7 Quick Takes Friday #45

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

1. Earlier this week I described the "first" day of this week: Saturday. On Saturday I went to the ball conducted each year at our organization. (You can read about my attire dilemma here: Going to the Ball. The attire decision was not the only dilemma the ball presented. Upon arrival, I learned that I had been seated at one of the VIP tables beside the assistant in the CEO's office with whom I have been warring for the last three weeks: he has retroactively changed per diem on some of my employees after they have returned from expensive travel locations in order to save costs. It is completely illegal, and I have sent them to the legal office, in addition to carrying on some rather vociferous conversations with the assistant by email. Oh, joy! I was going to get to sit beside him for the entire meal. Surprisingly, it worked out okay. I made an effort to put aside differences for the evening -- and so did he. While at the ball, I got an urgent message from our folks in Afghanistan; documents I had sent earlier had not made it through and were needed immediately. So, like Cinderella, I left the ball early, but, at least, I managed to hold onto both shoes until I reached home. En route, I stopped at my office and re-sent the documents. Right before I left, the dancing started. I spent a few minutes dancing with the head of one of our employee committees, another case of putting aside difficulties since this person I had removed from my directorate last spring. (Another, less-demanding, directorate picked up the employee, fortunately.) It was more than just setting aside hostilities; the employee has come to grips with the understanding that the skill set needed for the complex job in my directorate had not yet been acquired and so, finally, had accepted the transfer as a positive, not a negative, action.

2. My experiences at Mass on Sunday were interesting and a little out of the norm. I already blogged about the man in need of a hymnal/missal: It Was a Small Thing, Really. Fr. Ed always asks if we have any visitors, and because our mission is one of those places that tourists love to visit, we almost always do, and they often come from distant states and, quite often, from foreign countries. Sunday was no different. Fr. Ed queried each person who raised his/her hand as to origin, but he missed the man in the pew in front of me. (I usually sit very near the rear of the church, and it was a bit far for Fr. Ed to see.) So, being an inveterate introvert, I hailed the man after Mass and learned that he was from Kalispell, Montana and, of course, knew where Hamilton, Lizzie's birthplace, is located. It was an interesting conversation and became even more interesting when I learned that he might move here. One never knows what is going on in the heads of the people sitting one pew ahead of you!

3. Sunday evening I took off on a crazy flight from West Coast (California) to east Coast (Arlington, Virginia.) A two-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Phoenix) followed by a four-hour flight followed by a two-hour layover (Philadelphia) followed by a one-hour flight. Finally, I landed. I suppose it is a sign of the times that in Reagan National Airport (ironically so named, considering that Reagan did not want National Airport enlarged and modernized) outside Washington, D.C. there were no working faucets or air dryers in the women's room that turned out to be my unlucky choice the morning of my arrival.

4. On Tuesday, I joined three colleagues in briefing a large group of generals and admirals at the Pentagon. The briefing garnered kudos, perhaps because we had rehearsed the briefing -- twice. The most difficult part of that long morning, for me, was not the briefing itself but rather the constant need to check my urge to cough. I am still trying to get rid of the mold of whatever it was that crawled out of the air conditioning, sneaking past the one or two wispy cilia I still have in my bronchial tubes and taking up residence in my lungs, a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting Padre Julio in San Diego. The room at the Pentagon was small; there were many people; all were silent and listening, except for some occasional tough questioning. Any rustle of paper brought all eyes to the person doing the shuffling, so you can imagine the effect of a cough ricocheting off the front wall and ping-ponging to the back of the room. I devoured three full rolls of Hall's cough drops in an effort to tame my excited cough mechanism.

5. Ah, Wednesday! A great day! First, I could sleep in. I had no appointments or meetings in the morning! Yippee! I did have to check out of the hotel at noon, but I could do that in a leisurely manner. Prior to my 1:00 meeting, I was able to accomplish quite a bit of email catch-up and calls that had been put off for days. It seemed like order was returning to my life. And then my life was rolled back 27 years. In 1983, when I first moved to Washington to work at the US Department of State (where I stayed until 1989, when I moved to California), I left the kids with Donnie while I looked for good schools and proper housing, not an easy task in a city about which I knew little. Not wanting to stay alone in an apartment (proving that I am an inveterate introvert), I moved into a large house with four college students, two of whose parents owned the house but were assigned by State Department to South Africa at the time. That made five of us: two guys and three gals. We have remained in touch all these years, but the only I have seen since in person has been K. Lizzie lived with K and her family during her senior year, earning her board and room by babysitting K's kids. (We had moved farther south by then, and Lizzie wanted to graduate from Washington & Lee High School where she had been since freshman year; K lived in the W&L district.) Right after Donnie and kids arrived from Pittsburgh where they had been living (and I with them before my transplantation to DC) D and M married each other, a surprise to the rest of us. Donnie took their wedding pictures, and we reminisced about that. C and S have remained in touch, and S lives in San Diego, so we are state-mates. It was a fun evening, less boisterous than in our early days because we all had to work the next morning and, well, because frankly we are all a bit older. The evening began with Indian food for dinner, blossomed into a round-robin telephone call with S in San Diego, and ended with my spending the night with K before she took me to the airport Thursday morning. (In photo, from left: C, me, M, D, K.)

