Catholic Hermit: Escapism

The mornings are the roughest.  Today is five weeks out from what I've now read per lesser form of this spine surgery is called "major" and "severe."  I awaken to a degree of physical pain that causes corruption of emotions.  Yet there is an underlying truth on-going, exposed.

I'm ever honest with the Lord, with myself, and in this blog that is of a consecrated Catholic hermit's progression in life--the temporal, the spiritual, the body, mind, heart, and soul journey.

I tell you, I know why I am as I am, currently.  I have the opportunity to be exemplary or to even gloss over the reality of an aspect of how I'm spending the time that God gives me, gives us all.  My intentions are in the right place--I love the Lord, I love His Church, I'm living the externals of hermit life as set forth in what the Church requires and sets forth  for all Her consecrated hermits.  And this means Catholic hermits whether privately or public professed--of which many if not most Catholic hermits yet today privately profess the three evangelical counsels and make private vows.

The poverty, chastity (celibacy in my case), and obedience (to God, to vocation, to the Church) are being fulfilled.  My poverty is not that I am financially penniless, although am not flush with funds; I am able to pay the bills which include a mortgage for this hermitage, a house, a dwelling called Solus Deus.  I have been broke before, though.  My poverty is more, currently, a physical poverty and a spiritual poverty.

The physical poverty is that of extreme bodily limitation and pain.  I'm totally dependent upon God and others.  Yes, I'm able to get up and use a walker, can cope enough with the pain to get something to eat from refrigerator and cupboards, restocked some yesterday by the lone family member in the area who picked up some fresh fruit and vegetables.  A woman from the parish who had signed up via the parish volunteer program to bring a meal, on her own volition called last week and said she'd bring some additional main dish/meat in freezer containers so I could simply thaw and heat and eat.

She stopped by yesterday, also, and had included a share of her family's beef taco ingredients enough for last night and today's subsistence.  I'm able to cinch the brace, get up, walker my way to bathroom and kitchen for the morning coffee and bowl of granola with milk, and add some blueberries brought yesterday.  Tray on the walker, so back in bed on the icy-cold pad for which I am ever grateful. 

In an hour I will need to change out the thawed water bottles and will use the grabber-reacher tool to pull out frozen water bottles from freezer and put into the ice pump container.  That will require 3-4 walker trips from bedroom to kitchen and back.  The neighbor kids who have been doing this effort morning and night, are now back in school.  Bless their hearts--they offered to get up extra early to continue their summer job, but in the mornings I decided to motivate self and attempt this task.

Since I've titled this post "Escapism,"  I need to get to the point.  I've been escaping from the high degree of this spinal pain that radiates to other body areas.  I apologize to the Lord (as I did again this morning while waiting for pain meds to take hold enough so that I could get up for bathroom and to kitchen for some food).  I add to the apology that for whatever reasons, I am escaping in ways that are weak and not up to the standards I myself have for a hermit's daily life.

I feel as if I'm a bad hermit these days.  I'm a bad lover of the Lord.  I'm weak and weary, and I know better, but I lack the discipline or whatever it might be, to lay here on the icy pad on the bed and pray and read.  I'm escaping my circumstances, the pain, and even escaping the too-much thinking my brain gets into.  So I escape by watching a doze-inducing, time-passing, easy-escapism series I came upon on Amazon Prime, on the laptop, this little window to the world.

At night the voices, music, scenery, characters, and plot are such that I can doze enough until I'm dozing mostly until I turn off the laptop and bedside light and hope in God I'm dozed adequately to fall asleep.  Off and on during the day I use the drama series to escape the pained the body, the fatigued mind, the tired emotions--but not escape the soul.  It would take I'm-not-sure-what to escape the soul.  I don't think it possible we can escape our souls.  Even in hell we will have our souls, such as they are--taken over by unrepented sins and a chosen, depraved life, turned against Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This morning I asked the Lord, "How long will You put up with me?"  I tell him often that I know I am using this means of escape.  I've gone over with the Lord the reasons I am using this means to escape, for I know the reasons, and the reasons are plausible.  Yet for me, a consecrated Catholic hermit and as a child of God, it is my choosing this escapism that is so bad.

What is bad is that I choose what I know is easy and in its own way helpful yet content wise is not better or best.  (Yes, it is helping for the reasons I've mentioned above, especially the part about keeping my mind from thinking about my temporal situation here.)  But my choosing this form of escapism rather than choosing something more spiritually impressive or worthy of a Catholic hermit and more so of me is what sticks out and pokes inward, as well, thus prodding me to ask God how long will he put up with me, and to call upon my late spiritual Da to pray for me and help me get through this phase of wafting in escapism.

