The "grandfather" who sexually abused me as child also taught me a few useful things. As he would make me alcoholic drinks when I was about 10 years old, he would say, as I sat at the bar, "Cindy, here's a good bartender's trick: always clean as you go. Always keep the rag close behind the glass, that way, your bar always looks nice and shiny." He taught me other things, too. Things I rather wish I had not learned.
But that is life: messy. Always messy. You want black and white, but you get a lot of gray...you also get every other color of the rainbow. And that, is what we must always look for: the rainbow. Remember color is neither good nor bad, but it helps us to distinguish the difference between one thing and another.
Watched a show on NOVA last night about the periodic table. How it was created...and I saw on TV pictures of atoms. What was once theory or conjecture, has now been proven true.
I wrote a little message to my team...listen to me! "My team!" I suppose that means I am integrated. I have been working on this ACTS team as an outsider. As spiritual director, I stay separate. My job is to help them stay motivated, focused, balanced. I have not felt part of the team. Hmmm. Today perhaps that has changed.
The message I wrote had to do with Psalm 51. Verse 10-11: "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew within me a right spirit."
I didn't know that mattered so much to me until I wrote to my team this morning. Only then did I make all the connections. And there are many.
I've taken a break from posting on Facebook this week. I don't know why. I think God must have said, Stop. Right now, it's going to be you and me...a little less us and me. Or you and them. I don't know. I just needed to...clean.
I have lived in this house for 16 years. I thought I would be here a short time. I thought I would have married long ago. I didn't realize how much cleaning I needed to do. Inside my heart, inside my soul...inside everything that makes me me. I did clean house about 12 years ago, and then allowed myself to enter into a passionate relationship...where God showed me in no uncertain terms that "sex wasn't everything." I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
So maybe that's why I haven't cleaned house. Afraid I'll slip back into that which satisfies only for the moment it exists. Happily, I think, I might have learned my lesson. Time will tell, for I am cleaning. Everything. I think I'm about half way through the mess. Clean enough to have company, but not enough to be satisfied. Now it is owning the truth that I really don't need all this stuff I have accumulated. That I will never read all the books I have, never have a dinner party where I need three forks, or three glasses of crystal at each setting.
I have packed up many things from my mother's house, from my aunt's house and said...yes, I have honored them...and now they must go. I took a truck full of things to the Salvation Army. I sold books to Half-Price Books. The money will be given to the church.
I did not realize, as I was cleaning my house, I was cleaning my heart..and my soul. Each day, I went to Mass and hurried home...to clean...and to wait for the mail. I knew that the answer would arrive soon. I just knew it. God has a way of making my life a kind of poem...perhaps because I like poems...but I would check the mail. Not yet, not yet.
Yesterday the church called. "Your annulment has been granted." Of course it would come during Holy Week, while I was cleaning and praying. How could it not? God has been jerking my chain my whole life, when I was so very close to Him, I could feel Him breathe inside me...and when I was so angry with Him, I would bed down the first guy who walked into my line of fire. Odd that God would love me, even then. (That's a secret the devil doesn't want you to know: even when you are being a real brat, God is there...waiting for you to breathe again)
Annulment granted. I felt like I was going to throw up. Like sin, I'm supposed to pretend now that it never happened. Which, according to the Church, it never happened. Like walking out of the confessional...once forgiven, it's like it never happened. But it did, and that's why some of us keep confessing the same sins over and over. Not that you are repeating the same sin...but you confess the SAME sin...from 30 years ago...over and over. God has forgiven you...but you have not forgiven yourself. That is so damn hard to do. Okay...let me be honest...it is hard for ME to do.
That is pride, of course...spiced up with the illusion of control. And the memory of the violence done to your own soul. If only we could walk into a confessional, speak our truth...and then let it go. I think that's what Jesus really wanted for us...to let it go. All the hurts and pains and regrets and punishments and illnesses of the heart...to just let them go. And God came up with this perfect plan to teach us how to do that. He choose to become human, live among us, eat with us, hold our hands, speak with us, sing with us (did Jesus ever sing? Oh my, I hope so! I'll bet he sang with his momma as a little boy...Of course, his momma couldn't teach him, "Jesus loves me"...tee hee...oh my sweet, boy, do you know how much I love you? How you made your momma proud? How you made her so happy?)
So the plan unfolded. Teach forgiveness by going through the most horrible injustices...and saying, "I love you anyway."
It really is an ongoing way of being....forgiving and being forgiven...not just daily, but moment to moment. So you have to keep cleaning. Keep the rag following the glass. Don't wait until the task is so big that you quit, that you give up, that you run from the mess. Clean as you go. Inevitably every moment you breathe, you may offend someone, or yourself...or someone will offend you. It's just part of being human. So keep the rag moving. Clean as you go.
Forgive.
Be forgiven.
Then you can see the rainbow...and not just the gray.
I love you anyway.
Love, Cindy
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