Musings, it's all passing away

Lately I've been enjoying a lot of reading and studying about space and time. The entire concept, of either and both is mind boggling. Honestly it's entirely beyond me. But what has been gotten my attention is less the theories of time and space, and more the desire for us to understand them. In a world, my world, I don't have the dream, the hope of immortality. Honestly I wouldn't want it. The idea, the thought that I, me, Thom, would go on forever seems entirely dreadful. I'm a nice enough fellow I suppose. I'm generally honest, friendly, respectful. I am not especially talented, good-looking, artistic, charitable. I am not able, not capable of contributing to the world in a grand fashion. I'm no great warrior, king, scientist, philosopher, poet, painter, musician, laborer, farmer, father or even friend. I'm down right average to below average. No need to drag this existence out beyond its estimated 70-100 years. 70-100 years, not even 100,000,000,000th of a millisecond in the grand scheme of existence. My presence here, on this ball of rock and magma is so non consequential that my presence here is no more nor less impactful than a day in the life of a mosquito.

Now I do not want you, dear reader, to think that I do not appreciate my life. I value that I have awareness of the world (which from all studies and scientific observations the mosquito does not). This life, this 100,000,000,000,000 of millisecond of existence is valuable, to me, and for all of us whilst we are aware of it. It is entirely possible that conscious life exists in the universe only here, on Earth, and that makes the experience of it even more special, at least in theory. It is also entirely possible that conscious life is found through out the universe, and our experience of it is as common as dust on the lamp shade. Either way, I know I am alive, I am aware. I know that I have an expiration date (by average estimates another 30 years or so).

What makes my musings ponder some, is that in this world, this existence, I do not feel the need to seek refuge in the hope, in what I believe is a false hope, that of an eternity beyond that which I experience here. I don't recall that my childhood entry into faith was ever driven by fear of not living forever or even fear of death itself or fear of some sort of divine punishment (hell) if I didn't live a faith filled life. My faith was always driven by the social aspects of religion. I was raised in the faith more in a community function rather than a theological one.

As small town Roman Catholics, we never really studied the bible at home. Our parish church was built around the catholic celebration of the Mass. It was almost always entirely ritual, rarely theological, sure the priest would offer a homily (sermon) but these were often platitudes and niceties built around one or two of the biblical Sunday readings. Of course I'm sure our parish had adult bible studies, RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) and other things, but from the time I can remember until I graduated high school, my participation in the Church was always around participating in community. It was a matter of being together in like belief, not necessary being together to better understand Divinity externally or internally. In the monastic tradition, in which my parish was heavily influenced by as our long term pastor, Thomas Dentici,

who was a former monk, there exists the belief is that actions of faith, i.e. ritual prayer, meditation, community, one's work, the very walls and stones around you, would reveal God's mysteries and wonders, and the overt expression, theological expression of wasn't always necessary. I grew up in the mountains of Colorado, and certainly the mountains were an inspiration and expression of awe. Sometimes in the dewy foggy mornings of spring it is easy to see how and why we would attribute nature's grandeur to more than just circumstance of natural progression. Nature herself might inspire us to want to believe that because we are aware of the universe and the world held therein - then indeed the universe and nature herself might be an expression of awareness, an expression of a god. Therefore it is not inconceivable then that in my experience of faith as a child I was never afraid of the world beyond this one as I was raised to live in the world I was already aware of - living in the world of the here and now. I was raised in awareness not raised in fear. I am grateful for this unique theological upbringing. I am grateful that it lead me to study further theology in a more formalized manner via intense biblical studies, the study of philosophy, history, arts, sciences in a monastic tradition. My own first theological and formal training were through the Benedictine Monks at their seminary. There we lived in community, in a world held apart from the rest - cloistered from the world, restricted so that we might find theological inspiration in divinity studies as well as theological inspiration in community with each other.

As I have departed a faith life, and have moved into a humanist approach to ethics and morals, I rely upon understanding the world through scientific theory (observation and evaluation of the laws of physics, time, space and the world around us). I have always been that sort - I have never believed in ghosts or even aliens on Earth. My approach to believing something is that if it can't duplicated or observed by others in a controlled manner or even recorded in some fashion so as to be verified by other eyes, well I don't accept it as truth. Funny, how in my belief of God it took me until my early twenties to apply the same standards. Yet now, with the wisdom of some 44 years under my belt, it makes sense that my atheism didn't mature because as I stated earlier, my first experiences of what faith was, were based in the community expression of love and God's actions. I was taught that God was observable in community, good actions of humanity were the tenants of faith; the community and it's love for one another was the "proof" of God. While the scriptures and theological theorems were nice, they were never the center of believing. God seemed real to me because I was loved. I think in many ways my family, who is still faith filled, still believes this as the ultimate proof of God's existence. Their "scientific theory" is that because love exists in a community of family and like believers, then God is indeed real.

This desire, this faith is so tempting. Even now as I write these words I am nostalgic for that faith life. I do miss raising my voice in song with a community. I miss the brotherhood I felt at the seminary.  I miss standing as a leader of people, as a pastor, a priest and guiding the community to a common mission. Yet I don't miss from those days the mask I wore. I don't miss hiding myself, my true self. As I left faith I lost family, friends and became more alone. More alone, not lonely, but more alone. My community shrank from many to few, and in that reduction, simplification, I discovered truth. That fear of not being included, of feeling different, of doubting was okay. My family now is small, but more intimate. My family now is small, but more authentic. My family is small, but it's real. When I raise my voice in song my new family sings with me and even sometimes through me.

This short life, my 100,000,000,000th of a millisecond or less, is more precious because it's all I have. Space and time, observable and measurable, tells me that my matter, my carbon and energy will not be lost, they will be transferred, carried on in some other fashion. Perhaps my ashes will fertilize the soil. Perhaps the movement, my atomic energy, will someday join the light of a star. And perhaps when the energy that moves me is expired it will all pass away. But somehow, this passing away is just fine. For before I stepped gently on this green wet earth, I was in 100's of trillions atoms and protons worth in places elsewhere. Before I existed I was not missed, I was not known. And so too when this moment ends, my life, I won't be missed. Oh sure, for a 100,000,000,000th of a millisecond maybe I'll be missed, but for all of us, it's all passing away. But I don't need to be more than what I am - temporary. That is what makes this moment so precious. This quick 100,000,000,000th of a millisecond of awareness is a special thing. It is to be treasured and I don't need anything other than what I am to make it valuable.

I wear a size 10 shoe

In September of 2014 New York Times published an article, "Corner Closet Opens Up a Bit Wider" about gay CEOs and the further development of gay power in business. Interestingly enough, one subject of the article, Travis Burgess stated, "Being gay is just a fact. I view it like height, or eye color." New York Times, "Corner Closet Opens Up a Bit" by James Stewart September 5, 2014.

It's been an interesting year or two in the world of celebrities and those who are gay or bi-sexual. Legalization of marriage for same sex couples aside, a lot of ink is spilled talking about gay sports figures, news casters, journalists, celebrities in film, stage and television. The fascination with these folks sexual orientation and how well they will fit into their perspective fields of expertise has been much the topic of discussion. Even to the absurd where a reporter commented on Michael Sam, the former player for the St. Louis Rams (who happens to be gay) and his showering behaviors at the training facility.
 

I've personally never been especially comfortable in an all gay scene; going to clubs or bars that cater to exclusively gay or LGBT communities makes me a bit uncomfortable. Sure I've gone plenty of times to gay bars (I do love the EAGLE), either because I was with a date or a partner or because the reality of the 90's and even now is that it just feels safer to be with others who have a like mind. Yet, I quite often have wondered that is that exclusivity still entirely necessary or is it even healthy? Perhaps there is the need culturally, a safe place, and I understand the desire for as is said, "birds of a feather, flock together." Yet, as I grow older, and more established in my relationship (going on 13 years), I much prefer to sit and enjoy social company in a diverse and mixed crowd - gay, straight, black, white, etc. I have come to realize in my life that while my being a gay man is part of who I am - NOT something that I choose - but rather something much more ingrained, my entire sexuality, sexual identity is not the sole definer of what makes me, me.


