It is both interesting and disconcerting to come back to this site and read some of my older posts. In my quest to understand and be understood, I find an odd sense of satisfaction and pleasure in reading someone who says it like I experience it...who gets me. And yet duh! The guy I am reading is me (although reading my own stuff always feels like somehow it is not identical with just me?)
Regardless, I have just read through my 2+ year season of John 15:5, mysticism, retirement, identity and of course the Camino dreams of 2020. In some ways, I read to prime my writing pump. I sense the urge to write, mostly to reach a greater clarity concerning what my current thinking and experiences might be trying to tell me. And yet, as is so often the case, although I feel the tug to write I have no particular subject in mind. And so, for now, there are these random thoughts:
I have an ill-formed picture of baby Santiago with an empty backpack that gradually fills with life experiences and the reactive strategies I embrace to navigate them. Year by year the pack fills with all varieties of beliefs, lies, illusions, false lovers, joys and sorrows. And then, at 75 years old, with a 183 pound pack busting at the seams, I see that this overburdened figure is actually my false self. That to move on into the light I have been given regarding my true self requires me to let go of most of what fills my life pack. To thoroughly die to self in all it's many forms: self-interest, self-sufficiency, self as supreme reference point and on and gag-me-with-a spoon on it goes. So 75 years of filling the pack only to conclude that I am really called to be pack-less "...no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff...."Mt 10;9
My more recent travels have introduced me to one of the best words I have ever come across: ineffable. A word which points to something too overwhelming to be expressed or described in words; too awesome or sacred to be spoken. On one hand, suggesting that I have come across anything ineffable might sound like just a thinly veiled way to put myself on some kind of self-proclaimed, esoteric podium. But I say neh, neh. It is a word which calms much of the thinking water I have been dog paddling in. Perspectives that have made sense and felt comfortably right when I try them on. And yet these perspectives defy articulate dialogue with others. If that isn't bad enough, insights brought to me by those who have walked such paths in the distant (and not too distant (Merton)) past have frequently been brilliantly illuminating. But alas, they seem to hover just outside my own reach. They seem to be delicately, even briefly given but refuse to be owned outright. Yep, ineffable from me to me!
It is that time of the year when the tree is up, the house is fully decorated and, as if wishing to mock the sereneness of the season, we are facing emotional challenges from many sides. Our 94 year old Aunt V is in TCU following a stroke in late November. At this time, her prognosis does not seem to include returning to her assisted living status. A move to SNF may well be in the offing. At this time there are daily trips to visit her, meetings with healthcare workers, research of care possibilities, doing her laundry etc.. Sandi, as the only child and Aunt V's one and only support person, feels the full brunt of these responsibilities (despite me doing as much as I know how to support her and share the burden). So there is that.
Meanwhile, E returns to Haiti next Monday after a 3 week visit that turned into 5.5 months. She returns to a country in shambles, substantially under the control of gangs and a leader named Barbecue. Safety is non-existent with rampant kidnappings, murders, cholera, lack of food and water. She returns to renew her visa and rejoin the family in pursuing an escape from there to here although there continues to be no clear path that will actually work. The thought of E landing in PAP feels as if she were landing in a hot LZ in the jungles of 1969 Vietnam. To say it is worrisome is accurate but grossly understated. So there is that.
And then there is our little Nat. Oh my, this miniature human with a tiny face, lots of dark hair and a little squeaky cry will melt the most icy of hearts with just one look. She comes complete with DS and a 2-chamber heart on board. Heart surgery looms in her very near future. But they want her to be 12 lbs and she is only 7 lbs at 3 months old. To say this is worrisome is accurate but once again, grossly understated. So there is that.
It seems that the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus each year has often times brought along with it the sadness of family crises of health issues, dying, and missing family not able to be together because of living away long distances. This year is simply no exception to the type of circumstances that seem to regularly appear about the time of turkey and red/green decorations. A pound of emotional balm and elixir might be a great gift idea.
So that touches some of the major ingredients of this year's holiday challenges. Although not particularly edifying, it does serve to leave some life journey tracks for anyone tripping upon this blog in future times.
However, before leaving. I just have to emphasize something. I am in no way depressed or down about all of this! Perhaps I should be but I am walking with a bit more eternal perspective these days. Ok, ok, don't get your shorts in a bundle here. I am not saying I have arrived anywhere or achieved a new level of anything. It is not about that. I simply believe that my 2+ years of focus on intimacy and union with Christ, fully believing that apart from Him I can indeed do nothing and offering myself to a death to those parts of me that represent my false self have begun to reap at least some first fruits. I am profoundly humbled to be able to honestly even say this as I realize that in no way can I claim any credit for any of it. I can only be grateful for his love and pursuit of me and his apparently fierce determination to robustly act behind the scenes of my life on every Yes I am willing to give him. And so I do Lord...I say Yes to your vision for me. I was created for union with you. I will walk fully in this reality after death but I believe you offer substantial transformation on this side of the grave for those who are willing to let go of their worldly rights and false lovers. Holy Trinity, help me to be just such a willing man....
Feliz Navidad Santiago!
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