update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p>His steps were slow, contemplative. It wasn’t a meander; his walk still had purpose. Instead, it was a putting-off of the inevitable. The inevitable time when he would rejoin walking along the road. The inevitable moment of stepping into his dimly-lit apartment. A delaying of engaging with the real, physical world as long as possible.</p>
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<p>Here, at last, he could look up and see the stars, could drink in God’s majesty, could forget that he was himself, that he was a coyote plowing through both his scholarships and degree on nothing but momentum. He could forget that he was Dee, and get lost in his total and complete insignificance.</p>
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<p>He could walk and he could pray.</p>
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<p><em>Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, true source of light and fountain of wisdom! Pour forth your brilliance upon my dense intellect…</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, true source of light and fountain of wisdom! Pour forth your brilliance upon my dense intellect…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>It was here. Here in the open, and back in the library. That was where Dee was most comfortable. Most himself.</p>
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<p>Dee, the awkward coyote. Dee, who forgot to smile sometimes, who always seemed to say the wrong thing. Dee, with his nose forever in a book, forever in <em>the</em> book, reading and re-reading to tease ever-deeper meaning from scriptures he’d read a dozen times before.</p>
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<p><em>…dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and ignorance. Grant me a penetrating mind to understand…</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>…dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and ignorance. Grant me a penetrating mind to understand…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Was that not why he was here, here at a seminary? To study and learn? To glean more from the word of God? To live in an ever more Christlike fashion? To help the downtrodden and the poor?</p>
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<p>Could he not best learn how to do so here? Was that not why he was here?</p>
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<p><em>…a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace…abundant grace in expressing myself…</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>…a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace…abundant grace in expressing myself…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back to his room just yet. All it held was his bed, his books, his aging laptop. Too-yellow lights, fourth-hand furniture, chipped paint.</p>
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<p>Instead, he let his bag slip from his shoulder to the grass, and then he settled down to join it, tail flopped limply behind him. He drew his knees up to his chest and crossed his arms over them, resting his chin atop his forearms.</p>
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<p>His head was too full. Too full of words and feelings that language failed to express. Lines from the epistles he’d been studying somehow wound up tangled with an awkwardly-shaped despair, a despair founded in the fact that, although he continued to excel in his studies, remained at the top of his classes, he still felt as though he was failing.</p>
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<p>With the final <em>go in peace</em> still ringing in his ears, with the tips of his fingers still humming from crossing himself, with the hot flush of embarrassment still pulling at his cheeks, Dee stepped from the confessional and blinked in the sudden light and space. He took two quick, grounding breaths, and then walked from the chapel.</p>
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<p><em>I do not want to be here.</em></p>
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<p>Outside Dee walked slowly to one of the concrete blocks that served as benches and sat, resting his face in his paws. If he could not see the stars, if he had only concrete and paving stones before him, then if he wanted to pray, he had to block out his sight. It was all too much. He would find himself tracing the paving stones or the catenary arc of the contemporary entrance to St. Francis Abbey if he left them open.</p>
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<p><em>Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let yours ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications…</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let yours ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>He was not ready yet. Not ready for his penitential <em>pater noster</em>. Not ready to go see his advisor. He didn’t feel ready for anything.</p>
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<p>Most of all, he realized he was not ready to admit to himself that not wanting to be here implied the possible solution of leaving, of <em>not</em> being here. He wasn’t ready.</p>
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<p><em>…If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you so that you may be revered…</em></p>
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<p>…If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you so that you may be revered…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>He didn’t even feel ready for this prayer, for this call out to God. What iniquities faced him? He was privileged to be able to attend such a school as this. He was loved by God and the church. He was lucky to have been born with a mind so expansive, a body so healthy.</p>
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<p>Perhaps the iniquities were within. Perhaps it was something about himself, within himself, a core aspect of himself. Perhaps the privilege was undeserved. Just a coyote, right? Just a farmer, right? And yet here he was, languishing at a renowned seminary.</p>
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<p><em>…I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch the morning, more than those who watch the morning.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>…I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch the morning, more than those who watch the morning.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>And so he waited.</p>
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<p>Dee wished it were night. He wished he could once more sit in the quad and look up at the stars, or down at the grass and try to differentiate the shades of green, there in the dark where color eluded him, to find in that liminal state some sensation of the Lord.</p>
