May 9, 2009

 I devoutly (DEVOUTLY) hope that our construction and maintenance is over for a substantial length of time.

 The wood on the outside of the house needed a paint job. You know what happens if you don’t keep up with it. So we decided on white. Our contractor is in a bad way due to the recession, so he was glad to provide our team for the project. They painted everything that didn’t move, only too happy for the work.

 So now our woodwork matches the white roof, and the whole effect is stunning. They included the railing on the front porch and the cross on the front wall of the church, also pipes. They did not paint the trees.

 The trees got socked by late frosts, and lost their first crop of leaves. Now they are budding out again and you know the delicacy of first leafage. It has also got hot. What can you expect.

 We are praying that Mission Santa Barbara does not burn down. It is in very good condition, and holds the remains of many friars in its dovecote walls. The western superiors’ pastoral meetings are held in nearby Montecito at the center of the Immaculate Heart Community, and have been held in ashy conditions before this, so I know the vicinity.

We have had a couple of near fires, but they were not seriously threatening to us. Tonight the Saturday crowd goes off to the parish for Sunday Mass. On Wednesday we will pick up Fr James at Tucson International to provide conferences at our annual community retreat. Ahhhh. This year, the retreat house is not available as usual for the sisters on retreat, but we have many more nooks around the house, and will make do. You just have to be careful not to stumble over a nooked sister, and disturb her recollection.

I am reading Lincoln President-Elect, by Harold Holzer, who also wrote Lincoln at Cooper Union. It is very detailed and when you have finished, it is as if you had lived through the whole terrible experience in Lincoln’s pocket, or maybe in his heart. These months tend to get brushed over in accounts that move into the broader aspects of his life. However, I have also got the new biography, A Lincoln as well as two of the new Pulitzer winners and The Last Indian War. Remember Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce? “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever…” Or however he did say it.

By next week , Vicki will be driving again. She goes to Physical Therapy twice a week, and is very much on the mend. She and Kate gave Casey a bath yesterday. He can no longer go to be groomed because he is testy with the techs in his old age. Shana got a fever, probably from her rabies shot, and has to be coddled for awhile. Of course, she always gets feverish when the car takes a left at the end of our road, since she knows she is heading for the vet. Right turns are great, since she is going to the dump to see her friend Buddy the mastiff. However, I think it is unrequited love.

Our sisters at OL of the Mississippi are going into extensive renovations to make their living quarters disabled-accessible. It should be done by Christmas and meanwhile they are scattered all over the monastic complex. It will be hard getting from place to place in their cold winters, and when they begin to make candy again. So keep them in prayer.

 You’d think that, with a long history of dairy farming, I would not experience a thrill at driving past fields of cattle. It would be old stuff. However, on our trip to Patagonia for evening Mass when we lack a priest at the monastery, the local cattle more or less cover the landscape. You have Black Angus, Herefords, Texas Longhorns, and some mixture with black and white facial patches which look adorable on the calves.

There is a brown brindled variety that I have never seen before. There they all are, munching brown grass that did not have to be harvested and baled, picked up, carted into the barn and stacked, unbaled later and thrust at hungry mouths. These western animals have hay on the hoof so to speak. It doesn’t look very appetizing. Praise the inner mechanism that passes nourishment from one stomach to another in bovines. They lack the green feed with which we supplemented hay in the dairy barn. I remember inexpressibly painful summer afternoons pulling down and then forking into place steaming cartloads of (heavy, hot) green feed while our pampered cows were being milked.

I think I have told you about the demise of that absolutely gorgeous cottonwood that threatened to fall on the garage. It was quite a loss, but we have some others. Cottonwoods are tall and stately. Mimosas branch like fans. One of the Japanese maples is shaped like an expanded basketball. 

April 3, 2009

We have been having adventures: a broken arm; some oral surgery; birds all over the place; more birds; cows; more cows; sticky batter; preparation for Holy Week; stickier batter; Fr Matthew for Easter; sunrises for Fr Matthew; animals for Fr Matthew; visit from the Easter Elf; wind enough to blow you into the next county; computer problems; a blossoming crab tree after the blossoming pear subsided into leaf…

 And people think we have an uneventful life.

Marg, Vic, and I were on our way to the Tucson Orthopedic Institute, crossing the street from the parking garage, chatting and admiring the wonderful foliage on the way. When we got to the checking-in office, a woman came up and said, “You looked so happy! I just had to tell you…”

 A couple were waiting as we came in, the man holding a baby so tiny she almost didn’t exist. She was two weeks old and had the most hair I have ever seen on a baby—black and sticking up all over. Marg and I both went over for a close-up of this marvel. It’s amazing how small little babies can be.

Oh dear there is the woodpecker or flicker or whatever, going at one of our Arizona walnut trees. You have to feel sorry for the trees, although the birds are beautiful.

On one of our trips, man in the car beside us was cuddling two miniature poodles, one black and one brown. He put the window down and I had to go and pet the animals. He said they were the best poodles they had ever had. They were certainly friendly.

Now, birds. For some reason we have had flocks of birds this winter. Flocks. Maybe they got stopped on their way somewhere else. But when they are on the ground, the grass looks alive, as if it had itches. Then they all fly up and it looks as if the grass were taking flight. One flock is of sparrows with rusty heads, and another of cedar waxwings.

April 20, 2009. Well, Holy Week has come and gone, and so has our dear Fr Matthew. I think he is the official cheerer-upper in his monastery.

I know I wrote this down somewhere but I can’t find it: anyway, here is the account of our Holy Week.

Our ceremonies are so simple that it is hard to find wiggle room in them for glitches. However, if we try hard enough we can manage a few. To wit:

I have done the mandatum for nine years, but I can never remember how it goes. The ceremony takes place after the Gospel on Holy Thursday. I have only the recollection of struggling (this year) with my assistant to get the fresh towel between each pair of sisters, as if nothing else mattered. I think nobody notices how it is done as long as every foot gets its due. We sing a nice little antiphon at the beginning, take care of the feet in silence, and re-sing the antiphon at the end. I think. Oh I know. After I had nicely dried someone’s feet and kissed them according to custom, she put them back in the water. I did not squeak, “Oh NO!,” but we giggled as I re-dried the feet.

The Passion narrative (Passion/Palm Sunday and Good Friday) is very moving if you are one of those assigned to the reading. Father reads the Christ part from the ambo, and four of us read the other parts.  There you are as Peter or Pilate or a narrator, and the story is issuing from your very heart. The sisters left-over and the guests roar out the crowd part. “Crucify him!” Wow.

 Good Friday is very simple and solemn, and I don’t think we did anything interestingly wrong. We use a recording of Albinoni’s Adagio for the Adoration of the Cross—it fits very nicely. Supper is always appealing, since we haven’t had much lunch.

We light the New Fire—or Rita does—in the corner of the chapel porch. We used to do it out beyond the building, but what with wind and the danger of fire, we have retreated into a safer venue. Pam carries the Paschal Candle, and this year was so intent on getting her lighted burden into church that she forgot one of the stations, and there we were with our unlighted candles, which had to get lit somewhere along the way.

Vicki does a marvelous job singing the Exsultet, but this year Clare had valiantly volunteered to hold the flash light for one-handed Vic. We thought that would be it—hold the flash light. But before our stunned eyes, when she finished, the two of them, one disabled with a broken arm and the other with a couple of second-hand knees, lifted the lectern (which was by no means light) and made off with it into the sacristy. By the time we realized where they were heading, it was too late to offer help.

Then Clare, in an effort to keep the cupcake cup (with which the candles are outfitted to catch drips) on her candle from catching fire, tipped it over onto the rug. The fire went out on the way down, so nothing dire happened. She came around, picked it up and put it back--very simple. We must have done something untoward at the beginning of the Easter Day Mass because Father failed to come out of the sacristy, and after we had sung the Entrance verse, Esther went over to unearth him. He gave very lovely sermons for the whole of the Great Week.

On Monday we collapsed into a Hermit Day, and on Tuesday Father and Julie gave us a picnic, with the immense wonder of a demonstration of search-and-rescue from Julie’s certified dogs.

8 March 2009 (It is now April 2nd. We have had computer problems. A new entry is shortly forthcoming.)

Dear Friends, we apologize to any of you who are still hip-deep in snow,  but we are having spring. Be consoled, however. When you are enjoying a long, lingering spring, we may be hip-deep in three-digit temperatures. That is how it goes.

At any rate, the ornamental pear is blossoming its head off. We’ve had wind the last two days, and it is sending its petals down in its own kind of snow.

 We received a piece of sad news the other day. For several years, a young Dominican priest, Fr Tom Kraft, who was stationed in Mexicali, would come for his retreat. He would speak to us about his ministry, and we got to know him fairly well. The last time he came, he was anticipating a transfer to Spokane, where he would be assigned to the Newman Center at the University of Washington. It seems that this is what happened, and he was doing very well, except for a disturbing loss of weight and mild abdominal pain.

He was not alarmed and let it go. By the time he consulted a doctor, it was too late. The cancer had metastasized. The medical opinion gave him eight weeks, but he survived a bit over two years, and died two months ago. We were terribly shocked and saddened by the loss of our brother. Fr James, the Dominican priest who gave us the news, said that Tom was considered a very holy man. We knew him as generous, straight-forward, conscientious, and totally given to the people in his ministry. He also had a great sense of humor. Now and then, one has a quarrel with God.

 We “have” a Vermillion Flycatcher, and Cathy has been instructed in how to pronounce it. Yesterday, we saw a covey of quail at the tree wells beside Altar Breads. The kind with pom-poms.

 We have had a rather serious encounter with a cow. She is a beautiful animal, but you know how it is. She belongs to a neighbor who raises cattle, and is unusually intelligent in the matter of escaping confinement. He called her a Baldy, an Angus-Hereford cross. They are adept at telling themselves that fences are not real and acting on the conviction.

She would come around at nightfall and lap at the tree wells, messing up the landscape in the process. Why should she leave, she figured. Here were grass and water, paradise for errant beasts. Why indeed? I think Vicki must have called her owner two dozen times. There are plenty of ways of hiding around here.

Anyway, she is gone, and has been moved to another pasture, where we hope that her homing instincts have dulled somewhat. 

We had with us for a few days a darling Vietnamese applicant. It was too cute for words to see her and Cathy side by each at the Communion Service, two sweet, diminutive presences the exact same height.

 We are on the brink of the Third Sunday of Lent. I have never noticed before how somber the Lenten Gospels are. My goodness, the poor catechumens really get it socked to them. This is serious business, folks. TO-morrow at least we get the Prodigal Son. Have you ever seen a film of Balanchine’s ballet setting of the parable? Baryshnikov danced it, and it is soul-shattering.

 We will have a holiday for St Joseph. And maybe the film of Swan Lake in the afternoon.

16 February 2009

The ornamental pear tree in the Garth is fattening up its buds. They are very soft and lacy, and soon the tree will explode into wedding-cake-hood. It’s gorgeous in the fall too, with leaves that turn maroon, orange and bright yellow all at once. No pears though. It’s only bred for beauty.

We had a day of snow. Or rather, we had a few hours of snow beginning about one in the morning. At this elevation, it didn’t have a chance of remaining, but gave a great luster to the world while it stayed. The raven makes a wonderful show against the whiteness. The mountains are still snowy, off on the horizon.

It has occurred to me that it is almost Easter. Don’t tell me that Easter is a month and a half away. Lent begins in February. Therefore it is almost Easter. Fr Matthew will be here March 21, upon whose arrival we shall begin our annual retreat. He will just have come from giving somebody else’s retreat, but we don’t believe in coddling our temporary chaplains.

Gloria keeps Easter Day as her feast day, but we can’t possibly celebrate both together, since Easter submerges everything, and besides, we would lose a party, which God forbid. We will sing “Happy Feast Day, Gloria!” but her observance will fall on the Monday after Easter Week. Which reminds me that my feast day was put off last year and has never been celebrated. We will get to it. As I said, we do not skip out on parties.

Have I mentioned that we have adopted little blue caps and plastic gloves for Altar Bread work? They were featured in the newsletter Pam sent out about our industry. The baker does not wear gloves, since she would be in danger of getting tangled up in the Very Hot mechanism. Or at the very least, becoming less dexterous.

On January 20^th, we spent the day, from after Communion Service until sometime in the afternoon, before the TV, in an amalgam of emotions. We experienced all the expectable ones, plus great compassion for the ears of all those spectators. Can you imagine what your ears would feel like, exposed to that cold for so long? I wonder what it would have been like far away, back at the Washington Monument—although they had TV monitors. Maybe some of them brought heavy-duty binoculars; then again, maybe something like that would have bit the dust of security.

There was something so sobering about the Secret Service detail walking beside the presidential limousine without being able to fasten their coats. And the very looks on their faces would go a long way to discourage an assassin. We did object to the endless, unbroken chatter of the commentators. They were helpful in pointing out dignitaries, but otherwise, it would have been nice just to look, or to hear the bands which had practiced their hands off and were doubtless freezing as they marched.

Yo-Yo Ma certainly had a good time faking his music. Can you imagine anyone expecting the musicians to expose their precious instruments to that temperature? A friend sent a marvelous panoramic view along which one could pan, and into which one could peer, increasing or decreasing the size. Pick out Perlman, pick out Hillary, pick out individual band members, and there is the Supreme Court looking cold…

And now the president, along with his other troubles, has to decide whether to update the creaky presidential helicopter fleet. On the one hand is how much it costs, and on the other, that you do not want the president to go down in flames.

