Even Jesus had finals

I don't know about you... But there is a time in a college students life when all you want to do is eat high fructose corn syrup, Listen to Queen's "Bicycle Race" song, and do something that is not going to make your brain feel like mush (My apartment chooses Longboarding)... 

That's Right.  It's Midterms.  

Most teachers give midterms right before spring break.  And for the past week I, along with about 30,000 other students have been studying my pants off in hopes to achieve some solid grades before a week of anything but school.  The week before these test is full of questions (What is she talking about?), self-doubt (There's NO WAY i can do that), and sacrifice (Yea, I really DO want to go to that concert... BUT I have a class tomorrow morning at 8:30... sorry) in order to get to the light at the end of the tunnel... spring break.

Sound Fimiliar?

Today is Holy Thursday, the beginning of the Triduum, the most important time for Catholics everywhere.  On top of the last week of midterms, I have also been through 6 weeks previous known as Lent.  This is my own reflection on what I did for lent: Sacrifice, Reflection, and Sacrificial Giving.  

This lent I gave up meat.  The original idea behind giving up something for lent is to give up something that maybe one day you could give up for good.  Every time you crave that sacrifice, you remember the sacrifice Jesus suffered for us.  Now, to avoid sounding like a crunchy granola hippie, I will avoid telling you all the books I have read on how meat is good, but not an everyday thing. Giving up meat turned out to be much easier than I expected.  But don;t get me wrong, I had been planning this.  I did not just wake up ash wednesday and say "I'm giving up.... mmmmm... MEAT"  I planned ahead, thought about it, and found lots of substitutes to get the nutrients I needed (spinach and egg whites, namely).  Much like my midterms, the ones I planned for and went into prepared, I succeeded at.  The test I do not plan for, like my sacrificial giving... not so much.

Along with giving up something, it is also customary for Catholics to give something of themselves.  Time, Prayer, money... anything that might be difficult.  I thought about what I might give... I didn't have much time or money, and then the events of my reflection and lent led me to a more spontaneous decision.  

I have a very love-hate relationship with my hair.  I never do anything with it because of my rigorous schedule, but for some reason people always told me I had fantastic hair.  So, February 29th, almost exactly half-way through lent, I chopped off a foot and donated it to Locks of Love, the cancer foundation that makes wigs for children with lukemia.  

So what, right? wrong.  If you talk to any woman they might tell you how important hair is. We know it grows back and all that, but the decision was one of the hardest I've ever had.  What if it doesn't look good? What if's ran through my head when I finally decided, these are silly, just chop it off and if you hate it... It will always grow back. 

Who cares about hair.  All I am saying is, it took a HUGE leap of faith.  As ridiculous as that sounds, being the vain person I am, this was a big step.  And while it was scary, and frustrating at times, I knew in my heart someone was benefitting from it, and I was doing the right thing.  

Jesus, suffers tenfold. We have spent the last couple weeks with him in the desert being tempted by Satan, and now we walk with him as he goes from teacher, to Criminal, to savior.  He saved us.  He underwent the biggest leap of faith.  My hair will grow back, and I thought that was scary.  Jesus knew he would come back from the dead, but you bet he was terrified.  

What have you done with your lent? How was your 40 days in the desert? How was your sacrificial giving? 

Take some time to reflect on it.  Where do you stand? And are you prepared? I think I said earlier that Jesus reminds us to "Stay awake" because we do not know the hour.  But, like a test or midterm, we prepare mentally and spiritually, and everything works out.  

Peace friends. In three days he will rise! 

Life's lessons can be learned from the tennis court

Wayne Cope is a man of few words. The fifty-something year old is a creature of simplicity and habit. When his afternoon slot opened up I thought it would be fun to hit with him for an hour, as his expertise are a hot commodity at work. Little did I know that he was about to bestow on me some of life's lessons in the form of a tennis match. Now, he did not bring me out there to lecture me, BUT being a performer and trying to keep my mind open to the world, if you think in metaphors, some of the advice he gave to me in the hour I hit with him were things I could easily apply to my life. Twyla Tharp says, "Metaphor is the vocabulary connecting what we experience now to what we've experienced before." Keep that in mind

It seems pretty simple, right? Hit the little green ball over the net to your opponent (When hitting, as opposed to a game, where you want to hit it NOT to your opponent).
"You're very good," Wayne told me while hugging his racquet, "because you have balance. Lots of people when going after the ball get tired and cannot recover as quickly because they are not so in balance. But you have that going for you."
Balance is so important in life. Learn what your priorities are and keep yourself in check.

Soon after we started the wind picked up. "Hitting with the wind is difficult," Wayne said, "Because you have less control. You might tell the ball to go one way, but the wind carries it somewhere else, so we need to adjust. Don't get frustrated though, with some time and practice, you can learn to read the wind, and anticipate enough to adjust before it's too late."
Some things we just don't have control over. Life happens. It's random and unexpected. But sometimes, if we adjust quick enough, we don't lose sight of our objectives. In my case, a little green ball.

