Tomasino Blog

I’ve had a lot of interviews over the past couple weeks, interviews with several Jesuits, a wonderfully funny nun, and a few doctors. They’ve asked a lot of questions about a lot of things and I’ve said a lot of words back. I think I’ve talked myself out, if that’s possible. I guess there’s a limit, even for me.

There’s been a lot of questions about the vows in particular. How do I see poverty, chastity, and obedience? What do they really mean, and why are they so fundamental? How do I see myself living them? What is it about my call that feels particularly fitting to the Jesuits?

Like I said, I feel talked out. These are easy questions, but the answers are not short and simple. It takes time to explain fully the reasons I see obedience as the cornerstone of an active faith, to split apart the different forms it takes in our lives and differentiate and explain the necessity of each. I can’t rely on theological answers like that anyway. Instead, it takes even more time to convey the sense of helpless panic that hit me in the Navy, where I had no control over my life or death and the only choice I had in the morning was which of the same uniform to put on. How long does it take me to show how that helplessness transformed into a peace and a beauty of simplicity and acceptance. How long it takes to demonstrate how all these little moments in my life when I have stopped thinking and planning ad infinitum and simply listened with an open heart… Moments of obedience to God are easy to recall, but never simple to explain.

There’s no quick way to talk about how living in poverty is more than a simple rule for emulating the life of Christ, or how it brings a closer relationship to the poor, suffering, and meek in the world, or even how removing the clutter from your life removes the noisy barriers that keep you from hearing God’s whispers like Elijah. Indeed, to really explain my personal relationship to the vow, I need to talk about my time in Alaska, my constant yearning for movement, the deep quiet of meditation I find in long car rides or sitting alone in an empty room. It takes so many words to draw these pictures and make them accessible and clear enough that they can be felt. How can I make you feel the amazing power of Grace that fills me until I am overflowing with the essence of everything, the mystical numinous power that terrifies me into awareness of my smallness and yet embraces me with a personal affection more powerful than any single love. Or how I see the shadow of a flower draping across newly fallen snow, and it is a metaphor for the calling I feel. Unencumbered. Profound. Draw me a haiku that can bring that depth in 17 syllables.

And there is the ever present question of sexuality, as pervasive in interviews as it is in society. Where do I begin to talk about celibacy and its neighbor chastity? Do I repeat them the go-to reply of religious, that living the life doesn’t make you love less, but opens you up to love everyone even more? It is true, but again it is only part of an answer. It is the answer of the Church explaining a doctrine, not of a person explaining a call. Why am I called to celibacy? Because God has shown me that is the type of Love I excel at and find true grace in. I am not just a bad boyfriend and a good friend, it is deeper than that. I am called to celibacy because I have an affinity and natural skill at it. Sexuality and individual romantic love doesn’t bring me closer to God the way it does so many people. But it’s also hard to explain, as you can probably see already. It takes time and energy and a deeply reflective emotional examination that pulls and pulls at you. It’s exhausting.

So, as I said, I’m a little talked out these days. So in closing, let me just say: things looking good, need sleep, prayers welcome.

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Of all those boulevards blurred into the sunset
There’s one (I know not which) that I have strolled
Across for the last time without a care,
And unaware of what it was, controlled

By One who predesigns almighty norms,
All laws and a strict scale in secrecy
For dreams and shadows, formulas and forms
Which are the texture of our tapestry.

If all things have a limit and a length,
A final moment and a nevermore,
Then who shall let us know upon whose house
We have unwittingly now sealed the door?

Through the bleached window night withdraws again
And, in the jumbled stack of books that shed
A craze of shadows on the hazy table,
There shall be one that must be left unread.

Out in the south stands more than one worn gate
There with its cactus and cemented urns
Whose entry is forbidden to my feet
As in a lithograph. Nothing returns:

You’ve bolted shut a certain door forever;
A mirror waits in vain, expecting you;
The crossroads seem to lie unbarred before you
But four-faced Janus watches what you do.

Among your many memories is one
Which has been lost to you forevermore;
They will not see you by that fountain nor
Beneath the yellow moon, or the white sun.

Your voice shall never come to what the Persian
Said in his tongue of roses, wine and birds,
When under dusk before the light is scattered
You wish to say some unforgettable words.

The ceaseless Rhône? My European lake?
That yesterday I hunch upon today
Will be erased as Carthage by the Romans
Whose salt and fire it could not hold at bay.

Here in the dawn I hear a multitude,
A murmur fading out of mind and ear.
They have forgotten me who used to love me.
Borges and Space and Time have left me here.
    - Jorge Luis Borges – Limits (1958) (Amazing translation by A.Z.F.)

I’ve always been a believer in predetermination. There is one future for every single one of us, and it is known to God. How can I be so sure? It’s easy! Not one of us is a time traveler. That’s it. That’s all the explanation necessary. Sure, things would get much more complex if we suddenly figured out how to leap back in time, but since that’s not the case I can sum up my argument neatly with a bow.