 

Those reading who are my friends may know this about me, but I like Batman. I love the story of this man who was broken, hurt by a tragedy in life, who swore to not let his type of pain be felt by anyone else. That the loss of his beloved parents, especially his father would move him to try to be better than, rise above, conquer the life he had been so cruelly dealt, bereft of parents, alone in the world. Of course, as a young boy I also loved his bat-tools, bat-car, bat-cave. I loved that he was a character of action, resolution, pride and honor, but that he was willing to sacrifice those elements to achieve his goals, which was to fight injustice, seek vengeance and rise above. It didn't hurt my childhood mind too thinking that here this Batman, was just Bruce Wayne. A self made hero - not super, just super resolute. I loved dreaming that I could be Batman too, well maybe. Yet my love of Batman - it does not define me. It's part of me and has been since I was a very young boy. I also loved the Six-Million dollar man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain Kirk, C.H.I.P.S., and many other "hero characters". I can say that the Batman is part of who I am, mostly, very likely, the darkness of Batman, which I came to respect and love in the 1980's. Yet this Dark Knight is not who I am, it is not the sole characteristic of my personality.
 

Now many of you may not know that I also love fantasy novels. I started consuming them in the 1970s, reading voraciously every science fiction and or fantasy book I could get my hands on. I loved Lloyd Alexander, R.A. MacAvoy, JRR Tolkien, Piers Anthony, Ray Bradbury, Clifford D. Simak, Robert Asprin, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman and many, many more. These worlds, created and imagined became my reality. I escaped into them, not so much because I wanted to get away from something, but because I wanted to discover something else. These rich worlds of magic, fantasy, adventure were a place where I resided most of the time. As a child I never thought of myself as different (or gay or straight or otherwise), nor did I ever even consider my sexuality. Instead my youth, up into my teenage years were spent focused on stepping through the door of new worlds, the threshold of these doors being the fantasy books I journeyed upon. My life and world were, even perhaps through young adulthood, consumed more with creating in my own mind a world filled things yet undiscovered, mysterious or fantastic. I was never an overly sexualized young man, not even loosing my virginity until my early twenties and then it was well after college. But in my world, I had already lived life as a king, a hero, a villain, a knight, a bard, a wanderer and a peasant and the focus of these world's never included my sexual orientation; which gender to which I was attracted never even entered my mind, much like my shoe size (which is 10 narrow by the way).
 

 

An elephant often in the room, when some folks discover that I was a former priest, is that I must have left the priesthood because I was gay, or even that I became a priest at first because I was gay. I know that this is true for many men in the ministry, the celibate life is an alternative to living a life as gay man.  In the Catholic Church at least, homosexuality is considered abnormal, and acting on gay sexual urges is considered morally reprehensible, a mortal sin even (a sin so grievous that one without the sacrament of confession will not see the shining gates of heaven or St. Pete's ugly mug). But again, for me, in my journey it wasn't a concern. I wanted to be a priest because in this world, at least in my young mind, it presented the opportunity to continue to play at the fantasy life I had been living in for so long. I could be the magician. I could be the cleric. I would be the hero. I had never even thought of priests in a sexual manner, but of course I never thought of my parents or any other adult in such a manner either. My priesthood was simply a continuation of the fantasy I had been living since I was eight years old, exciting, new, a discovery, but ultimately, for me, it was just that, fantasy. It never had anything to do with my sexuality. Even in college, surrounded by so many young men, some quite handsome, I did not explore my sexual orientation or act on sexual urges. It was there, the urges, the desire for a sexual experience, but it was not the driving force. This changed when I became a priest, in part because I was no longer a naïve young man (younger anyway) and in part because I knew that the fantasy world of priesthood was not sustainable. It had to end, but not because of my sexual orientation, but because I fundamentally did not believe in God.

So now as I enter the last half of my middle age (I'm 45, soon to be 46, I've got what, 25/30 years to live?), I can reflect back and take in the whole experience of my life, both as a man who happens to be gay and as a man with a size 10 shoe. My feet are important. They've gotten me into and out of a lot of trouble, a lot of fun, a lot of sorrow and have enabled me to journey through a life that has taken me from the peaks of Colorado to the deep valleys of Israel. My sexuality is important too. I've fallen in love more times than I can count; broken as many hearts as times mine has been broken, and in my sexuality I have met and become the man I am. Yet it is a single part of me, not a defining part, but a part. I suppose on some level it's like mixing yellow and blue to achieve green, for without one of the two colors the third would not exist. For if I had not been gay I would not be the man I am today. For those that know me well (and like me, there are still few of you left), you can appreciate I hope and embrace the gayness. But perhaps no more so than these feet of mine. They take me to you, near you, with you or away from you. They support my body everyday, sometimes they hurt, get blistered, wear out shoes, but always they are here, helping me move and discover the world around me. So sure I'm gay - but guess what, I also have size 10 feet.
 

 

Into the Lion’s Den

As I grew further and further away from my seminary studies, having successfully finished my master's degree in divine theology, and after having served some time working as a priest, my doubts about faith and god shifted further and further to the back of my mind. Those doubts, which had on many occasions kept me awake were like distant memories, and if I turned my focus from them they didn't exist at all.

At my parish, which I joined in the spring of 1998, a year after my ordination to the priesthood, I worked with our pastor Father Ed on a key ministry, care of the sick and dying. The parish was located in the southeastern part of city, near a major highway, and we had easy access to all the area hospitals. Our ministry, while focused in only one parish on Sundays, was city wide when it came to visiting the sick in hospital. We would drive from hospital to hospital, hospice to hospice to visit the families of our parish, their loved ones, and sometimes strangers.

I am a glutton for punishment. Well maybe not punishment, I'm not a sadist or masochist, I guess I should better describe myself as someone who loves the darkness, the sorrow of life. I listen to music written primarily in minor keys. In hero stories I am most attracted to the darkest of heroes (Batman for example). I have always preferred late night musings to those in full daylight, and I dwell in sorrow more frequently than joy. I was the perfect theologian to preach happily about the death of Christ. And increasingly, as I stood at the pulpit, at the altar, I focused my ministry almost entirely on the theological significance of the cross to Christians.

I knew I was personally unable to reconcile my own sinfulness to ministry as a priest. I wanted to be the most holy priest, a saint. I built in my house a chapel where I left the Holy Eucharist exposed in adoration so that I could prostrate myself before my God, the person of Jesus, beheld in the mystery of bread become flesh. I would stop at the chapel and kneel for hours in contemplation, trying to weave my own desire to end the suffering I experienced in my personal sin into the experience that was described by the Gospels of Jesus while he knelt in the garden the night before his crucifixion. My own desire to end this inability to reconcile my weaknesses to my priesthood translated strongly to my preaching.

I journaled while I was a priest, letters I wrote to a young man that I had wanted to help on his journey, I was hoping he would want to become a priest. Again I wanted to find that way to holiness, I wanted God to show himself to me, and I thought perhaps my doubts were the greatest test of my faith. In my journal to him I wrote, "I complain like a spoiled child sometimes in my own weaknesses and sufferings. Compared to my sweet savior, who carried his cross without complaint, with grace and dignity I cannot go a day without feeling sorry for myself in my very minor sorrows and sufferings......yet we must join our savior in carrying the cross to know salvation and the fullness of joy, life and peace."

On those days when we, Father Ed and I would travel to the hospitals, I would wrap into a silk lined satchel my pix, filled with the sacred Eucharist. I would tighten my collar, its gleaming white top shining above the rich woolen black cassock that I wore. I knew the white collar represented a glimmer of hope in the cloud of darkness that we so often find ourselves in. I would strap around my waist my silk sash. I buttoned the 33 buttons of the hand woven cassock each time, thinking of the 33 years of Christ's life on earth. I would tuck my prayer book under my arm, and always ensure in my pocket traveled with me my rosary, shiny black beads placed upon the silver chain, ready to acknowledge with my flock the mysteries of the life of Christ and his mother.

