Thank You For Being His Hands and Feet

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” ~St. Teresa of Avila

Last week on Facebook, I posted a status asking if anyone would help me with a card campaign for my friend who has been in jail since December.  He'll get out at the end of the month and I figured the last two weeks of his stay would go faster if he got a lot of mail each day.  I was hoping that a couple people would volunteer.

I was overwhelmed. I had 23 people offer to send cards. 23 people and not one of them had ever met my friend. People who I haven't even seen or heard from in years responded immediately.  People who I have met only a handful of times were willing to help.  They expected nothing in return but were willing to do what they could to help.  People who did not question or judge or condemn.

It's easy to get cynical about the state of the world.  We hear bad things every day.  People acting hateful, people being prejudice, people treating each other badly.  It's disheartening.

But I'm here to tell you that is not the only part of the story.  There are still good people out there.  Kind, caring, awesome people who will take the time to encourage another person in need.  I know that we're just talking about sending a little note here, but I can assure you that to my friend and to me it was so much more than that.

We're called to love.  We're called to be Jesus' hands and feet.  These people did just that.  For them, for their gesture, for their example, I am forever grateful.

Baby Hepburn's Big Day

"Graduation is only a concept. In real life every day you graduate. Graduation is a process that goes on until the last day of your life. If you can grasp that, you’ll make a difference."  ~Arie Pencovici

Today, this girl is graduating from high school.

I've known Baby Hepburn since she was born.  Literally, I remember that day.  I used to babysit her and help her with her homework every summer.  When she wasn't even in kindergarten yet.  The fact that she is not an adult officially deems me old.

I can't wait to see what her next chapter holds.  Because whatever it is, I know that it will be great.  This little girl is destined for big things. 

 

She's brilliant and beautiful and the sweetest person you'll ever meet.  And although I pray to one day have little football playing boy children, if I have a daughter, I sure hope that she turns out like Baby Hepburn.

Happy Graduation Day!

Waiting for Your George Clooney.

"People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost." ~H. Jackson Brown

Everyone in pop culture land has been all yippy yappy about the fact that George Clooney is finally engaged.  It will shock no one that pop culture news is not much my style, but when I read this article, suddenly, I cared.

The woman that George is marrying?  Although I sort of figured her for some 20 year old super model, is actually 36 years old, a human rights attorney, author of a book on special tribunal practice, and she's fluent in three languages.

As the author points out, this lady went out, got an education, traveled the world, made a difference, lived her life, and her reward was a big ol' ring from George Freakin' Clooney.

Our society often gets it backwards, telling girls that they better hurry up and get married or else they will die alone.  I can't tell you how many times people have looked at me with pity because I'm 30 and still single.  I've heard it all.....you're not getting any younger, your eggs are dying, you'll definitely have to settle for a guy with a crazy ex wife, you should get a cat.....blah blah blah.  Screw that nonsense.  There is no timeline by which you have to find love.  And there is no requirement that you can't go out and be awesome while you're looking.

So this is a little note for the single girls out there....you dream big dreams and go get them without worrying that you will never find a husband.  If Prince Charming comes along when you are 20, great.  But if you get to wait a little longer, take heart.  Your George Clooney might be right around the corner.

This is a wholly unrelated picture of the Chihuly exhibit I saw
last year since I don't have a photo of George Clooney to share.

A Running Picture

Today I'm linking up with Ladie Okie for the monthly runner's link up.

When I saw that the theme for this month was "A Running Picture," I knew right away what photo I would be selecting.  There was really only one option.

Bay to Breakers 2010.  A day that will live in infamy.

Allow me to set the stage.  College Roomie and I wake up crazy early and ride the bus downtown.  You then stand in line with tens of thousands of people who are mostly dressed in crazy costumes and randomly throwing tortillas in the air.  Then when the gun goes off, you begin the 7.5 mile run from downtown San Francisco (the bay) to the ocean (the breakers).  Along the way there is a literal party in the streets.  People cheering and drinking at 7 am.  Folks hosting house parties and waiving from their balconies.  Many people doing multiple things that would be illegal on a normal Sunday morning.  But anything goes for Bay to Breakers.

Including nudity.

We were maybe a half mile into the race when it happened.  We saw our first naked person.  Old, hairy, yucky, naked person.  Who was ironically wearing a hat.  I screamed to College Roomie, "OMG, there's a naked person up ahead!"  She said, "Go, go get a picture, I will catch up."  At this point, I begin sprinting all out to get up close enough (but not too close because ewwww) to snap a photo.  And so I did.  I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me.

The photo itself is not blog appropriate.  But here is our reaction afterwards.

