His Lips Have Stopped Moving...

As many of you have noticed I have been silent here the last few weeks. My apologies.

Ironically, the reason that I have been silent is not because I didn't have anything to say or report or tell you all about. On the contrary, the problem is that I've been writing a great deal. That is, I am going through one of the most productive periods of writing that I have ever had. I think I've just about got 3 solid chapters for a...wait for it...book.

One of them is a radically re-worked version of the Bush Lunch episode that was my previous post. The other two are similar in tone but different in context; one details an experience I had on the Long Retreat and the other is about a fishing trip I took right before I left West Wyalong.

Now, dear readers, I don't want you to think that you are somehow undeserving of these objet d'arte of the literary kind. The problem is that I think they're good enough to be published in a form (print, in this case) which might get a wider audience than this simple country blog. And, in this day and age when I do get something published it is pretty standard to sign a contract saying it hasn't been previously published elsewhere. Like, say, on the web. So I'm reluctant to post these here and now (and believe me, I've uploaded them and deleted them twice because I really want to share them with someone.) They're good. Really good in my opinion, but then I'm biased. A sidebar note on the productivity: I think that the prodigious nature of my writing these days is a sign of how well life is going down here and how much Grace God is hitting me with. When I can write like this, it's crazy good and that means God is really doing something. More on that in a later post.

In the mean time. I owe you something. You come here looking for something. For many of you it's your way of caring about me long distance, and I appreciate that. A great deal. So, here are some photos of the Epic Herculean Fishing Trip of which I am currently writing. Enjoy and thanks.


This is Bernie and I in a Snowy River snow storm. Self-explanatory, right?


And here we are telling lies about the ones that got away.


This was LITERALLY what greeted me when I came into West Wyalong. They just wanted me to feel at home, I guess.


Breakfast while fishing. The only thing missing? Fish. But that's another story...


I could stand at this bend in the river and fish all day. Heaven will be like Tom Groggin Station. Trust me.


Yep. I've gone bush. Utterly and totally.

Picnic! Bush Style

So, a farming family from the parish invited the pastor of the church where I am here in West Wyalong and myself to what they called a 'Bar-bee in the bush' yesterday. After the late morning Mass, we unwound a bit, changed into casual clothes and headed out of town about 15 miles to the family farm.

Pulling up at the house, Les W., the patriarch of the clan, greeted us at the picket fence surrounding the classically Australian farm house. He was carrying a large platter. "For the meat." He informed us as we got out of the car. "Why don't you just jump back in and follow me out to where we're cooking." Which we did. Across several more miles of farmland that is bearing just a stubble of green from last weeks rains. We ended up in a small stand of Eucalyptus trees (which the locals also call gum trees here.) There, we found a gargantuan picnic table, groaning under the weight of various covered picnicky things, some chairs and a swinging bench arranged in a large semi-circle and about 3 large fire pits with stone rings around them which had lots of...objects buried in the smoldering ashes of each one.

As soon as we got out of the car, we were greeted by the Australian national bird, the fly. In a great swarm. Flies, I have discovered are ubiquitous in Australia and while they appear in numbers that stagger the imagination, and they ARE annoying, they are not as numerous as parts of Southwest Asia I have been in. The other notable quality of the Australia fly is that it is slow. And stupid. So, for the rest of the afternoon, the fly was our constant companion, especially when eating the sweet things at the end of the day... No more will I mention them, because if I did, it is all I would have left to say in this post...fly fly, flyity fly fly. You get the idea.

Already out at the sight were Les' daughter-in-law, Katrina and son Chris. Soon others arrived, with their kids in tow. After about 45 minutes we had a crowd of about 20-25 people gathered, including all the toddlers running about. One of the late arrivals was John. John is the sacristan at the parish, flew missions against the Japanese during World War II and has spent lots of time what Australians call 'up North' indicating the far reaches of the Northern territory where 'going bush' is not an option, but the general mode of living. John pulled up, immediately dug into the boot of his car (what North Americans call the trunk) and produced what looked like, to the untrained eye, two cans, one larger, one smaller. These were not, in fact, old cans, they turned out to be an elaborate and highly efficient heating system for boiling large quantities of water, needed for that staff of life for nearly all of those children descended from that tree known as British Empire, 'tea.' John made 'bush tea.' Heating the kettle with Eucalyptus twigs and using tea bags, but throwing in Eucalyptus leaves as well, and, I suspect, other arcane bush ingredients that I am likely happier not knowing what they are. It will suffice to say that you could tan leather with the tea which was produced. And yet, it did have a certain appeal.

