Week 37

Day 252: Apr 19, 2015

Saying goodbye is.....

hard

sad

an excuse to visit other cities to visit

exciting- they are off to new adventures

Two friends left today. Mark and Max. Saying goodbye is one of those things that we get lots of practice doing here and we are entering the first of the twice-yearly major set of goodbyes. This time was one of the harder departures we have had in a while. Both were fairly long-term staffers and both were 20-somethings. Part of what I do to help cope with the frequent loss is to figure that these are not forever goodbyes. I will visit many of these people or they will visit me. It makes it a little easier. Today was different, though. Max has been fighting cancer for a few years now. The cancer has reoccured 3 times. The last time was about a year ago. The tumors were found in his neck and he was only given a year to live. They preformed surgery and the cancer has not reappeared yet. In this case, it is hard not to realize that I may not see him again. I may not get the chance to visit him. I hope and pray that I will have many decades left to visit and hang out with him but...

Day 253: Apr 20, 2015

Josh left today. We had a going away dinner last night in his chalet where we reminisced about his last year and then after eucharist we hung out in the jacuzzi. It was another one of those weird goodbye moments where I was both happy and sad. I was and am happy to see him moving on and he is going to have a great time on his road trip to his new home in Maine and I think he will be really good at and will enjoy his new job. It made me happy to see all of the love poured out toward him and I knew how much that meant to him. However, knowing that I will never see him in the village again was hard. I will see him again though, of that I am sure. I have never been to Maine before so that gives me the excuse to visit and he is a Bears fan so he will probably show up in Chicago at some point to see a game.

Day 254: Apr 21, 2015

A quiet and uneventful day.

Day 255: Apr 22, 2015

It's Earth Day!!!!!!! We didn't really do much to celebrate. I read an excerpt from A Sand County Almanac in the morning and vespers was somewhat based on the environment. Otherwise, it was a pretty exciting day. The new directors officially moved in. They brought their old, little dog. He is one of those dogs that is so ugly it is cute. It will be nice to have a “village pet”. I mean, he won't be outside much but he will be out more than any of the other pets. We also welcomed Alan Story. He is a Methodist pastor from South Africa and is doing bible study this week. I went to bible study this afternoon because I have heard really good things about the way he does it. It was very interesting but also slightly uncomfortable. He made some really good points about our country. We are the only country to drop an atomic bomb. We have the most military bases around the world compared to any other country. He raised the question, “are we the most terror spreading country in the world?”. If we look at ourselves from the view point of other countries, I think we have to say yeah, maybe. The other point that he raised is that empires never explode, they implode. In history, this has happened mainly because they begin to spend extraordinary amounts of money on security. Sound like any country/empire we know? There were quite a few points that he made that made me uncomfortable because they were the ugly truth. Our country is also pretty great in a lot of ways but knowing that we can also be looked at in the same light that we look at the Middle East is unsettling. IDK

Day 256: Apr 23, 2015

We had a variety show tonight so I opened the cart beforehand. We almost ran out of milk which will make tomorrow interesting. That was about all that happened though.

Day 257: Apr 24, 2015

Some of my regulars from last year came back into the village today! It was fun to see them again. It is funny because they are still all hanging out together like they used to. It is like a relatively calm frat of construction guys who range in age from 20s to 50s. Some have kids and some act like kids. I missed them and am glad to see them back.

Day 258: Apr 25, 2015

Oh man, it was cold today. There was a chill in the air that just did not go away. Otherwise it was an average day at the village.