Note: Monday Morning Quarterback is a weekly post reviewing Sunday, the busiest, most stressful, most gratifying day in the week of a pastor/parent/spouse/citizen.
Song of the Day:
6:20. Awake to the sound of snoring from a junior high student in the bunk above me. Ahh, the spring youth retreat.
6:58. Switch off the alarm two minutes before it’s set to ring. Take that, technology.
7:02. Out of bed, testing the ankle I tweaked exhibiting my Elway-esque spiral skills to a crowd of adoring youth the day before. Ouchouchouch!
7:07. Put on the most wrinkled flannel ever. Camp attire, man.
8:15. Talking with another pastor I met here as we wait for breakfast. He tells me he wrote a doxology to a Lady Gaga tune and has seen the Pet Shop Boys in concert five times. I am much less cool than I’ve been giving myself credit for.
9:36. Youth covertly dumps a gallon of Tobasco into unsuspecting compatriot’s drinking glass. Compatriot gets three healthy gulps down before the fire hits him. Gasping. Coughing. Laughing. My gawd, the laughing.
10:44. Sitting through retreat’s closing talk. Resolve to revisit my two year-old blog post about youth retreats.
10:53. Fist-bumping my students as they offer closing reflections to about 50 of their peers. Confronting my terrible tendency to underestimate my students.
11:03. Serving communion with another pastor here. Unnecessarily adding words: “This cup is the new covenant–the new relationship, the new arrangement–between you and God. And it’s sealed–completed, made real–in my blood–in my life.” You know, because the words of institution are . . . incomplete?
12:53. As the dining hall clears after lunch, three students stand looking out the window and shifting anxiously. Suddenly, they erupt with cheers, and then check to see who’s watching them. I guess immediately that they’re applauding two of their peers who are kissing outside. Momentarily lose my breath as my first kiss flashes before my memory. It was a hurried event behind the transformer box at Mrachek Middle School. Now you know.
12:54. Kissing youths return to the dining hall to the applause of their peers. Breath back. Memory gone. Mad.
2:23. After withholding phones from students for almost 48 hours, I return them for the drive home on the condition that they use their internet connection to tell me the start time of KU’s NCAA tournament game. They happily oblige.
2:34. Twisting and turning down the mountain. Student in the back with a history of vomiting en route to youth retreats asks me to take the turns a little more slowly. Practically slam on the brakes. Whatever you say, man. Just don’t hurl on me, okay?
2:57. The car is quiet. Everyone’s asleep.
3:02. Student behind me surveys eastern Los Angeles county and concludes, “It’s good to be back in the city.” Nod in agreement.
3:37. Back home. Wife texts that she and daughter, along with visiting sister-in-law and 11 year-old nephew and niece, is going to a movie at 4. Turn on the KU game and settle in for some badly needed alone time.
4:56. Trying to take advantage of the rare chance for a Sunday afternoon nap. Failing. Making coffee instead.
6:02. Fidgety. Too much time alone. Need family to get home. How long is this movie, anyway?
6:30. Family returns home. Blissfully happy.
7:24. Nephew showing me a YouTube video about Space Unicorns while I chop lettuce. Wonder what my knife would do to his iPod.
8:43. Making plans for tomorrow’s outing to the beach. In under three minutes, wife has bags packed with towels, sunscreen, and assorted reading materials.
9:13. Inflating air mattresses for nephew and niece. Happier by the minute they’re here.
9:55. In bed, composing Monday Morning Quarterback while wife scrolls through Pinterest on the iPad. Domestic bliss.
YoRocko! 
I’d affirm that the words of institution are incomplete… Words as symbols, translation as interpretation, and all that.