IT'S ALL GOOD - HOLY WEEK FOR THE HOME BOUND

 

DISABILITY ON TOP OF DISABILITY

Thanks to my dog going nuts when he spied another dog on the other side of the fence, my arm was nearly wrenched from its socket, and today I woke up with upper back pain that prevents me from doing almost anything physical, so I have decided to catch up with my diary blog and tell you all what has been happening the last week or two. I hope you have time to sit down for a cup of tea and a chat.

THE LORD DEMONSTRATES WHERE HE WANTS ME TO GO

I thought I was being smart a couple years ago when I spent some birthday money on a "guitalele" which is a large 6-string ukelele that sounds like a guitar with a capo on the 5th fret. This is how I always used to tune my guitars for singing, when I was younger, because my voice is higher than the typical key in which guitars are tuned. I never played with anyone else, so the change in key is not of much import. I figured I could play the guitalele just like I used to play the guitar, and this way, when I lose the rest of my vision, I could keep myself busy with something creative that does not require my eyes. It was intended to be a replacement for my painting.

In addition to the guitar, I had gotten a chord book and a music book of Gregorian Chant (religious music) written specifically for the guitalele.

What I HAD NOT counted on was the return of a wicked case of carpal tunnel that my doctor now says needs me to either give up the new guitalele or have carpal tunnel surgery.

Now, the last time I had surgery at UNM, it was for a growth on the bone of a finger on my left hand, and I woke in the middle of the surgery to find the anesthesiologist reading his telephone instead of watching my vitals!

I looked down at the anesthesiologist who was sitting on a low stool, reading and said, "Hey! Put me back to sleep!"  Without a word, he just turned around and moved a switch, at which point I konked out. Considering that experience, I am not keen to have surgeries that are not absolutely essential.  I have been spoiled you see, having lived in Southern California and received world class medical and dental care.

So now I am tasked with trying to sell this guitalele, and unlike California, where it has been, in the past, VERY easy to sell musical instruments (or pretty much anything) I am getting NO bites from the sign I placed on the post office carousel in the middle of the apartment.

I used to bemoan the inability to sell anything in this town, whether it is my home-made jewelry to a local shop or my nicely maintained second-hand items at a garage sale or on the internet or at my parish store in the middle of tourist town or WHEREVER. I long ago realized that, ever since giving my life to The Lord, he really did take me at my word and he guides me into doing what He wants me to do by making everything else impossible!  

I refuse to grumble. I have learned that God has me especially in hand and that the way he guides me to what he wants me to do is exactly in this fashion: He makes everything else impossible.

This is how dense I am. I cannot figure out God's will for me on my own, so he has to show me.

I will put the guitalele back in the corner with the music stand and will play it sometime further down the road, when the wrist is not so compromised.  Or perhaps God has in mind someone to whom he wants me to give this thing. We shall see, I am not going to get mad about spending my birthday gift on something that I can neither use nor sell. I won't berate myself at the WASTE of it all. Instead, I will just move forward.

At this point, The Lord has erected blockades across so many of my paths that I am beginning to get the idea that he wants me to do nothing but pray to Him. It is entirely possible.

THE RULE OF LIFE IS FINALLY IN BLACK AND WHITE

During Lent, I hadn't been writing much, as I had spent most of my time praying, meditating, and working on perfecting my Rule of Life, which I am finally putting to paper, thanks to a timely reminder in one of Father Ripperger's videos about the necessity for it. Threading the needle between the disabilities that often interfere with my schedule, and the great amount of time that is nonetheless available for spiritual practices despite these disabilities, has proven to be somewhat of a challenge. I have to strike a balance between practical leniency on the one hand, and necessary intellectual and spiritual rigor, on the other.

I have been really enjoying dedicating this time to my religious studies and practices, and listening to YouTube homilies and conferences. In addition to the daily "Bible in a Year" and "Catechism in a Year" tutorials that I am using to "brush up" in those two areas, I found some wonderful talks by an extremely erudite and mystically inclined priest by the name of Father Ripperger.

INTRODUCTION TO FATHER CHAD RIPPERGER:

Father Chad Ripperger, Phd.

Catholic Priest, Exorcist, Writer, Philosopher

                                                                                                                                                                                                              I am too disabled to travel to consult with them, but somehow having this special priest residing relatively close to my hermitage in New Mexico has made me very happy. Once you listen to some of his talks, perhaps you will understand why.

I particularly enjoy the teachings that he gives about the various levels of mystical prayer and spiritual life in general. Everything he talks about reminds me of the reasons and incentives that I had to become Catholic, so many years ago,when I read the works by and about the Catholic mystics, such as Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and various Catholic saints.

The breadth of his knowledge is so wide that it is hard to describe the variety of teachings that he is able to give, with apparently very few notes. He has confirmed for me many of my own self-diagnoses, as far as the defects of my spiritual state, but this is the good news because he also freely gives the remedies. His talks on genealogy and the defects that can be passed down in the family as a result of evil interference, such as from the Masons, has been fascinating, particularly since I am descended from saints - until a few generations ago, when Masons married into that family line, and ever since then, our family has been strongly anti-Catholic. We used to be SAINTS, ages ago. Evidently, the Masonic philosophy is terribly evil. My mother, who was cruel to me, was involved in it and was a member of the Rainbow Girls.

Through the study of his talks, I have learned some new prayers, as well as practices that will benefit my spiritual progress, and I have also begun to develop a love for Our Lady of Sorrows, who he describes wonderfully in a YouTube video, which I will link just below this:

FR. RIPPERGER'S TALK ABOUT OUR LADY OF SORROWS - CLICK HERE

I encourage everyone to Google Fr. Ripperger and meander through the topics. Find one that appeals to you, and settle in for a really interesting talk.

