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“Skeleton Flowers” become transparent when it rains, when the leaves dry out they turn back to white.

by John Evans

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John Wood And Paul Harrison

MARK

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Georgia O'Keeffe — Hands by Alfred Stieglitz, The Met’s Photos

Gift of Georgia O'Keeffe, through the generosity of The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation and Jennifer and Joseph Duke, 1997 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Palladium print

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/271617

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Spiritual Direction Themes and Recap

Legacy

God works through me in my service

Vulnerability, gentleness, and compassion

Ask myself not what is the best response, but what is a compassionate response

Ask the Holy Spirit (ebbs and flows in ambiguity) to accompany me in my reflections

14:10 EST

Weston, MA

180506

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Silent Retreat Day 2: Reflection on Death and the Strength to Leave a Part of Our Authentic Selves Behind

I didn’t start my day today as early as I wanted. I woke up at 6 only to go back to sleep until 8, when I woke up with a headache. After breakfast, all the retreatants convened in the common room for morning prayers. My mind drifted far and wide throughout it, so much so that I don’t even recall what it was we were praying about. Afterwards, I walked around a bit outside, going only so far as the Weston observatory and the Jesuits’ cemetery. 

Just before the latter, there was a little shaded area where I could look up the names of the deceased, their ages, and the years they have been in the Society. They were contained in two binders, divided between years of burial, like the cemetery itself: one contained information on those who were buried between 1939 and 1981 and between 1981 and present. I instinctively scanned the pages in the binders for any last names that could hint at backgrounds aside from Irish and Eastern European origins that overwhelmed the roster. There were certainly no such names in the 1939-1981 binder, and only a couple in the 1981- binder. The oldest Jesuit to have been buried was 102 years old and had congruently served a whopping 80 years in the Society. The youngest deceased was 35, and was buried in 1939. There were more names in the older binder that showed the difference between their ages and years in the Society that were less than 20; alas, most were exactly 18, which confirmed my assumption that it was common to seminary as schoolboys in those days. These data were so compelling, indulging me in the safety of confirmation bias without the dead rising out of their grave plots to correct me, and I stood a long while in that little patch of shade engrossed in their patterns and stories.

After I had scanned every page in both binders, I walked over to the more recent of the two plots and soon noticed some had daffodils not in plastic gift pots, but growing out from beneath the headstones. I saw rosaries draped around the stones and contemplative plaster baby angels grieving at their base--not so unusual items to be found on grave sites. Then I saw more items that highlighted their recipients’ idiosyncrasies: a signed baseball and stuffed animal in sun-worn acrylic display cases, a hockey puck, a tube of tennis balls beside a tennis championship trophy, an elaborate hand-crafted Palm Sunday cross, an open box of cigarettes with a lighter inside. It made me reflect on how each of these Jesuit had pursued various passions and maintained certain habits outside of their vocational ministries enough for others to remember them by memorabilia representing them. How they must have been such enthusiastic and lively and distinctive characters before being laid to rest beneath simple and identical headstones. How I may be remembered, what kinds of gifts I could anticipate from my mourners. And finally, just how much life I have remaining ahead of me to respond to different callings and to pursue different interests which will eventually shape how I may be remembered after all of it had been spent.

Then, it was time for some food for this rather unusual but wholesome thought. After lunch, I joined my current and former community mates to enjoy some literature under the sun. After an hour or so, I felt drowsy enough to head inside for what I intended to be a short nap before my session with the spiritual director. I ended up sleeping two hours past my appointment and woke up with another splitting headache, much worse than the one I woke up with earlier today. I headed down to dinner only for it to throb on so intensely that I don’t even remember how I made it back up to my room to fetch myself some Tylenol. It abated pretty quickly afterwards and I was able to enjoy my meal just fine. With some twenty minutes remaining until the evening prayer, I headed into my room to read a little and made sure to set a timer so I don’t miss this, too.

The evening prayer was more of a relaxing yoga session on the front lawn with some optional journaling towards the end. I only had a short towel to separate me from the bug-laden grass, so yoga on my part wasn’t nearly as relaxing. Afterwards I was quick to take a shower and then get back to my reading. Unlike yesterday, most of today I’ve been indulging on Daniel Tammet’s Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing, a high-functioning autistic man with synethesia and his unique understanding of and obsessions with language. I saw some similarities in how we both had visually imagined words and remembered them in association with other similar-sounding or -looking words. These are some habits I must have dropped over time as I desired more to fit in and measure my intelligence against a set of a social criteria that encouraged efficiency and consistency and discouraged creativity and imagination. I was struck with how confident Tammet had been in teaching middle-aged women English in Lithuania with his idiosyncratic style as a nineteen year old. In other words, how he embraced what set him apart from his peers and how readily and enthusiastically he shared that with them, despite the mockery and dismissal he had experienced in childhood left a hopeful impression in me. I had so much to learn from him!

