| Current mood: | optimistic |
| Current music: | BUoS -- Walk Off the Buzz |
Missin' SJC
This entry is almost entirely an email to BT, that I realized as I was writing described more or less what I wanted to say here. So here goes.
Hey BT... Just sayin' hi from Indianapolis. I'm somewhat settled here for the summer, biding my time until AmeriCorps starts in September. After staying with Lisa for a few weeks, I found my own little place close to hers, and I have a summer job. I got a great deal on the apartment ($299 a month for a 1 bedroom place, and they didn't charge me extra for the short-term lease), and I'm working at a Disney store in the Castleton Mall. I just started last week, but I already love it. It's work, but it's also pretty fun seeing little kids have the time of their lives with their favorite cartoon characters. It just feels wholesome in a way.
There's a woman just starting at Disney with me who works her day job with the Catholic Church. When I told her I went to Saint Joe's, she said that a priest in her parish was an alum from a very long time ago. I think she said he was 80 something when he died, which was just recently. Father Shrader (unsure of the spelling) was his name -- do you know/know of him? I bet Fr Kostka or some of the older priests know who he is. I'm not sure if she said he was CPPS or not... I'll have to ask her. She said he had written several books, including one about how he ended up at SJC, and she's going to bring me a copy because her church has boxes and boxes of them they want to get rid of.
I gave blood today, and both the interviewing nurse and the phlebotomist had ties to Saint Joe's, too. The nurse was a 74 year old woman who has family in Rensselaer and used to go there every year for a family reunion. The much younger phlebotomist said a friend of hers (whose name I forget) was a football coach there not too long ago. I don't think it was in my time, but still...
It's fascinating to me how I'm already encountering so many people that have some sort of connection to SJC. I guess I thought it was more isolated and anonymous than it really is, because that's sort of how it felt as a student. It's a very pleasant surprise to realize that people know of and respect SJC.
I recently read CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and loved it -- I wish I would have read it years ago, though perhaps God wanted me to wait until now to find it. It had a powerful effect on me -- it finally 'explained' Christianity in a way that I felt I could understand rationally (to the extent that's possible when dealing with nonrational -- though not irrational -- ideas). I found myself internalizing a lot of it, and I guess starting to come to grips with my own spirituality. If nothing else, it increased my understanding and appreciation of God, faith, and religion. Lisa has several other CS Lewis books I intend to read, eventually. For now I'm still letting Mere Christianity sink in. Plus I'm reading lots of other stuff for fun, including Carl Sagan's Contact (the book that inspired the 1997ish Jodie Foster movie) and the latest Stephen King book, which was just published today. : )
And now I'm off to do more of this reading -- my Boise friend Erin read the last Dark Tower book before me, so I'm determined to read this one before here. : )
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