Not "To Have"

No internet has meant more reading, which is a good thing. I've been reading some essays in a book entitled Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, a book that I've had for over a year. I'd read some essays but not all of them.
One of the general themes is the growth in the emphasis on the individual in the modern era, especially "Lockean" individualism, with its stress on ownership.
What has this to do with a blog about living and learning in Tanzania? Everything. You see, Swahili has no verb "to have." That's right. You cannot say, for instance, "Tomorrow, I will have a chair." Instead you say, "I will be with a chair" -- Kesho nitakawa na kiti.
In some ways a challenge to some of the notions in late modern industrial society about what it means, how one is, human.
Look for a bevy of posts in the next days -- everyone is asleep right now, so I'm able to get a bit of an internet fix tonight. I have been writing posts, as mentioned earlier; I'll see about getting them up on this site in the coming days, day. (That word kesho above -- tomorrow -- is the favorite answer to questions like "when will the fundi --repair person [actually a billion occupations are covered by the term] fix the computer Internet connection?")

More Posts Coming

The internet has been down here for over a week. I have been writing posts and when things are in better shape (only one computer with connection because wireless is still not working), I'll post them all -- including the post in which I talk about learning patience. I've learned it, now I'm ready to have the Internet working!

youtube

In case you haven't noticed, I do have a youtube channel. Not so much will be posted until the promised national improvements re: connectivity occur. But if you have the inclination to see watch what has already been posted...

My Aching Back

This morning Bart Murphy, sj, picked me up here to go for a bike ride. He explained to my friend Berger Hanson, a volunteer from Denmark here at the school who lives next to me, that it would be a short, easy ride because he is after all a 73-old with asthma.

It was a short ride – about half the ride he intended – because my back was so strained on the hills. And I confess to being a little winded, too (it’s a hilly route). It was in total only about 8 kilometres. It was in the village down the road that I decided to give up. I figured I’d wait for Bart to return, and I was content to do so. My red-faced, sore-backed self provided great entertainment for a group of men sitting under a nearby tree -- good-natured laughing at the mzungu.

It took me awhile to cool down once we returned. It was a time when turning on the water for the shower I did not think to myself, “I wish there were hot water.”

The other news is that after three weeks of letting my beard grow (it’s been seventeen years since I last had one), I shaved it off. Much better.

"Why there?"

Forewarning: I'm posting this (having written it beforehand) even though what follows is a little "preachy."

I had an interesting experience at teatime this morning. A young Lutheran volunteer from Germany who arrived here at the language school last night with three others for what will be a two-week crash course said to me upon hearing that I am preparing to work in Dodoma, “Why there? I’ve heard there’s nothing there.” (It just occurred to me that Dodoma is in the minds of many the Oakland of Tanzania: “There’s no there, there.”) I answered that it isn’t a matter of what is there or not there but rather a matter of who is there. And there are in the Dodoma region 1.8 million people, most of them poor, most of them young, most of them without access to adequate formal education.

My move to Tanzania, as many readers of this blog know, is really very much a part of a renewal of my own life as a Jesuit, inspired by a number of things, among them our recent General Congregation, a simple moment with a brother Jesuit at Loyola Marymount (which I’ll return to later), the talks of our Superior General, and in particular a letter of his from the earlier part of this year in which he reminds Jesuits of two things that mark our Society: its universal nature and the availability of its members to go anywhere in the world.

It is with these two things as a backdrop that I was happy to read this morning a letter of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, to Gian Andrea Schenaldo, a citizen of northern Italy who wrote to Ignatius pleading that a favorite priest of the Society might stay there rather than be missioned elsewhere. Ignatius’s response, in part, follows:

Of course, our Society bends every effort to help and further the salvation of souls, impelled thereto both by charity and by our own Institute; moreover, the grave needs of souls throughout the world goad us constantly forward, adding the spurs to those already running of their own accord…The members of the Society need to be free and unencumbered, so that they can fly off to any place on earth where greater hope of God’s glory and the salvation of souls beckons us, not settling in any particular place (unless we have a college or house there), but working for different people over limited periods of time, gratis and without being bound.

