Bingo, a Birthday, and Building Plans

This weekend the Bishop and I made a pastoral visit to Santa Cruz in Guacimo, on the road to the Caribbean, for their feast day. Almost fifty people attended Eucharist. After church we gathered in the parish hall for dinner and a no-holds-barred bingo tournament.  Bishop Monterroso won an iron. The temperature was in the high nineties, humidity likewise. When I was a kid, everyone carried fans to church. In Costa Rica they bring towels and washrags. You can bet I’ll have mine with me next time!

Tuesday the 15th was Independence Day in Costa Rica. On Monday evening I went to the local school and watched the kids parade around the block. They dress up and carry boxes with lights in them, to the accompaniment of a student drum corps which pounds away like there’s no tomorrow. Add fireworks, church bells, a huge crowd of spectators, and the normal flow of traffic, all packed into the same street, and you have quiet an adventure. I had great fun.

On Tuesday I took the bus downtown to the Mother of All Celebrations. The streets were closed to traffic, and completely filled with a prodigious crowd of happy Costa Ricans. Much more marching, drumming and flag waving. We were all jammed together tighter than the passengers on a Tokyo subway train. I haven’t felt that hemmed-in since I saw Paul McCartney at RFK stadium in DC. Afterward I went home and took a nap.

I’ll be coming home to Davidson for a week on September 29th. I’m bringing the site plan and architect’s drawings for the new Hogar Escuela in Heredia. We will give a presentation on this project during adult education in the nave on Sunday, October 4th. Please come, this will be your opportunity to learn about the work St. Alban’s shares with our sisters and brothers in Heredia to provide day care and education to the children of Guarari barrio and their mothers. We’ll also discuss the cost of the project and specific ways for St. Alban’s members to participate. This will help us plan our mission trips to Heredia and our construction work. See you on the 4th!

Gracias!

Things are fairly peaceful here this week. I’m starting to work on some grant possibilities for funding our Heredia school project and other needs. Mercifully, I have some offers of help, since I’m learning this by doing.

We had an earthquake the other night, in the southeastern part of the country. Not anything major, but enough to get my bed shaking. No reports of damage.

One of the folks I met in Panama last week was Julio Rivera, a priest from El Salvador. His parish is located in an area which is a ‘border’ between rival gangs. After he returned home he hosted a medical mission group from Houston at his church. While they were holding a clinic, some members of MS13 (the same group we have in Charlotte) broke in and shot dead one of the parishioners in front of the medical team. This is a sad reminder that discipleship does have its costs. I remember Julio telling me, “The Bible is a dangerous book, very dangerous.”

Now it’s time to say thank you to all of you who have been sending me emails and notes on facebook and this blog. While I am living in a tropical paradise, it is still very good to receive messages from home, from one’s friends. You give me energy and peace to keep doing the work I was sent here to do. I wish all of you could have this opportunity.

Here is an opportunity for one of you: The Diocese of Costa Rica needs to create its own webpage and maintain it. We have a lot of information to get out to members of the Diocese as well as folks in North Carolina and the rest of the world. If you have the skills and the time to use them in helping us get a webpage started, or know someone who does, please let me know. This might be something that could be done from your home or office in NC, but it’s also a great chance to enjoy our balmy climate in San Jose. Think about it.

Have a peaceful week.

The Parable of the Fellow Made of Salt

I found this story the other day in a book by Leonardo Boff, and thought I would pass it along to you. Hope your week is a good one.

The Parable of the Fellow Made of Salt

There once was a man made of salt who, after journeying across arid deserts, came to the sea, which he had never seen before, and which he could not comprehend. He questioned the sea:
“Who are you?”
The sea responded:
 “I am the sea!”
“And what is the sea?”
“I’m me!”
“I don’t understand,” said the salty fellow, “and I would like very much to understand…How can I?”
“Touch me!”
Then the fellow made of salt timidly touched the sea with the tips of his toes…and perceived that he was beginning to comprehend. But then he fell back and cried out:
“Look! The tips of my toes have disappeared! What have you done to me, sea?”
The sea answered:
“I’ve taken what you gave me, so that you can know me.”
And the man of salt began to wade into the sea little by little, solemnly and slowly, like someone performing the most important act of his life. As he entered the sea, he started dissolving, and then he began to comprehend what the sea was. The fellow repeated his question to himself: “What is the sea?” Just then a wave swallowed him. And he, in that moment of being totally dissolved in the sea, cried: “It’s me!”

