The Book of Ruth

Summer! That’s hitting in full force, isn’t it? 90 degrees and thunderstorms. I’m a bad blog momma and I know it. I have the free time; I just don’t get in the headspace. I have no classes this summer, just aerial shows, practices, and working nights at the hospital. Recently I officially joined the ranks in She Reads Truth, finally committing to a legit bible study with these ladies. It was perfect really. I have some time this summer, and they were starting The Book of Ruth. As someone who throws down about gender inequality and various maybe slightly offbeat ideas… I really wanted to dive into this book… this one book… about this one Biblical woman. She has her own book, and that’s a bit (sarcasm) unusual. Let me tell you, I am thrilled I joined the ranks on this one! It was just a perfect little ditty to get into, speeding along my escapades with Beloved this year. That was a surprise to me, and initially I imagined I would be quite bored. Random short book about a virtuous, faithful woman. Blek! How would I possibly relate to that, what in the world could I get out of that? That’s certainly not me! “Ruth: Faithfulness and Favor.” Oh how lovely, but still not me. “Ruth: an idol-worshiping Gentile, from the pagan land of Moab…” I think my ideas started changing when I came across that association. Maybe we have more in common than I anticipated. You would think I would have learned my lesson by now about the Bible and the women in it, but clearly I still get my bottom handed to me regularly. Ruth is conversion story, a conversion of faith… of place…of family. I felt like I was hit over the head with “you two are rather similar, learn a lesson.” The overarching idea is that Ruth is “All In,” as she says “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Holy Life Conversion, Batman! I was struck, clearly. I packed my bags a few years ago, move across states with my then fiancé, ended up converting to Catholicism, and was informally adopted by an amazing family our here (though now moved to Salem, MA). Here I was thinking we would have nothing in common! Ruth was All In, and I am All In. Then…. Then, as if that wasn’t enough relation. We began to study Ruth 1:19-22. A new name….and the phrase came up “You are NOT named by your circumstances. He names us Forgiven, He names is Beloved, he names us Redeemed.” There’s that word again…. Beloved. This was big for me, all year, and still in this Book of Ruth. Let me be honest here, I have some PTSD from childhood domestic..issues. I have nightmares, and I have bad days. There’s not necessarily a trigger. Nothing stops the madness (Play Avenged Sevenfold’s “Nightmare” for the effect): I can have a spectacular day, and a terrible night. I STRUGGLE all the time with being loved. I just don’t understand. I speed victim in my mind, and I don’t even intend to. So when I came across the associations presented in The Book of Ruth “You are not names by your circumstances, you are beloved, you are named by God,” I was struck. My email read: “Sister, who names you today – Your God or your circumstances,” and the night before I faced a nightmare. THAT is powerful in ways I can’t possibly explain. It broke my nightmare listlessness, it broke the ice in an instant. My name is Amanda, it means worthy of love. I was brought up in situations that make me feel unworthy of love. BUT I am a child of God, I am worthy, and I am named by God! I am NOT unworthy! My story is a substantial part of who I am, but it is not everything. I am not named by my history. This has helped my stop that victim thinking of people are mad at me, that they lie to me, that they will suddenly abandon me, that I am unloved. LIES! The reflection these two weeks have brought me, on adoptive families, on following fearlessly, on redemption and love… it was perfect. I am loved, I am BE-loved. Ms Ruth, who was an outsider in the area and faith…who converted and found her family that was clearly a part of God’s plan…I got you girl. Maybe all of our lives are woven like a tapestry with knots and snarls. Those knots and snarls that seem like “oops” or unfortunate circumstances can actually make a beautiful picture if you can look at the entire tapestry. You can’t see that up close, it just looks like mishaps. The big picture may turn out to be beautiful, if you can step back and look. I got so much from this little book, I can’t even relay it properly. It certainly surprised me. I’ll be joining the ladies for the Sermon on the Mount study for another two or three weeks starting tomorrow. In Other News: enjoy some Aerial Arts pictures:

Me teaching my God-daughter Aerial Arts.

Gratitude Adventure

It’s not that I gave up blogging or even writing for Lent; I have all kinds of things to say… I just have had a lot going on. As if that’s new information, but I’ve successfully reached my limit of scheduling. I have classes, work at the hospital, aerialist stuff, and the new addition a port side wonder on a rowing team. That’s just the stuff I DO regularly. So, I’m trying to get back into writing, and lets hope for the best here.

