Brinniel & Boise, Part II

Driving down was no placid, leisurely pleasure (though it could have been), but was a rather anxious day, growing ever the more anxious as the day wore on. A part of it was the fact that, as a virtually first-time Canadian in the States, I was hypersensitive to every little difference from home (and they really are little…), and just felt generally uneasy. This may say more about Canada-US relations that anything else, because Montana and Idaho are definitely more similar to Alberta than Quebec is, but I felt more at home in Quebec than I did south of the 49th Parallel.

Mind you, there was also general background anxiety… I was utterly terrified that I was making a mistake, that I was going to get there and make a horrible first impression. In general, this nervousness is nothing more than a general tendency of mine to be both rather shy and a bit too much of a tendency to run through worst-case scenarios. By the time I pulled into Boise, I was not only shivering from lack of food and cold air-conditioning over the hands, but I had practically convinced myself that Brinniel and/or her parents were going to utterly hate me and/or the my car was going to die a horrible death, probably taking me with it.

Anyway, I pulled into Brinniel’s driveway, phone in that I think I’m there, and within a minute, Brinn’s standing in the doorway, clearly recognisable as that face from Facebook, and the tension eases, I meet the family, and all is well: I’m not a socially inept nervous wreck, Brinn and her parents and quite normal and very hospitable, and my car is not a burning wreck somewhere like Pocatello. In short, all my irrational fears, all of which I had known as I thought them as irrational, were clearly demonstrated to be baseless.

I’m still not entirely sure, even having done it now, how one is supposed to “meet” a Downer. I mean… do you treat it like a first time introduction, formally and with bows and hand shaking? Or do you go to the other extreme and not even bother with introductions? Or do you go with the emotional end, embracing and wild? We went more or less down the middle, felt just a tiny bit awkward, and then got onto the business at hand… which, if memory serves, was late night refreshments, pet talk, and Europe comparisons that night.

Was Brinniel what I expected her to be? If I have to limit it to one word… “no.” However, I’m not exactly sure what I expected. The girl I met was certainly the one in all the Brinniel pictures, knew all the references in the Brinniel posts, and fit all the known trivial facts. She was neither (overall) more mature or less mature than the Brinniel online. And yet… she was quite a bit different. Although she was the girl in the pictures, instantly recognisable, she did not look like them (I know, I know… 2D image of a 3D person, but still…). She sounded every bit as American/un-American/Downergirlish as she ought to have, and not quite what I expected—even though I still don’t know what I did expect. Perhaps the best way of expressing it is not to say that I found the secret identity, the real person beneath the Brinniel mask, but rather that I felt like I had discovered the superhero identity of someone I only knew the real version of… as if, in a Downs-centred world, the “real” Brinniel is the one online, and the flesh-and-blood Brinniel was the front created to save the world. It was as if Brinniel in person reminded me too much of people that I know and not enough of avatars and text posts.

Of course, there was plenty of thought going on in my mind about the oddity that is the Barrow-downs, the oddity of all these random people coming together and building such a strong community. It struck me as particularly odd that I would drive 16 hours from Edmonton to spend a weekend with a girl I’ve never met, when a similar sort of weekend would probably never occur with “real” acquaintances and friends except some of the very closest. I’ve noted before, back when I worked at Panago and had no life, that the Barrow-downs friends are often closer and longer-lasting than most others.

And all because of a book? Somehow, that seems not quite right. Tolkien may have dragged us all in, and certainly there’s a genuine fan in most of us, but it’s not the Lord of the Rings that gives us this community… it’s the people themselves. In my own case, it’s the time spend Werewolfing, and subsequent private messaging, and then the leap to instant messaging. Many of these Downers were better friends before they ever posted a picture online or gave out a full name on Facebook than people I’ve known since Grade 3. And that, I think, may have been part of the reason why I was so terrified about meeting Brinn, given that I was definitely smart enough to know that people in person are not the same as people online. After all, I’ve definitely had enough mental misconceptions thrown horribly out of whack by the Pictures Page (right, Lhuna?). Knowing this, there’s the uneasiness that maybe… what if someone who’s seems a good, funny person online turns out to be mean and self-centred in person.

I need not have worried. Brinniel is every bit as fun and hospitable in person as online—maybe even more so. The sense that one gets from the “I met a BDer!” thread about all the Downers who meet each other being really nice people, and fun to hang out with is, at least in Brinniel, totally true.

Now, the upshot of this awesome experience is that I, 100%, totally want to meet as many ‘Downers as possible. And while, with a couple exceptions (Oddwen, Gil-galad, Valier…) this is definitely not possible this year, I’ve got wild-eyed dreams for next summer, involving either a trip to Europe or a grand tour of North America. Not only did I get myself pumped up for Werewolf, but I’m pumped up for everything ‘Downsian in a way I haven’t been in two years. I mean, I’ve been more active this spring than I have in some time, so this is not a spontaneous trend… I might not have even met Brinniel if I hadn’t been able to spend more time online, but the interest has multiplied hugely as a result of the trip.

Finances are a big reason for not getting too optimistic about next year. After all, gas is going up, so drive or fly… it’s only going to get more expensive. Then there’s also logistics, such as planning around a job and ordinations and such…

But…

There’s a wee bit of hope in there too, and I wouldn’t trample it just yet. After all, I REALLY enjoyed this weekend, and REALLY want to do similar things again.

Next time, I’ll just be paranoid about the car, though.

Brinniel & Boise, Part I

Well, I’m back… If you’re wondering where I was, then I guess you didn’t pick up on subtle hint (which Lhuna DID get) a few posts back about going down to Idaho sometime this summer. Indeed, 16 hours of driving from Edmonton and two days of work off, and I had my first meeting with a real, flesh-and-bones Barrow-downer (I’m actually just guessing about the bones… closest that I saw were teeth).

The Barrow-downer resident of Idaho, is Brinniel (her ‘Downs username, that is), where she lives between school years with her parents. That’s perhaps a sufficient enough résumé; despite the obscure corner of the Internet occupied by this blog and the probable prior knowledge of anyone like to read it, it’s not my personal information be sharing. And, in any case, on the same assumption that all readers know who Brinniel is, I can save time on what’s fairly sure to be a rather long tour indeed of thoughts and recollections of what occurred this weekend.

My extra-long weekend started with me booking off Friday, and heading out to Olds from Edmonton after work on Thursday. I had originally hoped to stay the night in more southern Alberta, and so cut more time off my Friday drive, but the former seminarian I had hoped to stay with ended up being out of town.

Anyway, I woke up at 4:00 am on Friday, and was on the road before 5:00. I crossed the border just prior to 9:00—my first trip to the States since I was nine, my first trip outside Canada in three years, and my first solo trip driving outside Alberta. Not particularly scary—as far as the driving went.

It was, indeed, a beautiful day to drive, and a beautiful drive. It was sunny, there was a relatively quiet four-lane highway all the way, and Montana and Idaho have some great scenery—a little alien to one convinced that Alberta is the most beautiful region on earth, but perhaps more appreciable for my being a stranger.

By 6:00 pm I had rounded the curve going west instead of south, and the sun was descending into my eyes, which made for a good hour of rather stressed driving, at its peak (well, actually, it was quite low by then…). By the time the sun had set, I was in the Boise area, and by 10:00 I had pulled up into the driveway and shook hands awkwardly with my first real Barrow-downer.

Then I met her parents, and then Brinn and I proceeded to stay up until past midnight, talking, and then a very tired Formendacil (aka, “me”) went to bed (Brinniel, as is not really to be surprised at, given the habits of Barrow-downers in general, is something of a night owl).

Saturday morning dawned very sunny, and the first of three days of 100+ degrees of Fahrenheit weather. As a Canadian, I should be able to do the conversion… but I can’t, which is sad, because I think in Celsius. However, it was definitely hot. The curious Canadian or European can always look it up, I’m sure.

Due to two sleeping-in Downers, we didn’t get started on Saturday until after lunch. Saturday, as it happened, was Brinn’s birthday, so the plan for the evening was dinner out with her parents, presents, and cake. In the meantime, however, Brinn and I spent Saturday afternoon (and into the evening) at a number of summery sorts of past-times. I beat her score in mini-golf by about 15 strokes (didn’t count how many strokes it actually took, but I did keep an eye on who was ahead), after which she proceeded to beat me on the arcade motorcycles, and we both lost at laser-tag. In like manner did the afternoon pass and the evening, and then it was 9:00 and we were out for supper.

Supper faded into dessert, and dessert faded into late-night grocery shopping, and that faded into near-midnight present opening and cake eating. Having known beforehand of the occasion, I did not come unprepared, but if people want to know what I got Brinn, they’d be better off stalking her blog than mine. Not that there was anything particularly spectacular about it, but it was well picked, nonetheless.

Anyway, sometime after midnight it was bedtime again, and next thing you know, it’s Sunday morning, and we’re going separate ways: Brinn’s family to their church, and myself to St. John’s Cathedral, because… well, because I’m a seminarian and a geeky one at that, so I can’t resist seeing what should be the finest church in any given diocese. Boise didn’t disappoint. St. John’s had an impressive façade and an ornate, neo-Renaissance-like interior. The windows were a trifle purplier than I would have put in, but still beautiful, and they did a good job with the post-Vatican II altar. Best of all, they were still using the pipe organ in the loft, so there was booming organ music for Mass (almost—if possible—too much).