Now, I must warn you, however, that I disagree with him on a couple of issues, so I want you to be prepared and hopefully not be put off. I hope you'll ignore any disagreement you might find with him so you can hear what he has to say that IS very valuable and much more important. One of those things that many people will disagree with is his version of politics, because the videos I have seen, so far, appear to confirm that he may have been substantially influenced by far right wing Republicans since he uses the exact wording of some false pseudo-logic, and he misdiagnoses social programs as "socialism" when, in fact, social programs are present in many different types of governments but have no role in defining "socialism."  The primary defining feature of "Socialism" is a system in which the government owns "all means of production." In other words, there are no privately owned businesses and manufacturers in a socialist system.  We do not have anything resembling that, nor am I aware of any politician who is recommending that we get rid of all privately owned businesses and turn them over to the government! It is just not something that appeals to any of us, that I can tell.

I will just segue into the political for a moment in order to explain further:

CATHOLICS SHOULD FREELY ASSUAGE THE PLIGHT OF THE POOR

I think Fr. Ripperger and also Fr. Mike Shmitz and others of their ilk will say that it is far more desirable that Catholics would be widely and freely charitable so that the needs of the poor would be addressed by the free will of Catholics rather than by the government. Fr. Mike Shmitz even goes so far as to say that using taxpayer funded monies to address the needs of the poor is "evil."  I've heard this from him in more than one of his talks. Saying that social programs are "evil" is ridiculous - especially because the reason why we have had to resort to taxpayer funded social programs is because the Church and Christians did NOT take care of the needs of the poor during the MANY years before Social Security, when the poor had need of it! The government finally had to step in. It hasn't even been 100 years that we have had Social Security. ALL of that prior history, the poor were left to their own devices, primarily.

SO - as much as it may be technically correct that Catholics should freely give so that the plight of the poor may be addressed, I would just say that history needs to be given its due. I have yet to hear how Catholics will be made to do this when they have never done it before.  Not only THAT, but these days, while the government is not doing enough to remedy the needs of the poor, as evidenced all around us with the homeless and other destitute populations, Catholics today have not remedied the dire need that remains.

In my own personal life, I have a lovely Catholic friend who does everything she can to help me, but she is the only one. One person cannot do it all...and Social Security is simply not enough.

Until the Catholics can say, "look, we have taken up all the slack and we are prepared to do more," it is a bad idea to eliminate the social programs that are keeping many of us alive. It would also be necessary to address some of the root causes of poverty, such as the unethical tax structures that keep the rich getting richer, as well as the artificially reduced wages.

ARE WE BECOMING SOCIALIST?

The far right, in particular, is fond of accusing people of being "socialists" when it is not true. They must have studied what socialism IS. Heck, all you need to do is look it up in a dictionary and it clearly says:

SOCIALISM

"A theory or system of social organization that advocates the
ownership and control of the means of production and 
distribution, capital, land, etc. by the community as a whole,
usually through a centralized government."

Far right politicians fling that word "socialism" around in order to try and manipulate the vote. They want to sway public opinion against social programs that are paid for by equitable tax systems, so they call anyone who advocates for fair wages and tax structures as "socialists." This cynical name-calling has become so common that even people who do know better and would be better served to use the correct labels for their beliefs will use "socialism" to mean a government that uses substantial social programs to help its citizens. I am thinking of Bernie Sanders when I say this.

Anyway. I could go on about this, it's just that every time any priest, whether it is Father Ripperger or Fr. Mike Shmitz, opines about social programs by saying that they are "evil" and that it involves using "someone else's money" to pay for social programs, it makes me cringe because it may turn off some people to his primary message. The problem for him, with regard to the cliche that it is "someone else's money" that is being used is that this is simply not true.  Here is why:

IT IS NOT "SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY"

Right wing politicians have managed to keep workers' wages very low over the last 60 years, while outrageously inflating corporate profits and the income of the wealthy, as well as giving them incredible tax breaks, especially on capital gains. Over the last 60 years, they have redistributed the wealth of the USA so that the people who actually do the work do not share in the wealth created by that work. Something like three people now own more wealth than the bottom half of our country combined!  Here is how they did it:

In this graph, created with figures obtained from the Department of Labor, we see how the income of the wage earners has barely moved, only increasing 26% between the years 1970 through 2005, but the corporate profits have increased 250% and the CEO salaries have increased 430%! You can practically SEE the money being pushed up the pyramid.

As a result of this redistribution of wealth, the money that should have gone into the pockets of the workers who created the wealth has been put in the pocket of the rich guy at the top of this vile pyramid. Taxing the wealthy guy who took my money that I earned with my work addresses a grave injustice, a real THEFT, but now the GOP politicians and some RepubliCatholics are screaming that, somehow, the politicians on the left are trying to "redistribute wealth" by stealing rich people's money. It's a huge scam.

I am addressing this side issue in some detail because I don't feel comfortable just saying that Fr. Ripperger is spouting some Republican talking points that aren't true without backing up my position with facts. 

I dearly wish that he wasn't on board with the far right because that's where the conspiracy theorists and the violent January 6th insurrectionists live. I know that his position on this will be offputting to many who have had to struggle with the unfair tax systems and the artificially suppressed wages that the Republicans have squashed for decades. Unfortunately, priests and other religious are often at least one step removed from normal life, and they have a type of security and support that the wage earners will not have, so that they do not experience the nitty gritty of insecurity in the same way that you and I have done.  

