Love.

I'm home for the night and let me just say, there is something about my mustard yellow bedroom and my antique bed that acts as my muse. Maybe its just the comfort and calm of home that puts my worries at rest and allows me to drift into deep thought (or stirs them up if left with too much time to think!). Who knows, but the sprinkling rain drizzling outside my window is helping.

I've had such a great week. I finished up a novena to St. Therese of Lisieux on Sunday because I've been incredibly stressed out and anxious for hmm I don't know - a month! and Monday morning I stopped by the chapel on my way to class determined that I would have a good day. Oh how the Lord is so good! Joy has been pouring out of my ears, shooting from my finger tips and toes! I've been crazy all week because I haven't been able to contain it! (Just ask my suite mates and anyone close to me.) The Lord's grace is so abundant, He just wants us to want the gifts he has for us - so ask! But I digress...



Along with the grace-filled week today I had the honor and privilege of riding the Megabus for eight hours munching on Cheez-Its and trail mix attempting to alleviate my nausea from the gas leak fumes filling the bus. You think I'm being sarcastic right? Okay maybe a little...but! It was an honor and a privilege because I got to ride a bus with a bundle of God's beloved children. Aren't I so lucky? Stop laughing at me, I'm serious.

As I waited in line to board the bus in the dark 6:45AM air of down town Charlotte I observed the diverse and unique crowd of people who I would be journeying with. As I looked around I thought to myself, "These people have souls. These people were created by God out of love and they have a dignity and a purpose and I don't even know them at all." No matter who these people were, no matter what they've done, what they do, where they're going, what they believe - they are loved and God thirsts for them. Isn't that so beautiful?

We rolled through the first bus stop and the seat next to me was then occupied by a sweet looking woman. Eventually we got acquainted she began to share with me a little bit about herself and her personal journey. We ended up talking about God, love and compassion. This woman had a beautiful, beautiful heart that has gone through so much. She loves her children with the most genuine and pure love a mother could have and she would do whatever it takes for them. As she shared with me her heart and love for our Lord I wanted to love her back. I wanted to listen to her and support her and share with her in return. I may not have the exact same beliefs as her but I learned so much about our Lord through her words and story, and by listening to her I hoped she would feel her dignity and importance in this world. She is a confident woman, a strong woman and a woman of deep faith who knows she is loved by God - but God still wanted me to love her on that bus ride. God wants us to love everyone.

Souls are so important, my friends! They are made for GOD! They are made for LOVE. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to hear this woman's heart today and to be able to share with her the love of the Lord by just listening, encouraging, and even sharing a little bit.

As she thanked me for our wonderful conversation and promised me her prayers a long with a wish of luck for my own journey I felt so blessed to have shared that conversation with her. I felt so honored to have heard how the Lord has worked in her life and to know the ways I can pray for her.
Each soul is such a gift and to experience the gift of a person through deep and intentional conversation is a unique and moving blessing.

In the end, Love is all we really have to give and there isn't a single person ever created, born or unborn, who doesn't deserve to be loved.

food for thought: 

THESIS! topic: authentic feminine beauty.

Yep, its true. I, Megan Fitzpatrick, have decided to write my senior thesis on feminine beauty - a topic I am more passionate about than I don't know what. I thought - since my blog revolves around my theological musings, constantly coming back to feminine beauty - would keep you in the know about what wonderful truths I find in researching for my thesis!

Up first, SHAME.

Graham Ward, of Oxford University in Cambridge, England, explores the theology of Adam and Eve’s shame after the fall in his essay “Adam and Eve’s Shame (And Ours)”. He first states, “the first effects of disobedience…was shame at the realization they were naked” (305). He recognizes the realization of nakedness as the effect of their shame because Adam says to God “I was afraid because I was naked.” Ward continues in his essay to define the shame we share because of the fall. He first notes that fear and shame are scientifically viewed as “the most basic human emotions” and that they were referred to as “the passions” (2). Ward defines shame as such;

“Shame exposes that which is most intimate about the embodied self, but it also exposes sets of values and levels of interest. We can only be ashamed if we care about something. So shame is both a very personal experience, but also a highly socialized event in the sense that it is saturated with social and cultural investments. Body, self and society meet around practices of shaming and experiences of being ashamed” (308).

