Adjusting my sails...

I received this random mention in a tweet today

Those of you who know me know that I have been trying to shift gears for a while.

I love music, I love teaching private voice lessons, but the more I do it, the more I find myself wanting to do something else. I recently began a twitter to try to promote my blog outside of my circle, it's been a few weeks and I only have 14 followers. But going from 0 followers to 14 complete strangers seems like a little victory to me. 

About a month ago I ran across a community called Blessed is She. These Catholic women have an online presence via email devotionals, blogs, tweets, inspirational photographs, ect, that has also branched out to brunches hosted by willing members of this community. When I read the daily devotionals, which are written by the members, and their bios at the end of the email, I get excited. I want to write them. I did notice they have a blog and invite everyone to contribute and since then every time I am on my computer, that is what I want to do.

So what's the problem?

I am spending my time going from studio to studio and teaching. I don't have the time necessary to write a brilliant blog. I'm having a difficult enough time trying to "perfect" a talk on "pain, healing, and hope" that I have to give for a retreat. But I want to do this. I want to wake up, make some coffee, open up my computer and retweet gems of wisdom, post scripture verses and saints quotes, and write about the things that move me. Then in the afternoon, I want to open my door to teach voice lessons to students who travel to my house because they love it. And select nights a week, I want to continue being active in my ministries at church and in the local young adult Catholic community. I want to go to school and only worry about the piles of Augustine, Aquanias, Lewis, and Merton that I may have to read. So for the past year, I've been trying to figure out how I could work less so that I could have time to do more ministry and still be able to pay bills. It is quite the conundrum. Social media & blogging may be the answer. But I have no clue where to start to make that profitable. Followers/readers is probably where I should begin, So if you are reading this, pick your favorite post of mine and send it out to some people, follow me on twitter @madmosmusings, suggest my blog to others. If I could get up to 100 views per post then maybe I can start advertising and eventually make enough money to pay my rent. That is my goal for now.

So I'm gonna try to start typing a little more and you can start sharing a little more. The whole while I will think about this quote from St. Francis of Assisi, 

it's only fitting, he left behind money for ministry as well:

"Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; 

and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

I am not political...but...

I'm not a political person. I used to vote but I never really knew the issues and candidates and I just didn't understand. I refused to be one of those people who just voted for whatever party they associated with so I registered independent. And eventually I just stopped voting.

I also have many political friends and a good majority of them do not share my conservative beliefs. So being overly meek, I didn't want to engage in discussion. I didn't want arguments and I didn't want to talk about things in which I was not well versed. 

I grew up fairly poor so my parents were democrats. (I realize there is a problem with this statement, bare with me till I make my point) I never understood why it seemed like Catholics had to be Republicans because they were pro-life. My thought was: "No one leader is going to be able to change abortion laws so why use my vote for that one issue?"

As I've grown, as a person and in knowledge, I find that I can see both sides on the two main parties and again, I feel I cannot choose to be associated with one or the other. I identify with both on different issues.

Back to my poor statement, I've received government support, and so have my parents, in the form of food stamps, the free food boxes (commodities?), unemployment, and most recently, I live off of SSI. My illness can be debilitating, making it impossible to do mundane tasks. At times, sitting is even not an option. I've had a job since my freshman year of college and I have tried to work since becoming ill. So it hurts when I hear my conservative friends complain about such forms of government assistance because without it, I would have nothing. When the SSI enters my account, I immediately pay my rent and my student loan payment come out soon after. Then, I am again without money. I do try to work, I teach voice lessons and make $200-500 a month. With that I pay the rest of my bills, charities, and buy food. I know one day God will allow me to work full time without having to worry about my illness, but for now, this is my major source of income. This makes it hard for me to support candidates who have not gone through these kind of troubles. 

I am not political, but I did notice the name Marco Rubio several months back so I looked him up briefly and just stored the info in my head. Last night while having a particularly bad attack from my Fibromyalgia and couldn't sleep, I watched a video of him from CNN. Now if you are Catholic, I know you have seen it. EVERYONE is talking about it. 

I can not convey my feelings more eloquently than this, he moved me. 

Never before has a political speaker made me feel. Clearly, he is pro-life. Clearly he is Catholic. These are the points that caught my attention, however I decided to learn a bit more about it. (a tiny bit) He says his father was a bartender and his mother was a maid. My father was a blue collar worker and while my mother's job looked good on paper, all of the money went to my Catholic education. I had no college savings and had to take out personal loans to attend school. Without them, I would not have started college. He claims to have accrued 100,000 in student loans and that he was still paying them when he entered office. I can relate to that. I also can understand that much of this could have been embellished. 

I mentioned earlier how I could not understand how Catholics could just vote for the pro-life candidate. It baffles me because we are also called to attend to our brothers and sisters in need. Social justice IS focused on life. And somehow, it seems that social justice is laking in many pro-life republican candidates. But my support of life has grown and there is a fire in me to do all I can in my power to end abortion. Because God doesn't want it and through our prayers of faith, He will make it end. So maybe, just maybe, I should support this young Hispanic Catholic, whom I can relate to, who stays fast in his pro-life stance. 

