7 Quick Takes Friday #43

See more 7 Quick Takes Contributions at Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary.

Since I spent most of the week sleeping -- well, at least evening and night and even an extra hour most days into the morning -- I am not certain that I have seven "events" to report, but I shall "dig" a little and see what I can come up with. Actually, I will make them short because I feel like sleeping already. It is this darn cold/flu/virus; I could sleep it off a lot more easily if I did not have to go to work every day! As for the seven takes, here goes:

1. Dinner with Shane and Lemony. This week was Lemony's birthday, so Donnie and I took her, Shane, and the grandkids to dinner at her favorite restaurant, Dona Ester's, in our little town of San Ignatio. We had quite a choice of authentic Merxican foods. If not anything else, this town is indeed authentic Mexican in many respects, not just in its food choices. Nathaniel sat beside me and chatted non-stop about bakugans, about which Grandma Beth knew very little and still knows very little (I cannot quite get my head wrapped around these newfangled toys) and battle plans, the latter of which he sketched out on a napkin for me. When it was time to leave, he mugged for my camera. Nikolina meanwhile slept and slept and slept, did not wake up at all during the entire meal (hm, seems she inherited that sleeping thing from her grandmother). Pleasant evening.

2. Tripping to San Diego. The next day Donnie and I left for San Diego. Padre Julio, a priest from Colombia, about whom I have blogged on this site earlier (see posts on Fr. Julio) had asked us to come see him in San Diego, where he had moved recently. When Padre Julio was a priest in our diocese, I had taught him English so that he could celebrate the English Masses. (I originally met him when he was celebrating our Spanish Masses, which is the Mass I usually attended on Sundays -- still do.) I was able to get free tickets to San Diego from all my frequent flying. Off we went, having obtained rather nice seats right by the door, or so I thought. It was freezing there, and so I was glad I had brought a warm hoodie sweatshirt for keeping warm! Cold aside, pleasant flight.

3. Dinner with Padre Julio. Once we reached San Diego, I called Padre Julio, who suggested that we meet at Anthony's Restaurant, a popular seafood restaurant on the harbor -- well, on land in the harbor. Thanks to the GPS we had brought with us and installed in our rental car, a Mazda that we quite enjoyed driving, we easily found Anthony's. Finding parking near Anthony's, however, was not nearly as easy a feat. It was clearly a popular restaurant. After several swings through the parking lot, we lucked out. Someone was leaving as we were approaching, and we were able to pull into the only open spot. I have no idea how Padre Julio found a space, but he did and, to our surprise, was already waiting for us inside. There were some interesting dishes on the menu but somehow we all felt like fish. So fish it was. That and some lively conversation, filling in the missing gaps in our information base since we had last seen each other. Please conversation.

4. Mass with Padre Julio. On Sunday, we put the GPS to good use again as we wended our way through San Diego to the church where Padre Julio was celebrating Mass, Cristo el Rey (Christ the King Church). We quickly realized that we were the only Anglos in the entire church -- gringoes, I suppose, would be the better term. Padre Julio was very happy to see us there and introduced me to his congregation as his teacher and us as "good gringoes" -- we were not quite sure how to take that except in the best of intentions as was meant by Padre Julio. After Mass, we parted wtih Padre Julio as he had to leave for Guadelajara and we got to spend a relaxing evening at our hotel. We had contemplated spending an evening on the town, but we know San Diego well from the days when three of our children were attending college there, so opted for a kick-back evening, instead. Pleasant rest.

5. It hit. On Monday, it -- the cold, flu, virus, whatever it is -- hit me, and it hit hard. I was wiped out before we even made it back from the airport. When I get sick, I crave sleep, something that I otherwise often get very little of. I was suddenly very tired, and it seemed like the long trip from San Francisco had never been longer. I am not sure if it seemed longer because I was not driving or would have seemed longer had I been driving; in either case, all I wanted to do was sleep. And so as soon as I reached home, I slept. All afternoon. All evening. All night. Pleasant dreams.

6. A week of work. I had grand thoughts of perhaps sleeping through the rest of the week as well, but that was not to be. Every day filled up with appointments before I left for home the previous day. No complaints will you hear from me about them for most were quite interesting appointments. Many people just wanted to talk about one thing or another. Several junior managers stopped in, wanting guidance on one or another topic or mentoring or just to talk. All the senior managers were out of town, so it seems that with the echelon of management between the junior managers and me gone, interaction between us took place on a several-times-a-day basis. (I will relate a joke about management and talking tomorrow; I am out of time for today.) Pleasant week.

7. Afghanis. The Afghanis who work in our organization, especially the Pashtuns, are delighted with the fact that I have now spent time in their country and that I have learned to speak some Pashto. They go out of their way to find opportunities to give me a chance to practice Pashto. For some reason today, I felt like an ice cream cone at lunchtime and stopped into Burger King where I had heard ice cream had just been added to the menu. The BK is across the street from my office, so it is often a gathering place at lunch for my colleagues. Sure enough, there were a few there today, too. Two of them were Pashtuns, and they immediately approached me, speaking Pashto. We ended up sharing lunch although I had not originally planned to eat lunch at all. These two are relatively new employees, so I got a chance to learn more about them. Pleasant company.

And now it is indeed night time. So, I will wish you all pleasant dreams.

Spiritual Sunday #5: Blessings

For more Spiritual Sunday posts, I recommend that you wander over to the website of Charlotte and Ginger, who host the Spiritual Sunday meme.

Because I do not blog on Sundays -- keeping it as the sabbath -- I use older posts (forgotten perhaps but hopefully still good enough) from one or another of my blogs that seem appropriate for this meme. Yes, I know I could post on Saturday instead, but typically I can pulled in too many other directions to post on Saturdays, or I have a post that has been written in advance and posts automatically on that day. In any event, it seems to work to bring out the older posts that many have not read before or ones from other blogs I maintain that readers of 100th Lamb may not know about.

