Hurts So Good
Jesuit novices receive $35 and a one-way bus ticket and are told to come back to the community in a month. We call this our pilgrimage experience. What happens along the way is up to God and the goodness of strangers we meet along the way.
While the mothers of Jesuits hate this experience, most of us love it. We grow in our trust in God — and we come back with some legendary stories.
I expected to have a difficult month. Things didn't work out as planned.
Through a bizarre series of events, I found myself on a yacht in the Pacific Ocean and at dinner with the owner of an NFL team. This was not what I had in mind when I left Minnesota with $35.
Going into the month, I thought that the harder the experience, the more "authentic" the pilgrimage.
I discovered that wasn't the case. While a willingness to struggle is a necessary component of many of the best things in life, harder doesn't necessarily mean better.
No one escapes suffering for long, but in the words of John Mellencamp, a meaningful commitment will often "hurt so good."