Journey to Joy: From Spiritual Rigidity to Freedom: a Spiritual Autobiography

By Ronald Rauckhorst

Start with a man motivated by fear, hemmed in by rules and regulations, knowing his obligations, but not aware of his feelings, with an eye strictly focused on an uncertain future of heavenly happiness. Where is this man really going and where will he end up? Only when he questioned the rules, rebelled, and set off on his own path did he begin to become free enough to grow and become more fully human. “Journey to Joy” takes you on a walk with him on his spiritual path to freedom and joy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765232033

Ronald Rauckhorst

Ronald (Al) Rauckhorst was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1959 by the Maryknoll Mission Society and worked in South Korea for 10 years. In 1970 he left Maryknoll and the priesthood, and married in 1971. Al and his wife, Louise, have two wonderful adopted Korean daughters and two grandchildren. They were about to celebrate their 51st wedding anniversary when Al passed away peacefully on July 12, 2022. Although Al treasured his priestly life in Korea, he believed greater blessings and his greatest spiritual growth took place during his married life.

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Copyright © 2022 Ronald (Al) Rauckhorst.

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ISBN: 979-8-7652-3163-0 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-3203-3 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/28/2022

DEDICATION

To my wife, Louise and to our daughters, Ann and Lisa, who have been such great companions and have shared so much of this Journey to Joy.

To all the wonderful people I have met and walked with, some for just a short time and others for significant and lasting friendships during my 89 year journey. The journey road has been challenging, but never lonely.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A heartfelt thank you to Carol Zimmerman,

The von Raesfeld Agency, Henderson, NV for her immense help in making this autobiographical work publishable.

To Louise Rauckhorst for her loving, generous support and editorial feedback throughout the writing process.

To Sandy Martin for her editorial skills.

To Marilyn McCartney, Kathy Futa, Barb Witt, Suzanne Corey, and Rev. Linda Pilato for their early readings, feedback, and encouragement.

To my fellow writers in the Anthem Authors Club for their encouragement, feedback and support.

I owe each of them many, many thanks.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction: Getting to Know Me

2 Growing Up

3 Early Missionary Life in Korea

4 Return to Korea

5 Louise

6 Ann and Lisa

7 My Awakening to Communication with the Spirit World

8 Becoming Open to Living with Uncertainty

9 My Creed

Epilogue

ONE

Introduction: Getting to Know Me

I’m an average guy who believes he has lived an extraordinary life. I came to earth with a purpose and believe I am attaining it. It’s truly amazing! This belief that as a spirit we have made a sacred contract with God to be born is a belief that thousands share and perhaps millions do not.

We learn through the human experience of each successive life what our soul needs to grow in love. Although most of us are ordinary and don’t have the potential to be a Mozart or an Einstein, we all have the potential to live extraordinary lives of love. Understanding that gives meaning to our lives.

I know that attaining a greater knowledge of God has enabled me to grow in the love of God and my neighbor. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have reached any great level of love, only that I love now more than I did before I was born into this life.

I started out as a very narrow-minded, rigid thinker, fitting everything neatly into concrete black and white categories. I was born the fourth of five children. My parents were very religious Catholics. As a young child, I learned that the Church and my parents were to be obeyed. If I didn’t obey my parents, disapproval and punishment would be incurred and disobeying the Church would incur eternal damnation.

On the other hand, by obeying I would become a good person, especially pleasing to my parents and to God. I didn’t learn to distinguish between light, serious, and very serious commands or between just and unjust ones. I simply bought the whole package. Obeying them all was my way to be safe. It would enable me to become a good person headed for Heaven. A deep fear of not doing so and ending up in Hell for eternity was a strong motivating factor through my first thirty-five years. My parents, the Church and I myself used fear and guilt as motivating factors automatically. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was just the way it was.

I’m not complaining. My parents and family have been very good for me. I guess that’s why I chose them as part of my sacred contract. My childhood was good, not perfect. I inherited a strong case of introversion from my mother which put us on the same wavelength. My father was an extrovert, which left me feeling he didn’t understand me. Isn’t that a common complaint of kids about a parent or even a spouse about a spouse?

I identified with my mother, a quiet woman who seldom verbalized her beliefs, religious or otherwise, but surely lived them. If she did verbalize a belief, it was especially strong. One belief that meant much to me was her saying that we were to decide our own future, to become what we wanted to be. When I was ordained a priest, she supported me completely (as did my father).

