Day 2

Did a lot of walking today. Mostly in the rain. The day started with 3 of us going to the abbey for mass. It was beautiful to bring out the old graduale and chant the latin chant in Latin. The monastry even smells reverent. Don't ask me how they do that! After a quick breakfast, we resumed our walk from the outskirts of Mission. We took turns walking 5 KM in groups of two's. 2 of us went to return one of the rental cars. Another welcome addition to our family is the big RV. This is my first time in and RV & I have to stay, this is modernism at its best! A living, traveling house. Wish I was younger to experience this. It comes with 4 beds, tons of cabinets, a stove, micro & fridge. This is our traveling evangelizing centre. This is our home, the 6 of us have to make as we travel across the country for 3 months. To sleep, eat and live in something you can drive in. Why did I not think of this concept a long time ago!

Back to the walk, John and I had an interesting incident as we were walking. A lady pulls up to talk to us. She asked us why we were not putting all our money into contraception instead of walking across the country. We told her what we knew of the Catholic church's stance on contraception and about natural family planning. She was also wondering why a bunch of guys was doing a walk on abortion. We told her about the walks happening all across N. America, that there were girls doing a number of the walks and that it was the job of the man to protect the woman and the child. She answered that she needed "no one to depend on but herself". At this point, one of us had to leave to lunch, so we left it at that. But I think this captures the N.American attitude completely. That individualism, self-dependance, which is not evil in itself, but if you only have that without a relation to others, then you are not living your true humanity. In any case, we are on or way to Agassi. We are about 15 km away from Agassi. Some of us are night walking as I type this. We all hope to go to mass with the poor clare sisters at 5 AM. Better catch some sleep. Bye for now!