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.

Cleaning my room--in multiple ways

I woke up this morning and got the urge to clean. In the past few weeks, I've been busy and cranky. Therefore, my bedroom has become somewhat of a dumpsite. I walk in, drop my backpack, plug in my computer to charge and crawl onto my bed. If there is a clothing change to occur, , at least one piece of clothing doesn't make it to its proper place. As I sat up in bed this morning, I couldn't help but get flashbacks to the appearance of my room in my parent's house during high school. It wasn't a happy feeling.

Every time I clean, I find things. Obviously I find dust but, more excitingly, I find things I had lost and things I had forgotten about.

Today I found a yellow folder Kelsey (my discipler) gave me a few months ago. In it is one of the most thought provoking and frustrating metaphorical stories I've ever read...

Jesus moves in: giving everything over
One evening I invited Jesus Christ to live with me. It was not an especially spectacular thing, but something very real happened at the center of my life. He came in, turned on the light, built a fire in the hearth, and filled the emptiness with His personal presence. Because I wanted to experience even more of this relationship I said, "Lord, I want you to feel at home in every area of my life. Let me show you around."


The study.
The first place we explored was my study--the room of my mind. It was quite small and had very thick walls. He entered and looked around at the books on the shelves, the magazines on the table, and the pictures on the walls. I became a little uncomfortable. Strangely, I had never felt self conscious about this stuff before, but now that He was there looking at it all. I felt embarrassed. Some of it seemed completely out of place in His presence. And I realized for the first time that much of what stood before me was not good for me. Blushing, I turned to Him and said, "I know that this room needs cleaning, but I don't really know where to start. Will you help me?"


As this process has begun, I have discovered that when my mind is centering more and more upon Christ daily, his purity and power are taking the place of my own impure thoughts. I have found that even my desire to think thoughts that are not pleasing to Him are also decreasing. While I still have quite a way to go, I can honestly say that my thinking is gradually being brought under His control.


The dining room.
After the study, we stepped into the dining room--the room of my appetites and desires. I had spent a lot of time and energy there. Proudly, I said, "This is one of my favorite rooms.. I believe you will be happy with what is served up here!" I set before Him all of my academic and athletic accomplishments and ambitions, as well as my career dreams. 


When the 'food' was placed before Him, He said nothing, and did not eat. I asked, "Master, don't you like the meal? Is there a problem?" He answered, "Do you find this diet satisfies your hunger? If you want to be truly filled, set your heart on doing the will of God alone and feed on Me. All you have been preparing for yourself will ultimately leave you feeling empty>"


That was difficult for me to hear. I had convinced myself that one day, I would finally manage to cook up just the right meal that would satisfy my hunger. I sat there stunned, trying to take in His words. Sensing my anxiety, He reached over and put a small piece of bread in my hand. I ate it. The flavor was so rich--just a small bite gave me more energy and contentment than all of the empty calories I had been consuming for years. I found myself at once both full and wanting more.


The living room. 
From there we walked into the living room. It was casual, intimate, and comfortable. I loved this room! There was a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, and a big sofa, and a huge entertainment center. JEsus said, "This is a great little spot. We can come here often and just hang out and talk together." I was thrilled. I couldn't think of anything I would rather do than have an uninterrupted time with JEsus. He promised, "I will be here every morning. Meet me here, and we will start each day together."


So morning after morning I would come downstairs to the living room and find Him waiting. He's pull out a book of the Bible, open it, and we would read together. He began to unfold amazing the amazing depth of His love and of His desires for my life. They were the most intimate and insightful times of my life. Little by little, however, under the pressure of more urgent things, the time began to get crowded ot, more hurried and less intimate. I began to miss days now and then. The appointments with Him that I had committed to sometimes slipped my mind.


I remember one morning rushing downstairs, choking down breakfast, on my way to do something critically important (I forget exactly what). I rushed past the living room and noticed the door was open. Curious, I looked in and saw Jesus sitting there, praying for me by the fire. I felt a stinging-guilt flood through me. "I invited Him to live here with me," I thought. "He has been my greatest friend, and here I have been ignoring Him." I stopped, turned, and hesitantly went in. Hanging my head, I said, "Lord, forgive me. Have you been waiting here every morning?"


