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For those of you among my legion of online fans who have wondered where the heck Doogie got to these last few days, let me put you and your freshly gnawed fingernails at ease. [Forgive me, my ego is dancing a jig right now.]

I'm still here.

This post is untitled because no title can possibly fit. I've just spent a weekend on a TEC retreat and can't really put the experience into words, for reasons which you can only know if you go on a TEC retreat yourself (see the "Other Web Sites" section in the above link to find a local TEC).

You should go. Really, I really, really mean that. If you're Catholic (or can at least tolerate Catholicism in your quest for closeness with Christ) you should go. Don't ask me for more information, as I can't provide it.

What I can share however, is how God touched my life over this last weekend.

Of the many things I am, some of the more unpleasant ones include angry, hurt, and scared. I'm not sure what causes these emotions in me. So I brought them to Christ in prayer and asked him to fix me. What he has revealed to me is that my "introvertedness" is really just me hiding. It's not an innocent personality trait; it's almost a disorder of sorts.

An image came to me of a small concrete bunker surrounded by coils of barbed wire in the middle of a vast wasteland. That's where I hide when surrounded by people; even if I venture out of the bunker and act like a fun-loving, chair-jumping, sudden-piggyback-ride-imposing extrovert, there is still an emotional barrier between me and the people I'm with. The barbed wire is still between us. As soon as the distraction of fun is gone, I usually encounter an uncomfortable silence between me and whoever I'm with where I don't know how to really commune with them. So I have to do something else really bizarre to hide the discomfort.

This behaviour makes real intimacy hard in marriage. It also makes real communion with the Church rather difficult. God and the Saints can reach me in my bunker, but earthbound mortals have no chance.

So I prayed for God to break it apart. I prayed for him to ignore my cries of protest as he swings his wrecking ball of love at my fortress of solitude.

Currently, it still stands, but it's not quite as intact as it used to be. I now know that I must be present to my earthly brothers and sisters. This bunker should not be a part of my life. God intends for me to be able to function without it.

I do realize that there is still great merit to be found in private meditation and reflection, but the fruit of that reflection should be able to be shared with the community. That's why I'm posting this online for the world to see.

Also, I ask my new friends from TEC to be patient with me, and to hold me to this growth. If I come to a social event and slink away unnoticed, please notice. If you detect a sudden distance in my eyes in the middle of a conversation, clap, or shout, or wave some cheese around, or do something to pull me through the barbed wire. I want that communion; I need it!

God Is Good

For those of you who didn't already know, TEC is addictive. And I'm not talking about this kind.

I've just made my fourth consecutive retreat, and I can't enough of this. It's funny; my wife made her first TEC a couple years back and when she returned she was the most calm and peaceful I had seen her in all the time I've known her. There was a serenity and a tranquility to her spirit that warmed my soul from her mere proximity, and when she told me I should go on the next retreat, I initially refused - I wanted her to go so she could be like that again and again.

But I guess there's an advantage to me being serene and tranquil for my wife. Mostly due to the restrictions placed on her social flexibility by newborns, I have gone on every retreat since hers, leaving her to care for the children. She's a trooper and I love her for it, although it's probably her turn next time, as our youngest will be a year old and well within my ability to handle on my own. Sigh. It'd be neat if we could both go, but who's going to babysit for a whole long weekend?

Anyway, what God did for me this weekend was incredible. While I'm in no danger of losing the faith, I had lost my faith. By which I mean that I knew in my head what the love of God means for me, but my heart was disconnected from that truth. During a period of prayer & meditation, I had an image in my head of the crucified Christ, but something didn't look right. His eyes were, well, to put it bluntly, kinda freaky looking. They looked too big and too bright and too colourful. I zoomed in for a closer look, and saw that his eyes were filled with the scenes from my life where I had felt the most rejected and abandoned. He told me that he had thought of me - of ME! - during his Passion and that he bore my hurt on his shoulders along with the cross.

He also told me that if he were to reveal the fullness of his love for me right then and there, I wouldn't be able to handle it; it would shatter me. He promised to take me deeper and deeper into the depths of it if only I would give him the chance to do so with every today. I look forward to what he has in store for me.

Once Again

So I go off on retreat again this weekend, on TEC #74. For those of you unfamiliar with TEC, check out the website. In a nutshell, it's a weekend of intense prayer and sacrifice, and I've been looking forward to this for months.

