Anna's Blog is Relocating

I leave next week, July 14th, for one year in India!  I have created a new blog to document my adventure.  Please follow my new blog at http://notesfromnewdelhi.wordpress.com.  You can read my blog there or subscribe to receive email updates.  I look forward to your comments and interaction throughout the year!

All the best,

Anna

Face-to-Face with Friends and Facebook Fasting

This Sunday I will sign onto my Facebook account for the first time since Wednesday, March 9^th – Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Catholic season of Lent.  During the forty days of Lenten fasting and prayer, practicing Catholics solemnly prepare for the Holy Week observance of the Passion of Jesus which culminates in the joyful and colorful celebration of Easter Sunday and the Resurrection.  Growing up I was told by teachers and my parents that giving something up for Lent served as a daily reminder of this season in the Church.  My childhood memories of Lent bring to mind the Stations of the Cross, failed attempts at giving up candy or television, the colorful outdoor Palm Sunday Mass at St. Francis Cabrini Parish in Minneapolis, special Easter outfits, and the bold brilliance of the first “Hallelujah” spoken on Easter Sunday (as during Easter Catholics exchange Hallelujahs for Lord have mercy(s) and solemn(er) music than usual). 

Just as I have always loved living in a state with four distinct seasons, my faith life has been enriched by the seasons of the Catholic liturgical calendar.  Having attended Catholic school since first grade, I have been keenly aware of each season as it passes along with its respective rituals.  The advent of Easter (extra points for the humor there) marks not only the high point in one of our liturgical seasons, but often (in accordance with the merciful whims of Mother Nature) the arrival of a beautiful and lush spring to my home state of Minnesota.  Easter falls especially late this year, raising hopes that a verdant Spring will show herself along with the floral clad girls and mothers and pastel-tied fathers and sons heading to Mass on Sunday morning.

For the past five years I have observed Lent by giving up Facebook for the forty days leading to Easter.  Other Facebook fasts – during finals week usually – have almost invariably ended in a preemptive return to the addictive platform for social connection.  But every year my Facebook fast lasts, and it is with increasing appreciation and relief that I sign off each year at the beginning of Lent.  In the weeks before Ash Wednesday I look forward to my impending fast.  My forty-day absence from Facebook has become more of a selfish reprieve than a faithful fast, but I don’t think J.C. would mind – He wasn’t the one who came up with the idea of Lenten fasts, after all.  More than anything else, I appreciate and look forward to the extra time freed up by my Facebook fast.  I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook on any given non-Lenten day, but the time I do spend on Facebook is rarely meaningful or fulfilling in relation to an interpersonal exchange I might have in person, on the phone, or even via text. 

I just spent one week on the East Coast, visiting friends and family in Washington, D.C. and New York City.  Looking back on the experience I realize my time there was the n-person manifestation of a social networking platform.  I flew to D.C. to visit my friend Emilie (high school).  My friend Mike also lives there (junior high, H.S., and college), so I made a point to connect with him.  Emilie and I, and one of Emilie’s roommates, went to a birthday party hosted by my friend Valentin (college).  There we met a group of Valentin’s friends.  Our friend Teresa came down from NYC for the weekend, so two of her college friends (living in D.C.) joined us for dinner and our weekend activities, along with Emilie’s roommates.  People exchanged numbers, delighted to find others in the same city with shared interests and occupations.  We all commented on how fabulous it was that our friend groups were mixing and becoming friends.  Teresa and I bused back to NYC on Sunday where she introduced me to three more of her friends from college, one of whom later introduced Teresa and I to two of his friends and coworkers – who are living and working in California but happened to be in NYC for the weekend as well.  I met up with my cousin Tony and my friend Christian, a San Diego native who is studying in New York whom I met when he was visiting a cousin in MN six years ago and we happened to attend the same conference.  Teresa commented to me “you are probably the only person I know who would keep up a relationship with someone you met randomly at a conference”…it’s probably true. 

Wednesday was my last night in D.C. and it ended with a delightful and extended happy hour which brought together Emilie and her roommates, me, Valentin, and two other college friends of ours who recently moved to D.C.  As I sat there, the common thread between two groups of people, I was delighted by the numerous connections I had made with and among others over the week-long trip.  No doubt I would have made the same connections with the same fabulous people regardless of my fasting or not from Facebook, but the enjoyment of in-person connection was, in reflection, highlighted by the lack of the daily impersonal Facebook barrage.  

