Going to the Ball

As I emulate Cinderella and head off to this year's ball, I will leave a post for the sharing in my absence. First, let me say that I am not the ball type. I would rather be hiking mountains than sipping tea. But, I do not always get to choose. As one of the more visible leaders of our organization (combination of high post and big mouth), I cannot ditch the annual ball, much as I would like to.

Last year I wrote a post that garnered a fair amount of comments and discussion about my dilemma in what to wear. (I had actually been able to avoid earlier balls for acceptable reasons, but I had no acceptable reason last year, and so I appeared upon demand.) I could not bring myself to spend hundreds (or dozens) of dollars on the required attire: tuxedo or gown. There was so much more I could do of value with that kind of money, and there was also that Franciscan vow of poverty. So, I decided to wear a dress from Jordan that I had purchased there for $5 and that would look dressy in the USA although I had some serious doubts when I arrived and started to mix in among the tuxedos and ball gowns. (You can read the post here: VIP or VOP or Both? It includes a larger discussion of the decision-making process and results).

The most evident result was the reputation I gained by wearing ethnic dress. Everyone who did not attend the ball heard about it. This year, a few weeks ago, several people who had been to their home countries in the last few months brought me local dresses, asking me to wear them in honor of their culture. (I ensured that they had bought them for $25 or less, the ethical limit our organization places on gifts from employees to supervisors.) I understood the intent. They were not bribes; they just wanted to feel that their senior supervisor respected and even liked their cultures. Of course, I do. I have been to most of their countries and speak most of their languages. Wherever I am, I try to blend and often succeed. I felt honored by the requests. The situation, however, contains its own dilemma: which of the six ethnic dresses and four ethnic shawls should I wear?

Actually, I have decided on none of them. I will wear that $5 Jordanian dress again. Then, I will find other occasions to honor all those who have requested it through the gift of their ethnic attire.

Interestingly, I may have started something. This year's ball announcement again listed tuxedos and gowns as acceptable attire but added "or culturally appropriate attire." Never think that one person cannot create change!

[Note: Image above drawn by Tom Dubois -- click here to see more of his beautiful art work, which is for sale.]

Four Days

Last weekend, as I have mentioned in a few blog posts in passing, I was blessed to be able to attend a four-day retreat at St. Francis Retreat Center (SFRC) in San Juan Bautista, California. I spend a lot of time at SFRC since it is not far from where I live. I attend First Fridays there, participate in center-led retreats, and contribute to the center on a regular basis. (The center burned down in 2006, and for the next three years, every penny that was collected mattered. The beautiful new center opened in 2009. Until then retreats were held in mobile buildings. As with so many other things in life, good came from bad. Were it not for the fire, in which no one got hurt, the friars and community would not likely have built a new center for quite some time, if at all. In that rebuilding I have also been able to participate, relying on God to help me keep a rather surprising financial contribution: for details see The Journey Is More Important Than the Destination.)

This particular retreat was different. It was conducted by the priest who leads our contemplative prayer group. It was the first time I had ever spent so much time in silence. After all, I am an extrovert. Silence does not come naturally. I even talk to birds and squirrels!

The silence, however, was exactly what I needed to finish off a week that had gone from frenetic to tranquil, thanks to God answering my wail while in Washington to return home and be able to spend the entire retreat in retreat activities. Until the day before the retreat I had been unable to arrange for a timely arrival for Thursday evening (my plane was supposed to arrive from Washington, DC late in the afternoon) and unable to get the full day off on Friday (I had a mandatory meeting Friday afternoon). When I begged God, however, to bring me back home and back to Him, suddenly flights were cancelled, requirements were changed, and even the mandatory meeting was postponed. Amazingly, I had the entire retreat time off, all four days.

I consider these four days God's gift to me. God certainly spoils me! (But I hope He does not stop because I like it!)

