Happy Halloween

I get why some Christians are against Halloween. I get why some are against Harry Potter. I understand what they're thinking.  I may not agree with it, but I get it.

I, on the other hand, love Halloween. By middle school I was making my costumes. There was one year where I was a particularly charming Queen of Hearts. Of course when my Girl Scout troop when to the haunted house that was under the Milwaukee Zoo I lost half of my fabulous, bright red fake nails (sorry to my fellow scout who had me gripping her shoulders and arms!). Since I don't have any kids, I'm going to commandeer some of my friends kids next year and make costumes for them and take them trick or treating.

There is something about the creativity that can go into Halloween. My years in high school drama where I helped design and make costumes and sets come out to play again. Maybe next year I can be River Song (yes, I'm a Whovian). Or I'll take a page from the teens who say that I'm a cross between Professor McGonagall and Tonks. Given my age, I'd probably pick Tonks.

Creativity is something we should celebrate. I think that when we have our creative moments, we are truly acting in the image of God. Our ability to produce music, art, mechanical contraptions, and all those other things we dream up and then somehow make a reality mimic the creative action of God.

So use your creativity, celebrate the festivities, but just make sure your sugar high doesn't keep you from tomorrow's holy day - All Saints!

Giving Thanks

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body & Blood of Christ.

Two words stand out today from our Gospel - "giving thanks."

It wasn't a feast. It wasn't the winning touchdown of a Super Bowl. It was a simple meal with bread and wine. It was a small group of friends with their teacher. It was God showing us the way.

Give thanks.

With the economy causing many to worry and fear, with new technology to envy, with a culture of entitlement thankfulness is far from the ordinary.

Being just a week away from the first service trip, I am inundated with the administrative tasks combined with the struggle to get my personal life in order for the summer chaos (let me tell you how much cleaning, laundry, etc has to get done this week!). My mind runs through constant to-do lists and packing lists. The present moment, the blessings that are now, escape my notice.

With today's Gospel, I am reminded to sit still. See the blessings. Offer thanks.

If I cannot do this, how can I help others to do so?

Caffeine

I hate to say it, I am running on caffeine.  And even then, I feel more like a Model T than a Mustang.  

The Advent season, getting ready for a January retreat (based on the Chronicles of Narnia movies), and so forth has officially caught up to me.  Working 8 days straight has not helped either.  However, 2 more to go and then it is off to a far, far better place for me...Disney World.

Before I start singing "It's a Small World" yet again, I want to go back to that retreat.  I am terribly excited for it.  While we're still hammering out a title, some suggestions are:

• "Ben Barnes: The Man, the Myth, the Movies" (catering to the girls who still drool over the Prince Caspian Movie"
  
• "The retreat based off of all the crazy stuff that J (an adult volunteer) and his friends have" (due to his owning or knowing someone who owns: a rams horn, several broadswords, a lion costume, dry ice, and other sundry items)

The more likely title is "Through the Wardrobe."  Far less exciting, but fits our plans.  We're going to have opening prayer and me (as MacReady) giving the rules outside.  For once I'm praying we'll have cold and snow!  Then we'll journey inside to the meeting room.  The adult leaders are going to go all out in creating a winter Narnian landscape and a Wardrobe facade for the doorway.  Then our sessions will revolve around two major themes, Knowing God v. Knowing of God, and God's love.

So while I'm sure I'll return from nearly two weeks of Florida fun and sun somewhat more rested, I know that the retreat looms at the end of January and will likely chip away at that calmer me.  I think the most practical goal would be to cling to whatever tan I get while waiting in line for rides at the Animal Kingdom is a much more practical goal.

Until I return, this will likely be my last post, so 

Have a Blessed and Happy Christmas

Purposeful

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is always one of my favorite feasts.  Chalk it up to the fact she's a woman so I get something from her story.  Or maybe that she is so crucial to Salvation History, yet we know so very little, thus sparking my imagination.  Each feast involving Mary always leaves me with something to mull over for the days to come.  Today was no different.

However, I was exhausted and after the chaos of last week at the conference and a very exuberant youth group last night; I had planned to go incognito to an early 8:00 am Mass at a parish closer to where I live than where I work.  Hitting the snooze button a few times made it impossible for me to make that mass.  So I was able to put together my lists for my errands and not rush quite as much.  I ended up heading to the parish where I work for the mass at 9:15.  I love the school masses on Holy Days.  The kids are a mixture of divine inspiration and divine comedy.  Since some 'normal people' took up a few of the pews usually occupied by the kids, I ended up with a row of third graders next to me.  They were so well behaved (better than the teens often are!) and hearing them sing the hymns was precious.  It helped to pull me into the celebration.

Besides for the joy of the school children, it was important for me to be there.  As our pastor preached on how we all have a purpose, as exemplified by Mary, I really started to think about that with the background of the conference.  While we may not have dreamed as a ten year old of being youth ministers, we who chose this field do have a purpose.  It may not be glamorous, but it is so very important.  By the time Mass ended, I was feeling properly humbled by my previous wish to hide out today.

