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Their TV garbled with “the real meaning of Christmas.” I looked away from the 50% off sale and over to Danielle on the couch. While the rest of the world is scrambling to buy things for people who need no things, this small family is savoring every moment with their daughter.

Christmas Eve, Dad took us to see Danielle, his student who’s suffering from brain tumors. She is lively and smart and was proud to have a visit from her principal. She weighed next to nothing, and could see out of one eye. She told Mr. Smith she’s been learning brail and sees pretty well out of her left eye. Her thick glasses perched on her nose and she told Mr. Smith about her holiday and what it’s like not seeing her teachers as much as she used to.

You don’t think about death. Death is not an option. Life is what she has, what we have. We cannot live this life for ourselves. There are too many people who suffer in this world.

Wednesday:
It was freezing and the wind ripped right through my sweater. I cranked up the heat and started driving…looking for adventure in the last hours of Christmas. I went to the Adoration Chapel and the Cathedral of Christ the King in Buckhead. I ran into an old friend from Life Teen and chatted for a half hour she told me what she’s been up to since she graduated from high school and Life Teen.

She studied abroad for the past several months, enjoying a new culture, and life in an old castle in Scandinavia. Complete with spires and two motes, she ate her meals with other students in the dungeon-turned-cafeteria. With the help of some contraband Tabasco, a steady diet of potatoes and bread kept them going. After a couple history classes and traveling around Europe, she’s dying to write a book about cathedrals. I hopped out of her Jeep into the cold and grabbed the cold metal handle on the tall door.

I stepped into the Cathedral, looking up at the Gothic arches, savoring the aromas of the Christmas trees and incense. The Cathedral was empty, and my heals echoed through the arches. It was there that almost four years ago I enjoyed my first Life Teen Mass. Every Sunday night I experienced God’s love in a new way. I went onto help out with the youth group. I moved to New Orleans to be on the “Real World.” Now I travel every weekend and speak at Life Teen parishes around the country. How life changes…

It was 28 degrees out, and a difficult night for everyone. There were two homeless people sharing the chapel, an elderly lady asleep in the corner, her Bible sliding from her hands, and a young man, alert and rubbing his hands. The space heater couldn’t keep up with the cold shining through the stained glass windows.

I knelt down and prayed. I promised Stephanie I would pray for her all day on Christmas.

There was a knock on the wooden door and Dave Sloan steps in. I smiled. All night I thought about how I wanted to hang out with him. It’s been almost two years since we’ve talked. Strangely, I wasn’t surprised to see him in the chapel.

Dave and I slid in a booth at the Landmark Diner off of Roswell road. It’s the classic New York diner wrapped in chrome, with a menu offering burgers to octopus. I hadn’t eaten much all day, and the stuffed flounder was perfect. We sipped through four cups of coffee, as I caught up with one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met.

Dave is a poet, writer, and lover of God. He’s had a long, tough journey. He’s spent time in jail, rode his bike across the country, lived in a barn, and now speaks on chastity. He keeps his head shaved and his pencil sharp, ready to write anything about anything. He’s a regular at spoken word sessions in coffee shops. In AA, he discovered Christ. Since then, he’s been on a divine mission through the gutters. He has a deep admiration for Pope John Paul II and his writings, especially “Theology of the Body” and “Love and Responsibility.” He smelled the gutters and savored the sunrise.

He confessed he just turned forty, and I reflected on arriving at 24. He sold his Jeep and bought a huge station wagon to take care of new friends. We parked next to a brand new Land Rover with a ribbon tied to the grill. We talked about new projects we were working on, my passion with lifeteen.com and his adventures with purelove.net. Two men of God sipping coffee on a cold Christmas.

Thursday:
“Get up Amber is having her baby get your suitcase let’s go!”

The baby boy was 20 minutes old. Everyone was crying and laughing and loving. I stood in the huddle—bewildered. I’ve never seen a baby that young. I’ve never seen people with such pure happiness for being alive. He’s so little and so helpless. I wanted to hold him but I wasn’t ready and I hardly knew the family. I was just the little brother of a friend.

Katie told me that Amber had cried for the last week, wanting so bad to hold her baby boy. There is nothing more precious than the love between a mother and child.

:::

I was the last person to make it on this flight. Again. We bolted to the airport from the delivery room. Now I am hovering somewhere over Texas on my way to Phoenix. I can’t really process the past few days, but one thing is for sure: it’s been a Christmas like no other.;

“High school is the only time in your life when everything that is not important, seems important.” My sister and I were chatting on our drive from Athens to Atlanta, and she explained the high school mess in one sentence.;

I don’t care and she certainly doesn’t. We are both had a good time in high school and are doing well now. But I work with teenagers all the time and I see them go through the same things. You wonder, in the year 2025, our children will be sleeping around, drinking, doing drugs…all the while thinking it’s something new and cool.

