By the way, I found out that I missed the Feast Day of St. Gregory the Great.

Maybe I should expect gifts... ;)

Saturday morning, my phone rang. It was my dad, asking me to come over to the house for lunch. He said that they had something to tell me. Right away, I started wondering what the subject would be about.



On the way to the house, my mind went over the possible scenarios. Even though my dad said the news wasn't about them, I thought that the line might have been a cover of some sort. Would they be selling the house? Was my grandmother (who has been living with them for some time) not well?



When I got home, my dad handed me an article he printed from the web. I first noticed the headline, "Would-be groom dies suddenly after party," before I noticed the couple in the picture. Immediately, my heart sank over what I would hear about.



The Timmons' have been friends with my parents for years, even before I was born. I remember visiting with the family, especially their daughter, Tracy. I had a bit of a crush on her, and showed it by chasing her around the house playfully, in an attempt to kiss her. (Mind you, I was in elementary school at the time.) One night, while I was in high school, I was watching TV in the living room when my mom walked in. She solemnly gave me the news that Tracy had passed away. She had run away from home, and was living with friends at the time. One night, she had some drinks, and because of some sort of heart ailment, she died.

If you're the praying type, mind saying a few words for the family? They could definitely use it.

Oh yeah, by the way...

anyone out there know of any good, beginner-level, vegetarian cookbooks? I'm giving up red meat for Lent this year, and I need to find a way to survive the next 46 days.

Thanks for your help.

I e-mailed her today.

I thought about her during a men's retreat I attended with my church this weekend. (An ACTS retreat, if you're familiar with the term.) I thought about the crap I put her through when we were dating, and I decided that I needed to apologize. I also needed to forgive myself for all of that, which I think I accomplished.

When I got back home this afternoon, I typed up a quick message totalling about twelve lines. I didn't really know what to expect, or what might come from it. May have been it a bit selfish on my part, but I just wanted to get it off my chest.

A few minutes later, I checked my inbox, and saw one new message. The subject? "Delivery Status Notification (Failure)." Honestly, I think I'm okay with it. I doubt tracking her down will do much good. Maybe if I run into her again, I'll tell her about it. But maybe just me putting it down on cyber-paper is good enough.

About the weekend itself, it was awesome. I ended up being one of only two guys there who didn't have a wife and kids (the other guy being a seminarian). But I think I know what to do, and what not to do, if I ever get there. I can say this: I will try my best to be a better son, a better friend, a better Catholic, and a better man.

You may remember me telling you about a football movie that made me wonder how much of a Christian I was. Tuesday, a real-life football coach may have helped make me a better one. I share the details with you in the form of an e-mail chain between my friend Michelle and I.

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Greg
Date: Nov 28, 2007 1:13 AM
Michelle-
Just wanted to say Thanks. "For what," you ask?

Thanks for believing in my prayer abilities.

You may remember me blogging about how I didn't think I did prayer well.

I just wanted to let you know that I spent the last few minutes praying for different people in my life, and it felt pretty good. I'm not saying I'm an expert yet, but I think it's a decent start.

I figured you might want to hear about that. Hope you and your leg are well.

Greg

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Michelle
Date: Nov 28, 2007 11:07 AM

Wow that's awesome! I'm glad you're sticking to it because I find that prayer can be this amazing experience between you and god. I know that during my whole knee thing, prayer was the one thing that I could do to get through this whole ordeal. Even though at times, I didn't appreciate or understand why this happened to me, prayer allowed me to get out my frustrations. I read somewhere that prayer is not just a one way road... it's not just you talking to God but prayer allows us to be open to being blessed by God, whether it's directly through us or a blessing through someone we've prayed for. Anyways, thanks for keeping me updated on this. Lord knows I'm not the best prayer, but I know it's just important to keep the lines of communication open. :-)

As for my knee, I'm definitely better. Physical therapy still kicks my butt. I'm just happy I can drive now. I'm now working towards walking without a crutch or without limping. Otherwise, the doctor seems really happy about my progress. So going back to prayer, I really see God's blessings during this whole ordeal. Even though God temporarily took away almost everything in my life (work, friends, independence), God really showed me what a great immediate family I have. My sister and parents have been amazing! Also, he has given me an appreciation of the little accomplishments in life. My knee will never bend the way it used to, but I'm happy that it can bend as much as it can now.

Anyways, sorry this letter is so long. You know that I ramble so I'll just stop here. Glad to hear that you're still seeking after God. Just know that he never asks us to be perfect but just to give it a try.

-Michelle

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Greg
Date: Nov 28, 2007 9:07 PM

Hey there.I'm glad my experience got you so jazzed. I'm not sure what caused it would be as celebratory, but I'd like to share it with you.

I ended up playing hooky yesterday and gave myself the day off work. During the morning, I ended up watching ESPN2. They have a show called Mike and Mike in the Morning that's also on the radio. During the show, they were talking about Sean Taylor, the football player who died from a gunshot wound. They had on a guy who played for Joe Gibbs, the current coach of the Redskins, the team Taylor played for. He told a story about having a one-on-one meeting with Coach Gibbs one morning. The coach pointed over to a whiteboard with a list of names of players who were suffering from injuries. The coach said that he would pray for each player by name every day.

