Positive Disintegration

    Last Sunday, I went again to the local parish for Mass. Oh, how I miss my monastery and the oblate community there! I sat there last Sunday feeling that old familiar feeling ... feeling like an alien among the congregation. And I don't mean because I'm a foreigner in Spain! The Costa del Sol is full of foreigners. No, I'm used to feeling like an alien in a regular parish setting. I think it's something a lot of neurodiverse people know about, judging by the name of one online community for people on the autism spectrum: wrongplanet.net. And I'm wondering, what is it about my monastic oblate community that is so different? Why do I feel so at home with those people, and not with these?

Learning to Surf

     When I was a kid, I loved to play in the surf, on the mid-Atlantic coastline. The waves there are usually only a few feet high, big enough for a little kid to find exciting, but not too big for her to body-surf with all her big siblings coaching and watching out for her. I learned that the ocean is a powerful, unpredictable thing. I learned to dive through the waves on the way out, and to ride them back in to shore. I learned, when a wave would take me by surprise and knock me off my feet, to hold my breath, curl up and roll with it, let it pass, before trying to struggle up onto my feet again. I learned about the power of riptides, how fatal it can be to try to swim against them, and how to go sideways instead, parallel to the shore, until the rip looses its grip. 

    One of the key concepts I'm learning from my ADHD life-coach is called "surfing."

Happy Hermit 2.0

    In 2019, I took early retirement, and became a hermit. I was burned out, and had been for years. I had very little understanding of why I was such a hot mess. During my almost 3 years as a hermit, I have learned more about myself than I ever did before. Especially, I have learned about neurodiversity, and gained a much better understanding of how my brain and nervous system work. I've gotten more aware of what my quirks are, where my weaknesses are, what my inborn vulnerabilities are, and how to take the weight off them so they don't drag me under. I'm learning to take the weight off of my weaknesses, so that I can lean more into my strengths and begin to thrive.

    So a few months ago, I realized that the burnout was over, that I had recovered -- and that I was starting to get bored. I needed a new challenge, something for my mind to dig into, something new to learn, a new way to grow.

The Second Precept

     The Second Precept of Buddhism is "To refrain from taking that which is not given." The obvious equivalent is "Thou shalt not steal."  When I came across the 2nd Precept this morning, however, my mind went past the surface meaning to two other related principles. The first is not to grasp at or cling to the good things in life; the second, not to rage against the bad things. That which is given to us, in each moment, is all that is given.

My love-hate relationship with Catholicism

    I am a happy, contented, hopeful woman. But that hasn't always been true. I've been through major depression, trauma, and burnout. I've struggled to understand myself, and accept the challenges of living with my particular neurocognitive quirks. I chose the name "Felicity", not only because I'm happy now, but because my present happiness is such a contrast to the way I used to live. I have reached a point in my life where I want to extend a hand back to people who are struggling like I used to struggle. I want to share what I've learned, but at the same time, I'm not at all sure how to translate my long and winding path to health and happiness into words that others might be able to see themselves in. This blog is largely my attempt to do that.

The Prodigal Spoiled Baby Brother

    Today's gospel reading at Mass included the much-loved parable of the Prodigal Son. A young man, a second son, is disinclined to stick around on the family farm, so he asks his father for the share of the inheritance that would come to him. Dad agrees, and the young man takes the money and leaves, wasting it all away on "a life of dissipation." When the money is gone, and he finds himself on hard times, he finally comes to his senses and heads home. He knows he's lost his right to be treated as family again, but figures he would be better off as a hired hand back home than the life he's living now. 

    So, he heads home, and his father runs out and welcomes him with open arms, laughs, cries, lavishes him with new clothes and jewelry, kills the fatted calf and throws a big party, because "this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again! He was lost, and has been found!" This is the part of the story we usually think about, when we think about the prodigal son. It represents God's infinite loving mercy for us, no matter how badly we have behaved in the past, as soon as we come to our senses and turn back from our "life of dissipation." 

    But that's not where the story begins, nor where it ends.