Since Donnie and I are right now with Fr. Julio in San Diego, I thought that perhaps the most interesting, or at least the most apropos, post would be the one I wrote about him on Modern Mysticism. He has been a real blessing to us, and last night at dinner continued in that vein. Here is the post: Blessings.

My Unremarkable House

For the first three years I lived in San Ignatio, I lived in a quite unremarkable house, unremarkable being the most generous word possible to describe it. It was tiny and clearly had gone through many internal modifications over the years. Our best guess is that it had once been a bunkhouse for field hands before San Ignatio expanded from three streets to six.

It was not the kind of house to which one would invite company. My boss dropped by once and never returned. We once also held an SFO (secular Franciscans) formation meeting there, and the formation director did not want to return. In neither case was it a matter of hospitality. I exhibited the same hospitality I offered in other, more popular, houses I have lived in it. No, it was the house.

A muddy path led up to it. The strangely rectangular living room did an inadequate job of hosting facing couch and chairs. A small, square dining room that lurked on the edge of a tiny, turn-in-a-circle only kitchen held no more than four metal chairs and a small, glass-topped table. It was enough for Donnie and me, but guests were crowded. I have always considered that guests came to visit me, not my house. I may have been wrong. The only repeat guest I had was Padre Julio.

Now I live in a house with a green lawn, gravel driveway, deck, and white picket fence. Our rooms are only slightly larger but shaped more regularly. Guests come in droves. We are the popular spot for the prayer group's movie nights and the neighborhood BBQs. My boss has made repeat visits. Padre Julio returned to his home country of Colombia and then was reassigned to San Diego before we moved into our new house, but I am sure that he would have liked it.

What I liked about Padre Julio is that he accepted the first house, too. Three times a week he came for English lessons. When he was in town for other reasons, he would often park in my yard because it was a convenient, albeit muddy, location and parking is hard to find in San Ignatio -- not because of congestion, of which there is none, but simply because of a lack of parking spaces in general. Often, he parked without without asking. He knew mi casa es su casa.

I understood later why he accepted mi casa so easily. One night toward the end of our sessions, as he was preparing to return to Colombia, he pulled out his laptop for Donnie to configure so that we could continue to communicate via Skype. This way, he would not lose his English-language proficiency, which he had developed with great effort (his and mine -- 9 hours a week for ten months). There on the screen was a one-room shack, the kind one sees in ads asking for charitable donations. "That's my home," he told me with nostalgia.

I understand the nostalgia. It's not what the home looks like. It's what happens inside it. Padre's warm, loving mother raised seven sons in that shack, three of whom became priests.

Mi casa, by comparison, was a palace. At the same time, he was familiar enough with American culture to know that mi casa was very humble in comparison to other American homes. Knowing that allowed him to share with me unashamedly -- in fact, honestly and somewhat proudly -- the humble abode in which he was raised. Somehow, through the picture of that shack in which he grew up, I instantly understood Padre Julio well. We had something in common: unremarkableness.

7 Quick Takes Friday #27

In reviewing this week, looking for some quick takes to share with you and with Jennifer Futwiler, who hosts this meme over at Conversion Diary, I realized that for the first time in a long, long time, I had a fairly normal week. Oops, come to think of it, I didn't. I just think I did. But, heck, wait a minute, you judge!

1. On Friday, I cut work and spent the morning at First Friday (Day of Recollection) at St. Francis Retreat Center in the morning, where the co-director presented us with a history of the Virgin Mary that contained much that was new to me. I love it when I learn new things! In fact, much of the history was new to many people there. We were all enthralled. Mass was simple and special, as always. Then I had to leave. I wish I could have stayed for lunch and the afternoon session, but at least I had a morning reprieve. I am grateful to have had those special hours because even though I returned to work, the spirit of the morning stayed with me the rest of the day.

2. Donnie and I joined Shane, Lemony, and Nikolina for Nathaniel's baseball game on Saturday. Our little budding scientist is definitely not a budding sportsman, but he likes the game and has fun at it. I posted some pictures from the game over on The Clan of Mahlou: Life Goes On - In Pictures. It was a modern, city game, with real bases. I remember my childhood games. Let's see: the clothesline was first base; second base was the swing set; third base was the apple tree; and home was a flat piece of wood we threw down on the grass at the appropriate spot. My, how times have changed! Or, maybe it is just the location that has changed. Following the ball game, Shane left for work. The rest of us went to Jerry's, a local diner-style restaurant for a relaxing lunch and time to talk. Lemony told us that Nikolina is finally starting to crawl. Her legs are very weak, but the doctor has said that it is possible that she may walk; Lemony is betting on that. (See The Clan of Mahlou: The Awesome Power of a Mother's Love for details.) Nathaniel forgot all about his baseball game when I told him I had bought him a glow-in-the-dark jigsaw puzzle of a tiger. In fact, he badgered Shane about it for two days until Shane brought him to our house to pick it up. Now, the question is, will he be able to sit still long enough to finish it?

3. Sunday. Mother's Day. I woke to the thought of being pampered and spending a day bathed in a calm spirit and pleasant thoughts. Well, that last just about 20 minutes. Before I had struggled all the way out of bed, Noelle called in tears. Her best friend from college, also a young woman with spina bifida, had not woken up Sunday morning. At 4:00 a.m., her husband had found her dead. He called Noelle because he knew she would want to know. (More details are posted on The Clan of Mahlou: Boueversee.) So, on Sunday, I skipped my plans for being pampered; I broke my promise to attend the renewal vows of friends who were celebrating their 50th year of marriage; I drove to Salts with to do what mothers do: console her disconsolate child. Indeed, Sunday was Mother's Day.

