And Now to Write

The question "how are you doing?" is an interesting one. Wondering where am I going with that statement? Stop and think about the word "how." It is usually used when describing a process, whether it is outlining the process itself or discussing its quality. After all, the first three definitions for "how" are "in what way or manner," "to what degree or extent," and "in what state or condition" according to Merriam-Webster. Consider the structure of your own "how" conversations. When asked how a project is going, you launch into a commentary about your progress and hindrances. You talk about a process - giving some degree of background about the process itself and then evaluating it. The interesting thing is when we apply the how question to a person. We tend to give a "feeling check" as a response or choose whatever it is we want that question to refer to and answer that way. We might respond as if the

When encountering a Christian giving a mini testimonial, there are certain phrases you might hear. "Before I knew Christ...," "Before I converted...," "If I hadn't ___, then..." are a couple that come to mind. One time at Mass, one of these types of thoughts came out of nowhere to grab my attention: "If God didn't exist...." It's an interesting phrase. When it's used, the unspoken assumption tends to be that life as we know it would still be, well, as we know it. Maybe a couple specific tweaks depending on the argument, but at its core, the person speaking assumes existence. I know that approach has its place, but what if that thought is followed along the lines of what theists believe. Theists believe that God is the  creator of everything. So, if God didn't exist, nothing would exist. Close your eyes and try picturing that.                                                                                                  

As many of my close friends know, I have a soft spot for environmental concerns. Growing up, I have memories of my brother trying to insult me by calling me a "tree hugger," to which I would respond by ginning and hugging whatever tree was nearby. Being in nature is one of my happy places. When I would think of my dream home during high school, it always included woods in the backyard or at least within a minute or two's walking distance. One of my answers to "what would you do if you won a million dollars" was to buy a large piece of wooded/marsh land that is being earmarked for development and turn it into a preserve with a nature education center instead. During undergrad my love for nature took on a slightly different form. When I learned the science behind climate change and how maltreatment of the environment often disproportionately impacts the poorest of the poor, my heart was grabbed. Instead of simply enjoying nature and getting upset when another co

Good news: I'm learning interesting things in my classes. Even better news: I'm passing some of that knowledge on to you! Don't worry, though. I'm not going to go on a vaccine rant or spew out math equations at you. I want to give you a tool of sorts that you can easily use in your day-to-day life. What is this magnificent thing I felt the need to tell you about? Well, it's nothing new. It's the question we hate getting bombarded by: "Why?" I know, this is earth-shattering. But really, this is a super helpful question, especially when asked over and over again. My professor in my social epidemiology class started our semester with this approach, and I'm going to show you via her example why I think this is so important. Her main research interest is the effects of smoking on pregnancy. Now from the outset, you're probably thinking, "This topic is pretty closed. Don't smoke while you're pregnant." Ok, well consider women who

If you grew up in a Jewish or Christian household, you've heard the phrase "keep holy the sabbath" before. For both religions, a big part of this is to not do work on one day of the weekend.  For Jews, this is Saturday; for Christians, this is Sunday (the Lord's Day). For the sake of keeping things easily readable and as accurate as I can write them, I'm going to continue this post from the Christian tradition.   Side note: if the difference in days piques your interest, check out this passage of a book that chronicles the history of the Christian Sunday (and partially inspired this post) or this article . From the outset, this command seems pretty simple. Don't clock in to your job on a Sunday, or if you're a student, don't do your homework on a Sunday. Of course, there are some exceptions like nurses, firemen, police officers, etc. But, for most of us, we aren't exempt from the "no work" command. I know there might not seem to be muc

It's not uncommon to hear phrases containing the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just do it" mentality. The motivational "you can do whatever you set your mind to" also comes to mind. These aren't inherently bad phrases. They call out complacency and remind you that not everything is going to just fall into your lap. But, as most quick phrases go, they aren't one-size-fits-all and tend to downplay just how extraordinary such an act actually is. There's a reason why the reluctance exists in the first place, and telling someone "get up and do it" isn't necessarily going to do the trick. While a lot plays into why we can find it hard to do or be what we'd like, I want to hone in on one: norms. Frequently talked about within public health circles, I couldn't help but share it here. Now, I'm not going to take on the whole "our society is awful" approach. That isn't very tangible, and I don't know abou

