Ace of Pentacles
Life in Wellsboro goes well. It is far busier than I had imagined.
Just after I arrived, one of the opthalmic assistants at my father's office quit unexpectedly. It had been intended, regardless of other employment, that I should create programs to force MEDent (a medical databse program) to relinquish its riches in report form, something it is loathe to do. However, the loss of an OA caused my father to conscript me immediately for the Corps. This is good, in several ways:
1) I am gaining significant experience in handling patients. It's a bit touch and go at the moment; with some patients I am able to almost effortlessly build an excellent rapport with others (primarily the reticent types) I am still a bit halting. Nevertheless, it turns out that I am at least adequate to this kind of work, able to keep up with the (rather breakneck) pace of health care work, and quite possibly have some talent for it, though that has yet to develop. This is good, as it is what I would appear to be signing up to spend my life doing. While I have yet to gain a sufficient level of mastery to take joy in the task itself (due to reasonable fear of incompetence with real consequences for a change) I believe that once some proficiency is realized, I will be an at least adequate nurse. School starts late August.
2) I am aiding my father, who is actually extraordinarily easy to work for and is very appreciative of my diligence in his employ. My father has been generally quite wonderful to me so far: he sees my willingness to work and do what needs be done, in each aspect of my life, and seems pleased. This is heartening.
3) I've been ignoring a few calls for far too long, and this precise kind of work may be exactly what I need to do. I spend a fair amount of time in study of the mechanisms and diseases of the eye (the Tome I was handed is rather immense,) and while I have yet to extract enormous theological insight from the process, I trust that as I become more expert in the field, the symbolic landscape will become more apparent.
This consumes the bulk of my time. My faith life is picking up to some small degree, and will continue to do so in days to come:
1) St. Paul's is a breath of fresh air after St. Stephen's (yes, this is amusing.) The parish, while still quite elderly, seems far more alive, and its people far less intent on schism. Granted, this is in part because of the peculiar tendency of Wellsboro to make distant points seem far more distant than they actually are, but nonetheless. The priest, one Father Gregory Hinton, is only too happy to take me under his wing of 25 years, and seems to be a very charitable and quietly scholarly man. I trust that some problems will arise within the parish, but so far, so good.
2) I am rereading my History of the Early Church (Chadwick) in preparation for reading a few of the early mystics; I am considering starting with Pseudo-Dionysus, whose "darkness that outshines all brilliance" sounds reasonably fascinating, even if he was inspired in part by deliberately anti-Christian neo-Platonists. We can't go holding that against everyone.
3) I am considering pursuing the Diaconate during my nursing training; regardless of discernment of a call to the Priesthood later. It's reasonably impossible for me to intellectually or emotionally deny a call to actively serve the Church in structured obedience, and the Diaconate dovetails perfectly with nursing. This will, naturally, be a while in coming if it does; the last thing I want to do is jump into discernment for Holy Orders the minute I arrive in this parish too. Still, a good thing to keep my third eye on.
4) I will be joining the choir once I get the songs in my head. Not so many roles in the mass as at S. Stephen's, and honestly, so long as the local rites allow it, I'd rather sing than not.
Other than that, I am pursuing the following:
1) Not being in any way interested in pursuing a romantic relationship, with anyone, at all. This is strange and foreign. I wish it to teach me its ways such that I can determine whether it is hostile.
2) Seeing a few scattered friends fairly occasionally (~2 such visits or activities / week,) of a far wider age range than I'd had in Providence. I highly advise you all to find some older friends. It's extremely important. Also enjoying my sister Cassie, who is home for a few more days before she goes off to be a counsellor at her music camp.
3) Enjoying the scenery a great deal. I did miss the hills. Last weekend I took a walk in the woods for several hours, the last 1.5 of which were unintentional. There are many new paths on our hill. I thought a great deal about whether biological evolution and natural selection are symbolic of something in the nature of God, an effect of the Fallen Order, or an expression on God's part of the nature of the spread of the Spirit in this place. In the end, I likely decided that the third reconciled the first two nicely, though by that point I decided that the Indian Paintbrushes (my favorite local wildflower) were more interesting for the moment, and found my way back to the main road. I passed Tim Walker, who is inevitably outside his barn at the end of all such walks, and has come to be my personal Voice of God. "Hello! How are you?" "Well, parts of me are wonderful!" "I think most of me is wonderful, right now. Just went for a walk in the woods, got lost for a few hours, but, that isn't bad." "No, that's good!" He's way better than Tarot cards. When I got back, we went canoeing.
One minor difficulty: my mother had an arythmia degenerating into fibrillation, and while this has stabilized and is being monitored, she has had a highly elevated blood pressure since, from excellent BP before. This makes her nervous, naturally, and I really need to remember that she is justifiably nervous about her health and in significant pain before deciding on how to address certain issues of extreme overmothering. At the very least, I need to make a decision, rather than just letting Samael in there out to say hello, as is occasionally my wont recently. Must pray more, and get more sleep, and be more careful with words. Desperately powerful little things, those.
So that's me, for those who might've been wondering.