I've had so much coffee today that picking just one drink isn't going to be easy.  Ok, honesty hour, I've had so much coffee this week  that all the drinks blend into one (no pun intended).  Yet the root of the extra caffeine is simply because my increase of coffee is making up for a decrease in sleep hours - which happens to be nineteen hours of sleep this week.  That is a new record if anyone is counting.  Thankfully homework has settled down, midterms are done for the most part, and I am ready to embark onto another week of coffee sipping and hopefully sleeping.

     Where was I? Oh right, coffee reminiscing.  Can you tell I'm still a little sleep deprived? I'm going to have to go with the new spiced pumpkin latte from Panera with my "What I'm Drinking" for the week.  Every Saturday night I swing by that bakery and this week I saw that their coffee menu had changed to include this beauty.  Guys.  It's amazing.  And call me the typical white girl as long as you want (minus the Starbucks, more on that later) but there is nothing quite like a pumpkin coffee as you watch the leaves off your back porch.

Ah, a site of beauty. 

Would you look at that? Just look at it!

      Now onto the thoughts of my crazy, jumbled brain, if that wasn't crazy and jumbled enough for you.  My little sister is eighteen years old, which is a fact that usually blows my mind.  It doesn't seem that I'm old enough to have a little sister who has also crossed the bridge to the adult world. Yet, eighteen years old she is, and I'm incredibly proud of her.  It's an incredible blessing to go to the same college as her as well - we share a professor this semester and it is exciting to know that when he talks about his 'Freshman class,' he's talking about her.  

     Earlier this week she came home from classes and said that she wanted to go to Nicaragua over the winter break.  This floored me - because she's not a super adventurous gal.  Yet she was not only wanting to go on this trip, she was excited about it.  She pulled up pictures, schedules, and sent off her request for a passport.  As I'm typing this, she just came home with her passport picture all printed and ready to go.  Her deposit was put down Tuesday.  Talk about delving into something that you are passionate and striving after a goal that you've selected for yourself.

                                             

 

     She is going to be able to expand into a better version of herself on this trip, and it all stemmed from the ability to get out of her comfort zone.  Getting out of your comfort zone is what I'm thinking about quite a bit this week.  Mady is taking a leap of faith and adventure that I wish I would have had the bravery to do in my freshman year in college.  Not that my freshman college experience was horrible by any stretch of the imagination, but it was safe. 

     Our faith life isn't meant to be 'safe.' Or 'convenient.'  Instead, it is a call to get out of our comfort zones and interact with other human beings on this road to Heaven.  It means talking to people, and being vulnerable.  It means admitting you don't have it all together - and realizing that perfection is a goal that is only reached when Heaven is attained.

    Take a lesson this week from Miss Mady.  Side not - she also blogs, I am beyond excited to be able to follow her adventures.  Get out of your comfort zone - and apply that to faith and general life goals tat you have in mind for yourself.  You do not have to travel internationally to accomplish amazing things for Christ.  You can be His hands and feet here with your own family, campuses, friends and workplaces.

    Saint Teresa of Avila (yet another one of my favorites up in Heaven) once said, "You pay God a compliment by asking great things of Him."  Don't be afraid to ask God for something that seems out of your reach.  If it is in His plan for your life, it's going to work out.  Awareness that the answer could be 'Yes,' 'No,' or 'Maybe' is also 

     I wrote about this earlier this week, but it's still relevant.  Get into the trenches.  Get out of your   comfort zone.  Life is too short - take it from the twenty year old who is realizing that my life could be over twenty percent lived.  Honestly, who knows? It could be that my life is already ninety percent completed.  But I know this - I don't want to look back on my life (however much of it God gives me) and think "Wow, I could have done so much more for Him if I'd only put my plan aside and let Him take over."

Be bold.  Jump into the deep end.  Drink some coffee.  Be Not Afraid.

Get in the Trenches

Pope Francis is back in Rome after a much-anticipated journey to America.  While he was here, he spoke to many people who the world will recognize (President Barack Obama, members of Congress, the United Nations).  Yet the most significant part of this journey to the states was the love that Pope Francis showed the least of these.


