Be Open To Seeing

"I don't think the way you think." ~ Isaiah 55:8a (The Message)

Can I please have some peace about this? ~ October 20th Ignatian Exercises journal entry.

Yesterday I spent the day sick in bed and read Kerry Egan's book Fumbling, an account of her journey walking the Camino de Santiago. The best books are ones that speak to our common humanity and I know I read to find myself in the pages of another`s story.

Those of you who have journeyed with me these past few years, through the suicides of friends as well as my breast cancer diagnosis and recovery know how shattered my faith has been. Deep, gut wrenching grief has darn near immobilized me at times. I have a print of an icon on my wall where I can see it as I type in which Archangel Raphael says "Take courage! God has healing in store for you." I keep it there to remind me that today is not the end of my story. Even if today was the end of my life, the healing would continue.

Towards the very end of this book Kerry Egan meets with a spiritual director who tells her that she herself tries to watch for the Spirit in her life - to see how God works. She says she tries to pay attention to it. This baffles Kerry and she asks how do you know it's the Holy Spirit. Her spiritual director says, "Well, I guess what other people call coincidence, I would call the Holy Spirit."

Kerry had bumped into three people in one afternoon who directed her to this woman for help with her spiritual journey. In a matter of hours the first person suggested her, the second person knew of her, and the third person worked with her and gave her the phone number.

You know how I feel about connecting the dots like that. It's about made me puke at times. Kerry herself questions this, too and her spiritual director says, "You'll just have to start paying attention for yourself. Just see what you see, and let yourself be open to seeing."

I read that line and thought to myself, 'Okay I think I can do that. I can let myself be open to seeing.' It felt like a small step towards God. Towards considering that I can trust in the unknowingness of life and perhaps even trust God again.

And then Kerry Egan goes on to talk about her problems with grief and her problems with God. Although our grief comes from different places there I am smack dab in the middle of her story so clearly that it leaves me sobbing:

"If prayer is the attempt to understand God, then grieving is the deepest form of prayer, rising from the body and soul and mind, asking God and really and truly wanting to know, no matter what the answer: Who are you? Why did you create a world with pain? Why is life this way? What are you? Because you are not what I thought you were. (emphasis mine)
Grieving, at its deepest level, is to acknowledge that creation can be cruel and that people suffer. To look at this truth, to allow yourself to feel it, you are forced to consider the nature of this world and this existence. you ask how this can be and who set this up and why this happens. To grieve is to ask God the hardest questions. To grieve is to ask who God really is. It's to change your perspective on all other human beings and their relationships to one another and to you and your place in this world. To grieve is to start over, to be re-created. (emphasis mine)...... 

Why suffering? Why grief? And why grief and God?
I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does." ~ Kerry Egan, Fumbling

I read this and think to myself that I can see glimpses of being able to live with that. To find some peace about the unknowingness of who God is and how God works. To be okay with not having answers. It feels like seeing a faint light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel after repeatedly kicking the walls and telling people who are shining flashlights in your eyes that there is no fucking light, okay? Because in your blinding grief you couldn't see any.

At the end of this passage she quotes Isaiah 55: 8 and 9. The verses twig at my brain. Hadn't I just read those verses a few days ago. I pull out my journal and find  the quote I typed at the top of this post.

Okay, then.
I think I saw something.

Encaustic

Could the reader that sent me this encaustic please email me? In a flurry of emptying my inbox of emails I inadvertently deleted the one with your new email address.  Thank you.

Isn't this a lovely piece of art? It's titled Skinless Soul and is from a friend in honour of my breast cancer journey. I have it hanging where I can see it every day.

Naivete et al

So much going on. I keep thinking I need to send this person or that an email and fill them in but seem to have no energy to actually do it. I've felt that way for so long.

Lots of wonderfully good things. Like having our grandson for the night once a week every week. He's not quite walking yet and spending time with him is just plain fun. And hard work. His smile lights up my world. Rocking him to sleep is lovely.

Only daughter had her first baby just over a week ago. Wonderfully exciting. I spent the week with her and it was a privilege to care for her and to hold her daughter again and again and again.

I am keenly aware that were I not in recovery and had not continued to do the hard work of inner growth through the grace of God, that being invited into my adult children's lives and the lives of their children might never be. I was not the mother I wanted to be but by God I can be the grandmother I want to be. And I'm serious when I say, "by God." There is no other way. I know this. Not everyone in  recovery is this fortunate. I've heard people in meetings say so. Years of unpleasant behaviour held against them decades after they've changed. Lord have mercy.

This month is the month of anniversaries of cancer diagnosis and surgeries and life changing happenings. I read an article the other day that had a line in it that resonated - cancer took what was left of my naivete. Too true. In the vein of this being Breast Cancer Awareness month and you are bombarded with pink everything please keep in mind that the research dollars need to be going to finding a cure for metastatic breast cancer not for awareness. We are aware already. Statistics show that early detection does not save lives. Surprised by that? You can have grade 0 breast cancer and still experience metastases. Mine was grade 2, stage 2. It's going to hang over my head for the rest of my life. Here is a link that says it well.

Spiritually I've felt afloat for most of the past two years. This month I started the 19th Annotation - doing the spiritual exercises of Ignatius over the course of the next 8 months. In the short week since I've started I've come face to face with how deeply in need of grace I am. I'm horrified really. I mean who else reads Psalm 139 and writes in their journal in response 'utter bullshit." It bothered me that that was how I felt. I wanted to write something so much different than that. Thankfully a day later I returned to this psalm and felt more kindly to it. As if it would take much to feel that way! I have avoided personal scripture reading for the past few years - unable to get past pat answers that reverberate in my head when I read it. Since making this commitment to doing the exercises I have a feeling it's going to change me. I can avoid the hard conversations with God much more easily when I stay away from scripture. But scripture is living and breathing and I run smack into God when I spend time in it. Do I truly want change or do I want to pretend to change? I want change. I have to show up. It's going to happen.

Dearest One is facing potentially serious health issues. There's a part of me that says - now wouldn't that just be unfair - as if fairness was our birthright. Diagnostic tests this week should help pinpoint the problem. We are thankful for a family doctor who listens and takes action. Much better than the ER doctor who advised taking acetaminophen for pain - as opposed to our family doctor who ordered a stat CT scan to rule out a brain tumour. Huge difference, no? There are all kinds of worrisome symptoms. I keep reminding myself to stay in the day and not run towards tomorrow.

Work - what can I say? Days of an inner mantra "I will not quit my job." Then taking an opportunity to be gracious instead of vindictive to the one who causes me the most angst changed our relationship overnight. How bizarre it is. I don't like her any more than I did and certainly don't trust her any more than I did but things have changed and it continues to intrigue me.