Beyond Lilith

a catholic love

2011-05-18T20:36:00.002-04:00

Last month, a few news articles amusedly reported on an article in the magazine Civilta Cattolica in which a Jesuit priest, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, praised hackers for their creative, open model of work, pointing out common ground with Catholic teachings on work. The story reminded me of one of the reasons why I love being Catholic, why in many ways the Catholic Church is the only organization in which I have ever felt at home: It is the only place I have found that, in purpose and aspiration, is truly universal - truly catholic. I love reading the reports of the Church reaching out to various groups, calling out what it sees as good and praiseworthy in each one. Another one that made me smile was the Vatican's letter to letter to Buddhists for their celebration of Vesakh:

Dear Buddhist friends, we pray that your celebration of Vesakh will be a source of spiritual enrichment and an occasion to take up anew the quest of truth and goodness, to show compassion to all who suffer, and to strive to live together in harmony.

A letter like this in recognition of their feast seems like a wonderful way of saying, "We know that you desire these good things. We desire them, too. Let's walk hand-in-hand to the extent that we can."

One of the missions of the Church is to call out the highest good. Part of calling out the good, however, is separating it from what is less good and what is not good. Catholic morality is a roadmap to the perfect, the best. To the rest of the world, this can often look harsh, but it's not too surprising, really. Our Mother Church may sometimes have a streak of the "tiger mother" in her. She wants the best for her children.

So, what about those of us who have chosen to obey our mother, even when she seems to be a "tiger mother"? Our society tells us that, of course, we are free to do this, as long as we aren't judging or imposing our morality on anyone else. Unfortunately, that's not a reasonable way to live. It turns out that we all have to judge. We see others, we see the way they act, we tend to pick up those attitudes and behaviors. So what to do if the people around us believe things or act in ways that we, following the instructions of the Church, have decided not to believe or act? We do the same thing that anyone who is trying not to be governed by social influence must do: we asses the situation and decide whether we are going to do the same thing as the people around us. In other words, we judge. The OED has many definitions of the verb "judge." Among them,

1. To try, or pronounce sentence upon (a person) in a court of justice; to sit in judgement upon
3. To give sentence concerning (a matter); to try (a cause); to determine, decide (a question)
9. To form an opinion about; to exercise the mind upon (something) so as to arrive at a correct or sound notion of it; to estimate; to appraise.
10. To pronounce an opinion upon, to criticize; esp. to pronounce an adverse opinion upon, to condemn, censure.
11. To form the opinion, or hold as an opinion, to come to a conclusion, infer; to apprehend, think, consider, suppose.

This is a terribly vague word. Some of these definitions refer to negative conclusions about people - a sort of judgement that no one wants to be on the receiving end of. Some of these are actions that we all must undertake many times a day - thinking, forming opinions, and reaching conclusions.

So which one are we doing? Judge the following situation:
Certain pharmacists have made a decision that they cannot in good conscience dispense Plan B birth control. They haven't made this decision for other people. Other people are free to dispense it. They have made this decision for themselves, their own consciences. A judge in Illinois has ruled that pharmacists don't have to dispense Plan B. As in, a pharmacist can form an opinion on the most moral way to act and then can act in that way.

Certain groups are very unhappy with this decision. Conscience protection for medical professionals is not at all guaranteed in our society. The difficulty that so many people have with conscience protection points to a problem. When people judge for themselves, they automatically are seen as judging others. For those of us who choose to obey our Mother Church, we may not have much say in whether others judge us as being judgmental - after all, we often don't see ourselves as the ones that ultimately decide questions of morality. We are, however, the face of the Church to the people around us. We must follow her example and call out what is good, as well as what is bad... and when we must point out the bad, it is gentleness and God's continuing care for us, above all, that will show us for who we are - not insistence, not eloquence, not being right, but gentleness and God's love. This is not too different from what John says - Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

hope for dust

2011-03-12T18:31:00.008-05:00

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." These words were spoken over me only a few days ago at the Ash Wednesday Mass. The night before, about an hour after I fell asleep, I had been awakened by a phone call from my Mom, telling me that my aunt was dying. I hardly slept that night. My mind spun with memories of my aunt and worry for her, her family, and my mom. It has been over a year since I last saw her. If only I had known that that would be the last time, I thought, ...then what? I didn't have an answer for how things would have been different, but I was filled with the pain of separation from my family and the knowledge of all that they must be going through that I cannot experience with them.

Two days later, the world was shaken by the news of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan followed by a tsunami and a nuclear disaster. Japan was likely more prepared for these events than any other country would have been, but the destruction and loss of human life have been terrible. Without their incredible technological achievements and their readiness for these disasters, the effects in such a densely populated country would have been much worse. Yet, with all of our technology, we still cannot control our world, or nations, or our lives. My heart goes out to the people of Japan, who will have to rebuild after having lost homes, friends, and loved ones. My heart goes out to the family of a professor in my department who was in or near Sendai during the time of the earthquake and whose whereabouts are still unknown. My heart goes out to the people who passed away in this disaster, who had little, if any time to prepare for their death.

It is these things that make my previous post difficult. What place do cancer and earthquakes have in the universe of a loving God? Yet, the story of the world and the story of the Gospel is one of life created from death. We look at past and present life on Earth and see life flourishing in surprising places, overcoming barriers and predators, multiplying into the millions of species that we see today - including us.

God has told us to "be holy as He is holy." Holy is a word that means "set apart." But set apart from what? God created us out of the dust of the Earth - from the prehistoric amino acids that He first imbued with life, over billions of years, God called us through the processes of this world to become a species that would be set apart for him - able to know Him and be in relationship with Him. For millions of years he crafted beings who would one day be able to walk with Him. Yet, we are still living in this difficult and dangerous world. He has not called all of us out of the world, but He has called us to await our final redemption with the world, until the day when we are perfectly holy - wholly set apart for God.:

For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8

Part of that waiting means being left behind as others are called out of this world. Part of that waiting means dying a difficult death. But we know that even in these things, God is with us and has experienced them with us. He loves us as a perfect husband loves his wife, handing himself over, even to death so that she may be sanctified - set apart for Him. "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." And for this reason, I have hope that my aunt is being called to be wholly set apart from this world to be with God. For this reason, I have hope that those who died in Japan were set apart from this world and entered yesterday into God's presence. We the Church on earth are betrothed to God, awaiting the Bridegroom's call to enter into full communion with Him. We do not know the day or the hour, but God is calling each one of His people home to Him. Calling them out of the world that brought them to life and into full communion with Him.

So I walk on uplands unbounded,
and know that there is hope
for that which Thou didst mold out of dust
to have consort with things eternal.
-The Dead Sea Scrolls

May our Eternal Lord, who knows that we are dust, have mercy on us all. May he bring the deceased into the never-ending joy of His presence, and may those of us still living in the Church militant, the Church betrothed, wait in hope and work in trust.

Update: My professor has returned home safely. My aunt has passed on. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Signs and Wonder

2011-03-09T08:48:00.007-05:00

Whenever I run in more liberal Christian or atheistic circles (I don't place those two groups together to draw any sort of parallel - this is just an observation), I often find myself confronting the view that science has disproven miracles. Now, I don't think it makes sense to claim that God's action is limited by the observed physical laws of the universe. I've touched on my thoughts on that subject before, and I hope to go into more detail soon, but I've been thinking lately about another view of the whole question.

In the Bible, miracles are often referred to as signs and wonders. I like this description, because it shows that the meaning of a miracle is not: "Look! God broke the laws of physics!" Instead, it is an event that evokes a sense of awe and wonder that points to something or someone - namely, God. Of course, it makes sense that the unexplainable is so often viewed as synonymous with miracles. Often, it's the things that fall outside our everyday experience and knowledge, things that contradict our understanding of how the universe works (i.e. break the laws of science) that catch our attention enough that they can break us out of our comfort zone and point us to the possibility of God's action in our lives. The point here is that it's not our inability to explain things that is important - it's our response to God and our acceptance of His action in our lives.

Given that, I'm going to try to dissect the daily human experience of "signs and wonders" into 3 different views.

1. Signs are things that science can't explain adequately, and there are many of those. Advance of science destroys wonder and signs.

This is the "God of the Gaps" argument that looks for holes in our knowledge and tries to fill them in with God. The problem with this view is that it puts belief in God at odds with the advancement of human learning. While outspoken proponents of this viewpoint may be trying to nudge scientists to admit uncertainty and give in to humility, the result of this reasoning is that it equates uncertainty with God. A good scientist is humble and knows the limits of her knowledge, and a good Christian is humble and knows the limits of her power. Those are two related but ultimately different things, and one does not logically and necessarily lead to the other. To try and force a person to admit God's power based on his lack of knowledge will usually just lead to greater stubbornness and less public admission of uncertainty.

2. Signs are things that science can't explain adequately, and there are none of those. We have wonder without signs.

This is the scientistic view of the world. When we begin with the assertion that science can explain everything, then as built into our starting assumptions, science can explain everything. We throw out anything that science can't explain, or we chalk it up to "not understanding it yet." After all, there's always room for scientific progress (I'm a fan of that - that's why I have a job!) Although there are no signs that point to God, we can still be filled with wonder. The famous scientist that comes first to mind is Carl Sagan - every bit of his writings and speech oozed with scientific - and scientistic - wonder.

3. Science doesn't destroy wonder, but wonder is not the end - all wonder, whether or not we understand the scientific process that brought it about, is a sign to God.

I believe that most religious/spiritual believers who have been confronted with and in any way accepted the modern views of science subscribe at least partially to this view. For that reason, it may be a way for "conservative" and "liberal" religious believers to find some common ground in understanding God's work in the world. Believers acknowledge God's presence in their lives, not because (or not entirely because) it explains things that science can't explain, but because they see acknowledgment of God and gratitude as the natural response to their sense of wonder. Maybe they haven't thought through it in that way, but I find that this is a common thread that I hear from people describing their experience of God.

We believe that God's daily work in our lives doesn't happen apart from the processes of the universe, but in and through them. When someone or something arrives in our lives at the right time and the right place, we see that hand of God in that, not because it defies reason, but because we know that the laws of the universe allow for many possibilities and we are grateful that they have worked for our good.

With acceptance of the current state of scientific knowledge, our minds can experience the fullness of scientific wonder, but our wonder grows beyond what anyone like Sagan was ever able to experience. The Psalmist said it very well:

When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place--
What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?

- this is where scientism must end. We are filled with wonder at the greatness of the heavens and the earth and the comparative smallness of "mere mortals." Yet, the Psalmist continues:

Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them rule over the works of your hands, put all things at their feet.

Our wonder encompasses the fullness of scientific wonder at the universe, but then it grows exponentially beyond that, when we acknowledge in faith that God has given us a mind to understand the world, the ability and duty to care for it, and the honor of His presence among us and His providential care for us.

I pray that this Lent, we would open our eyes to God's work in our lives. May we recognize that, as John Paul II said, "We are certainly not left to the mercy of the dark forces of chaos or chance, but are always in the hands of a just and merciful Sovereign." May our minds be filled with wonder, our hearts with gratitude, and our souls with humble trust in the one who Created in wisdom, who Redeems us in love, and who Sustains us in hope all the days of our lives.

now i begin

2011-02-21T07:40:00.003-05:00

I have decided to resume blogging. I considered starting a new blog. After all, the last time I posted was nearly two years ago. The tone of a few of my past posts is a little too maudlin; maybe I should distance myself from those. I am at a very different place now from where I was then. I am the same person, though, with the same quiet voice and I carry the experiences of the past six years with me.

In short, when I wrote my last blog post two years ago, I was heart-broken, homesick, disillusioned with science, unsure of why I was still in my PhD program, and to be frank, often afraid that my advisor would ask me to leave. Now I’m newly married to a wonderful man and still working on my thesis, true, but getting more excited each day about my work and possibilities for the future. This picking myself up off the ground has been a long and arduous process. I know I’m still a long way from the end of that process. But I’m realizing that one of the most important things for me to do will be to incorporate my years of failure - not to hide them or to be ashamed of them, but to accept them as part of what has shaped my path and my identity.

