Reflections on the Spring 2010 semester: A few months Later

Trish Irvine, who wrote for the blog in the Spring 2010 semester, wrote me the other day. Part of her e-mail is below, in which she reflects on her past experience of the Gaming semester:

"Over the past few days I have thinking about all of the blessings I have received recently, through my semester in Austria and my summer doing Totus Tuus. There is so much about Austria that I love and miss. I made some new friends in Austria but it was mostly the growing deeper in friendship with my previous friends that I will remember. That semester was one of so much beauty. Beauty in people, in creation, in God....

....Sometimes when I think about all I experienced, I am amazed and slightly doubtful. I don't want to claim yet that it was my best semester (I hope there are wonderful semesters yet to come) but I will say it was life-changing, life-enriching. I grew in what it means to be Catholic and now there are places around the world that have pieces of my heart. If I hadn't been to Europe I don't think I would care as much or be as interested in it as I am now. When the president of Poland died, it was more real to me because I had been there, I had experienced part of the culture.....

.....This turned into a longer e-mail than I expected, but I just wanted to thank you and let you know that Gaming is very much on my mind. Now perhaps even more so than when I returned. It seems odd to not be in such a close-knit community and eat at the Mensa. But I know God will be working in my life here as well; He made it clear in Totus Tuus that He is equally in the US as in Europe.

Updated Tea Kitchens

One of the improvements to the Kartause over the summer was two upgraded Tea Kitchens for student use. Located on the second and third floor of St. Francis House (dorm for Gaming students) these kitchens are now just waiting to be used. New appliances, cabinets and countertops make the space inviting and functional.

The second floor kitchen boasts a 12 seat bar complete with bar stools.

In the smaller space of the third floor kitchen an innovative counter can comfortably seat three.

We're pleased with the way the locals completed construction and think the students will enjoy using the area for food and fellowship.

Preparations are underway to welcome the Fall 2010 students to Gaming. The semester RA staff arrives on Monday for a week of training and planning.

This weekend the Kartause is hosting an international Chopin Festival with performers and audiences convening in our little town for an amazing compilation of music and culture.

We're looking forward to having the new students here!

Recycling in Austria & the Garbage Police

One of the more surprising statistics related to Austria is that they are the leading recycler in the European Union with an approximate amount of 60% of waste products being recycled. In contrast, only 10% of Greece’s total waste is being recycled while the remaining 90% goes to landfills. On this side of the pond, the United States recycles about 32% of its total waste.

One of the most complicated parts of living in Austria is trying to understand the recycling system. With all the rules and loopholes, it gets ludicrous, and I have to discovered that most Americans take the whole shebang much more serious than most Austrians do.

To scare both the local and the foreigner, there is really a governmental group that is supposed to monitor the trash system. In other words, to put it bluntly they have a “garbage police.”

To avoid getting caught by the garbage police, one must sort your trash into the following categories

1. Bio, short in my mind for biodegradable: this is for basically anything you can compost. No meat products or bones in this one.
2. Paper
3. Plastic
4. Dark glass
5. Light glass
6. Metal
7. Pfand products – this is any recyclable bottle which must be taken back to the store for a refund. Many beer, soda, and water bottles have Pfands. For example, if you buy a bottle of beer, at the check out register, they charge you an extra 30 cents for the bottle. After you are finished drinking the beer, you can bring the bottle back and insert it into a special machine which will print you a receipt for 30 cents. When checking out, you can present the receipt and receive your credit.
8. Restmull: As it sounds, this is for everything else
9. Problem Trash. This is for batteries and ink cartridges that must be handled separately.
10. Electric. This is for old toasters, lawn mowers and the sort.
11. Sparemull. This is a once a year pickup, mainly for large materials and other junk one wants to get rid of.

To try to manage all of these pieces of the pie, we have three trash bins on the floor of our tiny kitchen. The bio bin is on the counter. The rest of the trash containers are in the basement. The headache is often in the cleanup. In America, you just throw it all away, or most of it. In Austria, it is much different. For example, one might buy a small pack of yogurt. The paper on the outside goes in paper, the plastic contained must be rinsed and put in plastic, and the cover, which is in aluminum, must go in metal. Now imagine making a four course meal….

Our friends were not following the system so carefully and they received a letter in the mail from the Garbage Police: Shape up or be fined! The locals tell us stories of people who have been fined for being lax in their recycling; apparently, it isn’t that uncommon.

Even in the Vienna airport or in the bigger cities, they will have multi-container trash bins to encourage separation with ease.

In the end, the results are pretty phenomenal, as 60% gets recycled, but every good thing comes with a price, in this case, it’s the GARBAGE POLICE!

Beware, don’t put your restmull in the plastic bin!

What I learned in Austria?

Emily Ortiz spent both semesters last year in Gaming. The first as a student; the second as an RD and one of the original members of the first international business class.

