July 6, 1999

It's funny how, as you do things in a place, it becomes a little more your own.

I'm just back from a little jog around the track and a little walk around the school grounds - and I'm feeling a little more that this could be my place. It's not yet, but it could be.

Just off to the north of the track two teams in brown uniforms were playing ball. Farther off to the south I think a softball game or practice was in progress. And there I was bouncing around the track. It probably sounds stupid, but it was just good to be there.

There are lots of trees in this place - old trees, old bushes that will always own this place more than I will, even if I'm here for 20 years.

Twenty years...I'm very conscious of entering the final third of my life...if I'm granted a final third (using my numbers - it's always tricky). Who knows? Nobody knows - so let's pretend I'm entering the final third of my life. This is not a morbid fact at the moment; it is just, I hope, a fact. I doubt that the jogging and other aerobic torments will add years to my life, but it has already touched up the quality a bit.

I also went for a ride today down Milwaukee Ave. and up Milwaukee Ave. It's a very long street. The land here rolls more than down in Will County; and, as noted, there are trees. But the fungal growth of strip malls and residential spots is taking a toll here, too.

I close with a thought from my favorite rock and roll singer:

"We give up many things, or at least imagine that we do, because they seem to be bad or because they impede the attainment of something else that we desire more. But when it comes to giving up something that is really important, then we return to the real order and realize how difficult it is, for the sake of the God who seems to have abandoned us, to bear the dark night of the soul and watch the world disappear from under our feet." Karl Rahner

A week or so ago, I thought I was there, but I was fooling myself. I'm not there yet.