Acceptance

It is very difficult to walk through life without sin.  Sin hides in the folds of the fabric of our life-scape, always waiting for an opportune time to snag the unprepared heart with an image or thought so out of sync, that we  stop a moment to wonder what it was that made us stop.  You work hard to purge out the most obvious sins, the easiest to spot, they are hard to deal with, but once dealt with they retreat from the field.  Some die. Others, ah! the others, they develop tiny hooks, small as a Brown Recluse spider, to inject you with poison in a moment of unguarded thought.

You see, no heart can be so utterly pure, and no mind so completely protected that the little barb, or dart of sin cannot pierce within and hide in the folded life-scape.  Then, when we pass by in that unprotected moment we are bitten.  How important that we must never have unprotected moments!  The mind is the entry of every evil deed.  We conceive of our sin first in the mind.  This is not a secret, or something new, everyone knows this, but you get to a point where you honestly think you are covering your bases only to discover that the Evil One always finds that uncovered base.

The key then is to remember that we should have known it would happen, because when you live your life with joyful resignation to the will of God, sometimes you slip up and the nepsis is relaxed.  We are told to "Rejoice in the Lord, Always!  Again, I say rejoice."  People who are rejoicing are sometime bitten by spiders, step on nettles, or get a burr in the fold of their garment. 

In my solitude I meet these little barbs of sin, and they torment me.  They say things like, 

"See, you can not hope to live a holy life because you are such a sinner."  
Then I say to them, "Depart from me all that is not of Christ.  You are a liar, the father of lies, and I will never, ever do what you say."
"But surely you must admit you are a sinner still."
"I do, " I say, "but I am not alone."
"Then where is your God?  I do not see him."
"Is that all you have, Evil One?  Questions?  I do not fear questions, faith is the knife that destroys your questions."

Pain Away, Pain Return

Two days ago I threw my back out somehow.  Yesterday the doctor gave me Vicodin 5-500.  That means I get 5mg of hydrocodone and 500 mg of acetaminophen, aka Tylenol.  No,this isn't a drug instruction entry, it's setting the tone for what is to come.

The first dose put me to sleep.  The second dose I took at bedtime.  I woke up this morning and felt fine, no real pain, so I did not take a pill as allowed every six hours.  Instead, I went about my day writing and reading, and praying.  In fact, I wrote several letters that needed writing, did research, and heard from people I've missed very much.

Then.

About 1pm the top of my skull began to have that familiar ache, and by 1:10 I was again wearing the crown of thorns.  For your information, I describe a certain headache caused by my neck, and is a band around my head just about at the line a hat would sit.  Since it is there, and I am given to religious imagery, I call it my Crown of Thorns headache.  By 1:30 the rats that live in my neck, gnawing endlessly, were back in full force and they are very, very painful.  At 1:36  exactly, I know because I was watching the clock, the thoracic spine began the painful awakening.  This is the area that almost daily give me the sensation that someone is standing on my privates.  It is terrible, and I try not to cry every time.  By 2:00 is was in my hips and legs and I was right back where I started, only, without the pain for which the medicine had been given.

Well fat lot of good that does me, because I realize then that I live with this pain every damn day of my life, and there is nothing, nothing I can do put either put up with it, or take an opioid.  You will not doubt notice that I linked to safety, because at 7:00pm, I took a Vicodin, and am now pain free.

This creates an incredible tension in my soul.  Do I risk this medication for pain free living?  It hurts to go to church, to sit, to stand, to lay down, and Mass almost kills me by the time it is over.  The question arises: can I safely take this medication and not become just another disabled person addicted to their pain pills.  The good news is that I meet with the pain doctor on August 2nd, and I know that one of the medications in their arsenal is Vicodin.  

I have to confess, I like not being in pain.  I am praying for God's will, and I ask you, all of you, to pray to God for me, too, so that his will may be revealed for me.  

Conservative Catholics and Others

I have some conservative friends who are deeply spiritual people, yet do not try to be God and make judgment, or pronouncements about the will of God.  So why is it that other people are drooling at the chance to lambaste others on issues that only God can decide?


Is this the state of religion?  If so, then I am glad to be well out of it.  It only makes me angry, and that ruins peace of mind.  I am neither Pope, nor Curia member, nor a member of a Pontifical Council; neither a priest nor a deacon -- I am free of all the brouhaha that surrounds religion.  As a hermit I function more at the heart of the Church than all those who argue at the battle lines.  St. Therese of Lisieux taught us that out vocation must be Love.  Love, do you get it?  Love.

So while the Church and the great moral pronouncers of God's mind do their preening, I will remain tucked away in my hermitage and praying for everyone, even the the moral pronouncers.  The heat of the battle is not unknown to me, nor the dangers of the conflict, but God knows how my temper flares and has placed me where I can do good, and not evil.  Yes, I said do good and not evil.  It takes even heads to stand and debate on some issues, whereas I can be a gentleman and throw a party, I am not cut out for hot debate.

Learning this lesson has helped me a great deal, it has even cleared my heart of a big load of ... well, crap, that needed to be cleaned out.  It has taught me to hold to my hermitage and to God.  Before any of you write and say you're just escaping things, let me say that God has placed me here, and I am continually learning the why.  "Where else would I go, Lord?" is my answer to all those who would accuse of me running and hiding.  I am secluded so my heart can quiet, and I can pray for the entire world.

