The Simple Joys of Maidenhood

Over spring break, I discovered this little lovely website. Okay, okay, a lot of these reasons are rather bizarre and kind of stupid, BUT I think the idea behind these jokes are valid. Girls (smart girls) bond over the awesome fact that they're girls. Silly girls spend their days griping about how the female sex has been oppressed by patriarchal society or some such nonsense. I don't even know. Okay, okay, I'm being too flippant. I should acknowledge there have definitely been societies throughout history that have been radically downright cruel towards women. And my heart burns with indignation. And there are women in Muslim countries who face untold atrocities, and my heart aches for them. And women who undergo stoning, or mutilation, or enforced rape are being violated and oppressed in the most disgusting and cowardly way possible. But that just proves how great it is to be a woman. Good men appreciate (albeit with a twinge of wry bemusement), and are rapt in awe. Evil or weak men want to bring down women and seek to oppress them. I think it's radically unfair to our Muslim sisters-and all women who face those dangers- to even pretend that we're oppressed. The majority of women in America are fortunate beyond our comprehension. We should be grateful, so grateful for the opportunities and freedoms that we have.

AND we should giggle with sheer delight and joy that we are women. (Heh. I just realized this blog post might not be the most relatable to the gentlemen who are part of this blog's readership. Whoops. Feel free to stop reading now if you want.

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Are you still reading? Awesome.)

Women are a community-a sisterhood. There are so many times I sit at lunch/dinner/coffee/pie with one of my nearest and dearest sisters of the heart and we bond over the fact that we are women, we love being a woman, and begin to list a thousand big and little things why being a woman is awesome. We have solidarity with each other, and when someone attacks our sisters, we bristle with unsounded wrath. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," you know. In fact, playwrights ever since Aeschylus have gotten what a force to be reckoned with an unhinged woman is. Clytaemestra is a ferocious, fascinating, remorseless killer who murders her husband, and has no qualms about taking an axe to her son's head. Euripides tells the story of Medea, who kills her two innocent boys in order to break her faithless husband's heart. Yikes. I feel as though I've digressed by ranting about these insane women, and I feel as thought they're not supporting my point that being a woman ROCKS. Whoops. Well, here's evidence that being a woman rocks. People make songs about it, so dude, there's gotta be something there. Rogers and Hammerstein penned: "I Enjoy Being a Girl," and then there's the classic "How Lovely to Be a Woman," which is one of my personal favorites. Kim sings: "How lovely to be a woman/and smile a woman's smile." There's some sort of delicious, intriguing and solely feminine mystique captured in a woman's smile. And in the very fact of being a woman means your something of a mystery. Mystery and secret are at the core of womanhood, which is why secrets mean so very much to girls. And when someone confides a secret to them, women hold it to their hearts-a bond forms between them and their confidante.

And beauty. Beauty is so, so important for a woman. We are called to bring beauty to the world. Although it is undeniable that men can be incredibly beautiful (I'm sure you ladies can easily think of several gentlemen that prove this point. Ahem.), women have a beauty all their own. I'm trying to attempt to explain it, but I feel like I will fall short of the endeavor. So I'm leaving that subject to sit and ruminate in our minds. We'll touch on that another day.

In conclusion, I enjoy being a girl. That's all this post really is- a thanksgiving and celebration for being a woman. There's nothin' like it, kids.

P.S. Also, stay tuned for a post coming soon-that's been in the works for 8 months now. Yipes!-about Arwen, Eowyn, and womanhood. See how nice a segue this post is for that post? Eh? Eh? Thanks for reading-now get off the computer and go enjoy your day. Bask in the sunlight. Take a walk. Sing a song. Dance in the grass. Feed some birds. Live life.

Retrospective Introspection

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody. ~~Jane Austen


Right now college means one thing to me:

applications

which of course equal:

loads and loads of work.

Writing essays, I'm fine with. What was really starting to get to me was the never-ending checking boxes, filling out the SAME information over and over, squeezing words into limited spaces, number crunching, etc., etc., etc. in never ending succession!

*insert plaintive sigh here*

And furthermore, the endless and monolithic process known as "APPLYING TO COLLEGES" takes up lots of TIME.