Too often, I have tried to pretend that my years of failure never happened. I tried to begin from my last successful moment, ignoring all that I have done wrong, but also all that I have learned from my failures. It is time for me to begin from where I am. My mistakes and failures are as much a part of me as are my successes. Both are, at their root, traits and characteristics in need of redemption, a mixture of good and bad that has led to my personal assortment of failure and success along the way. I must be humble about both. I am not nearly so good or so terrible as I’d like to think.

Like Bilbo Baggins, the son of Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins, I find myself at a decision point and caught between two worlds.

As [the dwarves] sang, the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him... Then something Tookish woke up inside of him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. He looked out the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water, a flame leapt up - probably somebody lighting a wood-fire - and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

He got up trembling. He had less than half a mind to fetch the lamp, and more than half a mind to pretend to, and go and hide behind the beer-barrels in the cellar, and not come out again until all the dwarves had gone away.

I am looking out the window at the possibilities ahead. Like Bilbo, I have in me both Took and Baggins - the part of me that would like to go explore new vistas and do exciting things, and the part of me that would like to be comfortable, to avoid the possibility of failure and humiliation. It is time to pick up my sword - to pick up my cross - and to go where I have been called.

a response to my complaint that I do not understand love

2009-03-21T17:46:00.004-04:00

"I am sorry I cannot explain the thing to you," he answered, "but there is no provision in you for understanding it. Not merely, therefore, is the phenomenon inexplicable to you, but the very nature of it is inapprehensible by you. Indeed I but partially apprehend it myself. At the same time you are constantly experiencing things which you not only do not, but cannot understand. You think you understand them, but your understanding of them is only your being used to them, and therefore not surprised at them. You accept them, not because you understand them, but because you must accept them: they are there, and have unavoidable relations with you! The fact is, no man understands anything; when he knows he does not understand, that is his first tottering step - not toward understanding, but toward the capability of one day understanding. To such things as these you are not used, therefore you do not fancy you understand them. Neither I nor any man can here help you to understand, but I may, perhaps, help you a little to believe!"
- from Lilith

You are right, my child. You do not understand love. Do not let that worry you. I understand it.

After all, have you understood the stars? Have you understood the behavior of subatomic particles and the collective motions of oxygen ions? Are you so wise that you understand all this? You can explain it. Very well, explain away, but you will not understand. Is this what you want with love? This is not what I want for you. You will know Love, my love, as you will never know the stars. You will never explain it, no matter how hard you try. But you will know it, and when you pass through it, you will say, “Yes, I know what that is. That is Love.” Do not worry that it seems to pass away like a cloud on closer examination. This is because you are not yet tangible, not solid enough to grasp even the smallest piece of it. Yet it covers you as a blanket, even now. Your head is in the blue sky. My love is the air you breathe. Do not be unbelieving, but believe.

Yes, Lord, I believe. I do not understand, but I pray that by Your grace I may come closer to the capability of one day grasping within my understanding an atom of Your Love.

we shall not cease from exploration

2009-02-28T15:00:00.001-05:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks sipping the latte that I bought as a birthday present to myself. There's a quote on my cup from Youssou N'Dour:

People need to see that, far from being an obstacle, the world's diversity of languages, religions and traditions is a great treasure, affording us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others.

I wonder about that. I mean, I wholeheartedly believe that it's true. There's something marvelous about finding ourselves in others, especially where we didn't expect to see ourselves, but I don't think that's where it stops. What I find even more incredible is finding goodness in what is not ourselves. What I love about diversity is the chance not only to find myself in others but the chance to discover a goodness that I had never considered, that I could never have imagined. It reminds me that there is a Goodness that is much greater than anything inside of me, a Truth that is larger than anything I have understood, and a Beauty more incredible than what I have yet seen.

This joy of discovery is the reason I have devoted my life to the study of science, the reason I love sharing my life with non-Catholics, the reason I try to learn techniques of Eastern meditation. The truths that I learn there could never negate but only enrich the beautiful Truth that my God loves me and gave His life for me, that He leads and guides us through His Word in the scriptures and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit working through the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Secure in this knowledge, I go exploring, and I suspect that, to borrow from T.S. Eliot, the end of all my exploring will be to arrive back in the arms of Father God and Mother Church and to know them for the first time.

Lord, I pray that you would bless my exploring. Help me to take the same attitude with myself and with everyone I meet, trusting that there, also, is present more Truth, Goodness, and Beauty than I ever would have imagined.

too many of my poems have been rhyming

2008-05-01T07:31:00.002-04:00

Too many of my poems have been rhyming
As if by melody and form
strictly enforced
I could force my words
to fill the bounds of meaning
and beauty, beauty and meaning
both together, woven
among these strands
of audible thought, binding
their substance to the near-
tangible matter
of words made solid
shaped
according to my purpose

But this time, forms remain unclear
Not absent, or as some may suppose,
broken by human hands,
but as yet unfulfilled
and unknown.
Let these words flow, unbridled,
this matter evolve
beyond imagination
what eye has not seen
what ear has not heard
what has not entered the human heart
will yet find its institution there
unknown matter and unknown form
and mystery
yet to be revealed

be still

2007-10-19T20:57:00.000-04:00

Come, my love, my life, for this wind
is fierce and cold, and I need you
by my side
O my morning star, how this night
is dark and this ship tempest-tossed
be my light
But still, my love, sleep on, and rest
your peaceful head through this storm, here
on my breast
Sleep, my Lord, my love, I'll not fear
that my small ship will come to harm
with you here
in my arms

not by bread alone

2006-10-09T19:01:00.000-04:00

"This is our vocation: to heal wounds, to bind the broken, to bring home those who are lost." - St. Francis of Assisi

I have been thinking a lot lately about the meaning of friendship and brotherhood, about our role as members of the Body of Christ. I so often find it difficult to get past my own selfishness, my own needs. Yet what would the hand do if it didn't ensure that the mouth was fed? What would the foot do if it didn't carry the body to a place where it could rest? It may at first seem better to look out for itself, but it would soon find that its own needs cannot be met unless it first looks out for the needs of others.

We live in a society that says we must first feed ourselves before looking to the needs of others. To put aside my own desires for the sake of others isn't something I can do on my own, but I can make small efforts, and I pray that those small efforts will be multiplied. The words of a Sara Groves song keep going through my head: "When fear engulfs your mind, says you protect your own, you still extend your hand, you open up your home... That's a little stone, that's a little mortar. That's a little seed, that's a little water in the hearts of the sons and daughters, this kigdom's coming."

In the little things, may I learn to give up my own will, so that I will be sustained not by what I give to myself, but by the workings of grace in my life, that with Christ I may say, "My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work."

Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

thanks for the mustard

2006-08-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

“Everyone in the world who is free wants freedom first of all as a means: he wants freedom in order to give it away.” ~Fulton Sheen

I know how true this is. There is nothing so tiring as having nothing to do; a summer of laziness a few years ago taught me that. I need those demands on my time that can limit my freedom, but I want the freedom to decide which demands I will take upon myself.

Much of my restlessness in the past year has been the result of this desire as well. I moved far from home; I found that I had to in order to gain the freedom to make my own decisions. I need that freedom, but I don’t want it. Something deep within me wants to give that freedom away. I want to give that freedom away to the man who will one day be my husband. I want to begin to make sacrifices for him. When I discover I cannot, I try to give up that freedom in whatever way I can think of. I begin to think God is calling me to the religious life or consecrated singlehood. Because, by golly, I’m ready to give up my freedom.

Sheen also quotes G. K. Chesterton as saying, “If man were not free, he could never say, ‘Thank you for the mustard.’” Those thanks are for two reasons: one, because the giver is free to give, and two, because the receiver is free to accept. God, in his goodness and omnipotence, has complete freedom. As Christ asks, what father would give his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Our Father knows how to give us what is good, and He does so. Our acceptance is also free. We all know what it is to receive a gift that we don’t really want. We try to hide our disappointment; we look for whatever good quality we can find, and we graciously say thank you, not because we want to lie about our gift or our feelings, but because of the goodness of the giver who deserves our thanks regardless of whether we appreciate the gift. How much more then does God, who is goodness itself, deserve our thanks?

My freedom is a gift from him. Yes, he did give it in order that I could give it away, but I must give it in the way that He intends, not refuse it because it is not yet time for me to give my freedom in the way that I desire. The Lord has given me the gift of freedom. In return, he deserves thanks. I will give him this thanks, not because I must, but because I am free to.

chronicles of loneliness

2006-06-10T09:22:00.000-04:00

I was beginning to think that my friends had given up on me. Here I was, for the umpteenth Friday night in a row, with nothing to do. It's okay, I didn't really have time to do anything anyway. I needed to get to sleep so that I could wake up early and study this morning. It just would be nice... if I felt like maybe someone did want to spend time with me. Maybe if someone said, "I know you're busy, but let's just get dinner, we won't take long."

Then the phone call. "Hey, do you want to watch the Incredibles with us?" My roommate says, "Is that who I think it is? Oh yeah, I was thinking of asking if you wanted to join us; I guess the rest of them had the same idea." Someone wants to be with me! I feel like I haven't seen my roommate in weeks, and I know I haven't seen the rest of them in weeks. Oh, why not? I can postpone my bedtime a little bit.

So I go, tired, still feeling a little bit sorry for myself, but looking forward to spending some time with friends I haven't seen in a while. And as I look around and see that I'm the car's fifth wheel, and as I walk with the two hand-holding couples to my friend's apartment, and as I try to figure out where to sit so that I'm not in anyone's way while we watch the movie, my loneliness begins to shift. It's good to hear a human voice, to see the faces of those I love, but there is an open wound that has been getting a little too much salt recently. I am no longer alone, but somehow I feel more alone than before. I'm not handling this graciously; I just want to leave.

I excuse myself from the group and go home. After all, it is past my bedtime. As I walk, I call my sister. My sister, my Marianne, how good it is to hear her voice! And suddenly, I know what it is that I want: I want someone who loves me enough, not just to hang out with me on a Friday night when she happens to be free, but someone who will make time for me any Friday night that I need her; I want someone who I can trust with anything, with every part of my life and who wants to share hers with me.

My loneliness begins to shift again. With my sister, I have all of that. I have the best friend I could ever wish for... 1800 miles away. Why so far, my Marianne? Oh, I know I'm the one who left. And I question again - is it worth it? Can questions of the collective motions of protons and electrons possibly justify leaving my home, my family, those I love best? Could this really be what God has asked of me?

Night comes and morning follows, a cloud still hanging over me. I hear my other roommate. Why is she up so early? I should be getting up. The doorbell rings. Her boyfriend is over. It's 7 am, and the last thing I want to see is another couple that can't keep their hands off each other [This isn't a fair characterization, but such are my thoughts when I'm grumpy at 7 am on a Saturday]. Morning can wait; the covers are back over my head.

It's late. I've missed the morning Mass I was planning on, so I have to look for another. I am walking past Our Lady of Fatima shrine. It is closed, but outside are statues, trees, flowers and birds - those things I see so rarely in the middle of the city. The rain falls lightly, rhythmically, like my tears last night. There are so many different birds; I wish I knew their names! I love the raindrops on the leaves, the pine trees with a tiny pearl of water at the end of each needle.

As the Lord has done before, He points to the birds and the flowers to show me His steadfast love and care for His creation. Each tiny part of His creation is beautiful to me - how much more beautiful to Him who created them! Each subatomic particle that I study is precious to Him - how much more precious is each of us who is made in His image and likeness!

