Yesterday, was good to make the trip to civilization despite the usual, increased pain aftermaths. It is delightful to interact with others such as the occasional clerk, or the man where I get the black bark mulch. As a child and into adulthood, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit had been socialized well by parents who valued a well-rounded personality. I'm grateful!
I can "shoot the breeze" as readily as not and most often evoke laughter as well as sprinkle some encouragement. At times, I can also reflect upon suffering or share some lesson spiritual lesson learned in some unexpected way. So now and then, a short period of immersion into the well-spring of humanity is very good, indeed! Always, I return to the hermitage with prayer concerns from interactions with mostly strangers.
When I head into civilization ever couple of weeks or longer, the body pays a painful price. Rarely is the rest of the day or night fruitful with physical efforts. It is enough to unload the supplies purchased. Then down on the mattress, and most often I turn to this little window to the world of cyberspace. Therein I gain more prayer needs from review of news videoclips and headlines, or from an email or two with specific prayer concerns mentioned.
And recently, perhaps ever since I moved to this desert of exile of which circumstances too rough to have my harp uncased, I have gravitated to listening to music on YouTube. Years ago when studying toward a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, the movement was in full force: the healing qualities of music. I suppose there is great truth in this (and also gardening is quite healing--soil and plants!).
The fact of the matter, deeper in, is that love is healing. It is the love within the creativity and expression of musicians with music and the love within the creation of trees and flowers, of food crops and even grass--that has such a healing aspect. Love heals; God heals. God Is Love!
This morning I awoke with tough pain. At one point, the pain became severe, pulsating through the liver area of my right back. I wondered if I'd be able to ride through the effects or if the episode would flare into the horrific pain episode a few weekends ago, culminating in the EMS trip to ER. Thankfully, this morning's pain dissipated some; I have been up, moving around, and am consuming the large cup of Green Glory (fresh greens and fruits, blended for kick-start to the digestive system).
Hosea is the prophet currently in the daily Mass readings rota. This morning's selection is excellent, but my mind returned to yesterday's. It struck me then as now: a boot kick to the seat of my hermit body, heart, mind and spirit! Yes, I need this in the current juncture point of yet accepting that I am not soon to pass from this temporal realm due to cancer, that I must adapt to greater physical pain, that I am slowed from many manual labor tasks and thus hindered from finishing the hermitage or able to sell it and move on to the next place....
See here, the boot-kick portion of Hosea 10:
"Sow for yourselves justice,
reap the fruit of piety;
break up for yourselves a new field,
for it is time to seek the LORD,
till he come and rain down justice upon you."
Yes, I need this reminder. I need it as a strong boot-kick, far more powerful than the two glasses of Green Glory with some B-12 and caffeine added. (Oh, my, what I am blessed with in order to help in any supplemental way the bodily fatigue incumbent with intractable, chronic pain!)
Powerful more than ought else, is the Living Word of God. More powerful than a double-edged sword, His Living Word eviscerates our thoughts, emotions, memories, interactions including all aspects of our souls within.
Break up for yourselves a new field! Today I will do that literally and physically if the neighbor lad does remember to come for some work. We will use a pitchfork and trenching spade to dig the area where a brick path will be laid--the narrow path that few will be on. It leads from hermitage porch to the front drive, a little-used walkway connecting hermit to the world-at-large!
Reap the fruit of piety! Well, there must be piety in order for there to be insemination and growth with resultant fruit. Piety: the quality of being religious or reverent; holiness, godliness, saintly. Well, it does seem that desiring God and striving to think of God above all things, is at least a healthy seed planted, and from there we must keep love of God in Himself the raison d'etre--the cause and purpose of our existence.
Sow for yourselves justice. This is not so easily attained, we might think. Justice is that of establishing fairness based on truth and goodness. But it is not that we are to experience justice in this life. No, but we are to sow for ourselves, justice. We are to plant the seeds of justice; we are to prepare a soil rich to promote and inspire justice to grow and thrive in our lives and hopefully in the lives of others. We are to do the sowing and not expect it to come from others, although it is always a blessing when it does. What we can control of justice, is the sowing of it in and of ourselves. That is a gift we are given that we can then share with those around us. Sowing justice glorifies God.
It is time to seek the LORD! I need this boot-kick perhaps more than the other aspects, at this moment of the present order of matters. I need to seek Him right now, and to then get up and break up a new field--field of thought, of feelings, of spirit, of understanding, of love.
The Living Word of God is always His Thoughts, coming from His Mind. The more we plow up that field, the more our thoughts will be replaced by His. Perhaps this is the boot-kick needed most, today, and the reassurance of His justice coming in the form of His Wisdom, raining down on and within us.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Little children, let us love one another while break up a new field within us--plowing and sowing His love in our daily lives!
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