Mi Amigo Carlos

Carlos Chicas was our constant companion over our nine-day stay in Honduras. Though ostensibly hired as our bus driver, he became our close friend and an integral part of our team. As I told him in front of the whole team at our rest stop near Entrada, such was his love and care for us that he was like a father to all of us during our stay.

I first met Carlos two years ago on my first trip to Honduras, and he has become the "go-to" guy for every Greensboro Habitat trip since then. While the team two years ago also held him in high regard, my sense was that something special happened this time, a new level of bonding between team and driver.

My friend Carlos is a big, handsome, muscular guy who carries himself with dignity and grace leavened with humility and a dedication to serving others. He absolutely excelled in those duties for which we had hired him -- driving our team S.U.B. (sport utility bus) and keeping us stocked with water, drinks and snacks. We rode in a 25-passenger Toyota bus over open highway, mountain passes, switchbacks, dirt roads, army bases, construction sites, narrow cobblestone streets and wide open spaces. I have watched him turn into 20 foot wide city streets with a cars or trucks parked on the corner, parallel park -- PARALLEL PARK, for crying out loud, with only a foot or two on either end using only his mirrors, and best of all, drive the bus up a mountainous one-lane gravel road to the zip lines, then TURN THE BUS AROUND. I could not believe my eyes. And all the while he's just as cool as a cucumber at the wheel, like he was sitting next to the pool with a cool cerveza.

One thing that distinguishes Carlos is his work ethic. He does not adhere strictly to his job description, but instead often pitches in with working on the job site or helping to fix things. Early on, we busted one of the block-making machines, and he came over and worked on it for about an hour, diagnosing the problem and basically making parts from construction materials around the site to put it back together. He told us a story about how he had taken a group of journalists one time well off the beaten path -- ten miles from the highway -- in his 1958 Toyota Land Cruiser. There he hit a pothole and broke one of the springs on the car. He put together a new part out of a tree root and some barbed wire and drove that way the rest of the weekend without his clients even knowing the car was broken.

Another is his dedication to serving others. He is not content to just sit on the bus and wait fr us to finish our work. Many times throughout the week, Carlos would appear in the heat of the day with a plate of watermelon or cantaloupe slices to give us a break and cheer us up.

You see Carlos is kind of a Honduran Renaissance Man, somebody whose knowledge is both broad and deep in all kinds of unexpected areas, especially related to his native land. He seems to revel in a kind of fatherly or even grandfatherly teaching about the world around us. After visiting a small family cigar-making enterprise, we were waiting for team members to finish making their cigar purchases. Carlos spotted sugar cane growing in the back yard and somewhere came up with a machete which he used to cut down a cane. He then cut chunks for team members and showed how to chew the inner part for a sweet treat.

Later in the week, he was talking with my son Dan and starting making a slingshot -- not the forked-stick kind we think of in the U.S., but the real deal like David used to plant a stone in Goliath's forehead. Using nothing but discarded nylon cord and the cuff of a work glove, he put the slingshot together and was soon hurling stones more than 100 meters, and hitting what he was aiming at. He then proceeded to show Dan how to do it.

On the way back to the airport yesterday, the team took up a collection to give Carlos as a token of our affection, which we presented to him at our one rest stop outside of Entrada. I believe he was genuinely touched, because about an hour later he asked Cathie (who was sitting in the front seat) to translate a message to us over the bus PA system. He told us that we were one of the best groups he had ever had and how much he loved us.

Carlos has (I believe) four daughters and six grandchildren, including one named Carlos. When we arrived at the airport, two of his daughters and Carlito were waiting for us. In the mad scramble to make our planes, Carlos introduced us and each one gave me a hug. Carlos was already part of our team. Now I guess we're part of his team too.

Thank You's

I have a few very special thank-you's to share before I trundle off to bed (my own bed!):

• Lisa Reynolds of Habitat Greensboro did an outstanding job of putting the trip together, and generally made my burden much lighter. I really hope to go on a future build trip with Lisa.
  
  
• Luis Madrid, the Work Team Coordinator from Habitat Honduras who was our guide, interpreter, on-the-ground planner and a funny and engaging companion for those first few days. As a first time leader, I appreciated the fact that he really helped me get my sea legs under me before he cut me loose on Tuesday. I really enjoyed getting to know Luis better.
  
  
• Carlos Chicas, our driver. To call him our driver is to woefully understate what he meant to each of us. I love him and admire him so much I'm going to do a more extended writeup on him, with pictures.
  
  
• All of the people from the local affiliate, especially Lorena, but also JJ, Hugo and Amada who are doing such great work in S.R. de C. They totally pulled out all the stops this time, I mean really...a pizza party on the first night with music and dancing? A high school band at the reception on the last day? They could not possibly have made us feel more welcome and wanted.
  
  
• Arnoldo, that mountain of a man with a shaved head and a big smile, who took me under his wing on day one to show us how to make adobe blocks with the "pollito" -- the brick machine that looks like a "little chicken". Arnoldo always greeted me warmly and gave me a big hug on Friday and kept saying "Roberto, mi amigo!" He was also a very good soccer player.
  
  
• Fernando, the mason I worked with the most, became special to me as the week went on. Such a kind and gentle soul, he is a born teacher. I think four or five of us who worked with him could now do a creditable job of laying block. He had a knack for showing you what to do, correcting judiciously and gently, and offering encouragement and praise along the way. When Fernando said something was cheke leke, it really felt good. But the thing I enjoyed most in working with Fernando was watching a beautiful relationship develop between Steve and Fernando. Steve doesn't speak a lick of Spanish, and Fernando doesn't speak a lick of English, and yet they could talk to each other in their own native languages and be understood. It was crazy to watch, like some kind of telepathic Vulcan mind-meld thing that was all about bricks and mortar and plumb lines and other mason stuff. Steve truly respected Fernando's skills and knowledge, and I believe Fernando respected Steve's hunger to learn, attention to detail, and innate ability. It was a delight to watch them together. Oh, and Fernando also faked me out of my jock strap on the soccer field...OK, so maybe that's not a big accomplishment, but he was very, very good.
  
  
• Jorge, the owner of the Hotel San Jorge in Santa Rosa, who always does such a great job hosting us. He and I talked for quite a while Friday night after everyone went to bed about his expansion plans for the hotel. Jorge is a young, entrepreneurial businessperson who I believe really loves his country and his city, and is doing his best to improve his little corner of both. He is humble, flexible, smart and utterly reliable.
  
  
• My last thank-you is for Gerard. Gerard has led a number of trips himself, and so he knows the drill inside out. As such a veteran leader, it would have been easy for most people in that position to be a know-it-all or to second-guess decisions I made. I'm sure it wasn't easy watching me feel my way through my first time, and it takes a person of great character and humility to give me the space to find my way. It was a blessing and a comfort to me every single to have Gerard there for advice when I needed it, for his ideas, his wisdom, and his wealth of ideas. I am also very thankful for the opportunity to get to know Gerard much better. There's nothing like hours in a cramped bus seat to help you get to know somebody. I'm glad I shared that time with Gerard.

