Merry Christmas Greg Floyd

I hope this template hurts your eyes less.

Ladies

"An intelligent, discreet, and pious young woman is worth more than all the money in the world. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that, in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love."
- St. John Chrysostom

That is really quite beautiful.

I'm Sorry Greg Floyd

Apparently there have been not so subtle murmurs about my recent blog template. I apologize--the black was getting a little simplistic for me. I'll work on the makeup over the holiday season.

Austin?

Second is the best.

American Cities That Best Fit You::

70% Austin

65% Denver

60% Miami

60% Seattle

55% Las Vegas

A Series of Comments

1. Dear Dressmakers Everywhere: I cannot wear V-neck dresses. Please design something stylish that is between v-neck and dumb-neck, so I can feel young yet make peace with my non-waifish figure. Thank you and Merry Christmas.

2. Christmas Cards. Seemingly unexpensive. And then there's the stamps.

3. Today I bought my first beer at a store (Mexico doesn't count). Woodchuck Amber Cider. It was really good, but I felt sketchy in the beer aisle, so I began whistling Christmas tunes.

4. Do you Hear what I Hear? is a great song. I did not expect this, but it gives me chills.

5. I have to go to the bathroom but I'm ignoring it. Does anyone else do that?

6. I am never ever doing a Spanish solo for folk choir ever again. I will sing O Mary of Promise in my car or something. Actually a psalm would be neat because it's actually the liturgy speaking and not just accompaniment. I used to be the psalmist at my home parish and I always loved it because I could feel the words taking on a new sincerity.

7. I have a craving for bruschetta.

8. I am making salsa tonight. I'm pretty darn excited about that.

9. Bathroom break.

A Chili Cheese Frito Confession

I have been writing a paper in the library basement since 11am this morning. At approximately 2:30pm I bought a package of Chili Cheese Fritos from the vending machine. At approximately 10:45pm I returned from Mass. I noticed a remnant Frito under my chair. I ate it.

The Footnote

So I'm writing a difficult paper currently, and in doing so I have to make a lot of footnotes in my own essay. Sometimes I try to make a reference to a book in my footnote and realize the part of the book I'm referencing is actually a footnote to another text. I wonder if that text is the original, or if it's footnoted something beyond itself, too. I wonder if you could trace all knowledge back in time as a series of footnotes, one author to the former, one statement from another, one idea from the previous--Bush Jr. to Bush Sr., America to England, Mexican to Mayan, the Renaissance to caveman art, Aristotle to Plato, Mary to Eve, Eve to Adam, Adam to...The Unfootnoted Footnoter? Creation is like a series of footnotes. That is all. (Sloan 41)

Best of Ever

I'd read this 1,000 times over the iconic phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion.

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:

"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca- age 8"

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy - age 4"

Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy - age 6

"Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri - age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

"Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily - age 8

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

"If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka - age 6

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle - age 7

"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy - age 6

"During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy - age 8

"My mommy loves me more than anybody .You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare - age 6

"Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine-age 5

"Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Brad Pitt." Chris - age 7

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann - age 4

"I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4

"When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen - age 7

"You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard,climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said," Nothing, I just helped him cry.

A List of Things On my Mind

1. daffodils
2. pea-trees
3. bottlecaps
4. Ragtime
5. crevaces
6. craggy ledges and poppies
7. goosebumps
8. pizza sauce
9. squashed bananas
10. scooters
11. vacation
12. fall
13. coffee foam
14. Gak Floam
15. woodwork
16. popcorn and cranberries
17. sparrows
18. glimmers
19. bookcases
20. fish
21. pancakes
22. holly
23. fur hats
24. marshmallows
25. popcorn

that's interesting--most of those words have repeat letter...I wonder if that's a coincidence

Between Two Monahans

Walking to the dining hall--Bob on my right, Hugh on my left...
Hugh: Well, I had a paper due at 5:00.
Me: Did you get it done?
Hugh: I emailed the prof at 5:07
Bob: I emailed mine at 5:02!
Me: Aaaah!

Worth Watching

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OTcdEPbuYOY

Bob Monahan Paper Advice, 3:46am

"Don't write good. Just write....right."

Proof of The Fall

Plastic candy packets open from the wrong end.

...and are not bottomless.

One of my Favorite Moments this Week

Bob: OH! Oh go back...go back to um, evening activites. I think we need to readsome sort of story.
Barbie: agreed.
Bob: around a fire, with hot chocolate.
Gen: How about "Finals doomsday"?

As Finals Week Approaches

I feel like everyone around me is doing more important work than I am. I think about holing up in the library with the Chemistry majors and my philosophy paper looks trivial. I feel like what I'm writing and reading about is equivalent to cleaning the corner of a giant room with a Q-tip. Too focused, too time-consuming, trivial.

I feel like just one person.

If Folk Choir Officers Met on Thanksgiving

Well Steve is a ruthless sort and called an officer’s meeting at 7pm on Thanksgiving Day. You may not have been there, but I was. Here are the minutes.

Opening Prayer: ‘Now Thank we All our God’ by Joe Nava. Paul Hommes’ hands were greasy and his only excuse was ‘I was out catching a turkey’…in the wild…in Oregon. What a man.

Budget
-Mary McLaughlin has liquidated the folk choir account to buy sweet potatoes; everything would’ve worked out fine except that damn woman from accounting named Deb or Sharon or Lydia was too busy crimping her pie crust to approve the transaction, so our money is in yam limbo (whatever that is)
-Current Budget: 17 ½ sweet potatoes
-Geoffrey points out that this math isn’t right
-Mary doesn’t care
-Neither does Joe

[Enter Cassie Provenzale with a package of teriyaki flavored turkey jerky to share]

Tour Update
-Meg gives us the lowdown on the Winter Trip to Grandmother’s house.
-She has a bus for Through the Woods but is still working on the ferry for Over the River. This is another one of those complicated you-have-to-arrange-travel-over-water tours. Meg is frustrated. But there are posters!
-Video suggestions: Muppet Christmas Carol, Old Yeller (vetoed)
-Mary suggests that if we asked for the bus funding in sweet potatoes they’d get it to us faster.

Finer Points of Killing a Turkey w/ Paul Hommes…in the wild…in Oregon
-Graphic description sent Steve reeling for a copy of ‘Garment of Love’
-Let’s just say it involved Judo

[Steve announces he has written a psalm from the text of the Mayflower Compact. Apparently there isn’t enough ‘pilgrim imagery’ in the liturgy.]

