"Are you sure you know what goodness is?"
She looked at him curiously. "What is it, then?"
He paused, and thoughts flew through his mind -- mountains, trees swaying in the wind, his father kissing his mother, sitting around the supper table with his brothers and sisters, Mass -- the beautiful statues, the lovely paintings in the church, the glory of stained-glass windows, the harmony of the liturgy, the haunting of music, the poetry of the human body --
Using phrases he had learned in theology class and read in books, he attempted to articulate what goodness was -- its power, its concreteness, above all, its beauty -- theology and poetry and philosophy and mathematics and order and the romp of playfulness -- new babies and bulbs shooting from the earth and creases on the hands of an elderly lady who had spent her life in service to others --
He knew he wasn't an orator, or a particularly good communicator. He spoke haltingly, rambling, then, gaining certainty from the truth of what he was saying, grew effusive, quoting the saints and poets and prophets, recalling sayings of the popes and philosophers, trying to paint a verbal portrait of what goodness was, and why loving it was so critical.
And Rachel smiled, listened to him, and looked up at the sky. He noticed it was getting dark. The moon would soon be rising.

FROM "The Midnight Dancers: a fairy tale retold"
by Regina Doman

My art online!

A work in progress: http://johannahgail.wordpress.com/

Pray for us

I have this stupid habit of thinking in the abstract. Or... maybe it's just writing my thoughts that way. So sometimes I feel strange commenting on these things, but this is just so... compelling.

I am not really much of a social or political critic. There are things that upset and provoke me and I will surely mention them, especially as concerns my faith. But I'm not very good at keeping up with important issues or commenting on them, definitely not on a par with some bloggers out there (additionally, for my art senior seminar we've been putting together "art blogs" via wordpress -- which to me is kind of stupid, as wordpress is WORDpress, not a site necessarily built for displaying artwork -- and apparently I'm the only one in the class who has ever blogged before, as I discovered when the question was asked and there was my solo and timid hand raise... is it just me, or is that REALLY weird for my generation? I thought we were supposed to be the children of the digital age or whatever...) Well, in any case,
I've been keeping an eye on the whole "Obama invited to give commencement speech & receive honorary degree" thing at Notre Dame, which has stimulated quite a bit of controversy from Catholics (both what people deem as "traditional" i.e. observant Catholics, and the "cafeterias" or unobservant Catholics) on account of Obama's incredibly frightening support of all things abortion. More than fifty bishops have stated that they will not support this invitation, and Bishop D'Arcy has refused to attend the commencement because of the Prez's stance on abortion.

So that led me (through the American Papist) to an article by an alumna of Notre Dame, a young woman commenting on Fr. Jenkin's (University prez.) decision to invite our rock-star pro-choice president. The article is called, "Notre Dame, My Mother" by Lacy Dodd and she writes about her pregnancy experience as a senior on the verge of graduating from the University. She states her very firm pro-life stance and her bewilderment at being told from variousnesses that she had "other options" -- abortion.
What really touched me (it made me tear, actually) was what she wrote in her article about turning to Mary in her time of need, and that Our Mother "did not disappoint."
This somehow makes the whole Obama-at-Notre-Dame situation so much more disheartening; a University specifically dedicated (it's in the name for heaven's sake) to "Our Lady," to a woman whom God chose to carry His Son inside of her, a woman brave and holy enough to accept something so incredible and so frightening, is honoring a man who upholds this "other option." It honestly makes my skin crawl.

And there is also something very thought-provoking about Lacy Dodd's article; she writes about her pro-"choice" boyfriend who was unwilling to support her. At the end of the article she says, "I’d like to ask this of Fr. John Jenkins, the Notre Dame president: Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama—the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?"

What a smasher. Here we are with young men claiming a pro-choice stance thinking they're supporting a woman's "right to choose" when the only choice (as Dodd states) they won't support is the choice to embrace an innocent life.
Why are the beginning stages of life (completely helpless, completely in their mother's hands) so disposable? Why are we raging and ranting about other forms of genocide and closing our eyes and stopping our ears to this? Why? Because there are no victim voices to cry out? They can't use their vocal cords, is that it?

Oh, Fr. Jenkins. Oh, our beloved Obama (Aaak! Car Bomb!) God help you. I have a feeling that on your day of judgement -- whenever or however that will be -- you will need especial intercession from Our Lady. You're so lucky you have her for a Mother.

