Sunday, March 14, 2004

Faith Factor: I survived.
I'm back from my weekend Confirmation Retreat. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had made it out to be, but it did contain many of the aspects that I had dreaded.

They gave us all small notebooks and those neat pencils that have about nine tips in them. When you need a new tip, you just take out the one you have, and press it into the back of the pencil. You know about those, right? :p

Anyways, I kept a vague sort of record of what happened over the weekend, the good and the bad.

We left Sacred Heart at about 5:00, maybe 5:30. It was an hour and a half to get to the retreat center, which was located out of state. They wanted to be sure that no one would hear our screams....


Okay, so that wasn't the reason. Regardless, the trip took a while and I was tired (as usual, heh). So, I slept. I got up a little before we reached the place and listened as my "peers" talked about random things. I do a lot of listening in this group/class. So, we got there, we unpacked, ate, got our rooms, etc. etc.

Then, we played Jeopardy. Only, this was Jeopardy with a Catholic twist. All of the questions and categories had to do with Catholicism or something related to it. We had 23 kids, so we divided into three teams.

My team won; all of these years at Catholic school paid off in a competitive way. The rules kept changing and confusing people, due to the number and temperament of all involved. It made for a fun evening.

Unfortunately, that was not all they had planned for the night. And they were already running late. So, we stayed up until 12:00 in the morning discussing being dictated to. Anyone who wished to salvage what free time they could get stayed up after. Which was pretty much everyone.

I wound up staying up until 2:00, watching the movie: Radio. I don't trust my "peers" when it comes to sleeping and the immature pranks associated with it. Just about everyone went to bed at that point, so I felt a bit more secure.

We were woken up at 6:45 and made to sing for our breakfast. We actually wound up singing for all of our meals, and after all of them as well. It was a form of prayer, granted, but they made it seem derogatory. -_-

Later, they threatened to take our lunch away because a few kids weren't listening. Similarly, they constantly held our Confirmation over our heads as a way to maintain order. They've put us through almost a year of classes and another retreat, and they dare to threaten to take it all away. Just for something as small as taking a cup of juice into the sleeping quarters. It makes me angry that they have the gall to threaten us with that.

After breakfast, we went on an Egg Hunt. Not an Easter egg hung, a Passion Egg hunt. We searched for twelve eggs, each numbered accordingly. These eggs all held something inside of them to represent a part of Jesus' Passion and death.

After that exercise, we had lunch.

Then we did what was definitely the most fun of the entire weekend. It was sort of like an obstacle course, only with different activities at each station. My team finished first, and got extra points for working together the best. My team consisted of me and my friends Alicia, Jake, and TJ.

Our first task was to pick up some water balloons, transport them several feet away, and pop them.







Without using our hands. ^_^ TJ used his mouth to grasp the balloons by the tied end and waddled over with the balloon in his mouth. Jake poked it with a stick, which was, apparently, acceptable. Alicia used her thin arms to deposit balloons into my forearms, and I ran over. I stomped on one of the balloons, much to my dismay. My left leg got soaked. -_-;;

After every station we were asked one or more questions about the Church or the Bible, and shown a picture. If we could identify the building in the picture, and answer the questions correctly, we got extra points.

Next we had an eight-legged race. We had to tie our shoes together and walk to a certain point, and then make it back to the start. We wound up just walking backwards to the start, as turning was too much of a hassle.

(By the way, on just about all of the bonus questions and pictures, I totally owned)

Next, we had to simultaneously do the macarena three times in a row without err. Blackmail pictures were, of course, taken without hesitation or permission. -_-

Then there was a weird station where we could only cross by stepping on three pieces of paper, the four of us not touching the ground. Once we understood what exactly we were trying to do, we got it done with no problem.

Next we were blindfolded, one by one, and made to search for cherries in a vat of water and Jell-o. The catch was, they could only move their hand when we told them a direction. So, yeah. Fun, fun, fun.

Next was arm-in-arm limbo. We had to divide into pairs and do the limbo with our arms locked together. Alicia and I did fairly well, but the win kept blowing the bar off for TJ and Jake. :p

Next, we were told to stuff our mouths full of marshmallows. We obliged, and then we were told to name the 12 Apostles of Jesus. (Which, I discovered, should actually be 13, as Matthias replaced Judas, who was one of the original twelve) We managed to get ten of them, far better than any of the other groups did. Jake and I chewed up the marshmallows and swallowed them. TJ and Alicia put them in nearby napkins.

The next station was called the "Giant's stand-up." We were told to sit on the ground, two of us back to back. Jake and I were together. We were told to link arms, and then we had to stand up, still linked.

We did it with ease. Then we had to all four of us stand up, arms linked. That was a bit harder, but we managed.

At the next stations we had to pop some balloons and piece together the Scripture reading contained within. There were ten balloons, and only five pieces of marked paper. The others were blank. Popped balloons with no marked paper in them deducted points, and unpopped balloons with unmarked paper gave you points.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in random discussion, up until we watched the move: The Passion, performed by Radix. It was a very interesting movie. It was a one man show; one man playing all of the parts portrayed in the Passion of Christ. It was a good movie, I thought.

