Body, Mind, and Spirit

     The juxtaposition of these three words is hardly novel.  Oftentimes, a prescription is offered to achieve balance among the three essences of who we are as human beings.
     I want to offer a different view.  Always,  I have thrived on challenge. But, I do not relish the challenge lunged at me from an aggressor's hands.  I do not savor harsh challenge inflicted in my heart by a marksman's sword.  No, there is a different challenge--a pristine challenge.  I revel in challenge to sharpen my wit. I revel in challenging others to sharpen their wit.
     Today's pristine challenges are marked by questions.  Should you be receptive, I invite you to attend to them.    
     Is body, mind, and balance something you value?  Do you respire enough to aspire to a body, mind, and spirit balance?
     Clearly, a balanced spirit is the offspring of a balance between body and mind.
      Is your body being fed by your mind?  Does your body need a change of your mind's pace?  Is your mind being fed by your body?  Can your body move enough to feed your mind?  Is your body being fed fresh air to stimulate new ideas?
     Do you value body, mind, and spirit balance?  Do you respire deeply enough to aspire to an inspiring life--a life through which your spirit may soar on eagle's wings?
     Just a thought.

Mercy

     "God grant me mercy."
     "Have mercy on me."
     "Mercy, me."
     Somehow mercy has always seemed elusive to me.  I don't mean that, as I return to its late 12th-century usage,  "God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses," that I do not know what seeking mercy means.  Maybe I don't.  Yet, if I do know what mercy means, my understanding does not meet my standards. "Before you utter a word in a prayer, make sure you know what it means...don't leave your mind outside the door of the church."  I am called to be attentive to mercy.
     I apologize at the drop of a hat.  I am the daughter of a man, whom I tease.  He apologizes for breathing, or so it seems.  That is, if he can breathe the breath necessary to utter the apology.
     My knee-jerk apologies may be a result of osmosis--living with a recovering apologizer.  Or, maybe it has something to do with trying to apologize for physical appearance that was either unacceptable, at worst, or misunderstood, at best.  Maybe, I want so desperately to live up to Ray's mantra, "When I die, don't be sad.  I have made amends with everyone I have had differences with," that I do not allow for the possibility of forgiveness not taking place.  Maybe, my apology is my expedition between misunderstandings, and differences, and being on good terms with each individual in my life.  I do not want there to be any chance that I may fail to fulfill Ray's words.
     It seemed that I was responsible to mediate any misunderstanding that anyone had about my appearance.  I embarrassed myself many times in trying to anticipate--to expedite--the misunderstandings of other people by offering an explanation for my differences.  Now, I am open to questions, but, I prefer to convey an openness that welcomes the airing of any concerns, or hesitations.  
     So, mercy.  
     It is beyond my capacity to count the number of times I have heard the priest at Mass say the words, "May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life."  Then, the priest pauses for a moment of reflection.  How is it possible to reflective about an elusion--an evasion of understanding?
     I am astonished.  It is so easy to lose a sense of awe at how often we are forgiven--lost in the trap of an elusive word--lost in mercy.
    Forgive me for fearing mercy's reach--mercy's ever-present spirit.

Living A Blessings List

     Many years ago, a one-time relative of mine instituted a practice with her children.  On Thanksgiving Day, she gathered her sons to write blessings lists.  To me, the lists seemed contrived--artificial.  She was well-intended.  Yet, something went horribly wrong.  Her good intentions were not strong enough to withstand the contrived nature--the scorn the lists met from her sons.
   It is excusable that her sons were scornful.  It is not desirable.  Yet, it should have come as no surprise what the boys response well might be.
    Yet, where was the family?  The mother continued.  Yet, she was given no support from her family--from her husband's family.  They felt a certain smugness that somehow, because they did not need to write such lists that did not need to support the mother.
    Many years later, Hillary Rodham Clinton said of raising children, "It takes a village."  Clinton's comment may seem trite.  Yet, it is far from it.  Many years after some children were blessed by sharing their home with their grandparents, the pace of life goes ever so quickly.  Lost seems being conscious every day of how we have been blessed--how we are blessed.
    Who has graced my life today?  What have I been graced to do today?  How has my vision been graced today?  How have my ears--how has my understanding--been graced today?
     Once saying grace becomes a recital, the words are meaningless.  Blessings must be lived, not listed.

Time...Discipline's Gift....

     Time is discipline's gift, not her thief.
     In no way do I mean to condemn all of what today's fast pace brings.  It is astounding to me to reflect on electronic communication.  The Internet is the structure on which we weave a world wide web of communication--of connectedness.  Friends...family...passions....all of them may grow and blossom where our pace and distance might kill them.

    Yet, I do not want to lose connection with my past that has borne my present, and made conceivable my future.  Handwriting has been a gift I mourn, when it is not celebrated.

    Naohiko Fukada.  Dad's pen pal dating back to World War II.  An unlikely pair.  An aspiring psychologist.  A teenager who aspired to study linguistics.  Study of accounting prevailed--a lifetime passion for world languages ensued.

   During the 1960s, long before the advent of the Internet, I remember well the sense of excitement when a letter came from Naohiko.  The letters were not frequent.  So, the arrival of his letters was celebrated all the more.  Before we could share in his thoughts, we had  to wait for Dad to translate them.  Translating from Japanese to English--from any foreign language to English--was not a word-for-word translation.  It required time.  Dedication.  A keen ear.

    In recent years, I contacted Naohiko via e-mail message to seek a Japanese language birthday/anniversary greeting from him.  I sat in awe as I sent the message to him with the touch of a finger.  I got shivers up my spine to read his words.  I was moved by the love put into the words.  They were not a grammarian's "perfect" words, and sentences.  His message conveyed what "perfect" words could never.

    The arrival of his package--his carefully wrapped package--cast a spell of reverence on me.  The 21st- century Patty would have ripped the package open to see what Naohiko had written.  Yet, the 1960s' little girl  stood in deep appreciation for the time and care Naohiko had taken to honor his lifelong pen pal and wife.

    I treasure handwriting.  Not a second grader's cursive manuscript worksheet.  I treasure the individual mark imprinted on paper.  In one letter...in one word...in one sentence, a lifetime treasury of love, and care--be it family, or friend is encapsulated--rekindled--if time permits.

   [Though brief, a keen ear may hear the beauty of an 88-year-old Japanese man, who profiles his life. Google Chrome enables translation of these characters.  Yet, untranslated, it does not seem that beauty is lost.  It may be just different.]
http://www.fukadanaohiko.jp/cgi/diary.cgi

A Broken Body's Checklist

    I meet the dichotomy between a temple and a broken body with a history of how I have treated my life during the past 50 years.

    Before I knew to do so with any consciousness, I found strategies to accomplish with one hand the tasks the therapists designed to get me to use, and develop my right hand and arm, which has been affected mildly by cerebral palsy.  My right foot and leg would not be a party to my lifelong defiance.  They limped along bearing who she was without apology.  They did not succumb to the temptation of demanding pretty party shoes.  They did not cave in to the temptations that their head dangled in front of them.

   When told it did not seem I could do a given task, my gut response was, "Do you wanna make a bet?"

   I pushed my body to her limits.  For a lifetime, I resisted anyone who suggested I might lower my physical standards.  To have acted otherwise would have been to admit defeat.  Charlie Sheen is hardly a role model I seek to mimic.  Yet, his words, "Defeat was not an option" rang true.

    I thought that my defiance was paying the highest respect to the temple in which I was given to live.  I had simple obligations to repay--to live up to.  To a mother, who walked out of her first-grader's room to let her dress, knowing that the only way her daughter could ever live independently started with being able to dress herself independently.  Convinced she was right, she left, not to mention needing to escape the struggle before her eyes to be surmounted.  My memory is only etched in my mother's words.  Mom was--she still is--my wellspring of strength.  Seek Mom for strength.  Seek Dad for a breather from independence's demand toward a fuller life.  He was a softy.  He is afraid of my ferocity.

   My gut response--pressing my body mercilessly beyond her limits--was so ingrained in me, that when told that there might be another way to live that my alleviate the stress on my emotions--long-term disability--left me dumb-founded.  Told that I would be qualified for long-term disability with little difficulty, I was stunned.  Relieved.  Yet, the shock of being stunned was such that relief took awhile to take hold.

    How am I answering the question of, "How have I abused my body--pressed her beyond her limits?" I can create a personal checklist to be evaluated by me or others.  

     1. Tried to bear too much weight on my right ankle.

     2. Tried to keep physical pace--walking, running--with other people

     3. Tried to carry too much in my left hand, stretching the limits of my left thumb beyond what is fair, much less healthy to do.

     I am sure that I am missing many items that should be a part of my checklist.  Yet, for now, these three items rule the accommodations I must pursue.  The appointed items to add, and the appointed time to add them will come.  When?  Odd though it may sound, I must listen.  How much weight am I bearing?  What limits does my past experience convey to me?  Am I willing to listen?  Am I willing to pay the price for not listening?

     Am I the only person, who needs to make such a checklist--whose temple must be revered?  Again, it well may be that others do not need to draft such a list, yet, I wonder if it is worthy of consideration.  Is my list the same as anyone else's? No. But, do other people in my life need to respect my list, and not call me to violate it, in order to be in relationship with them?  Yes.

A Temple? A Broken Body?

