12:43 a.m. - Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2005
I Must Break You.
�Alas! God had made me neither a hero nor a coward, and my soul flitted constantly between the two.�
-Brother Leo, �St. Francis�,
Nikos Kazantzakis
I have found this to be a constant truth about myself. There are moments in my life where I have made brave decisions. I left everything I was used to, including an amazing opportunity with the most respected comedy improv organization around, to come to California and work with homeless people. Rather saintly and heroic sounding.
But then there�s the me that has sat questioning my call to the priesthood and the Catholic church for the last year and a half, constantly looking for reassuring signs, wobbling on the end of the diving board, afraid to jump in. Afraid of explaining it all to my worried parents. Afraid of making a mistake. Afraid, afraid, afraid.
It was for this reason that I came to the monastery. For the man that I am and the man that I am not. For the people at war within myself. The hero and the coward. The old priest and the young comedian.
For a long time, I have been told of the significance of my name. When I was just 19, someone was praying for me and felt the need to tell me that they sensed that my name was very significant. Aaron was the high priest of Israel, the man who brought the people before God, and brought God before the people. Interesting, I thought.
Months later, I came up the stairs and sitting rather mysteriously on the table was a little card with my name and its meaning written on it: �AARON: ONE OF LIGHT�
Over the past 10 years or so, God has constantly given me these little in-jokes with my name, most often relating to the fact that Aaron was the high priest of Israel and my �priestly� calling. Until about a year and a half ago, I always thought that was only in the metaphoric sense.
I was just starting to go to Mass regularly. Chris accompanied me one Sunday morning for early Mass. The reading from the letters of Paul for that day was from Hebrews 5: "No one elects himself to this honoured position. He's called to it by God, as Aaron was."
Now I had just watched a very moving documentary the night before on an average-joe kind of preist named Tim Hepburn. I was very moved by his heart and the beauty of his calling, so when that verse was read, it went deep.
We left Mass and scooted on over to New Hope, our home church. Pastor Ken often likes to take advantage of my dramatic reading skills, and will have me read passages of the Bible. Guess what passage he had me read to the congregation that day.
Hebrews 5. No one elects himself to this honoured position. He�s called to it by God, AS AARON WAS!!!
Very funny, Lord. Hilarious. Way to completely screw up my life.
This began my ever-winding journey of constantly looking for more signs. It�s strange. I could tell that this calling was written on my very soul, and yet the greatest part of me seemed to be afraid to fulfill it. Why is the very thing that will be our heart�s salvation the very thing we fear most?
And so for the next 17 months I would constantly question exactly what it was that God wanted me to do. I would see a cleric for sale at the back of the Catholic bookstore, and it was like looking at a pretty girl across a crowded room. Then fear and rational would set in, and then of course the need for confirmation, and questions of how and when and, well, how. Then some more fear, because it looked way to big for me. After all, I�m just a kid who loves acting. I�m a very talented comedian. Nobody loves Martin Short more than me.
But then I�m also a huge fan of Thomas Merton.
Merton. Short. Short. Merton.
These two people had brought me to the Abbey of New Clairvaux, and this abbey was to serve as the ring. These two were going to duke it out a-la Rocky IV to settle once and for all which one was the real me. A Drago-like Merton approaches the puny Short and intones the ominous words,
�I must break you.�
