Friday Five: Thanksgiving

Jan writes at RevGals:

The Cure

Lying around all day
with some strange new deep blue
weekend funk, I'm not really asleep
when my sister calls
to say she's just hung up
from talking with Aunt Bertha
who is 89 and ill but managing
to take care of Uncle Frank
who is completely bed ridden.
Aunt Bert says
it's snowing there in Arkansas,
on Catfish Lane, and she hasn't been
able to walk out to their mailbox.
She's been suffering
from a bad case of the mulleygrubs.
The cure for the mulleygrubs,
she tells my sister,
is to get up and bake a cake.
If that doesn't do it, put on a red dress.

--Ginger Andrews (from Hurricane Sisters)

So this Friday before Thanksgiving, think about Aunt Bert and how she'll celebrate Thanksgiving! And how about YOU?

1. What is your cure for the "mulleygrubs"?

Talking things through with someone I love.

2. Where will you be for Thanksgiving?

West Coast with my parents, in the first trip since we moved to the Midwest for my college teaching job this August. A special bonus will be an overnight trip with TechnoGuy to our favorite coastal town near them while my mom watches the kids.

3. What foods will be served? Which are traditional for your family?

Since my grandma died my mom has found it too painful to cook, so they usually either take us to their club or get the turkey and fixings delivered from them. This makes things easy and is pretty tasty, though I do miss my mom's awesome giblet-free gravy.

4. How do you feel about Thanksgiving as a holiday?

I appreciate the time off, and it's usually close to Advent too, so pretty good.

5. In this season of Thanksgiving, what are you grateful for?

The three-month stint with the new (now old) church, the learnings and growth that came from it, and the relationships I have been able to salvage. Good to feel that way as last night I was hit with the frustration and annoyance at God over the whole thing....such a grief to lose the opportunity to finally be on a pastoral staff and do well and love it...and especially the fact that the reform efforts for which I paid such a price ended with little change in the main church and a bunch of clergy leaving with two of the bishops who didn't have much integrity either and never told the truth about or made amends for their more indepth in one case and longer term in the other cooperation in evil. I had been all Ignatian and prayed and gotten prayers that I wouldn't want to take all the good people with me and now it looks like I won't be....and no I don't deserve them....but I don't deserve them way less than the rest of them! And it really is so hard to be so alone.

So I guess I will say I am so grateful for my sweetheart too....He listened to me vent and quote the Jeremiah scripture about God tricking me and we laughed a lot, especially when I started talking about them all being a bunch of weasels....He drew a really cute weasel on his whiteboard, then added a miter and the cartoon bubble words: "That's Archbishop Weasel to you!" Made me feel much better.

Okay it's off to hear my dear students present on saints and in two classes do the lightning fast Ignatius lecture I did in the other two on Wednesday....or maybe skip it and drop that stuff from Monday's quiz--making it up is the other major task I need to complete today--since we won't have had time to discuss it much. More rapid fire discernment. Have a great Friday!

Friday the 13th Five!

The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). The term triskaidekaphobia derives from the Greek words "tris", meaning 'three', "kai", meaning 'and', and "deka", meaning 'ten'. the whole word means three and ten. The word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953. (Wikipedia)

With thanks to TechnoGuy for the great suggestion, it's a Friday the 13th Friday Five!

1. How is this Friday the 13th looking for you?

This Friday the 13th is actually feeling pretty lucky for me, as my students are scheduled to give oral presentations on saints of their choice. Hence, after completing preparation for Monday's class on Wednesday night, I could spend Thursday completely teaching-free. What a joy to pray, write my sermon for Sunday, bond with my family, share with my writing group, snuggle up for mass by the fire with Ladybug, and meet with the homeless shelter volunteer coordinator to discuss service learning for next semester's classes.

2. Have you ever had anything unlucky happen on Friday the 13th?

Not that I recall.

3. Did your family of origin embrace or scorn superstitions?

Scorn 'em, along with religion itself (in the case of my dad at least--the classic Irish atheist that can't stop arguing about the God he supposedly doesn't believe in!)

4. Are there any unique or amusing ones from your family, region, or ethnic background?

I do remember peeling an apple and throwing the peel on the floor to see what initial it made--predicting the first name of my future husband! I think my mom got this from her grandmother; we knew it was silly but fun, and I think I did put a little bit of credence in it when I was young. Don't know that I ever got TechnoGuy's actual first initial though as it is considerably more complicated than T!

