I set the alarm for 8 pm. I guess I had decided the night before that I would be going to church and not to Bikram. I walked around the block instead of just up and down our street. I took a brown paper bag with me to pick up garbage. I saw nothing major, not even much minor trash until I came across a broken plastic flower pot. The brown paper bag went to good use. Further down the street, I spotted what I thought was a small piece of paper. Fooled. It was dried wild turkey poop. I washed my hands very well when I got home.
I am working on changing my breathing. While I revert to my old breathing pattern, extending my abdomen when I don't pay attention, it takes less effort now to restart the new breathing pattern, contracting my abdominal muscles in upon the inhale. I was surprised by how easy it was to restart it when it had taken effort when I first started working on the change.
I boiled two kettles of water for the weeds, hurried to get showered, do MELT, and use the Tiger Tail to get ready for Paulette's pick up around 9:30. I heard her honk the horn and then her voice calling. Oh, well. Usually, I'm out front waiting, so she's not required to pull into the driveway.
We got to church early as usual. I did a count of the available seats in the church. It's closer to 60, tops, rather than 75, as I said earlier. Holy Rosary is a small, wooden church. The person sitting in front of me was speculating when it was built. There are several small churches like this dotted across the island. At least three of them are decorated by a local Michelangelo, well, close but no cigar. They're still fun to visit.
Fr Lio is just in the middle of repainting the Holy Rosary church. Apparently, it is part of the termite defense. The beasts get sealed in. Does that actually work? By today, the ceiling was painted a sky blue, and the walls were painted a pinkish white. I heard there is a possibility that they will be asking a local artist to decorate the church.
The Mass was short today because there must have been no more than 25 people. I'm getting to know all the parishioners, which makes me feel more connected. While Paulette was doing her visiting after Mass was over, I worked on reading the words to the traditional songs of the Mass that have been translated into Hawaiian. I can read them and pronounce them correctly – given the time because Hawaiian is a phonetic language, but the songs go too fast for me to keep up. I will now use the time when I get to church early to work on saying it slowly, slowly, until I can read it at the required speed for the song.
Back to the subject of sacrifice as an act of love. One of my readers wrote to assure me that I did sacrifice for Mike and, therefore, had agape love. I deeply loved, and still love, Mike, but what I am struggling with here is what act of sacrifice can be defined as agape love. Was my sitting by his side for the five weeks a true sacrifice, or was my allowing him to die freeing me from having to sit with him but leaving me on my own to reinvent myself a sacrifice? Both? Neither? It is the subject of sacrifice as an act of love that bugs me. I have no question that I loved Mike for Mike's sake and did the best I could for him.
If you're wondering why it is an issue for me, my mother always accused me of being selfish because I never thought of her. My mother was nuts. I thought of her nonstop. When I couldn't think what she thought, know what she knew, and do what she wanted without her telling me, that was evidence of my selfishness. That's what she required. She was jealous of the attention I gave to any other human being. If she had been a life partner, her behavior would have been defined as abusive. She was damaged goods, but she also loved her children passionately. She was able to be happy for us when things work out well, even when she didn't approve of the actions we took.
In addition to a somewhat confused and confusing mother, and I had a father that used me for a sounding board for questions like "What is truth? What is beauty? What is love?" So I'm stuck having to deal with these questions. I don't really mind. I find it very interesting.
I am struggling to find a definition of agape love that is more realistic. The Christian model is physical death, physical discomfort, "Jesus gave his life," is too limited. I am arguing for a definition of sacrifice of self that involves a change in our concept of ourselves or our expectations -voluntarily. On the other hand, I have an example in my life of someone who uses shift in self as a way of escaping self, which winds up damaging those near and dear. It isn't change alone. It is the intent behind the change and the voluntary nature of it.
Does parenthood qualify? Well, in this day and age, most children are born because they are wanted. People can choose not to have children. I can imagine that people feel that they have lost their lives for the sake of their children, but is that voluntary. Let's see. How would these parents feel if they didn't care for their children? Jesus's sacrifice was voluntary. He could have gotten out of town before the posse came after him. He had a choice. He did this for others. He didn't have to. No one would have known the difference. If you neglect your children, you can be arrested besides having trouble looking yourself in the mirror and seeing a good person looking back at you. Sometimes circumstances eliminate choice. Choices we have already made force our hand; the subsequent decisions involve choosing between two bad options, suffer by doing or suffer by not doing.
David Brooks, love this man, has written a book called, "The Second Mountain." The book is on order, but I haven't read it yet. He talks about the quest for a moral life. Can't imagine living otherwise. I'd like to say that living that way runs in my family, but I've seen evidence to the contrary. Who are these people? Now that doesn't mean that some of these folks don't judge me as not living a moral life. They see me a selfish. I suspect it is because I ask for what I want and say what is on my mind, but I don't know for sure. All I get is snarls and character assassinations. It doesn't give me much to work with.
I think Brooks's first mountain is when someone thinks that their well-being is always in conflict with someone else's. The second mountain is when someone thinks that their well-being is interlinked with everyone else's. The more people and animals and plants that experience well-being the more enhanced my well-being will be. While my well-being is dependent on your well-being, that definitely does not mean that I don't have to guard my own well-being. If my focus is only on the well-being of others, then my well-being will suffer. If mine suffers, so will theirs. I think the narrow path is the way between what I owe myself and what I owe others. Tricky, tricky. Good luck to one and all.
I love this topic. I think it is exciting and essential. It's an issue for all of us. Are we good people or bad people? Do we do good things or bad things? I have heard that even serial killers will say that they are basically good people who have done bad things. Thinking of ourselves in favorable terms is important. If I write everything I want to write on this subject for this entry, it'll probably come to several chapters. I'll continue the discussion as it moves me in future entries.
I sat down to work on the blog and boiled a kettle of water for my weeds. B got Mike's car and took his grandkids back home to Hilo. Sariah was feeling sick, she had double vision and nausea. She thought it was food poisoning from the Thai food but neither Yvette nor I got sick. B said that she had eaten a whole container of strawberries on her own. Possibly, she didn't wash them, and they made her sick.
I've been noticing that Elsa sits by me at all times. If I'm sitting in my typing chair, a firm armchair, she sits under the coffee table in front of the sofa or spread out on the tile in the nearby hallway. If I lie down on the sofa, she is on the floor right near me or on top of me.
I walked Elsa and came home and did more work on the blog. I had dinner, watched TV and cataloged some books. I walked Elsa again, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.
No comments:
Post a Comment