Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Side Note

I know our dear friend tells us not to hold onto this world. He says that we must remember that things of this world are temporal and do not last. Things here on earth are also unfair.

I very seldom talk about my life… unless it is directly related to my readings… however, tonight I think I will. I hope this does not sound too much like a diary entry.

I have to attempt to remind myself everyday that things will not always work out the way I think they should. I have some brains, talents, and a decent job. However, I have no physical person to come home to or to cook for. However, my sister has a husband, child, she does not have to work and people still break their backs for her. Sad thing is that I am the more attractive one as well. So why does she get everything handed to her and I have to fight for it?

Well that is simple; I fight because I want to do so. It gives me meaning. She does not fight, she is miserable with her life, and she is contemplating leaving her husband.

On the other hand, there is my friend. She is older than I and had the most wonderful family known to man! Now I am not saying that because I was slated to be her daughter-in-law, but she is awesome. She has a wondrous love about her that makes you feel like the world will be ok. However, as of late she has had some problems. She lost her husband of 30 some years 09/04, then his beloved aunt 12/04, then her mother 03/05, and now her niece could pass any day now. I figure this 3-month pattern cannot sustain itself… but I can tell you I do not deem this”fair”. It is times like these that one’s faith in God is threatened and tested. However, you should see her. Overall, she is strong and beautiful. She is one of the greatest role models that I have ever had.
If there are any out there who are reading this, please say a pray for this family. She has two sons one lives across country. The other lives in her home, but he is on a different planet. Well that is enough for personal information… well take care for now.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Sex, Power, Lust, Sex

Sex, Power, Lust, Sex… These are the things we want; ok this may just be my world. However, I know there are more out there than just me. As shameful as it is I have spent most of my life attempting to find out what pleases the opposite sex so I can find a mate. Now I know I am very picky (right now I am going though a catholic phase), but I still have not figured out this relationship thing.

When I was younger, I was told by my future husband (we were engaged) that he wanted me to give myself to him. Being a tender age of 16, I stupidly thought this was a good idea, so I did. When we broke-up he blamed it all on me and the fact that we had had sex on the break-up. Well then came future husband #2. After one time, the second time is much easier. I though that this was what life was about. Fighting… then making up. It is what is on TV, radio, and magazines. This is also all the friends talk about when together.

After being alone for going on 2 years, I have found that this idea is SEVERALLY flawed. One of my catholic buddies and I were talking about relationships. We decided that in order for a relationship to work there could be NO physical contact. This is so true. The moment the hand touches (especially if you are already tainted) it is just a matter of time before you fall again. It also adds an entirely new level of frustration to the relationship. Both parties magically become controlling and jealous, because if X can have sex with me then they can have it with anyone!

Yes, yes, this is a very sad situation. So in order to satisfy this problem there can be no physical contact, no temptations for sex, or at least, very little temptation. I feel really close to Augustine on some of the topics. Many have said that his sexual activities were overplayed… however, I understand what he means. True I am not the angel with the sacred seal still intact; however, I also am not the girl down the street that has so many notches in her lipstick case that it looks like a tooth pick. Well here is something that stuck me about his attitude about sex… I may write about friendship later.

This quote does speak to me, but I would have to replace the past tense verbs with present tense ones…

“But I was wrenched and seething with passion. I had abandoned you, and was drifting wherever the tied of my own desire took me. I had gone beyond all the limits st by your Law, and I did not escape you lash; for who among mortals can? You were always present with me, striking me in your mercy, and smearing the bitterest pains over all my illicit pleasures. This you did to the end that I should seek pleasure without pain; and where I found this, I should find nothing but you, O Lord; you, who fashion pain in your instruction, and smite us, that you may made us whole (Hosea 6.2); who slay us, that we die not apart from you (Deut. 32.39). Where I was in that sixteenth year of my fleshly life, how far was I exiled from the joys of your house (Micah 2.9), when I gladly surrendered myself to the rule of lust – a madness which man, even in his disgrace condition, regards as excessive, and which your laws regard as illegal? My family were not concerned to keep me from plunging headlong by marring me off; they were concerned only that I should learn how to speak as well as possible and to carry an audience with my eloquence.” (2.2.4)

This quote is fromAugustine, (2001) The cofessions. Everymans Publishers plc, London.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Short Break

I saw this link, http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=772, on http://jonathanbennett.typepad.com/afcm/2005/03/divided_we_fall.html. I personally found it interesting. Protestants, you many not want to look.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Saint Augustine at School

Saint Augustine

I have “discovered” this wondrous man. He was born to a saintly mother and a drunken father. His family was not without money, but they were not rich. His parents worked hard to give him the education for him to become a rhetoric master. He was smart and talented; however, he hated his studies for a long time. He wrote in The Confessions that his teachers had to beat him to do his studies. He hated them for it and was not happy that his parents allowed it to happen. He did make it though and by the time he became a bishop he was glad that they pushed him so hard.

I will give more information about his life later, but here is a part of The Confessions where he discusses his learning experience...

"What unhappiness, what humiliation I suffered at their hands, O God my God. It was right and proper, they would tell me, for a boy to pay attention to those who advised him to get ahead in this world, and enjoy pre-eminence in the verbal arts- though these arts are no more than the slaves of human ambition and of the desire for what is falsely called ‘riches’! So I was packed off to school, and set to learning to read and write. I was miserable there, and had no idea what use these skills were; but nevertheless, if I was slow to learn them, I was beaten. This is the system that my elders recommended; and there have been any who living this life before us have built for us those highways of woe by which we were compelled to pass. Truly you have multiplied the toil and grief [Gen. 3.16] of the children of Adam!
But I have found there were man and women who have called out to you; and from them I learnt to perceive you, so far as I could, as some great Being, who, without being visible to our senses, could hear our prayers and help us. For while still a boy I began to call out to you, my Help and my refuge; tongue-tied as I was, I still found a voice and called upon you. And though I was just a little boy, it was with no little emotion that I asked you not to let me be beaten at school. And when you did not hear and answer my prayer (or so I though in my foolish way), older people would laugh at me. Even my parents, who had no wish that anything bad should happen to me, would laugh off the beatings I received, though they were bad enough and heavy enough for me at the time."
(1.9.14)


This quote is from
Augustine, (2001) The cofessions. Everymans Publishers plc, London.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Long time :)

Ok just so you know I am still alive and now my mind is working again. Look forward to posts on Christianity, Paul, and Augustine. As of late, I have been thinking more and more about this Catholic thing and as people talk about theory and religion as well as Christianity they mention Paul and Augustine as well as others. Well this has sent me on a path of discovery. I hope to bring some ideas to light and I want to add a special thanks to Phil at http://umbraecanarum.blogspot.com/ for giving me light in this area as well as my friend Dixon who almost helps me along on a daily basis.