I put "Christian" in front of Catholic Hermit because a follower of Christ (imperfect, human), that is my true identity, the foremost identity of what and who I am, who I aspire to love and follow and be united with forever. But I have come to sense that I am less in the temporal world increasingly, the more hindered the body is, and my existence is mostly observing the world through my laptop, such as in some films that I try to select for good prayer purposes, as most films present slices of lives and the world, with some people better than others and some worse than others.
I'm finding that discipline is crucial for a successful temporal life. I have never been high in discipline. Especially now, for the suffering hinders me from even doing the usual daily tasks. It takes energy to brush the teeth, to get up, to want much to eat other than ice cream has been a daily mainstay, of all things. I never really liked ice cream in my adult life--but between a molar with crown that the dentist cannot find anything wrong, but it flares up easily with pain, so chewing I avoid, and the pain craves sugar for dopamine increase despite pain pump and can augment with oral meds--at least I found vanilla ice cream that has twice the protein of the usual varieties. (Costco brand, it is.) I'm not hungry, regardless, for I need little eat, and I lack a kitchen; but I find a refrigerator is all I need and if I want to cook something, which I do not, I have a tiny little portable oven that currently is on the floor in the bedroom hallway, as planks are piled in the dining room, where it used to be. No space or counters anywhere accessible.
If I really needed anything in particular, I'd need to sell the place "as is" and go--where? That is a good question, and there is no sensible or financially prudent answer, so as long as I'm fine and can grange-eat which I have done for the past 10 years or more, for most part, and the last 8 years eaten laying down in bed or on sleeping bag on floor before my back surgery. It works for me. washing out a bowl or saucer and spoon or fork of which I rarely need other than a spoon and that only for ice cream currently, life is very simple. It simply takes too much energy to do much that is not going to provide more body movement, and so I try to get up once a day to do a small tray of drywall mud on the seams. It is very slow process, but it is what forces me to get up at all, and today there was sharp pain in my lumbar. Otherwise, I get up for appts. of which I have none for ten days, which has become unusual to not have them more often. Since part of my struggle in being up is my knee pain, I might have to see about going back to the surgeon's PA and ask her to drain it again, and perhaps another steroid or might be some other treatment, for the pain doctor also is referring me to a neurologist to do a needle into the neck itself and release steroids; he had injected steroid into pressure points near the neck, but it takes a neurologist to safely guide a needle actually into the cervical spaces. And one can only have so much steroid or it is no effective, or too much can cause negative reactions. So we'll see, but my being in bed nearly all the time also has to do with the knee pain. It all gets too much, and thus my mind cannot push through it as it used to be able to do somewhat better. I am more dead than alive, at least when it comes to the world.
I'm praying for discipline. Please, Jesus, help me have more discipline. Perhaps my lack has to do with the pain, but even my writing is not disciplined nor has it been for some time, or seems to me. I write about pain, and that is pointless, really.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Christian, I am and will be all my earthly days! Temporal Catholic, no, that has not been, but no one will be temporal Catholic or temporal Calvinist or temporal Baptist when we are no longer in this temporal world. And, truly, we are all Christians, so that is why I decided it was time to identify as "Christian" foremost. That indeed opens up possibilities should I encounter people who might want to discuss Christ, more than if I identify as more specific. The Lord has brought me into Catholicism these past 26 years, and I have learned and grown in all types of ways with much benefit of mind, heart, and soul. I learned a lot about the temporal aspects, but it is the spiritual that is the pith and point. I've grown to want to hear Jesus and His Living Word preached if anything is to be preached in the online Masses I listen to, or other talks by various Christians. Thus far, Rev. Billy Graham's "classics" on Youtube never disappointment when one wants Jesus and His Living Word--and Jesus' Real Presence is in His Living Word in addition to the Eucharist. I have considered lately the type and archetype of God having had Ezekiel "eat" the scroll, the Living Word. And then Jesus fed the disciples and others, bread and wine as His Real Body and Blood. I'm finding the reality of His Real Presence as Eucharist and Living Word to be enlivening both temporally and spiritually, and mostly spiritually, mystically--truth!
Again, God Bless His Real Presence in us!
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