Mount St. Francis Lenten Retreat

With the love of the mountains, the quiet of the forest, and the wisdom of the Father’s and Sister’s I knew I was going to be engulfed into God’s milieu. The silent retreat was a gentle blend of equanimity and reflection. The Father’s and Sister’s brought us together 5 times during the week-end to impart their knowledge, years of listening, reading, teaching, and absolution.

The excitement of a new toy is no different for those who spring to clutch the Lord’s cloak. The last supper without silence, I can’t but look at my new acquaintances not truly wanting to speak for in a mere half an hour we will be silenced for 48 hours. Light whispers contemplate the food as much as our first Lenten workshop. My eyes leap from one shelf to another in the expansive library yearning to catch the eye of a book that will revolutionize my week-end. Spiritual Master’s by Father B. Hughes it is.

Father Kevin, a spry lean man gentle in touch, speech and gestures engages us in the

Possibility that we are a reflection of God’s beauty.
Isaiah 61 - The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.

My mind reels into the lost opportunities, the stories of what never happened, due to my rush, my embarrassment, my need to protect myself. And, yet he returns and shows me new places, spaces to dwell with those that need sustenance.

We are to be the voice for those that have none, and yet here we are silenced, for me the safest place to be, for in my youth too much excitation existed my vocals with rhetoric.

“Christ,” he says, didn’t walk with those like him, he choose to reside with the sinners, tax collectors, and women of the night. It is here he felt comfortable, why is it so hard for us to distance ourselves from those different from us. What is in our makeup that pushes our synapsis to fire viciously, repulsively for those that were made perfect in his image too?

Father’s last words are; “He is everything for everyone.” Why isn’t that enough at times for me?

Father Louis.

Perseverance – A willingness to include pain and suffering in our approaches to life – Psalm 27
When we say, I love you, what are we saying:
I accept you/ you are precious/ apart of my life that I love/ we are giving life/ God is begin us to come close/ pay attention to body in thinking about Christ.

We are saying to God that we are ready to do his Will.

He taught us a new approach to prayer;
I want to approach you through the gifts of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me. I place them in your hands. Help me to be attentive and receptive of your world. Accept the time I spend in your presence as an expression of my love for you, my desire to be with you.

Lent is a time lean on Christ, this was very new to me, not only to be available but be renewed. I hope to spend all the gifts God gave me during this time, leaving only a little footprint for others to follow.

Human Condition

Our bodies a massive series of interconnected tissues that record history of scares, injuries, accidents and time spent under a florescent light in sterile dwellings of sadness. Wheeling our stories in and out of blood lines capturing another time when life disappeared more fluidly. Modern trajectories heave souls to remain where they want not. Holes in our skin causes holes in our heart a cavity impenetrable.
What is life a sequence of events as  scalpel extract congealed plasma from his leg one year at a time. Each visit more is gone of his leg and being, he is leaving in flesh with his flesh looking at black globules splattered on the ground.
Ah!...that hurts.....oh!.....don't do that.....my leg, MY LEG!....
Ouch!.....as his hand reaching into the air for strength, for help, for a drug that will assist this hell.
My daughter bedside breathing, puffing air in and out of her lungs. I hear her does it register this stupidity she is urging me to copy. Others watch in horror hear my angst.
Puff.....inhale in slowly then hold 1, 2 fuck it, blow out. Again.
Puff .....inhale slowly and out.....Inhale in and out....Ah! why did this have to happen. I'm pissed off at my condition.
I can't figure out how to place my good foot, my left foot, ahead of my right when walking with the walker. I try....I hear their advice.....off in the distance it comes at a cost.....I am ashamed at where I am. My wife, anyone but me should be here. This is fate getting me, my sins....I laugh....I know it is my life getting me back....but I have to laugh.....there are others around judging me......I know my decisions haven't been sound. How to stop the speed of time.....there is so much to do....so much my wife wants to do .....and my body is failing me.
This bloody walker gets caught on every minute edge, crack, rug, a slight bump in concrete, in my agenda. My body heaves it up and over into another realm.....I am calm eyes closed I can feel the ocean.
In bed again, thank God.....the heat of the afternoon light streams in the bedroom window washing over my body the shame I feel having to be bathed like a babe, helpless, hapless. I am warm for once in this city.....did I really want to come so long ago.....I know we wanted to go back....it never happened. Now it is too late.
The bank has called again, the store, the meetings I am missing.....can I possibly catch up....did I ever think I would be here, others have been before me, why is this so foreign, perhaps this is my time.
Food is obsolete I eat as I am told, little flavor contrasts the metal staleness of prescriptions. Christ my pills I have to take all five of them now. Light purple is for my heart, 2 pink ones are for blood thinners, the orange for antibiotics, the yellow for pain, and the white for high blood pressure.....a new condition to my dyeing body.
Borrowed time this is my time! Christ says he has a purpose for me, at this late stage what could possibly arrive into a womb so gnarled. Ashes to ashes dust to dust, is it really here versions of it are arriving on my mind daily.
My family knew the man that I was, the man that God was transforming me to become, the man that somewhere along the route got lost. I am here now, this is me, wounded emotionally, physically, psychologically, and perhaps spiritually, but I will get it back. I need him. I need him to place a memory in my family's heart of who I am in his eyes.

