1. I have doubled the size of my collection of books. I moved away from my parents in September 2013, leaving about 200-300 books behind. Hopefully they will one day join me here in Ottawa... Over the last couple of years, however, I have amassed another 300-odd books which follow me around college residences in wine boxes. Thankfully, my roommate understands (she has a pretty sizable collection herself) and we converted a closet into a library back in September. The picture below shows a good portion of the current books, but doesn't include the piles scattered around the room or the ones on our desk and dressers. Maybe we have a problem...
2. I am getting married in July. Yes, me, the girl who was going to be a nun and never have relationships with anyone. I did eventually realise that being a nun was not a good way to fix my problems with humanity, though, and when a handsome and lovely young man appeared on the scene I was open to giving a relationship a chance! We started going out in October 2013, he proposed on January 1, 2015 (with a book, appropriately enough!) and we'll be married this summer. Its going to be fun merging our collections of books, as I have (ahem) a lot and he has a goodly number of his own.
3. I became Catholic in September. Hehehe... this is an interesting one to explain to people. I did once resolve that I would be a nun, but never Catholic, however, God has other plans and I'm now Catholic and not a nun. The road to this decision was very long and complicated and involved a mixture of prayer, talking to older Christians, reading, and visiting different churches. Technically, I'm Anglican Use Catholic, which refers to a group of churches that left the Anglican church and went back to Rome. They've kept the unique and beautiful tradition of Anglicanism, with the prayer book and a few other things, but are fully Catholic. I have felt a lot of peace since making the switch, although it was a hard one to make, but I think it is where God wants me.
4. I did Augustine College... and lived. Some of you may have heard of Augustine College in Ottawa, Ontario. Its a tiny one-year liberal arts program that studies the history of Western culture and ideas. My class was only ten people, which is about average, and we all did the same classes: Philosophy, Art History, Greek or Latin, Literature, Science, Medicine and Faith, Scriptures, Church History, Music, and Augustine's Confessions. It was an amazing year, not just because the classes were excellent, but also because the community living and friendship aspect was so good for me. After being homeschooled it was a big change, but it was a helpful change and one that needed to happen. I will have to do a post just on Augustine College sometime, as the things I learned have influenced my life, faith and thinking so deeply.
5. I'm still learning. And always will, hopefully for the rest of my life. After Augustine I got a job nannying, but that didn't complicate my life enough, so I started taking a few classes as well during the winter semester at Dominican University College. I'm finished now, but the classes were really good and very much helped me grow and continue to learn. I was surprised that not only did I gain new knowledge, but the classes I've been taking have been helping with my faith too. Dominican only does philosophy and theology and the professors, most of whom are Dominican friars, have devoted their lives to studying and teaching their specific areas, so it has been a great environment to learn in. There's something very beneficial, I think, about learning in a place where theology is taught not just as knowledge about God, but as knowledge in order that we might know God and our own world better.
6. Things are still really hard. I am technically a grown-up and all of these good things have happened to me, but it is still challenging to live well and to put certain things behind me. I tried to do it on my own last year, as I was in a strong community, away from home and from some difficult aspects of my life for the first time, but something I've come to realise is that I'm not meant to 'do life' on my own. That is what being a Christian, part of the body of Christ, is. So, this past year has been quite difficult as I'm figuring out how to navigate life both in community and on my own. Also, something I learned from Augustine College has stuck with me: that Christians do not belong on earth,We are pilgrims headed for a higher goal and as such we cannot expect the world to be easy or even to feel at home in it because, really, our home is somewhere outside of this world, in God's presence.
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| Morning in the Riesengebirge - Caspar David Friedrich |
Lovely post, Alice!
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