Stranded on the Mainland: Inner Pilgrimage and Living Alone as a Spiritual Path:

"All were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:4). I have been thinking a lot lately about what to do when things re-open in Ontario. It might sound crazy but I've been thinking about taking sign language classes. Let me explain: While researching for my blog a few weeks ago I discovered a familiar Catholic hymn being sung and signed on YouTube (Here I am Lord).  I was drawn into the hymn like never before.  The hand gestures fascinated me. I was filled with joy as I practiced following along.  I was "in" my body; not always the case.  Those who suffer trauma often have trouble being in their bodies.   Is sign language maybe a secret trauma weapon? I'm remembering Sr. Maria Kateri's talk at a Sisters of Life on-line retreat during Lent this year.  It was a wonderful talk on John's gospel; the charcoal fire scene on the beach, and trauma.  At one point in the talk Sr. Mari...

This coming weekend is Trinity Sunday and I'm thinking of three driveways, including one in the City of Vaughan. Having said this, below is a bit of an explanation of Trinity Sunday:   "Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." (Wikipedia).   Now back to the City of Vaughan, (a bit north of Toronto) where a young brother and sister were hit by a speeding car while playing in their driveway.  Both children died in hospital; the driver was a 16-year-old boy: the whole thing was and is beyond tragic.   Continuing. The tragic Vaughan car accident reminds me of three driveways in my life where horrible, traumatic events happened: One was in a doctor's driveway on Riverside Drive in Windsor. One was pulling out of my driveway at...

The official first long weekend of summer is now behind us (Victoria Day in Canada).  I hadn't realized what a trigger long weekends have been until now. Long weekends trigger memories of the cottage (gone), family (gone), BBQ's with my husband (gone). Next. Someone recently said to me, "We need to get you thinking about who you want to spend long weekends with in the future." I hadn't even considered spending them with anyone anymore. And then there's this: what about spending long weekends with God in solitude? Granted, God can be an acquired taste. Cb Amen.  

I t's been a challenging week and long weekend. We're still in Covid lock down in Ontario.  But we begin the process of re-opening next week. I also shar ed with a group of women who lost children to gun violence, my experience of losing a child to the violence of abortion. It didn't go anything like I planned and hoped for. I thought I messed up and thought I might stop blogging altogether. T hen I remembered gratitude. Write 5 things I'm grateful for:   My life My dear cat Mary  Abby Bible study Carolina The Sisters of Life Fr. Morgan Gabbie My apartment My balcony The moon Stars Sunrises and Sunsets Blogging Pizza Tang (I know!) My climbing Ivy  Pink petunias God Reading Glasses My rosary The library in my building where yesterday I found 3 new great mysteries to read A good breeze Trees The delete button My bed!   Well that's a few more than 5.  I could go on but "bed" seems a good place to end this list.  Thank you Holy Spirit for sending the gr...

This week someone got me to thinking about why I started my new blog?  And why I titled it Stranded on the Mainland??? Let me try to explain: The first Stranded on the Mainland was a poem I wrote in Barrie when I was stuck in the fall-out of #Metoo and my government job (1991). Then second Stranded on the Mainland was a fairytale written when it was becoming clear my marriage (one that allowed me to leave government) was not going to go the distance (Harbourfront 1995).   Next. Until this week I thought the title Stranded on the Mainland was just a clever play-on-words to describe how I felt living on the mainland (not a tropical island) and working in Toronto.   Now I can see how it was the perfect title for being stuck in grief and loss.  As the years went by, so too could I see that Stranded on the Mainland (the fairytale) had become an inner pilgrimage and my safe place in a time of exile.  But exile was not the end of the story. (Sisters of Life)....

With Summer of 2025 edits: I'm on Day 4 of my Novena to the Holy Spirit. This morning I'm also re-reading an article (Living Beyond My Wounds, by Sr. Fidelity Grace, SV). It is about Dutch Christian holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom, in IMPRINT Spring/2021, published by the Sisters of Life. I'm learning about Corrie's story of sexual shame at a Nazi concentration camp, and forgiveness. What is surfacing as I read is my own experience of sexual shame as a teenager, and later with #MeToo. I stop on the phrase "humiliating medical examinations" and realize this article has become my Lectio Divina (holy reading) this morning. I know. This phrase doesn't sound great, but it's leading somewhere good, I promise. However, not before it leads me back through something bad.  Pause.  The "bad" is  memories of the doctor who performed my abortion years ago. In my mind, I think I must have made him an evil Nazi doctor and me an innocent victim. I was not...

