More Thoughts on Transition, Writing, Mystic Mission

The time came and went with discussion this afternoon, on phone.  Some questions were asked, and I elaborated but went off on what I can call "verbal riffs."  Thoughts and ideas flooded through any filters or masking needed in most situations.  However, when we talk again, I did request that he just cut me off when I get off on especially past incidents of this and that, such as explain some aspect of mysticism, and then go into example of past that has various prongs and a point--but that point gets lost in the abundance of mystical experiences that enter into temporal life.

However, some aspects are established, such as no writing regarding hermits and hermit life as such, for that is not the essential or what the Lord desires of His purpose of me and my mission which is a shared purpose with all souls.  We are all seeking even if we do not realize this seeking--we are seeking our Creator and seeking His love for us, and our created purpose is to also seek to find God so that we can forever, fully love Him.

Part of what I mentioned, brought out by the question asked me of what aspects of mystics did Prof. Bernard McGinn's lectures on Christian mysticism did pertain to me specifically?  What was it of the information on mystics that particularly made me fearful in a way, or stunned all over again, that this life has been and is my life?  And the reality of the shock, I guess I could call it, although I've had to face this shock before, somehow has been brought into more clarity through the lectures and hearing example after example of the mystics lives that are what I experience and have going way back. It was even when young, comments made or a sense of reaction on my part to what was not so much spoken but known within, an instinct that there was a difference going on, that caused me to all the more as I got older to try to mask or to try harder to fit in with what I perceived were "normal" people who I so admired and still do.

So I told Dr. H. some of the ways and time periods of my going all out to be to my way of viewing self or as my parents socialized me or others through their positive feedback--that I'd put time, energy, and sometimes some expense into the effort; and this mostly after someone or other would make a comment regarding my being "different" in various ways that also affected me temporally.  I mentioned even a letter left me by the spouse who was leaving, a mention of my "mysticism" that unnerved the other.  I had not heard nor read the word before so looked it up in the dictionary.  

Regardless of this aspect the spouse had noted as a a reason for leaving, there were obvious choices and life style that the other had made all along in the short time together in the full spectrum of the years before and after.  But the word was out in the open, and my reading what it meant seemed very good in one sense, but the rejection involved provoked an insecurity of my self-hood and a time period of desire to be free in myself and how God created me, but also then to change somehow at least in outer effects, what was not seemingly acceptable or would fit in with the world of others.

Insecurity invites all kinds of others into one's life who try to help and have various suggestions and advice.  The one who has opened self up to feeling as if not acceptable to the real world of all the "normal" people begins to experiment in being other than self.  Yet, there is never success in that tact; there is only a prolonging of the inevitable finding what one is that God has created, and accepting His choice as to what He created, and then learning to grow in the security, learn, bud out, and eventually be fruitful in the purpose and mission of God's will for what He chose for us and finds special and dear to His Heart.

This is true of whatever God has chosen for any of us--the purpose, the mission, the circumstances and innate nature He bestows and allows in each soul He creates and brings into this world.  This is not unique to those He choses to be mystics with more mystic than less mystic.  As Dr. McGinn uses as example, all of us are on the continuum, the spectrum of mysticism.  God desires all of us to come to union with and in Him.  

McGinn mentions that of basketball--such as everyone can love the game of basketball, and most people can play basketball or if not actually play physically can enjoy watching from the bleachers or from television or listen on radio to games broadcast. But not all are going to be playing on the A-team, and even fewer will have exceptional talent and play on the pro-teams. He likens the mystics who are called to be the A-listers and pro's, to those whose lives are foremost as mystics, consumed with God and the union with God, the love of God, and the mission of showing others and writing of and talking of God and the spiritual life of the Three Persons of the Trinity and all else involved in God and the mysteries of God.

I commented to Dr. H. that in this period of major transition, I am all over again being shown by God my purpose and mission, but I also can see through some of what I wrote in past years, that I have not nearly kept focus on the purpose and particularly the mission.  I am upset by that and ashamed at the ways I have yet gone about in avoidance, seeking distractions and also continuing my efforts to fit in, such as especially to fit into the temporal Catholic world of parishes--to be acceptable as "normal" so as to be included by Catholic parishioners and priests, and even utilizable--even in some way as a mystic.  But the Lord kept having to allow circumstances in my life to prune me and prevent me from what is not His means and ways of His purpose and mission for me, which is not so tangible nor a fruit desired and edible to those who know me or in a parish situation or even diocese.

Dr. H. got that; he can see the phases of my life and the increasing pruning and to point of nearly truncated.  I have perhaps--we can hope in God and pray--accepted these matters, once and for all.  I am not going to know if I'm "doing" what God wills such as in writing, but he did laugh when one of the examples from Dr McGinn on a commonality of the Christian mystics is that they have a compulsion to write.  Dr. H. says he sure knows someone like that! But there are other aspects that hit home with me in the past few days.  

These creatures known as mystics (and of the more on-the-court types, the ones with more pronounced infusions of the category or "sport") generally go through the mystical derelictions, have episodes in their life of great suffering of various types, sometimes seemingly odd timing causing pivotal life changes.  They are intensely focused on God and the Church and feel deeply, as if they have become so subsumed as to be deeply injured and concerned with angst when there are affronts and wrongs occurring even if not noticeably, in the Church or priesthood, or among the worshippers.  There also are the many spiritual experiences--not a couple or so major events of God's reaching into a person's life in soul-altering ways--but many and varied examples of mystical graces that come unbidden, spontaneously, but mark the mystic.  

And while the mystical graces or experiences are signs, they are actually incidentals or ancillary to the mystic but cause problems often enough, among others. The mystics experience and endure many trials of spiritual and temporal forces and factors.  the mystics of these more extreme types are put through the paces in order to learn what is necessary for the mission they are given, and in part, that mission is as fruit for others, for the Church.  But mainly, I am realizing this evening as I write and have had thoughts come since the phone discussion--the mystic is to exemplify that of a love for God with intensity that other aspects of life will be set aside, even relationships that are not beneficial to the mission, or of what would be considered best regarding temporal Catholic world involvements. 

I commented to Dr. H. that I feel as if I have been a bench-sitter, not willing to get out there on the court and give it my all.  I've been a reluctant and passive mystic, despite the profundity of mystical graces.  Even my writing has been off-track on hermit topic, or drawn off in reactionary writing with someone other whose purpose was not as a mystic but rather as something other equally chosen by God and desired and willed by God.  

A mystic must stay in the position God created the mystic soul to live in this life and to play it with all its mind, heart, soul, and spirit--not be diverted or splinter off even if there are aspects given the hermit that can be misunderstood and distract.  The hermit life for this mystic is the means of custody for this mystic to be able to better fulfill its mission, not to be this mystic's mission.  Whereas other persons' mission might be the hermit life itself.

So when Dr. H. at the end of the conversation mentioned per my writing as part of my mission in what fruit I am to share and offer, he suggested I will need to learn to write in a way and with words that, as he put  it, the everyday person in the world who does not even begin to think about such matters would relate with and understand--he might have even used the term the average duffer or something similar.

However, that got my inner to consider what keeps coming forth that is telling me, no, you must be congruous, real, yourself, as I created you.  You do not have the energy now to expend on trying to write in some other style, or to use a vocabulary that is not given you through your temporal education, what does not come naturally to mind and out the fingertips on the laptop keys.

And more, I realized that perhaps what I write is for God, to please God, my whole self as fruit to Him and Him only?  Solus Deus?  I thought of a friend who enjoys fiction although also loves to read Scripture each day, has a prayer life of whatever level it does not matter, not for me to know, of course.  But she mentioned the title of a book--and she reads as many do for entertainment. I looked up the book as is part of a trilogy of which two more books are being sent that are eagerly awaited.  I read an excerpt, and all the more I understood the differences.  

It has been years since I lost appetite for fiction.  But these are best sellers, and a well-known author, but I was stunned by how I'd no more find interest or even structural artistry; the content seemed dumbed down somehow.  I realize that what people read and enjoy would be great effort on my part to write.  My bodily pain would not allow for that expenditure in that way.  Thus the thought came, the realization, that what I write might not at all be as Dr. H. has in mind--not for a broad spectrum of people.  What if the fruit God has for me to produce is a kumquat or gooseberry?  

At this point, as I mentioned to Dr. H. in feeling I've been a bench-sitter on the basketball team to which he said he was going to have the role of pushing me off the bench and fully into the game, I'd better just get to writing of whatever the Holy Spirit brings up in everyday life but with my assenting to all that God wills for me as a mystic.  I have shirked and shrunk for too many years.  I am ashamed and even concerned that I have not cooperated with God Who has been so good, so patient, so generous in the gifts both temporal and mystical.  

I have resisted passing through the mystic portal.  Even now, or recently, I ordered doors, windows, and oodles of flooring cartons that I will have to impose upon others to help find places to store them in the stuffed and messy garage (needs organizing), on the back patio, and in the house wherever we can make space.  We?  Well, I am not physically able to do much of anything at this point.  I'm not even that fit for writing, it seems when the pain is super high.  But more so, I have shirked the praying--unless my writing becomes as prayer in itself.  Perhaps sometimes.

