Believe

I love everything about the Christmas season; family time, cookies, giving gifts, snow, being home, and all of the delicious food, but I especially love Christmas movies. No matter how often I watch these movies, I always learn something new every year when they make their way back to the forefront of my viewing list.  This year, the message that struck me from every movie that I watched was: "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing."  Try as society might to separate Christ and Christmas, it just is not possible, because Christmas is all about faith.  It is about believing in something that no one can see or understand and relying on our hearts to believe something far beyond ourselves. The way that we all relate to God and His Presence in the world follows this "Believing is seeing" principle pretty well, I think.  It's all got to do with giving credit where it is due.  By believing in God and all of the blessings He showers me with, I can see that every good thing in my life is a direct gift from Him because of His Love for me.  Once, someone tried to argue my faith with me and said, "Of course you see God in things, you are looking for Him there." But that makes the most sense, doesn't it? Sure, it would be nice to stumble upon money on the side of the road, and I do believe that God works in sporadic, surprising ways, but more often than not, if someone is hoping to get money, they need to be proactive about it - buy a lottery ticket or work an extra shift somewhere. If you are searching for something, open eyes to find it are a necessity.

If you have not seen the movie The Polar Express, I definitely recommend it because it beautifully represents what it means to believe.  There is a scene when Santa Claus is right in front of the young, doubting boy, but because the boy has not owned up to his faith, he cannot actually see Santa; there are too many obstacles. These obstacles work against us, too, because overcome with obstacles only makes it harder to believe there is anything worth working towards, but God is there on the other side, arms wide open.  When we chose to believe in God and all that He has the power to do in our lives, our eyes are opened to His glory and we can see far beyond our obstacles and what our Earthly eyes are capable of seeing.

Have a blessed and merry Christmas!

Compassion

Tonight, I am longing to feel God's Presence.  I connect really well to spiritual music, so I am watching all of these music videos of Christian songs. Almost every single one shows tons of faces of people just like me, who all look like they are searching. Most of these videos incorporate, in some way or another, the messages on the hearts of these people. They reveal their secrets, their struggles, and their crosses.  As I watch these faces on the screen of my computer tonight, I cannot help but wonder how everyone got this idea that everyone around them is so different, or so tough.  It seems to me that for a world that so obviously has so much hurt within it, the problem is so often other people not showing the necessary love.  As in, I look at the face of this girl I have never seen before and do not know personally on a music video that I like.  The words next to her teary-eyed face say: Broken Relationships, and I am moved with compassion for her.  But the person in front of me while I am trying to get to class is walking slow and all I can focus on is how much of an inconvenience that is. Who knows what they are dealing with on their heart, how their day is going, or who they are at all - all they mean to me is the speed at which they are walking in that one moment of my entire life.

We seem to live in a world where unless you wear your heart on your sleeve, you will not get much sympathy; and sadly, even then, compassion may not come.  Something that I try really hard to do all the time is to assume I know nothing about anyone or anything.  To give everyone the benefit of the doubt from the get-go and really live out the Golden Rule of treating others how I would want to be treated, which, when you put a word to that (or two, because I am a word-person) it would be love and compassion.  God doesn't call us to be compassionate to those who are hurting; He calls us to so much more.  I guess what all of these rambling thoughts boil down to is that the amount of care that we are meant to show one another should not vary based on what we can or cannot see - it should solely be based on the fact that God shows us infinite and unconditional compassion, and it is our privilege and call to show that to the people around us.

This song really captures this message, as well as is one of the songs I was talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwtcwQwgdsA&feature=related

Courage

I love the word "courage".  It is so rarely used and I wonder if that is because it is a pretty rare virtue.  Right now, I am working on a paper for a class.  The guidelines are relatively lax, so I have decided to write my paper on the emotional benefits of living a chaste life before and after marriage, which includes abstaining from sex outside the bonds of marriage.  I am finding it easy to talk about the Catholic faith and the love that we as humans are called to live out, as well as the respect and dignity we each have just because God made it so.  But as I come closer to the end, my own passion frightens me. Tomorrow we will peer edit and I find myself wondering, "What if someone who doesn't practice chastity reads this paper?" or worse, what if someone thinks me to be judgmental and completely misses the point of the paper - that all life is to be respected, at every stage, in every way.  Then a small voice of courage says in my heart: what if someone needs to hear this? What if by writing about something that I believe in and putting it in God's hands, someone will read something they have never heard before and it will touch their heart in the tiniest way?  Perhaps what this means is that courage is not taking what God has given us and doing what we can with it, but giving back to God what we cannot do alone and standing up right next to Him when the moment comes, instead of cowering behind Him.  I have to think that God could definitely change the world on His own - He did create it, after all - but there must be some unknown reason that He chooses to work through us in the virtues. A reason he calls us to courage.

