Knowing Your Roots and Having Faith in the Journey

Today we set the date with our church. It’s now official we are getting married at St. Monica’s Catholic Church on May 28, 2011! I remember the day I discovered St. Monica’s, it was about 5 years ago while on a walk down Ocean Ave. I used to frequently stop there on my way back from work at the rose garden and meditate there. One day I veered off the path and found myself in front of this magnificent church. I noticed they had a 5:30 evening mass on Sundays and decided to give it a try. During that time I was studying the Buddhist philosophy and felt that perhaps I was no longer Catholic and that I might just have to become Buddhist. Then I came across this amazing book by Thích Nhất Hạnh called The Living Buddha the Living Christ and my life was transformed. It was as if Thích Nhất Hạnh was giving me the permission I needed to stay true to my roots while following the Buddhist teachings. In this amazing book he compares the life of Buddha to the life of Christ and it is just extraordinary. I highly recommend it.

Upon my first time at St Monica’s, I felt immediately welcomed, embraced and thought, this is it, I had found my people and my pastor. Monsignor Torgerson was so inspiring and uplifting I felt compelled to come back the next Sunday and subsequently there after I started making it my ritual. I hadn’t been very active in the church and had been absent from practicing my faith for quite a while. Returning to my faith, but even more importantly finding a church as progressive as St. Monica’s, felt like being fed after a long starvation. After coming to St. Monica’s off and on for the next several years, and finding myself newly single, and cancer free I decided that the next man I would seriously commit to would have to be Catholic. Rediscovering my faith and letting it carry me through one of the most challening times of my life, along with all the synchronistic events that followed there after was the spark of inspiration that led me to want to get married in this this cathedral-esque setting. I never thought I would get married in a church, but I had always dreamed of sharing my religious values and spirituality with someone that would understand my sense of devotion and love for my faith.

Who knew that at that same time, Joshua would be going through his own transformative experience that would inevitably bring him to convert from his Greek Orthodox roots to the Catholic faith. My beloved, had been married once before and out of that marriage a beautiful little girl named Bella was born. But 5 years later he would experience the devastating, life shattering blow that his marriage was a farce and that Bella was not his biological daughter. Finding himself broken to the his very core, robbed of his only daughter he had even known and realizing that his marriage was over, his good friend and mentor, Matthew Shibley, like a guardian angel, took him under his wing. Matthew thought it would be a good idea for Joshua to convert to Catholicism and remain close to spiritual advisors and obtain the support of the Catholic community during his time of crisis. Joshua being raised in a sister religion very similar to Catholicism also thought that it would be a natural progression of his faith and underwent the year long journey with the culmination of receiving 4 blessed sacraments. Two years later Joshua and I were introduced. We were both Catholic and ready to be in a serious commitment with someone extraordinary!

Upon reflecting for this piece and trying to make sense of it all a very poignant experience came to mind. I once had a psychedelic experience in which I came to the realization that humans are like trees. A tree can grow big and tall all its life but unless it has strong roots no matter how tall it grows it will eventually fall. Similarly, if we do not recognize our roots and remember where we come from, no matter how far we go in life and how successful we may be it is knowing our roots that will make the journey much more meaningful . It is human nature to have a "dark night of the soul" and if you have experienced any kind of loss in your life you will understand what I am writing about and if you have not then brace yourself and stay true to your roots; honor them for it might be your very salvation. My roots brought me to discover an inner peace that is beyond words and has lead both Joshua and myself to find one another.

(By the way, we did have a silly fight the other day. We were arguing about whether the Clintons were billionaires. I said they were and he said not and it turns out they aren’t. Who knew? Not me. But then again Joshua should know after all he does have one in his family. )