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Images of spiritual cleansing abound, but one with a strong appeal is composting, discovered in my psychic depths through the study and practice of the Twelve Steps of Chronic Pain Anonymous.
Much of my composting stinks of long-term resentments and the many faces of anger carried from childhood. Greed, envy, and sloth have also lined the perimeter of my ditch for decades. Denial kept me prim and pretty and codependent. Seldom was fault owned, lest the thief in the night despoil me. Filled with terror, I hid from life—Safer that way.
In the almost five years I’ve been a member of Chronic Pain Anonymous, the shrill voices of my sinfulness, past and present, red flag immediate recourse to the gentle, but trenchant, uprooting found in the principles of the Twelve Steps: honesty, hope, surrender, integrity, willingness, courage, humility, love, responsibility, discipline awareness, and service.
My adherence to them is on-going, and the results, gratifying: the very disorders I’ve discarded, with God’s help, have resulted in the development of a new sense of being that deepens with more practice. Only the death of my body will end this process.
Note: These changes only occur within the global spiritual fellowship of CPA. No one does this arduous work alone.
Sleep, one of the symptoms of my terminal illness, is shrink-wrapping my gift of twenty-four-hour living.
Your will, not mine, be done.
For many in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, it will be another Sunday, the last in July, but for a handful of German Saxon Lutherans, grief will supplant their centuries-old vision of the Sacred which they established in 1850; its name, Zion Lutheran Church in North City, is closing.
No longer will it be a dwelling place for God. No longer will congregants flock to Sunday services, attend the elementary school, gather for political discussions, and so much more, it being the hub of German culture.
With the prosperity of the city, all this changed. Decades of blight displaced the residents: Disintegrating hand-made brick homes were eventually torn down, the stripped lots choked with chicory tangles. Factory and ship-spawned soot also contributed to lung diseases and defaced limestone buildings. Survival prompted relocating to cleaner air. Yet, many congregants remained loyal to their church and attended Sunday services at Zion.
Years ago, attendance at their Midnight Mass drew my compassion for this impoverished Gothic church, its sixteen-bells carillon in the spire long silenced. Especially striking were the worn wooden kneelers, evidence of countless worshipers’ faith in God; tinsel-tired Christmas trees leaning against each other; pink walls clashing with the threadbare red carpet, the dank chill that no heating system could allay. Few worshiped with us that night in the candle-lit sanctuary.
Yet, my friend’s centenarian Mother still carries the stories of what happened there. Precious God remembers, too, with Kingdom blessings.
Heart Whisperings 