On my way to Haiti

Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to the Atlanta airport to catch a plane to Miami where I'll meet twelve others, all of whom are going with me to Port au Prince and Ranquitte, Haiti; most are going for a week; three of us are staying an additional two days. I may have access to our blog while there. All depends on the amount of solar energy the roof panels can generate. If opportunities arise, I'll keep you posted as to how things are going.

Tomorrow we celebrate The Feast of the Epiphany. The star we twelve will be following leads us to the manger at Haiti, and all of us ask for your prayers, especially as you pray for the Haitian people who are so desparately poor. Our work while in Haiti will be the building of a small concrete-block home with a metal roof for a family that now sleeps on a dirt floor.

Here are some words from Thomas Merton that you may wish to ponder:

Spiritual rebirth is the key to the aspirations of all the higher religions. By "higher religions" I mean those which, like Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, are not content with the ritual tribal cults rooted in the cycle of the seasons and harvests. These "higher religions" answer a deeper need in [humankind]: a need that cannot be satisfied merely by the ritual celebration of [our] oneness with nature-[our] joy in the return of spring! [Humankind] seeks to be liberated from mere natural necessity, from servitude to fertility and seasons, from the round of birth, growth, and death. [Humankind] is not content with slavery to need: making a living, raising a family, and leaving a good name to posterity. There is in the depths of [our] hearts a voice which says: "You must be born again." It is the obscure but insistent demand of [our] own nature to transcend itself in the freedom of a fully integrated, autonomous, personal identity. --Love and Living (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979), 194.

Do visit this Epipahny video. I'll be back in Kentucky on the 22nd.