NIGHTMARES from the MONASTERY

My home from 1993-1997
(Filters just added for effect)

September 12, 2014
Day 135

It sounds like some kind of awful movie from the fifties, yet for me, this is all too real.  My years as a monk were a mixed bag for the most part, but I think you could probably say that about any four years in a life.  I had lots of happy days and happy experiences in the monastery, and I'll take the lessons I learned from my four-plus years as Brother Sean with me wherever I go in life, but some of the time?  Well, some of the time, things really weren't too great.

The brothers were proud counter-culturists at a time in my life when I was just beginning to understand and appreciate culture, in all its forms and variations.  You can take the boy out of the world, but you can't take the world out of the boy, despite how much I tried to let them. 

Then one day, very unexpectedly, they told me to leave.

They showed me the door so fast, it was like they were quietly ending a contract.  I had no time to say goodbye, and hardly any time to even think about what was happening.  It was just, "Go back to your room now and pack," and even the packing was expedited.  I didn't feel I'd have enough room to bring everything, so I had to leave an awful lot behind, too. 

My life was never a contract though, and you can't just sweep a soul under the carpet like that.  I deserved better, and I continue to pray my superiors will one day see that.  No one in my situation should have ever been just thrown away, dropped off at his parents' door with the equivalent of a proof-of-delivery notice.  It was sick and heartless, and they should have known it was sick and heartless.  I wrote dozens of letters to people there over the years, but got little to no response.

Seventeen years later, I still have nightmares, but strangely, my nightmares are never about events that took place inside the monastery walls.  Instead, they always take me inside as if I'm back again, and once again needing to leave.  That's all they seem to really be about: me needing to get out. 

Some people have nightmares of being chased, or being late for school or work, or about falling from a great height.  I've had those at times, but the most consistent nightmare I have for these past 17 years is this one: the one where I'm in the monastery, and need to find my own way out.

I believe my nightmare returns because I was never given the opportunity and time to leave the religious life calmly and naturally, and I seem doomed to repeat the depression of that day over and over as a loop in my head.  Unfinished business of this magnitude can literally haunt you forever.

I don't even hate my brothers there who still live the religious life as part of that community.  I love them!  And I miss them!  But to my superiors at least, I was treated like a contract they decided to terminate, and a soul they swept under the carpet.  No one is worth treating this way, least of all someone who attended their schools as a student, loved God and tried his best to serve the church in the religious life, and who was suffering at the time with clinical depression. 

So do I still harbor sadness and resentment?  Yes. 

I continue to try my best to forgive my religious superiors, and I dream of the possibility of healing.  I also still believe firmly, that whether here or in Heaven, we will all attain that ultimate healing we very much need.  In the meantime, these nightmares from the monastery will keep haunting me, until I finally find the peace that only time and healing can bring. 

Mashed potatoes with barbecue sauce

September 5, 2014
Day 128

Some time after my father died, he visited me in a dream.  It was just him, my mom, my sister Marilyn, and me, and we were sitting in the smallest bedroom of my parents' house.

I've already told you the story of the day my dad appeared to me on a Long Island Rail Road train, so I want to be clear right from the start: I do not assign anywhere near the same amount of gravitas to this dream as I do to that experience.  What happened that day on the train ride to Rockville Centre ranks way up there in the highest stratosphere of true, spiritual experiences I have had.  This one here?  No.  Not so much.

Still, I believe it was real, because it felt much more real than most other dreams I've had.

In this dream, my mother, my sister, and I, all of us very much alive, were talking with my dad about how he was enjoying Heaven so far.  Strangely, the only thing about the dream I now remember (though I may one day find I wrote down more in one of my old journals at the time), is that my dad told us to try barbecue sauce in our mashed potatoes.

Yeaaaaahhhhh.

He could have told us about what it's like to be in Heaven, or what God is like, or what famous people he's now met.  He didn't.  He could have told us any number of things about how time and space really work.  He didn't.  Instead, he chose to tell us to try mashed potatoes with frickin' barbecue sauce.  We looked at him like he was crazy, and he assured us he was speaking the truth.

Thanks, Dad! 

My expectations for this small family reunion were much higher than the culinary revelation my father's ghost revealed to me that night.  I have to admit though, he was actually right. 

A few weeks after I had this dream, I was having mashed potatoes with my dinner.  And I had some barbecue sauce available too, so I figured I'd try it.  I still think hearing about Heaven and God, or any of the many mysteries of life would have been much cooler, but the mashed potatoes with barbecue sauce?  They were absolutely divine!

The Dream Dimension

August 9, 2014
Day 101

If I find myself in Heaven one day, needing to explain life to any souls who have not yet traveled to Earth as human beings, one of the highlights of my trip here will be my dream world.

"And then, each night as you go to sleep," I'd tell them, "Your conscious self disappears, and a whole different dream dimension begins revealing itself to you."

I'm guessing it'll be very hard to explain to them, but that's because it's just as hard for us to explain it to ourselves! 

The kinds of dreams I've had in my life so far have been all over the map as far as topic and ability.  In some dreams, I'm just experiencing repeat performances of old parts of my life, new takes on people and places I haven't seen in years.  In other dreams, I'm part of a world of possibility I've never come close to experiencing here on Earth, in ordinary reality.

In some of my most memorable dreams, I've met the pope, fought the devil, hung out with deceased relatives and friends, saved the baby Jesus from a burning church, met celebrities, and even once watched the pope get married in an underwater stadium.

There's no way for me to map out all of the many dreams I've had in my life, but I do write them down whenever I can.  And the most powerful dreams (some of which I've just mentioned) have all stayed with me in amazing clarity and understanding over the years.  And it's the powerful teaching dreams that have always been the most vivid when I wake up, and the ones I've never forgotten.

I wish I understood this dream dimension better than I do, but I think what strikes me as the most amazing fact of it is, we cannot go to this amazing place where incredible things happen to us unless we are first consciously putting our conscious self to sleep.  In other words, we cannot have our eyes opened until we shut them, and go into a place of peace.  We cannot discover new lands until we forget about the lands around us.  And we cannot truly see with dream-dimension eyes until we close these human eyes, and believe in the kind of seeing that never happens through our face.

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!