Lines on a Life

Vera and the Lost Generation

Violets from Plug Street Wood,

Sweet, I send you oversea.

(It is strange they should be blue,

Blue, when his soaked blood was red,

For they grew around his head;

It is strange they should be blue.)

Violets from Plug Street Wood -

Think what they have meant to me -

Life and Hope and Love and You

(And you did not see them grow

Where his mangled body lay

Hiding horror from the day;

Sweetest it was better so.)

Violets from oversea,

To your dear, far forgetting land

These I send in memory,

Knowing you will understand.

Roland Leighton penned these lines to his sweetheart Vera Brittain several months before he died in agony on the Front. He was a young man in love with life, but disillusioned by the bloody struggle he was engaged in. Life, and Love, and Hope, and blood flowing from a mangled body. Such are the thoughts of the Great War poets. It is the historians who write what happened, but it is the poets who record every look, every thought, every feeling. It is the poets who help us to remember.

Since it is a Friday evening and I am alone I watched Testament of Youth, based on the novel by Vera Brittain. It is a movie I have been looking forward to watching ever since I heard about it this summer, and it lived up to my expectations. It recounts Vera's experiences during the war both as a civilian and as a nurse. I often cry during movies, and this was no exception, but it was more than just a sad movie. It is the best movie I have seen in a long time. It is stark and tragic, and achingly beautiful. It is a very real testament to the youth that was crushed during that war. It haunts me as I write this, so many scenes etched in my mind. Of course, no movie can come close to its original book, but this time the movie brought the book to life.

I have long been fascinated with the poetry of the Great War, stemming from a report I gave in college on the topic. I am also fascinated with that period of history. At the beginning of the war, the attitude of the people of England, which is mostly the view we get from the poets, started out in a positive way. In the earlier poems we see these ideas presented: intense  patriotism, struggle  in a righteous cause, the chivalric and heroic aspect of military service, St. George versus the dragon of Central Powers. Vera Brittain and her "Three Musketeers" (her brother Edward and his two friends Victor and Roladn) believe strongly in the war. Vera even convinces her father to let Edward sign up.

But by 1916, and the Battle of the Somme, there was no way anyone could pretend the Great War was a glorious struggle against tyranny. With the casualty lists growing to undreamed-of heights (one striking scene in the movie shows Vera picking up a newspaper and turning page after page of casualties), the lingering remnants of chivalry were wiped out. In the poetry written after the Battle of the Somme, there is a sense of disillusionment brought on by involvement in a senseless war. We see the shattering cost of modern warfare in human terms, the desolation and emptiness of the modern battlefield. Another striking scene from the movie shows Vera walking through the hospital camp just after a new batch of wounded soldiers has been brought in. She sees only a few at first, coming off the trucks, but then she rounds the corner of a building, and far before her stretches a field of wounded men. She stands still, stunned by what she sees, and you can feel her horror and dismay.

Many, Vera Brittain included, were highly disillusioned by the war. Vera went on to be one of the most notable peace protesters of the 20th century. The poet Siegfried Sassoon refused to fight again after being wounded, and was sent to an insane hospital. The few young men left, who should have been enjoying life and love were instead picking up the shards of their lives. A whole generation wiped out. So much talent, so many promising lives wiped out. Roland Leighton wanted to be a writer. Edward Brittain was a musician and a composer. And for what?

They say we record history so that we will not make the same mistake twice. Oh, but we are foolish human beings and we cannot learn from our mistakes. The Great War poets exhort us not to forget the dark years of the war, and what it did to the world and mankind. Siegfried Sassoon writes,"Have you forgotten yet?...Look up and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget." Vera Brittain exhorts us not to forget: "They'll want to forget you. They'll want me to forget. But I can't. I won't. This is my promise to you now, all of you."

When We Were Nine...

