I Have Set My Hand to the Plow

Once again another semester has come and gone, and I, standing at this crossroads that is Christmas break, am given a chance to reflect on the whirlwind that was my life for the last four months. This past semester may have been the most difficult one ever, but because it was difficult it was also rewarding—spiritually and intellectually.

In October, I learned what it is like to be confronted with something that turns you bitter against the Lord and to choose that bitterness and to pretend that everything is still okay even when it isn’t. Losing both of my grandmothers three months apart from each other was not exactly my ideal plan for how life was going to go this year. And I refused to acknowledge for a couple weeks that I was angry with the Lord for taking them both so quickly. In a sense, I didn’t want Him to heal this grief in me. I told myself that I was okay with their deaths. I just didn’t want anyone to be involved—even God. And then one day, wondering why I was having such a difficult time praying, I realized that I had put this wall up.

I asked myself: What kind of disciple would I be if I stopped here, dropped the cross, and turned back now? I knew then that I couldn’t drop the cross, that I didn’t want to drop the cross. I knew I had to be faithful, to move forward, to allow this piece of the cross to shape me towards sainthood. I knew that I had already set my hand to the plow and that I could not look back. I wanted to be fit for the Kingdom of God.

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” 

– Luke 9:61–62

This image of plowing was one that continued with me through the rest of the semester, as I struggled with the difficulties of researching and writing my thesis, trying to complete my reading homework, and saying “no” to numerous opportunities that I would have taken if I didn’t have work to do. The image of plowing is one that will probably continue with me through the rest of my life. Why?

Plowing is an image that speaks to me of choice. It reminds me that I have chosen. I have chosen Christ. I have chosen holiness. I have chosen to plow until I reach the Kingdom. I have chosen to write. I have chosen to love.

Deliberately I have set my hand to work, knowing that it will be difficult—the soil is heavy, the plow is clumsy, my grip is slippery. I am going to sweat. There is going to be struggle, exhaustion. Perhaps sometimes I will fall.

And when I am overwhelmed in the midst of a furrow, I can abandon the field, leaving it unfinished and unable to bear abundant fruit. I can look back. But then my work will be unfit for the Kingdom of God.

Or I can plow ever onwards, ever so slowly, in the path I have already chosen, towards the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ Himself waits at the end of the furrow with open arms. All I need is to keep my eyes on Him—to persevere—and He will allow my plowing to make the field fertile.

Constancy that nothing can shake. That’s what you need. Ask God for it, and do what you can to obtain it: for it is a great safeguard against your ever turning from the fruitful way you have chosen. 

- St. Josemaria Escriva

The Gift of a Penny

Because I'm a Catholic nerd and my housemate is a Catholic nerd, one of the items on our summer bucket list is to visit every parish within a twenty mile radius of our house. (At this point, we've been to Mass at six of them.)

This past Sunday, we went to Mass at Blessed Sacrament parish. Bry was driving, so I didn't bother to bring anything along with me and blissfully walked out of the house - purse, key, and cell phone free. When we reached the stop sign at the end of the block, I realized that because I hadn't brought my purse, I didn't have my wallet. Which meant that I couldn't tithe. I had no money.

I was disappointed in myself. Earlier in the week I was thinking about the fact that I want to get back into the habit of tithing (the Biblical concept of giving ten percent of your income to the Lord) now that I get a regular paycheck. But I forgot.

When we arrived at the church and knelt down in the pew, I noticed something shiny on the floor, so I bent to pick it up. It was a brand new penny. God provided me with one little penny to put in the offering basket. I placed the penny on the bench beside me to wait until the offertory. As I placed the nearly worthless coin into the basket, I felt like the widow in the Gospel who put all that she had into the Temple offering. It was a humbling experience.

This penny was a sign to me that my Father was pleased with the desire of my heart to give Him a gift. And when I had nothing to give Him, He provided me with the gift. Truly, He will not be outdone in generosity!

"His blessing covers the dry land like a river, and drenches it like a flood."

-Sirach 39:22

Adventures - Part One

Spending your summer in the same city as your university, a city that pretends to be a college town but really isn’t and that is known only by one of two things—your university or the rape case that made national news—doesn’t sound very promising. But really, it’s not that bad. There are adventures to be had here…

At the beginning, the small adventures of starting utilities, paying rent, and figuring out how much food to buy at the grocery store were enough to keep me occupied and overwhelmed for a week or two. Now that these grown-up adventures are a regular part of the schedule of work, eat, and sleep, I’ve had some time to realize that the best adventures so far have come not from being an adult, but simply from being young, wild, and free with plenty of time and very little money on my hands.

