Maybe it's been a dozen years, but I went through a Flannery O'Connor phase of great admiration. I loved reading the volume of her compiled letters, plus then read more of her short stories. Reading someone's correspondence is such an intimate experience; we gain a deep sense of the person through their every day encounters and personal sharing with one other through letter-writing. Today it is emails....
I'd written down this quote way back then, on a small stick-em note. I kept it in my late grandmother's leather wallet that my mom gave me before my mom passed. I have used that wallet every since. Only recently has some of it worn out, and with it, the top portion of the quote was worn down, leaving off the first line.
With the convenience of Google, I could easily locate online the quote. I will write it on a small piece of paper to stick in the wallet. Somehow I just really resonated with the words Flannery wrote to the novelist John Hawkes. (She also used the line in one of her short stories; or else had written it in the short story first and then used it in correspondence to John Hawkes.)
I felt and still feel, especially after another day of being down on the floor other than a couple brief ten-minute stints up, trying to wash out some bathroom shelves and stuff "stuff" out of sight and in organized manner. Various over-the-counter meds, eye drop meds, prescription meds, wraps for injuries, Band-aids, tooth paste, and all the myriad of items we use not often but yet have on hand for our bodily needs, in various seasons of climate and life.
Trying to manage severe pain when unable to be up and moving about to distract from the pain, is maybe akin to having to work out dramatically what it would be like to live without faith. This pain is perhaps akin to paying for my faith every step of the way. Sticking with the pain as it sticks with me relentlessly, and sticking with the Lord and His Cross as my only means to endure.
I have no idea if it is the weather currently that is exacerbating the already precariously high pain, and the pain causing blood pressure to go up to a point of discomfort, or if it is the deteriorating lumbar condition, and the resultant nerve pain, nausea from radiating pain, muscle spasticity in legs, weakness in legs--but still can stand up and walk without falling. However, pain was high enough today and nausea bad enough, that I continued to be "down for the count."
Surgeon still is hoping I could get at least one bone density treatment in, but I was told today again, to present to ER if things get to a point I cannot manage. Thankfully, after two meds for nausea along with the usual meds, the gut has simmered down some. The next big goal is that the pain doctor is very much wanting me to be able to get to that appointment first thing Monday morning. Only God knows....
So here's the quote of Flannery O'Connor. I am renewing in mind and heart and spirit, the friendship I'd developed with her from reading her letters and other writings. She certainly suffered, but she wrote what was published and stimulated people's faith through fiction. I continue to not write anything of published substance--not published anything for many years.
I cannot consider this blog or any vlog to be organized in a substantive way, for this is more sharing of the daily life of a consecrated Catholic hermit who is also a mystic and Victim Soul of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I keep praying for more discipline and to focus better in some writing effort that the Lord may desire of me, but I continue on more dealing with the effects of how it is to try to endure such pain as what is occurring in my body these days.
Here's Flannery's quote. I absolutely find her words to make total sense with also the positive of being truth and inspirationally encouraging.
"There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not." ~ Flannery O'Connor
God bless His Real Presence in us!
No comments:
Post a Comment