Trust

I'm sitting on my bed, staring out the window at the thunderstorm.  Trees bent sideways, hail stones pounding on the pavement.  It's a lot like my heart right now.  My inner peace has been replaced by tumultuous disappointment in life.  Today, it feels like everything has gone wrong that could go wrong.  Yet, I have hope.  I know God always has a plan, and even when the nights seem darkest, there is always another glorious sunrise.
"The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything.  Instead, pray about everything." ~ St. Paul
It's nice knowing I have God on my side.  Thank you, Lord.
I just looked out my window again.  Its still raining, but the sun is out.  The raindrops are shimmering like radiant diamonds, bathed in the beautiful light.  There is still hope.

The Four Loves... Greatly Abbreviated

"He who does not love does not know God; for God is love." ~ 1 John 4:8

I have been contemplating the mystery of love quite a bit lately.  Probably since I am so far away from my own true love for the summer, I want to plunge the depths of this magic so that when we are rejoined I can love more deeply.

I'm taking my order and thoughts from C.S. Lewis and his book The Four Loves.  The first love is Affection, or, the most basic fundamental love.  It can be the love between parents/children, the love between the crusty old gardener and the fresh young child, etc.  It does not succumb to social norms, age, sex, money, time.  It is the comfortable state of being, knowing you are with the person whose presence provides stability to your life.  Lewis writes that it is the only love which does not need a language, since this love speaks volumes through the comfortable silence.  It is the most broad sort of love, it includes all.  Pretty much everyone has affection in their lives.  It is the backbone of love, once you have that security you know you can branch out and love more fully.

The next love, friendship, exists between two or more people who share something in common.  The ancient thinkers write that friendship is the most fully human since it bonds otherwise separate people together into a unity.  Friendships are a necessary part of humanity since through them you can explore your horizons with the companionship of a good friend.  A true friendship is open, encouraging and steadfast.  Romantic love can fail, but a true friend will always be there for you.  C.S. Lewis describes friends as looking forward together, side by side. 

Lewis paints romantic love, or Eros, as two lovers with eyes only for each other rather than looking ahead like friends.  In Eros, lovers have become so necessary and deeply ingrained in each other, that they can lift each other up to unknown heights or cut down to the deepest depths with just one word.  Once, a priest told me that he didn't think that lovers could be real friends because C.S. Lewis describes them as looking in different directions, however from my own observations and experiences, I tend to disagree.  Lovers are friends in a different way than "just friends" are.  Lovers are friends in that they know each other so deeply that they can provide the support and companionship they know they need.  Also, by the very nature of matrimony, husband and wife vow to provide companionship, share interests, secrets, and adventures together for the rest of their lives.  If doing that with the person you love doesn't constitute as friendship, I don't know what it is.  True, it is different than normal Friendship, I think that it could be a bit deeper and more mysterious since it is fused with the powerful passion of romance as well as friendship.

Last, but certainly not least, charity is the love closest to heaven.  Charity is the truest love, without it, none of the other loves are possible.  Charity has guts.  Charity means pouring yourself out COMPLETELY for someone, even if he or she will never give you anything in return.  The greatest example of this powerful love can be found on the crucifix.  Jesus' gift of His life for yours is the epitome of selfless love.  Only through the practice of charity can you bring and strengthen the love in your life.  This love will change the world.    

Music for the Heart

Here are some songs that have tickled my fancy recently.  I love how effortlessly beautiful these songs are.  I've been getting so fed up with the fake, non-artistic pop songs on the radio.  I hope these add a refreshing sweetness to your summer!

