My Monastery

The school's beautiful front entrance.

December 10, 2014
Day 224

I never felt like a co-owner of the building, but I did firmly believe I'd always be there, always be a monk until the day I died.  I gave up my life to the service of God as a religious brother, and my home during those four years was at Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York.

The Olympic-size swimming pool just steps from my bedroom door.

I never felt like I owned the school, a school I actually failed out of in 1990, but the monastery did always feel like my own.  When I walked the halls of the brothers' house, I felt like I was walking through a special place I'd always dwell in, and always be.

I had many difficult days there as Brother Sean.  It was a time in my life right after high school when I fully came to terms with the fact that I was a gay man, and I subsequently went through a very difficult bout with clinical depression, too.  The support I received from my superiors could be characterized as warm at best, far from loving.  I'd be offered a tissue, but never a hug, for instance.  And the way they showed me the door, followed by the cold shoulder these past 17 years, has hardly made me feel close to them since.

And yet I'd be lying if I said I didn't still want to be close to them, and to the community.  They were my brothers for just over four years, and like any family, we had our challenges together.  I still care very much for and about them, and I am forever grateful to them all for the help and guidance they gave me while I was there.

The monastery they still call their home was once my home too, and it's a place I will always think of with great fondness and happy memories.  No matter what struggles and issues befell me there, it was still my monastery, my home, and in some way, whether or not I ever step foot on those grounds again, I know it always will be.

The night I saved the baby Jesus from a church fire

July 31, 2014
          Day 92

Yes, I think too highly of myself at times.  Yes, the title of this reflection is pretty 'out there'.  And yes, this is just about a dream I had...but let me tell you how it went.

At first, things were quiet.  Everyone around me was just praying in complete silence.  Suddenly, a huge fire broke out, I don't know how, and everyone started running for the only exit at the back of the church.

Because I was up front near the altar, I was near the very back of the crowd trying to escape.

By the time I reached the main aisle of the church, there were less people now trying to get out, and I saw in the middle of the aisle a small baby crying by himself, no one leaning down to lift him up and rescue him.  I recognized him right away as Jesus (I don't know how or why).  So I picked him up right away, and carried him outside to safety, where everyone was just milling about calmly.  People were acting as if now that they had escaped, everything behind them was all fine again.

Several priests were standing there smiling, all dressed up in robes like this was the highest holy day imaginable, and right in front was my old novice master, Father Francis.  Strangely though, he had red hair, like me. No one seemed to notice I had a baby with me, or even that the baby was Jesus.

And that was it.  I had this dream some time after leaving the religious life, but I can't recall now when it was.  I'd have to search around to find some previous journal record of the day I woke up and wrote it all down.

Interpretations, right or wrong:

1) I have a savior complex.  I think I'm the only one who cares.

2) I was being told to help rescue the innocence of Jesus from the hands of the church, to bring Jesus back to the people, outside the confines of religion.

3) My novice master was my biggest challenge in the religious life.  He disliked me very much, and told me as much many times in many different ways.  No matter how hard I tried, he always made me feel insignificant and unworthy.  Seeing him as a redhead (he actually had dark or gray hair) was teaching me to understand him as I try to understand myself, to love him as I love myself, and to forgive him as I forgive myself.

Those are just some best guesses for now...but I'd welcome your interpretations anytime too!

Living your life unpainted to painted

You can choose this style if you like, but for best results,
always go from unpainted to painted!

June 10, 2014
..........41/365

I learned many trades while I was a monk, but painting was definitely one of my favorites.  It isn't easy, and it can take forever when you do it yourself, but the finished product is your ultimate reward. 

Brother Stephen taught me how to paint, and though there are a lot more instructions and morsels of advice worth eating up, this one is the first, and the most basic.  He taught me to always go from unpainted to painted, because if you go from painted to unpainted, your brush will be going into the perfect, painted area and smudging the paint forward.  So it's always better to just take the brush from the unpainted area, and glide it along smoothly into the already painted area.  That way, the lines will run in smoothly, and the paint will blend in uniformly. 

And because I like to reflect on, well, just about everything, this got me to thinking.  Is the unpainted to painted rule something I can apply to life in general?  Yes, I realized, it is! 

By just changing the words a bit, we can formulate a new mantra for ourselves: Always move from the challenging area in your life into the satisfied, fully realized one, and not the other way around.  But what does this really mean?  And why not the reverse?

If we were to just fake our way into being happy and successful in some part of our life, whether it be the workplace, a relationship, or a friendship, we'd forever be smudging the paint, and showing ourselves to be a fraud.  When we instead move slowly into the better world we want for ourselves from the place of nothingness (no paint), we transition more smoothly.  We blend in, in the best way possible.  Unpainted to painted.

Throughout my life, from elementary school to high school, to college and the monastic life, and to the life and lives I've been living now leading up to my 40th birthday next year, I have learned this lesson hundreds of times.  I've learned it not just from the times it's worked well for me, but just as often from the times when I failed to take my own advice.  I've made myself a fraud, faked my way into a situation to impress a teacher, a friend, or a colleague.  By throwing myself into a given situation, and acting like I could handle things without fully growing into them naturally, I smudged the paint.  I stuck out.  I failed.

For all the times I tried faking my way upward, I learned much more often to just take my time, learn about what I needed to do, and trust the path forward.  The paint looks so nice over there on the colorful side of the wall, but it's always better to start yourself out on the unpainted side.  And then, when you can, just glide in smoothly.

