It's In The Air: The Insidious and Infectious Environment of The U.S.

This country makes me feel like I'm needy--people here make me feel like I'm needy! I'm always struggling with this thought and tormented by it: that I am irreparably, indelibly, and permanently emotionally needy and not normal. But when I am with people from the Middle East, and in the Middle East, I feel I am normal! I don't feel like there's something wrong with me when I am there or among the people. I don't feel able to be myself here, genuine, or spontaneous. I don't know how much longer I can last in this stupid city of Dallas and in this stupid country where only heartless and stupid people would want to live. I hate the U.S.!!!!!

Classmates

Now I realize that something is missing, and that my classmates are not friends with me not because of me (because I am cold with them). If I am not reaching out to them, it's because I sense they are not interested in friendship. When I decide to reach out to them, believing that I am the problem, they barely reciprocate. I felt the difference today with my IPS classmates and Anusha. Anusha looks at me with such admiration and is interested in me. I feel so happy and comfortable, and her affection for me changes my mood. I went from being unhappy, maybe depressed, to happy all of a sudden! Now I know that if everyone at this university were like Anusha--interested--I would not be going through this phase of depression that I have been going through. I remember what it was like to have friends like Anusha who were interested in me and admired me. Adriana and Renee used to say that my presence in their lives. (written March 21, 2013).

America: land of the free

There is little real joy in this country, and not just because it is the consquence of sin. Let us not think in Christian terms for a moment, though Jesus and his message have everything to do with this topic. These days, you are very blessed if you have met someone with whom you can have real intimacy. Even in the family, real intimacy is rare among families here. Rather, mothers and fathers are just as selfish and fake with their children as they are with anyone else, just that they cover it up with frequent "love you"''s and "miss you"s and "honey." But their love in action is sorely missing. They have in mind other things like what they feel like or don't feel like doing, where they feel like going, what they feel like eating, and things like their retirement. (written 2012)

The Noble Lie of the Individual

The other person is lucky to be my friend, and it is their loss if they choose not to be my friend. Truth or lie? The essential goodness of the human being is undeniable, and each of us is created in the image of God. But some souls are more beautiful than others, and it is difficult to be rejected by one who in your eyes surpasses you in virtue. If you are concerned about virtue, then your judgment that they are more virtuous than you is I think more than likely true. If the person is virtuous, doesn't it mean he will accept you and not reject you? Is being negatively influenced and shaped by your environment a valid concern for the virtuous? I think of Plato's Laws and the decision not to purge the city of the wicked, but rather devise laws which will bring the virtuous and wicked to peace and harmony. Does not this involve compromise on the part of the virtuous? Can the virtuous remain so in spite of his or her society? Loving and liking yourself is the defense against being negatively influenced. On what basis should one love and even like themselves? That they are unimaginably loved by God? Perhaps this person must be brought to greater consciousness of this truth.Yet we are such the product of our environment! Oh Light, enlighten our minds and touch our hearts, I am in need of great faith. The thought that our environment is stronger a force than your grace makes one despair, yet it seems so. St. Joseph, pray for me, for us. (written Spring 2013)

7elim (Dream)

My time with Zeina, whose name means "beautiful," was fleeting, short-lived. At least the most significant part of our friendship, or the beginning of it, was short-lived. We became sisters when we met. In her words, we were more than sisters; she told me, "you are my soul." She was beautiful in every way, and if I never see her again, I will be content just to have met her, lived with her a little, have been shaped by her presence and instruction, and to recall her to mind, because she is forever an example. She is my Beatrice of Dante, who will lead me to heaven. I visited her country, her land, and it too was other-worldly like her, and my time there was also fleeting. I am cured forever from the arrows of Amor and its sorrows, and never again will I experience the despair of perceiving one's inferiority. She was perfect. Yet, I, could not help being different from who I was except if I had come from Lebanon, too, and been born there, and raised among its nearly otherworldly people. Zeina of Zahle. These two words, which begin with Z, for me, are motherly. Zeina was my mother above all things for the one year and 10 months we were together. Carved and etched into my memory until I die, and vivid, will be the first moments our meeting in September of 2011, and the events leading up to it. During that time, I was praying to St. Raphael, the patron of happy meetings, to St. Therese of Lisieux, and to St. Joseph. It felt like a miraculous time of my life, yet its sweetness was not without a taste of bitterness. Lebanon! Lebanon! Why can't I forget you? Love and beauty I have passionately longed for and found above all in Zeina the beautiful. Akh! Akh!!...O land of love and beauty. Yet, God seems to have chosen that I will have no part of it. Oh, the human being, how pitiful! I will remain at its outskirts. O God, God who is Love and who is Beauty, hear my cry. O God, to no one else can I turn but to you. Yet, I do not trust you! Shame on me, but also shame on you. Your demand that we accept imperfection is too great and difficult. YaALLAH. YaaaaaaaALLLLLLLAAAAHHHH...

Caught Between West and East

Caught between the frivolity of America, and the seriousness of Lebanese, I don't know who I am or who I want to be. Caught between the individualism/selfishness of Americans and the hospitality of Lebanese, I don't know who I am or who I should be. Caught between the casual-ness and inexpressiveness of Americans and the delicateness and expressiveness of Lebanese, I find it hard to be who I want to be. Caught between the understated taste of Americans and the Lebanese taste for extravagant beauty, I feel so lost. (written March 21, 2013).

Child Rearing

"On the other side, if the mind be curbed, and humbled too much in children; if their spirits be abased and broken much, by too strict an hand over them, they lose all their vigour and industry, and are in a worse state than the former. For extravagant young fellows, that have liveliness and spirit, come sometimes to be set right, and so make able and great men; but dejected minds, timorous and tame, and low spirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom attain to any thing..." (John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1692)