Catholic Hermit: Hermit Present Moments

Dear friends in His Real Presence, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit has been living the present moments with the usual, human strivings for virtue over the typical flaws and vices we face.

I've been in civilization, helping out with watching a young family member while the father was away on a job interview and the mother went to teach college course.  While there, the pain level peaked so was in bed quite a bit but thankfully able to do the driving to get the child where needed to be for activities.

The Lord provided quite a miracle and answer to prayer while there. Hopefully I can write about it this evening.  For now I'm returned to the hermitage.  I must take advantage of daylight hours to continue installing bathroom cabinets and to use the power saws to cut window trim boards--facings and casings.  This morning I ordered the bathroom door.  

Even with all the time spent on leveling the bathroom floor, the cabinets, although new, are not perfect.  Nothing in our temporal world is perfect.  We humans do our best, and even with machine precision, there are shifts and juxtapositions and imperfections in anything material.  We can either grouse about it or can rejoice that it gives us more opportunity to fine-tune what we are working with and that others' hands have worked with prior to ours.

When using a hole cutter bit on the power drill in order to cut holes for the vanity sink drain pipe and hot and cold water lines that poke out from the drywall, the drill flipped and wracked my right thumb a'plenty.  The tendons are over-worked as it is.  So it started my thinking in terms of how amazing are our hands and how useful a blessing they are in our lives.

God grant success to the work of our hands!  Today I will pray for those who have lost hands or were born without hands.  And, I will pray for those who invent and construct artificial limbs and 3-D hands and other devices that help people who are without limbs.  God grant success to the work of our lives!

More, later!  As ever, God bless His Real Presence in us!  May we all love one another, little children, in this terrible time of terrorism and mass murders in various countries around the globe.  God Is Love!

Love and Service

The pain is lifting some, although it never goes away.  It is all good, for the body rests while the mind, heart and soul rest in His Real Presence and gain perspective, refreshment.

Have written to some spiritual friends, some thoughts, and answers to some of their questions, and gratitude for some of their marvelous insights.

Reflected upon the spiritual father reminding that the family members have their own issues and troubles, their relationships and lives to address.  Yes, this is so.

Today was also reminded of some times in which this nothing had not been so thoughtful of its own mother.  Wept and apologized, soul to soul, today at one point.  It is a blessing to weep in remorse and to know the other hears and grasps, forgives and loves for where the other is, is more light than what we here experience on any given day.  Jesus has mercy!

Later shared e-laughter with a message to a friend of 53 years whose insights are cherished.  Christianity and lives lived are a good basis for encouraging one another.  The friend emailed that am well experienced with handling pain of all types.  This nothing responded that we in our lives had our years, our times and places, to become adults, to be spouses, parents, friends and to do it in the way that seemed right to us then.  

Did we ever criticize or think our parents were not quite as trendy or adept as us, when we were in our pride-stride in our twenties and thirties--healthy, privileged, successful, good-looking, educated, and surely (in our minds) wise beyond our years?  This nothing certainly did, mostly in reaction to things said, or in thoughts.  Ah, how smart we were...not.

Well, we each--the friend and this nothing--had our physical health compromised about the same time.  The friend through a stress-related, debilitating virus that affected immune system, heart, and left chronic pain and fatigue.  The nothing through a debilitating car accident, divorce, surgeries from which there was no return to life in the world and career and with children as it had been.  We were in our early thirties.  Mercifully, we were humbled and saved some of the finding our places, climbing the world's ladder.

But yes, this nothing recognizes that others who criticize and snap at times, are signaling they need more space, or that they have stressed, or that they have desires for their own lives that have to do with their peers, and others who are in their current places of career and parenting and being wives and husbands.  It is all understandable.  And this nothing's role is to love unconditionally and to pray and to serve--this latter when asked and when wise and prudent to do so.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another, as we are all little children; and let us love God, for He Is Love.