Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

[BarbTherese]

I have really got into The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything.  I must fall into the "Almost" since Father does not mention sufferers of mental illness who are extremely poor.

I have been kicked out of every parish I have attended when an episode of bipolar occurred i.e. the complete refusal on the ground, not in the ideal however, to grasp the problem of MI to a sufferer.  Not only that, I am now almost completely crippled and would need a lift, help, to attend Mass.  I am in a wheelchair.  It would cost me $135 to go to Mass one way. The cost over $200 both ways.  Father does not mention these life problems in his book, hence I must fall into A L M O S T   E V E R Y T H I N G  category.  I do not mean,, anyway, to be a Catholic-basher or criticizer, but these are very real problems to me.  Generally, people do not understand MI and putting a wheelchair into a vehicle can present great problems.  I can insight and understand their problems, attempting a walk in their shoes, but it seems, anyway, that there is no understanding, on the ground, of my problems.  Or I would not have been kicked out of every parish I have attended, kicked out that is through gossip and false understandings of MI, as well as the reason why I am unable to attend Mass.

I have wanted to write the above for quite some time but have refrained as I really do not want to join the long list of those critical of The Church - and yet, in order to be truthful, it seems I must join that long line.

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I do wish I could hear sound.  Words carry the intellect, while music carries the spirit.  The overall human experience asks lyrics and music.  How can we know we are worth it?  Because we are alive meaning we are still needed here.  How can we know we can make it through?  Because The Lord is Life and Hope, not hopelessness.  He would not permit nor ask the impossible.  He would not ask the most difficult and impossible, when clearly He needs us here.  We all have a purpose and mission to fulfill.  Amen

I just hope the musical video below is what I hope for.  If not, I will correct it later when I have sound back.

 

 

                                   

Edited February 23, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

I have really got into The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything.  I must fall into the "Almost" since Father does not mention sufferers of mental illness who are extremely poor.

I have been kicked out of every parish I have attended when an episode of bipolar occurred i.e. the complete refusal on the ground, not in the ideal however, to grasp the problem of MI to a sufferer.  Not only that, I am now almost completely crippled and would need a lift, help, to attend Mass.  I am in a wheelchair.  It would cost me $135 to go to Mass one way. The cost over $200 both ways.  Father does not mention these life problems in his book, hence I must fall into A L M O S T   E V E R Y T H I N G  category.  I do not mean,, anyway, to be a Catholic-basher or criticizer, but these are very real problems to me.  Generally, people do not understand MI and putting a wheelchair into a vehicle can present great problems.  I can insight and understand their problems, attempting a walk in their shoes, but it seems, anyway, that there is no understanding, on the ground, of my problems.  Or I would not have been kicked out of every parish I have attended, kicked out that is through gossip and false understandings of MI and why I am unable to attend Mass.

I have wanted to write the above for quite some time but have refrained as I really do not want to join the long list of those critical of The Church - and yet, in order to be truthful, it seems I must join that long line.

_________________________________

I do wish I could hear sound.  Words carry the intellect, while music carries the spirit.  The overall human experience asks lyrics and music.  How can we know we are worth it?  Because we are alive meaning we are still needed here.  How can we know we can make it through?  Because The Lord is Life and Hope, not hopelessness.  He would not permit nor ask the impossible.  He would not ask the most difficult and impossible, when clearly He needs us here.  We all have a purpose and mission to fulfill.  Amen

I just hope the musical video below is what I hope for.  If not, I will correct it later when I have sound back.

 

 

[BarbTherese]

Apologies, sometimes I have problems with the softwear and operator error.  My posts could repeat twice.  The following is new however:

 Yet, despite my problems, I have been gifted Peace and Joy.  I am here still, because I am meant to be here.  Jesus still needs me to complete my mission and raison détre (reason to be).  Or to put it simply, I would not be alive.  The same applies to you.......to every person.

Much has given me assurances of my philosophy, especially the lyrics and music of Bob Dylan, to whom I owe much, very much.   He has not led me away from The Gospel and Jesus, but to view same in a new light.  View it in my own contemporary light, my own times.  Just as Jesus spoke to His Own Times while here on earth.

I would dedicate the video below to the fact that Jesus was a revolutionary who challenged the religious leadership and teachings, values, of His Own Journey here.  Jesus opted out, to be relevant to His Own Times, to the problems especially those of the poor and disabled.