"Yes," He said. "I want you to remember that I am constantly with you. But, I very genuinely want to spend time with you every morning. Our fellowship together is very important if you are going to walk in My life and follow the directions that I give you.  I desire the best for your life, I value our relationship--I love spending time with you." The truth that Jesus really desired my companionship has done more to transform my devotional times with God than any other single fact. Mornings aren't always the best time of day--sometimes I've had to ask if we could meet at night. But I have made it a point to carve out daily time with Him because He loves and treasures that time with me and I am finding that I do too.


The workroom.
Before long, He asked, "Do you have a workroom around here?" Out in the garage I had a small workbench and a few tools I had picked up here and there, but I wasn't doing much with any of it. I took Him out to look it over. "Well, this is quite well furnished. What are you using it to do?" "Well, Lord," I said, "I know it isn't much, but I don't have the time or skills to do much more."


"All right," He said, "let Me have your hands. Now, relax with me and let my Spirit work through you. If He controls your hands and your heart, you can accomplish any assignment I give you." Stepping around behind me and putting His strong hands under mine, He began to work with me. The more I relaxed and trusted His, the more He was able to do through me.


The rec room.
One day He asked if I had a place where I got together with my friends. I was really hoping He wouldn't ask me about that. There were certain associations and activities that I wanted to keep to myself. One evening when I was on my way out with some buddies, He caught my eye and asked, "are you going out?" "Yes," I replied. "Great," He said, "I'd love to come with you." "Well," I answered awkwardly, "I don't think you'd really enjoy where we are going. Let's go out together )just you and me_ tomorrow night. Maybe to a Bible study or church or something, but tonight I have other plans." Jesus replied, "I thought that when you invited me into your home, we were going to do everything together... I just want you to know that I am willing to go with you." "Well," I mumbled, slipping out the door. "let's go someplace together tomorrow night."


That whole evening I was basically miserable. "What was I thinking? I had deliberately left Jesus out of my social life. Didn't I trust Him around my friends? Couldn't He do for them what He had done for me?" When I returned, He was waiting for me. I decided to talk the situation over with Him. "Lord," I said, "all my best times have been with you, It was silly of me to leave you behind. I was miserable the whole time, so now I want us to do everything together." He led me back to the rec room and pulled out His plans for remodeling. Before long, He was comfortably hanging out with my friends. a few of them even invited Him into their homes. He also introduced me to new friends and we had some exciting and meaningful conversations. Powerful music has been ringing throughout the house ever since.


The crawl space.
One day I found Him waiting for me at the door. A concerned look was in His eye. As I entered, He said, "I've noticed a peculiar odor in the house. I think it's coming from under the crawl space under the rug." I immediately knew what He was talking about. There was a crawl space under the floor where I stored several personal things I didn't want anyone to know about. They were dead and rotting leftovers from my former lifestyle that I kept hidden and figured nobody would ever be suspicious about. Occasionally, I'd mess around with a couple of those old habits or nurse some old grudge. I was afraid to admit to anybody that I still dabbled in these things. I tried to make excuses, telling myself that I only visited the crawl space when I had a particularly bad day.


Reluctantly, I went with Him and pulled back the rug to reveal the trap door in the floor. I felt angry. That's the only way I can put it. This was private! I had given Him access to the library, the dining room, the living room, the workroom, and the rec room, and now He was asking for entrance into this little out of the way crawl space that wasn't hurting anybody as far as I could tell. I said to myself, "This is too much. I am not going to give Him the key."


