My Physical therapist smacked me!!!

And what, I know you will ask yourself, does this subject have to do with Pathways....the title of my blog?

My Physical Therapist Smacked me!!

The answer is, absolutely nothing....this blog post has nothing to do with Pathways...the title of my blog!

Or maybe it does have something to do with it, I don't know.  But suffice it to say that My physical therapist smacked me today, and I deserved it.

I am Two weeks out of surgery to repair a badly damaged knee that I had been ignoring for about 15 years;  thus allowing so much damage that it got to the point that my leg was collapsing on a regular basis. I have flown face forward and down onto such floors as the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, The Basilica of St. Vincent's Abbey, and Hartsfield International Airport, among others.  And so it was time to go and meet with my orthopaedic surgeon and pray not to be yelled at too much.  Need I say that my surgeon had given up on me, and since my father passed on years ago, could not call him to let him know that I was doing extreme damage to myself.

Back when Andrew was much younger, he broke his arm, and Dr. Moeller was the MAN we saw because my father, also an orthopaedic surgeon, had told me this was who to see in Atlanta.  Specifically, we knew that I would need to have knee replacements because of my fondness of jumping off of high places and landing like a cat on targets far below, bashing my body into rocks, and jumping horses, riding rodeo, and doing any number of any kind of sports that were just a wee bit out of the ordinary.  At a very young age, I had some of the most extensive knee injury that anyone had ever seen, and my father wanted to make sure I knew where to go when I got around to it.

Well, I didn't really get around to it until I could actually predict that my knee was going to give way, and then I waited another 5 years before calling the MAN!

When I went into meet with him, it was as though he was waiting for me. He strode into the room and slapped the xrays up onto the machine without even glancing at me, and began speaking as though we had ended a conversation 15 minutes earlier about this very subject.  When he finally turned around with a glare in his eye he said  "So, do you think you waited long enough to do this?  This is massive damage.  How do you walk?"

I was embarassed....but cool....

My surgeon is my friend still, and when we talk with each other about this he casually pats my arm and gives me a hug because he knows what a slug I am when it comes to doing things that interrupt my personal routine.

And that brings me back around to the subject of the post  "My physical therapist smacked me today!"

Why, you ask, would my physical therapist smack me???  Well, Greg also has gotten a load of my "WAYS" over the last two weeks.  Intimately familiar with the knee replacement procedure, there were some things that I did not actually know about it, and so today, when he asked me how I was and I mentioned that the aching I was experiencing was coming from deep within bone and was unrelenting, he did not miss a beat.  His gaze riveted on my husband, Jim, sitting across from him, Greg asked me if I, perchance, had been walking on my leg without using my walker to support myself.  Inside, I gasped.  I could not lie to him and so I admitted that yes, I have been walking short distances, making the bed, doing laundry and other and various chores without using my walker for support.  I have also taken my shower without using the shower chair, standing freely in the shower and enjoying the warmth and comfort.

It was then that Greg, my physical therapist whom I adore, asked for my hand.  I placed my hand in his and he smacked it hard enough so that it stung....SMACK!  Almost as hard as my Bishop smacked me on the cheek at confirmation...but that sting back then stung a whole lot longer than this one did.  I remember flushing a deep red that day in the cathedral in Chicago.  This was almost as bad.

So I won't be doing anything anymore without using my walker for support.  Greg got a kick out of being able to smack a Benedictine sister, considering the fact that as a boy he was smacked plenty on the hand with a ruler in the Catholic school he attended.  His delight was that he could smack me hand to hand...without benefit of the ruler.

I know that y'all will wonder why I am confessing this today here in my blog.  Perhaps that is why this blog is entitled Pathways....Pray about it!

"Show us the Father" St. Augustine of Hippo

Don't go looking for any end beside God, in case by looking for an end beside God, you find yourself being consumed, not completed.  What is an end, after all, but the point we wish to reach, to stop at, and not to look for anything beyond it?  Because if you get there, but are still looking for something, you haven't yet reached the end.  So to reach the end is to reach the spot where you say,

"That's enough."