7 Quick Takes Friday #34

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday Morning Meditation #44: When God Requires Something from Us, He Always Provides the Resources

Well, I continued on last week, but I was unable to post anything. Many apologies if you came here, looking for the MMM. The Internet went down in the hotel where we were staying, and we had to check out for our trip back to California from Ohio before the Internet went back up. So, my MMM was an alone time. This week, I finished reading I Chronicles. At the very end, my eye and mind caught onto the story of Solomon being selected for the task of building a temple for the Ark of the Covenant and Solomon being young and inexperienced. Solomon did not have the skills or resources for the task. David, knowing this, gave splendidly to the building of the temple. Yet, it was not enough. So, he turned to the people and asked the people of Israel, upon which "the leaders of families, the officers of the tribes of Israel, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, and the officials in charge of the king's work gave willingly."

Reading: I Chronicles 29: 1-9.

Meditation: I have noticed as I read through various Bible stories that God appears to have a habit of picking the most unlikely people to carry out his missions and tasks. They are often people without any desire to have the task and/or lacking skills for the task. They are also often people who lack the resources for the task. That is where trust comes into the picture.

I have been asked on several occasions to perform a task or give support to an undertaking. I have written about several of them in my various blogs. With tasks, I have usually felt that I lacked the skills, as in when I was told to take on a modern-day Goliath or to write a tome. I even usually argue with God initially, but we all know where those kinds of arguments have historically ended. So, I don't know why I react that way. My second "initial" reaction is to comply. Over time, I have stopped worrying about whether I have the resources, knowledge, or skills for the task because each time all of those things, as needed, have always appeared.

The appearance of resources, especially, has been marvelous to observe: one modern story of the fishes and loaves after another. For example, a remarkable example, I was asked to contribute to the rebuilding of our local St. Francis Retreat Center, which had burned down as a result of old, faulty wiring. For its director, Fr. Terry, rebuilding the center was reminiscent of what Solomon experienced in building the temple except that Solomon was too young for this sort of thing and at 80+ one would think that Fr. Terry might be a tad old for it -- unless you know him. There was no money for this, but the money came from all over. I had been making a small but regular contribution, simply turning over my book royalties to the center, when Fr. Terry, somewhat reluctantly and at the urging of the fund-raising committee, asked me if I could make a pledge, as opposed to regular donations. That way, a local bank would lend the funds upfront. Now, a pledge is a commitment; donations are not. So, I prayed about it, and I prayed about the amount. Into my hands at that point fell a note that there were still no funds for the kitchen, which cost close to half my annual salary. I could not believe that God would really want me to commit to this amount of money, but it became clear that He did. So, I did, relying on Him to find the money for me. The pledge clearly shocked both Fr. Terry and the fund-raising committee because they do know I do not have that kind of money, not now and not spread out over the five years of the pledge period. I have not worried, however, because where God asks something of me, He always provides the resources. This instance is no different. Extra money has fallen into my hands from higher royalties than anticipated from my various books, a large return on my taxes, per diem that I have not needed on business travel, merit pay bonuses, and, finally, overwhelmingly surprising to me, a whopping 125% pay raise that has more than covered the pledge amount, which will allow me to pay off the pledge in considerably less than five years. Yes, indeed, when God requires something, He will for sure provide the resources needed. We have no need to fear or worry -- and I don't.

That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I must retire to private prayer to thank God for always, always providing for me, to praise Him for the marvelous surprises He provides for me in that respect, to repent for each time that it took a second initial response (and not a first and immediate response) for me to acquiesce to whatever task God has set before me (Why, oh why, am I so contrary at times?), and to ask Him never to give up on asking me and tasking me in spite of my contrariness because deep down I am always willing to take on the tasking (I suppose God knows that). Now I retire to spend as much time as I can in contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the sidebar of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

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 #23

What a week! Even for me. I feel like the roller-coaster has pulled into the station just in time to take off again for another climb without me letting off! (Truly, one more ride up and down and around the track is in front of me for next week, with a quick trip to Nebraska planned for Monday (yep, in and out in one day) and the big question: Do I or do I not go to the Middle East at the end of the week? That depends upon my boss, and he is not telling (yet). I nearly did not write this week's 7 Quick Takes, a meme hosted by Jennifer Futwiler at Conversion Diary, because I have been hit by a pretty severe cold. (I don't like being sick, but I guess no one does.)

