Processing Encounter: I have something to offer?!!

Lord, make me your bread, your body.

Take me. Bless me. Break me.

And share me with everyone you know.

Amen.

This is my prayer. This was our prayer on ENCOUNTER last weekend. At first they were just words (more often than not, that is how I feel about “premade” prayers) but as I reflected on the meaning of those words, they came to life. In fact, they came to have intense meaning for my life.

I feel this deep satisfaction from the idea of being taken, blessed, and broken for the greater glory of God. But that's pretty vague--what does it really mean for my life?

It means I'm doing something right. It validates my vision of what my life is developing into. As a social work student, I'm becoming increasingly aware that my heart will be broken over and over again as I pursue others. People are my passion, they always have been. People who have experienced things unfathomable to many ooze strength by the simple act of getting up each morning and continuing with this thing we call life. These are the people I want to serve. I want my heart to break as they share their brokenness. I want to be present with them in their pain. God blessed me with a desire for brokenness. 

He doesn't break you without building you back up. It may take time but His love never fails. 

This all made much more sense in my head but I find trouble to articulate it clearly. 

Basically, in the last week I've been affirmed in my life journey multiple times by multiple people and experiences. Things I once saw as personal flaws are becoming sources of blessing. My impulsiveness gets me to ask the questions everyone is thinking but won't ask. My bluntness offers me a bit of ease when it comes to asking the tough questions. My silence in tough situations allows me to  assess the person's needs and  meet them better. My stubbornness breeds intentionality. I was made as me, imperfections and all, for a purpose. I am the only me this world will ever experience and so I better make the best of that--leave this world a little different than it was before me. 

Step 1: be. experience. live.

I'm so physically and emotionally exhausted. School has been kicking my butt and I've been letting that happen. During my work shift on Friday I made the conscious decision to not allow school (junior seminar, in particular) stress me out and control my happiness and worth anymore. These things are here for me to learn from not to slave over. School is forming me into the person I want to be--I most certainly do not want to be the woman I've been recently stressed out beyond belief and not completely functional due to sleep deprivation. I only have one life to live. I only get one chance at each day. I do not want to keep regretting and dreading these days. 

Processing Encounter: Anger to Acceptence

With the retrieval of the authenticity of my heart this past weekend, I wish to reinstate the regular functioning of this blog. You've missed me, I know.

ENCOUNTER. 

what does that word mean to you?

To me, ENCOUNTER means being blessed in my brokenness. It means listening and really hearing what has been drone out for so long. ENCOUNTER means together. 

This past weekend, I went on Saint Louis University's 41st Encounter retreat. Campus Ministry advertises it as being similar to Kairos, TEC, and Search, if you are at all familiar with those. It was similar but my experience was much different. 

I went on Kairos as a junior in high school. I was chomping at the bit to go on the senior retreat as a junior so I could lead my senior class the following year. This plan flopped on its face because not only did I not end up leading in the fall, I didn't have that great a time. I was too busy trying to impress the seniors that I was neither focused on myself or God. Fail. Now, I'm a junior in college. 4 years later. I had the opportunity to go on Encounter beginning with my first semester here in the fall of 2009 but I didn't. I was a retreat junkie but I knew there was something special about Encounter and I wanted to make the retreat at the right time--whenever that would be. The right time was now. My friends ask me how the retreat was and I cannot come up with a more fitting answer than "perfect."

God and I experienced a definite shift in our relationship beginning last March when He began challenging me in ways I did not appreciate. Anger is the easiest emotion for me to experience and so, naturally, I thought I was mad at God. False. It's a lot more complicated than that.

On Encounter (just like on Kairos and the other retreats, I'm assuming) we talk about a relationship with God as a friendship and I was hesitant to relate to this when we began on Friday. I mean, when I pray, I call God "Daddy" and when I think of our relationship, I wasn't feeling too buddy-buddy. Upon reflection, however, I realized that friendship is exactly what it is. Because we're involved in a friendship. I feel free to have these emotions toward God and treat Him the way I have been--though, I admit, it's not the way a good friend would treat someone. 

I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. I feel let down. I feel like He wasn't there when I needed Him most. And if He was there [because people say He never leaves us] He stood there and watched as evil occurred. What kind of friend does that??? You see? It's complicated. 