I am certain there are others I could mention -- my wife Pat and son Dan being obvious omissions. While at least as important as any contributions mentioned here, what they add to my life transcends Honduras and blesses me every day.

Escape From San Pedro Sula

It has been a wild day, but at least the main contingent of the Greensboro team is home safe and sound. We left Keith, Cathie and Sherry in the airport in San Pedro Sula, as they were flying home on a different airline, and we left Kate and Drew in Atlanta where they were connecting to their flight to London.

Yesterday we were up early for our bus ride to Copan Ruinas, and the Mayan Ruins of Copan. We had a tour of the ruins with Marvin (yes, Marvin) our Honduran guide. It was really hot, and bit by bit we lost team members who decided to pack it in for the shade. For me it was the third time through the ruins and I still find it fascinating. I'll post some pictures later as I get them off my camera.

We had a picnic of sorts on the ground of the archeological park under the shade of huge trees. They were not the biggest trees we had seen by a long shot, however. There was one la cieba tree that was 250 years old that had roots as big as a man's waist -- 100 yards from the base of the tree. Another in the plaza was only 90 years old, but was even taller.

After lunch we checked in to our hotel, 16 out of the 21 of us headed out for the recreational highlight of the trip, the "canopy tour" via 16 zip lines down the high ridge east of the ruins. I will definitely have pictures of this, and possibly video if I can work it out. The zip lines are steel cables stretched between trees anywhere from maybe 200 meters to a full kilometer long. On the long one we calculated that you averaged about 50 mph riding a pulley down the cable, suspended several hundred feet off the ground. Normally you are harnessed into a leaned-back sitting position for the ride, but a number of our party were more adventurous on some of the lines. One alternative is to ride Superman-style, belly-down, arms extended out front, with a guide behind holding your legs and applying the brakes. The other, even more daring way, is upside down: belly up, with the guide holding your legs, head and arms down, hurtling through the ether. Oh, and the guides make sure you swing back and forth the whole time just for good measure. The last line takes you about a 1/4 mile over the Copan River before landing you safely back at base camp.

We had a nice private dinner that night at Casa de Todos (House of Everything), with traditional Honduran food -- quesadillas, chicken, rice, squash, potatoes, salad, mixed vegetables, Hibiscus tea, homemade hot sauce made with pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, and jalapenos. Sandra, our hostess and the owner of the Casa de Todos, was charming and welcoming. The meal was awesome. We then retired to the Red Frog.

The Red Frog is a second story bar in Copan Ruinas owned by an American expat named Dan who bough the business sight unseen for $300 on the Internet. It seems the authorities caught the former owner choking his girlfriend over the second story railing, and gave him the option of Honduran jail time or leaving town. He left, then sold it to Dan.

One of the charming little traditions at the Red Frog is to write a note on a one-Lempira bill (worth about a nickel) and tape it to the wall. There are the usual love notes, notes about where people are from, colleges (a whole column of Carolina stuff), and best of all, smack talk from Greensboro Habitat teams to the Durham teams and vice versa.

Habitat teams from Greensboro and Durham have made the Red Frog their traditional watering hole for the last night in Honduras. Last night Gerard held court at the Red Frog, celebrating the completion of his 7th Honduran mission trip, surrounded by 14 other team members by my count. Our motto is "What happens in Honduras stays in Honduras," so I am not at liberty to share many details (so you're safe, Sue....you too Molly, Megan, & Claire). However I have it on good authority that certain team members did not arrive back at the hotel until...late.

We met at 6:30 to check out and load up for the 3-hour ride to the airport. We managed to get away at 7:10, thinking we would get to the airport in plenty of time. We made one bano break outside of Entrada, where we took out team picture and gave our driver and friend Carlos a present from a collection we had taken up. More about mi amigo Carlos later in the week.

Then it was off to the airport. The closer we got to San Pedro Sula, the closer it was looking on arriving in time for our flights. Then we got pulled over at one of the ubiquitous Checkpoint Charlie's the Policia Nacional have set up. Then there was a wreck...a severe fender bender...followed by another fatal wreck involving a car, an SUV and a bus that was pretty gruesome.

Now it was getting a little hairy. There are two potential complications in San Pedro airport -- one, the check-in lines can be long and slow, and two, you have to pay a $34 per person exit tax to leave the country. To pay the tax, you have to have your passport and boarding pass, and the line to pay the tax can be long. We also would not have a chance to eat again unless we ate at the airport.

So we worked out a plan. When we pulled up to the curb, the women were to get in line to check in to hold spots there while the men unloaded the luggage off the roof. The team members with later flights went to Wendy's to get food. Pat and I would shuttle passports to the exit tax line as people got checked in. Drew and Kate were our priority, as they had a connection to their London flight in Atlanta.

We pulled up to the curb at 11 AM for a noon flight and set the plan in motion. I'd like to tell you the plan worked flawlessly, but the fact is the Good Lord was watching out for us today. There was no line at Delta, no line at the exit tax window, and the flight was delayed about 20 minutes. We all made our flight and most of us got something to eat.

The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful, which is a good thing. We were greeted at the airport here by family and friends and bade each other warm goodbyes. In a month or so we'll all get back together again to look at pictures and tell stories, but for now we all go our separate ways.

It's hard to believe that nine days could pass so quickly. We all put our heart and soul into this trip and the work we were there to do, but we all received so much more, from both our Honduran hosts and from each other. We shared an intense experience and formed a special bond over those brief days that will be in our hearts for a long, long time.

Adios, Amigos!

It's another beautiful day here in S.R. de C., and we are starting to gather for breakfast. Soon we'll pile all our stuff on top of the bus and take the 2 hour ride to Copan Ruinas, where we'll tour the ancient Mayan Ruins, ride the zip lines, and generally have a good time.

I don't think I wil have Internet access in Copan Ruinas, so this is my last post until Monday. I want to thank all of you who have followed our trip on this blog throughout this week, and special thanks to those who have left comments. Traffic to the site has been through the roof this week, which is very exciting to me. I hope you will continue to follow Emmaus Road even after we return.

Adios!

Would you believe....?

Today has flown by. We worked about half a day on the job site, then retired to the hotel for lunch. After a bit more luxurious break than normal, we returned to Shimishal for a soccer match between the Hondurans and the Americans.

Our match took place on the army base next door to Shimishal, on a soccer pitch that was, shall we say...interesting. the goals were a steel cage with no net, and the pitch itself sloped at least 15 feet from one end to the other. Not only did the area around the goal have no grass, it seemed to be sunk into the ground a bit as well.

We lined up fully expecting to get spanked. Our opponents were the very same masons and other laborers we had worked with shoulder to shoulder all week. Not only that, but the very mason who had taken me and my compadres under his wing -- Fernando -- was playing wing on my side. Turns out he´s a pretty darn good soccer player.

To make a long story short, we went into halftime down 0-1, which was not too bad considering the Catrachos were playing downhill and with the wind. After halftime we acquitted ourselves well, tying the game at 1-1, then 2-2, and finally 3-3, the final score. Andrew was a star, but went down with a tweaked hamstring midway through the second stanza. Our main mujeres, Molly, Kate and Megan played outstanding soccer, every bit the equal of the Catracho hombres on the other side. We were in the middle of sudden death overtime when we finally had to leave for the celebration that officially closes the week at the site.