Or, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and  that you are not your own?
                                             1 Corinthians 6:19
    I fail miserably as someone who can quote the Bible chapter and verse from cover to cover.  That is not my aspiration, at least not for the sole purpose of making such a claim.  Yet, I do listen each Sunday to the words spoken, and for the messages intended for my ears to hear.  Though the Catholic liturgy revisits the same readings in three-year cycles, I never meet the readings as the same person with the same ears.
    In recent days, two concepts central to being Christian are clashing--calling for some sort of reconciliation that I do not recognize sufficient to utter it.  I must confess, I may be taking the words too literally.  I hope not.  I pray I will be called on it, if I am.  I would rather understand than be right, if those are my choices.  But, I do not want to forgo the blessing of being enlightened because I was afraid of what literal translations call me to do, or how to act.
     What are the two clashing concepts?  Listen.  "...your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God."  Now, the breaking of the Body of Christ, being broken--being willing to be vulnerable to each of one's life moments....that is our call.
     How do "your body is a temple," and "being broken" reconcile?  Am I taking temple and being broken too literally?  Am I trying to make apply to everyone else what I am confronting?  Probably.  Am I mistaken?  Maybe.  Is the question worth asking?  Is the reconciliation between your body is a temple and a broken body possible?  Is it worthy of seeking?

Quality of Life

     Being a self-advocate in order to secure a wheelchair for myself--to improve the quality of my life--has led me to reflect on what quality of life is.  I guess it is not possible to establish a checklist--a grocery list--from which you may go to readily identified places, or people to secure the quality of life you are seeking.  That is tempting.  But, it is FAR from realistic.  Yet, some degree of that process must done, with the understanding that a simple checklist will not suffice.
    So, quality of life.  Recent days have brought home to me the questions--the answers to which--have guided me during the past year and a half, since I went on long-term disability.
    Quality of life.  Independence.  Movement.  Help.  Dependence.  Interdependence.  Accommodation.  Partnership.   Ankle foot orthotic.  Bone spurs.  Diagnosis.  Treatment Options.  Surgery.  Cerebral Palsy.  Health Insurance.  Handicap Accessible Doors.  Door Closers.  Family.  Friends.  Community.
    These words have punctuated my quality of life during the past year and eight months.  I am  navigating these words--these questions.  But, I am FAR from arriving at what I want.  It is hard to arrive at a point that I cannot see.  I don't remember what I want.
   Ten years ago, I enrolled in a master's degree program.  Nearly five years ago, family and friends celebrated with me the graduation as a master of library and information science.  Pictures, and a gown remind me of that woman.  Yet, I don't remember her.
   Two years and eight months ago, my 28 years of working full time ended suddenly.  I am not mourning work that I enjoyed.  I didn't.  Yet, I mourn that my determination to make the quality of that work life did not render a more fulfilling career.  I do hold precious a document I compiled--responses to a "Thank You For Your Friendship" e-mail message that I sent to 23 individuals with whom I had worked during 24 years.  These were individuals who I wanted to know what had happened to me.  I wrote the e-mail message knowing that I needed to bring a closure to the ending of a long chapter in my life.  I would not describe any of the 28 individuals as "close" friends.  Yet, we respected one another.  One of the 28 women has since been shot to death, literally, by her husband.  "A harsh ending" does not begin to do justice to the gravity of such a sad injustice.
     I return to the words of those 27 women, as I seek guidance-direction--as I seek to navigate defining phrases--Quality of life.  Independence.  Movement.  Help.  Dependence.  Interdependence.  Accommodation.  Partnership.   Ankle foot orthotic.  Bone spurs.  Diagnosis.  Treatment Options.  Surgery.  Cerebral Palsy.  Health Insurance.  Handicap Accessible Doors.  Door Closers.  Family.  Friends.  Community.
    Some questions have thrown me, and challenged every expectation of the life I can live.  Interdependence does not ring true to me.  It is contrived.  I prefer Collaboration.
     The line between Defensiveness and Willingness to Confront Necessary Realities is precarious, at best.  I don't want to be TOO willing to confront necessary realities whose time  may come to me earlier than I like--earlier than they might come to others.  The time that other people must confront necessary realities cannot be a source of embitterment to me.  That is pointless--destructive--for everyone involved.
     I called into question my own position on the Defensiveness versus Willingness to Confront Necessary Realities Teeter Totter yesterday.  I asked for more than I need at this moment regarding physical accessibility--doors that are handicap accessible.  That is my immediate need as I await getting a wheelchair.  I do make accommodations, and receive help such that a laundry room door and the door to the recycling bins do not need to be made accessible.  Logic being my guide, it seemed wise to take action while I had my courage up.
     A cold slap in the face was my wake-up call.  "By the time people reach that point [needing to have adaptations to laundry room, and parking ramp doors,] they get personal care attendants."
   "I am not ready.  I am not there yet.  I don't want to have my privacy violated--compromised."
    Defensive?  Fierce?  Stubborn?  Unrealistically independent? Unrealistic in my expectations?  Close-minded?  Narrow-minded?
    I hope not.
     Quality of life.  Independence.  Movement.  Help.  Dependence.  Interdependence.  Accommodation.  Partnership.   Ankle foot orthotic.  Bone spurs.  Diagnosis.  Treatment Options.  Surgery.  Cerebral Palsy.  Health Insurance.  Handicap Accessible Doors.  Door Closers.  Family.  Friends.  Community.
     Some issues have been solved.  Others remain.
     Quality of Life.