New Year Brings Newness

(Written whilst on a new year high, please forgive hyperness)

I sit here in a lovely hotel connected by sky bridges to two other hotels thinking about how I want this year to be better, different and new.

 (crazy eyes)

I never took resolutions seriously for more than a week until I read some of Matthew Kelly's books. Maybe it was because he is Australian and a palpable, even charming type-A that I decided to write down my one year, five year and five+ year goals. Or maybe, maybe because I desperately wanted to be the kind of person who could decide to do something and do it. 

Waking up early will again go on the list. I didn't do that AT ALL. 

But I did take a class outside of work for a whole year and that has never happened ever. Hellsbells I said, I will not be a quitter! And so I went and loved it, even when I sucked (okay I didn't love it when I was awkward, and there was that one time I skipped and went running instead, but it was one time!!!). 

When I wrote my list last year it was at a time when I was very vulnerable and I wanted to believe that I could change. That God could mold me. That my happiness could come out of me changing when I had no control over my environment. Or as Anne of Green Gables so sweetly put it, "It's not what the world hold for you. It's what you bring to it."

And she was right, and it isn't a sugar-coated perspective. There is still sorrow and anguish but there can be peace keeping you steady, or in the worst of circumstances keeping you from drowning!

My dad and I watched a documentary the other day called "Happy". The movie tries to analyze and determine the factors that make a person happy or not. A percentage is made up of our own genetic make up. Some people are just more naturally able to feel the "Happy High". Money also comes in to play, but here's the catch, people who have all of their needs met are found to be just as happy as very very rich people. Then there is what you decide to do about being content. Apparently the choices and habits you make can help rewire your brain to have a higher and higher capacity for happiness. Which I found to be relieving, because that made sense to me since I feel myself functioning differently than even two or three years ago. Last but not least, "Happy" focused on community and how human connections bring joy (of course!) but we sometimes put the people we love on the side for the sake of fame and money. I was glad that they did talk about God nearing the end, and they interviewed a couple of people of deep faith, including a man who gave up his career to work with Mother Teresa and he was just so blissful!

I don't know where I was going with this... I guess what I wanted to say is that change is hard, and you might think that you are a person who can't change, but I say you absolutely can and that resolutions can actually be resolved! 

Sometimes when your life "is a graveyard of buried hopes" it is the kick of God telling you to start A-NEW.

Meeting

At St. Patrick's Cathedral, October 2, 1979, the visiting Pope John Paul II embraced Archbishop Fulton Sheen and said: "You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the Church."

The Beauty of Now

Today is not yesterday.

 
You cannot change your past by thinking about it over and over again, reliving details in your head, thinking about how it could have been different. Your past cannot be changed, but your soul can be cleansed and healed. In time God can take the past and make something good out of it, but the past does not change because it doesn't need to. If God needed to change the past to heal you he would, but he doesn't so it remains. When Christ came, died and rose he promised the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of the world and you are part of that world. But he did not come to change your past, he came to redeem it. The Beauty comes in seeing how his mercy takes the darkness and turns it into light. He loves you with abandon. He cares about the sins that plague you at night and the ghosts of people who turn your stomach over. He cares, but he will not change your past because he honors the free choices you made, but if you are willing he will take you out of your bad choices and bring you to a better, brighter Now.

Now. Today. This Moment. Him and You. You and the world.

You are called to the Joy and Mercy of Today.


"Though time is too precious to waste, it must never be thought that what was lost is irretrievable. Once the Divine is introduced, there comes the opportunity to make up for losses. God is the God of the second chance." - Archbishop Fulton Sheen

The Year of Faith

Today marks the new liturgical year.
Be Faithful.
Be True.

Live the Year of Faith called by Pope Benedict XVI

Sketches and stories from my trip to Franciscan University coming soon!

Sky High

I am greatly blessed.

