This week I’m hosting David Bond with The Attache, Deanna Klingel with Bread Upon the Water, Jill Williamson with Replication, and Rebecca Price Janney with Who Goes There? A Cultural History of Heaven and Hell. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (February 5th) evening.
The hero of my book, Bread Upon the Water, isn’t a fictitious hero. He’s a real live adventure hero. So, I’m answering the questions as truthfully as I can guess he would-Deanna Klingel.
- Duong Tien, tell me the most interesting thing about you. I never considered myself to be interesting until Deanna started interviewing me for her book. She thinks everyone will think I’m interesting. I’m from Vietnam. I had to escape my country and communism in order to follow God’s calling to me to the priesthood. I wasn’t being adventurous, I was trying to survive, but Deanna said my adventures were amazing and interesting.
- What do you do for fun? About everything I do is fun. I have a lot of fun with my parishioners and I get together with my parents and ten brothers and sisters whenever we can. Then we have a lot of fun eating and catching up on everything. I have nieces and nephews and I have a lot of fun with them, also.
- What do you put off doing because you dread it? Facing church finances. Every clergy will tell you that. Bills have to be paid, more people need our help, and fewer people are able to sustain. It’s tough.
- What are you most afraid of in life? I can’t swim. I escaped on the water, but only with God’s help. I still dream the terrifying experience of drowning.
What do you want out of life? Grace. - What is the most important thing to you? My priesthood. It must be pleasing to God in all ways.
- Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book? I read the Bible every day, as well as the daily scripture, I read theology, books that will help me in my job and books that will bring me closer to God. Books that will help me with English.
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I’d like to have better language skills. I work at it every day. But, language doesn’t come easy for me. Now I have to speak English and Spanish every day and Vietnamese with my family members. Being casually conversant in English was the hardest of all my many trials.
- Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? I don’t have a pet. In Vietnam some people do have dogs, but they don’t live in the houses with people. It’s different here. I don’t desire to have a dog in the house with me. I’m getting to like them, though. Deanna introduced me to her dogs because one of them came to Mass with her during the week and I got to know the dog. It was nice. But to do my job I have to keep things simple. I think having a dog makes it more complicated. But, I might change my mind sometime.
- If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? I try to live each day where ever I am. But, if I actually could do that, to see South Vietnam of my childhood before the Communists came, when Catholics were free to worship and children were safe in the marketplace, and people were at peace with one another, that would be a good travel back in time.
