I am left saddened by an incident that happened with the Benedictine Oblates group on Facebook this afternoon, and as a result I left the group. I was deeply shaken by a guy from that group who behaved like a stalker on my personal Facebook page. I will summarize what happened by posting here what I posted on Facebook about the incident this afternoon. I have put this post in italics, so that anyone who has already read it may skip it and proceed to the next paragraph.
"Wow! I just got dropped and blocked by a guy who was acting like a total creep. He was someone that I befriended from the Benedictine Oblates page. There were several things he did that made me uncomfortable: (1) Just after befriending me two days ago, he instantly got on Private Messenger with me, sending me constant messages with personal information about himself and asking me rather personal things about myself, and sometimes he sent me messages after midnight. (2) He spoke against my husband because I'm trying to honour my husband's spiritual advice to me in my Christian walk (especially since my husband is my anamcara), and because I follow Biblical principles in marriage. He referred to my husband as controlling. (3) He just now asked for me to send him a photograph of the tops of my hands and the tops of my feet, because he supposedly has a scientific interest in my hands and feet as a practitioner of reflexology. What the devil?! I pointed out to him that his request was a highly irregular one for him, as a single man, to make of a married woman. When my husband objected, he accused my husband of controlling my life. I got onto this creep for not having more respect for my marriage. The end result? He said, via PM, "Have fun being a slave to a controlling dictator." What a jerk! I'm glad that he did drop and block me, because I don't want someone like that on my page. Whether he agrees with my model of marriage or not and my husband being my anamcara, he was being way too personal for a Facebook new acquaintance. A man should not ask a married lady to send him pictures of her feet, especially if he just met her online. As for my husband's instincts about the guy, I completely trust them because my husband is the son of a cop and he's always an impeccable judge of character. Good God, but I do attract some loonies sometimes."
I know that a whole group, such as a large Benedictine Oblate group on Facebook, cannot be considered responsible for what happened with one nutcase. But what happened today brought back a memory that I had buried and thought that I had quite gotten over: the memory of being physically seized by a Benedictine monk at a Catholic Benedictine monastery on retreat, when I was a young woman during the early 1990's, during which the monk tried to force me to kiss him. I will speak of this now, on this blog, because I want other women who have experienced this type of thing to know that they are not alone. Like many young women who go through that sort of thing, I didn't report the monk at the time to the abbot or the police because I blamed myself for his actions. Besides, he had not actually tried to rape me, just to kiss me. I thought it was my fault for having talked to him too late at night on the terrace, which I did because I thought he was a lonely, sad person in need of my listening ear, hence his accosting me on my way to the dormitory. I further reflected, after the incident, that perhaps my trendy summer dress was too immodest for him, and that he had been tempted beyond his strength. So I left the incident unreported, with the result that he continued to follow me about the monastery and pass by my bedroom door every night as I stayed there for the retreat. There was another monk at that same monastery who pursued me in an inappropriate manner as well, though he did so through written communication instead of physically pursuing me. I once again blamed myself, because I had reached out to him when one of his monastic brothers said he was depressed. I had buried the memory of these past events, more or less, and tried not to think about them, especially since the monk who tried to kiss me is now long dead and the other one ran off from the monastery and was never heard from again. But today's incident with the creepy guy in the Oblates group made those past incidents all come back to me. Because I found myself shaken and brought back to those memories, I have decided that this is one reason out of two that I am NOT called to be a Benedictine Oblate in the Orthodox Western Rite. I will continue to pray the Rule of St. Benedict, but I will not seek Oblatehood because I cannot be certain that I will not run into more nutcases if I associate myself with a monastic congregation. I know that many Benedictine monasteries are filled with wonderful holy people who have a true vocation and can be an inspiration to Oblates. But, in my experience not only with that Benedictine house but with a couple of Greek monastic communities, monasteries also can have some people who have sought solace in the monastic vocation because they are not sound of mind. Three creepy guys--those two monks from the 1990's and today's creep from the Oblates group--are enough to turn a woman off from wanting to be associated with a monastic congregation in a lay "third order" capacity such as Oblatehood. There are two things that I don't need in my life: (1) I don't need to subject myself to the possibility of encountering crazy guys who might behave inappropriately towards me and insult my honour. (2) I don't need anyone exerting control over my spiritual life and prayer life in the name of spiritual direction. This incident and some wise words from my original Irish spiritual father this past week, words about ploughing my own furrow instead of letting other people dictate who they think I should be, have helped me come to my decision tonight. My husband was right to be concerned about my spiritual freedom and my safety. I will continue to pray the Rule of St. Benedict, but I will not seek any more to be an Oblate. I think that my husband as a soul-friend and Fr. Photius as father-confessor are sufficient for me. What makes me sad, however, is that I have lost yet again an opportunity to have some sort of spiritual community of people sharing my path and journey. I'm beginning to think that my calling is to be the woman living on the outskirts of the village, with the raven and the owl as my companions, who gets periodically consulted by people with particular questions. Every attempt I have ever made at having a spiritual community about me has failed, but maybe that's because God doesn't want that for me. Maybe I'm called to be solitary, like the aforementioned raven and owl. So, I'll just serve the Church through music, minister in that capacity as I'm called, love people when I see them, and continue friendships that I have forged. But otherwise, I will stay out in the woods where I belong.
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