sex and pancakes

JMJ
AMDG

I hate the whole phrasing of "waiting" till marriage.

Basically, it comes down to this: I am not married. I am still of value. I am still able to live a complete life.

Sex is natural. It's a gift from God. Sex is necessary for the propagation of the human species. Sex is necessary for bringing spouses together and is an important part of the whole "being married thing". It can be misused. So can cheesecake, which is also a gift from God(obviously). The awesomeness of cheesecake is not a good reason to use in an improper fashion, such as using it as a Frisbee or eating so much of it you vomit. The same goes for sex: there are proper places for it and improper places for it.

But sex, like cheesecake, is not necessary for happiness. Sex is not necessary for joy. Sex is not necessary to living a human life full of messiness and Christmases and all the dumb things about growing up. Sex is not necessary to have friends and and frozen yogurt and fireworks. Sex will not be a part of everyone's life.

I hate the word waiting because waiting implies that sex will happen some day when in fact I have no guarantee that it will. I hate the word waiting because, to me at least, waiting implies that I am just biding my time being single until the Perfect Catholic Boy descends on a cloud from heaven so that I can finally start living life.

I hate the word waiting because to me, at least, waiting implies that I am doing nothing of worth now.

I actually haven't made pancakes in like a whole month, so
these are not my pancakes. Sorry.

*

Earlier in the summer, I went through a mad pancake making phase.

When you make pancakes you have to mix together the dry ingredients. You have to mix the wet ingredients. You have to mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. You have to ladle out the pancake batter onto the pan or griddle (which you've sprayed) and then cook the pancakes. After that you get to eat them.

While I am making pancakes, my sister is popping into the kitchen to see how far along I am and can she have the pink plate? how much longer? and a million other questions.

My sister is waiting to eat pancakes.

I am not. Am I eating pancakes as I cook them? No. But I am invested in another task. I am making pancakes, and that is what I am focused on.

I think that maybe making pancakes is like being single. At any rate, I've been doing a lot of both lately.

*

A guy at the Y where I used to work approached me one day. So, I was wondering, do you have a boyfriend?

He was kinda cute, with a shy smile and eyes that desperately wanted me to say No, I'm single and here's my number. 

except...

No, I'm single, I said. But I'm good with that for right now.

Being single and making pancakes are a lot alike. I'm getting pretty good at both.

*

I don't rush through pancake making. I do it correctly, making sure all my measurements are accurate, and it would be stupid to skip adding the flour because I just wanted some finished pancakes as fast as possible.

I'm single right now. There is no way around this. I've discerned that NET Ministries is the right place for me right now, and so I am not married or a consecrated religious, and not actively pursuing either right now.
Right now, making pancakes is where I'm at, and I'm having fun with it, making tiny ones, smiley-face ones, big ones the size of the pan and all the while belting out musical theatre tunes. Popular! You're gonna be popular...

*

Sometimes people make pancakes and never eat them, like my friends and family who are gluten-intolerant. Some people, like my sister, make pancakes but are taking a break from grain for a while and so might never eat pancakes, but there's a possibility.

Sometimes people fall in love a dozen times but never actually find That Person. Sometimes people decide that marriage isn't for them; that religious life is, or that singlehood is.

Maybe some day I'll sit down to a pancake breakfast. Maybe I won't. Both are viable options.

I am not waiting. Right now, I am busy making pancakes and singing and stressing about life and doodling in sharpie on most of the things I own.

To all my single ladies (and men): you can stop waiting. Stop waiting and start living. Someday, marriage may be your path to holiness, but it is not this day. Learn along to love where you are; learn to love the right now.

And right now? I am hella good at making pancakes.

i think i maybe took this analogy too far but anyways i make good pancakes and i'm single so yeah

hey, so like, i leave for NET on Thursday morning, so please pray for me!

salt and light

JMJ
AMDG

When I was ten, I wanted to be an astronaut. I was going to be the first person to land on Jupiter, until I learned that Jupiter is a gaseous planet and can't be landed upon. 

I'm eighteen now. I have absolutely no idea what my future will look like. There are dreams of being a youth minister and being married and or/ possibly maybe also a princess or a professional ice cream/mozzarella stick taster but I don't really know. I really have no idea what I'm doing beyond May 21, 2017, the finish date for 2016-17 NET.

I know I want to do something great. I know I want to live greatness.

*

Doing something great scares the crap out of me. Living greatness can't mean living normally. Living greatness means I can't keep my head down and be nobody. Living greatness means that I can't disappear. Even if I work the most boring job in the world with the most boring people in the world, as a Christian I must be salt and light, and those are not things which can be hidden. Those are things I must not allow myself to hide. 

