Church
12:12 AM
It has been quite a while since I went to a church on a different day than Sunday for something other than church. I guess it’s even been a while since I went to church. But yesterday my parents spoke to me about a priest who was giving talks over the next three days. They were fired up and said he was a young, eloquent speaker with a hefty dose of passion. Of course, that peaked my interest.
After going through the back and forth of am I really going to do this or not, I rushed around and made it out the door at 6:45. The familiar drive to the church of my youth always brings back memories of my family, some of them the arguments we had about waking up on Sunday’s for church, nut mostly good ones of bonding time, going to the Little Store for candy afterwards if we were good, and then lunch after.
Anytime I can hear a speaker that connects with people about deep topics, I’m interested. I was hopeful that they were right and that he was good. My folks aren’t the type of people that would pull a switcheroo just to get me to walk in the door.
I guessed Father Pat to be in his 40′s, with a reverse receding hair line from mine. He had a yamika bald spot and wore rimmed glasses. There was a bit of heftiness to his belly, but his smile lit up the place. As we began, there was no question my parents were right. He connected as he told us about the story of Emmaus, which I didn’t know much about.
I won’t go into much detail on the story, but he did a wonderful job of relating the story to the here and know. To painting the picture in a way we could see it. To show us how the apostles were probably feeling at this point in time. And how we could relate that to our own lives. And in his words, to our own journey.
The talk hit home with me because we are all on a journey. We all have expectations of where the journey will lead and what will make us happy. But we really don’t have all that much control of the journey. I do believe we can will ourselves to great things, but all we can do is work our butt of to get to where we want to go, ask for help, and follow the roads that open.
As I continually grow more frustrated over the slowness of the book world, I guess that is just part of the journey. So now I prepare for a fun part of my journey; a trip to Phoenix to give two talks. To see my best friend and his wife. To see my Cowboys play in person. To have a week of warmth and sunshine.
I said this to my parents tonight, that if every priest of every denomination had the passion for their work and the talented eloquence of Father Pat, churches would be filled up around the country and we wouldn’t be so afraid to try and learn more about the spiritual part of our journey.