Back from Gerroa- Ten Days of Paradise!

Well my friends, the last ten days have really been a treat for many reasons. For starters, even though I've learned to love the ocean over the years (I grew up on one of the Great Lakes... but an ocean it was not!), I've never been on the water for more than a few days. Ten days at the beach, especially a quiet, clean, and scenic one like this, was like heaven.

The intention behind this time away was to really get to know one another at a much deeper level so that the twelve of us can support and challenge each other in this last phase of Jesuit formation. This involves the sharing of our "outer story" or the one that a biographer might write about each of us, as well as the "inner story," - our more private and personal experiences and the meaning that we make of them. We spend the better part of each morning making time for these stories, prayer, and liturgy. And then we spent the rest of each day as we liked... enjoying the beach, going for hikes and excursions, reading, and doing the cooking for the evening meal. Let's just say it was a balance I could get used to...

It has been a real treat getting to know these guys and hearing about the very diverse backgrounds we're coming from: the U.K., Singapore, Micronesia, Switzerland, Bavaria, the U.S., Poland... and enjoying people's amazing culinary skills! It's a bit late, so I might leave it at that for now. The one mishap was that I accidently my brand new digital camera, so will have to rely on the sharing of my brothers' photos for a while. Stay tuned!