It made me think about how we explain our faith to others.  Do we use complicated, church lingo? Is it something a child would understand? Do you even explain yourself to those around you?  What kind of tone do we use? Is it condescending? Defensive? Full of love and patience? Do your actions reflect this explanation?

I sometimes have a hard time explaining my faith. So much of it is very personal so it’s not always easy to express something so intimate.  I don’t always think about how I would explain aspects of my faith and I struggle when the perfect opportunity arises to talk about something but I am unprepared.

Even though I have a hard time with it, it’s still an interesting thing to contemplate.  How we explain Jesus’ life, His message is pretty important I think.  How we relay our faith to others can dramatically effect how they view Jesus.  We are ambassadors. What’s your foreign policy?

What do we even mean by “peace”?
Calm? Happiness? Cease-fires? Mediation?

The word “peace” is so ubiquitous that we’ve ceased paying attention, ceased knowing what we’re saying.

Kind of like when you rapidly say a word so many times in a row that you forget what it even means anymore and have to stop and think about it.

The philosophy of language is really quite interesting; I took a class about it in college. (In France, in French, which just adds one more layer of interest to an already pithy subject.)

One of the most compelling concepts from the class is that a word is really just a symbol, a signifier of something else. In order to have meaning, it must be attached to something other than itself. When different people look at the same word, they may (and probably do) call up different “attachments”: different images — different significances — for that word. This concept partially explains why word-association games where you say the first thing that pops into your head are so telling about an individual’s psyche and life experience. While there are absolute, objective truths — definitions — of words, what a word actually means to an individual is so much more than that.

So what does “peace” mean to you? Stop and think about it for a second. (I know that it’s an odd feeling to STOP and THINK about something, isn’t it? I’m serious: do it right now.)

Honestly, 2 thoughts immediately come to my mind.

In the movie, Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock plays a gawky FBI agent who’s infiltrated the Miss America pageant. I love this movie. However, the movie is tainted for me because at the very end of the movie (SPOILER ALERT!), Sandra’s character says “And I really do want world peace!” *Groan* Totally out of character and cheesy (not that other parts weren’t, but this was unbearably so). It bothers me most because it’s disingenuous: They had just spent a fair amount of time making fun of the fact that “world peace” was an automatic answer for the ladies in the pageant, the robotic answer, the expected answer. Maybe they do, in some sense, want world peace… but they don’t even know what that means, and they haven’t even stopped to think about it! Over the course of the movie, Sandra’s character has gone from an intelligent, but clumsy, tomboyish, overworking, hygiene-challenged shell of a woman who scoffs at pageantry to a compassionate, beautiful, confident woman. I would hate to think that being the latter includes giving up your ideals and emptying your brain as well. Even if, at her core, she actually does want the world to be at peace, did she REALLY have to say it like that?

The other image that “peace” brings up is in the Mass when the priest says the word a handful of times right before the sign of peace. This repetition never really stuck out to me until I heard Dane Cook’s spiel about it. Now, he’s making fun of it, but he does it in a way that’s not offensive. And honestly, priests say it at least 5 times right before the sign of peace:

Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles: I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever 
R: Amen
The peace of the Lord be with you, always.
R. And also with you
Let us offer to one another a sign of peace.

I think my example illustrates just how omnipresent “peace” is, from the secular to the religious. We talk about it all the time. But how many people actually achieve it?

World peace: So many people working towards it (so many people working against it), but even if it’s possible, this is still quite a long way off.

So what do we do in the meantime?

Seek inner peace.

I’ve found that the only time I truly feel at peace is when I’m living contemplatively. Living contemplatively can happen both in the most hectic times of life AND in the most calm. (cf works of Thomas Merton)

In the hectic times, the goal (whether I make it or not) is to keep the eye of the storm in the core of my being. Though the winds of the hurricane roar, there’s always the quiet center in my soul, and the fury outside cannot penetrate it. (cf. Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude)

In order to maintain that center, it’s necessary to quiet oneself occasionally. Just be. Allow yourself some sabbath time. Allow yourself to sit and daydream. Allow yourself to ignore just one pressing issue and just sit. Invite God into your heart, your gut, your mind, and allow Him to heal, clean, and sort through things for you.

