It has been many semesters since I wrote last. I am now a senior at Wyoming Catholic College and boy oh boy has it been a ride. I won't update in detail, that would be mind numbingly boring, but I will try to comment on growth.

Just yesterday at Mass the priest gave a homily on the need for death in order for life and growth to take place. Like when a seed dies so a new plant can grow and live. This is a fairly simple concept to understand in the mind. Perhaps when one first understands it intellectually one says to himself "Ah, yes, very true, very profound." But when does one really understand? When does one reach that point where one feels the Truth of a thing sink from one's head to one's heart? How does one obtain that "oooohhh, THIS is what that means" moment.

For me it happened sometime Sophomore year. The novelty of the school had worn off and what I saw left sitting there was my own incompetence and the incompetence of those around me. I saw dishonesty in relationships, immaturity, and academic power-plays. My ideals were shattered. I experienced real pain because I understood what the pain was so much better after one year of a liberal arts education. I had had just enough of the good thing so it almost to seem a poison to me. I understood reality just enough for it to be horrifying. "This is life?" I asked myself? I was the seed; wet, cold, and in the dark being told to just hurry up and die already. It took all year for me to get the concept in my heart. I wanted so badly to hang on to what I had been that I was too afraid to let it go so that I could become something better. I still remember the moment. "Waaait, I've gotta let it go. I have to die as Christ and hope that He will make me into what He has promised to make me into. I must trust something OTHER than what I am. Is that really it, that's all I gotta do?"

Weeelllll, easier said than done. Junior year was God happily giving me opportunities to practice applying this realization and me failing abysmally. "What's the deal?" I thought. "things were supposed to get easier!" Apparently there's such a thing as growing pains. What God DIDN'T tell me what that that first little heart felt realization what the first of a life-long series of realizations. Nothing is ever easy. Every week, or every day, or every minute of every day I have to pull my head out of a dark place and realize that it's not me doing anything and God doing everything. Junior year was me accepting this in various ways; in acedemics. I had to accept that my education was going to be the way that it was going to be becuase I was where God wanted me "so shut up and stop whining." Check. In relationships and through loss of friendship. Really, truly, the only person I can always, always rely on is God. It is this reliance that will give my everyday relationships their real meaning. The strength of a relationship, no matter what kind, whether it be with your mother, or your brother, or your dear friend, depends on its weakness in Christ. What God holds up will last; what he does not won't "so shut up and stop whining." Check.

So Senior year....looks like it will simply be a valiant attempt not to whine as my young green shoots get streched farther and farther, to the very heavens. Hopefully, my heart will be able to keep up. "Further up and futher in!"

Prosit.