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.- Philippians 4:6

Forgiveness

An art form that I have yet to perfect. I have been mulling over it the last few days, trying to figure it out.  Heaviest on my heart is the difference between forgiveness and consent.  In my head, I think that I mix up what it means to forgive someone and what it means to "teach them a lesson".  If I forgive someone a wrong they have done to me, they may not know that it hurt me and they may keep doing it, and for that reason, I am hesitant to release my grudge.  In the past few days, I have been hurt a few different times by a few different people that are close to me.  I have watched my roommate Lily wake up every morning and greet the day with a clean slate.  She holds no grudges and every day is a fresh start, which I really admire.  It is a difficult challenge to forgive through so much hurt, but maybe that it our call; maybe God was not being so figurative when He instructed to forgive 7x77 times in the Bible.  I think my goal for the week is to try and live each day as it is presented and only when it is presented. I pray that I may live directly in the light of this day and not in the shadows of yesterday behind me or the mystery of the darkness in tomorrow, yet to be revealed.

Guidance

Today was the last day of my week of a fantastic spiritual direction retreat.  I was blessed to spend a few hours this week talking and praying with my new friend Sr. Ellen, and she had a lot of wonderfully wise things to say as well as beautiful ears to listen.  We talked and shared about a lot of things and today we talked about being ministers to one another and how, although she was the director, we both got something from meeting one another this week.  I have never sought out spiritual guidance of any kind because I never figured I had any questions so profound or paths so unknown ahead of me, but what I learned this week and what I am meditating on is what "guidance" is.  Here's what I have come up with, roughly: Maybe guidance is not actually leading someone else anywhere.  Maybe guidance is hand-in-hand with companionship and likewise with our call to walk with one another.  I am thinking of those team-building activities when one person has to wear a blindfold and the other holds their hand and helps them around various obstacles and wondering if those games are exactly on the mark.  We are all just blindfolded at one time or another and God flawlessly pairs us with a person who can see to walk with us to where we need to get next, so that we can return the favor to whomever else we led to. Just some rough thoughts before turning in for the night.


My guidance for anyone who is listening:
"Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord." Hebrews 12:14

Friendship

My dad always tells me that if I can find one good and true friend in life, then I am luckier than most people. I do agree with this, but in the same way, I am definitely blessed in this life with really wonderful friends. They remind me daily of God's Love in my life by their sheer presence.   We all lead busy lives and school is hectic for us, but this week we were blessed with some incredible quality time, and it really gave me a delightful reality check.  I am learning more and more what it means to be a true friend to someone else.  Here are some things I have learned:
1. Hearing is not the same thing as listening. Voices don't want to just be heard, they want to be listened to.  When a few of my friends and I hang out, we always try to put everything else away and eliminate distraction so that we can be totally attentive to one another.  Those are the closest friends that I have because through our active listening, we have learned so much about one another and can be a better friend because of it.
2. Positivity is really essential to a healthy relationship.  I am not saying that we shouldn't be sad or vent around our friends, I am saying that just because you are close to someone does not give you the right to make fun of them, put them down, or discount their opinions.  Honesty is really important to friendship but so is tact.
3. Presence is powerful.  More than ever as I am growing up, I am coming across problems that have no immediate solution.  They are the type of things that are the part of God's plan He will reveal in due time, but in the moment of stress and heartache waiting for that moment, it is sometimes really wonderful just to have someone to sit with.  When in doubt, be a presence.  God does not always talk when we sit with Him; in fact, most times, our hearts are so loud, I'll bet He couldn't get a word in edge-wise. But just being, just sitting in His very Presence can calm the most troubled soul.  A better example of being present to the people you love just doesn't exist.
4. Finally, gratitude goes a long way.  It is so important to thank your friends for what they do in your life, but especially to thank God for who He has given you. My friend Von and I used to talk about how sometimes we think that everyone has been assigned a mission for this world and God knows what it is.  Our job is not to figure out the mission but just to live as we know we are called to and every person we meet will learn from us what they need to because God will orchestrate it so. Friends are some of the most influential people we have in our lives, and thank God for that!

