Creighton!

As March Madness gets underway, I'm sad to say that my future alma mater, Creighton University, will not be participating this year. Well, if all goes well, it will be my future alma mater, meaning if I get accepted into this program and get enough loans to pay for it. After doing a little research I discovered that Creighton (one of those small universities you've never heard of until you have to decide if they could upset Kentucky or Kansas) has not been in the NCAA basketball tourney since '06-'07. I guess we're going through a little dry spell. Maybe I'll try out. Anyway, to get to the point, I've recently applied for a Master of Arts in Christian Spirituality, which is a program that runs for two-months each of the three summers it takes to complete it. That means we're planning on spending two months (June and July) in Omaha, Nebraska for the next three summers! It's hard to imagine what that will be like. Nonetheless, this program is really unique, and I really feel it will be a great experience for me. It combines rigorous academic study of different spirituality movements within Christianity along with the spiritual formation of its students, meaning that the students not only absorb lots of information but are also required to further establish their own spiritual life through retreats, spiritual direction, etc. It's been a long time coming that I've been hoping to begin some sort of official masters program in order to start working towards something more career-oriented. This program, because of its unique nature, does not lead to any one specific job or career path. Still, there are plenty of directions one could head afterwards: teacher, coach, campus chaplain, hospital chaplain, retreat director, any non-profit work, etc. At least those are the options that interest me. So, we're making plans and doing our typical thing of making life way too exciting and, thus, a bit stressful at times. Still, Lauren and I are on board together for these new adventures (her doula school and my masters program) and Dennis is right there beside us being as cute and funny as ever.