Monday Morning

Gregorio Allegri's Miserere. Breathtaking, no?

College Teaches You More Than Math

(Now that finals have blissfully faded into the past-that-is-no-longer, I feel like I can finally post this)

One thing that college has taught me is that there are very few woman who are truly happy with the way they look. I am by no means thin, and I start seeing red a bit whenever somebody pats the fashion industry on the back for being "realistic" and including "curvy size eights" ::eyeroll:: When I was in high school, I looked askance at all of the thin girls I knew and thought bitterly that surely they must be happy -- they were thin for crying out loud!

Then I got to college, and listened to first my roommate, then the rest of the dorm moan about how fat and ugly they were. How could this be? This group of girls moaning about their weight included a beauty who ran a mile every day, my roommate who is curvaceous in the absolute best sense of that word and an assortment of sixes, eights and tens who were all perfectly healthy, curves and all. Maybe we weren't all in the best of shape, but we could hardly be labeled overweight, let alone obese. Seeing these girls (whom I regarded as pretty-near-perfectly-sized) just as unhappy with their figures as I was with mine astonished me.

Honestly, I don't have anything else very profound to say. We've all been sold a bill of goods* by the people behind the checkout glossies, and I can't imagine that attaining the nigh-on impossible ideal body that they present would make me (or anybody else) happy. As cheesy and trite and cliched and banal as it sounds, who you are on the inside really does matter more.

(No, duh, disclaimer: losing weight for reasons of health is a different kettle of fish from losing weight for the sake of societal pressures and conventions and fitting into the popular clothes)

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*You don't suppose the fact that fashion magazines are at least half advertisements has anything to do with this, hmm? Buy this face cream, that sweater, those boots, and be THIN! PRETTY! HAPPY! It's almost like they're businesses... ::le eyeroll::

The New Noblewoman

An intriguing look at a new online site, The New Noblewoman, which features posts on diverse topics ranging from Lars von Trier's Melancholia to the difference between high and low teas. It looks to be most inspirational and lovely.

Breath of Fresh Air

Brand new online magazine Dignitas looks like a nice rebuttal to the fashion magazines of the checkout lane. Go thou and check it out!

Love in a Modern World

First off, a refreshing defense of true love in a shallow, cynical culture by Fr. Longenecker.

Followed by a thought-provoking project, wherein Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano photoshops classic nude paintings, nipping the waistline and, ahem, augmenting the bust. More than a little depressing, no? Honestly, it surprised me how wrong the thinner versions looked, practically emaciated. So much for the modern standards of beauty.

Why is There So Much Pink?

Wishing you and yours a very tongue-in-cheek feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

Windows into Eternity

Because Christ Pantocrator is one of my favorite icon subjects ever.

Funny But Sad

{H/T: Modestia}

only skin-deep

My mother just sent me this beautiful article by Laurel Rae Mathewson:

The year before I was a senior in high school, I went on an exchange to France. I got skinny. When I returned to America, I felt great, looked great, and received high praise. That post-France pinnacle of svelteness is where my troubles with food began in earnest. Any more pounds represented failure, a deviation from "my best self." I began eating emotionally. I gained 10 pounds.

At New Year's I decided to get serious about getting back to the "right" size. In good-student fashion, I read reputable books and magazines and followed all the rules. I was the ideal dieter. I ran and lifted weights. Mathematical tricks of weight-loss became second nature: The calories in an apple (small, medium, or large); which foods satisfy most for the fewest calories (pancakes are great for this). I steadily lost 1.5 pounds a week for eight weeks and was in better shape than ever. My dieting was officially healthy, nutritionally balanced, and utterly obsessive.

During winter quarter I reached the nadir of my journey with food and with God. I felt inadequate and disgusting. I desperately wanted God's help in ending this vicious cycle, but God never seemed to fully deliver. When I was stuffed, bloated, and incapacitated from a binge, I would pray, weeping: Take this from me. Help me. I don't want to be like this. I believed salvation would come from obeying the legalistic idol of strict self-control and self-improvement that I thought God endorsed. As I wrote in my journal:

God did not create me to consume my time worrying about calories. I know how sick it is ... so why don't I stop? Why do I create my own problems? ... Am I afraid of perfect happiness? … Why else would I sabotage all the gifts that I've been given, keep myself from thriving? … My thoughts disturb and distract me in lecture, in church, in conversation. … I count every calorie that goes into my mouth; yet it doesn't stop me from eating an entire package of cookie dough.

Perfect happiness. I thought it was mine for the making—and that God expected nothing less.

