New Zealand diary

"But the U. S. Embassy is a fortress, the most fortified place in the city, perhaps the country. It symbolizes U.S. imperialism, as every U.S. embassy does."

I have been to U.S. embassies in Mexico, Africa and Turkey. One thing that always amazes me is the long lines of people hoping to be able to either visit or immigrate to the "Imperealistic USA". For these people, the U.S. embassy is a symbol of hope.

Honestly, Father, your column seems to be as much about the self promotion and self "martyrdom" of Father Dear than it is about peace.

Loved your travelogue. Thanks for sharing. Makes me want to visit New Zealand! Sr. Janet Winandy CPPS

What a witness of energy and enthusiasm to spread peace and justice around the world. Very inspiring. Blessings!

I am afraid I must concur a bit with Texas, Fr. John: for all of our faults, the US remains a beacon of hope to many millions in this world. We are far from perfect--no nation is--but taken as a whole our country has been a force for good in this world far more often than it has been a force for evil.

I'm glad that you enjoyed New Zealand. It sounds like a wonderful place. God bless you!

I would have loved to have you visit the North Island as well. I had read that you were coming to Aotearoa and had hoped that you would be at our Pax Christi conference 4th/5th December in Auckland there you would meet Fr. Peter Munaine the Dominican priest that you mentioned and of course me. You won't ssee anyone lining up outside the USA Embassy in New Zealand Texas

“And yet New Zealand has a disturbingly high rate of domestic violence”

Perhaps you would be more affective addressing this and other issues of violence that your audience have control over. It seems kind of pointless to be worrying about world peace, while committing violence in your own homes.

You write so well. The closest I've gotten to New Zealand is the film, The Lord of the Rings. Thanks for this description, not only of the land, but also of the beautiful people you met, and their obvious commitment to peace and to faith that nourishes that commitment. I love your articles.

"apparently you were inside looking out, and could not see the appearance, the actuality

The Reverend Father John Dear SJ's description is accurate, and undeniable."

I had the chance to look in both capacities. Regardless of the security, the lines of people were very real. Why is it that so many people in Nicaragua, Mexico and El Salvador want to come to the "Imperialistic USA"?

These people seem to have a different perception of the USA than Father Dear. Ironically, the vast magority of those people in the lines would quickly be denied a visa to either visit or immigrate to New Zealand.

May God receive Blessed Sacrament Sister Marguerite Bartz, 64, recently slain at home near Gallup, near where Father John Dear SJ has based his ministry these past years (see Persistent Peace), where Sister Marguerite for ten years has provided necessary social work for the Navajo.

The AP carries a full story of what is now known of her passing.

As one who attended the prayer with Fr Dear outside the US Embassy and as one who does so regularly it has often struck me how the heavy security around the embassy is a reminder how the US has become a fortress state. Fr Dear commented we would all be arrested if we were doing the same thing in the US.
My last trip to the USA, very enjoyable too, was impaired by the number of times I had to remove my shoes and subjected to a body search, even on internal flights. The cost of freedom?
I am sure many of those queuing outside US embassies would be more than welcome to Aotearoa/New Zealand as we have a long history, as does the US, of welcoming refugees and the dispossessed. Only last weekend the Polish community celebrated the anniversary of the acceptance of 100s of refugee children escaping the ravages of WW2.
Sure there is domestic violence but we are working on it, one process is our pioneering use of restorative justice methods. Our concern is to ensure we promote non-violence in our daily lives, protecting the unborn, cherishing the family, working to abolish war, simply being peace makers as Christ demands we be.

I did enjoy reading about your visit to Aotearoa/New Zealand, but like many in the top half of the North Island was disappointed that you didn't have a longer time in Auckland and a speaking engagement there. Hopefully you will return someday soon. I find your writings inspirational and would dearly love to meet you and hear you 'in person'

Exactly one year ago today, I received the good news of President Obama's electoral victory while on retreat with the New Zealand Trappists at Southern Star Abbey, also a place of peace and well worth a visitation. http://www.kopua-abbey.co.nz/

Thanks to the Reverend Father John Dear SJ, and to Saint Jude, for preserving my job for one more day.

