goings on

Yesterday was my community's foundation day -- the 186th anniversary of our first 10 brothers taking vows at Our Lady of Fourviere church in Lyon, France. I love what I am doing here in StL, and the Marianists are marvelous, but I really missed being with my brothers for our celebration. I emailed a bunch of the bro's, and got back quite a few replies, including encouragements about the work up here and the Haiti trip. Nice reminder of our connection to each other, distance or no.

This next weekend is the SLU Nature Retreat, and I can't wait. It is only starting to get cold in the evenings (50s), whereas last year at this time it was frigid (for a Southern boy like myself). Camping, stargazing, canoeing, and more are all on the menu for the weekend, and I get to be support staff -- cooking and behind the scenes stuff. As much as I enjoy cranking out speeches and doing "spiritual direction" with people, cooking eggs and pancakes for 3 dozen people is a nice change of pace.

I got a notification on Facebook today that the sister of a student who comes rock climbing every week made the following comment on one of the photos she took of us at the climbing gym: "veronica!!! mommy says that british pertoleum looks like a thief!!!!! can u believe that. anyway he does not look like a brother (no offense to him of course he probably is super devoted and super after all that u told me but o well)"

A thief? Me? Here's the pic -- I'm the bald one. Judge for yourself...

In case you were wondering, "british pertoleum" (sic), by the way, is me -- BP for Brother Patrick.

Oh, the SLU chapter of Habitat for Humanity is trying to recruit me to be their new staff advisor, so I went back to the build site this past weekend to get to know a few more of them. Good time, not even close to the physical intensity of the week before. Which is good, because my hands were sore a whole week after the last time... Here we are at lunch -- I promise we're not just hanging around wasting time!

All for now. Mercy within mercy within mercy...