Back to Brinn’s in time for lunch, then on to an afternoon mostly spent at the theatre, watching Prince Caspian, which I had not previously seen (a good choice, because it was again extremely hot). Brinniel had already seen it, but after having seen it myself, I can definitely agree that it would be worth going to a second time. Despite having played more loosely with the story, I really enjoyed it—possible more than LWW, although given that I have a relationship with the books such as has seen me change my favourites constantly throughout the years, I wouldn’t put much long-term money on either being a permanent favourite in my mind.

That evening, with Brinn’s parents, we went to the local Shakespeare festival’s production of the not-a-Shakespeare-play-at-all production of The Crucicble, by Arthur Miller, which was very well done. Thereafter it was back home, and (I think) the earliest night of the weekend, sometime before midnight.

Monday morning was supposed to be an earlier start, with a trip to the zoo (and most notably for ‘downers, the penguins), but I didn’t get up until 9:30, and Brinniel was a full two hours later. Since she had an appointment in mid-afternoon, it was a lazy noontime, during which we fully reminisced Werewolf games, and I basically talked myself into playing the next one. Later, once Brinn was back from her appointment, we were off to the zoo (and especially the penguins).

After that, we were back home, playing a rather odd Trivial Pursuit game (odd more in the sense of the questions we got and our successes thereat than in the actual game play), which I won very narrowly indeed after a shaky start. During this time, supper was slowly started, and it was 10:00 before we started eating. After that was photo shoot time—I’d taken a few pictures over the weekend, and Brinn had her camera out as well, but photo documentary evidence that we had met was still lacking. After that, we watched Hot Fuzz, and so I welcomed Canada Day to the tune of British humour deep in the United States of America. Then I went straight to bed, while Brinniel decided to stay up until I arose, so as to have a greater chance of seeing me off (night owl that she is, it’s not much past her bedtime these weeks of late).

I’m not sure how worth her while it was… I was pretty boring between 5:00 and 5:30, but I certainly appreciated it. Next thing you know, I’m on the road, and Canada Day Tuesday disappears in 3-4 hour increments as I crawl back up the Interstates to my home and native land. What with a detour around Lethbridge to avoid the state of emergency that was declared there, I made it back to Olds around 9:15, so in better time than my trip down had taken, and the adventure was officially over… although I didn’t get back to Edmonton until this morning, when I got up extra early to drive into the city in time for work, adding another couple ours to my mounting sleep debt.

And that’s the basics of the trip… it covers quite well what actually happened, but it barely scratches the surface of the story.

Back From Quebec

I'm still utterly drained from getting way too little sleep last night, from switching time zones, and from having had a really full week in general, but while I'm getting about ready to head to bed, I feel I should probably get some thoughts down about the Eucharistic Congress while I still have the passion for it. It was entirely too important and central to my entire year to pass over.

In case it's not crystal clear already, let me state that it was the most awesome week of my life. It had everything: good company, awesome catechesis, beautiful liturgies, spiritual revelations, exotic locales, gorgeous churches, awe-inspiring music... the list just goes on and on.

I spent most of the week in the company of Roger, Matthew, and/or Paul, three of the other seminarians from St. Joseph Seminary, and for me especially, it was really good to spend a lot of time with my brothers, since because I go to Concordia I really don't get the same kind of bonding time during the regular school year. And we had a hoot, let me assure you.

But I would also wander off on my own, hang out with Edmonton pilgrims, meet new people. Indeed, that was another awesome part of the Congress: it was like a giant family in some respects. Everyone was willing to talk to (or try, at least) everyone else, and despite its size (25,000 registered people), it was still possible to keep bumping into the same people over and over and over again. The religious brothers and sisters, in particular, were amazing to see, with young vocations in their habits, visible signs of the sanctity of the Church.

But at the centre of everything, of course, was the Eucharist. We had Mass daily, there was adoration available in multiple churches and chapels throughout the city, and on Thursday we had a massive Eucharistic procession through the city. It was so large, in fact, that the end of the procession was barred from continuing into the old city. That unfortunately included my group, but even so... we had an awesome evening stumbling on a massive art-piece movie that played nightly along the side of the grain terminals in the harbour, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the province.

And the heritage of Quebec City is itself amazing. It was like being back in Europe... except it was in Canada. And it is so thoroughly Catholic in its history. Churches dot every skyline, many of them, and the city is full of old convents. Of course, this means that the drop in numbers at the church is all that more sharply illuminated, but coming from the prairies, it is awesome to see somewhere so monolithically Catholic in its visual aesthetic.

Can you tell I had an awesome trip?

Privacy Issues

It's been an interesting summer thus far, make no mistake, and according to the calendar, it hasn't even started yet. The first three weeks, right enough, were simply jam-packed with school and so didn't have much going on, but already in the two weeks since I've been hitting moment after moment of deep, thought-provoking material, here inside my skull.

One particular note that has struck me in the last week goes back to a comment in Winnipeg about Fr. Geoffrey, in regards to how tired he would be after a weekend of ordination and first Masses, and SO many people congratulating him, especially given how much of an introvert he is. Okay, nothing I didn't know before... but then in conjunction with this my mind made a random connection when I was reading about C.S. Lewis, also this week, and how he was an immensely private individual. The author was making the connection with the recurring motif in the Narnia chronicles of Aslan telling people no story but their own, and this struck a chord with me.

I was reminded, in fact, of my blogs. Each of my "blogs" (to use the term a bit loosely) caters to a different audience. Facebook, the most recent, is pretty much open to everybody, but simply because of its broad nature, it tends get the "real-life" comments about my life, whereas LiveJournal gets the full brunt of my internet-related life. And while I'm more than willing to let the LiveJournal crowd spill over into Facebook, never have I let on to anyone in real life about LiveJournal (well, siblings and parents know about it, but that's from shoulder-reading more than any online connection). As for this blog, although I've cross-posted a couple posts with Facebook (and other ones with LJ), I've never linked to it either. This one is also more focused on internet-friends, but it's less focused on them. The posts on LJ are very much audience-oriented, which typically translates into lack of content, or into sporadic rants. Blogspot, however, is where I go to work out my thoughts. If people read it, then fine--but only if they're online friends.

I'm not entirely sure WHY I've made this distinction, but it's been around for two years, since I signed onto Blogger, and I don't foresee making it anything else. The fact that I'm a rather private individual is nothing new; the whole reason the comment about Fr. Geoffrey struck me was because it could well apply to me six years from now--my ordination weekend could very well be utterly draining. Although I'm what I call an "outgoing introvert," I definitely need private time alone. This works well, I think, in the priestly vocation, because I like people and I can be around them all day, but I need time alone. I've really noticed this since moving into the rectory. Most of the time, I've cloistered myself in my room and I've been completely happy. My favourite moments have been when it's just me and the cat in the rectory. Part of the reason may be that I've had a LOT of people between school and extraordinary things like the trip to Winnipeg to cause me to need some downtime, but I think a lot of it simply stems from preferring a very private home life. In the seminary, my room tends to see visitors about four times a year, not because I actively shun society, but because I go out to find it rather than invite it in, and people tend to pick up on this reservedness.

Anyway, getting back to the internet/"real life" dichotomy, the issue is not why am I so reserved toward people I know in person, but rather why I'm NOT as guarded with people online. Sure, one can make the case that since I can't interact in real life, I'm protected from having to physically bring them into my life, but that doesn't seem quite an adequate explanation. A lot of the things that I post on here come up in conversation with people in real life, brought up by me because I want to make the same points with them that I do here... but never, ever, have I come anywhere near saying I have this blog. For whatever reason, it's sacrosanct... even though... actually... it's not.

Now, whatever this odd mentality may result from, the ironic truth of the matter is that it wouldn't be hard to find this blog. A google search of my name (including that ever-present initial "A") yields this blog, LiveJournal, Classic-Castle, and the Barrow-Downs (and maybe Facebook... it's been a couple years since I checked), and obviously anyone on Facebook knows my name.

But will I ever tell anyone? Unlikely... I have issues telling people in real life what my phone number is. Not if they ask, but offering is like pulling teeth without anaesthetic.

Actually, that may well be the root peccadillo in play here: I don't like asking people to put themselves out for me, at all. I'm more than happy to assist people, if I'm capable, but even the simplest of things, even things people might enjoy doing, I have a really hard time asking.

Food for thought, Michael.

"Nothing More Beautiful"

Today, instead of doing much work, I was encouraged by my immediate superior to attend the Pastoral Assistants day that was going on at the Pastoral Centre. I went last year, and it's a pretty good time. I sat with the St. Theresa's crowd again, because I'm generally timid about meeting new people, and although there were definitely familiar faces, it's still largely a crowd I don't know.

In the afternoon, Archbishop Smith gave a presentation on his five year plan for the New Evangelisation, which is to commence this fall. I'd already heard it once, about a month back when he gave it to a large group of "influential" (by which I mean high involved as youth ministers and the like) young adults, but it was still awesome to hear it again. The first time was awesome, since it came at unawares, and the vibe in the room was ecstatic, but the second time was good too, as a refresher. I'm not sure the pastoral assistants had the same excited feeling, but my eagerness for getting this underway was boosted again after having been largely forgotten in the midst of a million and one other things that have passed since the start of May.

