Well, I’m back at my desk (and floating through cyberspace) again, only my desk now happens to be about 150 miles from where it used to be. The whole story is too long and complicated to try to detail here. Suffice it to say that I’ve been granted a year’s leave of absence from Mt Tabor Monastery, which I will be spending at a new community in the city of South San Francisco, contributing to its further establishment, prayer, and ministry, and perhaps even becoming a permanent part of it. If you click on the Contemplatives of St Joseph link in the sidebar, you’ll see where I am now. It is a Roman Catholic community, but the founder is bi-ritual, and I will have opportunity to pray and offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice in both the Eastern and Western rites. This is a time of discernment for me, since the Lord is leading me in some unexpected ways these days, so I’ll be grateful for your ongoing prayers. I guess my patron saint is leading me too, since I’ve ended up at his own house! It is likely that I will continue in the new direction I’ve just begun, in one form or another, for I believe that my time at Mt Tabor, the longest “chapter” of my whole life, is now closed.
After living for 30 years in a forest, it’s something of a culture shock to move to a city (which itself is not all that large—population 65,000—but it is part of a huge metropolitan area). I signed up to serve the Lord, however, not to “have it my way,” though if I am faithful to Him, He has ways of bringing abundant blessings, which have in fact already begun. This new monastery is something of a peaceful and blessed oasis in the midst of the bustle of city life, jet planes roaring overhead notwithstanding. I know some people down here, and they are glad that I’m now a lot closer to them than I used to be; I’m closer to the ocean as well! I did read something unsettling in the Bible, though, after I’d been here about a week, which of course never “spoke” to me before, since I never lived here before: “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is…” (Rev. 2:13). The city I now live in is right next door to “Sodom-by-the-Bay” (a.k.a. San Francisco), which is one of the main centers of satanic worship and activity in this country, not to mention other ungodly practices that demons generate and maintain in this area. At the same time, there are many churches and holy people, for God will never be without his faithful servants. Still, I need to put on the armor of God, as the Apostle says, for, as he also says, the days are evil (see Eph. 6:10-18 and 5:15-16).
A few days after I arrived I took a little walk around the neighborhood, which seems to be a relatively pleasant and safe one—although I did notice quite a few houses sporting little signs announcing that their homes are protected by this or that security alarm system. Most of the homes are fairly small, middle-class-looking (I would still shudder to see the price tags on any of them), though I also walked past a nearby area with low-end apartment buildings. I was pleased to find some grass and flowers here and there, some trees (some even had birds singing in them!), so it’s not quite like I’ve landed in a concrete jungle. The weather is pretty much the strange little climate one finds in San Francisco; one of the locals told me that their summers are about the same as their winters: chilly and windy and foggy. But as I write it is sunny and warm. I won’t mind it not topping 100 degrees in the summer as it often does at Mt Tabor. All things considered, I think I’ll be able to adapt OK.
The words I’ve been receiving through Scripture and other sources have been encouraging and consoling. A friend who sometimes hears things from Heaven in prayer told me that Our Lady said she is happy that I am right where she wants me at this time. So I can rest in that as I continue to pray and seek the fullness of God’s will and revelation for my life and future.
As St Paul says, it is time to forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, the call of God in Christ Jesus. Not that I can or even want to literally forget the 30 years of monastic life that lie behind me (for despite many trials and sufferings, I see them primarily as years of grace, and what I have learned and experienced in prayer and monastic and priestly life I will cherish long into the future). But if I want to serve the Lord and follow the lead of our Blessed Mother, there is only one direction in which I must look: forward. I have to live in the present moment, but I must move into the future—ready or not, that that is where each of us is inexorably headed! The Lord must have some very important reason for decreeing (or perhaps simply permitting; it’s not always clear at the outset) such an extraordinary change in my life, so I have to be very attentive to make sure that I will, as his Mother is wont to say, do whatever He tells me. Souls are likely at stake, and you know the efforts I already make to try to help save as many as possible.
As I get used to this different environment and make a number of adjustments to a new life (though essentially I can, thank God, maintain a sustained and deep prayer life here, since contemplation is a priority), I will gradually come to a clearer awareness of this new stage of my life and vocation. By the grace of God and the loving protection and care of my Queen and Mother, I will endure to the end—peacefully, fruitfully, devotedly—and at length be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, which alone is worth living, working, and suffering for. So, as I sometimes like to say (St Paul said it first), I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me.
