Let Nothing Disturb You

So begins Teresa of Avila's prayer. No one really pays too much attention to the English language, except maybe lawyers...and they do it only to find the weak links in an argument.  I admit I'm a sloppy writer. I wish I had someone to teach me how to do it better. Reading helps. But reading gets me all hot and bothered and then I want to write...and I don't learn very much. 

"It's just the same 26 letters being rearranged..." A cute FB post had that in it. I dated a physicist once, not my husband, who made a slam against all the books I had and he was history.  So my house is filled with mostly...26 letters...rearranged nearly infinitely.  We are all both that simple and that complicated. 

I've been try to write for days.  I put words on the page...but the meaning is so hard to do well.  First, there is my understanding of the word...second, your understanding of the word, third, is a kind of summation...on what your people agree that that word means...and then my people with their interp...and somehow we have to find a common ground. 

Which is completely different that the way one communicates the word aloud.  The choice of intonation, pause, reflection...changes everything. Should I use the phrase "I don't care." or "I love you," you will understand it perhaps differently than it was intended. 

I can try to exclude from this people who are  in love. Truly in love, not attending to some romantic fantasy, but love of its purest form. People who are 'in love' are indeed of one mind...and quite possibly one spirit. Do you get where I am going?

Jesus has always been talking about being in love with God.  Now if God is in all of us, then it is not unreasonable to fall into love with everyone. Not a love that must own, or control, or necessarily be exclusive...but truly maddenly, delicious love.

But there are problems...at least for me anyway.  It is not surprising to me that I would have trouble with love. 

To be of one mind with God...and still be human...is definitely a kind of marriage thing.  And to be a woman...I cannot help myself but to cleave to my beautiful spouse, to live for and to die for...and, in my case, to argue with. No good marriage can exist without the ability to fight well.  Sometimes I think God is teaching me this more than anything else.
I am thrilled that we are bound together...and I am furious about it, too.  There is a wild side of me that does not want to be tamed. It wants to run and jump and be just a little bit naughty now and then. It thinks about partying and casual romances...and it is annoyed because it knows such things will never satisfy my heart...ever.  Such is the internal transformation that has been going on inside me since the day I was born. 

God never closes the gate, never turns off the light. He says, as I'm running off to see what's on the other side of that mountain, "She'll be back." And I can hear Him say it as I'm running away, and that just makes me run faster...but I can't get it out of my head, "She'll be back." He just knows.

This is love. To let someone find their own way back into God. To be there, with the light on and soup on the stove, but to let them run until they are tired of running. This is love. The true freedom to choose love. To cleave to the One who completes me. And to learn to be happy about it.

Let nothing disturb you: all the activities of the world pale, turn to dust and are blown away in the wind...and that will not rattle you because you are God's alone. His love is sufficient for all things.

I know this, deep inside my heart. God has seduced me and I let Him seduce me. I have absolutely everything I need. I would not know this kind of sure love had not the world broken me so completely and tried to take me into its darkness.  I see it more clearly perhaps, because I recognize that I have been forgiven much...and loved anyway. The logic of the world is so unimportant to God. Justice is nothing like what we think it is, neither is mercy...or grace. They are just words. God is more than words.
Yet...in the Gospel of John, God is the Word...see how our language fails us?  God is the Word. Only one was needed. And we use so many...well, I use so many...
But He doesn't mind. He just stands at the gate...waiting for me to come home...

