Remembering Paul J. Borlik (+2006)

On November 9, 2006 Paul J. Borlik died in the dark, early hours of morning at his Grass Valley, California home.  It was not an easy passing.  He had gotten sicker, weaker, less able to move about; remaining in his own house may have been the only convenience and comfort he enjoyed during those last two months or so of hospice care. 

Ensign Paul Borlik, during WWII, around 1942

 So busy was I preparing for this particular journey (from Paris to Vichy) that I almost forgot the anniversary of my Pop’s death.   Just thinking on you, dear Pop… I’ve always respected and loved you as my father.  It’s more recently that I’ve come to understand and love you as a man.

It’s been five years now and I still relish the memory of this man’s unique characteristics as a person, his accomplishments, his simple manner, contagious humor, and so on.  But I’ll probably remember him even more fondly for his foibles!  He was a master of modern day “lament.”  Many complaints were understandable – he was terribly disgusted with the direction eventually taken by television broadcasting, professional sports, news media – all his former profession.  He could get moody and distant.  I know too that Pop was often down on himself, maybe disappointed with his own life in a way that only men can be.  More recently I find myself remembering so many people who over the years tended to gather next to and around him.  Despite the fact that Pop may have felt himself to be terribly shy and uncomfortable in his own skin, a lot of people (especially men) seemed quite at ease with him.  Before and after the funeral some of them spoke to me of how grateful they were to have even known Pop at all.  I used to wonder…what did they see?

I do recall an event, back in the late 1950’s, that for a couple weeks or so transformed our reserved, shy Dad into an unstoppable powerhouse of ideas, enthusiasm…and wonder.  He told us later that, because he had lost all appetite for food and worried that something was terribly wrong, he felt he had to consult with his doctor and parish priest. They were equally mystified but wise enough to prescribe patience, to just live through it, the doctor genially adding “maybe you’ll lose some of those extra pounds!”   

It seemed that suddenly and for no particular reason Pop had fallen in love with life – his own life.  He was overwhelmed with joy and new insights about existence, incessantly sharing about it in every single conversation with neighbors, co-workers, his wife and little children, pretty much everyone – especially with the Lord (from then on he seemed most himself in the presence of the tabernacle). 

Today I could describe it only as mystical union. 

Richard Rohr and many others speak often of these things, especially in the context of later life.  These mystical moments are experiences of enlargement and connectedness or union. You become suddenly a bigger person -- you no longer feel the need to condemn, exclude, divide or separate.  Interestingly these moments don’t often fit well with our faith-life in the sense that (unfortunately) much of our early “religious experience” placed us on a private path of perfection, something which none of us could achieve.   If you’re lucky (or “graced”) you’ll eventually find that the path of union is different than the path of perfection.

This kind of "perfection" seems to say that by pure effort or by knowing more things I can achieve wholeness.  But it’s also being separate from God, from anyone else, or from connection to the whole. It appeals to deeply/cultually-rooted individualism and our ego.  Maybe too much Western Christian history has been driven by such “private perfection” sending us on a self-defeating course marked by endless competition, win-lose thinking, conflicts and wars.  In any case, as a priest, it no longer surprises me that many people just give up—even many clergy and religious—when they see that this drive to perfecting my/our world just  isn’t working. Too many of us end up practical agnostics or practical atheists, perhaps staying faithful to form, repeating the “right” words and going to church, but there is no longer the inner desire and expectation that is possible with the path of union. Rohr says that it’s not mysticism that defeats the soul; it’s moralism that does.

Anyway, Pop’s shangrila (as he liked to call it) lasted for a couple weeks or so and eventually he “landed right back in the dirt.”  He never forgot that time though and, even if he couldn’t explain or describe it very well, Pop was always deeply grateful for it. 

We children tend to be hard on our parents, especially during our adolescence.  Our genetic ties might like a burden at times.   Eventually, though, we might be grateful to discover that those same parents’ gifts and deficits continue somehow in us.  For my part, I do hope so.

dpb

Vichy, France: getting ready for school (again)

Maison du Missionnaire, Vichy

After a rather smooth and comfortable 3 hour train ride from Paris (Gare de Lyons) to Vichy I am adjusting to a life quite different than what I left at our Maison Mère, a house and location literally in the middle of things in Paris.  

The Vincentians of the Province of Toulouse sponsor their Maison du Missionnaire (Missionary House) as a comfortable and welcoming house of studies for confrères, seminarians, and other men and women religious who are studying French.  Founded in the early 1920's by Père Henri Watthé, C.M. for ailing missionaries (he himself had ministered for years in China), the Maison du Missionnaire has a long and interesting history and even its own Wikipedia article.

