Culture – Page 10 – Where’s Fran?

Reflections on Two Years Stateside

Let?s just call this blog posting an update.? Since my time here in the US is coming to an end, let me offer a few thoughts on what these past two years here have given me.? They?ve been very different years?last year at America Magazine and this one at a parish.? Each has played to one of the two facets of ministry that has been especially important to me in the past: speaking to public issues, and personal care for the needy. Read More

We Used to Be Just Odd… Now We?re All Sick

What Do You Do with a Failed State?

First, you find out what the term means.? Unfortunately, the Fund for Peace, an NGO that each year publishes the Index of Failed States, doesn?t seem to offer much help.? It offers a list of symptoms?civil strife, hunger, poor economic performance despite sometimes rich resources, breakdown in government services, widespread corruption, and a steady flow of refugees heading for the border.? But at bottom all these are just consequences of the core problem: a national government that is too weak and ineffective to rule. Read More

Cultural Collisions

The other night I asked one of the men here if he wanted to go with me to see a move that he had mentioned approvingly the week before.? He replied that he didn?t feel in the mood to see a movie tonight. His favorite TV program was on that evening, he was feeling a little tired, and he wasn?t sure that he even wanted to see the movie in the first place.

?Listening to you makes me yearn to be back in the islands,? I told him.? ?At least in the islands a person I was inviting to a movie would save face all the way around by making Read More

Francis X. Hezel, SJ, is a Jesuit priest who has lived and worked in Micronesia since 1963. At different times he has served as high school teacher, school administrator, pastor, and regional superior to the Jesuits of Micronesia. He spent thirty years directing the Micronesian Seminar, a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Pohnpei, Micronesia.

He has written and spoken widely about social change and its impact on island societies. He has also written several books on Micronesian history, including The First Taint of Civilization, Strangers in Their Own Land, and The New Shape of Old Island Cultures. His most recent book, Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture, is available through University of Hawaii Press.

Category - Culture