Today my youngest brother turns nine. Nine! How time does fly. It seems like just yesterday he was a tiny 6 lb. baby coming home from the hospital. Now he's almost to double digits. I don't want that to happen. I don't want him to become a surly teenager. If only I could freeze time and he would stay little forever. But right now he's still my cute (don't tell him I said that) baby brother who tells me not to be afraid of the rooster and still likes to snuggle and give me kisses and tells me he loves me. He's also my Godson, so he's more than just my cute baby brother.

When he was a baby I wrote a poem about his nap time, or, rather, the travails of keeping a baby asleep in a large family. In honor of Hansie's ninth birthday, here it is.

A Hansie never shuts his eyes

Until the sun is in the skies.

And even then he does not sleep

For long; you see, we cannot keep

Our noisy little Ephrem still.

(Sweet Ephrem is a little pill.)

And, of course, it does not help

When Adelaide gives a loud yelp,

For Mechi’s come and sat beside

The house she’s made, where she must hide

From Nazi’s which do not exsist –

‘Tis long before, she will insist.

Then Mechi sings and runs about,

While Dietrich sorts his legos out

With lots of noise, to make a boat

Or some such thing that will not float.

So Cloe yells, “Be quiet, all!

“Hans can hear you through the wall.”

Now Augustin plays some modern piece

Upon the piano, and will not cease.

So Hansie wakes and starts to cry,

And Cloe heaves a heavy sigh.

It’s hard to keep a baby quiet

In a house that’s full of riot.

Ah, the days. I wish Hansie a very happy birthday and many more years to come. May he never lose his weirdness. And in closing, I quote the birthday boy:

"If we ever are out in the wild and it started to rain and I had a raincoat and you didn't, I'd be willing to give you my raincoat. It probably wouldn't fit you, but you could hold it over your head."

Home is Where...

I woke up to rain this morning. The rain in Virginia doesn't smell as good as the rain in California, but it is still nice to sit by the window and listen to it, and after the ridiculously hot weather of the past few weeks it brings a welcome coolness to the air. I can tell fall is not far off, and I am happy, because it is my favorite season. In danger of sounding unfaithful to my old California, I will say that fall on the east coast is far prettier than fall on the west coast. There is a blaze of color such as I have never seen before, and it delights my heart. I love the fall colors, and I love September. I believe September is the best month of the year. Of course that may partly be because I was born in that month.

Now it is September, and I have been in Virginia for a few weeks. School started this week, and I am getting back into my routine of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier (something I have never really liked) and remembering to pack a lunch the night before so I am not scrambling in the morning because it is not ready. I still miss my California home, but fortunately I have the gift of being content in whatever situation I am in. The transitions are hard for me, but once the transition is over I am fine. And this time my very wonderful cousins met me at the airport and were very excited to see me again. A three-year-old cousin who gets up in the morning and says, "I'm excited because today we're picking up Cloe," is a very good welcome indeed.

But still, leaving your childhood home is never easy. No matter how many times I leave home, it never gets any easier. Every time I spend an extended length of time with my family I tell myself I can't wait to get away again, but when it comes time to leave I'm a sobbing mess. That's the thing about your family: they drive you absolutely crazy-up-the-wall, and they can be so annoying, et cetera and so on...but when it comes down to it, they really aren't all that bad. If nothing else, they will always love you and stick up for you, and they are always there when you need them. And somehow I can't stay away.

***

But now I am going back to Virginia, where the rain just smells damp. Four o'clock in the morning. A sleepless night during which I can't wait for my alarm to ring so I can stop tossing and turning and trying to fall asleep. Everyone gets up to see me off at a quarter to five. And I cry because for some reason I'm going to miss them. That's the thing about families: they're easier to love when you're not living with them. And the family will not stay the same. My older brother is in Illinois; my younger brother and sister are off to college tomorrow; only three left at home. We might not all be back for Christmas. We weren't all back this summer. It makes me sad to think about; I like things to stay the same when I come home. And I'm crying because it doesn't get an easier.

