Proposition 19

So in a few weeks here there is an election in California, and one of the measures on the ballot is a proposition to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

I might be one of the only college students at this time that will publicly say that I think this is a huge mistake.

It makes sense to me why people who already use marijuana illegally would want to legalize it; what frustrates me is those people who don’t agree with smoking marijuana yet are in favor of Proposition 19.  These people tout the supposed economic benefits of legalizing the drug, the harm it would cause Mexican drug cartels, and the false supposition that it would only effect those people who already use the drug.

But the negative effects far outweigh any positive effects this measure might come with.  Contrary to what your friends might say, marijuana is most certainly physically addictive and does in fact have long-term effects on the body.  The only people I have ever heard argue to the contrary are people who were at the time using and trying to justify with the classic, “I can quit anytime” line.  But just as it is not true for a cigarette smoker, quitting is much easier said than done for one who uses marijuana as well.

Cannabis produces withdrawal symptoms that may be as severe in some cases as those produced by nicotine addiction. These are most assuredly “physical” symptoms. There is no such thing as a distinction between the “physiological” and the “psychological” when it comes to addiction, no matter how much people wish to frame it as such. Drug Addiction Dualism is a denialist position. Full stop. Dependence on a drug is produced because repeated exposure to that drug produces changes in the body. It matters not where those changes are made, they are physical alterations. Unless you believe in some noncorporeal version of the mind or soul that exists independent of the physical matter of the body. And if you believe in that, you have no business making anything that resembles a scientific-sounding claim such as whether or not a drug produces a “physical addiction”.

With this knowledge, I have a problem legalizing the recreational use of such a drug and thereby making it readily available for even more people.  To believe that passing Proposition 19 would not certainly lead to more widespread use of marijuana is as naïve as it is stupid.

What’s Wrong With Marijuana?

In case you weren’t paying attention in Health class when the side-effects of this drug were gone over, here’s a quick crash course:

• Marijuana side effects include physical problems like breathing difficulties and deteriorating physical abilities.

• Despite a popular belief, marijuana side effects speed up the heart, blood and breathing rate. The body is taxed more and this speeds up the aging process just like methamphetamines do. The marijuana side effects from this extra exertion on the body include a higher risk for lung cancer, heart attacks and strokes.

• When marijuana is used habitually, the natural chemical balance of the brain is disrupted affecting the pleasure centers and regulatory systems. The ability to learn, remember and adapt quickly to changes is impaired by marijuana use.

• People who drive after using marijuana are nearly twice as likely to be involved in a fatal car crash. (Side note: under Prop 19, getting behind the wheel of a car just after using marijuana is perfectly permissible)

• It is also what is referred to as a “gateway” drug.  The more you use, the more you have to use in order to experience the high.  This often leads people to take up other drugs in order to achieve the high they are no longer experiencing from marijuana.

• It is not the same as alcohol.  You can drink a little bit of alcohol without getting completely trashed.  The entire point of using marijuana is to get high.

I realize that not everyone who uses marijuana is going to go out and get into reckless car accidents or become a hardcore drug addict.  The point is that this proposition will undoubtedly lead to more widespread use of the drug, thereby putting more and more people at risk for the negative effects.

The Economic Argument:

This initiative on the ballot says it will “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis”.  Sounds positive, right?  However, I don’t think it is that simple.

You would think that a measure titled the “Control and Tax Cannabis Act” would have some sort of tax proposal written into it.  Yet if you read the text of Prop 19, there is no such tax proposal.  Taxation is left entirely to the legislature and local governments, so there are no guarantees about any marijuana taxes or how fair they would be.  If this measure is supposed to help the state economically, there are at present no concrete plans to do so, and any economic benefits would pale in comparison to the social costs of legalizing marijuana.

The Drug Cartel Argument:

I have heard the argument made by those in favor of Proposition 19 that legalizing marijuana will undermine Mexican drug cartels, which supposedly gain a lot of their profit from the illegal sale of marijuana.  There are a few things wrong with this argument…

For one, it is not entirely true.  According to a study by the nonpartisan RAND Drug Policy Research Center

Californians, who make up one-seventh of the U.S. marijuana market, already are farming marijuana at a much higher rate than in neighboring states and tend to buy domestic rather than smuggled marijuana, the study found.

In short, California would have to legalize more than just marijuana to hurt the cartels.

