7 Quick Takes Friday, Volume 9

Click here to read the original post at ConversionDiary.com

**Thanks to Joel and Lisa Ann Schmidt at The Practicing Catholic for the plug! They listed me as one of 7 Catholic blogs to read in the new year! I'm truly humbled.**

*1*

I forgot today was Friday... I'm on vacation this week (Alleluia! Praise God for waking up at 10:00 everyday!). It's a little bittersweet for the following reason:

*2*

I've never liked the winter. Being cold is miserable and I'm no fan of dry skin. I dislike it even more after winter canceled my flight to Lisbon. You can read about what happened here, but basically: the American economy gets my money this New Year's Eve. Sorry, Portugal. I know you're hurting.

More apologies to my good friends who I will not get to see. I hope you have a wonderful time!

*3*

Traveling has its risks of danger, misfortune, and, most commonly, stress. There were some peeved people pacing at the gate as we heard the flight cancellation news. As airports are my 3rd favorite place in the world because they are a people watching feast, I perked my ears and heard some stories. 

Suzie was in Richmond for Christmas, visiting her boyfriend's family. She had been waiting for days to get back to her precious NYC and away from what had become a black hole on the map. Mr. Business Man was used to the cancellation pattern and was relieved that he could join his family for the day instead of flying north. Several other people just had panic in their eyes.

*4*

1. I love traveling, especially the screw ups because it allows me to gather characters for my imagination bank as I people-watch. 

2. God bestowed upon me plenty of grace as my own panic should have set in. Before I left the airport, it was pretty clear that it didn't make sense to take the delayed flight. This meant missing out on a reunion I have been awaiting for more than a year.

*5*

A few weeks ago the nation was blowing up over the new TSA flight security measures and I stayed out of the debate. I'm still unsure which side to join, but I do know this:

It was embarrassing to step into that Plexiglas cylinder. I made efforts to convince myself that the people who were reviewing my image had been sitting in the same room all day, just looking at x-ray after x-ray. How much do I really matter?

Nevertheless, that person in the room saw a black and white version of me, naked. I don't like it.

*6*

If I had gone on the whole trip, I would have tried to abide by this new rule. 

*7*

Have you heard of Dan Eldon? You should get to know him!

Dan Eldon

My first college art professor introduced me to the story of Dan Eldon. I cried on the spot.

The only thing I wanted for Christmas 2008 was his book, The Journey is the Destination. (I do not own the rights to this)

His love for people around him was simple and childlike, but he also took on the burden and pain for those he knew he couldn't help. Dan grew up in Nairobi where he lived a life far from ordinary and he documented it in visual diaries.

The professor told us to start keeping visual diaries, an assignment that changed my life. Recording my life with words AND art made such a huge change in my perspective that I suggest that everyone keep a visual diary.

My professor encouraged us to buy a big sketchbook, to use it to plan out our work, to brainstorm, and to create within its pages. 

A recent project I completed in my own visual diary.

He said we could glue a map onto a page in the middle of the book, start writing down a thought on another page, glue a picture from a trip to Ireland to another page, and overlay a small painting on another page with a random paragraph written on wax paper. The idea was to create a feeling and a congruent concept throughout the sketchbook, using as many layers as we felt necessary.

This took forEVER...

When I went to the art supply store, I was already in love with the idea. I bought the biggest sketchbook that would fit in my backpack and I'm only halfway through it, three years later, because it's such a big investment of time and emotion.

I combine magazine clips with written word and my own painting.

I've used magazine clips, my paintbrush, stream of consciousness writing, sketches for bigger pieces, and other random contributions to document my last three years. Much like my diary entries, I cringe when I turn some of the pages, but I love the book as a whole.

I let my eye do the deciding and eventually, something is created.

African Dan

The whole project began because of Dan and the love of his mother and sister. Dan grew up as a compassionate person who empathized with the Africans who saw war, hunger, and corrupt government everyday of their lives.

Dan became the youngest photojournalist for Reuters at the age of twenty-two and documented the war-torn continent. His compassion and his job also brought him to his death, as he was stoned to death in Somalia in July 1993 by a mob reacting to the United Nations bombing raid on the suspected headquarters of General Mohammed Farah Aidid.

A view into Dan's book. (I do not own the rights to this)

Dan's mom and sister, Kathy and Amy, raise money and awareness for African causes through art promotion through their organization, Creative Visions. After Dan's death, Kathy and Amy pulled together Dan's seventeen visual diaries and created two bound compilation books, one of which I have.

Neither the organization's website nor Dan's book mention any specific Christian mission, but they do a lot of good for people in need.

Another page from Dan's book. (I do not own the rights to this)

The foundation is a "creative activist website" that provides "toolkits" to help anyone become a "change-maker" in one's own community. They hold conferences, seminars another ways of connecting artists, journalists, and creative activists for the betterment of the world.

One more page...(I do not own the rights to this)

Yes, some of their rhetoric smells of socialism, but helping people through this private, non-profit is a great venture.

A few years ago, I got so involved in politics and the drive behind it that I forgot about the best mission: living to help other people. I haven't finished deciding how I'm going to use my talents to accomplish this mission, but having Dan as an art role model is very telling of how much we can do on Earth after we've gone.

