Inside a car of the tube were as many realities as there were people. Though each one of us partook in the same physical reality of the car, we each escaped off to our own.

The girl in the corner was looking at her ex’s new girlfriend’s trip in Switzerland. The middle-aged man was watching his favorite player miss a three-pointer. The boy by his mother was building an imaginary farm on some app. That other girl was talking to her friend three time zones away about the test she had that week. The next one over was learning Italian with an owl. The other was solving puzzles with numbers in a grid. The one across was preparing her speech to be given at work in a few hours. One was buying clothes. Another listening to music. Some eating their lunch. Okay, okay, you get it. And I too was some version of all of these in my short stay in London.

I thought about how interesting it would have been if no one had a cell phone or even a book. If we all instead were forced to share the reality of being in the underground: of being crammed into a metal car with 150 strangers rushing at 60 miles per hour through a tunnel beneath a 1,979 year old city. How sick is that?

This thought led me to ask myself the following question:

How often is it that we truly share reality?

How much more often do we pull out our phone as soon as there’s a silence in the elevator or put in our AirPods as soon as we find our seat in the bus?

No wonder our society has become disconnected. No wonder people feel lonely and uprooted. We have forgotten how to share the most fundamental of all things: reality. Without sharing this cornerstone can we share anything else?

In fiction they often write dystopian stories of people time traveling and I’m sure hundreds of years before they could just have well written stories about space traveling—what happens today.

We travel space to different realities too often each day. If I sneeze will anyone say “bless you”? If I stand up and start dancing will anyone even notice? If a young girl get’s stabbed in a bus will anyone help her (this happened in Charlotte by the way)? Even now as I write this in some bar in Pamplona am I really present here?

What can we learn from old folks?

I envy old people. I really do. Especially European ones.

On my typical morning as I rush to class, a podcast playing in my ears at 2.3x speed, old people slowly look on at me from the seats along the street. Sitting in the bars along the sidewalks, alone with a newspaper, with their partner, or with a large friend group, they sip on wine or share a cigarette. Some laugh loudly, others frown as they look into the street or tell a story.

One thing is certain: they are living in the present and sharing it with each other: they are living in reality.

As a kid I would get a little frightened talking to older folks because they always had something witty to say like “Did you get your smile from Walmart?” or “your brother’s growing like a weed” and I would not quite understand or know how to respond. Now, there’s nothing I love more. I love hearing their wit and basking in my envy for it: admiring and wanting to capture for myself their knack of living in the present.

In their days interacting with others was necessary. If you were lost you had to ask someone for directions. If you had a question you had to ask a real-life person or go to a real-life library. To schedule an appointment you had to speak with a real answering-person. To order coffee you had to speak with a real-life barista, inside a real-life coffee shop.

Technology gave and it took. However, it took more than we realized, and behind our backs.

Technology took away waiting in long lines and with it small talk skills. It took away being lost and asking for directions, and with it the sharing of knowledge and the dependence on others. It took away everyday interchanges, and with it a tangible sense of community.

Technology took away boredom and with it peace. It took away inconvenience and with it fundamental human bonds.

In their age living in the present was second nature. To escape to your own reality meant becoming a recluse or an alcoholic. Nowadays, it’s second nature to watch lists of movies on the plane and endless reels in the dentist waiting room. Intentionality is required of us to dare to live in the present with others—to dare to share the same reality as them.

And why Europe? That’s a topic for another post. But I’ll say one thing here; they beat the Americans by miles—sorry, kilometers—in their lifestyle.

I just hope I’ll end up sharing more cigarettes than reels and having longer conversations than my screen time.

What is going on?

The times I have felt most alive and fulfilled are times when I have not been physically comfortable. Times I do not have access to an immediate dopamine hit or even electricity or a bathroom. A four-day camping trip to Moab, 100 kilometers through northern Spain, a week taking care of 16 girls, or a month serving in the heat and mud of Calcutta… In each of these, I experienced something strong, and with other people. We shared painful realities, but beautiful.

Having to go the bathroom so bad but pushing through the last 5 kilometers with your friend. Sitting on the side of a cliff sick to your stomach, scared of falling, and bitterly cold. Putting away the 200th scalding plate from the industrial dishwasher as your back aches. Sleeping knowing there’s a rat somewhere in the room and bugs in your mattress. The people I have shared these experiences with I know better than the ones I see at school or work everyday.

To be able to know someone you have to share reality with them for starters.

Maybe people suffer from loneliness because they are scared of breathing in the same reality.

I can’t blame them. Breathing in the same air can sometimes smell like onion, garlic, coffee, or morning breath (this is figurative and literal). Yet, it’s powerful. It’s connective.

Most want to turn away to their own and not share such a tight, awkward space. Too often, for example, I see kids with each other, each turned to their own device—not with each other.

I remember the days when I would hang out with friends and it would soon convert into a phone circle. We all sought to escape from the present. How sad it looks. People freak out when teenagers gather around to drink or smoke. But hey, at least they’re not gathering around only to escape to another reality; to discard the present moment. To me, a group of teenagers looking down at their screens speaks loudly: louder than a group of drunk teenagers running down the street.

I dream of a different world: one everyone lives in, one where you know everyone is there. The person on the bus, your friend during coffee, your classmate, the stranger on the street. People are themselves because they cannot escape. They have nothing left to do but be present.

We’re told to be thankful for the world we’re in; for all it’s new technologies and advancements, for all the comfort and opportunity.

But that’s the problem. That’s the paradox. How can we be thankful we’re in it if half of the time we’re not and the other half of the time half the people around us are not?