I HAVE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF THIS

I can contribute anecdotal, subject experience with being a wage earner during all the above years - at least until 2003, and every year it became harder and harder to make enough money to support myself. The inflation went up considerably more than my wages and, while my bosses were buying a SECOND vacation home (their third residence) so that they could go skiing every year during the winter, I was struggling to put food on my table. As a result, when I had to retire in my late 40's because of disability, I had NO savings to bring into retirement and help me. HALF of the American people will be in the same position when they retire - they will have NO savings to supplement their Social Security that we are now told is going to run out of money.  

THE REASONS SOCIAL SECURITY IS RUNNING OUT OF MONEY:

Predominantly, the tax structure benefits the wealthy who pay the same tax as someone who earns $150,000 a year. Raising the cap so that the wealthy pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as the rest of us do would fund Social Security for at LEAST 75 years.  If there was NO "cap" on contributions and it was a straight percentage for everyone, we could fund it until the sun burns out.

Secondarily, BOTH parties have "borrowed" from Social Security in years' past and no one ever paid back the money. I find this infuriating because they weren't supposed to be able to take our money like that. When Social Security was first proposed, it was a rule that the government could not use our money for anything else. Gee...wonder what happened to THAT!

SHOULD MEN BE IN CHARGE OF THE WORLD AGAIN?

The other area that some people will find issue with Fr. Ripperger is his strong opinion that men should be in charge of everything, especially families, and that women should just be obedient. He also makes comments about women talking too much - or at least talking too much to the wrong people, i.e., men, because the verbal skills of women are meant for the benefit of the children, whose brains are formed in response to the constant babble of their mother's voices.  This is according to him. It looks like he has combined Biblical injunctions against women talking in church with some research projects he may have read that speak to how babies need the speech of their mothers. Since he is a man, it does smack a bit of wishful thinking to me. I am betting he is not fond of listening to women talk or having conversations with them. That's my guess, based upon these things he has said in some of his talks.

On the other hand, I have remarked in years past that SOMEONE has to have the final word in a relationship or the fight never ends and decisions cannot be made on the most important topics.

But a system that gives men these kind of absolute rights over women often results in women being brutalized. Of course, women can be brutalized in an entirely free society. I have experienced this several times. 

Then too, If you don't want a man to be in charge over you, one can always choose not to have a husband, but then you are outside of any protective structure at the same time. This is true even now. Being a single woman in our society, especially in the arenas in which families are emphasized, such as the Catholic Church, puts one on the OUTS. If you are also, at the same time, unsuitable for convent life, you are really on your own and, I think, rather vulnerable, especially as you age. 

The fact is that we DO live in a patriarchal society. Men have always been more forceful and insistent on getting their way, and women are, for the most part, less interested in dominating.  So, it may be just one of those inconvenient facts of life and the natural law. Anyway, those are my conflicting thoughts on that topic.  I am just preparing you for his opinion.

Father Ripperger makes the point in one of his talks that the Lord would not have told us to "become perfect" if it was not possible, but it is only possible with the help of God's grace, and His grace descends in response to our progress in estabishing ourseles in virtue.

Our entire purpose in life is to become virtuous, as much as is possible with our efforts and God's grace, and to spend eternity in Heaven with The Lord. The greater our virtues, the closer we will be to Our Lord in that Heavenly realm.

I am learning from him that, in order to combat the many defects that I have, I have to work to obtain the corresponding virtue. For instance, gluttony. I am far too interested in food. It has always been a problem, and now that I am disabled and mostly home bound, it is very difficult to get a handle on it. In order to combat this, though, I must learn how to be better with fasting - the virtue that conquers gluttony - so throughout Lent, I have redoubled my efforts to fast and abstain, despite my age and medical conditions which obviate those obligations. It is because I am not obligated that I feel compelled that I do it.

Before I read all the Catholic mystical literature, I had no idea that Catholicism had such a vast wealth of mystical, transcendent inspiration. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Desert Fathers and Mothers, among many others, shifted my consciousness. I was in the Hindu convent (Vedanta) at the time, and it was inconvenient when I fell in love with Jesus and His church, especially for the Swami, who had forced the nuns to accept me after more than a year of them putting me off. He grew frustrated with their jealousy. It was unseemly.

But I digress - ONCE AGAIN!

I HAVE tried to get involved in SOME kind of church activity during Lent, but it is nearly impossible. I am having trouble walking, and I am not able to sit in one place for all that long, either, especially on hard wooden seats. It isn't a matter of simple discomfort. I have MORPHINE for that, but it is a matter of being able to rise and walk if I sit too long. That is the issue.

I have been calling my parish since last NOVEMBER, asking for the eucharist to be resumed, post Covid, and after many many phone calls, I finally gave up. But I was wrong to do that. I should never grow tired of seeking it.

Because I cannot walk very far, crowded churches with limited handicap parking spots have no remedy for me. I have tried to find someone who could take me to church, but no one is in the mood to help. Volunteers have either not returned to church or have stopped going altogether. There is also NO parking at my parish church because it is in "Old Town," the tourist center of Albuquerque. They have a tiny piece of a parking lot behind the old church, and it is for the use of the priest and the office staff, for the most part. Occasionally, if I call ahead of time, I can get a permit to park back there, but this means that I have to go to church TWICE - once to pick up the placard and another time to actually USE it because the office is closed on the weekends. When I DID try attending a Saturday afternoon mass, the only one practical for me, due to crowds, it was an extremely long walk from the car to the inside of the church, and I nearly collapsed on the way in. Then, when I left, I had to exit through the front, so as not to inconvenience the folks up at the altar, and it was a very long trip around and around the church and back to the parking lot.