Love, Cindy

***** three days*****

So the trip to Arkansas is having it's desired effect. I have come home and I am still cleaning, I have so much more to do...and I need to get the yard, after that horrible summer last year...back in shape, either to live here or to sell.  *****
I have been given such a wonderful gift: the ability to choose. I suppose I have wanted for so long for God to choose for me, but I am realizing that is not how this life is going to work.  This life, meaning my life. He informs my decisions, but He does make them for me. And suddenly, I want to choose.
What is most prominent in my mind is an encounter with a woman yesterday. I could see that a battle had been raging and that the woman working with her was tired and had much more work to do, but the woman I came to see, was in a panic...and because of where I am right now emotionally and spiritually, I felt her suffering...I felt both women's suffering, but I decided to work with the charge I had been given.  She was so very frightened. She said to me, "I have always done what God wants. I know he will take care of me." And we talked about what was happening in the room. The other woman was glad to leave us. But I sat with this beautiful woman, and all I wanted to do was pick her up and cradle her in my arms. Rock her. Sing to her.  And sing to her, I did. She liked that. She wanted to "go home."  I left my little theology lesson in my back pocket. Today, was just touching. Holding a hand, when allowed. A hug. Whatever.*****
That was the theme of my visits, it seemed. The existential truth that death is unavoidable, and if you have faith, you know you have some place to go.  It was overwhelming today. Was there just more, or have I grown too weak?  But the love...that was present...that was what stayed young. 
It's going to be a very long day today.(Tuesday)  I have many visits and then a long meeting tonight.  This retreat is so different from the last one, as it should be. I am different. The team is different.  But I have gone into this one with virtually no expectations (that in itself, is an expectation). What I thought could happen, should happen...was best...I have let go.  I needed to let go.  *****
The Methodist Church could never complete me, though it served me well to teach me things I needed to know, that the Catholic Church would never teach.  The Catholic Church, I understand now, will never complete me either. Yet it is without question, in my mind, and for me, the most perfect human journey I will get. But it will never complete me. Only God can complete me, if I choose Him. And I choose Him.
Lots of conservatives out there trying to force God into a box again.  Lots of liberals out there trying to turn God into a tool to use for their own benefit and particular agendas.  I am unimpressed with both. But I understand why it is happening. 
What does it mean to love one another?  That's about it, you know...all the other words either support this truth or they work to destroy it. Love one another. The Jews tried to put God in a temple...and then in a little box, hidden behind curtains and candle and incense.  That God would come out and speak to one person only one time a year...that there are chosen people implies that there are unchosen people. I just think that is noise the devil whispers to let us think that only some of us are special. 
All of us a special.  All of us are cherished children of God. There is no better or worse, no less or more...
I have to go to Mass now...*****
A few hours later, I have completed half of my visits.  All good visits.  The little boy I dreamt about last night, his grandmother was in the hospital today.  There are connections all around me...and I am so discontent with myself I do not know what to do.  Yet my interior 'onery-ness' does not seem to affect my ability to remain pastoral.  I have received many blessings today for which I am grateful. But like that recent video of that spoiled child who did not want to put her bowl into the sink because it was "too heavy,"  I am angry and I have no identified source for the anger.
It always seems to come in the form of a collar, yet I was reminded today that a collar would only inhibit my ability to do my work. Like the little girl in her tantrum...no doubt at some point she realized she was going to lose the battle but that knowledge didn't calm her down, she just acted out even more.
Some days I think pride slows us (okay,me) down more than anything else. The demand to have things our way.  I think I have overcome that weakness in me and then something or someone happens and my brain boils over with envy and jealousy.  How quickly I forget my own blessings when I covet another's gifts!*****

Early this morning, I was in conversation with a friend, telling her about the last two weeks. She was stunned by the sequence of events, and how the story unfolded.  The cleaning, the disposing of things, the found box of high school memories and pictures of friends and lovers. And then the box from my mother. Putting my books in order, all my retreat materials and Bible studies and organizations I built and others I led.  Kind of a week of "It's a Wonderful Life."  I began to see the joys and sufferings in a different light.  I saw where I had to forgive others. I saw where I had to forgive myself. And I had to go to my special friend, who could hear me better than anyone else and not look bored.  He told me  "Go away, Cindy. Just go rest somewhere. Go to Arkansas." I could not see that I was about to fall apart, but he could.
Then, in Arkansas...I found a picture of the Divine Mercy in a nice frame, for a dollar...and several statues of the Holy Family, Mary and Jesus painted inside a shell, a Tiarra candle holder, a Shenandoah coffee cup and saucer, a night light...and I made a little altar on Marilyn's dining room table, lit the candle and prayed by the river.  The next day, I found a beautiful crucifix of Jesus about six feet tall.  I wanted to hold Him, but I knew the shop owner would just flip if I did anything more than gently touch Him.
Then there was the vision...again...and I could say so much more...the richness and thickness of God's presence in my life. I had to return home after half of my visits again. I don't know why they are wearing me out so much right now, but they are...perhaps it is allergies.

