Showing posts with label St. Meinrad Seminary. Show all posts

My Peace I Give You

On Wednesday a few guys, including myself, went over and did some exercising in the gym at Marian.  I am lucky enough to not have classes until 9:30 or 10:00 each day, so I tagged along with them and forced myself to do some exercising.  We got there around 8:00 AM and I started looking for a machine to use (there is a rather large assortment of machines).  I didn't really want to use the treadmill primarily because it is boring, so I took a cue from one of the other guys and went for a stationary bicycle.  Of course, I didn't want take the one right next to him, that's just kind of awkward, and I didn't want to take one of the ones that is super cushy, with a huge seat and straight up and down position, so I went for the third and final kind of bike which turned out to be the elite, racing-style bike, forward swept handle-bars and all.  I didn't really mind the different position, whenever I'm riding my (more typically shaped bike) I tend to lean forward rather than sit straight up anyway, so I figured it would work just fine.  

Well, it did, sort of.  There were only two buttons - mode and reset - which neither seemed to turn it on, but thankfully, after hopping onto it and pedaling, the display fired right up.  Victory!  Now, I usually don't require much in the way of data or metrics, but I do expect the basics, which this machine apparently didn't give.  I flipped through all two pages of the display and it didn't show either time or distance, though it showed cadence, kila-joules, and watts.  Hmm, not very useful to me...  Anyway, I kept pumping away at the machine, twisting this little knob under the handlebars that made things harder or easier (and made the numbers get bigger or grow faster or get smaller and grow slower respectively).  As you can probably tell, I didn't really know what I was doing, but I kept at it either way and after several minutes of hard effort made it to the incredible accomplishment of 100 kila-joules (with a peak power output of over 300 watts)!  I still have no idea what those numbers mean, but I'm sure they are spectacular... (maybe not...)

OK, continuing the story - I promise I'll get to something important eventually - I decided  after biking for a little while that I had had enough of that, so I moved over to the treadmills.  Again there were a lot of options, but I ended up picking one that larger (which usually means that it can go faster) and had a bigger display (no more goofy telemetry).  Anyway, I got onto it and it asked me for my weight, so I hit select, which apparently wasn't the button to hit because it skipped to the next screen, where it asked me to choose an exercise type.  I looked at the buttons and found that I could choose between fat burn, cardio, hill reps, and speed reps.  I thought briefly about my options and went with the hill reps - I figured that I could choose a speed and then it would automatically make the grade go up and down - sort of like the real world.  It then asked for a difficulty level - some number from 1 to 10 - so I chose something on the higher end and hit start.  Off it went - at 1% incline and .5 mph...  Well, that wasn't quite fast enough (to say the least), so I pushed the increase speed button and then pushed it again, and again, and again.  Unfortunately, it beeped every time it went up an increment in speed, so after a lot of beeping I was cruising along at 8 mph and a few percent incline.  Alright, thought I, time for some exercise.  

I glanced up to the TV (which was right in front of me) and saw that they were showing some replays of basketball games.  I don't really watch basketball, but it was better than watching the wall, so I started watching the game.  Wham!  The incline went up to 4% (which was pretty high for me) and 5 mph (which is barely faster than a walk, in other words, slow) - alright, I increased the speed up to where I wanted it and settled back into my run.  Wham!  Again the incline changed, and again the speed dropped.  I pushed it back to where I wanted it - less incline, more speed - and continued my run.  Well, as you probably could guess, it did it again - but this time the incline went up to 12% at which point I nearly fell off the treadmill because I wasn't expecting it, and again, the speed reset to whatever it wanted.  Alright, enough of that, I switched to speed-rep mode, expecting it to go with whatever speed I set and then bump up a bit every so often from there.  I was wrong again, because it just kept resetting the speed to 5 mph, then 5.5 mph, then 7 mph, then 6 mph, etc.  After another minute of wrestling with this I hit stop (I had done 1 mile in 8 minutes) and looked for manual mode.  I did eventually find it and did another 12 minutes of running - this time with myself controlling everything - and finished with a total of 2.6 miles in 20 minutes.  I would have gone further but the constantly changing speed (and loss of momentum) had burnt me out.

So, what was the point of these stories.  Well, first of all, I wanted to share something that happened to me that was pretty funny, but I am also hoping to be able to apply the story to a topic from the faith.  I know I am new at this, so hopefully this example isn't really cheesy, but the real subject of this post is peace.  Often times - like that bike that didn't tell me what was going on, or the treadmill that kept changing the speed or incline - we don't know what life will bring us each day, and when we do know, we sometimes don't enjoy it very much.  Basically, life isn't always fun!  Sometimes we lose friends or family, sometimes work (or school) is stressful, sometimes we have to do things that we really, really don't want to, sometimes prayer doesn't seem to be "working", sometimes life is hard, sometimes that alarm is too early.  Through all of this we try to find some peace and joy and most of the time it just doesn't work.  Our lives are busy, we are tired, and we feel like we are running from one things to the next just putting out fires.  And, you know what, that is part of life.  Hardships are part of the human experience (at least since we started sinning); however, while life will continue to be full of things that we don't like (for lack of a better term), we can still be filled with peace.  How? We have to get our peace from Christ.