I quite often ignore both of these forms of contemplative living, somehow forgetting all the good that comes out of it, and how much my time is multiplied when I take the time to focus on God.

And so I write this post not as someone who’s a master of peace, but as someone who yearns desperately for it, and forgets all the time how to get back to it. So I’m writing now in thanksgiving to the Holy Spirit not only for the reminder, but also for the gifts that make it possible…

Pax vobiscum.

Do you ever have those times when you’re just bummed out? Like everything you do makes you feel like a freak. I get like this sometimes when it comes to my faith. I’m the kind of person who likes to be around all types of people. More often than not, I find myself surrounded by not just other Catholics but non-Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, Agnostics, people who have no idea what they believe… you get the idea. I’ve met people from all walks of life and have really enjoyed it.

Sometimes though I feel quite lonely because of my beliefs. This weekend was one of those times. I had just been overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness and just isolation from everyone else. I even found myself being ever so slightly jealous of those who experiment with other faiths or who don’t care because they don’t believe in God. I kept thinking that they are free to do as they pleased without guilt or fear of God’s laws or judgment. Then on the other hand I felt isolated from my Catholic family because so many of them would look down upon me for hanging out with these people who live their lives so differently from God’s plan or who do not believe the same things that we do. (Not all of them would but I feel some of them might be at least uncomfortable with it.) I’m too conservative for my non-believer friends and too liberal for my believer friends. I have no home.

I wondered about whether or not it was right to keep company with both types of people. Whether I should spend more time at Church and getting involved with that community or if I needed to spend more time away.

Then came Sunday. The Gospel for a lot of reasons really hit me as speaking to my thoughts this week about the company that I keep and just my feelings of isolation.

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

We’re all growing together. I’m not saying that the people who are non-believers are anyway evil. (Because I think that the weeds represent evil in our lives.) But what I am saying is that this parable put me at peace at my trying to separate out my life into neat little sections. Life isn’t about separation. It’s about being together. I can still be friends with people who are different faiths and who have different values than myself.

The other part that stuck with me is that the wheat makes it to the barn. The good that is in us is what is going to remain.

I never considered myself an evangelist until my parish priest called me an “Evangelist” on one particular evening when I was introducing my 5 Protestant friends to him that I had brought to mass with me. (They came because it was my birthday and that’s what I wanted to do – bring them to my church and meet my friends there, etc.)  I’ve never been one to get up in people’s faces, but I love talking about my faith when given an opportunity.  I take pride in my parish and what is going on at my church so I talk about it at work because it’s part of my life.
Sure sometimes my friends look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them I’ve volunteered to chaperone high school kids on their weekend long retreat.  Or that I give up one night a week to sit and talk with 8th graders about God.  Sometimes I do care. It sucks to be looked at funny for something that you really, genuinely enjoy doing… but it’s also really great to share the great stories that I have to tell because of what I do at church and experience in my relationship with God.

It makes me sad to hear when people seem to be really timid to even bring it up. You can talk about your faith because it’s part of who you are.  It really surprises me that someone who is involved in a lot of things at the church can somehow go years of working at the same place and coworkers not even know he is Catholic.  There are countless other examples, I’m sure and I’m not really picking on anyone in particular.  But I’d like to challenge you and even myself because I know speaking out and “spreading the Good News” is something that I have to work on too.  There have been times when we’ve had a discussion at work and I feel something inside of me tugging to speak truth.  Sometimes I’m too afraid to say anything so I just keep quiet.

Let’s be proud of our faith. Not to the point of becoming like Pharisee’s where we look down on others.  But like Christ who was confident in God’s Truth to be able to speak that in a loving way to others.

For those of you who don’t know the premise of the show, Tila is this bi-sexual girl who gets 15 girls and 15 guys in one house and they compete doing different contests to find out which one is Tila’s true love. The ironic thing is that most of these shows (Flavor of Love, Rock of Love & Shot at Love) all are in their 2nd and 3rd seasons. The first “love” didn’t work out.

When I turned off my television set thinking about how skewed this view of love really was – I kept thinking about a very popular verse from 1 Corinthians (13:4-8).