4. On Monday, our prayer group met as we usually do on the second Monday of every month: at my house to watch an inspirational movie. Various people bring munchies. We share some updates on our life and our history of the movie. Then we watch the movie and end the evening with prayer. Agnostic Donnie typically joins us for the munchies and the movie. During our prayer her retires to our office. This week we watched Padre Pro, a Cristero martyr. We preceded the movie with reading about the events of 1917-1930 in Mexico, the revolution, the communist influence (including Trotsky's exile to Mexico from Russia) and the Christian martyrs, many of them priests, who fought back. Two of Padre Pro's brothers were jailed with him: Humberto and Roberto. Humberto was shot, as was Pro. Roberto, however, survived to tell the story. I highly recommend then movie to anyone with an interest in maryrs or Mexican history. (Note: the film is in Spanish, but it does have subtitles; we tend to be a bilingual group.) After the movie, something unusual happened. Donnie stayed for our prayer. An awesome statement in its simplicity. (See Modern Mysticism: Promises for a description of the significance.)

5. I came home right after work on Tuesday, as opposed to mid-evening as usual. Within minutes, one of our neighbors knocked on our door. He was gathering information for the census. Given the size of our town and how well he knows everyone, our neighbor could probably have answered most of the questions without dropping by. Nonetheless, this way the details are accurate. Following the few questions on the census form, we talked a bit. I suppose that is what happened at all the houses: a little data gathering and a little chatting. That is what happens in small towns. One of the oddities about the very small size of our town is that no one got the census forms in the mail. There is no home delivery of mail here, so when the forms were mailed to our homes, the post office sent them back because it would have taken far too many hours to sort them out (more than the two people who work there could manage). As a result, our entire town had to be canvassed in person. Just one more unique thing about San Ignatio...

6. Wednesday, day of joyful surprise! Padre Julio came to town. He had wanted to be assigned to one of our local parishes after his year back home in Colombia, but local politics prevented that. (Read local politics as disagreements with the bishop who apparently was opposed to Padre's work with Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia, the organization that Padre founded to help children of Colombia who were in danger of being pulled into the insurgency and criminal activity). Therefore, after returning from his home country of Colombia, he settled in Chula Vista, just 30 minutes from where his brother is living in San Diego. (In every cloud there is a silver lining.) Although we received word of Padre's arrival at the last minute, all of us who had been part of his work while here showed up for a party and prayer. Padre told us that the school supported by Por Amor is now operational and the self-sustaining farm is coming into being. Dreams realized! Before sharing all this news, Padre introduced me to the group. While I knew those of them associated with Por Amor, there were other folks who had come from distant towns who had been in one or another of Padre's parishes. Padre expressed so much gratitude for my family's design of Por Amor's website and for my teaching him English that I did not know how to respond. Fortunately, after a bit he moved on to other topics, information sharing, and prayer. There were a number of children there, and I loved watching Padre move among them, blessing each of them and even taking one of the teenagers aside for confession. For me, Padre is the quintessential priest. He is that for many, I am certain. That is why some traveled nearly 100 hours to be present and why no one complained about cramming dozens of people into a small house. What a wonderfully special ending to what started out as a very ordinary day.

7. Thursday brought such a wonderful bill. That's right: a bill! In fact, a bill from the IRS. Now, I suppose that ordinarily not many people would be looking forward to getting a bill from the IRS, but then my life is not particularly ordinary. In this case, the bill was for the last payment on a 5-year payment plan for miscalculated taxes from the nineties. Four years ago, I had no idea that the IRS could go back that many years and re-calculate taxes, then charge late fees and fines covering the in-between years. It was a nightmare, and we had to turn to a tax accountant for help. However, it all worked out in the long run, and, except for the unpleasantness of finding old calculations re-figured and having to pay whopping fines because of the number of years that passed, the IRS has been generally kind throughout the process (well, at least the people of the IRS have been kind; I am not sure that I would consider the regulations of the IRS have been kind -- moreover, the timing was such that we did not qualify for any of the special reduction or forgiveness plans that the IRS has offered others). Thursday's bill was for the last few dollars on the payment plan, which, thanks to some bonuses at work and some healthy tax refunds, we have been able to pay off a year in advance. So, happy ending to the day; happy ending to the week; happy ending to the near-half decade! Meanwhile, lesson learned: I no longer attempt to do my own taxes, given my proclivity for miscalculation. I turn everything over to the tax accountant (and get better refunds, too). As for that final bill, I cannot yet imagine what it will be like not having the hefty monthly payment over our head!

With that happy ending energizing me, I am going to head over to Jen's blog and take a look at others' quick takes. And yours? What has happened in your life this week?

7 Quick Takes Friday #4

I cannot believe that it is Friday again already and time to contribute to the quick takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary.

