Resurrection Occurrs

Sunday afternoon, after a morning of intense physical pain and into afternoon with it, came an unexpected resurrection.

It came in the form of a phone call, after a Lent that unfolded as one of the most painful ever, for this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit.

Mercy, it has been dark as darkest can be (thus far), and I don't even want to try to recall much more than this: It has been brutal.

Friday's culmination in crucifixion of my mind, emotions, body--with the bodily pain being less than the mental and emotional anguish.  (Usually it is the body that suffers most, at least in this body that has suffered for nearly 32 years now.)  My soul seemed at its closest to disintegration, ever.

Only the words of Fr. V who called from Nigeria at some point last week, kept me hanging on, or seemed so.  Of course, it was His Real Presence, utilizing Fr. V in calling and saying what he said.  Then the spiritual father calling on Saturday, reminding of the suffering of Lent, and that this is crucifying.

What was unexpected about a phone call being instrumental in my resurrection from the tremendous suffering of mind and heart, in particular, is that the phone call itself was unexpected, and the content was itself, also, quite painful.  My yes, what was said was like hard slaps, or buckets of cold water thrown at my face.

However, even with what the other person was saying, that hurt so much, a strength while listening to the caller, kept growing within.  I got my spine back, in effect.  I could see clearly again--and clearly that I've been quite foolish.

After, I realized this was the resurrection I needed, and what would have been just more pain and sorrow, became a power of determined detachment.  There was more awe in the reality of the miracle of the personalized resurrection and how God delivered it, than in the reality of the additional emotional and mental suffering that the caller's comments would have or should have evoked.

It was raw, was the resurrection I received--raw but stimulating, pungent but clearing the senses, like a crunchy dill pickle.

Yesterday I journeyed for a final time, to say a better good bye to the family.  Yet more antagonistic comments were made after a most chilly reception that took awhile after arrival for the daughter to come downstairs.  We managed; I prayed to be gracious, and the strength was given me to take the bits of barbs, and respond with honesty and kindness, and also keeping silent when the son-in-law had some tense and terse issues.

The last time to see them and my leaving on a better note, one of strength in humility and charity, is a gift from God.  On the return to the hermitage, I dealt with the painful reality that our paths had grown farther apart, and we were going off in different directions now, after a rather stressful and painful three years of unknowns and awkwardness.  The word "antagonistic" settled in to describe the retorts that would come my way, off and on.

While yesterday there remained the strength given with the resurrection Easter Sunday afternoon (I had been out weeding when the phone call came), this morning there was yet the reality of much sorrow.  It is not pleasant to realize that someone we may love and trust and always felt very close with, congenial, a confidante, no longer was such but rather was more an antagonist or adversary in some aspects--well, several aspects--and the relationship had grown apart.

What was most painful was to have to face the reality that the other person does not really "like" the hermit, nor enjoys the hermit, nor respects or reveres or admires the hermit, or the role the hermit has had for many years, as parent.  In life, this happens when children become adults, marry, have children.  They develop, they individuate out from their parents; they change views and adopt other ways of being and differ in interests, tastes, styles, likes and dislikes.

I realized that I there were so many aspects of my life that I could never discuss or share but had to mask off the bulk of my essence--which is not really that easy or entirely possible--so that it really was more exhausting and painful a balance to strike.  I will not miss that exhaustion and pain.  What I miss is how it used to be between us--and I'd never have dreamed, ever, that this particular one would not like nor love me, nor would be one to be less than kind.

This afternoon, I was able to continue weeding.  On my return, I got a load of black bark mulch--finely ground--to continue on with efforts in the gardening process.  Lay out cardboard, spread the mulch: It helps keep down weeds and enriches the soil.  But my weeding is quite slow as the body is fatigued and pained physically.  But while weeding, I did pray that the Lord heal my very wounded heart.  I also prayed for the ways in which I surely have caused hurt for the other, and also for the other to not let the hurt cause such a change in attitude or kindness.

Well, healing does take time.  A resurrection occurs suddenly and shifts the entire being; but there is time between resurrection and ascension.  