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Men do not light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket. They set it on a stand where it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, your light must shine before men so that they may see goodness in your acts and give praise to your heavenly Father. (Matthew 5:14-16)

*

People tell me, I'm so proud of you.

I'm not.
I don't know quite why I'm here, why I've been called, and while I don't want to turn from the path I have started down, I do not feel worthy to walk it.

I am not proud of myself because I can see all the cracks in my beat-up heart and I know where my flaws lie, as I'm sure plenty of other people do too, but in spite of all my brokenness, sometimes I stop and it's like the pause before the drop at the top of the roller coaster and I think--maybe this is greatness. maybe this is exactly what I am meant to be doing right now. 

*

Sometimes--a lot of times, really--I don't want greatness. I want not to have to explain my crazy gap year-mission trip-Jesus adventure every time people ask me where I'm going to college in the fall. I wish I were your average eighteen year old, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, except that's not my personal path to greatness, and deep down, it isn't what I really want.

The world offers you comfort. You were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.~Benedict XVI.

*

 I discovered a poem the other day, one of those things you keep referring back to and maybe want to get tattooed on the inside of your eyelids because of the beauty of it--Starlings in Winter, by Mary Oliver. The last lines read:

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome. 

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

I want to dream of greatness and not be afraid of the vastness of it. I want to be loud, to be bright and flaming and do things that maybe people won't talk about but which will leave something behind in my heart, glimmering afterimages of pain and laughter and friendship and love that are realer than anything else in the world. I want to do things that make my soul sing. 

I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

I long for greatness. I'm terrified of it. God makes me feel like I've got wings. I need to remember to stop looking down.

*

The past few months, I've been struggling to come to terms with myself and the mission I am undertaking, not just NET, but Christian life. Youth ministry. Daring to share things in small groups and to lector at Mass. To see and be seen, to lead and be led. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

I was prayed over the other night, by a group of people I'd never met before. 
What would you like to pray for? one of them asked.

I want to pray for the courage to be the person God wants me to be and not the person I've been telling myself I am.

I'm still praying for that every day. I keep reminding myself not to despise myself, to accept my weaknesses, fix what I can, and move on.

I keep staring at the words I have taped next to my bed: Consult not your fears but your hopes and dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. ~St. Pope John XXIII

I keep remembering salt and light, salt and light, you are strong enough for whatever comes.

I keep praying, and thinking, and sometimes crying. I think that's all I can do for right now--hold on and try not to be afraid. I keep trying to be salt and light, and maybe--I dare to hope--it's working.

*

syrup is great.

This is a lot of rambling. I think maybe it's just what I needed to write though, or maybe it's what someone needs to read. 

Reading back through this I think maybe I sound negative, and I'm not, I just have All The Feelings About Everything and I'm trying to process them while doing things like buy plane tickets(whaaat?) and think about packing and alklaksfkjas;ldfkjalksfj.

Yes, I'm a mess. Mostly a happy mess, but pray for me.

Also I have no real relevant pictures for this post. Here, have a picture I took of the syrup shelf at Wal-mart. It's a long story why. 

arise.

JMJ
AMDG

my lover speaks, he says to me, arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! for see the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. --songs 2:10

When Lent ends and it's Easter; when the weather grows warmer and we sing Alleluia, I have a hard time adjusting to being joyful. I overload on chocolate and sing Alleluia, but if feels wrong--for some reason, it's hard or me to remember that being joyful--being happy, even-- is a good thing.

It's somehow hard to believe that it's actually spring again--that the leaves on the trees are real, actually real, that it will continue to get warm again.

i took this picture!

I struggle to accept the fact that God isn't trying to make me miserable all the time. I hear suffering is a gift, and my anxious mind translates that to, despair is inevitable and if I am happy it means I am doing something wrong.

But my God says to me--arise. Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one. Arise from the darkness of sin and brokenness, arise from the things that keep you from sleeping at night, arise and leave it all behind because the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.

There is darkness in this world. There's a lot of it. There's people starving and dying on roadsides, and there is war and homelessness and malnutrition. There is pornography and abortion and children whose bruises match their parents' hands. There is rape and self-harm and suicide. There are girls who stare in the mirror and don't know that they are beautiful. There are people falling and falling over again because they don't know any other way to live.

But arise. The winter is past, the rains are over and gone. There is a lot of darkness, but He's taken care of it. He died so that you wouldn't have to bear it alone.

And so I think it's okay for me to be happy.

There's a lot that I struggle to let go of--past hurt and pain and the memories of people who have genuinely wronged me, whether it was intentional or not.

But my lover speaks, He says to me, arise. 

And it still hurts, but maybe not quite as much.


arise.

***
also arise has stopped looking like a real word after writing this, but that's whatever. God bless.