Sad, Sad Neglect

The light blaring down around me as I weave between snowdrifts has apparently by-passed the sun’s mitigating effects and dropped directly from Heaven – its brightness blinds me to everything but the shine of snow and the breath-taking sensation of iced air burning through gaps in my several layers. My hurrying feet hesitate before the heavy basilica doors, but only for a moment. The doors close behind me with a careful thud, and I gasp into the incense-scented darkness for several moments until a gentle glow appears as my eyes adjust. The towering golden tabernacle swims into focus, followed by the bright blue bases of the towering columns. The stained-glass windows sharpen next, throwing the Stations of the Cross into sharper relief. Finally come the baptismal font and the murals saturated richly into the walls and ceiling. I have no place else to be but on my knees for the better part of an hour, so I duck into pew and reach for Great Aunt Bernetta’s gentle old rosary. The words that leave with me are tucked between pages lined with a swirl of heavy handwriting that only vaguely resembles my usual light cursive, but I don’t have time to wonder when that otherworldly brightness confronts me again.

So many other inspirations have been distracting me.

I’ve been reading Julia Child’s  semi-auto-biography (she co-authored it), My Life in France. I’m only into the third chapter, but I’m already fascinated by the spiritual geography that she encountered there, and shares with us in vivid, elegant prose. My favorite thing about her writing, after the gorgeous imagery, is the glamorous-yet-reserved tone with which she describes an experience that she positively gobbled up … it gives one the impression that she was the kind of woman who could take everything in huge bites and still manage to look lady-like.

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Around A Square

What started as a contest has suddenly morphed into a rich moment of affection and edification, and my eyes close as my heart opens. Something unfolds from the inside and blossoms under my skin, soaking up the sweetness of careful affirmation, all the more welcome because it had gone un-missed for so long. The tight lines that locked our eyes and edged our interaction are knocked aside by the thoughtful kindesses that bubble out of us, brimming. It’s sharing and confessing and rebelling and embracing and laughing at once, and the echoes leave pretty prints on the insides of my eyes.

I was eating dinner the other night with a few awesome people, when something happened that bugged me. Somebody sassed somebody else, then followed it up with a quick, apologetic “but I love ya.” The sentiment was sincere, but was not properly communicated by the words he used to convey it. He did not mean Love.

A language major really helps me understand the different ways that people tie concepts to sounds. The problem with these ties, though, is that they require that everyone agree on exactly what concept is bound to which word. And humans, as we all know, are contrary creatures that have a history of simply flouting the agreements that hinder them. Love, in the case of contemporary American English, verbalized way too often. That is, spoken to too many people in too many different situations, and thus weakened, and is also too often used in its verb form. Rather than to tell someone that we have Love for them, we toss around “love” to talk about objects we want and trends we like. Something is only merely mediocre when we “don’t love it.”

[Tangent: This, econ friends, is part of the reason why I just can’t get down with that whole anarchy thing. We can’t even reach “willing solidarity” in the matter of grammar – in fact, I’m firmly of the mind that it is precisely the “free, voluntary, direct” use of the English language that has been at the root of today’s moral and ethical train wreck. So I’m skeptical about the propensity of 300 million rational, self-interested agents to achieve anything resembling a society, let alone a harmonious one. (I’m open to discussion on this one … I need more opportunities to thrash out my ideas.]

This concept got driven home again at Unite last night.  I don’t often feel the impulse to attend, being Catholic, but I went along with a friend and had a great time – especially because the speaker talked about Love and Justice … and emphasized Love. God is Love, he told us, and everything else is an attribute. Love defines God, and just describes Him. And Christianity is the only religion in the world that centers on Love; remove Love, he told us, and you’ve done away with Christianity.What a way to redefine a word. I want to challenge you the same way I plan to challenge myself: next time you say the word “love,” think of God. Think of True Love, of its source and its definition. Mean it.

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Standing By Words

Her eyebrows raise quietly. “A law degree?” The question is barely polite. “And what do you want to do with that?” I don’t remember how I answered. The response it ought to have been, though it wasn’t, is “WHATEVER I WANT.”

Sometimes I just wish that people would understand things the way I understand them, would assign the same significance to the kinds of relationships and responsibilities that I take to be the most fundamental components of communities.  Hillsdale is, of course, a major exception, as evidenced by an awesome class I had this afternoon.

Today, my professor (who also happens to be the president of the College) described his wife, prefacing his remarks with, “I tell this to people all the time, and I love saying it.” He stated as a matter of fact that he depends on this woman and the huge job she does in order to hold his life together at home, because, he explained, “otherwise that whole thing would be a mess, and then what would I be good for?” He understands these Aristotelian hierarchies of communities that start with our most basic needs as “necessitous creatures” and the fact that they’re met at home. That is to say, he understands that, before he can take the time to engage in the highest activities of politics and statesmanship and friendship and so on, he must cooperate with his wife. I don’t mean cooperate in the sense of merely acquiescing to her, but in the truest sense of the word: he must align the his activities so that the two of them work together.