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

So many phrases in this simple few verses contradict these television shows. The whole of these shows is centered around one person. This one person – a celebrity – is looking out for their one true love. It’s funny because the celebrity is never once questioned about whether or not they are really just seeking their own interest (increased fame? just sex? popularity?) or the interest of the others

I think too many times people think of love as a feeling. As a “connection.” That’s what these people keep saying on these shows, “We had a strong connection right from the beginning.” And as the show progresses that connection vocabulary gets replaced with love or it doesn’t. I suppose a lot of us judge possibility for love this way. We meet someone and we’re either attracted to them or not. But how can a talent contest where people dress in skimpy little outfits really determine if the other person can help you be a better person… Can be patient and kind to you… How does a dance contest show you that someone is not seeking their own interests? These contest win more one-on-one time with the celebrity – but what do they do at their alone time? Make out? How does this get to know the person beyond physicality?

If you read Proverbs 31, it talks about how to find a wife. Now taking into account that this was written quite some time ago, some of the prerequisites for finding a good wife are a little out of date – for example being able to ply a spindle or being able to to turn wool and flax into clothing. But the point is that finding someone who is a good wife – or a true love – means that she’s got her stuff together. She’s a hard worker and brings good to her lover (v.12), loves and cares for the poor (v. 20), dignified and respected among others around her (v. 25).

Think about it this way: Isn’t it a bit disconcerting that there must be multiple seasons of a search for “true love”? Don’t these people realize that true love is supposed to last? Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing and expecting different results?

Think about it. How do you define love? Is it more Corinthians style, or MTV style?

Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting; the woman who loves the LORD is to be praised. (Proverbs 31:30)

Working with these other young Catholics has been both a blessing and a challenge.  We all bring our strengths and weaknesses to the table. I know mine so I’ll use them as an example. I am a very task-oriented person. I’m short and to the point, but I can also be impatient and have an idea of how I want things to look and sometimes have a hard time deviating from that.

One of my fellow core members mentioned about our strengths and how we need to maximize those instead of always trying to cover up our weaknesses.  If we build up our strengths and use them to the fullest than our weaknesses aren’t so much in the way.  Granted, I know that sometimes I have to listen to others’ ideas and not be so quick to write them off.  Where I lack, these other people will pick up my slack (and vice versa).

God made us a community people for a reason.  It goes back to the beginning when Adam was lonely with just the animals.  God made another person (Eve) to help him with all of the things Adam needed to do. Let’s work together and build up the Kingdom and use our strengths to build a community of faith.

But what happens when we are called upon to lay down just a LITTLE of our lives for our friends?

What if your friend and you like the same guy and he expresses interest in her?
What if you drove to a party and you’re having an absolute blast, but your friend gets sick and needs to leave?
What if your friend is in utter despair bordering on suicidal thoughts, you’re on the phone with him, and it seems as though you are helping somewhat, but it’s going on 3am, and you have to get up in 4 hours for work?
What if your friend’s car breaks down an hour away and you’re the only one she can get ahold of, but you had other plans you’ll have to miss completely if you go get her?

Now obviously there’s a fine line between laying down your life for a friend and just letting them walk all over you…

BUT, when your friends have a time that they really need someone that they can depend upon… Are they able to call you? Will you come through?

I’ve gotten a lot better with being patient with these people (and myself) on the road with this simple thought: You never know what God is protecting you from. It could be a speeding ticket, an accident, passing by an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/friend… Or He could be improving your timing so you see someone you need to… You never know.

On Saturday night, I was driving myself and my roommate home from swing dancing, and there were at least three other cars of people we were out with going the same way.

If we had left about 2 minutes earlier, we might have been killed.

You see, a 27-year-old man was driving his SUV 80 mph the wrong way on the freeway and crashed head-on into another car, killing both drivers instantly. 1-3 more cars were involved in the accident.

The first car in our group passed the accident right as people were stopping and getting out of their cars to see if the crash victims were okay. Two of us were stopped about 5 cars back from the accident. We were able to call the other car in our group in enough time to tell them to take a different way home.

