Catholic Hermit: Spiritual Leper

Had a most unusual and unexpected day yesterday.  The mystical morning unfolded with  the pain doctor asking some spiritual questions that evolved from the lumbar MRI scans.  He could not locate a couple of the screws in the back rods implanted years ago.  Well, only four were screwed back in, as I described the situation of my dying in recovery, and the surgeon being called back, my being sent back into my body by God, and the surgeon rushing me in to surgery to try to figure out what went wrong.

So the lumbar region is a mess, yes.  Rods installed, fusion, bone graft, rods removed, re-bent, re-screwed.  Rush, rush.  That's probably why it's a mess and what the pain doctor suspects now, over time, is yet the main cause of way too much pain--not to mention the neck that has problems as well as the thoracic spine that has all kinds of issues, but nothing like the low back.  So he is referring me to a surgeon for his take on if there is a means to remove bone spurs and open up areas where spinal stenosis has set in.  Nerves are being pinched, spinal cord is squeezed.

The pain doctor wanted to know more about the death experience.  Then he had some questions regarding a situation in his extended family.  I won't go into the details, but it has to do with a suicide and a spouse going to what can be termed a "channeler" who had contact with the deceased spouse and brought details that go along with mind-reading but more so, of which discernment of spirits is crucial.  So we discussed the spiritual realm and Christ, and Scripture, and I did my best to advise, when he asked, how to help the family member hopefully not return to the group with the necromancer.  

I pray yet today that the Holy Spirit had me say what needed to be said--including permission to share with the family member my own experience years ago, and the warning God gave me in the middle of the night:  Follow no one!  Follow no one!  Follow no one!

We are to follow Jesus Christ.  God the Father!  Holy Spirit!  

I also had more as I reached my truck so walked back to give an addition message to the doctor via his receptionist.  These situations and people who do such things create a dependency in the vulnerable that is not good.  God does not do that.

The doctor also recommended I see a certain chiropractor who he said would be interested in talking with me and me with him.  He mentioned I might also try a B-12 injection and get my neck worked on.  He said the chiropractor would know what priest best for me to talk with, as the chiropractor is a Catholic and simply--yes, would "know."

The doctor texted the chiropractor who texted back that I should call and his receptionist would set an appointment, and to call her.  So I did, and I was able to go after the pain doctor appt. to do a walk-in for the B-12 injection, but first the chiropractor and I had a brief conversation.  

It was so unexpected--the connection, the advice, and the chiropractor's background and experience in his field plus ancillary areas.  Turns out, he is a member of the parish nearest me, and he advised which priest would be best, although I was slated to speak with the other.  Both are very good men, very good priests, the chiropractor said, but the one would have more understanding or grasp of my situation.

That is exactly what the good and kind priest I did speak with, suggest.  He listened commendably to my explanation of the situation--the ecstasies during Mass and a few other aspects, including my vocation as a consecrated Catholic hermit, privately professed.  Ultimately, the priest said I need to speak with the other priest who happens to be away until next week.  But in the interim, he felt best that I have Communion brought to me.

He explained that while he did not want me to "feel like a spiritual leper," that he had to consider such as if someone had Turret's Syndrome, and would that do well for the other worshippers to be distracted?  I assured him I understand, and that he actually handled quite well what I shared of my mystic life, born this way but not realizing it until age 34 when a friend told me that I'm on a different wave length, have experiences others do not--but they love me all the same.

So when it came to his concerns of how I should be such as when the person who'd bring me Communion would meet me, come to my home, he said they'd not be able to come into "THIS!"  By "THIS!", I understood he meant how people would react if they realized my spiritual leperhood, as actually, that is exactly what "THIS!" is!  It truly is!  I finally have an accurate metaphor for my mystic affliction.  Perhaps after a mystic dies from this earth, the mystic affliction, the spiritual leprosy, is then called and considered a spiritual "gift". 

The kindly priest added that if I can just try to perceive how other people would find me--and I said I can do that, although not easy to always remember.  Thus, it is really for my own protection and that of others in charitable way, that God called me to Himself and gave me the hermit vocation, for I am so easily distracted when in the world, drawn out too much, and I am understanding also that it includes such as the world of an active and large parish of regular, normal, active people.  

So he also advised that the parish visitor bringing Communion should also not know that I am a hermit, for lay persons in the Church do not really grasp or understand that vocation.  I agree!  Even Bishops don't really grasp, for the most part, as there are so many different Bishops with their different notions about hermits as evidenced in the recent (by Church time line per centuries) development of canonically approved hermits.  

