going home

I'm going home tomorrow - going from cool and rainy to warm and sunny, apartment in the city to house in the suburbs, blue state to red state, single woman to daddy's little girl... It's often a strange transition. The other day, my doctor asked me where I was from originally. "Oh," he replied, "that's... red." I laughed, "yes, it is red." He thought for a minute, "Are you... red?" Laughing again, "I guess I'm purple." Not purple, I thought, that makes me sound like a moderate... No, the red in me is about as red as it gets, and the blue is pretty definitely blue... I'm about as out of place here as I am there. It has often bothered me, this reply of, "Oh, that's where you're from? You don't seem like one of them." And then I go home, "How can you be up there, they're so liberal there." It's true, there are things I don't like about both places, but there are also so many things that I love. The people here will never understand the feeling I get when I hear someone with a southern, or even better, Texas accent. The people there will never understand how I felt when I was walking down the street in Paris and saw someone with a Red Sox cap.

So many times, I find that I try to identify myself by my surroundings, but it's a pointless task. I need to go different places, change pace a bit. I find that taking away my usual surroundings gives me a greater insight into what's left - me. It will be so good to go home for a few days, to remember where I came from. I just need some time off to set aside the world that I've surrounded myself with here and find myself again.

In light of all the things I've passed, you'd think that I'd have learned. This is not the land was promised me, even as far as my eyes can see. I'm so wound up, Lord, I can't even breathe, and I don't want words, I just want some peace.
-Not the Land, Caedmon's Call

revolution starts with 'i'

Mark and Louise Zwick run a Catholic Worker house in Houston for immigrants and refugees. The work they do is amazing, and as if that in itself weren't enough, they also publish a newspaper every 2 months or so to tell the stories of the immigrants and spread the philosophy of the Catholic Worker Movement. Their article on how we can reform the Church is a beautiful description of much that is happening in the Church today. They tell how Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin found freedom, not opression in the Church. They also quote Pope John Paul II on the dangers of fully embracing all that our democracy declares to be true while simultaneously considering the authority of the Church to be questionable and unreasonable:

There is a tendency to see intellectual relativism as the necessary corollary of democratic forms of political life. In such a view, truth is determined by the majority and varies in accordance with passing cultural and political trends. From this point of view, those who are convinced that certain truths are absolute and immutable are considered unreasonable and unreliable. On the other hand, as Christians we firmly believe that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.

This, I believe, is an even greater danger at this point in time, where even the rule of the majority seems at times to take a back seat to the rule of decisions made in court.

Perhaps the most difficult was a quote from Dorothy Day: "I said, 'Don't invest money, except in the poor-there you might expect a return.' We learn these things in the New Testament. There's a constant tension at the spiritual foundations; it's a matter of faith. The Lord will send you. If they want your coat, give up your coat. I mean, it just works. If it fails, well, that's because it should fail. It wouldn't matter."

That's an amazing faith. It requires a constant discernment - where is the Lord sending me? - and complete unattatchment, not just to money and material items, but also to the success of our mission - where we spend our money and time is up to the Lord, and once we have spent it the best we can, the fruit of that investment is also up to Him. If each one of us did that, it would be a revolution. I have a long way to go.

i don't get it

Today I found a news article on encouraging the new Pope "to reflect on condom use" in Nature news, of all places! I was rather confused about why Nature was so concerned with Church doctrine, after all, I read Nature news to keep abreast of new scientific research, not to listen to journalists attack my religious and moral beliefs. I can get plenty of that elsewhere. I looked around to see what other sources had to say about the matter. A New York Times editorial, of course, was not the least bit afraid to publish a ridiculously aggressive article describing why the Church's stance on condom use is among the biggest mistakes the Church has ever made. I'm not sure I really understand what the Church is expected to do here. I guess they're hoping Benedict XVI will say, "Of course I condone the use of condoms for those engaging in illicit extramarital sex." The point is, how can you say that it's okay to use condoms, when you're not supposed to do what you're using them for in the first place?

I realize it isn't quite this simple. Yes, some people will have extramarital sex anyway. The fact that this seems to be such a battle suggests to me that those who oppose condom use are perhaps putting a little too much emphasis on opposing condoms and not enough on encouraging abstinence. Similarly, those who are making condoms available must make sure that this availability doesn't lead people to believe that they are condoning actions that are against Church teaching.

on the example of my mother and evidence of the Resurrection

Today is Mother's Day. I wanted to say something about my mom, but I wasn't sure what... Then I read what The Anchoress had to say about the evidence of the Resurrection. Her thoughts, and the article that she includes in her post, remind me of why (at least, one of many reasons why) I believe in the Resurrection. My parents did a wonderful job of giving me a solid Catholic education. They planned their lives around allowing me and my siblings to go to Catholic school and to be active in our church community. But more than that, they showed me by example that the Catholic faith is not simply something to be learned and a set of rules to be followed, it must made real and tangible in the way we live.

When I think of my mom, I realize that all my life I have had before me a beautiful example of Steadfast Love and Unapologetic Truth. My mom was, and still is, a safeguard against relativism in my life. It is she who reminds me so often that what is true is always and universally true, and by example shows me that this commitment to truth is not something to be pursued when you feel like it, but a choice to be made at every moment.

