Been awhile, again, since I've written on this blog. Just improving from a lengthy infection related, perhaps, to the Adhesive Arachnoiditis spinal condition. Arachnoiditis can affect organs in the abdomen or whatever is closest to the damaged spinal cord nerves--but also anywhere a nerve travels in the body--which is anywhere! Oh, the joy! Ha ha!
As to my hermit vocation, it is alive and well and probably all the more so because I rarely if ever think about it. I don't need to, and I didn't need to be writing on and on about it and especially not what I've learned regarding the option for being a diocese or CL603 hermit or a traditional-historical hermit. I don't need to think about or write about hermit life and vocation because God finally got through to me that I am and have been for years living the eremitic vocation by His grace.
Nothing other or more was or is needed. Just His grace is sufficient for me. I do not need the hermit label, nor do I need the mystic label, nor the victim soul label, nor the Catholic label other than it provides context for a blog title of anonymous writing and sharing. As to my life in Christ and in the Church, my life in Christ is lived by God's grace; there is nothing more for me to need to do but to be and live in Christ. My profession of the three evangelical counsels were and are and will always be: to God, to His Real Presence--Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But while simply living as God unfolds my life, I've had another answer to something I considered possibly might be something I was to offer, and that is to help others individually, online. Well, I can help, but of course, if some aspect becomes alarming, I will be very forthright in what I find alarming. I'm sure if speaking with others via Skype or Zoom, that would provide a better visual added to written grasp. But over even a few emails, one can get a sense. But I don't really think God has online, individualized counseling or guidance as what He wills, at least for now, other than if brief getting-to-know others so as to pray specifically or to "give a word" to the best of what in prayer and through the Holy Spirit it seems I am shown and if, to suggest.
So it is that I've been reminded of and return to emphasizing the need for myself and anyone, really, but particularly in this instance those with mystical experiences, to remain grounded. Or, if one is relatively new to grasping one is experiencing or could be, mystical experiences, then to learn how to remain grounded. (And I suppose this reminder for hermits, as well, if a tendency to be consumed with such a thing as a canon law, to remain grounded.)
Remaining grounded can help us then take a breath and see ourselves as we are, and then to be freed for the Holy Spirit to open our minds, hearts, and souls to something beyond that which we humans can become ensnared, absorbed, blinded, imprisoned.
Otherwise, the risk is that of fixating and obsessing on the experiences, and of creating mental and emotional strain that can lead to regression or if not curtailed, to nervous or mental breakdowns or other health issues. Striving to press the mind to focus on meditating with desire to attain "contemplation," or excessive reading of mystics and mystical experiences with desire to figure out one's "level" or to identify if one has this or that mystical experience that some saint or other has experienced, or what it is labeled, can cause mental and emotional fatigue.
In addition, such focus can become as mentioned, an obsessions, with the person wanting to write or talk about each and every aspect that may or may not be a mystical or spiritual experience. The more the person obsesses or fixates or becomes desirous of such experiences or even desirous of achieving some "benchmark" that a mystic or saint has written, can become an unwitting, subconscious incidence of false experiences that materialize from the mind and emotions or physiological, or of bodily symptoms.
Perhaps I've not written enough or not for a long time, or at all, specifically about learning to be "grounded." I know I've written about the importance of John of the Cross' writings in which he may even go farther than what might be necessary for those who are not seeking experiences nor want them, for John of the Cross emphasizes brushing aside mystical experiences when one thinks or if they indeed arise.
I have always considered that John himself did not brush aside all mystical experiences--dreams, visions, locutions and the like. Nor did Teresa of Avila. However, they were well-grounded; they had a solid grasp of their spiritual lives as well as had their feet and their minds solidly planted in the temporal world, as well. As Teresa of Avila famously wrote, "God is among the pots and pans." We don't need to have mystical experiences to know God or to prove His existence, His reality.
And, all through Christian history and before, in Jewish history of which Jesus' ancestors and parents lived, if the prophets and many noted personages had ignored the Spirit or God's Voice or reaching in to the temporal world, we'd not have had the Ten Commandments, or Abraham's hosting and heeding the angels' words and announcing Sarai would bear a son in her old age. We'd not have had so many events unfold of which the Old Testament is filled with God speaking to man in various ways, or of reaching in with life-altering and temporal events to teach and aid the children of God nor to have God as Man born by the overshadowing of the Spirit and born to a virgin in a young woman named Mary.
