Abbot Michael

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Inheriting Wanderlust
 
As long as I can remember (and that is back to the age of 3, in 1953), my life has been a conversation with God, sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, sometimes joyful, other times sad, and for a time angry and argumentative, even when I was in the midst of sin. I have been blessed with a wonderful family, good health and a good mind and for this I have always been most thankful to God. The misfortune and injustice suffered by others has always angered me. As a child, I wanted to grow up quickly so that I could be a freedom fighter in Algeria.
 
Our family home in Rochester, New York, was across the street from a large park with a public swimming pool. Each day in the summer for many years my mother would walk me over early in the morning for swimming lessons; I never, ever, learned how to swim, nor even float. This was a source of shame to me. When I was 12, I went on a camping trip with a friend and his family up into the Adirondack mountains. We camped along a lake, where I would safely paddle about on an air raft. One day I paddled out into the middle of the lake, got off the raft and tread water. (Somehow I had learned to tread water.) I determined then that I would swim, so I picked up the air raft and threw it as far as I could, about 15 feet. I was there, all by myself and if I wanted to live, I would have to swim, which I did.
 
In 1963 my family took a trip south to visit my oldest brother. I was amazed to see run down shacks passing for "colored only" motels, a mile down the road from fancy "white only” ones. Stopping for lunch at one point, we went to the door only to see a "whites only" sign. We decided this was all we would find here and so went in. After all this I was quite surprised to see black people working inside. Since one of my endearing qualities was to loudly ask questions about anything , anytime, anywhere, I enquired about why they were there when the sign said whites only. I think it was the only time my parents silenced me. On the return trip we visited Washington, which I fell in love with. (In an interesting foreshadowing of my life, in his attempt drive to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, my father got lost and ended up at the National Islamic Center.)
 
At 14, I had determined to enter the seminary. This was the era of Vatican II and a changing church. Every week the Catholic newspaper would carry some news which would make my mother positively apoplectic. Priests whom I knew were suddenly leaving and marrying. The changes did not bother me, but the loss of men whom I admired did confuse me. The rector of the seminary drummed in to us that a vocation could be lost and when you stopped praying, trouble would come of it.
 
The Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with one Step
 
When I was 16, I began to volunteer at an inner city social center. I was shocked that people could live in such dire poverty just a few miles from my affluent neighborhood, enraged that these people were so despised by many of my friends and neighbors. I became consumed - this must be the mission of the church. I read every book on civil rights, the class struggle; I marched in marches, spoke out and lead a group of seminarians in an inner city youth project, brought together groups of inner city youth and youth from my own parish.
 
My last semester in high school was a time of restless anticipation and upheaval. We expected the Vietnam war would end soon, but instead the lives of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy ended. In August the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. The world seemed in deep, deep trouble.
 
To make an impact in civil rights, this moral cause of the age, I joined the Josephite Fathers in 1968 , and began college at Epiphany College in Newburgh, New York. I had never lived in such a structured and restrictive environment, which brought out a cynical streak in me. But I adjusted, making some good friendships which persist today.
 
The novitiate came after two years of college and was located in an isolated small  town in Delaware. There was very little structured activity other than cooking and common prayer, but the novice master was one of the holiest men I have ever met, obviously in touch with God, who knew what the priesthood was all about and was happy; his example was the greatest teaching. We novices, however, were all going "stir crazy" in our own way, and we quickly got on each other’s nerves.
 
During this time I read a lot, especially heavily social oriented works like "The Wretched of the Earth" by Franz Fanon, seeing in aspects of theoretical Marxism some practical reflections of the social message of Christianity. I was also surprised to learn that the local migrant workers would often prefer doing their laundry to attending mass.
 
I had made up my mind in high school that I wanted to pursue a vocation in a religious order. The rector of the seminary had introduced me to the Rule of Taize. Having seen so many priests and vocations go down in flames in solitary splendor, I was convinced of the power of community. A strong community life was not, however, one of the charisms of the Josephites. The novitiate did not guide us in how to live in community, but I made profession at age 21.
 
 
Watershed
 
The summer afterwards was a watershed. Not having heard from my best friend, one year ahead of and working at a parish in Baltimore, so I went early to Washington and the major seminary and was stunned to learn that my friend was to be married in a little more than a week. I spent two days with him talking about this radical change. Celibacy was not for him. Because he had been my philosophical anchor for three years, I was now challenged to cut loose and find the depths of my own commitment.
 
