Man, Fully Alive

This past month, I took the trip of a lifetime to Yellowstone National Park. It was incredible. The first day we traveled the southern loop, which is full of geysers and hot springs. This is also where you can find “the Grand Canyon” of Yellowstone, an amazing series of waterfalls in a deep gorge with hiking trails and paths along it’s jaw dropping twists and turns. The next day we explored the northern loop, which is prime for wildlife sightings. We saw SIX bears, three coyotes (wolves?), and countless elk, bison, and pronghorn.

At the tail end of that trip, I journeyed to Mobile, Alabama for the Ordination Mass of my dear friends, now Fathers Andrew Jones and Gil Pierre. (Look them up, go to their churches, they’re the best.) It was one of those good for the soul trips, full of reunions with college friends, good quality down time, and plain old GRACE from the Sacraments.

On the plane ride home, I was considering the awe and wonder I’d experienced over the last week. I cannot describe the beauty I encountered in Yellowstone, and pictures don’t do it justice. (Go! You’ll thank me!)

More breath taking than anything I saw in Wyoming is MAN, fully alive, in his vocation to serve God’s Church as a priest. There was ugly crying (hint: it was me) when these men held up a piece of bread and proclaimed, “This is my Body.” In this moment, and in every Mass, God miraculously turns bread into himself. In the person of Christ, these men, too, give of their bodies, their entire livelihoods, so that I can participate in the Banquet of Life. And that, my friends, is more beautiful than all the mountains, beaches, winding rivers, and fields of bluebonnets on earth. 

Of Lents Gone By

Happy Easter!

Jesus taught me some interesting things this Lent.

Of course,  I had big plans for Lent because hello, I'm Brittany Anderson. It's what I do.

Well I had some severe gallbladder issues the first weekend of Lent, and then the next weekend I got food poisoning.

One of the women in my discipleship group asked me how my runs were going (I am/was? training for a 10k) and I said I hadn't been because of the stomach issues. She said "oh, well of course.... you've been sick." For some reason that really hit home, because until she said that, I just thought I was a failure. By telling me I'd been sick, she helped me to see that I'd been too hard on myself. It was like a lightbulb in my head.

I know that I have unrealistic expectations for myself. I don't know why, and I don't know how to be any other way, yet.

So I spent the rest of Lent, not running a single time, working on loving myself in a new way.

Here are some of the things I did:

I bought new blue jeans that fit well and look good on me. (I hadn't bought new jeans in YEARS... most of the jeans in my closet moved here with me from college.)

I put $100 in the monthly budget for me to buy clothes. And I'm making myself spend it.

I started online shopping. I hate regular shopping, so to spend the aforementioned $100 a month, I'm online shopping, and RETURNING stuff that I don't love.

I also signed up for Click List, where you tell Kroger what groceries you need ahead of time, and they deliver them to your car. I know this is lazy, but I also hate grocery shopping.

I unsubscribed from dozens of email lists I was on, so everything I get in my inbox is from a PERSON or an organization I care about. This is revolutionizing the way I feel about email.

I posted this on my mirror:

I'm still trying to be more intentional about loving myself better.  I don't want to use that as an excuse to avoid things I don't like, stay in my comfort zone, etc., but I also want to learn to forgive myself.  

Being single at this stage in life is weird. I love Jesus and what he's doing in my life is nothing short of miraculous. Things are so good that I don't even feel like asking Him for anything else. 

I'm so glad he knows what I need and when I need it. 

Also, Ross, if you're reading this, these pictures are for you! Sorry the quality isn't great! Blame the photographer, not the camera!

The Bluebonnets know that it is Spring in Texas! I LOVE THEM.

My mom's daffodils? lillies? I don't know what they are. 

Saint Clare, pray for us.

Where Would You Be?

I have some good news:

I have gotten a very big promotion at work.

I'm nervous and scared and excited and so.incredibly.thankful.