The Sound of Loneliness

Every human has felt loneliness when friends aren’t around, friends have moved away and friends can’t come out to play. Evolution allows us to experience these ambiances to learn what comes next. Are we ones to falter, ruin an evening, a week-end, or muster joy in what we might have missed had our friends been around. It is these treasures that the spirit places in our midst. Most often family members that we might not wish to spend time with come alive allowing us to appreciate them for who they truly are, God’s blessing to us.

As age comes upon us pressures mount words are spoken or not, leaving hearts hollow cavities to fill. Some turn to the bottle some to limbs others to remedies cursing legalities engulfing their sorrows. Never finding the bottom of what truly ails them they run to catch the wind. Decades pass then one day a gesture resonates that piercing pain and if lucky would play they stop, linger, fight the embarrassment and shame and face the bastard straight on.

The sound of loneliness can only be felt at the bottom of one’s heart. Dropping a coin in a tin it reverberates the echoes of emptiness. Alone on the ocean with only sky above sea below screaming thoughts of what hasn’t been stares at you in ghosts. Stirring visions migrate into your soul across water evaporating long after consuming your fear.

How to go grasp what was once your true being. You reach out and hear

“You’ll figure it out?”  

You’re instantly back at the first blow that took you away to the depth of despair. Yearning like a babe simply to be held, to return to when you understood. Vacuity envelops you, drowning, unable to breath of what could have been. Ocean floors provide no consolation exits to rise in. Wide eye you float unconsciously unable to rescue your dream. What was it you were to do? To become?

This is your last chance to ride that train. It’s leaving the station with one destination your lungs need to expand or be crushed by twenty years of weight. Time forges ahead, it is the one constant. It knows not your aspirations nor does it care, it’s only purpose is to rhyme. Your job is to capture seconds into devotions, intentions and dedications.

To make a story of your life, rich in depth, shallow in distress and regrets.

Sometimes it is those that seem unlikely/ That do things that no one can imagine

Isn’t this what God asks of us every day? To be all that he has created each one of us to do? Somewhere in life our rush, our haste outdoes our imagination, our greatest gift to one another. Let’s make a plan to do something so wonderful for ourselves every day that we anticipate the morning to create for another entire day. Springing to life in all of us the joy that plants a seed so deep that the world can't undo.

Do you ever wonder what someone on the other end of the world is doing? And in 2006 when I was in Ghana I met 2 people that changed the world for the better, my life was forever changed. Anna was a 65 year old teacher that was devotedly religious. Church was at 6:00 prior to our teaching day and at 6:00 at night. Her words were few yet fierce. When discussing gender issues and men thought it alright to fondle their high school female students. Her force came alive. I was asked to mediate and quickly relinquished the floor to her. Quietly, serenely her words cut through color, gender and skin.

