Ah!!!! The Woman! Her Eye. It see me. All of me. I am nude before her, and her eye gorges itself on me. Yet she smiles her strange smile and I am abashed. She blinks not, but always looks, undying knowledge, unyielding perception of all she desires. And she desires me. Yet, not yet. She is waiting on me to understand first . . . . and then . . . .

A friend posted this song on his FB page. It is odd, wonderful. It could be the 'gnostic international anthem".

My table before me. I have yet to fill it with food.

My pillow. I have yet to touch it.

My house. I have yet to find the key.

O My Heart! Thou vile friend! Thou murderous Lover!

O My Heart! Thou sweet Betrayer! Thou unfriendly guest!

O My Heart! Fickle child! A girl in a lacy dress with curly locks.

You beguile me,

But your stillettos in each hand are quick to find my temples.

O My Heart! Forever I am trapped in this madness-marriage. My parents promised to find me a good, loving mate.

I trusted them. And thus, Who are they really?

My Father and Mother of spades. Father of the dark cloak. Mother of the black gown of satin and obsidian beads.

O God! Thou wert light! Thou wert softness! And now, I am crushed as I look at you.

Or, rather, I would rather be crushed. But you have strengthened me.

Why is this strength now only yet anther curse?

For I shall not be so lucky as to escape life.

My life shall be 12 times 12 years I know.

And every moment the knife in my head, my side leaking.

O Spouse! And in this state you expect me to make love?

It's interesting how 'comments' go in waves. Had had one in weeks--months maybe. Well. No matter. I enjoy the process.

Although the closer I come to priesthood, the more I wonder if I should really share as openly as I have always done. Even my 'edited' experiences are apparently a little more revealing to the 'uninitiated' than is desirable, at least according to my confessor. But, who knows.

At this point, the PRIEST archetype keeps revealing himself as one more person after another: always before any integration was a one-time thing. But now, it is as though there are 10,000 Christs that I must digest. So, it's a slow process. Perhaps never to end.

In the meantime, I am dealing with the anxiety of potentially taking a new job. I'm trying not to freak about that. But I haven't wanted a position so much before; ever. This is so perfect. So we shall see.

The anxiety fills my entire 'mundane' psyche. And touches right up against the supernatural calm of my vocation. Strange.

Announcement

It seems incredible. And it seems so natural. At any rate, my Bishop has announced the date for my ordination to the holy priesthood: Palm Sunday, April 17, 2011. It's all set. I only felt butterflies for about two hours and then the grace of calm came back on its own.

But then, Bishop Bryan warned me that it was the weirdness after ordination I really needed to worry about. So, of course, like all goals long sought, it is more a new beginning than a destination.

But still, I rejoice at the end of a long, long part of my life's journey. And, further, am so grateful to so many people along the way. And, more than that, grateful to The Holy One for being in my life from such an early age, taking me through so many experiences unscathed, and finally, bringing the fairly amazing circumstances of the last two years to fruition. But, just like adoption or natural childbirth, all that preparation time is very nearly forgotten once the baby arrives and you have to worry about everything else.

So, the baby arrives in less than a month. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I'm praying and crossing all my fingers and toes that the "baby" is well-formed, healthy, and beautiful. He'll have a long, long life. O God! All my hopes are pinned on him, and yet, again, as any good parent, it is my own relationship with my 'wife'---my own soul, and the Divine Himself, that is even yet more important than this offspring of our union. Another wild ride in a life of wild rides.

O Sacred Head

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived; How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed; What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do; Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

St. Thomas Aquinas (attrib)., tr, Gerard Manly Hopkins

I had forgotten until this morning how the below song was always my favorite. And now, it is again, my favorite hymn. Actually, it is the only for me. All the others have slid away.

O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown:
how pale thou art with anguish,
with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish
which once was bright as morn!

What thou, my Lord, has suffered
was all for sinners' gain;
mine, mine was the transgression,
but thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
'Tis I deserve thy place;
look on me with thy favor,
vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever;
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love for thee.

These are the lyrics I know: this link gives a 10-verse Lutheran version.

I find out in April when the date for my priestly ordinatino will be. It is now like an impending and very tricky interstate interstate interchange. And I'm going 80. But, slowing down to 60 for the turns will be plenty of margin for error. I do actually remember why I wanted to be a priest in the first place. Although I don't know anymore whether that matters. It's like St. Thomas Moore once said: "When I was young, I have six theories of childrearing. Now I have six children, and no theories."

I have no theories.

I lvoe this song. Especially by Andrea Bocelli. I think often of him: perhaps the greatest voice in the 20th and for sure so far the 21st centuries. Handsome, rich, famous, beautiful wife and children, fabulous home, internatinoal accolades: blind.

I think about that alot.

Blind.

At any rate, I think 'besame mucho' is a perfectly wonderful meditation, at least for a contemplative. We must the Lover as if today were our last day: as, of course, it is.

It always is.

Tonight we die, as we do every night. Perhaps that's why as often I can, I sleep no more than 3 hours at a time. Hmm.

At any rate, enjoy the song.

O Beloved! Kiss much much--for I fear that afterwards I will lose you!

