Category Archives: Olympic Games

The Olympics, August and Despondency and floods

Posted on August 12, 2016 | Leave a comment

The flood has grown since this post was named or it might appear in the title. But while it has caused much suffering it was not anticipated like an approaching hurricane. But we do expect problems with rain and floods here.

Fishing fleet cleaning or stranded in many places

This afternoon school is cancelled in many parts of the regionwhere I am due to storms and flooding.  I’m not in school as a student nor an employee but I am very aware of its closure. The rain also changes many other things around here. For direct and indirect reasons it has affected my sleep. Texts and calls have been coming in over most of the last twenty odd hours from automated systems warning me of the flood. Such is life. The many problems that I already have are made worse when the little acts that make up my life and struggle are interrupted.  This story continues to evolve around me across editions of this post. Hopefully with no tragedies among the near and dear in my life. But a cousin has needed rescue and nearer kin have needed sandbags. My current haunts in an old family home shared with my aunt are dry.

 

Many people, including one family very close to me, are more adversely affected than I am so far. But things have a way of letting you know when they are going from bad to worse. They often do. So why do I take time to watch the great successes on the Olympics? Even in the later edition of this post when,  among many other troubles, I have a flood damaged phone and  wound to worry about — I still took time to watch the Olympics. It’s a set of rituals, events and stories compelling to me even in a flood.

I still believe in struggle, effort, training and discipline even when the results are very far from world records and gold medals. There are a lot of other Olympic values that I share. In 2004 I found out during the Olympics that I might well get my papers in time to teach in China and I did. That’s after knowing that I had finally gotten the basic papers. But often the summer Olympics comes at a depressing and disappointing time of year for me as it does again this year. But I still watch and still care. My own less glorious struggle to survive the ordeals of another natural disaster remains connected to the stellar performance of Usain Bolt, Justin Gatlin, Alyson Felix, Van Niecken and many others on the track sprinting today. I watch them in part the way that I will celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It’s the National Feast of the Acadian People and it is a Church solemnity. There are layers of meaning.  I connect to the occasion in both Catholic and in Cajun ways.

 

“The future is not ours to see”, so the song popular in my childhood says.  But it is all too often fairly predictable for many of us. The great success of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team was happily predictable. They looked rightly confident to me. For most of us life doesn’t usually and daily resemble the kinds of unequalled success we have seen this year in the performance of Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecki, Simone Niles and a handful of other superstars. Certainly, my life doesn’t much resemble the epic Olympic performance of Michael Phelps whom I have very much enjoyed watching in these Rio games. But in the process of living we all deal with the same sense of being faced with tremendous challenges. I know what it means to push on and so do many other people who will never find a gold medal at the end of their journey. I have been reviewing old correspondence and am aware that I have long lived a life founded in faith. Sometimes, I am very grateful for all the support my faith has received. Other days find me less grateful for the same set of shared experiences.

09-08-2016-Swimming-16I have enjoyed the Olympics and hope to keep enjoying them. But on a personal level I relate more to the road racer in women’s cycling who had to cut her own air all the way to the finish line while three competitors drafted and posted their way along to pass her in the last seconds and leave her in a medal void at fourth place. I relate to another part of Team USA which is the water polo team eliminated by a loss to Montenegro in a game they had to win to have a chance to make it out of their pool or group to the single elimination tournament. I relate to the 800 meters American record setter locked behind the dominant African pack of lead runners and kept out of the medals.  America is dominating these games but many American athletes are doing brave deeds and coming up short.
Truly I enjoy the glory of the great stars but I watch more to admire than to identify. I don’t diminish their glory and success but I am not so much made glorious by these events.  However, I am very aware of my own lack of glory and success these days… I am aware of diminishing resources to bring to the fights in which I am engaged.

But like many of you reading this, I hope to keep going on the track I run and the lane I swim in daily life until my strength finally gives out….

