Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
608-791-5295

https://www.fscenter.org

Steve Spilde: Today, I am happy to welcome Marcia Bentley back to the podcast. Marcia is a friend, a colleague, and a fellow Spiritual Director. Today, I invited Marcia to talk about her recent move. I think people underestimate how much energy is involved in a move – physical, emotional, and spiritual. Marcia, can you tell us about your recent move and what triggered it?

Marcia Bentley: Good question, Steve, as always. What triggered it was that I had been thinking that as I’m approaching 70, I probably needed to find the place where I wanted to live the rest of my life. Whether it be short or long term, I didn’t know, but there also were some physical reasons. I have some arthritis, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to live where I was living in an apartment building where I had to carry things up and down the steps, shovel snow around my car – things like that that just had me thinking that I needed to start facing those situations and make some choices for myself.

Steve: Where did you move to?

Marcia: I moved from a two-story apartment with stairs to a condo building – I actually bought a condo – and this building has elevators and it has a parking garage. I don’t have to shovel snow anymore, and I can do elevators rather than carrying things on the steps. My body is already thanking me for that decision.

Steve: I’m sure a lot of people listening come from a variety of situations. They may not live alone, [and] they may not be 70, but yet the experience of moving is common to all of us – sooner or later, we end up moving. Moving is demanding in many ways. First of all, there are the physical demands. What was the most physically challenging aspect of the move for you?

Marcia: Physically, it was partly because of the physical challenges I was already experiencing that I decided to move. And then, I did a lot of the moving myself [and] I had to carry all these things down these steps, so it was like this kind of torture to my body in a very intense sort of way for a limited period of time. It reinforced my idea that I needed to do this, but boy, there were some days it was tough.

Steve: People are oftentimes prepared for the physical demands to move, and that’s why people hire movers. That’s why “Two Men and a Truck” is in business, so people can farm that out. People I think oftentimes are surprised by how tired they are during a move, and they chalk it up to all the packing and the moving of things. But I think there are also other things involved in that. Part of that is an emotional experience. I would guess you’ve had a surge of emotions. Part of it is positive emotions; you’re excited about the move. What excites you about this change?

Marcia: Whenever you decide you’re going to purchase something or make a change, I come up with a list of things I would really like to see. In this case, it was, what would be my requirements for a new apartment or a condo? I came up with a long list of things, and this new place that I found meets almost all of them. That was really exciting for me to just find the right place. As soon as I stepped into this condo when I was doing the showing with my realtor, I stepped in and I knew immediately this is the place I want to call home. It just felt comfortable and warm and very quiet, so there was that excitement of, I have found my space [and] this is what I’ve been waiting for, and just little things I’ve found since then besides being very quiet, which helps my life of prayer. It’s in a friendly building; I’ve met a number of my neighbors. One of my neighbors, when he saw me parking in a numbered parking space, yelled out, “You must have been the one who bought John’s condo. Welcome to the building.” I thought, you can’t beat this: people actually saying, ‘welcome.’ There are also some lovely trees on the property, and I discovered this tree right outside my living room and the leaves are turning red. It’s a maple tree, so I get this glorious view of this gorgeous tree changing colors. So there’s all that positive reinforcement of, I made the right decision. This is a beautiful and friendly and comfortable place, and so for that I’m really glad. It is truly exciting.

Steve: You and I are friends. We get the chance to chat on a regular basis. One of the struggles that you’ve mentioned to me is really how nice it is, and that’s brought up some emotional work for you, correct? This is a beautiful place, but I’m spending a lot of money. Am I worth it? Shouldn’t I go for something a little more simple? Talk about the dynamics of your inner voice and your inner critic and whatever that is.

Marcia: All of that is so true. I was processing this whole experience with my Spiritual Director. She laughed and she said, “This is just something you have to do, isn’t it? You just have to second-guess yourself and work through the dynamics of that process.” But it is true. When I first saw the place, I said, “I would love to live here.” And I really did feel called by God and by my own spirituality and my own values to make the move before somebody else had to move me. Those are all things I had really reflected on and had made good decisions on. But when I actually decided to purchase the condo, it was a really fast decision because the market is pretty crazy. I had to do something way out of my comfort zone, which was [to] pounce on it right away. I had been looking for months and I had seen many places. I just had this really good feeling that this was the right place. But then all those questions came afterward, like, I could be feeding people with this money and I could be doing other things – have I really thought this through? Was I in my right mind, or did I just get caught up in the moment? I had to work through those; those were questions I just needed to ask myself. I didn’t feel worthy. I felt like, this place is too beautiful [and] I don’t deserve this. Then I realized, there was a statement from Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov when he said, “The world will be saved by beauty,” and Dorothy Day loved that. In fact, her granddaughter, Kate, wrote a book about her and called it The World Will Be Saved by Beauty. I realized it was OK for me to have beauty in my life. It wasn’t going to help anybody else by my not appreciating the beauty. I did work through it, but it was a challenge and I hadn’t expected it to happen.