I see these people, often in a bed or a wheelchair.  I stand over them, gently wake them, "Would you like Holy Communion?"  and they almost always begin to tear up.  The helplessness, the surrender to a body wearing out and knowing that the living often don't want to take too much time with the dying...their gratitude for my chance to pray with them, to touch them, to give them the Body of Christ...is almost unbearable, but bear it I must. I must say thank you, even though it is I should be doing the thanking.  I need to stay that extra five minutes with someone, even when my mind begins to wonder where I have to be next, and if I will have time to finish.  I must force myself to slow down and say, "These moments with these people matter deeply. How often, in the last three years, has the Communion I have brought been the last one they received?  How many prayers have I prayed that, the next time I come, they can no longer pray with me, no longer respond?  Was the last person in that room in a hurry, or tired, or in a bad mood?  I must always bring joy and hope.  I must touch them as if they were the most important person in the world. I must respect them. I must cherish their smiles and their tears.  Yes, only in this moment, do I suddenly realize, I must see Jesus in each of them.  Yes. That is important.*****
There is so much more. I wonder if I am boring you. Do you know that this is your job, too?  I work hard at what I do, but I will never see them all...and some might die this week without anyone offering them a kind word or the love of God.  It takes all of us. How can I inspire you to risk your life for another in this way?  Hold the hand of someone who is ill, or you know will die soon...not lie to them, or correct them, or deny their suffering. Not judge them, but just touch, just listen. When I think about all the rooms I walk past that I cannot enter...hearing the cries of "help me" down the hall...and knowing how little I do...yet always honoring what I do...I think to be properly humble, you own who you are and who you are not...and keep trying always to give your best...and sometimes giving your best is sitting on the river in Arkansas...just don't kid yourself or jerk your own chain. Be honest...but free with the gifts you have been given by God.
And I have no doubt, the encounters will bless you...and you'll have weeks like mine...breaking open your heart and mending it again...of loving and finding, and of loving and losing.  But always, always finding God.  In the world, in them and in you...
*****
Love, Cindy

Luck or Divine Mercy?

Usually Duffy is right.  He tells me to go do something or not to do something.  When I listen, things go better. When I don't, I am at sixes and sevens with myself.  So I go to the river...expecting...I don't really know what...but from all intents and purposes, I feel I have achieved so little

Other than not answering my phone messages or text messages or emails.  I expected some revelation, some transformation to happen. And then, after nearly three days, the sad journey back down the mountain...each hill, each rise...all I felt was, "I do not want to go back home."  I want to go play on a zip line, or fish, or fly over the walley...or just sit up at my friend's home...and have my meals with the birds.

I made about four strange videos, I think...perhaps more...of the birds, of the river, of me sitting in the hammock. I kind of thought, if I died, then these little things my give a more accurate description of who I was...if I mattered at all.

But I had to go up the mountain, and I had to come down the mountain...and sit here...in my home...again...to realize what it all meant. I didn't get to know along the journey. But here, I begin to see...and it's okay to write again. 

Packing the car, I walked around the garage, "what will I need on this journey?" I kept asking myself. A chair, a hat...bottled water...and there, next to my bicycle, was a CD "The Bridge of San Lius Rey" by Thorton Wilder...oh, yeah, I thought, a book to pass the time.

The things I thought I would need, I didn't really use. Some things I did.  And there were a few things I forgot.  I forgot that it is colder up in the mountains.  But my bad housekeeping habits paid off.  I found a sweatshirt and a waterproof jacket in the trunk.  I did not have my hiking boots, but the tennies worked just fine. 

Now that my head is not so stimulated by the beauty of the Ozarks, I can write a little. Yesterday's writing was...disappointing...but proof that perhaps it does require a little effort and a lot of God to get things on to a page. 

As I popped in The Bridge of San Luis Rey into my CD player, and listened...my breath was taken away.  Oh, I thought, is this why Keith told me to read the book?  (Keith was the Methodist minister who walked me through my divorce) I remember, 15 or so years ago, what the book was about...about luck...and providence. I remembered that the conclusion was that "bad things just happen," there is no real explaining of them.  But I completely forgot all the details.  Like the first story in the book, about the mother who loved her daughter so deeply...but really only loved herself...and I found myself weeping and weeping...and holding my mouth...and wondering if Keith knew, if I had given him a clue without meaning to...of that part of my emptiness.  He was there with me iin the days after my mother died...did I not filter my feelings?  I recall falling to the floor in his office and pounding it...and hating that I had been born a woman.  I'm pretty sure I scared the hell out of him...but he hung in there...he let me grieve...the head...the tail...the whole damn thing.

So again, I grieve. Traveling up the mountain, I grieve.  The mother who could never be there for me.  The fact that I could never satiate her hunger to be loved and needed...and that I most likely passed on all these dysfunctions to my beautiful daughter.  Oh, how I must have let my daughter down when she was little...because I was so uable to give love...because no one had ever given me any...so I had none to give away.  Will she ever figure it out?  Will she understand that I meant to do good?  It that enough?  Will she forgive me?  And here, riding up the mountain...I know I must forgive myself. 

