Me And My Friends At GC2009

 

Caminante and me.

We met in front of the convention center and talked for a while, and then it was nearly lunch time, so we ate together in the cafeteria at the center, but only after Caminante bought two gorgeous stoles from a booth selling handicrafts from indigenous craftsmen and craftswomen from Panama. Perhaps she will post pictures. What a joy to meet her in real life. I bought a lovely wee basket, woven out of narrow strips of palm, which I will photograph and post later. Caminante has good pictures of the convention posted at her blog.

 

Prior Aelred, me, and Ann.

Prior Aelred, of St. Gregory's Abbey in Michigan, and I have been virtual friends for years now, and it was a great pleasure to meet him in person. He says he's an introvert, but he managed to get in a few words. I was talking to him at the bar in the Hilton, when my bishop, Charles Jenkins, walked up. After Bp. Jenkins left, I asked the good Prior if he thought my reputation with Bp. Jenkins was enhanced or diminished by being seen with him. Like the good monk that he is, he answered me with a question of his own, but unfortunately I can't remember what his question was. Sorry.

As for my friend Ann, I can't say enough about her kindness to me in Anaheim. From the beginning, she took me under her wing, showed me how to get around, and generally took care of me. We have been virtual friends for years now, too, and it was a joy to finally meet her in person. We shared quite a few meals together, and despite her duties as a delegate at the convention, we had a good bit of time to talk and get to know each other better.



Margaret, Caminante, and me, a true rogues gallery. Picture lifted from Caminante's blog.

Margaret and I ate dinner together one evening, and she was quite kind to me also, despite her serious duties as a volunteer at the convention. We sat together at the Integrity Eucharist, up front and center, due to the kindness of Holy Foolishness. As blog friends go, Margaret and I are fairly recent, but once again, it was a real pleasure to meet her in person. She invited me to lunch with her and some of her friends from California after the Sunday Eucharist, but we lost each other in the crowd, and I did not have her cell phone number, so we never met up for the meal. I hope she and her friends did not wait long for me, and I'm sorry that we did not have the chance to share the meal.

 

The cool dude Jake and me - last, but most certainly not least.

On my first night at the convention, I saw Jake outside the Hilton and called out to him. Yelled is more like it, because he didn't hear me the first two times I called his name. His name is Terry, but throughout our conversation, I slipped and called him Jake several times. I can't help it. He's more Jake than Terry to me. He came in with me to the lobby, and we spent quite a while talking there. It was great to see him again. We met in real life for the first time in New York at our very first bloggers reunion. Jake's blog is the grandfather of many of our blogs, because we first "met" in the comments at "Father Jake Stops the World".

I admire him so much, because he is a true evangelist in a way that I can't be. He wants everyone to have the joy of a relationship with God such as he has, and he is not shy about sharing with others. I, on the other hand, usually wait for the other person to bring up the subject. I hope that he starts up his blog again. It was a treasure, and I'm honored that I was once a minor player there.

As Jake stood up to leave, Tobias and his beloved James stopped by, so we chatted with them for a few minutes.