The best part of this whole scenario is that 7 miles later at the finish line, we had seen so many yucky naked people, that it just wasn't that exciting any more.  Turns out we didn't have to sprint off to catch that first guy because there would be many more just like him.  Old, hairy, yucky, naked people.  Fun fact for you:  It's never the guys you want to see naked that are running naked.

And so there you have it.  A race picture and a story.  And a recommendation that if you want to run what is absolutely, hands down, the most fun run of your life, sign up for Bay to Breakers 2015.  You won't regret it.  (To read my full blog on the event, click here.)

Big Hat and a Little Horse

I'm not a mom, so I don't know anything about raising kids, but I feel pretty sure that if more of them were raised this way, the world would be a better place.

Oh, and I also think there is a special place in Heaven for horses like Katie Elder.

Simon Says...

Ouch....this one makes me think.

My Answer to a Great Question

“As a matter of fact, it is not a question of God’s intentions towards us; but it is a question of whether we see Him through the crowds, whether or not we see Him and say, “If I may but only touch the hem of His garment...” And so it is not about our capacity for goodness; but it is about our being able to simply see His intentions of goodness for us.”  ~C. Joybell C.

Earlier in the week, I posed the following question and shared thoughts from many of those whose faith I strongly admire:  What is the one thing you have done/habit you have formed that has most impacted your faith?

For me, the answer is found in going to adoration.  For those of you who may not be familiar, adoration is where people go to a chapel to be in the presence of the Eucarist, which is the bread from the Lord's Supper celebrated at Mass.  The Catholic Church believes that during holy communion the bread literally becomes the body of Christ and,therefore, when you are in a chapel facing the bread (usually held in a golden statute looking thing called a monstrance), you are literally siting in the presence of Christ.  Everyone there just sits in pews silently praying or thinking or reading.

I first went to adoration when I lived in Albuquerque.  Our Lady of Fatima on Monday nights.  There were pink walls.  It was quiet, peaceful, calming.  There were always a handful of people.  A grandmother.  A nurse.  A guy about my age.  All there worshiping, experiencing, praising, praying.  There was just something about it.  It was here that I contemplated life during a period of significant change.  Deciding to take a new job and move away.  When I began dating The Boy from Texas.  While planning my trip to Eastern Europe.

When I moved to Texas, I found a church with a perpetual adoration chapel, meaning it is open 24/7.  And I go.  Often.  It is small, quiet.  I pray and read and just sit in the silence.  I usually go at night, my favorite time to be there is when it is dark and raining outside.  Having this perpetual adoration chapel and the ability to go anytime I want is one of my favorite parts of living here.

St. Thomas Aquinas Perpetual Adoration Chapel - 2014

I don't really know how to explain the impact that this has on my faith and my life, but it makes a difference.  A big one.  I am calmer, more aware of God's presence, more at peace.  I am not a person who has ever heard God literally speak, but somehow as I sit in the chapel, I feel His presence.  And I have no doubt that He is with me everywhere else as well, the fact is that if I can feel Him better in this one place, I know that I must keep returning.

As I said on Wednesday, I think that's the key.  Figure out where it is that you find Him and keep returning.  It's okay if it is different than someone else, it is okay if it doesn't necessarily make sense, it is okay if you can't really explain it.  Find Him and keep returning.  Maybe that's the answer.

Throwback Thursday #64: OSU Mock Trial Team

My senior year of college, I was on the mock trial team.  We weren't very good, but man alive did we have fun.  And made some great friendships with people who I otherwise might never have known at OSU!  After getting to see one of my teammates last week for the first time in about 8 years, I realized I had to share some pictures of our major mock trial trip!  We went to a tournament in Dallas in the spring of 2006.  We won a round or maybe two.  College Roomie won an award for being one of the best witnesses in the competition.  And I kick myself for not having a blog then to remember all of the funny stories.  It was a great experience with even better people!

The team at Regionals

We may not have been Olympic material...

Team Dinner

Little bit of a flat tire adventure.

We may have been better here than in the courtroom.

College Roomie and I

Girls and the skyline

College Roomie, Trey and I
 

Skating at the Galleria

 



So....what do we say kids?  Team reunion??

 




A Great Question

“God is here, right now, at our side. We can see him in this mist, in the ground we're walking on, even in my shoes. His angels keep watch while we sleep and help us in our work. In order to find God, you have only to look around.”  ~Paulo Coehlo

A few weeks ago, one of my friends posted the following question on Facebook:

What is the one thing you have done/habit you have formed that has most impacted your faith?

I thought it was a great question.  You'll hear my answer later this week.  But while mulling it over for myself, I decided that I should ask the question of some of the people in my life whose faith I greatly respect.