As Easter approaches I am incredibly grateful for a close group of friends who live all around the world, a supportive and loving family in different places, and the ability to visit the people I love when time and money make that possible.  I think a good deal of my generation realizes how privileged we are to have the opportunities for travel and connection (in-person or otherwise) with such a broad scope of people around the globe.  I wish you all a joyous Spring, happy Holi, blessed Passover, and Happy Easter!  If you are traveling during this season that brings families together, may your travels be safe, restful, and enriching. 

We are all connected.  I love you all.

The 2010 Highlight Reel

Here are most of the highlights of the incredibly busy year that was 2010.  Thank you to everyone who made it one to remember :)

Happy New Year, dear readers!

Greetings, blogosphere and Happy New Year!  I have returned from an extended hiatus to thank you for reading Push.Play.Climb. last year and tell you there will be much more (and frequent) posting to look forward to in the New Year.

For me 2011 brings continued travel and adventure beginning with a week long retreat in Costa Rica in two weeks with Charmagne, Rotary training in Missouri in March, a possible business trip to Turkey in March, D.C. in April, and who knows what's in store for May & June before I jet off in mid-July for one year in Delhi, India.

Here's some food for thought:

"The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.  Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."  - John Gardner

p.s. How great is it to start the year with a Saturday!?

Chile's 9/11

The following entry is taken from the blog I kept during my study abroad experience in Chile.  As I observe the ninth anniversary of our own September 11th tragedy I am stunned by how "normal" and safe this day feels.  Other than a brief mention of the anniversary on the radio in between Top 40 songs, today seems to be a day like any other.  

I feel lucky to live in a country where bombs are not a normal part of daily life.  But why should I be so lucky when so many young people my age are not afforded the liberties and freedoms I too often take for granted?  As I forge my own path in this world I hope to bring many along with me.  I was appalled by the prejudice and hypocrisy that provoked a Florida pastor to plan a burning of the Q'uran in protest of Islam.  I hold dearly the freedoms of expression and belief (whether religious, political, or otherwise) afforded us in the United States but I am too often underwhelmed by the response of my fellow citizens in the face of ignorance.  

The problems of violence that plague much of the world are a direct result of economic disparity.  The Middle East, for example, is a region made up largely of young males with few economic opportunities, making them easy recruits for militant organizations like Al Qaeda.  Until the economic conditions of warring nations improves, our advancements against violence and terrorism will not be long lasting.

But before I take up this post talking about the economics of peace (save it for another day), here are my reflections on Chile's own 9/11:

On September 11, 1973 Chile's Presidential Palace was bombed and overtaken by the right-wing Junta government of Pinochet which would rule until 1980. In the days after the coup, Allende supporters and leftist activists were taken to the Estadio Nacional (national soccer stadium) which was temporarily converted into a detention and torture center. Men and women were tortured, raped and killed in the same stadium where, last night, the Chilean soccer team defeated Colombia 4-0 in a world cup qualifying match. Abandoning political and religious divisions Chilean soccer fans poured into the bleachers en masse and filled the stadium with chants of nationalist fervor and pride. During the game, Chileans were everything but divided. But Chile's history is a complicated one, as are its present day manifestations.

The meaning of September 11 and the memory of the coup is different for every Chilean. For some, it is a day of mourning and remembrance of the leftist popular movement and those disappeared, tortured and murdered during the Pinochet dictatorship. Many Chileans believe the coup "put right" the Chile which had been torn apart by the socialist economic policies of Allende's government and saved the country from civil war. Still others feel that everyone should get over what happened during those years--that every war, every movement, has its share of torture, death, and the oppression of innocent people. That happened thirty-five years ago, let's stop the fuss.

I have no grasp of what today feels like for the average Chilean. It's odd for me to be outside of my country as we mark the seventh anniversary of our own September 11. It is hard for me to draw comparisons between the two dates. Chile's 9/11 was an attack of the Chilean military against the Chilean government: Chileans vs. Chileans. On September 11, 2001 and outside force attacked the United States. The strongest comparison can be made in the fallout of each day. Both dates left their countries shaken, scarred, and polarized. Chile is still deeply divided politically.

Today raises many powerful questions. Who owns the memory of September 11? What does that day mean for our nation or to you and I as individual citizens? These questions hold true for both Chileans and U.S. citizens alike.