Gracious Lord, Grant me Serenity

The month of January has been a month of fantastic high points and tragic low points. As I have passed the five month marker of being in London, I now come to a cross roads in my time here. I can either continue to involve myself within my parish and the commmunity around me, or decide to concern myself with other things and be present in places that don't really apply to my experiences here. It becomes a cross road that doesn't mark itself clearly and is defined by more of the gray than the black and white, though it clearly has an impact on my life.

I went to a Time For God Conference in Wales last week with 120 other volunteers placed all over the UK. It was a wonderful experience to feel the diversity of culture and expression within the group of people. We had a lot of time to sit and talk with one another and about our placements. We shared stories of struggle and stories of hope. I met many people who seemed to be still in the "game" but who have become tired and unhappy. They, thus, have taken a stance of "there's no real hope left for things to get better" and were ready to "plow through" the rest of the year. The reasons for many of the volunteers feeling this way varied with not having a good living situation, being upset with their boss, not connecting with various people at their placement, or just not being sure of where to go from here.

I, too, have slipped into this mindset at times. Father Nicholas is leaving the parish for a missionary priest position in Brazil in exactly a month which leaves many holes in the staff of the St. Pancras Team. Things continue to become more unpredictable as issues with money, people, and time arise at the begining of this interim period. It becomes more of a thought process in "how can we get this done" verses "how well can we do this ministry". My future beyond London now has also shown itself in a real way. I am now tackling the big question of "What am I going to do when I get back to the United States?" Nothing seems clear as issues with re-entry time, school, relationship, and future ambitions all make the future of "coming home" complicated. It all seems at times that I am going through life without much of any control over anything.

This element was hit home for me when witnessing my first street mugging. I was biking to the local market when all of sudden, I heard a voice calling "Help! Help!". As I rode closer down the road, I saw three young guys attack the man yelling and rip him to the ground. They then started to repeatidly punch and kick him right in the middle of the street. I immediatly turned around, grabbed my mobile phone, and called the police. Minutes later, the attackers fled and left an eery silience with a wounded body laying in the middle of the street. The police arrived with an ambulance and carried the victim away. I still don't know if the man survived or even what had caused the attack. From talking with local parishoners who live in the area, many are convinced that it was drug related. "One of the many reminders we have of the huge problems of gangs and street drugs here", a resident said to me.

A little while ago, I was doing some work in my room when an emotional Owen (the other pastoral assistant) knocked on the door. He told me that Francis, an 84 year old man who had dedicated his life to various functions in our church died at his home. Owen, in fact, was the first one to hear the news as the police who discovered the body finally came to the church because they could find no reference to any other family member. "That just explains how much the church was actually the only family left for him", Owen explained. Owen and I both remember fondly the first time we met Francis- an old, bent over man with a cane, a thick Cockney acsent, and an incredible spirit. He came up to both of us new pastoral assistants, gave us both a huge hug and kiss on the top of our heads and exlaimed, " The Fathers told me that you were coming and to take care of you! So that is what I am going to do!" Throughout this time, Francis has taken care of both of us in many ways. The loss of Francis will reverberate throughout all of our four churches this week. We all will miss him greatly.

I just couldn't believe it. These experiences seemed to pound into me the whole unpredictability of life in a real way. I began to be angry for a time exclaiming, "Why God? Why are things in my life seeming so much out of my control?" It felt like I couldn't do anything that didn't have an unforseeable consequence to it.

I then payed a visit to an 86 year old woman of St. Paul's Church named Chris. Chris has fallen into old age quite quickly this past year as her ostioparosis and arthritst have recently dictated that she no longer walk. Though stuck with a tired body, Chris's mind and spirit continue to be as sharp as a tack. As we talked in her flat by her chair that she sits in almost all day, she asked me "Young man, What is going on your life?" I immediatly replied that things were going well and that I was having a good time being in London. A look of disaproval came over her face like I had told a big, fat, lie. Thus, I began to tell her how I have been struggling with the feeling of not having any control in my life and the unfairness of it all. She looked at me keenly for a minute. "You want to know somthing?", she said. "The last time I was in hospital they told me that I had cancer. And so I told all of my friends and family that this horrible disease was infecting my body. Three days later, I was told that my file had gotten switched with another person's file and that I actually had a bad case of arthritist which I knew all along! Is that unpredictability or what?!" "Let me show you somthing!", she exclaimed. She then began to dig around in her pile of books next to the chair and pulled out an old, tatty, black book. She opened it to reveal pictures, letters, and old newspaper clippings. "This is my scrap book", she explained. She furiously flipped through the pages until her face gleamed with a smile. "Ah! Here it is!", she said pointing to a ripped up piece of paper. I took the book and looked at the faded words. It said:

Gracious Lord, Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things that I can change,
and wisdom to know the difference.

