About Face

This is the name of another rose, and perhaps I should see if the store still has it.

My adult daughter called, and she gave input that she thinks a hermit should be recognized as a hermit, wear a habit, and be known as "the hermit" in a diocese, for it would help others to learn what this vocation entails and for the hermit to be more in kind with other consecrated religious brothers and sisters.

My daughter is not a Catholic, and so this is an interesting opinion and view.

I can see it very much, and I could do an "about face", but in my journey thus far, it seems as if the Lord keeps asking for death, death, death and more death to self and more hiddeness.

As for negativity, as non-entity status and dying include suffering in the process, I admit to much pain these days. Pain radiates, and it is all I can do to plant a few flowers doing deep breathing, and praying, and wondering how I can endure much more.

Then thoughts turn to my casting nets back into the world, even the Catholic world, and it seems ridiculous to keep the net out there, waiting. The responsible action would be to pull it up, letting the folks know that I probably cannot physically handle a full-time job.

Is this God directing me? It seems so. Yet, I persist, and even my daughter says to just wait, that they might not have me for another interview, or if the Bishop sees my name on the list, he might say "no" right then and there.

I am going to call the priest from India and see if we can talk. It would do well for me to just talk some things over, and this is the priest who pinpointed some aspects of my soul, such as the emotional healing needed and the loneliness, and also pointed out aspects of hermit life that are very positive.

When I commented to a woman of the beautiful prayer for healing, she thought it was for the emotional pain of the divorce years ago. I said, "No, that is handled. It is for the persecution and pain of events in the last twelve years of my Catholic existence!" Yes, all that does need healing for damaged emotions.

I'm not convinced I am to strive for anything public in my own hermit life, but I am open to an about face if God so wills.