Highlight Love!

Happy Saint Valentine's Day everyone!

It is one beautiful occasion to celebrate love! I know a lot of people who  think this is one commercial feast anyway and one should not celebrate it but I think that Valentine is really proud to know that the day of his beheading is now a day to celebrate love. I mean if I was Valentine myself, which for many reasons is not possible, I would much rather prefer to be an inspiration of love instead to be remembered headless. And really I love and respect and wish and want to be a martyr but at the end of the day, at that final day, we will find God and God is love and not martyrdom (though I think that it should be more earnestly thought after than it is now but that is another topic!).

I did not think much about the 1 Corinthians 13 chapter this year at all for Valentine's but it somehow manages to make surface anyway. (I was more into Medieval love poems and some Chesterton ones, if you care, which I doubt, about what I was focusing on this season!). But as I was saying, that famous passage came to my mind strongly before I went to sleep on this lovingly spent day.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

I remembered my amazing friend once time suggested that I should write about highlight markers, and I really wanted to but I had no idea what these pens would teach me especially knowing that I do seldom use them!

Love covers a multitude of sin!

I was taking a shower and thinking about these highlight makers and Valentines (and my very lovely red velvet cake! Yey! I made one for the first time and it was delicious!! and I am very happy!)

I have been accused of being biased when I talk about my friends but really when you love someone it is not hard to see any wrong in them but it is amazingly easily to love them regardless of that! What I find wonderful is that when you love someone, you do really cover a multitude of weakness they have and boy! how much I get cover up for!! 

When you love someone you start naturally to highlight, to mark out the wonderful attributes they have! And it is really so lovely and beautiful! It is like having this person as a paper full of all sort of information and you start colouring all the wonderful things about their being! All their importance, all their amzingness!!

But my heart lead me to even take a further step towards loving others. To do that little exercise and start highlighting all the lovely and wonderful things I see in every single person and not just the ones that my heart beat for! To earnestly search for it!! To cover their sins, to get past it and to put in the light their most exquisite side! To see them in the eye of the Lord, who knows our limits and our failures but yet sees us in that wonderful loving perspective, highlighting His image in us and putting it to value instead of our own deformed image!

I decided to walk with mental highlight markers from now on! 

Friday Thirteen

You know there is this superstition that says Friday thirteen brings bad luck. I find superstitions fascinating. It is really amazing how they are born out of the ordinary. Correlations that are totally true but deeply erroneous, facts that happened, related to conclusions that are so absurd! But I will not judge because I am no better...

They remind me of my brilliant conclusions on my person or on the world based on something totally true but deeply erroneous (is that an oxymoron anyone?).

I really love odd numbers. If they were persons they would be the ones who would always wear colours and specially a green skirt for the ladies and yellow beret for the gents. 

I really really love lists. There is a charm in reading and doing lists. They are far better than just a summary and clearer! 

I want to profit from this little occasion,  to write down an oddly numbered list for thirteen brilliant unlucky facts about me, that are... totally true ... but deeply... insignificant!

I hope that by this I am made aware of the truth, of the sovereignty of God and of His Love.

1- I will never tan!

3- I will never write a book like Dostoevsky's!

5- I will never love ocra... (but I am willing to try yet again)

7- I will never hear Chesterton in a conference (not in our current existence statuses)!

11- I will never walk on the clouds!

13- I will never be born on a Friday thirteen!

15- I will never make a dress for Queen Elizabeth II (Unless something HUGE happens...)

17- I will never communicate with a bug!

19- I will never be related to Saint Francis in non-spiritual bonds (I mean unless I find an Italian gentleman who's willing to marry me and happens to have Saint Francis as his late-late-late uncle...)

21- I will never be able to eat all the macrons in the world... even if I really want to!

23- I will never be a tree that loses it leaves in winter... I will never be a tree at all.

25- I will never speak all the African dielects!

And saddest of all...

27-I will never be an elven queen!

Valentine's Day

Warning: redundant topic!

I Can't Help Falling In Love With You... ♪♪♫

Some things are meant to be... ♪♫♪ 

Take my whole life too! ♫♫

I am really happy Valentine's day is coming. I think the Church should do like she does for Christmas and Easter, Advent and Lent... A period to prepare for this lovely celebration! Not that I have any sweetheart, be not fooled! but...

