Fr. Reginald died.... the funeral was yesterday at St. A's. As usually happens when I visit Napa and see all the faces and greenery and feel the love of people who don't know the adult me.... it overcame me last night, and I had a good cry as I led my body through some cleansing yoga.
Fr. R. was specially kind, loving, part of a serene mountaintop world that is the Carmelite Monastery, part of the backdrop against which I formulated my concept of The Church and where it lives within my life.
How far away I am from that world, not realized before yesterday.
How complicated it all gets, how careful we are about expressing love to others, how busy we get with our anger, our fear, our fighting.
On top of that green and shady hill, men wear birkenstocks and talk only when there's a reason to... Jesus is the quiet friend, not to be found in statues and icons....nature has a chance to be noticed and appreciated. Silence gives way to acceptance and understanding.
I suppose such a place is particularly attractive to me at this anxious time. I can't decide whether my fear is:
- of failing - or worse yet, being "just okay" as Lucia.
OR,
- of being more powerful than I'm ready to be.
I suspect it's a little of both. I suppose that all I can control is the amount and quality of work I can do each day. I wake up, I devise a plan that fits in with all my other obligations, and I just start.
Perhaps it's in the getting up, and getting to it, that the battle is eventually won.
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