I'm gonna go with "hilarious."
**[See original here.]
February 19, 2010
"Suffering is Optional"
I meant to post about Ginger's visit earlier, then I had a post-in-process about Valentine's Day, but I've had a string of bad days recently which got in the way. I think I've reached another plateau with the meds I'm on for the chronic pain, which means upping the dose again. (Something I'm not happy about doing, but I'll be seeing my doctor in the next few weeks. I'll harangue him about it, and he, in turn, will be very Jewish about it. "So, you want pain, then? You don't trust my judgment? Okay, then." It's kind of fun.)
So my thoughts have been focused on other things! The timing was pretty good, you can imagine, with Lent starting right around the time the pain hit. And this is why I love Lent, really -- there are suddenly enormous graces available to do the things we normally do anyway, plus a little bit more on the side. You know, to resist that cup of coffee you've given up. I had a terrible headache on Tuesday, I think it was -- the kind that won't go away no matter how many Advils you pop. So I offered it up for a friend whom I know is going through a hard time right now. I sent her an e-mail to tell her so, and she immediately replied, "I know! I could tell someone was praying -- I suddenly had such a refreshing day yesterday..."
That's a grace. Both for me and for her, but especially for me. To get a confirmation like that is tremendously consoling. Suddenly I feel like some superhero in the prayer department: "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, and I shall zap them with amazing zaps of grace."
The fact that I'm feeling upbeat right now is a grace in itself. These days when the meds are no longer working are hard to take, since the pain lasts all day for several days in a row. But I am feeling upbeat. I feel like God's hand is very much directing things -- I'm simply along for the ride.
Meanwhile, I very accidentally found this beautiful blog post about the painter Renoir, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for the last few decades of his life. He experienced greater and greater amounts of pain, and simply found ways to adapt so he could keep painting. (This is one intention I have right now -- to figure out how to adapt things so I can keep working on my doctorate.) This is an excerpt from the end of the post:
So my thoughts have been focused on other things! The timing was pretty good, you can imagine, with Lent starting right around the time the pain hit. And this is why I love Lent, really -- there are suddenly enormous graces available to do the things we normally do anyway, plus a little bit more on the side. You know, to resist that cup of coffee you've given up. I had a terrible headache on Tuesday, I think it was -- the kind that won't go away no matter how many Advils you pop. So I offered it up for a friend whom I know is going through a hard time right now. I sent her an e-mail to tell her so, and she immediately replied, "I know! I could tell someone was praying -- I suddenly had such a refreshing day yesterday..."
That's a grace. Both for me and for her, but especially for me. To get a confirmation like that is tremendously consoling. Suddenly I feel like some superhero in the prayer department: "Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, and I shall zap them with amazing zaps of grace."
The fact that I'm feeling upbeat right now is a grace in itself. These days when the meds are no longer working are hard to take, since the pain lasts all day for several days in a row. But I am feeling upbeat. I feel like God's hand is very much directing things -- I'm simply along for the ride.
Meanwhile, I very accidentally found this beautiful blog post about the painter Renoir, who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for the last few decades of his life. He experienced greater and greater amounts of pain, and simply found ways to adapt so he could keep painting. (This is one intention I have right now -- to figure out how to adapt things so I can keep working on my doctorate.) This is an excerpt from the end of the post:
All of Renoir’s work is so full of joy, but to know just how much pain was endured in the pursuit of that joy makes it all the more jubilant to me. Some great distance runner once said, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” Renoir felt the pain, but chose not to suffer but to live, and to create.So. That's my goal. I'll be praying for that ability to find ways to live jubilantly, and since I have pain to offer up right now, this will be answered awesomely. If you have intentions of your own that need to be answered awesomely as well, now's the time! Let me know. List them in the comments box, or just mention "a personal intention." Then await the zapping.
January 30, 2010
A visit!
I'm trying to get my work done early this morning. I'm planning out dinner menus for the week, doing the grocery shopping, and anxiously watching the snowfall. My good friend is coming to visit today!