John 15:13 There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends.

Beauty

Today I am having a really good hair day!  Does that mean that today I qualify as beautiful? Or just my hair? What about tomorrow when I want to sleep in and not put the extra effort into fixing it? Will I not be beautiful anymore? Is beauty something that you can attain and then lose?

There are so many facets to beauty: beauty in nature, beauty in poetry, the Beautiful People of Hollywood, real beauty, fake beauty, inner beauty, and outer beauty. But the one I am most drawn to is the beauty of other people. When I was in eighth grade, we went on a retreat for one Saturday all day, and a prayer we learned on that retreat was, "God, help me to see myself through Your eyes, so I can see how wonderful and beautiful I really am."  I prayed that prayer from eighth grade and it did great things for how I saw myself on the outside, so I tweaked it a little, to see if maybe it could help how I was on the inside. I started praying, "God, help me to see other people through Your eyes, too, so I can see their wonder and beauty."  I think that the most influential thing that this prayer showed me was that beauty and worth are so connected, which society has already shown us: the prettiest people get the most attention and stuff.  I think, though, it is completely backwards. What it should be is: the worth that God has created within you is manifested in the beauty of the heart He created for you.  And the most incredible part of this is that, unlike Hollywood "beauty", this worth does not have to be earned, coated on, or achieved: we are all born with it!  Being created in God's image and likeness has filled us with worth, simply pouring over the depths of our souls, and we are all so beautiful because of it.

God's Love and worth are true, but that does not always mean that our human minds can understand it, and because of the beauty before worth mentality, I find that a lot of people (myself included) see themselves as unworthy of things like God's Love or respect from others.  At the very least, we end up viewing beauty on a day-to-day, outfit-to-outfit, mood-to-mood, or sin-to-sin basis.  I have been hoping and praying for words to share with people to tell them, and to reassure myself, that this simply is not true. God's Love and our worth in His eyes and truth are not fleeting, and today my mom sent me a music video that I think sums it up absolutely perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF5CjtrIl_c&feature=related

Care

Today's post is dedicated to my most avid readers, my Grandpa Joe and my Grandma Vicki, who incidentally also inspired today's word!  The word "care" is so common; caregivers, caretakers, "I don't care," carebears, and even a new nanny website called something like "care.com".  It is ironic to me that when things surround us in such a strong way, it is sometimes so easy to totally for get the meaning or weight of it. Care is something that is so powerful; it is saying to someone, "I will do what is best for you because your happiness will make things better for me, too."  I am blessed to be surrounded by people who care about one another in a big way.  My roommate and I have been talking for months about what incredible gifts from God our family and friends are because we know that they would do anything for us, and we would do likewise without hesitation.  This is care in its truest form, wanting the best for people you love just because you know they deserve it as God's own.

Lately, I have been trying to have an inner peace and be aware of all of the positive things going on in my life.  When my grandparents text messaged me today and told me that they missed my thoughts on this blog, it was like God showing me a huge beam of sunlight, revealing His awesome care through them.  I am inspired to let the people that I care about know that I care about them the way my grandparents did for me today.

(I love you both!)

Growth

After a long summer of busy plans and sunny days, I have returned.  As I enter my third year of college, I cannot believe how much I have grown and learned in just the past two years; really even the past twenty.  It's astounding to me how much knowledge we can acquire, and how real thought is even though it is totally intangible.  I find myself really often looking back on things that I have learned, and stretching my head forward to see what I will one day learn, and today I started to think about how much I am capable of growth right where I am.  In fact, I am wondering if maybe all of the change happening around me while I am seemingly standing still is actually making me grow more as a person, where it counts.  There is such a world of a difference to grow up in the world, and to grow up within yourself.  While I am learning how to calculate statistics, I am also learning certain things who I am and what it means to live up to that title.  I always have been told that every experience is opportunity to make a choice, and I think that these moments I am learning and living through are becoming some of the most defining moments.