I left of pre-Lent with the rather complex issue of Beloved, Loved, Be-loved for God and others. I’m miserable at accepting this, and I generally run screaming into the night. ME? Beloved by God, ever called Beloved….you’re insane. This has been my Lent project, as I feel I’ve been guided to do by the powers that be.

So, In my education adventures I somehow ended up in the Positive Psychology seminar. I thought this would be a good idea as I work with patients at the hospital and whatnot. Unfortunately, we have to do many of the therapies presented in the discipline ourselves. I’ll tell you the truth here, I AGONIZED over a gratitude letter. At least two months I spent writing this letter over and over and over again. Three bottles of wine, some martinis, a lot of music, and about 6 drafts later I had something I deemed minimally acceptable. It wasn’t quite right, but I was shipping up to Boston a week later, and it was “good enough.” What was the struggle? She LOVES me…. And I am grateful for that… but how in the world do I express HOW grateful I am that she loves ME. Most of my family has nothing to do with me, and every one of them has abandoned me at some point, but this woman has adopted me as her daughter on her own. I call her my Mamusia, and we’ve known each other a little over a year. That’s it. Yet, she’s maman. So, how could I possibly express my gratitude, my own love, and my gradual acceptance of being….beloved. YET, interesting as she loves me, and I love her…. My acceptance of love for and from God grows. I suppose it’s being taught something I should have learned YEARS ago, but I did not. To Dr. Seligman’s eternal credit, even as I agonized over this letter… every time I would sit down to write it my happiness increased as I thought about what exactly I was grateful for.

I shipped up to Boston! Eventually taking the commuter rail into Salem, MA, after I dropped by some of my Boston haunts post plane ride. Oh Thinking Cup, my love. Welcome to one of my favorite moments, as I stepped off the train in Salem. I shuffled (high heals and a broken carry on) off to the side of the platform to get out of the way and look for my Mamusia. She had the biggest grin I’ve ever seen, walking as quickly as she could with her cane towards me, waving with her entire arm. The BEST, most relieved feeling came over me! How wonderful it is to be loved! Just a random favorite moment. Beautiful.

A couple days later we sat down for this letter business. I handed her my letter in person, miles away from my home. I was an anxious wreck on deliverance….what if I over stepped myself? What if I said to much and it all comes crumbling down? She read it, as I collapsed into a pool of anxiety, outright hiding in blankets like a scared child. I then shared a clip from Frozen in at attempt to express what I was trying to say in an audio/visual format. It’s an insanely popular song, Let it go. It was the theme of what I had to say, really. I’ve grown in allowing myself to be loved, to accept love, to love, and accept and share my god given gifts…. Hell, even solidifying my faith and encouraging expressing faith as I am able. It’s a complete picture, rather than just a glimpse. My conversion of faith started it, opened the doors I suppose, and she has walked with me and makes me feel as if I am flying in faith and love. Novel.

So what? Did this gratitude letter increase my happiness at all, as Seligman suggests? Thinking about what I was grateful for increased my happiness in the moment, at the time of writing…writings. I’ve relaxed for a month to see what any supposed effects may take place. I would argue that the deliverance of the gratitude letter itself minimally increased my happiness, but it was the positive relationship with my Mamusia that increases my happiness exponentially since we first met. Which is in support of the research in some ways, that positive relationships have the largest effect on happiness and well being. The gratitude letter was the right launch pad to take our positive familial relationship in a stronger way. The gratitude letter increased my happiness temporarily while writing, the act of being grateful and being intentional in that gratefulness. The positive relationship is the real kicker in well being. The increase in…..faith and love. Relationships, faith, and love…. Its phenomenal when it’s novel, or even when you sit down and really consider it in your life.

Maybe I’m just listening to Les Mis at the moment, but there’s a nice progression of song that spans years of my life, my conversion, and now:
“I Dreamed a Dream” – “I had a dream my live would be, so different from this hell I’m living…”

“Valjean’s Soliloquy” – “He told me I had a soul…how does he know?…..Is there another way to go?” Fr. Recker and Conversion

“Epilogue” – “Come with me. The chains will never bind you. All your grief at last, at last behind you….take my hand I’ll lead you to salvation. Take my love, for love is everlasting. And remember the truth that once was spoken: to love another person is to see the face of God.”

