Hottub Anniversary, Religious Retreat, etc. etc.

Have been keeping this monthly blog now for almost 5 years, since august 2005. Sometimes I have trouble with coming up with something to write about and I'll a miss a month. Then I just have to take a look around me and mine and SOMETHING will come up. Sometimes it's a quick look at my appointment calender and something will pop up.
I keep a journal, a handwritten bound volume, for more than 20 years now and a pocket memo book I jot ideas down into. I save all these, calenders, journals, memo books, and sometimes go back over them. Usually i'm looking for something specific like when I changed the oil in the car last or such. Mostly it's the pack rat in me which keeps these things organized and locked away. Noone else may read them, ever. Maybe, after I'm dead and gone, someone will. They just might chunk them out as junk or read every word and figure out what was in my heart, mind, and soul. I seriously doubt if anyone reads this blog. Noone leaves any comments of importance.
Today, tonight, is the 21st of october. This was the night I came over to Amy, my girlfriend/fiancee/common law wife/ spouse/ live in lover/ however we're identifying ourselves this week, Amy's house and jumped into the hottub with her and the night we first made love or had sex or however you want to look at it. She has totally forgotten about the significance of this date, of course. Amy doesn't keep track of stuff like that. When she was married, I'll bet she forgot her own wedding anniversary. Anyway, tonight was the night and I wanted it to be special, of course it isn't.
We've been fighting for about a week. It all started when I took part in a church retreat, the A.C.T.S. retreat over this weekend past.
Now for the record, I've been wanting to do this retreat for some years, since I was still married and at Our Lady of Lourdes church in Hitchcock. I just made all sorts of excuses, too busy, no time, no money. Well, the no money was actually true. All the guys I spoke with who had been on the retreat said it was a lifechanging event for them. Since my divorce, I've been going back to church regularly and one sunday at mass I was up in the balcony looking down at these guys who were coming off retreat and one of them was so moved and emotional as to be sobbing during the service. The other retreatants just gathered around him and supported him, hugging him like a brother does and let's him know it's all going to be alright, nothing but love and such. as I looked down upon this scene I knew then and there that that was the experience I wanted, needed in my life for me.
So I spoke to a couple of guys who had gone on one and they got me the application. The retreat wasn't for a few months off, plenty of time to get time off from work and money together. So for the record, no arm twisting or any bullshit like that for me I WANTED TO GO AND I DID. I don't give a damn what Amy says.
I won't go into the details about the retreat here and now because that would be way too much. I will write that it WAS lifechanging. I came out of this weekend past spiritually recharged and with new tools to build with and new weapons to fight with. I feel like a new man. Now I realize I am still the same son of a bitch who left that thursday evening, but I'm not. Things are the same, but different. I am the same but different. If such contradictory statements are or can be true. I am certain they are.
Now, I don't know what Amy thought or had in mind as far as my coming out of this. I am not the holy roller type, waving my hands to heaven. Sorry to disappoint her in that department. I am a changed man. For many years, I have been unable to listen to or enjoy contemporary christian music. Amy loves it, Dana, my ex loves it too. The reason I had been so turned off to it is because Dana would listen to that stuff the entire 17 years we were married and not live it. I will go so far as to say I abhored the stuff. Don't go preaching to me one thing and then not live it. Amy understands this and she's observed, over the two years since I've left Dana, that I am just now able to "get into" the contemporary music at mass. Kind of like an Iraqi POW who was subjected to the barney song as a form of psychological torture. Put that guy through therapy and he might be able to listen to the barney song and not freak out.
For the first time in my life, I can now appreciate contemporary christian music to a degree. I'm getting better. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, there's more, lot's more. Have made plans to go back to bible study, something I did partake in once when I was at Our Lady of Lourdes, and thoroughly enjoyed. Have also made an appointment with a deacon about getting my marriage annulment. I identify my self as a roman catholic, but I'm a divorced catholic. That's a major sin, a mortal one. I havn't received the sacraments in good standing in over two years. It's a sin to receive communion when divorced and living in sin with another.
But I digress, there were all sorts of us men there, some fathers with their sons and vice versa. For some men, this was their second, third, or MORE return trip. THAT'S incredible. I can see why now. I can't wait to go back. I should have done this years ago, not that it may or may not have saved my marriage. Just that for my spirit and self, it was the most moving, emotional, spiritually recharging, lifechanging event I have experienced in a long time or to date. Everyone should go at least once. I want Amy to go, my mother, my sister, my daughters, my father, my brother, I want EVERYONE to go and experience what I had. Now I sound like a new born again christian or like a new christian all together. A new convert. I certainly feel like such.
I've always had a relationship with God, everyone does. But sometimes, I separate myself from God and His love. Call it life, work, ourselves, living, whatever. Now I'm not labelling good or bad, it's not all so cut and dry, black and white. There is a huge gray area there. I do feel as a result of this retreat experience I am closer to God. Father Frank once told me that I am so busy looking for God in the roar of a burning bush that I have forgotten or was unable to listen for God in a whisper.
I've read some about the how's and why's of the Mass and prayer and I still pray the rosary daily. I've even read the Holy Bible from cover to cover once over a year and a reading plan. From this retreat, I have a new hunger for it all inside of me. Sometimes it's a roaring fire and sometimes it's a glowing ember. But you throw gasaline on a glowing ember and see what happens. That's how I feel inside. I've always had a good foundation, now I'm building on it. I also realize that I'll be building on it and tearing it down and starting all over again sometimes and at other times I'll just be adding on and remodeling. Spiritual life is very much like building a house. I thank God for my grandparents and my mother for my spiritual foundation. Now I'm building on it.
I'll get back to the hottub sex thing another day.