I did read the poem to Dr. H. that I had forgotten having written in 2011.  Nor did I recall the other aspects going on then in which God was asking of me to pass through, to accept fully and agree to being the person He chose to create and wants of me--loves of me even if what I am is not understood nor that acceptable or valued by the bulk of persons.  That is all part of the plight of mystics in general.  But usually in a mystic's life, the mission part becomes pronounced, and God allows the fruit to grow and be cultivated, picked, and offered for whomever desires.  Mostly this is after the mystic has physically passed on from this temporal world.  

Even then, such as if the mystic in the compulsion to write and write, what is written might be tossed in a dumpster by whomever clears out the mystic's belonging after death. But the fact is, the mystic must give its all to the purpose for which God chose to create such a woe-begotten type and to give its all to God to fulfill its mission.  That mission continues to evolve here, now, with this mystic, but it must be authentically from within whatever this is of myself.  And it must focus on Jesus, take care of Baby Jesus, just adore Him and yet share anonymously in writing what evolves and unfolds.  

A mystic is to remind those who want to see the mystic spectrum and that we all are in a continuum of being on that spectrum, and that our purpose and innate yearning as souls is to seek God our Creator to love Him and be united in Him eternally.  The fruit is as all else with a mystic--really, up to God as to if it is picked up and eaten and enjoyed by others.  There is not just one mystic of the more extreme type at any given time on earth. And even the bench-sitter mystics might be called by the coach to become more fully engaged and on the court.  

All is God's will and choosing.  But I had better remove myself from distractions deceptively slight, and devote myself more to the practice of praise of God and prayer.  Even a mystic on the bench must attend and participate all team practices and do the necessary bodily and mental regimens that lend to successful outcomes.

God Bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic hermit, God's hermit: Awaiting What's Next

I read this Gospel the other day, of Jesus Christ according to St. John 15:18-20a, and since.  Of course it seems deeply meant for my soul.  Yes, I know it is meant for everyone.  But Jesus is speaking to me and desiring me to remember it beyond my mind and heart.  Remember the Word He speaks to me in my soul.

"Jesus said to [me]: '...If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.  Remember the word I spoke to you....'"

This is the reminder that I do not "belong" to that world--and He has for many years tried to get me to not only understand but also to accept.  That world is needful, good, His creation; it just is not where God wants me to linger.  It is not the out of the world where He wants me to be in order to fulfill His purpose, the mission He's given me from the beginning.

Years of preparation and progression, years of delights and trials have passed.  For years God has been patient with me and still would be--if the pruning and now this major pruning as if truncating my body to nearly a stump, were not sufficient.  There might be yet more pruning, though.  Who knows but God?

I am going to try very hard now, as I've made another acceptance--what I call a "full acceptance."  Made it at the counter on brief time up for cup of coffee this morning.  But who knows, truly, but God if my acceptance is actually "full".  I've made full acceptances before, and asking God to use me as He wills.

I feel sick unto death.  In other words, the pain is so sickening and now am so depleted with this major crucifixion of the  major transition, that I would like to die in order to be in union with God forever.  Sometimes the pain in the feet and the sensations, or then the heart pain, has me concerned that what is within will become external.

Tell myself not to be concerned; it won't matter whatever happens, not really.  I'm in transition and perhaps already transited.  Likely so, this.  Who could really know but God?

What I do know is that I do not mean nor intend to rile others, but I fear perhaps I have in writing even what it was that I needed to absorb that has helped me let go of that world and opened and understanding the why, now, of the need for being taken out of that world and transitioning to what is next, that I can grasp in the intellect and understanding but no further.  Again, only God knows fully what it is when chosen out of that world.

I've written emails today to those I must not pester.  Writing continues to be what helps me get the mind out of pain.  However, a thought as come to try not to write, at least not emails.  I am writing to those who are not going through this major transition, at least not at this time.  They have their own transitions, and my prayer is that of transitions leading to union with God in the very real and conscious sense of the mystical reality of Divine union with and in God the Father, through the Son, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

For this is what the Trinity desires of us.  For this we were created in the ultimate, eternal, mystical sense.

I'm trying, also, to not be concerned that this level of pain not continue, for being in bed most of the time for days on end, or then getting up and doing a couple or three hours of manual labor and then being down in bed for several days more--the practicality of such an existence is not going to be viable if it continues for a long time.

I'm listening to more lectures--not writing notes, not concerned if I do not remember details or even if the bodily pain or otherwise intrudes on the listening and the remembering on surface.  I trust in the Holy Spirit that it has come into the inner sense through the outer senses, and there is good the Lord has for me in such as now, some review of the prayer that is the mystics' contemplation of, with, God.

