Retreat and Roadblocks.

In the past two months I have gone on two retreats. Well, scratch that, I have went on one retreat and ran another. The first retreat was a silent Ignatian retreat. And I must say, I love Ignatian (Jesuit) spirituality. The Spiritual Exercises are the cornerstone of the Jesuits. The retreat I went on reminded me, and sort of intensely so, that God wants me to shut up. I actually felt God saying, "Shhhhh!!!!!" (exclamation points included). God is calling me to be a contemplative, or at least to try contemplation.

The second retreat I was on was the annual Emmaus retreat. Every time I work with students in such an intimate setting I am reminded of my call, my call to ministry. I am still not sure (and I don't know what that sure-ness is) that I am supposed to be a Dominican but I know that I want to try. The Emmaus retreat is a contemplative retreat, not a silent retreat. The students I work with basically pray the weekend away. They come with some intention on their heart and they share it. I gave a reflection on table fellowship. And I basically said:

With my affinity for cooking, and more importantly my love of loving people I felt ready and good about giving a reflection, or maybe more well said, I felt ready to preach. I talked about how we are to invite everyone to the table of the Lord, and then we are to serve them. I shared a personal experience of my failure, a time when I found someone so ugly that I avoided them. Afterwards my boss told me it was one of the best reflections on the Eucharist she'd ever heard, and I think she was being serious! So Yay for that, and yay for being a retreat director. I love my job, seriously, folks, I do.

So the roadblocks, I have two that are pretty big, at least to me. The first is that I have a spotty past, at best and it makes me a bit nervous. The second, I need to pay off about $50,000 dollars in student loan debt this summer. So here's to God being bigger than my problems. Cheers.

Shalom,
Joe