1. The most memorable day this week was clearly yesterday. One of those things happened to me that generally only appears on sitcoms. As a very fine, low-key day perked along, I received an e-note from one of the senior managers who had met with a junior manager who worked for him. He told me that after consultation with the junior manager, he had decided that we needed to wait two months to begin a major (and highly visible) project for which we had just received considerable funding. This was clearly a non-starter. I knew that the problem lay not with the senior manager who had just returned from vacation but from the stubborn junior manager incapable of prioritizing. Having had multiple frustrating conversations with her earlier in the week about her reluctance to take on this project, which fall squarely into her position duties, I had reached the limit of my patience with her. Furious, I dashed off a note to the senior manager stating that I knew that his words reflected the mindset of the junior manager who was a hindrance and not a help to the organization. I suggested that if she could not handle the due-outs from the project that I need early next week that I would do them and immediately after that find a replacement for her (and, oh, by the way, I was already looking for one). Done! Off with the note! I could then calm down. However, as I pushed the send button, I noticed that the senior manager had cc'd the junior manager on his note. Oops! Frantically, I tried to stop the note from flying out to their computers, but it merrily danced away from me. I tried to recall it. Failure! She read it before I could navigate to the tools menu! So, there not being much else to do at that point, I sent an e-wail to the senior manager to alert him to the possibility that she would soon descend upon him, which she did. My assistant was away on business but monitoring email and was cc'd on all the notes. He sent me a note: "Classic!" Right, classic! Oh, my, oh, my! The rest of the day found the junior manager closeted with the senior manager, fussing over the note and worrying about her job. I talked to him at 7:00 as he was dragging himself home from the office. "Hard day," was about all he could say. Right, hard day, indeed! My fault, too! I talked to Sr. Maria last night, noting that this was one action I had not prayed about in advance although every morning I ask God to guide me during the day even if I forget to turn any particular action over to Him. Sister had a surprising reaction. She said that perhaps I had been guided. Perhaps this employee needed to be hit on the head, given her general arrogance toward other employees, often expressed feeling of superiority, and overly secure confidence in her job. Perhaps Sister was correct. Today the junior manager got ALL those "impossible" due-outs done three days early! Life is curious and complicated sometimes! (Often, actually!)

2. Continuing the at-work discussion, a new senior manager who had recently moved back to the USA from Korea found that he had some interesting large Mexican figurines that he had no room for at home or work and wanted to give them to me. They make a great addition to my office. More important, though, I had to clear off the bottom shelf of my bookcase to hold them. The only useful thing on that shelf was a prayer rug I keep handy should someone need it. In cleaning off the rest of the shelf -- mostly binders with old documents -- I found that nothing was more recent than 2005 and were all things that my predecessor had left. Talk about procrastination! I had known for three years that I should clean up the shelf. Sigh! Where are those kids of mine who used to help with the housework when they are needed? I now know why the house was clean. The kids did it! Had it been up to me, we would probably have constantly been living under three years of dust!

3. It was great to return this past weekend from nearly three months of non-stop traveling. Many thanks to guest bloggers who helped me by filling in on Wednesdays. I hope you have enjoyed their posts. By the way, I am not home free yet. I returned to more than 1900 waiting emails at work, but I am now down to only 900 still to answer. Hey, it's progress!

4. When I got back from all the tripping, I found a very needy kitty at home. Murjan, our alpha cat from Jordan, is highly social, and he was fit-to-be tied that his "mother" had been away so long. He is more doglike than catlike, and I found him "yipping" at the window when I came up the stairs. Then, he started cussing me out in good Jordanian cat talk. (Middle Eastern cats have more than a dozen different kinds of meows, and one can figure out what they are "saying" with these sounds.) Then, he rolled over and wanted his belly scratched over and over again for a very long time. See, more dog than cat?

5. I no sooner got home than a friend, Rocio, sent me a note that she would be in town. She is another world traveler but generally lives in Boston. We planned to get together Saturday evening after settling in my 90-year-old friend who was moving back to town from Los Angeles and that was after spending four hours in the morning in a seminar for catechists that our diocese was holding. Quite a full day! It became fuller when Shane called me to remind me that I had promised to take Lemony out (with family) for her birthday that same evening -- so our evening with Rocio became Rocio + family. She was game, and Nathaniel entertained her as if she were royalty, devoting all his attention to her all evening. Flexibility! We learned that in the Middle East, too!

6. We turned in papers this week to take our previous landlady to court for failing to give us our security deposit back. Her excuse? She had spent it and had no income with which to replace it. For a couple of months, she sent us a few dollars at a time, but she still owes us $1800. I was going to forgive it, considering that she truly does not have money (is not employed) and that I got $1800 back about the same time the deposit was due from three years of overpaying electric bills (a new meter adjusted the past bills - not sure how that happened, but I don't look gift horses in the mouth; God often provides for me in this way, so why would I want to question?). However, Fr. Ed at our parish thought that was not a good idea, that it would be contributing to her dishonesty. She is a member of our church and has done the same thing with other tenants in the past, I have found out, and gotten away with it. So, it looks like I have to take a day off from work next month for small claims court. Oh, joy! (And I do feel a twinge of guilt because I can afford to give up the money, and she has little beyond her modest rental income. On the other hand, as Fr. Ed says ... )

7. And, before I make it to bed today, I have a pleasant translation task to complete. Padre Julio from Colombia sent me one of his periodic letters for sponsors of the children supported by Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia for translation from Spanish into English for those sponsors that speak no Spanish. I enjoy doing the translations because Padre writes very eloquently and the letters are always interesting in content, as well. The school he had wanted to build for the children is now operational, and the sustaining farm is getting there. It is a wonderful project to try to curb the misuse of children for insurgent activities in an area where there were no schools previously. For some uplifting information and to see what God can do through the efforts of a dedicated priest and his small coterie of helpers, take a look at his website.

End of tales, end of week. I hope yours was as interesting (well, maybe a little less interesting since I am still dealing with the fallout of yesterday's hasty note).

Thankful Thursday #2: A Grateful, Still Recovering, Heart at Home

Although I am still recovering from that German germ that came home with me from Garmisch and not the best things have happened this week, there is still much for which to be grateful. For example:

• Not only have I blogged this week about robberies, but two people I care about have experienced car break-ins -- in two hemispheres at almost exactly the same time. Go figure! Padre Julio Skyped me from Colombia with the information that his car had just been broken into for the second time in three months; his laptop and a computer that belongs to his school was taken as well. Then, just a little while later, I heard that the car window of my son Shane here in California had been smashed and his i-pod stolen, but $40 in cash that had been stashed away was ignored. (I think both should stop keeping electronics in their car, and I am now going to start taking our tom-tom into the house when we get home even though I live in a small and, I think, trustworthy community. I am thankful, though, that neither person was hurt, and, the robbery was to their car and not to their house. Electronics can be replaced. Of course, I am grateful for all the folks who said that they would pray for Padre Julio. Shane is having a bit of a bad year, too, but since it is darkest before the dawn, I think he will have a very rosy 2010. (Oh, yes, I have an incurable case of optimism.)

