My Quick Wit Emerges Victorious Once Again

I stumbled on a new blog recently called Little Catholic Bubble, which asks and discusses theological and moral issues. It's very interesting, go check it out!


Anyway, she hosts fun interactive posts every once in awhile, and yesterday she hosted the Doctrinal Quiz Show: Moral Reasoning 101. You can check it out, as well as all the answers, over there, but here is the scenario:

You are driving up a narrow two-lane road which winds steeply around a tall mountain. There are no other cars on the road, and you are going the speed limit on a clear day. As you come around yet another tight bend, you notice a young woman standing in the middle of the road. You are horrified! You cannot brake quickly enough to avoid hitting her, but you do have time to make a decision. You can choose to swerve to your right and face severe injury or death as you fly off the cliff; you can choose to swerve to the left and face severe injury or death by slamming into the side of the mountain; or, you can choose to go forward, which will mean certain death for the innocent young woman. 

Morally, what option(s) may you choose, and why?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, my quick wit failed to reason out the correct answer, but my thought process basically went like this:

Can I kick the car into neutral and slide backwards down the mountain, away from the woman and my own certain death?

Good, right? Yes, it lacks plausibility, but then everybody lives injury free! Well, my lovely sense of humor won out this time. That's right, I am now the proud recipient of The Wouldn't the Throwing the Car into Neutral Just Make You Roll Off the Mountain Backwards? Bubble Award! Please, hold your applause. I beat out some great contenders, like the folks who wanted to take time to dial 911 while slamming on the breaks and swerving. Yes, I am very honored and humbled by this award. It was quite a spiritual workout to come up with that answer, no?


The actual moral reasoning deals with the principle of double effect, so you should go check out the reasoning behind it - very interesting! Be sure to check it out, the questions definitely pose some deep spiritual workout action!

7 Quick Takes Friday (#11)

1. I posted about Home this week, and it makes me think of the Michael Bublé song. Enjoy, and you're welcome.
2. I know most people reading this are probably here from Conversion Diary... but her post this week on spiritual dry spells just really hit the spot... just like the one she posted on discerning God's will last week. It's like God is speaking to me through a blogger. Blows. My. Mind.
3. Speaking of blowing my mind, Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI blows my mind about every other paragraph or so. If you haven't taken the time to pick up this book and read it, you should do so, especially since, as I like to call it, Jesus the Sequel comes out on Ash Wednesday! Unlike most sequels, it promises to be awesome... the Passion, the Resurrection... can't get much better than that!
4. Speaking of Ash Wednesday... which is not part of ordinary time... ADVENT IS COMING UP!!! I love Advent. Such a great season!!
5. Do you ever find yourself making really weird leaps in your head? That totally make sense to you, but probably not to everyone else? I tend to do that a lot. So if you didn't follow my Ash Wednesday to Advent transition, sorry about that. Welcome to an inside look at my brain. It's a pretty crazy place.
6. I also just discovered amazingly amazing mp3 deals on Amazon this week. I think I got about 100 songs for FREE, like Sister Hazel and Veggie Tales Christmas (one is never too old for some Veggie Tales!), and I also got the new Taylor Swift album for $2.99... I am just in love. I can't believe I've been spending full price on iTunes for so long!
7. Music is such a big part of my life - it's sometimes one of the only ways I can get myself to relax, focus, and reflect on my day - and it's such a powerful way to pray! Have any good music recommendations for me? 

Have a great weekend! I will be enjoying some much needed relaxation and prayer time!

Home

When my family moved the summer before my senior year of high school, I was really upset about it. I was born and raised in the same house my entire life up to that point, and the thought of leaving the home I knew was incredibly scary and sad for me. My parents told me though that they wanted to move before I graduated so that the new house would come to feel like home to me before I left for college. They would say, "Welcome home!" every time I walked in the door for a while until the new and much more spacious house became home.

So I often am a little thrown aback when I hear my friends say, "I'm going to my parents' house for the holidays." or "I'm going to spend the weekend in fill-in-the-city-name." Yes, some of them are married, have steady jobs, and lives of their own, or not many (or any) siblings are still living at home, and while I am a full-time student, I live full-time in DC and pay rent and bills and struggle with the transition to "real" adulthood every day. Yet, when I talk about my holiday or weekend plans, I say, "I'm going home for Thanksgiving."

Home is not about the building, which I discovered my senior year of high school. It is about familiarity - sights, smells, sounds, feelings. And even though I don't live in that house anymore - and as much as I love my family, hope to never move back into that house again - I still feel when I come home as if I haven't lost my place in that space. Yes, life there has continued on without me while I'm away, but my appearance doesn't disrupt the order of things and I still have my usual place to sit at the table and an old creaky bed to sleep in. It's a place where there will always be a place for you, because there will always be people there who love you no matter what. So using this idea of home, it is literally shocking to me to hear people my age no longer refer to home as home.

I sometimes wonder if I will ever get to the point where I no longer refer to home as home. Maybe when I get married and start a family of my own, or when I get settled more permanently in a house instead of renting an apartment. Only time will tell, but I just can't imagine it. Because that house is my home still, even though I don't reside there (unless government and tax officials are reading this - I am totally still living there!).

I think this concept can also be related to God as well. When we all say that we want to go to Heaven someday, we don't hope to visit our Father's house or that obscure but beautiful city on the hill - we hope to go home. It is precisely because of Jesus Christ and his ultimate and awesome sacrifice for each and every one of us that we can even have the hope of someday referring to Heaven as home. We hope to be welcomed home with open arms, not only as adopted children of God through His son and our brother, but also as sons and daughters of God through flesh and blood - through the Eucharist. Home is that place where we will be loved, despite our shortcomings and many downfalls, as long as we come knocking on the door, asking to be forgiven.