Blessings

This week, I picked up my devotional book again. I hadn't been reading it for some time, mostly just because I had forgotten about it. The whole message I got all week was to open my eyes to God working in my life. At first, I sort of blew it off because I know that God is working in my life; I can already see it. But through the week, I realized that knowing and recognizing are two different things. My eyes were opened to so many blessings this week, so I decided this week to make an effort to do two things: 1. I would talk to God before anyone else about things I was happy about or that were upsetting me, and 2. I would try and find the blessing in every situation. It was tough at first, but by the end of the week, it was simple. God's blessings and His love are so abundant that it was no trouble at all to want to thank Him for all He has done; in fact, I was bursting with it!

The things that really changed my heart to being open was this: Earlier this week, our church youth group went on a float trip. I am an adult chaperone, so I drove three teenage girls down. Among many funny topics that they discussed in the back seat (why is your reflection upside down, how fun is it to repeat the word "viscosity" after you have just learned it, how many people do we all know who have our same name), one of the younger girls said with a bit of frustration, "You know, I remember when the toughest decision that I had to make was what color crayon I wanted to use." I thought to myself, you are younger than I am, and I don't even have that rough of a life, what could possibly be your toughest decision?  It was not very compassionate of me, but I was put in my place as she continued, saying, "It's just that, I want to be able to enjoy this part of my life, but I don't know how to all the time. But then I wake up every morning. And I remember, that I was born in a great country, into a wonderful community and a loving family. We are just so blessed. All of us are just so blessed."

We all have different blessings, but the way that she not only knew them as fact, but recognized them as gifts in her tone of adoration, was inspirational to me. My prayer for this week is to see the world through God's eyes.

Solitude

Hello again. Today is the first sunny day in a while; it has been quite the spring as far as storms go. So I am sitting here, back in college-town for a few days, at the window of our Newman Center. One of my traveling companions is at work, the other at a park with her boyfriend. We have been together for 4 days straight now, because as traveling companions (and close friends) we share things like the key to the apartment we are staying in, the food we are eating, and the car we travel in.  Now that they are both away, I am having the first time by myself since Monday.  I like being busy, and I like using every moment of the day from the moment I wake to the one that I fall asleep, so I hardly ever stop to enjoy these moments of solitude.

I remember when I was in high school, my mom suggested at the time that I take a few days for some "soul searching" to figure out what it was that I really wanted and the life choices I really wanted to be making.  At the time, 17 year old me was pretty apathetic to the idea, but did it regardless and I actually did learn things. Now I love spending this time alone because I hardly ever spend time with myself - how many of us actually do? I think there is a huge difference between being alone on the internet, watching TV, or reading and actually spending time with ourselves. I have been talking to a lot of my friends lately that tell me they don't know what they want. I'm not claiming to have the answer to this problem, just suggesting that when I take the time to know myself, it is easy for me personally to see what I really want or like or have a talent for.

Anyway, nothing too earth-shattering here, just meditating on the beauty of solitude!

Home

When I was 5 or 6, I had a computer game featuring the little girl Madeline (blue dress, yellow hat, walked in a line with 11 other girls) and Madeline sang songs according to whatever you clicked on. One of the songs she sang went something like, "Home is where the heart is, the heart is, the heart is....Home is where the heart is, if your heart is there, yes, home!"  It was pretty catchy because years later, I still remember it, and not only that, but it still pops into my head at the most relevant times. When I come back in town for breaks, I say I am going "home" and when I return back to school after a long time away from my friends there, I say I am happy to be "home". Coming back to my house after a long year away at school, I think a lot about home, and what it actually means.  I thought for a really long time that your heart very obviously was with your family in your house, because that is the only constant for a lot of us, but the older I get, the more I understand Madeline's song.