I just resumed my study of the life of Pope John Paul II for a little book I’m writing and illustrating. God has given me a really sweet reason to immerse myself in Him through someone who loved Him dearly. In only a few hours of spending my time reading his biography and discourses I feel infected by that love and close to Jesus. Few things are more moving to me that the love of God winning over tragedy.

I have a book called “A Year with John Paul II” and there are meditations for each day taken from the Pope’s writings and Prayers. Today, on a whim I opened it up to August 10 and this section cut me straight through!

“The consumer society in which we live and the fear of an uncertain future drive one to seek immediate gratification for oneself. One becomes, introverted, falling back on one’s small personal happiness, on one’s emotions, in a circle where aroused feeling is incessantly on the look out for new sensations, which quickly fade away, where there is no reference but to self and to one’s pleasures. This is no way to live. This is not the world you want: it would be a world without hope, one that empties man’s life of meaning.” - Discourse to the Youth of Fribourg, Switzerland, June 13, 1983

I tried to find the rest of the discourse online, but couldn’t so I’m no the hunt for the rest. There is a danger, at least for me at the moment, when I am focused on job hunting and working on my personal art to become oh so self-centered! To become more excited about “the next new thing” than God and the people he calls me to serve. Compliments, fame, fads, movies, etc come quick, strike high and then they are gone. But God’s love and the deep connection with neighbor is so much deeper and lasting I pray that even when I am working on my own I am drawn out of myself to something greater. That my heart might expand. And that is what I hope for you too! Whatever your creature comforts may be that they will not become crutches in your life but sweet nectar to add to your daily romance with our Lord and his people!

In the Land of Life and Death

In the throngs of unemployment I’ve been thinking a lot about endings and beginnings, pain and joy, purification and sanctity. Not because I’m having such a terribly time but small pains lead the mind to bigger pains and free time leads to meandering thoughts which compile into blog entries.

There have been times that I felt deep depression and sorrow with little to no relief. I could only see and feel the poison in my veins which deprived me of the strength and the ability to feel The Joy I knew held me. It was always in retrospect that I understood what was happening then. My God was sucking the poison from my veins and I cried and cried because it hurt and just when I thought it would be over it continued and I cried and cried, “My God why have you abandoned me?” It seemed I could only cry the first words of Psalm 22 and not continue. I didn’t know that this pain was necessary because it was healing things I never knew needed to be healed in order for me to have Life. The more I squirmed and tossed the more the process hurt, but as I let Him simply do what He had to I realized that I could breathe a little easier every day and that I began to experience the Joy mixed in with the Pain of letting God have His way with me.

One of the things He continues to try to take away is the idea that I know what is best for me and that I know what will truly fulfill my life. Those ideas I make up are very precious to me. I have them tightly woven into dreams in which every detail is played out and I present them to God saying, “Isn’t it beautiful the life I’ve thought up?” I say that I don’t mind what His Will is that it’s okay for Him to make of my life what He wishes, but I don’t really mean that. More often than not I make myself believe that I raised and pampered those dreams in the presence of God when really I hid myself in the closet, concocted them so that nothing could be poked or prodded until the masterful scheme of my life was completed. It is only then that I would present it, speak highly of it, say thy will be done and then go back to looking at my creation dreamily.

I am so attached to this dream or that dream that when it is brutally taken away the attachment I had to it is all too clear and the superficiality of my abandonment to God comes to light. It is afterwards that I enter into grief and the only way to have the grief bear fruit is to be willing to let God teach me who I am and what I truly desire more fully. He may not let me know right away because first and foremost he will teach me that what I truly want is to trust God with my whole heart and that every moment after the loss I have to choose to want him more than the company of my grief. He wants me to choose to give him the thoughts and actions of my present moment and not let my thoughts wander to the regret of the past and fear of the future, which can rob Him and me of so much glory.