So… what do we do?

There may not be a real solution… technology is here and now we rely on it.

However, we can each live intentionally in the present. We can each strive to embrace reality in every moment rather than discard it.

Let’s share reality. Let’s drown in it. Let’s laugh until our stomach hurts and tears come out of our eyes. Let’s cry into each others shoulders and wipe our running mascara off. Let’s embrace silence and just sit. Let’s talk someone’s ear off and let them talk ours off. Let’s do more of the ideas that come to our heads. Let’s send the message and stop overthinking. Let’s do stuff for the hell of it.

Because every day is a yesterday, a today, and a tomorrow.

In Greek, there are two words for time: χρόνος and καιρός. Χρόνος is measured time while καιρός is immeasurable, opportune time. It describes the phenomenon of time sometimes changing speed depending on what we’re doing, and the necessity to seize the moment before it flees. I could go into much more depth on these terms, but this suffices for our topic.

It’s enough to say that we need less χρόνος and more καιρός. Less structured, practical time, and more time we get lost in—time outside of time.

Will we relish in reality or reject it?

So anyways. If for one day I could eliminate technology I would spend it in the underground. I would ride all day and change tubes until they found me out. I’d strike up conversations with the people next to me, say something witty about the weather, or just sit in the silence and watch, listen, and smell.

Oh, and I wouldn’t forget to mind the gap.

The time of year my hair gradually creeps lighter than my skin and my skin darker than my hair, and both painfully dry.

The time of year I forget socks exist and live in a swimsuit ten hours of the day.

The time of year my vocal cords fight back at me bitterly because every weekend I strain them again at a swim meet and every morning at practice they reach their full capacity.

My tongue has repeated innumerably the word: “kick”, my hand the motion of a high five, and my mind counted the time left until I got home.

Summer.

The months I count weeks instead of days.

The season I say I’ll work on myself and end up just working for money.

This time I’ll be consistent, I said. Have a consistent routine.

At least my summers have been consistent in their inconsistency. Maybe that’s what they’re for, after all. A new rhythm.

And this summer, the rhythm was indeed quite new.

This summer after months abroad I came back home, pulled back down from one world into the other.

I returned with a deeper, less intoned voice. I returned with a narrower sense of fashion and a broader view of the world. I returned with less shallow smiles, but a deeper peace.

When people ask how I am—which is anytime I see anyone (be it even a clerk at a store, because we’re Americans after all)—I fall into the same rehearsal. I smile, wrinkle my eyes, lift my voice slightly, and respond with a “Great! And you?”.

But how true is this? Is it really that simple? Maybe I’m not doing perfectly “great”… not as “great” as my raised voice, strong intonations, and exaggerated smile may communicate.

All about me I see the same: makeuped faces hiding any signs of exhaustion, forced smiles masking any signs of reluctance, raised, cheery voices coating any hesitation, and the same few words clogging the pipes to the depths of human interaction.

What purpose do these interactions serve if they are all surface level rehearsals? There is no human to human.

And that’s something I hate. Is everyone really as well as they say? Because if so we would all be doing equally well, all the time. We would always be equally happy to see everyone.

Sure, manners are great, but to the extent that they serve humanity. They should neither exhaust the life out of us nor inhibit the life shared among us.

And this, for one, is something I have found the Spanish to do better.

Rather than being greeted by a well-mannered mannequin, you are greeted with a person: tired, angry, melancholy, enthusiastic, shy, lo que sea. Though it took me some getting used to and lot’s of “she doesn’t hate me, she doesn’t hate me” reassurances to myself, I have come to appreciate the luxury of meeting a person at the first encounter.

So anyways, like I said: maybe I’m not as “great” as I say I am. Maybe there’s much more depth inside of me than the shallow appearance I tend to put on in the United States.

And so, if when someone asks “how are you?” I were to answer truthfully, free of distance, norms, or expectations, I would answer as such:

This summer has been a difficult summer of unadjustment.

After 9 months of strenuous (and thrilling) adjustment to a new culture and language, the month of June involved a mix both of reluctant-yet-intentional tearing down and passive letting fall.

Let me explain.

After a few mistakes, I have intentionally unadjusted from the elegantly late Spanish arrival to the “if you’re on time you’re late” American timing, thus shifting my timeliness up an hour.

After some tripping and slipping, my tongue has readjusted to English’s deep, relaxed vowels and hard consonants, hardening itself to the Spanish rhythm.

Unintentionally, my meals have become tasks to rush through and check off the list, unrecognizable from the sacred moments of connection and slowing down they were before.

Very intentionally (and strenuously) I have scrounged up the energy to execute the American greeting once more.

My body aches to walk again, to be stretched. My stomach begs for real, digestible food. My mind wants to have the freedom once more to wander with my steps through Pamplona.

The worst (and best) is knowing that in a few weeks I will have to undo all the unadjustment I have just gone through.

And yet, the difficulty of living between two cultures can only be the result of a great blessing. I have the opportunity to study in another country, speak another language, and immerse into another culture.

Every time I am frustrated by traits of one culture, exhausted from long trips and time changes, or done with living out of a suitcase, I try to remind myself of how lucky I am to have each one of these problems.

So anyways, this article (though it’s more a diary entry than an article) has allowed me an attempt at putting my sentiments into words. I am not too sure how it may serve you… maybe you identify with it, or maybe it allows you a glimpse into another culture.

Either way, I want to be clear that good things outweigh the struggles that come with them. That does not mean, however, that we ought to be silent about the struggles.

