I don't understand why the same people who pretend to care sooooo much end up disappearing on you. It happens time and time again and in the end I'm really just not phased by it at all. That's the true tragedy. Not that it happens but that I don't even care anymore, and I've come to expect it.

Missions

I have to be careful what I say here so that I don't get people confused. Ever since I was a kid I've wanted to do mission work; and while, yes, technically mission work can be done anywhere at any time, usually "mission work" entails being sent to a very poor place that is in desperate need of help. You give up life as you know it and the mission takes care of you just as you take care of it.
This is why I'll be leaving Athens to do this. Because while there is indeed work to be done with the Church here in town, there is hardly any FULL time work I can find and furthermore, it makes little sense to me to live across town and pretend I'm really leaving my world behind me. Mission work, in the full meaning of the term, differs very much from working a regular (secular) job and then simply participating in Church activities from time to time. It is living together with other missioners and becoming 100% open to helping others--becoming a representative of the Church so to speak. While any Catholic can do this from the comfort of his own home, there is something inherently different about living in community with other missioners and focusing directly on your spiritual needs and the needs of the mission you are assigned to. Most missioners are young people contemplating the religious life. It is a good first step to take in this direction, to see if you've really got what it takes to give your whole life to the Church. And some people do domestic missions to prepare them for a foreign mission somewhere down the line. The material benefits include getting your insurance paid, free food, room and board, loans deferred as well as monthly stipends. These are other things that just can't be found as just an avid Church goer and parish supporter. For financially-stressed kids out of college (like me), this is a perfect solution.
I needed to get that out into the open because not only have others voiced questions to me about my motivations, but I've wrestled with them myself for a few years now. Why, after all, go through all this "trouble" to move across the country if really there is no need to? I love the city I live in and could easily stay here. But the need is exterior and interior, so that is the reason for the necessity.

Ukraine-Bound

I got accepted to the Ukraine program and will be going this summer! I literally have tears in my eyes. The long-lost daughter of Ukraine is returning to the blue sky and golden wheat fields.

Hesitating

"He who hesitates is lost." Having a PhD for a mom isn't always cool. I remember in 5th grade we had an assignment to bring in an example of a proverb or saying. Of course all the kids went home and asked their parents for one. My mom gave me that one although I begged her to think of another. When I got to class the next day and rattled off the phrase, the teacher looked confused and the kids seemed weirded out. They all had normal sayings, sayings you hear everyday, like "between a rock and a hard place,"or "stop and smell the roses." You have to remember 5th grade. Everything is strange if it's even remotely new. I would have been alone in my erudite weirdness had it not been for Sara. She was always even creepier than I was, and I think that day she came up with something even more out there. Anyways, from that day forward, I've always imagined the words of my proverb during times like these--times when I can't make up my mind in the least and when every road forward seems equally scary and fascinating. The past few days have been filled with absolutely nothing but exercising (I need to get in shape if I'm going to be working my tail off for the next year) and filling out applications. In between these 2 deeds I've been calling various directors from various programs and getting the details, hoping that some fact somewhere will either make or break my decision. So far, my list has expanded only to decrease and expand again as I cross names off the list only to replace them with others. As of this moment, I am leaning towards a placement in NYC (because it focuses on evangelization), or one in LA (because the community living seems awesome and the program itself is just so incredible.) But because I wake up everyday wishing I were in the desert, I can't exclude a couple programs that would place me in New Mexico or Arizona; and because I think it would be cool to teach in an inner-city Catholic high school, I'm filling out an application with the Franciscans up in Chi-town. Finally, because I am absolutely off my rocker half the time, I'm waiting for a call from a Capuchin brother who might want to send me off to Papua New Guinea for a year, which would be an adventure to say the least, and which would definitely let me know if I was ready for longer service in Tanzania next year. And I may very well stay true to my word to a principal up in North Dakota and send an application up to him so that I could spend a year snowshoeing and sledding with Chippewas (as if I haven't seen enough snow in my lifetime.) If this sounds complicated and confusing, even contradictory, to you, you aren't imagining things: it's even crazier and more mixed up in my head. Someone, please, just make the decisions for me! I'm tired of thinking and over-analyzing everything. CA, AZ, NM, IL, NY, PNG, ND: just send me somewhere, anywhere, and I promise I'll accept it. Maybe.

