Springing in earnest

This week felt like the real beginning of spring. From my office, I observe the greening of the other bank of the Hudson. It's as if God was using watercolor to intensify and vary all the fresh shades of green that take over the brown and gray of trunks and branches.

On Monday, Sisters Shane and Elizabeth, CMA took me out for a belated birthday breakfast. We went to the Main Street Bistro, in New Paltz, one of my favorite breakfast places in our area. Despite being next door neighbors, we hadn't been able to catch up with one another in a while. On my way back home, we stopped at their place for a spirited game of Qurirkle.

Sr. Shane Phelan, CMA and I feeling a bit competitive over Quirkle ;-)

This week, Br. Aidan was leading the May Garden Days, a retreat for gardening volunteers. The weather was a bit hot for a couple of days but the rain held off until evening on the day it fell. The gardens also show wondrous signs of coming alive to sun and warmth. In the past few years, Br. Aidan and garden volunteers have planted thousands of bulbs and it shows.

From top left, clockwise: a narcissus; a carpet of narcissi among the trees;
a small Snake's Head fritillaria; hyacinths and muscaris.

A small sample of our tulips galore, from left, clockwise: a cream and red parrot tulip, red tulips on a background of purply hyacinths; a bed of cream-colored miniature star tulips.

Thank you for all Garden Volunteers past and present for their fruitful help in our gardens. And thank you to Br. Aiden for being the loving steward of our grounds (he also refers to himself as "Weeder-in-Chief").

*****

Every so often, the community consecrates a day to training together on a specific subject. A couple of months ago, we renewed our Safe Church training with the Rev. Glady Diaz of the New York diocese. This past Friday, we renewed our interest in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Many of us had taken the MBTI a long time ago and a refresher was in order.

The MBTI is an introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions. Out trainers for the day were Associate Cheryl Kuchler and husband Chuck Haughton who work as organizational development consultant and UPenn faculty respectively. We learned about the indicator, its various dimensions, ways to validate its results and how our community plots across the various dimensions of the MBTI. It was very instructive and Cheryl and Chuck made it fun also.

For those who are familiar with MBTI, I reported ESFJ which was a change from my ENTJ reporting 18 years ago. Upon examination and discussion, we agreed that I was more probably ENFJ. Now I have to read up on my profile and the MBTI to get more out of this instrument.

Out of the thirteen monks who took part in the training we got 10 different profiles represented in the community. It represents a healthy dose of diversity. But it also means we each have nine profiles to learn to connect better with. There was only so much (and much it was) that could be achieved in a day of training. We may revisit the developmental side of MBTI in a further training day in the future.

A great thank you to Cheryl and Chuck who offered their time and expertise pro bono to help us grow in understanding of ourselves as individuals and as a community.