One Friday afternoon...

One Friday afternoon, years and years ago, an event took place that changes every second of the present even now. I found myself thinking during the Good Friday service this afternoon (the one day of the year where Mass does not happen), "So this is it--." All of a sudden, I realized again what it means to be a Christian and that this is it: no one is saying yes for me, either it's my yes or it's my no. And to say yes means to say YES, this life is not all there is--and so I better quit complaining while I'm behind and whenever something uncomfortable or inconvenient comes up...also, all those petty things I worry about, yep--those too, not as big as I thought. ...Harkening back to a conversation at a coffee shop on the Feast of the Annunciation, I recalled again that it's necessary to be united in word, thought and action, and so my next task is to incarnate what it is I think and allow my words and actions be true fruits of the realizations of prayer and life...

My senior thesis came and went, and I did indeed find my way home to the North for Easter. I had forgotten how beautiful spring is, in its stark grayness and slowness. As I look around and see the grass still dead, the black dirt that was hidden for so long under the snow, the bare trees, I think this is life--patience, waiting, we know what's coming and we look forward to it, but Spring itself still speaks of the triumph over winter. I feel like I'm in that scene in the new pride and prejudice, where Elizabeth is on the swing, spinning and spinning and the seasons change and it's raining--and it's always raining. I think to myself, "this is what I wanted?" and my self answers back "yes--this has meaning."

I will be enjoying here for the next few days. In the dramatic filter that somehow finds its way to filter all that comes into me (even blah boring spring), I feel that this break at home was indeed exactly as its meant to be, and that I've learned lessons that will change my course of life for the next few months. Had I not come home I would not have seen. And for coming home I am already seeing differently. Regardless if I remember this consciously anytime soon after going back to school, it will remain in my unconscious, and I really do enjoy very much living life dramatically vs. not. Happy Easter.