5. Do you love or hate horror movies like "Friday the 13th"?

Hate 'em and don't watch 'em--once something is in my mind it is there forever and I have got plenty to deal with already.

The Lesson of the Fig Tree

Sermon for the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. I will be handing out copies at the church door, since I have been prevented from preaching it as originally scheduled, and am pretty nervous about the whole thing--including improving on last week's performance, with God's help, by keeping my lip zipped and my zinging tongue in check and remaining loving and peaceful in the face of some pretty major anger. Prayers appreciated!

"In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."

These words of Jesus, from the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, express well the feelings of many in OurChurch in its present crisis. Like the Jews of Daniel's day mourning their exile in Babylon, and those of Mark's time mourning the destruction of their Temple and the massacre of many sisters and brothers by Roman soldiers, we may feel that the very heavenly beings are shaking and failing, leaving us in fear, darkness and chaos. If you have no idea what I am talking about you need to visit the whistleblowing website which is speaking truth about the abuses that have occurred and the changes needed for our beloved church to become truly, in the words of the great Reformer Martin Luther, "ecclesia reformata et semper reformanda"--"a church reformed and always reforming."

These apocalyptic words of Jesus and others like them are always read in the month of November, which began with the celebration of All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and Reformation Sunday, and closes with the first Sunday of Advent as one liturgical year comes to an end and another one begins. The overriding themes of this time of grace are judgment, repentance, and the final coming of Christ our great High Priest to complete his saving work: bringing transformation and purification to our own souls and rebirth to the whole cosmos. In traditional preaching, much was made at this time of the "four last things": death, judgment, heaven and hell--which a dear friend of mine recently and insightfully reinterpreted on her blog as death, judgment, pain and joy. Pain at the knowledge of how we have hurt ourselves and each other, through our ignorance, our wounds, and our own most grievous fault....And joy at the overflowing mercy of God poured out in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Christ and the Holy Spirit sent into our hearts to bring the love of God, forgive all of our sins, and conform us to the image of Jesus that we might walk in newness of life.

Judgment is a loaded theological term, which for many of us carries overtones of a harsh and demanding God resembling the parent in a dysfunctional family--holding us to impossible standards of perfection and vindictively punishing us, or an innocent scapegoat in our place, when we inevitably fail. So perhaps a better word to use would be discernment, St. Ignatius' term for closely observing the motions of our hearts and minds to see which are lifegiving invitations from the Holy Spirit to be obeyed and which are dangerous temptations from the evil spirit to be resisted. This is judgment in the sense of a book or movie review, or perhaps a professional evaluation for performance improvement in our field: carefully observing and evaluating a situation to the best of our ability, respectfully stating the truth as it is made clear to us, and suggesting an appropriate course of action in response. In more serious cases where moral malfeasance is involved, let us not forget that for innocent victims of evil, or repentant sinners seeking a new and better course, a truthful and loving judgment is welcomed as vindication, consolation, and liberation. It is this sense of Christ's return to judge the world by lovingly delivering it from sin and death that is reflected in Jesus' hopeful metaphor of the signs of the end times as the first leaves of spring on a fig tree, or God's promise to Daniel to send the archangel Michael with his heavenly host to guard and defend humanity from evil.

I have been reflecting much lately on this sense of judgment: the soul-piercing and heart-healing grace of the revelation of the depth of my sinfulness and the ever deeper depths of God's mercy in Christ and in his Body on earth, my sisters and brothers in his holy church. For I was, during our recent synod in this holy place, part of a gravely sinful decision taken by many members of the College of Bishops, including our Presiding Bishop, and every other bishop on staff at this parish with the exception of my wise and holy "bishop twin." A couple of hours before the mass ordaining a new deacon and three new priests, we were hustled into an unscheduled and rushed bishop's meeting. I was distressed to learn that one of the priests taking part in the Synod was a convicted pedophile whose faculties to celebrate the sacraments had been suspended but not permanently removed. I was further distressed to hear the Presiding Bishop make an impassioned appeal for us to violate our zero tolerance policy for sexual abuse and "balance mercy and justice" by granting this man partial faculties for priestly ministry as well as, incredibly, an honorary doctorate from our seminary. When I spoke up to protest I was told, incorrectly, by the judicial vicar in charge of enforcing canon law, that the Presiding Bishop had the power to dispense from the requirements of the zero tolerance policy. Most distressing of all, the Presiding Bishop stated in this meeting that he was recommending that the man move to Europe to "start a new life", which would of course give him access to fresh victims unaware of his history, and the Archbishop of Great Britain and Ireland stated his strong concurrence in the recommendation and his willingness to assist the man in finding employment there.

