Seeds of Sound In Silence Grow

“I love this song.” It’s a phrase that is much more likely to come out of some of my best friends’ mouths than out of my own. You can ask them. I’ve never really been one to fall in love with a song, to hanker after music, to desire it. And I don’t usually go out of my way to listen to music, because, in general, I prefer silence.

But music, I’m beginning to slowly discover, can make the times of silence in my life more fruitful. Or at least music makes the silence more reflective than routine. It’s like the difference between digging a hole in the ground for the sheer entertainment of seeing how deep you can get and digging a hole for the purpose of planting a seed in it.

Music in the in-between-times can help the silence to have a purpose. Music plants seeds.

So silence and sound work together, and sometimes it is good to soak myself in sounds in order that my silence will benefit from it.

I know this because the lyrics of Josh Garrels’ song “At The Table”—which I have been listening to and learning to play on guitar—have been stirring around in my brain for the past week.

I went the ways of wayward winds

In a world of trouble and sin

A story of prodigality, reconciliation, and conversion, the lyrics cry out to me as a sinner. There is always a place for me at the table of my Mother, the Church.

For each of us, there is a place. We are welcomed in the arms of our loving mother; our Father comes running to meet us. The prodigal son is welcomed to the banquet of the Eucharist.

Quotation from "At The Table," by Josh Garrels

Oh, the Possibilities...and I'm Switching to Pods

Perhaps those of you that I don't talk to face to face on a regular basis are wondering how my life is going. (Or perhaps not.) The current mountain that looms before me is what to do after graduation. Yes, the dearly anticipated and slightly dreaded date is getting progressively closer and I have no plans for the downhill slide of summer. 

But I know two things. 

My first fiasco with the bubbles.

The first thing is that there is an endless list of possibilities for my life in the coming years. I could become a nannie, a personal assistant, or a professional cheesecake taster, not to mention a crayon namer, wedding dress tailor, or writer. Although it was overwhelming at first, the current realm of possibilities is a beautiful freedom for me right now. There is no need to put myself into a box. Rather, there is need to dream without limits.

The second thing that I know is that I am switching to pods. Tide pods. After oversudding the washing machine this past week for the second time in the semester--although the experience was less traumatic and messy than the first time--I am giving up on measuring my own soap into the laundry. There is simply not enough time (or money) to run my comforter through the wash four times in order to get rid of the excess bubbles. (I guess that's what I get for washing my comforter during the middle of the semester.)

These are the things I know right now, along with the undying truth that I shall not want. God provides. He always does. And in that lies all my hope.

Guest Post

This week I am privileged to have a post published on the Truth from the Heart blog, which is run by the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project. Check out my post here:

Love Is More Than This

When My Feet Hit the Pavement

I went for a run this morning.

That sentence still sounds strange each time I write or speak it. Before this summer, I never went for a run “just because.” (If you don’t believe me, ask my mom.) I saw exercise as a miserable activity, an activity that didn’t do anything but put my body in pain for a portion of the day. In middle school, surrounded by my friends and excited by the progress of learning new strokes and conquering different events, I probably enjoyed swim team. But at the end of the day, exercise was not something I loved or sought. Exercise was something I endured.

Over the last few years, particularly through playing floor hockey and Ultimate Frisbee with my friends, my attitude towards exercise has taken a 180. Not only have I delighted in the games I was playing, I have also experienced the community of a sports team and the reward of pushing my body to greater endurance. Besides, the endorphins were also a plus.

This summer, when I was restless and tired of being cooped up in a house or office for hours on end, I began to go out to the local cemetery to go running, usually a couple times a week. It wasn’t that I was particularly fond of running, but I noticed that I was a happier person after I would go for a run. My patience with others was greater; the quality of my sleep was better; focusing on my work was easier.

I began to understand that exercise is something that I need, whether I enjoy it at the moment or not. In striving to become the best version of myself, how can I exercise my mind and my soul and fail to exercise my body?

Living a healthy life involves all aspects of my spiritual and corporeal person.

Living a healthy life glorifies God, Who dwells within me.

St. Paul teaches this when he writes:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” 

– 1 Cor 6:19-20

I'm a happier person when I go running. And I desire to glorify God not simply in my words, but also through my actions. That's why I went running this morning.

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

Shifting Pictures of Ourselves

You know those little 4 x 4 sliding tile puzzles that people sometimes give out as party favors or in the fish pond at parish festivals? Well, I'm really bad at solving them. But nevertheless, they're so popular that I have an electronic one on my computer desktop, with a picture of a lion's face.

