pan_z_wami

Here's something for me to work on during Lent and probably forever thereafter: Attachment, Sloth, Avoidance.
There is so much stuff that I know benefits me nothing and detracts from my life. Activities and things. But they are such a comfort in place of the truer more eternal comforts that come from carrying the cross I have been given. I can see some things that I can do that will help me, but I ignore and am easily distracted. It isn't even a rational decision. I can't fall back on any good habits, because most of them are bad. I know there are things I need to do and am ashamed when I don't , but still I just keep avoiding them.

Dear God, I ask for the Strength to improve, the grace to know your will, and the prudence to carry it out. And if I'm too concerned with consciously knowing it, let me be the crooked line you draw straight with.

So I signed up at the Twin Lakes recreation center this week Tuesday. I've been there to work out twice so far. The first time was on the treadmill, the second time, I tried the elliptical machine and ended up on a bike. My heart is very sluggish to respond to speeding up and slowing down. It takes me a long time to recover. This isn't surprising since I'm so out of shape. We'll see how this ancient body responds over time.

Right now, my diet is horrendous. Eating lots of fat and carbs. Few veggies. I compensate by downing fiber pills and vitamins. Not very good, I know, but I gotta pick the battles I can.  

The above title is from an article about charisms by Mark Shea. See http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/charisms-dont-make-you-a-saint. It get's me to thinking about my own situation. Then he goes on to quote Paul in 1 Cor 13:1-13 "f I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:1-13)"

So I might have a few acknowledged charisms. I know them fairly well. But I've lost sight of the gifts that order them towards Christ. In this current haze I other wonder where the Love went. I haven't lost hope, my grip on faith is tenous these days, but over the past 4 years, the Love has slipped away. It is through the presence of the woman who I once left and is now again present in my life that the love rekindles. But why did I have to push away in the first place?

It's the thrill of victory and the agony of it not going as planned.

All I've ever wanted to do in life, when my head has been on straight, but still in the core of my being nonetheless, has been to give myself completely to something greater than myself.

All my greatest fantasies, my most compelling imaginations, have been to become a part of something greater for the sake of that which is greater. Whether to join a monastic community, a guild of some sort, where I could sit at the feet of the masters and practice a craft which will help others to live and love more fully, even if it meant just a mechanical or electrical trade, instead of some kind of engineer. If digging graves was all it was, then may others rise to a greater love because of it. But I've held myself to keeping fantasies as just that: fantasies. So, when something real and true came along, when someone who did finally capture my heart came along and I found myself hoping for marriage to this wonderful person, who was someone who did, in turn, enjoy me and reciprocate love (indeed I could ask for little more than that), it felt natural and yet it felt entirely foreign. After years of selfish love, and years of just being around myself, I looked beyond myself, but I wasn't quite mature enough for the true love that came into my life.

The sun came up on the horizon to brighten the entire world and I looked instead toward that room with a candle which at one time was the best I could hope for. Only now the door had locked. Sure I could see inside and the feelings of joy and gratitude were real, but maybe it was the kind of joy one gets from seeing a movie or television series, or going to an opera or play. I stood there transfixed, imagining with the best of my imagination what it would be like to be apart of it. It was like playing superheroes as a kid. It was the kind of real make-believe where I would ride my motorcycle through entire cities with skyscrapers and suburbs on a spy mission trying to avoid being caught; But in reality, I was riding around the block on the sidewalk, up and down driveways, through alleys, and the neighbors didn't mind if I went up their driveways so long as I didn't go the lawn.

Meanwhile, I had homework and chores to do, and eventually I'd have to come home and do what I was required to do.

This time though, I actually was in that scenario. It didn’t entirely match the fantasy, but as a reality, it was pretty darn good. It did require however, a level of maturity and responsibility that, although I could resign myself to and accept, was just scary enough to me that when something else came along, I could again revisit the old imaginations. Not surprisingly, the object of my responsible love, was none to pleased. The harsh words of real love that she showed to me as well her true desire to see me happy, which was again just more love, was all I needed to walk away towards this childhood fantasy again. How could I have done that?

Now, four years or more down the road, the fantasy has not become reality because as attainable as it might have been, I was not strong enough nor mature enough to do what had to be done to make it a reality. What was a bird in the hand I traded for two in the bush, and I was not quick enough to grab them before they flew away.

So now what? Maybe I did get something for that fantastic trade off. Yeah, perhaps I lost the bird in the hand and the two others flew away, but there is a sort of consolation prize, as the Lord has been my consolation in the midst of these failed pursuits. The prize consists of renewed and true Catholic values, and a better knowledge of how I am made. My head is still spinning from the falling down the Hill, my arms are still tired from swimming upstream, I am still in over my head because of agreements I unwisely made, and there are still tough choices which I am not nearly strong enough to follow through with. My life is a bit of a mess in the material sense, I am in a tangle mentally, my body is barely functional for the things I want and need to do, and my spirit wallows in the mud where I’ve become comfortable surrounded by the familiar comforts.

I am still not sure about what is next, but I have asked for the awareness to see the next steps on the path God has had to reroute for all of my wandering. One thing seems for sure, and that is there is some sort of family life involved.

Were all these decisions mistakes? Without a doubt, yes. Complete and utter mistakes of the kind that well meaning but unlistening, unseeing people make. The Lord tells us in ways that would be obvious if we knew how to take the time to listen and give in to it. Instead, if we hear it at all, we go off in other directions, listening to selfish desires and ambitions, giving in to the will to power, ignoring the warning signs and turning to inward comforts, committing sin after sin, with an unending line of excuses.

Yet for all that loser-ly behavior, God is there, desiring nothing other than that we turn towards him, willingly, so that he can bring us, frightened and lost, back into his fold yet again.

Jonah overboard!
Tumbling in the rough sea
Resigned, sinking
Waiting for the whale

Cattails. How I love to hold and feel and look at cattails. They thrive in marshes and wet soil. Where the pretty flowers might rot they grow tall in large numbers with plump heads that are firm but then very soft as they loosen. They have a stiff stem to support a heavy top. And there seems to be nothing harmful about them. No thorns. No poison, Just strength. Being hit by one is like being hit with a padded mallet. You get a firm but soft hit.

Marbles.
THere's a definite Joy about marbles. I can't quite describe why, though. It's a tangible good feeling to see a jar of marbles, or beaded jewelry, or those glass christmas ornaments that are just shiny globes.

So, to explore this a bit... Marbles roll on hard surfaces. always according to gravity and momentum. A bunch of them can be hard to control, or even dangerous on a floor. Yet they are predictable. They don't change direction without appearant reason. A rolling marble can tell you alot about the surface it sits on. A physical indicator of an underlying condition.

The colors also matter. I like white with bright colors. Also metallic ones.

I like to hold them, too. A handful or marbles, like rosary beads, can be a physical reminder to calm down, pray in a structured yet contemplative manner.

No matter which way you travel on the surface of a sphere it's a never-ending smooth ride.

Abandoned railroad tracks or ones that rarely get used.
- There's some about a road no longer traveled. It's an opportunity to reflect on something tried and true but now ignored. Walking along the tracks can be so peaceful, especially to see everything that has gone into disrepair along with the tracks. For me, there is a sense of life lived with purpose and direction. Rails to trails? Yeah, they are a way to reclaim a right of way, but there is something crude about it. Like tourists trampling a graveyard.