Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 29

I just saw one of the first movies filmed in colour. "The Garden of Allah" was released in 1936, featuring then cinema heavyweights, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer. I saw a version dubbed in Spanish, for the language practice. Dietrich plays a wealthy European Roman Catholic who wants to rekindle her faith and the mother superior from her old convent school sends her to the Algerian desert where she encounters a runaway Trappist monk (played by Boyer). They fall in love, get married, and eventually her new husband is betrayed as a deserter of his monastery and of his Catholic faith. She declares the marriage over and with great pain for both of them, sends him back to the monastery. Sad that the story ends here. I would have been curious to learn what happened to him upon his return. Was he accepted back to the fold? Was he given hard penances? Treated with contempt and suspicion by the other monks? Perhaps envy as well? Did the Dietrich character wind up taking him back? Or did she go into a convent, marry someone else, or ripen into a lusty old cougar stalking palm courts and cocktail lounges for willing young swains? There are of course the broad strokes of black and white that these kind of pious dilemmas are often painted in. The Boyer character wanted to taste the sinful life of pleasure, adventure and romantic love. But away from the monastery, having broken his vows, he is in a state of psychic, emotional and existential torment. He could return to the monastery to reunite with his God in silence and absolute austerity, or he could continue his life of matrimonial bliss, hating himself every step of the way. This is problematic. This idea that one has to conform to a particular religion and within a very narrow context in order to ratify their spiritual vocation is to me a rather sad deformation of Christ's call to discipleship. I have long had the kind of spiritual disposition that in some ways might have made monastery life very tempting to me, or at least the priesthood. A couple of problems here: first of all, I am not, never have been, and likely never will be Catholic. I do not judge those who want to be faithful members to the Old Dinosaur, but Holy Mother Church is not for me. They have way too much blood on their hands from the salad days of the Inquisition, and I could give a few more reasons, but this will have to wait for future, and past, blogposts. I would also like to mention that in cloistered religious communities, one is going to find all the evil and sin that is waiting for them in the big wide evil world outside the monastery walls. Each one of us is going to find all that evil and sin festering inside our own dark little souls, Gentle Reader. Yes, it can be a challenge, leading a quiet and contemplative life of prayer in a world that is completely antithetical to inner peace and practiced goodness, but for this wannabe Christian there is no other way of doing it. Different strokes, eh? The quiet place has to begin within and it is from that place of refuge and blessing that I am able to offer something beautiful of God to those around me, while receiving the same beauty from others. If they can only get off their bloody smart phones long enough to make a little eye contact! Not easy, but worth it. And, in case you still haven't noticed: God is everywhere!