To my eternal shame, I made little further protest and became part of the affirmative unanimous vote which led to L's concelebrating at the remaining masses of the Synod--not even taking the cowards' way out and abstaining. I was not given the full information about the seriousness of L's criminal history, with felony convictions for ten counts of lewd and lascivious acts with six different boys under age fourteen; his lack of repentance, demonstrated by his further arrest for fleeing and avoiding the required sex offender registry which protects both innocent children and those who suffer from the incurable illness of pedophilia from further perpetration; nor the fact that the Presiding Bishop and his inner circle had been aware of these facts for two and a half years and failed to comply with the zero tolerance policy by publicly and permanently laicizing, or defrocking, him when they had confirmation of his history. But I had enough information to do the right thing and failed to do it, violating both my baptismal and ordination vows. In so failing I sinned gravely against his past and possible future victims, against L himself by failing to lovingly help him accept the consequences of his behavior, against my brother bishops by not speaking up in accord with my conscience to help us make a better decision together, and against you, the parishioners of OurCathedral and the faithful clergy and lay members of OurChurch everywhere. I humbly beg your forgiveness for this terrible ethical failure, which I have of course confessed in the sacrament of Reconciliation, and for which I am attempting to do penance and make full amends by seeing that the truth is known, justice is done, the innocent are protected, and systemic reform is achieved to prevent such a thing from ever recurring. Our canons have excellent requirements for clergy training and evaluation, but their provisions for theological education, psychological testing, spiritual formation, ministry experience, lay involvement, and criminal background checks to prevent the ordination and incardination of more criminals have never been fully implemented, including in the case of all the ordinations and consecrations performed at this year's Synod.

As your and their very unworthy handmaid I speak these truths not to shame or judge my brothers in the episcopate for our common sin, but to give you the people of God information you have the right to know according to the transparency provisions of the zero tolerance policy. I also speak it in order to humbly invite them, good and holy and wounded people like myself, to share the joy and freedom which Christ promised the truth would bring us, and the pardon and peace which God has so generously poured out on me through the ministry of the church, the holy people of God. I have been dismissed from the College of Bishops--actually the College of Bishops and Monsignors--for, in this emergency, following my conscience and sharing information from its deliberations with holy Monsignors of our church also seeking reform, who have in recent years been denied their canonical voice and vote in council. I am grateful to report that in a conversation with Archbishop Z. and Monsignora S., Cathedral Dean, last Sunday he committed himself to helping restore those canonical rights as a protection against future tragedies like this one. My whistleblowing has also led to the severing of the Uniate status of the jurisdiction which I serve as Bishop, and my dismissal from the pastoral staff of this cathedral, where I was scheduled to celebrate and preach at the 10:00 mass this morning--hence my distribution of my homily in this printed form. I gratefully accept these penalties, not for speaking the truth as the Spirit has led me, but as the well-deserved and canonically required consequences of my own violation of the zero tolerance policy through my participation in the Synod vote. I implore the Presiding Bishop and my beloved brothers in the episcopate to likewise accept the canonical consequences of their choices, apologize and make amends to the people of God, and resign or take a leave of absence from their own offices, rather than be subject to deposition proceedings as the zero tolerance policy requires. They have served with generosity and self-sacrifice and in many cases are deeply exhausted in both body and spirit, and I believe that God can work miracles through sabbath time providing the healing, study, and spiritual practices which will enable them to return to divine service with greater effectiveness and peace of mind and heart.

I thank each and every member of the Cathedral pastoral staff and worshipping community, especially Archbishop Z., for their gracious and loving welcome and the privilege of serving at altar and pulpit in this holy temple of God. I have learned and grown tremendously in my short but rich time here, and will always hold you in my heart and prayer as we wait and work together for the coming of God's reign of peace. Marana tha, come Lord Jesus!