When we rolled in there, would you believe that we were greeted by a high school band of about 20 kids, plus about 40 various homeowners and laborers. After the party they threw on Saturday night I should have been prepared, but it was still incredible. The homeowners gave us our diplomas and a couple of small gifts, and we reciprocated with gifts of Habitat hats and bandanas. There were speeches and songs, and throughout Molly was a stalwart, translating on the fly. She has worked really hard this week as interpreter and served us well.

Then came the goodbyes. For me this gets harder each year, as I get to know these people a little better, and the bonds of friendship become tighter. I could tell some of the other team members felt the same way. How is it that you can develop such affection, such love for people you didn´t even know a week before? Only the Holy Spirit can pull that off.

We had another good devotion-reflection tonight on the whole week, followed by a really nice dinner at The Gondola, an Italian restaurant that was really pretty good, especially since it included a few bottles of good wine.

Now some of the group are watching the Carolina game, and others have sacked out. We leave around 7:30 tomorrow for the town of Copan Ruinas to tour the Mayan ruins, ride the zip lines, and visit the Red Frog Tavern. Tomorrow is about fun and reward, but tonight I´m still in a pensive mood, thinking about the people I love that I am leaving behind. A piece of my heart will still be here when I leave.

I can´t fully explain to you what I am feeling right now, but it is intensely bittersweet. This is a great group of people, and it has been a great week together, but I know it´s winding down. There´s so much that´s happened this week that I literally have not had two minutes to process or think about, and maybe it will take me another year to sort through it. But underneath it all there is immense satisfaction and great joy. Something special has happened here this week that is like a pebble thrown into a still pond that will send out ripples in people´s lives, and no one but God knows what those ripples will cause to happen in the future. My own presence here as the leader of this group is itself because of one such ripple.

Margaret Rubiera told me a year ago I should consider leading a group down here. I told her no way, I wasn´t ready. But four months later the Holy Spirit told me otherwise. Ever since that time, whenever I needed information, money, team members, encouragement, courage, or anything else, I have received exactly what I needed when I needed it. It wasn´t always easy or fun, but I guess tonight more than any time in my life I feel that God has really taken me by the hand and led me through. And what an incredible blessing that has been.

The Last Day in Santa Rosa

It's been quite a week. Everybody is tired, and yet there is still a quiet energy about this group as we prepare to head to the work site for the last time. We all still want to see what we can accomplish by the end of the day.

The homeowners and Habitat Honduras will be throwing us a party at 3 today as a sendoff, and I know these occasions are bittersweet. We get to spend quality time with our new friends, but it is a short time, and then we'll leave. I know I'll be back, but it could be a while.

Tonight I expect our sharing will have a different quality to it, quieter and more reflective. I have marveled all week at the various gifts of the Spirit embodied in these wonderful people on the team, how different they all are and yet how very much they each contribute in their own unique way. We are truly the Body of Christ, and I am filled with gratitude this morning to have shared this time with each of them.

And yet now we will start to think about and talk about "what next"...how we will use what we have learned when we get back. After this experience, you can never be the same person again. The time here is a gift, but one that must be used. That's the part of the journey we begin tonight.

Digna

It´s almost 10:30 local time, by far the latest I´ve been up on this trip, but right now I don´t feel like sleeping. I´m physically tired and now emotionally spent.

We visited El Hogar de Las Niñas this evening, an orphanage for girls run by the Franciscan nuns of the Immaculate Conception. Don´t quote me on this, but I think I heard there were 49 younger children (say 2-10 years) and about 7 or so older girls of high school age who live there and help out with cooking and other chores -- basically helping to raise the younger ones. There are five nuns and one part-time teacher.

When we arrived we were greeted warmly by both the staff and the kids. The children were incredibly warm, friendly, and trusting. The environs were clean and orderly, even cheerful, in spite of looking a little run down and in need of maintenance. Even knowing that every child there was an orphan, you could sense it was still a place of warmth, happiness, and love.

I was drawn to a young girl holding an even younger child of about two. Digna was 16 or 17 and an extremely poised and self-confident young woman who introduced herself to me along with her younger charge, Yocelin (my spelling may be suspect here, but basically it´s Jocelyn). Yocelin came to me readily and seemed to enjoy being held. The first thing she did was grab me by the nose and hold on for dear life, which was pretty funny. She, however, did not much like having the favor returned so I backed off. But she stayed close.

Digna pointed out all her friends by name, and told me a lot of the basic facts about the home. Yocelin, Digna and I walked around the courtyard holding hands and talking for some time. Eventually I joined a group talking with the nun who is the headmistress (I promise to add her name, but I don´t have it in front of me). This turned into quite a long tour and Q&A session, which probably will be the subject of another post, probably after I return. But do let me say that the sisters there are doing an incredible job. It is amazing what they do with next to nothing in the way of resources.

And as the head nun spoke, it seemed that the very light of Christ shown from her face. Most people would be beaten down by the immense responsibility and the lack of resources she faced every single day, and yet here she was, smiling and radiant with the very joy of God. As she described the needs of the orphanage she never seemed angry or frustrated, she only spoke of her trust that God would provide what they needed when they needed it. I was inspired.

All this time Digna was never far away, and when we emerged from one of the classrooms, she was right back by my side. I felt from her (and also from little Yocelin) the same thing I had felt in a different way the evening before with the younger orphans -- an intense desire for a father´s love.

It was getting late and we had to leave, setting up another very difficult goodbye. I gave her my email address and asked her to write me. I had to say adios, but I told her I would be back. Mañana, she asked? Her question broke my heart. No, not tomorrow, I said, but I will be back. And I will.

Muy Caliente

Today was way hotter than any day so far, and the hottest of any day on my three trips here. It's a dry heat, as the saying goes, but we baked. Thank God no one fell out, though Matt had to lay out this afternoon with the bug. He's had Cipro though so he should be good to go soon enough.

It certainly helps that we have a nurse/mother/safety officer in Judy, who makes sure everyone is taking breaks, filling water bottles, and reminding everyone to drink up. It worked. We're all OK though tired and sore as usual.

We leave soon to visit El Hogar de Las Nina, an orphanage for young girls...more on that later.

Hard to believe already that tomorrow is our last day in Santa Rosa...

Adios!

Home Stretch

Everybody is sore to varying degrees this morning after another busy day, but spirits remain high and the team is gathering by the door to head to the work site. I am so inspired by their dedication to this work and the good humor they bring to their labors every day. A lot of us had aching backs yesterday from some of the weird postures you have to assume laying block, mixing mezcla and carrying blocks, and yet I still had to work to get people to leave at the end of the day.

Several houses have their block work done up to a point where the next step is to pour a band of reinforced concrete around the top of the blocks. This requires an immense amount of concrete which must be mixed by hand on the ground. I foresee much mixing of concreto today.

Weather wil be a factor today...it's been hotter than on either of my previous trips, and the forecast for today is 32C, which is in the low 90s. Pray that everyone stays well hydrated, because the temps plus the work could spell trouble otherwise.

Hasta luego...

