We have these periodically, those of us who sincerely give ourselves over to the Lord and strive for His will always. Vicissitudes. Changes that are not necessarily pleasant, changes that provide contrast and comparison, changes that evoke suffering if one does not willow branch bend to the winds.
The seasons come and go.
Since last spring ebbed with the neck injury, and summer brought the realization that something was still seriously wrong with the right shoulder after the fall in the chapel the year before and that resultant rotator cuff surgery, autumn produced yet another surgery on the shoulder--this one far more serious, painful, and lengthy in recovery.
But the deepest pain came from the prelates and priests of Holy Mother Church. Yet with those stunning and shocking events, the doors closing on the temporal Catholic world, came yet more instruction from His Real Presence in such a profound and potent question that answered itself within the dream vision and ensuing peace beyond all telling.
It is not easy, of course, to have the kind of faith necessary to grasp and hold onto the numinous. The mortal mind and emotions wants inclusion even if a hermit. The mortal mind clings to the temporal aspects--a typical enough, mortal thing to do! But this one must let go of that even more now, and endure and grow spiritually, open to God within and without one's being.
To be told that I am not to go to any parish was stunning. Priests and bishops say the darn'dest things. To be told that it is because one is too intelligent, too well read, too spiritual, different, and a mystic--is even more outrageous.
To hear an elderly bishop lie and deny and whine and not share responsibility for errant spiritual direction, was pathetic beyond disappointing. To have to report a criminal activity that had been not reported properly to the police, was yet another agonizing duty. But the soul is clean; and if the prelate and retired prelate and the other top honcho resented the truth being told, finally, they can tell it to God someday. That the one prelate discredited me to another, is as he chose, threatening me in a thin and sing-song voice. Yes, I said go ahead, resort to gossip mongering if that is what you desire.
Well, as has been spoken and written thousands of years ago, "As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord."
Fifty pages of a book were written prior to the serious shoulder surgery. Just now is the arm out of the sling, other than driving. It was immobilized for over five weeks, and the recovery is slow and painful. The degree of pain of having ones biceps severed and re-attached, anchored down into the shoulder bone in three places in a new location, is beyond description. I have wondered if the one whose direction caused the fall resulting in the injury and two surgeries, of which the obedient victim had to pay the financial, emotional and physical consequences, will suffer sharing this pain, somehow, in eternity. It is possible, if we believe in the final judgment and the eternal fires, in whatever form our punishments and remediation will take.
For now, this soul remains even more the evolving and progressing hermit. The laptop with the pages of the book written, is in repair. If the book is to begun anew, that is all right. So much more has happened in exile, that the truth will take on greater significance.
As the friend, Julian of Norwich, wrote years past: All is well and all shall be well.
Since last spring ebbed with the neck injury, and summer brought the realization that something was still seriously wrong with the right shoulder after the fall in the chapel the year before and that resultant rotator cuff surgery, autumn produced yet another surgery on the shoulder--this one far more serious, painful, and lengthy in recovery.
But the deepest pain came from the prelates and priests of Holy Mother Church. Yet with those stunning and shocking events, the doors closing on the temporal Catholic world, came yet more instruction from His Real Presence in such a profound and potent question that answered itself within the dream vision and ensuing peace beyond all telling.
It is not easy, of course, to have the kind of faith necessary to grasp and hold onto the numinous. The mortal mind and emotions wants inclusion even if a hermit. The mortal mind clings to the temporal aspects--a typical enough, mortal thing to do! But this one must let go of that even more now, and endure and grow spiritually, open to God within and without one's being.
To be told that I am not to go to any parish was stunning. Priests and bishops say the darn'dest things. To be told that it is because one is too intelligent, too well read, too spiritual, different, and a mystic--is even more outrageous.
To hear an elderly bishop lie and deny and whine and not share responsibility for errant spiritual direction, was pathetic beyond disappointing. To have to report a criminal activity that had been not reported properly to the police, was yet another agonizing duty. But the soul is clean; and if the prelate and retired prelate and the other top honcho resented the truth being told, finally, they can tell it to God someday. That the one prelate discredited me to another, is as he chose, threatening me in a thin and sing-song voice. Yes, I said go ahead, resort to gossip mongering if that is what you desire.
Well, as has been spoken and written thousands of years ago, "As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord."
Fifty pages of a book were written prior to the serious shoulder surgery. Just now is the arm out of the sling, other than driving. It was immobilized for over five weeks, and the recovery is slow and painful. The degree of pain of having ones biceps severed and re-attached, anchored down into the shoulder bone in three places in a new location, is beyond description. I have wondered if the one whose direction caused the fall resulting in the injury and two surgeries, of which the obedient victim had to pay the financial, emotional and physical consequences, will suffer sharing this pain, somehow, in eternity. It is possible, if we believe in the final judgment and the eternal fires, in whatever form our punishments and remediation will take.
For now, this soul remains even more the evolving and progressing hermit. The laptop with the pages of the book written, is in repair. If the book is to begun anew, that is all right. So much more has happened in exile, that the truth will take on greater significance.
As the friend, Julian of Norwich, wrote years past: All is well and all shall be well.
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