"Well," He said, reading my thoughts, "the things in this space are not healthy for our relationship, it's weakening our fellowship and distancing us from each other." When one cones to know and love Christ, the worst thing that can happen is to experience estrangement from Him, especially when your own sin is the cause. I had to give in. "Wait! I'll give You the key," I said sadly. "But I doubt you'll be able to clean up that mess. I've made a number of futile attempts before. I never had strength to so a very thorough job and it's so dark and musty in there that the stuff grows so fast." "Just give me the key," He said. "Trust me to take care of the crawl space and I will." With trembling fingers I passed the key to Him. He unlocked the door and started cleaning. the process was often uncomfortable, I hated admitting that I had involved Jesus in this filthy, tedious project, but after seeing the joy and satisfaction He received from doing it for me, I've grown to love Him more and more each time I see him working on it.


Title transfer.
A thought came to me. "Lord, is there any chance that you would take over the management of this whole house and operate it for me as You did that crawl space? Would You take responsibility to make my life what it ought to be?" His face lit up as He replied, "I'd love to! I've longed to fill and freely move through every part of your life. But you haven't given me the opportunity."


Dropping to my knees, I said, "Lord, I have been treating You like a guest, when I am really a guest and You the true host. From now on I will be Your servant. Please so with this place whatever You will find best--I trust you." I ran over to the stongbox eagerly signed it over to Him. "Here it is, all that I am and have and forever. Now, You are fully in charge and I will submit to you always."


If you've read all the way to the end, I applaud your patience and admire your attention span. Well done, my friend, well done.

When I get to where I think I'm going.

Remember those days when if someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grow us, you would've answered: batman, a princess, a firefighter, a ballerina, etc, etc.? I was sure I was going to be a ballerina, I bet my parents were pretty sure as well. From the day I could walk, I was dancing around the kitchen in my pretty pink tights, I was running to the house next door in my tutu to see if Alyssa could come out and play. I barely remember those days, but what I can remember makes me happy.

I have no idea when reality set in. I suppose it was somewhere around second or third grade when I realized that there are only a few dozen prima ballerinas in the world and I didn't have good odds. That was a hard reality, I'm sure, but I soon latched on to a new dream. I was going to be a teacher...and I held on to this dream until the middle of high school. From second or third grade all the way until the beginning of junior year of high school, I was planning on being a teacher. I would get so excited to walk in to school on the first day each year to the newly decorated bulletin boards and binders full of lesson plans. I've always loved school and learning (I just hate grades.) so it seemed perfectly natural.

Well, that changed and I wanted to be a counselor (a hardcore Catholic therapist, to use my exact wording from the time). Now I know I'm meant for ministry. I have a lot of helping myself to do before I can help other people, but I have far too much experience with far too many aspects of life to keep them to myself.

When the question became less "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and more "what do you want to do with your life? and who do you want to be when you grow up?" it started to get serious. I'm talking about picking precisely what you need in college to get where you want to go. Your major. Your concentration in your major. Your extracurricular activities. Your summer plans.  One day a few years ago it became this serious business where I better pick correctly or forever hold my peace.

Still, on monday Dr. Miller's advice as we sat in his classroom for the last time was to "Keep dreaming. People will squash your dreams sometimes but if you stop dreaming, you've let them squash you. It might hurt to get rejected but it will hurt more to have regrets."

As I grew up, college was illustrated as a time to search. A time to take a bunch of classes in areas that interest you. A time to talk to professors and figure out what you want to do with your life. And after you figure that out, you get to have experiences that will build you in that direction.

False.

College has turned me into a professional paper writer. I mean, yes, I've gotten to know some of my favorite professors--one even asked me to house-sit for her this summer--but I've realized that it is my job to sit on my bedroom floor and pour my heart and soul into Microsoft Word for hours at a time.

this is the current state of my bedroom floor--

just picture me with my back against the pillow, 

legs covered by the yellow blanket,

and computer on my lap.

I've just passed the half-way point with my 5th paper in two weeks. 

When I finish this one, I will have written over 65 pages. 

How to end sexual violence.

The effects of abuse on self-worth.

The gospels.

C.S. Lewis' view of Satan.

The historicity of the bible.

...and a two weeks before all this started I wrote 10 pages on Natural Family Planning.

This is collegiate paper writing at its finest I'm telling you.

Let me just tell you, I'm looking forward to the day when I get to take all this knowledge I'm writing about and actually do something with it.

