Light and Shadow

I haven't posted in a while. The days have been busy and the stimulations strong. Children's Hospital, 10th grade confirmation, exploration into prison ministry, getting up close and personal with the Missionaries of Charity, TOBET conference...all new things added to my usual list of work: hospitals, funerals, EM, Lectoring, home visits, two ACTS retreats before me and I am always looking for a priest to be in dialogue with. This week, I am blessed with Fr. Postell's company.
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Somewhere in the middle of the night, I wrote:

I have about 200 unread emails in one account, and perhaps 500 in another email account that refuses to let me access it. I don't know if it matters anymore, all this so called correspondence. It is all just shadows of something that was once real: Communication. Contact. Relationship.

We pretend we have connections to people by virtue of electronic media. Having two hundred emails on one account and 800 on another I suppose could make some people feel like they are connected to others. They might feel popular, or needed. Right now, I think it is a reminder of how disconnected I am to everyone, and especially people that I would really like to have as friends.

And there is so much junk. I don't care about forwards. I detest threats of "bad luck" if I don't forward an email, that I am not American, not Christian, that I don't support the latest "flavor of the month" great social cause. I don't care if I am one of your "ten best friends" on "Women with facial hair" day...

For some people, these things have meaning. For me, it just makes me feel more lonely and disconnected. If you want to talk to me, call me. If I want to talk to you, I'll call you, but you don't have to answer the phone. A ringing bell does not require you to jump anymore than it requires me to jump.

It all just tells me that very few of us are real with each other. Very few of us are truly engaged in life and living. And the fact that I am writing at 3:11 a.m. speaks volumes about my personal connections to others.

I've been out walking in the moonlight. It is absolutely stunning out there. There is nothing more attractive to me than the moonlight...and moonshadow. I remember being on a date with Bob Crowley...and being the Cindy I have always been, hiding out in the back yard at the party, away from the crowd, wondering why God made me. And looking down into the St Augustine grass and seeing my moon shadow and then softly singing Cat Steven's song..."I'm being followed by a moon shadow, moon shadow, moon shadow..." and that usually led to another Cat Stevens song, "Father and Son." By then. Bob had found me and we talked about the constellation Orion.

I am a moon child. At night, I feel complete. At night I feel appreciated by God. At night, I really believe He hears me when I pray. It is the time when I think I am most honest with God...out there, in the middle of the night, when things are almost still, I can be honest with God. And generally, I can hear what He is trying to tell me.

But I am unsettled by the hypocrisy of some of the human relationships I am caught up in. Ones that I thought were important almost have no meaning at all now, and that is a bit sad, yet part of living life. It takes at two to create love...two to make the Trinity work...and only one to kill it. Funny how we always give the devil so much power.

I am aware of the inadequacies of some relationships that I thought were important by the amazing quality of the new relationships that have entered into my life. I realize that I have put up with fast food on the access road when I could have had paella in the mountains. (And for the person who thinks I am talking about her: I am not talking about her, I am being...ironic)

The cool thing is that God is showing me what is real and what is illusion, what is light and what is shadow, where I need to spend my time and energy and where I do not.

I am first and foremost a teacher. Call me Rabbi, and my head will swoon...call me Reverend and I will giggle, call me priest and I will try to hide. But I am a teacher. Right now I feel a bit like Yoda, with Luke Skywalker telling me he's ready for the fight and I'm telling him it's too soon. And at the same time, I am Luke, in a hurry to save the world. But those are just shadows.

The light is still far away and the shadows are long.

I am encountering amazing women these days. It was what I asked for in prayer. And they are in front of me, around me, behind me and before me. And they scare me because I think they look to me for answers. But I am looking to them for answers. And in its oddness, it works...we wander around, seeking God, and find Him in each other. And we find God in the shadows, too.

I have had an incredible week. I need to put it here before I forget some of it. Two days at downtown Children's Hospital. Reconnecting with old friends and memories. Recalling the things I did right and the things I did wrong. How much better I see today than ten years ago...and how much more merciful I am with myself now than I was back then.

Training for the 10th graders, I encounter again, the memories of what I did before: the Girl Scout stuff with my daughter and her friends, the Youth Groups I led: in confirmation and choir trips and ski trips and who knows what...the 15 little girls and my daughter...the maybe 8 teenage boys and my son...each seemed to look to me for some guidance...and I looked to them to teach me how to live. I look at the teens and see not much has changed

except the Catholic part....

Everything I ever wanted, everything that had been taken away from me, has been returned. Well, perhaps not everything yet...but I suspect it will all balance before I'm out of here. All the things I did once before, I now get to do as a Catholic. It is like it is my birthday everyday. I had no idea how much my faith tradition mattered to me. And oh my, it matters!