• Speaking of incurable cases, I was very, very grateful that the German medicine that I bought as I was leaving Germany worked like magic at the end of last week (before I ran out and crashed into 38 hours of nearly non-stop sleeping over the weekend), allowing me to attend the semi-formal dinner that the head of my organization threw for a very high ranking (national name recognition, but I won't name-drop here) government official held with our six senior managers. I happened to be the manager who ended up sitting across from him and had a very enjoyable dinner conversation, which I would not have been able to manage without that medicine. At the end of the evening, as everyone was shaking hands good-bye, he startled me a bit by hugging me instead of shaking my hand. (No, I was not the only woman there, but I was the only person -- male or female -- that he hugged. Dunno why.) I just said a quick prayer, "Lord, the nation needs him; please don't let me infect him." It has been almost a week, and I have not heard of any dire consequences from his brief meeting with me. Whew! Thank you, Lord!

• Earlier this week, my daughter Lizzie found Princesse, one of her two cats, flattened on the floor where a bed had fallen on her. (she and her husband are moving into a new place.) She was devastated. When she was a freshman in college, Lizzie had acquired Princesse from the US Embassy in Tunis (hence, the French name, as well as a sheaf of vet papers in French that the San Diego vet, who just happened to know French, got a kick out of reading). Princesse was slated to be turned out into the street by the new ambassador at that time, and the former deputy chief of mission, who had returned to the USA where I met her, took upon herself the task of finding homes for all the cats she had befriended while assigned to Tunis. I offered to take Princesse, but when our landlord said, "no cats," Princesse ended up in San Diego with Lizzie, Noelle, and Blaine. Lizzie had Princesse all through college and graduate school to her PhD completion, a real blessing as a source of calm during a long period of stress. Then Princesse accompanied Lizzie to New York, where Lizzie spent two years as a visiting professor at a university in New York. Now, Lizzie, Blaine, Princesse, and second cat Woody, were settling into a new home as Lizzie began a new job as a tenure-track professor at a university in South Carolina. That's when the bed fell. Lizzie and Blaine rushed Princesse to an emergency care facility in nearby Georgia, where the cat had surgery for a fractured jaw. She seems to have some brain damage -- or so Lizzie, whose specialty is brain pathology, thinks, but she is making progress. Three days ago, she began drinking water (still needs a food tube). Two days ago, she started using the litter pan by herself. Yesterday, she started wandering around the room and finding the litter pan by herself through sniffing. Today, Lizzie wrote, "She looked at me! She looked at me! And she knew me!" Yes, one must be grateful for small things, and when trauma happens, we are reminded of how important the small things are. We are praying for brave little Princesse, and we are grateful for every little bit of progress. It is exciting watching her recover, and we are grateful that she is not in pain and not on pain medication.

• I am grateful, oh, very much so, more than words can convey, that this week -- Yippee!! Praise the Lord! -- I found (i.e. re-established contact with) a work-study college student in Jordan who calls me "Mom." An Iraqi with no local family, she needed someone to talk to every time the bombs fell on the university where her father worked or EIDs exploded along Airport Road where her family lived. Typically, she would not be able to reach them when these things happened, and she would come to my office and say, "Mom, may I come in and cry for a while?" I would shut the door, and she would have some peace. Some times she wanted to talk; other times she just wanted company while she sat in silence; yet other times she really did want to cry and to be held. I kept a prayer rug for her in my office so that during prayer hours (she is Sunni) she would have a private place to pray. I met her real mother once when she came to Jordan for some medical care. She seemed to approve of me and told me how happy and relieved she was that her daughter had someone in loco parentis in Amman. I lost contact with my "daughter" about a year after I left Jordan, and when I returned last July, my efforts at tracking her down were futile. I was concerned, but I knww that God has always watched out for her. I am a very poor second to Him when it comes to ensuring her safety, health, and happiness. Nonetheless, I was delighted this week when I found her, through a mutual friend, on Facebook! We are now back in touch! Life is sweet!

For what are you thankful this wonderful Thursday?

More information about the Thankful Thursday meme can be found at the website of Grace Alone.

Robbed Again!

Padre Julio, about whom I have blogged previously, Skyped me from Colombia this morning. He had been robbed again -- the second time in three months that someone broke into his car and took everything. This time the thief took both Fr. Julio's personal computer and the computer that belongs to the organization he founded, Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia (For Love of the Children of Colombia). It had recently happened, and I guess when he Skpyed me, he was at an Internet cafe, trying to figure out his next step and wondering where and when the good from this would come about!