Hasta luegooo

John Scotus Eriugena, an Irish monk of the ninth century, was accused of pantheism in his time and yet is recently gaining much fame and attention from theologians and philosophers alike.

Central to his work was his concept of Theophany, the idea that God makes himself manifest in creation to the point that he calls the universe God made visible. This is where his contemporaries were put on edge; to them it seemed as though he was calling for a worship of nature.

The study of the natural world was, in fact, a large part of John Scotus’ theology. One of his main works, Periphyseon, literally meaning “On Nature”, presents a four-fold division of nature from a theistic perspective. His division hinges upon the verb “to create”, both active and passive. Beings are divided into creating or not and being created or not, thus giving way to four sections:

The first division—creating, not created—God as beginning.

The second division—creating, created—the primordial causes, similar to Plato’s realm of the ideas.

The third division—not creating, created—the intelligible world; physical things with beginning and end.

The fourth division—not creating, not created—God as end.

Scotus places God in each one of these divisions. God clearly is beginning and end (Alpha and Omega), but, in so far as created things have their essence in him, is also among the other two divisions. He writes:

John Scotus places ideas and forms in the second and the material world in the third.

His theology only gets deeper and more beautiful as it goes, but I would like to focus on something else and I am sure that you, the reader does to. Naturally, we want to learn more of our own nature: where does man fit in?

Here’s my take: body and soul, we could belong to either of the middle two. Thanks to our immortal soul and being made in imago Dei we have the ability to create as creative creation, thus belonging to the second. However, our bodies, through degeneration and our desires, keep us tied to the physical world, causing us to belong as well to the third.

If we act as mere animals, following our bodies, we lose a key part of our nature, that which allows us to share in God’s image. Whereas, if we strive for our higher nature, the part of the second category, we share God’s characteristic of “creating”.

Thus, it is when we create that we connect with our very nature, mirroring God, in whose image we were created.

By creating, we are pulled out from a stagnant, bestial nature into one of fruitfulness and fertility.

Through this capacity, we are able to create things which did not exist before, calling things into existence alongside our Creator.

… And Its Application

Recently, my sister posed to us the question: which is more beautiful, a mountain or a canvased masterpiece?

All of us without much hesitation, answered the mountain: of course God’s creation is superior to our own. However, my sister challenged us.

She explained that a painting does not only give glory to us as its creator, but also to God as our Creator. Human artwork reveals a dimension of God’s creativity that no mountain could: his ability to make creative creation—to create beings in his very image.

Thus, the more we use and expand our creativity, the more glory we give to God in a fully and uniquely human way.

Every day I like to think about whether I have created. What I have caused to become? A friendship? A feeling? A drawing? An idea? A pardon? A question? A dynamic? A laugh?… the opportunities are infinite.

Of course we can not take full credit for causing these things to become because we are merely cooperating with our own creator as he continues his creative work through us.

This can be achieved through reaching out to someone, making a meal, putting together a bouquet, making a homemade card, pulling out your watercolors, writing thoughts or poetry, or greeting a stranger. It could be redecorating a wall in your house, dressing intentionally, making a collage, learning an instrument or just singing.

And in each of these creations God is glorified so deeply. Each of these creations points to The Creator in a profound way.

Having a creative outlet, then, is not unimportant. We are not made to be mere creations going through the same motions or leaving the creating to a chat box. We are called to create in all we do.

Let us never cease to feel the thrill and satisfaction of sitting down to paint, learn an instrument, make a meal for someone, or write out our busy thoughts, because it is in these very things that we fulfill our purpose and glorify God.

Creating means not only living out our full potential and identity in God’s image, but glorifying and magnifying him immensely, in the manner only we can.

Create art. Create ideas. Create love.

This is my first piece (of many, I hope) on fashion. I’ve never studied fashion at any capacity, but I do have a love for it. I hope, now, to put my experience in thrifting, making Pinterest boards, and even philosophy, to work. The earlier part of this article focuses more on the thought behind what I explore (so even if you don’t like fashion this will still interest you!) while the latter part goes in to the practical. Enjoy!

What makes a good outfit?

As a young girl I thought wearing a good outfit meant it matched. I would try to match the stripes of my pants to the color of my t-shirt or the flowers of my shirt with the color of my skirt.

As I got older, I though what made a good outfit was a trending piece. I had to have the high-waisted jeans, the ribbed t-shirt, or the mini skirt.

Later on, I simply wanted it to go together. If I looked at it and my eyes felt sort of at rest—nothing called out but it all molded together, I gave it the go-ahead.

Okay, so maybe these criteria make ‘good’ outfits. They at least are not repelling. They are socially acceptable. They can actually receive a few compliments.

But what makes a great outfit?

Here’s my take:

A great outfit must not be stagnant: it must move.

A great outfit must not be silent: it must communicate.

It is not tranquility that makes a great outfit, but rather tension. That tension, in turn, can create tranquility.

TENSION.

T E N S I O N .

^Tension. _Tension.

Tension.

Why tension, exactly? Well, I heard this in an article recently and I cannot get it out of my head. Let me get in to it.

Webster’s gives us three definitions beside the science/physics related ones for tension.

Each of these three definitions correspond with something key to fashion which I have summarized into and will deal with in the following three sections: purpose, communication, and beauty. In these three aspects tension plays a huge part and connects the world of ideas to the world of art—or, specifically, fashion.