Before the tea though, came the parade of food which began to rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of the various fire pits. Everything except the desserts had been cooked in them. Two massive Dutch ovens appeared which yielded the tenderest of mutton and pork, two small cast iron pots with handles were excavated which contained peas and carrots, respectively. Seemingly hundreds of large silver nuggets were produced from deep within the ash, some of which were fire-roasted potatoes, some kumera (an antipodal name for a sweet potato-like tuber), and some produced pumpkin (another staple of the diet here which has received little penetration into the North American diet, for the most part.)

The whole affair was kind of like being on the set of "Crocodile Dundee's Thanksgiving Special." Food. Food. More food. Then came what I have taken to calling The Parade of Desserts. With this many women around who are stay at home moms, the number of deserts was staggering. And they all wanted to know 'Father's Opinion' of their dessert. The apple pie was very nice, a touch of apricot and perhaps a little lemon just adding a bit of tartness. The trifle was not to be trifled with. The sponge cake with strawberries, kiwi fruit and cream was delightful, the home made Cherry Ripe, I thought was the punctuation mark in the Parade turned out to be merely a comma, rather than a full stop and was excellent. Reeling at this point, I turned to a cup of John's Bush Tea for a respite, only to be confronted with a huge slice of his birthday cake (we sang "Happy Birthday" in the shade of the gum tree.) At this point, I was ready to lapse into both a mutton and sugar coma.

The setting was truly idyllic, other than the aforementioned pests. A low winter sun, but a warm day, in this tiny clearing in the middle of nowhere. A family of generations of farmers doing what generations of farmers have done for their guests. Food that was as uniquely prepared as it was delicious. Exotic birds, mostly parrots, singing and calling in the bush. Not a snake or funnel web spider to be found. It was quiet in its own, far-from everything way. At least as quiet as an event like this laden with 10 small kids can be. But they were bush kids doing busy things, swinging from trees, playing with toy tractors, etc.

As we were getting ready to go, Jared, the eldest son, and I were standing watching the sun slink toward the horizon in the shade of that mammoth gum tree.

"I love this place." He said. "It's groiyt, idn't it?"

I nodded my agreement.

"People can say all they want about the bush, but sometimes, when I've been out on the farm all day, and I'm on my way back to the house, I stop here in the ute. I just get out, walk around for a minute, say a quick prayer of thanks for this place and head on back to the house."

I nodded again, understanding that there could be no greater compliment he could pay to the Creator, and that nothing could be more heart-felt and appropriate than that simple prayer of thanks. I'd be happy to eat with the flies like that any time.

(I took a number of pictures which, once I regain access to broadband, I will append to this post.)

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.

Off the Grid and Into the Cave

This will be the last post for a while. Early on Saturday morning I will depart in an automobile for Sevenhill, South Australia, the natal location of the Society of Jesus in Australia. The Wikipedia page does not really do the place justice, I am given to understand. You see, upon arriving in Australia, the Jesuits there discovered that they were unable to acquire suitable altar wines for use at Mass. Being rational, intelligent men, they did the logical thing and started their own vineyard. The vineyard is still under the ownership of the Society and there is even a Jesuit there who is listed as "Winemaker Emeritus" in the Australian province catalog. (Oh that the Society owned a brewery, I would have a position to aspire to; "Brewmaster Emeritus." Oh, I could get used to the sound of that.) The website for the winery, if you would like more information about the austerity to which I am going to subject myself, is located here. Taste the history in every drop indeed. You may wish to order some of the wares from the website so that you may determine their suitability for your uses.

So, some of you are asking yourselves, what, exactly, is he going to do there? I will be making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. For those of you not in the loop on that, it means that I will be sequestered in silence for 30 days, more or less. Praying 4-5 hours per day. A more detailed survey of the Exercises is found here. At this point, many of you who know me are chortling to yourselves. "Keep his mouth shut for 30 days? Unlikely..." you titter. (I can hear you tittering, you know.) Each Jesuit makes the Exercises at least twice in his life: as a novice and as a tertian. Some may make the Exercises more, but twice would be more typical. I will have it known that during my first pass at the Exercises, I was one of four retreatants and my classmates commented on my rigid adherence to the instructions on silence and modesty of the eyes. I believe the exact phrase they used was "Silence Nazi," but I may be incorrect. I doubt it though, a phrase like "Silence Nazi" stays with you. It was interesting to note the inverse relationship between introversion and silence; curiously enough, my first time around, the more introverted an individual was, the less need they felt to observe the silence. My moniker may tell you something about the depths of my extroversion...