It is here, listening to the wind and the rain and the birds, that my loneliness begins to shift again. In the past day, it has shifted to every corner of my heart illuminating empty cavities whose existence I had tried to deny, but now it shifts outside, out away from my self-pity, out where it can soak up the rain, where it can be refreshed by the warm breeze, out to where it can do some good: to the foot of the cross. There at Calvary is the loneliest, the most exposed, and the holiest place on Earth, and it is there that my loneliness belongs.

Perhaps this loneliness is not going to go away any time soon, but perhaps it doesn't need to. "When your heart has fallen raise it gently, humbling yourself before God, acknowledging your fault, but not surprised at your fall. Infirmity is infirm, weakness weak, and frailty frail," said St. Francis de Sales. So I take these empty caverns in my heart and ask the Lord to fill them with Him. I take the little bit of strength I have left and trust that God can multiply it to do His will.

So the land of loneliness is the land of intense peace and a strange joy. But God does not yet allow loneliness to be eliminated from peace and joy. That will come after death... The loneliness of God is a creative loneliness... When you discuss loneliness and come to think about it, think about the loneliness of Christ, of God - the loneliness that God gave us to bring us to himself.
~Catherine Doherty

fighting a darwinian "faith"

2006-05-22T20:57:00.000-04:00

This post has taken me quite a while to churn out... I started writing two other posts and left them unfinished, then this one started branching off in various directions and had to be pruned and made to grow the right way... I guess that disorganization and... perhaps we could say restlessness... has basically been the state of my mind lately, so you'll have to bear with me!

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." So said St. Augustine, describing how our deepest desire and the answer to everything we seek is the Lord, the God who created us in His image. If the Lord is all that we need and all that we truly desire, then what keeps us from running to Him and resting confidently in His arms?

We so easily start to believe that we can do things on our own, moving further from the Lord as we believe that we have everything under control or that we ourselves must bring everything under control. We live in a pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps kind of society. We don't like asking for help. This can at times be the appeal of science, and I think it's some of the appeal of Darwinism. We believe that the universe has pulled itself up by its own bootstraps. We want the universe to be self-reflecting, just as we want to reflect our own goodness, intelligence, or power. As I've said before, the Darwinism/Intelligent Design debate confuses me. I think that's in part because both sides, whether they admit it or not (and I doubt I'll ever hear a Darwinist admit this), have a good deal more than science riding on their scientific theories. Those who fight most strongly for one side or the other seem to be fighting for a philosophy as much as anything else, yet the Darwinists perhaps don't even realize it, because this philosophy of complete and universal autonomy has become so ingrained into our society as a whole.

As this philosophy begins to pervade our lives, starting with the science, extending to our work ethic, it eventually moves toward our morals and spirituality. We live in a world where people long to make the world a better place, to reach out a helping hand where it is needed. This is a beautiful longing, but where this desire is the absolute focus, there is an attempt to turn religion into just another tool to improve the world. Eventually, good works, prayer, even God Himself (or "your higher power") are merely tools to use as we attempt to perfect the universe.

This is the problem: we start with ourselves and work outward, rather than starting with God and allowing Him to work inward.

We do not, our world cannot, grow Godward by natural means - rather, God arranges the natural world to be a reflection of Himself, and we, made in His image, reflect him in a way that the rest of the natural world lacks. If even the rocks cry out, then we know that just as God saw that all He created was good, so everything he made sees that He is good and cries out to Him. As St. John says, in this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He has loved us, and so it is His love for us that enables us to love. Our own love is a reflection of His and is made perfect in His.

As I continue my studies, I am beginning to question why I am doing this research. I remember my thoughts as a high school student, dreaming of being an astronomer, marveling at the beauty of the cosmos and the even more beautiful creator who had fashioned such wonders. I'm unsure sometimes what happened to that sense of wonder I once had. Perhaps I too have fallen into the belief that when I can describe things with equations and predict their behavior then I understand them and can no longer wonder. They have lost their mystery. Perhaps along with my knowledge of physics, my wonder at the mystery of physics should have been growing as well.

WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
-Walt Whitman

This poem has meant a great deal to me throughout the years, serving to remind me that the importance of a thing comes not from itself, but from what it means, and that its true purpose lies outside of it. How quickly we can become tired and sick when we forget the meaning of our work, of our lives, of the world around us! We are always striving for something, always trying to reach further and press onward, but so often we are searching for the meaning of our work inside our own work, for our own meaning inside ourselves. It is no wonder all of our searching is fruitless!

All that we seek, all that we long for, is found in God. Even this seeking is a mirror of Him... a mirror of His own yearning for us.

As we approach Pentecost, may we ask the Holy Spirit to anoint us with His gift of the Fear of the Lord, an understanding of our own unworthiness and helplessness joined with an understanding of His perfect love and power, a fear of keeping our own will and a desire to devote our lives completely to Him as He brings His love to perfection in us.

confidence

2006-05-11T09:15:00.000-04:00

Throughout my life, there have been so many people who believed in me, who believed in my intelligence and my abilities, and I was completely unable to understand why. I fall short so often, and I'm convinced that I'm not nearly as able as everyone seems to think I am. I've always hated compliments, imagining them to be impossible standards that I had to live up to. Sometimes I wonder: what if I didn't really earn any of my accomplishments? What if I have only gotten as far as I have because of affirmative action? What if I only got good grades because I sat in the front row and was never rude? What if people only think I'm smart because I look and act like the stereotypical nerd?

Other times, I begin to think that I did earn all this. I begin to take pride in what I've done, and I begin to see myself as an intelligent and hard-working student.

Listening to people talk about the importance of self-esteem, I'd think that I should be working on the second attitude. I should be proud of my accomplishments, right? But as a Christian, I am called to humility. This conflict begins to seem like a conflict between pride and humility, but is it really? When I go deeper, I find that this self-confidence and this lack of confidence are just two different forms of pride.

When I consider the gifts that God has given to me, I find that true humility does not deny my natural abilities, but rather recognizes that they come from God and that all accomplishments - academic and not only spiritual - therefore can only happen by His grace.

Then as my heart is moved toward humility, I begin to see something even buried even farther down. Throughout my life, I have had times where I am convinced that I am not smart enough, not good enough, not diligent enough to do all that I want to do. If I am learning to trust God in my spiritual life and my relationships, so too should I trust His will for my career. I can say nothing about whether I am intelligent enough to become a professor at an ivy league school... or any school for that matter. What I can trust in is that He has made me every bit as smart as I need to be to do His work. What, then, do I have to fear?

And now I see once more that this is where true meekness and humility lie - not in believing myself and my abilities to be nothing, but in knowing myself to be nothing without Christ and everything with Him, in trusting that He has created me for a purpose and that, by His grace, that purpose is being fulfilled daily. Meekness lies in having confidence, rooted in Christ, that is unafraid to fight each daily battle against my fear, my pride, my laziness, knowing that the war has already been won. Humility, above all, lies in never being ashamed to cry out, "Oh Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, who fell three times on the way of the cross, pick me up again, and allow me to share also in your life!"

God has promised that in quiet and in confidence lies our strength. Confidence! I do not want self-confidence. I do not want self-deprecation. I desire only confidence that takes Christ's love as the foundation and purpose of my entire life: body, mind, and soul. In the words of St. Therese of Lisieux: "We can never have too much confidence in the Good God, He is so mighty, so merciful. As we hope in Him so shall we receive."

rejoice in the Lord

2006-04-27T20:32:00.000-04:00

-- Update --
More thoughts on joy, sorrow, and gratitude:
quotes from Amanda
thoughts from Carolyn
and a poem from my Marianne
------------

At this time last year, I was pondering the effects of spring, watching the first signs of green appear, watching flowers slowly trying to open up and face the sun. I thought of how painful it was, when roots begin to thaw and the first green appears, brought out into the still-too-cold air by the cool spring rains. My head was filled with the words of T. S. Eliot:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

~from The Waste Land

But I knew that I had to let go of my fear of the open air. It was time for me to grow.

By God's grace I have grown - I hope I am still growing - and I find now that the cold and rains and growing pains of spring bear with them something that I had neither expected nor dared hope for: joy. I was reminded of a book that I read many years ago called Hinds' Feet on High Places, which talks of a little flower called "Acceptance-with-joy." The Lord is turning me into this flower, each day more so. Many times over, the Lord has showed me how these things - acceptance and joy - do not appear together instantaneously, but one always grows out of the other. True joy can only come from acceptance, and out of true acceptance, slowly but surely, must grow joy.

So often, I want to be reassured of the joy beforehand. I want to know exactly what that joy is and how and when it will appear. Is that acceptance? No. Acceptance is, however reluctantly done, the action of faithfully taking hold of Sorrow and Suffering and by grace moving forward. The road is hard, but joy which springs from it would be unheard of - or if not unheard of, then completely misunderstood - along any easier path.

In this, then, is joy: not in a denial of suffering or pain, but in an acknowledgement that Love is one mystery from which spring both sorrow and joy. It is an acknowledgement that the Lamb who stands as one slain, the Risen Christ still bearing the open wounds of His love for us, wants us to share completely in His life: in His cross and His glory.

One Foot in Eden

One foot in Eden still, I stand
And look across the other land.
The world's great day is growing late,
Yet strange these fields that we have planted
So long with crops of love and hate.
Time's handiworks by time are haunted,
And nothing now can separate
The corn and tares compactly grown.
The armorial weed in stillness bound
About the stalk; these are our own.
Evil and good stand thick around
In the fields of charity and sin
Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root
As clean as on the starting day.
Time takes the foliage and the fruit
And burns the archetypal leaf
To shapes of terror and of grief
Scattered along the winter way.
But famished field and blackened tree
Bear flowers in Eden never known.
Blossoms of grief and charity
Bloom in these darkened fields alone.
What had Eden ever to say
Of hope and faith and pity and love
Until was buried all its day
And memory found its treasure trove?
Strange blessings never in Paradise
Fall from these beclouded skies.

Edwin Muir

I don't agree with all that this poem says; to claim that love and charity were unheard of in Eden seems very wrong to me, but it expresses beautifully how the fallen world in which we live provides a way for God's power to be known as His glory shines even in the midst of darkness. Or put another way, in the words of the Dread Pirate Roberts: "Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something." I could never claim otherwise, but this cannot keep me from saying also that life is joy. And where does this joy come from? The joy of the Lord must be our strength.

I pray that in this Easter season, you may fully experience the joy of the glory of God springing from the fertile soil of acceptance and watered by His love.

all the (mostly meaningless) answers

2006-04-23T14:31:00.000-04:00

Clayton at The Weight of Glory had this on his blog, and I thought it looked like fun.

Instructions: Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.

How does the world see you? Always Love (Nada Surf)
I wish that were true! By the grace of God, one day...

Will I have a happy life? Pies Descalzos, Suenos Blancos [Bare Feet, White Dreams] (Shakira)
Seems to be a song about Adam & Eve taking the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden... but as I am learning from the Easter Exultet: "O happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a redeemer!" When even my sins and failings are transformed by the love of Christ, how can I fail to have a happy life!

What do my friends really think of me? Father of Lights (Vineyard)
Umm…. What?

What do people secretly think of me? Someone Searching (Ginny Owens)

How can I be happy? Jind Mahi (Malkit Singh)
No clues there… apparently I have to learn Hindi to find out.

What should I do with my life? Climb On a Back That’s Strong (Caedmon’s Call)
Amen!

Will I ever have children? Independence Day (Mel C)

What is some good advice for me? Barrel of a Gun (Guster)
Oh my.

How will I be remembered? 40 Acres (Caedmon’s Call)

What is my signature dancing song? The Healing Time (Smoke Ring Days)

What do I think my current theme song is? Weather with You (Crowded House)
Actually… that’s true, though perhaps a little out of date. I even had it on my AIM profile from January till just recently... when I replaced it with the words from the Easter Exultet (see above).

What does everyone else think my current theme song is? Hotel California [Spanish Mix] (Gypsy Kings)
Funny in all sorts of ways.

What song will play at my funeral? Do It Again (Nada Surf)
Back to the Hindu theme with reincarnation, perhaps?

