nasty Tastes.

Have you ever eaten a meal that was SO good when you ate it and then everytime you burped for the rest of the day you could taste it again?  I'm sure you have.  Most people have, most people don't mind re-tasting the good meals.

Have you ever eaten a great meal only when you burped it tasted gross?  And no matter what you did you seemed to keep burping and keep tasting that nasty taste?  Probably.  You thought when you were eating it that it was so delicious and you thoroughly enjoyed the meal...the first time around at least.

Have you ever eaten the worst meal ever and then had to re-taste it with every burp?  You brush your teeth, you chew gum, you eat mints and nothing seems to get rid of that horrid burping regurge.  It was gross going down and the fact that you are constantly reminded of that horrible meal is incredibly annoying.

Well, we've all had these experiences.  Sometimes we don't have to re-taste our meals when we burp and that is often a beautiful thing.  Yesterday I had a great lunch.  It was our monthly "eating meeting" at work where we all bring in food and have a potluck staff meeting and the main course was Margherita Pizza.  It was fresh, homemade and absolutely delicious...the first time around.  I spent the rest of the day (even after dinner) re-tasting the pizza and I can promise you that it got worse with every burp.  And I seemed to burp more (lady like burps, of course) yesterday than usual (and isn't that always the case?).  The more I tried to fight it - teeth brushing, eating other foods, gum, etc. - the worse it seemed to get.  It was in my attempt to stop the re-tasting of the once-lovely pizza that I realized that these experiences with our meals are much like sin and good deeds in our lives, and how beautiful to realize this during Lent.

Let me spell it out:
Sometimes we "eat" good things, we put ourselves in good situations.  We go to Mass, we spend some time in the chapel, we pray our Rosaries and life is beautiful.  When we eat good things, we burp good things.  As a result of going to Mass, etc., we are more peaceful, joyful people.  Life is good.

Sometimes we "eat" things we think are good, they taste good at the time.  We sleep a little extra instead of going to Mass.  We go out with a friend instead of going to confession when we know we should go get our souls cleaned.  The things we "eat" seem good at the time, but when we burp we discover they weren't that good in the first place.  We don't start our day with Mass so we get annoyed at the car in front of us in traffic, then we get annoyed with our co-workers and the bad day snow-balls into a horrid day.  We had a great time with our friend but because we didn't go to confession we keep adding sins to our already long list of sins and our souls remain dirty.  The burps taste worse and worse.

Sometimes we "eat" bad things.  We go out and party, we drink too much, we gossip, we spend too much money, etc.  We know these things aren't really good for us and we do them anyway.  And yet for some reason we are shocked when the burps taste bad.  We oversleep our alarm clocks and are late for work, we spend the day fighting a hangover, we hurt someone with our gossip, we don't have enough money to pay for our car payments or for food to eat.  We eat bad things and we burp bad things.  We try to cover up this bad burp taste by stopping the partying, the drinking, the gossip, the over-spending, etc., but the bad taste hangs around.  It gets a little better but it still stinks overall. 

Perhaps you find yourself "burping" more often lately, you find yourself re-tasting all of the bad things you have "eaten".  Maybe that is God telling you to "eat" things that are good for you.  Maybe that is God telling you, constantly (perhaps even annoyingly) reminding you that you need to clean up your breath and what you "eat" in life or its just going to keep getting worse.

What gets rid of the bad burps?  Confession.  It is the breath-mint, the mouth-wash for the soul.  It cleans our soul so that we are more disposed to "eat" truly good things so that when we "burp" we enjoy them because we "ate" good things in the first place. 

How do we keep the bad burps from coming back, because God knows we are bound to "eat" things that aren't always good for us?  Keep "eating" Confession.  "Eat" as many good things as you can this Lent and throughout the year.  Cling to the Sacraments, to grace, to prayer, to people who challenge you to be a better person.  Surround yourself with happiness, joy, love, peace.  "Eat" His word.  And when you fail to "eat" something good for your soul, or when you find that you have "eaten" something that you thought was good for your soul but really wasn't..."eat" Confession.  Eat it up like it is holy, Heavenly candy.  Because it is.  Then, let your breath be fresh and rejoice in your good tasting burps as the Heavenly Father wants you to.

worth the Tears.

I once heard a saying and it went like this, "no man is worth your tears and the one who is will never make you cry."  That saying sounds nice and wonderful but it is simply not true.  At all.  Unless you are talking about Jesus (though I'd contend that He makes me cry, though for totally different reasons that I'll get to in a minute).  Even that picture makes life look all happy and simple and, dare I say, perfect.  You can stand out in the sun and kiss your significant other and you'll never cry a single tear because you are so completely and perfectly and incandesantly happy (name that movie!).  After all, what ill could possibly harm your relationship?  Why on God's green earth would you ever cry?  Why would he make you cry? 

I used to think that if I was dating someone that it would have to be over if they hurt me or made me cry.  I'm pretty sure that if that were true I would never get married, nor would anyone else.  Even my least "girly" female friends have been known to shed a tear or two over their boyfriends (and their husbands).  Make no mistake, these men they are dating or married to are good men.  But at the end of the day, they are still men.  That's not to say they are horrible beings and I'm not using men in any foul sense, dripping with sarcasm.  I say that they are men to empahsize that they are human, they are, by their very fallen nature, imperfect.  Only perfection will not make you cry.  Imperfection, inevitably, will.

