The Peaceful Man

The Peaceful Man

For many of us, peace is hard to find. We know it exists and we can experience it many ways. The ways and means vary as to how it comes to us, how we find it. Amidst the hectic activities of our days, we may clear some time to be alone, to still the voices in our heads and to savor a bit of solitude. There are many disciplines that foster the experience of peace. Here at the monastery, we are familiar with many of them and we try to live and foster peace as much as possible. But even here, it is not easy. Peace eludes us as well. We certainly have an ideal setting for it – all these acres free of the many varieties of traffic that jam the highways of outer and inner roads – the landscape of our culture and the interior roads of the mind. It is hard to secure a lasting sense of peace. A monk may work at it in the relative serenity of the cloister but there are times when peace flies out of one’s hands, like a bird that one holds for a while, but which soon fears the foreign grasp of human hands, and struggles to be free again.

Peace, in a lasting sense, is something from which we are estranged. Try as we might to realize it or even describe it, it never seems to feel at home with us very long. It senses our dis-ease with it, and takes flight.

A man came to stay with us for one night. He arrived late in the afternoon, on a bicycle with a small trailer hitched to the rear wheel. I met him by our gatehouse. He was a strong looking man, with a full beard and a friendly face. We shook hands and began to chat. I introduced myself and he told me that his name was Jerry Nelson. He told me that he needed a place to stay for the night and that he would be no trouble for anybody. All he needed, he said, was a place to pitch his tent. I was at first hesitant to let him stay, since I did not know who he was or where he was coming from. It is hard these days to welcome the stranger. He anticipated my hesitancy and took out some papers from his small trailer. He handed them to me and they were newspaper articles about him and his journey. One article had a picture of him accompanying the story and I trusted the connections that were becoming apparent to me. I told him to stay, and we walked down by the lake, where I thought it would be most convenient for him to pitch his tent. We chatted for a while. It was nearing time for Vespers, our late afternoon chanting of the psalms, which is followed by dinner. I asked him if he would like to have dinner, and he said yes. I headed back to the church as he started to set up his tent. I sat in church and read the articles he had given to me and was astounded. He had biked from Washington, D.C., to Oregon, stopping at churches and Veterans Homes along the way, giving talks so as to raise awareness of the plight of Veterans, in particular those men and women who really never found their way home again after the experience of war. They may have been brought back to this land of the free, but the experience of war imprisoned them in a place of mental anguish and spiritual death. It is to these that Jerry has given his life, his passion, his words. After Vespers, I headed back down to the lake and brought him back to the retreat house, where we had supper together.

I tried to make him feel as much at home as possible. I felt guilty that we had no rooms available, and told him as much. He assured me that it was okay, that he had everything he needed down in his tent. And he told me more, about how he never planned far down the road, that God always took care of him. He learned, he said, not to plan too far down any highway, to take things a day at a time, and that when evening fell, he would be given a place to stay. I sensed volumes of spiritual wisdom, hard won, behind every word he said. His face had a weathered but serenely wise look as he spoke. There was a gentleness to him and something that gave me the impression that he had learned to receive every aspect of life as a gift, a gift from God. I thought how every mile that passed beneath his spinning wheels had given him something. He carried a lot more in his trailer than bare necessities of life. The little that he had housed a heart of movement, of giving, of a wisdom that matured through suffering and surviving, and emerging from his own experience of war as a messenger of good will, peace and compassion.

We parted ways that night and I told him I would come down in the morning, Sunday morning, and bring him back to the retreat house for breakfast. When I came over to the retreat house on Sunday morning, he was already there, sitting in the parlor, drinking coffee out of a paper cup. We went back to the kitchen, picked up a few things for breakfast, and chatted again. He told me that he had to be on his way.

I came back to the retreat house a short while later – I had to go to a meeting with the other monks – and when I came back, Jerry had folded his tent, packed his trailer and was gone. He left me a little key chain and a note. The key chain is small, and has a little string of plastic beads of different colors. The pamphlet attached to the beads reads that the colors are for different things – black for Good Friday, red for Pentecost, white for Christmas and Easter, blue for heaven and truth, green for the Trinity, yellow for divinity.

I felt sorry to see him go. I wanted to do more for him, perhaps to keep something of him here. He embodied a truth that I felt was real. But it is a truth that needs movement for its realization, for its very life. A kind of truth on wheels. I told him the night before that I envied him and admired him. He smiled and asked me what this monastery is about – specifically why we have to stay put. I told him that it is the way we seek God, by simply being still. He thought about that and then said that he understood. “But,” he said, “If ever you want, you just get yourself a bike and you can ride with me.”

