"measure a man by the friends he keeps"

"I have to remind myself that some birds weren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knew it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But your world is just that much colder and emptier when they're gone. I don't know... maybe I just miss my friend."

I am sorry for the delay in posts my life has been a hotmess. Today I got a message from an avid reader of Matt's Motorcycle Diary saying "It's been 20 days and I check everyday, please write something" So this post is for Kathleen Reece. Thank you for the kick in the pants as well as the support.

Appropriate I would say because I am writing about something that has been on my mind a lot recently: value of friendship. As well as, the feeling of being restricted in my friendships while being here. Previous to coming to Belize I valued my rich diversity in friends, and prided myself on retaining those relationships. While in Belize because of certain aspects of my life it is hard to stay connected to the people you love. Phone calls are too expensive to make for me to check in on people. And if people want to call me we need a pre established date and time so I will be by the phone. These are not enormous hurdles but rather something to deal with. And yes I have become an avid writer of snail mail letters. But frequently my community mates and I say somewhat exhaustively " It is hard to continue to be a good friend while here". This is not something I even realized was an issue until being here. I had some idealized idea that my friends and I would talk at a frequent rate, not the case for most.

This may sound like ramblings of a white kid in central america but at the heart lies a deeper issue. This past week a deep blow was dealt to the John Carrol community. To deal with something so serious from so far away was quite hard. This not only deeply affected me in a personal way, but affected many of those that I love back in the States. It is hard to be a compassionate friend while out of touch more or less. Being far away has been helpful and hard at the same time. I am not surrounded by what was affecting everyone, but at the same time I felt on my own. My community mates have been incredibly supportive to me in this time of darkness doing everything they can for me. And I am appreciative of that.

On the flip side, while being here in Belize I have retained friendships that are now cemented into my life, people who have made themselves part of my experience. Those that I love who are invested into my life down here have been a huge blessing. This has helped me with feelings of "what am I doing here?". Knowing people love and support me from far away has filled me with an amazing sense of gratitude. Being here in Belize has stripped down my life in a variety of ways - lack of materialism, no hot water, reduced communication with home, changed comfort zone, serious tropical illness, as well as a minority status . But that being said, what is left when all of that is gone is in a sense, my real self. With the long slow discovery of one's self, your inner most desires are acknowledged, challenged and questioned. Never before in my life have I felt such a rapid change in who I am, more importantly who I am becoming. This existential discover has become my day to day. Included in that are the people who support, applaud and stand back and watch... my friends and family who I am indebted. It is odd, some of my closest friends who I have known either the past 4 years, or my whole life, I feel that our friendship has grown closer more so in these 3 months than in the past three years. This is equally true the men that have known me my entire life, my brothers. The conversations had with my brothers while being here have been the most in depth and intentional we have ever shared. In a way they are my greatest supporters, and I didn't fully comprehend the size of that love until being here.

This post is all over the place, I realize that. But that is very much where I am right now. A mixture of comfort, discomfort; known and unknown; my reality versus the reality of Belizeans.

Thank you for continued support I have received as I go day to day, digging through the 'big questions' of the injustices of life in Belize, as well as the daily brilliant, beautiful joys of being a volunteer.

Love,
Matty

Rest in peace Cody Gullete
"a brilliant life cut too short"

'Where have you Found God today?" -Steph Galeota

"Now the summer days are through

You pass through places

And places pass through you

But you carry them with you

On the soles of your traveling shoes"
-The Littlest Bird's, Jolie Holland

Its October I can't believe it! I am in my third month "in country" and I feel like life is flying by. (this has a lot to do with the fact that temperature wise, it still feels like August). My retreats have started up with a fury. I was extremely nervous for my first two (a teachers retreat, and a confirmation retreat) but once the wheels started turning my apprehension subsided. To walk into a room with 20 silent, mostly Maya, teachers was incredibly intimidating... for a variety of reasons including the following:

1) 90% of the teachers were older than me
2) This was my first time leading a retreat in Belize and though I had previous experience in college I was worried about imposing North American cultural norms on the group. (this is something I have become extremely sensitive to, as Americans we view our way as the only way, most times without realizing it)
3) I had a bit of a scheduling issue with a previous retreat and was very worried about anything happening in front of my boss, again. ("First mistake, no sweat, you are new"...Second... "you are an idiot." Well not really but that's how I was thinking)
4) I am a tall, white, young, unmarried man who isn't becoming a priest. I myself am an anomaly ("No I don't have children" "No I'm not married" "Not a priest" "No, not gay")

The purpose of my retreat was to examine where each teacher was in their faith journey. By doing that they can see where they would like to be. And throughout the day I introduced a variety of prayer practices that were outside of what they had experienced. For a group of people raised in an extremely orthodox Catholic upbringing I wanted to show that there is no right or wrong way to pray, and we can pray in our everyday using everything around us. We each bring what we have: our gifts, talents, imagination and use our experiences both good and bad, accept them for what they are, to reach God. Many people, including most of the Teachers, assume we have to be a certain way to be faithful. But comparing ourselves to others we ultimately fall short. But by comparing "where we think we should be" to "where we actually are" we get a better understanding of our struggles with faith resulting in a more authentic experience with the Divine (whatever that is for you).

I received a lot of positive feedback from the teachers who were blown away by the simple prayer methods I introduced, most of which were based in Ignatian Spirituality. Some of these included "Practical Prayerwalking"... walking with intention, be mindful instead of just rushing to a destination, walking slowly, purposefully using our senses to experience God in our everyday world; Making a Spiritual Life Graph and examining situations throughout your life that has brought you closer to God or turned you away from God. By reflecting on that and talking with others the teachers had a better understanding of where they were. Faith journey is not something often talked about so that in itself was new.

I was really happy to bring my experience to help enhance the spiritual experience of the Teachers. And it also felt really really good to do a job and do it well. I know for certain some of my retreats will completely flop (most of the success of a retreat comes from dialogue and interaction from the retreatants) but for now I feel good knowing I did good work. And at other times I struggle with the question "Why am I here? I merely lead these silly little retreats". So having a successful first retreat helped with my sense of purpose. (this is all I have time for now, but I wanted to leave you with how my boss Fr. Dick closes every Mass which I think is simple and wonderful )

"Let us go and Love one another and that is how we will love God"

-Matty