There are about a thousand reasons girls cry, only a few of which are related to hormones.  We cry.  We cry at a good movie, a touching Hallmark commerical, the death of a loved one, stress, worry, hurt feelings, as a way to get out of trouble, attention, joy, the list goes on.  But in the case of that phrase in that overly-cute picture at the beginning of this post, we should apparently never have to cry because of a man.  Ever.  After being with Mr. Irish for six months now (when did that happen?!) I can honestly tell you that I've cried.  We are both human, imperfect, fallen beings.  But just because we fight sometimes and just because I cry does not, by any stretch of the imagination mean that he's not worth my tears or worth the pain that goes with the fight.  Remember when I wrote the ache of Love?  Crazy to think that was nearly a year ago and yet I had it right - it hurts because we love.  Mark Hart once said, "If love were only about feelings, Jesus would have been hugged to death for our redemption.  With true love comes suffering."  With true love comes suffering - we are bound to hurt, bound to cry because we love.  We want perfection, we long for perfection, we were made for Eden, not for Earth and so we are continually left disappointed and aching for more, so we cry because our hearts know we were made for more and still we aren't there yet.  We miscommunicate, we disagree, we see things differently than our significant other does.  We cry.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because we cry that the man in our lives isn't "worth it" anymore.  There is a difference between crying because a man (who probably really isn't a man at all) is continually hurting you and a man worth fighting for - that is a distinction only you can make, it can't be made by some nice, cheesy saying. 

Jesus is the first Man who will ever be worth your tears, and even He will make you cry.  In His presence I realize how imperfect I am and it often leads me to tears, humbling tears.  He, however, is worth the fight.  His love is unending and I'd rather cry over/because of Him everyday for the rest of my life than live a single moment without Him in it.  I remain convinced that if you open your heart to love, to being vulnerable with another human being, that Jesus won't be the last man who will be worth your tears or worth the fight.  Let love outweigh the hard times because they are sure to come, but just as sure as they are to come, they are sure to pass, leaving a deeper love in their wake.

what it has Meant.

A year ago today I started this "little blogging adventure" (the first blog was titled "what does it Mean?") as I often refer to it and as I've been reflecting on that little factoid for the last few weeks I thought about doing a blog like this one.  What would it look like?  What would I say to mark the anniversary of an adventure that has been more thrilling and trying than I ever thought it would?  (Oh, you think it is easy to sit here and spill my guts week after week?  Try again.)  I thought about simply linking to my favorite blogs that I've written, though I don't know that I could narrow it down - there are so many that I have so thoroughly enjoyed writing.  There are also blogs that were a pain in the butt to write.  There have been blogs I wrote, published and thought to myself, "what the heck was that??" only to find out that those blogs spoke to someone's heart directly.  I know, I believe in the depths of my soul that this blog really isn't mine, it is His.  It always has been and hopefully it always will be.  I'm a happy scribe and I pray He continues to use me and that He continues to speak to you through me.

That being said...I've had a few random thoughts this week that haven't fully amounted to a blog yet (though they could at some point) so I figured this would be the perfect place to share them.

I googled "agape" for a cool picture and I found the one at the top.  So true, and this blog has taught me that.

"Suffering occurs because I perceive myself differently than God sees me" - Gene Monterastelli

Love makes us vulnerable.  Some would even say love makes us weak.  Love opens our hearts in a way that no other force on earth can ever open our hearts.  It leaves us open, exposed, vulnerable.  It causes us pain when the person (not the thing, that's not the kind of love I'm talking about here) fails to protect us, to sheild us, to value our vulnerability.  God never fails to protect us, to guard our hearts.  He always stands ready to fight for us.  Moreover, He cherishes our vulnerability.  Cherishes it. 

When I wrote Wednesday's blog, rend your Heart I don't think I had any clue how much I was predicting my own future.  I look at the picture at the beginning of that blog and can't help but feel that is what God is doing to my heart.  (Ok, He doesn't do that to my heart, it is happening to my heart.)  I'm trying to remember my own words about that picture, about how I see hope in it, or the Holy Spirit rushing in.

If the last two days are any indication, this is going to be one of the most trying Lent's in my life so far.  Not because of what I chose to give up, but because of the way the days have gone down.  Ash Wednesday marked ten years since my Papa (grandpa, not my dad) died.  The personal struggles that are going on in many arenas of my life...it is going to be a trying Lent.  And if the way the last two nights have ended are any indiction, He's going to use it all.  He's going to use it to teach me, to show me, to speak to my heart (Hosea 2:16), to shower me with His love.  Isn't that what Lent should be about anyway?

Here's to the next year of blogs, may they all point to His glory, to His unending, unconditional love.  May we all be reminded that we are, in fact, worthy of Agape.

rend your Heart.

"Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God." - Joel 2:12-13

I don't know about you but actually rending my heart sounds a bit painful.  Good thing that wasn't what Joel was talking about!

Welcome to Lent, folks, my favorite liturgical season of the year!  Today we don ashes on our foreheads as a sign of who we are, and of what we shall one day return to.  I've often said that today is the coolest day of the year to be a Catholic because everyone knows it, however, those ashes should come from our hearts.  If you put on ashes just to be a "cool Catholic" because that's the thing to do today I'd send you straight to this reading. 