The writing must slow and be less until the time is otherwise, through the transition phase and when and if God has something for what is next.  In the meantime, if I write such as now, these bits and pieces, it is partly due to flight from bodily pain at a sickening level, plus such as the Word of Jesus, shared above from John 15.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit, God's Hermit: Joan of Arc; Still Simmering

Writing is such an integral part of my existence, including pain management.  The pain requires "activity" of sorts to help distract, but the pain also needs lots of rest; so the body needs to take many breaks and sometimes is in bed for days or mostly in bed over weeks, or now it's been over a year.  The type of pain over a year ago had more to do with the spinal cord increasingly being pinched off--nearly totally, plus the other nerves impeded and a disintegrated vertebra and bone spurs a' plenty.  All that is repaired, but the pain post surgery has more to do with the Adhesive Arachnoiditis.

So it goes.  Ordered some better quality B-complex that the pain doctor had told me would absorb best in the system.  B-complex plus separate, added B-12 helps with pain, as does Vitamin D in far more amounts than a non-pained body.  But I had some less-absorptive B-Complex here in Solus Deus Hermitage, and I like to be thrifty.  I decided to use up what I have before re-ordering the B-complex methylcobalamin. 

But I woke up this morning with the thought (brought by my angel or Holy Spirit or some caring being from the other side) in my mind of what might help the bodily fatigue and added pain.  I also took an iron supplement and am trying to drink more water as well as with plant protein powder.  I tend to not eat much as the body seems not to require much food, am more vegan than not--although I have no particular reason.  I prefer vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, grains; but I'm not rigid against eating meat or fish.  Regardless, it will take a month, perhaps, to notice improvement if some of this draining pain and fatigue is helped by the methylcobalamin form of B-complex.  

And yes, I praise God for being able to purchase vitamins and supplements of various types, and healthy food which tends toward a diet that is non-inflammatory type.  As I have quipped in the past and it serves a very good purpose and with some humor as I age:  We do our best with what we've got left!

Today is the 100th Anniversary of St. Joan of Arc's canonization on May 16, 1920.  Pope Benedict XVI  described her trial in May of 1431 as "a distressing page in the history of holiness and also an illuminating page on the mystery of the Church which, according to the words of the Second Vatican Council, is 'at once holy and always in need of purification' (Lumen Gentium, n. 8)."  

At the time of the trial the Catholic clerics had their minds made up to burn her at the stake in Rouen's [France] marketplace.  They were opposed to her politically as well as found her mystical gifts unnerving.  She died by fire on the morning of May 30, repeating the Holy Name of Jesus as her soul left her 19-year-old body.

In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI said of St. Joan, "...the Name of Jesus, invoked by our Saint until the very last moments of her earthly life was like the continuous breathing of her soul, like the beating of her heart, the centre of her whole life...with her luminous witness St. Joan of Arc invites us to a high standard of Christian living:  to make prayer the guiding motive of our days; to have full trust in doing God's will, whatever it may be; to live charity without favouritism, without limits and drawing, like her, from the love of Jesus a profound love for the Church."

I so love Jeanne d'Arc!  This morning I listened to Leonard Cohen's creation of the song in her honor, sung as a duet with Jennifer Warnes, including creative juxtaposition of art representative of the saint.  [link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtwUyDPXROQ].  In fact, I've been praying, asking Joan of Arc to help me find God's will and way for my embarkation to the New Direction.  She is answering my request, helping me today.

While the ingredients, per se, of the New Direction remain on "simmer", ideas are solidifying in the metaphoric slow-cooker.  Back up a day.  Yesterday I had a lengthy conversation with Dr. H.  I caught him up-to-date as best I could, on the CL603 dilemma I faced with the increasing lack of peace of the Holy Spirit that God willed what He had not desired for 20 years.  I'd answered in writing the questions had been asked.  But the major aspect for me personally, was the looming interview with a non-cleric that would be most difficult to avoid aspects of my inner life, my mystical experiences.  The lack of inner peace grew.

Thus, Fr. V. emailed and suggested I email the bishop and explain--share my "story" with him so that he might understand my spiritual predicament as well as the conviction and vision/locution and other reasons why all these years, living the hermit vocation without public profession or as a diocese hermit, seemed God's will and also was best for hidden life other than my anonymous writing.  Then, Fr. V. said, if the bishop approved of my living the vocation as I had been, or if not, I was to simply go forth living the hermit life God had chosen for me, and live it as a fulfilled hermit.

It took a day to absorb the bishop's response.  I repeated in my words in an email to the chancellor, to see if I was grasping the bishop's email to me.  Yes, I had grasped it, the chancellor replied to my encapsulation, to wit:  "I think I am grasping what Bishop means.  A canon law does not seem to be necessary; it does not validate a vocation.  It is but an official recognition, of which I do not need.  I must simply keep on living the life to which God has called me. "

However, there remains the turning point, the major shift in life phase that I've been sensing with increasing magnitude and inner energy--if not some inner angst. Through the trial, of sorts, of build up of canon law approval process and the growing certitude within that God wanted me to in essence choose Him over the CL603 "official" recognition, I was taken through a desert all its own, of great sense of loss and abandonment.  

