I am meditating on Love as action today. Not all those who sigh, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom. I am a sigher, for sure. A very lonely lover needing perpetual affirmation from God that I am loved and loving. When I don’t feel it, I believe it still. When I am rejected by the flesh and the world, I fight with hope and I believe it still. When I do feel it, I can rest for a time. Even so, it is a restless restfulness, longing always to share itself, because Love is immanently relational.
Since I have the genetics of an addict, I find that the monastic routine suits me very well. Either I will be addicted to good deeds or bad deeds, there is no other option for me. So, I fill as much of my time as possible with habitual good deeds, until the space left for evil is very tiny and manageable. Thus, my failings cannot derail me or slow my progress too much. I think this is the same reason why some people become workaholics. The beautiful thing about routine prayer is that it is both a good labor and a loving intercourse at the same time. I’m still only three months or so into the new rule of life I have given myself, and it has been very fruitful. However, constant adaptation and adjustment is necessary. After a work injury broke my flow, I realized that I still needed to organize my hours for days when I don’t have my day job to structure me. God knows, He has given me more than enough to do, my issue is simply deciding what to do ahead of time and committing. If I do not do this, I will end up working on whatever strikes my interest in the moment. Yes, I do need this kind of spontaneous inspired space as well in my life, but only in very small doses; otherwise, it dissipates energy and hinders fruitfulness. Plus, I tend to over-value the spontaneous and the novel. It becomes just another addiction. Instead, when I do what I have planned to do, I find that inspiration and novelty comes to the very task that at first seemed so drudging and mundane. This has been my consistent experience throughout my academic and artistic careers as well as in my personal relationships and my worship of God. All healthy relationships require a degree of commitment and maintenance. It can’t be all spontaneity, or you’ll end of being a really terrible friend and unfaithful lover. A seed that is constantly uprooted and moved to new soil, is never given the time it needs and deserves to grow and become a tree. Faith in Love too takes time and must be fed often, like the mustard seed. Our finitude only allows us so much time to nurture growth, so choose the seeds you are feeding wisely. The God of Catholicism teaches us to die to ourselves daily in the ritual gift of ourselves, so that when the self is given new life and growth, we may know that it was He who gave it and His work that sustains it and holds it together. Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ died first that we may walk through the power of His godly death, grafted to His vine in the companionship of the Holy Spirit, to give glory to the Trinitarian Father, the one and only God who is a Perfect Family. In this holy work (liturgy) we give new life to children of the Light, even when we do not see them with our eyes.
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Thank you for your prayers, friends.
We wanted to thank you and share, the Holy Spirit and I. I wanted to be a monk. I mean, ever since my conversion, back fifteen years now, I have been so in love with the Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We remember the joy and the light. Such beauty, such depth, just beyond the veil, only a thin little space separating us from all of heaven. At any moment, there, present to us. Truly. Of course I wanted to give myself completely to Him. To Him. We did everything together. I relearned literally everything about the world, and people, and myself. When my reason came to me in adolescence, I wiped away the mystical child I had been, in favor of some mechanical beast that made more sense to me somehow. So I was very literally reborn and really couldn't even relate to the old mind. Such is the utter transcendence of Faith in Jesus Christ, it's living in the same space but in a totally different dimension. That's what its like trying to talk to unbelievers, like trying to speak across dimensions. But the world does weigh on us. Because we love them. This is how God suffers. The impassible became passionate for us. Not to save us like some lifeguard to a drowning man. No, like a husband saving his wife from the grip of a dragon. I am His wife. That's what we remember today. I am His woman. I joked with some friends recently that I was now a member of the LGBTQ+ community because I feel a strong affinity with ‘two-spirited’ people. Two-spirited is an indigenous-American term for someone who supposedly has both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Like the whole shaman phenomenon. But I'm talking about something different and better. I'm talking about how we are all Mary to the Lord. Not the same person. But the same impregnating power of God comes over us and invites us into the amazing mission of love. He leads it all, He is the provider, protector, teacher, and spouse of our spirits. The Lord took me like a lover, knowing me, he gave it all at once, opened my spirit, explained to my intellect, lifted my emotions, and healed my senses. We have been on a long journey since that wedding day. Many lessons had to be lived. Many times I had to go back to Him, and apologize for abandoning our love. 