June 22 19th Day of The Last Sabbatical

Journal Entry from May 9, 2003. Beginning a Retreat at St. Gregory’s Abbey, Three Rivers, MI

Upon arriving in the monastery parking-lot I step out of the car and am at once absorbed by a very physical sense of familiarity, a soft and living presence that is utterly welcoming, utterly and strangely real. These monks are caretakers to a region of altered reality, a sacred blob of air and earth commingled within irregular boundaries, boundaries I cannot see but feel when I cross them, as if passing through a veil or curtain. It has been at least eight years since my last visit here, yet the very same frogs seem to be singing. There is also lightening, and towering clouds. I had forgotten the profound stillness. How could I forget? The air is damp, warm and heavy, charged with something more than electricity. The frogs are drinking the air in great gulps, and then singing about their great love.
Well, I am singing about mine.

In the monastic church the heavy wooden doors shut out the frog choir. Outside the doors the entrance is strewn with blossoms fallen from some flowering bush. Everywhere in the deserted church are candles and tiny grottos strewn with icons and more flickering lights. The air smells of barnwood, incense, and wax.
I think of the old, dead monks of the past who cast their lives into the deep well of this place, whose free spirits form part of the singing cloud that pervades it now. I recall their names. What moments they had in this brief world they chose to squander on the management of this sacred enclave, like gamblers in a high-stakes game. Other former monks cut their losses and left the monastery behind: I know their names as well. Having left this place, were they haunted by the memory of it? Or was it simply another former address where they stayed awhile?
I imagine some future time when every monk has gone, and the buildings demolished, or put to some other use. I imagine people pausing in their business to take note of the strangeness, bumping into the sacred boundary just as I did upon arriving here. “What is it about this place?” they wonder. “Why do I suddenly feel at peace, at home, and loved?”



Fishing with Michael

Michael, becalmed on the river;
Fishless, continues casting.
Michael, a poet,
Imagining verses;
A romantic,
Imagining grace.

Downstream, David
Holds a fish aloft;
Clearly, the outlines of a Smallmouth Bass.
James is floating too.

I watch from my place in the river.
There are stones in my shoe.

The river, a poet,
Imagines us:
Graceful verses
Recited by bass,
Held up by innertubes
And down by stones.

Jonathan
June 18, 2007