Here I will relate in a nutshell (and through the lens of hindsight and maturity) the story of Maggie. If you want the raw, unfiltered, immature and dramatic account, start reading my entries from February 17th, 2003. Remember that Xanga is funny (though I love Xanga!), so when you read the entry on the other side of the given link, you must go all the way to the bottom of the page, click “Previous 5,” and then start reading from the bottom of the page and up. Rinse, repeat. Also, please be merciful, for these entries were written when I was a college freshman, had not yet had a girlfriend, and was still somewhat upset about the events I blogged about. I was immature and inexperienced, and though I meant no offense to the true Maggie at the time (I was merely relating a tale and venting some), the rawness of the telling upset her fianceé enough to not allow me to attend their wedding, even though by the time of this event Maggie and I were on good and friendly terms. But you might find them interesting.

Enough procrastinating! Though, true procrastinators never get enough.

I first got to know Maggie as a junior in high school, as we were in the same small class. She was tall with long hair and always wore full length skirts. She was smart, kind, sweet and just the kind of girl a young, hopeless romantic knight like myself would fall head-over-heels for. So that’s what I did. As the school year went on, we became closer and closer friends and I carefully allowed my heart to swell in love for her. But I dared not tell her; I was so afraid of a repeat (refer back to my last entry when I told Josephine that I loved her) that I was hoping she would say something about her feelings for me, first.

Eventually prom time came around, and I was not planning on going. I claimed at the time it was because I didn’t like such things and had no interest in it. Truly, though, I was terrified of having to ask someone, in particular the particular someone that I had particular feelings about. However there was a day, at the time a very glorious and wonderful day, when the sky opened and angels sang, and Maggie met me outside the library and asked if I was going to prom. I said no, and she said something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s too bad; I was hoping you’d go with me.”

Well of COURSE I said yes. That was the “something” I was waiting for! Surely this meant she felt the same about me if she wanted me to be at her side during prom!

So I ordered a pinstriped zoot suit to match her lovely cherry-red dress and black shawl. I even cleaned up my mom’s car–a nice red convertible–so pick her up in. No one in Tipton had a classier prom than my Maggie.

After prom was over and done with, we went back to my house where I surprised her with a small picnic of strawberries, sparkling grape juice, and other bits. Mother Nature surprised us with rain, so we nibbled on the fingerfood in the garage and watched “The Patriot” because it was on hand. It took the entire length of the movie for me to finally admit to her my feelings for her, and she was silent.

Being young, male, and romantic, it meant more to me that she didn’t say anything remotely resembling a “no.” So when the morning revealed a gray and rainy 7am or so, I took her home and returned to my bed to sleep until almost dinner time. Though I slept like the conquered slain, I was most certainly, in my mind, a victor!

A week passed.

It was a strange week at that. I remember how distant she seemed during that week when it seemed that we should be closer. By the middle of the week we realized that we needed to talk, so we set a time and place for the following Saturday (for the full and dramatic details of that day, refer to my past blogs mentioned above. Again, be merciful and remember I was a high schooler!).

We talked mainly by saying nothing, and she eventually gave me a note. For many months after, when I was wallowing in a self-imposed pit of despair, I always saw giving that note as an act of cowardice. I have since come to realize and admire the sheer courage it must have taken her, someone with such a gentle heart, to write her heart out as best she could and then hand it to someone who would likely be shattered by the contents. I know now that she had never intended to hurt me, though I was bitter about it for a long while.

The note, more or less, related that we could not be together as I desired, and that she did not possess the same feelings for me as I had for her. After I read the note she related reasons as to why not (again detailed in past entries) and I accepted them and was fine with them. I was grateful for her honesty, and I don’t think the reality had quite set in. We resolved to be friends (because it always works…) and I took her home.

The next couple of weeks were very hard; I could not hear her name or see her face without wishing for a quick death. But I eventually got over it, and things seemed to be OK between us.

She graduated about a month later, and then the summer began. I would call or write once every so often, but none of my letters or phone calls were ever returned. As this stretched on, it began to distress me more and more until I thought I was going mad. Then in mid-August I found out from a mutual friend of ours that she would be leaving for college the very next day, and I tried all day to call her, just to say goodbye. She never returned any call. I was fairly devastated, but took it in stride. The true sadness wouldn’t set in for a few more days.

By this time, Josephine and I were good friends again and though there was still a small flame burning in my heart for her, it was not enough to interfere with a good friendship. Josephine came by the day after Maggie had left for school, and we went out for a ride during the night. She asked me why I wasn’t at Maggie’s going away party the night before; Josephine thought it strange that I was not there, since I am one of Maggie’s close friends. I was pretty surprised and answered, “I didn’t know about any party…” Josephine was even more surprised than I and asked if I knew she was dating her former boyfriend. I had no idea.

You see, one of the reasons she did not feel we could be together is because of the way her relationship with this man ended. It turns out that the Silent Summer was an effort on Maggie’s part to keep this a secret, because she knew that it would hurt me if I found out. Again, being young and immature I saw this as a deep betrayal and I was absolutely crushed. I languished over her for several months, thinking myself cursed to be spurned so “callously” two times in a row. I felt doomed to wander the earth alone forever, that I was unworthy of love.

This mindset slowly began to change when I became acquainted with the wonderful, charming and enigmatic Kelly.

Now, what does this sad little ditty have to do with my vocation?

Again, this was a time of great “heart-sculpting.” The events of this love radically altered the geography and geology of my heart forever. It was the deepest pain I had experienced in my life up to that point, it was my first perceived experience of deep betrayal, and it was the first time in my life that I truly fell into despair. Was God being cruel? I sure thought He was, but I was a very dramatic young person at the time. I see more clearly now that He was continuing what He started with Josephine, trying to temper my enormous capacity to love into something a little more realistic. Instead of seeing queens whenever I fell in love, God wanted me to see and love women for who and what they were instead of illuminating the text of their being with all sorts of hopes and romantic notions. He wanted to ground me in the earth of real loving and did so by knocking me flat on my back. Boy did I need it!

Today Maggie is happily (I hope!) married to that same man she kept a secret from me. I last saw her about a year ago and she seems to be well, though I do not keep in touch with her. I forgave her (though really, I should have begged her forgiveness!) the following year after she graduated high school, when I happened upon her at a mutual friend’s graduation reception. This was, truly, the first time I had ever forgiven someone, and understood at least a little bit the importance of such an act. I felt so light and free after ridding my heart of such a heavy burden of resentment and mourning, especially after having forced my poor self to carry it for close to a full year. This, I think, was yet another grace of the whole experience, for how could I possibly begin venturing into the religious life if I had no idea what it meant to forgive and be forgiven?

I first met Josephine as a high school freshman. One of my friends and I were stranded after a football came, and it just so happened that Josephine was nearby. She knew my friend from the cross country team and offered us rides home. Earlier in the evening I had found a quarter lying on the ground (I was so proud of myself) and decided that I would offer the quarter in gratitude. She smiled and accepted it, and took us home. I still remember her smiling in the moonlight that autumn night.

As I mentioned before, I became friends with her as she dated my best friend at the time, and I admit I was kind of jealous, often feeling, too, that she deserved better, and just as often thought that “better” meant “me.” But I loved my friends, and I was always faithful to them both. Eventually, though, their relationship ended.

As my sophomore year continued, so did my friendship with Josephine. Since she was no longer with my best friend, I felt it was safe for me to allow my heart to long for her and love her even more. Really, I was quite doomed, for I knew her well and she was in my eyes very lovely.

As the summer of my sophomore year began to draw near, so, too did her graduation from high school. I had not yet told her how I felt about her, and I was not the most articulate high school sophomore. As poor and cowardly as it sounds, it was with all the courage I could muster that one night over the phone I admitted to her that I loved her and that I would do anything she asked of me. There was what seemed to be an infinite silence hanging in the air before she spoke again, replying to my offer.

“I want you to not love me anymore, Jake.”

I really could not believe what I was hearing at the time, but out of blind obedience I responded, “If that is what you want, I will do it.”