"I try to never let school get in the way of my education" --Mark Twain

For serious?????

Have you noticed how the way you plan things is never the way those things actually happen? I look back at my life, even just the past year, and I am FLOORED. Thank goodness I keep a journal, if I didn't I probably wouldn't believe I thought what I did.

Tonight I briefly thought about my summer plans and how dramatically they have changed in the past few months. At Christmas, I was trying to figure out if I was going to go on a summer project or back to camp. I said no to camp and was accepted to SDSP. It seemed great! The support money was rolling in and I was getting used to the idea of spending my summer in San Diego with a hundred strangers. Well, that got ripped away and my heart broke. But then Hayley got me looking at and praying about something else that would be really good for me. I still held on to the anger of losing San Diego but began opening up my heart to this new possibility. When things weren't falling into place after I worked my butt off, that possibility became less and less of a reality, so I decided it would be best to stay in St. Louis and work at my current job and take some classes. I began making plans there but was not excited at all. But then I was thinking about my favorite summers as a kid over the weekend and remembered they all surrounded long days at the pool beginning with summer swim team practice. I emailed just about every summer club in the St. Louis area with my credentials and a flood of enthusiasm. So after months of floundering, I may, possibly, have found what I'm supposed to be doing this summer--working at the rec center for kicks and giggles and coaching a summer swim team.

I am absolutely astounded when I think about this. It's a true testament to how I have no idea what I'm doing.

Literally no idea.

I make wrong choices all the time. It's kind of a problem.

I mean, let's talk about this paper I need to write this weekend. When you get into upper division classes in your major, you get to choose what you want to do for the most part. At this point in my education, I'm finally seeing that my professors want to teach me about what I want to learn about, they want me to study what I am interested in. 90% of the work I do to prove to my professors that I'm learning is paper writing. I've written close to 100 pages in the past 3 weeks. No big deal. I've already come up with three paper topics for this class and was pretty much burned out of creativity when it was time to begin topic brainstorming. Thus, I went to Dr. Rubio and asked for guidance. I told her about some of the readings I found most interesting and in earlier meetings we had discussed what sort of path I think my education is taking me career-wise so she knew my passion, and as an honors student, she has required me to make short presentations about extra reading I've done for the class all semester--so she knows what I'm capable of pulling out of a text without much guidance. Well, she proposed a topic. It was the same general topic she had asked me to do a formal class presentation about in early MArch but I switched topics last minute with my friend Annie. Because she was asking me to look at this topic again, I felt like I couldn't say no. But as soon as I thought about it, I began to regret it. Not only is it over my head, it's also extremely personal (not that Dr. Rubio knows). I doubt I can write this paper completely objectively, some part of that personal aspect is bound to burst into the paper. There was a part of me that thought it could be therapeutic but as I continue my reading, I find out how terribly wrong I was. So I'm avoiding writing it.

Poor choice. 

I have no helpful thoughts here. I'm just frustrated that I'm always wrong. 

Join the Club!

Recently, I've been reflecting on how I do not like change. It's not a fun thing to think about really, but it has been on my mind nonetheless because this time of year is a time of change--senior are graduation, friends are leaving for the summer, classes are finishing up, some friends are leaving and never coming back...my heart is all mixed up and the simplest way to explain how I'm feeling is "I hate change."

It's been on my mind. I dislike change so much so that I would start a movement against change if I could. In CLC small group yesterday, I was talking about one specific changing thing that I'm struggling immensely with right now and by the end of check-in, my entire group agreed that change sucks.

In order to combat change, I have decided to begin a cult...I mean, support group.

change haters anonymous.

CHA for short. 

Once you're in you cannot leave. We have a schedule and though it has room for spontaniety, there is a rhythm that flows through each day. Of course, there will be celebrations when new people join the cult,,,I mean, support group, and great celebrations when people die. But the big thing is that people will not leave. In this group, you're there for life. It's like being Catholic, once you're in you're in no matter how much you screw up, how much you think you're running away, nope, you're still in.

