By Josh Noem
Seniors, you are officially now 309,600 minutes away from commencement exercises in the Chiles Center. That amounts to 5,160 hours, or 215 days, or 30 weeks. Take your pick.
I hate to be so blunt about it, but there it is. Your college career is coming to a swift end.
Are you ready?
Now, I know that is a ridiculous question. Kind of like in Jackass Number Two when they were strapping Johnny Knoxville to a rocket and firing him into a lake. He was ready in the sense that he was tightly affixed to a big red rocket, but that doesn't mean he was ready for some knucklehead to push the launch button and then laugh hysterically.
Perhaps the same could be said for you, dear senior. In seven months, this community will push the launch button and you will be sent into the rest of your life. (Please know that while we may be knuckleheads, we will not be laughing hysterically.)
You are strapped on, but are you really ready?
If you are looking for some time to come to grips with the reality that you'll soon be entering the adult world, and if you could use some space to think and pray about what you'll do when that happens, then perhaps you should consider attending the Senior Encounter from Nov. 9 to 11.
Whether you've been on an Encounter retreat before or not, the Senior Encounter will have something to offer you. We are not promising that, after 40 hours, you will have a concrete, definitive answer to what you'll do with your life. But we can promise that you'll have a chance to encounter God and other seniors like yourself.
Our tradition tells us that tuning in to God and others is a good way to stay in touch with God's will for our life. This retreat will be a good opportunity to do both.
Even if you have the next 15 years of your life mapped out, perhaps this retreat will be a good opportunity for you to have some fun with people in your class and spend some time reflecting on where you've come from and where you are going.
Will the Senior Encounter be just like the regular Encounter? Yes and no. It will be a shorter retreat (Friday evening to Sunday morning) and it will be set at a retreat center in the Cascades that offers a catering service.
Instead of a student team leading the retreat, the Senior Encounter is being designed and led by Aaron Treat, Katie Quinlivan and Rene Smith, all from the class of 2006. They have been in your shoes, they have launched into the world and they landed safely. They even have some things to share that might prove helpful for your transition and discernment.
The structure of the retreat will be much the same as the regular Encounter, including extensive small group conversation. In short, the team has adapted some of the things that are distinctive about the regular Encounter to make it a better fit for seniors looking for a way to transform their experience at UP into a sustainable, mature lifestyle that offers a sense of meaning and purpose.
Whether you have a job lined up for May 5 or you are just trying to get to Christmas break, God is speaking to you about how you can use your gifts. Spend some time with other seniors and some recent grads discerning what God is saying.