6. Thursday morning put an adrenaline-and-tears end to the pleasantries of the night before. Shock, really, was the state I began the morning in, and I am still in shock. A good friend and the leader of our Bible Studies program, I learned through an email, had simply not awakened in the morning. His wife has been quite ill, and he has been her caretaker. No one, including the doctors, ever thought that he was ill. Now he is dead, and no one knows why. The funeral will be on Monday. It was a sad, numb day -- all the way home through all my return flights and drives. I still do not know what to make of it. I have now received calls from several people, all of whom are in the same state as I am. Sr. Maria was the one who learned what happened, but even she does not know why, just what. Of course, too, we are all concerned about the sick wife, who is also a friend of ours. Her daughter will be taking care of her; that much is clear since the daughter lives at home with her. One thing gives me consolation. Last year, when he and she celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and, being on a very limited income, had no plans for a party or eating out, let alone traveling anywhere, I learned that their anniversary was on the evening of our Bible Studies class, which my friend was prepared to lead that day. So, without telling him, I ordered Middle Eastern food from the city near where I work (his favorite food and not obtainable in the town where we live) and brought it back, along with a cake, to celebrate the anniversary there. As luck (and mybe more than just luck) would have it, Fr. Ed worked late that day, so he joined us in the celebration. I know that my friends enjoyed the surprise very much. Little did I know that they would not make their 51st! How happy I am that I could make their 50th memorable! I am also more committed than ever to being thankful for every day I have, knowing that none of us know which of our days will be our last, and to making the most of each day for the glory of God because each day that passes is a day we don't get back while the days before us are numbered. That is how my friend lived. He was an example for all who knew him.

7. If Thursday was not enough of a shock, I got a further electrifying input at work today. A number of employees and I are on salary supplements because our pay scale is not in keeping with the average for our field while our jobs are more demanding than most in our field. I learned today that effective immediately all salary supplements would be cut by 2/3. I have a salary that is among the highest in our organization so I cannot complain because I will be in better shape than most, but it will take so belt-tightening to manage expenses -- and the timing is not good since I am still helping Shane and Lemony in the wake of his taking a lower-paying job after being fired because of Nikolina's medical bills: Clan under Siege). I spent part of today giving the bad news to people and the rest of the day getting the paperwork in so that at least they can get the 33% pittance. Well, at least, we all have jobs. Not everyone can say that. While my employees were shocked, they were nonetheless grateful that they are employed. One must look at the bigger picture and, as Pollyanna would say, find something to be glad about. I am not only glad that I have a job but also that I have such terrific employees who also look for the "glad" in their lives.

Hoping that you have a pleasant weekend -- quiet, calm, and no shocks! Be glad!

On Being Worthy

Sunday started as one of those days when everything seems to go wrong and the whole world has a sad cast. I had fallen asleep on the couch the night before and had missed my evening contemplative prayer session. I had not had a chance to ask God to protect me from nightmares as I always do and as God always does. While I did not have a nightmare (see my post, Nightmares, about my sudden nightmare attacks following conversion), I did have some kind of nonsensical negative dream that would have been comical had it not been sad. To make matters worse, I did not wake up in my usual manner but rather to the barking of the alarm clock which I had set just in case I overslept. (Yes, my alarm clock does bark; I chose the sound of barking dogs because I easily sleep through alarms of all sorts but always wake up when the cats, disturbed to hear dogs and not see them, come running to me for help, insisting that I crawl out from under the covers and aid them.)

With the first bite on my toes from Intrepid and the simultaneous feel of Murjan’s paw pulling the blanket off my face and tap-tap-tapping me on the cheek, I jumped out of bed, instantly realizing that I had missed the first Mass of the morning. I did want to catch the second since I had a noon BBQ with friends and had already decided to attend one of the earlier, English Masses in lieu of the Spanish noon Mass, my usual choice (so that I can sleep in, Sunday being the only day that I can do it). Donnie woke up at the same time, looked groggily around, and commented that I had fallen asleep before finishing the preparations for the BBQ. He could not do it all by himself; he would need my help before I left for Mass. My morning plans for contemplative prayer, followed by a quick shower, followed by Mass, followed by a quick trip to the store for ice, followed immediately by the BBQ were quickly swapped out for a new set of plans: BBQ preparation and, sigh, laundry drying. By falling asleep early, I had not put the just-washed laundry into the dryer.

At that point, I was wide awake. Let’s see: no prayer, no shower, no clothes. What a way to start the day! I quickly found something in the closet to wear (not what I planned) in lieu of attending Mass nude, threw the laundry into the dryer and the cats into the cat room where they would be out of the way and have a place to play, washed the kitchen floor, cleaning up the obvious signs of cats sharing our eating quarters, combed my hair which I would have preferred to wash, grabbed the keys, and ran to the car.

As I backed out of the driveway, I saw that I was already five minutes late for Mass. Fortunately, it is a 45-second drive to the Mission (no walking today). I quickly parked, ran past the parish office and through the gardens into the church. The lector was reading. I had missed the blessing, sigh! (I like the blessing.) I had also missed any seating space. I looked and looked and finally saw a spot in the middle of one pew near the rear of the church. I asked the person on the end if I could slide in, and she moved over. Now I could relax.

I sat back to listen to the readings and then to Fr. Ed’s homily, which was really, really good – everyone said so afterward – but I had trouble concentrating. I knew the reading. It was about giving up earthly goods, which I have done three times in my life, well, actually four, if you count my college days, never having had many goods, anyway, and perhaps therefore not feeling any great need for such things (or perhaps, as an Emersonian rugged individualist from Thoreau’s New England, not wanting to be owned by my things). Father’s explanation of the reading was perfect. He began with an analogy to how one traps a monkey. When he started with that, the thought that ran through my mind was “and I need to know how to catch a monkey why?” Then it became clear that it was an analogy. The monkey does not let go of the food that has attracted it to a jar, coconut shell, or other container with food, into which an empty paw can enter but from which a full paw cannot withdraw. So, the monkey is trapped. We, too, are trapped when we won’t let go of our earthly goods. It was food for thought, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

My thoughts centered on my irritation at waking up late, my plans going awry, having to finish the previous night’s work, and, especially, missing my normal morning time in prayer with God. Seemingly, I had forgotten that I was at the moment sitting in a pew with my friends in the presence of God.