Some hermits are approved to live together, others are approved to allow or strive to develop quasi-religious order hermitages, to live with parents,.  Some work in more visible and interactive jobs and socialize more than do many lay persons; some are so young as to not have had much if any life experience in suffering, prayer, financial challenges, work nor love relationships.

Anyway, it was a good talk with this priest, and yes, when the other priest returns, I will do as he said and let the lead priest ultimately decide what he deems best.  However, I find prudence and even wisdom in what this priest yesterday had to say.  I'm actually relieved; plus there was none of the eye-rolling nor disrespect nor doubting nor worrisome reaction--not the persecution--that I've experienced in the past.  I was prepared for anything, as one ought, when being honest about something that is atypical.

He said we'd just tell the parish nurse who makes arrangements for those bringing Communion to persons in their homes, that I have a severe back problem (true enough) and that is why I need a parish visitor once a week.  So that's what we said, and I wondered a bit that we probably did not even need to have that as a reason.  But once an underlying reason such as spiritual leprosy is known to one in charge, there seems a more urgent need to mask it when others would not notice, anyway.  Or so I wonder.  

Perhaps I'm yet in denial.  Several years ago when I tried to wear clothing in attempt to blend in with clothing style of a bulk of one Cathedral parishioners, a daughter told me it might work for even a year, but sooner than later they'd sense something different about me.  Turned out to be so.  Regardless, I think this parish priest is wise and prescient in his advice, yesterday.  

The more I pondered it later, though, I laughed some about the spiritual leprosy because it is so apt in many ways.  Even lepers today are not hidden away, yet there are medications to help cure them.  No "cures" are known for a mystic.  However, I reviewed how God has for years guided me and spoken to me, given visions and locutions, advising me of essentially the same:  Hibernate, live hermit life, be held for Himself, protect and prevent from being drawn out into the world, be provided for by Him, and know this is how He is loving me.  

Now is the time I must unpack; settle back into the structure of my eremitic vocation; accept, appreciate, and embrace my spiritual leprosy; pray, praise, love Him above all else and others as myself; fulfill the mission God reveals in slivers of light.  And write in my hidden, anonymous way that He asks of me, sharing what others can choose to read and find help or meaning, or not, with out being distracted by seeing the spiritual leper or fearing contagion of the misunderstood and unknown.

Even the pain doctor says he is awake at night, struggling with understanding Who Is God?  What Is God--Spirit, Presence, Being?  As we talked over the thoughts, we came to what all come to: our words fail to describe He Who Is the Source of All Beingness, Energy, and Love.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit....  Words fail us; we hope for faith and love to sustain what we cannot describe.

Catholic Hermit: Much Suffering, Much Love

The body of this nothing, consecrated, Catholic hermit had yet another pain siege.  A week ago, it was; and it was a rather violent siege of pain of a type I'd not had for over three years.  Thankfully, yesterday the body began to feel better, and the surge of joy exuded--a joy that typically comes following release from extreme pain.

In the meantime, I had some tough news from the pain doctor, regarding some MRI scans of neck and low back.  As I've aged, yes, the pain has increased a great deal, albeit slowly in the way that makes it cumulative rather than seemingly suddenly noticed.  However, I know from other bodily symptoms as well as the effort the mind must make to distract from the constancy of increased pain, that the pain is worse daily, hourly, moment by moment.  

Yet God is so gracious!  He also has helped me learn to place my mind more outside the body, in essence, so that I do not tend to notice the higher levels of pain as much...or so it seems. Distraction helps; manual labor and mental conversations most often with God, and sometimes conversations with people make the pain seem further.

So the MRI's showed spinal stenosis about the rods and fusion, of which the doctor said that area of surgery years ago not even discernible as to what is going on.  But the area above that has stenosis, and including the cervical area (neck) there are bone spurs as well as in the neck two herniated discs to the right side and three compressed discs to the left.

Even in the telling of the spine news, the mind somehow blocked the bulk of it.  Is that the effect of a type of shock?  Perhaps.  He wants to refer me to a surgeon, but first he will order another MRI--this one of the thoracic back.  Now, that area of the back can be quite painful, but that pain has been occurring for ten years or so to greater and lesser degrees depending on various factors.