Every one of us will make choices, face events outside our control, try to be spontaneous, but it all amounts to the same thing. We each live our single thread of decisions from the moment we are conceived to the moment we pass away. That single thread is as straight as an arrow to Mr. Time, despite all our scheming and philosophizing. No matter how hard we try, we never branch, split, knot, or fray.

But what about those paths not taken. The limits of our lives enable us to see life from one long road, and though we can sometimes glimpse at turns we didn’t take and see hints of signs and life around the corner, before long we’ve moved on. Sometimes that’s a sad thing and sometimes it isn’t.

That’s what I love about this poem. Unlike some of the things I’ve written about loss and being unable to go back to those earlier days, there isn’t such a clear claim to the value of the limit—whether it is good or bad. Maybe here and there is a tinge of regret or nostalgia, but only so much as to acknowledge that natural sorrow of mortality. Moreover, there is the sense of inevitability and acceptance. Nothing expresses the idea of our linear existence quite like these lines, “The crossroads seem to lie unbarred before you/But four-faced Janus watches what you do.”

I come back to thoughts like this when I face life-changing decisions. To choose A or B? There is a thrill in it when you keep the grand idea of predetermination in mind. Whatever you choose will have been your destiny. It will have been because it is, and it is because you chose it. That is exciting indeed. It gives me a comfort knowing that my choices will all add up to a single thread in the end and that it will be woven flawlessly into the tapestry of the world. Even when I’m feeling empty and alone that sort of thinking can remind me of just how connected I really am, not just to other people, but to the entire course of history.

It may be that time is a limit, but I find it to be a blessing and a grace. Given the option, I think I would kindly decline a trip in the Delorian.

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Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him–a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
    - Colossians 3:9-17

I’ve been thinking a lot about the book Priestly Virtues: Reflections on the Moral Virtues in the Life of the Priest, which I quoted a while back. In it, Rev. O’Keefe talks a length about St. Thomas Aquinas and the ways in which we develop our sense of virtue and form ourselves into whom we want to be. We bring about change in ourselves through our own actions, and through the grace of God, but also through the relationships we have with our friends and family. In a very real sense this community is a part of us, and we of it.

There was a time when I didn’t see how my "community" could help me be the person I feel called to be. If I couldn’t see the values in them, how would they be reflected back in my own life? So I learned to emulate, or at least admire, the hermits who find their path to God through grace and faith alone, without the aid of other people. I wrapped myself up in my solitude and found it thrillingly conducive to prayer and growth.

As much as I love solitude, though, I’ve become aware that my lack of community with regard to my spiritual growth and discernment has its costs. There are the obvious problems. I tend to stagnate and remain fixed on one aspect of my discernment without noticing the graces moving past me. Sometimes I talk myself into behavior that I know is contrary to what I should be doing. I may walk the line too much, but these aren’t my only problems. It seems that without realizing it, I’ve become stir-crazy.

I met with the Vocation Director of the New York and Maryland Provinces of the Society of Jesus last weekend. I was so nervous while I took the train up to New York. My mind kept jumping back and forth between extremes. On the one hand, I was hoping that he would ask me to begin the application process, to begin writing my spiritual autobiograph (which is the first step in the process), and give me some guidance on what to do next. On the other hand, I also had the irrational fears that he’d tell me I wasn’t right for the Society, that I wouldn’t make a good Jesuit and should do something else. It was a silly thought, but a fear that was present nonetheless. Moreover, there were the insidious middle-thoughts. Maybe he would tell me that I should wait another few years to apply. Maybe he would tell me that I should look more into the Dominicans. Maybe maybe maybe.

When we finally sat down to talk, my nervousness made me jumpy. I talked way too much, rambled, and before I knew it I was talking about all sorts of odd-ball theological topics. At one point I made the random exclaimation that I didn’t like evangelical language because it seemed unnatural and creates a seperation for me between faith and daily living. After-all, I’ve never used the word "rejoice" in normal conversation. Why would I use it in prayer or worship?

The Director was great, though. He laughed with me at my randomness and was in good spirits throughout our lunch-talk. In the end, he asked me to begin my autobiography after all. All my worries were for nothing, but the meeting revealed something important to me. I was so eager for someone to talk to about theology, philosophy and discernment that I jumped all over the poor man at any opening he gave me. My desire for community has been bottled up, corked, and fermented for too long. I need to let it air before my insides turn to vinegar.

So in the next few weeks, while I begin crafting my essay, I’ll also be trying to reach out more and talk about the topics that interest me. I’ll try to take more trips to St. Joe’s and meet with the Jesuits there. I’ll try to involve my friends and family more and talk about things.

The people in my life aren’t like they used to be. They’re good people and the virtue that can develop from living and sharing with them fits right in line with what Rev. O’Keefe was talking about in his book. Who knows, maybe next time I go to New York, I won’t horribly embarrass myself either.

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In the canoe, the Indian smiled. Once he paused in a stroke, and rested his blade. For that instant he looked like his own Paddle. There was a song in his heart. It crept to his lips, but only the water and the wind could hear.

