true life planet

And ended up coming to some mighty big life decisions because of it!

But, first things first… 

Life back in the States is at it’s most colorful and interesting. Just when you think it’s getting dull and predictable, it changes it’s mind.

I spent all of Holy Week in one religious service after another, a seemingly endless procession of sermons and communions and prayers; some in candlelight; some with Hispanic parishioners on their knees with enormous crosses, some with day-glo pictures of Jesus and their relatives; some with palm fronds and pictures of the Virgin Mary, carried under plastic and surrounded with ruffled red satin and lace.

I’m not complaining. One thing I love about the Catholic church in America is it’s so much like being in Central America somewhere. It’s just beautiful.

Still, by the time Easter Sunday actually rolled around, I was quite tired and wondering if I would make it through the sunrise service that morning.

The sunrise service is a little thing that they do in my small town–kind of a group service, put on by all the churches and they sing and preach and eat donuts out under a white gazebo in the middle of the town’s park. It’s lovely, but it’s at 6:30 am.

I woke up exhausted, as I’d only gotten home the night before at 11 pm, due to the Holy Saturday service ending quite late. I put some clothes on, put on Mahalia Jackson to keep the dog company, and went downtown.

I made it through it, and it was nice. So small town. That’s why I like living here, I guess.

Afterwards went out to breakfast with my friend Shirley, who was, due to it’s being Easter, wearing a very stylish leopard outfit from head to toe. Shirley is the sort of person that you wish you had the guts to be, but since you aren’t, you’re glad someone else is. She is full of stories about her life and she is witty, colorful, and irreverent–but at the same time, she’s wise and practical and spiritual. She is the sort of person who invites a slightly depressed woman (me) out for eggs and bacon on Easter morning.

After breakfast, I get in my car and drive home. I’ve got Mahalia Jackson playing in the car, too. Mahalia is the queen of gospel music. One listen to her take of , “How I Got Over” will either have you on your knees or have you calling of “Thank you Jesus!” because you can’t, you simply can’t, help yourself. Listening to her always has me wish I was black gospel msic singer, could sing, had soul, had soulfulness, and knew how to clap my hands properly. But I don’t and I’m not, so I listen to her and find myself at the very least, extremely cheered up.

I’m listening to her when I pull into the drive.

My neighbors have houseguests, who turn out to be peace activists of some sort and we have a long chat about war and social justice and the time I almost was arrested for protesting the production of missles outside of London.  And how..all of those things tie into my religious commitment. The conversation then turns to my cheerful optimism, which, seemingly to everyone else, is perhaps unjustifed. Where does it comes from?

Who knows. For, in spite of my current circumstances, I’m pretty optimistic about life in general and humanity to boot. I happen to think there are many, many wonderful people out there really committed to living out lives that make a difference to the happiness of all on the planet. I’ve met them on my travels, and what’s more, I think I am one of them. At least, I hope so.

Maybe it’s all of the Mahalia Jackson I’ve been listening to. Mahalia always talks about her trials and tribulations, and does it in such a way you look forward to having those of your own, because it makes you spiritually richer and more defined.

One thing that I’ve noticed, coming home, is that people don’t seem to be all that committed to what they say they believe. I’ve been in that boat myself, altogether too recently, saying I believed one thing but doing something else entirely different. It seems to be easy here, in this culture, to get away with it.

Like people just show up for church on a Sunday, once a year. Or people talk about loving one another, helping one’s fellow man, but they don’t. Or people talk about “justifiable war”, or the death penalty as being grim realities that have to exist, when they don’t.

After I talked to the activists for awhile, I left for the Easter service, the big one at the Catholic church. I thought alot during the service about Easter and what it means. It’s a such a huge thing, and it’s impact seems to fall away from people on all the other days of the year.

It’s a time for renewal. It’s a time for hope and new beginnings. People make it about alot of other things (they really like to do that!)– but that’s really the jist of it. Starting over, starting new, starting fresh, renewed.

I go home and take a nap with the dog.

I fall asleep and dream that I’ve invited Jesus, Oscar Romero, and Mohamed to dinner and am panicking as to whether it’s appropriate to serve them rice and beans (!), and wake up to a buzzing sound. It’s a bee, seemingly trapped in the kitchen.

I rescue it, fall back asleep, and wake up to another bee. I rescue it. Then another, then another, then another, then another…twenty two bees later, I’ve come to realize that I have a situation. A bee situation.

Investigating the building, I discover a swarm of bees has somehow made it’s new home inside the wall of my shower.

I should explain that I live in the country, kind of on the edge of town, in a funky cottage that is, well, funky.

My cottage is exactly the sort of place a swarm of bees would see and collectively agree to make their new home.

After taping up the bathroom door and sealing all points of possible entry to keep bees out of the rest of the house (and… rescuing the few straggler bees hitting themselves, suicide-style, against my kitchen window!)..it occurs to me that I had not seen or heard a bee, an actual, real, live, bee for a long time. Third world countries don’t have bees. Or if they do, the bees are smart enough to stay far, far away from hungry people who will eat them and their honey. Here, in America, the bees are so confident that they don’t see any problem with occupying my shower.

