After moving to Lake Oswego, when I was enrolled in college, and working for the Roses, I began going to a local church, simply because it was local. It was called "Athey Creek Christian Fellowship". Athey Creek was the name of the creek that ran through that part of West Linn. It was basically a community church and was more fundamental than some, but quiet in nature and had a young congregation.
I went to this church until I was assaulted by my co-worker (the one I already mentioned from college; rape/assault is the same thing), and then didn't go back until I was in the relationship with my boyfriend and in counseling.
After the break-up with my boyfriend, I was even more immersed in religious literature. I read only material that helped me understand the scriptures. This included exegesis on the various books of the Bible by classic christian authors, and also exegesis from classic Judaism. I wanted to understand the Old Testament from the Jewish perspective, which I felt would then help me to understand what impact the New Testament had. I was tracing the line as far back and in-depth as possible. My goal was to discover "the truth", and be as close to the right interpretation as possible.
Which, for me, meant discarding "American christianity" ideas that didn't match up with what I read from the admonitions of Christ. For example, the "Prosperity" messages. Not every christian was going to be "prosperous" and that wasn't the right message I felt. The true message, was that if you were a sincere christian, it would be lonely sometimes, you would be misunderstood, and you would reap the good with the bad, and endure suffering, just as the Bible said. Following the path of Christ was not an easy path. It was also not without benefits, security, and joy. Because what so many pastors and our culture said seemed contrary to the social gospel of Jesus, I wanted to find out for myself, the origins of Christianity, and I especially enjoyed looking for, as someone said to me recently: "Poetry...the meaning behind the word."
There is so much symbolism in the Bible, and I thrived on trying to discover what everything was concealing or revealing with the images and words. Which is a big part of why I also went to the orthodox Jewish synogogue on Saturday, to understand the symbolism and traditions.
I then extended my inquisitions to the Catholic Church, which was a logical step. I already didn't believe in birth control, and agreed with some other things, and much of the catholic traditions were borrowed from Jewish traditions. I began listening to KVBM, a catholic radio station in Portland, Oregon. I heard Scott Hahn and enjoyed the messages by him, which increased my curiosity. I checked out a book by him after hearing him on the radio. Other than that, I didn't read catholic literature specifically, and didn't speak to my protestant friends about it.
No one in my family had anything against catholicism. I knew my immediate family was not catholic, but we felt we were all "brothers & sisters in Christ" with a few discrepencies in our beliefs. We didn't believe in praying to saints or "mary worship" or in the traditional idea of mass, but other than that, it was the same. I thought, at least. I had family on my mother's side who were catholic. I didn't talk to them about it, but there was simply never an issue. I never heard anything negative about catholicism and had no preconceived ideas about it. I was open.
After my relationship with the boyfriend, I began studying the book of Hosea. I studied it from the perspective of a conservative christian woman who had been raised in church her entire life. For me, I felt like "the sinful woman" who had made a choice to disobey God and what was required of me, and yet I had returned. The book of Hosea may be the autobiography of the prophet Hosea but it is especially an allegory of the love God has for the church. In Judaism, it's about God taking Israel back time and time again when she was "prostituting" herself and turning to other gods, violating the covenant he had with his people. In christian terms, it's also seen as the story of God/christ and "the church". I hadn't "prostituted" myself, but I felt I'd turned my back on my values when I went into relationship after the rape. I took the message of this book (Hosea) to heart on a personal level, feeling redeemed after walking away from what I believed, temporarily.
I studied this, taking my own notes, and making copies from texts I especially noticed. I wasn't in college then, so I was filling my time with my own research. I also read a lot of books about the love of God, or love of Christ, and his relationship to believers (such as, C.S. Lewis's "The Four Loves").
After several months, the pastor at my church saw my sincerity and asked if I would become part of staff to fill a need for a coordinator. I agreed, because I could study inbetween taking phone calls. I didn't like the gossip in the church, though, and it was worse when I was on staff. Suddenly I was a public figure of sorts, there at least, and people wondered why I was on staff and not them, and there were some jealousies. There were only 4 people on paid staff.
I became privy to some of the workings of the church.
The people there, in general, were wonderful, but not quite as diverse or open-minded as those at New Song (my former church). They were helpful and there was a good relationship between me, the rest of the staff, and the congregation in general. But there WERE some who just liked to gossip.
At some point, my pastor was talking about communion and I was still listening to catholic radio. I began to wonder if there was something "more" to the communion than just bread and wine. I actually quit taking communion because I felt confused as to what I believed, and started to believe it was actually, in a mystical way, the body and blood of Christ. I wasn't completely positive, but I was leaning that way.
In the meantime, the church was buying property for a larger church elsewhere. Money was being set aside, and while this happened, I felt disappointed that we weren't helping those who were needy and came to the church for assistance, off of the street. One was a father with 2 young daughters who was down on his luck. We made him sit through a service first. Which I didn't like, because I felt God doesn't put conditions on giving assistance. I wondered why money being saved for a new building wasn't going towards people who needed it instead. And then I was asked to spy on one of the other staff members, and report back to someone about what I heard, saw, and thought. I felt very uncomfortable with this. I was at church, not an intelligence agency. I refused, in the most polite way possible. Finally, when we were putting on a concert for people at the park, to "minister", I was asked to man the table with all the donuts and bagels. The food was for the church workers, I was told, and I was asked to guard the food from the homeless who were around. This really got to me. I did what I was told, I stood behind the table, thinking we should be giving all the food away to the homeless, not guarding it. I prayed no one came up to ask me for a donut. They did. Sure enough, a man came to test my faith, a homeless man who asked if he could have a bagel. I felt horrible. I knew I should just give the man the bagel, but instead, I heard myself saying, whispering to him in confidence, "I am Soooo sorry, but I have been asked not to hand these out, because they're for the workers." He said, "I'm hungry." I said, "Can you go to a church around here for food?" (not OURS!) He said, "Which church?" I said, "Ummm, I don't know. I think a lot of them give out food." Then I made it even worse for my own soul and said, "You know there is a food that is even more valuable than this, it is the bread of life." And then I said a few things, as his eyes popped open when I said, probably as incredulous as I was to hear what I was saying. After he left, I knew I had failed. I should have disobeyed my "orders" and followed my conscience and moral law, and given the homeless man a bagel. I was ashamed of myself, maybe more than I've ever been on a moral matter, and knew I had just personally denied Christ Himself a BAGEL. I thought about the passage where the sheep are separated from the goats, on account of the practice of their faith. I was a goat.
