Spiritual Direction and other growing things...

I didn't get the chance to post anything yesterday. I ended up with a queue of students looking for help with one thing and another. The face that I am not a normal resident of the seminary means that I am sort of neutral when it comes to things like spiritual direction and/ or counselling. The seminarians are well catered for in this regard but, like all of us, they like to talk to someone different every once in a while. It certainly opens a window into another culture when people confide in you.

This is actually something that the staff in the seminary encourage as it gives the students another perspective that they otherwise wouldn't have. It's nice to be able to be useful in this way, but the other side is that it all takes time and yesterday it took a lot - it was also a very hot day!!! I was in bed by 9pm after it all.

I know I speak a lot about the heat but it really is a constant here - it is also very humid. One advantage of this, however, is that it means that plants grow at a tremendous rate and the flowers can be beautiful. I include a few pictures of some of the flowers in the garden of the seminary - it's interesting to note that the only attention these plants need is to be cut back and tidied up every once in a while - otherwise they just grow and grow.