3.69

I can live with that.

I can DEFINITELY live with that :)

WOW

Thank you, God.

Time to fall on my face in thanksgiving.

:P

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you couldn't laugh?

Not just at other people, but at yourself.

What if you couldn't sit back and realize how utterly ridiculous you can be sometimes?

Would we get maniacally depressed?

Or just excessively bored?

Thank goodness for man's risibility.

And for Aristotle, who taught me what that word meant, early in freshman year.

Life is so good.

So is God.

What would we do without either?

Absolutely nothing.

St. Joseph

I have recently fallen head-over-heels in love with St. Joseph. The reason why is something that stays with me.

This song, entitled "Joseph's Lullaby," makes me cry. The beauty of fatherhood... the love present there... Can you imagine holding a tiny baby boy, knowing that He is the prince of peace? Knowing the prophecies about His future (especially Isaiah...), how could his heart help rejoicing, but break at the same time?

Go to sleep my Son
This manger for your bed
You have a long road before You
Rest Your little head

Can You feel the weight of Your glory?
Do You understand the price?
Does the Father guard Your heart for now
So You can sleep tonight?

Go to sleep my Son
Go and chase Your dreams
This world can wait for one more moment
Go and sleep in peace

I believe the glory of Heaven
Is lying in my arms tonight
Lord, I ask that He for just this moment
Simply be my child

Go to sleep my Son
Baby, close Your eyes
Soon enough You'll save the day
But for now, dear Child of mine
Oh my Jesus, Sleep tight

Awkward!

Dominic was sitting on my bed, hands on my waist, trying to pull me into his lap. I had my arms around Chris's neck, trying to avoid Dominic's lap.

How did I get here? Funny story, that...

I couldn't breathe. My back was a tangled mess, not allowing my lungs to expand properly. I was lightheaded, nauseaous, and kind of scared. To make matters worse, I wasn't in my dorm, but sitting outside the boys' dorm next-door.

Dominic and Chris insisted on helping me back to the dorm. I wasn't too resistant to that suggestion, aside from the fact that Chris had a concussion. The whole "blind leading the blind" did not sound incredibly appealing. But it was only a hundred feet. What could happen?

We got to the gate of the dorm without event. Given the strict no gender-mixing in the dorm, they tried to hand me off to a couple of girls. Then I passed out: a lack of oxygen does eventually get to you. I woke up, with a bruised tailbone, a horrendous pain in the middle of my back, and the wind knocked out of me. I sat, curled up on the ground, crying. The guys looked at each other and then back at me. "We'd better get a prefect."

Prefect permission having been granted, they heaved me back up and dragged me inside. Most guys on campus joke about getting into the girls' dorm, but I don't think many of them really want to. I can imagine it's rather awkward, especially at ten pm. They hollered, "man in the dorm" as they went through, me muttering directions between gasps for air. In the room, they realized that they shouldn't try to get me onto my bed, which is four feet off the ground. Instead, they decided to lower me onto my roommate's bed, which is situated on the floor.

Which brings us to the awkward place that I began. Dominic sat down on the bed, trying to lower me down. Even in my pain and disorientation, I distinctly did NOT want to sit in Dominic's lap. Chris was holding me up under the arms, slinging my arms around his neck, trying to ensure that I didn't collapse again. To avoid lap-sitting, I kept trying to scoot myself forward, which consequently squished me into Chris's stomach. He was alarmed by this, to say the least. "What ARE you doing??? SIT DOWN!"

Looking up at him and realizing there wasn't any way to explain or avoid it, I sat. In his lap. Oh, the awkwardness.

Dear, dear, sweet boys.

Walking out of the dorm, Chris walked past Nathan, who happens to be a prefect. Chris quickly explained that he had permission from a prefect to help someone to their room. Nathan assured him that he had been curious, but not terribly worried. He inquired which person it was who required the assistance. His response after hearing Chris's reply:

"I figured."

I'm beginning to be predictable. Oh my...

Nothing new under the sun...

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

A timeless bit of wisdom from Chesterton.

