Experiment 8: Stories of Confession

A friend of mine asked me for stories of the occasions when confession helped me grow closer to God. I have one post that mentions confession but haven't really written about it. Confession is difficult for me. I always want to confess everything, including flaws & they only want sins. And since my catechesis has been unusual, I tend to know a lot about some issues and very little about others such as confession. So here are three stories:

I used to give the back story as if I was in therapy until one day a Polish Dominican said to me, "I know you think you'll never get over all the things that were done to you when you were a child but you don't have to tell me all of that. Just tell me your sins." "You mean like a laundry list?" I replied. "Exactly." And then he added, "I'm only telling you this because I think you want a more perfect way." I thanked him & told him he was right, I do want a more perfect way. What I didn't tell him was that no one had ever taught me how to make a confession.

On another occasion when I was again confessing a sin of which I was particularly ashamed, I began to cry & said, through my tears, "But I don't want to commit this sin!" The same Polish Dominican calmly said, "Then don't." It was the first time anyone had ever told me that I decide whether or not I sin; that sin is an act of will.

Finally, when I was confessing impatience w/ occasional taxi drivers, medical office persons or pharmacy persons, an Australian priest pointed out to me that I was being impatient with my caregivers. He showed me that many, many people are caring for me & not just friends & doctors. He was so good at seeing into my failures that I thought it might be very painful to go to him for confession regularly.

All good confessors have taught me is that I have so much more to be grateful for, that I am so much more loved & so much more a participant than I imagined. They teach me to be more fully human. I actually hope my health & appointments will allow me to go to weekly confession soon.

In the comments, please let me know of experiences in confession that help you grow closer to God.

Experiment 7: Hell Doesn’t Own Me

Over the past two or three months, I've had a number of conversations with friends about healing after abuse. I've learned, on the one hand, that I haven't gone as far as I think and, on the other, that I'm on the right road. Quite a lot has come from these conversations & I hope to write about most of it. It is exhausting to take the meditations in my head & heart & make them into posts but with time, it will happen. This piece is related to my posts on Catholic Witness in which I wrote quite a lot about my experience of being abused:

”Dearest Lord Jesus Christ, please heal my memory and sensibilities so I may remain aware of and live the life You have given me today. Please make my memory and sensibilities able to distinguish between experiences in my past and experiences today. If it is Your will, grant me the ability to use the memory of offenses committed against me in the past to aid in healing those who have been abused and offended as well as those who abuse and offend the little ones whom You love so dearly. And dearest, dearest Lord, please commission me as You commissioned Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta though Your dear Mother to pray and sacrifice on behalf of poor sinners. Amen”

On July 17, 1917, Our Lady showed Lucia dos Santos and Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta Marto hell. Not a virtual image, not a 3-D film, not even a hologram, but really, truly hell. Lucia described Jacinta as “horrified to the point …of shriveling with fear.”(1) She goes on to say that Jacinta “frequently [] sat, meditating, on the ground or some stone, and began to exclaim, ‘Hell! Hell! How sorry I am for the souls that are going to hell! And people burn there alive, like wood in fire!’ And quivering a little, she would kneel on the ground with her hands joined and say the prayer Our Lady had taught us.”(1) She was seven years old.

Neither when I read the account in my early twenties nor since have I ever been deeply impressed by Our Lady’s actions. It never occurred to me to ask why she would show such an horrific sight to little children. Perhaps it is because I was three when I saw my Grandpére murdered, four when I was first raped, four when I was separated from my parents and learned of their murders and abandoned and left with the foster family where I was beaten, neglected, and used as an object for the fulfillment of my foster siblings sexual desires (a lot can happen in the space of a month). I had experienced hell long before I read of Our Lady showing it to three children from the country of my mother’s birth. If I felt anything at all it was that Our Lady showed hell to them for the same reason heaven had deposited me there.

When I began to ask God why He had left me in hell, I didn’t think of it as hell but as being thrown to the wolves. I had to pretend to be a wolf so as to keep myself from being torn to pieces. I even wrote a short story entitled, The Wolf-Cat, wherein a young kitten, whose pride has been killed by wolves, hides in the skin of a dead wolf so that she will be taken in by the pack and not left alone to die. She is used and abused, treated the way the wolves (in my story at least) treat their kind, until the day comes when the big Cat calls her back to herself, restores her memory and tells her that she has a mission to help Him save the wolves. It was just a story written by a young girl but, like so much literature, contained more truth than so many other subjects.

At first, I didn’t particularly care to know why God had thrown me to the wolves, didn’t care when He failed to answer. It had something to do with saving my life, that I knew. But I felt God might have made a better choice and I knew that all who had abused and offended me knew better. I didn’t know why I should care about them; they deserved to be blasted out of existence for what they had done to me and to so many others. The wolves deserved to be destroyed. As for me, all I wanted was to be back in my own skin, clean again and free from the smell and the memory and the shame. I wanted God to unmake the horrible years, to remake me. I did not want a mission to save either wolves or people like those who had abused me.

But then I realized God really had saved my life by throwing me to the wolves. There was no escaping it: in learning to fight them, I had learned to fight my own despair and desire to die & be with my parents. It was also apparent that God had trusted me to turn to Him for help and that so often, I had. Such trust must be love that wanted me not only to survive but to be happy; God wouldn't trust me unless He really know me; knew I could get the job done; knew I was worth trusting. So I could trust that God really did long for me to come to Him and belong to Him; that He really loves me. I have never been able to understand, to encompass that trust or that love. That God knew I needed to learn to fight, and especially fight myself awes me to this day. He is beyond my imaginings and I have a huge imagination. He knows me far, far better than I know myself and all I could do in response was love Him but that also meant loving His creation, particularly other people. And in my usual impulsive way, I found myself saying one day that I didn’t want anyone to be left out of what He has in store for those who will accept Him.

