# 6 - Sojourn in the U.S.

May 24, 1993

Letter #6


Dear Family, Friends, Fans and Facilitators,

Peace of Christ!

THE SAGA CONTINUES - THE SUSPENSE IS OVER! The decision has been rendered! John is going back to Nigeria! There will be further deep adventures of the dim Jesuit on the dark continent.

At the end of the last instalment, you remember that we left our hero (I refer in these oblique terms to mine own humble self) wondering what the future might hold, and if he were destined to spent the rest of his days as an itinerant interior decorator to minor mission mansions. To add to the complications, shortly after I arrived, the Gregorian University in Rome contacted me, and inquired if I would be interested in going to work there as director of a new media production center. Rome having always been one of my favorite cities in the world, and the job description looking as though it had been written with my resume as a guide, this sounded like a marvelous idea.

But as a Jesuit, I don't get to make those kinds of decisions. I FAXed my Superior in Nigeria, Peter Schineller, and told him about the offer, and asked if he had any concrete ideas about my future there. I later talked with him, and while he was very enthusiastic about my coming back, and full of praise for my short time there so far, he was more than a little vague about what I might expect to be doing if/when I returned. The next step was to contact the Provincial here in New York, and I finally got to see him on the last day of April. (I love these little symbolic coincidences of calendar and event.)

Bottom line - Nigeria is calling. The Provincial was full of praise for my short time there, and said that everyone was very enthusiastic about me and how well I had fitted in. He also said that Fr. General had indicated that this was a priority and that his feeling was that I should return. (I wonder how he got involved in this?) The Provincial did ask me several times if I were comfortable with that, how I felt about that, and in all honesty, I had to tell him that that was fine with me, given the concerns I had expressed about being given some meaningful work.

Those who are not Jesuits may have a hard time understanding that last line. People I have talked with during the times of uncertainty have said very strongly what a terrific opportunity the Roman offer seemed to be, and how its requirements seemed to take advantage of my experience and talents. I have to agree; but there are two dimensions of all this that you have to remember. One is that little business of the vows: poverty, chastity, and obedience. The tabloids seem to highlight the second, but I have always maintained that the last is the most complex. And certainly the one that St. Ignatius, our founder, emphasized throughout his life. It is not blind obedience, but it is an obedience rooted in faith - faith that God really does have a hand in what is going on, even if we don't always see or understand it, and faith that our Superiors are working for the greatest good - of the Church, of the Society, and of the men who are involved.

The second - and it is directly and intimately related to the first - is that in a very real sense I did not become a Jesuit to do what I wanted to do. As I once said to someone who was asking about my entering the order, "This wasn't my idea! This was God's idea!" That may sound a little glib, but a part of every Jesuit's daily life is the ongoing attempt to see God's will in our lives. We spend some time each day specifically reflecting on that, and how we see the hand of God trying to work in our lives. That is not always immediate or apparent, and it is not always what we might wish. And we sometimes make mistakes. Both in the reflecting and in the making of the decisions. But while this is not necessarily the decision I would have made for myself, it is a decision with which - in the context of being a man of faith and a Jesuit - I am comfortable.

However, while we work to see God's will in our lives, we also do not simply sit down and wait for an angel to come and tap us on the shoulder. I had brought with me a proposal for a specific assignment, in case the Provincial did decide I should return, and submitted it to him there. He reacted very favorably, and when I returned to the Mission Bureau, I faxed a copy over to Nigeria. As I write this, that seems to be the foundation for what I will be doing when I return. It will be a combination of jobs - working as an assistant to the Regional Superior, and at the same time, preparing a fairly detailed analysis of the possibilities and problems in pursuing communications work in the two countries. I would hope to study how we can better communicate with each other, how we can tell the stories of what we are doing and why to wider audiences, and what areas of communications might be profitable for further study and direct involvement. For instance, several people have talked in comfortably vague terms about starting a magazine, which is a traditional Jesuit response to almost any situation - when in doubt, start a magazine. Getting material and laying out the magazine is fairly straightforward. Selling subscriptions and getting the paper on which to print this magazine is somewhat more complicated, and effecting the actual delivery of the finished product becomes the major concern. Life in Nigeria - as you may have already gleaned from earlier letters - is not always tickety-boo, and the problems decide to lie somewhat below the surface.

