A Dragon's Heart

The lighting was horrendous, from a photographer's perspective, and my photo editing software is light-weight at best, so I gave up on making these pictures look good and went straight to surreal. Yes, they look rather awful, but I sort of did it on purpose, which makes me feel a little better.

Last night, the sisters took me along to a mass celebrating the Vietnamese New Year at Assumption Seminary, followed by dinner and assorted dancing and music in the seminarians' dining room, including a dragon dance (two, actually, and each with two dragons). We have three Vietnamese sisters just in our St. John Bosco community with a few more across the street at the Provincial House and one a the other Salesian school in town. Five of these sisters went last night, and it was such a joy watching them enjoy the evening. At one point they tried to drag me up on stage with them when the seminarians asked if the Vietnamese sisters would sing a song, but I put my unconsecrated, non-Vietnamese foot down and stayed back to take pictures.

I did end up teaching Sr. Suzett to cha-cha, which I was more than happy to do, because I'll take any chance to spread the joy of Latin dance.

When I spend time with the sisters in a more social setting, I invariably end up remembering a comment a dorm mate from college made, something along the lines of "Being a nun is for girls who are afraid to have fun." Needless to say, this girl had never met a sister in her life. Every sister I've ever met, especially the Salesians I've been so fortunate to live with these months, are full of more joy than most of us would know what to do with, and moreover are hilarious. I suspect this springs from their intimacy with Jesus and the real, deep satisfaction of a life lived for others.

Meanwhile, if I remember right, this dorm mate didn't make it past first semester of freshman year. I guess we all have our priorities.