Return from a Respite

So, I just looked up my old blog and discovered that it was still here! And that I used to be able to write! Mayhaps blogging again would be an excellent exercise in reviving lost writing skills. Time alone shall tell . . .

No, I haven't posted in a while

But for some strange reason, I just had to post this . . . and didn't have anywhere else to put it.
Thanks, Kate!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The South
North Central
The Northeast
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

It's just what I've said all along!
Should I take them up on that last statement?

The mountains draw them again

Nomi is home right now, and expecting to have the baby within the week! Pray that the baby is healthy, her labour goes well, and she is able to have a natural birth.

Going into mission territory

Okay, this is my opportunity to show off pictures from a trip to the U.P. with some lovely carloads of Ave people for the wedding of other long-lost Ave people. It was a great trip, a beautiful wedding, and the choir was absolutely inspired.


A perfect balance and blend of strong voices: 3 sopranos, 2 altos, 3 tenors (not pictured: Justin--he is holding the camera), and 2 basses. Bach, Mozart, and Palestrina were represented among the pieces we brought to life. The small town was blown away by our effort.

And missionary territory . . .


Today I finally accepted a position at a State University near home within the University Parish / Newman center. It is an internship, but the title is "Campus Missionary" and the goal is to gain experience. It sounds like many of my duties will be to act as a DRE and organize the religious education for the K-5 age-group as well as to help with RCIA and Adult Ed. Pray for me that all goes well!

Here comes the rain

I just spent this last week in D.C. for the Church Music Association's annual Musicae Sacrae colloquium. Also incredible was the electrical storm which was visible from Therese's apartment Sunday night:
This is the view from Therese's 11th floor apartment, overlooking Crystal City. The Pentagon is visible on the far right. What follows is a sequence.


In the last image, the rain is visible, coming down full force, blurring the lights and drenching the city. It was beautiful.

Brilliant burst of blue

I can see what makes me most excited--most times I've posted excitedly about an event, it has been an outdoor one (I can't wait to post photos from our Memorial Day weekend trip.) weekend, however, I was at home. It was very pleasant to be at home. I'm afraid I probably treated it as a holiday! One of the highlights was bike-riding with my mother. There is a network of the rails-to-trails projects around us, which make for ideal (if rather level and flat) bike-riding, bird-watching, and wild-flower finding. Without the traffic of cars, it is amazing how many other things find the peace in which to grow. Along one of the bike trails the other evening, as Mom says there usually are, there were indigo buntings everywhere. It was amazing to catch their bright song and even brighter blue *Flash!* along the sides of the bike trail or even across your path. So, I've included here a photo. You should also be able to find here a recording of the indigo bunting's song. (Half-way through you'll notice in the background the distinctive "drink your tea" of the Rufus-sided towhee. We also heard him on our ride--although the recording is not ours. )
I hope you are taking time to enjoy the summer!

Do pray for me

Charting a course is rather difficult, especially on little money and with diverse and multiple loves and desires . . . I seem to take rather longer at it than others I know have.

Roman's reminder

I eventually want to reminisce more about the reunion and its influence in my life, but for now I will content myself with a link to Roman's excellent address to the assembly that evening. Ave did teach me that it's all about Love. And, of course, Deus Charitas Est--the Love that moves the sun and other stars.

Some of the best years of our lives . . .