So this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit waits. It will take time, also, for the very de-conditioned physical body to build up strength again.  Today I tripped on a garden tool when walking to get another armload of vegetable stalks from last season, in preparation for seed-planting. I fell to the ground and fortunately went into a kind of roll which helped break the fall's force.  A knee and wrist felt it, though.

I thought about St. Paul falling to the ground in his major conversion.  Ah, but Pentecost is a ways off.  Yet I will consider the fall as a reminder of the spiritual realm being lived out in our lives in very real and specific manner.

There is progress, always!  Lent is past, the crucifixion completed, this time.  Easter has come, bringing the resurrection.  I'm so thankful.  A bit of residual sorrow and fatigue, I suppose, are not that surprising.  We are human, after all, still.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love God above all things and one another as ourselves.  He is risen!  And hopefully we have risen a bit, as well, with Him.

Catholic Hermit: Worn Out by the Journey

Finally--Holy Saturday!  One more day until Easter Resurrection!

A week or so ago in the daily Mass readings of His Living Word, this verse from Numbers stirred my soul.

But with their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and MOses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?"

This Nothing consecrated Catholic hermit's existence echoes the question the Israelites asked, those many centuries ago.  In my case, however, it is not so much of patience being worn out, but rather the body and mind being worn out, the emotions exhausted.

The physical pain has been consistently rugged as suggests the hymn line--familiar-- "the old, rugged cross."  Lent did not begin with such level of physical pain; but the body is mostly reclining amidst a bit of limping, through these last days.

A week ago yesterday the good-bye visit to the family remnant ended up being very emotionally painful.  A mystic can sense the deeper echelons of existence.  The daughter belittled the feeling-statement, "I will miss you all very much," and retorted, "You make this seem like some big good-bye!"

Well, it is.  Not, of course, from their standpoint, as they live in a different world.  Their world is of the active life with iPhone, iPad, Kindle, FaceBook, Pinterest distractions, of financial stability and physical energy, of the bulk of life ahead with the means to live it among people, places, things.

For the three years since this hermit was brought here from, yes, a form of Egypt, life has been more physically and emotionally and even spiritually challenging than ever before.

On the few hours of farewell, there is more.  It was the day that matters arose as they typically do any time we are together.  The son-in-law's tension erupted in yet another yelling and bullying incident with the young grandson.  The daughter, the child's mother, is in the room yet silently waits it out.  She either fears confronting her husband or has learned not to confront when he is in that mode.

This time, however, I waited downstairs, listening to the child's screams and his dad's frightening shouts.  When he repeated enough times how he was sick of the child's "shitty attitude", I reached my own limit.  Calling up from beneath the firestorm, safe from the visual of what I've many times viewed, I said, "If you dislike so much your son's attitude, do something about your own."

I then added that I'd driven there to have a final few hours with them, but I'd had enough of the yelling and bullying and was leaving.

There is more to this final time with daughter, son-in-law, and little grandson. 
There is, also, yet more to those 3-4 hours of final farewell.  The child proved to be the adult, as it ended up.  We wondered if anyone else would apologize; and no one did.  Apology was not really necessary, but respect is always a positive.

I also realize how it is that I view others from a perspective of increasingly high levels of physical pain and wonder at others walking, sitting, driving, LIVING--with all else in life within reach of success.  Yet, I do remember way, way back in the past. I do not remember what my body felt like without the sickening constant pain; but I do remember times when other aspects of life hindered me, when now they seem as if unnecessary and trite.  Yet they are very real and painful and hindering to those who live with them.

My daughter said I was "judging" her husband.  I suppose so.  I did apologize.  But I tend to do that, too--apologize when I do wrong, yet as most of us humans, keep doing wrong even if not necessarily the same wrong.  The wrongs, the sins, tend to come from our weak points.  For me it is always too much physical pain.  