His definition leads into how I want to explore Adam and Eve’s shame in relation to mankind’s fallen view of feminine beauty. In my thesis I plan to claim that woman is the most beautiful creation. A person’s body is an incredibly personal part of him or her. The body is also intimate. The shame felt by Adam and Eve, according to Ward, explains that our bodies are the most intimate part of us. Our bodies are extremely valuable to us.

In addition to Ward’s point, with our bodies we can give and receive the most intimate experience of love. There is something very sacred about the human body and women being the apex of beauty in creation have a unique value in their bodies. Women experience shame rooted in the value of their body also in relation to themselves selves and society around them. There are two pivotal ways a woman can experience shame that distort true feminine beauty that I want to cover in my thesis. One, in the way they view themselves; and two, lust.

            Ward makes note that Adam and Eve felt shame in their bodies, particularly their genitalia. Ward paraphrases and quotes Augustine’s theology:

“Augustine concludes that sin manifests itself in the disordered nature of human desire, and in sexual desire most particularly…Adam and Eve were not ashamed before the fall, ‘[t]hey experienced no motion of the flesh of which they would be ashamed,’ Augustine tells us. Their shame arises because they are sexually aroused and that arousal (…) embarrasses them. Concupiscence is born…because this movement of which it was ashamed came from the violation of Divine command” (308).

Ward’s mention of Augustine’s theology of Adam and Eve’s shame is the exact point I plan to make regarding our shame in the context of lust. After the fall the dignity of man and woman are violated by concupiscence. Therefore, beauty, most especially the most beautiful, is no longer easily perceived due to concupiscence.

            [TOB]

            Ward explains, “Shame is both a negative consequence of sin and a positive indication of the soul’s continuing nobility” (309). He believes that shame “can act as a drive to improve what Augustine describes as ‘this troubled state’ “ (309). He goes into how shame is a negative effect of Adam and Eve’s sin but the shame affects them as well, which John Paul II refers to the redemption aspect of their shame. They feel the shame of their concupiscence but the affect of the shame makes them realize there is something innately unordered in their desires. As I mentioned earlier, Ward states that they were ashamed because the “movement” came from a “violation of Divine command.” What Ward is saying suggests that concupiscence or lust is a violation of divine command and the shame they experience reveals the impurity of lust. Simply, their emotional reaction to being naked in front of one another is a negative experience they attempt to resolve through veiling themselves.

            Of course I need a further source to back this point up, and maybe Theology of the Body is my answer, but because women is the crown of creation (song of songs) and the fruit of the tree of good and evil give Adam and Eve a type of “knowledge,” it seems that suddenly man can see her beauty in a more fuller sense, but it is too much for him to bear. His knowledge, concupiscence, can lead him to lust after her, or her beauty, veiled, can redeem man back to innocence and led him to love. This point leads into the next point I will make in my thesis – that feminine beauty is so valuable that it can lead men to God. (I cant help think of Plato’s symposium at this point. If only Diotima was a Christian!)

           

Before I over do it – which, since I have already begun to make statements without much build to them or research to strengthen my point – I’ll call it a close. This article has so much more to offer in regards to my thesis and I’ve also begun to dive into TOB a little. How exciting!!! Hopefully I can tackle this topic well and clearly as well as learn a lot about it. Senior year seems to be pretty wonderful. Blessings, folks. 

(source: http://litthe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/3/305.abstract - I can't give you all of the article because I got it off a data library at school and I'm not about to break the law but just to give you an idea of my source, theres an abstract. No, he's not exactly John Paul II but many of his points I have found line up directly with TOB. Cool, huh? More on that later...)

There is nothing that I hold on to

Oh, but there is.

truly free.

Lately the song, "Nothing I Hold On To" has been a re-occuring theme in my prayer life. Its so simple yet very profound. For those of you who either despise or can only take so much praise and worship, its probably one of those songs you imagine a bunch of charismatic folks singing seventy times seven times over. Yeah, like "Let It Rain" it can be over done but I find this song to be so powerful.