Père Aimé Goliet and Père Blaìse Lalarivony

Happily the superior, Père Aimé Goliet Bernard and the resident missionary, Père Jean-Eudes Blaíse Lalarivony are remarkably welcoming and compassionate Vincentians – and love to talk!  And to make the house even more true to its name P. Goliet was a missionary for two decades in Madagascar and P. Blaíse is a missionary here, native to Madagascar.  In addition, most everyone I’ve met here at the house are “travelers” outside their home culture as well.  

First impressions of places are always memorable even if they turn out to be inaccurate.  But it appears to me that Vichy really is a small town; some describe it as a “ville,” founded upon its thermal springs and healing waters industry (and the spas and hotels servicing them) as well as few universities that seem more directed at professional careers.  Le CAVILAM, where I’m to study, specializes in la langue françsaise but it also offers teaching degrees through a larger university.  I went exploring this morning, testing the 15 minute walking route to the school where I’ll be spending a good deal of time, and it only took me 35 minutes (after characteristically getting repeatedly lost, even with the map!).  On the way I found the streets in the shopping district to be eerily empty from mid-morning until noon.  Perhaps it’s that we’re out of the tourist season, I thought, but by late afternoon (5:30 or so) I returned and could barely make my way through the dense crowds: young and extended families gathering at cafés and kiosks, groups of teens and pre-teens besieging the multiple street-level malls and departments stores, old-timers (like myself) just strolling.  Marvelous.  And no one seemed to be in a rush -- something else they say about Vichy -- here (unlike in le Cité, Paris) drivers rarely honk their horns and seem genuinely willing to wait for pedestrians.

Weather is generally moist, they tell me – perhaps this is because much of the town is built adjoining Rive and Lac L’Allier -- mornings here are often bleak and foggy.  Like other places in France this size, Vichy is a nice place to settle, especially if you’re a member of the growing French senior population.  The town is just as famous for its pampered pets. I was warned repeatedly (in Paris) about being careful where I step while walking the streets here, to practice what we called in the seminary “modesty of the eyes” i.e. a good look out for la merde de chien. 

Vichy continues to be known throughout the Republique as the Thermal City -- I'm looking forward to trying out some of the spring waters, so often recommended.  However, even today, just the mention of “Vichy” (especially in other parts of France) is bound to produce averted or downcast glances, sometimes even anger or sadness expressed at a past government that many considered run by traitors and puppets.  Although nominally a neutral regime, its officials were unquestionably collaborateurs with the German forces during World War II.

In a nutshell, from July 1940 until August 1944 the État Français (“French State”) collaborated with the Axis powers after France’s military defeat was recognized by the previous government, the “Third Republic.” That Republic’s prime minister had been Marshal Pétain, actually a hero of World War I; he now created a new regime, the Vichy Regime.  Even though the Vichy government was the officially recognized French government during those war years (yes, even by the Allied governments, like the USA), many described Petain’s regime as reactionary, rather paternalistic, and even fascistic in its cooperation with Germany’s racist policies. Vichy was the administrative center of this French regime until the early 40’s.  Thereafter the German Wehrmacht strictly administered the entire southern region like the rest of France.  It does seem that Petain’s government for a time had allowed French citizens (especially those residing in the so-called Free Zone) to continue living their lives relatively untouched by the occupation.  Except politically, spiritually, culturally, and in every other way that counted.  In any case the exiled General Charles de Gaulle never stopped challenging the legitimacy of Vichy France and Petain’s government throughout the war and, as events began to favor Allied forces, the Vichy regime gradually lost any remaining support of its citizens.  After the war, of course, its leaders were imprisoned or executed. 

All in all, it remains a painful memory for the French; a deep wound still awaiting healing.

DPB

Thoughts on the Pilgrimage to Berceau

October 9-14, 2011

The high point, or better, the hinge event of most programs at CIF (our Paris-based “Center of International Formation”) is the week-long trip to Vincent de Paul’s starting point.  Berceau (meaning “cradle”) is the name now given to where Vincent was born to a simple, Gascon Catholic family far, far away from the action of Paris – or from anywhere of significance in those days.    

The trip itself is worth the effort.  This is beautiful land, France’s countryside.  Rolling, green and fertile hills naturally irrigated by rivers and predictable rainfall, trees and hedges dividing one large farm from another.  These are spectacular places to drive through and probably to live in, now that they are connected with the wider world through telephone, electric lines, fine asphalted roads…  I’ve never seen anything like it. 