In my post yesterday (The Broken Mirror) I asked if those who make it through trauma have a duty to go back for others?  I've been thinking a lot about that question since then.  And to be very honest, fighting the urge to delete yesterday's post. But I resist the urge.  I remember that my feelings won't kill me. Not anger.  Not fear. (ACA). "Neither  life nor death, nor angels, nor rulers... not height nor depth, nor anything in all creation (including a blog post!) will be able to separate me from the love of God. (Romans 8: 38-39).  It becomes clear to me that this isn't about rescuing others.  Not in the way I think. Next. For a long time I viewed what happened to me in government as an avoidable trauma. IE., a big, unfortunate mistake, disaster-- I could go on. But what if I looked at it as a  "Call to Adventure?" (Joseph Campbell). For example: " You must have courage," Campbell says. "It's the call to adventure , which mean...

This is a hard post for me to write,  "For now we see through a glass , darkly ; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. " (1 Corinthians 13:12).   That said, this past weekend I had a recurring nightmare triggered by watching the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) sexual misconduct committee hearing last Friday.   Here is a bit of the dream:   I am terrified, struggling to leave my government job again.  What's different this time is realizing I can leave the building.  I don't have to find a way to escape.  I can just walk out. Why am I sharing about this dream?  Maybe to offer hope to others (and myself) that entrenched nightmares can really change and end one day.     Continuing, some years ago at Queen's Park I experienced something similar to what is now being exposed in the Canadian Armed Forces.  Now again, a present day sexual harassment story is triggering me deeply....

It's Mother's Day today! At at our St. Basil's Gathering earlier this morning, the mother and woman preaching spoke about her 3-year-old daughter having discovered some salty language carved into the wood of a playground teeter totter.  She explained (to us) how her daughter much to her joy and chagrin started to sound out the two swear words she had found (FU).  Joy and shadow-- two sides of the same coin.  Fits with the gospel reading for this Sunday and Mothers' Day, "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).  This little Gathering story made me think of part of a poem I wrote in the 1990's: End of season blooms, Strained against their rusty chains, They dipped and danced, In hanging baskets-- Cranking out a haunting tune. A teeter Totter Ballad From a summer park in June. Georgetown 1994   Cp I want to end this post with a quote from St. Therese of Lisieux, "He created the c...

"In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up-- and the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east..." (Genesis 2:1-8). Today I travelled to the local garden centre in Scarborough (the east!) to buy my balcony plants for this year.  I was a bit more restrained with my purchases than last year (and grateful for that on the bus ride home!).   There are some big things I am discerning at the moment.  It was hard to do, but I forced myself to take a break and go to the Garden Centre this morning.  I'm so glad I did.  Once home, I set my box of flowers down on the balcony and went to check my compost.  I use a kitty litter pail (the kind with a handle and big green lid).  Everything!-- all the veggie and fruit scraps had tuned to soil over the winter and spring.  God and nature's timing is perfect.  The soil felt moist a...

  Mum and me in the boat on Georgian Bay (1980's?) We made a nice red and white Canadian Flag. Cb Amen

Today is Cinco de Mayo Day.  Traditionally it is supposed to be a day of celebration.  Unfortunately this year Cinco de Mayo is marred by the collapse of the commuter train overpass in Mexico City which caused the death of more than twenty souls.   Since first hearing about the collapse of the commuter train overpass I have been remembering my first time in Mexico.  Playa de O'ro Mexico 1985-86?  This picture was taken on my first trip to Mexico from the balcony at my hotel (with my old 35mm camera). I can still remember waking up that first morning. Seeing the sun rising over the mountains. Rushing to find my camera so I could capture the beauty of my first morning in Mexico. I loved that camera.  I loved taking a fresh roll of film out of the box. Feeling the back of the camera pop open. Dropping the film in. Hearing that rapid click click click sound. Letting me know we'd soon be good to go. My time in Mexico was one of the happiest in my life. It l...

Spring: After a beautiful time of abiding in Him and in my garden this weekend, I find myself wrestling with ghosts of old traumas and new triggers, and times past.  It is also Mental Health Week in Canada. On that note something a sister friend and mentor said the last time we spoke on the telephone together comes to mind: The last time sister and I spoke, I told her about my fear of the 'hammer coming down' when it comes to family and work. She said something helpful and to the effect of: "Anytime fear of the hammer coming down hits-- say I reject you!. Use it as a stone to walk on so you can keep going forward." With that recalled, I pray: LORD help me use political "#Me Too' and family triggers as stones to walk on to keep going forward. LORD help me forgive the people who caused (and cause) the awful pain, loss and trauma I (and others) re-experience every time a another #MeToo and sexual assault story breaks.   Prune my #Metoo and family unforgiveness. ...

Today we had the gospel about the vine and the branches. Today I am also dedicating this post to our Faith Sharing group at St. Basil's.  And I'm trying something new.  I'm making my first video!  But first John's gospel for today:  "Abide in me as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing"  (John 15:4-5).   This gospel is beginning to grow on me!   Almost immediately following our faith sharing there was an unexpected, joyful, intimate recitation of the Holy Rosary to mark the beginning of Mary's month of May. What a difference a graced 20 minutes of quiet abiding can make.  Later that same evening a memory stirred. I remembered my old Jesuit spiritual director asking me to help him "tie a tree branch". Ac...