Watch out world.

I started exercising.

God help us all.

Thanks to my friend Laura, who has the blog Mommy's Running Shoes, for giving me some great inspiration.

Undertaking the unknowable.

I am a complete failure as a blogger. 17 posts in a year and a half? I know people who crank out that much content in a week without breaking a sweat.

I decided to undertake blogging with a desire to cultivate a sense of openness and to force myself to spend time writing, which in years past I have neglected most dreadfully. However, I have become acutely aware of the degree of circumspection I have developed in terms of what I share. Years and events have conspired to close me off; to see me guarded, wary, quietly observing from the sidelines without exposing myself too much to the emotional toil that being involved would entail. I can be quick with an opinion, perhaps offer up a kernel of some deep-set hurt, but then I retreat comfortably behind the wall of my observation deck.

I have known this about myself for no short time, but I had no desire to change. I was comfortable in my little bubble, venturing out only when it pleased me and then retreating to let the rest of life pass by. I thought I was unscathed, but I was wrong.

The one thing I have always feared is the raw sting of emotion. The highs were equally as daunting as the lows, and just as likely to inspire trepidation. To feel is to accept feeling; it is to undertake the unknowable. To allow your heart the sensation of pain, of joy, is vulnerability of the most profound sort. Remembering those times when I let those sensations in, let them take root, made me fearful. Once bitten, twice shy, so it's said...I took this to heart. I spent years carefully crafting this self-protection, this observer persona, aiming never to expose myself to that kind of uncertainty again. I didn't get overly excited about good things, and I never despaired the bad things. I never, never cried. I always thought I was being prudent; that I was doing the best for myself.

Love came along, and it changed everything.

I have had several relationships in my time, all failures of one sort or another. I wish I could say that I had learnt some great truths from each of them, but I can't. Some were good, others miserable, but in the end the only real commonality was that I walked away from them no better than I had entered. Nothing to edify, nothing to build up, nothing to teach me; except, perhaps, teaching me what to avoid. A continuous cycle of saying, well, dammit, here we go again. Imagine my surprise, then, when I managed to stumble headlong into something that was totally unexpected, caught me completely off guard, and showed me everything I was missing.

I knew that I loved him when he told me I should cry more.

No one, and I mean literally no one, in my life had ever told me my emotions were of value; I had always seen them as liabilities, as weaknesses to be exploited. He told me otherwise, told me that my joy, my sadness, my fear were all commodities that were worth something, worth being experienced. Moment by moment, little by little, he began to chip away at the wall, to deflate the bubble. After years and years of a self-perpetuated numbness, I began to feel again.

It hurt.

Stretching a muscle not oft-used or warming a bone-chilled limb is not a pleasant experience, but it must be done. In those moments of reawakening there is a profound discomfort; burning, stinging pain that seems never to cease. This is followed by a dull ache as life begins to spring back in, old remembrances of how to be appropriately used flooding back. Eventually all this fades and what remains is a vibrant sense of being, of being alive. The affairs of the heart are no different in that sense, and I found myself, day by day, feeling. And not simply feeling in an emotional sense; I found my entire self reawakening. I became more aware of my body in space, more perceptive of my environment. I was seeing the world with eyes that had long been closed in sleep.

Then, one day, it happened. I cried.

I told him about it afterward, laughingly blaming him for this sordid state of affairs. Deep within me, though, I realized that something real had changed, something good. I had felt pain, felt sadness, and I had no reason to be ashamed because of it. My sadness was productive. Those tears marked a watershed moment for me. I refuse to go back. I don't want to go back.

Last night as we talked he said something to me, so exquisitely beautiful and poignant, that it brought me to tears. Hot, burning, salty tears gathered up behind little sobs, tracked trails across my face. Yet for each drop, each hitch of the chest, I felt only one thing.

Pure, unadulterated joy.

Love has broken me, praise God, and every day it builds me again. And silly me, I am crying again just writing this. Never have tears tasted so good.

And then there were none.

Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation. ~Eric Hoffer

Today was a series of cascading stories of profound disappointment.

First, the revelations regarding Fr. John Corapi and the laundry list of his alleged misdeeds. For the entirety of the scandal involving Fr. Corapi, I thought he was handling the situation poorly; thought he was concentrating on the wrong things; thought he was coming across too much used car salesman and not enough pastor. One thing I never thought, though, was that he was in any way guilty of the numerous, salacious charges laid at his feet. To hear his society enumerate, clearly and with purposeful language, evidence of his guilt was disheartening. However, it's not the things of which he is accused which troubles me most about this matter. People are weak; sex and drugs and money are effective motivators for anyone, and Fr. Corapi is not immune. I could forgive him any of these things without so much as a blink of the eye. What devastated me, however, is the fact that he willingly and knowingly used his position and his supporters by not only lying without compunction, but then evidently moving to profit off the entire sordid mess.

Following shortly on the tails of the Corapi news was the announcement of the verdict in the Casey Anthony case. Now, I must immediately state that I have watched exactly zero of that trial. Nada. Zilcho. The circus atmosphere and tabloid-writ-large ambiance and the flip-top head caterwauling of Nancy Grace and her ilk made me avoid the entire business like the plague. Bad enough to have the sad story of a beautiful child whose life was cut short in some tragic fashion; then to hear the disgusting details piled on did not make for evening viewing I was in a hurry to see. However, like most people, I did form an opinion based on what information was in the media and that I was unable to avoid. Like most people, I am fairly certain that Casey Anthony is guilty of the death of her daughter. Beyond that fact, only God knows. Hearing the not guilty verdict rendered literally made me feel sick to my stomach. A certain miscarriage of justice. A murderer goes free.

