The siren song of the Urban Monk’s church called to me the entire week following my first visit.
I heard its strains in the doctor’s office, even when the newest white coat scribbled on a pad with a self-satisfied expression, as if he’d solved the Sickness with one sentence. He ripped off the prescription and handed it to me.
“Get more exercise in the morning?” I cocked my head in puzzlement. Was it my imagination, or was the doctor actually smirking?
“You just need to reset your circadian rhythm,” he explained in a clipped voice, my fatigue an annoyance. “Getting your heart pumping is the best way. I recommend an early-morning exercise class, maybe one of those boot camp–inspired programs.” He glanced at the clock and capped his pen. “One tip: If you pay in advance, it’s harder to sleep through.” Then he laughed.
The calm I’d felt at St. Lydia the previous Sunday was the only thing that kept me from wadding up the prescription and throwing it at Dr. Jerktastic. As the door closed behind him with a metallic click, I leaned my head against the wall behind my chair and looked at the ceiling. I imagined I was back in the Urban Monk’s tiny, jeweled sanctuary and instantly felt a current of connection to the Godiverse.
How could I not return the following Sunday?
I PARKED ACROSS THE street and noticed St. Lydia looked like something out of a storybook. With its red arched door, small stained-glass windows, and heavily sloped slate roof perched atop a stone exterior, it reminded me of a church you might find slumbering in my mother’s ceramic Christmas village atop cotton-ball snow.
“Be careful with the church,” my mother always cautioned when we decorated for the holidays. “The village won’t look right without it.”
Inside, a candle was burning on every sill, as if the windows could hum along with the Monk’s worship. I thought of the twinkling Christmas lights that used to illuminate our toy village, how I’d sneak down to the living room at night just to see them glow. Here, the village church had come to life.
I easily fell into the cadence of the service, noticing that every detail created sacred space. From the lovely icons adorning the sides of the altar, to the well-worn books stacked on the piano, to the unique timbre of the Urban Monk’s voice as he intoned the liturgy; everything fostered the mysterious peace I’d felt all week.
When the Urban Monk led the Lord’s Prayer, he sang in baritone. Usually a PTCS trigger, I followed the familiar words layered on the unfamiliar melody without any discomfort—realizing even as I did so that although I couldn’t say the Lord’s Prayer in a Baptist church without flinching, I could easily harmonize with it here. Changing the context removed the trigger.
Maybe that’s a PTCS survival hack, I mused. Sing what you can’t say.
A few minutes later, the Urban Monk’s eyes briefly met mine as he talked about Jesus going into the desert to fast. “Jesus did not know what he would find in the desert, but he must have believed it would be exactly what he needed,” he explained. I felt like the Monk was talking to me. I’d gone into my project having no idea what I would find. Heck, I still didn’t know what I would find, but maybe walking into the desert of my own heart was already an accomplishment.
The Urban Monk reminded me of that old show Touched by an Angel, where God’s messenger would light up right before delivering a heavenly message. I almost expected him to light up and say, “God loves you more than you can imagine,” before disappearing to a harp soundtrack. He didn’t glow or vanish, but he did bless every parishioner with the sign of the cross before closing the service. They went forward one by one; I waited until everyone else had gone, then went forward by myself.
“My child,” he said, eyes shining as he drew the sign of the cross over me and took one of my hands in blessing, “Something wonderful happened for you last Sunday.” This seemed a counterintuitive thing to say to someone who had snotted her way through an entire box of Kleenex the prior week, but I nodded in assent, somewhat surprised that he remembered me. Then again, based on the attendance I’d witnessed, parishioners weren’t exactly knocking down his door.
“I’m not sure what happened last week,” I offered, “but I felt like I needed to come back. I can’t explain it, really.”
He waved his hands dismissively. “No need to explain. Everyone who walks through my door is brought by God.”
We made formal introductions, but the words felt worn out as soon as they were spoken, like the Urban Monk and I had been acquainted for a long time. My friend Jan, a global missionary who has met many new-old friends through her travels, has a good phrase for this new acquaintance/old friend phenomenon: déjà-forward. “Déjà vu feels like we’ve already been somewhere, done something,” she’d explained to me upon our first meeting twelve years before, when we’d become insta-friends in spite of our age gap. “Déjà-forward is remembering what our heart already knows in the future.”
