27. A Man

All I ever wanted to be was a man.  My earliest memories as a child are filled with instances where I tried to be a man long before I was able.  As I grew older, I stumbled forward on the narrow boards of my ego.

I remember myself as a teenager, sitting lonely in the center of my own universe, writing the script that saw my future come out the way I wanted.  But in the staging of the scenes, I was a second-rate actor who often forgot his lines or stumbled while crossing the stage.  And in playing the starring role, I was just trying to become someone I had invented.   I  could act my heart out, impersonating the successful young man I  wanted to be, but I was unable to master the real roles  in my life … student,  son , brother, friend.  I risked failing to be a real person because I was trying to be someone I wasn’t.  

The cock-sureness of my youth masked my natural feelings of inferiority.  As I stumbled through my high school years, I began to know the disappointing truth that like many other teens I had never really accomplished anything, had never formed a truly selfless relationship with another and never stood up to honestly take my own measure.  Since I was too young to admit it, I was left to cover my confusion with a blanket of arrogance.  That covering wouldn’t last forever.  Eventually it would shred away, and underneath would be found either a boy simply getting older or a man in the making.

I don’t remember how it happened.  I know the process wasn’t clean and precise.  This monastic life  played a significant part in it.  For some, maturity was inevitable.  For me, it was a long road with uncertain directions and a changing landscape.  But I eventually got here, and today I can say with confidence that I am indeed a man.  But I am only a man.  And although I will sometimes sit in the center of my own universe,  I seldom set up camp there.  It’s too lonely a place.  In the wider universe … the real one …  I am not alone,  I am not in charge and I  am no more important than anyone else.

26. Yearning

1951 Buick Roadmaster Convertible

On warm May afternoons in the distant past, I'd stand daydreaming in the back window of our downtown Catholic high school, busy at the pencil sharpener, pointing and re-sharpening enough pencils to last until college, and gazing out across the street to where a neighboring salesman always parked his yellow 1951 Buick Roadmaster convertible.  It was such a beautiful car, a giant throbbing land rocket with deep leather seats that made you want to jump in and tear your clothes off … if you were a sixteen year old boy.  And I'd yearn to take Mary Immaculata O'Toole for a ride in that dream machine, while we played the radio and listened to Johnny Mathis.  I didn't like Johnny Mathis, but I figured Mary Mac would.  And in the unlikely event she tore off her clothes,  the radio could play The Battle Hymn of The Republic, for all I cared. 

Sister Mary Monstrance snapped me out of my reverie with the call of my name.  She would endure my grinding away a forest of wood products for only so long.  And now,  would I please take my seat and attend to academic matters during this last study period of the day.

“How you expect to ever accomplish anything is a mystery to me, young man,”  she offered. 

Me too, I thought. 

“You need to concentrate on what’s important,” said the old nun.   I hoped that some day I could.

I returned to my desk, where I sat squirming with eager anticipation for the final bell, like an astronaut waiting for the countdown to reach zero. Then, shot out of my seat to land on the streets of downtown, I would search for Mary Mac.  But when I found her, I ignored her.  I was too shy to start a conversation.  A youthful Casanova stifled by the daunting task of small talk.  A price I was evidently unwilling to pay, when I could daydream for free.

When I told this story to Bouncer one afternoon as we were cleaning out another backed up toilet, he asked, “And do you still yearn for her?”

“She was the most gorgeous sight I’ve ever seen,” I said.  “Beautiful curves, luscious upholstery, and a snappy set of headlights.”

“The girl or the car?” he asked.

“Even after all these years,” I said, “I’m not sure I can separate them.”

"Pass the plunger," said Bouncer. 


In Dreams - Roy Orbison

25. Messenger

"Why did you become a monk?” asks “George in Malden-on-Hudson.”  Well, George, it’s a long story, but I’d say my early training helped me along.  Call it a childhood neurosis blossoming into a vocation.  Everything I learned about the supernatural when I was a kid was not only nonsensical, but often bizarre.  It’s taken a lifetime to sort it out.

