Song 1

Over mountains, thru the valleys, can I cross the oceans?
Sometimes running, sometimes weeping, sometimes time stands still

And You say You love me, but I'm not so sure, if I'm heading in the --right direction
And I've heard that hope is a beautiful thing. In spite of myself I'm inclined to believe it.

Domine dirige nos  (Lord, guide us)
Dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace)
Emitte lucem tuam, et veritatem (Send forth your light and truth)
Amen

Hesitating, mind is racing, endless questions haunt me
My heart is waiting, to be wakened, end this dark and mourning

And You say You want me, but I don't know why for what can You do with these
broken pieces.
And I've tried to prove myself over again, though You've taken my proving and washed it in blood

Domine dirige nos

Dona nobis pacem
Emitte lucem tuam, et veritatem
Amen

Vita, gaudium, et constantia (Life, joy and steadiness)
Auxilio ab alto (By help from on high)

Dona nobis pacem

Domine dirige nos

Dona nobis pacem
Emitte lucem tuam, et veritatem
Amen, amen

Amen.

No, I'm not Italian

I had a rather unusual childhood. I suppose most people could make such a claim. What is usual after all?
But my family truly is a rather unusual family. In college, I would hang out with friends and inevitably I would mention something about one of my siblings (there are 9 of us kids altogether). One thing would lead to another and I ended up telling countless tales of family life. It progressed to the point where people would ask me to recount specific stories. "Tell me about the time when you met the crazy lady at the library...!" They would go home and tell their families and even now, if I happen to run into acquaitances I rarely see, they remember all of my siblings names and who's older than who and how so and so said such and such. It's quite amazing really. My parents always told us stories and I learned that you can make a good story out of anything. The fortune teller at the dollar store, Salisbury Steak on Sundays, blowing 4 tires in 3 months (2 in the same month actually. yeah, that was me), being forgotten on the school bus and scaring the driver out of her wits, dancing on the table in the middle of kindergarden class (that wasn't me), the roommate who insisted I would be a field worker. Ah, memories. Some people could not tell a good story to save their lives. Hopefully they'll never end up in that predicament. When my family happens to be in the same room, it's so loud you could hardly hear yourself think. Someone starts a story and someone else will jump in with their perspective and next thing you know we're all shouting and laughing and gesturing wildly and re-enacting the whole ordeal. It's bliss. I want to get married and have children, but I don't plan on having more than 3. I love children very very much, but a.) they are time-consuming expensive little darlings and b.) I want to be able to give my kids oodles and oodles of love and individual attention and I know myself well enough to know that having more than 3 would probably greatly reduce the oodles and oodles-- maybe to one oodle. Of course, I may change my mind. Either way, I do hope that my three (?) will be extra loud and silly and tell great stories so that when they spend time with Granma and all of the aunts and uncles and cousins, they won't stick out like 3 little sore thumbs.

Correction--because I'm weird like that

The doctor I mentioned in "I should've worn sneakers" is part of the Explorer's Club, not the Adventurer's Club. I know, who cares. No one reads this anyway :)

That whole listening thing

I used to think I was a good listener. Upon realizing that I'm not, I almost convinced myself that I once was and my auditory skills have just recently began to slip. But the sad truth is, I'm a terrible listener and I've been in denial for about 83.3 percent of my life. Well, let me back up a bit. I'm a selective listener and I often select not to. There is an advantage to this (don't you love how I try to make it sound not so bad). On occasion, I catch a snippet of a conversation that I shouldn't be hearing and in an effort not to be a wretched eavesdropper I turn off my ears. Or, when I worked at a fast-food--pardon me, a quick-service restaurant--most of what was discussed was crude, dirty, and just plain mean. I learned very quickly to tune people out. Later, I 'd hear stories of how so and so said such and such and I would honestly have no clue what they were talking about. So hurray, I don't hear what I don't want to. But what if I don't want to hear what I ought to? Nothing good, I know that for sure. I'm one of those people who has to learn the hard way and I desparately wish I wasn't. The same craziness keeps happening  and I find myself saying, "Seriously God? Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of joke? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM MEEE?"  Yes, I do yell and scram and rant and rave and question, question, question. In general, I'm a questioner. Those who know me best can attest to that. Am I doing this the right way. Is there a better way to get it done? Who says? Is that true?  How do you know? Why there? Why tomorrow? Why me? Obviously I never quite made it out of my 2 yr old stage. A healthy curiosity can be a wonderful thing. However, it's not that fabulous when the questions drown out the answers. Kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it. I claim to be questioning God with the intent of getting answers. But maybe, just maybe, answers are not always what I'm after. I need to face the fact that I'm terrified that I won't like the answers He gives me. So I don't listen. I talk and talk and feel all spiritual for coming to God and far too often that's where it ends. I choose not to hear what I don't think I want to. Ridiculously presumptuous of me. I always tell the children I work with to "put on their listening ears" so they don't miss something important. Physician heal thyself, hm. Well, knowledge is power. I am now officially recognizing and taking responsibility for my choice not to listen. Yikes. Do I really want to listen. Heck no! Should I? Yes, yes, yes. Here goes...

