November 9, 2016 UncategorizedAmerica, Celebration, Clinton, Defeat, Forgiveness, Happiness, hope, Jokes, Joy., Kids, Kindness, Laugh, Losers, Love, media, News, Politicians, Politics, Preferences, Resignation, Society, Success, Television, Trump, Winnersflyinguineapig
I didn't vote. Many of you will be incredulously wondering "Why?" For me it was a matter of conscience. I did not feel that either candidate deserved my support. Of course no one is perfect. Everyone has some "dirt" on them. However, it seems to me that Mrs. Clinton is far too untrustworthy, and Mr. Trump has said far too many offensive, and quite frankly, disturbing things about far too many people, and I for one, believe that language matters.
What has been more disturbing to me, however, is how this election has affected relationships. Long-lasting friendships have fallen apart because of a presidential race. The fallout has even reached my fourth graders. Truthfully, I don't know much about Hillary Clinton outside of what I've seen on TV, but I thought she gave a really great speech today and accepted her defeat honorably. I can honestly say I'm proud of her for that.
What I would love to see is the rest of society doing the same. I don't like Trump, but the fact of the matter is, he's my president. That isn't going to change now for at least four years, so whether you've been a life-long Democrat, young progressive, Independent like myself, Republican, or anything else, it's time to face facts. It's time to band together. Our president is not our country. We are our country, and we make America what it is. Quite frankly, I don't like the party system. It makes politics exactly that: politics. It takes the focus away from real people and real issues and narrows in on the superfluous competition. It becomes a question of who will win and who will lose, rather than, what can be done to make our country better.
What will make our country better? The short answer is: love. The longer answer is uncertain. It's really up to us. Among other things, we certainly need to be kinder on the internet. We need to pay attention and learn what it means to be good Samaritans; we need to really see people. We need to recognize the significance and effects of language. We need to forgive. We need to be ready to speak and fight for what we believe in, and be kind while doing it. We need to learn how to take a hit. We need to learn how to graciously and quietly accept defeat. We need to laugh. We need to accept that jokes are meant to be taken as jokes. We need to celebrate. We need to read. We need to have fun. We need to stand behind our president and support our government when they make good decisions and be ready to fight when they don't. We need to recognize, love, and use our freedom.
The Moment Of "I Love You"
November 1, 2016 UncategorizedBelief, Beliefs, Catholic, Catholic Church, Christian Language, Dating, English, English Language, Faith, Friends, Friendship, Games, God, Good, Goodness, Happiness, High School, hope, Imagination, Jesus, Joy., Kids, Language, Life, Loneliness, Love, Miracle, Miracles, Peace, Personal, Relationships, Rhetoric, Rhetorical Devices, Salvation, Single, Singleness, Solitude, Spiritual, spirituality, Story, theology, Trust, Truth, Video Games, Writingflyinguineapig
I've tried to write this several times over and haven't been able to. Partly, I haven't known where exactly to begin, partly I haven't known what to include, partly, I find this kind of thing a bit cliche, and partly, it's a bit of a novel. All that being said, I've decided to start with a preface. As I said, More often than not, I find a lot of "coming to faith" stories at least somewhat annoying. A lot of them have the same, or at least a similar notion that the writer was so terrible before, and drastically better, morally speaking, immediately after their conversion. I also find it problematic when a person shares their story and neglects basic rules of writing style, spelling, and grammar. While it may be more important on some level to simply get the story out, the neglect lessens its credibility. More could be said, but I think those are issues for another post. Now I will share my story.
I grew up Catholic, largely because of a promise my mom made. When I was a year old I was diagnosed with a kind of Muscular Dystrophy (MD) that would kill me by the age of five if I was lucky. I don't really know the time frame for all this, but when my parents got the news, my mom started praying like a maniac. I had tests done, and the news continued to be bad. I need to pause for a moment to explain a Catholic peculiarity here. A common misconception is that Catholics worship the Virgin Mary. The truth is that she has a very high place of honor, being that she is Jesus' mother, and we recognize that her prayers are helpful and influential. Now to get back to my story, the news was bad, and eventually my mom gave up. Rather, she stopped praying to God, and asked Mary to pray for her because if anyone in the world knew what it was like to lose a child, it would be her.
Circumstances continued like this for about six months, if I remember correctly until one day my dad called my mom. He had taken me to an appointment and inexplicably, things had drastically changed. What had seemed like a ritual reiteration of a death sentence for six months had suddenly turned to a promise of life. Somehow the test results had drastically changed. I had a kind of MD, the effects of which were not entirely certain, but I would grow up, go to school, and do "normal kid stuff." I did mention that my mom made a promise. When she asked Mary to pray for me, she promised that she would raise me as a "good Catholic girl," so CCD was included in the "normal kid stuff" I ended up doing.