The second thing that occurs to me is that I have no bathroom. No shower, no toilet, until the bee problem is solved.

I take the bee problem to my landlords, who promptly begin making phone calls to find someone to move the bees. But, it would seem all bee handlers are on vacation, due to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead today. Good enough reason. But still, no shower, no toilet.

My landlord hands me a chamber-pot. A real, honest-to-God chamberpot, made of white enamel and slightly chipped with a black-painted handle.

You’d think I would be grossed out at the thought of using  a chamberpot, but actually all I’m thinking is, “Well, that makes sense! Boy, it will be really fun to use that in the middle of the night!”, and I’m wondering if it’s possible to make a packable, portable one for traveling…how may times on the road I wished I had had something so expertly designed as a chamberpot, I cannot begin to count.

Chamberpots are very well designed, by the way. There is no spillage. There is no peeing on one’s clothing, like there is when attempting to use a squat toilet in a village outhouse. It is clean and tidy and surprisingly worry free.

I should know. It’s Tuesday and I still have no toilet or shower. It may take all week to move the bees, and I’ve been finding that chamberpot extremely useful!

One thing I’ve been noticing is how easy going I am about stuff like this now. I’m just happy to have  a roof over my head and running water–so if I don’t have a toilet for a few days, well, that’s ok. At least I know I’ll get one eventually.!

Ok, here’s a big leap from topic to topic, but I’ll do it anyway:

The whole chamberpot thing got me thinking about my own flexibility–not just with physical realities (like toilet/no toilet; or what to eat for dinner) but my own flexibility in terms of my future.

Travel seems to have –kind of–refined my soul. It’s like things are much, much clearer than they were before I left. As a matter of fact, it seems like a long time ago that I left “home”. Maybe that’s because what I came back to was so much different than what I pictured it to be.

I just feel like I’m in a new place of sorts, with some familiar people and some not familiar.

Many of the things I was striving for in the past–and I mean, the past, like five/six years ago–have resurfaced, bubbled to the top, and made themselves known again. Many of the desires I had, the things I wanted to accomplish back then–well, I thought they’d disappeared forever, never to be seen again–but instead, they’re back. All those ideas and ways of being are back.

One of the things that was really important to me five, six years ago was my spiritual life. I wanted to live deeply, live reverently, live differently than other ways of living I saw around me. I don’t mean individuals, I mean the culture in general.

And somehow, I find myself revisiting those wants and desires. Six years ago, I had gone thru a period where I seriously considered being a nun. I changed my mind, mostly due to what other people thought about it and my own fears about it. And thru alot of thinking and life experiences and prayer, I realized that a nun’s life was not for me.

Then somehow I found myself in a relationship and a life. A big life, a full life, a good life–but not exactly the life dedicated to the things that were most important to me in the end.

The trip somehow changed this, altered it, reshaped it, and made my dream of committing my life to prayer, social justice and helping those less fortunate a reality. It made me see that it was possible to do it, to have that life.

I guess I thought I could do it and have other more worldly things–but, what I discovered, is that, for me, that doesn’t work. I really actually do feel sad that the relationship didn’t work; but, on the other hand, I feel freed to devote myself and my life, and all of my energy, to creating as much good as possible in the world and alleviating what suffering I can. It’s like I’m free to do that now.

I remember at first when I was dealing with the breakup, I was thinking, “Will I ever meet a man again who…..” and so forth. Blah blah blah. Now I’m thinking, “Well, now that last experience was interesting, but probably not worth repeating! What makes you feel good? Well, do that then.”

What makes me feel fantastic is helping other people. Just totally being of service is what makes me happy. Really happy. It is the thing I want to spend all of my time doing.

At 40, such freedom is an astonishing thing. 40 is when BIG things happen, everyone keeps telling me. At 40, that’s when you’re life really gets going, they tell me.

So here’s what I’m thinking about. I’ll have to explain it a little to you non-Catholics.:

You’ve heard of nuns, right? Well, nuns are in something called a “second order”. And below them is something called, “third order”. Third orders are made up of people, laypeople, who generally live in the world–in their house, their apartment, whatever–go to work, and have “normal lives”.  They look like normal people, they don’t wear a habit (generally) . With a few grand exceptions:

They commit to the order they decide to belong to. There are all kinds of orders, some who work with AIDS hospice, some who work with disabled people, some who work with immigrants and immigrants rights… So let’s say it’s the Vincentian order, well then they’d  commit to the goals of the Vincentians, which are centered around helping the very poor and needy. Or countless other orders who have other missions: contemplative prayer, social justice, peace, reform, etc.

Part of those missions are also rules for living, such as chastity, charity, prayer and so forth.

