Welcome to Life

Well, this is it. I'm 22. I'm dealing with a great array of emotions. While I'm always excited for a birthday, this one just seems to have an entirely new meaning. I have no more major birthdays to look forward to, 21 was the last. I'm (hopefully!) in my last year of college, my next birthday I'll have to be out in the real world...currently I have no idea where I'll be...much less where I WANT to be. Not that that really matters much:)

I have to be a grown up now, but I'm not sure how to be or that I want to be. My life is looming over me, I'm staring it down the throat, and I want to turn tail and run back! If only I could.

Love and prayers

Fresh Heir

One of my cousins is a mucisian. He has a band, the Drew Mantia Band, and he's pretty awesome...not that I'm biased or anything. If you think about it, check him out (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Drew-Mantia/10080101236). Anyway:), he has a good friend, Nick, who is actually in a relationship with another cousin, who also has a band, Fresh Heir. Fresh Heir had a show here in KCMO this weekend, in Westport. Drew came in with them to play with the band. Gabe and I went and it was a lot of fun. Fresh Heir has a jazzy style, which I thoroughly enjoy and a couple family members were there. It was nice getting out and having a good time, I feel like I haven't gone out much recently, which is craziness considering how near Rockhurst is to Westport, Brookside, Power and Light and so many other areas that are really fantastic. Oh well. All in all it was a great, and much needed night:)

Love and prayers

Labor Day Weekend

The weekend was a wonderful escape. Gabe and I went to his family's place outside of Fulton, MO on Friday. I really rather enjoy hanging out with his family. They're very different but still so similar to my own. Then Gabe and I travelled out to The Country on Saturday.

The Country. My grandparents bought some land in southern Missouri in the 60's (I think). Near Ironton and Fredricktown on the St. Francis River...never heard of any of those? It's all good, no one has:) It's nothing fancy, just an old trailer that the men added a back room and porch onto years ago in the middle of the woods, off an old gravel road. My uncle bought it from my grandparents a few years ago. He added all these new amenities like running water and satellite tv. It's madness! Down the hill, through the woods is the river. Up river is the deep end where we can float and swim. Down river are the rapids. Now don't go picturing anything intense...when we were little kids we went down the rapids like little water slides. We also went rock hopping up and down the river.

This weekend we were having a bit of a family reunion. Saturday, though, there were only a very few of us. But it was nice. Gabe and I went canoeing and swimming, but only for a little bit cause we got freaked out by snake in the water. We spent plenty of time over on the rocks though. We did a little hopping and then just sat with our feet in the water. The family went to mass in town where a 96 year old priest who has to be reminded of the date and gets through the mass in about 20 minutes is the only thing allowing those people to have mass at all. Sad but beautiful at the same time. Later that night we had a bonfire and Gabe and I roasted some marshmellows. Unfortunately though, my allergies had been acting up really badly for the past week so I took a couple Benadryl causing me to keep dozing off, even in the middle of conversations. So we went to bed earlier. We slept out on the porch; despite the cold mornings, it's the best place to sleep, listening to the insects and critters, waking up to the cool air in the early morning when everything is pale.

Gabe left early that morning. He wanted to go home to spend a little extra time with his own family and go to their a fair his Church was having. It was sad he had to go before the rest of the family came, but it was awesome that he came 3 hours to spend one day and night down there. He knows how much I love the Country and wanted him to be there, though. That's just like him:)

The rest of the family came down and we spent the day doing things such as drinking, floating and drinking, playing games and drinking, eating s'mores drinking...you get the picture:) It was an all around fun day. Monday morning I headed back to St. Louis with my sister and her family and then headed back to Kansas City. It was nice to get back at school, but I was definitely sad for the weekend to end.

Love and prayers

Our Father...

I've been thinking a lot about prayer recently...though, as ever, not implementing the practice nearly as much as I need to. There are all these different forms that prayer can take. I honestly don't know many formal prayers, certainly not as many as I would like to know. I've always tried more for the conversational form of prayer. I've been recently discovering the beauty and honesty of the formal prayers of the Catholic Church, though. I'm not sure how I started thinking about it, I guess it was during a bit of a prayer draught, but I began to wonder about the best way to pray. I don't think there is necessarily a "best way" for something like prayer. God desires our hearts, our openness to Him. So how can I ensure my own openness. Well...I can't. I wish I could and I try to, but I so often fail.

Anyway, back to prayer...