Our Catholic household was led by my father, St. John the Bazaar, as we boys secretly called him because of his work on the annual church fair.  We had no pets, but Grandma lived with us.  She was a Protestant, the only  Presbyterian us kids had ever met.  For all we knew, she was the only non-Catholic within miles of our of working class Irish and Italian neighborhood.  An older brother said that’s why she had her own bedroom.

Only God knew what Grandma thought as she watched us march to the beat of an old drummer in Rome.  She kept her thoughts to herself, mostly, and consulted her Dream Book.  Resembling an old bible, the volume had gold edging and a black leather cover.  It seemed to accompany her everywhere.   In deference to our love for The Saints, she said her book was dedicated to Saint Sigmund.  When Grandma infrequently came to Mass with us, she’d bring the Dream Book along and read it, right through the Consecration.  “It’s a scandal, Mary,” my father said.  Mom replied that it was only a venial sin.  The old woman didn’t care what either of them thought.  I saw her spunk, but years would pass before I understood her message.

Grandma revered the rugged individualism of her Scots Presbyterian heritage, along with its simple liturgy, and saw Catholicism as a chaotic mess of medieval superstitions.  As practiced by Americans in the 1950’s, that assessment would have been fairly accurate.  She endured the arcane customs for the sake of my mother, whose father Grandma had married many years before.  After my grandfather’s death, she came to live with us in a neighborhood so Catholic she may have felt behind enemy lines.  But Grandma remained unmoved by the Roman spirit.  No one had tried to tell her what to do since Grandpa threw in the towel and died.

Grandma’s style of religion emphasized an independence of spirit and a definite aversion to centralized management.  Presbyterianism didn’t have a Vatican.  For her grandsons, however, our Church specified how to live every aspect of our lives.  We ran to Masses,  said  rosaries to the Virgin, checked our movie plans against those indexed by the Legion of Decency, polished our Miraculous Medals, dusted the Pope pictures on the living room walls, had our throats blessed during Lent, threw palm leaves over the battalion of crucifixes throughout our home, considered  advice from the myriad of Catholic publications arriving daily in our mailbox  (“orders from HQ,” I heard Grandma say under her breath,) and dressed the Infant of Prague statue in his ever-changing liturgical colors as he stood atop our television set and watched over Milton Berle and all the other Jewish comedians of the era.  Proggy, as we called him, must have thought he was in the Catskills at a Borscht Belt resort.  At the nearby parish school, nuns and priests kept us on the narrow path of catechesis and  religious nonsense, very little of it relating to God.

For instance,  the church told us to have lots of babies,  and as soon as we could, but after marriage of course.  Whenever any family in our parish was mentioned in school,  the NUMBER of children was always included, with a slight frown for only one child and a big smile if the number approached a dozen.  As a third grader, I was quite impressed.  So I dutifully trotted home from school and told Mom she should have more children.

"What?" she said, "where did you hear that?"

"In school, Mom.  Sister Liquidia said good Catholics have lots of children.  So I think we should, too."

Grandma, sitting at the kitchen table, retreated into her Dream Book and began to silently read.

My mother gave me a look across the kitchen that told me I was on thin ice.  It suddenly occurred to me that a nine year old should not presume to give his mother advice on family planning.

"How many more brothers," my mother asked, "do you think will fit in that bedroom with all of you?"

I thought about it for a moment. 

"Look, Mom," I said, "I'm not much on details,  I'm just a kid."

"I'm aware of that," she said.

"I guess I'll mention it to Dad,” I said.  “He's a nuts and bolts sort of guy.  He'll know what to do."

"Yes," she said, "he'll know what to do."

"And if Dad thinks that ....."

"OK, that’s enough!" she said, her voice beginning   to rise.

"Mom,  I'm just the messenger."

She left the kitchen then, stepping rather smartly.   I looked over at my grandmother to see if she would offer some comment, but she appeared engrossed in Saint Sigmund, slowly turning the pages.  Then she looked up at me.

"Maybe," said Grandma , "you should carry a little horn with you when you make an announcement."

“What announcement?”