Purpose

During a discussion one night with a group of friends and several bottles of wine, a friend of mine kept repeating the same thing: “tener inquietudes es un cumplido” (restlessness is an accomplishment). You could notice the amount of wine in his system, but as he kept on talking he got me thinking. You see, to go through life without any restlessness is not to have lived at all. How can you have lived if you have never wrestled with the great questions? How can you have lived if you have never held two opposing opinions at once? How can you have lived if you have not seriously questioned your beliefs? How can you have lived if you never realized your purpose?

Restlessness is not something everyone has; too many hide from it. They avoid the big questions and even the neighborhood of their existence. Sugarcoating the most important topics they let others tell them what to think. They never truly question their life—what it is, what purpose it has.

To be restless, then, is to have accomplished something great: to have been courageous and raw. To experience tension—inner striving, unrest, or imbalance often with physiological indication of emotion—is to be truly human.*

So no: tension does not deserve the negative connotation which so often accompanies it. It is not an evil to be resolved but a good fundamental to humanity to be sought after and embraced.

A life of comfort is no life at all. A life of wrestling, of confrontation, of tension is a life well-lived.

Our clothes can communicate the same thing: that there is something deeper, something more human. We do not just dress to cover our reproductive parts or to protect against nature’s brutality. We dress to express ourselves to others. We dress to create beauty (more on this later).

Choosing to put together an outfit that speaks rather than an outfit which gives us comfort is an affirmation of your humanity. Choosing to put together an outfit which creates beauty, reflecting the order of the world, rather than putting on two items you have on hand, can be an act of love to others.

Fashion ought to resemble our minds. It, too, ought to wrestle with deep questions; with mysterious proportions, shades, and emotions.

_{*I have another article to come more on this… but for now, for this article, this suffices.}

Communication

In my Physics II class senior year we spent a whole semester just playing around with springs and ropes. One of the only things I remember learning was the importance of tension: without tension, no waves can form, and the more tension, the faster the waves travel. Communication, then depends upon waves, whether of sound or of light. In a vacuum, a space without any air density—or tension in the air—there exists no sound or light. Tension, then, serves as the basis of communication.

In the beginning, the first thing created was tension: the separation of light from darkness. Without this primary tension—a state of latent hostility or opposition between individuals or groups—nothing can be communicated.

No light or dark? No silence or noise? No nothing, then.

A world without tension? That’s no perceivable world at all.

This same tension is what motivates us, too, to communicate with each other. We notice that what is in our mind is at opposition with what is in others’ minds and so we communicate so that it may be shared mutually.

For example, if we see that the house is on fire while no one else does, we are motivated to communicate to ease the opposition of perception. Or if in a relationship there is a sort of tension, an uncertainty of how the other feels, that tension motivates deep communication; a long conversation.

If we lived in a perfect heavenly utopia atop cotton candy clouds where everyone felt what everyone else did, what good would communication be? We would have nothing to communicate nor the need. Instead, there exists the tension between my thought and your thought, my feelings and your feelings.*

Communication means literally to make common. If there is nothing uncommon, however, then there is nothing to communicate.

So how do we translate this to fashion? Is tension necessary in an outfit for anything to be communicated? Not quite literally, but bear with the metaphor please. An outfit with tension communicates so much more than an outfit without tension.

If we all wore the same basic clothes like in Thomas More’s Utopia, our clothes and bodies by extension would lose an essential property: ability to communicate. Similarly, in modern days when we simply dress with the trends or purely for comfort, we deprive our bodies of this same special capacity.

Rather, we ought to captivate tension and manipulate it for our own end of forming and expressing our identity, though fashion.

_{*I have another article to come more on communication… but for now, for this article, this suffices.}

Beauty

The second-best definition I’ve come up with for beauty is: “well-ordered chaos”*. All three parts of the definition are necessary: I repeat. It must be chaotic, it must be ordered, and it must be ordered well.**

A simple sketch of a sun as a yellow circle with yellow lines as rays is not beauty, and neither is a jumble of random shapes, squiggles, and objects. However, an elaborately drawn sun made up of a thousand pencil lines is, as well as Hieronymus Bosch’s chaotic scene The Garden of Earthly Delights, beauty.

Anyone from the stone age would look at an old Arab princesses and think: chaos, look at the met gala dresses and think the same thing. It’s messy. Different patterns, colors, textures, pieces of stones and metals, crashing together all on one person to form: the outfit.

Creating an outfit with tension—a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements—is exactly what is needed here. The true artist is able to create a beautiful and ordered chaos, to find many beautiful, significant things, and then set them together in an order.

A great outfit is pleasing to the eye, then, but not in the way a grassy slope is. More in the way several grassy slops, rivulets, strange structures, and hundreds of characters all organized together are.

_{*My first-best is: “that which reflects its creator”, but as this one is more theological, I utilize my second one here…though, fundamentally, they both are really the same.
**I have another article to come more on beauty… but for now, for this article, this suffices.}

On to fashion, then!

There are infinite interpretations and methods of how to incorporate tension into your outfit. Below, I have listed a few I have thought of and spilled my old Pinterest boards onto this page.

• tension of shapes and patterns — create and combine them, take risks

  • combining stripes and/or florals

  • a patterned top with a patterned bottom or shoes

  • geometry— a triangle scarf, a cardigan with the top buttoned, checkered patterns

  • triangles are always great to incorporate!

• tension of edges — break out of a perfectionist mindset and embrace the inequalities

  • edges that don’t match: scalloped with scrunched, cowl with straight

  • a vest whose edges clash with the edges of the rest

  • edges that end at different times—too early or too late

• tension of textures — why else would we have such a wide variety of fabrics?

  • knit with denim or cotton

  • corduroy or leather with linen

  • ruffles with a smooth surface

  • etcetera, etcetera… this one’s fun to play around with!

