Rites

From the adoration chapel I could hear the music from the Syro Malabar rite mass happening in the church. The language sounded so foreign to my ears; not just foreign words but even the individual sounds and the cadence that made up the words were totally different than our language. I just listened, an unseen and uncomprehending spectator and let thought slip away as it did me no good. Then I picked out one word from the music- Hosanna.

Over and over, Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.

That's what's so mysterious about the mass- we don't have to understand to participate.

Monica Update

For those of you praying for Monica but not keeping tabs on her website (link on the right- Sol and Monica) she just got wonderful news from her latest CT scan! She has a very rare and serious type of cancer that did not respond well to the first round of chemo, when they checked her 3 months after chemo they found growths in her lungs and I think a few other places. BUt they started her on a new chemo for the last few months, and her latest results say the large tumors have shrunk to about 1/2 the size, and the small ones aren't even showing up anymore! So she will continue this chemo for awhile. THANK YOU for your continued prayers for her and her family.

What To Do...

What should I do about that bothersome photo of me on here? I don't look at all like that anymore. I think I keep it there because I feel better when I look at it, but it's also depressing and keeps me from moving on and accepting that that girl with the long hair is gone for awhile. I miss having long hair, I didn't properly appreciate it then. And now I still have a hard time relating to that stranger in the mirror with her ultra modern haircut and pale eyebrows. Who is she? Did she mean to cut her hair that short, or did she just sit up too tall in the barber chair? And although everyone tells me it is growing back fast, it seems so SLOW.

Shouldn't a brush with death have cured me of all this vanity? Apparently not.

A Bit Of A Long Shot

It's great to have friends that believe in you, Isn't it?
Trisha is always on the lookout for people to set me up with, but sometimes she outdoes herself.

"Okay, Faith, who do you like better, Matt Maher or Eduardo Verastegui?" questioned Trish.

"What? How are you going to set me up with them? I mean really, Eduardo's got bodyguards!" I sputtered in reply.

"No, we could do it, we have friends with connections. I know someone who knows Matt's publicist, and someone else who is friends with Eduardo's former roomate. So you just have to decide who you like better, you can have your pick of the three."

"Three? Who's the third?"

"You could also have the roommate."

Fantasy vs. Reality

I had such a beautiful time in the chapel tonight and had such a beautiful response to prayer that I almost didn't want to share it; it could so easily be misinterpreted, mocked.. Will I seem desperate? A fool? Perhaps. Maybe even arrogant? But I decided to risk it and plaster my silly little heart across the world wide web.

I was praying, not for the first time about how much it sometimes hurts that I have not found someone who loves me for who I am, wants me unconditionally, even the faults... About how anxious I am at facing the fears of a future alone, the grief of loving someone that cannot return that love. " What can the future possibly hold for me?

But this time I felt a stirring in my heart that made me so ashamed; I felt HIs sorrow, his hopes . " How I LONG to be loved by you that way! How I THIRST to be loved, it is a burning inside me! To be loved not for my power or resources or for what I can give but for myself... You think your desire hurts you? Your capacity for desire is nothing- what have I not done to earn your heart? What have I not given? Scorn, ridicule, rejection- i have borne it all for love! I desire it so deeply that I would become the FOOD YOU EAT just to be one with you! I AM that love that you seek! Seek me!

First Week Back

Well, the first week back to school was predictably crazy, but all in all it went fine. The student mentioned in previous posts who would kiss my picture while I was gone and ask for me? He's been having a bit of difficulty adjusting to the "new Faith". He still holds my picture and kisses it, but then will stand off to the side scrutinizing first the photograph, then me, then the photograph, then me... I believe he thinks I'm an impostor, and he's the only one who knows it. He pulls my headscarf off about 6 times a day, looks at my head with understated horror, then desperately tries to jam the headscarf back on my head again.

My energy seems to be okay this far. At the end of a day spent in a special education classroom, everyone is always tired, chemo or no. But I have noticed when I'm really tired that I do feel a weakness and unsteadiness in my limbs. But that doesn't hit until the very end of the school day when the kids are on their way out anyway. And my whole outlook feels very different this year, but that's another post in itself.
Love, Faith

A Different Beautiful

I was at a gallery in San Francisco the other day- a photographer had taken a series of photos at an indian reservation in Arizona. Arizona is known for beauty, but yet it's not a place I would've thought to go for a vacation, at least not before I saw these photos. Canyons and caverns and shafts of light in dark places and reflections on water- it was all very mysterious.

It struck me there that my life is something like this- strangely beautiful in a different kind of way. It is not the life I dreamed I would be living ten years ago, but there is something exciting about having a clear palatte to paint upon as well. At times I still feel the need to grieve that the plan for my life is looking so different than the lives of my friends around me, but that can be a thrill as well. Uncharted territory, you know.