 

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Posted in 1, Abbeville, Abbeville, family, Frank W. Summers III's family, Greece & Greeks, Louisiana, Olympic Games, United States of America, Vermilion Parish, Wetlands

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Faith Camp, Bukidnon Youth Conference and the Future

Posted on July 14, 2016 | Leave a comment

Faith Camp is a one week long camp held for middle school aged students based somewhere in Vermilion Parish. There are currently two such camps held each year. While the kids are the focus it is an event that involves people of all ages. For many who participate in its various aspects it is both an optimistic and fun experience and a deeply spiritual one. The Catholic faith is celebrated in a context which is fairly complete and brings the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the experience of church into the lives of these young people in a complete way.

The last two weeks  before this posting there has been ongoing the 20th year of continuous Faith Camps. This ministry was founded by my sister Susanna whom I saw at Faith Camp last night. At the time she founded she and were regular prayer partners and she was in the area and living at Big Woods during the summer after having started her studies at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. It was a fairly small camp that year but I was deeply impressed with it and shared with her my own memories of a live-in conference  in Bukidnon when she was a child as one of my better memories and so the two things were linked in my mind at the inception although there was not much of a causal link.  Susanna wasalso a small child when the Bukidnon Youth Conference was going on around and near her in various manifestations in Malaybalay, Bukidnon on the southern island of Mindanao in the Republic of the Philippines. I haven’t been back since the 1980s but it was a time which I have always felt had a big influence on the rest of my life and other lives in the family. Many members of my family have played key roles in the success of the camp over the decades. This year a middle school aged child of one of the campers at the second camp was a camper at Faith Camp.

Austin at a faith Camp reunion a few years before he was shot.

 

 This year my sister Sarah’s eldest daughter Alyse is the coordinator of Faith Camp as she was last year. This is one of the blog posts that I write that is not primarily driven by the news. It is more driven by  a series of important experiences, recollections  and feelings which resonate in my life. This is one of those posts which combines both some vivid recollection and some fading memories: But the hope one felt at key times continues. The possibility of really putting together a history of those years is a daunting and not a very promising prospect. But the prospect of trying to recapture some of the spirit of those times seems a worthy aspiration as it will help me to convey some thoughts about the current times and some of the times in between now and then. I went from New Zealand to the Philippines with my birth family when I was seventeen and arrived there around Christmas. The bottom right hand picture below is of the Maranatha Youth Group in St. Pius X Church Parish in Titahi Bay which I left behind there on those cool windswept coasts. We passed through Australia on the way there.The top set of damaged images are from my time in the Philippines as is my better picture of myself leading my sisters on the carabao. The bottom right hand corner isa picture of the wall of my Household at the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

 

faded image of my sister’s First Communion in the Philippines.
Our family loved our rare vacations to Camiguin Island while we were in the Philippines.
Like these faded copies of pictures for which originals may still exist some aspects of my ties to the Philippines and some memories have faded.
Leading my sisters on a carabao in the Philippines.
College Household at FUS
The Maranatha Youth Group in Titahi Bay, New Zealand with me in it.

