I'm sharing some of my thoughts in this morning's correspondence. Perhaps it will remind me of the working out of thoughts of the current transition and learning more of facets of a hermit's transition and growth into a deeper phase in seeking God. Perhaps a portion of this email sample will give a glimpse into a hermit's hope-in-God desire to express more of a hermit's life in doing and being: praise of and love of God in whatever daily life interactions.
The recipient of this bit of correspondence is much older, and I've admired in the decade or so of friendship across the miles, this person's many virtues, notably wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and patience gained from a long lifetime of many experiences. Even so, the friend joins with me in our each reading and e-discussing thoughts from St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, I.
Dear MK.,
I'm acknowledging as one parent to another, that the time we are able to spend with our adult children is so precious all the more due to it not happening often or for length of time. Then there are the good-byes and the transition; and for you, transition upon transition as you ease back into the evolving routine you'd tried to develop.
My crazy intensity from pain is slightly more under control. I was trying to be celebratory in spirit with you across the miles, and instead I had to consider myself more a "character" and oppressive "case" than ones I've been noticing with criticism-turned-to-
Trying to have compassion for oneself is not easy because it does no good to be too lenient, or the correction won't occur for next time (or on-going as is my situation!).
Your days of glorious interlude are worth savoring. I'd written on my blog a little about praise of God. (Church brief outlay for a privately or publicly professed hermit, either one mentions praise of God, not praise to God such as praising Him for things or favors.) I think praise of God is more something a person, a soul, learns or IS or does from within heart and soul--not so much a thinking of, for example, "I praise You Lord for giving me this or that." However, that type of praising God for what He does for us is may be like a stage of love in which the human loves God for what He does for us. I think that is the second degree of love, or third degree of which St. Bernard writes in his Love of God. The fourth degree, the highest form of love that St. Bernard suggests is the love of God in Himself--is loving God because He is God Who Is Love.
Perhaps praise of God is akin to that fourth degree of love, so something that develops within the heart and soul as far as praising goes. While it might seem to us something we develop; it is more a grace, of which our awareness and desire of praise of God and love of God allows us to receive the grace from God.
So glad you were at the [new, popular rooftop bar] with weather lovely again! Then on to [restaurant]. Catching a movie is all part of now memory of two days of get-away without having to leave the city limits. I've been considering per the narrowing of the path in transitions and this phase, that the travels become more interior.
But they can be just as fulfilling and delightful. Simplicity such as the highlight of love of two brothers and their mother is a major "trip" with warmth and lots of practical endorphins and dopamine boosts in the body, mind, and heart. Love it!
More fun than exercise, but my task is to consider walking past three houses plus mine and back, and then one or two houses on other side for total of five or six house lots--is FUN. Your half-baked routine is preferable to a fourth-baked or unbaked routine. I'm considering life now, in this transition, by degrees. Tiny increments: the PT said it is best to stay in a continuum, not in the peaks and then valleys of backsliding....
Yesterday I did water the potted trees/plants, though. [Young neighbor child] did not come to water the night before. I carried a tiny bucket of perhaps a half gallon or so, filling at kitchen sink so as to not make it more strain by lifting up from patio with the pincher-grabber tool. Walking back and forth with that amount of "weight"--5 lbs?--had the pain up; but I did as the PT said then, to offset it or at least know why more pain. I've not been doing the exercises that I think aggravate some, despite being good to strengthen the core. I'm not advanced enough, after she said my doing such as the little bit of carrying water or refreshing the ice pump twice daily is far more than patients attempt who've had even a simple laminectomy. I have to lower my expectations and do the walking and the leg strengthening step-ups using bottom stair and floor, 10 times each leg if I can manage 10 times. Repetition is important more than length of time or higher number or sets each time I'm up from bed.
Does my example of exercise help as metaphor in our spiritual ascent? Not how much, but is consistency and little bits more beneficial and pleasing to God? I think Sermon 3 [St. Bernard's Sermons on Song of Songs] might touch upon that only in that he warns to not over-reach what we are ready for. I am not sure I have all three "kisses" mentioned, but I grasp the two--and I grasp the point, I think. The soul evolves over time and through our life experiences.
