Priez pour Lafayette

It's a terrible feeling to receive a text saying that there was a shooting in Lafayette.  It's terrible to immediately check Facebook for confirmation, to see it plastered down the length of your newsfeed, to see it as the top trending news story, to see it as the first article on Yahoo, to turn on the TV and see the same scenes played out over again under a caption of BREAKING NEWS.

I think about how there are people in this sweet and friendly city who simply went to see a movie and will not be returning home, and I feel sick.

I think about how Lafayette was nothing but kind to me for the three and a half years I called it home, even when I was miserable and wanted to be anywhere but there.  I think of all the familiar places that become standard from the mere act of living there, and of all the lovely nooks and crannies I got to explore with Michael as we geocached our way through the town and came to know it as well as I know my hometown.  I think of all the times I spent in that very movie theatre.  Tuesdays were student discount nights with your UL student ID card.

Shootings happen, but they happen elsewhere.  They don't happen so close to home.  They don't happen to people you know.  To be dealt the horrific crime against the beautiful Mickey Shunick and then to have the community at the mercy of a random shooter?  My heart aches for Lafayette, and yet I have seen the people rally before.  They will rally again.

At a difficult time in my life, I once asked a close friend if he thought people were inherently good or inherently self-serving.  I was surprised when he answered good.  And I have accepted that as my own belief.  I do believe that people are inherently good.  I have seen it time and time again; I have so much evidence of it, and that makes it all the more shocking when things like this happen.  People are inherently good, but I do so wish that it didn't take instances of the opposite to reveal that goodness.

Please, be kind to one another.  Be good to the people in your life and to those that you meet in passing.  Be careful.  And please, live out your inherent goodness day to day, not just when a tragedy begs for it to be seen.  Please let love be your guiding force that defines your actions so that we may all find peace.

A Brief Reflection in the Midst of Everything

Have you ever wanted something so intensely, so deeply and desperately, that it hurt?  Of course you have.  We all know that feeling, inherent and intrinsic, that stems from a goal, a wish, a desire.  A want that's almost a need.  Something you have worked towards, cried over, sweated and bled for, gave your heart to.

And then you don't get it.

You're passed over, rejected, turned away, denied.  Suddenly, everything inside of you that was striving towards that thing is gone, and you're left all hollowed out and empty, miserable.  You're adrift in the great sea of life.

I think about this often, and I worry about it even more.  For every goal I've achieved and every success I've accomplished, I still worry that the few things in life that I truly and enormously want will not be granted to me.  I worry about timing.  I stress about my own work ethic.  I contemplate every possible factor that may or may not happen.  I obsess over questions of free will and fate and choices and destiny and how much of our own hands shape the lives that God has planned.

I tell myself constantly, "Man plans; God laughs."  It's not much of a consolation.  I'm terrified that God has other plans for me than what I have for myself.

I think of how Louis Martin wanted to become a hermit, and how Zélie Guérin wanted to become a nun, and God said no to both, provided them with a marriage, and watched in turn as they married and gave birth to one of the most influential saints of modern times, Thérèse Martin of Lisieux.  And I think, how perfect.  How wonderful it is that God's plans are greater than ours.  We can't be trusted to know what we want.

And how much it must have hurt at the time for Louis to be turned away from the hermitage, and how pained Zélie must have been to be denied her habit.  How can we see beyond our hurt?  As parents, they gave birth to a saint, but what if, as a hermit and a nun, they could have become saints in their own right?

It seems we must empty ourselves, die to ourselves, die to our own wishes if that's not what God calls for.  We must content ourselves in His plan, whether we can see it or not at the time.  If I am to lose out on my goals, hopes, and dreams to give way to something greater, then I pray that I have the absolute courage and strength to do so.  I don't have it now, and it may be that I am not called to need it, but I hope that I would be able to find it if necessary.  And if I am to never know what purpose my life served until I am good and gone, then so be it.  I must trust.

May God take the plans I have made for myself into His hands and shape them into that which He wants, and may I have the humility to see them in their own time, and to accept them with grace.

Love, Love, Love

Let's do some math.

My family has been attending St. Jerome Catholic Church on Sundays for about 20 years now.  And there are 52 weeks (Sundays) in a year.  Let's make it 50, for easy mathing.  50 Sundays x 20 years is 1,000 Sundays.  Now, we go to other churches occasionally.  And I went to church in Lafayette for three years while in college.  But for every Sunday that I was at another church, I made up for it by being at St. Jerome for a myriad of other reasons: holy days of obligation, cleaning or decorating the church, attending CCD, teaching CCD, altar server training, etc., etc., etc.  I think it's safe to say that I have walked up and down the aisle of St. Jerome at least 1,000 times in my life.

