death & life

it was about 4am when i woke up for no particular reason. if you know my sleeping habits at all, that is very unlike me to wake up in the middle of the night, and not be able to go back to sleep. i don't really know why the spirit of god wanted me to hear the snapping of that mouse trap about 10 minutes after i woke up.

i was lying on my bed, thinking about the video i saw in my clinical group work course earlier that day. it was a group of patients with metastatic breast cancer. apparently, that particular research showed that women who involves themselves with a supportive group where they are able to talk about their experiences and feelings would outlive those without a group by 18 months! amidst my ponderings, i started thinking about mom and those who have gone before me. i started praying for people who are sick, and my dear friend who i hear is recovering well at the hospital. i started thinking about my fears, and the love of god which is stronger yet!

so there was a second part to the story of the mice (yes, plural... unfortunately). it was probably a bit past 5:30am, because the sun was out, and i was still in bed... thinking, pondering, reflecting. suddenly, i heard the mouse trap shaking continuously, causing me to shake in bed and yelling "OH NO"! i thought in my horror that the mouse was suffering in pain during all that time. it turned out that there was another mouse there trying to do something about the death. that made me even more sad.

when we die, i wonder what kind of an image we'll leave for our families and friends.

so here's something from henri nouwen:

"dying with grateful hearts", taken from bread for the journey

we often wonder how death will occur for us. through illness, accident, war, or a natural disaster? will our deaths happen suddenly or gradually? there are no answers for these questions, so we really should not spend time worrying about them. we don't know how our lives will end, and this is a blessed ignorance! but there is an important question that we should consider: when our time to die comes, will we die in such a way that those we leave behind will not be devastated by grief or left with feelings of shame or guilt?

how we leave others depends largely on how we prepare ourselves for death. when we are able to die with grateful hearts, grateful to god and our families and friends, our deaths can become sources of life for others.

day two

we got some smart mice around here. or maybe it also denotes my lack of skills in using these mouse traps. :D

twenty-four

24 more days left at this place...

back to the loo

well, i'm back at my waterloo home. or is this place part of the "away"? i guess it depends on the day.

i've been going to the waterloo park quite a bit for my evening walk/jog. it's just across the street from my place, so very convenient. being there has this calming effect to my soul. i love it!

on christian meditation

i guess i'm writing these out more for myself. life will be super busy for me this next month before i head to turkey, so i want to be able to go back to these ideas when i get a chance later on in the year.

there was this short presentation by robert jonas that really captured my attention at the conference. he's the director of the empty bell and i find his work to be truly fascinating. he started out his time by playing this japanese flute for us and drawing us into a brief meditation. oh the sound of that shakuhachi was so lovely! there was a bit on the history of the christian-buddist dialogue and his current involvement with that. and then he also suggested the world community for christian meditation website and a book by s. mark heim called the depths of the riches for us.

on a separate note, has anyone read any of donald nicholl's stuff? at the 2nd plenary session, this guy did a comparison on nouwen, merton and nicholl, and none of us knew who donald nicholl was. haha..

nouwen & business management

hahaa... i thought i'd go back to something more "mainstream" before venturing out in faith again. business management & spirituality is something that my dad talks and writes about often, so what is intriguing for business leaders at these talks might not necessarily be all that new to me. in fact, i was chatting with this older business guy after the workshop today, and he thought i was a business major! hahahaa...

so anyways, i thought i'd type up a few thoughts from my very last workshop of the conference (for my dad or whoever else interested). it was a CEO/consultant who travelled from germany to give that talk, since he found nouwen's spirituality to be hugely significant in his own business management model.

there's the question about the identity of the company. does the company exist to puff up itself, or does it seek to serve others? the example given was the change to Hewlett-Packard's mission statement. before it was, "we want to be the best company in the world" to now, "we want to be the best company FOR the world".

he talked about setting up the company in a way that could help their employees find their own journey to life, and finding different strategies to be successful (different from the "worldly" ways). an interesting point in this regard is that i guess germans, like the japanese, were used to "life-long employment" from the same company. so while acknowledging the difficulty in having to let go of employees within the new paradigm, he actually sees dismissal as an opportunity for helping the person find their own journey in life.

hmm... i want to write more on leadership, but i also want to sleep. maybe i'd just leave two sites if you're interested for more:
Robert Greenleaf: Servant Leadership
Peter Drucker: Leader to Leader Institute

henri the wounded prophet

this afternoon's session at the nouwen conference was a panel of 4 of his biographers talking about whether his life matched well with his text. there was a lot of time spent on talking about his sexuality, and i guess it was the first time that some of the people heard about him as gay. i have this mental picture of a older pious-looking women who appeared very perplexed and disturbed the whole time. i felt bad for her.

apparently, michael ford was the first to write about it (for henri), and so there were talks among the different biographers as to the appropriateness of that. ford was not there today though, thus unable to defend for himself. there were also wonderings as to how helpful it would be if henri did come out and maybe write a book on homosexuality to help guide his fellow christians in this way.

inspired by nouwen

i'm writing this at the little courtyard of st. michael's college at the university of toronto. i got down here early so i have a few minutes before the morning liturgy. i love wireless!! i'm gonna miss my laptop when i'm europe & south africa!

we had the first plenary session last night, and just that talk alone was worth the price of the conference in my opinion. it was mary jo leddy. she structured her speech based on an concept she got from a jewish philosopher, that:

we human beings think of god as merciful & just
because we are both weak & strong.

that alone got me thinking all night, and it even spilled over to this morning i guess! hahaa..

well, me gonna go join those "inspired by nouwen" people in prayer, and maybe i'll even get to witness the power of god getting generated in relationships as time progress.

attending workshops & conferences

so i was riding the local bus yesterday and it suddenly occurred to me that i was on an air-conditioned bus. although i see its usefulness for later on in the season, i felt the air conditioning was functioning contrary to its purpose of instilling comfortableness. it was in a way a disturbance for me to enjoy what is natural. just like today, the noisy air conditioning system made it hard for me to listen to the speakers and other participants at the workshop.

it was an all-day workshop on "nurturing queer youth: family therapy transformed". isn't family therapy and nurturing queer youths a contradiction in terms? that was one of the introductory jokes by rebecca harvey. i appreciated their personal sharing when rebecca talked about her present day challenges working at a catholic university, and linda stone fish's perspective in mothering her children.

i picked up a few captivating ideas that i'm still trying to think through, including seeing queerness as a gift, encouraging difficult dialogues, continuum of gender and evolving sexuality. how does one create a refuge for queer youth? what are the parents' & therapists' roles in witnessing and encouraging transformation? how do i BE a presence for others (instead of focusing on doing?!)??

personally, i find it quite fascinating that this field is always changing, so much so that there's this sense of it being "too new to know". take a look at this quote:

"These new teens know they're not straight, and they don't want to be. Most are okay with it. Some are thrilled with their sexuality, but don't see why they must therefore label themselves as gay. Yes, they are sexually attracted to other girls or other boys, perhaps ever so slightly. Maybe their feelings are romantic but not sexual--or sexual but not romantic. That's not bad. It's natural. It gives them an edge, a certain mystery. It sets them off from their peers--and from us adults" (Savin-Williams, 2005).

so it seems that this is a "conference month" for me. next weekend i'll be in toronto attending a nouwen conference and the week after there's a conference on social work & spirituality in town that i'm hoping to catch as well. stay tuned! :D