Today is the twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time.
A couple of weeks ago Connie and I traveled to Hawaii for a week. It was our first trip there so we chose to spend it all on the island of Oahu. That’s where Honolulu is located.
Someone here asked me what I liked best about our visit. I quickly answered that I liked the beauty of the place best. That includes the flora, fauna, and the beaches. It seems that as you look in most any direction there is jaw dropping beauty there.
We went to the arboretum of the University of Hawaii as well as two botanical gardens. One of those botanical gardens is in the area where one of the Jurassic Park movies was at least partially filmed.
I’ve always been someone who Experienced God in His created natural world. Connie and I have been to a lot of beautiful places over the years. We’ve been to lots of National Parks as well as parks and forests of various kinds. All of them show up and show out in their own way.
Another thing I liked very much about Hawaii was the friendly people there. You hear about the aloha spirit and we could see and feel what they mean by that. God is present in the Hawaiian people too.
We attended Mass twice while we were there. The first parish church is located adjacent to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham. I assume that parish mostly serves military families, though quite a few Hawaiians were at the Mass we attended, including a deacon. One thing different about that parish church is that, while a building, it feels like an open air environment. I think they have sliding glass doors that were opened in a way that it felt like we were outside. The soft tropical breeze it was a nice touch. God was present at that church too, not just in the way He is present in any Catholic Church, but in the connection of that church to the created world.
The second time we attended Mass in Hawaii we were on our way to the airport to fly home on Saturday night. Our flight was supposed to leave at 9 PM but didn’t actually leave until almost 11:30 PM. That caused us to miss a connecting flight and to have to fly to another city to catch a flight back to Atlanta. Anyway, I chose a parish church in the eastern suburbs of Honolulu just because it was convenient to where we had been that afternoon and was along our way to the airport. Unbeknownst to us that church was having a new pastor installed at Saturday evening’s Mass so the Bishop was there. That was really interesting. It was clear the parishioners were excited about all this. It was nice to experience their joy and to get to hear the Bishop. God was clearly in that church as well.
You can probably tell we had a great time. I would love to go back and visit some other islands. We’ll see if we can make that happen but, even if we don’t, that week, that filled a bucket list item for us, will be a memorable one. We went on vacation and found God waiting there for us.
By the way, if you ask what surprised me about Hawaii I would say the chickens. There are chickens roaming about all over the parks we visited. Even an oceanfront park just across from our condo, in a pretty busy section of Honolulu, had plenty of chickens roaming about. I didn’t expect that but I think it’s pretty cool.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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