We were engaged in something called 'Ignatian Contemplation' yesterday morning. SLU is a Catholic school of the Jesuit tradition and as such, we pray with Ignatian spirituality often. It basically involved allowing your imagination to propel you through a scripture passage as a character in the story. We were using the post-resurrection story of the road to Emmaus. Not a story I've found a whole lot of meaning in in the past. I LOVE Ignatian spirituality. God speaks to me in a very present way through this type of prayer because I have such an active, vivid imagination. The prayer took probably 30-40 minutes and God and I hit it off in the last 10. We were chilling and whateves for the beginning but then it hit me. Sean the Jesuit scholastic leading the meditation led us to conversation with Christ. 

Look at Him. What does He say?

Crazy, but it's what I heard: "My daughter...(long pause)...I'm sorry" Yeah, you got it right, He apologized. In that moment, I felt absolute peace. It's as if that is precisely what I had been waiting for for the past 8 months. 

Walk up to God and ask "where are we going now?"

My vivid imagination: small pools of tears formed in Jesus' eyes when I asked Him this. His response besides the tears was so true to our current relationship--"really? you want to go with me?" God had realized I had distanced myself from Him, it was like we were in a fight and I was giving Him the silent treatment and now that I was engaging our relationship, He met me with surprise. 

Yes, I want to go with you. I'm scared and I don't totally trust you, but I want us to go together again. I'm tired of ignoring you and I'm tired of pretending to everyone like our relationship is just fine. Let's go. Slowly. Together. Hand in hand encountering all of this.

Listening and Redefining

I'm in a social work class this semester entitles Practice 1: Communication. Going into the classroom three weeks ago, I didn't have much of any expectation since I didn't know the professor or what the course would cover, though I had reviewed the syllabus.  


In the past three weeks, Shannon, our professor, has said a few things in passing that nailed themselves to my heart and have yet to be pried off.

In talking about a client's right to self determination she said there will be times when we want to ask: "why don't you want what's good for you?"

Being that I've done an excellent job making decisions against my ultimate best interest, I heard Shannon asking me this question. Later that day, when I came home, I wrote the question on a post-it and stuck it on my mirror to glance at occasionally--have I answered it yet? nope, but I'm mulling it over.

Today we were talking about God only knows what--it was a manic sort of day in the classroom--but Nancy mentioned that, as people in a helping profession, we're going to measure our success by our clients' success. This sparked a discussion of the meaning of success. 

Shannon mentioned we, as a culture, tend to see success in monumental terms, but in the social work profession it is vital to accept any tiny step forward as a success. Giving a personal example, Shannon is currently working with a woman in therapy who is chronically late among other things. So right now they are working on getting her to her appointments on time. They are not focusing on the rest of her life falling apart. One step at a time. One small step at a time. 

Though Shannon mentioned this need to redefine our vision of success for our field of practice, I think I need to bring this idea of success being a a small thing not necessarily a huge one into my everyday life and especially into my view of my personal successes and failures.

p.s. that picture is what came up when i googled success. presh, i know. 

Understanding things

I LOVE MARY. 

(Mary the Mother of Jesus) 

Though scripture does not tell us much about her, what it does tell us is pure and simple and what we can infer furthers that appearance. As I've matured in thought and faith, believing something solely because 'it's tradition' is no longer enough for me. Consequently, many questions have arisen in my mind about the mother of (arguably) the most influential figure in all of human history.


how do we know she was conceived without sin?
how do we know she died (okay, well, as a Catholic I believe she didn't die, she was assumed into heaven, but you know what I mean..."got to the end of her earthly life")sinless?
how can we call her the 'virgin' mary, the Bible isn't clear about her sexual history after Jesus' birth?

how do we know Mary was assumed into Heaven?

check out this article (click the work 'article') that explains where the Catholic belief in the assumption of Mary finds its roots.

No Greater Love

I've been thinking.

Why is love so important?

Of all the things in life, we mostly just want love.

Why?

What made us this way?

How about our Father?

The one who is Love itself.

The one who created us because he wanted something to love.

Not out of need,

but out of LOVE.

There is no love greater than doing for someone what you do not have to do, out of which you gain nothing. That is love. 

1.4

There were 43 teenagers entrusted to my general care and 12 that were specifically mine last week at SpringHill. I worked all last summer with middle schoolers so this was definitely different.

We always tell campers that we don't want camp to be a 1-week thing. We don't want to be known for creating a SpringHill high that eventually wears off.

No.

We want much more.

We want +1 experiences.

We motivate change.

As I was driving back to St. Louis last Sunday afternoon, I was talking on the phone with a friend and she asked how I was planning to use what I learned at camp. (What a strange question. Was I supposed to have learned something??? Uhhhh...) I told her I was still processing the week (and that was true, don't worry) so I wasn't exactly sure yet. 