I do know that on that day a week ago, following a day of spinal headache and then trying to do some work the next day, I could not take the yelling and bullying this one last time of being with them.  For that, yes, my patience was weary with that particular yelling, bullying routine.  If any consolation, my calling up from downstairs did disrupt it, and that is a positive for the one time.  Obviously, it stops, also, the other times, eventually; but like my own battle with my managing of physical pain, there are always next times.

Sometimes words spoken are too potent for those close in to a situation to absorb or accept without blaming the one daring (or imprudent?) to speak.
Regardless, the separation had to occur, as in all phases of life.  One "life" ends, and another "life" begins.  I see it now, even if so very painful in emotional ways.  I, too, have to face my own reality and destiny, as much as they need to move on with their lives, elsewhere.

The outcome is one of separation that comes when someone verbalizes disapproval of another's behavior.  And I, too, am forced to face my own personal reality once again: that other than very spiritual types, people out in the world have a very hard time coping with someone who has high levels of physical pain as well as someone whose life exists in a very different mode.

Even if it is one's parent.  Especially if one is one's in-law.  And also if one is a consecrated Catholic hermit when others are not Catholic, do not like Catholicism, do not view the spiritual in similar perspective.

But what is it that this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit has learned from what is a small blip in the existence of humanity?  I am worn out by the journey.  

A fudge and caramel order came the other day.  It forced the body up and off the mattress where it had crumbled with physical pain and emotional sorrow.  The mind wanted the body to get up and continue on in manual work mode; the body was in too much physical pain.  The mind and heart always needs to be able to focus the pain rather than the pain of body focusing the mind and heart.

The body decided to try the bathtub water faucet.  Ah, the manifold valve behind the tile was obviously not done correctly.  So, a cold bath with water half coming out the shower head, half coming out a faucet.

I praised the Lord for water at all and went into the pattern of thoughts I used to have back in my days in "Egypt", when I had a lovely place to live even if yet a slave to physical pain and spiritual persecution.  I always praised God when showering or tub bathing--for hot water, for water at all.  Many people the world over have not hot water, tubs, showers, or even clean drinking water!

And then I thought about attitude.  It is not that the son-in-law intentionally did the tub/shower valve incorrectly.  It all has to do with attitude, though. And there are always, then, the errors made by others and ourselves.  There are always temporal errors that this worn out hermit has to deal with, to repair, or to try to find someone to help with remedying, if possible. 

Attitude is so critical, for a negative attitude most often results in errors made.  It does not have to be a bad attitude married to outbursts of temper.  It can be a quiet, inner, sullen attitude.  The results are the same.

I admit that my attitude is feeling rather deadened.  The pain in the feet is so sharply alive, however, that it is difficult to make my attitude such that I want to try to stand up to dress.  What will force the movement is the reality that there is mowing that must be accomplished.  And yesterday, when having to drive to civilization because a Lowe's bill was impossible to handle via phone and took a CS rep in the store to contact the call center, and even the store rep not able to get accuracy from the billing center somewhere out there in the world--I got a gift from Ruthie in electric dept.

God reaches in.  She had a large, glass jar with a pad of pink paper inside, and a pen.  She had written out in a letter that she has a similar jar at her place, and she each day writes a gratitude on a piece of the paper, dates it, and puts it in the jar.  I so appreciate the gift!  (And Ruthie had written that my planting a rose for her was one of the most meaningful gifts she's had.)  

Although simple and not in itself necessary, for each day in the silence of solitude I consider various aspects of life and of His Real Presence for which I am grateful.  But it is the type of simple reaching in from Ruthie to me that I recognize as God's way of reminding that He takes us out of Egypt and into the desert not necessarily for those persons or things that we may think we are called to and for.

The other day, out of God's blue (when actually quite gray in the desert), Fr. V called from Nigeria!  He said that the Lord is going to use me in some way, through the tremendous suffering and emptying out that is occurring, as this Lent has unfolded with the final days and now hours, the most painful and emptied of most any in my life.

With just the words of Fr. V saying that the Lord is going to be doing something with me, the words give hope. The result of the removal of the only family remaining, the only known persons beyond first-names of a handful in this desert, and the gradual dropping off of those I left behind in the Egypt from which I was called--is the words give hope.  

