13: Aliens in a Strange Land
It was late August 1993 when the inevitable finally occurred. I'd only been living in the monastery for about six weeks, but this was a small eternity, so leaving home with just my fellow young brothers was quite an unusual experience. Our destination? Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, the place we'd be attending school for the next four years.
Joe, two years older than the four of us who had just joined the order, helped us out so much our first year, as he'd already gone through everything we were still experiencing: all the nerves, all the newness, and everything else that came with joining a conservative Roman Catholic monastery as a teenage boy. Since Joe was beginning his junior year of college and we were each beginning our freshman year, he was a true "big brother" to us all.
He drove us up to the college, showed us where we needed to park each day, and then introduced us around campus whenever he could too.
Now you've gotta remember, we were all dressed exactly the same: five young men all wearing white dress shirts beneath black suits and ties with matching polished black shoes and belts. We looked like the men in black before Men in Black was even a thing! While most everyone on campus accurately guessed we were part of a religious order, they didn't know if we were Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or what. Thankfully, Manhattan College is run by the Christian Brothers, so even though they wore a different habit than we did, people generally got the idea soon enough.
Joe was a history major, John was a math major, Ben a science major, and Chris and I were both English Lit majors. Although it was great having Joe to introduce us to lay teachers and Christian Brothers alike, and I was very fortunate to have Chris lead the way through the college's English Literature program, we were all still seen as oddballs, especially in the beginning. As kids played Frisbee or relaxed on the grass in the quadrangle, all dressed in shorts and sneakers for the late summer weather, we were walking around in full dress suits. We just didn't fit in at all.
That was always the goal, though.
As our superiors often drilled into our brains, we were called to be counter-cultural. While other kids our age were leading average lives of mediocrity, we had each been called to something far greater, far more important. (These may not have been the exact words anyone in the monastery used with us, but this indoctrination was absolutely as intentional as I describe it here.) We were not meant to ever fit into the world, not anymore. We'd left behind our families and friends to serve God as young brothers, and that was our new mission in life.
Our car was always "dressed" the same too. A maroon 1989 Dodge Caravan, it became part and parcel of who we were, a tell-tale sign we had arrived on campus or back at home at the monastery and high school grounds. Though we sometimes took other cars up to campus, especially if some of us were on a wildly different schedule, the red caravan was our go-to mobile. I'll be talking much more about that car and our adventures in it later on, but for now, here are a couple of pictures of that particular year/model. Seeing the inside photo should help paint a picture of us in there driving to and from Long Island and the Bronx each day, all dressed up in our religious habit.
Joe, two years older than the four of us who had just joined the order, helped us out so much our first year, as he'd already gone through everything we were still experiencing: all the nerves, all the newness, and everything else that came with joining a conservative Roman Catholic monastery as a teenage boy. Since Joe was beginning his junior year of college and we were each beginning our freshman year, he was a true "big brother" to us all.
He drove us up to the college, showed us where we needed to park each day, and then introduced us around campus whenever he could too.
Now you've gotta remember, we were all dressed exactly the same: five young men all wearing white dress shirts beneath black suits and ties with matching polished black shoes and belts. We looked like the men in black before Men in Black was even a thing! While most everyone on campus accurately guessed we were part of a religious order, they didn't know if we were Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or what. Thankfully, Manhattan College is run by the Christian Brothers, so even though they wore a different habit than we did, people generally got the idea soon enough.
Joe was a history major, John was a math major, Ben a science major, and Chris and I were both English Lit majors. Although it was great having Joe to introduce us to lay teachers and Christian Brothers alike, and I was very fortunate to have Chris lead the way through the college's English Literature program, we were all still seen as oddballs, especially in the beginning. As kids played Frisbee or relaxed on the grass in the quadrangle, all dressed in shorts and sneakers for the late summer weather, we were walking around in full dress suits. We just didn't fit in at all.
That was always the goal, though.
As our superiors often drilled into our brains, we were called to be counter-cultural. While other kids our age were leading average lives of mediocrity, we had each been called to something far greater, far more important. (These may not have been the exact words anyone in the monastery used with us, but this indoctrination was absolutely as intentional as I describe it here.) We were not meant to ever fit into the world, not anymore. We'd left behind our families and friends to serve God as young brothers, and that was our new mission in life.
Our car was always "dressed" the same too. A maroon 1989 Dodge Caravan, it became part and parcel of who we were, a tell-tale sign we had arrived on campus or back at home at the monastery and high school grounds. Though we sometimes took other cars up to campus, especially if some of us were on a wildly different schedule, the red caravan was our go-to mobile. I'll be talking much more about that car and our adventures in it later on, but for now, here are a couple of pictures of that particular year/model. Seeing the inside photo should help paint a picture of us in there driving to and from Long Island and the Bronx each day, all dressed up in our religious habit.
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The group of us walking onto the campus was a sight to behold, I promise you, but going to college, for me, was actually the birth of something I never expected. Because I wasn't with the rest of my fellow young brothers in most of my classes, I was suddenly more of a "me" than a "we".
At the monastery, in the car rides to and from school, and whenever any of us studied together in the library, I was Brother Sean Patrick Brennan of the Society of Mary, but by myself, I was now finally just Sean, an 18-year-old guy who for the first time in his life was starting to glimpse the real young man behind the suit. Like all young people my age, something new was beginning to blossom. Despite all my fierce dedication to the Roman Catholic Church and my order, the real me was coming alive, and a deep sense of self-worth and self-preservation was finally coming along with it.
Next Up: In The Beginning
Will there be further blog entries?
ReplyDeleteYes, actually restarting this blog next month. Thanks for asking!
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