New York! The Big Apple! “The city that never sleeps,” as Sinatra sang. But I can?t say, along with Sinatra, that ?it?s my kind of town.? Traffic noise and horns honking in place of church bells. Not very many hellos on the street here. Where have all the palm trees gone? For that matter, what have happened to all my friends? (Relax. They?re just half a world away.) Read More
Joe Cavanagh?or Cav, as we knew him?would have thought of himself as just another of those grunts who worked well out of the limelight in a distant part of the world. He never founded a school, as his fellow Micronesian missionary Hugh Costigan did. His image was not projected onto the international screen, as were those of Hugh?s and some of his other predecessors like Jake Walter or Len Hacker or Bill Rively. His contributions were simply of the grass-roots sort that nourished the life of the people of Pohnpei, where he spent nearly all of his fifty years in the mission. He was a village pastor, who was once known for his informal liturgies in traditional meeting houses that he called the “missa banana” after the banana leaves on which he was seated. That is to say, when he wasn’t at the side of Bill McGarry training island deacons and catechists who would become the heart of the local Pohnpeian church. Or when he wasn’t giving retreats to any who needed his help. Or when he wasn’t working with people to resolve the marriage problems that kept them away from the sacraments, often for years. Read More