A local hiking trail in a West Virginia state park has become one of my favorite refuges, and although I’ve only ever walked to the mile and a half point—a swimming hole in the next-door creek—I fully intend to walk further down the trail before the end of the summer.

Or sometimes when Bry, my housemate, and I get restless and neither of us feels like driving the seven minutes to the trail, we will drive three minutes to one of the nearby cemeteries and go walking or jogging there. “It’s so weird to me that cemeteries are something beautiful to walk through around here,” she says. Apparently Southern Californian cemeteries lack the beauty of small town Ohio cemeteries.

I laugh at Bry’s comment and soak up the beauty of the peach-colored sunset between three sentinel oak trees that are probably older than the town itself. The cemetery is enchanting in the dim dusk-light and I can almost imagine little fairies dancing in the woods over there or hear goblin men’s footsteps as they come to hawk their fruits.

But the “scope for imagination” isn’t why I like coming here. No. It’s a fondness for thinking about the people who are buried here and whispering a small and childish prayer that they are sleeping peacefully. I read their names, turning them over like a hard strawberry candy in my mouth, and the joyful hope rises in my chest that one day I will meet them all, that I will see their beautiful and ugly faces, and that I will hear their stories of life and the road to heaven. When I’m here they seem very near to me. It’s like visiting long-lost friends.

Life as a Costume Elf

During the first semester of my freshman year at college, I was blessed to find the coolest student job ever – sewing costumes for each semester’s theatrical production. Since I have been sewing since roughly age twelve, thanks to the inspiration of my friend L, and because the theatre was my refuge during the crazy years of high school, this was naturally the perfect job for me. The charm of this job has not worn off in the past three years.

After people have asked me where the costume shop is located, the next most common question I get is: “Wait…you make clothes?” Apparently saying that I sew costumes for the theatre isn’t a clear answer. So I respond calmly that yes, I make clothes and that, in fact, I get paid to do it. Sometimes people also ask what it is like to sew costumes for my job.

The first duty of each semester is to wait patiently for a cast. Once that small detail has been settled, we measure the actors – around their heads, their arms, their legs – and we jokingly warn them that the worst is yet to come. Measurements are the easy part; costume fittings, not so much.

During the beginning part of the semester research on the time period of the show is printed out and talked through. Then an exorbitant amount of time is spent sorting through every single stitch of clothing in the costume closet to see if there are any pieces that could possibly be worn in this particular show. Sometimes we get bored and we play dress-up, donning ridiculous hats that we would never wear in real life.

Once we have pulled out all the potential costumes we meet with the student designers and see which costumes are left that we need to make. During this part of the process, lots of time is spent looking through pictures of patterns and conferring with student designers about which fabrics are suitable for which characters based on their temperament and social status.

The next part is the best: we actually make the costumes! We typically cut out the various pattern pieces on the landing of the stairwell, since it is a wide-open space where we can easily spread out the fabric on the floor, and we get the strangest reactions from people who come by to go up or down those stairs. “Oh! I’m sorry.” Or “what are you doing?” Even “what is this for?” It’s a great way to promote the show!

Numerous other tasks go into making each show a success, including last minute scrambling to add drawstrings to pants, hem up skirts, or stitch trim to suit jackets before actors go onstage for the final dress rehearsal before opening night. One of the funniest instances of this was the time when an actor came up to the costume shop on the night of the final dress rehearsal and told me, “I don’t have a costume.” You what? Sure enough, we had a suit for him, but we had never put the appropriate trim on it, or even hemmed his pants. Oops. His suit got done in time for opening night, though.

Once show week rolls around and all the actors are properly clothed and on stage, one of us “elves” is stationed back stage every show in case there are any emergency repairs. This is our reward for all the hard labor of the semester. As I sit in the costume shop and work on homework or clean up the tornado of fabric scraps and threads, I can hear the sounds of the actors’ voices playing over the speakers like an old-time radio drama…

“You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,

And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom

Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,

For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,

Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,

Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,

Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.”

― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

Blessings from 2013

Yesterday it occurred to me that I didn't take any time to reflect on 2013 as it came to a close and the new year began. So I took some time then and there to make a list of the big blessings of the past year and the things that it taught me. Here's what I came up with:

1) Studying abroad - Being able to live in a foreign country for three and a half months and to travel all across Europe pushed me outside of my comfort zone many times. I learned more deeply of my own independence and uniqueness. I learned to trust that the Lord would provide for my needs and I learned to be more vulnerable with other people. Wonder became a constant attitude towards life. Friends were easy to make. Gelato and pizza were the staples in my diet for fourteen days.

2) A summer of service - I spent the summer of 2013 serving families at a Catholic camp. During this time I learned my own leadership abilities. Apparently I am great at directing people and delegating tasks; it became second nature to me by the end of the summer. Stillness possessed my soul during the first weeks of the summer and I came to understand what it is like to be detached from the craziness around me. When my physical, emotional, and spiritual strength shriveled up, I would beg the Holy Spirit to fill me with His strength and He always would. I experienced in a fresh way the weight of intercessory prayer: that God uses our words to heal and listens to our pleading on behalf of others. When I was together with the rest of the staff, I came to understand the power that each person's presence is. If someone was missing, the group dynamics shifted. I learned to maturely confront problems that I had with other people. Finally, I began to learn what it means to reach outside of myself to love others.

3) Household - This past semester was my first full semester in household. Growing in Christian friendship with my sisters taught me to be vulnerable with them. We cannot love and support each other if we do not share ourselves. Communication is key. I learned to share my faith with those around me, by speaking of what the Lord is doing in my heart. Several times over the course of the semester I found myself offering my bed to a household sister who really needed to take a nap and couldn't go back to her room at that particular time for whatever reason, and I learned again to sacrifice myself. Through conversations with my little and personal prayer, the Lord continued to deepen my identity as His Beloved.

4) Christmas with my family - It has been superb to be back with my family over Christmas break. My love for soup, baking, and reading resurged. I developed a love for playing guitar and watching high school basketball. Every single day I get to hug my family and tell them I love them. Even driving places with them is entertaining; our van seems like a clown car because we are all so tall!

5) Friendship - Probably the biggest blessings that came to me during 2013 were friendships with some pretty incredible people. Some were new friendships and some were older ones that have endured. These friendships have taught me that all relationship ought to be rooted in Christ and in Christian charity in order to be truly fruitful. They have challenged me to love other people selflessly, to see people as precious children of God who have the potential to be saints. Thanks be to God for my Alumni Corps Staff, all of my beautiful household sisters, Elyse, Allison, Grace, Yaya, Rachel, Dani, Becca P., Becca C. and Bry. I love you all. 

Still Growing...

Alright.  Now that the coolest, craziest, most blessed four months of my life (at least thus far) have drawn to an end, I thought I would get back to blogging before my summer job begins.  But be warned, the stories about my semester abroad have only just started.  

This past weekend I was blessed to go back to main campus and to see some of my household sister graduate from college.  (That's crazy!  They're old!  Glad that's not me!)  While I was there, an interesting thing happened: two different friends told me I looked older.  What?  It blew my mind because somehow, just by looking at me, they could see that I had grown while I was away in Europe.  I didn't look any different than when I left them in December, but they could tell that something was different.  And I didn't even have to tell them.

When I was thinking about this later, I realized that we talked about this very phenomenon in my Philosophy of the Human Person class last semester.  A person is made of a physical part (the body) and a spiritual part (the soul), and the only way that we are able to see the spiritual part of a person is through their body.  The soul is revealed in the body.  This weekend proved this truth to me.  My friends, just by looking at me, were able to tell that my soul had grown.  I know this idea might sound weird, but IT'S TRUE.

So there.

Melk Monastery

Okay, this is going to be a picture heavy and word light post.  I know that my family and friends back home are eager to see pictures of the beauty of Europe!  And my thoughts are not organized enough yet to write a full blown blog post.  

The pictures below are of the monastery of Melk, a Benedictine monastery that has been operating for roughly 1000 years.  That is hard to imagine when you are from a country that is only a few hundred years old.  Just for clarification, this is not where I am living.  The monastery I am living in is no longer a monastery, but a 4 star hotel!  I will post pictures of the Kartause and the town of Gaming later.  And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is Melk:

 A picture of the main courtyard. 

 An outdoor corridor.  Isn't it peaceful?

