You haven’t really been to a third-world country until that third-world country has been to you.  One of my dear friends has been going to Uganda lately in service of this beautiful nonprofit she founded.  Last year, she was away for my birthday in February and hers in July; this year, she got back in time to be part of a day-long string of surprises my creative husband planned in celebration.  She also brought back a little friend, apparently called a “jigger.”  I’ll spare you the details, especially she can now proudly claim she grossed out even the doctor who had to dig the parasite out of her toe.  Truly, I say to you, as one who has been the bearer of similar bugs myself  (mine of the gastrointestinal persuasion), this is a rite of passage of travelers to un- and underdeveloped nations. (more…)

Okay, I’m having a moment.  You’ll have to forgive me.

For a lot of my life, Let It Be by the Beatles was my favorite song.  Even after I gained enough awareness to label it a “Catholic” song (though I now go to a mostly Protestant church where Mother Mary is a big deal), and even after I was “sure” I knew what the song meant, I still teared up whenever I heard it, wherever I was.  As it turns out, my “understanding” of the song was nearly opposite from what I now – as of a week ago – think it really means.  First, I think the lyrics are worth repeating here: (more…)

Ready for the obligatory Ash Wednesday post?  Let’s begin.

Last year, I attempted to give up Facebook for Lent.  I was doing it for all the wrong reasons, plus I’m a teensy bit addicted, so needless to say, I failed about a week in.  I used the occasion to mentally flog myself, as I usually do when I don’t live up to my own standards however skewed they may be, for not being holy enough to refrain from something that actually hurts me more than it helps me most of the time, something that 99% of history has lived without (likely better for it, in my opinion), something that sucks up all my free time anyway.  It was a perfectly executed exercise in missing the point.  And that’s because Lent is actually about God, not me.  It’s not about what I can do for God, as if the Maker of All That Has Been Made could need a thing from human hands.  It’s not about looking pious for my friends.  It’s not about coming up with the best thing to abstain from. (more…)

Going deep takes time.

I recently got into a fight with a friend about busyness in which I used the line, “You are not a victim of your schedule.”  She responded that her availability does not dictate how much values me.  I disagreed: you MAKE time for what’s important, you HAVE time for what’s left.  She responded that there are a lot of things I don’t know and that she can’t always control her schedule.  “Yes,” I said, “there are lots of things I don’t know.  But that’s not my fault.”  I know, right?  I wince, too, just retyping that. (more…)

As my birthday gift to me, I took the day off from work and study to enjoy what has been the nicest day in 2014 so far outside.  I spent some time at a beach, though not as much as I would have liked because, the way the sun works where I currently am is the opposite from where I grew up, so even on this golden-ray-full day, it was still nippy.  Even though the sun is a giant ball of fire.  Sigh.  Anyway.  It was warm enough to be on a shoreline for a bit.  I wrote.  I read.  I stared at the point where the water and the sky meet, though it was, on this day, a bit hard to tell the two apart.  Both were trembling with this amazing shifting light. (more…)