I am brought to face the reality that I did not sense, do not--with increasing means over the 25 years of God's gradually removing me--fit in with the temporal Catholic world and not in parishes, per se.  This is difficult to explain, for yes, I am part of the Body of Christ, but my purpose and mission involves the mystical realm, and the Lord has been showing me by His withdrawing me in more temporal, tangible ways over time--despite my lack of cooperation.  Yet through various efforts all very good, of my offering my temporal gifts and talents to the temporal aspects of parishes and Church, the Lord always pulled me out although sometimes allowed what I'd offered to remain and continue in the corporal and spiritual works of mercy organized and developed.  

But sometimes not; in many instances the Lord allowed the efforts to dissolve, which I could not understand the why, which added to the upset.  Yet I would continue on, trying yet again, until the Lord had my angel show me to the Stairway to Heaven.  The mystical ecstasy during Masses began and remained no matter prayer nor temporal efforts, for the mystical phenomenon to stop.

Yesterday Dr. H. asked me why I'd be wanting to develop, organize, lead or set up others to lead various good works in parishes or dioceses, when I had this inner life and also was called to the hermit vocation?  I explained that I felt guilty, of sorts, that God had given me gifts and talents, educational background and skills, and I kept thinking it was wrong for me not to offer myself in that way to the temporal Church.  

Indeed, in one major instance that the Virgin Mary came to me in a dream and instructed me in a major outreach I was to organize and lead--and also in a couple of miraculous grants bringing huge sums of money to a parish school and soup kitchen--those kept going even though the Lord plucked me out.  Was a terribly painful episode.  I have not understood other than a penance.  Was soon after that the Lord made it known to me that He chose for me the hermit vocation--a vocation that I'd not have ever chosen for myself nor even knew much about at the time.  

Yet as I write this now, I get it!  For the first time in all these years, I realize the chronology: the soup kitchen the Virgin Mary had me develop and the grants written were prior to my hermit profession and vow; the other efforts afterward when I left the hometown and was called to a city, I was then in my  hermit life.  And while I had some assignments for God that I had to complete which brought their own trials and sufferings, the offerings in organizing and developing what would otherwise be excellent for parishes and the diocese--were oddly not allowed to flourish--and I emphasize oddly.  There is no other logical explanation why my efforts in offering temporal gifts, talents, education did not flourish after being developed, and not even being able to be a lector or a sacristan lasted when the mystical ecstasies at Mass began.  

God was enforcing and forming my hermit life; and He also was trying to get me to understand that I did not belong to that world.  I was shown that, told it in locutions, and also told it in temporal ways.  I literally had priests tell me as such; one listed very positive things of me, but said I could not come to his parish because a mystic like me--the parishioners would crucify me, and he'd not be able to stop them.

Then I moved to a location in which there was one small parish, and the priest was most uncomfortable with my presence; and the state at Mass was as if I'd be chained in hell.  My (late) spiritual father told me not to go--to have spiritual communion in my hermitage.  Then a new priest came a two years later, but he did not want me at Mass due to the mystical state.  So I remained away and had spiritual communion until finally that priest had a couple bring Communion on Sundays when they were able.

Up to the past year and a half in this diocese.  The Lord brought me here due to temporal aspects: financial feasibility, better climate for pain situation, pain doctor, and excellent surgeon (as it turns out desperately needed spine surgery).  The parish priest wanted me to be at Mass but with needed caution, in a day chapel; but even being at Mass has not been for a long time due to the spine surgery, and now COVID-19: older adults are to not come to Mass until further notice, potentially not until a vaccine is available.

And all this back history helps me in facing what God has been trying for a long earth-time, to get me to grasp.  I truly need to stop stressing and freaking out over what did not make sense to me, or seemed surely not right.  I truly do not belong in the temporal Catholic world, not in the parishes, not in religious orders, and not as a specific CL603 hermit.  But I do belong in His Church; I do have a "place" in the Church.  I belong in the mystical Catholic world; I am to be a Catholic hermit but no need to be officially recognized as the canon law does not validate the vocation, anyway.  God validates the vocation by His choosing and how one lives it.  My "place" is in the mystical Church and as a mystic, which leads me to the embarkation in the New Direction. 

There is a growing peace of understanding, of my letting go of that which I have not understood as to why I was to let go.  It would be difficult for more temporally-utilized souls to grasp, for even I could not "see" why or how God would not want what seems so good, why I was prohibited one way or another or several.  Even now, it is irrefutable, even down to the bishop's email which was such good news I could not comprehend what he was saying for a day.  Needed to go over it and asked Fr. V. to go over it to help me understand if this means I can be what God chose for me--a Catholic hermit but in the way He wills.  It makes much sense, of course, that the canon law recognized and diocese hermit in a parish would not be advisable or helpful to church or to mystic hermit.

