The rest of the weekend...

...was full of some amazing (and some tragic) moments. Overall, a good theme-song for the weekend would have been Poco's A Good Feelin' to Know....

Flying in Thursday night was a mess - but then flights in and out of Chicago often are. Given the fact that I wanted to be up and at 'em by 5:00 AM Friday, it didn't help that I got to the hotel at 1:00 AM...

Friday morning was a blessing - first, meeting up with the men's Bible study group that I'd been a part of 4 years earlier. They'd changed locations, and I had to hunt around to find which strip mall at the corner of 87th and Lackman held the Panera Bread where they were now meeting. But it was just so cool to be back with a group of men who were both friends and Christian brothers, in the truest sense of the word.

I managed to find some decent dress black shoes at Bob Jones Shoes close to downtown KC. Frankly, if they didn't have size 12-6E shoes, I doubt anyone else in the Midwest would have!

Then back to Johnson County for a lunch reunion with friends from my former church life. It was such a blessing to be out to my friends, and find the same welcome and love that I'd always known. Our time was great, but way too brief. It made me sad to have to take off, but the wedding festivities were calling me. That pretty much consumed the rest of Friday.

One of the sad moments came Friday night, after the rehearsal. I was calling a number of my AA buddies, and found more than a couple of 'em dead drunk when I called. I knew we hadn't kept in touch, and I know that people who stay sober are the exception rather than the rule. But it was still sad to hear. One of the saddest was to hear that my former sponsee Mike, whose recovery and wedding I celebrated in this 2004 post, was divorced, drinking and using, and in jail, yet again. /sigh.../

Saturday morning was a good news/bad news time. Good news, it was great to be back at the Lenexa Little House and run into a number of friends I hadn't seen in years. Bad news - because it was "Parents Weekend" at the University of Kansas (in nearby Lawrence) and also the Kansas State AA conference in Great Bend, a bunch of folks that would have been there just weren't. And that kind of sucked, even though I know it's not ALL about me...

Yet another blessing was a brief 90 minutes spent with Pastor Joe from my former congregation. When I think of the close bond we have, despite being 760 miles apart, it just boggles my mind. It was even more appropriate when I read that the lectionary lesson on Sunday was 1 Timothy 1:12-17, a set of Scriptures that have always been close to my heart. That a man such as I once was could be a friend and a brother to a man like Joe shows the power of God working with broken tools...

Saturday afternoon was the wedding (see the post above). By 8:30, things had pretty much wound down, and I bid my dear friend and her new husband farewell.

On the way back to the motel, I thought I'd stop by the 10:00 candlelight meeting at the Little House. Sadly, the group had discontinued the 10 pm meeting - but I was blessed to meet up with a fellow I'd known almost my entire sobriety, who had an exceptionally cool story to tell.

He'd been one of those folks who had a hard time going back to church after he got sober - even after a number of years of continuous sobriety. In one of our late-night talks, I had given him a copy of Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel,, which sat unread on his shelf for a number of years. Turns out he'd ended up reading it after a job and a crazed boss led him to some ugly places while dead sober - and it gave him a new way to look at and understand God. Fast-forward to current times - and two weeks ago, this former reluctant believer is now the leader of the Alpha program at his church congregation - a church family that includes a significant number of recovering people.

You just never know when the seeds you plant might sprout...

Seeing a bunch of my friends at Atonement Lutheran on Sunday was a real blessing. I even got to be a group leader for our adult Sunday school session, which was quite a blessing, and to run into fellow blogger Tim B. and his kids for the 2nd service.

But now, it's day 3 of being back in the work-a-day world, and some of the glow is wearing off, I'm afraid. We can't stay long on the mountaintops, I guess. But it was a great, and memorable weekend...."a good feelin' to know," indeed.