Finding that particular "challenge" was the nub, however! Being immersed in the military realm for so long, it took a bit of an adjustment growing beyond myself. I needed to focus on issues that impacted the general citizenry, perhaps even in global terms. Also, I knew myself well--in that I wouldn't get involved, or stay involved, unless I was really motivated by any such selected challenge. So it took me some time coming to any decision to which I might commit.

Happily I didn't have to wait too long. Earlier I had come across the work of the Woodstock Center at Georgetown University. A premier Jesuit think-tank, it sponsored occasional public programs focusing on socio-political issues that faced the commonweal. I started attending these programs, since I believed they would educate me deeper than the newspaper or television when it came to such issues.

I had to smile to myself, "me" attending to the Jesuits! After the demise of the Order of the Temple, the Vatican eventually recognized a new religious order. Started by a knightly saint, Ignatius of Loyola, some felt it might succeed the Knights Templar in that it was originally called the "Militia of Jesus." The Vatican quickly snuffed out that kind of thinking, nearly immediately changing their name to the "Society of Jesus." Hence we have the Jesuits.

Nonetheless, the Jesuits did exhibit some militaristic characteristics. Their order was presided over by a Director-General; and on down the line, there were Generals presiding over continental areas, i.e. North America, and Provincial Generals as well. However, the Jesuits weren't monks. Rather they were priests with evangelical fervor, heading out into the unknown parts of the world, aiming to convert foreign cultures to Christianity. Later they became well known for their great educational efforts. And here in Washington, the Nation's capitol, we had some of the best of the Jesuits starting to tackle major socio-political issues that faced legislators and other policy sources.

Maybe not Templars, but I came to think of the Jesuits as special cousins who could teach me a thing or two.

In one such program, the Woodstock Jesuits tackled the issue of "Stewardship." They had speakers representing different perspectives--and nearly all of them could *not* relate the sense of religious stewardship with our contemporary needs. Regardless, I was particularly struck by one of the participants--a research scholar attached to the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, at Berkeley.

This fellow talked about our then fledgling environmental concerns and made mention that if we really wanted to motivate the citizenry to engage such, than the element of Spirituality was a requirement. Somehow the public needs to value, indeed cherish, the Earth's environment. But, alas, our worldview had reached a point where it seemed "okay" to trash the Earth, to deplete her resources for economic profit. Somehow we needed to turn around this worldview, and somehow come to value the Earth. And this scholar from Berkeley continued, saying that the very best motivation we could find to achieve this would be of a spiritual nature.

I left that particular Woodstock program very impressed, in that finally I had found a challenge worthy of my attention.

And it all came together by happenstance. Only a short while later, I discovered a book written by the late Rene Dubos, who also was a Benedictine Oblate. The book was called the CELEBRATIONS OF LIFE, which presented "ideas about human life and our relationship to earth." Dubos was on the frontiers of a fledgling environmental movement--and was the founder of the Rene Dubos Center for Human Environments.

Whether happenstance, whether God's hand in this, I would only be guessing, but Rene Dubos and the Woodstock Jesuits set me on a new course, facing a challenge that I gladly accepted. All I had to do was figure out how I might address this challenge--what could I do?

Thinking back about that scholar from Berkeley, I decided to investigate the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Though long militarily oriented, I did have an academic background in Science Studies. Maybe I might find a niche in this Center. However, it became rather complicated. The Center was mainly a research group, devoted to publications on Theology and Science. If I wanted to pursue postgraduate study, I would have to do so at the Graduate Theological Union, also at Berkeley, to which the Center was affiliated.

It took some fancy footwork on my part, but ultimately I was accepted into the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at the Graduate Theological Union--where I would focus on Stewardship and Spirituality. All I had to do was pack and say my "goodbyes" to friends in Washington and at Christ Church Abbey. Strangely, this situation reminded me once again of the Knights Templar.

After the medieval Templars were forcibly disbanded, those who had escaped torture and death sometimes slipped into monasteries or other knightly groups. One such group was the "Knights of Christ," which ostensibly remained a Templar organization in Portugal--just under another name. The explorer Christopher Columbus was a Knight of Christ; and his three ships that reached the New World sailed with the splayed red cross of the Templars spread across their sails.

I thought about this. Here they were, still the Templars--albeit it under cover--traversing the Atlantic Ocean unto an unknown world; and here I stood, ready to embark on a trip into the unknown. Not completely analogous, but here I was cruising across a continent, flying towards California.

California has oft been thought of as the place to "start anew." And that surely was something I was about to do.