I Was Gone Long Before I Left

In St. Teresa of Avila's classic spiritual book Interior Castle she describes a difficult period of time in her spiritual journey when she said, "When I think of myself, I feel like a bird with a broken wing." When I left the monastery thirty-eight years ago, this was exactly how I felt. I Was Gone Long Before I Left is the story about my interior struggle to leave the monastery after living this lifestyle for over twenty-five years. It explores the reasons why I went to the monastery, why I stayed, why I eventually left, and what I have learned. Maybe more importantly, it describes the many years of mental anguish, confusion, and depression that I went through to finally make this decision. It has brought back many painful memories and experiences and called for an honesty and vulnerability that I found daunting. For over thirty-eight years, I have been unable to write about my experience of life in the monastery because I felt ashamed. For years, I thought about leaving, but couldn't make this decision because I felt paralyzed psychologically and emotionally. Now, after all these years, I have found the courage to share my story.

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, a professor shares the lessons he's learned—about living in the present, building a legacy, and taking full advantage of the time you have—in this life-changing classic. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." —Randy Pausch A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have . . . and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

Originally published in 1955, The Pillar of Salt the semi-autobiographical novel about a young boy growing up in French colonized Tunisia. To gain access to privileged French society, he must reject his many identities – Jew, Arab, and African. But, on the eve of World War II, he is forced to come to terms with his loyalties and his past