Life and the future

Not a real picture but this is a squirrel and represents my 다람쥐. I have no idea about what the future holds ( I know what I desire but that's not inevitable!) but I can say that the roller coaster of emotions continue for me. Life involves significant changes, which I welcome and desire. I covet your prayers and many different things need to be sorted out.

But to have two senior and experienced friends/colleagues validate this journey with her and this has given us courage for the future. For we have seen God's hands in the path so far and look to the future.

Sleep calls

I am emotionally tired even exhausted. Love may be patient and kind but it demands and delivers both joy and sadness in the same moment. After far too many years she has given me courage to face the dentist albeit a sedation dentist. This is liable to be expensive but the fear is tangibly real and why I have avoided it for so long.

Love has been long in the coming some 20 years, in fact longer than when I last saw the dentist. I am happy after months of struggling with my emotions and my Christmas cactus has come into bloom to celebrate. But how can I tell those around me? It's been tough and I have leaked some information already but this is the beginning of my public declaration. Someone has truly touched my heart and brought significant changes. I am trying to keep tidy and wash dishes, cook food at home, keep up with my laundry, eat healthily and in fact have lost over 7 pounds in weight!

She has been there in all my recent moments of need. Thanks be to God.

cleaning and clearing

The cleaning has slowed down but is still happening. Now I must deal with new old things in my life. Sometimes we allow the past to shackle us and events and memories are like lead weighing us down. We need to find healing and a new space to live. I’ved loved the concept of ereignis as a philosophical idea from Heidegger. Often translated as an event, Hubert Dreyfus defined it as "things coming into themselves by belonging together." I see it as a conceptual clearing in the forest or place of meeting. I'm in that little place where you can see the sky.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say this, Those he redeemed from the land of the foe, Those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and sea Some wandered in desert wastelands Finding no way to a city where they could settle they were hungry and thirsty And their lives ebbed away. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble And he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straightway To a city where they could settle. Psalm 107: 2-8

Falling and being alone

Last night brought home one of the dangers of living alone, I slipped and fell down the stairs. I was seeing the Bible study group out of the apartment and my feet went from under me and I landed on my elbows and back/shoulder. Don't think anything is broken. I was so embarrassed that I pushed everyone out and went upstairs again to ice my elbows. I did feel a lot of pain but at that point I was alone. Thank God I had my cell phone in my pocket and I called for help. She was with me within half an hour.

Yes I'm OK. missing a layer of skin and bruises on both elbows, but OK. My back is sore again and have probably set back my recovery. I was a bit shocked and I fell right asleep later when I lay on my air mattress. (The loft bed being a little dangerous.) I'm resting today and sleeping trying to avoid doing anything stupid. I thank God for her.

God and the why, where, who of God?

I know how to love you beyond just me and you … You are only a stage along my rise toward God. Antoine Saint- Exupery Citadelle

I read this on Oct 26 2009.

… human love can join two people together only on one condition that it makes them love each other in something greater than themselves. And since this something greater is entirely spiritual and divine, it is finally spiritual love alone which can draw us away from ourselves and project us toward the other in a gift of absolute sincerity. Charles V Heris Spirituality of Love

On Saturday I made this my first soapstone carving. It marks a significant change in my life and perhaps also the future. Who knows what will come?

Falling in love

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

What exactly is a healthy intimacy? I am privy to deep parts of people's lives and wrote to a friend recently as we discussed the nature of love and the dimensions and different parts or forms of Love - "For me the tension is very real in loving another so deeply and feeling their experiences, that that loving doesn't cross over into falling in love. A very real risk." Pedro Arrupe I think points to a falling in love with God but there is a wider aspect to be considered.

Thanksgiving

Today I give thanks for so many things perhaps the clearing and new aspects rising in my life as I make space in the apartment. Putting in 12 hours and producing a startling meal for 120 people was a crazy journey and yet it went well. I give thanks to God for Natalie and Andrew without whom it would not have happened. For Rosanne and others who pulled everything through and worked so hard.

Probably most of all I I give thanks that I can have a sense of gratitude for life itself. Even though my vertigo has come back and my back doesn't work properly and occasionally I fall over because my balance isn't working quite right, somehow I am glad I can feel good, sometimes feel sad , feel the pain and struggles of others. Recently I learned about the struggles of others who have been deeply affected by the insensitive remarks of siblings and sense of worthlessness. Yet I had cause to learn in a recent Bible study that not are we loved by God but precious for God has put his image in/on us.

I am so tired at the moment I'm going to bed now...