1,000 trips down that aisle.  And not a single one of them compared to that phenomenal walk down that tiled aisle as I gripped my dad's arm and went step by step to meet my to-be husband.

I can tell you exactly what made that walk special.  Of course, the immediate answer is that Michael was waiting at the end of it for me, with the biggest, toothiest smile I've ever seen on him, an image I won't be likely to forget.  But what made that walk exceptionally special was the sheer amount of love that crowded the interior of the church.  I walked through the double doors to the opening notes of the only song I said over and over that I would never walk down the aisle to, and it was like a physical blast of agape love met me.  It was like walking out of the summer heat into an air conditioned store.  I walked straight into a room full of love.

I would later describe the sensation like walking in a tunnel.  On both sides, my friends and family pressed against the wooden pews, smiling at me, clicking cameras, blowing kisses, wiggling fingers in little waves, tilting heads, winking.  Even as an altar server, I had never walked down that aisle with every single eye in the room turned to me.  It was truly like being in a tunnel.  A wonderful tunnel.  Dare I say... the tunnel of love?  (Forgive me.  I couldn't pass up that opportunity.)

But really!  How else can I describe it?  Love all around me!  From the sides, from the front, from above-- a presence that made the air thicker and the atmosphere heavier, in a good way.  And when I got to the altar and hugged my dad and slipped my hand into Michael's, and everyone sat down, everything settled, and I no longer felt that unique weight.  That's not to say that the love fled the room-- I had simply shifted my focus to the individual love coming to me from Michael.

I write about this because it is one of my strongest, most vivid memories from the wedding day and also because I never really got to address it.

On Sunday, Michael and I will celebrate our first anniversary, and I'm thrilled.  A special day, just for the two of us, to celebrate how strong our bond has grown over this past year, to celebrate all that we've learned in the first year of marriage, about each other, about ourselves.  A day where we acknowledge the commitment that we make each new morning when we choose to love each other and revel in the joy of that work.

I am so grateful for my partner.  But as we approach that anniversary and I think back to the day when it all started, I realize how grateful I am for the people who surrounded us before, then, and now.

I wanted to thank everyone for their support and love.  I really meant to.  I don't know if I did, or if I did it well enough.  The rehearsal dinner is little more than a blur to me at this point; I know we rushed out some hasty thank yous, and I know we handed out heartfelt gifts, but while the people in that room were the closest to us, I still feel overwhelmingly grateful for all of the people in our life.  I am grateful to those who gave us an example of what a loving and respectful marriage should be like. I am grateful to those who laughed and joked with us along our journey, who kept me smiling when we were apart, who told me they'd been waiting for this day for years.  I am grateful to those who went out of their way to be with us on that day.  I am grateful to those who have shown me love in every sort of manner.

When I was a senior in high school, my religion teacher told our class that love is a choice, not a feeling.  Needless to say, the room of high school girls erupted in fury, arguing the opposite, and I sat there, thinking.  What did she mean?  Love wasn't a choice!  I didn't choose to feel the way I did about Michael.  I just did.  I loved him, plain and simple.  It took me years to realize that my teacher was probably right.  Now, I accept both.  I see passive love as a feeling-- that butterflies-in-the-belly, goofy-smile, kiss-me-in-the-rain kind of feeling you kind of can't help.  But I see active love as a choice-- through the arguments, through doing chores out of turn, to taking care of the other, to listening and understanding when you're wrong or right.  It's a choice to wake up every day and love on a level about which I'm still learning.  It's a choice to grab the other's hand and make it through the day, week, month, and most recently, year.  I am so honored to have that choice.

And so what I really want to say with this blog post is that I'm deeply grateful for all those who have chosen to love me.  I'm grateful to those who choose to love within their own lives.  I'm grateful to those who choose to do good, to be kind in all situations, to extend helping hands instead of pushing others down, to teach and to try and to believe and yes, once again, to love.  I am a big fan of love.

So, to everyone to whom I did not have the opportunity to say it after the wedding, thank you.  To everyone who was not at the wedding but lives a life of love, thank you.  I believe that we can change the world with this incredible power.  I love you all.

A New Prayer

Recently, God has put a new prayer in my heart.  I barely heard it at first, and then I was sure I was mishearing it, but now I sing it every day.

In high school, I used to pray daily for three things.  I would get to school, run up the three flights of stairs to the chapel, fling my backpack down outside the doors, enter the calm and quiet space.  I'd drop to my knees before the closed tabernacle and beg God to give me peace, courage, and strength.

Peace, courage, and strength, I'd plead.  Please, God.  Give me peace, courage, and strength.

