Private Vows in The Laity/Spirituality

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Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom Paperback – October 21, 1998

by John O'Donohue  (Author)

4.7 out of 5 stars    1,277 ratings

Also available on Kindle $1.99 - Paperback $9.72 (Ships to Australia)

"Anam Cara is a rare synthesis of philosophy, poetry, and spirituality. This work will have a powerful and life-transforming experience for those who read it." —Deepak Chopra

John O'Donohue, poet, philosopher, and scholar, guides you through the spiritual landscape of the Irish imagination. In Anam Cara, Gaelic for "soul friend," the ancient teachings, stories, and blessings of Celtic wisdom provide such profound insights on the universal themes of friendship, solitude, love, and death as:

• Light is generous
• The human heart is never completely born
• Love as ancient recognition
• The body is the angel of the soul
• Solitude is luminous
• Beauty likes neglected places
• The passionate heart never ages
• To be natural is to be holy
• Silence is the sister of the divine
• Death as an invitation to freedom

[Guest]

                                                                           

   

A few months back, my foster son 'shot through' stealing valued (rather than valuable) items from me in the process.  It has been really traumatic time for me.  He came to us, when I was married, as a behavioral problem.  He had been baptized Catholic but not really raised in a Catholic home environment until he came to us at 8 years of age.  And boy! was he a behavioral problem !!!  Truth was that we had no idea really what a serious behavioral problem child could present as problems for us in the details.  Well, moreso present to me, perhaps.

We had anticipated when we began fostering that as time went on, his behavior would correct rather than increase.  As time went on and intelligence grew, his behavior rather became more skilled and disruptive.  My daughter in law summed it up:  "Mum, he has done my head in!"

He will not answer attempts to contact him - either his mobile or his emails.

It all began when a nun I knew rang and asked me would we take him for the Christmas holidays so he could experience a Catholic partnered with a secular Christmas - and in a family environment.  Both my then husband and I agreed to do so even though we had been told of his behavior problems.  We also then took him on all holidays for a year before we thought about and agreed to foster him.  His treatment  was the same as our own natural son, a year younger than him.  They were and still are like chalk and cheese, while my son really thinks of him nowadays as his brother.  He went to a Catholic boys college with our son, with tutoring back then by priests and brothers.  We took no advantage of discounted expenses for foster children - in order that he be treated the same as our own son in every way.  Along the way, we had a psychologist for our foster son.  The psychologist assessed that he had above average intelligence, his primary problem was in relationships.  He became a quite skilled deceiver and manipulator.  He also had a quite loving and loved side of his personality.

About a year after we began fostering, I fell seriously ill with my first overt bipolar episode.  It was sudden, not overnight.  My then husband was having an affair with my best friend.  The night I discovered it, I had what was a breakdown but kept it hidden from everyone.  I did speak with my now ex husband about stopping fostering as my foster son's behavior was becoming much too much for me - then battling with my own mental problems and a serious psychotic bipolar episode.  But my then husband refused.  It was ok for him, back then he was working mainly 7 days each week, came home, had a shower, sat down and read the newspaper until dinner time.  In all our 15 years together he never cleared a dish, washed one or dried one.  He was great on the exterior of our home and there it stopped......full stop, end of story..........no matter the situation inside our home, nor how ill I might have been.   My psychiatrist at that time would every so often put me into the private psychiatric hospital, calling it "time out" - and that does summarize too.

When I discovered my husband's affair, I did not even think of leaving him.  I had promised The Lord as I walked down the marriage isle that I would be the best wife and mother I knew how to be.  I think I did keep that promise - within, anyway, my abilities and His Help. It was for better or for worse with me - and I wanted my sons to have a Mum and Dad together.  How I lived the four years until I broke down completely with bipolar in a very overt manner in psychosis, I truly do not know.   That did mark the beginning of the end of my marriage, the ending initiated by my husband.  In effect, he kicked me out.  I knew nothing about welfare in general (e.g. sickness benefits) nor did I know anything about entitlements of a divorced woman - and none of my family set me straight  nor the public mental health system back then either.  Rather they made my situation worse than it need have been then.

Previous to fostering, I had had five terrible disasters.  Our first son only lived for an hour, then I had an ectopic pregnancy and nearly drowned in my own blood.  Our now son was then born healthy after a trying and traumatic pregnancy.  I lost my other fallopian tube when my diseased ovary needed removing.  Prior to that I had had an early miscarriage.