Most of the people I would visit at the hospital on a regular basis were there for a serious condition. Rarely did we get called to minister to minor ills (tonsils out, minor surgeries, etc.). We spent most of our time visiting the terminally ill, or visiting people who fought most often cancer. Several times I visited with a woman named Pat O'Hare who was dying of brain cancer. When I first started to visit with her, she was awake, alert, full of life and a powerful example of a woman determined to beat the disease that eating away her life. I struggled with seeing those people suffering so slowly, and what to me seemed in such a lonely place. Hospitals, with all their technology are so cold, and the beeping monitors and neutral colors are depressing. The more I visited Pat, the further she slide into the toxic depression her disease flung upon her, and increasingly she became less and less the vibrant joyful woman I met the first time, and more and more she became the woman afraid to die, not willing to let go of life. The last few times I visited her lying in her hospital bed she was no longer conscious and finally my visits were one sided. I would hold her hand, tell her that I was there, anoint her head with oil, pray over her. I would beg God that in that moment, looking at the shrunken cheeks of Pat that God would give me her cancer so that she might live. I hoped, I prayed that my life would be miraculous and I could lay in her place on the bed and she would jump up and be free.

When I would return to my parish life after holding the hand of a dying woman, I was always at odds with the life I returned to. Most people don't experience this type of suffering very often and frequently when we do we forget, move on, return to life as it was, Focusing on our own needs, shopping, eating out, movies, sports. Life becomes so mundane, and as a young priest I so wanted my parishioners to spend their days contemplating the life they profess on Sunday, and more than in profession, live the life they proclaim. I felt so powerless being the only person in the parish, along with the other priest, Father Ed, to spend time with the dying. Sure we had a group of Eucharistic ministers who would take the sacrament of communion to shut-ins, and occasionally to the hospital bound, but they didn't spend their time praying over the dying, the sick. They weren't trained for such ministry. Their job was to bring the sacrament of communion, offer an "Our Father" and go to the next person. Yet in this parish of nearly 10,000 people, even those who were carrying the sacraments to the home bound and sick numbered only 10 or so. The rest of the parishioners would leave their profession of faith on Sunday and head home to catch a "game" or breakfast with the family. I knew as soon as I said the words, "the Mass is ended, go in peace", the parishioners would run out the door and leave the world of prayers and sacraments behind.

Increasingly over those months in the summer of 1998 I would focus my homilies on the connection that the Church makes between sin and suffering. I would emphasize that our own sins, while forgiven through Christ, still had an effect on pushing us further and further away from God. Our sins, no matter how minor, caused suffering in the world. Our sins were the cause, the reason for death, cancer, we were like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, each time we choose to move away from Christ, from God by not being holy, we cast ourselves, our loved ones, into the abyss and there we were going to continue to find death, suffering, pain, loss and sorrow. My preaching would remind the parishioners that Christ's time on the cross was meant as a sacrifice, but even in that sacrifice, we were still called to sin no more. We were waiting here, for the second coming of Christ, and until that day arrived we had the mission to join Jesus as the most holy of holy's, to be saints in our time. Yet increasingly, as I spent time with the faith filled people, I realized that holiness was not the primary goal of most worshipers. I discovered pettiness, bickering, mean spiritedness. There were lots of people who were good, kind people, but as I contemplated increasingly the life I was called too, that path I walked down, I realized that my emphasis on faith wasn't being returned by the very people I was ministering to. I realized that my preaching about needing to be holy, to be "Christlike" fell on deaf ears. My time spent so many days with the dying filled me with sorrow, but I had originally hoped as a young seminarian that my ministry as a priest would set the world on fire and people would flock in droves to support one another, to care for each other.

I know that many people did just that, cared for each other. Yet those wonderful volunteers were ever increasingly the minority. Of the 10's of thousands of parishioners, it was the same 100 or so people who did good work. Faith for the majority was an obligation to come and pray on Sunday in Church, then the rest of the week was left to be their own. My parishioners would return to their large homes in rich white suburbia, and the lonely dying woman with brain cancer would rest in her hospital bed alone until finally her body could take no more and ceased living. Those few volunteers were heroes in my parish, but even they would have their moments. Many of them did their holy work for recognition, to be acknowledged in the parish as leaders. Many would do their holy work simply because they felt obligated, but not one of them worked to expand this mission beyond their own work. In my proclamations of the Gospels, in my preaching, I would pound my fist on the pulpit calling these believers to take action, spread their belief, proclaim to the world without fear that they loved God, Christ. No one ever did. They would shuffle uncomfortably in their pews hoping I would wrap up my homily quickly.

That summer in 1998, I would rest for hours by the bedside of dying people. Yet I would grow angry, hurt, that on my Sunday worship services, 50% of the congregation would leave the Mass immediately after receiving communion. Here where we worshiped together, beheld what was taught to be the greatest mystery, we received and ate the flesh and drank the blood of God, yet people, more than 50%, fled the church as soon as they could. Most complained to me that my homilies were too long (10 minutes), or that traffic getting out of the parking lot was too difficult, or that the sports team that playing was too important to miss. I would preach ever increasingly that their faith was broken, that it was fake. I took to finishing my masses in the back of the Church to confront people who desired to leave early. They wrote letters to the bishop, told the pastor that I wasn't kind. The more complaints I received the more justified I felt. Yet the more time I spent with the dying the more lonely I became, clinging to a faith that I didn't truly embrace. I had hoped that as a priest the faith of the faithful would fill in the gaps of my own disbelief. Instead like dynamite it blew my disbelief apart. I discovered that people found faith only when they or someone they loved rested quietly on the bed in a hospital. Otherwise, faith was a routine event that was endured. And even in those moments of crisis, after the crisis fades, the suffering is healed, the faithful return to faithless lives.

I know I'm painting with broad strokes, and there are a few believers in Christ, in the Catholic Church, who truly embraced the life of Christ. They want to reconcile themselves to the God they've been taught to know. Yet my broad strokes are built upon a lifetime experience. As a theologian I knew that true Christian faith, the one that so many profess to hold, means a sacrifice. The Gospels and writings of the New Testament are clear about the faith. Great saints were notable because on some level they exhibited the dedication to the God that all faithful are supposed to exhibit. Instead most people who are "Christian" move from routine to routine, ignoring each other until they're forced to do otherwise. As a priest I wanted to wake up in the faithful a life of prayer, passion for God that set them on fire. I wanted the parishioners to eat of the body of Christ with me, drink his blood with me and then be so beholden of their faith that they would have to rest in the Church for hours. Yet I found this was not the case, instead the parishioners would take of the Eucharist and most would practically run out of the Church, glad it was over. I knew that from my study of the Gospels, the teaching of the Church, that the call of Christ was an all or nothing call. The lukewarm faith that I encountered was the faith that most people professed. Saints are remarkable because they are so few and far between.

If Christians really studied and knew their gospels, sacred texts both of the Old and New Testaments, if the Catholics truly studied their doctrines, they would be surprised at how infrequently they were in good standing with their own faith. As a young priest, struggling with disbelief, I became invested fully with wanting to be a saint. I threw myself, prostrate, before the altar. I breathed upon the bread and wine during Mass with such reverence that many people would weep. Yet, I would look up from my sacramental offering, and see a distracted majority. I ever proclaimed to my parishioners that it was their own lack of holiness that contributed to suffering in the world. Their sinfulness, their disinterest, their lack of genuine passion for their god was a direct cause of evil in the world. Yet upon this preaching, most people would shift uncomfortably. People would approach me after mass and ask that my homilies focus more how nice god is and less on the need to not sin. My preaching they said made them uncomfortable. I nodded then, smug, and said good, my preaching, like the Gospel, was intended to make you uncomfortable. My preaching was a challenge for them to be the Christ in life themselves. To take literally the words of their god and live them. Yet most people did not.