Philip thought that the Father alone was such an end, and so he said, 
Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us (john 14:8);
 but the Lord showed him that God is the end, God the Trinity.  Accordingly, when you say "Christ is the end," you should not be excluding God the Father; and when you say, "God the Father is the end," you should not be excluding Christ.  Philip apparently wished to exclude him, supposing that Christ was only what he could see with his eyes, so he cheerfully said, Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.

What do you mean It is enough for us?

That's where our desire ends; we won't be seeking any further; that's where we shall find total satisfaction, where we shall say, "It's enough, I don't want anymore."
Why's that?

Because we already know you.  Please show us the Father.  Since we can see you, after all, and cannot see him, we aren't satisfied.  We are overjoyed because we can see you; but show us him, and we'll be satisfied; we won't require anything more.

And the Lord said to him, because he is himself the end, himself the one who totally satisfies, so in order to relieve him of what he was assuming--he was assuming, you see, that he wasn't seeing the Son of God, when he was seeing the form of a servant--so he said to Philip, Have I been with you all this time, and you have not recognized me?

When you are looking for the end, and do not see what you see, well that of course is why you are looking for the end, because you can't see the end standing in front of you. 

Do you not believe, he said, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  (John 14:9-10)

Drawn to a Great Truth

......if He should call you, 
Let yourself be drawn to Him.
He may lead you to a great truth.
Do not dwell on yourself, nor should you--
A creature subject to multiplicity and change--
   seek Him.
Rest in tranquility, loftier than action or feeling.
And you will find that as you lose yourself
He will give you strength.

Be pleased to remain where it pleases Him to place
     you.
Straining to find Him is of no avail;
Be at Peace with yourself.  He embraces you.
Return His embrace, but do not feel wronged
When He absents Himself.  Give no thought to yourself;
If you love as you should, you will be filled with joy!
Because that love in itself
Glows with a light that does not fail.

You know that you can only possess
To the extent that He will give;
What He withholds you cannot acquire;
Nor can you hold on to what you have
Unless He grants you that grace.
Your Path from beginning to end
Lies beyond your power;
The choice is not yours but the Lord's.

Hence, if you have found Him know in truth
That it was through no power of yours.
The good that is given you
Comes out of charity; it is a gift,
Not the fruit of your own efforts. 
Let all your desire; then,
Be directed toward Him.
The Infinite One, Giver of all good.

Brother Jacopone da Todi (+1306) OFM

Litany of Spiritual Confidence~In preparation for a Holy Lent

~Lord, keep me close to you~

Lord, I can do all that you ask of me because it is you who strengthens me.

Lord, whenever I fall, you delight in my confidence to trust you all the more

Lord, let me look to you and not to myself to find what is needed to please you

Lord, when I am overcome by fear it is because my peace depends on some thing instead of on your will

Lord, free me from my hidden attachments to self-righteousness

Lord, let me always remember that it is you who move me to ask for your love

Lord, help me to see that the meaning of my faults is to learn to depend on you more and more

Lord, give me the strength to cry out for your love when all that I see is nothingness in myself

Lord, save me from the impulse to look for my peace and security in my own strength

Lord, the more you let me see what I am left to myself the more you give me the grace to cling to you

Lord, to be happy, I need nothing but what you provide for me at every moment

Lord, the more I live in the love you give me in this moment, the more perfectly I am able to suffer whatever comes my way

Lord, when I come to you at those times when I am overwhelmed by my own misery I glorify you the most

Lord, it is in being receptive to you in the knowledge of my own weakness that I derive all my strength

Lord, let me always remember that you want me to let you make me perfect by your love

Lord, the measure of my union with you is my faith in the power of your love to purify me and make me worthy of you.

Heavenly Dream

Several times in my life, I have experienced a Heavenly Dream which always contains a message from God.

