Freedom from the future

I've been meaning to write for well over a week now, and then midterms happened. Even now there is so much I should be doing -- for one thing it's going on three and I'm still dressed -- but I think if I let this go any longer I'll never find the time.

Retreat was interesting in a lot of ways. There was more structure than last year under our old chaplain, probably because our new priest spent many years running a retreat house in the U.K. Of course, the fact that this year had a central theme had a lot to do with that, too.

Pray instead of worry -- story of my life. Now and then I find myself thinking "let go and let God" ... even though my old confessor drove me crazy with that slogan and I never listened. He was right, though. And for the first time in my life, I can say that I think I'm finally learning to do that.

We spent a good deal of time going over some of my favorite passages in Scripture -- most of Matthew 6 particularly. And every now and then he would send us off for 20 minutes to journal and pray. As I did, I finally allowed myself to make an uncensored list of every fear and worry that plagued me. That first night, I filled the page and let the tears come over how controlling I have let them be. I was so frustrated with myself, disappointed, and scared. If I lost this much sleep at only 20, what would I be like in another 20 years?

Over the next 24 hours I wrote a lot more, during Father's talks, during those periods of reflection, and sometimes at night after everyone else had gone to sleep, always praying for peace. The real change came on my quiet hour.

Saturday afternoon I walked the grounds, watching the leaves blow (have you ever noticed that it looks as if a hand is scattering them? I have. God's little fingerprints, I like to think. :)) until I found my way to the little church that's always empty, letting me pray aloud. Every time I walk in there, I'm flooded with memories -- I lashed out at Him there once in October when I lost love, and again in March after I had lost my faith.

This time, I asked a stream of questions, most of them like my list, "What am I supposed to do about...?"

Until last weekend, May 13, 2011 was going to be the end of my world. I would be ripped from the safety of academia and shoved, helpless, into the real world where nothing was certain. No Newman, less independence living at home, less contact with friends. Providing a life for myself -- a job, somewhere to live, a support system, maybe a new church, (please God) someone to walk with me in marriage someday...What am I going to do? How am I going to do this? I can't do it by myself!


Just like that, it hit me, all that we had been learning, and I was stunned into silence. "Who among you by worrying can add a moment to his life?" "Have no anxiety about anything." "You see how God cares for the sparrows, so how much more will He care for you? You are much more precious than they."

God has gotten me this far. Every step of the way, He has come through, even though it's not instantaneous and sometimes rocky. And He's promised me only this moment, not tomorrow. I can't worry about the future anymore. When I do, I miss today. Hell, I might not even be here tomorrow. But I have the present.

Trusting in His providence 100% for the first time is so liberating. I was always so scared to do it, but I left my baggage at the altar in Elverson and walked away. I'm okay with that, because as long as I stick with Him, I'll get where I need to be. That's something we're promised, too, and He always keeps His promises. End of story.

ETA: This verse literally just appeared on my Facebook. A God hug, as Cat says...

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. 

--Proverbs 3:5-6

Heading for the hills!

Just a brief post tonight because it's after 2:30, I've gotten very little sleep this week, and still have a suitcase to pack.

My campus ministry is joining up with another college in the area for our usual semester retreat this weekend in Elverson. We leave this afternoon, and I'm thrilled to say that all of this week's homework is taken care of, so I'll have no worries while I'm there.

That's ironic, considering our theme will be "pray instead of worry." Where was this retreat last fall? Or last spring? Some things are constant in my life, and worry is unfortunately one of them...I'm looking forward to seeing what God will do. All I know is that when it comes to retreat weekends, He never disappoints.

That said, I leave with an open mind, open heart, and a very big bag of junk food. ;) I'll remember the particular intentions of those of you I know to pray for, and ask that you do the same for us.

See you Sunday!

Delivered!

Okay, so get this.

You'll remember that last week I wrote a post lamenting about how much pressure I'm under where music ministry is concerned. This weekend, in order to try and curt tail some of my stress, I decided to work ahead and prepare for several weeks' worth of Masses at once. This way, I'd already have the songs "under my fingers" if you will, which would make things a lot less tedious when it came time to use them this month.

At some point in the process, I turned to the next song and discovered a page worth of *mess* -- four sharps in the key signature, 6/8 for a time signature (fun, but hard to sight read), and no music given for the verses. After a solid two hours of learning music, seeing that made me snap. In typical girl fashion, I got all watery and went stomping off to the shower to deal with my blood pressure.

