Day 1050 - SoulCollage: Return to Source

The background picture of the blog is a variation of a SoulCollage card I made in Photoshop (yes, I know it's not "purest", but I've asked Seena Frost if she uses Photoshop for cards. Unofficially, she told me that she does. That's good enough for me!) It is a layering of several photos I took in Hawaii, on the big island, in December 2003. The title of the SoulCollage card is Return to Source.


My friend since high school, Janice Wellington, OP, was using her 25th jubilee gift from her sister and brother-in-law -- a week in a condo on the island of Hawaii. I got to tag along on the trip. One of the places we visited was the Laupahoehoe peninsula. The day we were there, the tide was incoming with waves crashing against the shore, sounding like thunder and sending sprays of sea water high into the air. The location is a memorial for the 21 children and teachers who died there.


On April 1, 1946 a tsunami reported to be 50 feet high  crashed on the Laupahoehoe peninsula just as children were arriving for school that morning. The tsunami washed away the school, sweeping 16 children and five teachers out to sea. They all drowned. With the waves crashing on the shore the day I visited, I could picture the wall of water slamming onto the shore and inundating everything.


I've meditated about Laupahoehoe, thinking about Francis of Assisi's relationship with "Sister Death" and about the children. It took me over five years to make the SoulCollage card. Creating the card became part of the healing process in grieving over the death of my husband and soulmate, Jim. We were married for 34 years, and about a year after his death I was beginning to heal. This card was part of that process, helping bring into my awareness a different and more positive image of Sister Death as something which may bring one toward union with God. Still, swimming in the air, whether fish or human, is risky business.


The card is a composite of several images: the waves at Laupahoehoe, fish photographed under water while snorkeling, and a sunset shot on a volcanic beach. The card speaks to me of death as a new kind of living, returning to the Source of all good.  It speaks to me: I am the One Who calls you back to Me. I am the One Who gathers you into my heart, into my love, back to the Source in my overflowing fountain fullness. I am the One Who calls you to swim home. Return to the Light.


If you would like more info on the tsunami at Laupahoehoe, here are some links:

Eyewitnesses recounting what they saw, 51 years later: http://archives.starbulletin.com/97/03/31/news/story4.html


A YouTube video of the Laupahoehoe peninsula in 1945, the year before the tsunami hit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJO0K0WjWqc

Oh, here's a luau picture of Janice and me on the big island, December 2003.

Day 1049 - Franciscan Theology Transfer

It's been two weeks since my first post. Life is busy. But, here's what's been shaping up. As I mentioned, becoming Franciscan has seeped into my bones. Since I am a student at the Franciscan School of Theology (FST), I get to hear about Francsican history, spirituality, and theology from the experts.  I get to see Franciscanism in action, lived, in my community. What community friends, school friends, and I have noticed is that Franciscan theological concepts have not yet seeped into the common wisdom shared in our parishes. What is shaping up is a project to "do" Franciscan theology transfer from the intellectual to the practical level, to the pastoral setting.


So, I have talked to Fr. Joe Chinnici, OFM, Fr. Franklin Fong, OFM, Sr. Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ, and Sr. Dorothy McCormack, OSF -- all of whom have worked on creating scholarly works in the Franciscan intellectual tradition (see The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition), about creating a project to do a "theology transfer" (an idea in the same vein as a "technology transfer"). They are supportive of such an endeavor. I have enlisted a co-collaborator, Sr. Norberta Villasenor, OSF, who is also an FST alumni, to work on the project. We are in the very, very beginning stages of investigation. Our tactical vision, so far, is to create resources for use at a parish level or community level that point back to the Franciscan intellectual tradition as the underpinnings, the source for the creative action "in the parish" or "in the classroom." We want to provide resources, even lesson plans, for practical use with groups of people. We hope to enlist the help of other Franciscans who might be interested in contributing their experience, expertise, and/or subject matter content to create resources available for use in a parish or classroom (or other Franciscan venue). We see resources as inclusive of recordings, videos, photos, and other media organized in a fashion (read lesson plan, currently, in the mind of this former high school and community college teacher) suitable for a presentation or for a series of discusssions in a faith sharing group.


So, where we are currently in the beginnings of the project is that we have a domain name, a google gmail, a google voicemail, and some affirmations from our teachers that this would be a worthwhile project. We are envisioning (or imagining) how this project might look. We are beginning to create the structures needed for proceeding. We are committed to spending years of time of the project. We think that between the two of us, we have the initial skill set needed to get the project started. I would be interested in hearing from others who might find an interest in such a "theology transfer" project.

Day 1034 - Holy Saturday - About Liminal Space

 In my opinion, trying to live as a Franciscan means living in liminality -- or betwixt and between as theologians Peter Phan and Jung Young Lee put it (1). It is living in the wilderness, in the place where earth and sky meet that is neither earth nor sky yet partakes in elements of both. It is living in interstitial space, between worlds where creativity may abound, or from the Jungian viewpoint, where the individuation process of self-realization  may occur. It is living life as mendicant on a journey. It is living life as a verb, and specifically a gerund, rather than a noun. It is becoming rather than being. Or, put in another way, as Ingham describes Duns Scotus' view of the morally good act, liminal space might be viewed as "the horizon for the encounter between the human will that chooses and the divine will that accepts" (2). In short, liminal space is where we may encounter God -- in the moments of unexpected stillness in a busy day, in the instant of catching our breath between appointments, in the expected snatch of birdsong that breaks through the noise of freeway hustle and bustle.  It is liminal space that I hope to explore in this blog, and specifically the way in which it unfolds and refolds within the Franciscan movement. It is my attempt to put meaning to the term "Franciscan Presence." What does that mean? How may one live it?

I am an Asian American Pacific Islander -- that situates me betwixt and between by happenstance of birth. I am Roman Catholic. I am a student at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California.  I am a widow -- having lost my husband and soulmate of 34 years to congestive heart failure on Easter morning 2008. I am administrator for a free clinic for the voiceless and vulnerable in Sacramento, Clara's House. I am a nerd after having spent 20+ years in high tech as an engineer. I have been a high school teacher, college instructor, social worker, tech writer, martial arts school teacher/co-owner, and IT director. I was educated by Franciscan friars and Domincan sisters at St. Elizabeth High School in Oakland. I am on day 1034 of a journey toward becoming a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity.  At age 59, being Franciscan has seeped into my bones, and now I am trying to wrap words around what exactly that means.

 

 .                                                                                  Skating on a glacier in Alaska - June 2009

(1) See "Betwixt and Between: Doing Theology with Memory and Imagination" Journeys at the Margin: Towards an Autobiographical Theology in American-Asian Perspective edited by Peter C. Phan and Jung Young Lee.

(2) See The Philosopical Vision of John Suns Scotus: An Introduction by Mary Beth Ingham, p. 180.