Fortunately, the sense of God’s presence broke through in time for communion. Maybe not today, I thought. My mood makes me unworthy in spite of having mouthed the words, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed.” I said them. I did not listen to them – or perhaps did not subconsciously believe that God would “say the word” today.

Having decided not to take communion (a first such decision for me), I contemplated whether to go down for a blessing or continue to nurse my irritation in the pew while others took communion. I decided that the pew was the best place for me at the moment, given my attitude. “Sorry, God,” I said silently and, with a sudden sense of guilt, realized that I had not actively participated in the Mass that I had so hurried to attend. “I don’t feel worthy to receive the Eucharist this morning.”

Wrong decision! I suddenly felt like I was being pulled into the aisle and pushed forward. I should have recognized all my ruminations as wrong thinking. I don’t have to have done everything right to be worthy. I don’t have to earn God’s gifts. God grace showers us with gifts freely. God wants our union. We are worthy simply because we are His. He will “say the word.” He always does.

As I walked forward, I felt enveloped by pure Love, yea, by God Himself. My irritation evaporated, its droplets lost among the greater ensemble of tear-sized drops of forgiveness, acceptance, yes, even worthiness, droplets that never evaporate. I remembered that we all have been made worthy a long time ago – when God first conceived us and then later in those simple, powerful words of Jesus, “Forgive, them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Indeed, I often know not what I do, but I do know this: God forgives, God accepts, God graces. I therefore have the right neither to judge others or myself nor to hold myself apart from God. The choice is not mine. It is His. It has always been His, and He always wants me. Can anything else, whether earthly goods or abstract emotions, matter?

About That Lamb...

I don't know where the words came from. I could hardly believe they came from my mouth, yet I heard them as they slid out. "I don't think you are taking this project seriously," I said to the recently assigned project manager of a subcontractor at our Washington DC branch. She cringed and averred differently. I only shook my head unkindly and walked off to begin the presentation I had come to deliver.

I can explain how I got to the point of saying those words. In preparing for an all-day briefing to be conducted in DC together with a specialist from one of our subdivisions, I discovered that the concept papers we were to use were so poorly done that we could not use them. So, I had to re-do the work of several employees, whose supervisor had assumed that the work was fine. To worsen matters, the computers had been down (server outage) for the two days prior to my departure for DC. I had only one day to get everything done once the computers were back on line. That day I had several meetings, and during the time available in and around the meetings, one after another employee came into my office on small issues (well, important issues to them but ones I considered minor at the moment). Although I had closed my door, no one had seemed to notice. My open-door policy had been turned into an open-the-door policy. Too much to re-do, too little time to re-do it, and too many distractions from doing it! I was annoyed.

Add to that annoyance the fact that everyone around me seemed to be falling apart. I had one senior manager undergoing emergency surgery and another in the hospital with internal bleeding, cause undetermined. An employee had gone into the hospital for routine knee surgery and ended up comatose and packed in ice (we were waiting to here whether and when heroic measures would cease), and a junior manager had been diagnosed with a tumor and had to be brought back from his field assignment. This was all in the space of two days. Our senior leadership at the annual BBQ the day before I left for DC was decimated. I was stressed.

I did not escape any drama by leaving. As the plane was taxiing into Dulles International Airport, I quickly checked my Blackberry and learned two disturbing pieces of information. First, a project that I was to have been involved in had been downsized; much of the physical risk had been removed from it (that part was good -- while I was unconcerned for my own safety, my prayer group had been praying that something like this would happen), and the performance date had been moved to September, interfering with my need to be in Korea at that time. Second, my supervisor had overturned my appointment on an assignment I had promised to an employee. (She deserved it, and later in the day he recanted.) However these things work out and worked out, I arrived disappointed.

Following a night of only five hours of sleep after cleaning up from the BBQ, which had been at my house, and having had to go to work earlier than normal to begin that day of meetings and interrupted work, I had to jump onto a redeye from San Franciso to DC. Of all times, the pilot raced across the continental skies, arriving 30 minutes ahead of schedule, leaving me with a mere four hours of sleep. I was tired.

When I arrived at ground transportation, I blackberried the supervisor of our DC branch for an address to give to the taxi driver. She gave me the office address. I showed up there only to find out that the briefing was taking place at the premises of the subcontractor in another part of town. Now I would be late. I learned that the mistaken address was deliberate: the supervisor wanted to discuss the project with me alone. That meant that the specialist, who did not have the briefing powerpoints (I had them) would have to do with the first presentation without them and without me. I was angry.

Annoyance, stress, fatigue, disappointment, and anger combined to evoke my caustic remark when, having finally arrived at the subcontractor's location in time for the second presentation, I was informed by the project manager that two key personnel would come only after lunch. Any one of those conditions would have served as an excuse for my remarks, I initially tried to justify to myself. However, no justification exists for arrogance, and it was certainly arrogance that lay behind my words: whatever I had to say was more important than anything they had to do, and obviously that was not true.

I apologized to the project manager later. However, words don't dissolve; they don't run away; taking them back is nothing more than a vacuous expression.

