There and Back Again?

Sorry for the previous rant. Kind of just needed to write something.

But I suppose now's a good time as any to pick up blogging again. Who knows who comes here anymore...it might just be an empty space to let my thoughts echo, but perhaps the echos might just reach a passing ear or two.

In any case, now that it's summer (and thus more free time!) I'd say it's time for a little fun. =D And so dear anonymous reader, I (re)welcome you to the little blog of a young, Catholic woman trying to find herself in the world today. Thanks for dropping by, do you prefer peppermint tea or green?

Government Fail.

Seriously? Has it really come to this? Has an unconstitutional law just been passed as "constitutional"? 


Well.


 When something breaks, do we solve the problem by throwing it away?

According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America: The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41% The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60% The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73% Stats found here.

 When we have a "problem" we get rid of it.

We like to avoid "problems." But guess what? Avoiding the problem doesn't solve it.



We try to tell the world how bad things have become and are told to mind our own business. Mind my own business. Excuse me, but which generation encouraged this mess? As a young person who now has to live with all of this, this IS my business. I have to live with everything that's happening, and so do you.


And when we try to save what we have and try to fix them, we're called old fashioned. Yes, if keeping to morality is being old fashioned, then that's exactly what I am.

But do you know who else was?
Do you remember who this man is?

Or this man?

Or any of these?

Do you think they would have approved of the recent decision? They did, after all, write the constitution itself.










So. What have we come to, America? When did we trade in our morals for our selfish wants? When did morality become known as immorality?

"Love is patient, love is kind..."

What is a young, Catholic, single girl to do on a Valentine's day? Why, enjoy it of course! Dance around in the snow, drink warm tea with honey, make and send cards to all your friends, scour the library's book sale, go shopping, have a party with all your girls, and bake cookies! Most of all, go to Mass. Because there you'll receive the greatest Valentine a girl could ever ask for: Jesus Himself. So enjoy your day. Celebrate and bask in God's abundant gift of Love. I can't say it'll be easy; walking around, passing couples hand in hand with red roses...who wouldn't feel that little (or big) twinge? But by being happy for them, you share in their joy.


I refuse to be mopey today, as far as I am able. I'm going to enjoy the day and spend time with my Valentine. =)


Love 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."
~ 1Cor 13

Oh, and here's more for the young Catholic girl:
A Single's Valentine

Franciscaness

Here are videos some of my Franciscan buddies created for class! Enjoy!

Second Sunday of Advent

"Wait for the LORD, take courage;
be stouthearted, wait for the LORD!"
~Ps. 27

Waiting...

December is full of waiting. Waiting for letters, waiting for the semester to be over, waiting for relatives to arrive, waiting for trains and planes to depart, waiting in shopping lines, waiting for snow, waiting for the next adventure...
...waiting for that one day that everyone looks forward to.

I'm not exempt from the waiting game. It usually drives me nuts in the long run when nothing seems to be happening and I know I can't do anything to make it happen faster.
Something's about to happen...I know it is...now..?..no...when will it happen...?!?!

Then God laughs at me and drops the Psalm into my lap.
Waiting does take courage. It can even hurt having to stay in one place for so long a time when you long to be in another. You have to swallow your pride and accept the fact that you can't do or have something. You have to stop yourself from asking at the top of your lungs, "WHEN God??"

But...While I'm waiting, there's so much time to grow. Just because I'm waiting, that doesn't mean that I can't do anything to prepare. Maybe I'm not given this time to "wait" per se, but instead to grow and prepare for what God has planned up the road. Maybe this state of waiting is where He wants me for now.

Trusting God isn't always easy (actually, is it ever?), but He always pulls through. Even if the Israelites waited how many years for their Savior, it all worked out in the end. Hopefully waiting this time around won't take as long, but even if it does, at least there's a reason.

Adventures part 2 (aka, the more interesting part!)

There's one more story that happened over break that's worth mentioning...I'm very sorry for not having more time to write the rest of them out, but I'll leave you with this one at least.

So there was one point on our adventure where we were still getting used to navigating the streets. New York isn't really all the difficult to navigate through since the streets are numbered and in a grid, but getting used to which way was up or down took a bit of thinking (and walking)!

We were walking on 6th avenue and decided to find 5th avenue since we heard it was one of the best streets to go window shopping down. Well. We couldn't figure out whether going left would bring us down the avenues or going right would. In the end, we decided to wing it like the rest of the trip and head right! Off we went, headlong into adventure!

Yes, you guessed it, we ended up on 7th avenue. Actually, we weren't all that surprised (especially since things like this seemed to be the theme of the entire trip). We turned the corner and started walking back the next block.

Much to our surprise, there was a large, glowing Cross on one of the buildings. As we got closer, we found that it was a Catholic church. Whispering a prayer for it to be open, we went up the steps. Lo and behold, we stumbled into the last few minutes of Benediction! I couldn't help it. It took a whole lot for me to keep from bursting out in laughter. Here we were, semi-lost in the city, and we find Jesus - no, He found us! (Plus, just being able to be with Him in the middle of all the hustle bustle of the city made me incredibly happy! Yes, I'm that type of person.) On top of that, we found out that the Extraordinary Form Low Mass was about to begin! Dear God, how You spoil me so! =D We get lost and we find a lovely unexpected surprise! Honestly, I didn't expect to be able to have any quiet time whatsoever on that trip, much less at church for Mass. Apparently, I was quite wrong.

Well...I think I like being wrong once in a while.

Oh the places you go!

Ack, I'm not a very good blogger, gomenasai. There's so much that's been happening!

Thanksgiving break!! There was so much to be thankful, especially on the adventure over break!

It was kind of a "wing it" sort of trip, and we had bought our tickets the day before leaving campus. God has a knack for turning the topsy turvy into something that fits perfectly with everything else. And so our random trip became randomly amazing.

So last Tuesday, my friend and I took the bus to New York. We were supposed to leave at 3:20, but somehow it got delayed and we ended up leaving an hour and a half later. Well, ok. Thanksgiving break crowd, what can you do? There were actually quite a few other homebound college students, so we couldn't really complain. It was a rather nice drive once we got to the leaving bit. That's the thing about road trips after those long, hectic weeks of school: sitting and doing nothing but stare out the window. It was a pleasant change. But then came the twist! Things were going a little too well apparently, and someone decided that something needed to happen. Things always happen. We were supposed to stop at Philly, but the driver didn't have a GPS and got lost. It was hilarious, the people on the bus had to go and give him directions. (Thank goodness for people who know their way around!)

We got to the station at 2:30am, but had to wait for a friend. It wasn't too bad, there was an

interesting contraption at the station that had to do with pool balls and bells. Not to mention being able to watch people pass by. When you're in a big city with people from all over the country (and world), you pretty much get a world tour of cultures. After a couple of hours, our friend arrived and we hopped on the subway. It was exciting; I've never taken the subway

before! Though honestly, it wasn't as "sub" as I thought it would be. Anyway, we ended up arriving at our final destination at 5 in the morning...four hours later than we expected.

Wednesday, we slept in. We hopped on the bus, took the subway, and headed into the city to explore! Our first official stop ended up being at a church. (yup, typical Cy =D we started to keep a count of how many churches we visited) Honestly, we weren't really sure where we were headed after that, just being in the city was fun in itself.

Oh dear, have to run to class in a bit. I'll post more later...