And here we have had two plane crashes, one of heroic proportions, and one simply tragic. And the terrible fires in Australia. Our monastery there has escaped the very worst, but among other trials, had to euthanize seventy cows that were on the brink of calving (=140). Their website gave before and after pictures of burned areas, and ABC News provided a video of that tender episode when a fire-fighter offered a bottle of water to a distressed koala. There was another picture of a koala with both front legs bandaged.

We are having (cold) spring winds. And I mean winds. It is so reassuring to know that the roof will not blow into the next county. One was never sure before, with dislodged shingles swooping around, and rain, when we had any, leaking into the house. The buildings look tidy from the ground, but from an aerial photo, we look a bit like a concentration camp, with our new, sturdy corrugated metal roofs.

I think I told you we have two lovely new sisters, with a couple more coming for interviews—all international. Our Korean sister is tiny, and when she is bundled up for work on the grounds, she looks (to mix the imagery) like a little leprechaun.

In case you didn’t know it, this is Fashion Week in New York. Occasionally, when I am checking out the latest congressional adventures, I take a brief look at what is being offered in this line. It is sobering. Here you have the line-up of emaciated, stone-faced young women parading in garments (or the lack of) that are so bizarre you can’t help wondering whether the whole pageant dropped in from some planet God forgot. You can’t help but wonder what that sort of job does to the psychological welfare of the models subjected to it, and what the poor girls look like on the streets of New York when their hair has not been frizzed into a Siberian fur cap, and their human features frozen past recognition. It can’t be good for them. I suppose it brings in money, but do you see those clothes ever in real life?

Beautiful, tasteful clothing is an art form, and a glory to God. But this is not that. Human beauty—masculine or feminine--speaks of the God who creates all beauty, and it’s sad to have it so desecrated. Well, end of that sermon.

Have a nice Lent. I hope to be back before then. Life has been rather busy.

23 December 2008

Dear Friends,

I’ve lost track of time in this matter. When did Jeannie go to bed, not to get up again? I know she was there during the Chapter in September, when we were praying she would not leave us until I got back from Assisi. Little did we know.

Jean’s life was, more than ordinarily, a litany of loss. Over-brimming with warmth and affection, extremely religious from the get-go, she sustained the early death of her father, her mother’s confinement to a TB sanitorium, and the resulting stay in an orphan home that was distinctly inhumane. Her stories about it gave me the creeps, and it was a wonder her religious allegiance got over the behavior of the nuns in charge.

At home, she helped with the chores on the family fruit farm, and hated pears for the rest of her life from having had to harvest them unendingly.

After I came to this monastery, I asked her to write the story of her life, since she enjoyed telling it, and her stories were lively and detailed. But they left out the dark side, of which there was plenty. She spent WWII as a secretary in the army in India, came home to college and a kind of sparring match with her future husband. He got the better grade as a result of a not entirely objective system, and when she was asked whether it wasn't fair for the man to prevail, shot back a four-square “No!”

She used to say her husband’s family was pretty straight-laced and didn’t quite know what to make of this small bombshell of affection, hugs and kisses. Which was probably the reason Al was determined not to lose her. She had only one tiny photo of him, and he was very good-looking. He was also tall and she was tiny. She loved to tell the story of their trek west for his medical internship—in a cheaply purchased hearse, with cartons of bottled preserves in the back, on which they placed a mattress for naps. When Al would sleep and she would drive, only her eyes showed through the wheel, drawing a series of amazed looks from passing drivers who were at least momentarily convinced that the vehicle was driving itself.

The mother of three boys, she suffered a number of miscarriages, and leapt at the chance to adopt a newborn girl who needed a home. Mary made four, and that was it. When their oldest son was 12, Al died, quickly and without warning, of an unsuspected heart condition. The unfair treatment she received from his medical partners was part of the tale she never wrote down. She didn’t want to fight (“I’m a lover, not a fighter”). But her advisors told her she must, for the sake of her children, and so she did. Affectionate she might be, but did she ever have a backbone.

Mom then went to medical school, Ted became a Responsible Adult at the age of twelve, and all the kids chipped in. It worked. The grown Ted went into family medicine, eventually partnering his mom. Paul’s gifts are in sales, where he truly cares for his clients, and really he could sell me a motherless zebra. Mary is an invaluable aide to the billing department of her company, and Mark was a deeply loved teacher who died of cancer while Jean was in the monastery. Another loss.

Monastic life was not easy for Jean, though she told Mother Cecile that if she wanted her to leave, she’d have to carry her out. She was quiet about pain and inner dislocation. Her life’s griefs had pooled at the bottom of a personality that was essentially buoyant, childlike, and determined to be good. She gave bone-crushing hugs, and you had to be prepared for the strength of her hand’s grip in order not to yelp with surprise. She seemed to live to give affection. “Have I told you today that I love you?” she would say, and mean every word. Many guests were attracted to her, encountering her as portress or rose-gardener at the retreat house.

When I came to Santa Rita in 2000, she was still engaged in the usual monastery chores. She loved her gardening, was less enthusiastic about a day as dinner cook,

filled in as evening portress, was part of the Mass reader rotatin. She managed the community laundry and took her turn at feeding the dogs—at which task she was not exactly observant of the rules. They got over-fed on her watch.

Then one by one, her duties diminished as her Alzheimers progressed. Her balance deteriorated and her precious walks had to be curtailed.

She needed to be kept track of, then helped with her food, then helped with dressing. She was able to assist in the kitchen for quite a while, breaking and washing the lettuce, cutting tomatoes. Sr Kate would take her here and there to help in various little ways, and became her principle care-giver and friend on the journey.

She retained her glorious smile and wanted to be present to community events, though her hearing had diminished radically. For awhile, we tried hearing aids, but she was a genius at losing them, so we relied on touch and vision. She had a couple of falls, which put our hearts in our mouths, but her bones were sturdy, and we installed bars to grip in the cloister. In a case like this, everyone is alert, whether consciously or not, to any possibility, and she was lovingly watched.

There is an aura, a kind of emanation from someone in that condition of progressive helplessness. It’s as if the person were being dredged out and filled with something that is not of this earth. Although most people protest, “Oh no, not my mind. Do not take my mind,” still, when God is exacting this last, most grievous offering, the entire community feels the impact of the inner work that is being done. When at last she was confined to bed, when her mental and physical faculties were reduced to a minimum, she became wholly a special locus of the presence of God in our midst.

We do not know how she survived her last months. She could not eat, not even Ensure, and took only a few ounces of water a day. Yet still that mighty heart kept beating. At Thanksgiving, our friend Dr Glenn pronounced her heart and blood pressure normal. We watched her like hawks for bed sores, and made good use of bag balm. She did not appreciate the care, unable to understand its need, and there were a few bruises on the care-givers from the strength of her famous grip. But she could speak only an occasional monosyllable.

Her son Ted ventured that she was perhaps waiting for the Christmas season, in which her husband and son had gone to God. And so it was. In the night before the first day of the O Antiphons, O Wisdom, Kate came to get me: she and Marg felt that Jeannie was about to leave us. As we waited by the bed, she looked occasionally at one of us, or beyond us, we wondering what it was she was seeing. We stayed beside her for over two hours, until it became obvious that she had no intention of slipping off then. It was an impressively quiet time, since she could not speak, and we did not.

After the morning work period, I went to her room and found Kate and Cathy keeping watch. Marg had just left to change clothes, and had a retreat house call. Softly and gently, after a few minutes, our little one slipped away. No struggle, no word, no fuss. She was with us, and then she was gone into eternity.

We had planned for this moment. Everyone had her assigned task, and did it. Fr Bernard was called from the kitchen, where he was preparing dinner. The sisters all came in. Fire Department medics were called to certify the death, for which we had the famous Orange Paper precluding resuscitation. They had to call a deputy sheriff (to make sure we hadn’t murdered her). They were all so kind and apologetic, but a home death has its share of red tape.

 Adair’s Funeral Home came, and throughout the funeral, proved attentive, kind and generous. Finally, I was able to get Fran and Ted on the phone, and we moved on to the next step: the funeral plans.

 On Saturday, fourteen of Jean’s numerous family came for the day. First, about 9:30, came Reception of the Body, a simple monastic ceremony during which the casket is met with prayer at the church door, incensed and sprinkled with holy water. The family was seated in the monastic choir as the casket—a simple New Melleray one—was wheeled in. Jeannie looked lovely, and the whiteness of her cowl and of the casket lining almost glowed. We had thought of laying flowers at the end of the bier, but her little feet in their socks and Birkenstocks looked so sweet, we decided not to cover them. Ted and Fran had sent a little nosegay for Jeannie’s hands, and a magnificent white spray which we laid in front of the altar. Dr Glenn had sent a lovely mixed bouquet which was laid on the casket before Mass and descended into the grave with Jean.

Fran asked if the family might sing and pray spontaneous prayers. We turned the sanctuary over to them for the rest of the day, and it was so beautiful. Jean’s two sons with their wives, her daughter Mary with her daughter, Paul’s two daughters and their tiny babies, Mark’s widow Andrea, Ted’s son Michael, and his son John with Stacey his wife. Guests came, venerated the holy remains, conversed with the family and either had to leave, or waited for the Mass. The atmosphere was unforgettable.

In the meantime, various tasks got done. Pam was turning out memorial cards, Vic was making sure the reception was in hand, and Rita and the funeral director were rehearsing the pall bearers.

At 2:45, the family said their final goodbyes, and we wheeled the casket into the cloister to replace the lid. It lay before the altar again for the last quarter hour with Dr Glenn’s flowers resting on its lid. Paul’s son Tim and his wife Amy are music ministers at their parish. We turned the Mass over to them, and Paul and Annie assisted. It was very moving. Dom Bernard presided, and gave a beautiful homily.

 After Mass, preceded by the poignant antiphon, “May the angels lead you into Paradise,” we left for the cemetery. The men of the family and Stephanie acted as pall bearers. We didn’t exactly process; we moved as a group, with the Holy Water Bearer, the Paschal Candle bearer, and the thurifer going ahead. Our friend Rod had spent the whole previous afternoon in a cold wind on his back hoe digging the grave—our “soil” can be wretchedly hard.

And there it waited, the bridal chamber of tradition, as the wedding cortege approached. The burial ceremony is simple also--prayers, blessing and the physical business of letting down the casket. For our location, this is not mechanized, but a matter of pulling boards and lowering with straps. Ted and Fran had provided white roses for us to throw down into the grave, and Dom Bernard and I each tipped a shovelful of soil into the body’s last place of rest. Vic called our friend and neighbor Brad Haber, who came with a tractor to fill the grave.

We all left the cemetery for the reception in our refectory, where there was plenty of room for conversation and the greeting of guests. Brad had prepared delicious sandwiches, donated by Dr Glenn, and Esther had made a huge mound of chocolate chip cookies. There were soda and corn chips, and I could relax when everyone praised the simple supper and enjoyed it and one another.

Nature provided the only unfortunate footnote, when Paul’s family and Andrea got stuck in Tucson because Seattle Airport was closed from snow. They came back for another night, and left the next day. Tim and Amy had traveled by the economy method of several stops, but they are home as well—to find that a pipe had burst in their basement and it is awash.

I’m really homesick for them all, and grateful that Al O’Donnell persisted in his courtship of our Jean.

2 November 2008

 We have a raven or the raven has us. I can’t imagine living without him. He has a mate, but she has been taking something of a break from family life lately. Of course, the bird we are seeing could actually be the she, but making allowance for stereotypes, it seems aggressive enough to be the he.

 We have a row of Arizona Walnuts by the front entrance, and maybe a pecan tree. The raven fancies these, and looks very stylish in the yellow leaves. He waddles about on the ground, or shakes the nuts down from the tree. He could be hired as a stand-up comic. You realize, as I have mentioned before, that when the sunlight hits the oily feathers of a raven, they turn (to our eyes) white.

Fr Bernard arrived at the end of last week, to everyone’s great joy. All our parishioners have been eagerly awaiting his return, as well as the sisters. This year, because he has to go back to Vina for a Visitation, and because he wants to preside at the Mass for Kate’s Transfer of Stability, he has come for a week, will leave for a week, and return. In the down week, we will have Methodius from Conyers.

 Bernard gave us a lovely set of flowers for All Saints—lilies and palm and something yellow with an interesting texture.

 This morning, we had our own species of All Souls Procession to the cemetery. We walked out quietly with Fr Bernard, while Clare scooted out. She can walk well, but the back yard is lumpy with cropped dry grass in clumps. She is safer with her scooter. When at our destination, we sang two verses of a hymn-like version of Ps 23, Fr Bernard read part of Merton’s poem on the death of his brother, followed by spontaneous petitions. We then sang the last two verses of the hymn, and walked back in silence.

I have a fondness for silent processions. We are ten, since Jean is sleeping her way into heaven, and when you take out the cross-bearer and the candle-bearers, there aren’t too many of us to sing, so a silent walk is the solution. Besides, keeping together outside while walking is a difficult enterprise. Processions are little pilgrimages, and when they are to the cemetery as in this case, the cemetery represents Paradise. Our loved ones who have gone before have entered the eternal city.

It is traditional to sing certain psalms, but silence is also a meaningful accompaniment to the journey.

I am listening to St Paul Sunday, on which Pepe and Celin Romero are playing their magical guitars in an-all Spanish program. Their accents are as beautiful as the music they are playing. I think I have heard this program before, but never mind. They are So Good. Guitar as the voice of God.

 Can you believe that it is almost Thanksgiving? Somehow, this has happened behind our backs.

 The New York Marathon, or for that matter, anybody’s marathon: two hours (and a half for the women) of RUNNING. And Paula in her little white gloves. City crowds  packed along the street bundled against the cold, clapping and shouting. Santos so skinny. I suppose it’s easier to carry less body weight. Paula’s little girl in her arms afterwards.