While I know that I have not lost God's love, I was not thinking of God's presence when I made my unkind remark, and so I did not feel God's presence. The worst part? I lost an entire morning with God. That time will never be regained.

Clearly, I needed some time with God alone. After finishing the day of presentations, I ran to the nearby metro station where I knew there would be a line of cabs to assist me in my cab-plane-car dash to our Georgia branch. I grabbed a cab, driven by a courteous and calm middle-aged man from Pakistan. We chatted casually, and while the conversation was calming, it permitted no opportunity for time alone with God, as there had been none all day. I missed San Ignatio with its quiet spirituality.

Having swiftly picked up my ticket and passed through security without incident except for my typical random search, I took the airport train to the Delta terminal and made my way to Gate 76, keeping my eye out for any place at all for quiet prayer. There was none at all, just masses of people moving in cohorts to and from gates, into and out of restrooms and restaurants, and along the corridors. I missed even more San Ignatio's quiet spirituality where nearly every nook and cranny provides an opportunity for prayer.

I had more than an hour to wait for a now-delayed plane. I opted for a yogurt cone and seated myself at a table near a large potted plant, surrounded, of course, by other travelers.

My thoughts turned to my increasing unease. From whence these feelings? A change in the equilibrium of my life! I realized that I spend most of my time helping others, sometimes because I have been given a divine task, sometimes just because I stumble across someone in need (which may not always be accidental), and most often because those in need are people who work for me. My last few days, however, had been focused on me: the just-completed presentations in DC and the upcoming one in Georgia. I had moved away from helping others for lack of time (the employees to whom I had shut my door), lack of authority (the overturning of my decision by my supervisor), and lack of ability (the sick folk). I missed helping others, being God's helper. I missed time with God. It would be two more days before I would return to San Ignatio.

Even though I had no sense of God's presence while I waited for the plane, I wailed a silent prayer, spilling out those emotions and desires. I knew God would hear, understand, and forgive.

And then everything changed. Delta cancelled the flight. There were no other flights on Delta that night. I would miss the Georgia presentation, scheduled for early in the morning the next day. I called my admin assistant to inform the folks in Georgia, as Delta set about rescheduling all its passengers.

"Does anyone speak Russian?" one of the gate agents called out loudly, then a few seconds later, appealed "we really need someone who speaks Russian."

"I'll call you back," I told my admin assistant. Then I stood up and raised my hand, "I speak Russian."

The gate agent was visibly relieved. So were the mother and daughter who were trying to get back to Moscow via Atlanta. We very easily settled everything for them, and as their stress level eased, so did mine. (I find that happens a lot -- if you help someone who is stressed out, it eases your own feeling of stress.)

The grateful Delta agent offered to take me out of turn, but I waved off the offer, telling her that my office could handle my situation. It did. I ended up coming back to San Ignatio early! On a United non-stop flight direct to San Francisco. What could be better? How about a surprise complimentary upgrade to first class? Another redeye, but one on which I could sleep very comfortably.

All was right with the world. I was on my way back to San Ignatio. I wondered how much of this occurred because of my plaintive prayer about missing my quiet time with God. Ah, for any part of it -- and every part of it -- I am grateful.

All the way back home I could not sleep in spite of two short-sleep nights. The excitement of nearing San Ignatio overpowered every thought and emotion. God no longer has any need to look for this lost lamb. This lamb knows where to find the rest of her flock and her Shepherd!

What happened next? Unbelievable!

Looking back on that awful day and what I had done and felt, I should have been punished. Instead, a loving God brought me home to San Ignatio, back to Him in every meaning of that phrase, back to where I belong, where nothing of the material world matters. Now, too, I could look forward to being on time two days later for the retreat being led by Fr. Kevin, who also leads a contemplative-prayer-for-busy-people group in San Jose that I have participated in for nearly two years now. I would have had to arrive late because of returning from out of state.

I took the next day off from work -- I was owed comp time -- to be with God now that I was back in a spiritual environment. What a marvelous day that turned out to be!

The first thing after I arose (later than normal, yes!) I checked my email. Astonished, I read one note twice. It was the cancellation of a mandatory meeting on Friday, the second day of the retreat. I had worked it out with Fr. Kevin that it would be okay to miss Friday because of that meeting. Now I would have no distractions during the retreat!

A short while later, I attended noon Mass in the little chapel, celebrated by Fr. Paul on his last day in our community before returning home to Nigeria. Still reeling perhaps from my out-of-control behavior on Monday, I felt so very unworthy to be there and at the same time so loved. As I stood in line for communion, I could not keep the tears from pooling in my eyes, and I did not care if anyone saw them; we are all friends and all God's children.

Following Mass, two friends (one of them the person who assisted the priest in my RCIA class) asked me to join them for the rosary, after which we went out for cookies and milk. (I admit it; milk has always been my favorite drink.)

During our milk-and-cookie fest, I told my friends about my plaintive prayer, in which I bemoaned my separation from San Ignatio and loss of a sense of God's presence in the past few day's tumult, and how everything had suddenly worked out for me to spend the entire rest of the week with Him. One of my friends reiterated what a Sufi friend told me several years ago, word for word: "God spoils you."

Indeed, He does! And I am so very grateful!

(I posted the above story in two parts on my Modern Mysticism blog, but because of the title of this new, replacement-for-Blest-Atheist blog, it seemed apropros to include it here, as well.)

7 Quick Takes Friday #33

Another week, another seven days of work, at least another seven learning experiences. Here are the thoughts that have accompanied this week's experiences. Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler for hosting the 7 Quick Takes meme at Conversion Diary.