Quote

 

" Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, 20 take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 21

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?" (Matthew Chapter 16)

All my quotes come from the Vatican Bible translation: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/_INDEX.HTM

 

One really knows one has lost his or her life with mental illness.  One surrenders one's own sanity to The Will of The Lord.  Personally, I had already freely accepted and embraced involuntarily my extreme poverty.  These do not mean there is no challenge to overcome, rather to transcend and to point towards the resurrection, only possible after death - a category of death, just as detachment, for one example only, is a category of death.  Detachment from material goods, for example, asks that they are no longer essential to one's survival in Jesus.  One has died to their essentiality.

 

     

[BarbTherese]

 

 

 

 

 

[BarbTherese]

10 hours ago, BarbTherese said:

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

I thought the above video was a good selection for mental illness.  In my imagination, it is Jesus and a sufferer of MI in conversation.   A real artist, worth the salt, knows that there is his or her reason behind a work including a musical work.  They also know that every person may have a different understanding or interpretation of what a work of art is 'saying' and that every interpretation or understanding is valid and is correct........even though there might be hundreds of different interpretations etc.

All creativity comes from God and can be used for good or for evil.

Another interesting version of Maggie's Farm...................

 

 

[BarbTherese]

Lyrics to Slow Train Coming - see video below...................:

 https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/slow-train/

 

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can’t help but wonder what’s happenin’ to my companions
Are they lost or are they found
Have they counted the cost it’ll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they’re gonna have to abandon?
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, “Boy, without a doubt
Have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic”
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it’s just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walkin’ around like kings
Wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America’s future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

Man’s ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don’t apply no more
You can’t rely no more to be standin’ around waitin'
In the home of the brave
Jefferson turnin’ over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see
Wears a cloak of decency
All nonbelievers and men stealers talkin’ in the name of religion
And there’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it
They say lose your inhibitions
Follow your own ambitions
They talk about a life of brotherly love show me someone who knows how to live it
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talkin’ boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothin’ I could do to stop it
I don’t care about economy
I don’t care about astronomy
But it sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets
There’s a slow, slow train comin’ up around the bend

 

[BarbTherese]

I have three appointments coming up, important appointments.  The first is an MRI on my brain.  The neuropsychologist I saw while in hospital concluded that I had a very high intelligence level, but then suddenly at a point years ago that level dropped.  The MRI, it is hoped, might reveal why.  More in a later post re an 'alter ego' .

My second important appointment is with the Pain Clinic again.  The trapped nerves in my narrowed lower spine (spinal stenosis) are causing much severe pain, along with something or other causing much shoulder pain.  I am having some sort of test to identify the reason.

Finally, I have severe cataracts to be removed.

AT 77 years of age, it is almost as if bits are falling off me! ☹️

 

Readers Digest - How to grow old happily

            

Edited February 24, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

Either/Or People + How Did Jesus Relate?

I do think that using violent words alone is a form of violence and hitting or striking another.  This is what Jesus was very much against.  But watch the video  

Engaging in an engaging manner, rather than a rejecting one, in whatever form - and with people who are other, even very much other, is a form of what I call "Doing a St Paul".  In other words, going out to the gentiles - to the other and engaging them.........watch the video   Doing a St Paul was one of my quite active quests during my very active days.  After all "Go ye out into THE WHOLE WORLD and preach The Gospel to every creature".   I cannot, after all, go out to the entire world, although the internet has broadened one's 'canvas', but I can go out to MY whole world.' That does of course include the internet.

 

 

[BarbTherese]

 

  

 

233.6

[BarbTherese]

1 hour ago, BarbTherese said:

Doing a St Paul was one of my quite active quests during my very active days. 

One of the quite powerful reasons I opted for Private Vows, was that I did not want to feel restricted even guilty about wherever I went.  I did not want to be under the authority of a religious superior or a bishop.  I felt I had no call or vocation to that.  I certainly did not want to make some sort of Public Vow and then have someone sight me at the local pub and report me to same.   I haalways loved St Paul, his writings really appealed to me, and it was - sort of - St Paul that 'spoke' to me about going out to the gentiles.  I decided to 'give it a spin' and found that it was working for me in that I found welcome.  Jesus has gold us Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words - go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. (Matthew Chapter 10)

 Down my local 'watering hole' or hotel, before I shifted into this aged care home, I was known as "the flying nun". 

