Men de BonDye (Day 8)

Four amazing adventures in the car:
To the market to buy groceries.
To the airport to take Father Alan.
To the pizza parlor across from the market with Ted and his relatives.
To the airport again to pick up a group of eleven; they had so much baggage (all mission supplies) that the pile in the back of the pickup had to be tied down with string and then towered over the road some five or six feet. It was impressive craftsman, the arrangement and tying down of the bags. Then the eleven people crammed themselves into two vehicles—even more impressive.

Father Alan left today. It was very sad because I think he would have liked to have stayed longer. His counsel would have been welcomed, plus I have been accustomed to daily Mass with him. When he left we joked about starting our own religious order, which I will call The Traveling Monks of St. Brendan, a group who travels all over the world and does mission work—especially in Haiti—focusing on contemplation, peaceful work and prayer. I am not sure either of us was joking completely, but I do not see something like that happening yet, if at all (so please don’t start any rumors back home). He also advised me to take communion daily during my prayer time. This was a very important blessing to me, because it shows to me God’s hand moving in looking after me.

I had very much wanted to do three things when I arrived: put the chapel back in order, have the house blessed, and ask how I may take communion daily after he had left.

When I called him at home during the week before our departure, I suggested to him that what I felt about the first two tasks. He called me back and said he had been carrying the same intentions. This was great affirmation in preparing for my trip.

We, as you may have read, did indeed clean the chapel and it is now properly functioning again as such. Today, on his last day, Father Alan blessed the house and sang hymns as he did so, Ted and I following alongside, and Theremise, our cook, as well, though with a look of bemused confusion and devotion. In this too I felt it proper for him to use salt, as Elijah did, as called for in a simple rite of exorcism (this has nothing to do with the expelling of demons seen in movies, but more to do with protecting the house and those in it). When I expressed this to him over dinner last night, he mentioned he had been thinking along those lines—another affirmation which then led to an interesting, long discussion about spiritual activities, vodoun, Santeria, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual oddities.

I had been thinking about the communion issue for awhile, but forgot about it until he walked in to my room today just before departing: “You should take communion in the chapel everyday,” he proclaimed, then suggested the daily readings, some prayer time, some meditation, and then reception. It felt strangely like coming home, or connecting with Tao (or whatever you would like to call the divine wind which blows), not just because I was in the right place at the right time, because it wasn’t an affirmation of synchronicity, but because my intentions and desires were being granted because I was in line with God’s plan—not the other way around, I hasten to add—otherwise the whole matter would have been forgotten in intention and memory left behind. That was simply what I was to do: take communion, and God let me know it through Father Alan. It felt so plain and even ordinary, as most of God’s wisdom is (and by plain and ordinary, I mean a paradox so profound that it obfuscates human wisdom and brings our minds to their resting place of misunderstanding and therefore receptivity to Truth which makes us become plain and ordinary; or maybe it’s just simple). It was a moment when God’s will, meaning His disposition or desire itself, became very apparent—the seed had been planted in my heart and then He brought it to fruition. It seems to me that He does this everyday for everyone, regardless of what we believe, but we have not trained ourselves to hear the wind as it blows, coming and going on its own path. Nor have I trained myself, but I am at least aware of the possibility, and now, the fruit borne.

I share with those who wish to hear.

Tonight we entertain 18 people from two different groups. We barely fit everyone into beds and rooms, but thankfully we had enough space—and we have even more gratitude that there will not be another group until Wednesday!