In the final episode of Season Six, Aaron tells a story in three parts.
First, he remembers a boy from elementary school who seemed effortlessly ahead of the curve. The kind of kid who wore the right shoes before anyone knew they were cool, introduced him to Smashing Pumpkins, and left an impression that somehow lasted for decades.
Then, Aaron tells another story of a young man searching for purpose who walked into a Byzantine Catholic church in Cleveland and eventually found himself pulled toward a monastic life at the Abbey of Gethsemani.
The question is: how are these two stories connected?
What follows is a reflection on memory, vocation, friendship, and the mystery of who we are in the eyes of others, who we become, and who we may have been called to be all along.
*This episodes includes an adaptation and retelling of Brother Joseph's true story. You can read his original written story HERE.
*Learn more about the Abbey of Gethsemani at monks.org
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The Team:
Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Calafato
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Theme Music: thomas j. duke
Additional Soundscape Design: Isaac Gehring
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TRANSCRIPT
This final episode of Season Six is broken into three parts.
The first part, I want to tell you a short story about someone I met in elementary school who left an impression on me that I have not forgotten since.
Then, I want to tell you a story about someone who became a Catholic monk.
It’s fascinating.
And then, in the third and final part, the question is: how is this all connected?
You don’t want to miss this one.
It starts right after the music.
I’m going to start with a quick one.
Have you ever had that person who you may only interact with for a small season, but the time you spend with them makes such an impact that you cannot forget them?
You can’t get them out of your brain.
One of those people was a guy named Chris.
I met him in elementary school, and he always, at least through my perception, seemed to be ahead of the curve. He actually seemed cool.
And what I mean by that is, you know how they manufacture cool?
What they really do is they go into different communities and find people who don’t really care about being cool. And that’s what makes them cool. The way they dress, the music they play, the language they speak.
Then they take that, bring it to the mass market, and we all buy the stuff and go, “We’re cool.”
But we weren’t cool.
The person who didn’t care about being cool was cool.
That’s the kind of cool I thought Chris was.
He had Airwalks before anyone had Airwalks. He had Vans before anyone had Vans. He was wearing a Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt, and I thought it was just someone who was really aggressive during Halloween.
I said, “Who’s Smashing Pumpkins?”
And he told me.
He introduced me to Billy Corgan and alternative rock music.
I went over to his house to hang out, and I think he had a Jackson guitar. I think it was a Jackson guitar.
And when I look back, he had this wild intellect. It was like he had 100-year-old wisdom and a third-grade brain.
And then, poof.
Life happens.
Different grades. Different lives.
And I have not talked to him in person ever since.
But every time I go to a record store and see Siamese Dream on vinyl, or I hear “Tonight, Tonight” somewhere streaming, I think of my friend Chris.
Now, in September of 2011, a young man walked into a Byzantine Catholic church in downtown Cleveland.
He was looking for a quiet place to meditate.
He had been searching for some time. Searching, really, for his purpose. His destiny.
And he wasn’t practicing the Catholic faith he had been baptized into. He was actually following an East Indian form of mindfulness.
But on that day, the church just happened to be open. And there was a young priest inside who just happened to be there, cleaning the church before its reopening.
So this young man sat in silence for about 30 minutes.
And as he was meditating, his eyes became fixed on an image of Mary.
When he was leaving, the priest’s mother stopped him and said, “You know, it’s September 8th. That is the Nativity of Mary.”
Then she went on to explain that Mary gathers lost souls and brings them back to her son.
And then she said to the young man, “I think you’re supposed to be here.”
Two weeks after that, the young man’s mother brought him to a Thomas Merton seminar.
If you don’t know who Thomas Merton is, he was a Trappist monk. It’s an amazing story.
Well, this led the young man to visit the Abbey of Gethsemani.
That’s in Kentucky.
And it’s a really hard word to say. Gethsemani. Not Kentucky.
But when he arrived there, he immediately started feeling drawn to monastic life.
The only problem was, he still wasn’t practicing the Catholic faith.
And he knew the Trappists wouldn’t let him enter under those conditions.
So then he started wondering, maybe they would let him live there as a janitor.
On the six-hour drive back to Cleveland, he imagined this kind of quasi-monastic janitorial life.
Flash forward to 2012.
Our young man was still on a spiritual journey, and he was staying at an ashram in India.
Then a stranger pointed at him and said, “I don’t think this guy should be here.”
And those words shook him completely.
He was alone and anxious that night, and he prayed what he says was the first real prayer of his life:
“Please get me through this trip. Please get me through this night.”
And he did make it back home.
He was still searching, and his meditation practice was still frustrating him.
Then he decided, “I’m going to take a hike.”
So he took this hike, and there was a moment where he remembered the monks at Gethsemani. He remembered them chanting the Our Father.
And in that moment, he described a peace that came over him.
That very night, he woke up and prayed the Our Father for three hours.
The very next day, he returned to the Byzantine church where this whole thing began.
That led him into Palm Sunday, into Holy Week, and into a Good Friday vigil.
By Easter, he finally understood what the call was.
He was not meant to live near a monastery as a janitor.
He was meant to become a Catholic monk.
By 2016, he had entered Gethsemani as a postulant. A postulant is someone who formally requests to be part of a religious community.
And in 2021, 10 years after walking into that Byzantine church in Cleveland, he made solemn vows.
That man would become Brother Joseph.
So how is this all connected?
Well, if you haven’t figured it out by now, Brother Joseph used to go by another name.
In fact, I met him in elementary school when his name was Chris.
He embodied what I thought was cool. He listened to Smashing Pumpkins. He introduced me to music and style and a way of being that I never forgot.
And the funny thing is, when you’re from a town like I’m from, in Medina, even when you’re not connected, you stay connected.
You all know my wife, Cori.
Cori is friends with Brother Joseph’s sister, Alliey. And Alliey connected Brother Joseph and me just a few months ago.
We’ve been emailing since.
And this was really the inspiration. He was the inspiration for this story.
I didn’t realize we would reconnect.
What a gift.
What a gift to be able to reconnect with a true friend.
And I’ve got to tell you, there’s something else I’ve been thinking about that emerged for me in this process.
It’s that there are almost three parts of us.
There is who people think we are through their prism, through one slice of experience, and how we impact them.
Then there is who we actually are.
And then there is who we are destined to be.
It’s almost like there are three truths in one life.
And man, I’m not just grateful to be alive.
I’m grateful for my life.
And I’m grateful for you.
I’ll talk to you next week.