Let me describe the busyness of Tim's and my summer. After my 3.5 day and Tim's 2 day trip to Boston, we landed in Chicago. Scratch that. Tim landed hours before me (curse you AirTran for having one flight option a day) and was able to get lunch with K.Jo before grabbing our car and swinging by to pick me up. Then we had to rush, rush, rush home for session 2 of our NFP classes in South Bend. After which we went back to my house to go to sleep early, share stories of Boston with my family, and let Rylee cram for the next day. 12 hours later, we are on the road again. When does one breathe? You'll see!
I was so sick of fast food and craving some Subway (when am I not craving Subway?) so I made Tim stop for "a healthier option." The way home was DQ so you see what I mean. He kindly obliged and here I was obnoxiously taking pictures of this man over a 12" sub. He loved it. Clearly.
So we drove and drove and went through some construction and drove some more. We realized the construction was making us late so we -not so- wisely decided to take the back roads. It said it was only an additional 7 minutes and Tim was convinced he could make it up if not in bumper to bumper. So we cruised. Literally cruised. Through Southern Indiana. There were hills and trees and mainly a whole lot of nothing and it was beautiful. I love open space, such a contrast from the hustle to a big city airport the day before. I foolishly have no pictures of this rare beauty because I was trying to memorize my ToB presentation and add backgrounds to my slides and avoid the insane heat coming in on my side of the window and crawling to the back while we cruised. Tim thanked God on that trip that I don't get car sick, and here I am. Sorry, that was a lot of unnecessary background story to this trip. I could delete it but I wont.
Ahh. Saint Meinrad was so good to us. There was a threefold reason for us to go through all the effort to drive south: 1. Marriage prep with Fr. Christian, 2. I gave a presentation on ToB to their college interns, 3. to relax and spend time together away from it all. And praise God because all of those things went wonderfully. But seriously, Praise God because we didn't realize how much grace was being poured out from all three of them.
There is so much space in So. IN and aside from the bells EVERY 15 MINUTES a lot of peace and quiet, so much so that we went to the nearest pizza place for dinner on Friday when we got there and it was an hour away. Kid you not. But we didn't mind it, it made for a great car conversation. I would hate it to live there but you know, life.
This was the view from my room cell. Just kidding it really was a room, they don't let just any body into the monastery.
Archabbey Church
Throughout the whole weekend I found myself taking huge sighs of relief. Looking at the beauty of the little things and the big space and the peace and the comfort and the people. It was all so good. And so necessary to remember all that I have to be thankful for.
Thank you Fr. Christian for hosting us. We so loved your pace of life and your ministries there. We can't wait to host you in 36 days!
Side note: made Tim carry my backpack because after almost a week out of living out of my three condensable carry-on's, my back needed a break.
So, in the halls of the labyrinth of a monastery, I made Tim take a solo shot. Because I was ready to go home and get cracking (does anyone even still say that?) on wedding plans and apartment hunts and job searching and you know just summer. I knew I would blog it and for some absurd reason I thought my blog was worthy of making someone take unnecessary solo shots. Laugh with me folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment