Catholic Hermit Remains in Suffering, Praise

Well, I had hoped by today to better able stand, walk about, even get the mulch off the truck.

There is some progress, slight.  I was able to gingerly creep outside--more guardedly than perhaps gingerly--and I was able to bend over and hook up two soaker hoses and turn on the spigots.  Now am back on the mattress using ice pack.

A woman who--turns out--lives not far from this hermit's hermitage, advertised on an area internet site that she has much PVC piping available; she had used it for many berry bushes.  Ah!  One of my needed tasks--past due--is to get bird netting over the blueberry bushes as well as spread out over strawberry patches of which birds and critters are already helping themselves to the first fruits.

I called, and the woman is holding the PVC for me until Wednesday.  I was sure that I could be up and about by today, empty the truck of mulch, and drive to pick up the piping.  But alas, no.  The Lord has me stilled for longer than I thought would be.  His will reigns and rules now.  My thoughts yet are not replaced by His thoughts, though.  Not nearly enough but are a bit.  And that bit of His Mind replacing whatever of my thoughts, is a blessing!

Thus, my mind can recall previous times of despair when some physical ailment would fell me to the mattress.  I would begin to fret over how I would get more done here, how I would exist, how I would progress or even be able to leave if necessary.  But now, the thoughts view those old ways of thinking, yet my thoughts do not traverse those frets.

I simply wait in the silence of solitude, of suffering.

There is news of the family member cycling solo in Europe.  Much rain had him soaked as he biked through French countryside.  He ended up needing to stop for the night but had difficulty finding lodging.  Finally a tourist office employee who happened to be open (France observes four-day work week fairly seriously) made many phone calls to locate a Bed-and-Breakfast in a nearby village.  It is aptly called:  The Pilgrim.

Many prayers are being offered for the bicycling pilgrim from various others as well as this debilitated, consecrated, Catholic hermit.

A friend from a couple thousand miles away called this morning and reported on her now full-time health care of husband in ill health.  Finances are tough for them--extremely so.  She is trying to get mortgage remodification and debt consolidation and is swamped with necessary paperwork.  She also has researched various online forums for alternative, simple treatments that might help her husband's lung problems, immune system, and overall well-being.

As for my severe muscle or rib pain issues, currently, she thought surely I should go to the doctor.  Well, there is no way I could possibly suffer through getting dressed, into the truck, and drive anywhere at this point.  And there is really no need.  By and by, the pain will lesson, whatever is aggravated will simmer down and heal.

She suggested perhaps there is some linkage of this physical derailment and the strange events of last week's bi-location and ensuing discovery that the family member is on this--what I will now term--pilgrimage of seeking to find whatever is there to be found.  Yes, I'd considered there might be a connection, that somehow the Lord has allowed the rather bizarre flare up somewhere between pitchforking a bit of light-weight mulch into a wheelbarrow and dumping and spreading the mulch over a small area of landscape fabric, between fence and some soft Boxwood shrubs.

Whatever, I am laid out on this cross now, and will climb down from it briefly to change the soaker hoses if the pain level allows.  Otherwise, I will turn off the spigots and return to the cross of physically limiting pain, the mattress that so much of my life is lived out upon, and will praise God for yet another phone call from someone making some important decisions on major purchases for home as well as the email message from a spiritual friend reporting some crucially disappointing news but also asserting her courage in going forth with what will be painful medical procedures.

God provides!  He gives us answers always.  His will be done, not ours.  And I am certain that He also will replace this hermit's mind with His Mind, bit by bit, for I have need of His Wisdom and Thoughts, His Ideas and Insights.  Mine are sluggish, uncooperative with His will, blurred and foggy in vision compared to His View.

The Living Word has been uplifting, as usual.  The other day Jesus spoke about by whose authority, for he was asked that, accused, really, by those who felt He did not have the authority to be saying what He spoke.  It is all very good and reminds me of some temporal aspects in which some might get caught up in similar criticism, questioning if this or that one has authority for this or that.  It is all rather silly, and Jesus makes it quite clear, the issue of authority and Whose authority authorizes.

We really do not need to get too worked up over much of much.  Other than...

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Let us love God above all things and one another as Jesus loves us!  

