July 2, 2013

• This One Goes Out to the One(s) I Love

   

  

  What does Ancient_Scribe have to say as July 15th draws ever nigh?

   

  “Hey, I’m new to this. . . . my dear friend Jiller recommended this. I hope you enjoy whatever it is I decide to do with this place. . .  . ”

   

  This was my very first Xanga entry on February 3rd, 2003. I was a freshman at the University of Wyoming majoring in archaeology. Becoming a Jesuit priest was not on my mind whatsoever; my greatest love was Star Wars, with the video game Morrowind competing at a close second. I’d never had a girlfriend (that wouldn’t happening until the following summer), I was excited for the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King to come to theaters after The Two Towers had recently rocked my world over Christmas break. I was still trying to forgive my new friends for letting me watch the Star Wars Holiday Special (well, the half I could force myself to watch), I had let my hair and beard grow long and wild, and life was pretty much wonderful.

  Were I to travel back in time to meet my nerdier, hairier self 10.5 years ago, I doubt we’d recognize each other, physically or intellectually.

   

  When some anonymous angel here on Xanga surprised me several months ago by purchasing Premium for me, I decided back in May (when the school year had ended and all grading was done) to archive my blog. For those of you who read my vocation story (blogged in detail starting in April of 2008), many times when I tell that story people say, “You need to write a book!” Perhaps that will happen in the future should God and my superiors permit, and should it happen I will need my blog. You see this blog chronicles my journey from nerdy college freshman to nerdy college junior, to hopelessly-in-love junior, to intrigued-about-these-so-called-Jesuits junior, to conflicted-junior, to utterly-heart-crushed-senior, to heart-mending-senior, to I’m-entering-the-Society-of-Jesus. And beyond.

  When I first entered the Jesuits, I was somewhat puzzled as to what I should do with my blog. Over time it evolved from a simple blog where I talked about myself and my life to something of a ministry all its own. I cannot tell you the number of souls I have encountered and touched through this blog, the lives I’ve been able, literally, to save, the fears I’ve been able to help put to rest, the hearts I’ve encouraged and so much else. I take credit for none of it; it was all Christ. For all that I’ve done on Xanga is give words, and there is only one Word that can touch a life, and that is the Living Word of Christ. I’ve received tremendous kindness from some, and I’ve been treated the most awfully by others; I’ve been called everything from a cannibal and a vampire (because, as a Catholic, I eat and drink the flesh and blood of Christ in the Eucharist), a child molester (because I’m studying to be a priest), a Papist (guilty as charged, I suppose, but I didn’t know people were still called that), and all manner of mean things simply for being Catholic. But I’ve also been called sweet, kind, insightful, nice, loving, patient and all manner of kind things, too. I’ve seen beautiful, edifying and moving things; I’ve seen disgusting, scandalous and downright pornographic things. I’ve conversed with other Catholics, other Christians, Muslims, athesists, agnostics and every religion in between, men and women, from across the world; I’ve often considered my blog and my work on Xanga as a sort of “missionary church.” Through Xanga I’ve done a lot of Catholic mythbusting and tried to show Catholic Christianity (and Christianity in general) in a positive light, primarily by example as opposed to apologetics, unless I thought apologetics would be more effective. 

  I’ve encountered many, many beautiful souls here. I’ve met young women who have become sisters and nuns and young men who are now studying to be priests, I’ve encouraged young people who lamented that they would never fall in love and get married (now they are one or the other, or both), I’ve sometimes been the first to sincerely tell a person that they are beautiful (or been the first person they legitimately believed), I’ve called complete strangers when they desperately needed a kind ear, I’ve written letters, sent books and other gifts of support to people struggling in their faith life. There are saints being formed in this world, and I had the gift of knowing some of them here on Xanga. I’ve seen adoptions, freedom from alcohol and drugs, healing from rape and abuse, the move from atheism to belief in God, conversion from Protestant Christianity to the ancient Catholic faith; I’ve seen abortion, the downward spiral into self-destruction, depravity, the loss of faith, leaving the Church. 