“God is our witness, our compass, and in times of temptation, CRY TO HIM, SCREAM TO HIM, yet never let your hands touch another woman.”

Silence was deafening.

 There are few people that followed God as closely as she did. I feel so blessed to have met her, listened to her wisdom, and pondered her silence. She died 6 months after we left Ghana. The world will truly miss her.

 An elderly man, that is a proverb, as there are so few with the onset of aids. Walking in the side street on our day off I met him days prior to leaving. I was chewing on a raw carrot I’d bought at a road side stand…..not fully paying attention….I noted that he cocked his head as I passed by. I stopped and drew near. Boys were playing soccer with a make shift ball made out of plastic bags wrapped around and around in the background. Hunched over with grey hair he said.

“The saddest day in a man’s life is when he thinks he can do it on his own.”
When I returned a superintendent at work asked me the most profound thing that has happened in Africa….. 70 years of discretion fell on deaf ears, how utterly tragic.

Their motto is “And this shall pass too.” Referring to principals that will leave schools for their tyranny is unsurpassed. Another is “It is my way or the highway.” Proverbial said by most principals and superintendents, too utterly scared to face their own demons, themselves, those that lean solely to use them as climbing limbs. This district sees differences as threating.
A week later I was asked in to this same man’s office.

I wanted to know if he was man enough to tell me the truth……when we met for my review for an advancement. God has graced me or cursed me with the gift of discernment. I already knew that he, would never hire me. I prayed while he found minuscule comments to speak about..... He asked why how excited I was? Without taking my eyes from his I said, “My work for God is not done.” He knew then that I knew that there was no job.
When our chief of staff left there was a reception and I congratulated the same man on his speech.

His exact words were, “Thanks…..and good luck with your future career.”
As if I needed his permission to move forth….. this wearing scales he remained blind.

I learned more about him in those few words than a life time of his good intensions.
He has stood before me speechless at numerous engagements. It is not I that has lost years of advancement it those that he has misused of God’s….and those can’t be supplanted.

Looking for Wonderful

I wrote a list of five main projects I wanted to complete while taking a year away from teaching. What I have learned is the order of what I had suspected would constitute my daily hours has changed. Grasshopper is learning to listen. …………………the rest of this blog should be blank yet the cocoons still needs to be unveiled butterfly has sprung new wings.

The internal search for peace took me to church, I mean literally to church. I wake with anticipation of darkness to suppress racing thoughts. Pray until my mind is bursting with lists and walk along hard packed paths unwinding. Reflection, presence, contemplation, deliberation are taking me on wild adventures. People ask for obvious trips…..those less drug induced……and without a plane, train, or automobile don’t register on the sex, violence, and Nazi scale. I’ve gone further in 6 months, clocked more mileage a

Forgiveness of myself has increased. Making conscious choices to reach out at every chance to those I didn’t heed, that didn’t transmit. Beating down demons that 30 years of routine have ingrained memory is hard to recall. I have speeded up to slow down. Prototypes are my friend. Listening records stories. Observing humans for their gifts, only their gifts, leaving pain for those in search. Finding truth when asked what I am most proud of. Not any accolades what others have shown me of themselves, their vulnerability to risk all has soared my gratitude and brought me to my knees.

Asking others who they are, what their passionate about when no one else is around, listening to the pause……then pure delight in someone truly being interested in who they are. No letters, no cards, simply joy.

Blinded by fear, hearing voices that push creativity into the recesses of graves are fading. They were the norm for a time and now free there are days I allow my mind to ruminate at how entombed I’d become.

Appreciation is what allows me to live each like it is the last.