Anyway, the date of departure is scheduled for Monday, June 14th, Alitalia Airlines, flight # 611 to Rome, departing from JFK at 5:30 PM and then on to Lagos on flight 844. I had thought of suggesting that we might start a fund to upgrade John to Business Class for the New York to Rome leg (for anyone with oodles of spare cash lying around). New York to Rome is 9 hours of Coach, with all the lack of amenities that that suggests. Those who remember letter #5 know how much I love Alitalia Airlines; unfortunately, I have a non-refunadable ticket, so I am stuck for one last trip. Anyway, when I checked, they tell me it would cost over $1000 to upgrade. TO UPGRADE!!! I think I'll stay in coach, unless anybody knows somebody in Alitalia with some clout.

To maintain continuity, then, this letter will be "Adventures in America", and since the descriptions, characters met and situations encountered are much less exotic than the Nigerian variety - or are at least more familiar to the average reader (and I refer in these oblique terms to your own humble self/selves) - this epistle will be much shorter. I think.

Given the drama of my arrival - land at airport, shower and change clothes, move immediately to hospital - everything else is pretty much anticlimax. The diagnosis is opthalmic migraine - that which causes headaches in other people merely blanks my left eye. No pain, no nausea, no other discomfort, just temporary blindness on one side. There is a medication that was prescribed, a pill to put under the tongue when an episode starts. However, the FDA is doing a product review, and so it is not available. The same medication is available in tablet form, but it takes 20-30 minutes to dissolve and get into the bloodstream, and I've only had one episode that went longer than 30 minutes. I have had two more "attacks" since leaving the hospital - but the doctors assure me that there is nothing to worry about and the only things I should avoid are things I was supposed to avoid before all this started.

During my stay here I managed to keep relatively busy. I wrote four articles for magazines, and did some more work on the Mission History. In an attempt to provide some life and humanity, I interviewed a number of the men who are back in the States who were involved in the early years of the Mission. Interesting, although it was not always easy to get them to tell stories instead of "relating history". I also talked to a fair number of folks, took part in several funerals, a baby-naming, and visited my mother and sister. I spent several days in the library at Princeton Theological, and would love to be able to spend several more. I saw an old friend play King Lear - and she [sic] was wonderful. Yup, a production up at Cornell where all the men's parts were played by women and vice versa, although as the original designations. In other words, Lear (played by a woman) was a man, and the daughters (played by men, dressed as men) were still referred to as daughters. Confused? You should have seen the production. Actually it was a very interesting and stimulating production - leave your emotional responses downstairs with your hats and coats, please - but a very interesting and challenging evening of theatre. I also went to see Fool Moon on Broadway - not one word of dialogue, and I haven't laughed so much in years. Given the price of Broadway theatre, it was the one show I could afford. And I went out to Notre Dame, to visit Fr. Harvey, a former teacher and director and old friend, and to see a production of Julius Caesar, the directing debut of another old friend, Fr. David Garrick (great name for a theatre person!) who is on the faculty at ole ND. (And is one of the great Jack Benny imitators in the Western world.)

David had the full gamut of the normal pressures and problems of theatre, especially college theatre. His Casca came down with laryngitis, and although he was able to get through opening night, by the second evening, when I saw the show, he was not able to talk without pain. So an ASM stepped in - and did commendably. But since David was involved with that problem backstage, it was well into the first act before he came around to the front of the house, and realized that there was a rock concert going on in front of the Student Center, the noise from which neatly and thoroughly penetrated into the theatre. The loving domestic scene between Brutus and Portia was interspersed with loud guitar chords and sung exclamations of deep and abiding affection. Or lust. It was a little hard to tell.

