Brian,
See what you have unleashed! I began this story because you and my other
classmates shamed me into it. But
somehow, it got away from me and turned itself into an epic, perhaps too large
to put into our class blog.
Nevertheless, I’ve done my part and I’ve washed my hands of it. The ball is in your court and you are free to
do whatever you deem best with it -- even hit the “delete” key.
Thank you once again for your
kind persistence and to those of our classmates who opted to share their lives
with the rest of us. So, let me begin my
tale with a quote from Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, which I believe best
captures for me the era we grew up in and experienced together.
“It was the best of times, it was the
worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was
the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the
winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in
short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest
authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the
superlative degree of comparison only.”
-
Charles Dickens
My story begins on the worst of
days, Friday, November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was
assassinated and the world was reeling in the shock and horror of disbelief.
That was the day that I had arranged with Brother Timothy Edwards to be driven
after school, to the Christian Brothers’ novitiate at Mont La Salle in Napa for
a weekend visit. As we drove up to the
monastery at the top of Redwood Road, little did I realize the countless times
I was destined to drive up and down that winding, tree-lined road in the course
of the next 50 years.
On Sunday, early in July 1964, I
packed my belongings into two suitcases and was driven by a three car family
escort to Mont La Salle to enter the Christian Brothers’ Novitiate as a
postulant. Once there, I met the other
14 high school candidates, including Michael Oborne and Bill Macaskill from our
graduating class. Since I never received
the much prayed for “sign” from God, I decided to take matters into my own
hands and prove that I didn’t have a vocation so that no matter what happened
to me later in life, I would never be able to say: “I should have been a Brother!”
Truth be told, it didn’t take me
long to realize that I had made a terrible mistake. I didn’t unpack for two weeks because I was
convinced I was returning home. I had
unwittingly entered into a monastic environment wherein every second of the day
was governed by the ringing of a bell. I
desperately missed my friends back home, the late nights and the continuous
weekend parties. One night, I planned
my escape; I slipped out of my bedroom and down to the novice director’s office
with the intention of calling home. As I
stood there in the dark, I was confronted with a problem. I realized that if I pressed any of the
buttons on the phone to get an outside line, every phone in the novitiate,
juniorate and the retired Brothers’ communities (the entire Mont La Salle
complex) would light up - - including the phone in the novice director’s
bedroom. After much thought, I chickened-out, returned to my bedroom fully
determined to seek the assistance of an older novice the following day.
I vividly recall the moment, not
long after our arrival, when Michael Oborne approached me, to tell me he had
decided to leave the novitiate. I
couldn’t believe how sure he was of himself and wondered what divine revelation
he had received and that I missed? I was
the one who was supposed to be leaving!
But my opportunity finally arrived about a year into the formation
program. By then, I was fed up with
everything, the schedule, the 5:20 AM rising, the incessant ringing of bells
summoning us to prayer and various exercises throughout the day. I had had it, I had reached my limit, I just
wanted out!
The novice Director, Brother Paul
Figueroa, could see that I was unhappy.
He asked me if I wanted the day off, or if I wanted to take the car for
a spin. I was adamant; the only thing I
wanted was to go home. He took me to his
office, presented me with that annoying phone and told me to call home. I remember my mom responding, “Why not wait until
the weekend?” to which I replied, “Now!”
Furthermore, I was fully expecting Brother Paul to tell me that by
leaving, I was invalidating the canonical year of novitiate and would not be
allowed to return. He never said a
word. Had he done so, I would have had a
different tale to tell.
I remember the relief I felt as I
drove down Redwood Road and away from Mont La Salle. I had given it my best shot and I felt free
at last! I stayed away for about a week,
went out on a date and looked up some of my old friends only to discover that
what Thomas Wolfe had written was true: “You can’t go home again.” All of my friends were engaged and working
full time, or like my two brothers, had gone off to the war. The life I had known as an innocent high
school student had vanished forever.
I returned to Mont La Salle and
picked up where I left off. The schedule
was no longer a nuisance and I was forever grateful that Brother Paul had the
wisdom and insight to give me the space I needed to work things out for myself. When I questioned him about why he had
allowed me leave, or what would have happened if I had stayed away longer, he
simply remarked, “Whatever is good for you.” Eventually, Brother Paul became a
trusted friend, mentor and revered spiritual father whom I mourned deeply when
he passed to his eternal reward in 1983.
