WYDSL

You have stumbled upon my
World Youth Day Secret Link!!!

As your very special treat for finding this you get to read my summer adventures prior to going on World Youth Day. These take the form of a couple articles I published in my Church's bulletin the two weeks prior to leaving for WYD. So here they are:

Notre Dame, Sex, and Plumbing
(Part I)

   Hi all, it’s me Shawn, the youth minister. Well, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been gone these past five weeks, and so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you all what I’ve been up to. (Granted most of you are probably thinking to yourself, “Really? You were gone?”   But just play my game with me and let me continue to live in my fantasy world ;) )
     I left the beginning of June to visit my family for a week. I always enjoy crossing over the Delaware River from PA into Jersey because it means I’m almost home; however, right after I did, I noticed my car was running low on gas, and as much I would love to believe “E” stood for “Enough,” I let wisdom get the better of me and decided to fill up. While stopped at the exit, I heard screeching and then experienced a violent thrust forward. I was hit. We pulled into a gas station and a woman in her early 40’s got out of her minivan looking very distressed. I looked back in her car and noticed two kids, one an infant the other a pre-teen also looking very upset. From what I could tell she had been yelling at one of them (wonder which one). I calmed her down and surveyed the vehicles. The damage to my Tracker was minimal, and pretty much hidden by my spare, but the front of her van looked pretty messed up. She offered to pay for the damage and gave me her work and home numbers. It turns out she lives in a hotel and works at a Friendly’s. I figured this was added stress she really didn’t need so I decided not to involve the police. Once I finally made it home, it was a nice relaxing week and good to spend time with my family and old friends.
     The following week I went down to Kentucky with a group of Alumni from my college. We did a week of service work with Christian Appalachian Project, an outreach program to impoverished people of Kentucky and West Virginia. The project we were working on was putting an addition on a house. Now, this may not sound like much, but after this addition is finished this family will have indoor plumbing for the first time in their lives.
     From there, plans were to come back to Adrian for the weekend before starting my summer class at Notre Dame. I called Carmel Friday before I left my college in Ohio to check in at the office. She informed me that there was a fire downtown right by my apartment. She didn’t know the details other than it started in the store two doors down from me. So, I had a rather reflective three-hour drive back not knowing what I was returning home to. Thankfully, as I eventually learned, the fire had been contained before it reached my apartment.
     It’s pretty amazing… sometimes we forget how blessed we are. Minor damage to my car; nothing happened to my apartment. I’ve always had indoor plumbing. How many times have I taken my car, my home, even my toilet for granted? Probably more than I care to admit. God blesses us a whole lot more than we realize. Its summer, a great time to have fun and build memories, but in the midst of it all, lets not forget the true source of joy.

     Tune in next week for Part II when you’ll hear about my adventures at Notre Dame and the class I took there, “Sex and Love in the Christian Tradition.”

Notre Dame, Sex, and Plumbing
(Part II)

    Hey, it’s me Shawn, the youth minister, again. When we last left off, you felt kind of snookered because I really didn’t talk about sex in my article. I’m going to rectify that now and focus on my summer class at Notre Dame, “Sex and Love in the Christian Tradition,” taught by a wonderful professor named Jean Porter. It was an extremely enriching learning experience, and as an added bonus I’ll now be able to answer all those Confirmation retreat questions without having to resort to making stuff up ;)
     The class covered everything from masturbation to contraception to pedophilia. We had two readings every night on a different topic, one explaining the Church’s teaching and the other critical of it. Then class time was spent discussing/debating the articles. It was very intense because most of the students, whether or not they agreed with the Church’s teachings, had very strong emotional ties to their opinion.
     We each had to do two presentations based on the readings. My first was on “Erotic-Romantic Love,” and talked about the important connection between love and sex with the sacramentality of marriage. I threw in a little Fat Joe and P. Diddy to spice things up and probe what we make of sex outside of marriage (Thumbs down being the general consensus).
     My next presentation was on abortion. The article I read was a “Feminist Pro-Life Perspective” which presented a powerful argument about how abortion is more of a tool of oppression to women than one of liberation. While I was in the library working on it this woman sat down next to me and asked me to read my presentation to her. Surprised by the request, rather hesitantly I obliged. After I finished she started to debate me by hitting me with the “hard cases” (i.e. rape, incest, fetal handicapped). I agreed that these were very difficult questions but did not believe abortion was the right answer. She then argued that the fetus was no different than a blood clot. I could tell she was getting upset, so I just simple acknowledged that that was the debate. She then went into this rant that you should not judge other people because we’ll all be held accountable for everything we do to God. I agreed with her, at which point she broke down in tears and confessed to me she had an abortion seven years ago because her husband did not want another child, and how he beat her until she consented to having the abortion. She told me she has been having nightmares about it ever since and did not think she could ever be forgiven for what she had done. I listened to her and tried to comfort her. After one on the most intense hour and a halves of my life, the conversation ended with the library closing, me giving her the number/webpage of Project Rachel—a post-abortion counseling program, and a hug along with the assurance that forgiveness was possible. Her only reply was, “Bless you” to which I responded, “No… Bless you.”
     “Chance encounters” happen all the time. They can be forgotten a moment later or have a dramatic impact on us for the rest of our lives. It’s amazing how an empathetic ear or a few kind words can be a means of grace for a person. The question is how willing are we to take that risk of sharing a moment with another person, either by our words or perhaps more importantly through our actions? You never know what God has in store.

     Well, that‘s my summer thus far. Next week I’m going to Canada with some of our youth as well as pilgrims from all over the planet for World Youth Day 2002. I’ll have to let ya’ know how that goes.