Walking Our Own Journey to God

In November 2013, I wrote a column [link here] about my son leaving the Church, and going off on a journey, that was far away from what most of us imagine for our kids who been raised well in the Church. He had changed his name to “Fig” and moved to a Feminist Anarchist commune and later to a Sufi Center (when the commune burned down). At the time he left my house, he did so as an atheist.

I didn’t make him leave. However, part of the deal in staying would have included a job. He had just left a job he hated, stating that he wanted a change of pace.

I drove him back to the Sufi center after his sister’s graduation. There I broke bread with him and the amazingly diverse group that were living at / visiting the Sufi center. These fascinating people have some habits the rest of us would do well to emulate. “Fig” asked me to not even touch my phone when we all ate together. Before the meal, a group prayer was offered over the vegan & vegetarian food. Then a wonderful conversation was had over the amazing food, as we sat at old tables made of rough hewn wood. I listened to people tell me their stories and I told mine. Experiencing a meal with not a single person glued to their phone was like a breath of fresh air. I visited their gardens and walked up the mountain to see where they dance around fire circles.

It was in this place where Fig started to see that God was the Self of the universe and thus existed. He again wanted to interact with God, but not in the context of Sufism. Then a visitor told him of a Catholic Worker community he might want to consider.

By the time he took his trip to visit the Catholic Worker Community, he had long given up most, if not all, of the comfortable trappings he had become accustomed to in his middle class upbringing. The car I had given him was left behind at my home, as he couldn’t afford to insure it. His clothes were used. His haircuts were rare. And his pocket money was virtually nonexistent. I did not interfere with his ascetic lifestyle, until I (his sole surviving parent) was preparing to leave for two weeks in Asia. He was visiting a city where he knew no one; in a moment of maternal concern, I overnight-mailed him a used cell phone.

He eventually packed his few belongings and moved to the Worker House where he lives with the poor, and rediscovered Jesus in Catholicism.

He read Merton, and John of the Cross, and met people who he now describes to me as the “mystical body of Christ”. He said that you can’t know the poor by having a cursory interaction; you don’t learn what there is to be learned until you let yourself be taught by them, annoyed by them, surprised by them and maybe even hurt by them. He stays up all night running the shelter that saves their lives during bitter winters. He has had to learn to hold his own in a setting where threats and profanities are thrown. (Quite a contrast to the Sufi lifestyle where that sort of thing would have never happened.)

And me – who thought I was doing so well continuing with my work and visiting Mary’s House in Turkey – when he told me of his experiences, I came up with a profound response “I have an engagement ring”. In that second, I realized that he had whizzed past me, leaving me in a puddle of mediocrity where I try to live Jesus’ words while not giving up my comforts.

Conviction…that is the feeling I had in learning about his life – a good “conviction” that makes you want to improve who you are, not a bad one that just leaves you feeling bad.

Asked to share something about his experience, he said that that we should not be afraid to seek – when we seek God we may go far afield, but God is God and will guide us. He also said if you want to help at a soup kitchens, don’t do it on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Pick another day, because those two days are always covered.

I am not sure how long this season of service will last for him. He is returning to college to continue his education. He met a girl who has been living in a nearby monastery, while serving during a “gap year” between undergrad & graduate school. (She got into an Ivy League Medical School.) He seems to enjoy her company a great deal. (For the record, I really didn’t see that coming and I’m going to try really hard to not interfere. She does seem like a lovely young woman though <—serious risk of maternal interference, right? You can see it a mile away…I need to behave myself. )

The future remains quite uncertain. Yet, I now feel braver to watch God do His work. I thought that I was already brave in the degree of latitude that I trusted in God to guide my life, but my own child upped the ante dramatically.

What an amazing adventure I would have missed, if I had tried to force “Fig” to follow a path that seemed to me like the one God chose for him.