Light.

.. good morning.

:)

Instant Light

Doves are cooing, husband’s stirring his coffee in the kitchen. So much playing in my mind this morning.. late, late night last night. That constant rain of grace for the past 2 days knocked out the power, so we were gloriously walking amongst a cathedral’s worth of candles in the house. This plays with the Light I had in my head all day yesterday.. against Love, a spouse’s touch..

I will ask if we can hold off on our Divine Office so I can write..

There’s a beautiful reason for this.. spousal obedience is such a treasure, I want to tell you why..

.. good morning. :)

—

.. dearest, I decided against asking to hold off on the Office, knowing fully God would hold onto my little treasured thoughts. I keep mentioning this — there’s s a story behind this — because of my fragile memory and my tender fears surrounding the loss of precious things.  I’m getting over it.  All of life is about movement toward the greater, the better, the more beautiful, the more good, the truest, the perfect wrapped in the simplest.  This is the idea that allows me to lift up my hands in release, forsaking imaginary veils to the Wind, just so I can see.  What a gracious trade.

I’ve the space of husband’s perusing today’s Gospel, his morning routine, and his making breakfast to get this down, perhaps a bit more..  It’s my father’s birthday today. How interesting I speak of memory when he has own in limbo. How interesting today’s feast day is that of St. Joseph the Worker, the father of Christ. How interesting we considered the Eternal Father throughout his entire Office during Morning Prayer just now. .. and how beautiful and sweet it is that God gives us a mind to explore Him and his wonders. .. dearest, our souls, how beautiful they are, how beautiful it is how He plays in them with us.

—

.. Hugo and I keep breaking into conversation.. Dear Lord.. I must get all this down.. do go about your day, this will be here for you, Dear Lord, bless my dear friend’s morning..

—

Light.

Yesterday I realized something that gave rise to a slight tremor in my soul. I’m still wondering what to do with it.. So important it is to me, I’m shocked it hadn’t crossed my mind until now. Maybe that I’m observing this now, while fully mother, fully wife, fully servant, and fully myself at home has something to do with this timing in my life, as though God peels back a curtain He wants me to peer through. For now, I’m not letting any consternation or freak feeling take root, not letting it move my thinking in any one direction. I sit here, observing, waiting, a form of discernment.. quite opposite my indulgent, impatient self. I’m listening for a secret.

Never has a stream of sunlight graced the walls or floors of my home. Never has the sun’s fingers reached through to touch, remind of the dawn, of dusk’s approach. Never have we been kissed by the traces of twilight that has oriented the days of man for millennia. Never in all my adult life, not since I moved away. For me, it’s been like forever leaving childhood and never experiencing a summer again in my adult lifetime.

It wants to feel like a great wrong. For now, it’s just an is… It just is.. a non-.

No revelation..

No remembrance..

No revealing..

No stark reminders to force me out of a dream..

To have known this and not brought this into my life feels like a crime against me and mine, truly, a heritage lost, a void where meaning should take root, but is not. A non-.

I’ll wait to see what to do with this.

Now, I know why I so like going into my backyard — to see the sun’s winking through leaves, his dappling on the ground. Now I know why I can’t bear to open up my front door — to confirm cars, a cracked and dull pavement, and culdesac’d curiosity capturing conformity from hard lawns.

Now, I want more open. Today, I begin searching for lace curtains for 3 other sides of the house — living, kitchen, my bedroom — and figuring out the proper order of layering curtains. There is a time to close them, after all.. My curtains will capture the sun, but the light, my friend.. the Light.

[breakfast - delightful. a discussion ensued.¹

Last night was glorious. Light rain continued, like I told you — this was all day and all evening — then at 10pm the lights flickered twice and all was dark. In a moment, though, the whole house was lit with candles, perhaps 15 in total. Every room, restrooms, even, all with holy candles I’ve collected and kept throughout the house. These are the same ones I light throughout the day to sanctify our space. I light one in our bedroom as soon as we wake up, I light one on the kitchen table when we grope and invade for coffee, I light one in bedrooms as I wake children, I return to move it to desks if children decide to work in solitude, I light one on whichever table is occupied in our studio/library — our little converted living room. (I want all of our home to be live, no sense in designating it to one space. The joy in this is that now we are no longer defined nor anchored by a television in this house. This transformation, my friend, is what’s happened since mama’s been home.)