I should've worn sneakers

The other day (a phrase I like because it makes everything seem so...current, like news hot off the press--which in turn makes me feel quite up-to-date) I was taking a walk in the park. It was the first day in a long time that the weather was actually nice enough for a walk--a walk I very nearly didn't take because it was almost 7 in the evening and I had just left work and wasn't wearing "exercise clothes." Maybe it's silly of me, but I always feel odd about exercising in a public place anyway, and doing so in what my mom calls "street clothes" is even more awkward. I'm almost sure that no one really pays attention to what I have on and why should they care if I go running about in jeans or pjs or a ballgown. The thing is, I notice things like that. I notice if people have mismatched socks or missing buttons or if they've rolled up their sleeves and the right roll is not even with the left. I notice people's toes, their ears, their teeth, their hands and fingernails--especially their hands and fingernails; I have a thing for guys with nice hands :) In fact, my whole family is like that, paying attention to little things that many people overlook. Because I notice so much I sometimes assume that everyone else does too. Every now and then I realize that I can use other's overlooking to my advantage. For instance, when hospital orientation day arrived, I had yet to order the official nursing student name tag. So what did I do? Make my own, of course. I found my work name badge, typed a new label and ta-da! I even glued some laminate on top to make it all shiny. Did it look authentic. Um, no, not really. However, it was the right color and it had all of the right words and that was good enough. Hey, mimicry works in nature so why not elsewhere. I'd like to say that, being a biology major, nature was my inspiration. The truth is, I have a streak of devious deep down inside. I'm slightly proud of it. Anyway, back to the park. As I was self-consciously strolling in my street clothes, I found myself approaching several baseball fields. I could hear parents--mostly dads--and coaches shouting complicated technical baseball words to the players. Or maybe it just sounded complicated to me because I don't know or care very much about baseball. Either way, there was a lot of yelling going on and it wasn't coming from the players. Considering the intensity, you would've thought these were Major League hopefuls. I walked closer and nearly laughed out loud. The players in the field were all about 4 feet tall with fat cheeks and mouths full of baby teeth. Kindergardeners. They were absolutely adorable, running around on their short little legs, shirts untucked, pants falling down. Half of them were wandering aimlessly in the grass, spinning around in circles. I wanted to sit and watch them but I didn't want to seem creepy, staring at the children of complete strangers. Yet again, no one would've thought anything of it. They would assume I was someone's big sister. Other exercisers, wearing proper exercise clothes, had the same reaction I did when they saw who was playing. Everyone was smiling that "oh how cute!" smile. Come to think of it, some of those people probably were creepy (yikes), but at that moment my heart was touched. I passed the baseball fields with the cute babies and screaming dads, sat down on a bench and read all about a doctor, an officer in the Adventurer's Club who repaired the hand of a Amazon Indian child The little boy had a very bad incident with a machete but he handled it with surprising calm. I mean, the poor child's hand was falling off and he didn't shed a tear until the doctor injected him with pain meds; he was scared of the needle. Go figure. Two weeks later he was up on the roof of his family's hut making repairs. Terribly impressive. The moral of this story is--keep a pair of sneakers in the car at all times and never play with machetes.

Reflections on Tuesday (even though it's Thursday)

I'v never had a blog before. I don't even think I was quite sure of what a blog is until fairly recently. Anyway, here goes my attempt at actually keeping up with a "blog" (that word is definitely going into the category of words that sound ridiculous--couldn't we call it something else?). Just so you know, my name really isn't Tuesday. I sort of wish it was. Yes, I'm fully aware it's a day of the week, but it's such a cute name. If I ever feel the need to change my name (which I'm pretty sure will never happen) Tuesday will be in the top five. Or maybe if I have a little girl someday, I'll name her Tuesday. There's something rather interesting about it. Nobody in the U.S. likes Mondays; Wednesdays are "halfway through the week" days so you can pat yourself on the back for surviving the first half and steel yourself for the second ; Thursday is okay because people are anticipating Friday; Of course, Fridays are supposed to be fabulous and they lead up to Saturdays which for many are "free" days that quickly become not so free; then comes Sunday and church and family dinners and reading Parade magazine and dreading Mondays. Tuesday is the only day I can think of when nothing in particular is going on. No one's expectations for that day are especially high or low, there's usually no dread attached and no one feels the need to make grand plans. A rather extraordinary position to be in, I think. Can you imagine being a Tuesday? Everyone hopes that you will be a good sort of day and if you turn out to be perfectly splendid, they are pleasantly surprised. If you end up badly, well, it's okay, there's always tomorrow and the rest of the week to make up for it. Interesting...By the way, "C'est le ton qui fait la musique" is French for (literally) "it's the tone that makes the music." In other words, it's not what you say but how you say it. How true.