paloma's blog

I haven't always had the convictions I do now. I come from a predominantly Catholic community in south Texas, right on the border with Mexico, and I was raised Catholic. Baptism, first holy communion, the whole bit. When I was a child, I never questioned any of it. It wasn't a matter of faith for me, it was just simple reality. When I reached my early teens, things began to change. My way of rebelling wasn't sneaking out of windows and doing drugs, at least not at first. My way of rebelling was rejecting Catholicism. I wanted so badly to think that I was special and different and utterly unlike the rest of my culture, and ditching the Church was my way of asserting my independence. I was utterly disgusted with my childish conformity, and I suppose that in shedding my faith I felt like I was finally shedding my childhood.  

In the following years, I was out to prove to people that I had nothing to prove to them. I wanted to convince them and myself that I cared nothing for their love and approval, and that I was my own agent, with no responsibility to anybody else. I rejected the idea of family, and I told anyone who would listen that I never wanted to get married or even think of kids, and that all I wanted was to move out of Texas and travel the world by myself. I detested the idea of community. In my need to break away, I lost all regard for other people. I hurt friends and family without a second thought, never caring about the lost connection, always assuming I had other friends to turn to. And then I found myself alone, like I had always claimed I wanted. That's when I learned just how much independence sucks. In my need for companionship of any kind, I fell in with a horrible crowd and did horrible things, not wanting to accept that I was lonely and depressed.

I got better. I went into therapy, I changed schools, and I managed to patch up bridges that I thought had been burned down for good. Talking to old friends I realized just how much I had missed them. I realized just how much I needed my friends and family to be happy. I needed community, and that's how I found myself going back to church. And this is true of Catholicism: only through community can you find redemption of any kind. People often refer to the "Catholic guilt," something that irks me to no small degree. That "guilt" is nothing more than our responsibility to our fellow man, a duty to be our brothers' keepers. Let's be honest, humanity is capable of a lot of horrible things; we can hurt each other in ways that would make the existence of a hell entirely obsolete. Our redemptive quality is our ability to look at the the hurt our brother causes and not wash our hands. Instead we take full responsibility and attempt to make up for it. We are humanity's keepers; it has nothing to do with guilt.

So I'm Catholic. I'm not especially religious. There's days when I'm not sure I even believe in God. I have no problem with homosexuality, nor do I believe that salvation can only be found through the church, but most of my values are very Catholic in nature. I'm pro-life, I'm against the death penalty, I dislike divorce, etc. But more than anything, I believe in the importance of community. I believe in family. I believe that life would be meaningless without the companionship of other people. I'm one of those weirdos who wants to get married young and have five kids. The truth is that Catholicism isn't entirely about our realtionship with God; it's also about our relationships with each other. 

So yeah, today's Ash Wednesday. Hence the rant.

So. This is going to be an academic journal, I think, at least primarily. A nice little place with cute pictures where I can write my notes and post rough copies of essays and stuff.  I recently developed a thing for 19th century literature, so that should come up a lot. Like A LOT. I'm taking a class called Victorian Gender this semester and I absolutely love it. We just finished Jane Eyre, a beautiful novel, and we're fixing to start working on Jude the Obscure and Great Expectations.

I'm also taking Contemporary Moral Problems, a class I'm not liking half as much as I thought I would. The teacher is great, but...well, abstract philosophical theories are not for me. Once I've decided I like a particular theory, I discover some aspect of it that I don't love so much. Doing the right thing should not be this complicated, I don't think. In any case, I'm considering nixing the philosophy minor in favor of an art history one.

Paintings are pretty. I like them.