David hit the proverbial portico, and stormed out. Suddenly - as the tale was told to me - the band was face to face with a red-faced, rather desperate looking man in a coat and tie, drawing his hand across his throat in the universal gesture that means stop. (In this case, the added dimension apparently was stop, or I will cut your throat.) The band stopped instantly, and David "explained" that they would be unable to continue, which they took with good grace. It was cold out, and they had only about 20 people in the audience, so after assuring David that it wasn't their idea, they quickly packed and moved on to safer, if not greener, performance pastures. The things a director has to do for the sake of his production. (He also managed to get the bells at the University Church turned off during the run of the show - "Notre Dame Our Mother" was not heard for five nights. Not one complaint was registered at its absence.)

I did get to visit and do some work with my voice teacher in New York, and I was asked to sing at the Good Friday service at St. Ignatius Church. I sang a short Jewish prayer for peace, and then the Ingemisco from Verdi's Requiem. (Note: for those who don't know music, at this point in the presentation you are expected to be very impressed. Let's watch those reactions.) I was invited to join a friend who is a nightclub singer, but his schedule of appearances wasn't easily fittable into my busy schedule. (Amazing how busy I actually was/am, for someone without a job.) I did sing as part of a Benefit for the Manhattan Plaza Aids Project - the only singer who was not appearing in a Broadway show. Others on the program included Faith Prince (Tony Award winner in Guys and Dolls), Jonathan Dukuchitz (appearing in Tommy), Heather McRae (in Falsettos, and a special appearance at the Russian Tea Room), Susan Egan (going to appear in the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast), Adam Grupper (the broadway production of Secret Garden).. the list goes on. And me. (It's at moments like these that I really need a collaborator - someone who could here insert a short paragraph about how good John was in this company - something that I - humble scrive that I am - can't really do. Draw your own conclusions.) And I said Mass for and gave a talk to a local Knights of Columbus group, and as I am wont to do, ended the talk with a song.

Idle Thoughts

Did you know that the "Western omelet" is actually a Chinese creation? (You learn the oddest stuff in casual conversation when you live in a Jesuit house.) True - when the railroads were being laid across the country, Chinese cooks were hired to feed the army of workers, and one of the things at which the Chinese are particularly gifted is adapting their food to the local availabilities. So they took what they found, put it together along the lines of one of their own dishes, and TARA! - the Western Omelet is born.

It also has occurred to me during this trip, on more than one occasion, what an extraordinary collection of friends I have, in terms of talent and ability (not to mention charming personalities, of course). I was at dinner one night, and looking around the room found myself in company with two published novelists, two extraordinary actresses, two marvelous singers, a PhD who is also a theatre director, a painter whose work is truly unique and wonderful, a computer person (for whom these strange machines hold no mysteries whatsoever - and who is incidentally one of the nicest people it is my pleasure to know) - an extraordinary gathering. And as I visited around, I kept finding myself in the company of talented, interesting, warm and concerned men and women I am lucky enough to call my friends. One other thing they all seem to have in common is a feeling that they have a responsibility outside themselves. Some work for charities or causes, some are contributors - but they all have a sense that they "owe" something to the world in which we live. (A couple of slackers have tried to suggest that taking care of me satisfies that obligation, but while it is an idea I find attractive, I have to think there are needier causes.) It occurs to me now that I am writing this to exactly those people about whom I am speaking - but in case it falls into other hands, it was something I wanted to be said.

