NFK 100

Last weekend, Amanda and I traveled up to Champaign Illinois to St. John's Catholic Chapel for the 100th Newman Koinonia retreat. Koinonia is a retreat program that is done four times per year. It's a Catholic program focused on the Passion of Christ; His life, death, and Resurrection. It has been a phenomenal source of conversion, evangelization, and devotion to Christ from which thousands of vocations to married life, the priesthood and religious life have come. For Amanda and I, Koinonia is particularly important because it is where we grew deeper in the faith and without Koinonia, we may never have gotten engaged.

This was the closest thing to a college reunion that we will likely ever experience. Many friends from far away came back to our spiritual home, St. John's. We arrived on Friday night and immediately went to Fever House where I lived for two years in college. It was like stepping into a time portal. The place was exactly the same; same pile of dishes I left there when I left town forever, same smell of b.o., incense, and beer - same wonderful fever. Amanda went on to hang out with her sister and I sat at Fever with Pham, watching The Office and lazing around on the couch. I made a resolution to say, "just like old times" 50 times. But really, it was just like old times. The door to fever was like some sort of bizarre worm hole like the island on Lost. You never knew which figure from the past would walk through except this time with a better job and nicer looking clothes. I for one was still wearing the same 'nifty at fifty' shirt I was wearing 2 years ago. So, holler at yo boy for that.

The weekend had many highlights, from meeting our predecessors in Koinonia and their families to eating at Papa Del's pizza with many friends of old, to sleeping on the floor of fever and having theological discussions with Will until 4 a.m. to running 12 miles in the corn fields just like I did so many weekends in college. It was perfect. The highlight for me was the mass at St. John's, completely full and with a choir that filled the loft. All around us, preparing for the Eucharist and praising God, were our friends of old. After mass we all had dinner together and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament followed. It was all together pleasing and fitting.

For me, thoughts and memories rushed into my head as frequently as new guests came through Fever's doors. I thought it quite ironic that a secular University's Newman center could draw such devoutness to the faith that one hardly ever sees at several "Catholic" Universities... I wonder why? Jesuits, ahem, cough, oh my did someone say Jesuits may be the cause of lax Catholicism and heretical teachings at Universities oh my. I also pondered the profound Providence that has taken place in my life. I pondered the past of Newman, it's future, as well as our own. One of the strangest things to me was how Newman was oddly the same but also could never fully return to what it was. Mainly, it was missing several key figures from our past; Doyle, Wayne, Jim, Rachelle, Sam to name a very few. In many ways I felt like Jack at the end of season 3 of Lost. He says, "we have to go back," but we all know... you can never really go back. So memories ... memories are all I've got.

Cheers.


Quote of the day: 'He often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: it's springs were at every doorstep and every path was it's tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."'