We gathered around our kitchen table in .. joy. More of a celebration of the dark.

There are pictures — not on my fuji, I still haven’t mastered night shots.

There are soft, touching pictures — the glow of lifetimes of birthdays reflecting on everyone’s faces on a night when time froze, everyone just turning seconds older.

But they’re not on my phone. It had died hours before and I hadn’t cared to recharge it. I care to keep them silent, a starting memory of what’s to come.

We pulled out our rosaries and prayed, every one of us yawning in this great peace, hours before any one of us would have gone to bed on a Friday night. The expectation is we’d stay up because it’s Friday. We’ve worked hard and slaved away — to the man, to the corporation, to the curriculum, to the time stolen from us away from loved ones, true knowledge, personal, soulful growth, given to a stagnant, dying culture. On Fridays, there’s an exasperated, mindless uplifting.. and a retreat into the flip side of this dead culture — media, music, media with a 1, 2a bedtime. A miserable life I have railed against inside, and bid my time against.. slowly, casually, with a woman’s care would I make note of slow, silent dogma of death, contrary to the sacred spirit we try to nurture in our home as parents. Finally, last night at 10p, we had our Dark Night.

And it was glorious.

We all felt it. It continues tonight: lights out and candles lit at 9p, absolute wind-down at 10p to mark the time God ordained to bring this new life to us. Like faithful children, we must listen and do what He asks, which is merely an echo of what Hugo and I have been whispering about for months. The Eternal Father has finally put His foot down and said so.

Intimacy.

That’s what happened last night. That’s all that happened last night, we had children lingering on our beds and comfy chairs in our bedrooms — this is what happens when you nix the living-room-around-a-tv idea, all rooms become lovely, unlocked places to wander into, plant oneself and muse with a friend. We’re planting non-stop conversations that will continue into next generation, the same as the one conversation Hugo and I started the day we met and continue to this day.

This morning, I woke up with his hand on my breast.. ..dearest, do not become aroused (any of you), I trust you with this, we are mature, God-seeking adults, and holy intimacy must be spoken of and refracted into the world like the awesome prismatic Light it is with God as Love as its origin.. Just yesterday I saw this guy with a topknot making a comment that sex needed to be talked about as a way to get a spouse, rather that a thing to be avoided “narrative.” I zoomed in on this 20-something hipster kid. Maybe he was approaching 30, he had a bit of a receding hairline. Imagine. I think his tweet had about 15, 20 likes, probably more. And for $29.99, you, too, can learn to ditch porn and quit masturbating to your heart’s content. For $29.99, he’ll teach you how to give up self-ecstasy for.. yeah, I don't know. Who’s the bigger fool? He’s brilliant for the attempt at self-sufficiency and seeking a market. We’re the ones who are ushered in, down a corporal corral like cattle because there’s nothing else. The Church has lost her credibility because of ongoing revelations of sex-scandals, who wants to listen to -even seemingly holy- priests. I know: what have they seen, what have they not said? Who cares anymore, God and His knowledge is not proprietary subject, which is why Top Knot has something to sell.

But going back to breasts.. all men speak of it and the incel/jack-off problem. Where are the holy women who can speak of this in the distinct flavor of the sacred? Why should there be shame to speak of love and intimacy, of touch and caress, of looks and lingerings, of all holy manners therein, when the vulgar wishes to annihilate the holy as though it never existed? .. dearest, there is a Great Need of the human soul that is God, imitated by the love of the opposite sex.

I want to talk about it.

I forget what happened after Hugo touched me.. so anti-climactic, isn’t it? (no pun intended.) He asked me if I missed nurturing our children, and I told him, no, my body belonged entirely to him now.. and his hands went where they wanted to. Women need to allow this with their spouses, to play.