It is hopeful when all else seems hopeless, that God is going to do something with us, and that the sign and proof of that is the tremendous sense of painful hopelessness He is allowing us to experience.

Well, even this rambling blog post, disjointed as it is, reflects how worn out am I from the journey--not just from the temporal journey into civilization yesterday! I am worn out from trying to make fudge and caramels with the pain level so high that emails to the person placing the order--well, who knows how I came off?

What on earth is this hermit, this person, all about?  Is it worth ordering from someone who seems instable or unable to make some simple fudge?

Well, the rare fudge and caramel orders may need to be eliminated by the Lord, from this hermit's life.  The effort and added pain that comes from standing at a counter, even with frequent breaks, is perhaps not worth it other than the prayers that are offered for those who will eventually eat the confections.  Yet again, I had to face the reality that being around a person with high degrees of pain, and highly inconsistent levels of pain they are, is not easy on others to fathom or cope with.

The cousin called the other day and had this amazing statement, "Well, you could socialize and do things with others if you really wanted to~!"

The elderly aunt called and wanted to know why I do not have the stairs in yet and what am I working on to finish this place?

They love me, yet they do not at all understand the depth of the very real spiritual aspects of Lent.  Spiritual rules all else, and the spiritual is alive in our existences all the more if we are aware.  They love me but do not at all understand the spiritual experiences nor the reality of a hermit vocation, nor of the gradual formation of that vocation not from the hermit itself, not from anything written or laid out by some other--a priest or superior or other hermit--but called, consecrated, and formed in static flow by His Real Presence.

The phone call that mattered in a spiritually hopeful sense was the one from Fr. V in Nigeria, cutting through to the spiritual reality of all this, of Lent, of the spiritual reality that the Lord is going to do something with me, through this tremendous suffering at many levels.  And the card that matters most is the one from the spiritual father who is not only praying for me and will offer prayers on Easter Mass, but who also sent financial help--a gift, not a loan with yet more pressure levied.  Strange how others biologically unrelated and far away can be more in tune to tangible needs than one's own family close by.

These three aspects I am coming to grasp:

1.  It is indeed a huge good-bye, that which is transpiring between this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit with the last closeness plucked, from three adult children and their families.  The hermit has not the energy to do other than wait in solitude upon God and His will.

2.  Spiritual bond and relationship seem far more mystical than blood bond once the Lord unfolds a vocation at a time in life when even if seemingly unnecessary to us humans, the Lord calls us more fully to Himself.  

3.  God does truly choose our crosses for us.  They are hewn to perfection for each of us.

Again, as disjointed this post in theme, in details, this hermit's body, mind, heart, and soul are completely securely held together by pain.   The Holy Spirit has brought recently to my mind several unusual spiritual experiences over the years.  A long-time friend emails she thinks they should be written and shared. God will need to make that yet more clear and to give the energy to do so! 

But today, I must mow, and if able, use the spreader...and weed and fertilize, but first try to stand up on these feet and get dressed, and eat something--protein, yes. I do have food and water!  Praise God!  I have life whether or not to be for long here or on the other side! I have His Real Presence!

One more day!  Easter tomorrow! 

God bless His Real Presence in us!  I am grateful, little children, that we can always choose to love God above all things and love others as ourselves!  We can always love!  Love is the attitude that can be with us no matter how worn out by the temporal journey!

Easter Blessings

Easter blessings, everyone!


This Easter Sunday, the nothing Catholic hermit spent in the tomb.  In essence, this is how and where every living being spends Easter.  We exist in the tomb--this life on earth, this place wherever it may be--and we do what it is that we do in our bodies in our world, as children of God, as brothers and sisters, as spouses of Christ Jesus.  

And we wait.  We breathe, think, pray, praise, do and exist among each other and all creation, while we wait.  We wait through, with, and in His Real Presence.  We wait in varying degrees of mortal suffering...wait for our deaths and wait for our resurrection.  We wait to be eternally one with the One Trinity:  God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  

So yesterday (Easter Sunday), the nothing Catholic hermit waited along with all Creation waiting in our created existence.  