It was these moments, seeing people interact with each other, with me, that helped to drive that disbelief I had in my heart further home. I realized as a priest that faith was play acting for most people. Platitude's that people could spout off, yet in their "non" faith time, they could return to being petty, bickering, judgmental, hurtful. Their faith didn't matter if saw a beggar, someone of color, a gay person. They didn't need to be like Christ all the time, just when it was convenient. I had hoped as a priest creating sacraments, acting as the person of Christ to the faithful, that I would be inspired to grow myself in faith. Instead what I discovered was a faithless world of Christians going through the motions. Those small motions were the ones that made me realize how far I was from faith myself. It was seeing the gospels in action, living faith with a parish of faithful, I realized it was a myth. A story told to make us feel better about ourselves. It was a story told to give us hope when we are lonely, dying, afraid. They are stories told to control us, make us respond to those in power so as to keep them in power. No amount of gospel reading, homilizing, or sacramental life changed these things. No amount of holding dying women's hands made me see God. It was in the heart of the lion's den I had hoped to find faith, but there was no faith to be found there, instead it was in the heart of the lion's den that I was eaten alive.

The Joyful Sorrow of Celibacy

In the spring of 1993 I stood on the grassy field of our football (soccer) field at the Pontifical North American College. Practicing on the field were the Pontifical Swiss guards from St. Peter's which sat just below the Janiculum Hill. Our field was used by several locale groups to practice, and even to play European Football. Our guys, the Americans, played the guards occasionally. I had attempted to play earlier in the fall of 1992, having played soccer while I was in college, and when placed up against Europeans who had been playing their entire lives, my feeble attempts to keep up made me seem and feel, slow.


That day, standing there watching the guards play, I stared. I remember one guard in particular, shirtless, their forward, darting back and forth on the field. His young muscular body glistened in the spring sunshine, sweat like beads of glass glistening on his skin. He was a photo perfect Swiss man, brown hair, hairless chest, bright beautiful eyes and in perfect shape. Standing there I could see lines of sweat running from the back of his neck down his spine, a river, and me, standing in my 23 year old skinny frame, could only stare and want to swim down that river.

In the college, leading out to the field, was the student forum where seminarians and priests would often exit to walk across the field to play sport, walk, enjoy the fantastic views (not only of Swiss guards but the Roman skyline just beyond our walls). So while I was standing there starring, it was not unusual for a seminarian to be there. I wasn't even thinking that my obvious pause on the field to watch the guard play would be noticed, but my mouth must have been hanging open, because another seminarian, Ricky*, from the southern states of the USA, came out of the forum and stood next to me.

He followed my sight line and a smile twitched at his lips, "Beautiful right." I was startled and immediately looked away, books clutched in my arms, my eyes vapid.

I glanced at him, Ricky, "Oh hey, I was just watching them play, I used to play in college."

He smirked at me, "Yeah right," he leaned down next to my ear and whispered words that I won't ever forget, "You're more beautiful than they are."

I remember the rush of adrenaline, the euphoria that washed over my nerves. Looking at Ricky in that moment I was utterly smitten. Here I stood on the field of a prestigious seminary, watching some of the most famous soldiers in the world run shirtless and magnificently across the grass in the height of youth, and another young man whispered to me that I was beautiful. He knew he had me, he knew that my inappropriate starring at the players made me vulnerable.

Now I had already been a seminarian studying to be a priest at this point for 5 years, so I wasn't new to being celibate. While being celibate wasn't a vow I had taken as a seminarian, that promise would come only after I was ordained in 1997, being celibate was a strict rule, and breaking that rule generally resulted in immediate expulsion from seminary, dismissal. In college, surrounded by 100 or so college age guys I had no problem with the physical aspect of celibacy, but I was never celibate in an intimate manner. Celibacy is required by the college for seminarians to not just to exclude the practice of carnal activity, but it was also taught and encouraged to help seminarians, young men who would be priests, not to develop special or exclusive relationships with each other. The lesson about exclusive, intimate friendships was taught both from the monastic tradition in which I first started in seminary, but also from a practical point of view in that once, if, these young men are ordained, having special or exclusive relationships was detrimental to the future priest and to the parish that priest would minister in.

In college I excelled at relationships. I am, or at least I was, amicable. I have a tremendous sense of humor, I laugh easily, I am carefree, I am silly. These qualities in a small college setting were a perfect blend of personality traits that helped me develop many friendships, but some of them were quite exclusive, they were intimate. One seminarian in college, Matt*, who was from Colorado and I bonded almost immediately. He was cute, funny, and we were close friends. We would read philosophy together, we took a couple of holidays together, we got drunk together. One evening we were out in the apple orchard at the seminary in Missouri, in the warm fall, and it began to rain. Our clothes, soaking wet clung to our bodies, and this storm in its fury had caused us to retreat to a small out building on the edge of the property. I remember standing next to Matt, shivering, his arm around me to keep me warm from the rain, and I was in love. We never did anything torrid, or inappropriate, other than having an exclusive friendship, but now with my wisdom of 20 years know that those feelings I had that poured over me like sun on the beach, were an indicator that I was not destined in life to not offer my life, my love exclusively to one person.

Celibacy is given to priests in the Roman tradition as an imitation of Christ, and the idea is that without exclusive relationships, both physical and emotional, a priest will be able to devote himself whole heartedly to his parish, to his mission which is to represent the person of Christ to the world. This sacrifice which is asked of priests (nuns, friars, monks and other religious too), is meant to help the priest feel closer to Christ, be more like him, for the general theological teaching is that Christ was a celibate man. Biblical scholars don't all agree with this, and we know for a fact that most of his disciples were not celibate, most of them having wives, but in its attempt to control property and power during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church made celibacy not just a rule, but an act that was akin to being like Christ, and thus celibacy became not just a sacrifice but a primary way that a priest would discover in himself a personal and deep relationship with Jesus.

This gift, celibacy, wasn't one I ever should have attempted to receive. I grew up extraordinarily solitary. As a child I had one best friend, my cousin Chester until I was a teenager, then in high school I had really only four friends, one of whom I was the most close to who was like my brother. I wasn't a sexually active man until that spring of 1993 in Rome, not long after standing on the field watching beautiful Swiss men play football, shirtless in the sun. But the sexual activity, while more scandalous, wasn't the first time I hadn't been celibate. Thinking back now, on an emotional level, I was never celibate. My relationship with the Christian tradition of Jesus Christ, was the same relationship I had emotionally with other heroic figures in my life. He represented on a cerebral level a person to emulate, but for me, he was never a person I could love. While I so desperately wanted him to be real, I was never able on any level other than intellectual curiosity develop a relationship with this Christ. I loved a few people in my life, and certainly in seminary, almost from day one, I had intimate, close personal relationships with several guys and even girls.

Following that day when I was standing on the field staring at the Pope's army playing, Ricky came to my room in the afternoon, not long after he stood next to me on the field, after he had whispered in my ear words my brain had longed to process - that I was the most handsome. In my small barren seminary room, hearing a knock at the door, I jumped up and let him in. I hadn't expected him to come to me, we had seen each other once or twice since the day I had stood on the field, and on those occasions when he saw me passing in the halls or in the refectory he would wink slyly. This afternoon, during the Roman siesta , Ricky came into my room. he closed the door softly behind him. I stepped back from him and he, matching my every backward step walked up against me, his eyes locked on mine. There, in the afternoon Roman sun, Ricky reached up, brushed my hair behind my ear, then grabbed the back of my head and rushed against my lips and kissed me.

Now stop, this isn't 50 Shades of Grey, no more intimate details; this is the story of my own struggle with being celibate. Let me just say, we had a torrid love affair. My own desire to be close to someone, not just emotionally, but physically, overwhelmed me. We made love that afternoon, and again that evening, and then many times after that. I was very lonely, scared and totally out of place in Rome. I did not have the "faith" to be studying in the heart of the Catholic Church at the Vatican. I did not have the experience or wisdom to know that I should not have continued my seminary education, but after allowing myself to be taken by Ricky sexually I should have known. I left Rome a few months after he and I began our affair. He was heart broken, but he was going to stay in Rome to finish his studies, I was going to finish mine back stateside. For a few months in the summer he would call me, send me letters, and try to get in touch, but I avoided him. I was successful then in returning to a celibate life, at least physically, that is until I was in my final years of study in Chicago.

