These opportunities seem to be coming more and more often lately! With the passing of our dear friend Mark, our parish had a hole in their Confirmation preparation program that needed to be filled. My wife has been a catechist in the program for several years and my daughter a peer mentor since her own Confirmation in 2011. This year, our middle son is going through confirmation preparation.
When Mark passed, I realized that not only could we not let my own son down, we couldn't let the other 35 kids from our parish down. When I say "we" I mean the parents of the confirmandi. Our parish is blessed to have a great Youth Minister, but Confirmation preparation did not strictly fall under her job description as Mark was the leader of the process, the organizer and to an extent the soul of it. Our Youth Minister helped out greatly, but it was Mark's gig and now we had a hole.
Historically, the mid-point in the Confirmation process is a an overnight retreat at the Archidiocese's retreat house near our home. This retreat was scheduled at the beginning of the year and would occur less than one month after Mark's death. Our parish had no option but to have the retreat go on as planned. While attending the reception following the funeral, I let the Youth Minister know that I was available to help in whatever way she needed. My wife and son would there, so why not? Well, here I am, at the Msgr O'Dwyer Retreat House in Sparks, MD, blogging about my experience at the retreat while the confirmandi complete a silent reflection activity.
I never wanted this blog to be strickly about my CSI activities, but I also do not intend it to be about my faith or religious experiences. However, as the title boldly states, I am and continue to be an accidental leader, whether in business, in CSI or in my own faith journey and the journies of my children and parish community. I simply could not stand by and either let our Youth Minister and my wife take on this monumental task with limited help or let the retreat die altogether. I didn't fully appreciate what I was getting into but I did go in with open eyes.
I was given limited tasks and was primarily responsible, with another father, to keep an eye on the young men after bed. The dormitory at our retreat house has two stories, so the young women are upstairs and the young men downstairs. By bed time, most were exhausted and went right to bed. There were only two that caused any issue and those issues were minor. I also played photographer as that was one of the things Mark handled. In about 24 hours, I took nearly 300 digital images and probably should have taken more!
I had a great time interacting with the confirmandi but also with the peer mentors and the other parents who pitched in to help out. All told, we had 39 confirmandi, 9 peer mentors and 9 adults on the retreat. I am a new Catholic. I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) in 2003-2004 and was baptized and Confirmed at the Easter Vigil on April 10, 2004. I make no secret of this and was surprised when one of the male peer mentors began asking about that experience and others along my faith journey. By Sunday evening, I realized that this young man very much sees me as a mentor. That's one of the great things that came out of the weekend.
One of the not so great things relates to my position as Chair of our parish Mission and Planning Council. I was elected to the Council in May 2013. I served through the 2013-2014 year and watched a Council that lacked direction and leadership. In June 2014, I was nominated to Chair the Council and won a contested election in July. Our parish staff is interested in a strategic planning effort that they have named "Invite - Transform - Act." While the name is good, they are short on direction and action and are looking to our Council for both. In January 2015, I'm empty. For the first time in my leadership life, I cannot see the end goal or the path in front of me to help our Council reach the goal.
I said as much last night at our meeting. I told the Council that I'm empty and I need their help. I didn't get much last night, but that's okay. I've been a leader long enough to realize that inspiration comes at strange times and in strange places. I suspect sometime before our February meeting, I'll get some thoughtful emails or during our February meeting, a course will come out. It might even come from me.
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