I then reached a crisis of faith. I began to challenge tenets of faith, such as the real presence in the Eucharist, then the Trinity, etc, etc. I really could find no meaning in the faith I had taken for granted all my life. I felt inadequate to help people with life problems in the social apostolate (such as unemployment, poverty, marital strife, etc) since I never had a problem that wasn't a figment of my imagination. And I had also discovered my sexuality.
 
I was astounded to discover the imperfection and even sinfulness of some religious. I self-righteously condemned these men and was scandalized, but suddenly I was aware that I could fall as they had. I did discuss this with my spiritual director, who simply said "If you can control yourself, stay, otherwise it is best that you leave." I respected him for his standards and appreciation of the great harm of scandal.
 
I was truly challenged at this point. It was my first real problem, although I didn't realize it. But since I doubted my faith and its relevance, doubted myself and my abilities, and saw no way to assuage my raging hormones, I asked for a leave of absence. This was denied and so I left.
 
Suddenly I was just me and I didn't know what I was, what I wanted to do or what I really believed.
 
Currents in the Water
 
The Josephites had enrolled me at Howard University, a historically Black university. In my senior year I astounded some (and alarmed others) by being elected president of the university chapter of AKD, the National Sociological Honor Society. It made some people uncomfortable having a white person in that position, but it was an honor. Howard tested my mettle. As a Josephite, I was never challenged as a white person on a black campus, but as a lone white-boy it was different. I learned to roll with punches I never expected. I took 18 hours of classes and worked a minimum of 48 hours per week. I was tempted to drop out because of work, but I stuck it out and graduated in May 1973.
 
God has a real sense of humor. My first job was as a hotel auditor; I hated mathematics and never did well with it, except geometry (which I could relate to something concrete.) Eventually I was promoted and learned to love the hotel business. Since I still had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life, I applied to and was accepted into the Peace Corps, to start  immediately after graduation. However one afternoon when I came to work, the manager quit. I called the owner and informed him, and ever the swimmer, I offered my services. Thus at 23 years, at the beginning of my last semester, I became a hotel manager and my real education began. I told the Peace Corps I would not be making it.
 
I took this path of least resistance and decided to make my career in hotel management, and my life became caught up in the currents of that business.
 
 
A New Route
 
During this period of spiritual disillusionment, I investigated Islam. I found there answers to my doubts and problems with Catholicism, and the simplicity of Islam provided a foundation upon which to rebuild my faith. I studied assiduously, including Arabic. I was very much impressed with the difference Islam had made in the lives of many Black Americans, with the sincerity of their faith and in the tremendous transformation in their lives. Islam was simple and direct, gave rules for life, and like monasticism, revolved around 5 regular daily times of prayer. I learned to love this prayer and God sustained me in this simple faith until I was ready to grow again.
 
I became active at the National Islamic Center in Washington, giving tours and expositions on Islam. There I was asked what Muslim name I would take. I bogged down looking through the 99 attributes or names of God, the names of the prophets and other traditional Muslim names and was unable to choose; so the brothers named me Abdullah, meaning "servant of God", to which I added Abdur-Rashid, meaning servant of the wise and righteous guide. In my prayer at that time I was asking God for the gift of wisdom in my life, and renouncing a pursuit of wealth and power. In reading the traditions of Muhammad, I came across one that I was struck by; I have poured over it constantly in my life, to seek its meaning at any given moment, which meaning is always deepening. "The greatest struggle” said Muhammad "is against the 'self'".
 
 
Trouble en Route
 
The self is unruly.
 
The hotel in Washington where I’d taken my first job and had been precipitately promoted as manager by the age of 23 became a crucible. I was far too naive to supervise a lot of people and deal with the sharks of business. I can't believe how patient the owners were with me and how they taught me.  Eventually [THEY] brought in an experienced manager. When the oil embargo & recession hit, they let me go. I was crushed and tasted failure for the first time. (My father said I was fortunate to have that happen early in life, which remark I did not appreciate at the time.)
 
Thus I was unemployed for three months. Not having a job is a terrible thing for a man. In our culture a job identifies you and calculates your social worth. While I got a lot of rest, it was maddening. I got very involved at the Islamic Center then, p[R]ayed and studied more but also night clubbed a lot. Life was very empty without a job.
 
I finally was employed by a big hotel and learned & worked voraciously. I loved it, but was having to work that job and a part time job to make ends meet. Whenever I could, I travelled to New York City, where I had made many friends, and I was becoming infatuated with New York.
 
