7 Quick Takes Friday #21

Oh, yes, another week has passed. This week's 7 Quick Takes, a meme hosted by Jennifer Futwiler at Conversion Diary, focus preponderantly on the beginning of the week (if you consider Saturday & Sunday the beginning of the week) in Los Angeles where I attended the Religious Education Congress, held there annually for catechists from all over the USA and beyond US borders, and otherwise fit in an anniversary celebration and teaching & testing college kids from Lithuania. That's everything in a nutshell, but read on for the details and pictures. I flew into LA from Maryland; Donnie and Doah drove down from San Ignatio. We met at the airport, not an infrequent occurrence.

1. Donnie, Doah, and I had a 3-star meal at Sizzler's for our 40th anniversary. Star 1 was Donnie, star 2 me, and star 3 Doah, who sat at a neighboring table to give us the impression of privacy. The restaurant was a compromise. With 40,000 people in town for the Religious Education Congress and spring breakers having fun at Disney Land just two blocks away, neither parking space outside nor seating space inside made itself available to us for our celebration. So, we drove some distance away and found a cute little Vietnamese restaurant where no one would serve us, the only non-Vietnamese in the place. Hard to tell why: perhaps because we were obviously not Vietnamese. So no Pho for me. Sizzler was across the street, so that is where we ended up.

2. Doah thinks that we got a great anniversary gift. We bought him a DVD player to keep him entertained while we were doing other things. Yeah, with kids, one compromises. It was a good decision, clearly. The first night Doah had it, he slept with his arm around it like it was a teddy bear. Even better, on the trip back, he hung it on the seat in front of him and watched a series of movies. Not once did we get the ever-asked question, "Are we almost there?" What better anniversary gift could we have?

3. After dinner, we rushed home so that I could prepare a final exam and email it to the students in Lithuania, who were gathered in the computer lab. It was 11:30 at night here and 8:30 in the morning there, creating a situation where we were equally tired, I from staying up late and they from getting up early the second day in a row. We had done the same thing the day before as a review session, which ran from 11:30 p.m to 1:30 a.m. PST. During the review, Donnie and Doah went to bed; it was late. My talking to my students via Skype did not seem to interfere with their ability to sleep soundly. Pretty soon the students at the other end told me that they were hearing a strange background sound on my end, like a humming. It was Doah and Donnie snoring!

4. Earlier in the day, Doah and Donnie joined me at the Congress for a diocese dinner. All the catechists in our diocese had gathered together to share a lunch, and those of us from San Ignatio fit perfectly around one table. The bishop, for some reason, was attracted to Doah and, after introductions had been made, came over and blessed Doah, the only person he blessed although one would think that every person in that room could have benefitted from a blessing. Everyone from Old Mission (San Ignatio) sat together. There were so many of us there from that tiny town that the bishop asked if we had left anyone behind. "Yes," we all said in chorus, "Fr. Ed!" (He had not come with us.)

5. For our anniversary, Donnie and Doah visited the Joshua Tree National Forest. Donnie not being a Disneyland fan, they drove for two hours instead of for two miles from where we were staying near Anaheim. On the way back, Donnie's coat, which had been hanging in the window, blew out the window when he rolled the window down. So, he had a little hike back along the highway to retrieve it. Ah, it's the little things that make the strongest memories. While Donnie and Doah celebrated our anniversary, I attended lectures at the Religious Education Congress. Fortunately, since it was our 40th anniversary, we were used to those odd kinds of celebrations, so we both enjoyed the day although some eyebrows might be raised as to it being a real anniversary celebration. (For us, it was.)

6. One of the speakers I heard at the Religious Education Congress was Fr. Richard Rohr from the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had heard his inspiring speech last year, "Cosmic Christology." This year he talked about "The Naked Now" and how Western dualistic thinking keeps us from truly understanding the nature of Christ and of God's plan for the universe. It was a truly insightful speech, and I was happy to run into Fr. Richard later in the day where I had the opportunity to have him sign a copy of one of his books for the leader of our Bible Study group who is a devote of Fr. Richard.

7. The trip back was very, very, very, very LONG! Traffic crawled for the first three hours. However, on the way we found a wonderful restaurant for an anniversary lunch: North Woods Inn. We had a steak lunch (yeah, off my diet for the second day) and a blackberry sundae (really off my diet). The peanuts were on my diet, and I enjoyed being able to throw the shells on the floor, a charm of the place and something I got into with great gusto. Uh, actually, too much gusto -- I hit the people at the table behind us with empty peanut shells. Oh, well, they were understanding. Perhaps they had given up retaliation for Lent!

Wishing all of you a wonderful week ahead!

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