1. Last Friday at this time I learned that I was to be stuck in Hawaii for a while due to plane mechanical problems. I suppose one does not consider oneself "stuck" in a lovely place like Hawaii. As is often the case when something goes "wrong" with my life, things turned out better than had they gone according to plan. The extra few hours allowed me to write a presentation for a conference in Jordan (the one that I may or may not attend) that can be read by a proxy should I not be able to go. When I did get to the airport and obtain my ticket for the rescheduled flight, I found out that United had given me a complimentary upgrade to First Class as an apology for the delay. Cool! (I have to admit, however, that First Class is lost on me; I am short enough to fit neatly and comfortably into Economy Class.) Nonetheless, I accepted the accommodation, with thanks, ate too much, watched the movie, slept, and arrived too late to catch the plane home from San Francisco so the colleague I was traveling with and I took a rental car and drove home, arriving around 3:00 in the morning.

2. I did not get much post-plane sleep. I had to be at a retreat at 8:00 Saturday morning at the St. Francis Retreat Center. The retreat, Franciscan Spirituality, provided the perfect opportunity to slow down and pay attention to the more important things after a busy week. I noticed that we were not the only retreatants there. With the newly re-built center (after the center burned and the staff scrambled to raise money to replace the old building with a contemporary, more versatile new main building), more groups are now attracted to the serene hills outside our rustic community.

3. The retreat ended Sunday afternoon, just in time to say good-bye to one of my mid-level managers, who will be moving eastward to take over our Maryland office. I invited him and his new girlfriend to Jardines Restaurant. Hailing from Panama, he loves the Latin cuisine there; his girlfriend, who hails from Mexico, decided that she also loves the cuisine. She ordered pollos borrachos (drunken chickens), a puebla (Mexican) recipe. There are some very pleasant aspects to my job. Sending someone off a new adventure is one of them.

4. Monday evening I rushed back home from work to our prayer group meeting because my co-leader was not going to be there. (I rely on him always to be on time because the 6:30 start is difficult for me. I often arrive a few minutes late.) For some strange reason, only Sr. M and one other person showed up. We managed to get so involved, just the three of us, though, that we ran almost an hour longer than usual. There is something delicious and addictive about 2-3 gathering together in God's name and praying together. None of us wanted to leave but just to sit quietly and bask in the feel of God's presence. Needless to say, the rest of the evening was relaxed and satisfying, to some extent a continuation of the retreat experience.

5. At work, this has been a good week for training. On Tuesday, I attended training led by a contracted organization that had done some research for us into best techniques for teaching adults. The presenter was somewhat nonplussed to find me in the audience because she had used one of my books as the basis for some of her conclusions. This has happened to me before, and I always look at it favorably. If someone wants to use my work, it is a compliment; I never criticize the way in which they apply it even if they did not quite get it right. Then, on Wednesday, together with the head of our personnel office, I conducted an all-day training session for new and relatively new managers from our branch offices on the topic of managing "difficult" people in a servant leadership approach to management. What fun! I ordered pizza and pop for a group lunch (then got called away to be on a telephonic conference call over the lunch hour with my boss and the visiting research team; oh, well, I am on a diet and really did not need any of that pizza...). Since I don't believe that people are born difficult or want to be difficult, I entitled my presentation, "How to Create Difficult People." I hope it helped the new leaders have an understanding that everyone is a reflection of God and, therefore, should be treated with respect and love -- and, if that really happens, the difficult side of "difficult people" generally disappears.

6. Our organization's contribution to Afghanistan was finalized at an all-morning meeting today. I will be sending four people there next week. Yikes! One of them, one of my senior managers, had no idea when he got up this morning that he would be going, but he readily agreed. I have such incredibly wonderful and flexible people working for me! I get a lot of credit for meeting "impossible" client needs, but it is not I, but the people who work for me, doing it.

