There's a story in that somewhere.

It came from a dream or a conversation or something I read on the web.
I worked it in my mind as I walked to the bus. The sleepy college students silently commiserate at the bus station. They hunch their shoulders and stick their fists in their pockets. My chin rests on my color bone and I watch the moister from my nostrils make fog on my glasses. It slowly clear and I see the still figures with their back packs full of books. Then they are gone behind a cloud of precious heat escaping from my body. The bus pulls up. The doors open and we all file on sullenly flashing our passes at the driver who nods and counts us as we pass. Suddenly we are people again. the hoods are lowered and heads are held up. People get comfortable for the long ride. I sit by myself for now. At the next stop there will be many more students getting on. Across from me a student is making an attempt at getting some reading done. Another is listening to his i-pod and getting ready to fall asleep. We mind our own business. We are all in this together but no one wants to talk about it. Not this early in the morning.
It starts as a few lines in a green note book. I scribbled hastily on whatever page falls open. No one can read it but me. No one would try.
It's just an idea. Maybe it will stay an idea forever. There is nothing terribly original about it. It's been done a million times. Somewhere some one else had an idea and wrote it down and it grew. It was special to that person. It's special to me. Something about it strikes a spark in my mind. It's a door that begs to be opened and explored. I'll get around to opening it someday. The green note book was supposed to be for taking notes in class. Now it sits in one of the darker corners of my closet filled with thoughts and musings.
Funny how these things come: in dreams and little things people said. And always on the bus.
"No one ever writes stories about the happily ever after part." Some one said that once. i can't remember who. I thought about it on the bus. I wonder what happened to Sleeping Beauty after she woke and, presumably, became the queen of a country at the ripe old age of one-hundred-sixteen. There's a story in that somewhere.
Speaking of princesses, I read once about a viking damsel who turned pirate and had the first co-ed long boat known to legend. She was finally defeated by a Danish prince in a stunning sea battle. The Danish prince was an old suitor of hers. At the end of the battle he fell to his knees on her blood stained deck and asked her to marry him. She said yes! That's quite a story already but it would be interesting to explore.
"You know what's cool about being Catholic? You can be very Irish or you can be very Mexican and be very Catholic either way." That would be a fun thing to write about; a Mexican and an Irishman stuck together somehow. There are several ways to get a story out of that.
Maybe one of them will actually become a story someday.

"Rules suck"

Where did our culture get it's fear of rules? Somebody decided one day that rule existed to keep us from having fun and therefore ought to be broken shamelessly. I think this is one of the sillier concepts America has come up with. I was talking to someone about what it would be like to do God's will at every moment. The person I was talking to kept objecting that having God control him so much would be torture. They don't seem to be able to reconcile the idea of an all loving God and a God who uses phrases "thou shall not" and "deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me". Yes, God is loving enough to give us free will, and he asks us, in love, to form our will to be one with His. He's bit smarter than us, after all. The fact that doing as your told actually brings you greater happiness never entered my friend's mind. If you asked him if God loved him, he would say yes. If you asked him if God knew what was best for him, he would say yes. But if you ask him if he would like to do God's will at every moment of his whole life, he says "That's Torture!" There is something wrong with this picture. It's so sad it's almost funny.

A couple thousand years ago somebody had it right. That somebody wrote a psalm about how wonderful it was to follow the commandments of a loving and wise God.
He says:

"With my whole heart I seek thee; let me not wonder from thy commandments!
I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Blessed be thou, O Lord; teach me they statutes!
With my lips I declare all they ordinances of they mouth.
In the way of thy testimonies I delight as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on thy precepts, and fix my eyes on they ways.
I will delight in thy statutes; I will not forget thy word."

Later he goes on:

"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things our of thy law."

A little later...

"My soul is consumed with longing for thy ordinances at all times."

