I Be An Demi-God...

So, I arrived in West Wyalong on Saturday, in the rain. And it rained on Sunday and Monday too. Now, to those of you in the states reading this, particularlly those of you in the Pacific Northwest, you're reading that and likely thinking "Big whoop, three days of rain, so what?" Well, here, it was a regarded as something of a minor miracle. Consider this: No one here can remember when the last time they got three consecutive days of rain was.

Minor miracle indeed. And, as these things often are, the event was associated with an agent, if you will. In this case, me, and my arrival. Rain bringer, that's me! "Bless you Father, you brought the rain with you, dint-ya?" It is really heartbreaking to see these farmers hanging on and hoping against hope that this will be the year it breaks. I've never seen anything quite like it in the states, even though I lived through a few years of drought in Western Washington growing up. But a Western Washington drought and an Australian bush drought are Light Years apart, it seems to me.

And right now, these farmers are biting their lips and trying to figure out how much to risk in a gamble. See, with three days of rain, they can plant a crop to be harvested later in the year. A crop that will grow and maybe break their run of bad luck, harvest-wise. It will grow IF there is more rain for the rest of the year. So what it comes down to is:

a) Plant and hope we get enough rain to get back on a real farming track.

b) Plant and we don't get enough rain and guess what, you're now SEVEN years in debt with your farm rather than six.

You understand why they bite their lips when considering these things. You also understand why three days of rain represents hope for them.

Me? I'm a little uneasy with the Legendary Rain God status I achieved merely by showing up. See, I have visions of "The Wicker Man," a cheesy horror fantasy film from 1973. Only this version doesn't have Brit Ecklund doing her musical number. Perhaps I fear it will all end in a druidic style sacrifice if and when the rains do stop (even someone raised in the Puget Sound area knows that eventually they WILL stop.) I have a vision of being led out into a wheat field somewhere, and like the kings who had failed to produce good harvests for the people, my throat will be cut to appease some Outback desert God, then a new king will be appointed. I doubt it will come to that. But the way my luck runs, you can't rule it out.

While I've been typing this a new weather report just came over the wireless (that would be the device known as the radio in the Northern Hemisphere):

It will start raining again this afternoon and we can expect more rain for the next three days.

I will invite you all to the dedication of the statue when it is announced.

I've been busy...

...since the retreat we've had a fair bit of class, there have been a lot of things to do, including being the chaplain on a Kairos retreat for students from St. Ignatius, Riverview (lotta fun but some late nights.) So I have been inattentive to the blog.

I AM, however, working on a longer post that is more about the retreat. But tomorrow I am headed for the bustling metropolis of West Wyalong, New South Wales. It's out there. I mean, waaaaay out there. It's basically a poor wheat-farming community. I'm going out there to direct about 12 people in a retreat in everyday life. The area has been wracked by drought for about the last four years. In the last two years, about 20 farmers from the area have committed suicide, generally they have been so depressed by the financial repercussions of the drought that they have despaired of ever really being able to have their farms be theirs again. Even if the drought broke tomorrow, many farmers would still lose their farms. It's pretty grim. If you are the praying type, praying for rain wouldn't be a bad idea...

So I'll probably be able to post from out there, but we'll see what the web availability is. The Tertians are all going out to dinner tonight at a Viet restaurant which should be fun. See you soon, inshallah.

And, into the sunlight...

OK, as of this morning, I'm out of the Long Retreat. I'm smoked. For the fact I haven't done much over the last month (depending on how you measure these things), I'm exhausted. I probably won't post a lot here about what went on...it just doesn't translate into 'web' that well. Of course, I am also in the process of figuring it all out myself, and THAT will take me a while. If you want to know what it was like, for me, it was like a Spiritual Ranger School. Only with more food. I didn't get a lot of sleep (self-inflicted). I had a great spiritual guide and companion. The weather was superb (it's what Northern Hemisphere dwellers would call Autumn, but not like Autumn, strangely). That's about it. So, what CAN I tell you? I ran a lot. More than that... like 6-8 miles a day and 10-15 miles on a long day. Over 4 weeks, that's a lot of miles, I can tell you. I prayed a lot. I walked and cleaned and did a lot of work in the Jesuit graveyard near by (exercising Chris W's 'preferential option for the dead.') For those of you who were praying for us, a big thanks. It helped, and believe me, I needed it. I'll file a real update and maybe a picture or two when I get back to Sydney next week.