I am completely whole when I am in the company of and in service for the nuns. This summer, I felt complete while at St Scholastica. I felt a peace I had never known. I had found my resting place in God.

This week, I spent the night with women who were struggling to get their lives right. Some were open to healing, others are still angry with the whole world. Some think they are victims and others think they are powerful.

And I held these tiny babies...and I look with awe and a little terror. Which one will find love and which one will try to create love? Who will protect these children, now that they are out of the womb? No one protected me, I think. And I was one of the lucky ones. Who is going to protect these children?

I saw a Mass a young girl who I know needs protection. I tried to help, but the powers that be did the 'book/rule thing' and I was told nothing more could be done. It was out of my hands, I was told. Cindy, let it go. So during the Eucharistic prayer, I see her excuse herself from the seat and go with her brother outside of the church. I keep looking back and this young man in the pew behind me smiles at me, he thinks I am looking at him...I look back and look back. Did she leave the prayer because she needed the bathroom, or because she maybe thought God didn't love her. That the prayer was crap. I wonder these things because I thought them when I needed someone to protect me and no one bothered to look in my direction.

Junk mail. You're one of my ten best friends. I love you. Here's a hug. Now the world knows we are friends.

Just words...just words.

Give me the real thing, or give me nothing at all.

I have been in the midst of the real all week. I have seen the light and I have seen the shadow. I have to be very careful here, because if I continue, I will always be in the real....which is what I most want, most desire...but it is a scary place. And it is a lonely place.

Most people don't want to see the real. They want the illusion. They want the shadow. They like to stare at the wall of the cave and never come out. And maybe the shadow is really the best place for humans.

I wish I could put down on paper all the grace I experienced in the last seven days. I wish I could somehow explain that even though I write in this somewhat cynical style, I am completely slain by the tremendous in-pouring of love...the love that is flowing into my heart...but as that happens, the illusions are being flushed away. The desires I had for some things to work out a certain way, that I could make a difference in certain people's lives...I have to let go and not be angry or bitter that the El Greco painting that was once started will now lie in a corner, unfinished...and fresh canvas and paint are being picked up and examined. Some things will be just fine unfinished...and the others, the ones at risk...well, I will hold them when I am able, and then give them to God.

The babies, the prisoner, the people determined to have it their own way...the ones who think they have power, the ones who see only themselves in the mirror...the ones who just couldn't be open to possibility, the ones who don't want to listen, see, touch, taste, smell. These I have to let go...and it is hard for me.

I killed one hell of a big cockroach that liked the small of the bacon I was cooking Saturday morning. At first I thought I would just ignore him, but he stayed around...and now he's dead. I hate cockroaches. And I think, I don't have to see them very often. I get to go back to my house and my bed and my four hundred DVDs and three TVs and 1200 emails and feel important. But today, I live and serve those who don't have all those choices. And I am surrounded by a small group of women who, by choice, live a life of simplicity to be completely engaged with broken people. Their work never ends, there is no way to measure success or failure...you just keep doing. One foot in front of the other...and you pray.

The man in prison who thinks he got a raw deal. I can't even try to help him anymore. Will anyone be there for him? Who will clean his mirror?

Light and shadow. Suffering and pain and sacrifice. But always unceasing joy.

That happens when you are doing what you are supposed to be doing.

My mother died in my arms. A woman I did not like very much. A woman I could never please. A woman who told me to kill my child. She died in my arms. That's the light and the shadow. That's what loving really is all about. Not the getting, but the giving. It's not about me...and it was always about me.

To be fully human, you really have to die to self. To have everything, you must give up everything. To feel the joy, you have to be willing to feel the pain. To love fully, you have to die to all desire. Sounds crazy, huh...

well, I'm out of steam and need to crawl back in bed. Alone...and yet, never ever alone.

The moon will be full on the 23rd. I would have been married 33 years on that day. The autumnal equinox. As it turns out, my biological grandparents were married on that day. So perhaps my connection to the moon is just part of what makes me who I am. It will be so bright that night, it will be closest to the earth on that day. On that day, I will feel as close to God as I can get and still be human. On that day, I will feel perfect love. But the shadow will be very dark that day, also, because the light will be so very bright.

I wish I could explain better. Right now, I still just full of impressions. Full of feelings that needed coming out. I apologize for not being clear.

But I know who I am right now. Tomorrow it will be different. I may be confused again. In the daylight, it is harder to see clearly.

But tonight, I realize I am God's alone...and that is enough.

Embrace your light. Embrace your shadow. Both are gifts.

Love, Cindy