Back in those days, there was no grieving or mourning period - one just had to get on with life without any sort of support nor understanding.

We would only ever have our one natural born son and we had accepted that - fostering was not chosen initially - more accidental really.  Fostering was never in our overall plan.  It just happened.

I don't know if I will be continuing my story or not.  It is very difficult to reflect back and then write.  I leave it in The Lord's Hands and with the advocacy of The Holy Spirit and Our Lady.  If I continue, then I continue - and if not then I do not.  Both are ok with me.  I never ever write without prayer............thankfully and gratefully.  While I can and do read something I have written with regret I had written it - but then take comfort that The Lord permitted it for His Own Good Reasons.

                                                                           

   

A few months back, my foster son 'shot through' stealing valued (rather than valuable) items from me in the process.  It has been really traumatic time for me.  He came to us, when I was married, as a behavioral problem.  He had been baptized Catholic but not really raised in a Catholic home environment until he came to us at 8 years of age.  And boy! was he a behavioral problem !!!  Truth was that we had no idea really what a serious behavioral problem child could present as problems for us in the details.  Well, moreso present to me, perhaps.

We had anticipated when we began fostering that as time went on, his behavior would correct rather than increase.  As time went on and intelligence grew, his behavior rather became more skilled and disruptive.  My daughter in law summed it up:  "Mum, he has done my head in!"

He will not answer attempts to contact him - either his mobile or his emails.

It all began when a nun I knew rang and asked me would we take him for the Christmas holidays so he could experience a Catholic partnered with a secular Christmas - and in a family environment.  Both my then husband and I agreed to do so even though we had been told of his behavior problems.  We also then took him on all holidays for a year before we thought about and agreed to foster him.  His treatment  was the same as our own natural son, a year younger than him.  They were and still are like chalk and cheese, while my son really thinks of him nowadays as his brother.  He went to a Catholic boys college with our son, with tutoring back then by priests and brothers.  We took no advantage of discounted expenses for foster children - in order that he be treated the same as our own son in every way.  Along the way, we had a psychologist for our foster son.  The psychologist assessed that he had above average intelligence, his primary problem was in relationships.  He became a quite skilled deceiver and manipulator.  He also had a quite loving and loved side of his personality.

About a year after we began fostering, I fell seriously ill with my first overt bipolar episode.  It was sudden, not overnight.  My then husband was having an affair with my best friend.  The night I discovered it, I had what was a breakdown but kept it hidden from everyone.  I did speak with my now ex husband about stopping fostering as my foster son's behavior was becoming much too much for me - then battling with my own mental problems and a serious psychotic bipolar episode.  But my then husband refused.  It was ok for him, back then he was working mainly 7 days each week, came home, had a shower, sat down and read the newspaper until dinner time.  In all our 15 years together he never cleared a dish, washed one or dried one.  He was great on the exterior of our home and there it stopped......full stop, end of story..........no matter the situation inside our home, nor how ill I might have been.   My psychiatrist at that time would every so often put me into the private psychiatric hospital, calling it "time out" - and that does summarize too.

When I discovered my husband's affair, I did not even think of leaving him.  I had promised The Lord as I walked down the marriage isle that I would be the best wife and mother I knew how to be.  I think I did keep that promise - within, anyway, my abilities and His Help. It was for better or for worse with me - and I wanted my sons to have a Mum and Dad together.  How I lived the four years until I broke down completely with bipolar in a very overt manner in psychosis, I truly do not know.   That did mark the beginning of the end of my marriage, the ending initiated by my husband.  In effect, he kicked me out.  I knew nothing about welfare in general (e.g. sickness benefits) nor did I know anything about entitlements of a divorced woman - and none of my family set me straight  nor the public mental health system back then either.  Rather they made my situation worse than it need have been then.

Previous to fostering, I had had five terrible disasters.  Our first son only lived for an hour, then I had an ectopic pregnancy and nearly drowned in my own blood.  Our now son was then born healthy after a trying and traumatic pregnancy.  I lost my other fallopian tube when my diseased ovary needed removing.  Prior to that I had had an early miscarriage.

Back in those days, there was no grieving or mourning period - one just had to get on with life without any sort of support nor understanding.

We would only ever have our one natural born son and we had accepted that - fostering was not chosen initially - more accidental really.  Fostering was never in our overall plan.  It just happened.

