Today was a good day. I was planning on going to watch "World of Color" at Cal Adventure with Nez, but a Twitter update from Tony let me know that we didn't have a chance to get a good spot for an early showing (see Twitter is actually pretty damn useful, world). However, Nez and I decided to roll with the punches and go to the adventurous California water show tomorrow (Tuesday). Instead of calling it a day, we decided to go bust a mission to get Nez some workout/running shoes. We didn't find any, but we got to do some cool stuff like playing with iPads and taking pictures at Fashion Island. Someday I'll have enough money to buy Fashion Island, but until that day, I'll stick with just walking around the place.
After this we did the most unexpected thing I could ever think of doing in the afternoon on a Monday: we went to mass. It's not to say I don't like going to daily mass, but I was really caught off guard when Nez asked if I wanted to go. It had been something that had never crossed my mind. I'm glad I went. When we got to Our Lady Queen of Angels, I was greeted with the most pleasant surprise: Fr. Will Davis, the former director of priest recruitment (I don't know his actual title) was presiding over the mass. I hadn't seen Fr. Will since Mike Pascual had invited me to go with him to a potential priests dinner that Fr. Will hosted at his residence. I remember it clearly not because all of the potential priest (young men discerning the call to be priests) were incredibly cool. It wasn't because everyone was talking about deep, intellectual, theological topics. I remember going to Fr. Will's dinner because it was the first time I had ever had salad...and it was delicious! Fr. Will's salad, which I think he grew himself, is the best salad I have ever tasted TO THIS DAY. It was great seeing him, and I definitely plan on going back to Our Lady Queen of Angels soon just to talk to the guy and see how he's doing (even though I've only met him once). I'm pretty sure he's of the Jesuit order, which is probably why I like him so much. The Jesuits are just so practical. During his homily, he began with "Jesus is talking to us in this Gospel passage because this is the LIVING WORD OF GOD, NOT THE DEAD WORD OF THE PAST." That really stuck out to me because we should always be living the word of God, not looking at it as some fairy tale that happened over 2000 years ago.
To sum everything up, I was really glad Nez invited me to go to mass on a random day during the week because it was something I needed. Lately, the only time I've been setting aside for God, besides daily praying, is one hour every Sunday for mass...and I'm not even there for the whole our, if y'know what I'm saying. Going to mass today gave me a chance to reflect, to calm down and just be with Him. I was able to question myself thinking "Why am I so scared to show my love for God lately? Who am I hurting?" and I was able to answer the question of what happened to everyone else. I used to think everyone else forgot about me, but at the same time, I wasn't making any effort to be with them because I was running away too. I don't know if we were all running in opposite directions, but needless to say, my running still played a part in expanding the gap. Time to turn around (BRIGHT EYES! sorry, "Total Eclipse" joke here).
Ended the day bowling with some great friends. Word of the day:
"I could totally write that in any of your shoes."