My genius brother then arrived back in New York to teach at Columbia University. Since I knew I would have a place to live there, I quit my job, sold my furniture and moved to Manhattan.
 
One impetus for moving to New York was to make it big in the hotel business by working at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. However, I did not know where it was. But I knew that it was a Hilton Hotel. So the Monday after I moved, I went to the New York Hilton, planning to fill out an application and then request directions to the Waldorf. I never made it to the Waldorf because they hired me immediately, thanks to the fact the word “credit” appeared once in my resume. Never underestimate the power of a word.
 
I am amazed when I look back. I left everything to go to New York, had no prospects or connections for a job and was hired at the first place I went on my first business day there. But back then, I knew it would happen that way, like throwing the air raft and swimming to it. This became a useful life skill.
 
In New York, I lost touch with organized Islam. No longer able to make Friday prayers, I did continue to read, study and pray. Muslim books were much more available in New York and for the first time I read the works of the Sufi spiritual masters. In my life God has always worked very slowly, even when I was going fast. I read the Sufi works but I did not understand them. Yet I remembered what I could not understand and thrashed these puzzlements about my mind periodically and slowly began to grow into them; when I had grown into them, I was back at Catholicism and Christ, but that is jumping ahead in the story. I did acquire here an anchor, a $3 stainless steel bracelet (which I ultimately gave to a Jewish student on his Bar Mitzvah) inscribed with the Arabic words "Help from God and victory is near."
 
One day I received a call to expect an important visitor who was anxious to meet me. The next day I met a shaikh of the Muslim Brotherhood, a powerful Muslim fundamentalist organization. The shaikh offered me a full scholarship at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Al-Azhar is the oldest university in the Muslim world and is the theological centre of Sunni Islam. The Brotherhood wanted to develop American Islamic leaders vis a vis the leaders appointed by the Egyptian government, which controlled the large American mosques. I accepted and planned to go the following February.
 
That November Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel. I was overjoyed but I also knew that the Muslim Brotherhood would oppose this violently, and so be suppressed again. Not wanting to leave a career only to be deported from Egypt with an unfinished education, I regretfully declined the scholarship. My foresight proved sadly true.
 
New York taught me how to say "no". You had to say no in New York, or you'd be made mincemeat. What a place to live. Music and nightlife were wonderful and non-stop, but people were cold and cunning; excess was everywhere and egos were paramount. Personal relationships were disappointing to say the least. I said I would stay until I felt like I was becoming a New Yorker and then I would leave.
 
 
A Port in Warm Southern Waters
 
In 1979 the hotel was sold. The corporation wanted to move me to Washington, much to my delight. My boss vetoed that. Next the corporation wanted me to go to Miami Beach. That was much more to my delight and more money. Again that was vetoed. My boss offered me a job at the Waldorf, much to my amazement. Just what I had come to New York dying for was handed me on a silver platter just when all I wanted to do was leave. I always use the Waldorf now as a metaphor for seductive temptation. My godfather in the corporation advised me to resign and come to Miami, where I would be rehired with no penalty. So I resigned, telling everyone I was off to Egypt to study, and flew straight to Miami and my new job.
 
Most of us that moved down to Miami for the corporation came to detest it. All but two left after a year or two. I attempted to put roots in the Muslim Community, but they were a close knit group and were not welcoming of outsiders. Organized Islam was now turning me off. After the experience with the Muslim brotherhood, and the perverted Muslim revolution in Iran, I clearly saw that scandal was not at all limited to Christianity and that hypocrisy was not a sin of Catholics only. (Once back in Washington, I made one more attempt by returning to the Center where I had worked. I found that it had been taken over by revolutionaries, who had plastered the walls with slogans, burned the priceless pulpit and defaced the beautiful carpets. They had placed a sign on the door of this house of prayer of the worlds fastest growing universal religion... "Muslims Only". That was it.)
 
After attending my brothers wedding six months after arriving in Miami, I determined that it was time to pick up the air raft and give it a good heave again. I simply could not stay there; I was drinking very heavily, though not so as to affect my job or health; but had I continued I would have. Years before, my father had explained to me that every man has a breaking point, and that I must be conscious of my limitations; I knew I was approaching mine.
 
The pain and isolation of Miami forced me to look deeply and honestly within myself. I discovered the works of Joseph Campbell, who tied together the threads of the spiritual and the here-&-now in my consciousness. I began reading with a better understanding of my conviction that "God is one."
 
