A long time coming...

Wow! Has it really been so long? Being that my most of my readership knows me in person, perhaps it doesn't seem so, but as midterms approached, and thereafter finals, I have not had time to update until now.

Dear friends, my fall semester has finished and I am enjoying a small and greatly appreciated break before I embark upon what will be my third semester in my master's program. My past semester's research topics were the feminine person in the work of Hildegard von Bingen, liturgical inculturation, and psalms of lament and cursing, and while these were interesting, I must say that the knowledge I gained in regard to these topics pales in comparison to what I have gained through listening to the lectures of Eleonore Stump, reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, talking with the Dominican student-brothers of the Central and Southern provinces, and preparing for my wedding alongside my fiancée. In these things I have been convicted of my own place as a pilgrim, and all the roles that are demanded of me: companion, preacher, seeker, student, and all the rest which call to compassion, contemplation, discipleship, love, and virtue. These themes, above all others, have I been convicted of.

This pilgrimage is far from easy, however. I feel like a small child, or even a small animal (a raccoon comes to mind), distracted by the newest shiny thing, even when I know something of surpassing brilliance is on the horizon. How I long to abide with that most shiny of shiny things! Yet, am I am constantly distracted by something much less brilliant, much less fulfilling, just a little off the path. As I struggle against my own sinfulness, I am astounded by the immense mercy of God, who is compassionate to his easily distracted child.

It is in this vein that I ask for help:

St. Jacob the Greater, Patron of Pilgrims, pray for me...

St. Thomas, Patron of Students, pray for me...

St. Gabriel the Archangel, God's messenger, pray for me...

Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for me...

How do you Adore?

"O inestimable charity! Even as You, true God and true Man, gave Yourself entirely to us, so also You left Yourself entirely for us, to be our food, so that during our earthly pilgrimage we would not faint with weariness, but would be strengthened by You, our celestial Bread. O man, what has your God left you? He has left you Himself, wholly God and wholly Man, concealed under the whiteness of bread. O fire of love! Was it not enough for You to have created us to Your image and likeness, and to have recreated us in grace through the Blood of Your Son, without giving Yourself wholly to us as our Food, O God, Divine Essence? What impelled You to do this? Your charity alone. It was not enough for You to send Your Word to us for our redemption; neither were You content to give Him us as our Food, but in the excess of Your love for Your creature, You gave to man the whole divine essence..." - St. Catherine of Siena

I was priveleged, this evening, to spend an hour with both my fiancée and Christ, in Eucharistic adoration. Her parish has a perpetual adoration chapel, and so there was no separate liturgy for the adoration... we were left alone with Christ and whatever means of prayer we might muster.

Adoration is a new practice for me, having grown up Protestant, and I found that I desired to stay very close to the theme of "adoration" in my prayers and mindset. This was difficult to do for an hour. I prayed the liturgy of adoration to myself, but found myself mostly silently singing songs of praise - every Eucharistic hymn in my book of Christian Prayer, and then every chorus of adoration I could think of - and that seemed to satisfy my conscious desire to devote this time to "adoration."

I'm incredibly new to this form of worship and spiritual devotion, so I'm asking the handful of you that might read this... how do you adore our Lord?

Blankets, and my Grandpa, in Dreams.

A recurring theme in my dreams of late has been that of giving a cold person blankets. A few weeks ago, I dreamed that I was huddled in some blankets (the blankets usually on my bed) when a homeless person approached me and asked me for spare change. The environment was apparently such that I appeared to be wealthier than he, in any case. I told him that while I had no change, I had spare blankets he could keep warm in... and he seemed pleased with this, and took them graciously.

Just now, I awoke from a dream in which I recognized my Grandpa Torbeck was with me. He was reclining on a mattress, and we spoke a bit. The light in the room was the same brightness and colour it had always been in his living room - shaded lamplight, hued a slight orange from the lampshades and wood-paneled walls. I told him that he has many grandchildren to be proud of (ironically only one more than when he passed away, so it's not as if he didn't know this - and indeed, he responded, "I know."), and that I was writing a book (I'm not currently, though I hope to). I mused quietly that I had so much to ask him, and then I noticed he was shivering.

"Grandpa, are you cold?" I asked. "Actually, I'm freezing, buddy," he answered. I covered him with two blankets (again, from among those I generally have on my bed, the warmest two), and he pulled another (one that I had grown up sleeping with but no longer have) over him as well. He fell asleep, looking a frailer man than I had realized him to be at first.

I wonder if there's any significance to the blankets in my dreams... Anyway, this dream meandered through all kinds of scenarios, and this was but the end, but what a joy it was to talk to Grandpa again, even if only in a dream.

First Impressions

I am Jacob Torbeck. I am a trusting, passionate scholar and artist. I want to make a difference, I want to have faith, and this is my blog.