I board the plane at Burbank, feeling rather low. I sit next to a middle-aged couple, and we are silent for a while until I pull out my homemade quilt because the air conditioning is slowly freezing me. The woman and I talk about quilting and sewing, and then she asks me if I'm in school, and I tell her no, I'm working at a Montessori school. We talk about Montessori and other alternative education methods, because she is a speech therapist who works with autistic and Downs-Syndrome kids and prefers the alternative methods.

At Denver (my old stomping-grounds; I used to fly in there when returning to college) I switch planes and this time I sit in an row with an empty seat, and miraculously it stays that way. It is so nice not to be squished in next to another person for several hours. The aisle seat is occupied by an older gentleman with an accent. He seems very kind. He smiles and asks me about my violin which I have stowed in the overhead compartment, and I tell him what it is and about the Manassas Symphony. A little later I take out my writing binder and work on my manuscript, not just editing, but adding large chunks to the story. The man beside me asks me if I am writing a paper and I tell him no, I am writing a book. He expresses genuine interest and tells me about the time he was on a plane and happened to sit next to Stephanie Meyer (who is the author of the Twilight Series). We talk about my writing, and then he tells me about a book he is writing. He is from Columbia (hence the accent) and he is writing a book about his ancestors in Spain and tying it in with his life in Columbia. He seems to come from a very long-lived family: his father lived to be 111 years old! It was altogether a very pleasant conversation and it seemed no time before we were landing at Dulles. I got off the plane with the very rare experience of having rather enjoyed my five-hour flight.

***

They say home is where the heart is. While I have never been fond of platitudes and cliches, I believe this one to be true. Yes, California will always be my home in a way - one cannot so easily forget the place where all of one's childhood memories are made - but now I am in Virginia, and I shall make the best of it. Just last weekend I attended a fabulous music festival and had a good time. There are far less of those sorts of things in California. I find myself looking for the mountains, and I feel a little sad when I do not see the Sierra Nevadas stretching out before me as I stand in a field of golden grass and feel the wind blowing through my hair. And I miss the pungent smell of a California rain
as it hits the dry ground. But out here there are the green trees, the rolling fields of green, and the bright yellow wildflowers that seem to grow everywhere. And soon it will be fall, and the world will be a blaze of red and gold.

Yes, I believe I will be all right.

Remembering the Stars

Six years ago on this feast of the Assumption of Mary I and my fellow campers woke up to snow. The night before we went to sleep under the stars, for once without a tent, and when we woke in the middle of the night we dashed back to the tents, for it was raining. And in the morning we woke up to snow. For a short time our little world of the Wind River Mountains was clothed in pure white, though it was the middle of August.

Today the freshmen of Wyoming Catholic College are on their second week of the three-week wilderness course that marks the beginning of their college career. Perhaps it is snowing on them, as it often seems to do on the 15th of August. Six years ago I too was in my second week of the wilderness course. Now, of course, it is slightly different: while in my time we used the National Outdoor Leadership School (affectionately known as the No Official Lunch School by my group), today’s freshmen go out with the Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries. Yet I am sure it is the same. I am sure the freshmen are just getting used to heavy backpacks, sleeping on the ground, and other uncomfortable situations involved in camping, and I am sure they are looking up at the same stars and feeling the same awe and wonder that I felt at the grandeur of God’s creation.

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God,” wrote Gerard Manley Hopkins. When I went on my NOLS trip I was unaware of that poem, yet those were my sentiments as I trekked the wilderness of the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. Very often my legs ached, and my feet felt like lead, and I was so tired all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. But those moments of intense beauty and awe were worth it. The views were amazing. Very often when I stood at the crest of a mountain or climbed to the top of a peak I thought to myself, how to describe this to someone? How does one describe sheer beauty? Or when we lay around the campfire one evening in our sleeping bags and watched the stars – the beautiful, bright, clear, stars. Nothing to block our view. No lights, no noise but the little noises of nature and the crackle of the fire. It makes you feel very small, very insignificant; but also very fortunate. I’ll never forget that night around the campfire. We were in a little valley just over the Continental Divide, resting for a few days after making the long and arduous climb over Texas Pass, a mere 11,400 feet in elevation. It was a lovely spot. There was a lake, and grass, and the mountains sloped up all around us like the rim of a giant bowl. And we could see the stars in such glory as I had never seen before or have never seen since.