I have no one to take me to church. I just don't know that many people in Albuquerque because I became disabled shortly after moving here. Otherwise, I might be able to get a ride.  But, even then, people who tend to be willing to do charitable things like give rides to disabled old ladies often get called upon to do all kinds of things that require them to stay at church after the service is over, whereas I am ready to scream from the pain of sitting for an hour on a hard bench and I am more than ready to go home, once the mass has ended. 

A friend and I went to confession, though, during the first week or so of Lent. She drove us to a church halfway across town, and we were lucky to grab an empty parking spot of the 4 that were available. In a very short time, the other three were taken.

Before confession, I mentioned my dilema to the priest, and he told me, "sometimes we don't answer the phone. You have to keep calling."  He was right, of course. So, being obedient, when all is said and done, I DID resume the phone calls to my parish, and I kept leaving messages, with no response.  Finally, one day, the office actually answered the phone. She said I was "on her list" to call - I'd only been leaving messages for the last 5 months! It turns out that it won't be until sometime after Easter that they will get to me - if it happens at all. The thing is, the parish that is designated my area parish HAS to be the one that brings me the eucharist, according to the rules, which makes sense.  But I have heared from workers at other parishes that many people come to them, complaining that our parish just doesn't answer phone calls and they are very disorganized. But they used to have 3 people in the office, and now there is only 1, and she is beside herself with all the work. If only I was healthy, I would have been so happy to help out.

IT'S ALL GOOD

One of the topics that Fr. Ripperger discussed on one of the MANY videos I've listened to on YouTube is the attitude that one has to adopt with regard to negative life circumstances.  Many people assume that if you are devoted to the Lord and follow through with the prayers and meditations and whatnot, that He would make things go well for you.  Well, that's not the way things work, it turns out. Remember Job, and what an excellent devotee he was, yet the Lord allowed Satan to turn his world upside down. NOTHING went right for that poor man. And everyone was clueless.  Even his friends, who should have known what a devout person he was, suggested that he must have committed many sins to warrant such adversities being visited on his head. Folks will sometimes try to blame the person for unearned troubles. It is easier than being sympathetic, I suppose.

From very early childhood, I have been assailed by cruel fortune, which grew worse and worse over time until today, when I am in constant pain. It has been a neverending stream. WHATEVER has been happening to me in this long and cruel life, it is an expression of God's goodness and grace so that I may become as virtuous as possible and will not be out of place near Him in Heaven. I console myself with the knowledge that the lifetime of affliction I have endured is what has been necessary to purify my soul for union with Him, thanks be to God!

I know a person who complains constantly about the amounts they have to pay for the things that go wrong in their life, without thought for the fact that they have all the remedies at their disposal with which to answer whatever need arises.  Gratitude is lacking. I take lesson from this. If I am ever relieved of this constant stream of sorrows, I will remember never to complain about spending all the resources I have in order to fix whatever goes wrong, since it is far superior than not having any, and I know this from experience.

In the spiritual realm, God has his reasons for allowing a flood of tribulations with no cease. He is using the pain and the trials to perfect me in some way. After all, Jesus said, "be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." We can't do it alone, and Jesus would not say it if it was not possible, therefore His plan is at work.

GOD BRINGS GOOD OUT OF BAD

The thing I am making an effort to remember is that God uses all circumstances to bring good into my life, in some way that He is not discussing with me, so each negative circumstance IS an icon of the Good God. I have therefore started thanking God throughout the day for each pain and privation, rather than praying for Him to alleviate them.  Wheneer some pain hits me, I just say, "thank you," now, as if I have already received and/or recognized the good that He is bringing to me from these pains. It's a good thing I live alone because otherwise I'd have some explaining to do, next time I say, as I crip around my apartment on my arthritic bones, "Ouch! Thank you, Lord!"

Bless us all!

Silver Rose

SAINT PAUL OF THEBES, THE FIRST HERMIT - JANUARY 15

 

Saint Paul receiving bread from the raven

that was purported to keep him alive to

be more than 100 years old

In a couple weeks, I will be celebrating my 20th anniversary as an urban hermit, so the topic is on my mind.

You know, I am always fascinated to read about the lives of these saints who were hermits, and there are quite a few of them in recorded history.

Paul is considered the first Christian hermit. We know about him because Saint Jerome wrote about him and Saint Anthony the Great, who had a connection later in life.  Paul is said to have lived to be more than 113 years old, kept alive by a raven that brought him half a loaf of bread every evening. I don't know what to say about that. I don't think I could be kept alive by only half a loaf of bread every night!

Paul did not initially intend to become a hermit. His brother-in-law wanted to grab his inheritance, so he was about to report Paul to the authorities for being a Christian. Paul went out into the desert to escape being imprisoned and killed but he eventually realized that hermit life suited him.

Obviously, he could not benefit from his inheritance ANYWAY, living in the desert like that, so it appears that he was not that attached to money to begin with, and his brother-in-law needn't have conspired to rob him of it. I find it interesting that I was also robbed of my inheritance and, although I was originally distressed about the injustice of it, considering the level of my needs as a result of my numerous disabilities, I have come to see that it might have turned out to be a curse, if I had not been written out of my father's will after he got Alzheimer's. I would likely have been hounded by people who were intent on grabbing what they could. Money is not the solution some people imagine it to be.  

I DO wish I wasn't a burden on friends, though. That is the one regret. On the flip side, I believe that The Lord has personally sent these kind people to me as his emissaries of love.

