Song recommendation of the day XXVII

This is an introduction to one of my favorite albums of Gregorian chant that comes on my Pandora station:

What I Do

Usually I have a pretty boring answer for the "What do you do as a CNA?" question that people ask.  I help them bathe, to get dressed to eat, to go to bed...every day things.  I've started to realize though that CNAs do much more than that.  We help people live their lives.  I literally remember everything about everyone that I possibly can to help them live their lives as normally as possible.  I remember things about them that I probably don't even know or remember about myself...I know where each resident's personal belongings are so that, when they forget where something is, I know where it is as if it were my own.  I know small little things like who's allergic to tomato seeds, who likes lots of lotion at bath time as opposed to who likes only a little lotion...what temperature to have the bath water...favorite colors...what side of the bed they get on...I can tell how people are feeling by the way they hold themselves up in their wheelchair and their attention spans.  With one resident I know that our conversation as I help her get ready for bed will focus on one of four topics:  how she named her daughter, why her daughter married a doctor, why she likes Bailey's when she goes to bed, or why she doesn't like beer.  I get to hear about who doesn't like who and what so-and-so said at suppertime.  I literally am helping people live their lives.  On one hand, this helps me understand why CNAs who have been working their job for so long get burnt out...living your life to live other peoples' lives for them makes you miss your own life, in a sense.  My whole job is all about making other people comfortable, to the point that I forget that I, too, sometimes need some comfort.  When one of the residents says I'm a hard worker, or that I look pretty that day, it reminds me why I do what I do...people are lovely.  People need love, I give it to them...that's what I do.

Pro-Life Feature III

A year or two ago I heard about a book called "Open Embrace:  A Protestant Couple Rethink Contraception" via our pro-life group on campus.  I put it on my list of "books to read someday".  Well, tonight was someday!  This short book was read in all of about 2 hours while I was at work (in-between answering call lights, of course!).  Open Embrace is written by a Protestant couple who realized there was no book from a Protestant point of view that supported NFP, yet alone did not condone contraception.  Using an assortment of reason, Scripture, and cool quotes (Papa JPII and G.K. Chesterton, along with some other cool people), they give their reasons for abandoning the world's contraceptive mentality.  I think it's a great tool for anyone wanting to reach out to others to explain why NFP is so great, especially for people who might be wanting to promote it to non-Catholic Christian acquaintances or even non-Christian acquaintances.  Seeing the viewpoint of a faith that is different from mine and how they came to their conclusions was refreshing.  Overall it's a good, quick read.

*note*  Unfortunately the authors are now on a different path and no longer believe in the message they wrote about for this book, which is quite sad.  Say a prayer for them that they find their ways back to the beautiful lifestyle of openness to life.

Checking In

I've had a wonderful past few days at home.  I came home early Monday (I worked till midnight on Sunday, stayed up till 1 starting laundry and organizing, woke up at 6am to finish laundry and packing and left KC at 8am) and have been enjoying a lot of time with my mom.  We had a fun adventure down in Branson:  we went to a dinner theatre, went ziplining (yes, even Mom got strapped in a harness and went ziplining 1/2 mile), went on a winery tour and did some wine tasting (mmm...look up Stone Hill wines.  I actually really liked the cream sherry, though I don't think I could ever even drink half a glass.  I'm finally getting a better idea what I like and don't like in wines), and watched a fountain show.  We stopped to see Big Brutus on the way back (pictures soon, promise!).  And tonight we spent a fun night with my aunt and cousin having a few drinks and playing some games.  Just doing some "checking in"! 

Best memories of the week home so far:

1. All the time I've been able to spend on the back porch playing games and talking about life with my mom.
2. At the dinner theater, the actors interacted with the audience and served the meals before the show began.  One of the actors came up to Mom and me and said it was cool that we prayed before our meal.  You never know who's watching!!
3.  Ziplining.  I never thought I'd see my mom basically jumping off of a 230' tower, speeding 50 mph hanging from a cable...neither did she, probably.
4.  Catching up with my aunt and cousin.  Families are just something else...and it's always nice when you can laugh with your family about little drama that's going on on that side of the family.
5.  Meeting up with friends at Tuesday Night Prayer.  This is the first summer in 4 summers I haven't been able to go to the group.  Now when I go I'm in awe that I'm one of the oldest, besides my seminarian friend who spearheads the group.  When I first started going I was basically the youngest, even though I only started going right out of high school, and the group had been meeting for a summer or two before I joined in.  What started out as 5 or 10 friends has grown into a legitimate high school/early college group of 15+, even up to 40 sometimes.  God is good.

Lessons on Mary III

July 16th is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and I know very little about the apparition, so here's a small little website that gives a short account of the apparition to St. Simon Stock and a few prayers.

Below is a homily from Fr. Angelo on EWTN that further explains the Carmelite spirituality.

Ebb and Flow

"Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing."  Sometimes I have to think that at work because when one of the residents becomes upset at me for whatever reason, they literally don't know what they are doing.  That is, they may get mad at me for me making them go to the bathroom that moment, but the next day nothing happened, because in their mind it never happened.  They understand that yesterday happened, but the details don't quite make it into the equation; the fact that yesterday happened is enough.  Not that forgiveness should exactly be "selective amnesia" or anything of that sort, but I do think that forgiveness is meant to operate in much the same manner as the innocence of a child or the forgetfulness of the elderly.  Let yesterday be yesterday, let yesterday exist in yesterday, do not let it exist in today.  Today is enough.  Tomorrow will be enough when it comes.

