OUR ABDUCTED DOCTOR HAS AT LAST BEEN FOUND!
NOW BACK ABOVE GROUND, UN-GAGGED AND UN-BOUND,
THE TREASURE-TROVE THOUGHTS SHE WILL FREELY EXPOUND
WILL PROVE MORE THAN BEFORE TO BE RICHLY PROFOUND.
NOW BACK ABOVE GROUND, UN-GAGGED AND UN-BOUND,
THE TREASURE-TROVE THOUGHTS SHE WILL FREELY EXPOUND
WILL PROVE MORE THAN BEFORE TO BE RICHLY PROFOUND.
Six months ago I put my Blog, RondaView, on hiatus. I was feeling tired of my own thoughts.
This one will be written during each week and put up on Fridays. The web-master says that there are wonderful old entries on RondaView you might like to check out if you are a newcomer.
Let me begin this new start with an account of “where I am at.”
After the hiatus I am still in beautiful warm Corpus Christi, Texas, at a wonderful parish I have described before. I volunteer some in the office and setting up Adoration. At 80 I like to do small things that are easy and that help good places.
Since my last blog in January, 2017, I went through all my journals of more than 20 years editing them to remove things that might hurt people. Since my autobiography is called En Route to Eternity, written when I was about 55, and at 40 I called myself ½ Way to Eternity, I am calling these journals 6 Toes in Eternity. One of my publishers, En Route Books and Media, has them up for free under the section called Free Downloads. You might find some of the things in 6 Toes in Eternity helpful spiritually; others just funny.
Upcoming on this web, goodbooksmedia, you will find a notice of a new booklet that I started on RondaView before the hiatus: this one is called 9 Toes in Eternity and it consists in what I consider to be my best short thoughts in my whole Catholic life from 21-80! It will become a booklet soon, published by goodbooksmedia with delightful graphics. My hope is that people who like my stuff can have this short, short, booklet to give to friends and family who may not want to read even a small book and, certainly not a long book of mine!
Since arriving in Corpus Christi, January 2017, I wrote a book with Al Hughes, a pastoral counselor and spiritual director, called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. This book came about in this manner. Arriving here in Corpus Christi at age 79, I had become a little better at anger. This was after more than 20 years of anger management with the system of Abraham Low, founder of Recovery, Intl., not 12 step.
However, I found that retirement after some 50 years of teaching was much harder than I thought it would be. When I left teaching at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, I quipped to my last class, “you are the last people who ever have to obey me!”
So, when I arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, I renewed contact with my old friend Al Hughes, a widower and retired Lieutenant Air Force Colonel. Since being in a writer’s group of mine 15 years ago he had written several books, published by goodbooksmedia. Check them out on this web-site.
Al noticed how anxious I was! Since he is a spiritual director, I asked him to help me. This morphed into a book called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. People who have read it find it very helpful. Check out the description on my web-site www.rondachervin.com under the gyrating link called New Content.
Now, what am I thinking about day by day since the hiatus on this Blog?
Mostly I think about problems of aging in the context of our faith. Even though I wrote a book about the Joys and Sufferings of Aging when I was 60, at 80 there are many other aspects! Any of you who are 80 know that the period between 70 and 80 years old is just as difficult as other famous decades described by such joyful titles as mid-life crisis or sixty’s crisis!
So, I am now thinking that part of my remaining life will be communicating thoughts from my ‘80’s by means of this blog.
Here is an example: There can be quite a long period between being averagely competent and being technically demented! Each new type of senior moment can be startling.
My worst was walking out of my dorm room at the seminary with a poncho not covering my jumper, but only my slip!
But other incidents, now, such as turning on the faucet to fill up the large kitchen sink…walking away…and coming back 15 minutes later to a flood, are also disconcerting.
Then comes all these thoughts about moving to assisted living. But, since one of my favorite mentors quipped that every utopia becomes a gulag, I worry that even Catholic assisted living places could turn out to be disappointing.
Jesus seems to tell me that it doesn’t matter where I live now. What matters is that I let Him draw closer to my heart so that He can prepare me for eternal life. Just hold My hand tighter.
More as I continue to slide down the slippery slope.
By the way, Jim Ridley, my wonderful web-master, does forward to me comments some of you make on the blog-board. I can’t go on by myself to respond to these, but if you very much want to exchange ideas with me, you can write me an e-mail at [email protected]. Often I only write back 1 line or so because, as my favorite sentence goes “I am 80 years old and I no longer can – x, y, or z.” If I wrote a whole book on the subject of your e-mail I will refer you to that book and say, after you read my best thoughts if you have questions, write me again. Why repeat in 3 pages of clumsy sentences what I wrote well 30 years ago???
Let us pray for one another! Yes!
Here is another reflection about old age:
When I was a new convert and age 23, I was brought to see an old dying holy woman. Her name was Marguerite Solbrig and she was the founder of a lay community of whom Dietrich Von Hildebrand, my professor, was the most well-known member.
I only saw her for 10 minutes. There was a bed with covers and all I could see was the face of this woman. Her large brown eyes were glowing with mingled suffering and joy as she looked at me with love.
I will never forget that look.
Now, at an age closer to hers, I am thinking: “We shouldn’t think that our life on earth is over if we can’t do our usual work in the world or and Church. With one look of love, if we truly live in the depth of the heart of Jesus, we could do something intensely meaningful for another person.”
This one will be written during each week and put up on Fridays. The web-master says that there are wonderful old entries on RondaView you might like to check out if you are a newcomer.
Let me begin this new start with an account of “where I am at.”
After the hiatus I am still in beautiful warm Corpus Christi, Texas, at a wonderful parish I have described before. I volunteer some in the office and setting up Adoration. At 80 I like to do small things that are easy and that help good places.
Since my last blog in January, 2017, I went through all my journals of more than 20 years editing them to remove things that might hurt people. Since my autobiography is called En Route to Eternity, written when I was about 55, and at 40 I called myself ½ Way to Eternity, I am calling these journals 6 Toes in Eternity. One of my publishers, En Route Books and Media, has them up for free under the section called Free Downloads. You might find some of the things in 6 Toes in Eternity helpful spiritually; others just funny.
Upcoming on this web, goodbooksmedia, you will find a notice of a new booklet that I started on RondaView before the hiatus: this one is called 9 Toes in Eternity and it consists in what I consider to be my best short thoughts in my whole Catholic life from 21-80! It will become a booklet soon, published by goodbooksmedia with delightful graphics. My hope is that people who like my stuff can have this short, short, booklet to give to friends and family who may not want to read even a small book and, certainly not a long book of mine!
Since arriving in Corpus Christi, January 2017, I wrote a book with Al Hughes, a pastoral counselor and spiritual director, called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. This book came about in this manner. Arriving here in Corpus Christi at age 79, I had become a little better at anger. This was after more than 20 years of anger management with the system of Abraham Low, founder of Recovery, Intl., not 12 step.
However, I found that retirement after some 50 years of teaching was much harder than I thought it would be. When I left teaching at Holy Apostles College and Seminary, I quipped to my last class, “you are the last people who ever have to obey me!”
So, when I arrived in Corpus Christi, Texas, I renewed contact with my old friend Al Hughes, a widower and retired Lieutenant Air Force Colonel. Since being in a writer’s group of mine 15 years ago he had written several books, published by goodbooksmedia. Check them out on this web-site.
Al noticed how anxious I was! Since he is a spiritual director, I asked him to help me. This morphed into a book called Escaping Anxiety on the Road to Spiritual Joy. People who have read it find it very helpful. Check out the description on my web-site www.rondachervin.com under the gyrating link called New Content.
Now, what am I thinking about day by day since the hiatus on this Blog?
Mostly I think about problems of aging in the context of our faith. Even though I wrote a book about the Joys and Sufferings of Aging when I was 60, at 80 there are many other aspects! Any of you who are 80 know that the period between 70 and 80 years old is just as difficult as other famous decades described by such joyful titles as mid-life crisis or sixty’s crisis!
So, I am now thinking that part of my remaining life will be communicating thoughts from my ‘80’s by means of this blog.
Here is an example: There can be quite a long period between being averagely competent and being technically demented! Each new type of senior moment can be startling.
My worst was walking out of my dorm room at the seminary with a poncho not covering my jumper, but only my slip!
But other incidents, now, such as turning on the faucet to fill up the large kitchen sink…walking away…and coming back 15 minutes later to a flood, are also disconcerting.
Then comes all these thoughts about moving to assisted living. But, since one of my favorite mentors quipped that every utopia becomes a gulag, I worry that even Catholic assisted living places could turn out to be disappointing.
Jesus seems to tell me that it doesn’t matter where I live now. What matters is that I let Him draw closer to my heart so that He can prepare me for eternal life. Just hold My hand tighter.
More as I continue to slide down the slippery slope.
By the way, Jim Ridley, my wonderful web-master, does forward to me comments some of you make on the blog-board. I can’t go on by myself to respond to these, but if you very much want to exchange ideas with me, you can write me an e-mail at [email protected]. Often I only write back 1 line or so because, as my favorite sentence goes “I am 80 years old and I no longer can – x, y, or z.” If I wrote a whole book on the subject of your e-mail I will refer you to that book and say, after you read my best thoughts if you have questions, write me again. Why repeat in 3 pages of clumsy sentences what I wrote well 30 years ago???
Let us pray for one another! Yes!
Here is another reflection about old age:
When I was a new convert and age 23, I was brought to see an old dying holy woman. Her name was Marguerite Solbrig and she was the founder of a lay community of whom Dietrich Von Hildebrand, my professor, was the most well-known member.
I only saw her for 10 minutes. There was a bed with covers and all I could see was the face of this woman. Her large brown eyes were glowing with mingled suffering and joy as she looked at me with love.
I will never forget that look.
Now, at an age closer to hers, I am thinking: “We shouldn’t think that our life on earth is over if we can’t do our usual work in the world or and Church. With one look of love, if we truly live in the depth of the heart of Jesus, we could do something intensely meaningful for another person.”
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