first stop on the road: Seattle

Jun trying to push a Melinda-flavored donut down the hill.

First stop in Washington camp was great. It was a relatively easier program to do, but more significant for MAX2007 because it allowed the team members to finally feel out some definitive roles on the retreat. Up until now, we've been on retreat ourselves, getting ourselves ready to hit the road, attuning ourselves to the spiritual tone of the tour (through Pope Benedict's 2007 message to youth), getting to know one another by living in community, and driving all over place (and getting snowed in between California and Oregon). It showed me how people will work in a retreat environment, and how we can deliver the theme of "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34). It was satisfying to start doing what we set out to do, and then see the love and camaraderie and prayer come together in a cohesive, effective way. The miracles along the way have been numerous and astounding just to get to this point, even getting the vehicles to ride in. Situational poverty has never been this fun.

We head out for Corvallis tomorrow.

flags + letters

Last week, saw Flags of Our Fathers in the second run theater nearby (can't beat $2 for a movie), then saw its (not sequel) companion? Counterpart? in Letters from Iwo Jima yesterday.

I don't remember an instance where two movies that came out in a very short space of time showed two sides of the same event, so that, and the war stuff, got my attention. Neither of the films is really pro-American or pro-Japanese (or anti-, either). Like most poignant war films, the point was more about the universal suffering that goes on regardless of political or ethnic affiliations in armed conflicts, including the moral ambiguity, the homesickness, the red tape that can rears its head at the most inopportune times, and the camaraderie. The treatment never felt sentimental, or pretentious, or unnecessarily glorifying of the hero ethic. It hit the emotional notes just right.

Flags of Our Fathers:


Letters from Iwo Jima:


Taking Sunday for the west coast, warm weather, the ocean, and getting ready for retreats. Here we go.

new addiction

Finetune, for those of you who like making playlists for online radios and finding out about new music that matches your taste. Pandora is fun, also.

Warning: totally, hopelessly addictive for music lovers.

a word from Ed

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

Dear Friends in Christ,

Each morning I slowly recite, "Our Father... thy will be done" of the Lord's Prayer as I ask God that that which I know in thought and profess in words may become realized in deed. Holiness consists one thing: complete loyalty to the will of God. The saints who lived came in all shapes and sizes: men and women, consecrated and married vocations, young and old, yet their uniting characteristic was that of perfect obedience to God's will during their lifetime. Complete loyalty to the Divine Will may be the single greatest challenge known to man precisely because it involves the renunciation of our will. Humans tend to tenaciously guard their free will and unyielding when opposed. A brief examination of our preferences, daily choices, manner of doing what we want, when we want, and how we want it, illustrates this point. I recently heard a meditation entitled, "The Maturation of the Vocation", dealing with vocation in reference to the Divine Will. The speaker referred to vocation as the response to God's calling and that unwillingness to renounce your own plans for responding to the vocation would ultimately destroy it. One cannot serve love affirming oneself...

I have been absolutely enamored with Sanctity ever since I realized that it was the one pursuit in life worthy of investing my every endeavor. I never cease to be inspired in reading the lives of the Saints and in zealous moments swear that I will not settle for anything less than His infused presence in the Transforming Union in this life. The meditation I heard served as a good examination of conscience. Jesus tells us, "Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven" (Mt 7:21). I thought about the fact that many people serve God, but how many serve Him in the manner in which He desires to be served by adhering to the Divine Will? For a servant unwilling to listen is of no use to his master. "Do I really love the will of God? Am I willing to do whatever it takes in being loyal?" I realized that as noble as my desire for holiness may be it is still in need of purification. I reflected upon the life of Maurice Bellière (the adopted spiritual child of St. Thérèse of Lisieux), a man with whom I could identify who was filled with magnanimous aspirations in serving God on the missions through preaching the Gospel in Africa and gaining the crown of martyrdom. His life didn't unfold quite like he would have expected. He was never considered to be a great man of heroic virtue by anyone who knew him while his experience in the missions left him somewhat deluded. He would eventually contract a fatal disease which would definitively conclude his missionary career and toward the end of his life went out of his mind passing away in relative obscurity in an insane asylum at the age of 33. I desire to be the type of saint John Vianney and Thérèse of Lisieux lived to be, but would I be willing to forego my glorious notion of sanctity for a humiliating one like that of Maurice Bellière if God so willed??? Even for the saints, it was not always easy deferring their will to God's. Three times, St. Paul asks for liberation from a thorn in the flesh (2 Cor 12:7-9) which God does not grant. St. Louis IX preferred the monastic life to being a ruler and only out of obedience to the Divine Will was King of France. Saint John Vianney, who heard the confessions of penitents for over four decades sometimes up to 17 hours daily, several times fled from his parish seeking a more contemplative life yet always returned in obedience. If we are not completely loyalty to the Divine Will, let us ask God to at least make us want to be loyal to Him. "Lord, help me want to be what you want me to be".

On this World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life, let us pray for all Priests, Religious, and Consecrated persons, that they may be a witness of the total self-donation to God they have professed and live their vocation to Holiness through complete loyalty to the Divine Will.

In Jesus and Mary,

Edward

Super Bowl magic

Actual email exchange between me and Max this week (I'll take out the smiley faces to protect the identity of the innocent):

Max:
it just hit me, your team [Sox] won when you were unemployed. Now that we're
both unemployed, the Bears have to win!

me:
Also, in 98 when we graduated, and when I was FIRST unemployed, even the fricking Cubs made it to the playoffs as the wildcard, and I was unemployed when the Chubbies won the division in 2003, and then there was 2005 of course, and now. Weird.

Max:
Ah, the Cubs curse develops further. If the Cubs make it to the playoffs & want to win, they should make sure the Gat has a job.

Other than us and most of Chicago, there isn't anyone in America that gives the Bears a chance. I know better than to prognosticate, but here's what the BEHRS need to do to see if Coach Ditka can still shuffle:

1. Peyton Manning knows all about the Cover 2, since Lovie got it from Indy coach Tony Dungy. The teams that have given Indy and Manning the most trouble have been 3-4 teams like Pittsburgh and New England. Lots of pressure on Urlacher and the safeties to make every tackle, because I don't think there'll be much of a pass rush generated by the front four.
2. Rex will need to deliver in some difficult situations, mostly due to the fact that the Bears' line hasn't faced a speed rusher like Dwight Freeney off the edge all season, meaning fumbles/interceptions. Staring down the barrel of a 3rd or 4th and long, can he do it? If the Bears get down late, can he bring them back?
   
3. A big one from the Windy City Flyer.
   
4. The one or two horrendous passes Manning throws into the numbers of the defense (he ends up outsmarting himself, and throws a laser right at a corner, almost Favre-like), they gotta catch and score it, not just get good field position.
   
5. Hopefully Peyton can choke on the bile from tasting his own legacy being cemented, after never beating Florida in college, and taking 4 attempts to beat New England. You know he's thought about all of the magazine articles and TV pieces if he doesn't get this one. Heck, he even has to win for his dad. That's way too much pressure on one guy, and I'm thinking he'll pull an A-Rod. Even A-Rod doesn't have to win for his dad.

I could use some good luck on Saturday at the job fair, too.