This was my latest contribution to a MVC internal publication, but I wanted to share it with a slightly wider audience here. I wrote it in April. That was a month ago, I know. Things are moving really fast for me as my time is winding down. I'm trying to keep up!
The new year has been full of holidays. Some are familiar, like New Year's Day and Easter. Others still roll off the tongue with a little hesitation, like Old Year's Night and Eid-El-Ur in January, Mashramani in February, Phagwah in March and You-Man-Nabi in April. Guyana is committed to celegrating holidays from each of the three major religions: Christianity, Hinduism and Islam (no official Rastafarian holidays - YET). The country also incorporates other holidays that celebrate Guyanese heritage like Independence Day, CARICOM Day (CARICOM is the Caribbean Community and Common Market which coordinates trade of goods and services within the Caribbean since the 1970s) and Mash. Even though it probably sounds like we're just on one long vacation, rubbing tanning oil on our bronzed skin, sipping coconut water and relaxing in hammocks every holiday, the reality is that holidays give us a chance to catch up on our laundry. You may recall that we wash our clothes by hand in the shower and have to wait for a sunny day to hang them up to dry. Yeah. Not nearly as exotic, sorry.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle for me as a few of the clients that I know well and have served at the hospital throught the HIV/AIDS programme have passed away. I'm thankful that they are at peace, but was (still am) deeply moved by their suffering. In fact, the greatest hope I could find was to consider their cases in the light of the stations of the cross two weeks back. That meditation really allowed me to acknowledge both the suffering and the hope for thier situations and challenged me to place myself in their last days as Simon the Cyrene, Veronica, or Mary. Ultimately, there was a sense of strength and peace to the transitions that they helped me experience, and I am grateful for learning how to journey with someone as their time in this life somes to an end. It is blessed.
On a lighter note, I have been singing non-stop recently as Easter celebrations invited our parish choir to sing at the cathedral. The ad-hoc children's choir that I'm somehow still directing sang the meditation for a Palm Sunday mass attended by the chairman/CEO of the ICC Cricket World Cup! What an opportunity! Meg and I also sang in a little park downtown with a praise and worship group composed of folks we made a retreat with last February. That little show ROCKED!
Well, I just want to close off by wishing all of you a fantastic, memorable Eastertime (even though it will long-since have passed by the time you read this!).
More to come soon - and pictures!
The new year has been full of holidays. Some are familiar, like New Year's Day and Easter. Others still roll off the tongue with a little hesitation, like Old Year's Night and Eid-El-Ur in January, Mashramani in February, Phagwah in March and You-Man-Nabi in April. Guyana is committed to celegrating holidays from each of the three major religions: Christianity, Hinduism and Islam (no official Rastafarian holidays - YET). The country also incorporates other holidays that celebrate Guyanese heritage like Independence Day, CARICOM Day (CARICOM is the Caribbean Community and Common Market which coordinates trade of goods and services within the Caribbean since the 1970s) and Mash. Even though it probably sounds like we're just on one long vacation, rubbing tanning oil on our bronzed skin, sipping coconut water and relaxing in hammocks every holiday, the reality is that holidays give us a chance to catch up on our laundry. You may recall that we wash our clothes by hand in the shower and have to wait for a sunny day to hang them up to dry. Yeah. Not nearly as exotic, sorry.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle for me as a few of the clients that I know well and have served at the hospital throught the HIV/AIDS programme have passed away. I'm thankful that they are at peace, but was (still am) deeply moved by their suffering. In fact, the greatest hope I could find was to consider their cases in the light of the stations of the cross two weeks back. That meditation really allowed me to acknowledge both the suffering and the hope for thier situations and challenged me to place myself in their last days as Simon the Cyrene, Veronica, or Mary. Ultimately, there was a sense of strength and peace to the transitions that they helped me experience, and I am grateful for learning how to journey with someone as their time in this life somes to an end. It is blessed.
On a lighter note, I have been singing non-stop recently as Easter celebrations invited our parish choir to sing at the cathedral. The ad-hoc children's choir that I'm somehow still directing sang the meditation for a Palm Sunday mass attended by the chairman/CEO of the ICC Cricket World Cup! What an opportunity! Meg and I also sang in a little park downtown with a praise and worship group composed of folks we made a retreat with last February. That little show ROCKED!
Well, I just want to close off by wishing all of you a fantastic, memorable Eastertime (even though it will long-since have passed by the time you read this!).
More to come soon - and pictures!
posted by kathleen adele @ 4:44 PM
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