Flexibility, patience, a willingness to detach from plans, seems to be the message early into an Easter vacation enjoyed at home. In other words, nothing has gone right on day one. After mass, Lilly never showed for our Spanish lesson. Once, we made contact I was surprised to hear a tremendous level of stress in her life. She was greatly agitated she forgot our lesson, apologizing over and over, explaining there are personal issues she is dealing with. Determined to convince me this is not who she is. I assured her I placed complete trust in her, explaining I had no doubt regarding her veracity, nor sincerity. I refused to allow her to go on apologizing, informing her of my decision to delight in my vacation at home, allowing an ease of altering plans. We will reschedule. I then received a series of texts, apologizing formally, explaining she has been overwhelmed with mental issues involving her adopted child from Mexico. More and more, I grow secure that within our Spanish lessons God is placing us to gather in order to exercise enriching fellowship. Maybe I am right and maybe I am wrong. Speaking of respecting married women, yesterday I spent the day with the one I am leery of, or rather with her Jewish husband. It was the dago’s birthday. She refers to herself as the ‘dago’ at times, enlightening me to the fact dagos and Jews marry all the time. It is a common love of knick-knacks that brings them together. Dago and Jews love to fill their homes with lots of knick-knacks that is why so many of them marry. However, although she is a dago, she does not like knick-knacks, yet her Jewish husband does. Those are some of the things she tells me. It was her birthday yesterday. Her and her friend Ruth spent the day at the casino in celebration. My watching her husband allowed for her respite. Leaving her home, her friend Ruth exclaimed what a wonderful conversationalist I am. She exclaimed, ‘Oh him and I cannot stop talking once we start. That man has so many girlfriends. I cannot keep track of them’. I could only think, ‘No I don’t’, chuckling to myself, adoring my time as usual with her and her husband. The time with the husband was blessed, we talked quite a bit. He kept pulling his glasses off, cluing me to the fact they needed cleaning. Once, I put them back on his face, he managed a ‘thank you’. I have conceded that everything is good with the couple. Nothing improper is happening. I do extremely enjoy my time with her, yet I perceive it is the fact she is such an adorable character. I have always been drawn to characters. People who are unique and odd attract me. I will accept the fact she will call me even though the Hospice has asked her not to. They have standards, regulations, and boundaries. She does not make trouble, and they are trying to protect me. Her resolution was that we just have to make sure they do not know she is calling me. My next visit s already scheduled. I will allow God to introduce friends into my life. She is truly a remarkable woman. Something that goes unstated is the fact this smaller woman takes care of her larger, standing about six foot three, husband alone and efficiently. She does everything herself with an absolute love for her husband. She has been doing this for almost a decade. Through all this, I do not see the slightest sign of feeling sorry for herself, never exclaiming the virtue of what she is doing. Her disposition is zestful, joyous, and upbeat. Her good looks, her maintaining of a fashionable persona, are intrinsic. She is not trying to be anything special. There is a quality about her quirkiness she is not aware of. She is strong in ways she does not recognize. I see it and I am honored to assist her, to bring male companionship to her husband. Her charm will not be reciprocated with undo emotion, nor improper admiration. I often highly respect a person who is moral, doing the right thing, not through faith. Lacking an overwhelming devotion to God, she does what is right and difficult without blinking an eye, simply insisting it would be wrong to do anything else. Refusing an easy path, such as placing her husband in a nursing home, or God forbid divorce, she performs the demanding with not the least bit of complaint, nor declaration, verbalized or silent, that she is performing the heroic. There is something of grace working within such earnest adherence–humble, natural, and simple–to ethics and morality.
I want to go to recent readings from Mass, reflections upon work intermixing with Divine Words.
Hear me, O islands,
listen, O distant peoples.
The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp-edged sword
and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
He made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me.
You are my servant, he said to me…
Isaiah
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
For your sake I bear insult,
and shame covers my face.
I have become an outcast to my brothers,
a stranger to my mother’s sons,
because zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak,
I looked for sympathy, but there was none;
for consolers, not one could I find.
Rather they put gall in my food,
and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving:
“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”
Lord, in your great love, answer me.
Away from work, I was thinking about work. My work environment is chaotic; ruthless in politics, survival, and vanity. I am spiritually exhausted from the chicanery, feeling as if I cannot plan a long-term commitment to such nonsense, always simmering the thought of a religious life on the back-burner. Basically, I simply do not enjoy working in a factory. I despise it. Within our department, there is a brutality, a constant maneuvering and harshness in order to maintain position with the pecking order. I simply refuse to participate, thus I am open to being perceived as weak. I am the ridicule of bitter and sarcastic words daily. Yet I am no different than others for all are treated in this manner. Others fight back, or are constantly finagling clichés and alliances in order to combat attacks. Attacks are prevented by attacks, the best defense being an offense. I refuse to play. I do not respond. It all wears me out, yet if my faith is relevant the above words of scripture are more than theoretical. They are a living reality. I do not fear, accepting the ways of the world. If permanency were to develop it would be through these ways. Already, I see some observing, comprehending I am authentic.
Enough, time for adoration and a jog. Another note on my introductory claim nothing was going as planned on the first day of vacation. The weekly rental car rate was out of the world expensive. There is a great demand for the Easter weekend, the weekly cost asked by Enterprise being a hundred more than I paid for the week going to Massachusetts. Yet somehow it works out that a decent weekend rate was acquired. Allowing God to alter, I am not going to attend the Tenebrae service in Toledo at the Rosary Cathedral. I will wait for all travel to Toledo and Ann Arbor to occur on Friday through Sunday. I called the Cleveland diocese, striking upon a wonderful conversation with a ‘Catholic living specialist’ who is making it her mission to find me a special Tenebrae service here in Cleveland. I assume I could find one at St Stephen, yet I will be patient and see what she tosses upon my plate. A further sign, the vacation is being launched under the command of Divine Will is a telephone call from the Hospice, presenting a four hour bedside vigil tomorrow after spiritual direction. God is good and all giving.
For contemplative downtime, a video from favorite musicians, the amazing Penguin Cafe Orchestra.
