Oy vey, I seem to have become a 5 year old. I think in the 7 weeks (although, I would have gone to Mass today, except yesterday I got really hot and dehydrated, and my feet became as swollen and purple as an aubergine... I've had to rest most of the day since I can't really do much else) since I've last attended a Mass, I have reverted back to one. And I feel that Piaget and Erikson would agree with me. Around that time period, most kids are very ego-centric and have a very difficult time of having empathy, of seeing things from other people's perspective. While the kids don't have a problem per say with the bad sort of pride (although it can start taking root at this time), I don't have the excuse of not knowing better. They don't say that I is the root of pride for no reason.
Granted, it is very difficult to even think of anything else but pain, especially after both my knee and hip both have subluxed at the same time, and I have only made it half-way to the door (50 feet away), or the pain that emanates from my neck (more about that in a later post). Fortunately, prayer doesn't always involve words, and in fact, I recall some of my most powerful moments in prayer were those times that everything was silent, including my internal monologue (and I can't tell you how hard that is to shut up!). Hosea 2:6 states that time best: So I will allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak to her heart. How sad it's been that I haven't had a conversation with God in all of this time.
When, and where, did I lose that? Did I even just lose it, or did mock it, scorn it, and then throw it away? How can I get it back?
I am still not "feeling" anything as far as religion goes. I don't even feel repentant. I want to be, though, and I have been assured that it's enough for now, especially combined with confession. You know, I realize just how completely self-destructive I've been these past few weeks. Not externally. The worst of my old self-destructive behaviors have barely even registered (hardly more than some temptations). Perhaps because what I have been doing is even more so. If I am made in both the image and likeness of God, then I am most myself when I am reflecting God in my life and am close to Him. When I am separated from Him (or rather, when I choose to walk away), I am lost, adrift, unsure of anything, especially of who I am. It is a very miserable, dark, uncertain, and frightening place. I am not just a person of (right now, very little) faith, I am a person of facts. I love laws of nature, of science. All of these different facets of truth, which is black and white and never changes (although, how it is interpreted does change. Louie Pasteur was mocked and derided when he first theorized about bacteria and other organisms that harms humans but are too small to be seen. Now, most milk sold in the USA goes through a process that was named after him, pasteurization, before it is packaged). I have almost a pathological need for things to be precisely black and white and certain. I'm very off-kilter when I am not certain, and it nearly pulls me into a panic. I think there is a 98.5768% chance that I why I like Spock so much from Star Trek.
I think some of that is, also, rooted in pride. It's about control, about "If I know everything, and can prepare for everything and anything, then all will be OK". Again, another delusion. First, all I can control is myself, and not very well at all. 'Tis a fool thing to attempt to control anything else (especially when one tries several times and but doesn't learn her lesson... sounds a bit like insanity to me, doesn't it?), besides, how in the heck do I expect to be able to control anything else, when my own autonomic system can't properly control my hr and bp? And yet, I still make lame and pathetic attempts, learn my lesson for a few months, then the pride and control itch starts controlling me, I get smacked down, hard, from my own mistakes (I have this tendency to mess things up royally, so God doesn't even need to directly offer correction... my own mistakes are penance enough), and then learn my lesson again, and repeat. I have yet to take this much time off from attending Mass since I have converted, so I do believe the fact that I'm not even 6 months out from the POTS diagnosis and first suspicions of EDS is most likely a fairly big reason (but unfortunately, not a good excuse at all) why everything has been shaken so badly lately.
I am taking the next step, though. This week sometime (most likely Tuesday), I will make a confession and try to accept the mercy and graces I have denied myself for so long. Despair will make people do all sorts of crazy and illogical things. For me, it helped to exacerbate the spiritual sickness I have been experiencing as of late. I suppose it's something like not wanting to go to the doctor because, even though I really need an antibiotic, I think that it's not going to work on me anyway, never mind that I took the same drug 3 months ago for the same illness and it knocked it out in 4 days. I know God's mercy, or I know of it. I can't even begin to contemplate its depths and just how big and great it is, but I know it exists. Same thing with His love. And when I rebelled for the first time in these past 7 weeks, I have simply closed my eyes and stopped my ears and ignored it as best as I could. It seems I used to be much better with the repression than I am now. I'm somewhat glad about that. Repression is also very difficult when I can't revert to emotional numbness.
Sigh... So, I guess to sum up, I have to grow up, be responsible, do things that are good for me even when (or especially when) I don't feel like it, and learn again how to love and trust in God's mercy. Sure thing, boss, I'll get right on that! Just don't expect it to be done in a very long time. I'm working on it, though.
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