College: The Empire Strikes Back

"You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

St Augustine 

John went to a psychiatrist. "Doc," he said, "I've got trouble. Every time I get into bed, I think there's somebody under it. I'm going crazy!"

"Just put yourself in my hands for one year," said the shrink. "Come talk to me three times a week, and we should be able to get rid of those fears."

"How much do you charge?"

"Eighty dollars per visit," replied the doctor.

"I'll sleep on it," said John.

Six months later the doctor met John on the street. "Why didn't you ever come to see about those fears you were having?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Well eighty bucks a visit three times a week for a year is an awful lot of money! My friend Joe cured me for $10. I was so happy to have saved all that money went and bought me a new pickup!"

"Is that so?! And how, may I ask, did Joe cure you?"
"He told me to cut the legs off the bed! Nobody's under there now!

The second semester of my sophomore year, I went on a weekend retreat called The Happening in Christianity. My future wife and future Mother in law convinced me to attend. Jeff locked me in the car and drove me to St. Mark Catholic Church in Wheaton. I had heard about the Happening for several years because I spent time hanging out at the Wahrman's house while on breaks from college. Their house would always be full of people from the Happening community.

The weekend led me to think about deeper questions: Who Am I? Who is my Brother? Who is Jesus? One of retreat leaders shared their personal relationship to Christ. I spent the weekend listening but not buying in. I liked the people, but I would not give God everything. I had my own plan. I was enjoying life. There was two highlights of the weekend. They did a skit during lunch called Felicia. There was one person kneeling hiding under a blanket behind a person sitting in a chair. The person hiding acted as the arms of the person sitting. The main actor was eating lunch and of course the food was flying everywhere. One of the team members made the mistake of bringing their pet goldfish on the weekend and it ended up on the table for this skit. Yes, it was eaten alive in front of everyone! Another crazy stunt happened during another lunch. We were having sub sandwiches. Tony, one of the 'adult' team members, found a frozen squirrel outside. He proceeded to put it between two buns and brought it into the lunch room. He, of course, was sitting right next to me. It worked perfectly with its head coming out one end and the tail out the other end. The four legs sticking out the sides. The squirrel looked like it was frozen flying in midair. I went back to college not sure what to think about the whole experience. 

I made another awesome friend at school. He was from Korea. He came to Whitewater to get his Masters in Finance. I couldn't imagine taking Finance classes and not really knowing the language. He had to use two huge translation books. His name was Moon. He was a man of many talents. He could sing and play guitar. He could pound down a whole bottle of Cutty Sark in one weekend. He was a great cook. He taught me that rice is supposed to be sticky, so it sticks to your chop sticks. He introduced me to Korean cole slaw Kimchi. He got me to eat octopus, and seaweed. Also, introduced me to this delicious red sauce which we used it a lot to eat leftover rice. He was the victim of one of our best practical jokes of all four years. His dorm room was next to ours. He slept along the wall closest to our room. They agreed to allow us to take down this shelving unit that was bolted through the wall to their shelf. It was a big mistake. This left a hole in the wall a little bigger than the size of a dime. One of the holes was right next to Moon's pillow. One night while Moon is sleeping, we made a funnel from notebook paper and filled it with baby powder. Then, stuck it through the hole and blew into it. It was awesome! We looked through the hole. We could hear him coughing and everything was white including his face.  

    

So, the four of us made quite a group: Ski (crazy outdoors man), Todd (silent banjo playing assassin), Moon, and I. In May, after final exams, we made it a tradition to go camping. On our first trip, it was rainy and cold. Moon made this delicious Korean dish on a bunsen burner stove. I borrowed a tent from my brother, the human garbage disposal. It was miserable. We tried to go fishing, but caught nothing. At night, it just poured rain all night. We had a major problem. The tent leaked badly. We had streams of water running through it. The next day, Todd and I decided to jump ship. Ski and Moon slept in the car the rest of the week. On another camp out, Ski cut his foot open with an axe. I lost my hat in the fire, and the Ranger told us to keep quiet. I guess banjo playing at midnight is a little extreme. Of course, our singing voices probably didn't help. The best trip came after we graduated. Ski and I camped all week in Northern Wisconsin. At night, you could hear the loons. We had perfect weather. We ate what we caught: Northern, Walleye, Largemouth Bass, Bluegill, Sunfish, and Crappie. Ski was an expert at filleting fish. Fresh fish caught right off the lake with breading just melts in your mouth. It was a very relaxing week. The best moment came when an eagle came swooping down and grabbed a fish right out of the water. The Loons were incredible. They fly right above the water. In addition, they can swim under the water popping up fifty yards away.

For junior year, we moved off campus to a two bedroom apartment. The four of us made quite a crazy group. We were pretty competitive in any activity or game in which we played from Hearts to Darts. We got one of those thick expensive dart boards to put on the wall. Of course, we had to fix the wall when we moved out. We made a crown for whoever was the reigning champion. We even got the four guys from across the hall in our competitions. 

We took turns attempting to cook. My roommates have some funny stories of my attempts at cooking  which I will not divulge on this blog. Needless to say, I didn't cook growing up. The funniest cooking story comes from us having a pet pigeon. One day, we discovered a pigeon walking outside our apartment building. It was injured and can't fly. So, we helped it out by trapping it, and making it our pet. I protested when they used my laundry basket as his cage. We fed it water and bird food. One late afternoon, Ski decided to make Cornish Hens. Todd and Moon were at class or the library. Ski gets this crazy idea! We ring the neck of the pigeon, and clean it up. Ski tied it up to make it look just like the Cornish Hens. His idea is to serve it to Todd to see if he notices. There is only one problem with this plan. The pigeon is all dark meat. There was another problem with the plan. The first thing Todd sees was the empty bird cage. He wanted to know where our pet pigeon was. By this time, Ski and I can't keep a straight face and we pointed towards the oven. You know it really does taste like chicken! 

Ever since our freshman year, we had a tradition of closing out a fun night with a round of toasts. We toasted to anything. We would pull out a cheap bottle of wine and go around the circle toasting to anything from the garbage can that someone puked in to our psychology professor who gave us a high grade on a paper. Ski's father gave him a bottle of Mezcal. It appeared to be high grade Tequila and it even had a worm in the bottom of the bottle. It tasted horrible. It was so bad that it took us all four years to finish the bottle. We ate the worm after we graduated.

From the time of the Happening weekend to senior year, I wrestled with the emptiness inside me. At one point walking through my campus crying because I felt so empty and restless. I think of the  lyrics of the Bruce Springsteen song "Hungry Heart".

Everybody's got a hungry heart
Everybody's got a hungry heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody's got a hungry heart

Everybody needs a place to rest
Everybody wants to have a home
Don't make no difference what nobody says
Ain't nobody like to be alone

When God is not in the center of your life, there is a hunger for more. It's hard to find peace even in the midst of success and good friends. There was a reflection that I heard on the Happening weekend called "My Heart Christ's Home".  It was about giving Jesus access to your spiritual house and not just letting Him in the front door but Him letting clean every room. Ultimately it wasn't even enough to let him cleanup, we had to give Him the title to our home. I had a hungry heart. I was restless. Would I let Jesus in?