Hermits, Labels, Strings Attached

Amazing that people still log onto this blog. Have not kept it active. Photo is a year old, although snow thick here at Agnus Dei.

Am not calling it a hermitage. Am not calling self a hermit, nor a nothing, nor nothing at all. Maybe if anything am a wild rose. The Lord has shown me this, as a means to teach me what He wills, how am to live as opposed to the garden roses.

Will write on all this on web page being developed. Garden web page but very spiritual.

Hermit is a label, and have realized people have very strong opinions and judgments of what is or is not a "hermit". Or a "Catholic hermit." Or a "canonically approved" or "diocesan hermit." Or a "lay hermit" or "privately consecrated hermit."

Chucked them all. The formal garden variety of hermits, the canonical ones, are very much as grandifloras, tea, and other cultivated roses have become. Tended, noticed, prized, utilized, pruned, fertilized, identified, sprayed, winterized, mulched, composted, photographed, named, protected.
The wild rose is out there, on its own, no temporal usefulness, loads of thorns, mostly undetected. Has to exist on the natural elements of God alone: air, rain, snow, sun, soil, darkness.

That seems the whole picture of types of hermits. Got the image recently, and there are some wild roses over by the tracks, but too much snow to easily get to them for a photograph. Will try, though.

The rose gardens of the more formal, useful types of named and labeled roses are lovely. Have a rose garden on the side of Agnus Dei, the east and protected side. Morning sun. Roses are bedded for winter, even the climbing ones wrapped in newspapers. These represent the named and approved hermits, as well as any labeled, identified, useful religious of the temporal Catholic world. Lovely!

The wild rose is just that, and no particular name, not cultivated, just out there, no earthly use. People stay clear due to the thickets they often grow in, hidden, and also in caution of their numerous thorns.
Blooms without much scent if at all, not colorful. But created by God, allowed to exist one earth but maybe never seen by human eye, some of them. With roots in earth, they grow without human note or tending--sort of mysterious in a way, and out of this world.

The Lord showed me this, and I am that if anything, but no need for labels. No use, no purpose, not protected within the temporal laws of Holy Mother Church's canons but yet rooted in Her, and nourished by Her as the Body is by the Head, by Christ.

Wrote poem for Christmas. Evolved from noticing new Reverend Monsignors' (label or title for priests who have been designated such by the Holy See, by request of Bishops, to honor the priests' exemplary work and sacrificial efforts) cassocks, and the tiny magenta rose (incarnadine) cords that came from back at armpit, looped around wide incarnadine sash, and reattached under arm. Wondered what they were for, and got the answer next morning: strings attached.
Useful are many strings attached. For monsignors and their cassocks, the strings keep the sash from slipping, sliding or falling to the ground. The monsignor's hands are free at the altar, in prayer, or other tasks without having to be concerned about the sash placement or movement. Loving strings attached are beautiful in family and friendships.

Diocese hermits have strings attached in their designation and expectations; lay hermits do not have strings attached other than those attached to God, by God, for God. However, any hermit--diocese or lay--when the label is affixed as "hermit", has judgments made, opinions formed, by others. Wild rose? Hardly any opinion other than the fact of their uselessness to man but beloved of God, as are all His creations.

Strings Attached

Temple priest, times past,

ties line to ankle,

tinkling bell, if

dragged from Holy of Holies,

swooned, God's glory.

Prisoner hamstrung,

rope-wrapped waist,

knotted, hobbled feet.

Embryo, umbilical cord,

unity bond, mother:

severed at birth.

Kite tail-bobbed, twine

taut, airborne battle:

wind bound and mortal grip.

Earth reel safe or crash or

sky loosed, limited free.

Harp strings strung,

soundboard to bridge,

plucked tension, sings.

Cassock sash incarnadine,

secured at waist, placed

satin piping loops.

Temporal ties protect, contain,

control, produce, maintain.

Mystical strands thread soul:

Love Inviolable. Not mine, O Lord.

Thine will be weave me Thee.

Jesus born God strings attached,

detached at birth for human worth;

cleaved next, His time had come;

cut down, set free from earth.

Man's only binding Hope.

 j.e.m. 12-15-09