Fr Jim's (old) Blog

I fluked visiting Eric & Nicole on the Memorial Day weekend, which is the equivalent of Anzac Day, so they both had Monday off to spend together. We went to one of northwest Washington's natural landmarks, Mt Rainier, one of the highest & most prominent mountains in the US. It's still a potentially active volcano, near enough to Mt St Helens that schools have evacuation drills for what to do in an eruption. We drove up, with the mountain looming ever larger at each at each turn in the road. It's a serious challenge to climb, but we contented ourselves with one of the midway points as a lunch stop, and a walk through magnificent pine trees on the way home. On Tuesday Eric had appointments at church, and being the one day the girls are both in pre-school Nicole and I took a walk up a closer mountain, Rattlesnake Ridge with a spectacular lookout over a turquoise lake. On the way back we visited Snoqualmie Falls and the hydro-electric plant. As I write this afternoo...

All the flights and connections from Sydney, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco, finally to Seattle 24 hours later went well I'm visiting my friends Eric & Nicole and their kids Kiara and Adelina in Seattle for a few days while I'm in the US. Seattle isn't really on the way to Omaha (it's the north eastern most city in the US, almost on the Canadian border), but very much worth it to spend time with such great people. Eric and I became friends when I was studying in Chicago 8 years ago. I was on sabbatical, and Eric was in formation as a Lutheran pastor. He's now ordained, married to Nicole who's a passionate Catholic, and is associate pastor at Messiah Lutheran church , Auburn (near Seattle). It was great to see Eric in action leading a service and preaching. His message on the gospel of Jesus healing the centurion's servant was a great mix of proclamation of a basic Christian message (Jesus healed many people in the gospel in many ways, and he sti...

I'm going to be away from Kincumber for the next ten weeks. Bishop Peter is supporting me in doing the first of three sessions of an MA in Christian Spirituality through Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. I don't really know much about Nebraska - it doesn't feature on many lists of 'must-see places'. This clip shows it to be quite beautiful and as suspected, with lots of corn and some bison thrown in. This one is a tour of Omaha. I'm grateful for the opportunity. I look at so many people I know who have done their masters degrees while still working full time, and I realise what a privilege it is going to be to put my life and go and be fully immersed in the study. To live on campus, to eat every day with my fellow students will give lots of opportunities for sharing and learning. I'll be posting some of what I learn and experience while I'm there so that my family, friends and parishioners can see what I'm up to. I wrote a similar blog ...