Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

Amazing Power of Prayer

Marvels of marvels and miracles of miracles, something happened this morning that I never thought I would see. Never. Because I did not have as much faith as I should have had.

Donnie and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary on March 20. Complications, however, have arisen in celebrating it. First, March 20 is the only time that the university students in Lithuania can do the review session for the course I taught there the last two weeks, and they need one. Moreover, March 21 is the only day that they can take their final. Given the 10-hour difference between our countries and the plan to have the students do the final review over Skype and the final (monitored by the department chair) in the computer lab, emailing me immediately their answers, my presence is required in both instances in the late evening hours, ending at midnight. So, while I can be free during the day, I need to be at home, with the proper computer equipment at night. Any plans that Donnie and I would have liked to have had to take a trip (we have dreamed of a special trip for our 40th anniversary for some time, entertaining a number of different exotic locations, among which it had been difficult to choose) cannot be accomplished on the actual date. Second, with Shane unemployed, I would prefer to use trip money to pay the next unseen number of months of his COBRA fees, which at $800 a month are well beyond his ability to pay on unemployment compensation, and provide smaller amounts to help with the kids and food. (His umemployment amount covers his rent only.)

So, seeing that our local St. Francis Retreat Center, which is no more than five minutes up the hill from our house, is offering a two-day retreat on Franciscan spirituality March 20-21, I decided to sign up for it. Donnie has agreed to come! We will try to sneak away on the evening of March 20, during the dinner hour, for a private anniversary dinner at our favorite local restaurant.

The process leading to this decision began when Donnie returned from Jordan, an atheist as I had always been, to find that I had had a remarkable conversion experience and was now pretty dedicated to following in the path of Christ and obeying God at all costs. It was not the kind of thing one emails to one's spouse of 30+ years or relates on a phone. So, I had waited until he had completed his contract there, which ended eight months after mine, and then, when he arrived back in California, I shared with him all that had happened.

To say that he was in shock would be an understatement. For nearly a week, he could not even speak to me. He would look at me and mutter, "I cannot get my head around it."

Doah, on the other hand, was delighted. He had been a believer perhaps before he was even born. Who knows, given his significant retardation, what and how his beliefs were formed, but he always exhibited them. However, from the time that he could speak, he evinced not only strong belief but strong connection with God, saying things like "God told me" X or Y. One weekend soon after Donnie came home, Doah was in the car with us, driving to a nearby city for grocery shopping, and spontaneously said a prayer that momentarily got Donnie's attention, "Dear God, Thank you for bringing Mom to You, but You forgot about Dad."

Unfortunately, the effect was minimal and shorter than temporary. I wondered what would reach Donnie, and I knew that he was not the type to be pushed. Moreover, he was still in shock. I had been such an outspoken atheist.

A few months later, a friend visited from Nebraska. We spent every evening walking around Old Mission grounds, a little of it together but most of it separately praying and communing with God. It was during that time that I started begging God to help with Donnie and was told that eventually he would come to believe but that first I must frequently pray with him.

Pray with an atheist? I knew how that would have gone over with me, and I had a pretty good idea how that would go over with Donnie. Nonetheless, convinced that this was the path that God had chosen to bring Donnie to Him, at our very next breakfast together, I insisted that we say grace together. We have continued that pattern for two years now. I have also upon occasion, as I sensed his atheism turning into agnosticism, asked him to say grace (just in case), and he has acquiesced.

Then, last spring my torn rotator cuff was healed instantly during Mass. Doah was there and sensed the same presence on the kneeler with us that I felt touch my arm. When I returned and showed Donnie the totally free movement I had in my arm that had been impossible to move than 30 degrees before I went to Mass, he was again shocked. With the healing confirmed five days later by MRI, his agnosticism began to turn toward a "just in case, perhaps-perhaps not" kind of potentially emerging belief.

Still, he has been unwilling to step closer. I go to Mass alone or with Doah, Noelle, or Lemony (my daughter-in-law who was gladly my sponsor), when they are visiting, or even sometimes with a friend.

