The Fire on the Mount

As usual in the monastery, it is the little things that denote something important. I noticed at breakfast yesterday that Robert, our Superior, whispered something to Charles, our postulant. Soon Charles was doing breakfast dishes with us rather than Robert. And in a few minutes the news spread: there is a serious fire in Montecito. Robert appeared and let us know the details -- that the guests at Mount Calvary had been evacuated on Thursday evening to St. Mary's Convent near the Old Mission; that the brothers had evacuated around midnight; and that the situation looked pretty grim.

We got through the morning without anything definite, but then at the noon meal the news came that a friend of Mount Calvary had contacted the Santa Barbara Fire Chief and that the monastery had burned. As the day went on the confirmations mounted, pictures were seen, a live feed NBC helicopter camera spent 90 seconds or so showing Mount Calvary. It was gone.

We had a scheduled monastery finance committee meeting at 2. During it I felt myself having what I assumed was an allergic reaction to something at the noon meal -- impaired respiration, tingling in extremities, tightening up my vocal cords, raised temperature, flushed face. I have never had a food allergy reaction before, except for a very mild one when I eat raw honey, and that is just a few raised bumps on the tongue. How interesting. Bede suggested it was a nervous reaction. Perhaps it was.

I spent 11 years of my life at Mount Calvary. I arrived there in the summer of 1979, a freshly ordained deacon right out of seminary. I was made Guest Master, and spent 2 years cleaning and improving the facilities and creating a more comprehensive administrative system. Two years later our new Superior asked me to be Prior, and I continued in that position for 9 years, until 1990. In that time we brought our guest ministry there into an almost professional operation. I am happy to say that the brethren there since have made the operation better and better. A few years into my time as Prior it became clear that we were going to have to do something serious about the building. The sewage system was gradually collapsing, the neighbors were objecting to our traffic up the hill, the monastery section was primitive to say the least. We joked that we were living in the Bates Motel. The building was running down.

We spent years fund raising while we also worked on developing renovation plans. We spent those years working also with the City of Santa Barbara and our neighbors to gain access to the City's sewage system. It was a long struggle, but we finally reached an agreement: The neighbors would build a new road up the back of the ridge, which would become the new access road, and we would be allowed to run our sewage line through their property to the City main. That insured our continuation at Mount Calvary, since our most recent effort at a leaching field had utterly failed.

We raised the money, got permits for the plan, found a good contractor, rented a house in Goleta to live in for the duration, and the work began in June, 1989. It finished on schedule, right on time for a writers' retreat to be led by Madeleine L'Engle. Madeleine was a tall person, and she had given a gift to install an extra-long tub in the new room she would occupy.

I like to imagine that I knew every inch of that building by the time the renovation was over. I wanted to stay on and build on what we had accomplished, but new leadership in OHC wanted to make changes, and so I was transferred to Berkeley. It was a hard adjustment for me.

So to hear that such an important part of my life was burning, and then to see the pictures, was heartbreaking. I know what the conventional monastic response to such a loss should be -- gratitude for gifts given and detachment as they are taken away. But. But. It will take me a while to get to the conventional place. A part of my life, a part of my heart, is gone.