Rending your garments is easy.  You may not enjoy ripping your clothes to threads, but it is easy to do and requires very little effort - after all you can just go buy some new ones later.  Rending your heart is hard, just ask Jesus:

Rend your hearts.  Rip them open this Lent, let them burn and bleed for love of Him.  Rend your garments if you want to, but the real change in our lives comes from real change in our hearts.  What will you really learn if you rip up your clothes?  Not much.  What will you learn if you rend your heart and offer up your pain, suffering and sacrifices to God?  More than you can imagine.  We, this Lent, just as every one before it and after it, are following Christ in His journey to Calvary.  His pierced heart bled blood and water and made our salvation possible.  Even if we are but a small reflection of that sacrifice, just imagine what our hearts would be capable of we would truly rend them this Lent.  As we begin this Lent my prayer is that you would return to God with your whole heart.  God knows I've struggled (a.ka. am struggling) with this whole concept of actually giving Him my whole heart, but that is what Joel encourages us to do, today and everyday. 

I look at that picture at the beginning of this blog and I just imagine the Holy Spirit rushing in to fill our hearts, to heal them (isn't that SO needed?) and to uplift them.  Or, I see pierced hands rending my heart because it needs to be open more to Him, He wants to get in.  Either way I see hope in that picture.  May you rend your hearts in a new way this Lent and may the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all as we follow Christ through these forty days.

p.s. "The Lost Get Found" series is on hold until after Lent.  Wednesdays during Lent I'll be featuring a new Lenten reflection in hopes that it not only keeps my readers on track in Lent but kicks my own butt in gear for this glorious season.

make a Way.

"Thus says the LORD:
Remember not the events of the past,
the things of long ago consider not;
see, I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
In the desert I make a way,
in the wasteland, rivers.
The people I formed for myself,
that they might announce my praise." - Isaiah 43: 18-19, 21

I have a weird love for the desert, not that I've ever really been to one (unless you count parts of Utah and Nevada).  If you remember, I've written about my love for the desert and how it is not something to fear.  My favorite verse in all of Scripture comes from Hosea 2:16 which reads, "So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart" (NAB).  If you asked me what my favorite liturgical season is (a nerdy, theological question, I know) I would say Advent and Lent...but mostly Lent.  I love the Triduum, I love Good Friday, I love Ash Wednesday, I love the desolation of it all, the sacrifices, the work that goes into not only the liturgies but into our hearts as we truly enter into Christ's suffering.  I love the somber feeling I get when I walk into a church during Lent - the darker colors, the quiet, reflective nature of those assembled within her walls, quieter music.  I love the stripped down, bare nature of churches during Lent - the decorations (or, really, lack thereof) set the tone for the hearts of the faithful.  I love the desert, I may not always like being called there, but I love the desert because more often than not that is where I feel most connected to the heart of God.

Then, while at Mass this weekend, this reading reached out to me like a cool glass of water on a hot summer's day.  I love the desert but we don't stay there forever.  "In the desert I make a way..." says the Lord.  He makes a way out so that we, His people, may announce His praises.  I may love the desert and it may be there where I feel most in tune with the heart of God, but I am not called to stay there - and neither are you.  We enter the desert because sometimes we need it, we need to be stripped down to our bare essentials, we need to rid ourselves of the clutter in our lives (I'm talking to you here iPods, iPhones, facebook, twitter, etc.).  We need the desert because we need to remember what is really important and what is just white noise that only distracts us from God. 

Think about it - on a deserted island are you worried about your make-up?  Your hair?  The clothes you are wearing?  Your favorite sports team?  The latest celebrity hook-up?  No.  You are worried about survival, about food, water, and hopefully returning home someday.  Shouldn't that be our spiritual life too?  We should be worried about food (the Eucharist), water (the healing Sacraments: Baptism, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick), and hopefully returning Home someday.  We don't want to stay on that deserted island forever, nor should we want to stay in the desert forever. 

Imagine if Lent lasted all year - we'd go nuts, and we'd lose our appreciation for it.  We need the seasons, we need the deserts and the mountain tops in order to appreciate all that there is around us.  We need summer to be able to appreciate the cool of winter, we need endless snow storms to appreciate the warm summer days.  We need the desert to appreciate the forest.  As we enter into Lent this year, don't be dismayed by whatever it is you are giving up or by the prospect of fasting from meat on Fridays or from nearly all food on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Try not to let the desolation overwhelm you, but try to appreciate the desert and trust that, as Isaiah wrote, God makes a way out of it.  We know Easter is coming, but the desert lays before us.  Enter the desert, learn from the desert, seek the heart of God so that when Easter comes we may announce His praises with more fervor than ever before.

to be fought For.

Deny it all you want, women want to be fought for.  I'm not saying that we want to be fought for in the sense of starting an entire war over us (I'm looking at you, Helen of Troy), but we want to be fought for, we want to be defended.  We want the men in our lives - whether they be friends, brothers, fathers, boyfriends, fiances, or husbands - to stand up for us.

There are people who may call me (or women who think like me or agree with me) weak.  Let me be heard: there is nothing weak about a man standing up for women.  I'm reminded of a song that I love by Billy Dean and in it he says,

I know you can make it in this world on your own
But I wanna take care of you
The woman within may think that it's wrong
But I wanna take care of you

I'll show you the love of a man that knows how
To hold you without holding you down
It's not a sign of weakness to let me be strong
I wanna take care of you

It isn't a sign of weakness, it allows men to be men and women to be women.  Plus, isn't there something incredibly attractive about a man that stands up for women?  Think of the characters you love in movies: Mr. Darcy, Aragorn (I'm coming up short of good examples at the moment, but you catch my drift), the ones who fight for love, who fight for the women in their lives and who strive to do right by them.  Those are the men that my heart cheers for, the ones I dream about.  The others fall to the wayside.

