Tonight is an eclipse of the moon. That happens when the earth moves and spins in front of the sun and blocks out the light that the moon reflects from the sun.
At fairs and such, when I was a child, my parents always wanted me to ride the Merry-go-round sitting on a horse, spinning around. I always felt a bit nauseous on the ride, but I did it because it made my parents happy. (For many children, the pressure that you are the cause of your parents' happiness is a great burden. It was for me, an only child of parents in their 40's when I was born....)
The earth spins (I looked it up) at 1038 miles per hour at the equator, where it spins fastest. Here in Connecticut it spins about 750-800 miles an hour so it can spin between the sun and the moon and make a lunar eclipse.
Isn't it wonderful that we can't feel the earth spinning a couple of hundred miles an hour faster than an 727 flies? Otherwise everyone on earth would feel a bit sick at their stomach all the time: the stock market couldn't function, Congress couldn't...well, Congress obviously doesn't function anyway, spinning or not, life as we know it would come to a stop while we all thought about throwing up.
Merry-go-rounds probably spin at, at best 15 miles an hour. Imagine spinning in Costa Rica at 1000 miles an hour or in Cheshire at 775 miles an hour. Well, you can't imagine that.
I'm just pondering an eclipse of the moon, that probably won't happen before I go to bed though I can see the full moon through the hemlock trees to the east of our back porch. Actually, I can see the moon perfectly well from the window above my computer where I sit typing since that window faces east. If the moon starts to eclipse (though I think it will be most dramatic in Europe where the world--as it is here--is spinning at a breath-taking speed) I'll come back and tell you about it since I can see the moon through the upper right pane of my window.
I'm just glad I don't feel sick at my stomach from spinning so fast....
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Ireland 4 and last....
Ok, so I've heard from one of the participants who read an earlier blog and recognized himself. We've exchanged several emails and all it well, but I'm going to bring this conversation about the Making a Difference workshop in Ireland to an end with this post.
And this post is about Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is the heart of the workshop and what most people take away that lasts. The Language-ing of the workshop fades fast if you don't use it. It's simply too disruptive to remember if you don't have someone to remember it with. The Language is wondrous and vital but it is contained and lived into in Centering Prayer.
The language is about 'being' and Centering Prayer is a prayer of 'being'. So the prayer keeps the language alive in a subliminal way.
Here's the way we see Centering Prayer in the workshop. It is bare bones and blue collar.
"Put your butt on the chair and intend to be with God for 20 minutes."
That is the whole thing in less than 20 words.
"Intention" is the key. "Intend" to pay attention to the God who dwells within you in the silence of your life and you will get what you get.
There is no 'right way' or 'wrong way' to do centering prayer, which drives people crazy since they want to 'do it right' and 'be good at it'. Vain hopes.
Sit down. Intend to be with God in the silence of your soul.
Take a prayer word (can be anything, best something that doesn't give you emotional content--mine is 'abba', Jesus' name for his father...more like, 'Daddy', but it is a foreign word...Aramaic, and with no emotion in me attached to it.)
Be still and silent and intend to be with God. And whenever anything impinges on your silence and intent, simply and gently use your prayer word to return to the Center and your intention and God.
That's all there is. There ain't much more.
Try it. It's easy. And you get what you get. No one is 'grading' you on how well you center. If you 'intend' to be with God, you will be. And it might not be what you wanted or needed. 'Want' and 'Need' have nothing to do with it.
Put your butt in the chair, shut up, listen for God. That and that only.
And what you get is what you get AND what you GET is your prayer, whatever that is. You're not being graded.
God is simply waiting for you to put your butt in the chair and shut up and listen for 20 minutes or so.
That's all. No strings attached. Nothing that comes up in the silence of the 20 minutes matters....let it be and it will let you be....return to the center.
Just like that. Really.
So, I'm through with Ireland for now. Thanks for enduring my reflections about those days in the Old Sod.
And this post is about Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is the heart of the workshop and what most people take away that lasts. The Language-ing of the workshop fades fast if you don't use it. It's simply too disruptive to remember if you don't have someone to remember it with. The Language is wondrous and vital but it is contained and lived into in Centering Prayer.
The language is about 'being' and Centering Prayer is a prayer of 'being'. So the prayer keeps the language alive in a subliminal way.
Here's the way we see Centering Prayer in the workshop. It is bare bones and blue collar.
"Put your butt on the chair and intend to be with God for 20 minutes."
That is the whole thing in less than 20 words.