While there, I did some serious praying on a lot of bitterness that I've experienced lately, including my responsibilities to the paper and Newman, plus some unexpected hurt by a friend that has left me feeling more than a little bruised in the romance department. (Not you, Joe. Promise.) Essentially, what I said was "Lord, you know that I have all of this frustration and sadness on my shoulders, and I am really having a hard time dealing with it all at once like this. Please give me the strength to handle it, or handle it yourself?"

Today...I mentioned to our chaplain that I wouldn't be playing a certain Mass in a few weeks. He said that was fine, and then added as an afterthought: "Oh, by the way, you won't need to do the piano at St. Bridget's -- that's a large burden on you, and so they're going to bring someone in."

WHAT? Really??? To top it off, he also heard me singing today at the rehearsal, and added that taking me off the piano would add a very strong alto/tenor to the group. Singing, by the way, is why I joined music ministry in the first place.

And within five minutes of that encounter, I got a chance to reconcile with the gentleman who had hurt me. I knew last week that I hadn't been very good to him -- giving someone the cold shoulder and a "don't touch me" just because of my own hurts was not my proudest moment. But, because I actually humbled myself and apologized, things are a lot better now. In the process, I've found that the hurt I was hanging onto has eased a great deal.

Just like that, two big stressors in my life have been completely removed. God answers prayers, folks. :)

Sex, Booze and ... Jesus?

This entry's title expresses the thoughts of the local media and student body as we advertised Theology on Tap this week. A South Jersey "chapter" of the young adult fellowship had its debut outing yesterday at the bar right down the street from campus.

Never would I have pictured myself at a bar with 80 other people ages 18 to 35 listening to a talk about chastity and rocking out to Kutless over drinks. But it happened, and it was awesome. =) (For the record, I didn't drink anything of my own, thank you very much. One more month!)

Our speaker for the evening was Dawn Eden, a rock journalist and Catholic convert who published The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On in 2007.

"God wants you to have great sex," she joked, earning a hearty applause from the crowd. She quickly followed that up with the clarification that great sex is the kind that is given to one person freely, fruitfully and for life in marriage. But it doesn't mean we have to shut ourselves down and become asexual as long as we're single.

It's funny how so many people believe the way to stay pure is by viewing anything sexual as perverted and evil. The problem with this way of thinking is twofold: first, it backfires in the sense that resisting it is like ignoring an elephant in the room; you will go crazy if you try to act like your sexuality is nonexistent. When Dawn told us this, there was a sense of shuffling feet and people shifting awkwardly in their chairs. One of my girl friends nudged me knowingly in the ribs. Clearly, Dawn knows how we suffer. ;)

The second problem is that if sex is evil, then so is your body, your emotions and your thoughts. Too often people end up resenting any sort of pleasure under that philosophy, and that's gnosticism, which is unhealthy on a lot of levels (not to mention heretical, haha).

So if abstinence is the wrong way to stay pure, what's the right way? Chastity is different because it doesn't ignore sexuality or try to force it away. Instead, it just shuffles our priorities to a place where emotional intimacy and communication are number one. You can be very intimate and very happy without ever touching the person you love -- and as someone who was in a long-distance relationship for three years, I can attest to that. :)

Is it difficult? Absolutely. Do you screw up sometimes? For sure. But there is something so freeing in not having to worry about providing for a man's (or woman's) "needs," being judged or compared or disrespected or used. When you commit to being chaste, you commit to loving a person for the way God created them, and not just for the what they can do, if you know what I mean.

On a college campus, chastity is a laughable concept. Just about everyone feels like their goal in life is to get physical as quick as possible, and for some, with as many people as possible. My college paper runs a weekly sex column that has actually stirred up fierce debate on campus. Some are calling him a pig, and many others are saying "Hey, that's just how guys are." It's a mess of confusion, degradation and hurt.

It might be unpleasant a lot of the time, and I might be waiting a lot longer than my peers because of my commitment to stay a virgin until marriage (I hear people like me are avoided because of that! Their loss.), but in the end, the lack of baggage is totally worth it.

Confessions of a Disgruntled Music Minister

I've always said that I would never post anything online that I wouldn't want broadcast on the news, and the same holds true for this blog, at least to a certain extent. But at the same time, a lot of the reason why I write here is to work out both my triumphs and my face plants.

