The Monastery: 2

The next time I saw them was Thursday. Several of them were hanging out in two parked cars in the Walgreens parking lot. A chick sat on the hood in the bright sunshine. They had sunrooves open. I could hear them laughing and singing and talking with one another. I sat in my own car, parked there and waiting to go inside. But they caught my eye, and my heart. The same guy was there, in the passenger side of the silver car. I couldn't hear anything they were saying.

But to walk up to that car, I feared it. I feared being destroyed by their combined attention focused on me. As thought it would burn my skin if I got too close to it. The next time I would. Someone walked up to their car and they greeted him warmly. He leaned on the side.

How will I introduce this character, myself, to these people? They seem to be so right, so righteous, where things can be done. I feel that I have understanding they can use, and that they have understanding that I need to have. How desperate of me, how pitiful.

I began walking over there, entirely unprepared for what I would say or do. Maybe I would just stand there next to them and say nothing, invisible. Maybe I would write down or listen to what they say, maybe record it if I had the metal to.

Then I was near them, standing, and one of the girls seemed to be talking to me. "Hey, how are you?"

"Fine."

And we began talking. I was in! That was the first day in about a year that I had gone 'to church,' I later found.

Jeffrey, the church's speaker, was indistinguishably old. He could have been any age between 18 and 33. But he spoke with wisdom beyond years. He had been hanging out with and ministering to the rotating group of youths and also some older folks and kids too for about 5 years, he said.

"We're a monastery. And a church. We hold services at local Denny's and diners and Dunkin Donuts, and any place else that starts with D. But only D..."

then the whole group broke up into laughter. It gradually subsided. I chuckled, not getting it.

"No, we'll talk anywhere! A street corner, a private home, Manchester, even a church! I go to church church sometimes too. But Jesus didn't teach in a church building most of a time. I mean the time. What is a church anyway? Bricks or people?"

"PEOPLE!!" they all said to one another and me, and they hugged and some kissed and leaned closer.

I felt very at home.

"We built a church once, Roj, didn't you take part in that chruchbuilding we did in Applewood?"

"Wow, you guys build stuff too?"

"...oh, yeah, we're a working monastery."

"Where do you stay?"

"Well, most of the people live in their parents' places, some do the college, but some of us are just doing it on our own and some of us just bop. Where are you from?"

"That's a shame. I live with my folks."

Hey that's cool... none of us judge another, you know. Do you judge?"

That was a really hard question to answer.