Los Niños

Another day of work completed, and we can really see a bunch of houses taking shape. The activity around the site is incredible and its been fun to work with the masons. The mason on the house I worked on, Fernando, is both a wonderful craftsman and a patient teacher. He has taken Steve under his wing and trusts him to lay block on his own without much supervision. Its been awesome to watch the two of them bond.

I will post more about this later after I can process a little more, but we visited an orpahnage this afternoon run by the same order of nuns that Mother Teresa belonged to. They care for 51 children around three and under. We spent about 1.5 hours with them, just playing with them and loving them. Some of them just soaked it up, and wanted nothing more than to be hugged and held.

One girl and I bonded quickly and I spent the bulk of the time with her. Even though I asked several people to help me, I never understood her name. She was three years old and beautiful, with shoulder-length hair and sparkling brown eyes. I sat with her along with some others drawing pictures, which started with a caballo (horse), moved to a perro and gato (dog and cat), and ended up being a portrait of the whole family. I also showed them photos of everyone.

But when finally we had to leave, it was hard to say goodbye. As the leader, I was the last one out the door, and she came to me and took my hand and held on while I tried to leave. I tried twice to leave and she held on, but finally I had to go. My heart is still heavy as I write this. What will become of her, I wonder...and I pray the good sisters will continue to care well for her and the 50 others...

Our Team

I have been blessed by the 20 other people who make up our team. From the moment we were first united in the airport in San Pedro, the group has seemed very much at ease with each other, and by the time we had made the 3.5 hour bus ride here to Santa Rosa we were on our way to becoming friends.

On the work site, they have attacked each task with enthusiasm, and have worked with great intensity. My biggest problem as leader has been to make sure they stop long enough get enough water. That and getting them to quit.

Our morning devotions have been outstanding and our evening sharing has been, well, boisterous...a lot of laughing, joking, and sincere sharing of love and enjoyment of each others´ company. Last night at dinner we really got on a roll to the point several of us were in stitches. It just got louder and louder...until we had to go or get thrown out. :-)

Things get a little tougher the next three days as our bodies get more stiff and sore from the work. But I know this group will continue to give their all with an outstanding attitude.

Day Two

I´ll keep this short as we´re running late today...

The team so far has maintained a high level of enthusiasm and energy for the work. They hit the ground running this morning, with two teams laying block, one crew sifting sand for the adobe block-making ¨factory¨, and others doign various odds and ends. I moved dirt all morning, throwing shovels full of dirt through a screen to clean out the rocks and trash, so that the clean material can be used to make adobe blocks. So many have been made since we got here that we ran out of room to store them while drying.

After lunch I went on a shopping trip with Carlos, our most excellent driver, and Molly, one of our team interpreters. We set out for the local ferreteria to some some cubetas (buckets), alicates (special pliers for working with rebar), cucharas (trowels), and a carreta (whellbarrow). After three stops we had everything but the cubetas, which was what we needed most. Life in Honduras. We´ll get them mañana.

We visited a small (and I mean small) family cigar-making business after work -- husband, wife and daughter -- who rolled cigars all day in a one-room ¨factory¨. We didn´t get back till 5:45 so our evening schedule is off a bit and I am running late. I´ll try to post again either later tonight (unlikely) or in the AM.

Adios!

First Day of Work

Yesterday was our long-awaited first day of work. We rose early and met at 6.30 for a devotion and meetting as we will all week. Phil led an outstanding devotion, in which he quoted a great passage from Bishop Oscar Romero, who was martyred in the 80´s for his support of the people of El Salvador. The passage talked about how we were continuing work that was started before our arrival and would be completed after our departure from this earth. It was so very appropriate because that´s literally what we´re doing on the work site.

When we arrived at Shimishal, I was astounded by all that had been done, and all that was going on. The first 18 houses we worked on the past two years are complete and inhabited, and in fact have been decorated, painted, and added on to in many cases. The other 19 are in various stages of completion, and there are easily twice as many people working there than I have ever seen.

The homeowners we are working with introduced themselves, and we introduced ourselves to them. Each one spoke of their gratitude for our help, and prayed for blessings upon us. To a cynical American, it might seem like a little social nicety, but I know there are sincere, and it is touching.

We broke into teams and attacked the work with a vengeance. After all the hours on the bus the previous two days, everyone was ready to work, and the energy was incredible. I actually had to try to slow people down so they wouldn´t burn out. We tied rebar, made adobe blocks, sifted sand, mixed mezcla (mortar), and laid block. There was visible progress after even this one day.

Everyone is stiff today (except for the young ones), but we are ready to get after it again today. Our friend and guide Luis is leaving us to go back to the main office office in San Pedro Sula, and I for one will miss him. But we are going to be very busy the next few days, I know the time will fly by...

Time to go get ready for work...hasta luego!

The Belly and Belen Gualcho

It´s about 7.30 local time and we are about to head to the work site for our first day on the job. I am amazed at how quickly the group has knit together...21 people who already seem very comfortable with each other, who share their lives and observations freely. I know we are going to work well together.

Yesterday we traveled about two hours to the little town of Belen Gualcho for the Sunday market. This was Honduras in its purest form, a place where they rarely see gringoes, where there are no turist shops or souvenirs, only the local Lenca Indian people and mestizos who come to buy produce, baked goods, clothing and handcrafts. The energy and surprising noisiness of the place is palpable, and all the way up the mountain we passed people coming to or going from the market.

The scenery is stunning...huge mountains, broad valleys, sharp peaks, flowers, pine trees, and houses that ranged from little adobe hovels to mansions. And everywhere there are coffee plantations, with the coffee plants planted in the shade of pines or more often plantain trees. Ít´s the end of the harvest, and everywhere farmers and businesses are drying coffee beans in the sun, anywhere there is a broad flat expanse of concrete, or even a sack or board in the yard.

In Belen Gualcho we held a Sunday service in the local church which was finished in 1718. The church has seen better days to be sure, but we were able to first go up on the roof and check out the spectacular views of the town and surrounding mountains.

Our service was basically the Liturgy of the Word... a reading form 2 Chronicles about the Babylonian Captivity, a psalm response (Psalm 137), a reading from Ephesian, and John 3 14 20 containing the awesome ¨For God so loved the world...¨ verse. We sang three hymns, ably led by Sherry and Keith.

The only bad thing was that I became afflicted, I guess you would say, with Montezuma´s Revenge. Thanks to the support and drugs of the team (God bless Cipro), I am on the mend and am going to work today.

More tonight!

We made it

We arrived last night about 5.30 and checked in. It was a long ride, both the plane ride, the wait at the airport for our last two team members, and thw twisty 100 mile ride in the bus. But miraculously everybody made, along with all their baggage.

After checking in we went to one of the local schools for a ¨reception¨ which turned out to be a full-on, red-carpet reception party, with music, dancing, pizza, and local food. The courtyard of a local school had been decorated with tables, candles, balloons and a huge sign that said ¨bienvenidos¨ (welcome). We were once again blown away by the warmth and hospitality of our hosts.

Today we head up to a local mountain village called Belen Gualcho for their Sunday market, which is quite a spectacle. Hopefully I can write more later, but breakfast beckons!