And the hermit "did."  It praised God, prayed with supplications, worshipped and received the Eucharist several times in spiritual communion with God and His Body, the Church.  It spent the day in spirit with the family of man and all creation all about in sentient and non-sentient being.  It spent the day in earthly doing, as well.

Raphael had unexpectedly stopped by the hermitage on Holy Saturday.  He had news.  Jorge had decided to help out.  (Perhaps work in civilization was slow, or else God touched his heart and mind, as he now agreed to come to this place of exile and help the hermit make better progress in the heavier tasks remaining here.)  And Juanito will come, also, to continue hanging the heavy sheets of sheetrock.  And the hermit is to get some aspects completed so that they can begin work early Monday.  

While here, Raphael mentions with emphasis that Jorge is a very good Catholic.  Ah, Raphael has come to grasp that the hermit (who he does not know is a consecrated Catholic hermit but knows is Catholic, as he is Catholic) is very Catholic.  Marvelous to consider that over time, one's devotion and essence seeps through to others, somehow--by the grace of God, of course.

So in the tomb, on Easter (and actually every day, for the tomb is ours while we exist on earth), the nothing Catholic hermit had some earthly tasks needing physical tending.  And in the process of these tasks, it noticed the water pressure low, and then no cold water at all!  The hermit descended into the underworld of this tomb, this hermitage, and discovered that the week prior, it had made a ridiculous error in connecting and routing a main cold water line--well, had not connected it to what it needed to be connected with and thus the line had run dry.

There is always cause and effect, in the temporal realm and, of course, in the spiritual realm of the One reality.  And the effect of having erred in how and to what the hermit had connected a main cold water line, was quickly eventual in the lack of cold water.  (The hot water lines are correct and positively effective.)  

There are always root causes to every effect.  The root cause of the error in the cold water line is simple enough.  The hermit was fresh off the severe pain siege when the son-in-law helped from above while the hermit worked below, and its mind was yet too distracted by yet too much pain to think through the maze of pipes...then.  But on Easter Sunday, under the house, the hermit readily saw the problem and knew it would need to leave the private tomb and make a trip to the public tomb of the greater tomb of the world-at-large.

So off to civilization and to Lowe's.  Additional plumbing parts are needed for the fix, and there was no time to waste with Jorge and Juanito coming.  Humans appreciate having water, and in our day and age, many of us are unused to not being able to turn a faucet to receive water in abundance.  This is simply a temporal effect; the spiritual is that of always having the Living Water:  Jesus Christ--not that we think of Him and His Effect, when we use a water faucet and see and feel and utilize the water that pours forth.  But we could, and we ought--think of and praise His Living Water so available to us...unless we make an error in our spiritual plumbing and our pipes run dry.

Well, fix it.  And even the fixing requires the grace and goodness of His Real Presence, of Jesus, of His Living Water.  We all need water for survival, tangibly and spiritually, with the spiritual being the One reality, the eternal effect of the spiritual cause.

When at Lowe's, the hermit noticed a skeleton crew. But what it learned is that the very best and most competent of employees manned the store.  Why?  They are the ones who can handle more than their own departments, thus allowing the bulk of workers to not need to work on the holiday, the holy day (not that it is considered as such by many in the world, these days).

Rusty was in plumbing, and we discussed Ray again.  Ray no longer works because cancer represented itself in his body.  And Rusty and his wife invited Ray to live with them in his final time on earth, not knowing for sure how long that might be.  Ray has no one else, it seems, and Rusty and his wife are giving of themselves, offering to share their earthly tomb with a man who is sick, suffering, and dying.  They are offering Ray cups of Christ's Living Water.  

Yes, Rusty seems an expert at plumbing, both of the temporal cause and effect and of the spiritual--refreshingly not even realizing the depth and flow of this fact.  He is humble, and he and his wife know how to utilize His Living Water, which might also be called Christ Love.

