THE MARTYRDOM OF EVERYDAY LIVING: Five Scenarios played out in my life

As I reach 83 years of age, I reflect on what has happened to me and how I have grasped the meaning of life with the life experience I have chosen in my wheelhouse. It’s not a pretty picture, looking back. As far as my existence as a citizen of the world, living in only the physical and mental universes, I missed the mark, and, although I had many rowers in my boat during my time at sea, I discovered that my boat had a hole in it. All the rowers in the world won’t help if you have a hole in it. All of this happened to me as a citizen of heaven or as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. How could my boat have such a gaping hole in it, one so egregious that I was sinking and not even aware of it? After all, I was a Catholic, I went to Mass, and I prayed to God with sincerity of heart. Then, it happened. Like St. Paul, I was hit, not with a thunderbolt of lightning, but with the unlikely turn of events that led me to seek out being a Lay Cistercian, a way of life that, on the surface seemed like much of what I had been doing before.

Five years before 2018, I had a catharsis of Faith and decided to explore being Anglican. I went to the local Anglican Church, St. Peter’s in Tallahassee to begin the lengthy process of converting my heart. To be sure, I was definitely searching for something that I felt was not there, although I knew not what. I was actually beginning to feel the water in the bottom of my boat from that hole that was there. I sought to fix it with another religion other than Catholicism because I had anger at the Church for all the perceived faults that I found, and also that I had excommunicated myself because of my choice to get married, an action that caused me to tear myself apart from the Body of Christ. Ironically, it turned out to be the correct choice for me but its consequences left me roaming the desert of my own self-imposed wilderness of self-pity and anger.

SHEDDING MY PRIDE

This first scenario of martyrdom is one where I had to consciously test the bounds of my Faith and reconvert myself to Christ (patching up the hole in my boat). Like Francis Thompson’s poem, The Hound of Heaven, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6hNu8U7NSc&t=14s) I fled from a cure seeking my own remedy to patch over what I thought was my problem. With a sincere heart, I pursued instructions as an Anglican, faithfully attending the sessions of instruction. I was heartened by the goodness and friendliness of the parishioners who were not pushy but quite evidently full of God’s joy at sharing their Anglican experiences with all of us inquirers. What a wonderful experience that was. I completed the instruction and attended the Anglican services (looking identical to what I was used to seeing in the Catholic church, Good Shepherd, Tallahassee). But, and there is always a “but” in these forays into unchartered territories, I just could not bring myself to patch up this hole with Anglicanism, although, ironically, it was God’s instrument to led me to what I eventually am today.

DISCERNING WHAT IS AT MY CENTER AND STRUGGLING TO KEEP IT THERE

I have had a center of my life since 1962 when I selected the passage from Philippians 2:5 “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus,” as the one point, that if I took it away, all other principles would begin to wobble. It is easy to select a center of life, but much more challenging to keep it as your center. The Hurricane winds that sweep the kingdom of Earth blow hard with their promise of riches, happiness, and the allure of greatness if I but follow their way. It is not easy nor without the trauma that I find my adoption as son or daughter of the Father challenged every day with thoughts that we are wasting our time. Sameness is the bane of the spiritual life. Same prayers, the same Eucharistic Prayer, the same routine to keep me centered on Christ, and the same nagging voice in the back of my skull that says, “Do something meaningful with your life. This silence and solitude is all just la-la land, are just a few persistent voices I hear during my attempts to place myself in the presence of God and wait. Humans don’t like to wait, I found that out early on in my Lay Cistercian Way. It is the voice that screams out loudly that all this is boring and a waste of time. It is the martyrdom of ordinary living. The Devil seeks to separate me from my resolve to “prefer nothing to the love of Christ.” Funny, isn’t it? Christ is the Lord of the kingdom of Heaven and I have been adopted by the Father as heir to the kingdom, yet, while I live in this human body with all its emotions, challenges, and sometimes nobility, it is still the kingdom of Earth and the Devil seeks to seduce me with my human feelings that He is the Lord of the Earth. I reject Satan frequently and ask St. Michael to stand guard with me. Just saying the names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, all protected by St. Michael drives away the evil one. That is nice, but I am in a constant state of war until I die. Following the Cistercian Way to retreat into what is essential for my humanity. I go from “hurry up and wait” to “slow down and wait.” Boredom was a constant companion of mine before I began to die to myself and just sit on that couch and be happy to do nothing but clear my mind and heart of baggage.

WANDERING 40 YEARS IN THE DESERT OF APATHY

I know what it is like to wake up from wandering 40 years in the desert of my own perceptions about what is real and realizing that I have not been wrong, so much as not having grown in all that time. I focused on a life that was easy rather than the cross and the martyrdom of ordinary living. I realized about fifteen years ago (I am now 83–Yikes) that I had missed the boat of my potential with Christ as my center. Good as I thought it was, until I became a Lay Cistercian and began to die to my false each day, slowly shedding my past life which was good, but stagnant, I now realize that it was all so much chaff and that I winnowed away most of the wheat. Thanks be to God, I am re-centered on the difficult struggle of “Having in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) I now realize more, and can begin to move toward complexity and ever deeper into the mystery of my humanity, which is the mystery of Faith. Shedding or abandoning the notion that I am somehow justified by doing prayers rather than being a daily prayer with Christ to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit, has enlivened the prayers that I do say in union with the Church and my Lay Cistercian compatriots.

CONFRONTING THE MOVEMENT IN SAMENESS

Being spiritual means I have the ability to do the same thing over and over with the mindset that each time it is different. It is different because of my capacitas dei, by making the conscious choice to peer deeper into my humanity and thus my inner self. Contemplation is such a process, one that never changes but is never the same each time I do it. My movement in the presence of Christ at first was maddening. I went through stages of boredom and guilt that I could not be like others around me and be silent and in solitude. I realized after a period of ripening of the spirit that it takes time to move from the perceptions I had held as a human about always being productive and that spirituality had to do something or it was not authentic. Now I wait, content that my waiting is itself a prayer. It is like having the restless leg syndrome and then conquering it with stillness. This waiting is a process and I must constantly struggle to maintain my status quo.

WALKING ON THE WATERS OF LIFE WITHOUT SINKING

That scenario of Jesus in the boat and walking on water is a metaphor for contemplation, in that it signifies what happens if I try to walk on water with just my humanity and then reach out to Jesus to receive the power to walk on water without sinking. I am in the upper room of my inner self and just waiting for Christ to show up. I get angry with Christ because I have to wait. I am miffed that I must spend time waiting without being productive. I am sinking into the apathy of the ordinary human way of dealing with my emotions. I take the easy way out and blame Christ. Very slowly, over time, it occurs to me that I have it all wrong. I am not waiting for Christ but it is Him who waits on me to calm my mind enough for my heart to begin to listen for the heartbeat of Christ next to me. When I hear the whispers of Christ to me, in the stillness of that now-calmed inner self, I can begin to feel the energy of the Holy Spirit and thus do not sink any further into my own sinfulness.

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