Late morning Saturday I had my first monthly consecrated gathering with the other consecrated guys in Youth Apostles (there are 9 of us now). Being my first I didn't have too much of an idea about the normal flow of the gathering went, I just did my best to have read through the document we were going to begin to discuss (Fraternal Life in Community) and see where it went from there. I've noticed over the last couple years since they started these gatherings how the friendship between the consecrated brothers has grown and how that has had a domino impact on a number of other unifying things in Youth Apostles.
After the gathering Tom Yehl and I headed over to Clyde's in Old Town for a friends Birthday Brunch. The amusing part to that trip was that after brunch we were going to head over to get cup cakes at some place that was suppose to be a couple blocks up from the wharf. Well as we stepped out side the drizzle slowly and slowly turned into a full downpour and the "couple blocks" quickly came under close scrutiny as the rain fell harder and we still hadn't made it to our destination, but I kinda like walking in the rain myself. The kicker to the amusement was that the cup cake store was closed and Tom and I walked the "couple blocks" back to the car with no reward.
Later that evening I had dinner with my old roommates at the Paquette's house down in Lorton. The Paquettes are one of the Youth Apostle family; Mike and Helen and their four boys and two girls. Dinner was a lot of fun as most things are at the Paquette household...it reminds me a little bit of the environment at my house growing up with lots of energy and the older siblings being relied on more and more to wrangle the younger siblings when ever outsiders were at the house.
This past Wednesday, Fr Jack, Brian Abrams, and myself headed down to Virginia Tech to visit the Youth Apostle guys down there for some festivities and of course a Cheesy Western (the real breakfast of champions) or two. It was great to get to see the guys down there and was my first trip of the semester.
Yesterday, we had our house work day to clean up and reorganize "the ranch" seeing as when you live in a house with 15 or so bedrooms and a large amount of gathering space you need to set aside a good bit of time to conquer and divide. Afterwards we feasted on a very nice scallop and pasta dinner cooked here at the ranch, which prepared me for a night of costumes and college students (CCM Halloween Dance Party at GMU). It was a pretty impressive party that the students threw over at the FOCUS missionary house near campus, with shuttle rides and all. Yours truly donned a completely black get up with a pretty creepy looking batman mask. I didn't think it was that creepy but when you pull up to a curb late in the evening to pick up students, it can set an uneasy tone for someone to get into a car on Halloween with a person they can't easily identify. I only stayed for a couple hours as I needed to get some sleep and get up for some "Buff like Jesus" time the next morning.
I started out this morning a little bit ahead of myself. Actually a whole hour ahead as I forgot it was day light savings this morning. Since it was raining Jonathan and I headed straight down to the weight room to see what would get us motivated. I had found these 20 minute Yoga tapes a few weeks back and hadn't given them a shot yet. It was quite interesting to say the least, we started off with the flexibility tape and found out quickly the guy that was leading the exercise was related to gumby. We pushed on and did our best and learned some of the Yoga language as I'll call it. The mountain pose, the upward dog, the downward dog, the exultant warrior, and a few others. I kinda digged it and will probably keep that in the rotation.
Another development over the last couple weeks is that I decided after I cut my hair it was time to get over this despisement that I have of facial hair and pretty much hair in general...or at least challenge it. I did that by starting to let things go for a few weeks and not shave...and for the most part I kept to that. Someone had mentioned to me recently that in the original rule for the Franciscans that it was mandatory that the brothers had to grow a beard and the reasoning behind it was because "it is the manly and austere thing to do in imitation of Jesus Christ, Francis, and the early Church Fathers" I'll probably be "manly and austere" for one more week before shaving it off so my family can heckle and let me know what they think. ;)
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