I knew I was getting complacent in my current job, so after two years, I decided to pursue something different. My current job is considered a "destination role," and due to our lack of stress and generous pay structure, my teammates all thought I was crazy for pursuing this particular promotion. My current job is COMFORTABLE. I rarely work more than 45 hours per week, and I NEVER take my work home with me. I'm not the least bit stressed, and I have learned to communicate with my boss. But I wasn't made for comfort.

The new job will require a lot more of me. It will surely be more stressful, and more eyes will be watching me very closely as I ramp up. There have been people who have gotten this promotion and quit within six months because they couldn't make it. I will have to be excellent at my craft in order to succeed.

Today, my new Relationship Manager (my teammate who sets my appointments) was telling me about the work he was doing with the book of clients I will be inheriting. He was asking my preferences for appointment length, if I wanted space between them, etc.
I texted a friend and told her that it's getting real, and finally sinking in that I will be doing this job very soon (starting on St. Joseph's Feast Day!)
I told her I was excited and scared, and she asked me:
"Where would you be if you didn't do things that scare you?!"

What an awesome question. I've been pondering it all afternoon.

If I didn't do things that scare me:
I wouldn't be running a 10k next month
I wouldn't be planning to buy a house this year
I would never have taken golf lessons
I wouldn't have driven a stick shift across Europe
I wouldn't be a Certified Financial Planner
I wouldn't have left FOCUS for Fidelity
I wouldn't have started working at FOCUS
I wouldn't have gone to Auburn

I wouldn't be following Jesus.

So I would be no where.

Where would you be?

Triumphs and Failures

I wrote this post for our Parish Blog. I hope you like it!




Has anyone else completely failed at Lent already? (hand raised emoji)

I've been at this Christian thing, pretty intensely, for almost ten years. And I've never not failed at Lent.

Every year begins the same: I think of the myriad of ways that I want to be holy, and I make my Lenten resolutions. I make spiritual, emotional, physical, financial, and relational goals. This year I gave up social media and cursing and I took on daily flossing and being more intentional about protecting my prayer time (among other things...).

A few days into Lent  I got really sick, and my some of my Lenten plans needed to change.

But this year, something is different about my failures.

Here's the backstory: I am super type A, and a CLASSIC shame spiraler.

When you fail at something you promised yourself you'd do (or you do something you promised yourself you wouldn't), but instead of doing it once, or twice, you have to do it a thousand times until you feel so guilty that you muster up the will power to recommit to your goals: this is what my friends and I call the shame spiral.

Example: If I commit to praying with scripture for 20 minutes per day, and I forget on a Thursday night, it will take me MANY more days of not praying before I get it together and start praying regularly again. (And because I'm so type A, sometimes it takes until a Monday or the first of a new month to get back on track.... I know.... it's neurotic.)

I'm such a creature of habit and routine, that once my habit gets broken, it takes an act of God to get me out of the deep end.  I am so prideful, that once I "disappoint myself," it becomes a whole process where I have to dwell on why I failed, etc.

St. Paul's letter to the Romans tells us that the wages of sin is death. Since God created us in His image, we are NECESSARILY good. But we all sin, and we know that Jesus came to save us from our sins: to bridge the chasm left by sin between God and man. The wages of sin is death, but the wages of the Resurrection is life! Jesus gives us the sacrament of Reconciliation to bring us back to Himself, and allow us to share in His Resurrection.

When I go to Confession, Jesus cleanses me of my sins. If I still dwell on them, am I not holding myself to be a higher tribunal than God Himself? Sin has a way of altering my perception of myself because of my pride. Humility calls me to see myself the way God sees me: a person who was created Good, but who also happens to have a sin problem. My identity as a daughter of God means I am good. But I have a sin problem. And I'm pretty sure you have a sin problem too.

But like I mentioned, this year, something is different about my failures. This year, I'm taking my Lent one day at a time. Because if I spend all my time making future plans or dwelling on the past, or even thinking about how great I am if I happen to be succeeding at my resolutions, I have no time to love the people right in front of me.

Jesus told Martha, as she was busy SERVING, that Mary had chosen the better part. So when I'm tempted to dwell on my failures this Lent, I'm going to run to the feet of Jesus, sit there, and let Him look at me. And I hope you will too.

Saint Martha, pray for us.