Up Next-ish:

My time with the traveling Black Madonna

Veiling at Mass

More on love, beloved, be-loved

 

A Busy Person’s Retreat

There’s no joke about being a “busy person.” I just told my husband that I’ll be cleaning the house in…April.  It’s only March 2nd and my schedule for the month is completely full.  I have three days of classes this week, and then I’m taking off to Salem, MA.  I got people to visit and a project to accomplish out there.  I’ll be there until next Wednesday, when I will promptly return home to drive out again for a concert (YEY!), work the entire weekend..and back to classes/work/aerial as scheduled.  How did this happen?!

I sign up for a busy person’s retreat and afterwards my schedule explodes! So! This Mini-retreat:

I signed up for this adventure first because the title caught my attention, Freyed at the Edges.  I passed the flier and responded “Why yes…that is a good description of me..yes.  You have my attention little pink flier!” Last Sunday was the official start in a lovely church.  In short I spent my week (besides classes and work) hanging out with Franciscan Sisters and some other random folks.  The idea was for this to be a retreat for busy people, the goal was just to add maybe a half hour of retreat time daily, mostly personal reflection.  I generally held true to that, usually over coffee in whatever time my “morning” may have been.  I met with one of the Sisters just about every day, for at least an hour…. it didn’t have to be so long..I just get to talking sometimes. 

I appriciated the start of this retreat, we heald a little chat/prayer circle in the church.  So often groups are off in little side rooms, but we claimed the quiet church itself.  I really quite liked that.  Unfortunately the retreat had to start out with the theme of “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests,” questioning what it means to be “me beloved.”  I was sitting there silent like…shit…I have no idea.  Stuff like this makes me run screaming into the night.  What does it mean to be beloved by God?  Pretty confusing and overwhelming.  Me? Beloved? Nah. Nooo.  Ah, the language of intimacy.  I’m terrible with it.  So that was the theme of my week.  Beloved. 

The Sister I was chatting with all week suggested I read the Song of Solomon, and I laughed thinking this is at least the fourth time this has been suggested to me.  I should probably get on that, I thought.  So, I did! I sat down after a very frustrating, long day… with some wine… and read the entire thing.  I highlighted what stood out to me, and as I looked back on it I laughed that I basically highlighted the conversation between God and myself at hand that week:

Open to me, my sister, my love

Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me

Let us go….Let us go…

The past seems to effect the present no matter how much I’ve grown.  I do this same dance with just about everyone, including God and Catholicism. It’s just a topic I lacked being taught as a child, and it’s been a very slow, gentle learning process in conversion and beyond… love and intimacy (with God and people).  To be fair, if I’m overwhlemed at even being considered as loved by God, I certainly couldn’t handle much more than what I’ve come to work on already.  There’s no doubt that something inside me is broken and starving for love, and it’s a gaping wound only God can and does fill.  I can’t go back in time, so the void of family love can’t be filled here and now by people alone.  Yeah, I’m desperate for love, acceptance, belonging; I think most of us are.  Sure, the love of God is overwhelming, but there’s no better teacher. 

No, there wasnt some stunning epiphany and I suddenly realized I deserve love and to love.  Nope, but I made progress. I’ve been writing this Gratitude Letter for a class, which is the reason for my trip to Salem. I struggled with it for a month now, and this week was very relavent to that struggle.  How do you thank someone who in a roundabout way adopted me into a loving family?  How is it even possible to thank someone for that?  It’s too big for me.  I think this gratitude project, and this week of Beloved will actually wrap up this week in Salem.  A lot of my life events seem to wrap up in Salem, and I don’t live near MA at all. 

This week held more than that, but that was the main focus.  I learned from said Sister that a traveling replica of Our Lady of Czestachowa is coming to the area.  My homegirl, my Lady, my beautifully scarred woman.  I about lept out of my seat in excitement, and I’m working to cancel my entire day to spend the entire day at the church she’ll be at.  I don’t foresee traveling to Poland, so this is as good as it’s gonna get… and I’m pumped.