The other night I lay outside on the swing with my little brother and we watched the stars. The stars are not as bright here in Tehachapi as they were in Wyoming. There are too many lights and too many trees. But they are still beautiful. We lay on the swing and talked and counted shooting stars, and I was peacefully happy. I marveled that those were the same stars I was seeing in the little valley in the mountains six years ago. I have always loved stars, but since my NOLS trip I have loved them even more. There is a comfort in the stars. Though people live and die, though civilizations rise and fall, the stars are always there. They have been there for thousands of years, and will be there for thousands more. In a world that is constantly changing around us, the stars are a fixed point that never changes.

Though my NOLS trip was hard – I would hardly describe myself as an “outdoorsy” type – I am glad to this day that I did it. It gave me new confidence, taught me to be still and listen, and it made me fall in love with God’s world. Out in the wilderness there is no time aside from the natural rising and setting of the sun, and you can hear yourself think. When you pray you feel that God is right beside you, listening. It is a slow life, but it is by no means a boring life. In the bustle of daily life I often forget the quiet beauty of nature, the Holy Ghost brooding over the world. But even if I forget at times, all I have to do is look up to the stars on a pleasant evening, and it all comes back to me. The pain, the mosquito bites, the blisters and tired legs. The sheer exhaustion. But most of all the grandeur of God.

Home is Where the Rain Smells Best

I feel no regret as the plane takes off from Dulles airport, partly because it is seven-thirty in the morning and I have been up since four, partly because it is summer vacation, and I am going home. Home. I settle back in my seat with The Grapes of Wrath unopened on my lap. I have been living in Virginia for nearly a year, but whenever I think of home I think of golden California. They say I am an east coast girl at heart; I was born in Connecticut after all. But I do not remember Connecticut at all. I was two when we moved. These days the east coast and the green of Virginia have been paying me suit, but when all is said and done, California – crazy, dry old California, got to me first.

The trip is long. Five hours on the plane, with one stop and one layover, is enough to try anyone’s patience. I am tired and my eyes feel scratchy from lack of sleep. My legs are getting cramped, and as usual the plane's air conditioning is slowly freezing me. I keep looking at the time, hoping it has moved, but it crawls at a snail’s pace. I try to catch some sleep, but I have never been good at sleeping in a moving vehicle, even if I have been up since four in the morning. I focus instead on editing the manuscript I have brought along, but soon grow tired of that. It is very easy to lose interest when you are on a very long plane trip. I would so much rather be on a train. A train trip across country takes several days, but it is leisurely and you can get up and move around. It is a mode of transportation that is much more friendly to the creative process.

I pull out The Grapes of Wrath again and find where I left off. The Joads are heading to California. I am heading to California. The Promised Land? Some may say yes, others no. The Joads said yes. The land of opportunity? Not these days. We are stuck in a recession as bleak as the neglected fields of the Joads’ homestead. Well, Promised Land, land of opportunity; whatever you may choose to call it, I call it home.

ïïï

California is dry. It has not rained much in the last year. Everything is brown and gold. The golden grass of California does something to a girl who has been gone for months. To see the wind, the ever-present wind, blow the grass gently or fiercely in turn, stirs the heart. You may say we are crazy. Oh, but it is true.

ïïï

At last, here is San Diego. I still have one layover and several hours left of my trip, but home is closer. I am now on California soil, so to speak. I begin to feel excitement deep in the pit of my stomach. It is either that or the motion of the plane. I wait in my seat as new passengers board the plane, bound for Sacramento. The seats next to me are empty, and I hope they will stay that way, but soon a man and woman slide in next to me, a middle-aged Oriental couple. They smile and we exchange the usual pleasantries of fellow passengers, then fall silent. I return to The Grapes of Wrath and wait for the plane to take off.

