Easter Vigil
I've just walked in the door from my morning run, and wouldn't you know that Yadira handed me a cup of coffee straight away! I ran about 3 miles down the Ribble River this morning at 9AM. It's how I get my focus for the rest of the day; I let my feet pound along the path and I let my body take over. I've seen such beautiful things running, but today was the best. I passed a pair of swans on the river so beautiful that I stopped for a minute just to watch them. They were so graceful, and I think they might have been observing me as well.
Yesterday was Good Friday and at Mass I heard something that really made me reflect on my own life. In St. John's Gospel, when the guards come to take Jesus off to be crucified, Jesus asks them, "Who are you looking for?" This in itself is significant. Truly, whom or what are we searching out in our lives? What do we seek and how are we searching?
The guardsmen answered, "Jesus of the Nazarene."
Jesus replied, "I have told you that I am he. If I am the one you are looking for, let these others go."
Jesus said this in reference to his friends that had been with him in the garden. Perhaps it is applicable in another way as well for modern people. Christ urges people to cast aside all then hinders them and keeps them from full communion with God. In this light, "these others" can be anything that separates us from the love of God...If we are to be true followers of Christ, we are to let everything else go. I look at the things I cling to in my own life, and I urge you to do the same. Consider what it would mean to cast them away and truly follow Christ in a new way. If he is the one you are looking for, there is no other way.

Come and see his hands and feet.
The scars that speak of sacrifice
Hands that flung stars into space
To cruel nails surrendered.

Stratford was really amazing...I got out into the country for a day or so. It turned out to be a wonderful trip. Yadira should be back from Spain tomorrow and I can't wait. It's been werid not having her around for the past week. I checked this morning and I've got 49 days until I'm back on US soil. Thank God for that. I was talking to Laurin last night and she was looking for someone to go to church with her...I was so wishing I could go! It's so weird how life just goes on when you leave somewhere as if you'd never been there to begin with. I can't wait to get back to good old Sexy Lexy and spend some time with a few people. Hell, maybe Nat and I will even go out for Indian again...he was cool as hell.
I've really been trying to motivate myself to get some work done while it's been quiet here. I've been running nearly every day and reading novels like it's nobody's business. I read Nicholas Sparks The Notebook yesterday...he's the guy who wrote A Walk to Remember. I thought it was ok, but it seemed so sappy. It lacked any real statements about things that matter. It took up about 3 hours of my afternoon, so I can't complain.
My flatmate Janine, her boyfriend Phil, and I went to Manchester on Saturday night to see a few bands play. I really honestly didn't have that great of a time. The bands sucked, as most bands do, and I was SO ready to go home about 10 minutes after we walked in. To top it all off, some idiotic English girl was talking shit about Americans on the train on the way home. I bit my tongue until it bled. Janine was cracking up..I was in such a horrid mood to begin with and then I was ready to brawl once that ignorant girl opened her mouth. I was thisclose to slapping her. I just hate it when people talk about Americans not even thinking that there could be one right behind them or something. I can't wait to be home.
I wonder what kind of luck my flatmates are having at finding a house close to campus. Hopefully it'll be closer than Waller Avenue was...that was a real hassle.