Our friendship was not the same after that, there always being an uneasiness when we were around each other. But inside my heart was a deep and rending pain as I tried to come to terms with what had happened. I had so long waited for love(because to a high school sophomore, waiting from 6th grade until 10th grade to find love seems like an eternity) and when I had finally found it, had finally experienced the joy it brings, it was denied. More than denied, really; it was like asking a fire to extinguish itself, and such a feat is near impossible.

Yet, when it is motivated by love, such strange things are completely possible. Over time I eventually came to terms with it, and I stopped loving her, and God (though I didn’t realize it at the time) was so merciful to me, for normally a person learns to not love a person by hating them instead. I never resorted to hating Josephine but instead drowned my love for her in sorrow and feeling that I was unworthy of such a woman. Not that such methods are much better than hate, but at least it was my burden to bear and not hers.

How does this experience play into my vocation? Truly, I don’t know, but I’ve felt over the past couple of years that what this experience blessed me with was a broken heart. Broken hearts, in God’s eyes, are like lumps of clay; if we offer Him a broken heart, He will transform it into a great masterpiece over the length of our lives. But if we offer Him a heart that feels complete and whole, then the work is already finished; what is there for Him to do? If God was going to do anything with me, my heart needed breaking again and again and again….

Time went on, as it always does. Josephine went off to college and we remained in touch to a certain degree. It was in my junior year of high school that I fell in love again, harder and for someone I felt was closer to my heart in such areas as morality and wishing to live a good life above much of what was going on with other people our age. Her name, for the purpose of this telling, was Maggie.

And as for Josephine, don’t judge her too harshly for her demand to stop loving her. She has other parts to play in this tale… wait and see…

 A few of you have expressed interest in hearing (or reading, rather) about how I decided to start on the path to priesthood. This is a long tale, but fortunately for the both of us, this will provide several entries-worth of work.

I often recount to others a certain segment of the tale, surely the most significant, which I will for now call the Laura Chronicles. But, because so many of my current readers were not even aware of my existence during the actual time I entered discernment, I will start from the very, very beginning.

The first hint of my vocation was experienced when I was in middle school, perhaps seventh or eighth grade. I do not remember the exact year, but I remember the moment well. My cousin, Eric, had just returned to my home after hunting turkeys with my father. I was at the dinner table (folding laundry, I think) and he was standing in the kitchen doorway in his camo pants and a t-shirt sipping on a cold beer. He looked at me and, in all seriousness, said, “Jacob, you have the right attitude to be a priest.” I looked at him in surprise and said, “Really? Huh.”

Priesthood at this time in my life was not even at the very bottom of my list of possible things to do with my life. As early as sixth grade, when I got over wanting to be a paleontologist or an astronaut, I wanted to be a dad. I wanted a wife, and I wanted kids; my career was a secondary interest, but it was starting to lean toward something involving music. Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyways) I filed “priesthood” in the “forget about it” folder and moved on with my life.

I remember a time early in high school when I was at Thursday Night CCD at St. Mary’s Hall. I was speaking with my best friend Brandon afterwards, chugging down Sprite and eating potato chips. We both admired our priest a great deal and thought about how cool it would be to live in the nice rectory and only work on Sundays and be your own boss. So we decided that, if the Vatican ever decided to allow married priests, we’d drop whatever we were doing and become priests, living the “easy life.” I know now that the priesthood is the furthest thing from the easy life that I can think of! But, hey, I was just a kid.

During my freshman year of high school I finally and fully overcame the idea that girls were icky and decided that they were OK to have as friends. I had had a crush on a girl in seventh grade, but had my romantic illusions dashed when I actually began to find out about the real person behind that beautiful face. I was very wary about letting myself get too “mushy” about girls and, besides, there was not a single woman in my high school that could possibly find me attractive. I was a nerd, kinda chubby, big geeky glasses and if I had to choose between life and Star Wars, well, let’s say I didn’t really have a life.

Eventually I made friends with a girl who was two years older than I, whom I will call Josephine. She eventually dated my best friend, and I soon became her confidant and ambassador between the two whenever they were unable to communicate with the other. I came to know her very well, and we became fast friends.