There is the raven on top of the pecan tree.

 This is also grasshopper season. We have several colorful varieties, but one of particular interest: it looks black and dusty from above, nothing special. But as it gets agitated, and takes off, its whole underpinning flashes vermillion.

 We had an adventure last evening. As I was settling down in expectation of Vespers, Vic came up to whisper that there was someone near the Altar Bread Building, and could she take Marg out to see. Marg is our Spanish-speaker and who knew if it was a border-crosser. I tagged along. It turned out to be what Vic calls a “quintessential cowboy,” a youngster named Jim, of about 25, who had worked a ranch, breaking horses, until he got a bit too broken himself, and went into construction. )Our dear friend Wayne Wright used to say he had broken every bone in his body.)

Jim had been with a group that had gone off riding for the day, and he had decided to hike to Kentucky Camp instead, and lost his way. He had walked since 10:30, and please could he have some water. Marg went off to fix a sandwich and stuff, and Vic got the jeep. No way could he walk all the way back to the Gardner Canyon camp site. The road along Gardner Canyon is spectacular, even when it isn’t running its stream. A bit bumpy, but gorgeous. And Vic knows her way, since in the old days, she would walk the road. We found the site, and the group had just come in on lovely horses, so lovely they take your breath away.

As you know by now, I love little dogs, and there was one, a tiny black and white critter with probably some Chihuahua in its background. It barked its head off: “Watch out. I am Very Fierce and you are in danger!” I hope its ego is not damaged by being laughed at. THEN we caught sight of a genuine Basset Hound. It belonged to one of the men in the group, and when it saw him returning from the ride, it rushed up to throw itself on him and lick his face. Bassets are low to the ground—they were bred to dig out marmots or something, and their legs are chunky and about four inches long. Very comical.

 As we left, the group was minding its horses in something like a circle, and there sat the Basset on his rump, all by himself staring at us. We got home by light.

11 October 2008

 We had a bit of rain this morning, and the wind is raging again. We are so glad for the new roof, since it will hold against these assaults and not spew shingles into the next county. 

I returned from Assisi and the General Chapter on September 24.  It takes as long to get back as to go, but you arrive the day you left because you are traveling west and chase the sun. Clear? I had run out of books (!) before leaving Assisi, but fortunately, Nettie of Mississippi was on my plane, and spotted a concession in Fiumicino Airport that sold a couple of racks of English paperbacks. So I could read continuously from Rome to Chicago. And then of course, O’Hare boasts one of my favorite bookstores at the corner of Terminals H and G.

 The Chapter was very special, and though all the stimulation keeps you awake (except during sessions), the wonderful people and all the memories are perfect treasures. I love Assisi. The next Chapter will be held there because it has everything that is needed--enough rooms for the commissions, excellent faculties for simultaneous translation, space for the secretariat, and a large hall for the plenary sessions. One is a little squished in there, but all manage to fit.

 It was a great thrill to assist in electing a new Abbot General, Dom Eamon Fitzgerald of Mt Melleray in Ireland. I was told that he was all over the papers in Ireland the same day. An account of the Chapter day by day has been put on the Order’s website (www.ocso.org) with a link (on the last day’s account) to a gallery of pictures contributed by Dom Tomasso.

 Speaking of memories, Italy also has the great advantage of gelato. A cup of gelato became my supper.

 Many of the capitulants inquired of the mention in our House Report of the tragedy of our border situation. We are not the only country with this heart-breaking reality.

We dealt with some precarious communities, since the culture has so changed and the pool of vocations grown so meager, that once-flourishing communities are on the verge of vanishing. One of our houses of nuns is standing in solidarity with their village, whose livelihood, health, and housing are threatened by an encroaching industry. There were the usual elections to offices that have to be filled anew each Chapter or that had come open for various reasons. Three houses of nuns have agreed to amalgamation. Their new complex will include a section for the elderly and ill, another for the less radically disabled, and one to form a community which hopes to attract vocations to the regular life. It is a creative solution to a difficult problem.

 I used to go to the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli for Lauds and Mass. The church itself is kind of ugly, having been built on baroque lines without baroque genius. It houses the tiny chapel in which the Franciscan Order was born, and I kept wondering how they got it inside the large church until I realized that the basilica had been built around it. The early services are attended by many groups of Franciscans, the women in various attractive Habits, and the men all dressed alike. I thought that many congregations must have their novitiates in Assisi, since many of the Religious were young.

 The town of S. Maria degli Angeli is in the valley, with the town of Assisi on a hill about an hour’s walk away. (Buses run there also, but it’s worth your life to get back, since tour busses are in competition.) I don’t know why Assisi itself has so many churches, but it does. Nearest is the great San Francesco, which was damaged in the earthquake of the last century, and which is adorned with priceless art, especially the upper story on whose walls Giotto painted the famous frescoes of the life of Francis. The most impressive area, however, is the crypt in which the remains of St Francis and his early disciples lie. It is beautifully appointed, but simple, and though people are constantly passing in and out (Silenzo!), many also remain in prayer. It is the holiest part of the church.

Remember that this little town is on a steep hill, with small, winding, tilted streets heading in all directions. You have to avoid cars. To find the other churches, you climb. And climb and climb. A lovely, plain Benedictine church, San Pietro, seems to have been stripped of it adornment at one time, and is all the more impressive because of that. It looks downright Cistercian. San Rufino is the cathedral, in which Francis and Clare are supposed to have been baptized. Excavations have disclosed the foundations of the building, and these are exposed under glass.

Santa Chiara (you’ve been walking a long time!) houses a lovely, contemporary setting for the tomb of St Clare, with a kind of “Stations” of her life—and the famous crucifix which spoke to Saint Francis and sent him on his vocation. I went up and took a long, careful look this time. It seems to have been a fresco, removed from a wall and attached to something rigid to make it free-standing. Or free-hanging as it is. The painting is somewhat unsophisticated and authentic-looking.

Down the hill a bit you find the convent of San Damiano, home of the first Poor Clares, or Poor Ladies, as the townsfolk called them before the death of Clare. You can stand in the bare stone chapel and see the dormitory (likewise bare and stone) in which St Clare died. It is so authentic that many people find here the heart of Assisi.

Back down in the valley, and a block from our residence, a small chapel (The Madonna of the Roses) has been built to celebrate the feminine in spirituality, and is simply delicious in its Pre-Raphaelite appointments. Lines of lovely women saints are depicted along the walls, and the sanctuary, the arches and everything else are tastefully decorated.

One nice thrill: Our friends Debbie and Frank, were in Italy and stopped in for a visit.

 Where do all the pilgrims come from? Pilgrims all over the place, every day. Of course, some are regulars, and return often. Some must come from far away. A groopo in red from Naples came for a day trip one Sunday. I love seeing the Italian fathers carrying their children. And twice I encountered adorable small dogs (all dogs leashed by law).

 Oops—deer out beyond our Altar Bread House. The sky is still dark, and it’s raining. I wonder whether our weather has something to do with the Mexican hurricane. We managed to have 15 inches this year.

 Dom Bernard will be here on the 30^th, which means we have a priest until sometime in January. We have had the joy of several Masses by our dear friend, Fr Carscallen.

Our Jeannie has turned a corner, and is waiting for the Lord to come for her. I suspect she will have rather a long wait, and since she is in the dorm, when we pass we smile in or go in to wait with her. It is such a grace to be assisting in this last stage of God’s work in our sister. Our nurses are absolutely incomparable in their care for her.

18 August 2008

Local wildlife:

The problem is hornets. Huge, blood-thirsty insects in high numbers. We think there are also wasps, which are smaller.

A swarm of hornets got into a small opening around a pipe that leads into the water-heating furnace in my office. (Which office used to be a small guest quarters.) One of our roof workers got stung and plugged up the entrance. But..AH…the creatures had a back door. Into my office. Fortunately, at this time of year, they are fairly lethargic, and between wads of paper toweling and spray, for which we are sincerely sorry but it’s them or us, we are fairly safe. Not (sigh) before experiencing the potency of a terrified (I would be too) insect for which God has provided stiff defenses. Only one sting but that was enough.

 We are on the watch for further nests.

Fr Casimir has been here for two weeks from our house of monks in Utah. He had a different sort of visitor in the Family Guest House. We are not sure how his house mate, a cheeky Arizona Ground Squirrel, got in, since entrances have been blocked. Followers of this long-term chronicle of life in the desert will remember, maybe, a description of our squirrels (unrefined, tough, two-tone, chenille-coated). Fortunately, Father has an adventurous spirit, and rather enjoyed outwitting the animal, in the course of which battle, the squirrel stole his socks. As of now, undesired occupant has been evicted. We are giving Father a new pair of socks for his anniversary. After all, it was our squirrel.

In the course of roof renovation, our satellite dish has had to be removed and replaced, and because those things are delicate, it no longer connects accurately with its satellite. Result: no Internet connection. Yes, I know—the world is too obsessively dependent on technology. However, life being what it is, this disturbs our Altar Bread business and our retreat contacts, as well as other communication patterns, the most imperative at the moment being the down loading of an immigration form. The amazing thing is that when contacting the parent company, we got a monumental runaround in our search for a tech to realign the dish. The man who installed it is no longer in business, and from one defunct sub-contractor to another we were sent. After a couple of hours on the phone, we retired in exhaustion.

 Our computer man, and a friend who’s had the same problem, have directed us to two possibilities, and after having been becalmed over the weekend, we have slender hopes of being contacted by one or the other today

 One’s attitude traverses a number of terrains: desperation, anger, despair, then a kind of fatalism. You are isolated, impotent. Your life has been taken out of your hands and put into some alien power. You retreat into your faith: yes, God has something to do with this pickle. In the depths of your helplessness you meet the helpless God who transmuted his frustration into ultimate salvation. How about that?  [Not to keep you on egg shells, we did get it fixed. More next time.]

 What else has happened?  

Little by little, our little Sister Jean is slipping into the anteroom of eternity. We are blessed in having the facilities to care for her, and individuals who can stay gently on the same page with her in this last chapter of life. There is a lot she now cannot “do”, but she is growing each moment in the fullness of divine being.

 We had a fine visit the other evening from our Bishop Kikanis. Unfortunately, the moment he stepped into the house, Vicki was walking into a flood in her room. The roofers had pierced a pipe in the solar system, had relayed the situation to the solar people, who had forgotten. When they turned on the water to test the system, the broken pipe began showering Vic’s room. Behind the scenes, therefore, this reclamation project was going on, with men repairing, and fans going, and rags mopping. Vicki moved elsewhere for a few days while her room dried out.

The bishop, who has a great voice, joined in Vespers with us. (Memo to us: always invite the bishop for Vespers and get him to strengthen the choir.) He brought along the new Vicar for Religious, Sr Rena , and a Carmelite Brother. We had supper together in the newly refurbished Chapter Room.

 Our dear friend, Fr Ed Carscallen, who, when he was able, came three days a week for Mass, offered the Eucharist for us on the feast of the Transfiguration. It was such a joy to have him back with us, and we shared dinner and reminiscences.

 I will be off to the General Chapter at the end of the month, and back on the 24^th. Late. Pity the poor sister who has to pick me up. Planes for the US seem all to leave at ten-something in the morning and the hook-up requires a late arrival at Tucson International. I really wouldn’t mind waiting it out in the airport, but that wouldn’t go over so well at home. Last Chapter we all came down with a deadly plague and had a night in Atlanta’s airport atrium.  

Relief: The repairperson is coming today. Let us hope the damage is repairable.

28 July 2008

We are in the monsoons. If you are a neighbor, you do not need to be told what that means. If your only contact with monsoon weather is the National Geographic, you might like to know what ours is like. To begin, we do not sit around with water up to our knees. From the end of spring (which is lovely) until the end of June or the first week or so of July, we long for the monsoons. It’s as if we don’t remember what happened last year. We only know that it would be nice not to be so everlastingly hot.

When the monsoons blow in, they give us a) ecstatic skies with huge white or slate gray or battleship gray clouds and sometimes all of those colors at once, b) sometimes rain, and sometimes dry lightning and thunder c) unlimited humidity. The clouds are gratis. They always come, they bulk up there above the mountains, and they are totally indifferent to our need for rain. The humidity is a pain, since we are not used to it and it sucks out all your energy. Inwardly or outwardly, you drag and growl.

When it does rain, you don’t get any in the morning. Usually there is a brisk downpour in the afternoon, occasionally some at night. We have a nice rain gauge, and so far, we have never got a whole inch on one day. And we would never have what one could call a rainy day unless a weary hurricane has moved in from Texas.

We have had seven inches this year. It’s not much, but the grass has gone hysterical. We are hiring an extra hand to help Abel with the cutting. Yesterday being Sunday, and I being fairly well zonked by the week’s activities, I went for an hour’s restorative walk down to the cattle guard and home on the back road. The grass was lush and high, with stands of prickly poppies poking their heads over the green tide. Strips of green were chartreuse where Abel had cut.

And the sun—which had come out, which cannot always be said during monsoon season—was rollicking in all this green glory. This phase of Arizona beauty lasts maybe a month or two so lap it up while you can.

We had a domestic tragedy yesterday. I heard Pam shouting at the dogs, and went out to see what was up. What was up was a minor massacre. I had seen a bunny in the Garth for several days. What I hadn’t realized was that it was a mother rabbit, who had dug and lined with grass a little nest for her babies next to the refectory wall. The dogs had found it, and well, you can imagine what happened to the lovely little creatures. They were so tiny and new, and so perfectly formed.

