July 21, 1999

Yesterday I travelled to South Bend, Indiana to visit my friend at Notre Dame. I call him my friend because he is my friend; but - up until a few years ago - I never expected him to be. He's a bit older than me, a professor of Theology. He might have been, but wasn't, one of my own theology professors twenty-some years ago. He's a Carmelite, just like me.

He is so much my friend that I braved the terrors of Chicago traffic once again to wend my way there and back. He's so much my friend that he bought two kinds of beer...and potato chips and brownies. We just hung out all day. I showed him some very simple things on the computer and we talked and talked and talked way into the wee hours. That seems to be something I do with my best friends. (I don't surrender quality sleeping time for just anybody.)

While he taught his class this morning, I wandered around the Notre Dame campus. I have been near this place before but never right on campus. For many people in northern Illinois, ND is the ultimate college experience. It certainly has many passionate adherents who seem interested primarily in the football. I never cared much for that, I was thinking as I passed the stadium. Pretty humid, but kind of overcast this morning. Everything on campus has the same or very similar tan-brick façade, which creates the impression that the whole campus was conceived and delivered in one grand moment, plopped down from some awesome mother-ship. But the other inescapable impression is of Money...lots of money...someone has taken good care of this place. There weren't too many students around - it is summer. Some very nice plantings, delirious hostas.

I must confess to some kind of irrational bias against ND. I'm not sure where it comes from. Maybe it's my anti-football tendencies. I really don't like the game. Several years ago I was unaccountably bothered by the film Rudy. I had tickets to its Joliet premiere, but had to leave half-way through. (I'm still trying to figure that out. It wasn't a completely horrible film.)

But this trip wasn't really about seeing ND; it was about visiting my friend who has been concerned about me since my recent big changes. Its unusual that he has become my friend, not because of our age difference but because I had a sense that we were of different classes. He was the awesome academic and I the humble high school teacher...and, up until a few years ago, we just never had the chance to know each other. Lesson #1 about friendship: you've gotta have some kind of physical proximity. Before, after, and on weekends during his ND teaching he has been staying in Joliet. A couple years ago we began some long late-night/early morning conversations out on the deck. This is kind of unusual because in my experience Carmelites don't often spend much time talking with each other. Many of us develop friendships among the people we work with, but we often ignore those with whom we actually live. This, to my mind, is a very sad thing. I have done this to some of my Carmelite brothers, not even giving them a chance. And some of my Carmelite brothers have done this to me. There are some hard human issues. Who do you trust? By whom are you willing to be surprised? We of all people should be skilled in friendship, but that is not my experience. We're as klutzy, or worse, as many others.

I'm at a point in my life where I'm looking for a higher level of intimacy among my peers. Adult Carmelite fellas should be able to deal with each other in respectful, open-minded, open-hearted ways. Experience has taught me not to expect too much, but I can't afford to close down and settle for nothing. The apparent absurdity of this celibate lifestyle becomes an actual absurdity in communities where everyone talks about everyone else and no one talks to or with anyone else. This topic is complex. I can't do it justice here. So end it by affirming that I know I ain't no saint myself in these regards...I just really want to do better.

So I'm blessed again to have another friend - although he does not live in my house. I hope I can be as good a friend to him (despite my fairly poor track record in these things).