Posted August 9, 2004 Book: Why not be a Missioner?: Young Maryknollers Tell Their Stories Editors: Michael Leach & Susan Perry Orbis Books, New York, pp.145 An Excerpt from the Jacket: Inspiring first-person accounts of twenty-one young men and women in their twenties and thirties who are serving God and neighbor in every corner of the earth. Joe Everson, an attorney with a high-powered Manhattan law firm, now ministers as a priest to prisoners in Peru. Joe Bruener left a budding career as an actor in Los Angeles to work as a brother in Asia. Jim and Mags Petkiewicz moved as "twenty-something gringos" from Georgetown University to work with the poor in Oaxaca, Mexico. Pat Capuano, a corporate lawyer, worked as a lay missioner with the blind in Cambodia. Mary Mullady, an English teacher from Brooklyn, prays and plays with women and children in rural Guatemala. An excerpt from the book: Brothers [Religious Brothers] live "one the edge"; we tend to resent definition. We freely choose to eschew the facile grounded-ness of official function, status, or place in the church. By doing so, we keep company with prophets and live an intuitive experience that defies easy codification. Living this freeing, creative, prophetic experience of being a Brother renders our lives to more than one interpretation. Yet that is an ambiguity that we revere, a "blessed ambiguity," for it captures the reality of what we experience in Church. . . .What is blessed ambiguity that Brothers experience in the church? . . .The option for the poor taken by the Maryknoll Brothers roots us in the humility needed to live out an ambiguous life. It takes courage to keep walking down the narrow path of Brotherhood with its many exits, roadblocks, and detours. Walking is not done in blind faith or with empty hope. It is done in the knowledge that we are loved so deeply by God and that God’s love imbues all creation. Table of Contents: 1. Thank you, Gregory Peck, wherever you are Father William Stanley (Tanzania) 2. The truth of the resurrection in the world turned upside down Kathleen McNeely (Guatemala) 3. A mission journey of healing Sister Euphrasia Nyaki (Brazil) 4. The ambiguity of brotherhood Brother Michael Greyerbiehl (Japan) 5. Called to mission Patricia Curran (Cambodia) 6. Tae Kwon Do and Street Kids Sister Chiyoung Pak (Zimbabwe) 7. Talking about God’s love is not enough — I must show it Father Jose Padin (Mozambique) 8. Finding myself in Japan Sister Margaret Lacson (Japan) 9. Called to life in Brazil Angel Mortel and Chad Ribordy (Brazil) 10. From LA to China Brother Joseph Bruener (China) 11. Legal Eagle — from Chicago to Nairobi Christine Badewes (Kenya) 12. Caring for people — Tanzania to Hawaii 13. Falling in love, twice Father Dennis Moorman (Brazil) 14. From law to mission Patrick Capuano (Cambodia) 15. If I don’t have love, I am nothing, Lord Sister Marcy Mullady (Guatemala) 16. God is drawing me in like a breath Father Joseph Everson (Peru) 17. Dreaming Sister Leonor Montiel (Cambodia) 18. Growth in grace though children James and Margaret Petkiewicz 19. Sent to proclaim life Seminarian Christopher D. Schroeder