A few minutes of internet (thanks to Pepe's T-Mobile account) before I board a plane (not canceled this time thanks to Northwest) for Minnesota, so here are four photos from the last week of the Family Retreat Program. Yeehaa!

Again with the no time to write . . .

our last retreat of the season begins in a few short hours.



So here are a few shots from Baltimore's Artscape:

a bark-covered art truck,



the 'aerial sculpture' (corseted people strapped to huge counterweights spinning in the air in response to avant-garde music)



and the (free!) festival headliners, the Old 97s!

Time to post the shot and that's it.

But kudos to Blue Ridge Summit's Public Library for also having wifi.

Yeeehaa!

While our quiet little retreat center has a lot going for it (including a pool and basketball court) it's only a short drive (or a nifty hike on the Appalachian Trail) away from a park on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border with a full-on playground. Our retreatants couldn't resist its dizzying lure Wednesday -- captured here by my iPhone.

And I can't resist sharing these three photos (DSLR this time) of J, the youngest member of a 7 person family I accompanied this past week. I don't speak either Portuguese or Crioulo (the Cape Verdean dialect of archaic Portuguese that was this family's first language) so Spanish had to do. And it did. A long with lots of wide eyes and wider smiles.

It was a challenge for me, the guy for whom precision and nuance in language are fundamental (and which do so much of the heavy lifting of meaning), to muddle through what I pray were meaningful discussions of the sacred texts of our lives along with the sacred text of the Gospel. (The latter presented in lively often-bilingual skits with almost as many anachronistic elements as timeless ones.)

In good time, the silences became less awkward and the moments of together-ness transcended the oxymoronic universal alienation that can fill the vacuum of a shared language. And if nothing else, digital photography gave us that satisfying shared experience of pointing at a screen with laughter, oohs and ahhs.

With apologies to Heather (who apparently was prepared to throw something across the room -- in a loving, nonviolent, Christian kind of way -- if she saw one more bit of iPhone hullabaloo) I offer the following juxtaposition of, um . . . well it uh . . . you see, it's just that -- OK I ADMIT I HAVE AN IDOLATROUS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE iPHONE.

But doesn't this icon make it better? Not in a sacrilegious way (because I do not think, as some have said, that the iPhone is like Jesus came back as a phone) but but because the iPhone is tool that can be used in a blessed way, to serve God and make the world a better place. OK, maybe that's a stretch . . . but the Jesuits tell us to find God in All Things!

In any event, I now have one. And I pledge to do my darnedest to use it for good, not evil. (And yes, the photo of me all geeked up on enthrallingly-effective technology was in fact taken by my iPhone.)

(After a 10 minute Google search, I couldn't definitively locate the artist, bonus points if you can help me out.)

Confidential to Tim who's worried about the iWorld: if nothing else, I should get credit for not spelling icon as iCon, right? Please?

This is M. And one of two parachutes the Jesuit Family Retreat Program has.

A sunny day, a grassy field, a giggling kid and a multi-colored parachute combine to make a whole lotta fun.

Hope you've enjoyed your day as well.

Posting this on dial-up. A testament to both nostalgia and patience. The posting, not the photo. The photo is a snapshot of today, the first day of the retreat. And now, because I somehow believe more words will make this go slower, I sign off. Peace!