“He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them,

‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,

take up his cross, and follow me. 

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake

and that of the gospel will save it.’”

On a bright Colorado day in June of 1989, I stepped out of my dad’s car and into a different world. Within seconds, I was standing at attention and being yelled at by no less than three upperclassmen. It’s not that I was unprepared or hadn’t learned from my grandfather’s naval service in World War II or my dad’s career in the Army, but I may as well have stepped through a portal to a different reality. In the following hours on that first day, I would surrender most of my personal belongings, have my hair unceremoniously buzzed, get fitted for new boots and and entirely different wardrobe, be issued all the equipment I would need for the weeks of basic training, and question why I was there. During the ensuing six weeks, I did more physical training than in any other time in my life, got yelled at more than the rest of my life put together, overcame obstacle after obstacle with the help of my classmates, as well as, failing time after time only to get back up and try again. With the pointed offer from an upperclassman to pay for my flight home if I would just quit, I also, as you may guess, questioned why I was there. My class had the third highest drop out rate during basic training in the history of the Academy. 11% of the cadets I started with were gone in six weeks. There were moments of inspiration and exultation, but the daily grind was intense and with the start of academics, week dragged into week and month into month. All of my wide eyed and optimistic reasons for going to the Air Force Academy began to melt away. Over time, none of them proved worth the effort or the sacrifice. It is not common for most 18 year olds, but I had to go deeper. It was a poignant soul searching: what am I willing to die for and, perhaps more immediate, what am I willing to daily live for? 

I recognize that each individual may answer that question differently and many may have been of a stronger constitution than me and didn’t struggle as much, but it became my most important question. I needed a firm foundation, a bedrock, an anchor. I needed something greater than myself to provide direction, determination, and desire to give up my life (daily and ultimately, if necessary). In some sense, I needed to believe. For the brevity of this article, I’ll use words from the Declaration of Independence to summarize what I firmly grasped, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Some may call that childish, misguided, or ignorant, but it was my guiding star. It made everything worth it. It was what I was willing to die for and it imbued the challenge and tediousness of each day with meaning. I found what I was looking for. 

When I first went to seminary, I would regularly be asked a question that went something like this, “Isn’t it a huge change from a life dedicated to the military to ministry as a priest in the Church?” On some level, absolutely, but on a deeper level for me, I had simply grasped a more profound truth as my guiding star. It goes something like this, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Or like this, “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.” It has made everything worth it!