I suppose I am a fairly appropriate person with whom to share this kind of news. After all, in addition to my regular muggings, I have been robbed on a few occasions. The first time washed away any sentimental affiliation with things. We had moved from Montana to South Carolina, where I was undergoing my initial military training, and had then gone on to California, where I was to be permanently stationed. (Of course, in the military one must realize that a "permanent change of station" is anywhere in length from six months to three years -- so much for permanence.) While I was in South Carolina, we had left many of our possessions, including my wedding ring (long story), in storage in Montana. After the move to California, I asked for annual leave, and we made a difficult and long trip back to Montana through the snowed-in Sawtooth Mountains, over which we had to creep with our tires in chains, only to find out that everything had been stolen. There was absolutely nothing left. Bit by bit, we replaced everything, except the wedding ring. I do not wear one to this day, but most people know immediately that I am married. There have been other times, each with its own special characteristics, but the most recent was finding upon return from two years in Jordan that our RV, in which we had been living in an isolated area on a mountain river in rural California and which we had left in the possession of a neighbor, had been broken into and everything stolen, including the door from the refrigerator, the air conditioning (leaving a hole in the roof), and all the wiring. The neighbor, it turned out, was wanted for kidnapping (her own child, in a divorced situation) in Louisiana and had been forced to return there. And then there was the house that we lost. We had rented out our primary residence when we moved from Pennsylvania to Washington, DC years ago. For years, the tenants paid the rent, taking out any money they needed for repairs, and renting out a second apartment that was part of the house and keeping the rent in exchange for taking care of the property. It was a great arrangement until they suddenly went incommunicado and stopped paying rent. Our attorney learned that the father, the sole breadwinner, had lost his job and was on welfare but had not conveyed that to us (perhaps we could have worked something out). When the attorney told the tenants to pay the back taxes or leave, they left, taking everything they could, including things that belonged to us. Then, to make sure that there was nothing left, they took an axe and broke every window and chopped down all the stairs. Oh, well, it was only a house.

Any time I might consider that I have problems, I recall the life of my best friend from college. Coping with a bubble baby (no immune system) and a child recently diagnosed with diabetes, together with a husband dying from cancer for whom doctors held little hope, she locked her house and left for her home city where the doctors were better able to treat her husband and her mother could help with her two children. Six months later, she returned with her husband in remission, planning to continue on with her not-so-easy life and found her house ransacked. Nothing of any value, including sentimental value, had been left. (The whole story is rather long and has an amusing, well, at least, a lighter, outcome; I have posted it on Mahlou Musings.)

I think the moral to these stories is that life is too short and too complicated to worry about possessions. Possessions, in the long run, do not really matter. (I don't think that is just the Franciscan me speaking. I think it is really true.) In the long run, we may never recover our possessions, but, in my experience, God will somehow turn these experiences into something that is good or something that gives good: good from bad, the story of my life and of the lives of many people I know.

Our earthly goods may be taken from us, in my case over and over. But that is not important. Our soul cannot be taken from us; we have to give it away of our own free will. Our hope cannot be taken from us; we have to give up on our own for God will always hold out to us a branch of hope. Our happiness cannot be taken from us for while we may not be able to control what is done to us, we can control how we react to it (as the aphorism goes).

Sure, I have been robbed, but I choose to let those things go, forgotten in past days that I am not going to relive, anyway. I choose happiness. Always. My happiness does not lie in having good things. It does not even lie in having good news. Rather, my happiness lies in the fact that the universe is bigger than I, that God is greater than I, and that, as we are told, all things will work together for our good. That does not mean that my life has no sorrow. Certainly, it does. Considerably much of it, truth be told. However, sorrow does not preclude happiness, just as happiness does not preclude sorrow.

The robberies I experienced gave me a very different outlook on life -- a more positive one and one less burdened with the need for things (now I can use more of my money to help others because I no longer feel a need to "buy" fine surroundings). The robbery my friend experienced led her, too, through the intervention that she sought, to the ability to cope with three difficult medical situations, and today both children have outgrown their medical problems and are married adults with families and her husband is still in remission from cancer. Good in the long term is something to be anticipated for Padre Julio as well. In the short term, however, please pray for him and the children of Palomar.

7 Quick Takes Friday #2

I did not really think that I would (1) have time to do the 7 quick takes today or that (2) I would have seven things to mention. I was wrong on both accounts. I love it when I am wrong about such things!

1. I might as well jump in up front with the confession: I spent a day of physical and spiritual debauchery last Saturday prior to leaving for Kiev just a couple of days later. In the morning, we picked up Doah at his group home, then he, Donnie, and I honored the invitation of one of my employees to attend an Assyrian (Chaldean) festival, associated with his church, in a city to the north of us. We had some great Middle Eastern food and managed to observe the Sheikhani (a fun but tiring circle dance associating with the town of Sheikhan) but escape before becoming a part of it. (Usually I get pulled into it, and then everyone gets to laugh at my two left feet.) We got back to our home town just in time for our Saturday Roman Catholic mass and immediately after mass left for a town to the south, about an hour away, arriving just as the sun was setting, i.e. perfect timing for iftar (the Muslim breaking of the fast – it was still Ramadan), to which we had been invited by one of the supervisors who works for me.

2. One of my colleagues traveling with me had made the arrangements at a four-star hotel here in Kiev and was excited about seeing it, getting to soak up luxury. I did not have the heart to tell her that five-star hotels here are like good (but not necessarily luxurious) hotels in the USA and four-star hotels are less than one would expect in the USA. Four stars means that you do get those little soaps and shampoos that I like to bring back to the homeless shelter (they are the perfect individual size). You also usually get a hair dryer and a real bed, not a couch-like bed. Other than that, one would not call it anything special. My colleague was disappointed, but it was about what I had expected, and I am happy because I do have access to Internet here although I have to pay by the minute.

3. I had forgotten how much walking one does in a former Soviet country. Public transportation is excellent, and you can get anywhere very inexpensively, but you do walk – between transfer stations, to/from the nearest metro, etc. Yesterday we had great difficulty finding a place we were supposed to visit because we had poor directions, and neither of our phones worked so we could not call. (With cell phones universally available, the pay phones have all but disappeared from the streets.) By my calculation, we walked more than three hours all told, and I ended up very sore. I guess I need to do more than just think about getting in shape. After all, this body belongs to God as much as it belongs to me, and I don’t want to be someone who forgot to tend God’s property!