My friend, Fallen Sparrow , used to tell me of St. Dominic asking, “Lord, what will become of these poor sinners.” I didn’t think much of it at first. But it had a way of burrowing into my memory and even connecting with my feelings about those who had abused me. I realized St. Dominic’s poor sinners, and the souls Blessed Jacinta saw burning like wood were people God loved. When I thought about what I’d impulsively said, and talked to God about it, I knew that I must include even those who terrify me, even the wolves, even those who commit horrible acts against little children. That was difficult – to want what I didn’t want – so I asked God to make me able to love as He loves. Eventually, I began to feel badly because there were some so wicked they rejected God and all the good He has in store for them. They are extremely poor when riches abound just for the asking. The more I wanted to love God, the more I found myself praying for and loving those poor wicked souls. That was a huge gift, to love the unlovable, to look forward to seeing them in heaven and sharing a laugh with which we would tell each other, “All is forgiven!” and “I’m so glad you’re here!”

I was mostly happy and quite willing to live out the rest of my life in that fashion. Longing and praying for the salvation of the wicked and looking forward to heaven but I was somewhat dead inside. It wasn’t a subject that came up very often, particularly since I rarely dated: I pretty much kept it to myself. My sensibilities had been shattered and I expected they would remain that way. I read the catechism, followed one or two orthodox Catholic blogs, read Scripture, carefully taught myself certain limitations and worked to live within them. I also had the grace and example of friends who were also working to get to heaven and eventually, it became easier to avoid major slips and to seek reconciliation when I failed. But my sensibilities were numb. For example, friends had watched Team America and aware of my growing interest in politics, encouraged me to see it but also told me there would be a scene that would cause me to hide my eyes. When the scene appeared, I wondered what the big deal was, they were just action figures being “played” with as children “play” with action figures. I’d keep the film away from little kids but it was essentially a meaningless nothing.

But then I was scandalized by some behaviour I encountered. It was an overwhelming surprise. I automatically went into fight or flight mode, escaped as soon as possible, sought out friends who would care for me and when I made it home, was grateful for the safety of my own warm bed. The experience caused intense flashbacks that lasted for months: I was tormented by memories of being abused, and by overwhelming terror and crying fits followed by depression and sadness. Nearly a year later, the flashbacks have lessened but I still have an occasional attack. My dear friend Dawn Eden unknowingly convinced me to memorize the Anima Christi and now I hide myself in Jesus’ wounds when I am under attack – it’s a safe place to be and a place where more of my sensibilities are also being healed. I’ve never been one to wear short skirts or low cut tops but I’ve begun to find myself aware of clothing that insists on exposing just a bit more of me than I want exposed and am working on addressing such wardrobe defects and deficiencies. I even find myself looking away during explicit love scenes. The innocent child I once was is being returned to life.

After He died on the Cross, Jesus descended to the dead and preached the gospel to those who awaited His coming whether they knew it or not. Abraham, Isaac, Israel, Moses, Joshua, Judith, Ruth and so many others left the prison of death for paradise. Abuse left me convinced that I had been consigned to living in hell. I did not know it but I was waiting to be set free. And He who brought the Gospel to those imprisoned by death released me. The offer hasn’t expired but is available today and tomorrow and for all time. I am evidence that what is known as “the harrowing of hell,” in which Satan is shown that he has no power over those who die with Christ, is an eternal action. I have been burned by the flames of hell but hell cannot claim me. Freed from the flames, I am returning to life just as St. Paul promised: “[] if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” (Romans 6:7-8)

I no longer live with the wolves. I am a cat once again and happy to be one. But I have not forgotten my time in a wolf’s skin. At times I still feel shame, feel I deserve to be abused, feel I deserve to be in hell – fire is very attractive. But in Jesus’ wounds I remember that the flames burned me but never owned me. I belong to Christ and I never want to belong to anyone else. Jacinta Marto did not forget hell, it made her pray and sacrifice on behalf of those who did not concern themselves with their eternal futures but hastened down the road to destruction. I no longer wish to forget my experience of hell but instead seek to pray and sacrifice on behalf of those who have been abused and also on behalf of small, mean abusers. And I want to work to make the number of those hastening towards destruction as small as possible; living with Christ is also participating in His redemptive work. As my memory and sensibilities are healed, I become better able to participate in that work.

The message of Fatima is penance and reparation. That is work I can do whether I’m ill or well, weak or strong. There are so many adults and children who have survived sexual abuse and other major childhood traumas yet are still enthralled by the flames, still convinced they are in hell. They don’t yet know that their experiences were not so that they would be forever lost but rather that they might be found and bring with them many others who are, in their own way, lost. Our Lady prepared Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta for a mission to sinners. I have been prepared for a mission too: I know the way out of hell and it is my job to tell others how to reach safety. It’s not an exalted mission by any means. It mostly consists in befriending those God brings into my life, praying for those in need and most especially for victims of abuse and for those who abused them. It’s nothing terribly exciting unless being a klaxon horn is exciting. I just tell those being burned that there is a sure way out of the flames, that way is Jesus.


1 “Memórias e Cartas da Irmã Lucia” (Memories and Writings of Sister Lucia); Sr. Lucia of Fatima

Experiment 6: We Need to Have a "God Bless You" Day!

This is not Houston St. in NYC. Unfortunately, it's Houston, TX. How can anyone in TX try to abridge our freedom of religion & free speech? We must do everything we can to support those bringing suit & we ought to seriously consider a God Bless You day!

Experiment 5: Response To An Email

I don't check all my email accounts regularly but today, I thought I'd take a look @ my hotmail account and discovered I had received the following:

Date: Wed, 4 May 2011
Subject: What do you think?

Dear MoveOn member,

Because MoveOn is its members, our power and direction come entirely from members like you.

I'd love to hear what you're thinking right now. What do you take away from the news recently? What are you excited about? What do you want from MoveOn?

If you have any thoughts you'd be willing to share, please reply to this message or drop me an email at:

jruben@moveon.org

Thank you!

Justin

I thought I'd share my response with you:

Dear Justin,

When I registered @ MoveOn.org several years ago, I thought it was a viable organization working to help the poor in the United States. Over the past few years, I've learned that MoveOn has no real concern for those in need but rather seeks to impose on the US an ideology that is the direct opposite of everything I believe in. I believe in charity, voluntary giving to help those in need; MoveOn wants to use every area of government to redistribute wealth. Except the wealth is somehow lost in the redistributing pipes & the poor are no better off while those whose wealth has been taken away are now poorer & can't create the jobs that the poor need in order to build better lives for themselves.

MoveOn believes in bringing illegal aliens into the US to upset our way of life. Those illegal aliens aren't the desperate poor who come here for a better life; the very poor can't afford to pay the transport costs. Those you bring in are anarchistic communists. They are angry that good exists in the US. It doesn't even occur to them to fight the corruption in their own countries & develop their own good but only to come to the US to destroy the good we have built here.

Anger at the good that the US has created & helped the world create is why MoveOn exists; you welcome anarchistic communism. Many people may not recognize it but some of us do; I do. Destruction of the good will neither help the poor nor accomplish anything except death. But then, ultimately, that's what anarchistic communism wants, death. I'm so sorry you are caught up in an organization that will only lead to destruction. I truly do understand how one begins seeking to do good & then becomes so enmeshed, it's very difficult to see the truth, especially the truth about your own organization which must be very dear to you. It's extremely sad. But I'm so happy I am no longer fooled by the rhetoric MoveOn & so many other Soros supported operations spout. There are many of us who no longer believe you, who understand that you are not supporting life but only death. We will not be fooled by you again & are working to open the eyes of more & more Americans.

Please remove me from your contact list. I don't need such clutter in my inbox. Good day & may you come to see that you are not working to help those in need but to make many more poor. May God bless you & warm your heart; it must be very cold.

Drusilla

Please pray for all those involved with the organizations that George Soros has founded and pray for Mr. Soros as well. It is well worth the time to conduct a bit of research into his life. He has become a bitter old man who is bent on destroying as much as possible. He needs prayer & a total change of heart but God is well up to the job if Mr. Soros will make even the slightest gesture towards repentance. Please pray that Mr. Soros makes that gesture.

Experiment 3 (actually 4, but I forgot to # the last post): Taking God Up On His Offers

We clip coupons, search out sales, order items online - engage in all sorts of activities in which we trust someone or some company to be honest & save us a bit of money or produce a quality product - to be faithful. And yet we don't seem to expect God to be faithful - we don't take Him up on His promises. How silly of us to forget the One who is really faithful & put all our trust in things which let us down over & over & cannot provide what we really need.

"if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

A number of our elected representatives have asked us to pray for our nation on the 3rd of July. We know it is a wise thing to do & perhaps the most important job our representatives have, to tell us when we need to repent & pray for the gift God has given us. They ask us to spend just 3 - 5 mins to repent & ask God to heal us & our land. Please join me & thousands & thousands of others. Let's place our trust in God our Saviour & Redeemer.

https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=CHECKOUT&dmy=DD67F0C3-0493-820F-D591A9EB7BEFFEC5&CFID=10793580&CFTOKEN=742c50a944d43cc2-DD6792F2-0A52-7F1E-C5C1EF9B2D7C6E93

Please share the message with others. Thanks.

The Old Remedies Are the Best

Prayer & fasting - it's all been explained in the past & it's time to engage in them again. The grand thing is that a leader on the national stage is calling us to repentance; finally an elected official is actually representing us. Thanks be to God.

Experiment #2: The Act of Love

For various reasons, many I've written of here, as a child, I never learned many of the prayers Catholic children do. So recently, as part of my morning prayers, I've been memorizing some of them from a little booklet, My Catholic Prayer Book, which I got in the bookshop at the National Cathedral in DC. Learning them is slow, painstaking & actually physically painful so I go phrase by phrase for weeks at a time & eventually another prayer is learned. Part of the difficulty is because I find it hard to remain focused. I am easily distracted & can't stop my mind wondering off in all sorts of places. Once memorized, my mind still wanders but the distractions have come together & it seems that all the wandering while memorizing the Acts of Faith, Hope & Love was about the same thing.

Along w/ not learning most of the prayers other Catholic children did, I also didn't learn to pray as they did. I'm not sure I learned to pray as anyone learns because no human being taught me any prayers except the Our Father; I did learn a few prayers from the catechism I kept under my bed but I did that on my own. The prayers I had learned never seemed to be enough & the extemporaneous prayers my foster-father & other ministers prayed just seemed odd. So I just learned to converse w/ God or, sometimes, just to think of nothing & lie back in my Friend's arms & hang out. That basic mode of praying has never changed & my mind automatically wanders to it much of the time & especially when I am learning new prayers. So I thought I'd try to put some of those wanderings into intelligible form & share them with you.

O my God, I love You above all things, and with my whole heart and soul, because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I love my neighbour as myself for love of You. I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen.

I've learned the Acts of Faith, Hope & Love. My mind wanders during all of them but it is the Act of Love I would almost totally rewrite. The 1st place my mind wanders off is because You are all good and worthy of all my love. I find myself telling God, that the truth is I love Him because He loves me 1st & how can I not love Him when He has loved me so much & so well. Then I usually find myself thinking about those who ought to have loved me & how badly they failed, of how badly I have failed to love & that makes me realize all the more how much God loves me & that I am only loving Him in response. I can remain for a long time just thinking of God's love for me even though I don't deserve it but I try to move on; usually I do.

The 2nd place of wandering is I love my neighbour as myself for love of You. Here I admit that I do not love my neighbour as myself (and usually remember to thank God for that) for love of Him. Instead, I tell God that I try to love my neighbour as Christ has loved me because He has commanded me to do so & I want to do His will. The emphasis is on try. I fail, a lot, & can only keep trying because He loves me so much & I want to love Him any way I can. Sometimes I think how much more I would fail if I was trying to love as I love myself. There is brokenness within me that makes loving myself, even for love of God, very difficult indeed: my self love is not a template for loving others. But God is brilliant. He has given even me the opportunity to learn to love my neighbours, & learn to love myself in the process, if I seek to love as He loves me. And the glorious bonus is that because I know He loved me 1st & my love for Him is in response to His love, my love for my neighbours is also because of His love for me & them. How can I not love what my Beloved loves?

Finally, my mind wanders at I forgive all who have injured me, and I ask pardon of all whom I have injured. That sentence becomes: I try to forgive all who have injured me because You have told me to do so & I try to ask pardon of all whom I have injured because I know that's what You want. I think the Act of Love ends on a wimpy note because it doesn't end w/ acknowledging God's love but this is actually a perfect place to address that omission: I can only forgive because He works forgiveness within me. That's something I learned a while back, when I felt called to forgive those who killed my family but couldn't even express the words. Finally, after several days struggling & crying, the realization lit up my heart, the ability to forgive is as much a gift as anything else & if that's what God wanted of me, He could make it happen. So I asked Him to work forgiveness within me & was granted peace & found myself praying for people I had hated just a few minutes earlier. God continues to make it possible for me to forgive even if I must, at times, wait to express forgiveness. And the same is true about asking pardon. I put all my occasions of forgiving & being forgiven in God's hands & He handles it. Ultimately, I realize I must move onto something else so I end the Act of Love by telling God I am so grateful He makes it possible for me to love Him & His creation.

And now it's time for me to move onto something else. The Act of Love has been around for a long time & I'm glad I've learned it. I do think it might be more dynamic & when I am praying it alone, I amend it to my heart's content. But when I'm praying it w/ others, I keep to the original because that's part of what love does, gives way to others over those things that are not essential. After all, anyone making an Act of Love is doing so because he loves God & that's the essential thing.

God is good. But what is man?

It's been several months since my last entry. Houston & being ill require a great deal of work & are exhausting. When I originally began blogging, I thought it would take the place of my personal journal. But my posts became so infrequent, I began keeping my personal journal again: God doesn't mind if I become distracted & head off in another direction & between being ill & extremely medicated, focusing is actually painful. But today I'm trying an experiment. I want my mind to be restored to health as well as my body so perhaps an occasional post will force me to focus & will help heal my mind. (I'm also considering Tai Chi & I've found a dance partner to teach. Dance will help me regain the strength, form & balance I once had. Working with someone will help me push myself.) I must ask one favour of all of you, if I ramble or make no sense or am inconsistent, please let me know. Please help me get well. (Don't worry about my feelings, just tell me the truth.)

In my last post, I left off asking whether God can exist and not be good. There were excellent responses. Kathleen Lundquist's comment comes closest to stating my belief:

If that's the case [that God can be malevolent], then we're all in hell. The choice is between being and nothingness. If God is our Father/the ground of our being, and being is not good, then we may as well just walk off the cliff into insanity.

Even though my life has had & continues to have quite a lot of suffering, I, like many Christians, have always believed & experienced God's goodness: from an early age, I knew there was a huge difference between God & man. By that I don't mean to say that I haven't had struggles w/ God because of the suffering in my life but that ultimately, God has always used suffering to bring me closer to Himself. So how answer such a question? I could share some of my personal experience (& have been willing to do so privately) but then it hit me, if we're accepting God's existence then we must accept His goodness - God & goodness are not two separate things but one & the same thing. So I must ask those who posit God as Creator & evil, when you say you believe in God, just whom, exactly, do you believe in? If god is Moloch, then no, he is not good. Ditto all the demons & idols ever created by human beings. But if God is YHWH, then we're facing a totally different proposition because YHWH is good.

We know the story or can easily learn it by reading the Bible: YHWH, who transcends space & time, creates this world, this reality & chooses to enter into it. He creates Man & is in relationship with them. Man rebels against YHWH but YHWH doesn't leave us as a god would do. Rather, He lets us know there are serious consequences for our rebellious actions & He remains in relationship w/ those who choose to be in relationship w/ Him. Man suffers, creation groans because our rebellion has caused it to be subjected to the chaos from which we were protected. None of us is exempt, no matter how old or young, how weak or strong, no matter how much money we have nor how high our position nor how great our intelligence. We chose rebellion & only God's mercy keeps us from being utterly destroyed. But God uses suffering to prepare a people to receive Him so that YHWH can show us who He is. He finally arrives, a human baby who is also God: God literally places Himself in our hands. And we kill Him. But, though it ought to be, God's death isn't the end of the story. YHWH who has become Man returns from the dead, ascends back to be with His Father, sends us the Holy Spirit who will teach & guide us & promises to come back once we have told the entire world about Him. When that time comes, He will give those who choose to accept it something more glorious than we can imagine: we will be like God Himself (which is what we wanted when we rebelled). Those who reject Him will also receive what they desire, life without Him which, naturally, is suffering. But those who those who choose to become like Him, will no longer suffer. Creation will be perfected, it will be set free from suffering as we have been. In a nutshell (fashioned Drusilla-style) that's the story.

So how can we accept YHWH & not accept the answer we've already been given? We have an enormous amount of power but not so much ability. We are like children who break their toys but don't know how to fix them. Much of our science is dedicated towards trying to fix a broken world. Our social sciences have almost no other purpose. The same is true for much of the work we do these days - most NFPs, NGOs, the United Nations, charities - all mainly exist to fix what is broken but w/o acknowledging that we are the ones who broke it. Too many of us want to accept YHWH (or at least say we do) but don't want to believe that original sin is real. But, if we claim to believe in YHWH then we know we are the ones who broke our world & that we continue to break it. If we claim to believe in YHWH, we must accept the entire story or else we are not believing in God, but rather in some demon or idol. It is not that God is not good, it is that we are not good.

The acquaintance I mentioned earlier once asked me why I follow God. I replied, "Because He is faithful." My acquaintance responded, if a scientist had developed a particularly vicious strain of mice that kept tearing one another apart would I say that scientist was good just because he was faithful? Because of the move & my health, I never had an opportunity to reply. Now I will: if the scientist had given the mice the ability to choose whether or not they would be vicious & even when they chose viciousness he continued to work with them, preparing them for the day when he himself would become a mouse because by doing so & by allowing them to kill Him, he would destroy viciousness & make them able to become scientists like him then, yes, I would say that scientist was good. Having the ability to choose is what makes all the difference. To be able to choose is to have power. God gave us choice. We chose to to rebel against Him, to try to be gods. And we continue to make that same choice. So, in reality, it's not His goodness that is at question but our rebelliousness & our refusal to accept that our actions have consequences - sometimes extremely far reaching consequences. We might ask, why would He give us such power? But once again, we have the answer - choice is the means by which we can become like God: we have to want to become like Him, to choose to become like Him. We might be angry w/ God or think He is loopy for giving us such power but then we must ask ourselves, why do we choose to rebel against the One who is giving us what we want anyway? Why do we rebel against the One who is trying to make us gods?