I was afraid that Ave would go out not with a bang, but with a whimper. Not so, world, not so!
I have just finished with three days of the best parties I have ever attended. Everything that has ever been Ave was there, only magnified and better than ever. I was priviledged to belong to the class that knew every student that ever attended or graduated from AMC, short a bare handful that came and left before 2001. As children of the same Alma Mater, all "born" within such a few short years of each other, the reunion was true to its name, and it was a joy to see so many people who have been a part of my life and share many of my same loves and memories. The evening was not sad, as I had expected it to be--I was so happy to see each and all of these members of my family. It was one of those evenings when you know, by the very rightness of the place you are in and the people you are with, that for at least this brief moment all is right with the world. Although I had not seen many of those people in years or at least one, they belonged in my life and it was good to see them there again and to speak with them about those things that are important. It was just GOOD to see them.
And to dance.
Dancing has always been an important part of Ave--especially swing dancing. Somehow, however, swing dancing has never been a main music choice at school-sponsored events. Until now. After the tremendous speeches (both excellent in theatrics--thank you, Dr. Russell--and in elements and style--hats off to valedictorian Roman yet again for a well-written speech--) the back wall of the room was opened up to reveal a dance floor and a big band, awaiting our dancing toes! Ave managed to finish with the evening that should always have been--there was good food, good drinks, good company, good conversation, good music (over which you could still hear to talk), and good dancing. And, of course, we all know how important an attribute Good is.
The evening finished with another extreme in company, conversation, drinks, music, and atmosphere at Paul's. And Sunday followed with an afternoon of croquet (which for the longest time I insisted was the proper occupation for Sunday afternoons on campus), bocce ball, steaks grilled to the juiciest medium rare and eaten in the back yard with red wine and excellent salads, and movies watched projected onto the back of the house while curling up in blankets next to an outdoor fire under the light of the moon.
The only regret was that it was so short--the festivities and the company demanded at least a fortnight to do them justice and were repeatedly interrupted by sad packing-ups and drivings to the airport.
Long may Ave live, and may we one day look back on these days and laugh at them as "the time we thought Ave had died." Remember--I'm not dead yet!

A Misty, Moisty Morning -- Adventure Number Two!

All of you Ave blokes should be happy to know that I survived my drive home from campus last weekend--the fog was as thick as pea soup. And it sounded like the frogs were, too. The drive past the old cemetery and the Catholic cemetery (necessitated by a road closing) was also incredible. There were dozens of candles flickering in the dark--about the only things visible that night. And it had rained earlier that day. That cemetery always reminds me of the Surmanski girls. Both of them liked to wander there, either to contemplate, to have quiet to themselves, to read, or to take photographs. It was the perfect distance away to take a walk to, and had just enough tall, old trees, winding two-tracks, and little hills to make you feel you were in another world than the one we lived and ate in. It was a good place to walk to and through. I like to escape the city. Oh, and I chanced to meet an old man . . . but he wasn't dressed all in leather. And I put $40 in my gas tank all at one shot. How do you do, and how do you do? How do you do, again?

A Complaint, a Discovery, and an Adventure

Now that I know people will visit my blog, perhaps I ought to give you something to read . . . :)

Yes, my first Adventure in Michigan! It came at the perfect time, too. Driving home from work today, the only thing I desired was to be outside and to take a tramp through some deserted, rugged, countryside with nary a house to be seen. I had been cooped up in a small office in a basement for the majority of the daylight hours for the last two days. Moreover, the weather here has been the most beautiful weather a person could ask for in a lifetime. But how and where am I supposed to enjoy the outdoors? The sight of the perfect, smooth, crack-less and weed-less concrete walking/bike path meandering among the artificial hills lining the perfect sub-divisions along my way home made me want to cry. Am I doomed to live in a place where Mother Nature was so imprisoned and controlled that you could walk forever and forever with nary a living blade of grass to touch the sole of your shoe, if you didn’t want it to? A place where every tread of that shoe could be perfectly, solidly, and smoothly planted on flawless poured concrete? I don’t WANT humans to be in control of this planet! But, I needed some food. And maybe a nap. And the girls at work had been disappointed when I turned down their invitation to return that evening for a Young Women’s formation group. Sure, it was probably lovely, but I thought it was pushing it to stay at work until 5:30. I thought surely I could leave by six. But then the printer had to take issue with me and I didn’t get out of there until 6:30. Sore, tired, hungry, and unused to living underground and sitting still, let alone at a desk, all day, there was no way I could harbor the thought of coming back to that WINDOWLESS hole to SIT and listen to people talk for the rest of the evening—no matter how nice the people or how excellent their words.