The New Evangelisation, since probably no one is familiar with the concept, is the idea of revitalising the faith of the Catholic community in our archdiocese, over the course of the next five years, and then putting this into practice as we witness, as a diocese, to the world. This does not mean, as the Archbishop was quick to clarify today, that regular church efforts will be put on hold for five years. No, everything continues according to normal, but in the midst of all this normal there will be a concerted plan to re-educate, rekindle, and reinvigorate the faith of Catholics. It will be a simple plan, not intended to add "yet another thing" to the list of the programs and events that are ongoing. Instead, it is intended to fit into all those things already ongoing.

Anyway, the exact details of HOW it's going to work are still under "construction", and I'm not the best at visualising such things anyway. What chiefly has me, in particular, thrilled about is the theme: "Nothing More Beautiful".

"Nothing More Beautiful" is from a line in Pope Benedict's homily at his inaugural Mass as Pontiff, a line that apparently resonated with the Archbishop, and I must admit is rather cool indeed. The line goes: "There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him."

"There is Nothing More Beautiful."

While I would definitely agree regarding the truth of this statement in any case, the ideas and thoughts that have played across my mind in the last couple years have made this resonate loudly throughout my mind since I first heard the Archbishop's presentation. One thing that has become crystal clear about my faith, the Catholic faith, since coming to seminary, is the immense respect we have for symbolism, and the great usage of it that our tradition holds.

In large part, this stems back to the Catholic notions regarding the physical universe. We do not have a Protestant viewpoint, which tends to see the material world as "evil" and to be avoided. This stems, I think, largely from a very literal reading of the epistles of St. Paul, who certainly does speak about the evils of the flesh-- but it should be noted that this does not mean that St. Paul is speaking of physical bodies, and thus the physical world, as inherently evil, but rather that he is using the word to indicate the inclinations and temptations that the world, in its fallen state, can present to us, and which certainly is in contraposition to the Word of God.

It has been, however, always the contention of the Church that the world is inherently good, going right back to Genesis, where it says quite clearly about every part of creation: "and God saw that it was good". This understanding of the fundamental goodness of creation is present throughout Catholic theology. Our understanding of marriage and sex is coloured with the understanding that this physical, bodily action is an inherently good and beneficial gift--albeit prone to much corruption since the Fall. The importance of physical matter is key to an understanding of how Catholics view the sacraments. Indeed, some sort of a physical element is necessary for them to even be a sacrament, be it a touch, or an anointing, or food (incidentally, the sacrament of marriage's physical touch is... you guessed it... sex). And, of course, there is our much maligned fondness toward building beautiful cathedrals, wearing gorgeous vestments, using gilded chalices, and rich decoration of every sort. We understand, and express it in the very symbolism of our incredibly rich liturgy, that symbolism, physical symbols, have immense power. We acknowledge and celebrate the fact that humans are material beings, not purely spiritual. It is at the very heart of Catholicism to use symbols.

With this in mind, and with this being very dear to my heart, the theme "Nothing More Beautiful" strikes a dear chord for me. Most people I know, especially those liable to read this here online, do not understand just how deeply this resonates. The whole fibre of my being tingles at the beauty of the Mass. If I feel strongly that churches should be soaring and grand, that vestments should be richly embroidered, that music should be solemn and awe-inspiring, it all stems from the very roots of my heart that recognizes the beauty in such things, and wants to cry out with joy to the Lord with all the instruments at its disposal.

Another of the lines that Archbishop Smith took from Pope Benedict on this matter expresses it exactly in my mind. People think, in general, that being a seminarian, being a devout Catholic in general, means giving up enjoyment and fun, that one lives a dreary life in the hope of the next life to come--but this is NOT so! I wish I could find the quote (the Archbishop's first letter on the New Evangelisation does not quote it, and I can't remember where he took it from), but it was basically to the effect that being a Christian is not a limited life of rules and regulations, but a joyful encounter with Christ.

This has struck me a bit more than usual this spring, as I've eased back into regular chatting with friends online... that people really don't get how awesome my life is. There is nothing, nothing more beautiful that I can possibly imagine than knowing you are serving Christ. I can imagine a hundred different ways this joy might be played out, but none of them can be imagined separate from doing one's best to serve and follow Him, and to observe His ways. Following Christ is not a chaining up of one's life, it is a freedom. "The Truth will set you free" the Bible proclaims, and I burn with a passion that wants to flame to the heavens attempting to find the words to explain it. I use a lot of words like "flame" and "burning" trying to express what I feel when I'm thinking about service to Jesus, but fire isn't the only imagery. The pounding wind in your face as you roar down the highway with the windows open can be used too.

The inability to convey completely what I feel is something of a sad thing, since I feel, as a part of it, so sad for those that I love (and yes, I do love you people) not being able to feel this, not feeling Jesus' love for them, and the awesome feeling of being able to love Him back, and yet, despite that, there is something about the simple fact that I can't explain it that is an essential part of this all-soaring love. It's limitless. It's infinite. The love one feels for Jesus and feels expressed in return is the best touch we can have with the infinite.

There is, indeed, nothing more beautiful.

Roadtrip to Winnipeg

This probably isn't the best time to be posting, since I'm cross-legged on the floor with a sore back (I lean forward all day at work over documents... and now I'm sitting on the floor), and I seem to have picked up a devastating cold over the past 24 hours, and I certainly haven't had enough sleep for three days straight...

But when is it going to be an optimal time? I want to write about my weekend while my excitement levels are still high. Due to the cold and having been back for a day of work, they've dipped significantly already, but even in the worst of my achy-breaky pain, I can definitely look back and say it's one of the best weekends I've had in years. Maybe ever.

I left Edmonton on Thursday with Deacon Travis, and we drove out to Saskatoon, halfway across the prairies, and five-six hours down the Yellowhead. We had some good conversation on the way down, and that evening the beer-drinking commenced, followed by some liquour once I got dropped off at the Cathedral rectory where I was staying with Geoffrey, another seminarian. After the arrival of the fourth member of our party (the other Michael from Edmonton), and a formal introduction to "The Office" (British version), we crawled into bed around midnight.

On Friday the four of us headed down the Yellowhead to Winnipeg, pulling into the parking lot of the St-Boniface Basilica rectory half an hour later than we ought to have due to getting lost (Winnipeg has no rhyme or reason to its city planning... and I'm not talking aesthetic curves but complete nonsense of straight roads... completely unjustified in a prairie city). Still, once Paul (another, local, seminarian) showed us through the bowels of the rectory, we got dressed and were given the benefit of his wisdom finding our way back across the Red River to the Cathedral of the Winnipeg Archdiocese (due to Irish/French inability to get along, there are two Catholic Archdioceses in Winnipeg. St-Boniface is French and older), where Geoffrey and James were to be ordained priests.

The liturgy was beautiful... albeit slightly irregular, and was completely packed. After two hours of Mass and an hour or more of reception, some of us headed over to the Elephant and Castle pub across the street for the weekend's second round of beer, and then off to our respective beds. By the time I was in bed in the rectory of Paul's pastor, it was past 1:00 am (Winnipeg time).

Saturday we were supposed to be early for Fr. James' first Mass, but we were five minutes late. After the luncheon reception, Paul took Travis, Geoffrey (from Saskatoon, not the recently-ordained), and myself down to the Forks, then we went to Travis's uncle's for a steak supper. Then it was off to Fr. Geoffrey's home parish for HIS first Mass. Now, Fr. Geoffrey is Filipino, and it was a regularly scheduled Sunday Mass as well, so it was packed. Despite being 25 minutes early, Paul and I were still not able to sit in the church-proper.

After a lavish reception, and good-byes, Travis dropped Paul, Geoffrey, and myself off at Paul's house, where we watched Ghostbusters, and had more beer. By the time I got back to the rectory, it was well after midnight.

On Sunday morning, the four of us from the west regathered nice and early, and headed out from Winnipeg. We reached Saskatoon in mid-afternoon, and decided to have more beer at Winston's Pub near the Cathedral. Around 5:00, us Edmonton Michaels decided we should hit the road, so we parted ways with the Saskatchewan boys, and headed west. By 10:00 we had hit Edmonton.


Despite so much time in the car, it was an awesome weekend, and quite often the best fun was in the car. Roadtrips are fun, and I would sign up in a heartbeat for another one right now. Just like my return from Europe, I've got no real desire to settle down as a result of my travels. Unlike Europe, however, I'm not going to have to wait three years for a follow-up trip of a comparable nature. Instead, I'm off on a comparably long roadtrip to Idaho (although without company...) in a month, and I'm pumped for it. And in less than two weeks I get my long-anticipated "Next Pilgrimage-like flight" follow-up to Europe when I go to Quebec City for the International Eucharist Congress. After hanging out with the seminarians all weekend, I'm pumped for that too.

Life really is awesome. This summer really is awesome. Thank you, Jesus, that I have a job that lets me do this!

Glorious Summer

As usual, it's been a little while since I've posted here, but that should definitely not be taken as a sign that I've been away from the internet of late. Quite the contrary: I have, in fact, been haunting it daily, and with an intensity not seen since before I went away to seminary. From my point of view, it's really be quite awesome, finally getting back into the Classic-Castle routine, posting frequently on the 'Downs, and getting to chat with old friends not talked to in quite some time.

Last summer, when I moved out of the seminary, I had no internet for two months, and it was a good thing. I was so tired after breaking my leg, and in that first month before I moved out, I spent a LOT of time online, and I was running around on the weekends, and I hadn't gotten over the exhaustion of the school year. As a result, I really needed and really enjoyed having such a peaceful two months.

