Fear of the Lord???

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom. ...The fear which is the first step to wisdom is the fear of being untrue to God and to ourselves. It is the fear that we have lied to ourselves, that we have thrown down our lives at the feet of a false god.
     Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude. (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux): 73


Fear???  I understand a deep sense of awe that, if honored, paralyzes any impulse, on my part, to act unwisely.  I understand the deepest of tragedies that emerges when we lie to ourselves--"when we have  thrown down our lives at the feet of a false god."
     Yet, I cannot reconcile fear with any motivation I might have to act in wisdom.  I am not motivated to seek wisdom in the sense of fear that resides in the pit of my stomach.
     Is my understanding of fear inconsistent with its common definition--with its derivation?  Questions of word derivation lead me to the convenient knowledge the Online Etymology Dictionary affords me.  Here is the entry given for fear:
     Fear (v.) O.E. faeran "terrify, frighten," originally transitive (sense preserved in archaic I fear me).  Meaning "feel fear" is 14 c. Cognate with O.S. faron  "to lie in wait," M.Du. vaeren "to fear," O.H.G. faren "to plot against," O.N. faera "to taunt."
     Awe, perhaps?  Am I shirking moral responsibility, if I opt to live in awe in the stead of living in  fear?  The Online Etymology Dictionary offers the following offers the following derivation of awe.
     c.1300, earlier aghe, c.1200 from a Scandinavian source, cf. O.N. agi  "fright," from P.Gmc. *agiz (cf. O.E. ege "fear," O.H.G. agiso "fright, terror" Goth. agis "fear, anguish," from PIE *agh-es- (cf. Gk. akhos "pain, grief"), from base "agh-" "to be depressed, be afraid"...
     The overlap between fear and awe surprises me.  The sun setting in the northwest sky outside of my home is the best summation of awe that I know.
      I have been blessed to touch--to feel--the texture of awe.  There is a depth to pain, to grief, and to anguish that calls for growth.  I do not seek out pain, grief, or anguish, for its own sake.  Yet, when it comes knocking, I must come to the door.  I must answer the call.
  Yet, for now, I do not know any more than when I first read the passage from Thomas Merton.  How do I advocate for my belief, if I cannot articulate it more clearly?  I fear I do not know.

Belittlement. Respect for Life.

     Once again, this afternoon, belittlement reared its ugly head, or so it felt.  I try to live with respect for different religious perspectives than my own--there is good to be found in all world religions.  I try to resist temptation--the temptation to be defensive--to say, "don't you know me well enough to know the serious reflection I bring to living a life of faith?"
     Ironically, a discussion of "respect for life,"--mutual sadness that the breadth of the term does not seem to be a part of its use--led to the derivation of the story of Maundy Thursday, and the actual events of the story.
Our agreement regarding the narrow use of "respect for life" in some discussions was missed.  A precious opportunity was missed.
    Taking biblical stories literally, or symbolically became a "gotcha" moment.  My antenna went up.  "Quick, an attempt of entrapment is forthcoming."
    I succumb to defensiveness.  "Many Catholics take a broader view.  Not every Catholic view 'respect for life' narrowly."  A defensive volley was lobbed back at me--reference to those who do have "a simple faith--a simplistic Catholic view."
    I grieve.  I mourn.  Three people of integrity.  Trapped in different ages of the same Church.  Pushed away...Drawn into...a Universal Church.  Different faces.  The same heart.
    There is good to be found in all faith traditions.  "Affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth and dignity of every human [being].  I mourn.  All three are members of the Universal church.
     "Support the free and disciplined search for truth..."  Though packaged differently, at the core, Universalist, and Catholic search for truth with the same depth of commitment.
     There are differences--important differences.  I mourn.  Yet, in my mourning, I question--do important differences preclude unity?  Do important differences preclude a unified pursuit for truth made the stronger by the diverse perspectives of the same truth?  Do the important differences preclude embracing the truth in Paul's words to the Corinthians?
    "So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Understanding's--Compassion's---Scope