I suspect we are each now good-to-go for asking for the kiss of His lips. We are used to penance, have been down on the ground prostrate or with our heads to His feet, begging forgiveness; we are familiar with penance--penance that comes to us as consequences God allows and penances that comes from us--our sorrows for what we know we've done and wish we'd not: sorrow for not only our sins but for our errors wrought from erstwhile, good intentions. I'll have to reread to consider the other "kisses" he mentions that are metaphors for other stages of spiritual growth and experience.
An example in over-reach on my part was my vow of consecration of suffering nearly two decades ago. Wrote it out and repeated it in [priest spiritual director] presence on Feb. 15, 2000. It is a full page of all I wish to offer of my suffering and my willingness to suffer all kinds and manners of suffering and for what purposes--for God, for His Church, for salvation of souls, for the world. Up until the island years I renewed that vow on Sept. 23, Padre Pio's death day and then feast day after canonization in 2002. During the island years when written vow mostly not accessible, I felt the vow of consecration of suffering spoke for itself without being read or repeated, given the circumstances in that difficult phase.
So when I read it the other night, having invited [spiritual father] to be here in spirit (and I dare say he sat in the chair across from foot of my bed) I wondered how on earth I'd come up with all that? And also I recognized yet again just how far beyond what I could possibly personally manage to suffer or to even fathom what breadth and depth of suffering could possibly come. Now, that vow when offered so many years ago could seem rather foolish, looking back. However the outcome is that God allowed the various types of sufferings including persecution from the Church which was quite painful; God nonetheless got me through sufferings I'd never conceived. The lesson, the outtake, I see, is that I don't suffer well, very much or what is beyond my human self.
But how will we grow and learn unless we offer--even seemingly foolhardy offerings-- beyond us at the time and maybe beyond for our lifetimes? God always has a safety net for us when we are genuinely well-intentioned even if childish (as I am often enough in my desires). He understands and has mercy when I have great desires to offer much--and much beyond what I can possibly, realistically, or well-manage in various aspects of managing.
But at least the offerings are my way of letting myself and Him know I'm willing to try. And maybe that is the same as when--on Monday afternoon in the stillness other than the ice pump humming by the side of the bed--I asked for Him to kiss me with the kiss of His lips. Asking God for union with him--even a brief union--well, why not? Even though beyond me, at least I'm telling Him I'm aware of it as a possibility. It seems a most beautiful and loving request; and even a humbling request seems better than never asking at all.
The asking of God and the offering to God at least lets God Who knows All, to hear my request of a sincere desire. He can smile back in loving pity and decline; He can say "Not now, not yet." I suppose He can even say "Never," but I don't believe God would say that other than if we asked for something not His will. It is His will and desire to bring us to the point of the kiss of His lips--either while we are yet alive or when we are on the other side, as long as it is not hell.
If I never dare to approach God with trust and familiarity, where does that leave me and what does that admit of me to God about me? Am I the servant who in fear or ignorant unawareness, buried the talent given me to keep it as is but without chance of increasing, growing, that which He imparted within me to bring about greater yield?
I suppose two points to remember are that of humility and mortification. HOW I approach God matters. If I approach Him with the attitude that I deserve something or am so experienced that I can handle on my own whatever comes, that will lead to disaster because my approach is all wrong, my attitude one of pride and of presuming I am better than or equal to His perfection and perfect challenges. If I approach with the sheer desire, delight and trusting willingness of a child--even with naivete--perhaps that is at least heartening to Jesus. Pride seems to be the deal-breaker in the spiritual life. Pride is in presumption....
I tell you, when I get up to as much as walk around the house, the pain spikes in my lumbar.... Washed a couple dishes and got a pan soaking in Dawn soap water. Then back to bed and the icy pad. I will try, try again today to get up more often and walk outside and do the exercises that are simplest for the leg muscles, plus the upper body. It will take Divine Grace and a miracle for me to like doing such exercises and for me to give the kiss of my mortal lips as a goodbye to the fun, project exercising I've loved doing in the past.
Love in His Love,
[Catholic Hermit]
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