So I guess you’re going to get enlightened now...
October 18, 2018 1:23 PM Subscribe
Dear longtime friend will eventually be ordained. Looking for essays and anecdotes on absorbing this, as a lay person.
My long time friend of 15+ years will be ordained as a monk in the next year. A few years ago she moved to the communal ashram and is really living The life. My life has taken the more traditional husband / kids / career turn, although I do meditation retreats and am fairly devout. Nevertheless, I feel our diverging paths. Even just regular conversations which used to be about navigating dating, family and life have changed qualitatively. We always used to encourage each other for our highest selves but a lot of slack was given. Now I can tell she’s having deep inner experiences and based on her overall behavior and attitude I can see her shifting in ways echoing her growth. She’s very peaceful, grounded and positive. This is inspiring to watch and yet I don’t know what to talk about anymore. And also I hold ordained people in a special position due to my faith - I see them as teachers and representatives of the clarity of mind and devotion I wish to cultivate and I give them that respect as representatives of the divine. So, don’t take them out for ladies night drinks and Will Ferrell movies. How do I absorb this mix of admiration and yet separation? She will take on a new name once ordained.
My long time friend of 15+ years will be ordained as a monk in the next year. A few years ago she moved to the communal ashram and is really living The life. My life has taken the more traditional husband / kids / career turn, although I do meditation retreats and am fairly devout. Nevertheless, I feel our diverging paths. Even just regular conversations which used to be about navigating dating, family and life have changed qualitatively. We always used to encourage each other for our highest selves but a lot of slack was given. Now I can tell she’s having deep inner experiences and based on her overall behavior and attitude I can see her shifting in ways echoing her growth. She’s very peaceful, grounded and positive. This is inspiring to watch and yet I don’t know what to talk about anymore. And also I hold ordained people in a special position due to my faith - I see them as teachers and representatives of the clarity of mind and devotion I wish to cultivate and I give them that respect as representatives of the divine. So, don’t take them out for ladies night drinks and Will Ferrell movies. How do I absorb this mix of admiration and yet separation? She will take on a new name once ordained.
Best answer: My mom is very involved with a Buddhist monastery, and over the years she's been friends with a few monks and nuns, including people she's known before and after they were ordained. They've done all kinds of stuff together, and one of the nuns was a hiking buddy for years. Monastics like fun stuff, too (that's why there are so many viral pictures of monks at amusement parks and stuff). My mom is devoted, and she respects the monastics she knows, but she talks about them as friends because their spiritual path doesn't preclude friendship. She's still in touch with people, and I still get updates every so often. "I heard from Bhante so-and-so..."
If it helps, I remember one time one of the monks had a friend visiting, and apparently the friend kept calling him Red Dog and talking about surfing together in the 60s (which everyone present thought was hilarious). I think maybe there's more leeway to be yourself around monastic friends than it can sometimes seem, even if it feels like they're holding themselves to a higher standard.
Sorry, I feel like I've been in proximity with this for most of my life, so it's hard to put it into a comment that will be useful. Maybe just talk to your friend about this. She's still your friend, and nothing you've said makes it sound like she doesn't still want to be your friend.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:58 PM on October 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
If it helps, I remember one time one of the monks had a friend visiting, and apparently the friend kept calling him Red Dog and talking about surfing together in the 60s (which everyone present thought was hilarious). I think maybe there's more leeway to be yourself around monastic friends than it can sometimes seem, even if it feels like they're holding themselves to a higher standard.
Sorry, I feel like I've been in proximity with this for most of my life, so it's hard to put it into a comment that will be useful. Maybe just talk to your friend about this. She's still your friend, and nothing you've said makes it sound like she doesn't still want to be your friend.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 2:58 PM on October 18, 2018 [9 favorites]
I have a friend who is training to be a meditation teacher, who I met through a different hobby before I got into meditation myself (coincidentally, in the same tradition she is training in). She's still my friend who posts bad puns on Facebook and who likes delicious foods and enjoys our common hobby. I did have an opportunity recently to ask her a question about practice, and we had a fun and thoughtful conversation over chat. I don't think she has changed - we can still connect on the same things, and a new thing as well.
I think just talking to your friend and keeping on appreciating the things you appreciate about her will alleviate a lot of your fears. Talking to her about your concerns will also give her a chance to take the lead in offering how she would like to be treated as she enters a new phase of her life. She may even guide you to sit with your thoughts and concerns about her life change as an opportunity for your own practice.
posted by matildaben at 4:49 PM on October 18, 2018
I think just talking to your friend and keeping on appreciating the things you appreciate about her will alleviate a lot of your fears. Talking to her about your concerns will also give her a chance to take the lead in offering how she would like to be treated as she enters a new phase of her life. She may even guide you to sit with your thoughts and concerns about her life change as an opportunity for your own practice.
posted by matildaben at 4:49 PM on October 18, 2018
Your friend is still your friend!! My sister's buddy was ordained a priest, but we sat around the kitchen table with "Father Scotty" working on his homily before the wedding. :7)
There's a woman in Maine named Kate Braestrup who's a mom and a widow (and a lot of other things!); she got ordained after her husband died. She wrote a book about that called "Here If You Need Me" that shows her to be a Regular Person as well as a Religious; you might enjoy reading it to see someone who is both a minister and yet also very secular.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:29 PM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's a woman in Maine named Kate Braestrup who's a mom and a widow (and a lot of other things!); she got ordained after her husband died. She wrote a book about that called "Here If You Need Me" that shows her to be a Regular Person as well as a Religious; you might enjoy reading it to see someone who is both a minister and yet also very secular.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:29 PM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I see them as teachers and representatives of the clarity of mind and devotion I wish to cultivate and I give them that respect as representatives of the divine.
This is somewhat childlike, in that it fails to acknowledge that these people are not distant mythical Santa figures but rather adults like you. People need friends. My family has a healthy portion of rabbis and ministers and even a nun and except for the period where one of my uncles was cloistered in an ashram, I promise you they all like drinking craft beer and going to the movies.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:12 PM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is somewhat childlike, in that it fails to acknowledge that these people are not distant mythical Santa figures but rather adults like you. People need friends. My family has a healthy portion of rabbis and ministers and even a nun and except for the period where one of my uncles was cloistered in an ashram, I promise you they all like drinking craft beer and going to the movies.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:12 PM on October 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
I think you are assuming your friend is going to want to distance herself from your secular experience, but keep in mind that ordained people are still people living through a human experience just like you.
Maybe you'll talk less about dating and so on but that doesn't mean she is uninterested in your life. Keep being her friend. Don't expect her to be a spiritual guide or represent the divine all the time. I have friends who take tonsure as nuns for part of each year, and some who are full on monastic and they are still great to just hang out with and talk to.
posted by ananci at 12:34 AM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Maybe you'll talk less about dating and so on but that doesn't mean she is uninterested in your life. Keep being her friend. Don't expect her to be a spiritual guide or represent the divine all the time. I have friends who take tonsure as nuns for part of each year, and some who are full on monastic and they are still great to just hang out with and talk to.
posted by ananci at 12:34 AM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]
Best answer: It's really hard to say what happens after people have profound awakenings and reroute their lives. For some people there is an 'end to their world' that is really, really hard to overcome in relationships, and other people come back around more quickly to things being exactly as they started out. Either way, whether your friendship will be forever changed, never changed, or changed but eventually reestablished in a form close to its original, the LOVE is still there and still real, and maybe even greater. Sometimes it's helpful to feel into that, really, deeply, feel it.
posted by namesarehard at 11:07 AM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by namesarehard at 11:07 AM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]
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