Folk Choir Social Event—Cassie Provenzale
-A peacemaking ceremony between Lit and Folk Choirs
-Mass followed by a blessing by Fr. Doyle
-Folk choir will dress as pilgrims and Lit choir will dress as Indians as a symbol of our peaceful cohabitation. THEN WE’LL GO BOWLING WHOOOOOO!
-Traditional garb will be used. Andy Lawton begins to drool.

[At this point the meeting is interrupted by Jessica Mannen, who makes a motion to change the name of Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving-Ween and threatens to beat us up with her harem of sheep if we don’t abide. Steve saves the day. “Uh, Jessica, could you go get me 14 copies of the Tereseros Ocultos octavo?” She’s gone for 20 minutes.]

Upcoming Concerts
-November 24: We are Thankful—A Cornucopia of Song
-Featuring such FC hits as ‘Drumstick of my Heart’, ‘Cross-Pie’, ‘Escucha—Stuff it up the Bird’, ‘May you Cling to Wishbone’

Last Business
-Andy asks everyone to say what Thanksgiving food they like the most.
Paul: anything from the wild…in Oregon
-Barbie: Diet Coke
-Andy: Charles Dickens! Charles Dickens!
-Marge: A nice juicy triple cheeseburger, extra onions
-Cassie: Thinks the turkey jerky is pretty good
-Jessica: Pumpkin Pie…WEEN
-Mary: sweet potatoes
-Geoffrey: slips into a food coma before we can ask. Let’s just put down biscuits.
-Steve: Cranberries, because Gonzo sings a good song about it
-Joe: Leftovers (Get it? Fifth year? Haaaaaaaaaaaa…ehhh.)

The meeting is about to adjourn when Geoffrey Mooney mistakes Joe Nava for a Native American and grabs his musket from under the table. Chaos erupts. Everyone stands up like shocked cowboys in a bad Western bar scene. Barbie grabs the musket and points it toward the ceiling, knocking Steve’s glasses off. (We’re still not sure if this was an accident.) Cassie lunges for Geoffrey and spills the turkey jerky. Jessica returns from the library with 16 copies of music but is promptly hit by a flying piece of jerky and they all flutter up into the air. Paul Hommes leaps from his chair and assumes judo position. Mary just sits in her seat screaming like a little girl….or it might have been practice for her postlude dance at the concerts. Meg takes the opportunity to seize Andy Lawton and demand the Charles Dickens monster come out of him. In a strangled gobble he cries, “But we could wear traditional garb! It could be traditional!”

Then Steve agrees to sing the Sister Act version of Hail Holy Queen at the next Sunday liturgy and Barbie gets to do the part of the one nun who says “Virgo espici mater espici” and all are happy. God bless us, every one.

Thanksgiving Memories

"So my field trip was ruined--all because of you." -Charlie to Rees, who set off the fire alarm during a field trip chemistry experiment

"It's just like going to the bathroom...[winces]...kind of." -My mother, on childbirth

I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon

I was walking along South Quad today feeling fortunate that God doesn't hold us accountable for every blade of grass. On my way to a meeting, not recently showered, several huge projects on the table, consistently failing to meet standards and keep commitments, I was frustrated that I couldn't manage all I'd been given. I watched the green prickly field drink in its last view of the sky before South Bend snowfall and tried to think about what it'd be like if humans kept grass like they kept children. How could we give personal attention to an endless field, to each poking, hopeful blade?

It's humbling to think about how much of this world's goings-on have nothing to do with us. We use math to determine the rotation of the stars, but one of our missteps proves us and not the stars astray. Nobody programs summertime. Raindrops are unaccounted for, fall leaves missing in action. Try as we might, we will never pull the sun above the horizon in a golden chariot. And a tree falls in the forest, proudly, unabashedly crashing and tearing other limbs, sending echoes that die before they reach the human ear.

I'm not trying to apply a more rational view here, which might rightly say we're darn well responsible for many aspects of the environment, as well as for the plight of the billions of nameless people around the world that suffer while we sit. Instead I'm trying to remind you that the hairs on your head are numbered. And so are all the blades of grass. You have counted neither.

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never — "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
-Stephen Crane

A Turkish Legend

Aysel lived on the Eastern ridge of Sivrihisar. She had no sons. She waited for her husband Sevilen to return home from the pasture. It was dusk and the grey sky suffocated the barley fields so the wispy ends of the tassels disappeared. Her hands were worried so she made some soup. She crushed very many lentils, for Sevilen would be hungry. Her stomach was worried and so she set the soup to boil. It bubbled and popped and shook. She stirred it with a large handled wooden spoon. Her knuckles were dirty and etched like the barley stalk.
It was night and the earth made itself ashen. Aysel moved about the shadows. Her eyes shone silver-specked. She knew Sevilen would not come home. Her heart knew this. She went to the pot of lentil soup and lifted it from her elbows. She began to gulp it down. The soup sprang from her eyes; it streamed down the ridges of her high cheeks. She wept the soup, the ungiven gift, it gushed forth with terrible might. She cried the soup and it flowed from her house down the Eastern ridge of Sivrihisar, making ferocious ridges in the land. She sobbed and it scattered Sevilen's sheep in the pasture, fluffy specks, black or white of no consequence to the night. Aysel drank all the soup and the bottom of the pot glowed silver-specked. She was dry, like plucked barley. It forever rains lentils on the Eastern ridge.

You might not get it, but that's okay, because I had fun writing it.

A Message to my Senior Friends

Hey, guys,

Let's not lose this year. Let's pick ourselves up from the deep recesses of personal speculation and dark crevaces of textbook binding. Let's pretend like we're fifty with kids asleep down the hall and a spouse skimming Reader's Digest behind his bifocals next to us. Let's ask our fifty-year old selves what we would have done right now. Then let's do it. Let's plan stuff. Let's meet up. Let's have fun with each other outside of a Thursday night bar trip. Let's pray together. Let's plan awesome trips--weekend trips, spontaneous trips, road trips, spring break trips, power trips...and if we're feeling really crazy, let's go to Europe for 4 weeks next summer. Let's refuse to let up.

Anybody with me?

Bilingual

Have you ever written anything with your hands deviated from the right keys on the keyboard, just to see what it'd look like? Why yes, I do speak vqd ieyboard oqngeuage.

yje pyhwer cay u eas eskjubg nt fog foen yhr dytrry snf i dse s huuuhr vsyrtpillst judy eiyyinh yhrtr on yhr difreslk. iy esd ptryyy vtsxy. hy foh nstkrf snf i yolf iy yo dyop nuy iy fifn'y hrrf my estninh snf sll og yhr duffrn yhr vsyyrtpillst dytuvk. mt oiit lirrlr foh esd vomplryrly vobrtrf in bomiy og domr kinf ot snoyhrt. i vtirf snf vtirf nuy yo noe sbsil. my foh duggovsyrf by yhr boimsy og yhr vsyrtpillst snf i esd lrgy slonr. msynr i'll hry s vsy.

Yes. Back to homework.

Mother Teresa on Abortion

This is a speech Mother Teresa gave in 1995 at America's National Prayer Breakfast. I'm posting this whole thing because it's beautiful. And you should read it--all of it. (The italics are mine)

I hope you will count it no presumption that I seek your leave to address you on behalf of the unborn child. Like that child I can be considered an outsider. I am not an American citizen. My parents were Albanian. I was born before the First World War in a part of what was not yet, and is no longer, Yugoslavia. In many senses I know what it is like to be without a country. I also know what is like to feel an adopted citizen of other lands. When I was still a young girl I traveled to India. I found my work among the poor and the sick of that nation, and I have lived there ever since.

Since 1950 I have worked with my many sisters from around the world as one of the Missionaries of Charity. Our congregation now has over four hundred foundations in more that one hundred countries, including the United States of America. We have almost five thousand sisters. We care for those who are often treated as outsiders in their own communities by their own neighbors—the starving, the crippled, the impoverished, and the diseased, from the old woman with a brain tumor in Calcutta to the young man with AIDS in New York City. A special focus of our care are mothers and their children. This includes mothers who feel pressured to sacrifice their unborn children by want, neglect, despair, and philosophies and government policies that promote the dehumanization of inconvenient human life. And it includes the children themselves, innocent and utterly defenseless, who are at the mercy of those who would deny their humanity. So, in a sense, my sisters and those we serve are all outsiders together. At the same time, we are supremely conscious of the common bonds of humanity that unite us and transcend national boundaries.

In another sense, no one in the world who prizes liberty and human rights can feel anything but a strong kinship with America. Yours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. As your Declaration of Independence put it, in words that have never lost their power to stir the heart: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” A nation founded on these principles holds a sacred trust: to stand as an example to the rest of the world, to climb ever higher in its practical realization of the ideals of human dignity, brotherhood, and mutual respect. Your constant efforts in fulfillment of that mission, far more that your size or your wealth or your military might, have made America an inspiration to all mankind.

It must be recognized that your model was never one of realized perfection, but of ceaseless aspiration. From the outset, for example, America denied the African slave his freedom and human dignity. But in time you righted that wrong, albeit at an incalculable cost in human suffering and loss of life. Your impetus has almost always been toward a fuller, more all embracing conception and assurance of the rights that your founding fathers recognized as inherent and God-given. Yours has ever been an inclusive, not an exclusive, society. And your steps, though they may have paused or faltered now and then, have been pointed in the right direction and have trod the right path. The task has not always been an easy one, and each new generation has faced its own challenges and temptations. But in a uniquely courageous and inspiring way, America has kept faith.

Yet there has been one infinitely tragic and destructive departure from those American ideals in recent memory. It was this Court’s own decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) to exclude the unborn child from the human family. You ruled that a mother, in consultation with her doctor, has broad discretion, guaranteed against infringement by the United States Constitution, to choose to destroy her unborn child. Your opinion stated that you did not need to “resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” That question is inescapable. If the right to life is an inherent and inalienable right, it must surely exist wherever life exists. No one can deny that the unborn child is a distinct being, that it is human, and that it is alive. It is unjust, therefore, to deprive the unborn child of its fundamental right to life on the basis of its age, size, or condition of dependency. It was a sad infidelity to America’s highest ideals when this Court said that it did not matter, or could not be determined, when the inalienable right to life began for a child in its mother’s womb.

America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered domination over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.

Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign. The Constitutional Court of the Federal Republic of Germany recently ruled that “the unborn child is entitled to its rights to life independently of acceptance by its mother; this is an elementary and inalienable right that emanates from the dignity of the human being.” Americans may feel justly proud that Germany in 1993 was able to recognize the sanctity of human life. You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth.

I have no new teaching for America. I seek only to recall you to faithfulness to what you once taught the world. Your nation was founded on the proposition—very old as a moral precept, but startling and innovative as a political insight—that human life is a gift of immeasurable worth, and that it deserves, always and everywhere, to be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. I urge the Court to take the opportunity presented by the petitions in these cases to consider the fundamental question of when human life begins and to declare without equivocation the inalienable rights which it possesses.



[Many of those in attendance rose to their feet and applauded; the President reached for a glass of water, while his wife, and the Vice President and his wife looked on stone-faced. The speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast conducted in February 1995 was Mother Teresa and she forthrightly spoke out in defense of the unborn and presented a simple message of love for the poor and oppressed. She raised an intriguing question: Is there a connection between the violence in America and the violence perpetrated in the abortion clinics of our country? Mother Teresa's speech did not receive much coverage in the press. Her message deserves to be publicized far and wide. In an effort to accomplish this goal, we present this account of her presentation.]

On the last day, Jesus will say to those at his right hand, “Come, enter the Kingdom; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me.” Then Jesus will turn to those his left hand and say: “Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me drink, I was sick and you did not visit me.” These will ask him, “When did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or sick, and did not come to your help?” And Jesus will answer them, “Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto me!”

As we have gathered here to pray together, I think it will be beautiful if we begin with a prayer that expresses very well what Jesus wants us to do for the least. St. Francis of Assisi understood very well these words of Jesus and his life is very well expressed by a prayer. And this prayer which we say every day after Holy Communion, always surprises me very much, because it is very fitting for each one of us. And I always wonder whether eight hundred years ago when St. Francis lived, they had the same difficulties that we have today. I think that some of you already have this prayer of peace, so we will pray it together.

Let us thank God for the opportunity He has given us today to have come hear to pray together. We have come here especially to pray for peace, joy and love. We are reminded that Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor. He had told us what that good news is when he said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” He came not to give the peace of the world, which is only that we don’t bother each other. He came to give the peace of heart which comes from loving—from doing good to others.

And God loved the world so much that He gave His son. God gave His son to the Virgin Mary, and what did she do with him? As soon as Jesus came into Mary’s life, immediately she went in haste to give that good news. And as she came into the house of her cousin, Elizabeth, Scripture tells us that the unborn child—the child in the womb of Elizabeth—leapt with joy. While still in the womb of Mary, Jesus brought peace to John the Baptist, who leapt with joy in the womb of Elizabeth.

And as if that were not enough—as if it were not enough that God the Son should become one of us and bring peace and joy while still in the womb, Jesus also died on the cross to shoe that greater love. He died for you and me, and for that leper and for that man dying of hunger and that naked person lying in the streets—not only of Calcutta, but of Africa, of everywhere. Out Sisters serve these poor people in 105 countries throughout the world. Jesus insisted that we love one another as he loves each one of us. Jesus gave his life to love us, and he tells us that we also have to give whatever it takes to do good to one another. And in the Gospel Jesus says very clearly, “Love as I have loved you.”

Jesus died on the cross because that is what it took for him to do good for us—to save us from our selfishness and sin. He gave up everything to do the Father’s will, to show us that we too must be willing to give everything to do God’s will, to love one another as he loves each of us. If we are not willing to give whatever it takes to do good for one another, sin is still in us. That is why we too must give to each other until it hurts.

It is not enough for us to say, “I love God.” But I also have to love my neighbor St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. How can you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

It hurt Jesus to love us. We have been created in his image for greater things, to love and to be loved. We must “put on Christ”, as Scripture tells us. And so we have been created to love as he loves us. Jesus makes himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and he says, “You did it to me.” On the last day he will say to those on his right, “whatever you did to the least of these, you did it to me,” and he will also say to those on his left, “whatever you neglected to do for the least of these, you neglected to do it for me.”

When he was dying on the cross, Jesus said, “I thirst.” Jesus is thirsting out love, and this is the thirst for everyone, poor and rich alike. We all thirst for the love of others, that they go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do good to us. This is the meaning of true love, to do good until it hurts.

I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and, maybe, forgotten them. I saw that in that home these old people had everything: good food, comfortable place, television—everything. But everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on his face.

I turned to Sister and I asked, “Why do these people, who have every comfort here—why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?” (I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people. Even the dying ones smile.) And Sister said, “This is the way it is, nearly every day. They are expecting—they are hoping—that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten.”

See, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty. Maybe in out family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried. Are we there? Are we willing to give until it hurts, in order to be with our families? Or do we put our own interests first? These are questions we must ask ourselves, especially as we begin this Year of the Family. We must remember that love begins at home, and we must also remember that “the future of humanity passes through the family.”

I was surprised in the West to see to see so many young boys and girls given to drugs. And I tried to find out why. Why is it like that, when those in the West have so many more things that those in the East? And the answer was, “Because there is no one in the family to receive them.” Our children depend on us for everything: their health, their nutrition, their security, their coming to know and love God. For all of this, they look to us with trust, hope and expectation. But often father and mother are so busy that they have no time for their children, or perhaps they are not even married, or have given up on their marriage. So the children got to the streets, and get involved in drugs, or other things. We are talking of love of the child, which is where love and peace must begin. These are the things that break peace.

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child—a direct killing of the innocent child—murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love—that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

Many people are very, very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa, where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today: abortion, which brings people to such blindness.

And for this I appeal in India and I appeal everywhere: “Let us bring the child back.” The child is God’s gift to the family. Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things—to love and to be loved. In this Year of the Family we must bring the child back to the center of our care and concern. This is the only way that our world can survive, because out children are the only hope for the future. As other people are called to God, only their children can take their places.

But what does God say to us? He says, “Even if a mother could forget her child, I will not forget you. I have carved you in the palm of my hand.” We are carved in the palm of his hand; that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God from conception, and is called by God to love and to be loved, not only now in this life, but forever. God can never forget us.

I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption—by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals, and police stations: “Please don’t destroy the child; we will take the child.” So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: “Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child.”

And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child. But I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said, “Anyone receives a child in my name, receives me.” By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus, but by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.

Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortions. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents, and have grown up so full of love and joy!

I know that couples have to plan their family, and for that there is natural family planning. The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns attention to self, and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other, as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.

I also know that there are great problems in the world—that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love. This is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion.

The poor are very good people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning, and said: “You people—who have practiced chastity—you are the best people to teach us natural family planning, because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other.” And what this poor person said is very true. These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.

Those who are materially poor can be wonderful people. One evening we went out and picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: “You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks worse.” So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, and she said one thing only: “Thank you.” Then she died.

I could not help but examine my conscience before her. I asked, “What would I say if I were in her place?” And my answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said, “I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain,” or something like that. But she gave me much more—she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.

Then there was the man we picked up from the drain, half eaten by worms. And after we had brought him to the home, he only said, “I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die as an angel, loved, and cared for.” Then, after we had removed all the worms from his body, all he said—with a big smile—was: “Sister, I am going home to God.” And he died. It was so wonderful to see the greatness of that man, who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing anything. Like an angel—this is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich, even when they are materially poor.

We are not social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of some people, but we must be contemplatives in the heart of the world. For we must bring that presence of God into your family, for the family that prays together, stays together. There is so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice, are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into what we do.

If we are contemplatives in the heart of the world with all its problems, these problems can never discourage us. We must always remember what God tells us in the Scripture: Even if the mother could forget the child in her womb—something that is impossible, but even if she could forget—I will never forget you.

And so here I am talking to you. I want you to find the poor here, right in your home first. And begin love there. Bear the good news to your own people first. And find out about your next-door neighbors. Do you know who they are?

I had the most extraordinary experience of love of neighbor from a Hindu family. A gentleman came to our house and said, “Mother Teresa, there is a family who have not eaten for so long. Do something.” So I took some rice and went there immediately. And I saw the children, their eyes shining with hunger. (I don’t know if you have ever seen hunger, but I have seen it very often). And the mother of the family took the rice I gave her, and went out. When she came back, I asked her, “Where did you go? What did you do?” And she gave me a very simple answer: “They are hungry also.” What struck me was that she knew. And who were “they”? A Muslim family. And she knew. I didn’t bring any more rice that evening, because I wanted them—Hindus and Muslims—to enjoy the joy of sharing.

But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy and peace with their mother because she had the love to give until it hurts. And you see this where love begins—at home in the family.

God will never forget us, and there is something you and I can always do. We can keep the joy of loving Jesus in our hearts, and share that joy with all we come in contact with. Let us make that one point—that no child will be unwanted, unloved, uncared for, or killed and thrown away. And give until it hurts—with a smile.

Because I talk so much of giving with as smile, once a professor from the United States asked me, “Are you married?” And I said, “Yes, and I find it sometimes very difficult to smile at my spouse—Jesus—because he can be very demanding—sometimes.” This is really something true. And there is where love comes in—when it is demanding, and yet we can give it with joy.

One of the most demanding things for me is traveling everywhere, and with publicity. I have said to Jesus that if I don’t go to heaven for anything else, I will be going to heaven for all the traveling with all the publicity, because it has purified me and sacrificed me and made me really ready to go to heaven.

If we remember that God loves us, and that we can love others as he loves us, then America can become a sign of peace for the world. From here, a sign of care for the weakest of the weak—the unborn child—must go out to the world. If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country stood for. God bless you.

Grrrr.

Does anybody want to tell me why the current election discussion is dominated by Michael J. Fox and John Kerry?

[ .]

Somebody told me the other day that vocational desires that never come to fruition in our own lives might be a kind of echo of a pending vocation among our children or grandchildren. Well, this would explain my frustration with the Carthusians. I watched a 2 hour, 45 minute documentary the other day called Into Great Silence. A filmmaker entered a Carthusian Monastery located in the Swiss Alps within avalanche distance of Matterhorn. Aside from about 7 minutes of dialogue the entire film is wordless--no voiceover speaker, no theme music. Wordless, but not silent. The monk's days are filled with sound--the Angelus bells, the creaking wood of their old European buildings, the numbed patter of snow, scissors cutting into thick cloth, the chanting of the psalms, a clattering food cart, cats, the hiss of a stove, birds singing outside, a cough, a sigh. They eat alone in their room, except on Sundays. Every day at noon they kiss the ground after saying the Angelus. They eat dinner together once a week and are allowed an afternoon walk, where they partner with another monk and get their week's worth of talking in.

Is it strange that I want to be there? Is it crazy that a little sliver of me feels like my destiny is some kind of skinny old Trappist with deep eyes? That is very strange. Between Into Great Silence, stories of the CFRs, and the retreat at Gethsemane, I find I have a penchant for the monastic life. But not nuns--monks. The echoes are quiet--when a leaf scratches on the ground, when a sunbeam waxes golden in the afternoon, when I stop in a dorm chapel--but they're there. I think the movie is coming to the states. And when it does, you should see it.

"Lord, your love is ferocious" -Father of Therese of Lisieux upon her entrance at Carmel

The worst part about it will be waking up tomorrow.

Chatter

I was walking home from writing a paper Thursday night amidst fixed frozen stars and blustery wind. I was passing under the arch of Badin hall when I noticed that my teeth were chattering violently. Fettered by the amount of work I had and pretty tired, I got frustrated. Teeth chattering. The body's reaction to cold, used to warm up the body. I scoffed at that futility of this effort. My teeth do not stand out as prominent amidst the great mass of me. How could they warm me up? So the obvious go-to reaction of my body might not be as great as say, a blanket, or a big hug.

Now this got me to thinking, and because I'd been reading Church Fathers for two days, it got me thinking about life in God. What are our spiritual teeth-chatters? What are our gut reactions when the world gets cold or things get tough? Do we turn to God, or do we turn to something else, like food or self-loathing or self-pity? Or do we hang all our problems on somebody who can't bear the weight? Are these reactions really any more helpful than teeth-chatters? Because if not, maybe we should rethink our approaches. Maybe we shouldn't examine our reactions. Maybe there should be deliberation. Maybe there should be moderation. Maybe there should be dying to self. Our body needs more than teeth-chatters. Our soul needs more, too.

This entire entry reeked of Athanasius. I'm going to bed.

A Cistercian Song

So, brethren, now let us sing Alleluia,
not in the enjoyment of heavenly rest,
but to sweeten our toil.
Sing as travellers sing along the road:
but keep on walking.
Solace your toil by singing
- do not yield to idleness.
Sing but keep on walking.
...
Go forward then in virtue,
in true faith and right conduct.
Sing up
- but keep on walking.

I Find this Funny

Me: Have you ever read the story about Tikitiki-tembo-no-sa-rembo-chari-bari-ruchie-pip-peri-pembo?
Him: Is that the one about the mongoose and the snake?
Me: ...no.......
Him: Oh sorry. That's Riki-tiki-tavi .

In other news, I hate cheesy names on food menus. I was in line at Greenfields with a professor the other day, trying to give the impression I'm a devoted student who avoids wearing sweatpants and studies for the GRE in my freetime. He handed me a menu. Unfortunately my palate that day was rooting for something called the Mamasita Fajita Salad. Now, it's bad enough that Mamasita and Fajita rhyme, but if we really want to phenomenologize this further, what are we supposed to do with the word mamasita? I have never heard this word in a good context before, and it conjures an image of a large Mexican woman, barefoot, at the door of a small hut, holding a bowl of some kind of floury dough. I imagine this woman is standing over my shoulder while I order, rattling away in Spanish and kneading her dough as I eat. Despair.
"Anything look good?" the professor asks.
"Why yes, professor. I Myself, being a big 'ol fan of mamasitas, will be eating this fajita salad."
"....Yeah." I point. "I...really like curry. I think I'm gonna get the chicken."

The same thing happened to me the other day at Reckers. A strawberry smoothie sounded pretty good. Too bad the most preferable option for extra vitamins was called a 'Femme boost'. There's something really uncomfortable about saying 'femme boost.' Try it. Femme boost femme boost femme boost. See? I feel I need to make some kind of excuse for ordering something so silly. People understand immune boosts. People understand protein boosts. People understand femme boosts like they understand Halle Berry in Catwoman. When I say the phrase "Femme boost" in public I feel like I might as well shake my hair out, stand on the counter and sing "I am Woman, Hear me Roar." I've bought this same smoothie three times, and every time it goes something like this.
"Hi, can I have a number 11 strawberry smoothie with...[bites lip, leans on counter, looks around a little come on Sloan you're never going to see these people again] a Femme boost? What a silly name. Pretty dumb, huh? Yeah. Femme boost. [cringes as cashier yells order to the cooks, look around to see who possibly could have overhead and may now think unassuming girl in sweatpants with a GRE book is a dominatrix]."
Fun names for stuff are fine. I'm not saying we should always call a spade a spade. I am saying we shouldn't call a spade an Esperanza Spade, a Sufferin' Spadecotash, a Spoony Balooney Spade, or a Spadetacular. I would appreciate culinary names that don't allude to cultural awkwardities, bodily functions, or feminists. My fajita salad and my smoothie need not go to war in my stomach in the forms of a gordita and Wonder Woman. They can digest peacefully, thank you. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Mt. Bagelhorn with Avalanche Cream Cheese. Yo-Yogurt. Ho Chi Minh Stir Fry. Water. With a Femme boost.

Chicken Pot Pie--a saga of memories

I was eating lunch with Blair Mancini last Friday. At one point we found ourselves abandoning thoughts of the sdh food before us for the sake of remembering chicken pot pies. I promised him I'd write about it. This will undoubtedly be more dramatic and detailed than needed for something like a chicken pot pie.

My First Memory of a Chicken Pot Pie
I was six years old and we were living at 383 Love Court. It was a wintry day and my dad had popped a frozen pie in the oven. I was curious. Whenever I saw a pie crust I thought sweet apples, or pumpkins, or pecans. "Do you want a bite?" my dad said. "It's not like a normal pie." I was confused by this. I took a bite. There was a too-hot potato involved. Gross. I'll take the sweet apples, thanks.

Falling in Love with the Pot Pie
When mom worked at O'Malias she sometimes didn't have enough time to fix us a real dinner like tacos or meatloaf or something out of the crock-pot. So we'd resort to the chicken pot pie. I loved that dream within a dream, the tender crispy crust, the stewey warmth of chicken and potatoes and peas and carrots. I had a system. I'd take off the crust from the circumference at eat it, then I'd spoon a crevace into the middle of the pie and start eating the filling, being careful not to scrape the dough off the bottom. I saved that part for last, when all the filling was gone. It was like dessert. It was a delight. Sometimes Rees wouldn't finish his and I'd sneak into the kitchen and take his extra crust.

The Bitter Demise of the Pot Pie
I was fourteen years old. I went out to the freezer to get dinner and happened to turn the box around to read the nutrition facts. Have you ever read the nutrition facts on a chicken pot pie box? They are really bad for you. I was taking a freshman year health class. These two things did not agree with one another. I gingerly placed the box back in the fridge for my brother to find. Thus began a long, tumultuous relationship with Lean Cuisines of many flavors; my favorites included chicken enchilada suiza, swedish meatballs, turkey with stuffing, and teryaki chicken. On to bigger and better things, I forgot the value of the chicken pot pie.

My Last Memory of a Chicken Pot Pie
I was 16 years old and we were having dinner at 14830 Senator Blvd. I was a runner and incredibly skinny, always concerned that what I ate would slow me down. My grandpa was trying to find something to fix me for dinner. He pulled a chicken pot pie box from the freezer. Auntie Somebody's Flaky Crust. "Do you want one of these, Barbie? They're good for you. Fat free."
"No thanks grandpa."
I haven't had a pot pie since. If I could do it all over again, I would eat it.

The end.

05.31.06 Feast of the Visitation

Christ, be with me in the eveningtime
amidst the fainting of the day,
amidst the echoes of glory's falling.
Let shine your ever constant light,
as deepest thoughts and troubles come
from cool recesses, shadows grown.
Bring the peace of sleep's best promise
to awaken once in a day not our own
the horizonless dawning
that is yours alone.
Amen.

The Umbrella by the Door

The man kept an umbrella by the door. It had a heavy wooden handle and a deep green canopy. It was a constant companion in his excursions.

It was a practice he'd kept since the day his wife died, the day the streets flooded and the rain seemed to run uphill. He'd held it through the burial. When he leaned down to kiss her casket, the umbrella silenced the sharpness of the water hitting wood. He returned from the service and leaned the umbrella by the doorframe. He fixed himself a cup of tea. He sat and thought awhile.

The next day it rained. The umbrella was there. Convenient, he thought. He went out for tea, and when he returned, he leaned it against the doorframe. He fixed himself a pipe. He sat and thought a long while.

It was sunny for a week thereafter. But the sun is so strong, he thought. He grabbed the wooden handle, stepped outside, and became a matte shadow under the deep green canopy.

This continued for some time, through rain and sun and terrible storm. He kept the umbrella by the door. Then one day his daughter visited, and with her his grandson. Lawrence jumped up and down and tugged at his hand. "To the park! To the park!" A flash of blue shorts and white shoes escaped onto the sidewalk. He grabbed his umbrella and interrupted the pinstripe of his pants with a quick stride.

The sun shone at the park. Lawrence put his toy boat in the water by the pond's edge. He was holding his umbrella. The man leaned over and dulled the sparkle of the water near the boat. Lawrence saw the shadow and looked up at him. He laughed and splashed the water with his hands, sending it onto his shoes. The toy boat began to drift away. The man started and dropped the umbrella, dropped to his knees and reached out across the pond. Lawrence laughed and clapped his hands against the man's side.

When all were safely to port his daughter called them to come for lunch. Lawrence was holding the boat, and his shoes were wet. The man scooped him up and turned away from the pond. Lawrence pointed over the man's shoulder with the tip of his boat. "Grandpa, the umbrella." The man glanced back.

"Leave it," he said. "It's too much to carry."


I'm serious about these being misfit entries. Criticism welcome.

"If one affirms the existence of God, then there are philosophical problems, generally." -A. MacIntyre

I'm Starting to Think I Talk too Much

You know what would be really interesting? To take a word count, you v. a friend you talk to, for the whole time you've known them. I wonder how it'd turn out.

Burn baby burn. Blair Manferno.

I Don't Want to Talk About Senior Year so I Will Ramble

Lydia the folk choir violinist has a boyfriend from out of town. He came to our rehearsal today, and the best part about choir practice was watching him so enchanted with her. He's head over heels. She can't see it all the time, because she's busy drawing the bow across her violin and reading the score, but he sat behind her and smiled the whole two hours. His eyes follow her with innocent, amused curiosity. There's something to that kind of awe; whether it fades with time is of no consequence to the initial amazement that God could create, 'at last,' that person.

Funny things I've heard recently:
- Indiana State Fair foods: Hog-on-a-log, Kid's pignick basket
-AQUAPOD. Orbtastic Shape! Charged with fun!
-"This is how I wuoak my duoag, Elmo"... -New York City Sesame Street Kids
-"My friend Marvin went to Turkey"... -Grant Sadjak, 5 yrs.

Blair Mancini and I have postgraduate plans to redeem the tarnished image of Catholic Hollywood.

"I'm praying for you. I hope that hasn't become too simple for us." -Greg Floyd

I Stole A Book

from the church library. Now this is not as bad as it sounds. Maybe. I was in the adoration chapel yesterday and picked up Divine Mercy in my Soul: The Diary of St. Faustina. The girl I went to the convent with was gushing over it, and as soon as I read a couple passages I knew why. St. Faustina was a mystic and Jesus Christ speaks to her so much in her writings that the editors bolded his words to distinguish them from her text. There was a copy of this book in every stall in the adoration chapel...something like 40 stalls. I thought, 'would it be so bad to just...borrow one for awhile?' I flipped open the cover. PROPERTY OF OUR LADY OF MT. CARMEL. DO NOT REMOVE. I closed the cover. I looked up at the Blessed Sacrament. Not in front of Jesus. I left the chapel kinda sad. This book is huge, somewhere around 700 pages, and it'd be so expensive to buy on top of everything else pending for senior year.
The next day I came back for confession and thought I'd see if the book was in the parish library. I searched through the index and saw it--two copies! Number 248....2-4-8...Faust....F-a-u.....it's not here. Neither one of them. I headed toward the door, again, a little sad. Then a bag on the floor in front of the display table caught my eye. Donated books. The book on top of the stack? Divine Mercy in my Soul: The Diary of St. Faustina, and a little wooden image of the Christ of the Divine Mercy peeking out from farther down in the bag. I looked around the dark library; obviously, no one was there. Now....this isn't my normal habitude but I could think of very few situations where it was more obvious that this stuff was meant for me, and I should take it without feeling bad about it.
So I read the first couple sections tonight. It's pretty good....

I beat Charlie at the staring contest. He looked at his garlic bread.
"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for woe. Plans to give you a future full of hope."

Dimwitted

Thompson Station, TN 37179

I didn't really have anything to say, so I just pressed Ctrl+V (paste) and that's what came up. Interesting, right?

Me Blair Mancini, you Jane.
Bueller?

An Unlikely Rose

The flowershop was dark around the seams. Maria Sylvia Graciela Melendez Echeverria dropped her eyes from the Begonia arrangement and let her lids droop like evening Blue Bells. A bustling day in lower Manhattan had long since heeded to the evening crowd, subdued by a rainy New York night. Rico Pesci had closed his cannoli shop across the street hours ago, but Sylvia had four weddings this weekend and lots of arrangements to touch up. Her only company were a sequence of halfhearted raindrops outside and the slew of fresh flower components that shone at half-hue underneath a single hanging lamp.

The Begonias were for a puertorriquena. They 'were' meaning they were not for her anymore. The woman had called three days before her wedding and canceled the order through hiccuping sobs. A good arrangement wasted, really, thought Sylvia as she pushed leaves into the floral foam. The stems squeaked in protest. There was no reason she shouldn't have offered the same boquet to the couple that placed an order the next day. She would have had to throw it all away. In all her years as a florist, she'd never wasted an arrangement. Sylvia smiled. Although she'd sold many half price to lovestruck young men, or apologetic boyfriends who stumbled in off the curb at closing time.

A man gave her roses once, when she was younger. His name was Spencer. Sylvia's father had allowed him to pass the summer painting the landscape at their small farm on the outskirts of Queretaro. He wore a hat during the day, and stood out white and pasty amidst Sylvia's brothers, but at night the sun rose in his eyes and his cheeks gleamed. Sylvia brought he and her father beer while they sat on the porch and watched the landscape grow dark around the seams. Spencer said he loved her. He brought her roses. One of the roses had a ring tied around it with a white ribbon. Spencer said 'si?' and Sylvia said 'yes', and they both pricked their fingers trying to get the ring untied. They had laughed. Papi let Spencer drive the car into town to find a suit. Mama put the roses in water and brought her wedding dress down from the attic. She was pinning the hem around Sylvia's feet. "Now Maria Sylvia," she muttered through pins, "You must always keep fresh flowers in your home. Take them from the field or from the garden. It will remind Spencer of his one true rose, and he will love you and care for you forever." Sylvia smiled, rather bloomingly, her head and shoulders rising from the collar of the white gown.

Spencer did not return from town that night. The next evening a different car returned to their farm. Papi listened to the police officer with concern and waved him on. Mama, tearful, told Sylvia the news. A white and pasty man who could not speak Spanish was shot outside a tailor's shop when he would not give up his car. Sylvia felt sick. She put her hands on the table to steady herself. The sun was casting its orange evening light across the wood. It caught on her ring and flickered through the clear water of the rose vase and across the red petals, deepening in hue as they folded over one another, fresh in the center, mysterious, and spreading out in their bloom until they became part of the craggy flower's circumference, exposed and superficial. She did not hang the roses to dry. She did not want to save them.

The flowershop was dark around the seams. Sylvia rose from the table. It was a beautiful arrangement. She grabbed her raincoat and reached to switch off the light.

Blair Mancini sings backup on Lauryn Hill's 'Doo-wop/That Thing'
I wish I were an architect.

Nuns in a Van

I spent the past two days down at the Motherhouse of the Dominican sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville. Six of their sisters were making their final profession of vows and Fr. Richard invited me and another girl to come and see what the community was like. These nuns have popped up multiple times in my life, and have been instruments in my spiritual development due to nothing less than their quiet presence. A sister giving the vocation talk at Destination Jesus. Three Dominicans pacing across South Quad during the summer at Notre Dame. A sister in front of the Eucharist, eyes closed, her hand pressed against her lips. Four sisters filing into the adoration chapel at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. They have been a sign of God's presence to me, a kind of hope in heavenly devotion and the living of virtue. The Nashville bishop said the same thing today at the profession, when in his homily he lauded the sisters for being a living example of the virtuous life among God's people. They were consecrated to the community today in the Nashville Cathedral, with family and the community watching. All the sisters caravaned from the motherhouse in Winstars and four-doors. We followed one seven-passenger car; they waved to us from an open window, habits flying. Nuns. Nuns in a van.

At the cathedral I watched six Dominicans place their hands in those of Mother Rose Marie and promise to live the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience for 'All my life', I watched them put their scapulars over the heads and lie prostrate in a sign of death to the world and rebirth in Christ, and I watched the some 200 already professed sisters come give them the sign of peace after they'd signed their profession. I was so glad to finally know where nuns come from. This is not a question of the direction of my own vocation--that comes in time, with God--but it was a remembrance of an important group of women in my life. I admire them and hope that soon there are many more women like them, unafraid to pursue a great love affair with Christ.

Sister Mary Elizabeth girds her habit to play soccer.

(I found this quote after I wrote the above, no joke.) A religious vocation is not so much a giving up of everything as it is a love affair with Him who promises overwhelming fullness and joy. -Sister Anne Catherine

A Tribute to Aunt Helen

My Great Aunt Helen died this week at 98, peacefully, clutching her rosary beads. ("Janie," she tells my Grandma, "I don't want to live to be a hundred"). She was the oldest daughter of the Edwards family, a driven woman with a master's degree in library science, a husband nicknamed Heiny, and a dog named Hans. She always tried to push Ruth off the piano when they played duets. She drank half a glass of beer every day at 5:00 and talked about Mary Higgins Clark books with me. I remember her as strong and no-nonsense, a sisterly contrast to my demure Aunt Ruth. But Helen was feisty and fun, and unfettered. She let me sit on her lap, once, when I was too big to do so. Her pride was too big to admit this. "Honey," she said, after several minutes. "Don't feel like you have to sit here all day." She died with her rosary in her hand. My grandma says she's up there bossing everybody around.

Blair Mancini sings Robert Goulet songs in his sleep.

And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. 21:4

Sweet Mother of Pearl

Well there's nothing like making your way home and realizing it's not the place of rest you expected it to be. Some people come home and sleep long hours, enjoy liesurely dinners with the family. I come home and get yelled at, escape to my room, Seems like everyone's got different things on their mind these days, and I don't know where I fit in, except for the looming recurring thought of packing up all my crap next year and moving to who knows where. I also have the recurring thought of throwing everything out, donning some kind of brown tunic and living off of the land. I could set up a little tent out around the lakes, better yet, some kind of shanty made of sticks. I would live off of the ducks--err, I mean, berries and figs--and do nothing but think about my classes and go to log chapel Mass. I'd never have to see anyone or face my life again. Sometimes I wonder if St. Francis didn't have a little pent up rage in him when he left Assisi wearing nothing but...well...nothing. If he was even the slightest bit angry, well then, we understand each other. More when I have the heart, the structure, and a motive.

No greater love has a man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.

Now

It's a little hard to live in the sacrament of the present moment when the present moment sucks.

"All will be well, and all manner of things shall be well by the purity of motive in the grounds of our beseeching" -T.S. Eliot

Dress Shopping

I thought I had abandoned the girlhood woe that is hating my body--no, too strong a statement. As much as Vogue would insist upon it, I don't hate myself. Let's restart. I thought I had abandoned the girlhood woe that is a prolonged, awkward dressing room conversation between me and the me in the mirror, wearing the thing. But apparently I was wrong. I need a dress for some stuff coming up in my life. I spent the day in a flurry of them, all of which were cute, all of which fit me about as well as the glove at the OJ trial. There were gentle rose dresses and severe shifts reminiscent of the Orient, there was the perfect dress that the J.Crew model wore like God had draped it over her and called it good, there was the sweet sundress and the craaaazy print dress, the dress whose green specks looked like mold and the subtle polka dot dress. One dress two dress red dress blue dress. (Try saying that fast; it's hard.)

Now, to save the gentlemen in the audience let me suffice it to say that, well, girls, you can fill in this part of the story. Pick out dress from rack. [ ]. Put dress back. My fettering point came at Von Maur when I stepped out of changing room number 2 at the same time as two tan, 5'4, 115 pound sorority girls. Their dresses were sheer and black and classy. It made my blue sundress look like a lemonade stand uniform, and it's wearer look like a Bavarian barmaid. To make matters worse, the very top of my zipper wouldn't go. It didn't have anything to do with the dress being too tight, but it had everything to do with attracting everyone in the dressing room's attention. It went something like this.
My mom: "I can't get this closed. Barbie, come stand over here."
Lady in nursing uniform: "Sometimes if you grease it with a little soap it'll go"
My mom: "Can you hold this for me while I try to zip it?
Lady in nursing uniform: "Sure"
Zipper: .
Mom: "Yeah it's not going"
Lady in nursing uniform: "Well did it work before you had the dress on?"

My ears began to tune this out and my thoughts drifted to the recently wed Lauren Prieto telling some folk choir girls about her upcoming honeymoon. "We have to go out to dinner at night, and they're all nice places...I think I'm bringing like five dresses!"

"Mom."
"Yeah."
"Can we go get lunch?"
"Yeah."

"Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeing, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised"

Vocation
God isn't just one thing that takes our attention away from other things.

Well I hope the Gregorian thing works out. If not, I can always do a Campus Ministry Internship.

Dinner Conversation
We had Winston over for dinner the other night. Kabobs. He was laughing about a riddle. "What do you get when you have an immovable object attached to an unbreakable chain attached to an irresistable force?" Mr. White said that we have never seen the likes of it to be able to explain it. But as I unskewered my vegetables I realized we are it. Immovable object: God. Irresistable force: our maligned wills. Unbreakable chain: his love for us, created in his image, filled with his breath. We can't change the God that is, we suffer violently with every sin to turn ourselves from him, and yet we are forever bound to him as the good that he made and loves. What do you get? Look at your own life, and you tell me. One thing I know: this isn't an impossible situation. And the immovable object wins.

Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake;
watch over us as we sleep,
That awake we may keep watch with Christ,
and asleep, rest in his Peace.

The Blog
Now I was having a little trouble getting this started because I kept waiting for the ideal time. This is the problem I have with most written journals. I am compelled to start out with something really official or good-sounding. Well, it's my first day writing in this journal! Wow, a new journal! I can't wait! I put a stop to this nonsense with my first Moleskine. I just started writing. Something simple. Something that didn't wax reminiscent of making small talk at an obscure relative's wedding. And by the end of my entry I was moved to put what I truly felt. Journal, I think I am in love with you. It worked out fine. So, on this July 2, there's nothing particularly worth mentioning in the day, I've just finished scraping the sides of a chocolate cake icing can, my brother is driving around in the wilderness with all my clothes in the car, and I kind of have to go to the bathroom. What better time than the now?

With God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again! -Gone with the Wind, Act I Finale