Reverse Mission

Tomorrow is the big day when we leave for Honduras. Nine months of preparation, recruiting, planning, budgeting, sweating, communicating, nagging, and praying are about to be fulfilled on our mission.

I am excited about returning to Shimishal, the little neighborhood on the outskirts of Santa Rosa de Copan that we helped start two years ago. I can't wait to see new homeowners Fatima, Marina, and little Jose Erais Limon the mason, the kids like Ramon and Jose Lopez, and the folks from Habitat like Gaby, Luis and JJ. And best of all we will see 18 families now living securely in the strong little houses we helped build. Their lives will have been transformed by the resources of the Greensboro and Durham Habitat affiliates and the army of volunteer laborers who have come from those two cities and from all over North Carolina to help their sisters and brothers in a little Central American town none of us had ever heard of.

And yet I know now that what they gave us is so much greater than our gift to them. My two visits to Santa Rosa have changed me forever. As Henri Nouwen put it in his book Here and Now:

I had come from the North to the South to help the poor, but the longer I was among the poor the more aware I became that there was another mission, the mission from the South to the North. When I returned North, I was deeply convinced that my main task would be to help the poor of Latin America convert their wealthy brothers and sisters in the United States and Canada.

Ever since that time, I have become aware that wherever God's Spirit is present, there is a reverse mission.

When I returned last spring, my heart was different. The change started on the first trip, but it really took hold last year. Every time I thought of the trip and the people of Santa Rosa, God told me: "Witness for them." I have taken every opportunity to do just that, to the point where my friends and family are probably sick of it. The reverse mission has converted me.

Tomorrow is the next step. Remembering what has already happened on the past two trips, what does God have in store for us this time? God alone knows. But I know it won't end when we leave Honduras.

Faith and Preparation for the Journey

In less than 48 hours our group from Habitat for Humanity will board the plane to begin our journey to Honduras. Saturday will be a long day --

• Rendezvous with the group at 5:45 AM at the airport
• Fly to Atlanta
• Short connection, meet up with Drew and Kate who are arriving from London
• Fly to San Pedro Sula
• Arrive at 11:10 local time (two hours behind us, so 1:10)
• Rendezvous with Luis Madrid from Habitat Honduras
• Load the bus, tying our 35 or 40 bags to the roof of the bus
• Drive three hours to go about 100 km (60 miles or so)
• Arrive at the Hotel San Jorge about 4 PM local, about 12 hours after we left
• Mass at 5 PM (hopefully)
• Meet with the team at 6:30
• Dinner at 7:00
• Crash
  

My journey actually started almost nine months ago, when I was called to lead this trip. I have been preparing ever since. I have gone from early, uninformed enthusiasm to frustration and near-despair that I'd even be able to find 11 other people to make the minimum number, to amazement at how we now have 19.

There is still a lot to do. Pat has been extremely helpful and supportive, and that has been a source of comfort here lately. It IS coming together, but there are so many variables that are out of my control, from team members' ability to rouse themselves at oh-dark-thirty to the vicissitudes of airline schedules and weather. So much is beyond my control or even influence. And I think it will be even crazier when we get there -- we will be operating on Honduran time, which has little to do with (North) American ideas of punctuality. Plans will change. And change again. And only a handful of people we'll see outside our team even speak English!

I have faith that God brought me to this place and he will lead me through it. That much is certain. How He will do it is a mystery, which can be a source of anxiety, but can also be a source of wonder and awe...

It was perhaps ten years ago that an image first appeared to me that has helped me many times in situations like this. I was a senior executive at a market research firm, and a big part of my job was business development -- beating the bushes for new clients. One of my colleagues in Southern California was extremely gifted at opening doors for people like me to tell our company's story. He was also gifted at squeezing every ounce of value out of every trip I made there. It was not unusual for him to schedule five or six meetings in a single day with five or six different clients. At the same time, I also had existing clients who depended on me to support their important work. It was overwhelming. That was when I first learned to let go and let God take care of me and get done what needed to be done.

The image that came to me was me standing with my arms wide, closing my eyes and falling backward. God supported me, and I never once hit the ground. After that, when I would start to feel stressed and overwhelmed, I would close my eyes and imagine spreading my arms and slowly falling backward.

###

And speaking of wonder and awe, as I was writing this I just learned from Lisa at Habitat that we have added two more team members less than 48 hours before departure. What a wonderful surprise, but further proof that I am not in control of this situation! I think I will just close my eyes now...

Juanito

About a year ago I had a strange experience. On the second day of a ten-day Habitat for Humanity build trip to Honduras, we had gone to the work site for orientation and to get our hands dirty a little bit. We spent the morning starting to dig trenches for the sewer lines from 18 houses that were nearing completion. Turns out that was to be our main task for the following week. But the thing we did most this particular day was play with the children from the neighborhood and the adjacent orphanage.

We returned to the Hotel San Jorge late that afternoon to clean up and rest before dinner. The local church has a Saturday afternoon Mass at 5 PM, so three of us brave souls -- my son Dan, Becky and I -- decided to go. Don't quote me on this, but I believe the church was built in colonial times about 400 or so years ago. Let's just say it's seen better days, though it was sporting a new coat of white paint or whitewash, which really made it stand out.

Attending a Mass celebrated in a foreign language is a curious experience. I know some Spanish, but not really enough to translate competely on the fly. However fifty years of Mass attendance definitely helps you understand what's going on, even if you don't literally understand the prayers. I struggled with the sermon, but it seemed almost equal parts religion and politics, with references to justice and poverty and the poor. Mixing politics and religion is a pretty well worn path in Central America, thanks in no small part to Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador.

Everything else was pretty much what you'd expect until the very end of Mass. Just as we were set to leave, a man appeared in the aisle on my left. "Appeared" is the only way I can describe it, because one second I was thinking about leaving, and the next, here he was -- and he had taken my right hand in his.

He was obviously drunk, and smelled of someone who had been drinking liquor for an extended period of time. His hand was cold to the touch, and clammy, and he swayed a little from side to side as he stood there, looking me in the eye. "My name Juanito. Johnny." He spoke a little bit of English, though his inebriation did not make it any easier to understand. He kept saying something over and over, a question. "Do you know O-ma-ha?" The very bizarreness of the question, standing in an old colonial church of a backwater town in Honduras, didn't make it any easier to understand.

Juanito was not aggressive in any threatening sort of way, but he did not let go of my hand, either. He was right up in my personal space, no more than a foot from me. I could not leave without making a scene. And of course none of the townspeople came to the aid of this gringo either.

"Do you know O-ma-ha. Neh-brah-ka." I tried to relax a little bit and listen. I looked over at Dan and Becky and they looked...freaked out. But what I eventually pieced together was that Juanito had emigrated to the U.S. for a period of time and had worked as a migrant laborer in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. What an epic trip that must have been, from Santa Rosa to Omaha and back again.

Juanito held my hand for a long time...ten minutes that seemed like ten hours. Every once in a while he'd say again, "my name Juanito...Johnny" like I hadn't heard him before. I tried to communicate with him as best I could, with his handful of English and my handful of Spanish, but finally I just had to go. So I finally told him so, took my hand back, and we left.