In the Gospel, we see countless times where someone (or a group) is full of fear, or anxiety, or troubles, and we hear the words "peace be with you".  Some examples: After the Resurrection, Jesus appears in the upper room to his previously despairing, now startled, disciples, and the first thing that Jesus says is "Peace be with you" - Luke 24:36  Again, right before the Ascension, to his disciples who are distraught at the prospect of Him leaving, Jesus says "Peace I leave with you" - John 14:27.  Now, these examples aren't really helpful, yeah, Jesus gave them His peace, great, where do I get it?  Well, keep reading.  

In the same passage from John, Jesus continues: "my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."  Here is the important part - this peace is different than the world's peace.  It isn't from the world.  True peace, as Arch-Abbot Lambert explained in our retreat last week, can only be given from, and found in, Christ.  God's perspective isn't ours, and he wants to transform all those problems, difficulties, and times of sadness into opportunities for us to grow closer to Him.  We must accept them, these crosses, as such - as means of reparation for our own sins (and others'), as times where we can learn greater trust of God, as ways to learn detachment, and as opportunities to grow in virtue.  In short, the peace of Christ, which is the only true peace, comes from learning to rely on Him and use every moment, regardless of how much we enjoy it, to become more Christlike.  This is the Little Way of St. Theresa of Lisieux, of offering up everything to God and doing everything for God.  It's not like God plans out our life and every so often sends in a difficulty - like one of those boss-levels in a video game - but whenever we are struggling He gives us the grace to persevere (which we need to accept) and the option of using that moment to grow closer to Him and become more like Him.  

Unfortunately, that's all I've got.  As an addendum I should note that this is by no means complete - there are so many other fantastic spiritual writers that have more experience than I, can write more beautifully and richly than I, know their faith better than I, and basically this means that I am undoubtedly leaving a lot out.  However, I wanted to tell you what is going on around here and simultaneously tell you something that I have been (slowly) learning through the seminary process: rely on God.  Finally, I need to say that there is another direction one could go with the topic of peace, that of becoming peacemakers (from the beatitudes).  I'll have to hit that topic at some point in the future.  Happy Friday!
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit - Romans 15:13
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St. Meinrad Soccer Tournament Video

Here is a video of the St. Meinrad Soccer tournament from a few weeks ago.  You can see Tyler (a graduate of Brute) speeding past me a scoring at the beginning of the video.  Enjoy!
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St. Meinrad Soccer Tournament (updated!)

Over this weekend I have had a fantastic time at the St. Meinrad soccer tournament.  We had 17 guys from Bruté who had been practicing for the last month or two a few times each week.  To be quite honest, I enjoyed the practicing almost as much as the tournament itself.  We usually worked on some particular skill (shooting, dribbling, settling, evading defense, defending, etc.) each practice and then had a 30 minute scrimmage to end the practice – lots of fun!  Anyway, on Wednesday we went through some last-minute rules, planned the logistics, handed out the uniforms.  We had our final practice on Thursday, during which we had everybody there at once (for the only time, I think) and we worked on some more large-scale drills for the offence and defense.

On Friday we left around 3 PM after everybody had finished their classes and gotten their stuff packed up.  The car I was in was completely full with 5 guys but we had a fun time anyway.  You know, kept the music pumping, took a nap, laughed at some jokes, and enjoyed the scenery (the trees have just started to change so the drive was very pretty).  Due to the time zone change, we got to St. Meinrad around 5 PM after a 3 hour drive.  As last year, we got to stay in the newly renovated Bede Hall, which is furnished about as nicely as your typical hotel.  My room had a great view directly above the soccer fields.

Meinrad is beautiful!
We threw our stuff in our rooms and then wondered down to the dining room, where we enjoyed some fish/potato bake, salad, and other good food.  I forget what else we did that evening, but the only thing that I remember was that I got to bed early and managed to squeeze in about 9 hours of sleep before 7 AM Mass the next morning.