The person who robbed the inheritance will have to pay the price instead of me, I suspect. Anyway, the lack of the inheritance provides more opportunity for suffering that I may then offer to the Lord, and I should be grateful for the grace to endure it. I know it sounds backward to some people, but suffering is a type of spiritual currency. It is just ONE of the many ways that God brings all things to the good for those who believe.

Hermits, though they live alone, are normal human beings. They do have friends, but the nature of the relationships are not frequent or typical. Saint Paul became friends with Saint Anthony the Great during two days in Paul's 113th year!

Saint Anthony the Great and Saint

Paul of Thebes, the first hermit

Anthony and Paul only spent a day and a half together, and the next time Anthony went to see him, Paul was dead. There is a charming myth that two lions helped Saint Anthony dig Paul's grave.

I would have loved to have heard the conversation between those two holy men. I can only imagine!

There have been times, when considering my hermit life, that I have thought I should give it up because I am "doing it" imperfectly, but except for the rare moment of loneliness, I still feel that this life suits me, even if I am not a saint thereby. It is good for the ego for a person not to be too "successful," especially a religious person, it seems to me.

So I will slog along in my pathetic representation of a religious hermit, do the best I can, and be grateful for it all. When I celebrate my anniversary on February 3rd, I will be suitably humble before God.

The lives of the hermit saints bear little, if any resemblance to my life, but then the life of the typical resident of Thebes at that time looks nothing like the typical American in 2023! In addition to the differences connected with living a modern life, my numerous and growing disabilities also interfere with the aceticism one would usually expect from a hermit, so I do the best I can. The constant chronic pain is my offering and may be a more painful sacrifice to give than the more austere lives of these early saints. We all do the best we can within the conditions that are provided and the parameters of our own abilities.

Don't get me wrong. I have given it a lot of thought and wondered if I "should" give up the idea of the hermit life, but, although my religious practice is not perfect and, in some superficial ways, I appear to be a fairly typical senior lady of my time and place, I have no strong desire to have any other kind of life goal. I kept trying to see myself doing anything other than what I do now, and I just could not rustle up the interest! If I had wanted a more "normal" life, such as the other women I know, I surely would have tried for it long before my 20 year anniversary, don't you think?

Whatever defects remain in my daily practice must be battled and subdued, if possible, but in any case I will not give up the goal of gaining a more perfect union with The Lord through giving myself to Him alone, even if I fail in the attempt.  Please wish me the best and pray for me.

In the meantime, if you are interested in Saint Paul of Thebes, the First Hermit, and his contemporaries, or you are curious about early hermit life and lore, please take a look at the following links:

CATHOLIC.ORG

WIKIPEDIA.ORG - SAINT PAUL

WIKIPEDIA.ORG - SAINT JEROME

WIKIPEDIA.ORG - SAINT ANTHONY THE GREAT

WIKIPEDIA.ORG - SAINT ATHANASIUS

At some point, I believe that, such as with Anthony and Paul,  I would also like to develop a friendship with at lease one other hermit - especially an urban hermit. We have much to share with one another, I think - especially after 20 years of doing this. I also wonder if it would be a good idea to find a regular confessor, especially now that Covid is not as much of a problem as it was - but I suspect that I may wait another year before risking spending too much time outside the hermitage. God will bring what He wants for me.

I hope you will all pray for me, as I pray for you.

God bless and keep you!

Silver Rose

HOLY POVERTY DOES NOT WORK FOR DISABLED PEOPLE

 

PACKING TAPE COVERS THE HOLE THE

THIEVES LEFT WHERE THE WINDOW USED

TO BE

"Holy poverty" is something one learns to live with and, for the most part, I have adjusted to the limitations, but it would be a lot easier if I was not also variously disabled.

I have lived alone as a disabled urban religious for the last 20 years, surviving on my Social Security retirement income that I accumulated over more than 30 years of working as a secretary and office manager, something I did between stints in a Hindu convent. I also wrote for television in my early 20's, but the environment did not suit me and I left it behind.

Throughout my working life, I was battling poor health, mostly from what I now know to be inherited arthritic conditions, until I finally could not work any more and I had to stop. (In addition, I was suffering from long-term complex PTSD from several near-death and violent experiences, on top of Asberger's syndrome.)

My life has never been easy, but I have offered it up for the glory of God and, while I am happy to do that, it is still necessary to SURVIVE, something that is very difficult to do if one is disabled, mobility challenged, and does not have close family.

For some years after becoming disabled, I anticipated the inheritance my father had willed to me, but after he got Alzheimer's, someone took him to an attorney friend of theirs who did not know him, instead of the attorney he had used for decades who knew me, and that third person had me written  out of my father's will in favor of herself and her relatives. Shortly thereafter, he died under very suspicious circumstances. 

I was not notified that my father had died until after his body had been cremated. Shortly thereafter, the man who signed my father's death certificate went to prison for writing bogus prescriptions for people he had never seen. It is fairly obvious what happened here.  

I was even conned by another estranged relative who called me out of the blue and promised to get my inheritance back for me, but it turned out to be a conspiracy on top of a con job so that I could be pushed aside in favor of HER. That was more than a decade ago. There was nothing I could do to right these injustices. I had to acknowledge that I am too trusting and not nearly as clever as these people who were willing to lie, cheat, steal, and more, in order to grab money.  I had to just bless them and release them, knowing that The Lord will deal with them in His own way and I had to just move on.

