every day

I am loving the Olympics. Snowboard Cross--who invented that?! Short track speed skating--so exciting! Here are people who learned their craft, who practiced what they love--even when they didn't feel like it. Skiing is fun, but there had to be mornings where Lindsay Vonn would have rather stayed in bed, afternoons she would have preferred hanging out with friends. But she clipped into those skis every day.

Every day.

At my aforementioned alma mater, first-year students and their parents pull up to residence halls one Saturday morning in August. Their hearts are full of excitement, their stomachs full of knots, and their cars full of stuff. But they only need to worry about the excitement and the knots. Before they can even turn the car off, bright-eyed upperclass students and smiling staff and administrators have surrounded them, opening car doors and loading up mail carts with the car's contents. These enthusiastic worker bees wear t-shirts that say, "Live the Mission." Five hours into unloading cars my junior year, I remember breathlessly reminding a friend to, "Live the Mission!" We shouted it at one another for hours--more sarcasm than sappiness filling our voices.

I still have the t-shirt. I need that kind of reminder...my call to "Live the Mission." This Lent, that mission is meaningful reflection, deliberate action, sincere effort.

Every day.