Food is a gift from God to be enjoyed, especially with others, creating communion and fellowship. It's not meant to be an idol. Like sex, like work, like material comfort, if we seek to satisfy the hunger of our souls with food alone, we will remain empty. I used food to cope with the spiritual void of an "estrangement" from God, created by my own conviction that I could perfect myself, given enough determination and discipline. Disordered eating was my symptom of accepting neither grace nor my need for it.

Read the rest of the article here. It's so good, I wanted to copy and paste the whole thing, but I felt like that may be slightly unethical (proper internet/blogging citation procedure is still slightly shrouded in mystery to me.) The authoress brings up beautiful points about the struggles of body image, from the unique perspective of a woman of Faith.

One of my favorite lines from her article is: "I was created for a higher purpose than a size 6." It's so true. The flesh is weak-it's easier to become a size 6 than to become a person filled with grace. And in a culture that's obsessed with externals, it's so easy to loose sight of the fact that beauty is not only skin-deep. Beauty is radiated through a smile, through loving eyes, through a kind voice and a listening ear. Not that the happiest girls are the most beautiful girls, but that the most beautiful girls are the happiest girls.

"For beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; for beautiful eyes, look for the good in others. And for poise, walk in the knowledge that you are never alone." --Audrey Hepburn

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.

.....

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.

Live Like We're Living

(^Best C.S. Lewis quote ever. So I thought I'd start with that. Because if you like nothing else in this post, you're gonna come away with at least something. :))

I popped in to check in on our blog today. Why? Because I should be reading The Iliad. But I'd rather blog. And as I wandered through all the posts that I have half-written, I decided not to post any of them.

But rather to post this, a charming and moving little video that I discovered this morning, because it's been on my mind the whole day. Because it warms my heart, and makes me want to dance for joy. Because if we all lived like this, we'd all smile a lot more, and laugh a little louder. Because living each day, finding the joy and the impeccable beauty in every single moment, is awesome.

I know I've mentioned the Book of Awesome multiple times. But I think it bears repeating. It's truly beautiful. It's a little reminder that today we've been granted 86,400 seconds to spend as we please. And it's a challenge: How are you going to spend your 86,400 seconds?

God's given us those precious seconds, He's given us 86,400 opportunities to immerse ourselves in the dance of life, to love someone, to make them smile, to laugh, and to seek out the beautiful and awesome.

"Too much of a good thing is wonderful." --Mae West.

(^ And I end, as I began, with a quote. Clive may have had better morals than Mae, but this sassy lady said some wickedly hilarious (and insightful) things. This quote explains why I listen to songs like this on repeat. Can't get enough of it. :) )

Magic

Magic.

Being lost in your own world. With music. On a bus.

Going from home to home.

People surrounding you can't hear the strains of Wagner in your ears.

The dark of the night world is lit up by the starry streetlights and cars.

The straining of the violins breaks your heart.

This Crazy Thing Called Love

Love is oftentimes thought of as an emotion or feeling that one falls in and out of at one's leisure. However, through my own limited experience I have found this to be untrue. Love is so much more than your fancy's inclination. It is rather a true desire of one's heart in conjunction with an act of one's will. It is often not expressed in the stereotypical manner of sonnets and ballads, but in thousands of little inconsequential ways that go largely unnoticed.

Love hides itself in the small corners of our beings and pervades all that we do. Love is present when we are awakened in the wee hours of the morning to a sister who is suffering from the stomach flu and is in need of assistance. It is in every skinned knee that needs to be kissed. It resides in every friend that needs a sympathetic ear. It rests in every thoughtful deed that is done with no expectation of thanks.

Love outpours when we make the decision to put others before ourselves. Love is the unselfish desire for the welling being and happiness of another.

It is in this way that God loves us. God so desires our well being, both physical and spiritual, and our happiness that He sent His only son into the world to die for us. Above all things He wishes us to attain true happiness through sharing in His eternal perfection. His love for us is so great that the only thing He desires from us is our love, as imperfect as it is, in return.

Joy in the Little Things

Barter
by Sara Teasdale

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like the curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstasy
Give all you have been, or could be.

In Which I Pontificate Upon Two Disparate Topics

Firstly, a slight reflection on the word memoir:

Memoir is a much more enticing word than biography. A memoir is memories, personal impressions, what a person sees as important about one, particular episode or period of life. A biography must grapple with facts, reciting the events of one person's life from birth to death, inclusive. Plus, memoir is taken from a French word; biography from the Greek. Which language strikes you as more elegant and intriguing?