Yesterday I was reading some posts back and forth on my friend's facebook page in a debate about contraception, pregnancy and abortion.  Needless to say, this debate got pretty heated, but as I read on I found myself literally fist pumping and rooting for one guy (a.k.a. MAN) in the conversation:

Matthew: I have a box of condoms by my bed and several more in my bag, and the young woman I'm currently sleeping with has been on the pill for years. She has alarms set to take her pill daily on the off-chance that she might forget it, and she checks the pack to make sure every night before going to sleep. On the very slim chance that she might get pregnant under these circumstances she might very well choose to terminate the pregnancy, but it would be her decision completely, because she has every right to have control over the fate of her body.

I wouldn't have sex with a woman who met the criteria you offered [a woman who wasn't on the pill and no condoms could be found anywhere]. We'd probably engage in oral or manual stimulation in that case.

Mark: To be honest I'm very sad in the amount of hate you allow yourself to allow in your life, seeing as every post you made was made with some form of insult. I can respect your right to choose differently than me regarding your lifestyle choices, but I cannot respect the manner in which you treat others, in particular, women. I would be quite bothered if I were your significant other and you referred to me as only "the woman I'm currently sleeping with" as if that was all I meant to you. I would also not be okay with the fact that I would be exposed to significant health risks in addition to that. You are supposed to protect the women in your life. They are beauties for which we fight for.

(Yes, the names have been changed.)  Isn't it obvious which person you are rooting for in this conversation?  This all goes back to my post precious Little  - would you rather be revered and honored or a commodity to be used and consumed?  Would you rather have a man fight for you, defend your honor and uphold your dignity or announce to the world that you are sleeping together and he loves the fact that he can have his way with you and not ever really worry about knocking you up?

What's my point here?  Men, real men, fight and defend women and our dignity.  Plain and simple.  Boys, jerks (and that's the nicest thing I'll call them) don't.  Say what you want about contraception and its correlations/connections to abortion - that's not the debate here.  The challenge is to rise above the little issue and realize what is at the heart of this matter: women.  Women: don't be afraid to challenge men to stand up for you, and don't be afraid to walk away when they don't.  Men: stand up for us.  Defend us.  Why?  Because as a woman I would choose Mark in a heartbeat over Matthew, no thought required.  Mark defends, Matthew doesn't.  Jesus defends, sin gets defensive.  I'd rather be on the winning team, wouldn't you?

true Love.

Dear Valentine's Day,

I have a long standing tradition of pretty much hating you.  There is a hopeless romantic buried somewhere in me, but you haven't helped in bringing that hopeless romantic back to life.  I walk into groceries stores and want to vomit at the amount of pink that overwhelms me.  Why do people believe that love only gets one shining day a year?  Share the love, stop hogging it for one day. 

Love,
Amanda

In high school my Christian club (and I, it's vice president) wore shirts that told of the truth of the day: God.  His love.  1 John 4:10 says, "In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us."  That's the quote I chose for my shirt because it is in Christ that we discover what love really means.



So why do I have a tradition of hating Valentine's day?  Break-ups (yes, I've been dumped on Valentine's Day.  Twice.), big fights, lost friendships, pain and sorrow have led me to dislike Valentine's Day like I do.  One might think that as someone in a happy relationship I would shut up and enjoy Valentine's day.  One might be...half right.  I enjoy it in so far as it is a day that I get to spend worshipping God, and this year I get to spend it being thankful for Mr. Irish.  And I am unspeakably thankful for God and for Mr. Irish (in that order), but this blog isn't one to parade around my happiness (I once referred to this day as Singles Awareness Day).  This blog is one to promote the source of all love, the reason we are blessed with loved ones in the first place: God.  So today I'll leave you with a few of my favorite quotes about love of all kinds in the hopes that you are moved to be thankful and grateful for love every single day, not just one pink-filled, chocolate-covered day a year.

"The measure of love is to love without measure" - Saint Augustine

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love" - William Shakespeare

"Love and truth are inseparable" - Hans Urs Von Balthasar

"Faith is our response to God's gift of unconditional love" - Father Christopher Kirchgessner, O.S.B.

"Hatred stirs up disputes, but love covers all offenses" - Proverbs 10:12

"As the heavens tower over the earth, so God's love towers over the faithful" - Psalm 103:11

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love" - 1 John 4:18

"Love is most nearly istelf when here and now cease to matter" - T.S. Eliot

"Though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not" - C.S. Lewis

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within" - James Baldwin

"Love in this sense - love as distinct from 'being in love' - is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit." - C.S. Lewis

"Let unifying love be your measure, abiding love your challenge, self-giving love your mission" - Pope Benedict XVI

"Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works.  There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest" - Saint Augustine

"Genuine love perfects the life and enlarges the existence of the person" - Blesssed Pope John Paul II

"If we do not encounter love, if we do not experience it and make it our own, and if we do not participate intimately in it, our life is meaningless.  Without love we remain incomprehensible to ourselves" - Blessed Pope John Paul II

"Love is the beauty of the soul" - Saint Augustine

"The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, in spite of ourselves" - Victor Hugo

"To fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek Him, the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement" - Saint Augustine

"In the absence of love, there is nothing worth fighting for" - Elijah Wood

"Love without action is just as dead as faith without action" - Andrea Shatto

"You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving" - Amy Carmichael

"Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" - Blessed Pope John Paul II

"It is not moments of unleashed passion that prove our love, but the countless hours of commitment spent between" - Unknown

"God loves us; we need only to summon up the humility to allow ourselves to be loved." - Pope Benedict XVI

"Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, it's what you are expected to give - which is everything" - Katharine Hepburn

"To love is to be transformed into what we love.  To love God is therefore to be transformed into God" - St. John of the Cross

the Journey.

