Pride-slappin' Time

It's newsletter night for Cita, which means that every person whom is the reason why I can be a missionary will receive some lovin' from me.

Every time I complete a newsletter for the quarter, I am filled with a big sense of gratitude and tend to come to an embarrassing realization that Jesus really wants to take care of the mission that I'm on.  It's not my effort of fundraising my salary, and it's not my efforts with any of the students that I work with.  It's my heart, soul, mind, and body that's being used, yes; but, I have absolutely nothing to do with this all.  I am not my own, and it's a terrifying thing to realize for a proud soul like mine.

Okay, it's time to sign a bunch of newsletter and cry tears of gratitude for all of my mission partners.

~Esa Cita

Sappy

Tonight, for fun, I was browsing the internet for fantastic words written by an awesome person.  I decided to follow G.K. Chesterton for a little bit.  I came upon his marriage proposal to his wife, Frances.  I don't know why I did that because from now on there are no proposals that can compare with this man's talent with words.

Here are the final three paragraphs; they almost had me in tears.  What a romantic.

“But the second time he went there he was plumped down on a sofa beside a being of whom he had a vague impression that brown hair grew at intervals all down her like a caterpillar. Once in the course of conversation she looked straight at him and he said to himself as plainly as if he had read it in a book: ‘If I had anything to do with this girl I should go on my knees to her: if I spoke with her she would never deceive me: if I depended on her she would never deny me: if I loved her she would never play with me: if I trusted her she would never go back on me: if I remembered her she would never forget me. I may never see her again. Goodbye.’ It was all said in a flash: but it was all said….

“Two years, as they say in the playbills, is supposed to elapse. And here is the subject of this memoir sitting on a balcony above the sea. The time, evening. He is thinking of the whole bewildering record of which the foregoing is a brief outline: he sees how far he has gone wrong and how idle and wasteful and wicked he has often been: how miserably unfitted he is for what he is called upon to be. Let him now declare it and hereafter for ever hold his peace.

“But there are four lamps of thanksgiving always before him. The first is for his creation out of the same earth with such a woman as you. The second is that he has not, with all his faults, ‘gone after strange women.’ You cannot think how a man’s self restraint is rewarded in this. The third is that he has tried to love everything alive: a dim preparation for loving you. And the fourth is – but no words can express that. Here ends my previous existence. Take it: it led me to you.”

Okay, time to get back to reality and stop sapping my heart of its energy.

~Esa Cita

Late night findings

I am currently listening to OneRepulic's new album, and OH, how marvelous it is! As I listen to my favorite (...and only) boyfriend's favorite band, I am reminded of God's loving plan for my life all along.  Every once in a while, I like to get all sappy and think about the journey that He laid out for me.  It's truly an adventure and a joy; nothing can describe Jesus' plans for us like a gift or a dance.

Family Christmas Photo?

Tonight, I had one last dinner with the family before we drive off to Kentucky on Saturday morning so that I can begin another missionary year at UK.  Where this summer has gone I don't know, but I do know that this is a pretty fun and fast life these days.

Blessings from the summer:
May: my "dating fast" ended.  Arrived in VA. Left for Florida.
June: FOCUS New Staff Training in Florida.
July: Left Florida for VA. Family Vacation in North Carolina. Fundraising. Wedding in Cincinnati. Fundraising. Begin 33-day consecration to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary: get mind, heart, and soul blown away.
August: Fundraising. About to leave for Kentucky.

Lately, I've been asking God to tell me just WHO I am.  Sound funny? That's because I'm funny like that. I've been getting some really touching answers.  There have been a ton of "oh yeah, that was true all along and I didn't even think about that" moments.  I plan on continuing in my question-asking.  What a dance.

Time for some prayin, journaling, and bed.

Good night, world; stay beautiful.

~Esa Cita

From a lady that caught my attention this summer:
My child, do you see, there is only One; it is He, the Only Truth! Ah, He fascinates, He sweeps you away; under His gaze the horizon becomes so beautiful, so vast, so luminous… My dear one, do you want to turn with me towards this sublime Ideal? It is no fiction but a reality. 
-Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

This summer

You've got the battle wounds, sweet little soldier.  Soak up the salt of the ocean on those scars, and let the sea remind you that you're still Daddy's beautiful little girl.  The wind will pass on through, and the waves will make you dance with the sea gulls, and maybe with a sting ray or a brother or two.  Summertime has made it's way once again into your life and it's time to let it all heal.  There's nothing better than the innocent bliss of the wise ocean.   Here's a wave and here's a story, I'll throw you some words and a prayer and a story; there's a person behind all this healing.

