Mary statue Rosary Cathedral, many prayers and travails here.

Today is the end of a meaningful Easter vacation, a subtle advancement in peace of mind and contentment with life. The first night, Wednesday of Holy Week, the significant other and I traveled to Toledo to enjoy a memorable Tenebrae service at the Rosary Cathedral. In all of my religious explorations, I have never experienced anything on par with the Toledo diocese’s expression of the pre-Triduum prayer ceremony. Toledo’s elaborate Cathedral, Spanish Plateresque architectural style honoring its sister city in Spain, was packed. We arrived over a half hour early and already the church was half filled. The solemn ceremony involves the individual extinguishing of fifteen candles after the respective reciting of Psalms, hymns, and readings from Lamentations; including choir singing wafting down from hidden lofty chambers—the ceremony ends in darkness and a dramatic roll played upon a Timpani drum. It was a powerful opening to a shared Easter vacation. I expressed to the significant other the desire to meet a gentleman involved in the cathedral’s administration. When we arrived in the late afternoon to take photos, there the man was walking in the parking lot, leading a band of school children. The conversation was a delight. Hopefully, he will pursue his longing to visit St Paul’s Shrine. We picked up my mother for the event, meeting my brother at the cathedral. Spending the first night of vacation with my mother, a grandnephew who is the child of a single mother, and my mother’s dog proved profound in the experience of familial charity. The rest of the Easter vacation’s religious celebrations would be conducted at St Paul’s Shrine. Last Super Thursday, we participated in the washing of feet, a blessing with Father Roger cleansing and kissing. Good Friday included a communion ceremony and the Stations of the Cross. Saturday presented an Easter Vigil Mass, and Sunday Easter Mass followed by baked goods and coffee. Everything coalesced into a manifestation of gratitude, joy, and exultation. Good Friday morning proved significant with a return to my basketball buddies. The significant other came along, sharing lunch with the gentleman, enamored with their maturity and fellowship. Several of my basketball buddies were not in attendance as a sponsored trip to New Zealand, a tournament in the exotic locale providing their Easter amusement. It warmed my heart to witness the significant other genuinely thrilled to share the men’s company. Texts from the basketball buddies following the lunch, expressing elation for meeting the significant other, proved the matter must not remain a onetime deal. I felt blessed to share the friendship of Cliff, an eighty-seven year old man who still participates in the full court games. Easter Sunday with my family, celebrated at my sister’s abundant home, proved worthy in furthering the bond with the significant other. Children were everywhere, in most part due to a newly arrived Toledo family who joined my sister’s church. The family of six boys under the age of nine provided plenty of energy to the event. The father/husband engaged with interesting conversation regarding his childhood in Louisiana, and intimate knowledge of New Orleans.

I move beyond Easter of 2017 with peace in my mind and heart, content while contrite. During the upcoming Memorial Day weekend in May, the significant other and I will explore further deepening of our relationship with a workshop retreat at a Carmelite Monastery in Niagara, Ontario Canada, enjoying Niagara Falls during the time. The workshop will be a daylong session of meetings and discussions on the topic of falling in love. ‘Thy Will be done’, yet my desired intent aims toward a romantic advancement centered within the Church. On the backburner, a September trip to Spain, accompanying my mother to her homeland, is being suggested and processed. I reflect upon this year’s Holy Week vacation with remembrance of the struggles immediately following Christmas of this liturgical year. I am convinced the struggles announced the end of my recovery years. Oddly, the explosion concretized the fact the recovery world no longer possesses a viable means of enrichment. The relapse was not significant for the happening; rather its importance signifies the end of an immersion in recovery world entanglement. It is done. I owe nobody, and to stay attached or involved in any regard is improper. Everything about the recovery world is abolished and removed. There is no doubt it is the will of God. I eliminated a haunting $1,500 debt from my Indiana years, liberating in its eradication, another sign that everything from my recovery years is obliterated. The religious life lingers in allurement, yet the normalizing through romantic commitment and the overcoming of personal issues stands supreme as a personal vocation, a call to mature stabilization. It will be whole heartedly and singularly pursued. My prayer life broadens alone at the Shrine, amassing hidden treasure. That comes easy. I need no one in that regard, nor do I answer to others. Within the maturity of making an authentic attempt toward a Catholic romantic relationship, an exercising of familial commitment, devotion, and sacrifice, my life fits comfortably; soothing and freeing as with the sporting of a loose garment. I have conducted quite a bit of work and expense in establishing my temporary home as a relaxed, refined, place of residency. It has worked to establish a heightened sense of significance to my private time; escalating with film appreciation (Bergman’s ‘Fanny and Alexander’ and Tarkovsky’s ‘Nostalghlia’ notable), reading, writing, and significant other cuddling time. I am writing fiction once again, encouraged by my Cuban political science professor friend to pursue academic efforts at John Carrol University. Innovatively, life appears to be opening up, inviting me in. I came across two words I explored in a recently posted poem: centrifugal and centripetal.

“The difference between centripetal and centrifugal force has to do with different ‘frames of reference,’ that is, different viewpoints from which you measure something,” according to Andrew A. Ganse, a research physicist at the University of Washington. If you are observing a rotating system from the outside, you see an inward centripetal force acting to constrain the rotating body to a circular path. However, if you are part of the rotating system, you experience an apparent centrifugal force pushing you away from the center of the circle, even though what you are actually feeling is the inward centripetal force that is keeping you from literally going off on a tangent.”

I will end with what I feel is a particular recent blessing. A fox has moved into my life, making its home upon my neighbor’s garage, meandering about my backyard daily. I am enamored with the beautiful creature, drawn in by its sense of peace and lazy living. I am mesmerized when I am able to sit at the window watching it calmly pass the time of day. God is good and all giving.