The shock wore off a day after a night of little sleep.  Too much memory of the life-altering surgery 31 years ago kept me awake--plus the disappointment of more surgery looming and what it can do to up-end what is next.  Of course, that disappointment showed me clearly that once again, I obviously had stepped forward in my mind and heart at some level or other--and out of the Order of the Present Moment.

Thus, back in the present moment, the reality of having more spine surgery, including the neck, does not seem so horrible.  We must do what we must do; we persevere and endure for the Lord is always with us, as we are also in Him.  We remain in His Love.  The pain doctor said hopefully surgery could provide a little relief from what he recognizes is a great deal of suffering.

As for the pain sieges, he is prescribing prednisone to take if I can tell when a siege is coming on, and to take during the siege along with some over-the-counter med to help coat the stomach.  He is trying to provide even a modicum of relief during a pain siege.  Any bit less of pain during those heightened days of pain, will be appreciated by this body, that is for sure!

Life goes on.  Trying to be of a little assistance here where I am temporarily a guest with a cousin and his wife, is a type of joyful distraction.  We are working on a bit of an electrical snafu--a mystery as to why two outlets that share a wall have absolutely no power to them.  I've consulted my dear pal Mark, the electrician I had on the previous hermitage, Te Deum.  What remains for me to do is to get up in the attic space and make my way to the wall in question and look down from above to see if the 12-2 yellow wire has ever been attached to a junction box, or if attached, to see if the ground, neutral, or hot wires have come loose.

My cousin has not relented yet, to my doing that.  He has suffered a health situation recently; it is not easy for him nor for his wife, a long-time friend of mine since childhood.  At least, we have pinpointed the problem's source so that if they do hire an electrician, hopefully they will not be taken advantage of by the electrician's time spent in troubleshooting.  

There is an electrical problem outside their lovely home, as well.  On that, the cousin hesitates on the more involved solution which involves laying conduit with wires adequate for 120v light fixtures.  Their contractor had used 12-volt wires such as is used for Malibu lights, and over the eight years or so, there is obviously a ground fault occurring in those wires not meant for 120v fixtures.  But I had an idea--praise God--last night, and that is to use 12-volt light bulbs in the fixtures as laying 12-volt wires anew is much easier and less costly than the other option which would require hydraulic drilling--a new term for this hermit!

That simply means, as I learned from the man in electrical of their local big box store, using water to drill through soil.  One purchases a connector for the garden hose that will screw into an electrical conduit connector attached to the length of conduit required to go under a sidewalk, turn on the water, full force, and work the piece of conduit through the soil by the aide of the water "drilling" through the soil.  Then the wires are run through the conduit.

The good Lord reminds me through these temporal tasks, that He has all matters handled one way or another.  All temporal aspects or problems as we might consider them, have some type of solution or even multiple options for solutions.  It all works out, one way or another, regardless of how difficult the solution might seem.  And yes, often there is a lot of messy work involved and some suffering, and some outcomes that are less than what we think we'd like.

My back surgery years ago was a mess, yet while I could never live a normal life and still had constant pain, the spine was at least fused, stabilized, and I could walk.  Pain is only pain, we must remind ourselves.  So whatever lies ahead (and a surgeon might look at the MRI's in a different perspective than did the pain doctor), God has it covered with temporal solutions as well as His spiritual purview.  Always God has some spiritual lesson or several, for us to learn in our temporal-spiritual journeys.

As is said in Hebrews 10:39, one of my favorite verses from years ago following the back surgeries which included a death experience between the two:

"But we are not of those who shrink back and are defeated, but we are of those who have faith and persevere in possessing our souls."

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another, for God is of love!  These three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love....

Catholic Hermit: When a Hermit Must Move

This nothing consecrated Catholic Hermit has not written a post in awhile.  Matters with the temporal responsibilities of being alive in this realm became hectic!  With the finances dwindling and efforts increasing to finish renovating the Te Deum Hermitage (old farmhouse that did not nearly have all its problems divulged when purchased it over five years ago), the day came rapidly in which this hermit needed to move.

Ah, the old place was made new!  It looked lovely, and indeed it was much to the credit of the gorgeous trees I'd hauled from previous location (when it came time, enforced, to leave that Agnus Dei Hermitage) as mostly quite tiny specimens that caused a youngish but established man to fall in love with the gardens and charming farm house. 