Nonetheless, Donnie has spent time with Fr. Ed and Fr. Barry, when they have come for a family or other event. They don't push him, either, and I try to follow their model of just being an example. I have also tried to be steadfast in praying for him and, as God urged, with him, relying on God to take care of the rest.

And so today, I am the one in shock, pleasant shock. (The shock pricks me, though, in thinking that had I had greater faith, there would be NO shock. Nonetheless, I am happy, indeed. Yes! A spiritual weekend together! What better anniversary gift could there be?A

Four Days

Last weekend, as I have mentioned in a few blog posts in passing, I was blessed to be able to attend a four-day retreat at St. Francis Retreat Center (SFRC) in San Juan Bautista, California. I spend a lot of time at SFRC since it is not far from where I live. I attend First Fridays there, participate in center-led retreats, and contribute to the center on a regular basis. (The center burned down in 2006, and for the next three years, every penny that was collected mattered. The beautiful new center opened in 2009. Until then retreats were held in mobile buildings. As with so many other things in life, good came from bad. Were it not for the fire, in which no one got hurt, the friars and community would not likely have built a new center for quite some time, if at all. In that rebuilding I have also been able to participate, relying on God to help me keep a rather surprising financial contribution: for details see The Journey Is More Important Than the Destination.)

This particular retreat was different. It was conducted by the priest who leads our contemplative prayer group. It was the first time I had ever spent so much time in silence. After all, I am an extrovert. Silence does not come naturally. I even talk to birds and squirrels!

The silence, however, was exactly what I needed to finish off a week that had gone from frenetic to tranquil, thanks to God answering my wail while in Washington to return home and be able to spend the entire retreat in retreat activities. Until the day before the retreat I had been unable to arrange for a timely arrival for Thursday evening (my plane was supposed to arrive from Washington, DC late in the afternoon) and unable to get the full day off on Friday (I had a mandatory meeting Friday afternoon). When I begged God, however, to bring me back home and back to Him, suddenly flights were cancelled, requirements were changed, and even the mandatory meeting was postponed. Amazingly, I had the entire retreat time off, all four days.

I consider these four days God's gift to me. God certainly spoils me! (But I hope He does not stop because I like it!)

The Journey Is More Important Than the Destination

One of my favorite places is St Francis Retreat, which is situated in the mountains near the central coast of California. St. Francis Retreat, in spite of being a bit (oh, let's face it, a lot) off the beaten path, has been home to a large number of friars and monks who have done much for the local community and beyond. I know because St. Francis is home to the Secular Franciscan Order in which I am a candidate. In addition to wonderfully restorative and mathemagenic (gonna make you look up that word -- once a teacher, always a teacher) periodic retreats that attract retreatants well beyond driving distance, the priests at the retreat regularly substitute at the local church masses and provide personal counsel to individuals in search of spiritual advice; the retreat has an active spiritual direction program, which includes external qualified & certified spiritual directors. So, when St. Francis caught on fire in June 2006, the community was in shock. A significant piece of history and a significant source of spiritual growth was gone overnight. Fr. B, the newly arrived, not-so-young (oh, let's be honest, elderly) director had an immense task at hand: raise 6 million dollars to re-build or close down. No one wanted to close down, and so the rallying cry became "Bring Back St. Francis." While the bringing back has been going on, SFR has continued to hold retreats, provide spiritual direction, offer a home to retired and not-retired priests and monks, and actively serve the community, doing it out of pre-fabs. The journey is coming to an end after three years of fund-raising: the ground was broken in the spring, the structure is now up, and the new building is slated to open in September. I have heard Fr. B worry that the goal will not be reached, but they are now only $385K short. (If anyone feels inclined to donate, there is a way to do so on the SFR site.)

Reaching the goal, however, in my opinion, was never the most important thing. The journey to the goal was far more important.

As a result of the fire, SFR will have a far more modern, green, and spacious building than they would ever have attempted to build as long as the old building remained. (Hmm...)

