Of Winter in the Antipodes

OK, so I'm here living in Geelong and I'm working down the road about 20 kilometers at St. Ignatius College in Drysdale, Victoria. And it's winter down here. Now, what most people from my neck of the woods would call winter is roughly analogous to what I'm experiencing: it's dark (yesterday was the shortest day of the year and all), it's rainy, and it's cool. Not cold mind you, at least by my standards. But because of the drought of the last few years, I think Melbournians and their nearby neighbors may have forgotten what real winter is like; it seems that for the last few years there wasn't a lot of rain in the winter and the temperatures were a little milder. That has now ended.

With temperatures plunging into the low 50's, people are bundled up like Eskimos. Scarves, wool hats, jumpers, sweatshirts, huge jackets, etc. etc. are all the order of the day. Warranted or not. All of which would be no never mind to me if I weren't living in the Biggest, Darkest, Coldest Church Rectory- EVER. The building, I am given to understand, was originally going to be the Geelong bishop's residence when Geelong split off from Melbourne as a separate diocese. An event which never happened. So it's Bishop Big. High, Georgian ceilings, long corridors, lots of huge bedrooms, a dining room big enough to double as a ballroom. It's really big. The idea, a year or two ago, was that they would lease it out to a group that would develop it into a boutique hotel, and the location for such a venture really is ideal, it's right on the water near a marina in Geelong, so the vistas of the water are beautiful, when it hasn't been overcast and raining. Which would mean yesterday it was beautiful to look out over the water.

So, anyway, back to the development plan. It seems that a 20 year lease was signed and the antique furniture (the Bishop who never was, his furniture) was auctioned off. Then the developers started filing plans, etc. And then, the neighbors became aware of this plan (you can see where this is going, can't you?) and vowed to fight it legally. So the developers dropped the plan, canceled their lease and bailed.

Now the parish priest has moved back in and I have followed suit. He had only moved back in about a week before I did. So we're living in a place that was partially redone to become a hotel (lots of beds in big bedrooms) with little to no furniture. In a mostly non-renovated building. My favorite feature: the circa 1972 velvet wallpaper. Somewhere, there is a steakhouse in the US that has no wallpaper because it was hijacked for a bishop's residence.

It's a little odd rattling around this place with one other person, I have to tell you. It's big, it's cold and it's drafty. Mostly it's weird living in such a big place with only one other person. It has horror movie written all over it. Not necessarily a slasher film, more like "The Legend of Hell House" where there is something creepy and otherworldy going on that you can't *quite* see. More like that.

More to follow...

PS- If you notice the Jaiku feed on the side of the blog and want to join me, let me know and I'll send you a friends invite. Think of it as micro-blogging, kind of like Twitter.

Out the door...again.

I realized that yesterday, while I was rushing around packing, that I didn't get to the action item at the bottom of my 'to-do' list, which was: "Make a new blog entry." So this will be short because I have to be driving in about 2 hours.

I'm getting ready to head out again on another Tertianship experiment. This time I am going to St. Ignatius School in Geelong, Victoria. Two years ago, St. Ignatius was the called Catholic Regional College (CRC). While this might have been accurately descriptive, it seems a little bland by my personal standards, so the name change, to pretty much any saint's name would have been an improvement. But the reason that the CRC changed its name last year was because it has started a twinning agreement with the Society of Jesus and Xavier College, the Jesuit high school in Melbourne. No one knows exactly what this twinning agreement means. Which is part of the reason I'm going there.

To be honest, I don't know what I'll be doing. I don't know where, exactly, I'll be living (other than 'a presbytery in Geelong.' I don't know the people I'll be working with; what their needs are, what they want from the Society and this Jesuit in particular. I don't know. By reading this, you now know as much as I do. So that makes me a little nervous, but everything else that has gone down this year has been so incredibly positive, that I just don't see God throwing a curve ball now. I think the string is going to continue. At least I'm going to act like it's going to continue. Hopefully I'll be posting more soon and we'll all find out what happens next.

Laughter in a Collar

This is Jim Martin, SJ, a noted Catholic author and good personal friend of mine. If you haven't checked out his book, My Life with The Saints, you should.

Here are three You Tube videos of a talk on humor and the Church that Jim recently gave. It's great!

All's fair...

If you know the rest of that quote, then you'll appreciate this. I spent yesterday cruising around Sydney Harbor on the 47' yacht Love and War. She is one of only two vessels to ever win the annual Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) yacht race three times. She did this in '74, '78 and '06. A gap of nearly 30 years is pretty much unheard of in the world of yacht racing due to technology advances, etc. and she did so because of the handicapping system used so that older vessels can compete. Not only that but the winning skipper of the '06 crew was our skipper yesterday. He was a delightful person whose whole goal in going out with us was to: a) Show a bunch of people unfamiliar with sailing what a delight and wonder it is, and b) to meet and have a day with a bunch of Jesuits from all over the world. And he thought he was getting the better end of the deal. Silly rabbit.

At any rate, we sailed up and around the Opera House, the Harbor Bridge, and all these other famous Sydney landmarks and I had a chance to see them in a way that few tourists ever do, from the water. Initially I was a little skeptical about 15 of us out on the boat; thought it might be a bit cramped. But it was an absolutely GORGEOUS Autumn day here in the Southern Hemisphere, just a touch light on breeze, the sailors tell me. Not that I would know. We puttered along at a leisurely pace, 'cheating' and using the motor for the parts of the day that we had no wind. It was marvelous.

A HUGE thank-you to the family who owns Love and War who were our hosts. There were absolutely spectacular. They are related to a deceased Jesuit here and bent over backwards to make sure we had a good time and were spectacular hosts.

So here I am again, posting another post that is designed to make you jealous. I find it hard to express how wonderful this year is for me. I have great classmates. I have had wonderful spiritual experiences. I have been made more welcome in Australia than words can communicate. I don't use terms like 'blessed' often to describe myself or my life. Maybe I should more often. Maybe that's what God is trying to show me is how fortunate I am and how much He cares for me by just keeping a stream of wonderful people and places flowing in my direction. I don't know. Every time I post something like this, I think, "Well, it can't last. It can't possibly keep getting better, can it?" Yet it does. God is good.


The Opera House from the water. Gives you an idea of how beautiful the day was.


The Harbor Bridge, the Opera House and Adrian K., a German Tertian.


The Sydney skyline and the Royal Australian Navy on display.