"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40) 

What the world needs the most?  Human connection.  We have a culture that talks itself blue in the face about love and acceptance, but inside is yearning and longing for authentic love and the ability to recognize self worth.

Human connection. It means getting out of your comfort zone and off the path defined by your own will.  It means connecting with humans - now such a crazy concept thanks to the blessing/curse of social media.  It is being Christ's hands and feet to a world so desperate for touch and care.

We have a God who sees hearts like we see faces, a God who hears ache like we hear voices, and we have a God who touches and holds and heals our wounds like we long to be held.
(Ann Voskamp) 

How are you living your faith? Your vocation?  Our faith is not supposed to be a clean and tidy hour on Sunday morning.  It is not an accessory to put on at convenient times, and hide away when it doesn't match the rest of your outfit.  Instead, it's a faith that ignites our passion for others, to serve, to do things the world will look at and scoff at.

I don't know your thoughts on Pope Francis.  I know that opinions are varied across the board and there is a constant push to politicize his comments out of context.  But I do know this.  Pope Francis knows how to practice what he preaches.  There is not a disconnect between what he says and what he does.  He tells us to love the poor...and then goes and spends time with the poor themselves.

Get in the trenches.  

Do you know why no one wants to get in the trenches with their faith?  It's not pleasant.  It means getting yourself dirty, working with those who no one wants to even acknowledge, and pour your life blood into a mission that you may never see results from.  It's about planting seeds that may not bloom for years and years, when no one even remembers your name.

It's not about you.  The trenches are not an environment for self glorification.  If anything, it's quite the opposite.  You have to make yourself small to climb down and connect with people on a personal level.

It is not enough for your faith life to post a Bible verse on Facebook once in a while.  Your faith life is a head and heart combination that should invade into every aspect of your life.  Your interactions with family, friends, classmates, co-workers...even your enemies.  We're called to live radical lives.  So if this is your battle cry to follow the example Pope Francis is showing the world, let's start living it.

Christ has no body but yours.  No hands, not feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.  Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.  Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.  Yours are the hands, yours are the feet.  Yours are the eyes.  You are his body...Christ has no body now on earth but yours.  (Saint Teresa of Avila).

I'm done with a boring life that drains the joy out of me.  

Our time on earth - yes, a blink of the eye or a speck of dust in comparison to the expansiveness of eternity - is a chance for us to connect with people here in order to spend eternity with them in Heaven.  A life that radiates so much joy that people wonder what we have that is different.  What gives us hope in a world full of so much hatred and despair.

Live your life in the trenches.  

If there are two things that I am passionate about, two things that have a constant presence in my life...I'd have to say they would be coffee and Catholicism.  My mornings start not only with a good shot of caffeine, but also a morning offering or rosary on the way to work.  So this weekly blog series is going to combine my two favorite things in the world.

What I'm Drinking: Ok, I'll play favorites.  There is a little coffee shop on the corner of campus that I adore.  It has a more industrial theme, with exposed metal lighting, rough wooden benches, and modern, local art hanging from the walls.  The baristas are spectacular, and the drip brew coffee is phenomenal.  It's a popular place for off campus studying, and even on the weekend, seats could be hard to come by.  The hustle and bustle of student life is alive and well there, and the night crowd is fantastic.  Poetry readings, book clubs and local musicians draw different crowds.  In other words, the perfect place for people watching...one of my favorite hobbies.

The drink of today is my usual - I honestly have never tried anything else there.  Vanilla latte - medium, for here.  The cup has a quote inscribed in the inside rim - "Without love, it's just coffee."  Expertly crafted hearts line up, ready to be sipped and enjoyed.  I can be seen at the window, cup on the bar, laptop plugged in. This is my place.  This is my drink.

What I'm Thinking: Do you know what is really neat? (besides neature) Swing dancing.  I am by no means a pro at swing dancing, but there is something that is really awesome about it - and something I can't exactly pin point.  I love how classy it is - and how much Theology of the Body is tied into the dancing itself.  But more on that later - there's a whole post on that coming soon.