7. Some time during this emotionally charged week, I caught a severe cold. Medicine does not seem to be helping much. Sleep might if I could squeeze time in for that. I was going to call in sick for teaching catechism this evening (it would have been the first and only time in three years), but my co-teacher beat me to tthe punch. Since she had called in sick, there was no question about stopping to pick up some snacks and dragging myself in to the parish educational center. Even though I did not feel any better physically afterward, I am glad that I had this evening with the teens. First, during the break, the classroom aide "caught" our self-proclaimed atheist reading beyond the Bible passage we had read in class. (I don't believe he is truly an atheist. As a former atheist, I recognize other atheists, and he is not one, in my opinion. I think he is just angry at God because his aunt was attacked by her boyfriend five years ago, killed, cut into pieces, and left beside the road in a garbage bag. Only God is going to be able to help him move beyond his anger, but if my co-worker or I can facilitate any rapprochement, we would love to be used in that way.) Second, during an activity that required the teens to track down specific information in the Bible, it became clear that one of the boys, a leader in sports at school (one of the jocks, I guess you could say) did not have good skimming and reading skills. One of the quiet, less popular girls, Clare, went over to him, sat with him, and walked him through the whole process. I could not help but think of St. Clare. It was an unselfish, helpful gesture, undertaken without any regard for cliques and popularity (something that sometimes we have to help the kids to work through). Someone needed help; she helped. Observing that was a great way for me to end the past seven days.

I hope you have had a good week, too, and that God will bless your weekend.

Thankful Thursday #: Peaceful Days

This week I have had many reasons to be thankful, so, leaving aside the past weekend, which I will chronicle in tomorrow's Quick Takes -- it was so full that the weekend adventures will occupy all seven slots -- let me list the ones that came to mind today.

Today, by the way, was a great day. I played hooky from work and spent the day at the St. Francis Retreat Center at the Day of Recollection that the retreat center staff puts on for Lenten Wednesdays, then in the evening managed to carve out time both for the Bible Study class and for the Penance service at Old Mission, double attendance being possible because our class went as a whole to confession, which took a little longer than usual because there were only two priests for a surprisingly large number of people who showed up. I was among the last in line, but it was worth the wait, and the music that played while we were waiting shaped our emotions into the needed tenor.

Perhaps, then, I will start with today's retreat center activities. Since I try to attend the days of recollection, whether on Lenten Wednesdays or First Fridays, in any given year being lucky enough to make about 30% of them, I have come to know the regular attendees over time pretty well. The core group is a like a gathering of friends. Today was no different. I sat with two people from my prayer group who also form part of the core group for the retreat center activities. Both are retired, so they are more regular than I am. One of them sat next to me during the morning session and the ensuing Mass. During the Mass, at which we were joined in the chapel by about 30 friars who were attending a meeting of some sort at the retreat center, the presence of God simply pervaded the entire chapel. I felt it very strongly. Knowing that often the friend who was sitting beside me does not feel God's presence as intensely as I do, I said a silent prayer, asking that she might also be aware of God's presence. After the Mass was over, she looked visibly moved. I asked her if she had felt a strong sense of God's presence as I had, and she said, "Yes, and especially when you touched me" during the kiss of peace. I am thankful for the answer to that prayer, as well as thankful for something that did not happen. During the morning, there was a sighting of Fr. Terry, my de facto spiritual advisor for the past three years and the former director who recently (as in two months ago) left the center for another position, following a transfer of functions at the center by the Franciscan regional order (to whose intentions and logic I can never see rhyme nor reason). He apparently was attending the meeting of friars. I glimpsed him briefly at Mass, but I was unable to make my way through the crowd to say hello before he disappeared. I miss him very much, and I pray for him as often as I can. (He is not young: 80+.) I was disappointed, of course, that I came so close, yet missed him, but not as much as I would have been had not a special book fallen into my hands recently. In this book, Abandonment to Divine Providence, deCaussade wrote, "When God lives in the soul, it has nothing left of self but only that which the spirit which actuates it imparts to it at each moment...often enough it is even deprived of a regular director, for God allows it no other support than that which He gives it Himself." I am extraordinarily grateful that this book popped into my hands at just the right moment in my life (as so much seems to do these days).

