they might be giants

depending on your knowledge of obscure bands within the world of music, you may or may not get the reference i am making in the title of this post...and for those of you who are reading this with a now smug grin across your face because you do in fact "get the reference" i'm going to tell you now that the reference has nothing to do with the band and is actually referring to the fact that the giants (baseball franchise) have just won the 2010 world series. woop woop! you know, few things in california during my short time here thus far have wooed me.  for the most part, i've stayed true to my midwestern roots and in fact have a much deeper appreciation and love for the middle of america. but one thing that has the ability to win me over in a place quite like the comadery of an entire city (or bay area in this case) for the love of a winning sports team. watching the game and the celebration tonight just made me so happy for the human race...which i know sounds entirely too dramatic for a situation like this, but it just made me realize that people are beautiful and their excitement and passion for life is beautiful. i love seeing people loving where they are, what they are doing, and who they're with.  even if they are the giants and not my beloved cardinals. you didn't think i forgot about a little thing i'd like to call loyalty did you?  but this realizing beauty in a mass of people made me think of the famous quote from thomas merton when he came into the city after being in the monastery for so long. "it is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race." it really is glorious, isn't it?

i would just like to say, before we go any further, that i am currently averaging 15 reese's minatures a day.  the only thing that makes me feel better about it, besides the obvious me not really giving a rat's ass, is that word; minature.  it makes it seem so much more trivial to me.  yeah yeah i had 15, but they were minature.

patience. my biggest strug.  i mean seriously, every problem that can possibly think of that i have, stems from my lack of patience.  yeah sure, i'm pretty patient with other people. that's easy to me.  but being patient with my own life and what i feel needs to start happening/already be happening/already happened is the hardest thing for me.  today was one of those days that from the beginning, i felt this overwhelming sense of not ebing patient enough about my life and the things god is going to do in it. "what about what he's already doing caitlin? try and see what's right in front of you instead of straining to see what's so far ahead.  i mean for christ's sakes, what you think you see in your future could simply be a mirage, or something that's blocking your sight from what he actually wants for you." these were all things i was saying to myself throughout the course of the day.  then i stumbled upon this little number i hadn't read in way too long:

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.


We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way

to something unknown,

something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made

by passing through some stages of instability

and that may take a very long time.





And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves without undue haste.

Do not try to force them on

as though you could be today what time

-- that is to say, grace --

and circumstances

acting on your own good will

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit

gradually forming in you will be.





Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God,

our loving vine-dresser.



Amen. "

"and that may take a very long time? are you serious right now? how long exactly is "a very long time" i don't have time for this. things need to start happening or i don't know if i can do this anymore." all things i was saying to myself during and after reading this bad boy by my man  pierre teilhard de chardin. then it hit me. i thought, shut up caitlin. just do it. you know, small things with great love? and then maybe, just maybe, this beautiful plan will unfold before your eyes without you even noticing it for a "very long time". 

you see, it's not what god is going to do in your life that takes so long, it's us recognizing that it's all happening right in front of us that can take a lifetime.