Oh Carry On, All You Minstrel's of the World.

Breathe out.

I don't even know where to start - it's been long enough where I have a lot of updates, but feel they are unimportant compared to the underlying condition of my heart and what I am learning. And even that is a heavy topic.

I'm burnt out. And I think the reason spring break and this last weekend (spent in Winnipeg) weren't enough for me to feel completely refreshed and motivated again is because I've never been burnt out like this. I don't think it's a higher level of burn out, just a form manifested from a longer period of time of exhaustion.

These last few years have been so insane. I don't even want to go over it all - I fear I'll fall into complaining.

I've made a lot of decisions in the last few days to take steps back. I'm not used to doing that and I already feel my worth-meter going down. I mean, I honestly don't do that much with my time, but what I've invested in (school, mostly) takes its toll.

I feel like this is choppy. Apologies. You're probably really confused and I don't blame you. I am, too. But, I guess choppy describes what my life is like right now, so maybe it's fitting.

I need my God back. He's here but I'm ... just existing. And I feel like my heart is five years in the future. But I'm physically here. In 2010. Having to go through the motions of what's required of me for the here and now. But all I want to do is grow up and have kids of my own. It feels weird to say that. This desire has never been so strong. Whenever I see mothers, I'm captivated. I want to be them. I've already thought so much about how I would mother, what kind of mom I want to be.

At the same time, this terrifies me because you can't go back. And I plan to make my kids a BIG investment.

But they (whoever "they" are) are my passion right now. I want to calm down. LoL.

I'm all over the place. But I think blogging will help clear some things up. There's so much floating around in my head, maybe putting it out into the world will help things make sense.

What a whirlwind.

A Break for Now

Oh hai.

I've found myself at a place where I need to refocus. God is a blur. I am a blur. And I just can't see straight.

So I'm taking the steps I feel necessary to clear my head up a bit. I'm trying to shed off everything that's hindering me right now.

And unfortunately, I think blogging is one of those things.

I just need life to be more simple. So I'm gonna take a break.

Oh I'll miss you. I'll be back probably after lent is over.

I leave you with a prayer I really like. I pray it every morning and night. It's an orthodox prayer. And it speaks my heart. At some points, you just don't know what to say to God. So things like this are nice.

O Lord, I know not what to ask of thee. Thou alone knowest what are my true needs. Thou lovest me more than I myself know how to love. Help me to see my real needs which are concealed from me. I dare not ask either a cross or consolation. I can only wait on thee. My heart is open to thee. Visit and help me, for thy great mercy's sake. Strike me and heal me, cast me down and raise me up. I worship in silence thy holy will and thine inscrutable ways. I offer myself as a sacrifice to thee. You have said, O Lord, "A man's mind plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps" (Prov. 16.9). Do not forsake me, O Lord, for I have put all my trust in thee. I have no other desire than to fulfill thy will. Teach me how to pray. Pray thou thyself in me. Amen.

Surely God would not have created

such a being as man to exist only for a day!

No, no, man was made for immortality.

{Abraham Lincoln}

Story

I'm having the issues any college kid has. What on earth am I doing with my life and am I cut out for it? I know what I love. But I'm not crazy about research. Or grad school. So with the advice of a wise priest, I'm allowing my passions to be refined. Oh, my passions have a core to them, but they're always changing as I change.

I don't want to become this fantastic researcher who writes scholarly articles and has 1,345 years of schooling and training under my belt. I don't want that. And I'm learning that that's okay.

New refinement? I want to become an African safari guide.

This thought came to me in class after weeks and weeks of thinking thoughts of, OOF what am I going to do with myself?!? And immediately what came to me was peace. I want this. And I want the path that will take me there. Phew.

So I started researching. Well what do you need to do to get there? How do I get myself this ambition that I want?

It's not easy.

Intense knowledge (involving research and reading on your own time - they don't really teach you) of African animals, their behavior, and ecosystems.

The utmost first aid training.

Pass the safari guide certification exam.