Another thing I find just a little bit ironic about this argument is that it tends to come from people who are in favor of legalizing the drug because they already enjoy the recreational use of it.  This means that they are already buying it illegally and, as far as they know, putting money into the hands of the cartels.  Are we supposed to suddenly believe that these people really care about harming the cartels that they have previously had no problem handing money to if it meant they got to satisfy their selfish desires?  Give me a break.

There is also the fact that since Marijuana will still be illegal for those under 21, there will still be a market for those who illegally sell marijuana to sell to.  So contrary to what proponents tell you, Prop 19 won’t eliminate crime associated with the drug at all.

Naively voting yes on this proposition just because some of your friends told you it would help the economy is just bad judgment and poor research.  I implore you all to do your homework before going into the voting booth.  Proposition 19 is bad for California.

“My Love”

I remember being a little sad the night before my big sister got married.

I mean, it was the end of an era!  She has always been my best friend.  She was always in the bedroom next door to mine so that when I couldn’t sleep at night (or when neither of us wanted to sleep), we could stay up late talking about boys, laughing at each other, or goofing off dancing to *Nsync.  I was going to miss having a big sister around the house all to myself.

But of course, as a little sister, I could hardly contain my excitement for the event that was about to happen.  And, if I was being honest, I hadn’t had Katelyn all to myself since she and Jason started dating.  There was something about their love that I just knew was special from the beginning.  It was the way they looked at each other; it was the way I saw my big sister smiling.  But for some reason, what I remember most during that time was the way I heard Jason call my big sister, “My Love”, and the way she said it to him in return.

I don’t know why, but that stuck out to me the most.  It wasn’t as if it was super original, but for whatever reason, it always made me smile.  To Jason, Katelyn wasn’t just “love”, she was his love.  And he was hers.

It’s funny how God uses the people and the relationships in our lives to bring us closer to Him.  For me, seeing the love Jason and Katelyn have for each other taught me how to love God in a completely new way.  Not long after Katelyn and Jason’s wedding, and ever since then, I have found myself addressing my prayers to God as to “My Love”.  And it is kind of amazing how big of an effect a name can have on your disposition in prayer.  Start calling God your love, and you will began to fall deeper and deeper into love.

God is my love…I tell Him everything.  I run to Him in everything.  I am not afraid to question why He is allowing me to go through something; and I can trust He will answer when I call upon Him.  I write Him letters.  I write Him poems.  I even sing to Him on occasion

And the coolest thing?  I have found myself coming to a deeper realization that I am His Love as well.  He is the one who has my heart.  He is the one whom I belong to (not to mention He has written me the most beautiful love letters ever in Scripture).

So while I eagerly await the day I get to meet the man God has created to call me his love, he will always have to come second to my first love.  And I am pretty confident that when I do meet that man, he wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

Composing Hallelujah

Have you ever heard a line in a song that, no matter how many times you listen to it, it always just sort of tugs on your heart?  For me, it is the following lyrics from Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”.

But remember when I moved in you,
And the Holy Dove was moving too,
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah?

Most people who know me know that one of my favorite ways to pray is to write God letters in a prayer journal I keep.  It’s a habit I picked up when I was younger.  For Christmas one year, my grandparents on my mom’s side got all of the families what they called “Prayer Boxes”.  The idea was that, throughout the year, we were to write letters to God whenever we felt like it and put them into the box.  Once they were in the box, they were out of our hands and out of our control—they had been given to God.  So writing letters to God became a way I liked to pray.  Today I keep my letters in a journal, but the idea is the same.  I like to think of them as letters to my best friend, or just love letters to my King.

But as much as I love writing letters to God, this practice makes one very well aware of the deficiency of human language.  I cannot tell you how many times I have sat down to pray in the chapel with my journal, overcome with either love, joy, stress, pain, or heartache—and yet I can’t get more than two words written on the page.  Usually, all that escapes me in those times is just a simple sigh.

And then I think of the words of Saint Paul; and I am reminded that sometimes words are just simply unnecessary.

“…the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

-Romans 8:26

If we have true love, we won’t always have the words to articulate it.  This is because true love goes beyond words.  Authentic love is so consuming that it even changes the way we draw breath.

“But remember when I moved in you, and the Holy Dove was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah?”

These are lyrics that both break my heart and call me back to that consuming love each time I hear them.  They are beautiful lyrics of a love song that capture but a small glimpse of a love that is too deep for words.

Just A Simple Prayer

“I love You, O my God,
and my only desire is to love You
until the last breath of my life.

I love You, O my infinitely lovable God,
and I would rather die loving You,
than live without loving You.

I love You, Lord
and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally…

My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You,
I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.”

-St. John Vianney

Live in the Light

When I was 15, my uncle gave me a piece of advice that I can honestly still hear echoing in my head to this day.

If you’ve been following my blog at all (or if you know me well), you may know that I have a pretty black and white view of romantic relationships.  In my opinion, there’s no reason why a romantic relationship needs to be “complicated”.  The way I see it, if you want to be with someone, it’s not complicated; you make it work.  Well, I don’t speak about that without experience.  The whole reason this particular conversation with my uncle came up when I was 15 was because I was in the midst of a “complicated” relationship with some boy from school.  We weren’t sure we wanted to put the title on the relationship because there were all these other factors at play.  It just seemed so “complicated”.

After explaining the situation to my uncle, he reminded me of something that just sort of made everything I was stressing over fall into place.  Drawing from Ephesians, he just said 4 simple words:

“Live in the light”.

“…You are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth…Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.”

-Ephesians 5:8-9, 11-14

If the relationship I wanted to have with this boy from school wasn’t “shameful” or somehow outside of God’s will for our lives, then there was no reason why we shouldn’t call it what it was.  And if it was one of the two descriptors above, then it shouldn’t have even been a question at all.

It seems like the most simplistic lesson ever.  To be honest, it was.  I just needed someone to point it out to me.

But I didn’t write this post to talk about the unnecessary “complications” we throw into romantic relationships.  As I quickly realized, this advice applied to a lot more aspects in my life than just 15-year-old puppy love.  On the most basic level, it dealt with who we are called to be in the day to day.

To “live in the light” has since become a sort of motto I try to live by.  I won’t claim I never fall into the shadows, but I will say that ever since my uncle said that to me, I find myself hearing his voice in my head often when I am tempted to.

I think we all can relate to the temptation to sometimes hide in the shadows.  Think about the instances throughout the week when we censor ourselves around certain “types” of people.  The justifications we give for not being totally honest with someone we maybe would feel “judged” by if we were completely honest (“they just wouldn’t understand..”).  Think about those times we feel God calling us to say something, to stand up for Him, and we are afraid.

The light can be a scary place.  It may reveal things about ourselves that we’re not ready to come to terms with.  Being in the light means we have to wake up and face the obstacles of the day; so we prefer it in the darkness where we can rest easily in our ignorance.

But being in the light also means being a complete person.  Being in the light means you know who you are and you are unashamed of it.  Isn’t that the kind of person we should all want to be?  The kind of person that doesn’t have to hide any part of who they are from anyone at any time?  If we are finding ourselves wanting to settle back in the shadows, maybe it’s time to start asking why.

Roma!!

I just landed back in the states last night from a week in Rome with my Catholic University.  There were about 15 of us students and we were shown around by our Theology/Art professor.  I have to say, it was incredible.

It was actually my third time visiting Rome and, of course, each time I get to go it is a wonderful blessing.  This time, we all stayed in a seminary within walking distance of just about everything (Saint Peter’s Basilica was just a brief walk over the Tiber!).  Breakfast was at 8, we met outside at 9 for a full day of “class” around the city, and the nights we had to ourselves to explore Rome with awesome friends.  To give you an idea, here are just some of the things we got to see:

• The 4 major Basilicas (St. Peter’s, Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Paul Outside the Wall, & St. John Lateran),
• The Colosseum, the Vatican Museums (i.e. Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, etc.),
• and a ton of other sites and smaller churches.

It’s funny though.  I could write a book about all of the cool things I learned about the places we visited, the experiences I had praying at places like where St. Paul is physically buried (yes, the real St. Paul.  The guy who literally wrote the Letters to the Corinthians, Ephesians, etc.), or seeing the enormity of structures like the Colosseum in real life.  However, I’m thinking it’ll be the seemingly minor memories that stick with me the most.

…For example:

On our first full day in Rome, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica.  After spending about 20 minutes in the adoration chapel, I really wanted to go to confession.  Because I had been there before, I was comfortable enough excusing myself without telling anyone and walking over to where the confessionals are.  I figured I’d just meet up with my classmates later.

So I went to confession and was finishing up my penance in one of the side chapels.  I stood up to leave and go find my classmates, only to turn around and see them all kneeling in the back of the chapel waiting in line for confession as well.  It seems like such a small thing and not a big deal at all.  Of course my Catholic friends from school would be going to Reconciliation in St. Peter’s.  But even at a Catholic school, and even in Rome, sometimes I can forget the role God wants my friends play in my spiritual journey.  That instance for me after confession was just a great reminder of the blessings God has given me in the people He has put in my life even in just the past year.

