PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
PAUL PHILIBERT

Last night I attended a lecture by Fr. Paul Philibert, OP, who spoke about Yves Congar’s vision for reform in the Catholic Church. Congar was a French Dominican priest who had enormous influence on the work of renewal both before and during the Second Vatican Council and was especially interested in both ecumenism and the place of the laity in the Church.

Fr. Philibert elaborated on Congar’s four conditions for reform without schism: primacy of charity and pastoral concern, remain in communion with the whole, patience, and return to the principles of Tradition. These points would be helpful guides for change in government or any societal institutions, I thought, and even though Paul’s comments on them captured my attention, the idea that played in my head on the drive home was one that came up again during the Q&A session.

While talking about the need for reformers to remain part of the whole rather than to break away and form a sect or a new entity, Paul identified two elements of the whole that should be constantly interacting: the center and the periphery. The job of the center is to maintain continuity. The job of the periphery is to interact with those it touches and to respond in new ways. The center is by nature conservative and cautious, the periphery innovative and pioneering.

Prophets are on the periphery. They speak the truth, as they know it. They act upon it. They often get in trouble, especially when the center is not functioning in a healthy way. That is nothing new. You can read all about it in the Old Testament, or in today’s newspaper. In the Catholic Church prophets have been met with variety of reactions including house arrest and exile to refusal to allow the “offenders” to publish or teach. The fear of change and desire to maintain power and the status quo can delay acceptance of truth and renewal for hundreds of years. The Civil Rights Era of the 1960’s is a good example of an unhealthy center refusing to admit to and address racism in our country.

In a conversation with a woman in the audience, Paul said that often today the periphery worries too much about the center, trying to convince it of the rightness of their words, trying to make those unwilling to embrace change understand the need for it. The periphery can spend too much time looking inward instead of engaging with the world and challenging issues. The periphery can be just as unhealthy as the center.

“The periphery must move outward, like the expanding galaxy,” Paul said.

Driving home, I wondered those words and thought about those of us on the periphery of the Church, of government institutions, of industry, of social policy. Are we spending too much time looking toward the center instead of looking outward? Are we willing to risk being prophets and truth-tellers?

“Prophets are not patient reformers,” Fr. Philibert said to the chuckling audience.

Patient reformers must be those who fill in the spaces between Prophets on the edge and those in the center. Patient reformers, like Congar, will wait out the exiles and continue to write and think with faith that the center will, in time, understand and accept.

Does the Church have too many “patient reformers?” Does it need more prophets? Does the world?

Every day is a good day on the beach. A least that is my opinion. Yesterday morning I pulled a yellow rain slicker over my wool jacket, slipped the hood over a winter cap, and headed down Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod. Not many people share my opinion of beach walking weather, I guess, because the shoreline was almost deserted. A few tourists stood at the top of the access steps and snapped photos of huge waves crashing on the shoreline. That was as close as they wanted to get.

I walked for hours between the high cliffs on my left that rose from the sand and the roaring ocean pounding the coast on my right. When I looked ahead, everything disappeared into thick, gray mist. The drops hitting my face were a tangy mix of rain and spray from the turbulent sea. Each breath drew briny air deep into my lungs where I imagined it worked the same healing as it did in my soul.

As gusts of wind pushed at the slicker’s hood, I tightened its draw stings and snapped the top fastener, walking with my head bent slightly into the blustery weather. Two pelicans were riding out the storm close to shore, disappearing into watery troughs and then lifted into sight again on the swells. Occasionally, gulls circled, but, but most of them had found shelter somewhere else.

A few crows had fun with air currents, feet dangling straight below their bellies, wings spread wide, they swirled, hovered, fell back, and plummeted down, sometimes colliding into each other as the wind took them for a ride. They hung on to brambles that covered the tops and edges of the cliffs and rested a moment before taking off again.

I often look down when I walk the beach, searching stony rubble, amazed by the variety of specimens tumbled and deposited by the sea. Yesterday I found a green stone circled by a textured strip of quartz-like crystals growing vertically, branching out and looking like a miniature stone forest. I put that one in my pocket. After a few hundred feet, the mounds of rocks disappeared, replaced by single stones laid feet apart.

“Why so far apart? Why alone?” I wondered. The pattern repeated until the beach disappeared into mist.