 A couple of Road Runners have established a territory quite near the house. They do not compete with the raven couple who have ditto. They are world class comedians, and the sun flashes off the wings of the ravens as if they were made of glass.

5 August 2008. 

Well, here we are on this lovely memorial of the church of St Mary Major in Rome. Our Lady of the Snows because of its legend. I think we get a cookie after Vigils.

Yesterday was interesting. “Interesting” is an adjective you use when you can’t think of anything spiritual to use. First off, Nazario and his crew came back to work on the roof. Then the solar people turned up to remove (temporarily) the solar panels from the roof so that Nazario’s gang could roof. Then the roofing men started to dismantle our surplus bell tower, because it is getting in the way of the roofing project and it also leaks and it also looks funny. Why keep a bell tower without bell? We look like a bunny with two ears.

It is there—or was there—because the house has been built in sections according to need and financial opportunity. Once, the first tower rose above the tiny chapel. But when a new church was built, it deserved its own bell tower. Therefore, a house with two ears. 

Anyway as the various crews went about their business, we set off for the Altar Bread building, to go about ours. When Esther came for the Second Shift, she didn’t realize that our secular helper would be late due to a doctor’s appointment, and went into a severe care of anxiety wondering where she was. Had she had an accident? Had she encountered a Wide Load? Pam, who did know where Bernie was, reassured Esther, and life calmed down. HOWEVER, a couple of sisters coming back from town, did run into an Extremely Wide Load—one which had been improperly introduced.

Wide Loads are wide loads, obviously, but they come in various stages of width. This one was all the way across both lanes. And its attendant police cars had sent confusing and inadequate signals. Fortunately, there was a convenient shoulder on which to take refuge, so the sisters didn’t have to back up to Tucson to let the monster through. Ominously, there is a sign stating that since Highway 82 is under construction, all wide loads must use 83 for the present, as if 83 doesn’t have enough Wide Loads of its own.

Starting out from here for an appointment in town is something of a guessing game. You have to start early in case you encounter-–a Wide Load. Two or three police cars with flashing lights precede this obstruction, thus providing the Highway Patrol with something to do beyond checking speeds and coming to the rescue of wrecks. The persecuted drivers line up behind each other and wait.

One can also get stuck behind an Accident, which is very sad. The other day, it took over an hour to clear the way to Tucson, when a double accident required helicopters, ambulances, fire trucks and Border Patrol vehicles.

July 9, 2008

 We are into the monsoons. Right now that means humidity and clouds. Last Night Gloria was standing by the window considering the clouds after Compline. They were dark and wind-driven, and she noticed that some were moving faster than others. Our skies are quite a presence, especially at night and during the monsoons.

You will be happy to know that the generator situation has been cleared up. It only took four months. Eventually the electric company put a special person on the job to give us “preferential treatment.” Our problem is that we have only single phase power, and the machinery requires three-phase. So the generator makes the switch, since you can’t imagine what it would cost to get three-phase out here.

When our motor died, the former system was not longer an option and we had to move into a new one. All this time we rented an auxiliary generator that puffed and panted its noisy way outside the Altar Bread building. It ate diesel fuel that also had to be bought. When we finally got things in place, guess what? They didn’t work. Not enough voltage was reaching the machinery, though it was coming in. All this time, Rita was monitoring the situation, telling the guys what we needed and what we weren’t getting. Day after day, week after week, never knowing when or whether the solution would come. There is patience and there is patience.

They decided that to–ha—get enough voltage through the filter that was needed to protect the system, we needed a transformer. Last Thursday, a small convoy of white trucks wound it way up the road. I think there were five men and a small crane, but I may have imagined the crane. One of the men shook hands with Sr Rita and told her how glad he was to meet her. “From what I hear, you should be working for us back at the shop.” She modestly replied that she just “knew the needs of our system.”

They worked all day, joined for a while by one of their salesmen. Out here on business, he had spotted his company’s convoy on the road. He grabbed his cell and asked what was up. When he was told they were coming to the abbey, he figured he’d never been here and asked to come along. He helped unload the transformer and made our acquaintance. We brought back memories, since he had, in his childhood, gone to a neighboring church in El Paso for altar bread scraps which his mom fried at home for snacks.

About noon, Bernie heard applause from outside, and Rita went to check. Jose had brought the guys lunch.

Rita and Pam stayed late to mix and bake a couple of vats of batter while the men were still there—to be sure all was well. Our only problem now is that the voltage is a bit higher than before and the plates never, or almost never, cool down as they used to every so often. So the baker has to keep going. You get more done, but you have the sensation that things are going faster, even though they aren’t. I felt rather like a cruller by the end of work yesterday, but we will get used to it. We are just so grateful that the crisis that Rita told us was not a crisis but just one of those things, is over.

Back to the Wrentham trip: It was sad that I had to crush it all into two days. You want to have a special time with each of the people you haven’t seen in ages. And in this case, there were more than just the sisters. So many friends came to the reception, and all you could do was say a few words.

Mary-Ellen took Linda Harrington and me to the Providence airport early on the Monday. At one terrified moment I thought I had lost my passport, but it had only slipped under a flap in my suitcase. The connecting flight was at O’Hare, and I am very familiar with the concourse from which it goes—and the bookstore at the corner of it. Interestingly, our pilot on that flight was a woman. I said an especially big “Thank you” as I left.

 My goodness, with an inch of rain, our fields are green.

25 June 2008

 WELL.

 That was a quick trip and much too short for the amount of event crowded into it.

 On Thursday the 19^th, I took a night flight from Tucson International that would get me into Providence, via Newark, about 9:30 AM. I like Continental Airlines, but Newark Air Terminal, one of their hubs, is Not Very Nice. Memo to me: Avoid Newark whenever possible.

 Our dear friends, Diane and Roland Richer, were waiting patiently for me in Providence. Providence Air Terminal, if you are keeping score, has grown large while remaining very nice. It has swollen over the years. As Newark has taken some of the heat off New York, so Providence has taken some of the heat off Boston’s Logan. It also absorbs the large tourist trade heading in and out of Rhode Island.

 We walked from the terminal into a pleasant morning, and drove on highways overhung with green and greener foliage. Green, people, with little streams and ponds of genuine water here and there. They live in French-Canadian Woonsocket in the dearest, homiest little house with garden you ever saw. Diane likes family pictures and knickknacks, pretty curtains, rugs and bedspreads. Comfy chairs. I felt so Victorian. They have three house cats. One is pretty snooty, but the others come politely to investigate the company. Then there are two outdoors cats who are quartered in a small condo that Roland made.

We sat on the porch and chatted, then enjoyed a lovely lunch in the dining room. Meals get all scrambled up when you are traveling. “When did I last eat that granola bar?” Especially with home three time zones away. It was a beautiful morning.

 Diane drove me to the monastery through more and more green. How in the world can anyplace have so much green in June? June is our hottest, driest, more intractable month, the month in which one’s tongue is hangs out and one’s heart prays for the monsoons—sooner rather than later, Lord.

 The reason for this trip was that our founding house in Wrentham, Massachusetts had just elected a new abbess. Mother Agnes has reached her seventy-fifth year and after over twenty years, has relinquished her office to embrace the life of a simple monastic. The community has elected Mother Maureen McCabe to succeed her, and was awaiting the ceremony of an Abbatial Blessing to initiate a new chapter in the life of the monastery.

 Wrentham has founded three daughter-houses: One in Iowa, us in Arizona, and one in Virginia. Each was represented, as well as several abbots from the eastern sub-region. The hospitality was wonderfully executed: the nun-guests stayed in the sisters’ dorm, the monks in the upstairs guest rooms, and we all ate in the refectory. The Wrentham sisters were great at fetching and depositing guests at various airports at various times.

 Arriving at the front door of the monastery, we rang the bell, which summoned Sr. Luanne with her million dollar smile and excited welcome. Fr Aquinas, the chaplain, then whisked off a small group (three of us sisters and a lay friend), for a tour of the former monastery of Our Lady of the Valley in Cumberland, RI. The current monastery of St Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer had been burned out of The Valley  in the early fifties, and it has been made into a beautiful (green!) park and library, preserving as much as possible of the original buildings. Having spent over forty years at Wrentham, I had never seen it, so this was a treat.

I think I have only been back to Wrentham for three brief visits in eight years. We are too far away, and too small for running off to leave my jobs to others. Which means that when I do go there, I am inundated with the presence of wonderful people with whom I have the bonds of many years. It can be exhausting. You’d love to have time for each one especially.

 The Blessing took place at 11:30. It was the earliest the bishop could come. The chapel is very beautiful, the product of a renovation nine or ten years ago. The procession forms outside and enters through the guest chapel. We sang a rousing “Father of Many Children”, a hymn to St Benedict, as it made its way into the sanctuary. Maureen’s family occupied the first pews on the left, and the Lay Associates of the monastery filled a section in the other side. Maureen had initiated and mentored the association. I was lucky enough to catch the eye of our friend Brother Simeon as the non-priests entered before Mass, and we could spend the liturgy together. 

The Blessing itself, conferred after the Gospel and homily, was simple and direct. Maureen was so preoccupied with getting to her stall afterwards with crozier in hand, that she forgot she was to have received the pax from an abandoned bishop. Sr Elizabeth zipped over and whispered to her, and she marched back blushing. I love those mistakes. They humanize a ceremonial like nothing else. The recessional was Psalm 23.

The reception was helped out by Franklin Party, a business that rents tables and chairs, and also by the local caterers, who provided potato salad and various other goodies, especially cakes. I have never seen plates piled so high with cake in all my life, as happy monastics exited from the Chapter Room, where the dessert was displayed.

I know there were over a hundred guests, with a large number from the monks’ monastery of Spencer, and including several former sisters who have remained close to Wrentham over the years. More later.

13 June 2008 

Dear Friends, 

WELL, we had a lovely meeting at our monastery in Colorado. I had never visited Snowmass, and the natural beauty of the place is beyond description. Fortunately, the buildings have been designed by persons of genius with a feel for the environment into which they nestle. Fr Joe calls it “our holy valley” and that is more than true. 

I spent hours walking back and forth to and from the monastery from the retreat house. Nothing but green beneath towering, snow-covered mountains.

 I don’t know who designed the entrance to the monastic church, but there you are passing through the ever so tempting bookstore. And you think—as long as I am here, I should really purchase a few little things for the gifts one always is in need of. And those books would be so good for the library. And so forth.

 Ah me.

 Our talks were excellent, facing difficulties and challenges, as well as celebrating the great breakthroughs and small triumphs of daily life. We were preparing for the General Chapter, to be held in September, again in the lovely, art-filled ambience of Assisi. It is so reassuring to return to a place in which you know your way around. The train journey from Rome to Assisi is so beautiful. Italy seems to be able to keep its countryside in exquisite condition. The great complication of life is needing sleep.

It’s too bad about the airlines. I think Tucson International will not be robbed of its flights. Every time you turn around, it has made improvements. The march from plane to receiving area is now lined with a wall of scenic desert photos. As we waited in the Aspen airport (a tiny place), the recorded voice kept telling us how hospitable the planes were for dogs. Hope for seeing little dogs is always alive at Tucson International as well. Once I flew back from somewhere with a sleepy cat in a carrier under the seat next to me. On this trip also, I made friends with a large tortoise-shell cat in a fairly wobbly carrier.  

Which reminds me—have you read Marlena DiBlasi’s A Thousand Days in Venice? She followed it with A Thousand Days in Tuscany. Fell in love with this sweet fella she met in a Venetian restaurant. (She is a food writer, and together they run a culinary tour of Tuscan places. Funny and dear.)

 I am death on alarm clocks. The latest model was so hard to set that I have given it over to Rita to prepare. There are two alarms. Heh-heh.

 Some time or other, the roofs that need changing will be changed, and then we can bury our heads in the sand until something or other else has to be put into the hands of our contractors.

11 May 2008

 We should by rights, be into summer. However, spring has lingered, and we are so grateful. Say some prayers, please, though, because the hand on the chart that the Forest Service puts up at the end of Fish Canyon Road is pointing to EXTREME fire danger. Red.

 And we cannot reasonably expect rain until July. I just read the most disturbing projection on global warming. It is May, well, can July be far away?

 The little carpets of baby white asters remind us that we had at least a little rain last year. These tiny marvels of God wave in the wind. And although there were no carpets of them, the Mariposas did bloom here and there during retreat. Also a few Evening Primrose. And on the way to Mass last week, we saw an antelope, the first I have run across since the year I came here, when a small herd would graze on our lower field.

Our Holy Week and Easter were lovely, with Father Matthew of Spencer presiding with his ebullient good nature, and the annual Easter visit from our friend and his, Dr Julie Swain. The refectory always looks like a spring bouquet for Easter Week.

 Our Sister Jean is radiating grace as the Lord takes away and she lets go. It’s as if her presence in diminishment is sending out supernatural strength in all directions. One person’s aging is a grace for an entire community. Her son and daughter-in-law visited last month, and after catching her up on family news, felt blessed to sit quietly with her, “loving.”

Retreat was perfect. Fr Brendan of New Melleray gave beautiful conferences and enjoyed the peace of our monastic place. And the weather was exquisite. We were grateful for the week off from Altar Bread work, since we weren’t using up diesel fuel on our rented generator. The fellas came Friday to install the new generator, and it is to be all installed by the end of Monday. It is quiet and smaller and we hope more efficient that the one that broke down.

 Meanwhile, as they finish their job, we take a day for Other Things. Though it is nice to have a mini-vacation from our principal form of manual labor, the Altar Bread work is a blessing. It frees the mind of its usual self-preoccupation, exercises the body, and gets you out of any further ruts you may have stumbled into.