Yes, it all turned out so beautifully--creating something lovely out of what had been wretched--and made even more so by the deception of a realtor, the bad inspector she recommended, and a usurious and bad contractor she even more highly recommended.  I do love it when the Lord brings good from not good!

So I was quite lopsided for a few weeks there, not only in continuing the recovery from my serious head injury but also in finishing touches and details in all that is involved in selling a property in our current time period on this earth, in this culture, within our temporal laws.

There were many miracles of which I have praised the Lord; and at the last day or two or three, there was also another ugliness that erupted which had not needed to by human reckoning.  Yet, it was quite human, the ugliness, and I know that my own human self was part of it as we always are whenever there is something of the human involved!  

I had to become quite firm, insisting on a matter that I wanted the buyer to be fully satisfied, for he and his agent had over two weeks to express a concern over a minor issue that had been corrected and corrected by code and quite well.   Instead, like the devil tends to do, there was last-minute upset of which my response was to slow down the rushed process and make all matters right.

My agent forgot who he was representing, or so it seemed, and I had to remind him that I must thus protect myself, and I insisted I wanted the buyer pleased and assured, and thus we needed to prolong the closing.  Of course, the agents nor the buyer did not want that; so they decided they were content with the minor corrections made, after all.

For pity's sake....  I recognized the ploy of the devil to try to disrupt; and my hermit platform of Nine S' which includes slowness was the correct response.  Just slow all matters, even if to the point of stopping.  When threatened that if I slowed the process, there would be a law suit, the only correct response was that I supposed I'd need to get a lawyer, then.

Mercy, what one must do as a consecrated Catholic hermit in order to maintain rightness in the temporal world!  Within an hour my agent called back to say the buyer and his agent were quite satisfied with the correction completed (for it was, and done rightly); and I responded that then we could go forward, and I'd be on my way early the next morning.

Admittedly, I did not at all like having to be firm, having to deal with such matters.  Yet, even a religious solitary in the life of the Church also lives in the life of the world!  Always there is a juggling act with that world, yet rightness must be maintained.  It would have been quite difficult remaining on until spring due to how the storms of fall and winter affected my damaged spine, and I'd have had to go more into financial straits.  But this is the way of the poor who cannot pay but minimum on a credit card, or who are "under water" financially, who try to pick up odd jobs if and when their bodies can manage to do any type of work, or who accept money from a family member or such, to tide through tough times.

I was thankful for the opportunity to contemplate such a situation, to consider taking in a boarder, or to be humbled to do what the struggling people do who exist all around us--who file bankruptcy or end up in homeless shelters.  Why should I consider myself above any of the poorest in our culture and temporal climate today?  Jesus humbled Himself to scrounging, wandering, accepting not having a roof overhead, and ultimately accepting the death of the indigent criminal:  Crucifixion!

Rather than any of that, the Lord delivered me from what I had mentally and emotionally accepted should the need be.  Perhaps in much of our life experiences, the Lord is waiting to see how we will respond to any given trial.  That might be the point of many of our trials.  I don't know, of course, the Mind of God, but I know that He sees and thinks in ways not usual for our human thoughts and ways.

Regardless, I had quite the adventure on the road with losing my way due to a cell phone losing power unexpectedly, and a wrong road number given me.  It was a beautiful journey, reminding me of blind trust in God and seeing the back roads and beauty of nature in an entirely different terrain.  I noticed the clouds in the sky as I drove along; and I realized that I'd been so focused for these past few years on what was set before me, that I'd neglected the freedom of no responsibilities and no concerns of paying the next bill but rather to noticed the simple GRANDEUR of God's great earth and sky!

I even ran out of gas!  First times can be fun times, indeed.  I had just enough cell power left to call someone who then contacted the insurance man with whom I'd just gotten a new policy for my pick up truck, Precious Blood.  Before too long, a young man in a pick up truck parked behind me on a vast stretch of interstate, and filled the tank with enough gas for me to follow him back to a burg off the beaten track.  We laughed, as he said this was the "first time" he'd ever had a call from an insurance company to come rescue someone!  Ah, the humor and connectivity of "firsts"cannot go unappreciated.

The one-pump town had a convenience store in which kindly clerks charged my phone battery enough so that I could get to my next stop, using the GPS.  I was thrilled to be out from under such financial direness to make a monetary donation to the tiny town's food pantry.  For too long I've had to make prayers for others my donation.  While that is maybe better--who knows in God's view?--what a joy to add some money to their collection container in the convenience store.

