Late last night Paul and I went to K-mart and the dollar store on a last minute run to find 300 water balloons. Of course, there were none to be found. After all, this is November! Who would want to buy water balloons now? Well, we were on an errand for Father. There is a retreat for boys this weekend with a castle theme. The boys will be divided into teams who work together to earn team-points during various sports and activities. The water balloons were going to be used to launch and slay a dragon. Naturally, the "dragon " is the enemy (could represent satan or sin or vice) and the water balloons are our love for Christ and/or other virtues such as charity, courage, prudence, or temprance. All this fun is intermingled with Mass, a rosary, spiritual talks by the camp fire, and other more retreat-like stuff. Last night, with no water balloons in sight, we opted for tennis balls. My idea was to lace the dragon costume with velcro so the team-colored-balls would stick and we'd know which team was successful. The dragon will be far away from the launchers - down a hill - so I doubt there will be enough momentum in the ball to cause any pain. Well, let's hope, anyway! Over the years we've been to places like the dollar store maybe 1000 times on errands just like this one. Collecting a vast assortment of retreat or class supplies: paper, glue, huge red balls, rubber tubing to make water balloon launchers, glitter, paint, paint brushes, tin pans, streamers, wooden dowels, hot glue and hot glue guns, feathers, glow in the dark sticks, popsicle sticks, stencils, rubber stamps, tons of paper, pens, pencils, gifts, nails, screws, plywood, hammers, scissors, masks, gloves, scarfs, candy, all sorts of food, Christmas lights, plaster... you name it... we've bought it and bought it be the car load.
Last night, as it was getting late and I wanted to go home, I thought, "Is this what it means to build the Kingdom?" Sometimes I have attacks like that. Something inside me says, "I thought being a Christian (or a mom, or a wife, or a teacher, or a kingdom-builder) was going to be more fun than this." And then the Holy Spirit reminded me of Pope Leo's words of encouragement regarding mundane tasks. Mundane tasks have great value. We do them out of love for the other. Changing a diaper, for example is no fun for mom, but what a gift for the baby! We can do all these things with great love, with less thought of ourselves and more thought of whom we are doing these things....and that's the thing that builds the Kingdom. For the boys, these errands mean a lot. They are receiving a catechises that is rich in truth but really geared for them. They have great fun being boys up in the tree covered hills. They get to "retreat" from their electicronally run world, and, most importantly, they meet Christ there. They meet him in these wonderful priests, they encounter him in the Mass and through prayer, and they find him in the community of friends that meet together to slay dragons with tennis balls.
(photo: my son, the dragon slayer)
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