Toilet Spirituality

Thanks to the friends that continue praying for my little cousin and to the rest of my family providing much needed pastoral care to his immediate family.

Sometimes when I think about religious life, I think about the great joy it's given me to lead or be on retreats in both high school and college, along with my experiences in men's spirituality group. It's hard to explain, it gave me a feeling of "being part of" rather than a feeling of being there but not really there, as I feel in my home parish. If I become a religious, I want to feel authentically "part of" rather than "playing the part". There are maybe two congregations (at least definitely one) where I truly feel like that I would be able to obey with joy and not with fear or unsettled obligation.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. I guess when I read about the saints' description of how their austere lifestyles fills them with explosive joy and love for Jesus or when I see how older family members express their spirituality, I find I can't relate to that. Sometimes the out pouring of spiritual emotion can be consoling and insightful, other times I just feel like it's tacky or something that offsets or intimidates me. Maybe it's not the devotions themselves that are offsetting, maybe it's just the type of people I associate with them.

I'm not doubting their authenticity, but I don't always experience prayer or joy the way they experience joy; it would be like asking the charismatic to worship like the contemplative or the golfer to enjoy tennis.

However, I think I'm offered the consolation that God doesn't make everyone experience joy and prayer in only one way. There is a retreat house about two hours away from here. And in that retreat house there's this bathroom and a toilet stall with a window and the view of the beautiful trees outside. Sometimes, without really using the stall I've stopped there for a couples of minutes to just stay there and look outside, it gave me a feeling of peace and truly being with God because I was enclosed in this tiny space with this tiny little window and no one else nearby. It just felt very safe and consoling, like time stopped and no one's expectations (not even my own) mattered.

Of course, I probably would have chosen a less weirder place than a toilet stall by a window, but that is when the feeling came to me and it is where I accepted it. It may seem like a silly thing, but as much as I may like Religious Order B, it's moments like those that make me feel like I truly belong in Religious Order A. Whether I choose the happier life path (religious life or otherwise) scares me because I don't want to live a life where I'm just playing the part, but I hold on to little moments like those that convince me that no matter how happy or hard my life turns out to be, there will be a moment where time actually stops still and nothing else will matter but being at peace.