Hopefully get hired in Africa, despite the fact that they most commonly hire natives. [Which makes sense - can I ethically take a job from a native?? Maybe I'll just let them decide.]

Among other things - I won't rattle off the whole list.

But after sighing a big ol' discouraged sigh, I had to stop and think to myself. Do I want it to be easy? What was I expecting? This is a crazy awesome ambition. It takes work. It takes sweat. It might take my blood. So I've been trying ever since to believe in myself. I want this to be more than a pipe dream.

It brought me back to the most inspiring talk I've ever heard. I've probably mentioned it before, but I'll refresh in case you haven't. It's titled "Story" by Donald Miller. He talks about making good stories of our lives. Living good stories through wanting the right things and having hard ambitions that you pursue with all that you are. When you come across something that stands in your way, kick it down, master it, and keep moving on toward your goal. Want much, and go get 'em.

If you're ambitious (which would definitely prove worth it), you can download it here.

One of my favorite parts is the benediction Don offers at the end from Robert McKee, a screenwriter and speaker on writing great stories. It is as follows.

Write everyday.

Line by line.

Page by page.

Hour by hour.

Do this despite fear, for above all else, beyond imagination and skill,

what the world asks of you is courage.

Courage to risk rejection, ridicule, and failure.

As you follow the quest of stories told with meaning and beauty,

Study thoughtfully,

But write boldly.

Then like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.

Environmental Injustice

It seems that justice issues seem to follow you everywhere you go.

I'm in a biological conservation class. And it's pretty depressing. Oh, the dire straights that is our world today and that is the future we see ahead of us. My professor, Dr. Treves, tells us to hold onto the success stories of conservation instead of letting ourselves fall depressed to the things we're studying.

Let me tell ya, it's difficult.

In our Tuesday lecture, it got harder.

Actually, I almost started crying right there in White 4281 lecture hall. I had to choke back a scream and thank the Lord for the dim lights hiding my red face.

I'm embarrassed for us. It seem our injustice knows no bounds.

It's even environmental.

Ok. I'll explain. Sorry to make you wait.

I'm sure you've heard of the greenhouse effect. I'll let you read up on it (or not, your choice) - but the jist of it is that greenhouse gases (CO₂, methane, etc) keep in heat. Solar radiation comes to the earth and is converted to infrared radiation. Greenhouse gases let through solar radiation, but not infrared. So ↑ greenhouse gases ↑ infrared radiation remaining in our atmosphere ↑ heat. You get me?

This leads to climate change. Intense climate change like we're experiencing = not good. This doesn't just mean things are getting warmer, necessarily. Things are just ... changing. Some places are warmer, some are colder, some are dryer, some are wetter ... it's complex.

When it comes to injustice, it spans to the environmental, too.

A professor at in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies here at UW-Madison, Jonathan Patz, did a study on who's emitting the most greenhouse gases and who's suffering the consequences.

Get this. The places that are emitting the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (let's be honest - it's the US) aren't reaping the consequences. Actually, it's an inverse relationship. People in the nations using the fewest carbon compounds are experiencing the most climate-change-related deaths.

These images ruined my life.

This is a map showing who emits how much CO₂ greenhouse gas. The redder the color, the more CO₂ we give off. This isn't something you'd put on your fridge.

And this one is estimated climate-change-related deaths in the same year. Again, the redder the color, the more deaths. Yup. The opposite.

Unfortunately, I must admit that I don't really know what a climate-change-related death looks like. I don't know what that means. This is where my post falls short. But I am sooooo interested in this topic and it freaking breaks my heart. I'm gonna have to pay a visit to good ol' Dr. Patz to pick his brain. So I'll get back to you on this incredibly incomplete post.

Awkward Questions About Jesus

I found a hilarious video of kids asking a priest questions about Jesus.

You gotta see it!

James "Rhio" O'Connor

I recently came across the James O'Connor Scholarship. All applicants are to post their essay somewhere online, so I'm choosing to post it here! Enjoy - it's definitely a hefty, but interesting topic.