*insert groan here*

Time that could be spent enjoying oneself, laughing and talking with friends, scrapbooking, journaling, going for a walk, or any other infinitely more enjoyable activity.

So. Those were my feelings up until about 5:00 today.


As I look over these words that I originally wrote here, I can't help but smile. I remember exactly what had happened the day I wrote them, the emotional state I was in, the frustration I was feeling, the heartbreak, the happiness, and the beauty that abounded.

Senior year.

There's absolutely nothing like it.

If you’ve already experienced it; look back on it and savor your memories.

And smile.

If you’re on the verge of it: get ready. You’re in for the adventure of a lifetime. I promise you you’ll be stressed out of your mind, you’ll get pushed to places you never knew you could go, and you’ll grow in unbelievable, incredible and beautiful ways. Oh, and you’ll have fun, and lots of it-even while filling out applications- as long as you make up your mind to enjoy the bumpy ride. It’s like a roller coaster-you can spend the whole ride worrying about flying off the tracks, and being scared out of your wits. Or else you can just let go, scream, laugh, put your hands in the air, and have fun on the Ride God’s put you on. Because there’s really no point in riding a roller coaster unless you’re willing to relinquish control.


So, on the way home from my show this afternoon, I stopped by my church's Eucharistic adoration chapel. It was lovely and peaceful, and I sat in front of Jesus, finishing up my calc homework. I've always found the adoration chapel is the best place to work through my problems. I now know that math problems can be worked out there as well.

Moral of the story: the Eucharist is indispensible, irreplaceable, and incandescently incredible. And so healing. The Eucharist is definitely what got me through Senior year. He’s the fix for every problem:

When you’ve got too much calculus homework-go to Adoration.
When you want a good cry-go to Adoration.
When you want to share good news with someone-go to Adoration.

I think you get my drift… :)

My favorite is when you don't really have anything to say to Jesus, but you just pop in to say hi real quick. Basking in the glorious warmth, joy, and love pulsating from Him, you just plop yourself in front of the Eucharist, and let go of your problems. It's lovely. Which is basically the reason I chose to go to Notre Dame-there’s a chapel in each dorm. Jesus lives in every dorm, folks. How wicked awesome is that?

Then, I got home, and I sat down at the computer and I got my first college application submitted! One down. Five to go. I can do this.

And, I realized I've been letting my laziness get in my way. There were some points over the past week I was debating whether college was really worth it or not. In reality, though, I was just bogged down in the mire of applications, and also, scared of leaving home, friends, and family. Then, I realized how absolutely stupid I was being. Because, I AM excited for college-I know it'll be awesome. Anything that is awesome won't come without hard work; and I hate to admit it, but hard work is an acquired taste for me. I have to teach myself to enjoy it.


Oh boy. I'm going to have to work harder this fall than I ever have before. But I'm so excited for it. I'm so ready to take on the challenge, and as Hamlet would say: the readiness is all. I'm so glad that I found the courage to choose to leave home back in May. Now, I'm realizing that life at home is going to continue without me. It's not as if your friends and family magically put their life on "pause" while you're gone-they continue on with their lives. Without you. Not gonna lie, my friends, that thought often saddens me. But then I recall my life's not going being paused either; it’s barreling on full-speed ahead. As C.S. Lewis would say: we’re all travelling into the future at the rate of sixty seconds per minute, whether we would wish it or no. Peace comes when we cease to resist that fact; we lift our hands in the air and enjoy the breath-taking beauty of the Ride.

There are certain parts of ourselves that we want to choke out of existence: the parts of us that snap sassy retorts to our parents, or groan instead of grin when asked to clear the table. There are other facets of our selves that we cultivate and nourish. I'm so excited to nourish the artist within me, to push myself, to explore, to tell stories, to drink in the joy of performing, the joy of art. I love it. And I can't wait to cultivate the scholar in me. The scholar who thirsts for knowledge. The student who relishes the victory of completing a laborious assignment. The student who grows in appreciation of her art. The student who thirsts for God and hungers for Truth.

Thankfully, we stopped at my Grandma’s house on our way down to Notre Dame. There’s a painting hanging up in my grandma’s house. I noticed that simple little drawing for the first time; and hidden in that picture I found the words Psalm 37:4. So, I looked up the verse in the Bible, and this is what I found:

Find your delight in the LORD who will give you your heart's desire.