I don't claim to know all of Rubio's stances. I don't claim to know what I'm talking about at all. All I am saying is that he moved me, and that has never happened before. 

Thy Love and Thy Grace are Enough for Me

I've always been drawn to Loyola in one way or another. Growing up, my favorite saints were St. Anthony, St. Therese, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Dymphna (I often felt like I was loosing my sanity). You would never have heard me mention St. Ignatius. However, I was drawn to Loyola University, and Jesuits..ok ok, maybe I was drawn to Jesuit High School because I thought it was filled with attractive, rich, smart boys. As I said, in one way or another. Sadly didn't get to go to Loyola and I didn't get to date a smart Jesuit boy.
I've always been a super reserved Catholic. Maybe it's because I was raised so traditionally. I hated the WOW worship cds that came out in high school, and when I was in middle school I loved going to adoration. When I went with my dad, he would always give me prayers to say and books to read to spend an hour with Jesus. I just liked going to sit in there. I'm sure my understanding of the blessed sacrament has changed since my pre-teen years, but I knew Jesus was there in that sun-like monstrance. And yes, I knew what a monstrance was because I was in Catholic school. I knew my prayers and I liked saying prayers, I specifically liked novenas and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, but I also always wanted to just talk to God frankly.

The more I've grown, the more that I know God does want us to open our hearts to speak and ears to listen to him just as much as he likes us to recite devotions. So when I go to communion, I like to say the Anima Christi and then just sit there. There are so many distractions, I don't need to block out the crying children or the girl wearing an inappropriate length dress by reciting prayers that will block out God if he's trying to tell me something.

I've heard of the examen for years. I've heard that St. Ignatius was very internal with his praying. It struck a chord with me but I never looked into his life or practices further. However, this year, situation after situation has pulled me into St. Iggy's orbit, so to speak. In a retreat meditation I was leading, I decided to start with an examen. This examen lead me to find all of these Ignatian spirituality resources online just waiting for me. Parallel to this time, I was also made aware of a young adults retreat called Charis that was new to this area. I was invited to be on the first team for this retreat and I have been so ultra focused on St. Ignatius ever since. I guess my prayer life has always been influenced by Matthew 6:6
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
And I'm a bit of a headcase at times, err, I just think, a lot, about everything. It seems like St. Iggy could be a bit of a kook as well. And if he was a little too introverted and overly analytical and still became a saint, I think maybe I'm in good company and just maybe I can live a holy life. As Matthew Kelly says, I just need to start with holy moments.

So I'm trying. And as I try, I continue to accidentally happen upon St. Ignatius in my life. My friends introduced me to this hymn/song "Take Lord, Receive" and I just thought the words were so beautiful. Months later, I found out that this was a prayer of St. Ignatius called the Sucipe. The prayer is as follows:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

When I discovered this, I thought it was so cool that he popped up yet again. I also noticed that the catechumen course I'm taking online mentions examens and methods of St. Ignatius quite frequently. Then just last Friday was his feast day, I wanted to go to mass but couldn't fit it in because of work and proceeded to have a horrible evening. Somehow, everything worked out and then I was blessed with two extremely talented teenage boys as new students. After that refocused my mind, I had a great evening hanging out with a friend.

Just this past Sunday, I was sharing a photo of my dream church for my wedding (yes, I think about the churches even though I know in reality it will not work out that way), and I realized that the "nickname" I grew up calling this, my favorite church, was "Jesuits." It's official title is Immaculate Conception, but it was run by Jesuit priests so the old native folk (new orleanians) called it Jesuits.
I thought and thought, am I making crazy connections? I couldn't find so many commonalities with other saints/religious orders in mu life. Maybe St. Anthony being in my top 5, visiting Lisboa and seeing his church and then  landing in St. Antonio...not to mention the numerous answered prayers...
Still it isn't as intense as this pull I have to all things Ignatian.

I started this 10 week meditation titled The Desires of the Heart and it is basically an introduction of the Ignatian prayer process. Our young adult group is even going to start it at meetings next month.
I love having found this devotion/appreciation/connection to St. Ignatius. I love St. Anthony, St. Francis, and St. Therese, and I always will. They impacted me at different stage of my spiritual development. And now, as I was growing stale, the Holy Spirit lit a fire in my heart and lead me to this wonderful saint. I see many years of my life devoted to spreading the awareness of self and our intimate desires through his examen and prayers. I know, had I listened to my desires early on, I might have never continued on music. But all things in God's time.
And now thanks to the examen, I'm listening.

Click here for more on the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Are you a young adult in search of your path? Find a Charis retreat near you!
And for the wonderful website that gave me so many tools go to www.godinallthings.com