Advent can feel like a countdown to Christmas and a hustle of preparation for the holidays, when in fact the liturgical season is all about waiting–not for a short-lived celebration but for a person.
Advent
Category: Mission Journal
Thanksgiving gratitude
On Thanksgiving Day it’s easy to be thankful for the material and economic benefits we have acquired but we need always to think beyond that, to the people and programs who promote better relationships among us sisters and brothers. Pope Francis did that in Fratelli Tutti, #191:
At a time when various forms of fundamentalist intolerance are damaging relationships between individuals, groups and peoples, let us be committed to living and teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins. Even as forms of fanaticism, closedmindedness and social and cultural fragmentation proliferate in present-day society, a good politician will take the first step and insist that different voices be heard. Disagreements may well give rise to conflicts, but uniformity proves stifling and leads to cultural decay. May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality.
Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti
My newspaper column
I write a column every two months in The Record, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville. It has been about mission with deaf people in Cambodia, but now I have explained my returning to the U.S.
Click here for the link to this week’s article.
Memories
Yesterday when I attended a rally in support of democracy organized by Indivisible, it was the occasion for memories of past times.
Biking
I am REALLY enjoying commuting on my e-bike! Yesterday I rode 30 miles going to a doctor appointment in the morning and then to a computer shop in the afternoon. Google Maps’ bike routes take me through parts of Louisville and various neighbors where I’ve never been before.
I’m having a few problems, though. The display screen on the handlebars (for speed, gears, lights, etc.) is showing the wrong time zone. Tonight I was looking through the bike manual and found where I need to connect the bike app on my phone with the electronics on the bike, and it’s supposed to correct itself automatically.
Charlie’s Angels
Today Charlie’s Angels came to Nazareth Home for a visit. These are women who decades ago began working with deaf people, especially in sign language interpreting. Several of them were students in classes I taught at Angela Merici High School. There were five Angels originally but two have returned to heaven.
More old friends
Today six of us alumni from the former St. Thomas Seminary met for lunch at Kingfish in Louisville. I really appreciate these gatherings. For two decades or so, my return from Hong Kong or Cambodia would be the opportunity to get together with good friends. Today it was noted this is the last time we would celebrate my return from mission in Asia.
These people are important. If it were not for my family and friends, I would not have returned from Cambodia. Life would be much simpler and easier living in Cambodia than it will be here in the United States.
Slowly, slowly…
I’m slowly accumulating the things I need for living in Nazareth Home and Louisville. Some items are major, like an e-bike for getting around. Others are more utilitarian like a toilet brush. Today I got a wooden executive-type filing cabinet. I was going to get the usual metal two- or four-drawer file cabinet but my sister saw the wooden unit above in a consignment shop and took me to see it. The price in such a shop drops regularly according to how long it stays in the shop. The nice wooden cabinet had been marked at $100 but was in the bargain room when I saw it, and I was able to get it for $20. My sister Mary and her husband Mike picked it up today and brought it to me. Thanks! Now all the papers on the couch can be filed away!
My Hong Kong flag
Last week my sister Jane surprised me with a framed flag of Hong Kong from the colonial era. I was living in Hong Kong in 1997 when Britain ceded control of their Hong Kong colony to China. Remembering what had happened at Tiananmen Square, thousands and thousands of Hong Kongers were fleeing to any place that would take them. The bishop asked those of us from the missionary groups to stay, to try to provide an element of stability and reassurance to a frightened people. On one of my trips home, I brought this flag and Jane had it in her basement and decided my return to Kentucky was the time to return the flag to me.
Visit to Cincy
The last sister I hadn’t seen after my return is Martha in Cincinnati so yesterday two other sisters, Mary and Jane, and Jane’s daughter Emily, drove to Cincy to see Martha. It was a great reunion for me and a wonderful visit for us all.