Today, I spent the day with my friend Shannon, whose family is living in an apartment because the tornado made their house uninhabitable.  Even though her physical house is broken, her home is pulling together to fix things. By home, I mean her community of people and love.  I am learning with every passing day that your heart can dwell in many places, most of which aren't even locations, but in the hands and hearts of other people, and that "home" is nearly undefinable. Maybe home is another word for "pillar" or "comfort".  Something stable in the midst of chaos; something that we can always come back to; something intangible that brings us peace.  I know that I have a home in Heaven, a home in the Eucharist, but I also find home in my parish family here and my Newman community away at school.  Of course, my house with my mom and my dad and my younger sister will always be my most stable home on this Earth.  I will leave you with this Bible verse about our hearts, and so, too, our homes, by today's logic, I suppose:

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." - Matthew 6:21

Change

It's the end of the school year and in six days, I will be moving back home for the summer, so I guess it makes sense that change would be on the brain.  I am a person who loves being where she is when she is, and I love change. I love a change of scenery - I won't stay in the same building for longer than two hours in a day unless I am sleeping. I love a change of pace - mostly, I like going to places with a slow pace because everything at the university is fast-paced to me.  I love a change of decoration - rearranging my room as often as I can, if I can. And if I can't? Then I throw things out and move the remaining stuff around into a new pattern. I think that part of the reason I love change is because I trust God to keep providing me with the things I need. He is this great conductor who orchestrates everyone around one another keeping perfect time.  But another reason is that up until now, even in change there has been certainty. Leaving high school was a "change" but college was the stable next step.  Likewise, in all other changes, there was a sure next step. As I wrap up the end of my second year of college, I am realizing that I have two years to decide my own next step. I already know a number of things that will change between this year and next, and I have a number of things that I am pretty certain will change, and now I don't know what the next step will be. Perhaps a more logical word word for today would have been "trust" but I am going to stick with "change" and see where it leads me!

Girasole

This is my favorite word currently.  It is Italian, and it means, "sunflower." Literally translated, "gira" means "turn" and "sole" means "sun".  So it is like some beautiful advice to "turn to the sun." This word has been on my heart for a while now, and I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it.  This past weekend perfectly encompasses the entirety of what this word means to me.  A bad storm hit my city on Good Friday (an EF4 tornado) and left a lot of people without electricity, roofs, and even homes.  Streets were shut down due to live power lines down across lanes of traffic and other entire subdivisions (like my own) were barricaded by the police for safety reasons.  The damages are still being calculated four days later, but the most certain fact is that no one was hurt.  It is being classified as a miracle, and I have no doubt it was. There is story after story of people who were not home due to random happenstances, or who happened to be in the right room in their home at the right time and just missed being hit.  The storms passed that night, but it rained for the rest of Easter weekend.  However, the rain and cold did not deter the community in the slightest from beginning clean-up.  It was an incredible message of hope, and that to me is the epitome of the whole idea about turning to the sun.  To turn our heads towards the sky and like my friend Von says sometimes, "Spend a little more time looking up." We can look up to know that our God is here with us and trust that He is the one who protected every single person from these storms, just like He is the one who will continue providing for everyone.  We can turn to the sun in hopes that all of these storms will pass, which sounds so cliche, but is also completely true. One of my favorite songs is a Casting Crown with a lyric that totally sums it all up: "I will praise you in this storm."  I think all of us just need something like this to hold onto, and for me, that is girasole.

Awake

Good morning! On this absolutely beautiful Monday morning, the only word that is resounding in my  mind is the word "Awake".  I won't say that lately I have felt like I have been walking through life almost asleep, but I have definitely not been awake as I could have been.  I have been physically sleepy but also just pretty apathetic.  It probably has something to do with homesickness and dreary weather, but whatever the reason, that is how I have been acting. The question most often on my mind has been, "Does God really want me to be happy? Am I supposed to just barely make it through this life to get to Him? And why did He put us away from Him on this Earth just to get back up there with Him when we could have just all stayed there in the first place?"  This past weekend, I took a trip for a change of scenery.  I went home to Von's hometown, but on the way, stopped at my own home and saw my family.  The whole weekend was incredible.  Spring is in full swing now, and everything where Von lives is fresh and new.  The trees were fantastically beautiful, the grass was lush and green, there was a storm and the next day the earth was vibrant with flowers. I was thrilled to have seen my family, if only for a bit, and happy to just spend the weekend doing nothing but enjoying the weather and friendship. I felt totally whole all weekend and I prayed a lot. It was like a retreat just for me where I got to step back and say to myself, "God really does want me to be happy." And I am.  I don't know the answers to my other questions, and I am sure that I will have more, but in this moment,  I am so grateful for the sunshine, for the cool breeze, for all of God's wondrous blessings, and finally being woken up to see all of it.

