It's been awhile since I've written. Been working very hard physically, trying to get the hermitage (old farm house) finished. It is time to be moving on. Finances and weather affecting the pain issues require relocation. Changing location is nothing new for hermits following the traditional eremitic vocation. Some were more transient than those who found a hut in a forest or a cave in the mountains in which they could remain hidden for all their earthly years.
However, perhaps it is not the ideal--to have to relocate. Once again, the hermit vocation is guided by the Lord in individual ways, conforming the soul and the body, the spiritual and the temporal, to what is, not what one wishes or would like to plan as the "ideal." God knows best; God unfolds and guides this consecrated Catholic hermit's every present moment--lest I forget that reality!
For nearly 34 years now, the Lord has utilized physical pain to help contain me in the channel of His will. I was making progress in the past few weeks with the manual labor as well as the spiritual life: prayer and pondering His Living Word. I had lovely help from mortals in loading a rental truck to take some of the earthly possessions to a storage unit; I had someone even help share the driving.
But a pain siege struck me down, and I'm still down but through the worst of the suffering. Flying back and returning to Te Deum Hermitage is rather a blur. This pain siege included some black-out periods; I remember not much of the past three days. Yet God's Real Presence is quite clear. Praise Him for all the miraculous helps and providence!
The temptation even in remaining on sleeping bag on floor in here, is to consider what next, where next, and how next. But to remain in The Order of the Present Moment includes keeping the mind in the present; thinking ahead is not productive nor peaceful. A temporary plan is all the Lord is allowing me--to get somewhere in which I am able to stay temporarily once this abode is finished and sold is as far forward as He allows. One door at a time is opening, and beyond that one door, there are other doors but all with locks for now.
Relying on Christ is the only way to proceed in life as well as the only way to truly rest in Christ. The operative word is "in"--not "with," not "through," but "in." The need is to be in Him, securely so. How to effect that--how to be "in" Him?
The recent Gospel readings in which Jesus tells us that He is the Living Bread, and that all those who come to Him will have eternal life, will have Him, explain the reality as it stands. It is simply a matter of loving Christ and desiring to be in Him, and to ask Him to take us into Himself. We give ourselves to Him, and He takes us in.
And in faith, in simple belief of His loving desire to take us into Himself and to keep us fast in Him, the action and reality is effected. We thus are in Him.
More than my being on this sleeping bag, under the blanket and in the temporal warmth of covering, I am in Christ right now as I breathe, think, feel, and write. When I but think about being "in" Christ, I have a share in and of His peace. The concern of what is ahead no longer dangles words nor images in my mind. The concern of pain limiting forward progress in the temporal or spiritual no longer frustrates the emotions; plans of what is to be are deleted from the mind-screen.
In Christ, there are marvelous surprises! Yesterday while dealing with higher level pain, I received a phone call from the spiritual father! Totally unexpected, and I'd not heard his voice in a couple or more years. Ironically, it was the day of temporal birth--a fact he has never known. But the Lord allowed it as a surprise and most welcome birthday gift. And a gift to him, perhaps if the Lord allows in Him, in His Present Moment, there might be a temporal, physical visit from this hermit to the spiritual father at some present moment point in another time and place.
Yet we can grasp now, how unnecessary are thoughts on what may or may not be future present moments as well as how unnecessary returning to past present moments, in general. Remaining in the present moment of which we are in Christ Who Is always in His Real Presence in the Present Moment keeps us best in Him. When we take ourselves to past moments or imagine future moments, we distance ourselves from being in Christ; we dilute the power of being in Him in His Real Presence of which He is most omnipotent and omniscient in His Present Presence.
It seems to help me to pray--to ask Him to keep me in His Real Presence in His Present Moment. Some aspects of our temporal lives do seem to require some planning, such as I had to reserve a rental moving truck and a rental storage unit, and I had to communicate with a couple teens to help load the truck, and communicate and coordinate with another who would come and help drive the distance. But I noticed how the bulk of all the temporal aspects of the past few days resided in His will and His will alone, for all the aspects--temporal and spiritual--relied upon His providence, His will, His choosing.
The pain siege certainly came of His providence in the present moment--totally unexpected as much as the duration of it is unknown-to-me. Suffering is powerful and special like that--as is any type of death to self: We know not the day nor the hour. That sums up living in Christ, for when we live in Him, we do not know other than peaceful resting in Him which includes remaining in His Love, His Will, and in His Powerful Pain.
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