I learned about community.

I know I've posted about this a few times but I say it once again, I learned that I need people. I'm a slow learner when it comes to these things, so God has to be super patient.

There was no one experience from the week that brought about this thought but rather the experience of the week. 

I came up to SpringHill without telling my friend Hayley who was working there this summer and feeling a really homesick (something I learned of after I agreed to come up, so the homesickness had nothing to do with my decision if you were wondering) and without telling Susie, a really good friend I worked with last summer who had returned for another summer of SpringHill Lovin'. I wanted to surprise them. I knew they'd have no idea and be caught totally off guard. 

I had campers who appreciated me for me and relaly respected me. I went to bed early on my night off and left a note taped to the cabin door that read "Dear Temple Dwellers: I'm sleeping. I love you but please be quiet. Love, Emily" Not only were these 12 teenage girls almost silent, they didn't even turn the lights on!

My small group wanted to know what I thought and how I came to think that and how they could share in the faith. My small group got really vulnerable early in the week and bonded in a way I hadn't expected. 

These were all experiences I had with people. Without others, none of these things could've happened. 

I'm learning I don't need to rely so much on being self-sufficient. It's okay to need help. It's okay to not be 114% totally on top of things all the time. 

God gave us people.

the girls of "The Temple" (I couldn't pronounce the name of our cabin, so we renamed it. It makes sense to us, I promise)

Who are you and why are you here?

That was the question.

1.4

Night one.

Campfire.

TST Community.

July 10, 2011.

WHO ARE YOU?

WHY ARE YOU HERE?

It's been awhile since I was at SpringHill but I've fallen into the step of things pretty quickly. I'll write all about the week next week when I get home (I'm with my kids 22 hours a day and don't feel that blogging is the best use of my break).

We had a great campfire that night and we have another one tonight. I'll be telling my testimony tonight...yeah...that's always a bit stressful but really freeing in the end. The first night about half my cabin shared at campfire--answering those questions: who are you? and why are you here? One girl spoke about being lost and not knowing why she was here at SpringHill or even in the world because she feels so lost. And another shared about being disappointed and frustrated and lonely. THE FIRST NIGHT! What a blessing. PTL. 

I had a really great talk with the girls in my small group this afternoon. They told me they'd like me to start asking more personal questions so they can work through some hard stuff together. So cool, right?!! 

Earlier today I was talking with my friend Susie about how I was getting discouraged and frustrated because I didn't feel that my presence was important at all but I know that's not true--it's just something Satan wants me to believe so I don't thrown my heart into this week. 

P.S. KELSEY'S HOME!!!!!!!! I haven't been able to talk to her yet and probably won't for awhile since she'll be processing her project experience but I'm so happy to know she's home. 

SMILE!

AMDG

Man made the clock

I don't know if you've ever thought about it but time is a human social construct. Time doesn't actually exist. We just say it does. Yes, the earth rotates on its axis which makes the sun appear to rise and set (the process which we refer to as a "day") but it was a man--some human person--who decided that this would serve as a way to count ourselves to our deaths.

Time stinks.

Whether you want to speed up time or slow it down, it's likely you're not content to leave time as it is. Well, that's precisely what I'm going to try to do this week. I was journaling for 40 minutes before mass tonight and realized that I want to just be this week.

JUST BE.

be happy where I am.

be content with what I'm doing.

be focused on what I'm doing.

Psalm 46:10--be still and know I am God...

It's not a meditation but a lifestyle choice. About six weeks ago my mom told me that I've always been trying to rush life and I need to "just let life happen" <--those may be some of the wisest words she's ever shared with me. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

AMDG

You ought to know

This video rolled across my facebook news feed a few months ago and it had to pop up a few times before I actually viewed the thing, but when I did, I was floored. Some things need to be said...and said like this...

The Habit of Being

The letters of Flannery O'Connor compiled into the 600+ page book entitled The Habit of Being allow Flannery to be understood in a way no biography could replicate. She has been one of my favorite authors (William Faulkner also fills this role) for about five years in which time I have read all her short stories and her first novel. I loved her for her writing then and now I love her for the woman she was never ashamed to be.

A former professor lent me The Habit of Being two and a half weeks ago and as I finished the last pages at the end of last week, my gratitude for that random question ["have you ever read anything by Flannery O'Connor?"] multiplied. I'll admit that I have purchased my own copy of this book on amazon and look forward to rereading it after I reread Flannery's work.

