Another weekend comes to an end – one that was definitely all over the place and work a recap…

With all of the build-up from my last post, it turns out that we didn’t go snowboarding on Saturday. As it turns out, the traffic on I-70 was horrible, a semi stalled on the west bound lanes, reducing traffic on that side to one lane! Combined with everyone setting out for weekend skiing, the roads were a nightmare. It took us 2 hours to go 20 miles, and we still had 20 more to go when we decided to turn around. Snowboarding is postponed until next weekend, which is probably a blessing in disguise. I’ve deferred my embarrassment for one more week, and now I have some more time to build up muscles in my butt for all the bruising it’s going to get.

Bethany and I came back to Fort Collins a littler earlier than planned and I managed to make it to church in time to play with the choir. This is the first time I’ve drummed since the day of the funeral, and while I had to knock some rust off, it was a good release.

Sunday was definitely a different change of pace. Earlier in the week I was hoping I could go visit my good friend and my God-daughter Sunday, but as the week progressed and work piled up I knew Sunday was going to be a work-day. The NCSC’s newsletter is due this week and I needed to begin laying it out, along with the pile of school work that I’ve put off for the whole week. I managed to make a sizable dent in both of them and was feeling pretty proud of myself leading into the evening. Then I logged onto my on-line class to see if I can look ahead to next week, when I saw a critical announcement I missed:

"Your first exam will be this weekend, and can be taken any time between Friday 6am and Sunday 11pm"

Considering it was 9:55pm Sunday night I panicked a little, then proceeded to take my test. Two hours later (and it looks like the "11pm date" was a start date rather than a due date), I came to the realization that I need to take school a little more seriously. With these on-line classes it’s easy to just push things off to the weekends, but it doesn’t mean I can completely forget about school between Monday and Friday. Hindsight being 20-20, I should have just Christmas-treed the test and get kicked in the groin – it would have hurt less and my score actually may have been better!

So now feeling a little humbled, but also inspired I am ready for my long and busy week!

Before I go to bed I need to do one last thing – post and link my pictures from the Philly trip before things get too late. I included a few pictures of interest here, and if you’re part of the NCSC (or just really bored) you can go to all of the pictures at my Flickr site!

This is where I stayed while I was out here – the Christian Brothers Conference "Jeremy House", so we did stay at my house This house was huge!

As you can see I’m continually battling my disorder that prevents me from taking pictures with a straight face – I’m improving…

During our meeting we have a gift exchange where we get everyone on the National Team a gift with a $1 spending limit – so we basically all go to dollar stores. My good friend Erin was very happy with her gifts

I sat by Erin and Andie during dinner, which produced many interesting photographic moments…

And finally, no trip to Philly would be complete without having a Philly Cheese-Steak!

So those are some pictures of a great weekend! I’ll need to tell the "Flux Capacitor" story while it’s still fresh in my mind…

For as much as I complain about my Blockbuster on-line rental membership, things could be much worse! There have always been little things about LackLuster that have bothered me: their inability to recognize sequential numbers (thus sending me my #3 or #4 choice before my #1), or their ability to send me some animated chicken movie when the envelope read "Lord of War", or even when they send me the same disc twice! (all of these happened last week)… Ever since Blockbuster sent their "we know we promised you a $15/month rate, but as soon as your agreement’s up we’re upping the price" email, I’ve always told myself that I’d bust out of LackLuster and go to Netflix. All of that changed yesterday when I read the following story:

‘Throttling’ Angers Netflix Heavy Renters

Way to discriminate against your own customers with your magic formula… For all of the crap that LackLuster pulls, nothing compares to Netflix promising unlimited monthly rentals, then turning around and saying "Just kidding!". Thanks for nothing!

It’s Friday night, and I need to be up in about six hours, but I thought I would make a brief post while I had the chance. I need some prayers right now because on Saturday morning I’ll be hitting the slopes for the first time in four years. Not only will I be on a Colorado mountain in winter time, I will be taking on snowboarding for the first time! Bethany’s mom graciously gave me a Christmas present of a snowboarding trip, but this weekend Bethany and I are taking her mom up on that offer.

I’ve been nervous about this all week. The last time I was on the slopes, it wasn’t pretty. I have skied about a half-dozen times in my life, and I’ve gotten to be OK at this sport I"m at the point where I am no longer challenged by the bunny slopes, but when I go on to do some Blue runs I get my ass kicked. The last time I went skiing I volunteered to help lead our church’s skiing retreat. I made my 10th run down the easy runs when a few of the teens and our Youth Minister asked me to join them on a run. I told them that I wasn’t very good, I might slow them down.

"Don’t worry about it," the youth minister said, "This is an easy run. It’s not very steep and it levels out for a while." So I took them up on their invitation and went skiing. What followed was one of the most embarrassing hours of my life. I got off the lift and almost immediately I kept falling. I kept going too fast and wasn’t able to stop, which led me to taking tumbles. Then I came to a pretty close encounter with a tree when I decided that I had enough – I took my skis off, and started the humbling walk to the bottom of the mountain.