1. Last Friday, I ended up at Mass accidentally. I suppose it would have been much better had I ended up there intentionally, but rarely do I have Friday noon available. Work seems to tumble right up to departure time and then spills into the Mass time itself. Last Friday was no different, or so I thought. As I drove into my parking spot, one of my employees approached me to talk about matters in his department. Ah, I thought with resignation as I listened intently to the information he wished to share, one more week without being able to take advantage of Mass being offered at the little church down the road from my office -- or lunch! (The church near my office is a far cry in beauty, historicity, or even numbers of worshipers from the old mission here in San Ignatio and a place where I know no one, but Mass is Mass and I had attended once before when I was able to sneak away from work while no one was looking.) As we were talking, my employee looked at his watch and excused himself, saying that he had to hurry because he wanted to go to Mass. "Oh, take me with you!" I exclaimed, and off we went. The priest who celebrated Mass was an elderly gent who reminded me very much of my beloved Fr. Barry, who was transferred out of our diocese six months ago. It turned out that my employee knew most of the people who regularly attend Mass there and introduced me to them. What a blessing Friday noon turned out to be!

2. Saturday morning dawned too early. We had to be up because the first thing in the morning the carpet cleaner, Eric, who had spent the afternoon cleaning the carpet throughout the house in preparation for two upcoming parties, was coming back to redo a portion of what he already cleaned because because Donnie had brought chairs that he had set on the porch back into the house, dragging them and his dirty shoes over the newly clean carpet without realizing it was still wet. Dark black streaks glared from the white carpet. Eric came bright and early and quickly cleaned up Donnie's mess. He stayed a bit and talked and would take no money for the extra work. That is the way it is in small towns, or at least in our small town. I went out onto the porch to say goodbye to him, then walked back over the wet carpet with socks made dusty from the front porch. There were the black marks again! Well, gray marks. Thank God for Resolve! After the carpet dried, I could take care of my dirty work myself.

3. On Sunday, Donnie and I attended a funeral mass for the mother of one of my employees at St. Mary Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in Campbell, California. What the employee forgot to tell me was (1) the Mass would be conducted in Aramaic and (2) women need a head covering in order to take communion. I probably could have guess both these situations, but I did not think ahead and so was quite unprepared, especially for the Eucharist, which I was unable to take. (I could comment on that, but I won't.) The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Yoshia Sana, who is originally from Iraq and was posted to the Campbell church by Rome. Present-day Chaldeans and Assyrians come from the northern regions of Iraq and the eastern regions of Syria. Ethnically, they are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Culturally, they are the heirs of the Aramaic language and culture of Jesus; most of the local population in this part of California, particularly those in my employ, speak as their everyday first language modern Aramic (which differs from the language of Jesus's day in that all languages add/drop/change vocabulary and simplify grammar over time). You can read more about Assyrians and Chaldeans here (much of the information is in Arabic, but if you cannot read Arabic, keep digging, there is much information in English, as well. There were helpful missals in all the pews at the church. At first, I thought great, Arabic, but as I looked more closely and tried to read (nary a word could I understand), I realized that there were additional letters beyond those present in the Arabic alphabet. It is rare that I end up somewhere where I cannot understand at least something of what is being said in the local language, but Sunday was one of those rare occasions. We also went to the sitting (an Arabic way of paying respect to the departed that involves men together and women together -- poor Donnie had no way to communicate because none of the men, except my employee, spoke English well enough for communication; at least, I could speak Arabic with the women, but Donnie had learned little Arabic when we lived in Jordan and has forgotten most of what he did know.

4. On Monday, I had the day off! Yes! Happy Fourth a day late! We held a BBQ for my prayer group and others from Old Mission Church. We brought Doah down, and he celebrated with us. Donnie cooked. (No one would have permitted me to cook, given my reputation for burning or otherwise ruining any food I touch.) Shane, Lemony, and kids showed up. It was the first time I saw Nathaniel up close and personal with his new spiked haircut. I almost did not recognize him. "Grandma! You know who I am!" he complained. The prayer group members, who had done a lot of praying for Nikolina but had never met her, were delighted to see her. They were astonished at her progress from nearly hopeless to full of life.

5. Tuesday I attended an all-day, in-house, mini-conference for everyone within the organization. We have one a year. I am not actively involved in setting them up; there is a committee, overseen by my boss, the local head of our organization, that does that. I arrived at the plenary session promptly because a friend and colleague, someone I have worked closely with for nearly 30 years, was coming from the East Coast to be the keynote speaker. Delighted to see me, he immediately made plans for us to get together the next day to discuss some things of mutual business interest, and we did. The best part of the day, however, was an incidental discussion with one of the junior leaders of another division. She had worked for me years ago when I first worked at our organization. (I worked there from 1989-1993, then left for 13 years, returning in 2006.) She told me the history of the annual conference -- me! I was astonished. We had done such a conference on a small scale in my division years ago. A couple of years after I left, she happened to be working on a project where she was in a position to make a recommendation to an advisory committee that the whole organization pick up on this idea and conduct an annual in-house conference, and management agreed. This has now been going on almost 15 years. When she saw me, she said, "Look what your conference turned into!" I did not understand until she explained. Oh, my, it is good to feel that one has made a contribution somewhere! (I do realize, however, that it took many other people with as good or better ideas really to turn it into the major event that it is today.)