“The Angel of The Lord declared unto Mary,” she said.

My little brother was born six months later.

24. Up On The Roof

I’ll tell you a little secret.  But before I do, I have to say I’m well aware I write things that could be potentially embarrassing.  And some of you, dear readers, have mentioned in your emails that you are worried for me.  And I’m troubled about my Great Sin of Having A Blog and Not Confessing It.  But writing to real people, even those I’ll never meet, seems so much more vital than recording my thoughts in a diary.  Writing in a diary is like sitting in a corner talking to a wall.  When I write on the Blog, at least someone is listening.  It makes all the difference in the world when someone is listening.  

Here’s something else I keep from my Brothers.   I go out on the roof of the monastery to look out over the valley on days when the weather is fine.  The highest roof on our clump of buildings is atop the Chapter House.  It has a trap door up near the peak of a steeply inclined roof.  I remove my robe first, so that I’m in boots and jeans and usually just a T-shirt.  There’s a ladder in the high attic that leads up to the trap door.  When I get to the top,  I swing open  the tar covered door, stand on the top rung of the ladder, step up and put my foot on the framing around the hole and throw my other leg over the peak of the roof.    Then I throw my weight forward and,  if I do it just right and my hands don't slip, my legs  slide over the peak of the roof just like I’m slinging myself up on to the back of a horse.  If I don’t do right, I bounce back and my foot has to find the framing or I’ll go crashing down through the hole to the attic floor.  I’ve never missed, however.  And I can’t launch myself too far forward and go flipping over the peak and down to the ground on the other side.  I’m too heavy to throw myself that far.

Once I’m comfortably straddling the peak, , I slide myself inch by inch along to very edge of the roof, my jeans rasping across the shingles.    What a feeling to sit there at such a dizzying height!  Vertigo grips me and I lean back a bit and slide my fingertips beneath the slightly wet roof shingles behind me.  Were I to lean even a tiny bit forward at this moment, I might tumble down into circle of driveway at the front door of the Chapter House.  Brother Jessica The Lightning Rod!  Don't try this with thunderstorms in the area!

On days with fine weather, I can see the entire valley spread out before me as if it were a calm green sea.  There’s the Hudson River.  Closer is the back side of Mount Marion and just a bit to the left is Churchland.

When I sit on the roof and look out across the valley,  I feel like I’m flying.  As free as a bird.   There’s something very Jungian about that, of course.  When we dream of flying it means our shadow wants to fly, to be free.  Or maybe to flee.  But why would I want to flee?  I’m very happy here.  Truthfully,  I haven't known much else for decades.  Like the Trappist monk Thomas Merton and his beloved hills of central Kentucky (“knobs” he called them) I’ve come to love every nook and cranny on the face of this mountain that looms behind me.  And I can recognize and name each winding creek carved on the landscape rolled out here before me.

And often I feel like Christ in the wilderness.  But in my case it's not Satan tempting me to jump from the pinnacle of the temple.  It's me.  Sometimes I’ve had enough of life.  I’m in my seventies, after all, and I have a great temptation to end it all before the journey gets worse.  I could just slip off the edge of the roof into the waiting arms of eternity. And here’s a strange thing …  I don’t know why, but I have a sense that eternity is feminine.

So up here on the peak of the roof I hover in place, held back by something I can't understand.  I want to go forward and embrace whoever is on the horizon, but something holds me back.  Is it my guardian angel?   Don't we each have one?  I guess I do, because I've never fallen off the roof.  Maybe she specializes in roof top safety.  She?  Yes, she.  I wouldn't want a male guardian angel.  I want one to love me like I always wanted a woman to love me.  Unconditionally.

I'll bet my guardian angel is a fine looking woman….cute, capable, soft and warm.  Sure of herself and saucy.  I’ll bet her name is not Mary or Theresa or Kundegunda of Sandeck.*   I’ll bet she has a snappy name like Sally.

As the sun continues to rise and warm the roof, the bell rings for Terce and it's time to leave the roof for mid morning chapel.   I back down the peak to the trap door.  Then I back into the roof hole, close the hatch and back down the ladder.  I back down all the way.  I'm always backing down.  