I discovered that much of my unhappiness was due to my life's selfish direction. I felt no meaning or purpose in simply protecting the assets of a Corporation. I did not know what I wanted to do, but I knew this wasn't it.  Because of the circumstances of my coming to Miami, I did not want to ask for a transfer and I did not particularly care if I had to scrub floors, as long as it was "back home" in Washington. A friend there offered me a place to stay, so with great joy I submitted my resignation. As I turned it in, I was told my new mentor had just been transferred to Washington.
 
He called me, as did other corporate friends who heard I was leaving. They offered a job in Washington; I declined. Then the calls became more insistent, implying I had a moral obligation to help because of what they had done for me; it was rather like the Waldorf scenario, but this time I accepted, although I said I would only work for them for one year.
 
I came back self confident, arrogant and much in demand socially and I quickly forgot about the one year idea, plunging into my job; and I plunged into a whirlwind social life. It was the '80's  and Ronald Reagan was a powerful drug. I fell happily into a comfortable life of self indulgence.
 
A Rough Guide
 
I would hate to think how I would have been were I not praying during this time. Muhammad said, "The five daily prayers are like a stream in which you bathe; if you wash five times daily, you will be clean". On the other hand, as Albert Speer said, "It is hard to recognize the devil when he has his hand on your shoulder", fulfilling your desires. God truly kept me from self destruction.
 
One day in 1981, I was walking home from a friend's where we had been drinking and smoking, I became convinced I was having a heart attack, was disoriented and walked all the way home in the searing heat of the Washington summer; by the time I got home I felt like I was dying. I spent the weekend in bed and went to the doctor on Monday, who attributed it all to stress and simply prescribed me 5 mg of Valium daily.   
 
I was happy that I wasn't dying, but it was brought home to me that I someday would. (Up to now I had dealt with death by avoidance; I would not attend funerals or wakes.) I realized that death would be quite inopportune under my present circumstances. My life at this point would not have been missed by many, nor did I think I had made the type of contribution to life that I was able to. The Gospel parable of the talents came to me, and I realized that I had not only buried what I had been given, but that I had even forgotten where. I resolved to pray more and delved into the works of the Sufi's more seriously; Al-Ghazali, Rumi, Hakim Sana'i; the Ihya Ulum-ud-Din, the Alchemy of Happiness, the Walled Garden of Truth.
 
The sign of the Sufi's is the winged heart, and the way of the Sufi's is love of God and the goal of the Sufi is the annhilation of the self in the love of God. This was all very simply what Christ taught; I realized that I had fled Christianity and Christ because it demanded the death of the unbridled self in the face of our self-idolizing culture. Orthodox Islam was clouded by legalism, which led me to believe that as long as the laws were observed, the self could reign. Yet the Sufi's teach that the idols of today which are set up against God are in men's hearts; wealth, sex, power - the very passions of the self.
 
The way was so much the same. The only thing missing was the apprehensible reality of God's love for us and to us, Jesus Christ, and the sure promise of eternal life through redemption and the resurrection. I was coming close, but I had not yet the courage to accept Christ back into my life; I continued to rationalize him away.
 
Learning not to Rock the Boat before Boarding
 
A headhunter matched me up with a local company which was in the process of rapid growth. Now the people in this company were positively driven and consumed by their work; they were creating a corporate culture with incredibly high standards and demands. The discipline was good for me, and the absolute submission to the authority of the president of the company taught me loyalty and obedience to something other than myself, and the learning environment taught me humility. It was one anvil against which my character was pounded back into shape.
 
When I was in high school I would go out at night and run the one mile to our parish church and walk home; it was an exhilarating mystical experience, being enveloped by the solitary enormity of the darkness and praying in the rhythm of running; I had been able to run at the novitiate as well. I now re-learned the habit of running and praying. I was not surprised to learn later of the Buddhist Sri Chinmoy, whose meditative technique is running. His group’s motto is "Runner's are smilers". All of this made me conscious of my health and keeping my body in good shape, and "a sound mind in a sound body" began to have meaning to me.
 
Now occurred an event, which may seem trivial, which made possible the rest of my life. It was my greatest personal accomplishment
 
Ever since high school, I had been smoking cigarettes. In my last two college years when I was working full time and taking full time classes, I began smoking heavily (I was not aware that smoking depresses your appetite) and by the time I graduated I was hopelessly addicted and smoking 3 packs of cigarettes per day. When I was pinched for money, I would buy cigarettes before I would buy food. I had tried countless times to stop, without success. On September 10, 1987 I had my last cigarette and when I had gone a year smoke free I was a new man.
 
