Poisonous reptiles
Sorrow simply softening
Proper influence

Returned home from Massachusetts, sleeping soundly late into the morning. Astounding the amount of sleep, naturally reposing, decompressing, I enjoy when experiencing religious retreats. It seems sleep becomes as important to the spiritual expression as prayer and exploring the ways of a religious community. It becomes obvious the incredible level of stress my life endures. To center within a religious community, receiving the grace of consecrated ambiance focused singularly upon God, whites appear whiter and blacks appears blacker. Grey areas smooth into exhaustion. I stole the second line of the above haiku from a homily during mass at the Most Holy Trinity. The priest enlightened with the thought that sorrow is a softening influence. Properly, sorrow is not dramatic, nor arising from self-love, the denial of passions and appetites. As with all things, sorrow is good. Sorrow smooths away rough edges, easing us closer to God, illuminating the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As whites become whiter and blacks become blacker, simplicity usurps complications and declarations. The difference is not what matters, rather the cultivating of love, the silence to allow God to guide, the proper understanding of myself. The gentleman I met in Massachusetts, the one living the majority of his life in Cleveland, proved relevant upon many levels. He is familiar with St Paul Shrine, knowing Shirley the Saturday afternoon prayer leader, friends with a woman I am familiar with at St Augustine in Tremont. The gentleman counsels religious communities, focusing upon diet, exercise, inner-healing, the extending of religious practice into the physiological. His ideas are mature, while also in all honesty trending toward a bit of lunacy. I am positive ultra-conservatives would identify too much of a New Age influence. Yet I love lunacy, for I myself tend to be a bit of a lunatic. Maybe the man is authentic, and maybe he is a bit of a quack, or rather maybe he is a bit of both. I rest in fellowship, seeking the positive, pleased we will maintain a friendship. The gentleman even confided he is now considering moving back to the Cleveland area. He will visit in the near future. His thoughts on establishing the life of a hermit played upon my mind the trip home, attaining potentiality with the understanding Father David Mary is nurturing and supporting two hermits within his Franciscan order. The man stressed his prayer life consisted of celebrating mass first thing in the morning followed by three hours of adoration. Over and over, he stressed the importance of silence, listening to the small still voice of God attentively, day after day, the reduction of noise, the enduring through days of mundane stillness before the presence of Our Lord. In the vocational video detailing the life of the Maronite Monks of Adoration, the impressive, strong, assertive intelligent and articulate vocational director talks splendidly about the subject. The former Cleveland gentleman possessed a lot of interesting ideas. While in a complimentary oppositional manner, I found delight in Father Robert, the guest master, the priest in the photo montage petting the Irish Setter. His charm, his simple intrinsic sense of humor, a lightness enjoying the comfort of laughter, provided depth to my experience. Father Robert’s conducting of mass leaves no doubt regarding his ability to be serious. His homily thoughtfully penetrated into exegesis, an obvious scholarly, intelligent, and educated mind. However in person, he sought and produced a humble simple nature. He is a priest advanced beyond lunacy. He is a man who makes friends, leaving those in comfort and warm memories. I am positive there is something profound in his manner of fellowship, his lacking the need to overwhelm with declarative statements, his ability not to impressive with overwhelming intelligence and personality. Observe the photo of him petting the Irish Setter (by the way I think there was a problem loading the photos–quality sacrificed), witness the stout and firm humility emanating from the man. It coalesces nicely with the realization of normalcy, a refinement of the spiritual life within smallness, the beauty of not needing to be a hermit or a self-perceived contemplative master, the embracing of the silence of St Joseph. It also calls to mind the reality that during the blessed retreat something could not be dismissed. There was a Lebanese couple a man and woman attending daily mass, remaining after mass in prayer. I perceived they were brother and sister, possibly husband and wife. The woman tremendously reminded me of Ann’s friend Kimmie. She wore a mantilla, a woman’s head covering, during attendance, providing a devout and pleasant presence. During the second mass, I could not remove her influence from my consciousness, my mind becoming fixated upon her if I allowed it. It took a struggle not center upon the holy woman. Nothing improper, yet it pronounced, once again, something deeply entrenched within the core of my being calling forth the desire for a wife within Christ. I spoke with the former Cleveland gentleman about everything with Ann, brutally honest in the obsessive level I took my defiance and need to be right with her, the two of us focusing upon what he perceived as important that being everything endured a symptom of unresolved interior issues, stressing that reality is more important than romance, delusion, or judgement. That is when he recommended the book ‘Healing the Eight Stages of Life’. What happen happened, being right or details are not as important as the fact I became so immensely upset and dramatically distraught. All is good in the eyes of God. Healing is the element of greater intimacy with God. I have to get ready for mass. I end.