Kudzu

If you can gaze at a kudzu gully without feeling caught up in its majesty, I don't understand you; and if you don't know what a kudzu gully is, how I pity you! Despite of all the kudzu that devours the South (and my neighborhood), I still have never grown tired of it, and I still get filled with mystery and wonder at the sight of it. Every spade leaf I see is precious.
When I first moved here, my roommates and I were obsessed with the plant and went around gathered up the dead vines and decorating our apartment with it. Kudzu ended up laced around our lamps, hanging above doorways and windows. Now I carry the kudzu along inside of me.

Quacks and travel

I told the Ukraine program I was in for June, but if someone cancels on the July program I'd like to stay all through the second program as well.
Now I'm leaning again towards moving to Arizona for a year, living in a house with homeless pregnant women. Yeah, I know, the last thing most of my friends and family could see me doing. But I feel drawn to it somehow, so I'm getting that application out ASAP and probably flying out there to get interviewed pretty soon.
There's the smallest chance I'll still teach in a Catholic school somewhere (or even go to Papua New Guinea if you want to hear a secret), or even go up to NYC to live in an addicts' retreat home, but chances are AZ will be my home until next summer.

It's always weird on the days when my boss takes me to her "physical therapy" appointments. Weird because for an entire hour the guy sits there putting his hands on her, doing absolutely nothing at all except flirting with me. If it quacks like a quack it's probably a quack.

Ukraine update

Well, I was disheartened to get an email from the Ukrainian Summer School folks. It turns out that my procrastination has worked against me. The program is already filled! I've been put on a waiting list because very often some volunteers cancel out....
But....
It isn't over yet. Apparently this year they also run a short program in June for about 45 seminarians, and this program takes place in the city of Lviv in a brand new seminary building! It's only 2 weeks long, but actually this could work out in my favor even better. If I signed on for the June program and liked it, I could possibly teach for the first program, but then, if someone canceled, I could stay on through all of July in the second program. So maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Also, the shorter program takes place right over my birthday. How cool would it be to turn 25 in Ukraine?! Of course I'd be surrounded by a bunch of strangers, but I could still always say that I turned 25 in Lviv. This may solve my whole: "Where will I be for my birthday this year?" question that I've been struggling with.
Obviously I need to take this to prayer. June is right around the corner. He who hesitates is lost, so I'm going to give my answer tonight.

Ukraine

I just sent off my English Summer School in Ukraine application so everybody (if you like me) pray that I get accepted if it's God's Will. It would be so cool for me to spend part of the summer in my native land teaching seminarians and religious. I would also be participating in daily services and Divine Liturgies and living with really cool people. I really hope I get in, but you never know. They might hold my health issues against me (I would understand), or maybe the program has already been filled for this year. I'm praying to all those great Eastern saints that I get a shot at participating in this awesome adventure in the Carpathian Mountains.

I checked out God or the Girl last night because the reviews said it was respectful and I'd seen the guys interviewed and they seemed to know their Faith pretty well. They ran 2 episodes last night back to back, and I found it interesting. But more than interesting, I found it really hitting home. It was comforting almost to see that there are other young folks out there who, like myself, are incredibly confused about the next step to take in their lives. Of course I'm not trying to discern priesthood but I still do think about the religious life ("nunhood"!) on a regular basis, and when I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking about marriage and all that entails. Everything was so simple as a pre-teen. Then everything was simple again as a late-teen. What happened? When did I decide I couldn't decide anymore?
It's got to be selfishness, laziness and faithlessness all combined and fizzling like one dangerous chemistry experiment. The kind that blows up the lab and gets you expelled from high school.

Христос Воскрес! Воістину Воскрес!

[Kristos Voskres!] Христос Воскрес!
(response) [Voistinu voskres!] Воістину Воскрес!