What type of men/women do you like? Walk Down This Mountain (Bebo Norman)

What is my day going to be like? Priidite, poklonimsya [O come, let us worship] (from the Rachmaninoff Vespers)
More than appropriate for a Sunday!

stern as death is love

2006-04-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

Both Wittingshire and Sexless in the City have recent posts that have made me think... and have made me remember my vocation.

Amanda at Wittingshire relates the life of a religious sister to the life of a stay-at-home mom, with the following dialogue from the novel In This House of Brede and from the words of a friend:

"Can you call it nonsense? All down through the ages, thousands of intelligent women have made it their chosen way of life."

"Because they had nothing better to do."

"On the contrary; because they knew there was nothing better they could do."

"It's the most important thing I could ever do, but some days it is so hard. I'm not capable of being loving every minute of the day. I don't have enough patience, or enough wisdom. I mess up all the time..."

"I can't."

"But I'm a better person for trying. Far better, because it makes me rely on Christ every day."

"I can't. So You must."

Meanwhile, Anna discusses hope found in seemingly unlikely places as God's protection thwarts our own plans to reveal blessings in disguise.

As always, Anna's post seemed to echo so perfectly where I am in my life... Yet even Amanda's post, different as it seems from the way I live my life each day, spoke to me, as I'm sure it speaks to every Christian, because at its root, Amanda's post speaks of the vocation of every Christian: the vocation to love. Each and every day, we are called to act not out of selfishness, not out of a need or desire to be loved, but simply, without fear, to bring Christ's presence to those around us. As a single woman, I am free to do this in ways that a religious sister or a mother is not able to do.

My call to live patiently as a single woman doesn't make sense in the eyes of the world. It does seem like nonsense, doesn't it? "You need to advertise yourself," my friend says. In a sense, she's right. If I really want a boyfriend, I do need to advertise myself. But like Anna, I find that what I really want... what I've really always wanted... was not a boyfriend, but a husband and a family and the ability to live in patience and act in love until that day comes.

In the meantime, I am learning so much about myself and how to love. I am learning about who I am, finding my identity in Christ. He asks me to set Him as a seal on my heart, to take my identity and confidence from Him and His love for me.

Set me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm;
For stern as death is love
Song of Songs 8:6

And as the Lord delights in me and rejoices over me, I begin to realize that if this is how he loves me, how can I fear to show that love to others? I have so often hidden my love - love for my family, for my friends, for those whose lives affect mine deeply. Why should I fear to show this? I am learning to let go my fears of rejection, my fears that they will not appreciate or value this love. How does Christ love? His sacrifice on the cross... his quiet, even unnoticed presence in the Eucharist... when does he demand recognition in return for his love? So if this is how my God loves me, then let me be as bread to those around me, unnoticed, but equally unashamed to offer myself. My worth does not arise from the esteem of those around me, but from the seal that I wear on my heart, the mark that says, "look! my God rejoices in me!" As I grow through all of these things, I am learning the truth of the words that St. Paul wrote:

An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. - 1 Corinthians 7

I have seen this to be true in my own life. I have a freedom now to serve the Lord in a way that would not be possible if I had someone else to think of and to arrange my life around. I realize more and more each day that this IS the most important thing I could do.... but at the same time, it IS so hard... I fail so often. "I'm not capable of being loving every minute of the day. I don't have enough patience, or enough wisdom. I mess up all the time... But I'm a better person for trying. Far better, because it makes me rely on Christ every day."

These last words are the words I have learned to speak to Christ every moment of each day, "I can't. So You must." And slowly but surely, I am learning to take both my strength and my identity from the Lord.

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my will. All that I have and cherish, you have given to me. I surrender it all to be guided by your will. Your love and your grace are wealth enough for me. Give me these, Lord Jesus, and I will ask for nothing more.
~St. Ignatius of Loyola

truth cannot be contained in a field of daisies

2006-03-24T18:34:00.000-05:00

I woke up yesterday seeking the truth, seeking an answer to my questions about love and relationship and a certain man in my life. What I found were smiles and laughter. I came seeking either acceptance or rejection, and left with neither.

I didn't get what I bargained for, but perhaps I received more. I took a step yesterday that my over-analytical self thought was completely obvious, was completely betraying my feelings. The boy, true to male form, had no clue. I didn't get an answer, but instead I obtained a promise of more time spent together and the hope of a deeper relationship. I came looking for simple answers, "He loves me... he loves me not...," and I found none of those. Instead, I found the hope of seeking a truth that is greater than simple answers.

There are two things that I think we tend to forget. The first is that the Lord is not an abstract omnipotent power, but a living person who we are called to be in a real and dynamic relationship with. Our friendship with Him can only grow gradually, with patience, as we spend time with Him and seek to do things that will draw us closer to Him. The second is that with the Lord as a perfect friend, our relationship with Him is a model and a guide for our friendships with others. We are called to treat every other person as another Christ, as the Lord living in our midst, and at the same time are called to humble ourselves and to serve, just as Christ humbled Himself to arrive on Earth as a baby born in a manger.

Two disciples of John the Baptist give us an example how we are to seek a relationship with our Lord. When John the Baptist points the Lord out to them, they follow Him, unworried about whether He will think them odd due to the fact that they are two complete strangers trailing after Him. They have seen something good and holy and are willing to risk embarrassment in order to follow. Once Jesus notices them behind him, he asks what they are seeking. Their answer is simple. They do not ask for miracles, for explanations, for mysteries to be solved and secrets to be revealed. They ask, "Where are you staying?" Their desire is to share life with him, to spend time and through experience come to know Him better.

And what is it that I am seeking? In my relationship with God, as in my relationship with this man, I should be seeking understanding rather than easy answers. I should be seeking to put my pride on the line, to take the risks that love requires. God has given me a chance of doing this for my friend. I simply pray that I will have the humility to take these risks and the trust to accept the outcome.

blogkeeping: new year, new look

2006-03-11T09:31:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed a few changes to my blog - the color being the most prominent one. I also added a couple of links to the "library" that you should check out: LAmom describes herself as a "Christian pro-life liberal." I so frequently find myself turned off by liberal news and blogs because of their anti-Christian and pro-abortion stances, so it's refreshing to find someone who I agree with on the two issues that really matter to me (God and the sanctity of the life He has created) yet who has a viewpoint in every other respect so different from what I usually read. Her posts are always thoughtful and thought-provoking, and her pro-life worldview so clearly shines through every political stance she writes about.