It takes off with the usual roar of sound. The woman next to me crosses herself and prays silently, much to my surprise, as that is what I am about to do. The flight to Sacramento is not long, and when we arrive I am glad to stretch my legs for a little while as I wait for my connection.

Another hour on the plane. This time, I sit next to a woman with a raspy smoker’s voice. She saves a seat for her husband who arrives soon after. He is a grisly bearded man with tattoos who smiles kindly at me. They are both very kind. The woman and I make small talk, and she offers me a stick of gum. They are on their way to Las Vegas. But I am going home.

Home. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our final descent into Burbank…” My stomach jumps with excitement. The plane lands and I step out onto California soil. Well, asphalt, really. But no matter. This is California. This is where I belong.

ïïï

I will never forget the golden hills of my home. It is nothing like the lush green fields of the east coast, but it still does something to me every time I see it after a long absence. It is ingrained in me like my love of music and writing. I never will, never could forget. It has a song of its own, that golden grass. The wind whistles through it, bringing in the scent of wind-kissed sage grass. I have never particularly loved wind. In fact, it often drives me to distraction. But it too is ingrained in me, as is the golden grass. Sometimes the wind brings destruction, but sometimes it brings life. It blows in the spring, whisking away the deadness of the old year.

ïïï

The storm clouds gather on the horizon, and soon they loom overhead. We wait expectantly, hoping for the rain. We have not had rain in so long, not real rain. The air is charged with the expectancy of the coming rain. The wind blows the clouds around, rearranging them until they are primed for opening. The first drops fall and hit the dusty ground.

I sit at my desk by the open window. It is dark outside, and the fresh, pungent smell of California rain wafts in. There is nothing like the smell of this dry country during rain. It is fresh and delightful. It smells of wet earth and rabbitbrush. I can never grow tired of it. There is nothing else like it. I have missed the smell of the rain. In Virginia the rain just smells damp, and the air is heavy. Here the air is light and crisp. I forget how much I miss it until I come back.

They say home is where the heart is. While I am not fond of platitudes and clichés, I do believe this one to be true. Though I have been living on the east coast for nearly a year, it is not really home. Perhaps someday I will make my home permanently on the east coast, and perhaps I will come back to California. Perhaps I may even, as my father suggests, go to live in Switzerland, though the possibilities of that are rather slim. But as of now, my heart is not in the lush greenwoods of Virginia, but in the golden hills of California, and the majestic mountains. But most of all it is in the smell of a warm summer rain and the rustle of the wind in the leaves. Home is where the rain smells best.

For Grandpa

Today, eight years ago, Richard Leo Ellis, my grandfather, went to be with God. 

I still remember the day my grandfather died as if it were yesterday. I was face-to-face with death. I had never understood death before, not really. I don’t understand it much now, though I have seen a good deal of it.

This time it was my grandfather.

I had seen him just a few days before, in the hospital. He was there because he’d had a stroke. I was sixteen, so I and my cousin Anastasia were allowed to go and see him. Children under sixteen weren’t allowed to come into the hospital, at least not the part Grandpa was in. The hospital room was small and white and bare except for the cards that all the grandchildren had made, stuck up on the wall. Grandpa was sitting up in a narrow hospital bed. He was wearing a light blue gown, and he looked tired. The room smelled funny. Grandpa hugged us, and he smelled like the room. We talked a bit, I don’t remember what about, and he squeezed my hand and smiled up at me, that smile that I remember and love so well. I felt happy, because he looked so well. He was going to get better.

We went back to my cousin’s house. That night we slept on the floor in the living room, me and my two closest cousins, in a row on the floor. In the middle of the night I was awoken by lights, and muted voices. Mama came over to me and whispered, “We’re going to the hospital. Grandpa’s doing worse.” She left, and I lay down and went back to sleep, but before I slept I felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Things were all wrong.