I don't know if I will be continuing my story or not.  It is very difficult to reflect back and then write.  I leave it in The Lord's Hands and with the advocacy of The Holy Spirit and Our Lady.  If I continue, then I continue - and if not then I do not.  Both are ok with me.  I never ever write without prayer............thankfully and gratefully.  While I can and do read something I have written with regret I had written it - but then take comfort that The Lord permitted it for His Own Good Reasons.

                                                                         

 

 

Edit:  In attempting to edit my post, something or other went wrong and probably operator error - my post repeated and my apologies.  

I wanted to post that my own son is now 54years of age and my foster son a year roughly older.

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                     https://shalomplace.com/seed/

What people turn to is more important than what they turn from, even if that to which they turn is only a higher moral truth.............

...................but to turn to Christ is far more important than to turn to higher moral truth: it is to turn the face towards Him in whom is all moral truth; it is to turn to Him in whom is not only the virtue which corresponds to the known vice from which the penitent desires to flee, but all virtue; it is to turn the face to all holiness, all purity, all grace.

It was this repentance which the apostles preached after Pentecost.
 

                                                                       - Roland Allen (1869-1947), Pentecost and the World

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..............beautiful..............and so very wise..............   

       

 

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Our natural born son was called "My Miracle Baby" by our gynecologist (reputed as one of the best in South Australia).   Born 10 days late, our gynecologist kept it to himself but was afraid our baby would not survive or perhaps have serious health problems.  My gynecologist died shortly after our son was born.  His nurse came to start her day in the surgery - and he was collapsed seated at his desk and had passed away - a major heart attack was diagnosed.

For my part, I was a terribly nervous mother, afraid we would loose our babe too.   That did make him a nervous baby i.e. difficult to settle, putting it mildly.  He was put on something to calm him.  Reality is, I think, that if I had been put on something to calm me, it would have followed that our baby son would be calm too.  I should have been taking medication, not our baby.  I did spend time in a mother and babies specialist accommodation.  The accommodation was created to assist mothers having some sort of problem with their newborn.

Our son was born healthy in every way (other than the settling).  Over time and by the time he was three months old, I had become a capable and rather confident mother.  Our baby son had settled too.

As our son grew, it became quite obvious that he would likely be a free thinker and a free spirit in all probability and that proved to be the case.  I fell ill when he was 7 years of age.  How he survived mentally and maturing with a mentally ill mother was a miracle to me.  I did give him a second name at his birth i.e. "Gerard" after St Gerard Majella, patron saint of expectant mothers as well as mothers.  My other devotion was to Mary, mother of Jesus.  At Confirmation, he chose St Michael.  I did explain to him what a Confirmation Saint was about.  I could not attend his Confirmation, I was ill and also I was drinking heavily back then - and daily.  I was drunk.  As well, I was addicted to slimming pills, which back then contained amphetamine, now banned.  I was a junkie.  It was being unable to attend his Confirmation that woke me up very abruptly to myself and I immediately stopped drinking and the pills.  In one way that was good for my health, in another way, it negatively affected my mental health.  The withdrawals were severe and bipolar reacted negatively.

My Faith in its essence never abandoned me, while in my head or mentally, I often had weird ideas and concepts about God, whom I always recognized as Jesus, truly human in every way and also Truly God.   It must have affected our sons and their own faith.  As my son was being born into this life, I consciously said to Him "He is Yours".  And The Lord has daily held him, while neither of my sons are practicing Catholics.

I had told our sons that our natural son was a Gift from God, while our foster son was chosen by their Dad and me.  All though my illness, bipolar disorder, my ex husband was no support in any way whatsoever.  Rather, he withdrew from me increasingly.  I must state that to live with a sufferer of bipolar when the illness is quite active, is almost an impossibility.  Of course, it then follows that my illness had a negative affect on my sons.  How they suffered!  Our foster son was accustomed, insofar as that is possible, to live in a negative family environment; however, it was new to our natural son.   And he suffered the worst of all.

The trigger for a very serious episode of bipolar and my first episode was discovering that my ex husband was having an affair with my girlfriend.  It was a serious psychotic episode and I was put into a psychiatric hospital and the security ward.  I was put into the security ward as the doctors had no idea at all on how things were going to unfold.  I went into an almost catatonic state - and was given controlled doses of LSD, now banned.  That marked me hearing a voice and I went up the walls, as it were, in blind terror.  The medical assessment was that I was now coming out with my true feelings and I should stay on the LSD.