Yet another stereotype-breaking blog I've added is Dreadnought, a homosexual Catholic trying to live according to the teachings of the Church. With each incredible post, he reveals how this unique perspective has given him a deep insight into the meaning of the surrender and courage required to live the Christian faith and the beauty of God's grace carrying us through it.

~~~~~~~~~ i get turned around ~~~~~~~~~
~~ and i mistake my happiness for blessing ~~

Our world is a world of paradoxes, where truth can be difficult to find, but redemption flows from surprising places. My 24th birthday was at the end of last month, and it got me thinking about the many, many blessings in my life. Am I always happy? ... of course not. The past year has brought me a loneliness unlike anything I had felt before. But as God so often proves, with the other lights dimming around me, I can more clearly see the light that comes from Him, and somehow, even this loneliness seems more beautiful than what I had before, because of who I share it with. When I look past this unhappiness to gaze ahead by the light of the Cross, I see my life filled with blessings that I was blind to until now. With all these blessings in sight, my life is beginning to look pretty rosy. Maybe that's the reason for my new, sunnier color scheme!

Finally, speaking of turning 24...

You Are 31 Years Old

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

What Age Do You Act?

se hace camino al andar, or through the roof

2006-02-16T17:44:00.000-05:00

Recently I've found myself completely amazed by the stories of the saints, not only because of the things they did, but because of the amazing diversity of their responses to God's call in their lives. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints!"

Each of them responded to the same call, but from Joseph, who was rather the strong, silent type, to Joan of Arc, peasant girl and warrior, to Gianna Beretta Molla, physician, avid skier, and mother of four who gave her life for her child, each response was entirely unique. This reminds me that on the one hand, no matter what my struggles are, I can turn to the stories and writings of the saints for inspiration - they have been in the same place as me and remained faithful to the Lord. On the other hand, no matter how much inspiration I may draw from these saints, the path that I will walk in life is uniquely mine.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.
~Antonio Machado

Wanderer, it is your tracks
which are the road, and nothing else.
Wanderer, there is no road,
walking makes the road.
By walking, the road is made,
and when glancing back
you contemplate the trail
which you will trample no more.
Wanderer, there is no road,
only the wakes on the sea.

~Translation: Roger Lapointe
lapointerlep@videotron.ca

No one has ever walked this road to holiness. My own footsteps alone will make the path. It is not that I am without a guide; Christ himself is my way, but no one has gone this way before, and I do not now where my path will lead. In this is the beauty and majesty of God: that the same Lord who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life" has a love so wide and so deep that it encompasses a unique path for each one of us. Some are called from the top of a tree, others are dropped through the roof. I am called from where I am now to walk with the Lord. With Him as my companion, I do not need to look so hard for the trail ahead to see where it will lead. He will guide me down the path that he has for me, and upon looking back, I will find that the path he led me down was the best one for me. I pray only that the Lord will help me walk this path to holiness with joy.

meditations on tofu and the single life

2006-02-10T14:55:00.000-05:00

I love tofu. I'm a vegetarian, but even before I became a vegetarian, I loved to eat tofu. That's not to say I don't like meat. There are some days when I think I would give anything for those good ol' Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets or a pork-filled tamale. But I don't.

I occasionally have arguments with a vegan friend of mine regarding the merits of fake meat. He says seitan "pork" or whatever else is good for when he's craving meat. I say, it's just not good enough. When I sink my teeth into a juicy piece of seitan chicken, all I can think is how it's like meat... only not quite.

When I eat, I don't want to think about how this is almost like something I love eating. I want to truly enjoy my food for what it is. Living as a single woman is the same way for me. I can't seek a relationship that's almost like love. I can't seek a man that's kind of like the one that God has for me.

It's tough. When my roommate's sitting at the table eating her salmon, sometimes my tofu or lentils just don't seem quite satisfying, but I'm not going to settle for just the best imitation of meat that I can find. I need food that's enjoyable in and of itself.

I've wondered what it is in our situations that made the difference between my feelings on fake meat and my friend's. The truth is, I don't know if I'll always be a vegetarian. I don't need to settle for the closest imitation of meat I can get, because I feel that there's still a chance that I may decide to have the real thing at some point.

Perhaps in the same way, it's the hope I have in finding the right man for me that allows me to enjoy the single life. I don't enjoy it as a substitute for marriage. I don't enjoy it as making do with what I have. I cherish each minute of it, because I know that I won't live this way forever. By God's grace, I have come a long way from where I was a year ago, and so, despite all my cravings for a relationship, I
enjoy my life now exactly for what it is. I love being single.

a dream

2006-01-16T16:13:00.000-05:00

On this day to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan Rose reminds us of two important aspects of MLK's character: his prayer and his action. He is known for his action, but his action was rooted in prayer.

It's easy to bewail the problems of the world, to sit back and wonder what's gone wrong, but his example reminds us of the two important aspects of change. First of all, he says:

"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing."

Prayer must be the start of all our actions and the end. Our Lord is our guide and our strength. Once we have that, though, we cannot sit back and wait for things to change on their own.

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate... who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly adivses the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
From MLK's Letter from Birmingham City Jail, April 16, 1963

These words struck me with how true they are. How often we sit back and fail to act when we see some way we could help!

One of my favorite singers, Kendall Payne, wrote a beautiful song mentioning Martin Luther King, Jr.:

A modern day Martin in a world
Of civil words exchanged
But dreaming bigger thinks maybe
He can make the change
He's heard the stories
He wants some of his own
And he's not alone

Let my people go

The time is now the moment's here
Walk in faith or stand in fear
Change the course of history
Did you ever think?
No one ever thought
Who would have believed?

A modern day me, what have I become
What can I be?
If there is greatness out there to be achieved
I want to be more than someone who
Just passes through this life
I want to stand up for what is right

So this is my New Year's resolution. I will find some way to help. I doubt it will be very big, but I will take a step. With God's help, may that step make some difference.

flowers

2005-12-10T14:52:00.000-05:00

Hope is a difficult word. I think of how I was as a child, so full of hope, sated with the idea that anything I wanted could someday happen. Then what happened? I grew up. I, like so many others, became jaded and cynical. Hope gave me an expectation of good things; without hope, I could not be disappointed. I was afraid to hope.

Two weeks ago, my favorite season of the liturgical year began - Advent. Advent means "coming." I love the way the liturgy during this time echoes the long years of hope and yearning before the coming of the Messiah. Such hope was foolish. The Old Testament writers and those living around them did not live to see the Messiah. Their ideas of what he would be like were probably very different from how the life of Jesus turned out. But their hope was not in vain. The centuries of God's people living out their lives in hope of the coming of the Messiah prepared the world for his coming. It is because of them that the woman at the well, St. Andrew, and Simeon were able to recognize him when he came.

Psalm 37 promises that if you "Find your delight in the Lord", then he "will give you your heart's desire." The other things that Psalm 37 talks about do not seem to have happened. The things we see each day on the news do not give much occassion for hope. Are we foolish to have such hope? Yet we know from the examples in the gospel that living out such hope will not be worthless. Our hopes may not be fulfilled when we wish for them to be fulfilled. Our hopes may not be fulfilled in the way we wish for them to be fulfilled. But without those expectations, we will never see when they are fulfilled, in God's time, in His way.

We can never know how the future will unfold, so with our hope will always come fear, but hope is characterized by its living on in the midst of that fear, like a a plant in the desert, thriving in the middle of what appears to be barren and never allowing the desert to overcome it.

Romans 8 "for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance."

Hope is a word of action, a flower opening up above the desert soil, not because it is certain that it can grow, but because it is certain that it must try. It is expanding into the desert air, not because its home is there or because it is leaving the ground behind, but because it knows that with roots deep in the soil, it is ready to begin pushing upward.

Perhaps hope is not something I should fear. The fear, yes, will continue on, but with the roots of my hope in the promises of Christ where they belong, I can continue to bring each of these smaller flowers of hope before him. These flowers each have a name. Some are the names of people I know. Some are the names of things I need to grow. Some are names of people I do not know, places I have never been. I bring these flowers to Christ, knowing that He, too, has called them by their names. They belong to Him, and in His hands, so much more capable than mine, I do not need to fear, only ask, confidently, to help in whatever small way I can.

spiraling toward contentment

2005-11-23T22:40:00.000-05:00

I have the pattern memorized by now:
1. I am going to become a nun.
2. But I'm sure that God wants me to study physics - so maybe not a nun, maybe a consecrated single.
3. Maybe not that either, but I'm really happy where I am right now; I'm really happy being single.
4. Ooh, look at that boy, I really like him. I don't like being single; I want a boyfriend, and I want that one.
5. Well, I guess that's not going to happen. I don't know why I ever thought it could. I can't stand this uncertainty. I'm going to become a nun.

I get so frustrated sometimes. It seems that this pattern will just endlessly repeat itself, making me unsatisfied and lonely for the rest of my life. Maybe it's true - maybe this pattern will endlessly repeat itself. But it isn't unchanging - I think I'm improving. I'm spiraling toward contentment. Right now, I'm back at step 4. It's frustrating - this feeling of, "Why do I like him? He'll never like me, so I shouldn't feel this way." But perhaps God has a plan in this that is bigger than a link to add to my paper chain of crushes. This latest link in the chain is... a physicist who loves God. Amazing. His presence in my life challenges me to be the same. I know that whether or not any relationship comes out of this, a friendship with him is something that will challenge me to grow. I must let go of my plans for this friendship and simply allow God to love through me so that I never abuse the gift of this friendship that I so greatly desire to have with the Physicist Who Loves God.

she's right... men are like shoes

2005-11-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I got a pair of brown boots that I had ordered online. They looked nice, fit pretty well... but the insole had all kinds of ridges and bumps in it. They were my 4th pair of brown shoes that I did't like. I was fed up with it all. "That's it!" I said, "I just won't wear shoes!" I was immediately struck by the absurdity of my declaration, but I also realized that I tend to have this same attitude towards another subject.

I remembered a post by one of my friends on how men are like shoes. Her experiences with both seem to be rather different from mine, but I concur with her statement. Neither men nor shoes are ever perfect, but, even though I don't always like to admit it, both are a necessity. I don't mean this in the sense of a romantic relationship. What I mean is that for a woman to say she doesn't need men, just like a man saying he doesn't need women or me saying I don't need shoes... it's absurd. It may be possible for some people in some cases, but on the whole, men and women were meant to live in relationship with each other.

What I am learning, though, is how important it is to take each friendship as it comes, without trying to force it to be something it's not, without fear that I'll be stuck with shoes I don't really like. I find as I learn how to let go of these fears, that I am more able to see the beauty in these friendships. I am more at peace with myself and the people around me. I hope that through all of this I am also more able to accept their friendship and to be the friend I should be to them. These shoes don't fit my feet perfectly... but they're starting to grow on me.

alive

2005-10-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

Last week, I finished reading Manalive by G. K. Chesterton. How appropriate to read it at this time of year, as the weather gets colder and the leaves begin to change. The seasons are not exactly a new thing to me, but these kinds of seasons are: where the whole world seems to go to sleep until you begin to fear that it will never awake, but stay white and barren forever. But I'm coming to love this time of year. There is a peace in these cool autumn rains that cannot be found in all the glory of the thick summer air. It is the peace of a world that knows this sleep, this little death, will bring it to another life, so much fuller than what it now has. It is because of this knowledge that it prepares eagerly for the cold, arraying itself in a robe of reds and browns.

And what about me? Am I preparing for my winter? After all, whoever loses his life will save it. I know that whatever I seek I must ultimately give to God. Perhaps He will give it back to me. Perhaps He will not. If I hold on to it longer than I ought, though, it will lose its proper meaning for me. It is only by my willingness to surrender it that I can give it its proper place in my life. This is especially true of the people in my life; it is in the times when I am holding most tightly to someone that I am most likely to try and fit them into my mold - to believe that I know what's best for them - which mostly turns out to be what's most convenient or pleasing to me. Is that love? Of course not. To treat them with the proper respect, I must accept them exactly as they are, just as God has done for me. It is then that we will be in the proper place, and our relationship will be filled with peace.

In the same way, I must learn to accept myself as I am. Lately, I have been feeling bad about certain misspoken words, situations that I didn't handle well, and other little daily mis-steps. In some ways, it can be so easy to try to "save" my own life. I deny my wrongdoing, trying to forget that I have failed in some way. Alternately, I start wallowing in self-pity about the consequences of my actions and what a "bad person" I am. I must let go of both these things. I can accept with peace the consequences of my actions, because they will bring me growth. It is God's will that I seek - not even my own perfection, but only to do His will more perfectly each day. It is then that I will find myself each day more alive.

signs begin to speak

2005-09-27T22:38:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted up here... Things have been busy with the start of the new semester, but that isn't really the reason I haven't posted. I guess I've just been too self-absorbed to say anything. That's probably saying a lot, since I was probably somewhat self-absorbed to even start a blog where I talk about myself all the time, but... lately I haven't even wanted to look at my life in detail to see how much pride was there. I started to work through some of this over the past couple of weeks, but it took the retreat that I went on this weekend to really get to a point where I could start to feel at peace again.