The assumption implicit in all of this is that there is something worth working together on. Because, let’s face it: humans are, as Dr. Arnn likes to say, “stubborn cusses.” We are powerful, and we know it. So to agree to combine efforts with another person necessarily implies a considerable degree of frustration and compromise – and that both parties have a very important end in mind, and that this end is valuable to them. They understand the thing they’re after and that they must work together in order to achieve it. They also understand what is meant by “work.” Most importantly, they understand what it means to have given their word to work together. And they understand because they used words to share ideas and communicate their dreams and intentions before they began, and then they gave these words to each other.

At this point, Dr. Arnn would cite Aristotle’s assertion that the human capacity for speech means we are moral beings. Common nouns allow us to make comparisons between things, setting standards for not only quality but behavior. The goodness and the being of the thing are connected, et cetera. But I want to loop Wendell Berry in on this discussion, too. He calls for precision in language and fidelity to words spoken, observing the contribution of clear speech and kept promises to healthy communities. Trust plays a major unspoken role in all of these discussions – one that I’m surprised never came up in our course. But the conclusion I feel inevitably led to by both the class and by Berry is that trust is a hard thing to get to anymore. I have to wonder, though, how much of that is due to the fact that we don’t understand each other when we talk, because of technical jargon, cultural barriers, or innuendo … Three hundred million people with a million English words in common, used to construct perhaps as many different languages.

If this is the case, there doesn’t seem to be a readily apparent way to fix it.

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Coming From Apart

Stale warmth and fluorescent light stagnate in the stairwell as I thump hurriedly down six flights – down from the President’s perch and into the fresh bite of fall. Send me on an errand so that I may do something … so that I may MOVE.

I’m not so much into fashion … but I love a big bag with lots of pockets. And shoes – sturdy shoes. These are critical to my adventures. They’re the last two things I grab before tossing a scarf around my neck,  blowing kisses to my roommates, and slamming the door. It’s the feeling of setting off, prepared, that energizes me. Self-contained, needing no more than I can comfortably carry on my person and in my soul, I am independent. God shines down and lights the world as I stride over it, eschewing computers and cubicles as best I can. It’s the brightness of real space that intrigues and invigorates me. Pixellated inspiration simply doesn’t cut it.

Today I’m looking for pretty paper … the way I go through Post-Its is frightening. I’m a list-er and a scheduler. And I’m also highly single-minded and prone to forget things. Post-Its are critical to the maintenance of my sanity. So I’m thinking that as long as they’re going to be sticking everywhere, they may as well be aesthetically pleasing. Bright pink and neon green are so obnoxious. So the hunt is on for a burnt-orange Post-It. Or a nice shade of sage ….

These are from this week:

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Deadlines

I yanked the front door open this morning and gasped when I saw stars, hard and clear, piercing the pre-dawn darkness with a ferocity I’d never seen this far south. The beginnings of this day stood in deep navy contrast to those of yesterday, when I made a shadow in the milky, silty light that filtered down through a dense layer of swollen clouds. No two days, no two hours fall through the pages of my worried planner the same way, and that is the best thing.

Three things redeemed the earlier part of my day:

Coffee with milk and a shot of pumpkin, and a loooong letter from Miri that I’d been anticipating for days. The third thing was an awesome breakfast date with Gwen, but I will spare you the sight of myself at seven o’clock in the morning.

The afternoon was much better. Classes went well, work went well, and now I’m home:

Look at the pretty things happening on my wall! Yesterday’s near tornado has leftover winds positively thrashing the tree outside my window, but it makes for some absolutely beautiful, shimmery shadows on the wall as I write this.

Not much to say today – there’s too much to do, and I haven’t had time to reflect much on it beyond repeatedly shouting “Awesome!” to myself and to God every time I realize how wonderful and overwhelming the days here are.

It’s mostly a potential day today. I might score well on the LSAT, I might have the makings of an awesome senior thesis on my hands, I might be going abroad to work this summer, I might have another sweet campus job next semester, I might get one or two or three or four side projects published, and I might absolutely will become a country music star and go on tour with my band.

I’ll keep you posted on how that last one turns out.

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Is this real life?

I took the LSAT this morning. Then, I got home and crashed into bed like I’d been hit by a tractor trailer, determined to sleep as though I’d just been through some terrible and trying ordeal. And then I couldn’t sleep. I hurt. I felt sad. I’m attributing it to my dad leaving (who’d come down to take me to the test and back and whom I hadn’t seen in far too long and lost far to soon), and perhaps also to the temporary loss of my cell phone, which he accidentally took with him. Four hours away. On a Saturday night. No good.

But that didn’t even really matter after about 6:30pm because – and here’s where I get back to the point – I miss the LSAT. Okay, you’re right … that’s ridiculous. But I miss the way I felt before I took this monumental and unnecessarily traumatizing exam. Because before I took it, it hadn’t happened yet. Circular, I know. Point being, now I seriously am on my way to the next and yet-to-be determined chapter of my life. I’ve taken this exam and the score will be my ticket into law school.

