World Wide Worship...

The internet often gets a pretty bad rap. And for some good reasons, too. Its expanse and easy anonymity seem to be a breeding ground for all manner of uncouth things-- pornography, pedophilia, bullying... and the list never seems to end for ways to fall in to sin whilst surfing its innumerable pages.

Of course, there are many beneficial uses of the internet (like this very blog, if you can excuse my blatant and unrestrained arrogance) such as social networking and the like, but I've recently been reminded of the wonderful opportunities for spiritual enrichment that can be found on the World Wide Web. As such, I've seen God in the internet. (Or, should I say, ON the internet?)

A few days ago, I was overwhelmed with the urge to pray a novena. I've never done so before on my own, and I was at a total loss. As is my first reaction to anything I don't know, I go straight to Google! I type, "Novenas." First hit is EWTN's site with a catalogue of at least fifty different novenas. Beyond all doubt, that is an amazing resource. With one click, I could see who the novena was to, some history about its origins or common circumstances under which it is prayed, and then the text of the prayer itself.

That minute detail (hah!) about the Catholic Church being universal is exceedingly plain here. When I think of all the people who have viewed these same pages as me, I almost feel that my prayers are strengthened by theirs. I'm sure they are, actually. The Community of Faith is so vast, and so powerful. It is humbling to realize that I am such a small part of something so great-- the Body of Christ.

I recall another instance in which I experienced community with other believers on the internet. I was in the eighth grade, and Pope John Paul II's health had taken a turn for the worst. I remember being exceedingly distraught, and spending a great deal of time talking with a close friend (she is Muslim, actually) about what an amazing and Holy man he was. My memory works in strange ways (I am embarrassingly forgetful) but I'll never forget her talking about how much her mother respected him for being the first Pope to enter a mosque.

So, in my pronounced interest, I somehow found my way to Catholic message boards (at three in the morning, no less) where there were ongoing online Rosaries for the Pope's sake. It was unreal. Hail Mary's were popping up from different people so quickly that you had to type fast to make it before it was time for the next decade. It was intense, and I felt alive. I didn't know any of these people, and I didn't have to. We were praying for the same thing, together, though they were many thousands of miles away from me. Beautiful, I think.

Thinking back to pre-Gutenberg times, people depended solely on the Religious to provide them with prayers and scripture. How lucky we are that we literally have all that at our fingertips at any given time. There is no end to the resources. I think it a shame that they are not utilized anywhere near as much as they should be. I suppose it can be a hard determination to make: "Hmm, Facebook, or looking up prayers?" I think we all know the former is the more common choice.

So, I guess I'll challenge you. I think it is safe to say that if you are reading this, you are probably a common internet user. Today, use it to deepen your faith-- look up a prayer, learn more about a saint, discuss Church doctrine, order religious books, -- anything, really to strengthen your faith, or if you don't have faith, then to learn about it. If you want, you can join me in my novena. (It's to Our Lady of Lourdes, by the by.) What ever you do, find some way to spend some time with God on the internet.

P.S. As a humorous addendum, when I first typed the title of this post, it was titled, "World Wild Worship." I didn't notice until I was about to publish the post. I suppose that in my weariness, the slightly homophonic nature of the two words threw me off. But hey, a little wild worship never hurt anyone, right?

Hold the Light...

I suppose I should be blunt to begin with and state that I've set an unhealthy precedent for myself with my first two posts. Needless to say, this (in all likelihood) will not quite match their near-monumental lengths. I feel I should also warn that my wit may not be up to par today, so I ask your forgiveness.

I've always felt that my taste in music was pretty unique. I'm one of those people who isn't really into mainstream music. My all time music-love is Caedmon's Call. I suppose they could be described as an indie Christian group. I consistently relate and draw inspiration from their music, and there is very rarely a situation or stage of my life for which there is not a song that is astonishingly relevant. So, again to my obligatory statement: I've seen God in Caedmon's Call.

So, I thought I'd talk about a couple of songs that are particularly close to my heart.

I suppose I may as well begin with the most apropos (to undeniably borrow a word from a dear friend) song for me at the current moment, and the song that is the title holder for this particular post. "Hold the Light" is part of Caedmons's most recent album (Overdressed). On the large scale, I always felt like it related to the relationship between all those who met for Prayer and Share because it tells the story of a group who met weekly and shared the doubts and trials they faced in light of living a Christian life, and the support they drew from the group. But it is also much more personal than that.

In one stanza, they sing:

"And I stay up late/because I cannot sleep./ I don't want to face the quiet/where it's just God and me./ I'm waiting for the gavel/ handing me the sentence down,/ because I don't believe forgiveness/ or even repentance now."