Corrected

I really don't understand what it is with some people.
I have certain "friends" who have this strange ability to make me feel like I'm burdening them somehow by asking to spend time with them, or even just wanting to chat with them. What's with that?
Truthfully, that is why there are a lot of people with whom I don't keep in touch anymore. I hate the feeling that there is not a mutual "interest." I guess what it comes down to is that if one is not willing to put an equal effort into a friendship (just as it is with any relationship) then it really isn't worth it.

What is happening exactly? I realize people change, but there are some changes that I can't quite understand. When two people lose that mutual interest things begin to fall apart. Why does that happen?
I know I have changed. But I always hoped it was for the better; now I wonder if that is really true.

I was thinking today about how incredible it would be to move somewhere far away. I am not a world traveler (I'm hardly even a country traveler) and the idea scares me to death -- but in that way it would be so thrilling and terrifying and probably wonderful. To go and build your life in a foreign place amongst strangers -- build your life almost from scratch. What would that be like? I feel that if I could ever sum up the courage to do something so insane, I would learn so much. So many people have done it before -- most of my friends have. What would happen if I followed that lead?

I shudder. Here is my last month of college. I feel as though this semester were lasting ages -- both because I can't wait for it to finally be over, and because after this few weeks, hello there's reality and an adult life for which only I am responsible. Goodness gracious.

I'm not allowed to run away and join the circus, am I? How about be a hermit? Join a cloister? I am not ready for real life yet. It scares me to death, only I didn't want to admit it before.

Just Something

Isn't it funny how people surprise you sometimes?
Good or bad, I've seen it both ways.

The best though, are those who upon first impression seem... well, sort of vacant. And then you come upon something (never mind what or where you found it) that proves just how wrong you were -- and just how deep and complex they really are. I love to be blown away by such things. Within the realm of human relationships, it's what I live for.

Today was such a weird, creepy, unnerving day. Actually, I guess it was pretty awful. I woke up feeling queasy... and it was almost as if that physical feeling interrupted and invaded my brain too. Kind of like, my body felt so gross and tired and then it seeped into my emotional state and suddenly I felt this creepy sense of depression and foreboding.

Then again, maybe it was just the weather. Creepy weather we've had today -- ominous clouds blowing in on the howling wind, but not really dropping any rain or threatening any thunder (which really might have been refreshing.) And anyway, it kind of makes me sad how much the weather affects my mood.

But then I got a letter from one of my best friends currently in West Africa for the Peace Corps. And that just seemed to make everything better somehow; things seemed suddenly more normal. Made me realize that this nasty day wasn't going to last any longer than twenty-four hours. Then tomorrow comes.

How refreshing to actually write in my blog again! After some bloody *ahem* decided to come along and leave behind some self-righteous b.s. to try to make me feel about two inches tall, I'd been kind of wary about even writing here again. For heaven's sake, you know -- there's ALWAYS someone who's just got to stir up trouble and ruin someone else's peace. It's like a perverted thrill for some people, offering their unwanted "two-cents." And those people are usually the ones who like to think they're the be-all and end-all of creation. Bloody crap.

I was thinking earlier today about how I spend so much of my time writing and drawing and painting and posting. And going back and looking at it all over and over again. It is almost as if I'm trying to figure myself out. You know how everyone is always blabbing on and on about "discovering" oneself and "learning about" oneself -- through various means of spiritual exercises and meditation and journals and all that.
I've written pages and pages of papers and anecdotes and kept about a million sketch books and I keep going back to them and rereading as though I were trying to understand what I meant by all of it. Where it came from and if it's any good? Most of what I write isn't very clear and organized and ideas that become artwork usually have some pretty ambiguous concept behind it. So I have to keep going back to it. It's weird.

Cold Water

Curses

I hate you, Geology!

Abtoxious

I'm not usually this negative. Really. I've tried to put the complaining aside and laugh about everything, since lately everyone's been telling me that's the way to stay healthy. And sane.

But the frustration has really begun to build up. It has so much to do with this college! I'm starting to dislike the people here. I feel like I can't be myself! Especially when it comes to the one thing I love, and that is making art.

I mean, I was really starting to branch out and try new things and challenge myself at the BCA. There, my work felt SO dull and "traditional," when everyone was so free and easy expressing themselves in any way they could. I had a very long conversation with a friend about it, as he is more of a traditionalist where fine art is concerned. But then, at the end of the semester, I felt like I'd really accomplished something; I was moving in a new and exciting direction.