Lately I've been coming to terms with some serious healing that God is trying to impart into my life, and it's the kind of healing that involves peeling back layers of scars to remove a centuries-old thorn. Painful, unpleasant, and all around nasty. My faith is being tested through this process, and it's difficult not to let life grind to a halt while I work through this. Still, this healing is a good thing, and I need to see it through to its end.

So please keep me in your prayers, dear reader, this weekend and the months ahead. I'll post again once I'm back.

Prayers Needed

I'm doing another TEC retreat this long weekend (it's Canadian thanksgiving, for my foreign visitors), this time in more of a leadership role.

To refresh your memory, here is my description of the first TEC retreat I went on.

Please pray for all those in leadership and the retreatants themselves, that God would cause us to be open to what he has planned for us.

Incognito

I'll won't be posting for a few days (not that I've been real regular in the last while) as I'm doing another TEC retreat this weekend.

I ask for your prayers, that those going on the retreat for the first time will be open to what God calls them to, and that those of us guiding them through that journey will be gifted with wisdom and discernment.

I will, however, be missing Games 5 and 6 (if needed) of the Ottawa - Buffalo series, which is actually a big sacrifice for me. Pray that I'll be able to survive the retreat without knowing what's going on, as we'll be completely cut off from the outside world.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

Despite my amazing TEC weekend, the bunker is still a factor in my life (read that link if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Sure, it's sustained some damage, but it's remarkably resilient and is still standing. I still find myself retreating into it whenever my comfort zone is challenged.

I try to open up to people, but it's so hard for me. I've been hurt by most of my close friends in my life - not that it was always their fault.

In grades 1 & 2 my two best friends both moved away.

In grade 6 I made a new best friend, but was crushed when he moved away the same year. Obviously that was his parents' decision, not his, but pain knows no reason. I remember being at school shortly after he was gone and leaning on the wall by myself at recess. My homeroom teacher approached me and inquired how I was doing, and I told her my friend had moved away (he had gone to a different school). I was very even-toned and emotionless when I told her this, but she was keen enough to perceive the pain beneath and did show me some empathy.

Of all the lost friends, losing him was the hardest. His family had just moved into town, and our dads worked together. My dad told me and my brothers about his new boss' two boys and said that we should go over some day and visit them. They only lived 2 blocks away, so one day we did. It took me a few days to work up the courage to go to a complete stranger's house and introduce myself, but I did it. Big risk. I found out that we had a very important interest in common, and we hit it off. But his family moved away less than a year later.

The next two years, I was without a best friend. Then in grade 9 I switched schools and made another. We were the closest of chums, up until grade 12, when he rejected the faith and went down a road I refused to travel. I took that as another rejection.

My roommate in my bachelor years was a half-decent friend too, but he shunned me when I announced I was thinking of becoming Catholic.

Since then, I haven't really connected with anybody on that level. Really, who could blame me?

Please know that I'm not looking for pity by posting this. I'm trying to be real. I'm just writing as it comes to me.

Now my wife wants in. She wants to be my best friend. She can't figure out why it's hard for me to allow her to get that close to me. At one point, she was that close. But my coping mechanism has learned that in order to avoid being hurt, I must be the one that withdraws. And if you ever wanted a tip on how to make a woman feel rejected, let me tell you: that's a great way.

My bunker is safe, it is warm, it is secure. But by God, is it ever lonely.

Oddly Enough

In our congregation this morning, when we heard the long Gospel reading of the Passion of Jesus, we didn't erupt in rage at the "lies" told about Judas' betrayal. Yeah, that Gospel of Judas is really gonna shake up the foundation of Christianity. At least, for the Sola Scriptura crowd who can't come up with a reason not to include it in the canon.

And have I ever got a dilemma. My beloved Ottawa Senators are playing the insidious Toronto Maple Leafs this Saturday, which today I suddenly realized is Holy Saturday. I'll be at the Easter Vigil.

This is a big sacrifice for me. We have farmer vision (an antenna) instead of cable TV, and are forced to watch Leafs games every Saturday night because the CBC bigwigs from Hockey Night In Canada think that's what the rest of Canada wants to see. For the later game, the CBC will rotate coverage among the three western Canadian teams. So they only way I can watch my Sens play is if they're playing Toronto (or less often, the Canucks, Oilers, or Flames).

Thus this Saturday is my last chance to catch the Sens in regular season action before the playoffs. And I'll be at the Easter Vigil.

Oh well. At least it won't be in the playoffs. But I'll still be missing at least one game while on TEC for the May long weekend.

Plus, sacrifice is part of Lent, even in its last moments.