The year 2006 was an absolutely amazing year. So much has changed in my life that it's hard to believe there were only 365 days in the year. I began the year as a Unix Systems Admin for Basin Electric Power Cooperative and ended it as a seminarian studying 1,000 miles from home.

Early in the year I visited Italy and saw Rome, Assisi, and Florence. Upon my return, I applied to the Catholic seminary and was accepted. Then the craziness ensued as I sold my house, took an amazing vacation to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas (don't worry, I behaved). After that I flew to Guatemala to work with the God's Child Project to build homes for the poor in Antigua. Once back in North Dakota, near the end of summer, I toured North Dakota on my motorcycle one last time before starting school in Saint Louis, MO, for the fall semester. Whew!

Some family/friend news of note from 2006, in random order:

• Grandpa Bill Hoffman passed away during a snowmobile trip in the mountains, doing what he loved with the people he loved.
• Vaughn and Shauna had a baby, cute little Kaelyn.
• Back around September, Grandpa Brunelle had serious heart surgery to replace a failing valve and is thankfully doing very well.
• My friend Dawn Mull was confirmed in the Catholic Church.
• Grandma Signalness' cat, Kitty, was put down in September.
• My cousin's dog, Bailey, was also put down.
• Good friends Jesse and Cheryl moved to Las Vegas . . . and back to North Dakota. They seem happy to be back.

Some world/national news of note from 2006:

• Feb: In February, Muslims violently protested cartoons depicting Muhammed as a terrorist. As if to prove the cartoonist's point, they killed and rioted in protest.
• May: In May, Immigrants marched and protested U.S. immigration policy. New policy allowing many illegals to eventually become citizens is passed, as is a plan for upgraded security and a border fence at Mexico. Also, a 6.3 magnitude quake killed more than 5800 people in Indonesia.
• Jul: Starting in July, Israel and Lebanon went to war after two Israeli soldiers were abducted. Violent crime in the U.S. was on the increase for the first time in four years, up by 2.5%. St. Louis was later named the most dangerous U.S. City.
• Aug: In August, a plot to blow up planes with liquid explosives on flights from Britain to the U.S. was averted. Strict rules were put in place limiting liquids and gels on flights.
• Sep: Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, was killed by a sting ray. Pope Benedict XVI made remarks that outraged some Muslims, who for the second time this year rioted, murdered, and terrorized for all the wrong reasons. There was also a military coup in Thailand.
• Oct: In October, North Korea conducted a nuclear test. Also, five girls were killed by a disturbed gunman in the Amish community in Nickel Mines, Penn.
• Nov: Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down in November, urging a change in tactics with Iraq. Also in November, Democrats took control of the House and Senate and Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, was murdered in London by exposure to Polonium 210.
• Dec: President Gerald Ford died on December 26th. On December 30th, Saddam Hussein was executed.

Last year was full of drama, adventure, stress, and excitement. I can't imagine 2007 will compare. But time will tell. Happy New Year.

Most of my class, including myself, went to the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois. We stood on the sidewalk to pray for the mothers, fathers, and aborted children. At this clinic they perform late-term abortions. As we stood there, several women left the clinic after having the "procedure" done.

After thinking about the issue of abortion over the last few years, even on a rational level outside of my religion, I made the decision that abortion is immoral -- and against natural law. But I never found myself emotionally invested in the debate until today. I'm not even sure why, but standing there and praying the rosary was incredibly powerful. Seeing women walk into and out of the clinic was very saddening. I could barely form the words of the prayers I was so choked up.

This emotion and enthusiasm was unexpected. I am most definitely "pro-life."

I'm settling back into my desk chair at the seminary. It's good to have my own computer back and to not be living out of a suitcase. After all, it has been a month. As you can read in my previous entries, I drove home to North Dakota for the first couple of weeks of the break. I returned to St. Louis briefly last weekend to regroup and leave for a week-long silent retreat near Washington, MO.

As always, I've taken a lot of snapshots and thought of all kinds of things to post here. I still hope to do another "year in review" collage like I did last year, for 2005. Perhaps I will find the time this weekend. But for now, I wanted to quickly post a few pictures from my Christmas break.

This is a snapshot of Lake Audubon in North Dakota. My buddy Jesse and I did some geocaching out there along some crazy dirt "roads." It was a good time, even if we didn't find an intact cache. One cache, if it was there, was too buried in snow for us to locate and the other was destroyed -- we only found the lid. Maybe in the spring we'll go back for another try.