The article that the Anchoress quotes reminds us that it is the way we love one another that will point the world to Jesus. So often we are led to believe or tempted to act in a way that says love is for ourselves, an emotion that binds two people together, until some future time when they may fall out of love and realize they were not right for each other after all. The love of my parents gives lie to that notion. There have been times when I have looked at my parents and said to myself, "this isn't the kind of marriage I want. I don't want to turn out like my parents." My parents' marriage is not perfect. They fight - a lot. Yet, I have never doubted they love each other. Why? Because they showed me that love is not a feeling of always being happy or always being "in love." Love is a choice, a commitment that is lived out in every action so that every difficulty will be faced and worked through, not run away from. When I was a child, I said that I never would want a relationship like this. Now I know that the love I am looking for will undoubtedly be wrapped in similar packaging.

There is no happily ever after in this world, but there is an even better story. The kinds of love that last in this world are not made of fairy dust and glass slippers, but are hewn from the wood of the Cross. Only this kind of love could have resulted in the sacrifices that Mom has made for us, her family. The Resurrection, I realize now, is meaningless without a Cross, and the crosses we all must experience are pointless without the Resurrection. My Mom never gave up hope in her crosses, because of her unfailing hope in the Resurrection. It is because of her example that I am able to believe.

the good is difficult

Right now I'm reading Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla, the man who later became Pope John Paul II. This book is, like all JPII's writings, beautifully insightful, and furthermore, is something that I very badly need to hear at this point in my life. In a chapter entitled "The Rehabilitation of Chastity" he mentions that, "St. Thomas [Aquinas] defines sloth... as 'a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult'." This struck me as very odd. Sloth is a sin... but the good is difficult. How can it be a sin to believe that? We also know that the opposite of sloth is diligence, so by extension, this must mean that diligence is not a sadness, but a joy arising from the fact that the good is difficult. But who can really live like that? Who can be truly joyful that the road to holiness is so hard?

I was reminded of the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-26. The rich young man, we are told, "went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.'" This sounds exactly like St. Thomas's definition of sloth. In fact, the Bible never says that the rich young man doesn't sell his posessions to come and follow the Lord, but we can be sure that if he does, he's rather slow and reluctant to do it. Speaking from the experience of just about every task of my entire life, one simply can't perform a task well and quickly when one is feeling weighed down by how difficult the task will be.

So what hope do I and the rich young man have of overcoming this sloth? As the disciples ask, "Who then can be saved?" " Jesus looked at them and said, 'For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.'" My delight is in the Lord who does not leave me alone with this difficult task of being good. He has called me to this task, and he will give me the strength to work at it.

It is very telling that the story immediately before this is when Jesus says, "Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." I remember when as a child I would delight to be given a new task - to sweep the floor or clean the mirrors (I always loved washing windows and mirrors). I'm sure I did not do a good job of it, but my mom was pleased with the effort that I made. I pray that my father God will likewise see my little inadequate attempts and be pleased with them. I am glad that He has asked me to take part in His work. He has not asked me to repaint the house or build a new front door, only to wash a few windows. I mess up sometimes and leave dirt and streaks, but I know that each time I make an effort, he looks upon my poor work with the love of a Father who sees his child trying to imitate Him.

a quiet voice

I have finally discovered that I have something to say. It's not that I expect anyone to listen, but perhaps someone will. It's nothing profound, only the musings of a young woman who has realized something that she has always known - that NBC and CBS, her professors and classmates, and (God forbid!) Cosmo cannot tell her how to live as she ought to live.

Amidst all the voices today that try to tell me how to live as an empowered woman, voices that tell me to take control of my own life by (although they don't admit it), controlling and using others, I am seeking to find another way.

The story of Lilith is one of modern "empowerment", struggle, suffering, and redemption. Here Adam speaks:

"When God created me - not out of Nothing, as say the unwise, but out of His own endless glory - He brought me an angelic splendour to be my wife: there she lies! For her first thought was power; she counted it slavery to be one with me, and bear children for Him who gave her being. One child, indeed, she bore; then, puffed with the fancy that she had created her, would have me fall down and worship her! Finding, however, that I would but love and honour, never obey and worship her, she poured out her blood to escape me, fled to the army of the aliens, and soon had so ensnared the heart of the great Shadow, that he became her slave, wrought her will, and made her queen of Hell. How it is with her now, she best knows, but I know also. The one child of her body she fears and hates, and would kill, asserting a right, which is a lie, over what God sent through her into His new world.... It is but her jealousy that speaks," he said, "jealousy self-kindled, foiled and fruitless; for here I am, her master now whom she would not have for her husband! while my beautiful Eve yet lives, hoping immortally! Her hated daughter lives also, but beyond her evil ken, one day to be what she counts her destruction - for even Lilith shall be saved by her childbearing. Meanwhile she exults that my human wife plunged herself and me in despair, and has borne me a countless race of miserables; but my Eve repented, and is now beautiful as never was woman or angel, while her goraning, travailing world is the nursery of our Father's children. I too have repented, and am blessed. -Thou, Lilith, hast not yet repented; but thou must. -Tell me, is the great Shadow beautiful? Knowest though how long thou wilt thyself remain beautiful?"
Chapter XXVIII

This is what the world would turn me into - a woman who places herself before anything else. A woman who believes that what comes from her was created by her and that she has supreme power over all of it. Yet who is stronger, Lilith who escapes, or Eve who works to undo the hurt she has caused? Who is truly empowered, Lilith who seeks to destroy others in order to prevent her own destruction, or Mara, who seeks to help others face the suffering of change and sacrifice and allow it to cleanse them?

I know now that the good in me is not mine, but belongs to my Lord. I know that to be strong, I must not cause others to suffer, but teach myself, and even help others, to suffer with patience and joy. I will go beyond the legacy that has been left for me by this world, beyond Lilith and into God's love.