Catholic Hermit Shares Message from Jesus

Does not seem often that Jesus speaks aloud, within, so clearly.  Or perhaps, in actuality, it is not often that this consecrated Catholic hermit is listening closely to His Real Presence.  So many distractions of the temporal world can interfere if not watchful, listening, waiting within the recesses of the mind, heart and soul.

So yesterday, after reading another homily of Pseudo-Macarius on detaching from the distractions of the "world" so that one can choose to think of God, be in God, the hermit thought-flashed its apologies that it struggles with  discipline and will to cut loose from the distractions.

Then the hermit broached in the interior conversation, the recent attempt to pray daily the novena prayer attributed to St. Bridget, one that is said to have been given her by Jesus to pray.  A friend had sent the brochure with the seven-paragraph prayer, each covering a different aspect of Jesus' life and Passion.  One is to pray the Our Father and a Hail Mary prior to praying the words of each paragraph.

This hermit go through four of the seven.  With each, there was an appreciation of the aspects of praying for forgiveness and to improve in areas of life such as giving up sins of the heart, sins of the spirit, sins of the body, and so forth.  But the hermit found itself re-reading and back-tracking sometimes mid-sentence.  Just could not keep the mind focused!  

Ah, the hermit decided to try again the next day, then the next.  And it was this failure to successfully read-pray through a lovely verbal-mental prayer, that this consecrated Catholic hermit bemoaned its guilt and lack of discipline.  How sorry!  Why was it that the hermit delighted in and had the will and discipline--even to cling to--these forms of prayers when it first converted to the Faith 21 years ago?  What has happened?  

In this vein of thought-flashing conversation with the Lord, the hermit proceeded to apologize and self-chastise.  Then through the silent din within of its conversation, the Lord spoke:

Just talk to Me.

Ah.  So simple, so pure, so loving, so honest, so understanding is His Real Presence!  Just talk to Me.

Perhaps He is pleased with the banter, after all, that the hermit puts forth in stream of consciousness, interior converse with God, with Mary, with various saints, angels, and souls known and unknown to the hermit who lived and died and live again in fullness of Light on the other side.

Just that morning, when the young helper and the hermit had a most difficult time unsticking a blade in a tool so we could change it, the hermit had interiorly prayed to the patron saint of tools, whoever that might be, to please help us.  Instantaneously, the blade mechanism dislodged, freeing the effort.
Prior, when we searched diligently for the blade we wanted to install, the hermit asked Little Child Jesus to help us find it, and prayed that aloud.  Lo and behold, the blade was found in an unlikely spot.  "Thank You, Child Jesus," the hermit cheered, but then a rude aside, "but why did You take so long?"  And then an immediate, "Sorry for being so rude, Jesus!  Thankful You helped us find it!"

The other day a friend's husband could not find a swimming pool leak.  His heart is doing poorly, and going under water, holding his breath, caused some frightening, bodily symptoms.  "We need to ask the Prophet Jonah to help your husband," suggested the hermit.  The thought had just popped to mind. Of course, it is the Holy Spirit Who pops these ideas to the fore.  We just have to snatch them out of thin air and put them to action.  "He certainly knows about underwater experiences.  Three days he was in the belly of the whale, and in reality is an archetype for Jesus' three days until resurrection.

Three days later, the friend emailed with much excitement.  That day, her husband surprised himself.  He found the leak after three days of underwater searching.   While he scoffed that it was in answer to requesting Jonah to help locate the leak, attributing it to another silly Catholic superstition (his wife is Catholic; he is not), he did say he appreciated the prayers, all the same.  That counts!  

His wife and this hermit thanked the Holy Spirit and the Prophet Jonah.  No doubts in our minds.

So the brochure of the prayers purported to be ones Jesus asked St. Bridget to pray and promote, remains on the floor here by the mattress in this fixer-upper, Te Deum Hermitage.  The hermit has decided to review the main points of each paragraph of worded prayers, to get the gist.  It has asked St. Bridget to please pray these verbal prayers on behalf of the hermit, as they are lovely prayers, and beautifully worded, but somehow the hermit cannot keep focus when reading them.

The hermit is going to just keep talking to Jesus, telling Him all, sharing all, asking all, loving all, and listening to all that Jesus has to say to the hermit, day in and night out.

"Just talk to Me," Jesus said.

That's good.  That's real.  That's profound.  That's the truth.  And that's simple enough for this tired out old hermit with work galore to try to tend to the prayer requests of others and to keep renovating this fixer upper it got itself into, to be able to pray with full and sincere body, mind, heart, and spirit.  Praise God!

Catholic Hermit on Call

One must strive to exist in the Order of the Present Moment, to go with God's flow.

Am in civilization until another day, on call to help out a person asking assistance.  It happens rarely, and yes, it is difficult physically especially when the pain is at the upper echelons.  But there is a goodness in making the effort as well as a goodness in being asked.  There are physical benefits, as well, such as being able to have a hot shower, a bit of human conversation, as well as being immersed in others' way of life and their perspectives, needs, and environment.

This consecrated Catholic hermit has been so slogged into the temporal dregs of existence and the temporal aspects of pain recently, that friends out there far beyond, have been uplifting the hermit with prayers and words of encouragement in emails.  The hermit is reminded just how very much aspects of temporal life, of that which is below, can hinder the mind, heart, and spirit from seeking the things of God and seeing His Beautiful.

The hermit's will is obviously weak, and the physical pain reduces the mind and emotions to lessened ability to perceive what otherwise could be overlooked.

A child mentioned that its two cats that love him dearly, have lately started to ignore him when someone else comes around.  The cats, he says, go to the other person rather than loyally sticking by him and playing.  So he said he had stopped playing much with his cats, since surely they did not care that much for him anymore....

An adult made some comments that rather wounded the emotions.  Then a parent made comments regarding the child, regarding how frustrating, and why does he not just do as asked?  Why go against what he is told, when it would be so simple to just do as asked and then have the time to play, and so forth?  The child's choices and ploys were getting to the parent, just as some of the adult's comments to the hermit had gotten to the hermit.

Then the reminder came from what the hermit had been reading and realizing as insights from His Real Presence and the Living Word just last week in the daily Gospel readings at Mass.  Do not be of earth, or below; seek that which is above, be with God above.  And, the hermit remembered what it was already noticing in its own life when the temporal fought for the mind and heart and spirit's attention, sucking it back into the below, into the dragnets of the temporal--and not of that of the temporal which leads and assists us to seek the things of God above and to find God's Beautiful.

So the hermit mentioned to the child that his cats were playing "mind games" with him.  "Don't let those two rascal cats get away with it!  Just keep playing with and loving them.  Don't let them pull this over on you or get you to think they do not love you as much as they always have.  They are just being little 'kiddies.'"

Then the hermit mentioned to the adult, the parent, to keep a sense of humor and not let the child play "mind games" with her.  Pull the bluff with the child. Pick and choose the issues to confront and the ones of which the child is seeking a childish reaction or attempting to get the parent's "goat."

Then the hermit reminded itself to not let the comments of others to get it down, to pull it back to the temporal and to self, and the self of the temporal aspects that stymie and do not lead the hermit's mind, heart, and spirit to the things of God.  And keep trying to not let the temporal pain remain in the temporal aspects that seem hopeless and so ravaging as to deplete the hermit and cause it to let down the armor of His Real Presence.

None of the comments, the bits of "mind games" we human "animals" play even if we do not mean to or realize, or the perceptions we hold from the past, of the temporal, are going to matter much.  They are what they are, and we can ask forgiveness for things we have said and done no matter how they were perceived by others.  But mostly we just have to keep existing by the grace of God in the Order of the Present Moment and go with God's flow.

Probably the best thing to seek of the things of God and His Beautiful, is His Perspective--His View. And the View of God--God's View--includes very much His View of His Created Temporal as it pertains to being treads and risers on the Stairway to Heaven.

Now, one last evening of civilization and temporal duty calls.  The consecrated nothing Catholic hermit will drag its very painful physical body up and out of bed, make some supper for the child, drive him to a baseball game, and painfully sit and stand--down and up and up and down while watching the child play the sport, giving as much full attention in the temporal yet with the fullness of body, mind, heart, and spirit seeking God's View.