He spoke of how we were lovers in libraries in college.. among books, I responded.

He spoke the word Intimacy.. dearest, Intimacy! beautiful confirmation of a word! brought to life by a woman’s acceptance & response to her beloved’s touch! So precious, whole, and wholesome woman is.. and so necessary to life and love.

.. afterward, we said our Divine Office. And then we went on about fatherhood — about St. Joseph and the Eternal Father — because it’s St. Joseph the Worker’s Feast Day.

[getting ready to go into the city for lunch.. still not done, I’m sorry.. dearest, I’ve still more to memorialize. my greatest love and joy this moment is not in writing these things, but in my obedience to my husband today.. who I dance and skip about while minding children, hearth, and home while he himself beckons me to write. God bless our dalliances ith our heart’s loves.. May they be a wondrous, practical playground of uniting wills to better understand how to find and know the Adorable and Holy Will of the Eternal Father. Amen.

Fatherhood.

Evening now, my friend..

Fatherhood led us downtown to find a food truck establishing their barbecue business somewhere on Manchac, south of the Mopac/71 interchange. It was raining, but Hugo wanted to support a retired fireman who barbecued for his station house. He must have bought the trailer, then the trailer to hold his giant pit, then his beautiful signage, then the mortar version of the business he’s building out back. In another 3, he’ll have a more central location, one farther up north where we are, then somewhere along the I-35 corridor that runs out of Texas. Morenos.

It’s funny, because barbecue figured in our fatherhood conversation during the Divine Office this morning.

We were talking about being lovers, and about how my Dad told Hugo never to call him suegro, or father-in-law, when we were well into our marriage. Hugo and I sat there, looking into each other’s faces for the better of 5 minutes trying to recall this memory and what it meant.

Prior to my husband, my Dad had 2 sons-in-law who had basically “stolen” my sisters, one through elopement, one through pregnancy that resulted in a divorce. Neither one of these men gave my Dad the time of day because, well, he was a mean alcoholic. To my Dad, looking at him in the face was an affront to who he was as a man and how he tried to raise his daughters with virtue, even though our home life was a complete mess. This is America.. every family has some mess. Back then, it was only the beginning, which speaks to the importance of foundation and launch for any young person.. but I digress.. again.

Over beers one night, my Dad begs.. begs my husband never to call him suegro, never to speak that God-forsaken word to him because he can’t stand it, can’t tolerate it, would kill him. These aren’t his words, but that’s the sentiment, Hugo tells me. Ironically, this was a gesture of love on my Dad’s part.

My sisters’ situation had caused such pain, such devastation in his pride as a man and father, in my Dad’s eyes, the wound this word caused was unrecoverable. So, to tell Hugo, don’t ever call me that, he was, in effect, telling my husband, I love this moment, I love you, son, we don’t have to mention the unspeakable. Let us be in silence.

There was a lot of comfort in remembering that this morning, because my Dad mean. God bless my Daddy, but he was mean, a very, very wounded man for a myriad of reasons — mainly because of his bad marriage.

I was your Dad’s drinking buddy. I would sit with him and listen, the same way I sat and listened to my Dad..

Hugo respected my Dad, regardless of what he did, what he said, or how he acted. And, although he never told Hugo, my Dad regarded my husband well.. which brought us peace this morning. ..dearest, so much was left unsaid these past 10 years.. it’s not closure, I don’t want closure. It was just love from afar, God revealing a little.. a gift.

Today was St. Joseph’s the Worker’s Feast Day. Our two eldest went to High Mass this morning at the Cathedral to complete their Consecration to him. Whatever gaps we’ve left in helping them wholly embrace the value of and love of work, heaven continues to fill.

Over the Office, we talked about how St. Joseph adopted Christ — that if he hadn’t done this, Jesus would have been destitute, an orphan. Maybe Joseph would have been stoned or disassociated from society himself. But he took Jesus as his own, the same was God the Father has taken each of us as His own.

