But for some reason, writing is off-putting to me now. It isn't only that I made myself so rawly vulnerable in the past that I basically had to heal from it. I may have a teensy weensy bit of PTSD when it comes to writing.
It also seems to me that if I cannot write, or do not write, there is some fear at work, some hiding at work, and I don't think that's so good.
Life is at a different speed, that's for sure. Not only am I constantly busy, but I am finding myself staying busy as a shield. One difference in my life is I have a lot more people who are asking for my attention, for my service, for my help, for my input, for my time, for my energy. To be honest, I used to feed myself on those kinds of requests. I took this kind of busy-ness for being loved and valued. Well, that's a good way to just get used, because I was always ready to say yes and give more, because once you start to try to fill the need for love in your heart with activity, you can never stop. But these days, it isn't like that. I am surrounded by people with need of one kind or another, and I'm the go-to person to help, to do. There are times when all these different people in my life -- who don't know about each other -- are all coming at me at the same time wanting me to do something for them, needing my help. I don't get warm fuzzies from helping. Sometimes I want to spend the entire day quiet and alone -- and goodness knows when the last time was that I did that. But I recognize that the needs are real and I'm available. I recognize the call to serve, to give, to care, to love -- but it is by no means an emotional warm fuzzy thing. Most of the time it is very not that.
And here's the thing. So, I have a new spiritual director these days. I had another for a few months and, well, we won't even get into that. But this new director has an approach focused on plopping me into Scripture and dealing with what happens there. And guess what I end up facing again. I have to go back to what God has given me, in all those years of transformation when I wrote a lot. I have to, with this kind of seasoned approach, go back, look at it all, own it, re-own it, bask in it, with the consciousness that is more mature than the WOW of the first experience. To fully acknowledge what God has given. And to drink from THAT well. Go straight to Him and drink there, from the anamnesis, so to speak.
So I groan a bit. Anamnesis is the memorial offering, the thanksgiving offering, but it is also the reminiscence. The true thing is, when I think back on the beauty of what God has done, I cry, and I'm stirred. But it is also a battle, frankly. The part I see right now is that it is a battle because I am faced with more choices. I'm faced with rejecting the Pharisiacal heart that holds my own standards up as That Which Must Be Met. Do I want to feel good about myself, or do I want to be whole and holy. That's what it boils down to, sometimes.
I think of St. Teresa whose feast it is today. She wrote a commentary on the Song of Songs when it was considered a tad scandalous for a woman to do that. But I guess she felt the Spirit of God tell her to write. And now she's a Doctor of the Church. I also thing of St. Catherine of Siena, trotting off to advise the Pope. I'm sure there was someone who told her (if not her own interior voice, at times) that this was not the place of a Dominican teriary, and a woman at that. But how does being whom God created us to be set the world on fire if there is no death to self in the process? Sometimes the hardest way to die to self is to feel unrighteous in what God calls us to do. Been at this location, performed that task. Back here again.
There are other reasons I groan. I kinda know some of them. Physically I've been exercising a losing weight and restarting my metabolism, which is like my body getting younger by a few years, which is all great, but it also sets me back into some anxiety issues I had those few years ago. Working with that. I'm feeling pretty powerless in several relationships these days. I guess I'm not working with that because frankly I don't know how. So I give them every day to Jesus, which is more than I can say I've done in years past. And there's a layer I'm not sure of. I've always thought I was sure of everything, especially about the inside of me. I hope its progress that mostly I feel like a shoulder shrug. Meanwhile, I keep answering the immediate requests of people for my energy.
I guess I groan because I feel a shift on the horizon. That's nebulous. Maybe it is wishful thinking. Probably not, because there is always a shift on the horizon; my life is constantly changing. I'm learning to partner with the Lord.
Pray for me, neh?
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