Spiritual Warfare

...is really good. And really exhausting. But really good--at least if one is backed by a host of holy intercessors, on earth and in heaven, as I am. It also makes me more pleasant to be around as I watch my tongue or clean it up fast when I don't; experience constant conversion over large and small ways I have been part of the evil, or parallel ways, which keep me clinging to the cross and the feet of Jesus; and attempt to ever-deepen my prayer and sacramental life and close off every possible chink through which the evil spirit could enter. I have literally been leaving my gift at the altar the last couple days--easy to do when you're celebrating solo/with the saints and angels to whom time is irrelevant--to write amends emails in between the liturgy of the Word and that of the Eucharist. And I put two of HockeyBoy's shirts in the dryer instead of hanging them up as he prefers yesterday--then stared incredulously at TechnoGuy and actually burst out "get behind me, Satan" when he suggested that since they didn't seem to shrink we should just hang them up to hide the fault--I hope I wouldn't do that any time but this week I was so not going to risk it! (I think HB actually enjoyed hearing me apologize and being magnanimous about it--he is so constantly in my face that I have to really ration the direct apologies and mostly focused on lived amends for my humiliatingly recurring sharp-tongued impatience with him. Wasn't till I had this kid that I saw the sense in Augustine's insistence, in exception to his strong emphasis in his Rule on mutual correction, apologizing, and forgiveness, that the superior can just confess faults in prayer to God rather than apologize to subjects over whom s/he might then lose authority!)

It was a twelve hour church day on Sunday, good but incredibly intense, and I was still recovering yesterday so thank Godde it was a half day on the teaching front...An hour and a half drive, praying and spiritually preparing for the ordeal all the way (my penance from Saturday's marvelous celebration on a sunny porch swing gazing at a memorial for lost children, born and unborn, with an increasingly dear friend also working for justice); a strengthening mass by my beloved bishop twin, at which he refused to obey the superior who told him to interrupt and dismiss me from the lectern where I was reading the first lesson and chanting the psalm; a long talk at Panera with the dean who doesn't know who to believe and has been fed lies about me but is full of integrity and trying to bring light and honesty to the situation; a long and painful session with her and the above superior who was viciously verbally abusive, as per usual, including calling me a Wiccan sexual harasser with an imaginary community and (unsuccessfully) demanding the cross he gave me back, and confronted me with my and our unjust dismissal for whistleblowing as well as the laicization papers, finally and thank Godde, which I had been fighting for the pedophile priest he has been sheltering--backdated to the day before the meeting where he read damning contradictory letters from both the un-priest and himself into a taped record I expect to rapidly disappear; washing dishes beside my bishop twin for the homeless lunch and reconciling about his pressured sell-out of me on the vote, then quietly singing the songs that have been strengthening me through this; and a blessed respite in a Zen tea shop with the Episcopal deacon who got us the building and is now going to find me the contact at her diocesan house who needs to know to whom they are renting--I took a PRN in the ladies', but talking to a healthy professional outside the cultish, dysfunctional system was equally calming; and that set me up for another prayerful, joyous drive home which included a strengthening stop to drop off the promised rosaries in each child's chosen color to the lovely evangelical/charismatic family I met in the airport flying home from the conference and Michelle meetup a few weeks ago. (After we had chatted a while I said my rosary in thanksgiving and intercession for the Good Samaritan family who had gotten me from train station to hotel when I flew in, and the oldest girl patiently waited till I was done to ask where I got "that pretty necklace with Jesus on it" and where she could get one too!)

I was able to stay calm in the painful meeting in some moments, especially after requesting a moment of silence after which I could honestly thank him for the gift of serving and worshipping with the community and ask his forgiveness for all the ways I have hurt him (not granted, as with all the other times I have emailed him thorough and humble apologies, but I am at peace having cleaned up my side of the street, as the 12 step saying goes). And get him to give a little unwilling ground on reform issues because I could cite chapter and verse of the canons in the dean's watchdog presence. But it was a tragic lost opportunity that I really didn't make my goal of staying Christlike and peaceful in the face of the abuse in order to not bring disgrace on the cause for which I fight--I don't think I was in his league but did give anger for anger and sarcasm for sarcasm--if I had been able to keep my lip zipped and avoid that I think the dean would have seen things much more clearly. And though he deserves to be deposed as presiding bishop he still hasn't been, and is for a little while yet my religious superior as well, so deserves respect...And while "stop breaking bishop meeting confidentiality to expose my abuse of power" is an unjust order clearly to be disobeyed,"please wipe that annoying smirk off your face," twice, um, isn't. So, yes, I emailed the dean to apologize and called him as well (no more written amends as he uses them with vicious brilliance for revenge), thankfully getting his message machine, and am going to confession for that and other things that keep surfacing in my heart *again* this coming Sunday. It will be my last at the parish and the one on which I was supposed to finally preach and preside at the high mass--I hope to write the sermon anyway and send it with the dossier of information which will go to the clergy mailing list. I am also hoping to do some additional penance though that is going to take some time to move toward. I mentioned to TechnoGuy that I wished I could fast and my insightful spouse immediately suggested "how about computer?" Ouch...thanks a lot! Right on target...But cutting down on something addictive or overdone doesn't count, as Ignatius points out, so the first goal is temperance on that front--which has meant at least for the last two days that the FB and blog aspects of the computer actually didn't get turned on till well into the afternoon when mass, familial, and professorial duties had all been done. So that's a start.

