The Time I Wasted (on Facebook)

Words I never thought I'd say: I deleted my Facebook.

The decision to do so has been coming on gradually (ever since the introduction of the News Feed four years ago), but I never thought I would actually do it. It annoyed me when my friends deactivated their profiles for long periods of time (which usually happened after breakups) and they were suddenly gone. It wasn't until I myself suffered from a broken heart that I saw why they deactivated their profiles. A person with a broken heart wants privacy while they heal. They want to hide away from prying eyes. I could respect it, but it still bothered me enough that I never went through with it.

Facebook began as a useful tool to connect and keep in touch with old high school friends and new college ones. I loved being able to share photos with friends and say quick hellos. I met one of my best friends on Facebook the summer before I began college. She saw on my profile that we would be next door to each other in the dorm. We shared messages over the summer and found that we had a lot in common. We were instant friends and she remains my "twin" to this day. So as an emerging college freshman, it was very comforting to connect with my classmates before moving in. It wasn't long after we arrived at school, however, that the News Feed appeared. Like many Facebook users, I was seriously offended by the assumption that I was nosy enough to want to see everything that my Facebook friends were doing on the site. Despite outraged comments to the creators, however, the feature remained. Facebook became less about connecting and more about "stalking," stalking that required little to no effort, except for the occasional click of the mouse.

It wasn't long before I became more of a nosy neighbor than a loving one. I learned things about people without ever talking to them. I spent hours everyday clicking on random people and random links simply out of boredom. I often considered deleting people I never spoke to, but deleting someone from Facebook opens up a whole new world of drama, a world that just shouldn't exist. It is almost vain how offended we can become when people delete us from Facebook: "Why doesn't she want to hear what I have to say? What did I ever do to her?" In fact, editing my profile and picture, and updating my status were often out of vanity. I spent hours everyday both "stalking" people I barely spoke to in person and editing my page to give off a certain impression of myself. Why was it that I wanted to know so much about these people's lives without ever getting to know the people themselves? Why did I want them to know so much about me? It was all so fake. Nothing was real about it except the time that I was wasting.

There were times when Facebook did bring together the faith community that I left at school. Some days seemed to be full of inspiring and encouraging quotes and videos, when everyone seemed to unite for or against some cause. Those days filled me with hope and courage to continue fighting the good fight. I loved that aspect of it, being able to come together that way. But lately I have noticed more and more the lack of a faith community that exists in my home parish, where God clearly wants me right now. The excess noise created on Facebook was only serving as a distraction from the battle raging in my own backyard.

Hopefully, now I will be able to hear my Commanding Officer more clearly.

"Do not be content with anything less than the highest ideals! Do not let yourselves be dispirited by those who are disillusioned with life and have grown deaf to the deepest and most authentic desires of the heart."

-- Pope John Paul II

"The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for GREATNESS."

--Pope Benedict XVI

"I didn't survive so I could make everyone comfortable. I survived so I could stir things up a bit...."

I remember hearing Gianna Jessen, an abortion survivor, speak when I was younger. Her story changed my life. These videos of her speaking in Australia were floating around Facebook today, so I thought I'd share them with anyone who hasn't heard her story (and even for those who have). She is a powerful witness to Christ and the value of life.

Click the links below to hear her incredible story!

Part 1

Part 2

"Don't you realize that you cannot make your own heart beat? Don't you realize that all the power you think you possess, you really possess none of it? It is the mercy of God that sustains you. Even when you hate Him."

Breaking Down the Dream

"Woe to the complacent..." The words struck me at Mass today. The theme of all the readings was a call to action. It seemed that a passionate homily should follow, something that would inspire me into action. Instead, two men stood up to talk for Stewardship Sunday. The first one spoke about the parish budget. He assured us that the parish is financially stable, and that we can finally start raising money for the playground "we have wanted for years." Really?

I have been thinking lately about how comfortable my life has been. I have always had everything I needed and more. Food, shelter, education, a loving family. For a long time, I complained about not having the one thing I wanted most--the love of a man. When I saw the negative implications of this dream and the unhealthy mindset, I woke myself up. I have come a long way, but now I see that that was only a dream within a dream. My whole life has been a dream, a false security. Don't get me wrong, I am incredibly thankful for the life I was born into and the many blessings I have received. But now that I am fairly grown up, I can see that it is no longer enough.

Every once in awhile on retreats or at spiritual gatherings, I felt a fire, a burning passion inside me. But the mundane, lukewarm routine of my life always seemed to douse the flame down to a tiny flicker, part of the natural course of spiritual highs and lows. The flicker remains, a tiny burst of thirst inside of me that can never be quenched, even in my deepest sleep. I want to make a change in the world, but how?

My mother in all her wit always says jokingly, "Who cares about apathy anyway?" I think her joke has truth in it, though. More and more these days I see people care about their nice homes, their yards, the playgrounds at their children's schools, even celebrity gossip. But no one seems to care that there is no passion. No one cares that we live lifestyles of apathy to the world's needs. Death is merely a far off inevitability. We do everything in our power to prolong our dreaming lives. We live in security, taking no real risks for the good of our souls. We press snooze: "Yes, I should stop watching this TV show because it makes a mockery of everything I believe in, but I want to see what happens in the next episode...and the next episode...and the next season..." "Yes, I should get out of this unhealthy relationship, but then I'll be alone..."

