More Books on the Shelf..

more ways to procrastinate.  Sick that I am.  I watched a lame Christian comic on You Tube a while back.  He was monologuing about how he has no conversion testimony.  It was painful and stupid to watch.  The Road to Damascus is a book about 15 converts to the Catholic Faith. No two conversion story was alike, but every person was an author, before and after the conversion to Rome. I felt kind of like that comic.  I have no story, I am just a zealot.  I don't want to be. I am finding it really ugly.

The next book I pulled from the shelf is Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic.  My books are cataloged some what, I guess I am on the Apologetics and Conversion story shelf.  This one is written in the language of the Evangelical.  It is painful to read the attitude David Currie and his Christian brethren have about Catholic Christians. Some sects don't associate with those who associate with Catholics, and some just don't associate with Catholics.

I am so fed up with the lies that get thrown around about the  human person in this culture of death, I am like a fundamentalist zealot. I have forgotten Jesus First, He will take care of our human dignity.  I need to practice some surrender and  silence. It has come to my attention that without exception, ALL of the stories I have read, happen independently of someone pointing out ANYTHING amiss in the faith being practiced.  It is ALL a provocation of the Holy Spirit, GENTLY questioning the soul, the soul continues looking for answers, and they arrive Home to a fullness of faith, Jesus in the Eucharist.

I am going to set this book aside.  I enjoyed reading this man's conversion story, the rest of the book is Apologetics, and I am not in need of that. I get into enough trouble as it is. Though purusing through the chapters, he does an EXCELLENT job of explaining the Faith in ways I have never read or heard before.  I might even make a note inside, just in case I forget that I better read something else.  I will have it on my loan out or give away for anyone who would like to have it.

On to another tome.

The Sick Retreat

It is early in January.  I have a lot on my mind.  I began to get sick on Wednesday.   I spend most of my day in bed on Thursday. I feel worse today, but the souls in the house,I sense are not feeling moved to care for me. Two little ones and two adults are in need of a sound home.  So I rally and make breakfast for the late rising little ones.  I grab a book on Silence and Gregorian Chant before I lie down for 30 minutes.  As I read about the practice of embracing the "now" I realize what a gift sickness can be.  I am forced to take care of myself and listen.  I can't hold a book up forever, I have to put it down and let the seed of my reading take root in my soul.  I have to listen.......

I hear unrest upstairs.  The two little ones are bickering.  I direct their next half hour with an assignment of 15 lines of Maleny's signature. Tears of "pity me.. you mean old mom", fall down Maleny's face.  I firmly return responsibility to her and retreat to my room. This Mom wastes so much "now" time talking, when there should be silence.  I return to my book for the half hour and it is time to make lunch.  Maleny hands me her 15 lines of signatures and I ask her if I can make her a bean sandwich.  David gets a cheese burrito.  After cleaning up, I lie down again.

A new book is in my hands while the girls make dinner.  The Road to Damascus: The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fifteen Converts to Catholicism.   In 2007 my husbands Uncle Kelsey Milner died. we went to his memorial.  It was an intense formative experience for me,  I wanted to articulate what was happening and couldn't fine the words.  Reading Fulton Oursler's conversion story, I found them.  "There was evocation wherever the eye would light".  I read this sentence and went in my mind to the Milner estate as they memorialized their father several years ago.

    Procrastinator that I am.... I have had these wonderful books on my shelf for YEARS, and today SALVATION has come!  I want to read them.  I want to make use of the hours in my day as the now, not in a utilitarian, western "doing" as ultimate value mode.  I want to "be with" these texts.  I want to consume them and make them part of my formation field, part of what I can offer others when I am "being with" others in the here and now.    I think I can commit to this. I have a daily planner to guide my days and so many good books on my shelves.  The question is, can I make a habit in 3 or four days of sickness, and not 21.  If so, cheers for the fruit of sickness!   The next miracle of transformation I requests is for motivation to write about the Memorial Event of Kelsey Milner.