I hope to see him again. I told him he is always welcome here. He can pitch his tent and give his wheels a rest anytime.

What is peace?

I hesitate to define it, as if it is something we can settle with words and then go about getting it.

It is movement. It is listening and speaking, stopping here and there along the way, resting by a lake, chatting over a meal, then moving on. It is like me here in this place of stillness, into which rides a man on a mission who needs a place for the night, to rest.

It is learning so slowly about the God who gave us colors and beauty and who came here, for a while, and who said that peace is here, and that it will come, but that there must be suffering first, because the world will not understand it or take readily to it. It is a kind of peace that disturbs. We may want to hold it for a while, but it has to move. It has wheels, wheels spinning fast, of different colors.

I finger the beads on my little key chain – the colors I touch symbolize all the truth we need to know and live. The truth is within us, within each of us, at times still, at times moving, seeking rest by a lake.

Bread on the Waters

Bread on the Waters

Thousands of people come here to the monastery every year. It is peaceful here and I suppose that most come to rest for a while in the quiet that we try to offer. I am sure that it is the hope of many who come that they will better grasp a sense of God, or meaning, or a renewed sense of direction in their lives.

Every now and then people come who have no such expectations.

A bus load of kids arrived recently. I knew that they were coming. They were kids of special needs – some were autistic, others were physically challenged. They came from a school far from here and had been on the road in a yellow bus since four in the morning. Their teachers and some aides were with them. I met them in the retreat house after Mass and chatted with them for a bit. They had brought large bags of bread and were excited about going down to the lake to feed the geese.

I went down with them and watched as they lined up at the shore line and tossed bread to the geese. The geese by now know that people mean food, so they honked and squawked with what I guess was delight as the kids threw pieces of bread to them. There was one goose out in the middle of the lake that made his way as fast as he could toward the banquet of flying bread. He moved fast across the water, making a racket and leaving a widening wake behind him.

Standing behind the kids, I enjoyed watching them as they fed the geese. One kid was so taken with it that instead of tearing off little pieces of bread, he tossed the entire loaf into the lake and laughed as the geese fought each other for a piece of that soggy and floating treasure.

One boy turned around and looked at me. He dropped his bread on the ground and came over to me, told me that his name was Charles and took my hand and held it as he talked to me. He asked if I was a monk and I told him yes. He said that he was happy. Happy to be there and feed the geese but he saw that I was by myself. It was then that I noticed that all the kids seemed to be paired – they had a buddy system.

Those kids remained in my heart all day. I had to go to work, at our bonsai pottery barn, and thought about them as I wrapped pots. Later, as lunch time approached, I want back to the area near the retreat house and told their teachers that it would be fine if they all had lunch in the retreat house. I knew that they had planned to eat their lunch outside but it was a chilly, windy day. I would have had lunch with them but I had to get back with the other monks at mid-day prayer.

Most people, I think, assume that we embody and offer here some sense of clarity about God and his ways in this world. I suppose that is okay. Much of the language that is heard here – human conversations, the chanting of the psalms, talks given by monks in the retreat house, the homilies and almost the sum total of words here, all bespeak of God and the human. And we speak and listen, in the hope that when the words are tossed, we are somehow fed.

Does it all work? I suppose it does, to some extent. We often hear good “reviews” as to what is said and heard here.

What is that phrase? Something about tossed bread on the waters, tossed, perhaps, in the hope that something good will happen.

I think of those kids, who, when they were born, had their toes counted with love to make sure that they arrived in this world in perfect shape. How long did it take till it was known that something was wrong? With an inability to speak right, or see right, or think right, hopes were painfully lowered and lives were altered. Hearts were set on a path of lifetime care in intense, concentrated ways. The kids would be different.

High above the shore of our lake stands our magnificent church. It is clearly beautiful. Striking in its form, it offers a place where people seek God and pray to him. How hungry we are for God to come, and answer our prayers. Yet, how far away God must be, for much of what we pray for is forever late in the coming. We pray for peace which eludes our grasp. We pray for health, which is bound to fail. We pray for each other as we stumble through life, hurt each other, somehow miss each other, not knowing how to communicate the love we feel, the love we need, the love whose absence makes such a wound of this world. Yet we persist in our prayer, and toss to the silence of God our words. How and when will he speak?

On the shore I watched those kids as they tossed their bread. Bits of bread, and the occasional loaf, sailed through the air and onto the waters. They tossed in such a happy and carefree way. I watched their glee as the geese came. The tall, majestic house of God rose behind them, a place where at that moment other words were being tossed to the infinite mystery of God – thrown to another far shore.