"Intention" is the key. "Intend" to pay attention to the God who dwells within you in the silence of your life and you will get what you get.
There is no 'right way' or 'wrong way' to do centering prayer, which drives people crazy since they want to 'do it right' and 'be good at it'. Vain hopes.
Sit down. Intend to be with God in the silence of your soul.
Take a prayer word (can be anything, best something that doesn't give you emotional content--mine is 'abba', Jesus' name for his father...more like, 'Daddy', but it is a foreign word...Aramaic, and with no emotion in me attached to it.)
Be still and silent and intend to be with God. And whenever anything impinges on your silence and intent, simply and gently use your prayer word to return to the Center and your intention and God.
That's all there is. There ain't much more.
Try it. It's easy. And you get what you get. No one is 'grading' you on how well you center. If you 'intend' to be with God, you will be. And it might not be what you wanted or needed. 'Want' and 'Need' have nothing to do with it.
Put your butt in the chair, shut up, listen for God. That and that only.
And what you get is what you get AND what you GET is your prayer, whatever that is. You're not being graded.
God is simply waiting for you to put your butt in the chair and shut up and listen for 20 minutes or so.
That's all. No strings attached. Nothing that comes up in the silence of the 20 minutes matters....let it be and it will let you be....return to the center.
Just like that. Really.
So, I'm through with Ireland for now. Thanks for enduring my reflections about those days in the Old Sod.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
I know you didn't ask me, but...
It was so good to be in Ireland during a big piece of the government shut-down and the run up to the debt ceiling. It was so good not to have my intelligence and patriotism challenged by the likes of Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the Senate and Louie Gomes (R-Texas) in the House. In fact, I would urge Texas to secede from the Union as their governor, Rick Perry (R) has somewhat recklessly mentioned from time to time. But only if Austin could be a part of Oklahoma or Louisiana. But when I think about it, those two states could secede to and become the country of "Ok-Lou-ass" with all their combined problems about poverty, lack of education and asshole politicians. God love them--and it wasn't so far out of the triangle, my home state of West Virginia could make them "West OkLouass".
The Wall Street Journal poll (that's the friggin' Wall Street Journal, not the New York Times or the Washington Post or MSNBC) this week said that only 24% of Americans polled had a positive opinion of the Republican Party! Let's have the 2014 election next week, for God and Country's sake....
This has been, without a doubt in my mind, one of the most foolish events in all of American history (and we've had a few....) It started about the Affordable Care Act--we'll shut down the government of the greatest nation on earth and default on our debts if Obamacare is not defunded" and ended up being something about 'being fair to all Americans", whatever that meant and which certainly didn't include the 800,000 federal employees out of work for two weeks.
And can we get something straight: The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, passed by Congress, signed by the President, approved by the Supreme Court. What in the hell would move you to shut down the government and defy the Constitution's guarantee of the 'good faith and credit' of the United States because you don't like a law that is a friggin' LAW and are angry you lost the 2012 election which was, in essence, a ratification of that law? For God sake, get some common sense!!!
I am so sick of these people--and I know you didn't ask me, but I needed you to know that I have been paying attention to the idiocy that's been going on and, hopefully, is over for a few months after tonight. I am a priest of the church and have vowed over and again to be compassionate to all people.
Well, that vow doesn't extend to Ted Cruz or any of the Tea Party.
You didn't ask me, but that's the truth....
The Wall Street Journal poll (that's the friggin' Wall Street Journal, not the New York Times or the Washington Post or MSNBC) this week said that only 24% of Americans polled had a positive opinion of the Republican Party! Let's have the 2014 election next week, for God and Country's sake....
This has been, without a doubt in my mind, one of the most foolish events in all of American history (and we've had a few....) It started about the Affordable Care Act--we'll shut down the government of the greatest nation on earth and default on our debts if Obamacare is not defunded" and ended up being something about 'being fair to all Americans", whatever that meant and which certainly didn't include the 800,000 federal employees out of work for two weeks.
And can we get something straight: The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, passed by Congress, signed by the President, approved by the Supreme Court. What in the hell would move you to shut down the government and defy the Constitution's guarantee of the 'good faith and credit' of the United States because you don't like a law that is a friggin' LAW and are angry you lost the 2012 election which was, in essence, a ratification of that law? For God sake, get some common sense!!!
I am so sick of these people--and I know you didn't ask me, but I needed you to know that I have been paying attention to the idiocy that's been going on and, hopefully, is over for a few months after tonight. I am a priest of the church and have vowed over and again to be compassionate to all people.