I walked between the stones, examining them closely: Some were a homogeneous black or charcoal gray. Others were brightly mottled wet granite showing off their colors. The variety was limitless: green, translucent, knobby rose-colored stones, dark ovals filled with tiny white remains of sea life frozen like meteors in a night sky.

Waves crashed and sent foamy arches of water washing over the solitary stones, flowing around them when returning to the sea. The stones looked lonely to me. Like people close enough to see one another, but too far away to touch. Receding water carved interesting patterns in the sand between the rocks and the shoreline.

I watched for a long time, not sure why my heart was touched by these lone sentries, keeping watch over ancient rhythms that smoothed their edges, left them alone on the beach, and one day would pull them back into its watery depths.

Leaving them untouched, I continued walking the beach, more aware of the Presence in which I moved.

I am sitting in the foyer of Boston College’s School of Social Work as I type this blog entry, having come to look at a couple of graduate programs. I have always loved this part of the country, and the thought of possibly living here for a time is a happy one.

As if to contribute to my feeling of “being at home,” I have run into two people who are connected with another favorite place: The Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University. The first encounter was with a young man I met at SJU last year while I was a resident at Institute He was a master’s student at the School of Theology there.

I started to call out to him, but checked myself. What were the chances of running into a SOT grad here on my short visit. He continued to walk toward the door.

“What would it hurt,” I thought. “If it isn’t him, no harm done.”

“Don’t I know you from Collegeville?” I asked. He stopped and turned around and smiled. Yes, we had spent a number of afternoons visiting over lunch at the SOT’s Thursday’s Conviviums. And, he made the best caramels to share at Christmas time. He is on campus working on a PhD in theology. We reminisced briefly about our experiences and fond memories of SJU and wished each other well.

I was still thinking about that encounter while I sat in the foyer of the Boston College School of Social work. In the middle of checking email, I glanced up and saw, sitting across the entranceway, a young woman wearing a St. Ben’s sweatshirt. Remembering my own daughter’s surprise and pleasure when she was at some academic function and someone recognized her alma mater, I walked over to talk with the St. Ben’s grad.

We talked a bit about St. Benedict and Saint John’s (a combined university) and her experience as a second year student in the MSW program at BC. She was getting ready to go to Thailand for a practicum, being part of the MSW’s global concentration track.

“I am sooo glad you came over,” she said. I was, too.

Something about meeting people who have connections to the same place I do, makes me feel more at home in new environs. BC has been a warm and welcoming place for me these past two days. A little bit of Minnesota and Saint John’s camaraderie made if feel all the warmer despite wind and dropping temperatures.
Besides, we three had all lived through -39 F temperatures, so a little Boston wind and chill barely registered.

LINK A great article about Abraham Lincoln and the Leonid Shower. A MUST READ from November 1999 issue of Sky and Telescope “Astronomy Magazine article on this years Leonid Meteor Shower” “How Stuff Works” explains meteors and the Leonids>

Picture that accompanies “Sky and Telescope” article on Abraham Lincoln and the Leonids, November 1999.

This year’s Leonid meteor shower might be spectacular. The moon will be new so not much interference there. The Leonids peak in predawn sky Nov. 16 into 17. I will call my friend and hope we can sit atop her grassy roof once again to enjoy the show! Click on the link about Abraham Lincoln and the Leonid Shower. It is a wonderful story, and as a sideline, shows what treasures have been preserved because people wrote letters.

The Common Good received a “yea” vote last night when the healthcare bill passed the House. It is a beginning.

One Republican crossed party lines to vote with the majority of Democrats, Anh “Joseph” Cao. Who is he? Why would he make such a courageous move? A little Googling gave me an idea.

He is a Vietnamese who escaped from Vietnam when he was eight years old. Successful in school, he felt called to the priesthood and studied at a Jesuit seminary for six years before discerning that was not his call. He did share the Jesuit passion for social justice, and carried that with him through law school and eventually into a political career.

He is in his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Republican to be elected in Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District since the late 1800’s, representing a predominately Democratic constituency with a large African American population.

Joseph Cao’s heart seems to be with those living in poverty, those not well severed by the government or other agencies like those in his own district (including himself and his family) who were devastated by hurricane Katrina, and refugees. I imagine we will hear more about him in the weeks to come.

Links: Searchable text provided by the Library of Congress

Since my house
Burned down, I now own
A better view
of the rising moon

Masahide

For three nights the moon has been a crisp white disk shining in dark, blue skies. Cold clarifies the air and the sight stops my breath before it escapes in tiny white puffs. At such moments I could live on sky.