Yesterday, I had to go into work late because I had to pick up a good-bye mug for one of our administrative assistants whose last day was yesterday. (It was good that I took the time to get it because I could tell from the expression on her face when I presented it at the good-bye luncheon that she had expected it.) Donnie designs the mugs, and a local novelty shop makes them. They read "Bon voyage. Thanks for making Division C a better place." They also have the employee's name on the cup. They seem to be treasured by the departing employees, and I would not dare to forget one. With the mug carefully placed on the floor in the back seat, I headed to work only to be stopped by a rooster. Roosters have the right of way, legally, in San Ignatio, and this one seemed confused. He was not crossing the street, as the joke goes, to get to the other side. He just stood in front of me, leaving me no room on either left or right to get around him without his potentially running under my tires. I waited, and waited, and waited. I waited long enough to miss the meeting that I had promised to catch the tail end of. (The organizer told me it was the most unique excuse/justification he had ever heard! Held up by a rooster!) The longer I waited, the slower the day became and the calmer I became. I am very thankful to that rooster and the slow start to the day because I arrived in a "slow" frame of my mind, and the whole day was stress-free. I hope I can repeat that often. (Well, maybe without the rooster!)

I am very thankful for our cats, Murjan (Arabic: coral - an immigrant from Jordan, he has a white coral body and a red coral markings), Intrepid (another Jordanian), and Simone (a local feral cat whom I tamed). They bring us such pleasure. Murjan is an especially social cat and misses me when I am away. Since we returned Sunday night from a weekend in Los Angeles, preceded by my week in Maryland, Murjan has not left my side. Of course, he began by jumping onto the kitchen table and begging for treats (his manners are not the best in that respect), but once he had inhaled those in 2-3 big bites, he jumped onto the couch beside me and nothing would entice him away. It has been that way all week; if I get up to do something, he follows and sits beside me until I come back to some place more comfortable, where he then lies down.

I could include more things about which to be thankful. A supervisor who came and presented a plaque with the names of my employees who had been recognized for service to the organization and distinguished performance; in the process, she made everyone, including me, feel valued. My prayer group met at my house on Monday evening and watched China Cry (I recommend it), during and after which we all cried -- and then ate some berries and cream. On Monday, I was able to have a senior staff meeting; everyone was back for the first time in weeks, including one supervisor who had safely returned from Afghanistan. Indeed, I could go on. It has been one of those weeks that makes up for the difficult ones. A week permeated by an attitude of gratitude because the days themselves have been resplendent with reasons to say thank you to colleagues, friends, God.

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

Amazing Power of Prayer

Marvels of marvels and miracles of miracles, something happened this morning that I never thought I would see. Never. Because I did not have as much faith as I should have had.

Donnie and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary on March 20. Complications, however, have arisen in celebrating it. First, March 20 is the only time that the university students in Lithuania can do the review session for the course I taught there the last two weeks, and they need one. Moreover, March 21 is the only day that they can take their final. Given the 10-hour difference between our countries and the plan to have the students do the final review over Skype and the final (monitored by the department chair) in the computer lab, emailing me immediately their answers, my presence is required in both instances in the late evening hours, ending at midnight. So, while I can be free during the day, I need to be at home, with the proper computer equipment at night. Any plans that Donnie and I would have liked to have had to take a trip (we have dreamed of a special trip for our 40th anniversary for some time, entertaining a number of different exotic locations, among which it had been difficult to choose) cannot be accomplished on the actual date. Second, with Shane unemployed, I would prefer to use trip money to pay the next unseen number of months of his COBRA fees, which at $800 a month are well beyond his ability to pay on unemployment compensation, and provide smaller amounts to help with the kids and food. (His umemployment amount covers his rent only.)

So, seeing that our local St. Francis Retreat Center, which is no more than five minutes up the hill from our house, is offering a two-day retreat on Franciscan spirituality March 20-21, I decided to sign up for it. Donnie has agreed to come! We will try to sneak away on the evening of March 20, during the dinner hour, for a private anniversary dinner at our favorite local restaurant.