It reminded me of something that came up on the philosophy exam this semester. After finishing the first two essays, I perused the ten questions at the bottom of the paper. Aside from the required essays, which I had just completed, we had to pick one of the other topics to write on. One jumped out at me as something that would be interesting (and not only fairly easy) to write about. Aristotle presents the opinion of others:

"All men aim at the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance."

This opinion he refutes by arguing that every man really does have a substantial amount of control about what he believes to be and chooses as good. He argues this from the nature of virtue as a habit and such. But his post isn't specifically about Aristotle's refutation of the false opinion. What struck me on that rainy Friday morning was that this idea has never died. It is, in fact, alive and well in society today.

How many times have you heard this:

"Don't blame me! It wasn't my fault!"

Fingers are pointed at parents, upbringing, culture, work -- anything to avoid the harsh reality of responsibility, guilty, and culpability. No one wants to accept that they might have done something wrong.

Funny to think that we have the same fallacious tendencies that Aristotle dealt with in ancient Greece. But not really that funny. After all, human nature hasn't changed...

What We Deserve

"But it isn't fair!"

A phrase we hear repeatedly. I myself have heard it countless times since I first began to understand speech. It is a phrase usually accompanied by a drawling whine, a stomp of the foot, a crinkled forehead. It may be followed by stormy tears or a prolonged pout.



Unfortunately, more often than not, the mouth I heard it issuing from was my own.

I had this vision of getting what I wanted, thinking that I only wanted what was just. It's rather painful to admit, but it's true. I didn't recognize how very, very wrong I was at the time. I don't even know if I completely recognize it yet.

But I am starting to understand how very, very, very little I could ever deserve. In fact, I don't actually deserve anything. At all.



The only way in which I could possibly say that a good belongs to me by right is through that wonderful, mysterious, and almost unutterable reality of grace. By nature, through the fall, my being is so utterly wretched and undeserving. I can do no good thing by nature. All good comes from God. All beauty, all goodness, all perfection, all sanctity comes from God.

This isn't to say that each creature isn't good in itself. It is only to say that each creature is not good through itself, but rather through another. In that way, we can say that there is both one good and many goods. God is good, but He causes goodness in other things. He is the source of their individual goodness. Mind blowing.

So no, it isn't fair. But I have learned to thank God for that. I thank Him for not giving me what I deserve, but so much more than I could possibly imagine or even want on my own.



The blessings I have received in friendships are no exception. As C.S. Lewis stated: "Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others."

Things on the floor

It had been a long, awful, absolutely exhausting week at school. It had been filled with a sinus infection, class, math homework, choir practice, more choir practice, a trip to the urgent care, even more choir practice, and finally the performance of the Play of Herod. (Being in the college choir is a rewarding experience, but is proving to be a bit of a trial junior year.)

After the concert (during which I actually fell asleep while I was supposed to be merely pretending), one of the sophomore guys invited a few of us up to the guest trailers for a surprise party for his little sister who was visiting. I was incredibly drugged up and tired, but I thought I'd pop in for a couple of minutes to be friendly and hospitable and all of that sort of thing.

After being fed a piece of cake (and everyone was very insistent that I be given one and only one piece of cake), I placed the plate on the floor. Nathaniel picked it up to throw it away. Someone jokingly commented about the fact that his question "Are you done?" came across as much more of an authoritative "You are done." In his defense, he said, "Well, it was on the floor!" Peter, quick to come to his aid, insisted, "Yes, Bridget only puts things she's done with on the floor."

A little light bulb illuminated over Kim's head as she registered all of this. She looked at me and then at Jeff who was sitting near the foot of my chair. "Oooooh," she said, getting a mischievous look in her eye, "Is that why Jeff's on the floor?"

Cue absolute, rib-cracking laughter.

Grandma

I was sitting on the sofa in the front room, playing with my six year old cousin. My grandmother walked in and sat down on the rocking chair next to me. We had only just arrived a few hours earlier, so I expected her to start up the usual "catch-up" small talk. What really happened was entirely unexpected.