The Devil surrounds all of us with our fears and regrets right before we take a leap to glorify God by living the present generously and boldly while carrying our burden. The carrying of a pain or loss does not exempt joy from daily life. Forget the flightiness of the happy and seek the depth of the joyful. Joy is rooted in Christ who is unmovable and declares suffering transformative and death conquered. This is why our burdens can be transformed and become both light and heavy. Heavy because a good lost should always be mourned, but light because it’s loss is not the end of Good. In the end if we are faithful we will experience All Good and be good ourselves. No longer burdened by our own weaknesses or the fallen world. The realist, the Christian knows this and so he mourns deeply but also laughs deeply because through this great battle of good and evil in a land both dotted with beauty and danger there is a Lord who is our ultimate end. Pain will end and Light and Wonder and Love will abound. I’d rather be awake and know I am a soldier with a Lord who I belong to and will have my rest in than be asleep and suddenly awake in surprise to find suffering with no knowledge of a cure. Christ is the cure to all our afflictions whether we can run, crawl or barely breathe.

To partake in the Divine Life is an honor, both extraordinary and ordinary. Every moment in life is tinged with a wisp of the wonderful and the mundane. The reality I clung to in the infancy of my life with God was a warped vision now made clearer by His Grace. The reality emerging before me is far more fantastic and terrifying than I imagined at the beginning of my spiritual journey. I realized that I have no control over my life except for my ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to Him and that truth is just shy of overwhelming. Sometimes my 'yes' is joyful, other times is it's painful. I am at the mercy of his Grace.  I suspect that the more I become like Him Who Sees Most Clearly the wonders and terrors of the world will explode into images I could not have taken in without being blinded with my younger eyes.

One of the aspects of the Christian life is becoming more and more familiar with reality. You become neither a pessimist that proclaims all things shot to hell or an optimist who shoves hell under the carpet and pretends the room is perfectly safe. As a Christian becomes more and more like Jesus and knows him more intimately he becomes acquainted with the most sumptuous joy but also the darkness of death, the pain of suffering. You cannot know Christ and put on his life and likeness without knowing death. He said himself to find your life you must lose it (Mt 10:34-39). This abstract idea was brought to light when Jesus lost his life and found it. He was dejected and killed to show us that by embracing God’s will, even our death we will find ourselves resurrected. Jesus is the proof that sin can be conquered, that death is not the end. Life comes by laying down one’s life, and if He gave himself up to the short mercy of men why shouldn’t we give ourselves up to the limitless mercy of God?

April & Ash

I've been working on a piece that I touched upon a couple of posts ago and I realized I needed a design for April, a charming, aloof spirit of spring. I sat down and this is what happened:

In retrospect I realize that this is what was going on in my mind while I was doing this:

Peter Pan

+

Armie Hammer

=

Also I've been painting one of the twins' rooms and it's been super fun but still not done! I'm going to try to finish the pink room this week. Fingers crossed.

This whole week I've been wrestling with what to focus on during Lent. Each day my vision morphs, as God clearly has been pushing what I know I have to work on! It's just so haaaaaard. Whine. But I think I'm ready to try these not so secret things I've thought of. One is no facebook for Lent which will be no secret since I'm letting ppl on facebook know. I want to fill up the idle time I spent there on something more substantial like praying or blogging or cleaning dishes or checking Hunger Games news (sad but true)... anything but mindlessly clicking on things. 

What are you doing this Lent? If it's personal no worries but I'm often curious. If you haven't thought of anything I 'll recommend this: It's a good to time to really focus breaking any kind of habitual sin and adding some positive habit to your life. For example I'm going to try to have a better work ethic so I'm going to monitor and be more aware of how I spend my time at work, making sure that I use my time honestly and productively. BOOM! I've broken down what that means for me but whatever your goal is break it down in a practical way and always have a prayer ready when you're tempted!

When in doubt the tree pillars of Lent are Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving (Service).

I really hope I get a good Ash Wednesday cross tomorrow because nothing is worse than having a wimpy smudge on your face. 

God's Grace be with you this Lent! Holy Spirit come!