Enough complaining? After dinner Linda, my house-mother (I suppose that’s a good title for her) wanted to show me “her” secret garden. I figured I’d humor her. I wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about. Some small corner of the subdivision where no one hardly ever went (because they don’t get outside), but there was a small remnant patch of wildflowers to be found? Well, at least it meant walking outside, and I wouldn’t be able to have a destination in mind were I to talk a walk on my own.

The place she took me required crossing several streets and going through several subdivisions until we came upon a little hollow behind a small brook in-between two subdivisions. In the space that should have been the extended backyard of four or more houses was the most lovely garden, filled with meandering paths, quaint and queer statuary and odds and ends and, most lovely to see, a plethora of blooming flowers! Some of the flowers I did not realize bloom this early in the year. Several others I have never seen cultivated in a garden in such great numbers. Others I have only sold to customers in pots, or kept in inventory, but have never seen growing in a bed. It was beautiful! I wandered around, wondering at each new discovery. I had forgotten the joy of simple discovery—the joy in knowing that something exists! The pleasure at giving them names. There was pasque flower—in two different colors, as well as Hellebore (I finally remembered their name), Dutchman’s breeches, and Virginia bluebells. Brunnera in several varigated varieties, forget-me-nots, white trillium, May apples, fiddleheads of ferns curling up, as well as the strong spokes of hosta. An old tree leaned over, and the master gardener had trained a climbing hydrangea to grow up its upward-facing side. Old-fashioned bleeding hearts, a bright yellow flower I’m sure I only know as a weed but was beautiful there, forsythia, hyacinths, a daffodil, rock cress, vinca minor (periwinkle), and a beautiful azalea, to only name the ones I can remember or know the names to. It was a lot of fun. (Even though I had to listen to Linda complain the whole way that she can’t get her flowers to grow so nicely or so well. She tried asking me for advice, too, on how to get her garden to grow half as nice—while I’m still in awe over the mounds of woodland wildflowers.)

The Great Adventure, however, was on the way home—and winds up at an old, deserted psychiatric hospital, so you’d better listen well and read all the way to the end.

So, I’m the newcomer, and Linda ought to know the way. We walked up to Schoolcraft. We turned in next to the children’s ward. We see a baseball field. We continue on the “road” or service drive that travels past it. We see a sign that says “do not enter.” We see two other that say “this road closed after 5pm weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday. We continue on. We climb over the road block. Linda doesn’t know what this road is or where it goes—although it is pointing approximately the direction we want to end up. Even though we were surrounded by development, this lone road gave the atmosphere of being in the country. There was marshland on either side of the road for a while, and then thick tree-covered hills. The road was an old one, crumbling on the edges where Mother Nature was reclaiming that which was rightfully hers. The sun went down, the bats began to twitter and flitter overhead. Two deer crossed the road in front of us. We began to wonder where the road would lead us. Then Linda remembered—there was an old psychiatric hospital in this area, long closed down, which the owners had been unable to sell, even at auction. Eventually the buildings and out-buildings came into sight. Long and low, with many windows, there were many lights on in and on the walls of the buildings. Linda began to remember that the police patrolled this area, because of the great number of 'trespassers.' We couldn’t find the way out, especially because we were hindered by a great, tall wire fence that seemed to encircle much of the property. We found one gate open—open and held open by many years’ growth of vines. Beyond it was a fantastic four-story high building that looked like the factory an evil villain would use to produce whatever sort of evil robot or rocket he was going to use to destroy the world. It had three tall, symmetrically-placed chimneys crowning the top of the building and a massive ramp (or, with a little imagination, aircraft landing-pad) emerging from the one side, and two round granary-type metal buildings next to it—and behind it was a subdivision! After climbing through a hedge of spruce trees and traveling through two backyards we made it onto the street, and Linda knew her way back home from there.

It is an amazing feeling NOT to have been caught by goons or by the ghosts of the souls of tortured psychiatric patients. I also like the feeling and smell of fresh air in your lungs. I could breathe the air outdoors all day.

Surrexit Christus, Alleluia!

What more needs to be said? Life and death have fought a marvelous battle: the dead Prince of life now lives and rules! Surrexit Christus spes mea!
A blessed and glorious and liturgical Easter to you all!
And Happy Birthday to Papa Benedictus XVI!