Words do not express how deeply I feel this need to pray for the entire world.  I pray most of all for those I dislike intensely, or those who insult me.  Why?  Because unless I forgive and let things pass, then I am nothing more than a "sounding cymbal," and, most of all, I cannot in truth say, "forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

I don't know the answer to abortion, I only know that I must pray for all who are in pain about it.  I don't know the answer to Homosexuality, I only know I must pray for all who are in pain.  I don't know about euthanasia, only that ... well I think you begin to see what I'm trying to say.

Archbishop Letter

Today I wrote the second update letter on my life and practices to Archbishop Kurtz.  Of course he doesn't dress like that all the time.  I feel I need to point that out as not all my readers are Catholic, and could easily assume he walks about the town dressed in the Red all the time.  He does not.

I dreaded writing this letter for a week, yet when it came time to write it, I had it done in about ten minutes.  I learned that the sweating process was the time when I discern/decide what to write.  I'm only six months into a three year process, and am starting to get the hang of what I think he wants me to report: my practice, my solitude, temptations, challenges to all of those, and how I deal with those challenges.  

Speaking of those, my temptations and challenges nearly threatened to overwhelm me, but I kept vivid in my heart Psalm 18,

From on high he reached down and seized me;
he drew me forth from the mighty waters.

In fact, the morning I had decided to write the Archbishop and resign from this vocation, Psalm 18 was in the office, and I realized that I could not resign this life, because God had put me into it.  I was a social animal in the past, yet now I cannot tolerate the usual social event, so I do not go.  Chit-chat has become deadly to me, and the only people I talk to are old friends, priests, monks and nuns.  With that group there is no wild social life.

Another valuable lesson for me is to not expect to find my comfort and joy from others.  I must look to God, and God alone.  This is hard to express fully, but any interaction with a human leaves the ache of unfilled space; interaction with God fills all space.  I am sure that this is a weak and puny explanation, but suffice it to say, that my need for others approval, time, attention, is starting to weaken.

This is enough rambling from some half wit tonight.  God bless.

And Mourn Awhile

Mourning is more than grief for the passing of a beloved person, it is also a spiritual tool that can lead us toward a better, deeper, and more real understanding of ourselves.  Since last night I have been in mourning, for people lost and gone of whom I possess only a memory, or ability wasted and withered, and of the increase of poverty at the expense of my ego.  Is it right to mourn the last?  We shall see.

Mourning is not just sadness, or a regression to depression, it is an active state wherein you mourn and know that it is for a reason, and it will end.  Sections of life that we have put behind us and never really closed, sometimes require a certain mourning process for those life experiences to be able to close.  Without the mourning, the door is still open, the pain is not dealt with, and our minds are prey to the hook of sadness that is the memory.  When you have mourned, you have shut the door.

Skill, talent, ambitions, dreams, all are things we might mourn if we have lost them, walked away from them, betrayed them, or undervalued some skill, some ambition.  They can come back to us again and again, always reaching through that not quite closed door, and hook us into the sadness that leads to depression and regret -- worse yet, to bitterness.

People, mentors, guides, friends, those who pass through our lives without our realizing their true value and worth -- they too are mourned.  Perhaps a person is tied in your memory to your failed ambition, or your angry rejection of a talent, or even your refusal to reach for a dream; that person should be mourned, they stood with you, and for you, but the ability to see clearly was gone.  And then, you mourn, for you had someone wonderful with you and did not know it in time to honor them. 

In my case, the loss of income, of ability to earn my own money, to stand up for all of mass, are small humiliations that lead me ultimately to understanding my poverty, and from there, to my total dependence upon God.  Even here we must mourn, for without the mourning we had not completely shut the door to the past.  When someone says I'm sad about something, we should tell them to mourn for it openly, and then be done with it.  

Mourning has a beginning, it also has an end. 

Truth

HOLY SONNETS.

Holy Sonnet IV, John Donne

O, my black soul, now thou art summoned
By sickness, Death's herald and champion ;
Thou'rt like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done
Treason, and durst not turn to whence he's fled ;
Or like a thief, which till death's doom be read,
Wisheth himself deliver'd from prison,
But damn'd and haled to execution,
Wisheth that still he might be imprisoned.
Yet grace, if thou repent, thou canst not lack ;
But who shall give thee that grace to begin ?
O, make thyself with holy mourning black,
And red with blushing, as thou art with sin ;
Or wash thee in Christ's blood, which hath this might,
That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

The Demons

Ah yes, the demons, that's a catchy title, isn't it? You see, there are demons, and they do want to distract the soul from the path to Christ, but you must realize, they come from within you. Now, I am not denying exterior evil forces, but it is becoming clear to me that most of my demons come from within me. Truthfully, the language of demons is the easiest way to describe some of the more aggressive forces within our own psyches.

Lately, I have been dealing with a few of my own interior demons, and been quite surprised at their presence!  They were unsuspected and surprising, and I have no intention of sharing them here, except to say that we cannot fully comprehend the extents to which a person might go to torment thyself needlessly. For instance, forcing horrid images before my minds eye, each more horrific than the last until at last I cry out, "Depart from me all that is not of Christ."  Then.  Peace.

That begs a question: did I dominate my own psyche by calling on the power of Christ, or did I actually send away something exterior to me?  It is hard to know!  The closer and more determined the walk toward Christ becomes, the more harshly the "demons" will deal with you.  Interior and exterior, either/or, it doesn't matter, it creates havoc in the mind and heart until...until the soul in pain screams out for Christ!  Then.  Peace.