Patron Saint of Desperate Causes

Perhaps it is simply a result of my not having been a Catholic in this lifetime (rather than an indication of any ignorance), but I confess that Saint Rita of Cascia had totally escaped my awareness until this past week. I eagerly read these words about her, "She is known as the Saint of the Impossible. Those who bear heavy burdens, especially women, worship her as the patron saint of desperate causes."

Now, a patron saint of desperate causes seems like something we would want others to know about. Especially at this time in our world. I am sharing the information with you all now. 

She had repeatedly begged her parents to allow her to become a nun, but at a mere twelve years of age, she was forced to marry. After having given birth to two sons, she lived with an abusive husband until he was violently murdered some eighteen years later.  

After the death of her husband, she still wanted desperately to enter the monastery, but she was refused entry because of the violence around his death. She finally entered the monastery of Saint Mary Madalene at Cascia, Italy, when she was 36 years old!

The story of her entry is considered a miracle. One night, while all the doors to the monastery were locked, she was "transported" into the convent by her patron Saints. When the nuns discovered how she got in, she was allowed to stay, and she remained there until her death. 

The symbol most often associated with St. Rita is the rose. Lying in the monastery, near death, she directed a friend to the garden of her childhood home to pick a rose and bring it to her.  Although it was January, the rose was blooming right where she said it would be! 

Another remarkable story is how she would (against her husband's orders) often make and take food to the poor. One day, as she was sneaking out of the house with a loaf of bread tucked within the folds of her dress, her husband ordered her to show him what she was hiding. When she obediently pulled back the fabric, she revealed a bouquet of roses!

Nathan Jonas, doing his morning meditation.

From now on, I will remember that the Catholics believe you can say a prayer to Saint Rita, and you can expect she will be able to assist you with the seemingly impossible. Perhaps when dealing with desperate causes, her devotion works miracles. And perhaps we, too, were born hard-wired for this devotion to the divine. Looking at this photo of Nathan doing his morning meditation, everything inside me says you can know that is true.

"Where is God?"

I was in a Holiday Inn at five in the morning after twenty-four hours of vomiting every twenty minutes. I was slumped on the floor, holding the space of a rib that had been removed there three weeks earlier.

 

And my wife—in anger, in panic, in desperation—called out,

 "Where is God?" 

 

And from some unknown place in me, through my pale slouched form, 

I uttered, "Here....Right here."

 

The Book of Awakening:

Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

by Mark Nepo (April 22, 2012)

 

 

It has been that sort of week. A friend wrote asking for prayers following the senseless act that left her brother-in-law dead and her sister and nephew fighting for their lives. This was no random act of violence. The bat-wielding intruder was their son. A few days later, my friend had a post on her Facebook page questioning a quotation about the unconditional loving nature of God, and asking how God's love could be true in this case. My heart has held these questions this week: for her, for me, and for all humans trying to make sense of senseless acts.

Perhaps that is the key. Perhaps we cannot make sense of senseless acts because they are senseless. We are left with the tender, open, wrenching, emotions that cannot be soothed by thinking. These moments leave us with the choice to be with them or to try to escape. In some twisted way, that desperate desire to escape inner pain may have been behind the drug use that snuffed out the light of clear thinking in the young man now in jail for murdering his father.

With grace, our own actions of escape will never be that extreme, but our ability to sit in the fire of our deepest pain without wounding others is something it can take a lifetime to cultivate.

I have invited others to join me in praying for my friend and for her family. When confronted with the senseless, sometimes we respond asking "Where is God?" but, with grace, from some unknown place in us, may we each utter simply, "Here....Right here."

How to Argue About Jesus

So what to do with people like this? Let them rant. When they take a breath, repeat back what they said in your own words. Any counselor will tell you that repetitively explaining anger dispels it. You don’t have to fix anything. You don’t have to make any promises you don’t intend to keep.

The important thing is the angry person thinks,

“Finally, I found someone who will listen.” It isn’t easy.

 

How to Deal With Angry People by David Haynes April 12, 2012

A few days ago, I was instant messaging with my daughter, Stacey, and I mentioned that I have started reading Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist who now lives in France where he was in exile for many years. Stacey expressed some curiosity about the book, and shared that recently she had been involved with some discussion with the youth group at her church about whether Jesus is the only way to experience salvation. She said her response was that is what the church teaches.

Recognizing that AIM might not be the best platform for the topic, I also admitted to feeling some stress in the exchange, as though she might not really want to know what I thought (or what Thich Nhat Hanh thought). As I reflect on that conversation now, I regret that I was not able to just listen to her with my whole heart. The fact that I was triggered by the exchange, even slightly, probably comes from my own wrestling with the demons of what the church teaches and how that differs from what my heart feels.

It has been sixteen years since I was formally part of the Christian church. It has seemed like a lifetime for me to get even a whiff of peace around that. Thankfully, like the song bird outside my window who feels the dawn and begins to sing while it is yet dark, peace is finding me. 

