I’m glad McDonald’s no longer charges for the use of their WiFi. As I sit here with Bouncer on his second large chocolate shake and me typing away, I’m happy to be able to enter my thoughts on the laptop within an hour of my having them. That’s kind of scary and not necessarily useful to anyone reading this.
I feel moved to continue to pour out my thoughts on the theme of being a player. There came a time when I withdrew from life’s battle and it coincided with my arrival in West Saugerties. I thought I was enacting a grand sacrifice by living a life of total obedience, but what I really did was refuse to follow my unique path. Even an obedient monk has to live his own life. But I wanted to sit back and let an abbot lead me. Sparky knew how to lead a man, but he also knew I was still an adolescent in my early thirties. He died before he could finish raising me.
I think Agnes saw me for what I was, and still am on many days. Despite his own problems ... or maybe because of them ... Agnes saw a soul wasting himself well into his sixties. He did not let me get away with much, I remember. He put me in the crosshairs of situations needing action a number of times. His final act of coaxing was his plea to let him die the night of the fire. One last time he asked me to stop hiding my head deep inside the cowl atop my monk's robe and to instead just be a brother. To do what I knew to be right without anyone's approval. To stand alone and be a man.
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