Make me a channel of your peace

Even though I was sidelined with an icky cold this past weekend, I still continued to do schoolwork.  Yesterday, was a whirlwind of a day in which I babysat at the Methodist church I work at most Sundays before doing some errands.  One of which involved getting a new Pandora clip for my beloved bracelet from my best friends back home to keep any future disasters from happening to it.  I will have to share that story another day..you'd be amazed at all this shiny silver bracelet has been through since receiving it in early March.  Anyhow, once I came back home, I plowed through the sneezing, coughing, and running nose to work on four different research projects.  I'm so glad that I have today, Labor Day, off from school and work so that I can do my own work for a class I'm taking.  While most others are planning cook-outs or lazy days at the pool, I'm sitting here on my couch with Dusty Shamrock trying to figure out a good research question for a single subject research project.  I have lots of ideas but need to focus on just one.  I also need to get back into my habit of writing a little bit each day for my pre-dissertation literature review and IRB paperwork.  I was thrown off track last week with traveling to PA and returning to NC and jumping right into a super busy week.  Each time I start to think about the lit review and IRB and how far behind I am, I begin to feel panic.  I need mentally calm myself down and peacefully think day by day....of what I need to focus on so that I can do the best I can right here in this moment.

Soooo, in thinking about these four research projects that I worked on yesterday, I just realized something!  The conferences at which proposals were submitted for presenting these projects and sharing the data all take place in what I have dubbed heavenly cities.  What do you mean, you ask?  Well, allow me to share with you the locations of these conferences....Santa Fe (which means "holy faith"), San Antonio, and San Francisco!!  Minneapolis is also on the list but it means "city of lakes" so that doesn't fall into the category of heavenly city does it?!  Unless I think of how happy I feel when sitting by a body of water and how being by the ocean or a beautiful pond sends waves of calm and peacefulness over me..hmm...

San Antonio, TX, is named for Saint Anthony of Padua...a saint I have had special recent connections with (you can read more about those connections here).  San Francisco, of course is thought to be named after my favorite saint I've had since I was a little girl, St. Francis of Assisi.

However, I just discovered that Saint Francis, one of my all time favorite saints, is the patron saint of Santa Fe.  As if I weren't already excited enough about going there, I'm even more so now!!!  I hope to be able to steal away from the conference to visit the Loretto Chapel and perhaps stroll through the Hotel St. Francis while I'm there.  My friend, Marissa, who lives not far from Santa Fe, has already promised that she'll send me information on  the "must-sees" of the city so I can't wait to go explore and enjoy this adventure.  I have a feeling that Santa Fe, NM will be added to my list of favorite cities after February 2013! 



I first laid eyes on this particular statue of St. Francis in western NC in a small church gift shop on my way to Texas in Summer 2011.  I debated buying it that afternoon and am glad that I didn't since it would have been in my trunk...and would have been smashed to pieces when my car was rear ended and totaled in Alabama a few short hours later...then the next month, while on retreat at my old church in York, PA, I saw this same statue in the window of one of the church offices.  I knew then and there that I needed this statue so I ordered it from a catalog a friend in NC suggested.  It's amazing how this simple plaster statue invokes all these feelings that range from excitement of the upcoming road trip in western NC, to fear/sadness/gratitude in Alabama, to peace and happiness on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel when I saw the statue again in York, to calm and hope here in the bonus room as I work long and late hours to chase my dreams.