The Seven Clues From The Artists

A few years ago I took this class called Theology of Healing.  A couple of weeks ago I starting going through old notebooks and folders from College, trying to remove some unnecessary clutter and found a short paper I wrote. It's a bit incomplete but I really like the realization that I came to. The first part is explaining a little bit about Peter Kreeft's book Making Sense Out of Suffering. We had to read a Chapter called "Seven Clues From The Artists" (Chapter 5) and then reflect on it in a summary then give our own perspective. I would like to share my thoughts and sorry if they are a little vague, but I have tried to edit it to make it seem a bit more complete.

Peter Kreeft writes about the pangs of suffering and turns to the artists to guide him through a widely asked question, that is "Why do we Suffer?"  Topics range from Fairy Tales and Children's stories and grow to more complex topics presented in Myths and even Birth Pangs. In all of this subject matter, suffering becomes the central theme. 
The classic story of the Velveteen Rabbit explains that the more something is loved and put through sufferings; in the rabbit's case, falling out eyes and rubbed off fur, the more real it becomes. One also becomes "real" the more one is tamed. We do this by becoming more of a part of God's life by letting Him be a part of ours. [Today I read this and think that the more we love God or Jesus, the more "real" He becomes to us. It's not that I'm saying He's not real, but He is easier to forget. He becomes so important to us that we have to take Him everywhere and the more we do this the more we see that Christ is worn out. He has suffered. How many times have we dropped a stuffed toy, left it behind, forgotten about it? All of these little things have given the toy wear and tare. Like Christ, the more we see Him in His brokenness the more we see that He became like that for us.  At the end of the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, we see that the Rabbit has become "real" he has no more wear and tare. He is made new. Like Christ at the Resurrection, He bore the pain and He was made new. Now He is real to us. We've put Him through all that suffering, then we see that He said it was all worth it to what He became in the end]  When we share in the sufferings of God, we become more real to the pain that He went through.  This includes more importantly a death to self.
In Fairy Tales it seems that no matter how much turmoil one goes through, in the end one will live "Happily Ever After".  God doesn't want us to think that we have to go through all of this turmoil to get to a "Happily Ever After". The Fairy Tales say that the more one suffers the more meaningful the story will become. God has given us a free will and we are not for His enjoyment like a puppet on a string. These sufferings are a result of the fall and everyone endures and embraces them because we have chosen them.  God did not inflict these sufferings on us but we brought them on ourselves.
This suffering that is the fault of our human race did indeed arise after the fall of man.  Through this suffering comes a great wisdom and knowledge for man.  The wisdom that is gained becomes the valuable food for our souls.  We need this food to sustain our lives.  If we were given the choice of a Utopian Society or a perfect happiness, we would be consumed in boredom.   Our souls would not be fed and therefore we would still suffer.  With this suffering we are artists of ourselves with each choice being a stroke of a brush and each act a cut of the chisel.  Saints suffer the most and become the greatest artists of all.  [Many of them give up comforts and purposely embrace sufferings and hardships.  Some may call them foolish, still others call them wise.  If suffering leads to wisdom and knowledge, their souls are fed all the more and they do not go hungry in the spiritual sense. God satisfies them continually, especially with the knowledge that it's all for eternal happiness]. [If saints are great artists because of their sufferings,] All mothers are artists because they have pains and sufferings in child birth when they are assisting in the procreation of new life. [The fall occurred because some of the angels chose to not bow down to a human [Christ] and they knew they could not be like God in the sense where they could create. Mothers are creators like God and even though they are going through a horrific pain, once again the suffering turns into wisdom and knowledge and their souls have been satisfied in a way many can not fathom.]
Finally death is a lover and it is also a birth.  In the very darkest of sufferings, which is death, a light is found which is the most glorious of all the lights.  This [light] in turn is like a passageway or a canal of birth just as when we were born into life, we are born into death.  [It is wonderful to think that our souls are being fed through the sufferings of death. What greater reward then to have the most greatest of things, Eternal Life with our Creator, after the very darkest of sufferings.]
Our suffering is so important to our lives.  One thing I hear a lot of from someone I love [I call her Mother] is "Offer It Up!"  After reading through this chapter, I really have felt a deeper connection to Christ and His sufferings.  I do not compare my own to His and say they are the same because they are not even close to what He endured.  I look to His sufferings as a place to lay down my own into.  As someone who is not a crier by any means, I really couldn't help but to notice the passage on Christ's tears. [Kreeft says]: "Every tear we shed, becomes Christ's own tears." I cry more or less quiet, dry tears.  Even if they are physically there [or not] I know that if I put into Christ my trust that He will take them and make them His own. This was something that I really needed to hear.
Christ sits by our sides and no matter what our sufferings are, He takes them and makes them His own, if we allow Him to.  Sometimes it is our own foolish pride, yes we all are fools Kreeft says, that gets in the way of us reaching out to Christ and saying, "Here, have my pain and my sorrow and my sufferings and help me to get through them because I can't deal with them anymore. It's too much." We won't always feel that Jesus has taken our sufferings away, but when we are forced to suffer through them we are made stronger and our souls are fed. The strength comes from Christs as well as from the suffering.  He will not let us go through it alone.
The other part that just tugged at my heart and causes it pain, was that Jesus is such a part of us that He was in every gas chamber in Auschwitz. [After going to Auschwitz and paying my respects to those who suffered there, this hits harder then it did when I first read it.] He is also in every legal factory that participates in the killing of the innocent everyday.  For a Savior who loves us so much He is with everyone of us, no matter if we are strong or weak. No matter if we want Him to be with us or not.