Our founding house is in the midst of transition, as its beautiful abbess retires and a new leader is elected. Mother Agnes will spend six months in one of our South American houses before returning to Wrentham for a new chapter of her life and that of the community. She has been an incomparable blessing, and we cannot be grateful enough for the grace of her pastorate.

 The Regional Meeting of superiors will take place in Snowmass, our Colorado monastery of monks, June 4-11. Then the Blessing of Wrentham’s new abbess follows on June 21. The General Chapter in Assisi will be on during September. For this, all the houses of the Order prepare what we call a House Report. This is an account of how the community has got on since the last Chapter. We decided that we would be false to the facts if we did not celebrate the peace and harmony of our little family.

We would be grateful for prayers for vocations, and for the cessation of plans for copper mining in the vicinity, but otherwise, we are overflowing with gratitude to God for what he has given us in our little corner of the southwest.

The issue of global warming is a burning, universal concern, but especially so in an area experiencing the effects of a drought that may continue and worsen as the years go by.

Today is Pentecost, and the fulfillment of the Lenten-Easter season. Then here we go, back into Ordinary Time, stuffed full of the Spirit and ready to cope with whatever the Spirit thinks well to do with our lives.

How many of you have been to Assisi? It is a treasure house of art, and a focus of pilgrimage. Our meetings and our lodgings are in the valley, whence stretches the road up to the village of St Francis. And I do mean up. You climb the hill to a hilly little town, and take your pick of Things-to-See and venerate. And all the while, the lovely Umbrian countryside stretches away on either side. They must have wonderful zoning laws in Italy, because everywhere you put your gaze, you’re in Paradise. From the piazza of San Francisco, you look out on scenery delicious enough to eat.

We saw the convent of San Damiano in the rain, which dampened our attitude toward it, I am sure. Perhaps in the spring, with flowering bushes about and singing birds, we might have shared St Francis’ exultation. I have friends who count San Damiano the highlight of their pilgrimage, and whether or not the attribution is true, you can see a window there by which he is supposed to have composed the Canticle of the Sun. All I remember is cold stone and cramped spaces. I suppose that the view compensates for the enclosure. You can see the dormitory, in a corner of which, St Clare died. All I can say is that she was really and truly poor. Poor to the cold bone.

At one point, we stumbled upon a Benedictine church with beautiful proportions and no ornamentation—very Cistercian in concept. I think I am most at home, however, in the crypt which houses (I hope for real) the remains of St Francis and his early followers. Of course it is crowded. Don’t be silly. Everything is crowded. Everything is overflowing with people who want to touch the Little Poor Man and take away something of his peace.

5 April 2008

Well, well, we made it. Lent is over and Easter is romping over our land. The forsythia is luxuriating in the sun, and the ornamental pear in the Garth has dropped its petals in a snowstorm of glory. You’d think, when it is in bloom, that a cloud had dumped itself into its branches and forgotten to go home.

Our ceremonies for Holy Week and Easter are so simple and prayerful. They facilitate our entrance into the mystery, without getting in its way.

 We are grateful to the abbot of Spencer for the loan of Fr Matthew for a month at this time. It’s a wonder the sun comes up without him when he leaves. He has made the rising of the sun into a profound meditation as he assists it in its climb every morning and lets us in on each day’s particular scene as he introduces the Mass.

 We have been reflecting on the sources of our on-going formation, and thanking God for the chaplains whose ministry we enjoy and whose presence and teaching so enrich us. Fr Matthew’s homilies are deeply theological; Fr Bernard has a huge store of knowledge of everything Cistercian, having spent years in the Abbot General’s Council, and further years both as monk and abbot. Fr Robert serves us from his warm and gentle experience as monk, abbot and hermit.

Even though we have chaplains only five months of the year, their contribution to our life is entirely disproportionate to the length of time they spend here.

Our guests also deepen and broaden our minds and hearts. This Easter, we were delighted to add to our community for two weeks Sr Pat Cassidy, a nun of New Skete in upstate New York. New Skete is an Orthodox monastery of three communities: monks, nuns, and lay people. Pat is a Roman Catholic, and many of the laity are of various denominations. The monks support themselves by the breeding and training of fine dogs. Pat has one of her own to mind. Luna had delivered a litter of darling puppies just before Pat left for retreat. She fascinated us with her account of how the dogs are cared for and trained.

The Reverend Cathy George, rector of the Episcopalian church of St Annes in-the-Fields in Lincoln, Massachusetts, arrived the day after Easter for her week’s retreat. So we could hear about the life of a priest with two college-age children and a large ministry.

We must invite our pastor, a very nice Franciscan, to visit before he leaves. We are back to the parish for Sunday Mass. Our Hosts are consecrated then, and it is as if our Communion Services during the week are a prolongation of the Sunday celebration of the Resurrection.

20 April 2008.

 I have been hearing (justified) complaints that the journal is languishing. I apologize. Easter, a piece of art work with a deadline, the House Report for the General Chapter, etc. have interrupted my concentration.

What would you like to know? I’m sure it would delight your hearts to hear about the Evening Primrose in our lower field. Yes, of course it would. They are popping up here and there, not in the profusion they enjoyed the year I came, but here they are. We have also spotted some Mariposa between the monastery and the retreat house. And we are almost overrun with tiny white asters in what might be considered grass.

We are beginning retreat today. The trick with retreat is to be very strict with yourself and not slop around, or you will get depressed and feel guilty. A Walk. Some cleaning. Some prayer and reading. A reasonable siesta. A relaxed making up of the Office. For retreat, we celebrate four of the usual choir services together, and do the rest in private. You can be quite creative with it. Those who wish may spend the week down in the retreat house.

 During Retreat, we do not have communal meals, but provide something for individual chef-ing. The idea is to be gentle with one’s time and open oneself to the Spirit (expected on Pentecost.) Fr Brendan of New Melleray Abbey in Iowa will give us our conferences, one a day.

 On today’s Walk, I found a) some mats of lovely low snapdragon-like orange and red flowers, and b) a vermillion fly-catcher. Now, a Vermillion fly-catcher with the sun on his wings knocks you galley west. We also have clouds of Little Brown Birds which might be sparrows, but which travel in groups.

 Esther is planting her egg plant and tomatoes.

We got some of the Pope’s trip in streaming video on the computer. I have no idea how he survived. He is going home today. I hope he sleeps all the way.

Spring has blown in, and I do mean blown. The wind seems never to have slowed.

Vicki has just returned from the Novice Directors' meeting, held at our monastery in Georgia. On their outing day, the crowd went to the Martin Luther King Memorial, which she said was very moving. ALl their lush foliage was having a spring ball.

27 February 2008. My goodness, here we are in the almost middle of Lent. How did THAT happen?

Lent is very handy because you don’t have to fuss about the liturgy. It is the same every day, and you zip through the arrangement of the books.

On Wednesday next, Fr Matthew will be coming from Spencer for a month. He is an end-of-Lent, Holy Week and Easter tradition. One year we took him along on our Easter Excursion to Aqua Caliente. It was a lovely day. We took brown bag lunches and enjoyed that delightful park with its hot spring, its colorful fish, glorious trees, shade, and birds.

Our Holy Week liturgy is very simple but prayerful. We don’t have to keep one eye on the paper and half a mind on the meaning of it. For Vigils, we recite in the dark by candle light, and have pared the afternoon or night ceremonies to the essence. Year after year, this door into the center of our faith opens again to welcome us into the reason for our existence.

One cannot determine how another person receives a message, especially the message of faith. It is a little too easy to identify with our faith structure and demand, at least interiorly, that others agree with us. The agreement pats the ego on the back. We have to realize how differently what we do and think and believe appears to another. We have to live out our faith in quietness and gladness, and welcome the mind and heart of another without pressure and demands.

Look, watch, receive, know…liturgy is not a mere commemoration, but a genuine re-living. We are there, and there is here. And so we walk gently into these holy days.

5 March. Sr Rita’s dear mom went to God this evening. Rita, her sister and brother-in-law were with her, and Rita had just finished reciting our Evening Prayer of Compline. The funeral will take place on Sunday, and Rita will be home on Tuesday with an incomparable experience in her heart. Pray for the grieving family—Rita’s sisters, nieces and nephews, and our own Rita. Mrs. McCarthy was a sweetheart, and has completed a long and beautiful journey into the depths of God.

9 March 2008. Yesterday, the two nurses, I and Fr Matthew spent an extraordinary day. The Carondelet Health Network has established a beyond cutting edge neurological center at St Joseph’s Hospital for the treatment of and research on neurological illness—the Carondelet Neurological Institute. Because Bishop Kikanis ran into a wonderful man on a plane trip, who put him onto the need, he has involved the diocese with this new venture in the area of Alzheimer’s Disease.

We noticed in the diocesan paper an account of all this, and an invitation to a seminar on Alzheimer’s to be held on the 8^th of March at the Tucson Convention Center. We signed up, glad that Matthew would be here to accompany us.

The Convention Center is some big place. The room in which our seminar was held is large, and almost full. This disease is what one could almost call a universal concern. The CEO of St Joseph’s opened the seminar, the bishop followed with an account of his involvement and offered a prayer. There were four speakers, all tremendously qualified and gifted. At the end of each presentation, we had a question period, with excellent questions, based on personal experience. Some of the participants were there because they work for health care facilities, some because they were care-givers for loved ones, some because they were curious to know what lay ahead of them in the aging process.

The first speaker, Dr William Lujan, who is, I think, head of the Neurology Center, dealt with the technicalities of Alzheimer’s—statistics on prevalence, the origin and physical composition of Alzheimer’s attack on the human brain, the place to which research has come, possibilities for the future, drugs now in use, stages of the disease and the irreversibility of advanced Alzheimer’s.

The second speaker is by profession a rehabilitation psychologist, Dr Kevin Flanagan. We really devoured his presentation. Partially it was an affirmation of what we had been doing, and partially it gave us new ideas and a deeper degree of understanding. Dr Flanagan dealt with the practicalities of care, with essentials like the tone of voice, the influence of emotion and action on the person whose thinking apparatus has been impaired. He was especially good on the fact “contagion” of emotional states, and the importance of structure and environment.

Dr Flanagan was followed by Jack Kriendler, a speech language pathologist, who picked up on a theme emphasized by both the previous speakers—care of the care-giver. If the responsible person is desperate and run-down, that will transfer to the patient, and the care-giver will do more harm than good.

 The last speaker, Attorney Thomas Curtin, took up what is obviously a problem for many: the legal situation of patients who are not competent to make important decisions, and the options for transfer of legal responsibility. The questions following this talk really tore at one’s heart.

Dr Flanagan used a beautiful image: As our mothers carried us for nine months, bore the discomfort, the pain, the nausea for us, now we are going through a kind of pregnancy, bearing them in their old age.

27 January 2008

 The dogs—rejoice with us!—have adjusted beautifully to their new quarters. They LOVE their nice room with doggie-beds and warmth for cold nights and a doggie-door for in-and-out-ness. And next to it is a large run, most of which they do not use, since they prefer to lie nearest the house and its people. When Casey barks, one has only to tap on the window of the kitchen or refectory, and he is reassured that people are around, and quiets down.

 Cross one worry off the list.

 We had a nice afternoon Blessing for the new places yesterday. We invited the construction crew and the administration of Sunbelt Builders, but Miguel and Carlos couldn’t come. Miguel is shy, Carlos’ car broke down. Ted, Jody, and his sister-in-law were to come, but one of the SBBI’s semis was in an accident. We will ask them another time. Nazario, his wife and three children, and Dave, the electrician, his wife and three kids all came. The littlest ones were cute as can be. Dave’s daughter is Grace, and Nazario’s son is Nazario, but with a nickname I never got. His older son, Christian, had helped with the construction. We are kind of hoping he is headed toward a career in engineering.

The teen-agers were patient and polite with what must have seemed boring to them. It was such a lovely closure to two years of a beautiful association with wonderful men who had become part of our monastic family. Among their other virtues, they were so patient with the dogs who, not having at the time their enclosure, used to sit beside them at lunchtime, looking soulful and as if they had never been fed in their lives.

 Father Bernard will be leaving on the 2^nd to give a retreat at Snowmass. We will miss him, as will our “congregation.” He is much loved. It will be no time before next November and Advent, St Nick’s Day, and Christmas.

 We have had the kitchen painted. Rich Moreno and his associate did a terrific job. During the duration, our cooks bravely did up dinner at the family guest house and zipped it up to us.  On Monday next, we will empty the cooler, so he can do a job on that floor. Civilization has its drawbacks.

 Our precinct does not have the requisite number of voters to provide a polling place—that garage down the road—so we were issued absentee ballots, to be got to the registrar by February 5. Someone who is going in for something will take our bundle along to the Civic Center.

 KUATfm of the Arizona Public Media has been conducting its winter fund-raising drive. I could give you word-by-word duplicates of the brave, heart-rending, statistically based pleas that issue from the station in place of half the music. I have never understood why people don’t contribute immediately, not only to get back to Mozart and Bartok, but to escape the guilt feelings and sadness of hearing over and over how few members provide the listeners’ portion of the support the station gets. When they reached their $75,000 goal this time, they played a triumphal march and I pounded my desk. It had been torturous the previous day, going after the last $10,000. I was glad I was in at the –so to speak—kill.

 When you think of how many people listen, in comparison with how many contribute, it is truly discouraging. We have one of the best classical music stations in the world. It hooks onto NPR at ten for the night, and unhooks about five, I think. Tucson has everything in the line of cultural enrichment. The university has a fine music department. We have a Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, a ballet, numerous vocal groups, first rate chamber music, professional drama and musical comedy groups coming in, concerts by world class musicians. And we have KUATfm twenty-four hours a day.