After my affair with Ricky, I knew that I had violated fundamental practice for priests, and honestly, even with weak or no faith, I wanted to be a good priest, and I re-dedicated myself to my studies, the rule of the seminary, the practice of celibacy. For nearly two years I was successful, then in my second to last year, nearly two years after Ricky, I met another young seminarian, Chris*, and I was in trouble again in celibate practice.

Chris came from another region of the USA than I, he was a second career seminarian, so he was a few years older than I. He had worked in government prior to seminary, and he felt called to pursue a vocation to the priesthood. He was outgoing, life of a party, tall, good looking, and I was enamored of him. One evening, following a common meal he and I returned to the dormitory laughing, a little drunk, hanging on to each other, and just having a great time. Up till this point, I thought that Chris would just be my friend, I had no anterior motives, but once we passed the threshold of my room he slammed the door shut behind us and grabbing me he threw me against the wall for a long, intimate kiss. That rush, that euphoria again coursed over me - hit me like a brick and I knew that the celibacy train had derailed.

My affair with Chris lasted the entire year, we would sneak off together to make love, to kiss, to laugh. We would lay for hours on a couch in one of our rooms (excuse given to other seminarians was study break), holding each other. This time, unlike Ricky in Rome, I didn't just feel a physical connection to Chris, I was in love. I would have left my life as seminarian for him, I would have abandoned my career as a priest to spend the rest of my life with him, but he wasn't in a place in life where that could happen. Not only was this relationship forbidden by the church and we would have lost any chance to be ministers (obvious to me now 16 years later), but we would have both likely been shunned by family. Christ knew he wasn't called to be a priest, and he left the seminary after that year to return to his career in government, and because of what he did in government, he could not be an out gay man. Gay rights barely existed then, and his life that he would return to had no room for me, and my life, only a year from ordination to priesthood, had no room for a relationship either. I know now of course if I had a relationship with Chris it would never have worked, I was failing out of love with ministry, the church, the very idea of god, and Chris would have been swept into a current of my life that would have drown us both. It very nearly drowned me.

I was so struggling with not only my celibacy while in Rome, Chicago, even Missouri at the college, that at one point in the evening, before my affair with Ricky, standing on the 10th floor outdoor patio, I looked down the edge of the Pontifical College wall and though I should just throw myself. The height of the drop was great, my loneliness was just as tall. I wanted to escape the life I was entering into, but didn't know how. I was taught that being celibate, thus being alone, was a way to grow nearer the figure of Jesus, to be a better priest, to follow the example that priests had lived for years prior. I was afraid to leave seminary, and that night, looking down at the cobblestone lined driveway of the seminary I nearly thrust myself off the edge to smash my bones to the earth.

I didn't jump of course but being asked to be willing to live alone, to be lonely, it was too much. I am sure that there are men, woman who can be and are celibate, but in my journey to ministry, to priesthood, I encountered many men of faith who couldn't allow, wouldn't allow, themselves to be celibate. Certainly I wasn't, and those moments when I was alone, when I was celibate, I was a dry husk. While it is noble to believe that if I don't love an individual singularly, I can better love everyone. In my journey of life, as I have loved, and have been loved, I have learned to better love others around me. It wasn't by not loving that I learned to love; it wasn't by not kissing gentle lips, that I learned how to be intimate; it wasn't by being alone that I learned to be more giving. It was by love that I learned love. It was by heartbreak I learned how to better give myself. It was by intimacy I better learned how to be compassionate. Celibacy took from me my own nature. It wasn't natural for me, and once I left the priesthood (which I didn't leave solely because of celibacy), I realized I would never be happy confined by loneliness. Of course the fallacy I discovered in Christian celibacy is that a person in their celibacy will have an exclusive relationship to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary. I didn't believe in God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary. I could no more have a relationship with these central figures of Christianity than I could with Harvey the Rabbit.

There were other affairs, but that first one, that first kiss, that first clumsy love making, sitting on a hill on top of St. Peter's, with Swiss Guards running on a field below me, that affair is the one I remember so deeply.

* The names of those referenced here have been changed to respect their privacy.  I have more stories of struggles with celibacy to share, and will do so soon.

Who Shall Weep for me

In the summer of 1990 the ringing phone drew me out of sleep. I was working as a parish associate at St. John the Baptist in Longmont, Colorado for Father Fox. It was my first "official" job as a seminarian, me having joined the seminary only a year and half prior in January of 1989. I was entering my junior year of college, and the work I was going to be doing was ministerial, tending to the elderly, giving guest sermons and actually doing "good" in the community. I had known Father Fox off and on for some years and knew him to be a good man, dedicated, thoughtful, kind. He was a bit of an odd bird too - he had two Doberman Pinchers and a large parrot. He welcomed me to his parish and taught me much about how a local neighborhood pastor serves his parish and the parish family.

Back to the night of summer in 1990 - Father Fox was off that night, probably visiting friends in the mountains. As a result the emergency phone line was sent to my room at the rectory. It was late when the phone rang, and I knew that it was the emergency phone ringing next to my nightstand.

"Hello?" I mumbled into the receiver. "Hi yes sir this is your emergency phone service, I have the Longmont police standing by on the other line, a detective wishes to speak to you." I sat upright in my bed. "Go on."

"May I patch the detective through sir?"

"Yes of course." The line clicked for a moment then I knew another voice was on the receiver.

"Hi is this the Catholic Church?" A gruff voice intoned.

"Yes, hi this is Thomas Burkett at St. John's, how can I help you."

"Father" I didn't correct him - I wasn't a father yet but this was so intriguing, "We need you to come as one of your parishioners needs last rites."

My mind raced, I knew the lasts rites from the book of prayers for the dying, but I also knew I wasn't authorized to extend them. "Sir, my name is Thomas Burkett, I'm only the seminarian here, Father Fox has left the parish for the evening."

There was a pause on the other end for a moment, "Well that should be fine, to be honest I don't think last rites would work anyway."

I held the phone away from my face for a moment, eye brows up, "I'm sorry?"

"Look, the guy doesn't need last rites because he's dead. His niece is here at his house insisting that we call a Catholic Priest to come and give him last rites so he won't go to hell or something." He sounded nervous. "I'm not catholic but I'm pretty sure that last rites is for someone alive, this guy hasn't been alive for awhile."

Now at this point I could have refused and said I'm sorry there was no priest available at this time, but something in the cops voice told me he really wasn't sure what to do. "I can come." I said without much further adieu. The cop gave me the directions to the house where they were waiting. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my clothes and ran to the sacristy of the church. I grabbed the prayers for the rites of dead, a jar of holy water, and a small Pyx with the consecrated host. I threw on my long black cassock over my clothes and jumped into my car.

The night was quiet as I sped down the streets of Longmont. The town of Longmont was a city on the edge - it was a growing metropolis resting on the edge of beet farms and a large turkey rendering factory. The mix of the rural and the growing city of Denver created a mix of culture that was often at odds. As I drove to the house with the deceased I grew further from the upscale part of town where our parish was, and into a part of town with small post World War II ranch style homes. I looked at the scribbled notes I had as to how to find the house. It was easy once in the area, the police lights swirling on top of patrol cars were like beacons.

I pulled onto the street and exited my car. I was immediately stopped by an officer; I explained to him who I was. He turned and called for the detective I had spoken to on the phone. It was still early enough in the summer that the evening was quite cool, and the black cassock bellowed out around my legs in grand fashion. Standing there in all black, clutching against my chest the red prayer book and gold pyx I must have looked quite a site. I was only 20 years old, and no doubt the cops were thinking I was a child.

