DAILY MIRACLES

 

Sometimes, when you ask The Lord for clarity, He gives it to you right away, ESPECIALLY when you are in real need of emotional support when it comes to your faith. And I was REALLY in need of a little propping up today. Within MINUTES of asking for help, I was given it in a remarkable way.

First, I will give a little background.

Most of you know that I live as a hermit. I do try to be as helpful as I can be to neighbors, despite my limited abilities, but I essentially stay in my own little bubble, where I pray and meditate and do the best I can to deal with painful handicaps.

Over the last year or two, as my disabilities have become much more obvious and visible, by virtue of my having to use an electric wheelchair on the property, I have been struggling with attacks from young neighbors who have bullied me in surprising ways. Sometimes they are trying to force me to give them something. At other times, they seem to be doing it for recreation. 

I even had one new neighbor lobby the managers to take from me a piece of equipment that had been installed for me to assist me in caring for my garden. That neighbor concocted an elaborate lie about it, even though I have written documentation on my phone between the two of us. The new manager was unfamiliar with how the installation of the equipment had occurred and it took 3 months to get it straightened out. It is surprising when things like this happen after I have gone out of my way to welcome them to the property with home-made bread and desserts, but I am not a psychiatrist.

When I was a young woman, I volunteered at nursing homes, and this was a relatively common thing for someone in my generation to do. But now, instead of helping people with fragile health, there are many who attempt to abuse the vulnerable and steal from them instead.

It is as if society has made a radical turn to a more primitive time. Like something out of a science fiction film, the mask of civilization has fallen from the faces of many, to reveal a face similar to what we might have seen in the middle ages, when you could be burnt as a witch, simply for being a woman living alone.

Bullies torment vulnerable people when they think they can get away with it. They usually don't do it publicly, so it is difficult to make it stop. Bullies are usually cowards.

How do we love our neighbor and pray for the enemy in the midst of all this?

As our good Jimmy Akin says, loving your neighbor means wishing the good for that person.  Praying for them is the Christian method of wishing good for them. (Jimmy Akin is a researcher, podcaster and author. He regularly appears on CATHOLIC ANSWERS.) This does not stop them from harassing the lady in the wheelchair, though. At least, not immediately.

A neighbor has recently started throwing bags of dog poop at my back door, where they land on the cement and sometimes open up and spill excrement.  I have seen them do this twice myself. 

That neighbor is taking the dog bags from where I have left them in a big pot in my garden when I have to potty my dog after the sun goes down and I can't see well enough to throw them in the trash can meant for this purpose. The parking lot is way too dark for me to do this and puts me in the way of traffic.

I see this neighbor walking back and forth to my garden, bending over to pick up the bags, then going to my patio and throwing them at the doorstep. 

I have experienced several instances of bullying and harassment from neighbors, since having to start using a wheelchair, so when I found my patio littered with dog poop this morning, it felt like the final nail in my neighborly coffin.  All I need is for someone to give me more work to do.

I had a distraught, out-loud conversation with God and asked him, PLEASE, how am I to continue when so many people are so vulgar and childishly abusive?  It had been a really bad week for me, one in which I have encountered one example after another of disability discrimination and harassment, as well as being abandoned by those who are being paid to help me.

I was having some real disappointments, not only from this neighbor, but from the world, in general, from uncaring telephone companies, merchants and caregivers to our government, where we have just elected a felon/rapist/fascist/white supremacist to the highest office of the land who has already promised to be a "dictator on day one" and who has vowed to eliminate the Medicaid program that helps me survive.  It is a depressing prospect.

It is also difficult to endure abuse while others stand by and blame the  vulnerable for the vulgarity that thugs dish out. Any police officer will tell you that the more vulnerable you are, the more you are liable to be a TARGET.  There is no "reason" that justifies it. The vulnerability IS the reason. I had an entitled Facebook snob recently tell me that no one will do something bad to you unless you deserve it by having done something to them first. It isn't true and makes no sense, when you think about it. The disabled old lady in the wheelchair has no interest or ability, frankly. We are just struggling to get through our day, despite chronic pain and disfunction. Blaming us for the actions of evil people and criminal types is pure gaslighting.

I felt like the entire world has turned ugly. I prayed fervently, out loud, with tears.  "How can I continue?" I asked Him. I had a real "lament" going on for myself. 

This isn't what I imagined when I became a hermit, and part of these problems I have been having with these people is that my mode of life is so radically different than theirs that it probably irritates the soul of those who have no real religious or spiritual life. People who try to torment disabled elderly ladies are not in tune with God. They are in thrall to dark forces, and anyone who is thus situated is going to be infuriated when they come up against the vibe of a  religious hermit who loves God.

The only way to avoid these sort of people is to live more authentically as a hermit - away from the crowd - something that I cannot afford to do at present, especially since I am unable to endure the physicality of it. I have it in mind for future, however, but I need to generate some income in order to do it so that I can pay for the new residence and the means to get moved into it. That's something for the next step.

Shortly after finding my patio littered with dog poop bags, my dog was urging me to take him out for a walk. I had just woke up, but his need seemed urgent, so I took him out and, while I was struggling to get my wheelchair over a speed bump in order to avoid a moving car, a young man approached me and asked me, "May I help you?"

Here was this young man, dressed in a neatly pressed white shirt and nice jeans, reaching for the doggie bag in my hand. I was so surprised!  I had not met him before and hesitated.

He said to me, "Please, let me help you. Every day I see you walking your little dog, and it makes me so happy to see you."

His accent was heavy, but his English was very good.

We had a sweet conversation. He was a relatively new neighbor. He introduced me to his fiance, who was sitting in the car.  They were from Columbia. His manner and his demeanor were miles above and beyond the manners and consideration of my other (American) neighbors who have been harassing me.

I learned a lot from this exchange, and I have "taken it on-board" as an answer to my prayers. It is also a retort to those who claim that immigrants are what is wrong with our country, and who impugn their character in such vulgar fashion. Statistically speaking, immigrants are FAR LESS LIKELY to commit crimes than our American people, and I find that very easy to believe, based on my personal experience of toxic, free-floating hostility from people to whom I have been kind.

When I returned home, I thanked God for the encouragement, and the perspective. I remembered, once more, Jesus telling the parable of the tares and the wheat.

"24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Matthew 13:24-30

God is bringing "all things to the good for those that believe" by facilitating that the mean people drop their social masks so that I can see who is wheat and who are the weeds. In this way, I can remain with the wheat. In order for this to happen, a certain amount of evil has to be allowed to appear in the world so that I can pinpoint who is of God and who is not.

I really needed this guidance today. It is extremely difficult to raise the consciousness of our culture when it comes to the disabled and the elderly - especially the ELDER ORPHANS, for whom I am working on establishing a ministry through my local parish. Some people will simply NOT be receptive. They have chosen to be weeds.

Fortunately, God has allowed me to see a bit of His method and, as a result, my faith is intact, thanks to those little daily miracles of good being revealed by the bad. I am so grateful for that.

Keep the faith, people! If you love God, He has you in his hand, whether you can see it or not.

God bless us all.

Silver Rose