Charles River Bridge - Prague, Czech Republic - 2013

Some said that it was silence--a monastic retreat, sitting in the quiet, being still and knowing He is God.  For others, it was interactions with people, talking through questions, finding encouragement throughout their lives when God seemingly placed the right people there at the right time.

Some pointed to scripture reading.  Others to Christian books.  One to various podcasts of messages from the best preachers across the world.  Another to consistent, continual prayer on a daily basis.  One to miraculously surviving a car accident from which she should never have walked away.

For some it was intentional acts....setting quiet time, praying with a spouse.  For others, something wholly happenstance....stumbling upon a church, attending a retreat because their friend needed a roommate. 

One said fasting.  Another, knowing that his grandmother always prayed for him.  One to trying to continually be aware of His presence.  For another, asking challenging questions rather than just buying into whatever others believed.  One mentioned taking her young children to Mass (stressful as that may be!)  Another recalled a Bible verse read to her when she was only 9 years old and her father was killed in an accident.

So what should we take from all of this?  That all of us find God in different ways, in different places, doing different things.  I think the important thing is simply that we find Him.  That we experience Him.  That we love Him.  And that we share that with others.  No matter the form that may take.

Funny Conversations with the Boys in My Life (Part IV)

Today some of the heat is going to be taken off of The Boy from Texas as I share a few quotes with two of the other boys in my life as well:  Little Cowboy and BFF.  I really don't know what I'd do without the wisdom from these three in my life.

BFF:  "I'm going to need you to post a few blogs better suited for those readers who do not have ovaries.  Not hating, I dig it.  This member of your readership is probably going to read it regardless, but maybe i'll get a few gender neutral posts.  Hell, I'll even brainstorm ideas and forward."

Little Cowboy (to me and The Boy from Texas):  How come you two don't sleep in the same bed?
Me:  Because he won't stinkin' marry me!
Little Cowboy:  *shakes his head*
The Boy from Texas:  Yet!  Yet!  Don't say it like that and make him mad!

Little Cowboy (at the sheep sale after he told people the lambs were all $1,000, cash only.):  Um, Tiff, this price thing we have going just isn't going over that well.

Little Cowboy:  Tiff, see that kid over there in the red shirt?
Me:  Yea, I see him.
Little Cowboy:  That's the kid who picks on me and my best friend at school.  You know, the one that put me in a headlock.
Me:  You want me to go tell him how it is and that he better not do that crap anymore?
Little Cowboy:  Um.....no.  I mean, yea, kinda.  But you probably better not.  Unless you want to.  But don't.

The Boy from Texas:  It's possible that I'm going to have to be the patient on in this relationship for the rest of our lives.
Me:  There is no doubt you are going to have to do that.  Have fun.

Happy Mother's Day

“But there's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.”~ Mitch Albom

When I think back on my childhood, I realize my mom spent most of her time in the trenches.  She did so much for us, but it was usually the unseen.  Ironing shirts so we didn't look like little bums.  Walking pigs every night during the summer.  Slathering on sunscreen so we didn't die of skin cancer.  Cooking dinner every night even after she had worked a full day.  Teasing my hair so that I wouldn't look so "blah" instead of like Miss Texas.  Sitting through countless volleyball, basketball and football games.  Proofreading the hundreds of speeches we gave in 4-H and FFA.  The list could go on and on.

Her job wasn't glamorous, but it was important.  And we were lucky to have her do it.  Happy Mother's Day!

Family Farm Friday #89: Our Ditch Runneth Over

We live in an irrigation project.  Most people aren't familiar with what that means, so let me explain.  The Army Corps of Engineers dammed up the Canadian River about 50 miles northwest of our family's farm for the purpose of creating this irrigation project.  They allow farmers in the project to buy a set amount of water to irrigate crops and that water is then diverted from the river into canals and ditches that get to the farmers.  Because we live in a place that doesn't get much rainfall (even in a normal year, much less in a drought like we're in), we depend on this water for our livelihood.

When I was a kid, we used to get about 18 inches of water per acre.  You'd look out the front window and it was green as far as you could see.  We'd have multiple cuttings of hay, trucks full of milo and wheat, and lots of grass for the sheep.

Then the drought hit.  The last 5 years, we have gotten no water.  It was too dry and there was just not enough water in the river.  Fields turned brown.  Dust started to blow.  Crops died.  My dad says that now, when you look out the front window, it's just depressing.

But then, on Monday, a welcome sight.

Water came flowing down the concrete ditches of the irrigation project.  This year, we'll be getting 9 inches of water.  I wasn't there for the fun, but I can assure  you that my parents took it all in when that water came down the ditch.  The smell, the sounds, it splashing up on you when you set the tubes for it to run down the field.

