"Once for All"

This weekend I attended the 2004 FOCUS National Conference, "Once for All" (v. Hebrews 10:10) in Denver, CO. We departed early Friday morning for Boston's Logan Int'l Airport where we checked in at the ticket counter, not without some difficulty on my part, as apparently I have a name similar to someone on their "watch list". It having been ascertained that I was the meek, mild-mannered college student I claimed to be, I boarded the plane with the rest of the Williams contingent for the flight to Denver where I was treated with a nice window-seat view of the Rockies as we approached the city. (Upon landing it was hard to shake the feeling I was in a foreign country, all my previous flights having been international ones. This was in fact my first time west of Ohio.)

We were met at the airport and driven by gold-shirted FOCUS volunteers to the oddly named Adam's Mark Hotel (in clear contradiction to Genesis 4:15) where we scarfed down some pizza for dinner (after eating nothing but a granola bar for breakfast and some complimentary pretzels courtesy of United Airlines, I quickly lost track of how many slices I had eaten). That evening we heard an excellent talk by Matthew Kelly, author of "Rediscovering Catholicism", on the universal call to holiness, a.k.a. "becoming the best version of yourself." The next day we had a wide selection of simultaneous talks to choose from in various locations. (Being a chic hotel, it was necessary for those attending the talks to seek them out in places such as "Grand Ballroom, Salon A" and the "Majestic Ballroom", nicknamed the "Mystic Ballroom" for its remote and inacessible location.) I heard talks on "Reason for Hope" with Sean Innerst and "Conforming to Christ, Transforming the Culture" with Jonathan Reyes, and then after Mass and lunch (a nice greasy "Sonic Burger" from down the street) I attended "breakout sessions" on "Life after Graduation", "Men are 'Pigs' and Women are 'Manipulative'" (discussing the significance of psychosexual differences between the sexes, this one was enormously popular) and "Crossing the Great Divide" (on liberals and conservatives in the Church). That evening featured a fancy banquet with guest Scott Hahn speaking on the Eucharist (or, as he called it, "Meal Bonding", displaying his weakness for puns.)

The night closed with Adoration, and then we East Coasters woke bright and early Sunday morning for a 7AM Mass so that we could head off to the airport after brunch, missing the closing midday Mass. The trip home was uneventful, barring the incident going through Security when one of our party decided to get sassy with the officer who asked her to remove her shoes. I won't name the individual except to say that she was fortunate not to be deported back to Jamaica. Ahem. After a slight delay at Boston waiting for the luggage carousel to unfreeze, we hopped back on our vans for the snowy drive back to Williamstown, finally pulling in around 3:30AM, at which point I fell gratefully into bed and slept until roughly noon when I realized that I did not want to miss lunch on top of missing breakfast. I don't normally sleep that late and feel a bit guilty when I do. Though a bit embarrased to have compounded my earlier gluttony with sloth, all things considered I can look back on a fabulous weekend. And without further ado, back to work. Or sleep, as the case may be. Yes, the latter. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof, sayeth the Good Book. We hope you have enjoyed flying the Sacred and the Profane, please come again.