I do not want to do that work.

Of course, I didn't understand any of that while it was happening.  But God made certain I undersrood...in the words of my friend...and oddly, in the words of the guy who was working for her.  God was certain to pound it into my head.

Forgive...or die here.  It's your choice.  You can still breathe...and look like you are living...but you are not alive.  As long as you do not forgive, you will remain in death.  Forgive all of it, Cindy.  Not just the ugly parts, and not just the pretty parts. Forgive it all. Or die.

It got more interesting as the young man who tagged along with the contractor began to ask me questions...about forgiveness. 

About as innocent as it could have been, he asked me a question,

"What sins does God not forgive?" 

I knew a little bit about why he was asking this question.  The contractor and I had been discussing the day before my spiritual journey, and his...

And we talked. Only one unforgivable sin, the one that denies that God has the power to forgive.  Big ideas to get your head around...I don't know if I helped him much...but I know he helped me.
*************************************************
I had to get up and dry my hair.  I have a communion service to do right now.  And hospitals to visit next week. Is it all coincidence?  Maybe.  Maybe it's just luck. 

Or maybe, it's true:

For when you seek Me, you will find Me,
if you seek Me with your whole heart. 

I've just begun to sort this out. There is much more to unpack. Do I find it interesting that this topic arrives for me on Divine Mercy Sunday?  That my annulment was granted...that the letter arrived this week from the Diocese?  That today, April 15...a Sunday...was the exactly day my husband left...on a Sunday, on April 15th...1995.  And my son was sitting on the sofa alone when I got home from church. It was cloudy. The house was dark. 

I walked in with some confusion, but the preceding days were very intense.  I looked at Bobby. He was sitting in the dark.

"Dad left. (Pause) He hugged me goodbye." 

Divine mercy. Either accept it...and then give it away...or die. Simple as that.

I've got more to think about.

Hope this stimulates you to do. To forgive today.

Love, Cindy

Laughter and tears, its the same release...

There's a Joni Mitchell song, with this line. I wonder how many people understand that.  We have a need to express how we feel, and almost like a sneeze, we laugh or cry to express strong feelings...and both of them are healing, they allow our body to 'rebalance' itself. When we hold back, our bodies rebel against us.  That's one reason why I am so impressed with non-white cultures...the stocism of behaving oneself is cast aside during funerals and true, healthy grieving takes place.
Call me perverted if you wish, but if I can help somebody find their tears, or their laughter...I feel like I have succeeded.
So, in the midst of my much needed house cleaning, God showed me again how to cry.  Perhaps the full moon helped (always does), perhaps it was the vernal equinox, or the fact that it was Holy Week.  Perhaps having my beautiful family arrive unexpectedly the weekend before...whatever the reason...the week wass much more than I bargained for.  There are things I cannot speak of yet, but the ones I can...I will.
There is an episode in one of my all time favorite series: Joan of Arcadia. Joan has just broken up with her boyfriend and God rings her doorbell and tells her to clean.  He comes back several times and says, I didn't say straighten up, I said clean.  And she does...and she gives back to Adam the many things that reminded her of him...he responds by returning the things she gave to him and both are wounded...and God comes back and says, No, that's not what I meant. I said clean.
In the 16 years since my divorce, I have wondered how I am supposed to feel.  Was I suppose to be angry with him?  Was I supposed to replace him?  Was I to pretend it never happened?  I think one of the things that hurt me most was that he wanted nothing but money in the divorce. He did not want to have any memory of me.  He took nothing from our house but those things he brought into it when we married. He chose to not spend time with our children. He was moving on.
And me, I couldn't move off the sofa. I stared at the clock on the VHS for days. And then God said, "Get off your sorry ass, and go to church." I'm telling you how it happened. The gentle suggestions he made were not convincing...so he used my father's language to get me moving. And I've told that story about what happened at church, so I don't need to repeat it here.
So, when I look back at then encounters I've had with God...and I remember what he told me 16 years ago...about how this would all play out...you'd think I would not be surprised. But I am. My problem is these last three years...when did they really begin?  So I can't really say I know the answer yet, because the answer was supposed to happen in three years. The whole Lenten season this year has been not usual for me. Finishing up the third unit of CPE. Conquering my fears of my past with the Methodist Church. Appreciating my own gifts, giving away all that I am...and never feeling empty...I kind of thought I'd reached some sort of plateau.
But God said to me: clean.  Trying to give a good confession, I knew I was troubled but I didn't understand what was troubling me. So that left me unrested. But I fumbled my way through it. I knew there was unfinished business. I just didn't realize it was in my own house.
You know, guilt can make us hold on to a whole lot of stuff.  I keep my kids stuff from their childhoods because I know some day they will want it. I have kept my mother's things because I am supposed to...and because they are expensive and beautiful...but they are not who I am. Bit by bit I have let some of them go.  They aren't me. But who am I?  Have I even tried to find out?
I was really angry the other night at church, after the Good Friday service because I just wanted to sit with God alone in the Columbarium.  Fr.Bruce and I had a wonderful conversation out there the night before...and as he walked back...I felt an urge to walk with him again..."rescue me!" I cried out in my thoughts...but I didn't follow through. So I talked with a friend, who again seemed to try to gently urge me to let go of my internal desire to be a priest.  That I am supposed to be a priest. She was telling me that I was really not letting God be in charge. And I stayed because...I love my church so much and I need to learn how to fit into it.  
Yet most priests I have encountered have never told me that I must stop thinking about it. They walk with me in my pain and confusion and they respect me for who I am. Many of the Catholic women I encounter are much less understanding and make me feel judged...and their well-meaning words to 'encourage' me to submit to my lesser status of woman would make me so much happier.

That's like telling me to get married again...then I'll forget all this nonsense. A man will make me forget. And indeed, I know a man would. 
Last night, while talking with a female Catholic chaplain for only a few moments before Mass, I began to connect with why I have a constant feeling of loneliness at Church.  Yes, the priests are unbelievable good to me...or let me say, the ones around me are. But I feel so lonely among many of the women, because they cannot understand me.
It feels like, if I was to say I was gay (and I'm not), they would try to love me and mother me and try to 'get me back on track' with the 'normal women' of the Catholic faith.  Some feel it is their duty to fix me. I cannot be fixed.

But I can be healed.

So in my angst of feeling like I donot have women friends who can love me 'where I am,' I cleaned house.  If I have to leave town, I have to fix up the house.  To fix up the house, it needs to be clean...cleaned out of much of the stuff I have bought to hide the fact that I feel so very much alone.
And clean I did. I spent almost entire days in closets.  I gave away things, I sold books.  I shredded old documents. I still have too much.  But God said clean. Just clean. If I keep at it, eventually it will all go. 
And there was one box up in the corner of what used to be my son's room, now my prayer room.  I was tired. Each day was a ten hour day.  I really didn't need to touch it. Things were looking pretty good.  But I pulled it down, without drawing blood as I did in the other closet the day before.  It was to heavy...and I opened it. Holy Saturday, Jesus' body in the cold ground and me, crazy woman, walking around the house and crossing myself everytime I felt the need to pray it all out. And first I saw the red photo album...the one I thought Bob's mom had thrown away during the divorce...and there were the photos of my high school successes...I posted on FB about half of the photos...the ones that were not naughty...because I thought, what if I lose them again...must have them out in cyberspace somewhere!  And I remember how much fun we had...and how foolish and young I was...and how it is all a part of how we grow up...laughing and crying our way through life. And I thanked God for the chance to remember more correctly the events of my past...and I prayed over them and offered them up to God.
But God wasn't finished with me. Below the photos, I found two old Joske's boxed. My mother's handwriting on them. Dated 1981...or 1987.  I don't remember having the boxes at all. Clearly I had never opened them. The note on the box read: "For Cindy to read. I read them all on...and she wrote the date.  She wrote,"I can see that I was loved. I had a good life. Not everyone gets that." 
Inside the box were all the cards and letters I had written since I learned to write.  I had forgotten how creative I was...or how driven I was.  I had forgotten that, at one time, before some terrible things happened...that I had loved very much.
And as I sat in my prayer room, now that is was clean enough to sit in, I read, and looked out the window and listened to the birds...and I cried and I laughed...and I began to remember the good things and the crazy things...I remembered exactly where I sat...and what I was thinking, when I wrote the letters or made the cards. I remember wondering how to draw a lily properly for an Easter card...or the silly poems I would write. 
And there on that Holy Saturday, when the Church claims "He descended into hell" to breathe life into those who lived in darkness...He breathed life into me...to see the real truth of who I am...in cleaning the house...and cleaning my heart and my soul and my mind.

Psalm 51:9

Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure;

wash me, and I will be whiter than snow...

May you experience God's cleaning inside you this Easter week. 

Love, Cindy

I've seen clouds from both sides now...

