Izzy Sullivan's wife did play a role in his leaving the Holy Trinity Abbey after two decades as a monk.
As she put it: "I was quite a package."
But Karen is not why Izzy, who is 77, left the monastery. After talking with Izzy and Karen for two days, I hesitate to say all of him ever left.
His body did. They've been married 35 years and live in Clinton. He worked in various railroad jobs until he retired two years ago.
But he talked with me at length about the meaning of being a monk. He quoted scripture from memory. He shared a trove of information about the monastery.
In short, he'd make a good recruiter. "I tried for six years to convert him to Mormonism," Karen told me. "He ended up making me a Catholic."
Izzy's real name is Charles Sullivan. He was given the name Isadore, after the patron saint of farmers, when he joined the monastery in 1951. His vows were for life, which is why, as we wonder which of the 13 remaining monks at Holy Trinity Abbey will die there next, it is interesting to see one who chose to leave standing up.
Actually, that's wrong. Izzy says he didn't choose. Entering and leaving were God's will.
He graduated from high school in Casper, Wyo., in 1950.
"The Trappists kept going through my mind so I made a retreat with one of my buddies," driving to the monastery in November to check it out.
Three months later he entered the monastery. He labored as a farmer and mechanic, slept on a straw mattress in a 7- by-9-foot cell and did the daily round of work, prayer and contemplation. "I lived the life."
It was not easy. "You just don't go to the monastery and everything is peaches and cream and all will be tranquil. You have to be a community-oriented person, not go there and be a hermit."
The life stayed the same. Izzy did not.
"It was about 1965. There was a restlessness in my life." A counselor concluded he should remain a monk, "but I think the Lord had different plans."
The order is called the Cistercians of the Strict Observance for a reason. It resists change, and Izzy did struggle. He didn't leave until 1974.
"There is such a thing as a temporary vocation. That was me. I knew the Lord was calling me back into the world."
It was pure coincidence, or maybe God's work, that Karen happened along right then.
"We just, as you say, clicked" that day she saw him mowing the lawn, Izzy said.
It was hard to adjust after more than two decades as a monk. "He'd never written a check," said Karen. "He'd never paid a bill."
He did not realize, at first, that someone with mechanical and electrical skills like his could get paid to do those things. He was, and did fine.
He never broke completely away from the abbey. He went up every Saturday for years, clearing snow and doing chores. Several monks are his best friends.
And he never regrets leaving. "I'm very much at peace. I know I'm where God wants me."
Tuesday that was at the funeral of Father Joseph Schroer, 91, one of the monastery's founders. Izzy sat with the public, but his eyes never left the altar where the monks stood.
They prayed and chanted, voices filling the chapel. I looked back.
Izzy was sitting low, slightly hunched, praying and chanting in time, word for word.
Just like them.
Wasatch Rambler is the opinion of Charles Trentelman. You can call him at 801-625-4232 or e-mail ctrentelman@standard.net. He also blogs at www.standard.net.
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