Got a call from Deacon Chuck today. I wrote to him a couple of days ago inquiring about his parish's RCIA class. The class itself begins in mid-September, and I told him that I was interested. I also told him that I'd stop by St. Michael for mass tomorrow and say hi.
The first question that'd probably arise in the mind of anyone who knows me is, why? I suppose the short answer is, I'm searching for truth (although if you tried to pin me down to define what I mean by 'truth,' I probably couldn't give you a coherent answer). And in that search, I've been drawn towards Western monasticism, philosophy, and theology.
It's actually kind of strange for me to admit this to myself since I've spent a great deal of my life doing the exact opposite, rebelling against and purposefully avoiding all the above. I can't count the number of negative thoughts I've had and words I've said about Christianity, especially in my youth. And yet here I am, inquiring about RCIA classes, visiting a Trappist monastery, and reading the works of two of the most famous Thomases, Thomas Merton and Thomas Aquinas. Although I can't say that everything I've read or experienced recently has resonated with me, I also can't deny that much of it has.
I'm a little afraid of where this journey might lead me, to be honest. But at the same time, I sense that it's a journey worth making, and that I'd regret it if I didn't make the effort. It feels like I'm being driven in this direction despite myself, which makes me even more curious to find out why. Why am I all of a sudden attracted to a spiritual tradition I've spent most my life either ignoring or criticizing? Is it simply idle curiosity? Or is it something more? A spiritual calling perhaps? An intuitive sense that there's something here for me to learn, to help my spiritual self grow and mature?
Whatever the impetus, it's definitely something I'd rather keep mostly to myself for the time being. The relative strangeness of it makes me hesitant to talk about it. It's too hard to explain, for one. It's like my eyes are slowly opening and I'm seeing truth everywhere, complementing itself from different angles, and I'm suddenly and inexplicably taken with a new perspective—one I was never able to appreciate before, but which I'm now beginning to for whatever reason.
Some of this, I suppose, may be due to some small amount of spiritual maturity on my part that's allowing me to see and appreciate things I once overlooked, seeing the essences behind the appearances for what they are, and how they arise out of, or are reflections of, a common reality. But underlying that, there's a growing sense of yearning in my heart that's reaching out towards something, and I'm frightened that it's reaching out towards God, which is a concept I don't fully understand or have much faith in at the moment, yet find myself gravitating towards nonetheless. It's all rather confusing.
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