 A hallway in the former imperial guest suite.  Apparently the doorway at the far end of the hallway is a little bit shorter than the one at the end where I took the picture.  This makes the hallway seem even longer than it is... and it was already pretty long!

The front of the monastery church.  The church is probably bigger than the cathedral in my home diocese!  It is painted yellow because of its association with the Hapsburgs, a family who ruled the Austrian empire, whose castle the monastery complex once was.

A view of the Danube river from the balcony in front of the church. 

The high altar of the church.  In the middle, above the tabernacle, you can see Sts. Peter and Paul shaking hands.  There are many statues and gold decorations all throughout the church.  But, since it is gold leaf/gold plating it only took 6 pounds of gold to decorate the entire church.

A view of Melk from across the Danube as we were driving to lunch.

52 Blog Posts...and Other Things

This year I have (once again) made the resolution to post on this, my blog, once a week.  And I think that there is a much higher chance that I will actually follow through with it this year, because I am beginning to enjoy blogging, even if no one ever comments on what I write (hint, hint).  It also gives me motivation to continue to improve my writing.  In other words, by December 31^st I plan to have written at least 52 blog posts.

I have changed the look of my blog (again).  Not really sure if I like the way it looks yet, but I think I will keep it around for a little while and see if I get used to it.  Originally I wanted to have a background with a travel theme, but all of the travel themed backgrounds I could find were a little too cheesy.

Right now I am working on applying for a summer job at a Catholic camp.  The application is challenging me to take a deeper look at why I am Catholic and at who I am as a person.  This application is much different than the one I submitted a few months ago for an RA position at my school and is challenging in a different way.  But the jobs have similar goals: to help every person I encounter become the best person they can be – a saint.  What makes me qualified to help people do that?  Nothing – except that I am also trying to become a saint. 

Surprisingly, this week really has not been too crazy.  But that being said, it has been stressful.  More stressful than I realized, until I picked up my new glasses today and thought they were the wrong ones…after I got home.  So I went back to the eye doctor to double check.  It turned out that they were the right ones, but the pair that I originally tried on was a different shade because the color lot of the plastic was different.  The ladies at the eye doctor were kind enough to switch out the lenses since I liked the coloring of the model frames better.  That’s what I get for ordering variegated glasses frames!  The whole ordeal made me realize that I’m more stressed about this going abroad thing than I thought. 

Finally, I will be saying "auf wiedersehen" to you all until after I get settled into the Kartause.  I won’t be posting again until I am in Austria!  Pray that all of us studying abroad this semester have safe travels.

I Can't Believe This is Happening!

Well folks, with only fifteen (yes, 15) days left until my departure for Europe, it is finally starting to sink in.  I am going to study abroad!  FOR REAL!  I have been dreaming about this experience ever since the day that I found out about my university's amazing study abroad program.  Which means that I have been dreaming about this since...well, since I was approximately a sophomore in high school and one of my good friends was in Austria for the semester.

In sixteen days I will be living here:

(website for image)

It is called the Kartause Maria Thron and it used to be both a monastery for the Carthusian order, as well as a palace for the Hapsburg family!  The place is older than our country!  And I get to live there for FOUR MONTHS!  (Please forgive the excessive use of exclaimation points and capital letters...I am a little bit excited, if you can't tell...)

Anyways, there are many things to be done between now and then, one of the most important of which is packing.  I am now shamelessly warning you: this is about to become an intense travel blog.  :)   

Almost There

In a few short days, I will be headed home for Christmas break.  It is hard to believe that this semester is nearly over.  Wasn’t it just a few days ago that Grace and I moved into “the bunker”?  And wasn’t it yesterday that I went walking on the Panhandle trail with Jess and Elizabeth?  But I realized this past week that I only have a few more days left!  My life is not going to be the same after this semester ends.  The people and experiences in my life will be changing as I move into the next phase of life as a college student.  Since I will be leaving main campus to study abroad in Austria next semester, I can clearly see the bend in the road ahead, and the page turning in this book. 

In nostalgia for the (recent) past, here is a quick rundown of some memorable moments this semester:

1) Being roommates with this awesome lady!  Grace has been an unexpected blessing in my life.  We have shared so many things this semester: laughter, tears, late night dancing to “At Last I See the Light,” TEXTING IN ALL CAPS, “the bunker,” and many many many other things.