Down in Panama

I’m down in Panama this week, attending the Central American House of Bishops meeting with Bishop Monterroso. I’ll be meeting with the bishops about Disciple Bible Study, in which they are very interested. There may be a good possibility of getting the program started in Panama and El Salvador, maybe some other dioceses. Prayers will be gratefully accepted.

Panama City is quite a metropolis, with lots more skyscrapers than Atlanta and many more banks than Charlotte. It also has its share of shantytowns. I’m staying at the diocesan house here, thankfully with a good ceiling fan. This place makes New Orleans look puny when it comes to heat and humidity. The cathedral in Panama is the old Canal Zone church.

Took a tour of the canal with a wonderful Panamanian priest who has parishioners working there. I got to sneak around in places where most visitors can’t go. Toured the museum and watched a ship go through the locks. It’s truly an engineering masterpiece.

I visited the oldest Episcopal church in Panama today. San Lucas is located in an old neighborhood which is on the decline. Sewage runs in the streets and a XXX theater occupies the nearest corner. The congregation consists mainly of English-speaking folks of Jamaican origin, who are older and have moved away from the neighborhood. The parish struggles with finding a new identity of service to their Spanish-speaking neighbors. Like St. Alban’s, San Lucas continues to discern its calling in a changing environment.

My daughter Mary Clare and grandson Lucas visited last week. After wandering about San Jose for a couple of days, we traveled to Arenal Volcano and stayed at a nice hotel which had great views–probably will be too close for comfort some day. The mountain behaved fairly well while we were there, occasionally burping and sending huge red-hot rocks rolling down the slopes. We were supposed to visit a tropical frog exhibit as well, but got lost and decided to return to San Jose. It’s really refreshing to have family visit, even if some of them have a lot more energy than I ever did.

That’s all for now. Hope you have a peaceful week where you are.

Exercise Now!

Another busy week here! I’ve just submitted a grant application to the Diocese of North Carolina for ten new computers to expand the computer lab at Hogar Escuela in San Jose. If we receive the grant, this will more than triple the number of children and single moms who can learn computer skills for school and better jobs. We are all excited about this possibility!

You all have my sympathy with the heat you’ve been enduring. Never thought I’d have to come to the tropics to cool off. Continues balmy here, seventies.

It’s great to hear that Elizabeth Marie begins her ministry at St. Alban’s this coming Sunday. May she have a fruitful life with us in Davidson. It will soon be time to buy her a ticket to San Jose so she can check us out.

I was graced with an opportunity to observe Godly Play at Hogar Escuela this week. The children were quiet and intensely focused on the story of Abraham and Isaac. The deep sense of presence, both of the children and the Divine, filled the room. I didn’t have any prior experience with Godly Play, so I chatted later with Carolyn, the instructor. She told me that kids who participate in Godly Play at an early age tend to stay involved in spiritual formation into their teenage years. She also said that Godly Play can be appropriate for adults who are willing to lay aside their “grownup-ness” for a time and open up to the stories with fresh, uncritical eyes.

Jesus tells us we have to become childlike to enter the Kingdom of God. All of us come into the world with open eyes and minds and hearts. That openness still lives within us, though it may lie buried under a crusty accumulation of self-interest and cynicism. The ultimate reality of the Presence surrounds us everywhere, at every moment. Never are we alone. It’s just that we don’t recognize God’s presence in the utterly ordinary routine of daily life. God is wholly present when we wash dishes or change our car’s oil, not only during Eucharist. If there is a “secret” to living in peace, this is it: becoming aware of  the absolute, unconditional presence of the Presence. My experience, and that of others far wiser than I am, tells me that awareness is like a muscle which must be exercised regularly to stay in shape. The more I open myself to awareness of God around me, the more natural it becomes. Like a muscle, unused awareness weakens, shriveling until I can only summon it painfully, if at all.

