Catholic Hermit: Coping with Hope in God

I noticed that a blogpost from four years ago regarding suffering had four different reader views.  I noticed the title and decided to read what I'd written.  Lord, have mercy!  It was on severe suffering and how the mind in terrible pain goes to thoughts of so longing to be out of the misery and suffering and to be with the Lord, and went through the various reasons why--but then why one in great suffering would remain faithful in the suffering.

I'd forgotten, even if I know I've struggled with severe pain off and on and constant bad-enough pain all the time, for three-and-a-half-decades this August 22.  I did not realize I'd been so candid; and I'm glad I had been.  Helped me to re-read it!

I can't recall who it was for whom I'd offered my pain back then--the person having had relief from his/her pain enough to travel to visit family.  So I'm reminded for myself, in essence by what I wrote, to have great faith that offering my suffering IS doing some good for someone or other out there.  Plus, there were reminders of the love of God and love of others, and basically a pep talk I need right now, to endure the suffering.

Also, in that blog post, I'd written of how sometimes as well to take enough of the pain medication to essentially get knocked out enough--not literally, of course--but to get enough dose to provide some better relief than minimal or average relief.  Just get a good break from it for a day or a night.  Give myself permission to get decent relief from the severe pain siege that now is lingering for six days.  My lumbar still feels "blown" out; I get the chills at times from the pain.  I've been up twice all day just to go to restroom and get something to drink and very little to eat.  Appetite not up for food.

I had a goal to see if I could mow the yard today.  I do like to set goals, and even if pushing motion helps relieve pressure on the spinal cord being pinched--I'm too sick with pain to walk that much even if small yard.  Yet it was good to have the goal.  I must not be disappointed that I cannot reach it.  So I will consider sometime before dark, if I can roll the trash container down the drive to the curb and water the potted plants.  I'm not "there" yet with getting up to see about actually walking that much.  I know it would lift my spirits immensely if I could accomplish even that!

But the lumbar/low back is "killing" me.  I have a bit of humor over my choice of words, for had it not been for my honesty in how severe the pain becomes--and also, though, how I overcome thoughts of wanting to not have to be in this body of suffering--I'd have had the surgery two weeks ago today.

I have Pere Garrigou-LaGrange's book on The Theological Virtues here by me, but it focuses on the virtue of faith.  I had hopes of learning more about the virtue of hope!  So I also have the Dominican, Jordan Aumann's book, Spiritual Theology.  He writes a few pages about the theological virtue of hope.  I'm interested since my previous post was that of my thoughts on this virtue and on Hope in God.  

Today I've tried in my mind to access the hope that His Real Presence instills in me, has in reservoir, or so I have written it is available to me, for the taking and utilizing.  Yet my mind has been too tired with pain to do much active seeking of the reservoir of hope.  Instead, I am just counting on His Real Presence to keep me filled with the Hope in God I so need right now, especially now.

Even with the surprise phone call--thanks to the second surgeon, I'm sure--from the first surgeon's appointment scheduler, my spirits have been dragging.  The gnawing, burning, stabbing pain in the lumbar and the burning pain in the nerves from hips down legs into feet cries and groans for attention.  I've considered trying to get someone to just take me to an ER, to just tell them to please help my lumbar spine.  Yet, there I noticed that old blog post, and I will try a measure of prudent medication enough to allow at least the mind and body to rest enough, so that tomorrow might include actual relief and more ability to mobilize even slightly more than this.

The first surgeon is willing to see me--in four weeks.  That is the earliest appointment, I'm told.  Of course, I know this is not true.  When the one PA, the good one--assessed me May 6, she said I needed to see the surgeon as soon as he was back in the country, which was May 10.  He was going to operate the week of May 20-24; that did not occur, but they did get me in right away, May 21, when my leg first went numb.  So I know how it all goes.

I mentioned to the person setting up the appointment that I've been down now for six days; and I got the set response:  If you become weaker or lose continence, let us know right away.  I said I am weaker, but then I quickly practiced the lessons I've learned from the way in which this surgeon and his staff have their system set.  I must get with their system.  So I said how grateful--which I had already stated to her--that the surgeon is willing to see me and help me, and humbly asked if at all possible, could she please put me on a cancellation list in case there is an earlier time?

