Thought of the Day

Curs'd juxtaposition.

How dare I be forced to think about what I had set aside in a neat little mental package?

cry

I'm going to be crying myself to sleep tonight.  I'm okay with it since (a) I'm choosing to rather than being overwhelmed and (b) its about Joseph.  I'm spending time thinking about what could have been.

It was wrong of her to end class on such a morose note, but what do I know? I'm just the student.

Did you know that I get caught off guard each time someone asks if I have a brother or not. I don't really know what to say. Some people know about you, but most don't.

I wish I could see you. Who do you look like, mom or dad? Are you the perfect middle child, bridging the two extremes between me and monkey? What do you like? What do you see? Where are you? What's it like to be nameless until 2006, when you would have been 21? You know that I miss you, without having ever seen you, right? You know that I love you too?

I'm sorry that you were just discarded in a biohazard bin. I gave you a name in 2006, Joseph. Maybe that can begin to make amends. It was Jennifer's idea, and it was good, but brought the pain to a new high. It made it real, that you were no longer a mere abstract, but my brother. My little baby brother ... dude, I don't even know what that means; what it feels like or anything else at all.

Remember last year when I hit a point during Lent? I know in my head that its not my fault, that somehow my costing mom and dad over $100,000 in neonatal and preemie care, is not reason alone for you not living. I can't be used as the excuse, nor can your disorder. You've probably seen how that that 'perfect child' ideal has backfired.

There's many reasons why I'm not happy with my mom, but you know that you're among the top. You are probably also aware that each 40 Days campaign I do is somehow for you; mom's never really shown remorse.

Oh, say Hi to Jesus for me, would you? Tell Him I'm doing okay here, but He's got to start coming through for me in some huge ways. He knows what I mean.

See you,

Your sister, Megan

St. Joseph

Glorious Saint Joseph, you are the pattern of all who work. Obtain for me, please, the grace to work conscientiously and to put devotion to duty before my selfish inclinations. Help me to labor in thankfulness and joy, for it is an honor to employ and to develop by my labor the gifts I have received from almighty God. Grant that I may work in orderliness, peace, moderation and patience without shrinking from weariness and difficulties. I offer my fatigue and perplexities as reparation for sin. I shall work, above all, with a pure intention and with detachment from self, having always before my eyes the hour of death and the accounting which I must then render of time ill-spent, of talents unemployed, of good undone, and of empty pride in success, which is so fatal to the work of God. For Jesus through Mary, all in imitation of you, good Saint Joseph. This shall be my motto in life and in death. Amen.
~*~

I found this prayer to St. Joseph as Patron saint of workers/laborers last summer because I needed to find a way to make my work meaningful to me. At the time I was working retail part time, and then spending 6 to 8 hours a week as data entry and research for children / developmental / educational psychology department on campus. Data entry and folding clothes all day long is difficult to make personal, meaningful and really mind numbing; trying to find a way to make my work account for something or to have an impact on others.

It was also the summer that I first began to become interested in Opus Dei. Again, I have found it to be of renewed interest. I have to seriously and prayerfully consider many things that I have neglected in the past year.

Later this past year, in November and the upcoming elections and ballot propositions in California, there was Prop. 85, which is similar to Prop. 73 from the previous year. Both were efforts to make abortions among minors more difficult to obtain, rather than allowing girls to get them without their parents or legal guardians being aware. They did not pass. I was struggling with the fact and tragedy of abortion in my own family, albeit 19 years ago. Jennifer, a staff member from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship had just had her first-born son over the summer and so I spoke with her. It was then that I named my long-ago aborted brother Joseph. Perhaps, true to his namesake, I should make May 1st, his tentative birthday/day of mourning?

~*~
Thus one may come to see how I do look up to Joseph both in work and in family matters.