This year, on the other hand, I've got energy and I want to catch up on all the fun I've missed while school's been keeping me busy. I want to keep in touch, and keep visible, and have fun. Last summer, quiet was necessary. This summer, I'm really feeling how long two years is, and how little I did last summer. Not so, this year. This year, I'm going to travel!

In another couple weeks, I'm off to Manitoba on a road trip with some of the seminarians to attend a double-ordination in Winnipeg. Now, I realise that Winnipeg is probably about as far from exotic as you can get, but being on the road and somewhere I've never been, and out with the seminary family is fun! I'm quite looking forward to it.

Three weeks or so after that, I'm flying off to Quebec City for a week, for the International Eucharistic Congress. This, it is will be awesome! 100,000+ Catholics (probably) gathering from across the globe to celebrate the central-most aspect of our faith together--and here in our own country! Furthermore, I'll get to see a whole different part of the continent I've never set foot on, I'll get to see the North American city with the longest history, and get to meet Catholics, be they bishops, priests, seminarians, religious, laypeople, from everywhere.

Two weeks or so after that, I'm in the process of planning a trip down to the States. My first meeting with a BDer (well, unless I randomly meet Farael in Winnipeg...)! My first trip to the States in 12 years! And a long cry from any long weekend last summer...

As of right now, there are no big plans for July... although the weekend after the States is a major ordination here in Edmonton (which I'll be present for), and I might even try getting to Victoria, B.C. in late July for Stephen's diaconal ordination. The first weekend of August is Bones (which reminds me... we're a man short... must think about that...). End of August is Maurice's presbyteral ordination in Peace River, so I'll probably head up for that, and then the seminary year starts. That should be the end of any excitement, but I've been toying with the idea of going to Seattle for BrickCon over the October Long Weekend. I'm having doubts, though...

Still, that's a full enough summer, and I've also got to consider, at the end of it, getting things in motion for the Philosophy Club next fall. I'm somewhat terrified at the prospect of being the one most responsible for getting that going, but I've got good help and I'm excited. All that I REALLY have to make sure happens is that we all actually get together and plan some stuff. The rest will hopefully follow inertially.

There is a very real possibility that I will be internetless for most of the summer, once again, but I'm not too torn up about that. I can find internet on weekends or evenings if I'm willing to strike out of the home territory a little, and with as much stuff as I've got going on, it probably won't be a bad thing to have a little more free time. After all, I'm working through all this (which is why most of my trips are weekenders). I mean, I may have a really good job that will let me have time off whenever, but I intend to work as much as possible, and thus to earn a corresponding amount. Besides, I really enjoy working in the Archives, and not only do I have a decent raise over what I made last year, but I'll also be the best-placed seminarian in the country to observe the construction of the new seminary, right out of my window.

Yes, it's going to be an awesome summer, and I'm absolutely stoked about it! Just don't expect updates... I'd like to... but I can't promise.

Two Down, Six to Go

Quite a few times it has occurred to me in the last week or two that "hey! That would probably be a good thing to put down on the blog"--but I've never been in the mood to sit down here and do it. Now I do feel like blogging... and I've forgotten most of what it has occurred to me to say, and I've got nothing else new.

Hmmm...

I do seem to recall thinking that I should maybe note how odd it was going in to school yesterday. It's the second final I've had, and other than my final on Friday, it's the first time I've been to Concordia since the last day of classes, and it's definitely the first day I've had to hang out and talk with a large number of people I know (I went in early to hand in a take-home exam, and stayed after the exam for the fun of it. I had nothing better to do). It was kind of odd stepping back into the Concordia social scene, since I spent the last few days mixed in with completely different crowds.

As people might know from elsewhere, I went home for the weekend (foolishly), and naturally being in Olds brings back memories of a wholly different time, even though I didn't spend time with anyone other than family while I was there. Thoughts of old times were really reinforced on Monday night when, for the first time in months, I had some long chats online. One was with Nathan, bringing back all sorts of dusty memories of Classic-Castle and my roleplaying heyday. Then there was Jamie, who maybe as an individual doesn't particularly recall the old glory days of chatting with Barrow-downers, but that's still how I know her. And then, of all strange things to happen, I was added by the phantom on MSN, and had my first lengthy chat with a new Barrow-downer in over a year. Coupled with all the extra time I've had due to finals (let's face it, I'm not much of a crammer), I've spent more time on the 'Downs than any other week in the past eight months, and I've been appointed Administrator of the 'Downs Facebook group; all of which means I've been transported back to a very different time when I spent a lot more hours on Barrow-downs related activities.

And then I went to school yesterday, and hanging out with all these people I've come to know this year seemed really surreal. It felt pretty good, knowing I've come to know all these people, and unlike when classes was ending there was no foreboding sense of impending doom about the end of the semester, but there was a rather weird feeling that this couldn't be real... that surely my real social life had to involve a keyboard and text on a screen.

So... yeah... kind of odd.



I think I also wanted to mention how it struck me powerfully that I'll be down two whole years of seminary in less than 48 hours, but I talk enough about how fast time always seems to be that I'll let it pass, except to say: "Wow! Two years! Wow!"

The Best Years of My Life?

Tonight was the awards ceremony at Concordia, and while it was--as to be expected--something of a quick shuffle through all the deserving award winners with little time to linger, it was ultimately still worth going to, though even in the conversation afterward, there was little of note that passed.

Of course, one should remember that I tend to enjoy formal things. An excuse to put on a suit is a good excuse in my book. Also, despite a tendency towards shyness, I love social situations. Communities and relationships fascinate me, so events where everyone's name is printed out and trotted across the stage is always enjoyable, since it means I not only get to find out who people are without having to ever talk to them, I also get a sense of how they fit into the Concordia community. These are the smart people, the achievers.

What really made attending the award ceremony worth it, for me, was the reflection on how time passes. Now, it should be noted that I find the passage of time endlessly fascinating, but despite that fact I still seem to find myself marvelling over it as though I'd never noticed it before.

It's been ever more apparent the past few weeks that this school year is almost over. Just one more full week of classes, then finals, then--BOOM--it's over. And I'm finding myself back where I was at this point last year: ever so eager to just be DONE, but really, really wistful about the fact that it's over. Let's face it--I really haven't got much of a social life outside of seminary and Concordia, although I would argue that this isn't really what's at stake in my wistfulness here, so much as the fact that I really like being in school. Call it the repressed yearnings of an academically inclined, people enjoying, home-schooler.

Whatever the reason, that's kind of beside the point at the moment. Although I am VERY strongly reminded of this same point last year, my situation is radically different. By this time last year, I was pretty much just reaching the point where I was developing friendships and bonding with the school. And yes, that does seem like it took me a long time, but let's put things in perspective and recall that in my first semester, I only had one class a day, effectively, so I would go in for class, then turn around and go home, never really doing more than school proper. On top of that, you should be aware that I take a long, long time to warm up to new places, and not only was Concordia a new place, I was adjusting to seminary, adjusting to city life, adjusting to Edmonton in particular, going to class for the first time in eleven years, as well as coming off a year so social-less (Never, ever, work night/weekend shifts for a living if you want a social life!) as to be solitary confinement... and the list goes on.

Now, a year later, I can honestly say I had the best year of my life--thus far. Funny, but I thought I could say that last year too--and the year before (despite the job...), and the year before that too... Now, although Grade 12 was a good year, there is no denying in my mind that each year since has been progressively better. This school year was no different, and a look at the three other award-winners I would say I know rather well, each can be taken as a marker for a change in my extracurricular life in this past year.

Starting with Shane: he is the face of the Philosophy Club, which has probably been the single greatest change in my schedule this year. It's impossible to evaluate completely what kind of a difference this has made, since one year is never the same as the one previous, and I barely can remember last year at this point. Philosophy Club has absorbed huge chunks of my time, and has been integrally connected to a huge number of relationships, and is definitely going to affect next year, given that they elected me president next year. It's kind of funny, looking back, that I'm quite sure the reason I really got involved in the Club has largely to do with the fact that I chanced across Shane and Nolan in the cafeteria and sat down just as they were plotting the formation of the club. Next thing you know, I'm the Recording Officer, and my Monday evenings are booked up.

Moving on to Lindsey: last year I would never have probably spent so much time willingly in the cafeteria as I have this year, and this semester in particular, it's been with an entirely different crowd, and in all honesty I don't even remember how or why I started associating with that group. Now, Lindsey's actually probably the least typical example in the group, but it's probably fair to say of the others that they are crazy... in one way or another. Now, it's not that I'm NOT crazy... but I definitely don't think I'm quite the same kind of crazy.

And then there's Ben... Ben is someone I generally only know from classes. He's not in Philosophy Club (though he's in the classes), and apart from random encounters passing through Tegler, I don't generally see him between/after/before classes like the cafeteria crew. He is, however, an excellent example of the mysterious phenomenon I've had my attention drawn to lately, of how all sorts of people seem to know me, generally from having taken classes with me. Ben's probably better known than most of these random examples, but after Sierra pointed it out to me that all kinds of people seem to know me, I started keeping track of greetings from people randomly walking past in Tegler, and it does seem that, quite apart from being a faceless entity among hundreds of students, that there is never really a time I cannot go somewhere public at Concordia and find someone I know. Not that I'm a public personage, by any means (at least, I sure HOPE not!), but it would seem I've not exactly been under the radar this year either.