Farming is tough.  It's even tougher in the worst drought in history and the wind blows 50 miles an hour for weeks on end.  I know that it's depressing and eats on my dad every day.  But as he said when he posted this on Facebook, he waited a long time for this day. 

And although the drought is far from over and the grass is far from green and we are still in desperate need of rain, that sound you hear in the video....it's worth celebrating.  Our ditch runneth over.

Gran and Her Reward

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

Ten years ago today, my favorite person in the world left for Heaven.  She would not have said Heaven; she always referred to it as "my reward."  My Gran was the kind of grandmother I think every kid should have. 

She baked the best cookies.  Let us play with matches and candles.  Could peel an apple with a pocket knife and at the end have one single strand of skin, never broken.  She was tough as nails and fiercely independent.  Walked a mile every morning. Never missed an episode of Paul Harvey.  Kept Kit Kats in the fridge.  Cursed when she almost burned the house down.  Let us chauffer her around in a little brown Datsun pickup long before we were allowed to drive.  Hummed Clair de Lune everywhere she went.  She kept the farm going when her husband died at 45 and everyone told her she should sell and move to town with her two teenage boys.  Wore a floppy old hat with big shiny diamond rings.  Had a medicine cabinet with iodine and hydrogen peroxide in case you needed to fix something up before your mom saw.  Watched MASH every afternoon.  Made inappropriate toasts and snuck cigarettes in the bathroom.  Also bribed our sheep hauler to smuggler her said cigarettes into the assisted living home.  She didn't yell at me when my horse pulled the air conditioner out of her window or the time I rolled her stock trailer.  She nearly blew her hand off lighting black cat fireworks in the house and throwing them out the front door.

She was a good person.  A strong woman.  A great rancher.  And the best grandma.  I can only hope that I can live up to the legacy she left; that some of her will show up in some of me.  Oh, and that she'll have a fridge full of Kit Kats waiting for us all one day when we go to our reward.

Love Don't Know What Distance Is...

'Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.' ~ Jennifer Smith

...and this is why I drove 2.5 hours on Monday night for dinner with The Boy from Texas who was in East Texas for work.  I drove longer than we actually got to see each other.  It made zero logical sense.  (And although love might not know what distance is, my wallet knows after filling up with gas and my 30 year old exhausted self is quit clear on what it is!)

Hopefully one day (soon) we will get to live in the same zip code.  And when that happens, I'm sure we will eventually get sick of each other and periodically long for the days when we lived 9 hours apart.  But as much as I hate this long distance thing we've got going on, I do kinda love how much we appreciate the time we do get to spend together.  Hopefully that's something we can always try to remember.

Retiring a Holiday

For several glorious years of my life, the last weekend of April/first weekend of May was a major holiday.  The incomparable Calf Fry in Stillwater, Oklahoma.   Live Red Dirt music.  Dancing.  Drinking.  Laughing.  Pancakes at IHOP at 3 in the morning.  Our favorite security guard, Wally.  Forgetting about upcoming finals.  Friends.  Fun.  A house full of people sleeping it off.  The great outdoors.  Usually mud was involved.  It was everything good.

 

First Calf Fry - 2004

Funniest night of my life - Calf Fry 2006

Three of my best friends from high school - Calf Fry 2005

Talk about looking young....BFF and me....2004

He was very excited - 2006

The New Mexicans - 2006 (night 1)

Happy couple - 2006

Meeting Alex Weeden

2006...the girls who stayed in our 2 bedroom apt (plus the guy taking the picture)

2009-ish?

Trailerpark Bryan made friends with the afro - 2006

We all got the white memo.

Calf Fry 2006 pre-party

Calf Fry 2004 - The NM crew

And now, 10 years to the day after my very first Calf Fry, I think that it is time I finally retire the holiday.  I'll do so with memories I will never forget.  The funniest night of my life, hands down, happened there.  While in college, we blew off finals, snuck out of a relay for life, and pulled vehicles out of mud to get there.

Some of my favorite quotes and inside jokes happened on these weekends.  "You saw nothing!"  "If you throw pickles at him, he'll stop playing."  "But the Australians liked us on the real world!"  "I don't know the guy on the couch, but make him leave before you do and don't let him steal the silver wear." 

There was great music.  Chris LeDoux.  Miranda Lambert.  Daryl Worley (who was equally cool in Ihop when Cole announced him to the restaurant).  Cross Canadian Ragweed about 100 times.  Jason Bowlin.  Eli Young Band.  Randy Rogers Band.  Everything good.



So, you crazy college kids, I'm giving her to you.  You've got big shoes to fill.  Lots of fun to live up to.  Great memories to make.  Don't waste the opportunity.  Do us proud.