You can get it on the web if you don’t live near enough.

 The Christmas lights are still strung, though unlit, across the front porch AND up the twenty foot Agave standing proudly beside it. They will come down eventually, but they did look ravishing over Christmas. Especially in conjunction with that full moon.

23 December 2007

Dear Ones,

Here we are in a chilly but sunny run-up to Christmas. The tree is up and decorated in the new Chapter Room. Our friend Helene brought the lovely slip covers for its chairs the other day and the effect is breath-taking. Or breath-taking for those who like simplicity and space. Now the chairs harmonize with the carpet. We haven’t used the room for so long, it will be a sort of shock to return to it. It does have the best view in the house.

We have had two storms, which is far more moisture than usual, and maybe we will have spring wildflowers. Yesterday, a flock of Gamble quail went scampering across the back yard. It takes a very interesting God to think up quail.

The Christmas cards are to be opened, the music chosen for Mass, and the last mail before Christmas is expected. A few house presents have not come. It’s inevitable.

The Great Garage is complete, with three bays for vehicles, and two for the golf cart, the bush hog, the tractor mower, various tools and a dog apartment. To the side is the doggie-run, necessitated by the inability of Shana to stop barking at every little incursion—real or imagined--on her doggie-world. We hope the new accommodations will be appreciated by our local canine population.

The Christmas Tree will be blessed this evening before Vespers. It really is Christmas Eve, isn’t it?

Christmas Eve. I just went out to check the lovely lighting arrangement Pam has put up outside. The edge of the roof is lined with tiny lights, as well as the door and windows of the church—AND our famous twenty-foot high agave stalk. WOW.

In addition, a peach-colored full moon was rising over the mountains.

The Tree was blessed by Fr Bernard in our new Chapter Room, with its lovely slip- covered chairs.

11:30 AM. The Vigils Service was beautiful. The darkness; our semi-circle before the altar with Esther’s new figures beside three flickering candles; the individual psalms that came across so clearly from the microphone; the lively early American music; the Gospel read with so much feeling and perfection by Fr Bernard—I haven’t taken part in a more moving Vigils  in all my Christmasses. I really do love that music, and it historical weight.

There is an entire hour between Vigils and Mass, and one can get coffee and do lectio or pray quietly. The full moon is taking its time going home behind the mountains in the west.

We will have a couple of Bach pieces for Mass. That boom box has its peculiarities. It would have been prudent to steal the one from the Family Guest House, but the angels came through.

3:15 PM. We played the Little Toccata and Fugue for the Midnight Offertory, and The Air on a G String for Communion. For Day Mass, it was part of Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn for Offertory, and Tchaikovsky’s Meditation for Violin and Orchestra for Communion.

Our congregations have shrunk—partially from death, partially from people moving, partially because there are so many Sundays when we don’t have Mass.  

I keep falling asleep. The Erlac Brothers came over for dinner, which was very nice. All the sisters pitch in to help Vicki with the assembling of the feast, and Fr Bernard has his share to make. That is a fun tradition for Big Feasts.

We opened gifts in the afternoon by the tree, and before Vespers, Esther gave a little concert of carols on the keyboard. We had a quiet supper in the parlor, and so to bed. Tomorrow is a Hermit Day.

Happy Christmas to all!

8 December 2007

 Why does Advent turn out to be the busiest, most complicated season of the year? The liturgy is exquisite, the early winter environment invites reflection and peace. And yet the world crashes around one’s ears, determined to eliminate any sense of order.

There is too much to get done, too many appointments and commitments. Events avalanche into one’s schedule, as if such a thing as a schedule could be imagined. The liturgy splinters off into shards of planning and worry, embarrassment, self-recrimination and fatigue.

And yet. Something within keeps whispering that control of a well-regulated, predictable and spacious inner world is not exactly what Advent is meant to be. Right now, my meditation is the Gospel pericope for January 5. (We won’t go into why. We will just accept that January 5 is what is currently required.) Mark has Jairus asking for help, and getting it. And in between request and gift, the woman with a hemorrhage stoops to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.

 What a crazy situation this must have been. There was nothing well-regulated about this noisy, pushing, dusty, desperate bunch of people. Jesus was being hassled, touched, reached for, implored. The power of the Spirit in which he lived was being drawn out, wrenched out, demanded. The world around him was twisting and pulling him like toffee.

 You’d think that when the Word became a man, his life would project seamlessly the great serenity of God’s inner life, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t predict this return to the chaos of pre-creation. You wouldn’t expect such a violent confrontation with the human condition.

You wouldn’t expect…But if we take up our expectations and put them to one side, we may be able to see the dynamic of redemption taking hold of its author and pulling him beyond our concepts of serenity, beyond our determination that order must prevail. Drawing him into what?

Into the deep places of the human heart, where he begins an act of possession, where he begins to lay his life’s blood on our wounds and bind them with the darkness of divine mystery.

Advent is a waiting, a giving of ourselves to this deeply personal healing process.  It is not a romantic interlude in the liturgical year. It is down to earth, clouds with occasional rainbows, wind tossing bare branches.

So what has our Advent been like so far?

We have taken part in a ceremony of Blessing at the Bishop Moreno Pastoral Center. Esther’s lovely sculpture of Christ with the Children has been given a simple, striking setting that brings out the coloration on which she worked so hard. The words “Remember—of such as these are the Kingdom of heaven,” have been scripted underneath. Remembrance is the key, and attentiveness to the safety of every child. The Head of the Child Protection Office of the diocese was present, and one of the claimants in the bankruptcy suit. The rest were members of the staff at the Pastoral Center. We were honored and moved that our sister could contribute to this act of remembrance.

One of our sisters is recovering from a double knee replacement—yes, both at once. That seems to be the practice now, and she is giving herself to the rehabilitation process with her usual strength of mind and a prayerful presence to the day by day advance into movement and recovery. She will be home for Christmas. The 20^th is being shot for, but it is always possible that she will be discharged earlier according to her progress.

We have had two storms. Yes, two. Two real, honest to goodness storms with wet stuff coming down to sink into our dry and famished earth. Maybe next spring we will have an abundance of wildflowers.

 The garage and the doggie-run are finished. Not to mention a nice brick enclosure for our trash bins. I have been thinking that at last the renovation has been finished—finished, finished—when it became apparent that the kitchen needed repainting with attention to those little corners and the moldings. Ah well. Now we ponder the problem of when to schedule this. Putting kitchens out of commission creates a delicate situation.

Dr Glenn has been here to give his big heart to our Fourth Annual Neighborhood Sunday Brunch and a St Nick’s Day party for the sisters. Pray for him, because he is struggling with re-establishing a practice in the ruins of New Orleans. To add to the meaningfulness of it all, our friend Mary Ricker, a member of the Wrentham community’s associates, comes for her retreat at this time, and Dom Bernard’s friend Bob Hampton plays a wonderful straight man for the traditional spoofing at the party.

This morning after Vigils, Esther came to tell me there was a white cat at the window. A white cat with tortoise shell markings on its face and a striped tail, a cat that was crying continuously. This was not exactly what we needed. However, we put her in the new garage—where she enjoyed walking on the rafters--and faced the prospect of taking her into town to the ASPCA. (They have a sale several times a year to give their animals a good home.) Vicki began by calling our neighbor, Brad Haber, and lo, it turned out to be his cat. “How did she get out?” We think she discovered their doggie door and got confused once outside. She’s a dear thing, and we were very glad to get her to her home.

3 November 2007

Well, Friends,

Where did the year go? It’s not fair for time to go so fast.

The construction crew is about finished with the garage. Our next chore is to convince the dogs that their new apartment is the loveliest thing in the world, and they are ever so privileged to have such a nice bedroom. The vet advises putting a few snacks in it. It will have some loose carpeting because they both have arthritis. They will have nice doggie-beds, and the doggie-door can be secured at night.

It shouldn’t take long to replace their run, where they should stay unless chaperoned. The problem is a case of super-, hyper-vigilance which propels them barking out toward any movement–human or animal—that triggers their obsession. They wouldn’t hurt anyone, but they want people to think they would.

There they go—trot-trot.

We have had the most wonderful supply of transient bird life. Red-shafted flickers, Virginia’s warblers, a small woodpecker whose identity I have not checked, hawks…

We will have to do something about the All Souls Day Procession. To walk the long way to the cemetery or to cross the back yard are both difficult options. The back yard is stubbled and hummocked, and therefore difficult for those with walking problems. The road’s length would take countless repetitions of our songs—though the prospect of a procession with a scooter and a golf cart does appeal to me, especially if we put little flags and bunting on them. Maybe we could have an indoor ceremony, and private visits to the cemetery later in the day.

My idea of the ideal procession is the kind with banners and colorful costumes and a marching band to keep the beat.

Yesterday, as we (decorously) approached the cemetery, a whole flock of ravens lifted off and settled in near-by trees. “…quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’” They are very intelligent birds and quite comical. When they fly, the sun glints off their oily feathers and turns the black to white.

Dom Bernard has arrived for November and December. He looks great and we love his homespun homilies and the taste he gives us of his cosmopolitan life experience. We can’t imagine Christmas without him.

The doorbell is ringing. Where is the portress? Is it me?

Our only trees that turn for Fall, have turned a luscious golden yellow and are flinging their leaves on the yellow ground.

Sr Rita will attend a financial meeting of the National Association of Treasurers of Religious Insitutes, NATRI by acronym. It is being held in Miami, which is a city she has never wanted to visit. But at the end, after learning all about investments, she and Sr Christa of Wrentham will take a tour of the Everglades, where she will see—we hope—alligators and multitudes of tropical birds. What else inhabits a swamp?

Our Wrentham Sisters are planning to build a new dwelling for their candy industry, since the present one is inadequate. I think the plans require a redistribution of various elements of their complex. Thus always. We wish them the best of circumstances and peace during and after. Our experience has been that a functional workplace with adequate space is a godsend. And we are grateful to all of you who have helped us to this end.

7 October 2007

Happy feast.

Today being Sunday, the mem of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary got—well, not dumped—but, as they say formally, suppressed. One would not know it existed unless one were well schooled in the sanctoral cycle. Anyway, since the administrator of St Theresa’s has transferred to a parish in Mexico, the Saturday evening Mass was eliminated, and we all went to the firehouse Mass Sunday morning.

It is very different. A room in the firehouse is fitted up with chairs and tables, which surely lend themselves to other uses at other times. The altar is a table with a large white cloth and corporal, and the congregation chats companionably for half an hour or so before the Mass begins. Then the attractive woman who leads the singing announces that we are ready for Mass. Everyone shushes, and a teen aged boy acting as altar server and cross bearer leads in, followed by two small girls bearing altar appointments, and then Father. We had prayers for vocations and prayers for the erection of a church building for this congregation of St Mary of the Angels Mission of St Theresa’s.

Then Mass began.

We do not know what will happen next Sunday. We are to call on Saturday to see what is what, but I think we will start going to St Rita’s in Vail.

The roof of the garage has been tar-papered, and only awaits it metal topping. Then the garage doors will be put in place, and we can movie in, to the dismay (we hope) of the pack rats.

Yesterday was dispose-of-the-snake day. A middle-sized rattler was pretending to be a hose, being all curled up with one. Since the other crisis people were otherwise engaged, it was up to me to call 911 and ask for the mighty Sonoita-Elgin Fire Department. They were here in no time, a nice woman firefighter who drove, and a thin young man. They use a long-handled pincer sort of thing, and when the snake is dangling from it, pop the animal in a big white bucket with a twist top. Then they take it off to the wilderness so it can fight with some other snake whose territory it is invading. This gives the firefighters some thing to do on a dull afternoon, when they have the benefit of not needing to fight fires.

A friend has given us an interesting clock. It has three settings. It can be used as an alarm clock; or as a strike-the hour clock; or as something known as manual (which we have not tried.) We have left it set at strike-the-hour, and it is in the refectory for our amusement. So now we hear a different bird call at each hour. At first we started to look around for the bird, then we got used to it. The rooster is a bit unnerving.

23 September 2007

 It’s fall, that incredibly sumptuous season between the energy-depleting heat of summer and the chill of winter. Could there be anything nicer than the brisk, cool, sunny days of fall?

 Our Saturday Evening Five went off to Mass last evening for Sunday. And lo—we got in on a Baptism. The tiny gentleman becoming a Christian was three weeks old and named Nathaniel. At the end of the ceremony, Father turned to the congregation and said, “I now introduce to you the newest member of the Christian congregation.” I’m sure that by the time he finished speaking, new members had been Baptized into the Church all over the world. So now we’ve witnessed a Confirmation and a Baptism. The parents were very happy, and we shook the hand of the papa. Mama’s arms were full of baby.

 I thought only too late that we might have given him specific wishes—you know, like the fairy godmothers at christenings. The good ones. And on the way home, I kept going over possibilities in my mind. May he grow up to find a fine wife and found a beautiful family. May he grow to be responsible and compassionate. May he enjoy the simple things of life, and friendships and a job that gives him satisfaction. May he love God and understand the language and meaning of the Church his godparents are accepting for him this evening.

He was so cute, and really good until he got that water on his baby head. At which time we heard a few little squawks. Three-week-old babies, even boys, are so tiny. He comes from a Mexican-American family and is an exquisite shade of bronze.

No more close sightings of owls, though they are hanging around, and last night one sat (for a minute or so) on the Disabled Parking sign beside the front door of church. Today we are having wind and they say we might have a bit of rain. It is always a bit.