And that is where the Lord has been leading me today in clearer understanding of the New Direction.  It is actually where He's had me for some time--really since my angel told me I was being taken to the Stairway to Heaven shortly before the ecstasies during Masses began.  I was being taken out of the temporal Catholic world, in essence as well as increasingly in tangible, practical, physicality.  Even the canon law aspect for a hermit is suited for non-mystic, more temporal Catholic world persons.  Perhaps that is even why the CL603 hermit who also writes of hermit life regularly, has been at odds with my Catholic hermit vocation and how God unfolds it, as well as my writing.

Different brushstrokes by the Master Artist on the same Masterpiece of His One Catholic and Apostolic Church.  But frankly, I have run out of much at all to write about of the hermit vocation.  It is a vehicle, is the vocation, to get  a soul from one point to another in the spiritual journey.  It will be my vehicle for life as I assume it will be for the CL603 hermit/s.  Not often in history has the Lord called a hermit out of the vocation to some other of His purposes. 

And while I've been shown that the CL603 hermit vocation has taken on a different format from the traditional historical hermit vocation, I have nothing more to write of the differences; I've written plenty, and it is not even subject matter that my mind, heart, and soul enjoys. That tells one, in itself, that my choosing what God chose for me as His hermit is best for a mystic soul who would no more fit into the canon law public profession and diocese recognition than I did in leading parish or diocese programs and outreach activities.

I've written much about hermit saints and hermit ways and hermit traditions and history, and hermit writings and wisdoms.  I have written, though, also, of the daily type unfolding of my life as a consecrated Catholic hermit (not CL603 type), and of various other aspects of my spiritual journey which has been from my viewpoint both blessed and chaotic.  But I really have nothing more to write on the hermit vocation "vehicle".   I leave that to others to write-- CL603 in all aspects they desire or on whatever else of hermit vocation.  

Back to yesterday's phone call.  Dr. H. said he'd been thinking about me prior to our phone discussion, as we've known each other for 35 years.  He said, he had to admit, that he would never want to have to live my life.  We laughed.  I wouldn't want it, either; but I've got it, and perhaps it will proceed with fewer--at least external--jolts and lightning bolts in whatever time remains for me on this earth, than the previous years.

But as for a New Direction, yes.  I am getting it, Lord, my mind is getting it; and I am fully, whole-heartedly on board!  Even my soul is eager and thankful and pleased with the New Direction!  My hermit vocation vehicle remains as always, but it is like someone who has been driving a vehicle so long, for years and years, that it is as if driving and the vehicle are second-nature.  There is far more at hand, before me, that God desires of me.  

I see the holy mountain as through the clearing fog.  Who is it that will climb the holy mountain?  The Scriptures describe.  Becoming a sherpa or finding one or several, will be helpful.  I'm embarking in the New Direction.  The plans are still simmering, but nearly cooked and to be served, garnishes to be decided upon.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Another Dream, Telling, and Humor

When awakening, very early morning, pain per usual tough, I was rather grateful that had I dreamed, I did not recall.  Dealt with some brief correspondence, knowing my hibernation status, of being in custody.  Fell back asleep after awhile, after as has become my morning inclusion, prayer and happiness for R, thinking of his rising in his transcendence of physical pain, feeding his animals, and heading to his work place where he is in field of helping others with healing or such.

I was in the culmination of a dream when I was awakened by a phone call from a family member, a rare call; we've not seen one another in over 15 years.

I was thankfully rescued from the peak of the dream!  Albeit humorous, as some dreams go, though, in the unfolding it was not.  Yet this dream was telling, of various layers, and easy enough for me to discern the message--and also to appreciate the humor for which I'm grateful and need.

In the dream, I was being prepped for another spinal surgery.  (My actual physical pain was signaling my mind, and the mind was imaging the effects in the dream.)  A surgeon came to talk with me, and he was a band director who retired when I was in sixth grade--old then, and even older in the dream (not to mention having passed from this life about forty years ago.  

He left, and when I was told was half hour before surgery, a different surgeon came to say the other one could not do the surgery, but he was stepping in.  This surgeon who began readying me for surgery, happened to be in life my great-uncle who was also old in the dream, very old, as he had lived to nearly 103 years of age, but has been passed over 15 years now.

With seeing this great-uncle as my surgeon, and with the surgery time nigh, I began to panic with the reality that matters were getting worse for me, not only having to have another spine surgery but that the surgeons had no medical experience and were getting even older in age as they appeared to me.  So I called on my phone, trying to reach my parents to get help, as they would know the great-uncle not a surgeon and with in life his heart-stoppages in late years, my fate was in desperate circumstances.  But the number was not correct, and I could not reach my parents.