Grandma: "What is morse code?"

me, after a puzzled pause: "A series of dots and dashes." (cue my sister making beeping noises)

Grandma: "Oh. What is a code?"

me, suppressing a giggle: "A series of signs, established by convention, which signify something to the intellect."

Grandma: "Really? Is that all?"

She sounded disappointed. After about thirty seconds of thoughtfully clicking her tongue, she got up and went back to her crossword.

I love my family. :)

Boy Crazy

Yesterday, I proved the fickleness and changeability of women.

At about eleven o'clock, I was helping my sister look over photos from a wedding she recently shot. She has been looking at them for months now, so they've all sort of become a blur (not literally, of course: they are all quite well-focused). All I mean by that is that when she looks at them she doesn't see them. She did quite a nice job with them though... the things I was picking out were minor and just little details that my critical eye spotted. Looking at a picture of one of the groom's brothers, grinning broadly, dancing with his new sister-in-law, I declared something which should have remained in my head. It was silly and nonsensical and oh-so impulsive:

"I want to marry him."

Fast-forward to about three o'clock in the afternoon. I was sitting in the van with Mum in the vet parking lot. Then I catch a look at an incredibly handsome, kind-faced young man, assisting the vet inside. Whoa. Mum, not realizing that I have already caught sight of the guy, points him out to me, noting how wonderfully kind he is. Apparently, he has been the assistant during the last couple of appointments that Mum has had. He is, in her words, "a really great guy." Forget the young man from earlier, this is the guy I now need to marry.

Or is it? The man I spent a whole two hours watching last night was amazing. He has dark hair, beautiful eyes, a charming accent, and an incredible love for his mother and sisters (heart melting to see in any guy...). The downside? He's fictional. WHY must Edmund be a character from a book that was recently put onto screen? I love him.

The End.

Maybe...

I Love HOJAM

Last night the fam-damily packed up in the van and headed to St. James. Why? Because our beloved HOJAM boys were putting on an Advent concert to raise funds for their trip to Madrid next summer for WYD. It was absolutely beautiful. A few parts incited quiet giggles, but the overall solemnity of the readings made it a very prayerful and peaceful evening.

PLUS, I got to see my "brother." In honor of the rare occasion, we took a "family" photo. :)

My brother, the orange

We're eating dinner tonight, chatting comfortably about something pleasant. The tv was on in the family room, not because anyone was watching it, but because everyone was too lazy to go turn it off. Suddenly, Scott breaks into the conversation, urging us all to be quiet.

Scott: "I love this commercial!"

I turn around and see an orange, hanging from a tree, dripping with dew, gentle music playing in the background, etc.

me: "Um, okay. Why?"

Scott: "It always makes me want to be an orange... it's so... peaceful."

LOL

It. Is. Over.

This is something that I said rejoicingly every single day this week. Why? Because it was finals week this week.

Saturday was our music final. I didn't study for it. I looked over my notes once the night before and then started looking over Theology. It was probably the first and last time that I won't be worried about a final. It was easy. Yay!

Monday was the theology final. Tough to study for, hard to execute, but I think I did a decent job. It's just hard to talk about God without constantly worrying that you're being a material heretic.

Tuesday was the day from... well, not heaven, that's for sure. I struggled so much with math this semester. Here's hoping and praying that I didn't fail it. (If looked at reasonably, I don't think I did. When I get tired, I start panicking that I did)

Wednesday was a fun final: seminar! It's our only oral final that we take. Twenty minutes with the tutor in his office, talking about general themes in the semester. It's pretty relaxing and fun.

Thursday was the laboratory, or as it is now called, natural science final. For us juniors that meant Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Yay for physics! It was actually pretty straight forward, just kinda detailed to study for. But I love my tutor and worship the ground he walks on.

Friday was the philosophy final! It was long, but awesome. I filled an entire blue book... first time since freshman year!

And then we were done. DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE. To top it off, I got my theology paper back from my very tough tutor: A-. I can live with that :)