.. dearest, that’s our adoption.

The remarks a foster or adopted child tells his adoptive father — you love him more, he is your real son, not me — his father will say, No, I love you the same as him or more. I love you, you are mine.

If you could imagine this for a second.. imagine the love you have for your child, for your future children, then imagine a child being brought to you out of no cause of their own because they need you. From the depths of your heart, you would say this.

This is what the Eternal Father says to us, my friend. We are His, we belong to Him, He loves us as He loves Jesus. Yes, Jesus is his only-begotten son, we are the adoptive, but that doesn’t change the magnitude of this impossible Love that wishes to be known, that craves permission to flood our hearts in torrents. It is the same Love. How can a parent change the degree of love between any of one of their children?

Mumur, Anne Magill

For love for us, God the Father provided the Sacrifice for our Redemption. That makes Him our Redeemer, too. He willed His Son to suffer at the hands of His own creation.. what cruelty He knew His Son would suffer, but He sent Him anyway, for our sake.

And He saw Jesus suffer.. He saw Jesus suffer.. to imagine a fatherly heart’s at the torture of His Son.. I can’t imagine it, and I can’t quite bear it.

Stuff like this, it keeps me in check.. keeps me little, keeps me small, prunes my wild heart, not out of fear, but out of love. Whatever my little heart can offer. It’s not much, because I’m still figuring out who God the Father is, He’s much to show me.

Stuff like this, it makes me love my husband all the more.. keeps me in check (yes.), prunes my very wild heart.. I put aside the womanish ways I normally see the world and work through his lens. To see through his eyes, his heart, his soul.. this is part of who I am, a little blossom of a man’s love rooted in the Wisdom of God, all of which is mine through him because we are one.

And now I am not in the world, and these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name whom thou has given me; that they may be one, as we also are. ..They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me; 

That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me. Father, I will that where I am, they also whom thou hast given me may be with me; that they may see my glory which thou hast given me, because thou hast loved me before the creation of the world. Just Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee: and these have known that thou hast sent me.²

- Jesus’ Last Discourse

You’ve no idea how badly I want this for you, for the guy in the red sweater trudging across the street today after his work, the poor, poor homeless man in oily, oversized pants wandering in the parking lot, for every man, woman — single or married — for every soul.

To love, find love, and discover the holy font of that love.. to breach the sacred again and again until the haze that hovers before their lids like the ghost of cataracts brightens into a soft clarity that magnifies the rest of their soul.

To live and commit to the cradle of love with someone, to heal, to be reborn.

.. in Love, dearest.. in love.

To always be in love.

Amen.

in Love,
your veronica

..what would I be without the men in my life? Eternal Father, thank you, for all you have sent me, give me your Divine Love, that I may love them as You love me. Amen.

05.01.2021

1. Little Mysticism, a discussion.

On teaching children how to see. On teaching mystery. On listening to Blinding Lights after breakfast and finding out Abel Makkonen Tesfaye once dated and broke up with Selena Gomez. What’s the lesson to be learned here?

Don’t trust them sluts.

- youngest child.

There’s a way to see this, a way to speak properly of what happened — and that is heartbreak produces beauty, soulful poetry, moving lyrics. Suffering is good and made beautiful, just look at Christ and what He endured. It is a mystery and we need to learn to see this way. This is what grandma meant to by how important a woman’s sense of mystery is.. skirts meet the knee, unbutton the first button, but don’t show cleavage.. a woman needs to preserve this sense of mystery. And who is the author of this Mystery? Who is the most Mysterious One of all? Mystery is what causes us to wonder, ponder, contemplate, and delight in discovery, but it all needs to be directed back to Him, the Author of All. We have to want to see this way, we have to want to seek mystery and practice knowing and not knowing, or else we’ll forever be stuck in the profane world of sluts, whores and putos. Bless this man for instigating this discussion, may he see the greater thing produced by life’s trials. May we always desire to play in His playground of mystery and never leave it.

- me.

2. St. John 17, 11, 16-25