That was when the here-and-now phone call rescued me from the dream.  I (in rare prudence for me, but I'm praying and trying to improve) asked the person calling if I could call back, that I was still in dozing mode.  That gave me a chance to deal with the dream (we know how dreams can sometimes be stunning or take a bit to shake how real they seem), and to figure out another aspect of it that is of value.  I realized the phone number I was calling in the dream, of course was my parents' phone number of decades ago, but it was the phone number of my long-time friend's parents home phone.

Amazing how God allows our memory to access whatever needed through dreams (and often in waking hours or times of crisis, when we are open and needful of help or also soul instruction.  More of the dream began making sense to me, as the surgery part was yet another indicator from my physical body that my pain is severe.  I considered the two surgeons--the old band director who even back then seemed especially old to an 11-year-old, and the great-uncle who was also elderly for much of the time I knew him, considering he was 50 years my elder already, when I was born.

I did not think of all these aspects immediately, for I tended to calling the family member back after I got a grip on pain, got coffee to help the always-headache, and prepared a bowl of oatmeal to bring back to my bed where I eat reclining.  I simply cannot sit with the pain as it is, since surgery.   But portions of what the Holy Spirit needs me to recognize and to do what I must do, on my part, in response to the dream messages, have come to me off and on this day.

Not knowing for certain, but knowing with a kind of spiritual nudge, I have apologized to the old band director and to the elderly great-uncle, for anything I may have thought or commented upon, or criticized or judged even in nuance--not knowing for sure or remembering specifics, but with the old band director I did feel intimidated by him as he was stern and a large man, so my child sense then was one of caution for various reasons, a sense I had of wanting to stay clear.  But no doubt I may have thought or spoken negatively, or had unnecessarily criticized in my mind.  

As to my great-uncle, I have no conscious idea other than when he did pass, I did not go to his visitation or funeral; my mother was very ill, and I was worn out and felt I could not have energy to interact and converse. I remained keeping my mother company in her health care room at a nursing facility. I felt guilty for doing so because this uncle and his children who were my dad's cousins, I dearly love, and he and they had been generous, helpful, and supportive of me and my children when I returned to hometown after accident, divorce, and life-altering back surgery.  But I made a choice to not push myself more than what I felt I could manage.  

So today I've made my heart-felt apologies for offenses to either of these men in whatever ways; and I pray for them, as well, as prayer is always good when we are reminded of anyone.  

And then I dealt with the phone number of my long-time friend's childhood home and on through the parents' long lives.  There was a specific reason why that was the number I was calling repeatedly in the dream; the Lord is keeping before me, a reminder of the consequence of having hurt deeply the long-time friend recently, and of which I am accepting of consequences after apologizing.

But that linkage with my friend and reminder of my wrong-doing, my sin, includes the story line of the dream, of my being prepared for yet another back surgery in the dream and the reminder of my rudeness in not going to the great-uncle's funeral.  (And perhaps some rudeness or other I committed as a child to the old band director; I will assume some fault of mine, for I was wary for whatever reason, and perhaps unfounded and that is the fault.)

The linkage is of my wrong doing to friend, but also the reality I'm coming to accept, that I am worn out from years of physical pain and years of suffering, and of the various trials that by the grace of God I've lived through, but of the many times I pushed myself beyond pain limits to a point of trying to be or do for others, or even be in conversations or whatever other, when I simply should not have done so.  For therein I get myself into trouble, over-invest in other people's lives and business, or do not filter thoughts and feelings in a compassionate or prudent manner.

I asked the Lord to forgive me for that--for pushing myself beyond limits when He does not expect me to, even if it seems rude or selfish of me to not go or do or converse.  There is a pride in this, that I have, and so I asked God's forgiveness for my prideful self that somehow has thought I could handle interactions or push myself to do, when in actuality and humility, I most certainly could not.  It is when worn down from pain and suffering, that even my inner senses pick up on aspects that stay with me, and grow beyond what is best in intensity, and stay with me for a long time.  It is hard to shake off and to also filter or refrain from comment or doing that which causes hurt or upset.

It is not the silent preaching of Christ that is part of my hermit basis, set forth by the Church for consecrated eremites.  Even if there are some points of truth or whatever, or a sensing of something or other, such as perhaps picking up on something in the old band director's demeanor or temperament, prayer is best and prudent in any situation.  And this is true particularly when my life has been for years formed by pain, suffering, and one trial after another.  I am not safe to myself or others unless quite limited physically, for pain opens me up in ways most could not begin to comprehend; and silence of solitude and the Lord's protective custody of me is crucial.  I grasp this all the more, even though I have been shown it in the past off and on and reel myself back in.