Always trying to make sense of things, I made only a list of what happened yesterday in my yellow flower journal.  It began by my sleeping too late and thinking I had missed morning prayer with the deasons at church.  Two voice messages messages and one text were waiting for me when I went into the kitchen to get my phone.  One familiar: "Are you going to church? I'm running late."  And the second unknown.  The first, by it's time stamp, told me I had not missed morning prayer.  Good thing.  The second message, a surprise. A response to a week old call. Both would set me on an unexpected path for the day.

Again, I was reminded how my mistakes might not be mistakes at all.  I was exhausted from the night before. So much happened on Holy Thursday...what can or should I write about?  But then, it was Holy Wednesday (is there a holy Wednesday?)...when things began to get interesting. My annulment has been approved. Sixteen years gone by, I find myself realizing I am totally alone. (now that statement brings up memories of how badly yesterday ended...sigh)  So I cried, I tried to throw up, I shook...and I drove to church with a check to write for the $100 I had to pay to have the case reviewed in an appelate court...(no, I didn't go off the deep end with this one...I am too weak and tired to be angry) which will make the official "break up" or "erasure from my timeline" any proof that I was ever married. With this, I can become a nun...or if the Pope changes his mind, I'll be free to become a priest. (she said jokingly). 



Driving to church, I noticed the clouds again. I always notice the clouds. I'd probably lay on my back for an entire day and watch clouds if I could. You see, on one odd day 16 years ago, while watching the clouds,  I saw Jesus die on the cross.   It was like a little movie...more though, it was like I was there, standing near to him...as near as they would let me.

So when I was driving to church, with my check and a very upset stomach, I noticed the clouds. The light turned red...and I thought, "how odd...what causes those clouds to look like that?" and then I realized, He was there again. Only this time, closer, facing west instead of east. This time, it was not his eyes, his breathing, his chest moving one last time, claiming breath...this time, I was drawn to the crown of thorns.  The detail seemed so odd...it was the crown of thorns that made me realize I was looking at the clouds and that this was for me to see and to know.

And I found myself so ashamed inside. For 16 years, I had whined to God, begged God, to let me see Him again...and He did...and I felt so small as I looked up.

"What will it take, Cindy, for you to realize how much I love you?" 

 That's what the image seemed to telling me.

Like a spoiled child, I hung my head.

"It's so hard for me to believe that I matter to you. You have so many children, so hungry, so much in need...why waste your time with me, a sinner, a whiner...a woman?"

And I don't think I could hear much more. I was simply slain by the idea that, once again, God has given me what I want.  And I cannot figure out why.

The storms came into the area this week, and many buildings and other things were destroyed, but no lives were lost.  I saw on the news the name of a town where my very special friend lives, so I called to see that he was safe. He was. And he said things, as always, that made me better understand myself, because he always goes right to the truth. He kind of validates for me that I really am a human being in this world. I don't know how else to explain it.

I mean that others have come into my life, and I am aware that they value me...but it most often feels like for what I can do, rather than who I am.  I can't say that it is their fault, or their weakness or sin.  It is just that, with this one friend, I don't feel like I have to be anyone for him.  In the beginning, that was my "plan," but somehow, in the ways in which I was respected, I let down the wall...and found a real friend. 

Please don't misunderstand. I have other real friends, but they are far away...and the things on my mind might bore them, whereas this friend can match me and challenge me theologically, while my other wonderful friends can only listen and smile. So, like the 'vision' in the sky, God has provided me with an incarnate kindred spirit to keep me from feeling too alone.

The whole week has been about cleaning. Deep cleaning. Someone might come to my house, see it...and ask me, "What are you talking about?  This does not look clean!"  And I suppose, to a stranger, it doesn't. I still have a long way to go. 

The list of "God events" yesterday filled three pages in my yellow flower journal.  Just a list of words to remind me of this Good Friday.  In my usual fashion, I mistook a woman after morning prayer for a woman I saw the night before. I asked, "Are you okay?" because I observed her tears last night...only it wasn't the same woman.  This woman knew me, but I couldn't remember how I knew her. With my question, she opened her heart...a suicide the day before. I listened, while my internal 'person' was screaming, 'oh hell, God, are you going to make me think about all that stuff again?  All the suicides I have dealt with in my life...like a file drawer, I opened them...listening intently to her...what does she need?  Why did God allow this mistake? How can I be helpful to her? At the came time I had to check all my emotions. 

It seemed like God was making me look at my entire life. Three days of cleaning house, now I must examine myself again. How do I work? How do I serve?  What the hell is going on? 