I felt major déjà-forward standing there with the Urban Monk. “Do you think we could meet sometime?” I asked. “I’d like to find out more about what you do at the mission.” (That was a lie. I wanted to know what it was about this man and his church that turned my PTCS on its head, why I felt like I knew him before we’d even had a conversation, and why I felt an inexplicable draw to this place.)
“Of course. I’d be delighted! I have to serve lunch right now.” He gestured toward a door that I assumed led to the mission. “But if you can come back around three o’clock, I’ll have time then.”
PROMPTLY AT THREE, I knocked at the side door as the Urban Monk had instructed.
“Well, hello! Welcome back!” he beamed, ushering me into the sanctuary. During the service he’d been wearing a large hat and satin robes, but now his dress was more monk-casual: still all black robes, but more cotton. If his service dress was akin to a tuxedo, maybe this get-up was his equivalent of khakis and a button-down.
A mite of a girl ran from the back of the church, beaded braids flying behind her. She stopped short to inspect me. “Are you the new piano teacher?”
I bent down to her level. “Nope, sorry. I didn’t practice enough when I was your age. Do you play?”
“Yes!” she bobbed her head with enthusiasm. “My teacher comes to church every Monday!” Her grin lit up the room before she hopped back to what I assumed was the mission’s kitchen.
“That’s Julie,” the Monk explained. “I bring in university students to teach music lessons for the kids every week . . . Julie’s mother has been in and out of jail since she was born. Prostitution, drugs, you name it. Sometimes she lives with her grandmother; sometimes an aunt. Very unstable situation. But she certainly loves the piano.”
He opened a door off to the side of the altar. “Please make yourself comfortable in my ‘office.’ ” He laughed as he said it, and I soon saw why: The tiny space tripled as office, living quarters, and overflow church storage. In the farthest corner, a small brown mutt was curled atop the one pillow on a neatly made twin bed. At first the set-up surprised me; I wouldn’t normally enter a man’s bedroom. Then I realized he had to sleep somewhere, and as the main church area featured only two rooms, where else would he lay his head? I stepped inside.
The dog jumped up to growl at me, fur standing on end, and barked so loudly that I wondered if the window might shatter.
She looked at the Urban Monk for guidance. “This is Reba,” he whispered to her. “Go make friends.” She rolled over and offered her belly for scratches.
“Please, take a seat,” he invited, gesturing to a worn office chair opposite his desk. I recognized the screensaver of green-and-black code falling vertically across his outdated computer screen.
“Are you a fan of The Matrix?”
He looked at the screensaver. “Ah, yes. The film is a wonderful allegory, reminding us that this life is a transient illusion.”
“My favorite scene is where Neo stops the bullets. There are a lot of days I wish I had that kind of power.”
He looked at me over steel-rimmed glasses, his expression serious. “You do have that power.”
“Meditation is how you learn to stop bullets. Meditation is where God separates truth from illusion. Would you like some tea?” I nodded, trying to digest his words as he flipped on an electric kettle near his keyboard.
Someone knocked on the window. “Father? Father?! You in there? I need your help!”
“Excuse me,” he apologized. “Please watch the tea.”
The Monk stepped out, but I could hear the beginning of a conversation with a guy who sounded young and angry. “Someone stole the bus pass you bought me, and now I can’t get to work!”
“We can get you another pass, but right now you need to get to work. Here’s bus fare. Call when you’re done and I’ll come pick you up. I’ve got someone in my office right now.”
“Thanks, Father!”
“You’re welcome. But no more bus fare until I see your homework done.” I could almost see him wagging his finger at the kid. The monk stepped back in as the kettle whistled. “Sorry,” he smiled. “That was the acolyte, Devon. Did you notice him this morning?”
I thought of the handsome, dreadlocked angel-boy and said yes.
“Good kid, rough situation. I try to help him all I can.” He rubbed a tired hand on his forehead. “Right now I’m just hoping he’ll finish high school.”
The Urban Monk poured us both tea and he leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable. It seemed as if he was readying himself for a story—mine.
“You said you wanted to know more about the mission.” His look was friendly, yet piercing. I imagined it to be the same “No-B.S.-in-God’s-house” expression he’d just given Devon outside. “Why are you really here?”
Uh-oh—busted. I started to speak . . . and immediately all my spiritual garbage came up and out. For two hours my words spilled over one another while the Monk alternated between handing me tissues, patting my hand, and freshening my tea. If my tirade was the spiritual equivalent of bending over a toilet in a bar after too many shots of tequila, the Monk was a kind stranger holding back my hair. Aside from murmuring encouragements, he spoke only once, when I mentioned Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.
