Pied Beauty

Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins praises God throughout most of his works. In one of his gripping and most beautiful poems called "Pied Beauty" he praises God in the beauty of creation:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

As Hopkins recognizes, Gaming too is filled with God's pied beauty. Below are some pictures of Gaming after the first snowfall in mid-October.

Photos are courtesy of study abroad student Melanie Daniel:

Training in Europe - Adventure and Advice

Blog Post submitted and written by Rachael Stamp - Fall 2007

A major way of traveling through Europe is traveling by train. These trains are in every country, allowing both people and goods to move throughout Europe.

For Franciscan students living in Austria, trains are one of the top ways to travel. At the beginning of the school year, everyone is a bit petrified about using these. When you first click onto the website with timetables that have stops of towns that you can’t pronounce, it starts to become a little overwhelming.

Time is one of the first boundaries that you have to jump. The twenty-four hour clock is something that students aren’t used to. It’s confusing when you see that a train is leaving at 14:32. What does that mean? The trick to figuring out the times is to subtract two hours from the time. For example, 16:00 minus 2:00 is 14:00 or 4:00. This is the easiest way to find the actual time.

A second boundary is the different language at each station. The board telling the departures of each train is labeled in the local dialect. One must look carefully for the translation in English in small, italic letters. Language is a barrier when making reservations or getting tickets. Be sure to go to the international information stations where people are able to help you, in English. Of course, another alternative to the language barrier is to pick up a language and practice it on the people that you meet. This is only recommended if you are not in a rush to get to your next train, as your travel-mates might not be agreeable to this idea.

The last main boundary is yourself. It takes courage to climb aboard a train that could end up taking you in the complete opposite direction of where you wish to go. The stress that you experience can overwhelm you- if you allow it to. Experience each weekend of travel as an adventure. The whole of Europe is yours to see. You are going to be stretched in ways that you did not imagine and realize many traits about yourself that you did not know that you had.

Students that have traveled once have plenty of wisdom to share about the European trains.
“When I traveled on a train, I had to fight for my seat,” said Hayley Call. “Remember that even though you have a Euro-Rail, you still have to pay for seat reservations, it’s not totally free.

“Don’t oversleep,” said Matthew Brectel. “You will miss your stop and wake up not knowing where you are.”

Sara Kaladish agreed with this. “Also, remember that each train car can split up to different places, so make sure that your car is going to your destination.”

“Be aware that you are sharing cars with different people,” said Jackie Stamp. “Sometimes this is a good thing and you become friends with other travelers. Other times the trip can be one that you save for a fun story.”

This highly used mode of transportation is an adventure in itself to use. It also allows you to experience different European personalities in each country and is the place where stories to tell your friends and family are made.

Breathing with Two Lungs

One of the great blessings we have here in Gaming is that we have both Eastern and Western rites of the Catholic church who at times pray in their unique own manner and at times worship together.

In fact, I am an Eastern rite Catholic--Armenian Catholic to be exact. It is often odd to me when I talk to others who think that to be Catholic is to be Roman Catholic. An interesting fact is that most Catholics from the USA do not know that there are over 23 rites in the Catholic church, with Roman being only one of the many.

While baby Dominic was born over 4 months ago, we wanted to have him baptized as soon as possible, but it so happened that when we flew back to America for the summer, the Armenian Catholic Priest was in Europe, so we just missed one another. Heeding the plea of our late Pope John Paul II who urged Eastern rite catholics to remain in their respective rites and to preserve this precious heritage in one's family, we decided it best to wait until an Armenian Catholic Priest was available.

There is actually an Armenian Catholic Monastery of Monks in Vienna. They are called Mekitarists after their founding father Mekitar. This is where we headed on Saturday to have the baptism and confirmation--christening they call it in the east.

It was a beautiful experience with rich symbolism and melodic chanting. Listening to the chant and hearing the prayers, one could still sense the presence of the Holy Spirit and that a beautiful and awesome mystery was taking place.

