The first is of my friend, Fr. Tim Dodd. When Tim started studying at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, he saw my name on the list of spiritual directors. So he made an appointment, mostly just to meet another Dodd, I think, and we worked together for a while. We couldn't figure out any close family connection. Tim grew up in Michigan, but he had been living in Minnesota before he moved to Chicago to study. He used to be a photographer and took the photo of me with the hat that is on this blog. He comes to visit us from time to time, and we roped him into volunteering his photography skills at the railroad. He is very talented, in this and in many other ways.
The other is a photograph taken back in 1978 when I went with other Carmelite students to visit Spain. This was taken in Avila, and the folks in the picture are (beginning at the bottom and on the left, with the guy in the white jacket): Marc Foley, Steve Payne, John Sullivan (beard), me, Patrick Lim Sue (the Asian student beside me), Fred Alexander (the only African American Carmelite friar still, as far as I know) and Phillip Thomas (between Fred and Patrick, just above my head.) Most of them are still Carmelites. Marc is in DC, Steve in Nairobi, John is Provincial and in Milwaukee, as I think are Fred and Philip. (My directory is a bit out of date.)In Avila, Fred and Patrick attracted a lot of attention from the children, many of whom had seen very few blacks or Asians, and certainly not running around in brown habits.
11 comments:
Wow! Its Paul McCartney!
(I'm referring to you in the hat, btw)
Kristin,
?
Those were the days, my friend...
A beautiful photo!
Was it your first journey in Europe?
This was my first trip to Europe, and I (we all) loved Spain. It is a beautiful country and the people were great.
Twenty years later I was able to get to Italy, but that was only for ten days and all I saw was Rome and Assisi. Loved that, too. I would have moved to Assisi happily. What a lovely area!
(prayers)..WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
A list was posted near the LV1 elevator on New Years Day requesting prayers for a "Friar of the Week". Martha, the sacristan, thought it might be alphabetical. I, or course, hoped it would be a bit more mystical, if not kaball-ic. Interesting to decode. You decide:
ALIVE:
John Sullivan
William Healy
Timothy McGough
Francis Miller
Fr. Michael
Kiernan Kavanaugh
Bonaventure Potter
Cyril Guise
Lawrence Sullivan
(erroneously) DEAD
Same posting area last year, I saw the name Sr. Mary Bernadette posted for the Mass Intention. Not knowing the "cross symbol" code, I called the Carmel asking, "When did Sr. Bernadette pass away?". A frail voice answered "I am Sr. Bernadette". She asked for prayers.
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Spring has sprung. The gate from LV3 to LV2 is open for the season. The mylar balloon is now gone. Flying almost patriotically from a treetop on the other side of the balcony (facing Milwaukee) is a four-foot yellow police cordon tape "CAUTION - DO NOT ENTER". The moon is visible at 8:00 a.m.
Don Brick is championing a Religious Rights March on the Federal Building on March 23. The sign up sheet has eight signatures, including his own.
The two white plastic pickle buckets inscribed with drymarker "Marian Hall (St. Florian's?)" have worked overtime catching the ceiling drips in the Marian Hallway and near the anti-abortion literature rack on LV1. I fished an anti-Walker handout floating in one of them last Monday morning and placed the "Wet Floor" sign on yet another puddle.
The Visible Presence Desk is only sporadically manned these days. Fr. Michael's Holy Water bottle is sometimes unsequestered in the early morning.
Yes, there are postulants. Mostly sequestered.
Fr. Michael is concelebrating daily Mass with William Healy and another priest at St. Anne's. I googled William Healy and learned he was fortunate to confer Last Rights upon your friend, Jessica Powera all those years ago.
I told Fr. Michael they were putting new heat in the Guest House. He replied, "Yes, it's time to eat". I love this priest.
Washington Co. workers have rolled up the snow fence near the BP gas station, purple fabric is flying on the crucifix at St. Mary's of the Hill, and State of Wisconsin workers are clearing trees and branches around the Stations 'for a long time'.