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<p>At least he could get up from where he was and away from this edifice of concrete and glass. It was, he was promised, beautiful in its own way. But behind the Abbey, toward the lake, a small path wound through the woods, and there, between the trees and beside the water, stood the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the only other canonized coyote he’d ever come across, and the saint most venerated by his father back home.</p>
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<p><em>…O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem…</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>…O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Dee was not the farmer his family was, had few enough ties to her patronage of ecology and environmentalism, but in her he saw at least a face like his own. In her, he saw something of a people he could belong to, though she was from far to the east of his home in Idaho.</p>
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<p>Home.</p>
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<p>Home was back in Sawtooth, for Saint John’s would never truly be his home, and that in itself was telling.</p>
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<p><em>…It is He who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>…It is He who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.</p>
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<p><em>Redeem Israel.</em></p>
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<p>Israel, who struggled with God.</p>
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<p>He envied, as always, the Jewish tradition, that eternal argument about who God was, what he meant, in which God was an active participant. Perhaps here, he could wrestle with Him. Tumble with his faith. Get all scuffed up.</p>
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<p>Dee nodded numbly. This was already wildly outside of his normal interactions with Borenson. Less academic, more informal, emotional.</p>
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<p>“We don’t really tell our students because we want you to come in feeling devoted, but there’s a whole set of guidelines already in place behind the scenes to deal with this. Has been for centuries, really. It used to be, you’d be whisked away before you had the chance to even say goodbye. We’d box up your stuff and send it to you. It was a different church back then.</p>
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<p>“Now, we see it more like a process. Discernment is something that takes place over time. You’re in your twenties, you’re not going to have it all figured out, much as you might sometimes imagine.”</p>
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<p>Dee frowned. <em>St. Kateri Tekakwitha,</em> he prayed silently. <em>Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don’t know what to do…</em></p>
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<p>Dee frowned. <em>St. Kateri Tekakwitha,</em> he prayed silently.</p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don’t know what to do…</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>“It’s a little clumsy, but the analogy I always use is to think of these first few semesters of your degree like dating. You and the Church — the Church as an institution, not just a faith — like each other, and want to maybe get closer, but you’re going to try things on for size for a bit. See how it works out.”</p>
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<p>Outwardly, the coyote nodded. “That makes sense. It’s not a divorce, just a break-up before it gets serious.”</p>
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<p>Inwardly, Dee was doing his best to let go. Let go of this place. Let go of his study. Let go of the idea that he had built up over so long a time of what life would be like. <em>I admire the virtues which adorned your soul: love of God and neighbor, humility, obedience, patience, purity and the spirit of sacrifice. Help me to imitate your example in my state of life.</em></p>
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<p>Inwardly, Dee was doing his best to let go. Let go of this place. Let go of his study. Let go of the idea that he had built up over so long a time of what life would be like. </p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>I admire the virtues which adorned your soul: love of God and neighbor, humility, obedience, patience, purity and the spirit of sacrifice. Help me to imitate your example in my state of life.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>“Right,” the Saint Bernard nodded. “Just turns out you and the Church get along better as friends than in…well, the metaphor breaks down somewhat here, but you can see how ordination is rather like marriage.”</p>
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<p>Dee smiled weakly. “Yeah.”</p>
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<p>“All this is to say that I think you’re doing the right thing, because no one wants a bitter priest. Some folks might think ill of you, but don’t worry about them. You’ve got your path ahead of you still, and God needs saints more than He needs priests.”</p>
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<p><em>Through the goodness and mercy of God, Who has blessed you with so many graces which led you to the true faith and to a high degree of holiness, pray to God for me and help me.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>Through the goodness and mercy of God, Who has blessed you with so many graces which led you to the true faith and to a high degree of holiness, pray to God for me and help me.</p>
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</blockquote>
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<p>Dee stared at the statue of the coyote. He knew that if he were to try and look at Father Borenson, to engage with this conversation any more directly, he would not be able to keep from crying.</p>
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<p>“I’ll leave you be, Dee, but before I do, I’m curious. What will you do after this?”</p>
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<p>He worked on mastering the lump of emotion swelling in his chest before replying. “I’m going to go home, stay with my parents. Work on the farm for a bit. Then, um…” He swallowed drily in an attempt to sound less hoarse. “Then I think I’m going to transfer to University of Idaho and get my masters in social work.”</p>
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