When your eyes are too swollen to put in your contacts because you've been crying, you'll understand.

All I want...

and I want them to be right.

Where's Waldo? (real life style)

Where's God?

That's something I've been struggling with recently and that struggle was exposed like a naked baby's bottom tonight at mass. It's not like Fr. Meconi stood up there and said "hey yall, that girl over to your life in the yellow sundress is struggling to know God." It wasn't exposed to the world, per se. But I felt like Fr. Meconi was talking to me, just to me. It didn't matter that there were 2,000+ other students in the church, he was talking to me.

Where's God?

Fr. Meconi told a story of a late-night talk he and some buddies had when he was in grad school years ago. The topic of discussion: what one question would you ask a person to get to know them the best, the deepest, and the most quickly? What would you ask? I couldn't come up with anything substantial in the 26 seconds he gave us to think about it. But his answer dropped me to my knees. What is your most painful memory? 

What is your most painful memory?

loaded question.

that's the point.

I don't want to talk about it.

that's the point.

I bet your most painful memory is one where you have trouble seeing God's presence. He's there. He always is. He knows about pain--look at the cross--that doesn't mean He likes it or necessitates it. But through our pain, we come to know God, we come to need Him. God never pushes himself on us. He walks beside us and lets us do our thing until we invite Him to join us. He comes to us on our terms--that's the whole 'free will' thing. He'll let us walk away but that doesn't mean He leaves us. 

Our God is a God for the broken. I don't know about yours but I know my heart is broken. My heart is broken ways that I often feel are unfixable. There have been days when I journal "I just want to be whole again." I'm not gonna say that isn't possible but for now my brokenness is where I'm at and guess what...that's okay, because our God is a God for the broken. He knows what my most painful memory is. Not the one I'm thinking of but the one I've buried so deep inside that it seems like I've forgotten.

But pain hurts. How come God didn't stop it? If He cared, wouldn't He stop it? How can god be present when something like that is happening? ...especially if He loves me the way people say He does. I don't understand. I get the truths: 1. God loves me with a crazy unmerited, undeserved, unrelenting love. 2. God doesn't cause pain. 3. God is always with me. So explain to me how this all-loving God can be present while the one He loves is enduring such terrible pain and not intervene. Explain it to me please. And don't just tell me that it hurts Him to see me hurt or that He's there watching...through His tears. No. If I ever see someone I love in pain, I'm going to do whatever I can to lessen that burden. I'd at least try. 

I don't know how to answer this issue. I wrote a paper related to this last semester--perhaps its time for a reread. What I do know is that walking away isn't going to get me where I want to go. I've walked far enough away enough times and I don't like where it has gotten me...because, guess what....I have no idea where I'm going. I think I know but then I'm wrong and wrong again and again. 

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. 

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. 

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, 

other times there was one only.

This bothered me 

because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, 

when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, 

I could see only one set of footprints, 

so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord,

that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. 

But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life 

there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. 

Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, 

“The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, 

my child, is when I carried you.”

Cute, right? Well, I run...even from this. I'm getting tired...but there's a part of me that is afraid to stop, a part of me that thinks I can't turn around.

After mass tonight, I sent Fr. Meconi an email thanking him for letting the Spirit move through him tonight and telling him that sometimes I just need to hear those words spoken by someone I respect and trust...his response "well, then, quit running."

or at least run in the right direction.

Luke 11:1

"One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

I want to learn to pray the way David prayed. I want my soul to burn when I hear Your name. I want to feel like new. I want to hunger for You. Bring me back to life like only You can do.

Ya weird kid

Grace was one of the girls who came on Big Break this spring and one of our little jokes from the week was about her drawling out 'ya weird kid' anytime someone did something awkward, nerdy, freakish, or anything of that type. Needless to say, it happened often. 

That has NOTHING at all to do with this.

Except that I hear Grace off in the distance saying it...

"Ya weird kid"

When I was in the bathroom about 17 minutes ago, I realized that I have used the same stall in that bathroom every time I have gone in there this semester. As the only bathroom on my floor, you can wisely presume that I have made many visits to that room this semester. Every time, I use the third stall.

