What a weekend!

This past weekend, I took 22 members of my choir from Eisenhower Middle School to Hummingbird Music Camp, up in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico.  It was a great weekend, a great chance for my students to bond, and a great chance for me to get some much needed work done with my choir!  It's been a long time since I've been on a retreat like that, much less led one, so I had kind of forgotten the sense of fulfillment that comes with completing a retreat like that, along with the feeling of sheer exhaustion that comes as well!  I am so proud of my students for making it through the 8 hours of rehearsal that we had up there, especially since I pushed them to the breaking point, and even a little beyond!

The people at Hummingbird were very nice, even if Wanda and Elliot Higgins don't have filters anymore, due to their age (Wanda is 91, and Elliot, her son is in his 70's.)  Wanda was asking me if I had a wife while I was sitting with one of the band clinicians and her family, and the EMS Band director and his son.  When I told her "no", her response was "Honey, if you don't have a wife, you don't have a life!" and then proceeded to ask me when I was going to find the right girl.  The band director and I shared a laugh at this remark, because he is one of the few people at the school who knows about my discernment of the Priesthood, and how I'll be leaving at the end of the school year.

My students really enjoyed the hike that we went on Saturday afternoon, especially because they got to see me crawl on my hands and knees through a drainage culvert to get under the highway, because the person leading the hike didn't want anyone to actually cross the highway, and I didn't want to set a bad example for the kids.  I think that was the most intense hike I have ever been on!  In the 1.5-2 miles that we hiked over 2 hours, we climbed roughly 1,500 feet!  It was definitely a good workout, and a great reminder of how out of shape I am... something I definitely should work on in the future.

Coming back on Sunday, a couple of my students was talking about how the school district made the decision to have us go to school on Good Friday to make up one of our snow days.  One of my students mentioned that she "didn't know what Good Friday meant", and even though I wanted so badly to explain it to her, I knew I couldn't, because it would be overstepping my boundaries as a Public School teacher.  But it made me realize again how much I miss leading Church retreats, and being able to talk about my faith, without having to censor myself because "my contract forbids it".  Hopefully when I'm teaching in the Basilian schools, I'll be able to lead retreats that involve plenty of singing, but also time for faith sharing as well!