My father frail in body said, “With the time I have left I want people to know I am open to them” I recall my grandmother telling me she was ready to go. My father cried in my arms for hours. Now here he is knowing there are more years behind than ahead, the raw exposure calms me before my head can truly grasp the loss of hearing his voice daily. I record our conversations.

Wisdom throws laughter in the heat of a moment drawing sagaciousness from still waters.

The silence that surrounds me shrouds me to hear what is truly there.

Risk

26 letters of joy filled tears of wonderment at how shapes can create sounds, morpheme, the traditional meaning of a word, can conjure images, pigments, roughness, memoirs, reservations, and the naggings of what might have been. Then tell me you abhor literature as I have heard from friends and students. No photo, capturing a 100 words that drip insults, insolents, and audacious behaviour come close to the sentiments of the warmth of a Mississippi summer evening sitting on veranda sipping lemonade looking out of cotton fields, white tailed cotton balls on brown popsicle sticks.

Listening to the eyes of a black man that has just been fired for pulling over a governor, asking his superior on the CB what to do and being given full authority to drive him home, tow his car, and let it go and then the next day being fired by a black boss trying to make heat, throw someone else under the bus to get a promotion. Without a thought he was out the next day looking for another job, not a county in the district would hire him regardless of his righteousness.

His voice weighed heavy in his throat as we spoke quietly in the back of a small, very small 12 by 12 foot gas station being staffed by a woman that had worked for 20 years, not by choice yet by necessity at the local factory, to feed her children, feed her life, her spirit, to keep going, even when for the last 3 years she had been promoted to a supervisor without a pay raise. Never mind bringing it up with her superiors, she had several times and each time they asked her if she knew where she worked, whether she could appreciate that she had a job.

Now for the first time, she was asked by some white woman trying to wrap her head around something that was so foreign breathing through gills seemed simpler. Her stature spoke more of who she was as a citizen, a human being, a human that flourished this damned planet and yet she was condemned because of color. I knew if I listened much longer I was going to scream in this tiny compartment in my mind. Get out and deal with your own mess, you got enough of it, why the need to be here and deal with them. The lilt in her voice brought me in like a babe to midnight milk there was little holding me back. I vowed to stay in touch and I made good. She has never left the factory after 2 more attempts to increase her pay or go back to the floor where they wouldn’t allow her to go because she knew too much. I felt her eyes asking probing me what to do, a woman 15 years my senior. I had no right, my place wasn’t there,

Having just entered the Zion Missionary Baptist Church that holds 3000 black folks wondering where the progress has come from the 1960 and crying in my room at the Regency Hotel that his hosting a whopping 4 guest because the crime rate of Jackson is so high no one will stay in the center of town. I never understood how a heart was broken until Jackson. I wondered around in my mind every aspect of life I wanted to be a part of changing, why me, why here. What was my connection and why was I so damned in need of helping these folks that truly wanted nothing to do with a white child of ignorance from the north. Why had the governors of Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee crept under my skin shingles on hold as anger seeped like oil in Texas bubbling irrepressibly irresponsibly where it didn’t belong. Hours of listening to their decrepit voices on the radio in my hours, days of driving from state to state, from reminder to reminder of what hasn’t changed. Whatever happened in the north, regardless of the positive effects on the economy they weren’t interested in it. The blacks were simply a commodity that were in the wrong place at the wrong time for what the last 400 years. No wonder they were outraged fighting back breaking shadows nightmares of what 15 generations had experienced.

Presently I reside in Calgary like a caged animal trying to figure out what my purpose on this planet is and how to live out the remaining days. Sure easy enough to go back to the same old, yet what my soul yearns to do is make changes outside of the affluence of my surroundings. Finally decide to walk the talk living out the remainder of the years with those that Jesus would have treated like God’s at this table. The question is how to do it without breaking the decree, breaking my psyche, my family and friends? They don’t deserve my guilt, my intents, my needs, or desires, they deserve the best of what God can conjure up in me. Yet unlike Madison County I can’t stay and do nothing. All the volunteer work here isn’t going to make changes where it is truly needed in areas that don’t speak up, where a voice needs to be written, not spoken.