A painting I did of our Blessed

Mother and Baby Jesus

Ever since that time, I have tried to supplement my retirement income by working at several types of crafts to sell, but without help to market and sell these things, I was unable to do it. One woman from church offered to sell things at a table during one of our church events, then she backed out after I had made a large supply of silver earrings because she realized she had misinformed me about the type of craft items that were allowed to be sold. A local store agreed to see my work, but when I finished producing the line to show her and/or sell, she backed out because she had gotten an influx of "vendors" into her shop and she did not even want to see what I had made for her! She had "too much stock." Recently, a very good friend generously offered to share her yearly craft table at a local fair, and I prepared a large number of things for it, but the day before the craft fair, her husband came down with Covid, and of course the whole project had to be scrapped. Between the tools and supplies, I had spent a good deal of money  - all for naught. I gave up on those projects and am donating everything to charity.

There are two creative projects left, both of which have generated some income for me in the past. One is a set of paintings I have designed, along with hand-made matching frames,  and the other is a novel I have been struggling to write. I was unsure if The Lord was wanting me to continue to strive forward with these, so I asked him recently, "Lord, please tell me if you want me to give up the creative projects and just devote myself to prayer alone" and within a minute, I had my answer. He gave me the introductory scenes and the denouement of a novel that had eluded me for two years! It was as if he handed me the entire project timeline from Heaven!  He just laid it on me in one fell swoop! My own personal miracle. I still have to write it, mind you, but He gave me those essential plot points that I've needed for so very long. Thanks be to God!

"Lady of the Stars"

watercolor I painted

The really wonderful thing is that the novel has an underlying spiritual dimension that could speak to nearly everyone. The story is realistic without being negative, uplifting without being saccharine. I will continue to work on it and hope to finish it this year.

IN THE MEANTIME, the recent upsurge in prices at the market, as well as incredibly expensive heating bills over the fall and winter, have left me absolutely "skint," as my British friends would say. Combine this with the deficit created by the money spent on the creative projects I was not able to sell, and you have a real disaster waiting to happen. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, all the while hoping to somehow catch up.

That disaster happened today, when I had one more emergency than I was prepared to handle. My car's battery has died for the last time. It is not holding a charge. The battery was failing, and the recent freezing weather killed it. It is almost 30 years old, however, so I am grateful it lasted as long as it has!

To make it even more pathetic, the

car also has a flat front tire.

Batteries, along with everything else, have increased dramatically in price. The last time I had to buy a battery, it was $30. Now they are, at minimum, about $140. That does not include the labor to install them.

In addition, the back passenger window is still missing, the hole covered with tape. The front driver's window is permanently in the "closed" position because the mechanism broke some time ago and we did not generate enough money to fix it properly, so a friend of a friend opened up the door panel and tied the window in place. Now, whenever faced with a drive-through of any sort, I have to open the entire door. This is not a SAFE arrangement, but it will cost about $500 to install a working mechanism to lift the window up and down.

I am forced to create a GOFUNDME campaign to get the car worked on. I could actually use a couple thousand dollars to fix everything that is wrong with it, but I thought it better to ask for as little as possible, thinking it may encourage folks to donate, if it does not look like an impossible goal. I am actually hoping for more than we've asked for, but at the very LEAST would like to get a new or reconditioned battery.

I realize that my situation my not seem pathetic enough to some, but my survival actually depends on getting some help. I have done everything I can to help myself, to no avail, and I hope that my readers may find it in their hearts to contribute.

You can find my GO FUND ME CAMPAIGN HERE.

If you are unable to contribute, I ask that you to pray for me.

God bless us all

SAINT AELFNOTH (ALNOTH), THE HERMIT - NOVEMBER 25

Saint Aelfnoth (Alnoth)

Feast day: November 25

(d. 700)

There are many hermit saints in the history of the Catholic Church - women and men who are so in love with God that they withdraw from society in order to spend time only with Him. The hermit hopes to hear the music of his Beloved's voice, quiet and close, in their inmost being.

But even when the Lord does not deign to make Himself known, and He does not speak or move within, the Hermit loves to think of Him and wait in attendance upon the time when he MAY speak and move and make Himself known. The distraction of others and their voices, the noise of commerce and entertainments, are not of interest to the solitary, except in a pale and subordinate facsimile of common habit.

Monastics live lives of asceticism and offer up their pains and sufferings in reparation for their sins and the sins of the world, but to remove oneself from society to think of The Lord and draw close to him is not a suffering for them and can't be counted as such. Forgoing the supposed joys of common amusements is a pleasure for the hermit. In this way, they are contrary creatures, but it is my impression that the Lord made them this way from the beginning, constructing them so that even from childhood they enjoyed solitary time, at the very least. 

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the

hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in

the synagogues and in the corners of the streets,

that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto

you, they have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet,

and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy

Father which is in secret; and thy Father which

seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Matthew 6:5-6

Many hermits in history have lived as married persons, with children and worldly duties, but immediately upon the death of their spouse, they flee to the convent or monastery, sometimes taking their children with them. It appears that our Church does not have much room for this sort of monasticism any longer. It has become obsessed with the young. Like the rest of society, the modern church has little interest in older persons, when it comes to  monastic vocations. There are some practical aspects to this. Supporting people is very expensive. What can be done about that? The world has changed a lot since the Middle Ages. Besides which, many hermits bore their own expenses in those days, having family income to spend for their maintenance, which cost very little at that time. There were no medical bills (or medical care, to speak of!) No electric bills or mortgages. No automobiles or car insurance. It was a much simpler time.

It is no wonder that we know so little of the lives of the hermits because, after they retire to the hermitage, it is all an "inside job" without much for an outsider to observe, except an occasional miracle! (I think patience is, itself, a miracle.) In the case of today's saint, we know just the bare outline of his life. In his early life, he was a cowherd on St. Werberga's monastery property in Weedon, Northhampton, and he is briefly mentioned in Jocelyn's story of Werburga's life. 

