Spiritual Warfare

For two weeks I've seen this coming, sort of.  Let me explain, and perhaps fictional literature is better to do the job at this than my direct experience?

At any rate this is the way I choose to express my Self and my Experience at the moment.

 --- --- --- --- --- 

I think THIS would be a good introduction.

At the misty shoreline, Frank paused as Scott chose to break the silence by skipping a rock.  Looking up from the dead leaves he had been shuffling against yellow and red lake rocks, Frank's eyes pierced through the older man, boring past him to an unseen point.

"They care, you know."

Frank was silent, digging his hands deeper into his pockets and his feet just shuffled against the remaining reminders of fall.  Turning from Scott, he gazed over the lake, watching the wafts of mist rise before the sun turned the sky yellow.  Breathing in slowly, he exhaled, "Never said it was about them."

"Then, tell me.  You've got to tell someone, don't you?  Can't say you're not busting at the seams to tell someone."

Swallowing, Frank continued looking to the opposite horizon of the lake while the camp lay in slumber behind them.  "Ever get an invitation from a distant friend?  You feel obliged for what you once had with them, but now you don't have much connecting you anymore?  It's not like that.  This is like your best friend asking you to consider a serious decision that benefits both of you."  Frank looked expectantly at Scott, who was more pensive than passive, "Go on."

"Well, like I've told Thom, it's kind of like praying at church.  I'm talking to a Friend about things that would benefit both of us, once we've each heard the other and considered whether the gain is worth the battle."

"What battle."

Frank looked at Scott like he was a fool, "Souls.  God asked me to help fight for the Souls that have the least inkling of belonging to Him.  What were you thinking I was going to say?"

"Not a clue.  Good and Evil is hardly convincing these days."

The teen shrugged his flannel-clad shoulders, "It's been called worse."

"How'd you get to this point?"

"What point? Quiet?  God's not in the loud wind, right?"

With a nod of his head to the right, Scott conceded.  "What happens? Where do you go?"

"Where do you go in the boundary blurriness between sleep and waking?  God uses that space, for me, to enter into His realm.  At first I was scared and unable to do very much at all.  I was answering the phone, so to speak, or returning the R.S.V.P.  Now that boundary just stretches out before me.  I really can't explain what really happens.  As for where I go, I'm still right here."

Scott nodded, longer curls than his brother bobbed along.  Turning his gaze in the same direction of Frank's he let silence slip over them for a while.  Breaking it, "So, God asks you to fight for souls.  How do you know which ones?"

"I don't.  He tells me and I heed."

"How does He tell you?"

"Mary's the four-star General of His Army.  It's marching all around every day even though you can't see or feel the trembling of it's force.  I've experienced their power, since I'm not the only one living that joins forces with the commanders and generals, which you must know are the saints.  Mary lets me know."

"Mary."

"Yes."  With that Frank turned from Scott and wandered a bit further along the shoreline, signalling with his body language the exploration was over.  If Scott wanted more, he'd have to chisel through Frank's armour, or enter God's world.

Photos from November 26th

On the day after Thanksgiving, I went out to the South Coast Botanical Garden since I had been aching to take photos, and needed to get out of the house. An acquaintance of mine from other hiking trips has a gorgeous camera and is able to take professional quality landscape panoramics.  So, with his images feeding my itchy fingers, and mom's sour mood driving me from the house, I took to the Garden.

About 30 minutes into the park, I was photographing a borage bush that coincidentally had a bee on it.  Well, Mr. Bee decided to fly at me, and thinking it went up my sleeve, I did my bee dance and dropped the camera with the lens fully extended.  [Insert woeful face here]

These are the photographs before the bee incident.

Paper-white Narcissus

 In the Rose Garden

 Fuchsia in a Hanging Basket

 Daisy in the Volunteer Garden

 Peppers in the Volunteer Garden

 Dewdrops

 Lily of Some Sort

 Coral and Pink hued daisies

Maranatha!

Veni, veni Emmanuel;

Captivum solve Israel,

Qui gemit in exilio,

Privatus Dei Filio.

Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,

Nascetur pro te, Israel!

Veni, veni, O Oriens;

Solare nos adveniens,

Noctis depelle nebulas,

Dirasque noctis tenebras.

Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,

Nascetur pro te, Israel!

 

Veni, Clavis Davidica!

Regna reclude caelica; 

Fac iter tutum superum,

Et claude vias inferum.

Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,

Nascetur pro te, Israel!

 

Veni, veni Adonai!

Qui populo in Sinai,

Legem dedisti vertice,

In maiestate gloriae.

Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,

Nascetur pro te, Israel!

 

On Being Defensive

I almost can't remember all the events of today...almost.