Some day, I believe that all that is of God will rise. Every word that has ever been spoken to him, no matter from how far, and how desperate and how angry, has been heard. No matter how foolish sounding to the supposedly learned, or how futile to the pragmatic among those of us who have walked this earth, God has heard and will answer every cry. God will rise.

I watched the kids yesterday and daydreamed later, as to how the lake before them would surge and rise, and from it would rise fantastic things – a great wooden ship with sails of spun gold, and a magical circus with dancing bears and angels who swallowed fire and tossed diamonds to the shore, and a castle with jeweled windows and vast streets on which people laughed and danced as they beckoned to the children on the shore. And the kids ran across the waters, seeing as clear as day the wonders that rose before them, and felt their bodies as being whole and good, and their minds as fresh and as bright as can be. And Charles would look back at me, and run to me and take my hand and ask me to come, come and see, come and go with him.

But I of course know that only bread was tossed and the shore brought to them only geese. But their bread is the only prayer they now know, and they tossed it with all their hearts, pieces and entire loaves, over and over again, and I know that God will come. And, somehow, I think that their prayers of bread are more honest and far reaching than any prayer could ever say.

The Little Way

The Little Way

There is an ancient custom in all of our monasteries of having a book read to the community during the main meal at mid-day. We take turns as readers and this week it is my turn. The book is a collection of meditations on the Incarnation, by Ladislaus Boros. In the section I read aloud yesterday, he referred to the writings of Saint Therese of the Little Flower – Therese of Lisieux. She was a French Carmelite nun and was only twenty-four when she died, in 1897. Her writings were published after her death and they became a literary sensation in France and then all over the world. Her spirituality, as reflected in her writings, became known as “The Little Way.” She embraced small, ordinary things throughout her life. She believed that a way to God could be found through attentiveness to and a love for the little things in life – the things that make up any ordinary day. I believe that the reason her writings caused such a huge sensation among the average reader was because her words helped people see and love God in the ordinary. As simple as that may appear, we need to hear again and again in our lives words that help us take to heart the presence of the divine in our everyday lives. We tend to look at some far horizon for a sight of the miraculous when all the while it is right at our feet. In the brief selection I read yesterday, Boros wrote of how Therese could look at a flower, or a rubber ball, a sunset or a scene from a train window while passing through the Alps, and from these she would ponder the loving presence of God and write of that love. It was as if God spoke to her through windows, through flowers, through a bouncing ball.

As I read the words from the book, I occasionally glanced up to see the clock, so as to be ready when the bell rang, to finish the section in an area where I could pick it up again the next day. I looked from the clock to the monks in front of me, who were taking their meal in an attentive silence, listening to the words of the ordinary as I read them. Sun streamed through the windows, casting a lovely light all through our large refectory. My voice filled the room, sharing words written a long time ago about the very things I saw in front of me. The sunlight was beautiful, as was the scene of the monks, their heads lowered in a kind of reverence, taking in the nourishments of words, food, water.

We intake so much during any given way in order to live. I suppose it is normal that few of us pause to give thought to all that we absorb in a day in order to live, to understand, to appreciate what we see. We need food and drink to live. We need words and symbols to understand and to see. We need each other to learn how to love, how to live good and peaceful lives.

We need saints to help us look at the lives that we live, and to see the sublime in and through the ordinary. God is, for many, a far and lofty Being. He may seem so far – be it in the heavens or in some imagined life beyond this one. These days, His existence is debated in several books that have reached best-seller status. But every now and then a person comes along who sees things with such beauty and who writes about them. And so it is that a train window becomes a tabernacle. A rubber ball becomes an orb of revelation and a flower speaks the eloquence of God. And we listen – and recognize that God is here, in our midst. He may seem to be silent but He speaks through the saints. And what he says through them can be salvation for any one of us. For the words of saints rivet our eyes and hearts to the right here in our midst – to the seemingly ordinary things and people that come our way every day.

Eric

Eric

There is a young man riding on a bus, on his way from Conyers, Georgia to Buffalo, New York. It is a long ride. His name is Eric and he stayed with us here at the monastery for many weeks. Eric worked and prayed with us during the time he was here. He is a quiet man. I got to know him better when we worked at bonsai together. He has spent a lot of time working in Catholic Worker houses in different parts of the country and I liked listening to his stories from those experiences. There is something special about him – he has a gift for living in the present moment and traveling light. He does not have a lot of baggage.

I will miss him. It saddened me to say good-bye to him yesterday. In the brief time that he was with us, he imparted a lot of goodness just by being who he is and sharing where he has been.

