Face.book is like a train wreck I can't tear my eyes away from. I wonder why I don't ditch it- other than my incapacitating fear that I'll have no idea what is going on in the world.
With all the sensational news in the last couple of weeks (Komen and Planned Parenthood, the HHS mandate, etc.), there's been an excessive amount of political posturing on Facebook. I know people say things on the internet they'd never say to your face. I also know my response to things people say on the internet is totally immoderate. I think it's the way that the internet, and specifically Facebook, distances you from the actual person. I know good and well which of my friends support Planned Parenthood, or think that Catholic institutions ought to provide health insurance that covers contraceptives and sterilizations. But in the real world, these people are my friends. They're real people whose company I enjoy, who I have fun with. But on Facebook, when someone posts something that you disagree with or offends you, they become the enemy, at least on an emotional level.
Then there's the people whose opinions on these topics I might come closer to agreeing with, but their inability to communicate in a way that reflects intelligence and careful consideration drives me insane. Note: Misspellings and excessive use of exclamation points do not convince the world of the truth of your point.
Oh Facebook. I love you, I hate you.
Showing posts with label Catholic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic. Show all posts
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Errand & The Epiphany
So much of my life is spent working my way through the interminable to-do list. Groceries, cleaning, making appointments, filing papers, etc. etc. etc. I long for the day when I scratch the last item off my to-do list and sit down to enjoy a book and a hot bath with nothing- absolutely nothing- hanging over my head, nagging me to complete it. I know though, that this day is not coming. The second I finished cleaning my house, the dogs would leave more hair on the floor for me to vacuum, or as soon as I filed every last piece of paper and returned every phone call, some household item would die or get broken and I'd be off to the store to replace it.
Work, both the paid kind and the keep-my-personal-life-in-order-so-I-can-function kind, isn't simply a tax on the 24 hours in the day, to be paid as quickly as possible so I can get down to my "real life." It is my real life. The hours I'm at school teaching 7 year-olds to subtract, or at the grocery store, or preparing dinner for my husband, or bathing the dogs- this is my real life. The week we spent in St. Lucia for our honeymoon, laying on the beach? Amazing, wonderful, beautiful. Not my real life.
But what I'm realizing more and more everyday, it is in this work that beauty and truth and love are revealing themselves to me. This journey called life, this Earthly pilgrimage, is a street I'm walking down and on this street there are errands to be completed, but there are also epiphanies to behold. Epiphany- the manifestation of God. The magic of this life is the intermingling of the errand and the epiphany. I'm silently counting to 10 before answering a second grader who is asking where the pencil sharpener is (even though it's been in the same place since August), and being struck by God's patience with my own refusal to listen and learn. I'm scooping the cat's litter box, trying not to gag, and learning what it means to love my husband (and his 18 year-old cat).
The Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of the infant Christ to the gentile Magi, called to me particularly this year, and I'm still meditating on it. The Magi found God in a manger, a feed trough. Where am I finding Him?
"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany." ~Rebecca Solnit
Work, both the paid kind and the keep-my-personal-life-in-order-so-I-can-function kind, isn't simply a tax on the 24 hours in the day, to be paid as quickly as possible so I can get down to my "real life." It is my real life. The hours I'm at school teaching 7 year-olds to subtract, or at the grocery store, or preparing dinner for my husband, or bathing the dogs- this is my real life. The week we spent in St. Lucia for our honeymoon, laying on the beach? Amazing, wonderful, beautiful. Not my real life.
But what I'm realizing more and more everyday, it is in this work that beauty and truth and love are revealing themselves to me. This journey called life, this Earthly pilgrimage, is a street I'm walking down and on this street there are errands to be completed, but there are also epiphanies to behold. Epiphany- the manifestation of God. The magic of this life is the intermingling of the errand and the epiphany. I'm silently counting to 10 before answering a second grader who is asking where the pencil sharpener is (even though it's been in the same place since August), and being struck by God's patience with my own refusal to listen and learn. I'm scooping the cat's litter box, trying not to gag, and learning what it means to love my husband (and his 18 year-old cat).
The Feast of the Epiphany, the manifestation of the infant Christ to the gentile Magi, called to me particularly this year, and I'm still meditating on it. The Magi found God in a manger, a feed trough. Where am I finding Him?
"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany." ~Rebecca Solnit
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