The sinus pressure and vertigo is still a problem. While I'd like to be able to continue with some manual labor, the fatigue remains. I did get a too-stiffened brush to the pole barn and into a glass jar of paint thinner. It has been a month since I've used it; normally keep it moist in foil so can re-use it without each time having to clean it.
Wrote another letter to my spiritual father--this one more concise than an earlier one, and more direct in asking him for insights in what I mapped out of this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit's "next phase." Of course, the next phase begins in the next present moment; but the sense of things remains to take more shape as I continue to rest and wait for the Lord to lift the sinus pressure as well as my energy level. Need far more energy to continue the manual labor so as to finish here and sell. I'd hoped to be done by now--but November was lost to pain sieges and February and into March with this illness.
Last night I used some frozen tomatoes from autumn gleaning of garden; I added what is near the end of rice and used the last can of black beans. With some garlic and oil, and some cheese thawed from freezer, it was a delicious meal that was repeated this lunch. The frugality and clearing out of the pantry, freezer--God is providing a type of "good work" necessary as I will not have to rid out some staple foods, later, when moving on.
The sense that has come to me in these more "mindful" days (not the fog that has been for the past three weeks), is that of God directing my path and giving me this time period of mostly inactivity to absorb and adapt at least mentally and emotionally to what is unfolding as His plan forthwith. Yet more signals from God in the form of communications from people and situations, help me recognize and accept.
People are sorting themselves out in terms of who is a spiritually able contact with whom I can be more "myself" even if they are not mystics. Then there are those contacts with whom I must remain strictly and briefly in temporal arena; these do not grasp nor want to (even if they've seemed to be able to cope in past). For these latter persons, the Lord through various means including the persons themselves have shown they are not comfortable with a mystic although even the term alludes them. Or sometimes if they are familiar with the term mystic, they cannot grasp that this person they know is one, and to be able to tolerate and accept the different way of being and perceiving from how they do.
Reviewing and reflecting upon the various contacts I have--mostly those who contact me for I am here for whomever the Lord brings in whatever format--has been most helpful. Clarity of the "groupings" emerges more so each day this Lent. It has been specific, actually. And this is helpful for the persons who are going to be contacts regardless, such as some family members and long-time friends who would not fully remove themselves until my or their deaths. I know how to switch into their modality of understanding and communication, although I must admit it is "work"! It takes a lot of energy, focus, and creative mirroring to converse and interact on the rare occasion there might be an in-person visit. Email and a phone call, even if rare, must be kept to the more temporal (yet loving, of course) aspects of their lives and their needs.
It may seem odd that a consecrated Catholic hermit ought even consider altering the approach and essential being for certain persons. Yet, the outcome the Lord has been showing me in vivid detail and magnified in number this Lent, helps me know why this is best for these others. I can grasp their lives because for so much of my earlier life had to be lived in their "world", so to speak. Then I did not even realize what a mystic is, nor did I grasp at all that others were not perceiving the same. So I did not understand and mostly did not have to, why some looks or comments or even humor from others. And, in the earlier years of anyone's life, much is standardized and normalized within one's family, school, activities, and for some church, that all partake in and keep us busy. When young, many of us are surrounded by those who live with us, love us, and grow up accepting because they are so used to us always having been as we are. Yet always there is the sense in a mystic of some other aspects within, even if we blindly assume others sense the same.
Besides people sifting and sorting into groupings (none set in concrete, of course, but for the most part remain intact), and the ways in which I must adapt myself in the contacts when they do occur, the Lord is showing me a yet more defined path in my hermit vocation, with the goals broadening such as I've tried previously to express. The broadening involves all aspects re-examining and embracing areas such as praying, viewing temporal and spiritual events, persons, things, the Trinity, and the virtues especially the theological-- faith, hope, and love. Especially love.
Viewing yet another film on St. Hildegarde de Bingen and various other films that grapple with mostly issues of love in the human spirit--quite helpful and insightful. Our guidance from God comes, as I've mentioned, in innumerable facets both temporal, tangible, spiritual, numinous.
Within Hildegarde's monastery, there were many styles and ways of the individual sisters' living out their vocations. Yes, they are all "religious sisters" of the Benedictine Order; but even so, the Lord formed and led them in their uniquely individual forms and ways that He willed for them. So it is, increasingly with my life as a consecrated Catholic hermit. And the major acceptance I must make is to embrace the Lord's will--not what I may think or have noticed of other hermits' lives of the past or otherwise nor of what or how others are following their vocations as they, too, are being guided by the Lord and their respective spiritual directors.
Whatever unfolds, the Lord allows to flow unless we balk, or try some other way. The balking is worth noting, for balking hinders as much as trying some other way than what the Lord has opened up for us. He most often opens up for us through situations; it is not all that often that a spiritual director has a definite "way" but also is inspired through situations. And the situations are considered through the true lens of prayer--prayer of the hermit and prayer of the spiritual director and prayer of others who are close either on this earth or on the other side.
I do enlist the aide and ask the prayers of those on the other side, in heaven and also in purgatory. These souls are immeasurably helpful, willing, able, loving, and true.
I've wanted to be able to dig around the book boxes in the pole barn, as I've desired to read some letters written by St. Teresa of Avila. I don't have anything specific in mind from what I want to gather from her letters; perhaps it is that I want to be with her more closely in taking in her words of practicality with much faith and love of God. Rather, though, the Lord has provided these films online of Hildegarde--two films (one foreign) and a documentary; and this is from one online source of films. I'm sure there are others.
I have the sense of things regarding Hildegarde that the three films are sufficient in what I absorbed of the translations and words of those interviewed. More, now, is allowing the Holy Spirit and Hildegarde herself to give me insights and inspiration as to the way in which my life as a contemporary mystic and consecrated Catholic hermit must flow now and each moment after whether on this earth or not....
While I get tempted to frustration in knowing there is so much work yet to finish this hermitage and get it sold, and best time of year to sell is nigh upon us and the family member wants repayment sooner than later, the lingering illness that so fatigues me is as God wills. He is working out the sense of things within my mind, heart, and soul--and I know, too, in my body. His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven!
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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