This is a very difficult post to write.

I and my Bishop have the pleasure of speaking at least twice a week, if not more, and of course we correspond nearly daily. The benefit of this is that my formation, while irregular by orthodox standards, has the benefit of being immediate, individual, intimate and nearly, but not entirely, focused on my personal spiritual journey, while keeping extremely close watch on my physical, emotional, and psychic states of being. In all, it is extremely holistic. As a result, the emotional turmoil that priestly formtion causes have been greatly ameliorated.

And there has been turmoil of nearly every sort. And, I thought thta I was nearly through it all--not turmoil per se, but the particular turmoil of this part of my formationin life. Actually, in a way, what happened this week signalled an end to my priestly formation, and began my formation AS a priest--although actual ordination is still a few months off, or perhaps longer.

But what has happened is that I am now confronted, by my own intuition and reasoning, by inspiriation, and by discussions with my Bishop, by the actual needs of the church, by my own limitations and state in life, and by what the WILL of God is for me right now--as concerns my entire life and as concerns my ministry as priest and religious.

I had thought that I would be immediately able to 'help people' in that amorphous, social-worker style of 'helping' that the world legitimizes. You know, start a small home parish, begin an outreach ministry (I want to minister to youth). These are the things that are the 'hallmarks' of being a priest and religious, right? Aren't they the reasons I 'signed up' for this?

No. They aren't. And I knew it at the time, but I clung to those ideas because, frankly, it is all I knew exoterically, and besides, being unaligned with Rome or Constantinople and working under a new Patriarchate, it helped me feel more normal.

But even that is taken from me. My Bishop warned me that the closer I came to Holy Orders, the less of me there would be, more of me would be sloughing off, sometimes tearing into living flesh, sometimes easy, like shedding dead skin. This time it feels like giving away a precous part of my soul.

God is demanding that I work behind the scenes right now. That's the bottom line. I wanted glory and churches and fame (of a sort). I know, they aren't very holy aspirations, but let's just be honest. At least having a parish, working in prisons, etc., I would 'be' more as I would see my reflection in more people. That was my secret storehouse. And Jesus tells me---leave your barns behind, "Follow me."

And he is leading me into a place that tears into me, that reaches into me and touches the hurt place, the secret place I thught he would not discover, despite my prayers that I be completely united with him. It's laughable. Like a child 'hiding' behind a tree. So easy to catch.

So, He asks me to stay at home. He asks me to work in my secular jobs. I have the ability to work two full-time jobs, and my family needs the money, and, if I progress as I believe I can, I'll be able to support my family, fix our financial dilemmas, and even support our nascent Church.

Somehow, I thought perhaps that my priestly vocation would exempt me from facing the brutal realities of my financial hardships. Somehow all would be fixed. Well, somehow it will--but by facing them head on, and not wishing them away with cotton-candy-feaux-holiness.

So, my parish is one of five--my immediate family, and only them. And so it will remain for the time being. My ministry to children will consist of three-my own three. All the rest is deferred. My hopes and fantasies about them all not taken away, but left behind for now. Jesus leads me down a dirt road covered with high green trees, making a long, long straight arbor through which I must walk. And I am a tent-maker, but without the job and heartache of public ministry.

I am crying as I write this. Because I know it is the right thing, but it is yet another hope deferred. He has given me priesthood as a gift, but withheld what I thought it would be. And so, the pain that this mortal life brings me remains unabated. My soul is made ever more healed, but the tears are ever on my pillow.

In a way, this is all to the good. The average seminarian in the orthodox spends 6, 8 years in formation. We do not have such a timeline. So I will be blessed with the grace of celebrating Eucharist, but the rest of the vocation, the external ministry, is 'contra-indicated' for me. Not forbidden, just not the road that Jesus would have me travel. So, I submit, I accept, I humble myself.

I took a vow of obedience of course, and my Bishop is also my Abbot and Prior. Yet, still he does not command me to focus on my secuarl work and building up finances, but he suggests it may be best for me. And, I took a personal vow, deeper and more sacred even than my external vow, that I would take the merest wish of my Abbott as my law. And so, I embrace it.

Tears are flowing even now as I write this. For following Jesus is far more intimate, far more sensual, far more dangerous, far more painful, far more wondrous, far more devastating, far more demanding, than I ever imagined. O Holy Virgin! Catch me as I fall. I fall into death from the cross I would willing have stayed upon. Yet, for only 3 hours was our Lord permitted to suffer--would he not have stayed 3 weeks!? Would he not have gladly stayed there and perhaps brought tens of millions to God in that way? Yet, it was contra-indicated. The way closest to the heart of the Father was an unnaturally short period of suffering, then the deposition and burial. I lay my body in the arms of my Mother and Nichodemus. Protect me, I pray, all you holy saints. For my road is dark. My eyes are blinded by grief and tears, my heart is heavy, so that it bears me down to the ground. Yet, my body walks erect, head high. I do not know how it does so, yet it does. And I must hurry to catch up and remain with it.