These coming weeks will have a lot of post-resurrection stories. One of my favorites is the gospel that tells of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. They walk with Jesus and yet do not recognize him until the breaking of the bread, and in that recognition, which comes as gift, their hearts awaken with a fire that enkindles them with joy. It is a beautiful story about the presence of Jesus in all of our lives – how we walk with him all the time, presenced as he is in people and celebrated in the sharing of bread and stories.

Eric may be sleeping now, his head resting against a bus window as the bus moves north, making its way toward Buffalo. I hope he had a good stay here with us. I told him yesterday that I hope he returns some day. He smiled when I said that and said that he would try and come again.

I wonder who is seated next to him on the bus. Maybe they will share stories about life, and perhaps some food. And I like to think that Jesus will be there as well, in the sharing and the telling. When Eric told me stories, I felt good about life. He has a way of seeing life and loving it. He came as gift and moved on, leaving a lesson of genuine grace.

Sanctuary

Church Columns

The Winning Ticket

The Lottery Ticket

I thought about him all day yesterday, a Mr. Schenk, a man I have never met and will never meet. He lives in New York and I read about him in the paper yesterday morning. Maybe you read the article. It is about how he won a million dollars in the lottery. He was riding with his good friend, a Mr. Gallo, in his truck and he they were scratching off the tickets. They were laughing as one ticket after another was a losing one. Then came a scratch that exposed the million dollar jackpot.

Mr. Schenk has been diagnosed with lung cancer and, even with the best treatment, is not expected to live much longer than a year. He was diagnosed in December and bought the winning ticket in late January. The article gives a lot of odds – the odds of him winning the lottery, the odds of his getting cancer. There is a big spread concerning the odds of his getting a fatal disease. There is an even bigger spread of his winning a million dollar ticket.

He is now trying to negotiate with the lottery people so that he can get his winnings in one lump sum to help him pay for the cancer treatment, which will be very expensive. There is a lot of red tape. A lump sum has never been given out before and he was told that the chances are one in five that he will get the money. So, he is hoping for the best, hoping that something can be worked out through the legislature. But he was told by an authority that such things take time and Mr. Schenk knows that the odds are that time is not on his side.

Mr. Schenk is struggling with a lot of odds. In one way, he is a real winner. The first check for thirty-four thousand dollars has already arrived. He went to his favorite bar and bought everyone a round of drinks, though he did not tell them that he won a lot of money.

He never married, is childless and has worked at odd jobs.

It is early in the morning here and we just finished praying the psalms. I thought again of Mr. Schenk. He is probably still asleep up in New York. Maybe he will wake up in a little while and plan a day with his friend, Mr. Gallo. I like to envision them taking a ride somewhere, to a place that they both like. In the comfort of their friendship, maybe Mr. Gallo will find the right words to ease the fears that his friend must surely feel these days. Whether or not Mr. Schenk gets the lump sum, the treatment will at best extend his life a few months. Money will buy him a bit of time.

But he has something that never came from a scratched ticket. He may ride today with a friend that money cannot buy. In the quiet of their truck, the best that life can give has arrived and has apparently arrived many times before, in the friendship of Mr. Schenk and Mr. Gallo.

I wonder how many fingers will scratch off lottery tickets this day in the hope of securing a jackpot of cash. There is no way of knowing that number of scratches. Could be in the millions, maybe in the billions. Enough human breath to make several hurricanes will blow the powdery film off countless tickets and nearly all of those who carefully exhale on the surface of their tickets will be losers.

Do you have a friend? Will you be with him or her this day? Maybe you will take a ride somewhere and enjoy the comforts of the gift who is your friend. Life is brief. In that sense, we are all losers. No win can give us years that stretch on forever.

I believe in Jesus. I do not know where Mr. Schenk is as regards his faith. But I do know that he won a winning ticket a long time ago, when he found a friend in Mr. Gallo.

There has been a lot of theological scratching over the centuries as scholars have tried to remove as best they can the obscurities covering the life of Jesus. Who was he and what did he offer? Maybe it was and is something as simple as offering us all friendship with God. Maybe his life and death brought us all to life with God, and with each other, in a way that is best comparable to real human friendship.

I like to think so. It is the deepest hope I have.

I am sorry that time in abundance on this earth is not yours to have, Mr. Schenk. It isn’t anyone’s, in the long run. We all struggle with red tape of all varieties. I hope you get the lump sum, if that is what you wish. I can understand how much you must want that. But I want to understand, too, why I think it does not matter in the big scheme of things. I think that long ago you scratched the surface of the heart of another and found friendship. And in that simple human need, you struck gold.