(My parents purchased Dan Eldon's book, The Journey is the Destination, and I took pictures of open pages, though I do not have the rights to any of them)

Lisbon: bummer city

Well, thanks a lot, snow.

I could use this next week to display my fiction-writing skills. You'd be dazzled by stories about getting lost in the airport, about the first moment I see my good friends, about the millionaire I sat beside on the bus to Our Lady of Fatima. Yes, yes, this is the enormous rock he gave me for my left finger...

However, that would be lying and defeating the purpose of this blog.

My flights got pushed back because of the snow and after some time weighing my options, it made more sense to get a refund and miss out on my trip. The thirteen international friends I was going to meet in Lisbon are going to have a wonderful time and I'll pray for their safety!

Last night, before the flights got pushed into the snow bank, my sisters, cousin, mom, and I talked about heading to Europe this summer. I have a new goal set, but man am I bummed about this one.

Fuselage habits

I have flown a lot in the last two years, so the quirks of traveling have become habit. I am not as mechanical as Clooney in Up in the Air, but I'm good at separating my liquids and slipping off my shoes.

A friend told me that he usually asks out a woman on his international flights, which I think is brave. I usually strike up a conversation, but airplanes always seem like temporary time machines to me. I get on the plane, sit for x hours and then get off, knowing I might bump into that lady in the restroom or that guy in the line for coffee. We'll probably never see each other again.

It reminds me of how many people on Earth I will never know.

The first time I flew to California from Virginia, I remember an irking feeling that someone had driven the fuselage (thanks, LOST, for bringing that into the vernacular) into a flight simulator, projecting cloud images into our windows, and pulled back out again. It was weird to think I was standing on ground that was connected to Virginia... just 3000 miles away.

This distance also highlights how many people who live between the coasts are people I will never meet. The idea that I might know someone for longer than the flight is so foreign to me that when my friend told me he asks out someone on his flights, it was as if he said, "Did you hear they found a new continent?"

My goal for this trip is to transcend that "otherness" feeling. I mentioned that I'm working on seeing men as bretheren. Similarly, I'm going to view fellow tourists as people and not objects peppering my view as I travel.

See also:
*Lisbon: bummer city

Lisbon, here I come!

My dad suggested we call it Elizbon while I'm there...

I fly off to this former world power port tonight and I return in a week! I'm going to attempt to let you know what's going on from there via the blog, but I don't want to assume I'll be able to find a computer or Internet easily.

Pray for me! I'm hoping to see the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima and I'll tell you all about it!

May God bless your week!

"Psst, Mary is preggers..."

In anticipation of Christmas, the priest at my church delivered a homily about the pregnant Mother Mary a few weeks ago. He set up a scenario about this young teen, returning from the place where Gabriel announced to her that she would bear the Son of God:

She's in awe. She might not understand how it could be possible, but she recognizes the weight of the blessing in God's choice. This teen also knows that she is just a girl and she doesn't know how to explain it to her parents. There she was, walking along a path she had walked a hundred times before back to her home, but this time she was facing the risk of judgment, charges of adultery, and death.

How would we react if we met the real Mary with the real Jesus in her womb? What kind of judgment would we pass on her in the name of Christianity. "If she was a good person, she wouldn't be pregnant right now."

Obviously, I believe in and love the teachings of JP2's Theology of the Body. I don't think "Oh, it's fine" if someone chooses to have sex before marriage, but it doesn't help anything to treat them badly. Gossiping, trash talking, and passing judgment on pregnant women are not Christian acts, even if one is doing them as acts of standing by values of abstinence.

This is where I struggle with the shows 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. I don't watch it often, but when I saw it I constantly try to shake my first reaction of: what was going on in their heads?

The more pressing question is: what is going on in the heads of teens who watch the show? I don't have an answer to this question because sometimes the young moms tout an "I wish I'd waited" message and others tout an "I'm old enough to handle this" message.

These girls have to learn a lot of lessons really fast, while surrounded by judgmental looks. A lot of the teen dads on the show leave the picture and start sleeping with other girls. Zero consequences, few lessons learned. Each teen in the show is responsible for the pregnancies, but only the girls carry around the reminder for their schoolmates to see.

What is the difference between women who are 5 months pregnant and not-pregnant men or women who had sex 5 months ago? Evidence. We can see the reason we should be "allowed" to judge.

Mary's parents were disappointed. The most logical reason she would be pregnant was that she had sex with a man. Before the angel came to Joseph in a dream, the only explanation he could entertain was that Mary had sex with another man. The other Nazarenes would jump to that conclusion, as well.

We can never know everything about another person. The simplest strategy should be to love everyone. This kind of love is an action, not a passive emotion.

Don't throw the first stone. Imagine everyone for whom you're aiming is either Mary or Jesus, two innocents who faced judgment and accusations.

Emil Daddy

Thanks for your patience. I've noticed some people coming directly to the site, but realize I haven't updated in almost a week. It's been a fast, fast week...

