Catholic Hermit Reminded by God: Wake Up!

The Lord is shaking me a bit.  Extreme pain does it, and I'm grateful!  I needed to be awakened to seeing how I have become sucked into way too many temporal problems and issues.  Out of balance--and balance or stability is crucial in my hermit life.  In fact, stability is one of the Nine S' by which I try to live out the Gospel Rule of Life.

And do I live the Gospel well?  I'm not convinced, no.  I have many flaws in myself to keep working on--much as I keep plugging away at the manual labor in Te Deum Hermitage (aka hovel house).

I awoke this morning with one of the worst spinal headaches I've had in a long time, maybe a few years.  Can't recall as I tend to forget about the steep pain sieges as soon as they lift in intensity.   So I had some choices to make regarding how much crushed Excedrin to take, pain med dose, and whether or not to take a med given me for when I really need to be sedated a lot.  

I opted against that, for it seems best to try to cope, to try to get up every now and then to do some small task.  Mobility and distraction is good for helping the mind handle extreme pain.

And to throw oneself all the more to the mercy of God!  That is what I do (and I suspect a lot of people do when the pain stakes reach a critical high).  

When in such pain, the sensitivities become acute and keen.  What I sense, I sense all the more clearly.  And there is a greater desire for being alone with God and away from any relationships or situations that pull me more into the temporal problems and issues that honestly are best handled with prayer and prayer alone.

I must laugh because I let the wood pattern in the hickory floor get to me.  I finished it late yesterday (slowly installed over four days' time--a record for slowness!), and when I stood at the doorway and looked in at the impeccable installation as far as carpentry goes, I noticed that I had matched wood tones and hues and grains in such a way that I had created STRIPES in the room!  And with the pain level already higher, the stripes seemed to be all I could see.

I tried dubbing the small room the Zebra Room.  That was humorous.  I noted to self that my reaction was worse due to pain, and when I'd be resting on the living room floor, the stripes in my mind seemed more pronounced than when I'd need to get up to get water and glimpse in as I passed that doorway.  

It is amazing what pain can do to the body and mind.  Not only can it distort something not worth considering or being bothered, it can also be a sharp reminder of what is priority and crucial:  turning all to Christ.  For pain can cause a lack of inner peace--serenity, another of the Nine S'.  The effect can be like a storm blowing through, causing chaos and disruption.  I consider the terrible mudslides in western part of this country--such chaos and destruction from rains penetrating earth bared by forest fires.

Then I sent a message to someone who emails now and then--quotes of various types.  I commented how one such set of Will Rogers' sayings are particularly excellent.  The person sent back information of being on a spiritual journey as well as physical in helping to construct a monastery school in a South American country.

That turned me all the more to Christ--recognizing my work of prayer for others who are able to go and do unhindered by temporal issues that have rendered them disrupted and in unhealthy, disordered cycles.

Now, I realize I must not stop praying for those with personality disorders and are absorbed in psychologically unhealthy situations; but I must stop being distracted by them nor to try to react and respond.  Sometimes we do have to get to a point of knowing there is nothing more we can do for others than pray; and to clear the mind and emotions and soul to be receptive to other prayer assignments that the Lord wills of us.

And also to be open to what is within our own minds, hearts, souls--our temporal and spiritual existence--that needs prayer and conversion, of ourselves.

Last evening and a bit this morning I wrote to some expressing my gratitude for their tolerating and understanding as much as possible, what pain tends to do to me.  I was able to clear the air, so to speak, and to resolve all the more to simply keep going, to simply pray through the pain and to beg God's mercy upon my soul.

But as for allowing people with their own issues being frustrated with my way of being and seem to be compelled to try to "fix" me or "fix" my current temporal style of increasingly living not only in but by the Order of the Present Moment, I must decline.  I must increasingly live in the Order of the Present Moment with far more faith than what I have exhibited.

And to pray for all souls, and to remember that my reacting to various issues going on about me, is not productive for anyone; and prayer is always productive for everyone.

Catholic Hermit: Shiftings

There has been tremendous shifting occurring in this post-resurrection time period, awaiting Ascension and Pentecost.  As a consecrated Catholic hermit, the vocation is shifting, the daily balance is shifting, the mission and purpose shifting to heightened focus and awareness.