• tension of colors — there is a theory behind them

  • monochrome is always powerful

  • colors that pull on each other (especially complimentary colors!—orange and blue, purple and yellow, red and green…)

  • black and white can sometimes speak quite loudly

• tension of layers — layer things that do not layer symmetrically

  • layering sweaters of cardigans without hiding the under layers

  • knits or sheer layers over other layers

  • crossbody bags

  • jewelry (this can really make or break an outfit sometimes!)

• tension of silhouette — don’t go the typical route… incorporate it into your art

  • loose, oversized clothing with a defined waist

  • lost waist line

  • overly loose pants or barrel jeans

  • super flowy skirt with a more fitted shirt

  • layers of loose clothing

If anything, I hope that there are three things you glean from this article:

1. an appreciation and recognition for the tension all around us (can you imagine a world without tension?)

2. inspiration for creating your own outfits either full of or just sprinkled with tension

3. critique or compliment of my thought—please engage with or add to it in the comment section!

That’s all for now folks! Go stare at your closet with new eyes and invent some new combinations.

Go create tension. Seek discomfort.

When I saw your son bagging up my groceries as a mere cashier.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your daughter sitting in the waiting room as a mere other.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your son who drove me as a mere bus driver.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your son who begged on the street as mere eye contact to avoid.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your daughter pulling my hair as a mere nuisance.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your son who cut me off as mere traffic.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your daughter who birthed me as a mere mother.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your son speaking on the stage as a mere translator.

Lord, have mercy.

When I saw your daughter crying her eyes out as a mere emotional wreck.

Lord, have mercy.

Let me never ask anyone the Wi-Fi password without first asking how they are.

Lord, grant that I may see.

Let me never give them a task without first giving them a smile and a greeting.

Lord, grant that I may see.

Let me never order a coffee from them without first wishing them a good morning.

Lord, grant that I may see.

Let my first motion, my first words always recognize and respect others’ humanity.

Lord, grant that I may see.

Let me treat each stranger as you would upon seeing them.

Lord, grant that I may see.

Lord, grant that I may see everyone with your eyes, love everyone with your love.

Or at the very least pretend to, and to keep trying each time I fall.

As I worked with one such kid on freestyle, I told him simply to blow bubbles out of his nose while he swam. However, between tears and snot, he told me that he quickly ran out of breath, then being forced to breathe more and being exposed to even more water going up his nose. I told him to try and breathe out smaller bubbles, and more slowly. However, the same problem ensued.

Luckily, one of my assistant coaches, Jimmy, heard us and told him: “Leo! Try humming while you’re underwater!”

Leo gave it a shot.

Success.

I was in awe—humming? I thought.

Jimmy explained to me simply: “I was always that kid. Crying ever practice with water going up my nose.”

That’s when I remembered that I had never been “that kid”. I had had my fair amount of struggles in the water, having been kicked off the swim team at age five for crying and refusing to swim by myself. However, I never struggled with getting water up my nose.

I remember vividly a friend I made at the pool one day as a very young girl. She swam like a fish but wore a nose plug. We began talking and she asked me where my nose plug was. I explained to her that I did not have one nor had I ever used one. She sat there in awe as I swam around her, nose bare. I remember her running over to tell her parents and sister: “This girl swims without a nose plug!”. I felt quite proud but at the same time rather confused…how did I deserve this praise? I simply did not need a nose plug. It’s not that it was a talent or skill, I just never did: I sort of naturally knew how to control my breath underwater. While I had been the five-year-old who was kicked off the swim team for not being able to swim across, I had never been the girl who needed a nose plug. And that was just that.

This particular day coaching practice, however, I wish I had been that girl with the nose plug. Then, I would have had a quicker solution for poor Leo. Without having ever overcome that difficulty myself, I invented solutions with no real experience, and failed.

Thank goodness Jimmy at least had been “that kid”.

This simple coaching lesson helped me to see the beauty in the ugly. The truth is, bad things are gonna happen. We will be put in difficult and painful situations. We will (most of the time) get through them. Once we do, we can choose to forget them and move on with our lives while others suffer through the same, or we can learn from these situations and give them worth. We can recognize the priceless knowledge gained—bought at the price of much suffering—by sharing it with others and putting it into practice.

As a girl, I used to think animals had some sort of a secret communication with each other. When I went fishing and caught one fish then let it go, I thought no other fish would bite my hook again. Surely, he would go and tell his friends that the worm on my hook was fake and biting it painful. Similarly, when hunting, I thought for sure that after one deer was shot at a blind no other deer would ever return. Surely, they would realize that eating at that feeder had fatal results. Or the fact that I thought once I killed an ant in front of others its friends would never return. Yet, animals follow in the same cycle. Fish keep on biting on the same hook. Deer families return to the same blind their father was shot at. Ants keep entering the same house that half of their population was massacred in. Mistakes and tragedies serve no purpose to animals.

Humans, on the other hand are not cyclical but linear. We keep progressing, building upon the people before us and our own past experiences. Progress owes itself to the sharing of information and the internalizing of experience.

A friend of mine once told me she never wanted to have kids because she hated the way she was raised. That fact alone, however—that she hated the way she was raised—already makes her capable of being a great parent. Through her suffering she knows how not to parent, a step ahead of her peers with happy childhoods. Bought at great pain, she has seen in first-person the repercussions of certain parenting methods, a view few people have. Having children herself and using this valuable knowledge would add to the worth of her suffering, rather than let it go to waste.