So I pray with her, after she talks. I had already spoken with one of the someones I was to bring Communion to after prayer. The next meeting began innocently enough...and then, it was as if another bomb had gone off. Another person had so much to say, and I saw her great beauty...and in her story, she rattled my cage some more...and I wondered how I would survive all this resurrecting of feelings I did not want or need to have on this Good Friday.  And I was stunned by her beauty...and how she ministered to me in her telling what she needed to tell.

The next visit was to a woman who found me in a hallway...and she handed me an answer I needed. An invitation to become a Lay Carmelite.   (Don't laugh, I might actually learn obedience before I'm dead) That conversation was quite wonderful.

Then, surprise, I had lost my keys. Again. Went to get them, but in the losing...a connection was made. God, you are so clever. What needed to happen, happened.

Another few visits. Trying to follow the map on my phone, it was a nightmare and I dislike all young people who don't have a problem with technology.  More visits, each one a pearl...each one a gift...and I was stunned by it all. And exhausted.

Well after noon, with no food yet that day, I needed to eat. A real restaurant, a sit down meal. Four people called.  Now I was taking someone to Stations at 3.  I had worked out a deal to get some people to the noon event at church...that was cool...now I was helping some high school kids. I get nervous around kids...and I found myself giving a dissertation on how the gospels were written and added to the Canon...know they must have loved that!  I told them about the birth of the Jesus Freaks in the 1970s. Geesh!  Just trying to fill the air with words...but I got them to Stations...and that felt good. I cried for them, because I wondered if they were thinking about their brother, who was with God now...but I was too timid to ask about something so private. So I played 'teacher' insead...



I look at all I've written, and it only scratches the surface. The thousand moments that happened in this very long, Holy Week...and it's not over: discussing Egyptian mythology with a priest in the columbarium, as lector, reading during Holy Thursday Mass would take quite a lot of words...easiest to say:



Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

In my usual fashion, I choose to not really read the words given me to read before a Mass.  I like to keep it all fresh...and see what happens without my own feelings trying to interpret what I think needs to be shared...and as I looked out on the standing room only church, I glanced quickly down and begged God for courage...and then I began to read...but my heart almost burst as my brain acknowledged the words on the page.  I was given the gift to read these words, during a Catholic Mass.  These words that meant so much to me, I could explode in saying them aloud...and I knew this would be as close as I could ever get to speaking such holy words before a Catholic congregation...and I was terrified that I might stop reading them, and just say them...which would be wrong for this group of people...while at the same time remembering the many times I offered these words before a Protestant congregation, while standing at the table. My head was spinning, but some part of me knew God was telling me that's it's all going to work out just fine...the anullment, the vision...and now the prayer. I don't have a clue where this will all lead, but I will walk out into the unknown and, as always, do whatever He tells me. I was so humbled...this was a week of gifts...teaching me who I am.  I still don't understand it all, nor do I think I am supposed to understand. I am simply to continue to do...and to pray without ceasing.

These clouds, they come and go...they tell us that the earth turns, that we are prisoners of time while we are here...and that time is truly a gift. Time is how we measure our holy moments in our lives. Time is that way in which we remember all the good and all the bad, and gives us choices in how we remember what happens to us, lets it inform what we might do next...and helps us to be aware of God's presence in our lives.

What I wrote above is only one interpretation of events that occurred in time. It is no more than that and no less than that. I have been given the gift of time to reflect on what I have done and on what I may have failed to do.

I give it all back to the God who gave it to me. My prayer for you is that you might have the time to reflect on God's loving presence in your own life. I have put a lot of words here...and you must know that your lives are just like mine...full of God experiences...your own story unfolding in time. I pray that you might be aware of your own life and celebrate it, good and bad...it is all gift.

May you know, in moments, how your life touches another. May you be aware of your own beauty. May you have the courage to hold the hand of a stranger...and be still. May you enjoy the true pleasure of silence.

The boy is lying in the tomb.  Perhaps I should say, the Body is lying in the tomb while the boy goes around and breathes life into the dead...cleans out the debris in our hearts and renames us and our lives with a mark of hope and salvation. He did not die in vain. He did not live in vain.

May that be said of us as well. 

There will always be clouds, there will always be dark nights...but there will be bright sunny days and full moon nights to sing under...I have a saying I rely on in moments of depression, "for every Good Friday, there is an Easter." He wounds us with the truth...and He heals us with His love. 

Let Him happen to you...