The cop greeted me somberly, "Hi Thomas. Look his niece is standing up on the front porch, she's pretty upset so I think anything you can do will help." I looked at the house again. In the pale light of the street lamps it was yellow. The short chain link fence that around the front yard was slumping in several places, broken in others. The house clearly was in disrepair - the shingle roof missing several shingles. I walked up the front path to the porch. I stepped onto the wooden steps of the porch they squeaked in protest to my weight. The yellow bulb of the porch light illuminated us in unflattering light. A small woman stood with her arms wrapped around herself a tissue hanging from her fingers.

I extended my hand, "Hi, I'm Thomas Burkett from St. John's Catholic Church, I understand you've sent for someone to do last rites?" She wiped her nose with her tissue, dried tears visible on her face. "Hi," she quickly took my hand and then as quickly pulled back from me. I looked through the door of the house and saw old wore furniture peaking out from behind the front screen. "I used to come to see him all the time, but lately I've been so busy, I haven't had the chance to come in some weeks. His neighbor called me yesterday to tell me she hadn't seen him in a long time." She look at the ground, "I should have come more often, now he's all alone." She looked up at me, her eyes wet with new tears, "Please tell me that he won't go to hell?"

I glanced away from her, back into the house, "I'm sure he won't go to hell." I shuffled the holy book to my other arm, "I'm here to pray from him and for you if you want."

She sniffled again, "I can't go back in the house, it's too awful. Please promise me that you'll do last rites for him so he is sure to go to heaven." The new tears dripped down her chin. "I can't go back in, it's too awful." Repeating the sentence again she seemed even smaller.

I looked into her lonely eyes and promised. Of course I couldn't do last rites, even if I had been a priest as last rites are reserved for the living. I didn't tell her that though. I felt the cop standing behind me. He pulled my arm and lead me into the house.

Immediately the putrid smell struck my nostrils. I had smelled death before, but never like this. The small house reeked of it and my eyes immediately teared up. The cop shook his head. "I guess the neighbor called the the niece when they couldn't see him moving around anymore. I'm sure they noticed the smell too. Sad thing is that they haven' checked on him in a long time." The cop lead me further into the house. "He's laying in the bedroom, it's a pretty troubling scene, are you sure you can do this?"

I wasn't sure, but here I was for the first time in my newly started life as a minister ready to try. I had never been in this type of position where everyone was expecting me to do something - help - pray - make a difference. This was a thrill for me. I nodded my head, comfort being found in the prayer book in my hand. "Okay then Thomas, he's back this way." The cop lead me down the very narrow hall, the smell growing worse as we went. "Have you ever seen a dead body?" I had, at funerals. I nodded. The cop grimaced, "Not like this you haven't."

We arrived at the bedroom door, another cop was just exiting. They exchanged confirmations that the investigation was complete and I could go in. The detective who called me stepped back and I saw into an unadorned room with a body laying on a twin bed. The smell was strong enough to water my eyes. The room was illuminated by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting horrible light throughout the tiny room. The bed was unmade, the sheet pulled back around the body.

I stepped in trepidatiously and walked to the side of the bed. There laying before me was an old man, his arms were crossed on his chest. The flesh was tight across his cheeks, grey whiskers indicated he hadn't shaved in some time. He was very small, he looked very dry. His eyes slightly open were milky white, no color could be seen there. I looked at this old man, in his bed, forgotten for a couple of weeks, dead for days. I didn't know what to do, and for a few long moments I just stared at death.

This man, whose name today I cannot remember had died alone, forgotten, in his small run down house. He died on a single bed, surrounded by people who didn't know he had gone until they thought they noticed a smell, until they noticed that mail and papers were piling up. This old man who had no family other than a niece who was too busy to call and check. This old man who didn't know a soul except his own. I remember looking around the room he had died in, there were no images of family scattered about, the room looked more like a hotel room. There was a simple cross on the night stand, a small 13 inch tv at the bed's foot. This man died and there was no weeping or wailing. I offered the prayer of committal:

May choirs of angels welcome you
and lead you to the bosom of Abraham;
and where Lazarus is poor no longer
may you find eternal rest.

The niece crying on the front porch was crying because she hadn't been a good family member. Her concern wasn't for the living, it was for the dead. The life of the man in this small room was gone and there waiting outside for a young seminarian to cast some sort of magical prayer to promise eternity to a dead man stood a woman who didn't know the meaning of her own faith or that of her uncle. For a minute in that small room looking down at the drying husk of a man that I would never know I was profoundly alone. All the prayers in the little book I held next to me didn't carry me away, they didn't offer comfort to the dying. The niece who maybe could have been ministered to was so guilt ridden she could not be comforted by someone like me.

In someway I could hear death whispering into my ear - reminding me that he was coming for me too, not there maybe, but for sure somewhere else. This event has shaped much of life since. A reminder of the gift we have today to live in the moment. I looked down at the dead man alone and knew that I would want to ensure when I died someone would weep for me.

I wrote the below poem several years later.

Something reached around my neck,

it was Death's Sweet embrace.

Icy Fingers touching, holding,

smoothing my face.

I turned my head away -

held my arm out

as if to say

No not you!

I have nothing to give of

not my life for sure

just simply my love.

Death withdrew,

his black cape to hide,

he would stop and wait

he could bide.

Somewhere between Heaven and Hell

 

 

I must say today is bright. The sun, for the first time this spring in New York City is showing her bright, smiling face on us. My week, was hectic, busy, and overwhelming.

Today, Holy Saturday, marks that time between the grandeur of rituals of the Catholic Church surrounding the Passion of Christ, his death. Today, in the Catholic Church, they commemorate his burial, his rest in the tomb. This was always one of my favorite days as a priest. There was almost nothing to do from a ministerial point of view; preparing for the Easter Vigil, reviewing my sermon for Easter Mass - which was traditionally meant to be short, you know the "Easter/Christmas Christians" weren't used to my lengthy sermons!

Today the Christians, still fresh from the brutal murder of their savior yesterday, take time to catch their breath. Hope is crushed; it is waiting, pushing against the dry dirt laying against it, hiding it from the sun if only by a thin veil of minerals and stone. As I have journeyed in life, I think in many ways I've been stuck in Holy Saturday. Not much movement going on, my previous life, as a seminarian, as a priest, as God's lover, ended on my Good Friday, in October of 1998. I laid that life in the tomb, stumbled out of the suffering I had endured, and rested, in my nearly 15 plus years of a Holy Saturday. I have been fresh from the brutal psychological trauma I put myself through for all those years. Of course I wanted to just sit here, on this quiet, sunny Saturday of life. Nothing much to do, a little preparation to live life, to just get by.
Holy Saturday is a time in the Christian world to prepare oneself for the resurrection of a savior. In my world, I have no savior, no one is coming to save me. I love the song by Jay Brannan, "Goddamned" and it so eloquently reminds of me of the life I had entered into as a believer who no longer believed. When I was undergoing my de-conversion, I didn't have Jay's song to sing or sweetly remind me of the broken path that I was walking down. But now, in my journey, as I sit on Holy Saturday clutching my Liturgy of the Divine Hours, his lyrical poetry reminds me of the time between heaven and hell, when so many people, Christians, are waiting for a savior. "But something tells me, No one's coming to save you." These words I remember them that first Holy Saturday, only two days after my life of faith ended, I thought about the man named Jesus and realized he wasn't coming back, if ever he was real.

 

God, it sounds so hopeless doesn't it? So dark, so sad? But in all this time that I've been sitting outside the tomb of my faith, maybe wondering if it would ever resurrect, I've not encountered darkness. I've not encountered suffering. I've been sitting here waiting all this time, wondering what to do with my life. What pieces of that world I knew before should I pick up, how should I move forward? I look out my window, the spire of the new World Trade Center casting its shadow across my neighborhood, the memory of smoldering ashes is fading, we've moved on, picked up, rebuilt. We've not forgotten, but we didn't sit there in the ashes. It is my time. I am not dead. My life is only just begun. It's time to roll the stone back from across the entrance of the tomb to open it and let my life back out.