They introduced themselves to me, whom they call the "corn woman". Their rukus is cutting into my feeding-the-deer business. Last thursday they enjoyed an eight deer sideshow eating the corn as they themselves enjoyed their lunches in the picnic grove (or so they tell me).
Today the purple crocus bloomed near the bench at St. VII and cemetery. The streams in the woods were predominantly roaring on Tuesday. There was no "creek-ish" demure about it.
The swamp is seemingly dormant under the ebbing ice layer, but a single drop on a microscope slide would prove differently.
Robins, cardinals, four egrets, two turkeys picking at last fall's wheat sheaves. Skunk scent wafting. Geese flying in dazed patterns. The deer leg bone I found and propped against a tree (to see how it would winter over) is now exposed and none the worse for winter wear-and-tear.
Snow and mud are gone, rendering animal (and human boot) tracking closed for the season.
In my not-so-neo-Pagan tradition I released an entire year's worth of my long black hair into the swamp near the bird nesting area. A few more gray strands this year than usual, I noticed. I used to perform this rite of spring privately (I thought) in the grove, but it raised an eyebrow (or two). Okay.
On Friday (my hermit day) I will surreptitiously scatter five packages of MAMMOUTH RUSSIAN SUNFLOWER SEEDS into the same swamp. 5 packs for $1.00 this week at Walgreen's.
(see next comment - exceeds word limit)
(continued)
Almost daily another tree on the Station Path is slashed with orange paint in order to maintain the viability/integrity of the power lines.
Tomorrow, I plan to plead clemency for the ancient, gnarly tree near the Ice Age Trail directly in the parallel path of the power line.
I might convincingly suggest, "this tree is most likely from the time of the Garden of Olives. Surely its foliage will not impinge upon the power lines."
I already have two St. Patrick's Day pizza-size cookies in my car as bribe (for their break), along with a case of water, as the water has not yet been turned on for the season.
Instead I might leave Jessica Powers act as lead poetic defense attorney:
THE CEDAR TREE
In the beginning,
in the unbeginning,
of endlessness and eternity, God saw this tree.
He saw these cedar branches bending low.
Under the full exhaustion of the snow.
And since he sent no wind of day to rising,
this burden of beauty and this burden of cold. (whether the wood breaks or the branches hold) must be of His devising.
There is a cedar similarly decked
deep in the winter of my intellect
under the snow, the snow,
the scales of light its limitations tell.
I clasp this thought: from all eternity
God who is good looked down upon this tree white in its weighted air,
and of another cedar reckoned well.
He knew how much each tree, each twig could bear.
He counted every snowflake as it fell.
Jessica Powers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the winner is: cookies or reason?
That's the news from Holy Hill.
Love, Maureen
A few nips and tucks to the tree before I arrived. Reprieve until next time. After all, the trees did not enter the monastery (grounds) to be fashioned..........
; - >
Ah Brother, etc.
PATRICK FARRELL, OCD (3.18.12)
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This will make you laugh:
Two seemingly spiritually wanton young women were standing in the vacant parking lot in front of the Guest House early this morning. They were clutching suitcases (no guitars, cute straw hats or bus in sight). They DID have the potential nun look.
Being the Feast of St. Joseph, I conjectured they had spent the weekend in retreat and were embarking upon a one-way trip to Pewaukee or beyond.
I asked smilingly if they had been on retreat - my left eyebrow arching in question, to which one replied:
NO, WE'RE AUDITORS AND WAITING FOR OTHERS TO ARRIVE!!
hahahhaha
Hope this lifts your spirits on all counts.
Love, Maureen
PS. The spirit prompted me to drive by the Carmel this morning. I did so on your behalf to link you with JP somehow, as if you were in the backseat, however that thing works. Surprisingly, there is a SUPPORT WALKER lawn sign near their monastery sign. All looks well there and there is no telling of the spiritual activity occurring on this holy day.
HAPPY FEAST DAY.
P.S. Religious Freedom entourage sign up sheet count - 15.
Terrence Dougherty OCD 3.25.12
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