Now, four years later, I’m going the plunge again – this time doing the snowboard. Hopefully this will be equalizer. Bethany and her mom are avid skiers, but this will be her mom’s first time on the board, for Bethany her third. This is a little comforting, but I’m still pretty nervous. I should be in better shape to be attempting my first snowboard run, I’ve heard about how my butt is going to get killed by the time I’m done, and that I’m just going to fall over and over again. Still, this is going to be a lot of fun. It’s a new experience and after tomorrow I’ll get to say that I’ve tried snow boarding. Who knows, I might end up doing really awesome at it…

So tonight I’m praying for patience, persistence, good health and an ice pack ready for me tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

Back in Colorado… The rest of Philadelphia was a blast, and for as much time as I spent on my laptop last week, it’s surprising that I actually didn’t get another entry onto here… I have pictures on their way, as well as some funny stories I’d like to share, but first I would like to reflect on some events in the last two days…

Coming back from Philadelphia my re-entry has been good, but non-stop. I’m a bit behind in school, the Collegian is a little behind schedule, I have a mountain of NCSC work, "work" work has piled through the roof and I’m trying to catch up on sleep.. All throughout this time an NCSC presentation I was supposed to give at J23 has been in the back of my mind. This was supposed to be part Conference reflection, part NCSC general education (to a largely new and uninformed audience), and part NCSC outreach to my local University Ministry. I had the help of great friends of mine, yet his was something that was really getting put off. Partly due to circumstances and scheduling these last few weeks, but part of it is that I didn’t really want to think about it. Of course I want to share my NCSC experiences and involvement with my local student group, but given the whole fiasco with renewing our membership did I seriously expect them to be open to what I was offering?

I was completely blown away by these last few days.

On Monday afternoon the three NCSC’ers met with our University Ministers. I wasn’t really sure why they wanted to meet or what we were going to get out of this meeting, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only were they welcoming, but I had this sense of genuine interest and openness to the NCSC and the three of us who have felt particularly alienated by the UM program. The questions they asked were sincere, the suggestions they offered where valuable – a true dialog took place. When we walked out my good friend turned to me and said "This is the best feeling I’ve had after a meeting in the [Student Commons]." I completely echo’d that sentiment. After well over a year of conflict, I finally left a meeting feeling positive and supported. I actually was getting very excited and a bit nervous about making this NCSC presentation.

Tuesday rolled around and along with it came the TNT presentation. We put in a lot of work on Monday. I had five different hand-outs and pieces of information, we put together an awesome photo slide-show, and I actually put together a PowerPoint presentation explaining the basics of NCSC. We came into it pretty well prepared.

Overall the slide show went very well. The audience was a bit small, but they were attentive. We threw a lot of information at them, and they seemed to take it pretty well. I think we may have overloaded them a little, but considering this may have been our only opportunity to appeal to the student group this semester, I felt pretty good about how things went. Again the campus ministers were completely receptive, and it made a great difference in the presentation. It was a very successful night, and in many ways offered some healing and reconciliation for what’s happened with University Ministry at J23…

There was one small part that bothered me… During the presentation we talked about the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and the NCSC’s commitment to promote them through our International and Programming efforts. One student (one of the FOCUS bible study leaders), raised his hand and asked, "These goals look good and fine, but how exactly are they bringing Jesus?". He offered the scenario that if these goals are met Extreme Hunger and Poverty would be gone, but "they still wouldn’t have Jesus…" We tried to address some of his issues, explaining that the MDG’s were one of many resolutions, efforts and programming that are being offered – perhaps it’s what he meant.

What I fear is that this student may truly feel that the only way to offer compassion and social justice is through evangelization. I would like to believe that this student doesn’t have this mind-set from his FOCUS experience – I don’t have the information to say one way or the other. However, if his perceived mindset is the case, then I really struggle with that vision. It was as if this student had no concept of Catholic Social Teaching, or the call of charity, compassion and service that Christ calls all to do. Is the perception of "bringing Jesus" so narrow that one feels the only meaningful way of accomplishing this is by direct evangelization (and in many ways proselytising to a person). Do your acts of justice and compassion not reveal Christ’s love, offering a personal encounter with Christ? I struggle because it was just two weeks ago when the Pope addressed this very issue in his Encyclical Letter, in which he beautifully stated:

"Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends. But this does not mean that charitable activity must somehow leave God and Christ aside. For it is always concerned with the whole man. Often the deepest cause of suffering is the very absence of God. Those who practise charity in the Church’s name will never seek to impose the Church’s faith upon others. They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love. A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak."

This was a relatively minor issue, but it was one that did stick with me and felt the need to process a bit. In the end, I was really glad for the experience and opportunity to once again address the University Ministry… A great start to a good, but hectic week….