1. Forget Me Not- The Civil Wars

2.  Bluebird- Christina Perri

3.   Brave- Sara Bareilles

4.   Bird Song- The Wailin' Jennys

5.  You're the Reason I Come Home- Ron Pope

Rapunzel Let Down

I finally got my hands on it!  The new Regina Doman book!  On Friday, my sister and I bought it and had it signed.  Since I am such a fabulous, humble, and selfless big sister, I let her read it first.  (Actually, she only read it first because I had to go to work.  But, whatever...)  Luckily, she is a fast reader, both she and I finished reading it in a span of 72 hours.  I found Rapunzel Let Down to be one of Regina's best books of the Fairy Tales Retold series, besides Waking Rose.  With her last two novels, Midnight Dancers and Alex O'Donnell and the 40 Cyber Thieves, I noticed her getting into a predictable rut.  However, this book is a different story.  For nearly 500 pages, Regina Doman kept me wide-eyed past my bed time, but the pain of getting up for work the next morning was worth the story.  This ain't your typical fairy tale.  Rapunzel Let Down is definitely a darker, more adult addition to the series, poignantly touching painful issues with compassion and tact.  It deals with the difficult questions in life like pre-marital sex, teen pregnancy, and homosexuality: a good message for today's society.  The book challenges the reader to ponder "what happens when the prince fails?  Can we find happiness after sin?  What constitutes moral sin?"  Delicately, yet with urgent force, Regina tells the young women reading just how vulnerable men are to lust.  Just one temptation was enough to knock the prince, a good Catholic boy, to the ground and sin against his better judgment.  That sin had major consequences.  Without giving away any spoilers, it changed his and his girlfriend's lives forever.  There was no going back after that mortal act.  However, there is hope beyond sin: the forgiveness and healing mercy of God.  Through the sacraments, happiness and spiritual peace can again be achieved. 
Furthermore, along with the chastity message, Regina outlines for her reader what it means to truly be woman.  The heroine was raised by radical feminists, taught to believe that "womyn" will reign victorious in the world, without the bestiality of men.  Instead, Raphaela learns that a real woman needs a man to need her.  She needs to be the help mate of her man, the soft shoulder he turns to when the world is too hard for him to bear alone.  She needs to be the warm, loving, protective vessel to the life their love creates.  Above all, she needs to find the true strength in her weakness.
I highly recommend this book for some enjoyable yet morally progressive summer reading.  Happy reading!

Elephantine Fears and Book Lists

There are only a few things which terrify me beyond rationality: heights, roller coasters, and mice, to name a few.  Well, the other day my faithful feline was crouched in rapt patience, staring behind my bureau.  I shrugged it off as just a spider she saw.  But then, I heard the horrible scratching and squeaking!  I may or may not have run screaming for my dad to rescue me.  After gutting my room and closet, I came to the conclusion that the vermin are not in my room per se, but living in my wall.  So, as long as they don't chew through, I can live (barely) with their revolting presence. 

And now, I have my summer reading list!  Here are a few titles which caught my eye:
A Severe Mercy- C.S. Lewis
A Handful of Dust- Evelyn Waugh
The Jeweler's Shop- JPII
Middlesex- Jeffery Eugenides
 

I Believe In Love

    G.K. Chesterton once wrote, "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."  One of the main themes of fairy tales is true love, which is so often thrown under the bus by modern society.  So many people I have talked to don't believe that real, true love can exist.  One of my coworkers and I often engage in a rather invigorating debate about this very topic.  Circumstances have made him cynical that a true, pure love can exist between a man and a woman, and he feels it his duty to warn my romantic soul against certain tragedy.  But I always passionately argue for love.  I tell him that true love isn't this mushy-gushy happily ever after nonsense, because that simply can't really exist.  If it does, then it isn't real love, it's probably just infatuation.  Real, true love is hard.  It is a free will choice to love your beloved, even when he or she is annoying or hurtful.  Real love is nitty-gritty, soul-baring, and honest.  Real love is facing the facts and dragons of life together.  It is knowing when to let go, and most importantly, when to hold on.  Even when dragons like distance, passions, and miscommunications rear their ugly head, love is learning to hold on and to try harder for your beloved, despite the odds.  True love is the most beautiful, perfect state of being, since it is totally selfless and life-giving.  And like all things good, you have to work really hard to achieve this perfection.  The nice thing about love is that you aren't alone, both you and your best friend are working together towards the same goal.    
     True love's kiss isn't regarded as the most powerful magic of all in fairy tales for no reason.  A properly ordered love is a staircase to Heaven, since true love is a total giving of self for another--pure charity.  This is why, I think, that the concept of love is under such attack in our modern society, since Satan cannot stand the presence of such a powerful, beautiful magic in the world.  He has distorted "love" to either look like a fluffy, princess-y feeling or a sultry, passionate obsession.  In this distortion of love, it is all about "me."  I want to feel powerful, I want to feel loved, I want to feel desired.  This is a love of lust and delusions.  True love will change the world.  A man and a woman truly in love will spread the light through their selfless and courageous devotion to each other.  This is why I believe in love.  True love slays dragons, it does not create them.  "The beauty that will save the world is the love that shares the pain." ~Cardinal Martini of Milan