The above picture is from another God-incidence I had on the trip.  It was the end of the day and we had just left from the Vatican Museums and were heading back to our place to get ready for a night at the Trevi Fountain.  We had to stop and wait up for some people so there were 5 of us standing on the street in front of St. Peter’s.  All of a sudden, a group of 2 priests and some other young adults walk by carrying this massive wooden cross and a guitar.  Turns out they were carrying the World Youth Day cross.  They stopped off to talk to us (they spoke English!) and invited us to pray with them.  So we stood there for about 10 or 15 minutes in front of this cross in front of St. Peter’s singing praise to God with our voices and guitar.  What are the chances?

Anyway, I could write a lot more about different experiences we all had.  Suffice it to say that it was a great time and a spiritual journey all the same.  It is amazing the way God chooses to reveal Himself to you in every moment of your life.  All we have to do is open our eyes to see Him.

…Oh and P.S. – I got to go to mass with the Pope….TWICE!

Have a blessed Triduum and a Happy Easter!

“If you want to make God laugh…

…tell Him your plans”

I randomly checked the my site meter the other day and realized it was unusually high considering I haven’t posted in a week.  Then I thought about it and came up with a possible reason why it may have been that way.  So here goes the post that maybe some of you were looking for.

Jake and I broke up on Sunday night.  And I’d say everyone I have told since then has been pretty equally shocked.

We don’t know what God has planned for our lives.  All we know is that right now, this is something we needed to do.  It was no one’s fault, and if you’re looking for it, there’s really no dramatic story.  Honest.  Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you expect them to, no matter how much planning you try to put into them.

I originally titled this post “Plans Change” because I felt like it somewhat described the situation.  But then I was thinking about it and realized how silly that actually is.  The only plans that matter have been the same all along.

God’s plans haven’t changed.  They’ve been the same since the beginning of time.  He planned for Jake to be a part of my life, and He planned for this to happen too.  His are the only plans I want anything to do with anyway, and I know Jake feels the same way.

So it’s scary, yes.  But God knows what He’s doing, so I’m going to follow where He’s leading.

“I only need you.”

“I only need you.”

One sentence.  Four words.  Five syllables.  …It was all I kept thinking today while praying in the chapel at school.

Praise God I go to a school that requires us scholarship-students to spend an hour a week in the chapel!  I’ll admit, most days I spend a good portion of my time in the chapel catching up on reading for class.  If that offends you, I’m sorry…I happen to think that Jesus likes it when I do my homework with Him though.

Anyway, today I was in the chapel stressing out about my impending final that was this afternoon.  I had a pile of papers in my hand that I was reading and re-reading, just trying to commit any last bit of knowledge I could to memory.  With that and several other things on my mind, I finally just got down on my knees and began to pray.

And for whatever reason, those four words (“I only need you”) just sort of became my prayer.

The thing about prayer is that it’s supposed to be a conversation, meaning it involves both talking and listening.  So sometimes it can be difficult for me to distinguish my own voice from God’s.  But today when I was praying those words, I realized that it wasn’t just me speaking to God; He was talking to me as well.

Of course I know need God (though with all the stresses and distractions of life, I sometimes forget that He’s ALL I need).  But today was a good reminder for me that it goes both ways. When I pray, God only needs me.

Somewhere along the line I have forgotten this.  I know God wants to use me to do His will, and I have a great desire to be doing His will in everything that I do.  …But prayer is not a class, and life is not some divine homework assignment.  The goal of my prayer should not be to “figure out what God wants me to do”, or to try and find some solution to a problem I’m having.  If I’m just waiting for a solution or some sort of assignment, then the times I emerge from prayer without either of those will have felt like failed attempts.

The goal of my prayer should be to give myself to God completely, to just be with Him.  If I am united to God in prayer, then my solutions and “assignments” will be clear to me when God wants them to be clear to me.  He doesn’t need me to figure out answers; He only needs me.  And that is pretty refreshing

From NCR: “Contraception Caused the Priest Shortage…”

From Danielle Bean (NC Register):

Contraception Caused the Priest

Shortage

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by Danielle Bean Friday, March 05, 2010 2:04 PM

Do we have a vocations crisis because we have a contraception crisis?

Fr. Dwight Longenecker thinks so.

And I agree.

