Spiritual Endurance

I met with Fr. Gene Friday at the Norbertine Monastery in the South Valley my ongoing spiritual direction and one of the things he told me was that I have “spiritual endurance.”

Things have not be easy– I realize it’s like that for all of us although our situations vary because our lives vary– but recently it has become harder. After talking to several people, I believe it’s because we all thought by now things would be much more back to routine than they are. I don’t want to say normal because while a lot of things will return to what they were, we all have in some way been changed.

Personally, I’ve suffered loss after loss from just before the pandemic started (when my job ended) and then throughout it– my dog dying, plans getting canceled, events to sell Chelle Summer getting postponed and then canceled, the Jesuits leaving my church, a few deaths of people I know– I’ve been trying to hold on tight for the roller coaster ride, but at the same time let go of what I can’t have back.

But as things seem to be dragging out, it’s like my glass is half full, yet someone keeps coming along and knocking it over. Then I have to refill it again. Some days the trek to the faucet is longer and harder than others.

Still, I do believe that somewhere all will be well, even better than it is now. As I look at the situations that surround me in our bigger, larger world, I see growing pains as not just individuals seek their own answers and change, but as groups do, too. It’s hard, but we all know that growth is never easy.

Yesterday while I did a little housecleaning, I streamed the Sunday mass from Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral in Los Angeles. The priest is newly ordained and celebrated his first mass. In his homily, he said, “Trust in God especially in the places we don’t see him.”

It’s very easy now when everything seems so dark and uncertain to not believe God is with us. I, however, have been through so much personal loss in my life that I do believe he is with us and all is well. Even on my bad days when my anger bubbles up, I find a way to let it go and my hope comes back.

As Fr. Gene and I sat outside, some distance from each other, in the shade of the mid-morning, this dove sat on the corner of the building almost the entire time we were chatting.

God was with us, listening, giving us hope. And spiritual endurance for the continued bumpy road ahead.

Building the Dream

I saw this on one of my recent Facebook memories:

"In elementary school when asked what I would do with $1 million, I always wrote buy a house with modern furniture and an in the ground pool."

I'm sure I found it written in something my mom had saved from elementary school. I have no memory if specifically writing that although I do remember that was how I pictured my life as adult.

What struck me, however, is that without a million dollars, I made this happen. As my hairdresser Amanda said, as she was cutting my hair last week, "You built it."

I'm sure in elementary school I thought it would take a million dollars to make my dream come true. But now what I understand is that it really takes a belief in a dream and the willingness to work toward that dream. I call my house, like I do my Chelle Summer brand, "modern design with a retro twist."

It hasn't always been easy. The hardest part has been the patience in learning to build something that might not happen in one day. It took me a long time collect the furniture, to figure out how some of it could be redone to be made new again, and also to select colors that worked in the rooms. There have been mistakes a long the way but I can see where the constant rearranging of my bedroom growing up, the Barbie houses my younger sister Denise and I built, and just the freedom to dream got me here.

There is always much more to do– and always something to fix and update– but when I look around, I'm proud of where I live and how far it came from essentially a blank slate with a lot of potential. 

It's just one of my dreams I've made come true. There are more to come.