There are moments you come crashing down to earth.  Moments where life seems to stop, the outside world ceases to exist and all of sudden you realize your not living life in four camera’s(sitcom style where everything turns out find in 30mins or less).  Moments like this make you question everything, everyone and God. I’m sitting in my room in the fall semester watching The Sopranos on my computer and my roommate comes in and tells me Hahn Do just died in a car accident.  Hanh Do…she’s my friend.

What ensued was a 5 hour prayer, crying, talking and listening session of what seemed like the whole hall.  Guys were sobbing, phones were ringing and minds were reeling.  This can’t happen here can it?  For all the people that drive the 17 on a weekly, sometimes daily basis it becomes mundane.  Kinda like watching the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan.  Enough times and you’ve become used the to danger, the curves and the weather.

The next morning I called my friends, my family, the girl I liked, everyone.  I apologized to people I didn’t like and then all of sudden, I was back to normal.  2 weeks went by and these huge changes I vowed to make were gone.  Life has a way of lulling you back into that complacency and carefree attitude.  Classes take over, socials happen and video games take over.  I winged it through the rest of semester spending way too much time lying and cheating my way through school, relationships and life.  I was becoming a wretched human being that was behaving erratically walking down a dangerous road in many respects.  That is until I threw my hail mary.

Hail Marys are something a quarterback does when its desperation time.  Your team is down 5,6 or 7 points and you are out of options.  You are close enough to the end zone where a heave might land in the receiver’s hands and you win, but you are far enough away that no matter how much you want to aim the ball you have to throw it with everything that is in you taking away much of your accuracy.  Hail Marys are also something that many people within the Christian tradition utter.  The prayer comes from the Gospel of Luke and is used by many to invoke mercy, grace and to honor the holy virgin.  It was used by Fredo in Godfather part II right before Al Neri shot him in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

I threw a hail mary at the end of my sophomore year.  So far I still hadn’t found what I’m looking for and it didn’t sound like U2.  It sounded like like the smoke monster in LOST, with all the machinery seemingly breaking down, things malfunctioning and just an utter confused mess.  I was seemingly out of options at the school when it came to life.  What few friends I had were leaving, and with them what little social life I had.  Academically I was floundering.  I had never struggled like this before.  There was literally very little I say I liked about my life.  So I heaved a hail mary.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

Our Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

They were interviewing RA’s.  I had a pretty bogus RA that year and thought…yeah, why not?  I mean let’s think here about my qualifications, social involvement? Nope.  Student government? Nope. Sports? Quit the baseball team. Grades? Let’s consider this is Bethany so even though my grades weren’t great, they were better than most. And finally when asked what I would change about Bethany, my answer? “Chapel…don’t know what about it, but that is where I would start.” Not exactly the picture perfect snap, hot read and throw I was looking for.  I think if you are looking for a recent long pass to compare it too, think anything over 10 yards for Shaun Hill.  You know the quarterback of the 49ers that when throwing a 30 yard pass, one of his receivers said it came down like a punt. Not good.

So the list comes out…no surprise my name’s not on it.  I’m not sure I even got the ball to the receiver, prolly landed somewhere at the 20 yard line after I got my head handed to me by the linebacker.  I’m now literally clueless as what to do.  I have no desire to come back to a school where almost every attempt I’ve made to fit in, meet people, etc has flopped and sometimes flopped very publicly.  But hey wait a minute here…Booth Review.

Thanks to Bethany’s no alcohol policy I get another shot.  Turns out two perspective RA’s went out drinking on someone’s 21st birthday and now both of them are unable to be RA’s.  So being second on the list, they give me a call.  I’m in.  Touchdown.

Sometimes launching a hail mary is all you can do.  In my case it was a last ditch effort to find out why in God’s name I was at this financially strapped school.  What is important about these Chronicles is that in each of these moments God is right there.  In what must have been something Carlton and Damon would have written, both of the guys that went and had a drink became some of my best friends during the next two years, and one actually got to be RA later in the year.  Bethany lesson #2 – when the lights dim and all hope is lost, God’s just about to come on stage.