2) Visiting St. Anthony’s Chapel with Jess, a household sister.  After going to the zoo earlier in the day with several other household sisters and intents, we decided to try to find St. Anthony’s.  We ended up making a couple of wrong turns and then having to sit in traffic on the highway for about half an hour.  But when we finally got there it was worth it.  St. Anthony’s holds the world’s largest public collection of relics…and it is only about an hour from my college!  The moment I walked in I could feel the presence of all the many saints whose relics are there.  I felt such peace there and knew that all the saints in heaven were praying for me.  Another reason why I think the communion of saints is so powerful to me is because I am an All Saint’s Day baby.  J

3) Joining household.  Those of you who read my blog regularly were just waiting for me to write this, weren’t you?  And I did.  But really, getting to know the girls in my household and coming to a deeper realization that God loves me has been such a blessing in my life!

And now, looking forward to the (near) future, here are some things I plan to do over Christmas break when finals are OVER:

1) Bake Christmas cookies – because they are yummy and I like to bake.

2) Go shopping – I really need some new shoes and a few miscellaneous things for Austria.

3) Go to all of my brother’s basketball games.  I can’t wait to see him play basketball, because I know that he has gotten a lot better since last season.

4) Go sledding if it snows - because sledding is fun! 

5) See the Hobbit movie

6) Just spend time with my family – because I am going to be away from them for 4 months.  That’s a long time.  And I haven’t been away from home for that long before!

Sisters

As I have mentioned in several preceding blog posts, one of the blessings of this semester has been joining a household.  Since some of you who are reading this post might not understand what a household is, I will give you a quick explanation.  In concept, a household is similar to a sorority or fraternity, but is rooted first and foremost in a life of prayer.  A household is a community of women (or men) who share prayer, fun, and all aspects of life together by living on the same wing in one of the dorms on Franciscan’s campus.  They commit to living out a common spirituality (a covenant) and support each other in becoming the fullest people that God wants them to be, saints. 

One joy that has come from joining my household has been getting to know the wonderful women in it, my sisters, better.  There is a particular person who I am so thankful to have gotten to know better over the course of the semester.  I am going to write this blog post about her.

I remember the first time I met this person.  It was at the end of fall semester last year and I was going to play floor hockey at Catholic Familyland with some friends (who are now my household sisters).  They had convinced this sister to come along with us to play, so we stopped by her “Height” (an on campus apartment) to pick her up.  From the conversation that went on in the car when she got in, I gathered that it had been “one of those days” for her.  But we had fun playing hockey together.  I thought this sister was a little intimidating, but I am not a super competitive person and she is. That is all I remember about meeting her for the first time and I don’t remember seeing (or re-meeting) her again for a long time because she left the next semester to study abroad in Austria.

This semester when she came back to campus (and I started visiting household), the person that I am writing this blog post about remembered me and I remembered her.  I am going to be honest – she still intimidated me.  But that didn’t last long.  Once I intented to household and started hanging out with her more, I realized that: 1) she has a soft heart and 2) she doesn’t like to show it very often.  Don’t be fooled…her teasing typically means that she likes you.  :) 

I saw a deeply sensitive and loving side of her after the death of her softball coach and a deeply faithful side of her during household retreat.  And earlier this week, when I wasn’t feeling well, she came to check on me.  This simple little action meant so much to me!  She also gives really good hugs. 

Basically, I am really thankful that I have gotten to know this household sister better this semester.  She is truly a big sister to me.  I am going to miss her soooo much while I am in Austria, but I hope we will be able to keep in touch through Skype and letters.

If you have lasted to the end of this long post, you are probably wondering who this person is.  In the words of a certain song written by another household sister about her, “Lauren Kuzma, that’s her name!”  The reason why I decided to write a blog post about her is because I was commenting this morning that I needed to write a blog post, but I didn’t know what to write about.  Lauren told me to write a blog post about her.  And so I did, because I love her.  Sorry that this blog post isn’t as good as the song that Dani wrote you, Lauren. ;)

To sum all of this up: Lauren Kuzma is a wonderful human being. 

Lauren and I at our household's ugly Christmas sweater party.  Unfortunately Lauren had already changed out of her sweater by the time we took this picture.  But she won the prize for ugliest sweater.  It was green with red bulbs and a shimmery garland stitched onto it.  It also had lights stuck into it, but unfortunately they weren't working.