Catholic Hermit's Been Too Harsh

Well, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit responded earlier to one correspondent, and I mentioned that the person is imprisoned, is in prison.  It is a reality for various reasons, but the harshness of the term "prison" created a sense of sadness.  Or, at least the person reacted by becoming sad and wrote back, detailing how it is in her life, and that it is easier to not ruffle the human jailer's feathers, so to speak.

I also had not answered the question asked me earlier as to how to pray contemplatively.  So I responded, also trying to explain more about our own imprisonment and of being jailed and our own jailer, often enough.  I am to myself, truly; and I intend to live free in Christ.  I must.

Yet, in my response a bit ago, I could not yet bring myself to not respond.  But I must begin easing off my own imprisoning my mind, heart, and spirit (and a good bit of temporal time given us by God) in dealing with temporal details of prison life, for we are to think of God and of things above, not below.  Increasingly I am becoming sickened and wearied of things below; and this is a good thing!

I simply offer my response, for it maybe explains if any readers are having thoughts or questions about the various unhealthy marriages of which I have mentioned we need to seek and carry out divorces, to free ourselves from temporal prisons of which we've handed over God-given present moments, sometimes for years, to temporal jailers be they persons or thoughts, emotions or spirit.

Dear Z,

i suspected I may have been too harsh, too realistic about your marriage and S's daily harassment of you over small details.  Like not eating his pasta, your reading, your faith, your breath, your work, your gardening, your everything.  It is sad that he picks on you to that extent, but the reality of it has helped me realize today a lot about myself and spiritual progress.  Plus I have been helped by watching a documentary on the evolution of Brian Wilson's (Beach Boy musician-genius composer) great songwriting giftedness.  

I started to think about marriages in general--not just man and wife marriages, but my marriage with bodily pain, and how I do things in various "marriages" such as even my vocation, that are not freeing as well as aspects in my life I could simply stop doing. Like the negative thoughts in the morning, or my hindering myself by my own imprisonment to various types of my own "marriages" of my thoughts, emotions, and even my spirit or soul to details of daily life that are not freeing and not holy.

Then a young woman wrote an email of her frustrations, and I realize we all are kind of prisoners when we don't need to be at all!  Most can't easily get a divorce such as you from S, or R from her anger and frustrations that often are triggered from her past, or me from my body's union with temporal pain.  But we can rise above.  We can remove--divorce--ourselves from unhealthy "marriages" of thought, emotions, and spirit.

I am writing in my blog of these things.  There is no point in going over the various details of our frustrations, such as I have written a lot about my pain or renovation frustrations--all that stuff.  I received some ideas from Brian Wilson's integrating his observations of another song producer, and that Wilson then made a progression toward better music, better songs, and became a truly great artist.  I have now the insight that this pattern is very much for me or anyone to implement in the spiritual life.  This is the necessary God-pivot, once again.

Of course, the answer  to your question as to how to pray contemplatively is to ask the Creator of Contemplation to give you the grace of contemplative prayer.  A great aspect and condition of contemplative prayer is to not be thinking of or distracted by things below but to allow the thoughts to be lifted to that which is above the daily trials and temptations, the daily frustrations and details.  It is to free ourselves from the prisons we are in, and especially if we have just handed over the keys to earthly jailers. 

I did that when I gave certain priests or monsignors power over my being welcome at Mass or not, or when I agreed not to go to parishes if the priests did not want me there simply due to a mystical gift.  I submitted to what was not a holy request on the part of those who are supposed to be holy--but in those instances they were being unholy.

You have given over power to buy an excellent spiritual book you'd like rather than face your jailer's anger.  We do these things to ourselves, and then rationalize that we have other books to read, or whatever.  And I'm not saying that is a bad way to look at it; it is just how you've learned to react rather than to endure your jailer penalizing you even more.  I do similar in various ways, within myself, and at times become the jailer and the jailed, all in one prison! 

