Ending the hermit phase to support my disabilities;
For more than 20 years, I have lived as a religious hermit. I originally intended to devote myself to a daily cycle of prayers and some practices which you can read about in my previous blog posts. I thought perhaps a few people might follow my example but, at the very least, I would come into contact with other monastic types living similar spiritual lives. I assumed I would eventually have the spiritual support of my church. None of it worked out the way I thought it might, but it has been an eye opening experience!
The overriding problem is that my disabilities have increased and worsened. I am in an electric wheelchair half the time, and I am blind in one eye. Global physical pain is my constant companion, and it is increasingly difficult to be on my feet at all.
The time it takes to do anything has multiplied in a ridiculous fashion, and I am not able to pay for anyone to relieve me of these duties.
I HAD planned on getting through my final sufferings with a large inheritance I had been promised by my father, and I was in his will for many decades, but then he got dementia and someone else wrote me out of his will. I kept writing and calling him, but he did not answer and I did not realize what was happening. I was too poor to go to California to check in on him. He died under very suspicious circumstances and I did not even know he had died until his body had been cremated.
The doctor who supposedly signed his death certificate was sent to prison for 7 years for being a Hollywood pill doctor who wrote prescriptions to patients he had never seen. Other people have been living on my inheritance. It was bad news for me, but even worse news for the people that did this because there is a good chance they will go to hell when they die. I am suffering temporarily because of what they did. They will suffer for all eternity because of what they did.
But it does prove difficult for my monastic plans. When you don't have much money, one has to spend a lot of time getting one's needs met, and when your needs are exacerbated by the physical disabilities, it is nearly impossible to find room for the monastic lifestyle I had envisioned.
I spend a shocking amount of time on the telephone, just trying to get my insurance to work as it is supposed to. The public has this idea that old folks on Medicaid have all these benefits, but it is a charade. Everything is arranged so that you don't actually get all those benefits because the insurance companies make it too damn hard to access them.
For instance, eyeglasses are supposedly paid for by my Medicaid insurance. They SAY that they pay $400 toward them - but just try and make that work!
New Mexico Medicaid does not allow me to shop for my glasses online, once I have a prescription, except for one or two providers whose choices of frames is SO limited (and so ugly, frankly) that I cannot find anything that will actually fit my face. In my case, I have an extremely narrow bridge between my eyes but a REALLY WIDE face at the point where my eyes sit. I need to know the actual measurements of each part of the eyeglass frame because of my crooked and uneven face, but even when the approved vendor does sell online, they do not include this information! Also, I need the metal nose-pads on the bridge because of my weirdly skinny nose and narrow bridge. So far, I have not been able to find even one style that includes them in the approved vendors!
MOST of the approved merchants require that I actually go to their office, which is a huge issue for me because I am in an electric wheelchair and Medicaid Medical Transportation, though it is SUPPOSED to be providing that transportation, is currently telling me on the day of the ride that they do not have a ride for me after all! And this is after spending HOURS on the phone setting up appointments to begin with.
Zenni Optical, an online company I have used for many years, is not approved by Medicaid, even though they are less expensive than their allowed vendors, and they have a much bigger variety of frames than Medicaid's vendors. In addition to these attractive factors, they also give exact measurements for each portion of the frame, such as the bridge, the arms, the height of the lenses and the width of the frames. Once I find a frame that has the right measurements, the website has a function where I can try them on virtually.
I have given up trying to get eyeglasses through the approved vendors and have used Zenni instead. I spent a large portion of my food budget on a pair of computer glasses and a pair of progressives that automatically turn dark when I go outside, which is a crucial feature because of my eye disease. I shopped carefully and spent only $202. I will receive them through the mail very soon, but Medicaid will not reimburse me for this expense. I had to take it out of my food budget this month. My food budget for the month is typically about $400 OR LESS, so I have spent at least half of my food budget on eyeglasses
So, you see, while Medicaid CLAIMS they will pay $400 toward eyeglasses, they end up paying nothing for people in my situation. Anyone who has mobility issues due to disability is not easily able to take advantage of the supposed benefit.
