"Did you use everything I gave you?"

       During Holy Week two of my students traveled to Honduras with Gehlen Mission Honduras. Today they had the opportunity to share their experience with our school system.  We had the opportunity to hear their stories, see their pictures, and watch a video Gehlen created of the trip.

        Though I have been on service trips myself, seeing the trip through their eyes provided another experience.  First, I am amazed that a small Catholic school system in Iowa maintains a fully operational, year-round mission program thousands of miles from their own town.  Their school is able to provide the financial and spiritual support necessary to run such a mission by volunteering their own "time, talent and treasure."

        Sitting next to Liam and Katy (the two students who had taken the trip) as the movie played, I could see tears in Katy's eyes as she relived the memories, and hear Liam patiently explain the pictures to his younger siblings. They answered their classmates questions, talked of lessons learned, and affirmed their own desires to return.  As the movie played, one quote stood out to me.

 "Did you use everything I gave you?"

   I was forced to ask myself, do I?  Do I use everything God gave me?  Do I truly use all my resources wisely - my time, my talents, my gifts, my treasure?  I know how I want to answer God at the end of my life, and I know I am a long way from reaching that goal... I know that there are days when I waste the valuable time I have been given.  Days when I rest in fear and anxiety instead of using my talents to serve others.  Days when I make excuses instead of use my gifts.

Sitting on my bureau is a glass of water.  It is room temperature.  It has sat there since I poured it last night, when I wanted some water before going to sleep.  It doesn't matter we think, water runs freely from our taps.  It is in this simple act, the fact that after finishing this entry that I will get up, dump out the water and refill my cup, that I am already failing to use what I am given.  80% of the world's health problems stem from poor water.  Poor water quality is the reason I met a child in Mexico whose mother thought he might die - he had diarrhea.  Poor water quality is the reason my students took month's worth of anti-malarial medicine before venturing to Honduras.

At the end of our lives, how will we answer.  What will we say when God asks, did you use everything I gave you?

Alleluias and Inspiration - Or A Weird Sermon at Mt. Rushmore

Easter 2010. My second holiday away from Home. It's safe to say I celebrated Easter a bit differently this year. There was no Easter egg hunt. I went to Easter Vigil at the Cathedral instead of morning Mass at Holy Cross or St. Thomas. There were 6 people at Easter dinner and I tied for second youngest. And, I started off the day at Mt. Rushmore with a Sunrise Service. Why did I decide to wake up early and leave my house at 6am for a service that it turned out could be described as "interesting" at best, and "offensive" at worse? The real question is, why not? As I said, the service was a bit bizarre. The 116 member drum corps was awesome, but their music was more downtown street performance or football halftime show than Easter inspiration. The sermon was given by a man in jeans and a cowboy hat. The topic? The magic of the Resurrection. He began by talking of how some of the magic has been lost in a culture which values the material, and on this we agree. I was lost however as soon as Islam was mentioned as one of the evils of postmodernism. You mean you haven't heard? News just in, we've all been deceived, Islam is not a 1400 year old religion, in fact it has only existed post-1980.... yeah, right.


What is my point with all of this? My point is why not? As much as I disagreed with (parts) of the sermon being delivered it led me to think, why not try something new? While at Mt. Rushmore I spied the adorable patchwork bag a woman two rows in front of me carried and thought, "I wish I could make something like that." But, having slightly tuned out the sermon, I thought some more and realized, I can. Not to say I could sit down this afternoon and whip up a purse before dinner, but what is stopping me from learning? And so I begin the fruit of this question. A quest to establish goals and work to reach them. A list just over 100 things long, things to do, accomplish, learn. Not to do before I die, or accomplish before I turn 30. Simply a list of things to do in the next year. Things to accomplish before May 31, 2011.


And what can you do? Peruse the list. (Click on this link, or where it says "101 Things" at the top of the page below the quote). Make your own. Choose one of my goals and decide you too want to accomplish it. Check up on me, hold me accountable. Most importantly step back and ask yourself the same question which led me here - What is stopping you?