Those who know me primarily from my writings on horror are perhaps whiplashed when I muse about spiritual matters. I don’t mean just religion, but spirituality—the two are quite different. If life had unfolded differently I would likely have ended up as a mystic. The problem is “rational mystic” is an oxymoron in most minds. Either you’re one or you’re the other. To become a proper mystic, in any case, you can’t be bothered with such things as secular work. Mysticism—direct encounters with the divine—requires development and practice. You can’t always control when a trance or vision might hit you. What if it comes during a meeting? Say your performance and development review at work? You see the problem.
I seriously considered becoming a monastic as a young man but I had a problem. I was a Protestant. Protestantism was based on the idea that Catholic practices, such as monasticism, were wrong by default. Miracles don’t happen—haven’t done since New Testament times—and God is a biblical literalist. Why spend valuable church funds, then, on establishing monasteries? Still, mystical experiences happened to me. (You’ll have to get to know me personally to find out more about that.) I talked to my (Protestant) professors. “You don’t want to become a mystic,” I was told. “They always have trouble with the church.” Eventually I became an Episcopalian, a tradition that was more open to mysticism. It became clear in 2005, however, that the Episcopal Church wanted nothing more to do with me. Besides, I’m a family man.
Monasteries for married folk is an idea whose time has come. Monasticism is based on the idea that you need to isolate yourself from the world’s distractions to grow spiritually. To me, as I noted recently regarding sacraments, the “distraction” of marriage isn’t the problem. It’s the constant need to earn money. More and more money. Monasteries became wealthy because other people were glad to pay money so that someone else could do the spiritual heavy lifting for them. You can get into Heaven on borrowed virtue. (Even Protestants believe that. If you doubt it, get a degree or two in theology and you’ll see.) So why not provide monasteries for those poor souls that just don’t fit into the capitalistic ideal? I have the vision that such places would become havens for artists of all stripes. And that, with the goodwill of society, locations where your needs were met for an exchange of goods—building good spiritual karma for a world where most people are content with trying to get rich—might just work. It’s an idea whose time has come. Who’s with me?