Well, that vow doesn't extend to Ted Cruz or any of the Tea Party.
You didn't ask me, but that's the truth....
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Ireland 3
I've realized that in writing about the 2013 workshop in Ireland I cannot write about the participants since we request of them a confidentiality about what happened in the workshop. So, I won't use names or even change names, I'll just say "a participant...."
"A participant" got the workshop on the morning of the second day. You see, this is a workshop that doesn't require 'understanding' anything. In fact, one of the things I've said over and over over the years is "understanding is the booby prize". What you need from the workshop is to 'get' the workshop.
There's a sense in which the workshop is like a joke--you either 'get' it or you don't. And we all have the experience of having tried to explain a joke to someone who didn't 'get' it. There's just no way to explain a joke and have someone 'understand' it. You get a joke, or you don't. You 'understand' biology or physics or algebra. You GET a joke...and the workshop.
(Another thing you either 'get' or don't are the parables of Jesus. There's no 'understanding' involved. I often think of Jesus as a stand up comic: "A shepherd lost a sheep...get it? Or how about this, a woman lost a coin...get it? Or this, a man lost his son....get it about 'lost things'?")
In one of the rare times I was in the front of the room (this workshop being about the Irish leading it, more than anything) a question by one of the participants revealed to me, without a doubt, that he 'got' the workshop two days too soon. That often happens in workshops. Just as some people 'get' the joke first, some 'get' the workshop early. And there are two possible outcomes: either the early 'getter' is impatient and frustrated that he or she is first in on the joke, or they just lean back and let the workshop work for everyone else. Happily, this 'getter' was in the latter group and simply smiled and beamed the whole rest of the way.
"A participant" was, from the beginning, so involved, so connected to the others and the leaders that I began to realize she was 'in love' with the process and the distinctions and centering prayer and the whole thing. And when it came time, after all the moving backwards creating a free space from which to declare who you 'be'. She was one of the first to stand up and declare, "I am Love!" And I knew it all along and it rang so true, so true....
"A participant" was both the humorist and philosopher of the group. God love him. To be both humorist and philosopher is a rare and lovely thing. And he would forward the movement of the workshop from time to time with humor and from time to time with philosophy and always with integrity and "being". Would that we could plant one of those in every workshop. It would just make the leaders' job easier and more enjoyable. What a gift he was.
"A participant" was in the midst of some agenda of his own that had nothing to do with the workshop. The reason that person had come had made sense in his/her mind. But he/she was working on stuff much different from the stuff we were presenting. The way I speak of such people, who show up all the time in workshops, is like this "He/she is here for his/her workshop, not for ours...."
The leaders didn't 'get' that and he/she took us on a rabbit trail for quite a while. But when we met as leaders, the leaders 'got it' and just let him be. (Another mantra of the workshop is this--mostly about the distractions of centering prayer but also about the distractions in the workshop--"if you 'let it be', it will 'let you be'."
I can't tell you how amazing this workshop is. It's called Making a Difference. And if you Google "The Mastery Foundation" you will find lots of stuff about it.
It is one of the primary sources of both my Pride and my Humility that I have been a part of it for over 25 years. I wish I could be a part of it for another 25 years--but then I'd be 91 and in my dotage. But I have a few years left and I want to train people, like the three leaders in Ireland, to keep this work alive.
Really. It's that important.
"A participant" got the workshop on the morning of the second day. You see, this is a workshop that doesn't require 'understanding' anything. In fact, one of the things I've said over and over over the years is "understanding is the booby prize". What you need from the workshop is to 'get' the workshop.
There's a sense in which the workshop is like a joke--you either 'get' it or you don't. And we all have the experience of having tried to explain a joke to someone who didn't 'get' it. There's just no way to explain a joke and have someone 'understand' it. You get a joke, or you don't. You 'understand' biology or physics or algebra. You GET a joke...and the workshop.
(Another thing you either 'get' or don't are the parables of Jesus. There's no 'understanding' involved. I often think of Jesus as a stand up comic: "A shepherd lost a sheep...get it? Or how about this, a woman lost a coin...get it? Or this, a man lost his son....get it about 'lost things'?")
In one of the rare times I was in the front of the room (this workshop being about the Irish leading it, more than anything) a question by one of the participants revealed to me, without a doubt, that he 'got' the workshop two days too soon. That often happens in workshops. Just as some people 'get' the joke first, some 'get' the workshop early. And there are two possible outcomes: either the early 'getter' is impatient and frustrated that he or she is first in on the joke, or they just lean back and let the workshop work for everyone else. Happily, this 'getter' was in the latter group and simply smiled and beamed the whole rest of the way.