The letters contained in this book are to her publisher, agent, various editors and contacts at universities, her fans and even Flannery's closest friends. As such, the reader gains unparalleled insight into Flannery's personal habit of being.

She was hilarious.
She was scarcastic.
She was Catholic.
She was honest.
She was humble.
She was a perfectionist.
She was hopeful.
She was afflicted.
She knew her strengths.
She appreciated her friends.


Normally when I read a book or watch a movie that contains a character I appreciate this much, I end up subconsciously attempting to emulate the person. For some odd reason, though, this is not the case with Flannery. Perhaps it is because I'm subconsciously aware that I'm already very similar to this woman or I suppose it could also be the result of appreciating her for who she was as well as what she produced and knowing that my talents lie elsewhere.

Flannery had an uncanny understanding of grace and on many occasions tried to explain it to her contacts. Being that grace is one of the theological concepts I have yet to understand, I found the passages dealing with the topic to be quite insightful and theologically astute.

By living in a way that necessitated growth in virtue as well as a deep understanding of humanity, Flannery acquired "the habit of being": an excellence not only of action but of interior disposition and activity that increasingly reflected the object, the being, which specified it, and was itself reflected in what she did and said.

All I can really say is that I have been changed by reading this book. As is my hope with all entertainment I seek, I have been changed for the better--in many ways I am yet unaware of.

Love: is it worth it?

Eros.

Philia.

Agape.

Storge.

Love.

No matter how you say it, love exists as a reaction to another person/object with pleasure.

The feeling we call love stems from a release of various hormones in the brian. I don't mean to get annoyingly scientific, but it's true--love is the result of copious amounts of hormones being dumped into the bloodstream. Therefore, the feeling could (if we wanted to do it) be manufactured.

So is it all that special?

 I don't know.

And I'm not equipped to answer that.

But, I have another question:

is it worth it?

Is letting your personal happiness fall contingent upon another person logical or worth the inevitable pain?

We love our dogs.

Then cry when we have to put them down.

We love our spouses.

Then are wracked with jealousy when they look at another person

or we suffer heart-break when they pass on.

We love our friends.

Then feel abandoned when they leave.

We love our skinny jeans.

Then curse the world when they rip.

We love,

but then we hurt.

Pain is love's sidekick. 

Like tan lines and summertime.

No matter how hard you try to avoid it, you can never fully escape.

So, is it worth it?

I'm a control freak and so the idea of letting my happiness be contingent on another person seems totally out of character. But at the same time, I know humans have a need for connection. If we were meant to be alone, we would be so. If humans were designed to live in seclusion, there would be only one person on the earth, there would be no communication, there would be no love. Love exists because of the human desire for interpersonal connection. So...love is natural. And, therefore, pain is also natural. 

It sucks but that's how it's supposed to be. And who am I to mess with natural order?

I still don't know if it's worth it. 

But now I'm really thinking...

God is Love (1 Jn. 4:8).

God so loved the world...(Jn 3:16)

...Love covers all wrongs (Pvb. 10:12)

Above all, love each other deeply...(1 Pet. 4:8)

As a Catholic, I believe that God is good. Apparently, if God is good and God is Love then by the commutative property, Love must also be good. I suppose this still doesn't answer the question of love being worth the pain or not, but I'd say that if God is omnibenevolent and totally perfect then if He chose to love, it's probably in our best interest to as well. Through love, we can grow more like God. This is, most certainly, a good thing.

Clueless

The more I think about the future, well, my future specifically, the more anxiety crowds around me like Italian men on a bus in the middle of Rome. (yeah, it stinks too)


I've just recently come to the acknowledge the fact that I really have no idea what I'm going to do with my life after college. If this is still the case two years from now, I will for sure be headed to grad school to further delay the need for a decision to be made. I've always been a student. I've always dreamed about what I was going to spend my life doing. For as long as I can remember, this was something I could think about with leisure. Well, time's a ticking.

What I do know is this...

I will get there...

eventually. 

In my case, there is no straight and narrow. 

There is no direct route. 

I take two steps forward, seventeen to the side, and then get plopped back on my butt. I'm moving, but I'm moving like a four year-old trying to kick to the other side of the pool--slowly, very slowly.

I want to do what I love. 

I do not want my job to be work. 