Of course he followed us, and finally got down to his apparent reason for accosting us -- he asked Dan for money, and thankfully Dan didn't give him any. I'm certain he would have bought liquor. Juanito followed us for a couple of blocks, and I was starting to get concerned that he'd follow us back to the hotel. But when we turned left to head back up the street the hotel was on, I just said, "Adios, Juanito" and turned away. We left him behind at the square. I never saw him again.

I never felt afraid the whole time he held my hand, though I'd be lying if I told you it was easy or comfortable. But it forced me to look in the eye a person I probably would have hurried past had I seen him on the street, a kind of social leper. Forced me to see him as another human being in a very bad place in his life. I still think of him sometimes, and it causes me to say a prayer for him. God only knows what the rest of his story is. I hope it got better.

Being the analytical type, I can't help ask, why me? And why did he say so many times, "My name...Juanito...Johnny"? I wonder if it was part of humanizing him -- his mother and father probably called him Juanito (maybe Dad was Juan). Friends called him Juanito. Maybe he had brothers and sisters that called him Juanito. I'll never know.

But there are a couple of uncomfortable coincidences I've thought about. Juanito was not just some guy with a buzz on, out for a good time on a Saturday night. You just knew the guy was an alcoholic, maybe toward the end of the road. My Dad was an alcoholic. And his name was Johnny. Not John or Jack -- my Mom and his friends called him Johnny. He passed away (dry and sober, thank God) in 1991. But in a small strange way, saying adios to Juanito was also like saying goodbye to Dad. I don't know if you ever really get over having an alcoholic parent, but maybe somehow, some day, you do get beyond it. I don't know why, but I think that day I started a new chapter in getting beyond it.

I also sometimes think about the passage from Matthew (Mt 25:31-46) which says in part:

'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink?
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you,
or naked and clothe you?
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
And the king will say to them in reply,
'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did
for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Did I welcome Juanito as a stranger? It's a little bewildering to think of Juanito as Christ in that situation. But maybe that was Jesus' point -- he's not always going to have a halo and a band of cherubim ministering to him. Did I welcome him, or did I fail to minister to him? I wonder...the right thing to do was not at all clear to me then or now. But I did stay with him and listen, and that's a start.

Receiving Forgiveness

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins
Mi 7:18-20, from today's readings

Today's Gospel reading contains what is in my humble opinion the greatest and perhaps longest of Jesus' many parables. It is the greatest because:

• It so vividly portrays the love of God for us in human terms
• It's characters are vividly drawn with an extreme economy of words
• Like all great literature, it operates on multiple levels
• Its lessons are timeless

I've heard this parable many times as Mass of course, when you hear it all at once as a story, in which context its lesson seems singular and obvious. But it is a rich and detailed story. To get the full impact, it helps to break it down into chapters:

Chapter 1 -- Context

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

All week long Jesus has been cracking on the Pharisees, his favorite fall guys. This chapter encapsulates both their big beef with Jesus and their fundamental sin. They believe in justification through their works (adherence to the law) while Jesus preaches justification by faith and conversion of the heart. The tax collectors and sinners get it. The Pharisees do not. So Jesus tells them the story.

Chapter 2 -- The Insult

'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.'

To get the full impact of the story, you have to understand just how deeply the younger son insulted and disrespected his father. He is basically saying, "You have no value to me as a human being, except as a vehicle to provide me with the things that I value. Your fatherhood is worthless. I wish you were dead, because then I would get what's coming to me."

Chapter 3 -- High Times

(He) set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.

Not only did he take his inheritance from his father prematurely, he then wasted it in further sin.

Chapter 4 -- Reversal of Fortune

When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.

For the Jews of Jesus' audience, to fall so low as to tend swine was an unimaginable disgrace, for pigs are considered unclean. This son was actually desperate to eat what the pigs ate.

Chapter 5 -- Realization and Remorse

Coming to his senses he thought,
'How many of my father's hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.'"

Here is the moment of grace when the son realizes what he has done and begins his conversion of heart.

Chapter 6 -- The Eternal Love of the Father

While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

Think about the meaning of "while he was still a long way off." After all the son has done, the second that the father first sees him trying to return, "he ran to his son." So much does the father love his son and miss him that at the first sign of his return he runs to meet him.

This is perhaps the most poignant moment of the story. In my mind I see the son trudging wearily up the dusty road. He is pale, thin, shoeless and dressed in rags, and bone-tired from carrying his immense sin alone along this long and difficult road for so many days. His father, with the classic white hair and flowing beard of all biblical fathers, sees him in the distance and instantly recognizes him. All this time he has never stopped thinking of him, never for one second stopped loving him. The realization of their impending reunion takes his breath away, and without thinking or a moment's hesitation he begins to run as fast as his old legs will carry him to the reunion he has longed for all this time.

Chapter 7 -- Confession

'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.'

The son recites the confession he has no doubt practiced a thousand times on his long journey home. It reminds me of trying to do an examination of conscience as a kid preparing to go to "confession", as the Sacrament of Reconciliation used to be called. As rote as it may sound, though, the father understands how deeply the son regrets his actions.

Chapter 8 -- Restoration of Sonship
"Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found."

Here is the most accessible and obvious lesson -- reconciliation with God is a resurrection of sorts. Our death in sin becomes resurrection and new life through the love of the Father and the death and resurrection of Christ. We see the same lesson in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

Chapter 9 -- Resentment of the Obedient Elder Son

'Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.'

This is all too much for the older brother, who has worked hard for the father all the time his little brother was living it up. In fact, he probably had to work even harder because of the loss of his brother. He resents his father's leniency toward the younger son and refuses to join the celebration.

In a sense, he now commits a sin similar to his brother's. He rejects his father, his father's love and his father's values. It does not occur to him that the same kindness and mercy are available to him, and that in fact his father's love has already been lavished upon him.

Chapter 10 -- Resolution and Explanation of the Father

'My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.'"

This final lesson is not only for us, but for the Pharisees as well, and in the final summation Jesus puts an exclamation point on his explanation of why he dines with sinners and tax collectors.

This particular parable has always resonated deeply with me, and for literally decades I did not know why. Then during a particularly dark time in my life, my therapist/mentor/counselor/novelist/friend Marilyn showed me a passage from the book The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen:

One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God's forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. Sometimes it seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome. While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant. But do I want to be restored to the full responsibility of the son? Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a totally new way of living becomes possible? Do I trust myself with such a radical reclamation? Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebellion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God's love that a new person can emerge? Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant. As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay. As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.

Fr. Louie has also said to me on multiple occasions that for many people receiving forgiveness is so very much harder than asking for it. One stumbling block is that in order to receive forgiveness from others, including God, we also have to be prepared to forgive ourselves. We have to let go of the past, because God is the God of the present. Another stumbling block is that receiving forgiveness requires a commitment to change -- to walk away from the life and actions and thought patterns that led to the sin in the first place. We don't trust ourselves to change, and rightfully so. We can't do it, we can only allow God to do it for us.

As we roll into the second half of Lent, our challenge is not only ask forgiveness, but to accept it as well, and in doing so to allow God to change us into something completely new.