 We were in the Philippines for a couple of years (or so I remember without checking) and Simon was born with difficulties associated with Prader-Willi Syndrome. That was also at Christmas and was at the time of my Bukidnon Youth Conference which is the real subject of part at least of this post. Due to Simon’s condition we came back to the United States. While there I completed my Freshman Year at USL — now the University of Louisiana  — in one semester and in the preceding summer worked in some college and youth ministries in the church. Then we all returned to the Philippines and I renewed my ministry for a while and in the summer just after my brother Joseph was born and having overstayed my visa in a tense time in a country on edge and with a gift of a large and dangerous looking tribal sword I flew back alone to the United States.The picctures I took there for various reasons have not much been digitzed and the ones that were have not al made it into part of the cloud I can access. But the memories that I have of the Philippines are indeed plentiful and meaningful. Many of them were pleasant enough. Although the images in the pair below do not show the day to day life there as I justified that life they do show some of the rewards of the experience. Visiting the sick westerners in trouble, prison ministry, speaking to dozens of groups and working with college ministries all filled most of my days. But the Bukidnon Youth Conference was perhaps the  peak of my ministry there.  Being a 52 year old, divorced, childless near indigent was not the future among many possible futures which I saw as most likely in those days. But the journey since has certainly been a complicated on and rich too in color and texture and that sense of richness makes me feel like an expert on almost everything on some days. While that is not fair to much of anything neither or the days entirely fair when I feel that my onIy efforts to communicate come from having little else to do that is fulfilling and that I only ever feel that I  am well qualified to be a sage because I appear not to be qualified for anything else. My life has not been laser focused in a single direction and my time in the Philippines was not either. I like Faith Camp and I liked the Bukidnon Youth Conference in part because they touched many aspects of life from the arts to sport to socializing over dinner. This reminds me of one of my first Facebook notes when I wrote about  some of the extracurricular activities and hobbies that have enriched my life  and divided them into the big three categories of Faith, Science and Sports which I  chose to denominate as easy issues for that early Facebook note. These Easy Issues are not to be confused with the Easy Essays written by Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker Movement. His essays were easy,  because he easily guided the reader through the complexities of political philosophy to a simple and cohesive approach which would provide the framework fo the movement he and Dorthy Day were founding. In my Facebook the subjects are easy because of my tremendous insights into the very narrow experience I had in each of those fields — I did not concern myself with the larger picture. There was some tongue in cheek in the use of there terms and words but Faith Camp and the Bukidnon Youth Conference were also founded to give young people a real body of experience that they could claim as their own. A small window of controlled positive experience from ehich to see the world.

During those years when ministry was part of my life I did a lot of work preparing to work . One thing  or another or many things must be left out including almost all my regular Catholic  school time but I now note  the religious education I received. Some I received within the context of the schools mentioned. However, I also took a set of remote preparation confirmation classes in the Diocese of Lafayette within the Come Lord Jesus Program and the brief imediate preparation course at a Parish in the Archdiocese of Wellington, New Zealand. I was confirmed by a cardinal. In the Diocese of Lafayette I also completed instruction in and was commissioned for Evangelism as a Lay Evangelist of my native dicoese. This was also where after college I was certified as a catechist. Beyond those things, I completed the Life in the Spirit Seminar, the Cursillo de Cristiandad (en Ingles), a basic Lector’s training, Prayer Group Leaders Training Course, a salvation history micro course and stdied as a journalist the English translation of the Prelature of Bukidnon’s Alagad course which was a successful lay leadership course. I also read and discussed the Documents of the Second Vatican Council many times and in many contexts. Susanna who founded Faith Camp completed here degree in theology while continuing to build up this ministry. The two things have in common that they communicate to the kids from a depp and well laid foundation.

Like a lot of activity among Christians it is designed to provide an opportunity for a personal spiritual experience. The importance of personal spiritual experience in America is more evident than in some countries. One of the reasons for that comes from a man who was not a Christian but had a profound influence on the Christian and other populations of these United States at a critical time — the Revolution. Thomas Paine, one of the great thinkers of the American revolution basically stated that one of the profound problems with revelation as a basis for any law or covenant is that as soon as it is written down or described rather than existing as a perceived miracle or apparition or Messianic epiphany it becomes mere tradition. Three things can be said about that idea that miracles and revelation become traditions:

1. It is somewhat true and worth keeping in mind.
2. If God, the universe, the gods and Divine Wisdom were communicating with humanity they might not excuse people who said “Well, I needed that direct Apparition your Highness — didn’t get it so it’s your fault not mine.”
3.In places and times such as existed in the Charismatic renewal there was a renewal within the person which was seen to confirm the written Word and the received tradition. It is out of that third connection with the renewal of the background music and lifestyle of our family that the Bukidnon Youth Conference (BYC) and twenty years of Faith Camps have come. The Bukidnon Conference was less part of the Charismatic Renewal than was some of my work in those days and the current Faith Camps only remind one of the renewal. But the tradition is there.

St. Augustine is credited with two sayings that mean a lot to me as far as faith goes. One is “Seek not to understand that you may believe. Seek rather to believe that you may understand.” That saying is not perfect and is easily misconstrued but it remains profoundly true and truly profound.The second saying I will allow to explain itself and to be interpreted without me. St Augustine wrote “The best and the worst men in the world live in monasteries.” The idea that these young people come together to find understanding and to explore a fully lay spirituality does not mean that none will later become monks, priests, scientists or theologians some do and those around usually rejoice.  But the experience is of a different focus of informing a growing faith and living for Christ in the world.