Sometimes, you hear people say they won't support a certain store because it backs an organization or promotes an image they do not agree with. Or maybe someone tries to only buy local products, or at least things that are American made. Another thing people might be conscientious about is buying clothing that doesn't come from sweatshops. All of the people who are doing these things at one point or another asked themselves this question: "What am I supporting by choosing to consume this product?"     Over the course of my college career, I've found myself asking that question in various ways. After all, that's where the question was first posed to me at a time that I felt I had the ability to act on it. While the question of support sounds pretty self-explanatory, I want to spell out what I mean by it. What we buy things from, we fund and thus contribute to their ability to stay in operation. Give them enough support, and they get the message that they'

  As I mentioned in my first blog post of the year, I don't really do the resolution thing.  To be honest, I haven't really done the whole goal thing.  My rationale was that goals are usually overly ambitious resulting in them not being met, and if I want something enough, I'll do it without needing to really articulate it.  But, every spring I find myself writing a big goal list for the upcoming summer.  It usually features things like "read x books," "finish project y that I started a year ago," and "exercise z times per week," for example.  And, every year, I'd meet maybe half of these goals, further providing evidence to myself that goal-setting doesn't work for me.   But recently, I had a light bulb moment.  It isn't that goal-setting doesn't work for me - I just haven't been doing it right.  It took 3 rounds of me being exposed to the right approach for it to click.  So, what needed fixing?  Recognizing goals and obj

A couple months back, a friend lent me a sizable book titled The Coming Plague  that chronicles the journeys of epidemiologists who confronted diseases that were new as of the 20th century. So far, I've read about the discoveries of Lassa, Machupo, and Ebola. Now, I'm exploring various strains of influenza (P.S. Swine flu was/is actually pretty terrifying and now I understand why people were freaking out about it). While reading about this specific virus, a thought struck me: heresy  actually parallels influenza viruses pretty dang well. Before I get into it, I'm going to quote a couple of paragraphs I read that brought about this realization. When the [influenza] virus reproduced itself, the chromosomes had to unwind and make duplicate sets of their proteins and RNA. In the process, parts of one chromosome might overlap with another, extraneous bits of RNA from the cell in which the virus resided might get copied as well, and the whole mess would be reassorted and reass

It is easy to forget the heavy silence that had existed between the first Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  To limit the sorrows and adoration of the Passion to Friday and focus on the upcoming resurrection after Friday's service.  In doing so, we inadvertently skip over the fact that God let Jesus lay in the tomb for a full day and a half.  For a day and a half, God was utterly silent.  For a day and a half, darkness appeared to have won.  We often meditate on Christ dying, but rarely sit with Christ's death.   In response, I wanted to write a reflection of both.  I'll be drawing from three different sources whose links can be found at the bottom of this post. Sitting in the Silence What had I done before the silence?  My God sweat blood out of anxiety and anguish knowing one of his own would soon betray him.  That I, a trusted friend, decided maybe  $90, $200,  or  $3,000 was worth ending his transformative ministry and handing him over to a brutal death.  Oh, h

Everyone have a part of themselves they would rather keep to themselves.  That part that's referred to as your "dark side."  In that corner of our hearts, we keep those memories of times we've failed others or ourselves, those faults that define the chasm between who we are and who we want to be, those desires that we know are not good.  We keep these things in that corner with a determination to keep anyone from finding them.  Maybe we hope that if they stay there long enough, we won't be able to find them either.  We tell ourselves that these things are unlovable and will in turn keep us from being loved. We decide these parts of ourselves are the darkness.  Perhaps we believe that whatever touches them will be stained by their darkness.  So, they need to be kept in hiding to protect others from being hurt by our own pain and failings.  Or maybe we believe that no one would want to be near such darkness.  That once it is discovered, those whom we care about wi