This spacious building is very likely to bring far more users and retreatants to SFR because the space is there and the high-tech is there. While the proof in the pudding is yet to be tasted, the financial health of SFR, therefore, is likely to improve even in this bad economic climate. (Hmm...)

Bringing back St. Francis has instigated people to work together (and get to know each other) who might never have met before but who have become supportive friends now. Even those who have not been extensively involved have known that their $5 gifts or whatever amounts they could afford have been added together with larger ones to make building possible. It has become a community effort, a community, that is, of believers. (Hmm...)

I have always known that SFR would be rebuilt. I do not know how I knew. I just knew. My friend, Bennie, also knew and told Fr. B that. His prayers are nearly always answered, and he just simply expected this one to be answered as well. For others, the trust was not as implicit as it was with the two of us (and some other folks), but over time the trust that God would provide geometrically increased. (Hmm...)

Hmm...perhaps, indeed, the journey is more important than the destination.

When the fire came in 2006, I was living in my Land of Splat!. I would loved to have helped, but I had no real money to do so. I did have complete trust that God would fill the coffers needed for rebuilding and I had evidence that God would take care of me financially. After all, God dumped $11K on me when I needed it for the IRS, overcompensating the need by $400, which became my first contribution to the Bring Back St. Francis fund. After that, I began a little experiment. I promised God to give the "extra" money that came my way to SFR, and extra money started coming -- book royalties, merit increases, retention incentives. Soon I was up to $600 extra a month -- an amazing amount for someone living in the Land of Splat! who had spent most of her life with the chihuahua of poverty nipping at her heels (someone who still sometimes has to wait until the next paycheck in order to have a family dinner at a nice restaurant). Then, the diocese offered to loan SFR money against pledges so that the construction could begin on the building, and Fr. B asked me if I would turn my $600 per month donation into a pledge. Hmm... Now I was going to have to trust that God would keep throwing those extra dollars my way. Well, in for a dime, in for a dollar. "Okay, God, I am going to be at your mercy!" I upped the ante to $10K per year for my pledge, a nice round figure, and made a 5-year commitment. Scary thought: a $50K pledge from someone of modest income, inhabiting what has been sometimes called a poor man's art town, and living quite modestly in a small two-bedroom rented house. God was really going to have to help this time. That level of trust flabbergasted many people (mostly those who do not know me), but I know God will provide. Since making the pledge, an additional $350 per month as fallen into my lap from work-related additional income (I only needed an extra $250 -- overcompensation again), and that looks like it will continue through the end of the year, after which, there is the annual bonus and likely a small pay increase. Ah, fishes and loaves -- God sure knows how to multiply them! I certainly am glad that I joined this SFR journey because whatever the destination will be, I have learned a lot along the way, especially about trusting God. (Perhaps that was the plan! Hmm...)

As I think about the concepts of "journey" and "destination," I am compelled to note that we tend to want everything now. I am no exception although I am trying to be. We think we need some "stuff." We want to have it now. We think we want to be able to do something. We want to do it now. For example, I wanted to bring Katya of Tula to the USA for Orphan Cry. I wanted to do it now. God said "Cool it; let me do My part." Years ago, I met Shura and took him into my home. (His story will be coming soon as a continuation of the series about the professionals who have served as angels in my children's lives). He was at the time a dying Siberian child artist, and I wanted to bring him to the USA immediately for medical help. It took a year. When we don't get what we want right away, we think God has not answered our prayer. As Tolstoy said, God waits. We may never know why God waited. It is not important that we know. We just sometimes think it is.

On many occasions, I have found the destination to be great but the journey greater. The journey encourages spiritual and interpersonal development, allows time for miracles and time to see the miracles, and builds faith and trust. So, you see, the journey is more important than the destination.

(And, in terms of "destination," this is what has distracted me from writing this week. I am working at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, picture below. No time to swim or surf -- I'm not much good at either, anyway -- but the natural beauty is so spellbinding that no picture can really capture it.)