This last week was an example of variety and contrasts. On Monday, I did what I have been fairly frequently, I attended Mass at my parish and gave Holy Communion to someone sick immediately thereafter, and I did my recording for Learning Ally (formerly Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic), reading a particularly laughable book on how parents can be encouraged by schools to "volunteer". To me, it was a "It Takes a Village" sort of book gone wild, and if I were a teacher, I would resent having the job of parents being entirely placed on my shoulder, including getting parents interested in what happens at their kids' school. But this would be a subject for a Djinn diatribe. As the guy on that insurance commercial says, "Moving on".
Tuesday was a monthly appointment for hair color and cut and a delightful visit with a former colleague and friend six months into her liberation from the structured work world. We ate by the water in Long Beach (plug here for Parker's Lighthouse) and delighted in our ability to be exactly where we wanted at lunchtime, without having to rush back to anywhere. And so we walked and sat by water and dock and I looked at her pictures from her trip to Spain and together we counted our blessings.
On Wednesday I made my second visit to St. Andrew's Abbey in Valerymo, California to pick up a friend and return him to the city, and also to spend much of the day in prayer, meditation in the stable turned chapel and the monk and oblate cemetery upon a hill overlooking mountains, tumbleweed, sagebrush, and cacti I shared a community lunch in the refectory with retirements and monks. I bought several books on Benedictine Spirituality, with which I have found myself to be entranced by its simplicity and moderation in its particular way of communing with God. If anything this last year has been a change of direction that begs the question of His intent for me (see the entry God's Whisper) and what response I will or will not make. I shall not hie myself to a nunnery, but the idea of being attached to a monastery and living a form of community life in prayer and in my secular existence has enormous appeal. So I may hie to a retreat or two as July comes upon me, to hear the still Voice, which should be pretty easy given how quiet it is in the desert at night, or in the day time for that matter! The listening will be more difficult, no doubt. Something, Someone seems, I say, seems, to be calling me in that direction.
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| Phone booth in the desert monastery. Fascinating. Cell phones don't work well. |
And then there was Thursday and Friday.
I was back in the earthbound, and given the general unhappiness of lawyers, the chained and bound. As most states do, California mandates continuing education. I had only a couple of previously attended classes at the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel and I need the quota of 25 by Feb. 1, 2013. So finding a place where I could do a bunch of classes was welcome, well as welcome as anything involving the "law" is to me anymore. Lawyers have tied themselves into knots and it is their own fault, largely. Nothing is simple these days.. Everything can lead to a a lawsuit (they call it "cutting edge"; I call it another opportunity to blame someone for what happens in life because we're frail and mortal and we want to pretend that if we die it isn't fate, it's liability.) You can't write a quick will anymore because there are all sorts of linquistic nooks and crannies into which you will potentially fall and frustrate the deceased's intent. And it is true in every part of practice. And watch out for all those electronic things you have to use to be competitive, because someone is watching and you might just violate your obligations by using them, although you HAVE to use them. I knew about a lot of this, as a prosecutor, already, the ambiguity in distinguishing mistake from malpractice to misconduct. All I could think as I ran into a couple of colleagues and watched a class taught by one of the two individuals who ushered me into "retirement" from my job (a complete accident as I had selected to take the class off the net and saw no teacher names and frankly I happen to like the guy) was "poor poor souls these lawyers". Oh, and then there was the consequent thought, "I think I'd rather be praying in a monastery". And the third thought, "I'd rather be praying in a monastery for all of us poor poor lawyer souls." As long as I remain active, and people keep asking me legal questions I am entitled to (but don't always because I know how easy it is to get into trouble with claims of malpractice--particularly when the potential client says, "Don't worry, it'll be easy.") answer, I still have a foot in that sad profession which has caused humanity to fear things like "dodge ball" and "hot coffee". But as I stood, now, truly an "outsider", in the colorful lobbies outside the rooms for presentations of the type I used to make as part of my job, work that I mistakenly thought built professional equity and appreciation with my organization, I saw that as ny ego heals or, better, as I learn to rid myself of it (no easy thing as I often also write in these pages), there was some purpose in all that toil, but it was my wish to be rewarded for it that was folly. There is a purpose to come, and I hope against hope, pray in my usual distracted way, that I will embrace it, without expectation of validation (which rarely comes or lasts if it does) and with charity stripped of all my pretenses and neediness.
I have a few more legal conferences to attend and tapes to listen to in order to meet the obligations of an active license for 2012, but as 2013 comes upon me, I see that part of life becoming more "inactive" in favor of some new part which remains to be seen. And for all I know may shift regularly.
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