During the sign of peace, I turned and saw one of 'my' kid's mother.  She was behind me and we remained after mass to chat.  Her child is one of those that you find yourself worrying about when you're not praying for them.  Wonderful teen, incredibly talented, gifted artist, and exceptionally empathetic.  However, those same qualities that lead this teen into difficulties with emotions, relationships, and stress.  I was forcefully reminded during the conversation that one of my purposes is to minister with and to the parents.  This woman is faithful and growing in her own spiritual life while she so devotedly struggles with the worldly issues her family is facing.  It was a moment where I was awed by her.  She is an inspiration.  It was a moment where I was awed by my purpose.  What can I possibly do to encourage, help, or otherwise minister to her?  I did the only thing I could, I asked for guidance in one of those oh so familiar prayers of a youth minister, "Please God help me! Don't let me say something horrible."  

What further astounded me was how in the midst of talking over her struggles she still was so thoughtful as to ask how my brother was.  How is it that I am so blessed?  Days like today are the days you look to when someone asks you, "Why do you ever want to be a youth minister?"  You think of the moments where you see God.  Today I saw God. 

Out with the Old

Today we, Catholics and those that follow a similar lectionary cycle, celebrate Christ the King Sunday.  This feast is the end of each liturgical year.  Next Sunday begins Advent and the anticipation for Christmas, and the new liturgical year.  

With tonight's youth group taking a sort of "new year's" perspective and the shift in the liturgical cycle, I really feel the newness coming.  December is fairly lightweight as the youth ministry bows to the pressures of other parish events, school vacations, and the festivities of the Holy Days and holidays.

I will escape to Cleveland for several days to the NCCYM and NCYAMA conferences.  This will be a chance to get new ideas on youth and young adult ministry, search out new resources, and share stories (good and bad) with others in similar ministry positions.  This will be my third NCCYM conference and I am looking forward to it.

I also am looking to the new year, calendar wise, as we will begin working on several major projects and continue developing others in greater detail.  There will be our parish common conference.  A parish youth retreat, a joint (4 or more parish) youth retreat, a girls retreat, a young adult retreat, a state Catholic Young Adult Conference, Sunday night youth groups, Bible studies, young adult nights, a trip to Honduras, and the initial plans for World Youth Day 2011. 

I find though, that much like I do when the year changes on January 1, that my outward plans are tempered by a bit of introspection.  Knowing what is all on my plate and recognizing the challenges that those events pose, I am trying to make some spiritual resolutions - prayer time, fun time, and just me time.   Those ideas got pushed to the side, slowly but surely, over the past several weeks.  

Of Many Languages

Sunday was Pentecost for those that follow the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.  On this day, as we read in Acts 2:1-11:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled,
they were all in one place together.
And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.
At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,
as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues
of the mighty acts of God.”

To hear one's native language in a sea of foreign words and experiences is such an immense feeling it is difficult to describe what it is like.  My senior year of college I ventured to Rome to visit a friend studying there for the semester.  After experiencing Florence and its homage to the vast artistic history of humanity, we traveled via train to the seaside city of Naples.  From there we were to take a ferry to Capri.  We had tickets and we had maps. We were experienced travelers and felt that this was a simple enough journey.  Men plan, God laughs.

Our train dropped us in Naples just as the afternoon stretch where shops close and Italians generally take to their homes for a rest from the heat of the day.  Thus we found ourselves picking our way to the docks so we could find our ferry.  For over an hour we roamed through what was the commercial and industrial docks looking for the tourist ferries.  No one was in sight.  Finally, as our exhaustion and hunger caught up with us, we heard voices.  That alone was enough for us to cheer up and begin searching out the people that went with the voices.  Finally we discerned the language they were speaking.  It was English! American English!  We practically ran at full tilt towards this middle aged couple.  I'm sure the band of three bedraggled college students rushing them was a sight.

Providentially, not only were they English speakers with a clue as to what we needed to do, but the woman was actually my friend's advisor in the very university we all attended.  Somehow in the midst of Napoli's docks, we not only found English speakers, but a couple from our very own town.

That sense of relief, belonging, and acceptance that is based on nothing else than hearing words you understand when you expected to be mystified will never leave me.  When I hear the words of Acts in this Pentecost reading, I can understand the amazement and wonder of the people listening to the disciples.

As I was listening to our associate pastor's homily, I began to question myself and my ministries.  When the kids come to our youth ministry events, when the adults come to Theology on Tap or Ya2acht Club, do they feel that sense of acceptance and belonging.  Does the language I use make sense to them?  Any profession, ministry, military, government, medicine, teaching, has a nomenclature.  Am I careful to make sure what I say can make sense and touch the souls of others?

Furthermore, Pentecost is a moment when God spoke to all of us.  Through the mouths of the disciples he was able to show his glory, his compassion, and greatness.  The truly universal message of the Good News was directly related to each individual in the crowd.  Do my actions show that same universal love of God?  Do my own words and actions testify to the presence of Truth?  Do they speak of compassion, understanding, and acceptance?