Pride

... is tricky. It's one of the devil's favorite play-things. The minute you think you have succeeded in getting rid of it is when you, again, find yourself in danger of having it. C.S. Lewis has some great things to say about pride. In C.S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity, he has a whole chapter dedicated to it, and does he have some great things to say! I will admit, reading that chapter in particular, I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into my chair. Coming from a family where competitiveness is as prevalent a trait as having two feet, one of his quotes hit me pretty significantly:
 “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.”
Wow. Yeah, that is definitely true. When you combine that with Theodore Roosevelt's "Comparison is the thief of joy," there is some great insight to why people, why I, can be so miserable. 
It made me look at some of things that I feel consistently rob me of joy.
1. Times I feel like the only way I hang out with friends is because I invite them to do things.
2. Not getting to the gym as much as I wanted during the week.
3. Wishing I wasn't at Nova and could just be at Mason. 


Now these things don't just made me sad. These things are capable of taking away good, deep-seeded happiness that I had been accumulating all week, or sometimes longer. Why? Why should any of those things be able to do that? It's situations that don't have a simple answer. If you were hungry, and it was because you didn't have time to eat, that sorrow would be much less powerful than if you were hungry because you couldn't afford to feed yourself, and less powerful, still, than if you couldn't afford to feed yourself because you were working a low end job you were ashamed of. Pride so easily for me, and for others, becomes the root of the most terrible, and oftentimes untrue feelings. Shame, bitterness, hate, selfishness, envy- some of the worst ones in the book- very commonly stem from pride. Why does the first situation on my list make me so miserable? Because, if I feel I'm the only one initiating contact with friends, than maybe I am not as fun or as funny or as popular as I thought. Ouch. Why #2? Because maybe I will not measure up to my sister or my friends, or they will not think I should be working at the health center I work at unless I am perfectly fit. Why #3? Because I am embarrassed that I go to a community college and I feel like I have to prove that my intelligence is above the stereotypical community college student's. These may seem silly reasons, but, to me, they are very real. Sin does funky things with your brain. 
As with everything though, love changes the picture and offers a solution. Humility doesn't hurt, either. The minute I let my pride go as it pertained to my sister, Lauren, 3 summers ago, was the minute I lost the bitterness I had accumulated over the first 14 years of her existence. She became my best friend and (although I hear picking favorites is uncool), I love her more than I love anyone in the world. So! Lessons to be learned? 
1. Love my friends. Another cool quote from a book called Captivating, 
"For people to enjoy relationship, they must repent of their need to control and their insistence that people fill them. Fallen Man demands that people "come through" for them. Redeemed Man is being met in the depths of their soul by Christ and is free to offer to others, free to desire, and willing to be disappointed." I mean, how does it get any better or plainer than that? Gah. Love that book.
2. Love myself, in the person that God made me. There is nothing wrong with wanting a healthy, fit body. But wanting one because other people have them and so I should have one and no one will like me unless I have one and blah blah blah more nonsense is where the issue lies. 
3. Ok this one is a little more obvious. The bitterness I have towards my school is terrible and it makes me less able to love those around me on that campus, because I associate them with what I feel, is a personal failure. Humble acceptance of the path God has for us will always lead to joy. It opens us up to a world untainted by annoyance and frustration, and how good does that sound?


Finally, I just want to finish with two more C.S. Lewis quotes, from the same chapter. 
"...for Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." Woah. Kind of scary, yeah. But! 
"[God] wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble- delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. " Delightedly humble sounds pretty sweet. 
So! That's it. Lots of work and a coffee date with a high school friend today. That is all. Good bye. 

Ash Wednesday WOO!

I LOVE. Ash wednesday. I love it. I can't help adoring the idea of getting to really delve into the scary nitty gritty that is my soul and just go to work with Jesus on it! Yes, there are a lot of not so pretty things there. But I get to get rid of it! Or work on getting rid of it, along with the habits that get all of that junk in my heart in the first place! Yes!