I am also having trouble even getting to my doctor appointments. Sometimes they just don't show up the morning of the appointment. Other times, they have me waiting an extra hour before and an extra hour after the appointment, eating up half the day for an appointment that is less than 3 miles from my apartment.
Sometimes I am stranded, with no one to ask for help except for one saintly friend whose close family member is deathly ill and who I really do not want to bother with my problems unless I absolutely must. When I DO get a ride from the insurance company, the driver is almost always someone who refuses to wear a mask (though required) because they have conspiracy theories and, if I make them do it, they get angry, and they treat me with a cold fury that is, at times, frightening. (These conspiracy theorists are far more numerous than I ever could have imagined, and they're so involved with their theories that they are unable to recognize how wacky they appear to the rest of the world.)
It has become obvious that I really need to have my own transportation but if I were to purchase what I really need, which is a van onto which I can drive my wheelchair, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars, just for the van itself, what to speak of the car insurance and other expenses involved!
So, you see, whatever time I DO have at my disposal really needs to be spent on those things I am able to produce for sale, and that is my writing and my art. I have been lamely writing a novel, during available hours (which have not been many.) I also paint and I make rosaries and wire-wrapped religious jewelry. This kind of work is done during the time I have available, on my own schedule, and I need to free up that time in order to put a better effort forward to finish the projects I have going.
One of the requirements of any kind of monastic life is that one has to have the time available in which to do the contemplative prayers, etc. I am no longer fit for it.
The typical cycle of monastic prayers takes many hours a day, and I have been gamely adhering to this cycle as best I can for more than 20 years, but it has become a real challenge for me to continue. A collection of circumstances, such as what I have described, above, has conspired to make it completely impractical for me to continue.
In my youth, I had been a nun in a Hindu convent that based its schedule on the customary schedule in a Catholic contemplative convent. So, when I became a hermit, more than 20 years ago, I had a pretty good idea of how to live this life and what was expected. I did fairly well in the first ten years, but then physical disabilities began to exert a pressure to the point where I am now too busy taking care of the mundane necessities of life to have enough time left for the contemplative prayers and meditation. So, instead of sitting in front of my shrine and closing my eyes, I am bringing God into my life, into my problems, and maintaining consciousness of Him at all times. It does not look like the contemplative monastic life to which I had committed myself, but I have the company of The Lord during all my hours, so I do have some personal satisfaction.
Disability can be a strenuous, noisy business;
Because I am unable to physically care for the hermitage, I am forced to host outsiders in my home so that they can help with the housekeeping. It is a noisy business, all around, and I am sometimes unable to get these people to stop yelling from room-to-room like fishwives in the marketplace. This is a real impediment to the maintenance of a monastic schedule.
The "caregivers" have no respect for the atmosphere of the hermitage because none of these people are particularly religious. Here in New Mexico, most of the folks that have been sent to me by the agency have been non-practicing Catholics who were not active long enough to learn anything about the silence of the monastic enclosure. When they are here, the cacophony is upsetting, but when I dispense with their services, the dust bunnies start to pile up around my ears. Having to choose between these two circumstances is frustrating.
For a long time, I imagined that I might find another Catholic who would comprehend my need for peace and quiet and who could follow directions for housekeeping, but that never transpired.
Friends abandon people who become disabled;
This brings up another depressing reality about my situation that I understand is quite familiar to those who are without close family and suddenly find ourselves disabled to the point of needing help to get around. No matter how kind we have been to others, no matter how many favors given or inconveniences endured for them, once we become disabled and start needing a bit of help to get through life, our entire body of friends and social contacts empties out like water from a sieve.
In addition, there is the problem of Trump and how some of the Catholic parishes have adopted this 34 times felon, rapist, slanderer, liar and manipulator as their new hero. Finding out that I do not support him has been enough to cause my Catholic friends and associates to drop me instantaneously.
Occasionally, someone will show up and make noises about wanting to be friends of the monastery. They'll seek entrance to the premises and often come bringing gifts, initially, but it usually turns out that these people who show up, seemingly out of nowhere, are always just after my physical possessions. Each one has stolen from me, and I have learned my lesson after the last one who recently asked to borrow a chair so she could sleep on it the night before she was to take a plane to the East Coast, where she was moving. It was all a lie. She wanted to keep the chair, and that is what she did. She hopes I am "not too disappointed" in her for stealing it instead of returning it to me in the morning. HA!