Words cannot convey what it means to be free of an addiction, albeit a legal one, free of something which controlled your life and over which you had no control, something against which you had failed countless times. I cannot imagine what hell drug addicts go through. After I gave up cigarettes, I knew I could really do a lot of the hard things in life I had been avoiding. I knew I could take control of, or at least responsibility for, the direction of my life. The experience gives me some hint of what the resurrection really means.
 
After this my career took off. I was given responsibility for a group of hotels. For the first time I felt like I was succeeding when I was. I had to admit to myself that this relentless pursuit of success in business was not because that was what I wanted to do, but because I had been shaken by the failure of my first managerial stint at age 23 and had to prove to myself that I could do it right. I also realized, as I had years earlier, that I wanted to do more than just spend my life making money for someone else or even myself.
 
My new company culture had made me more respectful of money, but I was a socialist at heart. Since real estate was the watchword of the go-go eighties, I bought property. In Gone with the Wind, Mr. O'Hara soberly admonishes Scarlett[:] "Land is everything". It does change your way of thinking and can cut two ways; one is akin to the vow of stability and is positive and the other is akin to rampant capitalism, putting property over people. This was a real lesson. My wise father always said "Do not encumber yourself with 'stuff'". Well, the house was stuff and a second full time job. It did reinforce discipline and responsibility, but I was happy to sell it off when preparing for another heave of the air raft.
 
God Sends a Beacon
 
Each year for Christmas I would drive up to Rochester, New York to be with my family. The drive goes along the Susquehanna River and through the mountains of Pennsylvania and the southern tier of New York state. I always looked forward to these drives of 7 hours. This was a time to be alone, apprehend the natural beauty along the way and generally lean back into the arms of God.
 
In 1988 this tuned out to be a special trip up, the road to Damascus I call it. As I was listening to Christmas carols, out of the blue the question came to me clearly and insistently:  “Who do you say Jesus Christ really is ?”...he whom I had been putting out of my mind and rationalizing away for 20 years. It is difficult to explain, but my life and spiritual growth had reached critical mass, and the answer first came as a cascade of connections and then an explosion of love and faith…God from God. In an affective way, I identified with the prodigal son. Twenty years earlier I had written a poem to "You whom I call God", which was accusatory in tone. I wrote then “What have you saved me from ? What difference has Jesus Christ made in the world ?" My conclusion then was "nothing". From the vantage point of an additional 20 years and a better understanding of sin, I understood differently and the meaning of "The kingdom of God is within you" had a real meaning.
 
For the first 21 years of my life I studied Catholicism unquestioningly, without real understanding, the same way I memorized trigonometric formulas (which God knows I never understood.) I then studied Islam thirsting for understanding, and I recall readily many passages of the Quran, traditions of Muhammad and lessons of Islamic saints which I understood and incorporated into my life. In my process of learning I would mentally cross-reference these with Christian parallels, but because understanding of so many things came to me through the door of Islam, the Islamic words often come to mind. I feel self-conscious about this now as a Christian, but as God would have it, I would not be here if I had not been there.
 
The great foundation of Islam is the unity of God; Teilhard's great message is the unity of creation in Christ. I affectively understood the mystery of the Trinity, which in no way detracts from the unity. This was wonderful stuff, but I had been used to practicing my faith in the privacy of my mind and in prayer, allowing bits and pieces to spill over into my active life. I had been separated from the community of faith; Muhammad said "He who removes himself but a hand's breadth from the community is lost". I did not feel lost, but I knew I had come close. Yet I was still distrustful of the institutional church; I thought it was enough to have accepted Christ along the road.
 
The Qur'an says "If you take but one step toward God, he will take ten steps toward you." In that drive to Rochester it had occurred to me that the reason I had been so dissatisfied with my life, was that I had been running from the religious vocation I had once pursued. I reasoned that this was kind of ridiculous at my age and attempted to put the idea out of my mind. What did come to the forefront of my mind was the Qur'anic concept of the mizan, the balance of life. I realized that my life was now almost evenly balanced between years of belief and service to God and years of selfish struggle; I was approaching the point from which the meaning of my life would be determined on the mizan. I knew which direction I wanted to take, but which road. Another concept from "The Lords Prayer"  of Islam, "Guide us along the straight path, the path of those who incur Your favor, not the path of those who earn Your anger nor the path of those who go astray." The path that kept popping up in mind was the priesthood. I felt, at any rate, that it would do no harm to reinvestigate the church.
 
