Catholic Hermit: Another Snafu

Lots going on here.  Still very ill but not inclined to try another trip to civilization and the cost of lung xrays as I'm on an antibiotic and will let it run its course to see if improving, for an xray would only show if anything that I need an antibiotic.  Cannot afford the expended energy as it is needed for rest and healing; and I cannot afford the high costs of the medical realm.

Well, the end has come for me here.  I got yet another Lenten challenge yesterday when able to walk out to mailbox.  My Fed tax bill has come, and rather than far less than last year's all-time high bill,  it is over double that.  My finance advisor and friend had thought it would not at all be higher but less.  We were wrong.  

And, so the time has come that I have just three or so months to clear out.  I will need to rid out my possessions and hopefully get the stairs in, at least.  Then I must sell as is which means a contractor or such with cash who will give me a smidgeon of what it is worth finished.  It is an irony that I am nearly 90% finished, but with this four-week thus far illness, my work has come to a standstill.

It is the finishing work that can take longest as it needs to be done with precision, and the spring is upon us.  The grass needs mowing and already is so high that it will take two pass overs at setting the wheels high to begin with.  The gardens need to be cleared from fall and winter.  I am not yet well enough, but I think this morning I might be a tad improved. I've thought that before, but nothing to be done but wait it out and keep on these different antibiotics.

The young man that Daniel had lined up to help me a Saturday per month, I've had to put off twice due to the lung and sinus crud. He can only come this Saturday as he then has sports events from here on out on Saturdays. He works during the week.  I'm not sure I have enough for him to do since I have not been able to get the stairwell finished for installing the stairs.

The weather does not look as if going to be possible to do yard work that day. I do have some furnishings and other possessions upstairs that he could maybe struggle to bring down the ladder, as I will need to get rid of things either by the dump or selling.

I have decided upon a lot of possessions going to the dump as I can do that myself and quickly and for less money than I could do with yard sales or item-by-item listing.  People here tend to say they are interested but do not show up; the wealthy give away lovely possessions or for not much since money is not an issue for them.  

So the used market is terrible.  I'd pay more in hiring help to get together yard sales and monitor, and more energy haggling with people who want things for free or very little, that time, energy, and finances make it more sensible to dump the little items.  It is too costly to take things into civilization to donate, and a lot of the items are at a point of being boxed for four years as to not be that worthwhile.

My financial friend and advisor reminds that this is far better than having twenty minutes to clear out with the shirt (would be my pj top!) on my back.  I have a couple months barring more unexpected high bills and ridiculous medical charges that copay is not covering.  I must get a larger truck or make a couple trips in my own which might be best, and get what few items I will take and get into storage.

I will take the family heirlooms which are all practical and functional: bed, drop leaf table, a couple end tables, a small Victorian sofa, a mirror, a dresser my great-great grandfather built in his woodworking hobby, family photographs, some dishware not in great condition but old and memorable, and very useful--and my books.  I will take the boxed books as I do not have time enough to list online and sell, and they are rare Catholic books, many out of print and obscure titles and subjects, for the most.

Then, what small items and a lot of my little business venture supplies I will take to dump.  What larger furniture pieces I will try to sell even though I'll get very little but enough to pay the dump fees and to pay someone to help me hold the stair stringer boards.

I emailed my adult son who is on the mortgage and let him know.  I was not going to yet but a long time friend thought he should know due to his being on the mortgage.  He responded not warmly but this morning sent a kinder email even hoping if I got an x-ray that it would shine light on what is the problem.  Well it is sinuses and lungs, and as I've written, a lung x-ray is not on my docket for now.

He says I should stay and finish, as to sell out as is even so close to finishing, would bring me next to nothing. He said not to worry about his being on the mortgage still as he has a year's lease to go.

Mercy, he does not quite grasp that I am out of money even though I stated the details.

I will not be discouraged, and I will respond to all with love and acceptance. I have learned these truths this Lent in ways I've never learned before. I've wasted so much time and energy and upset in my life, not having learned nor having the grace and discipline to react otherwise.  It is all a process, and God gives us the grace when He wills and when we are at a point of truly listening and doing so.