Apparently, there was a local official who was something of a bully and he used to torment Alnoth, who responded with patience - a rare trait. Eventually, today's saint retired to live as a hermit and was murdered by two robbers, at night, in his hermitage. His tomb is at Stowe, near Bugbrooke, and it has been an attraction for pilgrims.  The local folk considered him a martyr, perhaps because he was bullied and then murdered because of his gentle Christian temperament.

I know what it is like to be tormented by bullies. I've been the target of bullies since I was a very little girl. Once they discover your temperament, they tend to shake you for either fun or finances. They would like to turn your world on end and hold you upside down to see if they can shake loose any coins or personal possessions that might fall out of your pockets. 

I am generous by nature, so I have had people cynically make friends with me for the sole purpose of divesting me of household furnishings and supplies. Some are just content to block my garage so that I am unable to use my handicap mobility scooter that is stored there.  

Of course, most of you are aware that after my father got Alzheimer's and tried to start his car with his credit card instead of his car key, other folks wrote me out of his will, knowing that I am disabled and poor and have need of the inheritance I was promised by my father, but that my nature is not such that I would be of any danger to them. Then, when he died under odd circumstances and his body was cremated without examination, I was advised of his death. These are distressing events, but I do not have to do anything with them because The Lord of Divine Love and Justice has seen them all, and He has His own methods of regulating justice, in this world and the next.

The bailiff who tormented Aelfnoth must have descendants here in the USA! Not everyone is like that, of course. I have many well-wishers, and I am betting I am probably more feisty than Aelfnoth, being a modern, independent woman. It is just that the bullies and thieves tend to make a an impression down through history. Think of all the years that have passed since that bailiff was harrowing Aelfnoth, and we know almost as much about him as we do the saint himself! 

Today, let us pray for the bullies, the robbers, the murderers and the thieves who risk their souls by acting on their evil impulses. Please offer at least one "Hail Mary" for them. They need it!

I hope and I pray you had a lovely Thanksgiving, and God bless you all!

Silver Rose

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

 

Christ the Yogi

This week I have had to change the name of my blog, because an acquaintance started using the name "The Accidental Hermit" in her advertisements that then obliterated all the search results for my blog when anyone Googled it. Even when the name of my blog was typed exactly, "Diary of an Accidental Hermit," pages and page of ads for her podcast popped up, and my blog of ten years, with more than 350 posts, was nowhere to be found. It was as if someone took a match to thousands of hours of work and made an internet bonfire with them.

My next concern, of course, is that the two of us would be confused for one another because we are doing a very similar thing.  Though I've been occupied with it for two decades, and she is a newby, that is not enough of a distinction for the purposes of Mr. Google. We are "urban hermits" living in apartments in smallish towns in the Southwest, advocating for the contemplative life.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

In the process of renaming my blog and refining it so that I can differentiate myself from that person who started using the moniker I have had for more than a decade, I realized that there is a huge elephant in the room that I have to clean up, and I am happy to have found the silver lining in all this mess, because we all know that there usually IS a silver lining to any conflict because that is what God typically does. He can and does bring good out of bad.

I have realized that some readers may not understand my religious affiliation(s). Is she Catholic? Is she Hindu? Who IS this woman, anyway?

The short answer is that I am Catholic.  I was a Hindu renunciate when I converted, but it is a complication story that has a lot of "moving parts" and will take some time to tell adequately, so I will just give a partial answer here and then provide the whole story in a book I am writing and will make available at some time in the future.

I was raised without any religion whatsoever. My parents hated religion, especially Catholicism, but I was always interested in God and immediately began learning about various religious traditions when I left home at 16. I spent some time with the Scientologists. I dabbled with Nicheren Shoshu Buddhism. I became interested in meditation and searched for something in the "yellow pages" phone book in Sacramento, California, where I found an advertisement for the Vedanta Society, which began years of close involvement, mostly in Los Angeles, where I moved after a year with the Vedantists in Northern California.

What I loved about the Vedantists, in addition to the peaceful presentations in their temple, the discussions about spiritual life and practices, especially meditation, is the respect that Vedanta has for all religions. They say that "all religions lead to God" and that one can remain a Christian or Buddhist or whatever other faith and a Vedantist at the same time! Of course, at that time, I had no other religion, so I threw myself totally into Vedanta, especially the meditation.

I asked the swami about the Vedantists' claim that all paths lead to God and asked if he really believed it.  He said, "Yes, but our way is faster!" Very clever.

Oddly enough, though I knew very little about Christianity and I had never even attended a Christian church service, when I presented myself to the swami for initiation in the formal ceremony in which they do this, he gave me the Jesus mantra. We had not discussed it, and it was a shock to me, because I thought he would give me a different one.

Swami Swahananda in the back

I am in the front, at the left.

Within a short time, I expressed interest in joining the convent, which I did do in my early thirties. But there was always something that did not quite fit. I loved the life, but something was not working within me. It did not help that the nuns were exceedingly uninterested. They were afraid that because I was the Swami's friend, I would try to "take over." It was ridiculous, but that was the situation.

Also, the physical work we were required to do was very hard on my body, and I hurt my back at one point and never really recovered. I have the same weakness in my back, to this day. (At that time, the ersatz head of the convent went to the swami and made the claim that I was "faking" a back injury, which he told me about immediately. This is an example of how cruel those women could be toward one another, but, as I have said many times elsewhere, the reason men are in charge of the world is because women do not support other women; they actually work to undermine one another at every opportunity.)