"I lean not on my own understand, my life is in the hands of the maker of Heaven"
Now ain't that the truth. There have been very few times in my life when I can honestly say I knew exactly why my life was going the way it was. We really never know exactly the magnificence of God's hand in our lives. We can never truly grasp his infinite Mercy and Love. So often in our lives we get wrapped up in whats going on, the possibilities, our fears, our passions that we forget that our lives are in the hands of the maker of Heaven, of our creator.
Now folks, I am a perfectionist through and through. If I'm not perfect, I'm not good enough. You know what they call that? Pride. But because I have a tendency to be a perfectionist I often find myself overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks in my life. I get overwhelmed in my relationships, in my spiritual life, in my school work, in my work, pretty much everything gets effected by it. I fabricate some master plan, that often contradicts itself or changes every ten seconds, to control my shortcomings. Its funny to God when I do this because I don't actually understand. I don't have a master plan to fix my shortcomings, which at times aren't even faults. When I sing this song I am reminded I have no clue what God's gonna do in my life. All I know is that he made me out of love and loves me infinitely and if I stop trying to perfect what doesn't need perfecting than I can allow him to guide me and form me. I cannot lean on my own understanding, I have to surrender my life to the hands of the maker of Heaven.

"I give it all to you, God, trusting that you'll make something beautiful out of me"
This is one of my favorite lines of this song. I give everything to you God. But do I really? Do I allow him to have every part of me? And do I trust that he's making something beautiful out of me? out of the work or things I do? out of my life? Just thinking now, I can recall a few specific times in prayer where I have just cried out my desires and anxieties to God and I feel him simply tell me, "Do you not trust that I love you and I want to give you the best?" We cannot rely on our own understanding, we have to give it all to God and TRUST that we is making something beautiful out of us. If we do not believe that God is going to grant us our desires than why do we even ask? The desires we have on our hearts are from the Lord and he wants us to ask him. He wants to satisfy our desires and all we have to do is ask and expect - truly trust that he will answer our prayers. We have to give it all to him and trust that we will make something beautiful out of us.
This line speaks to me in a different way as well; in our daily life we can get anxious about the things that fill our day. I can try and be too "perfect" but God does not want us to be anxious, he does not give us anxiety but rather peace and so we must give it all to him and truly trust that he is making something beautiful out of us.

"I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open"
Have you ever been hiking? Up a really steep, steep mountain? I had the privilege of being surrounded by beautiful mountains while I was in Austria and hiked them. One day a couple of my friends and I decided to take the short cut down the mountain and we literally fell down it because it was so incredibly steep. Now I can't imagine hiking up that mountain without using my arms for balance or maybe even holding on to the nature surrounding me. As this song popped into my head the other day I imagined myself literally climbing a mountain with my arms stretched out, open wide. I imagined I couldn't help but stumble a little and lose my balance. I had to rely on my arms to help me balance myself as I climbed the mountain and the further up I went and the harder it became. Sounds an awful lot like what this song is asking. To truly surrender to God we have to let go of the comfortable and yes, we will fall, and yes, it will be frustrating and difficult and harder the higher we climb but we have to trust God to hold on to us and we have to let go of all control. Into his hands we must commend ourselves and climb this mountain with our hands wide open.

"Theres nothing I hold on to" 
Ironically these all tie together... lets go back to the me falling down an entire Austrian mountain scene again. There were times I held onto the trees to help me from falling but there came a point where there was nothing left except a bunch of tall grass which had no traction what so ever. I basically scooted my boot down the rest of the mountain; I literally had nothing to hold on to. This line brings me back to my perfectionism; my ideas and plans and control isn't going be enough for me to hold onto. It will pass me by and all I'll have is weak grass and I will no loner have anything to hold on to. I will need to free fall into the arms of Love, God. But if I was afraid of falling, of losing control, I would have stayed at the tree and clung to it but I wouldn't have ever come home. To stretch the analogy a bit further - it was dinner time when we finished our hike that one day in Austria so I would have grown incredibly hungry clinging to that not-so-tasty tree. If we stay stuck in the control of our lives afraid to allow the Lord to lead us we will get nowhere and we will hunger for Him with a very strong and deep hunger. If we hold onto nothing we completely abandon all that we cling to for "safety" and comfort and are able to totally surrendering to God.

Simple song? Yes. But oh so beautiful.

I hope these simple thoughts and meditations lead you a little deeper to our Lord. Praise Him.


I'm going to say in the context of this post my food for thought will be my first picture - "born to be free"