 Thankfully, Bruté didn’t have the wolf down breakfast like the teams from Sacred Heart and Mount St. Mary’s, who had the first game at 9:00.  The tournament last year was between Bruté and Meinrad (where we lost in the penalty kicks at the end).  Thus, it was with great expectations we took the field at 10:30 against Meinrad.  The game started fast, both teams were attacking and defending well, but Bruté scored first.  We all were elated (and further determined to win)!  However, Meinrad came back to score, tying the game after about 20 minutes.  Unfortunately, despite playing out the rest of the game really well, Meinrad scored two more unanswered goals and the game ended 1-3.  
We were bummed at the loss, but were determined to win the next game against Sacred Heart.  Unfortunately, we were playing back-to-back games, unlike Sacred Heart, who had been able to rest for the last hour and a half, and we also underestimated the quality of the team we were up against.  They scored two (or was it one?) quick goal(s) on us, before we got one (to our great excitement), but the game quickly went downhill from there.  We were tired, physically and mentally, and stopped playing as we had in the first game.  That combined with some unlucky bobbles near the goal led to their getting several more goals before the game ended.  We were all pretty frustrated with playing that poorly because we knew that we had the skill, just not the energy or organization, but that’s part of the game too, and Sacred Heart had quite a good team.

A side note: During all of our games I was primarily on defense.  This game, as it happened, I was for the most part on a guy called Ryan, who must have been Sacred Heart’s striker or maybe some sort of offensive midfielder.  Anyway, he despite his grumblings at my being too fast, he managed to score a goal when the ball got loose in the box and he was in the perfect spot to tap it in.  I had saved a few other balls like that in the other games (one that I was quite proud of was when our goalie dropped the ball in front of two guys from Meinrad and I managed to snag it from a few feet in front of the goal and clear it), but this one was literally rolling into the goal and all Ryan did was speed its progress – Usain Bolt couldn't have stopped it and neither did I…  Anyway, finishing off this story, during the final fifteen minutes of the game Sacred Heart was on the attack and I was in the act of clearing the ball (ie: kicking it quickly) when Ryan managed to stick a leg or knee or something into my thigh – it was certainly not intentional, and I would have expected him to be that aggressive – but either way it hurt really, really bad.  I went down, gave a few good yells (it hurt!) and then jumped backed up, “yeah, I’m fine”.  Apparently, both teams thought I was dying or something, so they got a laugh at my quick “recovery”.  Either way, my thigh was really hurting and I was limping a bit (impairing my ability to defend), so I sat out for a few minutes before re-taking the field.  Yeah, it hurt, but I mean we were down 4-1 or something, and I couldn't stay out the rest of the game. 
Anyway, I came back in as a midfielder – good idea, I can’t run, so I’ll choose a position that requires more running… J  Nevertheless, I did have one more pretty good moment.  I snagged the ball deep in our half and sped down the field, evading a few of Sacred Heart’s midfielders and defenders before, losing the ball on a bad touch well down the field.  It has to be my favorite thing to do in soccer – carrying the ball down the field – and I didn’t get too many chances to do it on defense, so despite the partial loss of my leg I went for it either way.  Regaining my humility, like always I took one too many touches and didn’t get the pass off before somebody cut me off (and I lost the ball).  It was actually kind of funny, as I sprinted by my bench all the guys cheered, and then when I lost the ball they yelled for me to run back down the field and recover the ball.  Well, at this point I was tired, in pain, and just didn't have the energy to blast back down the field chasing the ball, so I let our mid-fielders and defense take care of it.  Sorry to the guys who were cheering for me to run after it; I didn't have much left.

Alright, so that game ended in another defeat, this time 5-1 or something.  We weren't happy, not only were we knocked out of the championship game the next day, we knew that we hadn't played very well, and though we had played hard, we hadn't played very cohesively and so had lost the game.  Thankfully, we now had a few hours before our last game, so we hobbled up the hill and got some lunch before crashing in our rooms for a few hours.  I know a few guys took naps, but I was trying to avoid stiffening up, so I stayed up and worked on a little bit of philosophy (I’m starting to hit that point where I really need to start getting somewhere on the papers due at the end of the semester – 40 pages, 40 days to go).  I also worked on a little blog-writing, along with the occasional glance out of the windows to check how the game was going.  Meinrad played two games against Mount St. Mary’s and then Sacred Heart, tying the first and losing the second.
We were a bit scared then when we took the field against Mount St. Mary’s at 4:30.  They had (unexpectedly, to us) tied Meinrad, and it wasn't looking to be an easy match up.  Nevertheless, we took the field determined to win at least one game.  Thankfully, we did.  Despite my thigh really not liking the walk down the hill, it held up really well during the game and I pushed through the pain to hold down the left defense.  I figured that the rest of the guys were tired (and if you haven’t figured out, my humility could use a little work), so I played the entire game.  Actually, I was a lot less tired than I thought I would be.  Anyway, the Mount put up a good battle, I was especially scared when a certain guy named Jarred switched from defense to attack (he was a pillar of the Bruté team last year before graduation and moving on to Mount St. Mary’s), but we kept them to one goal and scored three during the duration of the game, thus winning our last game.  Unfortunately, we were still eliminated from the tournament, but I know that everybody was pretty happy that we got that win.  We played better, passed the ball well, and our defense held up really well (our goalie saved a few goals too).  I had a few more breakaways when I could get the chance. The first one, I shot from pretty far out (thus, not scoring) because I was on defense and didn’t want to get too far up field.  The second was near the end of the game, when we were pretty much guaranteed a win, and I switched with another guy to become offensive midfielder.  I successfully evaded their midfielders and was right up with their defense, when I decided to cross it rather than shoot.  Unfortunately, the other guy wasn't very open and simultaneously my legs started cramping and seizing (they were pretty tired), so we didn't get anything there.  

