Summer Reading

Pages worn and weathered, yellowed on the edges, spine crinkled in half and splitting at the ends--a book well loved and well read:  my copy of Ella Enchanted* by Gail Carson Levine.

It's my favorite book of all time, even now in my mid-twenties.  I read it every year, at least once, usually in the summer when I feel like going on an adventure with an old friend.

You may find it strange that of all the books this English major has read, a children's book is her favorite, but this book changed me.  It tells the classic tale of Cinderella, but with depth, believable and likable characters, humor, seriousness, and charm.  It transported me in the sixth grade to an enchanted place where even I, shy and awkward as I was, could rise up to become a heroine.

I'm sure feminists everywhere love that this heroine isn't just a timid good girl waiting for her prince to come along and save her.  She is brave, clever, and determined and takes her destiny into her own hands.  She doesn't win the prince over simply by her beauty, but by being her spunky self.  Their love grows naturally, and in the end, she sacrifices everything to save him.

Reading it now, I recognize how the simple but rich telling is similar to Ernest Hemingway's "less is more" style that I love so much.  I notice how and why the author's choice of descriptors enchanted me so much.  I pay attention to the mechanics, and wonder at the brilliant simplicity of it all.

Ella's narration heavily influenced my own voice in writing.  I realized early on that I would never conquer ogres, or amaze anyone with my quick wit.  But I could use my words in my writing to say what was in my heart, to use my power of the pen to fight the good fight.

I aspire.

*I know what you may be thinking:  "Isn't that a movie with Anne Hathaway?"  The answer is yes, and at the same time an emphatic NO.  There is a movie starring Anne Hathaway with the same title and same basic concept, but an entirely different story, different characters and blatant disregard for the brilliance of the book.  I saw the movie once in theaters when it first came out, and I was traumatized.  I had such high hopes that here, finally, people who hadn't had a chance to read the book might be able to have at least a glimpse at one of my favorite stories ever.  But it was not to be.

I realize now that this comes to mind (I try to block out the movie and pretend that it doesn't exist most of the time), that this is the real reason I never liked Anne Hathaway as an actress.  Because in my heart, as a young impressionable woman, she destroyed my favorite character on the big screen. It wasn't exactly her fault, since she didn't write the script, but she completely misrepresented my favorite literary character--something I was unable to forgive her for until she played the desperate prostitute in Les Miserables.  (I couldn't not respect her after that.)

If you have seen the movie Ella Enchanted but never read the book, whether or not you liked the movie, please do yourself a favor and read the book.*

A Simple Life

It was definitely time for a vacation, so we ventured forth on

(1)  an epic road trip.
          We hopped in his silver Saturn and split out of Ohio.  Skies were blue, summer was near, and we were burnt out.  Ohio became West Virginia became Pennsylvania and we stopped to clog our arteries with sandwiches topped with french fries and coleslaw (#Primanti Brothers #totallyworthit).  The sinking sun painted the sky lavender.  The earth around us rose until we were surrounded by dark peaks.  The road became winding and I fell asleep, only to wake and see how many more stars there were out here to wish on.
           Days of new scenery in a place where life is a little slower but also a little fuller.  It was an escape from the daily grind and perpetual fake-it-til-you-make-it service, a chance to volunteer and explore and spend time with family and friends.  We ate super-fresh ice cream and possibly the best pizza I've ever had, went treasure-hunting, and found new inspiration.
          The 7 hour trip home became 12 because we didn't want to come home.  We stopped whenever and wherever we wanted--Emlenton, Muskingum, Tlaquepaque to name a few--and returned fresh and ready to tackle

(2)  this thing called life.
        Funny where life leads us when we follow Christ--on greater adventures than we ever could have imagined for ourselves.  Through the twists and turns, two old friends/roommates/household sisters reunited to share our stories and our faith over a meal of Mexican food and margaritas--a communion.  She told me about a book, how her life was changed by

(3)  Our Lady of Kibeho.
        My friend gave me a copy of the book and I was enthralled.  It was such a simple, beautiful, moving telling of the apparitions of Our Lady to the African people.  She appeared in Rwanda and warned about the genocide that would occur if the people didn't change their hearts (not their religions, their hearts).
        She spoke of the importance of kindness, forgiveness, love for each other and all of humanity.  She spoke of the importance of suffering, that we can't reach heaven without it, so we should be thankful for it, because it means we're on our way.
        She spoke of her love for all mankind, that she desires us to come to her Son through herself, and I marveled at the way

