7 Quick Takes Friday #34

I'm ba-a-a-ck! I missed participating in last week's 7 Quick Takes Friday because I was at a four-day contemplative prayer retreat. Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler for hosting the 7 Quick Takes meme at Conversion Diary.

1. The best part of this past week is the four-day contemplative prayer retreat on Franciscan spirituality that I attended at the St. Francis Retreat Center. I usually spend nights at home during retreats at the center since I am a local. However, Fr. Kevin, who led this retreat (my first retreat with Fr. Kevin, and I would certainly sign up right away for any others he might offer), wanted us all to spend our nights at the center even if we lived only five minutes away, like me. It was a wise request. Being there round-the-clock put me in a wonderful frame of mind, without being distracted by the various kinds of little (and sometimes not so little) things that come up at home.

2. Sunday afternoon, following the last Mass of the retreat, I hurried down the hill to lunch at Jardines, my favorite Mexican restaurant, with a friend who is an administrator at the University of California system (we have multiple universities here: Berkeley, UCLA, UC at San Diego, and more) and several of her colleagues. After lunch, we returned to my house to talk about a project that they are working on. Essentially, they wanted me to brainstorm next steps with them. It turned out that they had based their project in large part on one of my books, so brainstorming next steps was simple for me albeit not for them. Two days later I got a note from the admin assistant. They are paying me an honorarium for that afternoon. Wow! I had only thought that I was helping out my friend and was very happy to receive a free lunch as payment. I have no idea how much, but I am in need of some money to pay off God's credit card for recent use and, just like it always happens, here comes some money from out of nowhere to do that!

3. Ah, Monday! Back to work! A day stuffed with meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. Yep, that would be about right -- four meetings. One of them, however, was very enjoyable. I conduct a leadership meeting for junior and senior leaders every other Monday. Right now, we are reading a fun book that reflects my management practices: First, Break All the Rules. If you are a manager or leader of any sort, I highly recommend the book to you. It is even fun to read. For me, even more enjoyable is listening to the discussions and watching especially the junior managers grow in wisdom and expertise. Mentoring the younger generation in this way is one of the perks of my job.

4. Monday night had an unexpectedly beautiful ending. I hurried home because I did not know if my prayer group co-leader was in town, and I did not want to be late. Of course, he had my key, but that did not matter because the convent always has an extra key. Sr. M came over just as I was driving up. Neither of us was present at the last meeting (I was in Washington, DC), so we did not know whom to expect. Well, no one showed up. So, after some minutes of catching up on each other's activities, Sr. Maria and I spent a long time in prayer together. It was one of those special moments, filled with grace, that one cannot plan but for which I am always grateful.

5. This has been a week of visitors. Some weeks are like that. They are often a nice break in the preparation of documents, answering of enotes, and scads of staff meetings. This week I was delighted to have a few minutes to welcome back one of our employees who works in Saudi Arabia and was back visiting family. We had two visits by teams from Washington-based organizations, both of which wanted to pick my brain and those of one or another of my center or division directors. Then, over came my boss's boss, who is rarely in my directorate, to rehearse for a very high-level visitor from Washington. He was very happy with what my directorate proposed to present. Whew! Then, less than two hours later, I received a call to tell me that the visitor would not be coming, at least not now. Even more whew! The best visitor, though, was a name that showed up on my calendar -- my admin keeps my calendar for me, so there are sometimes surprises for me -- at the last minute on Thursday for lunch. It was a colleague from another directorate. A native of Yemen, he has spent time in Jordan, and we meet periodically over lunch to reminisce about a place that is easily adopted as a second home. What a wonderful, relaxing interlude -- after which I hurried to the bank to wire transfer money to Lizzie who had accidentally overdrawn her account. I guess kids never grow up; they just get bigger! (To be fair, though, Lizzie usually does an excellent job of managing her limited finances.)

6. Recently, I started studying my 18th language. On Thursday, one of my employees who speaks that language natively, offered to give me a 30-minute lesson (and to continue with more lessons next week and in August). Now, I have three-and-a-half hours under my belt. We were able to communicate about myself, profession, and family. Today, she contacted me to change the time. We went back and forth several times and finally decided that we would have to wait until next week to meet. We did it all in her language. I was quite pleased at such progress, especially since the "research" (which I don't quite believe) insists that anyone over the age of 40 will have trouble learning a foreign language. I am well past that age, and I am learning in each hour the amount that textbooks expect most students to learn in a week. So, there, Mr. Researcher, put that in your pipe and smoke it! Don't count grandmothers out of any picture!!

7. I have recently discovered that Mass is offered twice a week at noon at a little, near-by chapel. Unfortunately, I have been too busy to attend on a regular basis. This week, however, perhaps under the influence of the retreat last weekend, I realized that this is not a condition, but a choice. I do not have to be too busy. So, I marked "do not schedule" at those hours on my calendar ad infinitum so that my admin assistant would not fill in anything and I could be "unbusy." I have been able to make both Masses this week (today, even, I ended up as lector), and those days have had a magical feel to them, likely because I had my priorities in order on those days.

I am looking forward to a great weekend, beginning with Shane's birthday celebration tomorrow. I hope your weekend will be exciting and enjoyable, as well!