I wonder if anyone was gazing into the window of your truck when you and Mr. Gallo were side by side and in your hands you held a million dollars. A window is small, but on that day it offered a glimpse of the eternal as its presence, through friendship, appeared as plain as day.

You won, Mr. Schenk. You were given a gift that will never be lost. It rides with you now and will carry you through your illness and to eternal life. You know friendship – God’s ticket to the meaning of life.

Christmas

Christmas

I have been scanning old family pictures. Many are of photographs that my dad took when we – my two sisters and four brothers – were little. I showed them to my oldest brother, Johnny, not too long ago and I could feel him absorbing as many details as possible. He lingered a long time over each picture. He said, “If I look at these in the quiet stillness of my room, I know I will start to cry. It has all been so beautiful. And all so good.”

The passing of things hits home as we grow older. Mortality begins to exact its claim when we have been given a lifetime to remember and look back – and wonder as to the beauty of it and its loss.

I mention this today because there is a space in the human heart that yearns for what was and what will be on Christmas. Expectations are heightened by the joy that surrounds us this Season. We look back and hope that all that was somehow still lives. We look ahead and hope that God will be good to us, to those we love, and, on this day, our hopes and desires for goodness reach out to the whole world. For that is what we are, in fact, as church. We span miles and history. We celebrate a birth that binds us all as brothers and sisters.

I have thought about what my brother said that day, when he felt loss looking at the photographs. He did not say as much in so many words, but is it not true that he was speaking out of a sense that the past had become a real and living part of his heart? Over the years, sisters and brothers, a mother and father, aunts and uncles and grandparents became more than simply other people. They shared life with him, with me, and somehow became a part of us. And when they pass from this life, it is as if a piece of us is missing – but something of them still lives within.

I do not know why that is, on simply human terms.

So let me try the Divine – a word or two from Revelation.

Let me try to speak of the Gift that is this Child whose birth we celebrate this day.

As he grew, people drew near to him. They loved him and wanted to be a part of him, a living part of his life. We all know what that desire is like, from the love that we feel for each other. And so it was that in time, he gave himself to them. His spirit was poured into them and he gave himself to them as food. God made his home in us. Something – Someone – lives in us and is God.

These are words we hear over and over again – but they come alive and take on a power when we hear ourselves – when we listen to our hearts, and what we say of love and longing – to each other or in the privacy of our rooms when we pray – or look at old pictures and hope that our heart’s wishes comes true.

The Abbot recently said that we have barely come to understand the meaning of the Incarnation. I had the image of my brother touching the surface of a photograph, hoping to better remember, love, and hold a person no longer present in this life.

Yes, we scratch the surface of life with our words, with trying to fathom the meaning of God becoming one of us.

But it is Christmas – and as much as we try and pick out the best gifts for those we love – be it something you can buy or say, write or hope – we do so from the love of a God who is making us a part of each other in much the same way that he has become a part of us – for that is what love does. That is what love is.

Yes, Johnny – it all was and is beautiful. And it has all become a part of us – and will live forever. It is the Gift of Christmas – and it always was. We just kind of feel it better and more deeply the older we get and the more it all becomes us.

The Christmas City

The Christmas City

Route 17 is a highway that winds its way past Newark and goes through Lyndhurst and then up through Bergen County. I am familiar only with that particular stretch. I am sure that it is longer than that little piece, but I've never had reason to go that way. It is one of northern New Jersey's more colorful highways, but the scenery isn't what lends the color to this long slab of concrete and macadam. The color hits you from all sides, from all the stores and malls that are situated all along the highway. Route 17 passes through many municipalities, many of which have banned the use of neon lighting. Nevertheless, there are lots of lights along the way. Gas stations, shopping malls, computer stores, dog kennels, rug stores, automobile dealerships, diners, fast food places, fancy restaurants and nearly whatever else you can imagine existing along that particular ten or so miles of 17.

Advent is quite the season for travelers who frequent Route 17 in late November and through December. The smaller stores along the highway are all decorated for Christmas. These stores bask in the wonderfully decorated shops that constitute the Malls that exist on both sides of 17.

There is even a place called Christmas City. During the pre-Christmas season, it sells all sorts of Christmas decorations. Therein, in that City, is a forest of artificial trees, ornaments, wrapping papers of all colors, Season's Greeting cards, fake reindeer and Santas, aerosol snow, plastic wreaths, concrete elves, twinkling electric lights, polyester or red plastic Christmas stockings, indeed, everything that one might need for Christmas. Almost magically, the City appears out of nowhere right after Thanksgiving. But, as any faithful traveler on Route 17 knows, the transformation is not the stuff of enchantment or dreams. During the “off season,” a.k.a. “Ordinary Time,” the place is a humble dealership that barters swimming pools and lawn furniture. After Christmas is over, a first time pilgrim, heading his or her way up 17 toward the New York Thruway, would never dream that the collection of pool pumps, chlorine tablets, linings, portable cabanas, metal chairs, in-ground pools and other swimming pool necessities give way every Advent Season to tons and tons of manufactured Christmas stuff. The transformation happens so fast, one would swear that out of the dark skies of a late November evening, it all just plops right out of the heavens and hits the earth, right smack on 17 North, nestled lovingly among the huge, sprawling Malls that draw hundreds of thousands of people each Holiday Season.

