A Bittersweet Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving is really bittersweet. We heard yesterday that a dear friend to many, Justin Schaefer, collapsed on his run and died on Sunday. He was 26, and an absolutely beautiful soul. 

A strong Catholic man and complete geology nerd (with the degree to prove it.)  

I'm glad to have known him for a brief time. 

I'm glad that we shared such similar taste in pizza toppings he stole my pizza out of the oven. 

I wish we had gotten that coffee.

A friend posted this poem that Justin wrote with the note that it was more appropriate than anything he could think of to say. I think he's right.

Faith Tectonics

Give me faith to move mountains,
I gave fire to move mountains.
Give me wisdom to straighten the path.
I gave water to carve out the path.
Give me love that erupts into the earth.
I gave volcanoes to transform the world.

A voice cries out the wilderness:
_____Make low the mountains;
__________I will erode injustices.
_____Make full the valleys;
 __________I will deposit compassion.

O Divine Dynamo, the mover of movers.
I have mapped my faults.
Shear them together,
That I may know perseverance.

Subduct my soul, you who are beyond all things,
As I dive into this baptism of fire and water,
Let me be transformed.
Give me a heart of stone,
Not of the cold, dead, static, stone;
But of the warm, dynamic, life bearing earth.
The rock on which you will build your Church.

For the repose of the soul of Justin Schaefer. May God grant him eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon him.