By the time I was tested and failed over a bagel, I was already going to Mt. Angel Abbey.
Nick Fanelli was the children's and youth pastor there, and had told the main pastor, Brett, about the Abbey library. I guess Nick knew about it because he had been Catholic himself (quite sure) at one time, and then converted and went to a Calvery Chapel church in Medford and then met Brett through the medford church people. Athey Creek was basically a Calvary Chapel church. How Nick knew about the monastery I don't know. But first Brett went there and studied for his sermons there, and looked stuff up in the books, and then Brett told me to go there, when he saw how much study I was putting into the Bible on my own. I had been telling him I went to the public libraries but always had guys coming up to me. Then I was joking with him that I had no credit cards but about 10 library cards. So he said, "Have you been to Mt. Angel before?" I said no, and he told me they had an amazing religious library which was open to the public where he sometimes went. He said it was quiet and no one bothered him. On and on about the books and resources. I didn't hear anything about a monastery. I think I just had some idea in my head this was a library, but I do remember he said something about a few monks being in the library. I don't know. So I went, the next weekend, and got a library card at Mt. Angel Abbey library. I checked out a book about Grief, and then purchased several used books they were getting rid of--one was The Stations of the Cross, by ___________ (very good book), and the others were about "love" and various themes of love and christ's relationship with the church. I didn't talk to anyone, except maybe Josef, a volunteer librarian who was elderly and seemed kind. I dno't remember what I wore. Probably jeans and sweater.
After that, I went to my first catholic conference, "The Fire Rally". I heard about it on KVBM and thought it sounded interesting. I told NO ONE that I was going--not my pastor or my family or friends. It was sort of my own secret private inquiry. I figured they wouldn't understand and thought my pastor would think I was disloyal or wonder why I was going to catholic conferences. They didn't care if I was going there to check out books, but what would they think if they found out I was checking out becoming a member of the catholic faith? So I kept it to myself. I didn't read any anti-catholic literature so I didn't know what all the objections were, but I wanted to find out for myself what the differences were, not by reading biased material, but by going straight to the primary documents themselves. I would read something and instead of just nodding at the footnotes, I would actually go further into the stacks and find the books mentioned in the footnotes and then read THOSE books, front to cover.
I was used to checking out many books at a time. I typically loaded up with maybe 10-20 books at a time, would read or skim thoroughly, and then get more for the following week.
When I went to The Fire Rally, I had to check in at the front door. The woman asked me what "parish" I was from. I didn't know what she meant and didn't even know what a parish was. I had to ask. She looked at me suspiciously. I told her I was Protestant but wanted to hear their conference. They let me in. It was a lot like a normal christian conference and the music was the same. Then a priest got up and started talking about Evolution at some point, and said something about "Mary the immaculate" or "the immaculate heart of Mary". I thought "huh?!" What was THAT? Immaculate "heart"? It sort of sounded like he was saying MARY was "immaculate". I knew Jesus was considered to be immaculate and without sin, but I'd never heard of Mary being immaculate. I wondered what in the world and I thought, I have to know more! So I asked the older priest and he snapped at me. I then asked some catholic laypeople who were very friendly and welcoming, and they invited me to join them for lunch to try to answer my questions. What they said at lunch was that they couldn't explain well enough, and that I should go to "the seminary". "What seminary?" I asked. They told me there was a seminary with "scholars" in Mt. Angel. When they described the Abbey, I said, "Oh! I've been there already! It's a seminary too?" It was. So I drove straight there, that very same day of the Fire Rally, because of the urgent and burning questions I had.
I remember thinking "what fortune!" that I already knew how to get there, because I typically get lost going new places.
I prayed on the way over, asking God to please direct me to the right person who could help me with my questions. I was driving up the hill, and parked, past the stations (little mini-chapels lined up alongside the road where one may pause and pray or remember the "stations"...or stages of christ's journey to the cross (and resurrection sometimes too)). I didn't even know what those little houses were, but saw people walking by all the time. I was wearing blue jeans, a long mauve turtleneck sweater, and Natural Balance tennis shoes. I still remember everything about that day. I looked over at the library and walked to it. It was locked. I didn't know why. I started to walk away and then turned back, and saw some monks going towards the library. The first one went in. I was going to go after him but waited. I saw a second monk approaching the library, with a fast pace. He looked like someone who knew where he was going. I walked right up to him and said, "Excuse me, ummm, I'm Protestant--" at that his expression darkened and then I continued, "but I was at a catholic conference today and the priest said some things I didn't understand. Some other catholic people said I should come here and ask a scholar to help me and I was wondering if you would listen to my questions?" By that time, his expression had lifted and he smiled with a light in his eyes and nodded that he would help. He directed me to a bench in the park across from the library, under the trees. This monk's name was Brother Ansgar Santogrossi, O.S.B.
I will explain what that means next post.
(to be continued)
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