9/26/22

I feel like today has been a struggle. I had a long day at work, and I've been feeling a resurgence of the ongoing conflict inside of myself between living in the world and the pull of monastic life. I thought I'd found a good balance with my new spiritual community and everything else, and I hadn't been thinking about it as much or as strongly. But ever since the retreat and talking to Fr. Martin, I've felt the pull increase, as if for me monasteries and monks are like dense stars warping the gravity around them and pulling me in. So today, I was more conscious of my unhappiness at work and with the general rat race. It's never felt right to me, and it feels even less so now.

On top of that, a news story just came out from the New York Times about my current employer, Providence, that's pretty damning. Titled "profits over patients," it accuses Providence of providing less charity care than average and suggests that Providence targeted low-income patients and pressured them for payments even when they qualified for free care. It's upsetting and demoralizing, but sadly not surprising. Things like this are precisely what form my anti-capitalist politics because, non-profit or not, it's a business like any other, and run as such. The concern at the top is always money and getting more. The coercive laws of competition almost guarantee this, even for non-profits. Providence's promise is to "know me, care for me, ease my way," but the only thing they seem to be good at easing is their profit margins and not helping the poor and vulnerable as much as they say. It's hard to represent a company that professes charity but seemingly embodies greed. And the whole day, I kept thinking about the life of a monk. Living in solitude but also in a communal setting. Working, but not for a wage and to increase the bottom line of shareholders, but solely for the sustenance of the community. Having a life devoted to spiritual enrichment and edification, not material gains and consumption.

It seems that even after all these years, I can't escape this dilemma. I know that I probably idealize monastic life in some ways and that it has its own challenges that I'd find difficult to tackle. But I can't help wondering if the reason I'm so drawn towards it is because that's where I belong. Perhaps it's exacerbated by the knowledge that I'll soon probably be too old to make the choice should I actually decide to plunge into the still, deep waters of the silent life. And yet, I grieve whenever I think about the things I'd have to give up as a monk. My relationship. My cat. My friends for all intents and purposes. Going to the movies or out for coffee with a good book whenever I want. But I also have to be honest that these things don't really bring me the happiness they should, or else I wouldn't yearn so intensely and persistently for the life of a monk, would I?