8:00pm Mass, Palm Sunday

All my friends go to 8:00pm Mass at Dahlgren Chapel. It's kind of like a club. I don't always go, but when I do I recognize almost all the people there. The same two violinists, my friend Colin on piano, and the same group of about 20 singing the hymns.

At 8:00pm they do this thing where they sing the Lord's Prayer, and everyone knows it's coming, and we all hold hands. It's confusing not to just rattle off the prayer, but to have to SING it, but I'm getting used to it.

Father Pat Rogers, one of the younger Jesuits on campus (he's in his early forties, whereas Father King, mentioned in a previous post, has got to be 120 years old) was the principal celebrant today. He gave this very short homily about sitting with Jesus during Holy Week in his humanity. As if Jesus was someone very dear to us and it really did confuse us greatly and cause us grief as the events leading up to his death unfolded. It's nice to be reminded that all of this is personal, after all.

At communion, which I took even though I think I am not supposed to, I drank the wine for the first time ever. I usually think it's gross that dozens of people drink out of the same cup, but the girl holding the wine was directly in my path so I thought I'd go for it instead of awkwardly making my way around her.

I'd forgotten what church wine was like. It's pale and bitter and it sticks to your throat. I felt it still burning after five minutes of silence in my seat. I think maybe it's supposed to stick there, maybe it's supposed to remind you that God's promise, much like the wine, doesn't just go away once you've used it up. I sat in the front row, listening to Father Pat, and decided I liked that image.

Afterward, a few of us gathered in the quad and Drew helped me fold my palm fronds into a cross. It turned out pretty well. Father Pat came over and said there was a "sin vortex" around our group of friends and he just had to call people out on it. It took me a few minutes to figure out he was joking. He's an interesting priest. Elyse says he swears a lot.

Meet Me in St. Louis

Things I miss from home/need to experience while I'm there:

1. My grandmother's iced tea.
2. St. Louis Bread Company
3. The (perhaps bare) shady trees along Ladue Road between Lindbergh and 170.
4. St. Louis Bubble Tea
5. Barbara's piano
6. The couch in Keller's chemistry classroom.

Foray into Coffee Shop Land

As of about two weeks ago, I work at a coffee shop.

The work is overall pretty fun, mostly because I haven't learned how to make any of the fancy drinks yet so all I do is stand at the cash register or move stuff around. The people are wonderful, and they completely shattered my expectations that they would all be hip, coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, barista type people.

Sunday nights I work a closing shift, which gets pretty rough when I have to wash dishes until 3:00 AM. The girl managing the shift is named Allison, and she just returned from Argentina. Last Sunday she wore these sneakers to work that had a brightly colored woven insert pattern on both sides. It looked like a stereotypical Mexican rug had eaten a pair of shoes. She called them her "indigenous high tops."

The other cashier who is slowly learning to make drinks is Ryan. He happens to be the CEO of Students of Georgetown, Inc., of which my little shop is just a part. We tease him because he originally came from one of the affiliated grocery stores, so he doesn't know his way around the store any more than I do. On his first day at work he broke a bagel bin. It was pretty tragic. He is also allergic to milk and caffeine. He calls himself the "worst college student ever."

It's nice to know someone who will laugh at anything you say. Ryan is one of those people. I don't really know him but it's refreshing to have someone like that around.

Sleepless in the Library

I want to live in Seattle. I used to want to live in Portland, because I thought it was the indie, outdoorsy version of Seattle. But Seattle is perfectly indie by itself.

Not that I need be particularly indie.

Neil's friend from high school goes to school in Seattle and he says that no one buys CDs there, they just listen to vinyl records.

Cue: "Oooooh. Aaaaaah." Like fireworks of indie goodness.

But that is so impractical.

"Be not afraid."

One of my favorite people in the world lives at Georgetown. His name is Thomas King, and he is a Jesuit. He must be at least 117 years old. He still teaches theology here, though, and every day or so I see him slowly making his way from the Jesuit residence hall to his class.

He is a bit of legend here on the Hilltop. I imagine it's because he's so old. I don't know how you get to be the "head honcho" Jesuit anywhere, or what that's even actually called, but I figure he's probably it. He gives Mass every Sunday at 11:15pm. And every year for the last forty (?!) he has given the homily at the special Christmas Mass held the third Sunday of Advent. Since 1969.

Last year I went to Christmas Mass, which they hold in this absolutely gorgeous neighborhood church instead of the chapel because so many people attend, and I was absolutely floored. I'd never heard Father King speak before. I don't think I blinked during the entire homily. It was about Isaiah and the Babylonian captivity, and about John the Baptist living in the wilderness. It was about finding Jesus in our captivity, in our wilderness. At the end Drew leaned over and whispered, "He's such a man of God."

Sometimes I think Thomas King doesn't even know the gravity of the things he says.

Christmas Mass came again last night, and the same shaky old priest gave the same determined homily. Since I'd heard it before, I began to wonder what it must have been like giving that homily in 1969. In the Nixon era. In 2001. What big wilderness had entrapped the entire American consciousness during Vietnam? And he was there for all of it.

I finally coerced my attention back onto the Mass by the time Father King told the ushers to dim the lights, told the audience to bow their heads, and began reading the Christmas story as told by Luke. To my left the choir began humming "Silent Night" in harmony. It was a story we'd all heard before. There was a census, and Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, and there was no room in the inn, blah blah blah. But last night I discovered something new about it.

At some point in the story, an angel of the Lord, or maybe a few of them, come down to some shepherds in the area who are watching their sheep late at night, to give them the good news of the birth of the Son of God. The first thing they say to the shepherds isn't, "Hey, you might want to go check out this baby born a few miles from here." The first thing they say is, "Be not afraid."

Isn't that encouraging! When I was younger, I used to ask God to send his angels to keep me and my family safe at night. I used to envision them as tiny little cherubim figures floating over my bed like fairies. They weren't scary. And yet, when these angels appeared to these shepherds, the shepherds feared them. Sometimes when I think of Christmas I think about the angels as just prettier-than-average people who show up out of nowhere and bring some good news.

But isn't it amazing to know that maybe something bigger was at work, that maybe the entire kingdom of heaven was in cahoots to begin the life of this little helpless baby? Something huge and awe-inspiring and blazing may have come to those shepherds.

Here's what I think I would've said if I could've been one of those huge, blazing, C. S. Lewis-esque angels:

"Be not afraid. This is the most important thing either you or I will ever be a a part of."

Food...

Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post (go figure) was Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show a few days ago. Apparently she has just written a new book about blogging, and while on the show she advised everyone to blog about their "secret passions." Her secret passion is cheese.

Right now I am thinking that International Finance is neither a secret nor an overt passion of mine.

I guess, as silly as it may seem, blogging about your secret passions can get you a good job. As long as you can turn it into actually writing about your secret passions. Like Amy Thomas of the New York Times. She spent an entire day riding a bike around Paris eating extremely fancy chocolate. Then she got to write about it in the Times. Yep. I'm jealous of her too.

In other news, I probably just added about 200 calories worth of half and half to my coffee. ("Oh my gosh, you're such a girl!")

Painting: Wayne Thiebaud

Things To Do...

I can't very well have a list of these things because each has its own category...for now.

Thing I want to do before I die:
- Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro (hopefully before the snows are gone)

Thing I want to do before I have children:
- Go to Israel

Thing I want to do before I am 35:
- Study at Oxford