I am writing this in Ordinary Time, according to the liturgical calendar. To be specific, it is July 29th. It is a hot, humid afternoon. I just finished having lunch, which consisted of a peanut butter sandwich, chocolate chip cookies, a Coca-Cola and an olive. I am in Covington, Louisiana, visiting my parents. There really isn't much to do here, except read and write and go for a few walks. My father is watching a baseball game with the sound turned all the way off. I never realized that is a not all that unusual practice with some people. Funny, I wonder if people get tired of all the words that hit them from all sides, including homilies or religious words. After sixty some-odd years of hearing and speaking words, I guess people can easily grow weary of them. Perhaps, in varying degrees, we all grow weary of interpretation and just want to look and see. My mother is either reading a book or writing a letter. I'm not too sure which. I can't see her from where I am sitting, but I know that she is at the desk just off the living room. No one is thinking about Christmas, or Advent, or shopping or phony elves. No one is thinking about swimming pools, either. But I have been thinking about the Incarnation and about what all this means here. Maybe one shouldn't be so direct about such things. I just don't know. My mother's eyesight is failing and my father is recovering from recent surgery. He does not have the strength that he used to, but looks well. I leave for home on Tuesday evening, and will tell them that I love them and will call when I get home that night. And I will write letters, and make phone calls. I am pretty good at keeping in touch. But it never seems enough. We cannot seem to love enough, to say enough. I cannot keep back the inevitable passage of time, and cannot deny within myself the pain that I feel seeing my mother and father experience the indifferent blows that come with simply growing older. It all seems to have happened so fast, so fast.

In a matter of months, I will be one of the multitude that drive past Christmas City and will probably feel an ache. The lights, the accompanying music on the radio, the surrounding square mile after square mile all beckoning to be as bright, as joyous, as expectant, will all bring to the surface of my mind the lingering thought that I am not fulfilled, not all that bright, not as joyous. My heart will not be able to match in depth and intensity the cultural creation that is Christmas City and the surrounding power of the magnificently lit Malls. The lights will make me squint. I will feel small, not up to the occasion, but will continue on and buy presents and try to look my best and fit into the whole rush of it all, and look forward to the near return of Ordinary Time.

On one of my recent visits down here, I was on my way to bed and passed my parents' bedroom. I looked in and saw my father in prayer, kneeling by his bed, saying his night prayers. I am sure that my mother was right across from him, quietly saying hers. From the earliest I can remember, I recall their doing that every night before going to bed. There have been three ongoing channels of communication in their married life: with God, with each other, and with seven children. It is a microcosm of all that is truly life. Our conversations during the day touch on so many, well, ordinary things. Relatives, the church, my getting a haircut, what's for dinner. Nothing all that profound. But I will say a prayer this night, for all things ordinary. I will give thanks for peanut butter sandwiches and hot July afternoons and the deep feelings in my heart, spoken and unspoken. I will thank God for the night prayers of my mother and father. I will pray for the wisdom to trust the Incarnate Word in such things as ordinary as this hot afternoon in late July, when Christmas is so far away on the calendar and yet as intimate as my breathing, as near as my mother straining to see, to understand. And, if I feel estranged this Advent season as I drive past Christmas City, I pray that I will remember this July afternoon, an off season, an unmemorable day, a day unadorned and yet a day that is the very stuff of human living, a day of lunch, talk, idle chatter and night prayers. A day imbued with the sacredness of ordinary things, each in their proper place, awaiting the same glorious disclosure that awaits all seemingly small things. I may feel no less estranged, but may feel a bit heartened in knowing that is precisely why he came: not to remove human estrangement, but to sanctify it and give it hope, to move it all along toward himself, in Covington, on Route 17, in Christmas City, and on this otherwise uneventful day in July.