The biggest grace in all of this is that after all my passion about rejecting the psychologically unhealthy ways of engaging the cross and forgiveness and the beatitudes there were actually a few shining moments when I could see and tap into the healthy ones. It is actually easier for me because my honeymoon was so short and I had no trusted relationship with him--those who did are reeling from the anguish and betrayal I have felt in past situations where my heart was engaged. It is incredibly freeing to be able to actually be grateful for being closer to Jesus by sharing a tiny bit in his sufferings through rejection, abuse and false accusations for doing what is right....and to more and more deeply and more and more peacefully see the depth of my own sinfulness and constant dependence on grace--what CS Lewis called the daily and hourly pittance for the daily and hourly need....and the incredible power of Jesus' nonviolently absorbing evil rather than returning it....and to be able to actually desire and maybe be able to forgive someone completely unrepentant for the personal hurt to me, without in any way altering my commitment to speak truth and do my best to see that appropriate consequences happen for his own good as well as the protection of the innocent....and to feel some compassion for the terrible trap he is in and how miserable it must be to not be able to apologize or see any sin or mistake, large or small, and to keep running and piling lie upon lie to flee from that.

It has been phenomenally healing of my own clergy sexual abuse to go through this, though in a way I never would have expected--because I was a full part of one thoroughly evil vote at Synod, not even taking the weasel's way of abstaining, on the very issue that has been the source of the most anguish in my life, and only repented when an expose website brought the whole thing into the light...I didn't have sufficient reflection or full consent, due to being misled and pressured and afraid they would cancel my consecration--which of course I should have risked and would have been something to be proud of if it happened--so after I made a good act of contrition I felt okay receiving and celebrating till I could confess it...After which the sick to my stomach went away though of course will regret that shameful deed to my dying day...and yet so much good came out of it with another level of awareness of my solidarity in the terrible depths of human sin...that I am the abuser and I am the colluder, that we all stand together in the need of grace...and that grace is given so very abundantly and through each other....and so I can be part of this reform piece in a completely different way. It feels, as I told a dear Ignatian friend whose prayer support has been absolutely crucial, like I finally got the full experience of the First Week and its connection to the others, nine years after I made the Exercises in my Long Retreat. And not in a destructive way but in a liberating and joyous one...And to see so clearly, though I could be wrong, a man who is my mirror in gifts and temptations and, I am more and more strongly believing, my brother in bipolar who has not yet had the incredibly good fortune I have been to have loved ones who call out the truth and lovingly support the way of the cross into it that becomes the way of life and peace as it is walked through....The one way to peace is the power of the cross; his banner over me is love. And the lowest place and the full knowledge of sins and wounds and need as well as grace and call, when it comes with the overflowing mercy of Godde and her Son and her people is so safe, so sweet, truly the valley of love and delight.

All, all, all is grace and Godde is so incredibly good, and I do not regret a minute of the time I have spent with this church or the tremendous growth and healing I have experienced from being able to face another layer of myself in the searing light of grace and then humbly become a small part of the transformation, of standing up for myself and especially for the innocent in the way that wasn't done for me. And so very grateful for the prayers which got me here and which are still needed for those still inside fighting for change, for me as I prepare to speak the truth in a wider way and try to do so with integrity and nonviolence of heart, mind and lips, for all the relevant authorities to discover the truth and take appropriate action, and for all the innocent who will suffer if the truth comes out but far more if it doesn't.

Friday Five: What's New?

Songbird writes at RevGals:

There's a new baby on my street, a double PK whose Mom and Dad are Methodist pastors and church planters. I'm hoping to go over and meet her today. I love new babies, the way they smell and their sweet little fingers and toes. Little K has me thinking about all the new things that please us with their shiny freshness.

Please share with us five things you like *especially* when they are new.

1. Hot glazed Krispy Kreme donuts! I take HockeyBoy there for a weekly mom and son date, and brought two boxes to my 8:00 class today--they're taking their New Testament exam as I write. Their eyes lit up when they saw the bag and one young man said with delight: "They're still hot?"