4. For those of you who have been following the story of 19-year-old orphan Katya of Tula, she needs some help. We still do not have her in the USA where she can be helped. Everything seems to be on track, but Russia is a country where business takes place slowly. Now, she has lost much of her hearing (in addition to her sight). She must raise $1000 for the kinds of hearing aids that she needs. If you have spare change or know someone who is looking for a good cause, this young lady is a good cause. The person to contact about Katya (whose real name is Tatyana Tusova) is Ken Wilcox at Orphan Cry.

5. If I had any doubt that sitting beside Maxim (the Ukrainian who thought I was Russian and then, realizing that I was a foreigner in a somewhat unknown land, offered to have his driver take me and my colleagues to the hotel after dropping him off) on the plane was pure coincidence, then that doubt was removed this morning, when the driver, Volodya, popped up out of nowhere as we were leaving the hotel. He happened to be driving by and stopped to confirm that we wanted to be picked up at 4:00 in the morning tomorrow as we had indicated when he dropped us off two days ago. Volodya’s surprise appearance comforted us because we had found that our cell phones for some reason do not work here even though they were supposedly turned out and had not been able to reach Volodya to confirm while running around town. We would have called from the hotel in the evening, but we did not have to; here was Volodya in person! While we could also have called a cab from the hotel, knowing that we will not have to deal with an unknown company in the middle of the night but will have someone reliable waiting for us is one of those extra-nice spoiling I seem to get from God from time to time without knowing why. I did not do anything to deserve anything special, but what a nice feeling to have it happen!

6. The next thing I have to do before tumbling into bed this evening early in order to leave at oh-dark-hundred is to translate a letter Fr. Julio sent to me from Colombia. It won’t take long; it is an update to the sponsors of children in Colombia. (And, by the way, Padre Julio is always looking for more sponsors as there are many children in need of help in Colombia.)

7. And now I am going to stop so I can translate the letter and get some sleep for my wee-hours-of-the-morning trip. Germany, here I come!

In the event that I am incommunicado over the weekend, I wish all of you a great weekend – restful and spirit-filled!

Fishes and Loaves for Colombia

Almost two years ago, I met a young priest from Colombia, Padre (Fr.) Julio. Padre Julio substituted for our noon Spanish mass one Sunday and mesmerized the congregation. Shortly thereafter I came to know Padre better (1) as he traveled more than an hour to Stanford University Hospital to pray for my daughter Noelle who was having brain surgery, (2) after he accepted my offer as a volunteer tutor of English when his duties were changed from the Spanish mass to the English mass (a mutually beneficial activity -- as I helped him convert his homilies from Spanish to English, I learned a lot of theology from him and a little more Spanish, too), and (3) during web design working sessions with my family (which consists of graphic artists, computer programmers, web designers, and me, a writer and translator) as we constructed a website for the organization that he founded: Por Amor a los Ninos de Colombia (for love of the children of Colombia). Padre's dream was to help the children of his native Colombia, a beautiful, rural region, full of potential that was being replaced by violence. Padre describes the situation as follows:

In recent years, violence and illiteracy have affected the communities of the village of Palomar and surrounding hamlets. The distance between the school and the houses where the children live can be between one and six hours, making school attendance impossible.

Because their families live in poverty, these children cannot afford transport to nearby towns or cities either. This has resulted in young people between the ages of 12 and 18 having no other choice than to join guerrilla or paramilitary groups, commit petty crimes, work in the fields without the possibility of an education, or worse yet, becoming addicted to drugs.

The need to provide alternatives to solve the many problems this school-age population is facing is an urgent one. They have neither the economic nor the material means to do it themselves.

But let me step back just a bit in time. When I first became acquainted with Padre as a result of his describing Por Amor during mass, I wanted to donate a little something -- and "little" was the right label for any monetary amount I could hope to scrape together. Having come from an impoverished farm family and then spending most of a lifetime raising children with serious medical needs, even spare change was hard to find. I reasoned, however, that I could offer family skill in lieu of money, and Padre and I began a conversation about how the website would look. In the midst of this conversation, I ended up being sent to work in Bahrain for three weeks, just as Padre was beginning a push to raise the initial funds for Por Amor. Padre and I maintained a running e-mail conversation, he in Spanish and I in English, about the website plans, but somewhere in the back of my mind was the understanding that most of our work would be in vain if he could not get together a reasonable fund in a reasonable amount of time. I would have liked to help with that, too, but I am no fundraiser. So, on both counts -- giving money and raising money -- I was not much help to Padre until a marvelous thing happened.

As soon as I had arrived in Bahrain, a friend, who knew I was coming, showed up in my hotel room and dragged me to dinner, in good Arab fashion refusing to allow me to pay. But I had per diem for my meals, one thousand dollars, in fact, to cover the time I would be abroad. As I walked up to my room, an idea flew into my mind (from where?). There would certainly be another friend or two who would react in the same way over the next three weeks and the Ministry of Education would also likely host me for at least one meal, so I might have a hundred or even a little more than a hundred dollars left over from unspent per diem. I made a promise to God that whatever amount I did not spend on food in Bahrain, I would give to Padre for His children in Colombia. After that, friends and colleagues appeared out of the woodwork, and none would allow me to pay my own way (it does not fit with the culture there). In addition, the Ministry of Education had several socials and formal dinners which were also free to me. When I left Bahrain at the end of the three weeks, I had not had to purchase even one meal. When I reached the USA, I handed all $1000 of my per diem over to Padre for his children.

Bahrain might be little more than a desert to some, but it does have the famous tree of life that flourishes in sand. How symbolic for what had just happened! I was living in a philanthropic desert and yet out of that wasteland tumbled one thousand dollars for children in need half a world away. Would God re-create the fishes and loaves miracle today? You bet!

