Well, What Do You Know!

Whenever my friends ask me, "What are you doing in a Catholic seminary?"

I answer the same way, everytime:

"Really."

As I have been surprised, impressed, inspired, and nutured in the 'Catholic seminary,' today I am going to stop saying what I always say.

Today, the 'Catholics' called a snow day.

Raised in the harsh, stringent, self-effacing Catholicism of the 50's and 60's no compassion, gentleness, or understanding was given freely by the nuns and priests that instructed me. Certainly not as freely as modeled by the Christ figure whose lifestyle and behavior were supposedly underpinning the theology.

Deeply appreciative of this decision, I was released to enjoy the eight inches of snow that we have received, since mid-night. Instead of trying to save my own life driving the freeway, gripping the steering wheel like death was ahead, and making it to class on time.

(Yes, the clock on my newly installed radio works.)
(And yes, true to my 'not-interested' personality, I do not know how to set an accurate time.)

I took the dogs out to the farm campus. I have about eight hundred pounds of corn and wood pellets in my van. I threw the shovel in as an after thought. Released from taking a test today, I felt the child part of my ego, that I have been examining in the Jungian archetypes. Freed, happy, fearless, open to and looking for adventure, excited, and thrilled with expanding what could have been, a house-bound definition of the day. Since I like to drive slow anyway, and the axels are weighted, five miles north did not seem that daunting for my adventure. I wish my child archetype could get free of 'just in case,' and 'better safe than sorry,' and 'don't be stupid.'
But as DeFrancisco said in class last night as we examined the psychology of our personalities, "some fear is a good thing."

I am going to splice the Minnesota gene here, to the child archetype. On the drive, I loved the landscape, loved the quiet, loved the inspection of the road, the current of the drifting, and the blustery wind that shot snow over my windshield. The mythical presentation of this love of the outdoors, in Minnesota, is Paul Bunyon. And with my four layers covered by parka, I was a presentation of this image.

In retrospect, the most reflective aspect of this walk was stimulated by an unexpected discovery. I drove through the wooded terrain to the most out-back parking lot. And there found eight other cars. My child was there with other children. Happily putting on and taking off skiis and snow shoes. Many people on the trails and coming off the trails. Quilted, both in snow and clothes, we conversed easily. Not intent on driving forward into the activity, or fleeing the activity to the safety of their car, each person I talked with was calm, peaceful, and content while standing under a heavy fall of snow. Only the dogs were electrified, the rest of us acted like we were standing in our own kitchens, sipping tea. It was the same quiet talk that I witnessed one afternoon, in a beautiful cathedral in France. No hurry, no other place to go to, no other life had to be found and reentered.

The end thought on the reflection: no matter where I am, I am not alone.


I found it very difficult to write out the paper on my wounded self. I had two weeks to do it, and believe me, suffered every moment it took. When I handed it over to DeFrancisco, I said, "Don't publish this, and my sympathy to you for having to read it." He said, "We all have our wounded child. Take care of yours, and don't worry about mine."

"What are you doing in a Catholic seminary?"

Well, today, the child physician, the child magician, the child adventurer, the child dreamer, the child lover, the child busy bee, the child socializer, the child athlete, the child Paul Bunyon was healing the wounded child