Hope

Yesterday at mass, I had this really neat moment listening to the readings, which I will admit that I was barely listening to anyway, but the part that I caught said, "Hope will not disappoint."  I have been feeling hopeless lately.   Not hopeless in the way that you may think.  I have not given up, but I feel hopeless in a sense of understanding and accepting that things will happen as they happen, and what I hope for will not likely change what God already has in store.  Hoping is so uncertain and the possibility of getting let down is so strong that this feeling of having hope is so much more daunting that people give it credit for.  This has been a really recent development in my heart, taking root in and branching forth from my vice of envy.  I do not want to hope for the same thing that someone else is hoping for, because only one of us can "win" in the end, and if it is not me, I will be upset with myself and probably with God for a while.  So to nip the problem in the bud, I just stopped hoping and told myself that I was trusting God's Plan.  His response was in this reading, saying, "Hope will not disappoint" and that is something that I really will trust. I suppose the most logical answer to this at this point is to hope for happiness, or to hope for assurance. To hope for things that God will always provide.  God would never deny us love, even if He denied us the answer to one of our daily prayers, because love is something we all need all the time.  Meaning, if we hope for the things that we need, we will truly not be disappointed.

Relax

Usually, the weekend is the perfect time to play catch-up on all of the things we did not have time to do during the week. I do not think I can name one person I know that does not use the weekend for that.  In the past month, a challenge has been issued to me, and now I am issuing it to anyone that wants to think about taking it.  Get everything you need to get finished on Saturday.  Don't stress out, just stay focused. Then take Sunday off.  If God rested on Sunday after creating the entire universe, who are we to say our work is more important and we can't take a break! We know we earned it.  If we spend all day on Sunday resting and spending time with ourselves and our families or friends, we can recharge for the next week.  I read a book last summer that said that Americans don't know how to relax, which struck me as pretty comical.  It said something to the effect of turning the TV on and laying down in front of it to zone out does not count as relaxing, but that we must sit and enjoy just sitting, or do whatever we want and just enjoy it.  Or something like that. Spend your whole Sunday gathering up peace and serenity so that you can use it for the remainder of the week to calm down when necessary.  I have only tried this for two Sundays and it has worked pretty well thus far, so I am going to try it again today and see how it works out! Happy Weekend!

Music

Tonight I am watching the movie Music and Lyrics which is one of my favorite romantic comedies.  One of the best lines talks about the melody and the lyrics of a song and how they are each good individual parts, but together is what makes the music and the magic.  There is no deep revelation about this beyond how amazing music is.  It is just nice to sit and think about it sometimes.  Music is an expression of the human heart and soul beyond what we can say with just words.  We are all tied to music in some way; memories, emotions, or the need to dance.  Even babies that cannot even articulate thoughts dance to music! It can exceed the barriers of language, culture, age.  When I think of blessings, I tend to think about clean water or a warm bed to sleep in at night, but I somehow forget simple things like music.  God gave us this amazing gift to be able to express the inexpressible in at least some way.  It sort of makes me think of God's unconditional love in that way.  We can be overwhelmed by it on a daily basis without being able to explain what exactly it is or what it is about it that makes us feel such a deep connection to it.  It is just such an incredible form of personal communication. Song of the day: "Bedside Manner" by Jeremy Larson. Just beautiful!

Faith

I have always prided myself on having a very simple and strong faith.  I trust God to take care of everything for me, from little things to big things, to the point where I almost don't worry about anything.  But today, God proved me wrong. This week, I thought that I had failed a final exam and therefore a class, and I pronounced myself a failure.  I went to the chapel truly wondering how God could possibly fix this mess I had made.  I emailed my professor and asked for a conference so he could tell me how I could possibly have been so mistaken in thinking I understood the course material.  His reply was that he had misplaced my exam, and not graded it which resulted in failing grade for the course.  When he went to find my paper to discuss it with me, he saw that it was  not graded and when he corrected the problem, I fixed the class.  It was an incredible relief, as well as a reminder to not doubt all of the ways God can and does work daily.