God is Love!

Love the Lord from all you heart! Please my heart do that! Do not let this world take your first love away but give him yourself and your whole life too! Worship Him! Give Him thanks! Sing to Lord! Sing till your words are not yours anymore! Walk with Him, talk to Him... Just LOVE the LORD!
And love your neighbour like yourself! Give generously! Pray! pray for every specific need you know they have! and dare you stand idle! Help, work, change, make them smile, make them happy... 

Embarrass yourself and cross all border in love! 

Become my Reflection

I have a very beautiful friend who has this amazing mind and taste! She is so stylish that I am afraid she eclipses everyone when she passes by! And I must admit I am jealous of her music abilities! (Repent O my soul!)  

She is the kind of friend any one wishes to have. She is thought provoking, genuine, honest, smart,... and today she got me thinking about becomings... She asked: "How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?"

I, by no means, am trying to answer this question or offer anything of deep meaning but this question carries a certain type of emotion that moves a poor soul like mine... Words do affect me...

I wanted to tell her that she has nothing to forgive herself for but it seemed a bit vague said like that... I dare not say I know her for there is only One who absolutely knows us but I do know enough to know (are you counting the knows?) that she has become one blooming flower form a very lovingly planted seed! 

I started thinking what  have I or her not become.... Beside wanting to have white hair, I am the most unambitious lady you will ever meet. The things I have not become... Dear me, I must have been living very dumbly all these years, I only wanted to live (truly) and I feel I have achieved the goal so far... but then...

I do not know how to exactly put my thoughts so bear with me...

But then a flow of thoughts filled my mind... Before I created you in the womb I knew you... There is nothing you can become but my Image. You were created to be in communion with me, to be loved by me and to love me and there is really nothing else you must become. Have no remorse and weep not for the past...  with me there is no time, no past, no future... I am here transforming you to become the only becoming you should become. You are  in my hands and I am forming you, you have only to trust me, to put your faith in me, to shift your mind from the focus of this world and his standards and look and me, gaze at my face and become my reflection and nothing else! 

And my soul did rest... and I hope yours too will rest in the knowledge that He knows you and you are becoming who He is in you... because really there is no ambition better or worth more than this one, to be His Reflection! 

 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:4-10

An Eating Invitation

There is something very genuine about people who love to invite you to eat. 

I saw this lady only once. 
I said hello because she was (and I take a blind guess that she still is) the mother of my friend (what a polite gesture me!) then we exchanged a small conversation about some beautiful (beautiful!!!) coincidence that happened earlier that day. And that was it.

Some people have this ability to mark my poor memory with a mark that never vanishes. 

I remember her hair and when I cut mine last year I thought about her but I did not have the chance to show it to her (if you recognise that this is your mum, you can feel guilty)... 

I remember the way she occupied the space. It was full of grace! Something in her air was just so enviable. A certain calmness, peacefulness,... 

And since opposite attract (not full of grace and all), I attracted her attention! That moment the whole world production of red pigment was condensed in my face. I shrank and tried to hide (ambitious move for someone with long extremities) but she spot me. 

You must be hungry.

No mam, I am fine.

No no please please! Please take a sandwich!

Please, thank you, gracias (insert all politeness words here.) 

Give her to eat, poor little thing...

Thank you very much! (note, polite again) (Bravo mum and dad for raising such a courteous  human being) and I took the sandwich they offered me.

The lady had a million thing on her mind beside feeding me but somehow her world stopped for a moment and all her attention was sweetly directed to me... I felt honoured! 

This is not a one of a kind story. I am sure it happens daily, many many times, but not everyone does it in the same way. Some people do not invite you to eat really just. And you cannot but know it!! They sort of shower you with their love, and the eating invitation is just an extension of their hearts to yours. They do it with a generosity of spirit and a generosity simply that can lead you to almost exploding if you accept it all (and dare you say no!) but I have nutrition tip you, if I may: I believe if you eat what they offer you will not grow one gram fatter! Only because they lit that fire within you that will burn it all!

I have this on my mind today and wanted to share it... An invitation to invite people to eat... To give generously, simply. 

I shall try to apply that as much as possible! Anyone for tea?

