Fathers and sons.

One of the things about being a monastic celibate is that you don't get to have children, unless you did that before you entered the monastery. In my case, when I entered I was 26, fresh from finishing my PhD at Cornell, and completely unattached and without issue, as they say. From time to time I think about that, mostly when there are especially well-behaved children around, or at sentimental occasions like the Christmas Pageant. I love children, but to be honest, mostly in the abstract, and without having to do the heavy lifting. Thank God for good parents!

So something odd happened last weekend. We had a lovely group of retreatants from several parishes, and one of them was a friend, Carol (I'll leave off her last name -- her friends will know who she is). Carol is an Associate of the Order, and knows us fairly well. Someone remarked to her how alike Br. Scott and I look. In fact, we do. Light red hair, going slightly grey. Short beard. A little jowly under the chin, a little more prosperous around the middle than perhaps we might like to be. Both in large part Scottish by descent.

So Carol shot back, Well, they ought to. They're father and son. To which the respondent, not perceiving the wit, said, Oh I don't think so. Adam doesn't look old enough to be Scott's father. (Thank you!) Anyway, Scott couldn't be -- there's only a 10 year difference in our ages.

This was retailed around, and Scott told me himself. We had a good laugh, thinking up various witty comebacks should it arise again. I thought it was just as well that Carol said I was the father and not Scott. Scott was not especially amused at the thought of trading places. And there it rested for a while, a pleasant little piece of lighthearted fun.

I thought it was over, but a few hours later, I found myself looking at Scott and wondering what it would be like if he actually were my son. And I was surprised that I was getting choked up with affection for Scott, who is an extraordinarily gifted man, generous and kind and fun. And I found that if I had been his father, which I was emotionally imagining myself to be for the moment, I would have been very, very proud of him. Very glad of his life. Very happy to be his father.

Of course, I'm not, and so that reverie soon came to an end. But it set up a kind of spiritual what-if scenario. What if we were in fact related like that to others? What if we could put aside the functional relationships and replace them with the affection and tenderness and disinterested pride of a parent for a child, of a member of a loving and supportive family, rejoicing in each other's gifts and deeds?

In all this I had a momentary vision of what monastic community can be. The love and pride and respect I felt (and feel) for Scott can take root and grow. I'm not his father and he's not my son, but the love we each have for God can create new relationships that transcend the more partial ones of this world.

Jesus invites us into a new relationship with him, one not of father and son, or of master and servant, or even of teacher and disciple, with their levels of inequality, but, almost shockingly, one of mutual regard, to be friends. In John 15:12, he says, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. Christ's directive, his commandment, is to love. Living the new life in Christ, living in love, can make everything new.

Community life is, at its best, a life of people who live together in love, as Friends of Christ. I'll never be Scott's father. But that imaginative moment has opened up to me something truly wonderful -- depths of possibility in monastic life I had not felt so strongly before. Thank you, Carol.