Still, I find myself marveling how even today it’s a long way from Paris to rural, southwest France (Gascony).  Certainly the City of Lights would have seemed inaccessible to most Gascon country folks back at the turn of the 17^th century.  Vincent, the third child in a large family, early on showed promise, remarkable ambition and drive.  No doubt his dream for a good life for himself was inseparable from what he could eventually do for his family, who clearly encouraged him to move out so as to move up. 

A stay at Berceau would be a rewarding experience for any member of the wide Vincentian Family; the center has been for centuries a popular site for pilgrimage, retreats, study, and rest.  What one sees there is a modest (rebuilt) country house (the inside of which is shown in the photo above) and a multi-centuries old tree -- a kind of living memorial to those years and a tribute to this one young resident.  These are only the beginning, however, of a wider assortment of plaques, stained-glass windows, and other touchstones one can discover in many villages in the area.  Clearly, Gascony has always been proud of as well as inspired by this native son.


But our purpose was to walk where Vincent walked, to get a better sense of those early years.  So we went and looked at places where Vincent studied (Dax, Toulouse…), to the fortress-town where he set his own part-time school (Buzet sur Tarn) earning needed income for his student expenses.  The man certainly got around!  It is over 30 kilometres from his quarters in Toulouse to Buzet, a commute that eventually forced him to move his little school and students to Toulouse.  We celebrated mass where he was ordained subdeacon, deacon, then where he was ordained a priest (Chateau L’Eveque), and finally where he celebrated his first mass (Notre Dame de Grace).

One gets a good sense of the young Vincent dePaul – energetic, tireless, focused, this teenager knows what he wants and gets it.  Ordained a subdeacon at 17, a priest at 19 (likely bending some post-Trent Council reforms…) he had already developed one career as a sought-after tutor and teacher long before he had received his first parish, which certainly meant also his first benefice, his first steady income.

All due admiration aside, Vincent's early trajectory alone would have produced little more than one more successful, hard-driving churchman-businessman.  Much was to happen to Vincent after these early years.  His openness to recognizing God acting within those events and his subsequent choices would transform him to the extraordinary leader, organizational genius, and saint we celebrate today.  Certainly to me, his story has now become as wonderfully fascinating as it is believable. 


Dan Paul Borlik, CM
Paris, France

Let go of the old; let in the new…

For many of my generation (at least) June, July and August equal “summer schedule.”  Things should slow up, lighten up.  Relaxing under some backyard tree with iced tea (or something more interesting) in hand, pondering existence.  That's how I've always imagined summertime.

Not so this past summer!  Ninety days marked by some real hard work, surprises...and changed plans…those months may not have been very relaxing but they have left me breathless!

Instead of mountain hiking in Colorado and a month studying Italian in Florence I found myself giving an enthusiastic yes to Fr. Perry Henry's request that I work in Kenya for two months.  I'd never before been in Africa, much less in Nairobi where American Vincentians had labored in our own seminary for over a decade.  These two months were a marvelous opportunity to see a new world and what we CMs were doing there.  So, really, it was an easy “yes” for me.  I felt as if it was “trading up” for something new, probably very challenging.  Indeed, this has been a summer memorable for new experiences and new friends, and in a word, delightful!  It was refreshing to be among young men preparing for priesthood in a part of the world bursting with new life (along with plenty of old problems!), to be made to feel welcome in unfamiliar surroundings and to be really needed for formation work.  It all worked wonders for my flagging self-esteem, having been without a job for over a year now.... 

Still, during this time I was also startled by Fr. Greg Gay’s request to accept a new assignment to join our International Formation Center (CIF) in Paris.  That conversation has since left me with mixed feelings.  Of course it is exciting to be sent to reside in France, to learn first hand of our Vincentian history, to live at the historic heart of our Congregation, all yes.  To be able to feel free enough to agree to a five-year sojourn in France, well, this too is satisfying.  This will be an adventure!

But demanding too.  That new “yes” implies a series of “no’s” and “good-bye’s” as I leave behind my country, my culture, my comfort zone.  


Packing up 35 years of stuff in two suitcases is excruciating! 


I’m uncomfortably aware now that my life has gotten heavy with all sorts of baggage.  Put in another way, to be truly open to this life and work (truly new to me), I have had to put aside many things: giving away some of them,  discarding a few, letting go of the lot.  


Finally, I find myself mourning what now feels lost or gone:

a promising ministry position I had developed in Santa Barbara, recently renewed family ties and friendships on the West Coast, boxes of books, memorabilia, clothes, ideas, and countless other State-side relationships, routines, expectations and comfortable habits.  Attachments can be felt quite deeply, I'm finding out!





Perhaps it is true that to receive anything really new in our lives each of has to do some letting go -- even some mourning -- of that which can be no longer part of us.  How else could we welcome and hold the new?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by things you didn't do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910