As vezes me pego pensando que eu gostaria que esse blog fosse anonimo! Isto eh, as vezes sinto vontade de escrever sobre assuntos e eventos que aconteceram comigo e com pessoas ao me redor mas q essas mesmas pessoas nao tivessem a possibilidade de vir a saber que escrevi sobre elas neste blog! Gostaria de poder desabafar com toda a sinceridade e com todas as palavras que eu gostaria de usar!
Sim, isso acontece porque estou sozinha aqui nos EUA, apenas com meu marido de falante do portugues e o contato que a internet me proporciona com alguns amigos e familia! Mas, nao eh a mesma coisa! Bem, sendo justa, o D. realmente me ouve sempre que preciso desabafar, e de fato eh um otimo ouvinte. Mas quem podera ser meu ouvinte quando preciso desabafar sobre minha relacao com D.? Fora isso, um ouvinte feminino, brasileiro, e amigo eh o que mais sinto falta em algumas horas!
E minha mae? Para qualquer pessoa q me conheca minimamente sabe que sempre falei tudo pra minha mae e ela eh a unica pessoa q conheco q tem sempre o dom de me acalmar em todas as situacoes possiveis! De fato eh uma bencao ter uma mae melhor amiga como eu tenho! Mas a distancia somada com o fuso horario e com todos os milhares de compromissos que minha mae tem, tornaram inviaveis as nossas longas conversas e de necessidade imediata!
Portando, resumindo, eh de uma boa e melhor amiga brasileira que sonho em ter por perto! Se por acaso eu pudesse fazer tres desejos a um genio da lampada pediria em um deles:
"Quero uma amiga brasileira, que compartilhe da minha visao de mundo e de Deus, que esteja morando no EUA, na mesma cidade que eu, que seja casada e com filho(s) pequeno(s) ou na eminencia de ter filhos, e que sejamos naturalmente melhores amigas, e que D. e o marido sejam best buddies tbm!
Desculpem-me as minhas queridas e boas amigas brasileiras solteiras, mas estar na mesma pagina seria o ideal! Estao entendendo o motivo de desejar q esse blog fosse anonimo, as vezes? Isso porque voces nao sabem e nunca saberao de tudo oq eu gostaria de desabafar por aqui....
Porque sera que tem gente que voce simpatiza de cara e gostaria de ser melhor amiga forever, e outras sao elas q simpatizam de cara com vc, mas vc que nao consegue ser reciproca? O D. tem a teroria do "try too hard" como um defeito aparente em algumas pessoas, e por vezes, essa pessoa acaba sendo eu mesma! Mas isso deixa pra la...
Ah, um blog anonimo... ah se eu te pego!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
My monthly evening of recollection - introduction
For those who still don't know this, I go to the Opus Dei activities like I always did in the past since I was a little girl! I'm trying to simplify here so I will just say that Opus Dei is part of the Catholic Church, officially, I mean, since it has ecclesiastical approval. I think the most recurrent misunderstanding about Opus Dei is that people tend to think it's a different religion, a religion of its own.
But it's not! Opus Dei belongs totally to the Catholic Church. I say "totally" to evidence the point that everything that is taught during its activities is nothing more nor less than the catholic teachings themselves. They are all things you could find yourself in the Bible, in the catholic catechism and in the Second Vatican Council documents, specially. But I'm starting to complicate what I wanted to simplify. So let's stick with "it belongs totally to the Catholic Church", only, shall we?
I'm wide aware of practically all the kind of stuff (good or bad) you hear people saying about Opus Dei and I'm not planning on discuss this in here! There are many malicious statements and lies about Opus Dei out there and I would know it since I've attending its centers and activities since forever (26 years and counting)! So in here, all I'm planning on to do, is to tell y'all a little bit of my own experience with Opus Dei and all the things I hear there and motivates me on striving to be a better person! I would say, surely the best person I could be.
It's been a while since I've realized there is no good and it's useless to engage in discussions out there about practically anything when people just want to fight or to call up attention to themselves. Who is really interested on learning your point of view, understanding the other side, ie, the people I still consider to have conversations of this kind with, aren't found between that kind of people that argue about everything and get rude about nothing! Fact!
It's just been brought to my attention that this post is already long enough and I haven't gotten to the point yet! But I think that all of this is necessary to a better understanding of the whole thing! And one more thing to reinforce what I was saying, I want to write down some words I read somewhere. In my mind it could haven been on the preface of the book "Mere Christianity" from C. S Lewis (the same one of "Narnia", you are not mistaken!) BTW, Mere Christianity is awesome and a "must read" if you haven't done yet! It's a book that the first chapters convince you of the existence of God with the most simple and gracious logic! The rest of the book goes on about christian virtuous and it's still good! But the beginning of the book it's incomparable!