That Filipino journey  in which the Bukidnon YouthBconference was born was one  which only temporarily ended just after the conference itself. But after returning with them from my time at USL and in this region I did not stay but went to enroll at the school where Susanna was studying when Faith Camp was founded.  I returned a bit early and went to live that summer with my paternal grandparents in a larger than most two storey house beside a park. That  is where I lived in that intervening summer have lived at other times and is also where I am living  now as I type this but I have only been here for a few months this go round. Then I enrolled as a sophomore at the Franciscan University. The summer after my sophomore year I returned to the Philippines to visit and overstayed my visa yet again by only a few days and flew home alone. I left school in mid semester for complicated reasons including some to do with problems in the Philippines related to those whom I had invited into the region to help me with the Youth Conference and  shortly after leaving school I met my parents returning to Abbeville where I currently reside. All of that was along time ago and I took a break to do some more ministry and other things before enrolling again at USL and finishing my degree there. Thousands of picture taken during those and subsequent years are unavailable to me here and now on this blog. But the family on the bottom left hand of the set below are the son of Abbeville friends and his wife who have been FMC missionaries where we once served for more than a few years now. The picture on the bottom right hand corner shows my brother Simon and my parents at an FMC Donors Dinner. He clearly survived the ordeals surrounding his birth as did we all.

Our family posing in our home garden in the Philippines
Some photos of their ministry before Family Missions Company
My Sophomore Class Award from the Franciscan University of Steubenville
New Zealand Youth Group at Botanical Gardens
Sammy and Lindsey and their family in missions. Donald long supported the mission work of my family.
A picture I took of my table at the Donors Dinner

 

Of the  actual BYC as an event I have no photos to share and never had many photos. Indeed of the conference itself very little documentation was made and far less survives. But there are a few things and here are a pair of snippets of that time. The newsletter Resounding Praise which defined so much of our communication with the rest of the world had a feature on the conference. This gathering so distant in time and space is still near to my memory and sensibility. The sense and vision behind the conference was one of bringing young Catholics and some not sure they were Catholics together to celebrate the gospel and to deal with the real challenges not only of their personal lives but of Islamist and Communist pressures from groups which in several cases were profoundly hostile to their Catholic Christian commitments.  There was also a real openness to finding what could be improved in the generally pro-American, Catholic, free market synthesis that informed the conference. There was not a tone of xenophobia or paranoia but of relatively optimistic participation in the world as it was  for young Catholic Christians. There is something in Faith Camp’s tradition that has always reminded me of that event.

 

 

There are bigger events in the world than Faith Camp or the Bukidnon Youth Conference but bigness is not everything. Nonetheless as America approaches it participation with other countries in the Rio Olympic Games I am reminded that the New testament is full of references to Olympic events. Paul wrote of racing, boxing, archery and of the disciplines of training as well as the glories of victory in those ancient games. For those going to the Olympics who are Christians while they should respect the games and the diversity there it can be both a mission and a spiritual experience in Christ.

A few years ago London prepared to see the wedding take place in Westminster Abbey there was a lot of suffering and pain in the world. Truthfully, there is almost always a lot of suffering and pain in the world.  Whatever their role may be in adding to the sum of distress in the world, the British royals do quite a bit to lessen the sum of woe and that was not the less true in a year when they were planning a royal wedding . That  set of outreaches to those in need is an effort that  is well documented. Prince Charles, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall and Prince William (the bridegroom this weekend) all have long supported a variety of charities benefiting humans, animals, ecosystems and cultural groups in distress.Prince Charles has a substantial income as Duke of Cornwall and donates a great deal of the income to charities in such a way that it leverages and is leveraged by other charitable donations. While it may well be that not a direct penny of that family’s efforts and gifts will go to help those hurt by the tornadoes whch ripped through the South last night it is also true that they are part of a philanthropic community around the world in which helping is informally circulated almost everywhere. Two babies (at least) ago the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth celebrated on the 29th of April 2011 The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. This expensive and extravagant occasion was also a Christian ritual and gathering and an expression of faith. The scene was truly extraordinary and the elegant venue and the well prepared  liturgy and preaching were all rather impressive even for those who are not so easily impressed.  The sermon of the Anglican Bishop of London is one which I have found to be a worthy sermon to address our times:

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” So said St Catherine of Siena whose festival day it is today. Marriage is intended to be a way in which man and woman help each other to become what God meant each one to be, their deepest and truest selves.

Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one – this is a joyful day!

It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future.

uture.

Mr. and Mrs. Kevin Joseph Granger arrived early after preparing the reception and were waiting in the bleachers for the ceremony to begin on a beautiful evening.
My godson Mark John Braña with his wife and children in the Philippines
An image showing the basis of all this Christmas celebration.
A picture I took of my table at the Donors Dinner
Thanksgiving Dinner 2014 — a single backlit shot to serve for a whole set of images and memories…
my fiftieth birthday
My fitfieth birthday
two of my grandparents
Me in front of my family in Micronesia
Michelle and I kiss on our wedding day.
Former wife Michelle Broussard Summers and I — Sea Island Georgia

 

The future does flow through families and gathering and weddings and the like. Churches and other communities have an obligation, it seems to me to prepare young people to be conduits of the grace of God and the hope of the future into new generations. They need to be prepared for the task. All married couples, all celibates and many other classes of not mutually exclusive kinds of people have to be educated in that complete humanity. For Faith Camp that is a Catholic Christian experience An I like that best but it also speaks to those not with us in that community. I am not a young optimist and my own view of life can be pretty bleak often enough. But while  I am sorry that when caught up in nearly apocalyptic events I often already have declared myself to have been involved in a number of calamities — sorry but not very repentant. these conferences and other things have not made me boldly cheerful in that sense. But each Faith Camp and its predecessor to my view  have in fact reminded me that how one engages with life may change over the years  but faith filled engagement  and courage remain necessary.  I know that I  was at one time more fully engaged in meeting the world and the changes going on around me with gusto and energy than I am now. I beilieve that some of those now enthused will persevere in doing good but will not have the same zest when they are my age as they do now.  The world is no stranger to my dire assessments and prognostications regarding my own life and future but the truth is I am still in the fight for the same causes and so are some of those who fought with me under that old distant BYC banner. So also is Susanna and her early team.

Faith Camp prayer - 8   But there is a time and a place for looking back on all that has happened in ones life and that place is this blog. The time is spread out over many posts and pages. The truth is that I was not always quite so late middle aged, directionless and chronically despondent as I am now.  There were times when I aspired to other and more things in daily life than a differing serving of a perpetual mix of the routine, the impossible and the trivial. I was working hard at BYC but perhaps nobody got more out of it than I. I rejoice in the legacy I see although nobody else may see it the same way exactly.

The outgrowth of my various involvements and labors over the years are not all that easy to track, however there has been an institution which has grown out of all that activity in one sense or another and which is also dear to my heart for various reasons…  My brother John Paul was the head coordinator longer than anyone else so far I believe. It is also interesting that this year’s head coordinator Alyse Spiehler has a brother who although he only went to the first camp and was abroad on his birthday during the second camp has celebrated his birthday at Faith Camp several years and probably will again. In fact all of my sibling except Simon and my deceased half brother have served ads head coordinators or coordinators although I never have. I did of course at BYC which I consider to be an ancestor of Faith Camp. The family tie is a real one with my family but there are many other family ties as well. This does not make the focus more narrow and our family does not embody any analogous local set of privileges to those that shaped the hosting of the large wedding in London mentioned before. But the family story is part of the Faith Camp story.

