Discernment

Lynn and I finished the re-entry program for Franciscan Mission Service several weeks ago. We are still in Washington, DC, searching for the sense of affirmation that our next steps will be in the right direction. We may still move to San Diego to work.  We also may stay in Washington. We hope to find work where we feel needed. During this time we don't feel very relaxed even if we're doing relaxing things. Yesterday was different.

While we started Sunday with our usual should we go, or should we stay confusion, we actually transcended for a while when we attended Mass at Saint Camillus Church in Silver Spring.  While there we saw some of the people who had supported our mission in Bolivia, and it felt good to be reminded that we went there with plans to do good work and that we had been supported in that effort by many people, not just the ones we met with at the Mass.

Presiding over the Mass was Father Mike Johnson, and he had just returned from Cochabamba and some of his continuing work in the same prison where Lynn and I taught for two years. In his homily he urged us all to think of  Lent not just as a time to give up something but to consider what good we might be able to do and how we might have to struggle some to release ourselves from our own preferences, to feel some confusion about what we're supposed to be doing and to accept that good works can carry on even after our part in them is done.

That helped, and throughout the homily I was remembering the guys Lynn and I had worked with in the prison, hoping that they would be able to focus on their work inside and serve their time and leave. The Saint Camillus choir as usual was very good.

After Mass we drank a coffee during the Church's social gathering and took some notes from friends  on possible job leads. I also bought a pound of the free trade coffee sold there.  It was Ethiopian and reminded me of a student I had in Nashville.  I hoped that her English was progressing and that she and her family had found a good neighborhood to live in when they moved to Houston, something different from the sad violence of Prince George County I had been reading about in the Washington Post.

Later in the afternoon we attended a concert at Marymount University in Arlington, VA. The music director there had been a domestic volunteer at Franciscan Mission Service before Lynn and I left for Bolivia.  Now she's married, expecting a baby and also finds time to orchestrate a choral concert for Lent. She played piano and directed the choir and ensemble orchestra. Before each section of the concert a picture was displayed, reminding us of the steps leading to the crucifixion.The final picture was particularly meaning-

ful for me.  I think the caption stated that we're still in God's grace even if we don't know what we're doing.

So, on that grace note, I'll rest up for tomorrow. Oh, and happy birthday, Norbert!