Ten years later, she accepted my decision to leave the active priesthood without judging me. It hurt her, I’m sure. She said she just couldn’t understand how I went from being a very happy, committed priest to being a very angry former priest. At the time, I couldn’t explain it either. Because I had grown a beard, my mother thought I was trying to be a beatnik. At the time, I didn’t even know what being a beatnik meant. I was just enjoying my freedom to be me.

My father never showed me his disappointment when I left the priesthood. His only comment was that he hoped I would be able to settle down. It was only many years after he died that my brother told me he had cried.

I met many women after I left the priesthood, but none of the relationships really clicked. . .then I met Louise. I was in awe. It felt so extraordinarily exciting to be in her company or to walk down the street with her. I was always at ease when I was with her. I understood her caution about entering into an intimate relationship, and when I didn’t she would tell me. Thank God I listened! Throughout fifty years of marriage we have had some serious disagreements, but nothing we haven’t been able to work out. Our political, religious, parental, and psychological beliefs have complemented each other and have helped us to grow together.

One of our few areas of disagreement has been financial. Louise is a careful, savvy buyer. She checks the sales and clips coupons. She will make the extra effort and go out of her way to purchase an item a little cheaper. She feels foolish paying more for an article than is absolutely necessary.

The amazing thing is that when the occasion arises, she doesn’t shrink away from very expensive purchases. Buying a house, a car, furniture, etc. doesn’t faze her. She enjoys it. It’s like an adventure and she’s off in pursuit. She compares and looks at everything available to make sure she’s getting a good buy and then she signs on the dotted line.

If there’s an obstacle, Louise doesn’t get angry. She just backs up, considers the whole situation, and works out a solution. Finally, she works hard to back up her commitment. A Vedic astrologer once told her that she would never have a problem earning money. In her high school yearbook Louise was noted as most sophisticated. She is, but it’s so natural. She doesn’t act it. She’s not aware of it. She’s just herself.

I have a habit of teasing Louise but sounding very serious. Fortunately for me, Louise has never taken me seriously and simply laughs or ignores me. It’s one of her wonderful traits that I love and appreciate. It’s also an example of how we have always seemed to understand each other.

When I would say something outrageous to Louise, my mother never commented or intervened, but she would give me a look that said it all: How can you say such a terrible thing to such a kind and beautiful woman like Louise? Do you know what you are doing?

My father died shortly after I met Louise. He never met her. My mother lived ten years longer. We stayed with her whenever we visited family in Akron, Ohio.

I have been a rather colossal failure as an income earner. I have never been able to match my education and talent to earning income. Having left the priesthood, I wasn’t able to function at the work for which I was trained; nor could I ever get too excited about earning more money. I’m too introverted and was never able to acquire the skills needed in a business environment. However, I’ve worked hard and have done some good work.

I have been a psychology intern at a children’s psychiatric hospital; a youth and family counselor; a sales rep (though I never sold anything); an advisor for college minority students (a great job); a tutor for elementary and high school kids; plus doing some less demanding jobs as well. Louise taught nursing students in various universities. I followed her to Boston, Baltimore, Boston again, Oshkosh, and San Diego, needing to find work in each location.

Finding work was always stressful for me. For Louise, finding jobs was not difficult but the work itself could be very stressful. As the primary breadwinner, she felt obligated to stay in certain positions where she was overworked and under-appreciated.

REAL LIFE ETHICAL DILEMMAS

We married in July, 1971, when I was thirty-eight and Louise was thirty-six, shortly before our next birthdays. We wanted children, but it was four plus years before Louise became pregnant. Being a nurse, she was well aware of the dangers of pregnancy for older women. In our case, it became a reality. An ultrasound analysis showed that our baby had Cat-Eye Syndrome. The prognosis was mental retardation and heart and genital malformations requiring multiple infant surgeries, and a short lifespan.

We cried. We agonized. We were broken-hearted. We wanted this baby very much. We researched medical and ethical sources, including moral theologians. We consulted others. Believing in the Church’s teaching on the primacy of the individual conscience, we finally decided Louise would have an abortion.

Having worked in a children’s psychiatric hospital, I had seen too many small children basically beyond any help, who spent their entire day crying and literally banging their heads against the wall. Besides the fact that our baby would probably be too much for us to care for psychologically, emotionally, and financially, we came to believe it wasn’t right to birth such an infant to a short life of surgery and suffering.