He longs to understand and follow perfectly all the rules. They guide him, console him. It sounds strange on my American ears. Statutes and Delight in the same sentence? His souls is Consumed with Longing for God's Ordinances? It seems so contrary. He's either crazy or the biggest suck up ever. I wish I could pray this whole psalm with sincerity. When I think about giving God my every moment, it terrifies me as much as anyone. But I want to want to do it. I know in my head it will be the best for me. Getting things from my intellect to my will is the hard part. At the moment my will is in rebellion. I read once that if you have even the smallest desire to be a saint, and you give that to God, He will do great things with it.

I want to want Your will. I will fix my eyes on thy ways. Teach me thy statutes.

The are verses from Psalm 119 (or 118). Revised Standard Version. Catholic edition.

Oh and by the way.

I have been meaning to write about my new baby brother. I think I mentioned him earlier but he has not had a blog all his own. I have been trying to think of something to say about him. What do you say about you first brother? I could go on about the baby things but they are not all that new to me. I remember three other babies. They all make adorable little noises and faces and they mess their diapers and nurse and sleep for most of the day. Not that every baby isn't a miracle that is new and beautiful but I don't think I need to describe his daily activities for all and sundry. He does normal baby things.
I could talk about how I am feeling about having a brother. I have four wonderful sisters. In the past we've proudly boasted of our brother-less state. Our family had an identity of having no boys and no regrets. During the pregnancy we were a bit defiant. Why would God give us a boy when we do so well with girls. Maleny said that if it was a boy we had to send it back. I even said having a boy in the house would make me all the more anxious to move out. (Which is something I will need some pushing to pursue.) Now that he is here I don't mind so much. He's a baby, which is what we wanted. Even Maleny said that he was exactly what she wanted, if not what she expected. I thought we should have named him Isaac because of all the laughter when we found out. But dad said this issue was a non-negotiable. I guess St. Isaac is his patron along with St. Lawrence (patron of comedians, on whose feast day our David was born) But now that the shock has worn off we are all falling back into our natural family routine. Only with a baby brother. It's not that much different yet. I guess we're in for an adventure when he gets a little older, or so all our acquaintances have been eager to remind us. "You're gonna have to redefine everything you thought was normal." A dear friend gleefully informed us. Our one male cousin was playing cool and disinterested. "I'm planning on ignoring him till he's old enough to play video games." My mother was indignant at this comment. "It's just a boy thing." My aunt assured her. We're not looking forward to all the "boy things." Mom says most of that is just bad behavior and she will tolerate none of it. There have been all sorts of comments about what sort of psychological problems a boy raise in a house of five girls will have to face. "Poor kid." is probably the most repeated phrase. Just the way "Your poor dad!" used to be when we told people that we had five girls and no boys. Some one today commented on David's tendency to sleep with half open eyes. "With five sisters, he's gonna have to sleep with one eye open." This makes no sense to me. What terrible things are the expecting us girls to do to him? It makes me wonder if they know us very well. Honestly now! I don't think it would take a deep acquaintance with my sister and I to deduce that we are not particularly pugnacious. Most of us treat each other with a decent amount of respect and have no intention of picking on any one. We're all different enough so that we are either all normal or all oddballs in one way or another. We just have better things to do than harass each other about it. Our evilest plots for David involve teaching him how to swing dance and getting him into theater because there are simply not enough boys in the world who know how to sing and dance. Maybe this sounds like torture to some people but he can hardly escape being musically inclined. He comes from a family of musicians. Dad's side of the family is incredibly musical. If he doesn't get it in the genetics, he will get it in his upbringing. In the average day he hears folk music, contemporary christian rock or folk rock, classical flute music, broadway show tunes pounded on the piano along with some classical pieces, all of us singing along to all of the above plus some a cappella gregorian chant and medieval polyphony. And we dance with him all day long. Poor kid. Some one call child protective agency!
Well, in any case. I'd like to introduce you to my brother: David Francis.
Here he is being wonder full, looking over my sister C.C.'s shoulder. Odd looking child. Skinny and big eyed. He looks like a staving child from a third world country. If only he wasn't so adorable when he cried he would get his dinner a heck of a lot faster. :P