"A participant" was, from the beginning, so involved, so connected to the others and the leaders that I began to realize she was 'in love' with the process and the distinctions and centering prayer and the whole thing. And when it came time, after all the moving backwards creating a free space from which to declare who you 'be'. She was one of the first to stand up and declare, "I am Love!" And I knew it all along and it rang so true, so true....
"A participant" was both the humorist and philosopher of the group. God love him. To be both humorist and philosopher is a rare and lovely thing. And he would forward the movement of the workshop from time to time with humor and from time to time with philosophy and always with integrity and "being". Would that we could plant one of those in every workshop. It would just make the leaders' job easier and more enjoyable. What a gift he was.
"A participant" was in the midst of some agenda of his own that had nothing to do with the workshop. The reason that person had come had made sense in his/her mind. But he/she was working on stuff much different from the stuff we were presenting. The way I speak of such people, who show up all the time in workshops, is like this "He/she is here for his/her workshop, not for ours...."
The leaders didn't 'get' that and he/she took us on a rabbit trail for quite a while. But when we met as leaders, the leaders 'got it' and just let him be. (Another mantra of the workshop is this--mostly about the distractions of centering prayer but also about the distractions in the workshop--"if you 'let it be', it will 'let you be'."
I can't tell you how amazing this workshop is. It's called Making a Difference. And if you Google "The Mastery Foundation" you will find lots of stuff about it.
It is one of the primary sources of both my Pride and my Humility that I have been a part of it for over 25 years. I wish I could be a part of it for another 25 years--but then I'd be 91 and in my dotage. But I have a few years left and I want to train people, like the three leaders in Ireland, to keep this work alive.
Really. It's that important.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
The musical preferences of birds
Our Bose radio is right beside Maggie's cage. It is always tuned to the Classical Public Radio Station because Maggie seems to like music better than the talk radio Public Radio Station.
She sings along with Mozart, Bach and Beetoven, and other classical stuff. On Sunday nights there is a show that is rare and alternative music. Maggie is still and silent during all that.
I wonder if she likes it or not.
That's the kind of thing I wonder about and ponder.
Whether our parakeet is enjoying the music or not.
Go figure.
Lots of stuff to ponder and I ponder that. Like I ponder why my spell check didn't catch 'Beetoven', which I'm sure I misspelled. Twice now.
Lots of stuff to ponder.
I just want our bird to be happy....
Who knew that was what life was about?
She sings along with Mozart, Bach and Beetoven, and other classical stuff. On Sunday nights there is a show that is rare and alternative music. Maggie is still and silent during all that.
I wonder if she likes it or not.
That's the kind of thing I wonder about and ponder.
Whether our parakeet is enjoying the music or not.
Go figure.
Lots of stuff to ponder and I ponder that. Like I ponder why my spell check didn't catch 'Beetoven', which I'm sure I misspelled. Twice now.
Lots of stuff to ponder.
I just want our bird to be happy....
Who knew that was what life was about?
Ireland II
The Making a Difference Workshop is about Transformation. Almost every other workshop I've been to--and I've been to many: being parish priest is about 'going to workshops'--was about 'change'. Those other workshops have been about 'important things'. But MAD (Making a Difference) is about things not even on the continuum between important-and-unimportant.
Most workshops are about how to 'do' something or another. MAD is about 'who we BE' in the matter.
Ontology is a great old Divinity School word, a word of graduate studies in theology--what 'ontology' means is 'the study of being'.
And the way we get there in the workshop--to the discussion of 'being', to transformation--is through two arenas--Centering Prayer and 'distinctions'.
Distinction, according the the Merriam Webster dictionary is 'a difference that you can see, hear, small and feel, etc: a noticeable difference between things....'
What we do in the workshop is 'make distinctions'. Here's a simple one. 'Something happens' and then 'we talk about it'. Seems obvious, right? But the thing is, we human beings blur the distinction between 'what happened' and 'what we say about it' to the point that what we say becomes what happened. There's really no way to avoid that since it is part of the being of human beings to collapse the domain of Presence with the domain of Representation. Just what we do.
But, in the workshop, we ask people to 'notice' the distinction between 'what happened' and 'what we said about it' in a way that gives us more 'choice' in the matter.
(All that just oozed out of me since I am so recently a part of a workshop.)
What I really wanted to write about is the workshop in Ireland that I was a part of.