  I’ve seen everything on Xanga that I see in the “real world.” 

   

  What Xanga has given me is a perspective on the wider world beyond whatever my current work is. When I was in novitiate, philosophy studies in St. Louis, caring for elderly and infirm priests, or this past year of teaching at an all-boys high school, Xanga kept me rooted in the greater world, ministering to people who were undergoing tremendous suffering or celebrating with great joy, and all the normal stuff in between. People on Xanga pressed on my intellectual and religious borders, challenging me and forcing me to grow and deepen my knowledge, hone my reasons and articulate them in such a way that real dialogue could occur. In short, Xanga has helped make me a better priest (to-be, that is; I still have four years until ordination). By listening to the stories and lives of so many here in this blog community, I’ve learned a great deal about people in general, about broken hearts and how best to tend to them, and the lessons I’ve learned from many of you has helped me in my real-world ministry.

   

  Back in August a Xangan left a comment on one of my entries:

  “Everything this person did, he did so without any God. He did it all on his own, which should be ever greater comfort. Do not ever suggest some fictitious almighty being had anything to do with it. It is an intellectual insult.”

  I never responded to him, primarily because the school year was beginning and I was caught in a whirlwind of I-have-no-idea-how-I’ll-survive-this-but-I-have-to-teach-anyways but I had always meant to make a post addressing it. This is that post.

  You see, nothing about the last seven years of my life as a Jesuit, nor about the two prior years of discernment, makes sense if it is all just “me.” What this Xangan didn’t know is that when a young man is deeply in love with the woman he is convinced he is going to marry, he doesn’t put that aside easily; literally only God could have taken her place. A young man doesn’t voluntarily give up wealth, career, marriage and family for no reason, and certainly not for reasons of insanity (during the application process I was subjected to a barrage of psychological evaluations; science says I’m perfectly sane). But let’s pretend, out of kindness for this Xangan, that yes, it was all me and that God had nothing to do with it; let’s not insult his intellect.

  Why, then, have I done all these things? Why have I taken the time to leave long, personal comments on the site of some total stranger on the other side of the globe who suffers because she thinks herself ugly and unlovable? Why write a letter to a young woman I’ve never met who is struggling to feel God’s presence in her life? Why take the insults of an angry Protestant in an effort to show him that Catholicism isn’t the ugly, un-Biblical religion he was raised to think it was? Why call a stranger who’s life is falling apart simply because he asked me to? I gain absolutely nothing from any of these things, nothing whatsoever. Sometimes these experiences leave me drained and hurt, sometimes feeling useless and despairing; sometimes, yes, I feel “good” that I’ve done something kind but I never did any of them for any kind of reward.

  Again, pretending for a moment that there is no God, why have I done all these things on Xanga; why did I remain here and give so much of myself to it?

   

  Because I love you. All of you. I believe that love and even my choosing it comes from God, but even that aforementioned Xangan perhaps can accept that to love is a choice, and it is the choice I made. And I would make it again in a heartbeat.

   

  You won’t know, at least not until Heaven, how I’ve prayed for so many of you by name and all of you more generally. You won’t know the tears I’ve shed for some, the movements of my heart for many, the time I’ve given to answering questions, leaving comments, not because I would be rewarded somehow but simply because I loved each of you. I never saw an avatar, a persona, a simple post, a screen name, etc.; I always saw a human being made in the image and likeness of God, and I always tried to love each of you as much as I could.

   

  Regardless of Xanga’s future, I will likely not be returning to the blog world. As one having a vow of poverty, I receive $150 per month for miscellaneous expenses, so if Xanga continues but requires a fee, I cannot afford the expense. In any case, as I have learned this past year (hence very few posts, though I remained active via checking subs and leaving comments, sending messages, etc.) full-time teaching is, literally, full-time; for the coming year at least I do not foresee being able to maintain a blog. Perhaps after this year, when I am sent to theology studies, I will begin blogging again somewhere. But, again, for the time being, once July 11th rolls around (I am flying to Brazil for World Youth Day, so I will be out-of-town when Xanga’s D-Day arrives) you will no longer hear from me on this site.