There is yesterday's Gospel that addresses this in clear terms. Jesus explains how He knows from His Father how to be and do and say. I realize we learn this, also, from the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit.  I don't have the Scripture right now to cut and paste but later will do so.  

I had never seen it so clearly until now, and while I'd read it before my financial axe-news came, and while I was in shock for awhile over the outcome and accepting that God is letting me fail in this venture that is only temporal regardless, this morning it is all clear to me the more to respond only in love, acceptance, praise of God, gratitude, and be not discouraged.

Last evening I let some wealthy friends and a couple family members know what had occurred and the outcome I must face, no one offered a leg up.  There was some advice in getting rid of things, and an offer that I could come for a week to visit and check out one person's area, and another is mailing me stamps as I am out and need to mail the vehicle insurance bill and too ill to go to post office still.  So God is not offering a patron to provide a little sum enough to tide me through for a few months more or even until spring.  And that is fine.  
This other is the more of a challenge, and my life is filled with amazing challenges. I do think that I had become proud with the thought that perhaps I was actually going to finish what has been an amazing effort considering how much pain I am in, how many obstacles, illnesses, mishaps, and all that I had to learn that I never knew before of construction, plumbing, electrical and so forth.

Well, I'll finish the second day's coffee; I make a pot to last two days' worth.  And that will help the remnants of the start of spinal headache; I am going to attempt going outside and see how the head manages, stuffed as it still is, but the coughing seems less.  I will see how my legs are, as I've been down long enough to have to take time now to build the stamina, and I must not overdo and backslide.  Head is kind of dizzy with sinus, as it does for anyone.

The Gospel of John 5 contains these words of Jesus that seem so appropriate as a working plan.  Look to Him to see how to be and do in daily life.

"Jesus answered and said to them,
'Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
for what he does, the Son will do also.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him everything that he himself does,
and he will show him greater works than these,
so that you may be amazed.'"

We can see what God does through Jesus.  We can see how He loves, how He reacts in situations, how He is assertive yet always humble, purposeful, firm yet gentle.  He responds with love even if the love requires truth that stings or cuts into the heart of matters.

There are many facets to see what God is doing, through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.  It is all love--the facets of love in varying aspects and lights.  When we see and follow some facets of what God does and how He does them, He will show us yet more about love, to learn how to do more.  We can learn so much from Jesus and as He says, "Follow Me," and "Go and do likewise."  

What God does is amazing.  Yes, we will be amazed.

Catholic Hermit Prays for Healing Water

Still quite ill but yesterday and today am seeing hints of improvement.  Friday was wishing I could be in a hospital receiving care and nebulizer treatments for the lungs.  Yesterday morning hope was weak; but the Lord knows I need much patience, and thus another Lenten lesson for this phase.   The coughing is a bit less although am unable to be up from the mattress other than to get hot ginger water or heat up soup to eat, returning to mattress to do so.

The couple who brings Holy Communion each Sunday morning is away for the month.  There is no one else to call upon here, but increasingly this has been a good aspect of my hermit life evolvement to rely increasingly upon the Lord in tangible ways.

Yet, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is truly a disappointment to God in my weak living out of a more fervent spiritual life.  Somehow the need for distraction is keen--perhaps in offset to the financial stress and daily hardships and of all the mountains of work and renovation mess ever tangibly visible.

So the past day I watched more YouTube movies and a documentary.  I chose British films, and those which are ponderous, beautifully meaningful and of people sorting out relationships and coming to the essence of love despite imperfections and the effects of sin upon all humans.  The day prior I coughed nearly non-stop, wearing out the back, the lungs, and concerned I'd crack some ribs.  

Then despair thumped on me a bit, taunting that I'd not likely finish the renovations or be able to sell yet this summer.  But I recognized the one thumping, the devil, and I turned to Scriptures and a couple more pages of St. Bernard's first sermon on the Song of Songs.

The Scriptures I began reading (besides the daily Mass readings) are the Book of Proverbs.  St. Bernard recommends a reading or re-reading of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes before continuing on much with his sermon reflections on Song of Songs.  However, I am dabbling with both, for yes, I lack patience and become eager to taste more of what Bernard has to teach about love of God in Himself and love of others as God loves.