"Someday you will ask, 'Am I there yet?' and God will answer, 'Yes, you are.  Welcome home.'" - Father David Brown, O.S.B.

Remember when I wrote a letter to stability?  Remember how I concluded that we are made for Heaven?  Yes, well, it appears we need to be reminded of this (or at least I need to be reminded).

This past week I've found myself asking that very question to God, over and over again, "am I there yet?"  "When will I arrive?"  Part of it has to do with stability, but part of it has to do with being able to simply breathe a sigh of relief at one accomplishment or another.  I look at some of my friends and think they have it all together, they own a nice house complete with a wonderful, loving husband.  Many of my friends are pregnant or already have children - the seem to have it all.  So I ask God again, "am I there yet?"  "Can all the pieces of my life just magically fall into place yet?"  If I were God (and thank goodness I'm not) I might even begin to think that this Amanda girl sounds like she is whining.

But it's not just me.

Get on facebook and read any number of status updates and I can guarantee you'll see what I'm talking about.  This morning there were a few of my friends wondering when their children will be born (not to say that I would/will be any different if and (God willing) when I am their shoes), there were others asking for prayers for houses they have made offers on, boyfriends to propose, auditions to go well, acceptance letters to be received and on and on they go.  In our own way we are constantly asking God, "am I there yet?"  Or even better, "are we there yet?"  Then I was reminded of that quote from one of the monks at my college.  He gave that quote at the end of an amazing homily and that quote has hung on my wall ever since then.  Why?  Because it reminds us that we aren't there yet.

In his homily Father David didn't say that God will answer, "no you aren't you lazy bum, now get back to work."  Someday, some glorious day, He will answer and that answer will be beautiful.  Just thinking about that day brings joy to my heart - and that joy gives me strength for the journey (now that hymn will be stuck in my head all day).  But that day is not here yet, and I don't hear God telling me "welcome home."  In fact, when I ask Him that question more often than not I hear nothing.  Why?  Is God being silent?  Is He holding out on me?  No, he's not.  He's not answering because if I am being honest with myself then I already know the answer.  I'm not there yet.  We aren't there yet.  There is more work to be done. 

Depressing?  I think not.  Hopeful?  Certainly.  That quote reminds me of what is really important: our journey to Heaven.  It isn't all about the boyfriend or the ring or the house or the kids or the college or the car or any of it.  It is about the journey - the journey Home.  I think that it is especially fitting as we prepare our hearts for Lent (next week already?!) that we remember what the journey is really about.  We aren't there yet and there is a reason for that: we need to ready our hearts for Heaven.  So this is my challenge to you and to me: let's try our hardest not to get bogged down in the "are we there yet?" questions and focus more on this question, "Loving Lord, what can I do to ready my heart for You?"  That is a question that can always be answered because until we get to Heaven and He tells us "welcome home" there is always more work to be done.

relational to the Core.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: women are relational to the core.  As I was heading to Mass this morning this thought, this fundamental truth about the heart of a woman came back to me, though today it's meaning is deeper.

Guys have this tendancy to "figure things out," so to speak, before entering a relationship (not that they don't have things to figure out once they are in a relationship too).  Women, figure things out while in a relationship.  Sure, we figure things out while we are single, but because we are so highly relational we figure out A LOT about ourselves once we are in a relationship.  We learn things about ourselves, old wounds get broken open, things comes up in relationships that don't when we are single.  We can (and often do) easily ignore these issues...until we are in a relationship and they are staring us in the face.  Sometimes we know what the issues are and sometimes we don't.  Sometimes it comes in this form of a feeling that we get but can't explain right away.  Guys, who tend not to be as relational as women can and often do get easily annoyed with women when we feel the need to figure out everything, analyze all of our feelings and deal with our issues.  Satan uses this to his advantage. 

In their annoyance with women's need to analyze and figure things out, guys tend to do one of a few things:

1. Put women down for how we feel.
2. Make us feel bad or weird for thinking/feeling the way we do.  (This one is often a result of number 1.) 
3. Leave.

None of these options help women.  In fact, they tend to only make us more afraid of being left, hurt, trying again in a new relationship, opening up, being vulnerable, and in extreme cases, they make us afraid to ever love or risk loving again.  All of these reactions from guys keep us from entering into relationships for fear of being mocked, put down, unvalidated and left.  Then, Satan has won.

Relationships, properly ordered and divinely rooted (whether with people of your own sex or with members of the opposite sex) allow men and women to grow.  Women grow through and because of relationships (men do too, though in entirely different ways).  We discover countless things about ourselves in relationships and how we can better serve others.  Satan wins by getting women to fear such relationships.  When we fail to enter into such relationships (including, and especially one with Jesus) we fail to grow.  We become stagnant, we backslide, we falter, we fail - which is exactly what Satan wants.

So where do we go from here?  Men and women have a few different things to learn about this fundamental truth about the relational heart of a woman.