And it’s definitely what I needed to here. Often, College overwhelms me with the limitless opportunities that lie before me. What passions of mine do I pursue? How do I make sure no hidden talent or facet of my person go unexplored? How do I become Balanced and Well-Rounded? The answer is simple.
Go to adoration.
Pursue God.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you, and all that jazz.
I love God-He’s awesome sauce. For many reasons, of course, but one of the happiest being that He sends us the answers when we least expect it.
Have a beautiful autumn/first semester, everyone!

Picnic Poetry

Penned by the Good Catholic Homeskillets (alias: GCH)

There's something to be said

for sunsets in the park

for pumpkin streusal muffins

for dancing hand-in-hand

for paroxysms of cute

for whipped cream and Oreos

for mocking the avant-garde

for picnicking in the park

for watching pigeons fly

for laughing with best friends

for people-watching in random places

for wearing pretty skirts

for nuns who wear pink habits! (Holler. Love them.)

for the Basilica on the horizon

for skirts on a sunny day

for talking random nothingness

for ripples

for Italian soda

for people who sing/talk to themselves

for ducks on the water

for plump squirrels

for babies with big hair

....feeling the breeze on your legs.

There's something to be said

for duck diapers

for the limitless sky

for cat-tails

for being a woman

...and for peanut butter

for living life

for calling people/anmials/inanimate objects: "sweetie"

for wee voices

for long hair blowing in the breeze

for knowing how to count

for bronze that looks like wood

for little brothers

for kung-fu fighting

for secrets, mysteries, and illuminating the truth

for cottonwoods rusling the in the wind

for dreaming

for learning from mistakes.

There's something to be said

for trees over londs*

for sculptures which you are not allowed to climb on (but you do anyway *mischievous smirk*)

for coaxing wild animals

for summer adventures with dangerous women.

Happiness is in the small things- in living life moment-by-moment, and by finding delight in each little blessing that comes your way. Because those small things are really big things. Each moment, we're given a choice; a very simple choice: to choose God or to choose ourself. But that's a huge choice. That's the original choice that our first parents were given. And they botched it.

The more we choose God- the more we hand ourselves over to Him- we grow ever closer to being the person He intended us to be. But the oftener we choose ourselves, the smaller our spirits will shrink. The questions of a small spirit are: "What's in it for me?" & "What can I get out of it?" Those questions cut us off from all the joy God has to offer us. Because if you approach a sunset with the question: "What's in this sunset for me?" you'll miss the whole point of that sunset. You don't get anything from a waterfall, sunlight piercing through the clouds, listening to birdsong, or climbing trees-you climb trees for the sake of climbing trees. Because the tree is there-and it's beautiful- and, praise the Lord, you have limbs, which means you can climb that tree, so why not?

There's something to be said for living life as a seeker of Beauty and Joy, for choosing God in each moment instead of self (easier said than done, right?). And, by choosing God, opening yourself up to the beauty He's poured into each moment.

(Disclaimer: All these thoughts are the product of recent conversations with wonderful and intelligent friends. Major kudos go to them.)

*Lond (lah' nd): Eng., noun: a mix between a pond and a lake.

"Merry Marketing"

I read this in the Wall Street Journal this morning and had to share it with y'all. It's gooooood. I think he and Rev. Know-It-All are brothers. :) Their sense of humor is identical to a fault. :)
Read the full article here.


By Fr. James Martin, S.J.
...And this year what's been irking me are the slogans that companies are deploying in their December ad campaigns that hope to have it both ways: They're using religious themes without actually being religious. Call it faith-based advertising.

...The cover of the Land's End catalog, which is bursting with preppy families who apparently divide their time between laughing dementedly, drinking steaming mugs of hot chocolate and petting horses, says: "Make it Merry!" Make what merry? Celebrating the birth of Christ or petting a horse? ...

PHF - 95

You know that there is still hope and light in a world where a song about getting hugs from fireflies becomes a smash hit. I give thanks for those who try to maintain a sense of childlike wonder in a world that can be so dark and cynical.