As I read the first few chapters of Proverbs, it came clear to me that while I desire to live a holy life, I now lack the discipline I used to have, or at least had more spiritual discipline, it seems, as I do now.  Perhaps I am very tired, or else I appreciate the diversions and distractions of temporal visuals and accounts of people's lives, as most of the films are versions of real life experiences and of lives lived historically and most often triumphantly in the end, despite great obstacles.

Then I come back to this place, this time, this experience, and I realize I have not done anything terrible lately, although the Holy Spirit and my angel Beth remind me of times past that pop into the conscious, in which I chose to do things out of weakness or in desiring to fit in with another, to be accepted, I suppose, in a weak way.

 Well, a friend has suggested in an email that had I not tried to work so much when the daughter was here weekend last, I'd not have needed the antibiotics.  Rather, I have concluded it was my pride and desire to be as many others who are able to throw off sinus and lung infections with home remedies and over-the-counter medications--most able to continue off to work daily.  

The friend is like that--keeps going to work, resists going to a doctor, even thinks antibiotics are harmful in some ways to the body.  However, we do tend to know our bodies, and I have not been one to throw off sinus and lung issues without antibiotics.  In fact, the times I've put off getting a prescription, the longer and worse I have been ill.  I should have gone to the doctor sooner than later, this time; but I don't think it will go on for a month as it did two years ago when two courses of antibiotics were finally required.

So pride can get in the way even when ill, and cause us to be our own undoing.  My lungs have nodules in them as it is--not malignant at this point but can become so, I've read. However, for now, the benign nodules are most likely from residual lung infection, and I consider the month-long illness two years ago to be the culprit--as well as the living conditions in a construction zone.

My spiritual father wrote another letter.  I so cherish them.  He also observed the mournful tone of many priests and of those in other programs on EWTN.  He suggests, though, that the mournfulness has to do with the serious aspects of human lives that are revealed to the priests, and surely it would take much faith and loving union with God to rise beyond the horrible elements that people confess, day after day, and that priests take into their ears, minds, hearts and even their souls.

Yet, I maintain that I had become mournful, myself; and I still wonder if an element of mournfulness is learned or taken upon oneself, as a type of way of being that is promulgated by example over time.  Or perhaps there is a certain attitude, affect, and external posture that seems to many how it should be when speaking of God or celebrating Mass, or that seems more reverent and holy?  Maybe being in front of a camera heightens this effect, or being in front of a group?  

I don't know, other than my spiritual father and I agree that there is enough of mournfulness and love of God and being a Christian and Catholic ought be not grave but celebratory and brightly lit with promise and hope and faith and much, much love.  

I recall Elizabeth of the Trinity's clarion call, resounding St. Paul's "praise of glory!"  I consider my own motto, given me by Mary and the Holy Spirit a couple decades ago:  Just adore Him!  This was not stated to me in mournful tones, dragging out the words as a dirgeful and adagio just... adore...Him.  No, it was spoken to me triumphantly, with a tonal upsweep, spirited delight, and staccato simplicity:  just! adore! Him!

Today's Gospel reading has several spoken lines of Jesus that intrigue me.  This one I also desire very much for myself, as I've been drinking hot ginger water and Vitamin C enhanced water, and I'm still needing the temporal body flushed clean of illness.  So I will just adore His Living Words, beginning with these recorded in John 4 that Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the site of Jacob's well, and that He speaks to each of us every day that we read or think of them:

"Everyone who drinks this [temporal] water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst;
the water I shall give will become in him
a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Yes, I do so much want the water Jesus shall give me; I thirst for it and promise to drink as best a human can drink the ethereal, the numinous, the mystical, the spiritual and yet be so utterly and imperfectly human.  In faith, though, the living water of Jesus will truly, somehow, become a spring of water that floats us into life for all eternity.

There will be no coughing in heaven, no nodules in lungs, no sinus infections, no need for antibiotics when home remedies do not suffice.  But the water Jesus gives us to drink in essence of His love and providence, of the spiritual realm and spiritual purpose, will provide for us all that we require.

God bless His Real Presence in us, and praise Jesus for the water He offers to give us!