Men.
You have two options if you want to be a real man and not let Satan use you as his pawn:

1. Be patient as our loving Lord is patient.  We will occasionally need time to work through our girl brains to understand what our hearts are trying to tell us and what we can't yet put into words.  Wait with us and I can promise if you are patient with us it will be worth the wait.
2. Pray with us, pray for us, pray over us, pray.  Intercede on our behalf.  Don't push us for words we can't find because changes are that we are already struggling to understand what is going on in our hearts and pressure from you isn't going to help any.  Instead, pray over us, ourloud.  Let us hear and know that you care for us and are here to guide us.  (And I do mean guide - guys, even men in these instances can't solve, fix or magically know what is going on in our hearts.)  Be the spiritual leader.

Ok...not so much two "options" as two things to do.  Do both for all of the women in your life and we shall thank you for it.

Women.
Pray.  Read Scripture.  Remember the words of Blessed Pope John Paul II, "be not afraid."  Your fear is exactly what Satan wants, don't let him win.

Understand that even though we, as women, are relational to the core, we must be in relationship with Him first and foremost.  He shows us what we need to see most.  He teaches us more about ourselves than we will ever learn in a romantic relationship (though I would argue that He simply uses those romantic relationships to teach us even more).  He not only created our girl brains and hearts, He understands them.  He validates them.  He never leaves.  He is eternally patient with us, He is always guiding us.  From this relationship with the God of the Universe all wisdom flows - keep your heart open to Him.

Be not afraid.  Never fear your own heart.  The fact that we are relational, that we thrive and learn from relationships is never something to apologize for or feel bad about.  That aspect of our hearts reflects the very heart of God - He too learns from and grows in the Trinity.  He need relationships just as we do.  Denying or quieting our hearts, our need to grow in relationships does nothing for us - our hearts get buried and we lose the opportunity to witness to the heart of God Himself.  We, in some sense, separate ourselves from God by denying or apologizing for our relational nature.  Yet another win for Satan.  Becoming truly fierce means that we should never be made to feel like we need to apologize for who God created us to be.  We are created as women, as relational beings who learn and grow in relationships, just as God Himself does.  Reclaim your heart, never fear it's relational core, for it it one of the greatest characteristics about us that connects us to the heart of God. 

Pray.  Ask Him to guide your heart, to help you understand your own heart - He knows you better than you know yourself (cliche, but true).  Let His love conquer all of Your fears. 

this is not a Cafeteria.

Never in the history of worthy of Agape have I ever commented on political things because it simply isn't my realm of expertise and there are normally about a million things I would rather talk about.  That ends today.

Have you ever heard of the term "Cafeteria Catholics"?  It is a term commonly used to describe Catholics who pick and choose which teachings of the Church they want to follow and which ones they do not.  I may catch a lot of flack for saying this, but I would question whether Cafeteria Catholics are really Catholics at all.  In fact, I'd probably call Cafeteria Catholics Protestant and I wouldn't be that far off the mark.  You see, Luther and Calvin picked and chose what they believed to be "truth" and went on their merry ways, they didn't go around pretending to be Catholic.  This isn't to say that I don't love my Protestant brothers and sister because I do, but they aren't Catholic, and they don't pretend to be.

There are things that the Church has taught that I have struggled to understand or profess over the years - to the point that I even considered leaving the Faith.  I researched, I read, I questioned until I understood why she teaches what she does.  My Faith isn't something I take on lightly.

(sound familiar?  Probably.)

Have you ever heard of the term "Cafeteria American"?  Probably not because I just invented it.  (or at least I think I did...let me dream my dream!)  It is a term I use to refer to President Obama, Kathleen Sebelius, and any one else supporting the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ruling that all religious institutions must provide contraception and sterilization free of charge in their health insurance coverage, or else face hefty fines.  Make no mistake, there is no middle ground on this ruling.  The HHS mandate says that either companies must provide FDA-approved contraception (including known abortifacients) or offer no health insurance at all, and that companies who fail to provide health insurance must pay hefty fines (a company employing 100 people would be forced to pay $140,000 annually.  And yes, that is my Alma Mater).  Why Cafeteria American?  You can't just pick and choose which laws and amendments you will follow and which ones you will not.  That is against the law of the land, just as being a Cafeteria Catholic is against Catholicism.

You may not have heard of the term Cafeteria American, but I bet that at some point you've heard of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances (emphasis mine).

In case you didn't know, Catholics are, and have always been, against the use of contraception, abortifacients and sterilizations.  The rule from the HHS flies in the face of the teachings of Mother Church.  Giving religious organizations a year to "adapt" to this rule (gee, thanks, Kathleen Sebelius, herself a Catholic) does not, in any way, shape, or form, "strike the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services" (read the full statement here).  As Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan said this delay in implementation means that "we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences."  (And since when is pregnancy a disease that needs to be prevented, practically at all costs?)

There are a myriad of things to be said about this issue (and if you are interested, I'll link to a few articles at the end of the blog), but it all boils down to this: we are NOT in a cafeteria.  If you are a Catholic, then the HHS mandate violates our own consciences and we cannot sit back and let the government force us to do so.  If you are an American, then the HHS mandate violates the first amendment and we cannot stand for such a flagrant disregard for the laws of the land, the ideals set forth by our Founding Fathers.  Either way, we aren't in the cafeteria anymore.  It is time to get out and stand for what it is that we believe in: religious freedom and the ability to follow our own well-formed consciences.  It is time to stop picking and choosing what we believe in, it is time to take a stand.

And please, before Obama names himself Pope, sign the petition to rescind the HHS mandate.