This runs the risk of sounding like a self-help technique to happiness. In the end, God’s grace is what makes possible our awareness of the Presence. There is a Zen saying, “Try not to try.” We can’t bring peace through our efforts alone. The toughest task we face may be letting go, trying not to try, and opening up to God’s presence around us and within us. Go on, exercise your God-muscle–the grace to do it is right here, right now.

One other bit of news: I’ll be home for a week beginning September 29th, and will be at church on Sunday, October 4th. We’ll take some time to look over the architect’s drawings and site plan for the new Hogar Escuela and church in Heredia. Prepare to be recruited for work on this building!

It’s Time to Learn!

I’ve just spent several days at the beach with my daughter Brooke. She flew in last Saturday and left this morning. We went to Quepos on the Pacific coast and visited Manuel Antonio National Park. It’s a magnificent place, with beautiful beaches and a huge variety of wildlife and plants. I heartily recommend Quepos if you’re looking to chill in a warm place.

This week we have a music teacher from Salisbury, Debbie Staley, giving lessons to children at Hogar Escuela in Barrio Cuba. Each day the chaps sing, plink, strum, toot and drum to their hearts’ content. Some have a good ear for music, and Debbie enjoys watching them learn how to play. Debbie will be here for three weeks before returning to St. Luke’s.

Another Godly Play teaching team is here also, training twenty-five more people to lead this Christian education program. All are excited about the opportunity to begin Godly Play in Costa Rica.

New Disciple classes are meeting throughout the diocese, with about ninety participants enrolled. By the end of the first course, Episcopalians in Costa Rica will have taken over seven thousand hours of Bible study!

This amazing number raises a question for those of us at St. Alban’s: How much do we know about our Christian faith? We repeat the Creed each week at Eucharist, but do we really understand what we are saying? Are we comfortable with all that our avowed belief implies for our lives? The Bible is one of the foundations of our belief, the story of God’s relationship with human beings throughout time. It can be very difficult to grasp much of this relationship without spending time learning the story. As the old saying goes, if we do not know our history, we are doomed to repeat it.

Disciple Bible Study is an excellent opportunity to learn the Bible story from Genesis to Revelation, share a true bonding experience with a small group of sisters and brothers in Christ, and enter into a life-changing awareness of who we really are. I encourage you to talk to some of the folks at St. Alban’s who have taken Disciple courses. They can tell you much better than I can just what a difference Disciple makes in their lives.

I want to be honest with you, taking Disciple does have a cost: your time. The program lasts thirty-four weeks, with each session meeting for two and a half hours. In addition, the Bible reading will take up to an hour a day. This amount of time is a big commitment, and many people believe it is more than they can manage. I ask you to consider this: What price do you put on knowing who you are, who the other people in your life are, who God is, and the meaning of life? Taking Disciple won’t give you all the answers, but it will help you begin asking the right questions. The journey is where the excitement is. Become a disciple and find out for yourself!

Vivian Cannon is St. Alban’s Disciple program coordinator this year. She will soon be seeking a new group of students for the coming year, if she isn’t at it already. I hope you will prayerfully consider  a place for yourself in a Disciple class. It will take some time and some hard work, but I promise you’ll be glad you did. Go on, give Vivian a call or talk with her at church!

Let the little children come

The second Christ Church group has finished their work in the Diocesan House. The chapel is painted and ready for the finishing touches to be done. The new meeting room hosted its first event, a Godly Play workshop for the schools and congregations in the Diocese. We’ve been taking our meals in the new dining room. Plastering has started in the new kitchen, and the pantry and laundry room are done. The back yard has freshly planted flower beds, and work began on a new garden in the front yard. A lot of work for four days!

We went to the beach at Jaco on the Pacific coast on Friday and Saturday. Jaco is a small, Myrtle Beach-like town at the foot of a mountain range, with some pretty impressive surf. As you would expect, surfers abound. The world surfing championship is being held next week just down the road at Playa Hermosa.