Vedanta is remarkably like Catholicism in MANY ways, but unlike the impersonal God of Vedanta that "became all this" the God that I eventually met and fell in love with was the personal God. But it wasn't Ramakrishna. His image left me cold. Nor could I comfortably believe in reincarnation, a central theme in Hinduism and Buddhism. I struggled with these ideas. I loved the life but could not accept these concepts because it was not what I was experiencing in my meditation. I remember standing in the kitchen chatting with one of the nuns who said that she was looking forward to "merging into Brahman" when she died, and my immediate response was, "that sounds revolting!" I began to realize I was in the wrong place. It was a very sad time for me, as I love the life, but there were these other pressures.  I left once, then returned, then left for the final time. The swami was sad to see me go. When I told him I was leaving, he said, "but who will smile at the devotees?"

After leaving the convent, I tried to get baptized by the Catholics, but the nun in charge of the RCIA class was operating under a confusion that the Catholic Church would not BAPTIZE me until a previous non-sacramental marriage in my teens had been "annulled," which is NOT the policy of the Catholic Church and makes no sense at all but I could not dissuade her and did not have any Catholic friends to advocate for me. In fact, I had never even known a Catholic, personally. This is how The Catholic Church pushes people away. If you look different at all, if your experience is not the old-fashioned nuclear family model, if you don't have money or children to give to the faith, no one welcomes you.  (Please do not write me telling me how wrong I am about your faith. Understand that I am speaking about my experiences, not yours.)

So, there I was, having left the monastic life I loved. I could not join a Catholic convent, as I had intended, because I could not even get BAPTIZED by the darn Catholics. I became unchurched and unaffiliated to anything for many years. I continued my Vedanta meditations, but I felt that the universe had bamboozled me. I had left the monastic life that I loved, that allowed some time for advanced spiritual practices, ostensibly to do a better thing in the Catholic Church, and they would not even baptize me - not because of a requirement of the faith but because of a prejudice and misconception by a local functionary. The months and years ticked by, I tried to get on with my life, but I was out of place. Just surviving.

When I became disabled in my late 40s and had to stop working outside the home, my swami agreed that I should take sannyas (final monastic vows) in the same way that one of our Vedanta saints had done "directly from Ramakrishna" in a spiritual ceremony. He gave me a few instructions and named me "Sannyasini Kaliprana." This was an unconventional arrangement, but he was an unconventional swami.

Then he asked me to take over the administration of an ashram house in the Southwest, but my disabilities were a concern to me, and I would have no security once I moved in there.so I ultimately turned down the posting. 

Swami Swahananda

My Vedanta teacher

Instead, I stayed where I was and decided to live as an independent sannyasini. By this time I was in my 50's and was living on my Social Security retirement funds. There IS a tradition in India of  people giving up "householder life" for sannyas in their later years, and this arrangement made sense to me. I settled in to become a hermit and spend my time in silence, solitude, and contemplation, while leading an occasional lecture or workshop on meditation.

But The God of Catholicism continued to call me. I had been very much affected by the works of the Catholic mystics I'd read about while in the Vedanta Convent and every once in a while would feel the pull again. Eventually, I met a woman who lived in my apartment complex who was an independent Catholic nun. One thing led to another, and I was accepted into the Catholic Church in about 2006, I believe.

Around the same time, my genealogy research began to reveal that I am descended from many famous Catholic saints, and that helped to make me feel I belonged to a particular group of people. I began to learn about and commune with my grandmothers and grandfathers, like Saint Olga of Kyiv, Saint Margaret of Scotland, and many others, and gradually began to feel more and more like I belonged SOMEWHERE at least. 

Saint Margaret of Scotland

My 29th great grandmother

Unfortunately, nearly all of my Catholic friends and relations are dead, but this is what happens when you belong to a church that is disconnected from its mystic, contemplative tradition, as the American Catholic Church is at the moment. Most of the parishes seem uninterested in anything but abortion and politics, which leaves me cold. Actually, the most popular topic is FAMILY, and I do not have one of those. Most of the family I would want to discuss are dead.

In this process, I learned that the principles and practices of monastic life for Catholic and Vedantist are nearly identical. Both have a tradition of hermit monastics. My niche is very small, but at least I have one now! I particularly enjoy corresponding with other independent monastics and had an idea in the back of my mind that I might like to create a loose association of independent hermits - to support them, spiritually - but I have a lot on my plate.

Saint Olga of Kyiv

"Equal to the Apostles"

My 34th great grandmother

As is probably obvious, I do not have any "official" designation from anyone, nor is one required. Anyone who wants to lead their life in silence and contemplation is free to do it and both Hinduism and Catholicism have a long tradition of people taking off into the wilderness to commune with God as hermits, swamis, sannyasinis, or whatever you want to call it. In February of 2023, I will celebrate my 20-year anniversary of my commitment to this life, and I intend to continue on in this vein for as long as The Lord will allow, in addition to which I make a little art and write a little. It is not a bad "retirement."

I hope this blog post answers any lingering questions anyone may have about exactly who I am and what I am doing here, as opposed to that OTHER woman who was raised as a Catholic, joined a Catholic institution while very young, and eventually left to live as a hermit in an apartment in Arizona. That is another person - someone else who is being advertised as "The Accidental Hermit" but whose background, story, and orientation is quite a bit different than mine. We are not the same person.

But no matter WHO we are, may God bless us all!

May we all be blessed!

Mother Silver Rose

Sannyasini Kaliprana

P.S. All of the blog posts I write are independently researched and written by me and all of them are protected by legal copyright, so please just enjoy them here and leave them here where you found them and do not copy any of it to any other place for any purpose.

(c) Copyright 2022, Silver S. Parnell

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