Matthew Kelly

Saturday September 19, 2015

Saturday I was up early as I had volunteered to help out at an event at my church, St. Brendan’s. Thankfully I live nearby so I didn’t have to get up as early as some (6 a.m. for me). I am also grateful that my husband, Andrew agreed to get up with me so he could drop me off (parking was at a premium since we were expecting about 900 people).

We had to check-in by 7am for volunteer training for the Matthew Kelly lecture that was scheduled to start at 9am. As expected, the orientation didn't take too long and coffee and donuts were provided for the volunteers (but I passed on both). I was assigned the task of handing out goodie bags to all visitors with a ticket. Those without a ticket were sent to the 'Ticket Solution' table inside (and then given a bag later, presumably). The bag contained a hard cover copy of the same book we all received for Christmas, a copy of the confirmation students' paperback textbook, a CD, a paperback journal, and a pen. He encouraged the audience members to take notes in the journal. I opted to leave my goodie bag (free for all the volunteers! : ) in the cabinet in the gathering space, but I did jot down a few things on my phone. I preferred to listen and just take it all in that way since you sometimes miss things when you're too busy writing and not listening.

Overall, I thought Matthew Kelly was quite good. He got his points across with humor and repetition. 

My favorite story was a family story he shared with us. He has four kids I think, and they're all quite young. Apparently the two middle kids were squabbling, and his younger daughter was complaining to him about something her brother had done to her. Matthew asked her, "Isabel, what do you think we should do with Walter?" Matthew then explained when Isabel learned a new word she liked to practice using it, and her word for the week happened to be "recommend." "Daddy," she said, "I recommend we hang Walter on a cross like Jesus." (cue audience roaring with laughter and perhaps a bit horrified). Matthew said later in the day Isabel came up to him in his home office - "Daddy," she asked, "do you have any nails?"

I was just sorry that Matthew didn't hang around afterwards. Apparently he had another engagement to get to, or he wanted to head home (he's an Aussie but lives in Cincinnati now). A couple teenage female groupies were a bit gutted when I told them he had already left.

Honestly, even though I’ve read three books of his and enjoyed them for the most part, I'm not a huge fan of him as a person, though I think he does great works. I'm just glad I didn't splash out for a new copy of one of his other books to get autographed since that would have been a waste of money. I'm glad I was able to leave earlier than I anticipated (by about 45 min.), so I ate lunch at a decent hour and had all afternoon to get things done before returning to church to be a welcome greeter at the 5:30pm mass.

Have a good week everyone!