In January of 1965, I set aside
the clothing of a postulant, and Brother Timothy Edwards, my robing sponsor,
helped me don the grab of a Christian Brother.
At the robing ceremony, as I knelt before our Brother Provincial, I
received a crucifix, a New Testament, a six decade rosary, the Rule of the Christian Brothers and it
was announced that henceforth, I would be known in religion (and the “world”)
as Brother Justin Lawrens (after Vatican
II, we were allowed to return to our baptismal names). Of the 15 candidates
that entered in July of 1964, only six remained to commence the year of
novitiate.
In January of 1966, I completed
the novitiate, pronounced “First Vows” and along with my companions assigned to
Saint Mary’s College to begin our undergraduate studies as Student Brothers or
“scholastics”. At the time, there were
two houses of formation on campus comprised of nearly 60 Student Brothers. St. Mary's College opened up new vistas and a
whole new world of learning for me. I became enthralled with our World Classics
Seminar Program (earning a Masters’ degree from St. John’s College in 1976) and
fell hopelessly in love with the Greek Classics, particularly the Dialogues of
Plato and the person of Socrates whom I have tried to emulate throughout my
teaching career. I loved the
intellectual life and the new friendships I made among the other Student
Brothers. We bonded as a band of brothers and I was proud to belong to this
extraordinary group of men.
On December 12, 1969, I bid
farewell to my fellow scholastics as well as my Director and mentor, Brother
Edmund Dolan, and reported to my first teaching assignment at De La Salle High
School in Concord. These were without
question the most difficult years of my teaching career. I was so inexperienced, the Vietnam War was
in full swing, and protests were raging everywhere and impacting the
comportment of our students. I found the
students unruly and difficult to discipline -- nothing like the students we had
been at St. Mary’s High School. I often
began each morning wondering how I would make it through the day. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone. I lived in a community of Brothers that
proved to be both a blessing and a shield from the chaos that was raging around
us and throughout our schools.
After four and a half years at De
La Salle High School, I accepted the invitation from our Brothers in Mexico to
teach there. Mexico proved to be a
lifesaver and renewed my flagging spirit.
The students in Mexico were so much more civilized, respectful and
grateful to have an American Brother teaching them English. I stayed there for two years, requesting a
third year with a view to transferring provinces and spending the rest of my
life in Mexico. But the new Provincial
saw where I was heading with this and requested that I return to California
under my vow of obedience. Leaving
Mexico in 1977 weighed heavily upon me (as did that vow of obedience!). I was leaving behind so many of my Brothers,
colleagues, friends and students whom I had come to love and cherish. One of those students claims I was his
inspiration for joining the Brothers.
I was assigned to Sacred Heart
High School in San Francisco, my hometown, and the following year to St. Mary’s
Grammar School (which by then had been transferred from Berkeley to Mont La
Salle in Napa). I was particularly enamored by this assignment because besides
teaching, I was the prefect of boarders and having been a boarder myself, I
identified so much with them and their life experiences.
Not long after this, I was permitted
to continue my graduate studies earning a second masters’ degree and doctorate
in Formative Spirituality from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. For the past 29 years, I have been assigned
to Saint Mary’s College teaching a variety of subjects such as Spanish,
Collegiate Seminar (at the undergraduate and graduate levels), Formative
Spirituality and, for 26 years, I directed the January Term Christian Service
Internship Program where over 800 students were sent across the nation and to
16 countries around the world to work with the underserved. Their lives were
profoundly transformed by these opportunities and I felt so privileged to help
them process their experiences when they returned. I called it “holy ground”. I also served for 9 years as a Co-Director
for the Maryknoll Cross-Cultural Training Services for interested missionaries,
and as a group facilitator at the School of Applied Theology in Berkeley - -
not too shabby for a quiet and retiring Latino boy who felt too insecure to
join a club while in high school.