 

That is, with everything else already mentioned and many other things not mentioned here  — the ongoing work of Faith Camp. That is the distant legacy of the BYC. And in some way it is the universal call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to be the Body of Christ as Church and to celebrate the mystery of the fullness of life Christ came to offer and assure. All of that is part of the Faith Camp Story.

faith camp week 2, 2016 - 4 faith camp week 2, 2016 - 2 faith camp week 2, 2016 - 1

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Posted in 1, Abbeville, Acadians, Family Missions Company, Family Missions Conpany, Frank W. Summers, Frank W. Summers III's family, Genie Gremillion Summers, Hot Summer Weather, John Paul Summers, Louisiana, My Dad, Olympic Games, Simon Peter Emmanuel Summers, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Vermilion Parish

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The Olympic Winter Games End

Posted on February 28, 2010 | Leave a comment
The Winter Olympic Games have ended in Vancouver. The next time these games close  it will be in Sochi, Russia. Russia will be building from an Olympics where they did not make the semi-finals in Men’s Hockey and where they broke the streak of medals in Pairs figure skating. They won some medals but it was not a happy or lucky Olympics for them. I do feel for them — Russia has been in transition for thirty years and the Olympics can help chrystalize progress — but their performance at the closing ceremonies was compelling.
 It is obvious to me that the Olympic Games were a great success. I believe that (short of some unforeseen calamity) the next games in Russia will also be a great success. I always  look forward to the Olympics of both types. I think that this will be a very memorable Olympics for Canada because they have ended their drought of gold medals on their own soil which marred their joy in hosting the games in Calgary and Alberta. For the United States of America it has been a chance to break the record for the most medals ever won by any nation in the Winter Olympic Games. 
Julia Mancuso Skis for two siver medals to add to her gold medal in Turino.

Each story was different. Norway and Sweden battling in Cross Country. Relevant to that struggle somehow was the struggle of the US players like Hannah Teter, Shaun White, Seth Westcott, Kelly Clark and others to defend snowboarding dominance against emerging teams like China, Australia and Japan. The struggle took some casualties — especially Lindsay Jacobellis. Curling was entertaining but not glorious for US fans.    

 

Shaun White skied to gold to repeat his success at Turino.

The Opening ceremonies were less than those of Beijing.  Nonetheless, they were  fully engrossing . Yes they had flaws of mechanical and other kinds. They were wonderful however. I was really moved by the French and English which was moderately well done in the land of British Columbia. I was very impressed with the beauty of the blending of the Amerind Aborginal cutlures with those of Euro-Canadian culture which was was very beautifully done. We face a future in which these ceremonies are valuable reflections on what is possible for humanity and civilization.

 

I look forward also to see what the Brits will do with the next Summer games in London. I honor the Night Train bobsled team led by Steve Holcombe, the Nordic Combined athletes and others who carved out new realms of excellence. I honor the work of Shaun White and others who have held off ever more expert competitors in the X-Games and Gravity Games traditions which the US (including me) sometimes like to feel we own. Julia Mancuso skied for two silvers to add to her Gold from Turino’s 2006 games.  

We Americans had a lot to be happy about in Alpine Skiing in this country. Julia and Lindsay were a great story.  However, we also have seen Bode Miller go from an Olympic bust to an Olympic power player. We have seen our national team become something to be taken seriously in those events. This eases the sting of watching our hockey teams come up silver to Canada’s gold.  It was after all a worldwide games. I was happy for the Chinese  success in pairs figure skating, the success of Kim Yu Na from South Korea could not be more deserved even if it helped  break a long streak in the USA’s medals. While our girls did not join their predecessors such as Kerrigan, Lipinski, Yamaguchi, Cohen and others they acquitted themselves well anyway — really. Mao Asada won for Japan another medal and the emotional triumph of Joannie Rochette was also splendid. I felt for what we did not get but rejoiced in what was. The Brits who host the next Olympics had a gold medal in sliding from Amy Williams and they really need to remind the world they are contenders fit to host an Olympics –so I salute her. Did the Olympics rate much attention compared to the six nations Rugby tourney?

Every Olympic games ends with questions for those paying attention. But I must tear myself away and know it is over.  I just wish to say farewell to the games and leave it behind.  However, I do bring the Olympics with me through the years.

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Posted in Olympic Games, Personal Philosophy and Moral Economics

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