The theme throughout this retreat centered on detatchment and following the signs God places in our lives. Fr. Dave, quoting someone (I forgot who), said, "When minds are enlightened, hearts are enkindled, & the signs begin to speak." The opposite is also true. When I let my mind go to waste, focusing on my own desires, then my heart grows cold, and all the signs look like gibberish to me. I lose my way. The difficulty is, I have to make the first step. No matter how lost I am, there is always some sign pointing the way to Christ, like God showing the wise men the way to Christ through their astrology. If my mind is to be enlightened in the ways of the Lord, I must follow that first sign. But I often am reluctant to. This was the nature of the first sin, and all the sins after - this belief that God is not giving me what I deserve; He cannot make me happy, so I must make myself happy. And so I fail to follow the signs, believing my way is better. But God does not seek to give us what we deserve - He seeks to pour out gifts we do not deserve. Everything that God has given me is a gift.

As with everything else, my thoughts turn back to my state of singlehood - this condition that has occupied so many of my thoughts over the past year. My singlehood is a gift. Like everything else God has given to me, He has made me single for a reason. The joys of being single, of being independent and able to devote myself to my work and my activities, these are the joys He has for me. The trials of being single also He has placed in my life for my growth. How can I stubbornly claim that I deserve to be in a relationship when God has freely given me the undeserved gift of singlehood?

Right now, I do not understand. Like at the wedding at Cana, I want wine more than anything, and God is telling me to go find water. I have seen the sign, "Do whatever He tells you," so I accept this gift of water, trusting that what I end up with will exceed all of my expectations or desires. Then if my Lord desires to give me the gift of a relationship, it will be His to give, not mine to claim, as I know how unprepared I was, how unable to love, until He began to use this water to transform my heart, so that no matter what my eventual vocation, I will be able to say to Him, "But you have kept the good wine until now."

when i pray for rain... it pours

2005-08-25T21:25:00.000-04:00

A few weeks there were rather difficult for me. I was beginning to feel that old troubles were returning, and I made up my mind to fight them with all I had.

I have the problem of being a timid, introverted perfectionist who has the need for reassurance. The combination of all these characteristics has led to some hard-to-handle times in my life. During those times when I most need the help of friends, I find myself too timid to ask for help, ashamed of the fact that I am not perfect and in need of help, and withdrawing further and further into myself because, as an introvert, I automatically tend to withdraw when I'm upset.

Last month as I struggled with the stresses of unrequited infatuation and near-certain homelessness, I found that many of the friends I would relate such trials to were unavailable. They had found other things to occupy their time and thoughts, or they were out of town, or I discovered that they were moving away soon, and I did not want to rely on them too much just before they left. I knew, however, that I needed the company of others to keep me from withdrawing into myself too much. I decided that I would use what was left of my summer to expand my horizons and to meet new people. And might I meet an eligable bachelor in the process? Well, it certainly couldn't hurt to try...

So I set out to meet people in the two ways I knew best - on the internet and at Church. After all, a good friend of mine met her husband on an online dating service - wasn't it possible that I needed to do the same? I then found a nearby parish that had a young adults' group and started going to that.

My first date, then, with someone I met online, wasn't too much of a surprise for me (I mean the fact that it happened). The second date, however, was a complete surprise. I went to the young adults' group and had dinner with everyone afterward and somehow ended up with a date for the next weekend. It was definitely a unique experience - first of all, that someone seemingly normal would ask me out just after meeting me - things like that just don't happen to me. I'm almost ashamed to say that my first thought was, "I wonder what's wrong with him." I also found it rather amusing that he drives a Lexus... and perhaps more amusing that I found this a bit of a turn-off. In fact, he came to pick me up in a Lexus SUV that he had while his car was in for repair, and I don't think I've ever felt more out of place in a car. Maybe my sister was right - maybe I am more of a hippie than I'm willing to admit.

Well, many email conversations and two dates later, I've decided I've had enough, and I'm reminded once again of why I don't date... It's not that there was anything wrong with the guys I went out with, it's just that once again I find myself confused about the purpose of dating. The way I see it, there are two possible reasons for such odd behavior. One, you are already friends with someone and are hoping for more, or two, there is someone you do not know who you would like to get to know better. This second possibility, however, often proves problematic for me. After all, what makes this different from just hanging out with someone? It puts on pressures and expectations that simply don't need to be there and, what I find to be worse, It tends to encourage growth of a "relationship" before the growth of a friendship. Perhaps my problem with this is personal rather than philosophical. This just isn't the way I tend to work. Yes, I may be attracted from the beginning, but just because a sexual attraction is there, that doesn't mean that it needs to be acted on immediately. I need a long time to develop a friendship, and I need to be friends before moving a relationship into other dimensions.

So what am I missing here? I certainly don't have a lot of dating experience, far from it, and from the outside looking in, it has always seemed wonderful, but from the inside, it is a completely different story. It seems contrived, a way of trying to force relationships to be what they are not.

Part of me seems to be saying that I should keep going, keep searching for "the one" in this, the way that the rest of the US has deemed best. But if this unrest, this dissatisfaction has shown me anything, it has reminded me that God's priorities for my life are probably elsewhere, and I should be focused on those priorities, not on my own.

So I discontinue my membership with the online dating service, and I try to be as truthful as possible with the Lexus Guy. I return to my state of singleness not with a reluctant acceptance, but with a renewed enthusiasm, knowing that what God has for me is perfect, regardless of whether I understand it.

After all, as George Michael says, "Oh baby I reconsider my foolish notion. Well I need someone to hold me, but I'll wait for something more, 'cause I gotta have faith, ooh, I gotta have faith."

lost coins

2005-08-16T09:28:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at church, the homily was about the immense love and respect God has for each one of us. Yesterday was the feast of the Assumption of Mary - when, according to Catholic tradition, she was taken, body and soul, into heaven. The priest told us about how this was a sign of hope and a sign of God's great love for us - that God cares for each one of us so much, that He will bring even our bodies, the bodies which He also made, into heaven at the end of time. Our priest read a quote from C.S. Lewis saying that we have never met a "mere mortal."

I remembered the secretary at my undergraduate physics department. She was one of the most caring people I have ever met, but along with her nurturing, motherly nature came a great zeal for bringing all those she met to heaven with her. I have often heard her relating her dealings with people who were not Christian or were unsure about spirituality or religion. Each time she described even the tiniest opennness to faith on the part of the other person, it was clear how much joy she took in that little drop of grace that the person had opened himself to. How beautiful it always was to see her exclaiming over God's work in these people, like a woman rejoicing over a single coin that she had searched so carefully for.

It is easy to find this excitement silly. Can that one word or one tiny action really make a difference? I don't think that rejoicing over such a tiny change is something that comes naturally to humans - it certainly doesn't come naturally to me. To truly find joy in this requires a great humility. It requires the meekness of making God's priorities my priorities, and the patience to see that when I don't understand the value of the tiny coins in my life, they still have great worth in the eyes of God, so it is only right for me to rejoice with him.

I used to think of words like peace, patience, meekness, and hope as passive words. To live them out, I thought, you just need to sit and wait and dream. The more I see of the world, the more I see the presence of despair, arrogance, and strife, the more I realize that peace, patience, meekness, and hope are four of the most dynamic words I know, describing not a passivity, but an endless striving for God's kingdom on Earth. This kind of work cannot be done by our own strength. When it is, it turns to pacifism or sloth (two things that I am very good at). Instead, this work must be rooted in the knowledge of God's great love for us and for our world, that as He rejoices over the re-discovered coins of our lives, so should we rejoice over even the smallest ways that He works His will in the world.

thinking and feeling

2005-08-08T10:12:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I last wrote in here. Thank you to everyone who kept our housing situation in your prayers. I now am (mostly) moved in to our new apartment and can begin to breathe now. Please continue to pray for my roommate as she recovers from her surgery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I started this post a few weeks ago and finally finished it last night as part of my post-moving, ignore-the-mess-in-my-new-apartment, internet-free quiet time last night...

A few years ago when I took a Myers-Briggs test, I tested as an INFJ (as a sidenote, I think the J is completely wrong… I’m definitely a P). I was very upset to be an NF instead of an ST - intuitive and feeling instead of sensing and thinking. According to the test, this would mean that I view the world internally through imagination and intuition (N) instead of externally through the senses (S) and that I make decisions based on emotion (F) rather than logic (T). I thought that as a scientist, I should make my decisions through cold, hard logic and not be swayed by emotion. Either the test was wrong, or I needed to improve this about myself.

Was the test wrong? Each time I must make a decision, I think it through completely, weigh each possibility, try to analyze every possible outcome. Sometimes I make a list of all the pros and cons. I decide which path seems the best one to choose. Then I throw out the list and go with my gut instinct. For a scientist, I suppose I am as analytical as I should be, but I certainly don’t act that way.

I just discovered a reason to be happy with this. The few regrets I have in my life are when I acted thoughtlessly in a way that hurt people. The big decisions I’ve made, the ones I’ve thought about endlessly for months (or maybe just hours), I have never regretted. This doesn’t mean that everything turned out perfectly as a result of those decisions. What it does mean is that I had thought out very well what many of the problems with making that decision would be, and I knew that when I made my choice, I was accepting the negative as well as the positive aspects of all this.

It is very difficult for me to let go of things. If I do something wrong, it eats away at me for hours, weeks, maybe years. If I made a decision based on a series of 10 points, ranked in order of importance, and later discovered that point number 8 was incorrect, I would regret my decision long after such regrets were useless.

This is something that is true of individual decisions, but it is something that needs to be true of my entire life. For example, I may not regret dating that boy or asking out this one, or not dating this other, nor am I unhappy about being single right now, but the problems come when I begin to listen to everything else around me. I begin to wonder what’s wrong with me? Why am I the only single person I know? Maybe I should have dated that guy… I didn’t really like him that much but he *was* a nice guy… I begin to listen to all the voices that say I need a “significant other” to be complete, to live happily ever after. I know this isn’t true, but it’s hard to remember sometimes, and like Peter, I begin to lose sight of what I am doing. My faith is like this, too. I do not doubt what I believe, but when I am in the midst of talking to someone, it is so easy to justify things, to back off a little bit from what I really believe in order to try and soften what I am saying. I know how to make decisions unapologetically, to be firm in whatever I decide. What I want to do is to live unapologetically, with my eyes fixed on my goal at all times.

housing headaches

2005-07-26T23:40:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I read things like, you know, the story of Job in the Bible, or the Lord of the Rings, or some other story where someone is facing difficulties and shows great strength. I remark on the beauty of the story, the beauty of character that the person showed during their trials. I think about how I want to be like that. I have so much faith no matter what goes wrong in life, God has a bigger plan and will use it for his glory. Then something goes wrong and I realize what a wimp I really am.

My apartment lease ends in 20 days, and I have no idea where I'm going to live after that. One of my roommates-to-be is going in to surgery in 5 days, so if we don't find a place by then, we're definitely in trouble. I know I shouldn't worry. I know that we are doing all we can, and we need to trust God to pull us through the rest. I know that at the very worst, we'll find a place that we don't really like a lot, but it will still be a roof over our heads - is that really so bad? But somehow, this knowledge can't keep the tension from my shoulders. This can't keep my thoughts from drifting back to my worries when I should be concentrating on my work.

In the midst of all of this, I am reminded that there are bigger things to worry about. I have other responsibilites to attend to, and other people in my life whose needs should never be neglected simply because I am worried about my own. I am reminded of Joseph, who left his home at a rather inopportune time, because it was his responsibility. When he was looking for a place to stay in Bethlehem, was he thinking, "Oh no, where am I going to sleep? Will it be uncomfortable?" No, he was thinking only of Mary and Jesus, of making Mary comfortable and of the important event that was soon to take place - the birth of Jesus. God has, in a way, put me in the same place. I don't know where I'll be sleeping in 20 days. But He has also called me to pay closer attention to the needs of others. They have work to do, and I need to make that easier, not harder, for them to accomplish. I have been placing too much emphasis on my own fears and worries, and it was caused me to neglect the presence of Jesus in my midst.

what i don't understand about darwinism and intelligent design

2005-07-13T16:40:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday, Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna wrote a letter in the New York Times describing the Church teaching on evolution. On Saturday, an article came out describing how dismayed and angry scientists were about this redefinition of the Church's teaching.

But is it really the science the Catholic Church has a problem with? Or is it certain beliefs that many scientists accept? From Cardinal Schonborn's letter, it sounds to me that his problem is not with evolution, but with, as he quotes Pope John Paul saying, "theories of materialistic philosophy." Which brings me to my problems with neo-Darwinism and intelligent design (ID). I'm not about to claim that these aren't science. It's just that they aren't science as I am familiar with it. As a physics student (and not a cosmologist), I'm familiar with science that says, "These processes occur in nature (or in a laboratory), and this is how they occur." I think that Cardinal Schonborn and the Church teachings are pretty clear in saying that there is no disagreement with evolution as a process that occurs in nature. That is simply a question of science, pure and simple.

The evolution debates remind me not so much of the science debates that I'm used to hearing, but rather a debate that we had once in history class. We were studying ancient empires and using the Bible as a source. I don't remember the exact passage we were reading, but it was a passage in the Old Testament where God works a miracle. Our professor said, "Now, we know that the miracle didn't actually occur, so we need to find out as historians what really happened." When someone spoke up to challenge this, the professor said something along the lines of, "well, spiritually, you can believe what you like, but right now we are approaching the text historically and rationally, so we can dismiss the possiblility of miracles." Obviously, I was rather dissatisfied with his answer. It seemed like a cop out. I understand, of course, that it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to tell whether a miracle actually occurred, but I don't see how you can make the assumption that it didn't happen. If there is a God, and He does work miracles, then He works miracles whether you are studying history or science or theology.

