My life is like a story, sort of

Yet another old one. 

My kids sometimes talk about my life, especially my childhood, as like a story. What they mean is that I had a life like you read about in a Beverly Cleary book--going to school, little adventures in the neighborhood, etc. In a way they were right, although growing up in the 1960s during a cultural revolution, some of the less wholesome aspects of life creeped in at the edge of my life sometimes, such as the time a drugged-out 17 year old invaded out house and beat up my mom. I'm not likely to tell most of those stories to my kids.

There have been times when my life was almost adventurous beyond the ordinary. "Almost" is the key word. It is like something almost thrilling happened. Like the time I almost started a race riot after a little league baseball game when I accidentally hit with my glove an African American opponent after his side lost. Or the time we almost helped an East German dissident escape from East to West Berlin using a friend's passport. Or the time a woman and I almost accidentally tried to steal a car in an African American neighborhood in a town where race tensions were high.

Other aspects of my life are just kind of cool or interesting. Like the time some chums and I broke into the South Dining Hall at Notre Dame in the middle of the night using the steam tunnel system. I hope they don't read about this and revoke my diploma. There must be a statute of limitations, right? Like the time I hitch hiked to Munich. Or skied in the Alps. Or jammed on the guitar with John Michael Talbot. Or rode down a mountain from the Europabruecke (highest bridge in Europe) on a wooden sled at breakneck speed with an Austrian woman and her thirteen year old daughter, whom I was teaching English. Or had a stammtisch at a tiny local gasthaus half way up a mountain in Austria. Or spent a year and a half volunteering for one of the most famous priests in Kentucky, Fr. Ralph Beiting. Or shook hands with Mother Theresa. Or, had her spiritual director as my spiritual director. Or was a co-blogger with Amy Welborn and Christopher West during the early, heady days of Catholic blogging.

I think anyone could tell there story in a way that was interesting, even exciting. I mean, what is so exciting about a fifteen year old stealing pears, anyway? (St. Augustine did that, not me.) I don't think there are dull lives. Even people who don't do much on the outside must have very interesting, even thrilling interior lives. I mean, maybe Immanuel Kant wasn't really boring inside. Maybe.