Last night, as I was trying to get to sleep, that story came into my head, as well as the memory of my ex telling me she prayed for me after we saw "Bruce Almighty". (I mean she told me that after the movie, she didn't pray after the movie... just want to make sure I'm clear.) I figured I might as well try it. I prayed for a bunch of people. I prayed for the girl I've been dating, I prayed for my friends in my young adults' group. I prayed for Suzanne. I prayed for Sean Taylor's girlfriend and baby. I kept at it for a few minutes, before I got it in my head to tell you about it.

It was all kind of random, but it felt good. I don't know how to build on this, but I figure it's a good start. To be honest, I hadn't been praying (or going to church) much over the last couple of weeks. Now I'm worried about keeping this streak alive, you know?

I kind of worry that my prayers won't be heard, though. Would blessings really be poured out upon the friends I prayed for last night? Should I even worry about that?

Anyway, I think I'm rambling. Just wanted to give you more details. Take care.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Brown Boy,
Greg

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Michelle
Date: Nov 28, 2007 9:13 PM

Maybe it's silly of me to think this but I truly believe that God shows us things to encourage us to act. I think it's one way that God "speaks" to us. So that being said, I completely understand the urge to pray after watching something on T.V. Also, I truly believe that God hears every single prayer we lift up to him. You may not see/hear the answer right away or even the answer you were expecting, but I truly believe that he listens and responds on his time.

For example, I was watching this sermon once, by this fairly famous Dallas pastor (Bishop T.D. Jakes) who said that when you're praying for an answer to why life is going a certain way, sometimes the answer you will only get is: "I'm inconveniencing your life now, in order to bless you later." I wrote this down thinking that it was a nice thing to remember and actually I had lost it almost immediately after scribbling this note down. Anyways, I recently found it and what a blessing it is for me to read NOW because during these past 4-5 months, I've really struggled with why this all happened to me. As I mentioned before, I feel like during this time with my injured knee, God stripped me of everything that seemed important to my life. But even in the "desert place," God still blesses me. This note that I'd forgotten about actually reminded me that there's a purpose to this whole knee thing. And now that I'm at the end of my recovery, I understand in retrospect that my experience with this ordeal was done for a purpose that's just beginning to be realize. Ok so now I'm not sure if I'm making much sense anymore. So anyways, my point is that I think it's understandable (and what a blessing!!!) that this random event happened.

And you know, all you have to do is try to keep up with your prayers. The amazing thing about God is that you can never run out of chances. Even if you stop going to church or stop praying, I know from experience that God will always eventually pull you back. He'll drop reminders through sports stories or forgotten notes that he's there. And you have the choice to either respond or ignore him, but I think even if you ignore him, he'll just keep putting things in your head to remind you he's there.

So anyways, thanks for sharing. I think I really needed to be reminded too. Because I'll admit while I type all this out, it's been a while since I've regularly prayed and even longer since I've been to church. Be happy that you've been blessed with a church as it's now 4 (almost 5) years since I've moved to dallas, and I've yet to find a church home. I have a few that I like to visit regularly but not one that I feel like it's a good fit. Anyways, thanks again.

Michelle

Wanna learn about my breakthrough? Read the following open letter...



Dear Suzanne,



Hey there, stranger. Bet you didn't expect to see me last night, eh? Obviously, I went to your church to promote the lecture series I'm helping put together. I was a bit nervous about seeing you there, but my friend C told me that she hadn't seen you the last few times she's gone, so she told me I shouldn't be worried. Of course, whose face should I see first when I walked into church but yours? Glad to see you and the hubby are still in the choir, by the way. I never even knew he played guitar...

Anyway, I tried my best to play it cool during Mass. During the sign of peace, I tried all I could to throw two fingers your way. All the other people seemed to get in the way.

I hope you weren't too weirded out by the flier I left on your car after Mass. I had thought that maybe you guys wouldn't come to the barbecue afterwards, so I figured it would be my best shot of letting you guys know about the series. Then I saw you two stroll over to the slab.

I'll admit it, I was surprised by how cool I acted in talking to you. It may have been normal conversation on the outside, but inside, the following kept going through my head:

"Ohmigod...ohmigod...ohmigod...ohmigod...ohmigod..."

Honestly, I tried to at least say hi to your spouse, but for whatever reason it didn't happen. Good to hear you're still working, though it took me a while to figure out what you were talking about doing after 2-and-a-half years. (By the way, sorry about the whole "are you pregnant?" thing. Like I told you, six friends of mine are with child; I saw a slightly protruding belly and a stretch skirt, and I drew my own conclusion. My bad.)

Anyway, hope to see you Thursday, maybe we can talk more then (if your hubby ever lets go of your hand)...

Your Friendly Neighborhood Brown Boy,
Greg

Allow me to vent just a little bit.

