The Face of the Planet

In case my loyal readers are wondering if I have fallen off the face of the planet, the short answer is, yes. I have. This past weekend, I fell off the face of the planet into the mountains. I had retreat formation to prepare student teams for diocesan-wide retreats next semester. I went on my first retreat when I was a freshman and teamed each subsequent year until I graduated, so these retreats are very near and dear to my hearts.

I could use this post to describe my love of the mountains, but I'm afraid that my effusions, while bringing me joy, would not make an arresting read. I could use this post to describe the strangeness of going back as an "adult" to a place that had been mine as a "student" and still felt as though it should belong to me. But I think that sentence sums it up fairly well.

So instead, I will share with you my experience of karma. Or perhaps God's humor.

For the past few weeks, whenever I have spoken with my youngest sister, she has described to me, in detail and with high emotion, the stink bugs on her campus. First, they were in her window. Then they were in her room. They looked gross and she couldn't ignore them. Now, I am the girl whom others call to rescue them from bugs. I am the girl who carries spiders outside rather than killing them. So I made a less-than-perfect audience for these woes.

Walking into my room in the campus minister's building, however, I discovered that I had more roommates than my human-sized one from another campus. They were small and brown and flew! I flushed a few before I decided that killing them was a losing battle. I'd ignore them, I thought, and sleep.

Wrong. I couldn't get to sleep and the bugs kept crawling or flying onto my roommate, making her jump or scream. It was a long night... and I thought of my sister the whole time, with a lot more sympathy.