Travelin'

view from castle ruins on the top of a mountain we climbed. The castle was one where King Richard the Lionhearted was thrown in prison by somebody of the way home from the Crusades. Mom, as a tribute to you and your teaching skills, I remembered EXACTLY who Richard the Lionhearted was, even before they told us that he went on the Crusades.


view from the Melk monestary...myself, and two foreign exchange girls who are also at the Kartause with the Franciscan students (Pona, left, and Daria, right)



my friend/roomate/household sister Bri

Monastary at Melk, a small town not far from Gaming

I love the way every step of my life feels like a rhythm. Places and people flow in and out, and time passes without permission from me. No sooner have I convinced myself that I couldn't possibly be more comfortable and content in the place that I am...then it changes and I find myself somewhere new, and happy. So happy. Don't get me wrong, my life is no bowl of oranges, but I have realized that while I miss my sister's when I leave their homes, when I say goodbye to a friend for a couple months, or when I think that nothing will be the same, it is, and I'm ok. It's the way life goes. I love realizing the balance of missing the people you're not with, while appreciating the place that you are.
Especially when the place where you are is...I don't know, EUROPE???? That's right, I'm in Gaming, Austria for the semester. On my plane ride from Buffalo to Chicago, I sat next to the Philipino couple, late 60's, and that dear woman talked my ear off. Half the time I didn't even need to put in any input, she just talked. Some of it I couldn't understand, but I DID learn that she doesn't like too many things on her pizza, her 3 kids like to travel, and "plane rides go fast when you talk, no?". I sat in a dirty airport for 8 hours without internet or a phone or companionship, and was almost glad to get on the plane from Chicago to Warsaw. I sat next to this girl going to study in Florence, Italy, and she was my age and from LA! I was so happy about my luck! She was really sweet, and by the end of the 9hr flight we were best buds. In Warsaw, Poland, I paid 6 euro for a cup of coffee that was half the size of a small in the US.....however, it was delicious. The plane ride from Warsaw to Poland was short and bumpy, and I thought our teeny, tiny, neon plane was going to break at the seams.
The Vienna airport was a joy to behold, and we were only a baggage claim away from freedom from airports. Myself and the other Franciscan students waited for an hour, and by the time our flight number disapeared from the baggage claim...we each had one piece of luggage. I looked around for the lost and found office, and booked it for the nice lady in red. Another hour passed as we reported our luggage missing and they promised to send it to the Kartause the next day. I don't remember the bus ride from Vienna to Gaming, except that I dreamed about a shower. When we got here, we had just enough time to make mass, and then I FINALLY got a shower.
I am in love with Austria. I've been here 3 days, and I can't get enough at just LOOKING. All I want to do is stare until I can finally believe I am here. You turn around, and BOOM, a mountain that looks close enough to touch. Accents so thick I just want to listen to the people here talk, it sounds so cool. It's amazing to me how fast I have adjusted...how fast this feels like home. It's not home, of course, but I don't feel like a traveler in a strange place. But, of course, I am.

Cover Your Mouth

People are so hard to read. Sometimes I envy God's "eagle eye". He gets to see everything from above. Literally and metaphorically. He can see the big picture, and His perfectness allows Him to be "above" our faulty reasoning. My own weaknesses, preferences, tendencies, and shortcomings make me constantly doubt my handling of relationships. How can I ever be trusted to do the right thing when I can't see beyond my own agenda?

I know it's not all my fault. Clearly, I am not entirely to blame. And yet, when you are so focused on doing the right thing so as to increase the likelihood that the other person will, by ripple effect, also do the right thing, and then the other person fails...it falls back to you. Or me, in this case.

Sigh. And here I go, talking in abstract terms that only I can follow because you are not in my head. If there even is a you. Actually, I am probably only talking to myself, so technically I could speak in concrete terms. It's tempting. I won't, though. There's something about words that is definite and damaging. Think about it. All our thoughts are shaped by the words we are fed, or the sights or sounds that we translate into words in our head, which all come together to form meaning. When I say "giggling", you picture a three year old coloring on the bright, clean, wall of her bedroom. Or...at least...I do. When I say "suffering" you get a completely different meaning. The words we use to describe people can have a lasting effect far beyond what we think.

It's absurd, and stupid, but I have actually held on to a negative idea about a person, even after getting to know them and finding out the opposite was true about them...simply because I trusted the person giving me the information. How twisted is that? If only we just covered our mouths for for just moment, to hold back the words that don't need to be unleashed.

Give It Up, Already

Why is it that the later it gets...the more I find reason to stay up? Not like i'm really enjoying myself all that much, in fact, i tend to be a cranky, needy mess. It just seems that I am incapable of finding the will power to force my tired body to let go of this day. I'm going to blame it on female stubbornness. Yeah...yeah...that sounds...good....*yawn*....

A Perfect Mess

Christmas in July. Beach vacations in February. Falling leaves on a scorcher day. Rain for the garden. Sun for the picnic. We always want what is just beyond our reach. Especially when it comes to weather we stick out little noses over God's shoulder, absently hovering in another season instead of enjoying the one we're in. Sometimes I wonder what God was thinking when he gave us the free will to be constantly asking for something besides what we have. It's a beautiful thing to realize that in His perfectness, He doesn't even get annoyed at us, He just laughs and sadly watches us chase our tails around, trying to find our perfect...everything.
What a funny concept perfect is. We let it slip from our tongues like magic waiting to happen. I mean, it was a good day for a wedding, but if only the sun had been just a LITTLE bit less...sunny, it would have been just PERFECT. We spend so much time obsessing about what we think would make, well, EVERYTHING more perfect, that we never stop to think about the fact that we actually have no idea what perfect is. We simply add that word whenever we think there is room for improvement...so pretty much all the time. You know what I would think would be perfect? If we let go of what we thought that perfect was, and let the only One who actually is, govern our lives.
Hey, He wants it to hail in mid June? Go for it, He wants this post to be a random rant about who knows what? Let it be done.