Peace, because I was always so close to being consumed by my overwhelming anxiety and perfectionism.  Courage, because I knew I had a voice, but I didn't know how to use it.  Strength, because I was always so weary of the world around me.

In college, my prayer slowly changed.  I learned how to make my own peace; I found my courage and pressed forward; God made me strong and never let me fall.  Over time, that old prayer fell away, although it still rises to my lips, unbidden, when I can't think of anything to say.  It's my oldest and most favorite mantra.  But I was soon asking God to help make me great, to show me how to change the world, to give me happiness, to help me feel important, to give me opportunities to make differences.

Make me great... so that I can help others.

What good intentions my selfishness cloaked itself in.

The past year, a new prayer has quietly been growing within me.  The desire to be great has died down and taken a new form.  I still want to make changes and do good, but the wording has twisted itself beautifully in me now, I believe.

God, give me a servant's heart.

This is the wish that springs to my mind when I let myself be quiet and show myself to God.  He has been grooming me slowly and patiently into His servant.  I believe He has wanted this for me my whole life, giving me Therese of Lisieux as an example, whom I have loved since I was 7 years old.  She has held my hand all these years, and I have finally asked God to strip away all that which I have previously wanted and simply to give me the heart of a servant.

I have so many wishes within me, and I have never known how to accomplish them.  I want to do so much, and I have been working, working, working tirelessly (though I have taken more than my fair share of rests).  I am still surprised when I hear my own prayers, but there they are, whispers growing ever louder:

Give me a servant's heart.

Love Letters to New Orleans

Nola

I hear you easy in the morning
when your notes slip gold from your trumpet
and slide down the empty underbelly
of the interstate on-ramp,
floating fresh and clean and pure
above the dirty wet pavement

You are the grit beneath
my bitten fingernails
that I can’t ever scrub away,
while the homeless wilt beneath
that great big boiling sun,
under the unseeing glazed eyes
of dead men forever immortalized in stone,
the statues high above on sturdy columns

And it’s all so sad and beautiful,
just desolate enough to completely break my heart,
but enough shades of beauty
to keep me under this paperweight,
and you and I both know
that there are countless tiny reasons,
both beautiful and sad,
that hold me down, against my will,
but completely my own choice. 

-----

Crescent City

Have you ever had a love affair with this city?
So madly and deeply and painfully in love with this place
that you swear it must be a sin,
but when you walk into that big old echoing cathedral,
you find you’ve got nothing to confess

She’ll pin you down and smile into you with her curves,
that one big sweep of the river, and the little tug boats
will pull you up and away and down through
the muddy waters, and it’s not just that you can’t
fight the current— it’s that you don’t want to

She has her good days and her bad days but
most of all she has her ways, her mystery and
her charm and if you ever think of leaving her,
she’ll pass a plate of spices and something fried
under your nose, and you’ll sit back down

Have you ever had your heart broken by this city?
Have you ever been held back by the arms of
the oak trees, knocked over by the gently flapping
flags hanging from the wrought iron balconies,
tied down by the latitude and longitude of
the sleepy, easy way of life?

Have you ever begged for permission to leave her?
But once she hangs her heavy head and lets you go,
pulls a hurricane from within her depths to flush you out
and give you the excuse you need,
you realize you never wanted anything more
in your whole life than to love her back,
even if you find yourself drowning in that specialty of hers,
her all-consuming love

-----

Hope

we went back

they said don’t go, they said
there was no hope

there is always hope

but

nothing could prepare us
for the stench rising from the streets,
rotten food and spoiled meats
and dead dreams

nothing could prepare us
for the big dripping painted X’s
letting us know who was dead
and where they died

nothing could prepare us
for making the big sweeping turn,
our eyes starving for the sight
of the glittering city lights,
skyscrapers and festivities,
but nothing could prepare us
for the darkness, the emptiness,

nothing could prepare us for
the loneliness, the pain, the despair

but

there is always hope

30 Days of Poetry

I'm proudly joining Denise Hopkins in her 30 Days Challenge.  Denise began this type of challenge this past April, where she completed 30 paintings in 30 days, including blog posts that left me marveling.  This September, she invited others to join her in doing something for 30 straight days.

I waited until almost the last day to sign up.  You may notice from my last blog post that things involving the word "challenge" involve a great deal of thought from me.  So do things that involve doing something for an extended period of time, re my quitting the 100 Happy Days challenge.

But when I think about it, those instances may be more exception than rule for me.  I successfully completed my personal "One Good Thing a Day" for 365 days.  And my most treasured accomplishment: I successfully completed the full month of NaNoWriMo, where I wrote over 1,600 words a day for a month straight.  I didn't plan for that one, either.  I signed up to do it two days before it started, with no plot and no sense of direction.  Since November of 2012, those 50,000 words have turned into an entire novel that I'm in the middle of editing.