I think that most people have experienced this at some point or another, when life has become too much, and it feels as if you are beyond all God's love and compassion. It feels unbearable to face God from the shame at "failing" to believe as you know you should. The song then continues:

"There was no judgement in your eyes/ just the silent peace of God,/ that felt so real in you./ Will you hold the light for me?"

There are times in life when beliefs are so challenged or so weak, or you feel so lost and far away from God, that it doesn't seem possible to have faith on one's own. But with the right person (or people), I think it is possible to entrust your faith to somebody else. You simply have to have faith in your friend's faith. I don't think that God minds this, and I don't think this makes you weak. He wants us to be a community of believers, and sometimes that means depending more on others than perhaps your pride would like. But it's necessary. The truth is that there are those who won't judge, and, as the song so beautifully puts it, offers the very real "silent peace of God."

I think, at different points, we are meant to ask others to hold the "light" for us, and conversely, to be holders of the "light." It is give and take, and the duration of either is completely dependent on the individual situation. All it takes, I think, is to ask, and to be asked. For, "Better two than one alone, for thus their work is truly rewarding. If one should fall, the other helps him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). We are, beyond all doubt, called to "Carry each other's burdens; that is how to keep the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).

It may be hard to confide something you consider to be such a "shortcoming" to another, but I think it makes you all the stronger. Even when you don't feel it, depending on somebody else's belief is good enough, because, after all, what are feelings? In bad times, faith goes beyond feeling, and it becomes believing despite all feeling. Share your faith, and if need be, allow the faith of another to be enough if you can't do it on your own. There isn't anything wrong with that. Allow yourself to be helped up, and maybe even be carried for a while. I know that I certainly have.

To be quite honest, I feel like this song alone should be enough to convince you of their greatness, and I've also written much more than I intended to. So, convinced or not, listen to them, and I'll leave you here. Perhaps I will elaborate on another song at a later date, but something tells me that this is enough for now.

Take the message of this song to heart, because I don't think you'll go wrong. Trust me.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Underpants...

I happen to be greatly blessed by God in terms of sisters. Brothers-- nah, God didn't seem to think I'd need any of those. It seems my father shares a certain, shall we say, foible with Henry VIII. Luckily, Dad knew to give up on having sons, effectively truncating any talk of beheadings. (Though, not having to continue a dynasty may have had something to do with that...) Well, we did have to get a male dog to placate him, but that's besides the point.

Now, sisters, those, I have. Of course, I've got my three biological sisters (yes, all the same father, as my sister replied to her inquisitive doctor in south carolina), but I've also been blessed with an incredible amount of (surprisingly anti-effeminate) females who I am rather close with. Thus, as I will obligatorily state, I see God in sisterhood.

As a female, I feel that part of the package is to be slightly genetically programed to tend towards falsity and jealousy towards other women. But, miraculously, that can be overcome with a little bit of grace. (Not that the claws don't fly at times, but hey, we can blame that on something else, right?!)

First, I'll talk about the sisters who originate from the same womb as I did. (Hey, gross! I come from a third-hand womb!) They are invaluable. We've said some horrible things to each other over the years, but we are without a doubt, always there. Besides, fights with them are always the most memorable. Like the time I threw a box at my older sister. Or the time I repeatedly slammed a door against the wall... with my little sister behind it. Or the time my thanksgiving blessing that I shared with the dinner table was that my sister was moving out so I could get her room. You may think that's way off topic, but when it comes down to it, anything we've said, anything we've done... we've forgiven. And that's just beautiful. Not that I go out looking for excuses to offend them (most of the time, that is), but it is nice to know that those ingenues are in it for life, my compatriots through to the epilogue.

And for the record, as far as my sisters are concerned, no such sisterhood as the 'traveling underpants' actually exists. But, I must say, if we were ever to instate such a tradition, that would be our best bet in terms of garments. And to exacerbate, it would most likely be the sisterhood of the traveling granny panties.

And then there are my other friends who are simply too dear to me to call anything but sisters. The sisterhood we share is special. It's voluntary. That's quite shocking at times, that somebody who isn't related is actually willing to hang around. For the most part, they're the ones that I laugh with (see yesterday's post) and they are also the ones that I cry with.

We have great quantities of fun together, and the best part is that while they do not share my blood, the majority are in Communion with me in Christ's blood. And I mean that quite literally. And they are the ones that hold me accountable. They're the ones who have the job of telling me when I'm being obnoxious. They're the ones who try to protect me. They make up for my shortcomings, and share in my tears, my embarrassments, my snorts, my food, and my bed.

