I went to hear this Cuban priest. Part 1.

Over the course (curse) of my life, I have fallen for a number of priests. When I was a child, it was mostly visiting Irish priests. They were sometimes so cute, and those accents, and those dancing eyes, and the fact they they were funny. They told jokes. Imagine. There was also a bit of a blur between some of them and some of the handsome young actors who played priests in the movies. All very heady for a young girl.

The same thing happened with the occasional beautiful young nun. What was her story? How did she know her vocation at such a young age. Did she hate her family? Was she a orphan? My childish mind didn't have too many stories to plug in. But I did manage a few massive crushes which kept my faith strong and possibilities open. "If such and such happens, I can always become a nun."

Part of me knew it could never happen because I can't carry a tune. How could I sing those lovely chants if I was off key the whole time.Ii imagined the priest and the Mother Superior giving me the stink eye and the whole effect being ruined.

When Patrick and I got stuck in Reims, France drinking the best champagne ever made for days on end (we couldn't seems to find the way to the road to hitchhike out), we met a derelict priest. We drank some fine champagne with him. And a bit more and figured he had about thirty years of this on us. He finally got all whispery and led us down into the sub sub sub basement of the catacombs. He was muttering about the history of France. He showed us this ornate glass case which held a skull. He talked rapidly. We drank sagaciously. He then handed us the skull. I passed it over to Patrick. It was Clovis, The king of the Franks who had unified the Franks into an empire. (What did we know?) It was a cool, strange, unreal, event. We dug it and then went to find some bread.

Many years later, the month after my mother died and having had a lot of life with little or no Catholic influence, I came to Guatemala for a month. It was a month soon after 9/11 and there were few travelers. I stayed in Antigua, Guatemala and found myself going to La Merced Church for 5:00 mass every afternoon. It was a nice familiar place to have some quiet contemplation and there was the gorgeous visiting Cuban priest with a lovely voice. I felt soothed when he spoke. I had a little crush, no different really from my mad on the Dalai Lama. Previously, I had also suffered some acute crushes on priests who had become revolutinaries in the various struggles for the human rights of the poor.

Ray Bourgeois, where are you? And Father Francis in his weaving monastery up in New Hampshire. But last week I was hanging out in the Cathedral in Granada, Nicaragua when it happened again. I was there because I believe that when I am in a Catholic country, it is often the situation that much of the cultural and social and political life takes place in and around the church. Same scene in Buddhist countries or Muslim countries.

So, I met Father Francis and my whole life is changing again. We went into a conference room and talked for about four hours. Already a thousand pieces of my erratic path are falling in place. Mas manana.