Yesterday my family and I spent the better part of the day in Greensboro, Georgia, celebrating the birthday of one of my very best friends, Fr. Michael Silloway. Fr. Michael is the pastor of Christ our King and Savior Catholic Church. I mention that because of how we made plans to celebrate his birthday.
Earlier in the week I had asked my wife, Emily, what she thought about making the ~75 minute drive out to Lake Oconee to surprise Fr. Michael for his fortieth birthday. The parish has a daily mass at 9 am on Thursdays, and even though it was a long drive for a thirty-minute event, you only turn forty once, so why not? I called the parish to confirm they did in fact have mass that day and that “Father Silloway would be celebrating mass.”
I didn’t quite know what to suspect as we began our drive at 7:30 Thursday morning. Would there be other people surprising him as well? Would he even have time to say hello? Would his schedule be packed being so close to Christmas? I had no idea!
It was awesome. He was totally surprised to see us. Our family attended mass and sang happy birthday with the parishioners who were there. Afterward we hung around and helped arrange chairs for Christmas mass overflow seating. Fr. Michael had a clear schedule and we didn’t have anywhere else to be, so we went out for an early lunch. We had brought a birthday present, a Vespa 125 LEGO set. He loved it. After lunch we went back to the rectory for coffee and to hang out for a bit longer. Joshua, my eight year old son, has been getting excited about prayer the liturgy of the hours—a set of prayers that priests learn to pray in seminary and which I’ve partially retained since leaving seminary sixteen years ago—so he asked if we could pray Morning Prayer with Fr. Michael. It was after 1 pm. Sure, let’s do “morning” prayer, why not. We didn’t leave until 2 pm. We were only really planning to be around til 10 am.
I’ve had lots of moments like these recently. It’s been glorious.
Changes
In late November I made a subtle change to my LinkedIn profile, setting the end date of my Saltbox experience to be “Nov 2022” and removing Saltbox as my current employer. My last day had been Friday, November 18th. I didn’t broadcast the change loudly. I didn’t change my LinkedIn profile to say “open to work”. I didn’t even tell my MBA classmates unless it came up in conversation.
I’ll readily admit that being able to leave one job without rushing into another one is a privilege. It’s allowed me to reflect, slow down, and be more present for the moments that matter most.
“What’s next for Ben?” I don’t know, and to be honest I haven’t exactly been rushing to find the next thing. I’ll begin exploring in earnest in the new year. For now, I’m eager to have conversations with people, learn what problems are out there, and see where my experiences might be a fit. Reach out if you’d like to connect.
Slowing down and saying yes
Relative to where I was two months ago, I have a lot of free time on my hands. I’ve been dropping off and picking kids up from school, going Christmas shopping (in actual stores!), and in general saying yes a lot where previously I would have said no because I was too busy. In addition to the random trip to Greensboro, GA, here’s some of what else I’ve been up to:
I mentioned that Joshua has been getting into Liturgy of the Hours. Since he’s been out of school, he’ll come up to me and ask me, “have you prayed Morning Prayer?” Mind you, I usually only make a habit of praying the Office of Readings and Night Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours, but how can I say no?
Last week for my Georgia Tech graduation I did all the things that were available. We got to campus at about 11 AM where they had a special graduation party. Then we went to the Scheller College of Business and ate food that I’m positive was intended for the full-time and evening MBAs but was more than sufficient for feeding my family. We gathered upstairs with the Executive MBAs to read superlatives1 and hand out yearbooks. My family and I stopped by the Catholic Center before heading to Bobby Dodd Stadium to sit in the cold for nearly three hours for the graduation ceremony. I loved it.
Last weekend we were invited to go down to Savannah to see “The Journey”, an outdoor Christmas program put on by Emily’s sister’s church. Two four-hour drives over the course of two days for a ninety minute program? Sure! It was amazing. They had real camels!
When Emily and I went to mass at the Georgia Tech Catholic Center on Sunday, December 4th, we learned that they would be doing a midnight mass on the evening of Wednesday, December 7th, to celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. Would we want to go as a family? It’s not like I had to work. Never mind the fact that the kids were in school. Ultimately we decided that Joshua and I would go. We loved it. They did everything by candlelight and chanted much of the liturgy. We sang Alma Redemptoris Mater together at the end, which Joshua was delighted to have recognized from praying Night Prayer as a family.
Oh, and because the weather was nice the next day, Joshua and I decided to hike Stone Mountain after school. This kid has lots of energy.
What else? I volunteered to collect contributions for teacher gifts at Joshua’s school. Armed with ample time, spreadsheet skills, and an uncanny ability to send emails, we generated the largest Christmas gift for teachers the school had seen. This is the kind of project I almost certainly would have said no to in the past, but like I said, I had the time.
Somewhere in here, Sophia turned twelve!
Did I mention the random trip where I took the boys to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in the days leading up to Thanksgiving?
And this morning we made gingerbread cookies.
Gratitude
We become our habits. I had gotten into the habit of being too busy. Too busy to spend time with family, too busy to pray, too busy to do the dishes, too busy to drive to visit friends. I’m been breaking that habit lately and I am grateful.
I mentioned earlier that being able to take a break from work is truly a privilege. I’m humbled to be able to take advantage of this time and I’m grateful to be able to feast on presence in this season of my life.
I got “most likely to have read a book that hasn’t yet been written.”
Ben, this is a fabulous sharing about life, love and family. Even in the midst of an interrupted career change, you were able to focus on those closest to you, your faith and have FUN, too! You are blessed and your future is in good hands.