Granted, some days it will seem that way, it is inevitable that I will not pop out of bed giddy with two thumbs up day after day. But I intend to enjoy myself during the day. I refuse to fall into the large percentage of folks who come home to gripe about their day of work. Instead, I look forward to coming home to gush about the joys I experienced throughout the day. You may say this is idealistic but you'd be incorrect. This is simply the way it should be. I am spending time in school to learn what I love so that I can then do what I love. I currently love what I'm learning so that's a good start, I suppose. In a small way, I think I may be on the right track, simply because learning what I love doesn't feel like work.

I'm studying theology and social work...Jesus and helping people.

For eight years, I was hard set on being a teacher. Then I was convinced I was going to pursue a career as a hardcore Catholic counselor. And when I understood that I don't want to wait for people to be hurt for me to help, I began looking into youth ministry. But now I'm seeing how I need to refuse to settle. I need to follow these loves I have and let my passions guide me to the next step.

But there's another problem. Two of the best words to describe my personality are controlling and impatient. I'm working on adding fearless.

If you've detected a similarity in the last few posts, it's not my fault, I swear. Clearly, my lack of clarity is at the forefront of my mind. It probably doesn't help that it's graduation season and I'm living at school for the summer and I'm more than half-way done with my undergraduate experience and I'm the child of two people who entered college knowing exactly what they wanted to do (and did it and are still doing it.


Just sayin'.

the journey is the destination

When I was on a home visit two weeks ago, I mentioned to my mother that I was thinking about graduating a semester early. If I don't take at least 18 credits a semester, I get bored and I could have all my requirements taken care of with just another semester and a half. Sitting at the kitchen table, as I walked to the faucet to refill my waterbottle, my mom said,"Emily, slow down. You've always been trying to rush life. You need to just let it happen." 

There an alarming truth 

and a bit of parental wisdom.

She's right.

I have a control problem. 

I also have a short attention span and a free spirit. 

From a very young age, I've seemed to focus on the end goal rather than the process by which I achieve said goal. During the years I swam competitively, I constantly had pieces of bright colored paper with numbers taped to various focal points in my bedroom. These numbers were my goal times for the season. I did not make step by step, short-term goals. I set a big ones that were far in the distance, far from my reach. The goals were always attainable but often not fully attained because I would become intimidated. I focused on what was ahead rather than what was right now. 

My friends Annie and Chris recently bought TOMS whose pattern reads "the journey is the destination." When Annie told me about the shoes, I liked the saying but I hadn't reflected on it until now. 

What am I missing by living in the future?

Why can't I just enjoy this moment?

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I'll do after I graduate in two years--will I go straight to grad school or will I volunteer for a year like I wanted to after high school? Where will I go to grad school? Am I going to want a Ph. D. or can I settle for a masters? Will I ever move back to Michigan or is that history? When would be the ideal time to get married? I've been thinking of what classes I want to take to get the best education suited for the field I want to enter.

I always rush through life.

Fact is, I'm gonna miss this.

Someone told me that undergrad is the time when you're supposed to read. You're supposed to read everything you can get your hands on. You're supposed to take any class that sounds even remotely interesting. The classes you take the most of are what you'll graduate with a degree in but that's not something to put your focus on. You aren't expected to have it all figured out as an undergrad. You aren't supposed to be a grown up yet (reference my previous post to gain an understanding of the defining characteristics of grown-up-ness). I understood the words this person was saying but not the concept. As I have witnessed my peers in action for the past two years, it seems as though most of them have it figured out. Most know what they want to do with their life, or they at least have a solid idea, and most certainly know what they do not want to do. But tonight as I thumbed through the Curriculum Vitae of a few professors, I realized that this air of confidence many of my peers seem to exude about their future plans is a total farce. 

These professors are some of the most brilliant and fascinating human beings I have ever known. Both are theology professors. One studied political science at Yale in her undergrad...now she teaches theology. The other played football and studied religion and business administration. After graduation, he went on to successfully work in the business world until religious life caught his heart. Then, he became a Jesuit and furthered his education in theology at Yale, Notre Dame, Oxford, and in Rome. These people I have grown to admire and trust had absolutely no idea what their lives were going to look like when they were my age. They did what they wanted and let life happen. 

This is one of those things that is a choice--a daily choice--but its a decision that is completely up to me. One of the most common things my campers last summer heard me say was "I want you to learn to live in the moment." Good going Em, perhaps you need to listen to yourself. 

Let life happen.

Perhaps the most simple yet difficult task I've ever been charged with. 

"The beauty of the Christian tradition is that it holds grace and human finitude together." JHR

Really? That just happened.