What is also somewhat striking to American Roman Catholics is the role of the "Godfather" in such a baptism. For baby Dominic, the Godfather had to respond and assert the faith. He is required to hold the baby, profess his vows, and sign all the paperwork. In the priest's thundering and memorable words, "He has duties to fulfill."

It was a tremendous joy and blessing, and now our little Dominic is part of the faithful. He has joined the millions before him and the countless others to go after him.

I was reminded as with St. Peter's Basilica, that baptism begins as a baby but continues on until death. It is a daily yes to God, a rejection of evil, and a ardent desire to be with God in heaven!

Angels in the Night

Last night at the Parent's Tea and strudel social, Kelli Carpenter recounted that while trying to fly out of London back to Austria, she noticed that she accidentally booked her flight for a day later. Inquiring to see if she could just buy another ticket and fly back with her friends, she discovered it was going to be several hundred pounds more and decided that she would just spend the night in the airport, save the money, and fly out the next morning.

Yet, a family or angel(s) sent from heaven came to rescue her. These friendly strangers, took her to their house, fed her, gave her a place to sleep and even drove her to the airport at 4:00 AM to catch a flight back to Austria!

Moreover, Niki and I had a similar experience on our 10 day travels. Trying to make our way from northern Brittany in France to a Bed n' Breakfast, we were catching a connecting train and had asked two conductors as well as the information person which track to board. They all said track 5. We boarded at the proper time and when our train didn't stop an hour later, we knew something was wrong. I went to ask the conductor, who upon discovering that we were on the wrong train, charged us a lot of money and stormed off without offering any assistance. Some local bystanders came to our aid, and as we exited the train station, one particularly nice women who spoke English offered to wait there while her husband drove us 10 minutes away to a hotel for the night.

Truly, there are good people everywhere, and thank God for these angels who come out of nowhere to offer a helping hand!

Vagabonds - A 10 Day Tale

Last Night I overheard Michael Adams and Paul Coleman recount some of their 10 day drama which included the following rather impressive and surprising information:

• They never paid for lodging during their 10 day break. They slept in a tent over the entire 10 day break!


• One night a generous man took pity on them and put them up in a hotel, covered the entire bill, bought them breakfast and left them 20 pounds in cash!


• They didn't take a shower the whole time! They did rinse off in the sea and in other areas of water, but no shampoo!


• They were taken for drug dealers, vagabonds, and bums.


• They were kicked out of bathrooms


• They were charged less in grocery stores because they were taken for homeless people

Needless to say, they two gentlemen are happy to be back in Gaming with free food, showers at their disposal, and a real bed to sleep in.

Italian Lemon Festival

For all those traveling to Italy or France over the 10 day, you may want to check out the location of a famous Italian Lemon Festival located in the town of Menton--a charming town full of mystery is located at the french-italian boarder right on the coast. Surrounded by mountains, Menton is protected from winds and benefits from a wonderful weather.

The History:
In 1929, Menton is still the main lemon producer of the continent. The owner of a hotel had the idea of organising a flower and citrus fruits exhibition in the gardens of the Hotel Riviera. It had such a huge success that the following year the festival was held in the streets: parade floats with lemon and orange trees showing off together with the charming Menton girls. The Municipality, which hoped to develop the tourist trade, tried to give the Carnival a typical local aspect: the Fête du Citron® was born in 1934. Two years later, the first citrus fruit and flower exhibition was opened in the Biovès gardens. François Ferrié was in charge of conceiving the orange and lemon look of the parade floats and the motives of the gardens. It was a success confirmed in the following years.

Check out these pictures of the festival:

White Water Rafting

On Saturday, September 29th, 61 students, faculty, and staff members packed a bus and headed off into the Alps-- specifically to the Gesause National Park about 1 hour from Gaming.
The purpose? To go white water rafting.
We couldn't have had a more perfect day: crisp, cool, and sunny, & great visibility.

The Austrian guides love the American groups because they say we know how to have fun--that's always good to hear.

I don't think I will write anything else, the pictures say it all!