Breaking and Entering?

This blog is evidence of a long, tortuous road. Along the way, it's taken lots of twists and turns.

It all started when a dear friend challenged me junior year of college to blog out some of the insights I would externalize during our weekly "Emmaus" group, in which we read and discussed the upcoming Sunday's readings. It developed quickly from there as a means for expressing that which I couldn't produce completely in theology course discussions or even spiritual conversations with friends.

I can pretty readily share my thoughts, and I even consider it a personal gift to be able to help others find the words to articulate what they're thinking. But there has always been something about blogging that forces me slow down that one extra gear, even though every post I've written here has been extemporaneously composed in one (sometimes two) sittings. And it pushed me to try to stretch out all of that into a book - a longer self-reflection on my faith at that point in my life. Then I lost it all in between backups when my hard drive crashed.

So circling around disappointment and perseverance, I gradually got my wits about me to get writing again, and a six-month old blog continued growing (even now reaching its 6th birthday). The pressure to write increased during my year in community, when I had to multi-task in posts every two weeks to our community blog, too.

Coming back stateside, I kept the blog going as I started to realize my vocational dreams, working in high schools and doing campus ministry with teens. There was always fodder for reflection and new ways to reflect on the goings on with them. Yet, there was still the wonder about becoming more of an author and starting to wonder about public speaking, too. And my best friend getting my first two years of blogging published in hardcover didn't hurt the fire either.

As thoughts festered, I finally figured out a plan to get the wisdom of my friends disseminated through my blog, and thus the72 was born. It was an up-and-down journey of invitation, revision, and publication, but my thanks go out to the 22 who got us within 50 of gathering that full series of vocational reflections. The important thing was never the amount but the quality of wisdom taken, blessed, broken, and shared for all!

So as the momentum for that fizzled once, reignited, and then flamed out for good, I again wondered if my energies should be directed to writing, editing, speaking, etc. But amid that serpentine curve, I stumbled into an opportunity to speak, applying for and being granted slots at the Archdiocese of Chicago Parish Leadership Day in February 2015.

Building on the theme of Sacraments, I gave two sessions, talking about answering our baptismal call and sharing an adaptation of my Sacraments talk from the Kairos retreat. I was very excited to have been selected, to have written up descriptions and appeared in a program guide, to be compensated for my gifts and expertise. I was excited to shape my remarks and create visual aids and handout business cards. Then, walking through a packed gym and navigating halls full of hundreds of guests, I gave two heartfelt workshops for a handful of people each. And having handed out cards to each of them, I got no callbacks.

Being a vicious combination of humility and arrogance, the minister in me was thrilled with the handful of personal conversations I had with my attendees before, during, and after our sessions. The arrogance in me was jealous and disappointed at the tiny turnout, especially amid such a jam-packed crowd for the day.

So as the72 faded and my inaugural day as a guy whose name tag had a "PRESENTER" ribbon drifted into the rearview, I got back to blogging, though less often that I'd always have liked, juggling it against my full-time job, part-time studies, and wedding planning. The itch, the bug, the wonderings sort of took a backseat, as the author/presenter in me just sat the next few plays out.

So now come fall, a new job has settled in on me; an almost-fully decorated (92% is the horizontal asymptote here) and lived-in marriage apartment holding its won; an easy semester of one online course letting grad school ease up on me a bit. And now the itch is getting scratched again.

As I wonder anew about writing more, about trying to figure out how to push myself (restart the72? be more active posting to my blog's social media? take another swing at being a speaker? as I find out Parish Leadership Day 2016 was cancelled), a new opportunity knocks.

A co-worker asks if I can refer her to anyone who could facilitate a Confirmation retreat for her parish's 8th-graders because their scheduled person had to cancel. I think for a minute and admit that all my friends and contacts are basically teachers or students, not facilitators. And then I shyly admit that I'm the only one I know around here with the right combination of experience and skills.

So now a few weeks, a couple emails, and a phone call later, I'm the facilitator for an afternoon mini-retreat for 80 8th-graders. She asked me about my ideas, my plans, and my fee (my fee! oh gosh, I didn't even know how to start an answer). I have a little time to synthesize my ideas and begin working with a DRE on what I'll do. And the door reopens... or a different door? Or the door's closed, but a window was cracked? Maybe the door was closed but not all the way? Am I just breaking and entering?

I have no idea what to make exactly of all these backs and forths, the to's and fro's along the way. But everytime I think it's fading all the way back down to my just randomly posting to the ol' blog, something pops up to re-expand the horizons. And I'm delighted that this continues to be the case.

Whenever I watch Shark Tank, I think that I could do have the kind of spunk and determination to be a self-made success, especially since I feel like few of those people have any kind of spiritual life to draw on and uphold them. Then I think well I could do it if I didn't have to spend my own money...or take on personal debt... or work 80 hours a week and lose sleep... or decrease time with my family... and I realize I'm not exactly an entrepreneur.

But then the stubbornly hopeful, idealistic part of me that refuses to bring work home, or work crazy hours, or let my job or studies consume my life, thinks that there has to be a way to become an author, or make it as a speaker, or build myself up into a presenter if I want it and it will build the Kingdom.

So here, another little opportunity pops into the picture. And I happily spring on to it, having no idea if it's the first of many or the one and only or what opportunities it might then breed. So on I go in open-ended discernment, having no idea what exactly lies ahead but thinking there's definite grace in the shaky attempts to do God's will.