Secondly, a brief rant about Ironman 2:

During the climactic encounter with the Bad Guys, Scarlett Johansson's character strips down to her undergarments and dons a skintight...something. Honestly, I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. Sure, it might be a little inconvenient to fight the villain's minions in the secretary's de rigueur pencil skirt, but really? Is it that much more realistic that she would take five minutes to change into a shrink-wrap bodysuit before taking out the security guards? Blurgh (that is a disgusted noise, FYI). Would they make a male sidekick change from suit to speedo? Hazarding a guess here, I'd say no.

Can't Be Moved

This is absolutely beautiful.

Portia and I discussed the various ideals and ideas that this song represents and illustrates. I seriously considered trying to type them out into this post, but then I thought better of it. I realized the song is powerful enough to speak for itself.

So...

Watch it.

Be moved.

Fashion Friday - Fashionably Late Edition

It seems, and in fact has been, a most frightfully long time since a post has been posted about fashion. I would like to take this fine Saturday to say a little bit about shoes. Yes, shoes. As a wise person once said, "You should not judge any man until you have walked a mile in his shoes". Perhaps this erudite and perspicacious individual attempted to intimate that one human being should not judge another without knowledge of this other's experiences and philosophies of life, or maybe he simply meant that much can be discerned by a person's choice in footwear. Whatever the case may be, the judicious choosing of what a well dressed and stylish lady adorns her feet with is paramount. In brief, and to conclude, there is something to be said for footwear that is chic, versatile and comfortable.

The ballet flat is a pretty piece that goes well with both skirts and pants.



The simple pump is a shoe that, though high-heeled, can be incredibly comfortable, as well as chic.




A pair of boots can be coupled with a vast array of outfits and are appropriate for almost any season.

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.

Dirty Words (and more)

So, since the Femininity Summit kicked off last week with a prelim meeting, I've been having a lot of conversations about the importance of language and how we carry ourselves when we converse (thanks so much for your wonderful brains, my friends!), which started my mind on a train of thought about swearing. In her post about On the Verge, Desdemona mentioned swearing as a way of getting attention from those around us. It's such a cheap way of getting attention, too -- curses don't express profound ideas or relevant facts. They are spoken merely to grab the attention of listeners and attract it to the emotions of the speaker and how he chooses to express himself. Or, worse, the swearing is merely a habit.

Whatever the reason for swearing, the fact remains that, besides being totally unladylike and inelegant, it's just so boring. Honestly, if you actually stop and think about it (although why you'd really want to, I don't know... :P), there are only a handful of swear words that are constantly repeated and reused. As Desdemona joyously proclaimed, the English language contains so many delightful, scintillating (:D!) words that precisely describe an emotion, situation, or characteristic. Antediluvian. Portrait. Bureau. Sanctimonious. Alizarine. Incorrigible. Desolate. Pudgy. Dichotomy. Bumpkin. Neophyte. They cannot be applied to many situtaions because they convey such an exact idea -- they are vibrant words which paint a living picture in the minds of those who hear or read them. They bring ideas to life.

As Desdemona also pointed out in her post, life is an adventure. If you look at it any other way, you're simply going to end up sobbing your eyes out over some trifle that doesn't really matter. Sure, that C I got in class was horribly disappointing (I'll be honest: it flayed my pride alive), but really? If my final goal in life is to please God, get to heaven, and, God willing, help others to reach heaven, then each moment can and should be lived with the knowledge that I know how the story ends: this may be news to some people, but God wins. The End. Joy is an intrinsic element of the Christian life -- there are no gloomy saints. Every moment can be sanctified, and we were not made to walk through this valley of tears alone. Thank God for friends because otherwise I would have gone insane long ago.

Ultimately, does that C matter in my life? Maybe. I don't know, and there's no point in worrying about it now. There are too many other wonderful and perilous things going on in my life right now for me to spend precious hours fretting over a grade from one class in my freshman year at college. God has a plan for me (another news flash), and it will all work out fine.

This started out as a post about swearing and morphed into a musing on...pretty much everything else. Which is just fine on this blog.

Awe-ful (as in, "Full of Awe")

Fr. Longenecker does it again. I seem to be eternally linking to his blog posts, and with good reason!

"I am at my brothers house at the beach for a few days, and we were talking at the beach yesterday about how dangerous the seasons. It reminded me of a line from GK. Chesterton, where he referred to something as 'simple as dangerous as the sea.'
I thought it was also a good description of God."

Read the rest.