The Church is even at a standstill, full of complacent people who "don't need God" because they have everything necessary for a comfortable life. Church has become an obligation, rather than a passion. Last weekend, I went to a Matt Maher/Tenth Avenue North concert, shortly after finishing Francis Chan's book Crazy Love. I found more passion and heard more truth at that concert and in that book than I have in years at my home parish. They spoke of faith in a positive way. We shouldn't do things to avoid hell or to achieve heaven, but because we want to out of love for God. The tiny flicker in my heart began burning brighter.

Life is short, and I don't want to spend what I have left of it wasting away on Facebook or withering away in front of the TV. I want everything I do to be for the glory of God. I want to live a life of crazy love. I cannot be complacent knowing that women my age and younger are being sold into prostitution. I cannot be complacent knowing that 4,000 babies are murdered in the U.S. daily. I cannot be complacent knowing that God died for me so that I can be saved from the sinful life I have been leading: “If we come to the point of comprehending that we are loved to a supreme, unimaginable degree, unto silent, gratuitous, cruel death, to the point of total immolation by Him whom we do not even know, or if we have known Him, whom we have denied and offended; if we come to the point of comprehending that we are the objects of such a love, of so great a love, we cannot remain complacent…” I Believe in Love.

Grace Period

This post-grad life is exciting, not knowing what is ahead. I love being able to live life one day at a time, which is something that I have to do to avoid being overcome by the overwhelming stress of it all. But some days, as on days when my parents like to sit me down and explain to me the necessity of earning a living, the stress and fear of figuring out my future is all too real and too discouraging. They remind me that there will soon be rent to pay, a car to buy, insurance, and that most dreadful of all four-letter words: loan(s). The only thought that keeps me going is that, while the loan grace period is only six months (a terrifying thought in this unstable economy), God's grace period is forever, timeless.

Every time I begin to feel discouraged about my vocation as a Catholic writer, God reminds me (in His perfect timing!) how important this mission is for me. This week, after a painful discussion with my dad about my job-search, I received the first issue of a writer's magazine subscription that my aunt gave me for graduation. The first article I read was titled "Face the Fear." Everything about the article was perfect. The writer eased my fears and reminded me that while writing is not in high-demand these days, it is perhaps more important now than ever:

"Writers can be disheartened into silence. If we buy into the myth of our own irrelevance--if we let the notion that our art is a private and rather self-absorbed matter make us so insular that we actually believe the whole point is getting the right kind of critical attention and sales numbers--then it will be that much easier to give up at the first sign of a bad review. We need to keep going for a more robust reason. We need to keep going because the work we do matters." (Rachel Kadish, Poets & Writers, Sept/Oct 2010)

The timing of this article was so perfect that it could have only been God reminding me that He gave me this passion for the pen, and He has a plan for me to use it for His will. He won't leave me disheartened in the dust. His grace is sufficient!

With this renewed passion, I began to look at my situation from a different perspective--that of love. I realize that I easily get into that moody, brooding, self-absorbed artist mode when life gets in the way of my writing. This is when I have to remind myself that I do not write for me--I write for God. And above my vocation for writing, I have chosen the vocation of Love, which encompasses all vocations. Without Love, I have nothing but myself in all my miserable impurities. But with Love, I have everything. As long as I put Love first, God will use me as His pen when and where He needs me.

My new favorite song (and prayer) is Matt Maher's song "Letting Go:"

I stand in awe of You

And everything You've done for me

You speak Your words into my life

And where You are is where I want to be...

I'm holding onto Your love

I'm letting go of myself

I'll say so long to everything else

I just want to be in Your arms.

Moving ever closer to Your heart.

I hold you in my heart.

Separation is hard. Between friends and household sisters, there was always someone there to offer support while I was at school. Now that I'm back at home, I miss all those wonderful people who impacted my life, who helped me grow and become who I am today.

I spent a summer in Chicago with my cousin a few years ago. She was the only one in the city I knew, outside of all the middle-aged people we worked for at our internship in the office. It was lonely sometimes, even with each other. I felt like my heart had ripped into pieces and was scattered across the country. There were parts of it scattered across Ohio, Michigan, California, Virginia, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and many other places. I began to trust God with all the little pieces of my heart, praying for the deepest intentions of the people my heart was with. I can be terrible at keeping in touch with people, but I never forget them and never stop praying for them.

There was a book I read as a teenager (one of the Christy Miller series) where a girl wonders if a particular guy misses her while he is away for a year in Hawaii. She receives a coconut in the mail from him on which he had written, "Phil 1:7." This puzzles the girl at first but she realizes it's probably a Bible verse. She looks it up and finds a translation of Phillipians 1:7, "It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart..." I love that. It is how I feel of all the people who have ever been in my life, even those I didn't particularly care for. So now, rather than watch my heart scatter in pieces around the world, I can gather the pieces together and hold them close.

I have been thinking lately about how nice it would be to have a "special someone" walking with me through this difficult and frightening stage of life, but I realized that I have a lot of special someones. I hold them in my heart, and they walk with me. I take what I have learned from them and gained from my relationships with them and live them. It's not so lonely that way.

Whoever is reading this, I hold you in my heart. :)