Happy Birthday Dan

Fond wishes for a happy birthday go out to my son Dan who turns 20 today. It's hard to believe he's already 20, and that his brothers Alex and Jesse are 21 and 24, respectively. One of the greatest joys in my life is to see the three of them together, how much they love each other and enjoy each other's company. This scenario was pretty hard to imagine, say, 15 years ago when they were pummeling the daylights out of each other. But I guess most brothers grow out of that kind of competition -- even mine did. ;-)

Joseph, the subject of today's Old Testament reading, was not so lucky. Because his father had shown special favor for Joseph, his brothers became jealous and plotted to kill him. Lacking the nerve to murder their own flesh and blood, they threw him in a cistern. Then after enjoying a nice lunch together and admiring their handiwork, they decided they could turn a profit by selling him to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites. Good thing there were no Ishmaelite caravans passing by when my boys were younger...but I digress.

As we all know from Sunday School, religion class, or vacation Bible school, through God's favor Joseph went on to become the Pharaoh's right-hand-man. Through his position of power he then showed his brothers incredible mercy and forgiveness when they were most vulnerable.

In one sense, Israel's special love for Joseph was almost Joseph's undoing, as it aroused jealousy in his brothers. Probably at one time or another every child deals with the perceived favoritism of one or both parents. Likewise parents (including me) agonize about even the perception of favoritism among their children.

We raise our children for a long time, and the relationships among all the family members are in a constant state of flux. In my relationships with my sons, my connections to each are different in terms of interests, experiences we've shared, and all the emotions that go with them. The strength, quality, and intensity of each relationship changes over time, as it does between every pair of humans. And in Israel's defense, it could be that at the time today's story unfolds, his relationship with Joseph was at a particularly intense and positive stage. Maybe in time, say if Joseph had gone out with his friends and wrecked the family chariot, the nature of the relationship might have changed, but we'll never know.

My relationship with Dan reached a particularly intense and positive stage this time last year when we traveled to Honduras together on a Habitat build trip. We worked together, ate together, roomed together, and shared our lives with each other at a deeper level than we had before. I've had similar, but not the same, experiences with Alex and Jesse, and I hope to again with each of them. But Honduras last year was special for Dan and I.

And as it turned out, Dan's birthday fell right in the middle of the trip. I know he had accepted the fact that he wouldn't be celebrating a "normal" birthday, but I don't know what, if anything he expected. We arranged to have dinner that night at Weekend's Pizza in Santa Rosa, which is an oddly excellent pizza joint in Santa Rosa de Copan -- you just don't expect great pizza in Honduras, OK? Margaret Rubiera, God bless her, arranged to have a surprise birthday cake -- Tres Leches cake -- brought out after dinner with candles and the whole thing. What a great surprise it was, especially when it turned out the lady who served the cake was a Habitat homeowner we had visited the previous year.

Dan, I don't see any surprise Tres Leches cake in your future, but I hope you have a wonderful 20th birthday just the same!

Love,

Dad

Trust

At the end of June, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales will be leaving St. Paul's and leaving the staffing of the parish with priests to the Diocese of Charlotte. It is an emotional time of transition, and one of fear and anxiety for some, as we have not faced a change like this in a long time. The parish has been staffed by order priests for its first 35 years, first the Paulists, then the Oblates. This is a step into the unknown.

Last night we had a meeting of the Parish Pastoral Council to discuss the transition. We honestly shared our thoughts and feelings, fears and doubts, and tried our best to discern what our role as a Council should be in this transition. Two people who said they had a conflict changed their plans and came anyway. The mood was thoughtful, loving, trusting, brutally honest, forgiving. There was and is such a love among us for this community and what it means to each of us, for the essence of St. Paul's parish that transcends priestly and lay leadership, and for the faith that binds us all together.

The Holy Spirit was with us, and through the Spirit it was our finest hour, not because of anything we did or said, but because in the end we decided to take the Lord by the hand and let Him lead us through this. That is what God is calling us to do through the prophet Jeremiah in today's readings:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
It fears not the heat when it comes,
its leaves stay green;
In the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.
More tortuous than all else is the human heart,
beyond remedy; who can understand it?
I, the LORD, alone probe the mind
and test the heart,
To reward everyone according to his ways,
according to the merit of his deeds.

Our parish has been through a lot over the past ten years, including the removal of a beloved pastor due to accusations of sexual abuse and a severe financial crisis. I don't need to recount all the particulars, as they are all part of a past we can't change. Over that time we watched our numbers wither by a quarter or even a third.

But we have also watched a miracle take hold. Our finances bounced back, and in spite of the strains of the recession are still better than they were. Our numbers have bounced back. There is a renewed sense of who we are as a community, and the role we play in the larger community of Greensboro.

As so often happens when we trust the Lord, our trials have become a beautiful gift. Because I believe we now see that our faith community at St. Paul's is much more than our priestly leadership, more than the homily on Sunday or even the Mass itself. We are here for each other, and we are here for others we don't even know -- the homeless who stay in our church as part of the Greensboro Interfaith Hospitality Network, the Muslim family whose house we helped build through Habitat for Humanity and the people whose houses we'll work on in Honduras, the people of our sister parish in Ecuador, and the people who come through our doors every day to find help to get through these hard times.

God knows I am not saying this to thump my chest with pride, because we still have a lot of work to do and potentially tough times ahead. But adversity has forged us into a stronger community, and for that I am grateful to God.

Humble Pie

My apologies that this post is going up a little after the fact and refers to the readings for Tuesday and Wednesday. I'll have some thoughts out later about today's readings.
*****

Tuesday's Gospel contains one of Jesus' many tirades against the hypocrisy and pride of the scribes and the Pharisees. It's extraordinary how vehement Jesus is in His criticisms of the Pharisees in so many places, and yet how gentle and non-judgmental he is with more "ordinary" sinners like prostitutes, tax collectors, and adulterers. The pride and hypocrisy of the Pharisees seems so much more offensive to Jesus than the greed and sexual sins of the people. Why is that?

In a way the Pharisees have presumed to take on God's role as ultimate judge of human behavior, and in a sense their behavior is a form of blasphemy. To make matters worse, their pride and hypocrisy shows that they have lost the healthy sense of who they really are -- creation rather than Creator, and that they are utterly lacking in authenticity and humility.

Wednesday's reading builds on this theme. In the first part, Jesus describes the ultimate act of service he is about to perform:

"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem,
and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests
and the scribes,
and they will condemn him to death,
and hand him over to the Gentiles
to be mocked and scourged and crucified,
and he will be raised on the third day."

Soon he will give up everything in humble service to us out of His great love. Contrast this with the plea of the mother of James and John that follows: "Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom." She is asking for them the same kind of place at the head of the table that the Pharisees used to lord their power over the people, only not in this world, but the next. This also is a loving Mom looking out for the sons she loves.

But it's the wrong question. Jesus asks the two brothers "Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?" -- can you serve, suffer, and die for me? "We can," they reply. This is the right question, and the right answer. However it is not for Jesus to place the two at His right and His left -- even Jesus, God's son, did not presume to take on a part of God's job as the Pharisees did.

When the other ten get bent out of shape about this exchange, Jesus explains the meaning of yesterday's reading and today's:

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and the great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many."