Ginger is flying in from Vienna (if our snow doesn't delay her flight) to stay for a week. She's organizing two very chic formal dinners on behalf of the ITI -- one in DC and one in NY -- which means I have to share her with a tremendous amount of work distractions. I will try to remind myself of this when I'm happily planning Girls' Nights Out and Evenings In. These will probably go by the wayside. I will sigh and be okay with this, (though I make no promises about not trying to tempt her away from her responsibilities with bottles of red wine and old black and white movies.)
I will take what I can get. With her being overseas for six years and on the other side of the continent for many more, whatever time I have with her is a blessing.
Now -- I'm off to get the ingredients to make a huge pot of pasta e fagiole! This girl will not go hungry...
Ginger is flying in from Vienna (if our snow doesn't delay her flight) to stay for a week. She's organizing two very chic formal dinners on behalf of the ITI -- one in DC and one in NY -- which means I have to share her with a tremendous amount of work distractions. I will try to remind myself of this when I'm happily planning Girls' Nights Out and Evenings In. These will probably go by the wayside. I will sigh and be okay with this, (though I make no promises about not trying to tempt her away from her responsibilities with bottles of red wine and old black and white movies.)
I will take what I can get. With her being overseas for six years and on the other side of the continent for many more, whatever time I have with her is a blessing.
Now -- I'm off to get the ingredients to make a huge pot of pasta e fagiole! This girl will not go hungry...
January 15, 2010
Haiti
As always with natural disaster coverage, the news just gets worse and worse as more time goes by and we start to get more accurate information -- and as people who were initially spared die of their injuries.
But this is the first time I've heard anyone quote the half-million number in casualty estimates. I eventually stopped listening about half-way through the clip as it seemed that every thing the Archbishop said was worse than the sentence before: all the children at school. All the seminarians. And countless other people, going about their busy afternoons.
I'm occasionally glad I don't have a very good imagination. For some reason, this particular paragraph from a report by Food for the Poor reduced me to tears:
But this is the first time I've heard anyone quote the half-million number in casualty estimates. I eventually stopped listening about half-way through the clip as it seemed that every thing the Archbishop said was worse than the sentence before: all the children at school. All the seminarians. And countless other people, going about their busy afternoons.
I'm occasionally glad I don't have a very good imagination. For some reason, this particular paragraph from a report by Food for the Poor reduced me to tears:
Panic-stricken residents filled the streets desperately trying to dig people from rubble or seeking missing relatives as dark fell shortly after the quake. “People were screaming ‘Jesus, Jesus’ and running in all directions,” Delva said.Thanks to Mags and Inside Catholic for the links on updates and relief avenues. I've donated to Food for the Poor. We also have to pray for the success of the relief efforts -- it's evidently a logistical nightmare with the infrastructure destroyed and the government MIA.
January 3, 2010
Resolutions
For anyone thinking about including "self-improvement" in their New Year's resolutions (and, really -- who isn't?) I came across this website today. The explanations for each suggestion can get a bit corny, but I think each point is very good.
Personally, I plan to write each one down and contemplate it thoroughly, before forgetting it entirely. But I like the feeling of boundless potential for bettering myself.
Happy New Year to all!
Personally, I plan to write each one down and contemplate it thoroughly, before forgetting it entirely. But I like the feeling of boundless potential for bettering myself.
Happy New Year to all!
Christmas and such
Christmas is over, (I suppose officially, since today is the Feast of Epiphany) so it's time for a wrap-up. I had a loud, chaotic, happy, blur of a holiday with my family in North Carolina. It started fairly slowly, with just Margaret and I at the house and others visiting occasionally, but the intensity ramped up quickly. At the end of the week, there were generally five children (under the age of 5) and nine adults to be found at any given time. It was easy to find them, too -- follow the sound of squealing, jabbering, occasionally distressed children and you'd be sure to find at least a chunk of the adult population. The other part would be hiding.
