Anniversary of our First Date

I would have liked to have written this post yesterday, but c'est la vie.

The reason is that yesterday was both the actual, calendar anniversary and the "liturgical" anniversary of my first date with my husband.

What the heck is a liturgical anniversary, you ask? Well, see, it was Saturday, April 4, 1998 and it was also the Saturday before Palm Sunday.

Erol and I had been friends who kept showing up at the same events for about four months at the time. (We were both grad students.) It seemed that all the group conversations we got into all hit on the charismatic renewal, and Erol mentioned a few times that this was a bit foreign to his upbringing. Hmmm, I wondered. The charismatic renewal is pretty darn central in my formation. But he's really rather cute. Is this really a problem?

So one night after a gathering it entered my mind that I could invite Erol to the upcoming Festival of Praise with me. This is a monthly praise gathering at Franciscan University. (Yes, there was one last night, but we were both so bushed we decided to sit this one out.) With my typical trepidation I eventually picked up the phone and called Erol. I asked him if he'd like to "partake in a cultural experience," which I thought would be a winning approach. The fact that he agreed before I even told him what it was was likely a winning sign as well. Ok, so we were set for the end of that week.

A few days beforehand, Erol called to ask if I'd like to get something to eat with him before the FOP. I agreed, sort of surprised at this. I figured we'd go to the snack bar and grab a quick hot dog or something a few minutes beforehand. He showed up two hours before hand in a suit, and I met him dressed in khakis and a T-shirt. Ok, so that was a little awkward. He took me to the now defunct Riverboat Room, which was not my normal grad student fare.

I described the scene later to my friend as two cats hiding under separate beds. It was like having a huge zit in the middle of my forehead, so painfully aware was I of how our conversation clunked along. Then I accidentally stumbled upon one of Erol's favorite ice-breaker conversation topics (regional accents), and when he talked on and on about it, I felt it was a sure sign that he had just given up hope of my talking and decided to fill the dreadful awkwardness.

We went to the FOP, and frankly I don't remember much about it. Afterwards, Erol suggested we go to Dairy Queen but this is Steubenville and the sidewalks get rolled up pretty early, so by the time we got there it was closed. On the way back to my apartment I remember forcing the words out of my mouth: "Uh, I don't know how to say this but, uh... what sorts of things are you interested in?" Erol stopped bracing himself and developed a smile in his voice, and he said something or another about things I couldn't relate to, and then he dropped me at home.

I went to Mass the next morning unable to shake the feeling of being a complete doufus. But a line from the gospel riveted its way through my soul: (Jesus was instructing about finding the colt) "The Master has need of it." This line reverberated through my heart, and somehow I knew that this was true of my experience the night before. To prepare the way of the Lord, to prepare the way for the kingdom of God in my life, the Lord had need of my little attempt to reach out, even though I was completely mortified by what felt like abject failure.

We dated a bunch more and in less than four months we were engaged. And the rest, as they say, is history.