This is what the evolution debate feels like to me. My gut instinct is to say that people are not debating processes that occur, they are debating history. They are not asking, "does evolution occur?" They are asking, "Did evolution occur completely through random processes to make us what we are today?" To answer that question definitively one way or the other requires faith as well as science.

This idea, I think, is at the root of any argument that claims intelligent design is not science. Often I agree with these claims. But the New York Times article of last week shows me that whether or not ID is science, we need it in the scientific community. The New York Times article puts Cardinal Schonborn's letter and Church teachings at odds with science. It quotes a Christian biologist as saying, "There is a deep and growing chasm between the scientific and the spiritual world views. To the extent that the cardinal's essay makes believing scientists less and less comfortable inhabiting the middle ground, it is unfortunate. It makes me uneasy." But the Cardinal's letter, as I said above, is not at odds with evolution as a process. It is at odds with the philosophical beliefs that stem from neo-Darwinism, which seeks to answer the question, "Did evolution occur completely through random processes to make us what we are today?" If ID is not science, then neither is this assumption that all evolutionary processes occurred completely randomly. If the non-science of materialism stemming from neo-Darwinism is alive and well in the scientific community, then ID should be equally present. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps the question posed above is entirely in the realm of science. But you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have neo-Darwinian materialism standing in the realm of science while ID is in the realm of theology.

After saying all this, I freely admit that I know very little about biology, evolution, or intelligent design, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more than a few things wrong with what I said above. Helpful comments are certainly welcome.

hope holds to Christ

2005-07-12T00:14:00.000-04:00

My tantrum of last week has wound down, and as always, when I quiet down enough, I begin to hear the voice of God comforting and challenging me in new ways. I find that it is after my little rebellions that I learn even more completely what my shortcomings are... but also how to accept them. I am not perfect, and even when I do make progress in the right direction, it is slow, often painfully so. I am impatient and a perfectionist, and I am not happy with this slow progress. It's like watching trees grow. I can see the little, day-to-day changes, but I'm convinced they're not actually growing. What I am learning about hope, though, is that you don't have to see the progress to believe that it will happen.

One of my favorite scripture passages was read at Church on Sunday, Romans 8:18-23, which then goes on to say, "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance." I do not hope for what I see, then, but I wait. This is not a passive waiting either, but one that actively seeks to bring about the change that I hope for.

I know I probably should not talk about poems here. I know nothing about poetry, and my interpretations are almost certainly wrong, but I enjoy them, and if my interpretations are wrong, at least they are interpretations that appeal to me. So I will put here a beautiful poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

HOPE holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.
. . . . . . . . I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

The picture I have in my mind as I read this poem is a girl holding a mirror in front of herself. It is dark, and she washes it over and over, trying to see in it the image of God. The poem says, though, that is appears dark because she sees herself, not Him. So if God is reflected in the mirror, where is He? He is being reflected not to her, but to those around her. If we let our tears dry on the glass, all people will see is a filthy mirror, but instead of letting our tears dry on the glass and make it dirty, we must use these tears and sighs to clean the glass. We cannot always see the good we do, and we cannot always see how near Christ is to us. It is one of the trials of this world. But God can do good through us, if we let Him.

prayers

2005-07-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

Pig Wot Flies remembers the mercies of God today.

Today I cannot post on my own difficulties. I pray only for the people in London now, for healing and a renewed strength for the British people, in thanksgiving for the lives that were spared and in thanksgiving for the lives of those who were not spared and for the comfort of those left behind.

first day of school

2005-07-06T00:47:00.000-04:00

Well wouldn't you know just when I thought I had this figured out, I'm back at my first day of school, trying not to speak too loud, I raise my hand to scratch my head, I've no ideas of what to do. 'Cause something's changed today, and what it is I just can't say...
~"I Just Don't Want Coffee" by Caedmon's Call

A week ago, I was marvelling in the beauty of being single, thinking about how much I loved being able to savor each moment on my own, realizing that I was completely content without being in a relationship. How quickly things can change. I was at a scientific conference last week. I guess I had a feeling what was coming. At conferences like this, I meet new people, see people who I haven't seen in a year... including guys who aren't scared away by the fact that I'm a physics geek. The inevitable result is, new crushes (or old crushes revisited) and new guys that have a crush on me... never the same person, of course. This year was the same as always, running away from the guy who was staring at me through an entire session, trying to get the attention of the Physicist of My Dreams on the other side of the room... but somehow this year, it meant a lot more to me. I'm not sure what made it different. Maybe it's just that I'm getting older. Maybe it's that fewer and fewer of my friends are still single. Maybe it's that I'm noticing the same pattern of crushes without relationships following, almost unchanged since high school. Maybe it's that once or twice that week, I actually thought that the Physicist of My Dreams returned my sentiments. Or maybe it's just that this time, with this man, I wanted it to work out more than ever before. Whatever it is, I find that I'm troubled by this change. It caught me off guard, and suddenly nothing seems to be where it should be. Especially my head.

On Sunday, the homily was about the gospel where Christ says, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Our priest said that another translation of easy was well-fitted. Our burdens are made to suit us. They aren't made for anyone else, and we aren't given the same burdens that anyone else is given. It takes faith to believe that our burdens are exactly what God has allowed us to carry in order to draw us closer to Him. I don't think I have that kind of faith right now. I don't see what good can come of this or how this burden can be light in any way. But if God has given me this, there must be a reason. Thank God that His grace is still here, even when I can't see it or feel it.

My faith is like shifting sand, changed by every wave. My faith is like shifting sand, so I stand on grace.
~"Shifting Sand" by Caedmon's Call

a very long post on sex (or the lack thereof)

2005-06-26T23:40:00.000-04:00

Most of this week, I was working probably about 13 hours a day. 8 am till 11:30 pm, with maybe a couple hours break to eat lunch and dinner. Thursday at around 4:30 pm, something in my brain must have snapped off, because work was suddenly no longer possible. That presentation I was supposed to finish the next morning? It had to wait. So what do you think I did next? That's right, I read every blog I could think of, and then some. I started with Dawn Eden who had a post on the Rolling Stones article "The Young and the Sexless". A very interesting read, and quite astonishing. The article's author is obviously astounded to learn that there are young people who choose to remain sexually pure. He seems to find the idea a bit baffling, and in one or two sentences makes the inevitable connection to right-wing politics (because of course, anyone who is a virgin by choice must agree with whatever the Republican party says) , but overall, I found the story to have a rather positive attitude toward abstinence. Based on what I'm used to hearing from secular sources about the matter, I was surprised.

After reading that article, however, I was far from done. The article mentioned a blogger, Anna Broadway of Sexless in the City. I decided to spend some time over there, perusing old posts and enjoying the refreshing, irreverent way she describes living (or at least attempting to live) a life of sexual purity.

A few people commenting on the above articles and posts have brought up a question of whether describing yourself so often as abstinent is really the proper thing to do. If you do this, aren't you just being rebellious against the current culture for the sake of being rebellious? Shouldn't you be concentrating on your relationship with Christ, rather than defining yourself by what you don't do? Although this may be true for some people, I would bet that for most us who freely describe ourselves as abstinent, including Anna B., this characterization is completely off. Defining ourselves by what they don't do? I don't think we're the ones that define ourselves that way. I mean sure, Anna Broadway's blog is called "Sexless in the City." It's attention-grabbing and funny. I would suspect, however, that there's more to Ms. Broadway than that.

For the secular world, those who choose not to have sex seem to have made a baffling and rather arbitrary decision. I can guarantee, if that's the way abstinence really was, it simply wouldn't work. Choosing not to have sex just because it's mainstream or because someone said that it was bad... that choice can't last too long. In order to remain sexually pure, a person must be convinced that premarital sex is harmful to both parties involved, and must have enough respect for him/herself and his/her "significant other" to choose not to harm either one. This type of respect comes only from a true knowledge of self-worth and the worth of others; it cannot come from simply avoiding sex.

This is something that the world does not understand and, from what I've seen, has no desire to understand. I remember before class a couple years ago, people were discussing the idea of abstinence-based sex ed., mostly talking about how terrible it is, it doesn't work, it's fear-based and anti-sex or some such thing. I tried sharing about my sex ed., which was very abstinence-based and very, as Dawn Eden said, "sex positive". Basically, as a Catholic school, we had the freedom to be not only abstinence-based, but more broadly chastity-based. And yes, we did learn about contraception, enough that we would be able to use it and know where to find it if we wanted to, but the point of this was primarily for information and never did it seem to me that they were condoning sex before marriage. Well, that's what I was going to tell them, but I didn't get passed my first sentence. I said, "You know, my school sex ed. was very abstinence-based, and they did a very good job of not just saying, 'don't have sex,' but of describing the reasons behind that decision." "Yeah," my instructor replied, "like, 'if you have sex before marriage you'll go to hell.'" So much for fostering an informative and open class environment.

I guess I shouldn't blame them, though, for not understanding where we're coming from on the issue of abstinence. Sure, the few times I've tried to explain it, it hasn't been too well received, but then there have only been a few times when I've really tried to explain it. That's partly because I often assume that I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to these subjects, but maybe that assumption is wrong. A couple months ago, one of my fellow grad students, Dancing Queen, told me, laughing, "I had a dream that you were against premarital sex." Interesting... "Are you sure it was just a dream?" I asked. Normally when I'm really surprised about something, I laugh, but I couldn't quite pull it off this time. Dancing Queen is a good friend of mine. We spend lots of time together, and I've certainly never tried to hide anything about my faith or moral values from her. I was completely shocked. I guess it's just something I thought everyone knew about me. So what I'm learning is, despite the fact that people may see it as "defining myself by a negative," maybe I should be more open about what I believe.

According to the article, one of the people interviewed describes abstinence as "a kind of rebellion, he says, against materialism, consumerism and 'the idea that anything can be bought and sold.'" Sex pervades our culture, and a message of chastity is necessary in order to keep our motives pure and our thinking straight. But as a speaker explained at a recent retreat that I went on, there's another idea, perhaps at times less blatant, that also pervades our culture. That is the idea of disposability. The idea of use. The idea that we can get what we want without having to accept the consequences of our actions or deal with their results. The obvious example the speaker pointed out was fast food. His actual words were something like fast, easy, and disposable. Like McDonald's. I thought of the cookie dough they make now with easy-to-break squares in the perfect size for all the benefit of homemade cookies and none of the time, work, or cleanup afterward. And with your plastic wrappers and paper cups, let someone else worry about what to do with the landfills. What comes next? Get rich quick! Lose weight fast! Plastic surgery is a nice way to look better quickly and easily. But after that, we begin to think we can easily dispose of other things. It quickly becomes more serious as we turn our actions to the use of people. Premarital sex, or any over-emphasis on the physicality of a relationship, can easily turn us to a belief that we're in the relationship for our own satisfaction, and that the other person is also in it for his own satisfaction. Such a belief cannot draw two people together in a way that will last. When the satisfaction and emotional aspects of love disappear, what's left? Try to get rid of that relationship, too, as painlessly as possible.

We should make sure we don't define ourselves by the negative, always striving instead to follow Christ's example in every relationship. Some people may be surprised to learn that our lives aren't about the sexual equivalent of cutting down as many trees as we can while not eating at McDonald's. However, we shouldn't be worried if the world doesn't understand. Like Jesus, we should expect and even hope to be made "a sign that will be contradicted," speaking out against the world, not for the sake of rebellion, but with an attitude of love.

Romans 12:2 - Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

on a rational mind, a caring heart, and the example of my father

2005-06-19T23:36:00.000-04:00

For Mother's Day, I wrote that it is because of my mother that I am able to believe. I remember today that it is because of my father that I know what to believe. If my mother's example gave me the heart of my belief, my father's example provided its head. In a world that so often puts faith and reason as fundamentally opposed to each other, Papa showed me that the two must go hand in hand. With a (I hope) future in academia, it is important for me to be able to protect my faith against the intellectual attacks that come against it. You know the idea - faith is something irrational. People accept religion because they don't think about it. Atheism is the only rational point of view.

My father, I can assure you, thinks about his faith a good deal - a trait which he passed on to me. Our long philosophical discussions on faith and morality did more to shape my beliefs than anything else. Our discussions would have meant nothing, however, if I had not seen how these beliefs shaped his life. Papa is a doctor, and he takes his job very seriously - as a healer of the body, but also a healer of the soul. The kindness with which he treats each person, the way he can so clearly see that person's emotional as well as physical needs, has shown me that an intellectual faith does not need to be removed from the world, nor does it need to go through the world judging, but should be open to the world, showing what it has to offer and kindly helping as far as it has permission to help. My father's example has shown me that the head of a scientist and the heart of a Christian are not at odds with each other. I pray that I will be able to use them both at all times, just as he does - pondering my faith with a rational mind and carrying out my scientific work with love.

i've been tagged!

2005-06-19T22:35:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Miss Sunny Tanya =)

1. Total number of books I own:
53 here in my little studio apartment with me. If you include everything on shelves and packed away in boxes at my parents' house? I couldn't begin to count...
