Buying boxes for the move.
Walking along a Chelsea street,
looking down.
A baby is without his binky.
Look out!

John died this morning at 9:30 am when the doctors removed his resperator.
I knew him just a few weeks, but he made quite an impression. I regret his leaving, but rejoice in his new life.
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant John. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everylasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.

There was a guy that just started showing up at chapel a few months ago – the daily offices, daily Eucharist, Compline, etc. After a time and after seeing him in the library, I introduced myself and we got to know one another. He lives here in Chelsea about a block from the seminary and over the past year has been home bound by a strange illness effecting his heart. He told me that during his illness he used to say the daily office over the Internet, but now that he was recovering he came to the seminary to be with real people once again. John is a great guy, and I am amazed that he maintains such a positive and upbeat attitude.
About three weeks ago, John returned to the hospital because of some strange back pains. Doctors discovered that he has Hodgkin’s Disease. He started chemotherapy. I was surprised to see him at a local coffee shop a week ago last Tuesday (May 31st). He had undergone his first round of chemotherapy and was as positive and upbeat as ever. We planned to get together when I returned from Ohio. Yesterday, June 12th, a mutual friend told me that John has returned to the hospital and has been given only a couple days to live. He is now on a ventilator and is unconscious. I am in shock.
Life is so fragile. I am amazed at the resilience of the human body, the soul, the will for life. Yet, life is so fragile. Please pray for John and his family. I have witness seemingly miraculous recoveries of cancer patients (even last summer during CPE!). All things are possible for God, but in all things God’s will be done. If it is John’s time, I know that though he is absent from his body he is present with Christ. For a Christian, the end is no more.

I woke up early this morning, which did not surprise me. I still do not know… actually, I do not feel much different than I normally do. The thought struck me this morning that this day has been coming for nearly six years now. These past three years of seminary have been in preparation for this day and the day in six months when I am ordained priest, Lord willing. So, in many ways, this is just the natural outcome of the past three to six years. Like graduation. I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t anxious. It all happened too quickly for me to be sad. It was fun and exciting and wonderful to be with all the people with whom I have so closely lived and experience life over the past three years. I feel the same way today – I will be with Lisa and Elaine and we will be fulfilling that for which we have prepared these past years.
I tried praying this morning and nothing profound happened. I feel as if I should be having this mystical experience. Nothing much came. I am just here and there is not much more that I can do or be right now. Silence, perhaps. Just letting things be. Just let things be.

I’m not sure what to think, what to feel, or what to expect. I keep being asked how I feel, whether I am excited or not, or what do I think about all this. I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.
I keep saying that it is all happening too fast for me to really judge what I am thinking or feeling. I honestly do not have any expectations of might happen – I just don’t know. Tomorrow will be a leap into the unknown, despite the stories of classmates of mine who have already been ordained. I just don’t have a good handle of what to expect.
Yesterday’s retreat was nice, although of little help in terms of preparation – at least for me. I keep thinking of the preparation the Roman or Orthodox Ordainands might go through the day or days before ordination. Perhaps what they experience is too far on the other side of the preparation continuum, but we are certainly on the other end. I was asked what I was going to do today. I have spent most of the day reading, eating pizza for lunch, and reading some more. I am getting ready to go to the ordination practice, and then family. I could have spent the day in prayer – do you think that might have been appropriate? But, I don’t know what to pray for – I mean really pray for. I can say prayers, but that isn’t the same. All I can say is, “God, I have no clue what to pray for!”
Am I ready? The Church says I am. Am I ready? My family and friends say they think I am. Am I ready? My seminary says I am. Am I ready, God? I don’t know what the answer is, but tomorrow will happen, Lord willing, and whether I feel that I am ready or not I will have to be.
I’m not getting all mystical, but I just don’t know what will change, if anything. I know I will still be me with all my proclivities and abilities, but everything will change in some way or another. Am I completely mistaken in this? I don’t know. I will see. All three of us will see!

It is an odd thing – the other person of a relationship… the other person of such significance in one’s life. So many times I think to myself, “The most dreadful thing I can think of right now is having to talk to anyone,” or “go to a meeting,” or “listen to someone called wanting to spill-their-guts,” as I am half-asleep, or “over-peopled.” Then, that one other person calls, and I answer the phone. I want to. I am just as tired, just as needful for alone-time, just as whatever, yet I am not bothered by that other person.
I have said that I do not know whether I am cut out to be a priest or not. I have said to friends, other priests, that I do not know whether I could at times bring myself to get up at 2:00 am to visit a family in the hospital as a loved one dies. There are times when every fiber of my being would rebel against such unselfish giving. And they said, “You will.” They said, “You will find the strength.” They said, “You do it because you love those people.” It will have to be God’s enabling! Perhaps, it is something like that person who is so significant in one’s life that you do not mind a call, a visit, a snuggle at the very time when you think nothing in the world could be worse than just that kind of thing.
I arrived back in Ohio today for my ordination to the “Holy Order of Deacons in God’s one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.” I had a real sense of dread – not concerning ordination, but I felt that same sense of loneliness that I sometimes felt before heading to New York. I do not want to find myself once again in a place where I know no one and have to attempt to establish new friendships. It is hard at this stage of the game. I do not want to be here alone. I am going to find it very difficult to be away from the one person of such significance that I don’t mind a phone call at the most inopportune time.
Tomorrow, I am on a pre-ordination “retreat.” Then, dinner with the Bishop. Saturday, June 4th, four of us will be ordained Deacons! This is it. This is the beginning of the culmination of the last five years. I have no clue! I also have no job!
Next Wednesday, I have an interview in Toledo for a chaplaincy position. It is a great opportunity for someone – perhaps for me. I just don’t know.