Prayer and patience revealed where God was calling me.  Thomas Merton wrote that if one sits in one's cell, the cell will tell one what to do: Contemplation in a World of Action.  That, in my experience, is very true.  "Cell" becomes simply a metaphor for wherever you might be, your home or residence.  And, of course, it is not literally one's cell that tells one what to do, "cell" is simply another metaphor.

Hence, here in this aged care home, I am sitting in my cell awaiting my cell telling me what to do.  Eventually, prayer and patience will transcend all and 'speak, telling me what to do'.  "Where to from here?" I am asking My Lord.

"Recovering Catholic" can mean many things to different people.  For me, it has to be to sort out what is essential and what is not essential to being a faithful Catholic.  What I think I first clearly noticed was what The Church teaches per se/Jesus and His Gospel and the institutional Church as it is lived out on the ground i.e at parish level.  I began to understand that we are ALL faulted finite sinners from person-in-the-pew to Pope - and so the institutional Church is marked by these same weaknesses, just as it is marked by heroic virtue from base line to the top.  But it is in what The Church Teaches per se that we see the perfection of The Church.

Bob Dylan and his music first was gifted to me when I was so confused and hurt, feeling abandoned and rejected, and it put me back on the road to sorting things out both with prayer and reason, logic.  Jesus is not biased nor a snob and uses many things and signposts along the way of reality, and so it was through Bob Dylan He drew me back to my way, my road.  Gave me back, in fact, my sanity, my reasoning and logical mind.

I think it might be Dylan playing the piano below:

 

 After Dylan speaks, the official recording of Slow Train Coming (with lyrics on the screen) follows.  It is in Dylan's talk to his audience which precedes it that gives the meaning of the track lyrics.

[BarbTherese]

I thought I had posted the following, but apparently not - to my search anyway.  It is from the album Daughters of The Celtic Moon and is an instrumental only featuring violin, flute and harpsichord.  It is with the top plays in my favourite tracks:

 

[BarbTherese]

I have decided to read The Imitation of Mary (Thomas a Kempis) for Lent, though it scares me silly.  I have great admiration for Mary and have her on a pedestal so high, she disappears, as it were, into the clouds.  She is to me the heights of womanhood and motherhood.  Mary is Queen of Saints and Queen of Discipleship of Jesus, her Son.   She is someone far beyond my imitation, even my understanding in the heights of her virtues.  I think it is mere curiosity that draws me to read the Imitation.  But Jesus after all can turn water into wine.........I hope.   I just feel the worst of the worst in her presence, unclean - and I am.  But I am drawn to the book and will try, anyway, to wade through it.

Sour Sobs here are weeds, but they have the most beautiful bright yellow flowers especially in the winter when they are transformed.  A lousy comparison.

Not  quite the lyrics as I recall them, nor other things:

                    

Edited February 25, 2023 by BarbTherese

[BarbTherese]

I had started to read The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything, when suddenly it ended and I was informed I had been reading a sample only and that it would cost $17 for the entire Kindle Edition.  That amount of money is a lot for me and so I have abandoned the book until I might have the money.

Hence, this Lent I am reading The Imitation of Mary and have checked that I have bought the full edition, which I have done.

[BarbTherese]

What I mean by 'recovering catholic'.

Along with my understanding of what it meant to be Catholic as a child was much that was false and old women's tales.  I began to wake up to this as a teenager when the Dominican nun who taught me, Sr Benignus OP - decd, introduced us all to The Gospel and to an understanding of what The Church actually did teach, and what The Church did not teach.

St Teresa of Avila taught that mystical type experiences can be very suspect and potentially from Satan rather than God.  And so I made up my mind to always adhere to what The Church actually taught as well as to cling to Jesus and His Gospel.

[BarbTherese]

I had a fall yesterday but with thanks did no lasting nor serious damage, today I am very sore.  Again with thanks, I fell on to my bottom, rather than my head 😀

I now have my large wheeler, which my brother brought this morning, and the bar refrigerator arrives today.  Today too, Older Persons Mental Health are calling in to have a tour, by me, of the home here.  I am staying  quite close to my room as I am still no fully settled in and also, parcels are due to arrive over the coming days and weeks - purchases of mine.