My Favorite Poem

I'm not sure if I've posted this before, but even if I have, it's so good that it's worth two posts. This is my favorite poem written by one of my favorite authors, Robert Hugh Benson. Read it slowly.


The Friendship of Christ


Let me tell you how I made His acquaintance.
I had heard much of Him, but took no heed.
He sent daily gifts and presents, but I never thanked Him.
He often seemed to want my friendship, but I remained cold.
I was homeless, and wretched, and starving and in peril every hour; and He offered me shelter and comfort and food and safety; but I was ungrateful still.
At last He crossed my path and with tears in His eyes He besought me saying, Come and abide with me.

Let me tell you how he treats me now.
He supplies all my wants.
He gives me more than I dare ask.
He anticipates my every need.
He begs me to ask for more.
He never reminds me of my past ingratitude.
He never rebukes me for my past follies.

Let me tell you further what I think of Him.
He is as good as He is great.
His love is as ardent as it is true.
He is as lavish of His promises as He is faithful in keeping them.
He is as jealous of my love as He is deserving of it.
I am in all things His debtor, but He bids me call Him Friend.

Where I Belong

Have you ever had a friend who was wayyyy cooler than you were? Or at least you thought so... and wondered why they hung out with you?

Have you ever had a friend who, when you were around them, they made you feel cooler than you were before... even though you are pretty sure they're that cool all of the time?
You know... the friend who, even when you're away from them for a long time, you get back together and things pick back up right where you left them.... and you're such good friends that you often wonder how you got so lucky to have such a friend, and you know that no matter what they'll always be a real friend.. they'll always be in your heart.

Is any of what I'm saying making sense?

Today, I got to pray a holy hour and go to daily Mass for the first time in a while. It was exactly like this. I got to catch up with my first, best, and realest friend, Jesus. It was so great. I was reminded of who I am. I remembered that on my knees on that kneeler with the Eucharistic Lord telling me that my feeble efforts are enough for Him is exactly where I belong.

To tell you the truth, parish life kind of really sucks. Being a Sunday Mass Catholic is the most difficult type of Catholic to be. If I didn't know of the innumerable treasures that are found in a life with Jesus, I certainly would not have gone to the Catholic Church to find them...

Disclaimer: I am so thankful to have met Christ, and just as thankful to know Him with a Catholic perspective. Truth ignites and frees... and the Catholic Church teaches a way of thinking that examines Truth and welcomes it, loves it. There is only one Truth and that is why I am Catholic. Catholicism is true.

But let me tell you... our evangelical Protestant brothers and sisters are certainly on to something. Life with Jesus is the best kind of life there is. They don't know Him in the Eucharist, and that is sad... but they've made due with what they've been given, and they know Him better than a lot, if not most, Catholics. Read the New Testament! Can you believe some of the outlandish things that our fathers in faith did so that we could know Jesus?! Can you believe that God Himself stepped down from Heaven to be nailed to a tree just to GIVE YOU AND ME THE CHOICE to turn away?!

Sunday Mass is one of the most difficult parts of my week. I go to Mass and listen to bad music played poorly, to shake hands with people who don't know or care who I am (and admittedly, vice versa), to try to pay attention to off the cuff, rarely relevant homilies, to see people genuflect towards an altar without a Tabernacle, and to watch as over half the congregation leaves after Communion (changed for all of Eternity, but only visible to God Himself). I have to convince myself to go every single Sunday. The sad part is, I'm not describing one, but at least three of the Parishes where I've been attending Sunday Mass this year.

The worst part about all of it: I don't care enough to try to make a change. At this point, I don't feel like I'm in any position to do anything about it. So I'll keep going.. keep praying in the pew, genuflecting to the Tabernacle, staying until the end of Mass, trying to be continually changed by the very real reception of Christ's flesh and blood in the Eucharist, and hoping that's enough.

I guess that I'm the worst sinner... because I don't know how everyone else can go six days without Jesus without leaving the Faith altogether. I love Him too much to even think about walking away.. but I, for one, can't do it anymore.

This is the reason I'm recommitting to more frequent attendance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Hours. Being a Sunday Catholic is too difficult for me.

Over-guarding?

So, it's late at night and I've taken a dose of Benedryl due to my outrageous allergies... but why not blog now? Hahaha. This is about to get good.

First off, let me say: As soon as the Series 7 was over, real thoughts just poured into my brain... maybe because it was the first time I had to think about what I wanted to think about instead of the obligatory Options Contracts, Regulations, and Municipal Debt which I'd been forced to think about for the last three months.

My thoughts on this particular subject began immediately after I passed the 7... as in.. in the bar next door to the testing center. I thought more about it on the plane ride on the way to AUBURN!!! and I was fortunate enough to have the sweet and innocent James sit and listen to me while I soapboxed like a champ.

So here it goes.