Now I've been at a relative's home for ten days, living in a small but comfortable guest room.  All my whatever possessions (1000 or so religious books in boxes, bits of furniture and eating utensils and religious artwork, some clothing that was used in the phase prior to this last phase and to be sorted and got rid of) are in storage.  I've not used the stuff in the past five or so years other than the garden tools and construction tools which I kept--thinking prudently in case I need them for whatever next hermitage.  I sold off quite a bit of "stuff" before I left Te Deum--amazing my adult son who thought it all worthy for the dump.  I gifted St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop with oodles of salable items, as well, and the boys and couple from the parish who helped me load the truck for a final time, received whatever they desired from my "stuff".

Stuff seems to be the best word for my earthly detritus of this and that.  Yet I am not mocking nor inappreciative of "stuff."  For a hermit with severe pain and difficulty sitting or standing in one place for very long, it is stuff that helps me do manual labor or keep otherwise limber and creatively engaged in practical and artistic ways.  It is through the distraction from pain that my deepest praying of a meditative and often times contemplative nature takes place.

So it is, that now after an initial week or so of looking around for a new hermitage, I am realizing on this Sabbath that the adaptation is more severe than what I had anticipated.  Somehow the housing thus far is so different from the land and spacious views of this past phase, and even of the sense of space in the one prior to this past phase although in a subdivision--well, I am feeling non-plussed about having to re-engage in the temporal aspects of which hermits very much must engage.  

We have to find a place to plop our bodies and what little stuff (compared to what most folks accumulate) we bring with us for whatever purposes we have in our individual lives.  For someone without severe back pain and who can engage in activities, creative stuff is not so important.  I have noticed all the more in these past ten days, with my back pain burning high--that in this type of environment there is far more driving and thus sitting to do the typical functions at least initially of getting oneself set up in another hermitage in some location.

I'm not sure I am up for what I most likely will need to adapt to--not quite yet, anyway.

The family members who so graciously gave me a guest room, are off for a few days, leaving me to pet sit which is a means by which I can be of use to them, saving their pets from boarding in a kennel.  Yet I have spent the bulk of it on the floor in the guest room, other than driving about yesterday to find a post office to mail a little something special to my dear spiritual father--just a treat for him until I am able to visit next month--body able and God-willing.

Then there were last week the doctor and dentist appointments, and now I await a hopeful appointment with a pain doctor--as this is the way of our times now.  A general practitioner no longer will deal with a chronic pain patient.  And the pain doctor will not automatically take a pain patient.  No, they will look at whatever the family doctor sends in what scant records, and the pain doctor will decide if he or she wants one as a patient.  And if so, the pained person is advised that no medications will be prescribed in the first visit.

I remind myself that not finding another hermitage right away is God's way of letting me consider that I may be more or less "floor-ridden" in my next and final phases of life on earth. (I can no longer sleep on even the most firm mattress, so I must use the floor as bed and place to write, such as I am doing now.  I had also taken my simple fare meals on the floor at Te Deum House, but here sit on the only wooden chair they have, at table, to eat whatever served, of which I try to help with cooking and clean up to make myself useful.  It would be rude to eat in the guest room, on the floor, for I also would not want to accidentally spill on their carpet.

Someone where I lived prior, who was purchasing some of my used but temporally useful "stuff", had asked me how it was a hermit could live where there would be a child?  I said when in transition, one must go with God's flow.  I was offered a temporary room and can be of help with pet sitting and whatever else asked or desired, and I am a grateful hermit guest.

Such matters for a hermit call upon one to be flexible and gracious, to be sacrificing in that of course, having one's own hermitage and spiritual reading and manual labor and solitude is desirable and needful, but God decides all.  Yes, God decides; His will be done; and the hermit remains malleable in God's determinations.

In fact, if no pain doctor will have me, if no pain meds allowed, then I may not be having my own hermitage at all!  There will be no travel to visit the spiritual father, nor to see the elderly aunt again, nor having a little plot to garden, nor a place to name as a hermitage other than perhaps a room as a type of blessed and comfortable hermitage as long as it has a floor upon which to lay my body down.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  The past two Sundays I've been back to spiritual, mystical Communions, such as what the Lord provided me up until a year and a half ago when the couple from the parish where I used to live, started bringing His Real Presence each Sunday.  Either way, God provides quite amply and beautifully of Himself to those who desire and seek His Love and remain thus in His Love.