Okay, time for a little tangent... My senior year of undergrad, I was in my advisor's office. My advisor was a fairly young professor, but still, probably at least in his mid-30s. He had a wife and a couple of kids, seemed pretty settled down. I noticed that he had a few boxes that weren't there before. He said, "Oh, my mom just shipped me the rest of my books from home." That'll be me in about 10 years =)

2. The last book I bought
Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton. Bought on the advice of my dad.

3. The last book I read
The Grim Grotto: Book 11 of a Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I love kids' books!

4. Five books that mean a lot to me
Lilith by George MacDonald - obviously
Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien - My favorite book(s) since the first time I read them in 6th or 7th grade
The Bible - "mean a lot" is an understatement here
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - This book played an important role in shaping my outlook on life. 'Though not, I think, in the way that Ayn Rand intended.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen - for my sister, my Marianne =)

5. Tag five other people, and have them do this on their blogs.
I don't think I know 5 other bloggers that haven't already been tagged. I'll tag a few people, and maybe they'll post this. If not, visit their blogs anyway because I like them.
I would be interested to hear what Amanda has to say.
I just discovered Pig Wot Flies today and don't know much about her, but anyone who likes Amelie and Garden State and has a post entitled "leptons and mesons and quarks, oh my!" must be pretty awesome.
And Masti Girl doesn't know I have a blog, so I'll have to get around to telling her one day so that she knows I tagged her.

where i'm supposed to be

2005-06-12T21:42:00.000-04:00

There's a way she knows is right
She can't feel the things she knows
And so each step she's taking is a step of faith toward who she'll be
And here where the night is darkest black
She feels the fear and the light is farthest back
And through her tears she can't see the dawn is coming
Skies will clear and the light will find her where she's always been
And suddenly it isn't what it used to be
And after all this time it worked out just fine
And suddenly I am where I'm supposed to be
And after all the tears I was supposed to be here
~"Suddenly" by Superchic[k]

I just got Superchic[k]'s latest CD, Beauty from Pain. It's amazing! I know, the music is a little... teenybopper-ish... but I guess a bit of that is still a part of me. My insecurities and fears seem to have changed very little since junior high and high school, although thankfully, they are much less overwhelming than they once were. Superchic[k]'s lyrics are so straightforward, and such good reminders to me to keep going, to remember that God's hand is there is my life even when I don't see it.

They deal with a lot of difficult issues on this CD. The song "Courage" was written by one of the band members about her struggle to overcome anorexia. Having watched my best friend struggle with anorexia, I found this song especially meaningful. The song "Suddenly" and the title track, "Beauty from Pain", are also beautiful songs that speak powerfully to me.

At around the same time that I got this CD, I experienced the process that "Suddenly" speaks about - a process of searching, of trying to find myself and where I'm supposed to be only to find that I already am exactly where I'm supposed to be, and moreover, I'm at peace with that. It seems to be a recurring theme in my life. I always think that I need to go somewhere else, to do something new, in order to try and "find myself." Maybe that is what I need. But the search always brings me right back where I started. T. S. Eliot said that

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

from "Little Gidding"

But I think that this exploration is more than a one time thing; there are little echoes of it throughout life. We search for some new meaning or purpose in our lives, only to end up where we were in the beginning, but this time we know it better than before, because this time it is our choice. It is no longer an accident.

When I left high school, I was leaving a close-knit Catholic community that had been my youth group, my school, and the source of every friend and acquaintance for the previous 13 years. I was going to a secular university four hours away from home, and at least three hours away from anyone else I knew. I had chosen this because I was tired of living in my completely Catholic world. I wanted to see more, to know that the decisions I made were my own, and not merely the accident of my upbringing. I was scared. I prayed that God would show me who He called me to be and give me the strength to face whatever might come my way. My youth minister told me, "You are who God called you to be." I thought he was crazy. "With all my faults and my shortcomings? I don't even know who I am, so how can I be who God called me to be?" It took me many years to realize that what my youth minister said was true. God doesn't expect us to be perfect immediately. He knows our faults and our failings. He expects us to be heading in the right direction. I realize now that no matter where we are in life, we are where we're supposed to be, because at that point in time, we have the ability to turn and face God. No matter where we are, we have the ability at that moment to make the right decision. I have resolved to stop worrying about whether I am where I'm supposed to be, and concentrate on whether I'm facing the right direction.

hard of hearing

2005-06-06T20:07:00.000-04:00

From the first reading at church yesterday:

Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth;
for it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.
Hosea 6:4-6

And then came Psalm 50:

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your holocausts are before me always...
Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High...

Then, in case you didn't catch it the first two times, the Gospel reading quotes Jesus saying:

Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.

What's that, God? I didn't quite get that.

I went home and checked my email. Each day, I get a Spanish saying or quote sent to me. Yesterday's was, "En muchos casos hacemos por vanidad o por miedo, lo que haríamos por deber." "In many cases, we do out of vanity or fear what we ought to do because we should," a quote by Concepción Arenal, a Spanish sociologist. Rather appropriate, isn't it?

I didn't think too much about it. It seemed like a nice quote, though, so I put it up on my instant messenger profile. One of my friends saw it today and started talking to me about it, saying that it reminded him of a discussion we had at our young adults fellowship group a while back. We were talking about the line from the Our Father to "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Someone had said that we should forgive others because we want to be forgiven, but others had said that doesn't seem like the right reason to forgive someone. We shouldn't forgive simply because we are afraid of what would happen if we are not forgiven; we should forgive out of love for God and others. "Oh yeah!" I said, "I remember that conversation." Then I forgot about it again.

God knows I can be a little hard of hearing. I'm glad He doesn't give up! I was looking at Catholic Exchange and began reading "Religiosity or Holiness?":

[Original sin] introduces into our lives a tendency to disconnect the outward from the inward, so that outward acts, if we are not careful, become mechanical and devoid of meaning. In fact, they become dangerous, even treacherous. Because they are designed to express love, we are fooled into thinking that we have love for God and others because we do them, even when that love has grown cold. And then love of God becomes replaced by love of self, since we become very impressed by what we wrongly perceive to be our own holiness.

Finally, I heard what He was saying! And what better way for Him to show me than this? I had been going through the motions, passively listening at church, recognizing truth in a saying I read but failing to ponder what that truth implies, reading articles on a Catholic website, and doing all of this out of vanity, believing that my actions would be enough although my heart was not in it.

It is not just religion where this realization is important. There are so many areas of our lives that can become overshadowed by the drudgery of sacrifice without love. In our friendships, we easily lose sight of the love we have for a person and become frustrated with his or her demands on our time or our behavior. In our work, we lose sight of why we chose this job in the first place. The vision that we had in the beginning slips away and we begin to wonder whether it will all be worth it. I think that what my friends said at our fellowship group was right. We can do things out of vanity or fear. It may even be a good start. But it isn't enough. If our good actions are to last, we must be doing them out of love.

pride and the myth of self-reliance

2005-06-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

Keith Plummer from The Christian Mind has a post linking to this opinion article from USA Today. It brings up some of the most extreme examples of ways to protect and boost a child's self-esteem including the Girl Scouts' "Uniquely ME!" program, a program that "asks girls to contemplate their own 'amazing' specialness." It's a bit disturbing, but also, perhaps, to be expected. When a culture has denied the possibility of a person's worth coming from God, what options are left? A person's worth may only come from his own abilities and characteristics, or simply from himself - a person defines his own worth.

But can anyone other than God truly define his own worth or give himself value? An object has worth because of the value placed on it from something outside itself. We know this from the saying, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." An object's attributes do not change, but its value changes based on the one who is contemplating the object. When a person attempts to define his own value as Girl Scouts is encouraging its members to do, that person is, in a sense, acting as God - the only being whose worth and value is contained wholly within himself. It is the first temptation, "you will be like gods," and if one makes this choice, he realizes that he is able to do whatever he chooses with no reference to anyone else; He has defined his own worth, so he is his own master. But this choice leads to insecurity, as each person knows that he may be able to convince himself of that worth, but he does not have the power to give himself that worth. It is an argument that he will have to convince himself of constantly.

The article in USA Today seems to set up this self-absorption in opposition to self-reliance, but the second option that I mentioned, a person finding his worth in his intelligence or some other attribute, can easily be disguised as self-reliance. This is an attitude that I think is prevalent in academia, where many people not only are very intelligent and very aware of that fact, but can easily fall into the trap of believing themselves to be better than others who are less intelligent. A person, in this case, would work hard to remain self-reliant, intelligent, and knowledgeable, but would as a result find less worth in those who do not have these characteristics.

Each side, the "self-esteem" side and the "self-reliance" side, is right to fight the other, but they are simply two sides of the same coin, while the best path is somewhere in between. When we realize that our worth comes from God, we can see that each person has that worth, regardless of his abilities or even his choices, but we also see that the abilities that we have come from God to be used according to His will.

I have found, however, that I so many times fall into the trap of the myth of self-reliance. It is so ingrained in our culture, so highly valued in the ideals of America and the self-made man that my natural tendency is always to attribute everything to myself. Over the past couple of weeks, by the grace of God, I have been able to let go of something, or more specifically someone, that has been on my mind lately. I came to realize that the fact that I was still chasing after him, convinced that if I tried hard enough I could make him fall in love with me, was only a sign of my own pride, not a sign of how much I cared for him. Somewhere along the line, my desire to be with him had stopped being about my regard for him and had turned into a question in my mind of whether I was good enough, pretty enough... simply a matter of pride. However, when someone asked me why I was no longer trying to pursue this guy, I turned my answer around; I said that if he was really interested, he would have noticed by now how I felt, and I wasn't going to waste my time with someone who wasn't "that into me." Instead of putting God where he belonged in the picture of changing my heart, I turned the issue into a matter of reaffirming my own self-reliance and pride.

Pride always has that tendency, though, to turn everything on its head and do whatever it takes to remove God from the picture so that we can be "like gods." It seeks to place us as gods so that our obligations are removed and we can rely on ourselves alone.

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In other news, Wittingshire is one of my favorite blogs to read. (If you're wondering, my other favorite is Dawn Eden.) Amanda and Jonathan always have such wonderful and intelligent things to say. Yesterday Amanda said that I write "smart and insightful prose." What a compliment, coming from her! I'm *blushing*. Funny thing to read just as I start to write a post on pride =)

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I just noticed the spellcheck that blogger.com provides. It doesn't recognize the word "blogs."

out of context

2005-06-02T09:38:00.000-04:00

Taking things out of context can sometimes be dangerous. Taking someone's words or actions out of context, can lead to misinterpretations and can twist the facts. Sometimes, though, taking things out of context can provide clarity to things that are otherwise hidden from view.

Yesterday I was thinking about how I don't use my name for this blog - in fact, I don't use any of the things I usually use to identify myself. "I'm so-and-so; I've been in school X number of years; I do research in such-and-such; I work for Prof. Fulano; I go to church over there." Why don't I say any of this? Sure, I want to avoid stalkers, but it's more than that. All these ways that I describe myself are, well, the outer layer of my life. That's the part of me that everybody sees, the part of me that I operate in on a day to day basis. But sometimes I need to shed all of that so that I can see what else is there. I think that's where I was getting with my last post when I was talking about traveling. Going home helped me to discover some of the things I have been clinging to, simply because they weren't there for a few days.

I find this taking things out of context in other parts of my life as well. Why do I enjoy the science fiction/fantasy genre so much? I find that this genre, more than other types of fiction, can provide a clarity to they type of world that it presents, because the outer layers that we expect, the sound of the alarm clock every morning, our daily work - the patterns of modern human society as we know them - are taken away.

I think that Jesus and the authors of the New Testament understood this principle. Jesus often spoke in parables. Maybe it was just to trip people up - he wanted to make sure that only those who were smart enough to understand the hidden meanings could be his disciples. I think I did kind of have that fear when I was a child =) But parables are a beautiful way of demonstrating what you want to say in the context of human life, without all of the complications that would often get in the way. Last week, the gospel reading had the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. Somehow that story always surprises me; Why does he curse the fig tree? Can't the fig tree just keep going on without fruit? On the other hand, does the curse really change anything? If the tree is already so sick that it is not producing fruit, it will eventually die. It cannot survive long like that. It would be impossible to point to a specific person and get the same point across, but we know that each person has things his life that are like that fig tree - they are all right on the surface, no one's complaing, but they're not bearing fruit. There's something wrong, and until the person submits to the attentions of the Gardener (pruning and all), that part of his life will begin to wither. I wonder, though, if it works the other way as well. We know some parts of us are sick, but if we do our best to bear fruit anyway, the effort, with the help of the gardener, will bring us back to health. It is only if we give up on ourselves and completely deny our Lord the chance to work in us that we will wither and die.

going home

2005-05-19T17:31:00.000-04:00

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'

2005-05-10T17:25:00.000-04:00

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

2005-05-09T21:23:00.000-04:00

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

2005-05-08T13:22:00.000-04:00

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

2005-05-08T09:18:00.000-04:00

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

2005-05-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

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.