I realize I haven't written in over a week. I apologize but only a little. I write when I have something half-way worthwhile to elaborate on and so my lack of posting is not necessarily only the result of my need for a 25th hour in the day but also an underwhelming amount of thought-provoking moments and inspiring conversations. That happens when you live on a college campus in the summer and especially when you reside in such a place without enrollment in classes. 

Anyway. I was writing about 7 minutes ago. This was a reflection on the societal definition of the beginning of adulthood. I was very much bewildered by the concept since I am twenty years old but still do not feel as though I am nearing the point in time when I am considered "a grown up." Granted, to young children (anyone under the age of 10, I'd say) I am probably considered a grown up...at least kind of. To them, I'm more than "one of the big kids" but something less still than their parents or teachers or the cashier at the grocery store. 


Anyway. As I was outwardly pondering the subject, I worked through a series of questions in an attempt to understand what makes a person a grown up. Clearly, something went wrong because you cannot read this post I currently speak of. Guess....

I answered my own question.

I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!
Well, I do and I don't.
I like answers. I need answers. I want to know why things are the way they are and how they got that way and if they will change and if they change why they do and so on and so forth. There are answers, I intend to find them. Sometimes though, I enjoy the pursuit. Research papers entail much work but it is work I find enjoyable (if on a subject of my interest) because I so love learning. Many people my age prefer answers to be handed to them. Rarely do college students research questions they do not know the answers to, or better yet, research questions the world may not have answers for yet. I've done both.

Anyway. I answered my own question. I realized that this status, this label of "grown up" is attached to a person who achieves the following: a certain age (this is relative to cultural standards--in America it lies somewhere between the ages of 18 and 22), financial independence, and a certain educational status (again, this is variable to the culture). For example, because he is living at home this summer and my parents do not require him to pay rent or subsidize the food or utility costs, my brother is still not a grown up though he is 22 and has graduated from college.

Good deal. But really. I like ti when I have to work a little harder than simply typing my thoughts out for a few minutes. In a strange way, that was a frustrating experience.

Reading for fun...I have time for that now!

This morning, I went over to the beehive (building of offices for humanities faculty) to pick up a paper. When the paper wasn't in my professor's mailbox I had to go up to the third floor to get it directly from her. I knocked on the door and she ushered me in. Long story short, we talked for an hour...and only about my paper for about 4 minutes.

Out of the blue, she asked me what I was currently reading. I pulled my book out from my bag sitting at my feet and let her take a look--Death By Love by Mark Driscoll...not really light reading. Laughing, she said "and some fiction on the side?" She asked if I'd ever read anything by Flannery O'Connor. Not only have I read most of her work (all her short stories and one of her novels), she just happens to be my favorite author. No big deal. She grinned, impressed? surprised? Whatever the case, she lent me her copy (every time I go to Dr. Rubio's office, I leave with at least one book) of Flannery O'Connor's letters--letters to everyone...her publishers, her friends, her family, everyone. 


As I've been working my way through the introduction, I was struck by some of her words:

"There are some of us who have to pay for our faith 
every step of the way 

and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it 

and if being without it would ultimately be possible or not."

I sat on my bed, intellect seized by introspection. 

American culture often treats religion as some kind of fad--in one day and out the next. But Flan is suggesting otherwise. She motions that being might not be possible without faith. Granted, religion and faith are different. Lots of people might say they have faith but not unite themselves with a certain religious community. It's like "I'm spiritual not religious." What's with that? When did all these sub categories become so common place? When did religion come to be seen as a negative thing? 

Faith is believing in things unseen, or so I've heard. 

So is faith innately irrational?

I don't like the thought of that. 

I like things to be black and white. Unfortunately, the world doesn't come nicely split like that. There's a lot of black and a lot of white, they just happen to be mixed together forming innumerable shades of gray, that's why relativism is becoming such a popular thought process. 

There are times when I'm not so sure what exactly I have faith in, but I know, without a doubt that there has to be something bigger than me, something beyond this Earthly existence, or else none of this matters. If this is all there is and I'm going to get dropped eight feet in the ground and piled with dirt after I die and that's it, what's the point? I need there to be a God. I need there to be an afterlife. Without those, living seems irrational. Because there is so much pain and suffering (often seen as useless) I cannot begin to understand why we would continue if there was no purpose to the pain, nothing better to come. 