Once, the dream was so real and so intense that I did not want it to end, and it included an audience with God,

The dream usually comes at a time of challenge in my life, or at a time of illness or trouble. The dream always begins the same way:

 Ahead of me is a long boulevard bordered with very tall trees, leafless with broad straight trunks until the very top, like Redwood trees. The trees are perfectly spaced, and at the top the tree canopy is sparse; there are no branches at the bottom...the pruning marks remain all the way up the trunk of each tree.  Where the canopy of each tree spreads at the top, a straight line of bright light is formed. The boulevard ahead of me is straight and inclines gently upward, becoming a steep hill to climb. The scene is very beautiful and serene.

As I walk down the boulevard, passing each tree, rooftops come into view.  Walking forward I begin to see glimpses of buildings, not just the rooftops, and then more and more of each building appears.  In each dream, I have been led into a different structure, to discover what is taking place there. Traveling up this beautiful hill, I have been led to discover so much about my life, and ultimately learned God's plan for my life.

This dream began for me at a time in my life when we thought that my life was coming to an end.  I first had this dream in the hospital, and I was very ill.  I learned then that God was with me, and that he would be with me always. My life would continue, and I remember waking to a feeling of serenity and security in knowing what was revealed to me in the dream; and while I wanted to share it, I was almost afraid to tell someone else what I had seen and heard and experienced.

I have returned to this boulevard again and again, and I have come away from each experience with knowledge and serenity; never fear.  

This morning I woke much earlier than planned but fell back into sleep, and returned to this same boulevard again.  It was  identical:  the hill sloping gently in front of me, tree after tree as I passed each one, the bright golden light at the top extending in front of me.  I was led into a garden, and a wide blue lake encompassed the scene in front of me.  The message for me this morning was of peace, and life; a warm and gentle love exchanged with all who were there.  There was a celebratory atmosphere and so much happiness.  I didn't want to leave.  But I remember being escorted back out to the boulevard, of goodbyes and good wishes...And then the dream ended, this time.

"Where the Pictures Came From"

Angels are seldom overheard.  But try.  Go listen.

They might be remembering.
They might be whispering about the night
they seeded the sky with embers
and it caught.

All over the place, the sky took fire.
Astronomers, on various corners of the earth,
reported a shower of burning embers.

This was the night --the angels will tell you--
when they clambered over the poles
and raced each other through the tundra,
and swam a hundred mountain lakes,
shaking the water off like seals, 
and kept on going.

They knew they were wanted.

It had to be night, they'll tell you,
because the night is so simple, so all one thing,
even when burnt with embers.

And God had poured himself so flawlessly
into a human heart
that nothing less simple than night
could venture an explanation.

The angels got there, they will tell you.
They ran up the hill, singing a song the color of darkness,
chanting like sea bells
in places of no horizon.

They stood in a circle on the floor of a cave,
and drew pictures on its walls
to entertain the visitors.

And rocked in their song
an infant of one hour's age,
who was as old as God.

--Sister Miriam Pollard, Cistercian Santa Rita Abbey, Sonoita, Arizona

A Light Unto my Path ~ Meditation

John the Baptist uses an image that is puzzling to us but that would have been powerful indeed to his original audience.  Speaking of the coming Messiah, he says, "His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn" ....

  A threshing floor was a flat piece of ground on which stalks of harvested grain would be laid and subsequently pressed or crushed, so as to separate the edible wheat from the inedible chaff.  A winnowing fan was a kind of pitch-fork that a farmer would use to throw the mixture of wheat and chaff into the air, so that the wind would carry off the lighter material and leave the heavier substance behind.  This act of separation was indispensable to the preparation of good bread.

The Messiah, John the Baptist, is telling us, will perform a similar work on our minds and hearts.  He will separate the good from the bad, the loving from the wicked, the godly from the self-absorbed.  Most of us allow the better angels of our nature to exist alongside our inner demons, and the result is a spiritual hodge-podge.  When Christ approaches us, he comes with his winnnowing fan, which means he will toss things around a bit! This helps to explain why the Lord says he has come with a sword and why the author of the Letter to Hebrews insists, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

~Very Rev. Robert Barron