PS: I undergo my 3rd round of chemo beginning Wednesday. Please pray for me.

Omnipotent, Omniscient, Loving & Good - Pt. 1

I 've made it to Houston, TX; my move actually occurred on Sunday the 26th of July so I've been here several weeks now. Unpacking has been slow and interspersed with a marathon of medical tests and visits to doctors as I set up a cadre of professionals to replace those I left in NYC. Thus far, I am rather impressed. The doctors here are thorough and work together. Even the hospitals all seem to be together. I've seen branches of certain hospitals in other locations but the main facilities are right next door to each other in a two-three mile strip. My doctors are all super specialists! The fellows, who are MDs but have chosen (and been chosen) to train under my doctors, are at the level of most of the doctors I saw in NYC. The fellows see me first and give me the same answers I received in NYC then the specialists come in and show the fellows how to do their jobs better -- that there are other treatment alternatives, or tests (often simple tests) that might give important information, even that the test results before their eyes are providing information that has been overlooked or underestimated. It's an education and also hard work just being a patient. I realize more and more that my job is to be ill and if I refuse to do it, I won't get better.

What I mean by that is if I don't take this seriously, I won't do what is necessary to get healthier. I won't get the rest I need or the exercise. I won't take my meds on time or eat properly or do the 101 odd things I ought to do; this will only matter to me if I accept the reality of being ill. For example, I've been diagnosed with mild sleep apnea (I stop breathing about seven times each hour) and must use a retainer-like device to keep my airway open while I sleep. It's not as intrusive as the machine many use, it's not surgery, but it is easy to forget to put the device in my mouth - which is a no no - breathing is extremely, fundamentally even, important. So I'll have to work it into my already crowded bedtime prep. But since the alternative is, at least, being sicker and, at worst, death, making certain I insert my breathing retainer is effort well spent.

This morning, I read in Vol. 3 Charity of Luigi Giussani's Is It Possible to Live This Way?:

"If ...the circumstances of life ...make us ...participants in the death of Christ, then sacrifice becomes the keystone of all life -- life's value is in the sacrifice that one lives -- but also the keystone for understanding the history of man. The entire history of man depends on that man dead on the cross, and I can influence the history of man ...if I accept the sacrifice that this moment imposes."

I was originally drawn to Giussani's work because he was the first real intellectual I encountered who got it, who understood that Christ, and Him crucified, must be the foundation of our lives if who we are and what we do is to be reality. This past summer, I became acquainted with a man who asked me for a rational argument for my belief that God is loving and good particularly with all the suffering and pain in the world. After a lengthy correspondence, I told him I was not only ill but in the midst of moving cross country and that I could not continue our conversations until I had settled into my new home. Since arriving in Houston, I've encountered others, some Catholics, who are struggling with God's goodness, who are ratcheting up emphasis on God's love and mercy and downplaying God's power: Omnipotence could not see children suffering and not interfere.

Though I've got some work left to get settled, beginning with this post, I plan to respond to my acquaintance as well as to those others who are struggling with God's loving and good omniscience and omnipotence. It has to begin with reality, like the reality of my illness. This illness is real. That I stop breathing seven times per hour is real. All those I've encountered accept that God is real. They do not accept that God is good. Is that possible? Can God be real and yet not be good? Before my next post (which hopefully will be sooner than the time since my previous one) I'm interested in your responses.

The Reality God Has Given Us

I'm still around but I've been ill a lot & busy - I really am moving to TX and though I'm doing very little packing, those who are helping need to ask me lots of questions. The nice thing about being ill is that I can usually make the call about whether something goes or stays without worrying about emotional attachments - I'm too tired to be emotional about much.

There are of course many things that take precedence over my health or moving. Some of those things involve our nation. This is one of them and if completed, will affect every user of the internet: conversation about our Catholic faith is just as much a target as the right to exercise freedom of speech on political matters.

We must respond to these continued attacks on our liberties. We must stand up and be counted as citizens of the country where God has placed us. Many might long for another time and place and I so understand that. But we must also accept that God has placed here in this place, at this time. The question then becomes, what are we called to do in the reality God has given us? Each of us must ask and answer that question.

May Day 2010

[I]f my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles: 7:14)

Next Saturday, May 1, 2010, an ecumenical gathering before the Lincoln Memorial will occur. It will be a time of repentance and prayer asking God to forgive us, heal us and help us. I won't be able to make it to DC for this event, but if you can go, please do. Click the button on the right for more information or go here.

Where Did Things Change?

I've been thinking a lot about where we went wrong. At what point did this country change? You can see it in the difference between the family comedies of the '50s, '60s and early '70s and those of the mid '70s and later. Even within the same program, where once children saying their prayers at bedtime was normal, suddenly it disappeared. In Nanny and the Professor, Phoebe Phigalilly nonchalantly told us her aunt was an evangelist and her work was love. Nanny and the Professor ended in 1972 and with it ended the casual nonchalance of Love as an actual force. We were reminded once again in Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel but in those two series, the nonchalance belonged mostly to the angels. I never watched Joan of Arcadia so I can't say anything about how God was presented as an intimate party in her life. I can say the program only lasted for two seasons and God as the unseen player, who creates miracles everyday in each of our lives doesn't make much of an appearance on TV or in our culture any longer.

Michael Moriarity has written an amazing piece, George Orwell's Biblical Prophecy that was published on Andrew Breitbart's, Big Government. He argues that Roe v. Wade was the turning point. Certainly much had occurred before that Supreme Court decision but it just may be that that case, which codified the slaughter of our own children, dealt our souls a mortal blow. We know Who can bring us back to life. The question is, are our hearts too fat, our ears too heavy, our eyes closed; so that we cannot see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts, and be converted , and be healed? (cf. Isaiah 6:10)

Much Needed Break Day

Part three of Catholic Witness coming tomorrow or the next day. Today was a dr's appt kind of day. Yesterday afternoon, as I was writing part two, I received a call from the last dr who hadn't sent info to the insurance co. He was faxing my records as we spoke. Please, please pray that this whole waiting to receive insurance payments issue will be finally resolved very soon.