I visited Hogar Escuela (home school) with the group during the week. The school is located in Barrio Cuba, a rough neighborhood of San Jose which is similar to Guarari. Most folks there have menial jobs, day labor and less savory activities such as prostitution and drug dealing. Many are single mothers whose preschool children are often left to fend for themselves during the day. It’s a place where you don’t leave anything unlocked or unattended if you ever want to see it again.

The term “home school” has a different meaning in Costa Rica than ours. Here it refers to a school which essentially serves as a day-home for children who would otherwise be alone. This is the sort of school we are preparing to build in Heredia. Hogar Escuela cares for kids from infants through kindergarten age. Children can attend from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. if needed. Hot meals are provided throughout the day. The kids have their daily lessons and plenty of time for play and naps. The staff here is wonderful and the children love them.

The Christ Church folks spent a couple of mornings playing with the Hogar children. Lots of tag, piggy-back rides, cops and robbers, and soccer. Some of the “futbol” players are really good! It’s great to watch the kids’ faces light up when someone new pays attention to them. The experience changes us at least as much as it does the kids. I begin to realize what Jesus meant when he said, “Let the little children come to me.”  They live in the moment and delight in the presence of someone who cares about them. They want what we all want: safety and nourishment and love. These are the children we will be sharing our lives with in Guarari and Heredia.

An influenza update: The Costa Rican government and the Catholic Church have cancelled the annual August pilgrimage to the Basilica of the Virgin of Los Angeles in Cartago, for the first time ever. This ritual has occurred for the past 277 years without fail, so this is big news here. During the pilgrimage, hundreds of thousands of people walk to the basilica from all over the San Jose region. The government estimated 20,000 new cases of flu could result if the pilgrimage was held.

Uncomfortable Questions?

Our last mission group of the summer is here now, the second group from Christ Church, Charlotte. If all goes well, most of the painting in Diocesan House should be done this week, plus some more gardening work. I’ll be going to see Harry Potter with them Tuesday evening. On Friday we will go to the beach for a couple of days at Jaco on the Pacific coast. This is apparently the Myrtle Beach of Costa Rica, so I’ll have a full report later.

The new influenza continues to spread down here. The school kids have been on a three-week break, and just received an additional week off to prevent more infections. Rumor is that banning public gatherings may be next. I haven’t seen any effects of the flu in my social circle, so far. 

Bishop Monterroso returned from General Convention this week. The Latin American bishops don’t get a vote at convention, but they are given an in-depth program on all matters Episcopalian. He said things were fairly peaceful.

Yesterday I visited the Nicaraguan barrio at Guarari with the Christ Church folks. They were much affected by the living conditions they saw there. In one conversation someone compared Guarari to housing projects in Charlotte. One youth replied by saying, “I didn’t know there were any projects in Charlotte.” I have been reflecting on this. Christ Church is a parish with mostly affluent and privileged members, but so is St. Alban’s. We may not like to think that is so, but when I see how poor people live down here I begin to appreciate what a charmed life I have.

What does it say about us North American Episcopalians when our children have no idea that poor people live in their midst? Are our kids willfully ignorant? Or do we as parents, consciously or not, try to shelter them from exposure to poverty? Why are we willing to send our youth to foreign countries to witness the misery of others, but unwilling to let them experience it among our neighbors in our own communities? What do we fear–for our safety? That we are powerless to do anything about poverty? That solving the problem might mean our having to make do with less so that others might have what they need? Or are we afraid that getting too close to those we see as “the other” might allow some of that otherness to rub off on us? Do we think that we are just better off not knowing?

Lots of questions. The answers can only come from within each one of us. Jesus calls us daily to follow him. How are we answering? My hope for this week is that we will all have the peace we need to heal, and the discomfort we need to change.

Hospitality, and a Visit from My Bride

Greetings to all. Last week was a good one, as I was graced with a visit from Jan. She flew down on Monday and returned Saturday. We explored the sights of San Jose, took an overnight trip to the Orosi Valley, and just hung out enjoying each other’s company. A visit from family is a blessing when one is settling into a new environment.

Work progresses on the Diocesan House. Christ Church, Charlotte is here now. They are sanding and sealing the plaster walls in preparation for painting, and putting in a couple of small gardens. It’s beginning to look like the lion’s share of the renovation work will be done by the time the next group leaves on July 26.

