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Back at Bruté - the drive to Indianapolis
As the title indicates, Christmas break has now ended and I'm back in Indianapolis. The new semester starts tomorrow! I am excited for most of my classes, but I don't know if I am actually ready to do the work for them... Anyway, I've been wanting to do a post about the 5 hour drive from Quincy to Indy for some time now, and I am also going to try to increase the number of posts that I'm writing, so here's my attempt at a somewhat funny, somewhat comprehensive, somewhat short look at the drive between Quincy and Indianapolis.
This morning I finished packing up all my clothes, books, partially-finished PNAC application, a tray of leftover Christmas cookies, and everything else that I would be bringing back to Brute. I filled up with gas on my way to 11 AM Mass at St. Rose and after Mass was over (12:30ish) finished throwing everything in the car, changed into jeans, and met the family at Culvers, where they sometimes eat with other people from church on Sunday afternoons. I ate my burger and ice-cream quickly because I was fast approaching my 2 PM deadline for leaving, said a quick good-by, and then hit the road.
The first hour was mostly spent staring at the road and listening to the radio. By the end of that time period I was getting tired of the radio, and was also getting pretty sleepy because I had been squinting the entire time (it was sunny, the road was a bit wet, and I didn't have sunglasses), so I put in a Lighthouse Catholic CD - Power in Prayer (Sr. Mary Gabriel, SV). It was a great talk on the importance and power of prayer. Prayer, as she reminded, can't be just about asking for stuff from God, it very much has to be about opening ourselves up to Him. We have to open our heart to His presence, we have to allow Christ to reign over us, and that only happens by being in communication with Him in prayer. 2 hours down, 3 to go!
After that CD, I listened to the radio some more. I actually ran across a football game, which I guess I didn't know they broadcasted on the radio, but it surprisingly it kept me alert and awake for the 40 minutes or so that I listened to it. Eventually it did get old (and I think I lost the station after a while), but it burned a lot of time!
Having crossed the half-way point of my journey (somewhere in the middle of Illinois), I started listening to some podcasts by Fr. Michael Schmitz. They were all absolutely fantastic! One was on how we need to find the things in life that are taking us away from God, the near occasions of sin, and choose, right now, to get rid of that problem. Another was on having the simple trust in God that Mary had. Just saying "yes" even when we don't know how everything is going to work out. Another was on how difficult it is to find out how much of something is enough. How much is enough food, enough money, enough friends? Fr. Schmitz noted that sometimes we need to cut back on things like these so that we can have more than enough of the joy and love that comes from Jesus Christ, the only things that are truly worth having "too-much" of. Obviously, they were a lot more interesting and inspiring than my descriptions of them. Suffice it to say that I haven't very often listened to homilies for over an hour, and I was really attentive to these (listen to some, there phenomenal).
By this time, believe it or not, I was only about 30 minutes from Indianapolis, so I pretty much just enjoyed the rest of the ride. Some of the time I just let my mind think about the things I had heard - meditating on them I suppose - but I also listened to the radio a bit. Finally, around 7:30, I pulled into the Bruté parking lot and my sojourn was over. It was a better trip than usual. The weather was perfect - no rain, no snow, no slippery roads. I was pretty awake the entire time - which usually isn't the case (though the Mountain Dew Kick-Starter probably explains part of that).
Some funny moments that didn't fit in up above:
Shortly after passing Springfield, I was listening to the talk on prayer and I was rather engrossed at the moment and managed to miss my exit. Unfortunately, I have come to rely on the GPS for directions and since it was muted for whatever reason, I failed to realize that I had a turn. It was only a 5 minute delay, but I was a bit bemused because I'd guess that not to many people miss their exit because they were listening to a talk on praying...
About half an hour later, I was driving along when a lady passed me in a minivan. Well, I glanced over to see who was passing me and was surprised to see that both her (bare) feet were up on the dash, one leg on each side of the steering wheel. I had seen passengers put their feet up on the dash to relax, but never the driver... Good grief, what if she had to stop! Yeah, that got my attention...
I didn't expect to have anyone surpass that, um, talent, but another guy came close. As he passed me I again looked over - you never know, maybe the person is cheerful and will wave at you or something - and anyway, he had his head inclined all the way back, looking up at the ceiling of his car, and was in the process of putting the last touches on shaving his neck. It was an electric razor - thank goodness - but still made me laugh.
Finally, at another point in my drive, I was shooting right along, listening to one of the podcasts, I think, and I had just passed a car and was moving back into the right lane when I saw that there was a car parked on the side of the highway with the occupants standing next to their vehicle getting ready to change the tire or something. The guy in front of me changed lanes to the left, and I did the same, just to give them more room. Suddenly, the guy in front of me swerved back to the right - I immediately stared forward to see what was up, and saw that there was something on the road. I followed his example, going about halfway into the right land, and was surprised to see that a large shovel, along with fragments of something wooden, were strewn on the road. They guy who I had just passed swerved around to the left - almost going off the road in the process - and the cars behind him followed suit. I guess its something you see every so often, but it made me think about how badly that could have turned out if I had been less alert...
And there's my story for the day! Time to hit the sack and get some sleep before everything gets going tomorrow!
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