5 Faves #5

Linking up with one of my favorite Catholic Bloggers, Hallie to talk about 5 of my favorite thiiiings.

–1–

My husband and I caught this song on the radio. I was surprised by the stark contrast it posed to the abrupt vulgarity and the obnoxiously discothèque-y bump n’ grind stuff (which is fine, I like a good beat as much as the next jammin’ mahhhn.) This song instantly captured my attention with its Mumford & Sons feel, but it definitely wasn’t Mumford. It has old-timey reachings, mixed with a hint of Coldplay, though without being sappy and nostalgic (enough with the “noooobodyyyyy saiiiiiiiid it was eeeeaaasaayyyyyyyy” BARF). The sample we’d heard so far was fun enough. But man, if only they would drop a phat bea—
WAIT, WHAT? YES!
This is my JAM right now. Giver a listen whilst you read my listy, why doncha? This is just the audio:

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/69417342 w=500&h=281] <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/69417342″>Avicii – Wake Me Up (Audio)</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/themusicdatabase”>The Music Database</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>

[edited– okay so that link doesn’t work anymore BOO! Here’s the lyric video: Avicii, Wake Me Up]
I’m one of those people who kind of get annoyed by other people endlessly sharing songs, so if you don’t care, I usually don’t either.
I am also one of those people who get turned off by the constant, prophetic quoter of song lyrics, so forgive me when I note that my favorite lyrics are these:

“All this time I was finding myself
and I didn’t know I was lost”

Play this song and all three of my boys start wiggling their little behinds along to (or off of) the beat.

Of course- OF COURSE- the group, Avicii, does what seems to be predictable with most artists: encourage a cult-like following. “Like OMGSH you guys! We MAKE stuff! We create sthththtufff! Get a tattoo of ussss cause WE ROCK!”
Their YouTube videos are self-glorifying, typical, and cliche in the show of bare female body parts/breaking the perceived puritanical barrier/moshpit-style idolization redundancy. Luckily, I found just the audio so you don’t have to spoil your experience of the song with a visual.

–2–

I take such delight in little language learners; their mispronunciations, mixing up of words, and creative sentences.
The opening line of Soul Sister by Train, Lexington sings as follows:
“Your lipstick STAAAAAANKS…”
as opposed to “your lipstick stains”

Typical conversation during mealtime:

Lexington: I wery don’t like quiet, Mom. (He too, has German wedgie syndrome)
me: Why dont you like quiet? It’s one of my favorite things.
Lexington: Well, Mom, I wery like loud… Mom I think that quiet is peanut butter and loud is jelly. I LOVE JELLLLLAYYY!

I must be peanut butter.

–3–

If you’re new to my blog, you shall quickly glean that I HATE folding clothes and putting them away. I’ve struggled with this forever. With three boys who delight in swimming, backstroke-style, in piles of freshly cleaned, folded clothes, shouting, “TREASURRRRE!” I can’t stay on top of it. I was lately freed by the idea that I don’t have to fold. If I can simply get the clothes from the dryer to their allocated drawers, I call it a win. So, my fave goes as follows:

–4–

As previously noted, my family attends a variety of parishes on Sundays due to our chronic inability to get out the door on time. We went to an 11:30 am Mass at a neighboring parish a few weeks ago and during the homily (sermon), the priest made a few fresh points:

“Are you in the Light? Do you know how to go toward the Light?
If you cannot look on ANY person (he listed characteristics of people from every race, nation, creed & color) and see your brother or sister, then it is still night for you. You are created with purpose, no matter how you came into existence. There is no creation who is an exception.”

There are no exceptions on human life. Think on that. We are all created for the Light. It’s up to us to wake up, recognize the Light, and go toward it.

–5–

I’ll wrap up with something very dear to myself. It is a letter. A letter written to me, discovered one rainy night shortly following the death of someone who is now as dear to me as a grandfather, after whom our third child is named.

A rainy, grey spring day in 2005, it pierced my heart like lightning as I sat in my cramped dorm room, at my desk, shoved underneath the loft-style twin bed. I was depressed. I suffered stomach aches that would leave me laying in my bed for up to 48 hours writhing in pain. My head felt always compressed with the empty space of NOTHINGNESS weighing on my soul which felt pancaked by empty, empty longing to reach for a depth about life I figured was unattainable, or inexistent.
Yuuuuuuuck-oh.
I hardly ever take myself back there because it’s pretty dang gross. I also have a hard time remembering those years. Hmm, who WOULD want to remember feeling like that, right?

Anyway, the letter did a little something like this:

“None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands. A glimmer of that feeling has shone so often in your eyes when—like the artists of every age—captivated by the hidden power of sounds and words, colours and shapes, you have admired the work of your inspiration, sensing in it some echo of the mystery of creation with which God, the sole creator of all things, has wished in some way to associate you.

[…]Artists who are conscious of all this know too that they must labour without allowing themselves to be driven by the search for empty glory or the craving for cheap popularity, and still less by the calculation of some possible profit for themselves. There is therefore an ethic, even a “spirituality” of artistic service, which contributes in its way to the life and renewal of a people. It is precisely this to which Cyprian Norwid seems to allude in declaring that “beauty is to enthuse us for work, and work is to raise us up”.

[…]my hope for all of you who are artists is that you will have an especially intense experience of creative inspiration. May the beauty which you pass on to generations still to come be such that it will stir them to wonder! Faced with the sacredness of life and of the human person, and before the marvels of the universe, wonder is the only appropriate attitude.

[…]Beauty is a key to the mystery and a call to transcendence. It is an invitation to savour life and to dream of the future. That is why the beauty of created things can never fully satisfy. It stirs that hidden nostalgia for God which a lover of beauty like Saint Augustine could express in incomparable terms: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you!”.(26)

Artists of the world, may your many different paths all lead to that infinite Ocean of beauty where wonder becomes awe, exhilaration, unspeakable joy.

May you be guided and inspired by the mystery of the Risen Christ, whom the Church in these days contemplates with joy.”

…and those are only excerpts from a much more in-depth letter. A letter which woke me up, and brought me back to a path (albeit a winding one) leading to Christ. A letter written by a pope. His name is Karol Wojtyla, also known as John Paul The Great. (Letter to Artists)
Which holy people have pointed you back to Jesus Christ when you’d found yourself astray?

Thanks for sticking through a strange and sporadic 5 Faves today! Check back Friday for 7QT, and next week for my post about the Mass and why it’s percieved as SOOO BORRRRING.