All you my friends, pray with me that I stay in the hands of God. And weep with me. I again more intimately realize that every glory that God holdsbefore us is teh sugar that goes with the medicine--and the medicine, the medicine is bitter unto death.

o god, you pierce me with many arrows. i wish they were 'arrows', but no, they are darts poisonous and cruel. i die a thousand times. why must i consume you? you bring me madness and death. you rip away the veil of this false world and show me things my eyes do not understand. faces, bodies, blacknesses, so close, bumping against me, brushing past me, a celestial highway, but chaos, movement in all directions and none. i fee black velvet, purple streams, faces human, but too large, i see too much o lord. yet i ask for more and more.

today i suffered greatly. i was so amped that my mind could not stay on a topic for more than a few seconds. i could not speak to people without screaming or being cutting and cruel. i lay down but no rest came to me. the entire day was a loss as far as my sacred duties go. i barely could read the psalms. i consumed the body of christ and, for a few moments, while bowing low before the tabernacle, i had peace. otherwise. i am in a pain that i cannot describe. why bother. no one will understand except perhaps for other initiates. and they are few. even my wife, while a mystic, even a prophet in her own way, is no initiate. gabriel my son is too young to understand these sublte but crushing emotions.

i am keeping up my physical disciplines. but that is all i can do. i suppose i am being prepard for something great. and though i am bowed down low, my head is held high. so i can bear this new weight, but my newly empowered shoulders, my new back and torso glorious, my new legs of bone and sinew and steel and marble, they can hold this new weight. yet, it is great. and without careful attention, the tender flesh will become ruined.

o god. i am fully in your world. yet i have lost none of my intentions for this physical, terran world. it is just that it is so vague to me. and the great dance of strangeness is more real than the terran world. i sleep not because sleep only makes me mad. it is only by waking that i can keep sane. yet, yet, i do not know. perhaps the gospel is a lie too great to be told. perhaps we should simply tell the people what the exoteric church tells them: "God is a vending machine: pray and he will give." of what benefit is this pain, this torture, this ecstasy? i am more mad than when i began. i am more beautiful, with greater power, but the sadness and weight and ignominy of my lowly state is not a path anyone would choose without years of the Divine's subtle mind-breaking love.

o god. you also are mad. and i still cannot determine why the world is the way it is. yet, i suppose it is your nature. we are born in screams and tears and blood and feces and hideous odors and yet more tears. so it is with the second, third, fourth, fifth . . . births--each more hideous and transformative than the last. i have become great as i had prayed. and now, my god, i am on a path that i cannot flinch from. i no longer even wish to. not only because even to hesitate would mean pain, agony, death. but because you have transformed me into a creature that i was not before.

it is as they portray the wizards of old----they are ancient with years beyond count, they wander the land helping the weak, remembering the innocent, and making use of the puissant as so many toy soldiers to achieve their globe-wrenching ends. they topple regimes, the take castles, they inspire love. all for ends that they no longer bother to understand.

This blog sometimes is a joyous outlet, sometimes simply a cool respite from my work (i enjoy my own creation on an aesthetic level, I'll admit) and sometimes a labor of love.

But once in a while someone tells me they gain something from it, so I continue.

Today I'll let you in on my life as a Wandering Monk:

My day / Mi horario:

1:00 a.m.: Time to get up!!! I set my alarm for 1:00, 1:15 and 1:30 to make sure I don't oversleep--but between my now established practice and my wife's friendly kick in the legs as soon as the first alarm goes off--I'm usually up.

1:05 a.m.: Kettle on; computer up: updating my blogs, websites and other work for the church.

2:00 or 3:00 a.m.: I begin my secular work.

7:00 a.m.: Make hot breakfast for my three beautiful kids and myself.

7:20 am.: Back to work.

10:00 a.m.: Walk to the park with my wife; short work out on the pull-up bar there (i alternate days with pull-ups, chin-ups, and hanging sit-ups).

12:00 p.m.: Lunch. Quick. Try to get in 'liturgy practice'.

1:00 p.m.: Nap

3:00 p.m.: Work again.

6:00 p.m.: Make dinner for family and do housework and try to sneak in extra work.

8:15 p.m.: Family meeting/prayer/meeting time.

8:40 p.m.: Get ready for bed; quiet time with my wife.

10:00 p.m. SHARP: time for my evening nap.

PRAYER: never before 9:00. Prayer before 9:00 equals sleep. So I read the Psalms and indulge in mental prayer whenever I need a break during the day, which is about 4 or 5 times a day. I never do meditation at any time near my nap periods. Usually only around 10:00 a.m. or 7:30 p.m.

That's it!

I got a positive, if smallish, jolt this morning. My Abbott emailed me about a couple of tasks that I had been lax on and asked me to, you know, DO THEM. It dawned on me, in a deeper way, that this monastic calling is truly about obedience. Not that what was requested was onerous; indeed I had agreed to do it willingly. But the accountability is there. This is a community, a family. If we promise to do something, someone else has to take up the slack if we don't perform. Like, a huge DUH erupted in the Pleroma.

But, still, it is precious to me. It is precious to me because it means that our community is now beginning to do the WORK of community, which, is, after all, to BE community.

Sorry if that sounds banal. I suppose it is. But still, it felt like a little grace, a little joy.