The Irony of Traveling Alone

JMJ
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In this strange time I see that I have not traveled alone, but in love. Recently, I had the opportunity to watch the new film Brideshead Revisited, and while Hollywood was frustrated, as it seems, by the novels deep focus on grace and mercy, their portrayal of Waugh's love story was not entirely without. Near the end, they found a way to show beautifully the mercy of God in the death bed scene of Lord Marchmain. Here you saw the true mercy of God, that while Lord Marchmain walked and traveled for so long without God, he never traveled without God's love nor that of his family and friends.
On this same topic, but with a much different feel, the movie was also unique due to the elderly couple who sat in front of the guys and I. At every turn and awkward moment - granted their are several in a two hour movie that is telling the "book of the century" - you could hear them mumble expressions of either horror or intrigue, as they hoped to make sense of the plot's depth. This experience was also emphasized due to their five foot structure and the constant movement of their hands to their mouth in exasperation.
Thus ends my first week at seminary. Now, if I were to describe my time hear thus far, for those of you who might be interested, just remember of the words of Flannery O'Connor, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. This week has been filled with uncertainty, great joy, pain, and laughter, but most of all irony. I hope this finds you all well, and know that you are all in my prayers.

John Paul would have enjoyed wind surfing

JMJ
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My dear friends, when I awoke this morning it marked the second day of my adventure in a strange place known as seminary. Not to be confused with the second day of my adventure as a seminarian, that was much different. So far since leaving Kansas I have been witness to a three story-tall porcelain runner, a grandma who was trying to cut calories by saying no to the sugar cone option in the Baskin-Robins, and the openness and docility of some absolutely amazing men of Christ. Let us, however, begin at the beginning for that is a good place to start.
Upon leaving Lawrence, I soon discovered that my car door was having troubles. Now for some this may have been a cause of concern as they began a nine hour road trip to a new home, and it was for me too. Of course I first had to diagnose the problem that was both enabling the seat belt and causing the chime to continue sounding, all the while turning off the cabin lights. In this process of investigation I found two things, first, my door jam switch has an extra component on it that seems to be failing, second, removing fuses to electrically run parts solves problems just as well as ignoring them, and does so without the terrible chiming.
So I hit the road, along with my trusty brother seminarian Daniel Stover. Around St. Louis we encounter a load of traffic, that lasted nearly an hour and brought us three miles closer to our destination. Ah, the gateway city, I guess they need a larger gateway to speed things up a bit. Nevertheless, to all you St. Louis fans out there...From there we turned north to Chicago, which was a fun drive of Jazz and old grumpy men on the radio while I sang along.
We reached Normal, Illinois at about seven that evening and things got back to (I got all these jokes out in the car before actually meeting the people there, there were almost as many as Peculiar, MO). Daniel and I met up with Fr. Tony Dittmer at the Campus Center there and had a great evening of conversation and community. That next morning we said our goodbyes and got the heck out of Normal.
Our first few days at Mundelein have been simply moving in and building up our class fraternity. We have had golf outings, lots of food, and several conversations about wind surfing, that is of course in addition to all the beautiful prayer. Thus, I reached the finish of this post, which I believe is a good place to end. God Bless, Praise be to Jesus Christ!