'Do whatever He tells you'. Seems simple enough, until I realized there's a cacophony of other voices about to tell me different things. The shear number of times they speak the contrary of the Lord's command, it's the scourging at the pillar. But again, my lover took that on for me, and won the fight already and all tomorrow's fights as well. My participation in the marriage, my work is as a helper to Him, a consoler to His heart because I feel with Him. I stay with Him even when I have feel the pain too. For as long as I can bear it anyway. Before I run away again, before I start to sink into unfaithfulness. Faithfulness is not easy. But it is the saint making magic of life. Stay with Me. Here I am Lord. I come to do Your Will. Not as a slave. Not as an addict. As a good and holy wife. I'm ok with it being uncomfortable to the world to think this way. We know we speak from another dimension. It's a higher analogy than some can appreciate. We are working on that. SO HERE'S THE LESSON FOR TOMORROW I took a few unexpected blows a couple weekends ago, and I've been badgered by the voices since. But I fell because I was trying too hard to be the man in the relationship. I'm just here to be with Him and to help however I can in His mission, His work, His life. I don't need or desire to be seen as a great man, an accomplished man, a wealthy man, a strong man, or whatever other masculine caricature I've been brain-washed into hanging my worth upon. We just need to make our time into a prayer, like a monk. Very concretely though. I will do this exact project for this exact amount of time. I will say these exact prayers at these exact times. I'm not going to choke the artist in me because I'm always inspired, inspiration flows from my Lover like a stream of living water that follows me. Because my roots reach into His dimension even as my body traverses this one. When I reach in to drink, the enemies cannot touch me. We remain free, even through death. Tomorrow it will come again. We imitate the humility and meekness of Our Lady. Perfect meekness is a strong freedom under a total governance of the Spirit. Meekness is the childlikeness wherein power has come to maturity through the organization of love in Logos. The monastic plan for tomorrow harnesses our power into spousal service. Here I am Lord.
Your son, your sinner. I’m tired. It’s been a hard last few days. There were beautiful moments. I remember, dimly, distantly. I can’t stop feeling so alone. So unworthy of love. None are worthy, I know. But we are married to the Spirit of Love and joy. Stuck. That’s what I’ve been feeling. So trapped in an interior space that’s suffocating me. It so clear that it doesn’t need to be this way. But it doesn’t seem to be in my power to change anything. I can’t make the connection happen. I’m too empty. I didn’t pray enough. That’s what it is. Yet I prayed so very much. Still. Not enough. It’s constant. I don’t stop speaking to you for long, and as soon as I do, the weight comes again. It’s too heavy. I can’t bear it. Christ already held it for me. I believe. This conversation gives momentary reprieve. The work. The vision. Our Lady. I just want to love and to share. But what I have isn’t received, except by you, and you don’t need anything from me. I do love them all, so much. I don’t know how to show it. All I do is pray for them. But I don’t enjoy being with them. That’s not true. But I feel like a burden all the time. Like its better if I just go away. So here I am. Telling you what you already know, just so that I can remember that I am known. That I am beautiful to someone in this present moment. Your love holds me. I cry so much now. It’s pathetic but I’m grateful for it still. I’m afraid to stop writing. I’m afraid of the thoughts that will come. They wait for me like a monster that feeds on me when I’m still. I wanted to receive your Body today. I didn’t because my routine is breaking down with this injury. Why? What are you teaching me? Everything seemed like it was getting better. We were going to talk and it was going to be good. I don’t understand. I suffer well most of the time don’t I? I put your Love into the pain. Most of the time. Today I feel defeated. But I’m not. Just a few desperate selfish choices. I’m forgiven. I know You are here. I’m going to share this because maybe someone will pray for me, and know that I love them, and I am with them in Christ’s affliction. Praise Him. Praise You God. Praise You Lord of Light and Love and Truth and Beauty. I am your gift, be my Giver, share my heart with your children. This darkness will not have the last Word. Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for the great depths of beauty you have revealed to me in them, in us. I know I’m supposed to help them see what you have shown me. But I don’t know how. I just say what is true to me, or nothing, and just listen and pray. The reality of my life speaks of You. You did that. Thank you for that. But I’m still lost. Still such a child. These creatures you put here to be in communion, are they? Am I? The spirit acts though the mind and body cannot tell it. I believe. Help me. I want to be perfect for You, perfect as You are. But the journey passes through so many deaths. Raise me up again Lord, I fall. |