6. Wednesday I had my first Pashto lesson. One day not long ago when I was handing out cookies to employees on one of my famous MBWA (management by walking about) afternoons, one of our Afghani employees, learning that I have been involved in some Afghanistan-related projected, offered to teach me Pashto. I emailed him, thanking him for the offer and taking him up on it if he was still inclined to help me. Indeed, he was! He came to my office on Wednesday, nervous as all get-out. After all, he is one of our traveling employees so I don't know him very well, and I am his boss's boss's boss. That lengthy chain can unnerve some folks although most, given my open-door policy and occasional afternoon cookies, have become used to interacting with me. Jamal perched nervously on one of the chairs at the conference table in my office. Seeing his nervousness, I took a slightly lower chair, so that he could look down on me, not up to me. That seemed to do the trick of throwing us into the proper teacher and student roles. Pashto is the 18th language I have studied, so I do not find it difficult. Jamal expected to teach me part of the alphabet that first day and was quite surprised to learn that I already know the alphabet (except for three letters). The alphabet is the same as the Arabic alphabet, which I have known since my days of living in Jordan. He quickly taught me the three letters, the days of the week, greetings, numbers to 1000, all the pronouns in the language, present tense of some verbs, sentence structure, possessive prepositions. In one hour, we were already communicating in the language albeit in short, limited sentences, banal questions and answers. Jamal left his glasses behind; when I contacted him to return them, he said it was because he was so overwhelmed by all the work we had accomplished in such a short time that he lost his head! :) We had our second hour today (well, actually, 30 minutes is all I could squeak out, but now I can talk about things in the future and past tenses, can describe my town and state, saying such things as "San Ignatio is a beautiful, historic town located in California in the southwest part of the USA," "I will be going to Jordan on the 19th of August and returning on the 25th," "I come to work every day at 7:00 in the morning but today I came at 7:30," and "I have seven children, four boys and three girls." Jamal is so excited about having an experienced language learner that he came in from vacation today and is coming in again tomorrow to teach me. I guess he got over his nerves!! The downside? I don't do homework (no time for that), but I warned him about that in advance.

7. I finally got around to reviewing a book proposal for Cambridge University Press. They tend to ask my opinion before giving contracts for new books because the two books I have published through them have been their most successful. Unfortunately, I could not give even one thumbs up to this particular book. I always feel a tad guilty when this happens because I know how hard it is to put a book proposal together and how disappointing it is to get a negative response. On the other hand, the editors/authors should have done their homework a little better and been a little humbler in their presentation. They claimed that the whole world would be excited about their book. Well, probably not. In fact, I suspect that only libraries would buy it and then only if it were to carry the CUP label. They claimed that their work was seminal. Well, no, they even listed others who had written on the topic in their bibliography. They listed someone with a well known name in the field as writing the final chapter. Well, perhaps he would do that but they had not included an abstract, so clearly he had not cooperated with them on a deadline and, while famous (and a bit infamous), in my opinion, he does not have enough experience in the narrow field about which the book editors were collecting chapters to make reliable and valid commentary. While I always dislike giving a thumbs down on proposals, it is not fair to either authors or the press to encourage the publication of a book that is likely to be a bomb. That, I suppose, is why I have a reputation for honest and frank reviews, which I would prefer to retain.

7 Quick Takes Friday #12

I arrived in Klaipeda, Lithuania just in time to contribute to the 7 Quick Takes Friday meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. This, though, is only because while it is near the end of the day Friday here, it is the high point of the day in the USA. It has been an eventful week, beginning with sadness last Friday with the death of Ray, only one day after Shane lost his job, and ending on more positive tones. So, here is a quick round-up, not by day exactly, more like by topic, of this week.

1. Mass. Thanks to Martin Luther King Day being a holiday, I was able to go to daily Mass twice in a row: Monday and Tuesday. I had taken Tuesday off because I had thought I would be flying at that time, but the situation with Ray threw some of those plans out of kilter. I even had time on both (!) days to have coffee (milk for me) with friends who had also been at Mass. I have been traveling so much they had forgotten who I was (not really), but catching up is always fun to do, especially when there is no real time limit.

2. SFO. Sunday I attended our Secular Franciscan meeting. I have not been in a few months. November I was in some state/country or other -- forget exactly where. December was cancelled. For some reason (well, actually because I brought up some requests), it turned into a prayer fest (inspiring), followed by a delayed holiday exchange of gifts (fun). Everyone had brought food donations for a local project, and I offered to take them to the project director. Good intentions rarely going unpunished, I managed to back the car into a tree when I backed up to get closer to the door for loading the food. Inconsiderate tree! It just did not seem to want to move out of my way. So, I have a dent in the back bumper that proves to Donnie that I really am as bad a driver as he thinks I am.

3. Prayer Group. I always look forward to our Monday night prayer group. I co-lead with a spiritual director, Robert, who comes down from the St. Francis Retreat Center. Actually, he does the leading, and I do the shepherding in the sense of networking, reminding people, gathering the clans. Since I had not expected to be in town Monday, I did not send out the routine notices, and I learned how important they are: no one showed up except Sr. M and me. From a selfish point of view, that was great. I love Sr. M and learn a lot from her, and we had two hours or more to share scripture, experience, and prayer. What a great way to end the day!

4. Shane moving forward. Shane has spent the week recovering from the shock of losing his job in spite of just having received a raise for outstanding performance. Although the Human Resource office has forbidden his supervisor, who disagreed with the decision, from telling Shane the reason, it would appear that little Nikolina's $2 million insurance bill accompanied by the significant amount of leave that Shane had to take at one time was the reason. The reason does not matter as much as finding insurance coverage for Nikolina, and surprisingly, Stanford University Hospital offered to try to help. Apparently, there are programs now for people in such dire circumstances. So, Shane spent some time in Palo Alto this week. I will provide an update to the Clan under Siege post on Clan of Mahlou once I get settled in here on the cold Baltic Sea.

