Last night, I didn't exactly dream I was a nun, but I dreamt I was bringing in young women to become nuns. It was a beautiful dream. It was a long dream, it seemed...and the garden I took these women to was so lush and green, I seemed to be able to smell the chlorophyll in the leaves. Sisters Macrina and Kimberly were there...as a couple of monks I met on my journey to them in 2010. I felt like a Venus in the dream, I was so happy...and it seemed like everyone there was smiling and happy, too.
And it was the first night in a long time that I slept through the night.
I had what I would choose to call an unsatisfying meeting with my priest yesterday. Not that the meeting was bad, not that he was anything less than a very good priest...but I was so vulnerable, I allowed myself to speak much to some things in my life for which I am not proud (and you sweet, good Catholics, wanting to be a priest is not something I am ashamed of...but not actually being a "good pastor" is something I must correct)...Oh heavens, Debussy's Pour Le Piano is playing on WRR, the Tocatta...it has some turns in it that are life heaven to hear and to play...I recall a Master class with Bryce Morrison...how good he is with children....I tried to play a little Grieg yesterday and it was horrible...but still fun...
But the meeting with the priest...I absolutely hate being vulnerable. And the fact that I would choose it at this time is more than a little annoying. I came out, wondering how I would get through the night. I had not achieved my goal for this last adventure...and time was running out.
Much later, late at night, I had a conversation with a woman...with whom I never thought I would have conversations with...and it was good and honest and fresh. (I had seen another woman earlier in the day who is still hiding, still deeply wounded...and I suppose right here and now, I marvel at the difference...I suppose the lesson here is that if what I thought was impossible is now possible with one, why not, with time, be that another impossible becomes possible.
All things are possible with God.
But this women, like the priest...because I was worn out perhaps...offered words of healing. You know you can't get healing for the things you hide. If you don't tell the doctor where it hurts, how can you blame him for not getting you well? Such is prayer to me, learning how to be honest with God.
Before bed, I returned to reading, something I have not honored like I used to...I think because I continually choose theology books for nighttime reading. I don't need my brain so stirred up before sleep. I picked up, "Till We Have Faces" (I never finished it). I enjoyed it, I was surprised. I thought I would be too tired and unhappy to read. Psyche was telling her sister about the sacrifice, her sacrifice (that is, her life) and how it happened and how frightened she was...and then, when everything was taken from her...and she was tied to a tree, she began to see things differently. I read, "but mixed up with things the Priest said, too, about the blood and the earth and how sacrifice makes the crops grow."
"Sacrifice makes the crops grow." That kind of hit me with a giant DUH. And the thoughts began to flow...it was the most important lesson the priest (a different one) taught me...how to wait. I don't wait well. I enter, I conquer, I take. Long before I learned restraint, I learned that everything I value goes away. That if I wait, if I am patient...the most important things in my life leave me, because someone is always there, watching...waiting, for the chance to take away that which was give to me. So I became a warrior.. (identifying with the Hunger Games much here?)...survival meant conquest. I was pretty good at that. Unlearning that which allowed me to survive back then is very hard work. I saw that in the young woman earlier today. Her tools for survival are now becoming obsolete...she will learn, like me...but hopefully earlier than me...that better things are out there and the old ways need to be discarded. Who knows? I know very little. That's why I can only speak about me, and that is often questionable. Can I see myself? No...but these words...might help someone else out of hell. And perhaps, I might find my own answer along the way.
Sacrifice makes the crops grow. Primitive thinking requires you give your most precious possession to God and God will reward you with food. I suppose that is still true. Only we don't kill people or animals to get our food anymore...okay...I'm not going to finish that thought now...I have to leave for Mass in 12 minutes. But there are ideas introduced that are worth exploration.
Besides an obvious discourse on the mechanics of the Mass, on a personal level, I began to examine something probably quite obvious to everyone else. To get what I need, I must sacrifice. To become who I must be, I must sacrifice. Yet, determining the acceptable sacrifice is bit harder than to simply say, a contrite heart. There is mush more to it. How do I make my heart contrite? Was it in ceasing to judge others? Well, duh... But there is more? Am I holding on to certain past things, old, out-dated understandings of the world? And that is where the woman in the parking lot opened my eyes. Yes. I was holding onto a warped understanding of how to cope. And she put it to me: when are you going to let people love you? Which has been the recurring theme of oh, say....the last 50 years...and I am 55. But people go away. They leave you. Why give away yourself to people who just don't care enough to stay?
And that is the sacrifice. Love them anyway. Let them love you anyway. Accept the sacrifice. You will be wounded beyond what you think you can endure. But if you are willing, the crops will grow. There will be food for you...and for so many others...if you are willing to sacrifice your heart to love.
My dream took me to a beautiful place...where I saw myself and beautiful and happy...a kind of heaven. When the day was filled with my frustration of not being who I think I am supposed to be.
In the book Einstein's Dreams, the stories revolve around time. If I knew what was going to happen to me, would I do it anyway? Truth is I have...I can see outcomes...but I realize those outcomes, often self-fulling, are only a small set of possibilities in the realm of creation. There is more there...more options, if I am willing to sacrifice...to make the crops grow.
Oh, Lord, if it pleases you, let me bring the rain...
Love, Cindy
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