We'd not have had Jesus live had the Wisemen ignored their dream of warning to go back a different route and avoid Herod. Had Joseph ignored his dream of warning to take the child Jesus and Mary into Egypt, the salvation history would have finished at that point and not been fulfilled. Had, in fact, Joseph ignored the dream instructing him to not divorce Mary but to quietly take her into his home and as his wife, and had Joseph not trusted nor discerned that locution--what then?
And on through the New Testament, time and again after Jesus resurrected, ascended, and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost--if Paul had ignored his being slain in the Spirit and knocked to the ground, blinded outwardly but inwardly then told to whom he was to be led and to whom he'd meet and speak--we'd not have had the great evangelist to the Gentiles and his inspired writings.
On through the centuries--and I can attest in my own life--that had it not been for the dreams, visions, locutions and a variety of mystical experiences and events--I'd not have endured nor would have helped in various situations even if difficult to do so, nor would I have become a Catholic, even. Had I ignored dreams, visions, and locutions, I'd not have managed, nor would have been God's instrument through instruction from Mary, to develop a novel model of a soup kitchen that grew miraculously and brought people of various faiths together as volunteers and recipients, both. I also would not have grasped then that my life was going to require the hermit life, a life of "hibernation" in order to be protected from the "world"--protected in a most positive sense in that I also was given the "beginnings of wisdom" so that I would know my life was to be focused on God in a way of being called out from "the world."
However, I listened to others when they indicated, such as Dr. H. years before I became Catholic, when my inner life was being opened up in major aspects. Dr. H. emphasized even then the need to learn to remain "grounded." Another person suggested to me to journal as a means to write out the seeming near bombardment of dreams and numinous experiences and locutions before I knew the vocabulary of such aspects. And the vocabulary or knowing does not matter--unless God wills us to know a word to describe or to understand. Writing down in a journal and setting it aside, interacting with others and focusing on the needs of others (in my case three young children), and also tending with one's own needs if ill or suffering--but even then striving to be other-centered is a must.
I recalled what my mother had told me she'd read as a suggestion when I had to take a semester off college due to a tailbone surgery that went awry. (Seems as if God has always used my spine to cause life-situation changes when needed, and when I lacked courage or was ignoring what He was wanting of me!) My mother suggested writing down 10 things each day that I could do for others. It was a good challenge, and that thought put to action has served me well all my life. It is a good way to help remain grounded in a variety of life circumstances--not only in spiritual life deserts or times of strain or trial.
I do not want readers, please, to be reading this blog or viewing videos to think at all that what I share is what I go over in my mind or obsess over, nor do I even begin to write down for myself or to share, nor do I discuss my spiritual experiences in general or even but rarely in specific. I have shared those more major ones that I remember because they are pivotal in some way, mostly I think they might be inspirational for others to know that God is so very real, and that God can reach into humans' lives yet today in profound ways. I pray that my writing otherwise has shown a very human and imperfect sinner and one who does not have it all figured out. I don't.
One thing I mentioned recently to someone is that when I'd become even overly intense on some book I was reading, such as too deep into the weeds of some scholars' writings of a Gospel, or too intense or upset by some wrong that the Lord had shown me in the temporal life of the temporal aspects of Church. My late spiritual father (an anam cara more than a director per se in later years, but who as an anam cara and a priest of 72 years had vast experience in the spiritual life but also simply in the lives of people--could tell by a letter or a phone call that I was becoming too intense--not even at a point of obsessing or fixating. He'd say, "Get to your gardens! Go out into your gardens and weed or prune or dig!"
In other words, "Turn to some manual labor, or watch a film, or bake some cookies for someone, or a healthy meal, or run an errand to buy some infant clothing to donate to the Women's Care Center." Turn on some music--even secular artists. Do some arts and crafts, go for a walk, watch a movie, exercise, play a game, turn on the news and find all kinds of people and situations in need of prayer. Pray simply; take a break from novenas and verbal and mental prayers; just talk with Jesus. Laugh. (I know I've shared my "laugh therapy" technique but will again. Force a laugh and do so up to 10 forced laughs. You likely won't make it to 10 without starting to laugh genuinely due to how ridiculously funny to hear yourself force-laugh aloud.)
Do what it takes to break off from becoming self-absorbed or too much into my mind. (Usually it is my mind that can become a snare more than my emotions, but for some it is the emotions that arrest and imprison.) Get out of oneself. stop focusing so intensely on the spiritual. Stop the self-love, in essence and substance.