     The wait for a wheelchair continues.  Work with the vendor of the wheelchair, and the insurance company advocate continues.  The need is unrelenting.  The work seems without end--without a tangible result.
     I am a reasonable, logical, peaceful woman.  I am not comfortable being aggressive in stating my proven needs--my proven need.
     Friends, family, and acquaintances recognize my need, and offer the compassion ever so helpful as I strive toward my goal--a wheelchair.  I never imagined--I resisted--my need for a wheelchair.  Time, and my ankle convince me otherwise.
     I try to draw on my natural tendencies to achieve my goal--a wheelchair.  Logical.  I identified the steps necessary to secure a wheelchair.  An accounting of my physical symptoms, and capacities, a doctor's mobility assessment, an insurance company advocate, a medical vendor acceptable to the insurance company.
     Reasonable.  I listened to the doctor's recommendations.  I spoke with the insurance company advocate.  I visited the medical vendor.  I tried wheelchairs likely to meet my needs.  I maintained constant contact with the advocate, and the medical vendor.
     Aggressiveness expresses itself in cries of desperation from me.  Threats to change vendors.  Yet, aggressiveness, and threats help no one.
      Working to secure a wheelchair in the last three-and-a-half months lead me back to a lifelong question.  First, is it reasonable to expect that another human being may understand basic human needs, and life circumstances that may not be their own?  Second, is it true that no one may understand my/our human needs, because my/our life circumstances are not theirs?
     I am either a foolish optimist, or an optimistic fool.  Maybe both.  I hate to think that none of us may understand the basic human needs of another person, or persons, because our life circumstances are different--are not identical.
    Is it possible to surmount seeming indifference to those basic human needs?  If so, how?
    My default has been that indifference is surmountable.  I begin with logical appeals.  I resort to emotional appeals.  I seek support, and reinforcement to identify, and pursue other courses of action.
    Then, I wonder.  If my need is not enough--if the need/needs of the individuals for whom I am advocating are not enough--then, how can I appeal to the self-interests of the indifferent party?
    I am far beyond angry.   I am exasperated.  I am exhausted.  I am depressed.  Yet, none of these strategies, insights, or feelings has rendered a wheelchair.  Anger, exasperation, exhaustion, depression serve no one.  They are not effective conveyors of my emotions to the people who seem to have the resources to meet my needs.
    I wonder about the appearance of my need.  I am extremely grateful to be able to navigate my condominium.  So, to anyone who observes me navigate just short distances, they would surmise that my need does not rise to their requisite threshold.  Yet, anyone who has known me for any length of time--before I stopped working in 2009--they would know that I do not whine.  I do not pull the pity card--the victim's vengeance--in my daily dealings.
    How do I communicate the need that exceeds my immediate home environment?  How do I communicate that my need in a dignified manner?  Does pity need to be the weapon I must use to get my needs met?  I am no victim--by nature, I am no victim.  Yet, indifference is victimizing me unnecessarily.

Entombed Body, Free Spirit

I imbibe in the wallowing wine,
Not of my taste, she is bitter.
I must wash away my sorrow,
Swallow the sadness that darkens my spirit.

A sour, bitter woman
I must not become.
A woman who poisons others with my dour view, I cannot become.

Awaken me from my sorrowful, soured, saddened slumber.
Awaken me to all that I will do yet in my life.
Awaken me to all that I will know yet in my life.

I cannot succumb.
I must not become.
Tempting though it may be,
I cannot enlist in the battle of antagonistic righteousness.

Hard though it may be,
My needs I must share.
Yet, how?
When?

Entombed body,
Give me room to sit.
Give me space to stand,
Entombed body.

Free spirits,
Together may we sit,
Together may we stand,
Free spirits.
                                     Undated, before 2008.
                                     Most cleansing of all therapy is writing.
                                     No burden is too heavy--no pain                                                    too intense for the healing--the freedom--                                      writing provides.
                                     I treasure her gift.