Regardless all this, Easter this year took Christ's cause to meaningful, Christ effect.  The causes and effects abound in the tomb and rise beyond it.  Love covers a multitude of sins.  That is enough to ponder, in itself, when in the tomb, waiting in, with, and through His Real Presence, and water abundant.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Let us love one another, little children of the Living Water!  Easter blessings!

After Consolation: Desolation

There always is an interplay between the soul and the Beloved.  With a consolation raising the soul as if up to the kiss of God's lips, one is so consumed in the cherished and unexpected gesture of love, that nothing else seems possible but the soul's delight with Christ.

Then comes desolation.  Yes, it always comes until the final breath of the earthly body when there is no more desolation for the soul who has desired and striven to be beloved of His Real Presence.  But until that moment, either at death or after judgment and more purifying of the soul into greater light enough to be one with His Light, there will be a reminder through desolation of the earthly attachment to sin, which is some degree of opposition to God's purity and perfect, loving will.

Desolation:  a state of complete emptiness or destruction; anguished misery or loneliness.

For various reasons, the main one being desolation comes after consolation (and consolation comes after desolation), this nothing Catholic hermit experienced tremendous and unexpected emptiness and anguish of body, heart, mind, and soul yesterday evening and this morning.  It was rugged, and thankfully was able to email a friend, repeatedly, expressing the temporal discouragements and sorrows.

Only later, by afternoon, did the hermit grasp what was the cause and effect that always is, was, and shall be in souls on the purgative, illuminative, and unitive way of the spiritual life:  consolation, then desolation, then consolation, then desolation, then....

There was no relief, no verbal or mental prayers that one can recall.  Just prayer without words, without thought, and the sorrows and sense of abject failure as a person and with its life, became as prayer of sorrow, repentance, and hopeless clinging.

In times such as these, the soul is let down.  The kiss on the lips by God is forgotten or seems long ago if recalled.  And, if recalled, there is added shame that somehow, within days, the consolation that was so glorious is as if spurned or rejected, and in its place is the dejected soul, unable to function, not able to force its mind to reading Scripture other than a few lines that seem unable to be absorbed.

Then, somehow, toward the evening after the night and day of desolation, there is a ray of light in the evening dark:  a song.   This hermit was turning to YouTube to find music--anything that might soothe the misery of its failed and flawed life and weakness in faith on the Sabbath, no less.

Harmony!  That is what this weeping soul sought.  And somehow--yes, by the grace of His Real Presence, the Bridegroom brought His emptied hermit-bride to the name of a back-up singer for another famous singer.  Then, a title drew the attention:  Song of Bernadette.  Then, from there another song title:  Joan of Arc [refer to previous post, song composed by Leonard Cohen, sung by Jennifer Warnes].

This hermit had never heard the latter song.  It listened while viewing the accompanying video and lyrics printed upon the vivid images.  Each word had clear meaning, deep significance, and each brought:  consolation.

Thanks be to His Real Presence for His marvelous works!  Thanks be to the Beloved for raising up and taking down...and raising up again!  May this tired, ailing, yet desirous nothing hermit soul be soundly reminded of its purpose and to accept the suffering of this life as a means of reparation with the Beloved.  To be burned in the fire of His Love is so very painful, yet it is necessary for its purifying qualities.

Consolations and desolations intertwine and spiral through our spiritual journeys on this earth.  At some appointed and anointed moment, there will be the final desolation, an immolation.  Then there is the final yet eternal consolation.  Think on these marvels of His Real Presence and His fiery love for each of us.  We cannot but accept such love, yet we will cringe with the desolations, for that is natural, and we on earth are of nature.

But with each spiraling cycle of consolation-desolation, we will learn to trust in His lifting us up, then setting us down, higher then lower.  But He always raises us up for the kiss of His Lips.  Even when in the dizzying delights of consolation or in the despairs of desolation, we may forget this cycle is occurring and all in His loving pervue, we will be consoled over and over until the soul is burned into His very Soul--never more to be disconsolate again.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another, for love is of God.  Let us remain in His Love and offer ourselves as living, holy, pleasing sacrifices to His Divine Will.