 * Kundegunda of Sandeck is a Polish saint.  She was a member of  the Polish Royal Family of her time.  For all I know she is the patron saint of land taxes and public executions.

Up On The Roof - Robson and Jerome

23. You Gotta Have Heart

Raiser says Agnes is worried about money again.  Waste of time, I’d say. Our Lady of West Saugerties will fall down around our ears some day or burn down or we’ll be evicted for some reason that hasn't occurred to us.  Whatever happens, it is out of our hands.  We'll just survive, somehow.  I suppose the eleven of us could head down to the malls and become  superannuated stock boys at Best Buy or greeters at Sam’s … get jobs and become solid citizens.  But we are not solid citizens.  We are revolutionaries.  We are monks whose job is contemplative prayer and study.  No, it doesn’t make sense to most people.  It doesn’t have to.  I liked almost everything the Trappist Thomas Merton wrote about contemplative monks, except for his statement that our purpose is to pray for the world.  Bullshit, Thomas!  You were a little too left-brained.  Not even we understand our purpose.  We do it because we somehow know it is the right thing for us to do.  The world can follow its logic.  We’ll follow our …. well, I guess I’d say our hearts.  Yes, the word I want is hearts.

As I age, I worry less about  my soul.  I think it will do what it is meant to do.   I am more afraid for my heart, that part of me that feels someone's agony other than my own, the only part of me that stands a chance of leaving this world in better condition than when it got here.

The coach is a dead ringer for Bouncer!

22. Free At Last!

It sometimes feels that way when I’m sent to the village hardware store to buy a part for Bouncer  (Brother Bilhild of Thuringia), our resident handyman.  Bouncer has seldom left the monastery over the years and says he’d feel conspicuous, even though he’s allowed to have on jeans and a jacket in the village, rather than  wear his robe and suffer the people who would accost him.  

When we put on our monk robes, tourists always want us to pose with them and of course their little  Shih Tzu, which I have unkindly referred to as  a drop-kick dog.  “Just one more picture, Father, if you don’t mind!”   Oh, yes, we're often called "Father,"  because I guess people assume we would not be going around in such a get-up unless we had the powers of the priesthood!  I’d be shortening my lifespan if I explained to  everyone who asked for my blessing that I’m a Brother, not a priest.  But I’ve given folks a priest’s blessing for the hell of it, and without explanation, rather than waste my breath confessing I am about to commit  a mortal sin and not so many centuries ago I'd be burned at the stake for my deed.   I’m amazed that people feel so free to just come right up and demand my attention, though of course I freely give it.  One woman shocked me when she dropped down on her knees before me on the sidewalk in front of the bakery on Main Street and pleaded for a blessing.  
 
"Get up, woman," I pleaded.  "You'll be arrested for soliciting!"  She left me quickly.

Half way down the mountain on my last trip into town for a toilet part,  I decided to instead go to Woodstock.  If I wanted to,   I could wear my robe and fit right in with the crowd in that village.  (I often do.)  I might even be asked to run for mayor.  I like Woodstock, but you have to look between the forest of tourists to see the residents, some of whom are not all that loveable or even presentable.  A lady I met in the drop-in center up on Rock City Road told me she lived in town.  “If you sit late at night on the Green,” she said, “you’ll see mostly residents drift by.  It’s like sitting by the sea and watching a shipwreck.  I imagine myself on the shore as the castaways float in,” she continued, “all kinds of people, some haggard, some spiffy, some low,  some pretty high, some even looking the part, all wet for no particular reason.  It’s as though they pull themselves up off the sand and pass by you on their way inland to the Red Cross shelter.”

But yesterday morning I went to the Saugerties hardware store.  I guess I’m just a creature of habit.  Plus, the folks there seem to understand my lack of understanding.  And I need to confess this:  Sara lives in Saugerties.  I'm sorry, but there's no reason why I shouldn't know what she looks like, is there? 

David Ogden - Lighthouse Song