This Way to China
 
As it happens, I had just met a former Carmelite who was youth minister at the Catholic church 3 blocks away from my house, so I went to attend Sunday mass, slipping in to the back pew, just in case I had to beat a hasty retreat. My only impression of that day was that I was disappointed by the homily (I wanted to be edified) which was entirely about a business matter which was pre-occupying the parish. However I was touched enough to return the following Sunday and was greatly moved by the mass, the priest and the homily; this was a church of the winged heart. It was a united nations, with parishioners 50% immigrants of 100 different nationalities, 25% white americans and 25% black Americans. I began attending regularly, always sitting in the back pew
 
During this time the young assistant at my church preached a homily in which he related his experience as a young child climbing a tree. He had climbed too high and could not get down. His father came and stood beneath him and told him not to worry and to jump down, and he would catch him in his arms. The little boy was as afraid to jump as to climb down, but eventually jumped into his fathers arms. We needed to have enough faith, Father Patrick said, to let go and jump into the arms of God. This had a great affect upon me; I would put myself in God's hands. I gradually became more active in the church. I first determined to help with what was the least popular activity but critical for the parish, i.e. bingo, and then was asked to assist as an usher. 
 
The five daily prayers are one of the great pillars of Islam. At all hours of the day, somewhere believers are turning toward Mecca, the site of Abraham's temple, and praying to God. As the earth rotates the prayers ripple across its face like a series of waves, giving constant praise to God. I recalled that the church's cosmic wave of praise was the divine office, as we prayed it in the novitiate, and so trotted off to the Newman Book Store to pick up the volume of Christian Prayer and the Office of Readings, which I began to pray again. I accelerated my activity in the parish and became a lector.
 
While all of this was going on, I was feeling more wholesome than I ever had, embracing celibacy, giving up the bad habits of a lifetime and my career was doing just fine. I just could not shake the notion of a vocation, it was gnawing at me.
 
The Boat and other Options
 
It was at this point that I visited my former classmate, with whom I began this story. I told him about my thoughts, thinking he would disabuse me of this silly notion. He did not, and even encouraged me; I reviewed my spiritual journey with him and he gave me guidance.
 
Well, after our first meeting, I thought I should get a second opinion. A classmate of mine who had been one of my best friends in high school is a Discalced Carmelite and was stationed in Washington. As I was re-approaching the church I had re-established contact with him and he helped the process along. I told him that I was thinking about a vocation; "I thought so" he said, and also encouraged me, while admonishing me to test myself lest my impulses simply be the fiery glow of re-conversion.
 
I knew the real test would be time… would I be faithful, would the "glow" last ?
 
While I had come to know and acknowledge sin, I did not believe in "Satan", the obstacle and force opposing God. Yet in analyzing my life past, I saw the effects of this unseen hand. As I now was determining a new positive direction I was amazed to see temptation and negative forces rise up at every turn to dissuade me. Suddenly I was in great social demand, anyone I so much as cast a glance at wanted to hop into bed with me; my job was going so well I was tempted with power and a change of direction. Whatever was desirable and would get in the way of a religious life was mine for the asking. That's why the Waldorf metaphor means so much to me now. At the onset of all this, I saw the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" which was so scorned. I was quite moved by the central thesis and understood much more the humanity of Christ and how empathetic Christ was with my condition. As it always has, prayer sustained me.
 
When I was very young, I was given a children’s bible, where all was in story form. Two old testament stories were for some reason burned in my mind; one was the call of the young Samuel, "Here I am, Lord" and the other is of Moses in prayer with his arms upheld by Aaron and Hur, the tide of battle ebbing and flowing with his constancy.
 
During these recent years I have been struck by the death of many friends and acquaintances, from heart attacks, accidents, cancer and aids, which have taken away many good friends. These are people on whose shoulders I stand, people who in their own way held my arms aloft. So as I turned forty, I went in for a "40,000 mile check up." I was pleased to be in general good health, with high cholesterol and a tad overweight. I changed my diet and brought my weight and cholesterol into line.
 
Everything which I thought would show me I didn't have a vocation and was an obstacle seemed to be vanishing, one of the biggest ones being the sale of the house and settlement of debts. I knew the clock was ticking and I had better make some choices. I started getting occasional informal spiritual direction from my assistant pastor and began looking for a community. All the communities I looked into, however, seemed like men off on their own missions , and above all no common prayer life. Everything seemed to be pointing to this group which I had been warned against: the Benedictines.
 