But the face is all jumbled up and out of order. The cat's whiskers appear on its head and its eyes slide off the right side of its face. As much as I try to rearrange the tiles and restore the picture, I can never seem to figure out quite the right order. The lion's face is still distorted and incomplete.

Some days my face looks messed up too. I slide the tiles of my life around, searching for the proper arrangement that will reflect a balanced and beautiful face back into my eyes. 

At times I do this confidently, certain of where to position the eyes, but if only I could just get the chin in the right position…

At other times I go to the puzzle and mix all the tiles up at random. Then I can start over with the picture. Each piece is on an even playing field and no one tile is more important than another, at least for a brief time.

Sometimes a piece that I have so boldly placed at the center of the picture will hinder a piece that needs to go to the other side. This piece cannot remain rigidly in its place, but must move around, working in conjunction with the others to form the picture. And so the pieces of my life must give a little and gain a little. In order to solve this puzzle, I must discover flexibility within a small but appropriately sized frame.

There are times when I become discouraged and walk away from the picture. Who cares if the face ever comes out right? I'm tired of trying to solve this riddle of my life.

But my Friend takes me back to the puzzle. He shows me a sketch of what the final portrait will look like. It's just a cartoon, He says, of what the real thing will look like when we're finished.

It's so hard, I grumble.

Try moving this. He points to a piece in the upper left-hand corner. Try putting it here. A place in mid-right side. I'll be here if you need me.

And I begin to work at the puzzle again.

The Best of Me

Yesterday morning, I drove into nearby Pittsburgh in an attempt to attend a talk that I thought would inspire and influence me. It was called “Writing as Vocation.” All week (more or less) I asked people if they wanted to go with me and even succeeded in finding someone willing to drive into the city with me. Unfortunately, that fell through about twenty-four hours before hand, as she found out about a meeting she was required to attend. I decided that I would go to the talk anyways, even if that meant driving by myself.

Despite the fact that I am typically okay with driving in traffic, I got flustered in the light traffic that I encountered coming through the tunnel on Saturday morning. The short version of this story is that I ended up driving around downtown Pitt in search of St. Paul’s Cathedral, certain that I would find it. But my twenty-minute cushion time quickly dwindled as I realized that I was nowhere near the cathedral. 

In a last effort to get to the talk on time, I got back onto the highway that I had come from. The highway only took me back to the tunnel and so I drove out of the city, fifteen minutes after the start time of the lecture, frustrated with my spoiled plans.

“This is stupid.”

“Lord, bring good out of this.”

The two phrases alternated in my head for the next five minutes. Then I made up my mind to enjoy myself and drove to a little French café that I discovered over the summer, deciding that well, if I couldn’t attend a lecture about the vocation of writing, I could at least write.

Maybe that is what I really needed that morning—a sort of retreat from familiar faces and places, a time to recollect myself and to think about how writing is a vocation and what that means for my life.

Maybe there are times in our lives when we don’t need conversation. Times to pause and think. Times to enjoy a smooth cup of black coffee. Times to fill the cream colored spaces between notebook lines with dark loops and swirls.

Writing is something I can throw myself into—with my heart, my mind, my short experience, and my faulty wisdom—and become better for it.

Writing requires endless learning. Not simply learning in the sense of research, but in a deepening disposition of wonder towards the world. 

In the development of a critical eye for culture and for my own writing. 

In the discovery of my own relationship with the Infinite. 

In an understanding of how particular circumstances relate to the universal situation of man. 

In a tuning of my rhythmic ear. 

In a ripening sense of humor. 

In a sharpening of my notice of small intimate details. 

In a deepening ability to relate to all types of people simply because they are people and I am a person. In a discipline and passion for the gritty revision of my own words. 

In a vocabulary that expands to become more precise.

At this moment, looking at all these ways that writing will continue to demand the best of me and to sharpen what exists of me now, I have great hope! It is a work that will not be futile, a calling that will stretch me beyond the narrow limits that I set for myself.

Writing about writing—what a stereotype! But it’s necessary sometimes to step back from what we are doing and to think about why we do those things.

So why do I write? I write because it’s how I discover the world. It’s how I discover myself. And it’s how I discover God.

If the glory of God is man fully alive, I pray that the Holy Spirit comes to animate me, to inebriate my writing, so that my person and my words may be a spring of water welling up to eternal life; so that through my work, I may be refined into the sanctity that the Lord requires of me.