Amen

"You gotta cling on to that faith", she said. I stared at the prayer for the longest time. It seemed to knock me over! Chris was right, life is incredibly unpredictable and can be very challenging at times. We can get so frustrated by this fear, that we try to shut things out and just grunt through the time that we have left. Ironically, this is the time where it seems that we must be the most open and patient. We must be continuing to understand the things we can change, but "clinging to the faith and hope" with those things we can't change. May God grant us that courage and wisdom in this world of uncertainty and continue to love us through our struggles.

Dashing through the Snow

It has been almost five months that I have been working in the UK. In this period I have not yet had a solid amount of time off. This, however, changed last week as my friend Maren and I went on holiday together to the snowy slopes of Austria.

Our first three nights were spent in the town of Feldkirch just a little ways from the German-Austrian border. We stayed in a hostel that was originally built in the 1200's and was used as the primary hostel for people with disease and the Black Plague (in the 14th century). Although the history of the building is not one of roses and rainbows, it was a wonderful place to stay with a lot of character that one should expect from a building of such age. It was also filled with some very interesting people whom Maren and I both had the chance to meet.

One person inparticular whom we met the first night we were in Feldkirch was named Mike. Mike was about our age and was originally from Vienna, Austria. He described himself as origianlly an athiest, but had an "enlightenment" (as he said) acouple years ago with faith. He was in the midst of a pilgrimage from Vienna to Portugal and was very interested in both Maren and my work in England. Due to his relatively broken English, it was hard to communicate fully with him and I wasn't able to ask him more questions on his own faith journey. However, we still were able to exchange a wonderful assortment of laughs and stories of our experiences thus far. Mike remained with us for much of the next day as we explored together the sites and sounds of Feldkirch. After our wonderful day exploring, Mike wished us well and hopped on a train heading west not knowing exactly where he was going to end up that night. I admired his "off-the-cuff" spirit and openess to knew things. His friendly smile and choice of living his faith through travel and adventure really struck me and warmed my heart. I wish Mike well and God's love in the rest of his travels.

After our few days in Feldkirch, we headed up into the mountains by train to the ski village of St. Anton. The village was somthing from a movie with spectacular Austrian archetecture, incredible mountians, and 4ft of snow! We met James, the cousin to Maren's Host Father, who showed us around and made sure that we were settled in with everything. James is a chef who works at one of the restaraunts at the top of Galzig Peak (one of the many in the resort). He is orginally from Belfast, Northern Ireland and came to St. Anton four years ago knowing almost no German. In that time, he not only has made a home here with his girlfriend, but has really become accepted by the local people.

Like a true Irishman, James started a tradition of having drinks with anyone who wanted to join after his long day of work. Thus, almost every day after the restaraunt closes up, all the employees ride the cable car down to the village. They then all then gather together at one local bar (or "lokal" as the Austrians call it) for a time of drinks and laughs. I was invited to acouple of these events and was amazed at the spirit of the place. I met many new people who all greeted me whether they spoke English or not. It was truly a community that was proud of their surroundings and welcomed anyone to participate in this sense of pride.

Bernard, another chef who works with James, was learning English and was excited to talk with someone who had another accent. He was a very solid, dark bearded man from a little village south of Vienna. "I have always wanted to go to America!", he exclaimed to me. "I just can't get those papers." James later told me that it is very hard for Austrians to get work Visas in the United States because of recent immigration laws after September 11th. "It saddens me to see that good people like these Austrians are outrightly denyed acess to your country", James said. For the first time in my life, I was struck with the hierarchy of citizenship. Here I was with a blue passport that somehow allowed me to go somewhere where others weren't allowed to go. I never chose to be an American citizen, but was born into it. Others don't have that luxury. It is people like Bernard that make me wonder why this has to be.

And so I am now back in London and getting ready for work tomorrow. It was fantastic to be in the snow and I feel very rejuvinated. After witnessing the spirit on holiday, it is now time to continue to observe the spirit of London.