Moving to Spain

    Halfway into my third year in the hermitage, I've decided to move to Europe. I'm applying for a long-term visa for Spain, since I already speak the language. No, I don't know what I'm doing! But I feel peaceful about it. I was really burned out, for years and years, and the 2.5 years in the hermitage have been necessary and healing. I have gotten to know myself much more clearly, to accept and support my weaknesses, and to start thinking about how I might better use my strengths. Now I feel as though, if I stay where I am, it will go from healing to atrophy. 

    Don't get me wrong: one of the things I still know about myself is that I thrive in solitude, silence, and simplicity. I am not renouncing the solitary way of life. But I need to find a new center of balance between retreat and engagement, between burnout and boredom. I won't be bored in Spain, no matter what I do. Here in Maryland, I can sit on my porch in the summer and list 20 or 30 different species of birds in a day, whether by sight or, mostly, just by sound. It seems that only the osprey will be familiar in Spain. I'll be starting from scratch learning the birds. And the plants, I've gotten to the point where I can distinguish many of the local trees without leaves, by their bark, the way the twigs curve, the shape of end buds or the seed cases that cling through winter. Spain has cork oaks! Olive groves, oranges and almonds and pomegranates, wild thyme and rosemary and lavender. Sweet! 

    And then there are so many languages to learn. I love languages! In 12th grade I took Spanish, French, German, and modern Greek, all at the same time. I'm pretty fluent (though rusty) in Spanish, and I have a good basis in Portuguese and French, and I'm making progress in Catalán with Duolingo. Galician shouldn't be hard, it seems to be more or less halfway between Spanish and Portuguese. Basque, on the other hand, is entirely unrelated to anything else in Europe, so it will be a while before I'm ready to tackle it. 

    It's confusing, trying to reconcile this radical move with the vows I am still under. But my spiritual director tells me very definitely not to worry about that. He knows me very, very well, and I trust his judgment. I guess it's kind of like monks who take a vow of stability, and then leave their motherhouse to start a new foundation in another part of the world. I am not abandoning my monastic, eremitic vocation, only this first phase of it. After all, the root of "vocation" is vox, voice -- vocation is a calling, and the One who's calling is still there, still engaged, still calling me onward. God doesn't just fit us into a slot, the "right" slot, and then leave us there and move on to something else. 

    The truth is, I am feeling amazingly sure and peaceful about this move, even though I made the decision pretty impulsively, and felt pretty intensely anxious at first. There is some cognitive dissonance there between the peace and the crazy, which is a good sign that I'm growing, and just need to adjust to the new peace. This is why I have a long-term spiritual director: he knows me well enough, and yet with enough personal detachment, to discern the deep clarity and sureness beneath the surface disorientation. The stress has also had an excellent effect of motivating me to a more consistent and focused practice of prayer and meditation, and generally more progress on mindfulness and balance. 

    My appointment at the Consulate to submit the visa application is next Thursday. They've already reviewed my paperwork by e-mail. So I expect to be moving by the end of January. Meanwhile, I am plugging away at the task of sorting through all my belongings and finding new homes for everything that won't fit in a couple of suitcases. I don't have that much, by cultural standards, but it's still a big job. Tedious work, too, but it feels very liberating to end up able to live so much more lightly. 

    I've only been to Europe twice, in 1988 and 2000. That helps, actually. I know so little that it's obvious it would make no sense to try to figure it out from here. I visited a few places in Spain in 2000, but absolutely nothing to base a plan on for 2022. I'll start on the south coast, because it will be Winter and I'll be ready for some sunshine. I'll take my time exploring northwards in Spring, and visit back and forth with my very dear brother and brother-in-law in Germany as soon as possible. I will probably walk the famous Camino de Santiago, if not in 2022 then maybe 2023. There's still COVID, with another scary new variant just emerging in the last week, so even though I'm vaccinated and boosted it's another reason for prudence and moderation. 

    My oblate community intends to keep up the Zoom link even as they begin to meet again in person, so that those of us who live far away can still participate in a kind of hybrid format. And I have been meeting with the abbot for spiritual direction by Zoom since the pandemic began. But I'll also be looking for "my people" in Spain. There are lots of Benedictines there, and Cistercians and Trappists, who also follow the Rule of St. Benedict. All will be well. I'm going to try to start keeping up this blog again, as I'm going through this transition.

Peace                        Love                            Joy