Hair Grand Ecart

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun ♪♪... or not really! The sun has been very shy this month and since I am directly affected by her beautiful rays, I have been hibernating. But here I come again (I do deserve a Beatles level kind of song... Hearers, me proposes!)

If you think the year twenty fifteen turned me wiser, or gave me any of the supposedly miraculous effect of changing a number at the end of a Gregorian reference (and since we're at it, I propose as well that you write me a Gregorian level song...), you are wrong, my wisdom teeth are already all out, so tough luck seeing some gown up there...

I always fake being a very professional ballet dancer. I never took any ballet lessons. But what comes around go around I guess (I am sure I am not using it in the right way) and my non-existing ballet Grand Ecat made its appearance in my hair!

I discovered a nice and quick way to fix my hair and I feel very accomplished. Not that my hair was difficult at all but I wanted something more alive than a pony tail and one day trying to do a normal tail I realize that I can keep the side split and tie it from the back! I find hair splits neat and beautiful therefore I adopted this hair style instantly!

So everyday in the mirror I see the side split and contemplate it and think about it...

O My vanity

It Shall One day

Kill  Me...

But honestly and seriously, I think when something comes so much to my mind, it wants to teach me a lesson or remind me about a truth! and so the hair split kept insisting that I understand what it wanted to say until that moment of claity! 

The Red Sea! 

Ummm what? 

The red sea split... 

Oh noes! Where did you get that from?? 

From Exodus!

Yeah I know and I see where you are going...

I know it is a silly connection and I really do not know how my brain does it but there it is! 

I think hair splits wanted to remind me of the Red Sea majestic opening by the mighty hand of the Lord of hosts! When God comes to help his poor desperate people. When God comes to open ways when all seems blocked. When God created something new out of all the old mess we gathered and arrived to...

Therefore I will carry my split like a token of His powerful intervention, of His wonderful openings, of His eternal faithfulness!

Now bald friends, do not be distressed! You are an even greater sign and stronger reminder! "And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness" say Isaiah!

Beautiful People ♥

I remember once I tried to do my own iced coffee drink... I put the milk, ice and coffee in the blender and pressed on and for a reason I still ignore it started to form a foam. I was very happy at first but then the size started to double the triple so fast that I was just struck stupid not knowing what to do... then I saw my beloved mum coming to the kitchen and oh my! I have to fix this! what do I do now! I tried to removed the blender upper part from the electrical part and oh dear! it separated without taking the bottom with it... FLOOD!

Today my brain is like that.

It is a sort of  blender where you throw in cups of watercolours and press on... It feels like you have one thought and then another and then another and they all seem to connect yet not to connect and sometimes it is on speed five and you feel it is all fluffing in and you cannot contain it anymore... Like if you shake a soda drink and then open it? (I would have said champagne but I remembered that I am still an employee!)

BUT! I won't flood here, there is only one thing I really want to say! 

I woke up very very happy. Not unusually so. I love mornings. But I woke up with the remaining of a ruminating idea that God is so good. That people are so beautiful. I was driving work and miraculously all car drivers around me seemed so lovely. 

I started to shout: Hello Mr. Handsome, Hey Pretty lady... Okay maybe I did not go that far but my heart was overwhelmed. 

I started to remember people. Name by name, person by person and with each one of them I felt like a shower of joy was getting all over me... I prayed for each one of them. I prayed for people I knew and I prayed for people I just knew about and I tried to name them all so most probably you got a drop out of my brain-blender today ♥. 

People are so beautiful. I know I am repeating but really they are. And I thought! I need to invent another word, something special for them, something to describe my feeling towards them... And I started to feel a pressure! Am I using the word beautiful too often that it lost its meaning... and I remembered once C.S. Lewis said that we should not use superlative without thinking much because when a superlative comes what will use for it if we abused of it before... Panic attack! This thought revolted me! It is so true but Oh Lewis! Have you met the people I know?! They are always a superlative! What can I do?! Then!! Revelation!! I remembered another of his saying "there are no ordinary people!" Yes! "Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses." Yes!

And I felt so! very much so! and I thought there is no superlative abused when talking about holy! I will not refrain form complimenting people because they truly deserve it! I will not put a limit to how much I will regard them as wonderful because they truly are! And when someone will do something to prove it all wrong I will remind myself that the essence does not change, search and look for the heart!

You are beautiful my reader and I love you ♥