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Our listening creates a sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person.
I discovered this gift in another book while rooting around for a topic for my next blog—gift because of its striking use of juxtaposition: creates, sanctuary, and homeless parts with listening; gift, because of its power in shoving apart steel barriers imprisoning my psychic depths. I still wince at the scraping sounds on the cement floor of my prison.
Its distinguished author is Rachel Naomi Remen, medical teacher, author, poet, and currently professor at Osher Center of Integrative Medicine at University of California San Francisco.
So moved was I by this quotation that I decided to use it in the first person, then amplify it according to my present circumstances.
My CPA Recovery teaches the primacy of listening, of stepping back from distractions and become fully engaged in the beauty of the unfolding moment, whether shared with a significant other or alone, whether spoken or in print. Exercising the Twelve Steps facilitates this process.
Like pesky mosquitoes hovering over creek beds, my symptoms zap my inner quiet and prohibit listening—then, imprison me until time for bed and sleep with my “cocktail.” Such intrusions pull me out of prayer and into anxiety, impatience, and my need for help, more than I’d like to admit.
But when I’m able to sort through the rabble and bring compassion to the troublemakers, or the homeless parts, a new creation occurs: its colors, scintillating and fresh, like that First Morning Genesis describes. I find myself in a sanctuary, a place of communion, peace, and joy, unlike any I’ve seen around the world.
Only Precious God produces such revelations that buoy me until the next one, usually on the heels of a spell of aridity. I’m humbled and grateful.
At 4 A.M, this disturbing dream awoke me; it seemed to continue until 6:50 A.M. when I climbed out of bed to record it:
I was sitting in the locked ward of the day room of an old psychiatric hospital. The poorly groomed patients wore faded gowns that tied in the back, their feet bare. The staff was rowdy, handled them rough, especially when administering injections or medications, or subduing them in four-point restraints. The noise was deafening. I’m not sure why I was there. The morning wore on. Then, Father Reinert, the Jesuit President of St. Louis University, was let into the day room where with a sorrowful look he signed the Guest Book with a large black fountain pen.
Such upheaval in my psyche suggests the insanity of profound disorientation: despair, drugged violence, lack of focus and voice, and lack of body awareness. Extreme poverty assigns them as wards of the already impoverished state. Their caregivers hate their duties but see no way to better themselves. Like flotsam floating atop oceans, there is no communication.
The flap of two of my caregivers may have given rise to this dream and my needless dependence upon them, especially since I am managing without them.
Indeed, my psyche also bore the smells of that setting that resembled the old St. Louis State Psychiatrist Hospital on Arsenal Street, my 1983 assignment for my ACPE training in chaplaincy. In both that summer experience and the dream, the challenge is to recognize my internal mayhem lest it infect others and impede the trajectory of my end-times.
The presence of Father Reinert, the Jesuit President of St. Louis University, in the day room was a surprise, given his habitual cheerfulness. Perhaps he was coming to see me. I need guidance.
O Key of David and Scepter of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
The fourth O Antiphon addresses the longed-for Messiah as the Key of David and Scepter, drawn from Isaiah 9:6 and 22:22.
Again, we begin with metaphors of royal power. Whoever possesses keys has the means to imprison others, either literally or psychologically or spiritually: a bonding to another occurs. Whoever holds the scepter, an ancient symbol of imperial sovereignty, holds absolute sway over nations; they are controlled, sometimes locked down within rules and regulations, benevolent or sadistic.
The Israelites’ checkered experience with their kings and those of neighboring countries led them to long for a Messiah, with power to effect vital and lasting change. Intermittent warfare only weakened them. Centuries of exile under the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians further undermined their sense of being Yahweh’s chosen people. Living in darkness and the shadow of death grieved them. A few did remember better times and yearned for a different way of life.
Like all the other O Antiphons, the imperative Come seeks the Messiah’s intervention in His people’s suffering, largely caused by ignorance and self-will. Only He can bring about lasting change.
And are we that different from the ancient Israelites? Living in self-imposed prisons of fear and doubt? Our sloth compounding our darkness? Speaking for myself, I think not, especially since I’m living within the shadow of death.
Heart Whisperings 