Today the Home Health Nurse paid a final visit. Progress--at least in not having health professionals coming to the house as much and now barely at all. Only have the physical therapist once a week--much needed yet. Now I'm being told (and research substantiates) that the exercise limitations and movement restrictions will be for 12 weeks, at least. I certainly do not want the bone fusion to not be firm and stabilized.
The Lord continues to work in my body, mind, heart, and soul. He can affect and inform me in unique, unexpected ways. Once more, for the seemingly thousandth time, I am going to strive to not use writing as a means of distracting from pain. The same goes for talking, such as the brief and rare times I speak with anyone, especially in this recovery period; but it is in general, that I speak little. I'm considering it to be unnecessary, much of what I might say, particularly when it is to distract my mind from too much pain. Better to take pain meds if the pain is that high.
(The nurse today wondered why I was lowering the pain meds but then answered his query--"You are just doing it on your own." Yes, I experiment with lowering the meds to a point that I can then, by God's grace, handle the level of pain, for too much medication can make a person drowsy, although rest is helpful in healing. It has to be a good balance, a beneficial balance between being able to manage pain and of needing medication to help with that management.)
I am continuing to delve into what I can call "Hermit Honesty." I desire to be genuine as a conscrated Catholic hermit; and part of being genuine is to be honest--to know myself well, to not deceive myself, and to be honest with self and others.
In all honesty, much of what I write could be written with fewer words. This includes what I speak such as a phone call last evening from someone far away. I find that this mind creates an image or can also recall in detail a scenario, and then the words begin to describe one or both or repeat words spoken or read, to that same detail. It is unnecessary; once again I am honestly thinking the detail of much of the written and spoken word that comes from me, to be unnecessary. I'm praying for discernment of description, content, and length.
Last week I wrote of the escapism I'd slipped into by watching and dozing on and off through a series of programs live streamed through my hermit's window to the world: the laptop. Then over the weekend I was drawn back into it one night when I could not sleep as had tried to stop one type of pain med that I take only at night now. I knew the next day and next, that I could not retain much and was still in enough pain to do spiritual reading beyond the Scriptures.
However, today I sense the ability to pick up again, to try again to lower pain meds plus attempt some additional reading. Yet, I can admit that there are various ways in which a person can begin to "play" with our choices. For example, I honestly can find some good gained from watching the series. But the good gained is minimal to the time spent; and I am wondering if perhaps I'd sleep sooner and for then longer in the night, without the series continuing on while I doze. I'll find out tonight, I hope. In another grasp at hermit honesty, I can honestly conclude that there are degrees of "good gained" in any activity or choice made.
I called the parish nurse today after finding out from the final Home Health Nurse, that their social services offering is to inform me of the various companies in the area who can be hired or put under contract to help people who are home bound. I cannot afford that, plus my situation is temporary even if a lengthy temporary. I only need an occasional assist with fresh produce brought in; I had stocked up prior to surgery with staples. I only need one or two more months of one-time to pharmacy to pick up my med refills.
So I explained a bit to the parish nurse, the situation of what happens when a consecrated Catholic hermit has surgery or is incapacitated for a length of time. Even though there might be one family member in the area, that person is extremely busy with 3 half-time jobs (one of them more than half-time), maintaining home, family, and getting child to various activities.
Plus, I explained something the physical therapist mentioned regarding children and adult children of a chronic pain disabled parent. There are various factors that affect children who've grown up with especially a single parent who is disabled by pain; when it goes on for years into the child's adulthood, there is a burn-out effect and a desire to just be able to live his or her own busy life that will have its own set of sufferings and painful aspects to contend with in daily life.
I then mentioned the term "extern" and explained to the parish nurse that externs are necessary for hermits, such as in a religious order such as the Carthusians who live their vocation as hermits but in a conclave of cells. Or hermits of yore had an extern--some one who would do the externals, who would go out and interface with the world when the hermit was indisposed.
She started to get the picture. I explained that in my vocation as a privately professed hermit, it my vows are not received publicly, not a matter of being received by a bishop. With my back situation having grown worse, I was not able to come to Mass much, and as a hermit I would not be, regardless, involved in the active life of the parish. So there is not a means of developing contacts.
What I need is a temporary extern or two. I will next summer, after the year of healing and recovery, make a move to another hermitage, a dwelling for this hermit, that will not have much maintenance and little to no yard or garden. She is going to work on this and call me back. I am reminded of the reality that there are few hermits in any one diocese and none in some; this is the first time this parish has had a hermit, and this hermit is maintaining as best possible--despite my own backsliding periods--to live it according to what the Church sets forth as pertains to the eremitic life.
In my renewed attempt in this new month, along with the Psalm yesterday that reminded me to "Sing a new song"--I've decided to ponder in writing, bit by bit, phrase by phrase, the sections in The Catechism of the Catholic Church that pertain to what I as a consecrated Catholic hermit, am to live and to be. I will strive to live and be all the more, a consecrated Catholic hermit, in full honesty within and to myself, and to you readers, in the anonymously written process.
For now, I will cite the sections 920 and 921 which are found in The Catechism under "Consecrated Life of the Church", and then: "Eremitic Life." In the next post, I will begin the dissection of all vastness in all honesty, contained in these few lines of relatively few words. God bless His Real Presence in us!
"920 Without always professing the three evangelical counsels publicly, hermits 'devote their life to the praise of God and the salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance.
"921 They manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One."
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