Reflection, however, has gotten the better of me.

Both cases share the same disappointment; the same, overriding sense of human depravity; the same disgust.

The reason I included the quote from Eric Hoffer is that, ultimately, he's mostly right. My disappointment comes from my own projections, my own expectation of people. What I should feel instead is sorrow and relief.

Fr. Corapi will not be able to avoid the consequences of his actions. His supporters will leave him, his revenue stream will dry up, and eventually he will be left broken, hopefully repentant and changed.

Casey Anthony will be a free woman, but only in the sense of geography. If she truly is guilty, the guilt of such a burden will haunt her every second. However, I have to remember that in this case, the evidence could not conclusively prove to a jury that they must convict her and, as such, it is better for our system of justice to err and release a murderer, than to wrongfully imprison even one innocent soul. I have to believe that the system worked as it was supposed to. Ultimately, justice will be done either way. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

Where disappointment might be an over-expenditure of expectation, I refuse to believe that there can ever be an over-expenditure of hope. The old rhyme about the Ten Little Indians comes to mind:

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.
Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;
One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law,
One got in Chancery and then there were four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.
Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;
On got frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself and then there were none.

In the end, while each of us stands alone, we make the choice to hope, or to give up hope. We either grip it firmly with both hands, or we despair, and hang ourselves with the loose ends.

Fr. Corapi, Casey Anthony...these are in the hands of God. Disappointment is a wasted moment when there is so much else in life to love.

Help a young lady make her way to the convent. :)

A member on one of my forums is trying to raise money to enter religious life by selling rosaries. She has a website www.rosarieschaplets.com and a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Inspired-Treasures/224995157517550. Currently she is holding a giveaway for a rosary. To enter for a chance to win, visit the FB page and like. This will give you an entry. Also, visit her web page to browse some of her lovely wares and consider purchasing one for yourself or as a gift, in order to speed this young lady's progress toward religious life.

Thanks everyone!

ETA: apologies for the link function not working. Please copy and paste the web addresses to visit. :)

Osama is dead, and I don't feel so good myself.

After a decade of wondering, watching and waiting, Osama bin Laden has finally been found, and was killed near the capital of Pakistan. I feel conflicting emotions in regard to this event.

First of all, I am glad that this notorious racist, xenophobe and murderer has been rendered incapable of ever harming another person. I do not think that the application of the death penalty is wrong in this regard, and the Catechism bears this out. Was it possible to have captured him and brought him to trial? Yes. But I don't feel that death was morally unwarranted in this case. Bin Laden publicly proclaimed his responsibility in the deaths of thousands of people; his guilt was unquestioned. His death, surely, prevented the death of others. In this I see no moral ambiguity.

The thing that bothers me is watching my fellow countrymen take to the streets, cheering and celebrating the death of another human being. It's a scene we've seen in some Middle Eastern countries before and found to be repugnant to our sensibilities, and yet here we repeat it with gusto, simply because the dead person in question is a "bad guy."

Others will discuss this issue with more depth, with greater theological stringency and with an eye to the Christian's view of the world. I won't reach so far; I merely lament the descent of our culture into a desensitized, Playstation world where a human death is cause of jubilation. I sincerely hope that I never lose that aspect of my humanity that feels sadness that any person has to die.

Just for today, I am basking in love, and it is good.

Few things are genuinely as beautiful, and full of wonder, as love. On those rare occasions when you have the privilege of experiencing it you get a fuller appreciation of our lives, and our world, and how God intended it. Pure, without distillation, brimming with promise and softness and real, true joy.

Today I love. And I am better for it.

When you realize what it's all for.

We all have that moment occasionally.

You know the one I mean. That one.

A sharp, stabbing realization that you see the big picture, even if only a glimpse and only for the briefest of moments. A break in the fog bank over our eyes appears and we see, with what can be stunning clarity, a vast expanse of knowing. Knowing ourselves, knowing the ones we love, knowing the world for what it is and what we are and, sometimes, knowing what it all means. It is a thrilling, scary, nauseating, exhilarating little stutter of the heart.

There are often precipitating events which bring us 'round about to these little seizures of focus; sometimes a hurt, sometimes a joy, oftentimes nothing more than a question that you get the unexpected answer to.

Our lives are a singularly directed, focused stream of chaos which is distilled down into an essential kernel of something true. Amidst all the running and the pondering and the posturing there is a purpose, a drive to have, to be, love. I mentioned to a friend recently that humans are delightfully complicated creatures who are all, ultimately, motivated by the same simple thing; the need to love and to be loved. Human life at its core is nothing more than a physical expression of what love truly is.

What is this, then? What is this that drove Almighty God to form us from dirt, to breathe into us the very Breath of life itself, and then to set us free to wreak havoc and pain and destruction on everything we see?

When you are willing to give your entire heart, your entire being, over into the hands of another, to see them happy, to sacrifice whatever you have to give in order to bring them a single second of joy. When God Himself was willing to yield Himself in the body of His Son to cruel death, to spill His own blood to bring us the single hope for the fulfillment of our selves, of our souls. This impulse is when you know that you've seen it.

When you realize what it's all for. To give the love our Father gave us. To break down the walls around your heart, yield your throat to the blade, and just love.

To see this love in yourself is a frightening thing, and a beautiful thing. Nothing in life really seems so important once you have been staring your own evolution of spirit directly in the eye.