God Has Filled My Life with Priests

As promised yesterday, here is the post about priests. It seems to be an appropriate topic, given that this is the Year of the Priest.

This week I received (1) an enote from Fr. Ed, our parish priest, who is currently on the East Coast, substituting for a parish priest there who is out of town, (2) a Skype message from Padre (Fr.) Julio, a priest in Colombia who substituted at one point in our parish (followed by a voice conversation with him in English and then his mother in Spanish), and (3) a phone call from Fr. Barry, the director of our local Franciscan retreat center (and monastery). That concatenation of interactions reminded me that it is indeed the Year of the Priest. Thank God for priests! God has filled my life with them, and they in turn have filled my life with blessings.

I realize what a special gift God has given me when I look around and see that many parishes have no priest or borrowed priests and when I see that many of my friends' interactions with priests are only for significant life events (weddings, funerals, emergencies), during confession, and after mass. The extreme irony of this gift is that until three years ago, I had only ever met three priests (all of them Orthodox) and then only once each for a solitary greeting and mass, as a result of catering to the spiritual needs of Shura, the Russian Orthodox Siberian child artist dying from spina bifida whom I took into my home years ago.

I often wonder why God feels that I deserve this amount of interaction. Perhaps it is more that I need a greater depth of instruction, being a person that He pulled from the wayside and plunked down, totally bewildered, in the middle of His flock. Maybe, too, He was worried that I would stray away from the flock and begin happily cavorting in the bramble bushes again. No fear of that! He has filled my life with priests!

First and foremost there is 80-year-old Fr. Barry, whom I dearly love. He seems to have seen everything there is to see. He has traveled the world, studied a variety of religions, spent time in the Holy Land (where I lived for an awesome two years), holds several degrees, including one in psychology, and made a film on the significance of each part of the liturgy. A Franciscan and a deeply spiritual and knowledgeable mystic, he was the perfect RCIA instructor for me. He has since left our parish--he was an interim priest here--but has remained in our town as director of our local retreat center & monastery. Since leaving our parish, he has become my de facto spiritual advisor. When I have received "messages" that have totally startled me and point me in directions where I am certain I am not capable of going, I have run to Fr. Barry for guidance. He accepts these spiritual experiences and helps me sort through what seems to be authentic and what may not be authentic -- and he convinces me that if I am pointed in a direction, I should go where it leads, trusting God to provide me with the wherewithall to follow (and, of course, God always does -- which, on a very deep level, I do fully trust will happen).

The second priest in my life is Fr. Ed. An Irishman by birth and rearing, he is a down-to-earth 50-year-old with an immense sense of humor and adventure. He has held mass on a local mountain top, serves as chaplain for the fire department (and rides along), and can be found jogging around town mornings, often underdressed for the weather, or participating in marathons to raise money for a good cause. Being a catechist, I have come to know him pretty well, and he has been very supportive in the matter of our granddaughter's health. A very important thing for our parish (and me) is that Fr. Ed is a wonderful confessor. He sees very clearly to the heart of nearly any matter. And, if he is jovial in his homilies, he is engaged and spiritual in the confessional.

And finally, there is 30-something Padre Julio from Colombia. Padre (Father) Julio used to substitute at our parish's Spanish-language masses. Over time, he became an integral part of our family. It started with my family volunteering to create a website for his project to bring hope to seven rural towns in Colombia through building a school and self-supporting farm, for which he had formed an organization, Por Amor a Los Ninos de Colombia (For the Love of the Children of Colombia). I translated the original documents from Spanish into English for the website text. My husband, Donnie, designed the graphics. Our son, Shane, did the basic programming, and when we ran into difficulties with more complex programming, our son, Blaine, a professional web designer, flew home from Illinois, to put on the difficult finishes. During that time, our younger daughter, Noelle, who has spina bifida, experienced failure of the shunt that controls her hydrocephalus and ended up emergencied to Stanford University Hospital quite some distance away. Padre Julio drove the distance (even more since he got lost for over an hour, trying to navigate strange terrain in a strange country in a strange language) to visit her and pray for her with all of us together right before her surgery, which did, indeed, turn out fine. At that point, it became clear that Padre needed to learn some English if he were going to be living in this country, and I began to teach him since foreign languages are one of my specialties. The timing was fortuitous because the bishop about then decided that Padre had been here long enough to start offering the English masses. Immediately, our "textbooks" for English classes became the English-language Bible and online audio homilies (for developing listening skills). Padre learned to speak English, and eventually I met his mother who claims I am the daughter she never had (she had 7 sons, three of whom became priests). Indeed, we became family. Moreover, all those English classes? I believe that they benefited me more than Padre for I had a private 3-hour tutorial on Catholicism three nights a week as I helped Padre put into English the various thoughts he wanted to express in his homilies. In practicing English, we would get into extended discussions of concepts, and because Padre Julio is as spiritually oriented as Fr. Barry, I was able to share my spiritual experiences very deeply with him, especially those that contained the grammar and vocabulary components of the topic if the day. While others worried about our granddaughter's disassembled condition and expressed sympathy, Padre Julio's immediate response was very different: "You are blessed!" He definitely understands our family and God's role in our lives!

There have been other priests, of course, along my so-far rather short journey of faith. I assume those relationships are more typical although, not being a cradle Catholic, I have no idea what a typical relationship with a priest is supposed to be. I just know that I deeply love Fr. Barry, Fr. Ed, and Padre Julio, and I cannot imagine my life without them. They have so thoroughly enriched my life that I don't know what to say other than "Thank you, God, for spoiling me!"

Please tell me, especially those of you who are long-term Catholics, what role priests have played in your life. How important have they been to you in decision-making, spiritual development, and maintaining sanity in a crazy world? How often do you end up thanking God that they are in your life?