In my senior year of high school, my AP English teacher had our class fill out a personal inventory. It's filled with various questions about life experiences, how you approach the world, and creative hypotheticals.  Every once in a while, I return to that series of questions and answer them all again to see what's changed and what has stayed the same despite multiple years passing.  Looking it over again, a question about irrational fears made led me to ponder another question: "What is your biggest fear?"  Thinking back to previous conversations I've had, I know I would have often responded, "Somehow missing my life's purpose." Being a Christian, I believe God has given me this specific life at this specific point in time for a reason.  The trick is trying to figure out and live out that reason.  For some, God placed a very strong desire in their heart early on, making it fairly clear the path they should take.  I do not consider myself one of th

As I mentioned last time , when I think of Christian unity in action right now, I think of bringing people to accept Christ as their Savior and growing where we have common ground.  However, I also mentioned my growing awareness of denominational differences.  I have heard from various places that denominations shouldn't/don't matter, but that ignores why they exist.  Different denominations have different ideas of what truth is.  They have different responses to tradition and Bible passages, even so far as not accepting passages from Daniel and Esther and relegating other books to an appendix, if they are included at all.  There are different definitions and approaches to central concepts like grace, sacraments, and justification.  Our differences matter. I love my Protestant brothers and sisters and have learned much from them, but I still believe the Catholic Church is where fullness of grace and truth are found.  Protestant denominations have bits and pieces, but the wh

In my last blog , I had mentioned having "Catholic" and "daughter of God" bubbles in my identity Venn Diagram - the former living inside the latter.  Having both bubbles is important to me because my family and many of my religious experiences are interdenominational.  However, my struggle within the Venn Diagram project, and a good chunk of my life, was determining how I treat those two aspects of my identity in relation to each other.  What it looks like to claim the identity of "Catholic Christian" versus simply "Catholic."  During high school, I started by trying to understand what it means to be a Christian.  In undergrad, my pursuit shifted to me deepening my understanding of Catholicism.  It was during this time that I also became aware of divisions I had been blind to most of my life. It was within this journey that I volunteered to talk at the Christian Unity Prayer Service being held by my Newman Center and the University Lutheran C

These past couple of weeks, I've been reflecting on the questions I asked in my last blog post.   And this week, my questions to answer were "What do I treat as my primary identity?  Why?  How does it manifest?"  I knew this series would take a lot of introspection to answer.  Thankfully, an activity in one of my classes jump-started the process for me. As a "get to know you" exercise, all of us in my Translational Evidence and Theory for Practice class were asked to draw and share a pie chart of who we are.  I'm a pretty visual person, so I liked the concept of the exercise; however, it had a flaw.  It doesn't take having a math degree to know that all the "slices" of the pie chart have to add up to 100% and that there cannot be overlap between said slices.  If you give Jack and Diane two slices of pie, you don't tell Diane that some of Jack's pie is also hers and Jack that some of Diane's pie is also his.  They will give you w

Around this time of year, it's pretty common to hear people talk about their New Year's resolutions.  What they are, how they've already fallen short but are trying again, how long they think the resolutions will actually last, etc.  And then there's the group of people who boycott New Year's resolutions because of how they rarely make it past the one month mark.  I guess you could say I'm half-boycotter and half-resolutionist (sure, that can be a word).  Instead of choosing a goal like "exercise five times a week" or "wake up at 6:30 every morning," I choose a word to focus on for the year.  For example, the first year I did this I chose "humility" with the intent of growing in that virtue.  This year, my word is "everything." I know, it's an odd choice that sounds extremely vague.  The idea came to me while reading and reflecting on an Advent devotional centered on Mary.  While the devotional definitely emphasized

What a year!  2018 had so many ups and downs, mistakes and lessons learned, beginnings and endings. Following the lead of many others on Facebook, I thought I would share some snapshots of my past year.  However, I want to do so in a slightly different way.  Next to each major event, I'm going to add something I've learned from it. Started off 2018 with a mission trip to San Lucas Tolíman, Guatemala with friends from my Newman Center and University Lutheran. What I learned: the story of Bl. Stanley Rother  who served his parish in nearby Santiago Atitlán during the Guatemalan Civil War, knowing it would lead him to his death. Also learned how fun it is to ride standing up in the back of a pick up and how terrible it is to have amoebas. My Grandma Wiskow passed away in February, suffering from the effects of her second stroke the previous summer.  While I still miss her, especially at family gatherings, I know she's where she has longed to be ever since I was a fres