God, our hearts, and the sea: three inexhaustibles.  No surfer in history has ever been heard to say: "Now I've had enough of waves."  No lover will ever say, "Now I've had enough of her."  And no saint will ever say, "Now I've had enough of God." -Peter Kreeft

~Esa Cita

The Call for Ayuda

I've heard it said (by a fantastic father) that saints have saints for friends.  The statement makes sense: St Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius,  St. Clare and St. Francis, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine; they all had each other, they all lent a helping hand to get the other into heaven.

There was a long-run ramification from their friendship.  They all had short-term thing-a-ma-bobbers that tickled their fancy at one point in their lives.  But, when it came to the real stuff, when it came to the current state of their soul, when it came to who they were and who they were called to become, it was that heavenly friendship that helped lead them home to eternal joy.

Perhaps Ignatius was annoyed by the crazy party-boy Xavier,
but shoot mayne, he loved the kid.

Maybe Ambrose wanted to punch Augustine in the face like he was Santa Clause,
but shoot mayne, he wanted that man in heaven.

We are social creatures with social tendencies and social desires.  That's why peer pressure is a big deal.  That's why the day when I can see that myself and another have befriended each other into the place that which our souls love will be one of the best days of my short time on this little earth.  To love another like myself, oh what a joy!

On that note, I would like to switch the subject matter of what I really wanted to say.

My friend, Ruth from The Itchy Scapular, has lots of words up her sleeve.  Combining words into a beautiful harmony of sass, love, and joy are her forte, and the long-run makes her happy.  She likes the long-run instead of the short-run; she's the long-run's biggest fan.

I am a fan of her long-term happiness.  I just like it a whole lot.  I also like practicing the art of combining vowels with consonants in the hopes of making dreams come true and laughs ring through.  Oh Itchy Scapular, where have you gone?

Write me some words, inspire me some more.  Give this world some of your fresh air to hoard.  (Just kidding, I'll share.  Not hoard.)

Saints have saints for friends.  Bloggers have bloggers for friends.  I want to be a saint and a blogger, won't you please help me out?

The journey to the road

I'm currently sitting at my parent's dining room table, surrounded by a (nearly completed) project that took me about a month and quite a few dollars to finish.  For the past hour, Pandora has been playing the perfect songs for me to listen to, and I'm asking Jesus for the strength and desire to return to Kentucky after such a nice time visiting friends, mission partners, and family.

In twenty-four hours, I'll be back in the land of excellent coffee-shops and conversation.  But for now, I'm celebrating Wegmans' pizza and college friendships, and I'm smiling at these two paragraphs from a G.K. Chesterton essay I found on a friend's coffee-table this evening.

A correspondent has written me an able and interesting letter in the matter of some allusions of mine to the subject of communal kitchens. He defends communal kitchens very lucidly from the standpoint of the calculating collectivist; but, like many of his school, he cannot apparently grasp that there is another test of the whole matter, with which such calculation has nothing at all to do. He knows it would be cheaper if a number of us ate at the same time, so as to use the same table. So it would. It would also be cheaper if a number of us slept at different times, so as to use the same pair of trousers. But the question is not how cheap are we buying a thing, but what are we buying? It is cheap to own a slave. And it is cheaper still to be a slave.

My correspondent also says that the habit of dining out in restaurants, etc., is growing. So, I believe, is the habit of committing suicide. I do not desire to connect the two facts together. It seems fairly clear that a man could not dine at a restaurant because he had just committed suicide; and it would be extreme, perhaps, to suggest that he commits suicide because he has just dined at a restaurant. But the two cases, when put side by side, are enough to indicate the falsity and poltroonery of this eternal modern argument from what is in fashion. The question for brave men is not whether a certain thing is increasing; the question is whether we are increasing it. I dine very often in restaurants because the nature of my trade makes it convenient: but if I thought that by dining in restaurants I was working for the creation of communal meals, I would never enter a restaurant again; I would carry bread and cheese in my pocket or eat chocolate out of automatic machines. For the personal element in some things is sacred. I heard Mr. Will Crooks put it perfectly the other day: "The most sacred thing is to be able to shut your own door."

Kind of a nerdy thing to giggle at, but I find this man's passionate usage of words quite charming and refreshing.

Back to laundry, packing up a car, and possibly sleeping. ;)

~Esa Cita

Cast away that despair produced by the realization of your weakness. It's true: financially you are a zero, and socially another zero, and another in virtues, and another in talents... But to the left of these zeros is Christ. And what an immeasurable figure it turns out to be! -St. Josemaria Escriva

Home Sweet Virginia

It's been twenty-four hours since I arrived at my parents' house in Virginia, and within this time I have:

-gone to Mass, prayed
-gotten coffee with a good friend
-done arts and crafts with a good friend
-colored with my brother
-did work with my brother
-told friends that I was in town
-ate my first family dinner in months

-went to a surprise birthday party, saw lots of old friends

-saw Lauren Murray ♥

It's been so great to be back. Tomorrow, my brother Ricky arrives from the Air Force Academy and the whole clan will be reunited finally!

~Esa Cita