124. Player

Imagining Bouncer as Grocery Clerk

I was thankful Harpo spoke up for me, but he may have been too kind in my defense. The truth was I had let my ego stray not only into disobedience of my superiors … despite what I thought of them … but allowed myself to believe I could win at their game. It was like jumping into the ring with a welterweight after staying up late the night before reading a book on boxing.

 I didn’t feel at fault for this situation in the way Headless accused me at supper (he later apologized), but I would do anything to avoid being the person who caused the dissolution of our monastery. Our Lady at West Saugerties would die, probably, but I didn’t want it to be my fault.  

I had not wanted the job as abbot. After so many years of just letting things happen to me as a monk, I was not comfortable with responsibility.  It’s easy for Harpo to declare that God will provide. If I were just a monk, I could say it and believe it. After all, I’ve always been taken care of, but as an ordinary monk I was constantly the recipient of his grace. As abbot, I’m a player. I have to decide and act.  How do I trust in God and at the same time make choices and balance decisions? Who am I trusting, God or myself?

Why does my life have to get so complicated?  I remember reading Merton years ago and every time he would lament his loss of solitude or peace he would wonder how that came about, and I would wonder why he couldn't see he had dug his own pit.

And so have I.   I sometimes think we get what we deserve.  And if I'm going to put complication in my life I'll have to accept the consequences.  In taking on the duties of Abbot, I have let go my own personal cloister.  I have lived more of an external than internal life, going into the village, speaking on the phone, dealing with the administration of others rather than cultivating my soul.  And running a safe house, for God’s sake!

At times an abbot must live with a foot in each world, but I do not know if I can.  I don’t know if I will learn to do it, but I may be simply not capable.  I’m not even sure I want to continue the interior life, to be brutally honest.  I may now prefer the action of an uncloistered life.  I may want to only call myself a monk.

Ever since I became an Abbot I’ve been proud of my command, if I may call it that.  Proud of my ability to lead.  Through all the troubles I’ve felt alive to life and satisfied when each little problem is solved.  Brother Jesse, the monk who before let everything happen around him and to him, became a player and had to take charge.  But it seems I have not been able to bring God along with me in my trip from lassitude to action.

No surprise, God is not my co-pilot.  He owns the airline.

Here’s the problem.  In my own heart, I haven't really embraced the contemplative life in a long time.  I've been unwilling to pay the price of it ... the humdrum, boredom, sameness.  I've wanted a normal life and instead of just going out and getting it like any other person .... find a job, keep an apartment, pay the bills ... I've tried to cop a secular life while finagling to keep the benefits of a religious life.  I've tried to be two beings at once, like a hermaphrodite.  But a hermaphrodite doesn't easily bear fruit.  And my life as a monk hasn't born fruit in a long time.