All I know is that despite my rationality, I'm often wrong. I can explain things until my heart stops beating but it is ever so easy to undo all that explanation. Even when I think I am most right, there always exists another person who feels s/he is just as right. There is only one truth.

I suppose I revert back to what this professor spoke about at the end of our last class a few weeks ago. She said, "knowing how wrong I've been and how many mistakes I've made forces me to see and acknowledge that I want something other than me leading my life." Looking back on our lives, even in reviewing the past week, we can probably all see how our plans didn't turn out the way we expected. We put so much time and energy into planning and organizing but it's gonna happen His way no matter what. We can take the long road or the short road, or better yet, His road. No matter what, all roads lead back to Him. We have faith because we're not good enough--or at least that's why Dr. Rubio and I do.

I'm still just in the introduction. I haven't even really had a chance to dissolve myself to become one with the words of the book. I have over 600 pages of pure entertainment reading and I couldn't be more excited. There is nothing I am supposed to learn from this. There no notes to take, no questions to answer, and no deadline to meet. 

Pleasure reading, a fantastic concept. 

Windows to the soul

It's been over a week, and my mind keeps flashing back to a set of dark eyes.

In St. Louis’s Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Monday, I sat heeled legs crossed and bleary eyed waiting on the latte to kick in and thumbing through emails--standard Emily-mode. Then a wheel chair pulls up next to me. I shot a glance up and then quickly back down to my Mac, wondering what in the world an attractive, seemingly healthy, young black guy would be in a wheel chair for...

Then it hit me like a pound of bricks.

I eyed his feet first. Big, nice Nike-shoed feet schackled in cuffs and linked to the sides of his metal wheeled chair. Rising up, I saw his strong wrists were similarly hand-cuffed and enslaved to the arm bars. Three broad-shouldered men in suits hovered over him in that tough-guy stance, you know the one with feet apart and hands clasped. He couldn't have been older than me.

Whoa.

(So I promise I'd gotten to this point without any involved parties noticing my investigative skills. Curiosity may be the death of me, but I'm sneaky. Psshh--I'm a freakishly overly-aware, overly-analytical individual)

So there I sat. Next to a guy that had a blinking light over his head that said "Everyone, please stare at me. I did something so awful, your government doesn't even trust me to walk." I just had to look at him. Had to. So I glanced over and one moment later, the saddest, biggest pair of brown eyes looked into my own. My. Heart. Shattered.

There's no way I can ever put into words what his dark brown eyes said during the span we held each others eyes (a span of maybe three seconds). I don't even know how long it was, or if I was breathing. I've just never seen hurt like that. His eyes bore into me: he was scared, alone, marred, shunned, stripped of dignity, and labeled a murderous monster by any travelers who dared to look at the spectacle. It was as if he was silently pleading my forgiveness. Anyone's forgiveness.

It's been 8 days and my mind won't let go.

Because we're all like that.

We've all screwed up and somehow in our infantile, earthly minds his sin is "worse" than our sin. How DARE we call ourselves better than this man. How DARE we raise eyebrows and smugly go about life. I know I have an issue hating sin, it's something God is teaching me lately. I'm just more easily interested in figuring out Love and Grace. I know guilt. I know shame. We’ve all got it. And we’ve all got a nasty pile of sin sitting atop out heads. Still, I see and expect good in everyone. I give lots of second and third chances. Trust me, it's an issue. I get hurt a lot this way. But I'm working on it.

But I saw myself in that man's—murder-stained or whatever he did--eyes, like it was a mirror or something. We couldn't have looked more physically different. But at some point our differences stopped and we were one in the same. I'm just as filthy, shackled, and damaged. Maybe not in society's view, but in light of the Gospel, I am just like him. No better. Enslaved to that life, actually.

But then I’ve been told a Greater Love rescues me from those restraining chains.

And somehow, weirdly, becoming a servant to that Love morphs into freedom.

Which still bewilders me. I don't get it, Daddy.

At all.

But I'm so, SO thankful.

"I'll stand with arms high and heart abandoned /

in awe of the One who gave it all."

- Hillsong United

Welp, looks like I'm still optimistically fascinated with the word "grace" after all. Now if only I could understand it and apply it to my life not just to others’…smiling in the mirror not just at the pretty pictures on the wall. Oh well.

Behind door number 1...

I've been in Michigan for the past three days in anticipation of my brother's college graduation this weekend.  My plane landed on Monday at 6:02 pm EST and it all began...actually, it began on the plane.