The downside to so much activity in the home is that days pass in a kind of busy haze so that it's hard to grab onto too many distinct moments in retrospect. But I think that we Cabanisses like our happy haze, and no one seems to be complaining of not having done more. There were two separate Christmas dinners to accommodate different arrival days, two gift-openings (and ensuing pandemonium), many days-worth of Christmas desserts and goodies, and a full week's-worth of lolling about. There was probably about a month's-worth of chasing after children, but coming back to my own house with no other responsibilities than attending to my own whims feels oddly lonely and empty. And incredibly indulgent. In the end, I think I'll be able to come to terms with my freedom and selfishness and enjoy that second cup of coffee as I stretch out on the couch with a good book, but it's still a substitute for that better, noisier, demanding, frustrating, hilarious thing called family. I miss everyone without fail as soon as Margaret and I pull out of the driveway for the return trip.
As for Christmas being over, it seems to me that this is a pure matter of opinion and taste. I expect to see trees thrown out on the curb come Monday morning, but my roommates and I will be keeping our twinkle lights and decorations up until February. When I think that Christmas, with its cheerful, month-long period of anticipation, comes not four days after the official start of winter, leaving three long months of cold, icy darkness to slog through, I wonder who's responsible for this set-up. I'd like to ask him what he was thinking. We need all the cheer and coziness we can possibly scrape together. For the past two days, the DC-metro area has been pounded with 40 mile-an-hour gusts of icy wind, and the thermometer (without accounting for wind chill) has hovered around 20 degrees. I'm occasionally woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the ill-fitted storm pane banging against my bedroom window, and every crack in our drafty house suddenly feels twice as wide. Pedestrians in the city are insulated up to their eyes against the cold -- a fact which seems like sufficient reason not to go out at all. If you can't breathe normally without fear of your nose-hairs freezing, it's time to rethink your plans for the day. Accordingly, I have spent nearly all day today curled up under a blanket by the light of my bright, sparkly Christmas decorations, drinking hot liquids and listening to music. Whatever helped to make the pre-Christmas season seem delightful, I think, should continue in full force for as long as necessary, which should be sometime mid-March.
Now if I could only figure out how to keep the anticipation of a long visit with my family, there would be no reason at all for thinking Christmas has come and gone.
The downside to so much activity in the home is that days pass in a kind of busy haze so that it's hard to grab onto too many distinct moments in retrospect. But I think that we Cabanisses like our happy haze, and no one seems to be complaining of not having done more. There were two separate Christmas dinners to accommodate different arrival days, two gift-openings (and ensuing pandemonium), many days-worth of Christmas desserts and goodies, and a full week's-worth of lolling about. There was probably about a month's-worth of chasing after children, but coming back to my own house with no other responsibilities than attending to my own whims feels oddly lonely and empty. And incredibly indulgent. In the end, I think I'll be able to come to terms with my freedom and selfishness and enjoy that second cup of coffee as I stretch out on the couch with a good book, but it's still a substitute for that better, noisier, demanding, frustrating, hilarious thing called family. I miss everyone without fail as soon as Margaret and I pull out of the driveway for the return trip.
As for Christmas being over, it seems to me that this is a pure matter of opinion and taste. I expect to see trees thrown out on the curb come Monday morning, but my roommates and I will be keeping our twinkle lights and decorations up until February. When I think that Christmas, with its cheerful, month-long period of anticipation, comes not four days after the official start of winter, leaving three long months of cold, icy darkness to slog through, I wonder who's responsible for this set-up. I'd like to ask him what he was thinking. We need all the cheer and coziness we can possibly scrape together. For the past two days, the DC-metro area has been pounded with 40 mile-an-hour gusts of icy wind, and the thermometer (without accounting for wind chill) has hovered around 20 degrees. I'm occasionally woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the ill-fitted storm pane banging against my bedroom window, and every crack in our drafty house suddenly feels twice as wide. Pedestrians in the city are insulated up to their eyes against the cold -- a fact which seems like sufficient reason not to go out at all. If you can't breathe normally without fear of your nose-hairs freezing, it's time to rethink your plans for the day. Accordingly, I have spent nearly all day today curled up under a blanket by the light of my bright, sparkly Christmas decorations, drinking hot liquids and listening to music. Whatever helped to make the pre-Christmas season seem delightful, I think, should continue in full force for as long as necessary, which should be sometime mid-March.
Now if I could only figure out how to keep the anticipation of a long visit with my family, there would be no reason at all for thinking Christmas has come and gone.
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