Then we had a long meditation on sin. It was dark; the lights were out and only a few candles were lit. It was a powerful meditation, and it caused me some pain afterwards.

Two priests had come to hear Confessions after we were all deeply in thought about our sins. One was my local parish priest, the other was a funny little man from another church that half our class goes to.

I am not comfortable with our priest, and I did not trust myself to truly confess all of my sins to the other one. So, I took one of our instructors aside and told her that I did not wish to be reconciled just then. She said it was okay, and I went off into a dark corner.

I felt so ashamed. Everyone else was under the impression that they had to go. In their ignorance of the Catholic Church, they didn't realize that they couldn't be forced to do it.

So, in my guilt, I prayed the Rosary five times. I shed a few tears as everyone walked around somberly. I wanted to have my sins forgiven, but I just couldn't bring myself to confess them; and this one matter of our faith is the one I seem to have the most trouble with.

I have not yet had a satisfactory answer as to why it is necessary to have our sins forgiven through a priest. Because of this, I'm not entirely certain that I believe in the practice, and so I'm not sure if I can call myself a legitimate Catholic.

It's a mess, this religious turmoil of mine. -_-;;

One of my instructors, Mr. Luginsland, gave me a note and a small book of poems to sort of console me. I must have seemed like I was distressed, sitting in the corner with my eyes closed, softly counting out my prayers of the Rosary. I don't know if anyone saw my tears.

Everyone got a small bag with letters from their families in them and letters from some of our instructors, too. My mom had forgotten to get the letters, and so my bag wasn't as full as the others. Mr. Benjamin, our main instructor, came over and gave me my bag. What he said next was like a knife digging into me. It went something like this:

"This is mostly for your classmates' benefit, Ben. I know that you go to Confession all the time."

In truth, I don't got to Confession often at all. We were required to go to Confession during Advent, and yet I didn't. That would make the last time I had Confession sometime during Freshman year. I had a chance to go to Confession during school a few weeks ago, but I wasn't able to stay after school to do so.

Bah....it was depressing.

Then I went up to my room and read the letters that I had gotten. Some were personalized, most were general.



EDIT: Not much more happened. We had a meditation on the sins that we they had all been cleansed of. I then went to bed; it was about 12:00.

This morning, we were woken up at 6:25. As you can see, I didn't get much sleep this weekend.

It seems to me that I remember sleep deprivation being used for something else...I think it was mind control, or torture. Meh.


Maybe it's both.


We had a meditation about forgiveness, and then we went to breakfast. After breakfast, thanks and rewards were given out. We all got nice yellow shirts that say "Faith Factor" on the front. The theme of the Retreat was based loosely on the reality show Fear Factor. Maybe I'll get a picture of me in the shirt. ^_^

And maybe I'll post it, just like those pictures of me and Dave. -_-;; (The camera is sitting on the ground next to me :p)

We then cleaned up and packed up our stuff. When we were finished we went into separate rooms to reflect upon the trip. Several times I tried to point out the extreme lack of sleep, but I couldn't figure out the proper way to word it.

Next we went to Mass at a very opulent church. The priest got the name of our Church wrong, and then he told us to correct him if he said or did anything wrong. Several people almost took him up on it at that point; me included.

After Mass we had lunch, took a few group pictures, and left.

I had an extended moral discussion with two of our youth leaders, concerning all sorts of controversial issues; capital punishment, abortion, gay people and marriage, my Youth Group, etc., etc.

I got home at about 2:40, and was I ever relieved. My mom was there with letters from everyone in my family. Except my older sister. I went home and caught up on MyO and webcomics. Then I opened and read the letters. They were all very heartfelt and touching, but I didn't cry until I reached the letter from my little brother, Michael.

I think I mentioned this before, but Michael had a stroke when he was born, which affected the left side of his brain. Because of this, he wears a brace on his right leg, and doesn't have full motor control of his fingers. Until a few years ago, he couldn't keep his right arm straight by his side; it was always pulled up to his chest.

The stroke obviously had an effect on his mentality as well. I don't know the specifics, but he talks differently than others and requires help with reading comprehension. Because of his peculiar mentality, however, he would make a phenomenal chess player, says his doctor. If he learned the game, he would possess the ability to see moves many turns in advance. I thought that would be pretty cool.

Anyways, his letter went like this:

"Dear Ben,

I like to play games with you.

I like to swim with you.
I love you Ben.

Love, Michael."

It was very heart-wrenching to see that in his scrawling handwriting. The letter was no doubt at the prompting of my mother, but it still meant a lot to me.

I then started working on this monumental post. One that I doubt anybody will wish to read through. Except maybe Mimmi. ;)

And Boba, but he's got nothing better to do because it'll help him procrastinate.

I'm tired. It's 11:00. I'm going to bed now.
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