What about Jesus? Why is not He enough? Mentioned to my friend various saints who did not even eat properly, did not exercise, yet were healthy enough and lived to advanced years. Padre Pio is one such example. He sat in the confessional for hours daily. My friend said he probably had a bad back. No, or at least it is not mentioned in biographies.
We all have baggage. After several conversations disclosing the passion for bodily health, it was easy to pinpoint the baggage and even photograph its temporal image. But why dally in other people's baggage? Why not discern one's own? So it is that my baggage surfaces readily, and it is negativity.
Nothing cannot have baggage. Thus, nothing returns to "I". I have baggage, and it is negativity. Negativity has developed like the lime ring in a toilet that collects bacteria and mold. Negativity has hindered my spiritual reading and spiritual writing. Negativity has filtered through my senses and subconscious from too many negative onslaughts and judgments, causing the psyche to withdraw, causing the mind and body to retreat from the negativity, all the while the negativity seeping in, foments and begins to taint the thoughts and emotions and threatens a loving spirit.
The trials have continued at Mass and surrounding parish and parishioners. As a result of the spiritual direction that surely I could cooperate more and get this state, this ecstasy that occurs during Mass, to cease--by standing in the back during Mass--I fell. The right shoulder was injured. Being a rather calm type and bearing constant pain in other areas of the body, I hoped the shoulder would improve with time. In the meantime, a parishioner assaulted me after a Mass, when I was yet in the state and unable to defend myself, open the eyes, move or speak. The arm was shaken violently and lifted up above the head, shaking, shaking, shaking. Someone made the person stop; suddenly the arm was let go and dropped full force, hitting the pew edge.
I'm now about three weeks on the other side of rotator cuff surgery. To top it off, have been uninsurable for years due to other pain and major surgery, loss of career. The diocese liability insurance is low at $5000. A cold shoulder was turned when the costs obviously and quickly rose above that figure, not to mention no inquiry as to my well-being after the very painful surgery and long recovery process.
The spiritual director said he will see what he can do. He said I am under a tremendous trial. This whole ordeal seems unnecessary, for I had described what happens during Mass and that I'd tried everything other than what led to a painful injury. But yet, perhaps it takes even more suffering, somehow, in the spiritual realm, to test one to the outer limits of faith and of commitment to the church...and to allow a spiritual director an inkling as to the reality of the mystical. (Who knows if this director will grasp the impact and want to proceed?)
There is more. I could no longer carry in the wood folding chair which is necessary for the painful back, ever since the pews were padded. I have not been able to sit on padding over a hard surface for years and years without ferocious spinal headache within hours, leveling me for a couple days. It took an act of God before the rector would allow me to lug in and out the chair; he would not allow it to be stored in the chapel or to remain. Said it "didn't look right." But the shoulder could not carry it; I had to lay the body on the chapel floor, tucked behind a pew, on non-injured shoulder side. My attorney had insisted, after the assault after Mass, that I get professional looking signs that read: Do Not Disturb: Meditating. He said where to place them on the pews, and if anyone henceforth harmed me, a police report and/or arrest would be the appropriate action. My attorney is a devout Catholic. A sign also was placed on the chapel floor, by my head, as protection during weekday Chapel Masses.
The negative baggage must be rid out for good. God is working on this as I've prayed for help and inner healing of damaged emotions. The Catholic who is for the most part in charge of teaching RCIA had a heart-to-heart, telling me that I really needed to leave Catholicism due to how horribly I've been treated. I said it may be that God wills me more out of the temporal, but I'll always be a Catholic at least that of the spiritual, of the mystical Catholic world. And perhaps more so, it is of the mystical Christian realm.
Yet one night this past week, amidst an increasing amount of beautiful, spiritual, and healing dreams, I dreamed of speaking with someone, and the topic was the Mass. In the dream I found tears coming to the eyes and then weeping, expressing deeply how much I love Mass. I love Mass. I love Mass. I LOVE Mass. Upon waking, I pondered that the only good baggage to have is love of God, and the Mass is the stairway to heaven, the union with God on earth, and that means a fullness of all sacraments of actual mystical reality expressed in the temporal in the Mass.
