There are some deep thoughts here...just wait while I rummage

Sad, isn't it? Posting twice in one day? Ah well. I'll start with the most inane and hopefully work my way to better. Voila! Apparently je suis:


Merry is in your nature! You are a strong person,
and rarely show weakness. You can brave tight
situations, and come out undaunted with ease.
Skewered into your personality is a flair of
mischief, which often brings you into trouble!
Despite popular belief - you are a very big
person - and have quite a skilled hand when it
comes to negotiating.


Which Fellowship Hobbit is in Your Nature?
brought to you by Quizilla

"I don't know what it is, but in this frame I simply look GOOD!"

Right, I've discovered that, if nothing else, I can do jpeg shots from the camera, even if capturing video is still *sigh* out of the question. But this is great! This means that I can grab all these Salome pics, which I thought completely inaccessable! Huzzah! (A moment while I go put Loreena McKennit's Elemental on repeat.) So, new pics up soon on the net. Good stuff.

And >drumroll please< I actually buckled down and made some sense of my living quarters. Honestly, I will do almost anything to avoid keeping my space in some sort of order. Everything else in order - yes. But my own area? There's a sense to it, but rather spread out. I'm a bag queen - don't know what to do with it at the moment, stick it in a bag with similar items. I simply need to convert bags to labelled boxes, I think. More aesthetically and organizationally pleasing. When we have the funds, precious. But the room is much more roomy, which is marvy and....

I have room to dance! More to the point, I have heel to dance. Well, no, the heel isn't completely...ahem...healed yet, but it was feeling rather better today, and well "Sway With Me" as sung by Michael Buble was on and the lights were throwing interesting shadows on the wall and I had all this unused space now.... I think I may just take a dance class this upcoming year after all.

Actually, I was thinking about that on the way back from the RenFest: taking a dance class, that is. Chicago was playing, "All that Jazz" and I was - as usual - choreographing in my head, but decided to insert myself into the scenario as Velma Kelly. I should very much like to play that role. Unfortunately, I'd have to make sure the director would take a correct view of Chicago before accepting said role - or direct and act myself, which would be a pain. But it's got great songs, it has a very good moral if you make sure you play the last few minutes hollowly - perhaps with people turning their back and leaving those "Babes of Jazz" alone as they desperately call out, "Thank you! Thank you!" >shiver< Good stuff. But were I to take such a part - or were I to perform such a number in this area - I'm afraid that those who know me as Miss Religion Teacher would either be shocked or think that I'm a complete hypocrite.

There is a fundamental confusion among those who aren't religious themselves to believe that those who are religious are prudes. It's rather as though they think God never laughs, or at least doesn't want those who believe in Him to do much of anything. So many of my students have asked me with every sincerity if I want to become a nun. It's a fine line to trod to hold back my emphatic "NO!" (I simply am not called to that vocation) while still attempting to explain to them that just because I am not called to that vocation does not make the religious vocation at all lesser or something to be avoided.

AUGH! The world views things in black and white! You either have fun or you're religious. You either have a life or you're religious. You either have sex or you're religious. Stupid stupid stupid. St. Francis had fun! St. Theresa of Avila would break out the castanets and have her sisters dance in the great hall when they looked down and out. She also said, "God and chocolate is better than just God." (Tee hee hee!) St. Thomas More knew that he'd better be married because he'd make a horrible celebate. St. Monica was married, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton had lots of kids, and St. Theresa of the Little Flower's parents are up for canonization. (In fact, the Pope is on a search for married candidates for canonization. Canonization, BTW, doesn't mean that the Church puts so and so in Heaven and makes them a saint, but rather the Church saying, "Yup, this person is definitely in Heaven." Read more about that here.) Heck, the Pope himself was an actor and a playwrite before ever becoming a priest!

