Please forgive me: I’m mostly just trying to catch my thoughts with this one. I guess that’s the point of the newsletter. In the beginning I thought I’d taken enough hits to be able to dispense some advice and encouragement to men in similar crucibles. I thought the hard part was over. Turns out that was incredibly naive. So, here I am at a monastery in Oklahoma trying to sort things out.
Life begins early here at the monastery. For me, that’s usually around 4:00 AM, although usually not by choice. When I open my eyes in the morning, it’s like I can already hear Mom & Dad up and shouting.
Actually, that’s less of a metaphor than I was going for…
However, it’s a sacred time, those moments before daybreak, and for the last six days I’ve been here, every morning begins as though God spilled a cauldron of hot, molten yellow iron across the horizon, just on the other side of the trees on the edge of the property. It oozes between the treetops and ignites the clouds, if there are any.
That molten sunshine brings the heat. I don’t think a single one of these mornings has started cooler than 80 degrees. That’s Oklahoma in late July, apparently.
I try to get a walk in, but after a disastrous attempt to walk around the pond on Morning #1, I scrapped the long prayer walk for the relatively short walk around the monastery itself. Why disastrous? Well, maybe that’s not the right word. Nightmare would probably be better.
There is plenty of space to get a one-mile walk in. It’s my bare minimum for a prayer walk. I can do a whole rope in less than half a mile, and then it’s “freestyle” prayer or day planning after that. But my system requires a one-mile minimum for maximum prayer/planning “effectiveness.” Plus, it’s exactly the right distance for my coffee to remain at a drinkable temperature in the mug I use, even in winter time.
However, the mile+ path I attempted goes around the pond. The pond is dotted with trees whose branches are low enough for spiders to spin webs from branch to field grass. I discovered that in the dark on Morning #1. Silky strings criss-crossed my face and alighted on my hands. The first time it happened I chucked my coffee straight into the air and almost showered myself with it.
I didn’t realize the true horror of it until later in the day when I took the path again. What I saw, in the late dawn light, was horrific - HUGE spiderwebs stretching 10-15 feet high, with quarter-sized field spiders residing in them. There were at least half a dozen of these man-catchers crossing the path I’d intended to take. If I’d soldiered on, I’d have had at least one of them on me.
I thought I’d beaten arachnophobia…
Fortunately, as one might expect, morning prayer time is covered INSIDE the clean and orderly monastery. So, that’s where you can find me in the morning for the time being. Right where God intended me to be, apparently.
I’ve joined Hieromonk Madai for Orthros in the little chapel on the eastern side of the complex at 7:00 AM almost every day this week. He’s a Kurd. Born in Georgia (the country, not our Georgia), raised in Russia, and educated in Greece. He speaks five languages, although English is his newest linguistic acquisition. He sometimes apologizes for his speech in perfect English.
He’s always dressed in black robes. Most of his head is covered, and his mighty, angular beard gives the impression of a Sumerian petroglyph come to life.
He makes lunch for me every work day and says, “When you are here, you are KING.” Hospitality is a thing here.
I joined him in the little chapel that first morning because I had to. One condition for staying here in the monastery was to basically live like a monk: avoid unnecessary speech, get a blessing from the abbott for just about everything, and attend all services. That sounded like a pretty big challenge for a slacker like me, but I’m here to reset, regroup, and rebuild. So, bonzai.
Fr. Madai lit the candles and opened the prayerbooks. One small reading lamp parted the gloom around us.
He sang. Mostly in English, although there was quite a lot of Greek. I recognized “theos,” and “Kyrie.” There was almost certainly some Russian, but once I peeked over his shoulder and saw the tell-tale curlicues of Georgian on the page. In all of it, particularly the prayers to the Theotokos, his soft tones warbled and moaned in ways I couldn’t produce after a lifetime on Mt. Athos.
That first morning I teetered in my fatigue, the result of another sleepless night. I definitely fell asleep on my feet at least once. Naturally that was the moment he asked me if I would like to pray.
I certainly did. My desire to do so was unequivocal. I’ve secretly wanted to be a reader at Divine Liturgy since our Melkite days almost ten years ago. Given that he was the only one I could humiliate myself in front of, the decision to go for it took less than a millisecond.
Fr. Madai tapped the spot on the page of the huge prayer book, wordlessly indicating where I should begin. It was Psalm 50.
So I read. I emulated what I think I knew from my immersion into Eastern Christianity over the years - a hodgepodge collection of Greek, Arabic, and Russian tones, with 40 years of Latin chant trying to override it, kind of like trying to run Microsoft Office on a Mac. It was a mess, but it was literally the only way I knew, so I went for it.
The next day he asked me if I wanted to pray again. And the next day. Fr. Madai invited me to chant in the three-hour vigil last night, so I guess I’m doing alright.
I’m not a monk, and while I appreciate and cautiously love this life-outside-of-the-world, I never will be one. I’m a father, though, and a husband, although I’m not sure for how much longer. The near-future holds some pretty significant changes I’ll need to “rise above” to survive.
These are prayerful days. I’ve written about prayer in this space before, though I won’t link to it. I didn’t know what I was talking about. You should pray that you never get so knocked out of your life that you feel like prayer is the only agency you have. But if you do, be grateful. A life of prayer is absolutely essential. I’ve always known that, but it took the removal of nearly everything - my career, my home, and now even my family - to really get it.
I’ll be honest - my heart took a beating last month. My soul is a metaphysical bonfire. In the past, it took far less than the new crisis to have me cursing God for “unfairness” or whatever. I’m ashamed at what I rejected my faith for in the past. It must be the enormity of this pain that shook me out of my comfortable consumer Christianity. There’s injustice like, “Bob, who is less qualified than me but got the promotion despite all my hard work,” and then there’s…this. There is evil so brazen, so cold, so delusional, that you can’t help but think, “Huh. Well then, if there’s this level of evil, there must be a God. We should probably worship Him.”
And so I do. Despite the fatigue or the myriad “more important” things I absolutely must do. I drag myself into the chapel, or pull out my prayer rope, or I crack open the prayer book to page 119, the dog-eared, crumbling, hand-oil-stained page and read the words I have almost committed to memory:
“Most blessed Lady, take my family under thy protection, plant peace in the heart of my wife, Judith, my children, Joseph, Kolbe, Cecilia and Anna, and plant there also a love and obedience to everything good…”
Remembering you and your family before the throne of grace.
And arachnophobia never goes away.
Definitely keep these updates coming, there very helpful, I’ll pray for you!