My Inferiority Complex, The Devil and God

I have yet to meet somebody whom at some point of his or her life has not tried to compensate for qualities he or she is lacking. For my entire life I have used my facility in the arts to boost the self-esteem that was slowly depleted as I realized I couldn’t compete for praise in other areas. First I realized that I wasn’t society’s ideal of physical beauty, so as I covered up my thighs and looked at my nose in the mirror, I thought at least I can draw. In middle school I was top of my class without even trying, but throughout High school and college excelling in academics became harder and harder, until every so often I felt dumb. I felt awkward at large parties; I had no idea how popular people enraptured an audience. But still I told myself at least I can paint. When all my cousins and friends began to have steady boyfriends and get married, I’d think, I’ve been gifted; I can draw.

So as you can expect the days when I couldn’t quite paint what I wanted and “worse” when the very ideas and worlds I wanted to convey were done more beautifully and effortlessly by close friends of mine, I felt very, very small. I dreaded being compared, I dreaded being glanced over. I dreaded having nothing to offer. At that moment I felt ugly, dumb, unloved, and not good enough. And worse I felt sorry for myself. I had all the comforts in the world, but I felt empty. On top of it all I was ungrateful. I hated myself.

~

It is a terribly thing to be caught in so great a lie. The devil, I am convinced, loves using small insecurities to create obsessions over things that are lies. For in fact I am not the most beautiful, but often people remark that I am pretty. I might not be able to debate with great wit and write with ease, but I’m most certainly not dumb. I might not have a boyfriend, but I feel truly loved by others. And yes, I’m not the best artist, but I’m pretty darn good.

How is it then that every once in a while I found myself in a deep well of insecurity, feeling so small like I had nothing to offer?

Well, there are several ways to get to that awful place and I’m going to tell you my theories. I’m pretty sure I’m right. The lies you believe might be different, but maybe you’ve experienced something similar.

The Devil lost me long ago, but he is still around looking at any moment to get me back. He is not an idiot he knows that I’m no longer (usually) drawn into serious sin when I am weak, so he has to take a few extra steps. He’s crossed off a few choices that he can’t coax me into anymore, because I know they won’t make me happy. I know they’re sugarcoated poison. But I’m still sensitive and often insecure and that’s all he needs to work with.

The key for the evil one’s plan is now even subtler. He will make me believe that by pursuing and fulfilling the ideals of beauty, fame, intelligence, popularity and romance I will become a whole and worthy person. Only then will this insecurity fade. After all, wanting to be attractive, acknowledged, smart and well liked aren’t bad things. The word ‘sin’ doesn’t immediately come to mind…

In retrospect, I realize that I’ve been coaxed and that I’ve listened.

…So go my dear, pursue these things for look at yourself, young men are now used to looking upon perfect women, you wouldn’t want to disappoint. Nobody will every take you seriously if you can’t match their knowledge of history, and look how alone you felt during all those parties, better work on that too. It is wise for you to worry about the future; you don’t want to come home to an empty house every night, do you? Now, don’t look so sad my dear, at least you are doing well with your art, but isn’t it too bad that you are still second-rate. Oh I know you get plenty of praise, but you’re still just not there. Just compare yourself. Compare yourself.

Now where is My Lord and My God in all of this?
He is waiting for my ear and heart to turn His Way and ask two very important questions. “Who am I?” and then, “What do you want of me?”.

But until I ask those questions, I find myself trying to get out of that spiral by devising plans to achieve all those goals. And the Devil is gleeful, because I have forgotten who I am and the God who loves me. These goals will never be achieved because there is always something more to covet. His lie is alive.

I know this sounds silly. But I have many friends who start tearing up because they think they don’t look good in a bathing suit, or because they are not talented enough, or smart enough. As the outsider and the friend you think they’re crazy! They’re so valuable and kind and creative. What are they talking about? You might think it’s a good idea to slap them out of such on obvious falsehood. It’s always obvious when it’s someone else.

