l e a r n from the way
the wild flowers
g r o w

--matthew 6:28

hopes & prayers

Today my life idol is having major cancer surgery--at the age of THIRTY SEVEN. I don't know what is in the KC water but this makes the second of my two most favorite STA women (and the 80-millionth that our family knows??) to have breast cancer.

She's been re-reading some of her travel journals and on her blog she shared this, which she wrote while living in Central America fourteen years ago:

To me, we are alive to learn as much as we can in the time we have. We are to learn about ourselves, others, and the world we live in. We are here to have and to accomplish dreams, we are here to fail, to love, to hurt, and to be hurt. We are here to desire and to be desired. We are here to accept and to deny. We are here to find balance in ourselves and in what we do. We are here to live, I mean really live. To take chances and to not be afraid of what those chances may bring. If we don't we will never learn. And education is what makes us be and what makes us wise. Never stop learning because learning equals life.

Somewhere, there must be a lesson in all of this, but I wish there was another way to learn it.

feast day

I learned awhile ago that St. Francis Xavier traveled to Japan with pirates when he couldn't catch a sail with the Portuguese. How's that for intrepid Jesuit spirit?? Today is his feast day. As Eleanor would remind us, do one thing that scares you.

my task: descend into the backside of mid-twenties; today I am 25.5. yikes.

eid al-adha

Friday night UMKC hosted Saudi Arabia night to celebrate Eid al-Adha, the three-day "festival of sacrifice." The holiday honors Abraham and his faith & willingness to sacrifice his son (Muslims believe it was Ishmael that he brought up the mountain) and also marks the last day of the hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca). Muslims sacrifice an animal on this day and give the meat to the poor. American Muslims usually send money to relatives abroad to contribute to purchasing the animal since you know, we don't really do animal sacrifices here.

Moh's friend tattooed me with what I'm told is a traditional Saudi design (I had the choice of Indian, tribal, Saudi, ... who knew henna had so many identities?) She also offered to come over for a touch-up in a few days if I want, and to arrange a cooking lesson sometime :D