I could add more to this list,
but truth be told, like St. Paul, I consider these titles and positions of
little worth compared to the relationship I have developed with my students and
the awe I feel at what God has wrought within me and through me. I owe so much of who I am and what I have
become to God and to the Brothers who have instructed and nurtured me
throughout my career (from the 5th grade), and upon whose shoulders
I stand. Furthermore, I often find
myself reflecting on our Founder, St. John Baptist de La Salle, who at the end
of his life wrote: “If I had known in the
beginning what I was getting myself into, I would never have started the
Congregation. But God, who does not
force men’s wills led me step by step to take the direction of the schools.” Had he not taken those first steps, St.
Mary’s High School would not exist nor would we be meeting for our 50th
anniversary.
Like our Founder, I also claim to
have been led mysteriously, step by step against my natural inclinations, and
if I had known in the beginning, what I was getting myself into, I can assure
you that I, like the prophet Jonah, would have fled as far away as possible
from the Lord. But then I find myself
asking: What would have happened to the countless students whose hearts were
touched and whose lives were so radically altered because I was there for them
as a teacher and a Brother? And what
would have happened to those students hell bent on ending their lives, who in
their last moment of anguish and despair sought my counsel? I stand humbled by their confidence and trust
in me and I find that being a Brother has given me entrée into countless lives
and many worlds I never dreamed existed.
It has allowed me to see and experience the light and shadow side of
life, as well as the good and seamy side of the world of academe. I was delivered from my inability to speak
and given the words I needed to speak truth to power in a way that I would have
considered inconceivable had I a mortgage to pay, or a family to protect, as
most of my classmates.
Fifty years have elapsed since we
parted company and I went to Mont La Salle to wrestle with God and to prove to
myself that I didn’t have a vocation. We
no longer wrestle as much as we used to do in my youth. We’ve grown old together and treat each other
much more gently - - but we still banter.
Nevertheless, like the prophet Jeremiah, I still maintain that I was
duped, but it’s also true (as he said), that I allowed myself to be duped. Besides, even if I wanted to wrestle or run
from Him, I no longer have the strength to do so. But one never knows... Perhaps in years to
come, you may hear it said of me that in some inspired quixotic moment, a
disheveled and demented Brother Michael slipped from the Brothers’ retirement
home, under the cover of darkness and down Redwood Road in one last insane
attempt to once again subvert his destiny. . . or perhaps… to finally fulfill a
secret, unspoken dream harbored in the recesses of his heart, to take a lover
in Mallorca and live on the outskirts of contemporary morality (as a novelist
once wrote).
As age continues weigh me down, I
find myself echoing the sentiments of Carl Jung toward the end of his
life: “I am satisfied with the course my life has taken. It has been bountiful, and has given me a
great deal. How could I ever have
expected so much? Nothing but unexpected things kept happening to me. Much might have been different if I myself
had been different. But it was as it had
to be; for all came about because I am as I am.”
As a child, I was always fascinated with the
Spanish galleons of old that roamed the world freely in search of treasures and
adventure. As I think of our class, I
have this image of a great armada comprised of 131 ships that set sail 50 years
ago to explore and conquer the world.
And what made each of our ships so unique is that we were being built
even as we sailed -- not when we were in port.
Each time we returned to port to celebrate our anniversaries, we arrived
fewer in number and a bit more tattered and battered by our explorations and
experiences. But we have been on amazing
journeys and we’ve returned to port each time, overflowing with the precious
cargo of our lives, after numerous discoveries, storms, and exotic destinations,
to tell our stories and share the wealth of our lives. Some of our companions are not in port this
evening because of unavoidable commitments, while others are still lost at sea
trying to find their way back home.
Eventually, each one of us will sink into the sea of God as those of our
beloved classmates and friends who have gone before us, leaving their treasures
for others to find.
As to the future, “I shall be telling this with a sigh,
somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads
diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made
all the difference.” - Robert Frost
It has been such a privilege and
a blessing to be part of our class in that “best
of times and worst of times” when, “we
had everything before us, and nothing before us, when we were all going direct
to heaven, or all going direct the other way.”
Thanks for the memories, and be assured that each of you (and your
families) continue to be in my heart and prayers. Let us continue to grow old together for we
have been promised that the best is yet to come.
God bless each of you.
Brother Michael Ávila, F.S.C.
Class of 1964