Photo of Jesus taken at Unity of Fort Myers, Florida. March 2012.

While I was staying on Pine Island, I had a couple of very significant encounters with the Living Christ. Perhaps the sharing of those will find their way into another post. A few days later, as I was waking up one morning, I had the clarity of Jesus as Teacher. What is appropriate relationship to/with a teacher? Love a teacher? Yes! Follow a teacher? Yes! Respect a teacher? Yes? Worship a teacher? No! I remembered my dad saying, "There is only one God Almighty." I remembered the scripture telling of the importance of worshiping no other gods. 

Surely it is by grace that this book is speaking to my heart and mind and soul. "For dialogue to be fruitful, we need to live deeply our own tradition, and, at the same time, listen deeply to others. Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and others' tradition." (p. 6)

It is no wonder that I am very much enjoying Living Buddha, Living Christ. I have discovered that in my heart I am Buddhist! Some of you know of my trip to Thailand and my time at Veranda High Resort in Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand. My sister, Janis, told me she could sense life returning to my dry bones while I was there. Hearing the monks chanting, smelling the incense, and being in a culture for whom meditation is natural were each new life to me. 

Photo of Buddha taken at temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand. September 2010.

 

Forgive me, Stacey. I love you and I love Jesus. I also love Buddha! For now, even though my altar is not in France, I will let these words of Thich Nhat Hanh speak what is true for me:

On the altar in my hermitage in France are

images of Buddha and Jesus,

and every time I light incense,

I touch both of them as my spiritual ancestors.

Truly Present

Mark Twain is thought to have said, "I can live for two months on a good compliment." The statement honors how easily we all can be influenced by what another says or thinks about us. That is probably why it feels so good to be with others who share similar values to our own. That happened for me with the International College of Integrative Medicine. That professional group is made up of folks I would call physician/healers. Their passion, dedication, commitment to lifelong learning, and their dream of positive changes in the philosophy and practice of medicine is palpable. 

I am still processing my experience at the conference in Lexington, Kentucky, last week, and I expect I will continue to treasure the connections with those I spent time with the same way you savor a fine meal. What makes the most sense to me is that something personal has taught them to be truly present with their patients. The presence they bring is also packed with skill.

Joel Bowman shown here with Aline Fournier, D.O., in Lexington, Kentucky, as she finishes his session after the end of the workshop on Mesotherapy. Joel was the demonstration subject.

In My Grandfather's Blessing: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen writes of having (years ago) cared for a "desperately sick" two-year-old boy. As he lay in the hospital bed, day after day, his mother would be there with him, her hand under his blanket, holding his small foot. When asked, the mother shared that she would "just close her eyes and dream her dreams for him." Over and over again. 

That tender, unswerving, mother's love made me think of an idea called THE THREE C's in Twelve Step circles: "I didn't cause it; I can't control it; and I can't cure it." What a relief to remember these when invited into the sacred circle with another. 

If medicine, meaning drugs and surgery, was the cause and healing was the effect, then think for a moment about why it works some times and not others, and become aware now of why some people heal without medicine, drugs, or surgery.

Think about something really physical like a hip replacement, and notice how nothing the surgeon does - nothing the nurses do – actually “makes” that hip heal. If healing results, not from what is done to the individual by others, then what is it that actually causes or allows healing to occur?

In Love & Survival: 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Healing, Dr. Dean Ornish reminds readers that even when drugs and surgery are necessary, they are just the beginning. The physical body – the heart, is more than just a mechanical pump. Ornish says you also have an emotional heart, a psychological heart, and a spiritual heart.

“Curing is when the physical disease gets measurably better. Healing is a process of becoming whole. Even the words heal and whole and holy come from the same root. Returning healing to medicine is like returning justice to law." (p.15)

Healing is the most natural of processes. Remember a time when you cut a finger or skinned a knee. Something inside you allowed healing to occur. That something inside you is your innate healing capacity. Your greatest goal, as facilitators of healing, is to support the individual discovering the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors which turn on this innate healing capacity to its maximum. 

While mere focus on cure might see death as failure, look at life as the process of living, as more than flesh and bones, and you gain a greater sense of the sacred art of healing.

“Illness and the opportunity it presents people to engage consciously and actively in a journey toward wholeness can be one of the most transformative experiences that life offers. It provides you with space for self-reflection, for caring for yourself and your needs in a way that may not have been possible in your busy everyday life. It can give you time for learning about who you are, your purpose, your potential; a time for reassessing your priorities and the value of your relationships, work, and possessions. Illness (or disease) can be the beginning of a deep, spiritual quest.” Rituals of Healing :Using Guided Imagery for Health and Wellness, by Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., Barbara Dossey, M.S., FAAN, and Leslie Kolmeier, R.N., MEd., (p. 12).

The things that promote a sense of meaning in our lives, our connection to others and to what is sacred, can heal our lives even when medicine is not able to cure our bodies.