Ya weird kid.

I swear I'm not the only one who does things like that. I'd swear on a stack of bibles. 

Students, look at where you sit in your classes that do not have assigned seats (in college that's EVERY class). Your professor may not have told you where to sit but you probably sit in the exact same seat every time...and that's probably the same seat you sat in on the first day of class many months ago. It's like there's some unwritten rule that you get 4.2 seconds to pick a seat when you walk in the door on the first day of the semester and that choice is something you've gotta live with for the next 16 weeks. Choose wisely. 

If you drive somewhere regularly (work, the gym, the grocrey store, etc), think about where you park. I remember in high school, I parked in the same spot (or one spot to the left) every day senior year. I bet you do it too Maybe not the same exact spot because some people are unaware of this rule and rudely take your spot, but nonetheless, you freakishly park in the same general area every single time. 

WHY?

Ultimately, I think it's a comfort thing. I parked in that spot every day senior year because it was easy to back out of when school was over and it was close(ish) to the door. I sit in the same seat in class because I don't want someone to get upset if I take their seat. And I certainly don't want to upset the feng shui of the learning environment. We are creatures of habit because habits are comfortable.

But here's the thing...Pope Benedict XVI once shared this nugget of wisdom with me..."the world promises you comfort but you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness!"

I don't think he was telling me that it's a bad thing that I park in the same place all the time but maybe it's time to sit somewhere else in class (well, next year since its finals week and there isn't really any reason to upset the norm now) and talk to those people in the back of the room whose voice you can recognize better than their face. It's probably fine to keep using that third bathroom stall but perhaps inviting the girl next door to your meeting instead of walking by her room as she watches netflix all night once again is what he's getting at. 

I hate goodbyes

"Never say goodbye because saying goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting."

I hate goodbyes. I hate them soooo much. Some people like to keep it on the bright side and remember all the good times we've had. Sure, that's cool, but what if I'm legit not going to see you again? or if I do see you, it will be in a long time and, no matter what, it won't be the same as it has been. I like to think I'm okay with change, but that's really a lie. I'm only okay with change when it's change in my favor. Goodbyes do not seem to be a change in my favor. Therefore, I hate them.

"Distance is not for the fearful...it is for the BOLD. It is for those who are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. It is for those who know a good thing when they see it...even if they don't see it very often."

The tales of a notebook's inside cover

As a theology major, I obviously spend most of my time in theology classes. Bible and literature, synoptic gospels, early church, eucharist: liturgy and practice, sex, gender, and Christian ethics, philosophy of religion, Christian beliefs...just to name a few. Just because this is my area of study doesn't mean I'm on my knees whenever I can be pouring out supplication after supplication at the foot of the altar. It just means that God, spirituality, religion, faith, etc, in one way or another, has become a fixed topic of thought...whether I like it or not. And not only do these topics fill my thoughts, but also my conversations. Just imagine what it is like for my professors!!!

One of my favorite Jesuits here at SLU, Fr. Meconi, has a way of making his class (or his mass) stand as the sole fuel for thought and conversation when you are a part of it. He brilliantly opened the beautiful chaos of the Early Church to me last semester. I'm telling you. This man is brilliant. He wanders across the front of the room or sits with his feet propped up on a table and uncovers little known facts about the beginning of our Catholic faith as if they are the riddles on a Laffy Taffy wrapper. And at random intervals, Fr. Meconi will scrawl some foreign language (hebrew, greek, latin, whatever fits) on the chalkboard and explain as we write these undecipherable words and symbols in our notebooks to look smart. Ubi peccato, ibi multitudo. where there is sin, there is many. Caro cardo salutis. flesh, hinge of salvation. Ex opere operato. out of the work already worked. Memento mori. remember, you will die. Tolle, lege. Pick it up and read.

He teaches. He preaches. And he believes. 

And he says silly/stupid/inappropriate things.

On a regular basis.

And we record them on the inside cover of our notebooks.