The previous baseball game a couple evenings ago featured an unexpected event.  A young boy who had been skateboarding in the park nearby, fell and sustained a serious arm break.  The bone was broken through the skin and muscle--plenty of blood and excruciating pain--and onlookers galore. Thankfully, a man guided the injured boy to a bench and called paramedics, and then notified the boy's mother.  It took quite awhile, with the baseball game getting started amidst the ambulance and fire truck and medics working on the injured child, to get him stabilized in order to place him on a gurney and off to a hospital.  A break like that is quite serious, including the shock that occurs. Spirit, emotions, mind...into bodily reactions, and then return through the process:  body, mind, heart, spirit.

The consecrated Catholic hermit, a nothing to all but all to God, prayed for the child and watched the ballgame.  We are all, always on call.

News; Efforts; Perspective

For now continue to keep up with the news, online.  One station, video clips, not all, mostly headlines--this gives enough of the grasp and details for praying.  Still wonder if not knowing would do as well.  But this current approach seems helpful so as to not become too caught up in self.  Is an occupational hazard of the human condition, perhaps enhanced by social media.  Those living alone can be particularly prone.

Mark did not show up today.  Finally called, and he said he thought this nothing was to call him.  No, last conversation ended with "See you Wednesday"...but let it go.  God's will.

Someone had emailed in the early morning, asking about mindfulness.  Nothing Catholic hermit wrote back, explaining the Order of the Present Moment, mentioned the Nine S'.  Recommended Br. Lawrence's classic, Practicing the Presence of God, and de Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Sacrament of the Present Moment).

It is to that reminder that His Real Presence prompted the nothing hermit to take it well that the help was not coming today.  So decided to start the process of measuring and very carefully boring 2" holes through some studs, with very little space in which to do it.  Crawling under sink in that base cabinet, used the corded drill which a clerk had recommended for better power.  However, it jammed and whipped back on the hermit, wrenching the twice-operated-on shoulder and whacking the side of the hand.

Read something quite poignant and painful of a woman's past:  a fourth child and only daughter, born years ago with a major birth defect that then was not treatable.  Their princess died after five months in the hospital, never able to be brought home.  So was thinking of this little angel, and also of the anguish it would have brought to the parents.  Over time, the mother grew to understand the connection with her daughter, and what a special gift she is, across the veil.  The mother offers now to share her angel in heaven, as she has come to pray and ask for assistance from this precious soul.

When the painful drill-whipping occurred, this nothing began sobbing and thinking it simply could not do this overwhelming work!  Too hard!  Am too old, too tired, too weak!  Thoughts turned to the older woman, and her long ago birth of daughter.  Suddenly began sobbing and feeling it a kind of sobbing in kind with the woman, for the anguished tears she must have wept many times over when her baby girl was born with such a dire defect.  One can only hope this nothing felt some of that great hurt of a mother in losing an only daughter in infancy, never having her home--five months in a hospital, then death.  

Somehow, all these aspects develop a sense of perspective. Called Raphael, and he said to use the battery drill--that the corded one is too powerful with those large hole-boring drill bits.   Am not strong enough to control a corded drill when it jams and whips.  He is sending a helper tomorrow for the heavy work-needs here.  Sensing the support of the new friend in heaven, used the battery drill and bored the holes through which the new sink drain vent system will run.  Had to stop when realized need yet another size of hole bit.  So it all has to wait until next trip to civilization.

And all of it seems very small, somehow, compared to today's world news, and in thinking of an only daughter--or any child--being born with uncorrectable defect (at least then).  All these construction frustrations are a very small bag of worms, indeed.  The higher-again pain level today is but a small matter in the full spectrum of suffering humanity. The Order of the Present Moment comes to the fore, once again; and the body needs rest yet, so as well Mark did not come.  

Found it interesting in reading the more detailed book about Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, that Teresa expressed verbally to others and in writing of her wish to not have to live.  She longed for release from this life, this earth, the world.  Yet, she lived out her life, seeking God's will and loving Him beyond measure.  She did what she was to do, her work, even though she suffered chronically.  Could so totally relate with her feelings and the words with which she expressed them.

God works all things to good for those of us who love Him.  Trials and tragedies sooner or later radiate the blessings and spiritual growth tucked, always, in them.  Just look for them immediately, as that saves us a lot of upset.  God provides for us in the details large and small, in the present moment, without fail.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love--and weep, rejoice, and share with--one another!