Ireland is a breathlessly beautiful island. It's latitude and the influence of the seas all around it make it a place not unlike Connecticut, where I live, except that it snows 12-20 feet each winter in Connecticut and Ireland has a snowfall only every other year or so. And, I suspect, it never gets as cold in Ireland as in Connecticut since all the conference centers I've been in have what would be considered inadequate heating systems compared to what Connecticut requires. I've never been there in deep winter, but I think I'm on track here. Ten below Fahrenheit (-20 Celsius) happens several times each Connecticut winter. (Once when I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts--only 90 miles north of where I live now--in the winter of 1971-72--it went below zero (-20 C) in early November and stayed below zero until early February. I don't think that ever would happen in Ireland, though I'm not sure.
But what I finally want to get to is the Workshop in Ireland last week.
Those remarkable people I wrote about in my last posting did themselves proud. They were on the edge of their seats from the get go and remained there. The workshop is challenging because it seeks to disrupt our normal way of thinking. Some people are more open to that than others, but most all of the folks in this workshop were ready to go. That makes it easy because 'the workshop works' and 'the participants will give the leaders the workshop if we only listen well enough.
And that happened.
Later I will talk about some of the participants and some of the leaders. But I'm through for now. Later, I promise.
Most workshops are about how to 'do' something or another. MAD is about 'who we BE' in the matter.
Ontology is a great old Divinity School word, a word of graduate studies in theology--what 'ontology' means is 'the study of being'.
And the way we get there in the workshop--to the discussion of 'being', to transformation--is through two arenas--Centering Prayer and 'distinctions'.
Distinction, according the the Merriam Webster dictionary is 'a difference that you can see, hear, small and feel, etc: a noticeable difference between things....'
What we do in the workshop is 'make distinctions'. Here's a simple one. 'Something happens' and then 'we talk about it'. Seems obvious, right? But the thing is, we human beings blur the distinction between 'what happened' and 'what we say about it' to the point that what we say becomes what happened. There's really no way to avoid that since it is part of the being of human beings to collapse the domain of Presence with the domain of Representation. Just what we do.
But, in the workshop, we ask people to 'notice' the distinction between 'what happened' and 'what we said about it' in a way that gives us more 'choice' in the matter.
(All that just oozed out of me since I am so recently a part of a workshop.)
What I really wanted to write about is the workshop in Ireland that I was a part of.
Ireland is a breathlessly beautiful island. It's latitude and the influence of the seas all around it make it a place not unlike Connecticut, where I live, except that it snows 12-20 feet each winter in Connecticut and Ireland has a snowfall only every other year or so. And, I suspect, it never gets as cold in Ireland as in Connecticut since all the conference centers I've been in have what would be considered inadequate heating systems compared to what Connecticut requires. I've never been there in deep winter, but I think I'm on track here. Ten below Fahrenheit (-20 Celsius) happens several times each Connecticut winter. (Once when I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts--only 90 miles north of where I live now--in the winter of 1971-72--it went below zero (-20 C) in early November and stayed below zero until early February. I don't think that ever would happen in Ireland, though I'm not sure.
But what I finally want to get to is the Workshop in Ireland last week.
Those remarkable people I wrote about in my last posting did themselves proud. They were on the edge of their seats from the get go and remained there. The workshop is challenging because it seeks to disrupt our normal way of thinking. Some people are more open to that than others, but most all of the folks in this workshop were ready to go. That makes it easy because 'the workshop works' and 'the participants will give the leaders the workshop if we only listen well enough.
And that happened.
Later I will talk about some of the participants and some of the leaders. But I'm through for now. Later, I promise.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Ireland
I've been going for quite a few years now (my linear time deficiency prevents me from saying precisely how long I've been going) to Ireland to help lead the Making a Difference Workshop. I just got back yesterday from the '13 workshop. This was the one when the Irish team of leaders did most of the work and my role became, for the most part, their guide and coach.
The workshops are part of my heart. The one I went to as a participant over a quarter of a century ago, transformed my thoughts about leaving the priesthood into giving me my priesthood all new. And since then, being a priest has done nothing but enliven me and give me joy. The difference before and after the Making a Difference workshop for me was that 'before', I was 'doing priesthood' and 'after' I was 'being a priest'. All the difference in the world, I assure you.
Since then I've helped lead between 30 and 60 workshops (I have a deficit in remembering numbers as well as being confounded by linear time). It has been a huge part of my life and every time I helped lead a workshop I came away with a deeper commitment to myself and my ministry. This time is no different.