So I read the Rule of St Benedict. I was quite impressed, and quite relieved that there was no mandatory flagellation or anything else I wouldn't be up to. This was real community and was a working rule, exactly analogous to the way of the Sufi masters. Was this where I was being led ?
 
I sent off a barrage of inquiries, not knowing where to start, but right away the reply from St. Louis stood out and spoke to me… “Bound for freedom.”  Also the Franciscans and others spoke …”No.” Loving animals didn’t help at all. I then waited a while. During this time I was reading Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart and the Cloud of Uknowing and a marvelous book by Abhishiktananda, a Benedictine living in India who wove together the threads of eastern and western prayer traditions. The call seemed to me louder than ever and I determined to answer.
 
One day I was called upon by our parish DRE, who asked me to speak at a "rap session" on Islam. It was the first time I told my story to anyone other than a priest, and the first time I tied together a lot of the threads that make up this narrative. It reinforced my conviction that deep down people want help with spiritual problems more than anything else, and that I could contribute more, love more, in that way more so than in social matters.
 
So I took the plunge and visited Saint Louis.
 
The monastic life appealed to me because it is the freedom to live and work in the love of God, it is centered upon prayer, its work is prayer and it is supported by community, which provides the strength to persist, the roots from which to grow in love and service. I have learned in life that the contributions most important, most significant are the personal ones, the positive influence one life has upon another, the words whispered in the ear, the lesson lived rather than delineated, and the more centered the source of the contribution, the greater the effect. I see monks contributing to life in this way, as a powerful transmitter of God's love and care and as a living sign of contradiction, as the cross is, to the world, showing the way home to God.

Abbot Michael at various stages of life (Incredible!)

 
Welcome Aboard…The Right Boat
 
So, St Louis Abbey accepted me despite all my baggage, which was too heavy for most Orders for whom I was either too old or too strange. Benedictines are good at that.
 
Anyone in the know about Benedictines (which I was not) knows that monks and monasteries are famous for their hospitality. So a Benedictine monastery was quite appropriate for a career person in the hospitality industry. St. Benedict’s Rule is quite explicit. You must regard the guest as Christ and treat him or her accordingly.
 
It is an amazing thing to experience from other human beings what we hope to experience from God, complete acceptance and respect. I had been used to giving hospitality, not only to paying guests in my hotels but also by accepting those who were radically different…poor, African, Muslim, for example, into my life and to identifying with them. But to be accepted and identified with when you are the different one is equally blessed and grace filled. It is humbling (in the best sense of that word) and transformative. It enables one (in a phrase from a poem I wrote years ago) “to live forever already.” God is one, and yet God is a community of three distinct persons; and so God’s life and bliss encompass the multiplicity of humanity. God is divine hospitality.
 
In the spring of 1994 I was accepted as a postulant in the Benedictine community of Saint Louis Abbey to begin there in August 1994. I looked forward eagerly to begin this new life, but with some anxiety. Sometime in this period I had a vivid dream in which I was vested as a cleric & processing down the main aisle of a church toward one of those old ornate gothic pulpits. When I came to the base of the pulpit a black man emerged from the congregation, put a headlock on me & pulled me to the floor where he put his face up to mine and sternly warned me "Don't forget us." What could that mean ? Was I making wrong choice to enter a community serving an affluent white population ? This would bother me for the next two years.
 
I was talking to an old friend from my wildest days in New York about my doubts. In speaking of the monks I said “They’re so English, so stuffy, so rigid, so conservative.” My friend burst into laughter. I asked what was so funny. “So are you !” he said. That was a revelation; the truth will set you free.
 
I joyfully sold off & disbursed my assets and "retired" on June 30. In early July I took a six week train journey around the US , which I call my Farewell Tour.
 
In August 1994 I arrived at the Abbey as a long term guest, which state leads to postulancy. In this state one lives the life of a monk but doesn't have much to do. This was a constant irritant to me, but I realized that I had to make a transition from a "go-go" executive & businessman to something more tranquil. How did I cope ? On a superficial level, but one which I felt keenly, I was annoyed the the geophrical disorientation; I knew I was in St. Louis, but I didn’t know landmarks, streets, suburbs and neighborhoods. Any conversation, statement or news broadcast that dealt with location was totally beyond my comprehension. Time would take care of that, but that annoyance was symptomatic of experiencing a loss of control. I was no longer the boss. Since I had lived by myself, silence in verbal communication was not a problem, but I had been used to living surrounded by music and TV, movies and news, so that took some adjustment. In all the new demands I found that channeling my displaced energy into the realities of my new situation helped resolve irritations and conflicts. (This is a very ancient Buddhist practice, “right concentration.) The monastery has beautiful, spacious grounds, and simply to walk and apprehend nature (for me especially, the birds) was both calming and constructive spiritually and prayerful; and so were running on the track and working out in the school’s weight room.
 