Along this line, I find inspiring all the non-profit organizations many times started by families wanting to prevent for others what has already happened to them. Whether a drowning or a car crash, to a certain extent they make their suffering worth it by using their gained knowledge to prevent it for others.

All this, however, necessitates grace: the grace to be able to overcome our difficulties, the grace to fight bitterness, the grace to see our circumstances with perspective, the grace to learn from them, and the grace to share it all with others.

This is redeemed humanity. This is how we progress.

In the same way that God transforms each one of us through his grace he is also able to transform each circumstance, no matter how ugly, into a source of blessing. As Aquinas argues, a good God could only allow evil if there were a greater good he was able to bring out of it. We ought to surrender whatever struggle we may have had or be continuing to go through to him and ask for his eyes.

Only through God’s grace poured out on us can a traumatic childhood, a sudden death, or even stinging bubbles up your nose turn into a blessing.

I want my future home to have

fresh flowers

wine glasses in the dish drain

a small trashcan.

books—in the library, everywhere.

holy water at the door,

sticky notes in odd places,

plants,

windows—

large windows—

windows of unique shapes and tints.

dirty boots by the door in the winter,

sandals in the summer.

more plants.

an incomplete puzzle on the table,

coat hooks at the entrance,

a bread box and a cookie jar,

a fridge covered in magnets from all over.

crucifixes.

family pictures—

this includes the saints

and ones drawn by small hands.

a distinct smell:

variable yet stationary.

art.

paintings—

sculpture—

tiles—

empty space.

large windows with pillowed sills for sitting.

cozy warm lamps,

candles.

laughter and tears.

both of them.

On the day it fell this year for us to walk it we experienced rain, wind, and sunshine throughout the course of six hours. After only a few hours of sleep the night before, sore feet and bones, and running up the last hill to make it to mass, arriving at the castle was quite rewarding.

We arrived just as the bells were chiming the hour and the long procession of priests began to emerge from behind of the castle. We snuck towards the front of the large crowd of pilgrims and sat amidst a group of loud high-schoolers.

Partly due to the exhaustion and the poor visibility, and partly due to the distracted students in front of me, I had a difficult time paying attention during the mass. It was one of those masses where, when going up to receive the Eucharist you suddenly ‘wake up’ and kick yourself—where have I been this whole mass?

As I meandered through the crowd to receive communion, however, I only got more distracted. I took in the immense castle before me and was reminded of the dream I always had of a girl to see a real castle. And here I was before one.

How did that happen?

After receiving communion I kneeled on the stone as the choir began to sing one of my favorite hymns. It was in Spanish and I understood it without thinking. I thought back to all the years I had spent learning Spanish: all the podcasts I had listened to, all the charts I had written, all the embarrassing conversations I had suffered (and laughed) through. And now, I sung along to “Tú, el único rey”.

How did that happen?

I heard the voices of my friends beside me singing along too and I remembered how scared I had been only a year ago of not forming deep friendships in university. Now here I was, having just walked 35 kilometers with a group of some of the most inspiring people.

How did that happen?

I glanced to the side and saw my sister. Just a week ago I had been so nervous about her journeying from the middle east and here she was, by my side, in Spain. Staying with me for a month.

How did that happen?

My heart began to fill as I remembered a phrase a friend had shared with me—that God loves in all the little details. He loves creatively and intentionally.

Then, I felt the wafer begin to dissolve in my mouth. It disintegrated on my tongue and I swallowed the remnants. Now, I finally ‘woke up’: I had just consumed the body of my God.

I had just consumed the body of my God.

All the things I had just turned over in my mind subsided away into the recesses. They sunk and filled the depths of my heart in able to hold up his body. My gratitude rose to the brim and overflew.

I had just consumed the body of my God.

My friend Jesus had willingly gone through torture and humbled himself into a small wafer that he might be closer to me. He had humbled himself into a form most able to be forgotten, discarded, and mistreated, as I had just done and do so often.

Through his grace he had allowed me to have grown up in the faith and know of this reality. Then, today, he had given me His Body.

And I? I did not even realize. I had mechanically bowed before what may as well have been a mere piece of bread, said ‘amen’, and opened my mouth. I had touched him and received him into my body without saying a single word or glancing in his direction.

Yet, through all my distracted and wandering thoughts he still spoke to me. Despite me leaving him at the doorstep to come in himself. Despite my self-centeredness.

He whispered to me in the midst of my noisy thoughts. Through them. He took my distractions and converted them into channels of his love, using them to communicate to me how much he cared. He showed me how he had paid attention to all the small details as only a father can, because they mattered to him.

Often times in our most unworthy receptions of His Body he allows us to feel even more strongly his love. With his infinite power of transformation he is able to take our distractions and our selfishness and transform them into an abundant inflow of grace.

After the mass, a few of us stepped into the old chapel in the castle for a moment. When we exited I had about five missed calls telling me to rush to the bus. We started running down the path, but because it was so crowded we cut off into the woods to the right. A few other scattered people did the same. One boy ran past us yelling “Caminante, no hay camino!”, a line from poem which I have pasted below.

I glanced down at the bus’ location on my screen and I realized we were going the opposite way from the bus. Turning around, we retraced our steps back up the steep hill, through the crowd, and down around the other side. Panting, we made it back to the bus just in time.

Before the day was over, he had communicated to me one final message. Having already showed me how he had fulfilled my past, my dreams and aspirations, he now assured me of his accompaniment in my future. He would be with me on my camino and continue working, wherever my huellas would go. If I had not taken that wrong path through the woods I would not have heard that bit of the poem and his voice through it.

