Even now, as I briefly consider in the middle of the night, what I have written of my hermit phases, the description of the current one is not much accurate any more than the writer of an article I read in which two different hermits were interviewed and described. The reader receives but a crumb from a loaf of many loaves of bread of human life.
So in the depths of a current pain siege, awake and having reached for the flashlight by this too-soft yet newer mattress on the floor in here, I tapped out some ground Excedrin into my hand and swallowed it with sips from the water bottle, both at hand and on the floor by the mattress. Then to break off a couple of bites of banana, also on floor by the mattress--for that will help coat the stomach since I consume a fair amount of anti-inflammatory aides.
And where are the thoughts, the disposition of mind and heart and even the soul?
They--all of me--are with the Lord. Even though I briefly checked a national news story for which I've been praying along with many in this country and perhaps around the world, of a deranged shooter who killed more than he wounded while they worshipped in a church on Sunday morning. My soul has been speaking with the Lord in the silence of the night, broken some by off-and-on slight rattling of the wall heat pump.
I read the Living Word of which I can access from a bookmarked site on my little laptop--the window to the world I have that is convenient in the darkness of this night. The books are packed away in the pole barn, other than my Breviary and a handful of others which are packed in a space inside the hermitage; the John of the Cross writings I read off and on are downloaded onto an iPad.
Well, it is in this current phase I live in the ongoing construction zone of the hermitage. Seems quite reasonable to utilize the simplest and most practical means of reading and writing and of receiving correspondence. And again, it is all a certain, present phase for this consecrated Catholic hermit.
While it may seem perhaps more so to myself than the glimpse I describe to others. I yet feel I am driveling away from how a proper hermit ought to exist. I no longer can be that good of a judge of the hours of silence of solitude or of the form and substance and breadth of prayer and praise of God.
So much simply comes from the depths of suffering, the depths of a soul yearning for union with the Beloved, with the Lord Jesus, in waiting for the consummation of the marriage of the soul with God. Yet I must remain in this temporal realm, doing the temporal tasks, living a temporal life with pain and work, and somehow also far from this world in the heart of Christ, remaining in His Love.
There are several points of the Living Word which impart sustenance and love here in the darkness and relative silence. Even though physical pain screams for attention, the rest of me--the mind, heart, and soul--considers the truth of Christ's Word.
You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
This is helpful, as in the depths of suffering--this present phase of a major pain siege. I sometimes wonder how I can continue on, and I can easily think that I am failing the Lord in some way or other, or many ways. Am I delighting in the love of God or meditating on His law (of love) day and night? Seems to me, not so much. God is well aware of every thought as well as every comment from the depths of suffering.
The Lord knows how weary is the body from the constancy of pain, and of the various modes of temporal distraction for which I am so thankful. All is His gift! Yet He knows also the hours and hours and days and days of great silence--drowning the outer noise distractions; and in this silence and the incomprehensible number of moments, the soul is attuned to Christ. Surely the innermost being remains in His Love even when the outer crusts of the mind think it is not so much.
I mostly just hang with the Lord in here.
That is perhaps the best description of this hermit's phase of these past four-plus years. I hang mostly stripped down, rather beaten, somewhat abandoned of sorts at least in direct human interaction. Yet it does not seem at all so, for the mind and heart and soul reflect upon many persons living on earth and living not on earth. All is prayer--the reflections, the bringing forth of souls to the subconscious as well as conscious, from and by the Holy Spirit.
While sanding primed doors, while preparing some coffee, while trying to get up from the mattress or trying to get comfortable on the mattress (not possible really, this latter): the mind, heart, and soul are turned to the Lord even when the outer self can think not, surely not.
That is the deception, though. And even if I can think that I am rebelling of sorts, or being a very flagrant and despicable Catholic hermit, is that the reality? No, for reality at some phase of spiritual progression is no longer a possession by a soul but is in the purview of God, an assessment for His Real Presence to determine.
Thus, when I read the Living Word in the following, it all makes sense once again, and any crumb of description of whatever phase of hermit life and hermit soul I might attempt to describe, is of no concern. As John of the Cross puts it, there are those who pass through in the active "night", and those who are brought through "passively."
My soul is being brought through in the passive "night."
For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things.
To God be glory forever. Amen.
~ Romans 11:36
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