My only grandfather passed away on Wednesday, early morning and we laid him to rest today. About two weeks ago, we checked him into the ER for pneumonia symptoms and found out he had lung cancer that had metastasized to his liver on the side that was paralyzed from his stroke a year ago.

My theory is that the paralyzed side hid a lot of the pain that he would have felt in what turned out to be late stages of cancer. PLUS he was a stubborn man who felt no pain, emotional or physical. You might think Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer are tough, but that's because you never met Emil Daddy.

We called him Emil Daddy because he was a strapping, young 54-year-old when his eldest grandchild (ME!) was born -- he didn't want to feel old and he liked doing things his own way, so it was "Emil Daddy."

If you're as impeccably observant as my grandfather was, you've already noticed that his name is the backwards version of a tart, green citrus fruit. He came to EVERY Grandparents' Day at each of his five grandchildren's schools, bringing with him a bag of limes as a visual teaching tool.

"You'll always remember how to spell it because it's lime, L-I-M-E, spelled backwards," he said to a crowd of open mouthed elementary school kids sitting Indian style on the rug.

He was always a big hit and my sister says she has a friend who asked her last year, "You're the one with the grandfather with the limes, right?"

My Emil Daddy lost his young wife when my mom and her sister were 2 and 3-years-old. I was talking to a friend and cousin the day he died and she exclaimed about how she didn't know any man who is ready to get married at the age he was on his wedding day, let alone who is able to raise two girls. Those girls grew into extremely successful women with college degrees, a nursing degree for one and an engineering masters degree for the other, and kicking families, if I do say so myself.

Throughout all of Emil Daddy's own book of Job, he remained steadfast in the Lord. It was really something to admire. His faith was consistent and strong, even when it would have been easier to get mad and give up.

In his daily life, Emil Daddy was extremely organized. I cannot begin to explain just what I mean by "extremely" because you have never met someone so efficient and particular. He saved every used peanut butter jar to store something, he separated black pens, blue pens, and red pens, he rewrote the user manuals for his computer in notebooks, cross-referencing them in other notebooks (using color coordination), so he would absolutely know where to go when he had a question.

I'm on the left. Chubby little hand, huh?

I could write for hours about the little quirks and memories I have of this stoic yet sacrificing and giving man. In fact, I'm working on a novel that will explain the love story between Emil Daddy and his wife, Thelma. Sneak preview: we have a few pages of 12-year-old Emil handwriting explaining how he was in love with a girl in his class, Thelma, and how he wanted to marry her. It only took ten years, I guess.

Thank you, Lord, for bringing me into the world under the care of my grandfather, Emil. I will continue to learn from the imprint he left on my life.

Thank you for your prayers and your time in reading this. God bless you all and Merry Christmas!

I know what I like

There is a distinct difference between "good art" and art. Conveniently, the literary and art world has set up an elite system to figure out the difference. On many occasions I buy into this system because I really think "good art" sustains itself over generations.

However, if you can enjoy the same books and movies dozens of times without getting sick of them, you've stumbled upon your own definition of good art. That's nothing to be ashamed of! Below is my no holds barred list of books I have read at least 5 times and movies of which I will never get tired. If I wanted to impress you, I'd share classic literature titles and indie movies..... It's good to know what you like, isn't it?

Books:

*Ella Enchanted - Haven't heard of it? That's because it's written for 5th grade girls. I haven't read it in several years, but I was at least 16 the last time I read this. Good, romantic, fantasy stories never get old.

*Pride and Prejudice - Yes, I'm a girl. Sue me.

From the Screwtape Letters play I saw in NYC!

*Persuasion - This is my favorite Austen novel because it shows how long love lasts when you don't abandon it.

*The Screwtape Letters - A new lesson learned each time I read it. If you haven't read this, what's wrong with you? Go to get it!

*The Bible -- I've heard this several times... but I have never read it from cover to cover in one fell swoop.

*Any Little House on the Prairie book - These are stories about the richest people on Earth. Often it seems like it would be easier to live like good people if we had as little and if life was as hard as it was for this family. It's all relative, so we should make just as much effort and be just as loving as the Ingalls.

*The Lord of the Flies - We all turn on Simon every once in a while, just as we turn on the Holy Trinity. It's helpful to remind ourselves about darkness, too.

P.S. - I just found this site called Catholic Fiction: jackpot!

Movies: 

*"Indian Summer" - Chances are you haven't heard of this, but it's a great movie (with shaky morality) about our childhood expectations for adulthood. When we reach adulthood, those expectations can haunt us or motivate us. Oh! And it takes place in Canada. Win-win.

*"Sound of Music" - Doe, a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden suuuuuuuuuuun!

*"Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" - AKA, 7b47b. What's not to love about a group of rugged, singing, dancing brothers in Oregon Territory, 19th century?

*"Meet Me in St. Louis" - I already mentioned this once.

*"Calendar Girls" - Anglophile here, so this movie gives me the right dose of British accents and English countryside. It's also an interesting story about a bunch of moms who take their clothes off to buy a couch, so it's a crowd pleaser.

*"What Dreams May Come" - Beautiful images in a beautiful story. Who cares if it's accurate or not? It makes me bawl every time I watch it.