Letting Go, Letting God
Returning to Gonzaga University
Kathy and I recently returned to Gonzaga University for our 50th class reunion. Here are some thoughts about an amazing time and my coming of age.
Spokane is a city known for drawing water from the ancient volcanic rock that underlies everything. The ancient lava channel is the chasm that sweeps the river though the city in a series of cascades. The deep pools and streams underneath its mantle of gravel and rich soil bring life to the parched landscape of eastern Washington. It is a place of living water. It would be a place in which streams deep inside me would surface through the rock of my insecurity and refresh my spirit.
During the reunion, I came upon this sign. The Narnia lamp post could not have been more explicit but the message is often lost on us. College, like youth, is often wasted on the young but that doesn’t have to happen.
It can be a time of transformation if you watch for the signs and feel the movements deep within. Luigi Gonzaga, (1568- 1591) a young imperial prince in the Renaissance, the Marques of Castiglione, gave up a life of power and privilege to join the Jesuits. We know him as Aloysius which is the Latin adaptation of Luigi or Louis. He died young caring for those dying from the plague in the streets of Rome. Most contemporary crime families would cringe at the sight of the Dukes of Mantua - the Gonzagas - doing business as usual. Young Luigi would become the family’s saint and the patron of all Catholic young people. Many colleges and youth oriented programs are named for him.
Coming from my native southern California, Spokane was at once alien and intriguing. I had left Los Angeles on a hot, smoggy August morning, with its veiled brownish sun. After traveling 1,200 miles, a few hours after touching down, I was water skiing in the clear waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene that tasted sweet and pure. Surrounded by forests and mountains under a brilliant blue sky, I gulped in the delicious air. I could only marvel as the boat made its turn to pick me up.
That first day was a premonition of how much my life was going to change in two short years for the better. But first, it required losing a dream and finding a better reality. One can talk about fate but the change was so intricate, complicated, and well-orchestrated that it could only have been Providence.
When I arrived, I was a student member of the Society of Jesus. I was a Jesuit scholastic. I had been sent to Gonzaga to complete my studies in philosophy and biology. I had gone to Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles for my first two years after spending two years in the novitiate - a time of prayer, contemplation, and service.
What is it to know, to discern, to take a radical responsibility for one’s happiness? Much of my training had been to seek spiritual freedom; to be open to the divine; to know one’s self and to find God in all things. In my case, I thought that following the program I had laid out for myself was exactly that course. I was sure of it. I was sure of it, but I kept getting surprised in unsettling but good ways.
My fellow scholastics were welcoming. Most were new to me. It was my first time outside the bounds of the former Spanish Empire. There was no large Hispanic presence and there were students from across the country and the world. The Jesuit priests, or the Dads as we called them, had their own community and they had us over for Sunday dinner. I made new friendships with the priests, the sisters, the students, the faculty, and the local parishioners.
There were the pressures of classes and exams, but there were also great discussions and time to hang out. The seasons were a new experience. Bundling and unbundling just to go from building to building was annoying. The short days were disconcerting and far removed from my beloved mountains, beaches, and freeway traffic.
I didn’t know it, but I was using all of my spiritual training to discover myself for the first time as a 22-year-old man. I was in a different and challenging environment that was also safe enough to spur my growth.
The Church was taking a breath after the reforms and tumult of Vatican II. The war in Vietnam was winding down. A time of respite came. Since I first saw the canisters of napalm pass through Ventura on long trains in 1966, I finally let out my breath. The protests, the nightly body counts, the unrelenting destruction of Agent Orange were subsiding. My carefully crafted career in the church was also subsiding.
A summer in Mexico City working on my senior paper for biology on the development of corn in pre-Colombian Mesoamerica also changed me. I found God in strange ways and in strange places. As I returned from a happy summer there was the dawning realization that I was getting off at the next stop. It was my first experience of a broken heart. What I had wanted was not for me and I mourned its loss. As I rode the bus across the wheat fields, a peace and a sense of anticipation came over me. I moved out of the community in March into my own apartment with the support of my family, my friends in the order, and those outside. Something inside me had changed that brought me joy and a deep sense of relaxation.
Just before the end of the year, I met a wonderful, beautiful, and brainy young woman at the top of our class. We had many friends in common but we had never met. Kathy was on her way to medical school. To our own surprise and to the surprise of those around us, Kathy and I went off to Berkeley.
I can’t help but think that Luigi Gonzaga had something to do with it. I was able to let go as he had done. Living for others is never about the path we plan but it does bring happiness - if we can seize it.