Tonight, I attended a planning meeting with the leaders of a church group that I'm a part of. After being involved in the group for about two or three years now, and after sharing an idea I had for a faith sharing topic, I was invited to come along and help plan out next meeting, as well as knock around some ideas on how to improve the group. The short version of the story is that after almost four years of existence, we're still having trouble finding new people to get involved, and getting new folks to stay involved.

I came ready to share ideas I'd had, and also my frustrations about the intimacy smallness of our group. Unfortunately, when time came to share, I couldn't open up. Part of me didn't want to rock the boat, being the new guy (and, in fact, the only guy) in the room. One person talked about how we shouldn't plan things if the leaders aren't able to attend. (For example, one leader's participation in an out-of-town kickball tournament would have taken precedence over a tubing trip I was planning if rain hadn't cancelled said trip.)

If anyone out there has any suggestions on how to improve and grow groups (be they religious or non-religious in nature), please let me know. This group has done a lot for me, I would hate to see it wither away due to lack of participation and interest.

A sad story that made me smile a bit.

According to a report in the Express-News, one of the more popular priests at a church I attended during college was with the family of Lady Bird Johnson as she passed away a few days ago.

I never got to know the man very well other than a few spaghetti lunches while I was at UT, but the stories that came out about him and his life would make for a very interesting book. (I call dibs on rights, by the way...)

Anyway, if any readers find themselves in Austin one Sunday, be sure to stop by St. Austin's Church. It's a good stop...

EDIT: If you want to read more about Fr. Bob and his life, you can find more here.

I'm not sure how, but a football movie has made me think that I'm not a good Christian.

Got together with a group I'm involved with at church for our monthly meeting. Instead of our normal discussion of past and upcoming events (tubing, anyone?), we made it a blockbuster night and watched "Facing the Giants." If you're not familiar with the film, it's your typical "football-movie-meets-Sunday-School" story. (I seem to remember the film getting some extra publicity due to the movie ratings people giving it a PG rating for proselytizing, rather than for violence.)

Anyway, between the maudlin drama and the bad jokes, I got to thinking about the main character, a football coach who decides to give everything in his life over to God. His team, his marriage, his home, his car, etc. Not to give too much of the movie away, but he ends up being rewarded/blessed as the credits roll. My main thought as the movie went on (besides Mark Richt's acting skills) was how I've not been able to do that in my years as a Christian.

Going back to this post, I've been thinking my connection with God isn't what it should be, and how others seem to get it better than I can. It seems like so many other facets of my life (weight, finances, etc.), I keep expecting a change overnight, and get frustrated when nothing happens. Does this mean I need to see more bad movies? Pray more? Actually pick up and read a Bible?

Anyone?

Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him.
But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them."
Then Jesus told them this parable: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed
him.

"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned
against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your
son.'
"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

-Luke 15:1-3, 11-31

I heard this reading this morning at Mass in College Station. Yesterday, I made the three-hour drive to go see an old friend of mine. The plan was for a day (and night) full of debauchery, alcohol and other such things. One problem, though: she never answered my calls or text messages. So that left me with a night to kill in small-town Texas. I headed over to an area of town known as Northgate, apparently the town's answer to 6th Street.

After enjoying some surprisingly decent Mexican food, I ended up at a newer bar in the area, The Corner. (Not to be confused with this Corner.) During the hour or so I spent there, I wound up making four friends for the night, two local gals, and two guys who were in from Fort Hood. During the night, I ended up celebrating an Asian girl's 22nd birthday, seeing a little person at a tattoo shop, witnessing one of the ladies in the group (a 26-year-old newlywed whose husband was in Belfast, according to her) stripping a doorman down to his boxers, and having a paisley shirt I was wearing critiqued by several girls.

I ended up heading back to my motel room around 3:00 a.m. The next morning, after packing away the unopened box of Trojans as well as my other things and checking out of my room, I headed by the local church to see when Mass was. Turns out it I was just in time for the 11 a.m. Mass.

After hearing the above-mentioned parable, it hit me. What the hell am I doing? What would posess me to drive three hours in a futile attempt for booty? (Sadly, the was the second time I've done that in the last few months.) More than anything, this is probably the reason I'm looking for someone new, just so I don't have to go through all this just to find someone to be with.

39 minutes left of sinning until April, and I'm blogging. I hope you people are happy.

It's Fat Tuesday time (or, as I refer to it, "Tuesday.") With Lent coming tomorrow, I've come up with what I'm giving up. I'm actually giving up two things, one is a public sacrifice, another, a more personal one. Of course, that means I'll be sharing both with you, the anonymous blog-reader.

The public sacrifice is fast food. A friend helped me come up with the idea (while dining at Chili's, ironically). I figure it's a way to help me save money, eat better, and sacrifice something that's been weighing me down (literally).

The private sacrifice? Porn. I don't know how, but I've become quite the porn fiend these last few months. Don't know if it's a direct effect of not dating lately, or if it's a cause of the dating drought, but the images aren't really helping me in my faith walk. (Especially hard to walk when one's tent is pitched.)

So far, I've told a few people about the fast food thing, but have only shared the porn sacrifice with one person. I plan to keep that ratio the same. If you'll excuse me, I've got some videos to watch during the next 31 minutes...