I give over power to pain in a negative way, or do not rise beyond the trials of the glitches that occur in construction efforts on this hermitage.  Even trying to put a frame around the small cellar opening has required more efforts, purchases of a special bit, and may need a more powerful drill.  But to dwell on these aspects of the temporal are bondage, not freedom.  When I God-pivot all the temporal details, then the soul is more free to wed Christ and produce beauty, truth, and goodness.  

It is even in such thoughts of God-pivoting that we find the seeds of contemplation.  When you free yourself from the belittling and control of the jailer to whom you've submitted all these years, and can raise your thoughts beyond him even at home, not even needing to go to adoration to do so, but within yourself where His Real Presence has set up His Abode in you, and then you set it up in Him, then that will be planting the seeds of contemplative prayer.  

It becomes the prayer once we divorce ourselves from human bondage by others and by our own thoughts, distractions, and frustrations from temporal details and trials.  And the more we are wedded with His Real Presence even if all around us is a prison of sorts, temporally, then we begin contemplation for we are no longer prisoners within as well as without.

I hope this helps!

Love in His Love--and start by freeing yourself from the reality that I mentioned, that your marriage is prison, for it is, but you can free yourself by your thoughts, emotions, and spirit marrying His Real Presence,.  S does not need to know a thing about your freedom, for he is a pawn more of the temporal for now, God bless him.  

I have to face that I have been in a bad marriage with my physical pain, allowing it to keep me imprisoned with emotions and thoughts that I have also allowed to affect my waking moments onward; or I allow imprisonment to this temporal dwelling instead of viewing it as a place of spiritual, creative growth and enforced manual labor that is positive and births marvelous insights from God.

Our temporal mental, emotional daily, distracting details really don't matter; it is our God-pivoting that matters.

Catholic Hermit on Unhealthy "Marriages"

This may seem an odd topic for a consecrated Catholic hermit.  But conversation, email-style, continues regarding issues of unhealthy marriage.  And, in my own prayers and pondering (as just a bit ago when picking produce) the thoughts turn to some marriages of which I am aware, even of my own, short-lived relatively speaking, and years ago.

In most marriages in which the "dance" of disease has gone on for years, it is unlikely for there to be change unless each party desires to work on it, recognizes the unhealthy aspects, and may decide to also get some outside assistance for ideas and accountability.  Unless both persons are spiritually in tune and brutally honest, used to doing examinations of conscience, a third-party, critical viewpoint is necessary.  Even then, we have to accept others' perceptions and the facts presented as they see them.

Perhaps this is why spending much time writing about or listening to or reading the woes of unhealthy marriage situations, is rather a cycle of frustration and spent energy.  It also is very sad to repeatedly hear or read examples in daily life of long-held, negative relationship habits.  

But I pray for the persons.  Yet I realize such topics keep my mind, heart, and spirit tethered to the spinning wheel of a cart that only stops when one or the other of the persons married, dies in some way or other.

And then I consider unhealthy marriages from another standpoint. I consider it with situations or any
"wedded" thoughts or habits.  Like married couples who are imprisoned by one dominating the other with control, and the dominated one then dancing to a tune that has gotten the other to give a reprieve of some sort, we each may have a disease "marriage" or several, going on in our lives.

Yes, while out picking fruit, the fruit of the thoughts about the futility of discussing, reading, and corresponding about the woeful details of a diseased marriage dance--the fruit of the thoughts turned to my own temporal marriage with pain.

It is not difficult to consider being wedded to pain, especially this morning.  The pain is quite dominant now, despite all the efforts to quell the argument pain is trying to stir in me, to dominate, to imprison.  I must consider the coupling of pain as marriage, and then I turn to how Jesus wed the cross.  

He wed the cross prior to His crucifixion.  He wed the cross any time there was a conflict, a confrontation, an attempt by the devil using others and situations, to wed Him to unhealthy situations be it with people or things or thoughts.

This is the third morning in my acts of will and praying for grace from God to stop the diseased "dance" my mind and body and emotions have with high-level pain, my body and mind stripped of natural endorphins and awakening chained to a temporal spouse named Pain.

I consider it no different than those who have shared with me their imprisonment in their relationships, or imprisonment to their being wedded to perceived or real childhood abuses of one sort or another.  How easy it is to blame another who by this time in our lives may be miles and decades away, or even passed on to the other side.  Yet we remain married to the diseased dance we do with that or who is no longer alive in any shape or format, in this present moment.

Now, a living, actual spouse who has controlled someone in even small matters over the years, is a present moment reality if he or she continues to manipulate and oppress the other.  And a situation such as chronic pain even if for decades present, is yet present in this moment.

The real crux of such unions is to face their reality and to see how foolish for us to remain imprisoned to such spouses--human or otherwise.  We have wed them, or they have wed us.  We agreed to it, in other words.  And we allowed the manipulation and diseased aspects of the relationship to continue as we respond or dance with the diseased parts in ways that we've developed as rather pathetic coping mechanisms.

Perhaps this is why Jesus' telling us to think of things above, of God, rather than of that which is below, is the key to unlocking the cell doors to our marriages, to our unhealthy, wedded habits.  Yes, even if married to a human, if the marriage is unhealthy and at a rather terminal point if both persons do not want to heal the issues, to stop the diseased dance, we can free ourselves by thinking of God, of shifting our thoughts and emotions and spirit beyond the prison cell we have locked ourselves into on earth.

We can try little ways, also, in the temporal reality, to change our bad relational habits.  And by relational,  I mean how we relate to people, thoughts, nature, things, and God.  That is what I am attempting by changing what I think about upon first waking, each morning, with high level pain, my companion in this lifetime.

I am stopping the dance of unhealthy thoughts.  I pray for those in human unions, a spouse or a friend or family member, that we take our thoughts, emotions, and spirits beyond any type of relational disease or imprisonment.  We can recognize that we have given over power to such unhealthy "marriages", and the only foolproof way out is the spiritual way, the way of Christ Who Is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Sometimes the situation we are in has us imprisoned to a point that we cannot easily discuss Christ or any aspect of the spiritual--at least in spiritual terms.  Then we must do what is even more freeing: operate utilizing the interior senses, the interior Spirit, the deep abiding Source of His Real Presence Who Is within us, as we are within Him.

I admit it made me quite sad this morning to have someone share with me that the person has to ask the earthly spouse for permission to purchase a book!  The spouse said, "No!"  Why?  It was because the spouse determined that the other had not been "nice" to him that day.  Such disease as this and more examples than what anyone could stomach knowing about, occur in people's lives daily.  

Just as it has occurred in my daily awakenings with my marriage to physical suffering.  Now, Jesus wed the cross, and He did so with freedom.  His cross did not imprison Him.  He did not allow it to dominate His Spirit.

This is what I must do, also, by His grace and power and might, by His wisdom and lived example, by His Spirit.  I must stop the cycle of the unhealthy aspects of my union with temporal suffering.  I suppose this includes not spending time reading about nor advising those who are imprisoned in an unhealthy spousal relationship of which they have allowed matters to go on for years.

Other than, as for myself, repeat and remind as Jesus taught us:  Think of that which is above, not of that which is below.  As for buying a book or not, just buy it; don't ask permission.  As for dark thoughts upon waking with too much pain, just stop them; don't let them take up space or time.

Catholic Hermit: Correspondence

Some days, quite a bit of prayerful thoughts and writing go into correspondence.  Currently, a challenge for this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is to not spend much time if any in responding to question or advice asked regarding temporal decisions.  

(Ultimately, discussing many details of temporal decisions in daily life is not at all what we are going to be worrying about on our death beds.  My mission is of the spiritual for others, not the temporal details that we can figure out, or if not, really won't matter.  Live and learn: we learn by making decisions on such things, ourselves.

If it is something dealing with a relationship or how our spiritual lives or the souls of others are impacted, that is different.  So it is that the other day I spent time responding to something written to me in an email, that also jiggled what is necessary for my own soul.  Perhaps it is good for anyone's soul.  It is another aspect of spiritual combat, of dealing with the devil--by not dealing too much, not dallying with every little skirmish of the devil but moving on with God-pivoting quickly and effectively.