In Ukraine, this would be the greeting during Easter (and the 50 days of Eastertide) instead of Hello.

Personal Jesus

A vocation book I have asked a really interesting question: who is your personal Jesus? Some people, when they imagine the Lord, tend to think of Him under the title of Good Shepherd, or Jesus Crucified, or the Infant Jesus. For me, He's always Jesus Master: preaching the do's and don'ts of the Sermon on the Mount, teaching with parables and sending us forth to all nations.
So, Who's your personal Jesus?

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia!
For He Whom you did merit to bear, alleluia!
Has risen, as He said, alleluia!
Pray for us to God, alleluia!
Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia!
For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia!
Let us pray. O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Regina caeli, laetare, alleluia!
Quia quem meruisti portare, alleluia!
Resurrexit, sicut dixit, alleluia!
Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!
Gaude et laetare, Virgo Maria, alleluia!
Quia surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia!
Oremus. Deus, qui per resurrectionem Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi, mundum laetificare dignatus es: praesta, quaesumus; ut per eius Genetricem Virginem Mariam, perpetuae capiamus gaudia vitae. Per eundem Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

CHRIST IS RISEN! REJOICE! GLORIFY THE KING! ALLELUIA!

Today (Holy Saturday) I felt as if someone had rolled a large stone and locked me in the tomb as well. The world seemed a hateful place. It is in so many ways. Friends betray you as Judas did Christ. Friends spit on you sometimes, or argue with you about nothing, or worse yet, ignore you for no reason.
I have been very disappointed.
But Christ rose so as to show us we will rise with Him one day too. Put aside all the unnecessary grievances and pouting; put aside all the fasting and crying; put aside all the wars and disagreements; forget petty irritations and attacks against your silly pride. This is the happiest day of the year--the day that gives meaning to our every moment. This is the day that made all the other days possible. This is the day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad!

Quote from Pope John Paul II's poetry, "Roman Triptych: Meditations."

Come, you blessed . . .
depart from me, you accursed . . .
And so the generations pass --
Naked they come into the world and naked they return
To the earth from which they were formed.
From dust you came, and to dust you shall return;
What had shape is now shapeless.
What was alive is now dead.
What was beautiful is now the ugliness of decay.
And yet I do not altogether die,
What is indestructible in me remains!

Proof that I Need Sleep, Food and Rest

I think I did more over the past 5 days than I have in the past 3 years. Really. It's only a slight embellishment. Today I decided I would rest up finally. But then I noticed that I needed to drop several letters off at the post office. "This won't take long," I thought, so I didn't even take my cell. I just jumped in the car with the letters next to me on the seat and drove off.
A few minutes later, I was outside of the post office. I was going to do a drive-by: just chuck the envelopes into the mailboxes outside.
I drove home, turned the car off, and glanced at the seat next to me. The letters were STILL there! WHAT!? Had I forgotten the whole purpose of my trip!? Apparently.
So I had to drive all the way back, reminding myself constantly of WHY I was in the car in the first place.
STUPID!

While I was driving I was thinking along the lines of Holden from Catcher in the Rye. I once heard about people who get paid to carry a package personally to a foreign place. They simply have to take the package with them on the plane and go. They get to see all sorts of cool exotic places for free, and do hardly any work at all. I decided that that's my type of job. It's exactly what I want to do. I could live for years doing that. If anyone knows of any LEGAL job opening in this field (I don't even know what it's called or if it exists), please let me know ASAP.
Thank you. :-)

osirisabuameer.blogspot.com

Hey everyone who's been commenting on Osiris's site (Death Row Musings):
I've printed off the second batch to send to him, so thanks for your patience. He loves this and it's slowly linking to the outside world more and more. Keep it up. 5 minutes a week can change the world! You'd be surprised.

Santo Subito!

The people will not rest,
They will not rest until
The memory of their beloved is ennobled

The world will not be silent
Nor the universe relax
Until this Great Man is stamped
With the mark of the Elite

"Saint!" they cry in the piazza,
"Saint now!" they shout in the square
"Long live the Great!" they call from the streets,
Pouring over the walls, and flooding the cathedral.

