There’s an exclusive club in Sweden that holds but a few precious members. They consist of the people at the computer/projector table, who have done the Oasis conference Saturday mass twice.

The Oasis conference stays two years at every location. And the highlight of the conference is always the big mass on Saturday. The powerpoint schedule for this mass is complex, to say the least; there are songs, psalms, hymns, choruses, confessions, prayers, Our Father Who Art In Heaven, and a ton of other things that must be projected onto the big displays at some point in the meeting, usually in a pretty hectic pace.

When the soldiers in the U.S. Airborne Divisions “graduated” from training and were considered real paratroopers, they were given a Parachutist Badge, better known as “jump wings”. This was the culmination of two years of intense training and labor. They had trained for combat, trained for parachute insertion into battlefields, and they had done at least five parachute jumps. Only then were they considered paratroopers. To many, it was the culmination of their training, that they now had the right to call themselves “real soldiers”.

I’m mentioning this because today, I’ve graduated. I’m sitting here writing in the aftermath of the Saturday mass, which I have now done… twice. Today, I get my jump wings. I’ve joined the exclusive club, and it can never be taken away. Next year, I sit in the ranks of veterans, and can watch a new batch of trainees sweat to pull this off.

Truly, it’s a badge of honor.