Then, after the call, I called upon any and all Hope in God; and as I've mentioned above, I have to count on His Real Presence--presumably mostly the Holy Spirit to bring the Hope in God to active fruition in my body, mind, heart, and soul.  For I cannot locate that reservoir specifically, and it is taking great faith to know without seeing it (for hope that is seen is no hope at all), that the Hope in God is filled within Him and filled within me who am in Him.  

In fact, it takes tremendous faith (that I'm not "feeling", for faith is not feeling and besides, I'm feeling sick with pain) to trust that what I've thought and written about Hope in God--that Hope is instilled, infused, available in plenty, within us as we are within His Real Presence.  But you realize, perhaps, that when in sickening pain (and this can be physical or any type of pain--emotional, stress, mental, spiritual) that one gets too tired to seemingly have a lot of faith, or much at all in these situations.

Thus, I must assume and know with deep assurance somewhere within and without, that Faith in God comes in the same way--instilled and emanated by the Holy Spirit into us, and is from Jesus the Son and God the Father, much as Love of God is between Father and Son and Holy Spirit, with the Holy Spirit being the bearer of these unseen aspects known as the Three Theological Virtues:  Faith, Hope, and Charity.

When we are really down and seemingly for the count, we must simply hang on for dear life, and let His Real Presence handle all the spiritual needs that we have.

I read in just a line or two earlier today when more fresh to battle the pain, that hope is in the will.  That is in the Aumann book.  I do "hope" (my temporal wishing and desiring--and that has little sway to actual hope in God which is always true and real) that I will not be reading that I must "work hard" with my will to develop and build up hope.  Right now I just need God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to take care of me.

Being taken care of right now--just seems good, easy, maybe even temporally "hopeful."  Thus the thought of just getting even an ambulance to haul me to some ER and have people take care of me--IV of a strong enough pain med, maybe someone bringing ice packs, someone adjusting pillows under my knees or shoving them behind my back as I really need to be more in fetal position to help relieve pressure from spinal cord that is increasingly squeezed off.  Maybe a surgeon would decide to operate on my lumbar--scrape out the bone spurs, clean out the disintegrated vertebra of the L-3 level, open up space for the spinal cord above the L-4, maybe see when I'm opened up some other aspects that can be rectified.

However, I must bide time, and do what I can here, which is very little.  Hope in God, though, is a lot.  And even when it is not me doing the effort--not my will, so to speak, but Thy Will, Lord, doing the effort to summon the Hope in God--just like the supreme love is to love God in Himself--I need the Trinity to hope God in Himself, for myself.

At least I'm honest about it!  Jesus says His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  I need these theological virtues of hope, faith, and love--especially hope right now--to be easy and light.  Somehow, I trust--yes I have the faith to believe it--that God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mary, and my angel Beth, and even my parents and other loving relatives and friends on the other side, can take care of me a bit, and are taking care of me now, tonight, and with whatever the next morrow and morrows after, bring.  At some point, though, if this all gets to be too much, I will need to get some help such as ask Angel (lady who brings communion weekly) if she can bring some salad greens and a few greenish bananas--if I continue to not be able to be up and mobile more than this.

Or I may need to go to an ER.  Just give it up.  I can't blame the surgeons, for ten days ago I really was doing rather well--amazingly so!  I'm not sure what has occurred to bring on this lumbar severity, other than it could be the stenosis just that much worse more suddenly than gradually.  Or, this could be a gnarly pain siege of which I tend to forget after each one how severe they were.  Best to forget them!  Reading that old post, though--I certainly had been in one then, or I'd not been writing about the struggle to want to stay alive as opposed to the joy and yearning to be on the other side.

We just have to bide our time for glory.  That is the "headline".  My son, a journalist and producer for a major broadcaster, sometimes in a phone call of which does not happen often:  Just the headline!  What's the headline!  After all, he is in a high-pressure position, time is different for him than for a mystic, victim soul, consecrated Catholic hermit!  I have the leisure of time to suffer, to ponder Hope in God, to pray and to praise God, to offer my sufferings for any number of people known and unknown, to write lengthy blog posts.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: So Much to Learn

The older I am, the less ready I realize my soul is for Jesus to utilize for the love He deserves.

