Preparing for Dianne - Physically & Spiritually

Dianne arrives tomorrow! This has been a day of preparing for her arrival. The maid came and cleaned the apartment. I have bought groceries and sweets for breakfast tomorrow if she is hungry upon arriving. The flowers have been replaced with fresh flowers. (I would take a picture of the beautiful violet iris and the scarlet and white amalias, but I can't because I don't have my camera!) I have rearranged my belongings so Dianne has space to put her belongings upon arrival. Everything is pretty much ready, now all I have to do is wait for the time the taxi arrives and I head to the airport to meet her.

As you maybe could tell by the snide side comment in the above paragraph, I very much need her presence for I am still working through the trauma I suffered last Friday. I basically turned into a couch potato this past weekend. On Saturday morning I did trek down to the Police station near the central government area. A very nice and gentle policewoman assisted me in looking at pictures on a computer of men and women that matched my general description of those I felt I might be able to identify. There was one woman who was very close and I had a strong sense it could have been the woman I had the most interaction with during the "sting." I could not come up with a man I felt strongly I could identify. She was going to circulate the woman's picture in the general neighborhood where the event took place. I realize they probably will not catch the people who did this and even if they do I will not recover anything they took (if I could just get the journals back that would be tremendously healing for me) but I do think it was helpful to spend the morning engaged in this task of trying to identify them. I feel that it was an important step in the healing process of dealing with the trauma, the sense of helplessness that it evoked, and trying to move on. After all, I have done all that I can, now I can, I hope, begin to let it go.

I am having trouble doing that, though. I find myself caught in negative thoughts about the city, about those people, as I walk around. Saturday after completing the task with the police I returned immediately to the neighborhood where I live, picked up some empanadas for lunch, and went back to the apartment. I spent the afternoon replacing the camera by purchasing the replacement on-line with Best Buy for pick-up in the local store near my home in Miami, where my daughter went to pick it up. Of course there was a glitch! My credit card company, for some reason, froze the purchase request because it was done on-line. It took three times as long as it should have for me to get the equipment, because I had to call the credit card company, approve the purchase, call Best Buy back twice to get it straightened out. Right now, life is not easy!

Of course, I am writing this as I listen to Wolf Blitzer on CNN talking about the $1.2 trillion stock loss on the US stock market today! I cannot even fathom what is really happening at home right now. I know that this financial crisis is filling the local papers and even the local news here, but the concerns are not the same, I don't believe, as what is possibly taking place back home. People here are certainly concerned, but it appears to me that they don't feel their economy and other world economies are so tightly tied to the US economy that it will destroy their lives. Whether that is true or not, being outside of the US during this certainly brings a different perspective.

One of the pieces that has helped me was the UCC On-line Devotional this morning, written by the Rev. Kenneth L. Samuel, Pastor of Victory for the World Church, United Church of Christ, Stone Mountain, Georgia. The devotion is called "Deep Calls to Deep" and is a reflection on Psalm 42: "My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me." Here are his words:

From the dark dungeon of a deep distress, the Psalmist discovers something that persons who live only in the shallow plateaus of comfort and convenience may never know. The Psalmist discovered that the profound depth of a person's distress causes that person to tap more deeply into the inner recesses of spirit and soul. In fact, it often takes a deep debacle or a cataclysmic calamity to reveal to us that which is really at the core of our being. Trouble, adversity and trial show us who we really are by causing us to tap more deeply into the depths of energy, hope and resilience that we never knew we had. Deep depression and deep disaster call us, beckon us and invite us to explore the depths of faith, hope and resilience that are deeply embedded in the souls of all who cultivate faith in God. And the good news is that like the Psalmist, we can discover that our faith in God is much deeper than the disasters of our circumstance.

Reading this I realize that some of the practices that connected me with God had been ignored by me this past weekend. I have not been reciting my mantra "Ubi Caritas" (honestly, I have not felt like there was much "love and charity" present in my life since Friday). I did not resume writing in my journal until late yesterday, with a follow-up this morning. (And as I had discovered earlier on Sabbatical, when I don't journal I don't deal with life as well. Since I resumed journaling, I do think I have begun the slow process of healing, as I already feel a little more positive.) I had not been meditating (at least not actively) during the weekend. Quite honestly, I think what I did was retreat into my "cave" and lick my wounds. Which was possibly what I needed to do at that point. But now I want to get out of the cave. I want to engage the city once again (which I began to do as I prepared for Dianne's arrival with all the errands I needed to complete) and which I know I will have to do with Dianne, for I want her to have a good experience. As hurtful as this experience has been, as much as it is threatening to color my view of this city, I still believe that this is a great city, with wonderful aspects and amazing people.

It was helpful for me to read that Devotional and hear the Word of God speaking to my deep hurt and my deep fears. As it spoke to me, I shared it because perhaps it may speak to whatever deep hurts and fears you have in these troubled times.