In the Catholic realm, people are used to the long-standing aspect of turning to the priest for guidance, approval. The priest is considered to be one to be in the know due to years of education and often years of experience in counsel, confession, and much people in life experience. A Catholic priest thus and for various reasons sociological and psychological, therefore is one of whom people will tend to be more obedient or trust what is advised. In the case of a priest who is advising someone with mystical experiences, and if the priest is kind but cautious in someone who begins to experience or realize they are having what they think are mystical experiences, then the priest at some point will advise the person to remain grounded--either using that term or some other, or asking the person to do this or that other than to risk obsessing or fixating or seeking or desiring spiritual growth or experiences to an unhealthy degree at that time.
Do not try to figure out what "mansion" or stage you are in, that some spiritual master in the writing of marvelous books have set forth meant to be helps and encouragement. These were not to be used to try to place yourself or others in this or that level or "place". Such an attitude or usage can cause disappointment, pride, envy, or a form of greed or gluttony to want more or "higher" or "farther" which often includes wanting "faster." Heed John of the Cross' advise as it is better to discount and brush aside spiritual experiences or even nuances than to risk creating your life in them. If a dream or message or vision or inner nudge is something you are to heed, don't worry; God in the Holy Spirit will re-touch you again if you are to act on it or learn from it.
I recall one time the first priest I went to and who was my confessor, told me one morning prior to Mass--ordered me--to stop praying. During Mass that directive hit me hard, and I began to weep. An older couple behind me, after Mass, were concerned for they knew me for years and knew my parents--had been neighbors, in fact. While I was a new Catholic, I took very seriously the idea of "obedience" to a priest because I knew not differently; that priest was more "into" such authority and autocratic leadership style.
This was not the first time he'd ordered me to do something that went against my inner sense of rightness. But the Lord had already had me meet the priest who was to be my marvelous spiritual da and anam cara. So I started to run by the spiritual da some of what the autocratic priest would order. But as to the directive to stop praying, the priest himself backed off that, for I was not one to be emotional, and he knew that already. I explained that I literally could not stop praying; my life is prayer. He softened, then, and said to go ahead an pray!
But looking back, I realize he likely was not sure how to proceed for my spiritual life was going through another massive opening-up phase, and becoming Catholic birthed profuse introductions to what was so profound and providing answers to so much in my previous years of life. And, he also likely wanted to make sure I was remaining "grounded" and wanted me to lay off the spiritual intensity. He just pushed the wrong button with that particular directive to stop praying. The Holy Spirit deals with these matters; I had other opportunities to serve in practical ways to put into effect praying in all ways. The spiritual da had mentioned to me "omnia pro Deo". When I asked him what does that mean, he explained it means "all for God"--do all in your life as if you are doing it for God Himself.
I pray that the above gives you some idea of what we all need to remember to do in all aspects of life when we become too intense, or the trials (even COVID which is certainly a trial on-going with very serious ramifications to our minds and hearts and spirits), in order to remain grounded. This is true for non-believers! But for Christians, remaining grounded is crucial in the spiritual life. Perhaps it is even more crucial for Catholics because of the greater structure and the vast array of prayers, devotions, saints and mystics, books to read on active and spiritual paths, of Scriptural emphasis in daily Mass, of liturgy, and of the Consecration in Mass daily, as well. The Mass in totality being a mystical experience in itself is yet another indication of the depth and breadth of Catholicism as a never-ending treasure chest of spiritual life and the reality of His Real Presence.
All the more, each of us needs to be aware of our temporal and spiritual health of body, mind, heart, and soul. And, we need to heed signals and even words spoken or written by others who in whatever way they deliver the message and concern that means in essence and substance: remain grounded.
If we already have some go-to ways and means of what helps us or anyone to remain grounded, we can more easily and quickly pivot to what will help us avoid what can be--and I'm quite serious here--quite serious ramifications to the person who otherwise might have progressed or been assisted in learning to discern God's will and to work naturally and successfully with whatever spiritual gifts given. Most mystics are quite minor players in the spectrum of mystical history and personages; most pass as unknown and hidden, unnoticed, as cabbage butterflies, with their lives as brief as cabbage butterflies in the full spectrum of human existence.
So please, dear readers, regardless whatever our call in temporal and spiritual life: Learn to remain grounded. Simply remain grounded!
God bless His Real Presence in us!
1 comment:
Thank you. I am hungry!
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