By 11am the fit was ready to hit the shan.  I got up to go grab a chart from the office, when the front desk lady stops me, tells me a social worker from APS (adult protective services) tried to get in touch with me on the phone, and that he would be coming to the ADHC.  I replied that I did not a [his name] and why would APS be coming to the Center?  I got the chart and the Administrator asked me the same question, I denied it again.  It was decided with nursing, the front desk lady and the program director present that no one would be speaking to the APS social worker alone.  In fact it was decided by the Administrator that she would sit in with me while the APS was speaking with me, and there would be a joint session with the APS as well.  These decisions are against regulations.

Going back to my office, I was cornered in the hallway between my office and the nurses office by my boss (the owner of the ADHC).  He was asking about the APS report I had copied on Thursday, and I explained it as, which is the truth: I made a couple of copies because I only have a Spanish version, and I only had one English version,  and needed a few others for the future.  He wasn't pleased.  I called my co-social worker from the bathroom.  Then using the classic female ploy of grabbing my purse and heading back into the restroom, I called the APS and gave them my name and number; informed them that if they were sending out a social worker to the Center to get in touch with him and tell him no joint meetings, that he had to insist on single meetings.

Then I went back to my desk and returned to my paperwork, writing up letters to doctors telling them that their patients are showing the first signs of dementia or Alzheimer's.  I was having a fun morning between that and orienting the elderly schizophrenic that there wasn't actually someone there talking to him on the couch.

 I called my co-social worker on my cell a second time, now having shut the door and jammed the door-stopper in, so I could speak with some assurance that I wouldn't be interrupted.

After this, some discussion in the social work office with the Administrator, myself, and the LCSW about the specifics of our paperwork and the confusion that is occurring with the audit, and where previous social workers dropped the ball.  Then we all headed back to the office to go over some other charts to clear up the matter with the Program Director, and the front desk lady comes in.  She says that the man who she thought was the APS social worker was coming in from another agency and was investigating my abused elder's caregiver for a felony case, and wanted to check on his safety, and was about to go to the house and check on the other elders living there as well.  So the supposed APS worker was really a social worker from another agency checking in to see about the abused client because his caregiver is wanted for a felony case.  I don’t know the nature of that felony.

...and my back stopped hurting for a moment.

spirituality i

Perhaps the best thing about endlessly purchasing and perusing books is knowing exactly where to look when I'm needing a particular turn of phrase.  All of Austen is available for wit, Merton for quasi-Christian-Buddhist 'silence is golden' tendencies, etc.  But if I want a mood, I also know know which authors will squash or evoke something.  I have four statistical books perfect for insomnia, Heller for cynicism, Malachi Martin for caution.  More to the point, I picked up the book I had dropped last year and resumed in in the same spot.  I've always had this knack for putting a book down for one or more years, picking it up and resuming without needing to review the previous page or chapter.

If you don't like what I'm doing, saying, or reading without good reason and just object; you've automatically lost my audience.  I'd say that two years ago I didn't understand or value in any sense the nuance between religion and spirituality; I couldn't parse out foundation from trappings.  I frowned upon it and adhered only to religion, not understanding that spirituality has its own importance.  I didn't go seeking for any grasp or understanding, I had shut it out.

In November '09 I took any job that I could find; I worked as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army: paid to ring a bell next to the red bucket.  I hated it as a job.  Coming out of my rejecting the SMMEs, the days and months were already darkly tinted; I was already in the shadows, and this job provided the transition from shadow to darkness.  At first I fought against it, but in buying a book from the library resale I learned that I didn't always have to fight off the darkness.  The author, Thomas Moore, has a way of writing in a spiritual manner but not a religious one.  Reading his work, automatically took me out of my comfort zone.

As I was being pushed out of my comfort zone in terms of religion versus spirituality, I was pushing others out of their own.  I stopped fighting the darkness and the depression.  I didn't give into the depression, obviously, but I just sat in it.  Like a hiker lost in a thick fog, I didn't waste my lethargic energy on wandering around but sat down on a mossy rock and waited for the dawn.  It was one of those fogs so thick that the trees drip and it sounds like rain, and the drops pierce through your sweater.  You're on-edge sitting there in the dark just waiting, waiting.

So I sat and waited.  I got through my depression, intentionally this time, the hard way; it's the only way I've ever known for getting through depression.  I lost quite a bit of audience.  I remember one prayer meeting, some religious people who were emotionally sensitive but religiously neurotic (cautious in all the wrong ways) told me to just make nice, to play pretend.  Those blithe statements of "smile and soon you'll feel happy."  Pardon me.  My emotions and states of mind are my own.  I chose to share with some people and not all were understanding.  Anything that's not within their experience wasn't valid.  So I ignored their opinions and turned to others who understood.  My spiritual director was understanding and supportive, my therapist a phone call away; the bases were covered.

