On days like today, I haul my tired butt out of bed, and at some point look at myself in the mirror and say, "Dude, you're looking old." Typically, I'm more oriented toward "feeling as old as I think," which is to say, fairly young.

Happily I can say on this Monday morning that I'm tired from having had a weekend of seeing good friends. I spent Thursday evening and Friday morning/early afternoon at the Off The Map Live event. Got to at least touch base with a number of friends and acquaintances that I only see at events like that. It would have been really good to be there longer and relax a little with some friends. But I had to jump in my car with a couple of my younger friends (a.k.a. my staff team) and drive many hours through the dark of night to get to eastern Oregon. We were attending the Northwest Collegiate Ministries fall conference. I'm grateful to have some fun, good hearted, and adventurous people - the road trip was good. Being at the conference was good, too - I respect and enjoy my counterparts in ministry, and I don't get to catch up with them often enough.

At the conference, we had Lauren Winner come and talk through her book, Real Sex. I've not read the book, but I definitely appreciated her perspectives. She debunks many myths we hear in the church about sex, and does so in an intelligent way.

Yesterday afternoon it was back in the car for the road trip home. It's good to be back.

So, while I didn't have my favorite person in the world with me, I had a tiring weekend of rich relationships, all of which I'm thankful for. I would have name dropped specifically who I'm talking about, but I'm too lazy to link them all here. A younger version of me would have done a better job at this.

Labels: campus ministry, conference, friends, travel