 When I read this I sometimes feel that it is all over the place but it really was a great reminder to myself that no matter what is going on, my sufferings and pain are one with Christ's. That this suffering is forming me into a "real" person and feeding my soul and I pray, hope that it is enough to let me be with the one who has been along for my ride this whole time. It's a crazy journey and I think that Christ is the only one strong enough to take it on with me.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said it best:

"I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."

Being Hit Below the Belt...Twice

Wow. Do something good, get kicked twice for it. For the last few weeks I have been planning a "Praise & Prayer" Hour with two other parishioners at my Church. Deb & Jim are extremely musically talented and have asked me to help them to bring for lack of a better word a P&W hour at our church once a month.  Well we had the first one two nights ago and we had 6 people show up. Better than we thought. It seemed to go over very well. So of course, as my life goes, I do something good for God and satan has to come and throw in his two cents. I was hit twice by him, through a person who is supposed to be one of my best friends, is my flesh and blood family and where does the blow come from? Why to mock God and my Pro Life beliefs. I won't detail it because it's not worth mentioning. The first blow yesterday made me angry and frustrated. Then today's made me want to cry. Weep for the fact that someone could mock God and the unborn victims of abortion so coldly. The thing is that, I have been on my guard and walking on egg shells with this person. We did have a discrepancy about a month ago and I thought everything had blown over but I guess I'm such a horrible person. I don't want to beat myself up but, this is probably the the thing I hate the most about being a "devout" Catholic. That if I do good, I'm kicked in the face almost immediately. Sometimes it's just easier to give up. But of course, that's what satan wants. And in the long run it's not what I want. End Rant.

Double Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies

So if there was one thing I was making sure I was perfecting in my last year of undergrad at FUS was that I was going to make a cookie that tasted just like the Subway ones. Specifically the Double Chocolate Chip Cookies. So I made many a cookie, and eventually found out how you make that cookie taste like chocolate, almost brownie like and now I will share it with you!

The Mint Variety - Great for Christmas!

What you need:

• 1 1/3 Cups & 1 Tablespoon Butter or Margarine (either will work, it just depends on how fattening you want them)
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 2/3 Cup Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 Eggs
• 2 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 2/3 Cup Cocoa (Royal Dutch Cocoa is better)
• 1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 Cup Milk
• 12 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
• 6 oz White Chocolate Chips
• Optional: 6 oz of any of your favorite flavored chip (Mint, Cherry, Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Butterscotch, Cappuccino, etc.)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F 
2. Take a brown grocery bag and cut it apart and put in on the table. You will put the baked cookies on here. It helps to absorb the excess grease and makes for easier clean up! My Grandma's way to make cookies!
3. Combine 1 1/3 Cups Butter, Sugars & Vanilla in a large bowl until creamy. I use a wooden spoon because that's how I was taught. You have muscles, use them!
4. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly
5. In a microwave safe bowl add 6 oz of the Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips & 1 Tablespoon of Butter. Heat in the Microwave until it's at a liquid consistency.
6. Add the liquid chocolate to your batter and mix together
7. In a separate bowl, combine Flour, Cocoa, Baking Soda & Salt. Mix thoroughly
8. Add the dry ingredients to the batter, alternating with the milk. Stir until blended.
9. Stir in the remaining Semi-Sweet Chips and the White Chocolate Chips.
10. Drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet in 1" balls. I like to use a melon baller because it gives perfectly shaped cookies.
11. Bake for 10 minutes. I take them out when they look like they are almost done. This way they stay soft. If they are over baked, in a hour they will be no better than a hockey puck and I for one do not like hard, crispy cookies.
12. When you take the cookies out of the oven, this is when you can add the optional chips. In the picture I used the Mint Chips. I just added 4 or 5 to each cookie on the top. This way they have more of an aesthetic appeal then if they were mixed in with the dough. You can add any kind of Chocolate Chips at this step. The sky's the limit!
13. After I add the chips, I remove the cookies from the cookie sheet to the brown bag
14. After the cookies have cooled (you will be able to tell because the chips on top have re-solidified and you can touch them without them being mushy) you can remove them from the brown bag and put them in an air tight container. 
15. To ensure the cookies stay soft, put a piece of bread in the container. This will work for cookies that have already hardened too, The moisture of the bread goes into the cookies and they become soft again!
16. When I made these for Christmas I got 93 cookies and this is a single batch. I did however eat some of the dough so I could've had more but I guess 93 is a lot. You can make the cookies bigger, but you will get less cookies

So there you go kids! My favorite cookies! And yes, I do believe they taste as good, if not better than Subways!

Immune to the Economy

So I'm pretty much gonna be losing my job soon. No Customers = No Hours. Am I sad, or worried? HELL NO!!! I'm actually quite excited. Why? Because I finally have an excuse to get back into the health field. So back when I was a senior in High School, call me crazy but I had 3 jobs and went not only to High School, but was taking College Credits. So I was a busy child. Well the class I was taking was the CNA course, or to expand on the acronym: Certified Nursing Assistant. I can't really remember why I decided to take it but I did. I did my Clinicals at Portage County Health Care Center. I loved to talk with the residents. I worked in a Nursing Home in the Kitchen. I was in the Health Field, I had my foot in the door then I went in another direction. I mean I don't regret getting out of it. I think it was good for me to do other things, it made me grow out of it. I was able to get a feel of the workforce outside of Health Care. Well when I did Portugal Mission, I realized how much I missed working in Health Care. So now a year and a quarter later, I'm really digging into it. I am preparing to re-take my CNA certification. I read like 100 pages in the book in the last 24 hours! I don't do that! But I did. I have this really crazy motivation and I love it! By the end of this week, I should have registered to take the exam! Thursday I am going to practice my skills which we'll see how rusty they are. Hopefully I'll take my exam sometime around the 1st of February! I'm not really nervous, I just want to work in a place I'm passionate about again. I also want to volunteer at Ministry St. Michael's Hospital. They have volunteering with the Hospice Program and that is what I want to do as a Nurse so what better way to find out if that's where I want to be than to volunteer with that. I know I won't get paid, but I think it will be rewarding in it's own way. Otherwise I'll hate it and I'll know to go elsewhere in the Nursing Field. All I know is that these next couple years are going to be quite exciting and unpredictable. So why the title "Immune to the Economy"? They say that Nursing will be Immune to the effects of the crappy Economy. So I should be good to go. Bring it on!

How Long Is Your Life?

So for whatever reason, I started reading a bunch of these "100 Things To Do Before I Die" Lists and that inspired me to do one of my own. I do have a handful I things I've always wanted to do, and maybe I should write them down. And then I can see if I ever accomplish any of them! Haha!