I started thinking about all this and soon Wayne called me to the net. "Now, something has happened in your playing in the last 10 or 15 minutes of play. Are you upset? Something on your mind? Because you seem a little distracted." I shook my head no, I was thinking about tennis (sorta). "Well, you see," Wayne said, "I can tell sometimes when someone isn't truly present in the game. They seem distracted and miss the ball more often. So if you need to stop and reorganize your thoughts we can do that. Otherwise I challenge you to hit as many balls to me as possible without messing up. Think you can do that?"

"I can do it!" I retorted, not wanting our session to be over just yet.

So I went back to my side of the net and took a deep breath. I am infamous for this last one. I look back on my high school career, and the amount of work I loaded onto my plate in order to ignore my surroundings. My work ethic to work to get to a finished product and not learn from the experience. I work in the future, and almost never live in the present. This is something I have been working on for a while now, but Wayne caught me. I am guilty as charged. So I put the draft of the blog in my head on save for a moment to finish our hour of hitting.

"Well done," Wayne said at the end. "I knew I could get you to focus. Normally when you present someone with criticism, they rise to your challenge. I could tell you were with me that last round. Good work for today. With practice, you could do this."

When you receive criticism, it is normally with love. Mentors and teachers will try and change you for the better, and sometimes they have an eye for something you can't see. See their challenges. Rise to the occasion.

As I left after the hour, I realized my blog might not be full of every word of wisdom bestowed on me by Wayne, But I would settle for 3 main points since I was trying to focus on the here and now, instead of my mind-numbing to do list. I cannot stress as wayne did the importance of staying focused. Jesus says "Stay awake, for you do not know the hour when the Lord will come." If we waste time, sometimes we miss life. Don't miss life.

Harold Hill in "The Music Man" sums it up by saying "Pile up enough tomorrows and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering."

Wayne is not a philosopher by any means, but the simplicity in his tips were so profound, that i can't help but hope that someone cancels on him again in the near future so I can learn from him again.

God is perfect. And he weeps.

Today's gospel we hear about Lazarus being raised from the dead.  Important of course, but I would like to focus on something we might not have heard this weekend. in Homilies, but something everyone I have met struggles with.  

  

Star wars.  Lord of the Rings.  Mission Impossible.  What do they have in common? Other than being MAJOR blockbuster movies (trilogies, actually) they have one major theme in common: Good vs. Evil.  White vs. Black. Dark Vs. Light.  This makes everything very simple and clear cut.  It either is one thing or the other.  While this makes complex plot lines fairly easy to follow, there is something that is missing: REALITY.  Think about it.... How many things in life are 100% good or 100% evil? I can't think of one. Not one.  Pretty Roses have thorns.  Cuddley kitties have razor sharp claws,  Tastey Twinkies are still the worst things to put in your body.  

This idea of black and white is a very westernized way of thinking.  I won't bore you with a history lesson, but know that most eastern religions believe in the yin and yang.  I'm sure you've heard of this.  It's the idea that you need one to appreciate the other.  There needs to be a balance.  

What does this have to do with Lazarus?

The biggest question posed to me as a teacher, believer, whatever, is always "If there is a god, how does he let his people suffer?"  The answer is: he doesn't.  People do not suffer by God's hand.  There is this thing called "free will" he gave us, so that we are not just following him like lemmings, he gave us a choice to do "good", "bad", whatever.  So suffering is the reaction to someone else's action, and how you interpret it is what it is.  But who is really to say what is good or bad?  I am not saying World hunger and War is not horrible, I am merely saying that it is not on God.  Going back to my previous statement about god, the character Jamie Sullivan in "A Walk to Remember" says, "Without suffering, we cannot know compassion." We need the thorns to appreciate the rose.  And while the catholics try and portray God as a loving god (which he is), let's not forget about his wrath also.  God is the Alpha and Omega.  The beginning AND the end.... the Creator AND destroyer.  Yin... and yang... Clear?

Secondly, going Back to the story of Lazarus: we read today that Jesus does not make it in time to heal his friend, and he dies.  Jesus, literally, brings him back to life.  But before that, he weeps.  

WHAT? 

God.  He cries.  and it is not just a single tear.  Weeping is to express grief, emotion, or distress by exuding tears.  EXUDING! Streams and ponds, here, people! What do we think of that!

God = perfect.  God also cries... nay, god weeps.  This to me says its ok to feel.  Its ok to cry.  I know I know, I above all people think this is a forgein concept.  BUT.  there it is, In print, clear as black and white... Jesus Wept.  God Wept.  So he brought his friend back.  

It's ok to feel.  God Shows us that.  What is it that ur feeling?