Reminders of Many Good Things

We're all challenged to do the good things we can where we are. The challenges abound in all our lives. When I write about my own activities related to the people I work with here, I always feel a little self indulgent, so I remind myself that many people have contributed to my being here and that they might want to know more about what I'm doing and how that's going. I also remind myself of the good work going on back home, and that leads me to my favorite example of a boring blog entry--writing about brushing my teeth.  I'll be brief.

I was brushing my teeth and stroked my way to a crown¹ where once a mighty molar had stood.² The crown is faring well, and for some reason I remembered at that moment that my dentist in Nashville who had installed the appliance had remarked when he heard that Lynn and I were becoming lay missioners with Franciscan Mission Service, "you know, I believe Arlo Guthrie became a Franciscan a while back." So, when I had a free moment today I poked around on the internet and found the website for the Guthrie Center, a physical and virtual site for the promotion of spiritual positivism. What a great idea to sponsor interfaith dialogue and respect for indigenous cultures, especially within a nation of such diverse beliefs. The philosophy and activities relate directly to what Lynn and I have been doing here, especially regarding some of the activities in October.

On October 8 the Franciscans in Cochabamba held the first annual national song festival to encourage contemporary musicians to compose songs that relate to the spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare. On the evening of the eighth the best entrants from around Bolivia performed their songs live.  The opportunity to perform their songs was an award in itself, but the performers also received plaques of recognition, and the winner, an individual singer and guitarist, was also proclaimed. (I'll try to post a brief video clip here of some of the performers.) The idea for the contest and concert came from Juan Antonio, a Franciscan brother from Mexico who said that this is a very popular activity in Mexico as well.  When the concert for Franciscan spirituality in Bolivia was first being announced Lynn and I displayed one of the posters in Carcel Abra, the prison where we teach.  Unfortunately, I believe no one from the
prison submitted an entry despite there being a number of able musician/song composers there.

From the 11th thru the 14th of this month Lynn and I also attended several evenings of the local conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of Vatican II. As I look back on the presentations, I think what affected me most was the large attendance--more people than could fit into the large lecture hall.  It felt good to see so many people there, and among them to recognize the faces of people we've had the good fortune to meet and work with while we've been here--friends we made while we were students at the Maryknoll Language Institute but hadn't seen since we returned from Carmen Pampa, friends from our worksites, friends from our own Franciscan Mission Service, friends from our barrio--and some had been here in Bolivia only a few months, and others had been here for a few decades.  Overall, I think the talks emphasized the increasing role and responsibility of the laity and also reminded me that I had some reading to do on the documents of the Vatican II Council.

This past Tuesday we completed the course on Franciscan spirituality that focused on selections from the Admonitions. Here, we met more of the young bothers and sisters of the Order. The course was taught by Sister Ada Galioto, an Italian Franciscan. Despite our arriving late several times, she always welcomed us and included us in her congenial attack-mode style of teaching to be sure that we were listening and understanding.  On the final evening of the class we received our Tau-encircled diplomas. And, unexpectedly for me, she also called me to the front of the class and presented me with a beautiful old volume of the writings of Francis and Clare of Asisi in Spanish.  She wished Lynn and me the best of luck in our spiritual journey and asked me to read the bookmark card she had included with it. It depicted a payaso, or clown, above the following words:

Vive Mas Intensamente
Rie Mas Facilmente
Mira Mas Claramente
Ama Mas Profundamente

or, as many of us more commonly know it,

Live More Intensely
Laugh More Easily
Look More Clearly
Love More Profoundly

Of course, when included as a directive with the Franciscan Admonitions it seemed to me at first inappropriate, but I thought of the Apology of Socrates, and for that matter, the description of Socrates--I think by Alcibiades--as being like the image of a silenos, or lascivious creature on the outside but with the image of a god on the inside.  I think Sister Ada was alluding to the paradox that through the Admonitions one might embrace life more fully.  What a wonderful gift. It reminded me of two other unexpected gifts: once in high school when as a sophomore I was given a trophy for my effort in running for the track team (completely unexpected), and once at the end of our son Norbert's senior year when the head of the English department selected him to receive the award for outstanding writing and gave him a beautiful old volume of Shakespeare's history play Henry V. Norbert bore the honor well, and I hope Lynn and I will too.

Before ending this post I need to thank an old friend, Peter, for calling to my attention the History Channel's program about the prospect that outlaw Butch Cassidy survived to return in his later years from Bolivia to the US. With that in mind Lynn and I perused the bins of the street vendors here and found a copy of the film Blackthorn (Sin Destino). It does a good job, I think, of emphasizing the hazards of action or inaction in a morally ambiguous universe and will probably become one of the films in the next series of Filmanía at Pastoral Juvenil here in Cochabamba.

Enough for now.

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¹ I was brushing with a generic toothbrush with "extra suave" bristles and using Aquafresh paste. No, there are no stars in my crown.
² Was this the place that crunched a thousand chips? (Thanks and apologies to Chris Marlowe.)