1. Train a Seeing Eye Dog
2. Visit all 50 States (been to 25 so far)
3. Go to France, see Lourdes and other various religious sites
4. Visit Sienna, Italy with Kassandra (As prescribed by Arch Bishop Listecki when Kass was confirmed)
5. Go to a random Island for a week, be completely lazy and enjoy every minute of it
6. Surf
7. Parasail
8. Learn to play the guitar better than a novice
9. Have a conversation in Spanish or German (or learn those languages better)
10. Go back to Fatima, Portugal and do it justice this time (I mean do and see everything there is to do and see)
11. Buy an old farm house and renovate it to my liking
12. Graduate from Nursing School and be a nurse! 15 May 2014
13. Pass NCLEX 2 July 2014
14. Eat an oyster
15. Run a Marathon (1/4, 1/2, Full, whatever!)
16. Be able to explain my education to someone and having them get it!
17. Be in two places at the same time
18. Go back to Gaming, Austria and jump in the Creek!
19. Go back to Gaming, Austria and climb Book Mountain
20. Go back to Gaming, Austria and go to the Caves!
21. Write a book (yea right!)
22. Attend Mardi Gras
23. Pay off my Student Loans
24. Give a generous sum anonymously to a charity
25. Go to Oktoberfest in Munich (preferably the Hofbrauhaus, cuz I love that place!)
26. Visit Lithuania
27. Go Whitewater Rafting
28. Go to Disneyland/world
29. Be a Salvation Army Bell Ringer 21 December 2013
30. Serve on a NET team
31. Eat Sushi 31 December 2010
32. Go on a Silent Retreat
33. Go to Spain
34. Live in Europe again for at least a Month
35. Shoot a Handgun 24 April 2011
36. Strive for Holiness (This should be #1)
37. Go to March for Life
38. Eat Frog Legs 6 May 2012
39. Polar Bear Plunge

I have a long way to go, and a lot of these things cost money, so they will be futuristic.
Oh well. Gotta love the randomness of it!

Analogies...

They go together like Lamb & Tuna Fish! Or maybe Peanut Butter & Jelly, if you're more comfortable with that analogy? Haha, great line from a great movie. So today's post I'm going to be comparing two things, which may sound like Lamb & Tuna Fish, but in the end it's really like PB & J! Teaching my Theology of the Body CCD Class is like giving Copper (my dad's dog) a bath. Uh, Okay? Well I really do think this. Last night I decided Copper was very very dirty, so dirty that her white fur was gray from all the dust and dirt outside. As I was trying to give her a bath, she fought it and fought it. She is a beagle and naturally she just doesn't like water. Well this bath usually involves 5 steps. First I have to get her fur wet. (Since she's so small, i just pick her up and put her in the bathtub, unlike Nilla, my Yellow Lab who was harder to coax into the tub cuz you can't just pick up an 80 pound dog an put her in the tub!). So after I finally get her fur wet, I have to get her soapy, and usually she shakes off and I end up getting a bath too. Then when she's finally all full of bubbles, I once again get to rinse her off. When she's soap free, I tell her that she has to shake off 5 times. Usually 5 times gets her dry enough to not be dripping everywhere. Then as I'm waiting for her to do that, I clean the water out of her ears so they don't get infected. Finally when she is finished shaking I let her out of the tub and try to towel dry her off. Then I release her and she goes mental! She'll start running her hot laps around the house and acting insanely crazy! So now as I was giving her her bath last night, I was like, "Wow, bathing you is like teaching my CCD class!" Getting her into the tub is like getting the kids to class, 95% of them can't drive so they are dropped off by their parents against their own free will. So getting them there is the easy part. Well then the hard part begins. Like getting Copper's fur wet, we have to settle the kids down and get them to try to pay attention. This is usually interrupted by them talking and not paying attention. Kinda like Copper shaking off and trying to get away from me, not paying attention to what I'm doing and not caring in the least! Then we delve into the tough stuff, we start to teach them what it is we have planned for that day. Usually by this point they have given up and just sit there lethargically. Copper does the same, as long as shes not getting water poured on her, she sits pretty still letting me get her all soaped up! Then we split the class up into 2 groups and do some discussion time. This usually gets them excited again. They basically try to plan their escape and not really wanting to pay attention again. Or they start to fight it. They usually will ask questions or argue or something that makes them no longer want to be there again. This is like rinsing Copper off cuz, once again, this pup hates water! Finally we take the kids upstairs into the Church to sit in front of the tabernacle and lead them in a closing prayer that usually lasts 5 minutes. They must stay there until they are dismissed. So like Copper, who has to shake off five times, she's stuck until I let her out. Usually all parties involved wait patiently until the 5 shakes/minutes have happened. Sometimes there's a little whining/whispering but this is why they spread out. It works wonders! Then when they are dismissed Copper runs out of there as fast as possible and runs her hot laps and the kids bolt out of that church to their awaiting cars to speed off into the night. Bringing it all together: So as I was bathing Copper this thought occurred to me and I said it to Copper, "You may not like getting your bath and the process of getting it sucks, but look at you in the end! You are clean and soft and pretty and you don't stink like an old man anymore!" Kind of like my CCD kids, they don't like going through this, but in the end they have been given the tools necessary to be clean and beautiful and they don't stink like sinners anymore. Haha! I sound crazy, but that's beside the point. We are making them go through this process of shedding off anything that they have acquired by their actions thus far, and are giving them the tools necessary to live a life that's clean and good. I didn't like CCD either but I wish I would've been able to do what they are doing now. My CCD experience was very different from theirs. Not to mention a whole year longer! I didn't ever want to go like a lot of them don't want to go. I was forced too. I am thankful for some of my experience, but I wish I got more of what they are getting now. Today we are teaching with the interest of the students at heart. Not just we're gonna read out of this book and this is the way it is cuz I said so. I want these kids to love God, and I know if they do have some sort of a conversion, it's going to be because of their own accord, not necessarily because of my teaching style or what I said. I struggle too. Sometimes I don't want to be there teaching them because my Monday's Tuesday's and Wednesdays are so crazy that I can't wait for Thursday to come so I can have a break. Well again I say, Giving Copper a Bath goes with Teaching CCD like Lamb & Tuna Fish!

