19: How are you? How am I?

My sincere apologies for the extra long delay in posting a new update here. I'm back on this project again now, so keep an eye out! At this point in my story, it's March of 1994. I'd been living in the monastery since June of 1993.

On March 16, 1994, 27 years to the day as I post this online, I passed my road test on my first try, I got a temporary license, and then received my official driver's license soon after. As I'd been depending on my friends Lex, Mark, and Brendan for rides throughout high school, and needed my fellow Marianist Brothers, old and young alike, to drive me anywhere once I entered the community, it was a huge relief to put this behind me at last.

Brother Michael Gillen (my Assistant Novice Master) taught me how to drive--on a stick shift, no less--and I was able to take a night class at a Mineola driving school just a few blocks from the Brothers' house.

This was Lent of 1994, and I would soon experience my first retreat as a monk. Twice a year, once at Lent and once in the summer, the entire Province of ~44 men participated in a guided retreat. We had a theme each time, and were led by one or more members of our Province leadership team through guided meditations, conversations, TV programs, and often a book we all read together too. I'll be sharing some quotes that spoke to me at that time from one of those books in the next blog entry.

The week before the retreat, I took some time to write to a few of my friends. Here are some excerpts from one letter I wrote the week before Holy Week. As I hope you'll realize, my connection to the world outside the monastery walls really was not too dissimilar to a prisoner writing from his cell (rooms in monasteries are called cells, in fact). No cell phone or internet access back then either, so I felt very cut off. As an 18-year-old college student living in a monastery for 9 months, I was due for a change in attitude. About everything.

March 25, 1994

It's 11:07 PM on Friday, March 25... I've learned the rigors of college life, but I understand that you probably have it much worse off. When I finish my school day at Manhattan College, I have enough time to travel home and get changed. On Monday, we watch a video transmitted to our rooms. Right now we are watching John Hagee, a fire and brimstone super conservative preacher from Texas. Although I don't share his feelings on many subjects, it's fun to watch him scream and yell.

On Tuesdays, Bro. Christopher, Bro. John Michael, and I have a Latin class with Fr. Francis Keenan. We are taking this by choice, since we have all expressed a desire to learn Latin.

On Wednesdays, the formation staff meets with the young brothers to discuss pertinent issues.

On Thursdays, we stay late at Manhattan.

In addition to these, we also take a one-hour class each night Monday through Thursday. Monday is Spirituality and study of Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi. Tuesday is Liturgy and Psychology. Wednesday is Marianist Studies with Fr. Ernest. And Thursday is singing/music practice. And I love all of it!

This is why I say that you have it worse off. Although I do work a lot, I do not have to worry about the condition of the car or money to pay for gas, etc. I know that it's much different for me. So please forgive me if you think I'm in any way forgetting what the real world is like. I do know and I do understand all of the problems that you face that I don't. 

In retrospect, I really knew so little, and even though I was still in my freshman year of college and the monastery, I was already speaking like such a wise fool! I wonder if I was simply in denial about how hard I was being worked--and how hard I was overworking myself--or if I really did love it all exactly as I said I did. I tend to believe the latter. The honeymoon was most certainly over, but I still believed, with every fiber of my being, that I was there because God called me to be a brother, and I felt my hard work was destined to eventually pay off in the blessings of a lifetime serving God.

However, if there is one thing that I do understand, and know a lot about, it's relationships. I have built up friendships here in the community. Friendships which I am grateful for. But I still have trouble relating to certain people. It bothers me very much to see a friendship not come to be that I truly wish for.

Still true today, but I followed this last bit with some gushy/manipulative lines about my friend's personality type and mine, and how much I cared about him. The poor guy, straight no less, got crushed on by my closeted-ass self way too much in those years, and it's quite simply an embarrassment to see how I fawned over him even from within a monastery. Sure, I did it under thick veils of non-sexual compliments, but still.

I hope you don't think that I repeat everything you say to me to the Brothers. I love my Brothers. They are my friends. And friends understand that some secrets remain secrets. So, my feelings as I tell them to you, I trust that they remain with you. And I hope that you have faith in me that what you tell me stays with me.

I have a long way to go on my spiritual journey, but I thank God for the memories I have of my friends from high school, and I pray to God I can continue to grow in friendship and memories with you, [and our other friends] in years to come.

Perspective is a true gift to be sure, but my own words shared so casually back then now make me cringe. Even so, it's abundantly clear to me that I knew I was gay, but I was still as certain as ever that God had called me to be there, and whatever sexual orientation I owned, it was always going to be a sexless life. I hadn't even kissed anyone in high school, so I was thoroughly lost and confused still about this part of myself. This letter also tells me, however, that I was thinking I might eventually come out to this friend at least, so I could have someone to talk to about the deep, dark secret I still dared tell no one.

It's in these many letters and personal diary entries I'll keep sharing with you that I see life again through the young man I once was. It was a time of great hope for me: a driver's license at last, a Lenten journey of focused discernment opening my eyes to so much I never knew all the time, and a beautiful retreat only a week away. Without ever saying so, these letters to friends on the outside were leashes of light sent with hopes they'd grab onto them with both hands and respond quickly, to help me trust in the life still waiting for me outside the monastery walls...should I ever decide to leave.


Coming Next Week: Care of the Soul