March 13, 2004 – When I agreed to participate in the church music group retreat, I didn’t really know much about what was going to happen at it, but I heard that it was a lot of fun. The day was spent eating (seriously, a lot of food), talking, shopping, and thinking. I can’t really say what the best part was because I enjoyed all of it. Rather than figuring out the answers to a lot of questions about God, I ended up with more questions. These questions and the discussion with other people makes me think that no one has all the answers. It gives me encouragement to think that while I don’t have everything figured out, people that are further along in their lives also think about similar things and don’t have answers to their questions. Some big things we talked about was where the Catholic church has been, how we don’t agree with everything that is going on. In the past, I’ve been asked why I am Catholic if I don’t agree with everything. One thing I defined better for myself is that the Catholic church is a ‘shell’, and that the real relationship is between me and God, and that when it comes time to be judged, the Catholic church isn’t going to be there in the middle. Several people I know seem to think that if I don’t attend their church, then there is no way I’ll get to heaven, but that doesn’t seem right. I think it was Jim Greshim who said today, in a very sarcastic tone, directed towards ‘other people’ in general, “sure, your relationship with God is good, but mine is better”. There are seriously people out there who think like this, and on one hand, it’s hard to argue with them, because of their strong emotions, but on the other, how could God really agree with that statement? Back to the events of today, shopping was at an Amish shop, where they have all kinds of handcrafted furniture, Amish foods, and other random stuff. Interesting, but not worth spending my money. I ate so much food today, and much of it was stuff that I normally don’t eat, mostly in the fruit and vegetable genre.