18 august, from the Hermitage
Oh my goodness, I have been long long neglect in getting back to this travelogue. Partially that is because for this period at least I have (blissfully) not been traveling. I made the long journey home on the train from St. Louis to Colorado, where I stayed two nights with my sister and visited with her boys and their kids (there is a lot I could say about that visit, which was super, but after all these weeks I shall spare myself), and then the next leg from Colorado to California. I loved taking the train. The first overnight was a little rough. I didn’t have a sleeper of course though the seats recline in coach. But I wasn’t used to them and didn’t get a lot of sleep. There was a long delay (that’s part of the story) due to weather in the Midwest (tornadoes and flooded tracks) and then the door of a tunnel through a mountain that wouldn’t open, and a few other mishaps, getting us in at 2:30 AM the third day, exhausted, but the trip from CO to CA was seamless and I slept quite well, thank you.
I settled in aback at my friends’ Bob and Ellen’s house in Hillsborough. They were kind of coming and going for several weeks themselves, so I had the place to myself, house-sitting and sometimes dog-sitting as well. During that period, I made several trips down to Santa Cruz to do some more recording with Devin at our old haunt, Pine Forest, just outside of Santa Cruz. I also attended Devin and Prabha’s wedding at Mount Madonna (another set of stories I am too last to tell now), and then I eventually transferred back over to the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos again, my beloved little St. Robert’s apartment up on top of the campus.
It wasn’t long before that blissful period was interrupted by two sad things. One was that our good friend Dan Riley, OFM died back in New York. Dan was a mountain of a man who worked for nearly 50 years in campus ministry at St. Bonaventure’s University in Olean, and also founded and built from the ground up a wonderful Franciscan Mountain retreat center and community about 30 miles away from there called Mount Irenaeus. Over the years the Mountain, as it is known, hosted a countless number of students and others for encounters and private retreats in their own very distinctive Franciscan family style. Dan himself was a big man in every way, big laugh, big smile, big gestures, wild imagination and of course a huge heart. He had been coming to the Hermitage for retreat for well over 30 years and knew the community very well, even hosting Camaldolese/Franciscan gatherings at the Mountain over the years. He was a huge fan of my music and had invited John Pennington and me out to lead a retreat for the first time in 1997 and I subsequently returned many times over the years. And he was a part of my inner circle of very important confidantes. I often said that, even though I knew I was not a Franciscan, when I was at the Mountain or when I left from an encounter with Dan I knew and understood my own vocation better. We were kindred spirts in many ways. My last encounters with him were very memorable. I met him and a group he was leading in Rome when I was there for the Synod last October. It was nice to have a visit together before the General Chapter, and then I spent an evening with his friends, singing and talking. And then met them again later at La Verna where we celebrated Eucharist together. And then he was here in Big Sur in December with my new friend the writer and editor Stephen Copeland (we had met and really hit it off in Rome as well), and Dan and I had a long evening out together at Nepenthe. At 81 years old he was still brimming with energy and creativity and looking forward to the next thing, the next phase. I was just shocked by the news of his death, and I kept saying, “I just can’t imagine the world or the Church, without Dan in it.”
At any rate, to make a long story short, the community at Mount Irenaeus and the St. Bonaventure’s, knowing how important my music was to Dan, offered to fly me out to sing for the wake service funeral. I could hardly say no. I got some hint with the group in Rome just how much Dan’s promotion of my music had caught on, because the folks were generally in excited to meet me, which really caught me off guard. That was right around the time of the Hamas attack on southern Israel and the consequent incursion into Gaza. I had written “Bismillah”––the verses drawn from St. Francis’ Litany of Praise––for the 25th anniversary celebration of Mount Irenaeus for which John Pennington and I did an amazing and memorable crowded house concert in the main building, people almost literally hanging from the rafters. At the time St. Bonaventure’s had just opened up their department of Islamic Studies. (I also wrote “The Lord’s Mountain” for the same occasion, both of which Gitanjali and I recorded on the album “The Ground We Share” and sang throughout the Holy Land in 2011.) This time the reaction to and appreciation of my presence just blew me away. I was lovingly scolding Dan on the other side of death saying, “Did you have to die in the middle of my sabbatical?!” somewhat dragging my feet about flying across the country for four days, but I am so glad I went. Of course, the friars from the Mountain were very appreciative. But also it was a great source of comfort to the larger support staff to have me there and lead the music because I was kind of the soundtrack of their work––especially the song “There Is A Light,” which is practically the theme song of the Mountain for years now, and they told me so one after another. Dan’s death had really shaken them all.
The funeral itself was held in the church at St. Bonaventure’s but with so many people that they had an additional hall set up with a live stream. The luncheon was then hosted by and held in the huge dining hall on campus. Forgive me if this is too self-indulgent, but that’s when I realized just how much Dan had promoted my music and I was really blown away. Person after person kept coming up to me and thanking me for coming and telling me how much it meant to them. I have never experienced anything like it in all my years on the road. One woman who was in the hall told me that she thought to herself during the funeral, “How nice, there are playing Cyprian’s CDs,” until the camera panned over and caught me. Of course, we sang “There Is A Light,” for the entrance song for the funeral, and you have never heard it roared so powerfully. The bishop was there in his choir robes off to the side, and for a moment I hesitated about really letting it out (the verses are quite melismatic and improvised but I could have done a “tamer” version of it and “Echo of Your Peace” which we did at the preparation of the gifts). But then I looked down at Dan’s coffin and said to myself, “Nah. He would want it.” So, the good unsuspecting bishop got an earful. All that to say, I am so glad I went. “Well done, faithful servant! Share in the joy of your master!”
The other unfortunate incident that happened took place two days after I got back from New York. We had a big gathering planned up at Skyfarm Hermitage with Francis and Michaela. I was to meet my friends and brothers Adam Bucko and John Gribowich up there as Adam was coming in for retreat with his wife Kaira Jewel, who I had never met before. And Francis and Michaela had flown in our friend and former Camaldolese Romuald Roberts from Oregon too for the occasion. Bob had been generous enough to let me continue to use his old Tesla (he had just gotten a new one) for the weeks I was going to be in Los Altos, but on the way up that narrow road to Skyfarm I hit something, still not sure what it was, and not only blew out the right front tire (or did the right front tire blow out first? I’m not sure) but also ruined the suspension on the right rear wheel. I consequently had to have the car towed down into Sonoma, and then towed again to a repair shop in San Rafael, and $7000 of damage later it still sits there awaiting repair, only so they can sell it. Needless to say, that tainted our Skyfarm gathering a little bit.
I was/am so embarrassed and upset about it, but Bob has been as gracious as ever. That has also left me carless in Los Altos which changed the character of my stay there a little bit. The main thing I enjoyed was driving to the gym before dawn every morning to start my day, and of course being able to get to the studio in Santa Cruz and see some friends for dinner every now and then. But I have gotten myself a mobile Clipper card and figured out the bus system of the VTA, and so have been alternatingly hoofing it and taking the bus, and been very much more tied to the place, which has actually been very nice, more simple and per forza more of a retreat experience than I thought it was going to be instead of a port in the storm between activities. There is a lot to deal with before I leave for Europe on August 31, but I have been able to do it mostly from my computer.
I did rent a car for the weekend to come down here to Big Sur before I leave and again, though I was hesitant to break up my retreat time for this arduous journey (one still has to drive all the way south to get here since Highway 1 is blocked a few miles north of the Hermitage) I am so glad to be here, to see the brothers and to be in my beloved library-archive-cell 20, praying in the chapel, meditating in the rotunda and sleeping in my own bed for a few nights. The brothers were very gracious and welcoming. I expected some push-back about my new position… Oh wait, I didn’t write about that yet, though some of you who read this blog might have already heard.
Here it is… As I left New Camaldoli in January our new prior and my successor Fr. Ignatius had counseled me to watch for what might “emerge” during this sabbatical year and I have been doing so. I do know that Asia has really been calling me and I have had hopes of spending more time there immersed in that spiritual culture. I also know that it has been a great consolation to be doing what I love again and feel I’m good at––the retreats, the music, writing, and engaging and dialoguing with others. And in the midst of that, something surprising emerged.
Just before I tested positive for Covid in June, at his request, I had a meeting with Fr. William Skudlarek, OSB, a monk of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, MN who I have known for some years. William is the Secretary General of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. DIMMID, as it is officially called (in French and English, Dialogue Interreligieux Monastique-Monastic Interreligious Dialogue) started out as a sub-commission for AIM (Alliance Inter-Monasteres) in 1978 but was officially formed in 1994 as a separate General Secretariat under the Abbot Primate in Rome, at the request of the Vatican for monks to be on the front line of engaging in and promoting interreligious dialogue. There are commissions in Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries literally all over the world, and the Secretary General is the uniting person behind them all. I had been on the board of the North American commission of MID for one term before I began my term as prior at the Hermitage.
To make a long story short, Fr. William has asked me to be his successor as the international Secretary General of DIMMID. That came as a complete surprise to me, and I asked him for some time to think and pray over it, which I did (mostly from my Covid sickbed). We met again a week later, and I agreed to take the next steps. He contacted the Abbot Primate Gregory Poulin in Rome, and Abbot Gregory warmly welcomed the idea and wanted to move on naming me as William’s successor as soon as possible. I then had a long conversation with Ignatius back home and corresponded with the Prior General Matteo at Camaldoli, and they too have been most enthusiastic. And so, as of October 1, 2024, barring any unforeseen difficulties, I will be the new Secretary General of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, though my own work won’t start until January so I can complete the sabbatical year. They would like me also to be at the Abbots’ Congress in Rome this September to be introduced and to meet with the new Abbot Primate who will be elected then.
Aside from continuing the legacy of Bede Griffiths and Abhishiktananda and Pope John Paul II’s mandate to the Camaldolese Congregation to continue our work in interreligious dialogue, as I lay on my sickbed recovering from Covid discerning this call, it seemed to me that this position could be an umbrella to cover almost everything I love and feel called to do. I do almost everything in the perspective of what Fr. Bede called Universal Wisdom––music, writing, teaching, and especially engaging and dialoguing, not to mention meditation and prayer. I described this “job” as a kind of Christian monastic interreligious ambassador to the world, and Fr. William said that was it exactly. As Ignatius pointed out, of all the Benedictine and Cistercian monks and nuns in the world, that they should ask someone from a little community on the edge of the continental United States from quite near the smallest monastic congregation in the Church––and a scruffy guitar player at that––is quite an honor for us. And Matteo added, un bel servizio che possiamo rendere alla Confederazione Bendettina––a beautiful service that we can offer the Benedictine Confederation, as well as to the greater Church and, without being too lofty about it, the world. The Holy Father just recently again declared how important dialogue between religions is for world peace.
The job will require some travel obviously. They have suggested that for the first years I be located in Rome, to be near Sant’Anselmo and the Vatican, because they also collaborate with the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, and because Rome is such a crossroads. Other than that, the rest will unfold as Fr. William, Abbot Gregory, Ignatius, and I discuss how I can and will incarnate the position. Of course, New Camaldoli will continue to be my home and point of stabilitas; I will just be on loan for the time being. I am of course well aware that this will have an impact on the community, already low in numbers. This is, however, something I had never dreamed of and certainly did not ask for, and it truly feels like a call.
So, when I leave for this last leg of the sabbatical year I won’t be coming back for a while. My last stop is in India for a meeting, and it has been my intention since I left there in March to spend the last month of the sabbatical there, mostly at Shantivanam. From there I’ll go directly to Rome––though not completely sure where I’ll be staying yet, probably San Gregorio. My plan at this point is to come back to the States in April for a month at the Hermitage, some work in California, Arizona and New Mexico in May, then time with my family in June.
But first I am heading to Portland next week to try and finish this new recording with John Pennington. A few years back we now compiled all of our joint music under the group name Animas Ensemble on Spotify in an album called “The Circle Turns,” and we are very close to being finished with a great new collection. I can hardly believe how good it is turning out. John plus Rick Modlin and Joe Hebert (piano and ‘cello respectively) are adding their usual magic. I’ll return just for an overnight on August 30 and fly to Rome August 31.
So, I ask for your prayers for this new phase, as I promise you mine as I continue this pilgrimage. More will be revealed… But mainly I want to be the presence of light, peace and hope in this troubled world, the best face of Christ and the Church. A good aspiration for us all. I will try to post regularly as I make my way across the continents this fall to share my journey with you.