Of course, being me, all this reflection and fascination with time only means that I'm also well aware how terribly close a year from now is--the very end of my time at Concordia. It's ironic, given that I've only had one better year after another, that I'm kind of prematurely depressed about life going on. I mean, I definitely want to be done my degree, and I definitely want to move on to ordination... but I really do hate to see good times end, and Concordia, once I warmed up to it, has been good times.

There are definitely times when being a nostalgia nut is not a good idea...

Easter Season

If there is some magic condition that makes it so that I post here, I have yet to find what it might be. I'm here posting, but I don't think "I'm not quite ready for bed, not doing homework, and don't have enough time for Stargate" applies to every other situation. Maybe I should break my other leg? Just a thought...

Anyways...

I seem to have undergone something of a sea change in terms of energy since the Easter weekend, probably because the four-day weekend and a visit home meant a much-needed recharge of batteries, never mind the usual energy boost of the Easter season, which is bouncy, hopeful, uplifting, and all that good stuff. Nothing pumps me up for a week or two like an awesome Easter Vigil service. Of course, there's also the fact that now that Easter has passed, the end of the school year feels very near--even though the extra-early Easter means it's actually quite a bit farther away than I instinctively want to think. Even with a whole week of school over since Easter, I still have two weeks of classes, and then two weeks of "finals" before I'm free of this semester.

Of course, the fact that all my papers are coming due could be making me panic a little, and nothing gives you energy like adrenaline... but I'm not quite at that point yet. Still haven't pulled an academic all-nighter, for anything.

Spring weather doesn't hurt one's energy levels either. The weather has been consistently nice the last couple weeks, and the continual melting of snow, together with sunny, breezy spring days, has been beautiful.

Life's not a complete bag of roses, of course. My memory has reached the point in the school year where my classes have fused. Going in to school this morning I could barely have told you which class was when, with which prof, and on what subject. I knew I had a paper to hand in, but although I had the right paper, my mind kept thinking it was for my OTHER English class. I've also got alarm-clock setting issues, and I have absolutely no idea what day of the month it is... life is a big blur.

It's hard to believe that April is already upon us tomorrow, and at the same time really amazing that it has been March for so long. I mean... Easter Sunday was eight days ago!

Yes, I'm a little confused these days... but at least I'm not drained-feeling anymore!

Most Blessed of all Weekends

With the celebration of the Holy Thursday Mass, I've now entered into the Easter Triduum, the most solemn three days of the Church year, and the setting of my absolute favourite liturgies. As it stands, I'm unfortunately very ticked off at myself. I suffered through Mass with a hint of a buzz from too much wine at supper (we had a Seder supper, re-enacting a Jewish Passover meal, and it requires have four glasses of wine). The buzz wasn't the real problem so much as the fact that I forgot to take my insulin at supper, and thus by the time Mass came around all my supper had ended up in my bloodstream, which inevitably makes me really uncomfortable--and less than able to sing as the high blood sugar meant a syphoning of water into the bladder, and thus drying out other places like the mouth.

The unfortunate result of this is a general crankiness that has only now started to alleviate as I've taken insulin and have had a drink of water. I'm still in a rather pensive mood, though, and this has a lot to do with the fact that I'm feeling quite disconnected from the seminary of late--because I'm never able to be here.

This has been a bad semester for that in general, and while I'm at school I don't begrudge being at school, but I really, really felt kind of "doing nothing/useless" at Mass tonight. This is a false sense of how things should be, I know, since a Mass is SUPPOSED to have ordinary church-goers, but I've been spoilt this week. I served for the Archbishop on Saturday, on Sunday, and on Monday I was on the Chrism Mass serving team, all of which serves to bring out my very normal tendency toward wanting to be at the centre of the liturgical action. I'm quite certain that this has peaked nearly every year yet around Easter, since quite a while before I entered seminary.

On the plus side, as far as that goes, the rest of the weekend should make up for that amply. I'm heading back to Olds tomorrow, and I'll be serving at the Good Friday liturgy, the Easter Vigil, and the Easter morning Mass, a Triduum tour-de-force that I've never had the chance to serve before.

Every year, the Triduum sneaks up on me and I find myself at or just after the Holy Thursday Mass, wishing I'd been just a little bit better prepared, and regretting that the weekend always has to disappear so quickly. I always want to savour this part of the year for so much longer... all year would be nice. But before I know it, Thursday has passed into Friday, suddenly Friday is gone, and then the Easter Vigil (which seemed forever-long and boring as a little kid) has flashed before my eyes and it's Easter morning... and once that Mass has vanished, the high spiritual weekend is over, and it's back to real life.

Basically, it's the same sort of hunger you get after you've just eaten a chocolate bar. One never seems to be enough. The chocolate was just savoury enough that you want a second one... but you never get one. However, as I learnt today, when you plan ahead and actually do have two, the second one always ends up tasting too sweet, and you can hardly get it down without nausea. Maybe that's how it is with the Triduum... it's ever so much better to having that lingering desire for more than to ever actually have more.

Not Quite a Third World Country

We had a very interesting day yesterday. At some point around Lauds (so 8:50 until 9:20ish), Epcor (Edmonton's public/private utility company), while digging out behind the seminary, hit our water main, and for the rest of the day we did not have running water.

The huge irony here is that Epcor spent the last few days doing survey work to find those water lines and power lines and the like. I guess they succeeded.

Now, this didn't really make much of a difference at first. It actually took until lunch before most of us realised it had happened. Then, as we sat down to eat, we were eating off of styrofoam, paper, and plastic because we wouldn't be able to run the dishwasher. As the day went on, we learned more and more that this wasn't going to be fixed quickly, and come supper we still didn't have running water.

Supper was order-in pizza and bottled water, pop, etc. Supper was also after half an hour of most of us ambling out to the water trailor that Epcor had provided to haul water into our rooms to flush our toilets, brush our teeth, etc. It was really quite amusing to watch us slowly make our way out there a couple at time, usually carrying our blue, plastic paper recycling bins (emptied of all paper, of course).

The inability to shower meant that soccer did not happen after supper as had been planned, but instead a number of us went out to a movie (Juno). By the time we got back (10:30 pm, or later), the water main still hadn't been fixed, but Epcor had managed to hook up a larger water truck to our water system, thus restoring running water. Though not fixed when last I checked, today's water situation is basically back to normal as far as the turning on of taps goes.

For the most part, the water problem did not inconvenience us beyond the change of meal and sport plans--and toilet flushing. Most of us had showered before Lauds (though the few who didn't were QUITE cranky all day). The most amusing part of the whole situation was the fact that it happened when it did. For the first part, it seems that all the problems that have come upon the building this year (we've had two major water leaks in the library) have happened on the weekend--when the college end of the building is empty and we don't have staff working on maintenance or anything. The second amusing note is the fact that this weekend was the "Come and See" weekend, meaning that we had six seminary prospects who managed to, well, come and see what life at the seminary is like. Well, they got a really good look at what happens when the schedule gets mashed up. On whole, though, I think the *cough* "disaster" may have been beneficial in that regard, since the community tended to spend more time together, and there was a much greater feeling of cameraderie at supper and in the evening than usual.

Oh, and yes, I am avoiding homework by writing right now...

Evading Homework

For the first time in what feels like forever (probably meaning "since Reading Break ended"), I find myself with time to do homework... but no homework actually pressing in on me that needs to be done SOON. This does not mean I do not have homework. Quite the contrary. I have a 3000 word essay I want to finish in the next week or two (I should probably start it as well), and I got the essay topic today for a 1500+ word essay that I want to have a handle on in the same timeframe. I should really get moving on both, since I have a 2000 word essay and a 1200 word essay about to be handed out in the next week, and once all four of those are finished, I still have a couple major papers and a minor one (entailing a fieldtrip, however) due.

Meh... they'll keep. *shrugs*

Haven't really got much to say. Reading Break feels quite a while ago, with the whirl back into normal routine that's passed this week. Very little of note happened during the first stretch of it, though it ended on a rather busy weekend, as I joined my Mom and two of her sisters playing in a Bunnock tournament in West Edmonton Mall. We had a decent score in the end: four games won, four lost, but this was insufficiently done to warrant us a prize, alas.

Not much is coming up in the near future either, really... I hope/expect to spend much of this weekend working on my 3000 word paper, interspersed with the 2000 word one in case the first gets boring. Pray that I ACTUALLY do that. My grades have yet to suffer, but academic lethargy has really hit me this semester, and I really don't seem to be able to motivate myself out of it that easily. I imagine it's both the heavier courseload, and the fact that this is the second semester, working in tandem to make me unmotivated, coupled with the fact that there is no real end in sight, since no sooner do I finish up with this semester than I move into the spring courses.

Well, one thing at a time... Life isn't bad. If it was, I'd either be on here a lot more whining or unable to make it online. It is, however, just imperfect enough that I can (and am) escape it by posting here.

Birthday Week

It seems that every time I log in here to post, I feel guilty about having not done so for so long... which may or may not be because I've actually been gone an unreasonably long time. It could just be that, after some parts of last year, I have unreasonably high expectations about how much I ought to post.

