Home from 'home'

I spent the last three days in California at the Mastery Foundation Board Meeting.

Going to Mastery Board Meetings reminds me of how I used to feel about going 3 times a month to do Eucharists in three different nursing homes--I really don't want to go, but once I'm there it's full of joy and wonder!

The meeting was in Menlo Park, 15 or so miles south of the San Francisco Airport, at a Retreat Center called Vallombrosa Center, ran by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. I've been to lots of retreat centers and Vallombrosa is in the upper half (the top 5 are all in Ireland!) It was a good place made special by the fact that they have tame bunnies on the grounds that you can walk right up to and pet. A drawback for me (though not for most people) is the smoking area is in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. A hike from either my room or where we met.

(Imagine this: what if a retreat center made any other group: women, blacks, gays, Hispanics, Asians--take their breaks only in a small area in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. There would be insurrection and federal discrimination suits against the place!)

People, as you might think--and 'as you might...', give me great grief about smoking at all. But it doesn't faze me. I have developed high-minded 'moral' reasons and human rights and egalitarian reasons for smoking even if I hated it (which I don't). First of all, I am a priest of the Church, called to stand with the 'oppressed' of the planet and few groups are as 'oppressed' as smokers. Secondly, by smoking, I call into question the whole liberal/progressive commitment to 'equality'. There's nothing remotely 'equal' about being shamed to the parking lot near the trash dumpsters (even if their are two chairs and a shaded table beside the Grecian Urn sized ash tray). Finally, smoking keeps me in touch with 'the real people' instead of hiding out in the midst of the privileged and well-off. In the three days I was there the only person I ever smoked with that wasn't one of the mostly Hispanic and Black kitchen and cleaning staff was Alan, who joined me twice to have one of his little Cubans. If Jesus came again and, as he did the first time round, mixed with the marginalized and the outcasts, one of the places he would be in Menlo Park was in the parking lot of the Vallombrosa Center with the cooks and waiters and cleaners and me and Alan.

So, don't go trying to make me feel bad about smoking! (Plus, I really enjoy it....)

There are two things about Mastery Board Meetings that make them joyful and wondrous. First and foremost are the people on the Board: the Board is made up of a dozen or so extremely gifted, humorous and smart people and me. (That's my only use in this post of the "Appalachian Pity Party" stance....) They are an incredible group and I've known and loved many of them for years. I met two I'd never met before and after three days I felt like I'd known and loved them for years!

Secondly, it is an opportunity to be immersed for a few days in a life-giving and transforming conversation. The vehicle of the Foundations work is 'conversation' that empowers and transforms. Hanging around that--as odd as the 'language-ing' of the conversation is (and it IS odd by most any standard)--is exhilarating.

I've written before and doubtless will again about 'the work of Being' that Mastery is (to throw out a little piece of odd language-ing). I just wanted to ponder for a few moments how few things in my life form who I 'be' more than that conversation.

We went to dinner together in a private dining room of a local restaurant on Saturday night. Ann, the executive director of the Foundation had invited us to bring a poem to share at dinner (that, in and of itself, is a rather odd thing to do at dinner!) I planned to read a poem by Billy Collins but forgot to take the book and don't own (or want to) a smart phone, which was the page from which most people read.

So, Saturday morning, I wrote a poem before breakfast to share with those dear friends of mine. I'll share it with you as well.

EPIPHANIES

    {Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive insight into the deep down meaning of things, usually caused by what is ordinary, common place and day-to-day)

Once, years ago,
I was wandering around
the grounds
of a huge convent
in Holyoke, Massachuttes.

(As professions came fewer
and farther between,
the convent became
a conference center and
a home for aging nuns.)

Wandering, 
I happened on the Convent's
graveyard.

Simple to the extreme,
the grave stones
said only three things:
the nun's chosen name,
the date of her final vows
and the date of  her death.

Yet, I couldn't help notice
how many years
those nuns had been
in religious life.
I lost count at around 2064.

Two millennia of service
to their God
buried on a 
New England hillside.

For days, I pondered
the wonder of those centuries.
I stared, open-eyed,
into the deep-down meaning
of loving your God.

Last night, sitting at those tables,
listening to the dozen or so of you
talk,
that sudden, intuitive insight
came flooding back.

All the decades of commitment
in that room
opened my eyes
to this:
  how many years altogether,
  we, seated there--
  just ordinary people--
  had spent longing 
  to create a future
  where everyone
  (not just us but 'everyone')
  can BE....

I thank you so much for that.
So
very
much....