In Spanish today, we had a visit from a Franciscan friar. He graduated form my school a while ago and was coming back to visit my Spanish teacher, Mrs. Derrane. We spent the whole period talking to him, it was awesome. He’s from a very traditional order that wears woolen tunics all the time, with beards and shaved heads. He went to Williams with a Poli Sci major, but one day during the summer after he graduated he woke up and knew he had to be a monk. It’s really not my thing, and I very much doubt it ever will be, but I can really respect that. He felt that he had a real calling, and went right out and did what he wanted to do. He was absolutely certain that that was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. It was really, really cool.

At work I was playing with this little kid while his father had a meeting with Leon. He was doing “magic tricks” (actually, dancing around and hiding things behind his back while I pretended not to notice) and I was pretending amazement at his skill while despairing my lack thereof. He told me that I just had to put my hands together and pray to God and Jesus to give me the power, and I would get it. Then God and Jesus were in Michael’s office, then they were in the conference room, then they were trapped in the kid’s hands. He was a cool kid.

Religion isn’t really a part of my life, so I sometimes forget how much it matters to other people.