The last day and a half or so have been amazing.
On Friday night I left immediately after Shine, and spent a good part of the evening talking with Chapter. So good. After that, I got into a long conversation with three friends about Crusade. That was also good.
Saturday my parents came up to visit, which was good since I don't get to see them nearly as much as I would like to. In all fairness, thats probably my fault. In any case, it was fun :) We went to the olive garden for lunch, my first time there. It was good. I also tried Sangria for the first time that lunch, and I liked it to. Then we watched "The Emporers New Groove", which is one of my favorite movies. Hilarious.
Last night was the Campus for Christ Christmas Banquet for our campus. Such fun. At my table we largely just acted like big kids all night; the fact that we were all in suits and dresses (or equivalent levels of la-de-da dressiness) only adding to the hilarity. We managed to hit the two story roof of the gym we were in with chocolate kisses launched from spoons, we butchered a few Christmas songs with the never get old joke of singing incredibly off key, and I really enjoyed singing the much deeper Christmas songs (which we didn't butcher) such "O Come O Come Emmanuel". A good speaker (Homiebear), some good skits, and good company. After the party everyone helped clean up and some of us went to "The Four Rooms", which is a jazz club in downtown Edmonton. Excellent Jazz club, solidified the plan to take Chapter to one some day, hopefully sooner than later, and hopefully one as good or better. I tried Jet Fuel (read: Scotch) for the first time, and though I enjoyed it, I have to say I will take Rum or Whiskey over that any day. Lastly, a friend and I finished the night off with the long time UofA Crusade tradition of a latenight McDonalds run. Except neither of us were sure where the appropriate McDonalds was, so after some driving, we found a 24 hr one, not the usual one, but still. Instead of parking behind the superstar (which I still have no clue where it is), we parked behind some warehouse or something.
Evenings like that are so good. It was a full evening of relaxing and fellowship, complete with a turkey dinner and grease in a bag. I won a mug and some gift certificates, but I forgot the mug at the gym... hopefully someone picked it up.
It was an evening where many of us felt perfectly comfortable to sit, quietly, enjoy ourselves with nothing on our minds, a quiet mood that didn't have to turn introspective, and others felt comfortable just being ridiculous.
I hope and pray that many of your holiday moments, and your regular moments, can be filled with such times, whatever such times would look like for you. Times when the natural human desire to be right way up can be satisfied, when Joy becomes bigger than you can comprehend and sadness becomes something small and special, times when you are confident that though we are surrounded by a silent starry abyss, it is only silent because the laughter of heaven is too loud for us to hear.
On Friday night I left immediately after Shine, and spent a good part of the evening talking with Chapter. So good. After that, I got into a long conversation with three friends about Crusade. That was also good.
Saturday my parents came up to visit, which was good since I don't get to see them nearly as much as I would like to. In all fairness, thats probably my fault. In any case, it was fun :) We went to the olive garden for lunch, my first time there. It was good. I also tried Sangria for the first time that lunch, and I liked it to. Then we watched "The Emporers New Groove", which is one of my favorite movies. Hilarious.
Last night was the Campus for Christ Christmas Banquet for our campus. Such fun. At my table we largely just acted like big kids all night; the fact that we were all in suits and dresses (or equivalent levels of la-de-da dressiness) only adding to the hilarity. We managed to hit the two story roof of the gym we were in with chocolate kisses launched from spoons, we butchered a few Christmas songs with the never get old joke of singing incredibly off key, and I really enjoyed singing the much deeper Christmas songs (which we didn't butcher) such "O Come O Come Emmanuel". A good speaker (Homiebear), some good skits, and good company. After the party everyone helped clean up and some of us went to "The Four Rooms", which is a jazz club in downtown Edmonton. Excellent Jazz club, solidified the plan to take Chapter to one some day, hopefully sooner than later, and hopefully one as good or better. I tried Jet Fuel (read: Scotch) for the first time, and though I enjoyed it, I have to say I will take Rum or Whiskey over that any day. Lastly, a friend and I finished the night off with the long time UofA Crusade tradition of a latenight McDonalds run. Except neither of us were sure where the appropriate McDonalds was, so after some driving, we found a 24 hr one, not the usual one, but still. Instead of parking behind the superstar (which I still have no clue where it is), we parked behind some warehouse or something.
Evenings like that are so good. It was a full evening of relaxing and fellowship, complete with a turkey dinner and grease in a bag. I won a mug and some gift certificates, but I forgot the mug at the gym... hopefully someone picked it up.
It was an evening where many of us felt perfectly comfortable to sit, quietly, enjoy ourselves with nothing on our minds, a quiet mood that didn't have to turn introspective, and others felt comfortable just being ridiculous.
I hope and pray that many of your holiday moments, and your regular moments, can be filled with such times, whatever such times would look like for you. Times when the natural human desire to be right way up can be satisfied, when Joy becomes bigger than you can comprehend and sadness becomes something small and special, times when you are confident that though we are surrounded by a silent starry abyss, it is only silent because the laughter of heaven is too loud for us to hear.
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