(4)  Mary constantly reveals herself to us.
         She has appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes, to the three children at Fatima, to the young women at Kibeho--to name a few.  When I was in Austria, she kept quietly revealing herself to me, leading me closer to her Son.  She called me to serve as a handmaid in Lourdes and help guide people to her by

(5)  Marian grace.
          Marian Grace also happens to be the name of a Nashville-based music group that aspires to transform the world through beauty.  Their albums Marian Grace: Ancient Hymns and Chants and What Wondrous Love have become the soundtrack of my life these days.  The beauty and the glory in the music elevates my soul and turns my heart and mind to heaven.  Listening to their music has truly inspired me and helped me find that

(6)  inner peace.
           No matter where I go in this life, I am confident that God's loving hand is guiding me.  I am slowly learning how to let go of my own whiny needs and wants to live for a greater love and glory. I've stopped comparing myself to others and started accepting my own faults and weaknesses.  I've stopped wasting around watching lame TV shows on Netflix and started spending my time doing more constructive things.  I've stopped worrying so much about getting eight hours of sleep every night and started making sure I maintain a balance of work, rest, exercise, family-time, catching up with friends, prayer, etc.  I'm working on being over-prepared but also able to go with the flow, having a lot to do, but also making time to play a game with my little sister when she asks.
           I've found that these little adjustments make a big difference, and allow me to maintain inner peace while I struggle to find my place here, to be in the world but not of it, to stand up for what I know is true.
           It's a simple life I lead, but it's rich and full, and I am thankful for every moment.

My mom used to tell me "You don't want to be in love; you want to be in love in a movie."  She was right.  I've learned a lot in recent years.  I've learned firsthand that love isn't all sunshine and roses, and that the dreams I had were only dreams of a half-life, not life lived to the full.  I've learned now that every day is a lesson, an adventure, an opportunity to grow and learn and love more.

And I found this article, thought it was interesting, and decided to post it here:
http://www.catholicvote.org/the-truth-about-men-women-love-and-porn-in-2-minutes-and-37-seconds/

31 Days of Mary

I don't remember how or when or where, but at some point while I was at school, I stumbled on a gem of a devotion for the month of Mary: The 31 Days of Mary.  For each day of the month of May, there is a virtue of Mary and a little blurb for reflection.  It's a simple way to meditate on Mary each day during the month we devote to her.  I have been posting these blurbs daily via Twitter and Facebook, but I've had several people ask where they can find the whole devotion.  I've searched online and can't find where it came from, so, hoping that I'm not infringing on anyone's rights, I typed it up, made a few adjustments, and posted it here (in the right column under "Pages").

May it bring you closer to Our Lady and Our Lord!

Ruah

It's the wind that kept on blowing that mid-May afternoon--
as shadows stretched across bending grass,
and leaves sprinkled sunshine over shivering grins--
life in its full,
joy that is complete
when you simply be.

So real it's like a dream
and you never want to wake
to find that the sun shining through the leaves
is a lie.

He takes a picture of the sun, the clouds, the sky,

and you drink it all in.
You think he's fascinating,
he thinks you're drunk.

Maybe you're right (you are),
maybe he is (he's not),
either way the bells toll for you both.

And the wind,
the wind just keeps on blowing,
and your grin begins to tremble.
As you drink the day in you begin to giggle
and think, maybe he's right--
wouldn't that be fun?

It's that moment you can't forget
when He smiles
and you are shaken
to the core
that One so Good
should love you,
that, even though
you drive west in the morning with
the sunrise in your rear view mirror,
the Wind,
that Breath of dreaming and Spirit of truth,
keeps blowing in your ear.

Endurance

I have a bad habit of thinking that I can save the world.  It's not so much that I think I have what it takes as it is that I have these desires to do more with my life than make coffee, to go out and actually help people, to see the suffering in the world come to an end.

This idea first manifested in college when I thought I could save a person close to me. That my love was big enough to change a heart turned out to be a silly dream. As I wondered at the mess I'd made, I asked God why this had to be.  After three nights of crying myself to sleep, He told me, there in the deepest part of my heart that hurt so much: "You didn't trust me."


He didn't just leave me with that somewhat cryptic message.  He guided me along the way of healing through discovering a devotion to the Divine Mercy of Jesus.  It was a journey I'd already been on unknowingly, but the pieces began to fit together and I began to see more clearly every day that I can't save anyone--not even myself--because God has already saved the world.  By His Passion on the Cross, His death and His resurrection, Christ has already set us free.