One evening while I was washing dishes, Josephine called and invited me over to her house to watch a movie. I asked my father and he said, “Will her parents be there?” Mind you, I was a high school freshman at the time and felt QUITE old enough to handle watching a movie with a friend, even without parental supervision. However, her parents were out of town and my father did not grant his permission for me to go. I was very upset, and when I asked why he wouldn’t let me go he responded, “I remember what it was like when I was your age, and you don’t need to be put in those kinds of situations.”

Irate is a good word to describe how I felt. I felt so judged and so dismissed, simply because I was young and male and my father was reckless when he was the same. I certainly understand better now that I am older, and I am very grateful that my father was so very watchful of me. But at the time I was extremely upset.

That night I stewed hotly about what it was that I should do in light of such “treatment.” I realized that my father had no idea who I was, what kinds of decisions I was capable of making, how I thought of and related to women, etc. I then realized, too, that I could hardly answer these questions myself. That night I began thinking about who I was, who I wanted to be, and how I should live my life.

During this period of my life, anything medieval appealed to me a great deal. I wanted more than anything to live the life of a knight, but I had always put it aside as a childish fantasy. However, my blood was hot and my mind wild, and I decided that I would try my best to live a life a chivalry and I would never, ever have sex before I was married.

The next night I went outside under the bright moon and decided, in my romantic and somewhat rash way, that I would swear a blood oath to God (being He was the only king I could think to pledge my service to) that I would live a life of chivalry as best as I knew how, and that I would not have sex until I was married. I initially want to gash open the top of my forearm like in the movies, but I chickened out (come on, getting cut hurts a lot!) and just sawed the blade back and forth until it started to bleed just a little. I figured that would be enough to “seal the deal” and went back into the house, my heart swelling with a sense of pride, renewal, direction and adventure.

Being so young and unable to truly grasp such a concept as chivalry and knighthood, I made my oath the same as the one from the movie Dragonheart. Yeah, yeah, a movie, I know, but those words struck me very deep and still do. I used to say them every day until they were committed to memory, and I recited them in my mind whenever I needed help in making a decision.

“A knight is sworn to valor. His heart knows only virtue. His blade defends the helpless. His might upholds the weak. His word speaks only truth. His wrath undoes the wicked.”

I decided that since I couldn’t run around school with a sword, my resolve to live a good and virtuous life would be my blade, and my disdain for some of the things going on in school and in the world would be enough wrath to let people know my thoughts on partying, sex, drugs, and other such things.

Early on it was pretty easy to follow these guidelines, with the most difficult being that of telling the truth at all times. But I found more and more that I truths are like round mountains, the mountain being taller and more difficult to climb as the truth was harder, such as admitting to someone that you stole from them, whereas telling the truth about where you hid your sister’s book would be like a small hill. However, to lie would be to simply walk around the truth, and since lying really gets you nowhere, you cannot simply walk past the truth. You circle around it, sometimes multiple times, but eventually you end up right where you began when you confronted it in the first place. As you tried to walk around it, the mountain grew, making itself even more difficult to overcome. So many people would avoid so much pain and problem if they simply had the courage to tell the truth before building it up with lies first! Now I cannot bear to tell a lie unless it is part of a very harmless joke; I cannot even play poker well.

As my efforts to live a chivalrous life began to permeate all aspects of my existence, people started to notice my character more and more, especially the women I went to school with. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my admiration and adoration of women as beautiful gifts in my life (instead of raw meat to be devoured in a vain attempt to satiate a sexual appetite) earned the trust of many womenfolk and lay the foundation for many wonderful, chaste friendships. Many young women whom I did not know except for name and face would come to me at my locker to pour out their hurts and frustrations, myself having been recommended to them by some mutual friend or other. At first it was quite terrifying as a young sophomore to learn so much about the inner workings of young high school women, but more and more my heart went out to them and I realized the great need that all women feel to have a gentleman in their life, a man that will listen (not just hear), will see (not just look or STARE), will hug them when they need it (not grope or cop), is gentle and genuinely caring, with no underlying motives to have his own lusts satisfied. I was so honored and blessed to have the hearts of so many opened up before me, and I quickly became the envy of many men, and was even more socially exiled from them.

Not that it bothered me much.

It was also during my sophomore year, though, that I fell in love for the first time. Her name, for this telling, will be Josephine.