It was 25 years ago that Fr. John O’Malley, a member of my Detroit Province of the Jesuits, helped us recapture this original charism of the Jesuits with his essay on Jerónomino Nadal, an early Jesuit who served as a sort of promoter of the thought of Ignatius and of our foundational texts. Nadal in his writings underscored this notion of availability and mobility. And I thank God for the grace at this time in my life to embrace this charism of ours and thank him as well for allowing me to cast my lot with such wonderful folks as the folks here in Tanzania.

Now about that moment with my brother Jesuit…. As we were leaving the community’s Tuesday evening celebration of the Eucharist, where we’d just sung all the verses of a hymn, he said to no one in particular – and to everyone in general – “Some of the younger of us have forgotten that we are not monks.” This is a reference to St. Ignatius’s insistence that we Jesuits not be bound to pray the liturgy of the hours in choir as monks do so that we could be freer to attend to apostolic duties.

My brother Jesuit’s comment brought a smile to my face. Why? Because the other constitutive characteristic of monastic life is the vow of stability, the vow that one will stay attached to his monastery forever (her, of course, for nuns) -- and this man hasn't ventured far from LMU in his many, many years there. What occurred to me about my Jesuit life – I cannot speak of anyone else’s, of course – is that I did not want university tenure to become my own personal vow of stability.

[Incidentally, after the incident narrated above, I found myself doing a substitution exercise with the text of our Constitutions (a thinking/reflecting exercise introduced to me by my friend and mentor Jason Raley – a shout out to him and my Santa Paula family – and one which I commended to my own students). First the text as it appears:

Because the occupations which are undertaken for the aid of souls are of great importance, proper to our Institute, and very frequent; and because on the other hand, our residence in one place or another is so highly uncertain, our members will not regularly hold choir for the canonical hours or sing Masses and offices. (586)

And here is my subsitution:

Because the occupations which are undertaken for the aid of souls are of great importance, proper to our Institute, and very frequent; and because on the other hand, our residence in one place or another is so highly uncertain, our members will not accept any sort of tenure (whether actual or virtual).

Yikes!]

Tenure can be an important apostolic tool, surely; and I was happy to work toward it in order, in fact, to make myself more apostolically available over time. Tenure has one principal purpose: to protect the academic freedom of faculty members. It also serves as the journeyman’s card in the academy. Relative to academic freedom, Jesuits have that by virtue of our vow of poverty (“So fire me; what do I have to lose? I seek neither, riches, glory, nor power” is about as free as you can get!). The other aspect, the journeyman’s card, I think, is the important aspect of tenure for a Jesuit. Okay, I’m blathering and have gotten a little preachy. Forgive me.

In any case – to return to what I set out to write about in this post: The young German man said, “Why go to Dodoma, there’s nothing there?” And my answer: Because there’s nothing less than a corner of the Kingdom of God there, that’s why.

A Change in Layout

Regular readers will note that I've changed the layout a bit today. I've put "about me" under "you can help," so that "you can help" is more readily available for readers to click on. If you haven't had a chance to click on it, you can -- and send your friends, too. Every little bit will help, believe me -- and big bits won't be refused!

Thanks to all who've already shown such great support -- financially, spiritually, and otherwise.

Asanteni Sana!

Nilikwenda mjini

I played hooky this afternoon and I went into the city. And I did by using the local transportation system, the dala-dala. Those who know me know that I'm not the bravest when it comes to trying such new things. I not only managed fine, but had fun doing it. Incidentally, I counted 30 people (including infants and children) in the vehicle, which I imagine was built for 16.
The dala-dalas don't have good shock absorption, so the accompanying photo is the best I could do. Notice the fellow on the left, handing holding up his head -- that's they typical pose as you wait forever at the terminal in the city for the return trip -- they don't leave according to schedule but rather when they're packed. It's hot and miserable. I ended up walking with him from the street toward the campus -- Kevin works in Tabora, but he's home for the weekend with his wife.
Sossy kindly had delivered to me this late afternoon my camel (water holding backpack), my lectionary, sacramentary, and alb -- and a missal in Swahili. The folks at the Salvatorian Institute down the street have kindly invited me to concelebrate Sunday Masses with them, even to the point of encouraging me to practice part of the Eucharistic Prayer.
Take good care all.