Learn more about the issue from the USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
Understand the flaws in the reasoning behind the HHS rule.
Discover why the HHS rule is a slap in the face for Catholics.
Stand with the Bishops who have spoken out against the HHR rule.  Read their statements.  Share their words.
Realize that it is only going to get worse as the Army silence Catholic chaplains from reading statements from their Bishop.
More on the debate between Obamacare and Catholics here.
Here's another link because I'm so proud of Belmont Abbey College, my Alma Mater, for standing against the HHS rule.
Watch the video from Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB.  Share it.
Pray for Kathleen Sebelius and President Obama to come to an understand of the Truth, or, if nothing else, a respect for the true practice of religious liberty.

Fierce.

Before you read this post, be sure to read "Truly." or this blog will make little to no sense.

"Do you know why I met your ['feeling'] with such disgust?  Because you are stronger than that, so much stronger.  You have a strong, fierce heart and I don't know why you don't let it shine in our relationship.  You are a strong woman and I wish you saw yourself that way, because I really don't think you see yourself as strong."

God's words, Mr. Irish's mouth.  Welcome to "ah ha" moment number two.

Oh, fierce.  I had almost nearly forgotten about you.  You are the word I keep coming back to in this quest to find my own heart again.  You are the word that keeps popping up in my meditations, in my readings and in my heart.  You are the word that just won't leave me alone.  I've wanted to blog about being a fierce woman ever since I started this new series, but I wasn't ever sure what to write.  Until now.

Fierce.  Pride and Prejudice (the new version, not the BBC one) is my favorite movie.  Ever.  I've watched it so many times the DVD skips.  Do you know what word I think of when I watch Elizabeth?  Fierce.  She overhears Mr. Darcy say that she is "barely tolerable" and throws it in his face mere minutes later.  She takes crap from no one.  She forms her opinions and holds to them (however wrong they may end up being).  The scene in the rain (if you haven't watched the movie I won't ruin it for you) is my favorite scene.  I have it memorized.  She doesn't let Mr. Darcy up for anything.  She calls him out on his crap, on his false beliefs and his hurtful words.  She won't allow herself to be unhappy or to be made to feel small or unworthy.  She is fierce.

The Nativity Story is another great example of what it means to be a fierce woman.  Mary, humble though she may be, doesn't let the world get to her.  Yes, she is pregnant before she is married (she was only betrothed to Joseph at the time), and such a fact is a huge sin and brings great shame upon her and her family.  She doesn't give in.  She trusts in the Lord's plan unfailingly.  She is fierce.

In the way of a blog on being fierce those two movies were all I had.  Until now.  I didn't blog about them because they just didn't seem to be enough.  So you have these two great characters who embody what it means to be fierce.  So what?  They aren't enough.  They are great examples but they don't get at what it means to be fierce.  They get at what you do to be fierce - which is exactly what I've been railing against for weeks now.  How does a woman be fierce?

The moment Mr. Irish said that I have a fierce heart I started to cry.  I want to believe I do, but I've lost it (yet another reason I wasn't ready to write this blog yet).  So I took my questions to God in prayer.

What does it mean to be fierce?
What does it mean to be fierce as a woman?


Lord, show me that I am strong.  Show me that I am fierce.  Help me to see myself as You see me, as Mr. Irish sees me.  He (and I assume You as well) sees something in me that I all too often fail to see, and fail to live out.  (Isn't that the truth with so many of Your daughters?  And of your sons?  I find it ironic how I've dated guys before and saw something in them that they refused to see in themselves.  Oh, how God turns the tables on my heart.)  I am challenged, then, in these times to walk by faith.  I must walk by the faith that You and Mr. Irish see something in me that I fail to see.  If it were a light at the end of a dark tunnel I fear I would fail to see it even then.  But it must be more than something You see.  As it stands now it is practically 10,000 leagues under the sea.  This ship was made to float, to sail, to conquer the storms of the oceans, to traverse the mighty seas.  This ship was made for glory.

What does it mean to be fierce?
What does it mean to be a fierce woman?


Remember how I said that even when I want to challenge Mr. Irish I end up throw proverbial cotton balls at him?  I must stop being a chicken.  There was a moment of grace when Mr. Irish actually opened up his mouth and let the Lord speak those words that started this blog to me.  Those words broke me down like an egg in a tornado - I didn't stand a chance.  But broken eggs make great scrambled eggs.  The phoenix rises, beauty comes out of the ashes, the snow melts and the flowers bloom.  All is not yet lost.

That moment of grace, painful though it may have been, couldn't have happened if Mr. Irish hadn't been open to You.  He knew the words needed to come out and as soon as they left his mouth we both knew they were Your words.  And yet, had fear crippled him, those words may never have left his mouth and I may never have had this revelation.  So, to think, all those times I've had those thoughts about saying something to him, challenging him and I've bitten my tongue, I have been keeping, even stopping potential moments of grace, of growth, of revelation from happening for him?  Ouch. 

So then being fierce, being fierce as a woman must be more than a lack of chicken-ness.  Fierce.  Fear.  They sound so similar and yet are so far apart.  To be a fierce woman one must not only not be overcome by fear (a.k.a don't throw cotton balls), but she must also open her heart (and when appropriate, her mouth) to Your heart.  She must let God's fierce, loving ways flow through her and allow them to flow through everything she does until she decreases so much that only Your fierce heart remains in her.