Dust, Dirt and Detritus

... That is to say, you reason should not be covered up with worldly affairs, trivial thoughts, and bodily passions but should always be rising above the things of the world as much as it can. If you do this you are bound to discover all the dust, filth, and tiny motes in your house (Why? because he is light); ... In this way you are bound to find Jesus ... It is not a job for an hour or a day but for many days and year with toil and sweat of body and travail of the soul. Walter Hilton The Ladder of Perfection

I have been continuing my struggling with the spiritual discipline of cleaning and it took a new sense of meaning for me today as I read a section from Walter Hilton. He was alluding to Luke 15:8 the woman searching for a lost coin. In this cleaning physically my apartment there are spiritual and emotional struggles as well. I have to face down those things which I have kept hidden, exactly the dust, dirt and detritus of who I am. I have to exercise strong willpower and self-control and in it all finding Jesus and a way to life.

The key problem is all this cleaning seems never ending! My desk cleared and cleaned last week already has a light film of dust again. Perhaps because I'm still moving boxes and books etc around and back and forth out of my bedroom. I'm pleased with myself that I washed my bedding 9 days after getting my new mattress. Almost unheard of in a single male. That's why disciplines are so tough and yet lead to habits and eventually virtues.

Losses

Is loss necessary? Judith Viorst wrote a book I read years ago called Necessary Losses. In my own purging of my apartment I am beginning to suspect my tiredness is linked to an element of loss even though I am achieving freedom from being shackled down to all this stuff I have accumulated. I have been going to bed before 11pm which is unheard of. I think this is healthy loss still with a cost.

My boss loss his father last Sunday and went straight to the airport from the bedside. That's tough, and in that loss I remember my own father's disappearance; I returned home from a holiday to a quiet household, his body already gone. Lord Tennyson's poem Morte d'Arthur is a special piece for me because if this little piece as Arthur dying is placed in a barge and set off.

More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

Losses may be necessary, an inevitable part of life but that does not diminish the pain created by an absence, by the space left empty in a life. Freedom isn't everything.

Seeing and asking and smelling

I was talking to my neighbour because last Sunday I watched many women coming out of the local Orthodox church with a branch or handful of a green plant. I discovered that this is a tradition that comes from the time of Constantine, a Roman emperor who embraced the Christian faith giving it official status in the Empire. His mother Helen is reputed to have found the remains of the cross. St Helen took part of the wood and nails with her to Constantinople where Constantine gave orders to build at Jerusalem the Church of the Resurrection.

The temple was constructed in about ten years. St Helen did not survive until the dedication of the temple, she died in the year 327. The church was consecrated on September 13, 335. On the following day, September 14, the festal celebration of the Exaltation of the Venerable and Life-Creating Cross was established. The basil grew where the Holy Cross was found. Tradition tells that the aroma of the basil attracted Saint Helena and she ordered the workmen to dig there. Incidentally basil (βασιλικός) in Greek means kingly, royal. I feel honoured that my neighbour gave me a sprig of basil from her porch. The smell of basil took a new twist in meaning for me and so did my relationship with my neighbour.

Supposedly basil helps to promote higher states of awareness and open the heart and mind. It has an extraordinary antispasmodic action that makes it useful in the treatment of muscular cramps, all respiratory tract infection, asthma, and bronchitis. The oil possesses antiviral, anti-infectious and antibacterial properties and is uplifting and stimulating and helps chase away the blues. Perhaps I should start growing it?

Nothing new under the Sun

I’ve been clearing into the deeper corners of my bedroom and so much dust and stuff has been cleaned sorted or gone down the stairs and out the front door. I’m working on two file boxes of talks I gave in the period 1986-1992. A long time ago but the OHP acetates I prepared are works of art or graphic design with a wide use of colour and different fonts and images and pictures. I even hand tinted the black and white pictures!

What surprised me was the outlines of the talks were pretty similar to those now. I’m still going on about the same things. What is it they say? Preachers/teachers really only have one message? I’m beginning to think its true. Probably I’m still asking the same question “So where’s your passion?” Perhaps in deeper ways with more information but the question is still the same. Does this mean I haven't grown or changed if the issues are still the same?

Health and Dust

Day 9 of my back trouble saga. My back is getting better with no sharp pains but a ban against riding the bike and lifting heavy weights. Both I had to do for the the BBQ on Saturday, (don't tell my chiropractor). We had far more people than we first expected or planned for and had to sort out extra food. But on the day, donations made the food even greater than we needed.

I still have the dull ache in my legs but the vertigo seems less again. Somehow adversity and troubles has brought something good. With the clear up, yesterday I could have a small birthday dinner at my place which is the first in two years! It felt so good having people around the table eating.

Strangely last night, a little almond nut turned up on the floor of the kitchen. It was almost a repetition of Totoro again. This whole episode in my life can only be described as an experience of the sacred or holy. New freedom and deepening relationships as each little event contributes to the next. For example, last night Iris and Naomi were delayed for dinner, so Dickie decided to lift and remove the old stair carpet. A dust trap and also liability as it is quite frayed etc. Today as I write and reflect I am increasingly aware that perhaps my ill-health over the last few years is also related to bad air quality and dust! Of course physical, emotional and spiritual health are interlinked and this journey is headed in a good direction.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Roman 8:28