Back to the Regular Narration

Probably one of the nicest dimensions of the return trip besides the seeing of people, was being here for spring. Spring is - as I understand it - only faintly approximated in Nigeria. When the season moves from dry to wet, more trees turn green, grass temporarily stops being brown, and there are flowers. But that sense of new air, the change in temperatures, the undefinable but immediately recognizable quality in the very air itself that says "SPRING!!!" was a special delight for me. (I do not, as you might guess, suffer from hay fever. Opthalmic migraine, yes. Sneezing and sniffling and dripping and wheezing and coughing and swelling and like that - no. As I look at my friends with hay fever, going blind in one eye for short periods doesn't seem like such a bad thing at all. Even if it should be permanent, think what interesting fashion statements you can make with a patch. Hume Cronyn has a glass eye, and his daughter once said that when he was really mad, he would sit in his chair, and tap his eye with the end of his pipe. Absolute stillness, just the menacing click, click of the pipe stem against the eyeball. I, of course, already smoke a pipe.)

Naturally, I am returning to Nigeria with significantly more "stuff" than I brought with with me to the U.S. In fact, I have bought another trunk. I am going to bring some of the materials for that ever present thesis. And some things for the residence. And some presents for people and some books for the general Jesuit population and a monitor for the computer. And several people have asked me to bring them things. And mail. Hmm - I wonder if one trunk will be enough. Francis Xavier is a great inspiration, with his one set of underwear, but he has not yet become a model.

I have taken the liberty of mailing this to everyone on the mailing list directly, and have re-structured the distribution system for future mailings to help ease the load on the distributors, and insure more effective and efficient coverage.(Sounds like a manure spreader, doesn't it?) At the bottom of this letter you will find the name and address of your distributor, so if you get a gap, you can contact them. Or alert them of a change of address if you move. Or want to invite them to dinner. Or if you decide that enough is enough, and you have learned more than any sane person really wants to know about Nigeria, Sheehan, or "What I Did During My Missionary Phase". As always you are free and encouraged to make your own copies and pass along further editions to anyone else. I have heard that some have created mini-networks of people who don't even know me, but they enjoy the words - more power to them. People with modems and computers might even want to explore passing on electronic versions - I certainly can provide an ASCII copy that IBM machines can read. And if anyone has any bright ideas on how I could share pictures....

My greetings and prayers and blessings and a major hug. Part of me feels perpetually awkward, mass producing letters just to keep in touch. But I do want to keep in touch (someone suggested it's simply a not too irrational fear of not wanting to be forgotten and left forever in the humid groves of southern Nigeria) and during this visit, it was really fun to see people. No one had to ask any questions about Nigeria, and I didn't find myself telling the same stories over and over - you knew them all from the letters, and so I could find out what other people were doing, and we could talk about the important things in the world - How about them Nicks, eh? - without a recurrent travelogue.

So for the moment at least, life returns to something of the same state it was in before the doctor prescribed the United States. Unfortunately, the prescription has run out, and I'm going cold turkey. (Cold in this context being a somewhat relative term.) I have no idea when the next epistle will come forth, but until it does, I can always be reached c/o Jesuit Residence, PO Box 223, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria. Phone: (from U.S. or Canada)

011 - international code
234 - country code (NIGERIA)
PLUS
1 - Lagos Code; 832743 - Jesuit residence
We also have a working FAX machine.
Whenever the NEPA works.



We just received a FAX from one of the men at that residence, about some financial business. But in the same FAX he notes that he had to go out of town in order to send the FAX - the power has been out for four days, the phone has been off for a week, the schools are all on strike, there is a shortage of petrol, and the mail hasn't been coming in. He is usually one of the most optimistic and "up" people I know, a real cheerleader for life in Nigeria, and he says in this note that "things are in a pretty bad state". So upcoming letters should be filled with new and exciting experiences. ("And now, reporting from the midst of the Nigerian revolution, Fr. John Sheehan, from an undisclosed location, apparently under heavy fire and running low on provisions, tells us...." Eat your heart out, Hemmingway.)

Take care of your wonderful self/selves, hug anyone for me who should be hugged, and until the whenever that I get in touch with you or you get in touch with me, know that you continue to be prayed for and remembered in Africa.

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