I began to reflect on the Passion, and to unite my sufferings to Christ's on the cross.  Finally, after many months of prayer and novenas (the 54 day rosary novena is a personal favorite) I reached a point in my personal life of being able to say to my friend:

I have trusted in the Eternal God for your welfare, and joy has come to me from the Holy One because of the mercy that will swiftly reach you from your eternal savior. With mourning and lament I sent you forth, but God will give you back to me with enduring gladness and joy. (Baruch 4:22-23)

My heart was finally at a point of peace knowing that when I see my friend in heaven (and I will see him in heaven), our earthly drama and suffering will be perfected in "enduring gladness and joy."

Still, I had a nagging thought that I was supposed to do more. I graduated college during a recession with a degree in English and no career goals, so while I went back to work at my high school job at the family business, I began reading about the problems of the world.

I was inspired to go to third world countries and kick down doors of brothels and save the innocent women forced to work in them.  I wanted to track down not the pimps but the men who paid for such services and so created a market for the business of selling people and objectified women everywhere. I wanted to teach children whose only chance at freedom from poverty was education.  I wanted to provide a safe haven for women who are victims of abuse, or who want to choose life but can't do it on their own.  I wanted to be Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa.

But I am most definitely not either of these women.  And from the looks of things, going off to foreign countries to fight perverts and love the poor and abused is not what God has planned for me.

Like Saint Therese, I wanted to choose all vocations, so I chose love, which encompasses all other vocations.  I began to realize that, like Therese, as much as I desired to be a missionary, I was destined to stay close to home.  I found myself making coffee (lots of coffee) and I realized that God was teaching me (slowly and patiently because the selfish brat in me won't go down without a fight) how to love.

I'm finding that all God wants of us is for us to be who He created us to be.  If we let Him love us as we are, if we stop trying so hard to be what we're not, or at least what we're not yet, He will be able to accomplish His mission through us.

As for suffering, it has been my experience that it brings us closer to the heart of Jesus.  I believe that in our sinful world, we cannot be free of it, but we can embrace it as an opportunity to take part in the redemptive work of God.  In the suffering of our neighbor, we can learn to be compassionate and understanding.  SO much easier said than done, but St. Edith Stein says it so well:

The world is in flames. The conflagration can also reach our house. But high above all flames towers the cross. They cannot consume it. It is the path from earth to heaven. It will lift one who embraces it in faith, love, and hope into the bosom of the Trinity.

The world is in flames. Are you impelled to put them out? Look at the cross. From the open heart gushes the blood of the Saviour. This extinguishes the flames of hell. Make your heart free by the faithful fulfilment of your vows; then the flood of divine love will be poured into your heart until it overflows and becomes fruitful to all the ends of the earth. Do you hear the groans of the wounded on the battlefields in the west and the east? You are not a physician and not a nurse and cannot bind up the wounds. You are enclosed in a cell and cannot get to them. Do you hear the anguish of the dying? You would like to be a priest and comfort them. Does the lament of the widows and orphans distress you? You would like to be an angel of mercy and help them. Look at the Crucified. If you are nuptially bound to him by the faithful observance of your holy vows, your being is precious blood. Bound to him, you are omnipresent as he is. You cannot help here or there like the physician, the nurse, the priest. You can be at all fronts, wherever there is grief, in the power of the cross. Your compassionate love takes you everywhere, this love from the divine heart. Its precious blood is poured everywhere soothing, healing, saving.

The eyes of the Crucified look down on you asking, probing. Will you make your covenant with the Crucified anew in all seriousness? What will you answer him? “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

The path from earth to heaven. . . the path from suffering to glory. . .the path from self to love. . .the way is by the cross, but we must have faith, we must believe, we must hope.

I aspire.

The Infinite In-Between

Sun sifts through new green leaves across from the river
and we sit on a jacket in the grass
and eat egg rolls and fortune cookies
under the honeysuckle trees.

The breeze brings sweet snow-white drops,
and our laughter bounces around our mini-urban forest.

Birthday wishes across the years come true
in this late afternoon with the boy who brought me flowers,
and a giant jug full of Bell's Oberon, fresh from the tap.

For a moment, we are infinite.

Then bells chime the hour,
bells toll for us in all our dreaming.

I know we can't stay here--it's time to go home.

Time--and we grow older.

Soon there is no wishing on candles,
no song,
just too much ice cream.

The magic is in the moment,
and the moment is gone before I realize
how truly thankful I am for it.

I was too busy thinking about forever to remember that forever is now, in the infinite beauty of the in-between.

Photo courtesy of Southern Belle Magazine