Moments of grace, growth, hope, love, healing, peace, and revelation are on the line.  Our hearts and souls are on the line.  My ticket and your ticket into Heaven are on the line.  This is no time for playing games.  The world needs our fierce womanly, feminine hearts.  The world needs the fierce love of God to be spoken through hearts full, not of fear, but of fierce love (which may look like tough love at times, but they aren't always the same).  He is fierce, mighty, majestic to behold, may our hearts be fierce, mighty, majestic and even inspiring to behold - may He speak through our hearts to heal and restore others to Truth.


[side note - the titles of the blog this week add up to this: Become. Truly. Fierce.  When I wrote Monday's blog I wasn't intending this...God, I have no doubt, did.  Become truly fierce.]

Truly.

Oh, where to begin?  This blog isn't going to be little, though it may be lovely.  I'm 99.9% sure it is going to take place in two parts, the second installment to come later this week.  Remember how once upon a time I said that I must stop asking Mr. Irish what to blog about because when I do it usually hits me upside the head like a two-by-four?  Well, I finally learned.  I didn't ask him...though apparently wondering what I should blog about while driving to see him is equally as damaging to my head, as I learned last night.  However...the learning that comes out of such revelations is unmatched in any other area of my life so, in some sense, I enjoy it (the end result of the revelations, not the proverbial two-by-four to the head).

To say that this week has been an emotional and spiritual rollercoaster would be the understatement of the year.  And it is only Wednesday.  Let me start by saying that Satan is a tricky little pile of poop (and that's putting it quite nicely).  In order to get to my point (and believe me it is GOOD), I must take you through some of the story.  [And in case you were wondering what happened to "The Lost Get Found" mini-series, this is still a part of it.]  Sunday I began to have this overwhelming feeling that Mr. Irish and I just weren't connecting like we used to, that something wasn't right with us.  It felt like a dark cloud hanging around, though it only appeared to be over my head, not his.  This feeling has popped up a few times in our relationship, though it usually doesn't hang around that long.  This time, however, I was (and am) so frustrated by this annoying feeling that I started to let God have it.  My journal entry for Sunday night started out like this, "what the hell is going on???"  And I meant it.  This feeling is a feeling that I can no more explain today than I could on Sunday, and that fact only served to annoy me further...and irritate Mr. Irish.  After all, what was he to do with this "feeling" I was having?  He can't fix feelings. 

So I went to bed and woke up feeling no different on Monday, and the lack of improvement only made me more annoyed.  The dark cloud just got darker as it refused to go away.  I truly felt that something deeper must be going on here, there must be a reason for this dark cloud, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  I talked to a number of friends to get some insight, but I still wasn't having that "ah ha" moment of clarity I was looking for.  The darkness loomed and infected Mr. Irish and myself...it led to sad and scary thoughts that maybe this whole thing wasn't going to ever work itself out and that this stupid feeling may in fact be the death of us.  Have I said that Satan is a tricky jerk?

By the grace of God (and a good friend...and my blogging committments to The Papist) I ended up re-reading two old blogs of mine: the intimacy of Prayer and just not in Love.  Welcome to "ah ha" moment number one.  We've been missing out on prayer.  We've been trying to get back to it, but it isn't like it once was, and we've both been slacking.  We've been slacking as a couple, and we've been slacking as individuals.  The dark cloud (which had actually been masking itself as a feeling of "I'm going to break Mr. Irish's heart"...have I mentioned the tricky nature of Satan yet?) started to get a little lighter. 

So I spent some time in prayer, thinking about just what I wanted to say, how I really wanted to challenge him and us to get it together or surely we were going to lose it all.  In my head it sounded intense and I liked it that way.  Did it come out that way?  I'm sorry, have you met me?  Of course not.  I chickened out.  What was meant to be and sounded like a fire-ball ended up coming out like sounding like a fluffy white cotton ball.  It came out something like this, "so, I think we have really gotten away from prayer and I want to make more of an effort to get back to that somehow.  I'm not trying to blame you because I have fault in this too, but we should really work on this thing."  Good golly.  Even writing it sounds weak, it lacks a spine...and so do I.  How are we going to get anywhere if all I ever do is throw metaphorical cotton balls at him (and that's on the off-chance that such a "challenge" ever actually leaves my mouth!)?  Oh, sure, I'd love to get back at him (in a loving way!) for all the times he's hit the emotional nail on the head with a ten-pound hammer, but I'm too chicken.  I fear making him mad, pushing him away, becoming a nag, and this fear consumes me so I either say nothing or throw cotton balls.  I'm so scared of running him off that I fail to challenge him (and us) to grow at all.  We become stagnant, we falter, and we fail.  We let dark clouds hang over our heads and begin to miss our single days when we didn't have to deal with all of this.  Where has my spine gone?

Then, finally, we head to the adoration chapel.  Sweet relief.  Except we have to get there.  In a moment of pure grace on the way to the chapel, Mr. Irish opened his mouth and the Lord spoke.  He spoke words that pierced (and for that matter, are still piercing) my heart.  He gave Mr. Irish the courage to speak them, even though they instantaneously moved me to tears...because they are true.  Now, I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the jist,

"Do you know why I met your ['feeling'] with such disgust?  Because you are stronger than that, so much stronger.  You have a strong, fierce heart and I don't know why you don't let it shine in our relationship.  You are a strong woman and I wish you saw yourself that way, because I really don't think you see yourself as strong."

God's words, Mr. Irish's mouth.  Welcome to "ah ha" moment number two.