Life Update

This will be the last week I'll live with my roommate. By next Saturday, he'll be a married man. My other roommate, too, has passed the exams, having now earned the title Philosophiae Doctor. I'm happy for them both, but (selfishly) I will miss the opportunities for philosophico-theologico-politico-linguistic-cultural-literary conversations at will, as well as their quiet presence. Who knows? Maybe the subleaser(s) will be equally as erudite (not likely).

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Should I have a lot of free space in the apartment, I'm looking forward to moving a bookcase into the living room, and perhaps building a new one along the lines of what I saw at my friend Matt's place this November. As of now, I feel like I sleep in a library. Which is not entirely a bad feeling, to be honest. Still, I have a number of books in boxes, so an extra bookshelf would be nice.

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I went to Birmingham on Friday. I was supposed to meet up and stay with my best friend there, but he became suddenly ill, infected by office-mates. I got there earlier than expected, so I did some Christmas shopping. I was sad to see that my favorite hardware store had gone out of business. A terrible, terrible loss. When I worked at the nursery, I used to answer almost every inquiry we couldn't handle by referring customers to that hardware store - they not only had everything, but the best of everything. They turned the poor building into one of those CrossFit places.

I still had a lot of time in Birmingham, so I ate at my favorite casual restaurant, drove by my old apartment and church, browsed my favorite local bookstore, and stopped for a while at a chapel to pray.

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This year I've been blessed to have joined two new apostolates. One of them is the Courage Apostolate, which meets in Birmingham. I was only one of two that was able to make it, but I feel that I hit it off well with the permanent deacon who leads it. We talked, oddly enough, about cars, something I know and care little about. But, you see, we talked about Audis, so I had some input. The two prayers that form the beginning and end of a Courage meeting are the Serenity Prayer and the Memorare. The deacon chose the serenity prayer as the topic of his talk: Most of us have wounds, sometimes spiritual wounds, which may take decades to heal, or may never heal. While these wounds may hinder and isolate us in many ways, they are also blessings in disguise: invitations to be more intimate with the Lord, to grow in humility and patience, to be more merciful with ourselves and others. Afterwards, there is a priest to hear confessions.

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To end, I'll share of photo of a dog I saw sleeping in the road on the way to work.