He issued a deep belly laugh. “PTCS, eh? I think I have a touch of that myself.”
I talked until I was hoarse and had nothing left to say. When I was finished, we were both silent. Me, because I was mortified that I’d allowed myself to be so vulnerable with a member of the clergy; him, because he was in prayer—or at least seemed to be. If he hadn’t been thoughtfully stroking his beard, I would’ve thought him asleep.
I squirmed in the stillness. Maybe the déjà-forward was wrong; maybe this visit was a really bad idea. Sure, the Monk seemed accepting, but everything I’d just said was a roundhouse kick to the gut of traditional theology—at odds with every iconic Christian painting, symbol, and sacrament in his little Orthodox church. I calculated how fast I could get to the car. Two minutes? Three?
He opened his eyes and began to speak in a voice that was velvety smooth and impossibly strong, like a yoga teacher giving a presidential address.
“Reba, God loves you more than you can possibly imagine.”
(Aha! My Touched by an Angel moment.)
“There is nowhere God isn’t. Even when you thought you were running away from Him, you were always running toward Him. He has never let you go, not for a single moment, and He never will let you go. Nothing you can do or not do can keep you from Him.”
“But . . .” I objected. “But I don’t even like God most of the time. Or at least not the God I grew up with. I can barely even use the word. I use Godiverse.” He looked more amused than scandalized.
“Go on.”
“I don’t believe in hell or the inerrancy of the Bible. I don’t know what I think about Jesus or God.” It felt important that he know all these things up front, so there wouldn’t be any confusion later. “I’m not interested in being converted or ‘brought back to Jesus,’ whatever that means. I don’t want to substitute one religion for another. I’m just looking for peace.”
Surely now he would tell me to get out of his office and take my blasphemy with me; I cowered in my chair, bracing for the blow like a dog kicked too many times.
He shrugged. “It matters not.” For someone with seventeen saint icons on the other side of the wall, he seemed very unconcerned about my sacrilege. “Religion is simply a tool to put God’s love into words and symbols. Doctrine is only useful to the extent it enhances your understanding of that love. God doesn’t care about your religion. He cares about your heart.”
Whoa. This was one very unorthodox Orthodox monk. I liked him. I liked him a lot. I liked him even more when I found out that in addition to the whole Christian monk thing, he had spent time in India studying Buddhism under the Dalai Lama.
“I have taken the vows of Enlightenment,” he performed a seated half-bow. “Bodhisattva, at God’s service.” The Urban Monk was also a former scientist, businessman, inventor, and—for one year in the mountains—a hermit. He was a Reiki master, student of world religions, and an interfaith activist. He seemed to have been everywhere and done everything before landing in the inner city to serve the poor and homeless.
He answered all my questions seriously, in a voice filled with the peace that radiated around him. I’d never met anyone like him. If I could see auras, I imagined his would be a cool, blue pillar stretching from floor to ceiling. The ambience around him was so calm; it seemed as if he might actually be able to stop bullets with his mind.
“The only true religion is love,” said the Urban Monk when dusk fell around the little church. I became conscious that I wanted to come back here, possibly tomorrow.
I want to learn from this man. The thought stunned me. I’d always assumed that Thirty by Thirty was a solo activity, like reading a self-help manual or tweezing my eyebrows. But here was someone right in front of me who possessed what I’d been seeking: Peace. Peace that was much bigger and wider than I’d imagined it could be, even if it involved religion.
The Monk seemed to read my mind. “Would you like to learn to meditate?”
I didn’t need time to think about it. “Yes! But I have one question. Buddhist meditation or Christian meditation?”
He smiled. “There is no difference whatsoever.”
THE FIRST MORNING MY clock buzzed at 4:45 a.m., I hallucinated.
“Trent!” I shook him. “The house is on fire!”
Sleepily, he shook me back. “No, it’s not. That’s your boot camp alarm.”
I remembered with a groan. In an act of Sickness desperation, I had followed Dr. Jerktastic’s advice: I’d signed up—and paid for—an expensive boot camp that met at 5 a.m. I lay back on my pillow, weighing the dollars I’d prepaid against my heavy limbs. Ugh. But how many times in my life would an Urban Monk—who was once blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama!—issue an invitation to teach me meditation? Since I had to get up for that, I decided not to waste my boot camp money. Dragging myself from bed, I threw on my gym clothes and exited into the winter cold.
