level behind it has progressed ... slightly ... and I even came to enjoy the peace of silence, and the unique opportunity to make everything you do a prayer.

(a small stillness inside, July 25 --->)

Another really neat thing I spent a lot of time with was the walking labyrinth outside. I found myself in the middle of my first walking meditation last summer on the trail heading from Gulf Hagas to whatever stupid lean-to that was with the pouring rain (that narrows it down, huh?) and purple bugs (Chairback?). Anyway, we were still in Maine, so this was not a learned zen hiker thing (for those of you who don't know, I hiked from Katahdin, ME to Delaware Water Gap, PA last summer and into the fall, a total of about 3 months on the Appalachian Trail). This was still early in my hike. But I remember distinctly the feeling of hovering just over my body as it climbed up the side of a mountain. At the time, I was praying for strength and endurance to make it however far we needed to go that day, and was thankful for the beautiful places we'd been and the things we'd seen so far and I just felt an overwhelming sense of peace and lightness. I felt like I had been lifted up out of my body. I couldn't feel my legs pushing me up the hillside; couldn't feel my arms moving my trekking poles one at a time for extra leverage. I just felt free and peaceful, and was told later that there is such a thing as walking meditation which supposedly induces a similar state. Now I never achieved that state again while hiking, and I didn't achieve it in New York, but I did spend a lot of prayerful time walking a convoluted path to the middle of ... whatever my focus was ... on the grounds at Bethany. It was really neat, and one session inspired another version of the labyrinth.

(<--- Sacred Feminine, July 23, 2005)

Yeah, that one looks a lot neater in real life. The prayer I was working with is written in its folds:

Within the circles of our lives, we dance the circles of the years; the circles of the seasons within the circles of the years; the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons; the circles of our reasons within the cycles of the moon. Again, again, we come and go, changed, changing. Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all. Only music keeps us here, each by all the others held. In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs, that joining, joining each to all again. And then we turn aside, alone, out of the sunlight gone into the darker circles of return. - Cycles of Life, Wendell Barry.

I finally got to really read quite a bit of the Bible, and a little bit of Thomas Merton ... very very interesting stuff. By the end of four days, I was really pretty exhausted. I had played prayer, drawn prayer, danced prayer, sung prayer, washed prayer, slept prayer and woke prayer for what seemed like a long time, and I have to say, it was probably the most amazing four days I've had in a while. I was nervous I'd be restless, but I had so many different ways to connect to the material that really, there was no time to be bored or restless - there was always something else waiting for me to explore it. So that's a whole new side of myself that I am pleased to be taking into service with me this fall. We will be living in a spiritually-centered community, so Eileen and I have already begun discussing how we will make time to pray and have our little rituals as we go along.

So, back in Maine, now, Thursday night, less than a month from GO TIME. I am planning a fundraising event to support the Mercy Volunteer Corps (my sending organization) this Saturday night at the Sacred Heart Church on Main Street in Yarmouth, Maine. It will be a potluck-type affair, with a little schpeal by me about MVC and what I'll be doing with them over the next two years, and then a little concert, featuring nearly all the members of my family, other familiar faces from Sacred Heart and hopefully a few new ones, too. Please consider yourself invited, if you are in the area. 7 pm until whenever - bring the kids and get ready to tap your toes!! Those of you who can't make it, please pray for me as last minute things come up. I will also be mailing out letters soon for those of you who like concrete things to have on the fridge or wherever it is you like them, and not just this vague web-business ;o) Keep your eyes peeled!

tucked away at Bethany


(<-- View from the kitchen window: upstairs is the chapel, downstairs is the Gathering Room where we have most of our sessions, and the red picnic table is where we wish we could go to eat if it weren't for the sweltering humidity).

I have been tucked away in a quiet corner of New York for a week now, just a 15 minute walk from the Maryknoll Mission Center (for all you Catholics out there who get the magazine). It is a retreat center called Bethany, and it has been a peaceful and centering place so far. The group of people here is amazing. The other people (17) who are headed off to serve this fall are all kindred spirits. The group is 14 twenty-somethings, only 2 of which are guys (they are so brave! ;o) and three women between the ages of 50 and 70. Two of the three women are nuns, one is a Notre Dame who plays a mean African rattle and one is a Gray with a lead foot and a fast guardian angel, and the other will be my housemate in Guyana (she's stellar!). One of the twenty-somethings is a woman from Guatemala who is serving her mission in New York, and her wise perspective after the past three months of adjustment has been invaluable to us. It has been a great group with whom to share, argue, be theatrical, and have as suppport. In the weeks and months that follow we will scatter to the winds and land in places like Guyana (but you knew that), South Africa, Honduras, Paraguay, Haiti, Peru, and one TBA "somewhere in Africa".

So, the question that's really on your minds ... what the heck does one do at a three week cross-cultural orientation in the middle of Nowhere, NY? Well, first off, we're practicing living in community, so we divide up household chores (ie. cooking, cleaning, tidying up the rooms we use and leading a short focusing prayer once a day) and have meals together. No, there is no bedtime, and our first sessions don't start until 9 am, so it is really a pretty relaxed schedule.

