This morning my commute in to school after dropping the kids off was very interesting. There was flood damage everywhere and the river through town was very swollen. In the cafeteria, there was a lot of buzz about the high water last night.

As I sat down with my coffee to read a chapter before class I saw a friend sitting with someone who looked familiar. I had seen them on the way in but chose not to sit with them uninvited. On my way out however I realized that the other guy looked very familiar, so much so that I had to stop and talk to him. He was very friendly and asked me about my academic path. We ended our conversation without figuring out where we knew each other from. I am grateful that these things are not that awkward for me anymore.

My professor gave a very interesting lecture today. He talked about the academic choices that we must discern. He laid it out very well and it was exceedingly helpful to me. I came out of it with a renewed sense of enthusiasm and a feeling of having made some right choices. I also had a sense of optimism that I can make it through college.

I had to return to class to get my umbrella that I left. I remembered where I knew the guy from the cafeteria. We knew each other from the meeting that I used to attend downtown when I worked there. For some unknown reason it occurred to me that that my tenure at that job was destined to be a term not lasting. I felt less regret about having been let go.

This morning I recall thinking about several significant ideas that I wished to write about that I can't recall now. It seems that I was thinking about the benefits of knowing the stages of development and the development of character. I was also thinking about a way to communicate the opposite of virtues without calling them vices or sins. Perhaps it was related to something my professor was saying about the protestant work ethic and the related treatment of the poor. I was thinking that the problem was the lack of reason and objectivity and a purely emotion based attitude of shame and contempt.

Back at home I turned on the TV to check the weather and became captivated by a movie about Karol Wojtyla. I made plans to watch it with my family on Saturday night. There was one particular scene that was very moving. A young Karol saw a Nazi exiting the confessional as he entered the church to visit his mentor. He chastised the priest about this in the midst of the reign of terror that was being inflicted upon them. They showed the Nazi praying his penance in the pew. This was after repeatedly portraying the cruelty, depravity, and brutality of them in previous scenes. It reminded me very much of the movie Schindler's List. Later in the movie the Nazi officer is shown tendering his resignation as a matter of conscience. He is put before a firing squad and the priest is called upon to take his last confession. The priest was also executed. I had the sense that this was a life changing event for me, although I also felt that I should have been studying math.

In the evening my wife asked me to run some errands. I stopped in to the thrift store but sat in the truck talking to a sponsee who just moved here from another city and is distressed over his unemployment. He is now stressed over a job prospect. I was grateful about this for him and talked him through his anxiety. He helped me very much. I saw that I have a great life and the opportunities to serve are emdless.

Thanks be to God for this day.