At home in Bottineau I enjoyed a lot of free time. I went for walks on the frozen lake and along the country roads. Here my parents' dog Sadie, chasing me across icy Lake Couthard.

This is the traditional opening of presents on Christmas Eve. In the background, on the couch, are my grandparents. That's my stepsister sitting on the floor and opening a difficult package for her son, Wyatt. Ernie, Shannon's husband, is behind Shannon. The big dog on the floor is Ajax, my brother's big goofy horse.

Grandma and Grandpa file into the church for Christmas Mass. It was a beautiful service with excellent music.

On my way through the Minot, ND, area I stopped and visited the McCormacks and the Schapers. We all had a good time.

For Christmas I was given an empty ammo can. Doesn't sound exciting? It is if you're a geocacher. Jesse and I went out and hid it in this area, near Des Lacs. You could call this picture a "spoiler."

I ended my month-long break from academics with a week long retreat. That means I "retreated" from the world for some solitary time with God, a few hours west of St. Louis. While many of my fellow Kenrick students were there, we were not allowed to speak outside of worship or spiritual direction. While there I was free much of the time. So I took long walks on the paths through the trees, thought about where I'm at in life, and did a lot of reading.

On my reading list for the retreat were The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, also by C.S. Lewis, and the January issue of National Geographic. I also read The Silver Chair and The Great Divorce, both by C.S. Lewis, earlier in my break. As you can see, I'm in a C.S. Lewis phase. The man was a genius, able to express the subtleties of spirituality and behavior in an entertaining, accessible way.

I may write some more about the experience of a silent retreat. For now, if you want a detailed description of the experience, check out Steve's blog entries for Jan 7th-11th.

The picture above is one of the pictures I took on a walk along the "Deer Run Trail" near the conference center. I didn't take many pictures, and that's probably the most interesting one.

In C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, the main character takes a rather unusual bus ride. He begins his journey in Hell, which is depicted as an infinite, dull place full of people quarreling with one another. He boards this unusual bus and arrives in Heaven. I laughed out loud when I read that C.S. Lewis' version of Hell includes many "bookshops of the sort that sell The Works of Aristotle."

Having just spent a semester studying the chain of philosophers in history that culminates with Aristotle, I understand all too well what C.S. Lewis is getting at here. Later in the book, a "philosopher" steps off of the bus in heaven. A saint works to obtain the man's repentance so that he does not need to get back on the bus for the return trip to Hell. But the man is so full of intellectual pride and confusion he cannot admit, though he thinks himself a well-intentioned and intelligent Christian, that there is objective truth which he cannot comprehend.

In this hectic semester of philosophy courses, I studied varying ideas of what constitutes truth. How do we know that what our senses tell us is true? Is there a spiritual reality? If so, is it more "real" than this sensible world? How can we think about God, a supernatural reality, using our limited experience in a world we only know from our senses? Or, perhaps even more basic, what does the name "God" that we utter so often actually mean? How do we define it in our English language?

Near the end of the semester, I studied various "proofs" for the existence of God and realized that, truly, they are not strictly philosophical proofs for the existence of a personal God that one can love and know. What followed was a sense of not altogether unexpected disappointment in the human ability to reason about the supernatural. The trick for a beginning Christian student of philosophy is to not lose faith until at least a shred of academic humility is achieved. And the stakes could not be higher in this spiritual battle for eternal life.

As The Great Divorce and my personal experience illustrate, philosophy is dangerous yet necessary (in my case, at least) for proper faith. When I started my seminary journey, I had great hope that philosophy would strengthen my faith in God. But I'm learning quickly that while philosophy can help me understand my faith, faith must be a gratuitous gift. Faith is not the culmination of academic understanding.

If one does not approach philosophy with a strong faith in God and a sense of humility, one's faith may crumble in the ensuing state of confusion and uncertainty. Philosophy (that is all rational thought) and our Christian faith MUST agree with one another because there is only one absolute truth. But none of us will be able to reconcile the apparent discrepancies between faith and reason in this earthly life.

Shortly I will be back at the seminary for another semester of philosophy. Having rested for several weeks and avoided any sort of philosophical or theological debate and thought, I feel somewhat refreshed and strengthened. Please remember me in your prayers as I return to my studies.

Happy New Year and God Bless.

We recently had some snow here in North Dakota. It was the biggest single dump of snow since 1999. When I arrived here a few weeks ago, there was nothing on the ground. Now, it looks like it's supposed to in December: