A Challenge for my readers...

As some of you might be aware, next week the US will be celebrating a holiday. It’s not a big holiday that many people notice. We don’t miss school or exchange presents. Holy Mother Church does not require us to attend Mass. Yet, in my family it is a holiday that we remember and that causes us to pray. Next Friday, November 11, is Veteran’s Day.

My father is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He was a Green Beret, something I am proud of. My father is a hero. He answered the call of his country when many were reluctant or were running away from her borders to avoid the draft. He still bears the scars, both emotionally and physically, yet he’s still proud to be an American.

This Veteran’s Day, send a note to a veteran you know. Everyone in the US knows a veteran, a soldier, a hero. Just tell them thank you. They never hear that enough.

Now, I know many are opposed to the war in the Middle East. I’m not saying yay or nay towards that mess. As Christians, we are called to pray for peace. Yet, let us recall the words of Pope Paul VI, “If you want peace, work for justice.” We are all called to pray for peace, and if you are Catholic, please note you are also called to work for justice. Everyone else, you should be working for justice too: social justice, environmental justice… these are important and being overlooked by many in our “I” driven world today.

If you want to read it, here is an article I found on Thanking Veterans. You can find the original at http://www.forcerecon.com/veteran.htm

What is a Veteran?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking.

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies

unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

All Saints Day witness for Butler Mass

Here is the catechetical witness I'm doing for Butler's All Saints Day Mass tonight.

All Saints Day Witness

            When I was a kid, around the age of ten, my dad started getting sick. We spent at least one night a month in the emergency room, if not more often. I became a pro at dressing in the middle of the night and grabbing my backpack, which was always stocked with books to read in the waiting room. What I never became a pro at was dealing with the idea that my Dad, who was my hero and my best friend, might die. Scared, I would sit in the back of the car, close my eyes, and imagine a lady, wearing a nun’s habit and a big smile, comforting me. That lady, my companion for most of my childhood even into my adult life, was St. Frances Xavier Cabrini.

            I think that in our day and age, where it is difficult to connect even with the person right next to you, it becomes difficult to understand the idea of Saints. Yet, as Catholics, the veneration of Saints is an important part of our faith. Technically speaking, a Saint is any person who has died and is in heaven. This means that my grandfather might be a saint just like Mother Cabrini or St. Francis. Those who were not formally canonized are saints with a lowercase “s.” Those who have been canonized by the Church are saints with a capital “S.” Although we probably won’t all be canonized, we are all called to be saints. This of course poses the question of how to become a saint.

            St. Mother Theodore Guerin, who did most of her ministry in Terre Haute, IN, said that what we must do in order to become saints is “Nothing extraordinary, nothing more than we do every day. Only do it for the love of God.” What does it look like to do all we do every day for the love of God? I know I don’t succeed in this. When I face a challenging situation, I rarely act for the love of God. In fact, I’m not sure that love could even be found in me during some of those moments. It’s so easy to say the word “love” and so hard to really live it. In our world, we don’t have many examples of how to live this call to love.

            The Saints offer us examples of how to live that love and how to endure the trials and pains of this world. Sometimes when I think of Saints, it’s all too easy to think of perfect people who must have walked with God their whole lives. While young women like Saint Maria Goretti, who was martyred at the age of 11 protecting her purity, are most certainly holy, they’re not all that inspirational to someone like me who makes mistakes right and left. Maria was probably holier at the age of 11 than I will ever be. Fortunately for us, not all of our Saints have such holy biographies. When I read about St. Augustine, well known as a wild party boy who made every mistake in the book before coming to Christ or St. Peter, who walked beside Christ during his entire ministry and was a witness to his miracles yet still questioned Christ, resisted him, and even denied him… well, they might actually be able to understand me and teach me something.

            Even more important than using Saints as an example or praying to them (which really means asking them to intercede for us to the Father), is the practice that I had as a little girl, sitting in the back of my parents’ car on the way to the emergency room—allowing the Saints to be our companions through life. By inviting them into our lives as our companions, we allow them to share in our life, and by reading about their lives and the many trials and struggles they faced, we share in theirs. In the same way that we imitate the actions of our friends and family, by walking beside Saints we learn to live like them. Saints teach us to love Jesus just as they did and to serve others first and then worry about ourselves later. We see this in so many Saints: from St. Francis of Assisi to Blessed Mother Teresa. My own patron saint, Mother Cabrini, founded several hospitals and schools, including the one where she healed and befriended my great grandmother. Saints are men and women of action, men and women of service, and quite often men and women of courage. There are many who took a stand against injustice no matter the consequences, like Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, who was martyred for speaking out against the Nazis or St. Maximilian Kolbe, who took the place of a man who was sentenced to starve in a concentration camp. As a community that is so focused on social justice, I think that these Saints must surely have a special meaning to the Butler Community, yet in addition to their service, Saints show us that even in the midst of a busy life, we must find time for prayer. There is a story about Blessed John Paul II that one time there was a crisis he had to attend to, so someone tried to interrupt him in prayer. Finally, after about the third or fourth time of attempting to get him to leave the chapel, saying, “Father, you really must do something about this,” JPII turned to the man and said, “I already am” and then continued to pray. 

            The saints we recognize today were men and women of action, but also men and women of prayer. It was the prayer that they lived daily that allowed them to be great ministers and missionaries that changed the world. Maximilian Kolbe’s story is moving not only because of his willingness to take the place of another, but also because up until he died, the guards could hear him praying and singing praise to the Lord while he was starving. It was not only the holy work that she did on the streets of Calcutta that attracted hundreds to join Mother Teresa, it was the beautiful spirit with which she did it, a spirit rooted in Christ.

            For us, I think that as we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we should take a look at the lives of those saints whose lives speak to us the most and consider what attracts us to them. What can we take from their life that will enrich our own? And, how can we invite them to share in our lives? We might not all be able or willing to give up every material possession and live on the streets like a modern St. Francis, but surely we can all learn to love and to serve better. This is what the Saints desire to help us to do and in doing so, to bring us closer to Christ. Some mistake our practice of venerating Saints for worship of saints as though they were God, but this is not the case. We venerate Saints because they are men and women who loved God with all their being and so are able to bring us closer to Him. How can they bring you closer to Him today?

October...

Again, it has been a while since I’ve written. A lot has happened since then.

At the beginning of October, I had the chance to go home (to Rolla) for a weekend and enjoy the Oktoberfest in Rolla. I saw several friends and was able to be in my family’s photos for the new parish directory. It was wonderful to get to see my family and friends and to hear a wonderful homily from Fr. Mike Murphy (I always enjoy his homilies).

Other than that, October has flown by. I can’t believe we’re in the third week of it. Last weekend, one of my dear friends from Echo, Annie, came to visit. She grew up in Indy and her family still lives here, so she invited us over to her home. We had kabobs (which were a great idea, it’s been forever since I’ve done that) and spent a lot of time talking and solving all the problems of the world. Haha. Really, though, the conversations we had were thought provoking and I have been contemplating them since.

That same night, my community helped clean up from the Elizabella Ball, hosted by the St. Elizabeth Coleman Center (our landlords), which is similar to the PRC in Rolla. It was fun to be there. It was a really nice event, as beautiful as a debutante ball. I would love to decorate for something like that (in my next life as a wedding planner, maybe). It was my first time really going to downtown Indy and at one point, I sort of forgot I wasn’t in Dallas. It made me so homesick! I guess it’s a good thing I’ll be going home to Dallas next week (!). At any rate, we got a lot of wine out of the deal, because they gave us all the bottles that were on the tables and didn’t get emptied. While I’m a little leery of drinking someone else’s leftover wine, it’s good, we’re poor, and frankly, it was a really snazzy event so it’s not like there’s something wrong with it.

Yesterday was our Fall Day of Reflection, which was for me a much-needed break. I’ve been struggling a lot lately (hence, I haven’t written) and I think that the reflection helped me to put things into perspective. A lot of things have been flying at me lately, like questions about the future and whether or not I’m really in the right place. Every day, I love my work at Butler and yet, every day I also grieve the fact that I’m not studying Greek anymore. While I know I am learning a lot and greatly benefiting from my class in Christianity in Africa, it is hardly an academic class and I yearn for a little more real exercise for my brain (I have taken to reading The Education of Henry Adams to myself out loud, imitating Dr. Susan Hanssen’s voice in order to keep thinking academically… and besides, it’s funny). Things are getting better, though. I’m enjoying the latest article we were assigned, for one. And the day of reflection allowed my community and I to come together and really talk, which was good. I’m relieved to (for the first time in a long time) be in a living situation where there is, at least a good part of the time, harmony. I’m still nervous about a few things, but I at least have good friends walking beside me.

At any rate, the day of reflection was fun and we did a lot of things, including making icons of ourselves (a practice which feels questionable, but I think it was beneficial). Which reminds me, last week as our community activity, we made a coat of arms for each of us. We each drew one large object in the center that we felt was important to us. We then passed it to the next person, who drew a background image for us. The next person made an image for behind the shield, like the knight on the Willy coat of arms (Amy drew a crochet hook on mine). The last person wrote the motto. Patrick then took all of ours and made a coat of arms for the community. I love them!

Here is a picture of my icon:

Trees are a very important part of my life, particularly in my prayer. The quill, ink, and parchment symbolize not only my gift with calligraphy, but also that God gave me the gift of being able to write and also that journaling is part of my prayer life. The three books symbolize my three loves: theology (red), philology (blue), and pedagogy (green). The elvish letters are my initials in elvish, primarily because I don't like the Greek letter for the "w" sound (the digamma) and so I can't use Greek. Note to self: Marry someone with a last name that can be symbolized by a greek letter. 

Here is a picture of my coat of arms:

I drew the quill and ink. Pat drew the tree (thanks Pat, you know how important trees are to me). Amy drew the crochet hooks. Joe, who is my Star Trek buddy, made my day when he wrote "Earl Grey, Hot" as my motto (oh, Jean Luc Picard!). 

Here is our coat of arms for the community:

The top left is Patrick, the top right is me. Bottom left is Amy, bottom right is Joe. Our patrons for our community are the Holy Family, so that's why our motto is "Holy Family, pray for us." I think this image really symbolizes a lot about us. It captures who we are while still showing our sense of humor (as in the bacon behind Amy's part of the shield... yeah, that was me). 

At any rate, the last two weeks have been a time of discovery. One interesting tidbit: the city of Indianapolis, in spite of their “go green initiative” does not actually recycle cardboard. For those of you who know me best, you know that this means war. Also, I have discovered that peanut butter tastes really good in smoothies. I have discovered that even though I’m a hippie and love nature, I’m not enough of a hippie to convert to all-natural face wash (and as soon as the Aubrey Organics bottles are empty, I’m going back to Clinique, baby). I am, however, enough of a hippie to read through the entire recycle Indy website (hence the cardboard discovery) in order to properly separate our recyclables (says the girl who once brought home a bag full of plastic bottles from academic camp because the campus we were on didn’t recycle… take that, William Woods!).

I am continuing to discern many things, including my future, and so I ask that you pray for me. This weekend, I will spend the weeked at the Woods for the Mother Guerin fest and then next week I leave on Wednesday for Dallas. I can’t wait! It will go by far too quickly, I’m sure, but it will be nice to be home for a short while. But then, it will be nice to be back at the Manor until Thanksgiving. I can’t believe how fast this year is going. 

10 Thoughts... September 2011

10 Thoughts on Whole Living for September 2011 from Whole Living Magazine 1. You won’t know how fast you can go until you try.
2. Changing the way you eat may be the most transformative action you can make.
3. When you fully inhabit the moment, inspiration is likely to join you there.
4. Nature can only work its healing magic if you immerse yourself in it.
5. Blaming never fixes what you think it will.
6. Don’t confuse what you think with what you are.
7. Flowers, herbs, oil: beauty begins with the simplest elements.
8. The first step to good health care is making yourself heard.
9. Financial ease comes from understanding what your money is doing for you—as well as to you.
10. When you’re overloaded, fight the urge to work harder. Instead, slow down and reflect on what matters most.

Yesterday, in honor of the 10th Anniversary of 9-11, Fr. Jeff shared this prayer with us. It was found next to the body of a dead child in a concentration camp: "O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us. Remember the fruits we have been brought, thanks to this suffering- our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all this, and when they come to judgment let all the fruits which we have borne be their forgiveness." Let us pray this prayer together and endeavor with all our hearts to mean the words that we speak.

Late night reflections…

Late night reflections…

I spent a lot of time with my community today and it was such a beautiful day! Before Joe’s girlfriend (Em, who is really just lovely and wonderful) left (she came to visit for the holiday weekend), we played a bunch of board games and that was great: just being together and unplugged for a while. We played Bananagrams… which just takes me back to the hotel in Napflion where Gabbi Chee and I and other people—sorry, I can’t remember who—played Bananagrams and we ate dolmates—Gabbi is the one who got me hooked. Then, after Em left (which was sad for all of us, she’s a great part of our community), the men grilled and we ate wonderful hamburgers (with cheese and bacon inside the burger) and brats and grilled onions and peppers. Then Matt shared a giant cupcake (I thought of you, Mark) with everyone else while I ate a gf cupcake (you can buy a four pack of frozen gf cupcakes for like $6). Since they were just sharing the one big cupcake and eating it with forks, Michelle had me put my plate right next to it so I wouldn’t feel left out of the sharing.

After dinner, we played cornhole for a couple hours, which I never quite got good at, and then just hung around having fun.

The picture is of a cornhole set like the one we played with, except that ours has a huge "UD" written on it-- UD for U Dayton, where three of my housemates went to college, not for UDallas.

Amy led us in a wonderful community meditation and prayer; we offered up intentions, which I always think is good. After that was our meeting and then, as if we hadn’t already eaten enough, Joe made these wonderful homemade chocolate milkshakes which we enjoyed while we watched Star Wars (the 5th one?). It was just a really lovely night, filled with such great and wonderful friends. After Star Wars was over and Joe and Amy went to bed, I practiced guitar in the prayer room, which I am trying to do more often.

My guitar is getting slowly better. I can now play several songs while singing them. It’s the coordination involved in strumming, playing the right chords, and singing all at the same time that gets to me. I have the songs that Jill (a dear friend from UD) taught me down, but singing at the same time usually makes me mess up the strumming. I’m learning, though. It’s just so frustrating (and humbling) for me to be so bad at something that so many of my friends are so very good at, particularly when I’ve been doing it longer (off and on) than several of them. Plus, my older “brother” is like a guitar genius, which lessens my inclination to learn, because I love to listen to him play (alas, I can’t just have David around at all times to play the guitar when I need him!).

At any rate, there’s my day.

I’ve been reflecting on things a lot lately. I think it comes from being in a new place, a place I did not choose and am still a little uncertain of. I’m so happy here, but at the same time I’m frustrated because I know I’m not where I want to be. I’ve never been good at the seemingly passive trusting God to take me where I need to go, so my first instinct is to fight. I have this perfect idea of where I want to be… married (to some yet-to-be-identified perfect man), living on a farm, raising kids, chickens, bees, and anything else imaginable and having the perfect garden. I want to keep studying my Greek, but it’s hard to find the time and I feel that love, that passion slipping away from me. I want to be a good cook—something that has been almost completely set back by my allergies and my new schedule. There are just so many things that I want to be that I wonder if they will ever come to pass. I’m reminded of that Barlow Girl song I loved as a junior in high school—Surrender…

--------------------------------
"Surrender"
My hands hold safely to my dreams,
clutching tightly not one has fallen.
So many years I've shaped each one,
reflecting my heart showing who I am.
Now you're asking me to show
what I'm holding oh so tightly.
Can't open my hands can't let go.
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?

Surrender, surrender you whisper gently
You say I will be free
I know but can't you see:
my dreams are me, my dreams are me?

You say you have a plan for me,
and that you want the best for my life.
Told me the world had yet to see
what you can do with one
that's committed to Your call.
I know of course what I should do,
that I can't hold these dreams forever.
If I give them now to You,
will You take them away forever?
Or can I dream again?
--------------------------------

I feel like it’s such a cheesy song, but I love the line that says “my dreams are me.” They are, they are essentially all that I am, and still, after accepting the changes in my life and in God’s call for me, I have a hard time letting them go. I guess we all do.

But here I am, two weeks into this new home, this new life. And I love it. Really, I do. Sure, I miss so many of my dear friends from Dallas (every day, I feel like I’m aching for them) and sure, I am still feeling extraordinarily guilty that I’m not at home with my dad, but I at least have some sort of peace in my heart because I know that this place, however unlike my imagined future from a few years ago it might be, is where God has called me to and I (am trying to) trust Him.

And so we go.

epic tale of fail

So, I’ve finished two weeks at Butler now and it’s starting to really feel like home. I’m getting to know the students better and am truly enjoying my time with my mentor, Fr. Jeff. I’ve had my first women’s ministry meetings, which were GREAT! I mean, I’m no Julia Rooney, but I think I pull in at a decent second. My community is doing great and although some might say we’re still in the honeymoon stage, I think it’s going to be a great two years. Plus, the people we live with from the LaLanne program from UDayton are pretty cool, too.

It took me a while to decide just what to do for WM, but I finally decided on the books Spiritual Freedom by Fr. Dave Pivonka for the freshmen and Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World for the upperclass women. I think that these books adequately reflect the issues that the women are dealing with at this point in their lives and the women seemed to enjoy the introductory nights. The upperclass women’s ministry felt so comfortable, it was almost like being back at UD. I think that I will greatly value these opportunities for working with the women of Butler-- they’re such amazing women. One of them, who I am really enjoying getting to know (she kind of reminds me of Meeri), is just a livewire and very wise. She spent the summer on an organic farm in Ireland, so I have joked that I want to be her when I grow up. But all of these women are just wonderful—so filled with beauty and grace, it’s a pleasure to work and pray with them.

Anyways, things have been more or less boring. I mean, not really boring, but there’s not a real story to tell other than the epic tale of fail from last night (I’m not even exaggerating…). We’re working on getting into a rhythm. We’ve watched a lot of movies, played Disney Scene-It and that’s just about it.

So, the epic tale of fail: I didn’t want to cook. This is always a bad sign, so I should have known better than to move forward and make plans, but alas…. My mom had given me a gift card to PF Changs and so I offered to take Amy for dinner (who wants to eat fancy Chinese food alone?). The nearest one is like 10-15 minutes from the house, which isn’t too bad, so I thought we’d just go there. Well, that’s downtown next to the stadium and there was a game, so there wasn’t any parking. So, not wanting to give up, we drove another twenty minutes to the next nearest one, which is way at the Northern end of Indy. There, we found a line so long that after spending about ten minutes in line to get our names on the list, the lady told us that there was an hour and twenty minute wait. She wasn’t very nice, either, which I didn’t appreciate (there are ways to deal with customers and rudeness is not one of them). So, we didn’t stay (the gift card is still unused). Now, at this point, we’re 30 minutes from home and HUNGRY and we’re looking around for a place to eat. Now, because I’m gluten and lactose intolerant, we have to be careful about where we go to eat. Amy was feeling Chinese food and there was another Chinese place across the road, so I decided to call the restaurant and ask about their gf options. I got some lady who barely spoke English, which for a normal person is a sign of a great Chinese place, but not so great when you’re allergic to freaking everything. I asked if they had food without gluten and the lady thought I said glue, so she assured me that there was no glue in their food. I tried to communicate my questions with her, but finally gave up, said thank you, and hung up. We ended up eating at Outback, but they didn’t have the gf bun and fries that had made me so excited in South Bend, so although Amy and I had fun sitting and talking and sort of watching the Irish football game on the tv, it wasn’t the exciting dining experience I had been looking forward to when we left home. Fortunately, the waitress was really nice and friendly and the food was delish and the company was pretty great. Finally, having fed ourselves reasonably well, we left the restaurant and drove homeward. I had my GPS, so we didn’t get lost, but because we had gone SO far from home in search of PF Changs, we came home from the completely opposite direction from which we had come (and from which we were used to coming). We ended up on the street that takes us to our street, but then James (the GPS) took us down another street and then had us turn on a street that he thought went through to Churchman but in fact led into a forest. So, after barely missing the trees, we turned around in some creepy driveway and finally, after much nervousness, made it safely home. It was an adventure for sure.

Now, I’m avoiding my homework while tackling everything else on my to-do list. Sometime tonight I’m going to watch a new episode of Dr. Who! This new season is just blowing my mind… it’s so great.

Anyways, I hope that updates you all for now!

K.