catapulted into Presence, and: this is my monastery

every

moment 

of every day 

I am given life without

my doing anything for it.

I don't even breathe myself, I'm 

being breathed by Life Lifeself, 

                                                           ‘who’

for now (also) lives in and through

and with and from this miracle-

body that I’ve been

taught to call

me.

This core unconditionality is so insanely countercultural, so mind-bogglingly subversive that it's really, really difficult to wrap one's head around it (which, of course, is impossible, bringing the point particularly home) — and even more so for an extended duration, like: indefinitely, with no clue whatsoever if - and if: when - I can get back on my feet and live a life that might resemble the one that I lived before.

The position that I'm in now; one of conscious existential (inter)dependence, of experienced powerlessness and all-encompassing uncertainty, this position means that I — and I don't normally use that word, but in this case it is accurate: —  must face that First Truth above in the beginning, and live from it.

I need to accept, and accept, and accept again that I Am Trapped By Grace, as Brené Brown expressed it with Richard Rohr. That there is nothing I have to – and, in fact, nothing i can – do about it, or for it. That there is no such thing as a meritocracy of existence (or: an existential meritocracy).

– Pretty much everything I’ve learned by people ever since I can remember deeply disagrees with that, and I’m so used to the resulting dissonance in mind and body that it’s hard to notice it at all.

~

(Part of) What I want to say has already been said - and beautifully so - by Brennan Lee Mulligan, so I'll just underline this: It is good for you to be forcibly ejected from the story you are constantly telling yourself about your own life.

I have, indeed, been forcibly ejected from the life I knew, and all the stories, and I continue to be; all my pasts and all imagined futures suddenly dissolved. ME/CFS catapults you into Presence, even if, even when Presence is the last thing that you feel you are able to bear. 

... I could write all day about the things I cannot do, the places I can't go, the people and the animals and plants I cannot meet, not touch; about the skies I cannot witness and the music I can't make. The minuscule movement that I long for, long for in my bones. And there is grief. And that is valid. 

And at the same time, 

I could 

also write about what I Can 

do and experience and could not

have experienced and done if 

it wasn’t for years of silence 

for all senses, for years of en-

forced–overdue–physical rest.

… I Need to realize that I am 

not the things I do and have done 

and am going to do, someday;

not the trauma or the wounds,

not the worries or the fears. I’m

neither found in numbers nor the 

names by which I may be called.

… I Need to realize and re(-re-re-re-)

member all these truths because

that’s the only way to survive this. 

I am entirely reliant on re-

(re-re-re-re-)learning to receive; 

to really receive, not to earn 

or to try to deserve, but 

to surrender,

somehow trust.

I imperatively need To 

Be With.

… which is the exact antidote to what what Craig Hadley calls The Original Sin of Capitalism is built and depends upon: The Myth of Separatedness.

I don’t know if there is anything like it — like this being so thoroughly pulled out of that story, out of the loud constructed world, constructed self, and thrust back into the actual nature of Life; The Quiet Knowing (Elliot Page) – being thrust back into me.

… of course, like a professor of John Green's once so aptly put it: This table is constructed, but if I throw it at you, it will hurt. And this body I li[v]e in still breathes in the midst of a mostly unbreathing world constructed on top of that Original Sin.

But being pulled out and thrust mentally; mind-space-y, narrative-ly, is what I mean. 

this body is my monastery.

So, I may not have taken a vow, and it may not have been my decision to be confined to a bed and, in some (sizable) sense, deep isolation. But one of The Facts of Life that Pádraig Ó Tuama (who is among my favourite human beings) names in his poem reminds me all the time that you will learn most from the situations / you did not choose.

I did not choose this situation. 

And now, I am - by Trapping Grace - finding myself (and forgetting myself, and finding myself again) in a rather peculiar kind of monastery which is this beloved body, or maybe the room that we lie in; with the washbowl and the microwave and the “fridge”-linen bag hanging out of the window (praised be a winter living up to its title).

I’m not strictly ‘of the cloth’ (although PJs, or other approved apparel to wear in bed, might be their own sort of robe?), and still, I do the Ora et Labora part, and indeed do a lot of it.

Ora: I pray in Presence, in the language of Presence – or more precisely: in several of the uncountable languages in which Presence can be Presence-d. 

Labora: I am constantly Labora-ing, and the curriculum is long; including, among other things: resting, of course (that in itself would be enough! more than enough.), and then: 

slowly, slowly understanding, and growing compassion, and getting closer and closer to the core of what actually happened in my life. what’s happening inside this body now. the sacred work of caringly, patiently healing. and of, moment by moment by moment, changing this ol’ mind of mine; this most difficult task— to meet what at first seems unwanted, wrong, and to incorporate it into the whole (Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer knows what I’m talking about).

~

… I once heard these on a cooking show, and they fit the scope of this work so delightfully:

when you have deconstructed anything,

the danger is that every single element

has nowhere to hide.

… and you know, cakes need time to rest.

that's extremely important.

~

On that note: I’ll go back to cake-ing now. or Nun/Monk-ing. Or Presence-ing. Whatever you prefer to imagine me in.

May you feel (consentedly!) kissed by life every once in a while – or, if kisses are not exactly your cuppa tea: Just go, or roll, or lie in peace; maybe lit up a little by these words that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in The Signature of All Things:

I befriended a quiet view of the road. 

There was much to marvel at here, indeed. 

How very remarkable.

[i] listened with care. 

friedo

<3