Mr. Reilly

Mr. Reilly

My brother and I used to take the Public Service bus to get to high school. The school was in Newark, about a forty minute ride from Montclair, where we grew up. The buses back then were not as sleek as they are these days. The windows were much smaller and the greens and grays of the buses were not kept as shiny. But it seems to me that they had a homier feel to them, a used and worn feel to them. The seats were softer, slightly indented by so many thousands upon thousands of unknown and forever anonymous fannies. The ads that lined the ceiling were more local and not as cosmic as today's bus ads. And there was a nice familiar wheeze to the buses back then. I could hear the wheeze from blocks away, giving me enough time to take a few more drags om my cigarette and scramble in line to board the bus.

We took the #60 bus, which came down tree lined Park Street and then turned onto Bloomfield Avenue, the main street that passed through several towns, and headed on down to Newark. There were and still are all sorts of stores on Bloomfield Avenue. I used to like to look at them as the bus passed them by. The bus came at roughly 7:05 every morning, and Mr. Reilly was our bus driver. He looked quite old back then. But a lot of perhaps younger folks looked older then. He was small and had a tanned, leathery face. There was to him a wheezened look. He kind of looked how the bus sounded. He wore the typical bus driver hat, which was very well worn and had a public service emblem on it, right above the little green sunshade. Mr. Reilly hunched over the large steering wheel as he drove, as if to get a better look at what lay ahead down the road. The steering wheel of the bus was large, and he gripped both sides as if he had to do that to keep the bus on the ground. I do not think that I ever heard him say a word. He just looked up and nodded to each person getting on the bus, eyeing your hand to see if you had the proper ticket or money. I do not remember him ever looking directly at me, but do remember his small eyes in a mirror that hung off the top of the large window directly in front of him. We sat in the rear of the bus and every so often I would look to see if he was watching what we were up to and nine out of ten times my eyes met his. I cannot say it was a fond or endearing look that I saw in his eyes. It was more of a beady, watchful squint, something like that of an old tired snake. But there was a tired friendliness to him, as quiet as he was. I think that he had seen a lot over the years.

Snake eyes don't necessarily mean a thing as to how a person truly is. But his eyes were steady and beady and watchful.

I can remember a few people who got on the bus every day and I remember where they got on. There was a lady who boarded in Bloomfield and she was very severe looking. Everything about her seemed strained and taut. She was encrusted with heavy make-up and wore her hair in a tight bun that sat on her head like a hard bread roll. Her pursed lips were a deep colored red and her face was heavily powdered. She often had little whisp of powder on her lips. I could not tell if it was sugar from a doughnut or freshly applied talc. She never looked at anyone once she sat down and almost immediately opened a paperback novel and no matter what happened around her, she never looked up from that book. I can still see her reeling back and forth as the bus rolled down Bloomfield Avenue, never once taking her eyes off the page.

There was a man who sat near us in the back of the bus. He always headed straight for the rear seats and usually found one near the back door. That was the area where we sat. He always smelled like fish and wore the same clothes every day - brown baggy and oversized corduroy pants, brown shoes and an old worn green jacket. His hair was thick and oily and combed straight back. He always had a stubble of growth on his face, as if he had last shaved the afternoon before. I imagined that he worked in a factory in Newark and lived alone somewhere in Montclair. He boarded the bus in an affluent section of the town and that made me wonder even more as to where he came from. Funny thing was that I saw him about five years ago on the bus, going the same way. He could not have had the same clothes that he wore thirty years ago, but he still favored brown pants and brown shoes. He had a different jacket on. He still had that fishy odor to him.

The bus passed a Burroughs adding machine store in Bloomfield, not far from the Newark line, and every morning there was a fat lady drinking coffee and standing in that store, looking longingly out the window. She must have worked there since she was always there before opening hours. I saw her in the same spot every school day morning for four years. The Burroughs place is now a car dealership and yet when I would pass there over the years I would always think of her and what she thought about during all those coffees and all those hours, standing there looking east, towards the hazy skyline of Newark.

Just inside the Newark line there boarded a woman who was so pretty. She was then in her early thirties and had a European look to her. She dressed very simply and wore her blond hair neatly brushed, with a part. It hung just down to the collar of her coat and she had a habit of brushing away what she thought might have been little flecks of dandruff, but I never saw any. Her hands were soft looking. She had a small scar on her left cheek. She never wore make-up and had a morning puffiness to her face, as if she had woken up just a short time before getting on the bus. She always looked worried or hurt, perhaps melancholic, and yet I thought that everything about her made her beautiful, even whatever pain she may have had difficulty hiding. She seemed so human to me.