Grieving A Body

For years after I began to have symptoms of MS, I used language to avoid owning them:  "The left hand doesn't work anymore," I said.  "There's a blurred spot in the right eye."  In distancing myself from my ravaged central nervous system, I kept grief at bay, but I also banished any possibility of self-love.  Only gradually have I schooled myself to speak of "my" hands, "my" eyes, thereby taking responsibility for them, though loving them ordinarily remains beyond me.
                           Waist-High in the World, Nancy Mairs, p. 43
     I understand what Nancy Mairs is describing.  She did not claim to be a spokesperson for all disabled individuals.  Permit me to refer to Nancy Mairs by her first name.  She invites her readers to share intimate details of her life, in the hopes of nurturing understanding by other individuals.  I accept her invitation.  I hope you will accompany me.  Nancy provides a starting point from which to reflect on the "ravaged central nervous system."
     I began to notice symptoms of osteoarthritis ten years ago.  Osteorthritis and cerebral palsy joined forces to accelerate my aging process.  My approach for my cerebral-palsied right hand, and my unaffected left hand has been to personify their relationship to me, and with one another through writing.  When I began to notice that my right hand depended inordinately on my left hand, I conceived of a conversational eavesdropping between my affected body parts.  For a lifetime, I have been called to respond to questions regarding my disabilities.  Early on, it became clear that the more open I could be about my body--about my disabilities--the deeper my relationships with other people would be.  Eavesdropping is frowned upon socially, however, it seemed that writing--writing a dialogue between body parts--could be an effective vehicle to transport questions into answers and understanding.
    I am intrigued by Nancy's comments about grieving, "In distancing myself from my ravaged central nervous system, I kept grief at bay, but I also banished any possibility of self-love."  I think I have taken a different approach than she describes.  Neither one is better than the other.  When I was fitted for my first ankle-foot-orthotic, or leg brace, I knew that I would face a psychological adjustment.  I talked about my brace--about my fears--with my coworkers.  In so doing, I invited them in for two purposes.  Quite selfishly, I needed their help to adjust to the new appendage to my body.  But, I hoped that they could understand what they had within themselves--what their "braces" were--that joined us.
     "Ravaged central nervous system," is a marvelous description.  I am not thrilled by the fact that my right ankle is on her last leg.  I am not thrilled by the fact that I understand the meaning of "homebound."   I have joked that, as I have been trying to secure a wheelchair, I have forgotten what it is that I am trying to get out to do.  Yet, it is not a joke.  It is true.  It is pathetic.  I am driven to distance myself from the pathetic aspect of me--that pathetic aspect.

