The only way for me to get a blog written today is to just let it roll and ask for your understanding. I don't have the time or the health to cut it down to size! So - "stream of consciousness" is the mode of the day.
Today another ancestor is celebrated as a Saint. Some people scoff at the idea that one can know that information or rely upon it, but they do not realize how many people are alive today that are descended from some wildly interesting folks in the past. 37 generations have passed since Saint Arnulf walked the earth, and that represents, most likely, quite a few living descendants. Each saint who HAD children has their own peculiar family line, of course, and it is true that some have only a small handful of descendants living today, due to a break in the lineage in which few children lived to produce offspring, but I don't have that information ready to hand. I always enjoy doing the genealogy of friends I meet along life's path because every once in a while we discover that we are cousins, with a saint in our history.
Arnulf is the third great grandfather to Charlemagne, another ancestor of mine. There is such a wide range of historical events on which my ancestors impinged that I admit to being unable to remember it all, though I am trying to be more thorough about that. What is important to me, however, is not the political or cultural events on which they had some influence, but the spiritual lessons and guidance I may gain. I suppose that's obvious.
In Catholicism, if someone is designated as an official saint, it typically means (among other things) that one can be sure that the person is residing in heaven and not purgatory or hell. I believe they have to have been held responsible for a certain number of miracles as proof of their heavenly abode!
Saint Arnulf's miracles seem a bit thin to me, but how much can we know, really, about miracles in the 6th century? One of them involved a small amount of beer that turned into a large amount of beer miraculously, enough to quench the thirst of everyone present, in a beery version of Jesus turning the water into wine. Therefore, St. Arnulf is the patron saint of brewers! Next time you have a beer, drink one in honor of Saint Arnulf! Personally, I have never been much of a drinker, and my medications react badly with alcohol anyway, so I won't be hoisting one for my 38th great grandfather, but I'm pretty sure he won't mind the slight.
I LOVE the idea that we can talk to these ancestor saints just as we would a beloved grandfather who is sitting in his favorite chair in our parlor. I never had a grandfather in this life. Where some people have pictures of their parents and grandparents, I have icons of the saints I'm descended from. I haven't collected all of them, but one day I will start a prayer corner that has pictures of all them hanging on the wall. It should probably be a collection of miniatures, because there is more than two dozen of them.
Personally, I rely upon my sainted ancestors quite a great deal because my more immediate family, which admittedly was quite small, gave up religion several generations ago and I was not close to any of them. They were cruel to me. I think there may be a correlation.
Some people use religion to cover themselves in respectability, using the semblance of faith as a tool to pop open other people's wallets. I feel sad for them, to be honest, because they've sold their souls at such a pitiful price. Houses, cars and the manipulations that money allows haven't brought them half the joy they thought it would. But perhaps joy is not the word. Relief from fear is probably more accurate.
More hellish then spending your golden years in poverty, to my mind, is facing that yawning abyss at the end of each of our lives when we will have to meet our maker. The clock ticks away, and every day each of us is one step closer to the final curtain on our earthly drama, and all the money in the world can't save you. Sneer at the cliché as much as you like, but you are just inches from breathing your last, and then what?
These are the thoughts of the saints, I believe. Look at the ordinary lives of someone such as Saint Arnulf of Metz. He pursued the expected goals of the day, participating in wars and schemes. But his wife (my sainted 38th great grandmother Doda) inspired him - or perhaps she scared him by enumerating his sins, which wives often know better than even the man himself. She took the veil while still married to him and not long afterward, he gave up his privileged life and retired to a hermitage to live out his last years.
Even such people as these can be used by God to reflect his glory or accomplish his aims because, being all good, he can (and often does) bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil. In this way, he frustrates (and infuriates) Satan, who thinks he is winning the war against God when he can lead a person to pervert their own character and do his work for him. This is the spiritual reality behind that old saying about every cloud having a silver lining. Good always wins in the end, though it is sometimes hard to recognize it when one is too much involved. Sometimes you've got to be detached and step away from that cloud before you can see the silver lining.
When we read about a saint, such as my great grandfather Arnulf, they seem, at first to be ordinary for their day and station in life. When we see them develop into saints, it is sometimes hard to fathom. How does one "become" such a saint? But the saintliness has been there all the time - buried deep within, and the only change is the removal of dirt from the glass that covers the lamp of the soul. Spiritual practices removes the dirt, and then you can see the light.