The garage has its roof trusses up, but our men will have to nail on the rest of it and then the metal panels to finish. They are juggling several jobs at once, so we have to be patient. The structure should last forever, barring a particularly virulent storm,  tornado, or earthquake. Our sisters in Indonesia seem to be having regular earthquakes. They are on that Ring of Fire, and consign themselves to the Providence of God. Remember the horrendous tsunami of a few years back?

 The parish is gearing up for the Great Fiesta—the patronal feast for St Therese. We won’t be going, but we will keep them in our prayers. Last year the folk dancing took place right next to the church on Saturday evening, so we got to see some of it. Those kids are so well-trained and well-practiced. They perform in many places and have even been to Europe.

3 September 2007

Our brother monastery in Huntsville, Utah, has elected a new abbot. Actually we are their daughter house, but the structural intricacies of the Cistercian Order are a bit much to go into here. Their abbot, who is now Fr David Altman, has a function toward us that is known as our Father Immediate.

The bishop, who presides at an Abbatial Blessing had designated August 29 as the day--the memorial of the Beheading of St John the Baptist. Several abbots were to attend as well as Fr David’s sister Jane. I flew up on the 28^th and home on the 30^th. There was time, in addition to the ceremony and the lovely picnic that followed, to visit several of the sites in Salt Lake City and environs.

On the inward journey, we flew over a large lake—large but not large enough we thought—my seat mate and I—to be the Great Salt Lake. Perhaps it was Lake Tahoe. When we did actually approach the Great Salt Lake, there was no mistaking it. It’s tremendously impressive.

I was the first of three travelers to be met on that morning. I have been in many large airports, but something about this one gave me the sense that I might be wandering for days without rescue. Plod-plod. Have faith. You will get somewhere.

 A nice man on my journey to what I was devoutly hoping would be an exit smiled and hailed me with, “Welcome to Salt Lake City!” I was immensely cheered. Finally, what with moving walkways and following the crowd, I got to a sign saying “Waiting area.” There seemed to be no monk in sight, much less tall Fr Casimir, who cannot be missed. So I sat down. Then as my eye wandered, I spotted him seated. Oh of course, seated he is not conspicuous.

We had a chance for a nice conversation until he went off for traveler number two, who was Fr Thomas of Vina. We then had a three-person conversation until Cas left to pick up Fr Damien of Gethsemani. He took us to lunch at a lovely cafeteria-style restaurant, and then we toured the center of town.

First we visited the Catholic Cathedral, the Madeleine, dedicated to St Mary Magdalen, and built and decorated in a colorful kind of Romanesque-Beuron style. I have heard that its choir more than equals the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but of course, we did not hear it. I should have asked how the tiny Catholic presence to Utah was able to erect such an imposing structure, and maintain such an excellent choir, but I forgot.

We then visited the Mormon tabernacle, whose acoustics are so unparalleled that the choir prefers to sing there, rather than in the new Assembly Hall, whenever possible. Non-Mormons may not enter the Temple, but the new Assembly Hall is not only open to visitors, but is used by any number of outside groups, such as Rotary or business groups. With a sweeping balcony, it seats 21,000 persons, and is beautifully appointed in red. Our guides were most courteous and informative.

Traffic is heavy in Salt Lake City, but nothing like Montreal. At the monastery, I was dropped off at the Ladies’ Guest House, while the monks continued to the monastery. On the upper floor, Father David’s beautiful sister had already arrived, and they were out together. On the lower floor, two Franciscan Sisters were staying, one of whom was a niece of Brother Mark. They had traveled by train from Chicago, journey of twenty-some hours, but beautiful.

I decided I was no way going to make my bed on the morning of departure, so I slept cozily in a big arm chair, reading and dozing alternately.

We attended Lauds with the community, and the Mass of Blessing was set for ten. It was just a tiny bit unnerving to have the Mass of the Beheading, with Salome and the head on a platter. David gave an excellent homily, meditating on the charism of leadership shared by all the baptized. Fr Charles presented him for the Blessing, and after the bishop had performed that ceremony, the community gave their new abbot the Kiss of Peace, and the Mass progressed.

The monks of Holy Trinity are long-lived, and they have five former superiors in the community.

The Mormon friends of the community had set out tables under the trees in the front, decorated with Black-eyed Susans. A caterer from up north had been cooking for days, and the serving table was enticing. After lunch, Fr Casimir asked if the little party of abbots and me would like to see the National Historical Site of the Golden Spike. Of course we would, and we went off, but without Fr Thomas, who had got stuck somewhere.

If you have read Stephen Ambrose’ Nothing Like it in the World—all of us seemed to have had it read in the refectory—you will understand the importance of this site. In fact, on a wall in the main building, there is a list of twenty-five national historical sites that every American should see, and this is one.

Here, the two wings of the transcontinental railroad met, and a commemorative golden spike was driven into the rails. When you read the account of the labor involved, the years in which the Irish on the East and the Chinese on the West blasted and dug and lugged and graded and slung sledge hammers across the country, you can understand the title of Ambrose’ book. And as you stand at the spot where the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific met, you realize the cost and the heroism of unnamed laborers who created something of which there was nothing like it in the world, a work of sweat and brawn and grit which bound the United States together. (To be continued.)

 

1 August 2007

 A wow moment.

 Last night as I was returning from my walk, I could see the Great Horned Owls, both of them, seated on the front porch railing. I slowed, switched from the gravel path to the grass, and proceeded slowly. My walk became a sneak. How long would they stay there? Oh if only I had binoculars.

I decided to skirt the front area and enter the house through the back. Senseless to disturb those majestic birds. But having snuck inside, I could watch them through the window. I was maybe two yards away—behind the glass--and you know how owls can turn their heads all the way around. They are drawn to that spot, I figure, because they can catch the moths and beetles that flock to the porch light. Their owl-y heads were going up and down and around constantly, and often those enormous eyes in the solemn owl faces would look straight into mine. I could study the striped beauty of the feathers and the set of the wings in repose.

 At one point, one of them swooped down to pounce on a beetle (I presume), the great wings spread in descent. Having dispatched the prey, it returned to its post on the railing. The second owl was sitting on the ground.

 Then there was the night of (gasp) rain. When I stuck my head out the door, the desert willow was dripping water, and as the porch light sparkled in it, you’d have thought you were seeing a big, enchanted Christmas tree.

We are going to have some garage. The slab has finally been poured, and it’s rather large. It is to house our two cars and truck, the bush-hog, the tractor-mower, the little golf-cart when not being used by chaplains, and the dogs, with their own section. I almost said apartment. They have their own door, and a fenced-in yard, mostly for the night. They would get spooked and run off after every little critter in the neighborhood if they were to be loose at night. During the day, with the exception of guided walks, they are free to flop next to the kitchen door or putter around the garage work place.

 The “guided” as in guided walks are so they will not race off after snakes or rabbits or whatever.

 We had a lovely evening with the pastor of St Therese’. Because they no longer have a weekday Mass to which we could go for the Assumption, he came over to celebrate with us for the 15^th. I got hopelessly confused as acolyte, and did everything wrong. After Mass we had a gathering with him in order to find out about his connection with a parish in Bangladesh, where he once ministered. A group in Nogales is sponsoring the work done in that parish for its disabled members.

 The group is giving him a birthday party, something that in his Mexican culture is never done. But they hope to raise funds thereby for the Bangladesh work. Horribly, the priest who created the ministry with Father, was due to come with a layman to speak to this group of the situation. He died of a sudden and aggressive cancer the day before he was to leave Bangladesh. The layman who was to accompany him was denied a visa by our super-, hyper-nervous government, which assumed that since he wasn’t married, he would be looking to slip away and stay here.

 We have just finished for refectory reading a book by a Sister of St Joseph of Orange about her ministry in Santa Ana to the young poor Hispanics. She has made a couple of retreats here, and her facility makes an enormous difference to many lives that without her would wind up in gangs or other kinds of hopelessness.

 31 July 2007

Well, well,

Just back from the pastoral meeting of the western superiors. It is held in the retreat center of the Immaculate Heart Community in Mendecito, Calfornia. Which is extremely beautiful. Extremely. The history is interesting.

 The property is large, with lavish grounds and a number of buildings. Even the trees I could identify are different from any I have ever seen. Live oaks, for instance, are high and wide and big. Whatever ours are not, they are. Then you have the most paradisal sort of flowering trees and bushes. And positively enormous eucalyptus, with the bark dripping off the trunks to reveal gleaming white inner skin. Someone remarked on the negative side of all this: you are listening, from morning till night, to a chorus of mowers, clippers and other forms of floral maintenance. But that is a small price to pay.

The Sisters of the Immaculate Heart were the glory of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. They maintained a college, a high school and many other schools in California. Highly trained professional women, their novitiate was based at this property in Mendecito, which they had bought for $40,000 in 1942. Forty thousand—can you imagine? This miracle was negotiated when the real estate market in California was extremely depressed, since everyone was afraid of a Japanese invasion during WWII. The Sisters did not fuss over torpedoes. They had faith in God and in their mission.

 You should see the pictures of their glory days—loads and loads of novices being primed to emerge into the educational and art world of the western coast. Then came the well-publicized conflict with Cardinal McIntyre, and the decision on the part of the leadership and many of the Sisters to begin a new life as a lay community. The general at that time has written about it in her book, Witness to Integrity.

The great house is now used for retreats, and they are in the process of re-possessing another large house on the property. As far as I know, this is an enormously popular place of peace and inner rebirth, and the community is very happy with the way their vocation has found its way into new and beautiful paths.

You should see the chickens. I have never seen anything like them—large, fluffy and dressed in flamboyant colors. They also give colored eggs.

 And the oranges. Can there be anything like freshly squeezed orange juice from freshly picked oranges, except maybe eating the oranges themselves. And lemonade from—you guessed it—freshly squeezed lemons from their trees. I forget how old the orchards are, though I was told. I saw some little new trees in line to replace old ones.

 Well, to get off the food.

 We went to the beach for a few hours and I sat in the shade and people-watched. They allow dogs, and the dogs had a great time chasing balls and getting to know each other. I can’t understand how people can lie in the sun when you know it’s dangerous, but there they are. Maybe I am just used to Arizona sun, and running in and out to get the mail before it gets to me.

 Now, I would not want anyone to think this week was a matter of fun and frolic. It was a very serious exchange, and more helpful than the business-oriented Regional Meetings of all the superiors at once. During a week like this, we can converse and question and share experience in a way that is not possible otherwise.

 The wisdom on which one can draw is so valuable. Here are people who have borne the brunt of the day and its heat, have lived for years with hearts laid open and problems soluble and insoluble, have known intimately what it is to turn to a God who is the only solution, the teacher and the savior. Monastic life is not a serene and untroubled world that avoids the growing experiences of life outside its walls.

 The monastic journey throws all of us up against everything, within and without oneself, that presses on human weakness and incapacity. It not only challenges, it pulls down defenses and redistricts the inward universe. The abbot or abbess walks this road in a particularly lonely manner, and needs to know there are people somewhere who understand and from whom wisdom can be drawn.

 So you need not only the talk, but also the time of wandering on the mountain and pondering the enormous eucalyptus. You need the early morning walk in the silence before the garden crew has shown up, and the fog and the history of a place.

 The presence of the Immaculate Heart Community is encouraging and supportive. They have been through a death and risen to new life. Nothing is impossible. The hiking paths talk to you of the switchbacks of life itself, the noon sun speaks consolation, even as it dizzies your balance system.

Life is a dizzying prospect, and the Way of the Cross is not just a pious meditation. Thank you, God, for life, for the switchbacks and the deaths and the Simons along the way. 

2 August 2007. It is raining. Of course it is raining because the ground has been meticulously prepared for the pouring of the slab for the garage, and it is too wet to proceed farther. We had seven inches in July.

20 July 2007

Dear Ones,

Several important events have occurred.

To wit.

We had about four tenths of an inch of rain. It did cool things off a bit, though its contribution to the flora was negligible.

Those horrible, repulsive Colorado Toads have emerged from their long hibernation under the soil. I should not speak thus about creatures of God. But they are repulsive. Imagine, the same God who created quail also created Colorado Toads. It’s a great mystery. A common ordinary toad is a beauty queen by comparison. But in addition to scoring low on personal appearance, they are poisonous should a dog (for instance) have the bad taste to mouth one. They are poisonous because they are so limp and soggy and gushy that they would have no other protection in the event of an attack. Aren’t you glad you know this?

The garage is in process. The library has only a few touches to go. All those books have been shifted into their new home. We are now looking for a place which would like to have the culls, a school possibly or a parish library. I have to call the chancellor’s office.

Oh dear, the construction crew broke a phone line.

Fr Robert’s two months have flown by. He will be leaving us on August 1. Mass every day was nice, and even nicer was the return of our Sunday Congregation. One Sunday we had the Firehouse crowd in addition, because Fr de La Torre had to be away and there was no sub for their Mass.

Our governor has hit the front page of the Christian Science Monitor.

A Say’s Phoebe has just alighted on the porch railing outside my office. Clare, who is on retreat, said that she saw a Western Tanager, which is mouth-wateringly beautiful.

Now, the big event. Mindful of the toads, as I stuck my head out for some fresh air the other night, I peeked cautiously around the corner of the house. God forbid I should kick a toad in my insouciance. There was no toad, but there, sitting on the porch railing, was a Great Horned Owl. Talk about majesty. I looked at him and he looked at me, and then he lifted off and disappeared into the night. Wow.

A couple of nights later, I saw what seemed a smudge on the top of our Golden Flowered Agave—remember it’s twenty feet tall? Hmmm. Did something break? As I watched, trying to figure it out, the smudge slowly spread its wings and swooped off. Then last night, the smudge was back, and out of the smudge an owl face turned toward me and after considering me for a moment, took off. Then a second smudge spread its huge wing and glided off after the first. By this time, it is not easy to breathe. A little while later, the shadowy figures were still around, and slid from one side to the other of my vision.