No living thing shall rest
Nor sleep with both eyes closed
Till the Slavic Papa is known
As Pope Saint John Paul the Great.

HOMILY OF HIS EMINENCE CARD. JOSEPH RATZINGER
St Peter's Square; Friday, 8 April 2005

"Follow me. " The Risen Lord says these words to Peter. They are his last words to this disciple, chosen to shepherd his flock. "Follow me" – this lapidary saying of Christ can be taken as the key to understanding the message which comes to us from the life of our late beloved Pope John Paul II. Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality – our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and profound gratitude.

These are the sentiments that inspire us, Brothers and Sisters in Christ, present here in Saint Peter’s Square, in neighbouring streets and in various other locations within the city of Rome, where an immense crowd, silently praying, has gathered over the last few days. I greet all of you from my heart. In the name of the College of Cardinals, I also wish to express my respects to Heads of State, Heads of Government and the delegations from various countries. I greet the Authorities and official representatives of other Churches and Christian Communities, and likewise those of different religions. Next I greet the Archbishops, Bishops, priests, religious men and women and the faithful who have come here from every Continent; especially the young, whom John Paul II liked to call the future and the hope of the Church. My greeting is extended, moreover, to all those throughout the world who are united with us through radio and television in this solemn celebration of our beloved Holy Father’s funeral.

Follow me – as a young student Karol Wojtyła was thrilled by literature, the theatre, and poetry. Working in a chemical plant, surrounded and threatened by the Nazi terror, he heard the voice of the Lord: Follow me! In this extraordinary setting he began to read books of philosophy and theology, and then entered the clandestine seminary established by Cardinal Sapieha. After the war he was able to complete his studies in the faculty of theology of the Jagiellonian University of Kraków. How often, in his letters to priests and in his autobiographical books has he spoken to us about his priesthood, to which he was ordained on 1 November 1946. In these texts he interprets his priesthood with particular reference to three sayings of the Lord. First: "You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last" (Jn 15:16). The second saying is: "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn 10:11). And then: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love" (Jn 15:9). In these three sayings we see the heart and soul of our Holy Father. He really went everywhere, untiringly, in order to bear fruit, fruit that lasts. "Rise, Let us be on our Way!" is the title of his next-to-last book. "Rise, let us be on our way!" – with these words he roused us from a lethargic faith, from the sleep of the disciples of both yesterday and today. "Rise, let us be on our way!" he continues to say to us even today. The Holy Father was a priest to the last, for he offered his life to God for his flock and for the entire human family, in a daily self-oblation for the service of the Church, especially amid the sufferings of his final months. And in this way he became one with Christ, the Good Shepherd who loves his sheep. Finally, "abide in my love:" the Pope who tried to meet everyone, who had an ability to forgive and to open his heart to all, tells us once again today, with these words of the Lord, that by abiding in the love of Christ we learn, at the school of Christ, the art of true love.

Follow me! In July 1958 the young priest Karol Wojtyła began a new stage in his journey with the Lord and in the footsteps of the Lord. Karol had gone to the Masuri lakes for his usual vacation, along with a group of young people who loved canoeing. But he brought with him a letter inviting him to call on the Primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszyński. He could guess the purpose of the meeting: he was to be appointed as the auxiliary Bishop of Kraków. Leaving the academic world, leaving this challenging engagement with young people, leaving the great intellectual endeavour of striving to understand and interpret the mystery of that creature which is man and of communicating to today’s world the Christian interpretation of our being – all this must have seemed to him like losing his very self, losing what had become the very human identity of this young priest. Follow me – Karol Wojtyła accepted the appointment, for he heard in the Church’s call the voice of Christ. And then he realized how true are the Lord’s words: "Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will keep it" (Lk 17:33). Our Pope – and we all know this – never wanted to make his own life secure, to keep it for himself; he wanted to give of himself unreservedly, to the very last moment, for Christ and thus also for us. And thus he came to experience how everything which he had given over into the Lord’s hands came back to him in a new way. His love of words, of poetry, of literature, became an essential part of his pastoral mission and gave new vitality, new urgency, new attractiveness to the preaching of the Gospel, even when it is a sign of contradiction.