Why I'm not supposed to be a youth minister...

I find myself right now in the midst of being a college grad, a clerk, a student, a Theology of the Body instructor, and a loser living with my parents at the age of 24. Sounds like a fantastic time huh? Well for a while I had been looking into Youth Minister positions and even interviewed for one. My favorite part of this interview was when I asked about how many of the youth actually came back after Confirmation to actually participate in this stuff (because the main focus of this job was to work with the post-Confirmed youth). Mind you, this parish confirms anywhere from 100-150 people a year. My answer came a little like this, "Uh, well we have a good group (as she turns to the other woman who was also interviewing me and talks in hushed tones coming up with a number). It's a good 6 or 7, maybe 8 kids." I was like 8? That's it? You are hiring a full time Youth Minister to work with 8 kids? Wow. That's really sad. Sad on both parts. Because here they are trying their damnedest to get across the word of God to these kids and it results with only about 8 or so caring about their faith enough to seek it out past gradu - I mean Confirmation. And sad on the part of the youth, that they don't care enough about their faith to want to take the journey farther than the CCD classroom.
Now as I'm teaching the Sophomores at my parish St. Mary of Mt. Carmel and our sister parish St. James, I have come into frustrations. When it comes to CCD you get two extremes. If you teach a lower grade like when I taught 4th grade before, they are so young that they're interested, but they don't really understand and you can't really go that deep with them. And once you get them at an age where you can go deeper and they understand more, THEY DON'T CARE!!! How frustrating for a Catechist to try to teach a class when you pretty much are teaching a wall. I am well aware of the whole, well if only one of them gets something out of it you've done good, but it has to be down heartening. I would feel that if I happened to get a job as a youth minister I'd just be frustrated by the fact that I felt like my work never resulted in anything worth my time. I like my work to be rewarding. I want to see something good come out of it or some progress and I feel as if I wouldn't find it there. Even as I work my crappier-than-thou job at the store, I at least feel like I'm making some progress and making things better and that's the kind of job I want. Something where I can see I'm making a difference, not only in Heaven, but here on Earth too. For now, I'll continue to teach the blank wall of students each Wednesday night, but my eyes are focused on the future of my Nursing Vocation, as I inch my way ever closer to it each day.