Arnulf was a multifaceted person. Like many of my ancestors, he belonged to the nobility. He served at the Merovingian court and got his training under Theudebert II, another relation of mine, with scantier attachment. (He is a cousin or great uncle of some sort. I would call him a "shirt tail" relation.) Arnulf was initially made a "dux" which is the precursor of the word "Duke," I believe. Anyway, it is the same sort of thing. He ruled somewhere along the Scheld River in Northern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
At some point, he was offered "the See of Metz," near the junction of France, Germany and Luxembourg, and he thus became bishop. But before this, his wife "took the veil!" I'd like to have been a fly on the wall for THAT conversation! Of course, in those days, especially with the nobility, marriage was a business arrangement between two families. "Love matches," something we take for granted, were rare. His wife, Dode or Doda was ALSO sainted, and historians do posit that it may have been her holy influence that turned him more toward God.
But, before holy orders, Arnulf joined Pepin of Landen (my 39th great grandfather, who was also a BLESSED) in a war against Brunhilda, who ruled Austrasia and Burgundy on behalf of her grandchildren. Brunhilda was married to my 40th great granduncle Sigebert. She was quite something, a very strong lady who wielded a lot of power, but I don't think she was a particularly religious person. Brunhilda was tortured and killed, and I believe Arnulf felt some guilt over this and other sins.
Toward the end of his life, Arnulf retired to become a religious hermit - so here we are, come full circle. Another hermit in the family!
I got very little done today. The older I get, the slower I go. The routine gets harder and harder by the day. I don't mind - not really. As time goes on, and I become more and more accustomed to the reality of growing older whilst being physically disabled, I feel myself surrendering to it. I had better surrender because, when I don't, I get SO frustrated, I just want to throw things. It's no fun feeling like that. The good thing about all my limitations is that I don't have the stamina to do much sinning. I can be grateful for that!
Tomorrow I have been promised a caregiver to come and help me in the house. I pray that it works out because I've been without help for the last couple years that I have needed it, and it has been very hard on me to live surrounded by the mess. I was always a meticulous housekeeper. and now I can't do it.
I don't pray for release from my physical ills, but I do pray for the grace to endure it. We all grow old, if we are lucky not to die young. In the meantime, I offer it all up as an ascetic practice.
I just wish I was a better writer or artist. I would be able to better support myself in my old age. I am learning how to make wire wrapped jewelry, but so far it does not look like I have a remarkable talent there EITHER. It is very frustrating. Then I remind myself that it is not important in the general scheme of things. End of days.
My car is missing TWO windows now! It is very inconvenient when the temperature is in the high nineties. I have a GOFUNDME campaign, but I don't know that many people to whom I can advertise it, and my story isn't pathetic enough, I suppose. It sounds like a "first world problem," but people don't realize that I am STRANDED without a car, and I will faint if I have to be out in 90 degree heat. The caregiver may be able to help me with some of this until the car is fixed. The weird thing is that I worry that the bugs in the garage will move into the car before I have a chance to get the windows fixed. We have SO many big bugs here!
My little "bug," Mr. Charlemagne, has been sucking on his teeth and his little body is beginning to feel a bit warm - which means, of course, he needs to have his teeth worked on and he probably has an infection in one, an abscess or something. So I have to take the little guy to the vet, which I cannot afford - at all. There are many reasons to have a service dog in my life. It was recommended by the police because I was getting constant attempted break-ins, and living without ANY form of affection for another creature is not healthy, but it isn't fair to a little animal to let them suffer with pain and illness because I have "adopted" something I don't have the money to care for properly. So this little guy is my last dog because instead of the relief one is supposed to experience from the affection of an animal (especially a guard animal) it represents to me a tremendous amounts of stress.
The emergencies all pile one on top of the other when living on a fixed income. I'm not the only one experiencing it. All these ladies that live in this apartment complex endure some version of it, especially those who do not have family. I'm just the only person TALKING about it.
I am trying hard to be as surrendered as possible, to accept all the pain, inconvenience and limitations with grace. What I find very interesting is that the more difficult circumstances become, the closer the Lord comes to me. It is remarkable. I had not expected it, but this is the way it works.
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