One can become one with God in the Mass. It can veritably seem and become a reality that the Mass is in one and one is in the Mass. But not with baggage. Baggage gets in the way. How can I humanly return under the trials and dehumanization that exists--unless the negative baggage is gone?
How to be rid of it? My friend's bag is on the front porch needing to be removed by her. I had considered trashing it--help her rid her baggage. But no, one must rid self-identified baggage by one's own volition, through courage and strength and determined desire. But I don't want other people's baggage inside my house where I see, stumble upon, and am distracted by it. I have enough to deal with in my own bag.
When it is gone I may be able to return to Mass free and filled with God, impervious to any baggage even as insidious as negativity. Ridding this negativity will require a spiritual conversion of more God-is-Love, more steeped and united within His Love, remaining in His Love without notice or absorption of temporal and emotional negativity--this horrendous baggage.
I will know when the armor of God becomes impenetrable to negativity. God is the only One Who can make all things new, rid out the baggage that I so desire to be removed. Then I will be nothing again, blessed nothingness, without the temporal and spiritual hindrance of negative baggage.
There will be a test embedded within the very posting of this sharing. Will I be I or nothing? Has God answered my plea to rid out the baggage of negativity? We shall find out soon enough. Negativity abounds, and to be nothing requires no baggage within and the strength to lovingly carry a cross in union with Mystical Love.
For aspiring f.o.o.L. who asked for a response to a message to see if the comment function is working, as let me know could not leave a comment. Regardless, I agree with much of your suggestions and thoughts on this topic, especially of being nothing, at root and base, to begin with and always. Am still pondering the baggage, though, as baggage is something, just as fog is something, and sin is something. God alone, now. Love the hymn you quoted: Just As I Am.... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIn the aftermath of my interest in so many things you said, I found your final note to now be what I'm focusing on :) . I'll return to re-read your post and respond more another time. For now: you said, "to be nothing requires no baggage within and the strength to lovingly carry a cross in union with Mystical Love." My reaction is this.
ReplyDeleteYou need not aspire to be nothing in either the adjective sense or in the sense of identity because you are nothing already. In other words, having baggage or not isn't a condition to being nothing. Being nothing is a given, and you don't have to revert to 'I' as though 'I' isn't the same thing as nothing. (I do have to say though, nothing, that I loved your artistry in expressing the distinctions you were making.)
And you need not aspire to strength to carry a cross in union with Him. In union or not, the strength is all His. Even carrying a cross lovingly, is of His strength rather than yours. Our lack is why the Father gave us His Son.
I'll close for now with this hymn below, which just came to mind.
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
Because Thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, Thy love unknown
Hath broken every barrier down;
Now, to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am, of that free love
The breadth, length, depth, and height to prove,
Here for a season, then above,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
KathY, since we have emailed, interim, to this comment being posted, much converse has occurred in clarifying and spurring more good thoughts on the topic. The hymn is simple and melodic, peaceful. Evokes memories of church camp in Protestant youth. Treasured memories, all. The baggage of which I write is sin, evil, and the assaults against the love within. Is this to be accepted as part of one's lot in life? It is perhaps like accepting the bag of stuff still on the porch that no one need ingest; much is very outdated, besides. But, perhaps one accepts that there is baggage in our lives, and yet is this a necessary cross to bear? I consider a cross and baggage as different entities with different purpose and intent. But yet, for whatever sense it makes, what is within me now is that God is doing something, moving me forth, and may be doing so most provacatively through that which is not easily described and not easily accepted in temporal analysis. Must keep it simple. That soothes the soul: simplicity. When I say something huge has died inside, that is simply put. When I know that death includes the negative baggage as stimulant and enactor to the death, that is simple. That God allowed and abode with reactives, reactors, and reactions, that is truth.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it is heavy trying to describe it.