In other words, he called each of them to a life of humility and service. Fr. Louie talked about humility in his homily on Ash Wednesday, and offered what I thought was a great way to think about it. We often think of humility as self-deprecation, but that's not really it, and in fact self-deprecation can even lead to false modesty. Fr. Louie said "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking of yourself less."

And when you think of yourself less, you will think more about others, which will in turn lead you serve others rather than solely serving yourself.

Judgment Call

Today's reading is one that I can almost recite by heart, both today's version from Luke and the corresponding passage in Matthew. Judging others is possibly the most persistent and unrelenting offense in my personal portfolio of sins, so I have worked those two passages over to reinforce my motivation to change. And while I have definitely made progress, I am nowhere near done with my work.

Our society is not much help. A recent Time magazine had a big article about who was to blame for the current financial crisis, replete with Photoshopped pictures of the judged in a spoofed police lineup. No need for a judge or jury there, these 25 are already convicted in the court of public opinion. This type of thing has become a mainstay of the media, from the op-ed pages of the papers to the screaming pundits on TV. And then there are the lawyers and the court system, the great substitute for personal responsibility and common sense, where the blame game is played at the highest level. When bad things happen, we just need to judge someone responsible and we'll feel better. Except we don't.

I think most people would read today's gospel as "Stop judging (other people) and you will not be judged (by God)." That certainly is a very direct and obvious meaning, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. But read the whole reading:

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

"Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you."

There's more to it than just avoiding God's judgment, though that would be lesson aplenty. Jesus is also telling us how to live our lives and to literally make "Thy kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven". In his book of reflections Here and Now, Henri Nouwen says:

Imagine having no need at all to judge anybody. Imagine having no desire to decide whether someone is a good or bad person. Imagine being completely free from the feeling you have to make up your mind about the morality of someone else's behavior. Imagine that you could say: "I am judging no one!"

Imagine -- Wouldn't that be true inner freedom? the desert fathers from the fourth century said: "Judging others is a heavy burden." I have had a few moments in my life during which I felt free from all the judgements about others. It felt as if a heavy burden had been taken away from me. At those moments I experienced an immense love for everyone I met, heard about, or read about. A deep solidarity with all people and a deep desire to love them broke down all me inner walls and made my heart as wide as the universe.

Friends, THAT is what Jesus was also trying to teach us. He has told us all along to love our neighbor. This is a key to how you do it -- by withholding all judgment about your neighbor.

Nouwen goes on to say we all have these moments if we are attuned to the Holy Spirit: "They are like glimpses of heaven, glimpses of beauty and peace." Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

But how do we change, when so much of what we hear and see and experience reinforces that we are constantly judged ourselves, and that we need to judge others just to survive?

Can we free ourselves from the need to judge others? Yes...by claiming for ourselves the truth that we are beloved daughters and sons of God. As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to the need to put other people in their "right" place. To the degree that we embrace the truth that our identity is not rooted in our success, power, or popularity, but in God's infinite love, to that degree we can we let go of our need to judge...

...God's judgment is not the result of some divine calculation of which we have no part, but the direct reflection of our lack of trust in God's love. If we think of ourselves as the sum total of our successes, popularity, and power we become dependent on the ways we judge and are being judged and end up as victims manipulated by the world. And so we bring judgment on ourselves...

Only when we claim the love of God, the love that transcends all judgments, can we overcome all fear of judgment. When we have become completely free from the need to judge others, we will also be completely free from the fear of being judged.

So from this vantage point we can see some of Jesus' other teaching in a slightly different light. If we start at the place where we accept and truly believe that we are God's beloved, nothing in this world has quite the same hold on us. We stop judging others, and when that happens we not only don't fear others' judgment, but others no longer seem to judge us either.

This last observation has been one of the biggest surprises on my journey to being less judgmental. Not only does judging less transform me, it seems to transform others in relation to me, making them kinder and more forgiving of me. There's no way else I can explain it any different or better than Jesus did in today's Gospel. All that time I was trying to figure it out, and it was all right there in that passage from Luke all along.

The Conundrum of Prayer

There seems to be even more than usual to pray for these days. Another friend lost his job. Thanks to our buddies on Wall Street that 401(k) became a 201(k), and after the last 10 days is now more like a 101(k). My Mom told me she's concerned her money is going to run out before her time here does -- and she's 90. Shall I go on? $1.7 trillion deficit. War rages anew in Afghanistan. Our new leadership seems just as lost as the last. And so it goes. There is indeed plenty to pray for.

As I have mentioned before on these pages, I am of two minds about prayer, and sometimes I think Scripture gives us conflicting advice.

On the one hand, there are plenty of examples in the Bible of people praying fervently to God for very specific things. I have been re-reading my favorite Psalms the past few nights, and pretty much every psalm is a prayer, and most every prayer is for something pretty specific (forgiveness, deliverance from enemies, etc.). Today's readings are about prayer, including the oft-quoted:

"Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

This passage certainly invites us to pray for what we need, and indeed the corresponding passage in Luke 11 invites us to be persistent in our prayers and they will certainly be answered.

"Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,' and he says in reply from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.' I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence."

That seems pretty clear. But here's the twist: what if we pray for the wrong things? And where does God's will fit in vs. what we are asking for? Doesn't His will count for something? How do we know that what we pray for is consistent with what God wants for us?

Praying for his life in the Garden of Gethsemane even Jesus' prayer deals with this:

...he prayed, saying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done."

So what are we to make of this praying-for-something-but-not-praying-for-it? Asking for something and accepting at the same time you may not get it because it's not what He wants?

I don't know, and I've thought about it a fair amount. But there are a couple of things I've learned that I can share.

Prayer has the power to clarify our desires, motives, and intentions. If you pray honestly and openly, then part of the process will be to examine why you want what you want. This can only be a good thing. Persistent prayer also clarifies just how much we want something. I sometimes pray for things that maybe don't matter to me as much as I think. My persistence or lack thereof reflects that. I suspect that sometimes God wants us to work through these things ourselves through prayer.

Prayer also reveals God's will and teaches us to surrender our will to His. I have learned from the 12 Steps (see Step 11) that often the very best prayer is "praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out." That really simplifies things. What else do you really need?

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of prayer is that it has the power is to change the one doing the praying. Setting aside the time to be with God and open yourself up is transformative. I think it even changed Jesus that night in the garden. Has anyone ever prayed more fervently? Yet when faced with the awful reality of His sacrifice he totally surrendered to God's will, and through that surrender was granted the power to carry it out the next day, completely at peace and without fear. The knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out.

God does answer our prayers, every time. Sometimes that's obvious, but other times we need to continue praying in order to have the insight to know our prayer has been answered, because the answer isn't always the one we were looking for.

Apology & Update on Posting Comments

First of apologies for not posting for more than a week! I marvel at how busy I can be while business is slow...will try to be a little more disciplined going forward.

One quick update...after several of you have mentioned having trouble posting comments, I changed the settings to allow anyone to post whether you're signed up or not. PLEASE leave me your name (or at least a clue), but most of all know that I welcome and cherish your comments and emails, and will respond ASAP.

Back to writing....