The truth is I have always been a believer in the sense that I want things to be true; I'm a bit gullible; my natural impulse is to trust people. As a child I believed in God, but when I was very young I knew him only vaguely as the Creator of the universe, and even then, not necessarily one who had a conscious mind or paid any attention to us. Eventually that changed. I came to believe that he paid attention to us, but mostly like someone watching an ant farm. As an older child, particularly in my middle school years, I just lost interest in God. I got busy doing more "normal kid stuff," as does everyone.
In particular, my friends and I became very busy defending Mythic Island, an invented universe that was under siege from the wolf demon Agorauth. One of my friends and I created a comic for the school newspaper. I wrote the story and she drew the pictures. Every Friday night we would all congregate at my house, eat terrible pizza and play Star Wars Battlefront. Of course, since it was middle school, it wasn't all fun. We can only assume that our group was comprised of the most unpopular kids in school. We all got picked on in one way or another.
High school changed things drastically and quickly. The summer before our Freshman year, we ended our Mythic Island adventure. That same year, one of my closest friends got incredibly busy with sports, so much so that we could hardly hang out. He also got a girlfriend, and I realized that boys could be more than just friends. Towards the end of that year I got a guitar who I named Francisco. You can probably imagine why.
At that time, I was still in CCD, and for a reason that was inexplicable at the time, I was hating it less and less. Most of my friends' parents had allowed them to drop out years earlier, but my mom was not going to break her promise. CCD classes in ninth and tenth grade were structured towards getting students ready to receive the sacrament of Confirmation, should they choose to receive it. A "Yes" signifies that a person is an adult and active member in the Church. The odd thing was, though I was becoming more receptive to what we were learning, there was little emotion in it. It was just another class.
Another friend of mine was enrolled in the program after his parents divorced in the middle of our Freshman year because his dad thought it would be helpful for him. He hated every second of it. He had changed after the divorce. It had made him a completely different person. He was dispondent and reclusive. He stopped doing homework; wouldn't hand in projects; intentionally failed tests. He was also rather disrespectful to our teacher in CCD, which I did not appreciate. I only mention these details about my friend because in part, I think it made me want to make up for it, so I participated more in class and I really listened. I wasn't passive during that time.
We completed the Confirmation class at the end of our Sophomore year. It concludes with an all-day retreat at which we had discussions, weird spiritual activities which I didn't exactly understand, and a mass, if I remember correctly. There was also a lot of free time, and my friend and I spent that time silently playing cards. At the end of the day we were given a letter written by our parents. I don't remember much of what mine said. I do remember them saying they were proud of me, and that from this point on, my spirituality was my business. Finally, we were asked, "Will you be confirmed?" I said I would.
At the beginning of my Junior year I went through the actual ceremony, and I did keep going to church, but had I been asked at the time, I would not have been able to tell why. For the next two years I can, I think, accurately say that I was a Catholic in practice, but an agnostic in belief. I still didn't really know who God was. I knew what he did, but that was it. During that time, I had begun to feel an increasing sense of loneliness. One of my friends had already had a girlfriend and a break-up. My other friend had been in a relationship for three years. I had never dated. However, this loneliness was more complex than the desire for a partner. I constantly needed to be around people. If I couldn't find someone to be with on Friday nights, I would sit alone and cry. I felt unneeded, and I hated it.
Inevitably, we all graduated, and my friends went away to college. Because I need help with a few basic things, I commuted to school and lived at home. It so happened that I applied to two schools, and was only accepted to one, so that's where I went. I had hated the school search. The whole thing felt wrong to me, but something about Gordon was different. Their campus was really nice. The people there were really nice. They had a creative writing program, which sounded really nice. I somehow felt at home there. Gordon is a Christian school, and I think normally I would have had reservations about that, but unlike every school I looked at, it just felt "right."
Starting classes at Gordon was like stepping into a whole new universe. We started classes by praying. We were required to attend chapel three times a week, and I enjoyed it. People freely talked about having a relationship with Jesus. This was all great, except that it made me more lonely. The one thing I hung on to was that my classmates and teachers and chapel speakers had taught me to pray in a way my church hadn't. Don't get me wrong, now that I've been Christian for five years, I appreciate and use the more formal Catholic prayers quite a lot, but first I had to learn how to talk. It was shortly after we had begun classes in mid August that I had begun praying that God would help me find someone to love me. I prayed this almost every night before going to sleep with increasing desperation.
I don't remember the exact date, but I can conclusively say I truly became Christian one night in October, 2011. I was lying in bed, and I was crying. I was praying from the darkest, lowest, smallest, loneliest part of my being. I don't know what would have happened had it passed like any other night, but for some reason I said, "I love you," and I felt an overwhelming sensation of comfort and peace and warmth, and I felt like I wasn't alone in the best possible way. It was spontaneous, and my only explanation is that he was saying, "I'm not going to find someone for you. I love you." A lot has happened since then. I almost left the Catholic Church, but have since fully embraced it for a number of reasons, which I won't explain here. I've never dated and have become perfectly content being single. What was sparked at the moment of that "I love you" has turned into a real relationship. I have a writing career, and am studying theology independently. I don't necessarily know where it will go, but I trust God.
Because in my world guinea pigs can fly