The process leading to this decision began when Donnie returned from Jordan, an atheist as I had always been, to find that I had had a remarkable conversion experience and was now pretty dedicated to following in the path of Christ and obeying God at all costs. It was not the kind of thing one emails to one's spouse of 30+ years or relates on a phone. So, I had waited until he had completed his contract there, which ended eight months after mine, and then, when he arrived back in California, I shared with him all that had happened.

To say that he was in shock would be an understatement. For nearly a week, he could not even speak to me. He would look at me and mutter, "I cannot get my head around it."

Doah, on the other hand, was delighted. He had been a believer perhaps before he was even born. Who knows, given his significant retardation, what and how his beliefs were formed, but he always exhibited them. However, from the time that he could speak, he evinced not only strong belief but strong connection with God, saying things like "God told me" X or Y. One weekend soon after Donnie came home, Doah was in the car with us, driving to a nearby city for grocery shopping, and spontaneously said a prayer that momentarily got Donnie's attention, "Dear God, Thank you for bringing Mom to You, but You forgot about Dad."

Unfortunately, the effect was minimal and shorter than temporary. I wondered what would reach Donnie, and I knew that he was not the type to be pushed. Moreover, he was still in shock. I had been such an outspoken atheist.

A few months later, a friend visited from Nebraska. We spent every evening walking around Old Mission grounds, a little of it together but most of it separately praying and communing with God. It was during that time that I started begging God to help with Donnie and was told that eventually he would come to believe but that first I must frequently pray with him.

Pray with an atheist? I knew how that would have gone over with me, and I had a pretty good idea how that would go over with Donnie. Nonetheless, convinced that this was the path that God had chosen to bring Donnie to Him, at our very next breakfast together, I insisted that we say grace together. We have continued that pattern for two years now. I have also upon occasion, as I sensed his atheism turning into agnosticism, asked him to say grace (just in case), and he has acquiesced.

Then, last spring my torn rotator cuff was healed instantly during Mass. Doah was there and sensed the same presence on the kneeler with us that I felt touch my arm. When I returned and showed Donnie the totally free movement I had in my arm that had been impossible to move than 30 degrees before I went to Mass, he was again shocked. With the healing confirmed five days later by MRI, his agnosticism began to turn toward a "just in case, perhaps-perhaps not" kind of potentially emerging belief.

Still, he has been unwilling to step closer. I go to Mass alone or with Doah, Noelle, or Lemony (my daughter-in-law who was gladly my sponsor), when they are visiting, or even sometimes with a friend.

Nonetheless, Donnie has spent time with Fr. Ed and Fr. Barry, when they have come for a family or other event. They don't push him, either, and I try to follow their model of just being an example. I have also tried to be steadfast in praying for him and, as God urged, with him, relying on God to take care of the rest.

And so today, I am the one in shock, pleasant shock. (The shock pricks me, though, in thinking that had I had greater faith, there would be NO shock. Nonetheless, I am happy, indeed. Yes! A spiritual weekend together! What better anniversary gift could there be?A

7 Quick Takes Friday #14

I cannot believe that it is so soon Friday again and time to contribute to 7 Quick Takes Friday, a meme hosted by Jennifer at Conversion Diary. I am happy to report that I am back in sunny California, and it has been sunny! Also, the cold I felt I was coming down with simply disappeared as soon as I was home. (Maybe it has something to do with Fr. Ed blessing everyone's throats, one at a time, at noon Mass on St. Blaze's day. (Yeah, it was nice to start my first day back in the USA with a morning off and noon Mass.)

1. I started the week still in Lithuania. On Sunday, the English department chair and I attended Mass again at St. Casimir's. The temperature inside the church was still below zero. Proof positive: the holy water was a solid chunk of ice. After Mass, the dean, department chair, and I had dinner together at an Armenian-style restaurant. The food and company were both outstanding. Afterward, we went shopping, the one and only time while there that I had time to pick up some souvenirs, and I was delighted to find an illustrated book of the history of church art in Lithuania for Fr. Ed, who likes art. The only drawback is that the book is written in Lithuanian. Hopefully, a picture really is worth 1000 words!