People in third orders are in a community–they live outside of the religious order, but they participate fully in religious life. A person who is single can be a third order, but so can a married person, or a person with children. It’s kind of like what religion probably was like hundreds of years ago. This is not a commitment to be taken lightly–it’s not for the only show up on a Sunday person; nor is it for the person that doesn’t have a firm belief in taking action towards social injustices.

Some people get confused about what it is to be third order. While there are third order monks and nuns, there are also third order laypeople.

The people I know who are third order laypeople are Franciscans. They have a commitment to living a prayerful life, a God centered life, but they also (surprise!) have a big commitment to  fair labor practices, human rights, creating  a  healthy environment, ecology, protecting the animals and their habitiat, clothing the needy and housing the homeless, etc…. I have three friends who are all third orders and they are amongst the most amazing and kind people I know, and part of this is that they are simply not concerned with the same things the rest of us are.

Six years ago I was very interested in joining a third order. I thought it fit well with who I was and what I felt was my purpose in life. I always have felt this altruistic streak in me and found it very hard to balance this with the expectations of “real life”. It was not until my trip that I discovered that I could both be me and give everything I had to give.

I find myself heading down this road again. It’s a well-worn path at this point. So many times I have been on it and I was always distracted by my own problems, my own worries, my own sense of inadequacy about this or that. But this time, it’s different.

It’s like coming home.

Who would have thought a swarm of bees and a chamberpot would have led to such a decision! But then, miracles happen in most unusual ways.

So, I’ll be spending the next few months visiting numerous orders in area and deciding which one best suits me. Then the process of discernment begins, and then the actual process of becoming third order takes about three years.

Life is really taking shape. It isn’t always easy, and it doesn’t come the way I expect to, but it does gently move forward. And sometimes it’s not so gentle–like it taking me not having a toilet for three days and alot of gospel music to be ready to be open to what is next for me!

Anyway, for all of you still reading (all of you folks from the Voluntary simplicity movement, etc!) I want to say thank-you.Whoever you are, wherever are, however you are, I hope you know how much I appreciate you all, and know that each and every one of you is perfect.

The other thing I’m thinking about right now is..gasp!..a new blog. It’s time. The travel blog has died off and a new one is in the making. I’ll still be putting up the more adventurous parts of my trip to Bihar (someday!) , but I’m also creating a new blog with a new theme.

I’ll keep you posted. Peace be with you.

gigi

I’ve been back in the States, back at “home” for over a month, now–and I think the exhaustion of both the trip and dealing with being here has finally taken hold of me.

In fact, it’s taken over.

Yesterday, I managed to do  almost nothing at all. Everytime I begin to do something, I’m tired soon afterwards.

Part of this is physical–just having to recognize that I am exhausted from what has been a long, ardous journey and dealing with how that fact impacts how much of day to day life I can deal with.

Part of it’s emotional–it’s a BIG difference to be out in the world, feeling like you can do anything, and then coming home, and realizing the rules are alot different at home. Everyone talks about that “depression” that hits one after returning from travel…I’m not sure I’ve hit that wall (yet!), but I’ve had some glimpses of what over travelers are talking about.

And part of it is cultural–American life is so tiring. There’s so much pressure–to drive here or there, see this person or that one, be on time. In India, things were overwhelming for different reasons: the sheer number of people, for example, made it difficult to get from point A to point B.

There were so many people in India that there was very little privacy or personal space–at least by American standards. So one thing I am enjoying is just being alone, spending time alone, eating alone, reading alone, thinking alone, walking alone. It’s precious and a bit surreal to take a walk by myself or to cook dinner for one–but it’s lovely. I find being with other people all day still a bit too tiring(even though I enjoy it!) and everytime I do plan an all day activity with others, it takes me a day to recover.

Yesterday I was  so tired that I only managed to go to the local food coop and buy some groceries. That’s it. I did nothing else. The trip to the store was so exhausting! So many choices, aisles of food and fruit and vegetables and organic and not organic and 20 brands of milk. It took me two hours to buy a tiny basket of groceries. By the time I got home, I realized I had not bought the things that I had actually needed–but it was too late to go back.

All the choices here–for example: where to get a cup of coffee, what kind of milk to have in that coffee, sugar?, for here or to go? where to sit, who to talk to..it’s just too much sensory overload for me sometimes. It’s just coffee! It’s hard to go from no choice or one choice to unlimitless choice.

So I find that keeping things simple really helps my state of mind. Less choice, less worry.

I’ve got some very big plans for the future. But I think it’s wise to look at this particular period of time as a well deserved rest period. However, I should mention that it’s a real struggle for me to truly “rest”. I always like to be busy!

At any rate, my body and mind are so tired of me pushing them around to do whatever had to be done that they are now ganging up against me and refusing to budge.

I am completely exhausted. If I make it through a day without a significant portion of the day devoted to napping I am very surprised.

So, my goal for the next few weeks is to..nap..daydream..relax..get well/healthy.. read trashy novels….spend lots of time alone…not think too much…

Less choice, less worry. More time for naps with the dog. Simple things make life better.

gigi