And then I come back to Gustavus.
And suddenly I feel all these odd expressions and weird comments when it's my turn to have my work critiqued. It's all, "what is this supposed to mean?" "why did you do it this way and not this way?" "why did you decide to repaint that?" "why not try this? I think it would work better." Every single minute detail broken apart and analyzed and DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN GRANT ME PATIENCE.
Honestly. Do I really have to explain every little aspect of a painting to you in order for it to make sense? I hate critiques with the art department profs, but especially with the other art majors. I don't feel I should HAVE to explain why I included representational aspects and abstract aspects, or why that eye in that portrait is painted that color and not some other color. REALLY. It's just so much like... talking about your work until it doesn't even feel like it's yours anymore -- it's alien. Foreign. ALL of the sublimity gone out of it, and now it's empty.

Why is that necessary? Geez, I've never had this problem before. I guess that's because I never tried anything different before. It's always been... same ol', same ol'... just what everyone else is doing. Whatever happened to innovations? Creativity?
GUSTAVUS: you have sucked the energy, the money AND the ingenuity out of me.

Aching

I miss Ireland so much it hurts.
Really.
I never even imagined it would be this bad.
I keep trying to rack it up to my last semester in college and the weirdness and vulnerability I feel here. But it's not just that.
I miss so much! I miss wandering and being by myself without actually feeling alone.
I miss the sunlight and the intermittent rain. The fog, the mist, the trees, the green, the pier. The houses. The people. The pubs, the music, the beer.
EVERYTHING!
I wish it were easy to fix, that I could just cry really hard or something and let it all out and let it all go, but I can't cry about it. It just aches, dully.
I wonder if it'll ever go away. I just don't think a place has ever held on to me like that. Does it mean I need to go back? The BCA does offer post-bac and MFA programs...
but will it be the same without the same people?
I don't know. Maybe I just need to deal with the fact that it's over. I'm here now and I have to figure this thing out. I know I do, I just can't help but feel a spot inside my chest sting a little whenever I think about it all.

Wind

In Mass today, Fr. Phil (who says lately people have been calling him "Dr. Phil") spoke about the Transfiguration. He related it to Elijah on the mountaintop waiting for God and finally finding him in a whisper.
I thought about (surprise surprise) being in Ireland. One day in Irish Studies we made our way through muddy cow pastures following a Mass path to the top of Cappanawalla. There at the top, the valley was spread out before us, and the sun and wind were intense. I stood on the edge of the mountain. The wind wasn't harsh, but it was incredibly powerful. If I leaned forward, it could almost support me. And I related that feeling to God. Gentle but powerful; a strong support when you're falling on your face.
Father said at the end of his homily, we will go up the mountain to feel God but we do have to go back down again. To live our lives.
There aren't any mountains here. Sometimes it's harder to feel God's presence.

"Returnee"

So now I find myself back here at Gustavus. Things are so weird... so different. I'll try to talk to people about it, and they just look at me funny and ask, persistently, "how so?" and I can't really explain.
I miss Ireland a lot. I knew I would, but not quite this much. It's magnified by this strange feeling of being back here for my last semester, not feeling I know anyone anymore, expected to be busy all the time, and a lot of the time I just end up feeling lonely. I've never had that problem here before. There was almost always someone -- one of my good friends -- to talk to. But then again, most of them were upperclassmen, and now I found myself kind of... isolated, I guess. It's not a pleasant feeling.
I don't feel welcome here. And that makes me angry. Especially angry at the Registrar, those WONDERFUL people who handle my classes and decide whether or not I get to graduate. The ones responsible. The people who didn't even tell me that I was 3/4 of a credit short of graduating. I found that out on my own. I'm really close to just writing them a really angry email. The butts.

Anyway. Then of course there's dealing with professors... the uber-intelligent souls who can't even remember that I was even gone! "Wait... so, you weren't here last semester? Well, where were you? Are you a senior?" Idiots. Really. Your department is SO small, you can't even remember one student out of the ten seniors graduating as art majors this semester? Good lord.

Now things would be so much better if I could actually give a definitive answer when people (usually my smug peers) ask me, "so what are your plans after you graduate?"

One of these days I'm going to have a breakdown, I swear. I'm going crazy.

