It starts with guitar notes lightly dancing to form a melody, then a new sound enters, barely perceptible. It grows. The cello sounds like the groans of one too burdened for too long. It moves forward with a staccato effort. This halting deep groaning reminds me of my own heart.
I woke up resentment clutching my heart tight. I realized I could not feel much more than anger. At first, I thought it was loneliness. But loneliness doesn’t clutch, it sits like a big, weeping hole in the middle of me. Over several days, I slowly realized I had not taken a real break since well before COVID. I had tried to hold a steady pattern but really I fell into my old pattern...hiding in work, only half living and feeling disconnected from the rest of life. I knew this foreboding, resentful feeling.
I tried to reserve a hermitage with St Columba, but they were booked. I looked at my schedule--had a couple of days with few obligations. I looked at my unread or skimmed books. Dusted off my journal...resentment does not allow reflection. My best friend committed to praying for me during this time. I began to read and write.
The guitar dances again but around the cello’s deep notes. They dance around each other. A flute breathes across my soul. Slowly, I feel my being unfurl and give way to the clarinet, guitar, and the flute as the cello’s rumblings become soft and then silent. I can breathe.
I began reading Henry Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart. The first section is about Solitude. He writes about the two things with which everyone in solitude must wrestle: anger and greed. I felt busted and seen...not by greed, but by anger. I knew God was working. As I read and wrote more, the resentment began to dissipate slowly. God was meeting me with comfort like the Good Samaritan.
I am grateful for a God who meets me even when I am concreted by resentment. He doesn’t demand I get over it. His presence softens away at the hardness. I am glad to feel my heart again. As I began to breathe again, I came to a truth in my life. Working to be seen and approved means I don’t really get seen because I abandon myself for others’ approval.
That is a hard thing to acknowledge. If you feel like you need to look away...I understand as I want to look away too. Nothing to see hear (whistling), move along. BUT if we do that, we will miss the rest of the truth I learned.
When I abandon myself, I am not seen or really heard, but when I see and hear myself, I am not abandoned. God taught me that. Oh, and I also hear and see God more clearly too. So what does seeing myself look like? As I read and wrote, I became aware of specific needs I have neglected in all the change I have experienced in the last couple of years. In a previous blog, I wrote about the incarnation and how important the physical is to us. I have begun to slowly integrate attention to specific needs. I am exercising, rebuilding muscle. I am changing my eating habits back to healthier fare. I am seeing my spiritual director regularly starting in December. I am making my physical environment more orderly and adding some creativity.
The clarinet begins to rise in the middle with the guitar teasing around it. The violins join and they weave together until the resolution of the song. The song? Peace Prayer by John Michael Talbot on his Quiet Pathways album. It speaks to my soul.
I share this experience not for response to me, though if you want to that is fine, but because we have all been through so much. Perhaps you feel a need to sit with God and sort through the things you picked up or were put in your pockets. This blog entry is a testimony to this process as simple and complicated as it feels. Reach out to me if this spoke to you. I would be happy to sit with you and God.
Much love and peace,
-Dianne