Vacation

My vacation for this Summer was this past weekend. Here's a quick run-down of what happened:

1. Sunday: Arrived safely at my parents' house with boyfriend and two dogs. Car receives a stain from a car-sick dog.
2. Monday: Accidentally soak my contacts lenses in a hydrogen peroxide solution. Able to rinse eyes in a timely manner.
3. Get plant killer in my eyes while helping my mom at her rental property. My boyfriend safely guided me to the water hose in time to rinse my eyes.
4. Do more yard work at the rental house and a little bit at my parents' house.
5. NAP
6. Enjoy evening spending time with my boyfriend and parents.
7. Tuesday: Start the day off at a waterpark!
8. About to leave waterpark for lunch when I realize I lost the canister holding my boyfriend's credit card and my keys.
9. Freak out.
10. Find out that a decent person found the canister and gave it to a lifeguard. Calm down.
11. Lunch at Sonic.
12. NAP
13. Putt-putt and arcade games with the boyfriend. I won putt-putt.
14. Guy on moped drives into the lobby of the arcade. We are the only two that seem to find this odd.
15. Wednesday: Awesome homemade breakfast cake. Finish tokens at arcade.
16. Find out that one dog had destroyed a pillow, a napkin, and vommitted twice on my parents' carpet.
17. Get home safely with one boyfriend, and two dogs. No new stains on the car. Hamster and fish survived a few days by themselves.

I've had enough excitement. Back to work on the thesis!

Mistakes

Having gotten to later miracles in Milagros de Nuestra Señora, I have found myself very wrong about a few things. Firstly, not all of the miracles have a male as a sinner. This makes the feminist in me very happy. However, I do have a few thoughts on the significance that miracle #21 has a pregnant religious woman. She is the sinner in that story. My modern mind doesn't like the fact that the man is not seen as a sinner. However, I can appreciate the fact that the woman had taken very specific vows of chastity. It still irks me slightly. Secondly, not all of those who find themselves receiving help from Mary are Christian. I don't know how I feel about this. Spain has had some anti-Semitic feelings for, well, most of its history. My gut reaction is to say that it is anti-Semitic because the author pins a Jew for sinning but then I realize that the author pins everyone for sinning. Using a Jew is just to illustrate one of the basic ideas of Milagros: everyone can be, and is, a sinner. Jews, Christians, men, women, priests, and nuns are all sinners.

Well, I need to finish up an annotated bibliography for tomorrow. It's the first one I've ever done. It's kind of a pain in the neck but I can definitely see the appeal. It's great to have a run down of books that could be useful for a paper (and why) and a list of books that have nothing to do with the paper. It's hard to really say which ones are "useful" right now because I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is my thesis. Then again, I think that's why I'm making an annotated bibliography. One of my former teachers advised us that we had to go through a lot of books and articles to get an inspiration for the paper and then we could think about our topic. We had to wade through books on Don Quixote and then, by reading some, find what interested us. Then we could go back and pick the books that discussed in detail the topic we had decided upon. That was the first teacher that ever told me how to start a research paper. I am very grateful for that lesson.

Mary: Defined by Men

While reading all of these books about Mary, I've noticed a pattern. She is always defined by her relationship with Jesus or Joseph. No one seems to want to talk about who she is; everyone talks about who she is to her family. Now, I do understand that when looking at the Bible there isn't a lot of information on Mary and that is understandable. The New Testament revolves around Jesus, as it should. However, why haven't people even speculated on Mary as an individual? Marianism is prevalent even today as you can see with the many religious orders devoted to her, the religious rituals around her, and even simply the prayer The Hail Mary. I have been told my whole life that I should imitate Mary and from that I have become a slight Marianist myself. However, I can't help but notice that other than the obvious wonderful qualities such as chastity, devotion to God, and humility, this seems to imply some qualities that I am not sure I really like. To be like Mary, do I also have to be defined by the men in my life? Do I have to be "Joseph's wife" and "Jesus' mother" and nothing else? I beg my readers to understand that I know these are wonderful and honorable titles. Being the mother of God incarnate is the highest honor for a woman. However, I feel like scholars have mostly ignored any other titles she bears. Even in Milagros she is looked at via her connection with a man. Look at her apparitions in Fátima, Portugal, Our Lady of Light, or in Lourdes, France. Why are we not truly amazed by these? Why are Christian children not taught this in Sunday school? It is so wonderful to me to hear of my religion being truly alive! Am I the only woman who feels that these apparitions by Our Mother are as significant to our religion as the work of the original apostles? I feel that the only reason they are not given as much respect is because they do not include a man.

It is these Marian apparitions that bring peace to me. She told Sister Agnes Sasagawa in Japan (1973) that "Those who place their confidence in me will be saved." Berceo certainly was thinking that when he was writing Milagros. Maybe Berceo helped boost the popularity of seeing Mary as a holy entity by herself. After the middle ages we seem to see more and more the works of Mary. Maybe while living in our world she was simply a servant of God, a woman devoted to the men of her family. But now, as part of the community of saints, she is Our Mother. She is loving and protecting us by herself just as every mother loves her children. Maybe we have seen her works more because we need to believe in her more. Maybe this world is searching for it's true mother and she is desperately trying to tell us that she has always been here.