Et Verbo Caro Factum Est

Et habitavit in nobis . . .


Today marks again that point when God fully touches Human History and, in His loving Wisdom, enters into it Himself as one of us. In the mediaeval tradition, March 25 marked also the anniversary of Our Lord's death on the cross--His two acts of total self-oblation and Ultimate Love culminating in a single day. How can you help but to Love this Guy?

On a Friday in Lent

What have I gotten myself into? Working for a religious order? Am I crazy? It's so quiet there. But, hey, I've complained about retail for enough of my life. And . . . this gets me out of the house. And full-time hours are a good thing. And, the people really are nice. When was the last time I worked a job and found a priest talking to me for an entire half-an-hour about how much he loves St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises? Michigan, prepare thyself. Here I come.

Another Ave Engagement! Congratulations!

We figured it'd happen sooner or later . . . as of yesterday, she wears his engagement ring!

My favorite Canadian/Japanese/Slovakian bride

Isn't she just beautiful?
I recieved these photos the other day. The wedding was last July, and newlyweds are very happy, if also very busy and expectant! :) 

He wears a Yankees cap

So we sat in the hot tub, Homer, Virgil, and I,
One on my left and one on my right.
The water was boiling, my muscles were numb;
You're so young, you've got oodles of time, said the one,
The other told me to hurry up and get
"A good, handsome, Eye-talian man" for myself,
And to make sure he was rich.

But what do they know? They're octogenarians.

Read it as you will. Angel knows what it means.

Freshmen, '04

A favorite photo, pulled out of the archives. I was a senior, these were the new freshman--and I'll always love them at this age as little sisters! 

Coffee to go

Another long day at work--just standing still. I do not cease to be amazed an how impatient I am to be forced to do nothing at all for whole quarter-hours on end. At other times in my life, I have found that I can spend whole hours at home doing nothing while avoiding something I should be doing. At work, however, idleness ceases to be an activity that overtakes other activities and becomes simply a lack of activity or purpose. I long for purpose.
For all of those who may happen upon this blog and actually know me in real life, but haven't run across me recently, you may be surprised to learn that I am currently a barista, making gourmet coffee (in American and Italian forms, on American and Italian machines, respectively) in a small coffee bar. Yes, it's a "bar" in many senses of the word--I pull shots, mix drinks, and have different brews "on tap" behind the counter. The customer base isn't very well established yet, however, and there are long periods of having the entire kitchen cleaned with nothing more to do.
I had a couple of interesting customers, today, however, and was happy to have the time to actually have an extended conversation with another person, even though they were not people I would normally seek out. One was the little old lady who had just come back from taking her 94 year old neighbor to lunch--they do this twice a week at regular times, she told me--and she just had to stop and tell someone of their little ritual, how much it means to her, and how "sharp" her friend is, even though his body is so worn out he can hardly walk, and he is disappointed that he can't drive anymore. Another was the truck driver, who stopped to eat his breakfast and tell me how unglamorous his job of forty years was, and how annoying all of the paperwork and government regulations were, to ensure that I never desire the same sort of life he leads. Not that I ever have, of course. :)
Of the multitude of places my life seems to be travelling towards or is currently pausing in, right now the one constant in all of my activities is that I am constantly being exposed to and meeting a lot of different people of various ages who lead very different lives. I can't wait to see why God, in his Divine Providence, has ordained it to Be thus. I'm sure it all has a grand and important purpose in His scheme of things!

A happy, barefoot day

This is the photo I wanted to use for my profile photo. Lets see if I can figure this out better. 

Reflections

Well, I don't know if this blog was a good idea or not, but here is my contribution to the proliferation of amateurs posting random thoughts on the internet in the form of words, words, words, and more words (and the occasional photo). Hopefully, this format will help me to actually be less random in my use of words than I have been of late, and to focus on focusing on the essentials.
Now, we shall just have to see how often I indulge in this exercise.
God bless,
Your new Writer-in-Residence,