The next morning I got up and went the room where Mama was sleeping with my baby brother. She asked me to lie with the baby for a few minutes. I lay down next to him, and thought how sweet he looked as he slept. Then mama came back and said, “Did Aunt Marilyn tell you about grandpa?”

I shook my head.

“He died last night,” she said.

For a moment the world stopped turning. I couldn’t believe it. Then I started to cry, and I buried my face in the pillow. Mama stroked my hair, and when I looked up she was crying too. It hurt so much, but yet I couldn’t take it in. It was so unreal, yet so real.

There was a rosary for Grandpa three days later, and a viewing. All of us were there – Grandpa’s seven children and their spouses and forty-odd grandchildren. I could hardly keep from crying as we prayed each decade of the rosary. After it was over, I went up to the coffin and looked in. Grandpa lay there, and it my grandfather, but it was not. He looked so cold, and stiff, and waxy. I timidly reached out a hand and touched one of the hands folded on his chest. It was so cold and hard, and it felt so unreal. I started to cry very hard, and I could not stop. I could not let go of that hand, the hand that had once been my grandfather’s. I held it, and cried. Finally my aunt came to tell me that we were leaving, and I bent over and kissed the cold hard forehead, and said goodbye.

***

I was very fortunate to know my grandfather very well until he passed away. When I was just two years old, my family moved back to California from Connecticut, and we lived with my grandparents for several years until we bought a house in Tehachapi, not more than forty minutes away. After we moved to Tehachapi, we saw my grandparents quite often, and I developed a very strong bond with them.

My grandfather was a strong influence in my life. In order to tell you how, I should give you a little background on my grandfather’s life. These stories have been passed down to me by my grandmother and my own mother. I cannot vouch that I have them all down exactly to fact, but the meaning still remains despite that.

Grandpa came from a broken and unstable home, and was raised with no religion. When he was seventeen he ran away from home and joined the army during the second world war. After the war he became a nurse, and while he was working in a hospital in California he met William Maliglig, a young paraplegic. The two men became fast friends, and it was by William’s influence that my grandfather became Catholic. Grandpa has often said that their friendship was that of David and Jonathon. Grandpa promised to always look after William, no matter what happened, and he kept his promise until William died in the 1960’s.

Both my grandfather and his friend had a great desire to enter the religious life. But no monastery would take William with his condition, so my grandfather received permission to found a Benedictine monastery for handicapped men in the Antelope Valley in California. This experimental monastery did not last very long, however, and the bishop disbanded it after only a few years, and all of its monks were layacised, though Grandpa retained the status of an oblate for the rest of his life. During that time, Grandpa met William’s sister, Paula, and fell in love with her. He wanted to propose to her, but was unable to, as the process of being layicised was not yet complete. My grandmother told me that William told her that he had a friend who loved her and wanted to marry her, and in that way they were engaged. They settled on the property that had been bought for the monastery and raised seven children as well as their rather troubled nephew. The Ellises started a print shop and Catholic bookstore called St. Raphael Press. Whenever I think of Grandpa, I still see him standing over his presses. He loved his work, and he often said that he wanted to die working. I used to help my grandfather in the shop when I was little. Sometimes the help was appreciated, and sometimes it was not. There was the time I set the envelope machine on fire by stuffing too many envelopes in it, but we won’t go into that.

My grandfather had a great love for the liturgy, not just liturgy, but beautiful liturgy. My grandfather was not what is often called a “rabid trad”; he had just as much reverence for the New Rite as the Old Rite. He spoke his mind often, and he often spoke his mind about the deterioration and unfittingness of modern liturgical practices and music. His favorite of all the liturgies was the Liturgy of the Hours. Following the customs of the Benedictines, he prayed all the hours, at all hours of the day. One of my favorite memories of him is of him sitting in his armchair, praying from his breviary. He had a special chair in his bedroom, and he would always sit there to pray. It was comforting to see him there every day, and it is one of the things I miss most about him.