But I am back to hibernation, and this is what I was told and shown 34 years ago when my maternal grandmother whom I'd called out to for help, appeared to me in a corporeal, waking vision, and told me I would need to learn to "hibernate like a bear" for protection from the world.  There is more to that vision, but I've shared it before, I'm pretty sure, and the hibernation and why, is the point, and this morning's dream brings up aspects of what the Holy Spirit is providing in this hibernation.  He is digging up, bringing to the surface, persons and themes of past flaws and sins, and allowing me the kindness of time to ask forgiveness and repent.  

Plus, I am grasping with this greater level of continuous, bodily pain than ever before, how wrong it is of me to even consider going back, of thinking of taking on more interaction, than what limited amount God brings. I must not tempt myself with reaching back in or pushing myself more, but simply to let go of what is past and done, and not also replace with other interactions.  See my pride in thinking I can handle being drawn out into the temporal world even if would seem charitable.  

I must attend to managing pain and doing well, handling well the few and brief encounters the Lord brings to me.  Learn prudent self-control, such as not talking or trying to go and do when I am, myself, in the condition of "Father forgive me, for I know not what I am doing."  

I must prepare my soul for my temporal passing whenever God wills, when Jesus returns to take me with Him.  Seek to progress in the spiritual life, devote my life to praise of God and for salvation of the world, pray for all, be penitent, and  above all, to love:  to love to learn to love as best able.  Love God in Himself above all things, and love others and self as God loves.  Embrace the grace of suffering the same as I embrace the grace of God's delights.  

Embrace being in God's protective custody, hibernating like a bear for protection from the world in my life that is to be a silent preaching of Christ and a hiddenness yet manifesting to everyone the interior aspects of the Church, that is, the personal intimacy of Christ.

The more I grasp and remind myself, the more I write it out, the more I will be subsumed into His will in these matters, and I will better live the Gospel Rule even if in silence of solitude.  My spirit, if it remains in Christ and in His love, will greet whomever God brings in spirit, or the few He brings in temporal actuality.  I can be with others in the Holy Spirit without effort beyond what my pained, fatigued, and mishap-prone-but-penitent person.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Rejoicing in gratitude in the Holy Trinity!

Catholic Hermit Consoled, Uplifted: Zephaniah Speaks

Today's alternate first Scripture reading at Mass uplifts this pained and worn out nothing consecrated Catholic hermit (and mystic--of which no labels matter but am hoping to normalize the term for those who hold misguided notions).

Zephaniah speaks!  I take it to heart, and his words uplift my soul and encourage.  Then I, in turn, can uplift and encourage others in my thoughts and prayers.  

Perhaps, also, will uplift and encourage the young man, Daniel, who is coming today from a distance.  He will help lift some drywall to install and help frame the stairwell opening wall.  Here he comes for the day, and just payment, from a distance which is a bother, this young man of the Church of the Nazarene; and the close-by Catholic youth is too busy playing basketball presumably day and night, to help me for twenty minutes, according to his wary-of-me parish administrator mother.  No help, not for love nor money nor both.

Deus vult!  The Lord wills it!  He often wills what we do not understand, what does not make common sense to us.  And I am reminded to not dissect nor analyze other than to trust that Jesus knows what He is doing, and He is allowing the one young man and not the other.  I am to praise the Lord and follow Him, just go along with whatever transpires in the present moments.

"Be glad and exult with all your heart...
the LORD has removed the judgment against you,
He has turned away your enemies;
The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst,
you have no further misfortune to fear.....
Fear not...be not discouraged!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in His love...."
        --from Zephaniah 3

I am hoping to get a few more Christmas cards out in the mail before Daniel arrives.  Plus, I'd like to paint the laundry area baseboards that I cut and primed yesterday.  This morning I realized I need to remeasure and recut after I screw on the dryer socket plate cover.  As Teresa of Avila said that God is amidst the pots and pans, He is surely also amidst the carpentry details.

Upon waking I was first reminded of the vision dream over 21 years ago on the eve of my confirmation as a Roman Catholic.  I was shown a seemingly endless passageway made of flat stones--pathway, walls, rooms on either side of Gothic arched hallway.  I was shown into some of the rooms and was let known that I could enter, study, learn, be taught and then move on through the passageway.  I did not need to stop at every room; but I was to proceed.

Now I must trust in what is next, in what area of passageway or through and into another.  I do not see now, the doorways to rooms, right and left, nor do I see the arches or down the length of passage.  I only see the stones paving the ground upon which I must try to keep walking onward in blind faith yet knowing in that same faith that the Lord is leading with loving assurance.

It is all very good indeed in the soul and spirit.  My body is weary, true; and the way forward may seem rugged simply and solely in the temporal aspects.  My only effort is to flow onward through space and time while sensing the Lord with me, in my midst...but actually my being in His Midst.

"The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a might savior...."