Still, not a lot of news makes it here these days--in large part, I suspect, because since I've been journalising on paper this past half year and more, I haven't felt the need to inscribe my life a second time here, since posterity already has a copy. All the same, here are the big events of this week, past and future:

MONDAY: My 21st Birthday. The Philosophy Club did a major public debate about the existence of God at Concordia which went over massively well, and not only raised our profile somewhat, but was really well received. I was the final argument presenter, giving the moral argument for the existence of God, and I'm told I did awesomely well. In the evening we had our regularly scheduled Club meeting, but it was more of a celebratory party than a serious debate, though we did get into more objections to the Hiddenness argument against God's existence than time had allowed for at the debate.

TUESDAY: I took the advanced road test, and passed, thus (two and a half years late) getting me the necessary credentials for a fully adult driver's licence.

WEDNESDAY: Today is hell. I'm getting an ingrown toenail removed this morning, I have my regular run of four classes, and the last --in the evening-- has my first midterm of the semester. When I come back to the seminary around 10:00 tonight, I expect to be utterly exhausted and a little pained.

THURSDAY: Not much, thank you, God! My first class is a midterm, but it doesn't look too hard (History of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy).

FRIDAY: I sing at Mass first thing in the morning, which may not be pretty... then I can't eat until 11:00 because I have to get bloodwork done for my diabetic check-up in a couple weeks. I've got my fingers crossed for a good hemoglobin A1C.

SATURDAY: The start of Reading Break. In all likelihood, I will do NOTHING that day... maybe sleep in until noon... something like that.

Winter

No deep logic or psychological problems tonight... just an update about the weather.

Basically, the phrase "all hell freezes over" pretty much describes the weather we've had today. Snow was falling from before I woke up this morning until supper, at least. It's finally stopped, but the chill wind that was making it extra-nasty has kept up, so there's still lots of drifting going on.

It was one of those really cold winter days that we get here on the northern prairies, and the forecast says we're doomed to have them all week. With the wind chill it was below -40.

Basically, it was cold enough that I wasn't having to scrape off the outside of my car driving to Mass this morning, but the inside, which is infinitely more annoying. I'm glad my car actually started, though, since I apparently didn't plug it in last night, so I guess it's just God being nice to me that saw it start on command this morning--that and maybe a more resilient engine in lower temperatures than my last car. Even so, she took her time warming up this morning.

It'll be a nasty week... let's hope it's better by the weekend, or I won't be going home to speak in the parish, methinks.

Logical Catharsis

We'll see if this post makes any sense... I'm feeling too tired to want to write anything tonight, but restless enough to attempt it, as well as tired of circling around the front of this issue and never pushing through to the conclusion...

Anyway, to set the scene: on Friday, between classes at Concordia, I was whining to a friend how I hate weekends when I have nothing to do. Quite logically, she concluded that I was foolish to be whining, given that it is fully within my power to correct this: if I want something to do on the weekend, it is as simple as phoning someone up and asking "hey! are you doing anything this afternoon? I'm bored!"

Now, for whatever reason, although I recognise the truth of this solution, there is something in me that revolts at the suggestion of it, and says in the bluntest emotions possible that there is no way on Earth I'm ever going to be comfortable with doing that. I would much rather do nothing all weekend and drown in my self-centred misery. I said as much to my friend, and she quite fairly criticised me severely for my unwillingness to change, and for being such a fool as to complain.

The whole situation has been on my mind on and off yesterday evening and today, which is an uncomfortable situation, although not exactly a bad one. The worst of it is that I can't really seem to come to a resolution, but instead keep going over and over the same thoughts and emotions and thus have this horrible sick-to-my-stomach feeling that you get if you watch the same movie four times back to back.

I've tried looking at this as a logical problem to be solved, but if it is just a problem of logic, it's a complicated one, and I'm too lazy to graph it all out into syllogisms. Anyway, the problem seems to be expressed best thusly: "while I seem to really like going out and doing stuff with people, the only reasonable way to do such things is one I seem to be unwilling to take". The "reasonable way", of course, being to invite people to go and do stuff...

The logical part of me wants to make a distinction about the situation and then leave me happy with that. It wants me to say that I don't really want to be out having to interact with people, to talk to them and be an integrated part of some group, but that I simply want to be around people. It presents, as evidence, the apparent joy I got this morning at the Marian Centre during the tea break, sitting there amidst everyone else, but talking to none, and the object of no one's attention, just sort of absorbing the swirl of humanity and relationships around me.

Now, the logical part has a point--I do enjoy people-watching. The obvious solution to my dilemma, then, would seem to be that the reason I don't want to go ask anybody to go and spend time with me is that I don't really want quality time with anyone, but that I want to be around people without any qualifications, and thus that I should just go hang out in West Edmonton Mall tomorrow afternoon, and let humanity swarm all around me.

Though it presents a compelling argument, I have to say this part of me is wrong. Although I am an avid people-watcher, and have indeed spent time in West Ed and such places doing nothing more than walking around, sitting, and watching, this is not at the heart of this matter. No, the issue here is as it seems: I want to engage people on a personal level, but I'm too reticent to seem able to do so.

Where lies the problem then? That it is a problem, I am quite willing to confess at the moment, despite numerous reservations when the same question has come up at different points in the past. I've tried, before, to justify this reticence, but I think my friend is right here in criticising me for complaining when it is fully within my power to do otherwise. After all, I claim to believe in free will--and all I have to do is exercise my free will and either go knock on a seminarian's door or dial the phone... but that sends adrenaline through my system like you wouldn't believe, and I begin trying to excuse myself out of it like crazy.

Let's take it as a given, then, that I'm in the wrong for being reticent, and tackle the related question of WHY I'm so reticent. It's not a problem with the Golden Rule Principle of "Do unto others...", since I would love to have someone call me up and ask if I wanted to do something. It is, probably, something rather more irrational.

I've already had a few ideas present themselves to me as to what it might be. Beginning with my beginning, there's nature and nurture. Whether it's genetic or conditioned doesn't really matter to the situation here, since either way, my parents have certainly affected me. Dad is probably worse than me for initiating any sort of social activity, though every indication is that he doesn't really care for it all that much (Dad's rather a homebody...). While Mom is more than willing to call up a friend for coffee, it's always from a small circle of close friends, not from acquaintances in general. By and large, my family background does not encourage going out there and inviting people to do things.

From that, I would note that I am a lot like my mom, but with the notable difference that while I might be just as willing as her to call up a good friend and go for coffee, unlike her I don't have (m)any friends close by to call up, or, indeed, have many such friends in general. It's a bit of a paradox, I suppose: I won't phone people to do stuff until they're good friends, but they won't become good friends until I've done stuff with them, which requires phoning...

It's not fair, however, to lay the blame for this situation at my parents' feet, though it may explain my disposition some. My own history has played its part, no doubt. Though never well-disposed to such things, I also had little opportunity before I was about 14, since we lived in the country, and when you're a kid who can't drive, the initiative to invite people over or to go in and do stuff really isn't in your own hands. Consequently, when we moved to town at age 14, not only was I not inclined to such things, I had pretty much no experience. Although never quite a social pariah, I was always acutely aware that I wasn't quite the most popular kid in the social circle either, quite aware of not being invited to some events and of having to miss others because of inability to come, or of being less than the life of the party when present... all of which leads to a certain amount of insecurity when deciding to plan something, and makes it that much more crushing when you plan something, and it doesn't work out. And, inevitably, it didn't. What can I say? It was junior high school... the most tender years of a psyche's life. I think it was just something as trivial as no one being able to go to a movie except the people who'd already been to it. Or I'm inventing some situation that never happened. Anyway, there's long precedent in my life for associating pain with attempting to start/host anything social. Also, for most of my teenage years, I didn't really care for too much in the way of social life, so what stuff other people invited me too was often enough to satisfy me.

So, knowing all that you might think I'd find it easier to get over this mental hang-up and just do something--right? Wrong. I may be a mature adult now, but the "PAIN!" klaxon still sounds when I start thinking about asking somebody to do something, and avoiding pain is generally something we tend to do.

To delve a little further into the "PAIN!" instinct, it can be also articulated with the idea that I am afraid to impinge too much on my friends. When I mentioned this to my friend yesterday, she laughed at me, and rightly so, and told me (if not in so many words, in impressions), that would they really be a friend if they disliked my presence that much? Either they would be able to do something, and then we would, or they'd not be able to, and then no hard feelings--right? Well, maybe looked at sensibly, but I have difficulty looking at it that way, because although I get along well with people, and can generally making amiable acquaintances easily, I really take a while to develop friendships, and I guess you could say I have a paranoid fear of losing a friendship by taking advantage of it too often. Or, to put it another way, though it may not be true I am so oblivious, I have a fear that I am completely unable to judge just how tolerated/liked I actually am by a friend, and thus I back off completely so as not to lose whatever I do have.

A very foolish and insecure way of looking at friendships, I fully realise, but it is a habit, and bad habits are the hardest to break. As someone who doesn't make close friends easily, and as someone cautious by nature, I don't want to jeopardise ANYTHING. I know this means I'm never going to actually build a close friendship if I keep to the same tack, but that doesn't make it much easier to change my ways, alas.

On top of these predispositions, I have the added problem of being a seminarian. Now, this isn't REALLY a problem--look at most of the others here to demonstrate how having friends is entirely possible for a seminarian--but it does give me quite a few more excuses to utilise in my attempts to defend myself from having to change my ways.