Balance what is it, when for the first time in my life that I haven’t stopped and accessed my purpose on a metaphorical level. Equilibrium is the measure of a man’s life. Hal and I walked down the street and wondered what if we won, we truly won the lotto, not that we miss the immeasurable and necessary step of buying a ticket, yet what if we won, why aren’t we doing what we would do if we won, right now? Is it money that is truly stopping us, or time. So here is my new year’s resolution.

No, not to lose weight, nor join a gym, those are first world problems, the more you think about it. Why isn’t everyone in the developed world trying to heal this miraculous planet of ours? When did we become so removed from mother earth that plastic inanimate objects fill our void, or synthetic psychotic drug kill the rich. How many millennium have taught us that relationships, connections to another mortal permeates, satiates, all fallacies. Each summer my fingers long for the grit of our backyard mire to teach them how to grow our victuals. Never a season passes that I am not amazed at the wonders that come forth from our garden.

Human spirit is all we have left as a world. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the groove in Stella's that crazes us to do the unthinkable, love the unlovable, and be the unbelievable. Each childhood dream is a reality that screams to be performed. Every adult plunges another opportunity to earn another buck, for that has become a dream, and what we do with it.....memories without touch.

God has taught me to surge without thought, leap without doubt, and fail valiantly. Risk, a four letter word, a board game, an illegal act in the first world saves lives everyday in far off lands where choice isn't an option.

 

Christmas 2 - Dec. 25th

My father began telling stories of his childhood, “When I was about 6 or 7 my mother would send me from Montreal on the train to Welland, Ontario to visit my grandmother. The post master of the train would have to make sure I got off the train in Toronto and got onto the right train for Welland. The local boys would invite me to go swimming at the pool. I knew I didn’t know how to swim but the lure was too great. And, sure enough someone pushed me into the pool. I recall floating down to the bottom and seeing all the sports teams he has gone and seen and his parents love, not truly recognizing that he was drowning therefore no panic struck him to flare about. All of a sudden he was plucked out of the pool by the back of his shorts by the lifeguard.”

Then Harvey, 82 years old carried on. “I recall being young and living on a farm when my mother said I needed to go the local school gym to see the doctor. When I arrived there were several beds set up around the gym. The doctor came and took me by the arm, asked me to lie down and proceeded to take my tonsils out.”

“Was there no antithetic?” said Taylor cringing.

“No, we simply had the operation in the gym and were asked to stay for a while and then sent home.”

“Do you remember how much pain you were in?” I asked.

“I recall getting a nice cold coke on the way home.”

Hal began telling stories of the myriad of times he and Bill, his best friend were getting into trouble. “We were trying to place new seat covers on, when the latch sprung back and hit me in the eye. I knew something was wrong when Bill said nothing, and when I looked in the mirror and couldn’t see my eye. Off to the hospital we went and they kept me there for 2 weeks. I had hemorrhaged my eye. I didn’t want my mother to worry so I told Bill to tell her I was at his house. Days later the hospital called my mother and asked if there was any heart conditions in our family. She couldn’t figure out why the hospital would be questioning her about her family’s hearts. They told her Hal was in the hospital and had been for some time. She freaked.”

Kohlman and Taylor had been listening to one story after another from the elders and must have been thinking. Either that their dad was accident prone or that no one ever cared for youth back in the day, or that there were no boundaries. They also must have wondering that the mere bruises, bumps they had endured were nothing compared to the broken bones, lacerations, and near death experiences of those around the table. Knock on wood that none of us would have to sustain these incidents.

Hours rolled by, food was eaten, gifts were exchanged yet what was so amazing was how 12 people that I love were present, no phones, no necessity to leave, experiencing one another’s lives. Kohlman and Taylor sat quietly listening and I hoped they were absorbing the adoration they were surrounded by they were a part of.