So for now, I will continue to say that I am going home (to Westerville) for Thanksgiving, but I will also continue to pray every day that when my day comes, I will be ready and able to be welcomed into the ultimate home.

7 Quick Takes Friday (#10)

1. Life has been pretty busy lately - school has been crazy, teaching has been non-stop, and spending lots and lots of time in prayer and meditation. Just a quick post today with some worthy links!
2. I have been listening to podcasts from Catholic Answers and Chastity.com on my ipod on my morning and afternoon metro commute and I am learning so much! I recommend checking them out - they carry discussions on a wide range of topics! I am currently listening to some by Jason Evert and Janet Smith on contraception, NFP, and chastity.
3. Jennifer Fulwiler at Conversion Diary recommended this post on Heather King's Shirt of Flame. I've never read this blog before but I really liked this post - short but to the point.
4. I was at Miami for homecoming last week (which was a BLAST!) and I, of course, had to make an appearance at the hockey game to see my (now) #1 Redhawks. The game was fantastic - you can see a video of the crowd cheering in our usual fashion with the Redhawks dominating 9-1 here - and also a bit scary. Will Weber, a junior defenseman for the Redhawks, suffered a nasty neck laceration in the first period and was rushed off to the hospital. He apparently stayed calm through the whole process and is doing great, and we hope to see him back on the ice soon. Keep him in your prayers! 
5. Speaking of Miami, I have worn a Miami shirt EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. It could be because I got four new shirts while there for homecoming or just because I love Miami and miss it a lot. It's probably both. I also now have the Fight Song as my ringtone. Yes, readers, I really am that cool.
6. Don't forget to vote this Tuesday! I must remember to send in my absentee ballot this weekend, but voting is so crucial, especially for us Catholic voters! Here's a video that I originally posted on August, 17, 2010:
7. Finally, a post about the Catholic origins of Halloween  - I have yet to read it but will be sure to add it of my list of things to do today. Have a wonderful weekend!

εὐχαριστ

As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!" And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. He was a Samaritan. Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not? Where are the other nine?  Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?" Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you." (Luke 17: 11-19)

Not only have we been offered healing for our many physical afflictions, but we have been given the chance for salvation through the grace of God. Thanks be to God!

Grilled Cheesus

The theme on last night's episode of Glee was faith, spirituality, and religion. It was called "Grilled Cheesus", and while I don't recommend praying to a grilled cheese sandwich to win a football game, it did bring up some interesting ideas... about what leads people, especially youth, to God, and more importantly, what continues to keep them away from God's love.

The main plot line in this episode was Kurt's dad suffering from a heart attack that also cut off oxygen from his brain, leaving him in a coma. While this suffering brought out a desire for faith in many of the characters, it seemed to push Kurt away from believing in God even more.

It brought up the idea of suffering, which is something that we've been discussing a lot at Bible study, in homilies, and just in conversations with others at the Newman Center. I can understand why having something so awful to someone you love so much would make you question if God exists, question why someone who is supposed to love you that much would do something that causes so much pain. I think what the episode started to touch upon though was the idea that suffering exists in our world because it unites us. It brought so many of the characters together, even though they were of different faiths, in prayer for Kurt's dad. It made them realize that while they might have struggles in their lives, they still have a wonderful life to live. However, I think it stopped short and missed the big picture - that we suffer so that we can not only come closer to God but so that we can share in Christ's suffering for all of us. When we suffer, we don't feel even a splinter of what Jesus went through in the Passion, but we know that there is at least one being out there in the world that has experienced and understands our pain.

It was ultimately Kurt opening his heart a tiny bit to believe in something he couldn't see or touch or feel, but something he knew existed - and that was his relationship with his dad. I am interested to see if they bring the issues they touched upon in this episode up again, or if it will just be another thought-provoking episode.

The Cure for Sleeplessness?

It takes me a long time to fall asleep at night. There are nights where I will lay in bed wide awake, tossing and turning, unable to relax for 3 hours. It usually doesn't matter how tired I am - I hardly ever fall asleep before 12:30 or 1 in the morning.

I have been adjusting to a new schedule which requires me to get up before 7 AM a few days a week to teach labs... and not falling asleep until 1 in the morning means that this girl that likes 8+ hours of sleep a night only gets about 5. Let's just leave it at I'm not a morning person... for most of the morning.

Last night was one of those nights. I was exhausted. Yet, I rolled around trying to get comfortable for hours. I got up and moved to the futon. I grabbed another blanket. I got a drink of water. I checked my e-mail (twice). Nothing was putting me to sleep. So I'm lying there thinking, "God, can you just help me relax so I can get some sleep, please?" and a thought pops into my head - "You should see who the patron saint of sleeplessness is." So I got up, checked my e-mail (again), and typed "patron saint of sleeplessness" into Google. Upon some further looking, I discovered St. Peter Damian, who himself suffered from chronic insomnia. In the information I found, it said that he was often so eager to pray that he slept very little and began to suffer from chronic insomnia. From this, he learned he needed to use some prudence in taking care of himself, but insomnia was something with which he struggled.

So my tired brain just said a quick - "St. Peter Damian, pray for me so I can get some sleep!"

I don't remember walking back to my bed and hunkering down under the covers, but I did. And I was knocked out. I woke up with my alarm out of a deep sleep, which could have only been granted by intense drugs or the will of God.

So I think St. Peter Damian might become my new friend on those nights where I have trouble falling asleep. I am going to continue trying this out, asking St. Peter Damian for his intercession, and see if this helps me sleep better. If it does, I might look up more information on the patron saint of back pain (St. Gemma Galgani), the patron saint of strange dreams (which always occur when I am knocked out in a deep sleep), and the patron saint of winning a bajillion dollars (to give to the poor, of course).