Unfortunately, I think I'm now an adult

So I'm one week from heading home...which is exciting, and weird, and terrifying, and sad, and a lot of other things.  This week I find myself quoting this rather (nerd)famous line from a favorite TV series, Firefly: Mostly as it relates to my suitcases.  I mean, I was hopeful that all my stuff would fit.  Insanely, unrealistically hopeful, as it turns out.  However, much like the T-rex, the suitcases have only done what they always do: not get magically bigger.  So I suppose the fault is mine in my unrealistically optimistic estimations of stuff vs space. I think the most difficult part of leaving is not the going.  It is knowing that it will be quite a while before I'm ever able to return, and that it will be different even if I do come back to visit.  It is about knowing that this experience is closing, never to be repeated.  But the reality is that this sentiment holds true for every year of my life, and every big choice, even the ones tha...

So, in my parish here in Brazil this morning, the reading was on the parable of the sower, the version from Matthew: 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.” 10 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” 11 He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundan...

As many friends and family members face Tropical Storm/Hurricane Hermine back home, I too was without power here. So what do you do in an outage? Well, there are a few options. You could play checkers, or stock up on beer (a florida hurricane tradition, I'm told), you could say many heartfelt prayers of thanks to God that your house has a stand alone gas stove (✔), you could make candlelight s'mores with friends , or...apparently, I can let my really strange brain be alone with itself a little too long and come to some weird...places? Thoughts? Conclusions? I don't really know what to call it, but I wrote it down, so now you too can be privy to the weirdness--unedited--as it occurred in the moment. "In the course of mission, there is one word I've found to reoccur more than any other: Uncomfortable. Mission cannot be something that leaves us wholly fulfilled, content, satiated, feeling as though we have successfully checked a box on our spiritual to-do list...