As devout Catholics, this decision flew in the face of all we had been taught. In Catholic doctrine, it was God’s will that we have the baby. An abortion was opposing God’s will and committing murder, but we also believed that God gave us intelligence and expected us to use it. God left the decision to us. What was the best decision in this case?

There is no certainty that we decided correctly or in accordance with God’s will, just the certainty that it was our decision to make according to our own consciences. We live with the uncertainty without regret, believing in the Church’s doctrine of the primacy of individual conscience and trusting in God who trusted us in giving us free will. It also taught us that doctrine in the abstract is quite different than actually living in the difficult situation and having to make a no-win decision.

There are so many areas of life like this that are not black or white, but ambiguous shades of grey. They are the situations where you feel there is no winning solution. Whichever way you decide involves hurt and loss. You can only accept the uncertainty and make the best decision you can, trusting that our merciful God will respect our conscience, our intentions, and the intelligence He/She gave us.

So it was with our baby. Though undesirable in itself, we believed that abortion was best for the baby, for us, and for society. At the same time, it was a terrible loss. For two or more years, Louise avoided looking at mothers with infants and small children. It hurt too much. We still grieve. Even today we choke up talking about the baby we lost, but we also look forward to meeting our baby in the next life. We believe that she attained her purpose in agreeing to become a deformed fetus that would be aborted. We believe it was a courageous act of love on her part and that she did it with love. We hope we acted with love as well.

Note that it is easy to accept Church doctrine in the abstract. Actual personal experience, however, is something else; yet ethical dilemmas are blessings in disguise. They force us to be open to change. For us, the abortion decision was an example of this. It forced us to follow our conscience and decide for ourselves, even in opposition to Church doctrine.

It was helpful to know that even a great theologian like St. Thomas Aquinas taught that one may not act against one’s conscience in order to follow a Church teaching. This doesn’t mean that we recommend abortion. In many cases, but not all, we still oppose it; yet, we respect the woman’s right to decide. Ultimately, she has to make the decision and take responsibility for it. We definitely believe that all life is sacred.

We know that there are many Catholics and Church hierarchs who would condemn our actions. We respect objections from those who experienced the same ethical situation that we did and decided differently. We also know that there are many Catholics today who have experienced the same kind of dilemma and arrived at the same conclusion; but in today’s atmosphere, no one feels it is safe to talk about it.

Another example of an ethical dilemma that forces decisions and can change people’s beliefs is the controversy over homosexuality. It can be easy for some people and church authorities to call homosexual activity an inherent evil — that is, until people discover that their own son or daughter or another loved one is homosexual.

They know in their gut that their son or daughter or other loved one is not inherently evil or disordered. This created an ethical dilemma among some parents I know who discovered their child was gay. One couple knew that their son was not inherently evil or disordered. They accepted their child as he was and questioned the Church’s teaching. They could not condemn the child they loved.

Another couple set out to change their child. They sent him to aversion therapy. For a short period after the therapy, he tried to live as his parents wanted, but within a few weeks he was back living with his male friends. His parents were not able to question their church’s teaching and could not accept their son’s behavior. This left them feeling helpless and unhappy with their son. They felt compelled to find a way to save their son.

A greater dilemma: What if you are homosexual? You didn’t choose to be such, no more than heterosexuals choose their sexual orientation. You were born that way. One gay priest friend in San Diego told me how some people will ask him, When did you decide to become a homosexual? His reply is always the same: When did you decide to become a heterosexual? In fact, there is a biological basis for homosexuality.

Fearing rejection by family, peers, and society, some gays/lesbians try to hide the fact or even deny it to themselves. They live with the fear that they will be found out. Some marry a heterosexual person to prove to themselves and others that they are not homosexual. Their life is a lie. It is an ethical dilemma. They simply want to be themselves like everyone else and to share in loving relationships.

I know there are several in my rather large extended family back in Ohio who are gay and lesbian. They’re afraid to say so and risk the family’s disapproval because most of the family members are religiously very conservative.

Those who do come out frequently find that in accepting themselves as they are, they are stronger and more at peace with themselves. In solving the dilemma, they have matured, and believe it or not, they have grown spiritually. Now the dilemma is passed on to those around them. They, in turn, must resolve it. Unfortunately, some Catholics are not able to question their blind