In the meantime, I found this compelling.

"For ourselves, we shall resist [slavery] by speech and vote, and with all the abilities which God has given us. Even if overcome in the impending struggle, we shall not submit. We shall go home to our constituents, erect anew the standard of freedom, and call on the people to come to the rescue of the country from the domination of slavery. We will not despair; for the cause of human freedom is the cause of God.”

Catholic Witness & Those Who Bear The Imprint of Hell

”…my body flesh is learning Christ's mercy.”

Fallen Sparrow and I often discuss that people don't know how bad it is out there. Most people don't. And with the exception of two with whom I’m particularly close, most of my friends don't know how bad it was for me. If they have read this blog, they know some of it - just as all my readers do. Conversations with me reveal more. But there are things I share with no one. And then a time comes when they must be shared. This is one of those times.

For long, my first memory was of standing with my mouth pressed against a rusty, dusty screen door looking at adults reclining and children playing beside a creek. In the distance there was a thicket of trees. I did not know who the people were. I did not know where I was. I did not even know my name. But I knew I wasn't alone. A Presence was with me, it was almost tangible. A woman shouted at me: "go and finish your nap!" I ran back into a bedroom, climbed into the lower bunk, stared up at the rungs of the bed above and shrugged to the Presence. That Presence has been with me ever since. I came to know Him as my Friend. Through everything else that has ever happened to me, that Presence has been with me. It is important to remember that. It helps.

I've written much about the man who "raised" me and many of the horrible things he did. But there were some horrors that neither he nor his wife directly visited on me. He had children and foster-children. In particular there was his eldest daughter who used her seniority to arrange our lives as if we were in a brothel. She assumed that we all ought to be having sex with at least one of the other children in the house. It did not matter that I was not quite five and had no ability to give any sort of consent. She simply assigned boys to have sex with me and that was that. Except it wasn't. When she wanted satisfaction and none of the boys was available, or later when her boyfriend wasn't available, she used me. Imagine being eight years old and having a sixteen year old thrust her fist into your body? Imagine lying there and waiting for it to be over or hoping it hurt because that's what you deserved? That was my life. Not every day but on many occasions, whenever I was desired.

For me, it all ended one night when I was about thirteen. I had begun to worry about getting pregnant and I just didn't like it: I had a Catechism under my mattress that told me such activities were wrong. I heard sermons in my foster-father’s Church that said the same. I didn't want to be that way and I didn't want it in my life. But I didn't know what to do. When I was desired, I was supposed to remove my clothes and let it happen. But that night my foster-father came home late and the lights were out in my room and when I heard him coming up the stairs I pushed my foster-brother away, put on my nightie and turned on my television. My foster-father pounded on my door and we opened it; by then my foster-brother was dressed. We asked what he wanted, told him we were just watching TV. He gave us an odd look. I bought a lock, put it on my door and when I heard a knock and a voice asking for entry, I said, "No." And when that voice insisted, I said, "No." And I kept saying, "No" until they stopped knocking. And through it all I asked God to please help me to continue saying “No.”

I paid for saying it. They were seriously confused that I would refuse to have sex. I was beaten up, my secrets betrayed, one of my foster-brother's threatened to kill me. Even after I learned my foster-father was dead, I knew I could never return. Though I have often longed for a family and there have been those who suggested I might seek out some of my foster-siblings because they are the closest thing to family I have, I've never returned. There is much I've come to understand about the people who lived in that house and why they behaved as they did and much I will never know this side of heaven. Many children went through that house. As far as I know, they were all sexually abused – if not before then certainly while they lived there. Some introduced new experiences of abuse. One thing I do know, that was not family. That was not even a whacked out, crazy family. When you put it all together, when you realize that the children were as vindictive and destructive as the adults*, when you accept that each person's purpose was to dominate and enslave those below them, then you realize that was an image of hell "and I alone have escaped to tell you"** because of my Friend.

But He didn't exempt me from the horrors of hell. He allowed me to live there for 11 years. And when I tried to leave, tried to enter the foster-care system and get a new set of foster-parents and a new home, I learned that there was even worse out there. My foster-father wasn't poor. Add poverty and you get a whole new level of horror. So back I went to hell. And hell left an imprint in my flesh. From a very young age, I was repeatedly dehumanized. I was at the service of others rage and hatred and sexual desire and just plain boredom. I have spent many years since working to become human. It’s not an easy job. Therapy helped. More knock down, drag out fights with God than I can remember worked wonders. Coming to see that God really loves me and is the Friend who has always been with me made a huge difference. Human friends have helped enormously. And then I returned to the Church and being made human took on a whole new meaning.

I've always been a helpful, outwardly cheerful (inwardly too for a number of years now), caring person and that has helped me make friends. But in returning to the Church I found the kind of friends I never imagined. Not only do they not make it their mission not to hurt me, they make it their mission to love me. There are times when I'm like a burn victim having all the charred flesh scrubbed away, that's just how much they love me. I've awakened in a hospital bed to find a woman I hardly know has come to visit me. I've needed an escort home from the hospital and that same woman has been there - even if given just an hour or two of notice. I've needed help paying my rent these past few months and she helped me. And others have helped me. They've remembered my birthday and bought me toys and fruitcake and listened to me speak and responded as if what I was saying made sense and come to my home to feed me when I'm undergoing chemo and looked sternly at me for doing too much. I even had breakfast prepared for me in my own kitchen by a Jesuit Seminarian in his "SWAT gear" uniform and another friend even brought an upside-down doughnut cake.