I squirmed uncomfortably in the back of the room for much of the workshop, longing to be up front leading, until I realized the possibility I needed was to 'be coach' rather than 'be leader'. As far as I can tell, there are only three to five of us still active in leading who have mastered the role. We need more leaders. So my focus needs to shift from 'leading' to producing new leaders.
This workshop at Dromantine--home of the African Missionary Society of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and one of the most beautiful spots on this planet or any other--was one of the five best I've ever been a part of...and here's the thing, it was my coaching (difficult as it is) that made that possible, not my leading skills.
There were a remarkable diversity of folks, lay and ordained, in the workshop. Five RC priests--one in religious life, the others in parishes--, a church of Ireland (Anglican) retired bishop and a CI priest and layperson. The lay folks were in all sorts of roles from a chef to a minister of Youth to a member of the Larch community (who work with those with special needs both physically and mentally) to a social worker to folks who work in 'the Living Church' movement (seeking to re-imagine Catholicism in Ireland after the scandals and pain) and several nuns from different orders.
Over the years, I've come to think of the Irish as being like people from Minnesota, somewhere in the upper mid-west of this country. They are friendly (but not overly so) mostly quiet and eager to learn and share. But this group was entirely too boisterous and wild to be from Minnesota. They were great, really.
It was one of the top five of all the workshops I've been around. No kidding.
I've never been to an Irish workshop that didn't include gatherings at night after dinner for music and poetry and jokes and stories. That doesn't often happen in the US. The Irish are intoxicated by language--spoken and sung--which is one of the reasons the workshop goes so well there since Making a Difference is, in large part, created in languaging (an awkward word at best and one my spell check doesn't recognize. But it is true that the workshop lives and creates with 'language'. And language of story and joke and poetry and song is something dear to the Irish soul.
That's enough for now.
I'll write most of this week about the transformation and growth and learning and deepening I garnered at the Irish workshop. Stay tuned.
The workshops are part of my heart. The one I went to as a participant over a quarter of a century ago, transformed my thoughts about leaving the priesthood into giving me my priesthood all new. And since then, being a priest has done nothing but enliven me and give me joy. The difference before and after the Making a Difference workshop for me was that 'before', I was 'doing priesthood' and 'after' I was 'being a priest'. All the difference in the world, I assure you.
Since then I've helped lead between 30 and 60 workshops (I have a deficit in remembering numbers as well as being confounded by linear time). It has been a huge part of my life and every time I helped lead a workshop I came away with a deeper commitment to myself and my ministry. This time is no different.
I squirmed uncomfortably in the back of the room for much of the workshop, longing to be up front leading, until I realized the possibility I needed was to 'be coach' rather than 'be leader'. As far as I can tell, there are only three to five of us still active in leading who have mastered the role. We need more leaders. So my focus needs to shift from 'leading' to producing new leaders.
This workshop at Dromantine--home of the African Missionary Society of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and one of the most beautiful spots on this planet or any other--was one of the five best I've ever been a part of...and here's the thing, it was my coaching (difficult as it is) that made that possible, not my leading skills.
There were a remarkable diversity of folks, lay and ordained, in the workshop. Five RC priests--one in religious life, the others in parishes--, a church of Ireland (Anglican) retired bishop and a CI priest and layperson. The lay folks were in all sorts of roles from a chef to a minister of Youth to a member of the Larch community (who work with those with special needs both physically and mentally) to a social worker to folks who work in 'the Living Church' movement (seeking to re-imagine Catholicism in Ireland after the scandals and pain) and several nuns from different orders.
Over the years, I've come to think of the Irish as being like people from Minnesota, somewhere in the upper mid-west of this country. They are friendly (but not overly so) mostly quiet and eager to learn and share. But this group was entirely too boisterous and wild to be from Minnesota. They were great, really.
It was one of the top five of all the workshops I've been around. No kidding.
I've never been to an Irish workshop that didn't include gatherings at night after dinner for music and poetry and jokes and stories. That doesn't often happen in the US. The Irish are intoxicated by language--spoken and sung--which is one of the reasons the workshop goes so well there since Making a Difference is, in large part, created in languaging (an awkward word at best and one my spell check doesn't recognize. But it is true that the workshop lives and creates with 'language'. And language of story and joke and poetry and song is something dear to the Irish soul.
That's enough for now.
I'll write most of this week about the transformation and growth and learning and deepening I garnered at the Irish workshop. Stay tuned.
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