It’s been six months since my last post because I’ve been on an emotional roller-coaster of ups and downs. With the neglect of my personal journal writing and this blog, I seemed to lose my way, my life path, somehow, in my day-to-day busyness of recovering and rediscovering myself, but I am hopeful that I’ve made a breakthrough now I’ve written these few things down.
Memories good and bad from the year have now passed, as all things must pass. Even my birthday in November has been and gone, yet the memory of that is a good one. Two nights in York to see A Fairy-tale in New York and I came across an interesting shop where I bought a book on phobias and manias. Deep psychological stuff but I do believe it has helped me understand my life-long cat phobia at least, (ailurophobia!).
I had already been working on this without realizing and I can actually look at pictures of certain cats without feeling the fear now.
I do think that Bengal cats are beautiful!
(I can’t believe I’m saying it!)
https://www.boredpanda.com/bengal-cat-spots-fur-thor/
This year has been one of personal loss for me in regards to saying goodbye to several friends and I was caught unawares at one celebration of life tribute from a daughter on how she felt about her late father. It struck a chord of memory with me about my mother when she began her tribute with the words, ‘I believe in love.’
I was taken back to the beginning of my search for God as those words were what I’d said to the R.E. teacher when I was fourteen in response to his question about what I believed in. I’d said I didn’t believe in God and he’d asked me why.
‘Because I can’t see him,’ I replied.
‘What do you believe in then?’ he asked.
‘Love,’ I responded.
‘But you can’t see love either,’ he said.
‘You can feel it though,’ was my reply.
‘Exactly!’ he said, smiling to himself as he walked away.
I was left wondering about it until I recalled his words at my mother’s graveside as the vicar spoke from 1 Corinthians Chapter 13:
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
When he read that last line it was like a light coming on. I suddenly knew that my mother, though she had found it hard to show her love to her children, was loved wholeheartedly by us all and by God. I was in awe of how my mother had been blessed by that love. Love is God, I thought. That was the beginning of my journey to a faith.
What a wise man my R.E. teacher had been that day he walked away smiling when he embedded it in my memory as a seed for that very moment. I can’t recall his name but I’m sure God will.
Time turns around so fast and, as I get older, it seems my allotted life-span thus far is but the blink of an eye. With what time I have left, I am claiming my life back with a promise to save the only life I can save – my own, as Mary Oliver acknowledges in her beautiful poem:
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
© Mary Oliver (from Dreamworks 1968 and Devotions 2017)
For Christmas, my son gave me Mary Oliver’s Collection ‘Devotions’ and my husband bought me ‘A Thousand Mornings’.
What utter joy!
I have several scrap pages of angst notes jotted down intended for my journal during the past 6 months but haven’t got round to writing them up. I’m not sure where to slot them in or even if I want to write them up at all as I will be revisiting things I need to forget. Maybe that’s something for me to think about another time… or maybe not.
All I know for sure about those six months is that I have found great solace in the spiritual realms of reading scripture, psalms, the writings of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Jesuit prayers, poetry whilst enjoying the company of genuine friends.
In this year of emotional ups and downs, the side effect (positive) of such solace has enabled me to identify several toxic relationships that have had a negative impact on me as a person. My barriers of self-preservation are now in place. I’m backing off and letting go of anyone and anything that steals my joy as I seek a new pathway into 2024.
Prayer for Calmness
As he sat by the river,
the eyes of his understanding began to be opened;
not that he saw any vision,
but he understood and learnt many things,
both spiritual matters and matters of faith and of scholarship,
and this with so great an enlightenment
that everything seemed new to him.
– Ignatius of Loyola, The Autobiography
Finally, friends (if I may call you that seeing as you’re here reading my blog), I leave you with more food for thought from two sources (Mary Oliver and Enya) which are well-worth consideration:
Thirst
Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.
— Mary Oliver, (from Thirst 2006 and Devotions 2017)
and this Enya song for a warm, peaceful embrace (once you skip the ad!) until we meet again.
With love for the journey,
Julie
Note to the end of the year 2023:
I’ve come across several poetic treasures I’ve written throughout the year that I haven’t transferred to my personal journal. Sifting through these should keep me going in the right direction and lead me towards the New Year with joy!
Welcome 2024!
For The Journey 