A baby a few rows behind me was crying. Not just crying but wailing and I wasn't havin' it. I sat there and pressed my face against the window and closed my eyes..."Daddy, please comfort that child. Please just do whatever you have to do to make her stop crying. Daddy, I'll pray the entire flight if that's what it'll take too get you to make her stop. We can talk this entire time if she just stops." I got out my journal and began to write and simultaneously the baby's shrieks ceased. "Shoot. Well, okay. You've got me now. Since I said we could talk, I've got some things to say..." That was the first time in a long time that I prayed undistracted, 

My life has seen its fair share of bumps on the road in the past four months and I'm not really one to march into conflict head on. In fact, I have a tendency to run away from the tools that can help me. In this case, it was God. There was a dramatic shift. I went to daily mass for the past two years but in the past few months, there have been weeks when I found myself needing to be coerced into attending Sunday mass. I filled an entire journal (about 100 pages, front and back) in five weeks this fall but have only written about 30 pages in the past 10 weeks. Clearly, things got shaken up.

Being here this week, though, has reminded me of what used to be. You see, I've only been at my parents' house for about 12 weeks out of the last 2 years...104 weeks and I've been here. Because I go to school 700 miles away, I only make it home around the holidays when the dorms are shut down. I'm not complaining; I'm just offering perspective. This short period of time in Michigan means that I do not see my friends from "childhood" very often. When I do come home, I get to see a select few people for just a short period of time. Often these visits make or break my view of the trip.

That was a lot of background.

What I want to say is that this week, I've gotten a wake up call. Monday night I spent with my friend Claudia who I hadn't seen since August. It was clear that we hadn't seen each other or talked in awhile. As we conversed over dinner and continued at her apartment, it became clear to me that she had no idea where I was at. She knew about some of the bumps in the road but seemed to ignore the possibility that they had actually affected me. I'm not the same person I was when we last saw each other but she definitely expected me to be.

I don't really know how to decide if that's a good thing or not.
Maybe a little bit of both.

The next afternoon, I had lunch with Kim, a woman who used to work for my parents. She could tell that I had changed, that life had changed me. She listened and understood. Kim took me as I was. Then she took my hands and very directly told me to stop running. She reminded me of what my relationship with God used to look like and honestly told me that she knew that I knew running away wasn't going to get me anywhere and she knew that I wanted to turn around.

These aren't the only two. Since Monday evening, easily half a dozen people/situations have directed me to where I know I should be.

It's like God's been knocking at my door for the past two or three weeks and I acknowledged that He was there and I acknowledged my desire to open the door but I didn't. This week, I opened the door and let God explain why He's been knocking.

Words of the heart.

there is this girl named Annie

we are friends.

 it's intense.

like camping!

I love her.

a lot.

We became friends by having a class together last spring. Little did we know that class would bond us together this way. In the past year, we've grown into closer and deeper friendship. Annie has gotten to know my heart and my head...that is something to be applauded. She knows what makes me tick. She knows when I need to talk but don't want to. She knows how to push me without making me fall over. And if I do fall, she's had her hand outstretched waiting for me to take it since before I fell. 

Needless to say, I am blessed.

Annie knows she doesn't always have the right words to say but sometimes songs do and sometimes other people do. It is not uncommon for me to open a text message telling me to go youtube a song or open an email pointing me to a quote on pinterest. 

I don't know what I was going through when she sent me this 

(couldn't have been all that important if I didn't journal about it)

but it made me tear up.

I often refer to God as 'Daddy' (for a number of reasons) and I rarely see that anywhere but in my own heart. Yeah, lots of people begin prayers invoking 'Father, God' but it's not the same. A daddy is much different than a father. Clearly, it was a big deal for me to see the way this was "signed." Dad may not be the same as 'Daddy' but its pretty darn close--close enough for this to seem personal, rather than just another corny Christian things on the internet. 

I blogged on March 22nd (I looked it up. I promise I don't just freakishly remember these things) about how words don't mean a thing to me until they are followed by some type of action, and so I see how it seems a little inauthentic that I'm now telling you how much these words mean to me. 

It's not the words.

It's the action behind the words.

In order for those words to get to me, Annie had to be thinking of me. I doubt she was online frantically searching for something to give me comfort, but, instead, God brought her to these words and gave her the push to email them to me. Annie and God get mucho brownie points for making that touch my heart. I won't say it has nothing to do with the words. That'd be totally false, but I promise you that if I had just come across those words as I was surfing across the interwebbs it wouldn't be something I'd still be thinking about.

This speaks to my heart right here and now.