Going to the Chapel

....the tin-roofed, open-air chapel at the Black Madonna Shrine not too far from here, and St. Joseph' head served as a perfect perch for a singing Barn Swallow, cheerful since I've been coming here rather often lately to discuss with God some painful things undergone by friends, family, and myself (pinched nerve, yow! making it impossible to sit and write, and grounding me for three weeks) and lighting eight-day votive candles for those, alas, whose candles are going out, like my mother and father, ages 83 and 98, both deathly ill. There is no death, though. It's an illusion. The bird said so.

The Healing Spring

Back in the woods, off the Infirmary Road, under this little tin roof, is the Healing Spring. I have stuck my whole head into the spring and breathed the water in, and was cured of sinus infections for several days. The trees along the quarter-mile path used to be decorated with pictures of the Pope and signs saying "Silence" and "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Wife," and there was even a wicker gate, very narrow, with a sign tacked to it that said "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way," but the path has undergone flooding and the monk who decorated the path and kept it nice died some years ago, and now there's a chain and a sign saying "Keep Out," but my business was too important. I had many choices and needed to ask God what I ought to be doing. So I went and knelt at the spring (which is behind the stone railing) and then lay down on a wooden bench looking up at the sky hoping to hear a directive. After a while I heard Him say, "Do SOMETHING. ANYTHING." Got up immediately, feeling energetic, and started for home where I began doing things, not paralyzed by fear of choice anymore, walking by faith and not by sight.

The Shrine and Brother Matthew

Down the road a piece on 100 acres is a Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Czestochowa, a place in Poland. The "chapel" part is just open-air with a tin roof over it, plus some pews and banks of eight-day candles, usually deserted except Sundays. I go there occasionally on Mondays. I listen there for messages from God. I figure He hangs out there, listening to prayers. I must say that in Missouri, messages from God seem rather more common than they did when I lived in Boston, Mass.

Not far away is a path to a healing spring. Along the path were strewn and nailed up all sorts of signs, plastic flowers, photos of Pope John Paul II, stations of the cross, warnings ("Silence"; "Straight is the Way and Narrow is the Gate," nailed above an actual narrow wooden gate; "No Dogs or Horses") and all sorts of spiritual sayings as in the photo.

The path to the spring was once well-kept by Brother Matthew, a hermit from the nearby Franciscan community; it was he who painted, decorated, pruned, rebuilt, restored. Around age 70 when we met, he invited me to his hermitage one day. Brother Matthew had been to art school sometime in the 1940s, and the hermitage was full to the ceiling with canvases. All sorts of subjects, not just religious. Used to see him around, in his brown robe, occasionally in town; he was a presence and a character. He is gone now about four or five years, and the path to the spring -- flooded, vandalized, broken-down with time -- is about ruined, with no one to keep it. Here's a photo of something of what's left. There's been ads in the local paper looking to collect Brother Matthew's paintings. I wonder where they are now.

Prayer in Reverse

I practice prayer in reverse: God speaks to me. I have to go somewhere very quiet and ask if he has anything to tell me. I started this late in life and don’t do it often.

I sit still and listen. Sometimes there’s no message. Over the past 12 years I have received three messages:

“Your heart is full of hatred.” (At the time I was locked in a bitter, unspoken battle with two others. The statement was so unexpected and piercing that I burst into tears. Then I had some realizations and got the poison out of my life.)

“The mistakes are okay.” (That message was about four years ago.)

“Pleasure.” (This was last year. I had asked, “What is your will for me?” God continued, not in words, but in his other language, which circulates through the body like blood: “Look around you. Look up at the sun and trees. It’s all beautiful and green. I didn’t make all this for you people to cry and suffer in. I made it for your pleasure.”