Life for my sons was near on horrific too. 

But that is another anecdote for another time perhaps.

Bringing back my past to conscious memory is depressive and anxiety raising.  I need to come away from it and put it out of my mind temporarily possibly, perhaps.  One of the good things to come out of my bipolar illness is that I learnt to live just one day only at a time.  In the morning I consciously feel new day and I am newly born.  At night I feel the journey has concluded - going off to sleep is a rehearsal for death.  I die as it were and I die praying.  Over time, probably a long time, and with continual practice each and every day, it has become habitual and non reflective almost at times.  I have internalized only one day at a time and to live in the now.  That perseveres to today.

I recall while a student asking our tutor a question.  She replied "You know that video we saw yesterday?"  I replied that I could not recall it.  She was shocked because I truly could not recall even seeing a video.  That is a pretty good example I think of how I had become able to put yesterday and all my yesterdays out of conscious memory.  Was it a good thing?  I have no idea as a psychological and psychiatric understanding, determination.  I do know that the ability has served me rather than hindered - in the main anyway.  Served me in that I learnt to live in the moment, in the now – and in the now as an expression of God’s Will.   Even now, this moment, I cannot recall what I did yesterday........that is unless I really apply myself to do so.  Aided by my diary, I can then bring it back into my consciousness as what happened yesterday.  My long term memory is far better than the short term.  At 75 years that just might be a norm.  However, the ability has been with me for probably 25 years or so or even longer, I guestimate.

As for the future, I make plans but these days, I always subject my plans to The Unfolding Will of God with the unfolding days.  This latter is prime with me.  My plans are planned to be altered without stress if necessary, always subject to God's Will as an ongoing resolution.......in the main of course.  Falling and rising are my daily companions and my gratitude is to God and His Grace for the latter.

While my Faith in essence, what Faith really is as an experience, has never left me, my thoughts and concepts about God and religion, my Catholicism, at times were warped, incorrect.  That has corrected over time – years in fact.  Two watershed moments in my mental understanding of my Faith have been The Catholic Catechism - I had bought a copy. It has handwritten notes most everywhere. And then, on being given a computer and finding out about Google and all Catholic I could discover on the internet.  Being a student, emphasized for me the importance of reliable resources.  With those two and one half watershed moments in my journey, I was able to correct my thinking and the why of it all.  I had loved theology in my college years and took it up again very readily once I had a computer and explored its abilities.  My love of our theology continues.

If I do continue to write, things might be all over the place as to time, rather than any sort of chronological order at every step.  I am so hesitant to hit SUBMIT REPLY.  I am going to leave it as a draft in Word prayerfully for a while.

Amen.

 

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Without being discouraged on account of our sins, we should pray for God's grace with a perfect confidence relying upon the infinite merits of our Lord. God never fails offering us His grace at each action, as I have distinctly perceived it myself... unless my thoughts had wandered from a sense of God's Presence, or unless I had forgot to ask His assistance.

- Br. Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

(My comment only: My experience has been that even if I had forgotten to ask The Lord to help me, He was right in there with me anyway and with His Graces, His Help and Guidance.  To me that is a witness to His Perfect Ultimate Humility.   These are the times when I am reminded of my sinful status - and overwhelmed by the Gratuitous Generosity and Care of Jesus and to His least.)

 

 

                                                           

         

 

                   

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Prayer requires both intention and attention. The way we approach an activity signals what we intend, what it means. If I seek to find God in my walk through the woods, my walk becomes a prayer. If I open myself to God's presence with a friend, our discussion becomes a  prayer . . . Yet if I walk to get my heart rate up, or spend time with my friend because I like her . . . these activities--healthy enjoyable, and productive thought they may be--are not prayer.

- Jane Vennard, Embracing the World -

 

 

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I am having a bit of a rough time just now.  Quite unusually for me, after the pneumonia and psychotic episode (I have never hurt anyone nor threatened), I have now dived in to a depression.  I saw my psychiatrist last Tuesday and her diagnosis is that I am having a bit of a rough time with depression, but handling it ok.  She has not prescribed anti-depressants nor did I want them.

A prayer really would be appreciated.  I will get there, wherever "there" might be, but it will take a bit of time I anticipate.

[Pax17]

:Prayers:

Wishing you a blessed Easter.