For example:

"I just circumcised my chalk." after dropping his chalk during a discussion about Origen's self-castration.
"Paul's letter to the Fallopians" Fr. Meconi's personal translation of Humanae Vitae into English.

Sometimes my theology professors say things that are absolutely brilliant...in a human way not a 'let me stand at a podium and tell you about the fantastic things I know since I have 3 Ph.D.'s and am way smarter than you' sort of way. 

My Philosophy of Religion professor, Fr. Vitali, was one of these men. He broke down in class and cried twice. That doesn't happen in other courses. Take to a business student or an art student or a chemistry student--I doubt they've ever seen their professor cry. Fr. Vitali had a tendency to go on tangents about the movie 'The Godfather' and his love for hunting but he also spoke about his friendships. Fr. Vitali is no young bird. He's not old and senile but he is old. He is at that age where he is beginning to see friends pass away, and, as a result his is getting in touch with his mortality. We were discussing mortality one day and Fr. Vitali dropped this heartfelt wisdom in our laps:

"The desire for immortality is so real, not because you want to save your soul but because you don't want to lose the good which is so real. I hope to God that someday you feel the pain [of mortality] because that means you've lived...and loved."

And today, my "sex" professor, Dr. Rubio got real with us. I've gotten to have some really fruitful conversations with her during the times I've gone in to her office and so I know her heart is real and trustworthy...but it is guarded. Anyway, she mentioned she has been keeping a journal, on and off, since she was 9 years old. I'd guess she is somewhere in her mid to late forties (an educated guess made possible by knowledge of her undergraduate graduation date) and that means she's been doing this journaling thing for over 30 years. I haven't even been alive that long! She mentioned that she occasionally looks back and sees how terribly mistaken she has been about pretty much everything through the years. We're talking about the woman who did her undergrad at Yale and her masters at Harvard and got her Ph.D. while begin pregnant and then a new mom. Yeah, sure, mistaken...sure. Dr. Rubio presented us with her humanity and her reason for God:

"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."

All these things and more are scrawled in the inside cover of my notebooks as treasured mementos of the hours I've spent listening to that professor's voice. You learn a lot in college, there's no doubt about that, but the vast majority of what I learn has not come from a textbook. I remember having a conversation about that very concept with someone after my freshman year, saying that I learned far more outside of the classroom but now I'm seeing that develop even further. I'm learning much in the classroom that is not in a textbook or listed on the syllabus. Saint Louis University prides itself on being a Catholic, Jesuit institution striving to educate the whole person. 

Forms of 'to be'

As a freshman in high school, I had to write an English paper without using any form of the verb 'to be.' Am. Is. Are. Was. Were. Be. Been. Being. <--Take a look at some really solid words there. Thankfully, the assignment was only a paragraph, about a page in length, but still, I've tried writing this entry to this point without using those words and have failed. Even a few sentences excluding all forms of 'to be' take a concentrated effort to compose. 

That's not my point.

I'm just thinking that 'being' somehow describes every stage of life. 

Where have you been?

Places you don't want to know about.

Where are you now?

I don't really know. 

Treading water is some great expanse of water, perhaps.

Where are you going?

Please, Lord, guide me.

These are some of the questions that plug up the 'free space' in my mind these days. Today especially. 

We were having one of those conversations--the kind that go in circles with long silences and little eye contact. 

The conclusion was made that there may be some things I need to walk away from. These are things that are holding me back when I literally have unlimited potential. These are things that paralyze me in fear when I have the world resting at my fingertips. I need to walk away. It sounds all nice and dandy, I thought, but its not really realistic. I want it to be, but simply desiring it won't make that a reality. If I walk away from these things, I'll be walking toward something else...ideally. If I don't walk toward something else, I essentially walk off a cliff. And we've all watched enough cartoons to know what that means.  I need to know what direction to walk when I walk away. I need to know where I'm going. I don't need all the answers but I need a little hint. 

Pray with me. Pray that I find a way to let go and walk away. Pray that it be revealed where I need to end up. And pray that until that is revealed, I can just be.