I heard recently about a father and son who found a treasure while plowing their field somewhere in England. It was a huge discovery-Viking loot from some raiding expedition, or something. Nobody knew it was there until the plow unearthed it. That’s how I feel-like I’ve discovered something incredible without even trying. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get my friends to realize how great my discovery really is.

When Paul invited me to go on the ski trip, I went to ski. I mean, it was a ski trip, right? The forecast was perfect-just the right kind of snow, the right amount, super cool lodges and pretty girls. Who could turn down an invite like that? Not me.

Not even an invite from a church geek. I mean, I didn’t have anything against churches, except that they always seemed to butt into people’s personal business. But I wasn’t after church. I was after a good ski weekend, and maybe a pretty girl. Southside was a church known for having lots of pretty girls. That’s probably part of why I went.

And I did have a great weekend. I skied a lot, drank hot chocolate in the lodge while I sort of listened to their Bible study, and had time to really think about my life.

Not that my life was bad. It was the quintessential, perfect teen life. I mean, dude, I had everything. I had the best friends from the best crowd in the best high school in town. I drove one of the hottest cars and dated all of the hottest girls. In the fall, I filled my time being quarterback for a state championship level football team, and in the spring I pitched for our not-quite-so-great baseball team. My grades may not have set any record books on fire, but they were okay. And every weekend I had more social invites than I could shake a stick at.

The parties were my life, and I didn’t see anything weird about that. My motto was “everybody who is anybody parties”. And I certainly was the king of the somebodys. If guys like Paul were ever mentioned at the parties, I laughed at them. They always acted like they had something no one else had, some special secret or something. All I could see was that they were missing out.

So along comes this ski trip.