‘You, Little Traveler! You made the journey, the Long Journey. You now know the things I have yet to know. You, Little Traveler! You were given a name, a true name in my father’s lodge. Good Medicine, Little Traveler! You are truly a Paddle Person, a Paddle-to-the-Sea!’
    - Holling Clancy Holling – Paddle-To-The-Sea (1941)

Thomas Merton’s great work, Thoughts in Solitude, begins with the powerfully direct assertion that, “[t]here is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.” His concept of reality is quite different than many of ours, though. It is the type of hyper-reality, the super-reality, or magical realism, that fills up our spiritual cups in a way that no mere materialism can manifest. Merton’s reality is God.

Reality and unreality, the Sacred and the Profane, these dichotomies are revealed to me relentlessly as I philosophize and study my nights away, but that’s nothing new. The unassuming children’s classic, Paddle-To-The-Sea, may be my earliest memory–my earliest glimpse of understanding–of this natural dualism. It was in the words of the little Indian boy, at last grown to take his father’s role in life that pinned the understanding into my heart.

‘I made you, Paddle Person, because I had a dream. A little wooden man smiled at me. He sat in a canoe on a snowbank on this hill. Now the dream has begun to come true. The Sun Spirit will look down at the snow. The snow will melt and the water will run down-hill to the river, on down to the Great Lakes, down again and on at last to the sea. You will go with the water and you will have adventures that I would like to have. But I cannot go with you because I have to help my father with the traps.
    - Ibid.

The child and the old man, they understood the role the Spirit played in the journey of the Paddle Person, and they let me understand it too, even as young as I was. His father’s traps waited for him, just as the day-to-day things in my life wait for me as I go to sleep each night and wake again. The true path, the one he wanted to live, the one with the adventures, began with the Sun Spirit melting the snow on that bank. That was his reality and he never forgot it.

When I read the story as a boy I carved my own wooden boat. My dad helped me write the familiar words on the bottom. “Please put me back in the water.” I don’t recall if we ever set the boat in a stream; that wasn’t the point. Even at that age, before I could fully understand what it all meant, I felt a call to float down stream and have my own adventures with nothing to guide me but “a tin rudder to keep it headed forward, and a lump of lead for ballast.”

Not everyone finds themselves called to set out on the rivers and streams. Some are called to help, to keep an eye out for those travelling along. There are as many callings as there are people. For some of us, all we can hope to do is build our toys and keep them in our memory. I never identified with the little boy in the story, though. I was always the Paddle Person.

‘Ho!’ he called. ‘You have started on your journey! Good-by, Paddle-to-the-Sea!’
    - Ibid.

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He had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.
    - Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

There is an insatiable restlessness that slowly creeps up my spine as a change nears. Like the flight or fight response that evolutionists tout as the basic behavior of fear, my nerves tense in anticipation of something soon to come. They are ready, even if the rest of me isn’t, for that unknowable future that will befall at any moment. Yet I have to wonder about this unease and its usefulness. Is it helpful to me? Does it provide some security to be on guard, excited, or otherwise energized?

The important things are done. My life is tidy, the various threads in order. There is nothing to provoke this nervousness, but still it comes. It forces my mind to parallels and analogies, of times, in particular, that I wasn’t so prepared for the same.

Things take the shape of a great cloud of doom that approaches from the West, and I, fatigued, broken, struggle to run away on legs too short and insufficient. Foliage tears at my feet, grasping my ankles, pulling me to the ground again and again; all the while I know that the running is hopeless. Even if there were a destination, that cloud will overtake me long before I make my way anywhere important.

And it is at times like these of fearful clarity that I recognize what it is that terrifies me so much as to drive all logic and planning away and leave me shaking, unable to concentrate or breathe deeply. I fear that small spark of mortality to which I cling with endless pride and selfishness. It is a fear not of letting go, but of being unable to do so. What if I cannot surrender myself to this? What if the temptations of flesh or food, of rest and rain, of any and everything, of this world cannot be broken? There I see condemnation, failure.

So I run, careful to cut the ties with my planning and organization, careful to avoid the connections that might bind me immutably to this place or these people. After-all, wasn’t it St. Augustine who said, “Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” Let me be away from all things and let my time here be short, for I am not strong enough to keep there long.

I’d always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving
…
You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way
    - Tracy Chapman – Fast Car (1988)

Of course, the panic settles after a few deep breaths and I remember that I’m not alone. There’s no fear in being too weak to go through this alone. God is with me, hand-in-hand. I can grasp for His strength and it is always there ready to lift me up and past these fears. It is a battle won in His service, not with guns and swords, but with an open and steady heart that gives itself over rather than being its own keeper.

The fear remains, but I don’t shake now. My hands are held steady and I am ready again to take a step forward, and another, until my time does come. Sometimes the simplest decisions are the most important, and the most difficult. The decision to wake up each day and say to Him, “Yes, I still believe,” is sometimes all I can bear to give, and it has to be enough.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.
    - Frank Darabont (Screenplay) – The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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