Love, Cindy 





The Bartender's Trick

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

My sacrifice and yours

I've been writing and reading, but mostly cleaning. There are important things to say, but I can't just yet. Keep my family in your prayers. I don't mind dissecting myself or telling you about my encounters with God and a handful of important people, but my family...well, I love them so much...and there are health issues...too many...and I am both angry and sad about them.

I am prepared to endure the trials given to me, but when you are an observor, it is very difficult to stand by and watch someone else suffer. Ironically, that is the job I do best, wait with others. It's different when it's family. In this space, the suffering is temporary. With family, you carry it with you always.

So perhaps that is why, during the first two Masses for me this week, as I hear the Eucharistic Prayer being read...I suddenly find myself sitting back, in the corner of the upper room...watching the men eat their meal.

I am so worried for my son, who has already told me to prepare for the worst. He looked me in the eye and said, "it must be done...and you are going to have to be stronger than you have ever been in your life."  I held his hands, but it wasn't enough. I hugged him. He doesn't like me to hug him so much anymore. Still I placed my head against his chest...he's such a tall boy now...and listened to his heart. Normally he would spurn such affection, but tonight, he let me hold him for just a moment.

"Get about your work, now." and he smiled, but it was a sad smile. I prepared the passover meal with the other women, laying out bread and wine. We shared the cooking. Some were laughing as they worked, but they were young. Others of us just worked silently, not understanding out own sadness.

The other women left to wait downstairs, but I stayed, in the dark, in the back...listening to each word as it was spoken. Familiar words, but different tonight. So very gently different. Had I known what was to come, I might not have stayed...or I perhaps I would have stopped the meal...as if I could stop what had to happen.

My boy, he's so grown up now. So serious. So smart. So very wise. He's such a good boy.  
**************
My thoughts are something like that. It is difficult to recreate what happens at Mass. But I got there as I listened to the old words spoken, 'Pray, my sisters and brothers, that my sacrifice and yours be acceptable to the Lord, our almighty Father.'
These words, in the beginning of the change, annoyed me. As if the priest was somehow better than the people who were participating in the Mass. And then God showed me: the priest offers his sacrifice...and I offer mine.   I need to remember that at each Mass.  Each Mass, we both give something away...or more correctly, back to God.  Each Mass, I must think deliberately, what I am giving:  my will, my desire for my own way, my work, my heart, my body, my thoughts, my love...

And my son.  It always comes back to me...over and over again...that night I was beginning to be fed up with being a Methodist minister...not because the work wasn't good...but because it simply wasn't enough. It didn't satisfy me. I was still hungry. I knew I wasn't doing what I was called to do.  Then the whining and lamenting began, "But God, I can never be a priest...how can I give you the best of me when I can't even be a priest?  And I'm sure I whined much more...and then, in frustration, I gave God my son. "Let Him do it, Lord. Put my passion into his heart and let Him finish the work I cannot finish...that I am not allowed to finish. I give you my son. And yes, I know it will be hard. It will wound him as it has wounded me...but the work needs doing...I can't leave it. I freely give you my son. And I will not ask questions."

And I have never asked questions about his ministry. And it has wounded him. And he has grown. I have done my best to encourage without interfering...and I have faith...

But now I see God has much more in mind. I have not been put out to pasture yet. I have work to do, and it is far better work than I ever dreamed. It pleases me to love, to give back that which has been given to me.

And somehow this all weaves together...I am living in the here and now...but I am also living back then...hiding in the corner of the room...reliving it over and over...how awful it was...but then all the good that came from it. It is slow work, it seems...but I know in my heart we are less brutal than we once were. I have hope that bit by bit, we will choose love over temporal powers.

I suppose this is very scattered. I recall, in the days that followed my first union with God, some 16 years ago, about this time of the year...I found myself often in a place that seemed to trancend time and space. I recall the moments of oneness in board meetings, or staff meetings, or working with a student...and I needed to learn not to smile or giggle...because it made them wonder about me. It just seems that now, when I let go...all the pieces fit and bliss is an okay way to describe it.

My physical flesh and blood son, my adopted sons...and the one from way, way back...I am connected to all of them...and to much more. And it is all love. Nuts...that's what I would say if I was reading this. I just know that it is true.

So in these moments in Mass, I am seeing with new eyes. I didn't expect anything like that. Kind of strange...moving through time...remembering...yet seeing all things new...and knowing, past, present and future...that it worked. That all the suffering was worth it. Despite what we may see around us, the evil, the darkness knows it lost the war...it still fights though, because even if it lost, it will never give in...admit defeat...it will harrass us until the very end.

Only one thing can make it go away: love. That is my sacrifice and yours. Love.

Love,
Cindy