Teaching as I do can be Heaven, as of such as these students are the Reign of God, Jesus tells us.

It is the grown-ups that can truly challenge one's spiritual exercise. In fact they exercise our spirituality well beyond my limited capacity.

I am sure this comes across here blogging especially whenever I am especially merciless to Mr. Green, (God forgive me!), just taking out the frustrations of dealing with grown-up human beings, imperfect and obstinate and arrogant as we are.

And so I ever turn to the gentle, cosmic, Father Hays here, who maintains our perspective on the universe, and the stirring, reinvigorating Bishop Gumbleton, and the mighty and reverend Sister Joan Chittister OSB, with whom I work and pray always.

But especially to the Reverend Father John Dear SJ, and to Saint Jude, patron of the impossible.

I owe them much. I owe them all.

Today they taught me, as the Reverend Father John Dear SJ writes in his spiritual treatises so eloquently, so properly, so consistently, the exercise of nonviolence, and of Love.

Nonviolence.
Nonresistance.
Silence.
Constraint through Compassion.
Empathy.
Love thy enemies.

And so to negotiate the treacherous battlefield, the hidden minefield, tendered us by coworkers upon our pilgrim path.

And today, this morning, for one tense moment, it worked, the silence worked, and I am here, and I am as ever eternally grateful for the wisdom of the writings of the young and Reverend Father John Dear SJ.

May I continue to hear him ever, gently, in peace, in integral nonviolence, in courtesy, in patience, in compassion.

Saint James wrote the wisdom from above is peaceful, gentle and friendly, and untouched by the several violences of this world.

And maybe I will even learn to be kind to Mr. Green here as well . . .

Please pray for my continuing conversion, the heart of Benedictine vows to stability, to conversion, to compassion, to Jesus Christ.

Sincerely I owe much to the Reverend Father John Dear SJ who preaches so clearly, to engagingly, so explicitly, so courageously, so truthfully, so Faithfully, the Good News of Jesus Christ and please pray I shall ever hear him more carefully, and to put it into action, in gentleness, silence, peace, nonviolence, nonresitance.

I remember his words at our retreat in Albuquerque, at the wonderful retreat center run by Italian nuns, summing up the mystery of the Benedictine vow to conversion: "Fake it till you make it."

I make that commitment. I shall read once more his book on the vow to nonviolence, and I renew that vow.

And I thank him for carrying me through this tense day after another sleepless night. I thank him for my job, for my life even in this land.

just had to share that, through tears
thanks to you, really, I remain
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)

This article ends with this announcement: "This month, Orbis will publish John’s new collection, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings." This welcome book bears ISBN-13: 978-1570758379

Originally it was not available through amazon.com until December 11th but they are now shipping November 20th, well in time for Thanksgiving reading around the table with the family and/or other religious community.

What a joke.

Do only US embassies represent "imperialism", Fr. Dear?

The more I read of Fr. Dear, the less I believe he lives in the real world. His utopian ideals (utopia, by the way, means "nowhere") do not make sense given the reality of the world. If the US unilaterally disarmed, for example, it would not set an example for everyone to emulate, it would result in the conquest of the United States.

Father Dear refuses to accept the fact that there is evil in the world and that there are evil men everywhere (not just in the US, Father!) who would use the disarmament of the United States as an opportunity for plunder and conquest. These evil men are held in check by the knowledge that the United States is keeping an eye on them.

Ironically, it is the very military that Fr. Dear denigrates as "warmongers" and the very knowledge that the US, like the local sheriff, is keeping an eye on things, that allows Fr. Dear to have the freedom to promote his utopian, pie-in-the-sky, dreams. Certainly, Fr. Dear would never be allowed to openly criticize and protest if our government were Fascist, Nazi, Communist, Fundamentalist-Islamic. Thanks solely to the presence and vigilance of the US military who dfeated the first four, and protects us from the fifth, Fr. Dear has the right to protest.

I suspect it is too much for him to say "thank you".

READ YOUR ROHR!

More highly suggested reading for this Christmas and gift giving season is the latest and some say greatest from the Franciscan and Reverend Father Richard Rohr who so often appears in these pages, entitled The Naked Now.