So, this week with it's crazy paperwork fiasco at work (let's just torch it and start over), mom's episodes, finals, lack of sleep, Grampa, and other things, I made the choice to just shut down emotionally.  It's really its own state of consciousness - being emotionless.  I'm capable of emotional reactions, but I chose to ignore the ones that relate to my interior world.  Knowing that I was in need of spiritual component again, I turned to Moore's writing.  It's nice to get confirmation that it's okay to be awake at night, to be in the dark.

Week in Review

1. To Do lists, when I have something to do, are my best friends ... after all my books, of course!
2. Mr. C - now that was all sorts of inappropriate!  If you hadn't just been released from the hospital, I'd give you a piece of my mind.  Clients must be reminded that they are clients. I liked medical social work, no one got overly friendly or casual. It was always clear who was who.
3. Work is a mess.  People not doing paperwork, forging paperwork, etc. Ethical nightmare. I think I have found yet another reason for why they have lost more than 6 social workers in the past 7 months.
4. Work gave me a migraine today. *Clings to the excedrin bottle for dear sanity*
5. Michaels & JoAnn's - you make me nauseous. Stimuli overload.
6. I like being a Traditional Roman Catholic aka Scrooge; thank you very much!
7. I feel like upchucking my excedrin
8. Diggin Up Bones
9. Thinking I might give Prof C a piece of my mind, and we all know how that will go!  Making me think of Joseph again.  Everything had been nice and neatly tucked away.  Joseph's one of those people you only think about every once in a while, at certain moments.  Then you want to let them invade your inner world like Dom let Mal into his.  Joseph's like that, and things don't seem that strange anymore.  But I wish he was here.  I still think he got lucky though; he got off.  He's got it good.
10. To heck with the concert, gonna go do a nice quiet dinner with my friends. Stay indoors, sans parents.
11. Want to quilt again.

cry

I'm going to be crying myself to sleep tonight.  I'm okay with it since (a) I'm choosing to rather than being overwhelmed and (b) its about Joseph.  I'm spending time thinking about what could have been.

It was wrong of her to end class on such a morose note, but what do I know? I'm just the student.

1. An obligatory comment on the condom snafu in the news media:  His Holiness did not make it ex cathedra.  Secondly, it's an attempt to imbue some charity into immoral sexual acts: protection of an infected HIV/AIDS person's sexual partner of choice.  This is not a move towards permitting contraceptives at all; look at the intention: protection from further harm, not avoidance of creating life!
2. Dicit Dominus: Ego cogito cogitationes pacis, et non afflicitonis: invocabitis me, et  ego exaudiam vos: et reducam captivatem vestram de cunctis locis.
3. It's not Christmas yet, so why the music?  Don't you knuckleheads at the mall understand that Christmas starts on December 25th and extends through the octave until January 6th?  Since I'll be losing my sanity at the mall with each carol that the speakers pipe in, and I use the music on this blog as typing music, it's changed for the Advent season.  
4. Speaking of Advent: it's the mini-Lent of the Traditional Catholic.  I'm trying to think of what to fast from; might switch to Gregorian chant for the entirety of the 4 weeks.  I've a few days to figure this one.
5. Mrs L, I appreciate what you're trying to say, but I already know a lot of this.  I've been in discernment for 5 years, been accepted to a community and have had to turn it down.  I'm at where I am for a reason; I don't need to know that reason.  Yes, I've read smidgens of the Little Flower, but when God puts you on hold, you learn these lessons anyway.  Being put on hold isn't that bad: you know you'll get service eventually, and in the meantime you're doing small tasks that needed to get done.  I'll get through eventually.  Heck, it's nowhere near the difficulty of the Dark Night!
6. Lastly, happy Solemnity of Christ the King.

Sleep Deprivation

NaNoWriMo began Nov 1 at 12:01am, and I only started writing yesterday well after 10pm.  I went to bed sometime around 2:30 and I only have about 900 words written.  I'm in this for a novel re-write.  I'm not trying to win the challenge (I only win bragging rights)!  Still, the first chapter always drags.  Favorite sentence from last night: "The air was stale with apprehension despite the fall crisp."

Since I'm running on less sleep for NaNo, I'm also still very out of whack from Saturday; too much partying & my back hates me for sleeping on a lumpy futon.  The next time I sleep over, I'll have to bring a board if I want to avoid all this pain.  Or, I could stop partying...because that idea is so viable.

Anyway, back to writing.

Indulgence

From the Handbook of Indulgences

Visiting a Church or an Oratory on All Souls Day

A plenary (“full”) indulgence, which is applicable only to the souls in Purgatory is granted to the Christian faithful who devoutly visit a church or an oratory on (November 2nd,) All Souls Day.

Will you not, for love, try today to gain this indulgence?