I once listened to an enthusiastic young priest give a passionate sermon about the lack of vocations. His proposed “solutions” were that we should encourage more young men to consider becoming deacons and allow for married priests.

I sat on my hands and said nothing, but all I could think was that he was ignoring the contraceptive elephant in the room. I thought, “Why doesn’t he see that if people had more children, we would have more priests?”

It’s not just about numbers, either. Of course if you increase the population of practicing Catholics you increase the pool for potential vocations. But you also increase the likelihood that parents will encourage their sons to consider the priesthood.

I have five sons. I would be delighted if God called any one of them to become a priest. If I had an only son, however, I can see how that delight might be tinged with just a bit of hesitation. What about grandchildren? What about future generations of Beans? These things do matter to parents. Couples who use contraception to limit their family size to “small” or “manageable” are more likely to feel that having a priest for a son costs them something. However silly or selfish that kind of thinking might be, it is real.

But Fr. Longenecker sees an even deeper connection between contraception and our current shortage of priests. Contraception, he reasons, gives young men the false impression that married life is the “easy” way out.

“Now, because of artificial contraception, the whole underlying assumptions and expectations about marriage have shifted. Marriage is no longer a way to give all, but a way to have it all. Therefore, when a young person today considers a religious vocation, they are not choosing between different paths of self-sacrifice; they are choosing between a life that seems to have it all and a life that seems to have nothing. They must choose between a home in the suburbs, 2.5 nice children, and a double income or total self denial. The choice is between a familiar form of hedonism or an inexplicable form of heroism.”

I never thought about the vocations crisis being rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of marriage, but of course it is.

We are all called to lives of self-sacrifice—some of us through marriage and some of us through religious vocations. A more common Catholic understanding of this fundamental truth will lead to happier more fulfilling marriages … and more priests. As Fr. Longenecker puts it:

“Once young people who are searching for their vocation come to realize that they must decide to either die to self through marriage or die to self through a religious vocation, they will not only become far more realistic about marriage, but they will also view the religious life in a more attractive light.”

Marriage: More than just a piece of paper?

After yesterday’s post about single life vs. married life, a friend sent me a message with a very valid point.  I thought it was worth discussing here:

If any two people are planning on getting married eventually anyway then what will the difference really be between now and then other than a piece of paper and a party?

Well, I believe that marriage is a sacrament. A good way to think of a sacrament is to think of it as an outward sign of an inner reality. For example, baptism is a sacrament. The outward sign is the water, but the inner reality (the thing that is actually, literally happening) is the Holy Spirit coming to dwell within the person being baptized.

So what’s happening during the sacrament of marriage that makes it more than just a couple signatures on a piece of paper? The couple promises to be true to one another in sickness and health, in good times and bad, etc, until death do they part. But they could do that on a random Tuesday in October on the sidewalk if they wanted to, right? So there’s gotta be something else going on for it to be a sacrament.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about the sacrament of Matrimony:

“1661 The sacrament of Matrimony signifies the union of Christ and the Church. It gives spouses the grace to love each other with the love with which Christ has loved his Church; the grace of the sacrament thus perfects the human love of the spouses, strengthens their indissoluble unity, and sanctifies them on the way to eternal life”

In essence, what the sacrament gives the couple that they can’t get just by signing a piece of paper or by promising things to each other on the sidewalk is grace. Grace is one of those words that people use all the time but never really talk about. In this sense, it’s defined as the participation in the life of God. The couple’s love is now united for a higher purpose. In Matrimony, the two have become one flesh (Mat 19:6), working towards the goal of helping one another achieve eternal happiness in Heaven.

I could promise my boyfriend anything I want. We could move in together and start a family. We could write up a piece of paper and both sign it and hang it from the refrigerator without ever setting foot inside a church. We’d look and act exactly like a married couple. We could even make it work and be together forever.

But it wouldn’t be a sacramental marriage.  If we weren’t baptized, it would be what’s called a natural marriage—still good and still from God (because the union of man and woman is from God), but we wouldn’t have the graces from the sacrament. Our love wouldn’t be about God and getting the other person to Heaven—it would be about ourselves (and possibly a family we desired to have).

I do believe that you can have a loving relationship with someone and even grow to be a better person from that relationship without the sacrament. I know a good many people who have such relationships. But I believe the sacrament of marriage is the ideal to which couples should strive because in it they are united for something greater than just earthly love; they are giving themselves fully so that they can gain the eternal love of the Father in Heaven.