On A Lighter Note

I think I might die on Saturday.

About two weeks ago, a status update appeared in my Facebook newsfeed asking if anyone wanted to go to the Minnesota Boundary waters.  Half-jokingly, I sent a note to the author suggesting that i would want to come.  He returned a message asking if I was serious and giving me a few things to consider before making a final decision.  Among these factors was that the trip would entail between six and ten hours of canoe paddling.  I thought about it but decided it would be hard to get the time off, and decided not to do it.

A few days later a seminarian from our diocese called to tell me that he would be joining that trip, but would be going later, and did I want to go with him.  It seemed too providential that this opportunity should present itself twice, and so after a brief conversation with the pastor (it took him about three minutes to arrange the schedule to permit me to have the time off) I called the seminarian and told him I was in.

I have wanted to do a boundary waters trip for about a year now.  The Lord has placed all of these new interests and hobbies (hunting, fishing, etc . . .) in my life, and such a trip seemed like a perfect culmination to a lengthy process of growth.  The idea of going into the wilderness with a bunch of other men was, for the first time, attractive to me.  I envied others who were planning such trips for themselves, and unsuccessfully tried to get myself invited.  It comes a bit of a surprise to myself, then, that even though I am excited to leave, I am also experiencing a vague feeling of panic.  Ten hours of rowing (One way) is a lot of rowing.  I am severely out of shape.  I am not a strong swimmer.  I get cold easily.  I like indoor plumbing.  I don't especially like insects.

But, this is a great adventure, and an adventure is just what I need.  I think it will help put into perspective the new leg of the adventure of following Christ I will undertake beginning July 1. 

I leave tomorrow and paddle on Saturday.  I'll write more when I return next week. Presuming, of course, that I don't die in the boundary waters.