49. Boys

It is good to be a boy.  Boys are interested in experience, not creeds as men would be. Boys are at home with uncertainty and surprise, and so are more likely to find their own guidance.  As boys, we easily sense wisdom, and at the same time wisdom can make us boys.

I’m reminded of a dream I had in my early twenties before joining the Order.  In it, I was with a group of men as we crossed a bright green pasture.  Coming to the edge of a wood, we entered on a path we hoped would take us to a refreshing waterfall we’d heard about and wanted to explore and enjoy.  I felt awkward and a bit guilty, thinking I should be busy with men’s work, with aims more serious than rambling through the countryside on a summer day.  Then I looked around and saw we had all become boys.   

An intriguing object lay ahead, just off the path and  next to a tree.  It seemed a marvel and totally captured our imaginations.  I could see only small areas of it in my dream, never the whole.   Its bright metal parts and latches and gears and small wheels appealed to my young boy's heart,  more so than a treasure chest of gold and silver. But when we began to excitedly speak of it, I found that none of us saw exactly the same thing.  Wondering what the object was,  we began to guess who made it and what it was used for and how it got there.  Anyone’s opinion was fair.  Some ideas were serious, some quite funny, and we found ourselves laughing both in agreement and in disagreement.  We’d seen nothing like it before.  No one claimed any special knowledge of  “the Wisdom,” for that’s what we began to call the object, because boys name things with words that sound important and with phrases that pop into their heads.   Of course, some boys were adamant about the purpose of the Wisdom, but we recognized that none of us knew for sure.  

When we had conjectured long enough and the sun reached its zenith high above us, it was time to get on with the journey. No boy in the dream thought to take the thing for himself, to own it and keep it on his dresser or next to his bed at night like a favorite baseball glove.  It was somehow apparent the Wisdom belonged where we found it, by the wayside on the journey, always there for anyone who would appreciate it.  The Wisdom appeared to have no purpose, and seemingly nothing to reveal, except to awaken our wonder, and certainly our delight.  And one more thing.   The Wisdom had made us boys again.


Of all the impersonations of Buddy Holly,  I think Gary Busey did it best.