Contemplating angels

How does one represent angels without wings?

When you get down to it

Right now, I'm trying to ignore the woman here in the coffee shop who just stepped on my foot and is talking at the top of her voice about some kitchen appliance she got for Christmas.

I've discovered some very interesting things. At least, I think they're interesting. One is that there is definitely more to my two little brothers than meets the eye.
The older one, the one we call Adrian, is actually a very intelligent character. I've always suspected as much. This afternoon we spent about an hour or two discussing some very complicated subjects concerning God, humanity and the universe. He was explaining to me about a book he'd been reading called, "A Wind in the Door." The only problem was that, whilst he was trying to explain all these very interesting, very complicated things to me about this book, the smaller one, Matthew, kept interrupting with very interesting, very complicated questions and suggestions of his own. They were endless; he'd barely finished asking one question before he had another he was just bursting to present to us. Needless to say, this was quite frustrating for Adrian, who has a minuscule store of patience for his little brother.
Our discussion centered around our relationship to God and His to us. Adrian told me about Meg, who as a character in this book, was given the job of naming stars. Each star was a person, an individual. Someone asked her, "how do you count the stars?" and she replied, "they don't need to be counted, they only need to be called by name."
That, said Adrian, was very like how we are to God. We are all of us human beings, a species. But to God, we are each individual, each our own entity. God loves all humanity, but He has a specific love to give to each of us, as we each have our own specific identities. Like the words that make up a prayer, each one is individual and means something different, but in all, make up one prayer.

Now, Matthew and his endless flow of questions.
A friend of mine (one with whom I have a very complicated relationship; from the sometimes insensitive and ridiculous things she claims, I've learned quite a lot) once told me that the adults from her family's Catholic Church kicked her out of Sunday School because she asked to many questions. By that she meant to tell me that she was just too smart for them; she asked more questions than they could answer, and even answer clearly and intelligently.
I came back to that this afternoon, trying to keep up with Matt's barrage of constant inquiries and suggestions.
"What does God look like? Why can't I know what God looks like? Why can't I be a god? How does God make everything do everything? Why am I what I am and not a tree or a lightbulb or a cloud? Why do people make God look like an old man? Maybe God doesn't have a beard, maybe He just has a mustache. Couldn't He be a young man and not an old man?" He opened a can of pop, and the edge of the pop tab cut his finger. "Why did God make that happen?" "Why can't I choose to be something else and not myself?"
Now, how do you even BEGIN to answer questions like that? Especially when he has about a million more? How do explain about free will and choices and existence and anything outside of our own time, space and reality to a nine-year-old? How could you explain it in words and ways that would make him understand and pay attention?
So I wonder at my friend and her statement. I wonder at how she believed she was just too clever for her religion teacher. When religion is such a broad, mysterious, sometimes unexplainable, incoherent topic. When you put a curious, knowledge-hungry nine-year-old child with a boundless imagination and the very simpliest and yet unfathomable of subjects (that has confounded many a brilliant theologian) when it comes down to it, how many of us have that bottomless store of patience?
Religion is never as simple as it seems.

Abridged Abroad

I'm in Ireland!

http://joherickson.wordpress.com/

if you're interested in reading about it (there are some pictures, too!)

Reflection on a Life of Devotion: A little shpeel on My Saint

St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) is my confirmation saint. Unable to find the life of a saint that drew me in, a friend of mine (a very intelligent soul) drew my attention to her.

She was raised Jewish, the youngest in a large German family, but converted to Catholicism in the early 1900's. A little more than a decade later, she entered the Cologne Carmel Order. She was removed to Holland due to the political turmoil in Germany (the rise of Nazism.) When Holland was taken by the Nazis, Edith (Teresa) was arrested and eventually taken to a concentration camp where she died in the gas chambers.

"Out of the unspeakable human suffering caused by the Nazis in western Europe in the 1930's and 1940's, there blossomed the beautiful life of dedication, consecration, prayer, fasting, and penance of Saint Teresa. Even though her life was snuffed out by the satanic evil of genocide, her memory stands as a light undimmed in the midst of evil, darkness, and suffering" (http://www.catholic.org/saints)

But here is something I never knew: She was beatified by Pope John Paul II (the Great) at the Cologne Cathedral (where she was originally baptized into the Faith) in 1987 -- the year I was born!
Coincidence? I think not.