Of course I know that I am not the one to make that judgment call; but I guess in another way to express it:  I am recognizing all the more my failings on a daily basis.  Perhaps age becomes a weakness not only in body and mind, but in ability and strength to do right.

Increasingly I grasp what St. Paul meant when he succinctly stated (but not in the clumsy way I am writing) that he wants to do right but ends up doing wrong.  Unintentional errors seem on the increase with increasing years, and the ability to be circumspect about the past is indirectly correlated to weakening physical eyesight.

Last week when a spinal headache heralded the dawn, my mind crescendoed with details niggling and irritating my mind and emotions while at the same time knowing that I was not at all handling much with several of the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit.  [Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord] 

Or at least even at the time, it seemed that way.  I struggled to understand others' perspectives, yet it was ultra-frustrating with the intensity of the head pain to live in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.  I lacked the charity in losing faith that God would work matters out with some relationships.  I lacked wisdom in my perspective and thoughts regarding some, and I lacked three of the cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, and justice.

At the time, I was of course unable to think of theological or cardinal virtues.  They are just coming to me now, in reflection, after the spinal headache has cleared and also after the recent ordeal of wood particles painfully in my eyes.

As to the latter trial, I could do nothing but wait and put out in some general messages on a personal social media account, that I needed prayers.  I could not get sawdust out of my eyes; I had no means of getting transportation to civilization for help.  I had to wait and trust in God to provide whatever human assistance.  I had to try to understand what aspects in others resulted in the wait and to respect how it would be from their standpoint.

The first night of the  ordeal (which can make one frantic from such small bits of wood nearly imperceptible to the human eye if one can use the eyes to see at that point!), the Lord provided a dream in which my grandmother appeared amidst many other, I assume, relatives and friends long departed from this earth.  My grandmother is the personage who stood out in the dream, and since I'd not seen her in the spirit realm in many temporal years, this reconnoitering was reassuring and blessed!  She did not need to speak in temporal words; her message of calm came in essence.

Finally came a much-needed offer to drive me to civilization to get medical help for the eyes.  To my surprise, an eye specialist made room to fit me in immediately; however even with that, I had to wait a few hours for the person giving me the ride to fulfill what was scheduled.  Although I knew if others felt the pain in my eye, all else would be dropped to hie-thee-to-an-eye-doctor, that other aspects blur our vision, so to speak, to be able to relate to that degree to overcome our idiosyncracies.

So the triage nurse, who had called me to find out more details of what happened regarding my eye incident, accepted that I had to wait until after noon to be driven there and accommodated me accordingly.  And I had to accept it also, although I hoped that if I were needed that I'd set aside my plans and would rise to immediate assistance.  But perhaps I'd not.  And surely in the past I had not.  In fact--just right now popped into my mind an incidence in which I ignorantly did not realize the immediate need of someone waiting for me to bring Holy Communion to them--'twas years ago but brought to mind right now!

The ophthalmologist chided me for not coming in immediately, the morning after the eye incident, but I said I simply had to wait until there was a human means to come; I did not have thousands for an ambulance ride.  (And that is helpful in somewhat understanding why many people forego medical procedures, do not keep their teeth in good shape, live on the streets....)  Yet it was not a perspective he much tolerated in his own perspective based upon his given career mindset.

On the return drive back to Te Deum Hermitage, with the person who took six hours out of scheduled day to do the incredibly kind deed, I learned part of the person's background which helped me immediately understand aspects that had prickled the week before when addled by the spinal headache.  Just a bit of understanding and knowledge helped me grasp others' traits and the reason for them.

In fact, there was a terrible eye incident shared, but the passage of time somehow dims our view of the immediacy of pain when the pain is in another's current experience.

I am reminded of the Scripture in which we are told to take the plank out of our own eye rather than to dwell on the splinter in another's eye.

From last week's spinal headache in which my own lack of temperance, brutal counsel of another, lack of understanding (even if I struggled to understand)--to this week's lesson in waiting for further instruction in both theological and cardinal virtues--I can "see" how God mercifully brings answers and softly humbles.  

He teaches, always.  Jesus has never stopped being the Master Teacher.  And I have so much to learn, always.  More than ever.