I imagine that it goes without saying that I have been exceptionally busy the past few days. Every day I say that I am going to get back on track with my written evening review but I end up passing out at the end of a long day without doing so. It's getting to the point that at least one day I forgot altogether about this discipline. I will say however that every night I pray with the children and verbally review together with them.

This weekend my family and I celebrated my birthday. My parents came over and we had a nice little dinner. I was especially surprised to hear my sister's voice when she called me. We had an awkward conversation. The result of a lack of relationship for so many years I suppose.

Saturday morning I took the little ones to tee ball practice. All went well until my daughter decide to have a fit and throw her glove down and walk away and sit in the middle of the field. At first I confidently handled it with the threat of time out minutes. All it was was that she wanted water too soon and I didn't want to make a special exception for her. Looking back I see that I need to explain the concept of following the team, practice, and game agenda with no special treatment for anyone. But she refused to cooperate and eventually I got very embarassed and had to awkwardly carry her off the field and sit her in time out. I had to persevere with practice in spite of this. She eventually came around and I didn't overdo the punishment.

Sunday morning we had a similar experience at mass. The kids seem to have taken a step backward in their behavior. I barely perceived what the gospel reading and homily were about.

Last night I was up very late doing a homework assignment. Also, I got good news in that my wife got me enrolled in an online math class. All weekend we were worried about how I was going to get the kids to their ball games in the evening with the lecture class that I was scheduled to start today. At the eleventh hour my wife got the idea to look at the availability again and found this slot for me. Thanks be to God and God bless her.

Saturday night we made nice. I have mixed feelings about this as we haven't really communicated about our differences, but I am grateful nevertheless.

Yesterday I got an unexpected message on facebook from an unlikely friend that he is discerning a relationship with God and would like to talk. Today I thought about what advice that I might give him. Looking back I think that I might be forgetting the best plan which would be to listen.

We had an interesting subject in my social services class today. It was the treatment of the elderly and the prospect of growing old. We watched a movie about this and then broke out into groups to discuss the subject. Everyone started talking free form and I got us on track going in a circle answering a series of questions about this. Most people didn't have any thoughts about this and stated that it was just too difficult to deal with. I was exceedingly grateful that God has enabled me to face this life issue and come to terms with it. I was able to share some perspectives and see that I have some work to do. I need to look at it more and discern the way that all of us in my family should approach our own plan for aging and how we treat each other.

This evening I got to pick up my 7 year keytag at a 12 step meeting. It was a truly humbling experience and I was very grateful. After the meeting I got the unfortunate confirmation that my sponsor had relapsed. I am now faced with the difficult discernment of picking a new sponsor. There are only two choices that I know of offhand and it was one of them that informed me and talked to me for a long time tonight. I asked him to be my point of accountability for now.

Thanks be to God.

P.S. Holy cow! I just listened to the homily from this week's mass. It was the parable of the crafty steward who was dishonest. Jesus said to his disciples:
"The person who is trustworthy in very small matters
is also trustworthy in great ones;
and the person who is dishonest in very small matters
is also dishonest in great ones."
This is exactly what I was thinking about tonight in discussing how dishonesty leads to spiritual depravity.

Then Fr. Barron talked about something that has been coming up for me a lot lately. The time and effort and priority with which we act to maintain our physical lives, our home, car, body, finances, but we do not act so resolutely when it comes to spiritual matters.