My Sweet, Crushed Angel

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's Heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.
The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
O my sweet, crushed angel.

FROM
I Heard God Laughing Poems of Hope & Joy
Renderings of Hafiz
by Daniel Ladinsky

Tipperary

It will take me years to make sense of all this -- to make emotional sense, that is. I know that I'll go back over the "evidence" again and again for things that I insufficiently celebrated.

Such as the size of the spirit possessed by my mother, April Burke -- to use the money she had been left for such a noble and brilliant enterprise, to keep beauty preserved. And to perceive the man who loved her, even if it took her a while. Or did it?

And such as my real father, Charles O'Brien, whose writings taught me that we do not have to continue as we were. Or thought we were.
And that life brings out its brightest colors only when you ask.

FROM
Tipperary: A Novel
by Frank Delaney

Euclid

As this is a History of my own life as well as of my country in my time, I shall here acknowledge my brother, Euclid. He passed away on a January day when we all sat with him. I have seen patients die, I have seen them struggle to live, despite their mortal ailments, and I have seen them slip away as quietly and swiftly as a fish into a dark pool. Euclid lingered; he rallied-- two, three, four times. If he knew that he was passing from us, he did not say.
In the previous few years he had grown frailer by the month, then by the week; and since Christmas, by the day. Seeing his condition, I had not returned to the road. In the second week of January, Mother asked Father and me whether we should place Euclid's bed by the fire in the larger drawing-room-- what we call the Terrace Room-- because the long windows give out onto the terrace and thence with a view to the wood. That day, with much effort, we moved a spare bed to a place near the fire; and a day-bed into the room, also, where I lay many nights, talking to him, telling him "tales from the road," as he called them. I carried Euclid downstairs on the day we moved his bed; I have carried five-year-old children who weighted heavier.
He had, Mother now says, ailed since birth. Food never sat well with him; he picked here and there at his plate, he ate like a bird and not a beast. Thin since infancy, he never gained a continuous robustness. I recall no more than two summers, and those not in succession, when Euclid looked strong and healthy, and even then, the impression came principally from the sun's tanning of his face.
We have never known the name or cause or root of his ailment. I believe that he had a weakness since birth, that he lacked a density of blood. He was born into a household where his three family members bulge with energy-- and he was granted none.
But he had the grandest soul. He had wit, humor, quickness, and a fire in his heart that, had it warmed his body, would have taken him upright through life. I believe that he was undermined by his own puzzlement at what ailed him, and that he railed at whatever denied him the same physical force as his father, mother, or brother.
He attempted to compensate with deliberate oddity in his demeanor, and with out-of-the-ordinary intellectual inquiry. Too poorly always to join a college or university, he surrounded himself with books-- of all kinds, on all manner of subjects. To Euclid, the discovery of a new fact was as a gemstone to a lady; it thrilled him, he turned it this way and that, to let the light shine on it, and he carried it with him proudly, his beauty enhanced by showing it to the world.
I believe that he decided to die. The new place to lie, close to the heart of the house, rather than remote in his bedroom, seemed to elevate him for a time. He much enjoyed the flames in the larger fireplace; he found the influx of company exciting-- because those who called to the house now engaged with him, brought him news. Perhaps we made the move too late-- many years too late. Had we sacrificed the Terrace Room earlier, would the energy of the world, as it came to our door, have kept him alive?
But I believe that he had already taken his decision.
He told nobody. On the Sunday, I was sitting with him at two o'clock in the afternoon. The fire blazed; Mother and Father had driven to Holy-cross, where our long-retired and now ancient housekeeper, Mrs. Ryan, had fallen ill. Euclid took a little soup, no more than a spoon or two, and he had said little all day. Then he spoke.
"What do you offer for a pain in the chest and arms?"
I asked him, "Show me where."
"It's been here"-- he indicated his left shoulder and upper arm-- "since Thursday; it keeps coming back."
I said, "Let me get my bags."
Euclid shook his head. "I can't take anything. My mouth, my throat-- I have no way of doing it."
I helped him to sit up a little, but after a few minutes he said, "I want to lie flat."
Those were almost his last words. Mother and Father returned soon and did not need to be told. Their eyes, when they turned to me, were filled with darkness; it is a sight I have seen often, the sight of fear entering a person's soul when they know in their heart that a loved one is going to die.
Did we sleep, any of us, for the rest of the week? I think not. If I went to bed any night, I woke again after an hour or two-- and came downstairs to find Mother or my father, or both, sitting in the shadows thrown by the fire. Mother read to Euclid; he liked Tennyson and Coleridge, and I heard, "on either side the river lie/Long fields of barley and of rye," and I heard of painted ships on painted oceans.
We were all present when he went. He had been lying quieter and quieter, taking no food, sweating a little. At eleven o-clock in the morning, he raised a hand to his left shoulder, said, "This hurts," and then sighed. He did not move or cry out; nor did his throat rattle. None of the things of Death came to his bedside; he merely went away. Father rose from his chair by the fire and spread his hands out from his body, opening and clenching his fists, opening and clenching, and blinking his eyes. And Mother said, looking at me with eyes wide open as though in surprise, "Now what will any of us do?"