Follow me! In October 1978 Cardinal Wojtyła once again heard the voice of the Lord. Once more there took place that dialogue with Peter reported in the Gospel of this Mass: "Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep!" To the Lord’s question, "Karol, do you love me?," the Archbishop of Krakow answered from the depths of his heart: "Lord you know everything; you know that I love you." The love of Christ was the dominant force in the life of our beloved Holy Father. Anyone who ever saw him pray, who ever heard him preach, knows that. Thanks to his being profoundly rooted in Christ, he was able to bear a burden which transcends merely human abilities: that of being the shepherd of Christ’s flock, his universal Church. This is not the time to speak of the specific content of this rich pontificate. I would like only to read two passages of today’s liturgy which reflect central elements of his message. In the first reading, Saint Peter says – and with Saint Peter, the Pope himself – "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ - he is Lord of all" (Acts 10:34-36). And in the second reading, Saint Paul – and with Saint Paul, our late Pope – exhorts us, crying out: "My brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and my crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved" (Phil 4:1).

Follow me! Together with the command to feed his flock, Christ proclaimed to Peter that he would die a martyr’s death. With those words, which conclude and sum up the dialogue on love and on the mandate of the universal shepherd, the Lord recalls another dialogue, which took place during the Last Supper. There Jesus had said: "Where I am going, you cannot come." Peter said to him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied: "Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow me afterward." (Jn 13:33,36). Jesus from the Supper went towards the Cross, went towards his resurrection – he entered into the paschal mystery; and Peter could not yet follow him. Now – after the resurrection – comes the time, comes this "afterward." By shepherding the flock of Christ, Peter enters into the paschal mystery, he goes towards the cross and the resurrection. The Lord says this in these words: "... when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go" (Jn 21:18). In the first years of his pontificate, still young and full of energy, the Holy Father went to the very ends of the earth, guided by Christ. But afterwards, he increasingly entered into the communion of Christ’s sufferings; increasingly he understood the truth of the words: "Someone else will fasten a belt around you." And in this very communion with the suffering Lord, tirelessly and with renewed intensity, he proclaimed the Gospel, the mystery of that love which goes to the end (cf. Jn 13:1).

He interpreted for us the paschal mystery as a mystery of divine mercy. In his last book, he wrote: The limit imposed upon evil "is ultimately Divine Mercy" (Memory and Identity, pp. 60-61). And reflecting on the assassination attempt, he said: "In sacrificing himself for us all, Christ gave a new meaning to suffering, opening up a new dimension, a new order: the order of love ... It is this suffering which burns and consumes evil with the flame of love and draws forth even from sin a great flowering of good" (pp. 189-190). Impelled by this vision, the Pope suffered and loved in communion with Christ, and that is why the message of his suffering and his silence proved so eloquent and so fruitful.

Divine Mercy: the Holy Father found the purest reflection of God’s mercy in the Mother of God. He, who at an early age had lost his own mother, loved his divine mother all the more. He heard the words of the crucified Lord as addressed personally to him: "Behold your Mother." And so he did as the beloved disciple did: he took her into his own home" (eis ta idia: Jn 19:27) – Totus tuus. And from the mother he learned to conform himself to Christ.

None of us can ever forget how in that last Easter Sunday of his life, the Holy Father, marked by suffering, came once more to the window of the Apostolic Palace and one last time gave his blessing urbi et orbi. We can be sure that our beloved Pope is standing today at the window of the Father’s house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will guide you now to the eternal glory of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

My heart is broken because the Pope of my life has abandoned me for heaven. I miss him more than words can say. It has now been a year since he left me, but each day is still so sad. I love our new Pope, but it's not the same. I love you, Papa JP2 and I can't stop crying because it still hurts. I know you're closer to me now than ever before, but my stubborn heart refuses to be comforted.