Not Knowing Can Be Hard

God has blessed me so much with family and friends. I do not know how we get on without such support.

Today I went to liturgy for Mid-Pentecost. Beautiful. A Feast Day. I wore paschal white and my deep pink scarf. Dressing up for feasts is, especially when life is challenging, important; putting on one's best is an act of courage. And, in this case, of worship.

I finally called World Vision. I have no income coming in, do not know what I am doing yet and felt that I could not continue paying monthly support to the child. This is in deferment until November, or until I call to say otherwise. This was not an easy decision and not made without tears.

I am learning more on being present to where I am. Cleo is sitting by my feet. The sun is shining. My apartment is in the process of being cleaned, again. I feel a bit overwhelmed, but I am trying to do the best I can with today.

Needing Christmas

Well. I can't seem to write the post I want to write. I posted one and took it down later.

This is okay. It will be re-written when it needs to be.

I am down to the last days before I leave for Christmas.

To be honest I am struggling with a lot of heaviness this season. Actually Christmas has been hard for a while.

It is hard to come to terms with my life - I never dreamed I would be living in a city as a single woman with a professional career. Though a lot of those in the blog world struggle with finances while raising children, I still wish I could trade places. Of course it is hard, of course. Life is hard, from what I can tell. But it is hard to be alone too. There is no one to wake up to here, no one to take care of (except my Cleo Cat who we all know I adore), no one to talk to. This can be hard.

But I know, such as it is, that God has given me a lot of what I dreamed for. I have a spiritual father, a job, a good apartment, a lovely cat, pretty things. Not to mention His mercy. The Saints. The Church. I have good friends, who are my spiritual family.

But it is a struggle! A struggle to be a Christian. A struggle to be thankful and not afraid.

One of my biggest fears is that I would gain the good job, apartment, things and feel my life empty. Money does not buy happiness, total security or inward peace or fulfillment.

Of course one would want enough to provide for housing, food, clothes, heat, hot water. One of my family members buys groceries with food stamps. I know money is needed to live here.

But we need family too, community; sometimes it seems that we all get so overwhelmed and busy that it is hard to be there for another. I have been there too many times - feeling so exhausted that I can give very little.

It is hard.

But Fr. Thomas Hopko quotes Fr. Schemman who told us that Christmas comes to us as a gift, we do not come to Christmas.

Lord Jesus, come. We are waiting for You and need You. Come to us on Christmas Day but come also to us now, come. And when You come, may we open our hearts and let You in the barren cave of our soul. Come and bring Christmas to our hearts so that we can go with You to Your Passion, Your Crucifixion and Your Pasca. Come.

What Gets Us Through

One of my former classmates blogged about how he struggled to continue to be a Christian (I am waiting to read part 2 of his two part series).

Personally I think we all come to parts of our lives that are very difficult - what could be called a hell on earth. Death, illness, loss, relational stress, relational breakdown, family crisis - they can all trigger other internal crisis within ourselves, including a crisis of faith.

I have been in this place; since around my 10th year of life, I knew what it was to lose someone I loved. I have seen families shattered when the mother unexpectedly died. I have seen the small children crying, in shock; I have seen them still struggling, years later. These are no small things.

The question then is what gets us past or through these times; if we do, indeed, get through them. I am reminded of something Fr. Thomas Hopko said - a lot of what happens to a person, and that person's reactions (esp. about faith) come from who they have met.

My spiritual family (various brothers and sisters), my spiritual Father, my spiritual mother - they are part of this.

For me it is also a glimpse of God's love - an accepting warm love - when I was a teenager that kept me from giving up. When I struggled to believe, I would think of this experience and know that there was something more out there, even when it seemed totally alien to me.

Also now it is the Church and the Saints and the Icons. The monasteries. The Church and the Saints are part of this love. Humility, I have been told, is the other side of love; one coin two sides.

These things, they keep me.

The Psalms, they uphold me; Kathleen Norris writes of the Psalter as sustaining prayers, keeping her while her husband battled cancer.

Above all is God's mercy.

Psalm 23 - Thy mercy shall follow me, all the days of my life.
One of the translations I read replaces follow with pursue.

I know too well how I fail in areas of my life daily. I worry, fail, try to trust, and then find myself worrying some more (for example).

Yet I am promised that His mercy is new every morning. In the end somehow God pursues and keeps me. May we live under God's mercy forever and strive towards it.

"That is Hard"

This is a phrase that my (spiritual) older sister says; often pointing out to me that something I am going through is hard, difficult, painful. There is so much of this in life sometimes.

Two people I know in the library world - their Dad's are both very ill right now; at least one of them may be dying. That is hard.

I am reading a book on death - by Joan Didion - a writer I more or less stumbled upon; I read a lot of writers who live in New England or New York City. I have lived six summers in New England; my spiritual mother lived in New England, her husband, now 85, originally hails from Long Island. Didion's year of magical thinking explores and captures the shock and initial grief of her husband's sudden death, weeks before their 40th year of marriage. I was saddened to realize, upon reading more about her, that her daughter died shortly after finishing the book.

Sometimes life and the suffering within it can seem so bewildering.

My work can be stressful to say the least - the corporate culture I work in can be very pressured and my clients can need things ASAP and some of the younger one's stress is so palpable that I can feel inwardly overwhelmed. Yet, yesterday afternoon I felt surprisingly peaceful; surely a moment from God as inner peace is one of the things I struggle to receive...

I can see vaguely that when I go beyond myself and love the people I work for, things are better within me...

Two people were going to help me brave the boxes in my basement apartment locker. One had to cancel due to life's circumstances.

Various people have said they would help me move; but; well. I am going to hire movers anyway. My experience in Ottawa is that people are usually so swept up in the drama and stress (both real) of their own lives that they cannot help me in ways they wish. This is NOT saying that people don't help me here. When I was on bed rest for two months with a crush injury and two fractures in my foot, various people very faithfully came - cooking, cleaning, doing my laundry, taking care of my and my Cat Cleo's needs. But I am still hiring movers. It will make it easier; I will still need lots of other help...

I have already begun telling people: I am dreading the move but look forward to the new apartment. When talking to one of my closest friends, I added, but change is hard! I will still miss this too-small-but-very-familiar apartment. I have lived here two years. I have only lived in one other place that long since I was 18. I am nearing 32 now.

My place is a bit crowded in general; I am really not sure where I will put the boxes. If you saw my current place, you would quickly see what I mean. One of my compassionate helping-me-this-summer friends, when trying to get some things for me in my apartment, told me she began to realize how small and difficult this place is to navigate.

Lord have mercy - on my suffering friends and on myself...