2. Pencils, nice and sharp and with lovely clean and high-functioning eraser ends--preferably pretty colored ones instead of traditional yellow.

3. Nice crisp cotton or cotton blend blouses or dresses. Like doll hair, they're never quite the same after the first wash.

4. Friendships. Long held ones are special in their own way, of course, but there is something magical about the early stages of learning, sharing and discovery in relationships.

5. Liturgical music, whether sung for the first time or in a new video version on YouTube. Like friendships, the old favorites have deep resonance of course. But, like most conscientious music ministers, I make sure to repeat familiar music more often than my personal taste would dictate for ease of singing....So a really good new discovery is a real treat.

I am in the midst of some prophetic cleansing of the temple work in my new jurisdiction, which is a joy and privilege but also a daunting and dangerous task. So I am steeping myself in constant prayer and consultation and asking for prayer support as well, please--for the victims (at least 6 young boys in the 80s, and who knows how many since), the perpetrator and the colluders, and those of us trying to be part of the solution rather than the problem--and speak the truth in love and humility and "there but for the grace of Godde" rather than harshness or pride.

I found this setting of Malvina Reynold's God Bless the Grass last night and have been singing it since for strength, inspiration and peace.

God bless the grass that grows through the crack,
They roll the concrete over it and try to keep it back.
But the concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows through,
God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights for the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
But it moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it's growing everywhere,
God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that grows through cement,
It's tender and green and it's easily bent,
But after a while it lifts up its head
Cause the grass is living and the stone is dead,
God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that's gentle and low,
Its roots are deep and its will is to grow.
God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the green grass growing round the poor man's door,
God bless the grass.

Today's Reading from Benedict's Rule

Chapter 27: How Solicitous the Abbess Should Be for the Excommunicated

Let the Abbess be most solicitous
in her concern for delinquent sisters,
for "it is not the healthy but the sick who need a physician" (Matt 9:12)
And therefore she ought to use every means
that a wise physician would use.
Let her send senpectae,
that is, sisters of mature years and wisdom,
who may as it were secretly console the wavering sister
and induce her to make humble satisfaction;
comforting her
that she may not "be overwhelmed by excessive grief" (2 Cor. 2:7),
but that, as the Apostle says,
charity may be strengthened in her (2 Cor. 2:8).
And let everyone pray for her.

For the Abbess must have the utmost solicitude
and exercise all prudence and diligence
lest she lose any of the sheep entrusted to her.
Let her know
that what she has undertaken is the care of weak souls
and not a tyranny over strong ones;
and let her fear the Prophet's warning
through which God says,
"What you saw to be fat you took to yourselves,
and what was feeble you cast away" (Ezec. 34:3,4).
Let her rather imitate the loving example of the Good Shepherd
who left the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains
and went to look for the one sheep that had gone astray,
on whose weakness He had such compassion
that He deigned to place it on His own sacred shoulders
and thus carry it back to the flock (Luke 15:4-5).

Thanks for the Prayers

...which kicked in uber-quickly. I am feeling much better.

The confession appointment was cancelled for a pastoral emergency on that end, which is a quite a relief. I have written the associated amends email, which was the only thing really pressing, and now have a peaceful heart about rescheduling as the Spirit moves for a different time, place and person. I am reminding myself that what God wanted was the awareness and the willingness, and once I had that gave me a sweet break of not having to go through with the whole thing right away and in a stressful fashion. (I try to remember Gertrud of Helfta's insistence that to our loving and merciful Godde intentions count for good things and not just bad ones, as in George Carlin's classic five minute version of Catholic moral theology. "Your intention, that's how we'll judge you....Let's say you wake up in the morning and decide to go down to 42nd St. and commit a mortal sin...Save your carfare! You did it!")

This also means that the other meeting can be teleconferenced instead of involving a long drive to the main site, which frees up a lot more of my day for teaching work as well as something enjoyable in between the doctor's visit and the meeting. This could involve rescheduling the enjoyable lunch I had to cancel if it works for the other person and if not I will make sure and find something as good. And if the meeting doesn't go well I will be safely home and close to in person spiritual and emotional support rather than having to worry about the drive back.

It's been a lovely evening with a good dinner, then reading and singing with Ladybug in front of the fire still crackling away and calling me to light a candle on my hearth altar for Examen and Compline. And I am so much more peaceful. I may have some more nerves tomorrow but the prayers just buoy me up so much and I think it is going to be okay....Many thanks, dear friends, and good night.