The Road Less Traveled

June 9, 2014
          Day 40/365

I could write a million words about my decision to be a monk, to give my life away for God, but for the purposes of this reflection today, I'm going to just focus on, once again, perspective.  Whether you choose to read it right now or read it at some point later, I encourage you to open Robert Frost's short poem, The Road Not Taken.  Here's one link for it.  Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could click this link to watch me read the poem (it only takes a minute and a half)!

Later this month, I'll reflect more on that day 21 years ago when I joined the religious life, and became "Brother Sean", but for today, I'd just like to talk a bit about the choice I had before me.  

Two roads diverged in front of me back in 1993.  One was the choice to live the life I'm pretty much living now, and the other was to instead give my life over to God through service to the church.  It meant taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  It meant giving up any opportunities I might otherwise have in life for a career as a writer, a love life with another human being, a house of my own, and so on.   

The roads in front of me were both incredibly different, but the one with the grass growing on it?  The one that wanted wear?  It called to me.  Like, literally.  Everything in me just knew with 100% confidence that God was calling me to the religious life.  Just like Mr. Frost, I had a knowing about which path I would take.  And I likewise believed I'd never come back to that other path...which really...I didn't! 

That's because when I eventually left the religious life four years and three weeks after joining, I didn't find myself back at that same place where the roads diverged.  Instead, I was now on a whole new path further up ahead.  The decision of which road to take four years earlier was now four years behind me in the yellow wood.  New paths were now diverging in front of me, patiently awaiting my imminent decision, just as they still are every day of my life, and every day of your life too.

When I look back at the forest of life experiences behind me, I don't regret answering God's calling, and I'm grateful for the way my time as a monk changed me.  It truly did change me forever, and I can't really explain this well to people who have only known me since then.  My life always had a sense of direction and purpose, but living through four years as a representative of the Roman Catholic Church will absolutely change you forever. 

Anyway...that was ages and ages ago now, although I imagine I'll be telling the story ages and ages hence, too.  Two roads diverged in front of me one day, and I--well, I took the one less traveled by, and that has truly made all the difference!

The time I flunked out of high school

May 7, 2014.

You'll have to forgive me for writing about my past again, but the more I reflect on where I am right now, and where I'm headed soon, the more I'm brought back to all the years and experiences that brought me here.

When I was in 8th grade, high school was a faraway, scary place.  I'd never enjoyed the unknown growing up, mostly because it meant having to make new friends, and face the dreaded fear of lunch-period seating.  Man, that was the absolute worst!  I was always a smart kid, friendly and kind, but I was also easily picked on because I was shy. 

When I started 9th grade at Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, everything seemed great at first.  Two of my best friends from elementary school were free the same lunch period as I was, which meant we were able to have a table together, along with a new best friend we all met that year.  It was also an all-boys high school, which of course was supposed to take away certain distractions, making it easier to focus on schoolwork.  When you're realizing you really, really like guys though, it has the opposite effect. 

Not only were my eyes darting all over the place a bit too frequently, the bullies had a field day with me too.  One kid in particular sat right next to me in Earth Science class, and seemed to love tormenting me daily.  It started off just in class, but then he'd see me in the hallway, and do it there too.  And his buddies who overheard him began doing it even when he wasn't around. 

Bullying was nothing new to me, as I had bullies in grade school too, and I can't just blame bullies or hot guys for my failing out of high school (not even when they're the same people!).  Although...I do have one more excuse to throw out there.  At my school, if you got below 75, you failed the class.  I got a 74 in two classes, and in a third pass/fail course, the teacher failed me. 

Okay, the excuses part is over now! 

I failed out of my high school because I didn't work hard enough.  I struggled with memorization and the weight of my workload, and I just couldn't do it anymore.  I struggled, I messed up, I failed.  I'd always been a good student, but in my first year of high school, I failed to reach the levels necessary to remain a student there.  It's just that simple.

Being branded a failure at age 15 was more difficult than I can even put into words.  Even older kids from my hometown who'd watched me get bullied or saw I was taking extra-help classes were shocked to hear I failed out.  Everyone just figured I was handling things well, doing what every other kid my age was doing their freshman year at Chaminade.  I was supposed to just adapt, to get used to it all, to be strong, even if I didn't want to be.

As I look back on that year, now part of my past, I'm grateful for the many ways it transformed me for the better.  I don't know whether or not my life would have continued the same way as it did had I not failed out, but I do know that failing taught me about what failure really is. 

There are three powerful truths I've learned:

1) Failure is never permanent, only temporary. 
2) Failure is not a scar on your life, only a bruise you learn from. 
3) Failure is not a definition of your life, only an adjective with an expiration date. 

The failures of my past are many.  Failing out of my first high school was a big one, not least of all because it happened when I was only 15 years old, and just beginning to discover myself.  I was still a kid, and it hurt me deeply.  Has it changed who I am now at 39 years old?  Yes.  Absolutely!  It's made me stronger, and it's made me wiser.  It's made me fail less often, and it's helped me understand my failures as parts of my immediate past, and not causes on my future. 

Failure is just a temporary fact we will all suffer many times in life.  It's not a summary of who we really are.  The real me never failed those classes or got thrown out of my first high school.  The real me is the soul writing you today, the guy reminding himself--and you--that once you've reached the bottom of failure's pit, the ladder of success is already waiting for you to climb right back up again.