I’m sorry to report that my camera is not working, so no pictures until I can get it fixed.

Still waiting on the Heredia plans from the architect. I took a trip into Guarari yesterday after church, and am happy to report that a wide area of tin shacks is being replaced by new concrete houses funded by the government. This makes a huge difference in quality of life in the barrio. There are still a lot of ramshackle dwellings here, but the change is encouraging.

I’m reading my first book in Spanish. Leonardo Boff writes about the Christian virtue of hospitality and how it is essential for living fully in our era of globalization. As we become more aware of just how interconnected everything is on this planet, we begin to appreciate our need to care for the other as an extension of ourselves. When another being suffers, we are all affected. This includes the natural environment as well as humans. Hospitality begins with unconditional welcoming of strangers and those who are different. When we attach strings to our acceptance of others, we put up barriers to being fully human. This hurts us as much as the other. God welcomes us home without condition, and we are called to do likewise. One of the neat things about St. Alban’s is our openness to the presence of others. Pray that we can grow in our hospitality and trust God to be with us in all our relationships on this fragile Earth, our island home.

Have a peaceful week.

A New Chapel and a Dose of Trust

This week a group from Trinity Cathedral, Columbia was in town to begin building the chapel in the Diocesan House. We’ve not had a chapel until now, and it promises to be a fine one. Twenty-four people removed old partitions and built new ones, then plastered the walls in preparation for painting. The chapel will become the centerpiece of this building, providing space for regular worship.

The Trinity folks became the first people to stay in the recently remodeled dormitories on the second floor. Now we can accommodate up to thirty people at a time, with everyone able to take a warm-water shower. Bathing has been an adventure in the past, thanks to the old plumbing and heating system. The South Carolinians are off to the Pacific coast to spend the weekend at the beach town of Jaco. They will leave for home on Sunday.

Yesterday I went back to Limon with the headmaster of the Episcopal high school in Columbia and three of her students. The bishop took us to San Marcos School to explore the possibility of establishing a student exchange program. Last night a calypso band played for the Trinity team at their barbecue.

Our next group arrives Saturday from St. John’s, Charlotte. They will continue working on the chapel.

Tomorrow morning I’m renting a car and going for my first driving adventure in San Jose. I have to drop off a person at the airport and pick up another one. It should be very interesting. As far as I can tell, the only part of the car which absolutely has to be in working order is the horn. Drivers here prefer a much smaller area of personal space on the road than we do. Lanes seem to be available to everyone at one time, regardless of the direction of travel. Stop signs and traffic lights are only suggestions. This ought to give me something to write about if I survive. I trust that I shall.

Speaking of trust, how’s yours? We often make expressions of our faith and assure ourselves that we are faithful Christians. Faith is often thought of as an intellectual assent to a belief system or doctrine. Another way of looking at faith is to equate it with trust. Faith as belief and faith as trust are not necessarily the same thing. Trust comes from the heart. I may believe (have faith) that my neighbor exists and lives next door, but it takes a deeper experience of him and some risk on my part to trust him. Perhaps faith is not something we have or possess as we would some object. It might be better to understand faith as a verb. Trust is something we do, not something we can claim as our own.

Trust requires that we make ourselves vulnerable to another. Love relationships must be built on trusting that the other wants what is best for us and will do it.  Our relationship with God is the ultimate love affair, and God a passionate lover. What sort of lovers are we? Do we trust God with what is dearest to us, our “self”? Difficult economic times such as these make us more aware of the need for trust. We need to trust that we will have a job, a home, food. Healthy families are made up of persons who trust one another.

St. Alban’s constitutes a family, as we might say, of faith. Trust is at the very core of our existence as a congregation. Do we trust our Lover to be here for us? The Holy Spirit is among us, leading us to new challenges and new risks. Perhaps we are afraid of what will happen to us if we follow. If we are lovers in the great Affair, than we want to trust God with everything and all that that implies. The last few months have taught us that we are really not in control, however much we want to be. God tells us we are loved. Do trust. Be trust.