It’s just a shame that we don’t learn from the mistakes of past societies and generations.

We are all dying. At this second, new babies are born and old people die. Those old people were once young, driving fast cars and listening to loud music. These babies…where will they go? Just think, a future president of the United States might be watching Sponge Bob Square Pants as I type.

Teachers said that we were “the future of the world.” The kid next to me couldn’t zip his fly and he always smelled like grilled cheese. All the while I couldn’t pwonounce my R’s and suffered from nap time insomnia. For a moment I was scared for the future of the world, then went on to play with the blocks.

Now I am twenty-four, and I am in the middle of that future of a world my teacher predicted.

Tonight we bounced around in the cold under the full moon. Trampolines are so reckless and scary and fun, no matter how old you get. After five years as an independent young man, I am getting used to being around kids again. So I thought of silly games and we went at it. But in the end, they just want to fall in a bouncing mess of laughter. Matt (6) and Carrie (5) just love laughing together. It makes me so happy too.

I hope the other kids on the street are happy. Is there love inside the palatial homes along that mountainside? Kids don’t care how many cars fit in the garage or if the counter tops are granite. Kids need a loving family. I meet thousands of teenagers every year, and I hurt for so many of them. It’s like parents decided to live for themselves and let their kids figure out this whole “life thing” on their own. We live in the illusion of high school being so rock ‘n’ roll, but we forget that teenagers still cry when they don’t feel loved.

Don’t we all?

The more I grow into being a young man, the more I understand what Dad has been doing with his life. By being a foster parent, a scoutmaster, and a middle school principal, he’s been a father for thousands of kids. As a grandfather, I know he will use every minute of his time for his grandchildren. But he’s still got another year of being a principal, and he’s going out with a bang.

A group of judges came to Dad’s school to see if it was worthy of being named a “Georgia Lighthouse School.” For days, the committee sat in classrooms and talked with everybody under the roof. When the committee asked a room full of students what makes their school special, a little girl raised her hand. “What makes our school special is Mr. Smith. He is the backbone of the school. He loves us.”; When the committee quizzed the teachers about discipline problems, they agreed there weren’t many at all. “We’ll have occasional problems here an there. It’s that the kids don’t want to disappoint Mr. Smith.”

I am still very young. My future, the world, is wide open. I don’t know where I’ll go, but I have faith that God will lead me.

I am becoming a good Mr. Smith.

I am in the Atlanta Airport and it’s 11:19 AM my time. Waking up this morning was awful. Last night, early this morning, I spent an hour sifting through boxes to find my alarm clock. I have a house of boxes and now it’s time to travel across the country.

It’s good to be in Atlanta. I am sitting at Seattle’s Best Coffee at terminal B. I’ve had such great memories of this airport. It’s a funny time of year, where airline pilots wear antlers and coffee baristas sport Santa’s hats.

Matt M. and I had a great talk last night on our ride home. You know it was one of those conversations where two passionate people talk about nothing and everything. It’s funny because we could’ve been mid-sentence then start talking about the car that passed us.

The Oertles had a Hollywood Bunko party last night. Bunko is a dice-rolling game with groups of four rotating through tables as they win. Everyone had to come dressed up straight from Hollywood. Dozens of people were decked out head-to-toe with glam and bling bling. Matt Oertle (6) was dressed up as Matt Smith. Nicole was dressed up as Matt Maher. It was really funny.; There were so many good kids there…kids that I want to see become adults and make the world a better place. I can’t imagine what it was like for John and Rhonda Oertle to go to bed last night, knowing so much hope and laughter passed through their home in just one night.;;

Oops…I’ve been here to long. Time to catch a flight.

I am lying in my bed looking around at my new room. It’s so quiet. Normally nightclubs and Harley Davidsons would be shaking my windows. No one lives below me or next to me or on top of me.

I have the nicest backyard in Arizona. This is the kind of lawn men dream of. So green, it hurts your eyes. I want to roll around in it. That, and there are a few leaves I might even get to rake up.

But I have no lawn mower or refrigerator. I don’t have a washer and dryer now that I think about it.

This whole house-buying experience has worn me out. The whole past month has been an endless trail of paperwork and phone calls. I am so glad it is finally done. I don’t have to do any more research.

Last night was a lot of work getting all the junk over here. A year ago, I would’ve been disgusted by all the boxes full of stuff. But, you need plates, electric cords, and a broom. It might look like clutter, but it’s just the stuff you need to maintain something more than your bed.

I am so tired right now, I am going to end this before…