School collapse in Port au Prince

More sad news. Our local paper has not covered this recent tragedy in any depth. Here's a link to a CNN story about it:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/11/11/haiti.school.collapse/

You will have to cut and paste this link into your browser.

Jim

Hurricanes in Haiti

I guess "life" intruded on my concern for Haiti. I'm embarrassed about that.

I came across this video of Haiti today and ask you to take a look at it.

http://www.miamiherald.com/508/index.html?media_id=2343207&genre_id=4275

You will probably have to cut and paste this link into your browser.

Jim

More on writing

Yesterday's post about writing reminded me what I used to tell my students when they experienced "writer's block" or when they had "nothing to say." The same thing applied when they said they didn't have a reaction to something they observed or heard.

I advised them that they weren't really thinking or that they weren't coming to some conclusions because they simply hadn't written down the facts as they saw them. They had to be able to confront their words on paper or on a computer monitor. Once they tried that--writing the facts and then understanding what they wrote--they were able to clarify their writing and thus clarify their thinking. And then, when the facts were clear to them, they would be able to clarify their reaction--again on paper or screen, and again to confront their thinking. And as they wrote, clearly, they began to see beyond the facts and beyond their first reactions. They discovered something.

Henri Nouwen talks about this latter part of the writing process:


"Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: "I don't know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down." But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

"One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

Writing for clarity of thought

This came from the Henri Nouwen Society today. It gives the reason I write.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Today I saw Angela's daughter make her first communion. She received both the body and blood from the server next to me, and I could see the wonderful expression on her face. God loves her!

Yesterday I watched my granddaughter Erin Smith also receive her first communion. As she and Natalie, her cousin (not my granddaughter), received, they were right in front of Audrey and me. It was an awesome sight; the innocence and faith that showed forth from their eyes, their trust in God and their families and the fact that the body and blood of Jesus was truly in their body and soul.

Laura, Jerry and Angela were at mass this morning. Laura and I share a bond of friendship that is at once mysterious and wonderful. Again, I say that I am graced with the presence of her in my life. It must have been Haiti; a place scarred by the greed of the world and therefore sacred. I gave her a copy of Aristide's Eyes of the Heart.

Social Justice: Food shortage in Haiti

News of the food riots in Port au Prince, and the international news about the prices of food in Haiti are disheartening. Today I gave my talk to the parish at the 11:15 mass. Casey and Susan Kubak, part of our music group were asking how we could send food to Haiti. They were quite agitated about it.

As Mark Twain once said, "I was glad to be able to answer the question. I said, 'I don't know.'"

And nobody seems to know.

Here is a link to one of the recent reports, edited earlier today:

Social Justice: Food shortage in Haiti "http://www.tampabay.com/news/world/article465408.ece"

I ask that anybody reading this send me your thoughts by replying here

GOD'S UNIVERSE AND me

The stars are bright here in the Bahamas where the light from the earth is weak. I wish I knew the names of more constellations than the Big Dipper and Orion.

Orion I saw one night while I was laying supine on a bed of bags in the back of a pick-up truck on a winding road in Haiti. At every disorienting turn, Orion was someplace different in the sky but was a friendly image despite the sword! I imagined he was protecting me.

Here on the island of Abaco more memories of Haiti follow me...This afternoon a short Haitian man was exiting a small bakery as I entered. How did I know he was Haitian? Well, he was about five-feet tall, very black, and very humbly excused himself as he passed by. I said "Ki jann ou ye?" He answered in kind. It was a nice conversation at the store and then after buying bread we spoke in Creole/English as he waited for a ride.

Why I didn't give him a ride home, I don't know--other than Audrey was waiting for me at a grocery store a half-mile away and maybe he was waiting for HIS wife. I should have offered, as I might have gained more insight into the living conditions in Abaco for the Haitians, I'm embarrassed that I didn't transport him home into the "ghetto." I'm afraid the young grandchildren with me would have "freaked." But it would have been a very good learning experience for all of us, Mesye Haiti included. As far as it went, it was still good to have them hear their old Papa communicating in Creole with a man they would have normally ignored or avoided. And he seemed to enjoy the interaction with the Americans as much as I did!

Now, back to the stars: In the past two years, living almost as a hermit on the farm with little communication outside our property, I spend an hour or two each evening alone on the front porch. Usually I'm smoking a cigar and having a "nightcap." The stars appear very clear that far beyond the lights of the city.

The stars have been trying to teach me a lesson, I think.

How distant is each star from the earth? All I can really see is our own galaxy of stars; just part of the great Milky Way. Most of the stars, I'm told, are larger than our sun and each have many planets, and they, in turn, have their moons.

God created all this. I'm trying to believe this fully. But why, I have been asking myself over and over and over, becoming very emotional and therefore very rational, do I come to the very precocious belief that God created me? I exist on an insignificant planet of a minor sun in a galaxy of many galaxies, and then...who knows how many other orders of magnitude?


What? God found me? God cares for me? He sees me and cares for me? Me? A small speck in all this grandeur, of which I catch only a glimpse from my front porch? Surely somebody has been kidding me--right?

Tonight the stars and the very beginning of a new moon shine down on me very brightly in Abaco. Again, who am I to know God or Him know me?

Then, yesterday, came the following from the Henri Nouwen Society, who, apparently, and unimaginably, knows what is in my heart:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"As we look at the stars and let our minds wander into the many galaxies, we come to feel so small and insignificant that anything we do, say, or think seems completely useless. But if we look into our souls and let our minds wander into the endless galaxies of our interior lives, we become so tall and significant that everything we do, say, or think appears of great importance.

"We have to keep looking both ways to remain humble and confident, humorous and serious, playful and responsible. Yes, the human person is very small and very tall. It is the tension between the two that keeps us spiritually awake."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

OK, I am beginning to understand that the complexities of my own physical being, molecules, atoms, DNA, and so on are as complex as a universe. (But...really?)

The two paragraphs above give me food for more thinking. Is there really a God who made me in his image? Really? Seriously? No, not me, I keep thinking. But...well---just maybe.