7 Quick Takes Friday: The Stress Level Edition

- 1 -

Hello all! And welcome to my stress level, currently a jittery 8.5 (out of 10), platform: Hyper Aware.

God is so good to this naive working girl, who has a tendency to say yes and yes and yes to all that want pretty arty things and coffee dates, that He pointed out a scheduling conflict by ways of a friend I bumped into today.

"Hi, A, fancy seeing you here at this cafe so close to our homes. We never bump into each other here!" said I.

"How true! And we'll see you for dinner tomorrow night!"

Now do I want hot tea? Cold tea?... Wait...

"What? I thought that was tonight."

My voice is level, but inside... No, no, I have dinner with my BFF tomorrow and I can't cancel, and then there's the logo and the book and the lawyer and the trip to Mexico in a week... Mild Panic.

"Well, thank God (really thank God) that I bumped into you, otherwise I would have arrived at your doorstep tonight (squeaky clean and coiffured). Guess I"ll have to move some things around. Take care!"

- 2 -

I agreed to work on a logo, for a small pay, for a ministry I love... warning paying party that I only work in Photoshop... but really I've been slowly coaxed into to just learning Illustrator on a very short deadline. I love this ministry so I don't want to give them less than my best, and if it were the only thing I had to work on life would be grand...

- 3 -

But I also have to meet with a lawyer ASAP, to look at a contract I got sent by an agency to make sure it's kosher, and well... to do the thing a responsible adult would do...

- 4 -

And then there is a personal goal of mine which is to send out a my children's book to a publisher I love before I leave to Mexico... I am determined to send it...

- 5 -

Mexico, did I mention that? My lovely cousin is getting married and I am going to Guadalajara for a week so there is a whole list of to dos. I need to get all of everything done above before I get to this. I am determined.

- 6 -

I refuse to look at the rest of my check list.

- 7 -

Thank you God that this is the extent of my "problems." Thank you audience for listening to me. Stress Level: 5.5 Platform: Deep Breaths.

I wish I had some art to show you interwebs. Perhaps in good old Mexico I will be able to do some personal work.

Hugs and Good Luck to all.

(Update: Okay I looked at my check list... See you on the other side...) Here is the picture of my kitty companion, who keeps me on task.

Prayer and Love

Just a day ago I was cancelling all sorts of pleasant outings so I could get two rush jobs in... now I have an entire free morning to do whatever it is I might want. Like eat and make up things to write about.

While I was home for Easter I didn't want to pray alone so my Mom and I prayed the Rosary every night (which I haven't done in a long time) and I realized, yet again and of course, why the Rosary is such a good prayer. It takes me out of the egocentricism that so much of my own personal prayer brings about. During the Rosary I can pray through my problems and fears in light of the life of Jesus and Mary, which helps me pull back and listen to what the Lord wants to tell me. The Rosary is a really imaginative prayer, so instead of letting my imagination run wild the way it does when I just wing it, it orders and directs my imagination in a more fruitful way. For instance, today is the Feast of the Annunciation when Mary receives the beautiful news from the Angel that she is to bear the son of God. That happens to be one of the mysteries you meditate on in The Rosary. Last week when I prayed and repeated the Hail Mary, I imagined seeing and feeling what Mary must have been feeling and the weight of what she was being asked, and then I imagined myself being called by God, and so I had to face the fears that came along with that, but not before seeing Mary's strength which gave me strength, so it made the whole thing a lot easier.

As in an prayer, sometimes it is visibly fruitful and sometimes it is not, but it has been awhile since I felt such peace after prayer, and I am thankful for that.

~

I also found a lovely passage about what it means to Love by John Paul II, enjoy!

What does it mean to love? One of you asks me, in your judgement, what does it mean for us young people to love?" I wanted to address these questions together with others, more complex, in which I have found your unease with exaggerated hedonism, widespread pornography, a permissive mentality, which fatally lead to "forgetting the highest and most indispensable values." So then, I agree with you: to love authentically as Christians today often means going against the grain, being straightforward people who call evil evil and good good, and courageously decide against the common practice of equating love with sex, validity with success, authenticity with appearance. To love as Christians is this miracle: to center ourselves on God through the person of Christ, and give ourselves to others in an attitude of openness, of welcome, of assistance. Within this context, vocations to marriage, as to consecrated life, will be vocations of love. By loving seriously, you will acquire the understanding and culture of love, correctness in seeing the demands and concreteness of self-donation. I confess to you in simplicity that I feel  real disturbance over the future of the world, when I see young generations incapable of real love, or who reduce their self-donation to exchange of gratification between equals, incapable of seeing sexuality as a call, an invitation to a higher and more universal form of love.