In creating each of us, God also created our freedom and creativity. He wants us to use both of them fully to dream. He cannot wait to accompany us on that journey and let us start over again and again, teaching us along the way. With him no part of the path, be it a distraction or a course off track, is wasted. He redeems it all.

With him, our dreams fall short.

Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino y nada más;

Caminante, no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar.

Al andar se hace el camino,

y al volver la vista atrás

se ve la senda que nunca

se ha de volver a pisar.

Caminante no hay camino

sino estelas en la mar.

While Spain is generally known for its sun, the characters’ from My Fair Lady have a much more accurate conception—of the north, anyway. Save for a short glimpse of the sun on rare occasions, it had been overcast and raining in Spain non-stop for about a month and so dry ground was nowhere to be found. Today, however, the sun had come out and stayed for a while.

As I passed through a construction zone, which was by now a marsh, I saw two figures stooped over the sidewalk. As I approached, I noticed they both wore long blue habits. Bent over the edge of the sidewalk, one held a large brown paper bag while the other gathered scattered sticks. Their habits blowing in the wind, they gathered the debris of large sticks accumulated after the month of storms.

After a month of cloudy skies, thunder, pouring rain, and fallen trees, these sisters chose to use their first sunshine to serve.

While the world rushed off to eat and sleep, these sisters took advantage of their siesta to serve in this small way.

No one would pay the sisters, give them service hours, or congratulate them. I doubt anyone would even notice there were less sticks in the grass and think, “Oh great, praise God”. However, they made this busy walking area a little less unpleasant.

People rushing to work or school, construction workers working hours there, or people enjoying the sidewalk would not see the remains of the month of rain but would be greeted by a freshness. I, for one, who merely passed by, was struck and my thought was captured the rest of my walk.

These sisters had no duty to clean up this debris—it was a disaster of a construction zone and they were not the designated clean-up crew. They had every excuse not to—it was siesta time, it was muddy, it was wet, it was cold, and besides, they paid taxes for people to do this.

So why did they?

They reflected for me today three attributes of Christian love:

1. Love first.

   Every person has been loved immensely by Christ without asking for it—without even having known they needed it. Being Christians means that through grace we have been made aware of this incomprehensible love: that Christ loved first.

   With this priceless knowledge, however, comes the responsibility of sharing it with others. As Christ orders us and his whole Church, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). We are called not only to preach of this love but to share it with others by living it out—loving it out, if you will. Of course, we will never be able truly to love first because Christ did that once and for all. We merely correspond with his love by embracing it and then sharing it with others.

   This means acting first: looking for ways to love others before they ask for it. Loving outside of any obligations we have and despite any excuses.

   Mary, the first Christian, offers us a beautiful example of how to live this out. At the Cana wedding feast, though she is merely another guest, Mary looks out for the needs of her friends and notices that they are out of wine. The couple never asked for Mary’s help, rather she had been seeking for ways to correspond with Christ’s love by loving first. Similarly, it’s not that the sisters were asked to clean up the sticks, heard someone complain about them, or even saw anyone trip over them. They were not just ready to serve should the occasion present itself, but they were actively seeking for ways to serve. Attentively watching for opportunities to love first, they evangelized.

   Be the first to reach out, the first to offer reconciliation or change a downward spiral, the first to start a friendship—Christ already did it first to you.

2. Love simply.

   This is the most cliche Christian advice, and yet it is so core. Very few of us are called to give our lives for the faith or leave home to evangelize. This does not mean, however, that we have the excuse to live a life of mediocrity. The biggest battles are fought in the busy of our everyday lives. When we are tempted to seek our own interest by being lazy or disinterested in those God has placed around us.

   The greatest love is often communicated in the small details we choose to pay attention to. We may rarely get the opportunity to do great things, but doing “small things with great love”—as St. Therese famously put it—truly goes far.

   Doing someone else’s chore, bringing a treat for a friend on a rough day, helping your sister study—these are all heroic when, out of love, they overcome our inclination towards disinterest.

   Once again, Mary teaches us how to live this out. For thirty years, she raised the Son of God. She gave birth to him, she moved cities, she fed him, clothed him, searched days for him when he was lost, taught him. All simple, ordinary things, but through them she cooperated with God’s plan for salvation. In each one of them she denied herself to serve not only her son but, in extension, all of the world for time to come. The sisters, who I am sure were looking forward to a delicious meal followed by a siesta on the sunny terrace, chose instead to pick up debris. An act so simple and yet so huge in the scheme of things. A decision which greatly impressed me, sweetened life for those around them, and doubtlessly made their creator smile. They united their small sacrifice with the great love of God, making it priceless.

   Each small act of will and heart to serve those around us is a victory over our selfishness and a small conversion towards Christ, a cooperation in his plan for salvation.

3. Love quietly.

   I asked myself the other day if I had ever done anything out of pure love or sacrifice. It seems like everything we do can be boiled down to an ulterior motive: Did I do my chores promptly to get on my mom’s good side? Did I compliment that girl just to make a good impression? Did I help this stranger just to gain a good reputation or feel good? Every good thing I had ever done suddenly seemed less good and I wondered if it is even possible to do anything with pure motives.

   This is why it is so important to love quietly—in secret. Christ emphasizes this point to his disciples: “when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3). We have to ask ourselves the question: Do we want our reward now in the form of recognition and admiration by others or do we want it later from our Heavenly Father in the eternal wedding banquet?