I also got to talking about my father, much to my own surprise, with this Sister.  She made the valid point that of course it’s something to consider in the here and now, but should a physical moment of forgiveness and reconcilation not happen…. it can still happen after death.  I thought that was a take on the whole issue that was never really presented to me.  It’s not a way out of the situation, I’m still thinking about it all… but it took a lot of the pressure off.  The pressure can lead to a poor decision, so it’s good to relieve that.  There was a lot of discussion about pretty obscure topics, but I’ll leave that be for the time being. 

The Sisters gave me a lovely Franciscan cross I popped on my necklace.  I’m fond of it, it’s a nice momento of the week… and a reminder of this whole… Beloved… concept.

Song of the week: Whisper – Evanescence

Frayed at the edges

Somewhere along the way of daily life I ended up signing up for a “busy persons retreat.” Started last night, and started out with a proper spiritual punch in the gut. So, expect some babbling at the end of the week.

Thank God?!

“Father, did you miss me? I’ve been locked up a while.. I got caught for what I did, but took it all in style..”

I bought one of those..day guidebook things. You know what I mean, those books that have words of wisdom and contemplative thoughts every day, particularly related to Christianity. Why? Because I like that sort of thing. I read it over coffee in the “morning.”

One fine morning centered around the idea of thanking God for who you are, the good and the bad. Not that I don’t have self confidence, or appreciate myself, but this book wants me to THANK God for pervasive anxiety disorders, periodic depression, and most recent edition insomnia. THANK God for my not so fantastic life story. I thank God I’m OUT of that life story. I got confused and angry at this little book for proposing such an absurd idea as Thanking God for all of the bad…. drinking coffee, singing: “You probably thought I wouldn’t get this far. You thought I’d end up in the back of a car. You probably thought that I’d never escape..that I’d be a slave to this place. You don’t know how I fought to survive. Waking up alone when I was left to die. You don’t know about this life I’ve lived, or these roads I’ve walked, or these steps I’ve bled…”

Then I paused….”wait…YES you do! What the hell man?!” I’ve always held a division between people’s poor choices against others, and the will of God. So, the questions of why do bad things happen isn’t this huge conundrum in my mind. I just have a divide, and it might just be a protective thing to keep a faith, but I’m not about to complain.
This idea, thanking god for my disfunctions…. it’s been floating around my mind for days now. How can one bring themselves to thank god for their own personal suffering. I know many people do, and that’s quite amazing to me.

Somewhere along my morning way I realized what I was actually singing was: “I hate you for every time you bled for me. I hate you for the way you smile when you look at me. I hate you for never taking control of me. I hate you for always saving me from myself. I hate you for always choosing me and not someone else. I hate you for always pulling me back from the edge….”

Replace all hate with love, if you read into it right. It’s like a five year old throwing a tantrum, it’s essentially a backwards fit. So, No, I’m not going to thank God for having mental health issues. I’m thanking God for seeing me THROUGH the issues, all the time. I have to, because some of those issues were almost seemingly spontaneously cured as I entered this churchy, catholicy world. There’s no denying that moment, I remember it clearly, and I do thank God that all that’s left from the emotional pain caused by my father is… a residual memory of pain. That’s HUGE, because that pain ran real deep. However, the mental health issues are still a part of me, and they will always be. I don’t thank God for how they developed, or that I have them, but I do thank God for seeing me through the many difficult moments that brings.
“I’m not Okay….but that’s Okay.”

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If this post makes any sense I’m seriously impressed. I’ve had insomnia since Christmas, and I finally seen a Dr about it today. You name a remedy, I’ve tried it. I even divided my psych med in half hoping it would help…that made everything worse, so that idea didn’t last long. The most effective remedy was a hot bath, 2 glasses of red wine, and 50mg of diphenhydramine. That is not a sustainable practice (or an entirely safe practice…don’t do that), and it only gave me… 4-5hrs of sleep. That wasn’t even worth the 4-5 hrs of sleep, to be honest. Teas, Melatonin, “good sleep practices,”….did, done, nope. Even 3 hours of aerial silks work for an upcoming show didn’t help.

So, at the moment I have a brand spankin new prescription for a Benzodiazapine sleep aid, and I will try it for the first time at 6am after work tonight…. along with my “mental health” rosary, and some images of St Dymphna and Archangel Raphael for moral support. If modern medicine and prayer doesn’t work, we’ll just have to go from there….