After that game we were all pretty tired (make that absolutely exhausted).  I know for at least myself, every fiber of my body was aching – thighs, definitely – knees, yep, shoulders, uh-huh (why, I have no idea) – you get the picture, I was hurting.  Nevertheless, we limped up the hill, took a quick shower (it felt fantastic!), said evening prayer, and then went down to the unstable for some delicious pizza and hanging out with all the guys.  Despite our competition on the field, all that was forgotten, and we had an absolutely wonderful evening.  How can you possibly beat a pizza buffet, watching the world series, jamming to a live band, and hanging out with some of the best guys ever? (you can’t!)
After an hour or two of that, I spent an hour more hanging out with a smaller group of guys (a mix of current and previous Bruté guys), checked out some of their rooms, laughed to some uproariously funny jokes, and wondered around Meinrad a little bit.  It was a fun evening, but when I got back to my room around 10 I was beat.  Of course, there was another “party” (in the sense of a few guys sitting around) happening in the room watching the world series, and of course, I stayed up to watch the end (good game, ended with a weird obstruction call, so that was crazy).  Anyway, I finally got to bed around 11 and slept soundly till around 8 the next morning.  I felt great when I woke up, but then hopped out of bed to find that my legs were destroyed.  Obviously, the one thigh hurt, but also they just were legitimately tired.  Really interesting feeling!

Meinrad is in black and Sacred Heart is in red, championship match - this feature is just too cool!
Knowing that I wasn’t going to fall back asleep (the light was flooding through the windows), I got dressed warmly and headed down to the field (limping the whole way) to enjoy most of the championship game.  It was fantastic!  Both teams were in top form, passing well, defending phenomenally, shooting pretty well, and both goalies were performing great.  Most of the sidelines were rooting for St. Meinrad, but Sacred Heart was absolutely matching them.  The game ended 0-0 after an hour of really, really hard play (I can’t imagine how tired those guys are right now) and the game went to penalty kicks.  Having fond memories of last year (where our game ended 1-1 and also went to a shoot-off) it was cool to see the same thing happen.  Both teams had some great shots (none of them missed), but Sacred Heart’s goalie made some fantastic saves, and thus they won after 4 penalty kicks.  It was a great game, absolutely incredible, really, really awesome!  Check out some rather random clips of the game below:


 We hobbled back up the hill, and I was pretty much in the middle of a complaint about how my legs were hurting when Daniel decided to race me to the top.  He took off while calling out “race you to the top!”, and of course, I wasn’t just going to stand there, so off I went.  We were probably 2/3’s of the way up when he started running, so it wasn’t the entire hill, but it still hurt to sprint up that hill.  It was a close finish, maybe a tie, maybe he had a slight lead, either way my legs now hurt even worse than before… (Thanks Daniel! J). 

I quickly packed up my stuff, got dressed up for Mass, and walked down to the chapel by a bit before 10 AM.  The homily, given by Fr. Dennis, which he will probably post on his blog eventually, was really, really good.  He talked about how, despite our false-humility, and often not following God’s plan for our life, our Church, and everything else, God still wants and loves us. 

After Mass, we had a quick (but delicious) breakfast, finished packing our stuff, had some last laughs with the guys there, and took off around 1PM.  Adam was our driver again (thanks man!), and we had another fun trip (if not more tired).  I took a nap, said mid-day prayer, worked on this post, which Dominic noted was getting kind of long (it is now 500 words past that point), stopped for some ice-cream, and all-in-all had a good drive.  It was a fun weekend, something I greatly needed!  Thanks to all who made it possible – all the guys at St. Meinrad, all the guys who practiced, etc.  Thanks a ton!
More pictures here and a lot more here (thanks David!)

On another note, I just noticed that this post is 5 pages long, single-spaced, if only I could whip out a 10 page philosophy paper in 2 hours… (I wish!).  Also, sorry for no pictures of Brute playing, I wasn't on the bench for more then a few minutes, so I didn't have a chance to take any.  Other people were taking some, so maybe I'll be able to get my hands on them!
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