The story of James “Rhio” O’Connor is an inspiring one, to say in the least. When diagnosed with Mesothelioma, a cancer that infects the protective lining of many of the body’s internal organs, he did not degrade physically and emotionally as expected. Instead, James practiced his battle cry and put it to use by changing his diet, implementing mind-body medicine, and committing himself to the research of his own disease. He prolonged his death by understanding his enemy and devoting himself to fighting it with every breath. The strength we saw in James was remarkable, and it beckons us to ask ourselves what we would do if faced with the same life or death challenges. It’s hard to determine my own actions after hearing a dire prognosis, and I can only offer what I hope I would do. The following is an outline of the steps I would hope to have the strength to take.

First, I would take a trip. This is what Jame’s doctor suggested he do first, but I’d take a different approach than what was intended by the doctor. In his case, it was for spending time with his wife before entering hospice care. For me, the goal would be to clear my head and start fresh on the battle I would be facing. At home, I know I would be overwhelmed not only with the responses to my diagnosis of my family and friends, but also the temptation to keep going with life’s responsibilities. Taking a trip would take me out of that context to focus whole-heartedly on what kind of battle I would want to face and to be reenergized and empowered to face cancer head-on.

In these times, and after finishing this perspective-clearing essay even, relationships would be the most important to me. I would spend ridiculous amounts of time with my friends and family, not to prepare for death but to enrich my life. I know that alone I would fall prey to discouragement and depression. The support system I have in the people I love would be essential to my strength. Simply spending time with them would build my morale and prove to strengthen our relationships, which is a worthy ambition. I don’t think anyone on their death bed had wished they would’ve spent more time at work or going to school. When it comes down to it, people care about family. I hope a brush with death like this (but not a submission to it) would set my heart on the people I love.

This is based on what I’m learning lately - that no matter how bad or hard life can get, if you have good people in your life whom you care for deeply and who deeply care for you, life is rich. I feel that if my life weren’t turning out as I had hoped, but I had deep relationships with family and friends, I would still be content. Essentially, people are what matter. So upon a chronic diagnosis, I would fill my life more and more with people.

I think what I would do treatment-wise is research doctors. I’m a zoology major, so I know a thing or two about how the body works, but I know I would have little interest in committing most of myself to research. I give all due respect to James and his pursuits, and I wish I had research ambitions like he did. Knowing my own personality, I am aware of my own potential to obsess over something. If I were to begin research beyond a healthy level, I would simply go overboard. I would instead find a gusty, risk-taking, innovative doctor. I would want to stay alive as long as possible, just as James did, and I feel that requires a doctor who’s willing to take the risks that others aren’t.

I’m a Grey’s Anatomy fan, and this last point reminds me of a case Dr. Derek Shepherd had in one of the recent episodes. He had a patient who came in with a tumor surrounding his spinal cord, an equation that automatically equals inoperable. But this patient had been researching Dr. Shepherd for quite some time and decided that Dr. Shepherd’s heart and his talent in surgery would give the best chances for success in operating. This patient asked Dr. Shepherd to operate on an inoperable tumor. After much thought, Dr. Shepherd agreed to be as brave as his patient. It turned out well in the end - the patient lived spinal tumor-free. I understand that this is a hollywood-influenced dramatization of a very unlikely result. But I would not want to put figures and percentages on the risks I’m taking and instead decide what kind of life I would still want to lead - a life with as little cancer in my body as possible, a life as normal as possible, a life of mobility and ability.

This essay’s a difficult one to write. We pity those who have cancer, who have to face death all too frequently. But at the same time, we remove ourselves from their picture. We’re happy that the same thing isn’t happening to us and we refuse to begin thinking about the what-ifs. When forced with the task of contemplating what you would do, it becomes more real, more of a possibility. God forbid, if I am ever faced with a situation like James O’Connor, my hope is that I would hold true to the brave ideals of rejecting your prognosis and deciding that you want something better. My hope is that I would find perspective and that the people in my life would rightfully become my primary passion and my empowerment. My hope is that I would fight harder and harder every successive day, and that I would be brave enough to take the risks I feel necessary.

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