My grandfather would be the first to tell you he was not perfect, and perhaps that is true. Whenever the income tax people came around, he turned off the swamp coolers in the house and the shop, and since the Antelope Valley is dessert, they didn’t stay very long. But my grandfather was one of the most humble, dedicated, honest, deeply religious men I have ever known. He was always ready to help someone in need. He was well-respected by his fellow business-owners and employees. He was a faithful and good husband to his wife Paula, a good father to his seven children, and a good grandfather to his 40-something grandchildren. Grandpa could be rather stubborn, but most often to a good cause. He really believed what he believed, and made a point to practicing what he believed. He was a great defender of human life, as is witnessed by his seven children and numerous grandchildren. And he was wise. He always had something useful and helpful to say about any situation. My favorite of his many sayings will always be “If you can’t be modest, at least be vain.” 

***

And so I miss my grandfather. I wish he were here now to see what I have accomplished so far in my life. I wish he were there to see me graduate from college, the first of his grandchildren to do so. I wish he were here to say goodbye to me when I made the long trek across country to Virginia. I wish I could hear him say he is proud of me. Yet he is with me every day. He is part of my family, and so part of my heart. Our families, for better or for worse, make us who we are. I only wish I could feel his arms around me once again.

Someday.

Love and Cement

It seems like it was just Christmas and I was just marveling over the love of Christ who was born a helpless, human baby. Then, suddenly, it was Ash Wednesday, and I was receiving ashes on my forehead as a reminder of my humanity. Now it is Good Friday once again, and I am sitting in my little living room, listening to the rain fall outside of my window and reflecting on the Passion and Death of Christ and his supreme love.

Last night at the Holy Thursday Mass, I was watching Fr. Bergida performing the washing of feet and  I was brought back to my childhood. When I was growing up my father washed our feet at home after the Holy Thursday service. We would all sit in the living room after night prayers, and he would go to each of us and wash our feet in a kitchen bowl. I remember his gentle touch, and especially how he kissed the tops of our feet when he was finished. That small gesture has always stayed with me. My family is not overly demonstrative, but we know we love each other.

"There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends."

This has been one of my favorite passages from the Bible for a long time. It is such a beautiful idea. Today it takes on a new meaning. Every year I come to a deeper understanding of Good Friday. Every year it takes on a new meaning for me.

Christ died for us. I cannot stop thinking about that. This year especially it has been haunting me. He loved us so much that he laid down his life for us. And we did not even act as friends towards him. How much greater must that love be that he would give up his life in such a horrible way when we had abandoned him. When I think about this love, I am overcome. I want to love God more; I want to love him as much as he loves me.

Going back to a retreat from my senior year at college, the speaker, Fr. McAlpin said, "We did not only kill a God; we killed God. But he died for us. We killed him and he suffered it for us." I cannot stop thinking about that. Even though we spit on him and killed him, he did not send down fire and brimstone to destroy us. No, he spread out his arms on the cross, embracing and gathering us into his great love. Even though we continue to spit on him and despise him, he still continues to hold out his arms to us.

When I think about my faith, I think about it as one of great joy. I am not emotionally religious. It is more internal for me. Joy for me is not a shallow, sappy feeling. Those people who depict Christ in such sappy ways give me such a cloying feeling. They have it all wrong. Joy is strength. Joy is Christ dying on the Cross. There is nothing sappy or sentimental about dying on a cross. Joy is the love that is not little red hearts. Joy is the beauty of the Deep Heavens, the way C.S. Lewis talks about what lies beyond our world. The way the Eastern Church depicts Christ is how I see him: not as a bearded lady stuck on everything that we feel like, from necklaces and t-shirts to holy cards and bumper stickers. Not that, but a strong, almost heroic God who loves us in a way that is not shallow or sappy. It is the kind of joy that you get from the end of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, after you have struggled through the depths and finally emerged, triumphant, into the light.

That is the Passion and Death of Christ. That is love. It is still with us, even amidst the concrete and plastic of our world.

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A drop of blood upon each rose;

Its snowy heart turned crimson red.

A thorn pierced deep into its side,

A worm upon its bended back.