 

Today from the Liturgy of the Hours, the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday the following passage from an "ancient homily" struck me as moving. "Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep." In reading the words I'm reminded of two things, the Norse God Odin and his odinsleep - Odin, the great god of magic, who upon being mortally wounded would sleep until healed, the great heavens would be quite. Secondly I am reminded of myself. Who is my king? Who is my ruler? As I am on my emotional and mental knees before the tomb of a life I lost, left behind 25 years ago, my arms are hanging at my side and there they allow my finger tips to brush something. Here in the great silence, resting, I feel beneath my fingers my crown. At this time in my life, as I rest between heaven and hell, I lift the crown and place it upon my head. For I am my own king. Time to wake up.

 

My belief in the divine was never a reality, it was only a construct that I was trained to believe as a young man, and somewhere in the dark hours of remembering the Christian hero Christ, I realized it wasn't my faith. I tried for so long to embrace that life, that faith, but it wasn't meant to be. I was ashamed of allowing my life to be lead in that way. I was ashamed that I stood before faithful believers and prayed with them, all the while I was dead inside. I was resting in my tomb, the prison of faith. The barbed wires surrounding my hope, my own vision held me back. For so long I tried to deny that I wasn't a faith filled lover of god, and then even in breaking free, seeing that my faith was dead, I simply sat down outside the tomb and waited.

 

I'm not waiting anymore. I am no longer resting between heaven and hell. I'm walking away. There is no heaven, there is no hell. There is only the warm sun shining its smiling warmth upon my face. There is no great savior, no hero; I am my own hero, I have to be saved from no one but myself. Today on Holy Saturday I am putting the crown on. I am king. I am alive. I am resurrected.

 

Somebody that I Used to Know

I have the worst habits. Occasionally I like to smoke a tobacco pipe; I drink too much; I don't get enough sleep; I eat too many sweets; I like to press on bruises to feel the pain.

That's a strange one, maybe. Thinking about it, I suppose it's the attraction to a sensation, a little part of me that is a masochist, nothing extreme, I don't go out of my way to bruise myself, it's just that when I do, I have this habit of pressing the bruise until the pain goes away. I like to know I'm alive I suppose, and pressing the hurt, feeling the pain reminds me I'm alive. Maybe it's because I don't want to forget the mistake that lead to the bruise in the first place. The great line from Batman Begins, "Why do we fall Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

I don't think that this suffering, the lingering finger pressing on a bruise is just physical in my life. I am overly contemplative about my spiritual/mental, emotional, inner life as well. I dwell on things, I press those little moments of loss and suffering in my brain over and over again, maybe because I don't want to forget the pain, maybe because I want to learn to be stronger, to pick myself up.

And so I find myself dwelling in the last days of the liturgical season of Lent, turning over and over in my mind the spiritual life that I once lead. I'm pressing those hurts, which for a long time were forgotten. I'm examining in my mind the deeply profound change my life took in Lent almost 25 years ago. I can see those moments like they were yesterday, and I am pressing the bruise.

I think my husband probably believes I've lost my mind, or that I'm going through some sort of existential crisis - the Bible is out, literally having to be dusted off. My little red book, the Liturgy of the Hours, Lenten & Easter Season, lies open in the living room, its worn pages faded, its binding broken from usage, the ribbon page markers frayed and a little stained from the oils of my fingers. I've not lost my mind, but I am looking back, feeling the old scars, the bruises, the sensation of remembering to be alive. I am picking myself up, for the first time in my life as a priest so I can learn to better live my life as a Humanist Atheist.

In the last week of Lent I had the most amazing and delightful opportunity to celebrate Tenebrae in the monastic fashion. A monk's life is build around a few simple elements, a life of work and prayer. The prayer is the drum beat rhythm of their day, marking points during the day when they pray, it's called the Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Office. This celebration of prayer takes a marvelous form in the Tenebrae, celebrated in the last three days of Holy Week, beginning really with the setting of the sun on Wednesday of Holy Week, marking the traditional Jewish method of acknowledging the end of a day and the beginning of the next with sunset. In the church, illuminated only by 15 candles, recitation of psalms and the Gregorian tradition of chanting from the book of Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet. The focus of the Tenebrae is the nighttime and very early morning celebration of the Hours. The darkness covers the prayers like a velvet blanket, soothing the light away, creating that mysterious place between the reality we know is around us and uniting it to the imagination of our minds.

My first monastic experience of this was at the Trappist Monastery St. Benedict's in Snowmass, Colorado. We were on a spiritual retreat when I was a senior in High School during Lent. The first prayer, held at 3:00 a.m. was one covered in the cobwebs of sleep, but listening to the deep rhythmic chanting of the monks in their prayers was intoxicating. It was a on some level that first morning a spiritual awakening in me, and made me realize I truly wanted to know and experience the faith that these men chanted of so marvelously in the dark.

At my seminary college, a much more secular experience was held as the monastic life had to share liturgical space with the seminarian life. We weren't monks, but we could see and interact with them everyday, and during Lent, most especially the last few days of Holy Week after the sunset on Wednesday evening, we were mentally and spiritually preparing ourselves to enter into the divine, to journey with the Christ that marked the climax of the Judea-Christian prophecy that the Son of God would suffer, die and be resurrected to save mankind from its own slavery to sin. A type of Passover that is more grand than the Exodus event of the Jews, for this time it would be God alone in the person of his son Jesus, who would make the Exodus so that his followers, God's children could enter the gates of heaven, now free from the burden of sin.

Now today I'm thinking, as I sit in my little kitchen enjoying a cup of herbal tea before work, who was I? This life, so emerged in the prayerful life of seminarian, following the theological and monastic traditions of St. Benedict and his monks, is gone. Vestiges of my prayerful self are but fading bruises on my psyche - and during this last week of Lent I'm pressing those bruises. I fell in love with the song that Goyte recently released, Somebody, which has been overplayed to the point of nausea, but all the same the words stuck to me. I am drawn to his poetry because I hear the words and I'm not remembering a lost love, a lost boyfriend or girlfriend, I'm remembering my own passion for the Christ, for his faithful. Taken in the Christian context, the words are illuminated in a fresh manner that create a new and bitter-sweet revelation. Thinking about being in love with God, with Christ, the words, "Told myself that you were right for me, but felt so lonely in your company, but that was love and it's an ache I still remember", nearly knock me back into my seat.

 

My life was spent being told and trained that loving god, loving the Christ, was right, it was the only path, the only journey one really needed to make in life. I believed this message, I know my family believed this message, know that every single person I ever encountered in my small town believed this message. In believing, I threw myself at the love of God. I wanted to be a spiritual master. I wanted to be the Bruce Lee of faith. Yet there, in prayer, sitting in the dark, listening to the deep resonating tones of monks singing Lamentation of Jeremiah I was lonely. The more alone I felt in God, the more I pursued. Even when in a moment of clarity, alone, when I realized I didn't believe in God I held on, "that was love" and couldn't let go, not yet.

My pain in no longer being a priest, of losing my faith is something that saddens me. When I left the priesthood, all those monks, priests, seminarians, friends, melted away like winter snows. Much like Goyte's bellowing in his song, "But you didn't have to cut me off, make out like it never happened and that we were nothing." In leaving the ministry in October of 1998, I lost those lovers, those friends, that final vestige of belief in the hope for divinity. Yet my heart hurt, hurts, because those lovers, those friends, have never walked by my side again. That makes me lonely, that make me sad. It hurts my heart.

So yes, these last days of lent I can relate to the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, the Tenebrae. The wailing of the prophet Jeremiah that he makes for his God, after Jerusalem is lost, speaks to me. The horrific realization that the prophet writes of, the loss of Jerusalem the suffering of the people of Israel, is some thing to which I am able to relate on some level. Though for me, standing outside of the city walls of faith, my tears are not for the loss of God's love. My tears are not for the suffering inflicted upon his people because of their own folly and sin. My tears are made because I no longer have a place with God's people.