   Something that has always frustrated me about the Gospel is that Mary was almost divorced. She did not fight to defend herself, explaining the great task upon her, but, were it not for the intervention of an angel, she, the Mother of God, may have been divorced and shamed. And yet we seek praise and acknowledgement for our petty good works? Mary demonstrates, rather extremely, what true humility looks like when cooperating with God’s plan.

   In the quiet of the siesta, these sisters snuck out to serve, not knowing a passerby would notice them.

   I like to think of every act of service I do without anyone noticing as a little win. Interiorly, we ought to celebrate—loading the dishwasher and hearing your mom thank your brother for it, picking up your friend’s book which she probably did not notice had fallen, sweeping off the balcony when no one’s home. Only then can we know the action was done with no other motive than love—selfless love.

Some practical ways to love like Christ in our modern-day lives:

• do someone else’s chore

• bring your friend her favorite treat

• compliment someone who tends to be shy or who you don’t get along with perfectly

• write someone a note—a “thank you I appreciate you” type-note, or a “have a great Thursday”

• offer your time to help someone study

• reach out to someone who you haven’t spoken to for a while or who you left off on a bad note with

• invite a new friend or someone you want to get closer with to a drink, mass, a walk

• do a secret act of service at home—clean your sister’s mirror, organize the fridge, put your roommate’s shoes back

• smile at the cashier, the janitor, the bus driver, that one classmate…

• give to a homeless person you see—a coffee, a snack, a prayer, or a good morning

• offer a rosary for someone who is really on your nerves for whatever reason

• listen to someone—ask about their day, their life—really listen

• etcetera, etcetera…

Remember:

Love first. Love simply. Love quietly.

So anyways, why did they? Why did these sisters clean up this dirty construction zone?

They love because Christ first loved them. (1 John 4:19)

slipping from the tendrils,

falling to the surface.

Admired by the eyes,

grasped by the hands,

settled in the chest,

embraced by the heart,

inhaled by the soul,

dissected by the will,

stretched through action,

blessing in being.

Melting out of confines,

spilling to new soil.

Smiled on by the giver

given back by the receiver

chuckled on by the both.

The library fills quickly, especially during finals when they have to open additional rooms of study. In fact, they had just printed out fliers asking people to make good use of the space, prohibiting saving seats or leaving ones items unattended for more than a half hour. It struck me how impractical these huge window sills were. Why not expand the library out into this space thus creating more available study room?

But then I thought about how beautiful and grand these windows were, how they made me feel secure, made the university feel majestic, and gave such a gentle lighting to the room. The university itself is impractical. Campus is spread out and on an incline which means long and arduous walks to class. Yet this too lends it such a majestic feel. It daily reminds me of the grandeur of study.

I thought about art, too. People pay thousands of dollars for a piece of canvas layered in paint which serves no practical use. Yet, art is very highly valued. A home without any art or beauty but merely the bare necessities is not a true home. A city bereft of beautiful architecture will not only lack tourists but inhabitants.

We choose a majestic window over a crowded room of desks with poor lighting. We choose an expensive bit of canvas over a bare wall. We choose to spend hours drinking one cup of coffee (turned cold and bitter) with a friend, over picking up a fresh latte while running errands.

In the vast windows of the library stretching before me which left me without a study space I somehow feel more human. In the hours of work put into creating a piece of canvas coated in paint again I feel it. In the disturbed schedule and wasted afternoon of a single coffee I feel more human.

In the impractical we discover our humanity.

For this very reason the impractical actually has the greatest practicality. It serves a higher purpose than a simple practical instrument ever could. It reminds us of and roots us in our identity—it is what makes us human. The fact that we make and do things for no clear end sets us apart from and above the animals who are forever chained to the practical.

So many “day in the life” videos on social media could easily be the day in the life of an animal—eat, work, exercise, on repeat and in an extreme amount. What about quiet, wonder, friendship, and just wasted time? What would “a day in the life of a human” video look like?

From the very beginning, God himself has created impractical things. He did not make the Garden of Eden merely to satiate the human need for food and shelter. The author specifies that God creates the trees “pleasant to the sight and good for food”, (Genesis 2:9) and soon after gives Adam a companion.

God not only gifts us our humanity but enables us to live it out fully, admiring and enjoying his good gift of creation in relationship with others. If you have ever gone stargazing with someone, looked down from a mountain’s peak, or seen the intricacy of a single flower, you have definitely felt this.

From the very beginning, we were not made to live according to a clock, living to work and go through the same motions, forever in fear of wasting time. It’s scary, especially in modern American culture, to be okay with wasting time, not counting minutes, not rushing to get everything done. The pressure for success is ever present.

But perhaps it’s worth it. Perhaps enjoying the space around you and the time you have with others is of more value than productivity. Does your day-to-day life reflect your humanity?

Perhaps taking up space gives more than it takes, and perhaps wasting time is no waste at all.

Perhaps not being able to check everything on your agenda is worth a life more human.

A piece of advice a mentor gave to me before leaving for college was “Waste time with your family”. I wish I had done it more when I could. It’s all I try to do now when I go home.

So go for it. Put some impractical things in your calendar. You’ll find they serve you quite practically.

You have one life. What will you fill it with?

And the sky blushes at her appearance,

While the winds spread word her throne is won,

And the oaks for their shadows gain clearance;

The longest day of the year.

Burning, she bathes the callous souls beneath–

Mere embers struggling with meager brawn

In the light the sun to them bequeathes.

Still the multiplied sand runs ever on;

The longest day of the year.

The sluggish sun idles with her scepter

Before her symphony’s end puts her to flight

For a final salute of beauteous wonder

And she surrenders her throne to the night;

The longest day of the year.