Rejoice!

CS Lewis

Just a video, because I actually enjoy listening to Fr Barron …. and, as known, I love chatting about the Oxford Inklings anytime anywhere.  The discussion of “out narrating” can be said to be a part of my conversation and wanderings, but more on that another day.

Joy

“Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.” GK Chesterton

Adventures in Charisms

Maybe it’s because of my mostly Pagan background that the more obscure Christian teachings seem commonplace to me. I know many Christians that sort of skip over the more odd ball stuff specifically around the Holy Spirit, while I sit back like “oh yeah, of course.” These charisms of the Holy Spirit were one of the reasons I wasn’t Christian for so long, I felt it had no place among Christians until my dear priest I was close to sorted that all out during our first meeting calling it a blessing and sanctioned by the church.
Honestly, to be honest, I was doubt founded when said priest told me that I found it in the Bible. I’m still surprised even if I have the whole part highlighted and read it 100 times over. So, in my adventures I just rolled with that, not speaking of it too much. However, my church asked me at least a hundred questions about it and prayed over it, etc I don’t fully know… eventually laying down the official verdict: Gift of spiritual discernment.

As if I’m not fully aware of that already, but hey! There it is! Again, to me it all seems common place and then I realize that some people really might have no idea what I’m talking about, so what is this Discernment of Spirits?
-The Charism of the Discernment of Spirits is the spiritual gift given to some Christians to empower them to distinguish the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error and to give an immediate evaluation based on God’s Word, His Truths, and the teachings of the Church.
-The Gift of the Discernment of Spirits is the ability to discern whether the source of an action, word, or experience is of God or the world, the flesh, or the devil.
-Discernment of Spirits is the ability to distinguish spirits in the special ability God gives to some to know the source of certain behavior of teaching.
-Sense the presence of evil
-The Gift of Discernment of Spirits is the supernatural power to detect the realm of the spirits and their activities. It implies the power of spiritual insight – the supernatural revelation of plans and purposes.

It’s not quite so clear cut in person, at least not so easily described as in those statements. I guess the statements sum it up clearly, but in experience it can be kind of wild, for me. It’s constantly seeing through the smokescreen. Far too many stories and experiences for me to discuss here, honestly. There’s nowhere for me to start, I’ve done it forever. It’s mostly a here and now, active kind of gift…. not all ghosts and hauntings as it kind of sounds like at first sight. Seeing through people, books, words, situations, the memories held in places, and yes, sometimes the occasional encounter with something ‘evil.’ It was awkward as a teenager to be running wild as teenagers can do, going through abandoned buildings and such… it’s awkward to stand in a doorway and attempt to explain to friends why I couldn’t enter a room. I just couldn’t go in, it was “bad.” Especially growing up as a Pagan, this often got awkward. In rituals I always sought that persons of the divine, because I recognize it readily, easily. More often then not at many Pagan circles, it wasn’t there. A lot of human energy, no otherworldly energy. I found it incredibly frustrating, and now I wander Catholic churches and mass…. it’s all the bloody time, now! Which is beyond amazing.

I became religious in the first place from a spiritual encounter in a rough situation. I can’t say for certain who or what I still work with there, but I’m almost 100% certain it’s ma Madre… Mrs. Mary. She who guided me for so long, and when the time was just right into the Catholic Church to her son. I guess that’s a part of the reason that the Protestant churches just didn’t suite me, they’re perfectly fine in general, but I need ma Madre. She is very much active in my life, in the world, and it’s not Mary worship. As I said, when the time was right she only pointed to one thing. She dropped by during my first rosary experience last year, I knew she was there, she was delighted, and inching me on the path to her son gently.

Recently I fell in love with the book Untie the Strong Woman: The Blessed Mothers Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul. It’s perfect. I recommend it in any possible way, I just adore it. I’ll probably read it again, and again.

I know other people, other Christians with very strong Charisms as well, and to say I need them around me is an understatement. To be able to freely talk and have others know where I’m coming from with very odd comments, it’s beyond comforting to me. I guess for a long time I only thought I’d find such open people among Pagans, but they run rampant among Christians, it’s just… many are quiet about it. I can’t blame them, I understand completely. I wish we could all shout about these things! It’s in the Bible, it’s supported by the church, it’s beneficial to the universal church…. maybe one day.