Contrary to how I may have seemed regarding holy people or what are labeled as "saints", I do very much appreciate these holy people for the lives they lived for Christ and all they did and wrote to help other Christians. But I am in a phase now of my own spiritual life in which I note my errors, and I also want to grow in love and to live God's law of love, to be united in His Real Presence. This requires more awareness and immersion in His Real Presence in His Living Word, in prayer, and in spiritual Eucharist. I also know that He is in me and I am in Him, yet I have much more to learn and grow in His Real Presence and God's law of love.
But I am facing being in over my head (and body) with having taken on some manual labor of which my body is increasingly slow and having difficulty performing the work. I am slow and fatigued, but of anything, I am in His Real Presence even in my dilemma and utter slowness. And His Real Presence is in me.
I know very much in truth that I got myself into this situation of being in a situation that went against what seems even common sense, in trying to renovate a portion of this dwelling, including replacing all the doors in addition to total renovation of laundry room, kitchen, half bath and a full bath. I realize I have not done the writing or sharing of the spiritual experiences of the reality of His Real Presence in my life and in all of our lives, nor have I simply written much for awhile of love of God or learning lessons, or of His Living Word, or of daily life of one who is striving to love God and others as God loves.
The Gospel reading the other day of Jesus telling the young man who wanted to know how he could come into the kingdom of God that he must go and sell or give away all his possessions and then come and follow Him, hit home yet again within me both in temporal and spiritual aspects. I'm in so deep with a mess in my living situation and domicile, and my body has now added problems which need surgery. Rather than try to go in too many directions, I have at least started to focus the manual labor on two rooms to try to finish before addressing the largest, the kitchen. But I also have clothes and other items to go through and give away but without added energy to take on that task. I accumulated once again several years ago in an attempt to fit in and also with the idea of providing a place and books and hospitality to others who are in the world--with my attempt at seeming to fit in as one of them in order to provide a sense of commonality and cohesiveness.
But it was a ridiculous and foolish attempt that did not work out, regardless! His Real Presence was not leading that plan, it certainly seems now, but rather it was my idea tinged with my own desires--and likely some aspects within me that I did not realize still needed to be worked out, with more dying to self.
The other day I noticed this selection from John of the Cross' writings, and it stung me in several areas. I recognized yet again just how complicated I made my life yet again, and now have the added pressure of trying to bring temporal, environmental order out of disorder that I caused when deciding to have a project that would force me out of bed and into doing some manual labor and exercise that had worked well with my body due to not sitting nor standing in one place. But I did not realize that my neck was having increasing, serious issues, or that my knee surgery was not going to suffice and a knee replacement would be necessary. So I'm facing that surgery plus probably surgery on my neck; I'll know more on Monday....
John of the Cross is so correct in what he writes regarding possessions and detachment, and what it is that is of greatest importance to our lives: His Real Presence. I wonder how it is I tend to overshoot the mark--having good intentions and good ideas of how I can serve the Lord and others in some way, shape, or form, but also still having "me" in it--aspects that I do enjoy myself in manual labor that helps take the mind off the constant pain plus get me out of bed for part of the day. My taking on this project had a prudent aspect of increasing value of the dwelling so that I could better pay for nursing home care in future, if God did not have me pass suddenly. But in that idea, practical and thoughtful as it is, there was still a lot of "self" in it. I also reasoned when finished and no longer able to keep up a property, there would be more money after selling this and renting or finding a lesser place and area of country to live, so I could even more help others in need, financially.
But John of the Cross expresses what His Real Presence needed me to face all over again, and not only that I've done this to myself, but the other aspects of how I had de-possessed at one point and how good it was in a variety of ways, including relief of the temporal and joy and dependency in His Real Presence.
What John of the Cross wrote that if I can persevere by the grace of God and make it through more surgeries and finish up or find someone to finish what I started in the renovation project, I can once again try to not justify or convince myself that the ideas of such enterprises have merit despite my good intentions, but in fact are not God's plan or what makes the spirit most happy and joyful and useful to God:
"Seek for nothing, desiring to enter, for love of Jesus, upon detachment, emptiness, and poverty in everything in this world. you will never have to do with necessities greater than those to which you made your heart yield itself: for the poor in spirit are most happy and joyful in a state of privation, and he who has set his heart on nothing finds satisfaction everywhere.
"The poor in spirit (Mt 5:3) give generously all they have and their pleasure consists in being thus deprived of everything for God's sake and out of love to their neighbor (...) Not only do temporal goods--the delights and tastes of the sense--hinder and thwart the way of God, but spiritual delights and consolations also, if sought for or clung to eagerly, disturb the way of virtue."
Love in His Love, and God bless His Real Presence in us!
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