I've begun to contemplate the Our Father. Light Bulb! Jesus taught it to us. Christ himself gave us this prayer. I've always said the Our Father frequently, but I guess I never really thought about the perfectness of it. God knows our hearts far better, more deeply and intimately, then even ourselves. He knows our prayers and desires. I've started praying the Our Father holding this knowledge in my mind, trusting that He'll answer the prayers of my heart, in accordance to His will, as I say these words that once touched Christ's very lips. So now I know when I'm at a loss in my prayer life, I will always have Our Father to support me.

Love and prayers

Back to School!

Well here I am, back at Rockhurst. My mom helped me with move-in. It was fun...though I think she had more fun setting my room up then I did. I'm in the townhouses this year, which is kind of a let down after living in a house, but there are only two of us in a four person. Meaning...we each have our own bedrooms and bathrooms. I said four person, but it was a four person (two bedroom, two bathroom with common living areas) set up for six people. We have a lot of space, but that would be freaking crowded! Anyway, the reason for me clarifying is that we both h ave three beds, three desks, and three dressers in our rooms. Can you say overkill. Oh well. It took awhile, but I'm finally happy with the way I have it all set up...I think:) It's pretty cute, lots of color and such, but it'll be a lot better once I bring back some posters and such for the walls after Labor Day weekend. Anyway...all in all I think the year looks pretty promising. I have a lot of free time during the day since a majority of my classes are at night. I'm finding things to fill the time with though, such as a sweet internship at the Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph's Respect Life Office and I'm also looking for a work study job...keep your fingers crossed. I'm enjoying things thus far. Senior year is looking good:)

August 14th

Today was a special day for a couple of reasons. My mom's side of the family met at Grant's Farm this morning. There were 36 of us, so not everyone, but a decent showing. The little one's enjoyed the animals and the shows, while the older ones enjoyed the happiness of the little ones and, of course, the free beer. When it got to be too hot to stay out any longer, we moved the party to my aunt and uncle's house for a bbq and watched the Cards/Cubs game. So overall a good day. I enjoy spending time with my family, there are certainly some characters amongst us, the great-grandchildren are absolutely adorable and they're all getting to an age where they start interacting with each other so we had a tiny girl band to entertain us, and we always have good things to eat and drink, like homemade ice cream courtesy of my grandparents and jell-o shots (a staple at any party at my aunt and uncle's house).

Another reason for the specialness of the day was that it marked one year since my dad's surgery. I haven't really talked to specifically here about my dad here, but a year ago yesterday we were told in a whirlwind of events that he had cancer. A year ago today he had a 10 hour surgery because the lung cancer had metastasized to, among several other places, his spine causing a couple of the vertebra to essentially shatter. I didn't realize until later how near he was to being paralyzed. It's been an insane year to say the least. I feel as if I've lived an entire lifetime within it. Right now my dad is on what is called maintenance which is incredibly good, though still not easy by any means. There is a CaringBridge site (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/bobfarley) for my dad, kept up by my mom. I went back to the first few entries in the journal and learned that I'm still not prepared to deal with those first days. They've left some lasting mark on me.

This one year mark has caused me to look back on everything that's happened. So much has changed since August 14th, 2009. I've changed. I spent a long time trying to prepare myself for a loss that I wasn't at all ready for, I've fallen in love, lost friends, been blessed with the deepening of other friendships, and I was given the incredible gift of time. I've felt lost and confused. I've been at home in places and with people I never would have dreamed of a year ago. I was shown love and compassion and was able to show the same in turn. I was hurt and lifted up.

There's still a lot of recovering I need to do, but I've learned so much about myself and what I'm capable of...capable of handling...so long as I cling to God.

(With my dad, sister, and niece just a few months after the surgery)

Love and prayers

The Passion

I was just flipping through channels and I landed on Biography. The episode was on Mel Gibson and it just happened to be at the point in his life when the Passion of the Christ was coming out. The controversy over the movie was briefly talked about. Jeffrey Lyons (I guess he was a movie critic or something of the sort) spoke about the violence of Christ's death that is portrayed in the movie, how it was unnecessary, how people who believe in and worship Christ do so because of the good he did in his life, not because of how he died. I almost yelled at the television. Obviously this man does not understand or made any attempt to understand Gibson's Catholic faith. Yes, Gibson is lost, but he had it right with that movie. Yes, Christ did great things in his life, he literally performed miracles, he's the Son of God. But I think just about any Catholic would say that we worship him because he died for us. The bloody, violent way that Christ died is a beautiful gift. It is our salvation. His death was the way it was because of us, the entire weight of all of humanities' sins from all time weighed upon his shoulders. That is what Gibson portrayed in the Passion. Yeah it's violent, it's gory, but it was necessary for our salvation which is what Christ desired, us to be in full union with him. The violence in the movie is necessary and it is beautiful.