Wisdom

A few weeks ago, I heard someone talking about the difference between wisdom and intelligence.  They said, and I agreed, that being intelligent does not always mean you are wise, and vice-versa.  That wisdom has no age or education, it is just a gift.  I truly believe that my younger sister has the gift of wisdom.  She has an uncanny ability to see things that no one else ever sees and point it out.  She is constantly keeping me in check with things that really matter in life. I would like to think that as her older sister, I would guide her, but most often, she ends up taking care of me.  Last night, I called her and confessed that I feel like a failure as everything.  After making me tell her all the things I thought I was good at and then making her own list, she said, "Erin, failing at one aspect of your life does not make you a failure.  You weren't going to win any awards this year; none of us are good at everything.  We are just human."  If we don't have rainy days, we can't understand how amazing the sunny ones are, so for the day, I am going to try and embrace being a human in the rain and praise God for the sun.

Joy

Springtime came in full force today! We enjoyed sunshine and 75 degree temperatures.  The world was just joyful.  The quad was full of students playing, laughing, singing, talking, sleeping, reading.  Von and Claire and I sat in the sun and Von taught me how to play a song on Claire's ukulele. I have never tried to play a musical instrument in my life, and it was not only really fun but I felt pretty accomplished!  It was also a really relaxing thing for me.  The scene looked something like this: Von playing his uke, me playing Claire's, Claire and Von both singing, the sun shining, the grass dancing, the wind blowing our hair around our faces. Claire turned to me and said, "Do you ever have those moments where you think, 'I just want to remember this moment forever'?"  I do, and I think we can all say we have had those types of moments where everything is so perfect that we want to preserve it and go back there every time we wonder about anything in life.  Today was this wonderful reminder to embrace those moments when they happen and strive to make every moment that joyful.  I guess I kind of see it this way: what we do lasts for the moment that we do it, but the feeling or lesson that we take from it can last our entire lives if we let it, so why not try and make all of them ones worth remembering?  Just food for thought!

Today's post is dedicated to my mom, because she makes it her life promise to try and live joy out each day and I admire her truly for that.

Humility

This morning was our campus-wide service project.  People from almost every organization on campus gather and we go all over our city to work with people in our community.  Our group was assigned a woman named Bea who needed some yard work done for her.  When we arrived, we had no idea what to expect but what we found was probably something we could not have imagined.  Bea suffers from a rare form of cancer, her daughter lives with her in a specially designed house the size of a shed because her allergies are so awful she cannot leave the house very often, and her grandson lives with her as well because he has back problems and cannot support himself.  Her house, which is on the edge of the woods, has gone through a lot the past few years, including getting struck by lighting and the water-main breaking.  Because she lives at the wood's edge, the amount leaves in her yard is out of this world.  We raked her yard for her, and it took three hours.  Bea told us of a lot of her struggles, but did not stop smiling the whole time that we were there.  She was not preaching to us, nor was she trying to get our sympathy; she was just interested in sharing her life story.  What was most incredible about her was at the end of the day, she could not stop thanking us for what we had done.  She said, "Have you ever seen a mother holding her child's hand? When she walks too quickly and the kid can't seem to catch his own feet? That's where we were but you got us up on our feet now and we can do something from here."  It is one of the most difficult things for me to admit that I need other people, let alone allow other people to help me, and I was amazed by Bea's humility.  Her attitude towards life was overwhelming and inspiring.  The way that she accepted our help and not only was not embarrassed in the least about asking for help, but really embracing letting us love her with our good will.  Something that is really important to stay conscious of is that a huge part of love is letting ourselves be loved. Love and be loved.

