The Familiar

Family. Fulfilling friendships. The need for rest, exercise, sleep, cleanliness, meaning, and love. Enjoyment in sports. Purpose and Truth revealed through the Church and my relationship with the Lord.

Some things are unchanging.

I remember attending a conference in college where a doctor specializing in irregular pregnancies told us the first thing she tells her patients is everything that is normal and functional about the baby and mother. She begins with the familiar. Only then does she reveal what is new and scary. The familiar offers comfort. I need that stability in times like this where everything seems new, where I constantly feel lost in the details, where home is an idea rather than a place I can dwell. I yearn for the familiar, though I trust that the new and scary are coming for good reason. But enough with the philosophic.

I’m moved in (mostly). I’m meeting people -- remarkable men from a range of backgrounds, places, ages, and callings. I’m eating delicious food and for the moment, not missing my own cooking. I’m learning everything about living on “the hilltop.”

Mount Angel Seminary, you see, overlooks the Willamette Valley from a perch that allows for 360-degree views of green farmlands and snowy, sculpted mountain peaks. From our dining hall, we can see Mount Hood quite clearly, Mount St. Helens on some days, the Sisters peaks, and on a very clear day, even Mount Rainier. Here are a few of the views:

Beauty only goes so far. God's creation can be marvelous, but it doesn't bring comfort in times of spiritual wandering. I am wandering. Not in a negative sense. This is an ideal place for wandering because the wandering is very directed. I have no time to be aimless. We have a schedule each day of orientation this week. Today looks like this:

7:00am Breakfast

8:30am Morning Prayer

8:45am Mass

10:00am Liturgy of the Hours Overview

11:00am Safe Environment Training

11:45am Lunch

1:00pm Seminary Facilities & Stewardship

1:30pm Academic & Registration Information

2:00pm Seminary Bookstore Procedures

2:30-4:30pm Academic Advising and Registration

2:30-4:45pm Individual Photos

5:30pm Evening Prayer

5:45pm Dinner

6:30pm Seminary Pastoral Council

8:00pm Tour of St. Mary's Church

9:00pm Stations of the Cross

11:00pm Lights Out

Much of our morning and evening consists of prayer, at times very scripted and at others spontaneous. The Liturgy of the Hours is a devotion of clergy and many religious communities to pray through the Psalms and Scripture at particular times of the day. We say three Psalms/Scriptures in the morning, evening, and at night. I've gone to three or four training sessions on how to find each part, prayed them every day since I arrived, and still am wading through the four-volume set like I would an assembly manual for an Ikea wardrobe that is written in Swedish. All the returning seminarians seem to get it, so there may be hope for me yet. Just the vocabulary is a chore -- invitatory, canticle, psalter, commons, proper, antiphon. I wondered aloud as we flipped through our breviaries (the shorthand for Liturgy of the Hours), "Isn't there an app for this?"

Alas, the app only goes so far. I'm finding that easy isn't often a good or viable option. Everything worth attaining in life takes fortitude.

The familiar. The comfortable. Now as I ready myself for bed, I remark that the smallest things in my comfortable life -- my bedtime routine, my clothing choices, my desire to read for pleasure -- have changed in the days since I arrived. Some things remain and will always. These constants help me transition as the cross is discovered in new ways. Through all I experience, I am steadied by the words of a great friend, reminding me that in everything I do, "The DUDE abides."