Anyway, this week at the campus center, we had a guest speaker come by and teaching us not only how to swing dance, but how swing dancing can correlate to our faith.  I was beyond excited.  So excited in fact that this deserves a Taylor Swift reaction.  Talk about an epic combination.  Ok, now onto what he really talked about.

Have you ever danced with someone who you don't know? Maybe at a bar, or at a formal, but even if you have never danced with a stranger before, you can imagine how nerve racking it can be.  You don't know them, they don't know you.  Do you just worry about not stepping on their feet or do you try to strike up a conversation with them?  It's interesting.  It can be awkward.  But then you push past it, and realize that you may have some things in common (even if it's just the fact that you're both dancing) and you can have a great interaction with another human being.

What if we viewed evangelizing or talking about our faith in the same light?  Yep, sometimes in the initial conversations, it can be weird.  Do you say your plans include Mass when someone asks you what you are doing this weekend?  Or talk about the retreat you just went on with someone in class on Monday?  What about when a crude joke gets brought up in class, or a work place situation calls for you to stand your ground in terms of morality?  It's interesting.  It can be squishy.

When I swing dance now, I don't know what I'm doing.  Honestly.  I am exceedingly grateful to be the gal in this situation - I just have to follow a guy's lead.  Yet it takes a lot of trust to know that he isn't going to drop me or run me into another couple.  It also takes practice.  You can't just walk onto the dance floor in a bar and impress everyone with your mad skills (ok, maybe you can.  I can't.)  But after practice and familiarity with your partner, things start to get smooth - and you can really make an impact.

Your relationship with Christ is something that should invade your life - but it's also something that takes practice.  And time.  Do you know how long it takes someone to be considered an 'expert'?  10,000 hours of practice.  So whether that practice is dedicated to swing dancing (not a bad use of your time, honestly) or your faith (even better use of your time) - or both! - know that practice does indeed help.  And your faith is never going to be 'perfect' - take it from the saints, you won't always have it together.  And that's ok.  Sometimes you'll back into someone on the dance floor.  You may drop someone, or get dropped - but you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get right back at it. 

So that's my ramblings for this weekend.  If you need me, you can find me at this counter, pouring over Youtube swing dancers.  Feel free to join.

Have an amazing weekend,

Chloe M. 

How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?

How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? 

Sharon Olds penned this poem in 1984...and the haunting verses carry great weight with each stanza.  In the writing, she tackles this question.  How do they do it?  The ones who make love without love?  Is that juxtaposition and irony possible? To move from the phrase 'I love you' to 'I love this'?

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used. (unknown) 

 Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice.

Performances.  Sex to the elusive 'they,' those who 'make love without love' is a performance - like a dance recital or an ice-skating competition.  

Fingers hooked inside each other's bodies, faces red as steak, wine, 

Here the imagery Olds uses takes a more graphic or violent turn.  'Hooked,' and even her similes are comparisons to raw meat...rawness.  A sense of vulnerability that is still present despite the desire to separate oneself from the bonding that inevitably happens on a spiritual, emotional, physical level in the very act of sex.

Wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to give them away. 
The beauty integrated into the very act of sex - and one of it's purposes? Procreation.  Fruitfulness. 

"The Church, which is on the side of life, teaches that it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.  This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act." (CCC 2366)
.  
Yet these lovers have separated the openness to life away from their love making...if it can be referred to as such anymore.  They're giving that opportunity and openness to life away.

How do they come to the come to the come to the God come to the still waters, and not love the one who came there with them - light rising slowly as steam off their joined skin?  These are the true religious, the purists, the pros, the ones who will not accept a false Messiah,

Are they really?  Are they better off?  Who is this false Messiah that they are rejecting? The notion that sex means something? Anything?

love the priest instead of the God.  They do not mistake the lover for their own pleasure,

To bypass the creator in an attempt to connect on a deeper level with the creation? Yet in the very act of the reduction of another human being, created in the image and likeness of God, down to simply what one can do for another...instead of willing the other's good

"The fact that theology also considers the body should not astonish or surprise anyone who is aware of the mystery and reality of the Incarnation. Theology is that science whose subject is divinity. Through the fact that the Word of God became flesh, the body entered theology through the main door. The Incarnation and the redemption that springs from it became also the definitive source of the sacramentality of marriage…” (TOB April 2, 1980)

they are like great runners: they know they are alone with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio- vascular health--just factors, like the partner in the bed, and not the truth, which is the single body alone in the universe against its own best time.

