Monastery Reflections: 11

Monastery Reflections from my time there last April

There's no entertainment here. So little things are delightful. While we stood silently behind our chairs before breakfast this morning, we saw rabbits outside on the hill. It was lovely! I could have watched for hours! And this happens every day - yesterday there was a sunset, the night before the moon was out. There's a tree, there's a bird, there's a ladybug on my blade of grass. How have I never seen any of this? 

Monastery Reflection: 10

Monastery reflections from my time there last April


 Prayer is five times a day. I only go to three. But I add up times, and it comes to the exact amount of church services that I've missed in the last full year of not attending church at all. God gets last laugh.

Monastery Reflections: 5

Monastery reflections from my time there last April.

What a charming little old kindly looking weathered priest, visiting for the weekend. He's simply lovely looking - round face, wrinkled eyes. But I think that I’m gotten too attached to silence. I’m irritated out of all reason when he laughs aloud to his lunch book - during our daily silent lunch (all meals are silent at the monastery - like pretty much everything else). Today after chapel, he walked behind me back to the cells, singing pleasantly some hymn or other. And I was supremely pissed. As I’m writing this, I hear him in the room next door, blowing his nose with a lot of gusto. 

Maybe acclimating back to society after a month here will be harder than I thought.

Monastery Reflections: 4

Monastery Reflections from last April


It's hard not to get the giggles in services sometimes. Examples:

- when the we pray to the "Adorable Holy Spirit." I know we're using the ancient sense of adorable. But... the image is stuck. I'm trapped with a cozy, cutesy third person of the Trinity.

- the old monk struggles with his hearing aid and everyone just plunges on through the Eucharist with abandon - "tick tick tick tick!" - his hand wiggling in his ear, it's whining and ticking at intervals, and Brother P. is rolling his great and mighty voice onward.

- Easter week we're inundated with guests unused to our diet at the monastery, and chapel is interrupted, intermittently, by airplanes overhead and the guest's stomachs growling. Loudly.

Monastery Reflections: 3

The monks look so different outside of chapel. In services Brother P. is majestic, with a deep, strong, mighty voice inside a beat up and lame body. The lines of his body are sharp and defined. He looks and sounds regal. When he's in the role of priest at services, he's so intentional: hands lifted, bread up, never a smile, chants faster and with more purpose than the other monks.

I bump into him outside the kitchen and didn't recognize him. He has little glasses that I didn't see before. I’m taller than him. He speaks really low and mutters, and I can’t understand him at all. He has a sad, needy sort of smile all the time that's asking for to me to smile back. In the chapel, he is Christ to us. At the kitchen, he’s the cook. He's wringing his hands, twitchy, can’t meet my eye. He's very pleasant, soft-spoken, looks a little lost and like he’s trying to remember something that he’s forgotten. 

Roles.

Monastery Reflections: 2

During the Eucharist we pass the peace. I am next to the ancient monk today, bent up double in his chair. I reach for his hand to shake it and he pulls me down, just beaming through all his wrinkles – then KISSES me, smack, smack, on each cheek. 

“Christ is in our midst,” 

“He is and always will be.” 

I hold on to how old and silky smooth and thin his cheek felt for the rest of Eucharist. Christ is in our midst.

Monastery Reflections: 1

I found all my writing from the monastery, and I'm going to post a few thoughts a day for the Christmas season to get these out. They're pretty short. Hopefully they give a taste of my time there.

“You don’t mind the silent work?” Brother A inquires.

I am still finding the silence really restful.

“Good. The usual procedure, is to talk, only when necessary for work, and as briefly as possible.” Brother A's voice falls every few words, and draws out the last word – “as briefly as possiblllllllle.”

When he leaves me at the hen coup to get supplies, I indulge in a little breaking of the Lesser Silence to have a chat with the hens. “Heyo, little ladies,” I cluck, “How’s it goin’? Ready for dinner?” I feel a little bit guilty and I keep an eye out for Brother A.

It turns out that the urge to chat to hens in irresistible. “Hey hey hye, biddies,” he murmurs, “time for dinner! Time for walkies!” Then, sheepishly, “I always let them ouuuuut, give them a chaaaaaance, to stretch their winnnnnnnngs!”

I’m not sure if this talk is strictly necessary for work. (Maybe just necessary for sanity?)

winter

it's snowing, just a little bit, at the job site. when i'm sawing wood, i can't tell if it's sawdust or snowflakes that are blowing all around everywhere. it's freezing cold. i'm wearing seven layers (count them - long underwear, t-shirt, plaid cotton, plaid flannel, wooly sweater, plaid lined jacket, windbreaker) but it's so windy and so freeking damp that you just feel chilled all the time.

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noisy day. steve is running the circular saw; t is whamming at the nail gun; there's a dirt bike flying by on the road; dogs somewhere are barking. the truck radio is running christmas tunes (it's not really christmas until you sing along to the christmas shoes!) and that makes it totally ok that... it's just started to rain.

--- 

there's a thick frost on everything this morning. it's 23 degrees (eight layer day) but it's a bright blue sky and very sharp cold - not the awful lingering damp that seeps into your gloves and socks. everything is glittering. i want to shake all the trees on the hills because i think that they'd tinkle like bells. even when the sun hits everything, it melts really slowly. when it does start to melt, you can hear the water start to move everywhere, little trickles at a time. we have the studs up for the walls of our new house, and the sun is melting the frost in stripes across the floor.

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christmas is coming!

coffee shop at christmas

nobody is in the coffee shop yet this morning. it smells delightfully like pine trees and coffee and weed. the guys behind the counter are swapping stories about finals preparation. the christmas music is slow and jazzy and i am cuddled up on a squishy leather couch pretending to write another Statement of Intent but really soaking in a warm bubble bath of smells and sounds and tastes.

i love coffee shops and i love christmas and if only it was snowing!