Including me, six ladies assembled for boot camp. (If you were imagining chipper soccer moms with matchy-matchy fitness ensembles, you would be correct—except for me. I looked like last week’s pot roast.)
“Drop and give me twenty!” shouted the instructor, a buff character I quickly nicknamed the Torturer. He herded us through frantic exercises with a shrill whistle. We ran bleachers and stairs; we did sit-ups and push-ups and leg-ups and pull-ups. When the wretched hour was over, I trudged through a light snow to my car, exhausted but buoyed by the thought of starting meditation training.
I shivered in my car. Reaching for the heater, I accidentally hit the radio dial and the stereo blared.
How did the Christian station get on? I wondered. One errant phrase could set off a torrent of PTCS. Before I could change the station, strains of singer Mark Schultz’s “I Am” surrounded me: “Come and see . . . follow me . . . I am . . . the healer of the broken.” My heart caught; I remembered singing these words in high school chapel, hands raised high in praise.
I flipped off the radio in a huff.
IT WAS STILL DARK when I pulled up to St. Lydia. One of the large wooden doors was propped open, releasing light like a beacon. I ran up the stone steps; the cold rushed in with me, but dissipated quickly in the warmth of the entryway. I unwound my scarf as I walked up the short aisle. A faint smell of freshly lit incense hung in the air along with the scent of snuffed-out matches. A soundtrack of Tibetan singing bowls played softly from somewhere in the rafters, and candles burned near the altar and on a few windowsills. The light I’d seen from the street shone from above, illuminating the altar table.
I almost didn’t see the Urban Monk at first; he was tucked in a chair at the altar’s far left, face half-shadowed by a cloak worn around his head and shoulders like a hood. But for his glasses, he could have stepped straight out of a monastery in an earlier century. Robin the dog curled at his feet. A small table to his left held one burning candle, a Bible, a prayer book, and a golden bell.
He greeted me with a gentle nod, and I took a seat on the wooden pew nearest him. The whole world seemed silent except for the sound of my own breath and the singing bowls until he spoke.
“Meditation means stilling your mind enough to let the light in. In the discipline of doing nothing and thinking nothing, we reach a state of peace that surpasses our worldly understanding. And in the silence, we allow God to do His deepest work: Redemption. Redemption of our mind. And how do we meditate? We close our eyes.” He closed his eyes, so I did as well. “We begin to breathe: slowly and deeply.” We breathed for a few minutes. “We may remain silent, or we may use a mantra.” He spoke-sang his mantra: “Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.”
The phrases pulled me out of relaxation, and my eyes flew open. “I can’t use that mantra!” The idea of mercy made me think of God as a harsh judge sentencing a criminal, then knocking a few years off for good behavior, and the name Christ unnerved me.
“How about Jehovah?”
“No.” (Too Old Testament.)
“Maranatha?”
“No.” (Too many praise songs with that label.)
“Agape?”
“No.” (Too reminiscent of studying the Bible’s Greek.)
Any normal person might have been frustrated, but the Monk didn’t even open his eyes. “No mantra, then. God will give you your own when you’re ready. We will simply sit in quiet.” He didn’t say for how long, or set any alarms (which alarmed me). He simply rang the golden bell, and we began.
I sat. I was silent. I even avoided squirming. No meditation was forthcoming. After about thirteen hours (or maybe it was seconds), I admitted to myself that I’d avoided the whole “training” concept of the meditation; I’d imagined skipping all the tough stuff and waltzing straight on through to enlightenment. I hadn’t even considered there might be work involved.
I think we sat for about fifteen minutes, and by the end I felt so mentally drained that all I could think about was getting home to bed. Granted, the Sickness was also calling me back to bed, but the postmeditation fatigue was a different type of tiredness altogether. That first, miserable attempt to meditate felt like the mental equivalent of my boot camp—except I was both the Torturer and the tortured. I felt I was running bleachers and steep stairs inside my mind, then blowing the whistle at myself because I was supposed to be sitting quietly and not thinking. Then I was chasing myself around with the whistle and yelling at myself to work harder at being quiet, but I kept escaping.
The Urban Monk rang the bell to close our session, and we both opened our eyes. He smiled beatifically, as though he’d just come from a relaxing spa treatment. I looked like my hairdresser had accidentally dyed my hair purple.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I think I have a lot of work to do.”