Easier said than done, of course, but it's a good thing to think about.  Living one day at a time helps me to get through days of work before going home (3 days! 3 days!).  If I had started out this past week looking at the whole week, I would've been overwhelmed.  And since it's hard for me to live in today, I did narrow myself to two days at a time.  "Just these two days, then I can focus on the next two days."  I'm in the middle of one of those two day stretches.  It made sense in my mind this week to break it up in such a fashion because this morning and tomorrow I worked/will be working on one floor of the nursing home, and the weekend I'll be on a different shift on a different floor of the nursing home.  So two day segments just fit naturally into the week.

Speaking of natural, I've been reading The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly.  Overall a good book.  It's basically a motivational book that happens to be written by a Catholic, so has an underlying spiritual health theme to the message.  Matthew Kelly is a renowned speaker, and I can tell the book is written much like he must talk in his speeches; short and poignant.  For that reason I don't think the book has the rhythm (see what I did there?  Punny.) of a book; it seems as if I'm reading a speech of his.  In fact, it would probably be much more effective to hear him talk than to read his writing.  Short choppy sentences tend to irritate me after a while.  However, the message is good and timely in today's world and in my life, and has been a nice read thus far.  Lately I've been doing my leisure reading at work when I have free time at the end of my regular evening shift and studying for the GRE the rest of the time when I'm not at work.  Which reminds me:  the next time I decide to shut off my Facebook account to avoid distraction from studying/living, I must remember to let my mom know too, so that she doesn't think a) something tragic has happened in my life, b) I'm blocking her, or c) I've basically ceased living.  Yup.  She definitely texted me in a panicked state of mind and called me in bit of a calmer mood after I had texted her that I was in fact alive and well.  (And the break has been good so far; deactivating the account has been much more effective than just saying I'm taking a break and allowing myself to sneak on occasionally to look at status updates.  I've used Facebook more often than I wanted to this summer to avoid a disconnection with the world, so I figure a good 31-ish day break is definitely a good thing to break the horrible habit of addiction to Facebook.)

Sts. Perpetua and Felicity

This picture shows how the women were executed in the arena:  standing before a rabid heifer

 1.  Seriously two of my favorite saints.  St. Perpetua was almost my confirmation saint.  Their courage, their femininity, their friendship, their understanding of the sacredness of life...everything about them is rockin'.

2.  Just for clarification, St. Felicity was a servant to St. Perpetua.  They weren't even in the same social class, so to speak.  Another great testament to their friendship.

3.  Their testament to the sanctity of life:  Perpetua had just given birth and Felicity was pregnant when arrested for their conversion to Christianity.  Perpetua cheered up a lot in prison when she was allowed to have her baby with her for a while.  Felicity had her baby before the group of catechumens was executed.

"Heaven is a place on earth"

I wanted to write about my crazily wonderful beginning-of-the-week adventure before I forgot details...so here goes!

Sometime on Friday or Saturday I noticed yet another Facebook event...this one being a get-together in Pilsen, KS, mostly for Prayer & Action participants but also for TECies (people who have been on Teens Encounter Christ) and other friends.  It crossed my mind that I might go, but it was definitely an unsure deal...I have $700+ worth of textbooks to pay off, so spending money on gas and other small expenditures is a need-only basis.  However, I also realized it would be the only and last time I would see several friends this summer before the school year hits and we don't see one another for another year.  Friendships outweigh the price of gas.  Therefore, Monday afternoon I drove 3 hours to middle of nowhere Kansas.  The trip itself was great, especially between Emporia and Pilsen.  Rolling hills and grazing land for cattle, long stretches of empty road...my soul already began to expand and breath again.  I made it to Pilsen in an impressive 2 hours and 45 minutes and rested by the Marian grotto for a while before it became too hot for me and I waited inside the church another half hour before the first handful of people arrived.  I sat toward the front and soaked in the quiet.  My dear friend Tony, who I had been informing of my semi-surprise visit, was one of the first to come in and hugged and greeted me.  About then is when tears began to well up in my eyes.  Pretty soon more and more people streamed into the church and I saw more of my dear friends.  Father brought out Jesus.  Music started.  And I kid you not, I cried the. entire. time. of Adoration.

I really can't say why I cried so much.  I wasn't particularly sad.  In fact, I was overjoyed.  The best I can say is that all the emotions of the summer so far...the homesickness, the frustration, the confusion, the bottled-up-ness...suddenly colliding with pure joy of being surrounded by friends adoring my Lord was overwhelming.  Whatever it was, the tears flowed for the better part of an hour.  I actually welcomed the opportunity to let Jesus break into my heart after being so pent up for so long.

Anywho, so Adoration was definitely an amazing experience for me.  And afterwards we celebrated with each other the only way Kansas farm-kids and wanna-be-farm-kids know how...we ventured a few miles to the family farm of one of the girls, built up a bonfire, turned up the country music, pulled up some trailers, and two-stepped.  And ate 6 pies (split between 70ish people...not that everyone partook...but the point is that nobody expected 70 people.  At all.  Yay Holy Spirit!).  Truthfully, it was the most I've felt "at home" all summer!  People reuniting, affirming one another, building up the kingdom of God in the humblest of ways.  Kansas kids just know how to do things right.  And I didn't leave for Kansas City till 10:45pm.  What can I say, I just didn't really quite want to leave.

Everything about the night made me think of Heaven.  Not that I'm one for putting imagery to Heaven...normally I choose to stay away from that sort of thing.  But if Heaven had a sense to me, it would be everything about Monday night...friends greeting friends, community, all directed towards the altar, all together for one purpose.  It really was a taste of Heaven for me.

And now I have a taste of Heaven to propel me through the rest of the summer.  Whatever new joys, sorrows, or difficulties I will encounter, I know that He is the pinnacle of it all.  He is the reason behind everything.

Quote of the day XXVIII

"If Jesus asks us not to have any worries, that is mainly to safeguard the quality of our relations with other people. A heart preoccupied by concerns and worries isn't available to other people."--Jacques Philippe