Things Happen Justly.

A theme that I have learned this week through my human rights senior capstone course is that things do not just happen. they happen justly. This is according to Gandhi. And I believe this scarf has brought many moments today that reminded me to appreciate myself and my life, despite all the noise and running around I must do that sometimes blurs my recognition of blessings. It began with getting compliments on the scarf in the morning and afternoon, which I keep mentioning to people- Sisterhood of the traveling scarf! And proceed to explain to them what we are doing and they seem very excited that this is a program and would like to sign up for it in the future and that's very exciting.

It was nice to have people compliment me on the scarf because it gave me the opportunity to remember once again that I was currently participating in a program much bigger than me, connecting me to other women on this campus. It was important to have this reminder throughout the day because these are the worst three days of my semester, Tuesday, today and tomorrow (in terms of work load). With three exams, and meetings and dinners to go to from 5:30pm until 11pm tonight. I have two exams tomorrow, as well as a Human Rights professor search to be a part of, attend their lectures, and attend the lectures and special events of the Gandhi scholar in residence for this week, and a two day conference beginning at 8am on Friday. Needless to say, Im a bit overwhelmed, but everytime someone stops to say, "hey, thats a nice scarf", it makes me stop and think to myself, "hey bonehead, you're gonna be fine, and remember to blog about all of this later tonight!"

Additionally, after our staff meeting ended at 11 tonight I was in a rush to get back to my room and get started on studying and reading but for some reason I went to check my mail and received two very wonderfully grounding items. One was from another RA who just got back from a retreat and wrote a message to all of us RAs and put it in our mailbox and reminded us all that we are special and loved. And Im not even sure when she wrote this for us because it has been quite some time since I have checked my mailbox. But I needed those words tonight. The other was a letter from a peer, who is easily one of the most influential persons in my life and is currently doing Marianist Lay Formation and the group was tasked with writing a letter to someone, encouraging them. She indeed had very encouraging words for me of which the one quote I choose to include here is her last sentence, because it applies to you too: "You are exquisite, inside and out, created with intention by God, who loved your very soul into being. Nothing changes that fact."

I didn't just receive the scarf today by accident, or happen to be overwhelmingly busy academically because my professors all sit together and plot against us all, or happen to just receive words of encouragement coincidentally when I needed it most. All of these things happened justly.

All the best,

Caryl