Eight minutes to count from 160 to 161.
One day, as I walked outside to supervise recess in the kindergarten yard, one of my students ran up to me and said, “Mr Monk, I can count to one hundred and sixty.” “Wow”, I said. “That is a big number!” I didn’t ask him to prove it. I was looking around, trying to locate the kids I needed to keep an eye on (for safety). The boy ran away to play with friends. Eight minutes later, the boy ran up to me again and said, “One hundred and sixty-one now.” Did it take him eight minutes to realize that the next number after 160 is 161? And, why did he then stop at 161 and not keep counting to, say, 170?
The people with the strongest faith in God usually have the least faith in their own opinions. That is not to say that they are indecisive. It means that they are self-aware. They know that they aren’t always right. So, they take time and reflect on and evaluate their beliefs and opinions.
The boy who counted to 161 is not stupid. He is, in fact, very bright. But he is only 4 years old and there are a lot of concepts to learn. Firstly, not every child understands the concept of infinity, i.e. that a person can keep on counting forever. Some kids might think of counting numbers like they are words in a song: you say this word then that word then that word, etc. Maybe the boy had been taught how to count to 160 but not further than that. Maybe it took a while for it to dawn on him that he could keep counting by himself. He would have also needed to recognize the pattern that numbers that end in “ty” (20, 30, 40, etc) are always followed by numbers that end it “ty one” (21, 31, 41). Kids at that age don’t have such a firm concept of tens. For all he knew, 160 could have been followed by 165, 168, or “one hundred and sixty eleven”. So, it makes sense that he took eight minutes to figure out how to count from 160 to 161. He was probably thinking things through, very carefully.
I was talking to my father recently about the state of the Catholic church. There is a shortage of priests, yes, but we agreed that that is just a symptom of the overall lack of participation in the church. My dad cited examples of some of our family members who don’t go to church. They believe themselves to be good people, and so they don’t see the need to go to church. They ARE good people. But it is dangerous to believe too much in one’s own goodness. History has shown us terrible examples of people who did horrific things, all while believing themselves to be right.
That is not to say that everyone needs to go to church or else they will become a bad person. I just think that it is shame that people think they don’t need God. They are closing themselves off from the best part of life, in my opinion.
I know that, often, the church experience is not as inspiring as it could be. But overall life is brighter with religion in it.
It took me a long time to realize the value of going to church. I was (and still am) an arrogant man. When I joined the religious order, I thought that I had more to offer it than it had to offer me. Like many people today, I thought: “I’m good” and so I didn’t need church.
Religious life was a humbling experience. God held a mirror up to my face and I realized that no, I am, in fact, not good. People hear religious teachings, and they think, “Yeah, yeah, golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated, be good… I got it.” But what happens when you encounter people who do not live and act the way that you live and act? How do you react? Are you nice to the people you don’t like? In religious life I found out that I was terribly judgmental. I looked down on many of the brothers in the order. I thought some lazy, others dimwitted, others selfish, others vane. I had no sympathy for them. I did not value them. I did not recognize their dignity as children of God. I was an arrogant jerk to some people. And, it took me a long time to realize it. The golden rule is not nearly as easy as people think. That is why the holiest people are the most careful and reflective. They are always asking themselves if they are truly doing the best that they can.
Religious life involves a lot of prayer, reading, studying, and discussion. In addition to the bible and the Breviary, we also read from the writings of saints. Almost every day I was bombarded with teachings about being humble, nonjudgmental, compassionate, and loving. I had to accept the harsh truth that it was I that needed to change, not those other brothers that I looked down upon.
Maybe the 4-year-old boy in my class was very proud of his ability to count to 160 and so he got caught up in savoring his accomplishment. Maybe he went around telling everyone that he could count to 160. Maybe it took him a while to realize that he could go further.
My life experience had been transformed by faith and spirituality. I had been depressed and unhealthy. But after finding God, and adopting a spiritually disciplined lifestyle, I had been experiencing health and happiness. I was very proud of how my life had been transformed by faith. I thought that I had already changed as much as I needed to change. So, I thought that the next step for me was to affect that change on the rest of the world. It took me a long time to realize that I needed to keep working on myself. 160 is just one point on a number line that goes on forever. Likewise, I joined the religious order at one point in my spiritual journey. I had to keep going. I still need to keep going!
I told ai, “create an image of a number line from zero to God”. This is what it came up with.
When the boy told me he could count to 161, I thought of next steps. Whenever I think that I know the next step in my life, I am almost always wrong. I almost never know what is best for me. I get stuck at a certain point, unable to move forward, like the boy stuck at 160. It is a repeating pattern in my life. I get stuck until I give up and say, “God, I don’t know what to do. I need your help.” That is when things work out for me. I place my trust in God, and I stop trying to figure everything out myself. That is the only next step that I can recommend to anyone in life.
Once, in religious life, I was staying at a foreign convent for a while and there was a lot of tension and resentment with some of the brothers. At one point, after weeks of being preoccupied with thoughts of anger and resentment, I broke down and literally cried to God, “Is this all that I am? Judgment, anger, and hate?” That was the most humbling and liberating moment of my journey with the brothers. That was the final tumble from off my high horse. After that I prayed only for help to forgive, love, and get along with the other brothers. And, that is exactly what I received from God. We started getting along. We started having warm and friendly interactions. I started to understand them. I started to love them. And, though I eventually did leave so that I could pursue my current vocation of marriage, fatherhood, and teaching, I still think fondly of all the brothers. I go and visit them when I can. I hope that we all continue to progress on our journey to the infinite.