same place, different men 12:21 am

It has been more than a year. Gavin and I met in the Birmingham seminary, Oscott College.


I still recall how unwillingly I dragged myself from university and onto the train that Easter weekend. I was meant to go to the College on Friday morning, and I was only lugging a suitcase onto the Birmingham-bound train that Saturday morning. Why should I go? Don't I have better things to do? Exams were approaching, I needed to study. There were all the right reasons for me to to go for this Easter retreat at the local seminary where they trained Catholic priests. Was there even a reason for me to go? Yet somehow, the guilt for not accepting the invitation to go for this paid-for retreat was too much to bear that Friday evening.


I took the local train from Coventry to Birmingham, passing all the small towns I never knew existed in my three years there in the Midlands. Perhaps there was so much of my surroundings I missed being so engrossed in my own tiny life.


The typical cold English wind was typical that morning, biting through my coat and scarf. With a print-out from Google Maps in hand, luggage in the other, I made my way across the industrial suburb on foot, passing pub and electrical store and landscaping company. Finally, I saw its sign; Oscott College. A tall door of wood and steel seemed to suddenly appear amidst a very tall hedge. I cross the road; you would had to stare very hard to make out what the signage to the handsome door. Feeling absolutely tiny compared to the door, and with flashes of frightful scenes out of childhood cartoons, I rang the electronic doorbell. Announcing my name and intent, the electronic locks released, and the door jumped open. I pushed open the ajar door and stepped in. The door slammed behind me.


Without over-dramatising, what sat before was like a scene out of Robin Hood or some Harry Potter scene. There were two paths before me, one left one right. One couldn't make out where the paths started or ended as the brown leaves from the towering trees above strewn the entire grounds for as far as the eye could see. Only eyelets of the ground beneath showed up amidst the leave-carpet. I took the right path.

After passing a shed on the right and some small low-rise buildings to my left, I could literally hear the sounds of the city slowly fading behind me, along with that gate. It wouldn't surprise me if the gate was built that big as a metaphor to the great divide between this mysteriously alluring compound and the harsh world out there. As my luggage's wheels jabbed itself with the fallen leaves, my foliage on the left slowly revealed a stone building. As it slowly came into view, it was truly a magnificent Oxford-ish building of about 3 storeys. I was awed as I stood staring at its centuries-old facade. Standing there still digesting the sight before me, I spun around for another hit; there lay a long stretch of flat green fields and beyond that, the city of Birmingham stretched out before me. It was as if the city was bowing towards Oscott College which sat on a slight hill.


But it was at this seminary I met Gavin, the Manchester-born Irish construction worker. Charming bloke with a smile that told you he knew how the extent of his charisma. The confidence of his shaven head matched that sparkle in his eye, that you can't resist but feel sheepish when it catches your stares. Yet amidst his easy charm and his equally easy admittance to all indulging in all the hedonisms this life could offer, that was something good in his eyes, something earnest and truthful. Gavin, like the 10 others there at the retreat, was considering priesthood. I suspect I'm the only one in the retreat who hadn't decided on priesthood.

What struck me about Gavin on our walks when he shared his life, was how real a person the bloke was. He's like you and me, as sinful, as tempted; in fact I think he has led a more hedonistic life than two of mine. Yet, this young man found God, and now is even taking a step further.

Today, I'm proud to say Gavin is going to start his formal discernment as a priest-in-training. He is off to a Spanish seminar. I am so glad, joyous, for him.

But funny how we both were at Oscott more than a year ago. A year later, here I am fat, unkempt, tired, whilst Gavin is excited about laying his entire life down for God. Truly, we might start at the same place, but end up being very different men.

Uncle T

His voice in a foreign land 11:53 pm

"...being placed in a foreign land takes away distractions of the routines we've built around ourselves.

it provides you a place to be so intimate with yourself that you hear the echoes of your soul. and its possibly only in circumstances as these that you'll hear His voice, and what He has to say to you."

Uncle T