Learning how to read again, not just speed reading for practical information, but lectio divina and more leisurely reading for appreciation and understanding was a great gift. And following my natural curiosity to learn all the monastic arcana I could was another outlet. Trying to do the best I could in the sacristy jobs I had, polishing silver, cleaning up candle wax, setting up for liturgies, also helped… although it made cleaning up candle wax seem more important to me than it objectively is. The biggest help in adjustment was, however, the understanding, sympathy and help of the monks, all of whom had been through the same thing before me. All of this was working, and after a few weeks I felt quite at home reading, praying and working in this revolutionary way of life.
 
After Christmas, I took a nosedive. I only learned later that I suffer from seasonal depression, but in the throes of it I left and returned to Washington and my old company. But I stayed in touch with the Abbey and when spring came, I knew I had made a mistake in leaving.
 
Consequently on a visit to the Abbey, I was invited to accept the position of youth minister at the Abbey's parish in Saint Louis.  A few strange incidents made leaving Washington difficult, and I felt I was being given a message not to go back yet. I did not understand why this could be because on the surface, my return to St. Louis appeared to be a good solution to my difficulties and a way to return to the path I had chosen. And so I began again in August 1996.
 
I grew tremendously spiritually & intellectually. I was able to take courses as well as work, but my life was different from most of the monks; the parish worked on a different rhythm. My involvement reinforced my doubts about working with the affluent & often provoked anger in me. The new abbot & monks also seemed to be making a subtle but definite turn to the right. While many things were going right, I was very unsettled by these things. At the same time I allowed myself to be manipulated by a friend into loaning him large sums of money from my lines of credit. By the time I discovered what was happening & that he was buying drugs, it was impossible for me to enter the novitiate due to my debt. The abbot & I searched for some practical solutions, but the best seemed to be a return to Washington, where I was assured of a good paying job.
 
Yet God also blessed me with the opportunity to work in my old parish, which had so artfully led me back to the church.
 
Finally in August 1997, I entered the novitiate and never looked back.
 
No one was more consternated than I that I had these false starts. I knew all along this was a test of my resolve & moral fiber. In the end I gave it to God & trusted His will to work it out. I’d been impressed by the story of someone asking a monk "What do you do in the monastery?" The monk replied, "We fall and get up, we fall and get up."
 
This is my only expectation in monastic life. To continue my journey toward God with the help of my brothers, falling and getting up again, helping them as well, contributing to the community life and work, falling and getting up in that too. The way of obedience to the abbot is a way of purification, the refiners fire; I know that fire burns, but I have seen the results too, and they are worth it.
 
It is within community that I found the answer to the question: “For what purpose is my life ?” It is within the life and work of the community that my past experiences and mistakes made and lessons learned bear fruit for the good of others. It is within the Benedictine monastery, in slow paced middle-America, following the Rule of St. Benedict, that I have become the genuine socialist revolutionary I always wanted to be, living a counter cultural existence in radical freedom to love God and others.
 
This is not always easy. I know that I will be tempted to go back to a more comfortable existence, to self indulgent pleasures, as I am tempted even now to find a comfortable career and indulge in sinful pleasures. Temptations even morph; although one is never tempted beyond one's strength, as I have gotten stronger in my faith and conviction I have seen the temptations change; some “Waldorf” always looms out from a fog shrouded, seemingly near but distant shore.
 
 
Epilogue: to China…
 
Columbus set out for, and at first thought he had reached India. He soon learned the truth. I am under no illusion that my monastery is China, just a boat that will surely get me there.
 
So here I am searching, falling & getting up, on this strange, unmarked, watery route along which God is still leading me in this monastic community.
 
It was a challenge going back to school, but I loved it.
It was a challenge to start teaching high school boys, but I love it.
It was a tremendous challenge to become a priest, but I love it.
It was a challenge to become headmaster, but I’m learning to love it.
 
No doubt there will be other challenges, but God will show the way to navigate them.
 
China is always just over the horizon, but on a slow boat you grow and learn. And in the fullness of time, you will arrive.