I look forward to this second turn at the Exercises. One of the other features of the Exercises from my first time around was that I was quite certain I had broken them. That is, I was so afraid of doing them correctly, that there was no way I could do them correctly, if you follow me. Good things happened, to be sure, but my rigid need to follow the letter and execute them perfectly also (probably) got in the way of what God desired to do with me. 18 years on, I think I'm in a different space internally. At least I hope I am. One of the places I hope I am more free is on retreat. It is now my experience that God, like a good guerilla, will dictate the terms of engagement. Do I come to the retreat with my own hopes and expectations? My own 'agenda' if you will? Yes, absolutely. How could I not do so? But somewhere in the last eighteen years I learned that God will take control of these types of things and do with you as he will, not necessarily what you expected to happen. So I have certain questions that I approach the experience with, things I would like answered. I am also completely open to God bringing me to a place I cannot forsee or expect. That is God's job, as near as I can tell, to be quite honest.

So I note that some of you gentle readers frequent this haunt with regularity (I have my ways of knowing, as I'm sure you know, if you know me...). I do not want you to be shocked when these airwaves go silent for a month or so. If you're the praying type, I'd ask you to pray for us (all 13 of us will be making this journey, separately together, if you will.) If you're not, then you may observe the natural beauty of the place on the website and wonder what delights of vinticulture I am immersing myself in. It shall be an adventure, I know that. A few thrills, a couple spills and maybe something I don't even know yet...I look forward to it. See you in a month.

Fauna Update

Last night four of us went to the movies and I was elected to drive. It's only a short way to the theater and when we were about 1/2 there, the Canadian in the back seat started in with "Oh thank God! It's on the outside! Oh thank God! It's on the outside!" Inquiring, he informed the rest of us that there was a Huntsman Spider running around the outside of the car.

"Uh-huh." I thought.

Spider on the outside of the car. What-evs. Until we got to the parking garage for the theater and a Huntsman the size of a beagle came loping down the windscreen. Honestly, this thing was HUGE. It trotted down into the gap where the windshield wipers get tucked when not in use and was lost to sight.

It was at this moment that the primary user of the car, the rector of the community where I'm living, piped in with: "Oh yes, he's been in here since the weekend. He was on the inside of the car on Saturday night. He seems to go back and forth from inside to outside somehow." This just after the spider has headed, unseen, for the engine compartment. Where the ducts which go from the heating/AC to the cab are. The size of this thing was...substantial. Seriously, it was probably 3"-4" across it's legs. And disturbing.

I now know where Peter Jackson got his inspiration for 'Shelob' in the film version of Lord of the Rings. He must have been staying in a hotel over here and found one in his room. He promptly called its agent and got it signed and it appears, lifesize, in the film, her name is Fiona and she lives in Milson's Point now if you want her autograph.

So at any rate, I find a parking space and we rapidly exited the car. Peering down toward the wipers, I couldn't see the beast.

I spent the whole film worrying about driving home. As I got in the car, I again looked down in the wiper slot and there were eight beady little eyes, the size of push pin balls, staring back at me. My entrance and locking of the door was swift.

One fool started to open his window because the Sydney night was muggy and warm. "What do you think you are doing? I don't care if we all roast, we are NOT exposing ourselves to that spider." He rolled the window back up.

I began driving toward the exit and the keychain, dangling down from the ignition brushed against the inside of my knee and I nearly rocketed through the windscreen. As we exited the parking garage, down a long, straight ramp, he popped out and began racing down the hood of the vehicle. Fairly certain that he meant to disable it and wait us out on the parking ramp, picking us off one by one, I jammed on the brakes and he disappeared over the edge of the hood. I gunned it in an attempt to crush him, but I don't know for certain that he actually fell off the vehicle. He made no further appearances, but I suspect he clung on, and I half expected him to pop back up at the last minute, a la Lord Wez at the end of The Road Warrior (Mad Max II for some of you). I made it home and parked the car. Got out hastily and gave the bonnet a cursory inspection. No spider.

My theories are that a) He may have gotten knocked off but is now only angry and will take this anger out on my when it finds its way home or: b) it is currently affixed to the undercarriage of the vehicle, waiting for me to come close enough to poison and feed upon.

If I stop posting abruptly, you'll know why.