Here is the ultimate price tag - that comes with the use of another person, separate from the self-giving love that sex in and of itself demands.  Alone-ness.

“Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience love and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.” (From the encyclical, Redemptor Hominis — “Redeemer of Man”)

How do they do it?  Or, perhaps the better questions is, can they do it? Can human beings essentially separate the emotion and decision of love away from the very act of 'making love?'  

An Introvert's Guide to Evangelization

No man is an island, we can be found.  No man is an island, let your guard down

You don't have to fight me, I am for you.  We're not meant to live this life alone

     Honestly, this song from Tenth Avenue North could be an anthem for my college years.  Call me crazy, or maybe you can identify with me, but I've always been kind of a loner in my world (typical homeschooler.  Just kidding, just kidding).  I have always preferred small groups of friends to large crowds, and good old heart-to-heart conversations in comparison to small talk.  So getting out of my comfort zone, off of my 'island,' has always been a realistic struggle of mine, especially in my college career.

Freshman year, at the sight of someone new

  Being introverted doesn't mean that I hate people, nor I don't come outside my room or that I spend inhumane amounts of time in the library buried in books by myself (ok, except the last one...that one's true.)  But regardless!  My introverted qualities are something that I really like about myself - and have no problem identifying as a reality.

     Sometimes it seems as if the world views introversion as a problem to be solved.  Articles float around my Facebook feed, informing me of the '7 Steps to Overcoming Your Introverted Habits' or 'How You Can Be More Outgoing...Today!'  Call me crazy, but I don't think being introverted is something to solve, or an issue to fix.

      I actually think that being an introvert has some awesome benefits (I'm biased) and allows for some incredible evangelizing opportunities.  So here are my quick thoughts for those all who be Christ's hands and feet to the world, but especially as an introverted individual.

Recognize that introverts make pretty darn good listeners.
 

There is something to be said about being the listening friend.  These are the kinds of friends to have in your life because they set aside what they are doing, or even what they would like to discuss, and engage in some good old fashioned listening.  Willing the good of the other (and putting your needs on the back burner) to be there for support and a listening ear is something that some introverts are great at.

There have been many times in my life when a good friend has simply been there and listened - and even if they never say a thing, their presence has changed my perspective.  Not a listening just so you know what to say next, but a genuine interest in another's good.  A friend who can help you channel your inner Ed Sheeran and allow you to think out loud (see what I did there) is sometimes the role of an introverted friend.

One-on-one conversations are the heart of being Christ to others - enjoy the jump into the deep end and have great heart-to-hearts.  

If there is anything that is a sign of an introvert, it is the general dislike of small talk.  Sure, the weather is great.  Yep, I hear that the tomatoes are really coming up good this time of year.  But the way that introverts connect is through deeper conversation.

We live in a shallow world where personal measures of worth are found in Facebook status likes and Instagram likes.  In a world that lives on the surface, introverts have the ability to go deep with their conversations and connect with people on a soul basis.  Don't be ashamed of wanting to know someone on a deeper level.  Or ask questions that could spark some great conversation.

Don't be afraid of some solitary recharging time.

                         


Yep, it's Friday night. But that doesn't mean that you have to follow the crowd and hit the town.  If you are introverted, you recharge when you are alone, or with small groups.  And that is perfectly fine.  So go ahead.  Pour yourself a glass of wine and sit down and read the book you've been dying to start.  Pack up your journal and go spend some one-on-one time with Christ in adoration.  Don't feel guilty for needing to be alone sometimes.

Whether you are an introvert with a capital 'I' or are somewhere in the middle, know that your personality is you - and it should never hinder you from becoming the best version of yourself.

"If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?  But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body."  1 Corinthians 12:17-20