FROM
Tipperary: A Novel
by Frank Delaney

Viva Benedetto!

Wow.
What an experience.
There's the good and the bad with every adventure, and this one was no different. However, I feel I've dwelt much too much on the negative. I'm working on memorializing the great things that happened.
The joyful aura that surrounded every person from every different country (I met Venezuelans, Indians, Irishmen, many awesome Aussies, Vietnamese, South Koreans, Africans, Italians, lots of Germans, Mexicans...) will be something I'll always remember. These are few among my fond memories: the Spanish-speaking people walking the five mile pilgrimage through Sydney strumming guitars and singing happily; the "Benedetto!" and "Viva el Papa!" chants; the construction workers high up on a building, blowing their whistles and clapping to our music and WYD chants. Then there was my completely ethereal experience of High Mass in Sydney.

Now here's the icing on the cake.
I've not ever told anyone about this, but I was heartbroken over the death of our beloved JPII. He was my Pope. I never got to see him, I only knew of his life and heard his words, but I loved him heart and soul.
I wasn't interested in the election of a new pope. I didn't much care. And when I first saw and heard of Pope Benedict XVI, I didn't like him much. I'm a little ashamed to admit that, but it's true.

But in Sydney, I heard him speak... and it was like he was speaking just to me. He wasn't cold and harsh like I'd previously imagined (he is German after all...) He was brilliant and straightforward and intense. But he was also incredibly warm. He spoke to us, the Catholic youth, and you could hear the honesty and sincerity in his voice. You could truly believe he meant every word and his encouragements to us were heartfelt.
Maybe this sounds obvious. But it was an awakening for me. It was a new realization.
The cardinal in Sydney remarked upon the general surprise regarding the theme that the Holy Father picked for WYD 2008. He said it was probably the least likely on the list of themes to choose from. But I think I know why he picked the one he did.

"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses." Acts 1:8

He challenged us at the final, Papal Mass that Sunday. We, the Catholic youth of the World, are charged with being witnesses of this special gift, our Faith. And just as the apostles, lonely and afraid in that upper room were given courage, confidence and a literal fire to spread the Good News, so are we given. We are given so much!

So when the Holy Father came around the race track where we all stood, straining to catch a glimpse and pressed close together against the barrier... as he drove past in his pope-mobile and blessed us, I jumped up and down. I cheered and I cried; I couldn't believe it, there he was!

He's the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Christ on Earth, the Successor of Peter.
But until that trip, he never felt like my Pope, not like JPII was. Now he is. He's my Pope.

Soon to Sydney, Mate!

We're quickly gaining on the end of June and the start of July, and I can hardly believe it.

Well, to be perfectly honest, the fact that summer is 1/3 of the way over doesn't bother me all that much. Also, the quicker June goes by, the quicker our trip to Sydney for WYD will arrive.
Though my excitement for this trip was previously, let's say, sub-par, the faster the days go by, the more pumped I get! I'm sure my family has gotten tired of my pessimistic attitude about some of the people I'll be spending time with on this trip (my sister included) but I've somehow become determined to make the best of it. Hey, there's a first time for everything, right? I'm convinced this is going to be an awesome experience.

I continue with the stress of figuring all of the stuff out for Ireland, especially the stress of finances. Though some where along the way I fully decided that I wasn't going to kill myself with worry. If that Great Man Upstairs wanted me to go through with this trip, and I'm pretty much convinced He does, then He'll continue to see me through. All I need is to store up a reserve of self-confidence to get me through my time there. I'm pretty sure I can do it.

And I finally have a job. It isn't much, but it's something.