Many of my friends will recount what I have done for them but they don't know what they are doing for me: they help me become human! Not fully human but just human. They help me become free to choose for myself so I needn't just remove my clothes and let it happen. This is what Christian witness does for those of us who bear hell’s imprint. It binds us back together. It gives us life. This is why Catholics need to get off their duffs and become active in the public forum because I am not unique. God how I wish I were. I am one of many, many imprinted souls. And I've known that for years. Some of the girls I knew at university, all from homes at least as "privileged" as mine, spoke of "fooling around" with their brothers. Brothers pimp their preteen sisters. Older cousins rape their younger cousins. Mothers and fathers sexually abuse their children. Sex parties are the norm for too many 13 year old kids. And all that sexual abuse, even when it's not considered abuse, does something to a child. It makes them hard. It leaves a deep imprint that poisons the rest of life unless it is healed and only Christ and we Christians letting Him use us in Christian friendship can really do the job.

You don't know how important extending an invitation to brunch is. It doesn't matter if you're shy, it's an easy thing to do. Do it. You don't know how important having a few people over for tea or a movie or a chat is. Do it. So many of us never learned to make a home, never learned to invite people, can't imagine why you'd invite us. Do it. It isn't help from the government we need. It's an invitation to lunch or dinner. Those of us who bear the imprint of hell need the friendship of those who had normal, healthy childhoods. And we need the friendship of those who are having their humanity restored too because we need to know it’s possible. We need to know that Christ comes to save us from the damnation others try to visit upon us. He comes through us. He comes through you.

Our country is in grave peril. We know that. Many traditional Catholics believe impurity is a root cause of that peril and that novenas to Our Blessed Mother are the response. Well perhaps some of those novenas got me to finally write this piece and I hope I’ve opened the can of worms that shows you don’t know what impurity is. Prayers of all sorts are certainly necessary to heal our land but they won’t replace Christian friendship. After the Annunciation, Mary visits Elizabeth. After Mass and holy hours and novenas, we need to visit one another and include those outside our regular group. Ultimately, the imprint of hell is a lie. It burns. It scars. But it needn’t destroy. If we are willing to be friends to others as Christ is to us, our people and our land would flourish.

* My foster-father was investigated for rape. His eldest daughter made the charge. The results were inconclusive.
** Job 1:15

He Always Intended To Vote For The Bill

I and many others read Bart Stupak's comments from the article in the National Review Online (which was unavailable as I wrote this piece) or in LifeSite News:

"If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing [from Democrat leaders],” Stupak said in a phone interview published Friday. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

But this video from over a year ago tells a radically different story:



We must repeal this bill! And we must get them out of our house! We have no time to waste, no time to lose.

Catholic Witness and the Healthcare Bill

Fallen Sparrow sent me the link to this First Things article. It is well worth a read as are many of the comments both to enhance our catechesis and to learn the dismal state of many in the Church today. We need to do some work cleaning our own house.

I strongly ecommend Grace McLoughlin's comments at 3.20.2010/12.00 p.m. and Matt Beck's at 3.20.2010/10.19 p.m. My comment, which hadn't appeared as of the time of this post, is below:

Obebedience to the teaching Magisterium is central to what it means to be a faithful Catholic. We may like it or hate it but that's the choice.

In most of the world, people are subject to the state. In the United States, the state is subject to the people. And that puts American Catholics in an odd position. Whereas we are accustomed to being subject to the Church and to the state, here we are subject to the Church and we are each sovereign. We owe obedience to the Church, the government is our servant. We must get that through our head. This is what it means to be an American Catholic.

I am so grateful that Bishop Chaput has made it clear that the nuns who have come out in support of the health care bill are causing confusion amongst the faithful. I am also grateful to God that abortion, conscience protection or any other issues cause the bishops to oppose this bill because whereas abortion is an absolute deal breaker (the blood of 50 million babies is already on our hands) I don't think the bishops have gone far enough.

As Grace commented, subsidiarity is also central to Church teaching. In simple terms, we are to govern our own selves and love our neighbours as locally as possible. We cannot get away with sending a cheque to DC in the form of taxes and have DC love our neighbour for us. We must do it ourselves because the goal of this whole thing is holiness and we only get that by loving one another as Christ loves us.

Charity is a good thing. Church charity, local charity, personal charity are all good things. The Church teaches that health care is a right but how we provide it is left to us. The Church (both Catholics and other Christian denominations) provides an enormous amount of charity health care. We need to support them with our money. We need to provide for our brothers and sisters who are in need, which many do. It's our job. The state can't do it.

Accepting charity is tough. I know this personally. As I write this, I am disabled and in pain (in 15 min I can take my pain meds). I am in one of the many doughnut holes waiting for my disability insurance company to begin making payments to me. Disability has always been part of my salary package and I have paid for it for many years. I never intended to get sick and am hoping to either get better or figure out something I can do to earn a living while being sick. But right now, I'm too sick to work and don't have any savings left and I must wait. But in my wallet are a number of cheques from friends and friends of friends that will pay for meds and utility bills and food. Friends have paid my bills over the past three months. Of course, I can't buy clothes but then I don't need any clothes. I've been fine. I've had what I need. I've had to give up my pride. It hurts. Being homeless and without food and medicine would hurt more. My pride isn't worth keeping. I've been afraid and then I've asked for help and the community in which I live my life has helped me and I am beginning to be less afraid of being in need, in general - my body flesh is learning Christ's mercy.

Charity is a good thing. And it is available to those who want it. It's easier if one is part of a community but it is available to those who want it. We need to do a better job of letting that be known. And we need the Church to stop making negative statements about picking up the pieces of a flawed healthcare system. That is the Church's job and it's a good thing. (It would be even better if we could get rid of the flawed healthcare system but that's another post.)

We have a nation of people who are badly catechised, have poorly formed consciences and are poorly educated as citizens. The Church must do a better job of catechising us. We need the bishops and our parish priests, to remind us regularly of Church teaching on the sanctity of life AND of social teaching including subsidiarity (which many have never heard of before). We need homilies and teaching on pride and all the other deadly sins. We need modern references for humility and love. We need the Church to be more specific and proclaim Church teaching rather than the general homilies about how special we are and how much God loves us.