First of all, there is the schedule. It's not that it's so super-full that I never would have time to get out, it's just that it's well-sprinkled across the week. I have mornings off... but that's when I have (and I really do have) to read for my classes. I have evenings... sorta. Night Prayer kicks in three days a week, and I have a night class on a fourth and Community Activities with the seminary on Fridays. These are all good things which I generally enjoy doing, but they all effectively prevent me from going out and doing anything. Now, Night Prayer isn't until 9:30, but I tend to view social events a lot like friendships: I'd rather them rarer and richer than many and fleeting. Consequently, from the above, most of fun people-spent-with time is between classes at school, and after the community event on Fridays, which are fun times to be sure, but which certainly don't fill the gaping void of the weekend.

However, empty weekends being what sparked this whole conversation, it should be apparent that time isn't what I need in life, but a new mentality. Carrying the "being a seminarian" problems farther, there is definitely a philosophical problem for socialising that comes with being a priest-to-be. As such, I have a mentality that says I have SHOULDN'T be socialising too much, getting too close to friends. It says that while I should be everyone's friend, and get along with all, I shouldn't be obsessing over having close friends and worrying about social relationships, since, after all, once I'm ordained, I'm not going to have time to waste on hanging out with people. It also says that I am liable to be moved around Edmonton, around Alberta, even around the world, if they send me to Rome or something, and I'm only setting myself up for pain by making friendships I'll have to cut off at sometime.

Now, I am well aware, particularly if I start thinking sensibly as I'm trying to do right now, that this is a VERY dangerous way to be thinking. Quite apart from needing to be an island unto himself, a priest needs to have a balanced life with good friends, and he needs to be able to relax away from the parish--both with priestly friends and with other friends and family. And when I look at it in this balanced lighting, I only become more concerned, since I'm not doing myself any favours by not taking care of myself socially, that I'm setting up some foundations for my burning out and becoming a bitter, bitter man if this continues too far.

So here, at last, we more or less reach the end of the thoughts that, in some form or other, have swirled around my brain this past 36 hours or so. Some of it is much older, and has been recycled for years, but now is the first time that I've managed to synthesize it all together and make some sense of it logically. Before I move on to the logical conclusion, however, let me add an addendum that just occurred to me to add.

First, a note on seminarians. Now, most of the above issues apply to my relationships there. I have the same reticence problems with my brothers as I do with friends in general, but unlike with friends in general, I seem to be doing a bit better... either because we're thrown together more, or because I've made a more concerted effort of it, I don't know, but although there's still a lot of room for progress, I really don't have much to fault with myself there. The real issue here, insofar as there is any immediacy to it, is with other friends.

And now, the conclusion:

I need to change. For the second time this year, in casually defending a not-thought-through practice of mine, I have come to a conclusion that calls for change. Last time, it was trivial: in order to maintain my opinionated rhetoric, I had to start going to chapel at Concordia. This time, it seems to entail a great deal more: clearly, if I want to enjoy friendships on weekends, the onus is on me to DO something and not WHINE about it. This is hard, I am really feeling, since while my other issue about chapel meant I had to change my actions in order to maintain my opinions, here I have to change my opinions AND my actions in order to achieve the effect I want.

I don't even know where to start, but having--at enormous length--reached this conclusion has drained me for tonight. I'm also rather terrified at the prospect; facing your deepest, darkest fears is not particularly easy. I have no idea how I'm going to do this... if I can. I don't WANT to stay as I am, but change really, really hurts... it's like setting a broken leg: neither the broken leg or the setting feels at all pleasant, but only one is good for you.





Wow... all that took a LONG time to write... that was really cathartic, though.

Busy as a Beaver

I can't believe how busy life is right now... It's not that it's full of hard things, but it certainly FULL! Now, having one more course than a full course load will help you in that direction, but I don't think it's the extra schoolwork so much as it is everything else.

Part of the problem is that I don't seem to have free weekends anymore. Well... that's not perfectly true. Turns out that I fluked into getting this weekend off when I was expecting to spend it all in a parish, but even so, the fact is that my weekends are almost looking like they need to be gone into without the expectation of doing homework... which means that all my readings (and they are many) and all my papers (which will be several), need to be focussed into my mornings and evenings, which push in nice and tight on the afternoons I spend in school. Of course, school isn't the only thing in my life. January is always a nasty month for me with car re-licencing and driver-re-licencing. As a result of booking a test to upgrade and get my "mature" licence, I've had more stuff going on to drag me out of homework this past week, and it's impacted nastily on my being caught up on readings.

I probably shouldn't have bit off a key role in the Philosophy Club's public debate, but I allowed myself to be flattered into it--aided by my egoistic self-concept of myself as one of our better public speakers.

As I said... life's not hard... but it is full. I sleep really well at night.

An Amazing Gift

Well, my first part week of school is now done, and I'm not really sure what to think about this semester. I really didn't go in with a lot of eagerness, like last semester. I wasn't dreading it... the holidays were plenty long enough, and there were a couple days once the retreat was over and the other seminarians had all gone back to classes when it occurred to me that I really needed some sort of purpose to my daily life.

I've got it now, I guess... in the form of two English courses, three Philosophy courses, and a night course in Art History. It's an overload of courses (five is the normal limit), but this is the semester to do it, since these are all courses I can more than reasonably expect to do well in, and the Art History, which was added last, is known as an easy course (the complementary course which I took last year was).

There's not really much to say yet about school. I'm still getting used to the seismic shift in my class times which has seen all my classes gravitate towards the end of the afternoon. My earliest class is 12:05 pm (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays) or 1:55 pm (Tuesdays and Thursdays). And, of course, any semester means changes in who you hang out with between classes, and where.

Tonight, though, my interest isn't really in school. Actually, it isn't really there at all. In part, my interest is on the "Musician's Spirituality" post I wrote a couple months ago. I didn't get a lot of comments, but the few I did were quite positive, and I shared it with my spiritual director, who was quite intrigued, and suggested I continue my train of thought and see what else comes up, so I'll probably delve down that mineshaft again soon. Tonight, though, I've a different topic in mind.

Last night, after a long evening of looking eagerly at the plans for the new seminary and enjoying some deep conversations on various topics, I got involved in a long discussion with the Rector and a couple of the other seminarians that went on for a very long time (well after midnight... though it probably wasn't much before that we started) on the topic of the Seal of the Confessional.

For those who don't know, the Seal of the Confessional is the term which refers to the utter secrecy surrounding the Sacrament of Penance (also known as Reconciliation or Confession), and can also be invoked outside the sacrament, such as in spiritual direction. Concerns about accidentally letting something slip as a priest has probably worried every serious seminarian ever, though real experiences suggest it isn't such a huge issue once you're ordained, and breaches are extremely rare--and sometimes apochryphal.

Anyway, the discussion started out with "what if" scenarios, and was generally about how the Seal of the Confessional works, how you keep it, whether you could get around it, how far extended, and so forth. It was an educating conversation, certainly, but my chief interest and reflective thought was about the remarkable privilege it is to be a priest, and to hear confessions.

Think of it! A priest is given the opportunity not only to observe people at their weakest, most broken, most unshielded--at their most trusting. Quite beyond simple observation, a priest is EXPLICITLY trusted with that. Sometimes the trust is routine, people go in with a "get in, get absolved, go home" mentality, but the very complacency of the routine should be awe-inspiring. A priest is ROUTINELY trusted with information that could shatter people's lives if used.

(Aside: of course, if a priest ever broke the Seal, good luck getting trusted like that again... but still...)

Going beyond the routine, every priest will have one or two or many times when it won't be the ordinary, but extraordinary, when he will be able to witness and help in a pivotal moment of change in someone's life, those confessions of the sort where someone hasn't been in twenty years or thirty years... or longer. And in these situations, where more often the trust must already be correspondingly greater to match the extent of the sins confessed, the penitent probably isn't someone the priest knows very well at all.

Protestants find the idea of Confession to be rather abhorrent. Why confess to a man when you can talk straight to God? Now, there's a whole theological discussion regarding that, and obviously I'm solidly in the Catholic camp, but even someone who has a completely different religious perspective has to admit that it must be utterly humbling and awe-inspiring to hear Confessions. It is an amazing, wildly crazy gift, the sort of gift that only someone as deeply in love as God is would ever give.

And He has--and I don't really just mean the chance to be a priest and hear Confessions, but also the opportunity, for anyone in the Church, to go TO Confession. And this, I know, is truly a divine gift. While it is certainly possible for God, in His infinite power, to forgive someone after they just confess their sins in the silence of their heart... but doesn't that seem like LESS of a gift than Confession? Indeed, I am convinced that it would be less of a gift. Forgiveness without the sacrament would never yield the same opportunities for improvement and the same graces for strengthening, or the same beautiful glimpse into the wild love of the Divine.

2007 in Review

It is thirty days since I last posted here. Normally, this past semester when I've finally logged in to put up another post, I've been amazed at how long it's been, sure that it can't be THAT long since I wrote something. Typically, such episodes happen about two weeks after the post previous. Not this time. This time, I can totally believe it. I simply haven't felt like writing anything of length online is so long. The Barrow-Downs cannot really be said to have felt my neglect, since I hardly write there other than in the oft-neglected "Tapestry of Dreams" RPG, but I haven't even been logging in. Now, a large part of this has to do with having been back in Olds for the majority of the month, where the internet has been shifty and slow at best this past month, and that following right on Finals... but the truth is that I just haven't felt that interested in writing anything online.