Maybe they won’t be so visible after the moon comes out. The trouble with moons is that they kill the stars, but they do provide about half the light of day when they are full, and lots of sharp shadows. The owls may be more cautious in the half light than they are in the dark.

 There was a time when a Great Horned sat on the church roof and accompanied us at Vigils. They are the bassoons of the owl orchestra.

What a noisy night. We did get rain out of the noise, but we will have to see how much.

2 July 2007 

WELL. 

The library is almost done. The Scriptural section needs re-doing, but that can be attended to a little at a time. Fr Casimir, our retiring Father Immediate, was here for a week, and asked us which aspect of the renovation we each liked best. Clare loves the reading section of the new library, because of its “space.” It spans both sides of the wing without walls intervening. On one side you enjoy a reading space with the art, poetry, travel, languages, and drama books around you, and the periodicals in wall display hangings.

On the other side, you have the music.

It’s nice.

Rita said she liked the whole of the renovated spaces. I like the hall in the library, now that it is free of cartons. I like the white walls and ceilings and the blue rug. And the little living room—we euphemistically refer to it as the “lounge”--of the Senior Wing is very inviting.

The contractors will be back on the 7^th to tackle the garage. It is regrettably necessary because of the local wildlife that feels so cozy in our engines. The animals nibble while luxuriating therein, and that can be very expensive. At the end of the garage, our dogs will have their apartment. They spend their days plopped outside the kitchen door being hot. Summer is hard on dogs.

What will be the dog yard is presided over by a magnificent cottonwood.

On the far side of the Altar Bread Building a lineup of cottonwoods is growing in stature, and I am afraid they may crowd each other eventually. People planting trees don’t always reckon on the extent of future growth. What if each of these trees attains the stature of the one behind the future garage? This is a serious matter.

It’s too bad, however, that the lovely space opened up by the demolition cannot be sustained. There is no other place to put the garage.

One night last week as I was washing my supper dishes, I looked through the window and—wow—at least twenty deer strolling from behind the Altar Bread Building toward the slope of the hill. Wow indeed. Deer after deer, little and big. Our poor wildlife is thirsty. They come at night to drink from the tree wells.

Speaking of which. The other day we looked out from the sorting room at Altar Breads upon the sweetest sight. A family of quail was lined up on the edge of a tree well, drinking. That means mother and dad and a clutch of little ones, all in a row. They may have sensed their audience, or just had had enough, because they walked off shortly, the tiny birds sort of hopping and flying to keep up.

A full moon lights up the landscape at night, but the disadvantage is obvious: it kills the stars. One cannot have everything.

We had a great time with Fr Casimir. He has been the best of all best Fathers Immediate, and we are sorry his term is up. Faithful and dear Fr. Robert of Ava will be chaplaining us for another month.

We are losing a lovely Vicar for Religious also. Sr. Jean Olmstead, a Religious of the Blessed Sacrament, is retiring from the office to attend her aging mother in Vermont. She came out for a tour of our new environment and a fun gathering with the community. Her Congregation was founded by Saint Katharine Drexel for service to our peoples of color, and Sr. Jean has worked with both African and Native American peoples. Kind of harrowing to hear stories of the segregated years.

And even worse to realize that racism is far from dead.

The desert willows have blossomed and shed their petals. The swallows' nest are now inhabited by the young of sparrows. Can’t figure out exactly how that happened. The eucalyptus that Abel had to cut down is sending up a new sprout right in the middle of its stump.

We do not allow pets in the retreat house. The complications would be obvious. But an exception was made recently when a sister-retreatant was unable to find a doggie-sitter for her—Chihuahua! Great fun.

16 June 2007

 Well, first and foremost, our Agave is over twenty feet high. Its stalk just avoids the porch roof and its floral branches begin a few inches above it. What intelligence. The flowers have not fully opened and when they do, they will be hung with veils of insect visitors.

On Thursday the wreckers came to dispose of our former novitiate-office building-weaver’s studio. I had expected a big bulldozer that would plow into the structure and collapse it. What would have happened to the remnants I had no idea. Instead, however, we got a huge machine with enormous jaws on a long, flexible neck. Unfortunately, we had to go to work, because we could have watched all day. Esther said, “It looks like a dinosaur!” It did indeed. I kept thinking of horror movies, especially when the huge toothed maw was opened and facing our direction.

 Two very large disposal vehicles would line up beside the demolition. The jaws would collect and dump the refuse into these vehicles, which would carry the junk off to whichever dump was able to accept it.

 We went out after Mass and half the roof was gone. The jaws were scooping up debris from within the building. Then after a short time, they went to town on the rest of the roof, crunching away as if it were a few sticks of celery. They did the same with the brick coating of the structure, but that had to be done separately, since one dump took the inside refuse and another the bricks.

The sisters who remembered when Vicki and Fr Romaine had built the brick coating around the double-wide trailer (which had served at the construction site of some buildings of St Mary’s Hospital), recalled how long it had taken to construct--and here it was gone in one day. The cleaning up is not quite done. The man who came yesterday was working both machines. He would be the dinosaur till the refuse machine was full, drive that to the dump, and return to resume his identity as dinosaur.

We cut concelebration hosts at Altar Breads that morning, and this usually goes a bit overtime. After Lunch, Marg, Esther, and I set out for the Bishop Moreno Pastoral Center in town. We were to deliver the bas-relief of Christ and the Children, and Marg was somewhat uncertain about the way to get there. That part of town has a lot of one-way streets. When we got there, Esther and I carried the piece in, while Marg went to park.

The bishop and most of the staff were there to receive us, and when the sculpture was unveiled, it received a very satisfying amount of oohs and ahs. It will be displayed on the wall just within the front door, with an appropriate plaque. Our friend Paul Duckro, who is head of the Office for Protection of Children, Adolescents, and Adults, was also there to welcome the beautiful reminder of Christian responsibility toward the young.

We met the new chancellor of the diocese. The former chancellor, June Kellen, a lovely woman, had felt it was time to retire. This man is a very nice Hispanic gentleman.

By the way, my women’s college has engaged a man as its next president. When I was there, only Sisters of Providence had served as presidents. Then a wonderful Carondolet sister was engaged, and now, without any gender discrimination, they have simply taken the person who was most competent.]

The man who photographed us for the diocesan paper interviewed Esther, while Marg and I had a nice chat with the retiring Vicar for Religious, Sr Jean Olmstead. We hate to lose her, but she knows she is being called to care for her aged mother on the east coast.

She is a Sister of the Blessed Sacrament for Native and African Americans. She had some very harrowing details to share with us of the early days of segregation. They founded the only Catholic college for Blacks in the south, and yet the sisters could not receive their degrees from it. Some terrible etceteras.

Squirrel outside. I don’t know how they have taken the destruction of their condominium under the old building. But some swallows lost their nests. We had not known about the demolition in time to prevent them nesting under its eaves.

Anyone who wants a superb book on animals should check out Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation. She is the well-known autistic student of animal science, and feels that her “disability” gives her special insight into the animal mind. Every paragraph is haunting.

We might be hosting the congregation from the firehouse tomorrow. Fr DeLaTorre has to be away for the weekend, and he may not have been able to get a sub to cover the firehouse Mass, so he suggested that the people come to our chapel.

The renovation has had a few side-effects in the line of cooler temps within the house from increased insulation. There was an article in the NYTimes today about Phoenix’s horrible summer temperatures. Tucson is pretty high too, but we are ten degrees less hot. With breezes that sometime feel like high winds.

 Happy summer!

13 June 2007

It will end. I am firmly convinced.

We are now at the count-down for the re-shelving of books. It’s a bit of a chore, but very enlightening, since you get to see everything, and, “Oh, I haven’t read that one. It looks good…” And, “”Where did I put the other two Cahill books that we were saving to go into a series with the other two?”

Many of the cartons hold either series or encyclopedias and will not take much time to shift to a shelf, not needing culling or reflection on where to put them.

The dogs have almost moved back into their former home base, since the one they are now inhabiting is due for demolition. Last night they were barking, seemingly without reason, but when I went into the kitchen, Marg and Chiara were gazing out the window at a small herd of deer beside the Altar Bread building. They must have heard me getting ice out of the frig, since they looked our way with big ears up, but did not run away. The dogs (within an enclosure) seemed to be a blip on their mental screen, not to be anxious about.

I put out a request for knowledge on the red suitcase I had got on sale after New Years at JC Penney. You do not want to lose something like that—after all, on SALE. I checked again last night and found it by the texture. It was blue. Go figure.

We will have a Hermit Day on the feast of the Sacred Heart, by popular preference. I suspect no one wants to be cook. But also, it’s a lovely way of recouping one’s energy, spiritual and physical.

Brother Raphael has died at Gethsemani. He went into the hospital for surgery that was successful, but heart and lung complications followed and now he is in God’s heart. He was very generous, and helped the Sisters’ houses a lot. A long life of goodness, taken by God so gently and quickly.

We and everyone else in sight are being asked to pray for the wife of a Marine in Iraq. She has Stage Four cancer, with a little boy of five, having had a recent miscarriage.

We have encountered some engineering problems with the sculpture of Christ and the Children which is destined for the Bishop Moreno Pastoral Center downtown. It needs a good deal of support—drilling and screws and so forth, so we have to either do it ourselves or find a friend to install it. After the books…

Two of our sisters are at New Mellerey for the Junior Directors’ workshop, whose visiting professor is Sandra Schneiders. She will center her talks on commitment. Meanwhile on the home front, we are reciting the Office until our wanderers are back. And doing “Bake-cut” days are Altar Breads. That means alternate days of baking and cutting instead of combining the two as usual.

For some reason, the heat is not oppressive. The “some reason” has to do with increased insulation, and some air conditioning, both brought about by the renovation.

The combination of creamy white walls and a lovely shade of blue carpeting has done wonders for the renovated rooms. Chiara said that “the library is coming alive.” Funny how different the books look now in their new home.

21 May 2007

We have a quite remarkable agave in the front yard. The tip of its stalk has avoided collision with the porch roof by veering slightly outwards. And still it grows.

 Agaves are those slender stalks with a kind of candelabra on top that you see in photos of the West. They throw up one stalk from a clump of fleshy, spear-like leaves, and once it has blossomed, the plant dies back. This giant is really going places fast.

 I’ve seen one woodpecker. The best place for birds is out the sorting room window at AB. Quail are the most fun, but one never knows.

 The house is a mess. We have moved all our books from the former library, to which we had moved books from several other rooms at the beginning of the renovation. Obliging friends and businesses from which we begged have provided cartons. They are now full and resting happily or otherwise in the cloister or haphazardly in the new library.

 Our friends the contractor’s squad has disconnected the shelving from the former library and are reassembling it in its new location. Once they accomplish that, we will be reassembling the library. Of course the number one books are in back of the piles of cartons, and the very number one books are on the bottom. But we will manage.

 Weather has begun to get summer. Summer means hot. But yesterday—Sunday—was exquisite.

 We had a fine consultation with Sr. Kathleen Kalinowski, a Benedictine from St Scholastica’s, the women’s monastery near St John’s in Minnesota. She is a whiz at finance, and advised us on investment with enormous skill and patience. The National Religious Retirement Office provided the grant for this and is an enormous help in these areas. Sister, who had come in the original evaluation from  NRRO, was pleased with what we have done with the house and with the generosity of our benefactors and the grants we have received. Sr Rita is due for a couple of financial workshops. We are so grateful for the generosity that has helped in the project, as well as for the privilege of being able to contribute through the work of our hands in our own industry.

 I look around the renovations and can hardly believe the simple beauty and utility of the improvements. The senior wing and the library (a renovated dorm) give us white walls and blue carpeting and space in which to move and be. The new art and maintenance wing is fully activated and producing wonders. Esther has just completed a “Christ and the children” for the bishop. The diocese has established an excellent facility for the protection of children, adolescents and adults from sexual abuse. This beautiful sculpture will be used in a place of worship in connection with the on-going protection and health-bringing efforts of the diocese.

Clare’s contribution to the silent auction in honor of the bishop and Fr Carscallen was a breath-taking Icon of Tenderness. She is continuing her Mother of God of Santa Rita Abbey, in which the monastery is cradled in the arms of the Mother.

 Saturday, the little squad that attends Sunday Mass on Saturday evening at St Therese’ church in Patagonia (the rest of the sisters go to Sunday Mass at the firehouse in Sonoita) was privileged to attend a Confirmation. We were especially pleased because our Terri’s two granddaughters were among those receiving the Sacrament.

Originally, since our church had only eight confirmands, they were to have been melded into the group at Sacred Heart in Nogales, but Bishop Kikanis sent the Vicar General with authorization to confirm our little band in our own church. This was a very wise pastoral decision, since our congregation is tiny and in need of support. It was so important to have this consideration from its bishop.

Terri’s family was there. We know Kelsey and Rayanna, and now we could meet their father and two little brothers. Christopher had been a spelling champ, and Danny had just been baptized at the Easter vigil. The girls’ father is the friend and savior of that darling little Border Collie mentioned in a previous episode of the journal. She still goes to work with him every day and they are inseparable companions.

Our friends the Quirogas were sponsoring Corky’s nephew for the Sacrament, our Bernie sponsored Kelsey, and Terri was at Rayanna’s side. I was crying, it was so moving.

All the confirmands were Hispanic, and the fine singing was in Spanish.

 So we await the next episode in our on-going adventure of Cistercian life in the West.

© Santa Rita Abbey, Sonoita, Arizona