  I am well and humbly aware that there are many, many people who enjoy my posts and comments, and many who care a great deal about me, and it has been bittersweet these last weeks to realize that this blog and this community might come to an end for me. For those of you who wish to keep in touch, please message me. 

  Xanga has been the instrument of many, many blessings in my life, and as I look ahead to the final years of my priestly formation and then to ordination, God-willing, I have no idea what is in store. But rest assured that I will continue to pray for those I have been praying for, especially:

  -You who suffer so much from a shattered mind.

  -You who suffer from a broken family.

  -You who suffer from a broken body.

  -You who suffer from crippling debt and a difficult discernment.

  -You who suffer from an eating disorder, loneliness and loss.

  -You who suffer from a fear of loving and being loved.

  -You who suffer from self-doubt.

  -You who suffer to live your faith in a world that contradicts it.

  -You who suffer from past heartbreak and fear it being broken again.

  -You who fear that God has abandoned you.

  -You who struggle to find a reason to live.

  -You struggle with so much pain and doubt.

  And so many others: you are in my prayers, always.

  Peace and God’s love to you all.

   

  Now I wish to leave this ministry as I began it by posting my entry from just before I entered the novitiate. I feel it explains perfectly and in lovely summation my attitude regarding Xanga which, I hope, has been proven consistent during my Jesuit life these past seven years. 

  Thursday, August 24, 2006

  Here I go… “Tomorrow I leave for the Jesuit Novitiate. Shortly after 2p.m. on Saturday, my life isn’t mine any more. And it is wonderful. One way that is good, I feel, to describe the reality of my life hereafter is like this: Say you take me aside on the street and stand me up against a wall. You pull some random guy off the street as well and stand him next to me. Then, you steal everything in our pockets, and then the clothes off our backs and the shoes off our feet. You also send your criminal buddies to our rooms/houses and steal all of our things, then burn down the place where we live. You take everything. The difference between me and this random man, though we both have nothing, is that he has his life and his soul. I have only my soul. You see when I do this, when I enter the Jesuits, I’m not only doing what I feel called to do, but I’m doing this because I love you. You, the person reading this right now. My life is my gift to the world, and the Jesuits will help me learn to give it as fully as possible. You may not ever meet me, and I may never do anything for you but I am completely willing to do so. My life is yours now, is theirs now, is the church’s now, is God’s now. I keep for myself only my soul, that I might someday be good enough to lay it on the threshold of Heaven and say, “Father! I’m home! Look what I have brought You!” Not everyone in the world will accept my life, some might even seek to injure it or end it altogether. But God gifted us with free will, and I realize that not everyone will see my life as a gift they want. But to others, my life might be the gift they have waited for their entire lives to receive, and I pray that I will be able to bring to those people more than just a man, but also hope and joy and peace, among many other things. I may not die a Jesuit. I may enter and be a part of their family for a few years and feel called elsewhere, but from them I will learn how to live my life in a way that gives me purpose, and it is purpose that most people, unbeknownst to many, desire. What use is life without meaning? Waking up every morning does not mean that you are alive, it merely means that you have yet another chance to live. This is my chance to wake up and live every day alive and ready to help others do the same. To live, not simply exist. Rocks exist, too. Isn’t it strange that some rocks seem to have more of a purpose than some people? I am tired of existing. It is with the Jesuits and through this call to serve God that I have tasted what it is to live and grow and thrive and love all of it, even when my heart is breaking. If I ignore this call, I will continue breaking again and again until I am nothing but broken, existing without purpose or meaning, pretending to be alive. I want to give myself to something greater than myself, and by following the footsteps of Christ one will discover that the world is greater than the self, and well worth giving yourself to, for “God so loved the world He gave His only Son.” Well, it is time for me to give back. I love all of you dearly, and I miss many of you. I will do my best to keep in touch when I am able. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers, and let me know if there is any way that I can serve any of you. May God bless and keep you always.”

  • 12:37 pm
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