(no subject)
I caught a 5 AM ride out to the abbey with my mom. "I feel like I'm taking my unwilling kid to the summer camp," she said as we left Portland.
We made it to Guadalupe a few minutes before morning mass was to begin. I hurried behind the cloister, and while I put on my robe for choir, Casey saw me. I gave a whisper-quick low and dirty on graduation. I said thanks for the Catholic Worker t-shirt, and told him it fit. He started to walk away, and then saw the shirt I was wearing. I had rolled out of bed in my favorite "Teachers Unions for John Kerry" shirt. "Kerry?!" Casey half-scowled, gave a hopeless gesture with his right arm, and in a few minutes we were back bowing together in the monastery choir.
***
I laid low most of the weekend. I camped out in the basement with my dog and Arthur Schlesinger's Robert Kennedy and His Times, which is sort of like The Life You Save May Be Your Own of RFK biography. Like Elie, I'd been tip-toeing around the RFK authority Schlesinger for the past few years, and even though Schlesinger is nowhere near as brash, funny, and Ed Koch-hating as Jack Newfield, who I think got Bobby better than anybody else, Schlesinger did spend years with Bobby as a speech writer, confidant, and friend. The book is beautiful, and even if it's more hagiography than a Robert Caro-like record, you still get a sense of the transformations, both inner and outer, that made RFK so fascinating.
Otherwise, Sunday I went to Mass with A., met Holy Cross Associates friends and some JVC's, and saw first-hand how I could have easily and happily spent this week had I not committed to the monastery.
***
Coming back isn't as hard as it could have seemed. In my chair at Terce this morning there was a green balloon shaped like a chimp, with written on the front of it, "Monk." Mark and the guests gave me a stuffed bear with a mortar and tassel for congratulations, and when the Abbot saw me after Mass, he remarked, "Taylor, you even look smarter." Fr. Francis seemed unsure as to whether I had really graduated or just failed out secretly.
Late June's also prime time to hang with Benedictines. There are two Solemnities coming up this week, Friday's Sacred Heart and Saturday for Saint John the Baptist, meaning a three-day weekend. Todd and I are going running Friday- "it makes the ice cream taste better," he said.
And, I still have a small life here. I'm in the middle of Gary Wills' Bare Ruined Choirs, his account of the failures of 60's Renaissance culture generally and Pope Paul's reign specifically. I worked 25 feet above the ground today in a hydraulic lift, trimming the tops of trees and hedges with a chainsaw all around the monastery. I used my chainsaw as a chance to try and explain to some of the monks the cultural significance of Bruce Campbell and the Evil Dead movies, but nobody seemed to quite get it.
We made it to Guadalupe a few minutes before morning mass was to begin. I hurried behind the cloister, and while I put on my robe for choir, Casey saw me. I gave a whisper-quick low and dirty on graduation. I said thanks for the Catholic Worker t-shirt, and told him it fit. He started to walk away, and then saw the shirt I was wearing. I had rolled out of bed in my favorite "Teachers Unions for John Kerry" shirt. "Kerry?!" Casey half-scowled, gave a hopeless gesture with his right arm, and in a few minutes we were back bowing together in the monastery choir.
***
I laid low most of the weekend. I camped out in the basement with my dog and Arthur Schlesinger's Robert Kennedy and His Times, which is sort of like The Life You Save May Be Your Own of RFK biography. Like Elie, I'd been tip-toeing around the RFK authority Schlesinger for the past few years, and even though Schlesinger is nowhere near as brash, funny, and Ed Koch-hating as Jack Newfield, who I think got Bobby better than anybody else, Schlesinger did spend years with Bobby as a speech writer, confidant, and friend. The book is beautiful, and even if it's more hagiography than a Robert Caro-like record, you still get a sense of the transformations, both inner and outer, that made RFK so fascinating.
Otherwise, Sunday I went to Mass with A., met Holy Cross Associates friends and some JVC's, and saw first-hand how I could have easily and happily spent this week had I not committed to the monastery.
***
Coming back isn't as hard as it could have seemed. In my chair at Terce this morning there was a green balloon shaped like a chimp, with written on the front of it, "Monk." Mark and the guests gave me a stuffed bear with a mortar and tassel for congratulations, and when the Abbot saw me after Mass, he remarked, "Taylor, you even look smarter." Fr. Francis seemed unsure as to whether I had really graduated or just failed out secretly.
Late June's also prime time to hang with Benedictines. There are two Solemnities coming up this week, Friday's Sacred Heart and Saturday for Saint John the Baptist, meaning a three-day weekend. Todd and I are going running Friday- "it makes the ice cream taste better," he said.
And, I still have a small life here. I'm in the middle of Gary Wills' Bare Ruined Choirs, his account of the failures of 60's Renaissance culture generally and Pope Paul's reign specifically. I worked 25 feet above the ground today in a hydraulic lift, trimming the tops of trees and hedges with a chainsaw all around the monastery. I used my chainsaw as a chance to try and explain to some of the monks the cultural significance of Bruce Campbell and the Evil Dead movies, but nobody seemed to quite get it.