A number of
things get me very excited nowadays – though not necessarily the same things as
in earlier decades, and even recent years. When I was very young, it might be
something simple as a new teddy bear… and I still have one that I got back when
I was eight (don't give me a hard time about that).
Nowadays it
might be a packet of stamps for my collection (that rattling noise you hear is
my psychology-trained daughter's eyes rolling back in her head). Or it can be
the prospect of a great road (or air!) trip, a new book or CD by a favorite
artist.
It can also
be the fun of making a new friend, or rediscovering an old one. And sometimes
it's been the delightful, heady, positive tension of a growing, mutual
attraction with a fine member of the fairer gender… although I've not been
actively or seriously pursuing this for some time. (Well, almost not.)
Given my
failure in my last three relationships over the past fifteen years, in fact, I'd
come to conclude years ago that it's no longer in my future to share my heart
and life with a partner (ultimately wife, of course). Some folks may respond to
this conclusion with depression, or bleak despair. For me it's been liberating,
a relief, a peace in knowing that I'm free now of that distraction (and
vulnerability). Fortunately, though (heh-heh), women are no less attractive
than before.
On my last
full-week monastic retreat, back in 2001, this awareness was somewhere lost in
the very back of my mind and soul as I focused myself fully on the Spirit. And…
through some casual interactions and conversation, I found myself powerfully
attracted to a woman who worked there. This was extremely distracting, and in
fact at one point it took the whole of my willpower not to put my arms around
her once when I stepped past her while we were alone in one of the monastery's
guest rooms. And I certainly felt a very strong current from her that this
attraction was very mutual
She was also
married.
Well, this
certainly gave me something more intense to pray about… oh, yes.
And what I came to draw out of this experience, by the time the week was over
(among other experiences having nothing to do with that), was not that this
woman had been put there to tempt me (and I passed the test!), but that I
needed very much to be told that at my feet were still two paths: that I
could still choose between a professed/avowed religious life… or another
marriage. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Two years
later I was dating again… but my stupidity caused that one to fly apart in just
a few months. Nonetheless, I remain deeply appreciative of the Lord for the
lesson he'd given me a couple years before that – yet I think I'd rather not
bring pain to another woman's heart. Thus, since then, I've been making my
steps almost exclusively along that monastic/clergy path. Here there is peace; only in God is my soul
truly at rest. Sometimes I even remember this, too.
Yet… I do
find myself looking back; at this point, also, it is not a bad thing. Every so
often I even skim the big city paper's personal ads, or take a look at Craig's
List (but some of those ads… whoo; too much!!). So I know this part of
my heart hasn't atrophied, and interest remains. But I think that until
something more spectacular happens to me, such as a brave and determined woman's
giant shepherd's crook yanks me onto the relationship-stage, I'll continue
narrowing down my worldly life, simplifying, and clearing the path to become
one of those “Boys in the Hood”. We'll see, I suppose… and I concede that God
has an incredible sense of humor.
This doesn't
mean I can't be, or won't be, swept off my feet. But I'm seeking it less and
less. Over time all of womanhood will thank me, I'm sure, and heave their own
collective sigh of relief.
This evening
on EWTN, Father Groeschel and a pair of guest-priests were
discussing vocations to the priesthood. And I found myself getting excited at
this, especially when the priests briefly touched on the idea of late-in-life
religious vocations. As part of this television program, Father takes phone calls.
So I called in, and got as far as the phone-screener (I assume one of the
monks), though it turned out I was not put on the air. That's okay; I wasn't
looking to be beamed around the world. Rather, I wanted to ask more about how
the church, and individual seminaries and monasteries, work with men who are
discerning one of these late vocations.
The
phone-screener pointed me to the website www.ReligiousLife.com, which
helps people asking the same questions I am. So I swung by the site… and my
excite-o-meter went up even higher as I skimmed around briefly.
More on that
site later as I explore it… and on other things that may come up over time. For
now I know I can straddle, if not quite stride, both paths – marriage and a
religious vocation – but they quickly and reasonably diverge quite sharply
early on (since I'm not of the Eastern Churches); and trying to walk both those
paths has the walker doing a very painful, and quickly impossible, split… and I'm
not as limber as I once was, apart from still bending over backwards for my
daughters.
More later.
Perhaps it comes across, even, that I'm still torn. And perhaps I am. At least
this life isn't boring!
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