However, let's try and turn that around a little bit with a look at 2007. My 20th year came to an end on February 11th, with my birthday, and I ceased being a teenager. I now feel well and truly an adult and high school is becoming an ever more distant memory, a fact I do not regret in the slightest. For some people, high school are "the best years of their lives", but if that were the case, then I would be shuddering in terror at my future.

Mind you, 2007 was no bed of roses. Although it was an excellent year academically, which saw me achieve high grades and immense fun, the four months between school years was marred beyond much recovery by the broken leg.

All the same, though the broken leg was utterly undesirable, the fact is those four months were probably the most notable ones of 2007. Not because they were exciting. As far as interesting goes, they were rather lacking. No, it was the routine elements of the summer that were the most important for the future course of my life, I suspect. The broken leg, first of all, gave me a good, long look at my vocation and forced me to slow down. It also forced me to deal with being dependent on people and incapacitated, and it gave me a much greater empathy for those who are ill or injured.

Furthermore, as a result of breaking my leg, I ended up working in the Archdiocesan Archives, which is pretty much my dream job and on which I learned tonnes about the history of the Archdiocese, and Western Canadian history in general. I also moved into the rectory at Annunciation Parish, which was an excellent experience and would not have happened otherwise.

The few excursions out of daily routine during those summer months were weekends, and they saw me at various landmark occasions in people's lives: ordination, marriage, graduation. Attending them highlighted the changes in my own life: Andrew's ordination was the first I attended of a fellow seminarian, a tangible sign of my own solid placement as a seminarian. My brother Daniel's grad brought home in a gut-punching kind of way that fact I really and truly have moved on from school; now my siblings are starting to graduate, and with two of us gone and the rest poised to go off like dominoes, my family has definitely slid into a different demographic. The weddings also highlighted the same. Andrea and Aaron's wedding was the first one of friends in more-or-less my peer group. Give it another year or two and I will start attending weddings of people my age from school (be it high school or college). My cousin's wedding was a foreshadowing of sibling weddings to come.

I returned to seminary in the fall older and, I hope, wiser. It has been a completely different year from my first, despite having ended up in the same room and being on the same place in the social pecking order (ie. the bottom). Half the seminary is composed of seminarians new to Edmonton, and this combined with a confidence in my knowledge of how the place works has led to a much different sense of how I fit into the community, which has changed its face dramatically from last year.

At Concordia, the changes are vastly greater. Whereas last year I was something of a loner, academically keen but socially shy, this year has seen me with scarcely a moment when I have no one to hang out with. Mostly, this shift has developed parallel to my near-accidental involvement in the Philosophy Club, but there is also a conscious change of mind behind it. Part of it stems from the groundwork laid in the winter semester, before I broke my leg, when a year of classes with people drew to a close and I began simply through dint of time to get to know people, but most it is attitude. Possibly it comes from the aloneness of the broken leg, possibly from the exuberance of being back in school after a dreary summer, possibly I just grew up, but I have been a different person. Not seriously different, perhaps. Maybe not different at all to the outside viewer... but on the inside I feel dramatically different.

And now 2008 dawns.

I have modest expectations for this year. I will finish my 2nd year of college with a six-course semester, then do a spring course which will make up for my under-coursed first semester. I hope to be working in the Archives again and to live in a rectory in Edmonton. I have my name down for going to Quebec City in June for the International Eucharistic Congress, and while I expect that to be excellent, I'm not really looking towards it at the moment. In the fall I'll be back for my last year of my undergraduate degree.

Beyond those external developments, there are of course personal objectives I'd like to fulfill, but none are of a weighty nature. Mostly, it's not about major change, but about staying the course and gradual improvement. I lost weight over the summer when I was on crutches, and although I kept it off until Christmas, I'd like to not only keep it off in the coming year, but possibly get into a more active life. I'd like to start developing a personal prayer life outside of the Liturgy of the Hours, though with an eye to staying the course, it might be best to pray that I keep on track with saying that, for the moment.

At school I expect to continue to do well academically--that goes without saying, but with regards to extracurricular life, staying the course is a bit more of a challenge. Being back in Olds, old friendships have been a lot on my mind of late, and I find myself distressingly apathetic about people I knew before I left for seminary, and even somewhat similarly about online friends. This concerns me, not so much because I dislike being out of touch, but because friendship--close friendship--is not something I've ever achieved easily or often, and I fret over whether a similar apathy will affect the friendships I'm making in Edmonton, a concern which simultaneously makes me wonder if its worth the effort and terrified at losing people dear to me.

Finally, today at Mass I decided I want to get to know Mary better this year. The Virgin Mother of God figures large into the culture of the Church and the lives of the Saints are littered with stories of devotion to her. As a future priest, but also as an individual, I want a greater share in that.

Musician Spirituality?

Tonight I had something of an epiphany as I went to fill up my poor frozen car with gas--and no, it had nothing to do with the fact that I was getting gasoline. It had a great deal more to do with the accidental fact that my radio was playing. Playing music, that is. And as I half-consciously pondered the emotions that the music was raising (I'm not even sure what they were... it was some country song I've heard a hundred times, probably), it occurred to me that I tend to think about them a bit more seriously and spiritually than I do most other things. It's a well known fact that music, as memory, lasts longer and thus would seem to strike deeper chords than most other memories.

The epiphany that this sparked was related to a brief discussion that occurred yesterday at Boston Pizza in the midst of many much zanier conversations. Travis and Aaron were talking about Ignatian Spirituality, a subject I'm pretty ignorant on, although a seminarian's ignorance is often a layperson's expertise, where Church matters are concerned. Anyway, in touching on Ignatian Spirituality, Travis summed it up as being when you put read a gospel/Biblical text and put yourself into the position of the people in the text. The conversation moved on, and I thought nothing more about it, for while a number of seminarians really like Ignatian Spirituality and find it very appropriate for their personalities, insofar as I am acquainted with it, that's not been the case.

Going off the simple definition above, perhaps the reason that Ignatian Spirituality doesn't work so well for me is the fact that I have too much of a historical bent, meaning that while I'm capable of putting myself into other people's shoes, I tend to focus too much on getting it right than on letting the spirit of the moment say something too me. To put it another way, I'm too knowledgeable of the cultural/linguistic differences between myself and those of a Mediterranean culture 2000+ years ago to let myself get into it fully. Now, while it could very well be that I've simply not been fully and properly exposed to Ignatian Spirituality, as far as I currently know it, it isn't a personally successful schema thus far.

For whatever reason, however, when I was thinking about music and its effect this evening in the car, my subconscious dredged up yesterday's brief definition of Ignatian Spirituality, and something clicked. I realised that if one changed the context from putting oneself in the place of Biblical characters in a given story to putting oneself into the context of a particular song, then the basic pattern worked extremely well for me.

Well, to clarify somewhat, I don't generally imagine that I am that person either singing or being sung of, but I meditate rather on the emotions in me that the song raises. In many cases, particularly those of religious or liturgical nature, the emotions raised tend to be directly associated with the priesthood, and tend to tie in directly with my feelings about my vocation. Indeed, if I had to express exactly what thinking I'm called to the priesthood feels like, I'd be clumsy trying to get it out in words, but I could name easily a dozen songs that are exactly it, not necessarily in their lyrics as in their tunes and the emotions they evoke (naturally, the musical pieces that lack lyrics will of necessity be that way).

Now, some people are music snobs, and will be unable to fathom that after hymns and classical music my chief musical listening pleasure is country--and not classic country, but modern country, and all the "pop" feel that it is purported to have. Not being an expert in pop, I cannot attest to that; all that I can attest to is the fact that I enjoy listening to it. It tends to be drastically more bittersweet that listening to something like an "Ave Maria", and the lyrics often play a more important role. The bittersweet element comes in, probably, because of the secular element of the music, and I don't mean secular in a derogatory sense, but in the sense that it is pretty much directly opposed to the priestly life in terms of what it promotes. The vast majority of country music either promotes happy, romantic life, or else bemoans the lack of it. And this is well and good. The marriage vocation is the human default in many respects, and "it is not good for Man to be alone".

All the same, it cannot be said that such a vision is any way compatible with the life I am choosing by being in seminary, and since such a vision (even if presented through an oft-distorted lens) is presenting something that is inherently good, it is a bittersweet moment to ponder on it when a seminarian, and I think it is valuable to go through that, since it's a constant testing and reminder of the truth of what the life of a priest is.

Otherwise, there is pretty much no music that I listen to on a regular basis, so I cannot speak as to the emotions that, as a broad genre, they tend to bring up, except to say that this may explain why I dislike the more "noisy" and discordant ones. In any case, there are within my preferred genres enough divergent individual pieces to feed just about any meditative mood.

It's possible too that this may shed some light on why I find meditation to be something of a struggle. As a general rule, I can't meditate on a text. I can read a text, and I do my best to ponder on it, reread it, and speculate... but I never feel like I'm getting any further than the surface. And I'm utterly incapable of meditating on an image, or just sitting there: my mind wanders far too easily. Music has the dual advantage, it would seem, of distracting me from all those thoughts that fill my mind and seek to get out and preoccupy me, while simultaneously giving me something to concentrate and meditate on.

The more I think about this, the more I am intrigued by it. Now I have to see if I can get music in chapel during Adoration. (Hmm... that reminds me that I REALLY found Taizé worship to fit my meditative style.) Fat chance of that, and for good reason: while my personal style is most conducive to music, this is not universally so. Perhaps the Spirit is trying to broaden my spiritual horizons with other forms of meditation, but it's a painful process if so.