So (follow my twisted logic if you can) I’ve taken the exam and I’m now eligible to apply. And because I can means I really should, in order to better my odds of acceptance. And why would I want to better my odds? Because I want to go to law school, of course. Because I want to graduate, leave my darling, gorgeous friends with their great, big hearts and hearty, humble souls and  their kind, thoughtful minds, strike out by myself, far from home and this place which has built me, on a three-year course of arduous intellectual labor surrounded by raving liberals. Yes.

Lord in Heaven, I’m simply grateful that, today, You’re not issuing a dramatic call to action, or presenting me with to an immense glamorous task. Today, You just need me to follow You. During these strange little hours, You just want me to sit and wait on You.  Help me remember that.

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Okay Okay Okay

Life on fast forward goes like this: sunshine shower yellow make-up quick ponytail saw-my-shoes-where’d-they-go breakfast breathe breathe breathe. …I love being around Gwen… Run to bio (missed that last slide!) out the door and oh, there’s Emily! … “Girl – look what I made you.”… Sunshine steep hill *wish for coffee* class nocellphone cold air; dash home/grab books/dash back/study. …Read… 15-MINUTES lunch yum salad yum; Quick coffee cold leaves class class class …Dr. Arnn on Churchill? That’s how you know you’re alive… Dash home/grab shoes/3-mile loop/quick dinner/quicker shower/grab books/settle down/studystudystudy; …Scripture with Casey … Sleep and sweet dreams I can’t remember later…

Can I just show you my planner from yesterday? Goes like this:

7:15 Breakfast with Gwen;

 8:00 Class;

9:00 Class;

10:00 Edit personal statement;

11:30 Lunch;

12:00 Class;

1:00 Class;

 2:00 Work;

 4:00 Professor Meeting;

4:30 Run;

5:30 Dinner;

6:30 Study;

7:30 Tower Player’s Production of Company;

10:00 Read, pray, sleep.

LSAT ON SATURDAY!!! Wish me luck.

PS

My senior thesis is about Spiritual Geography!! So is my Churchill paper!! More later …

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Christmas Clouds

I stand quietly in the window – close enough to the glass that the gray chill from outside grips my skin, and close enough to the kitchen that the warm sound of culinary chaos rolls around my shoulders like a bright comfort of fleece. Firelight flickers at my ankles while rain shivers through the whips of wind snapping down the street. I’m protected by a few centimeters’ worth of glass and a hundred million miles of warm yellow Catholic sister love laughing over the stove. The doorbell rings. “I’ll get it!” I shout, as I would if I were at home. The way I do when I’m home.

Today, a bunch of Catholic girls on campus got together and made dinner, and all of the Catholic boys were invited. It was a rainy day – a “sinking” day, as my roommate calls it, but I floated through today when I thought I might sink. It was an exquisite knot of challenges, surprises, laughter, blessings, music and (happy) tears … and yesterday was full of sunshine and photography. I don’t understand how I deserve such brilliantly overflowing days.
Tomorrow I take Sarah and Nick’s engagement photos. I’m possibly more excited than they are.

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Best Friend’s Brother

The moments of quiet don’t come until the night colors appear, those silken shades of hunter green shot through with goldenrod lights on the quad that gasp up and over coursing sidewalks until they freeze against the navy black sky.Tiny jagged holes in Heaven’s floor pepper Earth’s icy ceiling with steady streams of hope and fear. Restless waves of chilled air shiver into clouds of tree leaf blankets and my shoes tap-tap-tap until the creak of the front door shushes them onto creamy carpet and the warm, warm love.  Magnets on the fridge cling to poetry that trails me up the narrow stairs and onto a bed eight hours long enough for even my long long legs. I’ll have to read each of these sentences twice (they’re so full) and how do I get all of this when even only one would have been plenty more than enough?

First, Brandon ~ Thank you for commenting on my posts all the time. I don’t think I’ve really ever responded in a way that would show/tell you how awesome it is to know that some one appreciates them. Even though, lately, I’ve been SO BAD about posting. I think I may have given this blog up at one point … but now I’m back. For now.

There is so much happening. Each hour spills over with ideas and faces and demands on my time. I’m so here – so firmly present in this place every day that I can’t believe I ever wanted to leave – and so anxious to go. It hurts. Hurts to know that I am exactly where I want to be while all kinds of fascinating things wait for me in Reykjavik, Kabul, Mumbai, Sydney, Nairobi, Rome, San Juan, Capetown, Athens, Cairo … Long hours on long roads cause me to both cherish the ground they cover and wonder what other places roads make possible. The pumpkin spice latte in my hand tastes of September, making me nostalgic – remember freshman fall? – and then brings back the cold Starbucks in Istanbul that satisfied my caffeine addiction but left me craving the rest of the world.

Am I overwhelming you with so many long, brimming sentences? I can’t keep the leaves and coffee grounds and dancing and crying and post-its and emails and driving and cramming from filling them. They’re a reflection of my place and of my state of mind. And, even though I have to stop writing them right now before I get sick of them, I kind of adore them.

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