I had checked out this book a week or so ago hoping it could help me out of my weird funk with verbal communication in these recent months. I knew partially that it was due to crippling self-doubt and insecurities, and hoped this man’s fresh angle on language and how we communicate could ease me out of that sore shell. And in ways I couldn’t have fathomed then from the short excerpt given on its back cover, it really has. In silence, it’s impossible to test its effects on my verbal communication, but it has breathed new insight and newfound desire to lean more faithfully toward my own ways of processing and remembering information, and to remain equally faithful to my own abilities in communication that information to other people. I’m already rejoicing in the absence of my usual tendency to fret over each sentence written, sometimes so much so that I choose not to publish any of them after such anxiety-inducing efforts to perfect them, as I write out these posts. I’m looking forward to more reading tomorrow and what else could inspire me in my path.

23:07 EST

Weston, MA

180505

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Silent Retreat Day 1: Initial Impressions and a Reflection on Gentleness

There couldn’t be a better time to get back on your introspective blogging horse as silent retreat, am I right?

It’s probably only been a couple of hours max since the bell for silence rang. Since then, I’ve picked up a couple of literature from the retreatant’s library: Courage in Chaos, Wisdom from Francis De Sales and Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson. I started reading the latter, starting with the introduction and various prefaces from different editors that shone some light to Dickinson’s life, disposition, and style, and a handful of her actual work. Poetry is still cryptic and renders me a dense crockery cookware, and as per my tendency with new books, I didn’t get very far. 

I read and journaled by lamp light, on one of the two at either ends of the stairs leading up to the main entrance. I described the shade of blue that my surroundings were absorbing in my favorite transition from day to night, and attempted rather coyly to describe the months of emotional and personal baggage I’ve been accumulating in work and community life.

The winds, though pleasant on this warm summer’s night, picked up rather capriciously; at one point, my flip flops and copy of Courage in Chaos went flying off the ledge and onto the patch of grass below, prompting me to gather them up before deciding to go back inside. I stopped by again in the retreatant’s library, where I sat at a good distance from an open window and started reading Courage in Chaos. The first chapter is on Gentleness, and below is taken from its conclusion which sums up its point very well:

So then, when you have fallen, lift up your heart quietly, humbling yourself deeply before God for your frailty, without marveling that you fell, since there is no cause to marvel because weakness is weak, infirmity, infirm, and frailty, frail. Sincerely regret that you should have offended God, and begin anew to seek the grace you need, with a very deep trust in God’s mercy, and with a bold, brave heart.

-- Excerpt from Introduction to the devout Life, Part 3: Chapter 9

This resonated so well with me because I’ve been criticizing myself incessantly and to no real fruitful end. Criticizing myself has been especially exhausting to the soul an spirit because I have essentially been running two shifts simultaneously, as ruthless perpetrator AND victim in critical condition, both positions which are equally stressful but in different ways.

I had considered my self-awareness to be one of my best traits, mostly because it presented an advantage over those whom I viewed as having very little self-awareness. If the reason itself doesn’t raise any red flags, my reinforced self-awareness hasn’t proved itself advantageous to me--forget anyone else! I’ve always thought there was value in naming flaws in order to address them fairly and intentionally. But all I’ve really been doing lately is naming flaws, throwing them across the room at my fearful reflection at the window, and foaming them from my mouth and chasing me down the halls shrieking and inciting the worst kind of fear and dread all over the house. Can’t tell if in this analogy I’m the chaser, the chased, or the house in which this is all frantically taking place? If you are, you are feeling exactly what I was feeling as I was coming to terms with my own cunningly measured and adroit ability to self-sabotage while reading this chapter in this book.

That said, I’d like to bring that to the forefront of my awareness as I ease into this weekend of silence and reflection. As the author of the introduction to this book mentioned, “Gentleness--where can I find the strength of spirit for this?”, gentleness and courage required will be some of the main points of reflection for me in the next few days. The times I have been most appreciative of my community members and those outside of it who are nevertheless crucial agents for my growth in this JVC year, I had mostly thought to thank them for what I instinctively called the generosity of spirit. But of course, gentleness has to be a big part in it. Perhaps gentleness is the courageous foot in the door toward self-fulfillment and my post-JVC discernment, before generosity of those behind it beckons me to enter.

I said I had my community mates and others to thank for their generosity of spirit, which reminded me--I had never actually communicated that gratitude to them. I’m thinking these next few days of silence may lend themselves to great opportunities to follow through in the way I’m most confident in: written in letters and notes slipped under their doors and letters mailed out at the end of this weekend.

I’d call today--these first wee hours of silence--a fruitful gain. I’m glad I took the time to put my thoughts on paper (okay, so not paper, but a pretty close virtual substitute), and that I did it right away than to put it off. I’m looking forward to more reading, reflection, and writing tomorrow! 

A couple of miscellaneous hopes for tomorrow morning include an early start to the day featuring a contemplative walk outdoors and a balanced breakfast that I will take my time to savor and appreciate. 

22:15 EST

Weston, MA

180504