KELLY'S DAY TWO: THE POPE JUST RUINED ME.

Two quotes have hit home in the last 24 hours:

1~"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death."~Elie Wiesel

2~"No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great." ~Pope Francis

OUCH.
I hate being slapped upside the head with truth, don't you?...it means change is coming.
Sometimes, I like change.
Sometimes I don't, but at least when I am required to change, it means I won't become complacent, lazy or indifferent. Change means GROWTH, and I DO LIKE THAT. Because, at the end of my life, I hope I'm not the same stupid, selfish idiot I was when I was fifteen. I hope I'm not the same, selfish, blind-to-the-things-of-this-world woman I was in my twenties, and I hope I'm not the wretched, hate-filled, likes-to-stick-her-head-in-the-mud-so-she-doesn't-have-to-know-about-things-like-sex-trafficking spectacle I am in my thirties. And, I hope and pray that I'm not the "old lady" who constantly talks about medical issues, the weather, or how horrible the newest generation has become. So, somewhere in between, fifteen, the twenties, the thirties and the eighties, I NEED TO CHANGE!

WHY?
...because the 15-year-olds need to know the things I learned when I was 15!
...because the twenty-somethings need to be made aware!
...because the thirty-somethings need to pull their heads outta the mud!
...and the eighty-somethings need to fill our brains with the wisdom they learned instead of weather forecasts! Leave that crap to the weathermen! I want the WISDOM...because I'm so sick and tired of having to learn things the hard way! TEACH ME, DAMMIT (Yes, I just cussed! pray for me!...and then make me WISE!)
...I am now accepting applications for mentors. Please PM me on FB for the link. PS-must be a SAHM, who LOLs a lot and has never used FML before. I can't STAND FML. SML acceptable, and I was just kidding about the SAHM part.

My thoughts on quote #1:
If the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, I'm in business. The problem herein lies in the fact that I get SO OVERWHELMED when I KNOW what's going on in the streets of Charlotte, or the back sticks of Kentucky or the deserts of Africa that I freeze. I literally cannot move. I can't begin to wrap my brain around the suffering, so I would literally rather never watch the news or hear sad things. Know a family going through something sorrowful, PLEASE don't tell me. It will literally keep me up at night. It will make me sick to my stomach. I would rather build a well for a village in Africa than buy a new car. Maybe I should. Maybe I will.

My thoughts on quote #2:
FASTING IS *NOT* enough. There. Thank you, Pope Francis. You just ruined me. Because this fast might be good for me. Heck. It MIGHT be good for YOU (readers, beyond veganers...did we ever come up with a name to call you?). But, this blog? This fast? Psht. It's not virtuous. Eating only veggies and fruits (and, now grains this time) isn't costing me a THING. I'm not doing a THING that is good for others. The Pope has "slapped me upside the head." Whoa is me. And, to be entirely honest with your right now, I ACTUALLY just said a prayer to Jesus that went something like this, "Oh, Jesus, PLEASE don't ask me to do anything big." I'm thirty-six. Wretched still.

"Please, Jesus. Change me. Take the next 50 years, but GROW me. I don't want to be complacent, or indifferent, or lazy, and I sure don't want to have "meaty" conversations about weather. ~Amen."