Nuggets of gold from hell

You are the only one that can open the door of hell to get in or to get out

It’s OK to get burned (2022)

When one has not completely assimilated a lesson from life, it is impossible to just share the value deriving from the experience without conveying the story that preceded it. Maybe that is why I write, to turn gold into wisdom and truly be rich without measure.

I spent almost three years in a Trappist Monastery in Venezuela. It was my time in the desert. The first year and a half was a ping pong match between heaven and hell. My feeling was that the Devil was always hacking the game and pushing me off a cliff. Only the liturgy and the reading of the bible would bring me back safe to firm ground. I want to share with you what made me take a step out of hell and go through the most incredible existential experience.

The Father Superior Manuel was the perfect combination of a drill sergeant and a workaholic, slender and tall like asparagus, with tanned skin and a Mexican accent. He had a jittery nervous smile when you put him on the spot, like he didn’t want to smile. He was in his late fifties and had been a monk for over twenty years. Me, I had been on over 240 days of retreats in four different monasteries prior to my entrance into the novitiate. So, at twenty-eight years of age I had some idea of what I was getting myself into before committing; or so I thought. With all my knowledge of monastic life, I thought Manuel was the wrong choice to be a superior; very un-monastic, a little nervous and with the propensity to do more work than the hours set on the schedule… I wanted to read theology, meditate, study biblical exegesis, do monastic and scholarly things.

Manuel got under my skin regularly; he made me feel like I had gotten a bug in my mouth, and I was desperate to spit it out. Every weekday, after the morning liturgy Lauds, we gathered in a circle to clarify the work for the day. Usually, Manuel would set the objective or give announcements. I would just roll my eyes at every other comment he said. It got to the point that I was compulsively resisting him even when he wasn’t even present.

What is monastic life all about

I must explain something to those who don’t know about contemplative monastic life. Everything in a monastery is designed so there is no escape mentally, emotionally, or entertainment-wise; it is you and your thoughts and feelings, so the misery of life is so ever-present. First, there is the routine; it is the same all week long with some small alterations on Sunday. There is no diversion or entertainment other than reading and liturgy, but that is also routinely scheduled, so you cannot choose when you want to do it. There are no newspapers, magazines, TV, Internet, or anything that can take your mind off what is there… You! It is a simple life, like a peasant’s life from long ago: waking up at three-thirty in the morning, eating, working and at the end of the day relaxing for an hour or so. The difference is community liturgy seven times a day, mass, and some five hours to study, pray and read. If you are enthusiastic for a spiritual experience, you will be worn down by three to four weeks or two months at best, and if you don’t do something about it, it becomes hell.

That was where I was, hell and Manuel was the constant reminder of it. I began to wonder why I was there; if it was always going to be this way… stuff we experience in life all the same. Then I got an insight and acted on it. I went to the workshop, got myself a hammer and a couple of long nails, then I went to the novitiate and picked up a few white sheets of paper. I went back to my cell and right next to the door, above the desk I had made for my reading and studying, I devised a sign where I could write to myself messages. The first one was in bold capital letters, and it read: WHAT YOU DON’T LIKE IN OTHERS IS WHAT YOU DON’T ACCEPT ABOUT YOURSELF.

I would read it when I woke up in the morning, every time I walked out of my cell, every time I looked up when I was doing my morning bible reading or my morning physical stretch and exercises. I began to repeat it to myself every time I felt vexed with Manuel. Then expanded it to tell myself when other things began to affect me, like other novitiates or whatever.

Life is messy because we are a mess

I went to the monastery because I thought I could not confront my weaknesses and resolve by myself the path towards self-realization in the world. In the monastery I had no other choice but to be backed into a corner and recognize that it is not the world that is at fault, but me. Once I began to divert my attention inward when I was vexed, no matter with whom or what, step by step I began to change. It wasn’t immediate, like nothing is. I had to push myself ever so further and remind myself it was a projection of what I didn’t like or what made me uneasy about myself. It was liberating; it made me vulnerable and humbler. But in the end, I had the answer to my prayers.

During my undergraduate years I had the extraordinary opportunity to have a humanities professor that made me realize that I was not who I thought I was, Life was much larger than I could ever understand, and God was a partner in the process of Life. While reading, writing, and studying, little by little I began to want to know Him, understand Him and then “be one with Him”. It became my prayer every single day years before the monastery, and then all throughout my novitiate years in the monastery.

One day, while reading the prophet Isaiah, God spoke directly to my heart.

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 41:13-14

I was reading the words, and they were resounding in my heart. I could not hear them in my mind, but I heard them anew like they were written in fire that very instant in my soul… like a tender father telling his son: don’t worry my little bug, you are mine. I will hold you by the hand and guide you.

That happened because I brought to the surface what was separating my perception and my real inner muddiness, so then I was able to realize: He was there. I began to cry and kept at it for a very long time; I was treading on sacred ground. I had this sense of belonging and gratefulness that overwhelmed all my existence. I had the certain and unmovable assurance that He was continuously whispering in my soul and was ever present, He had always been there, I was just so obsessed with my “need” to be one with Him, I did not notice He was there all along.

Like everything in life, nothing stays the same, everything changes continuously. So no, I don’t now live like God is in charge or leading my actions. I experienced a glimpse of heaven then, and it was Paradise. It has been a long and strenuous path to stay faithful to that experience. Now I write because I want to remind myself of my path back home. To be at peace in my skin and discover some firm ground I can attempt to be creative in helping make this a better world and not fall off the precipice in the process.

God is not what we think

In the center vault of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts the creation of man. This proto-Man is represented as relaxed, laying casually and extending his hand effortlessly, while God is depicted as an old man exerting his entire body in the process of creating Man. We may think we do all the work, and because of our imagery, we depict God as a king sitting on a heavenly throne expecting our total devotion and adoration. That wasn’t how the artist-poet of the High Renaissance envisions the human drama, he sees man as the passive part and God as the active part.

It may seem we are struggling and exerting ourselves to achieve, but like Saint Teresa of Avila wittingly suggests, to climb the ladder towards God, we just need to raise our foot and it is God who will set the step underneath.  

Next Wednesday

The Idols of our True God

An obstacle usually alerts us that we need to do something not to bump into it. Life’s obstacles let us know we are on the wrong path or need to correct our course.