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Well, I’m back from Mexico and at the seminary. I’ve helping with new student orientation this week. This year we have the largest incoming class of guys ever. Also, I’ll was selected to be a residence hall counselor and social chair as well as helping with a number of other smaller things. So I’ll be busy this year. For those who knew about my tiny room situation last year; I now have much larger corner room on the top floor of the building with the most beautiful corner view of Mt Hood to greet me every morning. My phone number and address are the same as last year and are both working again. Please email me if you’d like them again. Classes will be starting this Monday, and I have my usual load of philosophy classes. But I’m really looking forward to an iconography class where we’ll be learning to paint a small icon this semester. So far it’s been a great joy to be back and to spend some deep time doing spiritual reflection on my summer. Now about the Mexico trip. We were in a small town about 150 miles south of the border on the Baja of California called Vicente Guerrero (sometimes called Colonia Vicente Guerrero). It was about 5 miles from the ocean, and we went to the beach a couple of times we were there. We stayed at a Franciscan mission inside the town. Our day’s could be broken down as: mass, breakfast, a work project till noon, lunch, work project in the afternoon till about 3-5pm, some kind of free time or recreational activity, dinner at about 5-7pm, some sort of cultural experience after that, an evening reflection/prayer and then bedtime. The majority of our day was spent working on various projects: pouring concrete (bucket-brigade style) for buildings, digging cisterns, moving earth around the construction sites, and painting the church, monastery and surrounding buildings. Some of the cultural/rec things we did included visiting the native tribes Threakie Indians (prounounced Tr-eee-k-ie), visiting work camps and playing with/visiting the children and people living there, we saw visiting various parts of the city to visit the shops and social places the locals went, ate at local taco stands, etc. Additionally, we purchased some of the blankets and crafts the native residents made. I have a beautiful woven blanket on my bed right now. Living wise, we slept on a concrete floor, showered with a garden hose, and ate all the local food (which was great). We had lots of beans, rice, lettuce/salads, tacos, burritos, and the other Mexican classics. We had lots of local drinks (rice milk and the like). Surprisingly, nobody got sick until we returned to the states. That first greasy burger did most of us in. For breakfast we would have some sort of eggs/potatoes or eggs/beans. The beans are high in protein and make great energy food for the day. Water has to be shipped in and everything is conserved. Regular water was a real premium, and drinking water even more so. Each house is allotted so much water each week – and if you run out – you run out. Consequently, one doesn’t flush the toilet unless *really* necessary. Often we filled the toilets with old dish and wash water. You can’t flush toilet paper down the drains because the sewers will clog up so each bathroom had a different way to ‘handle’ that issue. Just going to the bathroom became an adventure. Also while we were there, we really got to know the brothers/friars that lived there. They were mostly younger guys – 20’s to 30’s who had just entered the order. I got to be good friends with two friars and their puppy manches (“Spots” in Spanish). They were very joyful and outgoing. We went to dinners with them and played games with them. I played guitar together with one of them at one morning masses (in Spanish). While we were there, 5 young men took first vows to the community (entered their first year) and 6 new guys took vows to entered the order (second step of entry to becoming a monk). I could go on and on about what we learned; but I’ll sum up a lot. For people that have so very little, they are certainly the most joyful people I’ve ever met. Not to say there is a lot of really awful poverty, oppression, difficult living circumstances. But what was interesting is the fact that just about none of our teens wanted to go back home. Each night we did reflections on the day and what we saw and did. The first night we arrived back to the states (we drove down and back) one of the teens in tears summed up just about everyone’s feelings: “We [our culture] are the poor ones and I’d rather stay. They have everything we truly need – open and loving welcome to everyone, complete trust and reliance on each other, and freely giving whatever they have to strangers. We could never just drive into a park with some coloring books and toys and meet and play with the families and kids there like that. (that was one of the things we did) How many of us never even talk to our neighbors back home? I’m afraid of forgetting what I learned here” It was so powerful to see a group go from typical American teens to not wanting to come back, and calling our society the poorest one they could think of in just 6 days. I felt very much the same. They also learned a lot of humility and instead of thinking of the people they met as just poor people we need to help but people trying to get by who know their system and how to work in it much better than us. They just need extra help to work for justice and do the jobs they are already working on. I personally learned a lot about what one truly needs in their life; and how much we really can go without. I decided to sleep on the floor every now and again to remind me of the trip. Another good exercise is to think back on the most important times in your life. The things that we feel have real and lasting value are almost always relationships we had with others. The love we had for each other are the things we measure ourselves by in hind-sight. We rarely remember/care about the things we owned at the time. Ironically, our culture tells us that we should be independent; but yet it is the very relationships we reject, hold at an arms length or sacrifice for personal desires that will be the things we look back on as having the most meaning. The community we were with has truly has placed the value of relationships within God/family/community first, and work is merely a means to get things done, and provide the necessary things to support those relationships. There is a long way to go for Mexico to achieve a just society, provide education and an environment that affords opportunities to everyone; but they certainly have an understanding of the importance of relationships we can learn from. For me, it was an experience that underlined my relationship with God as the most important one of all; the one that keeps the others in their right balance and depth. Well, that was what I learned. I for one will be returning next year if at all possible. Those that have gone multiple years told me they learn new things each time. Some of you have asked me about the difficulties I have encountered over the last year – what struggles the seminary and its life have brought. Sufficed to say, there are plenty and it’s certainly not always easy - but, I’ll save that for another email. Please feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to include them in the response as well. I have kept all those on this list in my prayers and continue to do so. I hope to hear from all soon. God bless, Matt |