5. A Matter of Attitude. The United Airlines plane that was supposed to carry me to Frankfort for transfer to a Lufthansa flight to Vilnius did not leave the San Francisco Airport on Wednesday. Flight 900 was simply a doomed flight, all because of as broken PA system. Apparently, planes cannot fly without a way to communicate between crew and all passengers, not just those in some of the cabins, and since the plane we were on had a PA system that ignored the back rows of economy class, we returned to the airport three times after trying to take off while mechanics scratched their heads over how to fix the system. They wanted to turn off the broken speaker but did not know which circuit breaker to pull. As a result, they pulled us -- off the plane and into seven hours of waiting for another plane. People became cranky, as did some of the customer representatives. (I think I shall send some suggestions to United; Shane used to work the complaint counter at Sears when he was 16 and did a better job of not personalizing the comments of frustrated people than did some of the senior airlines people on Wednesday. Patience is a virtue in such cases.) Of course, it is a two-way street, and not being cranky usually gets one a better deal. For me, it paid off: a hotel room in Frankfurt and dinner. Yes, I was a day late in arriving, but at least I arrived during the day. The alternative would have been to debark the plane in Vilnius at 0001 in the morning, with no place but a snowbank for a bed, Klaipeda being four hours away, the driver snoring away in the comfort of his own home, and the only nearby hotel having closed its doors two hours earlier.

6. Frankfurt. Oh, the lark of it! Yes, I was stranded. Yes, I was supposed to start teaching Friday. Yes, both the students and I would have to make up the missed hours. Nonetheless, there I was in Frankfurt, speaking German. Rusty German, to be sure, but I was able to practice it at check-in, dinner, the ticket counter in the morning. I rarely get a chance to speak German (although a trip earlier this year did help to refresh my memory), and for me the practice and renewal of the language was worth the irritation of an interrupted flight. Oh, and did I mention that the duck dinner was sumptious?

7. Klaipeda. Finally! I arrived in Vilnius in the early afternoon on the coldest day in history for that date's temperature, easily picked out the tall driver from the university, clambered into his station wagon, and proceeded to chat for the next 3-4 hours, the length of the drive from Vilnius to Klaipeda. The driver did not speak much English but was quite at home in Russian. A chance to practice another foreign language although Russian does not seem "foreign" to me. The only difficulty was my lack of a four-hour bladder, four kids having demolished the only bladder I ever had with constant kicking throughout pregnancies. Fortunately, we found a roadside facility about an hour from Klaipeda, and I was much more lively after that.

However, now I have to go to bed (yes, I know it is only noon in the USA), so that I can get up and prepare to teach six hours of class tomorrow (down two hours from the eight hours that the dean had promised (threatened?) the students. We can get in all the hours required for the semester in the next two weeks with only six hours a day on weekends. Only?? It will be interesting to see if the students can match my fortitude for work. And so, without further ado, good-night!

A Day Off? A Matter of Definition!

Many thanks to all of you who have wished me well and prayed me well! Finally, I seem to be coming back to life. Not that I have completely avoided living -- or working -- while feeling mostly dead! Anyway, I think the flu is behind me; just some stuffiness and little aches and pains reminding me that perhaps I am not in top condition yet. Still, I managed to drag myself onto the plane yesterday and reach my Maryland destination. Today I led a meeting with a major client, did some training for the local staff, put out a fire at our Georgia branch, raised a ruckus over a stupid decision back in my office in California, conferred with the director of the Maryland branch over lunch and in the afternoon had a joint conversation with his boss (my direct report) back in California about various issues, had dinner with my administrative assistant from the days when I worked in Jordan (quite a surprise -- she is visiting her children who are in graduate school here), talked to Julie in Virginia about a possible visit after the conference since Shura (the dying-child-artist-now-healthy-adult whom we rescued from a Siberian hospital 15 years ago) is in town from Russia (another surprise) and did some initial networking to set that up with others who would want to see him, and then went to the airport to welcome a professor/guest speaker from Jordan who will be at the conference I will be attending at the end of the week and got him settled in the hotel, after which I turned to email and the like. Oh, and some scattered moments for prayer -- wish I had more! I always wish I had more. Sometimes the best I can do is a frequently interrupted running dialogue throughout the day, especially the plea for "help" right before a major decision or the feeling that a gasket is about to blow -- it rarely does blow. God has a way of cooling off the gasket. So, anyway, I would have to say it was a pretty normal day.

Thinking about the "normal" work day, I recalled recently taking a day off work to be available should my son Shane and his wife Lemony need my help in support of their daughter Nikolina's hospital visit (she has an appointment at Stanford about once every other week). I always look forward to babysitting Nathaniel; already at age 7 he is a little scientist and, like his father before him at approximately the same age, has declared me "eccentric."

As it turned out, Lemony did not need me, so I got a "real" day off, or at least the best version of a day off that I seem to be allowed. Lemony did not need me, but my office did. My assistant faxed some paperwork home, and I was off to the races. I finished that just in time for the daily noon mass. Fr. E was out of town, and at those times the priest at the noon mass is unpredictable except to those working in the parish office. To my delight, Fr. Terry had come down from the retreat center on the hill, where he is director. Mass with Fr. Terry is always special: intimate and personal, with lots of time devoted to silent prayer, even in places during the mass where one does not expect it. For that reason, Fr. Terry's masses are very spiritual in nature, constantly giving the congregation time to absorb the joy of being in the presence of God together. The undoing for me is always the way Fr. Terry asks everyone to circle the altar. I always feel God's presence more strongly the closer I draw to our humble altar. (Our mission church is old and made by the hands of Native Americans before the days of precision architecture; there are even animal paw prints in some of the floor tiles.) So there we stood, and I could feel the tears coming, the ones that well up in God's presence. They are good tears. One, however, might feel foolish for them except that among God's parishioners there is no need for embarrassment. That is why I love this community and this church. People understand and accept and love. Noon mass, when I can make it, is my psychological oasis during the day.