Dignity's Pecularities

    Dignity.
    The image that comes to mind is a woman dressed in an elegant black blouse, a fuschia fabric belt, and a floral floor-length skirt.  Her gray hair is adorned with a matching long black scarf that was wound through her fine strands.  Her cheeks are patted with pink powder.  That is the surface of Mrs. Dignity.  Dignity's prescribed behavior matches her elegant gown.  A diamond ring on her ring finger makes clear, she has invested herself in a lifetime with a well-respected, hard-working man, who has provided her a comfortable life. They had the requisite three children.  Her children married.  They provided her with grandchildren for her doting.  She survived the normal ups and downs of any marriage.  Clearly, he had died, but, she did not die with him.  She rekindled an old friendship--her gentleman friend.  She has survived with a quiet air of confidence.  Her emotions are spent on her children--her grandchildren.  But, as to the challenges--the disappointments, the opportunities--life in her time did not afford, she said nothing.
    That is dignity's face in my stereotype's vision.
    I feel far from dignity's face.  Yet, something pulls at me--some vague, amoebic form that escapes my grasp, much less my firm hold.  What pulls at me is a stranger I have not met, or do not recognize, if I have met her.  What pulls at me is not for bravado's ego to claim.  At least, I don't think so.  Selfish? I may be pulled more for my self to claim.  I hope it is somewhere on the teeter totter between bravado and selfishness.  That is beyond me to know at this moment.
    Still ambulatory, I wheeled into an hourlong test drive--to test the power a chair will provide into a future whose physical boundaries I may know in this life's moment.  Perceptive rather than sensate on Myers Briggs scale, I exceed what is natural.  I write a checklist of my 730-foot condominium.  Where do I need to travel--where will I need to travel if I lose my ambulation---lose more than distance's stamina, which has been taken from me. I succeed in my inventory--my checklist for my hourlong evaluation.  I have itemized my travel needs, my task needs, and my needs for recreational pursuits in my home.  Unknown to my conscious self, I have created a three-part questionnaire for the evaluation.  First, what may I do with the power chair, now?  Second, what will I be capable of doing given practice.  Third, what will I need to ask others to do because it is beyond my capacity to do?
    I enter the evaluation with quiet confidence.  My checklist is in place.  It is in writing for my reliance.  My questionnaire is ready for the answering.  I am ready for the answers.  Or, so I think.  After all, this checklist--these answers--are at the heart of wheeling forward in my life with some semblance of interdependence.
     The checklist--the questionnaire--is at the heart of defining three terms in my future's essence.
     What will independence include?
     What will dependence demand of me to reconcile?
     How will the equation of interdependence be formulated?
     Some ask of any life's dilemmas, "What would Jesus do?"
     A different voice--a different face comes to mind.  She is in no competition with Jesus.  No.  A different voice--a different face--presents herself to me now.
    Six months before death, she sat.  Ravaged by breast cancer--by a radical mastectomy--long before medicine's advances, she sat in her manual wheelchair.  From the dining room table to the living room, her 14-year-old--her youngest--granddaughter wheeled her.  A loving, albeit overprotective life history together, she said, "I bet you never thought you would see your grandmother like this."  Though never voiced then, "No, I never did."  Now, lo these many years later, the answer of my own question's asking still is, "No, I never did."

My Body's Betrayal

    My right ankle is my Achilles' heel.
    Ambushed by osteoarthritis, my right ankle refuses to allow an agile living--or so is the feat she tries to accomplish in me.  Today, I am being offered a deeper understanding of betrayal--physical betrayal.
     Physical betrayal?  Yes. Betrayal is not limited to human interaction.  Betrayal is alive and well in physical form.
    Physical betrayal has two layers: acute, and chronic.
    Acute physical betrayal is the sharp deviation of physical health from what is normal for a given individual.  For me, last year, acute physical betrayal was sharp pain caused by bone spurs in my right ankle.                                            
     Chronic physical betrayal is the ongoing deviation from what is considered to be normal physical health.  Once again, this year, my chronic physical betrayal is my Achilles' heel--my arthritic ankle.  It is not sharp, unabated pain.  It is stripped physical stamina, that is the physical betrayal with which I interact.
     Physical betrayal requires negotiation toward a new agreement--a negotiation from which emerges a new way of living.  Physical betrayal requires ongoing negotiation, not a one-time arbitration of grievances.  Such would be wonderful!  Such is not reality.
     For me, that has meant compromise, and accommodation.
     In recognition of my ankle's way of being, I am slower in my immediate speed of movement, and more deliberate in my pace of living.   Most importantly, I listen--with a keen ear, I listen.  I craft probing questions to ask--of my self, and of my ankle.
     Of my self, I ask, "What is most important to me that I do?  What gives me joy?  What am I willing to do to do what is most important?  What am I willing to do to make joy possible--not guaranteed, but, possible?"
     Of my ankle, I ask, "What must I do?  How much may I do? If I dare not to submit to your betrayal of me, how much may I do without compromise--without accommodation to you?"
     My accommodations to you?  First and foremost, I address you by name.  I know you are a part of me on which I stand--on which I live.  Second, I give you support.  For now, I give you a brace--an ankle foot orthotic.
      Beyond my willingness to compromise is my mental and spiritual health.  My mind--my mental well-being-and spiritual being-demands that I strive for more.
     I am not alone in needing to acknowledge physical betrayal.  I sure hope not.  I am the lucky devil for whom physical betrayal is more pronounced--easier to recognize.
    I thought that I understood the terrain of accommodation.  Last year, I learned that my ankle would not support my old way of living.  My ankle placed demands on me.  I engaged doctors in partnership toward diagnosis, and healing.
     Yet, with bone spurs debrided, my mind cries out for equal time.  I partner with orthotists, and insurance companies, and medical vendors to be given wheels to roll outside my ankle's limits on my feet.
     Easy though it may be to do, I cannot surrender to the question of, "What is it--what activity--that I am trying to trip over my ankle to do?"  I have come frighteningly close to doing so.
     I am not my life's guarantor.  I must resist being resistant, fierce, or defiant.  I must not be submissive.  I must not be a victim.  My body's betrayal will continue.  Her speed of acceleration is not mine to know.  I must be willful without being defiant.

