Catholic Ragemonkey

(Magic) Eight ball, side pocket
After my move to Guymon a few years ago, visits to my spiritual director in Wichita became less frequent -- a sad consequence of the distance from Wichita to the Oklahoma Panhandle. I would see my director every few months and I always hoped that some day, I could return to a more frequent pattern of attendance at spiritual direction. Then Pope John Paul II threw a further wrench into that plan when he decided to name my former spiritual director a bishop. Ever since then I have been without a director.

Fr. Tharp, in his sollicitude for the spiritual life, became so concerned at one point that I have a director that he bought me a Magic Eight Ball (you know, the thing you ask questions and then turn over to see the answer), telling me something like this: "Hey, I don't support magic or wizardry, but you need a director other than yourself so badly that even asking a Magic Eight Ball would be better than your current arrangement [of being without a director]!" So that has been an ongoing joke between us ever since.

Well, I am happy to report the end of my solo pool game and I declare: Magic Eight Ball, side pocket! Yes, I have made arrangements to return to Wichita to begin direction with a different priest this time. It is the same priest Fr. Tharp visits for spiritual direction. The director has kindly offered to make room in his schedule for me and so Fr. Tharp and I will probably plan on tearing up I-35 together on a monthly basis or so as we arrange back-to-back direction appointments in Wichita. Of course, since the director and I don't know each other well, we will begin on a probationary period of sorts ... but here's hoping it all works out and I can again have spiritual direction! So, dear readers, should you ever be near I-35 north of Oklahoma City and south of Wichita, Kansas, you just may see Fr. Tharp's Batmobile (the tinted window, black Avalon) speeding along, carrying not only one ragemonkey, but both!

Of course, this may mean we have to develop a security detail or at least a decoy car so that some malefactor doesn't take out the whole ragemonkey team in one fell swoop!