The longer you persist in conversation with the evil one the harder it is to stop. But STOP, and turn your eyes to the heavens and call out to Jesus and ask Him, “Who am I?”And He’ll say quick and loud as thunder, “ You are my beloved daughter”, “You are my beloved son”. Then ask, “What is it you want of me?” And He’ll say, in some way or another, “Your heart; all that you are. Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.”

Stay with Him there.

In that quiet I’ve seen my true self as God’s beloved daughter called to true goodness, to true perfection. Perfect looks so different in God’s eyes, and is so much more exciting!

Do not be afraid to ask! Ask often, I forget all the time.

Most people think that if they give their hearts to God they will have to forget about everything else, but the truth is once you put your confidence in God and not in yourself and what others say you must be going about your life becomes joyful, because your are no longer on an anxious pursuit to become worthy of love. Living with God is living in reality; a land of truth where all the smallest lies are brought into the light.

~

The pursuit of SELF-esteem is a distorted, winding journey, because truly we are looking for confidence in something perfect that can’t be ourselves because we are flawed. We inevitably fall into either arrogance: believing we are more than we are or self-loathing: believing we are less than we are. No wonder humility is so hard to come by and so highly prized. The humble man is so calm, so unshaken by the affairs of the world and the whispers he might hear. The humble man knows who he is and what is expected of him. He only weeps when God weeps.

All The Reasons Why I'd Make a Terrible Nun

The other day during a Non-Harassment Seminar at work I was doodling (and listening at the same time!) and I began to think, wow, sisters and nuns with habits wear the same thing their entire lives! I asked myself if I could ever manage to do such a thing. Blue is my favorite color, I could probably stand to wear blue everyday for a very long time, I thought. So I began to sketch out a habit I could potentially see myself wearing forever until the day I died. The sketch that came out is the one on the left. Of course, I'd need a work day outfit with fewer layers so I fashioned another one right after in brighter colors. I'd be out in the sun, I imagined, so yellow would be perfect, and you know patterns are so cheerful I'll add some on the hem, as long as they hold some meaning to the Christian life I'm sure it would be ok.

Almost immediately, I came out of my silly daydream and laughed. I wanted to be a pretty, well-dressed nun! I have this immediate desire to want to beautify everything, which is not a bad thing, but habits are modest and practical for a reason. My little daydream was pure fantasy although it wasn't just composed of me having an awesome habit. Some of my core desires would have to change if I ever was called to the religious life, which I've always been ok with. I don't feel guilty that my desires haven't changed. These silly little day dreams are however a testament at how beautifully some of these sisters and brothers I've met live out their lives. Their testimonies do tempt me in a small ways to force my desires to change so I can live as they do, but I know it's not necessary because the Lord will call me to my own path and that path will be laid out especially for me because He knows best how to lead me on the road of sanctification.

More reasons I'd make a terrible nun:

a) Often, unfortunately, I think, ‘Ok, after I pray and meditate the Rosary, I can finish reading the end of my fantasy novel!!... Crap, I'm more excited about this silly novel than I am about spending some time with the Lord, man I suck...'
b) Bad circulation... too much kneeling makes me cry. Often I have to spend my prayer time with my legs propped up on some pillows so I'm not distracted by my legs complaining.
c) To my personal disdain, I'm more romantic than most, hence the love of fairytale based novels. I'm sure I'd forget myself if I saw a cute boy. I'd check to see if my hair looked ok and then I'd remember that I'm wearing a veil and that I'm a nun and that no you can't go to the ball with him.
d) I'd get kicked out like Maria Von Trapp for sneaking an afternoon in the mountains. Once in a while I get this spontaneous desire to disappear and go on an adventure.

And this is where my post crazy-day ramble ends.

Have a lovely day. For real.

Fabi

Where Do I Walk?

I love 'The Thin Line of Sanctity'. It is very thin. Pray for prudence; pray to be a good listener because often time we can’t quite see where that line is. It’s hard to walk on an invisible tight rope without someone leading you. And when you think you can do it all by yourself you're blind without even knowing it, which means it's time to pray. Ask for His Hand always and forever.