We've all heard both sides of the story.
Girls: "Catholic guys don't date holy, humble women, they date girls who flirt with them and dress immodestly."
Guys: "Catholic girls only date men who don't treat them well/won't lead/don't pray at all/etc."

You get the point, you've heard it too.

We get caught up in these circles and it gets crazy. Guy wants to guard girls' hearts so he never spends any time with anyone but other guys. So he never gets to know any girls and when one comes along who he thinks he might want to get to know, he can't ask her out because what if she thinks that's like a proposal of marriage, he's not ready for that!
Girl wants to practice emotional chastity so she stays away from men.. and when one comes along, she has to be meek and humble and not flirt with him or let on at all that she might be interested because she has to wait for him to come to her, but he never will because he's clueless and has no idea that she's interested and even if he did, a date is out of the question because, as previously mentioned, in these Catholic circles, a date might as well be a ring.

Apparently being single is complicated!

As per my recent experience in the bar and after talking this through with some very wise women, I've come to this conclusion: Women want need to be pursued! The reason good Catholic women end up with secular men and mediocre Catholics is because those men know how to pursue them. One of my friends, when asked why she was dating a particular not-practicing Catholic, said this: "he tells me I'm beautiful." I wonder how many men would be scared to take that first step if they knew that is all that it takes!

To lump them all together, secular men, it seems, understand that all they need to do is make a girl feel special. Unfortunately, this knowledge along with their often (but not always) less than honorable intentions, is why women end up settling for second best, for sex before marriage, for mediocrity.

I think the reason Catholic men are fearful of the pursuit is twofold: firstly, they are afraid of rejection, because that is our fallen nature and because they are more in touch with their delicate emotions than women have come to believe. Secondly, pursuing one woman means, by default, not pursuing all the rest.

Pope Francis, just last week, said:

"How difficult it is in our time to make definitive choices. The ephemeral seduces us. We are victims of a tendency that pushes us toward the provisional, as if we wanted to remain adolescents.
We must not be afraid of definitive commitments, of commitments that involve and have an effect on our whole lives. In this way our lives will be fruitful."

For women, being pursued is not a desire, it is a need. I think that is why the churches are filled with women. Jesus is the ultimate pursuer: He never stops, He never backs down, and He never disappoints. If you give Him an inch, He turns it into a mile. He.is.the.best.

Gentlemen, take a page out of His book. Learn the art of the pursuit. You don't have to "have it all together" to go on dates, you definitely don't have to be ready for marriage. But you do have to make a decision.

What do you think?

St. Joseph, pray for us!

I DID IT!

Y'all. Oh my gosh.


Thank you so much for the prayers.

As of 9 am this morning, I have officially passed both my Series 7 and Series 63 exams and I am a stock broker licensed in all 50 states! I got an 84% and an 83% respectively. (Both require 72% to pass.)

How freaking amazing is that!?!!


I am SOO excited.

This past week has been ultra rough, I worked 8am to 8pm all week long and I am stoked for this weekend to do NOTHING. (Laundry, catch up on hulu, clean my room, etc.) And I'm even more excited to have a social life again, have time to cook, go to the gym, floss, etc.


I have at least 3 blog posts coming down the pipeline so stay tuned!


All glory to God and to the Lamb.

Missing in Action

The part of my brain which processes emotion and any sort of thought that is not factual and information based is missing in action.

You guessed it. The final count down to the Series 7 and the Series 63.

I can't even put thoughtful sentences together due to the massive amounts (hundreds of pages, THOUSANDS of questions worth) of financial information which is currently teeter-tottering between my short and long term memory inside my head.

By the time we take the test, each of us will have spent nearly 250 hours studying, taken 12 or more final exams, and answered nearly 5,000 questions about the material. To say we are prepared is an understatement. Last week I felt really confident and this week I'm feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of information that I still don't know. The good news is that the test only requires 180 correct answers to pass!

If I don't post again between now and then, please pray for me at 8:00 AM (CST) on May 3rd and May 10th!

See you on the flipside!


St. Joseph of Cupertino, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, pray for me.

An Interesting Thought

So lately, I've been spending a LOT of time studying. Think: 25 hours per week or more.

And this week I've been studying tax shelters. Yes, boring.

But I learned something you might find interesting, and I heard a thought that could have serious implications for the U.S. Government.

This is especially relevant here as the tax deadline for FY2012 draws nearer.

So let's recap what we know about the United States Government, the IRS, and the Obama Administration.

1. The U.S. Government is really bad with money. Think: freshman girl in (community) college with a credit card and a shoe addiction.
2. The IRS LOVES money and loves taking it from the people who work for it. Think: previously mentioned freshman girl's hoodrat boyfriend who will do anything so his "soulmate" can have all the shoes she so desperately needs.
3. The Obama Administration has taken up a moral stance nearer to the definition of relativism than any I've ever seen. Think: previously mentioned freshman girl's "Christian" roommate who says "as long as you're having fun, you can do whatever you want.. it's not like anyone's getting hurt or anything." (AKA: Truth doesn't exist. (Allow me to be extreme for argument's sake.))

