Hi Chris and John and Dean,

Chris, as promised, here is a synopsis of what I've been doing since I
left Maryknoll during our novitiate at Hingham.

I left in the spring. Some of my strongest memories of that time are:

... the feeling of abject failure at leaving Maryknoll.

... getting on with life. Teaching high school at St. Thomas
(Basilians) and Strake Jesuit (Jesuits, duh!) in Houston for about 8
years

... getting married and divorced. I was immature and irresponsible;
she was alcoholic. Bad combination. When I look back on it, I see a
young man determined to marry the most inappropriate woman he could
find.

... playing piano in night clubs, including an extended partnership
with a singer who looked and sang like Tom Jones. But he didn't like
to practice, so we eventually fell apart. I loved the night life and
the music and going to eat breakfast after a gig with all the other
strange night people.

... starting graduate school. I enjoyed it immensely with its constant
influx of new ideas, its poverty and its good friends. I eventually
wound up with a PhD in mathematics. I loved the academic life, but I
was also glad to see it end.

... which it did. All things do. I started working for the space
shuttle program 6 months before the first launch. Exciting times. I
did post-flight analysis of ascent/re-entry. I did things like that
for 15 years.

... during that time I met a wonderful woman at a math convention. We
eventually married. It was cut short after 7 years by cancer. She died
in 1986 and I was as crazy as I ever get after that time.

... but I recovered and after the shuttle Challenger blew up, NASA
closed down to a large extent, like a turtle withdrawing into its
shell. The challenges of the job evaporated and I became dissatisfied
with it all. Alida and I had recently met and I described my
dissatisfaction to her. She suggested that we go to Tahiti. I asked
her if she would be willing to do it on a boat. She foolishly said
yes, and so we quit our jobs, sold and gave away our stuff and moved
to San Diego.

... and we bought a 36 foot sailboat and spent a year outfitting
it. We got rid of everything we owned that didn't fit on the boat and
one spring day, set sail for the Baja peninsula. I remember distinctly
casting us loose from the dock in San Diego. I was terrified, but knew
that I had to do this, because otherwise I would always wonder what it
would have been like.

... it was a grand adventure. Crystal clear blue-green anchorages
surrounded by desert mountains, a broken rudder crossing the Sea of
Cortez from Mazatlan to La Paz, the warm, generous Mexican people,
friends from Canada and Australia, a tropical storm in a secure
anchorage in Bahia de Los Angeles, warm bolios from the bakery in
Santa Rosalia, and on and on. But Alida and I decided we weren't blue
water sailors, so we canned the Tahiti idea, and stayed in Mexico for
a few years.

... when that was over, we knew we couldn't go back to the city
life. We decided to move to West Texas, the Big Bend region, because
living there was hard, like it was on the boat. So we did.

... we bought a place with 120 acres just north of Big Bend National
Park. Alida has two paint mares, two donkeys, two mules, three cats
and two dogs and I have been fortunate enough to find computer work
that I can do from home.

My spiritual life is strong, nurtured by the wonderful feeling of the
Magnum Silencium at Maryknoll. The first thing I do each morning is
sit down for 30-45 minutes of meditation and reading.

Favorite spiritual reads:

... Teresa of Avila

... The Cloud of Unknowing

... The Course In Miracles

... anything by Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron

May divine joy be with each day all day.

William