She recently sent me one of her reflections about what she learned in Gaming. She was happy to share this with the blog:

Assisi was my absolute favorite place and so I felt that it was very appropriate that I take time to recollect my European experience there. Fr. Ron had always pressed upon us to take account of what we had learned and this was the first time I had really sat down and done that. Before, I had had the mentality of wanting to be completely present to the theme of the moment so as not to take even one second there for granted. But at the hermitage I felt really compelled to put into words what I had experienced so far. I had promised you I would send it and I'm sorry it took me until half-way through the summer but here it is:

What have a I learned? How to live! I have drunk deep of the goods of life, yet I have gained a heavenly perspective like never before. I have seen the beauty of different places, I have studied the beauty in art and I have experienced richly the beauty of the human person. Most importantly, I have met the Beauty - and have found it in myself as well. I have stretched out my hands and lowered my nets and have brought up an overabundance of blessings - to the point of almost tearing my nets. I have seen the love of friendship, of sisterhood, of good brothers, of religious life and of family. I have encountered God in churches and Basilicas, in people, in nature, in the poor and desolate, in those that build me up and inspire me, in the Eucharist. I have cried of sadness and cried of joy. I have experienced the pang of rejection and the surprising delight of being loved by the most unexpected people. I have found that at the core, people are just like me and that we are created good! I have looked into the eyes of humanity and seen fear and suffering and joy and love - I have seen Christ. I have been pushed and stretched but never without the assurance of a purpose. I have delighted in hope and learned to place my hope in the Lord! (March 5, 2010)

Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King jr. speaks about Pro-life Cause in European Parliament

Occasionally we report from this blog about events which take place in Europe but are central to Catholic Culture. Below is a moving pro-life piece I picked up from the Europe4Christ center; the details are below:

Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King jr., spoke on June 22nd 2010, at a meeting of the Working Group on Human Dignity, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Please read her thoughts on the role of civil rights movements and the protection of life, which is a main topic of interest for her.


Martin Luther King's Dream Today - Thoughts by his Niece
Dr. Alveda King
“The message I share comes from my heart, from love of life and family, and from an inherited sense of duty to defend the most vulnerable in society. My talk today and my work as a civil rights activist are based on threevery simple truths –

* that every human being is worthy of respect by virtue of his being human;
* that at no time does anyone’s life become less human or more human;
* that each human life begins at its physical beginning

As a result of these three propositions, every single human being, born or unborn, has rights and those rights should be respected by society and protected under law. Repentance is the first step in a soul being saved; it’s also the first step in a culture being changed. I know this because I have seen my culture, my America, change in my lifetime. So much bloodshed and heartache happened because some people in the United States thought that African Americans were not worthy of respect. We were spat upon. We were clubbed and beaten. And we were lynched. We were killed because we were regarded as less than fully human. So it is with the lives of unborn babies – who are womb-lynched today.

But racism not only oppressed African Americans, it seared the consciences of the oppressors. People found that the fabrications of racists made their own lives more comfortable, more convenient, and they became invested in those falsehoods. They depended on those falsehoods. And so they believed, what they knew in their hearts to be untrue. So it is with the lies of abortionists today. Today’s unborn are yesterday’s blacks – best kept out of sight and out of mind lest they remind us of the injustices we commit.

The problem for abortionists and their supporters, though, is the same problem racists and segregationists faced: reality. Unborn babies won’t go away. So the work of the abortion industry has been to deny the humanity of those they exploit and discriminate against. But what if, like the Texas abortion clinic director who recently quit her job when she saw the ultrasound image of the baby she was helping to abort, we can no longer rationalize away what we’ve been doing all these years?

What if the truth becomes so clear and so compelling that society
simply can’t go on being indifferent or complicit in the big lie? Well, that’s when we have to do what is against our nature – we have to humble ourselves, admit our wrongs and change our ways. And that, in fact, is what my country did because of the civil rights movement. America changed because Americans were touched in their hearts – hearts that the Bible tells us are inscribed with God’s law. We can try to deny our consciences, indoctrinate or medicate our minds so that we can’t or won’t think, but a sense of right and wrong has been given to
each and every one of us. It is that very moral awareness that changed America’s culture on racism. I believe it is that same moral awareness that can change any culture on abortion. It won’t happen overnight. But it is already happening. In our hearts, we know this. For too long, though, we have looked the other way. We have not wanted to get involved. We have convinced
ourselves that people will never change when it comes to abortion. I’m here to tell you that this is not true. I have seen change, in myself, in others, and in my nation. What happened with slavery and racism is now happening with abortion. Those in power who can speak up for the
persecuted must do so, we are our brothers’ keeper and what happens to
him, happens to us.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote from a jail cell, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Whether a child is aborted in Birmingham, Alabama or Birmingham, England, that abortion is an assault on what my Uncle Martin called the Beloved Community. My Uncle Martin had a dream. He dreamt that we would live out that which is self-evident – that all men are created equal. He called on America to admit our wrongs and turn from them.

Today, I call on all of us, regardless of nationality, race or religion, to admit our wrongs and turn from them. I believe that the denial of the right to life is the greatest injustice we face in the world today. There is no compassion in killing. There is no justice in writing people out of
the human race. I only ask: How can such a dream live on - the dream of equality for all -
if we kill our children? How can the dream live on if we deny others
their basic human dignity and respect? How can the dream live on if we do
not act on their behalf?”