Requirements for Obtaining a Plenary Indulgence on All Souls Day (Nov. 2nd)

• Visit a church and pray for souls in Purgatory
• Say one “Our Father” and the “Creed” in the visit to the church
• Say one “Our Father” and one “Hail Mary” for the Holy Father’s intentions
• Worthily receive Holy Communion (ideally on the same day if you can get to Mass)
• Make a sacramental confession within a week of All Souls Day
• For a plenary indulgence be  free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin (otherwise, the indulgence is partial, not plenary, “full”).

h/t: Fr. Z.

Litany of the Saints

h/t: phatcatholic

Revving up for NaNoWriMo 2010

Participating in NaNoWriMo last year for the first time I was very skeptical of anyone's ability to write 50,000 words in a single month. Looking back on last year I can see that if I had attended fewer birthday parties (November is popular for birthdays because February is 9 months before; but my own birthday in November does not correspond with that), I could reasonably achieved the 50,000 by November 30th. Instead I 'only' wrote 32,000 words in 3 weeks.

I spent this entire past year thinking about my NaNo 2009 novel which has a working title of "daimon hunting" & have fleshed out some of my characters but it still requires a lot of work. So much work, due to the fact that I have to rearrange chapters, get rid of certain distasteful characters, build others up, tear some of their egos down, etc. I have to completely re-write it. So I'm putting it on the cooling block while I rewrite a novel I started outside of NaNo.

In fact, I had started writing the KH novel about a year before I learned of NaNo, so in 2008 I had begun writing it. I did not have too much direction to the plot line and I was nearly writing a fan fiction piece and just rewriting the characters and the period. That was not working as it became a plot filled with scenes where I would just blow off steam. Its odd how much calmer I could get after killing off a character (and not in the way I had to kill off Cody in the NaNo 2009; that was cruel), these characters were bad and needed to go. Now, I'm reworking the plot, the characters, renaming them and such. I found out that my muse was writing herself into the novels and that had to stop: my nomme de plume is that of my muse and she's no longer allowed in the novels. Period.

The above is my working title and banner for NaNo 2010. Drawing from the forum, I'll just repost the synopsis. I've chosen, since the novel is dark*, to go under the genre of horror and the supernatural; I don't seem to play well with the other Christian writers.

Synopsis: Snowed Out

She is forced to leave all that is familiar to flee supernatural forces who oppose every good deed she does with increasingly dangerous consequences.

Excerpt: Snowed Out

The night hung heavy and the chill dug into the skin. If it had been any other evening, she probably would not have noticed, but the dampness caused her to stop and gaze up as fog rolled across her field of vision. Gazing back at the door she had just ran out of, the door that she had just slammed, the dark cold seemed to close in upon her. It hadn’t been hard, but when her heart broke it felt like she was walking barefooted on crystal shards. A whole world built carefully in love, faith and hope was gone; forever darkened. Helene’s vision darkly reverberated as a ripple emanated from the warmly lit house and slammed her into the lawn.

And yes, I cheated and wrote my opening paragraph ahead of time. Unlike last year, I don't have the same strings of unending time: I wasn't working and hadn't gotten any interviews all month and I was probably about 3-4 weeks into depression. This year, I'm determined not to do the depression thing, besides last years was spiritually oriented too. I've got classes and a few papers to write that are due December 1st or somewhere in the last week of November. The nerd in me is pressing me to write those papers already and get them done this week, along with my Halloween costume and the last dregs of research for the NaNo. It's part of the craziness that is NaNo.

And I just wrote my first most in-depth and lengthy post in months on writing. =)

* From 8th grade through my junior year in high school I wrote a serial murder story with input from my then-best friend. The characters were careful reconstructions of certain fellow students. That's probably not as bad as a fellow friend & later boyfriend who was found with a hit list in his locker. Also, I'm not known for chick lit or 'run in the meadow' or 'find prince charming' or what I like to call 'bubble gum perky'.

A little update

I'm busy studying to get my CAADAC certification, which will hopefully open up some employment opportunities for me.  Apparently it's unusual to have a MSW with CAADAC licensing.  Already I'm seeing some potential positions open up.  I'm hoping that the internships will be good; might take a class just for the heck of it.

I'm poking holes into my fingers, sewing the bodice and remaining details of my Renaissance Faire outfit which doubles as my Halloween costume. I will likely have to replace the bodice as I forgot to cut tabs.  Lesson learned, I also know how to get cheap 'boning' at $0.59  This time next week I should be able to post photos.

Between all this I'm looking for employment; still nothing in this department to report.  I figure that I have a 93% failure rate; seeing as how there are 6 rejection letters sitting on my desk and a rejection email, with what could easily be more than 100 jobs applied to in the past month.  100 applications and 7 interviews.  That's not too bad.

NaNoWriMo starts in 6 days; I'm fairly anxious to start.  I decided on my plot - and I've completely reworked the KH details and now have a working title.  Hopefully this will really turn into a manuscript.

That's about all in my little corner of the world