As sorrowful as I feel for the families of those who died, it’s a scary thought to know that timing is everything, and the 2 minutes it took me that night to accidentally pass the entrance ramp, turn into a driveway, get back onto the road, and get on the ramp… Might have been the difference between life and death that night.

So next time you literally want to jump out of your car and wring the neck of the guy in front of you… or beat yourself down for going the wrong way… just roll with it and thank God for a few extra minutes and for life, instead.

Just different interactions I’ve had with people at work and things going on in my life that have been a complete annoyance.  I know that I am just being impatient and my attitude isn’t in the right place.  I know it’s mostly me.  Even if it isn’t my fault, I know that these annoyances will always be there. There will always be a stupid question or someone who doesn’t take time to do something right the first time.  I need to still have patience with all of them.

The saddest part is I haven’t once called upon God to help me through this time of minimal patience levels.  Until last night when I was talking with a friend who suggested I pray for patience. DUH!

So I’m praying for patience. So far I don’t feel any better but the thing with prayer is it’s not really like an advil. It doesn’t take just 30 minutes to kick in.  But I hope that through prayer and guidance that I can become more patient and loving to my coworkers.

I found this nice prayer too, A prayer for Patience:

Blessed Mary, Mother of Consolation, pray with me for the virtue of patience. There are so many times when my lack of patience keeps me from becoming the kind of person God wants me to be.

Guide my thoughts to you and the example we have in your own life. Help me to become patient, as you were patient. Through your guidance, may I become more accepting of others around me. Assist me to welcome difficult times with a patient heart.

May I be patient, Mary, as was your beloved husband, Joseph. His quiet acceptance of the will of Our Loving Father should be an example for me always. His patience was most wonderful in the eyes of God.

Pray for me, dear Mother of God, that I will allow the Father to come into my heart and help me grow in patience. Amen.

What a good example of patience. How many times did Jesus have the opportunity to slap his head and tell the disciples how stupid they were.  Can you imagine, “Guys, I’ve TOLD you this before.”  But he never really yelled. Never got impatient with them.  Just told the truth.  That’s the example I need to have.

God be with me.

My good excuse (for not posting so often) is that work (at a church, so no fair yelling at me!) was crazy busy with our spring retreat, then Confirmation, then prepping to go on vacation for a week (it was loverly!).

My bad excuse (for not posting at ALL): Holy cannoli has the Devil been working at me lately!

Honestly, I think Lucifer’s afraid of the strides I’ve been making in my spirituality.

Have you ever noticed how much you get spiritually attacked RIGHT when you’re on the path to something really good? How you start out all fired up, but then all these doubts and distractions start pushing in at the edges?

Some people say that the Devil isn’t real. But he is. Not the little red horned, pitchfork-wielding, spiky-tailed incarnation that we’ve made him out to be, but rather, a fallen angel, the embodiment of pride, jealousy, and temptation who works at your mind and leads you astray — especially when you’re closest to doing the best work for God! The one who talked Eve into falling, the one who tempted Jesus using Scripture quotes and everything, the one who incited the mobs with such anger and furor on the way to Calvary.

They say in the movie The Usual Suspects, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” And though it’s just a movie quote, that’s a great observation. If we don’t believe he exists, then we never tell him to go away, and we give in to his temptations because we think it’s just following our instincts. Because if the Devil doesn’t exist, then all these bad things we do, all these primally evil things, are only part of our humanity, and that makes humans innately evil, and that means that God created evil, which disproves His existence entirely, since by definition, God is all-good…

Now, I realize that this is both bordering on the complicated and a watering down of millions of pages of theological discussion, but the point is that spiritual warfare is very real, and it’s a very dangerous thing not to believe in it, because you will ignorantly be sucked right into it.

If you want more, read C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters: letters from Screwtape, an upper management demon, to Wormwood, an entry-level demon, coaching him on how to handle humans. C.S. Lewis, the greatest Catholic writer never to convert to Catholicism, really (and quite scarily) breaks down the snares of the Devil in a very creative modern day parable.

So when you feel attacked, tempted, apathetic, etc… try starting with telling the Devil (Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan, Lord of the Flies, Baal, Sparky: whatever you wanna call him!) to GO AWAY.

See if it helps. I think it might. It works for me.