It has been over a week since the last death throes of my own will.  I yet am to write about the death of one's will; but in the meantime, the shiftings in the here and now have produced a different configuration of the waking hours.

This morning came another message from a spiritual son who has an amazing spiritual awakening occurring, requiring contact with me, this hermit who is a stranger to him other than in matters of the spiritual life and his soul.  The interaction extends in the present moment from dream interpretation which evidently is very helpful to him, praise God--to other aspects of his own shift occurring, from the secular world, from a temporal degree pursuit, to coming to a vocation as a monk.

So there is response asked for, by him, and more email discussion. It takes earth time to message insights from within, from the will now God's and God's will informing the intellect.  And I admit, there is adaptation and adjustment necessary--even to the time it takes this hermit in human slowness of fingers on the laptop keyboard, trying to keep up with the thoughts presented that may be of some assistance to this spiritual son.

Then there was a phone call.  It is the biological daughter, and so the hermit must shift into mode not so spiritual in orientation but God's will of assisting at the more temporal level, emotional level, and all the same of critical need and importance for the daughter who needs to discuss situations with her young son--all aspects of letting him learn in life by increments, requiring of her letting go by increments yet also dealing with her own feelings and frustrations.

It was an hour of listening, or more--and of inserting little encouragements as helpful, and reading her situation and emotions with God's will and His informing the intellect with wisdom, in what not to ask or comment upon.  Mercy, yes!  This is quite a bit of shifting from how my own will informed my intellect, only ten days ago.  

It still seems strange and even eerie in some ways, yet also filled with humor and joy to realize how much easier life is when the will is no longer mine and the insights are informed by God's will into the intellect--not my intellect calling shots often enough off-mark or laden with wounding and wounded emotion, memory, understanding or even the senses.

So there are many shiftings of the soul with the death of my will and the filling in of God's will and all that affects in one's soul, thus emanating out and into the temporal realm.  The other day came an email from a spiritual daughter who had not been in contact for over a decade.  Good news!  Part of the prayer request has been answered bountifully.  Praise His Real Presence for immense favor granted!  His goodness has bolstered a young couple.  Now to keep praying for them to conceive a child!  That is always a most delightful prayer favor to ask and anticipate.

Yesterday a phone call from another spiritual daughter, this one a known soul for some time, and she had a quiver-ful of arrows in her spiritual life to discuss--each with temporal targets necessary in her daily experience as wife, mother, and striving soul.

In the past ten days or less, my daily schedule here in the hermitage in my mortal body, has shifted, as well.  The mornings are spent with responding to the spiritual children's emails, and then the lesser-occurring phone calls that can take an hour depending upon the needs of each caller.  Even the biologically connected (including a biological sister but also an email from a spiritual sister who has been carrying quite a burden, finally shared with much compassion and many prayers needed) are spiritual "clients" so to speak.

Then, the bodily pain has been its usual challenge to manage, and so the mornings are spent with prayer, praising, listening, responding to whatever His will stirs into the temporal mix.  The mid-afternoons bring enough energy over the bodily pain to head outside to continue the tasks of weeding and seed-planting, praying and listening, and often reflecting upon the daily Scriptures as well as whatever and whoever the Lord's will brings to the inner vision.

While the old memories of how my will and intellect reacted to situations, including bodily pain, can be recalled, there is not the emotion as I remember of the reactions to situations.  Now, that is a blessing but yet it feels joyously odd.  Different.  How blessed is it to have one's will die and be replaced with His will!  No matter how painful the dying process, the rebirth is worth it.  There is such freedom and rightness to it, and there is not the drag of how it had been before.

I want to share a portion of a message to the spiritual son that perhaps will make sense as a metaphor or image of how we are to allow God to drive our vehicle in the journey of life, the spiritual journey, of letting Him take us from one point to the next.  I will locate it and post.  And then the Lord will will this body out for a shorter bit of manual labor, as the Lord is monitoring more the balance of efforts spent commensurate with the amount of pain tolerated temporally.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love God above all things and one another as ourselves and as He loves us!