Relaxation:

​The priest-psychiatrist here, my new friend, Fr. Joe, gave me a book called The Relaxation Response written in 1975!
Basically it is doing deep breathing with a word such as peace or love or Jesus over and over breathing in and out for 20 minutes sitting in a comfortable position.

I was reluctant because I only breathe through the mouth and also because I associate this kind of thing with New Age. But I tried it and a knot of tension in the middle of my body that has been there since teen years melted and I started to feel good inside my body.
The book says this is also good for hyper-tension of any kind caused, for example, by the pace of contemporary life, or for addictions of any kind.
I have been doing this for two weeks now with amazing results.

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Suffering with those in the Family we Love:

On Mother’s Day I wrote my daughter Carla, suffering with post-chemo and other painful ills: “I thought I could never love you more, but this year has brought a totally greater intensity and depth as I am with you every time I think of you in empathy and prayer and admiration, since in willingness to bear suffering you are holier than moi!!!!

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Insights in the Dental Chair:

I have upper dentures and 6 bottom teeth left. While the dental hygienist was cleaning them so thoroughly (sigh! pain!) I thought: “Golly, gee, why should she bother there are so few left!” Then came this thought: If these 6 have survived, they deserve a little TLC!  I extrapolated that younger people could think that if we almost octogenarians like myself have survived this long, we deserve TLC!

Apropos Aging:

I was amazed when my own highly critical, rationalistic mother, in her second childhood in her 80’s could be seen singing little ditties from TV ads and dancing around! 

I find, now, at the same age, I also tell myself little jokes such as saying to myself “nothing terrible is happening right now, so be happy little Ronda!”

Also I take inordinate joy is doing little tiny housework things successfully!

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A priest said that when I have anxiety about my future I could think of Abraham telling Isaac as they go up the mountain “I am here.” As in "The Father is here!”  
The rector of the seminary in Los Angeles where I taught, Msgr. Niederauer, later bishop in Salt Lake City and then Archbishop of San Francisco, used to say  “all roads lead to Calvary.”

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​At our graduation dinner here at the college and seminary, in the middle of the cacophony of the jammed packed tables of so many people in the cafeteria but with lots of joy,  I got the image of “love galloping over the chaos.”   And I thought maybe it’s an image of all of life!