Well, I don't have the book here with me so I can't confirm this, but if I didn't read those words in this book at least it makes sense with C. S. Lewis personal story! For those who don't know his story yet I will give you a brief summary! C. S. Lewis was a serious atheist for most of his life! He was also a personal friend of Tolkien (the same one of "The Lord of the Rings", you are correct!) and since Tolkien and some other friends were very religious (Tolkien was a catholic) they would have great discussions about religion and theology! Great enough to make Lewis decide to believe in God (he converted to the Anglican Church and died like an anglican!).
Cutting to the chase, I'll now say the phrase I been postponing to tell you. The words were something like: "No one converts by the exegetical explanation itself, but no one will convert without it either!". It's a great phrase! It means that if someone it's not open to understanding the things from God, it won't be through the words of a great theological explanation that will win him/her over. But a person who is willing to understand and cooperate won't convert without a properly explanation either! So, to discuss religion and theology it's a good and necessary thing to do but only with certain people who have all the conditions to actually hear it. For the rest, I would risk myself to say that it only worsens their spirit. For the last group of people, they will be more attentive to our attitudes than anything else, giving us no excuses, whatsoever!
But well, since this post turned out very long already, I'll write the rest of the things I wanted to say in a next post. But if you are curious about Opus Dei, or have your personal defenses against it, go check them out yourself. Give them a try with open hearts! You might find something beautiful to hold on to when you most need it! When you most need advice or motivation for this daily and ordinary life!
But it's not! Opus Dei belongs totally to the Catholic Church. I say "totally" to evidence the point that everything that is taught during its activities is nothing more nor less than the catholic teachings themselves. They are all things you could find yourself in the Bible, in the catholic catechism and in the Second Vatican Council documents, specially. But I'm starting to complicate what I wanted to simplify. So let's stick with "it belongs totally to the Catholic Church", only, shall we?
I'm wide aware of practically all the kind of stuff (good or bad) you hear people saying about Opus Dei and I'm not planning on discuss this in here! There are many malicious statements and lies about Opus Dei out there and I would know it since I've attending its centers and activities since forever (26 years and counting)! So in here, all I'm planning on to do, is to tell y'all a little bit of my own experience with Opus Dei and all the things I hear there and motivates me on striving to be a better person! I would say, surely the best person I could be.
It's been a while since I've realized there is no good and it's useless to engage in discussions out there about practically anything when people just want to fight or to call up attention to themselves. Who is really interested on learning your point of view, understanding the other side, ie, the people I still consider to have conversations of this kind with, aren't found between that kind of people that argue about everything and get rude about nothing! Fact!
It's just been brought to my attention that this post is already long enough and I haven't gotten to the point yet! But I think that all of this is necessary to a better understanding of the whole thing! And one more thing to reinforce what I was saying, I want to write down some words I read somewhere. In my mind it could haven been on the preface of the book "Mere Christianity" from C. S Lewis (the same one of "Narnia", you are not mistaken!) BTW, Mere Christianity is awesome and a "must read" if you haven't done yet! It's a book that the first chapters convince you of the existence of God with the most simple and gracious logic! The rest of the book goes on about christian virtuous and it's still good! But the beginning of the book it's incomparable!
Well, I don't have the book here with me so I can't confirm this, but if I didn't read those words in this book at least it makes sense with C. S. Lewis personal story! For those who don't know his story yet I will give you a brief summary! C. S. Lewis was a serious atheist for most of his life! He was also a personal friend of Tolkien (the same one of "The Lord of the Rings", you are correct!) and since Tolkien and some other friends were very religious (Tolkien was a catholic) they would have great discussions about religion and theology! Great enough to make Lewis decide to believe in God (he converted to the Anglican Church and died like an anglican!).
Cutting to the chase, I'll now say the phrase I been postponing to tell you. The words were something like: "No one converts by the exegetical explanation itself, but no one will convert without it either!". It's a great phrase! It means that if someone it's not open to understanding the things from God, it won't be through the words of a great theological explanation that will win him/her over. But a person who is willing to understand and cooperate won't convert without a properly explanation either! So, to discuss religion and theology it's a good and necessary thing to do but only with certain people who have all the conditions to actually hear it. For the rest, I would risk myself to say that it only worsens their spirit. For the last group of people, they will be more attentive to our attitudes than anything else, giving us no excuses, whatsoever!
But well, since this post turned out very long already, I'll write the rest of the things I wanted to say in a next post. But if you are curious about Opus Dei, or have your personal defenses against it, go check them out yourself. Give them a try with open hearts! You might find something beautiful to hold on to when you most need it! When you most need advice or motivation for this daily and ordinary life!
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