I'm going to share some of what I wrote to the one who asked some advice.  The topic was of making a temporal, rather mundane purchase, at their phase in life.  I share what came out of the thoughts partly because it is a good reminder for this most spinal-headachy-hermit this morning.  I can easily think too much, write about (in the more rare verbal encounter) mundanities or decisions quite temporal and which could be handled effectively (and prayerfully, always), then let go. Free our lives for the spiritual, for thinking as God thinks, for that which is above, not below!

"Dear Z,

"I think we need to do far more God-pivoting.  If we know we are under assault, that is one thing; but we must not keep our attention on the things that show up, for there are going to be many every day.  We can even start looking for them, and why look for the devil?  So it is one thing to recognize we are in spiritual combat, which is really all the time; but it is the next and only holy step, to turn to God, to pivot, and learn to easily cast off the devil's involvements.

"This morning (my prayer started yesterday) I tried to make an act of the will to not wake up and have my first thoughts be how I wanted to be dead...and then thoughts of dismay over the workload here.  But the main trigger is the physical pain, waking up like that.  However, the habit of wanting to be dead and waking up with that thought, I need to try to stop. See how we feed ourselves on more of the devil just by our own choices of thoughts?

"So let L. go.  When you wrote that she said the house they are in has room for a garden and chickens, she did not say they HAVE a garden or chickens.  And people often talk aloud or share plans they have for travel, but things come up that they change their minds.  So we have to just let those things pass by and not make too much of it in our thoughts, or build more of a case against the persons involved, for what good does that do us, anyway?  What good does it do for you to have more negative thoughts, or to now be looking for things that might not be true or seem like stories made up, when it is just people thinking about plans they'd like but then changing their minds?

"I read a bit more in St. Teresa's Way of Perfection.  It had to do with suffering and sticking with the spiritual life, and realizing that those people having to be out in the world or being in both worlds, like parish priests have to interact with both the temporal and the spiritual--that it is very hard for them and to pray for them, and someone like me should be very thankful to not have so much to do with the world.  Good Lord, dealing with Lowe's cabinet order errors is more than enough for me!

"So we have to get our minds in more positive thoughts about God, as that is the God-pivot we need, to think of things above, not below.  It is one thing to recognize who is behind a lot of the stuff [the devil], but we also have to recognize that sometimes, like with me, my own negative thinking needs to be changed first thing upon waking, as example.

"Regardless of any of it, what good does it do me at all to think about it, to compare or to go over the issues that come up?  I need to learn to God-pivot a lot faster. It is all right to share the problems that come up each day, but I think it will be better for us to share the problems but then God-pivot to how the problems got solved, or how we dismissed the problems, or changed our thoughts from negative to positive, even if people are doing things wrong.

"And that is something for us to consider, that some of the devil's tricks include getting us to think too much of what the devil is doing, and not God-pivoting fast enough, so that some of what we do or think, then, is from the devil's influence and getting us to be negative ourselves!"

[I spare readers from four, too-lengthy paragraphs of comments and considerations regarding temporal issues the emailer had asked me about or mentioned.  I used personal examples to try to relate back with how we can try to overcome, but also I wrote details of how to solve certain temporal aspects that, truly, are not worth sharing and were not worth writing to begin with!  It has nothing to do with the soul; what matters is our spiritual progression. 

[So this is another thing I must learn as a consecrated Catholic hermit but perhaps more so as a Catholic Christian mystic:  stick with that which is above, not with what is below.  If something temporal is asked, answer simply--once.  The correspondence that responds to too many temporal details--a prayer instead would work wonders.  We don't do others or ourselves any favors by dwelling on temporal decisions or problems.  Who needs to know more of the cabinet glitch saga?  Lowe's manager is now doing his best to solve errors, I think, hope, and pray.  I must practice the God-pivot in the ordinary details of life.  Think as God thinks, for ourselves, and others:  Love and Mercy!]