Bitterly she weeps at night,

tears upon her cheeks,

With not one to console her

all of her dear ones;

Her friends have all betrayed her

and become her enemies. Lam 1:2

So yes, I like to press on those bruises. I am very much aware of the man that I used to be. I am aware of the person that I used to know, that bright, faithful, hopeful servant of The Lord, eagerly devouring the Divine Office, seeking to enter a mystery. It was my pursuit of the faith that was my falling down though. It has taken me a long time to get back up. I, in a sense, curled into a fetal position for almost 15 years and only just now have brushed myself off. But I have the worst habits; occasionally I like to smoke a tobacco pipe; I drink too much; I don't get enough sleep; I eat too many sweets; I like to press on bruises to feel the pain. I'm pressing my faith bruise right now.

I look back and know that faith, the faithful, God was just somebody that I used to know. "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

 

A Lenten Meditation

I was given the opportunity to travel Jerusalem in the spring/early summer of 1997 as one of my first assignments as a priest. I was full of trepidation about the journey as I hadn't ever taken a group of believers on a pilgrimage, not to mention taking a group of believers to the most holy of holy cities for two of the great mono-theistic faiths, Judaism and Christianity. Not only this, but it was a great Muslim holy site as well, with the footprints of Muhammad allegedly set in stone there as he was scooped up into heaven by Allah on the dome of the rock.

I was expecting in this very ancient and holy land to discover perhaps the drive of faith. At this time I had buried deeply my disbelief in the supernatural, but as a spiritual guide and leader to a group of 20 some odd pilgrims, I wanted to ensure that their passion in their faith was not interrupted and that the faith they hoped to renew, the mysteries they hoped to discover were genuine and powerful. Even I, in my absolute personal certainty of disbelief held hope that perhaps here, in the cradle of the birthplace of Jesus, the home of God's chosen people, the place where the prophet ascended into heaven, I would discover that worrisome and elusive gift of faith.

The journey to Jerusalem was harrowing, trying to guide a group of 20 some-odd Americans, most of whom hadn't traveled before to the Middle East was difficult. A connecting flight from Denver to Jerusalem in Munich required lots of running, screaming, and worry that we had left behind (shout out to Kirk Cameron here) one of the pilgrims. Fortunately though we all made it, and the flight from Europe to the Middle East was made with only a few nervous buzzes and a very heavy heart of young priest.

Arriving in Israel was absolutely the most exciting part of the journey. The difficulties that Israel continued to face with its very uneasy peace at the time with the Palestinians. Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv was a military state. Armed soldiers, war dogs, tanks, machine guns, surrounded the airport, and the absolute ease that the Israelis pasted through this transportation hub is amazing, but for a group of Americans, who were very used to an easy and lax security program were immediately given a wide eyed experience in the realities of a divided land that was genuinely facing everyday threats of war. Only a few weeks after we departed a horrible terrorist attack occurred in July killing several people in Jerusalem. I had traveled internationally prior, having lived in Rome for a few years prior, and during my time in Rome I traveled to North Africa, Tunisia, and I was used to a state that was filled with active duty soldiers and instruments of war. However, upon setting foot in the land of milk and honey I quickly realized the honey was dried and the milk soured.

We were traveling that day to Jerusalem on bus with a Palestinian driver and guide. The guide, whose name now nearly 15 years later has been lost, was a friendly sort, and many Christian tour groups will hire Palestinian guides because many of them are Christian. Our guide was, though he was no lover of the Catholic Church, making it clear that his faith was Greek Orthodox in origin. The bus ride was uneventful for us, each tourist snapping pictures of the landscape, the desert, the camels, the small cinder block homes that filled much of the roadways. As the modern city of Tel Aviv fell behind us the landscape of the Israeli country side gave way to agricultural sights and sounds. People moving in a dry climate that was vibrant, green, but clearly made so by man's ingenuity. The land was striking though, and we were all in awe of the sights and sounds of a very modern country that wrapped itself in the mantle of an ancient middle eastern place.

Upon arriving in Jerusalem, we were taken to the West gate (near the Jaffa Gate) in the Christian quarter. We stayed at a monastery of nuns literally living in the ancient wall of Jerusalem. The ancient building and quaint nuns made the entire experience romantic in many ways. My window looked down upon the inside of the city, and there I was able to gaze upon a bustling and thriving place, that without knowing it was a center of faith and prayer would still have been inspiring and beautiful. I suppose that it still is. We spent much of the pilgrimage touring around Jerusalem, Israel, the Holy Land. We went to Bethlehem, much different than before it was walled off; we went the Jordan where we re-baptized those who wished to wash themselves in the river. We walked the stations of the cross through the ancient city, following the steps of Jesus before he was taken to be crucified. We went to the church of holy sepulchre, and experienced perhaps the most divisive and sad experiences.

While at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a group of Eastern Orthodox priests were processing through the church to prayer. While on their way, passing our small group of pilgrims, they encountered a group of Roman Catholic friars, as they passed by each other one of the Orthodox spit at the friars, and they began to curse at each other as they walked past. This occurrence, not uncommon, and not as aggravated as some instances in which literal fist fights would break out, was so deeply and profoundly disturbing to me. Here in Christianity's most holy site, the place that the Christian's god rose from the dead to set man free from suffering and sin. Here these allegedly holy men, friars and monks, spat at each other and cursed the ground of their brothers. This within meters of the tomb. This moment, this display of humanity's weaknesses, hatred, pettiness, made me realize that my journey as an atheist could not be taken as a priest. The smell of the incense there, the sounds of rosaries being prayed, voices lifted up in exalted prayer were sounds and sights of humanity trying to find a way to better itself, but this way wasn't authentic. The prayers here, in this world ravaged place, the most holy place for Christians, weren't made driven by a divine faith, they were made by the loneliness of humanity trying to find a way to give meaning to life. I've learned since then that life is itself meaning. There isn't a grander value to life beyond what it is. I respect life, believe it is "sacred", but not because an external force has created it to be so, but simply because the randomness of creation is so marvelous that this is what makes it sacred. There is order in chaos because order is chaos.

During Lent I always remember Jerusalem. One of the moments I loved the most was visiting the olive trees that stood on the hills outside of the walled city. Some of these trees are ancient, thousands of years old. They have soaked up the blood of the pilgrim, the soldier, the rain, the sun, the moonlight. They have stood steadfastly by whilst the folly of man passes around them. In my mind's eye I imagined the world racing around these branches in fast motion, time lapsed as the centuries flew by. We were wandering around one set of olive trees on a day of meditation during the pilgrimage. I was reading from my bible the story of Jesus' last day on earth. I was struck during that reading of the story of Judas. His friend, his betrayer. I looked around and wondered if in these stories this tale held any truth. If in the world all these tales were true, that is God deems to become a man to save man from himself if it would be for naught. Would man again betray the very thing that would bring him peace? Would man act like those monks and friars at the Holy Sepulchre? Would man again spit and betray? I don't know, but so moved was I that I vowed not to lie, to be deceitful, to be loving. Strangely in that holy place I wasn't moved by the greatness of god, I was moved by the littleness of man. It wasn't a faith moment, it was a human moment. A realization that in the world we only have each other. It's a small planet that we share, and our greatness is not weighed by some eternal life later, but our greatness is weighed by the peace and love we bring now, in each living, breathing moment.

While in prayer (yes an atheist can pray - I suppose I should call it meditation) - I wrote a poem in my reflection about the olive tree, reflecting on man's betrayal of the divine and my own desire to in some way, live forever. Fortunately I am made of stars and into the stars I shall return.

The rough bark of your skin

Bites into my shoulder.

I touch your side and realize

You have seen thousands of years of life

perhaps even blood flowed

into your roots.

Did a crusader rest upon you

As I do now?

Did the words of a prophet

blow against your leaves?

You have a view, remembering

that garden, where

the one named Jesus fell,

betrayed.

You can remember

me too.