Vulnerability.

It was a very long week.  I wish I was a more gifted writer. The things I've learned are good for everyone to know...and spin in their own pattern. Yesterday when the Sister and I talked about her tears, I realized again about the blessedness of life and living...and how I don't really live much of one for myself. 
My life is still caught in those days some 40 years ago, when I could not escape what had been given to me. Thanksgiving: when I first began journaling, perhaps in 1968, because I could not escape, I wrote. So many memories of the holidays, most of them not good, traumatic and/or life threatening.

I am tired of sleeping in that box.  And God is all around me, hitting me hard these days, with the puzzle pieces: "This is the way out, Cindy" He tells me with each one.
The NCIS episode "Call of Silence" about PTSD, about when you finally face your own truth, you find out you did the best you could in a horrible situation.
The event with the paramedics in my home, reminding me how I live: alone. Very alone.
The neighbor who brought me a light bulb.
The other neighbor who invited me in for coffee.
My friends who called...and said, in no uncertain terms: let me help.
Finding out that half of the stuff in my pantry had expired and needed to be thrown away.
My daughter, who is finally letting me into her life.
My ex-husband, who I hugged...twice...which meant I had forgiven him.
The long visits with the shut-ins and hospitalized.
The impending deaths of my friends' family members.
The television show about the saint.
The Color Purple, which I still cannot watch.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More, which I did not want to watch.
The damn poetry that I wrote this week, the work I doing.
The young woman who wants her son back (CPS took him)...
Finding my uncle's address in Rhode Island and writing him...
And all the things that went through my head too quickly to write them down.

I am starting to understand better what I have been praying for. I believe that is what you really need to do, to get close to God. That is, if you really want to get close. You have to wake up to your own life. You have to be awake enough to live it and observe it at the same time.  At least, I think that is the path to healing. It feels a bit like "grand unified theory" of relativity and quantum mechanics: you live your life, but you observe it also.  Perhaps I could call that the contemplative life.  Someone wrote "an unexamined life is not worth living."  I disagree. Probably a happy life would be to not think too much.  But with pain comes a desire to know why...and that leads to thinking...and it takes a long list of mental gyrations to get to that place of peace...depending on how intense the trauma might have been. 

My concern is about spirituality and contemplation. I watched a bit of a show on a saint on EWTN, a conservative Catholic TV station.  As the woman read the saint's writings, I thought, as I always have..."yes, of course, that is how it is...there is always a common signature when writing about experiences with God...her words are not far from my own..."  And then, the utter ridiculousness of comparing myself to a saint kind of short circuits my head.  No one would possibly understand how a "woman like me" might have these mystical encounters with God. 
But have them, I do. I always have had them, probably since before I was angry enough to begin writing things down.  And no one will believe me. That's really okay.  I don't write for the people who don't need it or don't want it. I write for the ones who get kicked hard by life and know in their hearts that evil isn't really what the world is...that the world is lost and hurting...and wants to be found.
I don't understand how I can think and feel and "be" like these holy ones, knowing I am nothing like them...but the encounters with God are always the same. The infusion of peace and love, the understanding of wealth, the desire always to go deeper into the mystery, the detachment from the imperfect and the binding moves into the perfect, the feeling of coolness, and flight, and light...some part of me believes that is what all human beings crave: to move into the Light, which has been, and always will be home. 

I write the poetry about hungers and disappointments...so that in the midst of the sufferings of others...I can hold their hands and their hearts with great love and respect...to create the safe space where they can be real. 
I had one woman last week, finally let down her wall...and for a few seconds I saw her soul...and now she doesn't answer the phone when I call. That doesn't bother me. She got what she needed most. I think she is more ready to face the death that is not far away, and the time left will be good time.  The funny thing is, when she said her most important words...I could not understand them, but I knew enough from the sound of them, that I did not ask her to repeat them. They were holy words, not really meant for me. She just needed a witness.
Most of what I do, I do not fully understand. I think it's better that way.  If I knew, I might be more afraid to do it. I'm thinking now about a husband a wife, the wife grabbing my shirt and telling me, "You ARE my priest!" wanting me to do something for her that I felt I could not do. I will always feel I let her down, but I trust God to fix it. I am still learning my role as I must live in this world. I'll do the best I can as I am able.  And love God first, last, always. 
The way I do it, is by a continual dying to self. The challenge is that you cannot die to that which you cannot see or do not know that you have. (Am I repeating myself?) To say you are sorry only takes meaning if you can declare what you are sorry for.  To die to a part of the self requires that you know yourself first. And that is what hurts: letting your own truth out. 
It comes when we realize we have told our first lie.  I wrote about that when I was first on a team for the Walk to Emmaus at least 15 years ago.  Forgiveness comes when we first realize that we can deceive ourselves and others. It is the beginning of the hardening of our hearts.  It is the first thorn in our own crown.  That is what I recall from when I was maybe seven years old. The question was "Who started the fight?" and I looked down into the St Augustine grass and then into the Mesquite tree, with the thorns...and I said, "She did." It was a deliberate lie. I remember how I began to feel cold...and frightened...and how I got away with it.
From that lie, I learned to lie to mysef about many things. I watched how other people lied to me, and how I chose to accept their lie, for the simple reason that I knew myself to be a liar.  And it built and grew strong and thought it was in charge. Forever.

Enter God, who does not give up. The battle began for my soul. Who would win?  Free will always demands a choice.
This spiritual open heart surgery demands consent.  It is a walking back into darkness, but carrying the Light of Christ,that pretty human and divine creation...who is both here...and there...and says "you can do this."  I am kind of stuck on the eyes of the person to whom I was reading my poetry this week.  I could see he was fighting to not react, to just help.  And in those moments, I felt both heard...and great compassion.  I handed him my soul. He did not step on it. He was teaching me how to listen, too.  Nothing we do travels in only one direction. 

And here I am, trying to find my way back to God. Being vulnerable. Deliberately. Born a teacher, trying to make sure I help others along the way.  Trying to tell the truth. Trying to not be afraid of the truth. Trying to be so completely vulnerable that nothing will ever take me away from God again. 

I place these things here to tell you I am not afraid.  Sort of.  I write them in hopes to offer encouragement to others who might want that bliss of intimacy with God...that the saints write about.  So that, while the world will eventually take your body back into itself, your soul will return, even while it harbors here, to God.  
This is clearly unfinished, but I'm putting it out into space anyway.  A little bit of stardust returning to heaven...

Love, Cindy