Then, quickly, I was back in the bramble bushes. One after another they rolled in, those pesky emails, about 200 all told, about par for my daily intake. Most of the issues I could send off to one of the senior managers, and having delegated them, I could go on to the other big issue of the day: a problem employee who had taken the first steps to filing a law suit against us for firing her. Of course, she had no grounds for filing, but that rarely stops aggrieved people who seem to enjoy watching us push aside everything else and pay attention to them. Sometimes, as in the case of this person, if the immediate supervisor had paid attention to her early on we would not have been facing a potential court case. Our lawyer called. I gave him all the details I had in my head. Then, a real surprise kicked in. My boss called with the news that another directorate wanted her. Well, that was a win-win. We released our claim on her, and she dropped her lawsuit. The last I heard she has been doing a good job. I like it when we can help even the people who seem to us not to deserve it. (Yep, problem employees are my specialty; I love them, literally!)

The rest of the day was routine, but full. Not one minute of the afternoon was a free one. And so that night, I went to the store, searching for some pleasure. I wanted my day off, even if it were only an ice cream cone.

As I took $20 from the ATM, I mentally added up the outstanding and incoming billpayer checks. The total was higher than cash available. Oops! Another one of those days! It reminded me of the time that Lizzie, then in the fourth grade, was asked by the teacher what she should immediately think upon seeing a problem that she had copied down as 24-36. The answer for fourth graders was, of course, that they had copied the problem wrong. Not for Lizzie! What, Lizzie give a traditional answer?! "I should think that I need to remember to include the negative sign in writing -12," she volunteered. That flustered the teacher who certainly did not want to get into negative numbers with fourth-graders. She hastily said that negative numbers do not exist. I suppose she wanted Lizzie to move back into fourth-grade math. But nothing doing! Lizzie was genuinely puzzled and innocently asked her teacher, "If there are no negative numbers, why does Mommy have them in her check book?" Sr. Beatrice, do you remember this? Thank you for not telling the principal -- St. Leo's would never have taken another check from me!

Well, I would have to find some money to change the color of my future checkbook from red into black, but I was not worried. All the outstanding billpayer checks were for donations of various sorts. So, since these were God's bills, I trusted that God would find me the money to pay them. (In case you are wondering, the money appeared, as it always does for good causes.)

As I walked into the store, my pocket buzzed with five more Blackberry messages. Argh! I sat down on one of the cafe chairs and answered each of them, then walked over to the ice cream counter. After all those enotes and a day off that had mostly turned out to be a day on, maybe, just maybe, I had earned some ice cream! And even if I had not, I was going to get some anyway -- and I did!

And that, folks, is how my days go and how my life meanders on. Well, perhaps "meander" is not the most appropriate word! That's why I do sincerely appreciate those noon-mass oases, scattered moments of prayer, surprises like seeing Fr. Terry, opportunities to lend a hand to those in need of any sort, and ice-cream cones whenever they come my way. Those are the important things, not the training and meetings and clients and business travel and supervisory tasks. I consider those things divine gifts, the most important of which is being surrounded by the Clan of Mahlou and God's love.

Damaged Vessel

We have no right to compare ourselves to others for God loves each of us just as we are with all our imperfections. Yet, as a relatively new believer, I find that at times I cannot help but compare myself with other parishioners; it is one way in which I learn.

The comparison isn't good. I see around me people who seem more pious and more devoted than I think I will ever be. Although when I first first enter and kneel I feel God's presence so strongly that sometimes I can scarcely move, just a few minutes later I feel my mind slipping away and wonder what it is that keeps me from being as focused as others. (And yes, I do realize that I am probably not entirely alone in this.) Sometimes my focus is pulled away by events in my life that skitter through my brain. Other times, I become so absorbed in enjoying the presence of God that I find myself praying mechanically as I bask in that feeling of love -- a sort of contemplation that blurs out everything and everyone else.

More often than not, I marvel at being in the midst of those who love God and have taken the time to come and tell Him that in the presence of His community. That is when I realize that there is both a spiritual side and a social side to church. While they are intertwined, I don't think the best time for intertwining is during mass.

As these various thoughts swirl around in my mind, I realize from the swirling alone what a broken receptacle I am. I know that God can use all kinds of vessels -- the sturdier ones around me (those people who have spent their lives in the church and done much good in the name of God), the small shiny ones (the little children who have a life of service yet to come), and even the broken ones like me. Truly, I don't know why God entrusts such a damaged vessel as I with any of His tasks, let alone why He clearly selects specific tasks and lays them before me. I am grateful, though, that He does for I enjoy doing them.

Nor do I understand why He floods His enormous love into me when I cannot possibly hold it all; there are too many cracks in me, some possibly from the casting and the rest from a lifetime of rough usage. Again, I am grateful that He does. I sincerely hope that what leaks out through my cracks will be God's love, and that it will splash liberally onto others, both those others whom I admire as examples for my own spiritual development and those others I meet on a daily basis who live on the fringe and need that love so much more than I do.