Reply to Peggy (Jim)
Outside Influences 11/22/2005
Peggy wrote a very supportive note on the 16th, with some great questions in it. She says ‘My fascination makes me want more details: just what happened in those nightmares?’ ‘What transpired in your conversations with your mentor?’ ‘Did the “outside” world have any influence on you at this time?’ ‘With who did you share your doubts and epiphanies?’ ‘How was your first seminary different from the Benedictine experience, in everyday textures, encounters, duties? etc. & etc. & etc.’
I wish I could answer these questions myself, but memory eludes me, or probably some defense still exists around the demon experience. For instance, I don’t remember the content of the nightmares at all, butI do remember they were terrifying. Likewise I remember few specific conversations with my mentor, Fr. Miriani, but I remember the feelings of our union and how it completely changed me. I do remember the one conversation when he said, ‘I am the son he always wished he had had’, just as I remember my Dad saying ‘there’s not room in this house for the two of us - one must go.’ My Dad doesn’t remember that specific conversation nor, I’m sure, does Fr.Miriani remember his words. But I do, because they capture my conflict within, am I loved? A conflict that’s repeated in my spirituality and relationships. All of which leads very nicely into Peggy's third question, ‘Did the “Outside” world have any influences on you at this time?’
I don’t know what she refers to with ‘during this time’, however? Does she mean during the early prep seminary years, or senior year with Fr. Miriani, or at the college diocesan Chicago seminary or at the Benedictine one, or during the demon experience? Since I’ve already relayed my reasons for and the circumstances around my going to the prep seminaries, none of which were spiritual, I’ll begin now with my senior year of high school, and the circumstances that swirled around my Fr. Miriani experience.
As I look back I was ripe for a spiritual possession. I say possession because that conveys how powerfully I was captured by spirituality, that began in my senior year of high school and lasted through the demon experience, when the spell was broken.
New to the Catholic, rural, high school, I posted my self, silently, with my back against the point of the corner of the hallway intersection, in front of the cafeteria, near the library and on the way to the gym. It was the hub of social life there. I was a mystery to all of them here and they to me. I was dark haired, they were blond, I was from the dangerous, wild city of St. Louis, while most of them had never ever left their county! Nothing changed here, and I epitomized difference. In the huge public high school in St. Louis, I had been invisible, but here, where my parents were from, everyone was related to me somehow and assumed they already knew me well, by lineage. My father was a banker amongst farmers. As such, I was part of a wealthy elite, with a huge chip on my shoulders. Here, the girls kept pinching my ass. So I was silently brooding, warily, with my flanks protected, wondering on what planet had I landed.
I had on a huge ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign, that I embodied, but Fr. Miriani must not have seen it, as he posted himself, in like manner, next to me each day. I had bluntly told him to get lost, that he’d ruin my image, but still he came back each day. I cynically thought, when he asked me to go on a retreat, though, that I now saw through his facade, and so I completely shut him out. I smugly thought I was rid of him till Mr. Senesac, the huge overweight speech teacher, continued the assault. He said I was afraid to go. I was angry now. So I agreed to go, to make them lament the day they’d first seen me.
Everything was so different here than St. Louis. There were no gangs, nor drugs (much), nor sex parties. Everyone was lost in St.Louis. All the suburbs were new and everyone transplanted. At the prep seminaries, we were all away from our families, but here, at Mater Dei, no one had been uprooted ever, it seemed. They all belonged to groups, within groups, within groups, ad nauseam. And everyone was so wholesome, sincere, and strappingly buff.
For the first time in my life, I had a girl-friend too; a perk, I’m sure, of my celebrity status here. Eventually I also found my own group (clic), I fit with. I actually felt included but not their equal. We were not the jocks, nor the intellectual elite, nor the political leaders, but we were leaders none-the-less - about 15 or 20 of us. I had no doubt they’d all be highly successful, influential, and important. I was less sure about myself.
These changed circumstances enfolded me that year but none captured me like the spiritual. Here’s how that began.
At the retreat, I continued my brooding resistance until it was Judge Henkins time to speak. As a judge he epitomized the authority figures I so despised, so I sat up to listen, but there he stood, a grown man, crying and crying, so uncontrollably that he couldn’t utter a word. I was totally drawn in by it. What was happening here? This made no sense.
Peggy wrote a very supportive note on the 16th, with some great questions in it. She says ‘My fascination makes me want more details: just what happened in those nightmares?’ ‘What transpired in your conversations with your mentor?’ ‘Did the “outside” world have any influence on you at this time?’ ‘With who did you share your doubts and epiphanies?’ ‘How was your first seminary different from the Benedictine experience, in everyday textures, encounters, duties? etc. & etc. & etc.’
I wish I could answer these questions myself, but memory eludes me, or probably some defense still exists around the demon experience. For instance, I don’t remember the content of the nightmares at all, butI do remember they were terrifying. Likewise I remember few specific conversations with my mentor, Fr. Miriani, but I remember the feelings of our union and how it completely changed me. I do remember the one conversation when he said, ‘I am the son he always wished he had had’, just as I remember my Dad saying ‘there’s not room in this house for the two of us - one must go.’ My Dad doesn’t remember that specific conversation nor, I’m sure, does Fr.Miriani remember his words. But I do, because they capture my conflict within, am I loved? A conflict that’s repeated in my spirituality and relationships. All of which leads very nicely into Peggy's third question, ‘Did the “Outside” world have any influences on you at this time?’
I don’t know what she refers to with ‘during this time’, however? Does she mean during the early prep seminary years, or senior year with Fr. Miriani, or at the college diocesan Chicago seminary or at the Benedictine one, or during the demon experience? Since I’ve already relayed my reasons for and the circumstances around my going to the prep seminaries, none of which were spiritual, I’ll begin now with my senior year of high school, and the circumstances that swirled around my Fr. Miriani experience.
As I look back I was ripe for a spiritual possession. I say possession because that conveys how powerfully I was captured by spirituality, that began in my senior year of high school and lasted through the demon experience, when the spell was broken.
New to the Catholic, rural, high school, I posted my self, silently, with my back against the point of the corner of the hallway intersection, in front of the cafeteria, near the library and on the way to the gym. It was the hub of social life there. I was a mystery to all of them here and they to me. I was dark haired, they were blond, I was from the dangerous, wild city of St. Louis, while most of them had never ever left their county! Nothing changed here, and I epitomized difference. In the huge public high school in St. Louis, I had been invisible, but here, where my parents were from, everyone was related to me somehow and assumed they already knew me well, by lineage. My father was a banker amongst farmers. As such, I was part of a wealthy elite, with a huge chip on my shoulders. Here, the girls kept pinching my ass. So I was silently brooding, warily, with my flanks protected, wondering on what planet had I landed.
I had on a huge ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign, that I embodied, but Fr. Miriani must not have seen it, as he posted himself, in like manner, next to me each day. I had bluntly told him to get lost, that he’d ruin my image, but still he came back each day. I cynically thought, when he asked me to go on a retreat, though, that I now saw through his facade, and so I completely shut him out. I smugly thought I was rid of him till Mr. Senesac, the huge overweight speech teacher, continued the assault. He said I was afraid to go. I was angry now. So I agreed to go, to make them lament the day they’d first seen me.
Everything was so different here than St. Louis. There were no gangs, nor drugs (much), nor sex parties. Everyone was lost in St.Louis. All the suburbs were new and everyone transplanted. At the prep seminaries, we were all away from our families, but here, at Mater Dei, no one had been uprooted ever, it seemed. They all belonged to groups, within groups, within groups, ad nauseam. And everyone was so wholesome, sincere, and strappingly buff.
For the first time in my life, I had a girl-friend too; a perk, I’m sure, of my celebrity status here. Eventually I also found my own group (clic), I fit with. I actually felt included but not their equal. We were not the jocks, nor the intellectual elite, nor the political leaders, but we were leaders none-the-less - about 15 or 20 of us. I had no doubt they’d all be highly successful, influential, and important. I was less sure about myself.
These changed circumstances enfolded me that year but none captured me like the spiritual. Here’s how that began.
At the retreat, I continued my brooding resistance until it was Judge Henkins time to speak. As a judge he epitomized the authority figures I so despised, so I sat up to listen, but there he stood, a grown man, crying and crying, so uncontrollably that he couldn’t utter a word. I was totally drawn in by it. What was happening here? This made no sense.
posted by LifeWriter at 11:44 AM
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