Today was a big, fat face plant.

The short version of it is that I stumbled into Newman an hour into music rehearsals because I was at a birthday party for my baby cousin. When I got there, seven pairs of eyes were on me. There's only so much you can accomplish without a pianist, after all. The predictable knot of anxiety tightened on cue in my stomach.

I'm not going to lie -- I hate this job. It fell into my lap as our old pianist fell out with the group and left unexpectedly. I've never had more than a year of formal lessons, and the 15 years I've been playing piano has been by ear and sight reading. Thankfully, I can read music, which has helped immensely in this process.

But then there's the issue of dealing with eight singers, a clarinet player and a flute player, the majority of whom don't read music, learning about what makes a proper liturgy, dealing with the priest's opinions, suggestions, and last minute changes. I know a fair bit of my home church's hymnal from Mass, but often the songs that are chosen for me are totally unfamiliar. Of course, on top of my classes, the newspaper and my freelancing gig, I'm expected to learn all of these songs by Sunday, supply the propers for Mass, and get the congregation singing.

Some days it goes down pretty well, but on days like today we just fall flat on our faces. One month from now, we're going to be moving to the local parish, where I'm naturally going to be playing for the student Masses.

...I can barely hold together a Mass while hiding in a dark basement chapel, let alone a church!

Couple that with having to abstain from Communion because I couldn't leave rehearsal to confess, and leaving my purse in the car, forcing my parents to drive it all the way back up here from home, I'm about ready to curl up in a ball and forget tonight happened. :P

The most that I can do on days like these is take a long, deep breath and trust that this job wouldn't have fallen to me if God didn't find me capable of it. Sometimes, I wonder if He's thinking of the right person when He does these things. ;) But hey, I've gotten this far. And I can take the good with the bad, too. Serving others is worth it in the end...but man, sometimes it's frustrating.

Better luck next week, I hope.

Benedetto, Britain, and Media Bull

So the Holy Father has been spending the weekend over in the UK. Good stuff going on over there. (It's refreshing to hear him actually speak in a language I can understand, too.)

Of course, the Church being in the state it's in, anything the pope says is going to be met with fierce opposition, which to some extent is fair and justified.

Though I have to admit tonight that, as a member of the media, watching the coverage of this trip is torturous. That is, when it's even being covered at all. The prayer vigil with Benediction from Hyde Park earlier this evening wasn't broadcast in English secular media.

It's been a huge talking point on most of the major news programs on this side of the pond, but predictably, they completely miss the point.

"Pope speaks to victims of sexual abuse," the headline reads on my AOL homepage. Brian Williams tells me tonight that this trip comes as the Church is still reeling from the most recent scandal. And 6ABC showed plenty of video footage of angry mobs. Never mind the incredible joy and love so obvious in the cheers of thousands at the vigil.

"But tell me what ELSE happened!" I complained at the TV. Part of me can guess what the response in the media would be to that: Nobody cares what else happened. Priests molest little kids. And we're supposed to be the world's watchdogs. Anything else Benedict has to say is unimportant.

Both the Catholic and the reporter in me are frustrated tonight. I know it, the Pope knows it, we all know it...the Vatican screwed up big time. They've apologized over and over and over again, making both spiritual and financial reparation for the sins of that 1% in the clergy who have shamed us. Will the media ever let the Church move forward?

The pack mentality drives me insane. Could we not actually suspend our judgments long enough to do our jobs and cover all sides with fairness? Charity, even?

I guess not.

On Vulnerability

I'm a reporter. It's a part of my job to ask people questions about themselves, to dig deep and find out their stories. Sometimes, I have to make people uncomfortable.

It's a little bit ironic, then, that when it's me in the hot seat, I just can't handle it.

It's something that I've been thinking about for the past few weeks, as my campus lost one chaplain in favor of another at the end of last semester. Now we have a new priest, someone whom we're all getting to know for the first time. At the same time, my parish at home is in the final stages of a merger process that will shift both the staff and congregation around. Both situations are far from comfortable, and in a way that's almost predictable for me, I find myself setting up walls. I deal with change by being stubborn and refusing to go with it.

As a rule, I am way too chatty and don't listen well enough. But at the same time, there are select few people to whom I actually show my true colors. That's not to say that I'm fake -- I'm about as real and honest as it gets -- but I can count on one hand the number of people that get to see me actually ... vulnerable.