Setting the Wheels in Motion

     For the past year, the prospect of living with a scooter has loomed over me--over my future.  With Advent, I will prepare to move into a Red Scooter--a new vehicle for me.  The reason?  My get up and go got up and went.  It did not run away.  An aging body.  Weakening legs.  It limped out of my life beyond my grasp to retrieve.
     I am called to accelerate my pace toward a red scooter, so that I may move back into circulation.
     I know that fact. I knew that fact all too well.    
     Yet, that knowing did not translate to a fast, heartfelt acceptance.  I knew I needed to grieve the loss of walking--of moving quickly.  I knew I needed to grieve physically, psychologically, and emotionally.
     Grief.  Fear.  Facts.  Fear.  Acceptance.
     I am not Grief's sole companion.  Each of us is Grief's intimate. Not in the same way. Not at all times.  Neither is ours to dictate.
     Fear demands my full surrender, patience, perseverance.  Only then may I embrace Acceptance fully.
     Grief.  Fear. Facts. Fear.  Acceptance.  None  may not be rushed--abbreviated--if full healing is to be possible.
     Full Healing is no cure.  Full Healing will not return me to my former body.  Full Healing must be the beginning of a new way of living--a New Form.
     My New Form?  Yet today, I may walk some.  Stamina is no longer mine--not for now.  Advent brings to me preparation for a different movement.  More learning.  A Red Scooter.  My pace will be different from others so embodied.  My mind is ready to go forth with this New Form--with this Red Scooter.
     My journey has not been taken at a timed pace toward a known destination.  The time of arrival has been vague, at best, certainly not by any schedule known to me. My journey's pace has not been timed by My Will's control, strong though she may be.  Strength masquerades no control for me to exercise.
    Expectations--mine, others--were not for me to control.  Waiting with faith--praying--that the necessary fortitude would be given to me--that was mine to will.  
    Fear.  The scooter will fall on top of me.  Fact.  With time, the words to describe my fear have dissolved.  Fear.  I am becoming Pathetic with a capital P.  Pathetic Patty.
    I may not succumb to that Fear.  To do so would be to compromise the person I have been for 50 years--the person I pray I may be in the years I am given to live.
    I move forward now.  I ask that I may relinquish any expectation of when I should have accepted the inevitable movement into a scooter.  I ask that I release any temptation to judge how this next chapter is to live compared to what my fears have been.  
     Acceptance is no more a given than is walking.  Both are gifts.  Both are to be treasured.  Neither is to be demanded or second guessed.  
   I am not alone in my calling.  We are called--each of us is called--to move from Grief, Fear, Facts, and Fear to Acceptance.  Our time--the cause--will not be in sync--identical.  Yet, each of us must embrace our calling together with a Capital C--with a holy, Capital E.