Sometimes it is just best to do so. Keep the nose to the grindstone. Plow through the trials and sufferings, the doubts, the victories, the ups, the downs. Just keep a goin'! Simply keep going!
I was working and praying, on a spiritual roll of sorts. Then suffering came, physical suffering as well as some accompanying soul work necessary for some spiritual growth--healing of some memories and life events, past, and further holy indifference topped with increased, genuine charity for the love and well-being of others.
Had to just let go. However, the suffering has been such that I wanted to remove myself from part of the impetus of the suffering--external, temporal causation. I just about did it; had a destination and friend more than pleased that I might come and be a quiet guest hibernating in a spare bedroom. The cost was going to be high, and there were aspects in the desire to be free of the added physical pain that I wanted to make sure did not have emotional taint of any sort.
So I decided to tough it out, the suffering, and to be pragmatic and not spend money for there is no room for added costs that are not purely necessary. For awhile, though, the suffering was so acute that I felt to remain in it was unwise when getting to a different location would ease the causes of much of the pain.
Today the suffering lifted some--enough to be up off the mattress for awhile, and to actually pick some beans and Snow peas, and to get a couple quarts of berries to the roadside table, quite early morning. And I was able to measure and cut some ceiling trim boards for an upstairs bedroom--including making a crucial error in one of the boards. Ran it through the table saw from the incorrect end from what needed to be trimmed down....
There are no spare pieces of trim; the reason I have only so much is that I was given a tremendously good deal on a pile of trim because it was being discontinued. Now I must take the tiny shaved pieces and try to glue them to the end of trim board needing to be built back out to proper width. This should be an interesting effort. I have yet to tackle it for I needed to head back to the mattress for bodily rest required for this type of pain to be managed.
With the error in cutting, I realized it was time to change external effort . Sometimes the praying during manual labor can become intense enough that work mistakes do happen. The mind and heart and soul are so intent upon the prayer need and person with situations included, that there is not much of the conscious mind focusing on such as a piece of wood and which end to trim.
This does not happen often, but today it was a victory when it did happen. I did not react other than with some humor and knowing it was time to attend to something other--not to cease communicating with the Lord, listening and "seeing" with inner sight who He brings for prayer, mercy, love (and this can include the hermit as well as others living and dead). The listening and seeing does not cease or shift gears, but the temporal activity shifts when the flow is disrupted.
No big deal.
Hermits have phases. [Surely everyone in whatever vocation in life, has phases of varying degrees and intensities whether one recognizes them or not.] This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit does! The phases are part of spiritual progression, no matter how slow or how infrequent a change in phase. The current phase is that of increased holy indifference; and when something very movingly deep that is yet unhealed or a negative aspect of the body, mind, heart or spirit presents itself, the hermit must tend to it...sooner, later, slower, faster.
I never know in advance what challenges will come forth either from within or from without, dealing with self, people, relationships and situations. It is all part of life here on earth and the soul's striving toward union with God. So today there has been breakthrough in this phase, and the Lord has shown some victory after the storm of several days' heavy suffering.
And suffering can be physical but also otherwise. And suffering in a mystic is different than suffering in one who is not a mystic. It just is, and there is no real explaining it, for mystics already grasp the differences and non-mystics do not and in some aspects cannot. They are called to other gifts and missions than what mystics contend with in this world and life.
None of it really matters, other than for the person, him- or herself, to grasp and make the most of the interflow and communication between the soul and God, with the challenges and sufferings and victories that make up the on-going phases of the inner life as it outflows in the external existence, as well.
Another hermit has been in contact and invited me to visit his area and where another hermit lives in the vicinity. This other hermit thought perhaps I might move there if God so willed, when my time here is past. And part of the thought was to perhaps share an abode with one of the hermits. But I am not called to that, although early on in my consecrated hermit life I thought a hermit community might be exactly what I would be involved with or help develop.
Not so, as the sixteen years and more of my eremitic vocation have unfolded; and yet I was quite grateful for the invitation and the thought and idea presented. Yet, at least in this phase, I sense that I am not called to live with others, not with hermits or otherwise, but to remain quite hidden as a hermit, living in the silence of solitude, unrecognizable as a hermit to neighbors or the few employees in the dwindling times I must run errands for mostly building supplies.
(Another very real and temporal consideration is climate, for my physical pain is increased in certain climates. There is the Lord's suffering that He asks us to share in union with Him, and then there are the sufferings we can bring on ourselves, such as if I'd live in a location in which the climate causes increased suffering. Such is the case with the lovely location of the invitation mentioned, at least for part of the year.)
Next week I must head back into civilization for Craig at lumberyard has said that the four doors I've ordered will be in. Tomorrow the electrician might come to help install some ceiling fans and other fixtures, and to wire a pull-chain light in the cellar space. My being or not being a consecrated Catholic hermit never comes up, no recognition as such, and it never needs to.
I am loving St. John of the Cross' sayings of "love and light." As I think I may have mentioned previously, in one he mentions the great value in simply loving God in silence. Just silently love God, says the mystic saint, and that is quite a tremendous prayer, a great communication of a soul with the Bridegroom.
Ah, yes! Despite whatever outer noise, suffering, and untold work efforts amidst temporal distractions (nagging as they can be), the soul continues to delight in the silent love of God, in solitude, even if exterior or interior thoughts and words exist involving others.
It is all very, very good for the soul in whatever phase of spiritual progression. And there is no need to figure out what phase, for there will always be more and always were some previously. It is delightful, though, and a grace from the Lord, to recognize the flow of phases for we then know the Lord is progressing us in whatever way and circumstance and condition--"place"-- He wills. Time does not matter other than the Present Moment.
