“I’d like to say a bit more on receiving the Precious Blood as someone in recovery. Important preface: this is my experience only & I *strongly* recommend that you only receive the Blood under the advisement of your sponsor, spiritual director & care team if you’re in recovery.
confessional note
I’ve been doing a 19th Annotation version of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises for the last couple months with a group assembled by my spiritual director. We just finished moving through the second ‘Week’ of the Exercises, especially focused on sin’s role in our lives. I was unable to attend our biweekly check-in because I’ve been sick with a fever. But I asked my spiritual director to share this note with the small group. Thought I’d share it here…
You raised me to your cheek
Grace Nair (née Mary “Grace” Modale Pothen; d. 11 October 2018 at 4:25PM EST) and grandson Jayan Koshy (né Jayan Nair)
“When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the more they went from me;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals,
and offering incense to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms;
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love.
I was to them like those
who lift infants to their cheeks.
I bent down to them and fed them.”
— Hosea 11:1-4 NRSV
Spiritual disciplines and the Work
We've been on vacation in Toronto for the last week. It's been a much-needed break from the stress of my work recently—exhausting in its own way, but still salutary. This past Sunday we went to Mass at a small Anglo-Catholic parish called St. Stephen-in-the-Fields. It's in Kensington Market, a neighborhood of Toronto that's known for its... eccentricity. It has a similar feel to Christiania in Denmark: hippy shops, bizarre art installations, and open drug use (mostly cannabis, but not exclusively). It's lower income than the Toronto average and can feel a bit rough around the edges.
Eucharistic Freelapse
My sponsor told me once (twice) ((three times)) about his first sip of alcohol after more than two decades of continuous sobriety. An accident? An ambush? Shirley Temple got deflowered somehow, at any rate… The Big Book doesn’t call it an allergy of the body for nothing. Spiritual anaphylaxis sets in before it even hits your tongue. Almost like your taste buds have been stretched their ESP to the limit of its range, looking for the slightest hint of ethanol to scream about. I’m not blushing, I swear. I’m just allergic. I’m not manic, I swear. I’m just obsessed... “The Blood of Christ; the Cup of Salvation.” The watchword that somehow manages to defuse the bomb by tripping the wire. I drink a sip each week so that I never drink more than a sip. Your pharmakon ain’t got nothin’ on the Eucharist, Plato.
A Collect for a Psychic Towing Service
I had a doozey of a therapy session today. I didn’t want to go. My mind dug in its heels like a dog who doesn’t want to move on from a particularly salacious scent on a walk. I was miserable. And I wanted to stay miserable, goddammit. I was going to ride this rollercoaster of an emotional spiral to the very end if it killed me. But Benji asked me to go, if not for myself, then for him. Love or guilt or lover’s guilt—whatever—it roused me enough to go.
#MeToo
hashtags never sit well with me. i always feel the urge to sand them furiously, to wear down the jagged edges until they fit neatly in my palm and don’t cut so deeply. but i recognize their power within the sphere of social media, especially as a tool to weave together experiences that would otherwise have sat isolated. typing out #MeToo, as much as it hurts to lance the wound(s) i’ve let fester quietly so long (too long?), connects my experience, my pain, to others’ stories.