Camping

I am going camping tomorrow with some of my friends from Church. I am very excited about it; although I haven't been camping since I was a kid. We are going out of town about an hour and half to a State Park. It will be a chance for me to get out of the city. To really experience nature. I am not a nature person. I mean woods are pretty and all - but I would pick a city any day over the mountains.

I am really going for the fellowship and companionship. I have grown to love my friends from Church in the past few months. We have a small, but tight knit, group of 20/30 somethings. We hang out quite a bit. I really consider them some of my closest friends here. I love the freedom of being able to be open up about my faith as well as all the other aspects of my life. In the past I've found that I have compartmentalize my friends. I have friends from Church that I talk to about the grandiose dreams of God and Faith and Trust and Love but I can't talk to them about the things that I dreamt the night before. Then I have my "secular" friends. I can talk to them about the taste of the Guiness I had last night or how much I like to smoke hookah. Yet, when I mention God, or my calling to the priesthood, their faces look at me differently. I am always looking for the friends that I can be truly open with - the friends that I can tell, over a pint, how blessed I feel - or how I'm struggling with what to do during Lent. I have found some of those friends here in Austin. It is with those friends that I'm going camping this weekend.

It's not a "retreat" per se. We don't have special, holy stuff planned - but I hope/pray that we will have some God moments out there. In a way you could say this was my going away retreat with my friends from Church. This will be a wonderful weekend.

On another note, I did decide what I am going to do for Lent. I am going to read and study the book of Romans. I started last night. I'll read a little bit every day. When I finish I'll start over again. I was struck by a few things last night. I will turn them into some more formal thoughts and eventually I'll post them here.

I won't post again for a few days. If you wonder where I am, just picture me in the woods reading Romans.