I think of Masahide and his burnt down house. The tragedy held a blessing: he had a better view of the moon. Perhaps so beautiful that he forgot he had no place to sleep, and gave thanks that the building no longer hid the rising moon from his sight.

I hope for Masahide’s acceptance of life’s unexpected hardships and his willingness to discover that sometimes, whatever is lost is not as great as what is revealed by its passing.

I love teaching, even a late class after a night of no sleep. I drag myself out of bed in the morning and wonder how I will ever teach a three and a half hour evening class, but teaching energizes me, and teaching the first of eight classes on “Sacraments” to thirty-some students was exhilarating. I have written a column for over twenty years sharing my experiences in the hope of encouraging others to experience the Sacred in the midst of and through life’s quotidian activities. Tonight’s class allowed me to share my wonder at the reality of God’s Loving Presence constantly poured out on all that is and my conviction of the importance of taking time to be mindful of it.

In many of my classes, I use videos by Fr. Michael Himes, theology professor at Boston College, to add variety to a long evening and to give my students the opportunity to hear the material from another point of view. I am never disappointed and tonight was no different.

After we explored the idea of sacrament in its broadest sense and discussed the fact that everything can be a sacrament, an opportunity of encountering God, I popped in the video on “Grace.” Students listened, took notes, and nodded as something Fr. Himes said connected with something in their lives.

When the lights were back on students offered their comments. One felt affirmed in her conviction that quiet times by herself could be times of encountering the Sacred. Someone else was struck by Fr. Himes’ statement that Catholic Tradition “could be called a training in becoming sacramental beholders.”

“What was the Principle of Sacramentality that he talked about?” a student asked.

“That which is always and everywhere true must be noticed, accepted and celebrated somewhere, sometime,” Father Himes had said. “If God is everywhere, somewhere we have to stop and notice…If God is with us at all times…we set aside sometime to notice.”

“We don’t meet God in the past,” I said. “We don’t meet God in the future. We encounter God in the present, but being present to the moment can be difficult.”

“Yes,” said another student. She mentioned Fr. Himes’ reference to Gerard Manley Hopkins who had been walking home one evening in Wales, worried about the coming winter and grieving the end of summer. He was so preoccupied with the past and future that he was unable to appreciate the wonder of the moment. The experience gave rise to one of his most quoted lines of poetry from “Hurrahing in Harvest”: “These things, these things were here and but the beholder/Wanting;”

We are called to be “beholders,” to slow down and recognize Divine Presence that is everywhere and always; to “take off our shoes” because “…Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God…” as another poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, wrote in her poem, “Aurora Leigh.”

Thorton Wilder got it right in his play, “Our Town” when the character Emily, returned from the dead to relive one day of her life, could no longer bear the exquisite beauty of every moment. She was distraught by the living who seemed to have no appreciation of the glory of life:

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it–every,every minute?
Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

I read that line for the first time when I was a sophomore in high school, and resolved at that moment to become either a saint or a poet so I would not pass through life unaware of the Grace that enveloped us all.

Well, I have not become either, yet…But I try. and tonight, filled to overflowing with God’s gift of self in the students, the conversation, the warmth and wisdom of Fr. Himes, the poets and people who had become part of the evening, I decided to celebrate: I stopped by the pizza shop at the end of my street, bought the best pizza in town, and shared it with my brother when I got home. It was the Sacramental Principle, after all.

LINKS Redwoods Monastery Holy Cross Abbey The Abbey of Gethsemani Books by John Howard Griffin
PBS special “Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton

Today is the birthday of a good friend, Father Maurice, or as I knew him first, Hugh. Hugh is a Trappist monk and priest who is chaplain for a small community of Trappistine nuns in northern California. While at Gethsemani, Hugh worked with Thomas Merton, helping at his hermitage and welcoming guests that came to spend time with the famous monk, writer, and poet. Merton had thoughts of founding hermitages in Alaska, and Hugh had plans to accompany him when he returned from a conference in Bangkok. He did not return. Merton’s unexpected death by accidental electrocution in his room was devastating for many including then Brother Maurice.

He took a leave to discern what direction to take and that is when we met. I sat behind him at a parish workshop and decided that I had to meet this intriguing person with a very short haircut (not in vogue at the time) who wore white socks and sturdy black shoes. It was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted forty years.