And yet, having been inspired by Denise's first go-round of 30 days of paintings, I attempted to do a month of poetry in May.  I survived 8 days of that before giving up, exhausted and frustrated.

Of course, I had no one to hold me accountable, and I had bound myself with a couple of rules for my poetry that left me feeling confined and uncreative.  This time, I told myself, I would just let go and write, the way I had done for NaNoWriMo.  But I still woke up today feeling nervous, and when I sat down before my notebook, I felt an odd sense of loneliness.  I knew I had the solidarity of the others doing this challenge with me, in their own unique styles and media, but I felt a bit helpless alone with my paper and pen.

I write, a lot.  But no one reads it, and when I do post it, I'm more or less anonymous.  People will (presumably) be reading my work for 30 straight days.  People I probably know.  Yikes.

But I'm committed.  I wasn't certain about how the sharing would go, since I never post an explanation or disclaimer of my writing.  Denise was the one who taught me that, about 5 years ago, and I've stuck pretty closely to that rule.  So how would I go about sharing my poetry via blog post?  Just put a poem up each day and leave it at that?  Seemed kind of boring.

So I'll be sharing the poem each day on the 30 Days blog, along with a scanned picture of the original version of it as I write it in my notebook.  But still no explanation.  I'd like my words to mean what they need to mean for each individual who reads them.

Sometimes I think I'm way too serious about this sort of stuff.  Enh.  I'm not even really sure what I'm looking to gain or get out of this endeavor.  I'm just trying not to be afraid of it.

See you at the end of September... and every day until then!

Why I Did the ALS Challenge

If you've been on the Internet in the last week at all, I'm sure you've noticed the sudden influx of videos of people dumping buckets of ice water on their heads.  And I'm sure you've noticed the backlash.  Because nothing can happen on the Internet without there being an enormous backlash of some sort.  (And I can't do anything without thinking about it for ages and without writing about it.)

I was kind of dreading being tagged to do this challenge, for so many reasons.  When the challenge started, it seemed kind of funny and cool.  I originally saw it being posted as "Dump a bucket of ice water on your head and donate $10 to any charity, or don't dump the bucket and donate $100."  Now, I typically see "Dump as much ice water on your head as possible in the most creative way as possible."

I felt like it lost it's original purpose as it became a trend, and I tend to balk from trends.  I didn't understand where the donation part went.  I didn't want to be part of something that was trendy just for being trendy.  So I did what I do when confronted with a dilemma: I read.  A lot.  I read a lot of articles, both for and against the challenge.  (For your own amusement, here's one against it-- though the author changed his mind slightly later-- and here's one for it.)  I read up on ALS.  Prior to this, I didn't even know what ALS stood for.  I only knew (vaguely) what it was because of Steve Gleason.  At least I now know that it stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and have a more general understanding of what the disease does.

And then I thought for a good long while about why I didn't want to do the challenge:

• It was trendy.  I don't typically like being part of trends.
• The donation is the most important part of this, and people seem to be forgetting that.
• I would be judged by my friends who are against it.
• I would be seen as a follower, even by people who are for it.

And then I thought for a good long while about why it might be a good reason to do it:

• Say what you will, but enough people dumping a bucket of anything on their head will raise awareness for any cause.
• It worked: the trend brought ALS to my attention and caused me to do research and learn new things.  It also inspired me to donate whereas I probably wouldn't have before.
• The call to donate is greater than the call to dump a bucket of ice water on myself.  But $100 is not in my budget at the moment.  $10 certainly is, and I can do better than that, so why not do a fun combination of donating and the challenge?
• Wait, wasn't one of my main reasons not to do this was my fear of being judged?  Slow your roll with your pride and vanity there, Erica.  That's as good a reason as any to do it.  Lighten up.  Dump some water on your head and don't be poised about it.  Geez.
• Be swept up with something for once.  And don't care what anyone else thinks.

There are so many conflicting opinions, about everything, not just this.  I do so much research about things that I often don't form any solid opinion, because I see both sides clearly and don't prefer one over the other.  What's worse, though, is that as a result and without a solid opinion, I simply don't do anything.  It's not so much because of apathy, but because I don't want to offend someone.  That's the worst thing to me.  I don't want to offend anyone, so I don't get involved.

So this time, I got involved.  I dumped water on my head, which I personally think won't do anything, but maybe it will convince someone else to do it and thus donate.  Hopefully this sudden flurry of donations headed towards ALS research will have an impact.  I simply wonder what trend will strike next, and how I-- and the Internet-- will react to it.