Well, here we have a sideways cross on a purificator. The nothing Catholic hermit asked the confessor to open the sacristy so it could get a small pile of these, so as to re-press them, so as to have the crosses not sideways but right-side-up.
This was following a confession dealing with its compulsions. The compulsions include not only seeing a vision of how something might look but in feeling it--sensing what more is needed and focusing intensely until that vision manifests. Example given: The Mary Gardens here at Agnus Dei and the recent re-investment in more roses for the Our Lady of Fatima Memorial Rose Garden. The nothing tries again on the roses, thankfully with some discounted lovelies.
Then there was the example of many interests of the past, and of purchasing the supplies such as watercolors for an in-home publishing company of Christian greeting cards and artistic consignment jobs, but the market did not sustain this after a move to another locale. There are still the makings for rosaries, with many Job's Tears seeds waiting to have tiny holes drilled in them. Maybe that will wait until (and if) the hermit is bedridden at some point.
Then there is the matter of these sideways crosses. Nothing noticed them months ago when doing its little sacristan job, one Mass weekly. It then gained permission to take these to the hermitage to right-side-up them. Nothing is rather meticulous about how the altar looks, down to the embroidered crosses on the purificators. Some of the little embroidered crosses are faded, some hand-stitched, some machine-embroidered, some of one style, some of another, and another. But the sideways crosses seem unseemly.
If they were at an angle, that would help for it would remind us of Jesus falling the first, second, third and many more times in the history of our human affronts to His dignity and love.
The confessor opened up the sacristy, turning off the alarm, so nothing could fulfill its small mission. It was a compulsion to upright the sideways, but with a good intention. The confessor had counseled that earlier--that what the nothing was mentioning was not sinful but to be considered based upon the motives. It had good motives in painting Christian cards to sell to help augment low income to rear the children. It had good motives in learning to make rosaries, in acquiring classic Catholic books, in desiring to learn to play the harp (first song hoping to play, "Panis Angelicus"), and even in wanting to correct the sideways crosses. Nothing desires the altar to be beautiful, in loving order, and every tiny detail to the glory of God!
So we searched around for those purificators which nothing had forgotten to take the other evening, as the priest had returned them in one of the several teeny sacristan drawers--the kind of drawers that excite the nothing because they are rather mysterious, aren't they, with all their little labels of this and that of holy ministrations? He did gently suggest that perhaps they would not be able to be righted. But nothing insisted it would be a matter of refolding them correctly and repressing.
Nothing returned to Agnus Dei, and then thought to try refolding one, so the cross would stand up like a respectable, holy cross ought to stand. It didn't work. Instead, the purificator would have to be folded in twice on each side, then folded down in half, making the purificator a squatty, thickened, cumbersome wad.
So nothing began to ponder that in trying to right seeming wrongs, sometimes one must accept them instead, and try out a sample option prior to taking larger steps. Why had it not simply tried to refold one purificator after Mass the other evening, when the desire took fruition to straighten up those sideways crosses?
Another option is to snip the embroidery and re-embroider upright crosses. Well, that is too compulsive for even the nothing. It began to ponder that perhaps nothing isn't so compulsive, after all, for the gardens have this, that, and all kinds of flowers here and there, not in any order or fashion other than what paints a picture somewhat akin to the vision in nothing's inner sight and senses.
Next nothing pondered the good of sideways crosses. Surely there is good in them. While resting the spine to alleviate pain, nothing lay in bed and considered that St. Peter was crucified upside down...but the cross was right side up. St. Andrew was crucified on a cross on an angle, in an "X" shape. How could one be martyred on a sideways cross? Nothing considered that it would take some engineering to do that, and with its own pain, would desire to be hung with the right side of its body, up, and the left hanging down. Yet, that is the body being sideways, not the cross.
These thoughts did offer opportunity to meditate on the suffering of any form of crucifixion, and how people in some time period thought up crucifixion, and built crosses in a certain fashion so as to torture people until they died. A sideways cross would not work, as it would require being suspended on the long-sided end by a chain or rope from...something.
Again, what can be considered with sideways crosses, since they have appeared as a reality in nothing's life? Yes, we do have sideways situations in our lives, in our souls! Of course we do! It is perspective gone awry, from some natural instinct of the vertical and horizontal, and based upon physics as well as physiology as well as what the cross means to humanity, especially followers of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps sideways crosses are those burdens in life that we not only cause from some lack or skew of perspective, but those crosses we bear in a kind of lop-sided, awkward and cumbersome way. They are just not quite right, somehow, and aren't the kind of crosses that allow holy suffering but rather stand out as something brought upon us, by "self", from carelessness, lack of attention to detail, distraction in an effort, or downright confusion.
Sideways crosses, then, could be corrected with extra effort. Or maybe it is best to put them in the bottom of the stack, or to be discarded, for they are not really suitable crosses. They are wrought from our own misconceptions or oversights.
Sideways crosses, for example, could be self-induced sufferings due to not getting our own way, being upset over trivialities and stirring ourselves into upset, feeling the victim when the problem is our own doing, trying to control others and situations that are none of our business, and agonizing over material objects. Yet pondering sideways crosses unfolds new ways of viewing what one (and maybe others) may not recognize as askew...until it is noticed eventually and the simple attempts to upright these sideways crosses become futile.
The best thing to do with sideways crosses it seems, is to notice, assess, and efficiently get rid of them. Perhaps they are to be burned, like dross, in the furnace where our other mistakes incinerate, sooner or later.
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