I pray this bill doesn't pass because I am sick and though I have private health insurance, I will be one of the many who are given pain meds and sent off to die because it is too expensive to pay for my healthcare. I pray it doesn't pass because I know babies will continue to be slaughtered on the altar of convenience. I pray it doesn't pass because the elderly will die of treatable illnesses because some central bureaucracy decides it's too expensive. I pray it doesn't pass because suicide will be recommended. If this bill is passed and actually enacted, death and misery will spread throughout the country but we will have paid our taxes so it won't be our fault.

A Nation of Prayer: Something We Can All Do

The National Prayer Caucus is a great place to begin. Commit to pray five minutes per week and participate in a 24/7/365 wall of prayer surrounding our nation.

Dems Tell Us What They Think About The Healthcare Bill

Because the blood of 50 million dead babies cries out to God for justice, because I am one of those who will be given pain meds and allowed to slowly die since my healthcare is too expensive (even though I pay for my own insurance), because I love my country, I say, "Wake up! Get your heads out of the sand! Understand that if we don't get involved, our lives, the lives of our familiy members born and unborn, and, in fact, our very souls are on the line here!"

It's a simple question, will we live the life God has given us in the place He has put us? He has given us neither a king nor a parliment but rather has entrusted each of us with sovreignity. That means each one of us is in charge. We don't have the luxury of saying it's the fault of our elected officials because they're simply our servants whom we hired to do a job. If they're not doing the job, we must replace them with servants who will follow our instructions. We've been given something unique here and the question is, what will we do with it?

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, `Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' But his master answered him, `You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.' (Matthew 25:24-30)

Time To Take Our Heads Out Of The Sand!

Are we scared enough yet? Do we understand the evil that we face. It comes down to abortion. It comes down to death. We must fast and pray and sacrifice and suffer and then do it all over again. We must sign petitions and go to our district offices and march on DC and do anything else we can lawfully do to get their attention. And to do that, we must take our heads out of the sand and stop pretending that the party of death is doing anything other than genuinely seeking more and more death. Moral is, we don't get the government to pay for our healthcare unless we allow government to kill our children.

Is that really what we want?

I'd Like To Learn To Follow

"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

I have begun dating again, which doesn't mean I've gone out on any actual dates but only that I have registered on a couple of Catholic dating sites and am talking with one man. Needless to say, I feel better than I did a few weeks ago even though I've now completed chemo infusions and am actually more physically tired than before and am still undergoing the experience of insurance companies and doctors not providing the requested information. But things have calmed down in my home and while registering on a dating site I remembered, I love life. I really, really love life. It's all banquet and I'm happy to be here.

About seven or eight years ago, I made a conscious decision to stop having sex unless I get married. I didn't stop going out with men, but deciding not to sleep with them meant I was going out with them less and less. For many of us here in New York (and I suspect elsewhere too), sex is simply part of dating, occurs on the first, second or third date and continues indeffinitely. Often, men and women will pair off for a few weeks or months but not always. It's not unusual for young New Yorkers to be "dating" several different "partners." It has become almost like shaking hands or kissing a friend on the cheek. Sex is expected, normal, not that big of a deal. And that was always my problem. I've always wanted it to be that big of a deal, always thought it should be one of the biggest deals in my life. Long before I made that conscious decision, I'd already stopped having sex with most of the men I dated.

Getting most (but by no means all) men to stop expecting that I'd sleep with them was easy. Many people know that God and I are "side-by-side," we hang together (in reality, He chooses to hang w/ me but language is so difficult to express these things). I decided to bring God into the conversation and fewer men expected me to be available. And then there was my wounded bird attitude, in which I presented myself as fragile because of being sexually abused as a child, and I really wanted sex but I also wanted a whole lot of other things that would assure me that the man I was with wasn't another abuser. I thought that was the truth - that I just wanted a man to take things slowly and "get to know me." I didn't realize that the truth was that just as I didn't blame God for killing my family or for the abuse I suffered, I didn't see every man as an abuser. I really like men. Enjoy flirting with them and wearing pretty clothes that please them and just being in their company. And I love sex which is why it ought to be a very big deal.

The real truth is that I was living out what I'd been taught: that all men are the enemy just waiting to abuse me, that I am better alone, that sex is for recreation because my body needs to be appeased from time to time. I was taught and kept insisting, I don't need you to take care of me without ever realizing that the corollary is, no one needs me to take care of him.

Illness changes things. When my body no longer does as I command (and for a dancer, that is bigger than big), my ability to control life is gone. Add a bunch of meds that make focus and concentration difficult and one is left with oneself. This past year, lying on my bed, watching old family comedies from the 50s and 60s because TV has become too loud and harsh, I've come to realize that loving and being loved are the best gifts God has given us. All the deep intellectual and spiritual conversations and research and writing and building a career are only so much crap if they take us into separate little worlds where we are walled off from one another. Making a home for a husband who cherishes me and protects me would be worth so much more than anything I've ever done in my life. No one ever taught me that when I was a girl. No one taught me that maybe it's enough to cook a delicious dinner, put on a pretty dress and make my husband happy.

The statistics are not in my favour and there are those who'd diagnose me as profoundly disturbed for venturing out into the fray. I'm not in the 25 - 35 age range that most men on the sites seem to want and without Divine intervention, can't have a child. I'm not a virgin and won't pretend to be. Sex is a big deal to me and I want it to be a big deal to the man I marry. (I think that makes me really scary to a lot of older men who are divorced-and-annulled or widowers or never marrieds.) Plus my health is bad and wind surfing along w/ sports of that sort are certainly not in my near future. It doesn't look good for me in the world of Catholic dating.

But I don't believe in statistics. I believe in God. And I believe that in this banquet, He has created a room for me and for the man who is willing to take the risk and love me exactly as I am, willing to risk that I will love him exactly as he is. I no longer have much else on my list of what he has to be - I'll leave it up to God to surprise me. (It would be lovely if he could teach me to dance the women's part. I was always one of the tallest girls in class and so learned to dance the man's role. I'd like to learn to follow.) And so I re-enter the fray, stroll around at the banquet and trust that God is bringing us both to that room. I've always loved parties and this is one I intend to enjoy to the fullest.

PS - Thank you dear, dear readers for all your prayers.