And so it was, for four years. We had a lot of fun in the back of the bus and got in trouble for our antics more than once, when annoyed passengers called the school office and filed a complaint. Whereas they were more tolerant of smoking in those days, we did cross the line when we opened a can of marbles and let them roll hither and yon down the aisle. A few times there were fist fights and they created a panic, too. But the worst was when Bogey Murray set the back seat of the bus on fire. It was a cold day and he later said that he needed warmth. That is the only time I remember Mr. Reilly stopping the bus and complaining to the supervisor, who was at his post in Montclair center. We were thrown off the bus and got in a lot of trouble at school. We were allowed back on the 60 bus the next day, and Mr. Reilly never said a word about the incident. Well, he never said a word anyway about anything. He just shook his head and glared at us as we boarded the bus.

Several days ago, an obituary in the New York Times caught my eye. A guy I went to high school with was killed riding a motorcycle in New York State. I immediately recognized his name. He used to board the bus near the Newark line. He was at one time the chief of surgery in a New York hospital. He was only forty-nine years old. I had not seen him since the day we graduated in June of 1966. I see his face in my mind's eye as I knew him back then, friendly and warm. He had blond hair and blue eyes and even back then we all knew that he was exceptionally bright. But it was his personality that so easily won people over to him. He became so successful, and now he is gone. His death saddened me, even though we never kept in touch. I would like to write to his wife to express my condolences but there was no mention of where she lived. His death made my mind wander back to those days, to him and others who seem so fresh in my mind, so fresh, as if we were together just yesterday riding the bus again.

I am sure Mr. Reilly, too, is gone now.

I wonder if there are buses in Paradise. Are there roads, and people in need of a ride to near and far places? Is there such a thing as travel? Does the pleasure of taking a trip, and gazing peacefully out of a crystal window to vast realms of Paradise await us? I hope so. I hope there is the chance to people watch, to look with wonder at how different we all are. I hope that there are growth and movement and so many things that enchant us in this life and that for some folks seem to provide a touch of heaven right here on earth.

Mr. Reilly, can you hear me? I am older now, and do not move much from this monastery. Oh, we move around quite a lot during the day. But we do not travel much out of the cloister. I don't mind. I kind of travel a lot in my head and heart here, back and forth in time and memory. I think back on those many days when you drove the bus, when you drove us and we drove you crazy. I want to apologize for that. Dorothy Day believed that prayer was powerful enough to change even the past. So, I pray this day for the you and us that were back then. Maybe just one little prayer saved you a bump or two on the road to Newark, on your ultimate way to Paradise. I hope so. I mean that.

Mr. Reilly, it is Christmas and my Dad will is gone two years now I am sure the two of you never met in this life. He worked in New York back then and took the train every day, not far from where you picked us up. My brother died right before graduation. You may have heard about it since it the car accident happened just about a block from where you picked us up on Park Street every morning and everyone was talking about that accident for weeks. I heard people talk about it on the bus, when you drove the bus past the tree that the car slammed into.

Do you drive a bus up there? If you do, keep a lookout for a two young men who look very much alike. I am sure that they will be sitting together, catching up on old times. They would love to meet you. Pull over and give them a ride, showing them the best that Paradise has to offer. Someone who came from there said that there are many mansions, so there must be places, such nice places, places to go and a need to somehow get there.

When I, too, get there, I will look for you. Perhaps we will even be neighbors, on a beautiful tree lined street, like Park Street. There must be such wide streets in Paradise, Mr. Reilly, because there are so many people who have wanted their whole lives to reach Paradise and settle in for the long haul. They may like to take their time and walk.

My Dad would like you and I am sure that you would like him. When I, too, get there, I will look for you. Perhaps we will even be neighbors on a tree lined street, like Park Street.

We can catch up on things.

Oh, and Mr. Reilly, just one more thing. Some day, you will be driving by, and you may see a young pretty woman, with dark hair and blue eyes. That's my Mom. She does quite well with new situations, but on that day she may need just a bit of help. Tell her you've been in touch with all she loves and she'll like that, and know just what you mean. She'll be anxious to start a new life with those she loved and missed while here. She and Dad gave us a touch of Paradise while here, with the way they loved us and each other. They probably never realized while they were here how good it all was. They gave us life, fed us, clothed us, watched us all the way, and it went so fast, so very fast. Maybe you can tell her, Mr. Reilly, how good it was. She will worry about that.

Yes, it is good and has been good. It sometimes takes me time to realize that, to look back and see that it has always been that way. God manages to get us all where we need to go, like you did, Mr. Reilly. And I thought so little of it all back then. So I thank you again, and ask that you remember me in your travels up there. Thanks for all those miles, those times we traveled this life together and did not think much about what all that meant and how good and truly sacred it was and is. I send my love and prayers and deep gratitude to you, Mr. Reilly, to the man you were and the man you now are.

A blessed Christmas to you, Mr. Reilly.