I'm so very tired even right now, an hour before the occupational therapist is to come and go through the process of showering in the upstairs shower.  The goal is to train me as capable of using whatever bathroom's shower, be it upstairs or down.  The pain exhausts even after six hours of sleep in the night, which is better sleep than four hours.

Back to the escapism. I'm escaping from pain, from my current predicament of temporal proportions, from thinking about what is unfolding already in the major changes I must make after the several months it will take for the bone fusion to even heal, let alone to adapt to the added pain for yesterday the nurse pointed out that my pain should be going in a different direction than it seems to be heading.  Yet it is too soon to tell if this level of pain is from last week's over-doing in minor way but way enough.

I'm escaping through the drama series, mostly to keep my mind from consciously thinking about this temporal situation which includes the simple reality of not having someone to drop me off at the surgeon's next week as the family member has a conflict taking me but can pick me up.  I asked the woman who brought the added prepared meat portion for meals if she could drop me off, but she will likely be working at her job.  Then I found out from the parish nurse that they ask volunteers to not transport due to the insurance liability issues.  Yes, true enough!  I'd forgotten about such realities.

I'm also escaping from the effort it takes to read and absorb such as pages of a spiritually helpful book.  I'm able to read the daily Mass Scriptures, fortunately, and to gain great benefit, and to be reminded of all aspects of the Holy Trinity, of His Real Presence, of my Beloved.  I'm escaping from the effort of writing that which might be, could be, of more spiritual substance and pleasing to God.

I pray the Lord has mercy on me and can put up with me like this for a bit longer or for how much longer it takes.  Even in the escaping via this drama series, yesterday, I clearly noticed that the fictionalized characters, based upon the real life career and experiences of someone still alive and going and doing even though but one year older than I am--the fictionalized characters are focused and passionate about their work, their mission via their careers of bringing good from conquering worldly evil.

They are specialists, and specialists tend to be successful whereas generalists tend to spread thin and wide their efforts, and while they can provide good, they can also tend to waft, to waste, to miss the better and best.  Martha in Scriptures is a generalist, busy about many things; Mary is a specialist, focused with passionate focus, on learning from and absorbing all she can of  her Lord and Savior, extolling her existence and love upon His Real Presence.

I'm dozing off in my ramblings.  But I want to in effect confess that I am not good right now, and maybe have not been much good for awhile.  And I'm not sure I have the strength of will to choose otherwise in ceasing this now-conscious and revealed escapism.  I know the occupational therapist is a profession and a specialist, focused on arriving at 10 a.m. and conscientiously and professionally doing her job which is to get me to a point of being able to safely and independently shower.

My body and mind are so tired and pained right now, that getting up to refresh the ice for the ice pump seems overwhelming. I just want to escape the realities of a couple of basic tasks this morning that most people do not, would not, think twice about.  Even my blog writing is rambling, other than the point I am making in full honesty, is that I am not "doing" what would seem so marvelous and impressive and holy and what is in fact, better and best!

I am not laying here reading books like St. Ignatius did after his life-altering leg injury.  (Yes, I've prayed and asked this saint to help me; I've asked Padre Pio to help, I've asked my late parents and anyone out there, to help me stop this more banal form of escapism.  Yet somehow I return to it and would now if I did not have to get ice into the ice pump, or my pain will only get far worse.)  The effort of praying the rosary and focusing my mind on the aspects of Christ's life and other theological truths within the praying of the rosary is too much effort.

I'm too weary to go through the many letters of my late spiritual Da, as I thought it could be marvelous to write of some of what he wrote over the years.  My emotions are not strong enough currently, and my mind and eyes and headache not up for reading them.  Instead I just ask him to help me do as even in his last note card to me, said he hoped for my future--to not lose touch with the supernatural and to keep reading the good books.

I find myself apologizing to all these great people I've had the honor and privilege of living with, who have not gone to God in glory.  I admit to them and to His Real Presence and to you readers, that I am falling quite short.  And to me it seems as if I am choosing to do so, for I certainly am not choosing to read the book on the Holy Spirit I have here on the bed, nor to read the Office of Readings in the Divine Office or Liturgy of the hours, first thing.  No, I've been writing of my escapism as this temporarily  helps me escape, also, this pain and whatever all else going on, and has been.

The Lord is kind and merciful, but honestly, I'm disgusted with myself for this escapism yet am grateful for it.  I'm counting on God's grace to teach me even in this period of what I consider a form of weak-willed depravity of a certain type.  I call myself lazy, yet for whatever reason, this is a phase in this time of my life and within my hermit vocation.

I didn't want you readers to think I'm laying here being saintly and holy, praying mentally for hours on end, focusing my mind on reading theology or even this book on the Holy Spirit.  Maybe today, though, I will.  One thing that does console me, as I interiorly and sometimes outwardly talk this situation over with the Lord and my late spiritual father, and even my parents, is that the drama series will be over; it is temporal and tangible and has an end.  And in the meantime, perhaps my will and intellect will strengthen, for I desire to turn to all holiness and exemplary spiritual live in every present moment.

As for my late parents, I admit to them (and I have to God even though He already knows), that I have wafted often enough in my life, made choices and decisions that I thought were good and were going off in certain directions, only to realize they were going to come to a necessary end, as God keeps honing me to His will despite my being a difficult soul, or it surely seems to me.

Being a generalist and having various talents can be a problem.  Waft off here and there in creative tangents, and then the Lord deals with such as me through temporal suffering to teach me not only religious truths and insights, but very much to trim me into the narrow path He has His Heart set on helping me traverse, narrower and narrower--specialist, not generalist.

I'll stop this general rambling, yet again.  MUST start the ice pump process even though OT coming in a few minutes.  She is the specialist to remind me yet again, of what is better.  See how she accomplishes in her daily life, in the temporal for that is all I know of her life thus far.  She succeeds in what is her job, her passion as she's kept with this career for many years.  We can conclude in the temporal aspects, she certainly seems to be fulfilling God's will for her in that.

I appreciate your prayers for my deeper conversions.  Deeper conversions will strengthen my weak will to push through this pain and the limitations the body is facing, and the necessary life changes that I must by God's providence, get help in undertaking when I am well enough to orchestrate another property selling off and a move.  All that takes such energy and God's time He gives so lovingly, no doubt hoping with all His Being that I will come through and do His will and narrow down for the increasingly narrow path.

At least and most, I do truly love God above all things and others as my self, but guess, in truth, also,  I right now have a hard time showing it!

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: A Great Psalm for Today

Actually, I considered this Psalm from Mass readings, yesterday.  But it is even more meaningful today!  I'm practicing "pain praying" which is evolving from an insight given at some point in this post-op, lengthy recovery.  There is much pain to be utilized, harnessed, for the power that it provides; and pain praying thus has come to be.  Still not sure how it occurs; I'm open to all that.

Praising God, however, is very much a part of pain praying as it ought be for all forms of prayer.  I just don't praise God nearly enough!  I've been reminded of some marvelous young people in the past couple of days.  One was the shower aide who is employed by a hospital system's health care unit.  While talking with her of her life, I realized what a lovely soul, devout, head solid on her shoulders, priorities set, planning her education, altering her career goals after realizing dental hygienist is her niche rather than nursing.

She really did not have problems to pray about, nor urgent needs.  She is one of the many we probably encounter who ought be praise persons--those we place before His Real Presence and offer praise for their lives, for their usage of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given them.  Another was mentioned to be in a phone call.  A young man, this time, who struggled to find a career path but has found it, and remains faithful and true to Christ but also prudent and diligent in navigating the temporal world.

The elderly man passed on three nights ago.  He "slept away" and is now free from the dementia that afflicted his memory and free of the 94-year-old body that declined to a point of palliative care to keep him comfortable until his last breath, so peaceful, so gentle.  The celebrations of his life on earth and his birthday into eternal, mystical life is commencing!  Praise worthy, is death.  Death and suffering are not our enemies.  They are opportunities; they are means of progression.

Thus this Psalm brings our souls to that higher level of communicating with God, just as poetry, art, and music are higher levels of expression requiring unique aspects of the brain function.  Due to my lowering the pain meds another 25% and having physical therapist here this morning, my pain is up which will be good for exploring pain praying yet again.  

I will incorporate praising God into whatever it is with pain praying that helps me understand or grasp the actuality of what is pain prayer.  Still very much evolving, as is my soul, as is my physical body in the healing process, as is my greater acceptance of what my body's physical limitations are going to be.  

Today am told I will have lifting limitations, of course the bending restriction, but any movements that will cause the upper back to put any pressure or compaction on the lower back will be "out".  Well, the various movements such as painting walls due to bending down and twisting will be out of bounds unless I want more back surgery, that is, and then more restrictions. I may not be updating this hermitage, not even in a year, unless hiring it done.  That defeats the purpose of the creative, contemplative, ora et labora (pray and work).

I'm finding that working on reaching the goal of getting up 8 times a day with the lowered pain meds is quite the challenge.  I may have to increase the pain meds somewhat as the getting up, walking, being upright for 7-8 minutes at a time is maximum for the body, currently.  Better to be able to be up than to lower the meds this soon after last week lowering them.

Well, time to "do" and "say" and "be" as these portions of Psalm 66 exhort!

[I just noticed when writing to an elderly couple who have been adapting to a nursing facility after their own home--that this Psalm had a response to it, taken from parts of the Psalm.  The response is "Blessed be God who filled my soul with fire!"  I certainly perked up with this proclamation!  I do indeed need or must consider that it is already--my soul--filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God!  Need that fire, we do, to live out our earthly lives in Christ Jesus!]

Shout joyfully to God, all the earth;
sing praise to the glory of his name;
proclaim his glorious praise.
say to God: "How tremendous are your deeds!"

Come and see the works of God,
his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.
Bless our God, you peoples;
loudly sound his praise.

Hear now, all you who fear God, while I declare
what he has done for me.
When I appealed to him in words,
praise was on the tip of my tongue.

~ Ps 66:1-3a, 5, and 8:16-17

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Slow and Steady...

...wins the race!

This one is a distance race within the type of race that St. Paul metaphored for "life".  But metaphors only go so far--and don't always, in one metaphor, totally describe what they are imaging or representing.  By "race", such as St. Paul said he has run the race after he had also used "fight" metaphor for having fought the good fight--these metaphors do not also express that aspect of our lives that impart passage of length or depth of time.  

Fights are usually a burst of energy within time limits, such as a boxing match with its various rounds, unless or until someone wins with a knock-out blow, or based upon points if the fight goes the full however-many rounds.  Races can be longer than fights.  Sprints are short, and like a fight have a burst of energy that is sustained until the short distance is completed.  There are distance races; there are round-the-earth yacht or hot air balloon or airplane races.

But life as a race--yes, we get much meaning thinking of life as a race, in that metaphor--but life as a race does not provide that aspect of time.  While there is time involved in life, and energy, we do not know the length of our lives or of others lives.  (Not even the best of doctors can know how long even a terminally ill person will live other than in best-projections; the exact hour and minute is not known.)  Some lives are but a breath at birth and then no more, or life in the womb cut off with some dire unexpected during birth process.

Other lives go along for decades.  Some lives have tremendous energy seemingly for the length of the person's time on earth, while other lives are less energized, are more placid.  But one aspect about a "race" as a metaphor for life, is that we humans do tend to the aspect of wanting to win.  We want our lives to be successful in whatever aspects considered by each individual, and as influenced by family, culture, society, religion or none.  So we want to win this life; we want to successfully complete this "race" in some shape or fashion or form.

And within our lives, there are varying speeds and perhaps, energy levels.  Perhaps we can consider the metaphor of life as a race as an overall race or type of event, with several to myriad races within the overall racing event.  Also, speed is not particularly a needful or advantageous aspect to life, if considered as a race.  We really must not race as if with competitors, nor should we throw caution to the wind, or even run like the wind (other than if in a situation in life in which our safety or the safety of another requires extreme speed, like a parent running after a child heading into a busy street without stopping to look both ways).

We are most all familiar with the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare.  Perhaps the adage, "Slow and steady wins the race" comes from that fable or the fable was inspired by the adage.  Regardless, there are certain phases and aspects of our lives in which it is prudent if not imperative, that we go forth in life quite slowly and with a determined and cautious steadiness.

I had to learn slow-and-steady in the last hermitage and locale, where I found myself having gotten into a house that had been cosmetically spruced but in truth found out later was deemed by real estate agents as a "tear-down."  The place had to be gutted, as I had barely delved into some minor upgrades like taking up the carpet to put down wood floors, when I realized problems requiring further delving, and finally that the place needed to be taken down to the frame.  Even then, parts of the frame had to be re-done.

It was overwhelming!  I tell you, never have I been so overwhelmed by the reality of how immense the tasks ahead, of which most all, including some aspects of demolition, even, were skills I did not know from previous life experience.  Just taking up the old bathroom linoleum led to discovering someone had put particle board under the shower pan and the toilet.  Rot and mold, soggy particle board, on verge of cave in--this is what I soon discovered!  When I hired a teen to help me unbolt and lift the toilet, the main drain pipe cracked because the toilet had been set with twerking the drain pipe to the sewer pipe so that once released, the pipe cracked!  

Thus I learned not only the life skill of bit-by-bit.  But then I had to adopt even more so, "Slow and steady wins the race."  I had to live on that for all the minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months that are contained in 5 1/2 years of blind-faith existence on rapidly decreasing, modest but appreciated inheritance funds, and then the rapid outflow of borrowed funds.  

I also had to factor into the "race" metaphor--and with more potential of the mishaps than in other phases of my life--the unexpected injuries, illnesses, and fluke accidents that can occur in "running the race."  Even if slow and steady, the unknowns that sideline us for unknown-to-us time periods, enter in.  In those 5 1/2 years, I lost count of the pneumonia and other lung crud illnesses, the numerous pain sieges, the flare ups of carpenter's elbow and thumb drill whip injury, the near misses of what would have been major or death knell incidents.

I recall the plant splinter that rapidly turned into blood poisoning, barely making it to the ER in time before sepsis was going to set in.  Still it was a week or longer for that thumb and the poisoned body to recover enough to return to the "race" to the finish line of that project.  There was the sliding precariously to the edge of the pole barn roof when painting it--not once but three times, by accident, a corner of my tennis shoes having caught a drop of wet paint causing the leg splits and slide on the 45-degree pitched metal.  My angel stopped me each time, a foot from the edge.  Still, at my age and having never done the splits in my life, I was incapacitated with barely able to move my legs for over a week.

I forget what all else--oh the accidental flop and splat on my left leg at the knee area, from the hardware store's new employee not securing a watering hose so that my foot caught on the loop of it, and thus three weeks down due to that injury.  And soon after that, there was the grand finale (although I did not know it then, as could have been more to come!) of flying off the stairs in that construction accident, and ending up in a major trauma center, serious head injury, brain bleed, badly concussed, and out of commission for awhile.

I suppose I did not learn enough then, though--although that particular race was completed bit by bit--the greater nuances and the value of "slow and steady wins the race."  For this current event is extremely slow and steady.  I have dropped the "race" aspect out of what the Lord is teaching me.  "Slow" and "steady" are the nuggets to embrace and appreciate fully.

This morning I considered how "slow" and "steady" are two of the Nine S' that I'm to practice as undergirding attributes of my hermit Rule of Life:  The Gospel Rule.  While I do not technically use the s-word of "steady", I do have "stability" as one of the Nine S', and steady and stability are close enough to be interchangeable for my needs and purposes.

I've written a couple lengthy missives today.  One included my sharing a couple of major remorses.  It was cathartic as well as rather like confessing to God, in a way.  After, though, I had to remind myself that dipping into the past for mind, heart, and soul cleansing is very good; but remaining in the past without accepting the forgiveness His Real Presence affords, is not good.  I came back into the Order of the Present Moment--noting that at some point I will express my remorse to a couple persons who I offended, and ask their forgiveness, as well.  But otherwise, what God desired of these incidents bubbling up to the surface of the mind and heart this morning, has been accomplished.

The other writing had to do with my interest in practicing pain praying.  Dr. H. happened to call recently, as we've reconnected more lately in a 34-year-professional friendship.  He has been interested in light therapy; he is a clinical psychologist and utilizes various therapies with his patients.  So his personal use of light for his own shoulder injury, got me thinking in terms of light and color.  Some of that has surfaced in my mystical experiences from time to time--various colors of light involved spontaneously, in whatever way or means the Holy Spirit intended.

So I have been pondering some, wondering if the Lord would incorporate light and colors with or in light, as I explore pain praying.  There has been some--images included with pain praying, and color connected with the images.  However, a bit of Scripture in this morning's prelude to the Mass' Gospel Reading has me intrigued.  It is a Scripture we are all familiar with; it has to do with Jesus saying those of us who follow Him will be given or be in the light of life.

With that, I'm now asking if the light of life has a color or a spectrum of colors, or some frequency or vibration or what all are its attributes, as I realize the light of life is, of course, the supreme light.  It would have to be!  It is being in Christ, it is the light of Christ that He imparts with and in us, when we follow Him, when we abide in Him and He in us.  So just what is the light of life?  That is the light with which I want to be and desire to include and be part of to impart with prayer and in Christ's love, to and for others.

We shall see.  In the meantime, as always, God bless His Real Presence in us!

As to my post-surgery update, as I mention above, it is quite slow and steady.  I am building up to being able to get up 6-7 times a day, and I can walk with the walker for around 6 minutes during four or once, five, times out of the 6-7 times up.  Last night I went for 7 or more hours between pain meds, so the morning was a bit slower.  But the shower aide came, and that feat is accomplished--yes, slowly, steadily, with no standing without the walker or holding on to a shower bar, and then brace back on, and return to bed until next time up.  Slow and steady--weather or not a race.  This is not a race, not this phase.  God has made that quite clear to me.  Also, I do so appreciate your prayers!  Deeper conversions!  Thank you!