Major Announcement

I have been inactive on virtually all social media for the last couple of months. I found that being away from Facebook in particular greatly helped my prayer life and thus, the longer I was away from it, the less I wanted to go back. Coming back from Japan last year, I had a good idea of where I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to say anything before it became a done deal. The time for silence on this has come to an end. Unfortunately, I am certain that this one, unlike my last major move (going to Japan) will prove to be highly unpopular in certain circles and will cost me several friends. I’m prepared for that and I pray for those individuals. It’s sad that we live in a society where we can’t maintain friendships with people with whom we have disagreements, but such is life.

Now, while this announcement may seem like it is out of the blue and completely random, I can assure you that it is quite the opposite. I don’t rush into things like this. I can definitively say that this has been in the works for 10 years. One could argue that it’s been coming for much longer than that. So what is this major announcement you ask? In short, I have been accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Charlotte. This means that, God willing, I will be ordained a Catholic priest in roughly 6 years.

I contemplated going back to Japan and joining the Dominicans there, to serve the people I came to love during my four years there. In the end, however, their liturgy is (in my eyes) a bit suspect and this is my home. Even if I am only able to serve for 10 years it will have been worth it. I just wish that I could have gotten this process started much sooner. But if I had, just look at all the experiences I would have missed out on.

Since I will be otherwise occupied with my studies during this time, I will be deactivating this blog. I may respond to comments on this post for a time, but this will effectively be the last post on it until further notice. A special thank you to the folks who have been with me from the beginning of this site to what it has become today. I really wish I could continue to post here, but life happens and it’s time to put it to bed for the time being.