When Active Is Too Active

Hard to discern, sometimes, what is too much activity in a hermit's life.

Finishing Fra Jerome's biography, and his hermit life exhausts the nothing Catholic hermit. Reading about it reveals a marvel of a human being--with energy and productivity a hallmark of his 8 decades life. What a gift to the world and especially to
the Catholic Church! The churches he planned and built remain as proof. He even painted and carved interior appointments to these churches, monasteries, convents.

The hermit of Cat Island admits he had little solitude. But he had snippets of solitude. What strikes the nothing is that his hermit life mostly was an external sign, a reminder of austerity. He looked the hermit, he slept on a mat, he let his hair grow long and added a beard and walked barefoot or with sandals, wore a Franciscan-type habit and lived in a hermitage that looked like a tiny monastery--definitely not typical housing. His kitchen was 4 by 4 feet; he cooked on a kind of wall fireplace with some grating and used wood fuel.

The activity level and productivity has exhausted and already pain-wearied nothing, by the book's end. Today the nothing will return to Dorotheos of Gaza and mystics who led more interior lives. That is what this nothing requires for spiritual encouragement and inspiration. Fra Jerome's hermit life is too active for what nothing Catholic hermit can endure.

It is good to learn these things about one's vocational ingredients. Even Fra Jerome admitted that he did not have much solitude. What is amazing about his life is the sheer magnitude of energy and productivity in output. He said he was no mystic.
No, he wasn't. He was more the exterior hermit, and the nothing is not. But the nothing is called to be an interior hermit. Eventually that might ooze outward, but the
seed is fairly crushed and fallen to the ground, buried in exterior anonymity and trying to die to itself. Trying. The Lord asks more cooperation!

"For thus says the Lord, the creator of the heavens, who is God, the designer and maker of the earth who established it, not creating it to be a waste, but designing it to be lived in:

" am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken from hiding nor from some dark place of the earth. And I have not said to the descendants of Jacob, 'Look for me in an empty waste.' I, the Lord, promise justice, I foretell what is right." [from Isaiah 45]

Yes, the Lord does tell us what is right for our souls, for our vocations. When first the nothing read these verses, it thought about how the Mary Gardens are very good and positive, despite the expense and the effort in upkeep. The lot is not created as a waste but is designed to be lived in. Many birds are living in it already.

But the message from the Lord through Isaiah, reminds the nothing that He will let it know what is right for each detail of its vocation. Was it not just two months ago that nothing was awakened in the middle of the night and told: "You are to remain hidden!"?

And despite the current physical pain and accompanying depletion, the Lord is speaking through the very lack of energy, letting the nothing know with experience after (rotten) experience, that the nothing is not going to be doing active works of charity. All attempts have proven not only exhausting, but also a waste in effort, to some degree.

The elderly woman who the nothing drove to her home after weekend Mass, for several months, has become quite angry--setting the jaw tight, not speaking unless no way out, and then a curt nod or one-word response to the nothing's smiling "Hello, how are you?" And this, because the nothing at one point suggested it could ask others to assist in providing rides, for the nothing was not feeling well at that point, and the woman lives in an opposite direction, in a high traffic area.

The elderly couple who the nothing tried to assist when a crisis occurred, and the man was in ICU and the woman would not leave--have returned to a lesser state of recovery, for the long run, in that the woman does not want the man to walk as the physical therapist recommended, and the man thus lays in bed or sits in a chair at the nursing home. Why? It comes down to not being able to express true thoughts and feelings. The woman does not want him to return to their apartment, for in reality she fears she cannot handle it; and she cannot. But she could not handle having others come in and help. The man, for his part, does not want to return because it is very peaceful and secure in the nursing home.

And the nothing wore itself out, just with the small effort of driving to the hospital, having the extra talking to do with nurses and doctors and phone calls on the man's behalf, and in listening to the talk on-going, and standing on hard floors and sitting when exhausted from standing. The nothing was out of its Nine S'. Can't even claim selflessness, for the more suffering the nothing endured, the more seflish it became--knowing its time for collapse was near-approaching, and wanting to return to Agnus Dei to do so!

Upon waking this morning, tears were coming out of the eyes, especially the right eye. Ah, the constant companion pain--or should it be called "sensations"? Then, the nothing recognized from the battle of the previous morning, in which the devil had his time to paralyze and punch, that the Lord had sent some messages regarding the physical aspects, too, of the nothing's hermit life. Pain is a factor, and with pain comes weariness, and with weariness comes inability (for a time) to be active. And then, even a little active can be too active. Stillness is one of the Nine S', is it not?

The productivity of this particular nothing, then, must include the product of a positive attitude. And the nothing this morning could glimpse the spirit of negativity, and the risk of situational depression. All is immediately offered to the Lord, the creator of the heavens. And the nothing has rested an additional two hours in doing some writing, slouched with pillowed support, on the Virgin Mary's leather throne-like chair in Agnus Dei's great (small!) room.

Now, to change into gardening clothes, and to plant tangerine geraniums, purchased on discount for 50-cents apiece. That is activity enough, and if it is too much, God, the designer and maker of the earth, will not speak from hiding, and will foretell what is right for this nothing.