Too often, I'm an open book. That has come back to bite me more than once, and in other circumstances I've given away pieces of myself that I can't take back now (emotionally and otherwise). So I suppose that it's fair to say being distant at first is my defense mechanism.

Opening up is so hard. In a way, if I open up to you, a bond is formed. Showing tiny parts of my heart and soul, that's so intimate and so scary. And more often than not in my life, those bonds have faded through time, distance or trouble. Sometimes, it just seems easier not to open up at all.

God has done so much to teach me humility and to accept that I need people. But it doesn't mean that allowing myself to be vulnerable is any less painful. More than anything else, I hate my neediness. The more I need people, the more I'm going to get hurt in the end.

How do I deal with that?

Woah.

Another gem to go on the list of a million reasons why I love Fr. Corapi:

"Who knows. Maybe on their deathbed that person that you love says 'Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner' because you were the one that cried for them and prayed for 40 years for them to come home. Truth brings a sword, that's the proximate effect of it, but its ultimate end is unity. So have a little patience! Be at peace! Be still and know that He is God! I'm sure that we put more people into hell than the amount that ever actually gets there."

Really, what can I say to that? Holy cow.

Acclimating

There is something both torturous and insanely gratifying about copy editing with an exhausted brain and fingers stained with ink. Purple ink.

The newsroom on campus is winding down for the night. All of our regular staff members have gone home, nowhere near brave enough to work into the wee hours. Only the editorial board, about ten of us, are still here; we'll stay here until the paper is done. The first issue will be printed in time for tomorrow morning, and every single page passes my desk for approval before the final draft is sent out. My advisor tells me I have the good mentality for a copy editor with the hours I keep (this morning's bedtime was 4:30 a.m.)

No pressure. Deep breath. The only things keeping me awake and sane through this process are caffeine, adrenaline and of course, grace.

It's a tedious job, but I love it. Really, I'm loving this whole year already. The atmosphere is almost tangibly different from last year. My roommates are friendly, sociable, and not wild partiers. There has been no anonymous vomit on my living room carpet as of yet. Then again, anything better than that is a huge step up.

We've been excited by the addition of several new freshman to Newman. This includes not one, but two pianists at around the same level of experience as me, and one girl who's cantored for three years. I asked God for help with the music ministry, and once again, He's provided.

The editors at the school paper aren't always my kind of people, but I've been doing this long enough to learn how to bite my tongue and act with charity. This year is definitely shaping up to be a lesson in patience and humility, which is good ... I need lots of both if I have any hope of surviving in this field.

More than ever, being on campus feels like being at home. My out of shape calves are readjusting to walking everywhere after a summer behind a desk, I've been going out more than I could have ever anticipated, and am doing my best to take every opportunity that is sent my way.

Now and then, I remember that when May comes, I have to go home for good. I have to leave my second family behind. I have to ... be an adult.

That's the future threatening to rear its ugly head on me. But I'm prepared now. I know where my hope is, and besides, the only thing I can control is today.

On that note, back to work. I have some ideas brewing for future posts, it's just a matter of finding the time to sit down and do it.

Keeping it simple...

I'll be back with the school update this weekend, if I have time.

I told myself that I'd get more sleep this year. (I swear that half the reason I was in such bad shape emotionally last semester was because I ran on 4-5 hours of sleep for weeks at a time.) At almost 3:30 a.m., I'm not off to a good start. *snort*

Actually, I'm cleaning my room. Mama says that I tend to leave a tornado of papers everywhere I go, and without her to nag me up here, it's ten times worse. So every now and then I clear the place out. I do feel less scattered when I'm done.

In the process, I was thinking about old friends ... and something that Justin taught me a long time ago. It's not necessarily a Wiccan thing per se, but it serves them and us well:

If it's broken, fix it. And if you can't fix it, ditch it. Keep what works. God helps those who help themselves.

I threw that saying out a long time ago because I thought it smelled too much like relativism (Sorry, hon. I know it was stupid.) and I was scared to follow through. But look at what I did this summer. I cut out all of the petty things that wasted my time or caused me to stumble ... even though it hurt ... and look at where it's gotten me. =)

You guys are rarely ever wrong about these things. Maybe I should listen more often. ;)