Laughter

The word of the day yesterday was laughter, because yesterday was filled to the brim with it.  In my grammars class, we were learning parts of speech in a sentence, and one of the things we discussed was that whether an action is voluntary or not determines the part of speech it is.  The example was laughter, because beyond a pity laugh, laughter is totally involuntary.  I think it is the soul's way of trying to leap out of us because of all the joy.  The most beautiful thing about laughter to me is that it is so human.  Everyone laughs, and everyone knows what it is like to let out a really good belly laugh.  It is such a pure form of expression.  There is no denying yourself while you are laughing.  It is something we cannot control, sometimes even we don't feel that chuckle coming, but in that moment while you are snorting, wheezing, throwing your head back, squeaking, or however it is you laugh, you are completely you and, even if just for the moment, completely loving it.

Beginnings

There is a Switchfoot song that I really love called "Always."  The lyrics that I love most are, "This is the start, this is your heart." I think that there is something really profound in that. Everything needs to start with our hearts.  My father always says that the most important factor in any decision is to do what your heart tells you. Another line from the song that really takes my breath away is, "Every breath is a second chance, and it is always yours."  What an amazing concept.  There is so much packed into it; love, forgiveness, life, and beginnings.  New beginnings are something that really interest people.  Think about it, if we were not so interested in starting over, new year's resolutions wouldn't be such a big deal and new advances, new technology, new diets or any new product that works "even better than the last" would not be so prominent in society.  Don't get me wrong though, I think that it is really awesome to be so into second chances. It says something really wonderful and ambitious about a people that are constantly striving to be better.  I wonder if it really could be as easy as each day being a new beginning; the beginning of a new habit. If we took each day just as it came, for just what it is, I think that these new beginnings would be something we could embrace and find real joy and freedom in.  The freedom of being able to start new, or the freedom of being able to try something new each day with the confidence that if it does not work, we can always start again. Where to begin? Well, Switchfoot says it best; "This is the start, this is your heart."

Simplicity

My friend Von will be showing up a lot here. He is one of my closest friends, and I learn so much from him.  Lately, the best lesson I have learned from him is the lesson of simplicity.  I have always thought that the little things in life are the most important, but he brings a whole new outlook to it.  It is not just an act of appreciating the little things, but not sweating the big things.  Things that have already happened, like fights already fought, won or lost, tests failed, meetings missed, speeding tickets.  That in the grand scheme of life, these things don't matter too much.  Certainly, they can, but mostly, I have learned that life would not be life if we did not mess up every once in a while, but we cannot let our mistakes define who we are, or who we will be.  Taking each day as it comes is the best way to live simply.  Today when I woke up, I decided my goals for the day were to do the best I could in class, enjoy the sunshine, and be thankful for everything.  It as a simple list of simple tasks, and now I can successfully check all of those off.  Tomorrow I will make another list, with new goals, but I will not worry about that until I wake up. There are lots of ideas out there about how to live a simpler life, but the idea of exploring simplicity in a deeper sense seems a little counter-productive to me, so I will end this post here, with the promise of further exploration of other ideas later!

Patience

Winters in my city are cold.  I’m not talking chilly, or even just cold, really.  It is bitter and piercing, and windy.  Last month we had a blizzard and the entire city was shut down and instructed to not leave their homes unless absolutely necessary for the entire day.  We got about 2 feet in some places.  It was up to my thighs.  Our first campus-wide snow days since 1973.  The springtime, though, it perfect.  Every bad feeling that winter brings is washed away when the spring comes because it is so wonderful.  The grass is the purest shade of green, and the skies are all blue all the time.  The sun shines so much and bird songs carry on the breezes.  It sounds like a children’s storybook or sing-a-long, but that is truly how it is.  Everyone glows with delight in the springtime.

My friend Claire and I were talking the other day about if the spring is really that marvelous, or if maybe it is just more appreciated because we have truly earned it.  It made me wonder how much satisfaction is created out of the waiting time.  If everything was handed to us with no questions asked and no hard work or perseverance, would it really be worth as much? Part of the value of having things is the fact that we worked for it, the uncertainty of whether we would reach our goals or receive our desires, the excitement building while we wait for it.  If everyone had trophies or got love right on the first try, it wouldn’t be something unique or enticing.  It would be just like getting up and brushing your teeth in the morning.  It isn’t something we earn or look forward to; it is just something that happens to everyone.

Patience is one of the most difficult things to deal with, mostly because of the uncertainty it brings.  I am slowly more and more convinced that waiting is worth it, though.  It is still freezing here, but I will keep you posted on how the springtime turns out.