I lost my way upon the streets,

That endless concrete sea of houses.

Endless plastic, falsely lit

In light without a source.

And what is love? the ancients cried

And sought the turning stars in vain

While kings for glory strove to die

And queens wept for the day.

The asphalt meadows, fields of rock,

Showed not a footprint, not a sound.

His light was dimmed and thrown away

To rest within a garbage heap.

Oh, where is love? the moderns scoff.

In bottled essence, plastic hearts.

A dropperful applied each day,

Administered by those who know.

The rose is growing higher still;

Its crimson petals brush the sky.

Its thorns pierce out a piece of night

And let the starlight in.

A drop of red, a prick of blood,

Fallen in the whitewashed street.

There he is standing; there he stays

Amid the concrete trees. 

A Really Kindred Spirit

This year I decided to boycott Valentine's Day, mostly because I am sick of the emphasis our culture puts on love equaling money. If you do not buy an overpriced card and box of chocolates for the one you love, you are a horrible person. My roommate can tell you about the rant I went on about the capitalization and commercialism of Valentine's Day and how it makes being single even harder. Now that the overly commercialized Valentine's Day is over, though, I would like to say something about one particular form of love: friendship.

The rather obscure American author Elbert Hubbard said about friendship that "a friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." How true I have found that to be over the last four or five years. Growing up in tiny Tehachapi, California, I did not have any real friends. I made friends with several girls, and I thought we would be bosom friends, but they moved away. Like Anne of Green Gables I always wanted a bosom friend, "an intimate friend...a really kindred spirit to whom I could confide my inmost soul." I was very close to my cousins Anna and Anastasia, but as they lived two hours away we did not see each other very often. I still am very close to them, though we live in different parts of the country and hardly ever see each other any more. I was honored to be a bridesmaid in each of their weddings this past summer, and I remember with fondness and a smile all of the happy and crazy times we had together.

I would not say that I was unhappy or lonely growing up. I have always been a bit of a loner; I love to sit by myself and read or write. I do enjoy the company of a good friend, however, something that was lacking in my life until I went to college, aside from my dear friend Hannah. Hannah and I met more than ten years ago when she and her family lived in Tehachapi. We became very close friends, and when they moved away not long after we became pen pals. I still have the very long letters (more than ten full pages) that we wrote. When we started college, we did not write as often, and our letters are not as long, but our friendship has not diminished. This past summer we had the good fortune of being able to spend a few days together, three of the best days of that year.

When I went to college I began to make more friends. My closest friend was, and still is, my roommate, Jennifer. After her comes my "inner circle" of classmates: Sarah, Jessica, Christine, and Clare. Clare and I did not become very close until our senior year, but when we did I was glad, because though we are total opposites, Clare always brought a ray of extroverted sunshine into my very introverted life. Sarah is the sweetest person I have ever met; Jessica is a wonderful, delightful, perfectly awesome-in-all-ways sort of person; Christine is a generous, empathetic, and delightfully sarcastic person; and Jennifer - well, Jen is my best friend. She knows me almost as well as my own sisters. I let her hear my stories in progress.


I love all of these girls for different reasons, and for the same reason. I love them because they love me, and they accept me for who I am. None of them judge me on my looks or how I dress or how I talk. They have always put up with my quietness and my orneriness and my very wide sarcastic streak. They have laughed with me, and cried with me. They have seen me at my best and at my worst. And they still love me, and are always there for me. We have had some very good times together and done some very crazy things together.

The same thing goes for your family. Your family is like a permanent best friend. They may annoy you until you want to pull your hair out and disown all of them, but they are always there for you, just like your best friends. And your sisters (once you all grow up and move out of the very extremely long sibling rivalry stage) are great friends as well.

I still marvel that I have such good friends. I cannot imagine life without any of them. My only regret is that I have not known most of these wonderful girls my whole life. To all my friends, old and new, I love you with all my heart and I thank you for your friendship. As Winnie the Pooh says, "If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."