They put up with it all-- my shrieks of obsessive-compulsive horror, "Get your shoes off my bed!!" or "Don't stand on my rug, you're wrinkling it!". They've put up with my sending them crashing down into bathtubs with shower curtain and rod soon to follow. (I really can't tell you how much I wish none of those were true.)

So, while I certainly won't being joining any sororities any time soon, I can rest assured that at least one of my sisters will always have my back. She may have to pull her claws out of me first (joke!) but she'll always be on my side.

So, thank you, God, for the beautiful women in my life. If I were a man, I would be remarkably lucky.

[On a (relatively) unrelated note: I have a follower! This is great! I feel like Lord Voldemort! "Yay, I've gained a follower! She will be a most faithful buck wheater!" Now, I'll give her a beautiful tattoo of poop with a duck flying out of it on her arm so I can call her to me whenever I please, and after that, I will give her the privilege to lick my shoes whenever she so desires..." As an extra bit of trivia, (or just so you don't think I am crazy) I just referenced two childhood traumas that my sister put me through.]

I love to laugh...

... long, and loud, and clear!

Well, here I am, re-entering the blogging world. I had a previous middle school foray over at the other blog site, but I find this site to better cater to my now, shall we say, more refined tastes. Er, right. I figure now is as good a time as any to begin; with starting college this fall, I may not have any other outlet to release my excessive thoughts and emotions, so this offers insurance that I do not, heaven forbid, take up my younger sister's habit of broadcasting every minute occurrence via near-instantaneous facebook status updates.

I will try not to bore you with rote recitation of my daily goings-on, but rather, offer a hopefully insightful (at the very least, thoughtful) view of the world. Or at least, what little of it I am part of. Of course, I can make no promises against the occasional frustrated rant at the various unfairnesses of life, but I'll do my best to keep such instances to a minimum. My main hope for this blog is to regularly post about the good, the beautiful, the weirdly beautiful, and the beautifully weird things in life, that are so often overlooked.

Let me elaborate. I am about to leave my wonderful high-school youth group. Essentially every Wednesday for the past four years, I've gone to "prayer and share", where we've related where we've seen God's presence in our lives. I find this to be a wonderful mindset to live with, and I don't care what your religion, or even if you don't believe in religion, seeing good in the world is always a better way to live.

So, In the hopes that I won't lose this mindset, and perhaps even to encourage its growth, the majority of my posts will follow the simple template of "I've seen God in..." followed by my tangent-ization and expansion of the subject. As for posts that don't, well, we'll see.

So, that brings me to my first "sighting," as I'll call it. I've seen God in laughter.

Many of my friends happen to possess rather unique laughs, which, truth be told, are often ridiculous enough to induce laughter on their own. Actually, I can't deny that I also possess such a laugh, or so I've been told. This lends itself to a rather large amount of awkward situations which generally involve a table of people practically peeing themselves laughing-- over absolutely nothing. It can happen quite easily. I think everybody has chuckled to themselves over some privately amusing thought that flashes through the mind. Imagine, then, that you happen to let out the merest expression of mirth, and that alone manages to set all people in the vicinity off-- even the ones you don't know. It's quite a powerful and unifying thing, actually.

I'm not really sure there's any better way to make a bad day... well, better than by laughter. Even if it means you have to laugh at whatever outrageous or infuriating situation you find yourself in. I won't get into the scientific studies, and postulations, and conjectures and theories, etc., about the stimulation of the release of endorphins when laughing, but I can tell you, the more I laugh, the better I feel.

Sometimes, though, I have to wonder about about our sixth sense. I am not, of course, speaking about the sense that allows us to communicate with the dead, but rather, the all important sense of humor. What makes things funny? I could laugh all day at something that some may not find hilarious at all, and sometimes I find myself looking around at people as they laugh at, what was to me, a poor joke. "Yes, I got the joke, I just think it was stupid. Can we move on please?"

My sense of humor has always been a rather strange one. Case in point: I was in first or second grade, and I had a friend over, and we were playing Cooties. Not the whole "circle, circle, dot, dot" thing, but that game where you had to roll the dice to get legs and eyeballs and such for a little bug. Well, quite bored of the standard game play, my friend and I decided to have a cootie wedding. To this day I have no forgotten the antics that had us in uncontrollable giggles. The phrase "wafflely wedded wife" is key here. We though that was the funniest thing we'd ever heard. We laughed for hours. We're still laughing. I don't know why. It's random, it's weird, but to me, it's hilarity at its best.

So, laugh today. If I were witty enough, this is where I'd leave you with a joke to assist you in this endeavor, but as it is, I think it's best if I just let you find amusement within the confines of your own mind. I know I will.