Given this harsh reality about the superficiality of friends, and the fact that I have no family, is yet another reason why I need to change course during the last decades of my life.
I had fooled myself into imagining that the interest of these new friends was spiritual, but I was misinterpreting. Being a single disabled woman makes me a target. I have learned my lesson.
A lamb in a field of wolves;
None of this is what I expected when I embarked on the solitary religious path. I did not realize that my disabilities would become such a defining issue. Nor did I realize what a target I would become. I feel as if a lamb in a field of wolves.
Some people may say that poor people do not have the luxury of attending too much to an honest life. On the other side of things, one could also say that well-to-do people find it relatively easier not to lie, cheat and steal because they have money and are not faced with the choices being forced on the poor. I am surprised, however, that the last person who chose to steal from me is far better off than I am, so I cannot imagine an excuse for her display of bad character.
So, while I had hoped that my efforts at the hermitage would be helpful to others, I find that the people I encounter in real life have only been provided the opportunity to hurt their own spiritual life by stealing from me. I am not helping anyone.
The Catholic Church has mostly abandoned me;
Another reason for my decision to put the hermit life behind me is that I had pictured a loving interaction between me and the Catholic Church that never materialized, partially because the people of The Church are suffering themselves through a fractious time in which political realities are causing an unusual amount of friction between Americans.
If I delve too deeply into how the Catholic Church in the U.S. became allied with an American political party, this blog post would have to evolve into a book in order to properly explain it, so I am limiting my comments to general explanations that do not target identifiable persons, but instead I will mention prevailing circumstances during this era.
Hermit life has traditionally been temporary;
It should be noted that it was common for Catholic hermits of the distant past to live this singular religious life for a temporary period of time, and then they have customarily moved on to different life paths, though equally committed to their spiritual life as before.
Often, the hermits of old have attracted a group of followers who ALSO wished to devote themselves completely and wholeheartedly to the spiritual life. Many times, formal groups formed themselves around the hermit. This was not my expectation, but I did think that I would have the occasional interaction with other solitary monastic associates from various contemplative organizations, but that did not materialize.
Most of the barriers are not within my control;
Some of the parishes I have approached with the hope of finding a spiritual home have simply been unfriendly. Lies have been told. Spiritual support has been withheld, and, in the first few years of my hermitage, at least two priests have been terribly unkind and involved in lying about, slandering, and publicly shaming me with ribald jokes about my body parts and other highly inappropriate behaviors, the motives behind which absolutely mystify me, but it seemed very evil. I was alone, trying to establish myself in a parish that was ethnically specific, and full of large families, and the priest was targeting me for humiliation.
Hostile Church environments prevail;
In some parishes, wealthy people predominate. In others, if you are unmarried, you are not welcome as a single female. Years ago, a woman who was bringing me the Eucharist accused me of pursuing a family member. It was entirely out of her own sick imagination, but this is a perfect example of how single women are treated in the parishes. We really are not welcome. In one parish, I was told I did not belong because I am not Hispanic. In another, I was told that I was not welcome because I am not Native American. These parishes have an atmosphere similar to an exclusive club and it feels impossible to find one's niche.
The sex abuse crisis affected how the Catholic Church operates;
I have approached two parishes with the idea of a new parish ministry geared toward welcoming new parish members, and I also presented the idea of advertising for caregivers on the parish bulletin so that Catholics might be encouraged to take up this type of career so that there would be some mutual understanding about the Catholic life of prayer, but it was pointed out to me by one priest that, after the terrible sex abuse crisis of the church, particularly here in New Mexico, there is "no way" that any Catholic Church in New Mexico would involve itself in the "private lives" of their members. From this, I get the impression that the Catholic Church has been artificially truncated in a manner in which the people who need them the most are the ones who are least served.
If I was able-bodied, with my own transportation, and a certain income level, I might find a welcome at one of the parishes, but even under those circumstances, being a single woman of a certain age makes it more likely that I would be shunned.