The Reverend Father Richard Rohr has long served as a pre-eminent American author, speaker, retreat director and counsellor of Roman Catholic spirituality, including mysticism, coming from a profoundly Franciscan foundation.

This new release, The Naked Now, is the culmination and summary of all that has gone before and a glimpse of the riches to come.

As well as several retreats presenting this work across America, the Reverend Father Rohr will host on a Saturday morning in early January an official webcast we all may easily attend. Thus we have left no reason left not to accompany the Reverend Father Richard Rohr in his introduction to this essential work of Catholic spirituality.

Released mere weeks ago, we gratefully find here a summary of his long life of spiritual mastery in the Roman Catholic tradition, beginning with an explanation of why he wrote this book. The book is then divided into three parts, plus eight appendices, as well as extra back material; an overflowing cornucopia os spirituality in the Roman Catholic tradition which all may find profoundly beneficial and instructive.

Chapter One describes the Gift Already Given and our yearning for union (not perfection) now with God, who is already one with us, our birthright. Prayer is described as Practicing Heaven Now.

Each chapter, beginning with a Biblical passage, conludes with a bold print summary, or commissioning, we may safely say, here in Chapter One with the great hope of union with God in which we already dwell.

Chapter Two goes on to explore the Great Unsaying, the root of mystic union with God. As Father Rohr explains in the introduction: "All saying must be balanced by unsaying, and knowing must be humbled by unknowing. Without this balance, religion invariably becomes arrogant, exclusionary and even violent (p. 11)."

Each chapter begins with passages from the Bible, and this second chapter on Unsaying commences therefore with the exhortation, the commandment if you will, from Exodus 20: "Do not utter the name of God in vain." Upon this warning the chapter examines deeply the name of God, specifically the Sacred Tetragrammaton, drawing us back into a contemplation, a remembrance, of the sacredness of the name of God. This chapter in itself can last a lifetime of reading, meriting and rewarding careful re-reading, as we come to appreciate this holy name, which is not to be spoken, but breathes, universally.

The third chapter provides us three ways to see a sunset, and draws us to the contemplative way, to the "Urgent Need for Contemplative Seeing," sharing what it means to be a mystic (I must now make this review much more brief, pardon the haste here; this book is so full, so rich, that I regret cutting short a full examination of all it has to offer in our Faith).

Chapter four discusses paradigms of "knowing" and chapter five shares lessons from the monks. Upon this basis chapter six begins us on our quest for God, who is now with us.

Chapter Seven guides us in our judgments and our letting go of judging. "We see what we are ready to see." Chapter eight and nine discuss our doubts and our conversion from wilfullness to willingness, like Mary.

Part Two begins with a direct discussion of Jesus (as if we progress here from the Old Testament to the New, through Mary), and of the Jesus Prayer. Again we see conversion in these chapters, and the levels of conversion, and how the observor comes to the healing of vision. Chapter Twelve looks at how our ego hates the change which comes with conversion; Chapter Thirteen watches how we come from polarity to prayer, as flase dilmnas resolve. "Prayer is resonance." Chapter Fourteen laments our lost tradition of contemplation, and struggles for its necessary rediscovery. Chapter Fifteen examines faith as how to believe, the process and dynamic of belief, while Chapter sixteen opens the door to great love and thus to great suffering (and then greater love).

Perhaps I have filled my space too much here, but Part Three shows what nondual thinking is not, what we mean by wakeful, watchful seeing. Chapter nineteen unfurls the meaning of spiritual love; read this chapter in the least, at the most. The following chapter celebrates paradox, mystics, sinners, and discusses what it means to follow Jesus. The following Chapters are summaries, with an urge to leadership.

The eight appendices are mainly various forms of prayer, including the Litany of the Holy Spirit; the extra material following these appendices include a Joyful Mind and The Shining Word "And."

Once again I apologize very much for such a long report here, and I hope this little is helpful to realize what great value this work of truly Roman Catholic spirituality is for all of us, all of us who whether we realize it now or not are pilgrims upon this spiritual pathway. Here with the Reverend Father Richard Rohr we find a capable, wise and powerful guide, a companion who kindly walks this path with us.

Read this book by Christmas! Send it to all you know!
Peace!