So, would it be hypocritical to take a part such as Velma Kelly in such a play as Chicago provided the director had a correct vision? No, not at all. In fact, it would be a duty to God to play that role - were I, please God! - ever cast so. I should be required to play up to the hilt this depraved woman, this desperate murderer, this unrepentant - in order to show the hollowness, the grasping, the "you don't want to end up like me, boys and girls" aspect of her. And yet, to keep her utterly human, not merely a stick figure - someone sympathetic, which is what makes the horror of her hollowness more, because the audience can see how she became a shell of a woman, how someone with so much potential is still in a prison of her own devising. No hypocricy.

Still, it's frustrating that there is this worldly twisted black-and-white vision of folks who happen to really really believe in - no, not believe, but know - God. Nor is this view of the religious personality perpetrated only by those without concrete faith. Those who likewise strive after God, my very fellow Christians, will also look cross-eyed at such an act, will - indeed - cry outrage without even giving it a moment's consideration. They're doing so now to Mel Gibson with his Passion! Gah. There's so much fear driving everything - and fear paralyzes so that nothing ever gets done. St. Theresa! Help us! Let nothing worry thee, let nothing fright thee - all things are passing. God alone remains.

Which brings me to this evening. I was simply uptight - les units parentals were so I was, y'know - that and I was nervous about tonight's Savoyard's board meeting. (See what I mean about fear? Ugh! Spare us!) So I headed off, way too early, but I wanted time in case I got turned around in Sudbury looking for the house. I found the house about 20 min. too early, so I decided to stop into the Catholic Church (St. Anselm's) around the corner. The doors were, alas, not open at 7:10 p.m., but I parked beside it and got in some good prayer time, the like of which I've not for way too long. I should have liked to have been before the tabernacle better, but this will have to do. And did well. I came out very peaceful, and sang as many "I Surrender" type songs as I could remember the lyrics to. (It's little wonder that those who have a faith of some sort statistically live longer and happier lives! Scientific fact. Scout's honor.) And of course the meeting went just fine, and I returned home in a good mood and set about cleaning out my space. So yes, I think I needed to stop and maybe pay my creator, my lover and my God just a wee bit of my time on loan. Hmmm? Oy - I can be SOOOOO thick sometimes.

Hopefully will be getting up with Mom and Jules for mass tomorrow. I am so grateful I'm Catholic and have access to daily mass! Thank God for the sacraments - visible signs of invisible grace! I went to confession last Saturday - I've been going behind the screen for a year or two now, the better to focus on the fact that it's Jesus I'm confessing to - and it was rather amusing that Fr. Larry, after the sacrament, addressed me sweetly. No hiding! He knows my voice. John 10:4, eh? No, but it was really nice, and after confession I didn't feel like I quite deserved the nice thing he said to me, but that's true humility, eh? Not just beating yourself up (all the time, that is), but standing TRULY as who you are before God. Far more frightening to see all things - good and bad - laid out before you.

I've been writing a lot about God lately. I guess in some regards, however, it's just an indication of what's important, caught up, indispensable, at one with your life. I write a lot about theatre and Julie and novels and the state of my computer and my room too, and no one would think these are too awfully weird. They might think I'm a little obsessive, but if they were honest they'd then look to their own journals or conversations and see what topics continually crop up - sports, music, etc. So then, why not God? It's getting so that I have a difficult time keeping Him OUT of my conversation. I do my best to tone down, but I do miss being with my HH sisters and buddies at FUS, just being able to flip from one topic to another with the lovely thread of God weaving it all together, invisible places and visible in others, with no apology for His presence in our lives at all - any more than we might apologize for the need to use breath to speak or words. Ah well.

I'm off to greedily garner more pictures and then probably by Monday I hope to send off my bid to HDW. >crosses fingers whilst looking imploringly upward< All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

Mood: The Peace that Surpasses All Understanding
Music: "Lullaby" from Elemental by Loreena McKennit - sigh! 3/4 music forever!
What Made My Day: Randomly discovering that Brave Hearts: New Scots Music had at some point been returned to me!