Along with a mutual friend, we drove to the Black Hills, camping our way west to pray on Harney Peak where the Oglala Lakota holy man, Black Elk, sought his vision. We visited the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations and marveled at Badland vistas.

I rode his motorcycle and enjoyed looking at the sky through his handmade telescope. Hugh introduced me to the Abbey of Gethsemani where I once spent an incredible evening at Thomas Merton’s hermitage, the guest of John Howard Griffin, author (of among other titles, “Black Like Me”), photographer, and gourmet cook. John was working on a biography of Merton, but he took time to prepare a wonderful dinner on the hermitage’s two hot-plates and took pictures far beyond monks’ betime as my sister and I played guitars and sang the October night away.

Hugh decided to return to the monastery and later became an ordained priest. He became a friend to our children and it was on the grounds of Holy Cross Abbey in Virginia where each of them got behind the wheel of a car for the first time, driving with Hugh through the windy roads of the monastery.

On his yearly visits back to his home monastery we usually manage a visit. Besides that, phone calls and letters keep us in touch. When I was at the Collegeville Institute last year, Morgan Atkinson, director of the PBS special, “Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton,” and editor of the companion book of the same title, came to Saint John’s University for a screening of the special and to answer questions.

I called Hugh.

“Are you in this special?”

He laughed. “Well….Yes.”

That was all I needed to know. I enjoyed the special and while waiting to talk to the director I heard a man ask him if he had any connections at Redwoods Monastery.

“I would really like to get in touch with that Father Maurice. His comments really spoke to my heart.”

I smiled, tapped the man on the shoulder and offered to put him in touch with my friend.

Friendship is a gift. One that lasts over forty years is unusual in a time when school and jobs keep people moving. Today I give thanks for Hugh, Fr. Maurice, and the friendship that, with good health, promises to last another decade or two.

LINKS Sky and Telescope: The magazine’s sky observation news Spaceweather: Information on all types of “sky events”

Photo: Pierre Martin, Ottawa, Canada

After having a birthday dinner with my sister and brother-in-law, I drove out of town to spend the night with a friend who lives in the country. She has an unusual home built of concrete and partially covered by a grassy mound of earth that forms part of the roof. That is where we would spend the night: meteor watching.

The Orionid meteor shower is the result of the earth moving through the tail of Halley’s Comet. This year the show coincided with a cloudless autumn night and Melanie and I were going to enjoy it.

She made some popcorn and I opened a bottle of wine to share. We talked until 12:30am came around, and when it did, we walked upstairs and out the double doors that led onto the roof. The sky was magnificent. Even without meteors, the sight was breathtaking. The absence of light from a big city enabled us to enjoy tiny bits of light that covered the sky like luminous dust, a backdrop for familiar constellations. We sat in silence, our necks bent back against the cold aluminum frames of the lawn chairs, waiting.

“I think we might be a little early,” I said after a half-hour had passed. Some clouds were beginning to move in.

“Why don’t we go to bed for a few hours and get up around 4:30?” Melanie suggested.

We did, and when the alarm rang I slowly pulled myself out of bed, put on a jacket and hat Melanie had laid out for me and walked back out on the roof. She was already there, and her dog, Maddie, resting at her feet, looked up at me with eyes that seemed to say, “What are you two doing on the roof at 5am?”

I settled into the chair and Melanie handed me a blanket.

“I love these big old wool blankets.”

So do I. Unlike newer synthetic ones, their weight as well as their warmth is a comfort. I looked at the sky. Orion had moved and was standing straight, looking as if he were guarding the house. I smiled. Orion was my friend, the one I looked for when I went to bed late or got up on a sleepless night. No matter where I was, he was there, a nighttime companion.

Only a few minutes passed before we saw our first meteor, streaking across the sky from Orion’s direction. They came every few minutes. I thought about the grassy roof under my feet and the small planet that held us. We were a speck, hurtling through space and pushing our way through the dust and debris of a comet’s tail. I pulled the blanket tighter.

“It’s colder out here,” Melanie said.

I looked up. Not a cloud in sight. We marveled at the difference clouds make, holding heat closer to our planet.

Eventually more time passed between meteor sightings. We were colder. Unwrapping our blankets and folding up the chairs we made our way back into the house. Melanie brewed hot tea and served toast slathered with jam she had made from berries that grew wild on her property. We shared a pear picked from a tree in her yard.

Earth. Sky. Friendship. Bountiful Presence. It was more grace than I could hold.