God bless His Real Presence in us, dear friends in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
I was working and praying, on a spiritual roll of sorts. Then suffering came, physical suffering as well as some accompanying soul work necessary for some spiritual growth--healing of some memories and life events, past, and further holy indifference topped with increased, genuine charity for the love and well-being of others.
Had to just let go. However, the suffering has been such that I wanted to remove myself from part of the impetus of the suffering--external, temporal causation. I just about did it; had a destination and friend more than pleased that I might come and be a quiet guest hibernating in a spare bedroom. The cost was going to be high, and there were aspects in the desire to be free of the added physical pain that I wanted to make sure did not have emotional taint of any sort.
So I decided to tough it out, the suffering, and to be pragmatic and not spend money for there is no room for added costs that are not purely necessary. For awhile, though, the suffering was so acute that I felt to remain in it was unwise when getting to a different location would ease the causes of much of the pain.
Today the suffering lifted some--enough to be up off the mattress for awhile, and to actually pick some beans and Snow peas, and to get a couple quarts of berries to the roadside table, quite early morning. And I was able to measure and cut some ceiling trim boards for an upstairs bedroom--including making a crucial error in one of the boards. Ran it through the table saw from the incorrect end from what needed to be trimmed down....
There are no spare pieces of trim; the reason I have only so much is that I was given a tremendously good deal on a pile of trim because it was being discontinued. Now I must take the tiny shaved pieces and try to glue them to the end of trim board needing to be built back out to proper width. This should be an interesting effort. I have yet to tackle it for I needed to head back to the mattress for bodily rest required for this type of pain to be managed.
With the error in cutting, I realized it was time to change external effort . Sometimes the praying during manual labor can become intense enough that work mistakes do happen. The mind and heart and soul are so intent upon the prayer need and person with situations included, that there is not much of the conscious mind focusing on such as a piece of wood and which end to trim.
This does not happen often, but today it was a victory when it did happen. I did not react other than with some humor and knowing it was time to attend to something other--not to cease communicating with the Lord, listening and "seeing" with inner sight who He brings for prayer, mercy, love (and this can include the hermit as well as others living and dead). The listening and seeing does not cease or shift gears, but the temporal activity shifts when the flow is disrupted.
No big deal.
Hermits have phases. [Surely everyone in whatever vocation in life, has phases of varying degrees and intensities whether one recognizes them or not.] This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit does! The phases are part of spiritual progression, no matter how slow or how infrequent a change in phase. The current phase is that of increased holy indifference; and when something very movingly deep that is yet unhealed or a negative aspect of the body, mind, heart or spirit presents itself, the hermit must tend to it...sooner, later, slower, faster.
I never know in advance what challenges will come forth either from within or from without, dealing with self, people, relationships and situations. It is all part of life here on earth and the soul's striving toward union with God. So today there has been breakthrough in this phase, and the Lord has shown some victory after the storm of several days' heavy suffering.
And suffering can be physical but also otherwise. And suffering in a mystic is different than suffering in one who is not a mystic. It just is, and there is no real explaining it, for mystics already grasp the differences and non-mystics do not and in some aspects cannot. They are called to other gifts and missions than what mystics contend with in this world and life.
None of it really matters, other than for the person, him- or herself, to grasp and make the most of the interflow and communication between the soul and God, with the challenges and sufferings and victories that make up the on-going phases of the inner life as it outflows in the external existence, as well.
Another hermit has been in contact and invited me to visit his area and where another hermit lives in the vicinity. This other hermit thought perhaps I might move there if God so willed, when my time here is past. And part of the thought was to perhaps share an abode with one of the hermits. But I am not called to that, although early on in my consecrated hermit life I thought a hermit community might be exactly what I would be involved with or help develop.
Not so, as the sixteen years and more of my eremitic vocation have unfolded; and yet I was quite grateful for the invitation and the thought and idea presented. Yet, at least in this phase, I sense that I am not called to live with others, not with hermits or otherwise, but to remain quite hidden as a hermit, living in the silence of solitude, unrecognizable as a hermit to neighbors or the few employees in the dwindling times I must run errands for mostly building supplies.
(Another very real and temporal consideration is climate, for my physical pain is increased in certain climates. There is the Lord's suffering that He asks us to share in union with Him, and then there are the sufferings we can bring on ourselves, such as if I'd live in a location in which the climate causes increased suffering. Such is the case with the lovely location of the invitation mentioned, at least for part of the year.)
Next week I must head back into civilization for Craig at lumberyard has said that the four doors I've ordered will be in. Tomorrow the electrician might come to help install some ceiling fans and other fixtures, and to wire a pull-chain light in the cellar space. My being or not being a consecrated Catholic hermit never comes up, no recognition as such, and it never needs to.
I am loving St. John of the Cross' sayings of "love and light." As I think I may have mentioned previously, in one he mentions the great value in simply loving God in silence. Just silently love God, says the mystic saint, and that is quite a tremendous prayer, a great communication of a soul with the Bridegroom.
Ah, yes! Despite whatever outer noise, suffering, and untold work efforts amidst temporal distractions (nagging as they can be), the soul continues to delight in the silent love of God, in solitude, even if exterior or interior thoughts and words exist involving others.
It is all very, very good for the soul in whatever phase of spiritual progression. And there is no need to figure out what phase, for there will always be more and always were some previously. It is delightful, though, and a grace from the Lord, to recognize the flow of phases for we then know the Lord is progressing us in whatever way and circumstance and condition--"place"-- He wills. Time does not matter other than the Present Moment.
God bless His Real Presence in us, dear friends in the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!
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