Fields and gardens need to rest sometimes. When they are overused, the nutrients and minerals needed for vegetative growth are tired and need time to replenish. In the spiritual life -especially in an intense vocation -the graces and virtues and spiritual 'nutrients' get used and tired and need a rest. Retreats are times for this.
So are trips to Culver's:
Trips to Lunker's:
Baking with children:
And cups of coffee (and hermit make-overs) with your sisters and your sister's children after a long hermit day in prayer:
This hermitage has been intensely used and a great battleground for many years... and it might just need a spiritual rest.
Its like spending too much time at your in-laws or on vacation... there are times when you need to withdraw, regroup, play with some children and then go forward with a renewed spiritual perspective. Yes, sometimes the heart needs to play with children as a break from praying constantly. That is an unique 'trick' I learned in a pretty radical hermit life. 'Keep the spiritual life real' by breaking away to read a book to a child once in a while:
There are times to work, times to pray, times to exercise and times to retreat and rest. A well-rounded hermit life includes all of these human aspects. Rest comes in many forms: sleep is awesome, but I always rested best by long walks/runs praying rosaries upon rosaries. During my hermit years I would take the two hours following three hours of adoration for an afternoon coffee, time with children and/or exercise. When I exercised I prayed easily -and I came to see that exercise with prayer is a powerful weapon... each step is offered for someone who you know needs help.
In my adult years I developed asthma if I run below 70 or 75 degrees (I'm one of those crazies who LOVES running in 95 or 100 degree weather -with lots of water). Because of this I would tend to sprint/walk. This must be my natural way of exercise -in track in high school I excelled at the 400-800 meter (basically sprinting 1/4-1/2 mile). A doctor down the street told me one day (while she watched me sprinting my heart out) that its actually the healthiest way to exercise. I would think of someone suffering and say, 'This next 200 or 400 meters is sprinted as hard as I can for so and so'. Usually I'd end up holding my breath and sprinting my heart out. Then walk and pray until I could breathe again. This is a different form of rest than sleep or hermit prayer... but we all need it.
My favorite rest is the rest of coffee with kids... Yes, oops, I drink coffee with kids. I drink coffee with African kids (My Kadie says, 'Does your coffee have chocolate today?' Only an adopted Ethiopian child understands the hint of chocolate flavor naturally in some coffees... Africans are connoisseurs).
(Kadie and I coffeeing it up after we cleaned up a problem:)
(Kids from "Open Arms" in South Africa joining me for my 'coffee break'.)
(Marinos)
I drink coffee with Russians (usually instant out there in Siberia, but still very good -regardless of whether you see the mug or not, these pictures are of coffee gatherings):
And I drink coffee with just plain old American kids -that's just life with Aunt Mary. That's awesome.
In fact, I love coffee so much that the kids think my hermit vocation is drinking coffee and eating chocolate with Jesus (hence the picture):
Sometimes God calls us to little spurts of rest in the spiritual life (like an hour or two in the midst of a spiritually hectic day) and sometimes He calls us to a bigger rest (like a few months or a year in a spiritually hectic life). The big rest is what people take when they go on sabbatical. I've lived such an intense spiritual life that I think Jesus wants me to step out of the hermitage with my heart still connected to it and into the world of people so that in years to come I can re-enter the hermit life stronger. Whoever says that a contemplative or hermit life is easy has never lived it and is probably just crazy because its a battleground and boot-camp indescribable. I love my hermitage and I am keeping it as a place to withdraw for periods of time, but right now I'm stepping into the world with a cloistered heart so as to catch my breath and so that in the future I can pray better.
People have a lot of misconceptions about the hermit life. Yes, there is greater silence and solitude than in a worldly life -yet hermits are people and people need to remain grounded and 'earthy' even while their minds are contemplating big things with Jesus. I will carry my hermit heart into the world so that the Holy Spirit has a resting place in the midst of a city for a time. I ask you to pray that the good Lord arranges everything and provides what I need (someone must not like my gofundme idea because I can't seem to connect with people the way God would want.) With Jesus and prayer, everything is possible. Thank you for praying for me (even if you all don't understand me all of the time.) Someday I'll do a retreat for people wanting to learn about (and experience) a hermit life for a few hours or days. We need work and prayer, heaven and earth, Martha and Mary to be knit together in our lives just like Our Lady lived both in a perfectly balanced way.
Thank you for your prayers. Even if you can't afford to financially support me, we can all afford to pray for each other. + Amen. +
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