Anyway, started out with some exercise this morning, and because today was beautiful, I rode my moped to mass on campus. The readings were fabulous, and the lector was fabulous (for some reason that matters? It probably shouldn't), I got myself a sweet cross, I talked to friends afterward (about journaling, which is my favorite thing to do), this guy at the store asked me if the ashes were from my helmet (to which I responded no very politely and then we talked about lent for a while), and then I went to work and then I came home and made a cool new recipe!
Whew. Good day. OH! and I watched parks and rec and didn't break the fast. Pretty excited.

Also, I had an important realization tonight. If you had an interaction with another person, and, honestly, your intentions were purely out of sincere love for the other person, you should never feel guilty or stupid about that interaction. Any action borne out of love for others is a good thing. Period. I can just be silly sometimes and get easily embarrassed. Also I over-analyze. Eesh. Good thing I have plenty of time to fix my heart before it stops beating.

Oh! If you're curious about my recipe, here it is (basically):

Crispy Potato Rounds with Cool Basil Dip

1 red potatoe, sliced into very thin rounds
1 cup of seasoned bread crumbs
1 tbsp parmesan
1/2 cup of milk
1 egg white
---
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
dash of dill
dash of garlic
2 tsp basil

(rounds)
-Preheat the oven to 350
-Whisk the egg white and the milk together in one bowl
-Combine the parmesan and the bread crumbs in another bowl
-Cover a cookie sheet with foil
-Dip each potato round completely in the milk/egg mixture, and then one flat side in the bread crumb/parm mixture
-Lay bread crumbs up onto the cookie sheet
-Repeat with all rounds
-Sprinkle some of the remaining bread crumb/parm mixture over the rounds
-Bake until the edges of the rounds start to brown
----
 (dip)
-Combine sour cream and worchestire sauce
-Stir in basil, garlic, and dill

So yeah... kind of made it up, kind of heard about something maybe similar-ish? I want to try with zucchini... anyway, have at it! Let me know what you think if you try it!

Peace

Lent 2012!

Lord knows I'm going to need something to keep my mind off facebook these next few weeks... So looks like I'm revisiting the good ol' blog!

For those of you who are participating in this oftentimes grueling, and always exciting time of the year, I've found and been advised a few great methods to fasting/sacrificing that I thought I'd share!

1. Pick something measurable. This means minutes of prayer, numbers of daily masses a week, hours of weekly exercise, numbers of cups of coffee a day, etc. Less room for wiggle, less temptation to wiggle!
2. If the idea of giving something up doesn't hurt a little when you think about it, it's not even worth it. Part of the whole idea behind sacrificing something for Lent is to help us be one with Jesus in his sacrifice for us. Choose something that will make you mindful of this sacrifice, and take it on joyfully! Nothing says this better than Romans 12:12,
"Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer."
3. Sacrifice isn't the only Lenten behavior. Also consider adding something- trying to do a profound act of service for your community every week, or saying a decade of the rosary each day, or even doing a random act of kindness daily is another great way to draw closer to God during Lent.
4. Don't take on the world! Something that works really well for me is sacrificing one or maybe two things, and then taking on one thing aimed towards helping me grow spiritually.

Don't know if those will be particularly helpful for anyone, but who knows! This year I'll be giving up anything with sugar on the ingredient label as well as facebook. I've done facebook pretty consistently for Lent, so I think adding something is a good idea. I am also going to be following "The Word Among Us" throughout Lent, which I am super excited about!

Throughout Lent I also hope to continue my new habit of getting to the chapel at Mason every day for some prayer alone time- the word among us will be probably be incorporated into that time. I've been reading Mere Christianity and I am totally blown away with each page turned. C.S. Lewis is incredible. Hoping to encourage my sister to start a blog so we can keep up with each other more :) Woo! God bless!

-Annie/Annika/Whatever you want to call me... as long as it's nice.