In my post on Marriage, I mentioned that with the entire institution of Marriage on a slippery slope, one might eventually come to wonder why, if men and women can become married and enjoy the love of wedded bliss for six months and then completely forget about those vows fresh off the altar, and men can marry men, I shouldn't be allowed to marry my first cousin, sibling, or even parent.

The Obama Administration wants to please the American public. And same sex marriage is certainly en trend, so why not? It's not like it'll hurt anyone, right? But here's the thing: the government cares much more about money than it does about pleasing the people. After all, this is a democracy... So the Obama Administration is allllll about same sex marriage, but can they see past the end of their noses at the freight train that's right around the bend?

In our country, we have both progressive and regressive taxes. Progressive taxes increase according to certain breakpoints, regressive taxes are the same for everyone. Income and sales tax, respectively, are progressive and regressive. Regressive are named so because they are "felt more" by those with a smaller amount of wealth. Sales taxes take up more of their total wealth. People with a higher income are taxed more on the additional dollars they make over and above certain thresholds sorta... that's the easiest way to explain it. Either way, the maximum tax bracket on an American's income is 39.6%. Ouch. (Most of us don't have to worry about that though.)

Let's play a little game of Life. We all know what it means to live the "American Dream." You own your own home, you have perfect 1.9 children (1 boy and .9 girl, of course) and you are in debt up to your eyeballs. (Well, that's the part they leave out.) Eventually you get that debt paid off and you can start doing a rare form of money usage called saving. You put it into a Roth IRA for yourself, and one for your wife, so the money can grow tax-deferred! Great! The kids go off to college, your wife finds that material accumulation and keeping up with the Jones's just doesn't appeal to her like it used to. Plus, you've put in 40 years at your company so they finally start paying you the big bucks. So you start saving more, because... you just can't think of what else to do with it. And then your wife dies. And everyone's surprised because they forgot that people die. So you inherit that once little Roth. And guess what? She was your spouse, so you don't have to pay a dime in taxes on it! Yippee!! But then you die. And guess what? Your estate taxes are progressive. So those big bucks you were making, and all that money you worked your whole life to save are taxed again at YOUR income tax bracket. Is that the kind of legacy you want to leave? Forty percent of your assets to a little charity known as the Government?

I didn't think so. But wait, there's more!! See, you could just marry your son, and then he'd be your spouse... so you know what he'll pay on your estate? NOTHING! And you know who's PISSED? Yup, the IRS.

So I hope the government is happy with it's decision to stand behind same sex marriage. We'll see how long this lasts before they decide to ban marriage all together, at least for tax purposes.

St. Patrick, pray for us.

List Making

In case you don't know, I am a list maker. I love lists. I love crossing things off of my lists. I love organization and being on time and having my crap together.

It seems like more and more I've been wanting to compile a list of all of the things I need to do in order to "get my crap together." Do you ever feel this way?

I've refrained from making said list for a couple of reasons, the most important of which is this: I know I can never finish it. The best part about finishing the things on a list is throwing the list away, and I know, with this particular list, I'll never be able to do that.

I am a mess, let me just tell you that. It seems like every time one thing in my life starts going how I think it should, another area falls to the wayside. For example, I finally get in a routine of flossing my teeth, and I stop going to the gym. Or I start studying as much as I need to, and I slack in my prayer life. Or I finally get my finances together, and then my room is a wreck. These are just hypothetical examples... haha. The thing is, I don't want to have it all together to show other people that I do in fact have it all together, I just want to have it all together for my own peace of mind. But there certainly aren't enough hours in the day to go to the gym, lay out in the sun, make home cooked meals, study for the Series 7 and work a ten hour shift.

I got the opportunity to pray for a while before Mass today and I was thinking about all the things that I want to do, all the ways that I want my life to be. I'm not sure why I spend so much time thinking about these things, especially because I know I'm not trying to earn love, it's impossible! We can't merit the love of God!

Maybe the reason I spend so much time pondering these things is because I know I'm not done. I'm not finished growing, maturing, learning to love and be loved. It seems like every time I go to the Lord in silence I'm reminded that He loves me too much to leave me where I'm at. I know that God doesn't necessarily care that my laundry isn't finished or that my teeth haven't been flossed, I guess I just need to spend more time thinking about how I can become holier, how I can love Him better, and how I can bring Jesus to those around me, and less time trying to just get things done. But it's easier said than done, because chores can be crossed of the list, holiness will always be a work in progress.

I am so glad that I serve the God of Second Chances.

Happy Easter!