The End of Semester Grind. This year it is brutality of fingers on laptop swinging a million miles a second. It seems. Here I am racing the clock to get this particular paper done in time to drop of the essay by my professor's house, which I don't think is going to happen before she gets home. This week has resulted in the production of nearly thirty pages so far, working on the next set of ten, and then there is ten more to work on after today which I am saving to work on AFTER my French exam tomorrow.
All I can think about at this point is how much I want Friday to come, Friday....sweet Friday. This particular Friday meaning that the term is over and I can rejoice. Friday, how you taunt me. Cruel Friday. Only two days away.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
The Journey as we never intended but always needed.
I missed last week, on more than one level. I fell short of my own goal. And here I am, meditating on the next week of this journey, finally. Last week was a quiet Sunday. My fiance left town to handle inventory with his unit in another state, so I had what should have been a quiet week to myself, except that it was far from quiet. In the hustle and bustle of closing out the semester, I found myself running like a chicken with no head trying to get my final list of assignments finished in time for the last week of class, and with a day of financial stress and a broken laptop in the midst of it.
I consider myself fortunate for having the chance to celebrate mass at all last Sunday, with the youth of the parish closest to me--as opposed to the one I belong to, which is a few parishes over. It was a beautiful mass, contemporary music, but one hundred percent mass, and it was completes with what was actually my first Eucharistic Adoration, albeit for only twenty minutes. Imagine! Worship with the actual physical presence of Jesus, right there, in front of you. As Catholics believe in the transubstantiation, that the bread and wine actually become Christ, then a new layer was added to our worship. And I wound up on my knees in a way that I hadn't been for quiet some time.
A week later I am still thankful for that time. And as this is the week of Joy, I rejoice. That my own journey as a student will soon come to a close for the semester, and that in the midst of the darkness term paper writing brings, there is a joy far greater than completion of school work. There is a joy coming to save me from my fears and from my own darkness and from my own sin. But without the journey through the darkness of anticipation and doubt, that joy at the end won't seem as bright, for the darkness always makes the light brighter. And that light, equally, provides us the hope that we are seeking.
Immram is a Gaelic word for Journey, and not just any journey, but a spiritual journey, often through water. St. Brandon is said to have gone on an immram. A modern retelling of an immram can actually by read about in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the Chronicles of Narnia. It is a journey over water in search of the country of Aslan beyond the East. It's nearly impossible not to think of another event that happened in the east, in our own world, when a small child was born---a child in a land to the east who came to be a savior for mankind. Like any devotee, the three wise men went on a journey, a pilgrimage for this God-baby. And today, two thousand years later, many more pilgrims go and visit the land of this child's birth.
Advent is the immram of our hearts. Remembering that Israel wandered their own pilgrimage in the desert, that Abram made a journey in the desert, that the wise men and the even the Pevensie children made a journey through dangers and toils with nothing but a promise or a hint of the greatness promised. We wander through our own sin, our own darkness each year. And by facing that darkness inside each of us, we can bring our sin to the surface so it can be forgiven, so that we can be healed. Part of that healing, however, comes through our journey--through scripture, and mass, and fellowship. We are reminded of it on Christmas, when during the longest night of the year we are comforted by the fact that we live in the years after the child was born. The promise was fulfilled.
My own journey this year has been fraught with term papers, doubt, fears. And each day of the journey, lessons to learn. But when Christmas morning comes, I won't have to worry about them. I'll finally get to spend time with my family again, admire a beautiful tree, and cuddle by the fire with my honey. But not yet. This journey is not yet over.
But that wont keep me from rejoicing at the possibilities.
I consider myself fortunate for having the chance to celebrate mass at all last Sunday, with the youth of the parish closest to me--as opposed to the one I belong to, which is a few parishes over. It was a beautiful mass, contemporary music, but one hundred percent mass, and it was completes with what was actually my first Eucharistic Adoration, albeit for only twenty minutes. Imagine! Worship with the actual physical presence of Jesus, right there, in front of you. As Catholics believe in the transubstantiation, that the bread and wine actually become Christ, then a new layer was added to our worship. And I wound up on my knees in a way that I hadn't been for quiet some time.
A week later I am still thankful for that time. And as this is the week of Joy, I rejoice. That my own journey as a student will soon come to a close for the semester, and that in the midst of the darkness term paper writing brings, there is a joy far greater than completion of school work. There is a joy coming to save me from my fears and from my own darkness and from my own sin. But without the journey through the darkness of anticipation and doubt, that joy at the end won't seem as bright, for the darkness always makes the light brighter. And that light, equally, provides us the hope that we are seeking.
Immram is a Gaelic word for Journey, and not just any journey, but a spiritual journey, often through water. St. Brandon is said to have gone on an immram. A modern retelling of an immram can actually by read about in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the Chronicles of Narnia. It is a journey over water in search of the country of Aslan beyond the East. It's nearly impossible not to think of another event that happened in the east, in our own world, when a small child was born---a child in a land to the east who came to be a savior for mankind. Like any devotee, the three wise men went on a journey, a pilgrimage for this God-baby. And today, two thousand years later, many more pilgrims go and visit the land of this child's birth.
Advent is the immram of our hearts. Remembering that Israel wandered their own pilgrimage in the desert, that Abram made a journey in the desert, that the wise men and the even the Pevensie children made a journey through dangers and toils with nothing but a promise or a hint of the greatness promised. We wander through our own sin, our own darkness each year. And by facing that darkness inside each of us, we can bring our sin to the surface so it can be forgiven, so that we can be healed. Part of that healing, however, comes through our journey--through scripture, and mass, and fellowship. We are reminded of it on Christmas, when during the longest night of the year we are comforted by the fact that we live in the years after the child was born. The promise was fulfilled.
My own journey this year has been fraught with term papers, doubt, fears. And each day of the journey, lessons to learn. But when Christmas morning comes, I won't have to worry about them. I'll finally get to spend time with my family again, admire a beautiful tree, and cuddle by the fire with my honey. But not yet. This journey is not yet over.
But that wont keep me from rejoicing at the possibilities.
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