2. After returning from the evening out on Sunday, I discovered that my ticket was for Tuesday, not Wednesday. On the one hand, I was distresse, trd to figure out how to get the Tuesday night class taken care of. On the other hand, this was a godsend. I really did not want my division to be reorganized in order to pose for a 125% expansion with my being able only to provide input from afar, since the direction things were taking were not at all to my liking and would have made it difficult to maintain quality control. It was a godsend (perhaps literally) that I was able to get back on Wednesday, before the final decision was made on Thursday. Once back, I was able to provide my input, and the decision all the way up and down the chain matched exactly what I wanted. Yes! Saying goodbye to the students a day earlier was emotional. Lots of hugs!!

3. The three-and-a-half hour drive to the airport was, in a word, snowy. We left with plenty of time to spare, which was necessary because a tractor trailer had jacknifed across the snowy, slick roads. Powder-white snow covered everything: the slim birch trees struggling to grow in the northern sea climate, the ice-covered lakes that reminded me of ice-skating as a child on New England frozen ponds, and the once-green-now-white fields. The trip reminded of Robert Frosts' poem about driving through the woods and snow on a winter night, only I was traveling in the day. In fact, as we passed the ice-encrusted birch trees, which in the summer could have been very much like the bending birches that Frost describes so affectionately, the poetry of Frost, a fellow New Englander, and Frost-related memories flooded my thoughts. Beyond his poetry, I have always felt affinity with Frost because he, like I a few decades later, home-schooled his children long before it was an accepted practice. Then there was the time that the British co-editor of one of the books I published through Georgetown University Press came to visit friends in New Hampshire when I was visiting family in Maine. We met at Robert Frost's farm, which was not only equidistant from where we were staying but also only a mile from my uncle's house. There, on the hood of her rental car, we signed the publishing contract, which needed original signatures, and then I showed her the real mending wall and the real west-running brook about which Frost wrote so meolidically.

4. My departure brought its moment of adrenaline. The Lufthansa flight arrived from Vilnius was delayed, and I arrived at Frankfurt with just minutes to make it to another gate area and through security before my Washington DC flight departed. I made it to the gate out of breath just as they were calling my name to say that the door was closing. Whew! This really is not the best way to get my morning calisthenics. I am sure planned exercise is a much saner way!

5. This week while on Facebook, I found a long-lost cousin. Well, she was not actually lost because I could have found her any time I wanted through my aunt, but when I made contact with another relative on Facebook, up popped the name and picture of this cousin, who is now living in New York. She was the youngest of my aunt's four children by far, not much older than my own children, so sort of a half-generation younger than me. I grew up with my older three cousins but had left Maine by the time their youngest sister was born. Maybe it is time that I got to know her better. I contacted her, and we are now Facebook friends. Lotsa catch-up to do! This is definitely going to be fun!

6. When I got home, Donnie told me that there were some interesting developments in family life that he had not shared with me by email while I was gone. Perhaps it was just as well. I have now blogged about them on the Clan of Mahlou site (Welcome Home?), but I will quickly relate them here. (a) Lizzie and Blaine, who have lived about because of work assignments in different states for the past five years of their 7-year marraige, have decided to divorce and remain permanently apart but good friends and devoted siblings. (Not blood kin, they were raised together from the time we took Blaine in from the barrio as a teenager.) We sort of think that is probably the relationship they should always have had, but grown children make their own decisions and parents support them whether or not they agree with those decisions. (b) While recovering from the loss of Ray, Noelle has encountered another difficulty. Her bone infection has worsened, and doctors are talking again about possible amputation of her foot. She is scheduled soon (still don't know the date) for some last-resort surgery to avoid amputation. Prayers welcomed!

7. Ah, Friday at last! And a special Friday at that. I was supposed to be on leave all week from work, but considering the drastic changes being planned on Wednesday and Thursday, I put in pretty full days, although I did take Wednesday morning for errands and Mass and came home at 7:00 p.m. for our Bible study group when I might have stayed later into the evening as I did on Thursday. I do have to go in to work this afternoon, but this morning, yippee, I am going to First Friday at St. Francis Retreat Center! A moment of peace! :)

Wishing all of you a weekend of peace!

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.