Even the Archbishop has given me the cold shoulder;
I spent some time over the last five years trying to get a response from our Archbishop, and I was promised a return phone call several times, but this never happened. The Archbishop, whose job it is to decide upon whether he will have a "Diocesan Hermit," and which would have allowed me to have the eucharist on my shrine, in my home, simply ghosted me. Of course, one could say that no response is a type of answer to the question, and I agree, however I think it is a rude answer. Anyway, after a few telephone calls and some emails, I gave up.
I even wrote the new Pope but he did not answer either!
So, after approaching a number of parishes and even the Archbishop, as well as the Pope, I have decided that I really must give up. There is no place for me. After 20 years of struggling alone, with my health increasingly worsening and becoming more painful, I just can't do this any more. The Catholic Church has rejected me.
And, if The Lord wanted me to continue to pursue this type of monasticism, He would have provided more spiritual and physical support. I will just take care of my physical problems as best I can, say my prayers and meditate when I am able, and put my monastic life behind me. I will work on my art and my writing, as and when I am able, and hope to sell some of these things so that I can purchase a car that can transport me to my doctor appointments. I would, at least, like to take care of myself.
As far as the Church is concerned, I haven't written it off entirely. I have worked myself back to the parish where I was originally accepted into the Catholic faith a number of years ago. The priest is a very nice man. I am too disabled to attend, and I have no transportation anyway, so one of the staff brings the Eucharist every week or two. That is the complete and total extent of my involvement with the Catholic Church, after all these years. I have given up trying to become part of any parish.
While I was prepared to live as a hermit and devote myself to the Catholic monastic life and cycles of prayers, I am not equipped to live without any spiritual support because the picture I have been given is that you have to be healthy enough to get to church on your own steam and The Church is too afraid to involve itself in the personal lives of its members. It is like a club. You have to go to the club house to be considered part of the thing.
All of these circumstances have conspired to convince me that it is no longer possible for me to meet my prayer routines. Nothing has turned out the way I thought it might, and I have very little support for my spiritual life at all - except from our Lord and Lady, the saints and angels. From now on, I will be praying quietly, internally. I have abandoned my carefully laid out plans, but I still have faith that I am accompanied on my journey by the Lord and all the denizens of Heaven.
I will use my time for art and writing projects;
Instead of a monastic prayer schedule, I am going to devote my time to my art and writing from which I have made money in the past. There is no guarantee, of course, but I have to do something toward improving my financial situation so that I can purchase a car and car insurance so that, at least, I can get to doctor appointments which, at this point in time, I am unable to do half the time. My disabilities are serious enough to where it is crucial that I not miss these appointments. At present, although I am mostly blind in one eye, I do have 20/20 vision otherwise and I am allowed to drive - which I am determined to do while I am still able. The world has shown me that there is almost no one upon whom I can depend and I need to improve my ability to depend upon myself as much as possible.
I intend to continue my writing and my art during those fleeting moments when I have the ability and the time. I am in my early 70s and I have no idea how much longer I will live. I will take one day at a time from now on and hope to complete my art and writing projects before I die.
One final, important note;
I hold no grudges against anyone who has made life difficult for me or disappointed me over the last 22 years because I do not take anything personally. Everything one does is done to and for The Lord alone, even if you do not recognize it. If you hurt me, you are actually hurting The Lord, and vice versa.
All of your struggles represent the fight between good and evil. It is not a fight with me.
God brings all things to the good;
I know for a fact that God brings all things to the good for those that believe in Him. Somehow, He will cause good to come out of all things, and I trust Him that this is what is happening for me as well!
So, please do not make the mistake of thinking that I hold some kind of grudge or bitterness toward any of the people I have described in this final blog post. Their struggle with evil has nothing to do with me. If they are unkind to me, if they lie to me, cheat me and steal from me, it has nothing to do with me. It is their own struggle with their baser natures. I forgive them and pray for them and hope that The Lord helps them find the goodness within themselves so they can abandon the evil with which they have treated me and others - because otherwise it will make them suffer, and I would not want that for anyone. I hope they all come to blessedness, faith and hope.
I may or may not return to this blog to add entries now and then. I may start another blog for the display of my paintings, but I have not yet decided. I only say "good bye for now!"
God bless us all.
Silver Rose Parnell