The first few days were mostly spent doing community building activities and being introduced to our current process in this journey as the transition (as in, we're not at our service sites yet - and some don't leave until October, but we need to be preparing to leave where we are). We told a bit of our life stories, explored the expectations and theology of our sending mission groups (mine is the Mercy Volunteer Corps), learned about the spirituality of mission from a wonderfully foul-mouthed priest who cut through the crap, gave it to us straight, played a Bette Midler monologue for us and left our heads positively spinning, and we also talked about what a rotten time we're going to have adjusting, on SO MANY levels. I found buddies to run with and play ultimate frisbee with, we had a campeonato futbol game in which our dear Gray nun nearly took out several members of the cheering section with a stellar kick. Oh, and the Maryknoll building where we occasionally have classes (much to our delight, because that wing is the only place around with air conditioning in this ridiculous mugginess!!) is a CASTLE, all gray stone with an Imperial Chinese-styled roof, honoring Maryknoll's first missions to China.

The weekend was ridiculous. First my burning urge to get back to the AT took me and a few new friends to Bear Mtn. State Park NY where we barely made it to the top alive (the humidity was really just unbearable, and I was the only one who thought to bring water .... oops!!) We then went home only to have another amazing adventure in an Ecuadorian restaurant downtown. Now, you may not know this, but Ossining, NY is actually the "little Ecuador" of NYC - they just prefer to be in the campo (a rural area). So EVERYTHING was in Spanish, the food and drink were not quite what we expected, the looks that we got from the neighboring tables that went from ogling to amusement to amazement to friendliness as we chatted with the families around us was unforgettable. We were certainly the entertainment for the evening. OH, speaking of which, one of the other nights we went to a local parish on our free time to hear a presentation about world hunger (I told you, a very dedicated and special group). Trouble was, we couldn't find it at first, and whoever was at the front of the troop somehow got directed to a group upstairs in a chapel. Once we sat down, we noticed that the entire population around us was Latino, and we were asked if we were the whole English-speaking community. We didn't really understand what he was getting at, so I offered that some of us spoke English and some spoke Spanish. Then he asked if we were all there for the baptisms - HA!! Well, we decided not to get baptized, but to find the presentation in another building. We met a wonderful woman named Eileen, who invited us to write our senators for the Bread for the World program, and then invited us to a peace vigil (which turned into more of a rally once all of us crazy youngins got involved - I even played a little on my tin whistle!!). It was a wonderful time. (Maryknoll Peacemakers featured include (from L) : Sr. Therese Marie, Tuleisha, Sr. Mary (hiding behind her HONK FOR PEACE sign (camera-shy)), Eva, Eileen, Tierney, Mikayla, Abbie (TOCA LA BOCA PARA LA PAZ!?! - bocina isn't a real word anyway)).

Okay, back to the weekend: after Bear Mtn., I was cajoled into seeing a Broadway show with my ultimate buddy - we saw The Producers (just excellent, excellent - ONLY Mel Brooks could make Springtime for Hitler so delightfully irreverent), took in a sidewalk festival (pretty sure it was the same 12 booths that kept picking up and moving a block ahead of us as we mosied along - LEH-MOHN-AY-AH-D!!) and went to mass at St.Pat's Cathedral - a real New York experience, if you ask me (except no french fries for breakfast, Hamel ladies). Very enjoyable. Highlights of the day also included but were not limited to: running into a fellow Greely High School theatre junkie after the show; being freaked out of our minds by a dude in a SpiderMan costume jumping at us and shooting his "imaginary webs" out of his wrists in our general direction; learning that it doesn't really matter whether "gyro" is pronounced jy-roh or hero, you still can't eat one while walking; that the word "lemonade" actually consists of about 8 syllables when sung by a street vendor; and that your favorite pair of pants will undoubtedly have a HUGE rip right across the top of your crack after a full day in the city.

Other than that, just trying to be playful about the idea that Eileen and I are "in training" for Guyana with this 90+ degree heat and 90%+ humidity ... tee hee frickin' hee. :o( Please send snow in my first care package, knowing that it will take 3-10 weeks for delivery ;o) (just kidding, not quite that long).




I leave you with a serene shot of St. Patrick's cathedral in NYC. This is a picture of many confused Catholics leaving mass after the organist led a race through the fastest mass EVER, and the Welsh (?!?) priest played along, but somehow still managed to deliver one of the longest homilies I think I have ever heard about one passage of scripture without straying off topic.

Wasn't that a first week.

update & O.O.C.

Well, here it is, July already, and I feel as if half of my summer is spent. As of tomorrow, I will be slightly out of commission until late July. I am leaving Maine to visit my relatives in Michigan and say hello/goodbye next week. I really only have two other free weeks this summer, so this seems to be the best time for it. After my *rock-star* tour of the midwest, I'll be headed straight from Chicago to Maryknoll, NY, where I'll spend the following three weeks at an intensive cross-cultural orientation program. I am very excited about this, and I'll tell all the K people what the CIP leaves out of their presentations ;o).

This week has been tough, though, with many appointments and much organizing and mild panic attacks as I feel my free hours dwindling, and wonder if everything will get done (I mean, I don't really need to be vaccinated against yellow fever again, right??) and to top it all off, we lost our family dog yesterday. Angie had been with us for 13 years, and was the sweetest, gentlest, most loyal sheltie that ever herded a pickup. She was a tireless fetcher, and was a great friend and slow walking companion to me when I was recovering from mono last fall. It was my first experience watching anything or anyone I love pass from living into death right before my eyes and under my hands, and I'm sure I will never forget it. If there was ever such a thing as dying with quiet dignity, Angie had it down.
Angie-love, love to you, always.