Tonight I spoke to the Life Teen group at St. Vincent De Paul in Houston, Texas. My friend Bob Lesnefsky is the youth minister there, so I’ve been looking forward to this trip for the past month.

This church had the coolest hangout for teenagers. It was a loft-like space on the second floor of the parish hall. It has floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of skyscrapers downtown.; You could play pool, air hockey, or an arcade game. There were fun movie posters framed on the bright-colored walls. After exploring the room for fifteen minutes, I plopped down into the cozy couches. Good job, Bob.

A lot of people came, considering it was Labor Day weekend. Their Mass was lively; but still prayerful. Afterwards we piled into their teen room for the life night. Their theme for the semester is the “The Real World”, so I suppose I was the perfect guy to lead the night. Bob wanted the teenagers to know that we’ve built a consumer-based reality in America today. We live in an artificial world. But our faith in God is what is real. God is real. So anyway, I had a really good time talking on the subject.

Afterwards a few of us guys went out for dinner. It was good to be with friends. Now I am back at Bob’s house and I am so tired I’m about to pass out. I’m going to have to get up in a few hours to catch my plane. Goodnight.