Of late I have begun to reflect more deeply upon where I am and the ways that have led me here, discerning my present and future path, and so it seems fitting to take up my writing here again after my long silence. I might write about all that happened within those two years and more, but my words about all those experiences would never satisfy me, and so perhaps it is better to speak of them only vaguely, as in poetry when few words conjure up deeper meanings and thoughts than can mere prose.
Those two years were so full—blessedly full.
The first autumn of those two years began with a journey to a foreign country, which some have called our fifty-first state: that land of Canucks and hockey and Tim Hortons and people who say "Eh?" and whose politeness stands in stark contrast to our own sometimes lack thereof. My destination was a remote town in the middle of Ontario, so small that it needed no stoplight, its greatest boast the lake on whose shore it lay, and yet not too small to have two Catholic Churches, one more modern and one more traditional, originally built by the Irish and the Polish respectively. Yet it was for none of these reasons that I came, but for a college scarcely eight years old, attracting students from as far away as England with her motto of Veritas Vos Liberabit: Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, known to most affectionately as The Academy. It was good to find myself among like-minded people, making friends and winning a name for myself on account of my oddities and became the leader in many interesting escapades, the latter soon so common that one of the professors' comments upon seeing myself and my comrades said only: "I'm not even going to ask." There was work, too, of course, both chores and studies. These, however, I never allowed to impinge upon other things, always finding time for walks through the snow across the causeway to the island either by myself or with a friend, and reading some work of Chesterton when I needed a good laugh, and writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month, and playing pranks, and so many things.... So many epic memories remain entwined there. There was the time we were told to come to the Biblical Literature review class or be chiastic so I put a chiasm on myself and stood outside the window where the teacher could see me. And there was the time we dressed as savages, painting ourselves with charcoal, and captured a fellow student who we proceeded to threaten with roasting in our bonfire in savage language. And Easter spent at Madonna House. And the time we played ping-pong in Latin class. And the time I found my mattress in a tree, part of a prank war that escalated between me and another student, ending at last in a truce of friendship. And writing all of my notes in Tengwar. And the time I left a pickle jar by a door because of the sign that said "Please leave door a jar". And the pilgrimage on foot to the church in Wilno. And soccer games in the high school soccer fields. And the brawl on the docks of the lake in which all ended up in the lake in their clothes. And the April Fool's Day chiasm of pranks left for the teachers. I have so many stories I could go on and on, but I should only dull my audience and render myself more lonesome for the dear old Academy. Always, though, there was one bright thread around which everything else was woven: time spent before the altar in the church of St. Hedwig where the candles gleamed, gazing at the stained glass window of Christ's Agony in the Garden and below it a great painting of the Last Supper and below that the tabernacle. There, especially in Mass, I encountered daily the reality of the school's motto: Veritas Vos Liberabit.
One would think that as much as I had come to love the Academy, I would have returned the next year, but other adventures awaited. A friend and I had begun to talk about following in the footsteps of St. Francis, which resulted in our eventual decision to make a pilgrimage from my home in Oregon to St. Andrew's Cathedral in Victoria on Vancouver Island, my friend's native land. We walked about three hundred miles spread over two months, journeying from church to church, relying solely on God's providence. Looking back at it now, it is hard to see how we had so much faith—but it was like a child's faith, eagerly following in the paths of saints without knowing what he is doing. It was certainly a pilgrimage—a spiritual journey—as we began to learn what it means to have faith and to have others see that faith as far greater than it was. No few words could convey such an experience. Perhaps it was folly—but we had desired to be fools for Christ. No doubt heaven looked mercifully upon us for all that. We reached St. Andrew's Cathedral just before his feastday, and upon his feastday met a fellow pilgrim, who had journeyed back and forth across Canada many times, and only then did we feel that our pilgrimage was indeed complete, and that it had been blessed by God, even if more deeply than we could understand.
That pilgrimage had another result, too: the decline of my friend's health. This meant that we could not continue on pilgrimage again and so both returned to our homes, sharing Christmas with our families, not knowing whither we were to turn.
I fell back into my old writer's life, returning to work on a novel that was once more in need of revision, but always there was a feeling that this was only temporary while I waited for what came next. Yet little has yet presented itself clearly. I only continue my discernment, waiting upon the will of God. And in the meantime I ponder something I once read about vocation: how sometimes God speaks in the silence of one's heart.
In that silence I have begun to realize how much of a writer I am and to embrace once more the writer's life, writing no longer—as I once did—in hopes of changing the world, but only because I must write, not knowing what to do if I were not to write, weaving words together to express the ineffable. And so I take up my writing here again, sharing bits and pieces of that brilliant kaleidoscope that is life, hoping that even in the darkness all reflects the light of truth and the light of hope.
